//------------------------------// // Chapter Twenty-Two // Story: A Crossover // by Dudofall //------------------------------// You were only talking to me The manticore said nothing My song is in key "Crap, what rhymes with nothing?" Aria digressed. "Bluffing?" Ritornello held up her paws. "Wait, don't brainwash them!" The clerk and Gerben were staring into space with a green glow circling their irises. Aria shifted in the door frame. "Why not?" The manticore's tail twitched this way and that. "Well..." "You're the one who didn't want anybody else to know you could talk!" Aria pointed out. "But they were being so friendly and helpful!" "I guess it's your call," the siren said, and she sang again. I didn't sing and hypnotize you But Ritornello talked that's true "Who's Ritornello?" the clerk questioned, blinking rapidly. "Ritornello is-" Frantic gestures from the manticore. "Uh, it doesn't matter." Gerben stared at his claws in astonishment. "Genbur, look at this!" the griffin gasped. "My talons!" Genbur glanced over. "Nothing's wrong with your talons." "I know! Look how they're...moving though!" Aria cut in. "What are you guys doing to like, fix the crisis?" Gerben reluctantly looked up. "Whenever we try to issue more currency through other banks, they turn us down. Their incentive is to keep things the same so they can continue to profit. If enough griffins had coins that weren't made of gold, the conversions at the bankeries wouldn't be as much of an issue." Genbur snorted. "Good luck finding a way to sway the behavior of a massive group of griffins though. You'd need to practically mind control them!" "Too bad that will never happen," Aria said dryly. Ritornello put her face in her paws. "We could try to get help from the Equestrians," Gerben proposed, "but they're too nice. The Prench are too nasty to help us, especially for a currency they can't exchange." "I heard a rogue magician escaped from their Academie Surnaturel. Maybe we could find them." "How about a concert from a super talented singer that only accepts silveros for the cover charge?" Aria suggested. "Griffins don't really do concerts," Genbur pointed out, "singing is more of a pony thing." "It was a siren thing, before that mess with Starswirl," Aria grumbled. "Everygriff would probably run in terror if you tried to perform." "I'm getting a little sick of being treated like a weird outsider monster! At least in the human world I could go undercover!" "The human world?" Gerben chuckled, "I'm sorry, but even out of the mouth of an actual siren traveling with a real live manticore, that's got to be the most absurd thing I've ever heard!" A low hum filled the central bank. The griffins eyed Aria nervously. "Please don't destroy me with your musical powers," Gerben croaked. "That's not me," Aria said, looking to Ritornello. The manticore shook her head. There was a flash, and Mary popped into the air above the desk. Bengur yelped in shock. The human fell into the mess of papers. "Ow," she said into a sheet for converting gimmes into goldos. "A real human?! Can this day get any weirder?" Genbur wondered. His boss shook him by the shoulders. "Don't tempt fate like that!" "Don't worry, I'm okay," Mary said, getting off the desk and trying to stand up. She was a bit taller than Aria, so the ceiling got in the way. Aria's eyes widened. "There's a way to get here in human form? How did you do it lady?" "The name's Mary. And the answer to that is...science." "Just science?" "Yes, science. Where's Robert Olde?" "How am I supposed to know that?" The scientist sighed. "I guess it was a bit of a leap to expect you to have even met one person in a world as big as this one." "Oh I met him. I just don't know where he went. He stinks at playing the kazoo," Aria said, edging out of the door frame slightly. Mary laughed. "That's true, he doesn't have a musical bone in his body. He wouldn't know a good song if it bit him on the ear!" The siren pulled herself all the way out of the door, and the scientist ducked through. Ritornello followed. "Hey, what about our meeting?" Gerben hollered. "She knows science," Aria shouted back, "we'll just use that to fix your economy." "What's your name?" Mary asked. "Oh, I'm Aria Blaze. This is Ritornello." The manticore waved. Mary waved back hesitantly. "What a lovely stinger you have." "Thank you." "Did she just-" "Don't mention it." *** "The first petitioner for Day Court is ready," Raven Inkwell said as she walked into the throne room. Rarity gasped. "Good heavens! Do you girls know what this means?" Rainbow Dash shrugged. "Celestia is catching some z's?" "We should leave before they try to sentence me?" Dawn said shrilly, her eyes darting. "The princess rises at dawn," Raven stated, "it's one of her duties." "With the Princesses indisposed, the Elements of Harmony are the next highest authority! We get to hold court!" Rarity exclaimed. She hopped onto Celestia's throne and grinned from ear to ear. Raven raised an eyebrow. "All three and a half of them?" "Twilight is on the trail of that ruffian, Olde. Luna and the girls are tracking Twilight, and I don't even know where Celestia's gotten off to," Rarity ticked off. "When you put it like that, they all sound pretty irresponsible," Rainbow said slowly. Dawn sagged with relief. "I'm glad no princesses are around to punish me for my crimes." "Dude," Rainbow put a hoof on her shoulder, "what did you even do?" "I ran away." Rarity blinked. "Darling, if running away were a crime a lot more ponies would be in jail. You mustn't worry about that now. Compose yourselves, both of you." At this Rainbow tilted her head in confusion. "We are holding court!" "I'll get the noble," Raven called over her shoulder as she exited the room. "Rainbow Dash, you can have Luna's throne." The pegasus flew to it and lounged. "Dawn, you may stand to our right." The earth pony went where she was bid. "We're ready!" Rarity called. Séparés Cheveux stormed in. "Where is the princess?!" she roared. Dawn slowly moved behind the throne. "I do believe some decorum is in order," Rarity primly proposed. "It feels like I haven't seen Princess Twilight in four years! She said Equestria would help us track down a felon!" "I'm sure it wasn't that long," Rarity reasoned, "most ponies can find a court date within at least nine months." "I am not most ponies! I am above them, as every princess should be! You will help me find the convict, or Prance will stop trading with Equestria!" "Chillax," Rainbow piped up, "we can't help you find somepony if we don't know their name or cutie mark." The Prench princess took a few deep calming breaths. "Clone Troisième," Cheveux finally replied. "Doesn't ring a bell," the pegasus shrugged. "Spike was telling me about one of his comic books the other day. There was a character in it called Cone Clone, whose power was making duplicates of ice cream cones appear out of thin air," Rarity mused. "I know the word troisième. That's what they call a bronze medal in Prench," Rainbow guffawed, "they sure got a lot of those at the last international games!" "The details aren't important," the princess put in tersely, "just tell your guards to be on the lookout for an aquamarine earth pony." "The only mare I know of that description is...Dawn Twinkle," Rarity responded. She looked at Séparés Cheveux, then at the back of the throne. "Yeah, but Dawn isn't guilty of anything," Rainbow ruled out. "That's right!" Rarity hurriedly yelped, "It couldn't be her, so we'll tell the guards to search for her. Er, the clone, that is. Thank you for coming to Day Court. Goodbye!" "Attendez! That name sounds familiar," she pondered, "I believe I read about an incident this pony caused some time ago. She arrived from another world and stole the element of magic, correct?" "Nah, that was Sunset Shimmer." "It confused us at the time parce que notre royal translator gave the same first name to Princess Twilight and the villain Shimmer." "Yes, well, coincidences like that are bound to happen every so often!" Rarity said with a duplicitous laugh, "I wouldn't read too much into it if I were you. What's that I hear? Raven is about to bring in our next petitioner?" "Nopony else is here yet," the advisor called across the hall. "Is there something behind your throne?" the Prench Princess asked. "No, nothing's behind my throne, I was just making sure the...finish hadn't peeled." "Are you okay Rarity?" Rainbow Dash questioned. She shook her head. "As a matter a fact, I am unfortunately feeling a bit under the weather at the moment, so we shall have to resume our discussion at a later date." "Certainement," Cheveux said, "I'm sure you won't mind if I look. Since there is, as you say, nothing there, it won't take long at all." "Rainbow can check for you! She's the fastest flier in Equestria! Show her!" Rarity cried. Her friend gave her a long look. They came to an understanding, and the pegasus shrugged. Then she jumped into the air and looped the throne room in a flash. She began looping faster and faster, creating a rainbow tornado and bursting out of the top before floating gently to the ground. Séparés Cheveux stomped her hooves in appreciation. "Thank you! Let me just check the thrones for you," Dash pointed herself at the thrones. She waited a second. "Yup, nothing back there. Betcha didn't even see me move!" "I didn't! I truly didn't!" Séparés Cheveux whispered in awe. "I'll be back," she promised as she left. The doors closed with a heavy thump. "Is she gone?" Dawn whispered. "Wait just one more moment, dear." "I don't really get what the big deal is," Rainbow Dash said at normal volume, "Dawn didn't do anything wrong." "She's looking for the third clone Rainbow," Rarity shout-whispered, "don't you understand?" "In case you've forgotten, I'm not some super-sleuth detective like you." "Combien..." Dawn murmured. "Do I have another sister who escaped?" "A clone is a copy though. You don't look anything like Sunset, hay, she was a unicorn! Not to mention she's been around for much longer than Twilight." "Oh," Dawn looked at the ground. "Duplicating a living organism shouldn't even be possible!" Rarity said obliviously, "You'd have to focus the power of tens of unicorns into one tiny point to even come close." The earth pony looked up. "Exactement. Prench spellcasting is all about group efforts. That's why they wanted multiple powerful ponies working together on the project." "What project?" Rainbow wanted to know. "They only told me so much. It all started with the taxation of trade routes. Those no-good Griffins wanted to charge outrageous tariffs on their spellcrafting reagents; they claimed we were using too many of them for 'something shady.' With the flow of goods between Griffonstone and Prance diminished, the two nations found a reliable trade partner in Equestria. Your princess was always friendly and fair. Unfortunately you didn't have enough wizards to fully supply Prance's magicians with the most powerful artifacts, so the Academie Surnaturel was founded to study magic item creation and create the innovations we needed to leverage group spellcasting into an effective tool for mass production," Dawn lectured. "Why does Prance need magical items so bad?" Rainbow asked, "For a lot of things tech is better. I can fly faster than a train, but my friends can't so we take it to our adventures." "We're too far away to benefit from such things," Dawn frowned, "and magic suffices for our every need. You can only imagine my shock when I got here and couldn't take a teleportation stone to any major city." "That's all very well and good darling, but what happened to the first two clones?" "As far as I know, Veranda View is still trapped at the Academie. She doesn't see it as the prison it is for us clones. They always called me Clone Deuxième, but it sounds like I'm really the third clone." "Phew," Rainbow said, "that's a lot to take in. We need to get this info to Twilight. Rares, can you send a letter through Spike?" "I can try," the unicorn balked, "but we'll need to write out our message first. If anything goes wrong it will be some time before I can try again." "You've got this," Rainbow said optimistically. *** Spike closed Power Ponies: Revengeance Volume 5 for the third time, lying on his bed and staring at the ceiling. He'd finished all the chores hours ago. The castle was very large, quite empty, and entirely too quiet. "There's nothing to do," he told himself. With a heavy sigh Spike hopped onto the floor and headed out of his room. His footsteps echoed as he took the well-traveled route to the front door. He was a few feet away when it suddenly opened and Twilight walked in. "Twilight! You're back!" Spike excitedly rushed towards her for a hug. "How was your trip? Did you find Mr. Olde?" "Oh, she found him alright," the prototype said, floating in the princess' magic. "Dragged all of us back here after a stern talking-to. Say hello, Flageye." "Flageye! Flag flag," the creature said, holding its eyes out to shake. Spike held the horseshoe shaped appendage delicately. "Nice to meet you, Flageye." "He's just going down to Rarity's for a suit, then we'll be having dinner here," Twilight said, continuing to walk further into the castle. "I can bake some fresh bread if you take care of the salad! Big Mac dropped off some Zap Apple jam a while back, and dimension-jumping on an adventure is definitely a special occasion." "You didn't already know how to travel the universe?" the prototype asked. Twilight shook her head. "I had to look in a book." "How old-fashioned," he said snobbishly, "I downloaded the information directly to my hard drive." "What's a hard drive?" Spike wondered as they entered the kitchen. "It's where my memories are stored. I also have a solid state drive for my most frequently accessed files, and random access memory for things that are vital to keep in mind." "Twilight, you didn't tell me Mr. Olde built a robot!" "As far as I know, the one he built built this one," Twilight stated, "he really didn't seem to know much when we tried to fix him." "He didn't build anything," the prototype corrected, "he just budgeted for it. Mary's the one who did all the work." Twilight opened the cabinets and placed a salad mixing bowl on the counter next to some bread-making supplies for Spike. The counter was perfectly suited to the two of them working together, with one side at his height and the other at hers. Spike shrugged. "Budgeting is important too. In The Infamous Supertron volume two, the robot stopped working until her paycheck arrived. Saddle Rager had to save the day all by herself!" "I kind of wish I got paid. Maybe I could get a squirrel feeder to watch from my porch!" "Flageye?" "I don't see why not." "What's Flageye saying?" Spike queried as he mixed dough. "Not a clue, but I generated the most likely response from the context of our prior conversations." "What if your guess was wrong?" "Then Flageye doesn't want to sit on the porch with me and watch squirrels." Spike raised his eyebrows. "I hope you were right." "It seemed far less likely for Flageye to say 'I am going on tour with my fave band am!'" "Flag flag," the creature said, shaking its eyes. The prototype blinked. "Yes. I think that means I was right." Spike was about to interject again when he felt a familiar feeling rising deep in his belly. The dragon quickly pointed his head at the ceiling, and in a belch of fire he spat out a message. He then coughed out some blue sparks. "That's never happend before," Twilight noted, "you feeling okay?" "Does anypony else smell Rarity?" The prototype rolled his eye. "Twilight?" Said pony was already halfway through reading the message, eyebrows furrowed in concentration. The flageye sniffed deeply. "Flag flag flageye!" it shouted. "Thanks," Spike sighed, "I thought I might be smelling things."