Balkby MagLocalChaptersHear the Sound as Our Hearts Cry Out ForeverReality DeprivedOne FantasyManichaeismThe Only World We KnowMinusHear the Sound as Our Hearts Cry Out ForeverRoars don't scare the pitcher under a blinking light: 701-701. Outlaws versus the Extras, and Screw's walk-up music is a simple mix of bongos and trumpets in the most watched game in baseball's history by an audience of sapient random objects, sharks screeching loudly, green monsters dancing on a tall wall, and a dozen mariners stuck on the rooftop, flashing SOS. To the mound she goes: the Original flexes her foreleg, cracking every bone and tendon. A credit to the Outlaws for having her number up on the list. The meanest swing of the hoof, of deceptiveness, knows the ins and outs of the ball. Cut them loose. The Screwball on the other side, the not-her. Nervous, easy to outwit. Her namesake will do: let the ball curve towards her, clockwise like a screw in action. Strike one. Now there's expectation. They share glares. The organist apparently slams all over the keys, unexpectedly reflecting the batter's crazed, paranoid state of mind. Another curving in. Strike two. Still got it. The batter's eyes twitch and sweat. The catcher's desperately signaling any other pitch but that. The enemy knows. Strike three. Was a Screwball. The bleachers go wild, the Outlaws storm the field, dunked by the energy drinks and the chocolate smoothies on tap: the riot of the never-ending game. Deadlocked at 701-701. The bottom of the inning is up next. She heads to the dugout for rest, to wait until she is called up once again, a fact her mates ignore if their constant praise and hoof-bumps are of any indication. That same blinking light blinks again. Seen through the windows, through the ceiling, atomically dim through the cracks—it perseveres for her in the skyline, for her. Past the team, brushing past the lockers and the cafeteria where shepherds commandeer pies and colors-turned-into-jawbreakers. Hot air blasts her in the parking lot, cars and bikes and aircraft sprawled over with guzzling smoke and soap bubbles (a few non-sentient Screwballs pull around horse carriages). Valets and robbers, cops and robbers, sing and dance for her, ask for her autograph, market to her many new forms of fun should the stadium-city expand. Past her projections, she endures the chase after the light until the parking lot and its stadium are demolished from her sight. That bright light casts ever-long shadows against the verdant trees, sparkling up obnoxiously yellow notes pinned or taped onto the trunks—her hoofwriting, telling her that she did plant these things, that there is some unnameable reward where the light reigns. Leaves and shrubs blossom into her colors, into cotton candy with copious lavenders. Into the center, into the light—warm as lava, comforting as acid—a-swirling comes the box from which that illumination is born. Burning hooves grab hold of the cheap fabric covering a crown, letters spelling out A DAUGHTER. It's not to be worn. The jewels aren't jewels, for they are images: she herself lies front and center. The silhouettes that encircle her likeness say her name, ghosts given life somewhere a thousand miles back. One liked turtles. Some smelled like lemonade and freshly cut grass. A fonder one wore glasses. To clutch it tighter, the wooden frame and picture still within, still brown and graying and colorful in all the right ways. She shrieks her soul into it, daring to crack the crown in her impossible grip, until the hours pass when she is taken kicking and screaming back to the ball game. I do care if I ever get back. Reality DeprivedTo bring this friendless unicorn home is the last mission for Screwball the guide, and home is through the blinking scarlet beacon hanging in the horizon. That broken-hearted Moon Dancer's tears splotch the forest's checkerboarded grass. Stories burdened her, those of life in her ivory tower, of libraries and portals crashing down when the realization hit her that her halls had housed a single soul, that the few friends she retained (she'd sworn she never deserved them) knocked on her door constantly, expecting an answer that would never come. To the red light, Moon must go. Their hoofsteps crumple through pages scattered from Screw's previous journey, a paper trail interrogating its writer, masquerading as her notes. Can you name the princesses of Equestria? What is your birthday? How many hooves do you have? Name several baseball pitches. The correct answers fill every straight blank. Moon asks about it, once she's recovered from her stupor. "Sanity check," is the reply, her guide's eyes faintly alight by the beacon in the sky. Past the light, she says, is refuge, marked on a small map and a few sticky-noted directions: Amare Refugee Zone, some distance away from Canterlot, a cozy commune, a shelter from the elements. "I know the place... sort of," Screwball says. "We'll just have to keep following the light there, and we'll be home." Moon is then quick to list off names: Minuette, Lyra, Lemon Hearts... lemon, lemonade on a sunny day back in Short Stop, back home. Root, root for the home team...! A bunch of lemonade and a long line to lead off a game between towns right out of the park— "Oh, is that... chocolate?" Moon asks, her horn already on against a sudden mist, like a flashlight. Babbling water announces a brown-as-mud creek, thick like goo, where strawberry-smelling lily pads fly by and pile up against a boat with Screwball's name painted all over it. It's rigged to a licorice pier. On the boat, after securing seatbelts and oars with baseball decals everywhere and checking the treasure chest to see if an actual baseball bat is still there, "You do this, Screwball, in spite of all the danger? I... how are you making it safe for yourself?" "Trust me." Another paddle is given, and a push of an oar sets them off on a cocoa trip. Trees slowly speed by their vision, giving birth to candy corn. "Won't you get infected by the magic?" Hooves dance and whir in slow motion, paddling and paddling. Nice and slow, relaxing and easy. All ordered up. Just ignore the crazy sky and the mushrooms gaining eyes on the hills, watching them. "A bit. It's a risk." So they sit, drifting forward and toward the light, row by row. "So... uh, Screwball. How does it feel?" The words halt over a gate of love, marble swans pecking each other from afar. The look in Moon's eyes gives paranoia a good name. Her horn fizzles and sparkles in self-defense. Sometimes. Screwball turns away from the rainbow birds spying on her from the trees. "Trippy." Their leaves smell of lemonade, something to refresh her from all the chocolate underneath. "You learn to ignore it." A couple in the grass watch them, eyes glowing like neon signs, pupils turning into advertising arrows to the wrong ways on the next fork in the river. Moon swivels to avoid eye contact with more lurking alien creatures. It's only the river that makes a sound. "I've heard stories." An easeled painting of a village and a ballpark fades into a passing hill. "What stories?" "I've... no, forget stories. I've seen one in action." The awkwardness is thick enough to cut with a knife. She examines her host all strangely. The smile is a decent attempt. "He hung around. Didn't really bother me. Probably didn't know I was even there. All he talked about was sofas and ballpens. Other things were happening around him, but every half minute, maybe, he'd return to that topic. It's his obsession, like some demented Ogres and Oubliettes dungeon master inserted a pet character into her adventure." "Not all of them are like that," says Screwball, snippy and quick. A glow steals her attention on her hoof: another note. The questions are the same. Born this time, born in Short Stop, Celestia and Luna. Another flash and it's away from her hoof: translucent silhouettes pop from a bush, stumbling over backwards, keeping pace with their boat. "Nothing dangerous," Screwball lies, hopes it's true (assuage Moon Dancer, please). The cutie marks on the shadows’ flanks coalesce into hers and another's, a bunch of turtles. Moon opens her mouth—"Talked a lot about his family," Screw says. "Used to surf here and there. Talked about going home near the beach of the mighty Celestial Ocean." So you're gonna stop now, Miss Screwball? Hopefully! Also, stop calling me Miss! I don't think I'm that much older than you! Eh-heh, no problem! Just stay safe okay?... This is it, huh? She mouths the words in reverse, knowingly. "It's a good sign," goes another lie. When the waterfall ahead makes its presence known, the lie may be easier to bear. Tendrils of chaotic wisps dart past from behind her, scouting out the expanse, ripping apart conspicuous clouds to uncover the concrete monolith that is a spindly statue of a mish-mashed dragon-horse, sword and baseball kilometers-wide aimed straight at them: a guardian against their saving light. Far behind it, that faint red flicker persists when they fall and scream down the cliff, the only way forward. What is your name? Screwball. Who are you? Screwball. Where do you live? Short Stop. What is the color of the sky? Pink. Hopefully it'll get bluer, brighter. So the papers fly. One FantasyTo topple that god of stone, she throws the rope high in the air for the nth time, which Screwball catches in the whirlwind from which Moon Dancer zips away, flying on baseball bats and oars, all while Moon's tethered to the boat by rope that's miles long. Flee, commit to the hit-and-run, let Screwball do the real damage—Amare, Minuette—I should've closed the door on you ages ago! "No, Moon! We... we still need you!" You should've just left me alone! Twilight's already left me... why don't you just leave me alone?! "We won't!"—Knockeddoors blasted open; a crimson sky thundered with each of her friends' arrivals. The statue's untamed tendrils wake her up from the daydream. Moon Dancer zips away, the latest act in the hour-long chase, of laser rays and floating rivers and backwards floods that were probably lava or acid, Screwball always lunging in just in time with a bat to save... Adrenaline-frenzied Moon grasps a fallen rope, hanging on to Screwball by the barrel. "You have to shout at it or something!" Screwball yells, flying and spinning the rope 'round the monster's claw. "Give it... uh, a story or something!" "What?! Since when did this become lit class?!" Screams of vegetable bats strike with seeds and pellets, terror from below in the windy skies. Her rummaging through sticky-notes and balloons in a treasure chest don't stop Screwball from shouting, "Just find something!" Then a baseball bat is in Moon's hooves. She rope-swings onto a tree for momentum, Screwball as another fulcrum (shouting "Dodge!") into flying platforms for Moon to gallop across (her heart beats, races, pumps like an engine), beams firing from Screwball's eyes from the past few minutes to get its attention—every muscle on Moon burns, tiring and toiling; blurry eyes rest on sweaty, foggy glasses—a stone statue ready to crush her so easily. That face faces hers. You'll make for good prey. Eyes lock and the world melts. Keys to the kingdom are given to her in several envelopes, printed with FREEDOM, REALITY. (They are not weapons; the baseball in her magic is tangible, is real, can make the statue-monster bleed.) I know you hurt. You are far in deep. Your friends are occupied, hm? So— "Come on! Want to get me! Then get me! I'm right here, right here!" Eyes unlock to watch Screwball. She's diving straight into the statue's line of fire. "What are you doing?!" "On me!" A tap of the hoof, and Moon's baseball in her horn's grip. The message, understood. Two swings—of Screwball's hooves, of Moon Dancer's magic—sink their bats deep into the statue: chaotic rainbows pulse and spill out, hooves slipping, of everything, of random minds, jumblings of the head—all of you are trapped, join the chaos, the chorus— The electricity explodes to kill the hisses, the voices. So white-hot white is her world. Transparent is the maze in her eyes and the fear within, yelling at her to leave now, while order still has a hoofhold. Curse lateral thinking! What was a rule, and wasn't this a baseball position? The pencil's ink bleeds out. You know what to do. Or try to do. The clump of smoke cannot suffocate the red light; the fog is shattered in its incessant blinking. In her magic, Moon is thrown into the wind like caution (caution is a mare she sees). A hat on her head is enough to get her flying forever, give her enough power to radiate like a thousand suns, never to burn out. Never went to the fashion store before; never had a hat on her before like this, tiny helicopter she is now (what is a helicopter). The world flickers but for that red light. Pain inconceivable surges through all her life, slumped and crashed against the boat, unending dust, scraping her clean were it not for the rivers shielding her from the worst of the blast. The oar she still holds in her magic; the rest of her belongings, still intact, still in shape, still waiting for the sky to gift her Screwball. Her hooves find purchase on moist grassland. They recognize they're still on a boat albeit turned over. Get the wetness off her clothes, then a pink flicker flies against the red. Pink like her. "Screwball, wait! D-don't leave!" Out the boat—vines lash out at her, wrangle her oars away, left with just a bat, no problem. Cicadas chitter, mimicking circus music—the air, fizzy like cola—they won't stop her. The red beacon and its promised exit lies yet beyond. That and Screwball. The thicket morphs into spikes and ash-gray mazes where the smoke chokes, the fog proceeding with Screwball’s cumbersome bags and bats being her burden. That bleeding light persists, her salvation, a door ready for her in the green wilderness. FIRE EXIT, it proclaims as a treatise of hope and home. The little streets, her little family within reach, that reach that pinkened the grass its hooves hover over. Flowers dance behind the door. They sing of Short Stop. Lemon flowers, lemon trees, lemonade stands proudly stand, saluting her return. Pristine skies kiss gardens and dirt patches alike, the road ahead graced with dugouts as far as the eye can see. A boat lay at the end. It and him. No... n-no, no! Not you! I'm… His claw taps on the rim of the boat. "Good job, Screwball," drawls out the mad creature. Graying monstrosity, laying bare a colorful checkerboarded suit, he is that statue incarnate. (His survivors might've escaped. Just haven't come public yet with how they survived.) "Your reputation precedes you." Walls fence the river off. How she got into the boat already—a paw redirects her eyes back to the babbling, cackling, crackling river. "Should've just left her alone." Moon Dancer, left dying in his pond of unreality, joining the chaos, singing their brazen song—not like this. Not how it should've died, not how she should've gone. Should've been Screw, should've been her, she's already here— "Virgil would've been proud, little Screwie." Waves charge the canoe into blazing oil vats, the air as hot as a million stars; the sweat chills her forehead, tastes of mint. The winds come with screams and advertisements for the latest cotton candy—a madhouse already! The hairs on her mane stand on end—Discord splays open a claw, lifting a telescope, and a twist unblurs a floating island hidden ahead. "You took them through the depths safe and sound, intact. That's admirable. You deserve a good rest more than most, hmm?" Resist. "Your little cutie mark can mean so much, but oh, isn't it funny? Miss Screwball? You do know what else it means, right?" His paw unfolds into a ball and screw: her pitch's namesake. Juking. Out of left field. Back into her hoofside. How it tricks, swerves away from the target. A swing of her hoof at him. And a miss, and almost falling over the boat, how she put the weight of her body and soul into that would-be punch. Ball and screw are embedded in her eyes, in the reflection. Her life doesn't flash: the sky warms her like an oven, the crowd cheers with their popcorn popping. They ask her play ball, and the answer is how high. The sportball materializes in her hooves, laid there and laid bare. 20/20 vision has her zoom into the red stitches, into a red-tinted stadium, into herself standing on the mound: back here, with Discord and the crowd, all a tinge more crimson. Madder—mad at her(self), mad at him, how she can set her hoof against his world, against the audience occupying his bleachers— "You hope that it'll just be a snap, hm?" He does snap. Nothing happens. The crowd's chants drown the world out. "I know you. A sliver and a glimmer of hope that maybe you wouldn't be around when they see you. There's a glimpse of your friends and family hanging out somewhere. Oh, you'll complain and whine against it when they see you, ask them to set you free. They won't know, though, hm? Then the monster becomes real, and that monster shall be your legacy forever, Screwball." His chuckle is the cherry on top. I am more than this! she shouts and will be nothing else, stripped to the bare bones—her cutie mark this, cutie mark that, so must it be, carpenter-pitcher. Discord melts into the grass, the spotlights, the stadium, the boat itself. The damp smell of freshly mowed grass wafts into the backdrops imitating the sky, as canned as the PA announcements for an imaginary MVP. Pink dots blossom into little Screwballs that grow into her size, surrounding her in a natural hug machine, offering baseball bats and baseballs and a couple of screws for her to autograph. "No, get away!"—"Take this!"—"No, please!" so she runs, gallops away—"We're you! We'll always be with you! We're friends!"—"Here, something to redecorate your home with!" Everyone chants her name in every color of the spectrum, sending love letters (you are not alone). Her crew of screws varnish the timber and the rest of the venue. Shovels thrive in the grass: so they dig, the pallbearers being herselves, watching her tomb, inviting her with their swirling eyes. Disempowered, broken and the lights come in, her little sunrise, so the world twists and rotates. She sinks beyond the soil, one with the stadium, the sport. It fizzles and pops in her mouth like exploding lemons. A tinge of the moon goes awash in the fallout. ManichaeismA groggy Moon wakes up sopping wet. Green blades swirl into royal purples, into a door frame, smelling of the ocean sea, closer to home in the wake of a thousand-light flash and a hurtle through space... The door to safety. The red light. The exit. Hooves catapult her to the end, ever closer, edges of ecstasy at the exit against the muscles whining that she stop, rest— An earthquake and a land of bricks ascends to blot out the sky. Keep running, it'll break— "I know you." Rustling from trees' shadows reveals the warbled voice-speaker: wheeled around on empty bleachers, other Screwballs in pinstripes and caps walking hoof-in-hoof with her behind the cornfields. Her cutie mark is plastered all over their uniforms. A ghost of a stadium unravels from reality's folds; out of a giant catcher's glove, pop goes Screw. It's his obsession. The stairs lead to the top, a way out the stadium. Moon dashes like mad, twisting her body with every whoosh of a fastball she hears clipping her mane. Up the stairs, magic straining the benches to her inch by inch— "Get back here, you traitor!" An eternity here, collapsing and lapsing and relapsing: the only response to that is to recoil. Amare, home, familiar faces, a refuge and her strength, though the strength in her legs may fail, may slip— "Why not stay here?!" Bats form gates that Moon bowls through—a clunk!, the stadium's roof closes, her hoof centimeters away from being chopped. "Why try so hard to get to your old friends when they're so far away? When you have me? You know you can't escape, but it's not so bad when you have someone by your side!" Screwball extends a hoof, and the tears fall up—how she materializes before her! The applause is warm like a fireplace the size of a forest fire, singing (over a love cam) that they be happy together. The swirls in her eyes tell a different story. Her smirk drips salted tears (she can smell the ocean in her breath). Over eons of de-creature-fying, of Moon Dancer just talking about books or board games until it cannot be contained, until it spreads, until her mind—crushed into automatic mush. The audience swells, the organ player crescendos—a split-second dream: her names, familiar faces, a vague but sure direction of home. Of normalcy. Of better. Of friends. Anywhere but here. So she throws a bat at Screwball. "Taking after me so quickly, Moonie! How delightful!" Bats and balls, Moon Dancer has thrown aplenty. Ignore, ignore: hit Screw with a decent pitch, propeller hat still there to topple, taunting her with its own devilish smiley. Hoofprints scar the field, scratched by Moon's own frogs which are caked with mud and another ball. Her torn sweater resembles a tattered cloak, her bags splayed with emptied patched-up pockets; the sweat drags her down, heavy as an empire. "Oh, so that's how you want it? That's how you'll treat me?" Eyes turn like puppies'; Moon whimpers, rolls all over, collecting more putrid dirt. "A little character in some tabletop game?" Screwball curls around her, a hoof ghostly a claw or a paw in a sudden teleport—"You'll just throw me away? After all the time we've been through? After—" "I don't even know who you are!" And another bat to Screw's face. The crowds have long gone from the bloodsport. She strings hit after hit—home is home, safety is safety, just please let me go, Screwball, don't... just one more— A crueler Twilight, deeper in the scars. Revulsion drags her hoof back. It turns off her magic, drops her bat off. Screw's barely battered face still swirls. Looking up, it resembles a sinkhole. Where are you, Screw—"I will not do this to you!" Moon shouts. "Not if it means hurting or... or killing you!" The waves manage a grin, and the bats go silent. Floodlights deactivate, save for one for dramatic effect. "What, you're gonna let me flounder here?!" An army of a thousand bats and balls pollute the horizon, tinged with the color of her swirl-pool eyes— Every bat, Moon dodges. She hasn't exercised in so long (lucky her, metabolism has always been high). Don't think—run, dodge, live. Between her and the end of the stadium, at the end of the hall of fame, down a steel corridor, up the final set of bleachers—Screwball, at the pinnacle, blocks her with a brick wall of her own to declare, "You! Will! Be! With! Me! Right here, in paradise!... forever!" A throw when she isn't looking, where she isn't looking, wishing for the perfect aim. A loose brick shakes the earth. A depleted Screwball falls. The walls disintegrate into ash. Disembodied signs shout WE <3 YOU SCREWIE! Home free for Moon, the sun catching Screwball in the light like a vampire (she hisses): the dying face of Moon's first light snarls, snaps at her as a dog: You are Twilight, abandoning me! Look at what she did to you!—"No! You sick mare! How horrible of a friend are you! You don't even feel sorry!" Moon's legs lie limp upon her, so short in life with her guide. An hour or two, maybe—"I do! But I promise..." A howl blasts against her mane, her muzzle, like a great hurricane. Moon smacks Screw down on the cheek. Crimson swells there, her attacker's damning imprint. Moon Dancer falls with her, abandoning her weapon and her chances to leave, her body withered between two fates, eternally green astroturf or freedom, backdropped by Screwball's ugly sobbing. Her tears are crystals, reflecting the real world's sunshine. Outside, that's where that genuine sunlight reigns. Twilight never came back. "I'll... come back. For you." Moon’s words ring hollow to herself. "Hah, and why? What'll they ever do? How do I trust you, you backstabbing—? "Enough. I'll... I'll just go... but I'll be back... just... hang on..." Just like Twilight. A plan. She must've had a plan... Not now. Not when a second’s delay can kill her. Like a yearning to hug. To tell her everything will be okay. To resist, to not get caught up there. To not get infected. Her legs battle an inferno of her nerves. They gallop across the threshold, force a pop like a soap bubble. When Moon turns back, there's no broken wall, there's no hint of a wall or a forest or a stadium or her friend. The gusts carry the delicious smell of unending corn fields, fencing off a dirt road and a sign whose crudely painted words spell out, Help Here. An arrow points to the closest house over. Behind her, so close to the chaos, so close to Screwball. She madly stabs at the air, feeling no wall, no stadium, no old friend's presence. The Only World We KnowA few ranches exude hospitality and hide rumors. Directions lay within, to the forests of Amare where bears, poisonous fruits, and the occasional dragon she welcomes for how normal they are. A trail carved out with near imperceptible traces of more signs guides her to a guard who turned the trunk of a tree into a cozy outpost of sorts, asking questions and casting detection spells to root out those contaminated with unusual magic. She'll be safe behind the leaves, he claims. Homes jut out from carved oaks and conifers, reeking of nuts and mint. Disparate patches of fertile soil show themselves by their diverse farmers; even unicorns joined in the fray, magic meshing with the mush and the mud. Fanged ponies, too, with wings like gargoyles lurk with eyes that glow, blades and scythes hanging from their barrels, jealously guarding a map of other nearby refuges. A wooden tooth sign catches her eye among the myriad of treehouses: local dentist. A knock at the door and a cheerful "Coming!" confirms her suspicion of a voice that never grew up. The door opens to her cheerful blue smile, one constantly rejected in those last days in Canterlot with her roving band of friends. I should've left you! Go away! You should've just stayed away from me!— "Moon Dancer? Are you... I can't believe it! You're here! You're really here! Oh, I can't wait to have everypony else in... Lemon Dancer was supposed to be guarding, you know? And... how did you get here, anyway? Oh, and come in, come in! I want to hear all of it!" The story demolishes all Minuette's mirth. "I just... don't know," Moon says, blubbering over the round table and the fragrance of some basic tea, her throat clogged. "She was... she's fine! I... hope so. It's... she guided me through all this, I would've died if it weren't for her, and what do I get? She just... I don't know, she just—" "Moon Dancer." That arrests her. Minuette, that timely mare who knows how to put in a good word when being bubbly won't cut it. "I know this is difficult. I... don't want to say this to discount her life, but we might have to accept that she's..." "No!" She slams the table to half-stand over her host. "I know she's still alive, and you know it! If she's still alive, she can be saved! Do you understand that? Everything? This chaos pony thing and everything?" Minuette shuffles to look out the window. Her magic gently nudges her friend's hooves away. Her teacup hasn't been touched. "I don't know everything there is to know about them. She told you some, no? Big different chaos sinks, right? Something like that?" "But there has... there has to be a constant. N-no, there is a constant. Something about order... I was able to get out by going out of my way, becoming a stupid warrior of my own… no, wait, remember O&O?" "Oh, Ogres and Oubliettes? I heard the Captain of the Guard played it in his spare time, though how do you know it'll be effective against the chaos?" "It has some order, that's all I know... but it's enough." Snips abound among the grass-cutting and the tool-trading by the marketplace; shelters and makeshift bunkers aren't hard to see from here.. and this table can carry a battle plan, a mess of maps, a lifetime of adventures or cards or items. Enough heads and hooves can dissect this out. Somepony has to try it, ease that burden, anypony but her "I don't want to just sit here and do nothing while she's out there, suffering for who knows how long!" "Moonie, you know how dangerous it is—" "I know! It's... I... I made it out there alive, did the last leg of my trip alive. Maybe..." Minuette pulls out of her chair. "No, Moon, please> Isn't that how Screwball went down?" "If not me, who else?" A dozen ponies till the field outside, half a dozen staff the market, quite a few have donned the improvised armor of these refugee zones. "The soldiers can do something. Maybe we can bring some…?" "Uh, Lemon Hearts and Twinkleshine signed up for it and they're pretty decent—" "Then we can try. How far from Canterlot is this? I don't even know where this place is." Minuette bites her lip. Her eyes scan the sky. "Not too far. There's a working train to the outskirts. It's a little dangerous, but not as bad as how Canterlot's gotten, if what I've heard's true..." "That's something. That's good…" Out from the shelves, Moon magically grabs a pen, a paper, and a spare board game. Dice tumble out onto her table and into her telekinesis. MinusGroggy twilight rays smack through Moon's vision. Not much further now through the mist. Slowly, surely, out the campsite, she surges past fireflies and rocky roads unaffected by patches of chaos predicted to manifest ahead. Fast behind her, Minuette struggles against living weeds and mosquitoes, the tropics not quite in the correct place. Her clothes are a far cry from what's left of the medical field: bows and arrows, a stolen balaclava, and robes intended for her to blend in. "We can finally see it, Minuette! We scout a bit, then we wake everypony else up.... no, there!" At the cliff's edge, concrete chunks float a line into a sliced mountain, the insides gooey like cake. A distorted hanging castle lies upside-down, repeating recordings of announcements to remain calm amid Discord's doings. Cut chunks of houses and shops orbit around wherever, the little rooms they retain a mess of colors and smaller worlds. A tower and its separate floors spin, glued with parts of the Canterlot Library (judging by the columns and the eager flock of book-birds trailing it). "Arcane magics," Moon mutters. She takes a few lists and dice out of her bag, as long as they do not mess with the lute inside, her self-proclaimed bard guitar."We'll definitely have a lot there. Starswirl, Clover the Clever... they lived during Discord's first time—" "It's still crazy! We have a big chance of just messing up and not getting out of this alive and turning into chaos ponies like her!" "We'll bring order to chaos." A few enchanted dice roll in her magic. Chaos contained by improv. I wish. "But Moon, are you... are you sure? We might not..." Moon takes out one more thing, feeling the solid grip of its sturdy wood in her magic: a baseball bat. No modifications, no spells—a simple, ordinary bat made for slugging home runs and getting ponies to run back home. She steps forward, Minuette then running back to tell everyone to come follow: Moon will conquer all for a friend, so let us follow her.
Hear the Sound as Our Hearts Cry Out ForeverRoars don't scare the pitcher under a blinking light: 701-701. Outlaws versus the Extras, and Screw's walk-up music is a simple mix of bongos and trumpets in the most watched game in baseball's history by an audience of sapient random objects, sharks screeching loudly, green monsters dancing on a tall wall, and a dozen mariners stuck on the rooftop, flashing SOS. To the mound she goes: the Original flexes her foreleg, cracking every bone and tendon. A credit to the Outlaws for having her number up on the list. The meanest swing of the hoof, of deceptiveness, knows the ins and outs of the ball. Cut them loose. The Screwball on the other side, the not-her. Nervous, easy to outwit. Her namesake will do: let the ball curve towards her, clockwise like a screw in action. Strike one. Now there's expectation. They share glares. The organist apparently slams all over the keys, unexpectedly reflecting the batter's crazed, paranoid state of mind. Another curving in. Strike two. Still got it. The batter's eyes twitch and sweat. The catcher's desperately signaling any other pitch but that. The enemy knows. Strike three. Was a Screwball. The bleachers go wild, the Outlaws storm the field, dunked by the energy drinks and the chocolate smoothies on tap: the riot of the never-ending game. Deadlocked at 701-701. The bottom of the inning is up next. She heads to the dugout for rest, to wait until she is called up once again, a fact her mates ignore if their constant praise and hoof-bumps are of any indication. That same blinking light blinks again. Seen through the windows, through the ceiling, atomically dim through the cracks—it perseveres for her in the skyline, for her. Past the team, brushing past the lockers and the cafeteria where shepherds commandeer pies and colors-turned-into-jawbreakers. Hot air blasts her in the parking lot, cars and bikes and aircraft sprawled over with guzzling smoke and soap bubbles (a few non-sentient Screwballs pull around horse carriages). Valets and robbers, cops and robbers, sing and dance for her, ask for her autograph, market to her many new forms of fun should the stadium-city expand. Past her projections, she endures the chase after the light until the parking lot and its stadium are demolished from her sight. That bright light casts ever-long shadows against the verdant trees, sparkling up obnoxiously yellow notes pinned or taped onto the trunks—her hoofwriting, telling her that she did plant these things, that there is some unnameable reward where the light reigns. Leaves and shrubs blossom into her colors, into cotton candy with copious lavenders. Into the center, into the light—warm as lava, comforting as acid—a-swirling comes the box from which that illumination is born. Burning hooves grab hold of the cheap fabric covering a crown, letters spelling out A DAUGHTER. It's not to be worn. The jewels aren't jewels, for they are images: she herself lies front and center. The silhouettes that encircle her likeness say her name, ghosts given life somewhere a thousand miles back. One liked turtles. Some smelled like lemonade and freshly cut grass. A fonder one wore glasses. To clutch it tighter, the wooden frame and picture still within, still brown and graying and colorful in all the right ways. She shrieks her soul into it, daring to crack the crown in her impossible grip, until the hours pass when she is taken kicking and screaming back to the ball game. I do care if I ever get back.
Reality DeprivedTo bring this friendless unicorn home is the last mission for Screwball the guide, and home is through the blinking scarlet beacon hanging in the horizon. That broken-hearted Moon Dancer's tears splotch the forest's checkerboarded grass. Stories burdened her, those of life in her ivory tower, of libraries and portals crashing down when the realization hit her that her halls had housed a single soul, that the few friends she retained (she'd sworn she never deserved them) knocked on her door constantly, expecting an answer that would never come. To the red light, Moon must go. Their hoofsteps crumple through pages scattered from Screw's previous journey, a paper trail interrogating its writer, masquerading as her notes. Can you name the princesses of Equestria? What is your birthday? How many hooves do you have? Name several baseball pitches. The correct answers fill every straight blank. Moon asks about it, once she's recovered from her stupor. "Sanity check," is the reply, her guide's eyes faintly alight by the beacon in the sky. Past the light, she says, is refuge, marked on a small map and a few sticky-noted directions: Amare Refugee Zone, some distance away from Canterlot, a cozy commune, a shelter from the elements. "I know the place... sort of," Screwball says. "We'll just have to keep following the light there, and we'll be home." Moon is then quick to list off names: Minuette, Lyra, Lemon Hearts... lemon, lemonade on a sunny day back in Short Stop, back home. Root, root for the home team...! A bunch of lemonade and a long line to lead off a game between towns right out of the park— "Oh, is that... chocolate?" Moon asks, her horn already on against a sudden mist, like a flashlight. Babbling water announces a brown-as-mud creek, thick like goo, where strawberry-smelling lily pads fly by and pile up against a boat with Screwball's name painted all over it. It's rigged to a licorice pier. On the boat, after securing seatbelts and oars with baseball decals everywhere and checking the treasure chest to see if an actual baseball bat is still there, "You do this, Screwball, in spite of all the danger? I... how are you making it safe for yourself?" "Trust me." Another paddle is given, and a push of an oar sets them off on a cocoa trip. Trees slowly speed by their vision, giving birth to candy corn. "Won't you get infected by the magic?" Hooves dance and whir in slow motion, paddling and paddling. Nice and slow, relaxing and easy. All ordered up. Just ignore the crazy sky and the mushrooms gaining eyes on the hills, watching them. "A bit. It's a risk." So they sit, drifting forward and toward the light, row by row. "So... uh, Screwball. How does it feel?" The words halt over a gate of love, marble swans pecking each other from afar. The look in Moon's eyes gives paranoia a good name. Her horn fizzles and sparkles in self-defense. Sometimes. Screwball turns away from the rainbow birds spying on her from the trees. "Trippy." Their leaves smell of lemonade, something to refresh her from all the chocolate underneath. "You learn to ignore it." A couple in the grass watch them, eyes glowing like neon signs, pupils turning into advertising arrows to the wrong ways on the next fork in the river. Moon swivels to avoid eye contact with more lurking alien creatures. It's only the river that makes a sound. "I've heard stories." An easeled painting of a village and a ballpark fades into a passing hill. "What stories?" "I've... no, forget stories. I've seen one in action." The awkwardness is thick enough to cut with a knife. She examines her host all strangely. The smile is a decent attempt. "He hung around. Didn't really bother me. Probably didn't know I was even there. All he talked about was sofas and ballpens. Other things were happening around him, but every half minute, maybe, he'd return to that topic. It's his obsession, like some demented Ogres and Oubliettes dungeon master inserted a pet character into her adventure." "Not all of them are like that," says Screwball, snippy and quick. A glow steals her attention on her hoof: another note. The questions are the same. Born this time, born in Short Stop, Celestia and Luna. Another flash and it's away from her hoof: translucent silhouettes pop from a bush, stumbling over backwards, keeping pace with their boat. "Nothing dangerous," Screwball lies, hopes it's true (assuage Moon Dancer, please). The cutie marks on the shadows’ flanks coalesce into hers and another's, a bunch of turtles. Moon opens her mouth—"Talked a lot about his family," Screw says. "Used to surf here and there. Talked about going home near the beach of the mighty Celestial Ocean." So you're gonna stop now, Miss Screwball? Hopefully! Also, stop calling me Miss! I don't think I'm that much older than you! Eh-heh, no problem! Just stay safe okay?... This is it, huh? She mouths the words in reverse, knowingly. "It's a good sign," goes another lie. When the waterfall ahead makes its presence known, the lie may be easier to bear. Tendrils of chaotic wisps dart past from behind her, scouting out the expanse, ripping apart conspicuous clouds to uncover the concrete monolith that is a spindly statue of a mish-mashed dragon-horse, sword and baseball kilometers-wide aimed straight at them: a guardian against their saving light. Far behind it, that faint red flicker persists when they fall and scream down the cliff, the only way forward. What is your name? Screwball. Who are you? Screwball. Where do you live? Short Stop. What is the color of the sky? Pink. Hopefully it'll get bluer, brighter. So the papers fly.
One FantasyTo topple that god of stone, she throws the rope high in the air for the nth time, which Screwball catches in the whirlwind from which Moon Dancer zips away, flying on baseball bats and oars, all while Moon's tethered to the boat by rope that's miles long. Flee, commit to the hit-and-run, let Screwball do the real damage—Amare, Minuette—I should've closed the door on you ages ago! "No, Moon! We... we still need you!" You should've just left me alone! Twilight's already left me... why don't you just leave me alone?! "We won't!"—Knockeddoors blasted open; a crimson sky thundered with each of her friends' arrivals. The statue's untamed tendrils wake her up from the daydream. Moon Dancer zips away, the latest act in the hour-long chase, of laser rays and floating rivers and backwards floods that were probably lava or acid, Screwball always lunging in just in time with a bat to save... Adrenaline-frenzied Moon grasps a fallen rope, hanging on to Screwball by the barrel. "You have to shout at it or something!" Screwball yells, flying and spinning the rope 'round the monster's claw. "Give it... uh, a story or something!" "What?! Since when did this become lit class?!" Screams of vegetable bats strike with seeds and pellets, terror from below in the windy skies. Her rummaging through sticky-notes and balloons in a treasure chest don't stop Screwball from shouting, "Just find something!" Then a baseball bat is in Moon's hooves. She rope-swings onto a tree for momentum, Screwball as another fulcrum (shouting "Dodge!") into flying platforms for Moon to gallop across (her heart beats, races, pumps like an engine), beams firing from Screwball's eyes from the past few minutes to get its attention—every muscle on Moon burns, tiring and toiling; blurry eyes rest on sweaty, foggy glasses—a stone statue ready to crush her so easily. That face faces hers. You'll make for good prey. Eyes lock and the world melts. Keys to the kingdom are given to her in several envelopes, printed with FREEDOM, REALITY. (They are not weapons; the baseball in her magic is tangible, is real, can make the statue-monster bleed.) I know you hurt. You are far in deep. Your friends are occupied, hm? So— "Come on! Want to get me! Then get me! I'm right here, right here!" Eyes unlock to watch Screwball. She's diving straight into the statue's line of fire. "What are you doing?!" "On me!" A tap of the hoof, and Moon's baseball in her horn's grip. The message, understood. Two swings—of Screwball's hooves, of Moon Dancer's magic—sink their bats deep into the statue: chaotic rainbows pulse and spill out, hooves slipping, of everything, of random minds, jumblings of the head—all of you are trapped, join the chaos, the chorus— The electricity explodes to kill the hisses, the voices. So white-hot white is her world. Transparent is the maze in her eyes and the fear within, yelling at her to leave now, while order still has a hoofhold. Curse lateral thinking! What was a rule, and wasn't this a baseball position? The pencil's ink bleeds out. You know what to do. Or try to do. The clump of smoke cannot suffocate the red light; the fog is shattered in its incessant blinking. In her magic, Moon is thrown into the wind like caution (caution is a mare she sees). A hat on her head is enough to get her flying forever, give her enough power to radiate like a thousand suns, never to burn out. Never went to the fashion store before; never had a hat on her before like this, tiny helicopter she is now (what is a helicopter). The world flickers but for that red light. Pain inconceivable surges through all her life, slumped and crashed against the boat, unending dust, scraping her clean were it not for the rivers shielding her from the worst of the blast. The oar she still holds in her magic; the rest of her belongings, still intact, still in shape, still waiting for the sky to gift her Screwball. Her hooves find purchase on moist grassland. They recognize they're still on a boat albeit turned over. Get the wetness off her clothes, then a pink flicker flies against the red. Pink like her. "Screwball, wait! D-don't leave!" Out the boat—vines lash out at her, wrangle her oars away, left with just a bat, no problem. Cicadas chitter, mimicking circus music—the air, fizzy like cola—they won't stop her. The red beacon and its promised exit lies yet beyond. That and Screwball. The thicket morphs into spikes and ash-gray mazes where the smoke chokes, the fog proceeding with Screwball’s cumbersome bags and bats being her burden. That bleeding light persists, her salvation, a door ready for her in the green wilderness. FIRE EXIT, it proclaims as a treatise of hope and home. The little streets, her little family within reach, that reach that pinkened the grass its hooves hover over. Flowers dance behind the door. They sing of Short Stop. Lemon flowers, lemon trees, lemonade stands proudly stand, saluting her return. Pristine skies kiss gardens and dirt patches alike, the road ahead graced with dugouts as far as the eye can see. A boat lay at the end. It and him. No... n-no, no! Not you! I'm… His claw taps on the rim of the boat. "Good job, Screwball," drawls out the mad creature. Graying monstrosity, laying bare a colorful checkerboarded suit, he is that statue incarnate. (His survivors might've escaped. Just haven't come public yet with how they survived.) "Your reputation precedes you." Walls fence the river off. How she got into the boat already—a paw redirects her eyes back to the babbling, cackling, crackling river. "Should've just left her alone." Moon Dancer, left dying in his pond of unreality, joining the chaos, singing their brazen song—not like this. Not how it should've died, not how she should've gone. Should've been Screw, should've been her, she's already here— "Virgil would've been proud, little Screwie." Waves charge the canoe into blazing oil vats, the air as hot as a million stars; the sweat chills her forehead, tastes of mint. The winds come with screams and advertisements for the latest cotton candy—a madhouse already! The hairs on her mane stand on end—Discord splays open a claw, lifting a telescope, and a twist unblurs a floating island hidden ahead. "You took them through the depths safe and sound, intact. That's admirable. You deserve a good rest more than most, hmm?" Resist. "Your little cutie mark can mean so much, but oh, isn't it funny? Miss Screwball? You do know what else it means, right?" His paw unfolds into a ball and screw: her pitch's namesake. Juking. Out of left field. Back into her hoofside. How it tricks, swerves away from the target. A swing of her hoof at him. And a miss, and almost falling over the boat, how she put the weight of her body and soul into that would-be punch. Ball and screw are embedded in her eyes, in the reflection. Her life doesn't flash: the sky warms her like an oven, the crowd cheers with their popcorn popping. They ask her play ball, and the answer is how high. The sportball materializes in her hooves, laid there and laid bare. 20/20 vision has her zoom into the red stitches, into a red-tinted stadium, into herself standing on the mound: back here, with Discord and the crowd, all a tinge more crimson. Madder—mad at her(self), mad at him, how she can set her hoof against his world, against the audience occupying his bleachers— "You hope that it'll just be a snap, hm?" He does snap. Nothing happens. The crowd's chants drown the world out. "I know you. A sliver and a glimmer of hope that maybe you wouldn't be around when they see you. There's a glimpse of your friends and family hanging out somewhere. Oh, you'll complain and whine against it when they see you, ask them to set you free. They won't know, though, hm? Then the monster becomes real, and that monster shall be your legacy forever, Screwball." His chuckle is the cherry on top. I am more than this! she shouts and will be nothing else, stripped to the bare bones—her cutie mark this, cutie mark that, so must it be, carpenter-pitcher. Discord melts into the grass, the spotlights, the stadium, the boat itself. The damp smell of freshly mowed grass wafts into the backdrops imitating the sky, as canned as the PA announcements for an imaginary MVP. Pink dots blossom into little Screwballs that grow into her size, surrounding her in a natural hug machine, offering baseball bats and baseballs and a couple of screws for her to autograph. "No, get away!"—"Take this!"—"No, please!" so she runs, gallops away—"We're you! We'll always be with you! We're friends!"—"Here, something to redecorate your home with!" Everyone chants her name in every color of the spectrum, sending love letters (you are not alone). Her crew of screws varnish the timber and the rest of the venue. Shovels thrive in the grass: so they dig, the pallbearers being herselves, watching her tomb, inviting her with their swirling eyes. Disempowered, broken and the lights come in, her little sunrise, so the world twists and rotates. She sinks beyond the soil, one with the stadium, the sport. It fizzles and pops in her mouth like exploding lemons. A tinge of the moon goes awash in the fallout.
ManichaeismA groggy Moon wakes up sopping wet. Green blades swirl into royal purples, into a door frame, smelling of the ocean sea, closer to home in the wake of a thousand-light flash and a hurtle through space... The door to safety. The red light. The exit. Hooves catapult her to the end, ever closer, edges of ecstasy at the exit against the muscles whining that she stop, rest— An earthquake and a land of bricks ascends to blot out the sky. Keep running, it'll break— "I know you." Rustling from trees' shadows reveals the warbled voice-speaker: wheeled around on empty bleachers, other Screwballs in pinstripes and caps walking hoof-in-hoof with her behind the cornfields. Her cutie mark is plastered all over their uniforms. A ghost of a stadium unravels from reality's folds; out of a giant catcher's glove, pop goes Screw. It's his obsession. The stairs lead to the top, a way out the stadium. Moon dashes like mad, twisting her body with every whoosh of a fastball she hears clipping her mane. Up the stairs, magic straining the benches to her inch by inch— "Get back here, you traitor!" An eternity here, collapsing and lapsing and relapsing: the only response to that is to recoil. Amare, home, familiar faces, a refuge and her strength, though the strength in her legs may fail, may slip— "Why not stay here?!" Bats form gates that Moon bowls through—a clunk!, the stadium's roof closes, her hoof centimeters away from being chopped. "Why try so hard to get to your old friends when they're so far away? When you have me? You know you can't escape, but it's not so bad when you have someone by your side!" Screwball extends a hoof, and the tears fall up—how she materializes before her! The applause is warm like a fireplace the size of a forest fire, singing (over a love cam) that they be happy together. The swirls in her eyes tell a different story. Her smirk drips salted tears (she can smell the ocean in her breath). Over eons of de-creature-fying, of Moon Dancer just talking about books or board games until it cannot be contained, until it spreads, until her mind—crushed into automatic mush. The audience swells, the organ player crescendos—a split-second dream: her names, familiar faces, a vague but sure direction of home. Of normalcy. Of better. Of friends. Anywhere but here. So she throws a bat at Screwball. "Taking after me so quickly, Moonie! How delightful!" Bats and balls, Moon Dancer has thrown aplenty. Ignore, ignore: hit Screw with a decent pitch, propeller hat still there to topple, taunting her with its own devilish smiley. Hoofprints scar the field, scratched by Moon's own frogs which are caked with mud and another ball. Her torn sweater resembles a tattered cloak, her bags splayed with emptied patched-up pockets; the sweat drags her down, heavy as an empire. "Oh, so that's how you want it? That's how you'll treat me?" Eyes turn like puppies'; Moon whimpers, rolls all over, collecting more putrid dirt. "A little character in some tabletop game?" Screwball curls around her, a hoof ghostly a claw or a paw in a sudden teleport—"You'll just throw me away? After all the time we've been through? After—" "I don't even know who you are!" And another bat to Screw's face. The crowds have long gone from the bloodsport. She strings hit after hit—home is home, safety is safety, just please let me go, Screwball, don't... just one more— A crueler Twilight, deeper in the scars. Revulsion drags her hoof back. It turns off her magic, drops her bat off. Screw's barely battered face still swirls. Looking up, it resembles a sinkhole. Where are you, Screw—"I will not do this to you!" Moon shouts. "Not if it means hurting or... or killing you!" The waves manage a grin, and the bats go silent. Floodlights deactivate, save for one for dramatic effect. "What, you're gonna let me flounder here?!" An army of a thousand bats and balls pollute the horizon, tinged with the color of her swirl-pool eyes— Every bat, Moon dodges. She hasn't exercised in so long (lucky her, metabolism has always been high). Don't think—run, dodge, live. Between her and the end of the stadium, at the end of the hall of fame, down a steel corridor, up the final set of bleachers—Screwball, at the pinnacle, blocks her with a brick wall of her own to declare, "You! Will! Be! With! Me! Right here, in paradise!... forever!" A throw when she isn't looking, where she isn't looking, wishing for the perfect aim. A loose brick shakes the earth. A depleted Screwball falls. The walls disintegrate into ash. Disembodied signs shout WE <3 YOU SCREWIE! Home free for Moon, the sun catching Screwball in the light like a vampire (she hisses): the dying face of Moon's first light snarls, snaps at her as a dog: You are Twilight, abandoning me! Look at what she did to you!—"No! You sick mare! How horrible of a friend are you! You don't even feel sorry!" Moon's legs lie limp upon her, so short in life with her guide. An hour or two, maybe—"I do! But I promise..." A howl blasts against her mane, her muzzle, like a great hurricane. Moon smacks Screw down on the cheek. Crimson swells there, her attacker's damning imprint. Moon Dancer falls with her, abandoning her weapon and her chances to leave, her body withered between two fates, eternally green astroturf or freedom, backdropped by Screwball's ugly sobbing. Her tears are crystals, reflecting the real world's sunshine. Outside, that's where that genuine sunlight reigns. Twilight never came back. "I'll... come back. For you." Moon’s words ring hollow to herself. "Hah, and why? What'll they ever do? How do I trust you, you backstabbing—? "Enough. I'll... I'll just go... but I'll be back... just... hang on..." Just like Twilight. A plan. She must've had a plan... Not now. Not when a second’s delay can kill her. Like a yearning to hug. To tell her everything will be okay. To resist, to not get caught up there. To not get infected. Her legs battle an inferno of her nerves. They gallop across the threshold, force a pop like a soap bubble. When Moon turns back, there's no broken wall, there's no hint of a wall or a forest or a stadium or her friend. The gusts carry the delicious smell of unending corn fields, fencing off a dirt road and a sign whose crudely painted words spell out, Help Here. An arrow points to the closest house over. Behind her, so close to the chaos, so close to Screwball. She madly stabs at the air, feeling no wall, no stadium, no old friend's presence.
The Only World We KnowA few ranches exude hospitality and hide rumors. Directions lay within, to the forests of Amare where bears, poisonous fruits, and the occasional dragon she welcomes for how normal they are. A trail carved out with near imperceptible traces of more signs guides her to a guard who turned the trunk of a tree into a cozy outpost of sorts, asking questions and casting detection spells to root out those contaminated with unusual magic. She'll be safe behind the leaves, he claims. Homes jut out from carved oaks and conifers, reeking of nuts and mint. Disparate patches of fertile soil show themselves by their diverse farmers; even unicorns joined in the fray, magic meshing with the mush and the mud. Fanged ponies, too, with wings like gargoyles lurk with eyes that glow, blades and scythes hanging from their barrels, jealously guarding a map of other nearby refuges. A wooden tooth sign catches her eye among the myriad of treehouses: local dentist. A knock at the door and a cheerful "Coming!" confirms her suspicion of a voice that never grew up. The door opens to her cheerful blue smile, one constantly rejected in those last days in Canterlot with her roving band of friends. I should've left you! Go away! You should've just stayed away from me!— "Moon Dancer? Are you... I can't believe it! You're here! You're really here! Oh, I can't wait to have everypony else in... Lemon Dancer was supposed to be guarding, you know? And... how did you get here, anyway? Oh, and come in, come in! I want to hear all of it!" The story demolishes all Minuette's mirth. "I just... don't know," Moon says, blubbering over the round table and the fragrance of some basic tea, her throat clogged. "She was... she's fine! I... hope so. It's... she guided me through all this, I would've died if it weren't for her, and what do I get? She just... I don't know, she just—" "Moon Dancer." That arrests her. Minuette, that timely mare who knows how to put in a good word when being bubbly won't cut it. "I know this is difficult. I... don't want to say this to discount her life, but we might have to accept that she's..." "No!" She slams the table to half-stand over her host. "I know she's still alive, and you know it! If she's still alive, she can be saved! Do you understand that? Everything? This chaos pony thing and everything?" Minuette shuffles to look out the window. Her magic gently nudges her friend's hooves away. Her teacup hasn't been touched. "I don't know everything there is to know about them. She told you some, no? Big different chaos sinks, right? Something like that?" "But there has... there has to be a constant. N-no, there is a constant. Something about order... I was able to get out by going out of my way, becoming a stupid warrior of my own… no, wait, remember O&O?" "Oh, Ogres and Oubliettes? I heard the Captain of the Guard played it in his spare time, though how do you know it'll be effective against the chaos?" "It has some order, that's all I know... but it's enough." Snips abound among the grass-cutting and the tool-trading by the marketplace; shelters and makeshift bunkers aren't hard to see from here.. and this table can carry a battle plan, a mess of maps, a lifetime of adventures or cards or items. Enough heads and hooves can dissect this out. Somepony has to try it, ease that burden, anypony but her "I don't want to just sit here and do nothing while she's out there, suffering for who knows how long!" "Moonie, you know how dangerous it is—" "I know! It's... I... I made it out there alive, did the last leg of my trip alive. Maybe..." Minuette pulls out of her chair. "No, Moon, please> Isn't that how Screwball went down?" "If not me, who else?" A dozen ponies till the field outside, half a dozen staff the market, quite a few have donned the improvised armor of these refugee zones. "The soldiers can do something. Maybe we can bring some…?" "Uh, Lemon Hearts and Twinkleshine signed up for it and they're pretty decent—" "Then we can try. How far from Canterlot is this? I don't even know where this place is." Minuette bites her lip. Her eyes scan the sky. "Not too far. There's a working train to the outskirts. It's a little dangerous, but not as bad as how Canterlot's gotten, if what I've heard's true..." "That's something. That's good…" Out from the shelves, Moon magically grabs a pen, a paper, and a spare board game. Dice tumble out onto her table and into her telekinesis.
MinusGroggy twilight rays smack through Moon's vision. Not much further now through the mist. Slowly, surely, out the campsite, she surges past fireflies and rocky roads unaffected by patches of chaos predicted to manifest ahead. Fast behind her, Minuette struggles against living weeds and mosquitoes, the tropics not quite in the correct place. Her clothes are a far cry from what's left of the medical field: bows and arrows, a stolen balaclava, and robes intended for her to blend in. "We can finally see it, Minuette! We scout a bit, then we wake everypony else up.... no, there!" At the cliff's edge, concrete chunks float a line into a sliced mountain, the insides gooey like cake. A distorted hanging castle lies upside-down, repeating recordings of announcements to remain calm amid Discord's doings. Cut chunks of houses and shops orbit around wherever, the little rooms they retain a mess of colors and smaller worlds. A tower and its separate floors spin, glued with parts of the Canterlot Library (judging by the columns and the eager flock of book-birds trailing it). "Arcane magics," Moon mutters. She takes a few lists and dice out of her bag, as long as they do not mess with the lute inside, her self-proclaimed bard guitar."We'll definitely have a lot there. Starswirl, Clover the Clever... they lived during Discord's first time—" "It's still crazy! We have a big chance of just messing up and not getting out of this alive and turning into chaos ponies like her!" "We'll bring order to chaos." A few enchanted dice roll in her magic. Chaos contained by improv. I wish. "But Moon, are you... are you sure? We might not..." Moon takes out one more thing, feeling the solid grip of its sturdy wood in her magic: a baseball bat. No modifications, no spells—a simple, ordinary bat made for slugging home runs and getting ponies to run back home. She steps forward, Minuette then running back to tell everyone to come follow: Moon will conquer all for a friend, so let us follow her.
