A Shadow of Myself

Andrea peeled the skin off what the Inuits called a banana. It didn't look like any banana she'd ever seen. It was smaller, thicker, and much more brown than a banana. With the skin removed, she could see the seeds, big black things, littered among the fruit's flesh. She squished some of it in her fingers, not wanting to swallow any of those ugly seeds accidentally, and then put her fingers in her mouth. The fruit didn't taste like a banana, either. It had a potent mix of bitter and salty and was much too dry, like wood pulp. This was the worst banana she'd ever eaten, but at least it was food.

Not much had happened since Charlotte's kidnapping, a full day had passed, and all there had been was talk. She had spent much of her time rebuffing the intuits who tried to come and comfort her. Surprisingly, Heavyheart had aided her in keeping them at bay. Perhaps the elephant wanted her for herself. Andrea was of the prime emotion for the elephant at the moment, but Heavyheart hadn't made any attempt so far to help her beyond shooing the other well-meaning intuits away. The lone exception to this was Empathy, who often sat silently beside her, looking as depressed as she felt.

"Enjoying the drivel they feed us here, I see," a high-pitched voice remarked. Andrea rolled her eyes. Great, Shrieky was here.

The purple-haired neanderthal sat beside her and grabbed an apple, or at least what had been identified as an apple; it was more like a crabapple. Andrea had been avoiding those because they reminded her of home. The intuits had a small underground grove of trees. The trees all looked stunted and the fruit terrible, but if you were growing trees underground, you should be happy to be growing anything at all, she supposed.

Andrea glanced around. "Where's Beastly? He usually follows you around like a dog."

Shrieky shrugged. "I told him to take a bath. He was starting to stink again. He is probably drying off. It takes a while with all that fur. He needed it but won't take care of himself unless I order him to do something."

"I'm surprised you care that he does. You don't seem to care about anyone," Andrea said before taking a drink of wine. The intuits had lots of barrels of the stuff. It was safer to drink than the water.

Her eating companion sat silent for a few seconds, then grabbed an empty mug and stood up. She walked over to a barrel and dipped it in before returning and sitting down. She took a long gulp and sat her cup down on the ground.

"I'd rather he stayed healthy than not," Shrieky said, then picked up another apple. She glanced at Empathy, who was sitting silently, munching on some sort of nuts, and shrugged dismissively when it became clear he wasn't interested in her.

"So," Shrieky continued. "I heard this creature's story about your Earth and the place called Equestria. My understanding of Earth comes from those movies they kept in the temples. Tell me, what are those places really like?"

"I'm not up to doing much talking right now," Andrea stated. "If you are here to eat, we can do it in silence."

Shrieky snorted.."I see. You're going to brood over your sister. People die or get lost or whatever, you live. You aren't doing her any favors by sitting by yourself."

"Why do you care? You've been a bitch to everyone," Andrea said through gritted teeth.

Shrieky threw her food down and stood up. "I don't! I was just…bored and looking for something to do to pass the time. Sit here by your lonesome. It doesn't impact me." She then stormed away, kicking at an intuit who just barely dodged her.

"She's lonely," Empathy said. "I have empathy."

"There's no shortage of intuits and transformers for her to talk to, or she could go talk to the ponies. She doesn't need to bother me," Andrea said.

Empathy looked at her. "She's lonely for humans. You're human right now."

Andrea shook her head. "She's a whole other human species, some offshoot of neanderthal, and I'm not even truly human. I'm a centaur. My earrings just give me a human form."

"You're close enough for her," Empathy said.

She pushed the food away and stood up. She didn't need to be lectured about not being nice to the freakin' banshee who had all the charm of a mass of maggots swimming around in a pool of vomit. Shrieky was only here because she decided her dear old uncle finally went too far when he turned the planet into the worst shitstain in three universes. A world Andrea was stuck on for the foreseeable future, wondering if her sister was alive or dead. Fuck Shrieky and her loneliness issues. Andrea couldn't deal with her own emotional crap; she wasn't fit to help others with theirs.

Hopefully, there would be a plan soon to strike back at No Heart, the care bears, and the Decepticons. A chance at some justice. Not that it mattered, this world was screwed no matter what. She'd at least get a chance to nail the bastard that was responsible for it all. She didn't even have to think about the how; she just had to follow orders.

"Is everything alright?"

She turned to see Cadence had approached, looking concerned. Andrea balled her hand into a fist.

"Just peachy," Andrea answered.

Cadence was clearly not buying that. "I know things seem bad right now, but we'll find your sister."

Andrea's lip curled back as she raised an accusing finger at the alicorn and advanced. "And whose fault is it she's gone? Can I even blame the stupid bug for doing something stupid? Who was the one who insisted on bringing Bursa along on this trip? What did she contribute other than creating the situation my sister is in? You knew the risk she posed, and you still insisted on bringing her. Why? I want to know."

Cadence took a few steps back. "I'm not sure you would accept the explanation, and I'm confident it won't make you feel better."

"I still want to know. Tell me the justification!" Andrea growled.

Cadence took a deep breath. "Very well. On your world, you have a select few individuals called Storytellers. They are conduits guided by the Narrator of the Story, which pushes events towards certain goals. They are seers, prophets if you would, who draw attention to events in the past, shed light on current events, and give a glimpse of possible futures. The most notable of these is Jennifer Tanner, but there are others. Equestria has our version of these, beings that commune with Harmony and also give information about the past, present, and future to influence events in the direction Harmony desires. Such individuals have given prophecies that foretold the return of Nightmare Moon and the Crystal Empire. Our most notable one warned that if Bursa did not go on this mission, Equestria could meet its doom. We take their visions very seriously."

Andrea couldn't believe what she was hearing. "Wait, you're telling me you did something you knew was a moronic idea because some half-baked mystic told you to?! What kind of medieval bullshit is that?!"

"I told you that you would not be satisfied with the explanation," Cadence said in a near whisper.

Andrea threw her hands up. "Yeah, that's true! I thought the rulers of Equestria were intelligent and made well-thought-out plans based on research and reason. Now I learn they make decisions based on sheep guts and horoscopes! I'm an Aquarius, Kristin, that's my sister that got shot to death by bears, was a Capricorn, and Charlotte was a Leo. What's our lucky numbers!"

Cadence silently mouthed what had been told in confusion, then shook her head. "I'm sorry, I have no idea what any of that means."

"I don't either because it is all nonsense, just like your reasons for getting my sister lost or killed!!" Andrea screamed as she stormed away.

Charlotte woke up and groaned. Everything hurt. It didn't hurt this bad the last time she woke up. Why'd it hurt more now?

The fire was still going, but there was no sign of Rainbow Brite or Starlight. Rainbow had said something about searching for food. If this place was a frozen wasteland, that might take a while, if she could at all.

It should shock her more to run into yet another childhood cartoon character, but it didn't. The cartoon was clearly a sanitized version for kids. Rainbow was no little girl like the cartoon, but a grown woman. No, not really….Rainbow said she didn't eat and that clothing was not what any normal person could be walking around in if the temperature was sub-zero. Whatever Rainbow Brite was, she wasn't human, and Starlight wasn't a horse. Were they more golems, like the intuits and transformers, just more familiar looking? Did it matter?

She glanced around at her surroundings. There was what was a metal crutch near here. Rainbow had been thoughtful. Did she just have that thing lying around? In the cartoon, Rainbow Land is a small town. If you looked around a town enough, you could probably find a crutch somewhere. It wasn't like anyone else was using it.

Her hand touched something, and she turned her head to see what. It was yet another bracelet. This one the usual pink. Her other ones were still around her wrist, so this was a new one. Changing what universe she was in apparently hadn't changed the fact she was still getting new bracelets. She guessed she could finally cross No Heart off for sure as the source. Maybe she had weird human magic that did nothing but make bracelets. Wouldn't that be a useless power to have? Government asks her what she can do, and she could answer that she made portals to other universes that she couldn't control and created cheap plastic bracelets because….why not? Wasn't human magic supposed to be unpredictable? Her parents and Kristin had all gotten extra strength. Her mom, who weighed around a hundred forty pounds, and her dad, who weighed approximately two hundred pounds, could both lift things to twice their weight without doing any workouts or weightlifting to stay in shape. Charlotte had to strain to lift something that was a hundred pounds, and she'd probably hurt her back doing it. Their kind of magic was helpful. What did she get? She got this crud.

She scowled at herself. She needed to stop this pity party. She didn't have Sunset or any powerful pony to help her right now, but she was not an idiot. As Sunset liked to point out, they were one, and Sunset figured out complex magic. If Sunset could, so could she.

Well, at least thanks to Bursa, she knew she was capable of creating portals as a defensive reaction. She'd done something similar when she had almost opened a portal when Phobia had drawn her fears to the surface. However, it seemed like that worked differently than the portal she'd opened that brought Empathy to Earth. That portal she hadn't gone through the glowing hands thing and was a product of rage instead of terror. It was still easy enough to guess what she needed to open another portal was a strong emotional reaction. That meant she had a legitimate chance of getting out of this latest hellhole. It might take a while, but she was sure she could manage it. Unfortunately, it was a roll of the dice when it came to where that portal ended up leading.

Or, maybe it wasn't. There was some order to where she ended up if she thought about it. The first portal hadn't gone just anywhere in Empathy's universe; it had opened in Care-A-Lot. The first portal she had opened in defense against Bursa hadn't chosen a spot in the middle of nowhere to bring them to; it had brought her to Wabash Manor. This portal hadn't put her in deep space in this universe but on the edge of Rainbow Land. These were all places of significance. Sure, Sunset had gone through tons of misfires, but she had used Charlotte's magic secondhand. Maybe she had some instinct that led her to opening to locations that were safe in her subconscious mind. Care-A-Lot and Rainbow Land might not be safe places, but they were places of safety according to her childhood understanding. Perhaps that childish view of safety had been utilized when she did stuff subconsciously, maybe? She wasn't a psychologist, but it sounded plausible.

Still, she wasn't trying anything for a while. She needed to recover. Maybe she could bring Rainbow Brite with her if this world was that bad; if Rainbow wasn't harboring some dark secret where she was a monster out to kill everyone. After having care bears come in with guns blazing, it was worth having caution that her childhood cartoons were potentially much more dangerous than she'd imagined. Learning more about her savior companion was something to pass the time. Rainbow may seem depressed, defeated, and eager for anyone to talk to, but it couldn't be taken for granted that she could be much more than that. For all Charlotte knew, Rainbow Brite could be lying about everything and was really the tyrannical monarch of the world. After all, she claimed to be the only one left. Why just her? Nothing could be ruled out
.
But Rainbow wasn't with her right now, and Charlotte wasn't up to attempting the crutch, yet Getting more sleep seemed like the best thing to do. Time to add another bracelet to the pile.