The Lunar Archives: Earth M.M

“Yeah… How… How… Ohno… I’ve got to get out of here!”

“W..wait, why? We didn’t even slow dance yet!” Mandarin says with a pouty face.

Dusk’s body began to tremble as he struggled to teleport out, but it only came out as pure magical bursts that destroyed parts of the bar. Gripping his head, he tried to stop the rush of memories of their times together.

The first time they met.

When they worked on their first science project.

When she first defended him from Bone Breaker.

When they helped each other with their respective homework.

On and on it went.

“Arrrggh… dang U mutation’s acting up again. What’s the antidote he told me about?”

“Greetings, Mandarin Orange.” a familiar regal voice says, straight out of Dusk Star’s watch.

“Ah, Celesti-AI. What is the antidote to this again?”

“Time… nothing else works. He did say classical music slows down the symptoms (sometimes), but only time can disperse it.”

***

“Well, what are you waiting for, dingus! Stop being The Watcher and save his ass!”

Rainbow Dash… the last time I poked my muzzle into another timeline, I almost ENDED it. I must observe, not interfere.

Nopony is aware of our influence yet. I mean, theoretically, they could, because they know about the multiverse, but…

“J-corn knows what he is doing. Nopony will mess with us in the castle of the Night.”

You’re damn right about that, moon mom!

“Change of plans, J-corn. You ARE going to interfere, but not directly.”

Well well well, if it isn’t my annoyingly cute colleague Princess Twilight Sparkle. What do you need me to do?

“Make a wormhole. Dusk Star’s magic is going to tear the bar apart. Send him, his girlfriend, mini-me, and Glittering Star to EQ/MM. Do it now! I know you can, AND I know you have the coordinates.”

And my contract is still good? Are we still incognito?

“Well, yeah. You are incognito. Everypony will just think it’s Dusk’s magic reacting negatively. Goferit!”

“As thy mother, we concur with our fellow alicorn princess. Tear a hole in spacetime and save them!”

Don’t sue me for 4th-dimensional malpractice… here goes nothing…

--- .--. . -. .. -. --. / - .... . / .-- --- .-. -- .... --- .-.. . / -. --- .-- .-.-.- .-.-.- .-.-.- / .-- --- --- --- ... ....

***

As Dusk Star attempted to contain himself, he realized that he wouldn’t be able to, and if he was to unleash it either into the ground or the sky, he would end up either annihilating the whole North American continent or superheating the atmosphere, thus destroying the surface either way.

“Space. It’s the only p-place I can unleash this safely!”

“.-- --- .-. -- .... --- .-.. . .-.-.- . -..- . / .. ... / -. --- .-- / .-. ..- -. -. .. -. --. .-.-.- / .--. .-.. . .- ... . / . -. - . .-. / - .... . / .--. --- .-. - .- .-.. --..-- / .. ..-. / -.-- --- ..- / ...- .- .-.. ..- . / -.-- --- ..- .-. / .-.. .. ..-. . .-.-.-”

“What… Dusk, did you hear that? Sounds like beeping!” Mandarin says.

I guess anypony can hear my morse code?

“What are you-? Do we-? SCREW IT! GRAB MY HAND AND DON’T LET GO!”

Took a while for Portal.exe to load in their timeline, but it did, eventually. A simultaneous portal opened at the magnus household, where the same encrypted message is being played to Glittering Star and Twilight.

“Any idea what or who sent this thing?” Mandarin asks as she grabs Dusk’s hand and runs through the portal, Shy Tree close behind.

“DON’T ASK ME! ASK THE ONE WHO SENT IT WHEN WE GET THERE!”

***

“Grandma! What is this thing? Why is it beeping?!”

“I don’t know sweetie, but I know Morse Code. I’d listen to it, run through the thing, and close your eyes!”

***

Well, that was too easy. They ran through the portal, which closed behind them.

Good thing I will run a reboot spell preventing the attack from damaging the timeline… one second…

... ..- -.. --- / .-. . -... --- --- - / .-.. .- - .. -- . .-.. .. -. . / -.-. --- -. ..-. .. .-. -- / -.-- -..-. -. / -.--

All fixed. Nopony gets hurt on my watch!

“Did… did you just use Mac Terminal commands on the multiverse?”

Yeah Twi, why not? It’s easy enough, and with alicorn magic, it WORKS!

“Good thing we love thee anyways, J-corn… now, let us resume the story the way time intended. We don’t want Starlight to get cross with thee once more!”

Yes, mom… on it! Where were we? Right. New universe! Let’s see what happens to the Magnus crew in Equestria!

***

“WHOA!! What the feathering buck happened to us?” Mandarin exclaimed.

Like anypony not accustomed to quantum jumping (so, almost everyone) she was startled.

“...Daddy!” Twilight says flying into her father’s arms, embracing him with all of her might.

“Michael Magnus… What in G-d’s name happened to us?” Glittering Star exclaims.

Obviously, this is not good, for she almost never uses Dusk’s actual, human name.

“STAND BACK EVERYONE. NOW!!”

And with a scream from the depths of his gut, he unleashed everything he could into the atmosphere in a concentrated beam of neon white energy from his body, lightning flashing around him.

“OKAY… WHAT THE BUCK WAS THAT?!” Somepony exclaims, teleporting to the group.

Now, who was this mystery pony? I would say Celestia, but she was a person with pony features, like, actual pony features not Huquine pony attributes! She has a tail, wings, and a horn, and she is built like an Amazonian warrior!

“P… princess Celestia?” Twilight says from Mandarin's side, a bit confused but excited to see somepony who looks like her teacher.

“This is quite odd, indeed. You LOOK like my former pupil, and you SOUND like my former pupil, but you aren’t Twilight Sparkle. She would look more like a mix of whoever this monkey is that is holding you and you. I’ll get to that in a minute, first, though… Monkey with magic, what have you done in my kingdom? The pegasi work SO hard to arrange those clouds and there you go messing up weeks of work!”

This Amazonian Celestia stares directly at Dusk Star, who for some reason, doesn’t have his “ponied up” form activated, so he DOES look like a “monkey with magic” to this Celestia wannabe.

On his part, he still wasn’t paying attention, just realizing that he needed his horn to fully focus the beam of death.

“DON’T. WANT TO. DESTROY. WHATEVER. PLANET. WE’RE ON! MUST, GROW. HORN!”

Quickly and painfully doing so, he grabs “Celestia” and hurls her into a shield behind which he placed everyone else.

“SORRYIFIDESTORYYOURPLANET!!”

“Wait… pony humans?” Mandarin thinks to herself.

“Yeah… pony humans.” Twi replies.

“You can read minds? Why am I not surprised…”

“Ah, so the monkey can play pretend… this is QUITE similar to Alicorn magic.”

“That’s because it IS Alicorn magic!” Mandarin pipes in.

Her statement was proven when he grew his horn and wings, unleashing a beam of magic five times stronger than before, infusing the atmosphere with more magic than it ever handled before, and causing his girlfriend, mom, and daughter to begin absorbing magic for the first time to compensate.

“So, Mr monkey. You invade my kingdom, throw me across a field, and now wish to do battle? You are a strange lot.”

“Princess! We don’t know how we came here! Honestly!” Twilight pipes in.

“Well… before I decide to kill anypony… since you look like my former student, I will ask you the questions. Why do you care for the ape? Why does the ape and his concubine have cutie marks? Does the concubine know magic? I have so many questions.”

“What. Did you say. About my GIRLFRIEND, YOU-?!”

With a strength he never knew he had, he grabbed the magic he pumped into the planet and forcefully drew it back into himself, causing his body to grow brighter and brighter until everyone had to block their eyeballs from getting blinded.

When everyone could see once again, it turned out that his effort to both expel and withdraw his magic caused him to become very, very naked while his wings and horn gained a light shimmer to them.

“... Don’t. Say. A word. I know. I know. Does anyone happen to have clothing?”

“Well, it seems as if your concubine won’t be-.”

“A CONCUBINE?! I. AM NOT. A CONCUBINE!!”

Her complaint shook the very planet with her magic.

“As you wish, ape. I will use the power of the sun to end you in an instant!”

“NOPONY IS KILLING ANYPONY!” Somepony new says, teleporting over to the group and tapping the Amazonian Celestia on the shoulder while magically dressing Dusk with a simple light and dark green cloak.

“Ah, Sunset Shimmer, my favorite pupil. What brings you here?”

“Well, it’s not every day that ponies from another timeline come for a visit. The energy signatures are off the charts, and is… Is that e-equine, T-T-Twilight?” Sunset says while visibly holding back tears and picking her up with her hands.

“Um… hello?”

“I think you are her. Y-you have the same b-biometrics with d-different t-timestamps. Y-y-you ARE her…! T-T-Twilight!”

Almost everyone was shocked when she hugged her like a long-lost friend or family.

“Alright, enough meet and greet. Why is there an ape using alicorn magic?”, “Celestia” asks her pupil.

Visibly holding back a death glare, she hesitatingly gives her back to her father while stepping back.

“Well… I need to do some tests, but I think they modified their DNA with pony traits? Why? I don’t know!”

Mandarina and Dusk answered at the same time,

“It’s because we of the human race wanted to better demonstrate the Magic of Friendship, and so we modified our bodies to be better, stronger, and faster in every way possible.”

“But messing with the natural order always ends up hurting everypony. Why would you do that?”, “Celestia” questions further.

“I got this, Daddy!” Twilight says to her father, approaching a teary Sunset and the “Celestia” warrior queen.

“Well, do ponies here get vaccines?” She asks rhetorically.

“Of course we do!” “Celestia” replies, aghast somepony would question such an important medical fact.

“Well, that's messing with the natural order, giving immunity when there shouldn’t be any. Same with this!”

And with that, the filly smirks, sticks out her tongue and flies back towards her father, tongue still out.

Aghast, “Celestia” stutters while trying to retort, but her student beats her to it while giving her a secret grin.

"You say that, but then, what about you? You aren't, "human". How did you get involved with, well, them?"

"I was somehow teleported to their universe and de-aged seven years ago. He's been taking care of me ever since, and so, he's my dad."

This led to further sputtering and stuttering from "Celestia", while Sunset softly smiled.

"Well, on behalf of the ponies of Equestria, I welcome all of you in Friendship. You all will be given housing, currency, spare clothing, and food, as Friendship behooves us. And your command, My Princess?"

Raising her head in a flawless imitation of a female Blueblood, she scoffs while fixing her hair to hide wiping away a tear.

"A-agreed. We welcome you mo- humans, to the Land of Magic, and Friendship."

***

Wait… something’s off.

“Yeah, what’s wrong?”

Somepony is barrelling towards this Equestrian timeline at 20x the speed of light, Twilight… and it’s MOM?

“Child. We are right here. Stroke our mane, we are tangible and present in front of thee.”

Not YOU, mom, somepony like you with your biometrics. How many variants do you have?

“Thou art the time pony, not us, why art thou asking us a question thou knoweth the answer to? Dost thou thinketh thou art dumb?”

Well, I gotta admit that the word infinity comes to mind with variants. I’ve met a few, but… this one is crazy powerful!

“Like, she could cut you in half, J-corn!”

Nah… I can deal with that. Anyways, can Mike and company deal with a warrior Luna?

“Speaking of warriors... Thine princess and mother demand cuddles!”

As you wish… love ya mom!

“You two are so cute sometimes! Anyways, while J-corn is being a good colt, I am taking over narrating duties for a bit. Hope everypony doesn’t mind!”

***

Sunset notices yet another energy signature that is foreign to her Equestria and is quite alarmed.

“Dusk Star… since you are not from here, what are the chances somepony followed you? I am picking up a crazy magical energy signal that is coming at twenty times the speed of light in our direction!”

"... No idea, Miss Sunset. I do hope they're friendly…"

And then, another portal opens, revealing somepony quite familiar to you all. The Mistress of Night herself, in full battle regalia!

“WHERE HAVE THOU FOALNAPPED TWILIGHT SPARKLE?!!?”

"Gulp."

"Princess Luna?"

“Thou hast been absent for seven years! What happened?! Everypony thought you dead!! And… thou art an alicorn? How?!”

"Long story, Your Highness… Long story…"

“Hold on… you look like my sister, but you are ALSO a quadruped. What's going on?!”

“We are thine sister, Tia, but from another timeline. As the filly said, long story.”

She then notices Dusk Star but doesn't notice his horn or wings.

“Prithee tell why this noble young filly is clinging to an ungodly ape!”

"Why you-?! THAT 'UNGODLY APE' IS MY FATHER!!"

“Thine father?! Surely thou art in jest.”

“I 'jest' about nothing! He's my father, take it or leave it!”

“Why, thou art a foalish brat! No wonder our sister enjoyed thine company!”

Gritting her teeth, she breathed in and out, calming herself while clinging even tighter to her father.

“Now, Twilight, pack thy things at once. Everypony misses you. Once we're back, we can re-age thee to a normal state. We need our princess of Friendship!"

"NOT. WITHOUT. HIM. AND. HIS. FAMILY."

"Excuse me, local Princess of Friendship here? Princess Luna, I'm not sure if you recognize me…?"

"We do recognize thee, Sunset Shimmer. Thou were my sister's student before you fled to the human world in our timeline."

"... Huh, you learn something new every day… Anyway, I can see that you and Twi- Princess Twilight are in a bit of a pickle about her father and his family.
And we… Our T-Twilight was killed by a Ursa M-Major saving her n-new f-friend, Berrytwist, and we've b-been… lacking, since then. M-m-maybe we could solve-solve two problems at once…"

"What art thou suggesting? Art thou suggesting that We leave our Twilight with a complete and total stranger.

Luna then notices something off about Dusk Star. Something that doesn’t sit right with her…

“ Thy… F-f-father… hast wings and a horn?"

"Eyup! He has Alicorn magic! His mom has unicorn magic, his girlfriend has earth pony magic, and his friend Shy Tree has pegasi magic! Where is-?"

"HOW?! HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN!? SUCH A NOBLE RACE TO BECOME CONTAMINATED WITH-?!"

"IF YOU DARE TO INSULT MY FATHER LIKE THAT ONE MORE TIME, YOUR MAJESTY…!"

"CALM DOWN, BOTH OF YOU!! This is exactly what I meant! No offense, Princess Luna, but your viewpoint is stuck a thousand years in the past! You can't allow new species to have any room in your world, so you outright reject them, even when it only causes trouble for you and your sister's country, right?!"

***

“What libelous nonsense is this, child?!? Our variant accepted thee as a human boy before making thee the noble J-corn! Buck, we even allowed thee to ride us like a mule as a means of acquaintance! We have no quarrel with humans, as lackluster as they may be at times! Thou art living proof of this!”

What did I say about infinite timelines, Luna?

“Yeah, moony, your kid is right. Infinite timelines mean some Lunas are humanophobes.”

Thanks, Twi, you just made things a bit more complicated.

“We apologize for interrupting thee again, sweet J-corn. Please, allow for thy colleague Twilight to continue narrating.”

“As you wish, moony.”

HEY, that’s my mom you’re talking abo-

***

Luna stutters, stammers, and mumbles as Sunset's words force her to involuntarily relive every humiliating experience she inflicted on her sister and herself as she got readjusted to modern-day Equestria.
Maybe having a foal of her own like some other Lunas would round her out nicely?

"W-w-well… It's, it's n-n-not all the… The…'

She bowed her head and whispered.

'Yes. What is thine idea, Sunset Shimmer?"

"Thank you, Your Highness. My idea is for your Twilight Sparkle to stay with us so that you can slowly become more accustomed to her more radical ideas and behavior instead of having to experience it all at once. The same with her friends, family, and teacher."

“For the record, Princess Sunset, thine claim of discrimination is facetious at best, and hypocritical at worst! We just heard Tia refer to Dusk Star as a monkey! In OUR Equestria, Tia insisted we include non-ponies in treaties, tort law, and everyday life, yet all we see now are weird bipedal ponies! Hmph!”

Luna has every right to complain. She doesn’t like hypocrites!

Sunset, on the other hand/hoof, bristles slightly while keeping her mouth shut.

‘You weren’t here when my “teacher” called them monkeys… Nevertheless, I’ll continue keeping my mouth shut till you’re gone. And so help me if you insult them again!’

“Well, Miss Luna, I am an Earth human, and I like Dusk, he’s so cute! We aren’t corrupting anypony’s DNA today.” Mandarin says, holding her new stallionfriend’s hand.

“We are not thy schoolmate or close peer, we are a PRINCESS! Treat us with respect or face our wrath!” Luna says, horn at the ready to fire a blast. She really needs to work on her temper.

“I’ll respect you if you show respect to us. Golden Rule, ever heard of it?” Mandarin retorts, enjoying this slight altercation.

“Excuse me, you two? Princess Luna, with all due respect to the throne you sit on: Shut up. Mandarin, honey? Please don’t stir things up further.”

“Keep it up, dad! Friendship ambassador training paid off for you!” Twilight says, hugging Dusk Star again.

“Hmm. thou art an “alicorn” with noble intentions, Dusk Star. We respect that. De-escalation of conflict is crucial in crown politics.”

“Well, since you ARE my sister, Luna, and quantum jumping must make one tired, how about you come over to Canterlot for the night? We have all the food you like, even the waffles shaped like crescent moons you used to eat as a filly.” “Celestia” says with a hidden smile.

Princess Luna blushed. Apparently, the moon waffles are a multiversal thing.

“T...tia. Please, I am a grown mare… Did thou sayeth waffles? Count us in!”

“That took a grand total of two seconds, daddy. What is up with Princess Luna, anyways?”

Michael shrugged while Mandarin pitched in her own two bits.

“You think I know, Twilight? I don’t know you that well, how would I know about a parallel Luna?”

Meanwhile, as Glittering Star walked up towards the group, about to ask something crucial, a young boy with scales wearing a purple backpack is spotted in the distance by Twilight.

“Daddy? Is… is that Spike, but as a person?”

“Looks… Looks like it.”

Out of nowhere, yet another portal opened up, spitting out, of all people, Shy Tree!

***

Mom… did you run the Terminal again? We have to keep this to a bare minimum!

“We must concede that yes, the terminal codes were accessed once more. It would have been a shame for Dusk Star to be without his closest friend during this adventure!”

“Luna… only J-corn can use the terminal! You know that. You can mess with their dreams if you want!”

Twilight… you have no idea how much hassle it was to bring my Macbook from /03 to Equestria and mod it to run UniCode…

“Didn’t Vinyl Scratch help you with that?”

Maybe? I don’t know anypony outside of this room that well!

***

Dusk helped him up.

“SHY TREE!? What are you doing here?!”

“I followed you from the bar! Wha-... No. Don’t tell me we’ve ended up in-!”

“No, we have not. They didn’t even know about humans before us!”

“Whew… I was worried I might have had to pretend to be stupid and wear a col-.”

Mandarin quickly tired of this.

“Stop. We don’t need more what-if’s, just what-now’s. Now, to ask the obvious, what now?”

“Food and rest. Follow my teacher and she’ll guide you to the castle. For me, on the other hand, I have to catch up on my studies. I will get to know you all better during dinnertime! See you then!”

She disappeared in a flash.

Luna, noticing that almost everypony left is able to fly or teleport, begins to feel some pity towards Mandarin Orange. She has an idea, but is not sure if the Earth Human will agree.

“Mandarin Orange, was it? We have a proposition for thee.” Luna says, approaching the Earth human.

“And what would that be?” She replies, unsure where Luna was going to take this idea.

“We are a fair distance from Canterlot, around a half day's gallop. That is, assuming this reality’s Equestria is to scale with our own. Doth thou wish to get there in a faster, more exciting manner? Thou art the only pony here who cannot fly or teleport.

Mandarin likes where this is going. She REALLY likes where this is going!

“We are offering this flight service in exchange for those heavenly waffles!”

She hid a grin while nodding in agreement. Luna then turns towards Dusk.

“Dusk Star. As the mate of Mandarin Orange, thou art responsible for her wellbeing under tradition. Doth thou object to this proposition?” Luna says, spawning a parchment and a long written contract, along with two quills.

“Luna, we aren’t in Middle Canterlot anymore! We don’t need to do written contracts for favors!” “Celestia” says, chuckling at Luna fumbling to sign the parchment with her royal seal before sending the quill to Dusk.

"Don't listen to her, Miss Luna. I'll gladly sign."

“We have met humans before, and are somewhat accustomed to thine custom of “riding”. We merely ask that thou restrain from pulling at our mane, Mandarin.”

Mandarin was trying not to scream like a little girl. She’s going to fly. She’s happy she’s an Earth Human, but sometimes she wishes that she was born a pegasus human instead.

“Celestia” was a bit amused by this whole situation. It makes sense, in a way. Since her universe’s ponies are bipedal, this contract would not work unless somepony from a different Equestria was a co-signatory.

“Dusk Star, do humans do this with their ponies?” “Celestia” asks, confused as Luna and Mandarin are discussing the final details of this agreement.

"Nope. In our universe, they're a step above rocks, except for having feelings and being able to hold grudges and such. They're not sentient."

“Odd… truly odd, especially since this Luna claims to have done this activity before. Luna is quite sentient, indeed.” “Celestia” spreads her wings and begins to fly towards Canterlot.

Using her magic, she lifts Mandarin off the floor and puts her between Luna’s cosmic purple wings.

“We promise to protect thine mate for this voyage, Dusk Star. Thou haveth the word of the Moon herself!” Luna says, awaiting to see if anypony else is going to fly or teleport before she begins to fly.

"I will hold you to that, Your Majesty."

Extending his wings, he gently flies upwards and follows "Celestia" at a steady clip, his daughter and Shy Tree right beside him, and his mom being held firmly in his magical grip.

***

“J-corn, what is it with Luna variants liking human passengers?”

You’d have to ask her yourself, Twilight. I don’t know one bit!

“We find it therapeutic to fly with somepony in close proximity to us, as well as the potential for massages afterward, or in this case, waffles!”

Good thing you haven’t zapped me back into a human to do this with you. I am quite used to flying on my own by now…

“Anyways, I have a country to run, so I am going to leave you two adorable ponies to your own devices! Have fun!”

Well… it’s just us two again… mom, promise me you will leave the Terminal alone now that Shy Tree is in this timeline?

“Ok… we shall abide by thine annoying protocol, solely out of love! Now, thine punishment for annoying us...”

Aww crud, CUT THE CAMERA BEFORE SHE TICKLES ME!