~~~~Manehatten University~~~~
The meeting in the dormitory kitchen had the air of extreme oddity about it. Actually, the word ‘surreal’ came a lot quicker to Rainbow Dash’s mind than anything else. Twilight was tense as she’d ever been before, and the Princess was watching over her like a mothering hen. “I’m afraid there is not much we will be able to do directly to aid you, Lady Twilight.” The gruff voice of the decidedly male Alicorn was still enough of a shock to make Dash jump a little in her feathers. “While we could order First Air Wing to assault the compound with you, I am afraid it might force the villain's hoof and he could potentially…”
The stallion who Dash now knew as ‘Lord Solaris’ looked down mournfully at the table. Daring Do glared at him in annoyance and then sighed, “Yeah yeah, Doc Negative is a madpony who might kill her if he thinks you’re coming at him personally. I know, Sir.” She leaned forward, becoming suddenly intense. “What I’m asking for is help with getting out of there in one piece once we’ve got her back.”
That put a considering look on Solaris’ face, which gave Dash time to focus on Twilight. She hadn’t taken the conversation upstairs terribly well, and it was pretty obvious to everypony in the room that she was distressed. “Hey, folks?” She waved her hoof and the conversation around her crashed to a halt. “I think Twilight needs some time to let some of this settle in, yanno? Can we be excused for a moment?”
Celestia frowned, and looked like she was getting ready to object, but… “Of course. It’s likely been a stressful few days for both of you. We’ll give you a shout if we need you to clarify something.” He bent a stern look on Celestia, who withdrew gracefully and nodded to both of them.
Dash put on her best smile. “Thanks kindly, your Ladyship.” She doffed her ballcap to bow over it, as if she’d done such a thing a thousand times before. Twilight was so spaced out that she was even able to get her moving with nothing more than a tug on her hoof. It took a few moments to get her out of the kitchen and down the hall, but once she had her in their shared dormitory room she was able to let out a sigh of relief. “Twi?”
Twilight’s head came up suddenly, and she sucked in a shuddering breath. “This is bad, Dash. Really, really bad.” That was probably the understatement of the year, but she gestured for Twilight to go on. “So, I’ve been trying to figure out exactly why this world is so different, aside from the obvious fact that we… never met.” That she said with more than a little fear, and it made Dash squeeze her hoof tighter. “And I’ve finally figured it out, I think.”
Dash nodded slowly, and Twilight looked out the window. “Dash, do you realize what year it is?” That made her blink a little. Why in Equestria would that matter? “What Celestia said up there, about my… my other self’s past.” That made her shiver in fear, more than a little. “I kept doing the math in my head while I tried to tell her about us, and it kept not adding up. I was smart as a filly, but I wasn’t so smart that I could’ve graduated from Manehatten University that fast. Not without Princess Celestia as a teacher.” She bit at her lip. “Even with everything else that was different, it didn’t make sense. Not until I considered something terrifying.”
Dash was blanking out on this one. “Twilight, what in the hay are you going on about?” She was worried that Twilight had finally cracked under the strain of all this, that maybe she just couldn’t handle all the things that were different.
Twilight snorted. “Dash, the one-thousandth Summer Sun celebration had to be more than fifteen years ago.” She snapped out, and Dash nearly took a step back at the anger. “But Nightmare Moon is still the Mare in the Moon! Celestia’s magical aura is completely out of whack, and she’s been forced to share her Alicorn duties with another! Do you have any idea what all that has to mean!?”
Dash did take a step back then, feeling a cold grip of fear around her. She had all the numbers, but the math wasn’t clicking for her. “Somehow…” Twilight began, slowly and agonizingly, “ Celestia and Solaris are keeping Nightmare Moon and…” She paused, and huffed. “And whatever her male counterpart is called completely contained on the moon. Do you have any idea how ridiculous the amount of magic they must be using to do that? Without the Elements of Harmony to focus her power…” Twilight stopped, as though she’d come to a revelation. “Which, of course, explains just about everything else too!”
Now Dash was really lost, and she must’ve looked it because Twilight was giving her a salty sort of look. “Princess Celestia would never tolerate some kind of hate-army in her borders, unless she had an incredibly over-riding reason. She wouldn’t even have allowed the situation to get out of control enough to get to that point if she’d been able to stop it. She would never allow a powerful madpony like Doctor Negative to operate as he has without dealing with him personally, unless she couldn’t.” She gestured skyward. “I’ll bet you my entire first edition set of Daring Doo books that she’s spent the last fifteen years scrambling to find The Elements of Harmony and their bearers. And in that vacuum of personal power, all manner of other things have stepped in to fill the gaps.”
Her hoof fell to the ground, and with all of that laid out before her one thing more clicked for Rainbow Dash. “Oh, shit.” She swore softly, and Twilight nodded numbly. She had to have come to the same conclusion Dash had, given that she’d probably been thinking about this since the Princess had landed. “No wonder she was so…” Dash shook her head slowly. “Buck me, she want’s us to stay.”
Twilight buried her face in her hooves. “It’s even worse than that, Dash. There’s a strong possibility that your alternate self is dead in this universe. It would explain why you keep reliving her memories.” She swallowed softly. “It would explain why I am an incredibly powerful Alicorn, already imbued with the magic of Friendship. I would even be willing to bet that Rarity’s connection with the elements might have something to do with how she accidentally opened the portal to here.” She looked at Dash, absolutely terrified. Dash had never seen her that scared before, ever. “And why you and I were sucked through that portal too.”
“That’s… Insane!” Dash tried to protest, but it sounded hollow even to her. “But we’ve got no proof of that! And how the heck could something like that happen, anyway?! I mean, wouldn’t it take some stupidly powerful magic to cross dimensions?” Then she stopped, all at once. “Of course it would.” She facehoofed hard enough to hurt. “The Elements of Bucking Harmony. Again.”
“Eeeyup.” Twilight drawled, doing an oddly out of place Big Mac impression. “I’ve always theorized they had some kind of vague magical sentience to them. And since it feels like every aspect of reality has been turned up a few orders of magnitude here, why not the Elements too?” She laid her head on the ground and closed her eyes wearily. “The Elements call to us, Dashie. It’s part of why we’re so tightly connected to each other. And when some kind of magical flaw in the fabric of reality opened, they exploited it and brought us here… to fight the same battle we’ve already fought before.”
Dash’s flank hit the floor hard and… and what? All she could do is stare at the hardwood flooring, in all of it’s overvarnished glory, and feel the little gears tick over in her head. “Son of a whorse.” She snarled, and Twilight practically jumped. Had she been that loud? “The universe is bucking guilt tripping us, Twilight!” She slammed her hooves into the wood, and Twilight jumped again in shock.
Twilight’s jaw dropped a little, and Dash glared at her. “Think about it. If the real Cloudsdale Dash is dead, then that means no Element of Loyalty.” She smacked her hoof into the ground. “If something bad happened to you, that means nopony to be the Element of Magic either. So what does this place do? It kidnaps the real deal from somewhere else!” She threw her hooves skyward, only to flop back onto the hard floor and stare at the ceiling.
“Dashie?” Twilight whispered, sounding very concerned… But why shouldn't she? Dash had this world all figured out. Right down to the freaking details. It made sense, when you saw all the pieces in place, but that didn’t make it any easier to live with.
“Think about it Twilight.” She said, keeping her voice soft. “What happens when we go home?” She waited a few moments, for Twilight to turn that information over in her head. “Unless there’s somepony else who can do our job…” She kept going, when Twilight proved to be kind of dense about something for once.
“Nightmare Moon.” She whispered softly, and Dash nodded once. It didn’t matter that they didn’t belong here, or that they had their own world with its own problems to deal with. If they walked out now, it would be tantamount to tossing the dice on condemning this world to Eternal Night. Sure the Element Bearers might appear in such a situation - Dash was developing her own theories about the way this stupid universe worked - but there were no guarantees. And with Celestia now fully aware of their presence and their connection to the Elements of Harmony….
She winced away from that. Twilight had basically spilled the beans on everything about them from the other world. How they’d gotten here, why they were still here, the works. Dash hadn’t even been able to get Twilight to shut up about how this wasn’t the way they were supposed to look. And the Princess had just stood there and politely listened to every last word of it and didn’t even crack so much as a chuckle. She’d taken them stone-faced serious on every account, and that really, really worried her.
Worse still, it wasn’t just Nightmare Moon. Ooooh, no. They couldn’t be that lucky. Discord was probably still waiting in the wings somewhere for his big moment, and if anything might reawaken that jerk it would be the kingdom falling under an eternal haze of night and the panic and chaos that would follow. Who knew what the Bug-Queen was up to here, too. And then there was the little matter of Sombra and his Empire…
It was hard to fathom sometimes just how often they’d been on the sharp end of world-ending events. How often they’d managed - somehow - to come out on top. But there was no such advantage here, no ace in the hole to solve the problems. One decision had changed all of that, but how? Why would she have stopped going for the Sonic Rainboom? Or what might have stopped her from accomplishing it? So she’d turned around to go save Fluttershy, so what? She’d always thought she could do something incredible like that if she worked hard enough at it…
She winced, a spike of pain pressing into her skull but no visions swam into view. Whatever the memory was, it was buried awful deep. Deep enough that her brain didn’t want to go digging for it, so she left it alone for now… Maybe Fluttershy could tell her. If Fluttershy hadn’t gone batshit insane, and was just putting on a show of sanity to keep her from running away. She didn’t want to consider that to be possible, but she had to anyway.
Twilight’s hoof curled around hers, and they squeezed them together. “I don’t know what we should do, Dash. Our friends need us too.” Dash opened her eyes to see Twilight staring off into space, the dark signs of tears in her eyes. “What can we do?”
“I dunno, Twilight.” She admitted, and slowly sat up. “But the first thing we need to do is get Rarity back.” That much was obvious to her, and she took a deep breath, “And the second thing we need to do is figure out how to get out of here before Celestia decides we need to stay… weather we want to, or not.”
~~~~~????~~~~~
“There,” She smiled brightly with satisfaction as she carefully seated the last of the jury rigged explosive caps into place. Really, she’d never quite mixed her makeup chemicals in exactly this way before, but there was something rather satisfying about building something she knew was going to make a very impressive boom. “That ought to do it for that one.” She dusted off her hooves, even though she hadn’t made use of them in the crafting of this thing.
“Always a pleasure to work with a dame who knows her stuff,” The gruff detective spoke with a surprising amount of warmth in his voice. Since she’d begun to break down the contents of their room into weapons and devices to aid in their escape, he had warmed to her considerably and started stealing glances of her with a glint of interest in his eyes. “Where’d you learn to do alla this, anyway?”
“Oh, here and there, Dahling.” She cooed, fluttering her eyelashes at him. The little flirtation was a wonderful way to dispel some of her stress, even if she was quite certain it wasn’t going to go past that. “You’d be surprised what a Lady needs to learn to stay ahead of the game in this world.” That was entirely true, but she had no clopping idea where she’d learned to make explosives like this. Not that she was going to admit that. “Be a dear and hoof over my stitching, won’t you?’
Manehatten Silver - Or as he preferred to be called, just ‘Silver’ - hoofed over her stitching ring and the needles and thread that went with it. She found the old and familiar activity to be rather soothing, even if she lacked the materials to design any dresses. Fortunately, the guards did not seem to see the needles as any kind of threat to their well being. It might have been the goggles they were wearing, but she wasn’t quite sure.
Silver himself stuck his hooves up on the table and snatched a sharp bit of steel from its hiding place under the table, and set it to work on a bit of wood he’d been carving since they’d started in on this little scheme. “What’s that for, if I might ask?” She was always curious about the arts, especially ones she wasn’t familiar with.
“Ah…” He looked a trifle embarrassed for a moment, his cheeks turning red before he spoke. “M’ Dad was a salvager on a sailing ship. He made little sculptures out of some of the wreckage pieces he found, if they weren’t worth nothin’ else. Called em ‘scrimshaw’, though I dunno why.” He examined the wood, and shrugged. “He used to say they carried the spirit of the things they were, an he liked to give em a proper send off.”
He fell silent then, whittling away at his wood in a way that suggested… well, a desire for silence among other things. Rarity hummed quietly, then went back to her stitches. A stylized Sweetie Belle was already emerging in the threads, little by little. A smiling face of a little sister now long gone, and it took a great deal of willpower not to cry about that. Which was strange, given how well she was handling everything else. Why had she suddenly decided that becoming emotional was acceptable? Perhaps because they were plotting something that could prove very fatal to them both?
Death did have a peculiar way of making things seem far more immediate. Where did that thought come from? She’d been having a lot of thoughts like that today. They seemed so odd, so out of place in her usually very well organized head. Like they were the thoughts of somepony else, somepony that was her but also was not her. After all, Rarity, the fashionista of Ponyville did not go in for blowing the doors off hinges and fatally wounding any number of guards in order to escape a bad situation. True, it would probably be much easier to escape if I could devise a stealthy path out of here. Perhaps if I simply let them recapture Silver..
Had her hooves and horn not been busy, she might have smacked herself. How could she possibly even consider such a terrible betrayal? That wouldn’t do for a Lady of her standing, and that was that. No matter how much simpler it might make her escape, it was simply wrong to even consider… She huffed silently and tried to focus on her stitching. The silence dragged on though, and she was never one for eternal peace and quiet.
A touch of levitation magic dropped the needle onto the gramophone, and a gentle river of classical music flowed into the room. Sweet sounding cellos and violins, gentle woodwinds, soft percussion. Lovely. Silver rolled his eyes at it, of course. His taste in music was decidedly more… contemporary. Not that she didn’t mind a rollicking good dance tune, but now was not the time for it.
The stitches flowed slowly, and she tried hard not to think about what she was going to do about Sweetie. One thing at a time, Rarity. Focus. Yes, she did have to be alive if she wished to aid Sweetie Belle after all. She would be no use to her little sister dead, or worse: Unfabulously brainwashed. More stitching, finishing the basic outline. It was very pretty, and it made Rarity want to cry very badly.
“You okay, Miz Rarity?” The way the brusque stallion pronounced her name - rare-a-tee - was oddly charming. He did look genuinely concerned though, glancing at her stitching ring. “Somepony special to ya?”
“Ah…” She wanted to clam up all of a sudden, shut her mouth and not talk about her family. It was always safer not to talk about them when she was on the job, but- Job? She was a prisoner! This was no job, this was a matter of life and death! “Yes… My sister, Sweetie.” She had to force the words past a lump in her throat, and Silver nodded slowly at her. “I hope I’ll be able to help her in time.” She truly did. She was worried they might not have enough time if she didn’t hurry up and get out of here…
A surprisingly gentle hoof touched hers. “Don’t mean to pry, Miz Rarity, but if ya’ll got somethin’ in your heart it might be good to let it out.” He said solemnly, his eyes expressively wide. “I know it can hurt to pen it all up inside, no matter how much ya think you might be doin’ yourself a favor.”
She glanced down to his hoof and squeezed it if only for a second. “I’ll cry when we’re both safe and sound, Mister Silver.” Saying it back like that felt kind of fun… saucy. Flirty, almost. She felt herself smile in spite of her worries. “I’ll be happy to use your shoulder as a hankerchief then.”
He tilted his head at her and grinned a little. “I’ll hold ya to that.”
~~~~~Big Macintosh’s Place~~~~~
The gentle sweep of broom against wooden floor was familiar enough to send pangs of nostalgia through her mind. “Evening, Pi- Miz Kitty.” Big Mac smiled at her in a way that felt warm and inviting… a reminder of a life she’d almost had. Should’ve had, maybe. But she never would have walked in here if it hadn’t been for that phone call…
“Evening Mister Macintosh. We’ve missed you.” She fluttered her eyelashes, as was her way, and put on her most lascivious smile. “Red Velvet wanted to know when you were going to come see her again. She said she wouldn’t even charge this time.” That put a bit of blush in his cheeks, and made her giggle happily. She was never more satisfied than when she could see other ponies relaxing and enjoying themselves.
“We’ve had a mite of trouble lately, Kitten.” The slow drawl, the soft high-brow accent, and the strange but compelling dissonance between them could only mean one pony in the world. She turned and felt her heart warm at the sight of her out of that dreadfully stiff suit she usually wore, and standing in nothing but all her muscular glory and legendary hat. “Besides, ya’ll said you’d come visit here too.” There was a dangerous glint in her eye, but she was undoubtedly teasing.
“Well business has been booming for us, ever since little Sweetie joined on.” She sighed happily, her mind going back to the angelic voice of her girl. “She’s going to be a star someday, Miss Applejack. She might even give your brother a run for his money.” She winked at Big Mac, who was blushing even worse. “But really, Miss Apple-”
“Jes Applejack, Kitten.” The way she said that, in a soft and familiar voice, sent a shiver up her spine. She hadn’t heard her talk like that in… years. More than years. It was an incredible shock, actually. But Applejack was… was… smiling at her. “I think it’s been too long since we sat down an’ had ourselves a talk.” She hoofed over her shoulder to an impressive looking keg sitting on the bar.
For a moment, Miss Kitty… the pony formerly known as Pinkamena Diane Pie felt a strange surge inside of her. She smiled at Applejack faintly. “Yeah… It kinda has, hasn’t it?” She eyeballed the keg with a small smile. "Is that Cider?"
~~~Manehatten University.~~~
“Fifty.”
“Call.”
“Three of a kind, Aces. Suck it, Scooter!”
“Full house, Ladies and Lords, Applebreath! Read ‘em an weep!”
”Fuck!”
Applebloom shoved her bits across the table, scowling a little… but there was a glimmer of a smile on her face none the less. “When was th’ last time we played cards?” Applebloom asked quietly, shuffling the deck back up for another round.
“Ages ago. Just before your sister made you a sub-boss, I think.” Scootered chawed on her favorite chewing gum, stacking up the bits and setting a few aside. One of these days, she would earn enough to take a fine mare like Sweetie Belle out on a date. One of these days. “You got real busy then. What happened to us?”
Applebloom snorted and flicked out some cards. “You got skeevish about my work, and I got annoyed at ya’ll not taking that chance to compete on Thunder Road.” Just the mention of that moment made Scooter scowl and turn her head away, wishing that AB hadn’t brought it up. “It was your big chance, Scooter,” AB’s voice was oddly soft as she spoke. “Why didn’t ya run after it?”
Scooter shuffled her cards without looking at them, wishing her gum still had a bit more flavor to distract her. “AB…” She tried to take it slow, but Applebloom was giving her a flat look. Scooter snarled a bit in frustration. “Look, I wasn’t ready, okay? Not after what happened with-” She bit it off, and Applebloom’s look changed instantly. “I couldn’t… I couldn’t handle the speed for that long. It was too much like-” She bit it off again, and looked away. “Lets drop it for now, okay?”
Applebloom bit her lip, but nodded once. “Okay, Scoots.”
It had been so odd. Why had AB brought that up? And why did she just call her ‘scoots’?
~~~~~~~~
Lord Solaris scowled out into the night as they broke for lunch. It was happening again- the weft and weave of Harmony itself distorting around their two very troublesome guests. “Have you told them about what happened to you yet, Rosie?” He turned to fix his troublesome special agent with a fierce glare which did nothing to affect her poise.
“No, sir.” Her voice was sharp, her delivery crisp, and her eyes narrow. All three signs that she wasn’t going to tell them diddly until she was well and truly ready to do so. That was troubling, but what could he do?
He was about to open his mouth when the two subjects of his troubled day walked in, looking rather solemn. “So what’s the plan, chief?” Cloudsdale asked him, and it was nearly impossible not to think of her as Cloudsdale Dash.
Rosetta spoke up, warm and gently. “We have some ideas. We’re going to be leaving tonight once we’ve raided the armory and the Lady has called in a favor for us.” She smiled brightly and professionally, a feat Solaris wasn’t sure he could’ve managed in her position. “Provided nothing goes horribly wrong, we ought to be fine from here on out.”
Then the other Alicorn - the one who called herself Twilight Sparkle - muttered softly. “Isn’t that always the moment when the roof falls in on you?” It was a sentiment that, negative or not, Solaris could completely identify with.