“…Dead?”
Rarity wasn’t sure who had said that. It didn’t matter – the meaning was more or less the same regardless of who it had come from.
Applejack nodded. “Through the chest, out the back of the neck.”
Silence filled the Thieves’ Guild.
Twilight turned to Rainbow. “…What do we do now?”
“G-give me a second to think…” Rainbow muttered.
“What normally happens?”
“Normally I’d just replace her with myself! But that’s apparently not how it works here, the Runes didn’t respond to me!” Rainbow bit her lip. “She was the one. There’s… there’s a chance the Element passed to another pony, but I don’t know how we’d figure that out.”
Twilight twitched. “But this was a prophecy! Destiny and everything!”
“Yeah! It was! You know the funny thing about multiversal travel? When we arrive we can completely ruin any destiny or prophecies just by waving our wings around wrong!” She swallowed hard. “Sometimes that’s a good thing. But here… either the Starcross or I did something that told Rx’len he needed to stop the Elements of Harmony. He went after the Blue Bolt. And he got her. Specifically to stop us from getting a full set.”
“So we use five out of six!”
“Doesn’t work like that! We need her. Even if I knew the revive spell, which I don’t, that only has a fifty percent chance of working anyway! The other option is time travel. You know how to do that, Empress?”
Twilight frowned. “Backwards time travel is impossible.”
“In a lot of universes, yeah. No idea if that’s the case here.”
“I don’t even know what time travel is,” Auburn said.
“So that’s a probably not,” Rainbow sighed. “Well, there goes our trump card. Magic McGuffin solution, poof.”
Twilight shook her head. “Then we go to war. I organize the fleet of the galaxy and charge into the center of the planet. We smash Rx’len by force.”
“If it wasn’t so busy with the Runes it could snap its fingers and destroy the universe. Can you do that? Even with all the power in Unity?”
“I… I don’t know.”
“Then that’s probably not going to work.”
“We’ve got other worlds. Surely there’s something…”
Rainbow sat down and sighed. “Maybe? I have no idea what it would be, though. The Elements were what was intended to defeat Rx’len. That was the end of Rarity’s journey. The victory.”
“Maybe the Starcross Society.”
“Do I need to tell you why that’s stupid?”
Twilight sighed. “No. They’d blow up the planet, at least. That’s unacceptable.”
“Yeah. So…” Rainbow frowned. “Anypony have any ideas?”
The Thieves looked back and forth among each other before shaking their heads. None of them had any idea. Twilight was racking her brain, getting redder and redder the more she didn’t come up with anything.
“So it’s hopeless,” Rarity said, drawing all attention to her. She held her head high and kept her jaw straight. “So what?”
“…Huh?” Twilight cocked her head in confusion.
“I said, so what?” She found herself a wooden cube that looked like it was folding in on itself, resting her front hooves on it. “Yep. There’s no hope. The worlds are doomed. We can’t do anything about it.”
“Rarity…” Rainbow began – only to be shut up by a steely glare from Rarity.
“We had one chance, and before we even got to try it, it fell apart because our enemies were clever. Mistakes were made, mistakes some of us might not even realize. So why don’t we just give up?”
She noticed everypony shifting around uncomfortably. Good.
“Feels wrong, doesn’t it?” She lowered her head, hiding her face. “Feels like there’s a suffocating darkness closing itself around your heart, clawing, tearing, and shaking it. But your heart refuses to take the easy route. It won’t give in, for that’s wrong.” She slammed her hoof on the box. “There. Is. No. Hope. But that doesn’t mean you stop.”
Of the crowd of ponies, only Rainbow seemed to understand so far.
“The world is against you. The very fabric of our lives have been weaved toward the will of this demonic presence that lives in a place so distant our nightmares don’t even go there. Some of us have gotten to experience endless success…” She gestured to Twilight. “Some of us have stuck out a claim despite it all…” She gestured to Auburn. “And some of us have been run into the dirt so much we should be dead.” She forced herself not to cry. “But we live anyway.”
Twilight’s confused look was replaced with one of pained pity. A few of the Thieves seemed to be coming round, nodding to themselves. She saw a few ponies wiping their eyes already.
“But do you know what happens when you stop and give in to the darkness? You may not die. In fact, you may be cursed to live. But the world dies. You know you can’t win, you know that trying will only hurt – but you know what else we know?” She stamped her hoof. “Refusing to try is no better than actively destroying it yourself. So yes, death is inevitable, failure will come. But you go on anyway. Not because you expect to win. If you need victory at the end of the tunnel, you’re going to be sorely disappointed. You go on because not just isn’t worth thinking about.”
She jumped up onto the box with all four of her hooves. “So here’s what we’re going to do. We are going to find the other ponies who should have been the Elements. We are going to collect everything we have together. And then we are going to wander these universes, looking in every nook and cranny we can for something, anything, that might help. And you know what, we’ll probably never find anything that can kill Rx’len with the clap of a hoof. But it won’t be able to ignore us. It can’t afford to.”
With a deep breath, she tossed her mane back. “So, yeah, it’s hopeless and the world wants to see you fail. I could have told you that years ago. But we don’t stop. We never stop. We keep walking until our bodies give out and then we drag ourselves along the ground.”
“And maybe, just maybe… we’ll get lucky,” Rainbow said, putting a hoof on Rarity’s leg.
Rarity looked at her in shock. She was about to say something demeaning, but the Thieves erupted into shouts before she could.
Twilight walked up, leaning down to whisper into Rarity’s ear. “For somebody who claims not to have hope, you sure have a way of inspiring it in others.”
Rarity waved a dismissive hoof at Twilight. “It’s just my life.”
“Somehow both depressing and invigorating. You’re a nice little paradox.”
Rarity allowed the slightest of smiles to cross her face. Paradox, huh?
Twilight’s horn started glowing. “Oop! That’s the Unity Helix! ‘Scuse me… yep. Got it. Wait, it’s that simple? Well, you’ve been proven smarter than me once again, the student becomes the master. …I have not said that a lot! ...Hey, no fair, you have perfect memory. Bah.”
“…This is very weird,” Auburn whispered to Rarity.
“I saw a filly that became a floating eyeball create a firework that went to the sky.”
Auburn looked at her in shock.
Rainbow coughed. “Yes, she’s serious, though she’s leaving out some important details.”
Twilight was still talking to the Unity Helix. “Right… Contact us in the other universe then.” She tilted her head and her magic went off. “So. Those of us at Twilight Sparkle scientific solutions have discovered a simple solution to dimensional travel! I had been making the false assumption that whatever universe you were in at the time would be the center of dimensional transition. That’s not how it works in this little hub of ours!”
She cast a spell, creating six orbs, each representing a different universe. “The Crystal Sea is the center world, and all dimensional travel comes from it. Using magic connections to the Elements, we found my world, the world of monsters, and this world.” She moved three of the bubbles around the centermost world. “The Unity Helix found a direct connection between my world and this world, allowing the discovery of the cycle.” She arranged the five outer worlds in a circle: Twilight’s, New Alice City, Pinkie’s, the Mesh, Fluttershy’s, back to Twilight’s. “All of this requires using the Crystal Sea as the center of the pivot to make the correct adjustments. To demonstrate… observe.” She pointed her horn and ripped a portal directly to Pinkie’s world.
“Huh. It’s dark over there now,” Auburn observed.
“Most worlds have night and day,” Rainbow explained. “Uh, a time of light, and a time of dark.”
Auburn nodded in understanding.
“And congrats Twi! You’re discovering the basics of dimensional connection theory!” Rainbow rubbed the back of her head. “Which I never bothered to learn.”
Rarity rolled her eyes. “Auburn, prepare your Thieves, we may call on you soon. Girls… let’s move out.”
Applejack jumped through first, Rarity, Twilight, and Rainbow following. The portal closed behind them with a pop.
Rarity heard a cricket chirp.
I haven’t heard that noise since childhood.
Rainbow coughed. “So, Applejack – Tower’s cornerstone, it feels so good to say your full name – where are they?”
Applejack blinked. “…I have no idea.”
Twilight chuckled. “Watch and learn…” She lit her horn and cast a spell. “Fluttershy and her armor are about two miles that direction… given the strength of her magic, I’d say she’s sleeping.”
“Sleeping.” Rarity looked up at the night sky. “That… makes sense. Perhaps we should sleep as well… Waking her up would be very rude.”
“Sleep where?” Applejack asked.
“This looks like a pretty standard Earthlike city,” Rainbow said. “Just find a hotel.”
“Hotel…?”
“A place you pay to sleep in,” Rarity explained.
“Huh. Don’t think we have any money.”
“Oh, we don’t,” Rainbow smirked. “But there are always ways to get money. Especially when you have uber-magic-alicorn!”
Twilight put an innocent wing to her face. “Who, me?”
“Yeah! There are any number of ways we could make quick cash, or make ponies think we had cash, or-“
“AUGH!” a pony walking by shouted. He had just been out on a simple brisk night walk, and suddenly he was staring into the face of a purple monster with stars in her hair. “WITCHCRAFT!” He scrambled away as fast as his hooves could take him.
“…Might want to put that disguise back on,” Applejack suggested.
“Right…” Twilight cast a spell, turning herself into a rather unremarkable purple unicorn.
“I should learn that trick to remove my horn,” Rarity commented.
“I’ll teach you sometime,” Twilight offered. “You have the power to pull it off.”
Rainbow pulled her wings back. “All right girls… time for a night on the town. C’mon.”
“Oooh, I like the sounds of that!” Twilight clapped her hooves together. “Dare I say… a party?”
“I thought we were supposed to get some sleep?” Applejack asked.
Rainbow chuckled. “Loosen up AJ, we can have some fun grabbing our cash. Plus, I can show you the weird stuff Earthlike worlds tend to have. Exhibit A: Cars.”
HONK!
Rarity winced as the car flew by. “I think I prefer the… cars of the city.”
“I mean, yeah, these are noisier… But here you can actually use them to get around!”
“Or we could teleport.” Twilight said, teleporting them across the street. A few ponies screamed in terror as they appeared. “Oooor not. Yeah, that’s right, Pinkie freaked out at my magic when we first met… thought I’d sold my soul or something to get it.”
“Oh.” Rainbow blinked. “Ooooooh I always forget about that!” She facehooved. “Yeah, explicit magic probably isn’t that good. Tends to get the government on your case or a mob. Both generally suck.”
“They’re holding rectangles at us…” Applejack muttered.
“Phones,” Twilight said. “They’re called phones. They take pictures of what’s happening so other people can see them.”
“It sounds like we’re making a scene rather than money,” Rarity chided.
“True…” Rainbow scratched her chin. “Hey. Twilight. Want to earn it legitimately or illegally?”
“Which way is more fun?” Twilight asked.
“Illegally.”
“Then duh.”
“Going against the machine isn’t a good idea…” Applejack cautioned.
Rarity put a hoof on Applejack’s shoulder. “Let them have their fun. This will either go perfectly or explode horribly in their faces.” For her part, Rarity was just enjoying the sight of ponies that didn’t look as though their lives were horrible or in danger. It was refreshing.
And not as bizarre as New Alice City.
“See that brown thing that guy’s holding?” Rainbow said.
“That’s a wallet,” Twilight deadpanned.
“Oh. Right, you know what those are… so, here’s what you’re gonna do…” Rainbow whispered in her ear.
Twilight’s grin began to widen the longer Rainbow kept talking. “Heh. That’s going to confuse them so, so much…”
“Can you do it?”
“You bet I can!” Twilight lit her horn and created a small wooden crate on the ground – prompting the crowd to gasp. “Hey! Who wants to see a magic trick?”
Rarity facehooved. Applejack just looked nervous.
“Uh… sure.” A green stallion said, holding up his phone in his hoof.
“Great!” Twilight teleported his wallet to her, holding it in her telekinesis.
“Wh…” He reached for his pockets, surprised to find that he still had his wallet. “What the…?”
Twilight opened the wallet she had, rising an eyebrow. “Sandy Shores? Interesting name. Let’s see what you’ve got in here. Wow! Pictures of several real cute mares. In socks nonetheless!”
Sandy Shores flushed, as did Rarity.
Applejack blinked. “I think I’m missing something. What do socks have to do with anything?”
“Some pony universes consider them risqué. Some don’t.” Rainbow shrugged. “It makes for some really interesting moments when a pony from universe B walks around universe A in nothing but socks like it’s completely normal.”
“…You’ve worn socks just to mess with them, haven’t you?”
“YEP!”
Rarity was still trying to process how socks could be taken in a way that wasn’t risqué. They were socks for crying out loud!
Twilight folded up the wallet and stuck it in her mane. “Okay, guess that’s that…”
“Hey!” Sandy shouted. “That’s-“
“You still have your wallet, don’t you?” Twilight asked.
“Er… yeah…”
“Then what exactly are you accusing me of? Stealing?”
Sandy Shores rubbed his head. “I… What?”
Twilight smirked, suddenly teleporting several dozen wallets to her. “I wonder whose these are… Aha! Bit Torrent and Chrome, your wallets are a matching set!”
The two strangely named ponies pulled out their wallets – and realized they had each other’s wallet.
“Also, let’s see… all right, who had the gold flake wallet with built-in watch?” She flipped open the gaudy wallet. “Beyond Rich. …This is an absurd amount of money to be carrying around in your wallet, sir.”
“Glad you appreciate it,” the golden stallion said with a smirk.
“Oh, I will…” Twilight chuckled. “And now, for my final trick, I will make me and my friends disappear!”
They teleported back into the park with a ton of duplicated wallets.
“Heh. I love it when it’s easy,” Rainbow chuckled. “Usually when I’m alone I make some clever bets and swindle a few ponies. …Or I just order some counterfeit from higher-up, but we can’t exactly do that right now.”
Applejack rubbed her head. “Your job seems contradictory at times.”
“Yep! It is! That’s kinda why I like it!”
Twilight nudged Rarity. “That’d suit you well.”
Rarity rolled her eyes. “Well enough, I suppose…”
“ANYWAY!” Rainbow rubbed her hooves together. “We can probably afford a room in the nicest hotel in the city now. We’re taking it. The best baths money can buy, a complimentary breakfast fit for kings, do it yourself spa treatment…”
Applejack frowned. “Why am I getting a sinking feeling?”
“Because Rarity is grinning,” Twilight said, shocked.
Rarity giggled. “Oh, no, don’t be worried. Be excited!” She tossed her mane back. “I was trained by the royalty of Ponsia in the art of presenting oneself. We, my friends, are going to walk out of that hotel looking fantastic!”
“Oh no…”
Rarity rubbed her hooves together. Sure, Rx’len was eating her world right now. Yes, things were just as hopeless as always. But she had access to a facility fit for a king. She was not going to put this to waste.
~~~
“I need to sleep!”
“Applejack! Applejack! Your hooves are uneven!”
“They were even before you started filing away at them!”
“Because your boots forced them to be that way! There are much more natural ways for the hooves to be sculpted!”
“You just used the words ‘natural’ and ‘sculpted’ in the same sentence.”
“I’m a paradox!”
“Whoever stuck that idea in your head needs a boot to the head.”
“I did!” Twilight called, waving from her oversized, golden bed. She was still in her unicorn form, looking as normal as she could. No attempts were made to stop Applejack’s boot from flying across the room and hitting her in the face. “Worth it!”
“I mean what I say,” Applejack commented, shaking the water off her coat from Rarity’s intense bath.
“I’m surprised you’re not just going with what she’s doing to you,” Rainbow said, already sparkling clean, mane up in curls. “Thought you were all about taking orders?”
“There’s a limit to what I put up with!” Applejack muttered, slapping her hat back on her head – she hated to admit it, but it felt more comfortable now that Rarity had cleaned it. Even her boots shone like they had never shone before.
Applejack realized she was being ridiculous. “…Fine…” She trudged back to the bathroom, allowing her hooves to be subject to the ‘hooficure’. It was dumb, frivolous, served absolutely no purpose, and agitated her other hooves that were keeping time with the Mesh.
Applejack noticed she wasn’t as worried about keeping time anymore. She still was – more out of habit than anything – but she didn’t feel like she needed to. Technically Twilight could send her back to the Mesh any time she wanted, now, or even open a series of portals just to let her hear the Mesh if she wanted. But… she didn’t.
Like so many things she’d seen on this adventure, she wasn’t sure what to make of that.
And I thought life was complicated before.
Eventually, Rarity let her leave the bathroom. She returned to the beds – there were four of them in the room, all situated side by side. They could have walls raised between them, should they want, but at the moment none of them particularly felt like that. They all wanted to watch the
‘TV’, even though Rainbow and Twilight were really talking about things that had nothing to do with the ‘sport’ on the ‘screen.’
“So, yeah,” Rainbow was explaining. “Most Earths are populated by humans.”
“I have humans in Unity,” Twilight said. “…I think their world is called Earth. I can’t remember visiting, though. Their immortal is Merlin.”
“Chances are it looked like this in the past.”
“Interesting…”
“You have no idea. This is almost exactly like earth, history, architecture and all – but it’s ponies!”
“The astronomical odds…”
“What can I say? The Tower likes patterns.”
“The Tower?”
Rainbow sighed. “Ugh, I don’t want to explain that right now… has to do with destiny and fate. I’ll explain when we aren’t about to fall asleep.”
“I’ll hold you to that.”
“Yaaay, more things I need to explain that I suck at.”
Twilight smirked. “Even better.”
Rainbow rammed her face into a pillow and grunted.
Applejack focused on the TV. There were a bunch of ponies talking fast about a thing called a fridge that kept stuff cold for a long time. That’d be useful on the Mesh… Might be able to store up food bricks that way.
Or she could just eat the food here. Who needed food bricks anymore? All sorts of stuff grew in these other worlds.
Come to think of it, why would they even need the Mesh at all anymore? What did it do that the other worlds couldn’t do better?
It kept them alive. Was there anything else?
There had to be...
Or did there?
“Huh. Maybe not.”
Twilight looked over to her. “Doing okay over there?”
“I have no idea,” Applejack admitted with a shrug. “Just thinking about the Mesh, home, that sort of thing. You?”
“Humans. Trying to remember what I know about them. Not much, admittedly.”
“I’m thinking about this bed!” Rainbow declared, flopping back on the covers. “Aaaaaah… getting’ good sleep tonight…”
Applejack watched Rainbow as she laid down and tried to emulate it. There’s no way this is how a pony is supposed to - oh wow that’s comfy.
“Feel it, Applejack…” Rainbow called. “Feel it…”
“Done!” Rarity declared, walking out of the bathroom.
“That was impossibly fast for a Rarity,” Rainbow blinked, sitting up. “You sure y-“ Her jaw dropped. “Wow.”
Applejack didn’t see what was so special about Rarity’s appearance. Sure, there wasn’t a trace of grime on her body and the tattered desert tunic had been completely abandoned so her pristine white coat could shine through. Her mane and tail were styled in a complex swirling design that seemed to sparkle as it bounced, displaying her horn proudly for the first time. She was somehow both as soft as one of the pillows Applejack had under her and hard as a brand new wrench.
“I don’t get it,” Applejack said. “What’s this whole deal with appearance?”
Twilight shrugged. “Practically? Used to attract potential partners. For Rarity? She just likes looking pretty.”
“I haven’t looked like this for decades,” Rarity said, an uncharacteristic smile planted on her face. “Applejack, to be blunt, I don’t care what you think about my appearance.” With a snort she jumped into her bed and spread her limbs out like a starfish. “Aaaaaaaahhhh…”
“Good memories?” Rainbow asked.
“The first good memories in a while…” With a dreamy tone to her voice, she closed her eyes.
And started snoring immediately.
“Oh for th-“
Twilight shut Rainbow’s mouth with her telekinesis. A simple spell was all it took to silence Rarity’s snoring completely. “And now… we sleep.” Twilight flicked the light switch with her magic, plunging the room into near darkness. She turned off the TV to complete the ritual.
Sleeping in darkness… Applejack frowned. It still felt so unnatural.
“Applejack, to save you the trouble of arguing with yourself about this, I’m going to sleep spell you. Night.”
And then Applejack was asleep.