Wednesday, August 26th, 909 AB (~ 5:00 the next morning)

Despite his late night, Cure’s excitement wakes him up earlier than everypony else. Extricating himself from the foal pony pile takes little effort, and he’s soon making his way out the door. Once in the hallway, his horn slides into place and he casts a Sound Bubble around himself before cracking open his parents’ door. He pokes his head in, relieved to find that they had remembered to clean up the night before, and silently slips up to his soundly snoozing first mother.

The pink mare is, thankfully, closer to the edge of the bed in a ponyloaf and, though snuggled against Vines’ side, isn’t buried underneath any of the other parents. His horn ignites, surrounding her in a protective field and, careful not to let any limbs or her tail dangle, lifts her up and away from everypony else. Once she’s clear of the bed, he rotates her and starts inching her towards the door.

He freezes when she begins to stir, still floating nearly a half meter above the floor and slightly more than one away from the door. A tendril emerges from his back wrapped around his Sound Bubble crystal just as her eyes fly open and head jerks up. Acting quickly, he activates the crystal to surround her as well and drags her closer so their bubbles overlap, setting her on the floor.

“... IN TARTARUS IS… Cure?!” She reaches over and latches onto the colt’s cheeks, hurriedly asking, “What’s wrong?! Is somepony com-”

“‘Mornin, ma,” he greets, cutting her off and leaning in for a nuzzle. “Nothin’s wrong, we’re not under attack or whatever,” he dismisses with a flick of his wing. He meets her eyes and broadly grins, unable to keep his back half from wagging in excitement. “It’s ready! I made six pairs last night!”

“What?!” she drowsily mumbles, looking around in confusion. “Six pairs of what and why would I care enough for you to wake me up early?!”

“The rings! I got the tube yesterday and made them all last night. They’re ready!” He hops closer, dismissing the Bubble around her and extending his own as he wraps her neck in a hug. “It’s so awesome, ma!” he gleefully declares, dancing on his hind hooves. “You said you wanted to be in on anything I do… Well, we have about an hour before they all wake up.”

Title somewhat reluctantly wraps her forelegs around his back and returns the hug. “I… do,” she sighs, transitioning to a yawn, “but, baby,” she softly admonishes, “not everypony has alicorn levels of energy, okay?”

He leans away to look her over in concern. “I’m sorry, mom. Want me to clear away the fog? Just say the word and you’ll feel like a million bits, promise.”

“Will I pass out later?”

“Maybe, but I can bring you cake again at lunch and give ya a pick-me-up.”

She doesn’t even have to think for a hundredth of a second. “Deal.” Cure can’t hold back the excited giggles, squeezing her tight again and planting a big kiss on her cheek. A split second of pure ice charges through her veins, perking the mare up in an instant and drawing another full-bodied shudder. “Wow! Ya oughta put that in a bottle, babe.”

He nods against her neck chuckling, “Would if I could safely. That’s an in-pony only cheat right there. You may conk out a little early tonight, but, meh.” He gives one last squeeze before he releases the mare, spins on his hooves, and beckons her to follow with a jerk of his head. “C’mon, ma! Let’s see what we can come up with.”

The two silently slip out of the room and make their way downstairs, turning right and hopping up on a couch in the back living room with him snuggling into her side. “So here’s the star of the show,” he begins, floating a pair of rings out of his mane.

Title takes it in her hoof and looks it over, marveling at the tiny glyphs etched into its surface. “Huh. Neat,” she comments, flipping it over in her TK field. “Why’s this side blank?”

“That’s the back. The portals a bi-directional, but… huh… I’m not sure how to describe it. So, if the portal is open then something can go in either ring and come out the other, right?”

“Okay.”

“But they have to go into each ring in the right direction. So the side with the etchings?” he prompts her to turn it back over. “That’s the usable side. Everything either has to go in through or come out of this side. The other side has a forcefield that will prevent anything from touching it.”

“Why?”

He gives a small shrug and admits, “I’m not really sure about the underlying physics of the whole thing, honestly. The book I read didn’t give a concise explanation that was tested with anything I would call a legitimate scientific process. It was all just conjecture based on the observed effect, more or less.” He bobs his head side-to-side and adds, “I can’t completely blame them. Observing stuff on a scale like that is pretty difficult without some advanced machinery, or, I guess, the appropriate spells.

“Bottom line? If something comes in contact with the back of the portal when it isn’t shielded then it gets destroyed at the atomic level and, with enough matter hitting, can destroy the ring itself. Even enough wind was a problem since, ya know, air is still matter. It doesn’t sound like it created a vacuum, but on a windy day?” He grunts, shaking his head, “Yeah, no bueno. It only took a few ruined rings before they clued in and added the symbols necessary to create a solid shield panel on the back; one specifically designed to stop even air from passing through, unlike normal unicorn shield spells.”

“They normally don’t stop wind?”

“Sort of? They normally stop anything beyond a certain level of force, so like a wind blade?” She nods. “It would get stopped. Normal airflow is fine, otherwise they would run out of oxygen and pass out. That’s an especially fantastic vulnerability for me since I can gas somepony right through a shield, but we’re kinda gettin off topic.”

She cranes her neck to nip at his right ear. “You tend to do that.”

“Fair,” he agrees, reflexively flapping his ear free, giving the mare a small slap on her chin. “Honestly, I’m not sure why they didn’t go with the easy solution and mount a metal plate on the back. Maybe it interfered with the portal somehow. Either way, think of the separate rings as one solid object and everything makes a bit more sense. Watch.”

Title watches on impassively as the colt’s hooves seem to melt and flow up past his fetlocks. The ends of his forelegs split apart and lengthen, extending into the hands and fingers he typically uses for massages when he gives them himself. He picks up the ring laid on the couch in his right hand and takes the other from her hoof with his left, channeling magic from right to left. The etchings on the rings briefly glow brown, then the portal springs to life from one instant to the next.

He holds the one in his left hand up for her to look through while moving the right one around. “See? It’s almost like a telescope, sort of, the way it looks. Of course, the… I don’t think event horizon is correct, but the actual surface of the portal is, I suspect, either a single atom thick or, maybe, even thinner. I kinda bet it’s depth is effectively zero, which I would have sworn is impossible before last night. Either way,” he pauses as his smallest finger bends in a way Title doesn’t think should be possible and pokes through the portal, emerging from the other ring and wiggling about, “see?”

“Huh. Wild.”

“Yeah, no shit. Watch this,” he says, withdrawing his finger and holding both rings so the openings face up. He levitates a small pellet-like object over the left one and releases it a couple hooves above the ring. It falls straight down, passing through the portal, immediately popping back out the right one before rising, slowing, and falling back down again. “I can’t even tell you how long I just stared at this last night, giggling like an idiot the whole time.”

Title can’t deny that it’s oddly mesmerizing to see. The two sit in silence for several seconds watching the pellet rise and fall, alternating between one portal and the other. Finally, after it emerges from the left portal, Cure tilts the right one at an angle. The pellet eventually falls back down through the left portal and flies out of the right one, arcing in a weak trajectory and rolling away.

“Huh,” she grunts again. “That is weirdly hypnotic, isn’t it?”

“It is,” he easily agrees.

“So what happens if you hold one over the other and just let the thing keep falling?”

“Ya know, the story I read that I got this whole idea from did something like that. The plan was to use it as an infinite power generator. It could probably work, but I suspect there’s some kind of inherent cost or effect I’m not considering like heat buildup. I know the number is small to the point of being nearly inconsequential, but that’s a whole separate thing that I’m not really worried about right now.”

He pauses and lightly chuckles, shaking his head in disbelief. “Potential infinite energy and it barely even matters to me. I guess I could ask Celestia if she knows how to convert lightning back into magic, but I ain’t exactly hurtin for power right now anyhow.”

“Honey?” she lightly calls, raising her brow when he glances her way.

“Right. Your question. Sorry, ma.” She rolls her eyes and makes a “get on with it” motion with her hoof. “So, yeah, what would happen is the pellet would just keep going faster until the acceleration from gravity would equal the deceleration from the friction of air. If I put it into a vacuum tube then I suspect it would just keep accelerating infinitely, which is fucking terrifying even for a tiny pellet.”

“What? Why? It’s can’t weigh more than a few grams…” she starts to argue, stopping when he strongly shakes his head no.

“I can’t begin to tell you how dangerous infinite acceleration is, mom. The formula for the kinetic energy of an object is mass times velocity squared. Even a couple grams going fast enough would hit with the force of a bomb. Not even a small bomb. I’m talking like… city blocks, just gone.”

The mare’s ears fold back as she recoils at the image. “Yeaaaah… let’s not do that.”

“Ya think?” he sarcastically asks. “I’m betting the rings would overheat and fry at some point, or the magic expenditure would be too great, but I wouldn’t want to be anywhere nearby when that happened if they got up to speed.” He pauses and cocks his head to the side, musing, “I suppose it would be an interesting way to make a time bomb. Have my plant burrow under a building and start the process, then just sit back and wait.”

She jostles him with her right foreleg knee and gives him a disappointed look.

“I’m just saying,” he defensively argues.

“As fascinating as this is, and it is fascinating, what’s the plan for the others? I’m not super fond of the idea of confusing the foals, so if you’re gonna do something, it’s gotta be before they’re up.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m honestly not really sure what I can do that’ll be funny, though. I mean… I briefly considered having them come down and find two of me eating breakfast or something may be good for a chuckle, but I’ve kinda raised the bar on their expectations.”

She begrudgingly nods in agreement. “Yeah… that’s not really very different from the whole suit prank, too.”

“Right. I mean, I could do some fucked up weird stuff, but there’s a pretty fine line between funny and… I dunno? Offensive? Upsetting?” She cocks her brow in question, silently asking for an example. “So imagine I’m sitting there eating and, all the sudden, grab my stomach and moan.” He deactivates the rings in his hands and tosses one in his mouth and the other in his mane, then sits up while scooting away from her.

Title is momentarily alarmed when he does just that; she begins to sit up when he grabs his belly and doubles over, whining while clutching his gut with both hands. “Oh no,” he deadpans, calming her back down. He woodenly continues, “I think I am going to be sick. Gag, choke,” he says rather than acts out. Holding a hand up to stop her from worrying, he pauses and puffs out his cheeks.

Despite his reassurance, the pink mare is somewhat alarmed when a bulge travels up his throat and into his mouth. He turns and spits out an egg which, somehow, doesn’t crack open when it hits the floor and rolls away.

“What the fuck, Cure?!” she asks in a raised voice, a hint of panic creeping in.

In lieu of answering, he just waves to the egg. It only takes a second for the egg to splinter, revealing a blue muzzle poking through. Hooves poke through below that and, very quickly, the entire side of the egg collapses, revealing a tiny earth pony copy of the colt. As it gets to its hooves it begins growing rapidly, quickly enlarging itself as it looks around in wonder.

Its gaze focuses on the colt and it cocks its head to the side. “Daddy?” it asks, in a small, squeaky voice. “Daddy!” it repeats, toddling its way to the couch. It grows several months worth in size as it approaches the couch before it climbs up and wraps its little forelegs around Cure’s hip in a hug.

“So imagine that,” he answers, “but at the table during breakfast or something. And, no, that’s not a real foal. It’s just a puppet with no brain that I’m controlling through the connected portals.”

“Even knowing that,” she nods to the bits of egg shell still sitting on the floor, “that’s fucked up.”

“Be glad I shot it out my mouth. As long as I can make the opening at least three centimeters I coulda done that out of wherever.”

The mare grimaces, shuddering at the idea of that shooting out of him anywhere else. “Ugh… yeah, don’t do that.”

“Dam?” the tiny clone asks, looking in her direction.

“That’s not funny,” she insists, crinkling her snout in disgust.

“Yeah, dude, enough,” Cure agrees.

“Fuck you, fatass,” the clone replies, shoving the colt’s hip and knocking himself over in the process. Title has to stifle a chuckle at hearing such a tiny, squeaky voice cuss like that. It rolls to its rump and sits up, squaring off with the colt before oddly thrusting a forehoof in an upwards motion with his other foreleg crossed overtop at the knee, staring daggers the whole time.

Cure reaches down and grabs the clone by its scruff, holding it at eye level. “Don’t mess with me, bro,” he threatens. “I ate the last pony that got smart with me.”

“Bring it, ya pussy!” the clone challenges, swinging his hooves in wild punches, unable to reach the colt’s snout.

“Don’t do it,” Title calls out in warning. Both turn to look at her with matching pouts. “Seriously, I know you would, but don’t. I don’t need to have nightmares where you’re running around eating foals, okay?”

“Fiiine!” they whine in stereo. The clone goes limp, which is unsettling enough for Title to witness, and begins shrinking back down in size. Its coat changes into leafy foliage as it continues diminishing until the last of it is pulled back through the ring into the colt’s interior. It’s odd to watch an object apparently shrinking into nothing, but after only a moment the only thing left is the golden ring sitting in Cure’s palm.

“I guess I made my point either way. I’m not exactly sure what I could do that would be shocking enough to be funny without being so shocking that it crosses a line somewhere.”

“Yeah, I get what you mean,” she agrees. “Question.”

“Hm?”

“Is there really a body double coming here this weekend?”

“I only have enough rings to cover about twenty or, if I really stretched it, maybe thirty kilometers and Canterlot’s about five hundred away, so yes. There is. She’ll be here before I leave Saturday. I don’t know her real name, but -”

“Her?”

“... yes. Her. Allegedly,” he adds with a shrug. “I mean, her special talent is casting an Illusion that’s so real it might as well be shapeshifting, so she could be either. Or both.”

“And you’re not concerned she’s one of those changelings?”

“I would have been a few months back, but Celestia’s implemented security measures, supposedly, even if I don’t have the utmost faith in them. I’m still scanning her either way. Gotta let my plant know not to treat her like an intruder.”

Title gives the colt a critical look, cocking a brow in question. “How, exactly, does your plant know if somepony is an intruder?”

“Scent, colors, height, weight, facial structure, body heat, waste output, denti-”

She waves her hooves in the air for him to stop. “Wait, wait, wait. Go back one.”

“Waste output?”

“Yeah. That. What’s that mean?”

“Exactly what it sounds like?” he answers with a questioning lilt.

“You’re scanning our poop?!”

“I scan poop every time I scan anything, mom. I don’t get the privilege of not seeing ponies’ bowels, ballsacks, sinus cavities, how much semen is in their vaginal cavities,” he gives her a meaningful look, earning a blush in return, “or anything else when I scan them, ma.”

“Oh. Yeah, I guess you’ve said that before, huh?”

“Once or twice, maybe,” he scoffs.

“How’s your plant know who is who without you there scanning stuff, though?”

“Gut bacteria is as unique as anything else, ma. Moreso than most things, in fact. The plant doesn’t have intelligence, but it’s smart enough to notice when a pony goes potty and it’s not the right stuff. If it detects something’s wrong it’ll hit them with the ‘alarm’ scent marker I showed you all so you can go from there.”

“Oh. That seems a little…”

“Invasive?”

“Yeah. That.”

Cure gives a helpless shrug. “That’s my talent in a nutshell, ma. You’re barely scratching the surface as far as how invasive I could be. There was a book written about the government spying on their own citizens to ensure obedience.” He pauses and tits his head to the side, admitting, “I think. He never actually read it.

“Regardless, it created this concept of ‘Big Brother’ who was always watching you. Attend a rally for a politically subversive group? Big Brother knows. Shop at a store owned by a trouble maker? Big Brother knows. Express concerns or your dissatisfaction with society to your family or friends? You get the picture.

“Check off too many boxes and, maybe, someday, Big Brother will come pay a visit and you, your family, whoever, may just up and ‘disappear.’” He finds the fact that, for once, he can actually mime air quotes with proper fingers to be oddly satisfying.

“That… sounds terrifying.”

“I’m pretty sure that was the point. Either way, what I’m getting at is that I could easily be Big Brother. I don’t and I wouldn’t, unless something extreme happened, but I could have eyes, ears, and noses all over the city. I could be in the sewers analyzing everything. I have perfect memory, so I could, theoretically, keep track of everypony’s every move.

“The cloud cities may be more difficult, but with these,” he holds up a ring, “I could just rent a few buildings or buy a few houses and fill them with surveillance mechanisms. Making somecreature disappear without a trace would be foalsplay.

“Imagine I find those thieves that tried to jump me, Dawn, and Solar and decide they need to go away for good. I keep an eye on ‘em and follow them home. They go to bed like normal and, bam, I dart ‘em and teleport them away. Maybe replace them with a fake,” he holds up the ring again, “and have them tell everypony about a sweet job offer they got in Vanhoover or Las Pegasus and how they’re moving away this weekend. Next thing ya know, they’re just gone.”

“That’s… that’s messed up, Cure.”

“No shit. Especially when I could do it all while hiding my real body half a kilometer underground. Or underwater in the ocean.”

“You know…” she sighs, “you kinda suck at planning pranks. This was supposed to be fun. Now I’m wishin you’d just left me in bed.”

“Sorry, ma. It’s just that I can’t think of anything that’s shocking enough to be funny without being so shocking that somepony ends up either grossed out or afraid of me.”

“Start by not pretending to eat newborn foals, or, better yet, by not horking them up to begin with. That was kinda fucked up to watch, even if you kinda warned me.”

“Fair,” he agrees. “Perfect example, but fair. There’s also the whole traumatizing dam even further thing.”

“How so?”

“She’s kind of, sort of lost me twice in the last twelve months, mom. What effect do you think having a second ‘Cure’ pop up would have if I didn’t warn her first?”

Title can’t hide the wince from that one. “Oh. Shit. Yeah, that’s a good point.”

“Exactly. It’s the same thing with Celestia and her sister. I always have to really watch what I say or do because ‘a how bad it messed her up. Remember a few weeks back when I popped in lookin like a yak?”

The mare snorts a laugh, bobbing her head. “You looked absolutely ridiculous with the horns and stuff.”

“Yeah, well imagine how devastating it would be if I popped in there lookin like Luna.”

“Probably best not to find out,” she agrees.

“No doubt,” he agrees, sighing as he considers other options. A number of ideas run through his mind. He could fly or run around town in his unicorn or pegasus disguise, slightly altered, and let the fillies barely catch sight of him while Serpentus is working. It doesn’t strike him as terribly funny, though. Sure, it would be confusing for them, and maybe a little amusing, but it hardly seems worth the effort for a quick laugh. Besides, Dawn saw his act with the Solar clone, so she would probably clue in pretty quickly.

He finally sighs, withdraws his horn, and climbs between her forelegs. He flops on his back, and reaches up in invitation. She happily accepts, flopping down on his chest, humming in contentment when he reaches up with both hands and starts massaging her ears. “I’m kinda comin up empty, ma. Sure, I could mess with a few ponies for a chuckle or two, but… I dunno. I kinda already did the ‘evil twin’ gag with Dawn, I feel like the others will just roll their eyes, and I’m not super keen on the idea of messin with you all or the foals.

“I think it may be best if I use the rings like I planned. You know, show up around town as me while his highness is at the hospital healing. Maybe have my different Riddle disguises run around some to throw ponies off.”

“Think you can manage that?” she asks, pausing to slurp back up the drools that almost leaked onto his chest. “Seems like it’d be hard controlling two things at once like that.”

“Sure. I doubt I could use magic in both spots at once without a lot of practice, but I should be able to walk around and hang out just fine while healing ponies. With a copper wire also running through them I might as well be right there. I don’t know if it’s necessary, but I’ve kept non-paired rings at least a half meter apart, so even with all of them running I’m only a few meters away, more or less.”

His mom hums in acknowledgement, eyes drooping as his calming ministrations lull her back to sleepiness. “Jeez, ma, if you’re that tired then let’s get you back to bed.”

“‘s relaxin. Shhh.”

He rolls his eyes and huffs out a small sigh, but still wiggles enough to free his wings from between his sides and her forelegs. He stretches them out and down, enlarging them to wrap her in a feathery cocoon.

Eh, I guess I don’t actually have to do anything to my friends. Maybe just playing dumb will be fun enough. I guess bugging Mrs. Gem to keep this all secret was kind of a waste of time.

“So… what?” Amethyst asks, “Yer going to just walk ‘round town?”

“My puppet will, yes. I will be at the hospital, unfortunately. I need to be in case I have to disconnect the portal for some reason. My puppet can dive in a bush, go home, or go to the shop and disappear for a bit. I can’t risk having that happen at the hospital. Of course, if I hadn’t told you then you’d never have known the difference.”

“Some unicorn might be able to tell something is up,” Title suggests.

He tilts his head in consideration and shrugs, “Dunno, being inside of living matter kinda fudges up most forms of detection. The boss lady might be able to detect the open portal, but I have my doubts.”

“Wouldn’t bet on it, colt,” his sire disagrees. “Reckon the princess has just ‘bout seen it all. I ain’t ever heard’a nopony doin somethin as crazy as all’a that, but even still, she can probably pick up there’s a connection goin somewhere.”

“That’s the thing, pa, technically there isn’t. There isn’t some kind of tube running from the portal to the other one. By all accounts, the surface of the portal exists in two places simultaneously. Don’t think of them as being two rings. Think of them as two halves of one ring and it makes a bit more sense how it all works.”

He cocks his head to the side and paws at his chin in thought before continuing, “Sort of. I mean, functionally that’s right, but obviously the rings are two separate physical places, but the portal isn’t. And no, there wasn’t an explanation as to exactly how that works.”

Vines completely fails to suppress the excitement in her posture. His dam’s lower half wiggles merrily and her eyes nearly sparkle with hope when she asks, “Does that mean you can spend the day with us while you work?”

Cure pops the last bite of his oats into his mouth, sets down his spoon, hops off his booster, briskly trots around Amethyst on his left, sits on his rump, and holds his forelegs out wide in offering to his dam. “I’m yours all day, dam.”

The mare pounces in an instant, giggling madly as she pins her eldest to the floor. Cure dutifully allows her to groom and nuzzle into his chest, neck, and chin, paying no mind to bits of breakfast she hadn’t washed down or the teasing comments from the other parents. The cooing, delighted mess only calms when the twins, curious what is going on and slightly envious of the attention, start nosing and bonking at her forelegs.

The pair are quickly swept off their hooves and deposited on his chest, only to be squished between their dam and brother.

Vines couldn’t imagine being any happier. She’ll finally be able to spend days with all of her foals together, something that hasn’t been possible since her son’s coronation. The work he’s doing is amazing, and she understands why it’s so important, but despite the hundreds of ponies he’s helping, she wants to spend time with her son before he’s all grown up.

A single year. That’s all the time she has left before he’ll be gone, attending classes in Canterlot. Every parent knows their time with their foals is limited, but to have so much taken away so suddenly has been harder than she’d ever imagined.

Cure, pinned on his back with a sibling smushed in each legpit, can easily admit he’d never expected his dam to reply so strongly. He can only wrap her head in a hug while being careful not to hurt Golden and Blazer while she begins literally crying on top of the three of them. He chances a look to his right, cocking a brow at Amethyst to silently ask what he should do.

Fortunately, his sire soon moves in to comfort her, petting on her right as her joyous laughter dies off and she begins sobbing in earnest. “There, there, babe. He ain’t goin nowhere. Ya got tha whole mornin ta spend with all three ‘a yer foals, so don’t go gettin yerself all worked up a’fore the day even starts.”

“It’s just,” she begins, hiccuping mid-sob, “everything has changed so much! I never know what’s coming next!” Amethyst has stopped eating and turned, laying against Vines’ left to rest her chin on her withers. Lemon and Title join in too, the former resting her head on Vines’ back while the latter lays down in front of them, nuzzling at the pair. Not wanting to be left out, Savvy hops from her seat, flapping over to land on the pile and nuzzles down into Vines’ yellow mane.

Surrounded by her family, the distraught mare finally calms, sighing and resting her weight on her son. Blazer squirming to escape has her sitting up and smiling fondly at the three foals. “Sorry,” she meekly apologizes to everypony, “I don’t know what came over me.”

All four of her spouses accept the apology, dismissing the need for it at all.

“It’s alright, dam,” Cure warmly insists. Voice dripping with exaggerated sympathy, he reaches up to pat on her cheek, saying, “It’s not your fault that all females are at least slightly unhinged.” Deed can’t help but snort out a laugh. “It’s just the way y’all are made. You can’t help that yer all a little nuts, unlike me ‘n pa.”

“Hey, I’m sane,” Lemon weakly argues. Amethyst gives her a doubtful look. “Mostly.”

Vines sighs, rolling her eyes at her son. Inappropriate and, given he’s surrounded on all sides by mares, foolish as his accusation is, the levity it brought broke the dour mood she’d afflicted the room with.

“What’s wrong with me?” Title demands in a pout.

“There’s a sugar cream pie in the fridge, ma,” Cure answers, barely finishing before the pink blur zips away. “Yeah, no mental issues there,” he sardonically observes.

He raises a challenging brow to Amethyst who snorts and shakes her head. “I ain’t never claimed ta be sane, colt, but I reckon even you got me beat on the ‘ol bonkers scale.”

“Fair,” he easily agrees. “Not that I don’t enjoy a good snuggle pile, dam, but I gotta get to the hospital. Do you want to see how this whole thing works?”

She plants one last kiss on her son’s chin and, once the others move to give her room, lets him and the newborns up.

Title returns to the table, pie in hoof, and watches as Cure noses at his siblings’ brows before moving to the hallway between the dining room and the stairs. A vine descends from the ceiling as he begins explaining, “So just like I did with Solar, I can make a puppet of myself, minus a brain, of course.”

Amethyst opens her mouth, but is cut off when the colt says, in her voice, “So just like the real you, huh?” She pouts for a second before shrugging and giving him a begrudging nod. “Yeah,” he continues in his own voice, “I made that joke with him too. Anyhow, this,” he pulls a ring from under his wing as the ball of leaves steadily grows, “will go in the puppet’s cranium. Its brain will be about ninety percent complete. It has all the bits necessary to run a body and move, but won’t have the brain bits for memory or all of the parts for decision making.”

He pauses to cram the ring into the mass before continuing, “Its paired ring will be at the shop buried in my plant there since that’s more central to the town. Another ring in the shop will connect to a plant I have buried along the train line to Baltimare.” He pauses when Lemon raises a hoof. “Yes?”

“You have plants along the tracks?”

“I do. I planted them about three weeks ago in preparation for this.”

“You’ve been planning this for almost a month?”

“Yep! I started planning this the day after the girls told me that ponies know my identity. Anyhow, I have five more sets of rings, enough to cover the distance from there to the hospital, with the last ring inside my neck hooked directly into my nervous system. So this,” he says, prodding the now fully formed earth pony clone, “will sit here in a state of sleep until I can fly to work and get all the portals open and wired.”

“And how long will that take?” Vines asks, eyeing the clone warily.

“Twenty minutes, give or take. Maybe a few extra since I need to stick the rings into each plant along the route. Just keep in mind, I’ve not tried this before, so I may seem a little out of it until I get used to piloting around a second body.”

Spending the morning with his dam, mom, and all his little sisters and brother has been absolutely wonderful. Moving the puppet isn’t as challenging as he’d feared, though he wouldn’t trust himself to do anything that required a great deal of attention. Still, following his dam, snuggling on her side while the foals play, engaging in idle chit-chat, and the like are easy enough.

The three are enjoying a lazy morning in the shade of a tree, keeping watch over Cherry and Lotus as they run and play with the other foals at the park near their old house. Vines and Amethyst have Blazer and Golden lying between them with Cure on Vines’ left.

His dam can tell when her son is busy seeing a patient. The body by her side is comforting, and even if it isn’t quite the same, that he is at least here, spending time with her still means the world to the mare. The bouts of silence when he is distracted are easily noticeable, even if he does his best to pay attention during conversation.

“Sorry I’m kinda out of it, dam,” he mumbles, pressing his cheek against her shoulder. “This’ll get better with practice. Right now it’s kinda like writing two different words on a chalkboard, one with each hoof, at the same time.”

“It’s okay, sweetie. I can’t tell you how excited I am to have you around more. Even if the circumstances are… well, frankly, kind of odd.”

“Yeah. You think it’s odd for you? I’m helping a poor mare with lymphedema so bad she looks like a balloon animal.”

“Cure!” The effectiveness of his dam’s scolding is diminished by Amethyst’s snorted laugh.

“What? I’m sympathetic, believe me. Don’t pretend you don’t see ponies with something horrible wrong with them sometimes and, instead of only thinking ‘Wow, that poor creature’ you also think ‘I feel like I should have to buy a ticket to see something like that.’”

“I don’t think most ponies’ minds work like that, Cure,” she harshly disagrees.

Further discussion is cut off by a yell from above. “Cure?!” Glacial calls as she and Drift swoop in for a landing only a few meters from the tree the five of them are resting under.

“Well hey there, gorgeous. How’s two of the three prettiest pegasi on the planet?”

“I thought you -” she begins, interrupted when Drift cuts in asking, “Two of the three? What the hay is going on between you and my sister!?”

The colt scoffs, shaking his head no. “Wind doesn’t count. Sure she’s a looker, but I don’t think it’s fair to count anypony I’ve done work on.”

“Then who…?”

“G’s dam, obviously,” he says, motioning to the platinum pegasus. “Yer granddam’s a total hottie too, bee-tee-dubs. Now, at least.” Glacial’s snout wrinkles in disgust while Drift sports her typical annoyed and angry default look.

“Behave, Cure,” his dam quietly admonishes. “Hello, girls,” she warmly greets, “How are you two doing today?”

The two trade greetings with his dam, mom, and share a couple nuzzles with the babies before settling on his side. Glacial climbs half on Drift’s withers and leans in close to whisper, “Why aren’t you working today? I thought you worked every Wednesday.”

“Remember that whole thing yesterday at lunch about the holiday party?”

Drift snorts, nodding as she asks, “When you almost blew your top?”

Vines’ head whips around to look at her son in question.

“I didn’t blow my top,” he snaps back. “I just got a little annoyed because ponies apparently can’t help but run around talkin about stuff they shouldn’t.” The last part of which is said while shooting the purple filly a meaningful look. The grimace and apologetic look he gets in response tells him it was more of an accidental slip than her intentionally tattling to his parents.

“Cure…”

“It’s that stupid Hearth’s Warming bullcrap again, dam! Dawn heard about ‘some colt that was threatening other foals at the party with a steel beam,’” he sarcastically explains, waiving a hoof menacingly in the air. “Apparently the right thing to do would have been to let the bully prick that’s probably three years older than me treat me like dirt.”

Drift, now looking slightly worried, stares at his mane waiting for it to start flickering. She exhales a sigh of relief when nothing happens.

Vines rolls her eyes and goes back to loving on Golden. “You need to stop letting that bother you so much.”

“It’s a work in progress,” he deflects. “Anyhow,” he leans against the fillies to whisper, “I told the hospital that if they can’t keep things like that under wraps then I doubt they can manage other need-to-know topics, so I told them I wouldn’t be back until they clean house and get rid of everypony that can’t help but run their mouths.”

Both fillies look horrified, not even noticing Vines’ exasperated sigh or Amethyst’s quiet chuckle.

“I figure once a few gossip hounds lose their jobs I can start back up. It probably won’t be for a few weeks after I get back from the competition, though. Shame about all the ponies that traveled from out of town today and Friday, but hey… if they have enough time to be flappin their muzzles about gossip with me there then maybe they’ll be busy enough to focus on their jobs without me taking care of all the serious cases for ‘em.”

“Cure!” Glacial recoils away as much as she can without throwing Drift off her. “That’s awful! Think of how hard it was for everypony to travel from…” she trails off at his quiet laughter, horrified at the way he’s behaving.

“Cure, enough,” his dam chastises.

He rolls his whole head and sighs. “Fiiine!” He motions the fillies both closer so he can softly explain, “The truth is, I am at the hospital. Long story short, I made several small portal rings that are connected to each other. This,” he taps his chest, “isn’t me. It’s a puppet that I’m controlling from my office at the hospital.”

“Cow manure!” Drift hisses. “That has to be the most unfair thing ever!”

“True, but can you think of a better way to put to bed those rumors flyin around about who his highness is?”

“Oh.”

“Exactly. Right now I can’t do anything too difficult because it’s hard enough paying attention to two things at once. Like flying… I don’t trust myself flying just yet. Maybe with some practice, but I can’t go too far from town because of the range on the portals.”

“How far can you go?”

“While I’m working? About three or four kilometers from mom’s candy store. Any further and it takes a lot more magic and the portal can burn out.”

“So… you’re going to be able to be in two places at once?”

“Yep. Eventually. Once I get better at managing two sets of data at the same time, which isn’t easy. I’m having to really concentrate on not saying any of this from my real body.”

“Huh. That’s… insane.”

“Welcome to my life,” he responds with an agreeing nod. “I have a whole list of crazy things I can do with this too. Since it’s not my real body I can change it however I want. I thought about showing up at the guard station as a big guard dog with official orders. Figured it would be funny to run around causing havoc with Sgt. Haze and them.”

“No, Cure,” his dam interrupts. “No pretending to be a guard dog.”

“I know, I know. It would be kinda weird acting like a real dog anyhow. Having ponies tell me to sit and roll over or scratch my belly? Or if they just locked the dog in a cage to deal with later. That would suck, and that’s not even considering what they would do if they somehow found out it was me.”

Glacial giggles at the suggestion. “Or if one of them tries to take you home as a pet.”

“Exactly.”

“What would you do even if they believed it? Run around and pee on things? It’s not like there’s any crime around here.”

“That would be awkward too,” he agrees. “I do have some funny ideas and, so long as I do them while I’m at one of my jobs, nopony should be the wiser.”

“Cure,” his dam calls in warning.

“Nothing harmful, mom. Maybe like… put up ‘Missing Pet Pig - 500 Bit Reward’ posters around town then run around as a super slippery, oiled up piggy, slipping out of ponies grasp all day. Can you imagine a stampede of ponies all trying to catch me and the chaos that would be unleashed?”

“I don’t think that much chaos is a good thing,” she meaningfully points out.

A full-bodied shudder passes through the colt as it registers. “Fair. Still, I can do goofy crap at the hospital too. Imagine a day where weird talking animals all keep showing up asking to see his highness to get patched up. Like, a freaking talking otter scooting through the lobby or something.” Both girls are giggling at the idea. “Just seeing ponies’ reactions to the craziness, even if nothing is happening… it would be hilarious.”

“Can you do a parrot?! I could bring you home and you could say all kinds of crazy stuff to my sire and sister!”

“Eh, how long would it be funny and what would you do when they eventually found out?”

“It would be absolutely hilarious!” she insists.

“For you it would be,” Glacial points out. “Wind would be ticked off. Your parents might be pretty angry too. Mine would be annoyed if I did that.”

“See? That’s the problem right there,” he argues. “Lots of things are funny for a moment, but once the shock wears off it’s like… meh. Then it gets weird and uncomfortable.”

“What about pretending to be other ponies? Like… look like me and we both go home and say there was an accident or something.”

“That’s a terrible idea,” he dismisses. “First off, I suspect a lot of ponies already know I can do stuff like that, but seeing me actually do it? That’s super creepy. I teased your sister about us being twins for her modeling thing. Did the whole color, height, and whatnot, but not everything. She freaked the heck out.”

“Cure! You’re not supposed to be doing stuff like that to ponies!”

“I know, dam! It was just Wind when we were alone and only for a moment. Besides, I stopped as soon as she started losin her marbles. Lesson learned.”

She sighs and shakes her head. “Honestly. I feel like I should be grounding you or something. I can’t imagine what the princess would say.”

“Oh don’t worry. I’ll eventually show her, too.” Visions of an independent Sunny Skies puppet, one that can carry a foal for real, come to mind. That… that right there is the gift nopony else can give her. “She may not be as adverse to the idea as you think.” Yep. Forget pink pearl jewelry. That right there is what the mare that has everything needs for Hearth’s Warming.

The colt is brought out of his thoughts when Glacial pokes him with her right forehoof and cocks a brow in question. “Sorry, what? Paying attention to two things at the same time is hard.”

“I asked if you wanted to go get some snacks or something. We’re already done making our deliveries for the day, so even if you can’t go flying we could hang out.”

“I’d be delighted to after work, if you want, but for now… I think I’m going to just hang out with the foals for a while. I haven’t really gotten to spend much time during the summer just being with them, ya know?”

“You can go with your friends if you want, Cure,” his dam insists.

“Nah, it’s fine. Besides, like I said, I’m still kinda getting used to moving around and stuff. I don’t want to drop my brownie or something dumb like that. I only have about two more hours at the hospital anyhow.”

“Go on, honey,” she says, nudging his side with her foreleg knee. “The whole point was to be seen around town. Go be seen.” More softly, she adds, “It’s okay, sweetheart. Really.”

Despite her assurance, he can’t help but feel a little guilty going with the girls after his dam’s breakdown this morning. At the same time, sitting there and arguing with her probably won’t help at all. Besides, the girls will be in school by the time he gets back from the competition, so he’ll be able to spend every morning with her soon enough.

“Feel free ta teleport somethin to us if yer up to it,” his mom suggests. “Reckon Title and yer sire wouldn’t be heartbroken if ya sent them a treat, too.”

He sighs and bobs his head in acceptance, getting to his hooves once the fillies give him enough room to stand. With a round of departing nuzzles the three set off further in towards town.

The trip into town was rather uneventful. Cure paid special attention to ponies’ reactions as he and the girls made their way around town. He had figured that only a few ponies were aware of his identity, but the dozens of bewildered stares he got when ponies caught sight of him made him suspect a whole lot more know than he’d anticipated. The Dough sisters, in particular, actually paused to look at the calendar hanging on the wall when he trotted through the door.

He sets a Sound Bubble on the table and leans to his right, brushing against Glacial as he says, “I can smell their confusion from here. Did you see when they both disappeared in the back room at the same time?”

“Yeah.”

He rotates his ears forwards and back and nods to the swinging door. “They were checking the delivery schedule to make sure it’s Wednesday. Apparently they get restocked every Thursday and were wondering if the delivery pony was running late. I’ll have to do this again once I get more coordinated... you know, come here with my ‘cousins from Hollow Shades’ or something so they can see the three of us at once.”

“Three of you?” Drift echoes. “How many could you do at the same time?”

Cure’s snout scrunches in thought as he considers the possibility. “I dunno, honestly. It’s not entirely impossible for me to expand on this. Or offload more of the processing into my puppets. I mean, as long as they don’t have a hippocampus and their prefrontal cortex is limited then the puppets aren’t really ‘alive,’ ya know?”

A quick glance to his left shows that, no, she does not know. “The hippocampus is where we store memories and the prefrontal cortex is where we make decisions. What’s up here,” he taps at his noggin, “is the bare necessities to move, process sights, sounds, and smells, and manage all the autonomic body functions. Heartbeat, respiration, etcetera. I’m basically sending a command through the portal that says ‘eat the brownie,’ okay?”

Drift nods in understanding.

“What really goes across the link is a set of instructions on how exactly a brownie should be eaten. It tells the puppet to reach down, use its telekinesis to pick the brownie up without crushing it, breaking it apart, or actually letting it touch my hoof, then move it to my muzzle for me to take a bite. The sensation of flavor is processed in my head, then sent back over the link as a memory of what it tastes like, along with a million other things you don’t really think about as you go about your normal day.”

The filly looks between her muffin and her foreleg and considers all that. “That sounds like a nightmare.”

“It’s not that bad,” he insists. “I mean, it’s a little odd, granted, but the bottom line is that aside from the basic command to do something, I don’t really have to consciously do a whole lot. Conversation is harder, but I can kind of pass instruction through in bunches. So, for example, I sent over the instructions to say all of this in a fraction of a second while I’m talking to my patient at the same time. I just have to pause for a fraction of a second to consider what happens next, then pass that over and let it play out. Hence why I’m not sure about flying just yet.”

“So if you practice more...?” she leadingly asks.

“Then, in theory, this’ll get easier. Especially if I build something designed specifically to manage it all. As long as I keep those things inside my real body then I don’t have to worry about a puppet suddenly cutting its strings or whatever.”

Both girls lean away from the colt, looking at him with no small amount of alarm. He rolls his eyes and insists, “Again, that can’t happen. If the portal closes then this thing is basically braindead. It’ll breathe and it won’t poop itself or anything, but that’s all it’ll do. Just don’t freak out if it suddenly looks like I fell asleep or something, okay?”

Glacial shakes her head, nervously arguing, “I’m pretty sure I’ll freak out a little if you just suddenly fall over, puppet or not.”

“Like I said, it would look more like I’m asleep than anything. I’ll just kinda slump over.” He inclines his head in thought and considers aloud, “Maybe I should make a failsafe where I start snoring and close my eyes.”

“That would be a good idea,” she urgently agrees. “Maybe we should tell the others just to be safe.”

“You’re heavier than a bull,” Drift grumbles. “It would be a lot easier to have Dawn levitate you than it would be to get you on one of our backs.”

“True. I wasn’t really planning on messing with you all too much anyhow, I guess. How about we head to the shop and have them all come over this afternoon? Heavy, DC, and Saph, too, I guess. Once I’m done at the hospital maybe we can find something fairly harmless to pull on somepony, too.”

Most days in the guard were, to nopony’s surprise, pretty boring. Sure, there’s the occasional dispute between neighbors or maybe a fight between mares over a stallion, but sometimes entire weeks would go by before even a report of petty theft would make its way to Corporal Ricochet’s desk.

Because of this, the call from the lobby for assistance comes as a bit of a surprise to the young mare shortly after she returned from her lunch break. Her first thoughts are almost of relief as she rises from her desk and makes her way towards the front, but she no more than steps through the lobby entrance and takes in the scene before that tiny hint of excitement is smothered by a thick blanket of confusion and incredulity.

Ricochet has to blink a couple times to be sure she’s really seeing what she’s seeing. Standing in the lobby, forelegs… arms folded across its… chest? Is an angrily grumbling bipedal stalk of… broccoli?

The animated vegetable, and isn’t that an oxymoron, she ponders, barely comes up to her chest, and that’s only if she counts the bushy green crown atop its head. A regal red cloak with a high collar is, somehow, staying in place around the creature’s neck area, just slightly above its long, slender arms, despite there not being actual shoulders for it to rest on.

The stalk continues down and stops abruptly where she assumes its crotch should be, which is completely bare. Two stubby, thin legs jut out from the bottom, their color and flesh texture apparently identical to the rest of him, before they end in weird, flat feet with four toes with odd, dull, leafy claws on them.

“... see how long I make you wait when you visit my kingdom,” the apparent-king complains. His weird, solid green eyes land on the mare and take note of the two chevrons on her pauldrons. “A corporal?!” he snarls, stamping a leafy green foot in annoyance. “I demand an audience with the highest authority in the land and you send a mere corporal to meet with me?! The AUDACITY!” he screeches, throwing his stubby arms in the air in a fit of pique.

Ricochet silently bites the inside of her cheek almost hard enough to draw blood just to be sure she isn’t passed out at her desk having the oddest dream she thinks she’s ever had. She begrudgingly approaches the creature, aware of the similarly bewildered eyes of everypony in the lobby flicking between the two of them. “Umm… you wanted to file a complaint, sir?” she slowly, hesitantly asks.

“A complaint?! I'll do more than simply file a complaint!” The stalk of broccoli approaches the mare and does its best to look intimidating, which it completely fails at. “I demand that you ponies stop eating my kin! Innocent broccoloid children are devoured by the hundreds by you savage beasts every day and we’re finally fed up with it!”

“Brocc… oloids?”

“Of course! Or do you deny eating our sprouts at nearly every meal?!”

“What?!”

“It’s a simple question, you foolish mare! Have you ever eaten a broccoloid before?!”

Ricochet’s mind flashes back to her lunch, a cheesy, mushroomy broccoli casserole. Her ears pin back reflexively as she hesitantly answers, “Umm… maybe? I don't think -”

“I can smell the chlorophyll of our young on your BREATH! Murderer! Clearly I am wasting my time here!” The brocco…loid takes a deep breath, recentering itself. It makes a nod-like movement, an impossibility due to its complete lack of a distinct neck or head. “Very well. I see there can be no peace between our kind. Deliver this to your leader,” he insists, pulling a rolled up scroll of lettuce from his cloak and shoving it against the mare’s chest, “and when next we meet, it will be you who is slathered in cheese and butter before being devoured!”

The royal stalk of broccoli turns on its heel, its cloak swinging around to ineffectually slap the mare’s chest, and promptly exits the building, leaving Ricochet, the front lobby mare, and half a dozen onlookers all stunned at the proclamation. She looks more closely at the scroll cradled in the crook of her fetlock and finds that it’s not sealed with wax. Her horn ignites, levitating it in front of her as she unrolls it, paying no mind to the others all crowding around to see.

“Rake, trowel, shovel, soil, fertilizer?” she reads aloud as her eyes move down the scroll. “What in Tartarus is this? A shopping list?!”

Several blocks away above a candy shop, a herd of foals watches as the Illusion cuts off, all of them rolling on the floor laughing their heads off.

Author's Note

A - relative to normal - shorter chapter this week. I blame a really bad case of writer's block.

There's a lot of potential for this ability, of course, but then when you start figuring out how you could use it in a real-life situation it tends to bog you down. We've already seen how poorly ponies react to duplicates of themselves, so obviously impersonating... imponyating? Mimicking another pony is right out for a number of reasons.

Also, when you really think about it, copying someone else's body is truly freaking bizarre. I don't think I've ever watched Freaky Friday or anything with a similar theme (body swapping in this instance), but can you imagine how weird it would be to use the bathroom?

Even something as relatively harmless as his prank at the end can draw a lot of attention. Newspaper articles, a report to the princess, guard rotations being increased due to the threat of an attack, broccoli farmers wondering if they're raising future enemy combatants... the list goes on. Fortunately, with so few witnesses, no real evidence, and no sign of an impending Broccoloid assault, the whole thing would probably be dismissed within a few days.

Thankfully, ponies always seem to react in a calm, rational manner to the unexpected.

Right?

As always, thanks for reading, rating, and especially commenting. Enjoy!