"Err." Limestone had been ordered not to talk about the topic herself, but she hadn't been advised on Twilight's own behavior. "I'm not allowed to talk about this."

Twilight snorted and ruffled her wings. "We're trying to open up and air our secrets back home. It started with small things, but Princess Celestia has learned to trust everypony a lot more now that we don't keep anything hidden.

"The Storm King has followed me to this world and has been building his power. He attacked earlier today, attempted to defeat me, kill several of your government's agents, and it was only Limestone's action that stopped things from getting worse. He turned his storm upon her before getting away."

Even Limestone had to admit that Twilight's speech made her look good. In her own mind, though, she could still see herself as the one who'd missed her shot and taken return fire for it. "I won't miss next time."

"Regardless, I have talked to Twilight Sparkle from this world, and tomorrow we're going to attempt to narrow down where the Storm King teleported to, and from there Limestone and myself will track him and bring him to justice."

"I can help fight him." Thunderbolt hated to fight, but after seeing the lightning light up the sky, he had to assume this enemy was a threat to everything he cared about.

"Thunderbolt doesn't go without me. We're kinda a package." Rainbow felt her lover's talon touch her back and she leaned up into it like a cat. "I've never tried to outrun lightning, but I'd like to try."

Marble couldn't stop herself. Reaching a hand out, she touched Rainbow's ear and she immediately started rubbing it. She knew Rainbow didn't like girls that way, but it seemed wrong to have what seemed like a small dog and not pet them. Quickly biting her lip, she fought herself not to bring attention to it.

Being a dragon meant Thunderbolt had many hungers. He'd started hunting in the caves just outside town for rocks that had called to him—and tasted good, he also hungered for knowledge and learning, but when it came to the various females and males he spent time with, his hungers often turned carnal. Right now he was picturing Marble and Rainbow together, with himself, in a far more intimate situation.

"No." Limestone gleefully glared at Thunderbolt. "Sorry. I don't care if you're the most powerful creature in the world—You're both civilians. It's my job to protect civilians." But at the same time she didn't want to turn them down. "I promise, though, if shit gets wild, and I need help, you two will be the third to get a text from me."

"Third?" Rainbow asked.

Limestone nodded. "My commander gets first call, then I call Sonata. You can be in line after the ancient, mind-bending taco-fiend."

"You'd call Sonata before me?!" It offended Rainbow in so many ways she could barely think straight. "What can she do that I can't?"

"You mean besides mind-whammy him into just giving up?" Limestone asked. "The most important bit is she's already a contractor. She might be an expert specifically in training right now, but I think she's seen her fair share of situations."

The most annoying thing, from Rainbow's perspective, was that Limestone was right. "Well, just don't wait until it's too late. Pinkie wouldn't stop complaining about it if you didn't give me ten seconds to save your butt. Oh, what happened to your arm?" Rainbow hadn't failed to notice Marble petting her, it was just that she didn't want to make a big deal out of it and not that she was actually enjoying the attention.

"Yeah. This is what happens sometimes when you're struck by lightning. Hurts like hell. Looks cool, though." Flexing her arm, Limestone felt an odd sense of power in her arm. "I should probably talk to Sonata about this. It feels like I have more—well, some kind of power or strength."

"Ahem?" Princess Twilight said, clearing her throat and cocking her head a little.

"Huh?"

"Foremost expert in magic across two worlds and best read pony in all Equestria. Princess of Friendship and bearer of the Element of Magic." She waited for anyone to make some kind of show of recognizing anything she'd just said.

Rainbow, rolling her eyes, looked at Limestone. "She's probably one of the smartest people I've ever met. Real egg-head."

"Nah, she might be an egg-head, but she's also got guts and fight. You should have seen her duking it out with that guy. Okay, though, take a look at it I guess." Limestone reached up to roll her sleeve up a bit further to reveal the entirety of her arm.

"That's not ordinary bruising. There's magic in there." Twilight barely needed to prod the scar with her magic to find that. "Give me a second to look deeper. I wish I had my equipment."

Sitting still, Limestone felt her arm gripped tight and immovable. She looked at the purple glow that surrounded her limb, and looked at Twilight to see her horn glowing. "Kinda neck-deep in magic stuff now. Wouldn't have thought it a few months back."

"You're a lot more pony than you were when we first met." Twilight felt sure she recognized what had happened, but needed to clarify with some deeper inspections. The real test came when she pushed a little magic into the scars at Limestone's hand and it siphoned up and along the length of her whole arm—channeling it into her core. "Okay, so it works that way."

"What'd you just do?" Limestone asked.

"Your scar is a conduit for magic. I fed it some at your hand and it siphoned it up and pulled it into you. What I want to know now is can it work the other way." Twilight let go of Limestone's arm. "We should probably test this next bit outside."

Shrugging, Limestone stood up and walked to the back door. She worked the handle and walked into the back yard.

Twilight Sparkle (the human) was in the spa trying her best to dissolve the plug, up to and including doing kegel exercises to try to push it out. She gasped when she saw Limestone and sank down into the water up to her neck.

"Oh, right, the other Twilight. Don't freak out, we're just trying to test out something." Limestone looked back to see Princess Twilight looked a little shocked, but then relieved. "Hey, so what am I meant to do?"

Closing her eyes, Princess Twilight focused on her magic. Producing a cloud of potential wasn't exactly a skill every unicorn would learn, but it wasn't exactly hard—it just took concentration. When she had a decent cloud above her head, Twilight turned her focus from creation to maintenance. "Can you see that?"

"See what?"

"Oookay, so you can't see the big cloud of magic I just made. Can you feel it?" Princess Twilight nodded toward Limestone's lightning-affected arm. "With that arm, if anything."

"If this is some kind of game to make me look stupid"—Limestone slowly lifted her arm up, her expression bored and droll right until the moment she opened her fingers—"I've got…" Her fingers tingled, each getting a slightly different feel for the magic she could now feel hovering in the air—enough so that she could aim her palm right at it. "Shit. Okay, I feel that."

Princess Twilight beamed. "Well, do whatever feels right with it."

Remembering what had happened earlier, Limestone tried to visualize that sensation again. "I can't believe all this crap is happening to me. My boss hired me because I was good muscle." The red and blue scars on her arm started to glow softly, and Limestone felt a sensation of hunger. Focusing on that, she tried to think of a way to open a mouth she'd never used before and then those scars flared brighter.

A sort of pulsing caught Limestone's attention. Waves of color flowed from Limestone's hand, up her arm along the scars, and to her shoulder. From there, it was like a furnace inside Limestone was being stoked. She felt hot, boiling hot, and needed to get rid of that heat somewhere. "Shit, shit, shit. Stand back!"

Limestone felt conflicted. The one place she knew she absolutely couldn't unleash what she felt building was horizontally. Aiming up would be reasonably safe, but that too could mean hitting a target she didn't want to hit. Instinct told her to use the ground. Looking to the back corner of the garden, she pointed her arm at it and let go.

That same tingle Princess Twilight got when she'd first noticed the Storm King caused her to react rapidly. Casting her magic out before her, she backed up from Limestone and shielded hard against lightning strikes.

But, the lightning didn't come down from the sky. Limestone watched a flicker of tracers leave her arm and yet more leaping from the point on the ground she'd aimed at—then two connected.

The arc-flash of power that shot out of Limestone's arm made everyone's eyes blink in defense, it also threw Limestone back onto her ass and made her whole arm tingle. When she finished blinking the purple jagged line out of her vision, she realized what she'd just done. "Okay, I'm going to have to call my boss about this."

"Wait!" Twilight Sparkle, from the pool, raised a foreleg to get Limestone's attention. "Maybe don't grab your phone with the arm that just unleashed like a billion joules of electricity?"

Looking down, Limestone realized she had indeed been about to reach into her pocket with that arm. "Y-Yeah. Good call. Uh—" Reaching across her body and into her pocket wasn't easy, but she eventually dug her phone out.

Walking back to the pool to give Limestone some privacy, Princess Twilight gave her doppelganger a smile. "Good thinking there."

"Just kinda made sense, you know? It doesn't take a physicist to figure she might not be grounded yet, and there could be potential between her fingertips and her torso." The plug, Twilight Sparkle had to admit, was stubborn.

The two Twilight's shared an uncomfortable silence until Limestone walked back over.

"Okay, boss says we need to do some more tests and stuff, but it can wait until after we have this Storm King guy secured." Looking down at her phone, Limestone passed it to what she'd started thinking of as her lightning arm. It didn't go haywire.

In all, it had been the exact opposite of the triumphant day that the Storm King had planned. Reconstituting himself in another world hadn't been easy, but he'd done it, and further he'd even started harvesting magic for himself.

The fight with Twilight Sparkle had gone about as well as he'd hoped, right up until Sergeant Limestone Pie had shot him. Getting shot, he could now appreciate, was not something he ever wanted to do again.

Stranger still his teleportation spell had missed its mark. He'd expected to be on the hilltop overlooking the city—as he'd planned. Instead, the Storm King was sitting in a suburban backyard. "Whatever weapon this creature used, I must get one for myself."

"It was a rifle."

Raising his vision, the Storm King looked at the female creature that towered above him while he was still crouched. She was wearing some kind of cloak, but her face was striking and sharp. Light blue flesh, a mole to the right of her lips, and red eyes with green sclera that leaked purple smoke. "My dear, I don't believe I've had the pleasure of your name?"

"That's complicated right now. You can just call me Queen." The power that poured through Abacus Cinch's body took constant control and focus to contain—though she fantasized about a time when she could just release it. "You were playing a terribly dangerous game."

"Queen?" Standing up, the Storm King reached out for Abacus' hand and lifted it to his lips. "I think I like you already."

Jerking her hand back as if it'd been stung, Abacus sneered. "I watched your little fight. You need better information on the capabilities of people in this world."

"No. What I need," Storm said, "is for Twilight Sparkle to be dead at my feet—drained of her magic."

"Dramatics and flaunted ignorance won't get you far here. You have seven others to contend with—not counting that dreadful woman who shot you. They are all armed with various superpowers, now, several of which will halt any ploy you might have." Gesturing at her home, Abacus cleared her throat. "After you."

Going along with another person's plan didn't agree with Storm. He looked at Abacus and shook his head. "I don't think so. Look, I'm not sure if you've heard of me, but I'm not exactly a team player. This"—Storm gestured at Abacus and then back to himself—"this won't work. You see, you're calling yourself queen, but a title isn't what you call yourself, but what others call you."

Abacus narrowed her eyes. "Storm King, they call you." She paused a moment. "Oh, sorry, past tense. They called you. Who here would call you king?"

Storm froze before he could truly lose his temper. It would have been easy to whip the storm back into a frenzy and call lightning down on Abacus, but even he could see that was going to draw a lot of attention. What he wanted was the staff he'd spent so much time hunting down and charging—only to have it stolen by Twilight Sparkle.

"I thought you could be useful. I thought you would have some iota of common sense. Clearly I was mistaken. Go. Leave. Pick a way to die trying to chase that damn purple monstrosity." Turning her back on Storm, Abacus started walking inside her home.

"Queen." The word cost Storm a lot of pride to say. He'd raised an army that had sacked half a world, and here he was with nothing. "Perhaps we could acknowledge each other, then force the beings of this world to recognize us?"

Pausing mid step, Abacus smiled such that Storm couldn't see it. "Then follow me, King, and let us plan together."

She was playing him, Storm knew, but that was something he'd have to endure until he could deal with her. Walking toward the house, he pondered how hard it would be to just destroy her with lightning.

Author's Note

Wallflower: what are your thoughts on this household?

"They're crazy. I have no clue what's going on between any of them, but Sunset seems kinda different to what I remember." Taking a deep breath, Wallflower reminded herself that her memories were how they are because it meant she was more likely to use the stone. "I was wrong, okay? I can admit that now and not—Who am I kidding? I was a terrible person."

So I do this "Ask X" thing. X can be any pony within the story. You can ask them anything and they will definitely, hopefully reply. Keep the questions appropriate to the age-rating of the stories, and they will answer the best question in the author notes of the next chapter. The more votes a comment has the more likely I will get it to the right pony to answer. Try to keep it to one question per post! They will pick one question per chapter.

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