On the Fine Art of Giving Yourself Advice

by McPoodle

Rating: teen
Tags: Main 6, Drama, Trixie, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Adventure, Equestria Girls, Gilda, Sunset Shimmer, Main 7 (EqG), Alternate Universe
Length: 166906

A magical accident causes the future Mane Six and their Equestria Girls counterparts to switch minds on the day the former gain their marks, and the latter meet for the first time.

A magical accident causes the personalities of the future Mane Six at the moment of getting their cutie marks to be swapped with those of their human counterparts during the Freshman Fair. They have only three days to figure out what’s going on and find the right individuals to help them: Princess Celestia in Equestria and the newly-arrived Sunset Shimmer on Earth. In three days the mirror portal will close, and anyone not swapped back will be trapped in the wrong dimension and body for thirty moons.

Edited by Hope.

Note #1: This story is set in the same universe as my earlier novel On Getting to the Bottom of this “Equestrian” Business. I’m using the rules I established in that story for how the Equestria Girls setting works, but nothing from the plot, and since it’s twenty-five years later, you might as well start over with the characters anyway. That’s why I think you can read this story without having to read that earlier fan-novel first. Therefore, I’ll be including author notes as necessary to catch you up on those rules.

Note #2: I use “H” for “Human” or “P” for “Pony” before a character name to refer to the mind, not the body. So “P. Rarity” is the character that starts out in a pony body, suddenly finds herself in a human body, and struggles to get back into her pony body by the end of the story.

Note #3: For the human parts of this story, I refer to the “Freshman Fair”, an event that happened in the comics. All you have to know is that it was an event held during school hours at Canterlot High when Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie and Rarity were freshmen. It existed in order for the various school clubs to advertise themselves and gain new members, and it was at this event that Applejack and company all met for the first time and decided to become best friends. (Oh, and Sunset Shimmer as president of the yearbook committee later interviewed each of them about the event, gathering the facts she would later use to tear their friendships apart.)

Published 2022-03-04 16:10:01 UTC
Last updated 2022-04-14 13:24:45 UTC

Day 1: Chapter 1: Nervous Breakdown (P. Twilight Sparkle, H. Twilight Sparkle)

P. Twilight Sparkle—Equestria, Canterlot. Late afternoon of Day One.

The door to the testing room slammed open with a bang, and an amber-colored filly unicorn with a raspberry- and gold-colored mane ran out in tears. Her eyes were closed and she was wailing in despair. In a matter of seconds she had managed to dash blindly through the waiting room and out a second door, past an azure robed filly who was on her way in. Two older unicorns, the amber filly’s parents, followed afterwards at a slower pace, their heads bowed.

At the back corner of the waiting room was a desk for the receptionist to sit behind. Today, that receptionist was Raven. “I warned her not to use the egg,” she murmured under her breath, before crossing off a name on a ledger.

A few seconds later a voice came through Raven’s magical intercom: “Please admit the next applicant.”

Raven looked down at the ledger, then stood up and addressed the two families in the waiting room. “Sunburst, they’re ready for you,” she said.

An orange colt with light gray stocking markings and a darker orange mane stood up nervously, looking back at his own parents.

“We believe in you, Sunburst,” the father said.

“You’ve got this all planned out,” the mother added.

Sunburst nodded, and then walked into the testing room, followed by the parents. The door was magically shut behind them.

The sole remaining foal waiting her turn was now Twilight Sparkle. After looking desperately between the closed door and the one the panicking filly had fled through a few times, she pulled all of her books out of her mother’s saddlebags for the fifth time that day. Spreading them out around her, she flipped them all open and attempted to read them all simultaneously.

Twilight’s parents looked on sadly. They knew from experience that nothing they could say or do would work at calming her down when she got like this.

The blue filly at the door shook her head sadly at seeing Twilight’s actions. Steeling herself, she strode with purpose right up to the reclining filly. “Twilight Sparkle! What do you think you’re doing?” she declared.

Raven prepared to shush the newcomer out of habit, before remembering that there were no other candidates in the room to be disturbed by this behavior. She had long since come to the conclusion that somepony needed to do something about the over-wound filly, so she sat back to watch.

“Can’t you see I’m busy, Trixie?!” Twilight snapped, before catching herself in shock. “No, wait, I’m sorry!” she cried, springing to her hooves. “What are you even doing here?”

“Well obviously I’m here to keep you from having a nervous breakdown,” Trixie said, stroking the hem of her robe with a hoof.

“I…but…” sputtered Twilight. “I…got to get back to studying.” She turned her head towards her books.

Trixie turned it back with a hoof. “You’ve studied enough.”

“No I haven’t!” Twilight insisted. “Did you see what just happened? I have to be ready for whatever test the Princess has for me!”

“The Princess?” asked Trixie.

“Yes! I raced over here as soon as I finished lunch, and I spotted the Princess walking into that room! The Princess never attends the Class IV’s personally! So that means that this test must be really, really important!”

Trixie looked over at the door in thought, then noticed the presence of Raven in the room. This caused her eyes to go wide for a moment, but she soon regained her composure. She turned back and put a hoof on the other filly’s withers. “Twilight, the Princess is fair above all things. She would never give you a test that you couldn’t handle. You believe that, don’t you?”

Twilight silently nodded her head.

“Then you’re ready for this! You just have to have the right attitude. Like me. In fact, I’ll show you.” Trixie then walked over to the receptionist desk. “Trixie Lulamoon, reporting in. Sorry I was so late.”

Raven blinked a couple of times, then looked down at the ledger and made a mark. “Well, you’re next as a matter of fact.” She looked around the room. “Did you bring any parents or guardians?”

Trixie looked back to make sure that Twilight was still watching. “The soon-to-be Great and Powerful Trixie has only one responsible parent, and she’s too busy in the palace today. But I’ll do fine without her.”

“Oh, you’re the head housekeeper’s daughter, aren’t you?” asked Raven.

“That’s right.”

“You can go ahead and take a seat, Trixie.”

Trixie nodded politely and turned around to face a gobsmacked Twilight. “See how calm I was?”

“But…how are you a Class IV candidate?” Twilight asked, her eyes tearing up. “You can’t use your magic…thanks to me.”

Trixie lifted her head up with a hoof. “None of that, Twilight,” she said sternly. “It’s those bullies’ fault, not yours.”

“But if you hadn’t tried to save me from them…” Twilight began.

“…Then I wouldn’t have gotten my cutie mark,” Trixie concluded, lifting a corner of her robe to display it.

Twilight’s parents looked quietly at each other. Not only were they unaware of the origin of the two fillies’ friendship, they had also not known how badly their daughter had been bullied.

“The point is, I’m a stage magician,” Trixie continued. “Regular old boring unicorn magic would have just gotten in the way.”

Twilight wiped her tears away. “OK,” she said in a choked up voice. A second later, she came to a realization. “But you didn’t answer my question: How did you qualify as a Class IV?”

“Can you keep a secret? I tricked the sensors.” Trixie leaned back from the whisper and pulled a thick loop of wire out of her mane. It had been colored cornflower blue to blend in, but now that it was on her hoof it sparked, sending faint streams of magenta magic to her horn.

Twilight noticed that the loop was sized to go around the base of Trixie’s horn. “What is that anyway?” she asked in a whisper.

Trixie pushed it back into her mane. “Just a little gadget I threw together,” she replied. “I was aiming for a magical battery that would let me cast unicorn spells. You know, just in case of an emergency. But all it does is give me the aura of a Class IV. You remember when I slipped away from you during the last Summer Sun Celebration? That was so I could get close enough to the Princess to charge it.”

“Wow,” whispered Twilight in awe. “So it combines magic and technology? That’s amazing! But…that won’t get you through the test.”

Trixie sat down with a frown. “No, it won’t get me through the test. Originally, I was going to use my stage magic to con my way through the test.”

“What?!” demanded Twilight.

Raven was doing her best to be nonchalant at this point, although the point of her ears made it very clear that she was desperately trying to hear every word of this conversation.

“Yeah, I got one of the examiner’s sons to tell me what the test was going to be, and I was going to fake it. But you can’t fake anything in front of the Princess.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“I’m going to go in there and apologize for wasting their time. And explain about my magic coil if anypony asks me. And then I’m going to walk right out, with my head in the air, like this.”

Twilight was in awe. “I…I can never deal with failure like that.”

“Sure you can,” Trixie told her. “You’re a failure at P.E., and you’re fine with that. You have fun.”

“Well sure, but I don’t care about P.E.”

“Then don’t care about the test,” Trixie said with an encouraging smile.

“I can’t do that!”

Twilight’s mother put a hoof on Twilight’s withers. “Yes you can,” she said gently.

“You already took the written test, sweetie,” her father told her. “And you said you aced that.”

Twilight nodded.

“Then you’re already admitted,” Trixie told her. “This is just extra credit.”

“It is extra credit,” Twilight realized. “And I love extra credit!”

“So are you going to have fun?” Trixie asked.

“Yes!”

“Good. Because that door has been waiting for me for the past five minutes.”

Twilight looked over at the open door to the testing room, barely giving a glance to the defeated Sunburst and his parents making their way out of the waiting room. “Oh! Well, good luck!”

“Thanks,” Trixie said with a beam. She then put on her stage face. “The Great and Powerful Trixie is here to put on a show that you’ll never forget!”

She walked into the room, and the door was magically closed behind her.

Twilight sat down in front of the door and waited. Her parents sat behind her, holding her in their embrace.

#

A very long time passed. There was a bit of muffled shouting coming out from behind the door at first, which disturbed Twilight. But Trixie was not thrown out afterwards, or dragged out in chains.

More time passed. And then…laughter.

“That’s a good sign,” Twilight told herself. Her eyes went wide when she realized that the loudest laughter was coming from the Princess. “Princesses can laugh?” she asked herself incredulously.

A few minutes later came the sound of applause.

Twilight jumped up and down in happiness.

Finally the door opened. Trixie walked out, followed by the Princess.

“I can expect to see you tonight for dinner, then?” the Princess asked.

Twilight’s and Raven’s jaws dropped in unison.

“Of course, Your Highness,” Trixie said with a dramatic bow. “Trixie is, after all, a pony of class and distinction.”

The Princess bowed in response, and then returned to the testing room.

“Please admit the next applicant,” said the voice from the intercom.

Trixie turned towards Twilight, and only then showed the grin that was threatening to split her face in two.

“What did you do?” Twilight asked gleefully.

“I’ll tell you after your test.” Trixie looked behind her. The ponies inside could be heard laughing a little more, repeating her best jokes to each other. “I just warmed them up for you. Now go in there and knock them dead.”

Twilight briefly gave Trixie an odd look at the choice of phrase before smiling. “Thank you so much!” she said, pulling Trixie into a hug.

“Go ahead,” Raven told Twilight. “They’re ready for you.”

“I’ll be waiting,” Trixie said, settling herself in the spot Twilight had been in a few minutes earlier.

#

Twilight walked into the testing room. It was a small auditorium, with four unicorn examiners sitting on the top bench. Those four were dressed severely, but had smiles on their faces, a result of Trixie’s performance earlier. From left to right, they were: Apple Polish, a small tan mare with a severe brown manecut and the cutie mark of a red apple; Gnosi Augur, a tall and thin pale yellow stallion with a yellow-orange mane and a cutie mark of an eye inside a star; Meridiem Tempest, a somewhat plump pale green mare with a turquoise-and-white striped mane and a yellow hourglass cutie mark; and Arpeggio, a gray stallion with a black mane and the cutie mark of blue eighth notes. All of them had clipboards hovered in front of them with their magic.

And waiting for her on the floor of the auditorium was Princess Celestia, the one and only figure Twilight noticed, so why did I bother describing those other four?

Anyway, all of them were in a good mood. Once again, Twilight thanked her friend for her efforts on her behalf.

Before her, she saw a wheeled cart containing hay. Nestled in the hay was a large speckled egg. A sign on the side of the cart contained her instructions: hatch the egg. Slowly, she approached the egg.

“That is a dragon’s egg,” Princess Celestia informed her. The examiners looked at each other in a mixture of disapproval and apprehension, because it was against the rules of the examination to provide any information to the tester other than what was contained in and on the cart. “You may do anything you’d like to get it hatched. And feel free to share your thought processes with us—you will not be judged on wrong guesses, and I find that speaking aloud helps with focus.” She turned back to the examiners to explain herself. “This is the last applicant, and I think we’ve inflicted enough stress on young ponies for one day, don’t you think?”

The examiners nodded mutely in agreement.

“The point of the test is to see how you handle a challenge that is beyond your current capabilities. So if you can’t do it yourself, just say so, and the test ends. We wish to see your magic and your mind.”

Twilight closed her gaping jaw. It had dropped open when she realized that this was the longest speech she had ever heard directly from the Princess, and it had been addressed solely at her. She looked over at her parents for help.

“No,” said Princess Celestia, perhaps a bit more sternly than she should. “You are the one being tested. You can tell us whatever you wish, but if you accept any outside help whatsoever, then you fail the test.”

Twilight swallowed nervously, looking anywhere but at her parents. She noticed another cart in a corner, the same size as the egg cart. This one had a large hoop embedded in a sparkling stone, with the instruction of removing the ring without harming the stone. But that was not the test she was being asked to take. She walked slowly around the egg cart, looking at it from every angle. She looked over at her parents, who encouraged her with gestures to do her thing. “I don’t really know very much about dragons,” she said at last. “Other than the fact that they are unusually resistant to unicorn magic.” She tried to cast a spell on the egg, only to find that the shell formed an impenetrable layer. Not only that, but the same protection rendered it impossible to affect the egg in any way with magic alone. It couldn’t even be levitated. “I don’t know anything about hatching eggs,” she admitted with some reluctance. She wanted to blame a lack of studying on that, but she considered it extremely likely that none of the books she brought had anything to say on the subject. “I would guess that an infusion of raw magic would be enough, if the egg is ready to hatch.” She turned to face her testers. “Therefore, I would ask for the help of an expert, or maybe two: a unicorn who knew how to hatch dragon eggs, and a unicorn powerful enough to be able to safely force the magic into the egg. I don’t trust myself to do better than that right now, not without hurting the unborn dragon. If they needed me to give them my magic to help the spell, I would be happy to do it. So that’s my answer to this test. Maybe after I graduate, I can try again?”

Twilight trembled as she awaited Princess Celestia’s response. It was the best answer she could come up with, but she was still disappointed in herself in not being able to come up with anything she could do personally.

After a pregnant pause, Princess Celestia nodded in satisfaction. This was no future personal student, she reflected, but like Trixie before her, this filly was somepony who could grow up into a mare that would be a credit to all of Equestria. Just in completely different ways. “Yes, I think that is a wise and well-informed answer. Do you agree?” She looked back at the examiners, to see them busy taking notes. “Well, despite my presence here today, I am not here to sway your judgment. You are free to go, Twilight Sparkle.”

“Wait,” said Twilight, looking intently at the egg. “Could I at least take a try at it? Just to see what I’m capable of? Just let me know if I’m hurting the dragon.”

Celestia’s estimation of the applicant went up a couple more notches. First, because Twilight dared to contradict her, and had a good reason for doing so. And second, for the strong desire to test her limits. “You may proceed,” she said.

Twilight concentrated, enveloping the egg in her magic. She felt the nature of the resistance. As she probed, it seemed that the block was fundamentally keyed into the very nature of the magic she was using. If she could mold that magic somehow, she would be able to get in. This meant that the problem was a lock-and-key puzzle, but on a level of complexity she had never dealt with before. Sweat began to bead on her forehead as she probed the egg from all sides, feeling out the shape of the metaphorical “lock”. The problem could not be brute forced, but it needed a lot of magic, more in fact than she could possibly summon. If she just had a little more…

And there it was: a sudden fountain of magical energy appearing over her left shoulder. Pure, unfocused magic, free for her to use with no strings attached. Eagerly, she tapped into it. The magic passed right through her brain, and was shaped the way she wanted it to be. The egg hatched.

But then it went wrong. She couldn’t let go of the new magic, and it seized on every random thought in her head. She opened her eyes, to see the examiners floating in mid-air, the dragon grown into a giant—its head bursting through the ceiling in slow motion, and her parents transformed into cacti. Somehow she saw this entire panorama without turning her head, the magic giving her more new senses than she knew how to deal with. Time seemed to be frozen. And yet, despite that fact, she was suddenly struck by another powerful stream of magic, this one coming from straight below her.

This one was more like a fire hose. And like the blast from a fire hose, this stream also wanted to push her. She couldn’t be sure since she had never experienced it before, but this sure seemed like teleportation magic. It was trying to push her away, far, far away. Maybe even beyond Equestria.

The old Twilight Sparkle might have put up no resistance. Surrendered herself to the guilt over what she had done. For in taking in that first magic stream in order to hatch the egg, Twilight Sparkle had cheated. The source of that magic had been distant, beyond the Canterlot city limits. Therefore it was not part of the test and in using it, Twilight had violated the Princess’ rule that she not use any outside help. So Old Twilight Sparkle would have accepted the punishment of an unknown teleport for cheating.

But she wasn’t Old Twilight Sparkle, not since she had been saved from a beating by Trixie. Trixie had been willing to pay the price to do the right thing, and so would Twilight. Sure, the almighty Princess could probably reverse everything Twilight had messed up with her magic. But it wouldn’t be the same as Twilight fixing what she had done. Her parents would be ponies again, but they probably wouldn’t be the same ponies as they were before, not entirely, and Twilight couldn’t bear to live with the guilt of that outcome. So she fought the teleport. Not only that, but she wrenched magic out of the teleport to fix her mistakes.

The dragon became a dragonling again. The examiners were gently put back down on their bench. And her parents were metamorphosed back into ponies, back into the exact same ponies they had been before Twilight’s magic had changed them.

All of this took only a millisecond, long enough for the Princess to spread her wings and fly a full ponylength towards Twilight. But it was also a millisecond too long. Too much magic pulled and pulled at Twilight’s horn, until…

Twilight opened her mouth to scream, as the most agonizing pain imaginable ripped through her horn…

Twilight fell onto her back, her mouth open for a scream, but she never uttered it.

The pain in her horn was gone. There was a pain in her eyes, an awful blistering pain, but compared to what she had experienced, this was nothing. At least for now, the madness inside her brain was more than enough of a distraction.

All of her senses were going haywire, and unlike earlier with the magic surge, these new ones didn’t come with instructions. Also, the reasoning part of her brain seemed to be broken, as effects preceded causes and made-up formulae purporting to describe a universe without magic crowded around the mental image of herself so tightly as to threaten to squeeze it out of existence.

But that wasn’t important. She had indeed been teleported. She was still in an auditorium, but a much bigger one judging from the acoustics.

Twilight Sparkle loved the idea of teleporting. She had done a lot of research, and some nights when she was supposed to be going to sleep she would instead stand on her bed, lean into the ley lines, and imagine what it would be like to teleport. To the couch downstairs. To the roof of the school. To Manehattan. She knew that the longer she went without feeling the magical currents, the further she must have teleported. And now the only magical currents she felt were inside of her. It had seemed a short teleport, but where in Equestria was devoid of magic?

Twilight Sparkle tried to open her eyes, but they refused to open.

A sudden fatigue ganged up on her, trying to drag her into oblivion.

“Goodbye, Mommy,” she whispered. “Goodbye, Daddy. Goodbye, Shining, BBBFF. Goodbye, Trixie… Goodbye…Princess. I’m…sorry I cheated.”

There was a voice of a snooty filly, a thousand strides away. “Hey, Miss Second Place, what did you think you were doing, messing with my exhibit like that?! And…what’s wrong with your eyes? Um…medic? Medic! This girl’s hurt!”

Twilight didn’t remember anything after that.

H. Twilight Sparkle. Earth, Canterlot. Late afternoon of Day One.

It was the day of the Junior Science Fair at Crystal Prep Academy, the first major science-related event of the year. The auditorium was buzzing, not only with the sounds of the various experimental exhibits, but also of the science reporters and college recruiters. Despite only being juniors, it was guaranteed that at least one exhibit would be good enough to provide an entirely new outlook to the world, and generate a full scholarship. After all, Crystal Prep students were the best of the best.

And Twilight Sparkle, at age 15, was the best of the best of the best. She was far younger than any of the other juniors, having skipped two grades when she entered the Academy. The others looked to her with envy, not only because all Crystal Prep students were encouraged to see life as a zero-sum game, but also because of her age. She was certain to win the blue ribbon this year.

Twilight tidied her exhibit as she waited for it to be judged, occasionally consulting a mirror to keep her tight hairstyle from coming undone—as much as she wished she lived in a world where looks didn’t matter, she was a young woman trying to break into a man’s field, and so her looks absolutely mattered. She looked around her at the other exhibits. Some of them looked quite good in conception, but none were as professional as hers. A cardboard box sitting under the table was filled with complete video documentation of both her research and construction—she was that certain that she would be accused of using outside help to cheat. It certainly wasn’t the first time that she had had to deal with that particular charge.

“Ow!”

Twilight turned to look at her neighbor, who was busy making her own adjustments to her exhibit. Unlike Twilight’s adjustments, these looked very necessary, as the mass of tangled wires at the back of the six-foot tall prototype oven kept giving off electrical sparks at random intervals. After studying the wiring for a few moments, she spoke up. “Would you like some advice, Puffed?”

The girl with rosy-gray skin and straight raspberry hair turned on her. “Non!” she exclaimed in an affected French accent. “I will be disqualified for sure if I accept help from you!”

“Yes, I suppose so,” Twilight said, and then quickly turned to face the judge who was right in front of her.

Neither of them said anything for several minutes, as the judge read the presentation mounted next to the small rotating model of the planet. Twilight waited nervously as the judge made copious notes. In her mind everything was riding on this exhibit. The blue ribbon, and only the blue ribbon, would get her into Oxford, and nothing short of Oxford was acceptable. She held her breath.

“The design is carefully controlled, and you have a very good data-to-noise ratio,” the judge informed Twilight Sparkle. “Overall, this is an exceptional model, but I’m going to have to apply a deduction because you used a clockwise Coriolis force in the northern hemisphere, instead of counter-clockwise.” The judge took some more notes on her clipboard before leaving a stunned Twilight Sparkle behind to check on her neighbor’s exhibit.

I got the Coriolis force wrong? Twilight thought, retreating into the echo chamber of her own mind. I GOT THE CORIOLIS FORCE WRONG?!! This is it, this is the end! I am now the laughing stock of the entire universe! I’ll barely be qualified to haul garbage for a living after making a mistake that basic!

Twilight felt her heart beating so fast that it tried to explode out of her chest. She was panting, but only the most shallow of breaths entered her lungs. As she watched, the world of the auditorium broke down into squares a meter on each side, which then drifted away from each other and into the void, revealing the cold and pitiless universe lurking just outside the puny realm controlled by humanity. Below her she could see a vast seething organic mass the size of the entire solar system, convulsing as it swallowed entire civilizations without a care. Her mistake was the tipping point, and now Earth was speeding into that gaping maw. The whole of humanity was going to die in horrible agony…because of her.

Oh, and in one of those drifting squares she could see her neighbor’s exhibit building to a catastrophic explosion, the streams of data flowing through her brain.

It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered anymore. But these poor humans didn’t have to know that, not yet. So she reached out, spread the mass of wires wide, and crawled inside. The flaw was deep, deep inside the nest of electrical wiring. The mass was too tight for her to get her hands up to the necessary junction in time, so she reached out and tore it out with her teeth. It exploded anyway, microscopic shards of metal flying straight into her eyes. She was ejected from the exhibit with considerable force, flying backward through the air.

But Twilight didn’t feel anything, for her overwhelmed nerves were no longer communicating with each other anymore.

And then, all of a sudden, she did feel. She felt her bare bottom and both hands and feet touching the floor, in the manner of a dog or other quadruped. But the sensations returned by the extremities were much fainter than she expected.

She looked around her. She was somewhere else, somewhere other than the auditorium of Crystal Prep.

She could see.

“Twilight Sparkle!” a voice cried out in alarm.

She looked up into the face…of a unicorn.

“Get out!” a male voice declared. “All unicorns need to leave the room immediately! Especially you, Princess.”

The white unicorn looked away. “Yes, yes, of course.”

“Do what the doctors tell you to do, Twilight!” a female voice called out from outside Twilight’s vision. “We’ll do everything we can for you.” The voice somewhat resembled her mother’s.

Another horsey face filled her vision. It had some kind of clay on its hoof, which it then applied to Twilight’s forehead. He then raised a hypodermic needle into view. This creature was much smaller than the first one, more like a pony than a horse.

Twilight was mesmerized. How was the pony holding the needle without dropping it? Then it injected her with something.

“That will cut off the pain receptors and put you to sleep,” the pony told her.

He looked like a doctor. He was probably a doctor.

Twilight turned her head. A bunch of pony unicorns of various colors—plus the one horse-sized unicorn, who happened to also be a Pegasus—were looking at her through a doorway. The doctor and a nurse pony were putting her into a stretcher.

Hey look! It’s a cute little lizard sucking on its tail!

Oh, and she was a pony too. Probably a unicorn.

Twilight Sparkle had dreamed of being a princess who played with unicorns when she was a child. Right before she had been shamed into giving up that sort of thing, she had even fantasized about being a unicorn. And after she had been shamed into giving up those fantasies, she had wondered what it might be like to dissect a unicorn—one who had died of natural causes—to see how their magic worked.

It was obvious to Twilight what was happening to her. She had just experienced a nervous breakdown. And while her broken brain rebuilt itself, this was a fantasy that her personality was being subjected to. Her body was probably in a coma right now.

And, considering some of the nightmares she had had about her inevitable first nervous breakdown…being a unicorn wasn’t bad. As long as they weren’t like…evil unicorns. She hoped that she hadn’t jinxed the fantasy by thinking that.

“Okay,” she said to the doctor pony who was shining a bright light into her completely unresponsive eyes. “What happens next?”

And then she passed out. Her only regret—besides having a nervous breakdown and becoming trapped in an inescapable fantasy—was that she couldn’t feel her horn.

If she could feel her horn, that would be a good first step to figuring out how to use it.

Author's Note

And here are the notes for this chapter.

Chapter 2: Breaking the Universe (P. Rainbow Dash, P. Fluttershy)

P. Rainbow Dash—Equestria, Junior Flight Camp. Late afternoon of Day One.

The completed test form hit Rainbow Dash’s desk with a “wham!”, propelled by the hoof of a stern Professor Flattery. It was a multiple-choice test, with only a few answers filled in, and all of them circled in red ink—the same ink used to put a large “F” at the top.

Rainbow Dash winced.

The professor sighed. “This is your fourth ‘F’, Rainbow Shy. Your fourth! Do you know what happens to you when you get five ‘F’s in Junior Flight Camp?”

“Expulsion,” Rainbow Dash said weakly, her eyes seeing only the grade on the paper.

“That is correct—you get expelled! What is wrong with you, Dash?! Everypony knows how good you are out in the field!”

Rainbow dared to look up. “So why isn’t that enough?”

“Because you cannot have practice without theory!” Flattery barked, stamping his hoof once more upon the paper-covered desk. “Do you think those Wonderbolts you adore so much even begin to practice for one of their routines before hours of preparation on paper to be sure it can work and that it will be safe?!” He emphasized those two words by two more stomps of his hoof, startling Rainbow. The professor turned to look out the window, watching as pegasi flew around each other in loops. “And I should know, as I helped them design a couple of them, back in the days when I was almost a Wonderbolt.”

Rainbow’s mouth went wide. “Wow, you were almost a Wonderbolt? Did you get to meet Wind Rider?”

“Focus, Dash!” Another stomp. “That is your problem, right there! You can’t focus on anything other than flying! This material is not that challenging! I have in all my years as a teacher never seen anypony so thoroughly waste such excellent potential.” He sighed in disappointment. “Now get out of my classroom.”

Rainbow Dash meekly tucked the test under her wing and made her way for the door.

“You’ve got a week, Ms. Dash,” Professor Flattery warned her. “A week until next Friday, until your last chance to show me, to show the world, that you have this one last piece necessary to be more than a weather lackey.”

“Yes sir,” Rainbow mumbled, her eyes on the cloud floor.

The professor turned away in disgust. “Just get out of here.”

#

Rainbow Dash emerged from the classroom into the light of day. The school day was now over, but she sure didn’t feel like celebrating. After depositing the test in a nearby trash receptacle, she looked slowly around her, taking in the elaborate setting of Junior Flight Camp as if she had already received that final “F”, and would never see this place again.

Her eyes settled on an odd little room, constructed of wood instead of cloud, and suspended in place by the use of magical charms embedded in each corner of the structure. An ambulance carriage was parked outside. Nodding to herself in determination, she flew over to the structure and knocked on its solitary door.

On the desk inside the room was a pile of blank checks with the flight camp’s logo on it, and next to that a canceled check. The unicorn at the desk was looking frequently at the canceled check as he copied its signature onto the blank checks.

At the sound of the knock, he quickly moved a pony racing form on top of his work.

“Come in,” a voice within the room answered, so Rainbow Dash opened the door and flew in.

Inside was a modest medical clinic, specialized to deal with the frequent injuries of rambunctious pegasi—splints and bandages were the most common supplies on display. As Rainbow Dash hovered in place, she took in a medical degree on the wall, as well as a modest bookcase containing not only pegasi medical texts, but also popular magic books on famous artifacts and unicorn wizards of the past, including a thick biography of Clover the Clever. Those particular books had all been written by the regular occupant of the room (and the owner of the degree), the unicorn Doctor Tarbell.

At the moment when Rainbow Dash had entered the room, the Doctor had been sitting behind his desk. He was absorbed by a pony racing form, carefully examining each name and choosing which ones to circle with a pencil held aloft in his magical field. It took a few seconds for him to notice the visitor. “Well, well, well!” he exclaimed. “If it isn’t my favorite and least-complaining patient, Rainbow Dash!”

In another couch on the opposite corner of the room sat Spitfire, the unicorn’s designated flier for today. She put down a magazine with Princess Celestia’s face on the cover and stood up. “Do you need me to step out, RD?” she asked.

Rainbow Dash shook her head.

And I’m sorry, but can we stop for a moment to notice how well Rainbow Dash was holding it together in the presence of the legendary Spitfire? That mare was only a few years older than R.D., and already she was a legend! Not only was she the obvious top-of-the-list to be the next Wonderbolt as soon as one of the current ones retired, but was there ever a race she didn’t win? Well, there was the Cloudsdale Circuit of two years ago, but everypony knows how she single-hoofedly rescued like, an entire five-story orphanage from a cloud rot chain reaction the night before. She could have sat out the race the next day, knowing that she wasn’t at her peak, but she entered it anyway! She even said before the race, “I might not win this time, but I want to send a message—I’m not a mare that gives up...for anything!” Wow!

So, anyway...Spitfire (!) was in the room. And then Dr. Tarbell had to drag everything down with the first words that came out of his mouth: “So, what have you broken this time?”

My head’s the only thing that’s broken right now, Doc, Rainbow thought to herself, suddenly reminded of her string of failures in the classroom. And not even you can fix it. “I’m not here for any medical stuff, Doc,” she said.

“Would you like to borrow one of my books?” Tarbell asked eagerly, turning around to gesture at his collection.

Spitfire smiled on seeing the grimace that Rainbow Dash made as Tarbell’s back was turned.

“Uh, no, Doc,” Rainbow Dash responded. “I just wanted to ask you something.”

“Oh,” Tarbell said, his spirits dropping—nopony ever wanted to read any of his books. “What do you want to know about?”

“Gilda said that you knew the horizontal flight speed record for pegasi. Do you know what it is?”

The doctor blinked for a moment as he took in how enthusiastic Rainbow Dash was for a simple number. “Sure. It’s 98 ponylengths-per-second at regulation cloud height, set by Fast Clip one hundred and eighteen years ago.” He looked over at his racing form. “Oh, wait! Fast Clip!” He circled the name. “I’m feeling good about this one!”

Rainbow Dash quietly waited for him to finish before jumping back into her pitch. “98, is that all?” she bragged. “I can beat that easily. The Wonderbolts will have to let me in after that.” She turned in place and prepared to fly out the door.

Dr. Tarbell sighed. “No you can’t,” he told Rainbow, causing her to stop in place.

“Huh?” Rainbow turned back to confront the unicorn. “You know I’m the fastest pegasus here!”

And Rainbow Dash wasn’t lying. She knew that she could go faster than any other pegasus alive, maybe even any pegasus ever. The reason why Spitfire won all the races was because she had incredible endurance.

Spitfire watched the conversation in silence. She didn’t seem to be offended by Rainbow’s claim.

“That doesn’t matter,” Tarbell said to Rainbow Dash as he sat back on his couch. He gestured for Rainbow to stand instead of hover, so she did. “At regulation height, 98 plps is the limit. There are no faster speeds.” He pronounced “plps” as “pulps”.

Spitfire rolled her eyes.

“What are you talking about?” Rainbow asked.

“100 plps is the speed of magic traveling through the material plane,” Tarbell explained patiently. “Sure, unicorns can bend space or route magic outside the material plane to give the appearance of faster speeds, but they can’t move faster than that. Nothing can. That’s why it’s an absolute limit.”

“What about the sonic magi-boom?” Spitfire asked with a snide grin.

Dr. Tarbell pointed angrily at Spitfire. “Don’t go confusing the filly with old mare’s tales,” he warned.

“What’s a sonic magi-boom?” Rainbow Dash asked eagerly.

Spitfire walked up to Rainbow Dash, her eyes alight. “A sonic magi-boom is a legendary act performed by pegasi in great need. It’s when you fly so fast you blast right through that magic barrier that the Doc was talking about, creating this huge spray of color and a big boom! And after that, there’s no limit to your speed. Also every pegasi ever will become your slave.”

“Woah!” Rainbow exclaimed, picturing what this sonic magi-boom might look like and completely ignoring the creepy last thing Spitfire said. “That would be awesome.”

Tarbell sighed, signaling for Spitfire to back off. “My enthusiastic friend here used the word ‘legendary’ in her description, because there has never been a documented instance of a pegasus or even Princess Celestia breaking the magi-sonic barrier. Ever. It’s just something that desperate pegasi authors sprinkle into their barely-reputable popular history texts whenever they’re desperate to prove their tribe’s superiority.”

“The reason why it hasn’t been documented is that it can only be seen by true believers,” Spitfire asserted, puffing her chest out with pegasus pride.

Dr. Tarbell shook his head at the obvious belief in pseudo-magic.

Rainbow on the other hoof puffed herself up in imitation of Spitfire. “I bet I could do it. In fact, I’m going to try it right now!” She moved to walk out of the office, only to be stopped by a fearful Dr. Tarbell.

“No, don’t!” he pleaded. “Look, Rainbow, there have been dozens of documented attempts by madponies trying to break the magi-sonic barrier, and the lucky ones merely stalled out and had to be rescued before they crashed into the ground. The unlucky ones crashed into the barrier itself. Those poor ponies spent the rest of their lives in the hospital.”

Seeing the look of shock on Rainbow’s face, Tarbell decided to refrain from spelling out what happened to the poor ponies who hit the barrier: ending up in a full body wing-and-hoof cast, drinking through a straw!

Spitfire darted her head around suddenly, as if the doctor’s thoughts were echoing around her head.

Dr. Tarbell still saw some doubt on her face, some lingering desire to try to break the record anyway. So with extreme reluctance, he decided to share his own theory, formed from years of studying magic. “But in the end,” he told Rainbow, “in the end, those ponies were lucky, and so were we. Because if any pony actually succeeded in creating a sonic magi-boom, it would fracture the delicate shell of magic which sustains everything. A sonic magi-boom…would break the universe.”

Rainbow Dash flew slowly out of the office without a word, her head down.

Spitfire waited until the door was closed to say anything. “Way to break her spirit, Doc.”

Tarbell took in a deep breath, and then let it out through his teeth. “Yeah, but as a doctor I felt I had no choice but to steer her away from a wreck not even she could bounce back from.” He looked at the closed door. “But I clearly didn’t do well by her mental health. Could you keep an eye on her for an hour or two? Make sure she’s alright?”

“Sure thing, Doc,” Spitfire said as she picked up a pair of goggles and walked out the door.

#

Rainbow flew out of Dr. Tarbell’s office with a veritable cloud over her head. Breaking that speed limit was her last shot of getting into the Wonderbolts without having to ace some stupid test. And now she finds out that nopony can do it? She sat down on an isolated cloud to sulk.

Unseen by a self-absorbed Rainbow, Spitfire found a higher cloud to sit on and observe her.

A few minutes later, Rainbow Dash’s attention was pulled towards the sight of three pegasi ganging up on Rainbow’s good friend Fluttershy. Roused to sudden indignation, Rainbow forgot all about the speed record and Tarbell’s warnings about the sonic magi-boom, and flew down to stand up for her friend. This confrontation led to a race, and the race led to the very thing Rainbow Dash had been warned never to attempt…

Rainbow Dash had won! She had beaten those bullies against all the odds! And now she was being bounced up and down by a crowd of her admirers!

“Rainbow Dash! Rainbow Dash!”

They were also shouting something about “the game” and “crystal prep”, but those made no sense to Rainbow Dash, so she tuned them out, basking in her victory over the laws of physics. She had broken that pesky barrier, she was certain of it. And with all of those pegasi watching the race, there was no way that this sonic magi-boom would be left out of the history books. In fact, since she was the one who did it, and since the magical explosion had her characteristic color to it, Rainbow Dash decided on the spot to re-name the phenomenon, to “sonic rainboom”.

Yeah, that sounded much cooler.

But…something felt wrong.

Rainbow was still being bounced and carried by her fans. But she saw now that she was much closer to the ground than she had ever been in her entire life. Instead of fluffy clouds, the surface below her was made of spiky little shards of green glass or something.

And what was that sound? Rainbow turned her head to see a dragon-sized gray brick on wheels rush by at incredible speed, chased by a weird blue creature with a silver mane. It was bipedal like a bird, but had spindly little arms instead of wings, and seemed to be dressed in a magician’s robe and hat. And it didn’t even have a tail? What was that thing?

The realization slowly creeped up Rainbow Dash’s spine, that the crowd bouncing her up and down and calling her name were not holding her aloft with their backs and wings, but with arms just like the creepy creature she saw. Because they all were creepy creatures instead of ponies. Creepy creatures without wings!

And Rainbow Dash was a creepy wingless creature too!

Rainbow Dash screamed.

P. Fluttershy—Earth, Crystal Prep Academy. Early afternoon of Day One.

Fluttershy wasn’t quite sure what had happened. One minute she was getting acquainted with the large variety of friendly animals that lived on the ground, and then with a blink of an eye her sky had been replaced with a hard gray barrier, and the grass with bare dirt. There were a new variety of small animals around her, all looking at her expectantly, including a cat with a bow tied around a topknot on his head and a bunny rabbit…well actually, the rabbit didn’t change. But the other animals were all different.

Fluttershy went to rise to her hooves, but that didn’t work out. It seemed that she was no longer a pony.

After some reflection, Fluttershy decided that she didn’t have a problem with this.

Ponies could be horrible to Fluttershy. And sometimes on her worst days, Fluttershy was horrified by the things she did as a pony without thinking. Ponies were cruel, in the worst sort of way. Ponies lied to each other, and they enjoyed the pain those lies caused in others. Fluttershy had always dreamed that animals only told the truth to one another, were honest even in the necessary moments of hurting each other, while ponies hurt each other for fun.

Fluttershy was no longer a pony? Well, good riddance! (Assuming that exclamation point wasn’t going too far. Can we change it to “good riddance…?” Yes, much better.)

As for how this happened? Well, that was easy. Unicorns lived on the ground. Not just the friendly and harmless unicorns like Dr. Tarbell, but also the really, really smart unicorns. And, as every pegasus knew, really, really smart unicorns were all crazy. It was their fundamental weakness. So some insane unicorn had seen Fluttershy on his or her property, and used his or her crazy unicorn magic to send her a few hundred ponylenths away. And turned her into…whatever this is. Because crazy unicorn.

This new form was bipedal. That was obvious. So Fluttershy rose to her feet…and bumped her head on the bottom of the solid barrier.

“Ow!” she exclaimed, cutely.

She saw an end to the barrier, and made her way towards it. She needed to get back to Junior Flight Camp, or else she’d be in trouble.

Not that she really minded being in trouble, so long as nopony got upset about it. But that was the thing—ponies would get upset. Ponies like her parents, who sent her here to improve her assertiveness. And her best friend Rainbow Dash, the pony who had gotten into that crazy race to stop those mean ponies from teasing her.

Fluttershy wondered who won. She wondered if she could even see the camp, or Cloudsdale.

When she emerged from under the barrier, she realized that it was a bleacher, and a few creatures similar to her current form were sitting on it. Most of the creatures were out on a field, tossing a blue creature up and down.

That creature was screaming in fear, in Rainbow Dash’s voice.

Fluttershy ran fearlessly up to the crowd, to help her friend in need. “Put her down!” she demanded. “Um, if you don’t mind, that is.” None of the creatures heard her. “Rainbow Dash! Rainbow Dash!” she cried out, in a meek voice.

“Fluttershy?” the blue creature replied. “Put me down! Um…please. Put me down.”

The crowd obeyed, and parted ways to allow this being to make her way to Fluttershy.

Fluttershy scrunched her eyebrows in thought. This creature was certainly colored similarly to Rainbow Dash, and the hair on her head closely resembled Rainbow Dash’s manestyle. So she must be Rainbow Dash.

“Is that you, Fluttershy?” the blue one asked.

Fluttershy nodded.

“What happened to you? To me? To everything?!” Rainbow demanded in short order.

“I think there was a unicorn—” Fluttershy began.

“Wait…oh no. Oh no!” Rainbow slapped her hands on Fluttershy’s shoulders. “My sonic rainboom! I did this, Fluttershy. I broke the universe!” She repositioned her new hands so she could melodramatically drop her head into them.

Fluttershy raised a single eyebrow. “I don’t think that’s what happened,” she declared bluntly.

As usual any time Fluttershy dared to show some aspect of her personality other than “terrified by everything”, she was ignored.

“I must have, like outlawed wings or something when I broke the magi-whatsits barrier!” Rainbow Dash declared, working herself up into a panic attack. “What am I gonna do without wings, Fluttershy?! They’re my best physical attribute!”

Fluttershy opened her mouth to try and calm her friend down, but was promptly shoved aside as two more bipeds rushed in to envelop Rainbow Dash in a hug. Fluttershy belatedly realized that Rainbow Dash responded better to hugs than logic when she got like this, so she stepped forward to hug Rainbow as well.

“My daughter, my dear daughter!” one of the bipeds exclaimed, as she wiped Rainbow’s tears away.

“What happened?” the other new biped asked, as he raised Rainbow’s head up.

“She had a panic attack, Bow,” the first biped explained. “But that’s alright. We love and support you anyway, and will do everything in our power to help you through this!”

“That’s right!” the second biped chimed in.

Fluttershy looked back and forth between the two newcomers, focusing on the shirt the male wore, which was adorned with an image of Rainbow Dash’s new alien face. Their voices were very familiar… “Mr. and Mrs. Dash?” she ventured.

Mrs. Dash turned her head to acknowledge Fluttershy’s existence. “Oh, Fluttershy!” she exclaimed. “I’m so glad you’re here for our little Dashie!”

“Mom, stop calling me Dashie in public!” Rainbow exclaimed. “Wait…Mom, Dad? What are you doing here?”

“Well we had to be here to watch our daughter’s big game!” Bow Hothoof exclaimed. “And what a game it was!”

“I’ve got the complete video of your winning kick,” Windy Whistles said, presenting a piece of black glass. “And I’m going to upload the whole thing to Mystable tonight!”

“Eh…what?” Rainbow Dash asked in utter confusion.

“I was going to take you both out to a victory dinner, on me,” Bow started to awkwardly explain, one hand rubbing at the back of his neck. “But it looks like crowds might not be a good idea for you right now. So what say I drop you off at your friend’s place to start your slumber party a little early?”

Before Rainbow Dash had a chance to respond, Bow was the victim of a severe elbow in the ribs, courtesy of Windy Whistles. “They don’t call them ‘slumber parties’ at their age, Bow,” she explained. “They’re ‘sleepover parties’.”

“Ah, right. Sleepover party.”

Rainbow looked back and forth between the two of them. “Ah…OK,” she said, slowly.

#

Before they knew it, Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash had been bundled into a strange covered horseless carriage, which then started moving by itself down a paved road, controlled somehow by Windy. After figuring out how the window worked, Rainbow stuck her head out into the wind. She caught some bugs in her teeth, but she didn’t mind.

“This is probably as close to flying as I’ll ever experience again,” she confided sadly to Fluttershy after pulling her head back in.

Fluttershy looked down at the cat from under the bleachers that had jumped into her lap at the last possible second when she had gotten into this “car” (as Windy called it), and said nothing.

During the drive, Bow had talked into his own piece of black glass, and the glass had talked back with the voices of Fluttershy’s parents. Those voices had demanded—in a very polite way—that Fluttershy talk to them, so Fluttershy communicated in single syllables with them. Because talking to a black piece of glass containing disembodied voices was creepy.

Finally they arrived before a delicate looking two-story ground house. Well, Fluttershy supposed that it looked like a cloud house if you squinted your eyes at it, so being on the ground made it a ground house. Being stuck on the ground meant that it looked far less hospitable than a Cloudsdale house.

Two of the creatures were waiting outside of the house. Fluttershy was willing to accept that they were her parents.

When the car stopped, Bow hopped right out and pulled Fluttershy’s parents aside for a private conversation. From his gestures, it seemed clear to Fluttershy that he was referring to Rainbow Dash’s “outburst” from earlier.

Rainbow Dash climbed out of the car with some difficulty, and was then kissed goodbye by her parents, and covered with a layer of “sleepover essentials” that had been stored in the car’s trunk compartment. Once Fluttershy herself had finally exited the car, Bow and Windy climbed back in, and drove away.

Fluttershy watched them leave with mounting puzzlement: None of these grown-ups seemed to have any problem with being in new bodies. “I don’t suppose you know what’s going on, Mr. Fluffy?” she asked the cat at her feet.

To her immense surprise, Mr. Fluffy had a very good idea what was going on.

#

Once they entered the house, Rainbow Dash perched herself on top of a chaise lounge. Fluttershy’s parents looked about to tell her not to do that, but stopped out of a mix of timidity and seeing how depressed Rainbow Dash was.

Fluttershy used the sight of Rainbow’s sadness to steel her nerves for what she had to do. As the two grown-ups moved to pass her and go into the kitchen, Fluttershy stepped to stop them.

“Mr. and Mrs. Shy, I have a confession to make.”

All eyes settled on Fluttershy. She closed her eyes and fought down the desperate urge to escape from this confrontation. “I am not your daughter.”

She opened her eyes to see them looking at her, their mouths agape. More importantly, Rainbow Dash was also looking at her. In her eyes was a desperate need for Fluttershy to provide an explanation that didn’t involve her breaking the universe.

And Fluttershy was going to deliver that explanation. “I’m a different Fluttershy, from very far away. I’m not even…” She looked down at Mr. Fluffy, who mewed faintly at her, gesturing at her with his paws to continue. “…Human. I’m not human.”

“What’s a human?” asked Rainbow Dash.

“This,” Fluttershy, gesturing first at herself, then at the two parents and at Rainbow Dash. “This species is known as ‘human’.”

The two adults huddled together. “Fluttershy dear, you’re scaring us,” Posey Shy said. “Did you get this out of one of your games?”

Fluttershy huffed. “No, this is real. There’s been some sort of magical accident, and we somehow changed places with the human Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash that you knew.”

“A magical accident that I caused,” Rainbow Dash said, climbing down from the chair to stand beside Fluttershy. “We just need a way to reverse it, and then you can have your Fluttershy back.” She pointed outside. “And they can have their Rainbow Dash back.”

Posey and her husband Cloud Cover turned to regard Rainbow Dash. “Is this your idea of a prank, Rainbow?” Cloud asked. “And you convinced our Fluttershy to play along? Because we don’t think it’s very funny.”

“No, it’s not a prank!” Rainbow insisted. “Doesn’t this sort of thing happen to you guys all the time? You know, so you would have an easy fix all ready and waiting?”

The pair of parents shook their heads. “I’m sorry,” said Posey, and unlike the vast majority of times when somepony says “I’m sorry,” she really sounded like she meant it. “But I don’t know what kind of game you want us to play.”

“It’s not a—!” Rainbow Dash stopped herself before she could lose her temper. “Look, what do we have to do to prove that we’re telling the truth?”

Mr. Fluffy gave Fluttershy some encouraging gestures.

“Can your Fluttershy talk to animals?” she asked with a surprising degree of force.

Mr. and Mrs. Shy looked at her and blinked. “Y…you always talk to animals, dear,” Posey said.

“But can she understand what they say back to her?” Fluttershy asked.

“Well you…I mean she…pretends to,” Cloud answered. “And she’s very good at guessing what they are trying to say, because she understands them so well.”

“You lost your house key,” Fluttershy told him.

“Yes?” He pulled out his keychain. “I got another copy from your…I mean her mother.”

“Mr. Fluffy knows where that key is,” Fluttershy declared. “Mr. Fluffy, could you show us where it is?”

Mr. Fluffy nodded in an exaggerated manner, to make it clear that he was indeed responding directly to Fluttershy’s prompt. He then walked into the living room, followed slowly by Cloud and the other humans. On reaching the far corner, he used his claws to peel back a loose corner of carpet, revealing the missing key.

Cloud bent down and retrieved the key. “I…did you train Mr. Fluffy?”

“Dear, I don’t think you can train a cat,” Posey said, quite uncertain.

“This doesn’t make any sense,” Cloud said, sinking into the recliner.

Fluttershy frowned, then strode over to a nearby window and opened it, looking out at a tree and the mockingbirds which were raucously saying their farewells to the setting sun. “Hello little passerines!” Fluttershy greeted them brightly. The birds stopped singing, and one of them squawked out a rather complex chirp.

The three other humans gathered behind Fluttershy, to see what would happen.

“Yes, I suppose you’re right, humans are very silly,” Fluttershy said, apparently in response to the mockingbird’s chirp. “How would you like to show off how clever you are?”

The birds conversed among themselves.

“The birds are conversing among themselves!” Posey declared.

The flock gathered themselves into a choir, complete with conductor. And then they started beatboxing.

Rainbow Dash laughed out loud.

“Is that the Fresh Prince of Bel Air?” asked Cloud.

“Yes, I do think it is,” Posey replied.

Fluttershy turned around, a rare look of triumph on her face.

“Alright, we believe you,” said Posey.

“Awesome!” exclaimed Rainbow Dash.

“But we have no idea how to fix things,” added Cloud.

“Bogus!” exclaimed Rainbow Dash.

P. Rainbow Dash & P. Fluttershy.

Plans were discussed over dinner. A vegetarian dinner, because with the exception of Zephyr Breeze, all of the members of Fluttershy’s human family were vegetarians. (Zephyr was currently at a slumber party himself—apparently the human Rainbow Dash made it a habit never to stay the night at Fluttershy’s place if her brother was going to be present.)

The primary plan was to appeal to the dean of the school that both human Rainbow Dash and human Fluttershy attended. “Crystal Prep Academy” was the name of that school, and Cadance was the name of the dean. Someone named “Principal Cinch” was absolutely not going to be consulted, because Principal Cinch was terrifying beyond all human reason. It was considered unlikely that this Cadance human would know how to fix the magical mishap herself, but as a dean she would be the most likely to know how to find someone that could help.

At first, Mr. and Mrs. Shy thought that the call to Dean Cadance should be put off until tomorrow morning. To allow the dean to get in her beauty sleep. Or because it could wait. Or basically to avoid any kind of confrontation whatsoever.

Rainbow Dash had to put her hoof down. Foot. Whatever.

So finally Posey “dialed the phone number”, which was the non-magical, technological way of putting your voice into Dean Cadance’s black piece of glass. Only she didn’t answer it. Instead, there was some sort of automated answering service.

Posey hung up.

Posey and Cloud Cover then spent fifteen minutes coming up with the message they wanted to leave, carefully designed to cause as little fuss as possible.

In other words, they were exactly like Fluttershy’s parents back home. In a way this was extremely comforting to Fluttershy. In another adjacent way it was quite frustrating.

Finally, the message was left, and there was no longer anything to do until tomorrow. So the actual slumber party began. It was spent in Fluttershy’s room, as the pair of them tried to come to terms with what had happened to them.

“Fluttershy, have you always been able to talk to animals?” Rainbow Dash asked, somewhat hurt at the possibility that her best friend was keeping a secret from her.

“No, I think I got it with my cutie mark,” Fluttershy replied.

“You got your mark? Congratulations! What does it look like?”

“I don’t know,” Fluttershy said. “I looked myself over when I took that shower, and it’s not on me anywhere. But I know for certain that I got it this afternoon when I met the animals in the forest. Or maybe when I talked to Mr. Fluffy earlier.”

Rainbow Dash nodded. “And I’m pretty sure I got mine with my sonic rainboom. I’m sorry you got caught up in it.”

“Don’t be!” Fluttershy assured her. “We’re on a great adventure, like we always dreamed about.”

“Like I always dreamed about,” Rainbow clarified. “You never were the adventure type.”

“I guess not,” Fluttershy admitted with a gentle laugh. “But we’re on one now anyway. And really, as adventures go, this one is not bad. We’ve got loving parents here, just like our own parents. And nopony hates us.”

Rainbow Dash winced inwardly. The tone of that last sentence said far too much of the pain that Fluttershy went through on a daily basis. “Yeah,” she said. A second later a new thought entered her head. “Hey, do you have any idea why this only happened to you and me? I saw two humans that must have been Hoops and Dumb-bell in the crowd at that soccer game, and neither one of them acted like ponies suddenly dumped into human bodies.”

“Well, maybe it’s because we’re friends!” Fluttershy said brightly.

“You might be right,” Rainbow said with a nod. “But if that’s the case, where’s Gilda?”

Fluttershy looked away, not daring to express her suspicions regarding Rainbow Dash’s other “best friend”.

Chapter 3A: Main Character, Part 1 (H. Rainbow Dash)

Author's Note

Here’s where I begin covering the necessary bits of backstory from my earlier Equestrian Business fanfic. Only the stuff you absolutely need to know.

In the Equestria Girls world, there is a religion called “Markism”. Its primary ceremony, which involves hay smoke and a magical plate, creates a brief subconscious link between human and pony counterparts, leading the human to learn their cutie mark, or just “mark” as they call it, which is then imprinted on the plate. None but the upper echelons of the church know what is actually happening in this ceremony—most believe that the mark just “comes to them” courtesy of their unnamed Goddess. Another church secret: on rare occasions, the ceremony goes wrong, and the human winds up taking over the pony. After a number of these occasions, Princess Celestia has come up with a spell allowing her to detect any time this happens, so she can quickly reverse the possession and institute damage control, even as the Markist Church priests have to do the same thing on their end. What’s happening in this story is not the same thing—but it sure looks like it.

Chapter 3A: Main Character, Part 1 (H. Rainbow Dash)

H. Rainbow Dash—Earth, Canterlot City. Late afternoon of Day One.

The last Wednesday in September has been the date of Canterlot High School’s Freshman Fair for more than a decade. It had become quite popular in recent years. Therefore it should be no surprise that Principal Cinch of Crystal Prep Academy had devised a rival event for the very same day: the Crystal Prep Open House.

The purpose of the Open House was for parents to see what their kids were up to—and how all the thousands of dollars paid to the school were being spent. The Junior Science Fair was the most-strongly promoted beforehand, as this was a primarily academic school, but nevertheless, the big draw was always the Junior Varsity soccer match, between the Crystal Prep Shadowbolts and the Griffonstone Raptors.

There were five seconds left, with the game still scoreless. Shadowbolt Rainbow Dash had the ball, dodging easily around the much bigger athletes from Griffonstone High. Waiting between her and the goal was the only player that Rainbow thought had a chance of stopping her, her former friend Gilda. Just as Rainbow was the lone freshman among the Shadowbolts who outshone the sophomore players, so Gilda dominated the Raptors, and everybody knew it.

Gilda came charging towards Rainbow, the steel of her cleats and the red of her eyes both catching the early afternoon sun. With a grim smile, Rainbow kept running right for her. At the critical moment, Gilda’s spiked foot shot out, not to take the ball, but to put Rainbow in the hospital. Rainbow looked straight at her, seeing exactly what she expected to see: a face full of fury. And then Rainbow effortlessly bent the ball around Gilda and straight into the goal, while spinning herself out of Gilda’s reach.

The buzzer sounded. The Shadowbolts had won.

For one brief moment, the two opposing players stood, isolated from the rest of the universe. Rainbow turned and looked impassively up at Gilda, waiting for a reaction. Would she declare her unending hate for Rainbow? Would she spit in her face? Or would she smile, say “Good move” in that gruff voice of hers, and reach out a hand to resume their friendship? Rainbow really hoped for the last one.

When Gilda did nothing but stare coldly at her, Rainbow decided that the first move was up to her. “Gilda—” she started.

Gilda turned and stomped away, making sure to do as much damage to the turf with her cleats as possible with every step.

Before Rainbow Dash had a chance to do anything else, she was picked up by some of her fellow players and carried aloft. They were soon joined by a sizable contingent of the home team spectators, crying out her name and that of the school.

This moment was everything that Rainbow Dash ever wanted, her long-awaited vindication over the many students who had mocked her in the halls for having merely an average grade point average and I.Q. instead of the superior scores that they all boasted. Vindication over her fellow players, who had mocked her for her height, who had assured her again and again that her shorter leg length made her useless at soccer. Her decision to come here instead of Canterlot High, to a place known for its competitiveness, where she would have to work harder than she ever had before to shine as opposed to winning everything by default, had finally paid off.

Thanks to her adrenaline rush, Rainbow’s world was in slow motion. Despite being bounced up and down by her new group of fans, she was still able to take in her surroundings, to see the defeated Raptors walking into their bus for the long ride home; Gilda not even looking back at her once. She looked around for Fluttershy, and saw her duck under the bleachers after giving Rainbow Dash a look. Not more than a second later, three bullies rounded a corner, looking around them and miming how they would beat their intended victim senseless. Rainbow Dash had seen them teasing Fluttershy during the entire half-time break, so she knew that Fluttershy was their intended target.

Rainbow’s mind displayed a still image of Fluttershy’s farewell glance, so it had time to burn into her skull. It was a look of fear, of despair. But most of all, it was a look of disappointment. Disappointment that Rainbow Dash had dragged her here instead of to the more welcoming environment of Canterlot High School. Rainbow had seen Fluttershy being tormented during the break, and had done nothing, because leaving the detailed strategy session during the break to help her best friend would have gotten her suspended from the team. Crystal Prep was very competitive, and that extended to the coaches using their big brains to try and think their way to victory.

Rainbow Dash looked around her once more in her slow-motion world. She saw how few people actually made up the crowd that were holding her aloft: the freshman players in her team, some of their parents and the younger siblings of the players, and that one orange kid from Mustangia Junior High who was way too obsessed with every one of her stats. The rest held themselves aloof. Crystal Prep had won the game, but that didn’t matter to them, because the only highlight of the game was not performed by any of them. There was no team spirit at Crystal Prep. At Crystal Prep, only individual accomplishment mattered, because only individual accomplishment would propel you to a prestigious college and a lucrative carrier of exploiting poor people like Rainbow Dash’s parents. They were disappointed that she had chosen Crystal Prep over their own alma mater, Canterlot High, she was sure of it, although of course they would never say such a thing out loud. And now she was expected to go over to that TV crew over there and regurgitate the speech that Principal Cinch had fed her, about how sports at Crystal Prep prepared students like herself for a career as a future CEO, CFO or CIO of a Fortune 500 company.

Rainbow Dash, at her moment of greatest triumph, suddenly felt the sweet taste of victory turn to ashes in her mouth as she turned from the impatient face of Principal Cinch to peer into the inky darkness under the bleachers, where the shuddering shadow of Fluttershy hid with no one but her animals to comfort her, and at that moment she made up her mind:

First thing Monday morning, she and Fluttershy were going to transfer to—

Rainbow Dash was falling to her death.

There was absolutely no transition. She went from being lightly tossed into the air, to being tens of thousands of feet in the air, with nothing to stand on. Like Wile E. Coyote in the Road Runner cartoons, Rainbow had been suspended for a moment of utter disbelief, and then she started to fall.

Rainbow flailed her limbs uselessly. She looked around, and saw only clouds right above her head, and a pleasant looking field far below, with absolutely nothing she could grab on to. She absolutely was not wearing a parachute.

As she tumbled, screaming her lungs out, something feathery kept hitting her in the head and against her torso. She soon realized that they were wings. Having no time to question where they had come from, Rainbow shook her shoulder blades around, feeling them flop from side to side.

Now Rainbow Dash had always dreamed about flying, and she had exhausted a lot of her parents’ meager earnings for chances to experience flying, in single-engine planes, gliding and parachuting—all with proper supervision, of course. As a result, she knew how to maneuver her body to stop it tumbling, and this freed her to try to position her useless wings to slow her fall. Over time, they became not so useless—she could feel how they were being pulled and twisted, making her aware of new muscles that she could flex. Soon she could control her wings, but it didn’t do her any good: these wings were too small to possibly support her weight. If she had had the time, Rainbow would have cursed the Goddess for putting her in such an absurd and useless situation. As the ground came rushing towards her, faster and faster, she closed her eyes.

And then she was suddenly and violently caught around her arms and legs. Her momentum stopped, and then she was gently lowered to the ground.

Rainbow Dash lay there, face down, panting. She opened her eyes, to look upon a meadow of wild flowers. It really was a pleasant looking field.

She turned her head to look over her shoulder. There were indeed a pair of wings growing out of her back. But that was not all: She was naked, and furred.

“Are you alright, Rainbow Dash?” a raspy voice asked. “Did you break any bones?”

Rainbow rose to a sitting position. She caught a couple of impossibilities in the corners of her eyes, but she chose to ignore them for now, in favor of a self-examination. Her rainbow hair hung down over one eye, and her new fur was the color of her old skin. Oh, and she had hooves now.

“I have hooves?” she asked incredulously.

“Yup, four of them,” a very familiar voice pleasantly quipped. It was a tone of voice that Rainbow had wanted to hear for a very long time.

“Gilda?” Rainbow asked with a broad grin. She looked over at the source of the voice and froze in shock. Thanks to recently reading some Harry Potter—nowhere near as good as Daring Do—she actually knew what she was looking at. “You’re a griffon?”

Gilda looked over at the other figure. “I know we caught her in time, but do you think that the sudden stop scrambled her brains?” she asked.

“Nah, she’s probably in shock. Should be fine in an hour or two.”

Rainbow looked at the other figure. She was a pegasus, with yellow fur and a fiery mane, but a really cute, tiny pegasus. Which, come to think of it, was exactly what Rainbow herself was now. “Who are you?” she asked.

“Spitfire,” the pegasus said patiently.

“Really?!”

“The one and only. And you’re Rainbow Dash.”

“I know that!” Rainbow exclaimed. She tried to stand upright, but that wasn’t working out, so she resorted to standing on her hooves like Spitfire was.

“Do you think you can fly up to camp?” Spitfire asked, pointing up at the clouds.

Rainbow looked at the “impossibilities”, and was astonished to see that some of the clouds had been carved into the shapes of buildings and fields. It actually was a camp…in the sky. She looked back at her wings and moved them. She still didn’t have complete control over them. She experimentally flapped them, as hard as she could, but failed to move upward. “Ah…these things don’t work,” she said sheepishly.

“Great,” said Spitfire with a roll of her eyes. “Wait here.” She then took off and flew towards a group of trees.

Rainbow Dash watched her in wonder. Her knowledge of aerodynamics told her that those wings absolutely shouldn’t work, but yet they did.

Gilda interrupted her thoughts by clearing her throat. “So, that explosion thing just now—was that you?”

“Huh?” asked Rainbow Dash. She certainly didn’t remember an explosion tied to the start of…whatever in Tartarus this was.

“Yeah, I didn’t get a good look at it, but it was loud and I got a glimpse of something rainbow-colored, so I figured it was more of your weird pony magic.”

“Pony. Magic,” Rainbow repeated. The first was admittedly a valid label for what she was. As for magic…she was a frickin’ pegasus right now, so sure. Magic. Whatever.

“Oh, and you got your cutie mark,” Gilda added in an affected voice of boredom, pointing at Rainbow’s ass.

Rainbow looked, and was startled for a moment that she could in fact look at her own rear end using only her head and neck, before realizing that ponies had long necks. There did indeed appear to be a symbol there, one on each side, depicting a rainbow-colored lightning bolt emerging from a cloud. “Oh.” She shrugged, before looking back at Gilda.

Gilda raised an eyebrow. “Wow, I thought cutie marks were a big deal among ponies. Isn’t it, like, realizing your special purpose in life or something?”

Rainbow’s eyes went wide. “Wait, so it’s like my mark?” She took another good look at it, and imagined it on a marking plate. “Awesome!” And then, a couple of seconds later: “Any idea what it means?”

Gilda rolled her eyes. “It means that you’re meant to do awesome things, obviously. I mean, that’s one of the most radical butt tattoos I’ve ever seen.”

Rainbow Dash, suddenly feeling awkward, moved a forehoof around in the dirt a bit. “So, Gilda…you’re taking this pretty well.”

“Taking what pretty well?”

“Turning into a griffon.”

Gilda got to exercise her eyebrow-raising muscle again. “I’ve always been a griffon, dweeb.”

“And we’re friends, right?” Rainbow asked cautiously.

Gilda made a raspberry, although Rainbow wasn’t able to figure out how she did that with a beak. “Of course we’re friends, Dashie.”

“Mom, stop calling me Dashie in public!” Rainbow blurted instinctually.

There was a moment of silence before both of them burst out laughing.

That was the moment when Spitfire flew back, carrying a yellow pegasus with long pink hair in her forearms.

The newcomer, upon being lowered to the ground, looked at them incredulously. “Rainbow Dash? And Gilda?”

Rainbow was amazed to recognize the voice. “Fluttershy?”

The two of them rushed into a hug. “I thought I’d never see you again!” they exclaimed in unison.

“Oh hey, you got your cutie mark, too,” Spitfire observed, pointing at Fluttershy’s rear.

Rainbow looked over at Fluttershy, seeing a trio of pink butterflies. “You got your mark? That’s awesome!” she exclaimed.

“Yours looks good, too,” Fluttershy replied. “It’s very…you.”

“I bet yours means you’re good with animals,” said Rainbow Dash. “That’s been obvious for years.”

Gilda opened her beak to observe that she had not once observed Fluttershy interacting with a single bird back at the camp, but decided in the end to say nothing.

“Alright, you two stay here, OK?” Spitfire told the pair. “I need to go up and get Doc and the ambulance so he can take a look at both of you.” She turned to Gilda. “Could you stay here and make sure neither of them wanders off?”

“Why would they wander off?” Gilda asked. “Oh, because of the shock. Right.” She looked over at Fluttershy. “I assume that means that you fell and hit your head, too?”

Fluttershy nodded. “I also can’t fly.”

“Fluttershy, flying was never your strong suit,” Gilda said with a sort of gentle sarcasm.

The trio watched as Spitfire took off again, this time flying up towards the sky camp.

Rainbow Dash turned to Fluttershy. “OK, first question: am I talking to a pegasus, or a human?”

“I’m a human,” Fluttershy said slowly. “Or at least, I was until a few minutes ago.”

“Good,” said Rainbow Dash. “I just wanted to be sure.”

Gilda sat down and watched the conversation. She was completely used to being tuned out by Rainbow Dash the moment Fluttershy showed up. It was one of the reasons why she had stayed out of Rainbow’s sight the past few days. But this…this was weird. There was something…off about Rainbow Dash, something the griffon couldn’t put a claw on. It wasn’t the gibberish she was spouting, but something in the pony’s attitude that seemed off. The gibberish meant nothing, both because of the “shock” and because ponies regularly spouted gibberish at each other, in Gilda’s opinion. Especially when the subject of their cutie marks came up.

“Hmm…I don’t know,” Fluttershy said, probably in response to something Rainbow had asked that Gilda had missed. “Some kind of freak cosmic accident. Another part of a meaningless universe.”

Rainbow frowned. “Now don’t be like that, Flutters. I’m sure that there’s a reason, and once I figure it out I can get us both back to normal.”

“A reason revolving around you, right?” Fluttershy asked, with far more cynicism that Gilda had yet observed in a non-griffon.

“Well…yeah! Narratively, at least. Of course now that I think about it, it’s obvious that this is all Twilight Sparkle’s fault.”

“Oooh,” Fluttershy said in sudden realization. “Yeah, it was probably her.”

“The team had a betting pool on how long it would take the girl genius to destroy part of the school. Too bad I didn’t put anything down on the ‘send the two of us to another universe and turn us into ponies’ pool, or I’d be stinking rich now.” She put on her “thinking” pose, at least as well as she could as a quadruped. “Now, if I was the main character in a fantasy/sci-fi novel that started like this, what would the plot be?”

Gilda had to stop herself from laughing out loud at how ridiculous this all was. She looked around, and then up. “Uh, gals,” she said. “We’ve got company.”

Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy looked to see several pegasi landing around them. “Rainbow Dash!” exclaimed an off-white female pony with green and magenta striped hair. “That stunt at the end of the race was amazing! What do you call it?”

A tan pony with brown hair landed right next to Rainbow and poked her in the chest. “You cheated, Rainbow Dash!” he proclaimed. “That was supposed to be a flying race, not a rocket race!”

A dark brown colt with gray hair landed on Rainbow’s other side. “Yeah,” he chimed in, “it’s not a rocket race!” He looked Rainbow over. “Where did you hide that rocket, anyway?”

A Persian blue filly with a pink bow in her opal-colored hair pulled the tan pony out of Rainbow’s personal space. “Hey, she won that race fair and square, we all saw it!”

“Yeah, and she did a sonic magi-boom!” a filly with darker Persian blue fur than the other pony exclaimed. She had an upswept hairstyle, colored cerulean with white highlights. “We all have to be your slaves now!”

The others all chose to ignore that last remark, because it was creepy.

“There is no such thing as a sonic magi-boom,” proclaimed a pony unicorn as he exited the “ambulance”, a covered wagon harnessed to Spitfire. The unicorn was significantly taller than anybody else. “Now could you all please go back to your rooms while I look at my patients?”

The other ponies made way for the doctor. A few of them took off to return to camp, but most of them stayed to see what would happen.

The unicorn sighed as he removed some instruments from a saddlebag, including a reflector that sat on his head and very clearly identified him as a doctor. He quickly conducted an examination of both Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy. “Did you see this alleged magi-boom, Spitfire?” he asked at one point.

“Ah…no,” she admitted. “Like I told you, I followed Fluttershy after I saw her fall at the beginning of the…ah, when she fell. If there was a magi-boom, I must have missed it.”

Most of the pegasi sighed in relief. The penalties for putting on an unauthorized race were quite severe.

“You missed the magi-boom? Or did you not believe strongly enough?” the doctor asked mischievously.

Spitfire decided to ignore the question. “By the way,” she asked Fluttershy. “How did you survive that fall? I was too high up to see it clearly, and it didn’t look like you used your wings.”

“I fell?” Fluttershy asked. “I don’t remember that—maybe I blacked out.”

“Or maybe it was before we showed up,” Rainbow Dash speculated. “Like this rain-boom thing.”

“Hey, that’s a cool name,” Gilda said. “You should call it a rainboom instead of a magi-boom.”

“The sonic rainboom,” Spitfire said, trying out the phrase. “I like it!”

“Well, talk of magical impossibilities aside,” Dr. Tarbell said to his two patients, “you seem fine, physically. Congratulations on the cutie marks, by the way. As for mentally, the memory loss is troublesome…” He turned to Rainbow Dash. “Who’s the Princess of Equestria?”

“The Princess of what now?” Rainbow asked.

The doctor sighed. “Oh dear,” he said, “short and long term.” He quickly put his instruments away and looked at Fluttershy.

“I don’t know who this princess person is, either,” she admitted.

The teasing tan colt from earlier sidled up next to Fluttershy. “By the way, Clutzershy, what happened to you during the race? Rainbow Dash was only doing it for you, after all. Did you get so scared of all the excitement that you dropped through the clouds like a rock, you fake pegasus? You dirt pony!”

“Yeah!” exclaimed the brown colt. “You dir—”

He was silenced by Dr. Tarbell’s hoof. “I won’t have you uttering racial slurs in my presence,” he scolded the two colts.

Rainbow Dash had been coldly watching the exchange. In particular, she noted that the doctor had no objection to the “fake pegasus” slur, only the “dirt pony” one. And he had not demanded that the bullies apologize.

Fluttershy stood there impassively, refusing to give the pair the satisfaction of a response.

“Rainbow Dash?”

Rainbow focused on the doctor. “Yes?” she asked laconically.

“Is it true that you can’t fly?”

Rainbow tried again to use her wings to get off the ground, and failed. She noticed that the doctor didn’t bother asking Fluttershy about her own flying ability.

“I’m going to take you both to my clinic in Rockville for a more thorough examination,” the doctor said. He turned to Spitfire and said, “Now that I’m on the ground, you have no obligation to help, but I have no idea how serious this is. Could you take us to my clinic?”

“Sure, Doc,” Spitfire said, gesturing to show that she had never taken off the harness that connected her to the ambulance.

The unicorn helped Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy into the ambulance. “You all can go now,” he said, to the griffon and several pegasi who were still standing there. When they did nothing he stepped into the front section of the vehicle.

Spitfire took off and headed towards the nearest town, followed by the others. Gilda in particular flew right up to the back door of the ambulance.

Soon, the door opened, and Gilda and the two pegasi started talking. The conversation lasted all the way until the cart finally landed outside the clinic.

#

“You have no magic,” Doctor Tarbell said incredulously, after checking the instrument multiple times.

There was a collective gasp from the group of pegasi watching through the open window.

“So I assume that’s a bad thing?” Rainbow Dash asked, trying to get a good look at the magimeter before the doctor put it away.

“It’s a fairly common problem among unicorns, particularly those prone to surges. But it never happens to pegasi or earth ponies.”

“You know why that happened, don’t you?” asked Cloud Chaser, the pony who had brought up the magi-boom earlier. “It’s because she used it all up in the sonic rainboom! That proves that we’re telling the truth!”

This statement caused a lot of excited chatter among the pegasi, with only Hoops and Dumb-bell refusing to accept this—they were the two ponies who had apparently raced Rainbow Dash right before the current Rainbow Dash arrived on the scene, and neither of them had seen or heard the explosion.

“Can it be?” the doctor asked himself incredulously. “I can’t think of any way to drain a pegasus of magic that doesn’t involve unicorn magic.” He dug another instrument out of a drawer, and waved that over Rainbow Dash. “And there isn’t a trace of that on you. So…it must have been a magi-boom.” He sat down hard on the ground as he thought things over.

“Did you hear that, Rainbow Dash?” exclaimed Flitter. “You’re going down in history!”

“Yeah, just like you bragged at the start of the race!” added Blossomforth.

“Rainbow Dash! Rainbow Dash!” the pegasi outside started chanting.

Rainbow looked helplessly over at Fluttershy, who shrugged her wings. Rainbow wondered if she had had a chance to figure out how to use hers to become airborne.

“Quiet! Quiet!” the doctor said, standing back up. “You’re lucky I was able to observe your low magic level before it started to naturally replenish itself. Otherwise, things probably would have gotten ugly.”

“Yeah,” chipped in Gilda. “Rainbow here would have insisted that the rainboom was real and then tried to tell the press, which considering her shaky status at the school almost certainly would have gotten her expelled.” She turned to Rainbow Dash. “Or maybe you’d drop out first, to save your pride. I can absolutely see you doing that.”

For Rainbow Dash, the most concerning part of Gilda’s statement was the part about her poor school performance—it brought back bad memories.

“I need to get you to Canterlot,” Dr. Tarbell continued, “the unicorn doctors there know how to recharge a pony’s magic. And then you can demonstrate your fabulous new trick before the Princess herself! We’ll even call it a ‘rainboom’ for the added publicity value. Yes! And I’ll write a book about it and finally become famous!”

“Uh…demonstrate…?” Rainbow Dash said with sudden fear.

“Before the Princess?” Fluttershy added, equally afraid.

“Fillies! There’s nothing to be afraid of,” Dr. Tarbell assured them. “Canterlot has assembled all of the brightest unicorn minds in the land!” He didn’t seem to notice that this statement in no way addressed either of the fillies’ fears. Even Gilda had had a reaction: ever since the word “Canterlot” had been spoken, she had gotten very, very still.

“You mean the greatest mad scientists!” taunted Hoops.

“Hey, maybe pony Twilight Sparkle is in this Canterlot place!” exclaimed Rainbow Dash. “She ought to be able to get us back into our proper bodies!”

Spitfire, who had been busy reading her magazine in the corner, suddenly put it down to give the pair a very suspicious glare. She then walked over to another window, the one facing Canterlot, and sat herself down to stare out of it, almost as if she expected to see somepony coming from that direction.

“Well, maybe I don’t want to leave Equestria for Earth,” mumbled Fluttershy.

“Rainbow Dash,” the doctor said, gathering his things, “we’ll need to contact the school to get a leave of absence, and then we’ll swing by your parents’ place to get their permission and a nice dress for you to pose in front of the cameras.”

“Ugh!” Rainbow replied with a choking sound. “I’m pretty sure that no universe’s version of me has a dress worthy of a history book.”

“I do hope that mental problem clears up soon,” Dr. Tarbell said to himself.

“And what about Fluttershy?” Rainbow demanded. “She has to ask her parents too, right?”

“What does Fluttershy have to do with this?” Tarbell asked.

“She doesn’t have magic either!”

Tarbell sighed and got out the magimeter for a quick scan of Fluttershy. “Rainbow Dash, you know that Fluttershy has never had a detectable amount of magic, at least with this primitive equipment. While you on the other hoof have usually boasted levels not seen in most unicorns.”

Rainbow took a moment to think of a reason that worked with what she had observed about this world so far. “Well, if she gets a magic recharge, maybe she’ll finally be able to fly.”

“You mean she’ll finally become an actual pegasus?” Hoops taunted.

This earned a raucous laugh from Dumb-bell. “Ha! Good one!” he shouted.

Tarbell sighed as he looked back and forth between the pair. “Well, alright, if her parents give their permission, sign a written leave of absence slip, and pay her way,” he said finally. “I can pay for you, Rainbow, but that’s it. I’m not made of bits.”

“I’m coming too,” Gilda declared after what appeared to be a momentous decision. “And I can pay my own way, Dr. Tarbell.”

“Really?” asked Spitfire. “Don’t you have to get permission from your…Grandpa Gruff, I think it was?”

“Goddess above, you’re stuck with a Grandpa Gruff too?” Rainbow asked Gilda in exasperation.

“No, because griffons don’t really have an ‘age of consent’,” Gilda explained to Spitfire. “If a griffon can do something, then there’s no law to stop them from doing it.” Under her breath she added, “no laws at all, if you get down to it.”

Tarbell reluctantly agreed. “Due to the informal agreement between your guardian on behalf of the non-existent Griffon Kingdom and the school, you can go wherever you’d like, whenever you’d like. But if you cause any trouble, you’re out. Get it?”

“Got it,” Gilda said simply.

The unicorn turned to the crowded window. “And as for the rest of you, you really need to get back to the camp. They’re probably serving dinner right now without you.” That got some of them to scatter.

“You’ll make another rainboom in Canterlot, I know it!” Cloud Chaser declared. “We all believe in you!”

The remaining group—minus the two bullies—chanted “Rainbow Dash” as they flew up out of sight.

“Come on, Spitfire,” Dr. Tarbell said as he gathered some belongings. “I need you to take us up to the camp HQ. I should be able to arrange a cab after that. Gilda, could you help me load up some things?”

Gilda nodded mutely.

“Sure thing, Doc,” Spitfire said tensely. She waited until the doctor and the griffon were busy outside packing the ambulance before advancing on the two pegasi. “Now listen here, you two,” she said menacingly. “You’re not fooling anypony, and the Princess is not going to let you get away with this. I wish I could go with you to see the look on your faces when you’re finally caught out, but I’ve got an audition planned for tomorrow. And don’t even think of trying to get out of going to Canterlot—the Princess has a spell to track you human freaks down!”

Rainbow Dash’s eyes went wide. “You know about humans?”

“Why shouldn’t I?” Spitfire said proudly. “I had one of those monsters possess me right after I got my cutie mark. The Princess herself cured me, and told me all about what the fake me was doing while I was out. And that’s what’s going to happen to you.”

“Why haven’t you told anybody?” Fluttershy asked.

Spitfire frowned. “Because the Princess swore me to secrecy. But I know for a fact that she has an alarm that goes off any time a pony is possessed by a human, so you ought to know that you’re already marked for a swift return back to your messed-up planet.”

Rainbow Dash looked to Fluttershy in elation. Fluttershy looked to Rainbow Dash in desperation.

“That’s great!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed, not really noticing Fluttershy’s reaction, despite looking right at her.

(She gets that a lot.)

“What is?” asked Gilda, as she and Tarbell returned to the room to get a second load.

Spitfire gave the two other pegasi a warning look of doom.

“Going to Canterlot,” Rainbow said after a pause. “I’ve heard it’s a great place.”

“Yeah. Sure,” mumbled Gilda.

#

Maud Pie watched as the ambulance took off, heading back to the pegasus sky camp. She had noticed the large number of pegasi watching whatever had been going on, and who had left chanting the name “Rainbow Dash”.

“Huh,” she said out loud. “I wonder what that was about.”

Chapter 3B: Main Character, Part 2 (H. Rainbow Dash, H. Fluttershy)

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter 4: Lucid Dreaming (P. Rarity)

P. Rarity—Earth, Canterlot City. Late afternoon of Day One.

Rarity was dreaming. Or, to be more precise, she was still dreaming.

At least, that was what she believed.

The dream had started in the “Inspiration Room” she had set up in her house, after she had given up on fashion. After all, that part about being dragged half-way across Equestria by her horn had to be a dream, right?

The big frustrating rock was a symbol of how she would never be an earth pony. And the sky explosion was a symbol of how she would never be a pegasus.

Never mind the fact that Rarity did not in the slightest need a lesson telling her she would be happier as a unicorn.

She was now lying on the ground. Not dirt like before, but a regular floor, inside a building. A building with a register, and lots of really-fancy clothes on racks. And a single dress draped on the table above her. A fashion store?

Oh, and she was now lucid dreaming, since she was aware of the dream. (She got this information from a non-fiction book about dreams, proof positive that she did in fact read something other than romance novels and fashion magazines.)

But more important than the lucid dream stuff…a fashion store?!

“Rarity!” a raised voice cried out in frustration.

Rarity supposed that it had probably been calling out to her throughout her recent reverie.

“Yes?” she said sweetly.

There was an alien looming above her, holding out a limb. “Would you like to get up any time soon?” she asked in a faux-helpful tone.

Rarity didn’t question the alien part. She was in a dream, after all. And…fashion store! “Sure,” she said finally, extending her own limb for grabbing.

…It matched the alien’s in shape.

So Rarity was an alien now in the dream.

That was fine. One of Rarity’s favorite romance novels, The Princess and the Dragon, was about a lowly tinker pony who had fallen victim to an ancient curse that had permanently transformed her into a giant, ferocious-looking dragon. In the end, the transformed dragon had won the respect of ponykind, while saving Princess Celestia from the evil marriage plans of the Prince of Tartarus! (And then the dragon and Princess Celestia had fallen in love at first sight and gotten married, because the author had remembered at the last minute that she had sold a romance novel to her publisher, not a fantasy adventure.) Anyway, the point is, Rarity was emotionally prepared to be transformed into a hideous beast at least once in her life. Not only because of the book, but because she lived in Ponyville, which was halfway between Canterlot—where the crazy unicorns lived beside the beautifully-fashionable ones—and the Everfree Forest—inhabited by magical monstrosities that were probably created by the crazy Canterlot unicorns of previous generations.

Has this discussion gotten off tangent? Dreadfully sorry about that. Now, where were we? Oh yes, Rarity was being helped to her…alien limbs.

The alien pulled Rarity up. And up. And up. Until she was teetering on her hind hooves. Limbs. What have you. But standing like that was apparently natural for aliens.

Now, that wasn’t precisely fair, calling this creature an “alien”. Perhaps she lived in a corner of Rarity’s world far from Canterlot and Ponyville. Rarity after all didn’t spend that much time studying strange creatures in her spare time, unlike some strange unicorns she could mention.

“Rarity!”

“Hm?”

“Let’s go to the back room,” the alien (?) told her, grabbing a limb and gently dragging her to the back of the store. They walked through a door marked “Employees Only”—one of two doors with that designation that Rarity could see—and through another door into a storage room, full of racks of more clothing. Rarity was seated in a folding chair adapted to these creatures’ forms. The alien then walked over to a tan rectangular object topped by a transparent blue cylinder partially filled with water. She did something obscured by her body and—

Glug, glug, glug!

—Turned back around bearing a small paper cup filled with water. Rarity tried and failed to pick up the cup with her magic.

…So this was a dream about not being a unicorn?

After waiting in vain for Rarity to take the cup out of her hands, she instead put it down on top of a foldable table. “Just stay there as long as you need,” she said, and walked out.

Rarity sat in the chair, and tried to figure out what this inscrutable dream was trying to tell her to do. Before she had gotten far in her deductions, the alien returned to the room, with the dress that Rarity had noticed being separated from the others earlier. The alien hung the dress on a hanger right next to Rarity. “There,” the alien said. “This should raise your spirits: your first masterpiece. And hopefully the first of many, Rarity.” The alien then left. Through the thin walls of the room, Rarity could hear her returning to the main store area.

Rarity leaned over to study the dress that she had apparently created, running the fabric over the end of her…limb. If she was a griffon, it would be a claw, but this wasn’t really a claw, so she still didn’t know what to call it. She liked the color choices. The fabric choice seemed off, until she spent a moment examining the parts of her alien body not covered with clothes and realizing that for skin instead of fur, this dress was a good choice.

A few seconds later, the sound of somepony walking through a door and setting off the bell could be heard outside the back room.

“Welcome to Prim Hemline’s Fashions!” the voice of the alien greeted the visitor. “How can I help to make your dreams come true?”

After some more thought, Rarity concluded that she was in some sort of mirror world, one with at least herself and the famous fashionista Prim Hemline in it. The alien did have the same colors as Ms. Hemline, and around her neck was hung a large metal charm in the shape of Prim Hemline’s cutie mark. And she most certainly had Prim’s distinctive voice. One could even call it “the voice of Manehattan”.

When Rarity had been planning out her future life at the tender age of nine, she had seen one of two paths before her on her journey to become a top fashion designer: the highly-competitive world of Canterlot, or Manehattan, where Prim Hemline dominated the industry. Canterlot was the more-respected market, but Manehattan was easier to enter. The problem was that fashionistas in each market despised the members of the other market, so whatever choice she made, she would have to stick with it. Rarity had eventually settled for the path of Canterlot.

But this mirror Rarity was already working for this world’s Prim Hemline, so she must have picked the other path. Being a mirror Rarity, this only made sense. Rarity was going to fit in in this dream, because fighting the rock dream was what had gotten her here in the first place, and seeing a possible future for herself looked much more fun than going back to the stupid rock. Now what had been the steps in her Manehattan plan…?

After completing a quick sale, the alien Prim Hemline returned to the back room. “Are you feeling any better, Rarity?”

“I couldn’t be better, Ms. Hemline!” Rarity exclaimed in a strong approximation of Prim’s accent, rising to her hooves (limbs).

Prim pushed her back down into her seat. “No,” she said firmly. “Don’t do that.”

“Do what?” Rarity said, raising an eyebrow just like Prim always did.

“That,” Prim said flatly, pointing at the errant eyebrow. “I saw when I hired you that you understood the need to stand out in the industry with a personal identity. But you’re not allowed to take mine. Stick with the mid-Atlantic accent used by Crystal Prep—it’s much better than your parents’.”

“Oh,” said Rarity, dropping back into the accent she had come to consider her own. “You’ve met them.”

Prim raised her eyebrow, in her signature way. “I had to in order to hire you. Because you’re underage. Remember?”

Rarity laughed awkwardly.

“Would you like to go home for the rest of the day?” Prim asked, sympathetically. “I understand that something upset you at school today. And it doesn’t take much intelligence to figure out that you must have snuck into the shop every night for weeks to put that dress together. So I understand why you might need a break. Congratulations on the dress again, by the way.”

Rarity looked over at the dress she didn’t remember making. “Think nothing of it,” she said.

Rarity took a moment to think. This dream was already going on for an awfully long time, so it was sure to end any minute now. And here she was, living her life of apprenticing to a famous fashionista, and to have already created her first masterpiece! She wanted to see what else this fantasy had to offer. “Could I go out on the floor?” she asked. “Take a look around? I’m looking for inspiration.”

Prim smiled, slightly. “Very well,” she said. “But stay out of the way of the customers.”

Rarity nodded.

#

A few minutes of careful examination, especially of labels, finally informed Rarity that the new limb things were called “hands” and “feet”.

On the walls were photographs of models wearing Ms. Hemline’s designs. A sign proclaimed “Fine Fashion for Men and Women!” The aliens had two genders, but Rarity wasn’t sure which one was the “men” and which one was the “women”. There were all styles of clothing on the racks, along with shoes and accessories. And plenty of mirrors for Rarity to compare her current form with these others.

And then it hit her: you weren’t supposed to be able to read in dreams. The book she had read had been quite emphatic about that. She looked back up at the sign.

Prim heard a sharp intake of breath, and turned to see Rarity looking up at a sign as if it was proclaiming the imminent end of the world. Wearily, Prim walked over, stood beside her frozen assistant, and scanned the sign. With a sigh, she got out a cloth and sprayer, and removed the spitball that somebody had managed to attach to the sign when nobody was looking. “Really, Rarity,” she said with a sigh, “the drama is getting to be a bit much.”

“I am in a mirror world,” Rarity whispered to herself. A moment later, as she reviewed the experiences that she now knew for a fact were real, she found a culprit for her current predicament: “Stupid rock!”

Just then, the door chime rang. Prim pushed Rarity down by her shoulders, forcing her to sit on a small stool. “Stay there!” she hissed in frustration, before turning and utterly transforming her expression. “Welcome to Prim Hemline’s Fashions! How can I help to make your dreams come true?”

“Yeah, I’m looking for some pants,” a bored voice answered. It sounded very familiar.

Rarity poked her head up to look at the creature who had just entered, and quickly concluded that this was the mirror version of her friend Berry Punch, from school. But the Berry Punch she knew was Rarity’s own age, while this one appeared to be a young adult. For that matter, how old was Mirror Rarity? Old enough to be apprenticed, but young enough to need her parents’ permission. So…thirteen?

Rarity sat back down as she realized she had a more important thing to think about than her age: She had no idea how to get home. She supposed she would have to wander this strange world at random until she found another boulder, and then beg it to send her home. Of course, she thought dourly to herself, the first one I find will probably be just a rock, and there will be plenty of witnesses present to make me feel as foalish as possible. That is the way these stories go, after all.

Gradually, she picked up on the growing disagreement between Prim and Berry. Or rather, Berry spent the entire visit complaining about the lack of selection and familiar brands, and Prim had to slowly and methodically introduce to Berry the concept of a “fashion boutique” as a thing separate from a “clothing store”, and that in fact the high prices and unique styles were not just there to “rip her off.”

Berry ended up leaving in a huff.

Rarity by this time had recovered her composure. Despite the different shapes of the inhabitants, it seemed they were similar to ponies in their basic character. And if every individual she encountered was a variant of a pony she knew, then that would make her stay here much easier. There was even a small chance that the versions of her parents might be in town…and useful.

The next customer was Cheerilee, also a friend of Rarity’s, and like herself and Berry Punch, students under the teacher Play Write. Also like Mirror Berry Punch, Mirror Cheerilee was an adult, in fact a librarian and teacher’s assistant, if the gossip she shared with Prim was any indication. This Cheerilee was in fact a former customer of Prim’s, and had shown up asking if a torn blouse could be repaired that day, because Cheerilee had nothing else worth wearing to a theater performance the following night. Prim had graciously agreed to perform the repair for free, which meant that Rarity was put in charge of the floor, to Prim’s extreme reluctance.

But by now Rarity was confident that she knew how to handle herself. She had even more or less figured out how her hands worked by “handling” the clothing she had examined.

A woman walked through the doors.

“Welcome to Prim Hemline’s Fashions!” she greeted the potential customer, her head bowed in deference. “I am her assistant, Rarity. How can I help to make your dreams come true?” She looked up, and instantly recognized who it was: her teacher, Play Write. But this Play Write was ancient, her face covered with wrinkles. She supported herself unsteadily on a cane.

“I hope you can,” Play Write said in a thin voice. “I’m looking for a nice dress to wear. For my upcoming family reunion. Is…is something the matter, Miss?”

Rarity managed to tear her eyes away with some effort. “It’s just…you remind me of someone I know.”

“Oh, well whoever you’re thinking of I’m not her, Miss…Rarity, was it?”

“Yes, Mrs. Write.”

“Miss Rarity. I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen you before. Wait, did I tell you my name already? My memories are just slipping these days!”

The two of them shared an uncomfortable laugh and stood there for what seemed like minutes. And then Rarity caught herself and led Mrs. Write to some dresses that looked like they would complement the teacher’s colors. She picked out a few candidates in the size which Play Write had told her.

Play Write held one of the dresses in front of herself while looking in a full-length mirror, adjusting both her distance from the mirror and the distance of her glasses from her eyes until it all came into focus. “Hmm…this one looks good,” she observed. “Do you think you can bring up the hem a bit? My husband tells me I still have the prettiest ankles in town!”

Rarity nervously kneeled down with a package of pins that she put down beside her—it would be a Celestia-blessed miracle if she managed to do this operation without pricking her poor teacher dozens of times. She picked up the hem and lifted it the width of her hand.

“A little higher.”

Rarity did so.

“There. Don’t you think that looks lovely?”

Rarity turned her head to look in the mirror. And had a revelation:

The dress hem…it’s horizontal. Such a design would be ridiculous for a pony, as it would make her look like a giant bell. But for these creatures, that design just makes sense. A pony dress’ hems are always either vertical or at an angle to the vertical, the exact angle dependent on how much rear leg to show and whether the cutie mark will be exposed or if it will be covered and the mark’s design incorporated into the dress. To adjust a “men and women” dress, you just lift it, instead of tilt it.

This means that there is an entire language of clothing design for these creatures independent of the time-honored pony rules! And why shouldn’t the same apply to my world? To griffons? Maybe even to dragons? And beyond that…there was a story in the paper just last week, about a royal guard who had lost half of a leg in a horrible accident out west. The leg couldn’t be regrown, and so was replaced by a beautiful brass clockwork leg, a leg that looked nothing like a flesh pony leg, but still looked right. A suit for that pony shouldn’t cover the artificial leg, it should be asymmetrical, in order to glorify it! And so should every dress! Every suit! Each tailored not just to match and flaunt, but to enhance, to bring beauty into the mind! Into the heart! The dress as the instrument of triumphant self-expression for the masses! When I get back, I won’t just open “Rarity for You”, I will open “Rarity for Everycreature!”

All of this rushed through the mind of Rarity in less than a second, in barely enough time for her to secure the lifted hem with a pin. And at the end of that moment the room exploded with light. The light did not overtake her and drag her to another world, like the light from the “dumb rock”.

No, this light came from her.

“We’re under attack!” cried Play Write, crouching down and trying to hide under the dress.

“What just happened?” Prim exclaimed, rushing over to join her disaster-prone assistant. Cheerilee was beside her, holding a bag that contained her repaired dress.

“I…got my cutie mark,” Rarity declared. The feeling of mixed exhilaration and inner peace she was feeling—she must have gotten her cutie mark. She had no idea where under her clothes that mark had appeared, but she’d save that examination for whenever she was able to find some time alone with a mirror.

“What was that?” Play Write said from the ground, cupping one ear. “You got your mark? Congratulations. Now hold on a moment while I get my hearing aid recalibrated.” She stuck a finger in her ear and started twisting it back and forth.

“You’re not supposed to get your mark outside of the Ceremony,” Prim said incredulously.

“Well I’ll just see my way out,” Cheerilee said, seeing that everybody else was occupied. “I’ll see you Friday at school!” she said over her shoulder to Rarity as she left.

Rarity helped Play Write to her feet. “Shall we continue?” she asked, eagerly. She had just received confirmation that her passion was also her destiny, and that the fashions of this alien world were key to that destiny. That strange rock bringing her here was an act that was meant to be, and therefore her return was also something that was preordained, or else the trip would have been worthless. And since that return was now guaranteed, Rarity wanted to learn, through experiencing, as much of this strange fashion as possible, to take back to Equestria with her.

Prim opened her mouth to admonish Rarity, especially considering her ignorance of poor Mrs. White’s disheveled appearance. But at that exact moment the front doors loudly slammed open with a puff of smoke.

“Behold it is I, the Great and Powerful Trixie! Here to realize her destiny upon the floors of fashion! Give unto her your awe, then despair!” The girl in the sweat-soaked magician’s cape and hat completed this declaration by raising her arm dramatically into the air, and freezing to receive the expected cheers. The mascara and makeup on her face had been streaked with perspiration.

Three pairs of eyes looked upon Trixie in utter shock and silence.

Trixie’s frozen eyes darted around, settling on her upraised hand. The offending hand was slowly lowered, and then Trixie herself darted out of the store with a loud “eep!”

Prim Hemline immediately darted after her out into the street.

Rarity frowned, and looked over to Play Write for answers. Finally seeing how stressed she was, Rarity instead led the elderly woman to sit on the stool. She reached out towards one of Play Write’s hands and, after receiving non-verbal permission, picked it up and stroked it gently to calm her down. “I’m sorry about this,” she said. “I’m pretty sure things don’t get this crazy most of the time.”

Mrs. White took a few minutes to completely catch her breath. “That’s alright,” she said finally. “Why don’t you show me those other dresses you picked out?”

Prim Hemline came back into the store just then, her arm around the shoulders of Trixie, who had taken off her robe and hat, revealing a white tee-shirt and red shorts. Her makeup had been removed. In her hand was a small container, which as Rarity watched she put a cap on and put it in a large purse she carried. It made a rattling sound on entry.

On re-entering the store, Trixie made an announcement, standing in the same spot as before. “Trix—” She caught herself with a grimace. “I’m sorry you all had to see that,” she said sorrowfully. “I got a little overexcited. You see, I got my mark today.” She held aloft a small ceramic plate, dyed the color of her skin, with the design of a wand circled by a swirl of magic around it.

Prim and Mrs. White applauded, followed shortly by a confused Rarity.

“We’ll get to you in just a minute,” Prim told Trixie, before walking over to stand over Rarity.

#

Quickly the pair of Prim and Rarity helped Mrs. White to select her dress, take her measurements, and notate the modifications she desired. She then made a down payment and left.

As Trixie was busy with some sort of small hand-held device, Prim felt she had the time to prepare Rarity for their next customer. “How much do you know about Trixie?” she asked.

“What do I need to know?” Rarity asked, slightly nervous.

Prim sighed. “Well the main thing is that you’re going to have to ignore little outbursts like you just witnessed. Her mother came to this town as a drug addict five years ago, when Trixie was ten years old. Her brain chemistry had been altered in the womb by what her mother was taking, and she had been constantly dosed on sedatives to keep her from screaming all the time. Both of them had to be completely detoxed when they arrived in Canterlot. The Apples, bless their souls, took the girl in and sponsored the mother through therapy. Under their guidance, Cat turned her life around—she eventually became a legal assistant—and Trixie got onto a regimen of drugs to keep her moods and personality under control.”

“Are you done?” Trixie asked quietly. She was standing right behind them.

Both Prim and Rarity screamed.

Trixie put her hands behind her back and smiled wanly at them.

“What exactly can we do for you, Trixie?” Prim asked.

“I’d like a new dress,” Trixie told them. “With an applique with my mark. Around here.” She motioned to a space next to her lower leg. She held out the plate showing her cutie mark.

Prim Hemline took the plate, and gave it to Rarity. “I trust you can program the machine, Size 4?” she asked, fully prepared for a negative reply.

“I…I can try,” Rarity said, delicately taking the plate and walking over to the large machine she had noticed during her earlier inspection tour. After looking the thing over, she put the plate inside a ring sized for it. The machine appeared to be designed to be used by customers, with a rope and sign added later designating the device for the use of “employees only”. Rarity just assumed it was a magical artifact, and followed the printed steps in order, her only significant input being the size figure given her by Prim Hemline. After pressing the large green “Start” button, focused lights washed over the plate, finding and then outlining each of the shapes on it. Trays and bobbins shifted around on their own, until the right ones for the design were present, and then they started putting together the requested applique, and finally cutting it free.

While this was happening, Prim had been helping Trixie to select a plain dress, dark blue in color. Rarity’s attention had been pulled during the later steps of the applique process, as she wondered how much trouble it might be to order one of these devices for her own eventual shop.

“Funny thing,” Trixie said right behind Rarity, causing her to jump in fright.

“W…what is?” Rarity asked.

“I saw you at the Freshman Fair a couple of hours ago, talking to Applejack. And from her gestures, it’s obvious that she was telling you then exactly what Ms. Hemline had to tell you just now. So how did you forget about me so quickly?”

“Ahhh…” Rarity stalled. Getting caught by the men and women as a pony in disguise wouldn’t make her inevitable rescue by the magic rock any easier.

“No, don’t bother to tell me, I already figured it out,” Trixie announced, leaving Rarity trembling with fear. “You didn’t hear a word Applejack said, because you fell in love with her at first sight!”

“Ah—what?”

“Oh yeah, you fell hard,” Trixie said with a laugh. “Well, I don’t mind—that wasn’t exactly me at my best. …Or that entrance earlier. But now I got this!” She plucked the applique out of Rarity’s hands and walked over towards the sewing table, where Prim was waiting to complete the dress.

Chapter 5: The Alien (P. Rarity, H. Rarity)

Author's Note

I suppose I should warn you that this chapter gets serious in the middle. Like, punch-you-in-the-gut serious. So brace yourself when a certain truck shows up.

Chapter 5: The Alien (P. Rarity, H. Rarity)

After Trixie had walked out with her purchase, Prim decided to close the store a few minutes early.

“You’ve got a way home, right?” Ms. Hemline asked her.

“Yes,” Rarity replied with false confidence. She knew that she had pushed her employer in this world way too much over the course of the afternoon, and she feared what might happen to her career if she accidentally pushed her too far.

After Prim had locked up the store, she walked over to a covered carriage. Rarity positioned herself so she could watch Prim remove a straight key from her purse, similar to but not the same as the jagged key used to lock the building, and used that to unlock the vehicle. She had then sat herself down inside the carriage, closed the door, and used the same key to activate the artifact, for that was surely what this vehicle was—it moved all by itself! Prim had then directed the carriage to drive away, onto the street.

Rarity immediately began to regret the decision not to ask for help in getting home. There were men and women everywhere, many of them in carriages, and none of them looked like they would be helpful. She saw a bench, with a covered enclosure. She quickly walked over to it and sat down to collect herself.

After a few minutes of not getting anywhere mentally, she remembered her purse, and began to dig through it. She found a wallet containing a large number of flat cards, like business cards but bigger and made of a smooth, stiff substance she had never encountered before. One of the cards was a “Canterlot Metro Bus Pass” and as she craned her too-short neck around to check, this very bench was designated a “bus stop”. Rarity had a vague recollection of the term “bus” being used by Doctor Hooves, to refer to some kind of thingamajig to move electricity back and forth. So either buses zapped you from one place to another via teleportation, or else it was just a bigger carriage for moving lots of men and women around.

Rarity wiggled her toes around in her shoes. Men and women had squishy feet, and shoes could only do so much to compensate for the flaws of the individual hoof (or foot). Therefore, men and women were less likely to just walk to get where they wanted to go. Also, this explained why shoes were so much bigger in this world. The boots, for example, reached way higher on the leg than the vast majority of pony boots.

Another card was a student identification card, which told Rarity that she attended “Canterlot High School”.

Equestria had general schools for fillies and colts, and professional schools for mares and stallions. Rarity didn’t know what a “high” school was for. What she knew was that she, Trixie and Mirror Applejack attended that school, and Mirror Cheerilee was part of the staff at either that school or some other one.

“Whoa!” a men-or-women said, interrupting Rarity’s thoughts. “I like the way you sit! You do you!” The alien was a female, of an aqua green color scheme that Rarity didn’t recognize. She held her hand out, fingers curled in, thumb up.

Rarity mirrored the gesture, a weak grin on her face.

The stranger walked away.

Rarity cautiously looked around her for other aliens sitting. She found a few children sitting on the edge of the street. All of them were sitting upright, their backs nearly vertical, an angle that ponies could not comfortably sustain. Rarity experimentally got out of her pony posture and matched what they were doing, and felt an immense relief in her back.

Resuming her purse examination, Rarity found a number of “credit cards”, identical to ones she had seen Mrs. White and Trixie use to buy their purchases. Another card had her name, a painting of her face, and what must have been her address on it. This discovery made Rarity a lot more confident that she could get to her home on this world.

Trixie sat down on a neighboring bench, a bag of candy in her hand. She looked over at a schedule on the wall of the enclosure, then started eating some peanut butter brittle.

Just then a tinny sort of music started coming out of Rarity’s purse, which was also faintly vibrating. She dug through her purse until she had removed the small flat rectangular object that was making the noise. It looked similar to Trixie’s toy from earlier. The device instructed her on how to “answer the call”. Once she had done so she heard a familiar voice come out of it. “Rarity? It’s your mother.”

Rarity was startled, but not too startled—unicorns had devised all sorts of strange ways to communicate with each other. Holding the rectangle before her in both hands she said “Yes I hear you, Mother.” It had been in what was perhaps too loud a voice, judging from Trixie’s reaction.

“Just wanted to let you know that your father and I have checked into our rooms at Puerto Vallarta. How was your first day at work?” The name “Puerto Vallarta”, which Rarity didn’t recognize, was pronounced in a distinct accent—Rarity wasn’t the only member of her family good at putting on an accent.

The conclusion was obvious: Mirror Rarity’s parents had abandoned her to go to some foreign tourist resort—just like her own parents.

“It was good, Mother,” Rarity said, a bit stiffly. “I got my cutie mark.”

“Your mark?! How wonderful! Hondo! Rarity got her mark today!”

Another voice intruded into the conversation: “Your mark? Is it a football? Is it three footballs? Is my wonderful daughter finally going to embrace her future in sport?!”

“It’s not a football!” Rarity exclaimed, her Canterlot accent intensifying by force of will. What even is a football? Rarity thought. Is it a ball in the shape of a foot?

“So what is it?” asked Rarity’s mother.

“I’ll…I’ll let you know when you get back,” Rarity deflected. “Now then: where is Sweetie Belle? Am I going to have to take care of her?” Rarity considered the chances of her parents’ taking the foal with them on vacation to be approximately 0%, regardless of universe.

“Didn’t she tell you? She’s staying the night at her friend Apple Bloom’s house.”

Either her parents were even more incompetent than usual, or the mirror versions of both Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom were older than the ones in Equestria, old enough to pull off a sleepover.

Rarity sighed—there really wasn’t anything she would be able to make her parents do by this point. “Alright,” she said. “So I guess I’m on my own.”

“That’s my big girl!” exclaimed Rarity’s father. “Now have fun! We’ll see you in two weeks.”

“Two weeks! What am I…” She stopped on seeing a message on the communication device, telling her that the call had ended.

Rarity looked over at Trixie, who hadn’t been hiding the fact that she had listened in on the entire call. “Where did you get that plate of yours, anyway?” she asked.

This was perhaps the wrong question to ask, as Trixie backed away from her. “The…Church?” she responded.

A long rectangular carriage pulled up in front of them. A door opened, and a few men and women walked out. Trixie seemed not to have noticed.

“The ‘church’?” Rarity asked, batting her eyelashes innocently. “Which one?”

This was an even worse question, judging by Trixie’s reaction. “The Markist Church,” Trixie said flatly.

“Oh. Of course, the Markist Church!” Rarity said quickly, trying to recover from her mistake. “I must have forgotten.”

“Yeah, you do that a lot,” Trixie said, going on the offensive and leaning towards Rarity. “Like calling your mark a cutie mark. Do you know who else uses that term?”

“Is that your ‘bus’ leaving?” Rarity said, pointing at the departing vehicle.

Trixie jerked her head to the side, to see that the bus was indeed leaving. “Not again!” she exclaimed, jumping to her feet and racing after it. “This isn’t over, Rarity!” she cried over her shoulder before jumping up on a sideboard and pounding the door with her fists until the bus finally stopped and let her in.

#

Rarity wasn’t entirely sure how the ‘bus’ schedule worked, as ponies didn’t appear to express times the same way as men-and-women. (Actually they did; they just punctuated it differently.) But she figured she had a while to wait, so she decided to find whatever game Trixie had accessed on her communication device.

What she found, and was immediately obsessed by, was the other Rarity’s digital photo collection. Not only did she find pictures of herself and many of her friends’ counterparts in this world, but also fantastic examples of men-and-women’s fashion to examine. She was also able to confirm two things. First that her sister Sweetie was indeed old enough to spend the night over at Applejack’s sister’s house without Rarity being morally obligated to spend the night with her. And second, that the other Rarity was indeed probably obsessed by Applejack, to judge by the sheer volume of photos of her from just today. (She thought it was today. Again, men-and-women had a different system for time and dates than ponies.)

Looking around her, Rarity spotted a store with a comically-large camera in front. She got up and strode into that store with determination, declaring her intention to get a copy of her photo collection into a physical photo album. If at all possible, she needed to take these photographs home with her, and taking a mysterious artifact with her—and away from her counterpart—didn’t seem like a very good idea.

The clerk was insistent that he only transferred photos from a “USB stick”. Rarity had no idea what that was, but from the atrociousness of the name she was certain that it had been named by its nerdy inventor, instead of by a certified marketing analyst.

Rarity, even at the tender age of ten, knew what charm was, and how to use it to get what she wanted. However, she wasn’t sure if those same techniques would work in this older body. And she really didn’t want to use some of the things she had seen mares do to get what they wanted from stubborn stallions. So she settled on just a lip wibble.

That apparently was enough. The clerk produced his “laptop”, connected a cable to Rarity’s device and with her direction transferred a good deal of the photo collection. This was then further transferred into one of the “sticks”, and that was finally transferred to a machine rather closely resembling the applique machine.

A half hour later, Rarity had used a credit card to buy the resulting photo album and had returned to the bench.

She was going to look through the album when she heard the sound of laughter from across the street.

She looked to see another pair of benches and enclosure to match the one she was sitting in. There were two individuals sitting on the benches. One was the laughing male, who resembled one of Dr. Hooves’s friends, but quite younger. The other was a pink female with a puffy magenta mane, sitting pony style.

Intrigued, Rarity got up, looked both ways, and jaywalked across the street just as a bus pulled up.

“Thank you, Pinkie, I really needed that,” the male said. He got up and boarded the bus.

“Is this your bus?” Rarity asked the individual named Pinkie.

Pinkie shrugged. “Is that what they’re called?” she asked. “I have no idea.”

“Are you getting on?” the bus driver asked.

“No, thank you,” Rarity answered. She waited until the bus left and the two of them were alone. “Are you a pony?” she asked.

Pinkie raised herself up on her hands. “Are you?” she asked.

Rarity nodded.

Pinkie jumped up and hugged her. “Thank Celestia!” she cried. “Pinkie had no idea how to get us home!”

Rarity gently disengaged Pinkie, then directed them to sit down on the benches, human style. “Aren’t you Pinkie?” she asked.

Pinkie metaphorically brushed off the question with a hand. “Well, yeah. Now I’m Pinkie. So what happened to you?”

“I kicked a rather large boulder,” Rarity said, choosing to ignore for now Pinkie’s odd statement about her identity. “And then there was a rainbow explosion in the sky.”

“Yeah, I saw the explosion too,” Pinkie said. “It had an insane amount of magic in it. That was what got us here.”

“Not the boulder?”

“Was it glowing?” Pinkie asked. “Yellow or orange?”

Rarity thought back. “No. It was just an ordinary boulder…that cracked open to reveal lots of gems.”

“A geode,” Pinkie said, nodding. “But not magic.”

“Well that’s too bad,” said Rarity. “A magical boulder you might hope to find anywhere. I have no idea where magical sky explosions come from. Were you a pegasus?”

“I wish!” Pinkie exclaimed. “No, I was an earth pony filly. Rock farmer.”

“Unicorn fashion designer...future fashion designer. Also a filly,” said Rarity. “I was pretty far from home when it happened. Desolate area, with lots of rocks.”

“Sounds like my corner of Equestria,” said Pinkie. “I wonder if anypony else was caught in it?”

Rarity shrugged. “We’ll just have to keep our eyes open.”

“What do you plan to do now?” Pinkie asked.

“No idea,” Rarity admitted. “My men-and-women counterpart’s family are out of town.”

Pinkie Pie put her hands over her mouth to try and hold in a guffaw.

“What?” Rarity asked.

“‘Men-and-women’?”

Rarity blushed. “I can’t just come right out and ask one of them what their species is.”

“Human,” Pinkie helpfully supplied.

“Oh,” said Rarity. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Now my counterpart’s family, if they’re anything like my family back home, would be really helpful right now, but I have no way to reach them.”

“Hold on,” Rarity said, removing her communication device—

“Phone,” Pinkie Pie supplied.

“Thank you,” Rarity said, removing her— “Hold on now, did you just read my mind?”

“Of course not,” Pinkie replied mysteriously. “Earth ponies can’t read minds. And neither can humans. It was just a lucky guess.”

Rarity gave Pinkie the stink eye for a second, before returning to her…phone. She opened up the Address Book application, and started looking through it. “I saw some pictures earlier of some human who looked a lot like you…ah, here we go. ‘Pinkamena Diane Pie’.” She looked over at Pinkie.

Pinkie pouted. “That was my old name.”

“How old?” Rarity asked, poking the image on the contact card to bring up the photograph information. She took a moment to get a good look at the individual in the picture, and shuddered. Pinkamena Diane Pie looked like a walking corpse, a vast contrast with the vivacious alien before her. “This was from today…I think,” she told Pinkie. “And what happened to your mane?”

“That was the old me,” Pinkie said in a quiet voice. “She died two hours ago. We—I’m Pinkie now.”

Rarity quietly decided that this Pinkie Pie was not entirely stable. This was backed up by the note that the other Rarity had added to Pinkamena’s contact card: “Get help ASAP!” Pinkie not only spoke of herself in the plural, but she also used two distinct voices when she talked, one higher pitched than the other. The lower pitched voice spoke more of the past, while the higher pitched voice spoke more of the present and future. Definitely not normal. Rarity hoped that this condition was intrinsic to Pinkamena/Pinkie, and not caused by the mysterious phenomenon that had taken them to this planet—

“Earth.”

“Stop that!”

—And had put them into these bodies. But then, how could you tell if you were going insane?

With Pinkie watching, Rarity figured out how to edit the contact card, change Pinkamena’s name, and replace her photo. Only then was she allowed to tap the “phone number” with her finger and initiate a call with Pinkie’s family. She handed the phone over to Pinkie Pie, who put it up against her face. Rarity soon realized that the device lowered the volume of the other party when this was done, making it difficult for Rarity to eavesdrop on the call.

“Hello, Pa?” Pinkie said into the phone, then waited for a response. “Well…not exactly. I think you know at least part of what just happened. … Yes, it’s just like Maud said. But there’s something else, something totally unrelated to that: we switched universes. … Yes, both of us. … You know, I didn’t even think of that. Hold on.” Pinkie lowered the phone and looked at Rarity. “What do you think happened to the minds that used to be in these bodies?” she asked.

Rarity’s eyes widened. “You know, I didn’t even think of that!” she replied. “I would hope that we indeed switched, like you said. So the human Rarity’s mind is right now in my pony body back in Equestria.”

Pinkie Pie nodded. “Makes sense.” She brought the phone back up to her face. “Did you hear all that? … That’s Rarity, another pony in a human body. … Yeah, that’s what I was, and what I guess your real daughter is right now. Look, if I can get together with Maud, I’m sure both of our—” She cast a nervous glance over at Rarity. “—friends can work out what exactly happened, and how to undo it. … The switching part, not the…making friends part. So can you pick Rarity and me up? We’re in downtown Canterlot, at the bus station outside Prim Hemline’s Fashions. … Okay, we’ll see you then. Goodbye.” She handed the phone back to Rarity, who put it back in her purse.

“They handled that rather well,” Rarity said cautiously.

“You have questions,” Pinkie said flatly. She didn’t particularly look like she wanted to answer them.

Rarity thought carefully about the best way to respond. “You’re my best hope of getting back to Equestria,” she finally said. “Anything else can wait.”

Pinkie smiled in satisfaction for a brief moment, before turning serious. “I don’t want to cause you distress,” she told Rarity. “I’ve never wanted to cause anypony distress. I’m just…I just want to make you happy. If you’ll let me. I want to make everypony happy. It’s my special purpose.”

Rarity smiled. “Did you get your cutie mark today as well?” she asked. “I’m going to make ponies happy with my cutie mark as well. Make them feel good about who and what they are.”

Pinkie Pie matched her smile. “Perhaps we can work together—back in Equestria.”

“I’d really like that,” said Rarity. And she meant it, too. Getting to know this Pinkie Pie would give her time to figure out what exactly was going on with her…or them.

#

Pinkie Pie’s father arrived fifteen minutes later, in a self-propelled truck. The back of the vehicle was very dusty, giving off a strong earthy odor. Rarity had to stop herself from putting a hand over her nose.

“Pinkamena. …And Rarity, is it?” the tan man with the sideburns asked. (Pinkie Pie had supplied quite a bit of Rarity’s missing vocabulary while they had waited.)

“It’s…Pinkie now,” Pinkie Pie stated firmly, reaching for the passenger door handle.

The father frowned. “Is Pinkamena even willing to talk to her father?” he asked accusingly.

“I can come out when I want to,” Pinkie said in her lower-pitched voice. “I just don’t want to.”

Pinkie then turned her arm over, showing her father her wrist, which caused his eyes to go wide.

“Don’t show him that!” Pinkamena exclaimed.

“It’s why I’m here,” Pinkie rebutted.

“But it doesn’t count!” Pinkamena exclaimed. “That was from before we switched. I was out in the field. I was wishing for it—but I wasn’t actually going to do it!”

“I’m pretty sure that both of your conditions were comparable,” Pinkie countered. “We don’t choose to do this lightly.” And with “this” she used a hand to refer to her whole body.

Rarity just stood there, feeling very uncomfortable and confused. She both didn’t know what the wrist gesture meant…and profoundly didn’t want to find out.

The father opened the door. “Get in,” he instructed. “All of you. We’ll talk this out with the rest of the family.” Pink…whatever sat in the passenger seat. And Rarity got into the back seat. Behind the father…so she could continue to observe the daughter.

Pinkamena sulked in her chair. Rarity noticed that her mane appeared to be quite a bit flatter than when they first met…and her skin appeared to have darkened some in hue. It was like she was permanently in shadow now.

The father caught her eye in a rear view mirror as he pulled his truck into traffic. “So, Rarity,” she said, “tell me about yourself.”

Rarity looked around her nervously. “I don’t think anything I say would make any sense to you. Do you even have a Ponyville here?”

“It used to be its own town about a hundred years ago,” the father replied, “until it was absorbed into Canterlot. And it doesn’t really matter how much I understand. It seems clear to me that you need to open up to someone. How old were you, before?”

“Ten,” she said, tears already welling up in her eyes, “and I don’t mean to complain, but this is way too much responsibility to be giving to a ten-year old!” The story of her day so far then poured out of her at a pace almost too fast to follow, peppered throughout with her emotional reactions. By the end she was full-on sobbing.

“There, there,” Pinkie Pie said, putting an arm around her. “Let it all out.”

Rarity instantly stopped her crying to stare incredulously at Pinkie sitting on the back seat beside her. For a moment she was afraid she was going to see a second copy of Pinkie sitting in the passenger seat. “How did you get back here?” she demanded.

The father clicked his tongue against his teeth. “I’m afraid you’re going to have to get used to that sort of thing from now on.” He looked off into the distance. “At least Maud has some restraint.”

“Different hosts have different requirements,” Pinkie replied stiffly.

Rarity filed that statement into the ever-growing mental file labeled “Please Don’t Question”.

#

They arrived at a house at the edge of town, which looked nothing like the wastelands where Rarity had her last memories of Equestria, and where Pinkie claimed to be from. An expressionless young woman, bluish-gray in skin and with a straight blue violet hairstyle, was waiting for them.

“Maud!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed, teleporting straight from the back of the truck into pulling the young woman into a crushing embrace. She didn’t have the courtesy of faking a flash of magic to give Rarity the comforting illusion that what she had witnessed might not be a complete and utter impossibility.

“You’re showing a disturbing lack of restraint in this body,” Maud stated in a flat, emotionless voice.

“And isn’t it great?!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed.

“I’ll admit, it has its merits,” Maud admitted. “Now could you stop breaking my bones?”

Rarity shrunk into a ball. She had hoped that she was mistaken when she had heard those crunching sounds.

“Oh, sorry,” Pinkie said, releasing Maud.

Rarity now knew what bones sounded like when they spontaneously mended themselves. She wished she hadn’t learned that particular piece of knowledge.

The father left the truck, and escorted his two daughters into the house.

Rarity elected to stay inside the car. She remembered reading somewhere that certain artifacts were equipped with “reset buttons”, for when they had become so messed up that they needed to return to their original, pristine state.

She wished that human brains came with reset buttons.

Sometime after sunset, there was a big flash of light behind the curtains of the Pie house’s front window. Rarity recognized that flash: it meant that Pinkamena Diane Pie had earned her cutie mark. (The making everypony happy thing must have been tied to that other entity rattling around in Pinkamena’s head.)

It was a few minutes later when Pinkie Pie finally came out to the car to retrieve her. “Sorry about that,” she said somewhat sheepishly after opening the door.

Rarity stared coldly at her. “If you keep going the way you’re going, I won’t have to ask you any questions.”

Pinkie took a moment to figure out what Rarity was thinking.

Which meant that she wasn’t yanking the answer right out of Rarity’s head. She was grateful for this.

“Uh, sorry,” she said. “You caught us…me, at a really bad time. I swear, if you met me a week from now, I wouldn’t be anywhere near this obvious.”

“Uh huh,” Rarity said flatly.

“Are you hungry?”

“Do you even eat?”

“Sure!” Pinkie exclaimed, patting her belly. “Food’s like the best part! Come on, Ma’s made a feast. She even left out the rock soup.”

“OK.” Rarity got out of the truck. She didn’t know if Pinkie was joking about the rock soup, and by this point she didn’t care.

She couldn’t wait to get back to Equestria.

#

The Pies’ plan was to wait for the morning, and then Pinkie and Maud would sweep the city looking for the device they needed to return home. (The phrase “assuming this planet even has that level of technology” was uttered, but Rarity once again pretended she hadn’t heard it.) The two girls would get out of school with the excuse of their religion.

“Which religion?” Rarity asked. She felt that this question at least was safe.

“Old Orthodox Markist,” answered Pinkie’s sister Limestone Pie. (Whatever insanity-inducing condition had been unleashed upon Pinkie and Maud, it had apparently left the rest of their family, including Limestone, alone.) “We’re the ones who actually remember that Celestia’s in charge.”

“While deciding to treat her like a normal human, being that she’s only a mortal incarnation of the Goddess,” Pinkie’s mother Cloudy Quartz added.

“Wait a second!” Rarity interrupted. “There’s a version of Princess Celestia on this planet? Why can’t she send us back?”

“Because she’s a mortal with no special powers, like I just said,” explained Cloudy Quartz. “In fact, she’s the principal at the school you’re attending. So no bowing or worshiping her, alright?”

Rarity took a few moments to take in this latest revelation.

“She doesn’t need the pressure,” Maud commented. “That’s the way she wants it. And it’s not that she has no powers—she’s the Goddess Celestia’s conduit any time she wishes to communicate with her followers.”

“So that means that Princess Celestia can talk to this Principal Celestia and tell her how to rescue us?” Rarity asked hopefully.

“Assuming She knows what happened,” Maud replied. “Do either you or Pinkie know your princess personally?”

Rarity shook her head, seeing that Pinkie Pie was doing the same.

“That’s why we didn’t include Her rescuing you when we made our own plans,” Igneous Pie said. “Sure, there could be a priest or priestess of the Goddess knocking at the door tomorrow at the break of dawn, but if that happened, we wouldn’t need to plan anything.”

“It’s like we Markists say,” Pinkie’s other sister Marble piped in, “The Goddess helps those who help themselves.” It was the first complete sentence the shy young woman had said the entire night.

“Actually, we stole that from the Christians,” Maud commented, earning a hurt look from Marble. “Sorry, it’s true,” she added in her affectless voice.

“Will you need my help?” Rarity asked, slightly changing the subject. She gave Marble a grateful smile, which Marble noticed with a blush. This didn’t really mean much—Marble blushed at everything.

“No, I think you’re stuck going to school,” Pinkie answered Rarity. “Tough luck.”

“Alright,” she said. “I’ll at least be able to work after that.”

“We’ll make sure you know everything you need to know, Rarity,” Limestone replied gruffly. Rarity believed that the true emotion being expressed was kindness—it was kind of hard to read most of the Pies.

“Mmm-hmm,” Marble Pie said in agreement.

#

Rarity spent the night in the spare bed in Pinkie’s room, wearing a set of gray pajamas, courtesy of Maud. Rarity idly wondered if the spare bed was for spare Pinkies.

“Don’t worry, Rarity,” Pinkie told her once the lights were out. “We’ll get you home tomorrow—two days at the most!”

“And…” Pinkamena added. “I…I won’t hold you to your promise of being friends when we get back. I know you know that I’m too weird for that.”

Rarity lay there, and broadcast the following thought: ‘If you come to Ponyville, and if I’ve managed to dismiss most of all this as an insane nightmare, then we can start over. I don’t think I can promise any more than that.’

“OK, that’s fair,” Pinkamena replied.

Rarity lay there in the dark, waiting to fall asleep. She wondered how things in the human world would have gone if this switch had never happened: Human Rarity would have met mopey Pinkamena, and the next day would have met Pinkie Pie. How would she have reacted? Rarity wondered. How would every human react?

Rarity thought about the life’s purpose given her by her cutie mark, and suddenly felt deeply ashamed. “Pinkamena, I’m sorry.”

She was answered with a sullen silence, for using the wrong name.

She went on anyway. “You scare me. I’m sorry, I don’t want to be scared of you because you don’t deserve it, but I am. It’s because, even though I totally believe you when you say you don’t want to hurt anypony, you can, in ways I’ve never had to think about before. And...and I see what I could do to make the fear go away: I’d put you in a box. I’d put you in the ‘Pinkie Pie’ box, where everything you do is just a funny joke, and I’d only let you be funny. That would be the way for me to stop being scared, but I can’t do it.

“Because I know I’m in a box too. It’s called ‘Ponyville Hick’, and I’ll never achieve my dreams if I can’t break out of it. So I have to stop myself from doing it to you. I won’t put you in a box, and if doing that means that I’m still scared of you, then I’ll still be scared of you. But I won’t stop being your friend.

“If you ever come to visit me in Ponyville… Or, if you wait until I’m an Equestria-renowned fashion designer to come visit me in Canterlot…know that I will treat you like a pony, just like your family treats the human Celestia like a normal human, despite knowing that in some way she is really the immortal and all-powerful Princess Celestia. It’s the least that you deserve…from anypony. And I think it’s what your…friend wants for you as well.”

In an instant, Pinkamena was at Rarity’s side, hugging her. “Thank you,” she said through teary eyes. “Thank you! Thank you!”

Rarity couldn’t breathe.

Pinkie suddenly released her. “Right…normal hug. Sorry. And yes, that is all that I want for her.”

“Don’t…don’t mention it,” Rarity said, panting for air. “And maybe next time…don’t teleport. Give us normal ponies less reason to be nervous.”

“Sure thing,” Pinkie said nervously, walking back to her bed and getting in. A few moments later, she looked around her and sighed. “I really need to get this room redecorated.”

Rarity nervously cast her eyes about, taking in the large poster on one wall. It was entitled Saturn Devouring His Son, and it had been altered so that the victim’s head had Pinkamena’s hair.

“I want to go home…” Rarity whined quietly to herself.

H. Rarity—Equestria, the desert hundreds of ponystrides outside of Rockville. Late afternoon.

Rarity was walking away from her shadow straight into the blazing sun—I swear, it seemed like a good idea to her at the time. She had been doing so for hours, and the landscape had never changed. To say that she was parched was an understatement.

“I’ve been through the desert as a horse with no name,” she croaked in a dust-choked voice. “It’s good to get out of the rain. In the desert, you can’t remember your name, because there ain’t no one for to give you no…No, I’m sorry, I don’t usually care about grammar, but that last line should be taken out and shot!” Rarity tried to sit down, but sprang back up again as the heat of the sands burnt her backside.

A chorus of burrowing owls continued the song. Well…probably not. She probably hallucinated them. But how could she distinguish reality from hallucination, in this mad place?

Like that pipe over there, spewing water out onto the cracked desert rock floor, where it was instantly absorbed before a desperate Rarity was able to lick up a single drop.

Yes, I said “lick”. As in…with her tongue! These were desperate times.

“What is going on here!” she yelled up at the heavens, for what must have been the dozenth time since she had inexplicably arrived in this place. In this body.

“I could be asking you the same question, partner,” a voice spoke into her ear.

Rarity jumped straight up a couple of feet, and then landed roughly on her hooves. “How did you get here?” she accused the strange creature. It looked roughly like she did, but was bright yellow in the head and legs, fading into an orange insect-like carapace with yellow wing covers and semi-transparent dragonfly wings sticking out behind her. There was a jagged horn coming out of her head, she had fins instead of horse ears, and her bright blue eyes were all of one color, with a faint color distinction for the pupils. She had no tail. And she was twice as tall as Rarity, proving Rarity’s sinking suspicion that not only was she trapped in the body of a cute little equine, she was maybe half her actual age in this body.

Rarity picked all of this up instantly—she had an excellent eye for detail.

The creature pointed behind her. She was hooked up to a cart containing several glass bottles. “I’ve been walking in a straight line for days,” she explained. “You just never thought to turn your head sideways.”

Rarity was mortified. The creature lapped this up like she could eat emotions. “And what is your role in this vast conspiracy?” the creature drawled.

“Well if I have my choice, I’d like to be the heroine,” Rarity replied frankly. “It would be a nice change of pace.”

The creature’s expression warmed as she looked Rarity over. “I guess I can see that,” she said. “Doesn’t change the fact that you’re a filly.”

“I am no filly! I’m older than I look,” Rarity proclaimed, pulling herself up to her full height of one foot.

The creature blinked. “Alright, I believe you. But you might have trouble convincing others that you’re not a filly with that toy in your tail.”

Rarity looked back at her bedraggled tail—it had been so beautiful when she had first awoken in this body—and the object neatly embedded within it. “Why did I pick that up again?” she asked herself. “Oh wait, I remember. There was this broken bottle by the side of the road. It was a sort of reverse ‘ship in a bottle’, in that it contained the entire port city the ship sailed from. And the lighthouse...it looked just like the one from my favorite Disney-movie-that-nobody-remembers, Pete’s Dragon, so I took it.” She looked off into the distance. “I think that’s when the random singing began...”

Rarity decided this was a good time to change the subject: “Is your name Applejack?” she asked. “You sound just like her.”

Now it was the creature’s turn to look embarrassed. “Uh…yes…no…it’s complicated. Let’s just say that I borrowed her identity back when I was a less-than-respectable beetle-pony, and it kind of…stuck. Plus I like the accent.”

“It is a really nice accent, isn’t it?” Rarity asked. “So what do I call you?”

The creature looked down at the sand. “You should call me ‘Applejack’,” she said, ashamed. “I still haven’t come clean with the villagers yet.”

“Oh, are you returning to said village?” Rarity asked eagerly.

“Yes.”

“Can I come with you? I promise I won’t reveal your secret.”

“Applejack” looked her up and down once more. “Alright,” she said, and began her walk southward.

Rarity walked beside her. “You said you’re a ‘beetle pony’. Do you happen to know what I am?”

Beetle-pony Applejack stopped and looked Rarity up and down. “Do you even remember your name?” she asked.

“Yes!” Rarity replied with some irritation. “I just got zapped into this body somehow, and I was curious to know what it was called.”

Applejack took a moment to reflect. “Well…not the strangest story I’ve heard. You’re a pony.” She tapped Rarity lightly on her horn, which she had repeatedly failed to activate. “To be specific, a unicorn.” She started walking again.

“I figured out the ‘unicorn’ part,” Rarity said, catching up. “You ever heard of a way to undo a zap-switch like that?”

“Equestria’s a pretty magical place,” Applejack said. “But I never heard of any magic like that.” She stopped then, leaving Rarity to blithely continue forward. Slowly, she turned her head to take in the sight of the large iron pipe sticking out of the ground, the only sight of industrial development visible for tens of thousands of pony-strides. “Naw, I must be seeing things,” she concluded, then quickly caught up with the strange unicorn filly before she had a chance to notice. There was an odd sort of shadow under the pipe that didn’t correspond with the position of the sun.

“Is there anything I need to know about this village of yours?” Rarity asked.

“Well, tomorrow is Thursday. That’s Miracle Day.”

“Huh,” Rarity said simply. “I look forward to seeing that.”

Day 2 (Ponies on Earth): Chapter 7: Stan Lee Cameo (P. Twilight Sparkle, P. Applejack, Sunset Shimmer)

P. Twilight Sparkle—Earth, Canterlot General Hospital. Before the dawn of Day Two.

The door to the hospital room opened, and Shining Armor stepped inside. He was still wearing his police uniform, and it stank to high heaven. “I drove straight here from the conference,” he told his parents, who were sitting in chairs in a corner of the room. “Fourteen hours, but other than Chicago it was a straight shot. How’s she doing?”

His girlfriend Cadance looked up at him from her chair at the patient’s side. “She hasn’t changed since we called you,” she said quietly. “No better, but at least she’s no worse.”

Shining Armor stepped over to stand beside Cadance. “She looks so fragile,” he remarked. He wondered why Cadance’s chair was set a full foot away from the bed.

Twilight Sparkle lay in that bed, tucked under the covers, with the exception of her left arm. Her eyes were covered with a thick band of gauze, and additional bandages adorned her forehead and face. There were big ugly bruises on her left cheek and on her left shoulder. An IV tube connected the inside of her left arm with a bag of fluid hanging from a stand.

It was then that Shining noticed the lack of a characteristic sound: Twilight’s heartbeat being emitted electronically from a vital signs monitor. There was no monitor, and no wires taped to her. Shining took in the look of the entire room in shock. “Where are we?” he asked at last. “This looks like a room out of World War II!” The only electrically-powered item in the entire room was the slowly flickering fluorescent light in the ceiling; even the clock on the nightstand was a wind-up. There wasn’t even a hydraulic lift under the bed—you had to operate a rotary crank to manually raise or lower it.

“Good guess,” said a doctor, walking into the room with a traditional paper file. “This room was in fact created as a set for the film Danger Hour. When it looked like the film was going to be a dud, Producer Canter Zoom had it converted into an operational hospital room and had it donated to the hospital with so much fanfare, we couldn’t turn him down, despite it being impossible to wire with enough electricity to run anything. I remember him countering that maybe we could use it in the case of a simultaneous failure of the power supply and our generators. And now...she’s making us use it. I’m Doctor Oath.” He had pale yellow skin and brown hair.

“Shining Armor, Twilight’s brother. Cadance mentioned that there was something unusual going on with her?”

Dr. Oath shook his head. “Now that’s the understatement of the century! What’s ‘going on’ with your sister is completely unprecedented in the history of medical science. Luckily, it appears to have absolutely no negative effect on her recovery.”

“What’s going on?”

“Well, before I start listing the impossibilities, I might as well start with a demonstration. Hold your hand a couple of inches over her head.”

Shining gave the doctor a confused glance, but did as he was told. “Woah,” he said after a few seconds. “My hand is heating up, but it feels like it’s coming from the inside. And the hairs on my arm are standing up.” He withdrew his hand and looked it over. The effects had stopped as soon as he was far enough away from Twilight.

The doctor sighed. “Twilight Sparkle is emitting energy from her head, of types that nobody has ever heard of before. Just now, your hand was being microwaved.”

“What?!” Shining looked back and forth between the doctor and the patient. “Even if that was possible, how can she not be affected?”

“I don’t know,” Dr. Oath admitted. “Nothing that she does has a negative effect upon herself, or any living being. Now electronics, on the other hand...We tried to x-ray her head, and the machine gave off a puff of blue smoke before completely dying. Not exploding, mind you...just dying. The tech later said that every single capacitor in the machine had popped at once. The same thing happened when we tried to perform an MRI; I had the foresight to use our spare machine, the one that only worked once every three times we turned it on. It popped all its capacitors as well. She blocks cell phones for a twenty foot radius.”

Shining Armor pulled out his cell phone and checked. Indeed, he had zero bars. “Although, I never get good reception in a hospital.”

“True,” the doctor admitted.

“Hey, here’s a new one,” said Twilight’s father Night Light, consulting his own cell phone. “My battery was 80% last night, and now it’s 100.”

Doctor Oath flipped open the chart he was holding to write that down.

“Do I need to worry about having this around her?” Shining asked, referring to his phone.

“Not so long as you’re either holding it, or it’s in your pocket,” the doctor told him. “A nurse put hers down on the night table, and we needed a stainless steel spatula to scrape it off.”

“I...I don’t understand,” Shining said, looking between the doctor and his parents. “I mean, we all knew that Twilight was an extraordinary girl, who would one day change the world. But I saw her science experiment, and there’s no way a model earth with a nine-volt motor to rotate it could cause...this!”

“There were dozens of witnesses,” Cadance told him, “including myself. All she did was put her head in an oven.” On seeing Shining’s horrified look, she reviewed her words. “No, I mean she stuck her head in her neighbor’s experimental oven, which then blew up in her face.”

“And it wasn’t some kind of strange space oven,” Twilight’s mother Twilight Velvet said, with a completely straight face. “Twilight had never touched it before the accident.”

Shining sighed as he took all this in. “Have you told anybody else about this? Brought in experts from out of state? Called in the Church?”

“Her condition is stable,” the doctor said. “Bringing in anyone else stands a good chance of changing her life forever. Your parents thought it best to wait until she wakes up, so that she can have a say in that decision.”

“At least for now,” Twilight Velvet added. “If she gets worse, or if she stays under for more than a few days, then I definitely think we should ask for help.”

Shining shook his head. “I...I don’t know what you should do, so I’ll defer to your judgment.” He looked down at Twilight with a note of bemusement. “Although if she does get turned into a lab rat, you can bet that she would end up leading the team to study herself within a month.” He looked back up at the doctor. “Do you have any idea when she’s going to wake up?”

“None,” Doctor Oath replied. “We don’t even know why she went into a coma in the first place.”

“And the eyes?”

The doctor furrowed his brow. “The damage is extremely severe on the left side, less so on the right. She’ll only be able to see out of one eye, for the rest of her life.”

“An eyepatch,” Shining said.

“I know!” Cadance exclaimed. “It’s extremely morbid to think about, but the idea of Twilight in a lab coat with an eyepatch...just seems right.”

“You want to know what’s really morbidly funny,” Shining said, walking over to stand beside Cadance, so he could look over at his parents. “This whole thing feels like something that would happen to her. I expect her to wake up and now she’s Jean Grey from the X-Men.”

Twilight Velvet’s face went ashen. “This is just like the start of the Dark Phoenix Saga,” she said.

The rest of the family, all of them huge nerds, knew exactly what she was talking about.

There were no further developments in Twilight’s case in Day Two.

Cadance, after several hours of indecision, finally returned to Crystal Prep to work, starting with catching up on her enormous backlog of phone calls. Many of the parents of the other Science Fair students wanted to make sure that whatever happened to Twilight Sparkle wasn’t infectious. And Fluttershy’s parents hesitantly informed her that they had obtained the help they needed from the Church. Cadance had seen no reason to inquire further on the matter, and the Shys were glad they didn’t have to talk on the subject—or any subject—any longer than necessary.

Shining Armor finally took a shower.

P. Applejack—Earth, Apple Ranch. Before the dawn.

When Applejack woke up and discovered that she was still human, she was overjoyed.

“Wake up, Little Sister,” she said after bursting into Apple Bloom’s room. “It’s the start of a wonderful day!”

“Is school canceled today?” Apple Bloom asked, rubbing an eye with one hand.

“Well...alright, it’s a mostly wonderful day,” Applejack said. She then turned and skipped down the stairs, whistling a happy tune.

Downstairs, she helped her mother set the dining room table for breakfast, and then kissed the forehead of Granny Smith when she hobbled into the room.

“Land’s sake, Girl!” Granny commented. “What’s got you so bubbly?”

“Just...” Applejack looked around, to see Buttercup serving breakfast to Big Mac and Bright Mac as Apple Bloom slid into her seat. “Having the whole family together. I’ve learned to really appreciate that recently.”

Bright Mac reached over to tussle Applejack’s hair as she sat down. He didn’t say anything else and he didn’t need to—Applejack knew it was one of the ways he expressed his love for her.

“Apple Bloom, how many times have I told you: no phones on the table,” Buttercup warned her daughter.

“But Ma, the second Tangled trailer just dropped last night!” Apple Bloom exclaimed, her eyes still on the screen.

“Aren’t you getting a little old for Disney movies?” Bright Mac asked, snatching the phone out of her hands and putting it down on a nearby table.

“I’m never too old for quality filmmaking, Pa!” Apple Bloom exclaimed. “And besides, the lead character is voiced by a Markist!”

Bright Mac picked up the phone and glanced at it before showing the others: a still image of the trailer showed a man entering a tavern accompanied by a woman armed with a frying pan and a chameleon. The lighting of the shot made it obvious that these were the main characters, and the chameleon was the only one with a Markist color scheme. Again, he didn’t have to say anything to get his point across.

“It’s depicting a Grimm fairy tale, so they’re being historically accurate!” Apple Bloom sputtered. She followed this with what she considered conclusive evidence of the film’s worth. “And one of the main characters is a horse!”

“Well I suppose it can’t be that bad, then,” Buttercup joked.

Applejack looked warmly around her. She had no idea what this “tangled” thing was, and she didn’t care. What mattered was that Applejack got to have her parents back. And she got to see her newborn sister grown into a quirky younger sister that she would be proud to call part of her family.

Despite the fact that this place had school, it was still Paradise.

Sunset Shimmer—Earth, Centerlot High Office of the Vice Principal. A half-hour before First Period.

Sunset Shimmer may have been hot-headed, even by her own admission, but she never faced off against a new threat without preparing herself first. It was for this reason that she stopped herself outside Principal Celestia’s office yesterday morning and made a hasty retreat on seeing the mountains of paperwork that this world’s educational system sustained itself with.

From there her goal was the city library. It took her an hour of scoping out the building to figure out the correct excuse to get in without getting in trouble: Earth had homeschooling.

And then in the library she discovered the Internet, and it blew her away. If there was some way to physically bring that into Equestria, she could have toppled the Equestrian monarchy with that alone. Toppled it to make way for a democracy! Imagine the look on the Princess’ face when her own subjects demand that she step down so they could take over!

Sunset would almost accept not becoming an alicorn, not replacing Celestia as sole ruler of Equestria, if only to see that look on her hated mentor’s face!

But alas, the Internet was not portable between worlds.

And so she used it instead to prepare her way into high school. And to put together her list of goodies she could port into Equestria before the end of the third day. Her plan was flawless...except for the part where Principal Celestia failed to actually carry out her job duties.

“I thought I would be speaking to the principal of this school,” Sunset said for the third time, to the third person: Vice-Principal Luna.

“Well, she’s busy giving an interview to the Outsider press,” Luna patiently explained. “Taking credit for all of the recent innovations at the school, including the ones that I, her sister, were responsible for. But nobody ever wants to interview me...Now, let’s look at your paperwork.”

For a moment, Sunset was profoundly disappointed that she wouldn’t have the chance to bamboozle her sworn enemy’s dopple directly. But then she caught on to the fact that the Vice-Principal was this Celestia’s sister. Princess Celestia had had a sister, Sunset knew, and she thought that the sister’s name might have been Luna. Luna appeared alongside Celestia in the oldest of the stained-glass windows, such as The Defeat of Discord. But then she stopped appearing. Sunset supposed that Princess Luna must have died at some point, but why wouldn’t there be a memorial window devoted to her by the surviving sister? Unless...the two of them had had a falling out. Princess Celestia was notorious for how long she carried the very few grudges she had. This...this could work out for Sunset after all...

“Sunset? Sunset? Are you there?”

“Huh?” She finally noticed that the Vice-Principal was trying to get her attention.

“It says here that you’re the daughter of the Uzbek liaison to the Church, Folderol.”

“That’s right,” Sunset lied, wearing a proud smile.

Luna worked her computer with a frown. “I wasn’t even aware that there was a Markist presence in Uzbekistan.”

“Oh there’s been a mission there since the 1950’s,” Sunset said, calling upon the results of her all-day research. She inwardly thanked the inventors of caffeine supplements for keeping her going through that research and today’s interview looking none the worse for wear. “They’ve been used as a backdoor to Cold War diplomacy since the Cuban Missile Crisis. For decades they’ve been striving to keep alive the culture and traditions of the America they left behind.”

“I see,” said Luna, continuing to perform various searches in vain. “I can’t seem to get access to their educational records.”

“Oh?” Sunset asked in mock ignorance. “Their system is rather primitive, I’m afraid. You might have to request my records via paper mail.”

Luna sighed and turned away from her computer. “Very well. My sister and I will be fine taking you on your word, Sunset. You can begin taking classes today, and in the...two weeks or so that it will take to get your paperwork, we can re-evaluate your placement.”

“That’s fine with me,” Sunset said, batting her eyes in an expression of innocence.

Luna blinked, feeling something particularly off about this Sunset character. “Now let’s discuss your parents. Your mother is raising you by herself, yes?”

“That’s right,” Sunset said. “She is very busy.”

“I tried to call her while I had you waiting, and...”

“Yes?” Sunset asked, leaning forward.

“She wasn’t very cooperative. Wanted to know how closely I was related to the British royal family, and hung up on me on discovering that I was a...filthy peasant. I did the proper thing, and held my tongue.”

(This was not the first time that Luna had been tempted to reveal that her sister was the secret head of the entire Markist religion.)

“I am sorry about that,” Sunset lied. Inwardly however, she gloried in her triumph in discovering a human candidate to be her mother that was even more stuck up than Blueblood’s Uncle Bronze Heart.

Luna sat back. “I don’t think we have anything else to talk about then. You’ve been registered for all of the classes you requested, all of which you have convinced me you are qualified for. I have the necessary paperwork, all signed by your mother. You’re free to start classes in fifteen minutes. You’re free to go. Unless...”

“Yes?” Sunset asked out of honest curiosity.

“Is there anything you’d like to speak with me about?” Luna said. “I am also this school’s psychological councilor in addition to the discipline and support duties that go into being vice-principal. That’s my degree over there.” She pointed at a framed certificate on the wall behind her.

Sunset leaned forward to peer at it.

“There seems to be something troubling you, Sunset. I can tell. You’re being very polite with me, but I can tell there’s a lot of anger simmering inside of you. Is it possible that you are here in America against your wishes?”

“Oh no, I definitely want to be here,” Sunset said, leaning back in her chair. “It gets me a chance to get away from her.”

“Your mother?”

Sunset nodded.

“Would you like to tell me about her?”

Sunset leaned forward eagerly. This was what she had desperately wanted to do from the moment she found out that there was a second Celestia in this world: to verbally call her teacher out, to tear her to ribbons while another Celestia listened and nodded in approval. This wasn’t exactly the same thing, but if she was right about the rivalry between the two human sisters, in some ways this might even be better. “She’s just...so perfect,” she began. “In the eyes of everybody who looked up to her in her country.” The speech had been expertly crafted, with each pronoun carefully corrected to the human version, and with nothing to give away that she was talking about a pony instead of a human. “Her every thought was for them. For what she could do for them. For what she could do to them. Because Mother is the greatest manipulator of them all, so successful because she always did it for them, and not for herself. But it was for her, for her sense of superiority. She’d trick her enemies into giving her exactly what she wanted, again and again, and thinking they were getting one over on her! I’m so glad to finally get away from that, to finally be in a land that does not worship the ground she walks on.”

“That’s rather harsh,” Luna said calmly, trying to use the tone of her voice to tamp down on Sunset’s growing mania. “Surely she didn’t treat you that way.”

“Not at first,” Sunset said, looking back on happier memories. “She used to always tell me, and show me, how much she loved me. But then she realized how my mark could benefit her, and I became another pawn to her. And I could never get that old relationship back.” She paused for a moment, thinking about the unexpected words she had just said. “She was wrong, by the way. I couldn’t be the perfect p...person she wanted me to be. I had a temper and maybe...I didn’t suffer fools as gladly as I should have. She showed me the life I could have had if I was her perfect daughter, and then made sure I could never have that life, as punishment for failing her. That’s why I’m going to this school, Miss Luna. Because it’s the last place she’d ever want me to go.”

“Because it’s public? And it’s Ms. Luna. Not Miss.”

“Yes, Ms. Luna. Do you have any advice for how I should be living my life?” She batted her eyes again. This is going to be rich, she thought.

“Well sadly, you can’t change your family,” Luna said, standing up.

Sunset stood up as well.

“I don’t know you that well yet, so it’s entirely possible you’ve already thought about this.”

“Yes?”

“Have you considered defining your life separate from your mother? It seems to me that you’re focusing so much on your problems with her that maybe you’re not considering who you might be if she were no longer in your life.”

Sunset rolled her eyes. “I’m never going to be rid of her,” she said.

“You may think that because you’re young, but everybody dies eventually.”

Sunset held her tongue, then looked up at the source of the new ringing sound. “I’m going to be late to class.”

“Yes, go ahead. Your free period is right before lunch, and at least for now, I am your homeroom teacher, so perhaps we can continue our conversation then.”

“I look forward to it,” Sunset said, bowing her head before turning to leave.

Luna frowned in momentary confusion. Sunset’s gesture was the formal farewell given to a princess.

Chapter 8: The Light of the Sun (P. Rarity, P. Rainbow Dash, P. Fluttershy, Abacus Cinch)

P. Rarity—Earth, Pie Residence. Before the dawn.

Rarity really enjoyed sleeping in. However, waking up in the middle of the night and discovering that the whole “human” thing was not a dream made it hard to go back to sleep. That, and the Pie family got up before dawn to start up the extremely-noisy refinery.

The first thing Rarity did when she got out of bed was examine her pajamas. She noted their function for hairless creatures desiring comfort while sleeping, but also reflected that they could sport colorful designs for slumber parties. When she got back home and got her career in fashion going, she would have to look into starting a line of holiday clothes. Maybe something as simple as a special hat for the Summer Sun Celebration.

She looked over at Pinkie Pie, who had also just gotten out of bed and was now sitting on it. Rarity noted that she had Pinkamena’s flat hairstyle and shadowed skin color.

“Um...Pinkie...” she gestured towards her hair.

“Oh?” Pinkamena said, reaching up to tap the top of her head. “Hey, watch this.” She stuck her thumb in her mouth and puffed out her cheeks, pretending to blow into her thumb. With a burst of confetti, her hair sprang back into shape and her skin lightened. Pinkamena became Pinkie again.

Rarity shook her head wordlessly. “So, I had two ideas after I went to sleep,” she said. “The first one is for you, Pinkie: how can you be sure that you didn’t accidentally switch us?”

“Good question,” said Pinkie. “Believe it or not, I do have limits, and this is definitely beyond me. Gray and I tried combining our powers, and were completely unable to contact anybody in the Equestrian universe.”

“Gray?”

“Maud’s symbiote.”

“Oh.” It kind of amazed Rarity that she was taking all of this so calmly.

#

Rarity did not have the envious ability to set her coiffure by putting her thumb in her mouth and blowing. And she could not cast her telekinesis spell. So she had to resort to doing it by hand. In this way she learned exactly how useful her hands could be, as well as their primary limitation: they could only do two things at once. As a unicorn, Rarity had worked her way up to being able to work three different strands of mane at once, and could almost handle four.

#

Breakfast that morning was bacon and eggs.

“Well that certainly smells unusual,” Rarity said, gesturing towards the bacon.

“Do ponies eat meat?” Maud asked. “Horses on our world are omnivores.”

Rarity withdrew her hand. “Technically, I suppose ponies are omnivores as well. But we choose not to eat it, because most sources on our world are sentient. The closest we get is unfertilized chicken eggs.”

“Well good, because that’s what this is,” Limestone stated bluntly, dumping some scrambled eggs on Rarity’s plate.

“Pegasi eat fish,” Pinkie Pie added between shoveling forkfuls of eggs and buttered toast into her mouth.

Rarity shuddered. “So I’ve heard.”

“So what was the second thing you came up with in your sleep?” Pinkie asked.

“Hmm? Oh yes.” Rarity looked over the whole family, waiting to get their attention. “You told me that Princess Celestia has the ability to contact Principal Celestia any time she wants. Do you know if the reverse is possible?”

The Pies looked at each other. “We don’t know,” Igneous admitted.

“Well in that case,” Rarity told them, “I have a plan. But first, you’ll have to tell me more about your religion.”

P. Rainbow Dash—Earth, Outside Fluttershy’s house. Just before dawn.

Rainbow Dash looked up at the second floor of the house, then over at the tree growing alongside it and sighed.

“This looked a lot easier when I was up there looking down,” she said to herself.

Rainbow had found herself unable to sleep in the guest room after the lights went out. Something about the walls being solid instead of being made of cloud. Something about the house being on the ground instead of being in the sky. Something about not being able to fly. Something about a giant earthquake collapsing the building right on top of her, where she would be squished into paste with no possible way to escape!

And so she had snuck out of the house, shimmied down the tree, and gone exploring. After a few hours she had come back, picked a secluded spot between the tree and the house, and gone to sleep.

She had spent an entire late September night outdoors, and not gotten anywhere close to feeling cold. She never bothered to question this.

In the end she decided to just trust that her current body was good at tree climbing, and easily made her way back into the guest room.

#

Dawn.

“Do we really have to go to class?” Rainbow Dash pleaded from the breakfast table.

“I’m afraid so,” Posey said. “I don’t think school regulations have any sort of exemption for being in the wrong body.”

She said this with a completely straight face.

Just then the doorbell rang. Mr. Fluffy popped his head up above the surface of the table to see who it was. Fluttershy quickly pushed the head back down again before she could get in trouble.

Cloud Cover got up and answered the door. Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy could hear a muted conversation between Cloud and an adult female. Cloud then returned to the kitchen nook, a puzzled look on his face. “Rainbow Dash? Mother Meridiem is at the door for you.”

“Who’s that?” Rainbow Dash asked as she got up.

“She’s one of the two people who run the Markist Church in Canterlot,” said Posey in a hushed voice.

“Am I in trouble?” Rainbow Dash asked over her shoulder as she walked towards the door. “I just got here yesterday!”

P. Rarity—Earth, Canterlot Church of the Goddess. Twenty-five minutes before class.

Rarity stepped out of the bus at the stop opposite the church. She was carrying a backpack with the items the Pies had told her she would need for class. If she had stayed on the bus, it would have arrived at Canterlot High twenty minutes from now, and five minutes before First Period began.

The Church of the Goddess was a long, tall building, painted in a bright red and gleaming white and decorated with gold leaf along the eaves. Abstract paintings composed of stained glass could be found along the upper story, and the roof was mostly a skylight. In shape, it was a glorified stable. Rather appropriate for a religion that mostly didn’t know it was worshipping the horse goddess of the sun.

Inside, the building was mostly one large room, with two rows of pews leading from the door to an altar at the far end. The stained glass windows were behind it, with the sunlight shining through creating a mosaic of color on the floor. High up on the wall Rarity saw a blinding light shining into her eyes. The effect faded the moment she looked slightly away. There must have been a particular set of crystals embedded in the ceiling to create the effect. Rarity wondered, if she had had the time to study the crystals she had found in the geode back on Equestria, if she might have found out how the effect worked, and how she might be able to use it to adorn the school pageant dresses.

The pageant. That was tonight. There was no possible way she was going to get home in time to get those dresses done in time. She sighed in disappointment.

“Can I help you, Rarity?” a young woman asked. She was wearing a simple white smock, embroidered with her mark.

Rarity pushed aside thoughts on the use of clothing for ceremonial purposes to answer her. “Yes, I would like to see one of the bishops,” she said.

“Mother Meridiem is out on Church business. As for Father Gnosi, follow me.” She led Rarity down the aisle, past several people who were kneeling in front of their pews, praying to the stained glass. Rarity and the robed woman stopped before a door set in the side wall. “He’s seeing a parishioner now.”

At that moment, the door opened, and Trixie walked out, a genuine smile on her face.

“Your usual is here,” the young woman told the man inside the room. “I see that he is on the phone; please wait for him to let you in,” she told Rarity, closing the door. And with that, the deacon left to return to the flock.

Rarity waited for Trixie to walk past her.

“You’re going to be late for class,” Trixie told her.

“Needs must, Darling,” Rarity said with a toss of her hair. “And...you may have missed your bus.”

“Shoot!” Trixie exclaimed, racing down the aisle and out the door.

Rarity smiled, but not at Trixie’s bad luck with bus schedules. It had been the first time she had used “Darling” since arriving on Earth. She really was getting used to this place. And then she frowned on realizing that she had been called “the usual.” Did the human Rarity need to confess to the Bishop on a regular basis?

“Ah Rarity, come in,” a voice of a man came from inside the room.

Rarity walked through the door, closing it behind her. Once she had gotten far enough into the room, she saw a tall pale yellow man with yellow-orange hair sitting behind an ornate desk. He was wearing a white cassock, with a starched collar around his neck. Over this was a yellow vest. He was facing a large window looking out at a field. A short distance out in that field was what looked like an oversized greenhouse, only the green glass walls of that building were completely opaque. Rarity took her place in a comfortable chair facing the desk. The plaque facing her informed her that this was Father Gnosi Augur, co-bishop of the Markist religion for the state of New Brass Sky and surrounding areas.

“So how was your day?” Father Gnosi asked her. “Did Ms. Hemline like your dress? And how about the Freshman Fair? Did you make any new friends?”

“Oh my day went wonderfully!” Rarity exclaimed, beaming. “I even got my cutie mark!”

“Congratulations!” the bishop said, reaching forward to shake Rarity’s hand. There had been a moment of uncertainty on his face on hearing the word “cutie” before “mark”. “When do you plan to schedule your Ceremony? Have you had the Dream yet?”

“Oh, I don’t need any of that!” Rarity replied. “I’ll find out what my cutie mark is when I get back home, and Rarity can go through with the ceremony on her own. I must say, I’m beginning to see the reason why she comes to you on a daily basis—it’s really nice to have somebody you can confess all your secrets to.”

Father Gnosi now looked quite concerned. “Have you been taking some of Trixie’s medications?” he asked. “You’re referring to yourself in the third person.”

“Not exactly,” Rarity said. “You see, through no fault of my own, I find myself in occupation of this body. I’m Rarity the Pony, Darling, not Rarity the Human.”

“I see,” Gnosi said, ashen faced. He glanced down at the largest drawer of his desk. “Look, normally I’d take you on your word, Rarity. Because I know you’re a...an individual of her word. But I really need to be sure...”

“Oh of course, Father. I would certainly do the same, in your hooves.” She used that last word with deliberation.

“Yes, well...in order to believe you, I need you to tell me something of your world, something that the human Rarity could not possibly know.”

“Oh dear,” Rarity said. “You mean besides the obvious ‘our ruler is Princess Celestia’? Because I figure that one is so obvious that every would-be pony would have trotted it out on you already. Well...I’m a unicorn from Ponyville, which apparently is a very obscure name for a neighborhood in your Canterlot. I’ve been trying for years to get a spot watching the Princess raise the sun at the Summer Sun Celebration, but poor planning on the part of certain individuals has always seemed to get in the way. The last griffon invasion of Equestria was during the Third Triangular Crisis of 1313, and was stopped by General Farrago’s forces at the Battle of Bull Pen—I just picked that one up at school. Although, would you even know about that?”

“That’s enough evidence,” Father Gnosi said. He opened the large drawer and withdrew a stack of five small plates to put on the desktop, followed by a sixth plate which came from a different drawer. He picked up the extra plate, which was plain in appearance, and tan in color. “This is how Markists learn what their pony counterpart’s cutie marks are,” he said. “There is a special ceremony that puts the person in a trance that connects them, and a particular dream that tells us that they are ready for that ceremony. We put their hand on one of these blank plates, and it turns into something like that.” He gestured to the wall behind him, where one of the plates was in a frame. It was shiny where the other plate was dull, it was the same color as the bishop’s skin, and it showed an eye in the center of a star shape.

“Last night we discovered that six of our inactivated plates in storage had spontaneously changed color, something that had never happened before.” He pushed forward the stack of plates, each of which was a different color; all of them had a shiny appearance like the one on the wall. He made a separate pile out of two of them. “Three of them had marks: these two, and a blue plate with the symbol of a rainbow-colored lightning bolt coming out of a cloud. Mother Meridiem and I were fairly certain that plate belonged to Rainbow Dash, which is why she, and that plate, aren’t here. As I just found out, we were right, and she and Fluttershy are also from Equestria.” He separated a pale, light grayish gold plate out of the pile of two and put it aside. “So we now know who three of you are.”

“I don’t know either of those ponies you just named.” Rarity picked up the remaining plate with a mark on it. It was a sort of pale, light grayish mulberry in color, and depicted a large six-pointed magenta star with a white star behind it, surrounded by five smaller white five-pointed stars. “So you’re saying that there are six of us in total who crossed over from Equestria,” she said. “Myself, this Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy, and three more.”

“That seems like the most reasonable conclusion,” Gnosi told her. “Do you by any chance recognize that mark?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “The star represents unspecialized magic, I can tell you that much. I would like to speak with this Rainbow Dash pony. The magical phenomenon responsible for what happened to me was a rainbow-colored explosion. Now since one of these is reserved for me...” She pulled out the light gray plate. As soon as she touched it, three cornflower-blue diamond shapes appeared upon it, each one a different cut. “Ah, I thought it would be something like that.”

“It’s probably asking a bit much of you, but is there any chance you can take a guess about the identities of the ponies associated with these two remaining unmarked plates?” the bishop asked.

Rarity removed the pale, light grayish raspberry plate. “This one belongs to Pinkie Pie. I met her yesterday, and she’s a pony. Oh, her legal name is Pinkamena. I don’t know if she’ll be asking you to legally change her name whenever we all get switched back or not.”

Father Gnosi wrote something down on a Post-It note. “I’ll be sure to let my staff know which name to address her by for the immediate future.”

Rarity looked at the last, brilliant gamboge plate very carefully... “This...looks like Applejack’s color, but that’s impossible.”

“There’s an Applejack in Canterlot,” Father Gnosi said.

“Yes I know,” Rarity replied. “The problem is, Pinkie Pie and I were in the extreme southwest of Equestria when the explosion occurred, and were directly under it. Applejack, the pony version, is staying in Manehattan, which is in the extreme northeast corner of Equestria. If Applejack was affected, then more than half of Equestria would be affected, and you only have six plates that changed color.”

“Rainbow Dash said that she and Fluttershy were from a place named Cloudsdale,” Father Gnosi said, consulting a notepad.

“And Cloudsdale was directly over Rockville at the time, confirming my theory,” said Rarity. “No, this plate, and the marked one, must belong to ponies that either lived in Cloudsdale, or near Pinkie Pie—I was just visiting the area, and so am not familiar with its inhabitants. I’ll ask Pinkie to tell you what she knows when she comes by to collect her plate.

“Now to get to the million bit question, Darling: Do you know how to get us back to Equestria?”

“No,” Father Gnosi said simply. “But I know of some resources I can consult with.”

Rarity was fairly certain she knew who one of those “resources” was—after all, that was the whole point of her plan.

“They might not know how to get you home, either, but at least it will be a start. Frankly, my expectation is that your Princess will be the one to resolve this matter. The best we can do is expedite the process.”

Rarity nodded her head. “Yes, that was what I was expecting as well.” She got up from her chair. “Still, it never hurts to ask for help.”

Father Gnosi rose as well. “That’s a core tenant of our religion,” he said with a grin. “Well let me say that it’s an honor to finally meet a pony, although I’m sorry that it was not with one who chose to visit our world by their own choice, and who was forced to kidnap one of my...parishioners...”

“Is there a problem, Father?” Rarity asked.

“Do you know what happened to the spirit of the human Rarity?” he asked.

“Well, I believe that she is currently occupying my pony body. I certainly haven’t heard any voices in my head claiming to be her.”

“But you don’t know for sure,” he said, looking out the window. “Would you mind if I try something with you? I have a way of being absolutely certain that the human Rarity is not trapped inside your head. I would really like to know, for not only my piece of mind, but hers.”

“Oh of course!” Rarity exclaimed. “If you do find her inside of me, would we be able to talk to her? She might not even know what is going on.”

“Yes, we should be able to do that. Please follow me.”

#

After telling the young woman in the smock to take care of any official affairs while they were gone, Father Gnosi led Rarity around the side of the church and over to the greenhouse-shaped building. As Rarity watched, he opened a box mounted next to the locked door and stuck one eye up against a black rubber ring designed to enclose it. A bit of light escaped as his retina was scanned. The door opened.

“Just as I would ask you to please not tell anybody who doesn’t need to know about your identity and about Equestria in general, I also ask that you not tell anyone what you’re about to see inside the Solarium,” he told her. “I am in no position of authority over you, so this is just a courtesy. I suppose I should also mention that your Princess is also in favor of keeping the relationship between our two worlds a secret.”

Rarity nodded mutely. She followed Gnosi into an antechamber, then had to avert her eyes from a blinding light that was being emitted around the sides of the door that led into the rest of the Solarium. “What is that light?!” she exclaimed.

“Oh,” the bishop said, “I guess you’re not immune to sunlight like Markists are. That’s going to make this tricky.” He walked over to a bank of lockers on one wall. After examining several of them, he finally opened one to reveal an orange-colored baggy suit. “You’ll need to put this on to protect yourself from second-degree sunburns,” he said. Taking out a pocket knife from a shelf in the locker, he proceeded to cut a slit in the neck of the suit. “I’ll have to touch you directly,” he explained.

“Are you sure all this is necessary?” Rarity asked.

“The concentrated sunlight in the Solarium allows us to manifest the full powers of our pony counterparts. Somewhere in Equestria is a pony named Gnosi with limited mental abilities. If I’m going to take a look in your mind, we have to go in there.”

Rarity was intrigued. “Alright,” she said finally. “Now turn around. I may not need to disrobe to put this suit on, but I will have to get into some undignified postures, and I am a lady.”

“Oh, of course,” the abashed bishop said, facing the far corner.

The suit was equipped with welder’s goggles, leaving Rarity completely sightless. Once she told Father Gnosi that he could look at her again, he had to guide her through the door, and into the Solarium itself.

Once she was there, she no longer needed help. The room, even through the smoked glass, was painfully bright. She watched as Gnosi walked around a bit—she could see him soaking in the sunlight.

Finally he walked over to her. “It just occurred to me that I’m practically a stranger to you. Do you trust me to walk around in your head?”

“First of all, your pleasant demeanor has earned my trust, along with knowing that your job depends on you being trustworthy. And second, I’m a unicorn—I’ve already been forced into a group mind already. It’s practically the first thing any mad unicorn tries to do. Luckily I was four at the time, so there were no secrets of mine worth sharing with the world. As a matter of fact, I believe the mad unicorn in question...was named Gnosi Augur.”

“... I wish to deeply apologize for the actions of my counterpart. I...I had no idea that ponies were subject to such indignities. Were...capable of performing such indignities...”

“Oh, don’t even think of apologizing!” Rarity exclaimed with a rosy smile. “I have already gathered plenty of evidence to show that counterparts do not have to exactly mirror each other in every respect. Like I said, I trust you, the individual. As for the rest, I suppose that is the cost of raising us into the subject of a religion. Ponies are just as fallible as any other class of creature. I haven’t had too much exposure to humanity, but I have certainly seen a fair number of wonderful examples to remember fondly when I return to my home and my body.” She gently bent her neck, presenting it to him.

Father Gnosi blushed, having nothing to say. He then gently reached his hand through the slit in Rarity’s suit.

Rarity turned her head away, to keep from being blinded by the light that was coming in around the hand. Nevertheless, she was able to see out of the corner of her eye that the hand itself was glowing, with motes of light gently floating away from his skin to dance inside the close confines of the suit. The hand touched the side of her head...

Rarity suddenly found herself in a bedroom, one that shared a few elements with her bedroom back home, including color combinations. She supposed this was the bedroom of her human counterpart. What made it unusual was its extreme height. She soon realized the reason for this: she was back in her pony body. She turned, to see Father Gnosi towering over her, dressed in a formal suit. He was the correct height for the room.

“Greetings Rarity, Citizen of Equestria,” Gnosi said, kneeling before her.

Rarity curtsied. “Is this a representation of human Rarity’s mind?” she asked.

“It is,” Gnosi said. “Now let’s take a look around.”

The pair spent the subjective span of twenty minutes searching through the various closets, cabinets, hope chests and cubby holes in the room. They even went through the contents of the bigger-on-the-inside recycling bin. I will not be regaling you with a list of their discoveries, as each one of them represented some aspect of Rarity’s personality that she did not wish to publicize. Several of their discoveries led Rarity to stare at Gnosi in shame, grotesquely fascinated by how he would react. But he managed to repress any sort of reaction whatsoever, remaining the perfect gentleman.

At no point in their examination did they discover another Rarity, not even an itty bitty one.

They also did not find a Pinkie Pie. Rarity had been dreading that particular discovery.

After that, Gnosi returned the pair of them to the Solarium. Rarity looked around her at the half-dozen other people using the room. A couple of them were flying like pegasi, and others were practicing unicorn spells or simply meditating.

They returned to the antechamber, and Rarity removed the suit. Gnosi rolled it up to throw it away—he would order another one, for the next unlikely occasion when an unbeliever needed to use it.

Rarity followed Gnosi back to his office in the church.

“Was there anything else?” Gnosi asked.

Rarity closed the door. “I was wondering why I didn’t inherit the physical abilities of this body when I occupied it, including resistance to concentrated sunlight,” she told him. “That’s when I realized: your concentrated sunlight is the same color as unfiltered mana.” She put a hand to her temple and concentrated on her mark plate.

Gnosi watched in amazement as Rarity’s eyes glowed. The same glow surrounded the plate, which slowly rose into the air. She then lowered it.

“You see?” she asked him. “I brought my magic with me!”

“That’s incredible, Rarity,” Gnosi said in praise. “But you should conserve yourself. You’re not capable of converting sunlight into magic, and this world is otherwise devoid of it. The magic you brought with you is all that you have.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Rarity said, picking up her plate. “Well, I’ll go back to school now.”

“Hold on, let me write you a permission slip,” Gnosi said. “I wish you the best of luck on your first day with the school. In case you didn’t know, the principal of your school is Celestia, but she’s not the Princess. She’s mortal, and should be treated...well, like a principal.”

“I will, Darling. And thank you, for everything you’ve done for me so far.”

P. Rainbow Dash & P. Fluttershy

Rainbow Dash was easily able to talk Mother Meridiem into writing out excuses why she and Fluttershy could skip school today, especially after she revealed that she was actually several years younger than her human body, and therefore completely unequipped to be attending Ninth grade classes. Meridiem even offered to deliver the notes to Principal Cinch directly, so there would be no chance that the wily administrator could pull the truth out of the two of them.

“For now, I accept complete responsibility for the two of you,” Meridiem said. This was a great relief for Cloud Cover and Posey Shy, as they had jobs to go to. “Is there anywhere you’d like me to take you?”

“I saw some flying machines on the television,” Rainbow Dash said. “Is there any way I can see one up close?”

“Well, I can take you to the private airport, but I can’t guarantee that I can get you closer than a hundred feet.”

Rainbow shrugged. “I’ll take what I can get.”

“And what about you, Fluttershy?”

“Umm...”

“Do you have any animal sanctuaries?” Rainbow asked on her behalf.

“We have a zoo.” In response to the confused look on the two ex-pegasi, she added, “it’s close enough to a sanctuary.”

“Alright,” Fluttershy said.

“We’ll just have to stop by Crystal Prep first, but after that I promise you a fun day of seeing what this human world has to offer.”

#

At the school, Fluttershy ducked down in her seat, and so Rainbow Dash did the same. After a few minutes, Meridiem returned, and the trio drove off to the zoo.

It was there that Father Gnosi got through to them, and they learned about Rarity and Pinkie Pie.

Abacus Cinch.

Principal Abacus Cinch sat in her darkened office, fuming.

She did this a lot.

Due to the power wielded by Mother Meridiem, and the Markist Church in general, she had no choice but to accept the notices that they were being removed from class for “religious reasons” for the immediate future, and was denied the opportunity to interview them directly, despite seeing the two of them obviously hiding in the back of the bishop’s car through her window.

Abacus did not really believe in the religion she had been born into. She had largely succeeded in life by ignoring the teachings of the Markists, and hewing more to the proven wisdom of Machiavelli.

Fluttershy was a liability to Crystal Prep. She had been since Day 1. The only reason she had been admitted is because it was the only way to secure the admission of her best friend Rainbow Dash. And the only reason Rainbow Dash was accepted was because the parents of American high school students—regardless of religion—had an illogical attachment to sports prowess. Rainbow Dash would never fit the ideal of the Crystal Prep graduate: someone who pushed the world into Progress, kicking and screaming if need be.

But now, with her humiliating performance after her victory in the Junior Varsity game, her usefulness to the Academy was considerably diminished. She might be able to win games, but no girl who suffered from panic attacks was worthy of belonging to the premiere pre-university academic establishment of New Brass Sky. Well...someone who suffered from panic attacks really wasn’t worthy of being a member of the human race, but sadly, Abacus Finch was not in charge of the culling of humanity. At least, not outside of her daydreams.

This religious business...that was suspicious. If Rainbow Dash wanted to defect to the defective public school...let her. For the little time she would have after making such a foolish decision. So long as Abacus had the time to set up the proper narrative, make it clear to all that Abacus’ error was too much generosity to a troubled child who rewarded opportunity with petty vengeance. She had a crew on speed dial with complete instructions on how to vandalize Crystal Prep in a way that looked horrible...but was cheap to clean up, and impossible to trace to the correct party.

Unless the Church was actually up to something? Abacus pulled a burn phone out of a drawer and speed-dialed a different number. “Hello Jeremiah?” she asked after engaging the voice-altering app. “I need you to follow Mother Meridiem Tempest’s car around for the day. I’m less interested in what she does than the activities of her two teenage guests: Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy.”

Chapter 9: Wild Blue Yonder (The Human Mercenaries, P. Fluttershy, P. Rainbow Dash)

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter 10: Wine-Dark Sea (P. Applejack, P. Rarity, H. Trixie)

P. Applejack—Earth, Canterlot High. Mid-morning of Day Two.

Trixie waited until the end of First Period for Applejack to emerge from her class and immediately fell into step beside her.

“Alright, I know I promised to tell you everything first thing, but I seem to be having a thing with buses recently,” she said in a fast-paced patter.

Applejack stopped. Trixie stopped. They looked at each other.

Applejack had no idea who this blue-skinned girl was. But apparently she was supposed to. “Look,” she said, deliberately slowing the conversation down. “I don’t need to hear everything.” She saw something in Trixie’s expression, a feeling that this “everything” was a big deal. “At least not today. Tell me when you’re ready, and I’ll be there to hear it.”

“O...OK,” Trixie said, with an immense sense of relief. “Thank you! I’ll make this up to you, I swear!” And then she turned to race back to her locker, as Applejack continued on to hers.

P. Rarity.

Nearly an hour later, Rarity was stopped within a few steps of entering the school by the hall monitor, a towering young man named Spearhead. Her permission slip was accepted, and she was allowed on her way. It was now a few minutes before the end of Second Period.

Rarity opened the Notes application on her phone, where everything was written in a font that had been converted from a sample of the human Rarity’s elegant handwriting. This particular note told her where her locker was, and what its combination was. The locker was a foot and a half across and four feet tall. There were two rows of lockers along each wall, and the freshmen were the ones stuck with the bottom ones. Above one set of lockers was an electrically-powered clock in less than working order, which buzzed as its second hand crawled around its face. Putting her backpack on the ground, Rarity crouched down next to her locker, dialed the combination into the lock and removed it, and opened the door, revealing...

“Rarity!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed, sticking her head out of the locker.

The buzzing had stopped.

“Pinkie Pie!” Rarity exclaimed, falling down on her bottom. She had to catch herself with one hand to prevent falling all the way over. “What?! How?!”

“Maud and I were at the military surplus store! The humans have invented the most amazing gun that I have ever seen! Here, let me show—”

Rarity quickly shoved a hand into Pinkie’s face. “No, Pinkie,” she said. “If you do that, we will both be expelled.”

“Oh, that’s right, isn’t it?” Pinkie said, scratching her head. (No, I don’t know how she fit the arm in so she could do that. Please stop making me think about it.) “Anyway, we’ve got a couple more spots, but it doesn’t look like we can tech our way out of this.”

Rarity figured if she was stuck sitting on the dusty floor she might as well get comfortable. It took her a few seconds, but she eventually managed to independently invent the cross-legged position, astounding herself with her flexibility. While she did this, she informed Pinkie Pie about what she had learned at the church.

“Hmm...I think I saw a girl with rainbow-colored hair today at the airport,” Pinkie said. She turned her head to add, “Hey, Maud, did you happen to see a blue girl with rainbow hair or a yellow girl with pink hair today? Rarity thinks they’re ponies.”

“Pinkie,” Rarity said quietly but very, very seriously, “I swear to Celestia if Maud sticks her head out of that locker, I will cause a spectacle.”

Pinkie Pie frowned. “Aw, you’re no fun. Anyway, there’s no room for Maud here, so she’d stick her head out of that locker.” She motioned with her head at the locker to her left. “Or no, that one would be funnier.” And this time she nodded her head at the bank of lockers on the opposite wall. “But she didn’t see anybody, so she’s not going to do it. Oh, and-somebody’s-coming-so-bye!” She pulled her head back into the locker, which spontaneously closed behind her.

As Rarity struggled to get up, she heard a faint buzzing sound from above her. The clock had just resumed ticking.

Spearhead came around the corner. “Rarity! Did you fall down? Here, let me help you up.”

Rarity let Spearhead help her get up. “Thank you, Spearhead. You really fill out that uniform.”

Spearhead puffed up, ignoring the fact that his “uniform” was nothing more than a yellow sash. “J...just doing my duty, ma’am.”

Rarity inclined her head. Spearhead moved along.

Rarity crouched back down, and cautiously opened her locker for a second time. The inside was stuffed with textbooks and beauty supplies. There was a shadowy face at the back of the locker, but that was soon revealed to be a mini poster for some celebrity named Chestnut Magnifico. There was no hole behind the poster. Rarity transferred a couple of the spiral-bound notebooks that the Pies had given her into the locker, and removed the textbook for Third Period, closing the locker.

As she stood up, Rarity realized that threats of a tantrum aside, she was more comfortable with what Pinkie had just done. It made no logical sense to accept Pinkie coming out of a locker that obviously had no room for her, just as it made no sense that Pinkie could just appear out of nowhere back in the truck last night. But somehow, not seeing her appear from nowhere made a world of difference. She made a note to herself to give Pinkie a note of encouragement the next time she saw her. At this rate, she may well be able to pass for normal in less than a week.

Just then the bell rang, and the hallways were quickly filled with students coming and going between rooms and lockers. Rarity fell in with the rest, and was soon joined by a light gold girl with hair that had a color gradient from grayish blue violet to light opal. A couple of pins in her hair showed what must have been her cutie mark: an eye inside a bow. “Pixel Pizzaz?” Rarity asked cautiously. Pixel was one of her classmates in Ponyville.

“Rarity!” Pixel exclaimed. “Why didn’t you tell me you got your mark yesterday? I was only a text away.”

“Yesterday was very weird for me,” Rarity replied, trying her best to be honest without revealing too much. She took the plate out of her backpack to show Pixel.

“That is so you!” Pixel exclaimed.

“Thank you,” said Rarity, putting the plate back. “So, how did you hear about it?”

Pixel pointed up at a speaker. “The principal made the announcement just a few minutes ago.”

Rarity smiled slyly. It appeared that her request for help had reached its intended recipient.

“Are you intending to throw a Marking Out party?” Pixel asked, as they continued to walk to their next class.

Rarity supposed that a “marking out party” was the Markist equivalent to a cute-ceañera. “Well I don’t know,” she said, “my parents are out of town.”

“Oh, right,” Pixel said, getting momentarily sad. “Why don’t you have it at my place? You could invite over Applejack...” The expression on Pixel’s face made it abundantly clear that she saw romantic elements in that relationship.

Rarity blustered for a few seconds, unable to say anything.

Pixel laughed out loud at Rarity’s display. “And you can invite that other friend you made yesterday...Pinkamena.” Pixel stopped as a somber thought struck her. “Hey Rarity,” she said, causing Rarity to stop and back up to rejoin her. “Have you heard anything about Pinkamena? She left the fair right after you dumped her to chase after Applejack.”

“‘Dumped’?” Rarity asked. “Now that sounds a bit unfair.” Of course, she had no memory of what her counterpart had actually done, but she didn’t think it in character to just dump somebody she had just befriended.

“You should have seen the look on her face,” Pixel said, looking a bit ashen herself. “I...one of us should have gone after her, but before we knew it she was gone and...I got this really bad feeling that she shouldn’t have been allowed to be by herself.”

She opened the door to the classroom, and they both walked inside. Pixel sat at her desk, and Rarity took the empty spot right next to her.

As for replying to Pixel, Rarity had taken in a breath to say something when she had started talking, but let it out through her teeth as the explanation had continued. “Look, I met her shortly after I got my mark, and I can assure you that you no longer need to worry. I just have to warn you: she’s...different now.”

“Different how?” Pixel asked. She noticed that a couple of other students were obviously listening in on their conversation. “Pinkamena Pie,” she explained.

This caused nearly everyone to look at them.

“Different like her sister Maud?” Pixel added when Rarity did not immediately answer.

“More like the exact opposite,” Rarity said. Seeing the teacher enter the room, she added, “I really should let her explain herself.” She hoped this would be enough to deflect the conversation.

“Good morning class,” the teacher, a Ms. Pansy, addressed the students. “Rarity, congratulations on your mark. I expected you to take the day off.”

“No, I’ll do that later,” Rarity said, leaving her human self an option to do that when she came back.

Thoughts of her counterpart led Rarity to think some more about the scene that Pixel had referred to, and in particular to wonder what Pinkie’s counterpart might be going through. Putting her hands to her temples, Rarity thought the name “Pinkemena” very strongly at herself. She had no idea if she might be able in this way to send a message to her counterpart, but if she could, she thought it imperative that the human Rarity check up on the human Pinkamena.

“‘Sing in me, Muse.’” Ms. Pansy recited the words from a paperback book held in one hand, using a dramatic voice and gesturing with her other hand to a far off land of imagination. These words instantly compelled Rarity’s attention. “‘And through me tell the story of that man skilled in all ways of contending, the Wanderer, harried for years on end, after he plundered the stronghold on the proud height of Troy.’ So begins the Odyssey, Homer’s sequel to the Illiad. Now, I didn’t think it fair to ask you to start reading a new book mid-week, so for the next two days I’d like you to listen to me read Book 1, and we will stop to discuss what I have read as we go along.”

Pixel raised a hand.

“Yes, Pixel?” Ms. Pansy asked.

“How many times is he going to use ‘wine-dark sea’ this time?”

The students laughed.

“Twelve,” Ms. Pansy replied with a playful smile, leading to some more laughter.

Rarity had meanwhile been paging through the thick World Literature textbook that went with this class, and contained the quote she had just heard. She had found the section on the Odyssey, and had been struck dumb by this bit from the introduction: “For angering the god Poseidon, Odysseus was condemned to wander the seas for ten long years, while his family suffered from his absence.”

Rarity had been confident that Princess Celestia would be able to reverse whatever screw-up had put her mind into this human’s brain, but what if she couldn’t? What if Rarity had to stay here, in this strange and sometimes wonderful world, which nevertheless was absolutely not Equestria? What if the human Rarity’s parents discovered what was going on, and had then kicked her out of their house for being an impostor? Would Rarity have to wander this world for the rest of her life, forever denied sanctuary because of her fundamental lack of humanity?

“This story is horrible!” Rarity wailed.

Her classmates, long since used to her theatrics, collectively rolled their eyes.

#

Rarity’s next period was World History II. This would be her first chance to see Sunset Shimmer, the new genius student.

All that anybody had been able to talk about during the break between periods had been the antics of this new student, who had apparently derived the quadratic equation using ten-dimensional tensor calculus in First Period, and had brought a dead frog back to life using two electrodes and a car battery in Second Period. Her Third Period had been P.E., and she had merely proved herself to be human in that class.

After the Fourth Period class had settled down, the severe Mr. Flattery used a ruler to point at the text he had written on the chalkboard behind him. “Students,” he asked, “how many revolutions were there in the year 1848?”

Rarity and Sunset’s hands shot up simultaneously.

“Sunset?” Mr. Flattery asked.

Rarity’s face suddenly went pale, and she lowered her hand.

Sunset stood up. “There was only one attempted Revolution of 1848,” she said smugly. “The Pegasus Uprising was actually a ruse, designed to split the Princess’ forces.”

The raised eyebrow on her teacher caused her to re-evaluate her answer. “Ha, ha,” she said dully, backed by a growing sense of panic. “That was a little history joke.” She started shrinking down, accompanied by the sniggers of the other students. “I’m going to sit down now.”

Mr. Flattery sighed. “Well, I suppose that was a bit of a trick question, so I deserved that. In fact, there were more than 50 countries affected by the Revolutions of 1848, although the actual answer I was looking for was seven primary uprisings: the ones in the Italian states, France, the German states, Hungary...”

Sunset looked around her nervously to see if her humiliating performance had had any lasting effect. What she saw was all of her classmates treating it like a joke at the teacher’s expense, which for her was perfect. The exception was Rarity, who was hyperventilating, but Sunset had already learned from the gossip about her at the Freshman Fair that most of what Rarity did was exclusively about Rarity, and nobody else, so that left her safe.

And in this one instance, Sunset was absolutely right: Rarity had been so terrified of almost outing her pony self to her fellow students that she completely missed the fact that Sunset Shimmer had said the same fatal words she had been about to utter.

There was actually a second exception, in the form of Trixie, the girl who sat directly behind her. Trixie wasn’t laughing.

#

After Fourth Period came lunch. Forewarned by breakfast, Rarity took her time going through the lunch line, examining every offering for potential meat contamination.

Oh, and the lunch lady had a strong resemblance to Granny Smith, but as that was completely ludicrous, Rarity chose to ignore that thought entirely.

Finally she sat down. Since she had taken so long, most of the tables were already full up, so she sat at one of the abandoned tables in the back. This was fine for Rarity, as it would give her time to recharge.

Only fate did not have that sort of thing in mind for today.

“...And that’s how I was able to see Lance Burton’s last show at the Monte Carlo,” Trixie said to Applejack, as the two of them were walking by Rarity’s table with their trays. She stopped Applejack, and pointed. “Wow, look who we just happened to bump into—it’s Rarity, your new friend. You two should talk.” She then practically man-handled Applejack onto the bench opposite Rarity. “This is my way for saying thanks for what you did for me this morning.”

Applejack looked over at Rarity, and immediately looked away. She then looked back up at Trixie.

“I’ll just stay here and—” Trixie began.

“No,” Applejack instructed firmly. Her voice then softened. “We’d like some privacy.” She looked imperiously at Rarity for confirmation.

Rarity nodded mutely, a bit spooked by Applejack’s attitude.

“Fine,” Trixie said playfully. “You two have fun!” She then skipped away, barely keeping her tray of food from flying in every direction.

Applejack decided to apply all of her attention to her lunch as she tried to figure out what to say.

Rarity was also puzzled. If this was the human Applejack in front of her, then there was that whole crush scenario to deal with. And if this was somehow the pony Applejack in a human body, well...that was if possible even more of an emotional knot to handle. She decided to settle the issue with a ploy that always worked on her Ponyville friend. “So how was Manehattan?” she asked innocently.

Applejack snorted. “Biggest city of phonies in all of...” She narrowed her eyes and studied the human in front of her. “Rarity?!” she exclaimed in realization, those same eyes going wide.

Rarity immediately knew which “Rarity” Applejack was referring to. “Ah, so you were caught in the magical net, just like me.”

“I’m becoming less sure of what is going on by the hour,” Applejack said, slumping down.

“Well the way I heard it, some pegasus named Rainbow Dash had a stunt go wrong, and suddenly six of us ponies have swapped bodies with the humans in this world,” Rarity exclaimed. “The bishops had all but two of the ponies identified: this Rainbow Dash, another pegasus named Fluttershy, an earth pony named Pinkie Pie, and myself. And now you are the fifth.”

Applejack poked at a rogue noodle with her fork. “And, um...what’s going to happen next?”

“We’re sending a message to Princess Celestia. She’ll probably get everything fixed tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?!” Applejack exclaimed, standing up.

Everyone looked at them.

Applejack looked around nervously. “Ah...sorry. Nothing to see here, folks.” She sat back down, and waited until nobody was looking at them anymore. “Tomorrow?” she then asked again.

“Is there a problem?” Rarity asked.

“Yes, there’s a problem,” Applejack hissed. “I don’t want to go.”

“Really?” asked Rarity, looking around her. “This place is so much more urban than Ponyville. I figured you’d be desperate to get back.”

“Well you figured wrong,” Applejack snapped back.

“Applejack, give me one reason why you’d prefer being a human to being a pony.”

“I’ll give you two,” Applejack said, pulling out her phone and bringing up a photo she took last night.

I don’t need to tell you who was in the photo.

“Oh,” Rarity said. She was able to figure out the identities of the two figures instantly.

“Please don’t tell those bishop folks about me,” Applejack pleaded with her.

“Al...alright,” Rarity said. “You can come forward in your own time. You...are going back eventually, right?”

Applejack looked away. “Yeah, I suppose so,” she said.

It was a lie. Rarity only feared that it was.

The rest of Lunch passed silently. And awkwardly.

H. Trixie.

The last period of the day was usually Trixie’s free period, which she would spend in her home room with her student advisor. Today she decided to stop by Detention Hall instead. She found it empty, with Vice Principal Luna sitting in the teacher’s seat and reading a paperback novel.

“Would you mind if I spent my hour here?” Trixie asked tensely from the doorway.

Luna put down her copy of Anne Rice’s Queen of the Damned and looked up. “Come on in, Trixie,” she said.

Trixie had spent quite a few of her free periods in the empty detention hall. This allowed her to self-medicate in peace, and Luna’s penchant for rooms with only 50% lighting was also good for her nerves.

“Thanks,” Trixie said, walking into the darkened room. Finding a seat in the back, she put down her backpack, fished out the yellow and black bottles and her water bottle, and dosed herself. “Much better.” She sat down in the seat and basically zoned out. There were a few minutes of furious battle between the colors that danced before her eyes, and after that her two medications had worked out how to get along with each other. She took in a big breath, let it out slowly, and then worked out the kinks in her neck and shoulders. Finally she got up, and slowly walked around the room.

Luna meanwhile had got back to her reading, having absolutely no trouble reading the small print in the dim lighting. She noticed Trixie’s wanderings in the corner of her eye, but did nothing.

The room was lined with cabinets holding spare copies of old textbooks. Atop the cabinets was Luna’s extensive book collection, which she allowed a select number of students to borrow from. Trixie stopped at a fat children’s book, the kind with thick cardboard pages. “Vice Principal? Did you ever find out where Sunset Shimmer came from?” she suddenly asked.

Luna put the bookmark back in its place and put the book down. “Why do you ask?” she asked, mostly to prevent answering Trixie’s question.

“She said something very odd in World History today,” Trixie said. She then repeated verbatim exactly what Sunset Shimmer had said about the Revolutions of 1848.

“I see,” Luna said darkly. So darkly in fact that Trixie was intimidated. She felt for a moment that she was in the presence of a Dark Power.

“Th...this is an odd book for you to be keeping,” Trixie said suddenly, pulling out the children’s book. It was called Somnia, Princess of Dreams, and it was written by “C. Equinia” and illustrated by... “Is this your work?” The cover illustration showed a semi-transparent woman in a shining white nightgown. She had billowing hair adorned with stars, and she was floating above a bed containing two children, curled up in fear under the blankets. Approaching the sleeping children was another ghostly figure, a slobbering monster. The woman had a hand stretched towards the monster to ward it away, and the hand was glowing with power.

“Yes,” said Luna, getting up and walking over to pick up the book and go through the pages. “My sister wrote it, under a rather obvious pseudonym. But the idea was mine. We wrote it back in the ‘80s.” She looked off into the distance. “It was a far different time.”

Trixie poked her head around to get a look at some of the illustrations. “I’ve seen that book before. Like, a lot. I think every one of my friends has a copy.”

“Yes, it sold pretty well,” Luna said. “I believe that its lesson of holding strong against your personal nightmares has resonated with many a struggling child.”

“They’ve dreamed about her,” Trixie said.

“So I’ve heard,” Luna said mysteriously.

“I missed out on that,” Trixie said, dejected. “I didn’t get to have my childhood in Canterlot. Didn’t even really get to have a childhood at all, come to think of it. Do...do you mind if I borrow this? I’m not exactly in the target age range anymore, but I’ve felt since the moment I came here that Canterlot is my home, and this looks like a rite of Canterlot passage that I missed out on.”

“Go right ahead,” Luna said, handing the book over to Trixie. “Just try not to be too hard on the grammar or composition.”

“I won’t,” Trixie said with a grin.

She went back to her seat, brought up the light on her phone, and used that to start slowly reading the book, being sure to take in all the illustrations.

She ended up reading it twice before the end of the period.

Luna meanwhile had returned to her seat. She pretended to read her own book, but really she was watching Trixie with a little smile on her face.

Author's Note

Here are the notes for this chapter.

Chapter 11: Champagne Wishes and Caviar Dreams (P. Applejack, P. Rarity, H. Trixie, H. Pixel Pizzaz)

P. Applejack—Earth, outside Canterlot High. Mid-afternoon of Day Two.

School was out, and every student unlucky enough not to have an older friend or relative who could drive was stuck using the school buses to get home.

Applejack had Big Mac, and the family’s truck.

Big Mac waited until the truck was at a stoplight to ask the question that had been bugging him all day: “Pa was sure you got your mark yesterday with that speech. Did you have the Dream last night? Should I be taking you to the Church?”

Applejack broke out in a cold sweat—the absolute last thing she wanted to do was visit the church that was sending the other ponies back home. “I didn’t have no dream. Guess Pa must have been wrong about me getting my mark.”

In the past twenty-four hours, Applejack had uttered a lifetime’s worth of lies. So why did this one bit of technical truth hurt so much more than all of the lies put together?

Maybe it was because it was the first time in her entire life that she had ever admitted that her father was fallible.

P. Rarity.

Rarity fit into the very tiny third category of after-school kids: those who had to take a city bus, because they had an after-school job.

(Yes, yes, and there’s also the group of kids who got to walk home from school, but I think I’ve belabored this plot point quite enough.)

As Rarity was waiting for her bus, her phone started ringing. Actually, what she heard was the voice of Pinkie Pie going “ring-ring-ring-ring-ring!” With a smile, she pulled the phone out of her purse and answered it. Since she was alone at the bus stop, she chose to hold the phone before her so she could see which personality she was speaking with from moment to moment.

“Hi, it’s me!” Pinkie announced from the phone’s screen, with the facade of the Markist Church behind her. There was absolutely no sign that she was actually using a phone to call Rarity.

“Hi, Pinkie,” Rarity said. “I hope you’re not coming to pick me up—I’m going to work.”

“Um...noooo!” Pinkie lied. “I, uh, called to see how your day went.”

“It went well, thank you for asking,” Rarity said. “The students asked about you.”

“They did?” Now this was a new one—it looked and sounded like Pinkie was speaking, but Rarity was confident that it was Pinkamena’s thoughts that were being expressed. And Pinkamena was extremely doubtful of Rarity’s statement.

“Yes, they were all worried about you.”

“Yeah, right!” Pinkamena exclaimed. “Schoolfillies are all the same! And none of those other fillies ever...” Pinkamena raised a clenched fist and closed her eyes. Slowly, she shifted back into Pinkie. “...But that’s assuming, and assuming is wrong.” Pinkie opened her eyes. “What did you tell them?”

“Not much,” Rarity reported. “They know that you’ve changed, and you want to be called ‘Pinkie’ now. I’m leaving the rest to you for tomorrow.”

“We might not even be here for tomorrow!” Pinkie then caught herself. “Um...I mean, is that it?”

Rarity looked at Pinkie curiously. “What else would there be?”

“You know...that big thing that happened...that you forgot to tell me...that I’m not supposed to know yet because I’m not reading your mind anymore...but you were very loud about it when it happened...”

“Oh!” Rarity exclaimed. “That’s right! My plan with the church worked out. But I was never contacted afterwards, despite giving my phone number to Father Gnosi. Maybe the Princess is too busy?”

“Probably,” said the voice of Maud from off-screen.

“And the part I forgot to tell you was that Father Gnosi has a Marking Plate for you that you need to claim.”

“Yay!” Pinkie exclaimed. “Okay, so I’m going to get the plate, and then I’ll meet you at the Pizzaz house. Assuming my precognition is working correctly. I always get new quirks and limitations with that particular power depending on my host, so—” She finally noticed the finger being held up by Rarity.

“Alright, first? I didn’t need to hear that,” said Rarity.

“Sorry.”

“And second, that ‘limitation’ is probably that you can only predict fun things, and not horrible things that you can’t prevent.”

“How do you figure that?” Pinkie asked.

“Because that one’s far better for my blood pressure.” Rarity looked up to see a car driving up to the bus stop, with Pixel Pizzaz sticking her head out and yelling her name. “I’ll see you then.”

“Say bye, Maud!”

“Bye, Maud.”

Rarity returned the phone to her purse with an incredulous expression. “Was that a joke?” she asked herself.

“Hey, Rarity!” Pixel cried out. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m going to my job with Prim Hemline,” Rarity replied.

“Nope,” Pixel said, and pulled out her phone to play a video.

The video showed Prim Hemline speaking into the phone. “Rarity,” she said, “I absolutely forbid you to waste a day at my shop after so spectacularly getting your mark. Now be a dear and let this young woman kidnap you.”

“‘Kidnap’?” Rarity asked herself, having never encountered the word before.

“Just get in,” Trixie said from the back seat.

‘Oh,’ thought Rarity. ‘So “ponynap”.’

“I figured since both of my best friends got their marks on the same day that I’d get you both together to organize your joint marking out party,” Pixel explained. “Especially since you’d have a fit if we tried to do it as a surprise and got the colors a shade off.”

Rarity rolled her eyes, but did not refute the accusation. She then walked around and got into the car’s back seat on the side not occupied by Trixie. “Hello, Trixie.”

“Hello, Rarity,” Trixie replied, before turning her head to glare at Pixel’s reflection in the passenger-side vanity mirror. “Hey, if we’re both your best friends, how come you never mentioned Rarity to me before?”

“Hey, a girl’s got to have her secrets,” Pixel said in her own defense. “I’m an International Woman of Mystery!”

“How many more ‘best friends’ do you have that I don’t know about?”

Pixel looked urgently over to the driver, her mother. “Hey, isn’t that the bus right behind us? We better leave right now so they can pick up passengers!”

With a sly smile, Mrs. Pizzaz accelerated sharply into traffic, shutting Trixie up.

#

Their next stop was Platinum Junior High, where Rarity’s sister Sweetie Belle was waiting.

Rarity was eager to see what her baby sister might grow up to become. The human Sweetie Belle looked self-assured. She was dressed and coiffed impeccably, but that was to be expected given who was certainly in charge of those categories. In addition, she had an interest in learning, judging from the book she was reading while she was waiting. And she had at least some interest in drama, because the book was the screenplay of the 1950 motion picture Sunset Boulevard.

And finally, she was polite. “Hello Pixel, Mrs. Pizzaz,” she said as she approached the car. “Are we staying over with you tonight?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Rarity said.

“So your parents didn’t even make arrangements for you to stay with somebody else...again?” Pixel asked with a near-audible eye-roll.

“We’re perfectly alright taking care of ourselves if that wasn’t part of your plan,” Rarity said to the mother-and-daughter pair.

“Does that mean I can cook?!” Sweetie Belle asked, her voice squeaking on the last word.

“Under my supervision I suppose,” Rarity said quietly.

“Not if you don’t want the house to burn down,” Pixel said more loudly at the exact same moment.

The two of them looked at the other like they were insane.

Sweetie Belle crossed her arms and pouted at Pixel’s words.

Rarity got out of the car, so Sweetie Belle could sit between her and Trixie.

“Hi, I’m Trixie,” Trixie said to Sweetie Belle.

“I’m Sweetie Belle,” Sweetie Belle said as she put her backpack down on the floor between her feet.

Rarity got in, and shut the door. “So how was your slumber party last night?”

“Rarity!” Sweetie Belle whined. “I’m too old for slumber parties. It was a sleepover.”

“Alright, how did the sleepover go?”

“It was fine. We started watching the Extended Edition of Lord of the Rings, but Apple Bloom fell asleep around ‘They’re taking the hobbits to Isengard’, so I had to watch the rest all by myself.”

Rarity had no idea what her sister was talking about. Mrs. Pizzaz wondered if Sweetie Belle had gotten any sleep whatsoever, and if not, when her current sugar-powered high was going to crash.

“I got to meet Applejack,” Sweetie continued. She looked right at Rarity when she added, “I get what you see in her.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Rarity demanded.

“She’s weeeeiiirrrd,” Sweetie teased.

Rarity “harumph”ed. Complete with actually saying “Harumph!”

“So,” Sweetie asked, “if we’re not spending the night with the Pizzaz family, what are we doing?”

“We’re arranging a marking out party for your sister and Trixie,” Pixel explained.

Sweetie turned to Rarity, her hand out. “What’s your new mark look like?” she asked coldly.

Rarity pulled out the marking plate and gave it to her sister.

Sweetie examined it. “So why didn’t you tell me when you got it?” she asked, clearly hurt about being left out of her older sister’s big moment.

“I...well...”

“She didn’t tell anybody,” Pixel said.

This immediately changed Sweetie Belle’s expression, from a pout to a smirk. “Oh, I get it.” She gave the trio of three different blue gems another look. “‘Oh, I shan’t reveal my mark to another soul,’” she said, in a parody of Rarity’s voice. “‘It’s vile asymmetry is a stain upon the Mark of Fashion. It is, in fact, the worst. Possible. Thing!”

And then Sweetie put a hand up to her forehead and pretended to swoon. Complete with exclaiming “Swoon!”

Everyone other than Rarity then laughed.

“I do not sound like that!” Rarity said in a small voice, sulking. She began to regret having a sister old enough to be capable of expressing her thoughts to others.

#

The next and last stop was the home of the Pizzaz family. In form the house was nearly identical to all of the other houses in the neighborhood, the kind of two story townhouse that might be found in any suburb in America. This one was painted white with raspberry red highlights, the best colors to complement the Pizzaz family colors of light gold, light opal and chartreuse green.

Once inside the house, Mrs. Pizzaz led the girls to the kitchen, where she had set up rolls of paper and jars of easily-cleanable paint. “Have fun!” she told them, before retreating to the next room over to do the laundry.

Pixel collected the marking plates from both Rarity and Trixie and propped them up against the napkin holder so they stood on end. She took some paper and a pencil, and started drawing the symbols from the two plates in different ways.

Rarity took a mirror out of her purse, then walked over to Trixie and held it up so she could see her reflection right next to Trixie’s face. “The dominant colors for the decorations are going to have to be indigo and violet, obviously.”

Trixie looked in confusion between her own reflection in the mirror and Rarity’s face. “Obviously?”

“But sadly, they are far too close to each other on the color wheel. And this eggshell white just will not do!” (The “eggshell white” referred to the colors of the walls and ceiling.) “We’ll simply have to paint everything in the house canary yellow. Or cornflower blue, but that would make you invisible, Trixie!” She then laughed at her own joke.

Trixie glared at Rarity. She remembered her vow from yesterday to get to the bottom of Rarity’s suspicious behavior, and began to plot.

Mrs. Pizzaz opened the door of the laundry room. “We are not repainting the house,” she declared with finality, before closing the door.

“Very well,” said a defeated Rarity. That tone of defeat lasted about a millisecond. “We’ll switch to a shade of blue that works with both a white background and my indigo tresses.”

“Forget about the colors!” Trixie declared. “It’s not like anybody would notice.”

Rarity gasped in shock, but quickly recovered. “Well, they will notice the symbology.” She pulled some paper off of the nearest roll and started putting a design down with the paints. “Now I was thinking that we combine the magic wand from your mark with one of the gems from my mark, like...so!”

Trixie looked at the design. “Could you draw a thinner line? My part of the design is basically not there, while your gem is enormous!”

“Relative financial value, Darling,” Rarity explained.

“Relative financial...!” Trixie took a moment to take in a breath. “Look, it’s a party for two separate people, not a couple, so the symbols should be separate. And mine doesn’t have to literally be my new mark, since the plates are going to be displayed front and center anyway. Mine can be...” A crafty expression appeared upon her face. “...A unicorn horn, to symbolize magic. What would your symbol be? A horn, a pair of wings, or a hoof?”

“Disembodied pony parts? How horrid!” Rarity exclaimed. “Wands and gems are fine.”

Having got what she wanted out of Rarity—getting her to say the word “pony” first—Trixie moved back to her own interests. “Now with the symbols out of the way, let’s move on to the entertainment! I’ve got a complete magic set that would be perfect for a birthday party, ages thirteen to seventeen. I haven’t gotten a marking party routine yet, but this is close enough, right?”

Rarity sighed. “Trixie, it’s a bit uncouth to perform at one’s own party. You already are the center of attention.”

Trixie pouted. “You’re just jealous because you haven’t got anything to do at the party.”

“I shall be the mistress of ceremonies,” Rarity countered. “That will be more than enough.”

“Co-mistress.”

“We shall see about that.”

Trixie quietly screamed in frustration and stalked off to the living room.

Rarity looked around at Pixel and Sweetie, to see that she clearly was in the wrong. But she wasn’t ready to admit that yet, so she picked up a pen and a notepad. “I’m going to refresh my memory of the rest of the house,” she declared. “So to best optimize our color choices.” She then walked into the hall, and up the stairs to the second floor.

Pixel looked helplessly at Sweetie.

Sweetie shrugged. “I’m going to talk to Trixie,” she said, before leaving the room.

The doorbell then rung.

“And I’m going to answer the door,” Pixel said to nobody, getting up.

H. Trixie.

“Did I screw up?” Trixie asked herself. “Because when somebody yells, it’s usually my fault.” She was sitting on the couch, watching Adventure Time.

“It’s not your fault,” Sweetie Belle said, sitting down beside her. “Rarity is weird.”

Trixie thought about her continuing investigation. “I think something’s going on with your sister,” she confided. “I think she’s hiding something.”

“Finally!” Sweetie exclaimed. “I’ve been trying to tell people that exact same thing, but nobody listens to me!”

“So what do you think is going on?” Trixie asked.

Sweetie looked around to make sure nobody was listening in, then she beckoned Trixie to lean over so she could whisper in her ear. “I think she’s a space alien.”

Trixie leaned back—this was not exactly what she was hoping to hear. “For how long?” she asked.

“For as far back as I remember,” Sweetie answered. “She thinks she’s doing a good job of impersonating a human being, but she’s clearly not. She’s got a collection of videotapes for some 80’s TV show called Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, and every year I catch her watching the whole series in her room, talking along with the weird announcer guy. Who also is probably an alien.”

Trixie then concluded that this was just a sister thing. “Thanks for coming out here to talk,” she said, getting up. “I guess I’ll go back and help Pixel plan the party. Coming with?”

“No, I’m good,” Sweetie said, picking up the television remote control and turning up the volume. “I think Rarity is less crazy when I’m not around.” She squinted her eyes dramatically while adding, “She knows that I know too much about her true nature.”

“Uh...right,” Trixie responded, before turning and leaving.

H. Pixel Pizzaz.

Meanwhile, Pixel had opened the front door to see Pinkie and Maud Pie. Pinkie was in front, with an arm stretched back behind her so that Maud could hold her hand. “Hello, Pinkie, Maud. What can I do for you?” Pixel asked.

“H...hi,” Pinkie said, caught off guard by Pixel using the correct name. “I came to see Rarity.”

“How did you know she was here?” Pixel asked suspiciously.

Pinkie’s eyes darted around as she tried to think of a non-creepy method for knowing where Rarity was.

“The two of them got friend-tracking apps on their phones,” Maud blatantly lied. Since she said it with confidence and in her toneless voice, the lie was impossible to detect—as long as you didn’t remember the fact that none of the Pies were allowed by their parents to have mobile phones.

Pixel failed to remember this fact. “OK. We’re planning the marking out party for her and my other friend Trixie. Would you like to help?”

“Would I?” Pinkie asked, getting a little giddy. “I got my own mark yesterday for giving my first party!”

“That’s great!” Pixel exclaimed. “Come on in.” She waited until they were both inside and the door was closed to add. “I love your new look.”

Pinkie froze and turned around. “You...do?” she asked neutrally.

Maud once again grabbed her hand for moral support.

“Yeah,” Pixel said, feeling put on the spot. “I...I’m sorry I never really was there for you before. You were sort of invisible.”

Pinkie said nothing.

“And I’m glad you’ve got your life turned around,” Pixel added. “I should have done more to help you out.” She looked down at the ground. “I should have been there for you yesterday when you needed somebody.” She looked back up at Pinkie. “I thought about doing something, a lot, but I never did anything. And just thinking is not good enough.”

“It’s alright, Pixel,” Maud said. “You were Marble’s friend, not hers. And you may not believe me, but your strong thoughts did matter in the end.”

Pixel gave Maud a confused look, before turning once again to Pinkie. “I want to make up for that. I’d like to be your friend, if you like. I’d like to get to know you...the whole you.” She punctuated this last part by drawing a circle around Pinkie’s head with a finger.

Pinkie looked away, her mind engaged in an energetic internal debate, before turning back. “I...I’d like that,” she said. “You must be a really good person to befriend Marble.”

For a moment, Pixel thought she saw the shy vulnerable Pinkamena in Pinkie’s eyes. She smiled. “Let me introduce you to Trixie,” she said, leading the pair back into the kitchen, where Trixie was waiting for her. “Trixie, these are Rarity’s friends, Pinkie Pie and her sister Maud.” Pixel looked over at Maud, to see if she was overstepping her bounds by naming her as Rarity’s friend. Maud gave a barely-noticeable shrug of her shoulders. “Pinkie also got her mark yesterday.”

Pinkie pulled a pink plate with three balloons on it from her purse, and handed it to Pixel, who set it up next to the other two plates.

“Okay, that makes sense, Pinkie. What about you, Maud? What do you bring to this party?”

“I’m Pinkie’s reality consultant,” Maud said.

“Huh,” was Trixie’s response.

“Pinkie would like to take over the planning, if you don’t mind, Trixie,” Pixel explained. “Her mark is in party planning.”

Trixie picked up the plate and looked at it for a moment, then shrugged as she put it back. “Fine with me. Somebody needs to keep Rarity and I from tearing each other’s hair out.”

“Our disagreement was nowhere near that bad,” Rarity said, walking back into the kitchen. She then glared at Trixie, who glared back at her.

Pinkie looked quietly back and forth between the two glare queens, before pointing at Rarity. “You, stay here and I’ll collect your ideas.” She then pointed to Trixie. “And you, go somewhere where you can’t hear us. Pixel, could you stay as an unbiased observer? I don’t want to be later accused of favoritism.”

“Absolutely!” Pixel said, sitting down.

Seeing her example, Rarity sat down beside her. “I surrender myself to your judgment, oh Pinkie the Great and Powerful.”

Trixie’s face nearly turned pink with rage. She looked back and forth between the living room blaring Adventure Time, and the laundry room with the rhythmic thumping of an unbalanced clothes dryer. And then she remembered one of her other projects. “Pixel, I think I’ll help your mother with the clothes,” she said. And then she left the room.

H. Trixie.

Mrs. Pizzaz was busy folding one load of clothes while another was bumping around in the dryer, and a third was being handled by the washer.

“Do you need any help?” Trixie asked. “Rarity and I aren’t allowed to talk to each other right now.”

Mrs. Pizzaz rolled her eyes out of sight of Trixie before turning around. “I’ll never turn down a little help,” she said.

#

Trixie folded clothes for a few minutes before speaking again. “I wasn’t born in Canterlot.”

“I know,” said Mrs. Pizzaz, not turning her head from her work.

“And so I’ve missed some stuff the rest of you probably take for granted. For instance, I only found out about Princess Somnia today.”

Mrs. Pizzaz pursed her lips but said nothing.

“The thing is, I’m a lucid dreamer, and I know for a fact that Somnia has been floating outside my dreams for a long time, silently waiting for me to let her in. I had never seen her picture in her book before today, but the figure in my dreams looked exactly like her. Is...is Somnia real?”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Pizzaz, her voice barely audible over the sounds of the washer and dryer. “Why haven’t you let her in?”

“Why?!” Trixie demanded. Practically on reflex, she reached a hand into her purse, pulled out the orange bottle, and popped a couple of pills followed by a swallow of water from her water bottle, all without breaking eye contact with Mrs. Pizzaz. After taking a calming breath, she spoke again. “This is a privacy thing, right? I’ve tried to be the best Markist I could be, but the privacy thing always gets me.”

Mrs. Pizzaz nodded. “The Goddess sees into all of our thoughts,” she said piously. “And I firmly believe that Somnia is one of Her instruments. Although...she’s not nearly as flawless as our Creator.” When Trixie said nothing, she continued. “You’ve been Outside, Trixie.” (“Outside” being the Markist term for areas of the world where they are not the majority.) “What are children like out there?”

Trixie put a hand to her chin as she thought. “My personal memories are a mess, like a neat watercolor painting hit by a fire hose. But what I see on TV largely lines up: childhood Outside is having the problems of your parents dumped on you, but no adult will listen to you when you want to get help, so the kids all turn on each other, making each other’s lives miserable. Basically, the ’86 film Stand By Me is a documentary.”

“And Inside?”

“Well, it’s far from perfect, but it’s a lot better,” Trixie answered. “I imagine there are Outsider families out there who could have been like the Apples were to my mother and me, families who would have been willing to take us in when we were doing absolutely nothing to deserve it. But that never happened to us before Canterlot. And in general, I think you have to be really, really lucky to meet such a nice family Outside. Here in Canterlot, there were three families willing to help us, including yours. And this—somebody my age talking to somebody your age like this, with no formal care relationship in place to force you to listen to me—that would never happen Outside. Everybody in Canterlot seems well-adjusted, especially the children.”

“What you’re describing didn’t happen because we’re Markists,” Mrs. Pizzaz said. “Because I remember when I was a kid, and it was just like the Outside. And then Somnia, Princess of Dreams came out, and everything started changing. Do you know what the statistics are for the number of child abuse and neglect cases reported every year in a city this size? That first year, there were nearly fifty thousand in Canterlot—it seemed like the world had fallen apart. But it was just a generation of children who had suddenly become brave enough to report what their friends and family were doing to them. There hasn’t been a single child abuse or neglect case in the past six years, Trixie, and I don’t think that’s because they are being covered up. I think it’s because it isn’t happening anymore. Because Somnia isn’t letting it happen anymore.”

“It’s still creepy,” Trixie said, crossing her arms. “One individual, able to look into our private dreams and nightmares...” A sudden thought came to her, and she looked intently into Mrs. Pizzaz’s eyes. “It’s Luna, isn’t it?” she asked. “You’ve been friends since college, so you’d know. Is Somnia Vice-Principal Luna in disguise?”

Mrs. Pizzaz tried and failed to come up with a plausible denial. She took too long.

“I knew it!” Trixie exclaimed. “She’s always trying to get into my head. Tell me she at least has a degree in child psychology.”

“Well...she minored in it.”

“That’s just great,” Trixie said sarcastically. “Although...I would love to see the look on her face if I did let her in and showed her my secret. She was so far off the mark on that one.” She glanced over at the dryer. “Oh look, the next load is done. We better get to it, huh?”

Mrs. Pizzaz saw that as a clear cue not to ask any questions about Trixie’s secret. “Alright,” she said.

“Now here’s the big question,” Trixie addressed her friend’s mother. “Has she been telling you any stories about the weirdest kids she’s been counseling in their dreams? Because if the number is greater than zero, I will be reporting her to Child Protective Services.”

“No, never.”

#

They were halfway through the next load when Pixel summoned Trixie back into the kitchen, to face off against a repentant Rarity.

“Trixie, will you ever forgive me?” Rarity asked. “I swear I don’t know what came over me. I was a guest of this house, and I just started acting like a greedy little dragon.”

Trixie raised an eyebrow. “I blame your sister.”

“What?” Rarity asked. “You don’t believe that those little teases of hers actually had an effect in riling me up, do you?”

“Not consciously,” Trixie replied. “But I know the weird things sisters do to each other without realizing it. I’ve seen it with the Apples all the time.”

Rarity sighed. (No, she did not say the word “sigh”. This time.) “I better go talk to her,” she said.

Pinkie flipped a page in her notebook. “Sit down, Trixie,” she said in a very serious voice. “We have a lot to discuss.”

P. Rarity.

Rarity would have had a heart-to-heart with Sweetie, but the girl had fallen asleep on the couch. With a smile and a roll of her eyes, Rarity carefully laid her sister down so she could sleep better. She looked over at the garish display on the television—a repeat of The Fairly OddParents—and walked over to the device, eventually figuring out how to turn down the volume. Finally, she sat down on a couch opposite her sister.

“I do hope your real sister treats you well,” she said quietly to the still form of Sweetie Belle. “I know I can get quite oblivious at times, and with her finally seeing her dreams coming true at the boutique, I can easily imagine her ignoring you now. I may not be here for very long, but I will try to do my best by you. It’s the least that you deserve.”

Sweetie Belle was only pretending to be asleep, in order to avoid getting into the inevitable fight that resulted whenever the two of them were alone together for more than five minutes. As such, she heard everything that Rarity said, but she dismissed all of it, having been subjected to a lifetime of “Rarity weirdness” in the past few years.

Rarity had just been called into the kitchen to begin the collaborative stage of Pinkie’s planning session when her cell phone rang. It was Father Gnosi—one of the other ponies had just been attacked, and so he was asking all of them to gather together at the Church for the night, complete with their families.

“Pixel, I’m afraid I’m going to have to call this off,” Rarity said, picking up her plate. “Pinkie and I have something going with the bishops, and they need us for tonight.”

“Oh,” said Pixel. “Should I be worried?”

“I...I’m sure it’s nothing,” Rarity lied. Then she looked at Pinkie. “But I’m confident that whatever happens, we can handle it.”

To show how ready Pinkie was to “handle it,” she cracked her knuckles—all 86 of them from the sound of it.

Mrs. Pizzaz opened the door of the laundry room. “Do you need me to drive you over?”

“No, I’ve got the family truck,” Maud explained, picking up Pinkie’s plate and handing it to her. “Thanks for offering though.”

“Don’t mention it, Maud,” Mrs. Pizzaz said, showing no surprise that the Pies had arrived without her being told.

This whole time Trixie said absolutely nothing, sitting back in her chair with a triumphant smile. That smile faded when the others left her alone with Pixel and her mother, and they both turned to her.

“Do you know what’s really going on, Trixie?” Pixel asked.

Trixie used her fingers to mime zipping her lips shut.

Rarity and Sweetie Belle squeezed into the narrow back seat of the Pie family truck, as Maud started the engine and Pinkie Pie strapped herself into the passenger seat.

Rarity turned to her sister. “Sweetie, I had hoped to keep you out of this mess, but it looks like I have no choice.”

Sweetie Belle’s eyes practically sparkled with excitement. “I’m ready for whatever you’re willing to tell me!”

“Well, Sweetie...the thing is...I’m actually from another dimension.”

“I knew it!” Sweetie exclaimed. “Well...I was close. I figured different planet. Not different dimension. But that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t love to see some proof.”

After taking a few moments to absorb Sweetie’s unexpected reaction, Rarity then used her magic to levitate her keys out of her purse.

“Wow, Trixie would be so jealous if she saw this!” Sweetie squeaked, passing her hands around the floating keys before plucking them out of the air. “So, how do I do that?”

Rarity frowned. “No, I don’t think you understand.”

“Yes, I do think I understand,” Sweetie said insistently. “I know that neither of us are adopted—I checked that out at the start of summer vacation. So if you’re an alien, then I’m an alien, too. So show me how you do that thing with your eyes.”

“I...what? My eyes? No, wait, stop distracting me.”

Pinkie turned around to face them. “Look, there’s an alternate reality called Equestria, where everybody’s a magical pony instead of a technological human. Since it’s an alternate reality, the humans—the Markist ones anyway—and the ponies all line up. Some magic thingee went blooey, and that made six ponies and six humans swap brains with each other. And two of them are Rarity here and yours truly.”

What she said came out at least twice as fast as you thought she said it.

Sweetie Belle blinked for a few seconds as she absorbed this. “So what you’re saying is that my real sister right now is stuck in the body of a sweaty horse.”

“I am not a ‘sweaty horse’!” Rarity retorted.

Sweetie rubbed her hands together. “Oh, I am going to hold this over her for the rest of her life.” Her look of sinister plotting suddenly evaporated, to be replaced by a look of angelic sweetness. “Rarity the Pony, O honored guest of Earth, could you please please please tell me all of your secrets? I swear I won’t use any of them against you.”

“Your sister is not just smart,” Maud observed. “She’s scary smart.”

Chapter 12: Story Time (P. Rarity, P. Applejack, H. Celestia, Abacus Cinch)

P. Rarity—Earth, Canterlot Church of the Goddess. Early evening, Day Two.

The Pie truck pulled into the parking lot alongside the church, and the four individuals inside got out, carrying the luggage they had picked up from their two houses.

Waiting for them were two men: Father Gnosi, and a nervous middle-aged gentleman with pale blue skin that none of them had ever seen before, wearing a white suit.

“This is Archbishop August, the titular head of our religion,” Gnosi explained. “Archbishop, these are our guests, Rarity and Pinkie Pie, and the sisters of their counterparts: Pinkie’s sister Maud, and Rarity’s sister Sweetie Belle.”

“Hello!” the man said brightly. “It is such a great honor to meet you!” He extended a fist in greeting.

Rarity and Pinkie exchanged fist-bumps with the Archbishop, Rarity with some caution, but Pinkie with exuberance. Pinkie even mimed throwing some glitter into the air immediately afterwards. The Archbishop then shook hands with the two siblings. “I appreciate you putting up with these current extraordinary circumstances,” he told them. “Be assured that we are doing everything in our power to get this situation resolved as fast as humanly possible.”

“We know,” said Maud.

The Archbishop did a subtle double-take at the flat way Maud answered him. Father Gnosi then stepped forward, holding a pair of cufflinks in his hands. “I need you to put these on,” he instructed Pinkie and Rarity. “And try to keep them on your current clothing going forward. They are tracking devices.”

Rarity picked up her cufflink and held it up to the light, admiring the holographic depiction of her cutie mark that floated above its outer face. “Your technology continues to amaze me.”

“You can thank Crystal Prep Academy for that,” Gnosi told her as she attached the device to her sleeve. “Their alumni continue to produce high tech gadgets for their exclusive use, such as the wrist computers every student wears. The tracking chip has been part of the device for nearly a decade, as the sons and daughters of the richest Markists in the world are continual targets of kidnappings. Unfortunately the kidnappers figured this out and had the devices removed from their victims. Hence the development of the cufflinks.”

“Hey look!” Pinkie exclaimed, shaking the hem of her dress. “I attached mine down here! That way the kidnappers won’t even notice I’m wearing it.”

“Pinkie, you’re just doing that so it will fall off,” Maud remarked.

“Now why would I do that?” Pinkie said, batting her eyes.

“So you’d have more time to have fun with the kidnappers,” Maud replied.

“...Yeah...” Pinkie admitted, bending down to move her cufflink to a more appropriate location.

“Well if that’s settled, the others are waiting for us inside,” Archbishop August said, leading the way into the church.

Father Gnosi positioned himself next to Maud. “Where’s the rest of your family?” he asked. He already knew that Rarity’s parents were out of town.

“They have a firm grasp of the situation,” she explained. “They can best take care of themselves at home. Pinkie will take care of all of us. And I’m here to take care of Pinkie. It is the most-logical arrangement, yes?”

Gnosi said nothing, instead looking over at Pinkie, who had just expressed her eagerness to be “kidnapped”, assuming she even knew what that word meant. He knew that the ponies had brought their full magical abilities with them to Earth. But Pinkie was an earth pony—what could she do compared to the force field abilities of a unicorn or the agile flying of a pegasus?

#

The Archbishop led the group through a side door from the main entrance of the church, and past a reinforced door down to the basement.

“This place is enormous!” exclaimed Sweetie Belle.

“This used to be the official bomb shelter for the whole of Canterlot, back in the 60’s,” Gnosi explained. “It was set up by the federal government, over massive protests.”

“Did you say ‘bomb shelter’? Why were you expecting bombs?” a wavering voice asked from the back of the room. “Were you at war?” As the group approached, they could see two families sitting at one end of a massive table, which had an assortment of veggie and cheese take-out pizzas on it. (And one anchovy pizza, for Rainbow Dash—she actually needed the energy this time after what she had done on the plane.) The voice had come from a yellow-skinned young woman. As the newcomers focused their attention on her, she hid her face behind her pink hair.

“It was not an armed conflict, but rather a ‘cold war’,” explained the woman sitting at the head of the table. “Two great superpowers split up the planet between them, always on the brink of war, but never starting one, because the weapons they possessed would have laid waste to all life on Earth.”

The ponies looked at the woman with a mix of wonder and horror.

“So...?” The young woman tried to say, fighting through her social anxiety.

“Yes, Fluttershy?” the older woman prompted.

“So...why was the shelter opposed? Didn’t everybody want to be safe?”

“They opposed the shelters,” the Archbishop explained, “because that would mean giving up. It would mean accepting the fact that there was no way to prevent the war, and its devastating consequences. The Markists of my father’s generation refused to accept that inevitability. They spread out through the world like never before, becoming negotiators and translators. They made movies watched by millions on both sides, movies that showed that the people of the two superpowers were not that different, and had no cause to hate one another. And then, twenty years ago, one of the two powers collapsed, and the Cold War was over.”

“The bombs were dismantled, and the threat of nuclear annihilation was ended,” the woman concluded.

“Nuclear?!” Rarity asked with some alarm. “Your technology is that advanced?”

“The bombs that were going to be launched harnessed the power of the sun,” Maud explained.

“Blasphemy!” Rarity shouted. “The Princess would have erased both of these ‘superpowers’ if she was here!”

“Well I suppose it’s a good thing that she isn’t,” Maud said. “Because we’re living in one of those superpowers.”

“Erased?” asked a fearful Sweetie Belle.

“Our princess is the sun,” Rarity explained to Sweetie, kneeling down. “And a hot enough fire can destroy, well...anything.” She felt bad now for saying something so terrifying.

“She’s never actually done it,” Pinkamena remarked, disappointed at the growing fear among the crowd. “It’s just like you said earlier, with the superpowers being able to destroy your world—they could, but they didn’t. Princess Celestia didn’t even threaten. Not once. Because she’s not like that. It’s just that ponies seem to enjoy panicking, and when there isn’t a logical reason for it, they’ll make one up.”

There was an uncomfortable silence among the crowd. Maud took this moment to pace between the others and Pinkamena, so no one actually saw her turn back into Pinkie.

Only Rarity—and of course Maud—really noticed Pinkamena as someone separate from Pinkie in that scene. The others were more impressed with her words than her change in appearance.

“What happened to the loser?” Fluttershy asked. “In the Cold War?”

“We helped prevent their government from collapsing,” Gnosi said. “The world today is certainly not as wonderful as Equestria, but I do believe that it is closer to the Equestrian ideal than it was fifty years ago.”

Unseen by the others, Archbishop August sat down hard on a bench. He had always had a hard time dealing with the progressives in Canterlot, with their constant notes of doubt that the “Perfect World” of Markist teachings might not perfectly line up with the actual Equestria. The brief moment when it looked like Princess Celestia was a Goddess of Terror rather than a Goddess of Harmony was bad for his heart.

Gnosi walked over to stand beside the woman. “In case you don’t know, this is my co-bishop, Mother Meridiem Tempest. Over here are Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy. Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, these are the other two ponies that we’ve been able to find so far, Pinkie Pie and Rarity.”

“Oh, so you’re the one to blame for our landing on this strange alien world!” Rarity proclaimed, walking right up to be in Rainbow Dash’s face. Rainbow Dash flinched. Then Rarity hugged her. “Thank you!”

“Uh...you’re welcome?”

Gnosi introduced everyone else in the room to each other.

“Now as to why you are here at the church, there are two reasons: First, we are confident that Princess Celestia will be able to help us find the two missing ponies and get all of you home tomorrow. And second, there is the possibility that you all are in danger.” He told them about the attack on Rainbow Dash’s plane, emphasizing that there was no way so far to tell if the act was a deliberate attack, or a freak accident.

Rarity took out her phone. As she expected, there were no bars of coverage. “May I be permitted to go upstairs and call my parents? Privately?”

“I’ll go up with you,” Gnosi said, picking up a baseball bat.

Rarity gave him a look.

“I promise I’ll stay far enough away to protect your privacy. But I’m also protecting you.”

Rarity sighed. “Very well.” She turned and walked back to the stairs at a fast pace, not bothering to look behind her.

#

When they got upstairs, Father Gnosi led Rarity to one of the confessional booths. “I’ve always found that this one had the best coverage,” he said.

“Thank you,” Rarity said, before closing the door. Squeezing herself into a corner where Gnosi couldn’t see her through the hole in the door, she dialed Applejack.

“What is it, Rarity?” an extremely wary Applejack answered.

“Look, I am not breaking my promise to you,” Rarity said. “I’m at the Church, but they have no idea you’re one of the ponies that they’re looking for. I just had to tell you that somebody tried to hurt one of us. So you don’t have to come down here, but you should find some way of protecting yourself.” Rarity waited for a few seconds. “Applejack?”

“Yes?”

“Did you hear that?”

“Yes,” Applejack said curtly. “Thanks for telling me.”

“So are you coming over?”

“No. I can take care of myself.”

P. Applejack.

Applejack hung up her cell phone, and then returned to the living room of the Apple house. “Pa?” she asked, a bit nervous. “You know how you offered to take me out target shooting yesterday? Is there any way we can do that today?”

“Sure,” said Bright Mac, rising up from his easy chair. “Ma, could you put off dinner for a half hour?”

#

Applejack watched as her father nailed some sticks to the top of four fence posts, and then put empty tin cans over each stick. He then walked the twenty feet back to Applejack and lay down on his side, beckoning Applejack to do the same.

“Now pay attention,” he said, as he methodically inspected the shotgun beside him before loading it with two shells. He put on his headphone ear protection, and Applejack did the same. Then, lying down on his stomach, he carefully lined up his sights with the can on the left, and fired.

Applejack jerked at the sound of the gun firing. It had been so loud that she had thought that her father had blown himself to bits, but no, he was still there, with a little wisp of smoke coming out of the barrel of the gun. The leftmost can was nowhere to be seen.

“Now you try,” Bright Mac probably said. But Applejack could not hear the words through her headphones.

She carefully went through the same steps she had been shown, until she was laying on her stomach, lining up the gun. It was at this point that she communed with the weapon.

“Communing” is one of several magical abilities possessed by earth ponies that are not well understood, not even by earth ponies themselves. It is a sort of subconscious link with the set of thoughts associated with a tool—not just the thoughts of those who had handled or created the tool, but the thoughts of the individual who had invented the tool, anyone who was using the same tool at the time of the communing, and anyone who had spent any significant amount of time thinking about the tool. Communing is a shortcut to instantly becoming proficient in using any tool, no matter how complex.

The shotgun told Applejack that it was an tool of protection, not of murder—there were far more effective human tools out there for the latter function. It protected America from its enemies, foreign and domestic. It protected families like hers from those that sought to hurt them. If a pack of wolves wanted to hurt Applejack’s family, the shotgun would deter them. (Applejack flinched—that argument was way too close to home.) It showed her what using the shotgun against that pack would look like.

Applejack was aghast—some of those wolves later died of their wounds. It was far more violence than was acceptable to a pony, in a world of Harmony.

But this was not a world of Harmony. Last night, when the sound of Sweetie Belle watching late-night movies had woken her up, Applejack had turned on the television in her own room, to see what kind of idle entertainment was available. She caught the opening monologue of a talk show, where the unbeliever host mocked Markists for their worthless compassion and harmony. “Has Harmony ever made a Markist rich?” he asked his audience. “Has forgiveness ever stopped a criminal from stabbing them in the middle of the night and taking their things?”

This wasn’t exactly what he had said. He was a comedian, and he had phrased these cruel questions as jokes. And the audience had laughed uproariously at every one of them.

So no, there was no Harmony on Earth, despite the efforts of a small minority of humans who followed Markism. Protection on Earth required more force. Required tools like the shotgun. Applejack resumed her communion.

Alright, the shotgun “replied”, perhaps it wasn’t the best tool against smaller creatures. But it worked really well against evil humans, all of whom would survive an encounter against it. If the humans who wished to kill ponies came here, the shotgun would send them running. And if Rarity went against her promise...

Applejack jumped up in terror, dropping the gun after seeing the vision of Rarity’s pristine skin being torn open by the shot.

“Applejack!” Bright Mac scolded her after jumping to his own feet and throwing down his headphones. “Never drop a loaded weapon! It could have gone off.”

“I’m sorry, Pa,” Applejack said after removing one of the cups of her own headphones so she could hear. She reached down and picked up the gun, her communion power firmly repressed, so the tool was just a collection of metal and wood.

“You look like you’ve got the jitters,” Applejack’s father said, his voice softening. He reached out for the gun. “Do you want to just call it a night?”

“I’d like to take a couple of shots, if that’s alright,” Applejack said.

“Alright.”

The pair put their headphones back on and settled back down, side by side.

Applejack looked lovingly over at her father, and then over at the tin cans, imagining them as enemies trying to part her from her parents. “Never again,” she told herself. She lined up the sights, braced herself, and pulled the trigger.

The recoil was intense, but not as bad as she had imagined.

The targeted can was unmarked, completely expected given the lack of communion.

She looked over to him, and he signaled that her shot had gone to the right and up. With a nod, she tried to compensate, and fired again.

The can spun as it was clipped. Given that this was a shotgun, that meant she was still quite a ways off, but still closer than before.

She got off two more shots before it got too dark to continue. Applejack returned to the farmhouse much more confident in her ability to protect her family.

P. Rarity.

Rarity tried to call her parents, but she got the hotel’s answering service instead. She figured they were probably cliff-diving, or something equally insane.

“Hello Mother, Father? This is Rarity. I won’t begin to explain everything that is going on. I would advise that you keep this recording of my voice to treasure, just in case the next call from Canterlot is to inform you of my admission to the local hospital. Good day.”

As you might be able to tell from the message, Rarity was not happy that she had to talk to a machine.

#

Sweetie Belle took one look at Rarity when she returned, and knew exactly what had happened. “Machine?” she asked.

“Machine,” Rarity replied. “Definitely not my favorite use of technology so far.” She sat down to eat some reheated pizza.

When she was done, the Archbishop got up to address them. “I’m sure you ponies will be meeting the Princess in person when this is all done, but I thought I’d warn you right now: The Princess does not believe that opening contact between Equestria and Earth would be a good idea at this time. For this reason, both She and I need all of you to keep the existence of other worlds a secret. Do you all promise to do this?” He waited until they had all nodded their assent. “With that out of the way, I thought we might while away the time by telling each other stories.”

The members of the collected group all looked at each other.

“Do you humans know about the First Hearth’s Warming?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“No,” said Mother Meridiem.

“Well that’s basically the first pony story, I’ll tell that one.” She stood up from the table and put a fist to her chest in a declamatory pose. “Long ago, before Celestia was ever Princess, the ponies lived in a far-off land. They lived in the three tribes of unicorn, earth pony and pegasus, and those three groups all hated each other...”

When that story was over, Father Gnosi countered with a streamlined version of the Odyssey. Rarity knew that this story, unlike Rainbow Dash’s, was fictional, but she said nothing. She honestly wondered if there were any stories in her World History textbook that would make for an uplifting story. Even the founding of America involved massive amounts of (justified) violence.

Actually, the Odyssey also ended with a slaughter. It was just that Father Gnosi rewrote the ending so that Odysseus merely convinced the suitors to apologize instead of killing them all for what they were about to do to his wife.

Just then, Pinkie Pie sat down next to Rarity, and pulled her into a hug. “If you think about it, the ponies before Hearth’s Warming were not too different from humans,” she said. “They were just blessed with Harmony as an actual thing, while humans only have it as a thought. The fact that the humans didn’t blow themselves up when they had the chance is the amazing thing. I wonder what they’ll be like in a couple hundred years?”

“You were peeking into my thoughts again,” Rarity said gently.

“Yes,” Pinkamena admitted.

“Thank you.”

The stories continued late into the night.

And so ended the second day on Earth for our main characters, but I do wish to include two last bits:

H. Celestia.

Principal Celestia worked late into the night to catch up on her administrative duties for the day. Catch up, and build up a backlog.

“There,” she said, rising from her desk and straightening her back. “That should free both of us up tomorrow for whatever we end up having to do.” She dropped a small pile of pages on her nightstand—the relevant details about the known and unknown ponies she needed to tell Princess Celestia about.

The Principal had the ability to contact the Princess in their dreams, and vice-versa. Normally, this privilege was allowed but once per lifetime of a mortal Celestia. But in this case the two Celestias got on especially well. Also, this was the first human Celestia to have Luna as a sister, and the Princess was always eager to talk to her.

Principal Celestia walked over to the bathroom to get ready for bed.

Vice-Principal Luna waited at the doorway connecting Celestia’s bedroom with the hall. “Are you finally ready to hear my news?” she asked impatiently.

“Oh, did you have something?” Celestia asked around the toothbrush in her mouth.

“I’ve only been trying to tell you all evening,” Luna retorted.

Celestia went into the bathroom, spit, and emerged into the bedroom, sitting down on the edge of the bed. “Alright, what is it?”

“Your group of six are not the only ponies in Canterlot City,” Luna told her. “Our mystery student Sunset Shimmer made a slip of the tongue today—she’s a pony as well.”

“Sunset!” Celestia exclaimed. “Was anything she told you true?”

“The stuff about her mother, even if that mother is not who she said she was,” Luna replied.

Celestia shook her head. “That poor girl. Is there any kind of connection between Sunset and the others?”

Luna shrugged. “That’s for the Princess to figure out.”

Celestia nodded and got up, then stopped herself and looked back at her sister. “Was there anything else?”

“Trixie finally knows about Somnia,” Luna said.

“Are you going to make another try to contact her tonight?” Celestia asked. “It hurts me to see how much pain she keeps to herself.”

“It hurts me as well,” Luna said stiffly. “But I think I should be present for tonight’s conversation with your counterpart.”

“That’s probably for the best,” said Celestia.

“Besides, the horse goddess always gets so giddy when she sees me. One of these days, I should change my dream form into that of Pony Luna.”

“Don’t you dare!” Celestia exclaimed.

“Oh, I would never actually do it,” Luna joked. “The Princess would probably banish me to the moon, purely on instinct.”

“That was not funny,” Celestia said.

“It was to me,” Luna said with a smirk. “Good night, Sister.”

“Good night, Luna. Pleasant dreams.”

“Assuredly.”

Abacus Cinch.

The dim light in Principal Cinch’s office stayed on deep into the night.

She kept looking at the photographs in the folder her spies had sent to her, over and over again.

Two students, two ordinary students of hers, were being treated as royalty by one of the bishops. Were being personally greeted by none other than the Archbishop of Baltimare. Those two, and two students from Canterlot High.

That was the damning part. What could any student at Canterlot ever do to equal the brilliance of her students? What were they hiding? What did they have in common?

As near as her research could show? Nothing. Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy knew each other from childhood. The others? Rarity and Pinkamena had never been known to associate together, and their families came from oppositional strata in the socio-political world of Canterlot City. And neither of them had anything to do with Rainbow Dash or Fluttershy before today.

It just didn’t make sense. And Principal Cinch hated situations that didn’t make sense, that gave her no handles to manipulate.

So she would just have to work with the handles she did have. She picked up the phone and dialed a specific answering machine. “Boys,” she said, not bothering to disguise her voice this time. “This is your previous employer. If you’re up for a substantial increase in payment, I have some...physical work that I require.”

She hung up the phone, and looked around her, her mind’s eye taking in not only the office, but the entirety of Canterlot City.

“There is power at the heart of this matter, I’m sure of it,” she said out loud. “And tomorrow, that power will be mine.”

The fact that she would finally show the faithful that the Markist Church was nothing more than the paper tiger she always knew it to be was just a bonus.

Author's Note

Here are the notes for Chapters 11 & 12.

Day 2 (Humans in Equestria): Chapter 13: Code Duello (H. Rarity)

H. Rarity—Equestria, Nowhere. Sunrise of Day Two.

“Glarg.”

That was the first thing Rarity said when she woke up on a couch in a strange room, with a mouth feeling like it was full of cotton.

“Merdé.”

And that’s what Rarity said when she looked down at her hooves and realized that she was still a pony.

Rarity tried to get up, and then she fell right back into the couch, with a splitting headache.

It was simple really—hangovers are caused by severe dehydration. Therefore, severe dehydration feels exactly like a hangover. And Rarity hadn’t drunk anything in eighteen hours.

So Rarity lay there on the couch, with her pony legs sticking out, trying to collect herself. She wasn’t exactly sure how she got here, but one of her few moments of lucidity from yesterday involved meeting that beetle-pony calling herself “Applejack”, so it was reasonable that this was Applejack’s place.

Slowly, carefully, Rarity got up...and then down. She was still stuck in the body of a filly, and the room towered over her. She still felt awful, but she powered through it. With deliberation, she made her way around the small apartment—large for her—which thankfully still had all of the shades drawn. The style was...very Western.

Applejack was nowhere to be found. She didn’t even bother to leave a note—or maybe she was illiterate. This was a strange fantasy planet, so perhaps only the aristocracy and their clerks could read or write.

Rarity went into the bathroom. She turned around, came back with a chair to climb up on, and only then began the long and arduous task of bringing her hairstyle back from the dead. Having hooves instead of hands did not help, but the complete set of mane-care products did.

Applejack didn’t have any fur—what did she need with mane-care products?

After the hair, or rather mane, Rarity next turned to her tail. The prehensile nature of a pony neck made this quite useful. Also by this point she had given up and started using her mouth. She found this made things much easier—her lips were quite thick, and naturally pulled away from her teeth, meaning that they were essentially as dry as fingers the majority of the time. And Rarity could flex them in ways that were impossible for hooves. The only problem is that she couldn’t see them, but that was what the bathroom mirror was for.

Having found a curry comb designed to fit over a hoof, she was about to begin smoothing down her fur when she noticed something that had been staring her in the face this whole time: there was an image of a light blue diamond emblazoned on the side of her derrière. Correction, on both sides of her derrière. She was pretty sure she hadn’t started her adventure on this planet with those particular adornments.

Rarity sat down on the top of the chair, and got a close look at the new addition. The image was of a very-well cut, if somewhat dusty gem. It most definitely wasn’t a brand, but on the other hand when she leaned in really close she couldn’t see the individual hairs dyed different colors. There was simply an image, as if it had been projected there, but with no possible source. She pressed a hoof into one of her two gems—she didn’t feel anything other than her own pelt, but it looked like she was indeed touching it. It looked so much like a real gem... Experimentally, she picked up a chamois cloth and rubbed it. This had the effect of removing the “dust” and somewhat polishing the gem, while leaving no residue on the cloth.

Rarity had absolutely no idea what to make of this. She stared earnestly at the symbol for a few minutes, as if expecting it to start talking to her, but nothing happened. Finally, with a sad shake of the head, she decided to drop the matter for now, and picked the curry comb back up. In a few minutes, her fur was presentable.

Since she was already in position to do it, she next tried turning on the bathroom taps, but absolutely nothing happened. She had sort of predicted this from the condition she found those taps in. There was a slot in the wall next to the faucet that had once been used to collect a fee in order to get water, but that had been boarded over.

Hopping down from the chair, Rarity walked back to the couch she had slept in. She bent over a bit and managed to pick up her miniature lighthouse with her tail. It was a minor accomplishment, but at least she had managed to do something to surprise herself, an accomplishment that filled her with pride—even in this strange world and strange body, nothing was going to keep Rarity down!

She triumphantly strode over to the outer door of the apartment, and looked over at a nearby coat rack. Two broad-brimmed cowboy hats hung from the hooks, one black and one white, both of them far above her. With a jab of her hoof at the base of the rack, she caused the white one to flip itself off its hook, falling end-over-end to neatly land on her head...engulfing it. A few minutes of heavy alterations and hat-stuffing later, she walked through the door—with thanks from the chair—and up to a railing, which she looked through to peer down at the lower floor of this building.

She was apparently in a saloon, straight out of an old Western movie, crossed with the Mos Eisley Cantina scene from Star Wars. Only, instead of a collection of aliens, this saloon was populated by anthropomorphic desert creatures. She saw several rabbits, a buzzard and a ground squirrel, but also a toad and a scorpion. In the corner she was just able to make out a chameleon, it’s scaled skin turned brown to completely blend into the table where it had passed out, drunk.

And just like the science fiction cantina, every creature down there looked like it had an extensive criminal history. None of them had a full set of teeth, and all of them were armed up to whatever teeth they might possess. For Rarity to walk down there with a white hat would be as good as signing her own death certificate. As she watched, the buzzard had half of its feathers violently and painfully ripped off for trying to cheat at cards. So Rarity turned right around and swapped the white hat for the black hat.

That just left one last issue, the matter of size. All of the creatures down there were about the size of Applejack. Well, they would be if they had remained quadrupedal, but most of them were in fact bipedal, causing them to be even more overwhelming in the height department compared to Rarity than they would be otherwise. This part was quite unfair—why did she (and Applejack) have to be the only quadrupeds? Experimentally, she used the railing to pull herself up onto her hind hooves, to try the position out. To her surprise, it actually wasn’t that uncomfortable. Sure, her back would probably be killing her if she tried to do this all day, but with that band of desperados, she needed every advantage she could get. Mentally comparing herself to Applejack, she decided that fillies’ low center of gravity let her get away with the “standing upright” thing while the adult Applejack could not.

Rarity now felt ready to deal with the saloon crowd. She picked her persona, and “walked” down the stairs, which is to say she would position a hoof beyond the edge of a step, fall half her height down onto the next one, cartwheel around like crazy, and then repeat the process. The whole time, she kept up her expression as the very archetype of a “bad mujer”—she wasn’t a drama student for nothing—assuming you ignored the cartwheeling, or how adorable that scowl on her face actually was.

As she approached the bar, the others parted for her, curious.

“Bartender!” she barked, after climbing up to stand on top of the barstool. She sounded a bit like Clint Eastwood’s character as the Man With No Name, partially by choice, and partially because it was what she could manage with such a dry mouth.

“Aren’t you too young for this here establishment?” the bartender, a large frilled lizard, asked her.

“Glandular condition,” Rarity growled.

The bartender raised an eyebrow, but quietly accepted the obvious lie. “Alright,” she drawled. “What will it be?”

Rarity tried to lick her bone-dry lips. “I think I’ll change things up this morning, and start with the chaser. Water.”

There was a moment of silence, and then the entire room erupted into laughter.

“Water!” the buzzard cried out in incredulous glee, his pain momentarily forgotten.

“She wants water!” That was a mangy cat she had missed seeing earlier.

“I’ll have a double,” the chameleon slurred in a brief moment of consciousness, before collapsing again.

“We don’t have any water, Stranger,” the bartender told her. “We’ve got cactus juice.” She poured some pale yellow liquid into a tumbler, and slid it down towards Rarity. The tumbler had been made from a cactus, and was complete with thorns sticking out of the sides.

Rarity hesitated for a split second, then looked down at her front hooves. She held one out with confidence, catching the tumbler without hurting herself.

As Rarity eyed the foul-looking beverage, the lizard bartender ambled over towards her. “Almost forgot,” she said, reaching under the bar. “Your ‘chaser’.” She removed a padded cylindrical container, the type that usually held ice cubes in hotel rooms. Lifting off the lid, she removed a pair of tongs, which she used to remove a cube of hardwood, the exact same size as an ice cube. And then she dropped it into the cactus juice.

As an incredulous Rarity watched, the wooden cube melted under the caustic effect of the juice, exactly as an ice cube would melt in a lukewarm glass of soda on an exceptionally hot day. Within seconds, it had completely vanished.

Rarity looked up at the bartender, who just smirked at her.

“Drink up.”

She looked around her: the others were all looking to see if she’d drink the concoction, or chicken out. And then she noticed a primitive sort of mirror behind the bartender—not silvered glass, but merely polished brass. And in that reflection she saw her horn.

She remembered reading somewhere that in medieval times people used to dip “unicorn horns” into poisons, with the belief that the horn’s purity would neutralize the toxin.

Carefully, she leaned over and dipped the tip of her horn into the cactus juice.

“Aaaaah!” she screamed. It felt like dipping her fingertips into sulfuric acid. Quickly, she rubbed her forehooves in the dust accumulated on the bar, and tried to rub as much juice off of her horn as possible. This succeeded in stopping the pain.

The patrons laughed.

Rarity ignored them. She still had to drink the stuff to prove herself. Carefully, she positioned her hooves around the glass and lifted it to her lips, then tossed down a quick swallow and put the—

—glass down. Wait, what had just happened? It felt like her brain had just jumped ten seconds into the future.

The bar patrons stopped laughing—she had missed the part where they had started.

“Hey, Stranger,” the squirrel said, looking her in the eye. (With Rarity standing on the stool, she was finally at the right height to look the other bar denizens in the eye.)

It was at this point that Rarity decided to give them her name. But not her actual name—Rarity would not fit her chosen persona at all. If she had kept the white hat, she might have gone with “Radiance”, the name of her favorite superhero, but for the black hat...

“White Raven,” she growled.

“Where you from, White Raven?”

Rarity pulled out a speech she had prepared years earlier for an elf sorcerer character she had never got to role-play as. “Beyond the fields, err, deserts, that you know, beyond the borders of Erl, beyond the lands of dream where Time holds no claim, beyond the very edge of the east came I. For there was a place where the horned ponies fed along the border as it was sometimes their custom to do, feeding sometimes in Elfland, which is the home of all great things, cropping the lilies below the slopes of the Elfin Mountains, and sometimes slipping through the border of twilight at evening when all of the fields are still, to feed upon earthly grasses.” And yes, she did say all of that while attempting a Clint Eastwood impression.

Everyone stared at Rarity like she had taken leave of her senses. Philistines.

“Why aren’t you using your horn to pick up the glass, Unicorn?” asked the porcupine. “Are ya tryin’ not to hurt our feelings with your superior knowledge of spellcastin’, or are ya broken?”

Rarity looked once again upon her horn in her reflection, and spun a yarn.

“There’s only one spell that this horn of mine casts rightly, and that spell is my curse,” she said, turning to face the patrons. “It is a spell that shrinks everything that is not living, and woe betide any that should be caught within its grasp.” She didn’t realize it, but her Clint Eastwood had slipped back into her chosen Crystal Prep accent. “Well I remember my last birthday, in my home town of Passamaquoddy.”

“Passama-what?” asked the cat.

“Passamaquoddy,” Rarity repeated. “On the coast. I tried to blow out all of the candles on my birthday cake, but the candles would not go out, so in a momentary slip of reason I tried to use a spell to blow them out. But instead of a gentle wind, the dreaded shrinking spell took hold. The walls pulled inward, closer and closer, the ceiling and floor crushing towards each other. Friends and family tried to flee, but it was already too late, as the doors and windows were now too small. The spell didn’t affect me, it never affected me, so I just passed through the walls as they moved to crush my bones. I tried to stop the spell, but it was inexorable.”

“In-what?”

“It could not be stopped, Darling. Before I knew it, I was the lone survivor. Everyone in town was celebrating in my house, and now...I leave it to your imagination to picture their horrible fate.” She looked around, to see that she truly had the crowd hooked.

“Do not attempt to find Passamaquoddy on any map,” she concluded. “The government had its existence erased, less any poor ponies lose their minds trying to comprehend the truth. And I have been a fugitive from justice ever since.”

The inhabitants of the bar looked at each other, and Rarity was afraid they were about to tear her story apart. So she raised up her tail.

The cat gasped and pointed. “Is that...?”

“Indeed,” she said, looking upon the miniature lighthouse. “This is the very home itself, kept so I may never forget and accidentally unleash my curséd magic once again.” (Yes, she actually pronounced “cursed” with two syllables, for the proper effect.) When they tried to lean towards the toy to get a better look she pulled it back. “I would not advise a close inspection,” she said. “I haven’t finished extracting my family yet.”

That definitely sold them. “White Raven!” she overheard a rabbit tell the buzzard. “We better not mess with her.”

“Welcome to Nowhere, White Raven!” the bartender said, refilling Rarity’s glass. “Looks like you’ll fit right in here.”

“Nowhere?” Rarity asked, picking up the glass. “Is that what you call this place? I must have missed the sign when I came in.”

“Yeah, it’s called Nowhere,” the squirrel quipped. “Because nobody wants to admit that they’re from here.”

“Hey Filly!” a new voice suddenly cried out from the saloon’s outer doors. “I ain’t seen you around here before.”

Rarity took another gulp of the cactus juice, feeling nothing other than a brief stinging pain in her throat this time, before turning to face the door.

Two figures had just entered the bar. One was a blue and white upright cat, while the other was a brown upright mouse—again, both the same height, and both of them with their heads twice Rarity’s height if she were standing on the floor.

“She’s not a filly,” said one of the rabbits. “She’s got a glandular condition.”

The mouse ignored him. “We’re looking for a funny-looking mare that goes by the name of ‘Applejack’,” he said in a gruff voice, holding up a crude sketch of the beetle pony. “Have you seen her since coming into this town? We can make it worth your while.”

“Nope,” Rarity said, in complete honesty. “Is there some kind of price on her head?”

“Maybe,” said the blue cat. “What’s it to you?”

“Well maybe I wanna collect the whole thing if I happen to see her first,” answered Rarity, staying firmly in character. “As opposed to getting a fraction from you.”

“I’d like to see you try, Filly,” the mouse said with a sneer. “Lady C. was very specific: she’s not paying for a live Applejack.”

Rarity bristled. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw similar reactions from the other patrons. Criminals or not, they clearly considered Applejack one of them, which explained why they hadn’t sold her out yet. “What did she do?” she asked quietly.

“Yeah!” the squirrel exclaimed. “Can’t be any worse than what White Raven here did.”

“She crossed the wrong boss,” the cat bounty hunter said. “That’s all you need to know.”

“Meaning that’s all she told you,” Rarity concluded. “I bet you don’t even know what the ‘C’ stands for.”

The mouse walked right up to her, trying to intimidate her with his height. Although, with her standing on the barstool, he really wasn’t that much taller than her. “And what are you implying by that little remark?” Up close, he looked like he was made out of muscle, and from the scars on his face, it looked like he frequently fought enemies bigger than himself, and never lost.

Rarity looked contemptuously up at him, using her immersion to keep her knees from knocking. “What I’m implying, Tom and Jerry, is that she knew you didn’t have the strength of will to keep from blabbing her name at the first opportunity.”

“Hey!” Tom exclaimed. “How did you know our names?”

Jerry slammed a hand down hard on the bar beside Rarity’s head. “I’ve had enough of your lip, Filly. I challenge you to a duel!”

Rarity blinked. Somehow, she had not anticipated that turn. “I beg your pardon?”

“Pistols!” Jerry exclaimed. “Fifty paces. Right out there, right now!”

“According to the code duello, the challenged party gets to pick the conditions of the fight,” Rarity said. Her voice was calm, but her eyes were darting about as she tried to think her way out of this situation. If she could change the weapon to knitting needles, for example, she was sure not only to live, but maybe even to win as well.

Meanwhile, the crowd watching all of this was stunned into speechlessness. This was a pony, from Equestria, who had been challenged to a duel...to the death. She should have collapsed into a catatonic mess at the mere thought of having to kill another living soul.

The bartender slammed a thin book with wooden covers onto the bar—it turned out that the town of Nowhere did have their own rulebook for duels. “Y...you’re wrong, White Raven,” she said. It looked like the very words hurt her to say. “All duels in Nowhere not involving dragons are settled by pistols, at ten paces. The challenged party can pick the location. That’s it.”

“OK,” said Rarity, hopping down from the stool to land on four hooves before rising back up on her hind hooves.

The bartender sighed in relief. She then pointed at the cat and mouse. “Oh, and only one of you can actually fight her.”

“That will be Jerry,” Tom said. “He’s the best shot. I just stick around for moral support.”

It was obvious to Rarity that “moral support” meant that Tom would get dibs on shooting her if by some miracle she managed to defeat Jerry. “Well,” Rarity said, thoroughly shaken. “Let’s find a location.”

#

The trio walked out into the blistering sun. Rarity peered through the heat mirage, then began walking down the street. Everyone in the bar followed her from inside the bar—these things tended to turn into active shooting matches very quickly, and they knew better than to get anywhere where they might find themselves in the field of fire.

After only a few seconds of putting up with the heat and her low bipedal pace, Rarity dropped into her natural posture and walked up and down the small street a couple of times, examining each building very carefully. Finally she stopped at an abandoned shop and worked the warped door open, standing back up. “In here,” she said.

Jerry walked over and peered in. “This tiny shack?” he asked, then chuckled. “Your funeral.” He walked in, followed by Tom and then Rarity, who closed the door behind her.

The crowd in the saloon immediately spilled out and gathered in front of the store, with anticipatory grins on their faces.

There was a shout from inside the building, the sound of a fired shot going wild, and then the walls suddenly collapsed inwards. The now horizontal door opened, and Rarity emerged, to the cheers of the crowd. They were all convinced that she had shrunk the building, but in fact all she had done was kick out the last beam keeping the structure intact. That time she had wasted six months studying architecture before trying out for the main part in Platinum Junior High’s GAT production of The Fountainhead had finally paid off.

The crowd loudly cheered. “Our savior!” the mangy cat exclaimed.

“I owe you one,” the beetle-pony Applejack said, stepping forward from the back of the crowd.

Rarity was puzzled where Applejack could have been hiding all of this time. She also could have sworn that there was one more rabbit in the crowd just a few seconds ago.

Having had as much exposure to the sun as they were willing to stand, the rest of the bar patrons returned to the saloon, leaving Applejack and Rarity standing and facing one another.

“You really stuck your neck out for me, and you barely know me,” Applejack said, clearly moved despite trying hard not to show it.

The two of them walked into the shade of another abandoned store. “You mind telling me why you’ve got bounty hunters gunning for you?” Rarity asked. “You know, just in case this ‘Lady C.’ sends out some more.”

“I messed up, big time,” Applejack said, pawing the dust with one hoof. “And now my...my former boss considers my very existence a threat. She needs to get rid of me before anybody finds out about my accident...or what caused it. I didn’t think she’d ever find me out here.”

“So are you leaving?” Rarity asked.

“It depends—this is a really good place for hiding, despite certain...annoyances. I’m going to ransack the cottage they were staying at outside of town, see if I can tell how much they’ve been telling the Old Lady.”

“Could you trust a displaced spirit’s intuition, and go over there right now?” Rarity asked. “I’ve got a feeling if you wait too long, you’re not going to find anything.”

“Alright,” said Applejack. “Are you going to be here when I get back, or are you skipping town?”

“I think I’ll stay at least a little while,” Rarity replied. “I haven’t found out yet what Nowhere has to offer.” She looked up and down the abandoned street. “Now before you go, I’ve got what’s got to sound like a dumb question.”

“Those are the best kinds,” Applejack drawled.

Rarity smiled, blushing slightly. “It’s about...this.” And she pointed at one of her gem images.

“Your cutie mark,” Applejack said flatly.

“Is that really what they’re called?” Rarity asked.

Applejack nodded.

Rarity sighed. “Do you know what it’s for?”

Applejack stared at her, slack-jawed. “You really aren’t a pony, are you?”

“That’s what I said.”

“And I believed you at the time, although just why I have no idea. It’s...a cutie mark is what makes a pony a pony. It’s your life’s purpose in picture form. And it gives you one superpower.”

Rarity looked at the gem, wonderingly.

Back on Earth, Rarity knew a student named Lyra, who liked to collect conspiracy theories. She didn’t believe any of them...or at least, she pretended she didn’t believe in them. She just liked to collect them and laugh over them with her friends. One of these theories said that the counterparts of Markists on the Perfect World were horses, and the marks were their brands. Because what could be more humiliating than discovering that your supposed life purpose was nothing more than a property mark?

Was she occupying the body of her own counterpart? Was she now in the Perfect World?

Rarity pondered these questions for about half a second, before dismissing them for being utterly absurd. For one thing among thousands, this place was far from perfect.

“Do you know what this mark means, or what my ‘superpower’ might be?” she asked.

“You were there when you got it, so you should know,” Applejack replied.

“Well let’s imagine that I was completely out of my mind when it happened. Just hypothetically.”

“Okay, so you’re asking me to stare at your butt,” Applejack said. “I just need to lay that out there before you go nuts on me.” When Rarity didn’t say anything in response, she leaned in to get a look at Rarity’s cutie mark, rubbing her chin with one hoof. “Well, it’s a perfectly-transparent gem,” she said. Several seconds passed. “I’ve got nothing.”

Rarity had noticed the “perfectly-transparent” property earlier. But of course that wasn’t actually true. The image only appeared to be transparent.

Rarity thought back over the string of absurd lies she had told all this morning, and how every one of them had been instantly accepted. “Did you know that my fur is actually black instead of white?” she said as a test. “The true color only shows up under fluorescent lighting.”

Applejack nodded. “Seems legit.”

“Oh my Goddess,” Rarity said, sitting down hard on the wooden sidewalk. “This had better not be my actual mark and talent. I want to create fashions that actually change the world, not just the ability to talk anybody into thinking my dross are made of Pinkamena!”

“What’s ‘pinkamena’?” asked Applejack.

Rarity froze for a moment, and then blinked. “I’m sorry, what did you just say?”

“Hey, you’re the one who said you didn’t want to talk ponies into thinking your clothes were made of ‘pinkamena’.”

“I did?”

“You did.”

“How odd.” Rarity put a hoof to her head as she tried to think this through. “Do you by any chance happen to know a pony named Pinkamena? Or any kind of creature, actually. Anything at all bearing the name ‘Pinkamena’?”

Applejack took a moment to think. “No, can’t say that I have. It doesn’t sound like a very ‘pony’ name to me. Or griffon, diamond dog or, err...‘beetle-pony’. So why did you say that name?”

Rarity looked very confused. “It just sort of...popped in there, and I had to say it.” She spent a moment going over her memories, pulling the thin strands of ‘Pinkamena’ out from the massive cotton candy ball that were her memories of ‘Applejack’ in that same period. “Oh...oh dear. I think I need to find her. But who’s to say she’s even on this world!” She screamed into the heavens.

Applejack just stood there. She was beginning to get used to her companion’s brand of insanity.

“I’ll just have to put poor Pinkamena aside until the opportunity presents itself. Now then, where were we? Oh, yes—I was expressing my fears that my personality is on a slippery slope to utter moral degeneracy, thanks to the fact that no one has the ability to resist my web of lies.”

Applejack thought a bit. “So...gold or some other precious metal, then?”

“What?”

“When that ‘Pinkamena’ thing got stuck in your head, you said you were afraid that everypony would believe even your worst designs were... I’m figurin’ the missing word there was gold?”

Rarity thought for a bit. “Yes. So...how do I fix this?” And Rarity pointed at her cutie mark.

Applejack looked about her uneasily—how to talk down a cutie mark crisis was not exactly part of her training. “Err...you can’t.”

“What?!”

“But on the plus side, you’ll really fit in here with that ability.”

That didn’t help.

Just then, the ground squirrel ran up and grabbed one of Rarity’s hooves. “I’m taking you to see the mayor!” he exclaimed.

“Don’t believe a word that reptile says,” Applejack whispered in her ear as she was dragged off.

And then, with a sigh, she set out to see what her chances were for staying in Nowhere.

Author's Note

Here are the notes for this chapter.

Chapter 14: The Bank of Nowhere (H. Rarity)

H. Rarity

The town of Nowhere pretty much consisted of a single wide street. The buildings on either side were mostly two-stories tall: the ground floor was a business, and the top floor was the home of the business’ lone employee or two. As previously mentioned, many if not most of these buildings were abandoned, the result of the unending drought becoming too much to withstand.

At the north end of the street was an opulent mansion, the only building that the sun hadn’t removed the paint from yet. It was also the only three-story building, allowing it to literally oversee the entire town. This was city hall, and the home of the town’s mayor, Tortoise John. The entrance of the hall was in the back, on the side facing away from the town.

On delivering Rarity to the stern secretary of the mayor, the squirrel excused himself, but not before revealing that his name was Mr. Merrimack, and that he was the town’s only banker.

The secretary was a vixen, identified by her nameplate as Angelique. In Rarity’s eyes she was the first inhabitant of the town thus far to understand the language of fashion. And what she was saying with her trim green dress was this: Don’t even think of messing with me. She was reading what appeared to be a fashion magazine, but Rarity was so intimidated by Angelique’s presence that she didn’t dare to ask to see it. There were no magazines for visitors.

Rarity waited on a bench that dwarfed her, as indeed it would dwarf anyone in this town. As she waited, Rarity noticed the classical upholstery on the walls, as well as paintings of the mayor’s pioneer ancestors. Numerous plaques on the wall attested to the tortoise’s high reputation before being elected. He had a degree in geology from the University of Panthera, and a surveying license from... Mustangia? Rarity had always wondered where the ridiculous name of that one junior high school had actually come from. (Given the whole “cutie mark” business, Rarity was willing to accept that this might be the Perfect World, albeit a run-down corner that the Goddess had somehow lost track of.)

Eventually, the large pair of double doors at the top of the stairs to the second floor burst open, and a pair of flustered rabbits emerged. “That was ridiculous!” one rabbit said to the other. “We are not selling!” The pair walked quickly down the stairs and out the front door.

Angelique looked up at Rarity, gazing upon her as a bored housewife with a flyswatter might stare down at a fly, deciding if the effort of trying to kill it would be worth the trouble. “The Mayor will see you now,” she said, and then immediately went back to her magazine, not bothering to see if Rarity would do anything or not.

Rarity wiggled herself to the edge of the bench and then hurled herself the four or five feet to the ground, landing hard on her hooves.

The vixen’s left ear tip twitched.

Rarity worked her way up the stairs. She wasn’t quite so small that she had to climb up each step, but it was still very uncomfortable for her. As she climbed, she noticed an odd modification in the adjoining wall: two parallel strips of wood mounted at an angle so they were a fixed distance above each step. The strips were grooved on the surfaces facing each other. Between the wooden strips was affixed a fuzzy green velvet as might be found on a pool table. It was worn down in a few spots.

The second floor had a small door on one side—presumably the stairs to the third floor were beyond. On the other side of the double doors was the large office that made up most of this floor. With the exception of a large clear window and door facing south, its walls were lined with shelves of books. There was a large desk towards the far end of the room, with two tiny chairs to sit in—they actually looked to be in scale with her diminutive form. The desk seemed too high for anyone Rarity had seen so far to sit comfortably behind. The west wall was a mosaic, formed out of random pieces of junk glass that had been masterfully converted into art. It did not depict any scene in particular, but by being the most abstract piece she had yet seen in a world comparable to the Old West, it automatically denoted the future. A few of the panes of glass were clear, allowing a view of the endless desert. A terrarium sat on a simple table placed in front of the south window. And tending the creatures inside that terrarium was Mayor John.

The mayor was a tortoise, which meant that Rarity couldn’t see too much of him at the moment around his broad green shell. What she could see was that he was sitting in a wheelchair, an abnormally-tall wheelchair that made him the right fit for the oversized desk, and which left his head at the same level as most Nowhere inhabitants standing upright.

“Water,” the Mayor proclaimed in an educated voice as Rarity entered the office. “Water is life, nowhere more than in the desert. Wouldn’t you agree, Miss ‘Raven’?” As he spoke, he used a dropper to deliver a plentiful supply of pure water to his unseen pets.

“Of course, Your Honor,” Rarity said.

The Mayor turned to face her, revealing that his wheelchair was a lot more complicated than Rarity was expecting. It was adorned with a great deal of clockwork, and had two small motors mounted next to each wheel, although they were not currently engaged; Mayor John was controlling it with his hands.

“Mr. Merrimack, the kind individual who informed me of your arrival and your victory over two of the vermin who infested this town, is a person of supreme power. Do you know why?”

Rarity blinked. It appeared that the Mayor was evaluating her, perhaps to determine if she would take over for Tom and Jerry as the chief bullies of Nowhere. “Because he runs the bank?”

The Mayor nodded. “Yes, and more specifically, because of the precious resource he controls. As a pony from Equestria, you probably value everything in terms of bits.” From underneath the blanket which covered his lame legs, he removed a gold coin and slapped it down onto the desktop between them.

Of course with her height, Rarity could barely see the top of the Mayor’s head, much less anything on the desk. Taking the initiative, she clambered up the swirling design carved into the front of the desk to work her way up so she was actually standing on it.

The Mayor raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

Rarity looked down at the gold coin. The main design showed a sleek bird hovering in front of a stylized sun. Its wingtips and head crest resembled fire, so there was some chance that this was a phoenix. Around the sides was a motto: “Equality Is The Greatest Good.” Looking for an excuse why a supposed pony would care about a common coin, she said, “It looks to be in fine condition.”

“Are you a fellow collector?” the Mayor asked. “Go ahead and keep it as a gift; it’s worthless here anyway. No, our currency is water itself, pure and simple. Mr. Merrimack controls the water...”

Rarity flipped the coin over, revealing that it was “One Bit, Equestrian,” with two olive branches on either side of the large numeral “1”. “Therefore he controls Nowhere?” she asked, not looking up.

“He would, but he chooses not to exercise that power.” The Mayor pulled open a deep drawer of his desk and made to pull something out. But one eye was watching Rarity, perhaps to see what she would do with the bit.

She used a hoof to slide it over next to her, but made no move to pick it up, keeping her eyes politely on her host.

The Mayor produced a very large decanter. But instead of some fine liquor, the glass bottle contained several quarts of...

“Water, from my private stock. You see, I have some degree of power as well. This is straight from the Great Deluge of ’78.” Carefully, he poured water out to one of two glasses.

Rarity made to control her expression at this obvious attempt to intimidate her. True, that glass alone contained more water than she had imagined existed in this whole desert. “So power has its privileges?” she asked archly.

“Indeed,” the Mayor said with a slight frown at being caught out. He deliberately did not pour out the second glass, but instead stoppered the decanter, picked up the glass, and took a long satisfying sip, his eyes on Rarity the whole time to see if she would react.

Rarity turned to examine the law book sitting on the table beside where she was standing.

The mayor put down the half-emptied glass. “Privilege? Yes, but also...responsibility.” He tapped a hand on the device on the right side of the wheel of his chair, causing it to come to life. Grabbing a pair of control rods, he effortlessly turned the chair and directed it to roll over against the east wall of the office, stopping at a drawer that he pulled out to remove a cigar box.

Rarity blinked. There was something about those two small boxes that were causing the wheels of the chair to turn. They weren’t attached to the wheels mechanically, but there seemed to be a sort of glow in the narrow space between box and wheel. It didn’t look like any color she could identify. She glanced over at some of the multicolored book colors to confirm, but this new color seemed to be quite a ways beyond the deepest purple, perhaps in a region of the electromagnetic spectrum that humans couldn’t see. And yet it wasn’t ultraviolet—Rarity had seen simulations of what ultraviolet vision would look like, and this room should be flooded with that same color coming from the sunlight, but only the mysterious boxes emitted that particular glow.

“I’m giving you an opportunity, Miss Raven,” the Mayor said, turning his chair around and driving it through a back door onto a veranda.

Rarity took a moment to get a look at the terrarium. It appeared to be occupied by tiny little bugs, swarming all over and into the drop of water. And then they drowned. Rarity blinked as realized that drowning bugs was the Mayor’s hobby. And then she hopped down from tabletop to chair and then the floor, following the Mayor out the back door to look down beside him upon the town of Nowhere.

“Responsibility, privilege, and power,” the Mayor said, looking down at Rarity. From the box in his lap he produced a shiny silver star. After taking a moment to rub some “rust” off it, he presented it to her. “I hereby name you the Sheriff of Nowhere. Will you accept this appointment?” His eyes darkened as he added, “Or will I have to run you out of town?”

“I’ll take it,” Rarity said, grabbing the badge.

“And what will you do with this power, Sheriff White Raven?”

“I’ll strive to make this town a better place.”

The Mayor patted her on the head. “That’s the spirit. The people of Nowhere are simple folk, Sheriff. What sustains them is their belief that somehow, tomorrow will be a better day than today. That somehow, there will be enough water to get by. That’s what I’ve been trying to do for them. And since now they believe in you, helping them has become part of your destiny.”

“I’ll do my best, Sir,” Rarity said. She noticed the emphasis put on the word “destiny”. It had a special significance in the Markist religion, one tied to the marks. Perhaps here it was tied into her new “cutie” mark.

“That’s all I can ask for,” the Mayor said in response to her statement. “Now go ahead and set yourself up. Let the people know that there’s a power fighting for them.” The Mayor then settled himself, and looked down benevolently upon the citizens of his town. “The people need to believe in something.”

After a few minutes of silence, Rarity determined that the interview was over, and walked out the way she came.

The vixen went so far as to actually roll her eyes at Rarity as she trotted by. Then she got up and picked up a parasol.

Rarity stopped and turned around. “Can I help you?” she asked.

“Mademoiselle has been extended a line of credit,” Secretary Angelique said in a disgusted French accent. “I am tasked with tracking your expenses.”

#

Rarity’s first use of her newfound power was to buy an outfit. First, so she’d have something to pin her badge on. And second, because in Nowhere only the (theoretical) children went around in their bare fur.

The tailor was a tarantula that was bigger than she was. A tarantula that was bigger than she was, with a full set of goggles making every one of his eyes look twice as big as normal. By all accounts Rarity should have been terrified, as she had had a fear of spiders for as long as she could remember. But somehow, being around all of these strange creatures had desensitized her. And besides, Pushkin was the first individual she could talk to about one of her passions.

“You simply must tell me what it’s like, making clothes for clients with so many different shapes and sizes,” Rarity insisted, wide eyed as the tarantula took her measurements.

He chuckled as he draped a heavy black linen over her back, eyeing the drape of it. “Well, it’s not a job that any of these louts take seriously. Just say ‘I’d like pants’ or ‘I’d like a shirt’ and not much more,” he said with a slight twang to his accent. “But the secret’s darts.”

“Darts...” Rarity said, blinking as she imagined the triangle-shaped pieces of cloth added to a dress’ bust or hips to accommodate curves.

As he worked, she turned slightly to took at the tarantula’s suit, and really take in the make of it, only to find that it was basically a patchwork of darted slips of fabric, expanding a base suit jacket out to encompass his scuttling bulk. Hardly even a reproducible design, it was more stitching than whole cloth! But because it was all made of the same fabric, it wasn’t as noticeable.

“Because you don’t have to make duplicates!” Rarity concluded with a grin.

“Precisely,” Pushkin said proudly. “Not a pair of townsfolk here with the same shape, other than the Rabbits. And they have their own tailor. So why use patterns? I’ve got a few of course, general things, but then I just add darts ‘till they fit, really. A bit of a cheater’s way out I suppose.”

“Come now, it’s hardly cheating,” Rarity scoffed as she lifted her forelegs up to measure her barrel. “It’s adapting to your conditions! My word, you must have come across some astounding puzzles...”

She paused, and she remembered the dress she had been making back in Prim Hemline’s shop. It was beautiful, yes. It adhered to the styles and the rules laid down upon the industry and exceeded them in a few startling ways, an exemplary fashion statement for a young designer, but had it been challenging?

It had been more like an exam than a puzzle. But if she told people it was excellent, well...now they’d have to believe her.

“Then there was the time I’d done up a snake for trousers! Well, eventually it’s just a tube, isn’t it? And how do you keep a tube from sliding ‘round? Suspenders, turns out. Very complex suspenders.”

Rarity broke out of her musings and grinned at him. “That sounds incredible. So I’m not quite a challenge to you?”

“A fine mare with a glandular problem? Nah,” Pushkin waved a clawed limb. “It’s no big thing. Not like Applejack and her insane demands. Here, let’s get this coat fitted.”

Rarity ended up with a black frock coat with tails, shiny stump-toed boots over her hooves, and a dainty fitted slouch hat tipped over her left eye. She felt like a character out of Twain’s Roughing It. Given the lack of privacy, she decided not to follow up on Pushkin’s statement about Applejack’s extreme sartorial requirements.

For the same crowd from the saloon was gathered around Rarity as she was being fitted, waiting to see what would happen. Nowhere was the sort of town with punctuated excitement—you might go through five or six days of boredom made worse by the awful heat, and then suddenly there’d be a duel, and a significant chance that half of the town would be wiped out in a single second, like the time the Bartle Bee brothers decided to toss the code duello out the window and throw bundles of dynamite at each other.

“So I’m staying, in case you were wondering,” Applejack said, sitting in a corner of the tailor shop. “Those two idiot mercs had their report on finding my location all written up, but somehow figured they could just send it from Nowhere’s ‘post office’.”

The mangy cat wheezed out a laugh.

Rarity was surprised to realize that she had been in the mayor’s office so long that Applejack had had time to complete her mission.

“And while I was gone, the mayor made you sheriff.” Applejack stated in a sulk.

“He was very convincing,” Rarity said by way of defense.

“So are you!” Applejack countered. After a few more moments of pouting, she changed her attitude. “Well, if you’re sheriff, then there’s a case I’d like you to investigate,” she began.

“Mademoiselle Appleyack here is the town...je ne sais quoi ‘imbécile’? Imbecile.” Angelique informed Rarity. “She has it in for the mayor for reasons beyond understanding.”

“Oh, I think I have very good reasons,” Applejack countered, getting in the vixen’s face.

“And what reasons are those?” Rarity said.

Applejack opened her mouth.

Angelique smirked, daring her to say something.

Applejack closed her mouth. “They exist. Let’s just leave it at that. I want to hire you to prove that His Highness is up to no good!”

Now it was Angelique’s turn to get in Applejack’s face. “Hire?” she asked, emphasizing the “H”. “Ze sheriff is no private detective! She serves the people, not the highest bid. And besides, you have nothing to pay her with.”

Applejack drooped her head. She was busy thinking up a retort when the town’s clock struck twelve.

This sound caught the attention of everyone in the room, who rushed out of the room, leaving Rarity alone with Pushkin and Angelique.

“What’s happening?” Rarity asked.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” Pushkin said with a grin. From a cabinet he removed a large bucket, which he held aloft with two legs as he scuttled out the door. “Follow along and see for yourself.”

Rarity looked back at Angelique, who merely blinked at her. She then walked out of the tailor shop.

In the street, Rarity saw the inhabitants of Nowhere dashing around with far more energy than she had ever seen from them before—they seemed completely impervious to the heat now. Every one of them was going into their businesses, clambering up and down the stairs, and emerging with some kind of container.

Applejack appeared pulling her cart full of bottles. “Bottles! Bottles for sale!” she proclaimed. “Generous lines of credit are available! Get yourself a bottle before the miracle is over!”

“Do I need one of these bottles?” Rarity asked.

Applejack looked over at the darkened doorway of the tailor shop. “Yo, Angelique!” she bellowed. “Will the Mayor cover me selling some bottles to the Sheriff?!”

Angelique stalked out of the shop. “Just one!” she said, holding a claw in the air.

“Here you go, Sheriff,” Applejack said sweetly, hoofing a used wine bottle over to Rarity. She then turned towards Angelique and held out a hoof.

With a grimace, Angelique produced a pad from inside her dress, wrote out a promissory note, signed it, and tore it off to hand to Applejack.

“A pleasure doing business with you, Ma’am,” Applejack said with a smirk as she put the note under her wing cover.

By this time a long line of creatures were making their way out of town. Applejack unhitched herself, grabbed up a bottle of her own, and led Rarity over to join the line.

#

From the moment they were outside the town limits, Rarity saw it: a giant metal pipe sticking up out of the ground. The pipe bent over in a “U” shape at the end, with its open end pointed down. It looked exactly like the water main on a house, as seen by a mouse. All that was missing was the hose attached to the spigot...and the handle.

The citizens of Nowhere gathered around the spigot in a semicircle. The crowd made way for a tall platform, being pushed by a group of moles in identical jumpsuits. “Nowhere” was printed on the backs of these uniforms. Atop the platform was Mayor John in his wheelchair, and Angelique, who had somehow had time to change her outfit in the moments since Rarity saw her last, replacing green with red. She now had her own tail wrapped around her neck like a stole, and she held an empty cigarette holder between two claws.

The mayor turned to the crowd and picked up a megaphone. “Ladies and gentlemen of Nowhere,” he proclaimed. “I welcome you to our great day of deliverance. Hallelujah.”

“Hallelujah!” the crowd—minus Rarity—proclaimed in unison.

“Once again I call upon you to show your defiance of the tyranny of the wicked Princess Celestia!” He pointed one claw defiantly up at the sun.

The crowd made a discordant howl, shaking their fists up at the evil sun.

Rarity tried and failed to put a finger in her ear to clear it. She could have sworn she had heard the mayor just curse her high school principal.

“She will never control us!” the Mayor continued, becoming more passionate. “She will never force us out of our homes! With this bounty, we reject her false ‘harmony’!”

The crowd bellowed their defiance.

“Citizens,” the Mayor said, his voice suddenly gentle, “we have a newcomer among us, one you all know very well. Her astounding display against a pair of evil bounty hunters earlier this morning made it loud and clear that she has rejected the Equestrian ‘virtue’ of nonviolence, and for that deed, she had been rewarded, and will continue to be rewarded. Sheriff White Raven, step forward!”

Rarity meekly stepped up, wine bottle held in her front hooves.

The Mayor motioned her to continue advancing until she was directly under the spigot.

“The first drops of precious water go to you, Sheriff!” the Mayor announced. With another gesture, two moles advanced up the flight of steps to the top of the platform, carrying the round handle of the water main. They pushed the wheel over a small bolt, and started turning.

The crowd leaned forward in anticipation as the pipe began to rattle.

Rarity sighed as she realized she was about to have her mane and tail totally ruined by a flood of water. She slowly raised her bottle high, and looked up...

...Only to have a giant glob of black mud plop into her face.

The crowd gasped in unison. Without prompting, a couple of lizards climbed up the sheer vertical pipe and stuck their heads one at a time into the pipe. “It’s empty!” one of them told the crowd. “There’s no more water!” the other screamed.

“We’re doomed!” an owl cried.

“This is all that Equestrian pony’s fault!” a rabbit proclaimed, pointing at Rarity. “She’s brought the wrath of the Princess down upon us!”

The crowd moved forward as one to lynch Rarity.

“Now, now,” the Mayor said over the megaphone. “There’s no reason to panic. I said, there’s no reason to panic!”

The crowd slowly calmed down. “What’s your plan, Mayor?!” The toad asked for the others.

“There is a plentiful supply of water at the bank, Friends! We can just live off of that while the Sheriff and I look for another source!”

The crowd accepted this wisdom, and turned to go check out their accounts at the bank.

As she was busy wiping the muck off of her face, Rarity noticed that Mr. Merrimack looked very nervous.

#

“What do you mean, there’s only five days of water left in the bank?!”

“I mean that things have been very rough lately, as you all know very well,” Mr. Merrimack said at the entrance to the bank vault. Inside that vault was a very large jug of clear water, marked with lines labeled in days. “Half of the town has moved out in the past two months, and they’ve all taken their water deposits with them. That leaves less for the rest of us.”

“And there’s more gone than that!” Applejack said, pointing an accusing hoof at the Mayor. “He’s taken out every drop!”

“Ze Mayor has never had water in the bank, and you know it, Appleyack!” Angelique countered. “You are trying to incite a panic.”

“Citizens! Citizens!” Rarity said, after getting up on a table so she could be seen. “The Mayor and I are on the case! We will be going out this very night to look for a pipe I remember seeing on the way into town! By tomorrow morning, this whole problem will be resolved!”

The plan had been hatched during the walk back to the bank. Rarity vaguely remembered a metal pipe during her walk to Nowhere, and the Mayor had said that he could drag the necessary equipment out, hitched to his magically-powered wheelchair.

So this place had “magic”. Or maybe that was the word they used for some otherwise explicable scientific phenomenon unknown to humanity. Perhaps given time and access to the Mayor’s library, Rarity would be able to master the use of her unicorn horn to perform this magic.

As she saw Applejack walking away, she called out to her. “Wait! Applejack, you were with me most of the way into town! Did you see a metal pipe sticking out of the ground?”

Applejack thought intently, shaking her head. “I may have seen something, but the heat really did a number on me. I’d be as liable to lead you astray as true. And besides, I will not help that slimy turtle with anything, even if it damns this whole town!”

Applejack turned around to leave, to see the entire town glaring at her.

“Maybe we should have left her to the bounty hunters,” the buzzard grumbled.

“I...I didn’t mean...” Applejack tried in vain to apologize.

The crowd turned their backs on her and disbursed after that, having no choice but to trust their future in the newly-appointed sheriff.

#

The pair of Rarity and Mayor John spent the whole night wandering through the desert. Despite the use of a headlight mounted on a pole attached to the cart, Rarity was totally unable to find any recognizable landmarks, and eventually they had to give up.

“I’m sorry,” Rarity apologized for the sixth time. “I really thought I could find it.”

“Well, as you and Applejack both said, you were suffering a momentary loss of reason as a result of the noon-time sun,” Mayor John said calmly. “Maybe what you saw was a hallucination. Or perhaps you got so lost you ran across the town’s water pipe and thought it was different.”

“I...suppose,” Rarity said.

Mayor John pulled a short gray rod out from under his blankets and waved it at her. Rarity had seen him do this multiple times over the night, at first trying to do it without her seeing, and gradually giving up on subtlety. Rarity assumed that it was some sort of compass, since he would always consult a reading of some kind on the side. This time he chuckled to himself. “You didn’t use a spell to knock out those two bounty hunters,” he told her.

“Oh, so they’re not dead?” she said calmly. In reality she knew the whole time that they were unconscious—she had left a hastily mouth-scrawled note under their bodies, warning them to leave town and never report to their employer if they hoped to keep their heads from suddenly shrinking out of existence—but she wasn’t going to reveal that to any of the bloodthirsty citizens of Nowhere. Then she seized on the other part of his statement. “And maybe I don’t waste my magic when my brain will do for me just as well.”

“Drop the pretense,” the Mayor said with a knowing smile as he replaced the rod. “You have no magic. It explains a lot, actually. It is my firm belief that the so-called ‘light’ magic of unicorns is just as mind-altering as the dark magic of the umbra, but since ponykind has been saturated with it for eons, they are no longer aware of how the unnatural thoughts of optimism and hope have overwhelmed their natural doubt and cynicism.”

Rarity felt a pang in her heart. This black-hat character she had adopted was beginning to hurt her heart, and she would have welcomed an influx of “false” optimism and hope right now.

She was trying to formulate a reply when she saw that the Mayor had turned his wheelchair to face the town, the edge of which was just visible.

A figure was running towards them. As they watched, it resolved itself into one of the rabbits, loping its way towards them with long hops.

“Sheriff...!” the rabbit said as it reached them. “You’ve got to come quick!”

“What is it?” Rarity asked.

“The bank—it’s been robbed! All the water is gone, and Mr. Merrimack with it!”

Author's Note

Here are the notes for this chapter.

Chapter 15A: A Voice from the Everfree, Part 1 (G. Gilda, H. Fluttershy, H. Rainbow Dash)

G. Gilda—Equestria, Cloudsdale home of Rainbow Dash. Early morning of Day Two.

When Rainbow Dash and Gilda came down for breakfast, they found Dr. Tarbell already sitting at the table, tucking into a pile of danishes. Windy Whistles, Bow Hothoof, Fluttershy—and Angel—were also there.

A few minutes of eating later, there was a muffled thumping on the front door. Windy got up and answered the door, then came back less than a minute later, an awkward look on her face. She came up to Fluttershy and whispered in her ear.

“Ugh!” Fluttershy exclaimed. “I was afraid of this. It’s Zephyr.” She got up from her place at the table.

Windy and Bow looked curiously at each other.

“Ugh!” Rainbow Dash echoed. “He’s probably just as bad as our version. I’m coming with you.” And she got up from her place.

“Really?” asked Fluttershy. “You know what he’s going to do, right?”

“Don’t care,” Rainbow said simply. “I’ve got your back. In fact...Gilda, do you want to come with us as backup? Zephyr’s not, like, dangerous. At all. He’s just really, really annoying.”

“Who is he?” Gilda asked, getting up.

“My brother,” Fluttershy said, in a rather disgusted tone.

“And you want me to meet him?” Gilda asked. “I always got the impression from...Flight Camp Fluttershy that she didn’t want me knowing anything whatsoever about her brother. I didn’t even know his name before now.”

“No, I definitely want you to meet him,” Fluttershy said with a smirk as she thought it over.

“You can just fake ignorance if the subject ever comes up in the future,” added Rainbow. “Gildas are renowned for their ability to play dumb.”

“That is correct,” Gilda added, simply.

#

Fluttershy opened the door, and was immediately pulled into a hug by the gangly Zephyr Breeze.

“My poor little sister!” he exclaimed theatrically.

He was nowhere near as good at this as Rarity was.

Zephyr released his sister, and then held her at hooves’ length. “I just couldn’t sleep a wink last night, thinking about everything you were going to go through on your perilous flight to Canterlot.”

“Uh huh,” Fluttershy said in deadpan.

“And so I decided that I need to go with you, for your protection.”

Rainbow Dash walked through the door to stand beside Fluttershy.

“Oh, Rainbow Dash!” Zephyr mock-exclaimed. “I had no idea that you were on this trip as well—I completely forgot this was even your house.”

Rainbow turned her head to look at the big sign on the side of the house that said “Home of the Soon-to-Be-Legendary Rainbow Dash!!!”

“I guess this will be the perfect chance for us to spend some quality time together.” Zephyr continued, wiggling his eyebrows in what he thought was a seductive way. “You can tell me your dreams, and I’ll tell you mine. Most of them include you...and me.”

“Are you trying to make a pass at her?” Gilda asked, walking through the open door to stand beside the two other pegasi.

“Well, what’s it to you, feather...? Hey, you’re really big.”

Gilda rolled her eyes, then pointed a claw at Rainbow Dash. “And she’s under-age.”

Zephyr cringed. “Hey, look, I didn’t mean that stuff like...literally. It’s just a game we two play, isn’t it, Dashie?”

Rainbow Dash shrunk a little at the use of the nickname.

Fluttershy stepped in front of Rainbow. “Dr. Tarbell is having everypony who joins the trip pay 50 bits for expenses. Mom and Dad paid for me. Do you even have 50 bits?”

“Wait, um...”

“Do Mom and Dad know you’re coming?”

“Um...”

“Did you even ask permission?”

“Hey I don’t have to ask anything!” Zephyr retorted. “I’m a fully-cutied adult!”

“A fully-cutied adult without 50 bits,” Gilda remarked.

Zephyr said nothing, pursing his lips as he carefully studied Gilda. “Oh I get it,” he said in a sultry voice. “The griffon is jealous.”

“What?” Gilda responded in shock.

“Yes, I see it all over your...beak. You want all of this lusciousness for yourself. Well for 50 bits, I can be your stallion and—”

It was at that moment that the door slammed in his face, all three of the females having walked inside while he was puffing himself up. “I’ll be back with that 50 bits,” he told the door.

“We’ll be gone by then!” Fluttershy exclaimed from the other side.

#

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes and went back to finish her breakfast.

Fluttershy stood there, her back to the front door of the house, watching Gilda quietly.

Gilda, seeing this, stopped and looked back.

“Did you two manage to fix everything up last night?” Fluttershy asked.

“Yeah I think so,” Gilda said. “Dashie said it was mostly my fault.” She smiled on seeing the suppressed grimace from Fluttershy. “And you think it was entirely my fault. And yeah, you’re both right. Dashie made me see what I was doing to you this whole time. I was jealous.”

“No, really?” Fluttershy said in a low voice, her head turned away. Turning back to face her, she said, “That’s alright, but you don’t need to bother. You have your own problems, and I’m not important.”

“Don’t say that,” said Gilda, reaching out to put a claw on Fluttershy’s shoulder.

Fluttershy flinched.

Gilda sheepishly removed the claw. “She made me realize that I’ve been blaming others, including you, for a lot of my own problems. I just wanted you to know that I’ll try to do better with you...and with the other you.”

“Am...am I that different from Pony Fluttershy?” Fluttershy asked.

Gilda laughed. “We’re having an actual conversation. That never would have happened with pony you. You are so much more assertive than her.”

“I’m not assertive,” Fluttershy said in a small voice.

“And you’re more cynical than her.”

Fluttershy winced. “No!” she quietly exclaimed. “That part of me is a lie! ...And I hate lying.” She had a look of shock on her face, like the realization physically hurt her. “It’s...it’s what I do to make the bullies leave me alone.” Her voice had nearly faded into silence as she had spoken. “But you don’t need to know about the problems of a Fluttershy who will leave your world in a few days.”

“Yes, I do.” Gilda turned back towards the kitchen. “Fluttershy and I will be a couple of minutes!”

Rainbow Dash poked her head around the corner. “Is something wrong?”

Fluttershy furiously shook her head. “No! Everything’s fine.”

“I’m just getting to know Fluttershy a little bit better,” Gilda said, faking a smile. “Just the two of us.”

“Oh, OK,” Rainbow said. “Take your time.”

Gilda waited for Rainbow Dash to leave then turned back to Fluttershy’s confused expression. “What? I honestly want to know what goes through that head of yours. Both of them. So you were bullied in Humanworld too. What does that have to do with lying?”

Fluttershy sighed as she realized that she was indeed having this conversation. “Being a bully yourself, I’d expect you’d know this.” She got a bit of a thrill on seeing the look of shock on Gilda’s face. “Bullies want reactions. If you don’t cry, if you show that you’re just as cold and heartless as they are, they eventually move on to another victim. I have to pretend to be cold and heartless, and I have to do it all the time.”

Fluttershy looked down, talking to the floor rather than Gilda. “Everybody at Crystal Prep is a bully...or a victim. Humans are sent to Crystal Prep to learn how to be business leaders and make lots of money. I...I don’t know about how businesses work among ponies or griffons, but in my part of humanity bosses only care about themselves and making money. A boss who actually cares about the public welfare or the happiness of his employees is a loser. So to be a good Crystal Prep student means that you’re a bully. Beating up on the sensitive girl is practice for pushing your employees to work through their vacations, practice for destroying families by firing employees at the holidays just to see the look on their faces.”

Gilda could see that this was something that was weighing on Fluttershy, something she had wanted to say for a long time but had never had the chance to. Maybe she could do it now because she was talking to somebody she would soon be saying goodbye to forever. A conversation without consequences.

“I have to pretend to be an awful person all of the time,” Fluttershy confessed. “And there’s this horrible thing about humans and pretending: the longer we pretend to be something, the more we become that thing. Day by day, I was becoming cold and cruel, because that’s what I pretended to be. The only time I was reminded of who I should be is when I’m around animals. Because animals don’t lie.”

“I’m sorry you had to go through that,” said Gilda.

Fluttershy looked up in a bit of a shock, surprised that Gilda was still there.

“But I think the experience made you stronger. You can talk back to me, because in your eyes I am an animal. And...cute.”

Fluttershy grinned widely. It was true, regardless of how big her talons were.

“That was the worst thing Rainbow told me last night. And maybe someday you’ll be strong enough to tell off those bullies.”

“You...really think I’m strong?” Fluttershy asked.

“On a relative scale,” Gilda said with a shrug. “I mean, take what happened out there.” She pointed over Fluttershy’s shoulder, at the front door.

Fluttershy glanced behind her for a moment. “I don’t understand.”

“You stood up to your brother. I’ve never seen the pony you do anything like that.”

Fluttershy sighed. “That doesn’t really count. I’ve had to deal with Zephyr for most of my life. It’s not like standing up to a real person. And besides, it’s not like anybody notices when I do.” She muttered the last part. Normally, nobody was able to even tell she was talking when she did that.

“Well I noticed,” Gilda said. “And I wish you the best of luck when you get back where you belong.”

Fluttershy winced a bit. She knew she had to go back, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t conflicted. Feeling that the conversation was over, she made to walk to the kitchen.

“One more thing,” Gilda said, holding up a paw. “That thing you said before, about how pretending a thing changes you. I...think it might be true. And might not totally be a bad thing.”

Fluttershy looked at her, curious.

“I had to pretend to be nice to fit in with the ponies,” Gilda exclaimed. “And it made me soft. That was why I shouted at you so much, because I was afraid I was turning into you. And...maybe I realize now that that is a good thing.”

Fluttershy smiled. “I’ve been thinking about how this whole thing is going to go, and I don’t want it to end when we get back into our bodies. When we finally talk to Princess Celestia, I’m going to ask that she make us some kind of magic phones or something, so we can talk to our counterparts. I’m saying this because I’m also going to ask for a pair of phones for you, Gilda.”

“Me?”

“Yeah. And, if possible, to add a button on just your phone called ‘slap her upside the head’. Because, and I’m really sorry to come out and say something so rude, but the human version of you really needs one of those applied to her on a regular basis.”

Gilda shook her head incredulously. She realized how far out of character this conversation had been, not only for Fluttershy, but for any pony, period. And then she broke out into a belly laugh. “Yeah, sure, Fluttershy,” she said at last. “And failing that I’ll write a letter for you to give her when you go back. You’ll just have to tell me more about her.”

“Should I start with the criminal record?” Fluttershy said, walking past Gilda towards the kitchen table.

“What’s a ‘criminal record’?” asked Gilda.

Fluttershy stopped and thought for a few moments before looking over her shoulder at Gilda. “I am going to miss this world so much,” she said, before resuming her walk once more.

Gilda was going to follow when she suddenly stopped with a realization: she was beginning to like the human versions of Rainbow and Fluttershy better than the pony versions.

H. Fluttershy.

With everyone ready to go, the group set out for Canterlot. Windy Whistles and Bow Hothoof pulled the carriage through the air, Dr. Tarbell sat in the driver’s seat, and Rainbow Dash sat in the passenger seat. Gilda flew alongside the carriage, telling Rainbow every embarrassing story she knew about Grandpa Gruff. She had already told them all to her Rainbow Dash, but it was great to see the reactions on this Rainbow—she tended to enjoy even the off-color ones, unlike the pony version.

Meanwhile Fluttershy was in the covered back of the carriage, having a panic attack:

‘I told her she had a criminal record. A criminal record! How could I be so stupid! I know I’m supposed to be more assertive, but that was definitely the wrong kind of assertive! I can’t believe I wanted people to notice me more! Actually having someone notice you, look at you—it’s just so horrifying! And when I get home and it comes time to confess—I’ll have to tell them everything; I mean how can you be a good Markist if you keep secrets from the Church, and they’ll want me to tell them, over and over and OVER again, with more and more of them there to hear everything, and to judge every little thing I...’

Fluttershy looked down, to see Angel Bunny tugging on her leg. “Y...yes?” she asked through teary eyes.

The bunny hugged her tightly.

“What, no, what are you doing? You don’t need to hug somebody who screwed up as much as me...”

Angel started crying.

“What...no!” She picked up the animal to hug him herself. “What do you have to be sad about? I’m the one who screwed up.”

He chittered something into her chest fur.

“I really wish I could understand you Angel. Are...are you thinking about something you regret?”

Angel lifted his head from her embrace to nod sadly to her.

“Well...if it was bad, I’m sure you’ve done something to make it better.”

The bunny nodded again, slightly.

“And now it’s in the past.” She wiped the tears from her eyes, addressing the advice to herself. “It’s...it’s in the past, and maybe it wasn’t even as bad as you thought it was. Maybe you were blowing it all out of proportion.”

The rabbit looked up at her with sad eyes.

“And we’re going to get through this together. Right?”

Angel nodded.

“Right!” She sighed. “I really hope I get a chance to talk to you before this is all over. I think you’re a very fascinating individual.”

Angel nodded once more, before snuggling into her arms to take a nap.

Fluttershy lay down carefully and watched over the little animal as he slept, her eyes full of a sort of maternal love for him.

H. Rainbow Dash.

The carriage set down in the village of Hoofington for a late lunch.

“I’m confident that we can make Canterlot shortly after nightfall,” Bow told his wife.

“Well I would like to rest a bit before the final push,” Windy told him. “I haven’t done that much sustained flying since my school days.”

As the carriage rolled down the shop-lined street, Rainbow Dash looked around her. Unlike Cloudsdale, where every building had a unique shape, the wooden buildings here all matched, and all fell under what on Earth would be called “Turn-of-the-Twentieth-Century Middle America”. Rainbow wondered if that would be considered quaint and old-fashioned in Equestria, or cutting edge. The merchants stood in the doorways of their shops, waving.

Rainbow soon figured out that the shopkeepers were following a script: as the carriage passed a shop, the sellers would welcome them to their shop, followed by “in WORLD-FAMOUS HOOFINGTON!”—the last part loud enough for everyone on the street to hear. And then the other merchants would cheer. And when the carriage rode away from a shop, the seller would say “Thanks for visiting. BE SURE TO TELL YOUR FRIENDS!” And then another cheer. The only time this act was interrupted was when Gilda walked too close. Oh, and every one of those merchants were dressed the same, even when the colors didn’t look so good against their fur: a blue-and-white striped shirt front with gold buttons and a dark gray bow tie, and a straw boater hat with a blue ribbon around it.

“Is this a theme park?” Rainbow asked herself.

“What’s a theme park?” Gilda asked.

Rainbow tried to come up with a short explanation, and failed. “Ask me later, it will take a while,” she said.

Unfortunately, it turned out that the group had arrived at exactly the wrong time, in the two-hour window between the end of lunch and the start of dinner.

“Well, there’s the Salad Emporium,” answered a young mare when asked about food. “But you’re better off waiting for dinner. Lunch Pail’s kinda grumpy.”

“Well, we’re on a tight schedule, so I think we’re going to go there,” said Windy. “But we’ll keep what you said in mind.”

“All right, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. Go down that street over there,” the merchant said as the carriage began to pull away. When the other sellers glared at her she was sure to add, “thanks-for-visiting. BESURETOTELLYOURFRIENDS!”

The Salad Emporium was a little outdoor cafe, with a board listing five different salads. As the carriage approached, a stallion could be heard yelling, “Out! Out! You were here to look, not to eat! And no pictures!”

A pair of ponies with matching silk-screened tee-shirts ran past them into the main street, each of them with large cameras hung around their necks. Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy and Gilda failed to recognize the gesticulating pony depicted on the shirts.

The group paused to see if it was safe to proceed. An orange unicorn in the standard shopkeeper attire was standing in front of the tables of his small cafe, his chest heaving. Noticing the carriage of visitors staring, he plucked off his hat with his magic, smoothed out his mane with a hoof, and replaced the hat. “I’m sorry you had to see that. I am Lunch Pail, and this is my Salad Emporium. Are you here to look, or to eat?” He tried to ask the question calmly, but a hint of frustration could be heard.

The ponies and one griffon looked around them, to try and figure out what everypony wanted to see here. The cafe was on a terrace, with a sharp plunge down to the road that entered the Everfree Forest. So the forest was the view. It was a nice view, but not jaw-dropping.

“We’d like to have lunch,” Bow said. “And we’d like to eat there.” He deliberately pointed at a table where it was impossible to see the Everfree.

“That’s wonderful!” Lunch Pail said with a beaming smile.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” Rainbow Dash teased. “Something about ‘world-famous Hoofington’?”

Lunch Pail rolled his eyes. “It’s a bit of a dumb formula, don’t you think?” he asked. “I mean, Hoofington is a great place, don’t get me wrong, but if it was actually world-famous I wouldn’t need to tell you that, right? Now let’s get you seated.” When Gilda walked by he did a double-take. “Aren’t you going to tie up your pet?” he asked.

“Not a pet,” Gilda growled in a low voice.

“It talks!” After taking a moment to calm himself down he picked up a large menu board and held it up in front of him for the group to see. There were five salads listed. “You should probably order the pasta salad,” he told them. “The greens get wilted by this time of day. Unless you like mushy lettuce?”

Bow looked around to get a silent consensus. “Six pasta salads are fine. And waters.”

Lunch Pail went inside the small cafe building to prepare their lunches. Dr. Tarbell sat down at the end of the table, then got out several books that included sections on the sonic magi-boom and continued the job he had started last night of collating his notes.

Rainbow Dash looked over at the two pegasi who thought that she was their daughter. She had wanted to tell them the truth the whole day, but for whatever reason the doctor had been in earshot the entire time. Perhaps it was because in order to get out of earshot, he would have had to step off of the flying carriage to his doom.

Lunch Pail came out with the salads and waters. After serving everybody, he made to go back into the tiny cafe.

“Stay out with us, please,” Windy told the unicorn. “I’m here more to rest than to eat. Why don’t you tell us what’s so great about this town of yours? I’ll admit we only stopped because it was on the way to Canterlot.”

Lunch Pail sat on his haunches a respectful distance away from the table—and on the other side from Gilda. “Oh, where do I start?” he asked himself. “We’re renowned for our sparkling beverages.”

“You make champagne?” Fluttershy asked. At the confused look Lunch Pail gave her she added, “it’s a sparkling wine.”

“Oh, no, we don’t make wine. We make sparkling fruit juices. Apple, grape, peach, if you can juice it, we can sparkle it.”

“So there’s orchards around here?” Bow said. “I don’t remember seeing any on the way here.”

“No, Ponyville has the orchards,” Lunch Pail said, a strong dislike buried behind the name of the other town. “We just sparkle. There’s a spring just a few kilometers from here.”

“Do you ever just bottle the spring water?” asked Windy.

“Oh...no. The water kind of stinks.”

“So wouldn’t the bubbles?” asked Bow.

Lunch Pail looked around awkwardly. “Well...yes. But you get used to it.” He decided to change the subject. “We also have this great little train, the Sparkle Train. It takes visitors to all the places where we sparkle our juices.”

“How many places does it visit?” Fluttershy asked.

“...Just the one. And it can’t get too close, because it really smells. But...we’re also Equestria’s premiere source of sparkle-related art.”

The others were all silent for a few seconds.

“Feel free to correct me,” Gilda said, “but wouldn’t ‘sparkle-related art’ basically just be drawings of little circles?”

“...Yes.”

“So to sum up, your town is known for ‘sparkling’...and that’s it.”

Lunch Pail sighed deeply. “And for the big obvious thing that I’m so glad none of you brought up.”

“The magic trick?” Bow said quietly.

“Yeah, Jack Pot making the Everfree disappear,” Mr. Pail admitted. “From this very spot. It’s the only reason why anypony deliberately comes here anymore. He and his company made all the money from that stunt, which got him into Las Pegasus. And he’s never looked back, never had anything but contempt in his interviews for the ‘hicks’ he tricked into giving him the opportunity of a lifetime for next to nothing.

“Like it or not, he changed this town forever. Now everypony wants some of that tourist money. So now us residents have to put up with the constant advertising pitches from City Hall, and the endless festivals that never attract anypony.” He got up and turned to face the main street of the city. “This used to be a good town! A happy town! Then the Council had to pin the blame for the bits one of them embezzled on a couple of foals! Everypony knows who was really responsible, but none of them are willing to take on the blame for bringing shame to Hoofington. Well I say, it’s too late for that, because this town is finished!” After this outburst, the orange pony plopped back down on the pavement and put his head in his hooves.

Rainbow Dash, who had been quietly watching the whole thing, got up and walked over to the unicorn to put a hoof on his withers. “Hey, I know what you’re going through,” she said. “When I was younger there was this decathlete who was my idol. He’s the one who got me into sports, and when he got all the way into the...number one pegasus sports event...I was right there, glued to the...I mean, right there in the stadium, cheering him on. And then he was caught cheating, using...look, he cheated, alright? And from that moment his career in sports was over. And he kind of broke my heart when he did that. Like Hoofington for you, that guy was everything to me, and he betrayed me.

“I took a few years off from sports after that, got more into flying than ever. But the next time that particular sports festival came around, I happened to catch some of the events, and I saw how much everypony enjoyed themselves, and how much it meant for the athletes, even the ones with no chance to medal. And that helped me to remember what I felt when I raced and when I played in a team, and I decided that I wasn’t going to let my one-time hero claim my happiness with his shameful act.”

“He went into counseling,” Fluttershy added, stepping forward to stand beside Rainbow Dash. “He tells his story to troubled fillies and colts, so they can learn that cheating is not worth it. I’ve heard that he saved several young athletes from making the same mistake he did.”

The cafe owner looked up at them.

“I don’t know that I’m offering you any specific advice with this story,” concluded Rainbow. “I’m not saying you should give up on Hoofington. Maybe you should fight to fix it. What about this Ponyville? What’s wrong with that town?”

“Nothing, actually,” Lunch Pail admitted. “They just keep succeeding while Hoofington fails. Despite the fact that they get all the Everfree monster attacks.”

“Monster attacks?” Fluttershy asked nervously.

“Maybe you should go over there for a visit. See if you can learn anything from them,” Rainbow suggested.

“I might do that,” Lunch Pail said, looking off in the distance, before rising to his hooves. “Thank you, all of you,” he said. “You’ve given me a lot to think about.” He collected the payment that had been put down during Rainbow Dash’s speech, and went back into the cafe.

“Who was the athlete?” asked Gilda.

“Wind Rider,” Rainbow Dash replied.

“Wow!” Gilda exclaimed. “You better not tell you-know-who about that. You do know that he’s the leader of—”

“—I know.”

Bow Hothoof and Windy Whistles walked over to pull Rainbow into an embrace. “Is there something you aren’t telling us, Dear?” Windy asked. “You made it sound like you quit racing for a few years in that story of yours. And we know that isn’t true.”

“Mom, Dad, there’s something I need to tell you...” Rainbow started. She stopped when she saw Dr. Tarbell collecting an itemized receipt from Lunch Pail. He looked up to stare right back at Rainbow, and she darted her eyes down to the ground. “There is something I want to tell you,” she said quietly. “But I can’t do it until after we see the Princess.”

“Well, alright,” Bow said reluctantly. “If you think that’s best. We better get back to the carriage if we want to make it to Canterlot.”

Chapter 16A: Rescue, Part 1 (H. Fluttershy, G. Gilda, H. Applejack)

H. Fluttershy.

Dr. Tarbell walked down the streets of Ponyville, a stacked pile of his notes suspended in front of his eyes by his magic. As he walked, the pages would be shuffled, and notes would be added in faint pencil. He was trying to get down everything he had thought of while reading his books before he forgot. And before those books got eaten by the Everfree.

Walking in front of him were Rainbow Dash and Gilda, frequently leaning over to whisper to each other. Many of these whisperings would be followed by glances at Dr. Tarbell, followed by loud laughs.

And behind Dr. Tarbell walked Fluttershy, fuming. Well, no, that’s not even close to accurate—Fluttershy doesn’t do “fuming”. But she was very disappointed.

It was obvious to her that Rainbow and Gilda had invented some reason why the secret of the two humans’ true nature couldn’t be revealed to him. And having classified him as an obstacle, that made him an enemy, and a buffoonish one at that. And that wasn’t fair.

Oh, Fluttershy could guess at the reason: the Princess was probably going to engage in a mass brainwashing after this whole mess was resolved, to keep anyone from knowing that the human world existed. And if that was the reason, it made perfect sense to try and spare the doctor. Who cared if he was doing the right thing for the two teens out of selfish reasons? As much as she dearly did not want it to be true, Fluttershy knew that the world was run by selfishness. And you just had to manipulate that selfishness, just like you manipulated cruelty. As long as you had a light touch, as long as you didn’t become so petty as to punish those you redirected with a carefully-thought out word. Make everyone always better. Kindness before all. And so Fluttershy decided she needed to act.

The group was passing by a fountain topped by a rearing stone mare, balanced on one hoof on a sphere. “Dr. Tarbell?” she asked at an abnormally loud volume.

Dr. Tarbell stopped, surprised as everypony always was, by a reminder that Fluttershy existed. “Yes?” he asked, turning his head to face her.

“Could you tell us a story about the Everfree? You must know an awful lot of good stories.”

“Um...sure!” Dr. Tarbell sat down on the edge of the fountain. “How about the legend of where timber wolves came from? Let me preface this tale with the disclaimer that there is no evidence of its veracity.”

Fluttershy sat down to face him. Rainbow Dash and Gilda sat down next to her, wondering what she was up to.

“One thousand years ago, the Everfree Forest, much larger than it is now, entered a state of war. A vast army, fifty thousand strong, moved with wanton rage through the magical woods, devouring everything in their path and leaving a barren and desolate wasteland in their wake. For these warriors were no living creatures, but specters! Dark ponies of shadow with a savage, hateful green-red glow in their eyes. All creatures caught in their path perished, both large and small, and the ponies living around the wood fled in panic.”

The doctor’s tale, told with all of the requisite skills of timing and voicing, had already attracted an audience of fillies and foals, who gathered around the sitting storyteller in a semi-circle.

One of the fillies, looking over to discover Gilda sitting next to her, squealed. But to Gilda’s immense surprise, it was a cry of delight instead of terror, and she soon found herself in a tight hug.

“Hey Filly—” Gilda started to say.

The young ponies all turned at one to shush her.

Gilda shut up, an incredulous smile on her face. Also, this was a cool story.

G. Gilda.

“...As the Dark Lord at last released the oppressive grip of his dark magic, there was a great, cataclysmic explosion of light, the sky turning white, bringing an end to the Dark War. Then, the necromancer teleported away, at last surrendering the forest to its new Guardians.

“It was too bad that within a hundred years, the timberwolves had turned against their creators. But that is a story for another day.”

The crowd, which had been joined by a couple of adults in addition to Bow Hothoof and Windy Whistles, pounded the cobblestones with their hooves in appreciation.

Dr. Tarbell stood up and bowed. “Thank you all for giving me your time. I’m just a humble researcher who spent many a late night walking up and down your streets during my studies of your fascinating woods. I’m glad I was able to give something back in return.” He stepped down and walked over to Rainbow’s parent-counterparts.

“Good story, Doctor,” Bow proclaimed.

“It was nothing. Have you procured rooms for the night?”

“We have,” Windy reported. “It’s down that street, the only inn in the town.” She made sure that everyone in the party saw where she pointed.

“We found a nice place to eat in a couple hours,” said Bow. “That will be an hour after sunset, so try to get to the inn early. Doctor, the inn has a common room where you should be able to continue your work.”

Dr. Tarbell smiled warmly. “Excellent! I have no need for sightseeing, so I’ll head over immediately.”

Gilda got up and looked over at the filly, who was still sitting and staring at her with eyes that practically sparkled. She sighed, and then put on an expression that was about 5% warmer than neutral. “And what’s your name?”

The filly, a pink unicorn with a purple mane, said “Amethyst Star!” in a loud voice. “Is she your guardian?” she asked Rainbow Dash.

Rainbow raised an eyebrow.

“You know...a guardian from the Everfree? Like the timberwolves were supposed to be in that story. I’ve always thought that not every creature in the Everfree is out to get us. Some of them must be guardians—like you!”

Gilda frowned. “I’m not from the Everfree, Amethyst. I’m a griffon, from Griffonstone, way over there.” And she pointed to the east, where the Everfree was west. “The name’s Gilda.”

“Oh,” said Amethyst, deflating. “Are you at least ferocious, Gilda the Griffon?”

“I can be.”

“Awesome!” She looked over at the others. “Where are you heading tomorrow?”

“How do you know we’re not moving here?” Rainbow asked with a smirk.

“‘Only crazy ponies move to Ponyville,’” Amethyst quoted.

“And who said that?” Rainbow asked.

“My dad before he left,” Amethyst replied. “Don’t get sad or nothing—he was a creep. And the whole town helped Mom raise me after he left. That’s what’s so great about Ponyville: everypony looks after each other. And we don’t care about strange, because you got to be a little strange to move into a town that gets attacked by monsters every other week.”

“Well I’m sorry I can’t be your guardian,” Gilda said, truly touched by the filly’s words. “But at least you have the whole town, like you said.”

“Yeah, but having a half-eagle, half-lion guardian of my very own would be so cool!” Amethyst exclaimed.

Gilda reached up and mussed Amethyst’s mane. Amethyst squealed and grinned like a madpony. She suddenly looked around her to see that the sun was setting. “I’ve got to go home, right now!” she exclaimed. “My mom’s busy looking for Rarity, so I’m supposed to lock myself at home straight at sunset, or else I’m not allowed to eat the dinner in the fridge!” As she ran away, she cried out over her shoulder, “You ponies are so lucky you get your own griffon guardian!”

Gilda shook her head in bemusement. “What would a ‘guardian’ job even include?”

“You sit inside the front door all night with your glowing cat eyes,” Rainbow joked, “eagle-shrieking at any intruders.”

Gilda let out a quiet shriek right into Rainbow’s ear, causing her to jump ten feet up in the air. The two of them then laughed.

As Rainbow Dash laughed, she looked around her, and her eyes settled on the sad expression on Bow Hothoof’s face, which caused her to stop. “So I guess you know the truth now?” she asked.

Bow nodded. “I wish I could talk to her—my Rainbow Dash, that is.”

Rainbow sighed. “Sorry. Like I told Windy, we switched places.”

“Which means that our parents are taking care of them,” Fluttershy added.

“Call us Mom and Dad, Rainbow,” Windy insisted. “It’s so close to being true, I’d prefer if we pretended the rest of the way.”

“OK,” Rainbow said with a smile.

“By the way,” asked Bow, “how old were you, back in your original bodies?”

“Fifteen.”

Bow looked wistfully over at Windy. “I thought that sudden bout of maturity was too good to be true,” he joked. To Rainbow he said, “Your mom and I are heading back to the inn, to get some rest. Feel free to have fun until it’s time for dinner—Everfree or not, this seems like a safe place to leave you.”

Rainbow looked at the resigned expressions on both Bow and Windy. “You know what? I wouldn’t mind walking with you back to the inn. So I know for sure where it is.”

“Alright,” said Windy, a little unsure.

“And along the way I’ll tell you stories all about my awesomeness, so you have something to remember me by after I’m gone.”

The three of them started walking out of the town square.

“Seriously?” asked Gilda. “How self-centered can you get?”

“No, I think this is exactly what they need,” Fluttershy said. “We should let them have their privacy.”

“And what are you going to do, get to know all the animals in town?”

Fluttershy made a show of looking around her. “No, these species are pretty much the same as the ones on my world. What doesn’t exist on earth are griffons. What was Griffonstone like?”

Gilda paused, suspecting this was a ploy like the earlier story request. Nevertheless, she decided to answer. “Well it was a great place, when the griffons were united as a kingdom, but it’s pretty much a dump now. Everygriff keeps to themselves, dreaming of the past...and of how to get rich.” She sighed deeply. “Fluttershy, do you believe in biological destiny?”

“Well that depends on the species,” answered Fluttershy. By this time the two of them had sat back down next to the fountain, the sun setting behind them. “Most creatures live within the circle of possibilities laid down to them from birth, and that circle can be pretty narrow. If genetic variation causes an individual to be born too close to the edge of that circle, they batter themselves uselessly against it until they die. Or they make a new circle, moving away from everyone they’ve ever known.

“But you’re a thinking creature, Gilda. That means you can think your way out of the circle. Humans were supposed to be these miserable field apes, only barely strong enough physically to take down the minimal prey to survive. What we had was creativity, and patience. And we used those traits to learn about our environment, abstract it, devise rules, and then exploit those rules to take control of the situation. And that led humans to face the bigger problems of a wider habitat. So we repeated the process. Again and again until now we control our world. Now we just have to learn how to control ourselves.” Fluttershy’s eyes had been unfocused during most of his explanation, as she pulled together her scattered thoughts on evolution and the rise of humanity.

But now she focused on Gilda, and saw her need for an answer. “Humans are a pretty diverse lot,” she said. “Some of us are wonderful, some of us are awful. Some are survivors, some are creators. In every crisis humanity has faced, even those of our own making, sooner or later somebody would find a way through. I don’t see why the griffons should be any different in that regard. And maybe that somebody might be you.”

“Thanks, Fluttershy,” said Gilda.

Just then a couple of ponies ran by. And then four more, coming from a different direction but running towards the same destination.

“What do you suppose is going on?” asked Gilda, getting up to start following.

“I don’t know,” said Fluttershy. “At least they don’t look scared.”

#

Gilda and Fluttershy followed the ponies to the train station. Looking northwards up the track, they could see the silhouette of a train engine in the distance. The ponies were running towards it.

“Where are your parents?”

Fluttershy turned towards the voice, to see a tan earth pony stallion with a spiky brown mane.

“Oh!” the stallion exclaimed, on getting a better look at them. “You’re not from Ponyville. That remark was directed at the foals and fillies who should be obeying the curfew instead of gawking at a stalled train. My name is Hooves. Doctor Hooves.”

“Nice to meet you, Doctor,” said Fluttershy.

Gilda made a noncommittal sound that might have been interpreted as “hi”. She then flew up into the air to get a better look at the train. “There’s a bunch of ponies pulling it,” she told Fluttershy from mid-air.

Fluttershy went up herself, and saw that the Ponyville ponies were grabbing onto large ropes tied to the engine, and were pulling it forward with their teeth.

“I tried to go out there and lend my services to repair the problem,” Dr. Hooves said with a pout. “But the others decided that I was better off watching the younglings. Hey! Back home with you, little stallion!”

Gilda, who had been studying the crowd of train-pullers, finally found what she was looking for. “And there are Rainbow Dash and her parents,” she declared. She and Fluttershy flew over, landing beside them. They began walking to keep pace.

Bow Hoothoof tried and failed to say something around the length of rope in his mouth.

“He says we’re out of ropes,” said a nearby earth pony. Who was able to speak quite fluently around his own rope.

Rainbow Dash spat out her own rope to join them. “We think we found another one of the Six. Do you recognize that filly?”

“Yes!” Fluttershy said in surprise. She walked over to the orange and yellow earth pony. “I’m Fluttershy, from Crystal Prep.”

“Applejack, from Canterlot High,” the filly said after removing her own rope. The train seemed to appreciably slow down after she stopped pulling. She turned to look around her at the Ponyville pullers. “I have to say, you all are the nicest ponies I’ve met all day! Not a one of those snooty Manehattan or Canterlot ponies would come out to help pull when the train broke down.” She turned back to Rainbow, Fluttershy and Gilda. “We can get better acquainted in the station, including your very interesting-looking friend over there. I’ve got a train to pull.” And with that, she put the rope back in her mouth and started pulling with all her might, causing all of the other ponies to stumble a little before falling in with her gait.

H. Applejack.

“Mares and gentlecolts,” the conductor said over a megaphone to the passengers who were still sitting in their seats in the motionless train. “The Canterlot Express will be staying in Ponyville overnight for repairs. The Crown will reimburse your expenses for the night, up to a maximum of ten bits. But you can’t just stay in the train!”

“I’m sure glad I ran into you folks,” Applejack said to Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy. “I wasn’t even sure it was possible to get home before meeting you.”

“You’re free to join us for dinner,” Windy told her.

“Thanks, but no thanks,” Applejack replied. “It’s getting dark, and I’ve got a lot of explaining to do to the Apple family. I’ll be by at dawn with my train fare to Canterlot.”

“Alright,” said Rainbow Dash. “We can trade stories of our Canterlot on the ride over.”

“It was nice meeting you, Applejack,” Fluttershy said.

Applejack turned and left, having not heard her. “Excuse me, Mister,” she said to a passing stallion, “do you know the way to Sweet Apple Acres?”

“Applejack, you haven’t been away that long, have you?” the stallion asked.

“Well, maybe I want to be sure.”

With an indulgent smile, the stallion gave her directions.

#

Several minutes later, Applejack topped a hill to look down on the Acres. She sighed with appreciation. “Now this is a proper orchard!” she exclaimed to herself. “Ma! Pa! I’m home!” she cried out.

She was answered by a baby’s cry.

The Canterlot-bound party had just received a late dinner at the outdoor cafe. A crowd of ponies were listening to Gilda tell stories about her past, including several foals and fillies who were sneaking around trying not to get caught. The cook was out comparing stories of Gustave le Grand’s youth in Griffonstone with his later years in Canterlot. The odds were 50/50 that his latest restaurant would go belly-up before the end of the year. Rainbow was puzzled by how tense Gilda seemed to be, and how desperate she was to change the subject.

Gilda’s latest story was interrupted when she heard Applejack running and screaming her way towards them.

“Help! Help! Something awful has happened!”

The filly was soon surrounded by Gilda’s former audience. Rainbow Dash pushed forward. She saw that Applejack had somehow been able to hold a scared foal in one arm and still run the whole way into town.

“What is it, Applejack?” asked a stately tan mare with a flowing gray mane.

“Sweet Apple Acres was attacked!” Applejack reported. “A tree was pushed onto Big Mac and knocked him out. I wasn’t able to lift it. And Apple Bloom was left alone in the house. Everybody else was gone!”

The mare turned to the other ponies. “I need two ponies to run over to the clinic and bring one of the carts and Doctor Horse to the Acres. The rest of us will meet you there.”

“What, all of us?” asked Dr. Hooves. “Who will stay and protect the children, Mayor Mare?”

“You bring up a good point, Hooves,” the mayor said. “You stay and look after the town.”

The Doctor suddenly looked regretful for getting himself roped into another sideline job. “Very well. I hope I don’t catch any fillies or foals lurking about after curfew, or no sugar on their cereal tomorrow!”

There was a scurrying of hooves as the young ones scattered to their homes.

Applejack looked down at Apple Bloom. “I’m sorry, but I’ve got to leave you with this Hooves pony,” she explained. The moment she handed her over, Apple Bloom started crying.

“There, there,” said Dr. Hooves, soothing the foal. “Your big sister Applejack is going to make everything OK.”

#

Applejack quickly led the group of ponies over to the fallen tree at the edge of the Everfree. Big Mac by that point was awake, but the position he was pinned in made it impossible for him to free himself. It took four other ponies to push the tree aside.

Applejack saw a tiny little brown and white puppy dancing around them the whole time, barking its encouragement. She noticed that several members of the crowd were looking nervously between the dog and herself for some reason.

Meanwhile, Rainbow Dash was looking over the same crowd, comparing them mentally with the much larger party that had gone in pursuit of Rarity. It was clear that they had only the physically weakest mares and stallions of Ponyville to handle this crisis.

“A...Applejack? Is that you?” Big Mac asked weakly. He tried to rise to his hooves, but immediately fell over.

“Don’t get up,” Applejack told him. She stared into his slowly rolling eyes. “I think you have a concussion.”

“Can you tell us what happened?” the Mayor asked.

“It was the wolves!” Big Mac cried out. He tried to stand up, but again toppled over.

Applejack grabbed onto her brother, holding him down as she looked into his eyes. “Tell us what the wolves did, McIntosh,” she said gently.

“They uh...” he panted a bit, blinking hard. “They attacked Granny. Chased her...chased her into the Everfree.”

Applejack froze in shock.

The two stallions sent to bring the medical cart arrived, accompanied by Doctor Horse.

“Bring me a candle,” Doctor Horse declared. He put the strap attached to a round reflector around his head, and lowered it so it was covering his face, his eye peering out of the hole in the center.

A mare, who had just returned from the Apple house, held forward a candle. Doctor Tarbell used his magic to ignite the wick.

The medical doctor used his own unicorn magic to pick up the candle and hold it close to Big Mac’s head. The reflector bounced and focused that light, allowing Dr. Horse to examine his patient’s irregularly-blinking eyes. “Concussion,” he concluded. “Get this stallion onto the cart.”

“N...no!” Big Mac cried out, fighting in vain against Applejack’s strength. “I have to go in there. I have to save her!”

“We’ll save her, Big Mac,” Applejack said, after coming down from her trance. “We’ll make this right, don’t you worry.”

Big Mac looked around at the other ponies, settling on Mayor Mare. “You can’t let her go!” he pleaded. “It was them! Those wolves! The same ones that killed our parents!”

Chapter 16B: Rescue, Part 2 (H. Applejack, G. Gilda, H. Rainbow Dash)

H. Applejack.

Applejack felt a canine tongue licking her face over and over again. She blinked a couple of times and raised her head; she came to the conclusion that she must have passed out.

“We can’t go in there at night,” a mare was saying, an earth pony with pink fur and a slicked-back sky blue mane. “Nopony ever comes back after dark.” She was speaking with a Swedish accent.

“Well we can’t just leave an old mare in there overnight,” another mare countered, this one with sky blue fur and a slicked-back pink mane. “Doctor Tarbell, do you know anything about these wolves that could help?” She also had a Swedish accent.

Applejack stood up.

“Are these regular wolves, or timberwolves?” Dr. Tarbell asked.

“The regular kind,” the stallion answered.

Dr. Tarbell shook his head. “I’m sorry. I barely know anything about the former, but absolutely nothing about the latter.”

“Then what are we going to do?”

G. Gilda.

“Ponies!” Gilda exclaimed, flying up above them. “There’s no need to worry. I know exactly what we need to do. I’ve dealt with wolves before; I’ve been part of several hunting parties. With your help, I will end this problem. And Applejack, I’ll even let you finish.”

“GRIFFON!” the Mayor screamed out in an authoritative voice.

Gilda landed roughly, thoroughly shocked to be addressed by any pony with that tone of voice.

“Raven, talk some sense into our visitor,” Mayor Mare commanded. “And you...?”

“Doctor Tarbell.”

“Doctor Tarbell. Could you please light the rest of those candles? It’s getting dark.”

“Come with me.”

Gilda turned and cried out in shock at the light gray earth pony mare with a dark brown mane in a bun who had seemingly materialized right next to her. She wore glasses with thick black rims over her dark brown eyes, and a starched white collar with a red cravat. A red elastic band held her tail in a second bun. Gilda looked around to confirm: there was definitely one more pony here than had been in the group that walked out to Applejack’s farm with her.

The mare, apparently Raven, did not wait for a reply, but instead turned and walked towards the farmhouse. With a helpless shrug of her wings, Gilda followed. Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy, seeing this, joined in.

The group entered the front room.

H. Rainbow Dash.

Rainbow Dash looked around her in shock: the room was fully lit by at least four candles, despite the house appearing completely dark from the outside. She looked over at Raven to confirm that she was not hiding a horn in her mane. This room was the only one in the farmhouse that was lit, leaving the rest of the interior in darkness. She was confused why Fluttershy and Gilda appeared not to notice any of this.

Raven walked around her to close the front door, and noticed her and Fluttershy for the first time. “Run back to your parents, fillies,” she said, firmly but gently. “Gilda and I have grown-up stuff to discuss.”

Rainbow Dash sat down, her back to the door. “Nuh-uh,” she said. “We’re staying to support our friend. And besides, we’re older than we look.”

“Alright,” Raven said with a sigh. “The trauma will be on their heads, not mine.”

G. Gilda.

Raven turned to Gilda. “In that speech just now, you were suggesting that we kill those wolves.”

She looked over at Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy to see how traumatized they were, and was somewhat surprised to see that the two of them were not only alright, but apparently also knew what Gilda was implying. “Is that correct?” Raven asked Gilda.

“It is,” Gilda said. “Those wolves have killed ponies before—Applejack’s brother said it. Once they start on that path, they will not stop. They have to be destroyed.”

“Ponies do not kill,” Raven said firmly.

“Then I’ll do it myself,” Gilda said coldly, showing her claws.

“I will not have you set that kind of precedent,” Raven countered.

“So you’ll just let that old mare die?!”

“We will go into the forest, and teach the wolves the error of their ways,” Raven said with calm conviction. “It was the course I pressed for when the Apples lost their lives, but at the time I was overruled.”

“That’s not going to work!” Gilda replied. “You’re just going to get more ponies killed.”

“Not if you lead us,” Raven said. “You’ve hunted them before. Use that knowledge to protect instead of to kill.”

“This is ridiculous!” Gilda cried. “We have to kill them.”

“We do not kill.”

“Why?!”

“We just don’t.”

Gilda suddenly became deathly calm. “No,” she said, a quiet tension in her voice. “That’s the explanation I always get when I push the point. You just don’t kill? Well, that’s not good enough for me. I want an answer to that question. I need an answer.” She held out her paws pleadingly. “Don’t you understand? This is it! This is the big question, the reason why I came to Equestria. This is the difference between ponies and griffons, the reason you are happy, and we are miserable! We fight a universe we don’t understand, while you calmly drift through it, everything bending to your will. I’m sorry to waste your time on this, to put this Granny pony into more danger, but I really, really need an answer that I can understand: Why...don’t...ponies...kill?”

Raven stepped back into the darkness to think, only her eyes visible. From Gilda’s vantage point, those eyes looked centuries old. “Alright,” she said from the darkness, “I’ll tell you. The long-term consequences should be quite interesting.”

H. Rainbow Dash.

Rainbow Dash’s eyes darted about her in sudden terror. It wasn’t that she couldn’t move her body, it was that she didn’t want to. And she had no idea how she had come to that decision, or how she could talk herself out of it. She tried to look out the window through the corner of her eye. What she saw was mostly the reflection of the now-too-bright room, but it seemed as if the outside world had suddenly frozen in time. Fluttershy also appeared to be frozen. Just in time, she prevented herself from locking eyes with Raven. Instead she stood there, stilling her breathing, and trying desperately to look like the earth pony’s spell had worked on her.

G. Gilda.

“Thousands of years ago,” Raven said, beginning her explanation to Gilda, “the ponies, like the other thinking beings of this world, lacked direction and purpose. They were the prey for every carnivorous species, and the dupes for every duplicitous species.” She walked out of the darkness to watch Gilda, to judge her reaction to every word. The darkness seemed to clothe her like a cape. She was no longer wearing her glasses, and her eyes were now blue instead of brown. “With the world battering them at every turn, they eventually gave up, and turned on each other. They were right to despair: the planet’s axis had tilted, and the world was heading for an ice age. With the rest of their species doomed to extinction, six ponies retreated into a cave, where three of them fell victim to frostbite.

“The survivors retreated deeper into the cave where one of them, Clover the Not-Yet-Clever, made contact with an alien intelligence. It was Harmony, the very living spirit of Equus itself. Clover made a bargain with Harmony, one agreed to by the other two survivors. And because of the near-extinction of the other ponies, the decision by those three was taken to apply to all ponies forevermore. In return for losing a portion of their free will, ponykind gained a connection to the turns of Fate, as overseen by Harmony. At adolescence, they would gain powers directed by Harmony, powers to shape the world and guide it on a path to eternal peace. As the symbol of this accord, Clover, Pansy and Smart Cookie gained the world’s first cutie marks. The dying were revived, reality was re-written to turn the axis realignment into a windigo attack, and the ice age ended, replaced by a new age: the Age of Ponies.”

“That’s a lot different from the history I heard,” Gilda remarked.

“Yes, well a later catastrophe utterly destroyed all traces of pony history less than a hundred years later, and it’s a miracle that any trace of the Hearth’s Warming founding legend survived at all. Ponies as a whole are a very complacent lot, freely re-writing history long after the fact to make it less uncomfortable for them. After all, the sun and moon had to move themselves in the days before Celestia and before there were even unicorns on Equus, yet nobody bothers to ask about that...other than that annoying Hooves fellow.”

“And how do you know the truth?”

“I asked Harmony myself, back in the days when she could talk. Like those two, I’m older than I look.”

“Yeah, I figured that,” Gilda said, sighing at yet another example of inexplicable pony magic at work. She considered telling Raven that Harmony was speaking once more, but decided not to, as she didn’t entirely trust this mysterious pony.

“The sacrifice we made in exchange for our cutie marks is that the marks govern our lives. Each of us has a part to play in the history of Equus, and the world itself will turn against any one of us who decides to defy that burden. Luckily there are enough different ponies in existence that a pony’s personality, and one of the many turns of fate requiring a particular cutie mark, can be matched up in the majority of cases.

“We ponies wield overwhelming power because of our cutie marks, and yet most of us are completely ignorant of this fact,” Raven continued. “We were granted this power so that we would never need to kill; we would always be able to handle any problem non-violently. Whenever possible, we change our enemies into allies. Harmony believes that Her way is the best way of life for all living beings, and so do I.

“We believe that no other races need to make the sacrifice that the ponies did. Speaking for your kind specifically, the griffons could have their kingdom back, if they asked the Princess for aid, but their pride is still too strong to allow that. When they finally agree to do that, they would find that the ponies would help them to regain their lost strength without having to compromise any of their principles.”

“And why would the ponies do that?” Gilda asked.

“For two reasons: First as part of a continual demonstration of their beliefs. And second, for the realpolitik reason that there are dark forces slumbering to the east and north that will soon awaken. A strong griffon state would act as a buffer to protect Equestria.

“Now as for you personally. As you know, many griffons have moved into Equestria, to find lives among ponies. Most of them keep up their barriers, retaining an imagined definition of what being a griffon is, to keep from ‘going pony’. You need to realize that you will always be griffons, regardless of your actions. You have your glorious history to look back upon, and the actions of individual griffons of the recent past to inspire you. What Harmony asks is that you willingly engage with the future of this planet. Freely choose to help the tasks of us ponies, who follow our fate without choice. Maybe...maybe even tell Harmony when She is wrong?”

Gilda smiled broadly. “Now that is a job I can get behind!”

“I’m glad to hear that,” Raven said with a thin smile. “There is...another, much older bargain in effect. One between Harmony and all living things. There is a phrase used to describe this bargain: Friendship is magic. I will say no more than that.” She watched eagerly to see what the griffon would make of this revelation.

“Friendship is magic,” Gilda repeated. She had a suspicion of what Raven was hinting at. The first time Gilda had ever maybe witnessed true griffon magic, the day she met Rainbow Dash, the sonic rainboom itself...it seemed clear that all creatures capable of wielding magic had the ability to will some of their reserve into others. And if the requirement for that transfer was an emotional bond, was friendship...

Gilda laughed incredulously. “I got so mad!” she said with a chuckle. “Pr. Flattery had dismissed the fall of the Griffon Kingdom in front of everypony, had said, ‘It wasn’t the loss of the Idol that ended the Kingdom. The Kingdom fell because griffons stopped believing in it.’ He was right! I can’t believe how corny it sounds, but...friendship is the most-valuable treasure of all, isn’t it?”

Raven nodded, the hint of tears in her eyes.

“I’m staying!” Gilda said in realization. “I’m staying in Equestria. I don’t care if I have to spend the rest of my life here; the griffons need me to process the Pony way of life, turn it into a ‘return on investment’ calculation that every griffon will accept.” ‘It shouldn’t be too hard to explain’, she thought to herself. ‘Every enemy you convert into a friend makes you that much more powerful.’ “Now how do I start applying this philosophy to the problem at claw?”

“You tell me.”

“We ‘friendship’ our way of it? Alright.” She turned around and pointed. “Fluttershy!”

“Yes?” Fluttershy asked.

H. Rainbow Dash.

Rainbow Dash suddenly felt the decision to not move reverse itself. With the utmost self-control, she looked calmly over to Gilda, just like a pony who had been frozen for the last few minutes without realizing it.

Chapter 16C: Rescue, Part 3 (G. Gilda, H. Fluttershy, H. Applejack)

G. Gilda.

“How much do you know about wolves?” Gilda asked.

“A fair amount,” said Fluttershy. “Assuming the Everfree ones don’t talk, fly, or do anything else outlandish. So are you going to try and rescue Granny Apple without hurting them?”

“I can’t guarantee that. I do guarantee that I won’t kill them.”

Fluttershy frowned for a moment. “I guess that’s the best I can hope for,” she said.

“You’re also going to talk to them, and everypony will be looking at you.”

Fluttershy shrank. “I...I can do it. For the sake of the wolves.”

“And the ponies,” added Rainbow Dash.

“Yes,” Fluttershy said with a pause. “For the ponies.”

The trio walked out of the house. Rainbow Dash tried not to flinch as the candles ceased to be lit behind her.

#

Ahead of them, the dozen ponies under Mayor Mare were milling around in the gloom, each of them with a candle mounted on their head in a sort of metal cage enclosure. A few extras were being carried unlit on ponies’ backs, inside strapped-on trays. Big Mac, Doctor Horse, the medical carriage, and two ponies were gone, presumably gone to the clinic, but Nurse Redheart had joined the group, carrying a pair of saddlebags with all of the supplies that might be needed to treat an injured Granny Smith. The puppy from earlier had just finished being tied to a tree by Applejack (“Wow this is hard with hooves!”).

“Are we settled?” the Mayor asked Gilda.

“We are,” Gilda replied, then took to the air. “Ponies, we will be going into the Everfree, together. We will find these wolves, and Fluttershy here will find out what they are up to. And then we will handle the situation together. I’m sorry that you don’t have somepony like Mane Allgood or Lofty here to lead you, and I’m sorry that I didn’t get to be here long enough for you to get to know me. It looks like I’m your best choice to lead you under these particular circumstances, but I’m sure you’d rather be led by a friend than by a stranger.”

“I’m willing to take a chance on you,” said the Mayor. “My assistant vouches for you, and that’s enough for me.”

Gilda looked around. To her complete lack of surprise, Raven was nowhere to be seen.

“I saw you with Amethyst,” added the sky-blue-furred mare. “As silly as it sounds, if she picked you out to be a ‘guardian’, that’s good enough for me.”

Some of the ponies were convinced by these arguments alone. The others grumbled a bit, but each of them saw that they really didn’t have a natural leader of their own with so many of them out of town, while the Mayor...they loved her dearly, she was great at delegation, but monster fighting? Not so much. And griffons were renowned for their bravery and ability to handle pressure, unlike themselves.

“What about you, Applejack?” Gilda asked, settling back down and extending a claw. “You have the biggest personal stake in this.”

Applejack shook her head slightly, reminding Gilda and the two pegasi that strictly speaking, this wasn’t her family. “I just want Granny safe,” she said. “If you promise to deliver her, then I’m with you.”

“Alright,” Gilda said, taking once more to the air. She wheeled about and pointed at the forest. “Fluttershy, could you tell us where the wolves entered the Everfree?”

All eyes settled on Fluttershy. She closed her eyes, took a couple breaths to calm herself, and when she opened her eyes fixed them on Gilda, so she wouldn’t have to focus on the judging crowd. She started to walk forward and then with a second thought took to the sky, hovering a few inches off of the ground. She flew over to the sharply-defined edge of the forest and scanned back and forth. She stopped at an obvious opening in the greenery. “They came out of here...and went in over here. Everyone please stay behind me, please. We can’t get the trail trampled on.”

A light approached her head and she flinched. But then saw that it was one of the candle helmets, being hovered over to her in Dr. Tarbell’s magic. Knowing she couldn’t both fly and put on the helmet at once, she sat down on the ground beside the trail before taking and donning the headwear. She then resumed her flight slowly into the forest. Gilda settled behind her with a distance of two ponylengths, the other ponies gathered close behind her. Mayor Mare stayed behind, illuminated by the light of a single candle. When Rainbow Dash looked back, she sometimes saw one shadow behind the Mayor’s back, and sometimes two.

Rainbow Dash wanted to be beside Fluttershy, to steady her nerves, but knew that she couldn’t do that in this case. So she worried for her. She really wished she could fly, so she could go high enough to spot any dangers before her dear friend could.

A few steps in, she saw the group veer to the right, even as Fluttershy continued to fly forward. “Stop!” she cried out, trying her best to be loud enough to be heard, but not loud enough to draw the attention of too many of the Everfree monsters. Grabbing a spare helmet and candle off of one of the blue-and-pink ponies, she pushed to the front of the crowd. “The magic of the Everfree is leading you astray,” she explained. “I’m drained, so it isn’t affecting me.”

“Oh, I didn’t even notice,” Fluttershy fretted as she turned around to see what was going on.

“Well you don’t need to worry anymore,” Rainbow said proudly. “I’ve got all your backs.” Dr. Tarbell lit her candle at that moment, making a literal point that Rainbow would light the way for them.

Gilda felt the eyes of the ponies settle on her, to see how she would treat this “threat to her authority.” It would only be considered a threat by someone with an ego bigger than their brain, but that category included most of the griffons she had ever known, so she decided not to get mad. Instead, she settled her paws and claws on the ground and stepped back to let Rainbow Dash take the lead. As the party moved forward once again, she looked around every few seconds to look for threats. She sensed the ponies behind her relaxing a bit, giving her a bit of their trust. She couldn’t be quite sure that what she felt was actually magic or not. She hoped they were giving more of it to Fluttershy than to her—she was the one who needed it the most.

#

The party continued on for several minutes, with Rainbow having to herd the group and in a couple of cases Fluttershy from going in the wrong direction. As they walked, they introduced themselves to the visitors from Cloudsdale. The ponies with interchangeable color schemes were Aloe and Lotus.

With no warning, they suddenly emerged into a large clearing full of wolves. Fluttershy looked back to see that all of them were now visible, and settled to the ground with an air of defeat. “I would have asked you to stay behind in the brush, but it’s too late for that now.”

The five wolves nearest to them turned, the fur on their backs bristling as they let out warning growls.

Fluttershy sat up and held out her hooves. “We mean you no harm,” she said.

Applejack pushed through the crowd to stand right next to Rainbow Dash. She pointed across the clearing. “There’s Granny Smith!” she exclaimed.

The other wolves now all looked at her.

She lowered her hoof.

Fluttershy looked where Applejack had pointed with an appraising eye. At the back of the clearing, surrounded by most of the fifty or so wolves, was a large dark shape, with Granny Smith bent over in front of it. “Hello?” she cried out. “I’m here to help.”

“You’re a bit too late for that,” Granny Smith said, her voice tightly controlled. As she walked towards the ponies the wolves silently parted to see her past.

The ponies gasped at the sight: Granny Smith’s forehooves were coated in blood. Behind her could be seen a large wolf, lying on its side.

Gilda fought off her instinct to lunge for the big wolf as revenge for savaging Granny. Instead she looked to Fluttershy.

Fluttershy walked over to Nurse Redheart. “Give me your saddlebags, please,” she said.

The nurse blinked in surprise, then did as she was told.

Fluttershy took out a towel and handed it back to the nurse before donning the pack. Then she turned and walked calmly to Granny Smith as the old earth pony was hobbling towards her. Briefly, Fluttershy looked down to look at the blood, then continued past Granny Smith, heading straight for the large wolf.

The wolves closed ranks, snarling at Fluttershy and looking like they would jump for her throat at any moment. Fluttershy for her part looked them coldly in the eye, showing no fear. “I came to help,” she said once again. She opened a saddlebag to show the supplies within. There was a quiet yelp from inside the closed-off area, and the wolves reluctantly moved to let her in.

Nurse Redheart used the towel to clean up Granny Smith, finding only a few minor scratches underneath the blood.

The five wolves closest to Gilda and the other ponies were soon joined by ten more. A wolf with a scratched-up nose, appointing himself their leader, ordered them to fan out, and await an opportunity.

Granny locked eyes with Applejack as she approached. “It was her,” she said in a voice tinged with hate, referring to the wolf she had been working on. “She’s the one who took them from us.”

“But we just found the bodies at the edge of the wood,” Aloe said. “How do you know—”

“—I just know!” Granny exclaimed.

A few uncomfortable minutes passed, as Fluttershy worked on the big wolf and everypony waited.

Gilda closed her eyes, imagining giving back the magic that the ponies had leant her. She figured it would be best if these magic transfers were short-term operations, and she didn’t need it for now. She saw them all looking at her when she opened her eyes. Not judgmentally. They were looking to her for direction when the time for action came.

“Applejack, Granny Smith?” the voice of Fluttershy drifted over to them. “The Alpha would like to speak with you.” Her voice sounded strained, like she found the request she was conveying unpleasant for some reason.

The two earth ponies looked at each other, then walked away from the others.

The group of fifteen wolves let them pass and waited until they were too far to offer any aid, then started converging on the others.

H. Fluttershy.

At an instruction from the “alpha”, the wall of wolves around her parted to let the two Apples in.

An exhausted Fluttershy was lying at the Alpha’s side, having finished a minor surgical operation on the wolf. Beside the two of them were two newborn wolves. Unlike the dark gray coats of most of the other wolves, these two were colored a dark yellow and a dark peach. The Alpha herself had a dark purple color to her fur that was nearly black in the flickering candlelight. Some distance apart from all of the other wolves was a wolf that paced back and forth, its eyes on the Alpha, Fluttershy, and the pups.

“This is the Alpha, the leader of all wolves in the Everfree,” Fluttershy explained between pants. “Four months ago, two armed earth ponies stumbled on this clearing. In that cave, they saw her first pup.” She pointed to the back of the clearing, the bottom of a cliff with a small cave in it.

The two Apples peered into the cave, and saw the glow of a pair of green eyes. After an encouraging call from the Alpha, a juvenile wolf crept forward. It had an orange fur the same color as Applejack’s.

“They thought that their daughter was being held captive. The mother pony dashed forward and was attacked by the Alpha’s hot-blooded mate. He seriously wounded her. The father pony killed the mate. And the Alpha killed both of the ponies.”

Applejack stood there silently, taking this in. These weren’t her parents. But it was still awful. Granny Smith shook, trying to contain her emotions.

Fluttershy slowly rose, looking like there was an awful taste in her mouth. “The Alpha found another mate.” She pointed at the wolf that was holding himself apart. “She chose to have twins, despite the danger. And as you see, she delivered successfully. She has provided a replacement for her former mate, as well as for herself.”

At a direction from the Alpha, two wolves went into the cave and pulled out two objects which they dropped at the hooves of the two earth ponies. The objects were axes, with specialized handles so they could be strapped to hooves. One of the blades had dried blood on it.

“She is now prepared to give you her life, in exchange for the ones she took. She has spied on the ponies, seen that they love their young as her kind does. She saw the orange daughter when she exiled herself from the pony settlement, and realized the cause of the misunderstanding. She has lost pups of her own, and wishes to join them.”

The Alpha bared her neck to them. The mate froze in place, breathing heavily, its eyes locked on the weapons.

“She wants us to kill her,” Applejack said simply.

“Yes,” Fluttershy said, looking away in frustration.

Applejack looked over at Granny Smith, who stared long and hard at the Alpha, before turning to Fluttershy. “No thank you, I’m good,” she said. “I forgive her.” She looked calmly back at Applejack.

Applejack huffed. “This isn’t fair,” she said to Fluttershy, “and you know it. It’s easy for me, but I’m not the Applejack who needs to do this.”

Fluttershy shrugged her wings. Granny nodded slightly.

“Well, I forgive her,” said Applejack. “What about Big Mac? Does he need to be in on this?”

Fluttershy rolled her eyes. “According to the Alpha, ‘females make the responsible decisions, while males are stupid.’”

The Alpha huffed a few times in what might be considered to be wolf laughter.

Applejack did not appreciate the joke. “Well, this Alpha here should expect a return visit someday. From ‘me’, and Big Mac.”

“Consider it a conjugal call,” Fluttershy said. “She named the orange one Applejack, and would like to name the newborns after your parents, if you’d like. Wolves never name their young.”

“Buttercup and Bright Mac,” Granny Smith said, looking to Applejack to be sure she had her approval. “We would be honored if you named your own after the departed.”

Fluttershy held out a hoof. “A little help?” she asked. The other two ponies surrounded her, supporting each other as they made their way past the other wolves and beyond the ring. As soon as they were past, the other wolves ran in to see their leader up close. An argument soon broke out, silenced by a loud bark by the Alpha.

G. Gilda.

As soon as Granny Smith and Applejack had disappeared beyond the wall of wolves, the group of fifteen began growling, showing their fangs and claws and spiking out their fur.

Gilda sprang into the air, her own claws on display as she growled back at them.

The wolves refused to be intimidated by this lone display, and continued to close in on the group.

“Are there any unicorns who know any offensive or showy spells?” Gilda asked in an authoritative voice. “Any pegasi that can summon lightning without having to go up and get a cloud?” The ponies shook their heads—all of those ponies had gone after Rarity, and lightning wasn’t in Windy or Bow’s repertoire. “Any magic at all?”

“I’ve got my bath bombs,” answered Lotus, producing a small round ball of soap. It was rather porous-looking, and glittered in the candlelight. “It explodes in water, or I suppose if I throw it hard enough.”

“How accurately can you throw it?” Gilda asked.

Lotus grimaced.

“I could throw it,” said Play Write, a pale yellow earth pony mare with a darker tan mane in a bun. “I used to be a pretty mean hoofball player before becoming a teacher.”

(Rainbow Dash sighed. As a human, she was without a doubt the most accurate throw of any group she might find herself a part of. But without the opportunity to really work with this body, she was best staying on the sidelines. Maybe you got that kind of self-knowledge automatically when you got magic.)

Gilda hovered down to be only a few inches from the ground. With her eyes still locked on the wolves, she picked up the ‘bomb’ and handed it over to the teacher. “Play Write, when I give the signal I need you to throw the bomb at the paws of the closest wolf to you. Do not hit the wolf directly. Can you do that?”

“Uh-huh,” Play Write said nervously, rolling the soap sphere carefully back and forth on her upraised hoof.

“You can do this,” Gilda told her. “I believe in you. We all believe in you.”

Play Write looked around her, at the reassuring looks of her fellow ponies. Her doubts evaporated, and she looked sternly out at the wolves.

“And when she does that, I will take care of the rest with my wind magic,” Gilda concluded.

The ponies were rather surprised by this revelation that griffons wielded magic, but she spoke with such firm conviction that they accepted it.

Gilda had turned her head away from the wolves in order to make that last statement, and Scratch took that as his opportunity to attack. He leapt through the air straight at Gilda.

“Now!” Gilda cried, before batting at Scratch with a talon. The wolf’s trajectory was slightly altered, causing both of them to tumble chaotically to the ground behind the ponies.

Meanwhile Play Write had picked her target, jumped up in the air, and then launched the bomb. It landed as expected, fragmenting instantly and blinding the nearest wolf.

Gilda deliberately kicked Scratch in his injured nose with a paw. Out of the corner of her eye she saw all of the ponies watching her instead of the incoming wolves. She thrust her wings downward, and was surprised to be launched much higher than she expected. Wheeling around, she spread her wings wide, channeling her magically-generated wind towards the pile of soap crystals. This caused them to fly up into the eyes of all of the wolves, who ran around at random and rubbed their heads into the dirt to try and clear their vision.

Since her magic was not being used for its intended function, Gilda plummeted out of the sky. She was caught by the assembled ponies, who raised her up.

Scratch leapt towards Gilda once again. Turning to face him, Gilda screeched with all of her might, channeling her abnormally large reservoir of magic into her voice.

The sound was so intense that it knocked Scratch out of the sky. He turned, and with ears bleeding, fled into the forest.

At the sound of the screech, the Alpha’s mate emerged from the ring and confronted the blinded wolves, castigating them and herding them back to be chewed out by the Alpha herself.

H. Fluttershy.

Granny Smith and Applejack had done what they could during the brief battle, trying and largely failing to stop any of the attacking wolves. For Granny, this was because of her fatigue after operating on the Alpha. For Applejack, it was for the same reason as Rainbow Dash: she just didn’t know this pony body well enough. She had turned around and attempted a buck, but ended up falling on her face.

Fluttershy had found herself frozen by what she was witnessing. It was a cowardly attack, an attempt to kill a few innocent ponies just so Scratch could then challenge Spottacus to be the Alpha’s mate. (These of course were Fluttershy’s names for these wolves. As I mentioned earlier, most wolves don’t name themselves.) The behavior was far too reminiscent of something a human would do. In the aftermath, Fluttershy cursed herself. She should have seen what was about to happen. She should have used her special talent to talk the group down. But most of all, she should have been able to do something. Working with animals was her life. What kind of veterinarian would she be if she couldn’t control animals? Her musings were interrupted by Granny and Applejack resuming their places at Fluttershy’s sides.

H. Applejack.

“You’re going to fix this, aren’t you?” Granny asked Applejack over Fluttershy’s shoulder.

“Fix what?” Applejack asked.

Granny reached over Fluttershy’s back to tap Applejack on the head.

Applejack laughed. It figured that the Granny Smith in any universe was able to see her as she really was. “I’m headed to the Princess first thing tomorrow,” she said. “You should have your Applejack back before the day is out.”

“This better not be your fault,” Granny warned.

“It wasn’t,” said Fluttershy, interrupting. “It was—”

“—A unicorn?”

“Yes.”

“Figured as much. So, Talker, did the little rebellion back there have anything to do with the tussle we just witnessed?”

“No,” Fluttershy replied. “The leader of this group wanted to take over. As for them...” She looked back at the main wolf pack. “It appears that most of them didn’t know the Alpha’s plans. They wanted to punish us, but she shut them down.”

“And both threats have been crushed, at least partially because of us,” Granny Smith said with a nod. “Good. I tried to get through to those timber wolves three hundred moons ago, let them know that ponies could be their friends, but they just didn’t want to let go of their hate. Maybe now we’ll finally have an ally in the Everfree.” She stopped, just as they finally reached the group of ponies. “I just wish the price wasn’t so high!” She fought to hold back the avalanche of emotions that suddenly caught up with her.

Fluttershy stepped back, allowing Applejack to embrace Granny. She found Nurse Redheart, and handed over the depleted saddlebags.

“Just get me to the house,” Granny whispered in Applejack’s ear. “I don’t need no ponies poking their snouts where they don’t belong!”

Applejack gave her one last secret hug before straightening up. “Fluttershy was our in-between with the wolf pack,” she explained. “My parents’ deaths were a tragic accident. One for which their leader was willing to pay the price. We forgave them.”

The ponies took this in.

“I’m alright with that if you are,” Gilda said.

“We are,” said Granny, her voice barely under control.

“Then we’ll head for the clinic,” Gilda said. “Everyone wait here while I get my bearings.” She flew up into the sky, wheeling around until she figured out the shortest route to the road that led to their destination.

Unseen by the others, she grinned in exhilaration and because of an adrenaline rush that had not yet faded. She was right! There was no way she should have accomplished what she did with her wind magic, not without the magic given to her by the ponies.

“I feel like I’m ten years younger!” Gilda heard Play Write telling the others.

Applejack turned to Granny Smith. “There’s something I need to tell you. Big Mac—”

“—Got hit on the head by the very tree he was chopping down. I saw the whole thing in between dodging wolf bites...that I now realize were all fakes,” Granny said. “They tricked him into doing it. That’s when I knew I was dealing with smart wolves, and stopped trying to resist where they were herding me.” She laughed out loud. “Wolves herding a pony! I guess that makes me the sheep. Speaking of which, how’s Winona? Oh wait, never mind. I can hear her yapping.” She broke from the group and immediately started walking towards the sound.

Gilda, seeing this, immediately landed. “Or we can just follow Granny,” she said sarcastically, raising a laugh from the other ponies, many of whom had been the victim of the old mare’s antics in the past.

Under Granny’s leadership, there was no need for Rainbow Dash’s guidance, as she never wavered from the correct course. Both Rainbow and Gilda came to the same conclusion: Granny had lived in this area so long, and had visited the Everfree so often, that she instinctively knew how to deal with the wild magic. For Gilda in particular, it offered some hope that one day she might be able to find that ruined castle again. It was vital that she do it alone—after all, how could she take the job she had in mind if she never interviewed with her future boss?

When they reached Winona, Granny untied her. Only now did she take a candle helmet. “Well, I’m off to the clinic. They’ll probably be closed for visitors, so that means I’ll be camping outside the door all night. Who’s with me?”

“I’ll open the clinic, for immediate family, for a half hour,” Nurse Redheart declared, taking the lead. “And that’s it.”

The others headed for the house, and the road to the main part of Ponyville.

“I’ll see you tomorrow morning, preferably before the Canterlot train starts boarding,” Dr. Tarbell told Applejack. “The fare is three bits each way. If you expect to stay more than a day then that will be five bits a night, assuming you can’t haggle a lower price.” As he walked away he asked Windy, “Could you tell me again why she has to come with us? I don’t see why her visiting Canterlot has anything to do with the sonic rainboom.”

The two groups parted ways.

A little more than an hour later, Applejack and Granny Smith trudged their way back to the farmhouse in a darkness illuminated only by the full moon and the guttering lights of their nearly-burnt out candle helmets. A sleeping Apple Bloom lay in a basket that Applejack carried in her mouth.

Applejack was startled as she walked into the suddenly-illuminated world. “I didn’t think you had that kind of technology!” she explained after setting down the basket. “Or magic.”

“We don’t,” Granny said with a scowl. “Usually.” She stomped hard on a particular floorboard.

The candles started flickering again.

Applejack looked around herself with wonder. In her conversations with the ponies on the train prior to the breakdown, she had gained the impression that earth ponies were fairly useless compared to unicorns or pegasi. They were strong, they were good farmers and craftsponies, but that was it. And absolutely none of those abilities were actually supposed to be magical.

Meaning that the “experts” were wrong. As usual. The number of similarities between Equestria and America were quite surprising.

“Blow them out when you’re done gawking,” Granny Smith groused as she started climbing the stairs.

“Same old Granny,” Applejack said to herself with a smile, blowing out the candles one by one before picking up the basket with her sister.

G. Gilda.

All of the boarders at the Ponyville Inn were sound asleep in their beds. With the exceptions of Gilda, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy.

“Does the phrase ‘friendship is magic’ mean anything in the world you came from?” Gilda asked.

Fluttershy had no idea where that question came from.

Rainbow knew exactly where that question came from. “It shows up a few times in the Elements of Harmony, our holy book. It obviously means something important, but nobody knows exactly what. ...Outside of the priesthood, at least. They keep all kinds of secrets.”

“I don’t know what ‘magic’ means in the Elements,” Fluttershy added. “But friendship is one of the primary goals of Markism. ‘Make friends of all the world’, it is said, ‘and there will be no more enemies.’ It’s...it’s not really possible for humanity.”

“Not 100%,” Rainbow Dash said. “But there’s enough people we can befriend to make a huge difference.”

Gilda nodded. This human world sounded in a lot of ways to be more like Griffonstone than Equestria.

“Alright, second question: what’s a theme park?”

Chapter 17A: Seeing the Light, Part 1 (P. Trixie, P. Celestia)

P. Trixie—Equestria, a guest suite in the royal palace of Canterlot. Early morning of Day Two.

When Trixie woke up, she had to rub tears out of her eyes before she could see clearly. She stopped and thought carefully, recalling everything she could about the dream she had just had. She smiled slightly on realizing that they were tears of happiness, not sadness.

When she went into the bathroom to clean herself up, Trixie was glad to see that she had been put into an earth pony suite instead of a unicorn one. Slipping her hoof into the loop attached to a curry comb, she arranged her mane. For a moment, she arranged it so her useless horn was invisible, but as always, she eventually settled for leaving it visible. ...And then later obviated that decision by covering her horn with her magician hat.

Carefully, she went over the items strapped inside of her robe: a mouth-operated grabber, the pushbutton that activated the little light in the top of her hat, and a little rubber mouthpiece that made it possible for her to turn those infuriating round doorknobs. The final item, tucked into an insulated pocket of the robe, was a small steel thermos bottle; the lid had a flip-up straw attachment. That lid was a custom job, made using plans she supplied to a metallurgist in Ponyville. Ponyville was generally the best place to order these “horn-replacement” items. The ponies there didn’t look at her when she asked for them.

Once these were all in place, she went over to the suite’s desk, dipped a nearby feather pen in some ink while it was held in her mouth, and began to pen a letter.

#

Trixie headed straight for the royal kitchens, her eyes alert to any signs of her mother. Trixie’s mother was the palace’s head housekeeper, and as such could never be expected to be in any particular location in the building complex at any one time.

Trixie’s path through the open and secret corridors of the palace was fast and efficient—she had spent half of her life here, and was thoroughly familiar with its intricacies. Of course, this was the first time that she was walking through these halls alone as an honored guest of the Princess herself, instead of being an anonymous daughter of a servant, and she carried herself appropriately.

When she reached the swinging doors of the kitchen, she carefully positioned herself and knocked. Right on schedule, an earth pony with a stack of pancakes balanced on his back raced out of the doors, causing them to swing wildly.

The pony jerked his head around, seeing how close the door came to knocking Trixie off of her hooves. “Sorry, I didn’t see you!” his voice cried, rapidly fading as he kept running.

“You never do!” Trixie called back. She turned back towards the kitchen, and saw the head chef standing in the door: a tan unicorn with a gray mane. “Good morning, Chef Gallop,” she said with a curtsy.

“And good morning to you, Dame Trixie,” the chef said with a mischievous grin. “How long will it be until you’re the one bossing us around?”

“The Great and Powerful Trixie gives it another decade or so...” She said this while polishing one hoof, and then broke out laughing. “You nearly got me last night when you served the soup!”

“You needed to lighten up, I could tell.” He used his magic to levitate out a thermos bottle identical to the one Trixie carried with her, only this one had wisps of water vapor rising from its frosted surface.

Trixie hoofed over her other bottle in exchange, and soon had the cold one tucked into place inside her robe. “What flavor of milkshake did you make me this time?”

“Chocolate and peanut butter,” Chef Gallop replied. “It seemed like a special occasion.”

Trixie lightly bit her lip and looked away. “It...it might be. I’ve got to get something settled, first.”

“Care to tell me about it?” the Chef asked.

“...No,” Trixie said quietly, still looking away.

“Alright. Will you be coming in for breakfast?”

“No. I need to do this first.”

#

A few minutes later, Trixie bumped into her mother, an orange unicorn with a yellow and gold mane. She was dressed in a traditional maid’s uniform, with a crown-like trim of white lace around her forehead denoting her rank. Her name was Spectacle.

“Trixie!” Head Housekeeper Spectacle called out, hugging her daughter tight when she got close enough. She held her at hooves’ length. “How did the dinner go?”

Trixie said nothing for a moment, then put on a fake smile. “It went great!” she exclaimed. “The Princess really liked my ideas. She said we saw the world the same way.”

Spectacle’s own smile faltered for a moment. “That...makes sense, I suppose. Being ruler of all of Equestria, for so long...that would tend to...color your perceptions. Is there any word on Twilight Sparkle?”

Trixie shook her head. “She’s still recovering from the initial dose of painkillers. Doctor Teeter said that she had never seen a unicorn so sensitive to those drugs before. But she did say that Twilight should wake up later today.”

“Well you can tell her that I wish her the best, and to give her my congratulations on becoming Celestia’s personal student.”

Trixie said nothing. She regretted telling her mother what the Princess had said, considering what was likely to happen to poor Twilight.

“Speaking of the Princess, did she tell you what’s going to happen to you? Are you going to be punished for faking your magic school examination?” Spectacle reached out to lift Trixie’s head.

Trixie brushed away her mother’s anxious hoof. “I told you, Mother! She’s not mad, and I’m not going to be punished. As for what happens...” She looked off into the distance, at the spot where she imagined the Princess was just then raising the sun from. “I need to do something, and after that, I’ll tell you what happens.”

Spectacle wrung her hooves. “Is there any chance that she can do something about your—”

“No,” Trixie said coldly, looking away. “There was nothing she could do about my horn. But I never considered that a possibility anyway.”

“I thought that was why you cheated your way—”

“It was never a possibility!” Trixie screeched. And then she caught herself, pulling her mother into a hug. “I’m sorry!” she cried. “That’s not me, that’s not me...”

Trixie’s mother patiently stroked her mane, saying, “I know dear. I shouldn’t have pushed.”

Trixie pushed away once more. “No, you did nothing wrong. Look...something happened last night...in my dreams.”

Spectacle nervously bit her lip.

“I...I’ll tell you all about it. After I’m done with the Princess. I...I have to catch her, before she starts court for the day. I promise I’ll tell you everything I can.”

“Alright,” Spectacle said.

“Now go off and be the best servant the Princess ever had!” Trixie said over her shoulder. The sentence had the air of something repeated on a daily basis, her way of saying goodbye to her mother.

“And you continue to be the best daughter you can be!” Spectacle said in reply. She kept up her smile until Trixie had turned the corner, then hung her head and sighed. ‘When will you ever share your burdens with me, Little Angel?’ she asked herself.

#

Trixie had almost reached her destination, the royal dining room, when she saw an obviously drunk unicorn pacing back and forth in front of the doors, appearing to practice some sort of speech.

Trixie sighed. “Excuse me, Sir,” she said, in her “authoritative servant voice”. “I don’t think you should be here unaccompanied.”

“What was that?!” the unicorn stallion cried out in an abnormally loud voice. His eyes were bulging out of his head, and there was an erratic glow around his horn. Those weird eyes were darting around, looking for an adult source to her voice.

Trixie scurried around a corner, and bumped into the legs of a royal guard. She looked up, to see a familiar face. “Whinnyfield!” she whispered urgently.

“Relax,” the Guard Captain replied in a low voice. “I’ll handle the weirdo.” Turning the corner he enveloped the intruder in his magical field and lifted him up. “Sir, you’re going to need to come with me.”

“N...no!” The crazed unicorn replied. “I need to make her see the truth. Make them all see!” He shot out a magical beam of his own, which with some difficulty broke through the barrier and surrounded Whinnyfield’s head.

Whinnyfield let the intruder down. “Yes,” he said in a dull monotone. “You do need to let her see.”

Around the corner, Trixie made a strong effort to keep her knees from literally knocking. She opened up the flap of her robe, flipped the straw attachment up, and took a long fast pull from the thermos. The left side of her face twitched as a brain freeze set in.

“Princess Celestia!” she screamed at the top of her lungs, as she barreled straight into the attacker. Her attack caused him to lose his balance...for about three seconds.

Whinnyfield watched unblinking, awaiting orders.

“You lousy little...” the madpony cried as he stood back up. He sent out his mind-control beam to Trixie’s head. “Wait...what?” he cried out. “Why are you immune? Nopony’s immune!” He then turned his head, to see a furious Princess Celestia towering over him. She punched him in the face, knocking him out.

“Sorry, I couldn’t think of a snappy one-liner,” she said sheepishly to Trixie. She walked over to Whinnyfield and tried to snap him out of his trance, starting with addressing him verbally and including both physical force and a spell. “I’m afraid I haven’t encountered this particular mind-control spell before,” she said to Trixie. “I have no idea why there are so many of them.”

“Here, make him drink this,” Trixie said, holding out her thermos.

Celestia looked at her incredulously, then took the thermos in her magic and presented it to the mesmerized guard. “Drink this,” she ordered.

Whinnyfield remained immobile.

“I order you to drink this,” she said, using magic on her vocal chords to try and mimic the attacker’s voice.

Still nothing.

“I think it was a little higher than that. With a Germane accent,” Trixie commented.

Celestia tried again, and this time Whinnyfield took up the thermos in his field and started drinking.

“Faster,” said Trixie.

“Faster,” ordered Celestia.

Whinnyfield’s facial expression started jerking around, and then he collapsed to the floor. “Uhhh...” he moaned a few seconds later. “I feel like I just got run over by the Friendship Express...including all of the driver ponies.” Looking over at the legs of the Princess, he scrambled to his hooves. “Your Royal Highness!”

“Captain Whinnyfield,” Princess Celestia said sternly. “Where is your second? Guard patrols need to be two or more in number, precisely to handle situations like this one.”

The Captain bit his lip in embarrassment. “He’s using the little colt’s room...again.”

The Princess looked down on him in disappointment.

A few moments later, he was carting the intruder away, with a magic-blocking compound applied to his horn first.

“I bet you have to use that a lot,” Trixie said, pointing at the putty-like substance in a jar held in Celestia’s hoof.

“You have no idea,” Celestia said. She turned calmly and walked back into the dining room, putting the jar into an open cabinet next to the door. “So, did you want to see me?” she asked over her shoulder.

“What?” asked Trixie. “No! I just happened to walk this way. I was looking for my mother.”

“So you were going to deliver this letter to her instead of me? Curious, as you’re resigning from being my student, not hers.” She held aloft a folded piece of paper.

Trixie looked frantically inside her robe, to see that her letter was indeed missing. She hung her head, and then swiftly turned around. “Well, you’ve got it, so I’ll go.”

“I think not, Trixie,” Celestia said sternly. “I never accept a resignation without an exit interview. Come in, and close the door behind you.”

Trixie slumped even lower, then slowly did as she was told.

Celestia walked over to a large window looking out at Equestria and then turned, the sun at her back. “I have no idea why you’d want to stop training to be my aide,” she told Trixie. “Your act just now is precisely the sort of quick thinking I picked you out for. That...milkshake solution, for example.”

Trixie looked away, panic in her eyes. “I can’t be your aide,” she blurted out. “I...I’m crazy, and that milkshake proves it!”

Celestia raised an interested eyebrow.

“You’ve seen me carrying that thermos around with me everywhere, right?”

Celestia blinked. “Yes, I have. And you noticed that I noticed. Another admirable trait.”

“Stop praising me!” Trixie insisted, sitting down so she could pull at her mane with her forehooves. “I keep that thermos for exactly the reason you saw me use it for: as protection against mind control. I spend a significant portion of my life obsessing about being the victim of mind control. That’s not normal! I’m not...I’m not a...a sane...pony. Those scenarios I told you about...”

“A very prescient set of scenarios for one of your tender years,” Celestia said.

Trixie closed her eyes to stop seeing the wrong reactions from her princess. “Yes, but I have no business thinking like that! Ponies shouldn’t be obsessed with death, and conspiracies, and torture...” She opened her eyes. “I need therapy,” she told Celestia. “The voice that taught me those things, the other Trixie...she appears in my dreams, and yells at me. She’s been yelling at me since I was four.”

Celestia held out a wing, inviting Trixie to huddle under it.

Trixie did this very reluctantly.

“Perhaps you do need a therapist,” Celestia told her in a quiet voice. “Harmony knows how much I need my therapist.”

Trixie looked at her wide-eyed, blown away that the practically-perfect Princess of Ponies needed therapy.

“And maybe you should be telling this to your therapist. I’ll even let you use mine, if you can’t find anypony else you like.”

“Are you any good at therapy?” asked Trixie.

“I’ve had a little experience at dealing with crazy creatures,” said the Princess, leaning in. “Let me tell you a secret: all of the creatures in charge of this world are crazy, in different ways.”

Trixie looked at her incredulously, since of course she was including herself in that group. And then she made up her mind. “I want to tell you. You can be my therapist for now.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

Celestia picked up Trixie with a combination of her magic and her wings, and laid her down across a couple of cushions. She then sat down primly in front of her, pulled her flowing mane up into a bun, and produced a pair of glasses and a notebook and pen.

In Trixie’s eyes, she now looked a lot like Raven.

“Let me start by asking you this: what does this other you yell about? In your dreams.”

Trixie smiled a little at the ridiculous situation she was now in, before answering the question. “At first, she complained about the lousy life she was living, a totally made-up life in a made-up, messed-up world. And...she beat me up. Used me as a punching bag.” She waved her hooves at seeing Celestia’s sad-eyed expression. “It wasn’t as bad as it sounds! From the beginning, I knew I was in a dream, and that meant that the other Trixie couldn’t hurt me. It took me a few months, but eventually I found my courage, and fought back.

“We were in the realm of my imagination, and I was more imaginative than her, so I always won.” She sighed as she thought over her words. “I’m calling a part of my own personality ‘her’. That can’t be good.”

“Leave the diagnosis to me, Patient,” Celestia said in a smug voice, before winking at Trixie.

Trixie giggled. “All right. The most-infuriating part was that she thought that she was real, and I was imaginary. Said that there were no such things as unicorns, or pegasi, and that ‘horses don’t talk’.”

Celestia leaned forward, listening intently.

“It wasn’t...all bad. I...I had this awful ego. I pushed everypony away from me...so they couldn’t hurt me when they left, like Dad did...” Trixie’s eyes got a little misty. “I remember everypony around me telling me that I shouldn’t act like that, that I was only going to hurt myself. But it didn’t matter if it was my teachers, my friends...my Mom...I pushed them all away.

“And then she knocked some sense into me. She got through to me, because she was me. And...I saw where I was going...I saw myself growing up into an even worse version of Dad...and I turned away. I became a better pony, because of that evil voice inside my head. She has to be evil, right? Because she made up the world she lives in, and that world is so awful! They kill each other there for a bus fare, or to protect their delicate egos. I saw her becoming more and more like the others she described to me day by day, clinging onto her victimhood like it was a shield!” Trixie started panting with emotion as she became lost in her memories.

“And did you help her?” Celestia prodded.

“Yes, yes I did!” Trixie said, wiping the tears from her eyes. “I pulled her back from the brink, just like she did for me. I taught her to take responsibility for her actions, to live her life in the present instead of the past.

“Things...things got better after that. I had figured out the trick with the milkshakes, which I had been using to keep her from taking over my dreams. But I didn’t need to do that anymore. We didn’t fight all that much anymore, except to argue which of us was real.

“And then...last night, when I wanted to tell her about our conversation, she was at my knees, bawling and begging for my forgiveness. She said she found out from her religion that I was real. And now...I don’t know what to think.”

Celestia nodded to herself. “Trixie, that...brain freeze...technique of yours. It stops others from taking over your mind, yes?”

“Yes,” said Trixie, “I researched it in a book afterwards.”

“And that book...did it say what effect it had on insanity?”

Trixie started curling in on herself. “It said it only blocked mental spells.”

“So that would imply...”

Trixie jumped up. “Princess! This is not a path we can take together. I have spent a long time thinking about this, and there are only two roads: either I’m crazy, or I’ve stumbled across something so big, so secret, that you would have no choice but make me disappear, or wipe my brain.”

Celestia frowned. “That may be something that they do in the world of that other Trixie, but it’s not how I handle these things. I have already brought you into my confidence, shared with you plans that nopony other than Raven knows. Do you not think I would trust you with this as well?”

Trixie’s breath hitched, her eyes once more threatening to fill with tears. “P...Princess Celestia? Are...are...are humans...real?”

“Yes, Trixie, they are. The human Trixie is real, and you’re not crazy.”

Trixie let out an incoherent howl of relief, and buried her head into Celestia’s chest fur, crying uncontrollably.

Celestia sat there, gently stroking Trixie’s mane, for nearly a half hour.

When she was done, Trixie pulled away from Celestia. Her face was an absolute mess, but that was offset by a look of pure joy. “You don’t know how much this means to me, Princess. All my life I’ve thought myself broken because I thought she was a piece of me. I...realize now that she was a very miserable filly, even by human standards, and I’m happy I was able to help her. I...I might even say that I’m proud of what I did.”

“I certainly am proud of you,” Celestia said, putting a hoof on her withers as she used her magic to clean up Trixie’s tear-stained face. “You are what I saw in you yesterday morning: a shining example of Harmony, shining through even the most-difficult of circumstances.” She used a hoof to lift Trixie’s face to look at her. “You know, I need my advisors to be knowledgeable about all of the realms that Equestria has to deal with, and you’re already an expert on the most obscure of those realms, the alternate reality of Earth.”

“I...I guess I am, aren’t I?”

“There you go.”

There was an urgent knocking at the door. “Your Royal Highness, you are ten minutes late to court!”

Princess Celestia sighed. “I have to go to work. Are you going to be alright, Trixie?”

Trixie put on another pure smile of joy and relief. “I will now, Princess.”

“Very good,” the Princess said. “I have affairs of state for the rest of the day, including dinner, I’m afraid. But meet me at the hospital afterwards, and we’ll look in on Twilight together. And then later, I can’t guarantee when, I’ll tell you what I know about the humans.”

Trixie nodded her head rapidly. “I’ll see you then, Teacher!”

Celestia picked up Trixie’s resignation letter in her magic and prepared to tear it up. “Resignation rescinded, Student of Politics?” she asked.

“Resignation rescinded!”

P. Celestia—Canterlot Palace. Mid-afternoon of Day Two.

“Announcing Meridiem Tempest and Gnosi Augur, Professors of Magic at Your School for Gifted Unicorns!”

Princess Celestia nodded towards the herald, who allowed the two middle-aged unicorns to proceed. They stopped at a respectful distance from the throne and bowed.

“Greetings, Your Royal Highness,” they said in unison.

“Rise, my little ponies,” the Princess replied. “Now that the formalities are out of the way, how can I help you?”

“Well,” said Pr. Tempest, “this is regarding Twilight Sparkle, the unfortunate unicorn from the exams yesterday.” She looked at the Princess with the expectation that the busy monarch lived far too busy a life to keep track of a minor unicorn she only met once.

“I’m familiar with and am tracking her case.”

“Oh good!” Pr. Augur exclaimed. “Is there any way you can get us in contact with her parents? We would like to offer our services to assist in Twilight’s recovery, and they appear to be living in the hospital full-time right now.”

“What services do you intend to provide, Professor Augur?” the Princess asked.

“I’ve spent a considerable part of my free time dedicating myself to ways of teaching magic to unicorns with problems,” Pr. Augur explained. “From what we were able to learn about Miss Sparkle’s condition, she will need help catching up on her magic, and my wife and I would like to volunteer for that job. It’s our way of paying back what you did for me five years ago, to ensure that no other unicorn would ever find him- or herself on a Ponyville road, thinking they had no choice with their life better than trying to face down the Princess of Equestria.”

The Princess nodded in understanding, remembering her confrontation with the mind-controlling unicorn. “You would have to move away, though,” she warned. “Won’t that be bad for your career?”

“My career has never been very important to me,” Pr. Augur admitted. “I just want to be there for unicorns that need me.”

“And I just want to help my husband,” Pr. Tempest chimed in, looking lovingly at him.

“I should tell you,” the Princess said, lowering her voice slightly. “It is my intention to make Twilight my personal student of magic when she recovers. So it may be that I myself will be doing the job you are suggesting.”

“True,” said Pr. Augur. “But you are the Princess, with limited time to devote to remedial magic training. And in addition, your magical field is so much stronger, and therefore potentially more dangerous for the recovering filly. Even if it would only be for a few months, I’m still interested in offering my services.”

“Our services,” insisted Pr. Tempest.

“Very well,” the Princess said. “I will ensure that Twilight’s family hear of your offer. If they are interested, they will contact you. But do not try to approach them yourself. If you hear nothing in the next week, assume that they have some other means of dealing with the problem. Regardless, I appreciate the offer, and I will not forget it. You are dismissed.”

The two unicorns bowed, before turning and walking out of the throne room.

Chapter 17B: Seeing the Light, Part 2 (P. Celestia, H. Twilight Sparkle, P. Trixie)

P. Celestia. Canterlot’s Royal Hospital. Early evening.

Princess Celestia strode purposefully down the corridors of the hospital, with the faithful unicorn Raven matching every step at her side. The duo were surrounded by eight marching guards, who ensured that their Princess would have their privacy. A “pay no attention” spell hovered over the pair.

“After interviewing thirty-seven of the most-perceptive unicorns in Canterlot,” Raven reported, “I was only able to find two who detected any trace of the magical surge that affected Twilight Sparkle, and even they only saw some ‘pretty colors in the sky’. The group of those who failed to detect the surge included all four of Twilight’s examiners—they were convinced that the power they witnessed, and experienced, must have come from the filly, and from no other source. The fact that nopony but yourself detected such a massive magical surge should be an impossibility.”

“Unless it was a Harmony Manifestation,” concluded Princess Celestia.

“Indeed, Your Highness. And that would strongly imply that Harmony was using the surge to inform you that She had chosen Twilight to be the future bearer of the Element of Magic.”

“Yes, but if that were the case, why would She then cripple Her Bearer immediately afterwards? There must have been some sort of interference, something even I could not detect.”

“A saboteur?” Raven asked.

“Perhaps. Turn your attention to the school. Search it top to bottom for suspicious artifacts. Examine the files of everypony known to be in the school at the moment of the incident to determine if any of them had a grievance against us, and knowledge of the Elements.”

“Will do,” Raven said, stopping and dismissing the spell. After the Princess and her guards walked past her, she turned around and walked away, turning right down a corridor that led to the hospital exit closest to the School of Magic.

A few moments later, Celestia arrived at the door of Waiting Room 7, where a pink earth pony mare with an orange mane and a gray unicorn stallion with a dark blue mane were waiting. Both of them were wearing light blue surgical scrubs. “Thank you both for waiting for me,” she told them.

The two of them briefly bowed their heads in deference. “Of course, Your Highness,” the mare said. “If I may ask your opinion: how honest do we need to be with the family?”

“An admission of uncertainty is sure to be unsettling, especially considering the possible consequences,” the stallion quickly added before the Princess had a chance to respond.

“I advise you to be completely honest,” Celestia told them. “The family has been kept waiting without a firm diagnosis for more than a full day, and the patient is still unconscious. But I will not enforce that opinion in any way. The case is still yours, Doctors.”

“Of course, Your Highness,” said the mare.

“Thank you for your trust, Your Highness,” said the stallion. He gestured towards the door. “Shall we?”

Celestia looked to the head of her guards. “Stay out here,” she instructed.

“Yes, Your Highness,” the guard responded.

The Princess knocked on the door...

H. Twilight Sparkle.

In her special hospital room, Twilight Sparkle woke up. She was still a unicorn, which to her meant that she must still be trapped inside her delusions.

Something additional was off about her. With her eyes closed, patches of color drifted here and there in her visual field. Her equilibrium was at about 80%. And she couldn’t quite feel the sheets under her.

Twilight Sparkle was an expert in the field of her own brain chemistry. Over the past decade she had experimented with every legal means of altering her consciousness, all with the constant goal of increasing her comprehension of the mysteries of the universe, a quest that had frequently landed her in the hospital in Canterlot City. As a result, she knew the exact effects that every standard sedative had upon her. What she was experiencing now was like no drug she had ever received.

Twilight opened her eyes. The colors did not entirely go away, and her eyes stubbornly refused to entirely focus. Carefully, Twilight sat up; as a quadruped, she settled for sitting as a dog does rather than as a human. She was in a standard hospital gown, white with blue polka dots. ‘Why do I even need to wear a gown?’ she asked herself. ‘I’ve got fur.’ The room in most respects reflected the standards of a couple of decades before she was born. ‘Perhaps I’ve been dosed with something that is banned on contemporary Earth. If we go with the fiction, that is.’

The walls of the room, as well as the floor and ceiling, were all made of glass. The floor was mostly covered with a rug, and the walls and two doors were covered with drapes. These drapes were designed so they could be slid around on the rods they were hung from. The wall behind Twilight’s head was mostly devoid of any equipment, and there was a comfortable-looking rug placed in front of it, of the right size for a single pony to sit on, facing the window. ‘Am I some sort of exhibit?’ Twilight thought, darting her eyes around in fear as she imagined a group of cruel and hideous mad scientist ponies on the other side of the curtain, waiting on bleachers for the show to start. The one thing she dreaded the most about being trapped in her own mind was that the fantasy would inevitably turn against her, and the darker parts of her personality would take the opportunity to torture her in retaliation for the many times her experiments had accidentally threatened the lives of millions, despite her best intentions.

Twilight turned away from what she had dubbed ‘the viewing wall’, banging her muzzle against the adjoining wall, which acted to push the curtain aside. “Ouch!” she exclaimed, and then “ouch!” again when her attempt to put a soft hand over her hurt nose ended with her slamming a hard hoof into it instead. When she removed her hoof she saw something odd about the exposed glass wall, which had a regular white plaster wall behind it. Twilight turned her head sideways and leaned towards the wall to get a better look at it. As she focused, little equations appeared before her, dancing gently with her subtle bobbing motions. The equations were familiar to her, and described the physical properties of glass, including the rate at which the amorphous solid was flowing at a glacial rate. Focusing further, she saw the surface resolve into its component molecules, with further formulae describing the chemical properties of the glass. Another mental push showed her the subatomic level.

“Yes!” she exclaimed. “Somehow the combination of the mental breakdown and whatever experimental drug they are giving me in the real world have unlocked this new superpower! Thank you, Guiseman!”

She failed to notice the knocking on the door...

P. Celestia.

“Come in,” Twilight Velvet said, in response to the knocking on the door. She, her husband and her son then curtsied or bowed on the entrance of Princess Celestia.

The newly hatched dragonling in the basket on the table failed to rise, because it was asleep.

“Rise, ponies,” Celestia said gently, moving aside to allow the doctors’ entrance. “Have you been introduced yet to the physicians working on Twilight’s case?”

“We’ve met Doctor Teeter,” Night Light said, referring to the earth pony mare.

“And I am Doctor Totter,” said the unicorn stallion. “I am an expert on magical diseases and accidents, but in the case of a cracked horn I cannot directly interact with the patient, as my magical field would exacerbate her symptoms. I have been examining all of my partner’s observations, and I find them rather unusual.”

Dr. Teeter pointed to an open folder on the table before Twilight’s family, one that contained brochures for a place called Mustangia Ranch. “When I initially told you about the consequences of Twilight’s injury, I said she would need to be isolated from unicorns for as much as five years in order for her horn to properly heal.” The brochures depicted a quaint Western town occupied exclusively by earth ponies and pegasi, with non-patient unicorns only allowed to visit by staying in a building with specially-treated glass walls, communicating with those patients via an intercom system. “The trouble is, Twilight is not showing any sensitivity to magic whatsoever.”

“Do you know if she has abnormally-high pain resistance?” Dr. Totter asked.

The family members looked at each other, shaking their heads. “No, she’s got a normal reaction to pain,” Shining Armor answered for the three of them.

“Then I do not know what is actually going on in this case,” Dr. Totter said. “We used every precaution in protecting your daughter from pain, but there was no avoiding the fact that she was injured in the presence of the most-powerful magic user in the land, a pony known to induce headaches after only an hour in exceptionally sensitive unicorns.”

Princess Celestia looked away at the comment, feeling a little guilty. She knew how to hide her magic away, but her subjects expected her to always have her magic on full display, even the very unicorns she hurt by doing so. In all of the cases, the unicorns had stayed around her despite knowing the consequences, just for the opportunity to be in the presence of a pony they adored.

“In addition, she was in the School of Magic, surrounded by foals and fillies that had trouble controlling their magic,” said Dr. Totter. “Unicorns, once they start channeling magic, cannot stop themselves from doing so, 24/7. So even while unconscious, Twilight should have shown a reaction. If I didn’t know any better, I would say she had never used magic in her life. If that were true—and of course it isn’t, but if it were—that would mean she could recover in months instead of years. So you see the situation we’re in.”

Twilight’s family members looked at each other with uncertainty. “Then what do you propose?” Night Light asked.

Just then there was a very insistent knocking at the door...

P. Trixie.

Trixie knocked on the door to Twilight’s room. She had separated from the Princess when she learned that she was going to talk to Twilight’s family first.

Trixie didn’t feel particularly close to Twilight’s family, and thought such a conversation would be awkward. So she decided to see the patient first.

A pegasus nurse seeing this rushed forward. “Stop!” the nurse cried. “Can’t you read the sign?”

The sign on the door read “No unicorns shall be admitted under any circumstances!”

Trixie sighed. “Non-functioning horn,” she said, pointing at it with a hoof.

“We’ll see about that!” the nurse said, walking over to a nearby table and picking up a magimeter. She ran the device all over Trixie. Upon seeing a zero reading, she tapped the meter a few times, then walked over to a neighboring room to check the device on a unicorn patient before returning to check Trixie one more time. “Alright...” she said with a scowl, before realizing the consequences of the reading. “Oh, I’m so sorry!”

Trixie shuddered in revulsion at the pity. “It’s alright,” she said through clenched teeth. “May I go in?”

“Yes, go ahead. But be quiet—Miss Sparkle is still sleeping off her sedative.”

Trixie nodded silently in acknowledgement, then opened the door.

Inside was a small antechamber. Trixie realized this was to keep outside magic from affecting the patient. She closed the door.

A glass plate lit up, with the words, “Please wait for the results of the magic scan” written upon it.

Trixie stood still as yet another magimeter examined her. There was a pleasant beep as the scanning message turned off and the door before her unlocked. Trixie knocked yet again, and on hearing no response, cautiously opened the door.

Twilight was awake. She was standing on her bed, and staring at the wall with one eye.

“Twilight?” Trixie said cautiously. “Are you alright?”

There was no response, other than Twilight turning her head around so she could stare at the wall with her other eye.

“Well that’s the weirdest response to a sedative that I’ve ever seen,” Trixie said sarcastically. “Twilight! Wake up! I want to tell you about my dinner with the Princess last night.” As these words still had no effect, Trixie walked over and gently touched Twilight’s leg.

Twilight whipped her head around. “A biological subject!” she exclaimed.

Trixie’s blood turned cold. Before she had a chance to turn away, Twilight was suddenly upon her, holding her in place with her front hooves while running her eye up and down her coat. “Twilight, what are you doing?” she asked.

“Drat, I don’t know half of these equations!” Twilight exclaimed. “Biology never was my strong suit—but it can be now!”

“Twilight Sparkle!” Trixie exclaimed, pushing Twilight away from her. “What is wrong with you?!” She noticed that her friend’s eyes were highly dilated.

And then suddenly those eyes were back to normal. “Oh!” Twilight exclaimed. “Sorry about that. I was just exploring my mark-related talent.”

Trixie frowned. With the lone exception of herself, every unicorn’s special talent was tied to their functioning horn. “Well, you did get your mark,” she said, pointing at it.

Twilight turned her head to see the symbol on her flank, depicting one large star surrounded by six different astronomical objects, including planets, nebulae and other stars. “Oh, that’s an interesting place for one to show up,” she exclaimed. “Too bad my examination power doesn’t work on myself.” She pointed at Trixie’s cutie mark. “Can I examine yours?”

Trixie rotated to move her flank out of view. “That’s rather private. Are you alright?”

Twilight shrugged. “As well as I can be. Oh, you’ve got a horn! I haven’t figured out how to use mine. Mind giving me a demonstration?”

“What?!” Trixie exclaimed, before an awful suspicion occurred to her. “Say my name.”

“What?” asked Twilight.

“I’m your best friend,” Trixie told Twilight. “Tell me my name.”

Twilight backed up in fear at the intensity of Trixie’s expression. “I...I forgot it. Because of the sedatives.”

“And you forgot that you broke my magic?!” Trixie said, getting in Twilight’s face. “No. You don’t know because we’ve never met. Because you’re not the pony Twilight Sparkle at all! You’re the reason my best friend broke her horn, showing up in her brain at the worst possible time! Give her back!” Trixie grabbed onto Twilight’s shoulders and shook her. “Give me back my best friend!”

“I...I don’t know...I can’t...” Twilight pleaded.

Trixie stopped, suddenly calm. “Then I’ll get the Princess, so she can rip you out of that body.” She pulled open the curtain that was covering the wall behind Twilight’s bed, revealing Waiting Room 25 on the other side, before walking over to the door and looking back at Twilight with a cruel expression. “You might know her as your Goddess.” And then she walked out of the door.

After exiting the antechamber, Trixie sought out the royal guard who had been assigned to her for the day by Princess Celestia. “I need to see the Princess, immediately,” she told him. “It’s about Twilight Sparkle.”

The guard nodded. “She told me to keep her informed on any developments in her case. Come with me.”

As soon as they reached Waiting Room 7, Trixie’s guard explained the situation to the Princess’ guards, who allowed her to pass. Trixie knocked insistently on the door...

H. Twilight Sparkle.

Back in her room, Twilight dropped into a sitting position in shock. “‘Our counterparts in the Perfect World wear their marks on their bodies,’” she said, quoting the Elements of Harmony. “My fantasy put me in the Perfect World, in the presence of the Creator Goddess! And she’s coming to smite me!”

There was a sudden flash, and then Princess Celestia stood in Waiting Room 25 in all her majesty...and fury. “Twilight Sparkle of Earth!” her voice resonated from a speaker. “You will surrender control of my little pony immediately!”

Twilight dropped fully down on the ground and covered her head with her hooves. “I’m too young to be smote!” she cried. “Or...smitten? But that sounds too much like falling in love.”

The Princess rolled her eyes. Based on Trixie’s stories last night about her, it appeared that she was definitely dealing with a Twilight Sparkle. “Perhaps I am over-reacting, a bit,” she said over the intercom, visibly calming herself. “You couldn’t have known the consequences of your actions. Nevertheless, your quest to obtain your cutie mark before you were ready has had incalculable consequences for the pony Twilight Sparkle.”

Twilight was going to respond, when the door to Waiting Room 25 opened, and six ponies entered. Twilight recognized one of them as the mare who had gotten her in trouble with the Goddess. Three others looked strangely familiar. In front of one of them floated a covered basket.

The Princess looked over at two of the ponies, and in a flash they...disintegrated? No, there was no visible residue. Teleported perhaps? Twilight hoped the latter was true, considering the lack of emotional response to the act from the other ponies.

“Is it true?” a gray unicorn mare with a striped white purple and white mane said as she came up to the glass wall and put her hoof against it. “Have you taken our daughter?” Her tone was more sorrowful than angry. (She was the one with the basket.)

“Who are you?” asked a white unicorn stallion with a striped dark- and light-blue mane. He definitely was a lot angrier than the mare.

“She’s the Twilight Sparkle from a parallel world without most forms of magic,” the Princess calmly explained. (Twilight mouthed the word “most” to herself in confusion.) “And she likely had no idea what she was doing when she abused the marking ritual to take over our Twilight.”

“I’m sorry, Goddess, ma’am, but I wasn’t getting my mark, at least not directly. And I definitely wasn’t doing the Ritual. Something went wrong at the Science Fair, although I sincerely doubt that that oven had trans-dimensional capabilities.”

The family members looked at each other. “Twilight Sparkle,” they said in unison as they nodded their heads.

Meanwhile Trixie was nodding to herself in understanding. Thanks to her human counterpart, she knew exactly what Celestia was talking about.

P. Celestia.

The Princess walked over to the door of the waiting room, and opened it to look out at the two confused doctors.

“Why did you teleport us out of the room?” Dr. Totter asked.

“Twilight had brought up sensitive matters of State right before you entered,” Celestia replied. “I’m going to have to swear the Twilight family to secrecy as it is, and I didn’t want you two burdened as well.”

“Well, alright,” Dr. Teeter said, not very happy with that answer.

“I have just learned the special circumstance that explains why Twilight is not being harmed by magic,” Celestia said. “It is a short-term effect, and I will be able to tell you precisely when it stops protecting her. In the meantime, I need to have a private interview with her. Right now.”

Dr. Totter frowned. “If you’re wrong, you could make a complete recovery impossible.”

“I am absolutely confident that I will not harm her, but feel free to test her first.”

The doctors looked past the Princess to Twilight’s family. “Do you authorize this?” Dr. Teeter asked.

Princess Celestia looked back at them. “Unfortunately, I’m the only one who can reverse this,” she explained.

The doctors did not know what she was referring to, but saw that the family members did.

“After the test,” said Twilight Velvet firmly, after getting non-verbal confirmation from her husband and son. “We won’t condone any creature coming to harm, even if it’s the only way we can get our daughter back.”

The Princess smiled. “I wouldn’t want it any other way.”

H. Twilight Sparkle.

After the door of the waiting room closed, Princess Celestia walked over to the glass wall and looked down at Twilight. “Rise, Twilight Sparkle,” she gently commanded.

Twilight reluctantly did as she was told.

“I must speak quickly, before the doctors enter your room. You are not the first human who has taken over one of my ponies through the years. I have been working with the priests of your religion to try and limit the number of cases, but there are always a couple each decade who manage to figure out what to do. You appear to have stumbled upon yet another way to do it. Look in the mirror on that wall; do you see the condition of your horn?”

Twilight silently walked over and looked. “There’s this discolored section right here...” She reached up with a hoof.

“Don’t touch it!” Princess Celestia exclaimed.

Twilight quickly withdrew her hoof.

“Your horn...the horn of your pony counterpart, became damaged by a spell misfire at the moment when you took possession. The only reason you are not in crippling pain right now is because you do not know how to use that horn. At least, that is the working hypothesis.”

There was a noise, and Twilight and Celestia both looked over at the door to Twilight’s room. A lit sign indicated that a magical scan was in progress.

“The doctors, who I do not want to learn what you really are, are going to see if you are sensitive to magic. Please tell them if you feel anything unusual. Do you have any questions?”

“Do you have to call it ‘magic’?” Twilight asked with a pout. “It is completely uncredible. Only in cases where all scientific explanations have failed is the use warranted, and frankly I don’t believe such cases exist. Surely you have a more accurate term for such an important phenomenon.”

Trixie, who had been observing everything to this point in silence, shook her head in wonder. “I’m still mad at you,” she told Twilight. “But I think I’d like to get to know this you on top of the one I already know.”

“We appropriated the term,” Celestia said, answering Twilight’s question.

“Cheeky,” Twilight quipped, before remembering that she was talking to her Goddess. “Oops, sorry. Wrong tone entirely.”

By this time the door had opened, and both doctors had walked into the room. “Are you feeling anything unpleasant right now?” Dr. Totter asked.

Twilight thought for a moment. “No,” she said.

“Hold out your left forehoof,” Dr. Teeter instructed. After this had been done, she took Twilight’s pulse. “A bit high,” she said.

“I had a bit of a fright,” Twilight explained. “I let my imagination of possible bad consequences get to me.”

“She does that a lot,” said the white unicorn stallion on the other side of the glass.

“Nice way to sell me out, Shining,” Twilight said with a roll of her eyes. She reviewed her words. “Well, I did suspect you might be my family. ...Her family.” She looked over at the confused Dr. Teeter. “Heh. I mean my family.”

“Please calm yourself,” Dr. Teeter instructed.

Twilight looked helplessly at her family.

The light blue stallion with a dark blue mane—Twilight’s father—chuckled. “Life would be a lot simpler if Twilight was capable of that,” he observed, before thinking of something. “Twilight, recite the periodic table of chemical elements. Just the prime numbers, in reverse order, each one followed by its double.”

“Nihonium, atomic number 113,” Twilight quickly recited. “Atomic number 226...I don’t even want to think of the properties of an atom with that many protons. Meitnerium, atomic number 109. 218 is also too high for the chart. Bohrium, atomic number 107...”

Dr. Teeter nodded in approval at the lowering of his patient’s pulse rate.

Twilight Velvet looked over at her husband. “I never heard of those first two,” she whispered, referring to Twilight Sparkle’s list.

“This is the Twilight from a world without magic,” Night Light replied, “Maybe they have more advanced science and technology to compensate.”

Twilight Sparkle had finally gotten down to elements with doubles in the chart when Dr. Totter, standing outside of her field of vision, had lit up his horn with a light spell.

“Silver, atomic number 47 and its double plutonium, atomic number 94...”

“Still not feeling anything?” Dr. Teeter interrupted.

“Some slight irritation at being interrupted, but otherwise no,” Twilight answered testily. “Where was I? Silver, atomic...”

“You did that one already,” Shining Armor pointed out.

Twilight growled. “Technetium, atomic number 43...”

“Well, other than her reaction to me, she appears to have no negative reaction to magic,” Dr. Teeter observed.

“Will you stop interrupting!” Twilight exclaimed.

“I think you can stop now,” the voice of Night Light said over the intercom.

“Oh, right,” Twilight said, remembering the reason behind the assignment. “So how did I do?”

“100%,” Night Light replied.

Twilight beamed. And then she cried out when a bright light shone in her eye.

“Pupil dilation checks out as well,” Dr. Teeter observed, lowering an otoscope held in one hoof.

“Are you satisfied?” Princess Celestia asked.

The two doctors looked at each other, then nodded. “You may visit the patient,” Dr. Totter said.

Dr. Teeter put the scope back in a bag, and balanced it on his back. The two doctors then exited the room.

There was a flash of light, and Princess Celestia had disappeared from the waiting room.

“Was that seriously teleportation?” Twilight asked.

“It was,” Trixie replied.

“Where does she get the energy? Err...‘She’, not ‘she’. I’m not sure that you can hear the difference in capitalization.”

“She doesn’t like that,” Trixie observed. “You’re the ones that foisted godhood on her, not us. Not...most of us.”

Twilight was about to ask the first of many questions about Trixie’s remark when she was interrupted by the wailing of an alarm. She looked over at the door, where a flashing sign informed her that an abnormally-high magic source was entering the room. The door opened, and Princess Celestia walked in. Twilight frowned. “And how do you make your mane flow like—Aah!” With a loud cry, Twilight reeled back, her arm over her eyes.

“I’m sorry!” the Princess cried, retreating towards the antechamber. “I thought it would be safe to—”

“You’re beautiful!” Twilight exclaimed, lowering her arm and approaching the alicorn, her eyes strangely focused.

Trixie ran up to the glass, realizing that Twilight had activated her special talent. “What do you see?” she asked insistently.

“An immense outpouring of light in several frequencies I could not see as a human,” Twilight said, walking slowly around the Princess. “Her shine is...indescribably beautiful. Fine lines connect Her with...Her subjects? They cannot pierce the glass, but I can see them leave my room and go into your room to connect with each of you. There are enough of them for tens of thousands of connections. ...And none going to me. Hmm. I see Her connection with...the sun? The parts of the equations I can comprehend look very solar to me. And with the planet...” Twilight turned to address Celestia directly. “You are the medium between the universe and Your subjects, protecting, nurturing...” She bowed down. “A most worthy Goddess.”

Celestia sighed. “No, Twilight. I may have some mysterious connection to your world, but on this one, I am merely an outstanding example of my kind. I have to earn the right to rule over my ponies every day, and at any time I should...I must be overthrown, if ever I abuse the tremendous powers I command. I do not know all, I do not see all, and my power is far from infinite.”

Twilight thought for a few moments. “You know what? That makes you an even better object of worship. Just without the capital letters.”

Celestia smiled. “That’s...a rather unique point of view.”

“How are you able to augment your vision?” Trixie asked from the other side of the glass. “You just said you can’t wield magic.”

“I’m not sure,” Twilight replied. “It must be some combination of the brain chemistry alterations caused by the multiple times I drove myself to the utter brink of madness, seeking answers in a meaningless universe, combined with whatever chemical cocktail the doctors currently have running through my veins.”

“And your parents let you do that to yourself?” Twilight’s mother asked imploringly.

“Well, they weren’t able to stop me,” Twilight said simply. “Nothing will stand between me and the complete comprehension of the universe.”

Twilight’s parents looked helplessly between each other, pitying the tortured experiences of their human counterparts.

Celestia frowned. “I will definitely make it a priority after you are returned to your body to suggest something be done about this situation.”

Twilight shrugged. “Good luck. It’s kind of an addiction to me. Not even I can stop it.”

Celestia sighed. “I am not dropping this, but first I have to deal with the matter of your pony alternate. Twilight, I need to perform an examination. When you took over this body, you shoved its original occupant into a corner of your mind.”

“I didn’t mean to!”

“I believe you. Now hold still.”

Twilight stood there during the exam, her “examination eyes” roving about Celestia’s form, finding more and more properties to her magical signature and to the beam that was coming out of her horn and into Twilight’s head. Twilight tried to stop her eyes from roving, in case it interfered with the impromptu brain scan, but she found she couldn’t. Like she had said, Twilight Sparkle was addicted to the acts of accumulating and processing data.

“She’s...she’s not there,” Celestia said after a few minutes.

“Have you checked this?” Twilight asked, lifting up a hoof as if it were supporting something.

Celestia blinked. “What is that?”

“It’s some sort of cord coming out of my head,” Twilight answered. “At least, I think it is. It moves with me, but I can’t see where it attaches.”

“Do you know where it leads?”

“Out of the room. I can’t see past the walls.”

The Princess opened the door. “Well, let’s go outside then.”

The antechamber did not like this, not one bit. But the Princess knew the override code.

“Seriously?” asked Twilight on seeing what the code was.

“Don’t tell another soul,” Celestia said mock-seriously.

When Twilight walked out of the antechamber, she looked all around her, seeing the magical threads linking Celestia to all of the doctors and nurses walking around not just this floor of the hospital, but all of the others. Not to mention all of the ponies in this large city. This...this was way too complex, even for her enormous intellect. “You know what?” she said with a touch of awe. “I have been a bit self-centered. There’s no way this can be a fantasy, so I really must be inhabiting the body of my counterpart in an alternate universe.” Twilight then remembered herself, and traced the cord. “It...goes to the basement of that building over there.”

“That’s the School,” said Raven.

“Where did you come from?” asked Twilight.

Raven frowned. “I was right over there,” she said, pointing.

“No you weren’t.”

Raven decided to change the subject. “Please don’t say it came from the mirror.”

Twilight looked at the cord again. “It did come from the mirror.”

By this time Twilight’s other visitors had exited Waiting Room 25 to stand in the hallway in front of Twilight’s room.

“You know,” Twilight said, rubbing her chin with a hoof. “If I focus just right, I can see your thoughts! This is so perfect! Now there will be nothing between me and knowing absolutely everything!” She turned a predatory, crazy-eyed stare on Shining Armor. “I think I’ll start with you, Brother. You keep ever so many secrets from me!”

Shining backed away in fear. Bumping into his mother and the basket she was carrying, he reached down, picked up the baby dragon, and presented it to Twilight. The creature opened its eyes and made a sort of mewing sound.

“Oh, that’s so cute!” Twilight exclaimed, snapped out of her mania.

“It’s a baby dragon,” Shining told her.

“Really? Can I hold it?”

Shining handed the creature over.

Twilight sat down so she could hold the dragon in her forehooves. “Aren’t you the cutest thing?” she asked it in a babying voice. “Do you have a name? Because if you don’t, I’m going to call you Spike. We’ll go on adventures together...” She thought for a bit. “OK, since I’m fifteen, replace ‘adventures’ with ‘study the universe’. And on second thought...” She handed the dragon back. “I think I need to take a nap.” And then she collapsed.

P. Celestia.

A couple of nurses converged to pick up Twilight’s unconscious form and take her back into her room.

“This Twilight scares me,” Trixie remarked.

Night Light sighed. “She is recognizably Twilight Sparkle, just turned up to fifty on a ten-point scale.” He looked over at his wife. “Is this what we have to look forward to in five years?”

“Shouldn’t you be harsher than that?” Trixie asked. “She was threatening to pull all the thoughts out of our heads!”

“Twily has a love-hate relationship with secrets,” Shining explained.

“She loves having lots of them herself, and hates anypony else having any whatsoever?” Trixie quipped.

“Yeah,” Shining admitted. “But she’s going to be so apologetic when she wakes up.”

Trixie looked sadly at the ground. “Yeah, I’ve seen that myself.”

Celestia turned to the two doctors. “Was Twilight on sedation?” Celestia asked them. “She mentioned something about that just now.”

“Yes, as a matter of fact she was,” Doctor Totter replied. “It’s an experimental blend designed to be used long-term for ponies with magical sensitivity.”

“Please discontinue that regimen, and put a note on her permanent record never to have it administered to her again. With any luck, that compound will turn out to be the key to her strange power,” Celestia replied. “The privacy of the ponies of Equestria would not be safe if either her or the pony Twilight ever came into contact with it, ever again.”

Celestia then looked in the direction Twilight had pointed—the location of the School of Magic’s basement. “We have the clue we need to find the source of Twilight’s problem,” she explained, keeping her words deliberately vague in the presence of so many witnesses. “We’ll get back to you as soon as we know more.” To the doctors she said, “you might as well keep her in the magic-proof room. I should have that ‘blocking condition’ I mentioned removed within the next twenty-four hours.”

“Do you have to remove it?” Dr. Teeter asked. “If she can heal her horn naturally, without having to be isolated from her family or separated from her intended instruction at the School, she would be much happier. And her horn would heal 100%, something I cannot guarantee for a unicorn with a normal thaumic system.”

Celestia sighed. If this were any other pony, then she would be willing to break her centuries-long policy of non-interference with Earth, and allow the two Twilights to remain switched, so that the pony body could be cured completely, quickly and surely, and then allow the pair to switch back the next time the portal opened. But two things stood in the way: The pony Twilight was Harmony’s chosen Element of Magic. And there was no way that the two families would agree to being separated from their Twilight.

“Unfortunately, that is not possible,” Celestia answered firmly. “The long-term consequences would not be tolerable.” She looked over at her secretary. “Raven, with me.”

Celestia spent the walk to the School of Magic (once again surrounded by a ring of guards) telling Raven of Trixie’s performance during their dinner the night before, praising Trixie’s poise and cleverness. She said nothing of the recent therapy session.

“When she’s old enough I’m sure she’ll be able to take on some of your duties,” the Princess concluded as she and the guard walked into the building.

Raven stood there before the closing door in shock. “Must she give you her soul as well?” she asked herself in a whisper, before shaking her head with a start and hurrying to catch up.

Once again, the guards were left outside as Celestia and her secretary entered the basement.

Once she was face-to-face with the glowing mirror, Raven broke down. “I am so sorry,” she said quietly. “The date of the Mirror’s next activation completely slipped my mind. I was even the one who had it moved here in the first place.”

“It’s not your fault,” said Celestia. “I was the one who issued the order to move the Mirror, and I should have remembered the activation date as well. Neither of us could have anticipated that it would have reacted so negatively to Harmony magic.”

“So the other Twilight is in the human world, in possession of her counterpart,” Raven concluded, before turning to her mistress. “Let me go after her,” she said, reaching a hoof for the Mirror.

“No, Raven,” Celestia ordered. “That could be taken as a hostile act by the Church. Besides, I doubt that Twilight’s human parents would accept your explanation of why you had to ponynap her. No, I will contact my counterpart tonight in my dreams, and together we will work out the best way to perform the transfer. Besides...” (A magical beam from her swept over the mirror.) “We don’t know exactly why it malfunctioned. Maybe using the Mirror might make matters worse.”

“Worse?” Raven asked incredulously. “Even after we get the two back to their proper bodies, our future Bearer of Magic will still be unable to use her horn for years while she heals out in...in...” She couldn’t bear to say the name of the town out loud.

‘Mustangia’, Celestia thought sadly to herself. “You don’t have to say it.”

“It’s just...how could things possibly get any worse?!”

Celestia sighed. “Well, you asked ‘the question’,” she said. “So that means we will soon learn the answer.”

Author's Note

Here are the notes for Chapters 16 & 17.

Day 3, Morning & Afternoon: Chapter 18A: Status Check, Part 1 (Raven)

Raven—Equestria, Celestia’s Bedroom. Two hours before dawn.

“Six?” Raven asked excitedly. “Did you say six?”

“Six ponies,” the Princess repeated.

Raven had had to attend to her daughters across Equestria the night before, immediately after her conversation with Princess Celestia, saying that “Ponyville has declared some kind of emergency, but she always over-exaggerates.” When she had returned from her trance, her mistress was asleep, so Raven retired to her own room, located across the hall, to wait. The Princess had awoken abnormally early with plenty of news about what had happened to the two Twilights. Despite this fact, Raven suspected that something was being held back. But she knew better than to try to get the missing information through direct questioning. When Princess Celestia wanted to tell somepony something, she told it on her own schedule.

“Are you sure it’s...them?” Raven asked.

“Well,” Celestia responded with a crafty smile, “three of them were Rarity of Ponyvillle, and Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy of Cloudsdale.”

“High candidates on the Generosity, Loyalty and Kindness candidate lists.”

“My counterpart did not know the names of two of the ponies, as they had not been located yet, but she knew their coat colors, and in one instance the cutie mark. The mark was a variation on Twilight Sparkle’s and the coat color matched, so I’m certain that one was her. The other was the exact shade of orange of your Number One Honesty candidate.”

“Applejack?”

“The same.”

“So we have five future Bearers locked down,” concluded Raven. “What about the sixth?”

Celestia paused. “The sixth pony is not on any list. Her name...is Pinkie Pie.”

Raven pursed her lips. “Are you sure?”

“Positive. It appears that the Accords have been broken.”

“By Harmony herself,” said Raven.

“Perhaps this is a sign that it is time to finally integrate the rest of your family into Equestria.”

“They’re not going to like this,” Raven said with a frown.

“No, I don’t expect they will. But we never had a viable Laughter candidate that made it past getting his or her cutie mark.”

“True.”

“There is one other thing.”

“Yes?”

Celestia looked off in the distance as she summoned up the mental image her current counterpart had communicated to her. “The cutie mark of the pony Twilight Sparkle...it has a special significance to me. We will have to discuss this later—she will have a vital part to play in the future.”

“More vital than saving Equestria from a dozen horrors from the dawn of time?” Raven asked incredulously.

“Yes,” Celestia answered succinctly. “So, my counterpart has agreed to get all the ponies on Earth magically grounded, and then passed through the portal and into Equestria. At the same time, we will gather the humans here. I will return all of the minds to their proper bodies, and then the humans can return through the portal.”

“Magically grounded?” Raven asked.

Celestia nodded. “The passage of magic from the human to pony worlds is what caused the Mirror to malfunction, so I had a magic-grounding mat sent through the portal before I went to sleep. Our schedule going forward will be tight: we have until midnight tonight to get every creature to their proper body and world, or else any stragglers will be stuck for thirty moons. Do you have any leads on finding the humans in pony bodies?”

“I have good news and bad news,” Raven replied. “My Ponyville daughter met Applejack, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy last night. They were on their way to Canterlot, for reasons they did not tell her at the time, but which are now obvious. If she had known, she would have had carriages sent over immediately. As it is, I believe I have the opportunity to interview them before they arrive—I believe that more than just the immediate family knows what is going on.”

“And I would need to know who was told in order to contain the damage,” Celestia said, finishing Raven’s thought.

“Precisely. I can guarantee you that this ‘Pinkie Pie’ will be in the palace by mid-day,” Raven continued. “So that’s five out of the six. The bad news concerns Rarity: she disappeared a day before the Mirror opened, pulled out of Ponyville by a mysterious force that only two ponies could see.”

“Harmony again.”

“Yes. Unfortunately, Harmony sort of nailed Her hoof to the ground in this instance, because nopony in any of the towns my daughters operate in have seen Rarity since she left Ponyville. It’s like she disappeared off the face of Equus. There is a search party organized by her parents looking for her, led by a good tracker. But if Harmony didn’t want Rarity to be found, she won’t be found.”

Celestia nodded to herself. “Very well. If you’re handling the other five, then I will set out to find Rarity myself. I am very good at drawing attention to myself, and the publicity of the Princess of Equestria searching for a little lost filly is sure to turn up any number of leads.”

“Some of which might even be credible,” Raven said sarcastically.

“...Yes,” Celestia responded with a sparkle in her eye. As she finished levitating her royal jewelry in place, she asked, “Now if your daughter in Ponyville had some sort of crisis, and it wasn’t about the Bearers, what was it?”

Raven pursed her lips for a moment. “She had recruited an outsider to the cause of Harmony. A griffon named Gilda.”

Celestia stopped walking towards the door, and turned to face Raven. “And what did you think about this action?” she asked in a very serious tone.

Raven sat down as she reviewed her thoughts. “I should have been mad. No, I should have been infuriated. It has only been ten years since an outsider lured poor Mustangia out of my network. He probably did away with her, Princess.”

“I know,” Celestia said sadly.

“But this time I wasn’t mad. Ponyville did the right thing. It was no griffon who took my daughter, and the griffons, for all of their silly pride, are far past due to having a chance to return to their former position among the nations. And this Gilda, from the memory that my Ponyville daughter played back for me, is a very promising candidate. For her enthusiasm...and for her independence.”

Celestia raised an eyebrow.

“I know,” Raven said with a sigh. “Being too lenient at first with my youngest is why she resented the control I tried to impose when it came time for her to come into her duties. Her independence cost her...and me...everything, denying me even the knowledge of when or how she met her end. And I know that most ponies hold uncontrolled independence so abhorrent that they considered ‘everfree’ a horrifying adjective long before the word was applied to that tragic forest. But harmony by definition is the reconciliation of opposites. Order with chaos. And control...with independence.

“Ponyville was right. We desperately need a dose of independence to keep us pointed towards the end goal of Harmony. And perhaps...perhaps it’s finally time to let poor Mustangia go.”

Celestia pulled Raven into a hug.

“I’m going to make you late,” Raven protested around a wall of chest fur.

“If anypony complains, I’ll reset the sun,” Celestia told her.

A few minutes later, Raven was in the secret room at the back of the Canterlot Library, studying the files she had compiled on the various Element of Harmony candidates. Rainbow Dash’s file in particular gave her pause:

Rainbow Dash is currently an excellent candidate for Loyalty, but that status is not expected to last, despite the “best” efforts of the Element Candidate Committee.

A study of the lives of the Royal Sisters when they wielded the Elements, as well as the testimony of Harmony Herself, reveals that being a Bearer means more than being exceptionally good at that element. No, the candidate must live the contradiction between the element and its opposite, and in this way to move beyond merely embodying it, to obsessing over it. Honesty must have fallen to the temptation to lie, and to have been punished for it. She must have been the victim of lies that she could not refute. Only in this way is she truly Honesty. In other words, Prosperity is the enemy of Honesty. All of the Elements of Harmony have these enemies.

In the case of Loyalty, and Rainbow Dash in particular, it is essential that her formative years must be a continual struggle full of betrayed loyalties. If she achieves fame before her personality has been fully formed, the resulting boost to her ego will destroy her chances of ever becoming the Bearer of Loyalty. Rainbow Dash cannot be allowed to attain her goal of entering the Wonderbolts for at least a decade after receiving her cutie mark. And this requires tough actions on the part of the Committee.

The Committee is united in this opinion, including the three members who left their professions forever in shame over the actions they had to do to keep Rainbow Dash from achieving the goals that by any other standard she richly deserved. Twice the diagnosis of her learning disabilities had to be covered up before they reached anypony in a position of authority. And seventeen of her races were tampered with, to keep her from attaining a win streak that attracted undue attention.

Raven sighed as she read over her own words. When she wrote them, it was with the sincere wish that some other candidate lower on the Loyalty list would be proved to be Harmony’s chosen champion instead, so that the poor pegasus could be freed from being secretly mistreated for half of her life.

But now it appeared that she needed to double down.

The Friendship Express. Shortly after sunrise.

When the Ponyville Raven had upgraded Gilda’s party’s accommodations, from coach seats to a private berth, she had done it out of gratitude for how Gilda and Fluttershy had saved Granny Smith’s life and brought closure to her grandchildren. She was also hoping to incentivize Gilda to maintain her current course of possibly being an agent for Equestria.

Now Canterlot Raven was grateful to her eponymous and identical daughter, because this gave her the opportunity to speak with the group in private, while pretending to be merely the secretary of the Mayor of Ponyville. Vanishing her non-functioning horn, she knocked on the door. “May I come in?”

Windy Whistles slid the door open. “Raven, how good to see you!”

“I was on my way to Canterlot for business, and wanted to see how you were doing.”

“We’re doing great, thanks to you!” Bow Hothoof exclaimed.

“Could I come in for a moment? I wanted to see how well you were prepared for whatever you’re doing in Canterlot. I know some contacts that might be useful to you.”

“Sure, come right in!” replied Windy, pulling the door wide.

Gilda sighed. She, Rainbow Dash and Applejack had been in the middle of telling fascinating stories of their different Canterlots to each other, and now they needed to hold off, probably until tonight. Dr. Tarbell might be fairly clueless, but Gilda knew she couldn’t get anything past Raven.

Either of them. Although of course Gilda did not know there was more than one.

“What are you trying to do?” Raven asked.

Dr. Tarbell looked up at her from his notes, trying to determine if a civil servant from a backwater town would be of any use to him in Canterlot. The fact that this particular backwater lapped directly up against the capital swayed him. “Rainbow Dash here performed a sonic magi-boom as part of getting her cutie mark,” he said.

“We’ve already renamed it to ‘sonic rainboom’,” Rainbow added. She pointed at herself. “It should finally get this pony the recognition that she deserves.”

Raven turned ashen, her heart falling into the pit of her stomach. Her study of Rainbow had convinced her that she should never be allowed to take credit for such an incredible feat. But the fact that the feat was a magiboom...that made this much more serious.

Dr. Tarbell nodded, a smarmy smile on his face. “I can tell from your expression that you’ve heard of the sonic magi-boom. Am I correct?”

“Yes,” said Raven. “It’s a legendary feat, tied rather heavily into pegasus breedism.”

Tarbell frowned. “Breedism stuff aside, it’s the most-powerful manifestation of pegasus magic imaginable. Proving that it’s real will change pony history forever.”

“Wow, really?” Rainbow Dash asked.

Raven felt her heart fall into the pit of her stomach. “He’s being quite literal,” she said. “Dr. Tarbell, are you aware of the three legendary appearances of the magi-boom before the historical era?”

Tarbell waved a hoof dismissively. “They are, as you said, ‘legendary’, and so may be dismissed.”

“On the contrary,” Raven retorted. Turning to Rainbow Dash, she said, “I think it’s essential that you and your family are aware of the past instances. Just in case something like that happens again.”

Tarbell snorted. “That won’t happen again. We are civilized ponies now. Just the bare fact that I, a unicorn, am trusted to act as physician for pegasus fillies and colts is evidence of it.”

“Um...what did happen in these legends?” Fluttershy asked.

“I’d like to know as well,” Windy said. “How bad was it?”

Rainbow Dash said nothing for now, not being sure if Raven was using this situation to advance her own mysterious agenda.

“The first magi-boom was performed by Cloud Dancer, thousands of years ago, long before the unification of the tribes,” Raven told the crowd. “The pegasi of the time saw this as a miraculous act, elevating Cloud Dancer and her best friend, who changed her name to Skybreaker, to be their rulers. Skybreaker used her new power to incite the pegasi to invade Griffon Aerie, at the height of the Griffon Old Kingdom’s power. The griffons not only fought the pegasi off, they then counter-invaded the old pony lands, and nearly enslaved everypony before being finally being fought off by a momentary alliance of the pegasi and the unicorns. Many ponies were lost in that war, but no pegasus would contemplate the idea of peace until the fall of Skybreaker, so sure were they that the magi-boom had made them invincible.”

“What about Cloud Dancer?” asked Rainbow. “Couldn’t she have stopped this madness?”

“Cloud Dancer disappeared before the war even began. It’s probable that her best friend did away with her for daring to oppose her.”

Dr. Tarbell rolled his eyes.

“What happened the second time there was a rainboom?” asked Fluttershy.

“That was midway through the Great Frost,” said Raven. “A lot of the common pegasi were getting tired of the arrogance of the unicorns, but saw many reasons to side with the earth ponies. A pegasus-earth pony alliance might have forced the unicorns under King Bullion to back down from their grandiose posturing. A young pegasus named Rain Spell had a lot of ideas on how to unify the tribes, a lot of ideas that were frankly crazy. But that didn’t mean that he deserved to lose his life in achieving the second magi-boom in an attempt to get everypony to listen to him. In its aftermath, the pegasi allowed themselves to be convinced by Commander Hurricane that a conspiracy of unicorns and earth ponies were responsible for Rain Spell’s death, which led to his rise to power. Pegasi became convinced that the magi-boom was a sign that they alone would survive the coming apocalypse. That’s the reason why so few of them migrated to Equestria, and why pegasi were in the minority for hundreds of years afterwards.”

“Now that’s just rampant speculation,” said Dr. Tarbell. “There’s any number of reasons why pegasus populations were so low in the pre-Discordian Era.”

“This is really not sounding good,” admitted Bow. “What about the third one?”

“Oh that one’s easy to tell: the pegasi unilaterally surrendered to Discord because he could perform a magiboom, and Commander Pansy could not.”

“I...didn’t know that,” Windy said to Bow.

“Yeah, funny thing, isn’t it?” Tarbell said sarcastically. “So vital a piece of information, left out of all of the pegasi histories. Because it’s a lie!”

“Or maybe it was omitted, so pegasi wouldn’t have to live with the fact that they surrendered their freedom over an overblown symbol,” said Raven.

Tarbell rose to his hooves. “I will not stand for a suppression of the truth!” he cried. “Rainbow here is going to put on a demonstration of her Sonic Rainboom for the Princess. And then all of Equestria will know what I brought to them.”

“You sound like you’re taking credit for it yourself,” said Raven.

“Well maybe I am!” Tarbell replied. “Rainbow here was too stupid to know what she had done, and her cow-faced parents over there just saw it as another meaningless race to crow about.

“So what if the Rainboom causes the pegasi to go crazy, or try to declare independence from Equestria. What do I care? I’ll be safe in Canterlot, turning the national panic into cold. Hard. Cash. Celestia would put the revolt down, putting the pegasi in their place.”

“It’s Princess Celestia,” Gilda said in a low, dangerous voice.

“Whatever. And don’t think of trying anything, catbird. I know seven different ways to kill you. There’s nothing any of you can do to stop the inevitable!”

“I could decide not to do the Rainboom,” said Rainbow.

“Then that would make you a liar,” Tarbell said, leaning into Rainbow’s face. “You’d be suspended from Junior Flight Camp, and you’d never become a Wonderbolt. Having nothing better to do with my life, I’d guarantee it. You can’t even imagine a life without the ‘Bolts, so you’ll convince yourself that nothing bad will happen and then you’ll perform the stunt. Or maybe I’ll use one of the mind control spells I know to make you do it. I didn’t spend a decade in S.M.I.L.E. for nothing.”

Raven stood up, her expression as cold as a windigo. “Dr. Tarbell? I’d like a word with you. In private.”

Tarbell snorted. “Sure. Like I’m scared of some mousy mudpony secretary to the all-powerful Mayor of Ponyville.”

“I’m going to give you one chance to convince me that I should introduce you to Princess Celestia.”

“I have my own contacts.”

“I know. Mine is a lot more direct.”

“I’ll have you wrapped around my hoof in five minutes,” Tarbell bragged. “One way. Or the other.”

“Bring all your things,” Raven said coldly. “I’ll need everything for what we need to go over.”

The two of them walked out of the berth.

Less than a kilometer later, the Friendship Express slowed to make its way around a sharp turn. While it was doing that, Dr. Tarbell leapt out of the train, tumbling over and over down the hill. When he landed he got up, looked back at Raven in sheer terror, and ran away from that train as fast as his hooves could carry him.

Back in the engine of the train, Raven burned all of Dr. Tarbell’s notes, as well as a copy of the evidence proving that Tarbell was embezzling tens of thousands of bits from Junior Flight Camp to fund his gambling addiction.

“He failed to convince me,” Raven said when she returned to the berth. “As a matter of fact, I convinced him to leave the train altogether, as I believe you just saw through your window. I can guarantee you that the pony calling himself ‘Muck Tarbell’ will never bother you again. That identity has been obliterated.”

Rainbow’s eyes narrowed.

Meanwhile everybody else in the berth nodded. “I never did trust that unicorn,” Bow Hothoof remarked.

Rainbow mentally added “push pony brains around like chess pieces” to the list of Raven’s supposed powers. It was possible that Tarbell was up to no good this whole time, but if so the personality he had so effortlessly maintained for months had collapsed the moment that Raven had had the chance to speak for just a few minutes, and everypony else was now acting like this was who he was the whole time. Just like before, the fact that Rainbow had no magic of her own appeared to make her immune to Raven’s spell. This time she didn’t even try to disguise the look on her face.

“Now I apologize on my employer’s behalf that your time has been so grievously wasted,” Raven continued. “I can get you immediate return tickets to Ponyville as soon as we reach Canterlot. Unless there was some other reason you wanted to see the Princess?”

“Well...yes,” Windy said hesitantly. “But the matter is rather sensitive. If not the Princess herself, can you get us in contact with somepony who holds a position of trust with her?”

“Yeah,” Rainbow added a sigh. “Spitfire told us that we were in big trouble, basically for existing. We want to make it clear that we’re giving ourselves up peacefully.” Rainbow considered it highly unlikely that a pony as powerful as Raven was nothing more than a mayor’s aide. In that case, like it or not, Raven must have been telling the truth when she claimed to have the ear of the Princess.

“Yes, I think I can do that,” Raven said, suppressing a smirk.

(Sitting in a back corner, Gilda began to sweat...or whatever the equivalent of sweating is for a half-avian creature. Staying in Canterlot for any longer than a day would not be good for her.)

Soon afterwards Raven excused herself, “for government business”.

The train entered a tunnel for a few seconds, cutting off all light. That was how Raven left the train.

Chapter 18B: Status Check, Part 2 (Raven, H. Rainbow Dash)

Raven. Rockville.

There are no shadows on the Pie farm, at least outside of the house. This was very much on purpose. Also, none of Raven’s daughters served as an aide in Rockville, as was spelled out in the Pie Family Accords.

Therefore, Raven had to enter Rockville behind the desert pine at the railroad crossing, and walk the fifteen kilometers to the farm on hoof, through the abnormally hot weather of this region. (Lots of sun is good for the rocks.) Igneous Rock Pie was waiting for her at the family well, located just within the entrance gate. He was a tan earth pony stallion with a thin gray coat and a striped gray mane. He had long sideburns, a dark gray rancher hat, and a light gray collar with a straight dark gray tie.

Igneous stood there, absolutely still, his eyes slowly tracking her progress until she reached the gate. By that time her collar had slumped down, and her cravat had wilted.

“Good morning, Mr. Pie,” Raven said, huffing from the exertion.

He dipped a ladle into the raised bucket of water and took a slow sip while he gathered his thoughts.

Raven opened and closed her chapped lips a few times, imagining drinking that cool water herself.

Igneous finally spoke. “I’ve heard of you,” he said in a low voice.

Raven laughed. “Do they still tell stories of me to keep the foals in line?” she asked.

“Have you stopped giving them reason to, Black Bird?”

Raven thought back on the look on Dr. Tarbell’s face after she had exhibited her true power to him. “No,” she said darkly. “And the name’s Raven this time around. Black Bird’s too obvious.”

Igneous sighed. “I will bow to the inevitable, then. Would you care to come in?”

“Don’t mind if I do.” She silently opened the gate and walked over to him.

Igneous frowned. “That gate was supposed to squeak,” he remarked.

“May I have a drink?” Raven asked, ignoring Igneous’ question.

Igneous handed over the ladle. It was nearly empty.

Raven smiled slightly at the obvious snub and drank what she was given without over-extending the offer by asking for more.

“How’s the government?” Igneous asked.

“Hasn’t fallen yet,” Raven replied. “Celestia’s still the Princess, in case you were wondering.”

Igneous snorted. “There’s a difference between non-participation and ignorance, Raven.”

“Yes, about that,” Raven said, returning the ladle. “It’s time for the Pies to re-enter society. That’s why I’m here.”

“‘Never a pony shall welcome a Pie / While color blue is painted the sky.’” He then looked up. “Those were the words of the prophecy. The sky still looks blue to me.”

“Harmony uses and ignores prophesies on Her whim,” Raven said. “And maybe it needs to be a Pie to go out there and break it.”

“Maybe it needs to be you,” Igneous said.

Raven looked away. “My relationship with the Pie family is complicated. You know that.”

Igneous rounded the well to get into her face. “And how do you know that I know that? As far as I know, we’ve never met.”

Raven’s shoulders slumped. “I’m not trying to pick a fight...Sir.” She almost said his name. “Harmony gave one of your daughters her cutie mark. That was no decision of mine. This daughter is meant for greater things. It is my expectation, but also my hope, that this daughter wants this destiny.” She took in a deep breath through her nose and let it out through her mouth. “You have a right to be angry at this, to be the first Pie in more than ten generations to have a child who wishes to move more than a day’s walk away from your home, a daughter that you may have to say goodbye forever to.”

“Two daughters.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“My eldest Maud wants a formal education. Show off her knowledge to the world, and receive praise and approbation for it.” Igneous did not audibly emphasize the words, but the slight expressions when he said “praise” and “approbation” signified that these words were distasteful to him. “So I have Harmony to thank for losing nearly half of my family on this day.”

“She doesn’t have to be leaving today.”

“I’m leaving today, Miss Raven.”

Raven looked over at the front porch of the farmhouse, where a gray filly with a teal-gray frock and violet-gray mane with a severely straight cut stood watching them. She did a double take on realizing that she absolutely did not hear that pony walk out onto the porch. Unless she was standing there the whole time?

“Were you standing there the whole time?” Raven said.

“I was standing here the whole time, Miss Raven,” the filly said, “and I just so happened to hear everything you were saying.” Her voice was completely monotone, but the timing of her words implied that what she said was in no way a response to what Raven had just said. “My name is Maud.”

“What’s your...oh, alright, Maud,” Raven said.

“And I’m Pinkie Pie!”

“Aaah!” Raven uttered a little scream, spinning about to face the pink filly with a mane that resembled cotton candy. “Where did you come from?” Raven hadn’t been truly surprised by anything in several pony generations, and yet these two fillies were able to keep her completely off-balance.

“Well, when a planet coalesces at just the right distance from its parent star and cools, water vapor forms, which collects into oceans,” the pink filly replied to Raven’s question, speaking at a breakneck pace. “The resulting stew of chemicals—”

“—Pinkie Pie?”

“Yes?”

“...I no longer need an answer to my previous question.”

“You look like a government pony,” Pinkie observed.

“I am.”

“Can you arrest me for being a human? I need the Princess—”

“—Princess Celestia,” Maud said. The emphasis on “Celestia” was barely perceptible.

“I refuse to accept that my principal is a primary force of nature!” Pinkie Pie said. “I didn’t believe it when my human parents said it, and I don’t believe it now.”

“Yes, I’m here to take you to the Princess. My name’s Raven.”

“I know,” Pinkie said.

“Were you listening to my conversation, too?” Raven asked.

“No, the name’s on your...” Pinkie pointed at a non-existent name tag.

Raven looked down.

Unseen by Raven, Maud gave Pinkie a warning look. Pinkie had a momentary look of panic, which vanished before Raven looked back up at her, confused.

“Made you look!” Pinkie joked. “I mean, I heard Maud say it just now. You weren’t just giving her a silly nickname, were you, Maud?”

“That’s more of a ‘Pinkie’ thing, I would think,” Maud remarked.

“No, the giving of nicknames shouldn’t happen on the first meeting,” said Pinkie, suddenly very serious. “That tends to be the name giver either trying too hard, or else imposing their ego on the victim. A proper nickname should be embraced by the per...pony receiving it, even if that process takes a few years.”

“So that would mean that ‘Raven’ is her name.”

“Yes. Hi, Raven!”

“Hello.”

“Well, are you both ready to go?” Igneous said, very much using grumpiness to hide his sadness at their departure.

Pinkie walked over and hugged Igneous. “Now you know full well that your Pinkie will come back here to see you when this is all straightened out,” she told him.

“And then I’ll have to send her too.”

“...Yes,” Pinkie was forced to admit.

“I’m not coming back,” Maud said, as a simple statement of fact.

There was an uncomfortable silence.

“Well, it’s true. We already had our goodbye party last night.” She put a gray valise as big as she was on her back.

Pinkie Pie put a pink hoof-purse on her back. She reared up on her hind hooves to offer a hug to Igneous, and the bag somehow managed to stay stuck to her back.

“We already had the physical display of affection,” said Igneous, backing away slightly.

“Right,” Pinkie said, disappointed. She lowered herself back down. “Thanks for everything.”

“You just remember to tell your father what I told you,” Igneous said.

Pinkie saluted. “Will do!” She turned and pronked her way over the fence.

Maud looked over at her father for a few seconds. “Farewell,” she said simply.

“Fare thee well,” said Igneous, before turning away to hide a tear.

Maud walked past Raven and out the gate.

Raven nodded to Igneous.

After a reluctant pause, Igneous returned the gesture.

Raven left the farm, speeding up until she was walking alongside Maud. There was no way she could possibly keep up with Pinkie Pie, who was halfway to the horizon already.

The two walked silently for several minutes, until Raven realized that Maud had been staring at her. With no expression on her face, it was impossible for Raven to tell why Maud was doing this, so she just looked back and asked, “Do you have a question for me?”

“Earlier, you said that the name Black Bird was ‘too obvious’,” Maud said. “What did you mean by that?” The presence of the question mark in her utterance was entirely implied.

Raven turned her head to look forward. “Four and twenty,” was all she said in reply.

Maud thought this over for a few moments. “I see,” she said finally.

‘Three and twenty now,’ Raven added mentally.

(In the distance, Pinkie Pie’s voice could be heard singing the nursery rhyme. She would come up with a dozen new verses in the time it took to reach Rockville.)

Raven decided that there was something she wanted to know as well. “Obviously you’re coming along to look after your sister,” she began.

“Obviously.”

“Is there anything else you’re hoping to accomplish on this trip to the capital?”

“Are there any geological seminaries in Canterlot?”

“No, and they’re called colleges now. The city library is good for finding the locations of those colleges in Equestria, though.”

“And beyond?”

“To a limited extent.”

“Would the Diamond Dogs have any colleges open to ponies?”

Raven stopped walking. “I do not know,” she said with a note of wonder in her voice. She smiled. “It’s been a while since I was asked a question where I had no idea what the answer was, or even how to find out the answer.”

“Then I guess we can find out together,” said Maud.

“Yes, I suppose we can.”

Raven bought train tickets for the two sisters in Rockville, then saw them onto the train. “You should arrive in Canterlot by late afternoon,” she told them.

“What about you?” Pinkie asked.

“I’ve got other ways to get around. I’ll pick you up when you arrive.”

Maud put a hoof on Pinkie’s withers, to stop her from saying anything in reply. Like challenging Raven to a race.

Pinkie waited until the train left the station until looking over at Maud and saying, “I wasn’t going to say it.”

“Weren’t you?”

“OK, maybe I would have. You know she’s going to figure out what’s going on with the two of us sooner or later.”

H. Rainbow Dash.

When the Friendship Express arrived at Canterlot, a light gray unicorn mare with a dark brown mane in a bun was waiting for Rainbow Dash and her party. She wore glasses with thick black rims over her dark brown eyes, and a starched white collar with a red cravat. A red elastic band held her tail in a second bun. “Hello,” she said. “My name’s Raven, and I’ve been sent by the Princess to personally escort you to the palace.”

“Thank the Maker!” exclaimed Gilda.

Standing beside Raven was a light blue unicorn filly in a robe and hat. “And I’m just an intern, so you don’t need to pay any attention to me whatsoever,” she said brightly.

Raven looked over at her, raising an eyebrow.

Trixie gave her nothing other than an innocent grin.

“Wonderful!” exclaimed Windy Whistles, who proceeded to introduce Raven and Trixie to the ponies and griffon traveling with her. Trixie seemed especially interested in meeting Applejack, acting as if they had known each other for years, to Applejack’s confusion. (“I might know a Trixie, but I’m pretty sure it ain’t you.”)

Rainbow Dash had the persistent feeling that she was missing something important. She decided to stop worrying for now about the manipulative aide to Mayor Mare. Including such unimportant details as her name...

Raven.

From her position leading the group to the palace, Raven smirked. She was confident that she had finally figured out how to make her magic work on magic-less ponies.

H. Rainbow Dash.

Raven led the group onto a pony-driven carriage, which took them straight into the courtyard of the fairytale castle. Everyone was in awe at seeing the building up close; even Gilda failed to keep up her cool facade. Which was a nice contrast to how she had swept the streets with her eyes every five seconds before they reached the castle.

After being admitted by the guards, the group entered not the castle itself but a neighboring building called “Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns”, proceeded down some stairs and ended up in a stone-walled round basement. A side room was absolutely stuffed with all of the things that had once been stored here. The basement now contained low tables with breakfast pastries, coffee and juice, and far more seating cushions than seemed necessary. Sitting in three of those cushions were three unicorns.

“Hello, I am Twilight Sparkle, and this is not my fault,” the youngest of the trio greeted them, getting up to her hooves with a bit of uncertainty.

Rainbow Dash was going to say something snarky until she was contradicted by Twilight’s last part, and instead just laughed. “I admit, I was thinking it from the moment I landed in Equestria. Name’s Rainbow Dash, although I doubt you’ve heard of me in your egghead circle.”

“Eggs aren’t circular,” Twilight said with a smile.

Fluttershy walked over to the other two. “You must be her parents,” she said.

Introductions were exchanged.

“Hey, what are you?” Twilight asked, pushing through the others to confront Gilda. “I’m not as well-versed on my mythology as I should be.”

“Griffon,” Gilda said tersely. “Not a myth.”

Rainbow Dash meanwhile pushed through the crowd in the opposite direction, in order to approach the infamous magic mirror at the far end of the room.

“You can look,” Raven told them after somehow appearing right in front of Rainbow from the other end of the room, “but definitely don’t touch.”

“Tell them about the magic protocol,” prompted Twilight.

Raven had a brief “I was getting to that!” expression, before she finally spoke. “There is a very important protocol that you all need to follow—more for the ponies on the other side than for you, but you can never be too careful. Now let me outline the exact cause of your current situation...”

(I think by this point we don’t have to go over that again.)

“...Now by our current timeline,” Raven concluded, “I do not expect anything significant to happen until after lunch, which will be catered by the way. So feel free to eat the free food if you’d like and find a comfortable spot to sit until the Princess arrives—she’s busy running the morning court, which is one reason for the delay. The other is the timetable of the school on the other side of the portal. The whole process will probably take until sundown. Now are there any questions?”

Bow Hothoof, already sitting down, raised a hoof into the air like he was back in Flight School.

“Yes, Mr. Hothoof?”

“Miss Raven, I was wondering if some of us might be able to go off and visit the city. Do some shopping, maybe eat at Restaurant Row—not that your catered food isn’t good, but Cloudsdale pegasi like us don’t get to visit Canterlot every day you know—and get rooms for the night.”

“You all will be staying in the castle tonight,” Raven said. “The Princess believes that you all will have a lot to catch up on once you are re-united, and might find it awkward trying to have those conversations in places where you could be overheard.”

Gilda nodded in satisfaction. This could fix everything. “Makes sense.”

“I have no problem with you going,” Raven replied, “so long as you are back here by, let’s say 11:15. I would also prefer if at least one of the girls stays behind, just in case we end up getting started early.”

Rainbow Dash turned to Gilda, to ask if she wanted to see the city. Gilda quickly shook her head. Rainbow shrugged. “I guess I’ll stay.”

Applejack shook her head. She had been rather silent the entire time in Canterlot.

Fluttershy was conflicted. Being a city, Canterlot did not appear to have any unusual fauna, but there was the matter of a genuine fairytale castle to tour. But it didn’t look like Rainbow’s parents had any interest in that, and she didn’t want to go alone or with strangers, so... “I guess I’ll stay as well,” she announced quietly.

Windy and Bow looked over to Twilight Velvet and Night Light.

“Oh, we’d love to give you a tour,” Night Light said apologetically, “but I’m afraid we really must stay here with Twilight.”

Windy looked at Bow. “So I guess it’s just us? Rainbow, you won’t mind us leaving?”

“No, you’ll see me again before I leave,” Rainbow replied. “You go ahead and have fun. Buy something nice to give your Rainbow when she gets back.”

Windy nodded, and the two of them took the stairs out of the basement.

Five minutes later, Princess Celestia teleported into the basement, holding a small wooden crate aloft in her magic. “Greetings, My Little Ponies,” she said. “And visiting humans.”

Gilda and the ponies bowed. The humans after a pause did likewise.

“...And that’s the last time you’ll have to do that,” Celestia joked. “We have business to do, and too many formalities will just get in the way.”

Raven frowned in dissatisfaction.

“Are we missing anypony?”

“Windy Whistles and Bow Hothoof, Rainbow Dash’s parents, are out sightseeing. They promised they would be back in time for lunch,” Raven reported.

“Very well,” said Princess Celestia. “I trust that my assistant Raven has explained everything to you already. Now do any of you have any questions for me?”

“Is it really true that you raise and lower the sun?” Rainbow Dash asked. “Or do you just do it as a ruse to maintain your reign of terror?”

Gilda put a claw over her beak to keep from bursting out laughing.

Celestia gave a bemused look at an utterly shocked Raven. “It appears that my counterpart wasn’t lying when she told me about Americans,” she quipped. “Sadly, we don’t have the time for a proper demonstration.”

“Please don’t play hoofball with the celestial bodies,” Raven said in deadpan. “Again.”

“I was just kidding,” Rainbow admitted.

“Are there any other questions?”

“What’s in the box, your, um, Majesty?”

Celestia wordlessly lowered the box to the ground. Raven reached within and removed several nearly-identical hoof-bound notebooks. The front covers had elaborate designs on the edges involving the three breeds of pony and various random cutie marks. Pairs of books with the same color covers were bound together by twine. In all there were six pairs of books, and the covers matched the coat colors of Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, and presumably the two other humans that those four hadn’t met (as ponies) yet.

“These are magical communication books,” Celestia explained, unwrapping the yellow pair of books with her magic and floating one of them over to Fluttershy. “Anything written in one book of the pair will appear in the other, and vice versa. This will allow you to communicate with your counterpart after today.”

“Oh thank you!” Fluttershy gently exclaimed. “I was going to ask if something like that was possible.” She examined her book, which indeed had “COMMUNICATION NOTEBOOK” written across the top of the cover. The center of the cover had two white ovals, each of which had her name written neatly inside. Combined with the text around it, it read “For FLUTTERSHY and FLUTTERSHY.”

Celestia passed out the other books, which were similarly personalized.

Twilight eagerly examined her book in detail. She noticed that there was a serial number stamped on the back cover that matched between her book and the other Twilight book, with the other books having numbers in series. The front cover was a full centimeter thick with the pages and back cover being made of ordinary paper and cardboard, leading Twilight to conclude that the book’s magic was embedded inside that cover. Opening the book, she noted that the inside cover was made up of another piece of paper glued over the wooden cover, and feeling that pasted sheet revealed two indentations containing some substance that her enhanced senses identified as magical. One of the two shapes was a tilted cross in shape, while the other was round. The first few pages of her book were pre-printed with a set of instructions—it appeared that you could do more than just write or draw on the pages. With the right supplementary spells you could slip small objects between the pages and have them transmitted to the matching book.

Twilight frowned at a sudden realization. “I was under the impression that Equestria was pre-industrial,” she said to the Princess. “How were you able to produce these books so quickly, and so uniformly?”

Celestia nodded approvingly at Twilight’s quick perception. “The books are standard issue for the School of Magic,” she explained. “My school has both undergraduate and graduate programs. The graduate programs require the students to travel the length and breadth of Equestria as part of their research—they need to publish a paper materially advancing the field of theoretical magic in order to graduate. However they still need to be in contact with their academic advisors, who will stay here in Canterlot.

“This necessitated a form of instantaneous communication between student and teacher. One of those teachers invented the spell behind the communication books nearly seventy-five years ago. Wishing to maintain her anonymity, the noble mare put the invention in the public domain, where it became quite useful for many more individuals than just student unicorns. She went under the alias of ‘Zero X’, and so the notebooks are also known as ‘Zero-X books’.”

“And the colors matching our coats?” Twilight asked.

“The spell to do that, along with the spell to print a cutie mark, are pretty standard among unicorns,” Celestia explained.

“So is that a ‘Zero-X book’ over there?” Rainbow asked, pointing at a much more elaborate book that was sitting upon a lectern.

“Yes,” Celestia replied tersely. “Although I’m not certain if it will even be used or not.”

“‘Noble mare’...” Raven remarked with a roll of her eyes. “Zero X is Celestia. The name is from the shapes of the two simple artifacts that power each book. She would have used ‘XO’ as her alias if I hadn’t explained to her what the letters are commonly used to represent.”

The Princess gave her a shocked look.

“What?” asked Raven. “If you insist on demeaning yourself, you have to accept everything that goes along with it.”

Author's Note

Here are the notes for this chapter.

Chapter 19: Overload (P. Twilight Sparkle, P. Rarity, P. Rainbow Dash, Sunset Shimmer, H. Gnosi & Meridiem)

P. Twilight Sparkle—Earth, Canterlot City General Hospital. Before dawn on Day Three.

Doctor Oath walked into Twilight Sparkle’s room, a cardboard cup of coffee in one hand and a clipboard under the opposite arm. He was startled to see Twilight Velvet, Night Light and Cadance still sitting in the same chairs he had left them in last night. “Have you been here the whole time?” he asked.

“Have to,” Night Light mumbled around the last bite of a vending machine danish. “She might wake up, and have one of her manic episodes.”

“We’re the only ones who would have a chance of stopping her then,” Twilight Velvet added, her eyes glazed over as she sipped at her own cardboard cup of coffee. A tall stack of used cups were at her feet.

Cadance was asleep in her chair.

Dr. Oath looked with concern at both parents. “I really think you need to get outside help.”

“After this,” Twilight Velvet promised.

The door to the room opened, and Shining Armor walked in, a furry purple lump cradled in the crook of one arm. “Oh hi, Dr. Oath,” he said. To the others he said, “Look what I found in the parking lot.”

The lump uncurled into a purple puppy, with a green tuft of fur on the top of its head, a green underside, and florescent green ear flaps.

Shining’s parents gathered around to examine the animal, who looked up at them with curious eyes.

“Is that a dye job?” Night Light asked.

“I don’t think so,” said Shining. “Maybe he escaped from a lab. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if somebody figured out how to breed dogs with Markist colors to sell at a premium price as pets.”

“Or maybe somebody fed its mother a dissolved Marking plate,” Twilight Velvet said.

Shining stared curiously at the puppy. “That would mean that he has a counterpart in the Perfect World. Are there pets in the Perfect World?”

“It couldn’t very well be a perfect world without pets,” Night Light remarked.

“How would we be able to tell?” Shining asked.

“You know his name,” Twilight Velvet said. “The moment you picked him up, you knew. Even if it didn’t seem obvious.” She reached out and took the puppy from Shining’s arms before he had a chance to say anything. “Spike,” she said, looking the squirming puppy in the eyes. “You named him Spike, didn’t you?”

“...Yes,” said Shining Armor. He looked over at the still-sleeping form of Twilight Sparkle. “He didn’t have a license or collar. In fact, I think he’s been tending for himself for quite some time.”

Twilight Velvet felt the animal’s ribs. “Yes, I believe you’re right.”

Shining took back the dog. “I’m going to give him to Twilight.”

The parents looked at each other nervously, then looked to Dr. Oath.

The doctor had no idea why they were treating this idea like it might set off a bomb or something. “I have no objections,” he said.

Shining walked carefully over to the bed. He nudged Cadance awake, and then showed her the dog before slowly putting it down on the blanket covering Twilight Sparkle. He then took Cadance’s hand and quickly pulled her back to the corner of the room where everybody else was standing.

The puppy, Spike, looked around him in confusion, and then focused on the sight of Twilight’s face. Without a trace of fear, he bounded forward and started licking the exposed part of her face.

Twilight began to stir. She yawned, stretching out one arm, hand curled into a fist, when she suddenly froze. She would have stared intently at her hand, if her eyes were not still covered in gauze. “Where am I?” she asked. “W...what am I?”

Dr. Oath looked around at the others, who were all frozen in positions of wariness. “You’re in Canterlot General Hospital,” he told her. “And you’re still human.” He felt a little silly making that last remark.

Twilight deliberately opened her upraised hand, wiggling the fingers around. “I wasn’t a...human...before,” she said. She curled her hand once again and pointed it at the source of the voice she had heard. “Who are you?”

“I’m Doctor Oath.”

“And we’re your family,” Twilight Velvet said.

Twilight Sparkle’s fist shook slightly. “Do you look like me?” she asked with some insistence. “Are you human?”

“Yes,” said Night Light.

“Then you’re not my parents,” Twilight Sparkle said with some relief. “And I’m not your daughter. I’m sorry, I couldn’t control where the magic sent me. I think...” She pulled her fist back down to put it beside her chin in thought. “I think I passed another entity going the other way when I crossed into this plane of existence. The Twilight Sparkle you know might be in Equestria. In my pony body.”

“‘Magic’,” Shining Armor said flatly. “That word is not supposed to be in your vocabulary.”

Twilight Sparkle brought her fist down to her chest in fear. (Her other arm had been alternately holding and petting Spike this whole time.) “Why is that?”

“Because there’s no such thing as magic. I’m quoting you, Twily.”

“Shining Armor,” said Twilight Sparkle, getting a little breathless with fear. “Same nickname for me as back home. I...I made a huge mistake. I was essentially running away because of what I did, but I didn’t think of what it would mean for my family. I left without even saying goodbye! And without magic, how will I be able to put things right, and give you your human Twilight Sparkle?!”

Cadance walked over and fearlessly took Twilight Sparkle into her embrace. “You seem very scared right now, whoever you think you are.”

Twilight returned the hug, and took in a whiff of Cadance’s perfume. “You’re Cadance, my pony-sitter,” she concluded. “And you don’t believe me.”

“I didn’t mean to—”

“—No, it’s OK,” she said, softly pushing Cadance away. “In a world without magic, the transmutation of personalities might not even be theoretically possible, while under the realm of magic it was until now only theoretical, especially across the barrier between universes that I felt myself pass through. In fact...aaahh!”

Twilight grabbed her head with both hands, causing Spike to drop out onto the bed.

Cadance suddenly backed away as she felt her face heat up from within—the same effect she had experienced when getting to close too the sleeping Twilight. “What’s going on?”

“The mana I absorbed during the exam—I brought it with me! And this human body can’t handle it. I need to vent the excess somehow.” She ran a hand through her hairline. “Do humans have horns? Wait, don’t answer that, of course you don’t. So what do I do? The pressure keeps building. I need an answer, or my head will literally burst!”

Twilight Velvet turned with urgency to Dr. Oath. “Doctor! What do you—?”

“—Stop!” Night Light declared, pointing at Twilight Sparkle.

She was holding her right fist up in the air, shaking it like she was using it to ring a bell.

“That’s her ‘shut up, I need to think’ signal,” Twilight Velvet whispered to the Doctor, who closed his open mouth.

The raised fist then began moving erratically.

Twilight Velvet smiled. “And that’s her writing mental equations,” she added.

“I do have eyes, correct?” Twilight Sparkle finally asked.

“Yes,” said Doctor Oath. “They’re covered because they’re injured.”

“But the neural pathways are still intact, yes?”

“Um, yes.”

“Alright,” Twilight Sparkle concluded. “That’s close enough to the first cornu bundle that it might work.” She swung her blind head around. “Is there anybody above me?”

Dr. Oath looked up at the ceiling. “No...”

“Sorry for the property damage,” Twilight said quickly, then tilted her head back as a blinding beam of energy shot out of her eyes, demolishing a small part of the ceiling. The beam continued out into the sky without diminishment.

Shining turned to look out the window. “Wow,” he proclaimed. “That thing’s not stopping. I hope you don’t hit any planes...or satellites.”

After nearly a minute, the beam began to fade. Twilight raised her hands at that point and cupped them in front of herself. The beam deflected off of her hands and bathed her face. She moved her hands around to get the beam to cover different parts of her. There was a burning smell as the bandages ignited, yet there seemed to be no sign that the energies Twilight was channeling were hurting her in any way.

The others in the room carefully crept closer. Cadance waved a hand over Twilight’s forehead, and communicated by a smile that the microwaving effect from earlier was no longer in effect.

The beam suddenly shut off, and Twilight removed her hands. The bandages over her face and shoulders had been completely converted into a fine dust that floated in the air, and the parts of her body that were now exposed were completely unblemished.

“Did you just heal yourself?” Night Light asked incredulously.

“Yup, Dad,” Twilight answered with a proud smile. “I saw this unicorn doctor use a healing spell on Shining that one time he fell down the stairs. The spell had looked so complex at the time that I thought I didn’t have a chance of ever replicating it. But the memory stayed perfectly clear in my mind, and when I brought it up I just knew how to do it myself with my magic.” She looked at her hands, studying how the fingers flexed, and even pulling a finger with her other hand. “Oh, and do you believe me now when I say I’m an alternate universe counterpart of your Twilight Sparkle?” She smiled at them so innocently...

“How old are you, um...did you say ‘pony’...Twilight Sparkle?”

“Yes, and I’m nine years old.”

“Not in that body you’re not,” Shining remarked.

Twilight looked down at herself under the blanket, then clasped her hands up in front of her collarbone. “So...no magic?” she asked, deliberately changing the topic.

“No magic,” said Shining. “Our Twilight spent a long time investigating people who claimed to wield magic, and all of them were frauds.”

“But you have science, right?”

“Oh yes,” Night Light replied. “Our Twilight was a whiz at science.”

“I like science, too,” Twilight Sparkle said shyly. “I’m just not a natural at understanding it like I do magic. On my world only unicorns, one third of the pony population, can truly realize the full potential of magic. I’ve always dreamed of finding scientific equivalents to magical spells and artifacts, so everypony can use the wonders promised by magic equally. Do you have a scientific means of contacting parallel realities?”

Twilight Velvet shook her head. “I’m sorry, but on this world that’s still in the realm of fiction.”

Twilight Sparkle thought for a bit. “Well, hope is not entirely lost.” She threw aside the covers (burying Spike with a yelp) and got out of bed, swaying for a bit as she tried to stand upright. “I breached the barrier between worlds using magic,” she stated. “I still hold a good deal of magic inside me without harm.”

“How much magic?” Cadance asked.

“Enough to rip this room out of the hospital and hurl it to Ponyville. Humanville? The next town over. Anyway, the fact that I can still hold and use magic means that this world is not antithetical to magic. It just doesn’t have that much of it right now.” She walked over to the window in her hospital gown and looked outside. “The trip between worlds should have left a weak spot, and maybe my magic will be enough to re-open it.” She blinked, and when her eyes opened, they glowed the same color of white as before, but much less intensely. “Hm...” she said as she scanned the landscape. “I can’t seem to see the weak spot, but I do see a magical artifact, right there! I should be able to use that to not just get home, but to get both of us into our proper bodies!” She turned back to them, the glow rapidly fading. “Let’s go, before it disappears!”

The parents looked to Dr. Oath for guidance. He just threw his hands up in the air.

“I’m sorry,” he told them, “but this is completely beyond my experience.”

Shining got a robe out of a closet and wrapped it around Twilight, directing her to put on a pair of slippers. “I’m sorry,” he said to the doctor, “but I have no idea if this is an emergency or not, so we’ll have to leave right now.”

“We’ll come back later,” Twilight Velvet said. “At the very least to tell you what happened.”

The doctor pointed up at the hole in the ceiling.

“You can probably charge the Church for that,” Cadance said. “I’ve got a feeling they’ll want to take a look at it.”

Once again, the doctor threw up his hands in helplessness.

Twilight Sparkle’s eyes lit up again, and she was pulled towards the door. She scrambled her feet to keep up with the supernatural pull, yelling, “Follow me!”

In seconds the doctor was alone.

...And then Shining Armor ran back in to retrieve Spike.

P. Rarity—The Markist Church of Canterlot. Shortly after dawn.

It took a long time for most of the many guests of the Church to get ready for the trip to Canterlot High School, and the portal that would take the three ponies home. Three ponies, because Pinkie and Maud had left already.

Rarity for once was early, but that was because she hadn’t gotten much sleep. At first, it was to review the fashion notes she had taken. And then it was to worry about what might happen to Applejack before the stubborn mule finally decided to do the right thing and return home. And then there was one other thing...

“Bishop Gnosi?”

“Yes, Rarity?”

“Do we have the time to visit the Solarium again? It piqued my curiosity.”

#

“I’m curious how magic might work in this world,” Rarity confided to Gnosi a few minutes later while he unlocked the greenhouse-like building. “How it might be working in this body, and how it works in there.” She pointed to the bright inner door of the Solarium.

“We Markists have the ability to convert concentrated sunlight into magic,” Gnosi patiently explained, “but we can’t hold on to it. So we can do all kinds of crazy things in the Solarium, but those things stop as soon as we leave.”

Rarity looked steadily at the glowing door. “Those of us who swapped bodies brought our magic with us, but unlike you, we can hold it. The fact that that door is blinding to me but not you suggests that I would just get a sunburn in there. But I’ve noticed that it doesn’t seem as bright to me today as it did yesterday. So over time, I think I would lose my stored magic and gain the ability to convert sunlight.”

Gnosi nodded. “That’s quite possible. But since you’re all returning to your own bodies today, we won’t have a way to test that hypothesis.”

Rarity said nothing. She knew that there was one pony who wasn’t returning.

#

After Gnosi and Rarity returned to the church, Rarity went to her room and pulled out the farewell letter to Applejack she had written in the dark hours of the previous night. She added a P.S. telling Applejack to see the bishops if she had any problems with her magic, as they knew more than they let on. She planned to slip the letter into Applejack’s locker at the school when nobody was looking.

When she returned to the group, she found them about to set out for the school, with the expectation that they would get there a few minutes before classes started.

P. Rainbow Dash.

On the van trip over to the school, Rainbow Dash started asking her parents about friends she knew in Equestria, to see if her human counterpart knew them as well.

Her question of “And what about Gilda?” was met by a stony silence. For a moment, Rainbow thought that this meant that griffons didn’t have counterparts on Earth.

“We don’t talk about Gilda,” Windy Whistles finally replied.

“Why not?” Rainbow asked.

“She and our Rainbow aren’t friends anymore,” Bow said tersely. “She’s a criminal now.”

“That’s why we tell her and the other Fluttershy never to go near The Heights. She runs the gang there, The Bloody Feathers.”

“A gang dear,” Bow corrected his wife. “There are lots of gangs in The Heights.”

“Isn’t Gilda on the Griffonstone Raptor team?” Bishop Gnosi asked from the driver’s seat of the van. “How can they let a student with a criminal record play on a sports team?”

“I’ve found that there are a lot of irregularities at Griffonstone High,” Bishop Meridiem replied. “Including the fact that the principal leads one of the other regional gangs.”

At the prompting of Archbishop August’s raised eyebrow, Meridiem added, “Unbelievers, sir.”

Meanwhile the two pegasi had descended into their own bubble of stunned silence, which lasted for the remainder of the trip.

Sunset Shimmer—Canterlot High. Shortly before First Period.

Sunset Shimmer got off of the bus, shouldering her backpack. As she ascended the steps to the school, she stopped on seeing Principal Celestia standing in front of the doors with arms crossed, staring right at her. Sunset quickly turned, only to run into the arms of Vice-Principal Luna, who held her fast.

“We would like to have a word with you, Miss Shimmer,” Luna said in a stern voice, grabbing her arm and walking her over to her sister. Sunset tried breaking free, but saw no way to pull it off. As she was frog-marched, Sunset strongly resisted the urge to look at the rearing horse statue, her possible escape route back to Equestria. She hoped that she was merely in trouble for something she had done in school, and that her secret was still safe.

Celestia walked around the corner of the building, to a narrow corridor between the exterior wall and a large manicured shrubbery, putting her out of sight of the curious students rushing into the school so as not to be late to classes. Luna brought Sunset before her.

“I’ve just been told of your true identity, Sunset,” Celestia told her. “I got the word directly out of my pony counterpart’s mouth.”

Luna released Sunset, who slumped down in defeat. “What did she tell you about me?” she asked.

“She told me of your crimes, both actual and planned,” the Principal told her. “She gave me two options. Either I can send you back through the portal before it closes, in which case she intends to send you to someplace named ‘Tartarus’ for a year to teach you some priorities. Or she will allow me to put you in one of our prisons, where you will have to live without magic.”

Sunset resisted the urge to proclaim the unfairness of her lot to the universe. “And which of those are you going to pick?”

“Neither,” Principal Celestia said with some degree of disgust. “Instead, I am offering you sanctuary from Equestrian justice.”

“What?!” Sunset said, straightening up.

“For the supposed inspiration of the Markist religion and source for all Harmony in two worlds, your princess has some enormous blind spots,” Luna said. She walked around Sunset so she could stand beside Celestia. “You are free to run away if you wish and try to make a life for yourself in the human world. If you do that you will never be allowed to use the portal to return to your homeworld, but you will have complete freedom to do whatever you want with your life.”

“Or you can choose to remain a student of this school, and become my personal charge, at least until you attain the age of eighteen,” Celestia told her. “I will allow you to start over and gain a second education on this world. I promise you that I will not prejudge you for what you did under the Princess. But neither will I forget the kinds of manipulations I now know you are capable of.”

“When the portal opens again,” Luna continued, “we will report your progress, if any, to the Princess, and it will be up to her to decide if she will allow you to return to Equestria without having to face punishment there.” She shrugged. “Or you can spend the rest of your life here. It’s all up to you.”

Sunset looked down at the ground. Her plans of using the inventions of this world to get her revenge on the Princess had been completely dashed. Both of the possibilities offered by the principal and vice-principal seemed attractive to her.

“Before you decide, there is one more matter that has to be dealt with first,” Principal Celestia told her. “When you used the portal to enter this world, did you pass through it only once, or multiple times?”

Sunset thought back before answering. “Multiple times.”

The Principal shook her head sadly. “That is what the Princess suspected. Although you had no way of knowing it, every time you passed from Earth to Equestria while carrying magic within you, you destabilized the artifact.”

“I didn’t even know I had any magic within me,” Sunset admitted. “I have been unable to access it.”

“Nevertheless, your magic did harm the portal, and this did have consequences,” Luna told her. “Six young pony females—”

“—Fillies?”

“Yes, fillies. Six random fillies and their human counterparts on this world were forced to switch minds with each other. We need to get this problem fixed by midnight tonight—”

“—Or those poor fillies will be stuck in this world for moons,” Sunset concluded in stark realization. “Do they all have families?”

“I believe so,” said Luna.

Sunset looked the two sisters in the eyes. “You may accuse me of a great many things, but I have never knowingly harmed fillies, or tried to separate one from her family. How can I help?”

“The Princess suspected that you might still possess a magical journal?”

Sunset put down her backpack and removed the large brown book. “Yes, I still have it. Does she wish to use it to coordinate our efforts?”

“Yes,” said Principal Celestia. “My method of speaking with the Princess is very limited. Using the journal will speed things considerably.”

“Alright, you can have it for today,” Sunset said, handing the book over to Celestia. “I trust you not to look at any of my conversations with the Princess.”

“You can count on us,” Celestia said. She set up the book against a windowsill and flipped through it. Finding a blank section, she began writing headers on each page. “We’ve got a lot of individuals to keep track of,” she explained, “and I want each pair of alternates to have the possibility to communicate privately with each other.” On the page labeled “Celestia” she wrote, “Sunset agrees to help.”

The words “I appreciate it,” soon appeared next to the earlier sentence. Sunset could imagine the expression on the Princess’ face, like biting into a sour lemon. She stepped forward to flip through the pages, to see if she recognized any of the names.

One of the names was “Twilight Sparkle”, which Sunset thought she had run into at some point as a pony, but had no recollection of as a human. Rarity she had met as a human, but their contact had been too limited for Sunset to have ever suspected her true identity. “Pinkie Pie” sounded familiar, but Sunset couldn’t be sure from where. The other two names and one placeholder were a complete mystery to her. (The last entry was merely “Orange skin, yellow hair”.)

“Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie and Rarity spent the night in the Markist Church, and will be here shortly,” Principal Celestia told Sunset. “Someone from the church is going to Canterlot General Hospital to check on the status of Twilight Sparkle, as we are having trouble getting through to them right now. Other members of the Church are trying to track down the mystery pony.”

“I will shortly make an announcement to the students of Canterlot High, referencing Equestria in a way that will not arouse suspicion in anyone unaware of its existence,” Luna told Sunset. “If the missing pony is attending this school, then she will respond. If not, then I will visit Crystal Prep Academy and try to have the same coded message played over their intercom system.”

“And I have to run the school. We would like you to stay here and coordinate communications with Equestria, and with us,” Celestia told Sunset.

(In her heart, Principal Celestia had a strong suspicion that she would not in fact be allowed to run the school today. But she decided to at least try to avoid the inevitable.)

“Alright,” said Sunset, taking the pen from the Principal. Producing a cell phone of doubtful provenance, she asked the two for their own cell numbers, to add to her address book.

Celestia walked over to the corner of the building as the bell for first period started ringing. “Do you see that mat in front of the statue?” she asked, having to shout to be heard.

Nobody heard the sound of a car screeching to a halt behind them, of a car door bursting open, and of the sound of feet pounding across the lawn towards the school.

Sunset looked where the Principal was pointing, at what looked like a mat of fake grass placed in front of the invisible portal. “Yes?”

“That is a magical discharge mat, sent over by the Princess. It is essential that anyone who wishes to use that portal use the mat to discharge all of their magic first, or there will be consequences. I’m trusting you to enforce this vital rule.”

“Alright,” Sunset said, stepping out of the corridor to approach the pedestal.

H. Gnosi & Meridiem.

On the edge of another lawn, the bus with “Church of the Markists” emblazoned across it had come to a stop. The two bishops got out, opened the side door, and helped everyone to exit. They then led the way across the lawn.

“There’s something important I need to tell you,” Gnosi said over his shoulder. “Something we only found out about this morning. It’s about your magic, and what it does to the portal.”

Bishop Meridiem tapped his shoulder to interrupt him, pointing at the distant figure of Sunset Shimmer. “Do you recognize that young Markist?” she asked.

Gnosi looked. “No, I’ve never seen her before in my life. How strange.”

Meridiem meanwhile had spotted the running figure, and felt a feeling of dread. “Get everybody back in the van!” she shouted to the Archbishop, before making a run for the horse statue.

Gnosi ran after her.

P. Twilight Sparkle.

“Home!” screamed Twilight Sparkle as she passed Celestia, Luna and Sunset, running full speed. Her eyes were glowing with magic as she launched herself into the air to fly right through the portal, and over the discharge mat. Her family were a few feet behind her, trying to catch up.

“Stop her!” Celestia cried.

Luna tried to get Twilight to touch the mat. Sunset tried to tackle her out of the way. They both ended up bouncing off each other as Twilight sailed through the portal.

There was a blinding flash of light from the portal as it overloaded...

Chapter 20: Consequences (basically everybody except H. Rarity, P. Applejack, Abacus Cinch and her minions)

Several ponies and humans. 9:05 am on Day Three.

A lot of things happened in the next five seconds, both on Earth and in Equestria. I’ll cover them one at a time, but for maximum chaotic effect, imagine them all happening at once.

Most obviously, Principal Celestia was engulfed in an ethereal fireball. There was a brief, brighter flash of white, and the human body of Celestia was transformed into an alicorn before it could be consumed by an excess of magical energy.

Luna, seeing what happened to Celestia, instantly came to the correct conclusion that another round of mind-swappings was now underway. She looked up at the Moon, and screamed in terror.

Princess Celestia, seeing her sister’s counterpart panic, also came to the correct conclusion as to what she was afraid of. She summoned up a magical shield around them both, and shot a beam of energy into Luna’s head to try and keep her mind in place, but she could feel it being pulled out of Luna’s skull, to make way for the other Luna. Thinking fast, Celestia changed her spell, replicating the effect of an intense brain freeze. Luna’s cry changed from fear to pain, which quickly faded, as no brain freeze is really that painful. After a few moments, Celestia felt the pull die off, and after waiting a couple of minutes more, removed the spell.

Spike had not liked his first car ride, not one bit. He had jumped out of the car as soon as Twilight had burst out, running in a random direction, and Shining Armor and Cadance had run after him.

Twilight Velvet and Night Light, seeing the dopple of their daughter disappear into the side of a stone statue and noting all tartarus breaking loose in their peripheral vision, simultaneously came to the same illogical conclusion, leaping through the portal themselves. They at least used the magic-cancelling mat, although not on purpose.

Gnosi Augur and Meridiem Tempest had collapsed mid-run. They spent the five seconds just figuring out what had happened to them, and where the streets of Canterlot had gone. They hadn’t even gotten to the point of realizing they weren’t ponies anymore.

Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, their family members and Archbishop August had all been too far away to be affected. Pinkie Pie and Maud shared a significant look over what they had witnessed, before opening the van door and leading the others over to see what they could do to help.

And Sunset Shimmer just stood there.

In the basement of the School of Magic, Celestia fainted. Her mane reverted to pink hair, she shrunk down in size, and her wings faded out of existence.

The attention of Rainbow Dash, Applejack and Twilight Sparkle, all of them humans in filly bodies, was on the mirror portal. They saw a second copy of Twilight, this one older, stumble through, followed by her parents. This last bit was rather confusing, as those same parents were also standing behind them.

Bow Hothoof and Windy Whistles weren’t in the School of Magic, as has been established. So nothing happened to them. Shining Armor was out doing his guard duties for the day. Like Rainbow Dash’s parents, he didn’t expect to see a loved one returned to their rightful body before lunchtime at the earliest. Shining had brought Spike with him on his rounds, to answer the question “how hard could it be?” (Answer: a lot). So nothing happened to them, either.

Gilda suddenly stood up on her hind paws and looked around her in panic. “What the f—?!” she tried to scream.

She was stopped by the hoof of Fluttershy shoved into her beak. “Don’t you dare!” she screamed at human Gilda.

Fluttershy had been paying attention to Raven’s complicated explanation of a few minutes prior, and being somewhat a pessimist when it came to the affairs of humanity, had instantly concluded that something was going to screw up, and picked more switching as one of the possible outcomes.

“You listen here, Gilda!” she said, flying up to be above the very confused griffon. “This is a near-perfect world, of peace and understanding between all creatures. One of the many, many ways that it is superior to Earth is the lack of swearing. I will not have Equestria befouled by your filthy vocabulary.”

Gilda squinted her eyes at the yellow pegasus. “You’re awfully angry for such a cute little thing,” she quipped.

“You’re one to talk,” Fluttershy retorted.

Gilda looked herself over. “F—!” she tried to get out, only to be hoof-blocked once more.

The two sets of Twilight parents looked around in confusion. The fact that two of them came through the portal so soon after Twilight was what prevented them from switching minds with each other.

Trixie sucked her thermos with all her might, and so also escaped switching with her human counterpart. “Ow,” she said faintly.

And Raven just stood there.

P. Celestia—Canterlot High School.

Princess Celestia dropped her shield. Standing tall, she looked around, and instantly locked eyes with Sunset Shimmer.

“Well,” she said darkly.

“Well,” Sunset replied archly. She pointed over at the plinth. “I assume that was Twilight Sparkle?”

“Yes,” said Celestia, looking down. “I picked her out to be your replacement.”

“Well,” Sunset repeated. “How’s that working out for you?”

Celestia rolled her eyes before looking up. “She has...enthusiasm.”

Sunset nodded.

Celestia resumed her scan of her surroundings. She spotted several humans peeking at her between blinds in the window. With a sigh, she walked over to the plinth, then summoned a very large tent into existence that completely covered it, and her. The round walls were made up of alternating vertical panels of red and yellow, atop which was a conical roof made of triangular panels meeting at the top, colored the opposite of the wall panels they touched. Atop the structure was a pennant flag with Celestia’s cutie mark on it.

“Oh, what stories of epic heroism have you seen?” Luna asked herself. She turned around to see the eyes of the curious students. “Get back to class!” she yelled, scowling. The eyes disappeared. She realized that some of them belonged to teachers. She then pushed aside a flap to enter the tent.

The Princess used her magical senses to study the plinth. “Sunset, the book,” she commanded, not even looking behind her at the red-and-golden haired girl.

“Yes, Your Highness,” Sunset said snarkily, handing it over. She then looked down at a pebble, putting one hand to her temple and extending the other in a gesture of command, trying to will the rock to lift into the air.

Nothing happened.

Celestia took a moment to examine the ball point pen located inside the book before using it to start writing on the page with her name on it.

P. Gnosi & Meridiem.

The two fallen ponies in human bodies rose to their knees, slowly examining themselves.

“Gnosi, did you turn me into a strange alien creature?” Meridiem asked.

“I was going to ask you the same thing,” Gnosi replied.

They looked behind them to see two other creatures with forms similar to their own: Pinkie and Maud. They quickly filled them in on what had happened.

Examiners Gnosi and Meridiem accepted the news calmly. This was far from the first time that a magical mishap at Celestia’s School of Magic had transformed one or the other of them into an alien form, although...

“A stable mind transference has never before been accomplished, to my knowledge,” Meridiem said. “This could be an interesting field of study.”

Archbishop August, who had been standing behind the Pies and had heard most of the conversation, sighed inwardly before stepping forward. “Welcome to Earth,” he said, before pointing at the tent. “It appears that your princess is also a visitor to this world. Perhaps we should speak with her together.”

Gnosi and Meridiem nodded, then rose to their feet. They helped each other walk towards the tent. August walked slowly behind them, trying to nerve himself up to the task of speaking with his goddess.

Raven—Equestria, Basement of the School of Magic.

Raven read the words on the page of the Zero-X book over and over again, trying desperately to will into existence a universe where they weren’t true. Her Princess was in another universe, and she had ordered Raven to carry out her will in Equestria. The absence of her ruler, her friend, her life, left a gaping void in her heart.

“Hello?” a voice behind her cried out. A voice that should have been the Princess’, but it was not, because it was scared, and the Princess was never scared of anything.

With a deep sigh, Raven turned around to take in the sight of the pitiful weakling unicorn that had replaced the mighty Princess Celestia of Equestria.

“Principal Celestia,” she said in as calm a voice as she could manage. “I need you to calm down. You’re going to be in that body for quite some time.”

“I don’t understand,” the Principal whimpered. “I can just go through the portal and she can switch us back, right?”

Raven closed her eyes in frustration. “No,” she said. “The Princess cannot return to Equestria without relinquishing all of her magic. Anything else risks destroying the portal utterly.” She re-opened her eyes and looked at the pink unicorn directly. “And if she de-powers, who will cast the spells to put everypony else into their bodies? We are missing the human Rarity, and the pony Applejack. And Equestria cannot go an entire day without a Celestia presenting herself to the public. There would be widespread panic.”

“Yes.” Principal Celestia closed her own eyes so she wouldn’t have to see any more alien creatures, and took a few calming breaths. “I know all of that. I was just...well I was just panicking myself.” She opened her eyes. “I’m sure I can impersonate...” She noticed that she was at eye level with Raven, so she examined herself. “Why am I not tall? What happened to my color? My mane? My wings?”

Raven made the nearest wall reflective, so Principal Celestia could examine herself. “This is what the Princess looked like in the first few decades of her life. She only achieved the form you know when she became an alicorn. Since this mind swapping involves the pony taking their magic with them...”

“I’m stuck looking like this,” Celestia concluded. “So I’m useless to you.”

“Don’t you have mages?” Rainbow Dash asked, butting into the conversation. “One of them could whip up an illusion spell of the Princess, right?”

“All of our trusted mages are in Yakyakistan, following the false trail left by Sunset Shimmer,” Raven explained. “Sure, we could recruit some random pony with a talent in illusions, but I would prefer it to be you if at all possible. And the Princess agrees.”

“There’s still the matter of appearance,” Celestia said.

“And that I am going to solve,” Raven said. She walked around the corner of the room and up the stairs.

Several ponies peeked their heads around to see what would happen.

Vinny the royal guard opened the door. “What is it, Raven?” he asked, seeing the obvious worry on her face.

“The Princess has temporarily lost all of her magic,” the aide told him. “I need you to get every magical charging artifact in the city down here as soon as possible.”

“Wow!” Vinny exclaimed. He turned around, prepared to dash off.

“Vice-Captain!” Raven ordered, causing the other pony to freeze. “There are two devices located in the nurse’s office of this building, on the second floor. Have somepony bring those down here while you go out and get the others. That way we can start restoring our princess as soon as possible.”

“Yeah, I’ll do that,” Vinny said, before dashing around a corner. “Hey you two!” his voice could be heard commanding. “We have a crisis on our hooves!”

Raven closed the door and descended the stairs to stand before the Principal. “See? Once we get enough magic in you, you should transform into a duplicate of the Princess.”

“What if her alicornhood went along with her magic?” Celestia asked.

Raven took in a sharp breath. “We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,” she said quietly. In a louder voice she said, “Now I have to go and clear the Princess’ early schedule, and then round up the human Gnosi and Meridiem. Currently, the plan is as follows: as soon as Pinkie Pie arrives by train, there should be at least six humans matched up with six ponies: Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Twilight Sparkle, Pinkie Pie, Gnosi Augur and Meridiem Tempest. That group will go through the mirror portal to be switched with their pony counterparts by the Princess. Remember, the goal is to use the mirror the absolute minimum number of times, and to be absolutely sure that any individual crossing from Earth to Equestria discharges before crossing. And Principal Celestia?”

“Yes?”

“As soon as you have the right form, you’re leading the search party looking for Rarity. The role will be largely ceremonial, as I will be doing the actual searching, but your presence is absolutely necessary to hold together the frankly second-rate ponies gathered to perform this vital job. I expect you will find it distressingly similar to your day job. That’s what your counterpart keeps telling me.”

“I see,” said the Principal. With a sigh, she walked over to the magical book. She looked down to read the most-recent entry and smiled. “I see that my sister is wishing me luck.”

“As do I,” Raven said. She turned around, re-ascended the staircase, and opened the door. Four guards were waiting there with the charging artifacts belonging to the school. “Take those downstairs. I trust I do not need to order you to keep the current status of the Princess a secret?”

“No, ma’am,” the stone-faced lead guard replied.

Raven walked out of the doorway, and the guards carefully descended with their valuable cargo.

P. Twilight Sparkle.

Pony Twilight had started crying as soon as she had found out what her action had caused. “It’s all my fault the Princess is stuck on Earth,” she sobbed.

Her parents surrounded her on either side with their embrace.

“You couldn’t have known, Twilight,” Human Twilight said. She was acutely aware that her words had much less weight because they were coming out of a filly’s body with a filly’s little voice.

“Of course I should have known!” Pony Twilight barked back. “It was a magical artifact traversing the boundary between a magic-rich and a magic-poor setting. The equations practically write themselves!”

Human Twilight was lost for a moment in thought, trying to pull those equations from the other Twilight’s head into her own. “Well, unless you unicorns have figured out how to reverse polarity, then it’s best for you to leave the past in the past.”

“It’s possible,” Pony Twilight countered. “But the mana requirements are so high that it’s difficult even for the Princess to accomplish.” Thinking over her counterpart’s words, she wiped her eyes with a fetlock. “And yes, that’s sound advice.” She then took a moment to look over the smaller Twilight. “Hey, what did you do to my horn! ...No, I’m sorry, that was me, wasn’t it?” She leaned in close, then gasped. “Doesn’t that hurt?”

“Well I felt a little something when the wind hit it an hour ago,” Human Twilight said, raising her hoof up towards the stripped surface of her horn, but stopping herself before she made the mistake of touching it. “But no. I have no knowledge of how magic works, so as not to send any mana through it.”

Pony Twilight nodded her head. “That makes sense, I hope you told everypony who you were as soon as possible.”

“Err...”

H. Twilight Velvet & Night Light.

Pony Twilight’s parents, seeing that the two purple unicorns appeared to be getting along, pulled aside their once-human counterparts.

“I hope you’re adapting well,” Pony Night Light said.

Human Night Light lifted a hoof and gave it a once-over. “Well we figured out standing and walking pretty fast, so this shouldn’t be too bad.” He put it down to look at his mirror image, looking for any differences in appearance. “So, what do you do for a living?”

“I’m an astronomer, and Velvet here is a magical researcher.”

“I imagine you don’t do the same thing,” Pony Twilight Velvet joked.

“No,” said Human Twilight Velvet. “I’m a financial advisor, and my husband is a dietician.”

“Although astronomy is my hobby,” Human Night Light added.

Pony Night Light looked around, to be sure that nobody was about to hear what he was going to say. “Look, we need to discuss what’s going to happen with our daughters...”

H. Rainbow Dash.

It turned out that this wasn’t the first time that Princess Celestia had needed a magical boost to deal with a threat to Equestria. It was just the first time in living memory that the Princess had looked like that. So it was with practiced ease that the guards had made their modifications to the charging artifacts, removing the booths attached to each one and setting each one up so that it sent a beam of magical energy down, the two beams converging in the same spot. Celestia stood in the designated spot, and her charging began.

Human Twilight was all over the machines in an instant, using her enhanced senses to study them. Twilight—both Twilights, actually—already had a habit of speaking her observations out loud as a way to organize them in her brain. And Pony Twilight was right there beside her, eagerly taking in this unprecedented chance to examine the working innards of an actual artifact.

So yes, the human Twilight had retained her ability to see how things worked just by looking at them, even without the sedative. But now she saw intriguing patterns instead of full equations, and she was no longer suffering from a manic episode.

Meanwhile Gilda had been standing still, her back to the wall, watching and listening to everything that had been going on. Once the guards had left the room, she had casually strode over to one of the two artifacts, looking it over. She ran a claw over the surface, and then had turned around and casually leaned back against it. The device was sturdy; it did not move under her weight.

The whole time that Gilda had been standing against that wall, Rainbow Dash had been stealing glances at her, trying to figure out what to say. (The whole time, with the exception of that time she had interrupted Raven’s conversation with Principal Celestia. And that other time she wrote a message to her counterpart in the magic book.) Now that Gilda had changed position, she finally thought of something to say, and tried her best to walk casually over to her. “So, you don’t think this is a dream or anything, do you?”

Gilda said nothing for a few moments, staring at the cutie mark visible on one side of the cerulean pegasus. “No, this is no dream,” she said at last. Looking around her, she said, “This is where the Markists get their magic from.”

“You believe in magic?” Rainbow asked incredulously.

“I’d have to be an idiot not to. I grew up in a city seeing highly improbable acts on a daily basis. Sure, any one of them by themselves could be explained logically but put them all together and it’s obvious that something supernatural is going on. I’ve seen The Omen.”

Rainbow Dash, having never seen that movie, missed the connection.

“So now I’m in some griffon’s body,” Gilda continued.

“Yeah, you switched bodies with your counterpart. You see, this is an alternate universe.”

“OK, Rainbow,” Gilda said laconically. “So when do you think we can go flying?”

Rainbow froze as she was forced to process several startling revelations at one. She decided to deal with them in chronological order. “How did you know what a griffon is? How did you know it was me? And you can’t fly, because you haven’t got any magic.”

Gilda turned her head to look at the glowing light of magic surrounding Celestia, chewing the inside of her cheek in lieu of a toothpick. “One. I’ve watched Harry Potter, although I will pound you if you tell anyone. Two. The mark on your rear—which is so you it’s sickening, combined with the dumb look on your muzzle. Hey, Fluttershy.”

“Hey,” Fluttershy whispered from her spot by the wall.

“Three. I’m fixing that right now.” Gilda patted the side of the charging machine with a claw for emphasis.

Rainbow Dash reached forward and experimentally touched the side of the machine with a hoof, jerking it back at the strange sensation that it gave her, the feeling of magic finally entering her magicless body. Then she leapt forward and embraced the thing with her wings. “Gimmie!”

Gilda had to put a claw over her beak to contain the laughter.

Fluttershy cautiously walked up to stand before her.

Gilda raised an eyebrow in admiration at the pegasus’ audacity. Noting her cutie mark she said, “So, Little Butterfly, how are you holding up under the pressure?”

Fluttershy looked away as she composed her response. “I kind of wish I could stay forever.”

“That good, huh?” Experimentally, Gilda stepped away from the artifact and flexed her wings. A powerful burst of air briefly lifted her into the air. “Interesting... Hey RD, are you full up yet?”

Rainbow Dash stepped back and tried out her own flying ability. “Yeah,” she said.

“So let’s say we take a look around,” Gilda suggested. “Like the black-haired pony said, we’re not doing anything for a few hours. We could catch up on the way.”

Rainbow Dash smiled. “I’d really like that. Are you coming, Fluttershy?”

“Of course Flutters is coming,” Gilda said, pulling her into a wing-hug. “I need her as my censor, right?”

“Right,” Fluttershy grumbled in a tiny voice.

Gilda guffawed. “This place has really given you a backbone!” she exclaimed. “Any other friends you want to drag along?” she asked Rainbow.

“Applejack, do you want to walk around Canterlot with us?” Rainbow asked.

Applejack looked up from her deep reverie. “No, I’d just keep you birds on the ground.”

“Are you alright?” Fluttershy asked.

“I just...I just want to go home, as soon as possible,” Applejack told her. “I...I need to see my parents.”

Fluttershy nodded. “We’ll come back after lunch,” she told Principal Celestia. She had noticed that the Principal had observed the entire conversation.

Celestia, figuring she was in charge in the absence of Raven, nodded.

The group of three winged creatures exited the room.

A moment later, Gilda ran back, picked up the pen, and wrote something in the book before leaving.

Celestia, stuck in the beam of rejuvenating magic, hoped whatever she had written wasn’t too serious.

P. Trixie.

“Twilight, this is Trixie, my best friend,” Pony Twilight said.

“Yeah, she’s the one who outed me,” Human Twilight said.

Trixie, who had been trying to contain herself throughout the interminable conversation between the two Twilights, rushed forward to hug her friend. “I was so worried about you!” she exclaimed. “I’ve heard so many horror stories about Earth. Most of them derived from horror movies, I admit.”

“It seemed like a nice enough place for the short time I was conscious to experience it,” Pony Twilight said.

P. Celestia—Earth, Under Celestia’s Tent.

“Princess, is there any chance we might be allowed to stay in these bodies?” an eager Pony Gnosi asked Celestia. “The chance to study how magic works with a new species, in this ‘solarium’ that the archbishop describes, would be a fascinating experience. Even if you did prevent publication for reasons of national security.”

“And I haven’t had a chance to exercise my Sociology minor in ages,” added Pony Meridiem. “I love working at your school, but Harmony knows how I’ve wished for a worthy sabbatical.”

“What about the offer to help Twilight Sparkle?”

“Helping a pony in need obviously comes first,” Meridiem answered, looking over at Gnosi to get a nod of affirmation. “This would be pending that.”

“I think the decision to stay in those bodies would be up to your counterparts, as well as your employer,” Celestia said cautiously, gesturing at the Archbishop.

“Well, I wouldn’t want to force my bishops’ hands,” August said. “But I would think the chance to see the source of their faith up close and personal would be a chance they would be fools to give up. Their learnings could revolutionize Markism. Not to mention whatever advances to the knowledge of human magic that you would be able to provide us, Mr. Augur.”

“Please, call me Gnosi.”

“I don’t know...” the Princess said.

“The human Gnosi Augur and Meridiem Tempest can absolutely be trusted to keep any secrets that you ask of them,” August pleaded. “Both in Equestria and when they return to Earth.”

Celestia sighed. “I’ll pass the question on to be answered by the bishops when they are found. Let’s not think of anything else until that matter is resolved.”

H. Luna.

The Princess looked over at Vice-Principal Luna, just as the trauma of her recent near-possession suddenly caught up with her. She walked up to her sister’s counterpart and summoned up a soundproof sphere around the two of them. “How are you holding up?” she gently asked Luna.

Luna took a moment to calm her breathing. “It’s...not half as bad as the time she actually had control of this body.”

“You’re safe now,” Celestia assured her.

Luna nodded. As she looked through the Princess’ flowing mane, she saw Sunset Shimmer sink down to sit on the grass at the far corner of the tent, examining the pebble she failed to move earlier.

Celestia noticed this and looked over at her shoulder. “I...I’m sorry about what you might have witnessed earlier. Sunset really knows how to push my buttons.”

“And vice versa,” Luna observed. “I’m not really mad at you. No, my ire is reserved for her mother.”

Celestia looked curiously over at Sunset. “Her mother? She doesn’t have a mother. She’s been living in the palace since she was six.” She looked back at Luna, to be met by a punch in the face.

“You did this to her!” Luna cried. To Celestia’s incredulous look she said, “You’re the one she thinks of as her mother.”

“She never told that to me!” Celestia said, rubbing her sore jaw.

“She’s too stubborn to ever say it out loud,” Luna told her.

“This is ridiculous!” Celestia protested. “She should know full well that I can’t love a mortal. Not again.”

“Are you telling me you never told her that you loved her?” Luna asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Oh, of course I did when I first took her in. It was the only way to get her to go to sleep at night.”

“And when was the last time you said it?”

Celestia thought for a moment. “The night before I made her my student. Right before she turned nine.”

“And you don’t think there’s anything wrong with that?” Luna demanded.

“It’s alright!” she protested. “My father stopped saying he loved me at the same time, right before he started using us as...pawns...” Her tone in that sentence had shifted from self-defensive posturing to open-mouthed shock.

And then Celestia used her magic to make Luna slap her again. Hard.

Wordlessly she turned, popped the bubble, and walked over to Sunset, who rose with uncertainty to her feet.

Luna observed a great deal of confusion on Sunset’s face. She had watched the (to her) silent confrontation, and seemed equally split between wanting to attack Luna for daring to strike the Princess, and wanting to cheer Luna on for putting the would-be goddess in her place.

“What was that all about?!” Sunset demanded.

And then Celestia summoned another sound-proof bubble around herself and Sunset, so now Luna was the one trying to figure out what was going on based on non-verbal cues.

The Princess appeared to apologize profusely, and it looked like Sunset might even have forgiven her, until the Princess appeared to say “I love you.” This turned Sunset completely against her, and Celestia stood and took a stream of virulent shouting from her ex-student. Eventually Sunset said something that went too far, and Celestia started shouting back. At one point in the following hyperbolic exchange Sunset dropped to her knees and pulled open the top of her shirt, apparently mock-begging the “almighty” Celestia to strike her down with a lightning bolt for her impiety. At that point Celestia broke the bubble and stalked over to Luna. Sunset meanwhile stalked over to her Zero-X book, which was now sitting on a mahogany rostrum that Celestia had summoned into existence along with the tent. She busied herself with flipping through the pages.

“That didn’t appear to go well,” Luna observed to Celestia in a low voice.

Celestia sighed. “I think it might be too late for the direct approach. She said she’d rather live here with no magic for the rest of her life rather than spend five minutes in the same world as me.” When Luna didn’t show the shocked expression she expected she added, “Magic is the core of her cutie mark. Living without it would drive her literally insane, and she knows it.”

“So what are you going to do?” Luna asked.

Celestia looked over at Sunset, who was staring at the sun mark on the cover of her book with a look of seething rage. “I’m going to save her,” she vowed. “Even if I have to throw myself under the cart to do it.”

Just then Sunset started reading aloud from a message she had found in the book:

“Sorry to drop this on ya, but I sort of left my body robbing the Barnyard Bargains on the corner of T and 47th when your magic thing snatched my soul. Mind straightening that out for me? Thanks a ton. Gilda the Human.”

The tent was filled with a simultaneous groan. Fluttershy’s groan was so loud it could be heard from the other side of the tent!

Raven—Equestria, the Basement.

“Make way, coming through!” Vinny the Vice-Captain cried out, leading more than a dozen guards carrying seven magical chargers. He halted on seeing no big white alicorn in the room. “Princess Celestia?”

The demure pink unicorn using her teeth to hold a feather pen and write a message on a book looked up at him. “I’th Thelesthia,” she said. With a frown she spat out the pen and repeated. “I am Celestia. Set up the artifacts over there.”

“...Yes, Your Highness!” Vinny exclaimed after a startled pause.

As soon as the artifacts were successfully configured and aligned, Celestia stepped into the blindingly bright light.

The guards stood around, watching.

Raven then came barging in at top speed, dragging Human Gnosi and Meridiem with her. “Did somebody say it?” she demanded. “Did somebody dare to ask, ‘what could possibly go wrong?’” She looked accusingly around at everyone in the room.

They all shook their heads.

Celestia pointed at the book. “If you had a premonition, it was probably tied to that.”

Raven walked over and looked at the message, followed by Celestia’s messy reply. “Guards, return to your stations,” she said in a dangerously quiet voice. When they were gone she asked, “Where’s Gilda?”

“She, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy went out to see the town. I didn’t get to see the message before they were long gone. I’m sorry.”

Raven sighed and looked around her. The Twilights were busy talking to Trixie and each other. The parents of the twins were having an argument. Applejack was stuck in a funk. “No, it’s alright,” she told Celestia. “I told you that charging was the most-important thing. By the way, how are you feeling?”

“Well I definitely have all the magic in me that I can hold,” Celestia said, looking down to confirm that she still hadn’t transformed into an alicorn. “Is this a sort of phase change situation, where I stay a unicorn until I hit a tipping point, and then change?”

The human Celestia may have majored in Education in college, but she minored in Physics.

“No,” Raven said with a frown. She flipped a master switch that turned off all of the chargers at once, then moved one aside so Celestia could escape. “You were right, you are just a unicorn. I’m going to need to find an illusionist.”

“Maybe not.” Trixie had noticed the sound of the artifacts powering down, and had caught the end of the conversation between Raven and Celestia. “My counterpart created a solid hologram generator.”

Human Twilight appeared to teleport into a position less than a hooves’ width in front of her face. “Really?” she asked. “I thought that technology was confined to the federal government!”

“Tell that to the Crystal Prep Alumni Association,” Trixie replied. “They snuck a generator into every wrist computer.”

“Really?” Human Twilight repeated. She brought her arm up out of reflex to check out her own wrist computer, but of course she didn’t have one as a unicorn. “I read through the online manual multiple times...”

“And you wouldn’t have found it,” Trixie told her. “It was a completely secret function.”

“Are you telling me that Principal Cinch would deliberately hide that information from her own... Wait, this is Principal Cinch, a woman who hoards information like a miser hoards gold. Of course she put a ton of secret features into the wrist computers.”

“Would that kind of technology fool a unicorn?” Pony Twilight Velvet asked.

“Well we might as well find out,” Raven said. She picked up the wet feather pen for a moment, then dropped it in disgust and produced another one from who knows where. “Ponies can hold back their spit,” she informed Celestia as she began writing. “Having dry lips is practically the basis of their entire civilization.”

“Oops,” said Celestia, feeling sheepish.

H. Trixie—Earth, outside Canterlot High.

Human Trixie came running out of the doors, eager to discover what was behind all the wild rumors regarding what was going on out here. She saw the tent, inwardly shrugged, and then walked over and through the tent’s flap. And then she paused. “Hello, Princess Celestia,” she said. “You summoned me?”

“It’s good to finally see you, Trixie,” the Princess said. “Your pony counterpart had a lot to say about you.”

“I’m about to be smote, aren’t I?”

“No, because you recognized your mistake eventually and did your best to make up for it. And also because I don’t smite anymore. The reason I had the Vice-Principal call you here is because Principal Celestia is currently in Equestria, and she needs your illusion device in order to impersonate me.”

Trixie thought for a bit. “My illusion...oh! The pip boy! Sure, give me a moment.”

“Trixie...”

“Yes?”

“Is there any way you can quickly put together a second ‘pip boy’? I need to put on an illusion of my own, and if I can save my magic for emergencies by using a technological solution, I’m all for it.”

Trixie grimaced. “The pip boy was the result of a lot of trial and error. I’d need a Twilight Sparkle to throw another one together in any reasonable amount of time.”

“Oh is that all?” the Princess said casually. “I happen to have a spare Twilight Sparkle.”

P. Celestia. 11:15 am.

“Please send both Twilight Sparkles through the portal,” Celestia had written in a note addressed to Raven. “I need the human, and I would like to speak with the pony.” She had had the magic-absorbing mat removed from in front of the portal, so that Pony Twilight would be able to keep her magic.

Two copies of the same purple girl emerged from the portal, one aged nine and the other aged fourteen. The younger one with the older mind was wearing a set of casual children’s clothes summoned into existence by the portal. The older one with the younger mind was wearing the hospital gown and robe she had worn when she had jumped through the portal in the other direction.

“Which one of you go to Crystal Prep?” Trixie asked.

When Human Twilight raised her hand Trixie beckoned her over to stand beside her, at a table that had all of Trixie’s tools carefully laid out.

Pony Twilight meanwhile looked up at the Princess with a terrified expression.

“Are you going to smite me?” she asked in a little voice.

The Princess rolled her eyes. “No, I am not. You made a mistake, and you are sorry.”

“I am sorry!” Pony Twilight insisted. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Well first, let me get you dressed in something decent.” With a flash of the Princess’ horn, Twilight’s attire was replaced by a genuine wizard’s robe, in purple with yellow and white stars. (No hat.)

Trixie’s jaw dropped—it looked a hundred times better than her performing costume. “...Could I get one of those over my current clothes? In blue, with the hat?” she asked in a small voice. “Pretty, pretty, pretty please?”

Celestia smiled indulgently. Pony Trixie had told her last night that her counterpart’s passion for magic and for using it to make children happy was her best personality trait. Another flash of magic, and Human Trixie’s wish was granted.

“YES!” Trixie crowed, jumping up and down.

Everyone stared at her.

Trixie stopped jumping. She turned back to a stunned Human Twilight. “Right—so where were we?”

Princess Celestia turned back to her pony student. “Twilight, I heard something from Raven, and I wanted to know if it was true: Can you learn any spell, just from watching it being cast?”

Twilight thought for a bit. “I...think so. I only cast one spell that way so far.”

“Well why don’t you try one?” Celestia suggested. “If in fact you can do it, you can help us in our work of getting everything fixed up here on Earth.”

“Oh! I can try to teleport! I’ve seen you do that plenty of times!”

“Actually, that’s a rather difficult...”

“Here I go!” Twilight exclaimed, and then bamfed out of existence. She came back into existence a few meters away, a half-meter off the ground, and on fire.

Before she even had a chance to scream, Celestia had put out the fire, put her on the ground, and healed her of her injuries. “Maybe not that particular spell,” she said to the trembling form of her new student. “But you got most of the details right. Stick with me and we’ll see what else you might be able to learn.”

“OK,” Twilight said in a very small voice. She should have been terrified, especially considering what she thought she saw out of the corner of her eye during her teleport, but the fact that the Princess was acting as her personal magic tutor was too absolutely amazing for her to be anything but giddy.

Human Twilight Sparkle needed a stepstool in order to help Trixie with her work of modifying and programming Twilight’s wrist computer into a holoprojector. It turned out that the device already had Principal Celestia’s likeness programmed into it, a lucky break, and a reason for the Principal to have a long talk with Principal Cinch when this was all over. Getting Princess Celestia’s form into the pip boy took several scans of the alicorn from all possible angles. That pip boy was then put into Sunset’s backpack and lightly tossed through the portal after tapping it a few times on the magic-draining mat, just in case.

Sunset sighed. “That backpack contained all the human technology I was going to sneak back into Equestria and use to overthrow you,” she confessed to the Princess. “You might as well have it all, now that the jig is up.”

“Did you manage to fit a shoulder-mounted rocket launcher in there?” Trixie asked.

“What’s that?” Sunset asked.

“I’ll take that as a ‘no’,” Trixie said. “I’m willing to bet that you wouldn’t have been able to overthrow the Princess.”

As if the Princess needed confirmation where the pony Trixie got her cynicism from. As for Sunset...

Sunset Shimmer.

Sunset retreated to in a corner of the tent, trying not to get in the way. Mostly, though, she was looking at Princess Celestia, still in her alicorn form.

Human eyes were a bit different in what they could see compared to pony eyes. They seemed really good at details, at picking out the one little thing that was important. ...Like a hunter’s eyes, she realized. And what these human eyes were telling Sunset was that despite having every reason in the world to hate her, Princess Celestia was still the most beautiful, awesome being in the universe. She hated having these feelings, because the Princess would always do something to prove them wrong.

And then that being locked eyes with her and walked right up to her, a very serious look on her face. A bubble of silence appeared around the three of them. Three, because Pony Twilight Sparkle was standing right there, her eyes wide open and expecting to be taught an amazing new spell at any moment.

“Sunset,” Celestia said to Sunset, “despite having a counterpart over there, I cannot be in two places at once. Equestria needs me to return to it, else there will be a panic. And I need to lower the sun and raise the moon. I feel that the ponies will not be available to switch before I have to use the portal.”

“And if you use the portal, you have to discharge all your magic,” Sunset replied.

“It will take hours to recharge and then I won’t be available for quite some time after that to cast the switching spell. Despite everything you have done to destroy my trust, I need you to cast the spell for me during the time when I’m unavailable.”

“Well sure, Princess,” said Sunset without hesitation. “You’ve got every reason to be angry with me, but I hope you’ll remember that I never used my magic against anypony weak or powerless.”

“That is correct; you used your words to destroy them instead.”

Sunset said nothing. (Twilight said nothing as well, but was only now beginning to realize that there was a serious conversation going on around her.)

“I can change your human form to make it possible for you to cast spells again,” Celestia said with a sad look in her eyes. “But the spell I’ll be using is not entirely the right one, because I don’t have the time to develop the right spell. You’ll look human, but every other human will look at you and see something wrong, something...evil, that they can’t define. You won’t be able to discharge using any known Equestrian artifact, and you won’t be able to use the portal without causing a feedback explosion big enough to take out half of both Canterlots—a smaller version of what would happen if I used the portal without discharging first.”

Sunset was initially quite frightened on hearing this description, but she soon calmed herself. “But you would be able to reverse the spell, so that’s not a problem. Right?”

Celestia frowned. “No, Sunset. Think through the logistics: You are going to switch my counterpart and I before this is over. And after that happens, I will fully be a human in this world, and unable to cast spells. If I do this, there is no way that I know that you can ever return to Equestria.”

Sunset’s mind reeled. “Surely there’s some other way!” she exclaimed. “Can Princess Cadance help?”

Celestia shook her head. “She’s powerful, yes, but still woefully inexperienced in magic. There’s no way to teach her either of the two spells in time. And you saw what Pony Twilight Sparkle did with a teleport spell.” (Twilight looked at the ground in shame.) “The only other unicorns that could work are in Yakyakistan right now—thanks to you—and teleporting there would trigger a war.”

“What if the timing worked out?” an increasingly desperate Sunset asked. “If every human and pony showed up right now, could you do it all yourself?”

“Yes, except for switching the two Celestias,” the Princess said somberly. “And I can’t do that.”

“And Equestria cannot survive without the Princess,” Sunset concluded, equally somber. She looked up at Celestia. “This is my fault; I’m the one who trapped these ponies here. This is the price I willingly pay to make things right. Do it. Cast the spell on me.”

Celestia charged her horn, then stopped. “Promise me that you won’t conquer this world with the magic that I will unlock.”

Sunset’s jaw dropped open in the shock of disappointment. “Do you really think that the reason I wanted to be an alicorn was for power?”

“Was there another reason?” Celestia asked cautiously.

(Twilight looked nervously between the two.)

Sunset broke eye contact. “...No,” she lied.

Celestia closed her eyes in disappointment. “So be it.”

And she cast the spell. Sunset couldn’t figure out why Celestia included the plinth in the spell and considering Celestia’s stern expression, it was unlikely that she was going to get an answer to the academic question any time soon.

(Twilight nodded in satisfaction—the Princess had made the spell really easy to pick up. Although, she didn’t think she’d have any reason to give magic-and-ugliness to a human anytime soon.)

P. Rarity.

Now that she was ready with the Principal disguise, Princess Celestia could accompany Archbishop August to the police standoff that they had confirmed was in progress at The Height’s branch of Barnyard Bargains. Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy were going to accompany them, to be used if necessary to calm Gilda down.

Their parents were probably going to insist on going along.

Shining Armor was hovering around, an anxious Spike squirming in his arms, waiting for the right moment to hug Twilight. He knew better than to get close to her when she was in the zone like she was now.

Pinkie Pie and Maud were in a corner, playing jacks.

Rainbow Dash had taken her turn to look at her page in the book. She found a long message from her counterpart explaining what she had been up to. She stated her intention of switching schools as soon as she got her body back, and the fact that Fluttershy was the primary reason. She then said that the reason she bothered to tell her counterpart this was in order to strengthen the human Rainbow Dash’s resolve—the more people she told, the more she felt she had to go through with her promise.

The pony Fluttershy read all of this over Rainbow Dash’s shoulder, and said nothing.

Rarity approached Vice-Principal Luna, who had stepped in for a moment to see how things were going. “I think I caught something about a deadline?” she asked.

Sweetie Belle positioned herself close enough to overhear the conversation.

“Yes, the portal closes at midnight tonight,” the Vice-Principal replied.

Rarity felt like she had broken out into a cold sweat, although of course she was far too much of a lady to actually do that. “And when does it next open?”

“We’re not really sure,” Luna told her. “On the Equestrian side, it’s ‘thirty moons’, which is two-and-a-half years? But the relative nature of time between the worlds is uncertain. It could be ten years...or a million.”

(Luna didn’t really believe this. Based on the dreams she had shared with Princess Celestia, she figured that the actual time would be less for Earth than for Equestria. But she was fairly sure she knew why Rarity was asking these questions, and the girl’s next statement confirmed it:)

“I know that the last pony is Applejack. She swore me to secrecy because she wants to stay here for a while longer, but I cannot allow this charade to go on for a minute longer. Vice-Principal, may I be excused to go retrieve her?”

“Well, you’re not exactly in class now,” Luna said with a smirk. “And what about you, Sweetie Belle? Shouldn’t you be at Platinum Junior High right now?”

Sweetie Belle faked a deadly contagious cough. It was adorable.

“I better drive you down there myself,” she said with a sigh. “I already have Cheerilee running the school right now as it is. Come along, you two.”

“Wait, does that mean you’re letting us enter the fabled Faculty Parking Lot of Canterlot High?” Sweetie excitedly asked with a squeak.

Luna shook her head. “I make one remark about the sacredness of the Lot, and nobody lets me forget it. Come on before I change my mind.” She smiled evilly as she added, “We’re taking Celestia’s car.”

Author's Note

Here are the notes for Chapters 19 & 20.

Chapter 21: Confrontations (H. Fluttershy, H. Sweetie Belle, P. Rarity)

H. Fluttershy—Equestria, above the streets of Canterlot. 11:15 am on Day Three.

Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash and Gilda were all flying above Canterlot, and Rainbow Dash had finished explaining the secrets of Markism to Gilda.

“So, did you know any of this before this mess?” Gilda asked.

“No, they kept that counterpart stuff secret from everyone,” Rainbow replied, landing on the roof of a building. The other two followed suit.

“I’m not surprised,” Gilda replied. “Imagine what the larger public would think! They’d exploit the...” She glanced over at Fluttershy’s vengeful glare. “...Heck out it. Or hate you. Like the X-Men. So these magic powers, are they for all the Markists who are also ponies?”

“I think it’s only the mental ones,” Rainbow said. “Like, when I get home...no more flying. And that’s all I got.”

“I think I heard something about damage resistance carrying over to the counterparts,” Fluttershy said. “All pegasi are lightning-proof.”

“Yeah, but Gilda told me that Pony Me said that it really hurts. Um, Griffon You, Gilda.”

“Yeah, I get that. So what’s she like, this fantasy version of me?”

Fluttershy looked like she was going to say something, but she held it back. Gilda noticed.

“Go on, say it, Fluttershy. I won’t be mad. I think I would be so surprised if you ever made me mad that I’d stop being mad, if you get what I mean.”

Fluttershy rolled her eyes. “I was going to say that she was like you before you became a jerk. But now that you made me think about it, that’s kind of petty.”

“It is,” Gilda said in a mock-condemning tone. “But I get it. Life sucks for me in general, I took that suckiness out on RD here because she makes such a good meat puppet, and you hated the fact that she let me do it.”

“Hey!” Rainbow Dash objected. “I resent that remark!” She turned to Gilda. “But I gotta say: I’ve never heard this level of honesty from you before. Like those nerd drops about Harry Potter and X-Men. You’d never admit knowing about that stuff. What gives?”

“It’s this place, Rainbow,” Gilda said, walking over to the edge of the roof. “This is the capital of Fantasyland, right?” She looked over to Fluttershy with a twinkle in her eye, daring her to issue a correction.

She sat back on her hind legs and crossed her front ones, refusing to be baited.

“Yeah,” Rainbow said, utterly missing the non-verbal communication that just happened.

“And I’d say this is kind of the slum of that capital city, right?”

Rainbow walked over to stand beside Gilda and look around. “I guess...”

“And what don’t you see or hear?” Gilda asked her, using a wing to gesture over the blocks of businesses with homes on their second floors. “No crime being committed, much less crime being ignored by the police. No screaming from victimized women, or crying of abandoned babies. I don’t even see any broken windows! Do you know that I haven’t gone a single day in The Heights, in my entire life, without seeing at least one broken shop or car window? We’re part of Canterlot City too, the ‘perfect city of the Markists’, but you couldn’t tell that from where I was standing. But here? I don’t even see any abandoned or ‘For Sale’ businesses! That’s nuts! This is Fantasyland! And I can totally see why the higher ups in the know in your religion totally want to turn Earth into this. Who wouldn’t?”

Fluttershy, listening to this speech, slowly made up her mind on what she needed to tell Gilda. When Gilda finished, Fluttershy flew over so she could stand on the top of the outer wall and look down at Gilda. “Gilda, are you devout?”

“Nah,” Gilda said. “My god clearly doesn’t give a d—” (hoof in beak) “—darn about anything going on on Earth. Maybe He moved on to some other, shinier planet.”

“Well we can point at our goddess. We might have to figure out how to point 12-dimensionally, but She’s there.”

“Yeah, and then she screws up and you find yourself stuffed into the body of a horse.”

“It’s better than nothing. So why don’t you convert? Markists aren’t racists, Gilda. They won’t judge you for the paleness of your skin.”

Gilda barked out a laugh.

“It’s true!” Fluttershy insisted. “If you convert, you get to be a first-class citizen. I’m not saying I approve of that system. What I’m saying is, why don’t you take advantage of it? I know you’re good at working every other system in existence to your advantage.”

Gilda pouted. “Yeah, but then I’d be admitting that they were right.”

“They don’t care!” Fluttershy exclaimed, almost rising to the level of an actual shout. “Only you do.”

“But then I’d be alone,” Gilda said in a little voice. “I’m the only one of us who’s crossed over, who’s seen what being a Markist would truly mean. Believe it or not, I made friends in The Heights when I went back. Kinda crummy friends, I’ll be the first to admit. But I don’t want to say goodbye to them. Besides: I’m not getting any cool powers.”

Rainbow Dash shrugged. “Neither am I, as I just told you. Fluttershy’s the lucky one out of the three of us.”

“Oh? What do you do, control butterflies with the power of your mind?”

Fluttershy, on having the conversation turned back towards herself, shrank visibly. She hopped down from the ledge and hid behind her mane. “I can talk to animals,” she said. “It’s no big deal.”

“No big deal? Flutters, that’s awesome. You don’t know how many times I’ve wanted to talk to all of the stray cats I run into every day. I can point you to these three calicos that always stick together, and they look a h...heck of a lot smarter than the gang I hang with.”

Rainbow Dash blanched. “Uh look, when you say ‘gang’, do you literally mean ‘gang’, or do you mean—”

“Gilda!” boomed a voice from above them. “What did I tell you about never setting claw in my city again?”

The trio looked up, to see that they were surrounded by over two dozen griffons flying around them in a circle. Every single one of them were wearing kitchen attire, and their leader was a full chef.

The lead chef landed on the ledge, walking right into Gilda and forcing her to back up. Half of the other griffons landed around them, and the others stayed in the air, blocking any escape via flying.

“It’s time for us to finally settle our debts, Gilda,” the chef said.

Gilda looked around her, then laughed evilly. “Look, Chef Ramsay, you picked the wrong day to mess with Gilda.”

“Ram Sea?!” The chef asked, equal parts incredulous and infuriated. “Have you been integrating so much with ponies you forgot how to tell us griffons apart? I’m Gustave Le Grand, hatchling. And don’t you forget it!”

“And I’m Grizelda V of the Emerald Sky Clan,” Gilda loudly proclaimed, getting her beak right up in Gustave’s face. “Nobody who’s ever crossed me has ever forgotten it, saving the ones who are no longer around to remember anything!”

Gustave stepped back in shock. “Just what are you implying?” he asked.

Gilda performed a face-claw. “And here I was hoping you griffons would be a bunch of bad-asses, but it turns out you’re a bunch of pansies too!”

“What are you saying?” Gustave demanded. Then he turned to his second-in-command and said, “I’m serious. Do any of you have any idea what a ‘bad ass’ is? Is it a disobedient donkey? And how is making that comparison possibly relevant under the circumstances?”

Fluttershy groaned. “That’s it,” she muttered. “I can just feel society degrading.”

After a few moments the second said, “I think she meant to say ‘bad flank’.”

Gustave turned to Gilda. “I am too a bad-flank!”

Gilda face-clawed a second time.

At that moment the door to the roof opened and Vinny the Vice-Captain of the Guard emerged, clad in full armor. “Alright, everypony, party’s over!”

“There’s a party up there?” the voice of an excited pony drifted up to them out of the open door.

“I think he was being metaphorical,” a second, much duller voice added.

“Oh, those are the worst kind of parties!” said the first voice.

Gustave walked around Gilda to confront the guard. “Look, Pony,” she said, poking his armor with a claw. “This is griffon business, so back off.” He then looked over his shoulder to see Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy, as if for the first time. “Hey, fillies!” he cried. “Scram. My business is with Miss ‘Grizelda’ over there, not you. Go home to your mommies or something.”

The “fillies” refused to budge.

With a sigh, Gustave turned back to see a stern Vinny still staring at her. He peered around the guard to make sure there was no other pony in sight. “Look, you’re clearly outnumbered here, Pal. And everygriff knows that you ponies don’t give a flying feather about any of us. So pretend you didn’t see anything, and go back the way you came.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that, ‘Pal’,” Vinny replied. “The Princess herself is interested in this particular griffon.”

Gustave got up in Vinny’s face, trying his best to emulate what Gilda had done to him a couple of minutes ago. “And I think you should just ‘disappear’ before something happens to you,” he warned.

Vinny charged his horn. “I believe you are the one who needs to disappear. Right now.”

Gustave punched Vinny’s horn, causing the magical glow to go out and Vinny to fall over. “Scram, Horny!” he screamed in his face.

“No,” Vinny said quietly.

“Well I’m going to toss you off of that roof,” Gustave threatened. “Think you can stop me?”

Vinny huffed for a moment. “Yeah,” he said finally.

“‘Yeah’?” Gustave repeated. “You and whose army?”

Vinny lifted a hoof to point upwards. “It’s more like an air force, actually.”

Gustave and the rest of his gang looked up, to see nearly fifty pegasi guards flying silently above them.

The gang scattered in all directions. The guards remained hovering above the building.

Gustave hovered into the air. “Well...you haven’t heard the last of me: Chef Ram Sea!” And with that he booked it to the horizon.

“Chief?” called down one of the pegasi guards. “Shall we pursue?”

Vinny shook his head. “Don’t bother.” He got up, dusted himself off, and walked over to the remaining griffon and two pegasi.

“That wasn’t Chef Ram Sea,” said Rainbow Dash.

“I know who that was,” said Vinny. “Not all unicorns are the racist caricatures that they think we are.”

“I could have taken them,” Gilda grumbled.

“Yeah, but would you have done it harmoniously?” Vinny asked.

“As a matter of fact, my chosen technique happens to be the exact opposite of harmonious, so no.”

“Come on,” Vinny said, turning and walking down the stairway that descended from the open door into the building. “The Princess is waiting.”

“‘Grizelda V of the Emerald Sky Clan’?” Rainbow Dash asked incredulously.

Gilda let out a loud sigh, shaking her head. “Genealogy, my good Rainbow. I swear, what are they teaching in schools these days?!” She put the back of a claw briefly to her forehead in mock indignation.

H. Sweetie Belle—Earth, the Apple Orchard. 1:08 p.m.

A traffic accident made the trip from Canterlot High to the Apple residence much longer than usual. When Luna parked the car, Rarity looked over at her.

“I need to talk to Applejack alone, or this just isn’t going to work.” To Sweetie Belle, she said, “Don’t come in there, no matter what you hear. This might get ugly.” She then grinned evilly.

Sweetie did a double-take. “I just heard you say the word ‘ugly’ in a non-cataclysmic setting.”

“I’m serious,” Rarity said, getting out of the car.

Luna and Sweetie watched as she climbed the steps onto the front porch of the apple-red house and then knocked on the door. “Mr. Apple, could I speak to Applejack please?” they heard her say to the shadowed individual who opened the door after an uncomfortable pause.

“I’m afraid she’s sick,” the voice of Bright Mac could be heard answering.

“I’m afraid that I must insist,” said Rarity. “May I come in?”

“Well I suppose...” Bright Mac said. Then the wooden door opened and Rarity walked inside.

The moment the door closed, Sweetie burst out of the car and ran over to the porch, clambering up onto it rather than using the creaky stairs, and settled herself, sitting down with her back between the closed door and the large window beside it.

Luna got out of the car with a frown, walking over so she was looking at Sweetie without being on the porch itself. “Sweetie Belle, what are you—?” she started to ask in a low voice.

Sweetie made a shushing gesture at her.

With a roll of the eyes, Luna replicated Sweetie’s maneuver, ending up sitting beside Sweetie with her own back against the wall.

Sweetie gestured for Luna to bend sideways so that she could whisper into her ear. “I came over here once to visit Applejack’s little sister,” she explained. “These walls are like paper.”

Luna straightened up and shrugged. After all, she was curious what Rarity was going to do as well.

P. Rarity.

Inside the house, Rarity looked up the stairs. “Is she up there?” she asked.

“Yup,” said Bright Mac.

“Could you ask her to come down?”

“Can’t you just go up there?”

Rarity shook her head. “It’s got to be down here.”

Bright Mac sighed. “Well, I’ll ask. But I can’t make any promises.”

“That’s all right,” Rarity said. She watched as Applejack’s father climbed up the stairs and walked out of sight, then quickly looked around her. Spotting a large mirror mounted to the door of the staircase closet, she walked over and looked herself over. Experimentally, she pushed her pointy nose downward with a finger to see if she could make it look more attractive according to Pony standards.

“Hello, Rarity,” Buttercup said as she walked into the room from the kitchen, an apron around her waist. “Shouldn’t you be in school?”

Rarity’s eyes went wide and for a moment Buttercup thought that she looked like she was looking at a ghost. Then she looked down and finally took her finger off of her nose. “In school? I might ask the same question about your daughter,” she said darkly.

“Yes,” Buttercup said in a matching tone, looking up in the direction of Applejack’s bedroom. She made to go up the stairs.

“Could I ask a big favor from you, Mrs. Apple?” Rarity quickly asked.

“Yes?” Buttercup asked, looking back at her.

Rarity walked over to a couch in the living room and patted her hand on one cushion. “Could you stay here for a bit? Having both of you present will make Applejack more honest.”

Buttercup narrowed her eyes as she once more looked up in the direction of her daughter’s room. “All right,” she said after a moment, turning and sitting down where Rarity had suggested.

A few moments later Bright Mac came downstairs. “I’m sorry, Rarity,” he told her. “It’s like I thought: Applejack’s just too sick to be seeing anybody today. I mean, you should have seen her temperature this morning! It was high enough to kill most normal people.”

“Bright Mac, could you sit here beside me?” Buttercup asked. When he had done so, she lightly added, “Rarity is here for an intervention.”

“A what?”

Rarity meanwhile walked over to the front door. She opened it, waited a moment, and then slammed it closed with considerable force, startling Bright Mac. Before he could say anything, Rarity raised a finger to her lips. (She hoped that gesture carried over from when it was a hoof placed in front of much larger lips.)

A few seconds later, Rarity could hear a door upstairs being opened. With that as her cue, she walked into the living room to face the two Apple parents. “Mr. and Mrs. Apple,” she told them in a louder-than-necessary voice, “I regret to inform you that Applejack isn’t really your daughter, she’s an—”

Rarity found herself silenced by a fist pushed into her open mouth. The fist of Applejack, wearing a nightgown and matching nightcap, both decorated with little apples.

“Not another word,” hissed Applejack. “We had a deal!”

Rarity looked calmly at Applejack. She glanced down at the fist in her mouth. Applejack removed the fist and wiped it off on her nightgown. Applejack then remembered to resume her glare.

“Deal’s off,” Rarity said lightly, not trying to be quiet like Applejack was. “I just found out the portal is closing today, and may not reopen in our lifetimes.”

Applejack slowly straightened up, her eyes unfocused. “You know what?” she said. “That changes nothing. I’m staying, and that’s final.”

“Oh it is, is it?” Rarity said indignantly. “And how long do you expect to keep up this charade?” She gestured towards Applejack’s parents.

“Forever!” Applejack replied.

“Applejack, you’re an awful liar and you know it! Those two have probably already figured out that you’re a fraud!”

Applejack’s eyes blazed with anger. She made to tackle Rarity, but stopped herself to look over at her parents. “I don’t know what’s gotten into her,” she told them. “She’s gone plum bonkers!”

Bright Mac nodded eagerly, looking over at Rarity with suspicion. Buttercup meanwhile rolled her eyes.

“Applejack, we’re leaving, you and I!” Rarity said, pointing dramatically towards the front door. “And I will take you by force if necessary.”

“I’d like to see you try,” Applejack said with a sneer.

Rarity glared at Applejack for a moment, and then with a battle cry she shoved into her like a linebacker in a football game.

Applejack planted her feet and tried to resist, especially in the direction of the front door. To her surprise, she found herself being irresistibly shoved towards the under-stair coat closet.

Buttercup and Bright Mac sprang up from the couch, turning to follow the action. When Bright Mac made to jump the couch and rescue his daughter, he was stopped by the firm grip of his wife on his arm.

Reaching the wall, Rarity wrapped her right leg around Applejack’s, using both knees and her shoulder to shove Applejack painfully into the door. She then grabbed Applejack’s hair at the forehead and yanked back, knocking her night cap off. “Tell her that you’re staying here forever!” she yelled.

Applejack darted her eyes around to look fearfully at Rarity. “Rarity, I’m—”

“NOT ME!” Rarity screamed in her ear. She grabbed Applejack’s head with both hands and turned it so she was looking into the mirror. “I need you to tell her, Applejack. I need you to tell that other Applejack you’re looking at right now, that you’re going to maintain this bodily theft for the rest of her life. I need you to tell those parents’ daughter that she’s going to spend the rest of her life in a world, WHERE HER PARENTS ARE DEAD!!”

Applejack locked eyes with the reflection of a face that was not hers for just a moment, and started shaking. Rarity took this as her cue to release Applejack from her hold and step away.

As Mr. and Mrs. Apple approached, Applejack slowly dropped down into a heap on the floor, sobbing with all of her might. “It...it’s not fair!” she wailed. “Why does she have to have such a perfect life, while I lost everything!”

Buttercup kneeled down and pulled Applejack into a hug. After a brief pause, Bright Mac did the same. Buttercup ran her hand repeatedly down Applejack’s shaking back. “There, there,” she said soothingly. “It’s all right, little Applejack. You’re an Apple, no matter where you came from, and an Apple always does the right thing.”

Applejack wailed harder.

“Now, now, none of that,” Bright Mac said gently. “Seems to me that you got an opportunity that most kids in your situation never got.”

Applejack stopped crying with some effort. After sniffling a couple of times she asked, “How so?”

“You get to say goodbye,” Bright Mac replied. “Did you get to do that last time?”

Applejack sniffled some more. “...No.”

“Well, there you go,” Bright Mac said.

Applejack gently pushed her parents away, and then cleaned her face with the sleeve of her nightgown. “How long do we have?” she asked Rarity.

Rarity, who had been using her compact to put her face back together, looked down at Applejack. “Until midnight, Darling. But this is already like the third crisis to hit in less than that many hours.”

“So, Ponyville Normal, then?” Applejack asked, shakily rising to her feet.

“I’m afraid so,” answered Rarity.

“Alright,” Applejack said quietly. She turned to Mr. and Mrs. Apple. “Ma, Pa...”

“Or the human copies thereof,” Rarity said with a trace of snark.

Applejack shot Rarity a dark look before turning her eyes back to her parents. “I guess I gotta go. I’m sorry I lied to you all this time.”

“That’s alright,” Buttercup said. “You never had me fooled for a moment, but I always knew that you were just a good egg under a bad hen.”

Bright Mac looked over at his wife with a look of complete disbelief. Buttercup’s returning glare could melt lead. “Yeah, what she said,” he then deadpanned to Applejack.

Applejack walked over to the stairs. “I’m gonna go get dressed now,” she informed Rarity.

“That seems best,” Rarity replied in a voice devoid of any emotion whatsoever. As Applejack was climbing the stairs, she looked over at the two parents. “By the way, we are not goats, we’re ponies,” she informed them.

“What?” Buttercup asked in confusion. A moment later: “Oh...kid, goat. No, we call human children kids sometimes.”

“Oh,” said Rarity. She wished she knew this earlier, because now she had the image etched into her brain of herself and Applejack as goat versions of themselves. With beards!

“My daughter’s a pony,” Bright Mac said incredulously to himself. “Sure explains that thing with the sugar cubes.”

A few moments later, Applejack came downstairs, wearing the same outfit she had from the first day. She toyed nervously with her hat. “Do...do you mind if I keep this? As something to remember you by.”

This triggered a fierce hug from Buttercup and Bright Mac.

Rarity, sensing that the trio wanted some privacy, let herself out the front door. She looked over at the empty car, and then looked around until she spotted her sister and her vice-principal sitting on the floor next to her.

Sweetie Belle got up. “The pony version of me is so lucky to have you as a sister,” she said, before walking to the car and getting into the back seat.

Luna got up, looked at Rarity, opened her mouth for a moment, and then closed it. “Good plan,” she said finally. “Although of course that’s spoken as the sister of an infuriatingly-perfect person, not as the vice-principal of the school.”

“I’ll try to keep that in mind, for the brief period I hope it will take until the distinction ceases to matter to me,” Rarity said. She turned a bit so Luna could see her backside. “By the way, how do I look?”

“Oh, that’s completely torn,” Luna commented, before swiftly walking over to the door and getting into the driver’s seat.

“What?!” Rarity screamed, turning about and trying to use her compact in her outstretched hand to survey the damage. “Oh what I would give to have my pony neck back right now!”

“Kidding!” Luna yelled back.

Rarity stomped her foot. “You do not joke about fashion like that!” she exclaimed. She stomped dramatically over to the car, glared through the passenger window at an insanely-grinning Luna, and then stomped some more so she could get into the back seat behind Luna. “Move over!” she ordered her sister.

Sweetie took the abuse with a smile nearly as wide as Luna’s.

A few very awkward moments later (for Rarity, and only for Rarity), the trio was joined by a teary-eyed Applejack, and the car then made its way back to Canterlot High.

Chapter 22: Griffon Day Afternoon (Jeff Bellamy)

From: Jeff Bellamy JeffBellamy@AP.com
Date: Sun, Sep 26, 2010 at 5:57 PM
Subject: My Recollections of Friday's Standoff
To: Archbishop August

As you requested, here’s my version of the events from two days ago at the Barnyard Bargains.

About Me (feel free to skip)

I was born and raised in Golden, CO, and I’ve always been certain that I would be a print reporter, like my grandfather before me. Golden’s got a lot of Markists in it for a non-majority city. I numbered several Markists as childhood friends, and had a couple of teachers as well. I graduated from the University of Denver in 2000 with a major in Journalism and a minor in World History, and got a job with The Denver Post immediately afterwards. I got into the Associated Press in 2003, and in 2007 I was assigned to the Canterlot City post.

How I Feel About The Heights (no really, you don’t need to read this)

Canterlot City is boring, in the best sense of the word. There are unhappy people, because there will always be unhappy people, but their problems are nowhere near as bad as the stuff I saw growing up in the suburbs of Denver.

Take The Heights, for example. It’s a ghetto, there’s no question of that. But it’s the Disney version of a ghetto. People get into fights, but they’re knife fights, not gunfights, and the number of people who die in them annually number in the single digits. People get sick all the time because of poverty and depression, but drug addiction is negligible. I see that entirely as the positive effect Markists have on everyone they come in contact with.

But make no mistake, The Heights are a ghetto. The reason is simple: why would any profit-minded Canterlot corporation want to hire an unbeliever with a graduate degree in what they want when, just by looking at the medallion your Markist candidate is wearing, they know for an absolute fact that they are looking at the best, most-dedicated worker for their offered job position on the entire planet? So nobody in The Heights can ever earn enough to leave. They have to work for the sub-par Outside companies in The Heights, and nowhere else.

This is why I have spent the past three years posting most of my stories from The Heights instead of covering the easy human-interest stories that Canterlot City always offers the Outside press; the same stories which are eagerly read by the Outside public. That public doesn’t want to hear that their little American oddity, the Markist Church, is less than perfect. (It was bad enough finding out what was going on in the Catholic Church.) The AP doesn’t want me writing these stories, and it routinely refuses to print most of them. But I’m convinced I’m on to something, and that someday my coverage will force the city council to tackle this problem instead of kicking it down the road every five years.

So that explains what I was doing outside the boarded-up Barnyard Bargains at 10 am on a Friday—I was putting together a story on how this store had been a beacon of hope for The Heights, and how it was such a betrayal for Filthy Rich to shut it down for not performing as well as his Markist locations.

The Account (start here)

Now I’ll freely admit that I shouldn’t have walked inside the condemned supermarket just because I saw that someone had removed the boards over the employee entrance and left the door wide open. But that door was boarded up the day before and frankly, I believed I could hold my own against anything this city could throw at me.

As soon as I got in, I knew that there were other people in the main part of the store. Since I was still in the employee section, I believed that I could get away with poking around a little where I was. I was hoping to find some kind of weapon; I found a sliver of metal that would probably hurt me more than anyone I could use it against, and slipped it into my sock. (Spoiler: I never got a chance to use it.) I also found this neat remote-control under a pile of dust in the corner that looked like it could operate every door and light in the entire building. It was just missing the batteries, and the battery cover. I put that in my jacket pocket. Being as ready as I ever would be, I then entered the store proper.

Once inside, I followed the glare of flashlights and the whispered voices of young people, and came across a group of four loading a shopping cart up with various boxes of cereal. I will say I was shocked to see that the store had not been emptied before it had been shuttered—if the place was truly losing so much money to Mr. Rich, you would think he would have transferred the inventory to his other stores. It’s almost like he had been forced to open the store in The Heights against his will, and had closed it as soon as he thought he could get away with it, even if it meant losing money on abandoned merchandise.

The thieves were wearing black cycling suits, the head-to-toe outfits that include hoodies. They had black driving gloves on to keep from leaving fingerprints, and lycra ski masks, just in case any of the security cameras were still active. Two of the quartet saw me, jumped me, and tied my hands behind my back with an extension cord. I didn’t resist, because they were athletic kids and I’m a fat adult, and because I honestly wanted to know why they were doing this.

I was walked to the front of the store and up the stairs to the manager’s office, which had a big window overlooking everything in the store, and an equally big window on the opposite wall overlooking everything in the parking lot. Sitting in the big chair was the ringmaster of the operation, dressed like the others. Now this young woman had spent at least a few minutes thinking this operation through before it was started, so she had instituted a set of codenames for everyone, to make it less likely that they would be caught. But unfortunately for her, her gang were nowhere near as smart as she was, so they were blurting out each other’s names constantly, before correcting themselves to use the codenames, as if that would be enough for me not to remember their slip-ups. So I knew the mastermind was Gilda before I even met her.

I remembered Gilda from the exchange program of two years previous, and how badly that had turned out. I had also been at a couple of her soccer matches this year, so I knew the girl had a fierce temper. Luckily her rage was focused on Markists, and although she had never approached me after she got sent back to The Heights, I think she knew that I was on her side.

Gilda pulled a coil of vinyl rope out of a plain leather backpack. She had her goons force me into another office chair, and then tied my arms behind me and to the chair. My legs were also tied, and a bandana was tied loosely around my neck so she could gag me anytime she wanted. The lengths of the two pieces of rope were perfect for the uses she put them to, leading me to think that she had anticipated the possibility of someone interrupting her little heist. She had her head goon, whose real name was George, search my pockets, which gave her my wallet and the remote control. She then sent the group off to resume their looting while she interviewed me.

“What are you doing here, Mr. AP?” she asked me, sitting on the edge of the store manager’s desk. That was the same name she had used during our interviews a few years earlier, so I was pretty sure she knew who I was. Now I can’t tell you if she knew that her cover was blown or not, but if she did, she seemed to trust that I would do the right thing by her. And if that’s what she thought, she was right—the only reason I’m including all of the names in this story is because you know them all.

I told her the truth about my motives while she examined the remote, figured out what it did, and got some fresh batteries in it from a desk drawer and secured them with some scotch tape. The remote ended up in the backpack. Then I asked her what she was doing here.

“Getting a little payback on Mr. Filthy,” she said, hooking a thumb behind her at the large portrait of the store president that was mounted behind the manager’s desk. That’s when I noticed that there was a security camera in this room, but it had been disconnected from its feed. Craning my neck, I could see a television console for monitoring multiple cameras, but all nine displays showed nothing but static. Again, evidence that Gilda had spent some time thinking this whole thing out. Too bad that she hadn’t figured out the part where Rich obviously didn’t care if she stole anything.

That’s when a couple of Canterlot City police squad cars loudly showed up in the front parking lot. The first one out of a car was Filthy Rich, complete with a police bullhorn.

“I got you!” he crowed. “I finally got you filthy vandals!” The next part was addressed to the police: “Go get ‘em, boys!”

Gilda held up a finger. “Could you hold on for a moment?” she asked me. She then walked casually over to the side of the window overlooking the parking lot, took a peek and then lowered the shades.

“What do you mean, you need more men?” Filthy loudly asked over the bullhorn. “I want the entire police force here, pronto!”

I really didn’t like the tone of Mr. Rich, and what he might goad the police into doing. I was therefore not happy to notice that the shadow of my chair fell across those lowered shades, where it could be seen from outside. If the police brought sharp-shooters, I was now a target.

By this time the four individuals who had caught me had run up into the manager’s office, along with two others I hadn’t seen yet. All of them were high-school age.

“What happened?” George asked in a panic.

“We must have tripped some kind of silent alarm,” Gilda said, trying to use the level tone of her voice to calm her gang down. She started walking towards them, an arm outstretched to point out who was to receive her next order, when she unfortunately passed right in front of the window, casting her shadow across the shade. The next second she jerked like a puppet whose strings had been cut and collapsed to the ground.

“Everybody drop!” George ordered, and the others obeyed.

I gave George an urgent look—signaling with my head towards the telltale shadow—and after a sigh he crawled over and pulled my chair by its casters until it no longer cast that shadow. He then crawled past me so he could stand up next to the window and get his own peek below.

“There’s only two cars down there,” he said.

“That’s great! We can make a break for it!” exclaimed a thief named Gabe. (The thieves all had different-colored ski masks, so I could easily tell them apart.)

“There’s no way we’d be able to do that while dragging the boss,” George said, pointing to Gilda’s prone body. And that was when everybody saw the dark stain seeping into the back of her mask.

“Gabe, get the first aid kit at the bottom of the stairs. Don’t let yourself be seen,” ordered George. He crawled over to Gilda’s body, dragging it completely out of danger. He applied pressure to try and stop the bleeding.

I looked around the room, trying to figure out what was going on. I hadn’t heard any glass shatter when Gilda had collapsed, and there was no hole in the blinds. Meanwhile a dent in the corner of the office desk suggested that she had hit her head against it during her fall.

Gabe came back with the first aid kit. He appeared to nearly faint from the sight of the blood on Gilda’s head and George’s hands. He looked away, edged around the office so he was in the far corner next to the window and tried to lean nonchalantly against the wall. George used the gag around my neck to blind me to what he did next. I believe he removed Gilda’s mask—cue collective gasp of shock at the ridiculous amount of blood shed during head injuries—and then bandaged the wound.

“So?” I asked the group, breaking the silence. “Are any of you going to run? This is probably your only chance to escape, and you don’t all have to stay with your boss.”

A gang member audibly snarled at me—I think her name was Bonnie. “We’re not leaving her behind!” she declared. “If she’s going down, we’re all going down.”

“I dunno,” George replied. “It might be a good idea. I think she’s going to be out for a while.”

“I’m. Not. Going,” Bonnie defiantly declared. From the murmuring, I judged that the others were all in solidarity, including Gabe.

After a pause, George said, “I guess I’m in charge now. Any objections?”

“Why does it have to be you?” Gabe complained.

“I was the Boss’ second,” George said simply. “But if you’ve got a brilliant idea to get all of us out of this, including the Boss, I’m all ears.”

After a moment of failing to come up with a brilliant plan, Gabe sighed in resignation. “Forget it. You can call the shots,” he said, and then walked over to the desk and pretended that examining the various papers was far more important to him than being in charge.

I think George wiped the blood off of his hands at that point, then edged over to peek out the window around the blinds. “There’s five police cars now,” he reported. “Bonnie, run back to the rear entrance and see if any cops are there. Avoid the windows.”

“Obviously,” Bonnie said contemptuously. And then she was off like a greyhound.

“What next?” prompted another gang member—Rex, I think?

“I’m open to suggestions,” George replied.

Peeking under the blindfold, I saw Gabe put a finger down on a piece of paper taped to the desk, the paper with the important phone numbers on it. He then picked up the phone. No, I hadn’t noticed that piece of paper before and I certainly couldn’t see it from my current position, but I knew what it was. All managers’ desks have that piece of paper taped to it, at least the desks of managers working for micromanagers like Filthy Rich. Now unfortunately for George and the gang members he was talking to, their peripheral vision and hearing were both impaired by their ski masks, so they failed to notice what Gabe was up to.

“Hey, that guy is—” I tried to warn them.

“Shut it!” George yelled. “I want suggestions from the actual members of the gang.”

“Why don’t we tell them that we’ve got a hostage?” Rex suggested. “They’ll have to let us go.”

“Are you nuts?!” George exclaimed. “Gil...the Boss told me that the police sharpshooters kill everybody in hostage situations!”

At the exact same moment, Gabe held the phone receiver at arm’s length and yelled, “Hey Filthy, guess what? We’ve got a hostage!” He then punched me in the stomach so that I would cry out. And then he hung up. “Problem solved, guys!” he told the flabbergasted group. “They’ll have to let us go now!”

George reached out his arms in impotent rage, barely stopping himself from running across the room to choke the life out of Gabe. He stopped himself, of course, because doing so would put him at risk of sharing Gilda’s fate. “Could you just...stop helping?” he asked in a strangled voice.

Gabe hung his head at all of the angry glares sent his way and crawled over to Gilda. Call it creative liberty on my part since I couldn’t see, but I’m going to say that he sat with his back to the wall and put her head in his lap, quietly stroking the tangled hair.

Bonnie ran back into the room. She must have been on the track team, considering how fast she had covered the distance and the fact that she was barely winded. “Nobody’s back there yet,” she said from the doorway, “but it’s probably a matter of time. Is the Boss awake yet?”

“No,” Gabe said (with a sad shake of his head).

“Go back there and keep an eye out,” George ordered her. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and she’ll wake up before the cops think to surround us.” He didn’t sound very convincing.

So she left. And with that the gang were out of ideas. I had a few, but nobody was willing to listen to me.

Several minutes passed, and more and more police cars showed up, until it did indeed appear that Filthy Rich had summoned the entire Canterlot police force. Filthy’s antics became a source of entertainment as everybody waited for Gilda to revive:

“Finally!” was heard over the bullhorn. “I want you guys to round up every last one of those punks. I want to see them fry!”

A moment of silence, during which one of the police officers explained to Mr. Rich that there was, in fact, no death penalty for simple theft or even vandalism.

“Well why not?!”

I really wish I knew what explanation was given in response to that question.

“Well...whatever! Just so long as they set a strong example!”

They took the bullhorn away from him after that. So he tried to call the office.

The phone in the office rang, and then stopped.

The police had ordered him to stop. George alone got to witness Filthy Rich have a cataleptic meltdown. We could almost make out the words of his rant through the window. “Don’t you know who I am?” was most-certainly uttered.

A few more minutes later, George took another look at the window to see what Filthy was up to now, and swore. “The Church van just showed up.”

The others all started to crowd forward.

“Stay back!” George hissed. “Didn’t you learn anything from that?!” he added (pointing at Gilda’s prone body). Peeking some more, he reported, “I see both bishops, some blue guy with white hair that everybody’s kowtowing to, Principal Celestia, and a couple of families with kids our age. One of them is talking to some birds and the other is...uh oh. Don’t anybody tell Gilda...I mean, the Boss...that Rainbow Dash’s here.”

(The other gang members’ faces turned white with fear. Yes, yes, I had no possible way to know that. Run with me here.)

I racked my brain, and was eventually able to recall that Rainbow Dash was the first Markist to befriend Gilda when she had started attending Cloudsdale Junior High. Obviously, they had had a falling out since then.

Meanwhile Gabe had decided that maybe mouth-to-mouth would be the perfect way to revive Gilda. A second later, a hand reached up and slapped him. He jerked back and scuttled back to me. “She’s awake!” he cried out.

(Gilda sat up. But due to the way she was positioned, this put her into the line of fire.)

“Look out!” everyone cried out in near unison. (Several of the gang pointed worriedly at the outer window.)

There was a significantly-long pause before Gilda crawled rather awkwardly around the desk so she could sit safely with her back to it. Another significant pause—I could almost feel her intense staring at me, like a hawk trying to decide on the best moment to pounce upon her helpless prey. After a moment, she seemed to reach some kind of momentous conclusion, and she pronounced the following phrase: “Harmony field trip.”

Do you have any idea what this means? Because I have been thinking about the moment all weekend, and I have absolutely no idea. Gilda’s later actions certainly didn’t lend any light on the mystery.

Carefully, Gilda rose to her feet, being now out of range of any potential snipers. (Hopefully.) (She looked around her calmly at all of the eyes that in turn were on her.) We all expected her to say something, but she said nothing.

Bonnie had entered the room while this was going on. “Boss,” she reported. “I just came back from the back of the building, and there’s a ton of police cars back there now.”

More silence from Gilda.

“Look, I’m sorry I told them we had a hostage,” Gabe said. “I promise I’ll await your orders from now on.”

(Stares. Lots of stares.) Gabe retreated to a corner. After a few minutes he pulled out his cell phone and started playing a game. From the sounds, I recognized it as Angry Birds.

“I count twenty-seven police cars now, with two cops per car,” George reported.

“There’s another five cop cars in the back,” Bonnie added.

“Both of the Markist bishops are down there talking to the cops,” said George. “Plus some blue bigshot with white hair and a white robe—he’s vying with Filthy Rich to see who’s in charge of the cops.”

The bit about the robe caught my attention. “Blue skin, white hair and white robe?” I asked out loud. “That sounds like Archbishop August.”

“Huh?

“He’s like the Pope for Markists.”

“Yeah...him,” said George, taking another peek. Nervously, he said, “That’s absolutely who’s down there. And now that you know, you don’t have to look for yourself, because I’ve taken on the dangerous job of looking out the window.”

“Is Principal Celestia down there?” Gilda asked.

Now why would she suspect that? She was out cold when the principal arrived.

“Yes,” George said finally.

“Did you see any snipers?” Bonnie asked.

George looked, for a good ten seconds. “No.”

“Alright, I think I’ve got a handle on the situation,” I heard Gilda say under her breath. “Are there even any vantage points from which a sniper could shoot at us?” she asked.

George took a moment to parse the sentence, then looked again. “Well, we’re the only building in this neighborhood that’s more than one story high, and it’s not like I see or hear any copters.”

“‘Copter’?” I heard Gilda mutter, like she had no idea what the word even meant.

“Wait, so if there’s nowhere for a sniper to be, how did you get shot?” George asked.

“I got shot,” Gilda said, as if it had happened to somebody else.

“In the back of your head!” Bonnie exclaimed.

There was a moment of silence, as I presume Gilda reached back to touch that spot. “There’s no arrow sticking out of my head, and there isn’t a hole. I don’t think I got shot.”

“But we saw you drop.”

“Ah. I must have tripped.”

This was followed by an absolutely stunned silence.

“Uh, not you, too!” Gilda exclaimed in exasperation. “In case you haven’t noticed, our lives are on the line right now and believe it or not, I value your lives more than I do my reputation so yes, I admit that I did something as stupid as tripping over the carpet and knocking myself out. Am I still in charge after that devastating admission?”

Silence.

“That’s what I thought. Although, with everything we’ve learned so far, I guess our lives aren’t in immediate danger?” she asked the group.

Gabe was still playing Angry Birds. It looked like he had tuned out this entire conversation.

George looked to the group. “Is everything locked up?” he asked them.

They all voiced an affirmative. Except Gabe of course.

“This guy left the back door open,” Bonnie said, “but I locked it.”

She was probably pointing at me. I said nothing.

“So, with no snipers, what are we looking at in a worst-case scenario?” Gilda asked.

“The police storm the place and grab us,” George said.

“We might get off with a warning,” Bonnie said. “Depending on how serious the ‘hostage’ stuff is. But you’re definitely going to go to jail for a few years.”

“Because of my ‘criminal record’,” Gilda said slowly.

The others sadly agreed. Except Gabe. I was beginning to get a little angry at him.

“We’ve got to find a way to sneak her out of here,” Bonnie said.

“How?”

“I have no idea.”

“I don’t suppose there’s a secret network of tunnels under this building?” Gilda asked.

“If anybody would know that, it would be you,” George pointed out.

“Right,” said Gilda. “And we can’t fly...”

The others waited for her to come up with a useful ending to that non-sequitur, but she just left it hanging. Gabe had still not looked up from his phone. I was getting really mad at him.

“Okay, I need to think,” Gilda said, settling herself down into the executive chair with some degree of surprise over how comfortable it was—at least, that’s what it sounded like to me. “I need some of you to go out there and make sure none of the constabulary is trying to sneak into the building.” In response to the puzzled looks over the vocabulary word she added, “The...uh, ‘police’.”

“[Gabe], go down and cover the side entrance,” George ordered. “[Bonnie], go back to the employee entrance. I’ll stay here and keep an eye on the front from here.” The names in brackets are their codenames—I think this was the first time I had caught him remembering to use them.

Bonnie turned around to leave.

Gabe kept playing.

“Hey!” I yelled, having reached the tipping point. “Stop fiddling while Rome burns and pay attention!”

Gabe finally looked up. “Huh? Rome what now?”

I sighed deeply. (Don’t get me started on the lousy state of world history education in this country’s high schools. The Markists only seem to care about British history, and nothing else.)

“[Gabe], go to the side entrance and whistle really loud if you see the police trying to get in,” Gilda said. She watched as both of the assigned scouts left the room. She then turned to me. “Please explain the meaning of that phrase: fiddling while Rome burns.”

I felt a little ashamed at that moment at my outburst—I wasn’t part of this gang, and I could have gotten into serious trouble for butting in. “It’s just an historical reference from the hostage,” I muttered. “Get back to your thinking.”

“Later,” said Gilda. She turned my chair around so I was facing her chair. “A little history might inspire me.”

So, I explained the reference.

“I thought the Roman Empire spread Christianity far and wide,” George commented afterwards, in reference to the part of my story where I said that Emperor Nero blamed the fire on them. He said this from the window.

I opened my mouth to correct him about his false belief that the Romans were always pro-Christian, but then George said something far more important than our historical digression: “Boss, the police are all behind their cars with their guns pointed at the front window. I can’t see the archbishop or the principal. The bishops are wandering around like they have no idea what’s going on. I don’t see...well I don’t see any other civilians.”

“They’re all armed,” Gilda said.

“Yes.”

She got up and walked over to the inner window, looking out over the store. “And those stairs are the only way they can get up here?”

“Yeah, I think so,” said George.

She thought for a moment. “If the police decide to storm the building, we surrender. There’s no other way to avoid getting hurt. I got you into this mess, so I’ll assume full responsibility.” Before George could object she addressed me. “So what were you going to say about the ‘Roman Empire’ and ‘Christianity’?”

I looked at her like she had lost her mind.

“I’m waiting,” she said, sounding like she knew exactly what she was doing.

So I answered her. “Um, well the Romans persecuted the Christians until the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in AD 312, and after that they changed course and supported it. Eventually it became the state religion and all other religions were persecuted.”

“Have they made a move yet?” Gilda asked George.

George, finally accepting that he wasn’t going to be allowed to argue Gilda out of surrendering, looked out the window once more. “No change.”

Gilda walked over to the other window. I assumed that she could see both of the other scouts. Turning back to me she said. “A human battle? I can take it. Tell me about it. Why did the Romans change their minds?”

(OK, I’m not entirely sure she said a “human” battle. She sort of muttered that first couple of sentences under her breath.)

“Well, the Roman Empire was split by a civil war,” I told her. “Emperor Constantine was facing off against Emperor Maxentius outside the western capital of Rome. Constantine had the weaker army of the two, and they both knew it. Before the battle, Constantine had a vision of an unknown symbol floating in the sky, beneath which were the words ‘in hoc signo vinces’, Latin for ‘in this sign, thou shalt conquer’. He had the symbol painted on his standard, telling his soldiers that an unknown god supported their cause. The next day, Constantine miraculously won the battle, and Maxentius drowned in the Tiber. Later, Constantine learned that the symbol he had seen was used by the Christians. Feeling obligated to the God of the Christians for his victory, he ordered that Christianity become the official religion of the Empire.”

“So,” Gilda said with a smile, “a miracle saved the Christians from destruction.”

“Filthy’s on his cell phone,” George told her.

The phone in the office began ringing. A split second later, there was a loud whistle from the back of the store.

(Gilda looked at George, then at the phone.)

“I’m certain that’s him calling us,” George said.

“Untie him,” Gilda ordered, pointing at me. She refused to pick up the phone, which continued to ring.

When I was free, I stood up.

Gilda pulled off my blindfold so I could see her unmasked face.

After some hesitation, George and the other gang members removed their masks.

“Answer that call, Mr. History Teacher,” Gilda addressed me. “But not until you see us reach the employee entrance.” She then walked out of the room, followed by the others.

Gabe had really done an expert job with the bandages.

The phone continued to ring. Carefully, I picked up the entire phone, without answering it. I pulled it over to the inner glass and sat it down on the floor, trying to pick a spot where I would be least likely to be hit by gunfire from whatever direction it was going to come from. I stayed at the window for a couple of minutes, the time it took for everyone in Gilda’s gang to gather in front of the cargo door. (I should note that the employee area had no ceiling, which meant that the manager could look down on them all the way from this office.)

I picked up the phone.

“Alright, Mr. Criminal, we’re willing to negotiate,” I heard the voice of Filthy Rich say. “Let’s *calmly and slowly* discuss your terms.”

The phrase “calmly and slowly”, said in a significantly louder tone of voice, was obviously a trigger, because at that moment the cargo door sprang open, and through it I could see a swarm of SWAT officers rushing forward.

Gilda made a theatrical gesture, and the door slammed shut. The others seemed to regard this as some kind of miracle, but I knew about the remote control that was in Gilda’s pocket. I could see them question her about how she was able to close the door. Whatever she told them in reply astounded them even more.

Another gesture, and the door opened itself, revealing the officers all pointing their weapons at the gang.

“STOP!” Gilda shouted, in a voice that frankly seemed inhumanly loud. I assume it was some trick of the acoustics of the building, perhaps deliberately engineered to make it easier for the manager to overhear employee conversations. Anyway, the SWAT team seemed just as surprised as her gang had been earlier. When she walked forward with hands in the air, they parted to let her pass.

I ran over to the outer window and got a peek of my own for the first time. The cop cars were all abandoned, and the cops were all walking around the building. Quickly I made my way down the stairs, and ran for the cargo doors. There I saw Gilda and her gang talking to the Archbishop, with Principal Celestia watching and a paramedic looking Gilda over. As you later informed me, the entire gang offered to convert on the spot to Markism, and Gilda had played her game so skillfully that she acted like she needed them to convince her to convert as well.

And then the families came running over with the news that Rainbow Dash and someone named Fluttershy had been kidnapped. But that’s an entirely different story. (One that I’d really like to know the ending of, because to the best of my knowledge there hasn’t been an actual kidnapping of a Markist in Canterlot City in the past forty years.)

Now I’m going to be honest with you: While the solution of offering to convert is obvious in retrospect, it absolutely did not occur to me at the time, even while I was telling a story to Gilda that inspired her to reach that conclusion. So that’s all on her.

P.S. I didn’t want to include this, but you did say to tell you everything I saw, even if it might seem impossible. From my angle in the manager’s office, I really couldn’t see what was going on outside that cargo door so well. So I couldn’t really be sure that it was SWAT officers out there until I went downstairs and made it to within a few feet of the door. So for that reason I’m certain I’m mistaken when I say that I thought I saw Gilda levitate into the air right before she said “stop”, and that the entire gang then floated out of the door without their feet ever touching the ground.

P.P.S. It just occurred to me: Those cycling outfits don’t have pockets. And Gilda left her backpack behind. I think her hands were empty. So how did she bring the remote out with her?

Chapter 23: Birth of the Stare (Abacus Cinch, P. Fluttershy)

Abacus Cinch—Earth, An abandoned warehouse at the edge of The Heights. 1:38 p.m. on Day Three.

An old woman with pointed features sat at the rickety table, drinking coffee and mostly-ignoring the cold danish on the little Styrofoam plate in front of her. She had on a black rain slicker; water dripped down its sides constantly, but strangely those raindrops never managed to reach the floor.

The door to the side room opened, and through it emerged the figures of Hulk and Venom. Before the door closed, the old woman was able to look through it to the room beyond, where Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy were lying unconscious on two tables, completely tied down.

Once the door closed, each of the three figures touched the inside of their right wrists, which caused their solid hologram disguises to disappear, and revealed the wrist computers they were wearing. The old woman became Principal Cinch, Venom became Jeremiah and Hulk became Thomas. The two mercenaries sat down in chairs opposite their current employer.

“What time did you administer the tranquilizer?” Cinch asked.

Jeremiah consulted an app on his cell phone. “The initial darts were shot at 1:03, and the injections were at 1:05, after we got the kids into the van.”

Cinch looked at her watch and nodded. “Then we’ve got twenty minutes before we can administer the truth serum.” She pushed forward the small medical bag containing the drug and syringes. “Any earlier and they’ll never wake up. Why did you pick those disguises?”

“Well when we initially tracked down their signals thanks to these bad boys, they were playing Marvel vs. Capcom in a mini arcade,” Thomas explained. “I gotta say, that Fluttershy girl was crazy good at playing Morrigan.” By “bad boys” he was referring to the wrist computers, both the ones the mercenaries used to do the tracking, as well as the ones the unconscious girls were wearing that unknowingly acted as beacons. “By the way, you have turned their signals off, right?”

Cinch shook her head in contempt. “I turned them all off as soon as I saw that the four of you were within a ten-foot radius of each other. Did anybody see you?”

“No,” said Jeremiah. “We only had the disguises on in the alley we had lured the girls into and in the warehouse, both times at his insistence. The rest of the time we used the disguises you assigned to us.”

“Good,” said Cinch.

“Hey, you gotta admit that those Marvel characters shocked the girls enough that we were able to dart them easily,” Thomas bragged. “And they could have woken up when we moved them and tied them up.”

“Yeah,” Jeremiah with some reluctance. “One of your few good ideas.”

Thomas brushed off the insult, still proud of his contribution. “So what happens now?” he asked.

“We wait,” said Principal Cinch.

Ten minutes passed.

“What are you going to do to them when the truth serum takes hold?” asked Thomas.

Cinch tossed back the last of the coffee. Not once in the ten minutes of silence had she offered to get them anything. “Then I interrogate them to find out why the Church is so interested in them,” she said calmly.

“Are you going to use the disguise we saw you in before?” Thomas asked.

“No,” Cinch said, rising to her feet. “I’m going to use the most-intimidating disguise I have.” She pressed a few buttons on her wrist computer, and her form was replaced by that of a tall figure in the reddish-purple peaked robes of an officer of the Klu Klux Klan.

Jeremiah became very still. After a moment, he said, “That disguise looks very specific. Who is it?”

“My grandfather,” Cinch responded, or rather the Klansman responded, with pride. The device changed her voice along with her appearance, to that of a man even more contemptuous of humanity than she had been. “I spent a lot of time getting this one just right.”

“Yeah, I bet you have,” Jeremiah said quietly.

“And after the interrogation, then what?” Thomas asked. He seemed oblivious to his partner’s discomfort.

“Then we inject the second part of my special cocktail,” the Klansman said, patting the medical bag.

“Uh huh. And then what?” Thomas asked.

The Klansman rolled his eyes. “Then we dispose of the bodies.”

“What?!” Thomas exclaimed.

“Well you didn’t think I paid you all that money for just a retrieval mission, did you?” the Klansman asked with a cruel smile.

“Yeah, but they’re just innocent kids!”

“Nobody is innocent!” Cinch replied. “They wanted to leave the Academy! Do you know what that would do to my reputation, to the Academy’s reputation? Well thanks to this little cocktail, nobody has ever left the Academy...and lived. And the coroner has ruled the deaths an accident. Every. Single. Time.”

P. Fluttershy.

Fluttershy woke up to find herself tied up to a hard wooden slab in a darkened room. She heard a sound, which she soon identified as a number of rats nibbling at the ropes tying her down. “Oh are you helping me?” she asked the unseen animals. “Thank you so much!”

As soon as the rope securing her head from moving was eaten away, she turned to see the source of a second sound, that of light tapping on the grimy outer window of the room. The tapping was caused by the beaks of little songbirds, the same birds she had befriended when they had arrived at this place. “Oh and thank you, too!” she said.

One of the birds squeezed through a broken corner of the glass. Fluttershy listened as it told her what had happened.

“Oh, so they’re in the next room?” she asked, even quieter than normal. Fluttershy was grateful at that moment that her voice was naturally so quiet that it couldn’t carry. With her hands now free, she worked to finish untying herself.

There was a groaning by her side.

Fluttershy froze in fear, but then she forced herself to speak. “Rainbow Dash,” she said with as much authority as she could muster, “I need you to be quiet. We’ve been ponynapped by that scary Principal Cinch lady.”

Rainbow Dash, whose head had also been freed from its restraint by this time, turned to look wide-eyed at Fluttershy. “What?!” she asked in a strangled gasp. (Not literally strangled, mind you. You can’t perform a good interrogation upon a subject with a rope around their throat.) “I’m not free yet! They’ll be here any second!”

“No they won’t,” Fluttershy said at a carefully-judged volume. “They shot us with a tranquilizer, and we unconsciously used our magic to counteract it. I woke up first because I’ve been using less magic than you. And since they don’t have magic, they won’t expect us to be awake yet.” By this time, she was now free from her bonds, although Rainbow Dash still had a few ropes left to sever. She got up, and snuck over to the only door.

Rainbow Dash wondered if the animals had told Fluttershy about the tranquilizer. She knew about the other part: how Fluttershy knew that ponies unconsciously used their magic to counteract tranquilizers, and even how long that took. It was because Fluttershy experimented with using tranquilizers on herself, at first to fight her panic attacks, and later because she liked being unconscious. Rainbow Dash knew all this, although she wasn’t sure that Fluttershy knew that she knew. Rainbow shook her head incredulously. ‘That filly could get up to some weird stuff sometimes,’ she thought to herself.

Fluttershy cautiously put her head against the door and listened.

“What are you going to do to them when the truth serum takes hold?” she heard after a few seconds.

And then she heard everything that followed: How the human Rainbow Dash’s wonderful deed of throwing away her athletic career for human Fluttershy—who, like her, was worthless—was to be rewarded with death.

Fluttershy felt herself fill with a towering rage. Without even knowing what she was doing, she ripped open the door and floated out to face the three foalnappers, eyes blazing.

The two men rapidly turned themselves back into video game characters.

“How dare you!” she screamed, pointing an accusing finger at the man in the hood—it wasn’t hard to figure out that this must be Principal Cinch. “You’re not human, you’re a monster!” She floated over so that she could look down upon him.

“How are you doing that?” the Klansman asked in complete confusion. “I demand—”

“You demand nothing!” Fluttershy shouted.

“I...demand...nothing,” the Klansman said slowly.

“You will release us, and never go after us again,” Fluttershy ordered.

The Klansman repeated her order.

“Make her forget,” Hulk said.

Fluttershy briefly turned her blazing eyes upon the two Marvel characters, causing them to wilt in fear. Then she turned her dominating gaze back upon the disguised Cinch. “You didn’t ponynap...you didn’t take us captive. Instead you realized that sooner or later you were going to get caught murdering little children!” (The Klansman howled briefly in terror.) “So you decided to let us transfer in peace to Canterlot High. Oh, and you’re going to give these two men back their money.”

“I will forget,” the Klansman said dully. “And I will give Jeremiah and Thomas back their money.”

“Now take that disguise off and go to sleep.”

The Klansman became Principal Cinch, and then Principal Cinch dropped unconscious.

Fluttershy lowered herself back down to the ground. She turned to the two men—for they too had dropped their disguises—and the glow in her eyes faded out. “I overheard everything,” she told them. “And although you are still bad men, I know that you didn’t want to kill us.”

“Are...are you going to turn us in to the police?” Thomas asked fearfully.

Fluttershy took in a deep breath and sighed. “No,” she told them. “Just so long as you never do your wicked deeds in Canterlot or any other Markist city ever again.”

“Agreed!” Jeremiah said gladly. He picked up the frail form of Principal Cinch, throwing her over his shoulder. “No one else will ever know what happened here today.”

Fluttershy watched as the two men walked out of the warehouse, leaving the door open behind them. She looked over at a stunned Rainbow Dash, who was standing in the doorway of the room they had been imprisoned in. “Your mother said that human jails don’t work at making criminals into better people, and even if there were a human Tartarus, it would be too much for those two,” she explained. “So that’s why I let them go.”

“That...that was incredible!” Rainbow exclaimed.

“No!” Fluttershy screamed in sudden torment, sinking to her knees. “That was terrible! I took over that human’s mind, and it was so easy! I’m guessing that power went with the cutie mark, to dominate angry animals and keep them from doing things that would be bad for them long-term. But I don’t want to be able to do that to humans, ponies, or any sentient creature! That would make me no better than the bullies. No, it would make me worse! I’m the monster, Rainbow Dash! Why have I been given the power to do things that are so cruel?!” She put her face into her hands, sobbing.

Rainbow Dash walked over and then sat down next to Fluttershy, pulling her into a fierce hug. “Because out of all the ponies in the world, I know that you would use that power the most responsibly,” she told her. “The fact that you feel so guilty and scared about it is a good thing!”

“I’m never using this power again!” Fluttershy cried out.

Rainbow Dash shook her head with a rueful smile. “You’re moving to the Everfree, right? That’s what you told me.”

Fluttershy nodded her head, which was still enveloped in Rainbow’s hug.

“And the Everfree’s within a bucked pebble’s flight from Canterlot. So I guarantee you’ll have to use it on at least one crazy unicorn.”

Fluttershy began sobbing again. “What...what if it’s Rarity?” she sob-asked. “I like her.”

“It probably won’t be Rarity,” Rainbow replied. “She’s got a good head on her shoulders.”

At that moment, with a terrific tearing sound, the roof of the entire warehouse was removed, revealing a furious Princess Celestia in alicorn battle armor floating above, complete with eyes glowing brighter than the sun. “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH MY LITTLE PONIES?!!” she demanded. The eye glow went out and she blinked as she saw that the two ponies in human form were alone in the warehouse. (She failed to notice all of the rats and birds.) She landed awkwardly next to the pair. “I tracked your magic to this location,” she explained.

Fluttershy wiped a sleeve across her messy face. “Thank you for rescuing us,” she said with a kind smile.

Abacus Cinch woke up in her own bed, in her own house.

She cried, laying there for hours, her memories and her beliefs at war in her mind, until she noted she was hungry. As though a new muscle was flexing in her mind she suddenly stood. Her mind was filled with a determined thought:

It would be unkind not to feed herself.

As she ate dry cereal, numb and unfocused, her phone rang and she answered it immediately.

“Principal Cinch,” she whispered into the phone.

“Sorry if I caught you on a day off, Ma’am. We’re ready to pull the trigger on the pollution investigation at the Church. Stored the Cobalt-60 source near their shiny greenhouse. Just say the word.”

Abacus swallowed her fears, and barely hesitating she replied:

“Pull the plug on it. Dispose of the evidence, we’re not going to do it.”

There was silence for a few seconds.

“Alright, boss, I’ll get rid of it,” the other voice replied with a hint of relief, before hanging up.

Principal Cinch put her phone down with shaking hands, before whispering to herself:

“It wouldn’t be kind.”

There was so much more she needed to do to make up for what she had done before she had woken up. More than enough to fill a lifetime of good deeds. She didn’t mind revealing everything, going behind bars for the rest of her life for what she did to those poor students.

Cinch sobbed into her hands.

But would doing that hurt the academy more? Hurt the current students more? Should she correct the practices she had instituted, put the academy on the right track first, and then turn herself in?

What would Fluttershy advise her to do?

Author's Note

Here are the notes for Chapters 21, 22 & 23.

Chapter 24: Small Talk (Sunset Shimmer, P. Celestia, Various, H. Apple Bloom)

Sunset Shimmer—Earth, the tent in front of Canterlot High. 2:20 p.m. on Day Three.

Before the Princess had left to rescue Gilda the Griffon, she had worked out an exact timeline. Specifically, the fact that she needed to cross back into Equestria by 3 p.m. if she had any hope of being recharged enough to lower the sun at the proper time. And then she had left Sunset in charge of the mirror. Sunset spent her time practicing spells, working out how to use them in this altered human form.

When Celestia hadn’t returned by 2, Sunset took it upon herself to order all humans to go through the mirror portal from Equestria to Earth, so they’d be ready the moment the Princess showed up. She had even agreed to remove the magic-draining pad from in front of the Earth end of the portal, so that the humans could retain their magic for a little longer. To her immense frustration, not every human followed the order, despite that concession. Rainbow Dash, Gnosi Augur and Meridiem Tempest had stayed in Equestria.

And the ones who did cross over kept looking at her distrustfully, like they were fully aware of every single one of her crimes and petty acts.

Switching perspective to the humans themselves, they now had to deal with the fact that they were stuck in bodies that were five years too young for their personalities. (With the exceptions of Twilight Velvet and Night Light.)

Human Twilight had already been on Earth for nearly three hours. After finishing her job of assisting Trixie to convert her wrist computer into a “pip boy”, she, Shining Armor and Cadance had walked out of the tent so she could inform them about the decision made by the families of the two Twilights, and then to have a long and emotional conversation on what the decision would mean to the three of them. When she returned inside the tent, Twilight saw that Trixie was methodically putting away her tools, and then continued to watch as she self-medicated afterwards. While Twilight was doing this, she hemmed and hawed over what to say to the Canterlot High student; the thought of saying something to a stranger that would offend them or lead them to think bad things about her terrified Twilight, and was the primary reason why she never made friends after elementary school. “You’re really smart,” she finally said to her, and instantly regretted it.

“You mean this?” Trixie said, gesturing at the work table. “That’s just hacking. It’s not like I invented any of the wonder functions buried in your school’s gadgets.”

“But that’s not all you’ve invented. The pony you told me about the things you made up for her: the levitator, the high beam, the aura inducer... You designed all of those yourself, and then described them so well to your counterpart that she was able to reproduce them—and the reproductions worked on the first try!”

“Well...OK,” Trixie said with a bit of a blush. “Magi-tech is my passion, even when I thought it was a fake system that I imagined in my dreams.”

“Like I said, you’re smart,” Twilight reiterated. “So why don’t you attend Crystal Prep? I’m sure the equipment here is inadequate, and I know there are no dedicated electronics classes like we have.”

Trixie nodded. “True, true. But I never would have cut it at the Academy.”

“Why not?”

Trixie shook her bag of prescriptions. “Consistency. Look, the Trixie before you is me at 200%. Maybe 250%. I’m dosed up to the gills, and my neurons are on fire...until midnight tonight. At 12:01, I will become totally useless for about a week. Heck, I’ll probably revert to being a self-absorbed below-average illusionist for the rest of 2010! Crystal Prep is all about results, and results are a good thing for a lot of people, but Canterlot High is about figuring out how to be happy being yourself.” She sighed with a small smile on her face. “And they’ve done a pretty good job with me.”

“Oh,” said Twilight, suddenly feeling awkward at bringing up Trixie’s disability. Seeking to change the subject, she said, “Hey, can I tell you something?”

“Sure.”

“I know what’s wrong with pony you.” Twilight said. She briefly explained about the bizarre power her cutie mark had gifted her with. “I looked at her, and saw the break in her...thaumic system, I think it would be called?”

“Did you tell her?” Trixie asked calmly.

“No,” Twilight said with a sigh. “See, I really don’t know anatomy that well. I would have to describe what I saw to a pony surgeon and see if they could even fix it. I mean, there are plenty of times where a human is injured in a way where the doctor knows exactly what’s wrong, but medical science has not advanced to the point yet where the injury can be fixed. I don’t want to get the other Trixie’s hopes up only to tell her that her fault is incurable, or worse that the doctors already knew, and I was just making a fool of myself. I mean, maybe she can come over here? I suspect that the sciences are more advanced on Earth than Equestria, given that some of the historical effort on Earth would have been diverted into magical research on Equestria, but then there’s the question of if humans even have a thaumic system. Well, I guess yes because the ponies-in-human-bodies could, but on the other...” She stopped after being silenced by Trixie’s finger pressed to Twilight’s lips.

“Pony Trixie and I have been over this a lot in her dreams,” Human Trixie said, removing the silencing finger. “She was never very good at magic before the accident. And afterwards, my inventions and her ideas of what I should invent have helped to make her Equestria’s only true stage magician. The others use weak magic to fake impressive magic, but she uses no magic to fake impossible magic. That is her destiny!

“It’s the same thing with me, Twilight. My botched brain chemistry means I’ll never be a dependable genius like you’ll undoubtedly become, but in exchange I got to experience the daily miracle that is Equestria in my dreams. And with my meds, I can try out being every Trixie imaginable, just so long as I’m willing to deal with the rather nasty consequences. And I am.”

Twilight was quiet as she absorbed all this. “You’re smart and you’re brave.”

“Thank pony me for that last one.”

“So...250%? You really think this business with the dozen of us was worth that much?”

Trixie shook her head incredulously. “It was worth so much more! We are living through a turning point in human and pony history. The Princess and the Church have been trying to keep the two worlds a secret from each other for centuries, but there’s no way the secret can remain long after this! This is absolutely a future Day the Universe Changed.”

Twilight’s eyes boggled. “Wow, I loved that series! What was your favorite episode?”

P. Celestia.

The Markist Church van returned at 2:46, not long after Vice-Principal Luna had returned with not only Rarity but also Applejack.

Princess Celestia phased through the roof of the van in alicorn form and then phased right into the tent. She was only seen by a half-dozen dazed students and drivers.

(Shining Armor and his parents had been on the lookout, standing outside the tent and looking for the van. At Shining’s signal, Human Twilight had stomped on the magic-draining mat and jumped through the mirror. The Human Twilight’s family then walked around the tent to go in.)

“We should get started,” Celestia said. She looked around, seeing only one matched pair: the pair of Applejacks. The others were either still in Equestria, or in the act of walking over from the van. After a brief accusing glance at an oblivious Sunset, she said, “Hold still, Applejacks.”

The child and teenage Applejacks did as they were told. Celestia charged her horn and placed it between the two heads. “Are you watching, Sunset?” she asked.

“Oh!” exclaimed Sunset Shimmer, who had been too absorbed by a game of Pokémon Black and White on Trixie’s Nintendo DS Lite to notice the Princess’ entrance. She ran up, closed her eyes, and lightly tapped each eyelid with the glowing middle finger of her right hand. When she opened them, their color had changed to translucent.

Celestia turned back to the Applejacks, put her horn back where it was, and cast her mind-switching spell. There was a bright flash, but when it faded, nothing had obviously changed.

“Hey, I got taller,” the older Applejack said. She looked down at her hands. “Woo-ee! I’m back to the right age!”

“And so am I...I guess,” the younger Applejack said. “I won’t know for sure until I’m a pony again.”

Sunset blinked a couple of times, and her eyes went back to normal.

Celestia turned to her. “So did you get that?”

“Oo! Oo! I got it, Princess!” Pony Twilight exclaimed.

Princess Celestia gave a proud look at Twilight for a moment—causing the filly in a human body to squee—and then fixed a pre-disappointed gaze back on Sunset. “Well?”

“I think so...” Sunset said cautiously. “So you used the left-hoofed solution to Dundain’s Paradox?”

“No, the right-hoofed one,” Celestia said flatly.

“Really? These human eyes really suck at Analysis. OK, I think I’ve got it.”

“I need you to be more certain than that,” Celestia said with a frown. “There will be a considerable period of time after I return to Equestria when I will be powerless to cast the spell, and after that I might be very busy, so I need you to cast the spell in my wake. And you’ll be the one to cast it on my counterpart and I.”

“I know! I know!” Sunset protested. “You only told me a million times!”

“And yet you weren’t prepared.” Having settled the matter to her own satisfaction, she turned to Pony Twilight. “Twilight, are you ready to return to Equestria?” she asked. “And where’s your human counterpart?”

“Our Twilights are where they need to be,” Night Light said, stepping forward.

Princess Celestia said nothing.

“If you switch the Twilights back, then the pony Twilight will lose five years of her life healing her horn,” Twilight Velvet explained quickly. “While if the human Twilight stays in the pony body, she could heal in less than a year.”

“Our Twilight is driving herself crazy chasing after scientific discovery,” Night Light continued. “In the pony world, she could study the published work on magic instead, and hopefully during that time the pony Twilight’s parents could guide her to becoming a more-stable individual.”

“And what about my student, living in a human body in a human world?” asked Celestia. “How can my student study magic in your world? Will she retain the ability to cast spells?”

“No,” said Archbishop August, stepping forward. “Eventually her body will change to work like other Markists: only able to manifest true magic in specialized buildings called ‘solariums’. She can practice her magic there.”

“Magic has a strong ‘hooves-on’ component,” said Celestia. “How will she train?”

“We will train her,” Pony Meridiem said. “Gnosi and I want to remain on this world, in these bodies. And we want to help Twilight. We will gladly carry out your lesson plans with her.”

“Our human counterparts agreed to remain in Equestria, if you’ll allow it,” said Pony Gnosi. “They want to learn more about Harmony, to steer Markism closer to its goals.”

“We’ll take Twilight out of Crystal Prep Academy, to give her private instruction,” said Shining Armor. “The school was a bad influence for her, and she was two years ahead of other students her age. So I don’t think this will hinder the prospects of either her or my human sister.”

“I’m a trained educator,” said Cadance, “and I will ensure that she is taught everything she needs to know as an American student, in addition to any Equestrian materials you might provide me.”

“I see,” Celestia said, looking around at the veritable army of persuaders surrounding her. To Twilight’s immediate family she asked, “And you would have no problem being separated from your Twilight?”

“We’d use our magic books to communicate,” Pony Twilight said, finally speaking up for herself. She felt especially awkward being in this overly-old body. “I’m going to miss you and Equestria terribly on top of my pony family, but this really is for the best. Human Me really needs Equestria to fix her before she grows up to be a mad unicorn...mad human, which might even be worse than a mad unicorn. So...promise you’ll write me, too?”

“Of course, My Little Pony,” Princess Celestia said with a warm smile.

“We are in agreement, as are our pony counterparts,” reported Twilight Velvet.

The Princess nodded. “This is a commendable solution you have come up with,” she told them. “The wait until the mirror re-opens will pass before you know it.” She hoped that Harmony would be as understanding.

Celestia turned to see the rest of the group from the van approach. “Shall we continue with the switches?”

Various.

The various pairs had a few moments to speak with each other before they were switched.

Pony Fluttershy to Human Fluttershy: “Stay as far away from Principal Cinch as possible.”

Human Fluttershy merely nodded at something she was going to do anyway.

Gilda the Griffon to Gilda the Human: “You’re going to become a Markist.”

Gilda the Human to Gilda the Griffon: “I was going to do that anyway.”

Gilda the Griffon to Gilda the Human: “I got your gang to convert along with you.”

Gilda the Human to Gilda the Griffon: “How did you do that?”

Celestia the Pony to Gilda the Human: “She used her magic to save herself from being riddled with bullets. And then I used my magic to save the rest of them.”

Fluttershy the Human to Celestia the Pony: “How do you know what ‘being riddled with bullets’ means?”

Luna the Human to Fluttershy the Human: “That’s my bad. She was curious about Scarface in one of our shared dreams, and so I re-enacted it for her.”

Fluttershy the Human uttered an epic sigh of defeat.

Gilda the Human to Celestia the Pony: “By the way, we’ll definitely need a pair of those books. Doing so will have ramifications like you wouldn’t believe.”

Princess Celestia smiled briefly at the thought of how much chaos such an action would unleash. “Agreed. And Trixie?”

“Yes, Your Highness?”

“You’re getting a pair as well. The pony Trixie is entering my service, she’s very useful to you, and if I am to become more involved in human affairs, there will be times when the principal and vice-principal of a high school might be too conspicuous to act effectively as my agents. Are you interested?”

“As long as you understand what you’re getting,” Human Trixie said, shaking her prescription bag once more. She held out her hand. “Deal?”

“Deal!” the Princess said with a smile, shaking Trixie’s hand with her hoof. She looked over at the Pinkie Pies, who had been quietly looking at each other this whole time instead of talking, in complete contradiction to her expectations. “Will you be wanting a book as well?”

“Well, it’s not like we need—” Pony Pinkie began.

“Yes,” Human Pinkie said. She gave Pony Pinkie a significant look.

“Oh,” said Pony Pinkie. “Yes. We absolutely can’t possibly talk to each other without a book, and how else would we exchange...”

“Recipes,” said Human Pinkie.

“Recipes?” Pony Pinkie asked her counterpart. “You mean for rock farming?”

“No, for pastries,” Human Pinkie explained. “You’re going rumspringa.”

“Oh.” A second later: “Ooohh. So that’s what you meant. So anyway, totally need a book.”

Pony Rarity rolled her eyes. At least now she knew she had a way to get in contact with her counterpart even if the magic books stopped working.

Nobody noticed the satisfied smile that briefly floated across Celestia’s lips.

#

...So that made Applejack, Fluttershy, Gilda and Pinkie who had switched back into their proper bodies. Twilight, Gnosi and Meridiem were going to wait until the next time the portal opened. Human Rarity hadn’t been found yet. And as for Rainbow Dash...

“Rainbow Dash, why is your counterpart still in Equestria?” Princess Celestia asked wearily.

“Hold on, I’ll ask her,” Pony Rainbow Dash said, going over to Sunset’s book and flipping to her personal page. She read the message that had been added since the last time she had looked. “Oh, I get it. She says she’s staying in Equestria, with her magic, so she can make sure that everything gets done before time runs out. Sounds legit to me.”

“Really,” Celestia said with a raised eyebrow. “And why can’t you do that instead? There are no more roadblocks on Earth, only in Equestria. And you’d have plenty of time to charge after crossing over.”

Rainbow pointed at the book. “She wants a chance to be awesome. I mean face it: lots of us have had a chance to be awesome on this trip. I got to save Spitfire by levitating a helicopter. And Pony Fluttershy got to be epic awesome less than an hour ago.”

Human Fluttershy looked curiously at her counterpart, who tried to will herself into invisibility through the power of a well-timed squeak.

Princess Celestia sighed. “Alright,” she conceded. “Ponies and Griffon Gilda, we are going to return to Equestria together. Please discharge your magic one at a time. I’ll go after you.”

The Equestrian versions of Applejack, Fluttershy, Gilda and Pinkie jumped through the portal together after each walking over the mat. Celestia decided to wait a few minutes, just to be safe.

While she waited, the portal glowed and then a familiar bundle of different-colored Zero-X books flew out of the portal, one for each human. A note included in the bundle read, “Books for Gilda and Trixie to follow shortly. Raven.”

Untying the bundle, Human Applejack pulled out her book. Borrowing Sunset’s pen, she wrote a test message to her pony counterpart, and got an answer back. With a satisfied smile, she turned to go.

“Wait!” Trixie exclaimed. “Aren’t you going to wait for Rarity to come back?”

“I trust that she will,” Applejack replied.

“But the reunion...”

Applejack raised an eyebrow.

“True love!” Trixie insisted.

Applejack laughed. “We can get together tomorrow to compare stories.”

“Hey, tomorrow’s Saturday!” Pinkie exclaimed in realization. “Let’s meet at Sugarcube Corner at noon. Mandatory invites for every student, including Trixie! Oh, and except you, Gilda. You’re optional.”

Gilda chuckled. “Yeah, I’ll have to pass,” she said. “My gang will be pretty busy at the Church tomorrow.”

“I’ll have to pass as well,” said Trixie. “You do not want to see me off my drugs if you want to be my friend.”

“You’re going,” said Applejack. “Because if they can’t put up with you when you’re off your drugs, they’re no friends at all.”

Trixie smiled thinly at Applejack. “We’ll see.”

The others said their goodbyes to Applejack, who then left.

“Is there any particular reason you picked Sugarcube Corner?” Rarity asked Pinkie. “You never used to go there...before.” She hoped that the oblique reference to Pinkamena wouldn’t offend her.

“Well, I walked by there a lot, I heard that they have great service and food, and the Cakes look like they do a good job of running it,” Pinkie answered, showing no signs of offense. “And I’ve decided I’m getting a job there, so what better argument is there for my usefulness than by bringing tons of business to them on a quiet Saturday afternoon?”

“That’s a sound business argument,” Rarity said.

“Um, what about me?” Pony Twilight asked in a small voice. “Am I invited to tomorrow’s party?”

“Well of course you are, Little Twilight,” Pinkie exclaimed. “We’ll start with Human Lesson #1 tomorrow: How to Have Fun.”

“I know how to have fun!” Twilight exclaimed.

Behind her, Shining Armor frowned and shook his head.

The others laughed. Twilight spun around and pointed at Shining. “Did you just...? Oh, you’re just as bad as he is!”

“No, he’s worse,” Cadance said, “since he’s had five extra years to become a more big-brothery big brother. But don’t worry, I’ve got your back.”

Twilight walked over, looking nervously at Cadance. “My Cadance was my foal-sitter. Were you my counterpart’s…little-human sitter?”

“No, I started dating your brother before I met you.”

“My counterpart said that you were the closest thing she had to a best friend. I liked the pony you…a lot. But she wasn’t my best friend.”

“I can be here in whatever role you’d like me to be in,” said Cadance. “Not just as your teacher.”

“OK,” Twilight said quickly. “I’ll have to think about it.”

“Take as long as you need,” Cadance replied. She looked around, and spotted Spike sniffing around the outside of the tent. She whistled, and the dog cautiously poked his head in.

“Oh!” Twilight exclaimed, crouching down. “Hello, Spike.”

Spike rushed forward, jumping into Twilight’s arms and licking her face, causing her to laugh.

“I was going to say goodbye to you, but I forgot, and now I don’t have to do it at all!” she told him. She looked over at her brother. “So when does he start talking?”

Shining looked at her for a moment before realizing that she wasn’t joking. “Dogs don’t talk, Twilight.”

“Oh,” she said, momentarily saddened. “Well that means we will have to develop a non-verbal form of communication.”

Spike licked her face again.

“Right now, I think he’s telling me that he’s happy.”

H. Apple Bloom—Mustangia Junior High. 2:53 p.m.

Apple Bloom walked out of the school campus, and saw the red truck waiting for her with Big Mac and Applejack inside. She stopped, and asked herself if she was ready for another evening of weirdness and terrific foreboding with her big sister.

“Apple Bloom!” Applejack called out, a huge smile on her face.“Come over here!” She got out of the truck and held out her arms.

Apple Bloom started walking towards Applejack, but soon changed that into running, jumping up at the end into her big sister’s arms. “You’re back! You’re back!” she cried out, tears in her eyes.

Applejack put her down, crouching down and holding her by her shoulders. “So you knew that wasn’t me?” she asked.

“I didn’t know what to think!” Apple Bloom replied. “She looked at the world like it was in a funhouse mirror. She looked at me like I was a new relative at the family reunion. And she looked at Ma and Pa like...like they were ghosts.”

Applejack hugged her close. “They were...to her. But she’s gone home now and, Goddess forbid, nothing like that will never happen again.”

“But...I never got to say goodbye,” Apple Bloom said sadly.

Applejack slowly got up, a distant look in her eyes. She was thinking of the other Applejack, and what not being able to say goodbye did to her. “We’re going back,” she told Big Mac.

“Yup,” he said, having had the same thought.

#

When they arrived at Canterlot High, Apple Bloom sprang out of the truck, running full tilt towards the tent.

Applejack looked nervously at her brother. “She didn’t pick up any Equestrian magic from pony me, did she?”

“Nope.”

Applejack breathed a sigh of relief.

A few seconds later, Apple Bloom burst into the tent. She looked wildly around her, for either a human Applejack, or some kind of weird alien with orange skin and blonde hair. ‘No wait, she’s supposed to be some kind of cute little horse,’ she corrected herself, based on the brief conversation in the car.

Well, there was one horse in the tent, but she wasn’t little. Apple Bloom’s jaw dropped open. “Excuse me, Goddess miss?”

I mean, what else could she be but the Goddess?

Princess Celestia looked down at the human child. “Yes?”

“Could I say goodbye to your Applejack?”

Celestia studied the girl for a few moments. “All right,” she said. “I’ll write her a note to come through the portal.”

Apple Bloom looked around, and locked eyes with the equestrian statue at the center of the tent. There was an odd-looking floor mat in front of the flat side of the block the horse was standing on. A wooden sign was posted next to the mat, saying “Step here to discharge magic before using the portal to Equestria.”

“You don’t have to bother, Goddess,” Apple Bloom said quickly. “I’ll just pop over and back in a jiffy. You won’t even miss me!” And with that, she walked over to the mat, hopped up and down on it a couple times, experimentally stuck her hand in the portal to make sure she wasn’t about to give herself a concussion, and finally leapt right through.

Basement of the School of Magic.

The mirror glowed briefly as yet another pony emerged. This one, a yellow filly with a bright red mane tied up in a pink bow, looked eagerly around her. “Which one of you is Applejack?” she asked.

Applejack, who had been sitting quietly in the same corner that her counterpart had previously brooded in, looked up. “Apple Bloom?”

“Applejack!” the filly cried with joy. She tried to run forward, then tripped over her own hooves. “What in tarnation?” she asked, before finally noticing her new form. “Oh!” she exclaimed. “I get it.” She got up and looked at herself, turning in a little circle. Then she looked back at Applejack and marched purposefully to her. “You didn’t say goodbye,” she said with a pout.

Applejack’s eyes went wide, before pulling Apple Bloom into a big embrace.

Apple Bloom smiled, soaking in the love and glad that she was making the sad “pony” happier.

Applejack held her sister at hooves’ length, just as the human Applejack had done with her a few minutes earlier at school. “My Apple Bloom is so tiny. She can’t even talk yet,” she said.

Apple Bloom smiled. “So I got to be your ‘free preview’, then.”

“Yes,” said Applejack. “And you’re the best little sister that anypony could possibly ask for.”

Apple Bloom closed one eye in thought. “Any...pony. OK, I get it. Now you just make sure to show her the best movies when she gets old enough. You do have movies in Equestria, right?”

Applejack smiled. “We do. And I will. I promise.”

“Great! I guess I better be going, then.” Apple Bloom stepped back, and looked around her at all of the other ponies. Several of them looked familiar. She looked over at Applejack, and mentally compared her appearance to her human sister. Then she eagerly looked over all of the others, committing the basics of their appearances to her memory—she would find their human counterparts later. Then she noticed the room they were in. “Is this a bomb shelter? No, wait...the basement of a haunted opera house?”

“It’s the basement of a school,” Applejack said.

“The basement of a school that secretly trains mutants in how to use their powers?! Where’s Professor X?”

“Wait, is this that X-Man film you showed me last night?”

“The prequel is undergoing principal photography right now,” Apple Bloom quickly rattled off.

“It’s not a school for mutants. It’s a school of magic.”

“So basically the same thing,” said Apple Bloom. She looked up, trying to imagine what the surface looked like. “A world of magic...that’s nothing like Harry Potter. What does pony architecture look like? You’ve probably got the best fireworks shows in the universe! Do you live on a ranch?”

With a smile, Applejack started herding Apple Bloom towards the mirror. “The Princess gave us a pair of magic books that let us write to each other. I’ll try to see if I can get any pictures through to you.”

“Really? That would be great! As soon as I get the budget to make my fantasy masterpiece, I’ll find a way to sneak some of it in! And I’ll send you some pictures too.”

“Goodbye, Apple Bloom. It was great getting to know you.”

“Same here!” She looked around at the others. “Bye, every...everypony!”

The tent in front of Canterlot High.

Back on Earth, Apple Bloom got up, looked around, and walked over to a waiting Big Mac. “Do you want to take a go?” she asked.

“Nope,” he said.

Apple Bloom explained about the books, which Human Applejack had forgotten to mention on the car ride, and the three Apples walked back to the truck to go home.

Seeing no further excuse to stay on Earth, Celestia touched the mat with her hoof, which caused it to go up in a cloud of blue smoke as it was overloaded by her magic. In full anticipation of this, Sunset wrote a brief note in her magical book, and a moment later another magic-grounding mat popped out of the mirror, rolled up so that Human Rainbow Dash could handle it without losing her own magic. Having lost most of her magic to the mat she had destroyed, Celestia made sure to take on the Principal’s human form before completing the discharge on the second mat.

“Farewell, all of you,” she addressed the group. “You’ve given me a lot to think about.”

And then she went through the portal.

Day 3, Evening & Night: Chapter 25: Thoughts of a Princess (H. Celestia, P. Trixie)

Author's Note

I was watching some Shakespeare before I started writing this first part. Can you tell?

Day 3, Evening & Night: Chapter 25: Thoughts of a Princess (H. Celestia, P. Trixie)

H. Celestia—Equestria, The Royal Throne Room of Castle Canterlot. Noon on Day Three.

The unicorn Principal Celestia, disguised by a piece of Earth technology as the alicorn Princess Celestia, sat upon the royal throne, receiving reports of the gathering expedition to find the lost human Rarity. Beside her stood the royal aide, Raven, the...

Ah, and what a fearful mystery lurked at the end of that ellipsis! For what indeed was Raven? Earth pony by lineage, something like a unicorn arch-mage in power, and in longevity like an alicorn herself! On Earth, the adage “power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely” was inviolate; how far from that was it in Equestria? For while the Princess had the title of power, had not Raven equal substance of power? The Christian God was all-knowing, all-powerful and in all places at once. In the first two categories, princess and advisor were in close competition, but Raven could pass from one end of the realm to the other in but a hoofstep and with seemingly no expense to her power, while the Princess’ teleports drained her to her utmost. The Princess wasn’t even sure that Raven’s mind was confined to a single pony, having once been heard muttering something about “the twenty-three”.

All of this Principal Celestia had learned from her pony counterpart in the dreams they had shared, the results of casual remarks the Princess had dropped whenever the question had been asked as to how she managed to so well govern her vast realm.

The Princess had displayed no worry. Unlike an endless march of would-be unicorn usurpers with their mad schemes to rule or destroy the universe, Raven, the result of generations of breeding overseen by the Blueblood clan, was absolutely loyal. As were her 22 alternate “daughters”—loyalty was part of the breeding. So the Princess believed.

And it was this same Raven who stood beside the nervous “Princess” now, telling her who she was speaking with, and how they deserved to be treated.

Celestia watched as the crowds lined up before her spontaneously parted, to allow a white unicorn mare with an auburn mane and a while unicorn colt with a blond mane to step forward. After a brief bow, the colt spoke: “Auntie, may I ask why you are leaving?”

Celestia glanced over at Raven, having no idea who this supplicant was, although his high rank was obvious.

Raven pursed her lips.

The voice of a filly with what Celestia thought of as a Cockney accent spoke up from a far corner of the hall: “Mommy, who’s that colt who’s speakin’ with the Princess?”

Another Cockney voice, that of an older mare, answered, “That there’s the bloomin’ Princeling of Equestria, Blueblood son of Prince Blueblood himself. ‘Bluey’ for short. ‘Is father is leading that there expedition to the Yak lands.”

Neither voice belonged to actual ponies, being summoned up by Raven to deliver the necessary information to Principal Celestia. Also it wasn’t a very good Cockney. Finally, Celestia knew that her counterpart’s only living relative lived in the Moon, so “Auntie” must have been an affectation.

“Good afternoon, Nephew,” Celestia addressed the colt with a smile. “I am going to aid this lost filly, and should not a princess aid the poor and the helpless?”

“No,” Bluey said with complete sincerity. “I looked up this ‘Rarity’ unicorn in the genealogies, and she has not one drop of noble blood. That means you owe her nothing.”

Celestia pulled back her head and gravely regarded this colt. And then she realized that he was but a colt, and had learned his values from the haughty nobles who surrounded him. He was in need of a lesson.

Now Celestia had not really concentrated on history much in college. She had focused on the sciences, while her sister Luna was the one who took the history, language and sociology classes. But both of them were budding teachers, and so taught themselves their subjects by teaching them to the other. And in this way Celestia had picked up some history, even if against her will. She now set herself the task of using her knowledge of a social system she didn’t have much sympathy for to turn this Bluey into a better pony and, perhaps, to drag a few of the adults along with him.

“This is a feudal society,” she told Bluey. “And feudalism is based on the Great Chain of Being. The animals, the plants, and the very elements serve the common pony. Is that not correct?” She looked out across the crowd, and saw complete agreement with her words. Her sweep ended on Blueblood who, seeing the others nod, nodded vigorously himself. “The peasant serves the lesser lord, the lesser lord serves the greater, and the greatest lord directly serves the final link of the chain...who is me.” Celestia paused to look once more at Bluey.

Princeling Bluey nodded once more.

“But service is nothing without somepony to serve. If the land died, if the clouds dried up, where would the ponies be? Could they command a dead Equestria to provide them with food and water? No. And so the ponies tend the land, they marshal the clouds, they wrap up the winter and they run the leaves off of the trees. These are the responsibilities of ponies to Equestria.

“That responsibility does not stop with the common pony. As we the nobility and royalty of Equestria command the loyalty of the common pony, so are we also responsible for their well-being. As we are freed from common labor, so do we instead study and train ourselves for leadership. We protect the common pony from the dangers of this world, because if we do not, we will soon find ourselves with no ponies to rule over. Do you find any fault with my logic?”

“No, Auntie,” Bluey said, his head lowered and his eyes a bit glazed trying to comprehend such novel subjects.

“A ruler’s most-powerful tool is delegation and on another occasion I might send a group of ponies on my behalf to perform this rescue. But that very group is serving our needs in the Yak lands right now, so it falls to me. Besides, it is good for the common ponies to see us acting ourselves for their best interest, to give them a personal connection to the pony they owe allegiance to. And...” (she reached forward, lifting Bluey’s head up so he was looking her in the eye) “...it’s a chance to be a hero.”

“A hero?” Bluey asked, his doubts instantly vanished.

“Why yes, a hero. Can you imagine the scene? Some terror has waylaid the poor filly Rarity and then we sweep in, myself and you, Bluey. Together we will vanquish the foe, and rescue the maiden, to the acclaim of the whole grateful nation!”

“Wow...” Bluey said softly, before quickly turning to Dame Blue Fly. “Can I go, Mamma?”

“Can you guarantee his safety?” Blue Fly asked Celestia.

Celestia gestured to the ponies standing at key positions throughout the hall. “We are going into possible danger, but I bring my guards. And you know my power.” (Wasn’t that an equivocation!) “Judge his safety by that.”

Blue Fly smiled. “Yes, you can go, Bluey. It should be an enlightening experience. Do try to see that he doesn’t get into too much trouble, Your Highness.” She bowed her head briefly but deeply.

“I’ll do what I can,” Celestia said, briefly bowing her head, but not as deeply. Royal etiquette was something that Celestia and Luna had asked the Princess about, and so they knew how to bow heads to practically anyone should they ever have to impersonate her.

Out of the corner of her eye, Celestia caught a signal given by Raven. She stood up, and everyone in the room came to attention. “With all in readiness, we depart,” she announced simply. She walked down the aisle, followed first by Bluey, then the royal guards. Raven walked alongside the file of ponies, being close enough to have the ear of the Princess.

As she always had.

During the first leg of their journey, Celestia stared down at Sunset’s bag, and tried to move it with her unicorn telekinesis. According to both the Princess and Raven, it was the second-easiest of unicorn spells after lighting her horn. And Lift and Light were the only two spells that didn’t require concentrating on complicated spell forms to pull off.

The bag refused to budge.

The first stop of the flotilla of pegasi-driven carriages was Ponyville. The Mayor was waiting, and a little unicorn filly was beside her.

As a frustrated Celestia stepped out of the carriage, Raven was by her side. “Were you trying to lift something?” she asked.

Celestia nodded as the two started walking towards the waiting mayor and her guest.

“You have talons in your true form, right?” she asked.

Celestia looked at her curiously. “Hands,” she said in a low voice. “But ‘talons’ is close enough.”

“Imagine that you’re lifting the bag with the hands you no longer have. Wish for it to happen.”

“Welcome to our fair village.”

Celestia turned to face the Mayor as she bowed deeply to her. She glanced back to her side, but Raven was nowhere to be seen. Celestia sighed, accepting that she was not going to be able to control her conversations with her “advisor”. She then turned back to deal with the Mayor of Ponyville.

“Rise, my little pony.” The Principal used her counterpart’s favorite phrase, and somehow did it with a straight face. “And who is the filly you have brought to meet me?”

“This is Amethyst Star,” Mayor Mare said. “She and Cheerilee are the ones who saw Rarity get dragged out of town. Cheerilee is with the main search group.”

Celestia kneeled down to be closer to Amethyst’s level. “Hello, Little Amethyst,” she said. “Could you tell me what you saw?”

Amethyst took a deep breath. “Rarity was being dragged by this bright magical beam that was grabbing onto her horn. Cheerilee and me ran over to try and pull her away, but she cried out that she was being taken to ‘her destiny’, and so we let her go.” She said this with the air of somepony who had been asked to tell this story many times before. She then blinked for a moment in thought and looked earnestly into Celestia’s eyes. “Did we make the right decision?”

“Absolutely,” Celestia said, rising to her full height. “Rarity was indeed taken to her destiny. It’s just that we think she got into trouble after that.”

“Oh,” said Amethyst. And then her eyes twinkled with sudden inspiration. “Hey, you should take me with you when you go to find Rarity!” She signaled to the Mayor to back off, then leaned in close to whisper, “I’ve got a guardian griffon!”

“Oh?” Celestia replied with mock curiosity. She looked back at the carriages. Inside one of them was Trixie, who had both insisted that they take Sunset’s bag of human gadgets, and that she come along, despite the fact that Celestia understood the contents of that bag far more than Trixie did. “Well I’m afraid we’re out of room,” she whispered to Amethyst,“unless you want to hang off the side.”

Amethyst took a moment to seriously think this over.

Both of them ignored the panicked look on Mayor Mare’s face.

“No, I should stay here and look after Ponyville,” Amethyst finally said, forgetting to whisper. “Besides, my guardian’s only good near the Everfree.”

“OK,” Celestia said very seriously. “Thank you for your help.”

“No problem,” Amethyst said casually. A second later she was running back into the square. “Guess what, Ponies!” she was heard to scream a moment after she had turned a corner. “I got to talk to the Princess! We’re besties now!”

Celestia shook her head and walked over to the Mayor.

“There was one other thing,” the Mayor told her. “A member of the search party went back into town an hour or two before sunset yesterday to report in. He told us that the party was just south of the Royal Trail entrance to the Everfree, and was going to follow the Trail southwest from there.”

Celestia nodded like she had any idea where that was. “Thank you,” she said. “We’ll start our search from there.” She began to walk back to the carriages.

“Good luck!” the Mayor called after her.

On the next flight, Celestia succeeded in lifting the bag with her magic, although she was far from having any degree of control in her manipulations.

Meanwhile the pegasi drivers knew exactly where the location mentioned by the Mayor was, and soon flew the handful of carriages over there.

While the others were looking down the trail to the southwest, Celestia turned to the northeast, where the trail entered the Everfree and immediately turned into a narrow path.

She looked at the forest with foreboding. Somewhere in there was the castle where the pony Luna surrendered herself to the Nightmare, and from that spot she had been banished to the Moon, nearly a thousand years ago—you could not possibly visit the dreams of Princess Celestia without becoming intimately familiar with the events of that night. Celestia scanned the sky, trying to find the moon, but she soon realized that on Equestria the sun and moon were always on opposite sides of the sky, and so the moon would never be visible in daylight. Slowly she walked closer to the forest, peering within to see if she could spot the ruins of the castle. She raised a hoof and rested it on a tree trunk...

Principal Celestia suddenly found herself in a gray void, a path below her bare human feet, and blank screens floating around her. She was wearing the white shift of a pilgrim.

“Where is the Princess?” a voice gently asked her. The dead voice of her step-father Truth Delver. “Is she stuck on Earth as well, your mind switched with hers?”

Celestia was remarkably calm at this moment. It helped that the Princesses’ dreams frequently looked just like this landscape. “Yes,” she said to the being that was borrowing Truth Delver’s voice. “We are on schedule to get everyone switched back before the midnight deadline. I am Celestia of Earth. Who might I be addressing, Sir or Madam?”

“I am Harmony. And when you say ‘everyone’, I know that you lie.”

Celestia’s eyes boggled, as she realized that she was speaking to the closest entity she knew to the Christian God, the one being that even Princess Celestia considered to be her superior.

“Which of these six are not returning to their original bodies?” Harmony continued, using some of the screens to display the six ponies he was interested in.

Celestia pointed at Twilight. “That one,” she said. “Injuries have forced the pony to stay in the human body. And the human needs to stay in Equestria for a while for the sake of her spiritual well-being.”

“You could have brought the pony body to me. I would have been able to cure her of any ailment.”

“Even a broken horn?” Celestia said doubtfully. “Before the deadline?”

“I could have healed her,” Harmony said with a hint of a pout, “but it would have taken a week.”

“I think that she should heal at her own pace, instead of with your help,” Celestia insisted, inwardly amazed at her own courage. “It will be better for her in the long term.”

There was a pause as the ponification of an abstract concept thought. “I accept your assertion, based as it must be on knowledge I do not possess. And I accept the change to my plans. Nay, I welcome it. This is clearly the work of... Celestia of Earth, does your world have a guardian spirit as I am the guardian spirit of Equus?”

“We do not know it for a fact,” Celestia replied. “But if such a being existed, we have already prepared a name for her: Gaia.”

“I do not believe in accidents, Celestia of Earth. The switching of my champions is the work of Gaia. I am certain of this. She does not wish me harm, she just wants to...‘get in on the action’, so to speak. And she thinks that her Twilight would be a better Magic than my Twilight. So be it: if Twilight of Earth can embrace friendship as her predecessor did not, then the power will be hers when the time is right.”

Celestia came to a realization. “Harmony...are you confined to the Everfree?”

“For now,” the voice responded. “I expect the Six to unlock their powers while within my forest, years from now when they are mature enough...or if circumstances beyond my control force that maturity upon them. If for some reason this happens outside the Everfree, could you or the pony Celestia please send them into the sphere of my influence afterwards, so I might show them the destiny I have picked out for them, and give them the opportunity to embrace or reject it of their individual free will?”

“Yes,” said Celestia.

“Do you have any questions for me?”

“...No.”

“Then I release you. I apologize for the magic I took from you to power my manifestation, but I thought it important that I knew if at least most of the ponies would be returning to their rightful bodies.”

With a gasp, Celestia returned to being a disguised unicorn again. She shook her head, fighting off a momentary drowsiness.

“Are you alright, Your Highness?” Raven asked her.

“Yes,” Celestia said, putting a hoof to her temple. She opened her mouth to tell Raven of her encounter—

“No,” the voice whispered in her mind. It was not a command, but a request. “She has fallen from my path, and will soon fall far further.”

Celestia turned her open mouth into a yawn, then closed it.

Accompanied by Raven, Celestia walked back to the group. “Has anypony spotted the group yet?” she asked.

The pegasi who were hovering in the sky and scanning the horizon shook their heads.

“Trixie, could I speak with you for a moment?” Celestia asked as she walked over to her carriage. She used her magic to swing the bag out of the carriage, and to open it. When Trixie had joined her she pointed at an object in the bag: a pair of powered binoculars. It had reshaped itself during the passage through the mirror, making it a simply massive object in order to work with the enormous size of pony eyes. “Can you operate that?” she asked, making sure her voice could not be heard by any outside observers, before dropping it down for a private conversation. “I can do it, but my magic is not sure enough yet, and I can’t let anypony see how bad I am with it.”

Trixie nodded, reaching into the bag and fishing the binoculars out by the strap.

Celestia turned to face the small crowd, which had gathered a respectful distance away to hear her orders. “Trixie here has an invention that will help her to find the search party,” she said. “Flying Feather, I need you to take her up in your chariot so she can get a better view. Fly in broad arcs across the path. I also need another unicorn to hold the binoculars up for her—she lost her magic in the service of Equestria.”

Trixie gave Celestia a look of shock, which soon turned to gratitude.

“I’ll hold the, uh thingee,” Bluey said, stepping forward.

“Very well,” Celestia said with a smile.

P. Trixie.

Trixie used the binoculars to scan the ground for signs of a large group of ponies, or their tracks. It was rather difficult, as the focus had to be adjusted for different distances, and Trixie needed to use all of her hooves to hold onto the chariot. It turned out that she was scared of heights.

“Are you a peasant, Trixie?” Bluey asked her shyly.

“The lowest of the low, Your Highness,” Trixie quipped, her eyes still glued to the binocular’s sights.

“Wait, I know you! You’re the daughter of Housekeeper Spectacle.”

Trixie pulled away from the binoculars in utter shock. “You know her name?”

“Well I can’t avoid hearing it,” Bluey said, shuffling one hoof on the floor of the chariot. “The maids are always reporting to her, and I’m always needing a maid when Father is reporting to Auntie to clean up my spills. Chef Gallop makes the best chocolate and peanut butter milkshakes.”

“No...way...” Trixie whispered in awe.

Bluey saw her gaze and looked away, blushing. “So...how does that ‘binocular’ device work?”

“Well, it’s just a pair of telescopes, side by side,” Trixie said, regaining her composure.

Bluey turned back to face her. “A pair of surveying telescopes, I would hope. Not the astronomical kind.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Astronomical telescopes take the far, and make it close. Surveying telescopes take the far, and spread it out. One’s for details, the other’s for the big picture.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Trixie. “They are definitely surveying telescopes. Say, is that what your cutie mark is for? Surveying?”

“Yes,” said Bluey.

Trixie rolled her eyes. Reaching up, she shoved the binoculars towards Bluey. “Then you are the one who’s supposed to be using this thing!”

“Oh,” Bluey said quietly. The two unicorns switched places in the chariot, and then he put the binoculars to his own eyes. He already knew how the focusing knob worked.

It took him about twenty seconds to spot the trail left by the search party.

Chapter 26: On the Road to Nowhere (H. Celestia, Raven)

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter 27: The Past: Recent and Distant (H. Rarity, R. Mustang Sally)

H. Rarity—Nowhere's town jailhouse, 6:13 a.m. on Day Three.

The town’s response to the loss of the water was that every-bodied citizen formed themselves into a posse, to help Sheriff Rarity recover the all-important jug.

They didn’t seem to care much about the disappearance of Banker Merrimack.

“In Nowhere, life is cheap,” Louise the lizard bartender said. By this time, Rarity was making an effort to remember the names of the citizens she was bound to protect.

The water jug had disappeared through a large hole in the floor of the bank. The interior of the bank had the appearance of a fortress, with guns on pivots to not only shoot out, but also able to cover anyone who managed to get in. Merrimack had spent the night alone in the bank guarding the jug.

There was a second hole in the middle of the street right outside the doors of the bank.

“Why would the thieves need to dig this second hole?” Rarity asked herself out loud, looking down into the street hole.

“Maybe they got lost, and came up here first to get their bearings,” Charlie the mangy cat said. (Charlie was the town prospector. He “played a mean pair of spoons,” by his own admission.)

“Or maybe Merrimack was lured out here first, so he couldn’t use all his guns on the bandits,” Mori the buzzard said. (His feathers were growing back quite nicely. Also, he was the town mortician.)

Rarity got down on all four hooves to look at the pawprints in the dirt between the two holes. “There’s too much traffic in both directions to get a clear idea of what happened,” she said with a shake of her head. Then she noticed something: some fresh red mud at the edge of the hole, contrasting sharply with the tan-gray dirt of the rest of town. She quickly stood up and looked around her, but there was no other trace of red mud or red dirt anywhere else that she could see. With a frustrated frown, she then peered down into the hole. “Could somebody get a light?” she asked. “I could light up my horn, but...”

“Yeah, we get it, Sheriff,” said Ron the toad. (Ron was a roadrunner wrangler. Rarity hadn’t actually seen Ron wrangle a roadrunner yet, and she hoped to be able to stay in town long enough to see it happen.) He handed over a lit lantern with a long rope tied to its handle.

Rarity went over to the pile of lumber that had been assembled to cover over the hole, selected a long narrow plank of wood, and pulled it over the hole across its middle. After rolling a rock over each end of the plank to anchor it, she tossed the lantern over the board and used her hooves to play the rope out slowly, peering over the edge along with everyone else as they watched the light descend into the darkness.

“That hole’s too deep to have been dug just for the robbery,” Rarity said. She expected to deliver this observation to the Mayor, but he had left while she was setting up the plank, leaving just an unimpressed Angelique, who said nothing in reply.

Rarity looked down at her very-bad-for-climbing hooves, and sighed. “I’m going to need a ten-foot ladder,” she said. “A really good one, with really wide rungs.”

“What’s a ‘foot’?” asked Charlie. “And how long is ten of them?”

“As long as the rope,” said Rarity.

Pushkin the tarantula tailor pointed wordlessly at the abandoned general store.

#

Once the entire posse had gotten to the bottom of the tunnel, Rarity untied the rope with her teeth and then hooked the lantern’s handle in the crook of one forehoof, raising it to look around her. The place resembled an enormous sponge, with corridors too small to fit through branching off in every direction. Rarity applied some pressure to one of the walls, and easily broke through its dry brittle limestone.

“Wow,” Applejack muttered to herself. “Does this ever look familiar.” Applejack was decidedly not a part of the posse thanks to her unkind words the day before. She came along anyway.

“Hey, take a look at this doohickey!” Charlie cried out from the bottom of the bank hole.

The crowd congregated there to take a look at it. It was a horizontal metal disk with a hole in the middle, with large metal teeth on the disk’s edges pointing forward towards the end of the tunnel. The disk was mounted in front of a set of rubber tires, which allowed the device to move back and forth. Behind the disk were mounted a pair of chairs, and between the chairs and the disk were two sets of pedals and cranks. By putting all four of your claws or hooves on the pedals and cranks and rotating them like you were riding a bike, the disk would be made to rotate, the teeth would excavate the rock, and the wheels would pull the device forward. It was a quite ingenious way to cut a tunnel through this particular rock formation.

This also meant that it was absurdly easy to track the thieves back to their point of origin. Here at least there was only one set of pawprints visible, leading away from the device and back down the tunnel between and around the tracks of the tires.

While the crowd rushed down that tunnel to find the thieves. Rarity hung back to get a close look at the excavator device. She noted three things: an etched maker signature of “F&F”, the fact that the foot pedals for the left-hand seat were not engaged, and the fact that the red mud was present on those unengaged foot pedals.

#

“We got ‘em! We got ‘em!”

Rarity emerged from the far end of the tunnel into the bright sunlight. She put down her lantern and shielded her eyes with a hoof as she adjusted.

Gradually she could see the run-down shack that was sitting just outside the side of the hill where the tunnel ended. The cry from the posse had come from there. She was about to go there when she noticed Applejack and Doc the scorpion examining the unconscious figure of Merrimack.

“What happened to him?” Rarity asked.

Doc shook his head incredulously. “He was choked and near drowned,” he reported. “Yet there isn’t a drop of water to be seen. I’ll take him back to my office, but I don’t know how much I’ll be able to do myself.” He picked the squirrel’s form up with his tail and placed him on his back. He was able to do this because most of his stinger had been cut away in a fight years earlier, leaving only a sort of primitive finger-like appendage good for gunslinging. Doc was the best gunfighter in Nowhere, the second-best they ever had, next to the sheriff who had died a few weeks before Rarity’s arrival.

Of course, that was only in Nowhere. Adamantine was the finest outlaw in the entire Territory, in every category imaginable—everybody knew that.

Rarity watched as Doc then scuttled his way down the tunnel towards Nowhere.

“Sheriff, you’re about to be in a whole heap of trouble,” Applejack drawled.

“Why is that?” Rarity asked.

Applejack pointed a hoof, and Rarity followed it to see the posse marching out their rope-tied captives: the supposedly-dead Tom and Jerry. Still very much alive, and very much protesting their innocence. Some other members of the posse dragged out the top half of the bank water jug. The bottom had been smashed off, and there was no trace of water to be found.

Hearing the flap of a pair of wings, Rarity darted her eyes upward, to see a sentient-sized crow flying away. It had apparently been perched on top of the hill that the tunnel came out of, and had been observing everything that had been happening.

By this time the crowd had reached Rarity, with very sullen looks in their eyes.

“Ladies and gentlemen, this was all part of my plan,” Rarity said confidently.

“You meant for these two varmints to steal and destroy our water?” Ron asked incredulously.

Applejack frowned. Gingerly, she reached over to Rarity’s trousers and pulled out the waistband, taking a peek inside.

“I beg your pardon!” Rarity cried, slapping a hoof over Applejack’s.

Applejack looked at her insistently. Rarity looked down as Applejack pulled out the waistband once again.

Rarity’s cutie marks for deception were gone. Losing them was something she had fervently wished for, but losing them now... Well, that meant that Rarity had to rely on convincing the crowd the traditional way.

“There is a vast conspiracy at foot...hoof...claw...whatever,” she told the crowd. “These two are hired hands. I mean, think about it: they were here for weeks, yes? If they were going to strike against this town, why wait for me to become sheriff, when the previous interregnum would be more opportune!”

“‘Interregnum?’” asked Charlie.

“It’s the period between two rulers, or in this case sheriffs,” explained Mori.

“And let me ask you this: did you find any money in that cabin?” asked Rarity. “What mercenary would carry out such a dangerous job without getting at least a little bit in advance?”

“Oh, you mean this money?” Mori asked, holding a bag of bits aloft.

Rarity quickly grabbed the bag. “I’m taking this as evidence,” she said. “If they were being paid to perform this heinous act, don’t you want to know who paid them to do it?”

Now this was something the angry creatures could agree on. They even waited patiently as Rarity went over the cabin looking for clues.

The first thing she noticed was a complete absence of red mud. She noticed that neither the entrance of the tunnel nor the location where the busted jug were found could be seen from any of the windows in the cabin. Another piece of negative evidence was the absence of any kind of letter written by the pair of mercenaries addressed to Lady C. Unless that crow had been used to deliver it...

#

The trip back to town in the tunnel had been a terse one. Any attempt by either of the prisoners to speak was silenced by a punch in the gut. And the still-distrustful crowd made it impossible for Rarity to consult with Applejack.

When they reached the surface once again, Tom and Jerry were taken over to the city jail and locked up.

“I’m going to report to the Mayor,” Rarity addressed the crowd watching her from outside the building. “You can stay out here in the sun waiting for my return. You could try all crowding in here. You could disrespect the Mayor by crowding into his nice building. Or you can all go home and wait for my return.”

The posse, after consulting each other for a few seconds, chose Option D. Only Applejack stayed behind.

“I’d give you a deputy badge if I had one, Applejack,” Rarity said.

“But that would mean I would be working for the Mayor. So no thank you.”

“What do you have against him, anyway?” Rarity asked.

Applejack spent a moment in thought. “When...when I first stumbled into Nowhere, I wasn’t alone. There was another beetle pony named Muffins, after another stolen identity. She was very badly hurt when we arrived. Maybe she would have died on her own. Or maybe Doc could have saved her. Only Doc was sent out of town by the Mayor between the time I started looking for help and when Doc would have heard about it to help us.

“I was pretty hurt myself, and Merrimack nursed me back to life on his ranch. This was a couple of years after the Annexation, and most of the citizens of Nowhere were prejudiced against me for being pony-shaped. I know...silly, right?” She silently judged the look that Rarity gave her in response to the term “Annexation”. “This whole territory used to be buffalo land, and the buffalo only cared about themselves, so it became a haven for outlaws of every kind. And then ten years ago a pony named Everfree Valance got the other pony settlers together, and negotiated with both the Buffalo Council and Princess Celestia to get most of the land transferred over to Equestria, hence the name ‘Annexation’. Since Nowhere is and always was a town of non-pony outlaws, this made them really mad about ponies.”

“And yet you led me right to it,” Rarity said dryly.

“Well it’s not like there’s any other towns around here,” Applejack remarked. “You needed to get to some kind of town, or you were going to drop from heatstroke.”

“Yeah, I suppose you’re right,” Rarity admitted.

“Merrimack really got sweet on me, although I told him from the outset that the feeling wasn’t mutual. Nevertheless he signed his whole ranch over to me, saying that he basically lived in the bank now and didn’t need it anymore. And since the Mayor was busy buying up the whole town, this made him really mad.

“He’s been trying for six years now to get me to sell the ranch to him, and getting increasingly underhooved in the way he does it. I had a well, the only well not affected by the decade-long drought that the rest of Nowhere was suffering from. I was making regular deposits into the bank, to keep the town going. And then one morning I woke up to see my well plugged up with quick-dry cement! I found some bags of the stuff in the house that the Mayor’s mole assistants live in, but of course I couldn’t get anyone to admit their involvement.”

“If the Mayor wanted that land, why would he depreciate it by ruining the well?” Rarity asked.

“I...I dunno, but I know it was him! I know it!”

Rarity turned to the two prisoners. “And what’s your story?” she asked. “I thought we had an agreement.”

Applejack raised a silent eye ridge at this revelation.

“We were just waiting on one more message from a friend of ours,” Jerry said, producing a crumpled up piece of paper. “Turns out we were both wrong: Lady C. wasn’t going to take us out after we delivered Applejack, because she never hired us at all.”

“Yeah,” Tom chimed in. “Turns out the actual pony who hired us was herself hired by none other than—”

“Mayor John,” Applejack and Rarity said as one.

#

Rarity and Applejack parted ways as they left the jail house, on the understanding that Applejack’s presence could only hurt Rarity’s mission as she walked up to the Mayor’s mansion. Rarity passed the same pair of rabbits on the way in that she had seen before. This time they had accepted the offer to sell their land to the Mayor, and spoke of moving away to someplace less doomed than Nowhere...maybe Klugetown. Angelique let Rarity right in after that.

“Ah, Sheriff White Raven. I was expecting your report. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to participate in the chase...this wonderful contraption of mine is capable of many things, but not descending into a natural tunnel complex.”

“That was a very interesting complex,” Rarity told him from the other side of his enormous desk. “I noticed from your degrees on the wall that you’re a geologist. It seemed to me that the formation under the town was a completely empty aquifer. Were you aware of this fact?”

“Yes, although it was much more full when I led the settlement of the town back in ’74. I hoped that the water table would sustain us through the darkest of times. Alas, I turned out to be wrong on that account.”

“Indeed. I found it curious that none of the townsfolk was aware of the existence of that feature.”

“Is that so?” Mayor John asked, as he leaned forward to look down upon Rarity. “There were several of the founders who were aware, but sadly none of them are still around.”

“Interesting,” said Rarity. “And who are ‘F&F’?”

The Mayor smiled evilly. “A pair of up-and-coming inventors who’ve collaborated with me on a number of my most-recent projects.” He wheeled himself out from behind the desk. “Will you be needing to collect any additional evidence, Sheriff, or is your mind made up yet?”

Rarity frowned, and looked around her for any signs that the Mayor might have some kind of help hidden in the room to take her down. Grabbing the Mayor’s walking stick, she used it to lift the blankets that swathed the bottom of the Mayor’s tortoise shell and his feet. Those were wrapped tightly in bandages, the shaping making it clear that they had been horribly damaged at some point years in the past. And sticking to those bandages were patches of dried red mud.

“Mayor John, you are under arrest for the assault on Merrimack, and the deliberate destruction of the water supply owned by the citizens of Nowhere.”

With a smirk, the Mayor produced his hands, which Rarity used a pair of shackles to lock to part of his chair, making it impossible for him to control it. “And why would I destroy the water supply of my own citizens?” he taunted. “I can’t exactly be re-elected mayor to a town that was abandoned due to drought.”

“I...don’t know,” Rarity admitted. “But it probably ties into why you were buying all the land in town. The point is, I have enough evidence to hold you, and I will find enough evidence to make a definitive case against you without your interference.”

“If you say so,” John said with a sneer.

Rarity gathered as many of John’s belongings as she could find into her saddlebags, “as evidence”. She was particularly intrigued with an object that may seem familiar to the readers: a pocketwatch-shaped contraption that gave you your coordinates, with a portrait of a blue unicorn on the cover and a painting of a glass lake inside.

#

When Rarity marched the Mayor over to the jailhouse—with a silent Angelique pushing the Mayor’s chair—she was met by everyone left in the town. Night was falling, and everyone was equipped with torches. Rarity suspected that the torches were meant for more than just illumination.

“You’re going to try and pin this on the Mayor?” Ron asked incredulously. “He’s been nothing but good to this town.”

“While you just showed up yesterday, and you’re done nothing but lie to us!” Doc proclaimed, waving his mangled stinger in the air. There was a gun on the end of it.

As a matter of fact, all of the crowd gathered here was armed. So perhaps it might be better to call it a mob. Since mobs are more often armed than crowds.

“I’ve arrested the water thief!” Rarity insisted.

“We caught the water thieves already!” Louise retorted. “And then you let them get away.”

Rarity ran over to the door of the jailhouse. To her dismay, the back wall had a big hole in it, courtesy of a bundle of dynamite, if Rarity was to guess. And of course there was no longer any trace of either Tom or Jerry.

“The voice was right about everything!” a young rabbit exclaimed.

“Voice? What voice?” Rarity asked.

“The Voice of the West, Easterner,” Mayor John said.

“Hey, enough out of you, prisoner!” Rarity cried.

“He’ll only tell you what we already know, White Raven,” said Mori. “Her voice has come to us before, helping us out anytime the town was about to make a horrible decision.”

“Every time you tried to turn against the Mayor’s wisdom?” Rarity asked archly.

“Of course,” said Mori. “And she’s right once again. You were supposed to duel the mercenaries to the death. You went against the Code Duello. By telling us you killed them, that makes you guilty of perjury.”

“White Raven has lied to all of you.” It was a powerful female voice, reverberating up and down the streets.

The citizens whispered to each other. “Spirit of the West!” was repeated more than once.

“Show yourself, Spirit!” Rarity proclaimed. “If you have a physical form. I am not afraid of you.”

There was a rumble, as several of the abandoned and dilapidated buildings shook as if from an earthquake. The tallest of them, the three-story Hotel Paradise, had been covered over with a sheet to hide how much of the façade had fallen off over the years. This sheet now fell down, revealing that the front of the building was almost entirely gone, and the walls between the floors no longer existed. And filling the entire interior space of the hotel was a dark blue dragon.

Rarity gasped, stepping back as a bewildering variety of emotions washed over. She was shocked to learn that dragons existed in this world, and that they were intelligent like everybody else. She feared for her life if this creature, so much bigger and more powerful than her, should decide to hurt her. And she felt a sort of dizzying greed as she looked upon the scintillating scales of the creature, which seemed to glint with electric currents as she moved.

“Adamantine!” Pushkin exclaimed. “You’re the Spirit of the West? I thought you didn’t care about anybody!”

The dragon known as Adamantine smiled. “That’s what I wanted you to think. I preferred your fear to your love. But know that I have always been looking out for this town, removing any threat big enough that you couldn’t handle it yourselves. It is thanks to you that I have been able to establish my reputation as the most ruthless criminal in the Territory! And now I come to save you once again...from her.

“‘White Raven’! What a farce! You are no outlaw, you are exactly what you appear to be: a runaway schoolfilly with an overactive imagination. And you haven’t hurt a single creature in your entire life! What is your real name, little filly?”

Rarity looked around her wildly, and she saw that all of the citizens had accepted this truth in an instant. The worst part was the look of betrayal on the face of Applejack. “No, it’s like this...” she started. But she couldn’t finish. There was nothing she could say that would overthrow the undeniable truth the dragon had spoken. “Rarity,” she said at last, looking away. “My name is Rarity. And everything she said is true.” But then she steeled herself. “But I’m still the Sheriff of Nowhere, and I’m still arresting the Mayor.”

Adamantine roared out a laugh. “I’m the sheriff of Nowhere now, little marshmallow,” she proclaimed. “Unless you want to try to stop me?”

Rarity looked away in fear, and Adamantine pressed her advantage. “Here I am, stuck in this little building. Cast your legendary shrinking spell, and kill me! Or are you nothing more than a cowardly little pony, a quaking little pacifist that would watch the world fall before she would dare to hurt anybody!”

Rarity hung her head in defeat.

“Pathetic,” the dragon said, easily breaking free from the shell of a building. She strode towards Rarity, the crowd parting before her. Reaching down, she ripped the badge off of Rarity’s shirt, and held it aloft between index claw and thumb. Looking over her shoulder at the bystanders, she said, “As your new sheriff, I will now settle this dispute.”

Flapping her great wings to get airborne, she grabbed Rarity in one foot, and the Mayor in another. “If this mayor is actually guilty, I’ll return with just this Rarity, for you to deal with as you wish. And if, as is likely, this mayor is innocent, then I’ll come back with just him.”

With an evil grin, she flew up into the western night sky and out of sight.

R. Mustang Sally—The outskirts of Tall Tale. A night ten years ago.

The coach and tackle sat there in the shadows for hours. And then suddenly two forms appeared inside the coach, and a light gray earth pony mare with a long brown mane and a gray cowboy hat appeared in the tackle. She pulled the coach rapidly into the night, making no sound when her hooves struck the shadowed ground.

Mustang Sally ran and ran and ran. She seemed to show no signs of getting tired. She kept running despite the lack of any evidence that they were being pursued. She ran for hours. She ran to keep from speaking about what she had done. She ran to keep from thinking about what she had done.

Finally, with the first sunlight washing over her, she had to stop. But again, she dared not think about her actions the night before. So she opened her saddlebags, and dug out a thick hoof-bound tome with faux-leather covers. “Far West Real Estate” read the label attached to the cover. She flipped through about a third of the book before finding a large fold-out map. Pulling one of Jack Pot’s Locator souvenirs out of the saddlebags, she used it to find where on the map she was, and the heading for her desired destination. Tossing Locator and tome back into the saddlebags, she set out into a gallop, throwing the two passengers to the back of the carriage with an audible thump. This time as she covered the sands her pants of growing exhaustion were evident, as were the pounding of her hooves. That pounding, accompanied by the pounding of her eardrums, distracted Sally enough that she failed to notice the shadow that was now following her.

Three hours later, she reached her destination: a vast open pipe emerging from the side of the hill. Mustang Sally stopped and shrugged her way out of the tackle. “It’s here!” she proclaimed. “We actually found it!”

The door in the side of the carriage opened, to admit a very bedraggled Tortoise John and Merrimack the Ground Squirrel. We have decided to skip over the intervening consequences of a non-stop carriage ride lasting ten hours.

“It’s true,” Merrimack said in awe, walking up to the pipe and resting one claw on its underside. “Nowhere is saved!” He slapped the pipe in triumph. “With that book we control the water supply of the entire Territory!” Peering in, he could see that the inside of the pipe was blocked off by a metal partition, attached to a large post that stuck out of the top of the pipe.

“And if anybody dares to build a settlement somewhere where they can tap into Far West’s pipeline, we’ll be there to stop them,” said Tortoise John, climbing up the pipe to sight along the hill that covered it. “And all we had to do was ‘disappear’ the one rotten pony who stood in our way,” John said with a grin after hopping lightly down to his feet. He slapped Sally on the withers. “You did that amazingly.”

Merrimack looked away from Sally. “Yeah,” he said in awe...and fear. “You were scary good at that. I mean, you told us from the beginning that you were not entirely a pony. And I believed you but...wow.”

“Yeah, about that,” Sally said, turning on John. “You pretty much gave me no choice when it came down to it, despite my earlier protests.”

“You’re not going to trot out your pony sanctimoniousness and call it ‘wrong’, are you?”

“No,” said Sally, snorting her annoyance. “I left ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ behind the day I joined your gang. What this is is stupid! Everfree Valance was the most-beloved pony in the Territory! There’s no way that there isn’t going to be a massive pony hunt for...for his...” She couldn’t say the word.

“For the one who ‘disappeared’ him,” John said with a victorious smile. “And you don’t need to worry about that. While you took care of Everfree, we took care of his political rival in the Territorial Senate, Ransom Stopper. There will be no doubt in any pony’s mind that the two took each other out in a magical duel, one that left nothing behind.

Sally had to stop herself from falling over, instead landing heavily on her backside. “Ransom too? We grew up together. I...I can’t. This is too much. I’m...I’m not leaving you. I’ll never leave you, John, you know that.” She rose to her hooves. “But I want to go back into the ranks, be another nobody who doesn’t know what you two have to do to keep the town running.”

At a signal from John, Merrimack climbed back into the carriage.

“Alright, if that’s the way you feel, I guess you’re out,” John said simply, following Merrimack back into the carriage.

A relieved Sally was about to reattach the tackle when the carriage suddenly jerked up into the air. She watched slack-jawed as a midnight-blue dragon carried the carriage up, before throwing it back down upon the rocks. She recognized the dragon as Adamantine, frequent adversary of John and Merrimack’s plans.

Seeing that the dragon was hovering in the air, watching, Sally took the chance to try and rescue the passengers. Merrimack was merely scratched in several places, while John’s injuries were much more severe: a broken bottom to his shell, and crushed feet.

“Did you have to drop it from so high?” John asked the dragon.

“You said to make it convincing,” Adamantine said with a shrug.

John turned to the stunned pony. “Sally, I’d like to introduce you to the silent fourth partner of our little group: the dragon Adamantine.”

“You’ve been working with her the whole time?!” Sally demanded.

“Sally, Sally!” John chided her. “You’ve surely come across the ‘good ruler, bad councilor’ model from your study of pony history! As mayor, banker and sheriff, none of us can be caught doing the necessary deeds to keep Nowhere strong, while Adamantine here...”

“I like it,” the dragon said as she landed hard on the sandy ground, her eyes sparkling. “I really, really like it.”

Sally looked over at Merrimack, who had finished drawing a circle around the pair of her and the dragon. He used a piece of chalk to include the end of the pipe inside the circle. “What’s this about?” she asked.

“Your offer of resignation,” John said. “It shows a lack of confidence in my abilities as mayor. You have insulted my honor, and I must have satisfaction.” Gesturing to his legs, he said, “But since I can’t challenge you in person, I will have Adamantine duel you in my stead.”

“Wait, that’s why you had me add the dragon duel rules to the code duello?” Sally asked.

“The rules, as I’m sure you know, are simple,” Adamantine said. “Neither of us can leave the surface of the circle before a winner is declared, under penalty of death. No flight, no guns, and no teleportation.”

John cocked his gun, to show that he had appointed himself the referee. (Which of course is against the Code.)

“All you have to do is render me unconscious,” Adamantine continued. “While my job is to use my tail to crush you into paste.”

Sally looked wildly around her. It was high noon. The only shadows inside the circle were being cast by Adamantine. She kept her wings tight against her sides, her head and tail pulled back so they cast their shadows on her own body, and her arms and legs bent like the limbs of lizards, keeping her belly so close to the ground that no pony could fit between her and the ground.

“You were very loyal, Sally,” John said. “Telling me not only all of your powers, but also your weaknesses.”

“John, please!” Sally cried out, facing him. “My loyalty to you is absolute! Why would you betray me like this?”

“You have power, Mustang Sally,” John said coldly. “You are more powerful than me. Therefore, you must eventually kill me and take my place as mayor. That is the reality of power, and anything else reeks of pony madness. Your very existence is a threat to my life, and I am now removing it. The duel may now commence!”

Sally just barely managed to jump out of the way as Adamantine’s tail bashed into the sand where she had been standing. She rushed for the saving shadow under the dragon, but her enemy fell upon her stomach to prevent Sally from becoming one with the shadow and escaping.

“I...I can’t watch,” said Merrimack.

“That’s fine,” said John, his eyes still glued to the battle. “Head back to town to report Adamantine’s attack on the carriage. And start promoting that rabbit I picked out to be the next sheriff.”

“Thumper?”

“Was that his name? I forgot.”

Eventually Sally realized that there was one shadow she could reach within the circle: the space under the pipe opening. She maneuvered herself around until her back was to the pipe, then turned suddenly to make her lunge...

She never made it. Adamantine was victorious.

Author's Note

Here are the notes for Chapters 25, 26 & 27.

Chapter 28: Showdown(s) (H. Celestia, H. Rarity, P. Pinkie)

H. Celestia—A cliff above Nowhere, 10:25 p.m. on Day Three.

The group had lost track of Raven. At one moment she was walking in front of them. And then she had walked into a particularly dark shadow, and she had never emerged. Celestia was distressed at how little she cared now about concealing her true nature from individuals other than herself.

Bluey was lying on his stomach, peering at the town through the binoculars. “That dark shape over there is a dragon. Dark blue. ...And that was its flame.”

Celestia unceremoniously grabbed the binoculars with her magic and took a look herself. “He’s got to be three stories tall!”

Mane Allgood took the binoculars next. “She’s three stories tall. That’s a female dragon.”

Trixie took the binoculars, using a rock to prop it up while she looked through it. “Everybody else in town is holed up in their homes.”

A unicorn filly took the binoculars from Trixie. “Yup, they’re right where I left them,” she remarked after taking her own look.

“Rarity!” Celestia exclaimed, jumping to her hooves.

Rarity shushed her so violently that Celestia popped her head back down again.

Then Celestia picked the filly up bodily with her magic and trotted all the way back to the main group.

“Rarity!” Cookie Crumbles exclaimed.

“Our little filly!” Hondo Flanks added.

“Wow,” Rarity said dryly, crawling up atop a rock pile so she could be at eye level with them. “You recognize me. Hello, parental units.”

“Rarity, do you know what’s going on? Do you know where you are?” Celestia asked her.

“In the broad sense, or right here?” Rarity countered. “Because I’m a little busy for the big picture right now.”

Celestia’s right eye twitched for a moment. “I...I need to have a little private conference with the filly. Our time is short, and this is the fastest way.”

“Okay,” Hondo said with a shrug.

“The Princess knows best,” Cookie said.

Then the two of them got back to their mahjong game.

Rarity sighed. “Don’t ever change,” she said with maximum sarcasm. She then made a flying leap from the rock pile to land on Celestia’s back.

Celestia’s eyes went wide, and she had to hold back a grunt of pain at four little hooves digging into her back.

“So, you’re the Princess?” Rarity asked as Celestia walked off to a private location. “That’s perfect! Where’s your—”

“Rarity.”

“—army? Hiding in the—”

“Rarity!”

“—darkness, waiting to take the whole—”

“Rarity!”

“—town by storm?”

“Rari...I’ve only got six guards,” Celestia said after realizing that she was being allowed to put a word in. “And we’re running out of time. What can you tell me about Mustang Sally, and her connection to this town?”

“Mustang Sally? Never heard of her.”

Celestia sighed. “I’m not sure I can handle whatever happens when Raven gets down there. We might have to flee back to Canterlot to make the deadline.”

“What?!” Rarity asked incredulously. “That town is doomed if I don’t save it tonight. There’s this—”

“Rarity, I’m going to fail you out of the Ninth Grade if you don’t listen to me this instant!”

Rarity dropped to the ground, and her haunches, in total amazement. “Principal Celestia? Are you telling me that you’ve been the part-time Princess of another planet this whole time?”

“No. Rarity, there’s been a bunch of mind-swapping going on. There’s a Rarity that’s been going to classes at Canterlot High for the past three days, with that unicorn’s mind inside her. And now I’m occupying this Princess. We’ve figured out what’s going on, and you and I need to get about a hundred miles that way in the next ninety minutes, or we’ll both be stuck here for the next two-and-a-half years!” She looked off in the direction of Canterlot and sighed. “I just hope that the Princess can sort out her out-of-control secretary.”

“But!...” Rarity started, but was unable to come up with a good reason to follow it. “But...” she tried again. Finally she hung her head. “You go ahead, Principal. I’m staying.”

“What?!” Celestia demanded.

“These folks needed me, and I let them down,” Rarity said, looking reluctantly up at the face of Celestia. “And their mayor has really screwed them over and that dragon over there is probably right about to break loose and eat everybody, so I’ve got to do something. So...I will. And in...”—with a great sigh, she mumbled the next part—“two-and-a-half years, I’ll come back...to the Ninth Grade, at the age of eighteen, and catch up on what I missed.”

“Well that’s completely unacceptable,” Celestia said with a shake of her head. “What kind of educator would I be if I didn’t help you with your special projects?”

Celestia grinned, and Rarity’s grin fully matched hers. It seemed like she was finally expressing her age after who knows how long faking it.

H. Rarity.

Celestia looked nervously down at the town. Raven hadn’t done anything spectacularly obvious. Yet.

“Alright, everyone,” Rarity said, standing upright on the rockpile to address the group. “I’m going down there to rescue Applejack from the Mayor.”

“I thought Applejack was in Ponyville,” remarked Lofty.

“No, she’s staying in Manehattan,” corrected Snap Shutter.

“Actually, she’s in Canterlot,” clarified Trixie.

Rarity waved her hoof. “Different Applejack,” she said. “But this one’s also my friend. Now I’m going to issue a challenge to Adamantine down there on the stroke of midnight.”

Celestia cleared her throat.

“Oh right! At the stroke of 11 p.m. It’s going to be a classic dragon’s duel.”

“What’s a dragon’s duel?” asked an eager Mane Allgood.

Rarity explained it to them.

“That sounds dangerous,” commented Hondo when she got to the part about the dragon trying to “pound [her] flatter than a pancake”.

“‘No risk, no reward’, as...well you always told me,” Rarity replied.

Hondo had to think for a moment. “Yeah, I do tell you that all the time. But I didn’t expect you to listen!”

Rarity shook her head incredulously. “Moving on! If the time of the duel’s been moved back an hour, I need to have my secret weapon recalibrated.” From her saddlebags she removed a Locator identical to Bluey’s, only minus the sticker. It was the one she had confiscated from the Mayor. “I need somebody to fly out to these coordinates.”

“I can do it,” Bluey said, reaching out for the device. He looked it over, but didn’t see any other coordinates written on it other than... “You want me to go out to Glass Lake?” he asked with additional eagerness.

“Yeah, that’s where the bypass valve is located. I’m going to just have to trust that you get the time of the shunt moved over from 12:01 to 11:01, since there’s no possible way we can communicate over such a wide distance.”

Celestia produced a pair of speaking stones.

“Hey!” Trixie exclaimed, stepping out of the shadows. “If you had those the whole time, why did you bother with the wrist communicators?”

“Because I had one anyway?” Celestia replied.

“OK, I’ll accept that,” said Trixie, stepping back into the shadows. (And stayed there without literally melting into them. Strange story that I actually have to clarify that point.)

“I won’t let you down!” Bluey exclaimed, running towards the nearest pegasus-driven carriage.

Rarity watched the carriage lift off into the night. “Well, I was going to save the exposition until this whole thing was over, but it looks like I have time to waste, so I’ll tell you all now.

“It all started when I found myself in the desert...after I got my cutie mark.” Rarity looked over at Celestia. As she had been instructed, she was leaving out anything about being a human in a pony body.

#

(I will of course skip the part of the story you fair readers already know. I should note, however, that Rarity passed “Applejack” off as a pony outlaw who had changed her name. By doing this, she hoped to keep Applejack from getting caught by Lady C.)

“That’s horrible!” Hondo had interrupted on learning of the loss of Rarity’s cutie mark.

“No, it was wonderful,” Rarity said with moisture in her eyes. “I was free from the horrible fate that had been given to me.” She then continued on to the point where Adamantine had grabbed up both herself and the Mayor and had flown off.

“Once we were far enough from Nowhere, she and the Mayor started to laugh. I whimpered and played the weakling, and got him to admit to at least part of his plan: he knew about a water pipeline going under the town, and by shutting off the bypass, had driven everyone in town into selling their properties to him, with the lone exception of Applejack. The other citizens were squatters in the empty buildings, and he engineered the downfall of Merrimack and my humiliation to get them to give up and move away. Then he would bring the water back, and the ponies would move in, making him and Adamantine rich.

“By this time we were over Glass Lake. ‘Down there is my bypass,’ the Mayor gloated, ‘but as you’re about to become a stain on the lake, that knowledge will not be very useful to you.’

“‘Bye-bye,’ taunted Adamantine, as she dropped me to my doom.”

“How did you survive?” asked Snap Shutter.

“I was saved...by Applejack. I told you that this Applejack was a pegasus. Well, she caught me right out of thin air. She had to cut it close, though, so she wouldn’t be seen by the dragon or the Mayor.”

Rarity held back the fact that she had been looking around her the entire flight trying to spot a means of escape, and other than a persistent ladybug, had completely failed to see Applejack anywhere until the instant she had saved the day.

“‘You saved me!’ I proclaimed as I was being lowered to the shore of the lake. ‘I thought you had given up on me.’

“‘I had given up on you!’ she snarled. ‘I only followed you in hopes that the dragon would force a painful confession out of that no-good Mayor. But now it looks like I have no choice but to help you take him down. But stay here—there’s two others who want to help you.’ And she flew off.

“I looked around while I was waiting, and I found two bypass valves surrounded by a grove of obscuring cacti; the big one for the town had been shut off, while a little one leading to the mayor’s ranch was on...and surrounded by red mud and footprints. And then Applejack returned by hoof, leading Tom and Jerry.

“Tom’s the one that your unicorn and pegasus are flying out to tell of the change in plans. Jerry is hiding in town, waiting for my signal. And Applejack volunteered to fly back to Nowhere and to stall through the process of selling her land as long as necessary in order to buy me time.”

“Wow, that was an amazing story!” exclaimed a pink pony with a cotton candy mane who was suddenly standing next to Rarity.

Rarity squinted her eyes to peer into the newcomer’s eyes. “P—”

A hoof was removed from Rarity’s mouth. “Yes and no. And not Pinkamena anymore. It’s Pinkie, the one who belongs on this world. We’re a lot better now. Anyway, I think you need to know a bit about the unique geology of this town...”

#

“Well I still don’t see why you have to risk yourself with your plan, now that the Princess is here,” Hondo said after Pinkie was finished with her geology-babble. He and Cookie had been gradually drawn into the story as it was being told, and were just waiting for the opportunity to express their admiration. “She can just take the mayor and this dragon down single-hoofedly. Isn’t that right?”

Celestia masked her nervousness with a snort. She opened up her mouth to give her excuse, but Rarity spoke first.

“I’m sorry, Father, but it really needs to be me. I was the one who wallowed in the lies I spread. I may have been named Sheriff in order to bring the town to its knees, but I insist on carrying through the oath of office that I swore, and I will bring justice to Nowhere, so help me Goddess!” A few moments later, she sheepishly added, “but I would be open to help just in case my carefully-crafted plan goes down in flames. Quite. Literal. Dragon. Flames.”

#

“Adamantine!” Rarity called out from one end of the main street of Nowhere. “I’m a-callin’ you out!”

(Yes of course she switched to a Western accent for that line. There is simply no other way to say it, Darlings.)

The Mayor stepped out of the jailhouse. He opened his mouth to speak, but was silenced by a sudden and near-deafening cry of “THERE YOU ARE!”

Mayor John shivered, for he recognized it as the voice of Mustang Sally. He looked around him, to see the entire town fill up in dense shadow.

“Why couldn’t I find you?!” the voice demanded. It sounded different this time: a little deeper, and a lot more experienced.

The Mayor chuckled. “Because I’ve always been prepared for another like you to find this town. Are you one of the sisters? Or perhaps that mother she hated so much, come far too late for an empty vengeance?”

“I WILL HAVE MY VENGEANCE!” the voice roared. “NONE IN THIS TOWN WILL SURVIVE!”

Adamantine tried to fly out of the town, She was grabbed roughly and...

“Thrown to the ground!” Raven’s voice crowed. “Just as you crippled the Mayor to trick the townsfolk into thinking that he wasn’t involved in my demise!”

The Mayor looked around, to see dozens of eyes peering out of windows at him. He did a double-take on hearing the voice say “my”, like it was claiming to be Mustang Sally herself.

“Now Madame Voice, I’m all for inflicting vengeance on the Mayor and his reptilian toady,” Rarity began.

“Hey!” protested Adamantine.

“But the villagers and I were completely innocent of the crime,” Rarity continued. “Why don’t you let us go?”

“I could do that...I was assigned the task of rescuing you by the Princess herself...But screw the Princess! And screw Harmony! It was Outsiders that lured my daughter to her doom. Outsiders like everyone in this village, and like you, Rarity. No, this town has to pay for what they did. First Nowhere...and then the whole of Equus outside Equestria. Only ponies deserve to live!”

The Mayor took the opportunity of the monologue to try and sneak his way out of the shadow that had enveloped the town.

The shadows rushed inward, forming into Raven twice her normal size, standing on the wooden platform that covered the former hole in the street. “Oh no, Tortoise John,” she told him in the same booming voice as before.“You have the privilege of being my first victim, so the others will know what horrors to expect. Let’s start off with a gentle squeeze...”

A shadow hoof congealed under Mayor John’s wheelchair, lifting it into the air. The hoof then became a shadow boa constrictor, wrapping itself around him. As he struggled, John’s wheelchair was crushed into rubble, which fell down to the ground. Finally he managed to remove his iron rod, and point it at Raven.

Raven laughed. “No magic known has the power to affect me,” she bragged.

“Then I know something you don’t,” John gasped out, as he pressed the button on the rod.

In an instant, the shadow construct vanished, causing John to fall roughly to the ground. At the same time, Raven cried out in agony, shrinking back down to her normal height. As everyone in town watched in horrified fascination, Raven began to rapidly age before their eyes. Her limbs dissolved into goo, leaving only a torso and head.

P. Pinkie.

On the ridge above the town, the binoculars were being passed back and forth. Some aspect of Raven’s magic prevented them from hearing any sounds from the town, but they could certainly see something awful happening before their eyes, and those aware of Raven’s power knew that she must be responsible.

When Raven had begun dying, Pinkie froze in terror. Thirteen generations of sharing pony bodies had not prepared her for this. Seeing that she might not respond before it was too late, Pinkamena took over their body, opening a shadow gate.

Appearing next to the screaming Raven, she opened a second gate, and shoved her inside. Pinkamena seemed to instinctively know that this was the right thing to do. She turned her head to look briefly at the spirit that remained behind, the spirit of Mustang Sally, that Pinkamena could only see thanks to the presence of Pinkie Pie within her. The look of rage on Sally’s face was so terrifying that Pinkamena immediately took another shadow gate to return to the others.

“Didn’t any of you see that?” she demanded.

From their confused responses, it appeared that the answer to that question was “no”.

H. Rarity.

There was a moment of silence as everybody in Nowhere tried to process what had just happened. The horror of Raven’s disintegration had been so extreme that no one was quite sure how she had suddenly vanished. Some sort of pink entity had been involved, but it was impossible for anyone to recall exactly what it looked like.

“Well, that was absolutely horrifying,” Rarity commented out loud. “And you two are murderers.”

“Well, what are you going to do about it?” Adamantine jeered.

Rarity re-evaluated her options. To her utter surprise, it was still less than ten minutes to 11 p.m., which seemed to imply that the supernatural being who had terrorized them before...that happened to her had also stopped time. So the plan was still on. “Adamantine! I’m a-callin’ you out!” she repeated in the same accent as before, hoping it didn’t sound stupid the second time around.

The Mayor gave her a good strong look, before remembering what he was going to say the last time. “You’re also supposed to be dead!” he complained, in the tone of a Little League parent calling out a rule violation. “We both saw you go splat!”

“No, you had us turn around before the splat made you queasy,” the dragon grumbled. “But I’m willing to finish the job. How about a fire-breathing contest, 10 paces?”

Rarity, who had been walking steadily closer to the pair this whole time, shook her head. “The Code Duello is very clear: this has got to be a dragon duel.”

Adamantine rolled her eyes. “Of course. The one where you try to non-violently put me to sleep. However, I’ve still got my little toy here.” She demonstrated by pounding the ground once with her tail hard enough to cause three dilapidated buildings to collapse. “So shall we start?”

Rarity glanced up at the town’s clock tower, which showed the time to be 10:54. “High eleven,” she said. “Got to follow tradition.”

“High eleven?” Adamantine questioned. “What kind of tradition is that? What about high midnight?”

“Do you really want to wait an hour?” Rarity asked.

“No,” said Adamantine. “Fine, I’ll wait for five minutes. Somebody better draw us a proper duel circle before time’s up!”

The cry caused Louise the bartender to race out with a bucket of white paint and a large paintbrush. She got to work painting a circle in the dirt surrounding the two combatants.

“Where’s Applejack?” Rarity asked Mayor John, who had crawled over to the porch of the bar and propped himself up against a post in order to watch. It turned out he had very strong arms.

“She’s cooling her heels in jail,” the Mayor said. “I figured out that she was stalling for time, we traded words, and the sheriff decided she had enough of Applejack’s sass. It’s amazing how long she held out, considering how annoying she is.”

As Rarity watched, several of the townsfolk slowly emerged from their shops to watch the coming fight.

“Why’d you come back?” asked Mori the buzzard.

“Because it was the right thing to do, regardless of who I am,” Rarity replied.

The clock struck eleven, and silence settled across the town of Nowhere.

Rarity slowly advanced on Adamantine. She was walking on her hind hooves, with her forehooves swinging at her sides. If she had fingers and a couple of six-shooters she would be wiggling her fingers over those guns just like she saw in black-and-white Westerns.

Adamantine barked out a cold laugh. “You’ve got until I turn this body around, and then your sad little pony life will be over.” She started her turn...

Rarity raced forward on all fours, scampering up Adamantine’s leg.

“Aargh!” the dragon called out in frustration. Due to a technicality, a pony jumping on her didn’t violate the “don’t leave the surface” rule, so long as Adamantine herself was touching the ground. “Why do you ponies always do that during dragon duels!” She used her wings to start to lift herself.

“Ah-ah-ah!” Rarity chided. “You wouldn’t want to disqualify yourself, would you?”

With a frown, Adamantine stopped her flapping before she had lost contact with the ground. Instead she started trying to sweep Rarity off of her with a claw.

The moment a claw touched her Rarity flung herself into the air, tumbling head over tail and landing neatly on the wooden platform that Raven had been standing on. (And where Mustang Sally was still standing and fuming—without a willing host, she had no way to exact her vengeance.) Rarity shook for a moment at the brief feeling of cold that passed through her and then stood still, looking mockingly at Adamantine.

With a roar of rage, the dragon rushed forward. Rarity sprang out of the way, the dragon walked over the wooden platform, the clock ticked 11:01...

And a massive geyser of water broke through the platform. It briefly lifted the dragon into the air and then, with limbs flailing, she broke completely through it and fell out of sight. A second, unnoticed geyser appeared inside the bank building.

(Sally barked out a laugh. “Hey Adamantine! Is it cold enough for you down there?”

Adamantine failed to answer her.)

“Citizens of Nowhere!” Rarity proclaimed. “You see before you the rightful water supply of this town, a supply which was deliberately withheld from you by your mayor so he could force you out and sell the land for profit!”

This got all of the citizens to come out of hiding. (They hadn’t been too outraged by Mustang Sally’s fate all those years ago, as she was a hated pony after all.)

“Face it, Tortoise John, you’re done for!” Rarity proclaimed, after vacating the now-flooded street.

“I think not,” the Mayor said with an evil smile. Putting a claw to his lips and whistling, he summoned up an army of thirty beefy ponies, mostly earth ponies, but with at least one pegasus summoning lighting and one unicorn lifting the remains of the former hotel.

“I am hereby proclaiming martial law, Sheriff Rarity,” the Mayor said with a sneer. “And all of you squatters are going to vacate my premises!”

“That is enough!” Princess Celestia proclaimed, stepping out from behind a building.

The additional mercenaries that the Mayor had apparently hired “just in case” looked among themselves, trying to weigh the sheer idiocy of taking on the Princess.

“Your crimes against Equestria end now, Tortoise John!” said Celestia. She held aloft the Mayor’s rod in her magic. “And don’t think of using this against us.”

Mayor John looked down as the water in the street was suddenly sucked into the soil. “I say it again: I think not.”

“And why are you so certain?” Celestia said, as she was surrounded by her pegasi guards, Rarity’s parents, Scootaloo’s parents and aunts, and a few others. Even Cheerilee was there to support her friend.

Tortoise John merely raised a scaly eyebrow.

Before Celestia had a chance to say anything, she suddenly collapsed to the ground with a groan, followed by every other pony in town, including the mercenaries.

“That is why I am certain,” the Mayor said, crawling towards the Princess. The guards crawled a bit to shield her from view. “This town is sitting on a very unique mineral, so unique that it doesn’t even have a name yet, so I called it ‘tirecium’. That rod was made with the same substance. Those with a Classical background will understand the derivation.”

“Are...are you using this mineral to steal our magic?” the voice of Celestia asked from inside the pony dogpile.

“Steal...” Mayor John broke out in laughter. “I don’t want your light magic! Light magic is poison! No, I planned to use the deposit in the second part of my plan, the part I would have explained to Rarity over there if that idiot dragon hadn’t flown us to Glass Lake too fast!

“You see, while I was selling the newly renamed-town of ‘Paradise’ to the highest pony bidder, I would have slowly filled the tirecium aquifer, only allowing the whole thing to saturate when the whole town was settled. And that saturation would have activated the mineral, sucking all of the magic out of them!”

“Why?” demanded Rarity.

“Because light magic makes ponies into idiots!” the Mayor roared. “I would have liberated those ponies of their millennia-long addiction to cotton-candy niceness!

“Once they had gotten used to their new and improved natures, they would naturally acclaim me as their liberator, and I would have extended my realm, catalyzing the tirecium into spreading slowly through the whole of Equestria, freeing towns and villages one at a time from the tissue-paper bonds of allegiance with the Pansy in Chief.” He finished his speech by pointing at the presumed location of the Princess.

“But wouldn’t your reign end on the day when the first hot summer or pipe leak causes one of your aquifers to drain below the saturation point?” Rarity asked, walking slowly across the street towards him.

“The magic drain may start with water saturation, but it only ends with a combination of both dryness and magic saturation,” the Mayor explained.

“That lines up with what our resident geologist thought,” said Rarity with a nod. “And just out of curiosity, what would have happened to ‘that idiot’ dragon in your scheme?”

“You mean my outlaw enforcer Adamantine? She was a relic of the past, a character from an old Western novel. Just like who you pretended to be, Rarity. I would have cemented my reputation with the pony settlers by slaying her like the hero of an even older genre. Showed them in that way how much easier it was to settle problems with violence!”

“I. Think. Not.”

The town was suddenly illuminated by sunlight, causing everyone to look up. There floating above them in a nimbus of light was Princess Celestia in all of her glory.

At the same time, steam began to erupt from the hole in the street, the hole in the bank, and from various other random spots on the ground.

(The phantom Sally sat down and started eating from a bucket of phantom popcorn.)

Tortoise John quickly pulled himself over to the circle of weakened guards, shoveling them aside to see the central figure. Instead of Celestia, he only saw the ponies she had brought with them. (One of which was a pale pink unicorn with a strange device attached to one leg.)

“How did you do that?!” he demanded to Celestia. “No pony could possibly regain their magic so quickly!”

Celestia shook her head. “Unlike you, I never explain myself to my enemies. Now, Rainbow!”

At the cue, a second, rainbow-colored light began fast approaching from far above. It resolved itself into a filly pegasus, rainbow mane and tail streaming behind her, and with a smile wide enough to be seen from the ground. “Here I come to save the day!” she sang. And then she appeared to explode into a blinding disk of rainbow-rimmed light. In fact, she managed to bank in a 90-degree turn and effortlessly landed next to Rarity.

“Do I know you?” Rarity asked.

“You will,” Rainbow said while still beaming her smile. “I’m transferring to Canterlot High starting this Monday.”

The disk of light shook visibly for a moment, before being sucked through the hole in the ground, causing it to emit a rainbow glow. The ground shook, and then there was a series of loud cracks that echoed from deep underground all the way to the surface.

The ponies all silently rose to their hooves.

The pegasi guards closed ranks and began to advance towards the Mayor of Nowhere. Tortoise John backed up, then stopped when he saw the mercenaries that he had betrayed advancing on him as well.

The ground heaved once more, and the head and one arm of Adamantine erupted out of the ground. “Back off, ponies!” she snarled. “This ‘idiot’ sheriff has to tender her resignation...with an ‘exit interview’.”

With a panicked cry, the Mayor was dragged down into the caverns that underlay the city.

With another loud crack, both dragon and tortoise disappeared from sight. It took more than twenty seconds of straight falling for them to messily splat into the floor of the complex.

Princess Celestia landed on the edge of the crater that had been left behind and sighed. To the mercenaries she said, “If you disappear from my sight in the next ten seconds, I won’t bother to have you hunted down like the sad little worms that you are.”

All of the mercenaries decided to take that offer.

To the guards she said, “I’m sorry I had to deceive you with a double.”

“It was very good,” one of the pegasi said, looking over at Principal Celestia. “We couldn’t detect a hint of magic the whole time.”

Another pegasus landed with a chariot containing Bluey. “I had the best seat in the house!” he proclaimed to Princess Celestia. “But...why did you have the commoner filly provide the crucial magic instead of yourself?”

“Because I needed to conserve my magic so that I could teleport my filly charges back to Canterlot before the deadline,” Princess Celestia explained.

“And look at her,” Principal Celestia added, putting her wing around Bluey’s withers and pointing a hoof at Rainbow Dash. “Do you see how loyal she is?”

After a pause, Bluey nodded. “Yes,” he said finally, “She does look very loyal.”

“So what is that?” Princess Celestia asked as she was hoofed the rod the Principal was holding.

“This was how he used the ‘tirecium’ on me before it was saturated,” Rarity explained. “I’m sure that there’s some magical or geo-magical reason for how it works. It probably only works on one pony at a time or something. Separated from the town, it’s probably powerless. Now if you’ll hold on, I need to check something before you finish up.”

Mustang Sally.

The ghost of Mustang Sally looked down into the hole, and knew that both of her murderers were dead.

She felt relief, but also regret. She shouldn’t have wanted to kill them. It wasn’t the pony way. And she had torn herself away from her mother precisely because she wanted to be a pony...instead of the thing Raven was. How had it gone so wrong?

She began to fade away, her tether to the mortal realm now broken.

P. Celestia.

The Princess, unknowingly standing beside a spirit, looked down into the hole herself and sighed. “It wasn’t supposed to end like this,” she said to her counterpart, who stood beside her. “Death appears to be the most common solution to evil on your world, but on mine, at least in Equestria, I or my agents are almost always able to lead our enemies to Harmony. When it ends like this...I feel like I have failed.”

Pinkie Pie, suddenly standing beside them, looked up at her. “Forget it Princess,” she said, appearing to channel the thoughts of somepony long dead. “This is Nowhere. The rules are different here.”

H. Rarity.

Rarity walked into the jailhouse. There she found that the busted-out rear wall was busted out again, that Jerry was sitting behind the sheriff’s desk munching on a grilled cheese sandwich, and that Pony Rarity and Rainbow Dash were there in their mis-aged bodies alongside Pony Pinkie Pie in her correct (~~?~~!) body.

“Applejack?” Human Rarity asked Jerry.

“See for yourself,” Jerry said, jerking a thumb in the empty jail’s direction. “She told me to say good-bye on her behalf, and mentioned something about being found by the Princess as almost being as bad as being found by Lady C.”

Human Rarity sighed. She then looked at Pinkie. “Do you know anything about the Pinkie from Canterlot High?” she asked.

Pinkie nodded her head. “She’s back home, she changed her name to Pinkie Pie just like me, and she’s A-OK. She’s going to meet you and the other survivors at Sugarcube Corner tomorrow at noon.” Then she walked out of the jailhouse.

“Rarities and Rainbow Dash!” cried the voice of a Celestia—the principal, they guessed. “We’d like to get the switching out of the way before something else blows up.”

“Those were some really gutsy moves,” Pony Rainbow Dash said, shaking Human Rarity’s hoof. “You and your Rainbow Dash should compare notes.” Then she walked out of the jailhouse.

Pony Rarity rushed forward and pulled her counterpart into an embrace. “Thank you for the inspiration that briefly taking your place has given me. You’ve given me my cutie mark, and I hope that soon you might earn a worthy mark of your own.” Then she walked out.

Human Rarity looked over at Jerry as he got up from his chair. “Thanks for not killing me,” he said gruffly. “Now if you don’t mind, I’m heading out the same way as Applejack. Just in case the Princess out there finds out about the price on my head.”

“Don’t kill anypony,” she told him.

“Hey, I already gave you my word yesterday. I’m not going back on that.” He walked out the hole in the wall, to be joined by a waiting Tom. The two of them disappeared into the darkness.

With a bemused shake of her head, Rarity looked around the jailhouse. With a tap of a hoof on a button on the wall, she liberated the glow bugs that were flying about inside a clear bowl attached to the ceiling, thereby turning out the lights as she left. Her tin star glinted on the table behind her.

Author's Note

Here are the notes for this chapter.

...And that's the end of the story. The Epilogue comes next, to wrap up the loose ends.

There actually was a brief chapter following this one and before the Epilogue, but it ended leaving a bad taste in your mouth, and I didn't want the story proper to end that way.

What you read here is an ending that feels right. You can pretty much imagine the scene to follow: the Rarities are switched, the Celestias are switched, everyone ends up on the right side of the mirror, and then midnight happens and the portal closes. That scene is how I'll begin the rather long Epilogue...in four days.

Epilogue Part 1: Getting Everyone Home (Sunset Shimmer)

Author's Note

These epilogue parts are organized by character, and therefore the chronology is going to jump all over the place.

Epilogue Part 1: Getting Everyone Home (Sunset Shimmer)

Sunset Shimmer—Earth, Tent outside Canterlot High School. 11:59 p.m. on Day Three.

Sunset had waited impatiently for the ending of this story, and the chance for her to truly play her part by switching the remaining ponies and humans, including Princess Celestia. She had desperately wanted to use the portal to cross over to Equestria and help in any way that she could, but to do so would be catastrophic, so she sat on her hands.

The tent was illuminated by harsh lights that Vice-Principal Luna had brought out of storage. They were placed outside the tent and shined through the canvas walls, because they were far too bright to actually use directly. Luna too wished to cross into Equestria, to help her sister, to see what the wondrous place truly looked like, and to see what she would be as a pony, but she decided to support Sunset and follow the Princess’ command not to overuse the mirror and stayed on Earth. Those were the thoughts she had when she didn’t look at Sunset’s face; when she did look, she wanted to abandon the monster to her well-deserved grief. With an effort of will, she buried this false emotion.

Sunset first received a note in her Zero-X book, telling her that the Princess, the Principal, both Raritys, Pony Rarity’s parents and sister, both Rainbow Dashes, and Pony Pinkie Pie had returned to the basement. (The Princess, unable to teleport everypony and up against a strict time limit, had left the rest of Rarity’s search party to return to Ponyville on their own, with the support of her royal guards.)

That was five minutes ago. ‘What is taking so long?’ Sunset wondered.

And then, at the very last minute, Human Rarity, Human Rainbow Dash and Human Celestia emerged from the portal—but not Pony Celestia. Sunset had time to notice that Principal Celestia looked back at the portal with a mix of regret and anger when a distant clock struck twelve, and Sunset was dropped to her knees. She gritted her teeth in discomfort as she felt her magic being sucked out of her by the mirror, every last drop of it.

The minute of midnight passed. It was now 12:01 a.m. on Day Four.

Rarity reunited with Sweetie Belle as Rainbow Dash reunited with her family and the family of Fluttershy.

“What happened?” Sunset said, looking down at her hands.

Celestia tried to explain to her, but found that she could not stand to look Sunset in her cruel and calculating face, so she turned away. She vowed to one day be able to look her in the eye and see the true individual within instead of the mask that the Princess had inflicted her with. Finally, she spoke: “Your princess rigged the spell to take all of your magic from you when the portal deactivated. She said it was so you wouldn’t be tempted to misuse your power.”

“I don’t care about that!” Sunset cried out. “What about your bodies? Are you stuck in her body right now?”

“No,” Principal Celestia said with a deep sigh laced with bewilderment. “She took me to a special room with a talking rock named Cecil—I can’t believe that that sentence exists, and makes sense. Anyway, she cast the switching spell at Cecil—it didn’t do anything, because of course a talking rock doesn’t have a counterpart on Earth, but doing that caused him to instantly learn the spell. Cecil then re-cast the spell on us, putting us in our rightful bodies.”

Sunset’s jaw dropped open in shock.

“‘Technically, the rock performed the spell instead of me,’ she told me. ‘Therefore I wasn’t lying when I said no pony could cast the spell.’”

“She used me,” Sunset said, rising unsteadily to her feet. “She wasn’t sure she could trust me to carry out my part of the plan, so she exploited my compassion for little fillies in order to trap me here, on this miserable world, for the rest of my life!” She clenched her hands tightly at her sides in rage.

“I’m...sorry,” the Principal said in a shaky voice, her own hands clasped together at her belly.

“Of course you’re sorry!” Sunset said, turning on her. “All of the Princess’ patsies are sorry!” She flinched on seeing the look in Principal Celestia’s eyes, the one of somebody who expected to be hit at any moment. “I’m sorry,” she said contritely, looking away so the Principal wouldn’t have to keep seeing her face. “I’m the one who brought all this trouble to your school. Your deal is way too good for me. I should—”

“Our offer still stands,” Luna said, stepping beside her sister. Unlike Celestia, she could look Sunset straight in the eyes without recoiling. “Canterlot High School is the best possible thing that could have happened to you under the circumstances. We will stand by you, even if your whole world has rejected you.”

“You’re invited,” Pinkie said from behind Celestia. “To our get-together tomorrow morning.”

Sunset thought for a moment. “I owe you all an apology, so I’ll at least show up to give you that.”

“Alright, although we wouldn’t mind you staying the whole time.”

“I certainly wouldn’t mind,” Fluttershy’s voice chimed in from behind Luna.

“You should totally be there,” Rainbow Dash’s voice added, also behind Luna.

Sunset saw that she would be performing most of her conversations from now on with something or somebody between her and anybody who’d want to associate with her.

Meanwhile Luna pulled her sister aside. “How can she do this?” she demanded. “How can the pony who represents the ideal of friendship to everyone else be so cruel to her own student?”

The Principal sighed. She hoped that the Princess had some kind of convoluted plan, to manipulate Sunset into redeeming herself. But she strongly doubted that there was any reality in this hope. “Because the Princess is always a hypocrite to those she considers to be family,” she finally said.

Epilogue Part 2: Raven’s Apprentice (P. Celestia, P. Trixie)

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Epilogue Part 3: Wrapping Up with the Ponies (P. Granny Smith, The Pony Mane Six)

P. Granny Smith—Equestria, a sitting room in Canterlot Palace. Noon on Day Five.

The young ponies who had been switched, learning that they were to be sent to their separate homes at the end of Day Five, decided to have their own get-together, to figure out what they were going to do going forward.

That’s the plot of the next section. This one is about their parents being gathered at the same time, by order of Princess Celestia. The Princess also arranged transportation for the Apples and for Fluttershy’s family to Canterlot. The Pies were represented by Maud.

The train and subsequent carriage ride had not been kind to Granny Smith’s hips, so it was somewhat gingerly that she walked into the sitting room, accompanied by her grandson Big Mac. Her granddaughter Apple Bloom was in a papoose hanging from Big Mac’s neck.

Having entered the room, she cast her eyes about her, noting everypony in the room. She had known that Applejack had been switched. Adding Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy to the “switched” category was easy enough—the new set of parents were obviously Fluttershy’s from their behavior. But also Rarity? And not only another unicorn, but apparently another earth pony as well, both of them from outside Granny’s wide network of acquaintances. She narrowed her eyes in thought for a moment, before snapping out of it.

“Hello!” she said to Bow Hothoof. “I didn’t get a chance to talk when you were passing through town a couple days ago.”

“Granny...Smith, right?” Bow asked. He introduced himself, his wife, and Fluttershy’s withdrawn parents...and also Zephyr Breeze.

“This is nuts!” Zephyr told her. “My little Fluttershy, visiting another dimension? That’s unicorn craziness!” He looked over at the unicorns. “Uh...no offense.”

“None taken,” said Shining Armor with a laugh. “I’d be thinking the exact same thing if I were in your horseshoes.”

“I’m having trouble placing the accent,” Granny asked Shining. “Are you from the Applewood colony?”

Shining laughed again. “No, ma’am. I was recently posted out there, though, and have been deliberately adopting the accent. It’s a lot friendlier than my native Canterlot accent.”

“I wish you’d tell that to our daughter,” Cookie Crumbles said.

“Canterlot,” she said, pointing at Twilight’s family. “Ponyville,” to Rarity’s family. “Or actually Rockville if we’re talking where our daughters were when this all started. Cloudsdale?” she asked Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy’s parents, to which she got nods. “And my granddaughter was in Manehattan.”

“Pinkie was also in Rockville,” Maud added. “If you’re building a mental map, Cloudsdale was right over Rockville.”

“But Ponyville and Canterlot are pretty far away from Rockville, and Manehattan is really far away,” said Granny, gathering the facts. “Six ponies, so far apart. Two pairs knew each other, but that was it, right?”

The others looked at each other, and then nodded towards Granny.

“And they all get their cutie marks out of it. This is big, bigger even than any of the mental shenanigans. Those six have got...a soul bond.”

(“Soul bond” is an Equestrian term with no precise English translation, so the reader should forget any meaning the phrase might have for them already. Equine has terms for a variety of relationships between people, focusing on friendships in contrast with human languages’ obsession with romantic love. English has “soul mate” as a term to refer to a pair that were meant to be romantic lovers from the moment of their birth. The bond does not have to be supernatural, although it often is.

The word I’m translating as “soul bond” refers to a similar “meant to be together” relationship, but applied to any group of people, not just lovers. And like “soul mate”, the relationship doesn’t have to be magical, beyond the everyday magic of cutie marks and destiny.)

Mr. Shy nodded. “We would appreciate any friends that our daughter could get. She was already soul-bonded with Rainbow Dash.”

“I also agree with your assessment, Mrs. Smith,” Princess Celestia said as she entered the room.

The other ponies all bowed. She said, “Rise, My Little Ponies,” like you knew she would. She closed the door with her magic and applied a soundproof spell before continuing. “It is my belief that two separate events happened simultaneously four days ago. The first was the sonic magi-boom—”

“Sonic Rainboom, Your Highness,” Windy Whistles quietly corrected.

Celestia smiled. “Yes. The Sonic Rainboom. This event is what united the six mares, and showed them their soul bond. They might have spent the rest of their fillyhoods never learning about the other fillies who were affected by that event.

“But then came the second event: the malfunctioning of a powerful magical artifact being kept in Canterlot.”

“The magic mirror,” said Twilight Velvet.

“Oh, the mirror did that, too?” asked Windy. “Well that makes me feel even guiltier leaving my daughter alone with the thing.”

She had clearly not been paying attention during Raven’s explanation.

“Believe me, things would have become a lot more complicated if you had been in the basement throughout that third day,” Celestia commented.

“The mirror reacted to the magic of the Rainboom to switch the minds of your fillies,” she continued. “The world they found themselves in is one that I have been watching with wary eyes for quite some time now. Its inhabitants call it Earth. It is a world largely devoid of magic and Harmony.” She smiled slightly as she added, “although at least a few of the humans who live there try to make that world a better place than it currently is. That your daughters returned safely to their bodies is in large part because of the positive qualities of these beings.”

“What happens next?” asked Cookie.

“You return to your homes with your daughters,” Celestia told them. “And you try to make sure they have as normal an upbringing as possible. Unfortunately, that means that knowledge of Rainbow Dash’s Rainboom must be suppressed. I hope that you’re aware of the reason?”

Bow and Windy looked at each other sadly. “We are, Your Highness,” Bow replied for the both of them. “We’ll do our best to explain it to our Dashie, but I don’t think she’ll take it well.”

“It isn’t to be helped,” Windy said with a shrug of her wings. Unlike most of the others, she was aware of the prophecy that Harmony had given to Fluttershy: that her daughter and the others were meant for greater things when they grew up. She only hoped that she and Bow could help their daughter grow into her destiny.

“It is my hope that you learn to support each other in your future trials with your extremely talented and promising girls,” the Princess said. “As I hope they told you, each of them received magic books, allowing them to communicate with the humans you briefly met during this adventure. I would encourage you to partition a part of each book for yourselves, so you may communicate with your own counterparts. If there is some parenting problem you do not know how to handle, perhaps they will, and vice versa.”

“Good idea,” said Fluttershy’s father Cloud Cover.

“The Crown can provide limited support, but I would encourage you not to use it,” Celestia told them. “It is my profound hope that all six of your daughters grow up to be happy, well-adjusted mares, and spoiling them with easy answers will hurt in the long run far more than they will help.

“Now, are there any more questions before I leave? Your transportation to your homes leaves in less than an hour.”

The parents and siblings looked at each other.

“I’ll write my parents and let them know of all of this,” said Maud Pie.

As nothing more was said, the Princess walked over to a window and looked down at Equestria: her cue that the meeting was over.

The others left, murmuring among each other as they tried to find common ground for future friendships. Only Granny Smith stayed behind; she had gestured to Big Mac to leave her alone with the Princess for a moment.

“Ah, Annie,” Celestia said when the two of them were alone. “I keep wishing you had accepted my offer to become an Agent.” She still faced out the window, watching the slow approach of the train from Ponyville.

Granny Smith stood behind her, idly watching the flow of her mane and tail. “I stand by what I told you then: I’d make a better mother. And grandmother. I’m a much better grandmother for my three kin than I was a mother.”

“Don’t beat yourself up, Annie. I wound up in a parenting role recently, and I completely botched it.”

Annie, unseen, raised an eyebrow, but decided to say nothing. “Just confirm what I already figured out: Applejack’s never inheriting the farm, is she?”

“No,” Celestia said simply. She turned to face the old mare. “I wasn’t the one who picked her for greatness.”

“Bullhockey,” Granny replied, her voice even. “You’ve had your eyes on the Ponyville Apples from Day One. You’re just equivocating on me like you do with everypony else. You didn’t ‘pick’ my granddaughter, but you sure knew who would, sooner or later.”

“You’ve read Raven’s files. You know that Equestria is far overdue for a crisis of epic proportions.”

Granny smiled. “I know. And I’m proud that my girl is going to grow up to fix all the problems you kicked down the road. I’m just using my age-earned right to gripe anyway.”

Celestia frowned at the accusation, but did not refute it. “I expect we won’t see each other for quite some time. Maybe, this might even be our final meeting?”

Granny snorted derisively. “Hardly. I’m not kicking the bucket until I see Applejack’s second stained-glass window with my own eyes. I might even wait for the third.” She roughly shoved Celestia’s moving mane out of the way to look down at the approaching locomotive. “Well, I’ve got to git. See you around, Princess.”

“See you around, Apple Annie.”

The pony “Mane Six”—A ballroom in Canterlot Castle. Noon on Day Five.

A large table had been set up against one wall of the ballroom, laden with all kinds of pony junk food. In a corner, Vinny and Whinnyfield, both mostly recovered from their separate attacks, stood as chaperones. Currently, their main job was to keep Twilight away from the stuffed-to-bursting saddlebags full of magic texts that Pinkie had confiscated as soon as she arrived. Other than that, their main instruction, told to them by their Princess and reinforced with the bribe of plenty of junk food, was to pay no attention to whatever “weird” subjects the fillies might decide to discuss.

Right now, that weirdness consisted of naming the best part about Earth.

“The video games,” said Fluttershy. “They’re a lot better than Equestria’s. I mean...that’s my choice. Yours’ are perfectly OK as well.”

“Well I’m going to say the movies,” said Rainbow Dash. “The planes are great, but I like flying under my own wing-power much more. Did any of you happen to see Inception?”

“Yeah, I reckon that those movies are pretty neat,” said Applejack. “But why do so many of them have to be so sad! That part in Fellowship of the Ring where Gandalf dies...”

“Ah! Spoiler!” Rainbow exclaimed. “I didn’t get a chance to see that one yet! Now it’s ruined.”

“When were you expecting to see it?” Twilight Sparkle asked. She had largely stayed out of the discussion, for obvious reasons. Oh, and because she kept looking longingly back to all of those amazing books.

“Next time the mirror opens. I know most of us, and most of the humans, will prefer to visit Equestria, but there’s some things I’d like to see on Earth, like a rocket launch.”

“Oh, those are amazing!” Twilight exclaimed, her attention now fully turned back to the fillies. “I’m definitely taking you to one, assuming the timing works out. We don’t just have them every day.”

“Err...sorry about the spoiler,” said Applejack. “But you don’t have to worry, because later—”

Twilight put a hoof vertically over Applejack’s lips. “That’s another spoiler.”

“...Right.”

Twilight pulled away her hoof and looked at it. “Did I do that right?” she asked. “A hoof has got to be different from a finger. Culturally speaking.”

“Actually, we usually shove that hoof right into their mouth!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed.

“...Ew,” Twilight replied.

“What was the best part for you, Pinkie?” Applejack asked.

“The inventions are all nice,” Pinkie replied. “But for me, the best part was lying on the roof of my counterpart’s house, looking up, and communing with the universe.”

Rarity, who had started off the conversation with the boring answer of “fashion” and had committed the additional faux pas of using her precious photo album to try and laboriously argue her point, took in a quiet gasp of wonder. She knew that Pinkie was being literal, and imagined her coming into mental contact with thousands of different species and individuals that night, each of them subtly different than the ones she knew from the pony universe.

“This is only the beginning,” Pinkie said, extending her forelegs towards the others. Every pony took each other’s’ hooves, forming a circle. “I hope we six stay friends forever, bringing happiness to everypony we meet. And that includes you too, Gilda! I know you’re spying on us!”

There was a muffled grumbling from the other side of the door, causing the fillies to giggle.

“I...I’d like to be friends with you,” said Fluttershy. “As long as I don’t screw it up by saying something awful.” She looked over at Rarity, and imagined having to use her Stare to put her down. “Or do anything.” She shuddered with fear of her own power.

Rainbow broke the ring to pull Fluttershy into a hug. “You’re not awful, OK? You’re the exact opposite of awful.”

Twilight looked down at her hooves. “I...I’m more likely to do something awful than any of you,” she said quietly. “I nearly vaporized New Brass Sky once. Well...it was only a 78% chance, but still... And there’s the time I tried to mind-rape Shining—”

She was stopped by Pinkie’s hoof inserted into her mouth. Pinking pointed at the occupied hoof with her other one. “See, Twilight, like that,” she said. “And we don’t talk about the indmay-aperay.”

Rarity snorted a must unlady-like laugh, stopping herself with a hoof. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t funny. It’s just...‘ape ray’...”

“And now you’re picturing a big hairy ape with a teeny-tiny Smash Fortune ray gun in his big fat fingers, aren’t you?” Pinkie said with a big grin, leaning in towards Rarity.

This caused Rarity to burst out in full-fledged laughter. “I am!” she exclaimed.

The others laughed a bit too, but most of them didn’t find the image as hilarious as Rarity or Pinkie did.

“Look, none of us are quite sure how long until the portal opens up on the human side, but for us ponies, thirty moons is an awful long time,” Applejack told the others. “If you promise not to come by during planting or harvest, I’d be happy to host all of you all at the family farm in Ponyville for a day or two.”

“Thank you, Applejack,” Twilight said with a small smile. “I could probably use the break to my busy schedule. Besides hanging with friends,” (the two italicized words spoken like they were loan words from a foreign language) “it’s a known fact that the greatest mental breakthroughs came during moments of relaxation, like Kekulé with the structure of benzene.”

“Or Choleric with Kubla Khan,” said Pinkie, after closing her eyes for a moment to pluck the idea out of her counterpart’s head.

“What’s Kubla Khan?” asked Rainbow Dash. Looking over at Twilight, she added, “I won’t even bother to ask about ‘benzene’, as it’s obviously egghead stuff.”

Pinkie waved a hoof dismissively, saying, “It’s just some poem I should have read when I was on Earth.”

The others, assuming she had misspoke when she said “should”, moved on to other topics. Rarity gave Pinkie a sly smile, and Pinkie just shrugged in response.

Epilogue Part 4: The Prophet in Search of a Castle (G. Gilda)

Author's Note

There's a ton of ideas on what I could do with Griffon Gilda after this story is done; this is just one scene, and it doesn't even explain the title. If I ever write any sequels to this story, fleshing out “The Prophet in Search of a Castle” will be my first priority.

Epilogue Part 4: The Prophet in Search of a Castle (G. Gilda)

Dear Grandpa Gruff,

I’m in.

Since we both know how many ponies and griffons probably read this letter between my claws and yours, I won’t go into details. I’ve still got a few big steps to pull off before I can come home and give you the details. And what I have in mind might not even work.

But it’s worth a shot, right?

—Gilda.

G. Gilda—Ponyville, Day Eight.

Amethyst Star was waiting for Gilda’s arrival, hopping up and down and dancing with excitement as her figure gradually grew and grew in the sky.

Gilda had flown around the Everfree this time.

“You’re here! You’re here!” Amethyst crowed, grabbing Gilda by the arm as soon as she had landed and dragging her over to a gold-colored unicorn mare with a curly purple mane sitting at the fountain. “Mom, this is that griffon I told you about. She’s moving in with me.”

“I don’t think so, kid,” Gilda said.

“I don’t think so, Amy,” the mare said at the same time.

They looked at each other, and the mother laughed. “Ah, so you are sensible,” the mare said with a smile, walking over to get a good look at the griffon. “My daughter made you out to be an action hero straight out of her comic books, but I only knew you from that brief moment outside the Everfree. My name’s Lolli. I work at the clinic. What was your name again?”

“Gilda,” the griffon said. “I’m planning on staying in the hotel for now.”

The next day Gilda traveled quite a ways out of town, ending up at the cottage where Holiday and Lofty were living.

“Good morning,” Gilda said when Holiday answered the door. “Could I speak with Lofty?”

Holiday looked back into the house. “Lofty, were you expecting a visitor today?”

“Who is it?” came the scratchy voice of Lofty.

“It’s Gilda,” said Holiday.

Gilda was pleasantly surprised that the pony had remembered her name. It had been her usual experience that she was known as “the griffon”, and nothing more.

“Who?” asked Lofty, who then walked up to get a look at her visitor. “Ah, the convincing griffon. Come right in.”

“We’re just having brunch,” Holiday said, leading Gilda towards the kitchen. “Would you like anything?”

“Some water would be nice,” Gilda said politely.

“Ah, you’re putting on the act again,” Lofty said crossly. She blocked their way into the kitchen.

Gilda dropped the fake smile.

“Better,” Lofty said, turning to sit on a cushion before the kitchen table. “If there’s one thing I hate the most from the tours, it’s somepony putting on an act, usually to get me to do something for them. Bunch of idiotic foals. If you want something, Gilda, just go ahead and say it.”

“Oh,” said Gilda. “Well...I would like to become your apprentice.”

Lofty said nothing, her mouth open in shock.

Holiday let out a loud but friendly laugh. “You walked right into that one, Lofty.”

“I...did,” Lofty admitted. “And...I actually do need an apprentice.” She glanced over at a door on the other side of the kitchen, which had the symbol of a cradle painted on it. “Family matters have suddenly taken a rather chaotic turn for poor Holiday here, and I promised that I would help as much I could. Having someone to take over the Everfree tour business would be perfect.”

Gilda, who had taken the opportunity to get a sip of water out of the wide tumbler provided by Holiday, nervously put her cup down. “Now I don’t want to put you out of a job, Lofty! I would be fine working part-time. I’m not at a loss for bits; I just want to be useful here.”

“You like Ponyville that much?” Lofty asked.

“It’s the most griffon-friendly town I’ve ever seen. Pony or griffon.”

Holiday laughed once more.

“Well, I’m not wanting for bits either, Gilda. Which is why I’m fine eventually hoofing the business over to you one day. Assuming you prove yourself—but given what I’ve seen and heard, that’s pretty likely.” She looked over at the cradle-door again. “And I’m pretty sure I’m going to have zero free time pretty soon taking care of the brat.”

Crying instantly began on the other side of the door.

“Scootaloo’s not a brat!” Holiday protested as she got up to deal with the cry. “She just misses her parents.”

“Uh huh,” Lofty said. “You better be careful, Gilda. Or you may end up getting roped into fillysitter duties.”

“But that’s already my day job,” Gilda joked.

The two mares looked at her blankly.

“Err...because I was around fillies and colts when I was at Junior Flight Camp, and despite being the same age I always felt like I was the only adult,” Gilda explained lamely.

Lofty laughed. “Then you’re already prepared for your future clients.”

Epilogue Part 5: Wrapping Up with the Humans (H. Trixie, H. Celestia, Seven Humans and Two Ponies)

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Credits & Acknowledgements

The first credit and acknowledgement is to my editor, Hope, who spotted some truly egregious logic errors and instances of characters being wildly out of character. Thank you so much for your time and enthusiasm.

The fourth generation of My Little Pony, Friendship Is Magic was created by Lauren Faust. Since I’m largely pulling from the flashback versions of the characters depicted in the episode “The Cutie Mark Chronicles”, I’m giving equal credit to M.A. Larson, writer of that episode. My Little Pony: Equestria Girls was created by Meghan McCarthy. The comic book story that introduced the freshman versions of the human characters was written by Ted Anderson, so he gets half credit for that.

I think it’s pretty clear which characters belong to which franchise. The fact that an earth pony named Raven is Mayor Mare’s assistant while a mostly-identical unicorn named Raven is Princess Celestia’s assistant is never explained in either series or comic, but I’m not the first to imagine that Raven is more than she appears: “Raven” by SaintChoc made her immortal, while Raven as a composite being is from “Inkwells Across Equestria”, by Keyslam. The following characters are original: Kolbe (Kolbe!). The future Prince Blueblood’s father and mother. The explorer Baré. Gnosi Augur and Meridiem Tempest (taken from my earlier fan novel Equestrian Business). Professor Flattery. Muck Tarbell. Fast Clip. Gilda in the Equestria Girls setting. Everyone associated with Human Rarity’s adventure. Cat Lulamoon. Dr. Oath. General Farrago. Jeremiah and Thomas / Tom and Jerry. Ms. Pansy. “Somnia.” Mrs. Pizzaz. Archbishop August from Equestrian Business. Lunch Pail. The wolf characters. Chef Gallop. Drs. Teeter and Totter. Gus Guiseman from Equestrian Business. Jeff Bellamy. Gabe, George, Bonnie and Rex. Truth Delver from Equestrian Business. And Mustang Sally. Everybody else is the property of Hasbro.

Any differences between existing characters in canon and my interpretation should be due to this being an alternate universe, but if you think the characterization sucked despite that fact then yes, you can definitely blame me for that.

Moving on to the notes by chapter... These are all from the blog posts that went with each chapter so if you read those, you’re done.

Prologue: A Change of Plans (P. Celestia, Sunset Shimmer)

The character headings, and why they’re in the chapter names

Unlike most uses of character headings I’ve seen on this site, they are not used to delineate multiple first-person perspectives, because I don’t really care much for first-person writing. Instead, I’m using a third-person limited perspective, where we look over the shoulder of the named character, and are privy to their thoughts and their thoughts alone.

Perhaps more for my own amusement than for any other reason, I color each section with the personality of the named character: the “P. Celestia” section should feel like something (Princess) Celestia the pony might write about herself if she used the third person, while the “Sunset Shimmer” section is colored with Sunset’s characteristic snark and her anger. The way I think about it is this: It’s decades into the future, and somebody is writing a book (this book) about the fateful events of these three days. He (me) interviews all of the characters to get their stories, and even gets to borrow some diaries. He then makes the character sections read like they had been written by each character in the third person.

Why are the character headings in the chapter titles? Because this is a complicated story. There are more than a dozen main characters, and the plot intercuts between all of them. I don’t know about you, but if I were reading this story instead of writing it, I would be guaranteed to start reading about a character who hadn’t done anything in the past five chapters, and find myself completely blanking on what this character was doing. If you’re like me, those character headings in the chapter titles will help you go back to catch up on characters you’ve forgotten about. Just be warned that some of these character sections are ludicrously short.

What’s with the “P.” in “P. Celestia”?

This is one of the notes I put in the story description: “P” stands for “Pony”. We’re dealing with pony and human versions of most characters, and you’ll need to keep track of which one is which. For characters that switch bodies, the initial is going to follow the mind around, not the body.

That’s another reason I’m using character headings, to keep track of which counterpart we’re dealing with at any particular moment.

Day Zero

The mirror portal will only be open for three days. This is the day before the portal opens.

Whinnyfield and Vinny

These are the two ponies in My Little Pony The Movie who were guarding Songbird Serenade—I’m imagining that they were royal guards before they became private bodyguards and that Whinnyfield in particular was the guard captain before Shining Armor. (Or maybe there was somepony between Whinnyfield and Shining Armor. I haven’t decided yet.) The two characters were inspired by the characters played by Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta in Pulp Fiction, Jules Winnfield and Vincent Vega. Vinny is also a little bit Travolta’s character from Welcome Back, Kotter, Vinnie Barbarino, because I sort of see Vinnie Barbarino in all of Travolta’s characters.

Kolbe

Hermann Kolbe (1818–1884) is one of my primary arguments against immortality.

Before his thirtieth birthday, Kolbe was one of the principal founders of the science of organic chemistry, pulling it out of the Dark Ages and establishing the basic rules for how to build organic molecules from scratch.

After his thirtieth birthday and for the rest of his long life, Kolbe used the position of power he had been granted to fight tooth and nail against the advances of the younger generation, such as Kekulé’s theory on the structure of benzene or van’t Hoff’s theory about asymmetrical compounds. He was the editor of one of the leading journals, and not only refused to publish their work, he also put columns in the journal violently denouncing these ideas and personally insulting the authors. Kolbe had to die before these advances could be accepted by the academic community.

Kolbe sucks.

Prince Blueblood the Diplomat

Twilight’s contemporary Prince Blueblood was made into a diplomat in the comics.

My general rule on the canonicity of comic material: I’ll accept it if a) it’s not directly contradicted by broadcast or theatrical material and b) it doesn’t mess up the neat idea I just had for the story.

I’ve used the idea of Blueblood’s male ancestors all being named Blueblood in multiple places, including Equestrian Business.

Baré

Jeanne Baré (1740–1807) was the first woman to circumnavigate the globe. She did it by disguising herself as a man in order to accompany her lover and employer Philibert Commerçon, the naturalist for Louis Antoine de Bougainville’s 1766–69 voyage.

On the subject of teleportation, it seems to be a strong fan-held opinion that only the strongest of magic users can do it: Celestia, Luna, Twilight Sparkle and Sunset Shimmer. I’m dealing with that theory by having this character limited to line-of-sight teleports, with long rests in between.

Sunset Shimmer’s title

I’m not sure if Sunset had a canonical title with Princess Celestia corresponding to Twilight’s “most-faithful student” moniker. I decided to go with “most-remarkable student” here, but I’ve seen plenty of other candidates in fanfiction.

Raven as Celestia’s confidant

Hey, I needed sompony for Celestia to exposit to.

Raven is a background character in the series and even when she shows up in the comics, her personality is dictated by whatever the writer of that issue needs her to be.

The chronology

This story makes four assumptions: 1. Time passes differently in the pony and human realms when they aren’t connected by the mirror portal: 30 months between openings on Equus, and 6 months between openings on Earth. 2. The future Mane Six were ten years old when they got their cutie marks. 3. Their human counterparts were 15-year old freshmen in high school at the same moment, which is the moment they first met. 4. Sunset crossed over to Earth in the fall of her freshman year.

These assumptions are based on a chain of logic that has some very weak links. If I was going for the most-likely chronology, I likely would have ended up with different assumptions, but these four give me the story I wanted to tell, so I’ll go with them. I will now waste your time by listing these links:

Sunset left Equestria for Earth on the same day that Twilight became the Princess’ student. This is based on the line in Equestria Girls when Twilight claims to have no knowledge of Sunset’s existence before the start of the movie. The “Fall of Sunset Shimmer” comic story showed a filly Twilight in the background of a scene, about the same age as when she got her mark. Anything more accurate than that is an exercise in artistic license. Logically, Sunset must have used the portal on the last possible moment of the third day in canon, so that there would be no way she could be pursued by the Princess or a guard volunteer. This is an alternate universe, based on having her go on the first day instead.

Sunset arrived on Earth and immediately became a freshman at Canterlot High. The final panel of “The Fall of Sunset Shimmer” shows her arriving at the school looking about the same way as she did in Equestria Girls. So therefore she went straight to school at Canterlot High, as opposed to poking around for a few years first as an adult in a child’s body. I’m going to guess that Sunset isn’t ageless as a human, and teenagers age rapidly. Also, she’s in three separate Fall Formal Princess photographs, so I’m going to assume she won in her freshman, sophomore and junior years—there’s no way she would let herself repeat a grade. I figure she needs at least a month after arriving to become enough of an object of pity to earn the Fall Formal crown. So let’s say she arrived in September, and the Formal is in October.

The Mane Six got their cutie marks when they were ten years old. This is a pure guess on my part.

Fifteen years passed between Twilight Sparkle getting her mark and her first visit to Earth. This is not backed in canon so again, I’m just making an assertion that makes the math work out easily.

The human counterparts of the Mane Six (minus Twilight) all met on the same day that the ponies got their cutie marks. This is documented in another comic story with the confusing title of “Equestria Girls”. This was the Freshman Fair. That the two events happened on the same day is of course my assumption rather than anything explicitly stated in canon.

30 months pass between every opening of the mirror portal on Equus. The span is stated to be “thirty moons”, with the writers declaring that a “moon” is a deliberately undefined timespan. I’m deciding to make it a month anyway, like everybody else does. Combined with the “15 years” assumption above, this means that the mirror opened six times after the one covered in this story, and the sixth opening is when Equestria Girls takes place.

A little over 6 months pass between every opening of the mirror portal on Earth. Many authors have had to deal with dating discrepancies when trying to match up events in the two worlds. This is what I’m stuck with in order to line up six mirror openings in fifteen years in Equestria with three years (and a month) on Earth. This is absolutely not supported anywhere in canon.

Now if you’ve read Equestrian Business, you will have an objection: if time is passing five times faster on Earth compared to Equestria, why did the marking meteorite land one thousand years ago instead of two hundred? I’m going to say that the relative flow of time between the two realms varies. It’s five times faster on Earth now, but at some time in the past time passed faster in Equestria to keep the two worlds from drifting too far apart, so overall 985/997 years have passed in the two worlds since Nightmare Moon was banished.

Day 1, Chapter 1: Nervous Breakdown (P. Twilight Sparkle, H. Twilight Sparkle)

“H.”

Stands for “Human”.

The filly who ran out crying

Fire Flare, the unicorn who was easily talked into becoming a breedist by a disguised Chrysalis in “The Summer Sun Setback”.

Trixie’s backstory

Largely invented for this story. Some parts (like having no magic and being Twilight’s best friend) are a part of the alternate universe of this story, and are not meant to be true in the original timeline.

The four unicorn examiners

This will be on the test.

The other test

Getting rings out of embedded objects is a standard magician’s trick.

Twilight being shoved into another universe by the magic mirror during her entrance exam

I borrowed this idea from a few different fanfics, including Star Trek: Phoenix by Dewdrops on the Grass.

Human Twilight’s neighbor at the science fair

This is Puffed Pastry, the chef character from Spring Breakdown and Sunset’s Backstage Pass who keeps having run-ins with Pinkie.

The Coriolis force

Responsible for controlling the direction the water goes ‘round in your toilet. And absolutely nothing else, if you go by the number of internet references.

The clay put on Twilight’s horn to cut off her magic

This is “cork”, a magic-blocking substance that I nicked from the very old fanfic “In Her Majesty’s Royal Service”, by Sagebrush.

Chapter 2: Breaking the Universe (P. Rainbow Dash, P. Fluttershy)

98 ponylengths-per-second

Just think of it as 98% of the speed of sound/magic.

The Sonic Magi-Boom

If the Sonic Rainboom is supposed to be legendary, and a pegasus’ contrail is the same color as their mane, then that would mean that only rainbow-maned pegasi are capable of breaking the barrier, which doesn’t sound very fair to me. So I decided that the feat is generically known as a “magi-boom”—Rainbow re-branded hers as a “rainboom”, and got everypony to buy into the term instead of the generic one.

As for the warnings? Something similar was a popular belief before Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier in 1947.

Pseudo-magic

Yeah, that’s depressing—the idea that with all of the wondrous magic in Equestria, there are still paranoid ponies that believe in types of magic that are in fact impossible...or impossibly dangerous.

The “weird blue creature” chasing the “brick on wheels”

This is your hint for how to put this and the following chapters set on Earth in chronological order.

Posey Shy and Cloud Cover

Fluttershy’s parents aren’t named in canon. I took the names from a pair of comments on their MLP FIM wiki page. Posey is the name of the G1 pony that Lauren Faust used as the inspiration for Fluttershy.

Chapter 3A: Main Character, Part 1 (H. Rainbow Dash)

“That orange kid”

Hate to disappoint you, but this is the only appearance of H. Scootaloo in this fic. The human counterparts of the CMC are not yet in high school at this point, and so there’s no way that Scootaloo would be able to talk to her hero. At least, none that I would think of that wouldn’t derail the plot.

Human Fluttershy’s cynicism

I’m using the excuse of her harassment at Crystal Prep, with this being her coping mechanism. Don’t worry, she’ll drop it once she transfers to Canterlot High.

Human Spitfire

In the “Equestria Girls” comic origin story, Spitfire is the captain of the Canterlot High soccer team. I’m not using that because my idea is better. :derpytongue2:

Chapter 3B: Main Character, Part 2 (H. Rainbow Dash, H. Fluttershy)

“Dear Rainbow Dash...”

This is the entire reason I wrote this story. Specifically, the idea for a scenario where the Equestria Girls counterpart to a pony is the more mature one for once.

“Griffon magic is wind magic, and pegasi magic is anti-gravity based.”

I have a bad habit of putting forward ideas I think are original, when in fact I read them somewhere a while ago and then forgot about them. So, if anybody knows of a story or blog entry that advanced this particular theory first, please let me know so I can put that credit right here.

I think this theory is pretty sound, especially the pegasus side of it. I’m just going to assume that cloud walking is an ability completely separate from flight, to explain how griffons can stand on them without blowing them to pieces. After all, a pegasus sleeping in a cloud home doesn’t fall through when she falls asleep, while a flying pegasus who was knocked out would not just float in place. That implies that cloud walking is involuntary while flight is instinctual/conscious. And therefore pegasi and griffons can both cloud-walk in the same way, while flying in two different ways.

Chapter 4: Lucid Dreaming (P. Rarity)

“I’ll see you Friday at school!”

I don’t make a big deal about the dates in this story, but in fact it’s Wednesday, September 22, 2010 on Earth. It’s traditional when a Markist gets their mark to take the next full day off to celebrate, which would mean that Rarity would be expected to return to school on Friday.

Sweat-soaked Trixie

She’s so sweaty because she’s been running after a missed bus. I told you in Chapter 2’s notes that I was using her for internal chronology.

Chapter 5: The Alien (P. Rarity, H. Rarity)

Pinkie Pie

I have a rule with writing Pinkie Pie: any time I write a story that is not in the same continuity of any of my previous stories, I’m required to come up with a new origin story for Pinkie.

Rarity apologizing to Pinkamena

This is something that I really wished that Friendship Is Magic had addressed: the fact that everypony treated Pinkie Pie with her cartoon powers as a one-dimensional happy stereotype, in order to keep from thinking about what she might do if she ever lost her temper. I imagined that an episode pairing her with Spike—a character that understood her well enough to start borrowing some of her tricks—would be a good way to do this. The other scenario I came up with to have this conversation was after the end of “The Last Roundup”, when Rarity and Pinkie Pie were alone together on that rail cart.

Well, now I got to do it myself.

H. Rarity

I got Human Rarity’s plotline straight from the 2011 animated movie Rango, with Rarity playing the part of the title character. The part of Beans is being played by “Applejack”, who is obviously a reformed changeling.

You probably have questions about “Applejack”, but I’m not going to answer them. In fact, let me point something out that you probably didn’t think of: She’s taking the form of an adult Applejack. Pony Applejack is a ten-year-old filly, so how did this changeling know what her adult form would look like?

Chapter 6: A View Out the Window (H. Applejack, P. Applejack)

Trixie

This is her before her appearance in Chapter 2. She hasn’t chased after a bus yet, and she doesn’t have her mark yet. (The stuff with Rarity also makes this clear.)

In the “Equestria Girls” comic origin story, Trixie was running the Glee Club booth at the Freshman Fair. In this alternate reality she’s running the Magic Club booth.

Noctiferian

A term I threw together for Nightmare Moon worshipers in my other fic “The Masterpiece”. In my world at least, the cult is a joke, and are allowed to exist by Princess Celestia because of how obviously pathetic they are.

Day 2: Ponies on Earth, Chapter 7: Stan Lee Cameo (P. Twilight Sparkle, P. Applejack, Sunset Shimmer)

The Phoenix/Dark Phoenix Saga

Everybody knows this one by now right? Well, just in case you don’t, it was a storyline in the X-Men comic books from 1980, adapted unsuccessfully into film and television at least four times, written by Chris Claremont with art by John Byrne. In it, the psychic character Jean Gray appears to sacrifice her life to save her teammates after a dangerous mission and ends up in a coma. She wakes up with vastly expanded mental powers, calling herself “Phoenix”, and shortly afterwards saves the universe—that’s the Phoenix Saga. The sequel Dark Phoenix Saga starts with Jean Gray being corrupted by a group of seductive villains, becoming “Dark Phoenix”. And then she goes off and blows up a star just for the fun of it, killing off an entire civilization, and she has to be put down. (Of course she doesn’t stay dead. This is Comic Book Land—nobody truly dies in Comic Book Land.)

Sci-Twi, of course, is going to become a character whose gem-bestowed power is telekinesis, the same basic power that Jean Gray started with.

The Tangled trailer

Tangled got its widespread American release on November 24, 2010. This story is set in September of 2010. The bit about the skin colors is because before the discovery of America, Markism was only practiced in England.

Chapter 8: The Light of the Sun (P. Rarity, P. Rainbow Dash, P. Fluttershy, Abacus Cinch)

General Farrago

“Farrago” is one of those words you use to show off your vocabulary. It means “mess” or “hodgepodge”, as in “that story was a farrago of myth and fact.” The word derives from the Latin for “cattle feed”, which is a mix of grains.

A light grayish mulberry in color

Rarity is very exact with her colors.

Three diamond shapes, each one a different cut

Pony Rarity now has a slightly different cutie mark as a result of her fashion epiphany on Earth.

Chapter 9: Wild Blue Yonder (The Human Mercenaries, P. Fluttershy, P. Rainbow Dash)

The Mercenaries

Yeah, I’m doing that thing again. If you don’t know what “that thing” is, I’ll spell it out in Chapter 12.

The quadcopter

This is only a little in advance of actual drone technology of 2010.

Outsider

The Markist term for someone lacking in Markist culture. So this would not only include most non-Markist Americans, for example, but even Markists who had been raised without the web of strange and unexplained traditions that permeate Markist-majority cities and towns.

“A youth clothing store named after gum, or candy, or something like that.”

~~Hmm...sometimes I write these things, and then I come back to write the notes, and I completely forget what I was thinking. Was it Icing? Whatever it was, it was big in 2010.~~

2023 Update: I remembered! It was Juicy Couture. This company vaulted into popularity in the 2000's for making custom velour tracksuits for various celebrities starting with Madonna, opening their own stores in malls around the world shortly afterwards. By around 2010 they had sales of over $200 million a year. But by 2015 the company had collapsed, and they are now only a minor brand sold by J.C. Penny's.

The Hanna Gang

Led by the brutal Will Hanna, and his equally brutal lieutenant Joe Barbera.

The Grimm Fairy Tale that ends with the evil stepmother being thrown into a barrel studded with pointy nails and rolled down a hill to her death

Well, Thomas is not quite remembering it correctly, because I wasn’t either. I always thought that was the ending of the Grimm “Cinderella”, when it fact it’s mostly the ending of “The Goose-Girl”.

“dollars to donuts”

One of those things that my Dad used to say, and nobody else that I knew. The phrase always makes me think of a bizarre local gameshow called Bowling for Dollars that aired on KBHK 44 San Francisco for six months back in 1978, when I was six years old. Why I remember a six-month long television show from when I was six but have trouble remembering the bank card PIN I use every day of my life I’ll never know.

The movies Rainbow and Fluttershy watch in the mall

Stormy with a Side of Pudding is from the “Movie Magic” special, and is called one of Pinkie Pie’s favorite movies. Inception had its widespread U.S. release on July 16, 2010, and so would still be playing in theaters on the date when this story is set.

“This here is a Rocket 305...”

Oh, I love the internet. It lets you fake being an expert in anything.

Chapter 10: Wine-Dark Sea (P. Applejack, P. Rarity, H. Trixie)

Chestnut Magnifico

The actress from “Movie Magic”. Rarity seemed to be a fan of her in that special.

Pixel Pizzaz

This character was a member of human Trixie’s band in Equestria Girls: Rainbow Rocks. From her fashionable appearance, I figured she might be a friend of Rarity as well. She doesn’t have a pony counterpart in canon.

Rarity’s classroom schedule

It is absolutely ridiculous for me to come up with a complete class schedule for Human Rarity, given that we only hear about two of her classes. I did it anyway:

1st Period, 8–8:50 am: Algebra 1
2nd Period, 9–9:50 am: Business 1 (a semester class, with Marketing 1 in the spring semester)
3rd Period, 10—10:50 am: Literature and Composition 1 (so far they’ve covered The Epic of Gilgamesh and The Iliad)
4th Period, 11—11:50 am: World History II (starting with the French Revolution)
Lunch, noon to 12:30 pm
5th Period, 12:30—1:20 pm: Biology
6th Period, 1:30—2:20 pm: French 1
7th Period, 2:30—3:30 pm: Home Room (3 days a week), alternated with Physical Education (2 days a week)

“Sing in me, Muse...”

Start of the Robert Fitzgerald’s 1961 translation of Homer’s Odyssey, the gold standard.

The seven primary uprisings of the Revolutions of 1848: the Italian states, France, the German states, Hungary...

...And of course Denmark, the Netherlands and Poland. Come on people, this was on the test!

Lance Burton’s last show at the Monte Carlo

The famous stage magician’s last show at the Las Vegas casino was on September 4, 2010.

H. Trixie

This was the moment when I added Trixie to the character list. The human one, but in context that means both of them.

Queen of the Damned

For once, this book didn’t come out in 2010 like all of my other pop culture references, but instead way back in 1988. The movie adaptation came out in 2002.

Chapter 11: Champagne Wishes and Caviar Dreams (P. Applejack, P. Rarity, H. Trixie, H. Pixel Pizzaz)

“I send you all champagne wishes and caviar dreams.”

This is supposed to be the sign-off line for every episode of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, but good luck actually finding it used in a YouTube video of the series.

Platinum Junior High

The only (comic) canonical junior high school in Canterlot City is Cloudsdale, which Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy attended before going to Canterlot High according to “Equestria Girls”. I invented Platinum Junior High for unicorn counterparts, and Mustangia Junior High for earth pony counterparts.

Wait, didn’t you say that Scootaloo was from Mustangia Junior High in Chapter 3?

Yes. Yes, I did.

“They’re taking the hobbits to Isengard!”

By some kind of miracle of restraint, I didn’t link that one earworm video. Not even in these notes.

Adventure Time

The series premiered on Cartoon Network on April 5, 2010, if you don’t count the pilot.

H. Pixel Pizzaz

Nope, I haven’t added her character tag to the fic.

“The Goddess sees into all of our thoughts”

No she doesn’t. Princess Celestia would have to be institutionalized if she had to deal with the thoughts of humans on a regular basis, even good-natured Markist humans.

The Fairly OddParents

Originally ran on Nickelodeon from 2001 to 2006, and then from 2007–2012.

Chapter 12: Storytime (P. Rarity, P. Applejack, H. Celestia, Abacus Cinch)

This chapter mostly exists to link the events of Equestrian Business with this story.

World War III ending all life on earth

This is a very illogical belief. Nevertheless it was the one I grew up believing in during the 1980’s, and therefore the one that I declare to be true for this alternate version of Earth. Or at least, that’s what everyone believed to be true...

Day 2 (Humans in Equestria): Chapter 13: Code Duello (H. Rarity)

Code Duello

These are the rules that govern a duel. For example: the challenged party gets to choose the weapons, date and time.

Nowhere

The town in Rango is named Dirt.

The drunk chameleon

Formerly the main character of Rango.

The Man with No Name

I’m just going to link to a little tribute video, for those unfamiliar with the character.

The bartender

I’m taking most of the Rango characters and replacing them with the inhabitants of Klugetown from My Little Pony The Movie. Rango’s bartender was a Sonoran desert toad named Buford. I replaced him with Louise, the frilled lizard bartender from The Movie.

White Raven

Raven is the trickster god of many Native American tribes. He started out white, and there’s a famous story about how he got his black feathers. I already have a character named “Raven”, so I decided to use “White Raven” for Rarity’s alias.

“Beyond the fields that you know...”

I’m curious to see if anyone recognizes this quote from The King of Elfland’s Daughter, a once-famous 1924 fantasy novel by Lord Dunsany. The quote is a glorification of the East as a compass direction, in direct contradiction to Rango’s deification of “The Spirit of the West”.

White Raven’s shrinking spell

In Rango, the title character told a story about how he killed seven outlaw brothers with a single bullet.

Passamaquoddy

Main setting for Pete’s Dragon.

Tom and Jerry

Aka “that thing” with the mercenaries from Chapter 8. These two take the place of both Bad Bill and the unnamed hawk antagonist in Rango.

Chapter 14: The Bank of Nowhere (H. Rarity)

Tortoise John, Mr. Merrimack and Angelique

These three characters are taken from Rango without changes.

University of Panthera

In the comics, Panthera is the capital of Abyssinia, the kingdom of the talking cats. It’s where Capper comes from.

Mustangia

This is the town that Ms. Peachbottom comes from in the episode “Games Ponies Play”. Since my story is set before Appleoosa was founded, I picked Mustangia to be the closest Western pony town to Nowhere.

The strips beside the staircase

The machinery in the Mayor’s wheelchair is able to engage with some gears and tracks behind those strips, allowing the Mayor to be lifted up- or downstairs.

“The people need to believe in something.”

I believe I shall have another drink.

Pushkin the tailor

The tailor in Rango is unnamed in the film, but officially called Mr. Black. His goggles only have two lenses and he’s actually a black widow spider instead of a tarantula. Pushkin is the name of a snapping turtle vendor from My Little Pony The Movie.

“The wicked Princess Celestia”

And here I start nudging the plot of my Rango knockoff in a more Equestrian direction.

The umbra

This is a race of living shadows from the comics. They seduced Luna into becoming Nightmare Moon, they can be destroyed by the light of the Crystal Heart, and they created the half-pony, half-umbra Sombra for the purpose of destroying that Crystal Heart.

Chapter 15A: A Voice from the Everfree, Part 1 (G. Gilda, P. Fluttershy, P. Rainbow Dash)

G. Gilda

This was the moment when Gilda was added to the character list. Also, “G.” stands for Griffon.

Hoofington

Hoofington is the town where Trixie had her made-up battle with the Ursa. In my fanfiction, I always put it in the opposite side of the Everfree from Ponyville, and use it as a dark mirror of that town. As you will see, I’m also making it the hometown of Flim and Flam.

Blaming a couple of foals for the embezzlement

I think you can guess which characters’ origin story I just invented here.

Chapter 15B: A Voice from the Everfree, Part 2 (G. Gilda, P. Rainbow Dash, P. Fluttershy)

Wild magic of the Everfree

I think the show could have done a better job of showing why the Everfree was dangerous and still stay within the content limits. Having everypony’s magic go wild is my solution.

The deer

In the comics, the deer are an intelligent race with a secret kingdom in the heart of the Everfree. They are distrustful of ponies.

Fire Streak

This is the never-shown pony whose retirement from the Wonderbolts would open the spot taken by Rainbow Dash.

“Have you ever heard of a mad unicorn living in the Everfree?”

“No, but I can point you to a half-dozen stories on this site where that’s the plot.”

Chapter 16A: Rescue, Part 1 (H. Fluttershy, G. Gilda, H. Applejack, H. Rainbow Dash)

The timber wolves story

This is taken from “Timberwolves, Guardians of the Everfree”, by Keystone Gray.

Everygriff

I used to use “everyffony” as my “everybody” equivalent for griffons, for example in The Best of All Possible Worlds. But Friendship Is Magic series eventually settled for “everygriff” in the last few seasons.

Doctor Horse’s reflector

That’s what those things are actually for, you know: to see a patient better in low-light conditions.

Chapter 17A: Seeing the Light, Part 1 (P. Trixie, P. Celestia)

“[Vinny’s] using the little colt’s room again.”

In Pulp Fiction, the Vinny character is always having to use the bathroom, which eventually becomes a plot point. That’s because Vinny’s a heroin addict, and that’s something that heroin does to you. The pony Vinny just has a small bladder.

Chapter 17B: Seeing the Light, Part 2 (P. Celestia, H. Twilight Sparkle, P. Trixie)

“Thank you, Guiseman!”

A reference to the main character in Equestrian Business.

Mustangia.

Dun, dun, dun.

Day 3: Morning & Afternoon, Chapter 18B: Status Check (Raven, H. Rainbow Dash)

The non-existent name tag.

I alluded to something like this in Perfect Little Village of Ponyville:

“...what kind of freaky powers does this Pinkie friend of yours have, anyway?!”

As she looked around her, Pinkamena suddenly realized that she saw little labels floating in front of every book with their titles and possible uses. Next to each earth pony and unicorn was an information box with their birthdays, likes and dislikes. As far as she could tell, the only reason the pegasi in the room lacked these boxes was because they hadn’t been around Ponyville long enough for her to suck the information out of their skulls.

“No!” Pinkamena exclaimed, slamming her head sideways into a nearby pillar. When her vision cleared, she nodded at what she was no longer seeing. “Much better.”

“Four and twenty”: For those of you not raised on English nursery rhymes:

Sing a song of sixpence,
A pocket full of rye.
Four and twenty blackbirds,
Baked in a pie.

When the pie was opened
The birds began to sing.
Wasn’t that a dainty dish
To set before the king?

Now I could go on for quite a while about “sixpence”. It was a silver coin, and it took forty of them to equal one pound sterling in Great Britain’s old currency (so a sixpence was something like 3 American cents in value). In 1740, the approximate year when “Sing of Song of Sixpence” was written, sixpences were traditionally put in Christmas puddings—whoever found the coin would get good luck in the coming year. Since a sixpence had so much silver in it, you could bend the coin in your bare hands; since a sixpence would be enough money to get yourself wasted in the local tavern, the practice was known as “going on a bender”.

Oh, and they never taught me the other three verses of “Sing a Song of Sixpence”:

The king was in his counting house,
Counting out his money.
The queen was in the parlor,
Eating bread and honey.

The maid was in the garden,
Hanging out the clothes,
When down came a blackbird
And pecked off her nose.

And shortly after that,
There came a little wren,
As she sat upon a chair,
And put it on again.

Gilda’s Canterlot-spawned paranoia: Readers, I hope you weren’t too disappointed when I finally get around to explaining what Gilda’s afraid of.

Zero X: The pony equivalent of “Xerox”. Xerography was invented in 1938, roughly seventy-five years before the setting year of 2010.

XO: There were some weird things from the Fifties that somehow managed to survive until my childhood in the Eighties, like being taught handwriting like that would ever be a useful skill in the days of electric typewriters and “word processors (electronic device)”. Anyway back then “XO” stood for “hugs and kisses”, and was put at the end of mushy handwritten letters between people who had crushes on each other. I have no idea if the abbreviation has persisted to the present day.

Chapter 19: Overload (P. Twilight Sparkle, P. Rarity, P. Rainbow Dash, Sunset Shimmer, H. Gnosi & Meridiem)

The first cornu bundle

“Cornu” is Latin for “horn”.

Chapter 20: Consequences (basically everybody except H. Rarity, P. Applejack, Abacus Cinch and her minions)

P. Celestia’s tent

This is supposed to be a jousting tent.

“All of our trusted mages are in Yakyakistan”

Remember that it’s been less than three days since the expedition set out, and Sunset believed that it would take weeks for the stubborn Kolbe-led mages to figure out that they truly had been tricked by her. (Kolbe!)

The Omen

That movie is deliberately constructed so that the acts of Satan all appear to be believable accidents. It is the accumulation of so many incredible coincidences that convinces the viewer that something supernatural is happening, rather than the appearance of over-the-top special effects.

“...right before [my father] started using us as pawns.”

In my fan novel The Best of All Possible Worlds, Celestia and Luna’s father is established to be Clover the Clever, who deliberately transformed his daughters into the alicorns he needed to overthrow the emperor Discord.

“If I may dare to ask the Princess the same question,” Voltaire said with a crafty smile, “did you get the father you deserve?”

Princess Celestia gave Voltaire a long cold look before finally answering. “My father made me the Celestia you see today.” Without another word, she turned and walked out of the room, her horn’s magic opening and closing the door.

“That doesn’t sound so bad,” said Eveningstar.

Voltaire shook his head. “She didn’t say that her father made her what she is today. She said that her father made her what she is today.”

“Having dry lips is practically the basis of [pony] civilization.”

I don’t know how many fanfics I’ve read that obsess about ponies slobbering all over everything. It’s not true to Earth horses, and it’s not true to the series.

“I just happen to have a spare Twilight Sparkle.”

The chance to invent lines like this—and hopefully get a good laugh out of you readers—is why I write.

What Twilight saw out of the corner of her eye when she teleported.

I hope all of you readers waved at her when she flashed through our reality.

Chapter 21: Confrontations (H. Fluttershy, H. Sweetie Belle, P. Rarity)

Chef Ramsay

Gordon Ramsay, British chef and television personality. Since the British are no longer Markists in my setting, he gets to keep his name pun-free, unlike his pony counterpart.

Grizelda V of the Emerald Sky Clan

The Best of All Possible Worlds/“Secret Histories” reference.

Metaphorical Party

This would become the name of Pony Maud’s first comedy album.

Chapter 22: Griffon Day Afternoon (Jeff Bellamy)

The title

Dog Day Afternoon is the name of a 1975 movie about a simple bank robbery that spirals into an all-day hostage standoff with the police.

bmd.org

Stands for Baltimare Markist Diocese.

And she was off like a greyhound.

Because that’s what her counterpart looked like in Equestria. Gilda’s gang is made up of griffons (George, Gabe) and Diamond Dogs (Bonnie, Rex).

Chapter 23: Birth of the Stare (Abacus Cinch, P. Fluttershy)

Morrigan

The playable character Morrigan Aensland from Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes (1998) comes from Capcom’s Darkstalkers series of games. The original character is a succubus with bat wings who had two-thirds of her power removed at birth to keep her from accidentally destroying the world, and who has a fondness for human ways. The name Morrigan comes from an Irish deity, goddess of war and protectress of the land and animals. I could see Morrigan as a dark alter ego for Fluttershy.

“What if it’s Rarity?”

Oh, it’s going to be Rarity.

Chapter 24: Small Talk (Sunset Shimmer, P. Celestia, Various, H. Apple Bloom)

The Day the Universe Changed

A BBC documentary series hosted by James Burke, about the long-term consequences of scientific advancements through history. The series was first aired on the American PBS network in 1986, and was released on DVD in 2009. The character of Truth Delver in Equestrian Business was inspired by Burke.

Pokémon Black & White

Pokémon Black and Pokémon White were paired games for the Nintendo DS handheld gaming system, released in Japan in 2010, and a more widespread release in 2011. (We’ll just say it was a simultaneous release in this continuity.) The title is a bit of self-puffery, as “Black and White” is also the name of the non-FIM fanfic I wrote that I’m most proud of, and that I also created in 2010.

Rumspringa

A practice among the Amish whereby a young adult travels to the city and participates in modern culture for a while to decide if they are happier in the city world, or back in the 18th Century enclave of Pennsylvania Dutch country.

Apple Bloom turning into a pony

A small tribute to Bloom Filter, a fanfic by ferret.

The X-Men prequel

X-Men: First Class would have its American wide release on June 1, 2011.

Day 3: Evening & Night, Chapter 25: Thoughts of a Princess (H. Celestia, P. Trixie)

Raven’s origin

This ties her into the Pie cameo in The Best of All Possible Worlds (K). That story and this one are not in the same continuity, but that part at least was shared by both alternate universes.

The dead voice of Truth Delver

Oh look, I managed to get the other main character from Equestrian Business into this story!

Chapter 26: On the Road to Nowhere (H. Celestia, Raven)

Hey, I found a way to sneak a song title into the story without everyone noticing. Here’s a link to the Talking Heads music video.

37°0'37"N 117°27'1"W

On Earth, those are the coordinates for Ubehebe Crater, a volcanic crater located in Death Valley, California. It does not contain a glass lake. If I could have found a glass lake in Death Valley, I would have used that instead.

Chapter 27: The Past: Recent and Distant (H. Rarity, R. Mustang Sally)

The bank theft

I thought the bank robbery was the weakest part of Rango, making the main character seem far more incompetent than usual, in order to fill the plot hole of how that hole ended up in the middle of the street. The line of “maybe [the thieves] got lost, and came up [in the middle of the street] first to get their bearings” covers what actually happens in the movie. I countered with using it to lure Merrimack out of his impregnable bank.

The characters

Charlie is the name of a Diamond Dog in Klugetown. I turned him into a cat. He’s playing the part of Spoons, a mouse prospector in Rango.

Mori is the name of a fish vendor in Klugetown—yes, there was actually a walking fish in My Little Pony The Movie. He’s been turned into a buzzard, and the name just obviously makes him the mortician.

Ron the Roadrunner Wrangler is an invented character. Rango made a big deal of using roadrunners as mounts to the point of adding a couple of pointless scenes just so you could see them in action. I just dangle the possibility of Rarity riding a roadrunner before your noses, but never follow through on it.

Doc the Scorpion is a combination of two Rango characters: a rabbit named Doc and an unnamed scorpion.

The digging machine

The machine itself is in the movie. The extra clues are not. (We got the one appearance of red mud, and that was it.) “F&F” is obviously Flim & Flam.

Catching Tom & Jerry

I’m now going rather far astray from Rango’s plot, because the movie is more bloodthirsty than I am. In the movie, Merrimack is found dead from drowning, whereas I only left him mostly dead. And the movie has an extensive sequence with an outlaw mole family that I thought while entertaining was overcomplicating the story, so I cut them. Therefore it’s the moles that are thrown into jail in Rango rather than the outlaws who were killed off earlier in the movie.

By the way, Rarity’s dialog in this section is largely lifted from Johnny Depp’s performance as Rango.

Everfree Valance

I’ve already speculated that ponies view the subject of complete freedom with considerable distrust, hence the use of “Everfree” as a synonym for “Badass”. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is an excellent 1962 Western about the contrast between the Wild West and its out-of-control liberty, and the forces of civilization. I believe this movie had some influence on Rango, although perhaps only indirectly.

Adamantine the dragon

In Rango, this is Rattlesnake Jake, the most-dangerous gunslinger in the territory, and like Adamantine, under the secret employment of Mayor John.

Tall Tale

This is a town that some Apples hailed from in “Apple Family Reunion”.

Ransom Stopper

In The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, “the man” is named Ransom Stoddard.

Chapter 28: Showdown(s) (H. Celestia, H. Rarity, P. Pinkie)

The two bypass valves

In Rango this is a huge psychedelic set piece. Sorry I couldn’t live up to it.

The ending (compared to Rango)

Rango ended with the dual between Rango (Rarity) and Rattlesnake Jake (Adamantine), with the water surge through the street hole, and him pulling Tortoise John down with him. So I added everything else. It’s a bit bloated, I know.

“Forget it Princess. This is Nowhere. The rules are different here.”

Anyone who’s seen both movies will know that Tortoise John was clearly based on the character of Noah Cross from the 1974 film Chinatown; I at least think the two characters sound very similar to each other as well. The earlier movie explains the madness of its ending with its final line of “Forget it Jake, it’s Chinatown.”

Epilogue Part 1: Getting Everyone Home (Sunset Shimmer)

Cecil

Cecil is from The Perfect Little Village of Ponyville. Cecil is an artifact, a rock imbued with a personality and the ability to cast spells. How many of you that read that story actually predicted that he would ever show up again?

Epilogue Part 3: Wrapping Up with the Ponies (P. Granny Smith, The Pony Mane Six)

Shining Armor’s accent origin

Hey, it had to come from somewhere, right?

Annie Smith

I’m pretty sure I’m not the first author to declare that Granny was known as Annie in her younger years. I wouldn’t be surprised if somebody else also made her a retired agent of S.M.I.L.E., but for now I am unaware of such a story (or again, I forgot it).

“Good idea.”

...Said King Arthur.

“Of course it’s a good idea!” retorted God/Princess Celestia.

Kekulé and benzene

August Kekulé worked out the theory of atomic bonds in 1857, stuff like “carbon has four bonds, oxygen has two, hydrogen has one,” and so on. I mentioned him when I was talking about Hermann Kolbe in the Prologue notes. The theory was doing quite well for him until he tried to figure out how benzene’s bonds worked, and nothing he could come up with followed the rules he had already deduced. In 1862 or perhaps even earlier, Kekulé had been dozing off one day when he imagined a snake swallowing its own tail, and suddenly realized that benzene’s molecular structure must also be circular.

Choleric with Kubla Khan

The poem Kubla Khan was written by an Englishman between 1365 and 1865 and so by the rules of my continuity, he must have an Equestrian name. The author’s actual name was Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Kubla Khan was written in 1797 and published in 1816. Coleridge had been reading a description of the summer palace of the Yuan Dynasty of China, founded by Kublai Khan, while smoking opium, and had then fallen asleep. A full 300-line poem popped into his head while he was sleeping and when he awoke, he started furiously writing his vision down. Unfortunately, he was immediately interrupted by a very persistent visitor and when he had gotten rid of the pest, he found he had forgotten the last 250 or so lines.

Epilogue Part 5: Wrapping Up with the Humans (H. Trixie, H. Celestia, Seven Humans and Two Ponies)

The Hermann the Great poster

Here’s the one place on the Internet where I can find this poster, which was taken from the book Magic: A Pictorial History of Conjurers in the Theater, by David Price.

Trimline telephone

I doubt the current generation is very familiar with the various styles of landline phones anymore. Here’s a page showing what the trimline looked like. The picture is part of a gallery showing multiple views.

“It’s the tiny, in-front eyes”

You may be countering that ponies and Equestria Girls humans have eyes that are about the same size. I will counter that the character models don’t reflect reality—Rainbow Dash is supposed to be the shortest of the ponies in canon, yet she appears to be exactly the same height as most of the other adult ponies in the show.

Clover the Clever’s counterpart

I am describing John Dee, Elizabeth I’s court astronomer/astrologer. John Dee didn’t create stage magic, but he basically created the British Empire and he did actually believe to his dying breath that he had used magic to save humanity from eternal damnation on that dark day in Prague in 1585. Star Swirl by the way is Isaac Newton.

“I have done a great many things I’ve been told I should feel guilty over.”

I never found the place to put this scene:

“Everything you described so far has just seemed petty,” Principal Celestia told her counterpart in the dream. “Clearly she must have done something unforgivable.”

Princess Celestia grit her teeth. “I don’t like telling you about the darker aspects of Equestria, Celly.”

“You can’t expect us to take this as seriously as you do if we don’t know the full truth,” Vice-Principal Luna pressed.

Princess Celestia sighed deeply. “She enslaved all the adult ponies in a town. Sire’s Hollow, population 278. She kept insisting to me that it was an insignificant town. ‘Nopony would even miss it.’ You see, she had come across a prophesy that said that she might become a princess in her own right someday, like what happened to Cadance. And Sunset wanted to ‘practice’. That was her excuse...to ‘practice’.”

“But you reversed it, right?” the Principal insisted. “You undid the spell, right?”

“It was dark magic that Sunset used, Celly. It was a spell with no reversal. Those 200 ponies are still Sunset’s slaves. And will be until the day they die, exactly 199 years from now. They don’t even get the choice of when they are going to die.”

“Did she show any remorse?” Luna asked incredulously.

“She showed disappointment,” the Princess said bitterly. “Said that it wasn’t ‘as much fun as I was expecting.’ She didn’t know that there would be so many responsibilities to go along with the spell, like having to tell her unwilling subjects to eat, or sleep. In the end she threw up her hooves and abandoned the village to its fate, saying, ‘well, at least I learned something from it. Next time I’ll cast a smarter spell.’

“I had her order them to act like they weren’t enslaved. I also had to wipe their memories, because if any of them remembered being Sunset’s slave, they’d go back to losing their free will. In Sunset’s mind, that means that the problem’s been fixed, and she never has to worry about it again. And I suppose, other than accidental invulnerability and extended lifespans that she’s technically right. Maybe by human standards she did fix everything. But those are 200 ponies that have been permanently severed from their destiny. They might as well have had their cutie marks ripped from their hides, because they will never fulfil the destiny given to them by Harmony now. They are ponies without purpose now. ...Humans.”

Luna thought this over for a few seconds, after dismissing the obvious prejudice of her sister’s counterpart. “And Sunset didn’t care because...she doesn’t believe in Harmony?”

“Exactly,” said the Princess. “Sunset believes she is where she is because her genius has made her superior to all ponies other than alicorns. ‘I am an alicorn already in every way that matters,’ she told me in our final confrontation before she used the mirror.”

“Oooh,” Luna said in realization. “She’s a follower of Nietzsche! I had never equated an alicorn with the Übermensch before.”

Lensmare effect

The Lensman series is a set of science fiction stories written by E. E. Smith between 1934 and 1948, republished as a series of novels between 1948 and 1954. They don’t really have anything to do with the effect of using magic in a magic-poor environment, but it sounded like a good name for the effect, so I used it anyway. (The titular “lenses” in the Lensmen series enhanced telepathic abilities in their users, and their users formed a corps of lensmen who fought the forces of evil. The Green Lantern Corps had Lensmen as one of its inspirations.) I could say a whole lot more about the Lensmen series, both for good (planetary-scale battles that inspired Star Wars) and for ill (being way too enthusiastic about eugenics), but I’ll leave it at that.

Pinkie Pie and Rarity

(This doesn’t really belong here, but I wanted to get it off of my chest.)

It is my belief that Pinkie Pie and Rarity are more effective when they combine their efforts. Pinkie can make a sad individual happy, but that happiness is short-lived. And Rarity can help somebody to realize their own self-worth, but that person will not be open to what Rarity has to say if they are too down on themselves. So I believe it takes both Laughter and Generosity to truly turn somebody around from darkness to light.

Oh, and this section in the story is where I explain the relationship that I think exists between Pinkamena and Pinkie, if you believe that the two personalities are indeed distinct from one another.

They went through their lives unburdened by a terrible purpose.

“My name is Loki, and I am burdened by glorious purpose.”

Princess Celestia’s game

If you know my writing, you know I don’t like casting Princess Celestia as the villain. Hopefully you can see that after failing to reconcile with Sunset, she set up a convoluted plan to trick Sunset into making friends and getting her magic back.

Prologue: A Change of Plans (P. Celestia, Sunset Shimmer)

Author's Note

Author’s Note: You may notice some similarities between this prologue and the one at the beginning of “From Ashes, Acid and Absinthe”, the fanfic I co-wrote with Hope. Trust me when I say this story will quickly go in a completely different direction. Oh, and here’s the Notes for this chapter—don’t read it until you’ve read the chapter, obviously.

Prologue: A Change of Plans (P. Celestia, Sunset Shimmer)

On the Fine Art of Giving Yourself Advice

A My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic / Equestria Girls crossover fanfic

By McPoodle

Edited by Hope

Prologue: A Change of Plans
(P. Celestia, Sunset Shimmer)

P. Celestia—Equestria, Canterlot. Just after eight p.m. on Day Zero.

Celestia’s royal throne room was in a state of pandemonium.

Green earth pony guards in golden armor ran about at random, screaming “War is coming!” with eyes closed, bowling over servants and occasionally knocking themselves out by crashing into pillars. Unicorn mages were knocking each other over with improvised shield spells and ineffectual power beams, their focus broken by their attempts to look in ten directions at once, so certain were they that an assassin’s blade was about to be inserted between their shoulder blades at any moment. And a veritable rain of feathers made it clear that the pegasi above them had no clearer heads than the others.

Discord would have been proud, if he wasn’t busy being stuck in a block of stone out in the gardens.

Princess Celestia had had enough. “I have had enough!” she bellowed in the Royal Canterlot Voice. The various ponies froze in fear, some of the pegasi even dropping out of the air to hit the marble floor below. She continued in a calm voice. “We will accomplish nothing through fear. Instead, we must gather our data and act on it. Guard Captain, have you confirmed what has been stolen?”

“Yes, your Most Royal Highness,” Guard Captain Whinnyfield declared without a trace of the fear that seemed to have infected everypony else. He was a dark brown unicorn with a black horseshoe mustache and afro. “The only papers missing are our complete battle plans to deal with a Yak invasion.”

A Royal Mage, Kolbe, stepped forward. “I have had six of my colleagues study the residue, Your Highness. There is no doubt whatsoever that she teleported directly to the capital of Yakyakistan.”

Whinnyfield’s second-in-command, a gray unicorn with a wild tan mane named Vinny, stepped forward. “And with those battle plans, there is no doubt that she can counter everything we throw at the Yak army, you know? She is after all the most-powerful unicorn alive! It’s my professional opinion that WE’RE ALL GONNA D—” The utterance was cut off as Celestia used her magic to put the panicking pony to sleep.

A tall white unicorn with a blonde mane and handlebar mustache stepped forward. Looking at the Princess, he gestured towards the mage who had spoken earlier. “If I may?” he asked in an urbane voice.

Princess Celestia inclined her head at her chief diplomat in relief. “Of course, Prince Blueblood,” she replied.

“Are you certain that Miss Shimmer’s destination was the capital itself?” he asked.

“Absolutely,” the mage replied. “The exact center.”

Blueblood turned back to the Princess with a confident smile. “Then she is in violation of the treaty,” he told her, his voice pitched loud enough to be heard by all. “The Yaks are nothing if not predictable in their actions. Their pride will demand that they arrest Sunset Shimmer the moment she appears before them, refusing to listen to a word she has to say to them until she shows them the proper respect.”

“And Sunset Shimmer never shows anypony a smidge of respect!” one of Whinnyfield’s other officers exclaimed.

“Precisely,” Blueblood said. “I will lead a small delegation by hoof to the city walls, teleporting in one million strides south of the border, just as was stipulated in the treaty that my grandfather reached with the Yaks seventy years ago. And I am certain that my words will accomplish far more in our favor than Miss Shimmer’s will against us.”

“That could work!” a random pony exclaimed.

“We’re saved!”

“But it will take forever to walk a million strides!”

“And what if Sunset has set up a trap for them in the meantime?”

“We’re doomed!”

Princess Celestia loudly pounded her hoof on the marble floor, cracking it. This served to silence the crowd once more. “You will take a large contingent of troops and mages,” she commanded. “They will stay at the teleportation point. And you will be equipped with a speaking stone, so that you can inform this team of your situation at regular intervals.”

The assembled ponies agreed that this was a very good idea, and further proof of why Celestia should be allowed to continue ruling over them for another thousand years.

And then, with only a bit of prodding, they left the throne room to actually carry out the Princess’ plan. Celestia followed them from a distance, stopping at the covered walkway that connected the main body of the castle with the overhang that contained the throne room. The large crystalline windows on either wall showed that it was early in the evening, with the courtyard below illuminated by torchlight.

Prince Blueblood’s wife and 10-year old son were waiting for him.

“It is as I thought,” he informed them, maintaining his decorum with so many potential witnesses. “I will have to travel abroad for at least a couple of weeks. I will write to you if I can.” After the requisite “Canterlot hug”—i.e. an embrace utterly devoid of any emotion—he patted the boy’s head with a hoof. The young unicorn had the same coat and mane colors as his father…minus the mustache. “Now you’ll take care of the household while I’m gone, won’t you, Bluey?”

The boy nodded his head rapidly up and down. “I will, Papa. I swear it! And I’ll write you a letter telling you all about how I got into Princess Celestia’s magic school and aced all the tests!”

“That-a-boy,” the father commented, turning away to look the Princess in the eye.

“That’s right,” Celestia said, stepping forward. “I’ll make extra sure that he’s treated like the little prince he is.”

The boy cheered. Seeing a silent signal from Prince Blueblood, his wife led the boy out of the room.

Once they were gone, Blueblood sighed. “You will be gentle with him, won’t you?” he asked her. “The foal has absolutely no chance of passing the entrance exam. And to be perfectly honest, even if I did arrange for him to get in, he’d just end up miserable.” He looked down the hall at his waiting son. “He loves the flash and spectacle, but can’t stand the book work.”

The Princess looked from the distant boy to the father, and nodded silently.

“At least he likes history and culture, so he stands a good chance of staying with the family line.” He sighed once again, before looking through a large crystal window in the side of the bridge. From there, he was able to see the various ponies gathering together for their departure to Yakyakistan. “Well, that’s that. I won’t let you down, Your Highness.”

“You never do,” Celestia replied.

After receiving the pair of linked sound stones from the Princess, Prince Blueblood turned and left, accompanied by his family.

Celestia stayed in the middle of the bridge, looking down at the group of ponies below. As she watched, the earth ponies and pegasi formed a ring facing outward, with most of the unicorns in the middle, facing inward. They were joined by Blueblood and, a few minutes later, a blue unicorn in a parka.

“That’s Baré,” Celestia explained to Raven, a light gray unicorn with a dark brown mane done up in a bun, black-rimmed glasses, and a white collar with a red cravat. Raven had been standing beside the Princess this entire time, but nopony had noticed her, so I didn’t either. “She’s the only living unicorn besides Sunset who can teleport, as it’s her special ability. However, she can’t summon enough mana to travel any significant distance herself, so she has to share magic any time she wants to go anywhere.”

“I notice she’s the only one who bothered to dress for Yakyakistan,” Raven said acidly.

“Yes, well Baré is very well-traveled, since that’s the only way she can learn the destinations for her teleport spells. I’m sure the others will do fine. Even with that many unicorns powering her, Baré will probably take about twenty trips to get all the way out to the treaty location outside Yakyakistan, with each fifth stop lasting an hour or two to refresh their strength. Plenty of time to figure out that they need a scarf or two…which will pour some much-needed noble bits into the local economies of each stop.”

While Celestia was speaking, a glow began at the point where all of the unicorn horns met and gradually spread until it encompassed the entire group of ponies in the courtyard. The glow then grew brighter and brighter before, with a sudden flash, the entire group vanished. Another flash could be seen on the northern horizon a second later.

“And in the meantime,” Raven noted, “Sunset Shimmer was able to cover the entire distance, by herself, in a single leap.”

Celestia frowned. Without a word, she turned and walked back into the throne room, followed by Raven. Once they were both inside she closed the doors with her magic. With the permanent sound containment spell now active, it was impossible for anypony outside to listen in on their conversation.

Celestia stopped and turned to contemplate the stained glass window depicting her defeat of Nightmare Moon. Only then did she reply to Raven’s earlier remark. “Sunset was the most remarkable student I have ever had. Nothing will ever change that.”

Raven moved to stand beside her mistress. After looking to be sure that the throne room doors were indeed closed, she dared to say what had been bothering her all night. “I just don’t understand why she did it. I never for a moment thought that Sunset Shimmer was capable of treason. She might consider herself massively superior to any pony not as smart as her. And it was obvious that she hated you and Princess Cadenza. But she still considered herself a pony. So why would she do this?”

“It wasn’t obvious to me,” Celestia said quietly. “The part about hating me, I mean. As for the rest…she wanted to hurt me.”

“She’s very good at hurting her enemies.”

Celestia nodded. “And what better way to hurt me than through my little ponies?”

The two of them said nothing for several minutes. Finally, Raven pointed up at the crystal form of Nightmare Moon. “And what about The Plan?” she asked.

Celestia sighed. “I find another Magic, the sooner the better. If I have a few years to train her—or him—that increases the chances that we don’t get something like…this…again.”

Raven consulted a file folder. “There haven’t been any new reports of extraordinary magic-related cutie marks. And there have been no prospects at your school this year. Although…that review was five months ago, so I could try again…”

“You needn’t bother,” Celestia said with a comforting smile, resting a hoof across Raven’s withers. “The entrance exam is tomorrow morning. If a new Magic reveals herself then, I will be ready. And if not…we still have fifteen years.”

Raven looked up at her mistress and nodded.

“And just to be doubly sure…Raven, could you please add a note to that message you were going to send to the regents on Blueblood’s behalf, instructing them to reinstate the dragon egg test for applicants with high magical potential?”

Raven had taken out the Blueblood-related parchment she had already written, along with an ink bottle and quill, but paused with the quill tip black with ink over the paper. “The dragon egg? Are you sure? We had three nervous breakdowns the last time.”

“I’m afraid it can’t be helped.”

With a repressed sigh, Raven finished up the missive, read it aloud to her mistress for approval, and then tied it up with a yellow bow. The scroll was then sealed using a stick of red wax, the one magical torch in the room that actually generated heat as well as light, and the royal stamp. “I’ll deliver this personally,” she said.

Celestia reached out a hoof to stop her. “It can wait until the sunrise. Come, let us get some sleep. We have much to do in the morning.” She turned and walked through the doors without waiting for a reply.

Raven spent a few moments looking up at the stained-glass portrait of Nightmare Moon for a few more seconds before turning to follow her. She closed the door on the way out.

Sunset Shimmer.

It was more than an hour before Sunset Shimmer finally felt safe enough to move.

She emerged from behind Celestia’s throne. A magical cloak muffled her from normal pony senses, while a tightly-contained spell on the tip of her horn kept even the Princess from detecting her, just so long as she wasn’t looking right at her without a powerful magical item in the way. Such as for example the royal throne and its wealth of protective enchantments.

Sunset strode over to the doors to make sure they were shut, making not a single sound with her hooves thanks to a pair of enchanted rubber shoes that supplemented the powers of the cloak. Once she was sure she could speak without being heard, she let out a laugh of triumph. “The fools!” she cried out with abandon. “The complete and utter fools! I can’t believe I actually got away with that!” She walked back to where she thought the Princess and her assistant had spoken earlier, guessing wrong and ending up facing the Defeat of Discord panel. “‘Plan’…‘another magic’…” She looked up at the image of the triumphant Celestia (and Luna) defeating the draconoquus. “Why do you have to be so cryptic?” she demanded. “You know I can do anything you ask of me. So why don’t you trust me?!”

That last part was a scream of rage. With an effort, Sunset calmed herself by pacing back and forth in front of the panel. “You always have to scheme, don’t you? If you’d just let me in on your plans, we could do this together…whatever this is. After all, that mirror showed us that someday I would be ruling by your side, so why didn’t you ease me in? Why did you force me to take extreme measures?”

Sunset turned and walked to the other side of the throne room. The colored glass made it impossible to see the countryside below, but she knew that she was now facing north. “You should trust your assistant, Celestia,” Sunset said to yet another stained glass depiction of the Princess. “I am no traitor. In a week’s time, Blueblood will conclude his search of Yakyakistan and conclude that I couldn’t possibly be there. But the mages will make him and his party stay and keep searching for at least another month, because as everypony knows, ‘Not even Star Swirl the Bearded could fake a teleportation signature!’” The last part was a fair imitation of the mage who had reported to Princess Celestia earlier.

Sunset took the opportunity to follow that with a wicked laugh.

It wasn’t particularly wicked.

“Maybe they’ll find where I hid the battle plans by then. After all, they’re right behind the Princess’ diet books in the library!”

She looked around her one last time. “I feel good about this plan!” she announced to nobody in particular.

She absolutely was not trying to convince herself of this opinion.

#

After a few minutes of very carefully navigating through the mostly-abandoned palace, Sunset Shimmer finally found herself in the first level of the castle’s basement. She went through an unmarked but unlocked door to enter a long unlit corridor. After closing the door behind her, she fumbled blindly in her saddle bags to find a gas lantern and a match. Lighting it proved to be a good deal harder than it had gone in numerous practice sessions, but soon she finally had a non-magical source of light. She then used it to walk several thousand strides, passing a single door in the wall without even glancing at it. That door led to an even-longer sloped passageway, an emergency escape route from Canterlot. That door was Sunset’s Plan B, in case tonight’s plan failed.

At the end of the corridor she reached another door, identical to the first. After dimming the lantern to its minimum level Sunset opened the door, revealing another cluttered basement. Guided by her extremely low light, Sunset carefully made her way around numerous crates, trying her best not to cause any unnecessary noise by hitting any of the boxes with her hoof. Her enchantments would do a great deal to muffle those noises, but she didn’t want to take any chances, and she was a couple of hours ahead of schedule. Finally, she climbed a set of stairs and put one ear against the door at the top, listening intently.

On the other side of that particular door was Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns. Which at this hour should be abandoned. With an easily-picked door separating it from the rest of Canterlot. This was a huge security hole in Sunset’s opinion, but the royal guard was staffed entirely by idiots, so she didn’t think they deserved to be told about it.

Sunset returned down the stairs and then turned her lantern up, allowing her to navigate much more easily. She worked her way far back in the basement, around a corner from the door to the palace and the door to the rest of the school. At the back of this room was a tall mirror, covered by a white sheet. This was in fact the same magic mirror that had revealed Sunset Shimmer’s destiny only a couple months previously. She peeked underneath, just to be sure. Then she tapped on its surface but as she expected, all she felt at this hour was glass.

A few feet away from it was a small wooden crate filled mostly with straw. On the top of the crate was a painting of a speckled green egg.

“Thought you were going to trip me up, didn’t you?” Sunset asked the box.

It didn’t answer.

She looked back and forth between the covered mirror and the box. The mirror would become active at midnight. Somepony was coming down here to pick up this box, probably at sunrise. So logically, there should be no reason to fear that anypony would discover her before she had the chance to use the mirror. But ponies had a bad habit of being very illogical around the Princess. Sunset wouldn’t put it past the pusillanimous officials of this school to scurry down here right at the absolutely wrong time, ruining all of her perfectly-laid plans.

“No risk, no reward,” she muttered under her breath as she finally allowed her active spell to fall, the one blocking magical detection. She waited a few moments, then took a look behind her to see if the Princess was there. When that didn’t happen she levitated the box into the air and walked it over so that it was now right at the bottom of the staircase. Then she returned to her alcove and moved some boxes around to make it impossible for anypony to see the mirror without a lot of work. She even went to the trouble of putting a layer of dust on the blocking boxes. (Just as she had done with the diet books.)

She then sat herself down in front of the mirror, cast a quick time spell to see how long she had, and began her vigil.

#

Sunset was awakened from a most unwanted nap by the sound of somepony slamming into one of the two doors. She sat in quiet fear until the string of muffled curses revealed that the sound was not that of somepony coming down to get her.

There was another sound, a faint magical hum—the mirror was active. A glow was visible from underneath the cloth.

The time spell told Sunset that it was now a couple hours before sunrise, her six-hour nap the consequence of a very stressful forty-eight hours.

This made things much more difficult. But not impossible. After spending a few moments to make absolutely sure that nopony was in or about to enter the basement, she removed the cloak and horseshoes, and stowed them behind the mirror. By hiding them behind an active magical artifact, they were rendered impossible to find until after the three days had expired, and the mirror’s portal function had ceased.

“See Princess?” she whispered to the imaginary Celestia in her head. “I’m not even bringing any magical artifacts with me through the mirror, to be used by potential enemies of Equestria.”She neglected to inform Imaginary Celestia that she was keeping her journal, an artifact just as powerful as the cloak and the horseshoes. “Just me, and my incredible brain. And to think I was originally going to wait until the end of the third day to use the mirror. What happens if the place turns out to be a dump? I’d be stuck there for thirty moons!” She put a hoof over her mouth when she realized that her voice had become loud enough to be heard. She waited a few more seconds to be sure she was safe.

Sunset lifted the cloth with her mouth so that it draped over her. She was now directly facing her reflection, which seemed to faintly glow around the edges with magical power. She imagined she saw herself bigger, with a long magical horn and majestic wings: Princess Sunset Shimmer, co-ruler of Equestria.

She was also nerving herself up. She had no idea what was on the other side of that barrier. Her scan of it revealed that it was indeed a portal between worlds, and by necessity it negated any magic in use during transit, to prevent any horrific outcomes of a botched transport.

But that meant she couldn’t protect herself. What would happen to her if the other side was located inside an active volcano? Or in the vacuum of space?

She’d be dead. That’s what would happen to her.

But this mirror was constructed by Star Swirl himself. And if Sunset knew anything about Star Swirl the pony, it’s that he suffered from an abundance of caution.

Nothing bad would happen to her.

…Except for the near heart attack caused by the door at the top of the stairs slamming open.

Sunset immediately turned her lamp down, hoping desperately that her weak light had not been noticed.

A couple of ponies could be heard coming down the stairs.

“I’m not sure I know where it is. It’s been a few years, after all,” a male pony said.

“It’s about this big,” the voice of Raven replied. “And it has a picture of an egg on the top. …Assuming it’s right-side up.” She sounded like she didn’t get much sleep last night. “In fact, isn’t that it right there?”

“What do you know? I could have sworn I saw it further in. But stuff gets moved around in here all the time.”

Sunset could hear the other pony walking past the crate, closer and closer to her, right up to the stack of boxes she had set up. She heard him groan in frustration. “The first-day experimental apparatus is right past these boxes! It will take forever for us to move it!” He started using his magic to tug at the topmost box, which if removed would allow him to notice that there was a pony-sized shape under the cloth which covered the mirror.

“You can do that tomorrow,” Raven chided him. “Didn’t you tell me you still needed the desks set up? I can help you with that if you like, but I’m only free for another half hour.”

“Right, right,” the stallion said, putting the box back down. Sunset heard him levitate the crate containing the dragon egg and carry it up and out of the basement. The door closed, and then locked.

Sunset walked right into the mirror, before something else had a chance to happen.

#

Sunset Shimmer fell out of the concrete plinth and onto the concrete sidewalk. For a moment, she was bewildered by a new set of senses, but she quickly pulled herself together and examined herself for injuries.

Discovering that she was in a new body was a surprise, but a little reflection brought up her memory of one of Star Swirl’s spells, one which transformed the subject’s form into the dominant species of the region. After discovering that her saddlebags had transformed into a backpack, she removed it and dug out a compact mirror to examine herself.

She preferred herself as a pony. But the hands were nice, particularly since…

“No magic? No magic?!”

For a moment, she considered jumping right back through the seemingly-solid plinth to return to Equestria. At the very least, she poked one hand through, feeling the cloth on the other side and seeing a hoof dimly visible inside the rock moving as she moved.

In the basement of the School for Gifted Unicorns, the frame of the mirror glowed brightly as the hoof emerged from its surface. The glow faded somewhat when the hoof disappeared, but it was still present.

Sunset sat down to think, leaning her bipedal back against the edge of the plinth. It was a thoroughly unnatural position for a pony to be in, although she thought for a moment about a strange green unicorn she saw sometimes in the park who did nothing but sit or lay in uncomfortable positions.

She hypothesized that the beings of this world might have an entirely new form of magic, one unknown to even Princess Celestia. After all, most Equestrians were unable to even sense raw unicorn magic. Given thirty moons, maybe she could find out about this new magic. And just as unicorns could construct magical items that allow any boob to wield unicorn magic, so might she craft a tool that would allow her to use this strange magic after returning to her home and her native form.

That’s of course assuming that any kind of magic even existed in this world. If there was no magic, she was definitely going back. There was always Plan B, after all.

She might even be able to risk returning today, during the entrance exams, hoping she could cast her non-detection spell fast enough after leaving the mirror to prevent getting caught. And Celestia would probably be right there in the school to scope out Sunset’s instant replacement. (Why did the thought of that worthless alicorn replacing her with some snot-nosed unicorn brat make her hurt so much?) But Sunset knew her chances were good. Everypony was still convinced that she was in Yakyakistan, after all.

While she was musing, she heard sounds approaching. There was a scraping, like a large animal falling down a gravel hill. There was the sound of powerful engines, running furiously—except engines that big shouldn’t be able to move. And most loudly and gratingly, the sound of a pair of Sirens wailing discordantly against each other.

Sunset hid herself behind some trimmed bushes. As she watched, a red carriage, long and unnaturally flattened, raced by at impossible speed, barely making it around a sharp turn to retreat out of sight.

Not even a second later, the first carriage was followed by two more in series, these ones colored black and white. Each was topped with a flashing red light and each one emitted that awful wailing sound. They too made it around the curve.

Sunset was about to stand up when yet a third wailing car rushed by. This one however failed to make the turn, instead crashing head-first into a lamp post.

Sunset had no idea what was going on. The carriage which had crashed was clearly not being pulled by a pony or anything else, and how could any creature fit inside? And more gruesomely, how could anything alive survive that crash?

That question was immediately answered when two hatches on the side of the vehicle popped open and two bipeds limped out, wandering around at random for a few seconds. Sunset looked down at herself for confirmation that she and they appeared to belong to the same species, although they looked a little taller than her.

The two men were wearing uniforms, and those were close enough to those of constables in Equestria to satisfy one of Sunset’s many theories as to what she had just witnessed.

The two constables argued with each other as to who was to blame for the accident, confirming that at least to Sunset’s magically-altered ears, they were speaking in Equine. That of course was an expected part of Star Swirl’s Fitting In spell.

She also managed to pick up their names, Whinnyfield and Vinny, which matched those of two of Celestia’s royal guards. They also referred to their supervisor, who was named Shining Armor.

Sunset had had a memorable interaction with a foal named Shining Armor: he had made her look bad in front of Celestia, and she had made sure that he paid the penalty for his error.

Based on an extremely-small sample size, Sunset hypothesized that this world was an alternate of Equus, which from her study of magic theory was the type of world easiest to connect to with one of Star Swirl’s portals. Also, it appeared that the age of the counterpart did not have to match the age of the Equus original.

Unfortunately without their transportation, the two natives were walking by the school, and they managed to spot Sunset.

“Hey you!” the constable named Vinny shouted at her.

Whinnyfield looked at Vinny like he was an idiot.

Sunset reluctantly stood up.

“Get over here!” Vinny commanded.

Sunset obeyed.

“What are you doing out at this hour?”

That question confirmed that she was indeed in the body of a creature under the age of independence. “Well you see…” she drawled, trying to come up with a good excuse.

“Never mind that,” Constable Vinny continued, stubbornly ignoring the look of scorn from his partner. “We need to take you home. What’s your name?”

“I don’t remember?” Sunset dared to ask.

Vinny sighed theatrically. “Stop yakking and get in the car,” he said, gesturing towards the space on the road where a vehicle could be. He did a double take after looking at the empty spot, followed by a sheepish look over at the crashed chariot. “Well in that case we’re walking you down to the station.”

“Do you really want to do that?” Constable Whinnyfield finally said. “The entire station would see us come in from the civilian entrance. Again. And then there’s the paperwork. Jane Doe paperwork. Which is the worst.”

“Ah man!” Vinny sighed once again. “Look, Miss. We’re going to let you off with a warning. Just this once. Go home. And if you can’t remember where that is, stick around here for a couple of hours and walk through those doors into that school over there, and Principal Celestia will take care of everything. Do you think you can do that?”

‘Principal Celestia?’ “Err…yes, I can do that,” Sunset finally managed to say.

“And don’t think of trying anything funny, Miss,” Constable Whinnyfield said, getting in Sunset’s face. “These two eyes never forget a thing, and if I see you being brought into the station, the vengeance of the Lady will be upon thee.”

‘Lady?’ thought Sunset. “What?”

Whinnyfield raised a warning finger.

Sunset did not say ‘what’ again.

The two men then turned and continued to walk down the road away from the school.

“I sure showed her with that ‘two eyes’ business,” she heard Whinnyfield brag to Vinny.

“Are those the same ‘two eyes’ that totally forgot the road turned left?”

“…Shut up.”

When she was sure they were out of sight, Sunset practically ran down the road to get a good look at the crashed chariot. Her examination revealed that it was mechanical in nature, being far too complex a mechanism to be operated by magic, even magic that she could not detect. The constables’ survival seemed to have something to do with the slowly-deflating bags which filled most of the front compartment. She also examined the busted lamp post the chariot had crashed into: it seemed to be some sort of electrically-powered lantern, something possible in Equestria but not economically feasible. Yet here were dozens of them, all in a row, all shining incredibly brightly—well, except for this one—and apparently powered by wires laid under the concrete.

And look at that concrete—so smooth! The asphalt the chariots had run on was again possible in Equestria, but not at the scale she was looking at.

A blue garbage can contained a pile of thick newspapers, the Canterlot Daily Clarion. In Sunset’s Canterlot, a newspaper publisher trying to put out a paper that thick on a weekly basis would have to charge a week’s wages for it, and would swiftly go out of business. But in this counter-Canterlot, 30-page daily papers with color photographs on every page were cheap enough to manufacture in bulk, and throw away in bulk. Or “recycle”, as the big word on the blue can proclaimed.

Also, she was thankful to Star Swirl that she could read and understand every word on that paper.

Returning to the school with a newspaper under her arm, Sunset examined the windows, the frames, the ceiling fixtures visible through those windows that might be some form of lighting operating on a basis completely different than the lamp posts!

She had to stop to catch her breath after just thinking that last sentence.

In short, this was a technologically-advanced society, one that was far in advance of anything on the other side of that plinth.

Sunset came to these conclusions so quickly because it was the exact line of thought she had pursued when Celestia had taken her to visit the griffons a year ago. They were all busy wallowing in greed and self-pity, feeling worthless because they couldn’t use magic. But they had claws! And at least a few of them were quite good inventors. With the right organization, they should have been able to capitalize on their differences from ponies to become just as good with technology as unicorns were with magic. They utterly failed to live up to the potential that Sunset had assigned to them.

But these creatures had lived up to that imagined potential. Far exceeded it, in fact.

So no, this world did not have any magic. But it could be very useful to Sunset Shimmer. Worst case scenario, she’d stay here for three days and use the mirror before it shut down, bringing a bunch of toys and books for her to study.

That constable had told her to go to school, after all. And there was no way she was going to give up the opportunity to see the veritable Goddess of Ponies reduced to the role of educational bureaucrat.

But first, she needed to get some of this world’s currency, and find a place to sleep. All while reading that newspaper to find out everything she could find about this world that you could get while not going to school.

#

It turned out that this human Canterlot was just as unwilling to sleep as pony Manehattan.

Sunset had come to this world prepared for currency exchange, stuffing her saddlebags with a variety of items that might be considered valuable: quartz, adama clay, even some reproductions of fine art. (Amusingly, the subjects of the portraits had changed from pony to human in transit, while still retaining the distinctive style of each painter.) It turned out that the jewels she had brought along as a possible spell storage medium were the most valuable. She had found this out by going into the second pawn shop she saw—they had pawn shops here, just like in Equestrian Canterlot—and playing dumb about everything in her backpack. Once she had figured out what the good stuff was and about how much it was really worth, she booked it out of there and went to the first pawn shop she had found, using her knowledge to make nearly a thousand dollars. She then scoped out a place scummy enough to take in a minor with a fat handful of cash, no questions asked.

After getting her room key, she headed back to the school by a circuitous route. There were people inside the school, preparing it for the day, but no students yet. Checking to make sure no one was watching—these pronouns were going to be a pain in the plot to keep track of—she stepped through the plinth back into Equestria.

#

Back in the basement of the Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns, Sunset emptied most of the contents of her newly recreated saddlebags behind the mirror, keeping the cash (and the journal). She took but a moment to confirm that she was indeed still a unicorn in Equestria before returning to the human world.

She failed to notice the glow of the mirror’s rim, or how it had brightened each time she passed through it.

There was now a dangerous amount of magic built up in the mirror, a mirror that did not do a good job of handling the interface between a high-magic world and a low-magic one.

If given a few days without interference, that magic would have harmlessly drained away. Or if Sunset had originally followed her plan to wait until the third day to use the mirror but once, then nopony would have ever known about the mirror’s dangerous potential instability.

But this was the day of the School for Gifted Unicorns’ entrance examination, when all kinds of barely-controlled magic was being discharged in the air of the exam room located directly above the magic mirror. And when you add to that the effect of a Sonic Rainboom’s magic being shared between six magically-linked wunderkinder…the results were something that nopony and no one could have possibly imagined.

Chapter 6: A View Out the Window (H. Applejack, P. Applejack)

H. Applejack—Earth, Canterlot High School. Early afternoon of Day One.

Trixie stepped out of the rickety wooden booth. She slammed the door shut behind her with so much force that the booth almost tipped over, causing several cardboard “magical artifacts” to go flying. And then she stalked her way out of the quad.

“Sick burn!” Snips exclaimed, complimenting Snails.

Applejack walked up to the pair and silently raised a fist, a promise of future retribution. Then she raced to catch up with Trixie.

She found her standing at the bus stop. A block away, the west-bound bus had already departed. Trixie’s eyes were on the bus, and her hands were clenched into tight fists at her sides.

“Easy there, Sugarcube,” Applejack said, coming up beside her.

Trixie turned, glaring silently at her for just a moment, tendons visible on the sides of her neck, before looking down at the ground.

Applejack got out her cell phone and sent a text back home. “I’ve seen everything I want to see today at the Fair,” she said casually. Sitting down on the curb, she added, “Want to talk about it?” in a calm voice.

Trixie clenched her fists even tighter, then walked away, stamping a foot with every step. When she had gotten fifty feet away she wheeled sharply and stomped her way back, passing Applejack and continuing down the sidewalk.

Applejack turned her head, watching Trixie pace. After a while she noticed Rarity coming into view. She was looking back and forth between Applejack and Trixie, and wringing her hands.

With a slight frown, Applejack got up, waited for Trixie to pass, and walked over to Rarity.

“Do you need any help?” Rarity asked. “As your new friend, I’m willing to stand beside you, no matter what you’re going through. And…I feel sorry for Trixie.”

“Don’t let Trixie hear you say the ‘S’ word,” Applejack replied. “And aren’t you going to miss your internship?”

“Well…yes,” Rarity said, glancing off towards downtown. “But this is more important.”

Applejack smiled. “I appreciate the sentiment, Rarity. But right now the only person who’s going to be able to get through to Trixie is yours truly. You’ll just rile her up, no matter how good your intention.”

Rarity opened her mouth to protest. Applejack silenced her with a finger across Rarity’s lips. (Applejack didn’t notice the bright blush this act generated.)

“Go along to your job, Rarity.”

“If you insist,” Rarity said. She waited until Trixie started walking away from her, then walked purposely behind her, crossing the street and waiting at the east-bound bus stop.

Applejack returned to her curb seat. A few minutes later, after the bus picking up Rarity had come and gone, Trixie sat down next to her. But she still refused to speak.

Finally, the Apple family’s pickup truck stopped in front of them. Applejack and Trixie took the back seats. “Trixie needs a ride home,” Applejack explained to Big Mac, the driver. With a nod, Big Mac pulled the truck into traffic and started heading west.

#

“It’s not about lacking a mark,” Trixie finally said a couple of blocks later.

“I didn’t think so,” Applejack replied. “After all, I still don’t have mine.” As she said this, she locked eyes with Big Mac in the rear view mirror. A silent communication passed between them.

Big Mac pulled up to a stop sign, and then turned left.

“I know what I’m going to get,” said Trixie. “Everybody knows. No, it’s what happens after that.”

Trixie steeled herself for what she was about to admit. “There’s a secret I’ve been keeping. From before we ever came to Canterlot. And when I step out of the Church with my plate, it’s gonna come out.” She looked out the window at the passing scenery. “I can put up with most of the school calling me out. But…the thought of what you would say. The…look you’ll give me… That’s why I’ve never gone through with the Ceremony. Those two bullies just made me realize that I’ve run out of time.”

Applejack sighed. “Trixie, you’re as good as family to me. To all of us. We’re not going to hold some dumb thing you did when you were seven against you.”

Trixie closed her eyes, turned her head back to face Applejack, and reluctantly opened them. “But that’s just it. I never stopped. I used the power I had…still have…over…” Even at this point, she couldn’t reveal the whole truth. “…Over…somebody very special to me, and I made their lives miserable. That’s what I’m admitting to! I abused my family! And isn’t that the very thing you told me you hated more than anything else?”

Applejack bowed her head. It was all clear to her now: Trixie had been using her mother’s guilt over the circumstances of her birth against her. Applejack had always suspected that Cat Lulamoon didn’t have enough money to afford all of the expensive magic equipment that she was always buying her daughter in the early days of her career, when she barely made enough to cover the rent of their upscale apartment.

And it would be so easy for Applejack to do exactly what Trixie predicted she would. After all, who was the one who was always forgiven, no matter what she did? Trixie. Who would get hugs and extra dessert after throwing a tantrum? Trixie. And who got sent to her room without supper the one time she had dared to do the same thing? Applejack. Applejack considered her family’s love a limited resource, and Trixie the primary recipient of that love, even two years after Trixie had moved out. It would be so easy to hate. But that would reflect on Applejack more than on Trixie.

Because that was what she finally realized she understood. Her focus on her family wasn’t based on trying to get more of that love for herself. It was based on giving that love, and Trixie was as much family as anyone else.

“I forgive you, Trixie,” Applejack said simply.

Trixie’s jaw dropped.

“I forgive you, because I know you mean well. Because you apologize every time your condition makes you act out. And because ever since you learned about its tenets, you have done your best to be the living embodiment of the Spirit of Markism. But most of all, I forgive you, because you are family. And family is everything. I...I know sometimes I’m hard on you. But it’s not because of what you do. It’s because I want you to be happy just like I want Apple Bloom to be happy. Just like Big Mac wants me to be happy. I’ve got your back, sis.”

Trixie’s eyes went wide—Applejack had never called her “sister” before. She smiled through tears of gratitude. “Th…thank you,” she managed to say.

Applejack gestured towards the Church of the Goddess, which the truck was now parked beside.

“We figured you’d want to go here instead,” Big Mac explained.

Trixie looked up to the tall spire of the church, and opened the car door. “Well, I might as well get this over with. I’ll tell you the full story tomorrow, before school starts.”

“I’ll be looking forward to it,” Applejack replied.

Trixie stepped out, adjusted her magician’s cape and hat, and walked purposefully into the church.

P. Applejack

Applejack was staring at a tall fancy building. She had no idea where it had come from. She closed her eyes and opened them, expecting the view of countryside through a brownstone window to return. But it didn’t. She was still looking at a tall fancy building.

Applejack was sitting on some sort of hard seat, in an unfamiliar posture. It was inside a carriage of some kind.

“That was a mighty fine speech, Applejack,” a very familiar voice said to her from over her shoulder. “A mighty fine speech. You might even say that it was mark-worthy.”

Applejack turned her head, even though a part of her was absolutely terrified of what she might see.

In the front compartment of the carriage were two minotaur-like figures. One was red, with a blond mane. And the other was blond, with a red mane. And somehow she knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that these two were her brother…and her father.

“Pa…?” she dared to ask.

“Yes, my little dumpling?” he asked. Pa asked, using his pet name for her.

Applejack remembered her last thought, before opening her eyes to see the fancy building, before opening her eyes in a new body in a new world: she wished that the exploding rainbow wave that was rushing towards her was the Herald of the End Times, as her Noctiferian cousins whispered to her at the last family reunion. Because if it was the end of the world, then she might finally see them again. And she was so very tired of trying to live a life without them.

“I’m home,” Applejack said, barely above a whisper.

H. Applejack—Equestria, Manehattan.

Applejack blinked. The world had just suddenly changed around her. Curious, she stuck her head out the window, to observe that she was a couple of stories in the air. Below her was a vision out of The Gangs of New York—cobblestone streets, and carts pulled by…well, not exactly horses. And not a human being in sight. In fact, a good deal of the not-horses wore clothes, carried groceries, sold newspapers... So more like Gangs of New York crossed with Planet of the Apes.

It then dawned on Applejack that something was wrong with her, as she was comfortably standing on both hands and feet. She pulled her head back into the room with some difficulty—it was shaped wrong. She looked down to confirm her suspicions, that she was now one of the same type of creature that she had seen on the street. Seeing a dresser topped by a mirror, she carefully instructed her limbs to take her over and get a look at herself.

The face in the mirror was equine, and yet somehow it was still definitely her own face. Applejack had always had an odd knack for seeing the truth, no matter how well it was disguised. And this body was somehow still her, her as a…pony? Well, there were a lot of differences from a pony, and a few resemblances to a dog, but she was going to settle for “pony” for now.

Why was she in this changed body? How did she get here? Did someone direct this, and if so, why?

As Applejack pondered these questions, there was a knock at the door. “Applejack,” an unfamiliar female voice asked her through the door. “Are you ready for breakfast yet?”

Applejack’s first impulse was to yell, to protest her treatment at the door and demand that things be put right immediately. But her Ma had been working with her on controlling her temper, and so Applejack did not lash out against the first available victim of her outrage. Instead, she calmed herself and said, “Could you step in here for a moment, please?”

There was a pause, and then the door opened, revealing a blonde pony with an orange mane done up in waves. That same mysterious sense of Applejack’s told her that this was her Aunt Orange, who Applejack had seen in one of Granny Smith’s photo albums. Only Aunt Orange was supposed to have died soon after Applejack was born, at the age of 99, while this Aunt Orange was clearly in her forties. (Now that was a question for the ages: How did she know how to read the age of a pony?)

“Is something the matter?” Aunt Orange asked in an urbane accent.

“Do you see anything wrong?” Applejack said. She tried to raise a hoof to refer to herself, and nearly fell over.

“Well, you haven’t done up your mane,” her Aunt said.

Applejack opened her mouth, and found herself uncertain what to say. Her glimpse of the outside world revealed the technological equivalent of the Nineteenth Century on Earth. Would Aunt Orange even understand the concepts of other worlds or alternate dimensions? It wasn’t as if there was some sort of teleportation emitter out of Star Trek mounted to the ceiling above the spot where she had appeared. “Something is wrong,” she ended up saying. “I don’t belong here.”

Aunt Orange sighed. “I should have suspected something with you reverting to your country accent,” she said. “And after doing so well last night at the soiree. I suppose you’ll be wanting to return to your family?”

Applejack had the feeling that Orange had not picked up on what she was trying to say. “I need to get back to my body on Earth,” she said.

Aunt Orange clearly had no idea what she was talking about. “Is that another one of your country-isms?”

Applejack gave up. “I’d like to see my family.” Based on a sample size of two, it looked like this was a world of pony counterparts to herself and everyone she knew. She figured if she could convince her family of her identity, that would provide a lot of support in trying to figure a way back home.

“Well unfortunately, harvest season has already begun,” Aunt Orange explained. “So even if I paid for it, nopony can come over and pick you up, and your uncle and I absolutely cannot spare the time to chaperone you on the train.”

“I can go by myself,” Applejack said defiantly, some part of her temper showing.

“I really shouldn’t,” Orange said with a smile. “But I’ve seen what you are capable of. Alright, I’ll let you go.” She walked over to the dresser and pulled open the bottom drawer with her teeth, revealing a yellow bandana with a red apple embroidered onto it. A long stick was produced from behind the dresser and the bandana was tied to it, creating a bindle staff. She put a few items into the bindle, including some gold coins and a couple of oranges—Applejack wasn’t sure where she had produced them from, as she wasn’t wearing any clothes. “That’s the cab fare, the bus fare, a bit to eat, and a card with my name and address in case you get lost.” She finally put a framed photograph of herself and her husband—also deceased on Applejack’s world—in the bindle on top of the rest. “To remember us by.”

She turned and walked out the door and down a flight of stairs. Applejack found that she didn’t have much trouble following—it seemed that walking was natural to this body if you didn’t think too hard about it. “You didn’t bring anything with you other than the bindle, so you don’t have to worry about losing your saddlebag,” she said as they reached the front door. “There’s only the one train station and two trains a day heading to Ponyville on the way to Canterlot. You’ll have enough to pay for a sleeper car—that will keep you safe from strangers and also make it so you don’t have to spend the night on a narrow train seat. Be sure to wake up bright and early for your arrival in Ponyville.” The two of them emerged into the sunlight. Aunt Orange looked like she was trying to hold back tears. “And try to remember something of the manners we taught you. You never know when you might be meeting a duke or the Princess.”

“The train to Canterlot, stopping at Ponyville,” Applejack said, committing the most important part to memory. “I’ll remember. And thank you, Aunt Orange. For everything.”

Aunt Orange put the bindle staff across Applejack’s back. Impossibly, it stayed in place, without Applejack doing anything to keep it from falling off. She raised a hoof, and a cab pulled up to the sidewalk.

“Take her to the train station,” she instructed the driver. “And don’t pay a bit until you arrive,” she added in Applejack’s ear. “The customary tip is 15%.”

Applejack nodded. And a minute later she was off, traveling through the busy streets of an alien city.

Chapter 15B: A Voice from the Everfree, Part 2 (G. Gilda, H. Rainbow Dash, H. Fluttershy)

G. Gilda.

As they walked back to the carriage, Gilda reviewed the words of both Lunch Pail and Rainbow Dash in her head. The conversation would have gone much differently if they had been griffons instead of ponies. A griffon would never have admitted his problems with the town. And any griffons witnessing an outburst such as Lunch Pail’s would have mocked him instead of trying to help him.

This...this was the ‘magic of friendship’, wasn’t it? Like many an immigrant and visitor to a foreign land, Gilda knew things about her adopted land that natives were ignorant of. According to the official philosophy of Equestria, Harmonism, ponies were supposed to find commonalities and help one another instead of exploiting their weaknesses. Rainbow’s story was a clear demonstration of one of the elements of harmony, Gilda was sure of it. She could never remember what they were or how many of them there were (seven? nine?), so she couldn’t put a claw on which element, but it sure felt like one of them.

#

A few minutes later, the carriage was skirting over the edge of the Everfree.

“Dear, are you sure this is safe?” Windy asked her husband. “The map clearly says that it is very dangerous to fly over the Everfree.”

“We’re not that far in,” Bow assured Windy. “And we’re both trained weather ponies, so we can handle some rogue weather. Besides, Rainbow needs us. The sooner we can get to Canterlot, the sooner she can tell us what’s really troubling her.”

Gilda was flying a couple dozen ponylengths away from the carriage, scanning the forest below her for any breaks in the canopy. Slowly, she drifted further and further from the carriage as she flew over one such clearing. She saw a set of stone ruins with two partially intact towers between a demolished central hall, and a deep chasm alongside. She drifted downwards to get a closer look.

Gilda’s mind was a mess of thoughts: her guilt over not wanting her new human friends to leave, her worries about what she was going to do with her life long-term, and the idle continuation of her thoughts at the cafe.

Just then, a thought that was not her own drifted into her brain. Ever since she had learned about unicorns and their reputations, she had been alert for a number of highly-unlikely scenarios, including this one. At first, the sound in her head was like a xylophone being played in a highly complex manner. And then the musical tones shifted into a voice—a voice that Gilda was never supposed to hear again.

“Who are you?”

“Mom?!” Gilda exclaimed, clutching her head with her claws.

Gilda dropped out of the sky. She started frantically flapping her wings, but instead of a gust of wind buoying her upward, she felt a suction pulling her down even faster. None of the trees below her were affected, so this was obviously her magic going haywire, just as the big note attached to the Everfree Forest on the map had warned her.

Seeing the trees coming closer and closer, Gilda tried desperately to fly her way out of this, but still found that her own magic was pulling her to her doom. She saw that she was clearly headed for the sharp rocks of the ruins. At that moment she counter-intuitively flipped onto her back, and was then sucked upward into the sky. By tumbling her body around, she was able to propel herself away from the clearing, and towards the edge of the forest. This was complicated by constant fluctuations in her magic, which reversed in direction a couple of times completely at random.

As she tumbled, she connected the screams she had been hearing for the last several seconds—the ones that weren’t her own screams—with the carriage plummeting down towards a smaller clearing closer to safety. Like Gilda herself, it was being pulled chaotically in every direction, but mostly down. Gilda wanted to fly down there and help, but knew that with the wild magic that was impossible. “I’ll get help!” she cried out before she lost sight of them. She hoped they heard her.

H. Rainbow Dash.

After the crash, the survivors—which was everypony—took stock. The worst hurt was Fluttershy, because she was in the carriage when it had crashed and crumpled, and got badly bruised as a result. Leading to her limping, one wing spread over Rainbow Dash’s back.

Initially, Dr. Tarbell wasn’t going anywhere, not until he was able to secure all of his books and notes. The distant roar of a manticore caused him to decide on leaving the books for now. “But somepony has got to retrieve them!” he vowed.

As they made their way towards the slightly brighter light of a small clearing, Rainbow noticed that Fluttershy seemed much less scared than any of them. “What’s up, Flutters?” she asked carefully.

“We haven’t been noticed yet,” Fluttershy said in her usual low voice—for once the exact correct volume for the situation. “Pay attention to all the noise—if that stops, we’re in trouble. I think something else has spooked them.”

Rainbow looked over at Bow, Windy and Tarbell, who were all looking nervously around them.

“Did you hear that?” Windy whispered.

“Did you feel that?” Bow added. “Something brushed my wing!”

“Be quiet!” Tarbell exclaimed, a hoof held up to his head.

Bow’s left wing suddenly lifted on its own, and a second later Bow toppled over, pushed by an invisible force.

Windy and Tarbell went to pick him up, but at that moment the unicorn’s horn went off, the magical blast missing Bow’s face by inches.

“I didn’t do that, honest!” Tarbell exclaimed.

“Then kindly turn your head!” Windy exclaimed. “I...I mean, I’m sorry. I’m just on edge.”

“I know what you mean,” Dr. Tarbell replied. “I’ve been in this wood a dozen times for research. I’ve had these feelings of wrongness before in here, but never this strong.” He lowered his voice before adding, “something’s been awakened.”

Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy looked at each other. Neither of them felt this sense of “wrongness.”

The group stumbled into the clearing. A couple of deer scattered on seeing them. The four ponies moved to the center of the open area, feeling safer with clear sky above them.

Fluttershy leaned over to whisper in Rainbow Dash’s ear. “Those deer are watching us,” she said. “I think they’re intelligent...”

“...And not friendly,” Rainbow said, completing Fluttershy’s thought. She looked around her, trying in vain to see the watching eyes in the foliage.

A few minutes later they witnessed an interesting sight: three pegasi, their wingtips touching, floating down out of the sky.

“They’re maximizing their wind resistance,” Rainbow Dash told them. “Which means they’re probably not using their magic.”

“Then how do they expect to get us out of the forest?” Windy asked.

“We walk,” one of the arriving pegasi answered, as the trio hit the ground simultaneously and tumbled to a stop equidistant from each other. He was a light gray stallion with an orange-and-tan mane.

“Wow, that stunt looks worthy of the Wonderbolts,” Rainbow said.

“Thanks, I just got in,” the stallion pegasus said. “My name’s Fire Streak, and we’re going to get you out of this forest.”

“I’m sorry for the inconvenience, and sorry that I may have put all of our lives in danger,” Bow Hothoof said sheepishly. “I tried to cut corners, and look where it got us!”

“Don’t worry about it,” one of the two pegasi mare rescuers said. She was pale yellow in color, with a blue-and-cyan mane. She was wearing a dark orange knit sweater. “We were in the area anyway. My name’s Lofty, and I’ll be leading you out of the Everfree—I’ve been poking around the outskirts for years, giving tours to academics...like Muck here. Hi, Muck!”

Dr. Tarbell grumbled an acknowledgement.

“Muck Tarbell?” Fluttershy asked Rainbow, who snickered.

“You’ve already met Fire Streak, the pony who figured out how to get us down here safely.”

“And I’m Mane Allgood,” the third rescuer introduced herself. “I know all about the animals in the Everfree. Well...the ones that didn’t spontaneously generate in the past month or so.” Mane’s coat was an orangish color, while her mane was white and pale gold. She was wearing a buttoned-up yellow-green explorer’s shirt. “So let’s get going.”

Dr. Tarbell gestured back towards where they had entered the clearing. “I sort of left my books back there.”

“Sure you did,” Lofty deadpanned. “Is your carriage salvageable?”

Bow looked back and shook his head. “Not really.”

“Then Ponyville will send a cart out tomorrow to retrieve them.”

The unicorn looked back regretfully. “What if it rains?”

Lofty shrugged. “Are you going to wait with them?”

The manticore roared again, closer.

“No, let’s go,” he said quickly.

#

It only took a few minutes for the group to walk out of the Everfree Forest. Yet Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy noticed on several occasions that the group would turn as one back towards the forest without realizing it, and had to be directed each time back to the proper path by Lofty. As with the other strange magical manifestations in the Everfree, the two humans in pony bodies failed to notice anything wrong.

Mane Allgood spent the entire time looking cautiously around her as they walked, poised to handle any dangerous animals they might run across. Luckily for them, there were none on this trip.

The group emerged from the Everfree to reach a dirt trail that stretched from horizon to horizon, parallel to the edge of the forest. Camped on that road were several ponies, some in carriages, some not. Pacing back and forth on the side of the road were the two leaders of this caravan, both unicorns: one was a pink mare with an indigo-and-dark-blue mane done up in a beehive, and the other was a larger-than-usual stallion with a light gray body and brown mane, including a bushy mustache. Sitting beside them was Gilda. She jumped up when she saw them emerge.

“You all made it!” she exclaimed, running up to the group. “Thank you three so much!”

Lofty nodded and walked over to a round pony who had been waiting for her, with a pale amber coat and a fluffy red-and-orange mane. “See, told you it would be easy,” Lofty said. “You’ve got a good friend here in Gilda,” she told Rainbow Dash and her companions. “She made a very convincing argument for us to rescue you.”

“The griffon lied, is what she’s trying to say,” Mane Allgood explained with a friendly smile, as she walked up to another large stallion, this one an earth pony with a tan coat, purplish mane, an off-white explorer shirt open at the chest, and a dark gray slouch hat. He had a papoose around his neck containing a sleeping foal with his purplish mane and Mane’s orangish fur color. “And I’ll prove it: have you folks ever heard of a unicorn filly named Rarity?” She took the papoose from her mate while she waited for an answer.

The pink unicorn mare produced a small cameo painting from her hairdo, and presented it to the downed travelers. It showed a white unicorn with a beaming smile and a quite distinctive violet mane.

Rainbow Dash took the cameo and frowned. She could have sworn that she had seen a young woman of about her own age in downtown Canterlot City once with that exact same hairstyle, but that information would not be useful here. “I’m afraid I’ve never seen that pony before,” she said.

Fluttershy leaned over to look at the painting, and shook her head.

“And I’m afraid we don’t get out of Cloudsdale much,” Window Whistles said after looking at the picture. “She’s not one of the few unicorns I’ve run into up there.”

“That’s all right,” the large gray unicorn stallion said, taking back the cameo after everypony had looked at it. “Rescuing you folks was the neighborly thing to do. Rarity here is our daughter, and she went missing sometime yesterday.”

“She got pulled out of town by some mysterious force,” a reddish-pink earth pony with lighter pink-and-pinkish-gray mane said. She was the same age as Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy. Fluttershy thought she might have seen a woman with her colors during her brief tour of Canterlot High School, but that woman was at least a decade older than this filly.

“And we’re the ones tasked with tracking ‘er down,” the large tan earth pony stallion said in an Australian accent—or its Equestrian equivalent. “It’s my special talent.”

“Why are there so many of you?” Rainbow Dash asked. “I’m sure you all care about her, but wouldn’t a smaller group be able to travel faster?”

“Like Cheerilee said, Rarity was caught up in some mysterious magic,” Lofty’s companion said, also with an Australian accent. “Her parents might not be enough to face it, but like they always say: You can solve any problem if you throw enough ponies at it.”

“I’m glad we were able to rescue you, lie or no lie,” said Rarity’s mother. “But I’m afraid we really must be going. There’s no telling how far away our Rarity is by now.”

Just then a head poked out of the beehive, of a white unicorn foal, with a curly purple and pink mane and great big green eyes.

“There, there, Sweetie, back to sleep,” the mare said, rocking her head gently back and forth and humming a lullaby. In a few moments the foal’s eyes started drooping, and she retreated back into the beehive.

“You all go ahead,” Fire Streak said. “I’ll lead them to the Ponyville clinic. I’ll be able to catch up easy, so don’t worry about me.”

“Thank you all again!” Gilda exclaimed, waving exuberantly as the caravan set off, led by Mane Allgood’s mate, who had his muzzle down to the ground like a bloodhound.

Rainbow waited until they were out of earshot before asking, “What was that about?”

“What was what about?” Gilda replied.

“That whole performance,” Rainbow said. “You being nice.”

“I can be nice!” Gilda retorted, bristling a bit. “And I was worried about you. That magic went wild!”

“Yeah, I think having no magic made us immune,” Rainbow said.

“So you didn’t hear a voice in your head?”

“You heard a voice?” asked Dr. Tarbell, inserting himself into the conversation. “Are you sure?”

“100%” Gilda replied. “You said you researched the Everfree for one of your books?”

“Yes,” Tarbell said sadly. “And if I had managed to uncover anything original, I would have actually published it to guaranteed rave reviews.”

“Voice-in-your-head,” said Gilda. “That’s unicorn magic. Have you ever heard of a mad unicorn living in the Everfree?”

“I haven’t heard of it,” said Tarbell, “but that doesn’t mean that it’s impossible. In fact, that has to be what’s going on. The idea of some Everfree monstrosity developing mental telepathy is too horrific to contemplate.” He walked off to join the others as Fire Streak began to lead them towards civilization.

“What did it say?” asked Rainbow Dash.

“What did it sound like?” asked Fluttershy.

“It just wanted to know who I was,” Gilda said. “And it sounded...it sounded like my dead mother.”

There was an awkward moment of silence from the two ponies.

“Was...was she ever in the Everfree?” Rainbow asked.

“No,” Gilda replied firmly. “I think whoever...or whatever spoke to me, plucked the voice out of my head. Mom was the only authority figure I ever respected. The voice seemed honestly curious.”

“Maybe you were the first griffon to ever get close enough for her to sense,” Fluttershy suggested.

H. Fluttershy.

It took twice as long to reach the clinic on the outskirts of Ponyville as it did to exit the Everfree. When they arrived and Fire Streak told what had happened before departing, they were immediately set upon by a pair of nurses who checked them all over. To Dr. Tarbell’s surprise, they were both armed with magimeters.

“The two fillies have both lost their magic,” said one of the nurses, a white earth pony mare with a pink mane done up in a bun. “This is a common effect of Everfree exposure. We can get them recharged, which will also heal them of their wounds.”

Dr. Tarbell quickly stepped forward. “I’m afraid I can’t allow that in the case of Rainbow Dash,” he said. “She actually lost her magic yesterday, and I’m taking her to Canterlot for study. Charging her now will completely ruin my data.”

The nurse pony looked doubtfully over at Rainbow, Windy and Bow to see how they felt about this. When they didn’t show any signs of objecting she pointed at Fluttershy. “Well this filly at least definitely could use a dose.”

“Well I don’t know...” Dr. Tarbell said.

The nurse rolled her eyes. “The charger is funded out of the royal treasury,” she said in a disappointed tone, “and is free for anypony who has survived the Everfree.”

“Oh well in that case go right ahead!” Tarbell said happily. He failed to notice the judgmental looks everyone was giving him.

The nurse walked over to a large glass box and opened up one side. A large collection of tubes and bulbs hung down over the top.

Fluttershy looked hesitant. Rainbow excitedly gestured for her to go in. Fluttershy gently lifted one wing, revealing Angel Bunny resting underneath, and lowered him to the ground, before walking over, looking carefully inside, and then walking in and settling down on her stomach. “Okay,” she said in a whisper.

A doctor stallion with an amber coat and a brown mane who had been overseeing the work of the two nurses stepped forward at this point and quietly pressed a button. His cutie mark was an electrocardiograph, so apparently he had some facility with medical equipment.

The device in Fluttershy’s eyes looked hopelessly primitive, like a poor man’s attempt at steampunk. She just knew that something bad was going to happen, and sure enough it did. The warm pink light that was bathing her body was suddenly replaced by darkness.

Fluttershy wondered for a moment if she had been blinded. But soon she was able to make out some details. There was a sort of abstract landscape around her, but it was so dimly lit as to be very hard to see. There were floating motes forming a sort of meandering path, and at eye level were a number of flat rectangular objects facing the path, each one darker than the dark gray surroundings.

Fluttershy looked down, and saw that she was somehow illuminated with the light of day, despite not having a visible light source. Also, she was human, and wearing her favorite sundress.

A bright spotlight of purest white suddenly shone on her, shone through her. It made very slight movements, seeming to point at different parts of her head. A variety of random memories popped into her head in quick succession, not the sights or sounds, but more how these different moments in her life made her feel.

Fluttershy had a strong suspicion that this was the entity in the Everfree that Gilda had encountered. She thought it a sort of cheap shot that it had decided to come after her next.

A voice rang out in the darkness. “What are you?” It was the voice of Principal Cinch.

Fluttershy cringed in horror. “Not her, please not her!” she begged. “T...try this one.” And she thought hard about an alternative.

There was a pause. “What manner of creature are you, child?” it asked, with the voice of Principal Celestia.

“I’m a human,” Fluttershy said, straightening up like this was merely a school oral exam. “My name is Fluttershy.”

Another pause. “I detected no ill will in you, Fluttershy. Why did you take possession of this pony?” One of the dark rectangles floated forward, and an image of Fluttershy the pony appeared upon it.

“I didn’t do this!” Fluttershy insisted. “We don’t know how it happened. It must have been some sort of accident.”

“There are no accidents,” the voice countered.

“We’re going to see the Princess,” Fluttershy volunteered. “She should be able to fix this.”

“Yes,” the voice said, as if in sudden realization, “the Princess will be able to fix this. She must fix this. The fate of Equestria depends on it. Please tell her that when you see her.”

“I will,” Fluttershy said, awed and a little confused. Nothing she had seen so far suggested anything special about her own counterpart, and the best she could say for Rainbow Dash’s counterpart is that she had broken some sort of speed record. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

Five more dark rectangles floated over to join the first, each of them depicting a different filly. “These are the other ponies I am watching,” the voice explained. “Do you know of their fate?”

Fluttershy pointed at the image of the blue pegasus. “That’s Rainbow Dash, and she’s with me.” She then pointed at the white unicorn. “That’s Rarity. A bunch of ponies are currently looking for her.” She looked carefully at the remaining three fillies. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know—wait! That one’s Twilight Sparkle. I only know her as a human, not as a pony. Rainbow and I think she might be responsible for all the mind switches. I don’t know the other two, though.”

“Thank you for the information. I thought them dead because I could not see their magic, but it appears that their magic followed them into the land you came from. When you meet the others, tell them to obtain magic, as you have. If you are in the vicinity of the Castle then I can protect you from danger, but only if you have magic. Sadly, you are at the limit of my range right now, so I do not think this offer will be of much use to you.” As the voice of Principal Celestia said this, the six panels went dark.

“No, I guess you’re right. Thanks for the offer, though. If you don’t have any more questions, you better send me back—my friends are probably worried about me.”

“They will experience no lapse in time. Farewell, Fluttershy.”

The landscape began to fade into darkness.

“Wait!” Fluttershy exclaimed suddenly. “Who are you? What are you?”

“What’s happening?” demanded Rainbow Dash, after the pink light in the charging machine started blinking irregularly, accompanied by a high-pitched metallic whine from the pipes.

“I don’t know what’s wrong!” the doctor exclaimed.

And then the machine shut down and the glass door opened, before the doctor had even had a chance to press the emergency stop button.

Fluttershy walked out, looking wide-eyed at her surroundings.

Rainbow Dash noticed that she made absolutely no noise walking out of the glass container and onto the hardwood floor, despite the fact that she was absolutely walking with hooves. She lightly tapped her own hoof on the floor, just to confirm that they were in fact very noisy appendages compared to bare human feet.

The doctor looked at the numbers on the analog display and frowned. “This can’t be right,” he said. “If these readings are correct, you’d be dead from an overdose.”

The nurse picked up the magimeter and ran it over Fluttershy. “This doesn’t look like an overdose, Doctor. In fact, she’s a little lower than average for a pegasus her age.”

The doctor walked around to the black box that was apparently the source of the magic produced by the machine. Its display showed that it was completely empty. “This doesn’t make any sense!” he exclaimed. He picked up the magimeter from the nurse by hoof, examining it all over. “That magic had to go somewhere.”

The second nurse swung her own magimeter around, pointing it at each of the inhabitants of the room. The meter clicked to its maximum setting when it was pointed at a wall. The doctor, seeing this, used his own magimeter to confirm.

“The Everfree,” he said in shock. “The Everfree just absorbed 10,000 thaums.”

Fluttershy tried to look innocent.

“Are you alright, Fluttershy?” Windy asked her.

Fluttershy suddenly remembered why she had gone into the box in the first place. She lifted one wing, then the other. Then she tried lifting each of her legs, one at a time. “I think I’m completely better now,” she announced. “Thank you,” she said, addressing the medical staff. Her look communicated her wish to learn their names.

“I’m Doctor Horse, and these are Nurses Redheart and Snowheart.”

“Thank you, Doctor...” Fluttershy did a double take before continuing. “...Horse, Nurse Redheart, Nurse Snowheart.”

“Don’t mention it,” said the doctor, his eyes on the depleted device. With a sigh, he turned around and led the group out of the room.

Angel hopped into the open charging chamber and looked up, clearly trying to figure out a way to turn it on. He heard a tapping, and looked to see that it was Fluttershy’s hoof.

“It’s empty, Angel,” she said in a disapproving tone. “You can try using a supercharge of pony magic to take over Equestria after my pony counterpart comes back. The last thing I need is to be held accountable for you getting into that.” She held open her wing.

Angel pouted for a moment, but then scrambled back up into his accustomed hiding spot.

#

The necessary paperwork having been filed, the group made their way out of the clinic. Along the way they stopped to look at a poster showing the plans for a future hospital to be built on this site.

“Are you sure you’re alright?” Bow asked Rainbow once they were out on the dirt road leading into town.

Rainbow went through the same self-inspection that Fluttershy had performed earlier. “Yeah, I don’t think I was even touched by that crash. I just jumped and rolled at the right time, I guess.”

Bow checked his map. “Well, there should be a train to Canterlot. I’m going over to the station to buy some tickets.” He looked pointedly over at Dr. Tarbell.

“Right, I need to pay for that,” the doctor said. “Do you know where the station is?”

“Somepony in this town ought to know. Gilda?”

Gilda calmly produced a small bag of bits. “That should be more than enough for my share,” she said. “I’ll stay with these two.”

Bow nodded, and the two stallions set off.

Windy found a spot to sit down and recover from the stress of their recent adventure.

Fluttershy waited until Dr. Tarbell was out of hearing. “There’s six of us,” she announced.

“What?” Rainbow asked.

Fluttershy explained what she had experienced, concluding, “I didn’t get to find out who it was.”

“I think it was Harmony,” said Gilda.

“What?” asked Rainbow.

“Look, it said it was trying to save Equestria from some terrible fate,” Gilda explained. “Normally, I’d say a statement like that came from the Princess, but since this isn’t the Princess I’m going to go with the high goddess of the pony religion.”

“Wait, the ponies have a religion?” Rainbow asked. “They’re our religion.”

“And our religion is harmony,” said Fluttershy. “I agree. That was Harmony.”

“But you said it could only affect the Everfree. That doesn’t make any sense if it’s Harmony.”

“Well,” Gilda speculated. “I saw some ruins when I heard the voice.”

“It mentioned a castle,” Fluttershy said.

“Alright, a castle. And the ruins of this castle weren’t ruined because it was really old. It looked like it had been blown apart by an explosion a long time ago.”

“And how would you know the difference?” Rainbow asked.

“Well maybe one of the reasons I was sent to Equestria was because I helped a friend who was really into explosives demolish the Griffonstone library,” Gilda said innocently. “But you didn’t hear that from me. Anyway! So maybe this explosion weakened Harmony so it can’t protect Equestria anymore.”

“And that’s why it needs the Power Ponies,” Rainbow deadpanned.

“Hey, you humans have the Power Ponies, too?” Gilda asked with a grin. “Those guys are awesome.”

“Can you at least tell me that you’re a Rainbow Dash?” Windy Whistles was suddenly standing among them. “Even if you’re not my Rainbow Dash?”

Rainbow rushed over to pull her into a wing-hug. “I’m sorry I had to lie to you,” she said. “But Dr. Tarbell was never going to take us to see the Princess if he knew the truth. And yes, I’m Rainbow Dash. A weird alien Rainbow Dash from your point of view, but still Rainbow Dash.”

Windy sniffled. “Do...do you know if she’s OK?”

Rainbow sighed. “I have no idea. We think she’s in my body, on my world.”

Windy gently pushed Rainbow away, to study her face from hooves’ length. “That story you told in Hoofington...you’re an athlete. You don’t fly?”

“Nobody can fly on my world. Not without a machine. I’m an athlete now, and someday I’m going in one of those machines. Because I’m—”

“Meant to fly,” the two of them said in unison.

“Oh you poor dear,” Windy said, pulling Rainbow back into a hug. “Stranded far from home, without your family that loves you.” She pushed away once more, a look of concern on her face. “They do love you, don’t they?”

“More than anything.”

“And you!” Windy said, turning her head to look at Fluttershy. She held out an inviting wing. “This must be even worse for you!”

Fluttershy gently allowed herself to be pulled into the hug. “It’s not that bad,” she said demurely. “I’m meeting a lot of new animals. And I trust your Fluttershy to take care of my family.”

Gilda waited until the trio had hugged themselves out to speak up. “I hate to encourage the telling of even more lies, but I don’t think you should be telling pony Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy that part about having the fate of Equestria in their hooves. I don’t think any foal could handle that kind of pressure. I know I wouldn’t be able to. I hope that Harmony at least has the decency of waiting until they grow up before springing their new job duties on them.”

Windy sighed. “Yes, I suppose that is best.” She looked over at Rainbow Dash. “And now I really am sorry that you can’t get your magic until we get to Canterlot. You may never get the chance to fly with your own wings.”

Rainbow stretched out her wings and looked back at them sadly. “Yeah,” she said. Then her expression suddenly brightened. “But you know what would make me happy? Seeing you fly, Fluttershy.”

“Me?” Fluttershy asked in shock.

“Yes, you! You have magic now, so that means you can fly.”

“I doubt it will be that easy,” Fluttershy said, looking for an excuse not to.

“You won’t know until you try,” Rainbow countered. “Just flap your wings a few times, and see what happens. Oh, and think about being light as a feather—that part’s important.”

“Or a butterfly,” Gilda suggested, pointing at Fluttershy’s cutie mark.

“Right!” Rainbow exclaimed.

“A butterfly...” Fluttershy whispered, closing her eyes. She slowly extended her wings and then began flapping them deliberately, imagining one of the butterflies that made up her mark taking off from a twig. She stopped when she heard a holler from Rainbow. She opened her eyes, to see that she was a few inches off of the ground. In a panic, she snapped her wings shut, and dropped back down in a heap. After a moment, she climbed back to her hooves, none the worse for wear.

“That was great!” Rainbow exclaimed. “What did it feel like?”

“It was natural, like swimming,” Fluttershy said with a hint of a smile.

Angel Bunny, who was sitting beside some bushes watching the performance, offered up his commentary.

“Yes, well it was my first time,” Fluttershy replied, then her eyes went wide. “I can understand you! This is my special talent!”

“Congratulations,” Gilda said dryly. “So are those the only two things you’ve gotten from magic so far?”

“Everything looks a little different,” Fluttershy said with a frown, looking around her. “There’s this sort of glow that I can’t describe. It’s almost like a color I couldn’t see before, sticking to everything, but especially around living things. I think...” She looked over at a unicorn filly that was crossing the bridge ahead of them, an ice cream cone suspended in her magic. Fluttershy had to squint to block out the bright light she was emitting. “Yes, I’m pretty sure I’m seeing magic now.”

“Uh oh,” Windy said, rising to her hooves.

The others followed her eyes, to see Bow and Dr. Tarbell returning, dark looks upon their faces.

“We’re not getting to Canterlot tonight,” Dr. Tarbell told them.

(Unseen by the others, Gilda sighed in relief.)

“What’s wrong?”

“The train from Manehattan has broken down,” Bow said. “Until they fix it, the only choices are to take the dawn carriage up the Canterhorn, which takes an hour, or to walk, which takes two hours and is not recommended due to the path’s steepness. The wind’s too unpredictable for flying. There’s an afternoon carriage as well, but we missed it.”

“So we’ll have to get a room for the night,” concluded Windy. Putting on a smile, she hooked a hoof around Bow’s arm and said, “We’re on it!” She then dragged him over the bridge into town.

(“Do you really need me for this?” Bow whined. “You’re the best at driving bargains between the two of us.”

“We need to talk,” Windy said through clenched teeth. “Far away from Dr. Tarbell.”)

Gilda looked back at the clinic. She had just realized that nopony there had treated her any differently there than a pony. “Let’s take a look at this Ponyville, then,” she said.

Author's Note

Here are the notes for this chapter.