A Shadow of Myself

Andrea sat, staring at the glowing magic ball in the cavern's center. Cadence sat across from her, making notes as she maintained the ball that gave the light. All the others were sleeping. It was odd to see Phobia and Josie sleeping at the same time as all the others, but on this world, it was impossible to tell day from night, so being diurnal or nocturnal lost all meaning. Andrea was a little tired since she had only slept a few hours before relieving Josie. The princess had not slept and calmly explained that, as an alicorn, she could go a week without sleep if she had to– though that was never ideal. She was nowhere near that amount of time awake and insisted on staying up to assist in keeping watch. She wanted at least two of them on the lookout while the others slept.

They were at a standstill in their trip. Andrea could look at the two branching caverns near them and see the black handprints. There was a smaller slither of a cavern halfway back, so narrow the ponies would struggle to squeeze through, with white handprints all around it. The only other way to go was the way they had come. She was glad that one cavern had white handprints; she didn't want to try to squeeze through that thing. Still, their choices were to either turn around or go through a black print cavern. They'd been traveling a while and had decided it was time to rest. They'd decide after everyone had gotten some sleep.

Andrea wished there were twigs to toss in the fire. She wished there was a fire to toss twigs in. It wasn't freezing, but it was a bit chilly in the cavern, enough to give her goosebumps. She looked at Cadence.

"So, what are you spending all that time writing?"

The princess's quill paused, and both the parchment and the quill vanished. She then smiled at Andrea. "I was writing letters for my husband and my daughter."

Andrea gave her a confused look. "We don't have any way of getting mail to them. If we get out of here, you'll see them before the letters can be delivered, so why write letters?"

Cadence giggled. "It passes the time, and it captures my thoughts at this very moment. I don't know how long we'll be away, so I can't be expected to remember everything when telling them about our adventure. These letters are more of a travel log. They can recount things so much better than me recounting events verbally– things like how I'm feeling at the moment, details about my surroundings, and things that caught my attention throughout the day. Shining and Flurry will want all the details. Flurry can be very demanding when it comes to getting every tiny bit of information. That's her aunt's influence on her, but I don't mind."

"You're that confident that we'll get back home?" Andrea asked.

The princess nodded. "We're a competent team. Our team is among the best Equestria or Earth has to offer, and we know there's a way back. Even if we fail to secure one of those universe-jumping artifacts from Care-A-Lot, your sister is still out there, and I'm sure she's not going to rest until she's reunited with us."

The mention of Charlotte soured Andrea's mood. She looked away.

"You can't keep blaming yourself for what happened," Cadence softly said. "I'm sure she is healthy. Bursa is many things, but she isn't a killer. She would not let your sister die. Bursa has two goals, and that's to reach Earth and find out her origins. I have often wondered what kind of person she would become if she achieved those things and started to move forward with her life. I understand her anger, even if I wished she would accept her new life. That she was forced to stay in Equestria was an injustice even if we tried to make it easier for her."

"Please, don't defend her. She took my sister. I don't want to hear about how she's poor, misunderstood, and persecuted," Andrea growled.

"I'm sorry. That was tone-death of me," Cadence quietly said. "I still believe your sister is alive and trying to find her way back to you. I bet she's just as worried about you. After all, you're trapped in this world while she can, in theory, move from world to world. From her perspective, she has to be worried about finally making it home only to discover you've died in her absence."

Before Andrea could reply, Phobia groaned loudly while stretching her wings. The former Dreamwarden then shook her head and got to her hooves.

"Nightmares again?" Cadence asked in a sympathetic tone.

Phobia sighed. "Yes, but only initially. I made contact with some others."

Andrea's chest clenched. "Dark Heart?"

Phobia shook her head. "No, first, the quintesson, or at least, what remains of the quintesson."

"What's a quintesson?" Cadence asked in confusion.

"The creature the Equestrians stole the Sunstone from before they broke the Sunstone's spell matrix. I met the quintesson counterparts in this world. It seems to be the last two of what had been five. The Equestrians killed one, another seems to have died relatively recently in another universe, and the third one perished on Earth approximately sixty-six million years ago," Phobia grimly replied.

Cadence still looked confused, but for once, Andrea knew what type of creature was being described.

"The quintessons were in the transformer cartoons. They are these floating robots with five faces and tentacles instead of legs or arms," Andrea explained.

Phobia nodded. "And I can add that they were a hive mind of five spread over four bodies and originated from a world that the Devourers later destroyed. Each body had one of the five faces that primarily controlled it. Two of those bodies are definitely dead, and the faces they represented with them, though we can presume it is three that are dead. They existed in four different universes, and the mind without a body maintained communications. That one is still there but seems to be malfunctioning."

"Wait…those things are native to our universe?" Andrea asked in shock. "What happened to ours? Did it die when the Devourers got its world?"

"No, it died when the asteroid it was piloting slammed into Earth and ruptured the barrier between universes so it could create three other universes," Phobia answered, then smiled at them.

"We should thank it," Phobia continued. "Without them, Equestria would never have existed, nor this world. Humanity might not have existed either since the quintessons more or less caused the extinction of the dinosaurs when their asteroid hit our planet. It takes a lot of force to create even tiny universes. Smashing a six-mile wide rock that had been gathering all the thaumic energy it could during the millions of years was traveling through space before it struck into a planet at high speed seems to be enough."

Andrea leaned back and nearly fell over before she got her hands into place. "Holy crap! So these guys nearly wiped out life on Earth? Why did they do this?"

"It seemed like a good idea at the time," Phobia answered.

"I think that is her saying she's not going to tell us," Cadence said with annoyance. "I'm skeptical of any beings that claim they created multiple universes."

"You're just saying that because you don't want Equestria's origin to be an asteroid hitting the Earth," Andrea said with a smirk before frowning. "Although it seems like they went through a lot of trouble with this. I can't even imagine why they would do something like that. Who wakes up in the morning and says, hey, you know what sounds like a good idea? Let's wrestle up a huge-ass asteroid and aim it at a planet with a bunch of big lizards on it. Let's put some freaky robots on the thing and use the strike to punch them into another dimension. Like, why?! That makes zero sense. If you needed a big impact to create the force you needed, couldn't you hit a planet that didn't have life on it? Killing off the dinosaurs seems just needlessly cruel– not that I'm not grateful for existing, but…what the hell??"

The princess shook her head. "Who else did you speak to? You said the quintesson was the first."

"My mother; she's made it to this world," Phobia answered. "Thankfully, she permitted me to say that. She is at the Autobot base."

Andrea jumped to her feet. Her face felt like it would split from how much she was smiling. "Charlotte has to be here! That's the only way Sunset could have gotten here. We should head back to the base right away. We don't need to be here anymore."

"We aren't heading back to the base yet. We must first retrieve the quintesson," Phobia calmly replied.

"EXCUSE ME?!" Andrea yelled. "My sister is alive! I need to go to her!"

"Your sister is in a safe location if she's here," Cadence said soothingly. "It's excellent news to hear she's alright. However, we agreed to do what we can to help the Autobots and intuits." She looked at Phobia. "Which doesn't mean we will go looking for this creature. Not unless you can assure me that the quintesson will help us with that goal."

Andrea's outburst had awoken the others, and they were now silently listening to the exchange.

"It knows how to operate the Allspark. And though less important, it also knows how to operate the Sunstone," Phobia replied.

Cadence sighed. "I guess that does qualify it as worth our time. I'm not letting that thing near the Sunstone. Celestia and Luna said they already got that working again, so we don't need its aid with it. Where is this quintesson?"

"I can answer that," Shrieky cut in. "To reach the quintesson, we must go through the white caverns."

"Very bad things?" Andrea asked.

Shrieky gave a firm nod. "Very bad things."

Jordan rapidly flipped through yet another massive tome, her skimming spell looking for keywords. The skimming spell had been one of the first spells Sunset Blessing had ever taught her. It didn't seem to be the most useful spell in a world where most information was held digitally, and you could have a program search for terms you were after. That had never bothered her. She liked physical books. There was something pure about reading from a printed page rather than a screen. Even with that, she had only used the skimming spell as a glorified bookmark. The spell could find exactly where she had been as long as she could remember something from the last few sentences she had read before putting a book down. It seemed a waste, but it saved her from investing in bookmarks.

Most of what Sunset Blessing recorded about magic wasn't done digitally. It was painstakingly written down in journal after journal and always recorded privately. The old mare had been so private that many thought she didn't write anything down. The hundreds of volumes surrounding Jordan would dissuade anyone of that notion. She never imagined that there were so many spells and magic theory concepts.

What Sunset Blessing used as an organization or filing system, Jordan had no clue. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason for what spells were recorded in what book. Spells that had nothing to do with one another were often recorded side by side on the same page. There were some other oddities to how things were recorded. For one, the old mare began many of the entries with a record of who she had gotten the concept for the spell from. Concept was the term because it would record the spell or part of the spell she had borrowed and then proceed to go into length about what she had altered for what result. There were also scores of entries labeled as failed ideas that were still recorded in meticulous detail.

The origins of most of her spell concepts came from names that Jordan was most familiar with, with a few exceptions. Most of her sources were from Earth. The most prominent in terms of the number of entries was Bob the Unicorn. There were various other famous Earth mages listed as well, but in lighter numbers, along with some scattered ones that Jordan was sure had zero notoriety. Equestrians were less frequent, but when they appeared, it was almost always Starlight Glimmer, Luna, and a smattering of Twilight Sparkle and Trixie. There were also a few surprising entries that listed their origin as Triss. The Triss ones were exceedingly complex, often taking up several pages to detail how to cast the spell, and unlike most other spells, gave no indication about what they were meant to do. They were also so demanding in power that she couldn't imagine anyone but an alicorn being able to cast them, not even Starlight Glimmer, the one unicorn who might surpass Sunset Blessing in raw magical power. Why was the old mare designing spells she didn't have the ability to cast?

Another oddity was there didn't seem to be any record of transformation magic. There was a possibility Jordan just had been unlucky and hadn't yet come across any, but for a pony famous for developing temporary transformation and knowing the ETS spell, the books were oddly silent on the subject.

She sighed as she finished skimming yet another book. She then used her magic to grab another one from the shelf while simultaneously returning the other to its place. The library was no bigger than the study or one of the regular-sized bedrooms upstairs. A dozen bookshelves were against the walls, each about a yard wide and eight feet tall. Most of the shelves were filled, aside from two– one half-filled and another empty. There was a simple wooden desk made of cedar in the center of the room and a single red cushioned stool to sit on. The carpet was neon green of all colors, and white light was provided by a trio of long fluorescent bulbs on the ceiling that gave off a quiet electric hum. The desk had nothing of note, containing a bunch of pens and some blank journals, along with two different translations of the Bible that could have easily been bought at the local Walmart. The room smelled of cedar and treated paper. Compared to the workshop, this room was rather plain and unassuming.

Her skimming spell immediately caught anomalies in the text of this one. She started reading it in earnest. This wasn't a book of spells. These were star charts and lots of math. On and off, it devolved into what looked like supply lists and construction orders. All of this revolved around some place called Eris. Whatever was being built and housed there had to be massive from what was described. The star charts and math made her believe this coincided with the information Jessie had been dealing with for years for the Dreamwardens, which meant this book might be what she was looking for.

Her phone started ringing.

"Yes? Who is it? I'm a little busy right now," she said.

"Mom! The movers arrived with all the furniture. You need to come to tell them where to put things."

"Christine, things can be unloaded without my help. Your father is up there."

"He's yacking it up with the driver and not paying attention to where they're taking things. They're just unloading everything to the foyer! How am I going to get my bed to my room with all those stairs!"

"You'll just have to wait for your father and me to move it. Don't you dare try lifting something that heavy yourself. Your horn isn't strong enough yet."

"I know I'm not strong enough, but I want my bed in my room now! I need the reminder of home."

Jordan shook her head with exasperation. "Christine, I know you miss Skytree. I do too, but this is our home now. I sympathize that it is a strange and new place, and you want it to feel a little more familiar, but you need to be mature and exercise a little patience. If it is a big concern that your stuff gets to your room sooner rather than later, you could step up and try directing the movers."

"They won't listen to me. I don't have my mark. They won't listen to a kid," Christine grumpily muttered.

"The mark will come. However, being grumpy and discontent will delay it. You need to have peace with yourself," Jordan said softly.

That was technically a lie. It was possible to get a mark without having that peace, but being discontent and unhappy were known to have some correlation with getting a mark later in life, and the vast majority of the actual adult blank flanks had very troubled foalhoods. Tempest Shadow had been an example of that. Some educational studies had suggested that Equestrian foals got theirs at a slightly earlier age on average because Earth foals had far more daily stresses. Despite being far more dangerous, yearly attempts by villains and monsters to conquer were so run-of-the-mill they apparently didn't register to the everyday pony over in Equestria as much as the social, economic, and political pressures impacted Earthlings. Equestrians just felt safer and happier on average.

She wondered how the revelation that magicidal robots were going to be there soon would impact a generation of foals. They would unlikely take world-ending news with the same stride the Equestrians did. She shuddered just thinking about it.

"Can you please come help, Mom?" Christine begged again. "Aunt Jackie can't because Grandma is freaking out and being all weird again, saying that the movers are here to steal all her treasures, so Aunt Jackie is busy dealing with her."

Jordan let out a long breath as she looked at the book before her. She supposed a few hours away from the library wouldn't hurt. She hated hearing her mom was having an episode right now, and she did want to soothe her daughter. Plus, if Jackie was busy with their mom, and Blue was distracted with a conversation, she doubted the foals were being properly watched.

She closed the book. Jessie needed to be consulted anyway. While Jordan's best friend might not be able to give out details beyond what she already had, she might be able to see where this Eris place was that was referenced.