• Published 29th Mar 2012
  • 6,777 Views, 407 Comments

Sideboard of Harmony - FanOfMostEverything



Because ponies and card games are too much fun to confine to a single story.

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Sweetie's Bizarre Adventure

WARNING: The following story contains spoilers for The Sweetie Chronicles: Fragments. If you plan on reading that story and have not yet read up through chapter 11, do so before reading this. Thank you.


In Ponyville's park, a mint-green mare was playing a lively tune that had come to her in a dream to the crowd gathered around her.

"From there I got away, me spirits never falling,
Landed on the quay, just as the ship was sailing.
The captain at me roared, said that no room had he;
When I jumped aboard—"

Lyra's horn began to flash. "Uh oh." The crowd murmured, thrown off by her sudden self-interruption. She offered an apologetic grin. "Sorry, folks. Important eccentric conspiracy theorist business. Aliens are among us, don't trust Canterlot, I like pants. Gotta go!" She galloped off before anypony could process the flurry of non sequiturs.

The spacey-wacey spell led Lyra into the town market, nearly wrenching her head off her neck as she passed a stall full of cabbages.

The earth stallion manning the booth, his coat green as most of his merchandise, gave a hesitant smile. "Er, good afternoon, Miss Heartstrings."

Lyra returned the awkward grin, her eyes flicking to and from the pony. "Hi, Leafy."

Leafy Greens shifted back and forth. "Looking for anything specific?"

"I'll know it when I see i— Ah!" Golden magic pulled out what had first appeared to be a rather unusual red cabbage. It soon revealed itself as the pink-and-purple mane of a unicorn filly.

Leafy backed away, fear in his eyes. "Get her away! Get that hellion away from my cabbages!"

Sweetie Belle gave a weak wave. "Hi, Mr. Greens."

"Destroyer! Despoiler! Cabbage-bane!"

"I see you two have already met." Lyra set the filly down. "Come on, Sweetie. Let's get out of here before you give Mr. Greens an embolism."

The Crusader hesitated. "Um, I, uh..."

"Get away!" Leafy was all but frothing at the mouth. "Get away, get away, get away!"

That was all Sweetie needed. She bolted.

Lyra kept pace at her fetlocks. "So, we headed anywhere in particular, or are you just trying to get away from the cabbage pony?"

The question brought Sweetie to a halt as she thought about it. "Um, the second one, really."

Lyra nodded. "Fair enough. Follow me, then."

The filly pondered this for a moment. "Okay, I guess..."

Sweetie had second thoughts when the pair approached an alley. "Um, what exactly are you planning on doing, Lyra?"

"I thought you'd want to talk in private."

The younger unicorn looked at her elder with perfectly guileless innocence. "Why would I want that?"

Lyra whistled, impressed. "Well, someone's been getting lessons. I'd almost believe you." She lowered her head and her voice. "That is, if you hadn't set off my dimensional transit detector."

Sweetie's expression shifted to genuine panic. "I'm sorry! I never meant to do this!" she managed to scream at the volume of a whisper. "This world's Sweetie will—"

"Whoa, whoa, relax." Lyra gestured to the alley. "This is the sort of conversation made for alcoves and silence spells. Come on."

Once the two were as comfortable as they could get, Lyra projected a golden dome around them, then smiled. "Now, you were saying?"

Sweetie Belle took a deep breath. "In my home Equestria, I was Twilight Sparkle's apprentice. There was a magical accident and Twilight got turned to crystal, shattered, and scattered across I-don't-know-how-many different versions of the world. I've been traveling between them gathering her fragments. Every time I visit a new Equestria, I kind of take over the Sweetie Belle who already lives there. Once I find the fragment, I move on, and she takes over again. I think."

Lyra nodded. "Okay then. Let's see where you've been."

"Well, there—" Sweetie stopped herself once she noticed the golden glow on the mare's horn.

"Hmm." Lyra squinted as she considered the incoming data. "No, no, that's the body. I need the mind. Adjust things a bit and..."

"I could just—"

"Thank you, Sweetie, but I don't get much chance to show off. Ah, there you are. Now..." Lyra whistled as she processed the scan. "Well, you've been around the block, haven't you? At least seven different dimensional signatures here."

Sweetie pondered the elder unicorn's horn. "So, I guess this some kind of highly specialized divination effect? What exactly is it detecting? How did you modify it to sense me instead of the native Sweetie?"

Lyra smiled. "You're Twilight's student, all right. We'll talk shop once we know what to do with you." She ended the spell, blinking a few times as her vision collapsed back into three dimensions. "In any case, it looks like you started in Universe Seven-Five-Kappa."

"I did?"

"Well, that's what we call it."

Sweetie looked askance at this. "Who is 'we,' exactly?"

"Office of Parallel Timelines," Lyra said off-hoofedly. "You lucked out, Sweetie. This sort of thing is my specialty."

The filly's jaw dropped. "Office of Parallel Timelines? Where the horn-surging feather have you ponies been!?"

"Sweetie Belle!"

There was no way a chastisement was going to stop her. "Do you have any idea what I've had to endure? I have been nearly eaten by werewolves, menaced by Nightmare Moon, almost disintegrated, brought back from the dead twice, killed more times than I'd care to count, and forced through a time loop so often that I nearly forgot what a weekend is. And now you tell me there's a whole branch of the government devoted to the horseapples I've been suffering through?"

Lyra kept her gaze neutral as she looked at the indignant filly. Sweetie's chest was heaving with the sheer quantity of vented spleen, her horn sparking in a far more focused way than was to be expected from a unicorn her apparent age. "Are you done?"

Sweetie slumped. "Yeah. I think I am."

"Okay then. First of all, for what it's worth, I am sorry for what you've experienced."

"Thank you," Sweetie mumbled.

Lyra gave a hint of a smile at this. "No thanks necessary. Secondly, I assume it's hard to convince most ponies of your predicament when you arrive in a new world?"

"Yeah." Sweetie gasped. "Oh, wait! Not anymore!" She proudly presented her flank, emblazoned with an eighth note before a shattered six-pointed star. "I bet this Equestria's Sweetie doesn't have this!"

"She doesn't, though I imagine that's why you were hiding amongst the cabbages."

"Uh huh. You showed up before I was expecting anypony."

"Understandable." Lyra grinned. "Anyway, imagine trying not only to convince a pony you're from another Equestria, but that you need government funding."

Sweetie Belle winced. "Oh."

Lyra nodded. "Yeah. The ETSAB – that is, the Equestrian Time-Space Administration Bureau – has a lot of pull in this particular cosmos, 'cause we're needed to keep time and space running. In other Equestrias, well, we aren't, so the OPL can't do much more than observe."

Sweetie mulled this over for a moment. "Well, if you go back to the world where I was last and talk to Prince Blueblood, he may be able to do something about that. Just tell him his sister sent you."

"Sister?" Lyra scanned Sweetie again, thinking aloud as she did so. "Distant cousin, certainly. Ward, on occasion. Can't think of any instances where you're siblings with His Insufferableness." She noted Sweetie's scowl. "Though I'm sure the one you're thinking of was a true gentlecolt."

"Eventually. There was a time loop, and he'd been in it longer."

"So he was." Lyra ended her spell. "Universe Eight-Six-Epsilon, home of one of Equestria's most tolerable Bluebloods. Who, when last I heard, was courting your sister."

The resulting smile nearly split Sweetie Belle's head in two. "Really?"

"Really."

The filly's mood suddenly flipped, her posture and ears drooping. "Miss Heartstrings?"

"Yes, Sweetie Belle?"

"Can you get me home?"

Lyra held back a wince. She'd been afraid of that question. "I... I might have been able to send you back home if you'd gotten here first. As it is, the shards' entanglement is much stronger than your thaumic resonance frequency and..." A blank stare told her she'd gotten far too technical. "Okay, I'm going to use an analogy that, while understandable, will be wrong in almost every conceivable way."

Sweetie pouted. "Just because I don't know the terminology doesn't mean you have to dumb it down for me."

"Are you familiar with quantum soul resonance?"

Sweetie kicked at the ground. "Not really."

"Six-dimensional tensor fields?"

"No."

"Butterfly Wing's Laws of Probability Scattering?"

Sweetie didn't answer immediately, instead staring off into the distance. "I kind of... no, not really."

Lyra shrugged. "Then I'm going to dumb it down.

"You see, you have a tie to your home universe much as anything does. Call that a rope, one end attached to you, one to Seven-Five-Kappa. The various pieces of your Twilight basically 'remember' being a single entity, and are much more strongly connected to one another. Think of those connections as a web of bungie cords connecting each universe that contains one of the fragments to each other such universe. When you gather one of the fragments, all the cords that were attached to that Equestria latch onto you instead, and the rebalanced tension drags you into another Equestria. If I tried to send you home now, you'd just get dragged back to a world containing a piece of your Twilight."

Sweetie expression grew haunted. "And if we were to sever the cords, the backlash would be tremendous."

Lyra nodded. "Assuming we even could. Mind you, this is all just a hypothesis based on what I know. Frankly, I've never seen spacetime mangled to this degree in quite this way before now. This anomaly may be following the rules of your home universe, those of every involved Equestria, or some set of behaviors so bizarre not even Discord could comprehend it."

Sweetie fell back on her haunches. "So what do I do now?"

A mint-coated hoof lay across her withers. Lyra smiled at the filly. "Now? Now, we go see a specialist."


After applying what she called a "perception filter" to Sweetie's flanks, Lyra led the younger unicorn without offering any further information. "Terrible gossips in this town," she said en route. "You never know who might be listening."

Sweetie nodded at this. "The glade is dark and quiet."

Lyra couldn't help but grin. "But the vegetables are smiling. And somepony's been reading too many spy thrillers." She came to a halt. "She should be here."

The filly hadn't been paying much attention to where they were headed. She didn't know what to expect, but she had a few guesses: Twilight's library, Lyra's home, some shadowy little shop filled with mysterious relics and the smoke of exotic incense...

At no point did she consider the post office. "What are we doing here?"

"You'll see," Lyra said with an enigmatic grin.

The pair walked inside and walked past the front counter with barely a glance at or from the stallion at the front desk. "I have an arrangement with our mare," Lyra explained as she led Sweetie to a door marked "Town Postmistress." She knocked out an upbeat cadence.

"Come in, Lyra."

Lyra did just that. She nodded towards Sweetie as she approached the desk. "She followed me home. Can I keep her?"

Ditzy Doo rolled her eyes, always an impressive sight. "A filly's a big responsibility, young lady. You'll have to..." She trailed off, apparently entranced by the air directly above Sweetie Belle. "Thrackerzod again?"

Lyra shook her head. "Nope. One hundred percent Sweetie Belle." She considered this. "More, actually."

"Yes, her soul manifesting outside of her body tipped me off."

"It's what?" Sweetie looked up, trying to follow Ditzy's gaze. "I don't see anything."

"The local Ditzy has... special eyes," said Lyra.

"That's certainly one way of putting it." Ditzy frowned. "And given the use of 'the local Ditzy,' I can only assume this is not the local Sweetie Belle."

"Well, it's her body," Lyra noted, "just not her mind."

Ditzy nodded. "That explains a lot. Metaphysically speaking, there's no room for the controlling spirit, so it sort of hovers just outside the body."

Sweetie sighed. "I'm right here, you know. Twilight Sparkle's apprentice. You don't have to keep me out of the conversation just because advanced magic is being discussed."

Both mares offered apologetic looks, Ditzy's seasoned with surprised. "Sorry, Sweetie," said Lyra. "We're used to a filly who can barely make her horn spark."

"And I'm used to... well, a musician and a mailmare. I've never really gotten to know either of you especially well."

Lyra chuckled. "Well, as far as Lyra Heartstringses and Ditzy Doos go, the two of us are fairly out of the ordinary."

"True." Ditzy rose from her chair and moved to a closet door. She opened it, revealing a room far larger than the pittance of space that should've been there. She entered, carefully stepping around assorted artifacts and the occasional cardboard box. "Let's see now..."

Lyra winced. "Did you have to do that? Hyperspace junctions always gives me a hornache."

Sweetie gaped. Putting aside the sudden torrent of magical power pouring out of the assembled items, there was still the matter of the flagrant violation of normal dimensions. "H-hyperspace? How did...? Who could...?"

"Pinkie Pie," said Ditzy, apparently all the explanation she felt was needed. "I just wish I had it back when I was pregnant with Dinky. Would've made the commute a lot easier. Here we are!" A full-length mirror emerged from the impossible room, Ditzy pushing it into her office. She kicked the door closed with a hind leg. "Now the two of you can see what's getting me so flustered."

Sweetie trotted up in front of the mirror. Her reflection stared back. "Um..."

"Oh, right. Just a second." Ditzy closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she opened them again, they were twin orbs of cerulean brilliance, tinting the office the shade of the noon sky. After a moment, the light faded. "There. Now you should be able to see it."

"No kidding," breathed Lyra. Above Sweetie Belle's mirror image was a surreal apparition. Thick tendrils of pink and purple writhed, split, and rejoined. A translucent, opalescent skin encased the roiling vine-like structures, keeping them in a vaguely equine form, one closer to an alicorn or Saddle Arabian than a pony. At elbow and stifle, the creature faded to nothingness. Its head was featureless, an opaque, stark white ellipsoid, the transition in skin color visible along the neck. The horn returned to transparency, two lengths of the internal matter, one of each color, coiling around each other in an ever-narrowing double helix within it. Floating about the entity were several chunks of amethyst-like crystal, smoldering with raw magic.

Like Sweetie Belle, the creature was staring at Ditzy Doo, as much as something without eyes could stare. "What was that?" Sweetie asked, agog.

Ditzy gave a nervous chuckle. "Oh. Right. Sorry, I'm used to Sweetie knowing about this."

"You... you just did magic. Not normal pegasus magic, like walking on clouds or something, but a spell! Without a horn! That shouldn't be possible! Can every pegasus do that in this world? Can earth ponies? What other spells can you cast? Can you—"

"Sweetie! Breathe!" As the filly panted, Ditzy smiled. "Well, if I ever doubted that Twilight taught you, I don't now."

"I'm sorry, but this... this is monumental! World-shaking! This could be a whole new era for what is that?" Sweetie Belle stared into the mirror, having finally noticed the bizarre creature hovering above her.

"That," answered Ditzy, "is a zubera."

Lyra nudged her. "And a zubera is...?"

"Well, that's a bit more complicated." Ditzy considered how to answer that question for a breath. "Well, as you know and Sweetie doesn't, there are worlds beyond Equestria."

"There are?" Sweetie Belle's eyes filled with wonder.

"There are. In one, called Kamigawa, everything that exists has a spiritual embodiment called a kami. Rocks, trees, moss, abstract concepts, all have associated kami. Zubera are the patron spirits of individual people. As near as I can tell, this particular zubera is you, Sweetie."

"Whoa." The filly gasped. "The fragments!"

Ditzy quirked an eyebrow. "Those crystals? What about them?"

"Those are..." Sweetie looked down. "Um, well, they're what's left of my Twilight Sparkle."

"They've been scattered among the myriad Equestrias," added Lyra.

"And when I find one, I move from world to world."

"Really?" Ditzy smiled. "Well—"

Lyra's eyes widened. "Uh, Ditzy? I just thought of something. This zubera thing isn't going to a repeat of that incident with the elementals, is it?"

Sweetie tore her gaze away from herselves. "Elementals?"

"Long story," answered Ditzy, "and no. Pony souls can, do, and are supposed to exist according to the universe's physical and magical laws. I'm not entirely sure why Sweetie's is taking that shape, but she's not going to harm reality just doing so."

Lyra relaxed. "Well, that's a relief."

"I don't care how long that story is," said Sweetie, "I want to hear it."

As Ditzy began to explain how Equestria was nearly unmade, Lyra kept an eye on Sweetie. Satisfied that the filly was engrossed, the older unicorn lit her horn, working a subtle little spell that vibrated the tiny bones in Ditzy's ear, generating a sound only the pegasus could hear. "Stall for time."

Ditzy showed no outward sign of having heard, but Lyra soon received a telepathic reply. Why?

"I did the math, and Sweetie's next stop is Universe Seven-One-Gamma."

Bad?

"Celestia's father is set on ruling the world with an iron hoof. Sweetie's father is his general. Equestria is consumed in civil war."

Ah. I'll try. Fragment's in my attic.

"It is?"

Found it years ago. Useful. Kept it.

"I shouldn't be surprised. What's with the brevity?"

Two conversations at once.

"Oh. Right."


Ditzy and Lyra told the truth to the Bearers, the other ETSAB agents, and those few others who could handle the truth. Everypony else got a slightly edited version: Sweetie had been in a magical accident that would take a few days to sort itself out.

In the meantime, Sweetie explored the strange instance of Ponyville.


"So what's that?"

Ditzy smiled. She'd always wanted to give a guided tour of her attic. The Multiverse-spanning assortment of artifacts was practically begging for it. Now, with the fragment safely in Lyra's possession, she had two fillies hanging on her every word as she demonstrated the myriad souvenirs of her wandering days.

"This?" She hefted a bizarre contraption that seemed made entirely of cranks, gears, hooks, hinges, and anything else that had been within reach. "What would you like it to be?" She fed mana into the transreliquat, making it fold itself into a peculiar replica of the staff she'd used just before.

"Cooool," Dinky and Sweetie chorused. They watched the device return to its inscrutable base form before searching for a new attraction. Sweetie gravitated towards a bookshelf she'd missed in the clutter. "What's in here?"

"Oh, tomes of arcane lore, airship blueprints, Dinky's baby photos..."

One foal's delight grew in direct proportion to the other's horror. "Really?" Sweetie gushed.

"H-hey, how about those blueprints?" Dinky said desperately.

Ditzy decided to take pity on her daughter. "I actually have a working model of an airship somewhere in here. Let's see if we can find it."


"And that's why an entire plane is afraid of the color pink!"

Sweetie's mind worked furiously, trying to decide if it was more fascinated or horrified by Pinkie Pie's story. Her mouth wore away at her milkshake in the meantime. Finally, she settled on a response with equal parts of each reaction. "Really?"

Pinkie pondered this. "Well, I haven't checked back on them in a couple centuries, so there may have been some cultural drift. Ooh! Want to hear about how I invented the fruitcake elemental?"

The filly grinned. "Sure!" It was just Pinkie Pie, she told herself. Granted, a Pinkie Pie with a darker sense of humor than normal, but still, Pinkie Pie. She'd never waste that much chocolate sauce.

Such are the lies we tell ourselves to remain sane.


"Are you sure?" Twilight's tail lashed in her discomfort. "I mean, given what happened to your teacher, I'm not sure if—"

"I'm sure." Sweetie smiled. "It's always nice to spend some time with you, Twilight, no matter which you you are."

"Well, if you're sure. You're sure?"

Sweetie nodded.

Twilight managed a small smile of her own and began magically lifting books out of her bedroom. "Well, then I'm sure you'll be a tremendous help with my current project, given the excellent credentials of your magic tutor."

This got a giggle. "What's the project, Miss Sparkle?"

Twilight's expression became a wonderfully familiar smirk, the sort she wore when facing down a subject that most ponies could hardly even pronounce, much less understand. "Planeswalker magic."


Once the other Crusaders had established that she was simply not their Sweetie Belle, they immediately asked about how she got her cutie mark. Sadly, the Grand Galloping Gala was several months away, so trying to replicate Sweetie's success would have to wait. As such, talk turned to what else had transpired in her travels.

"Colts? Colts?" Scootaloo gagged. "Ugh, I don't even want to think about me as a colt."

"You were kind of a jerk at first," Sweetie admitted.

"No surprise there. Just... ugh!" Scootaloo shuddered. "I'm never gonna be able to get the image out of my head now."

Sweetie thought of a remedy. "Rainbow Dash as a stallion."

Scootaloo paused in mid-grimace. Her gaze turned distant and her cheeks began to flush.

"Scoot? Scoot?" Apple Bloom waved a forehoof in front of the pegasus's face. "Equestria t' Scootaloo!" She shook her head. "Well, thanks a ton, Sweetie Belle. Y' broke 'er."

"It's okay. I can fix her." Sweetie conjured a splash of water into Scootaloo's face.

The pegasus sputtered and shook herself dry. "Gah! What was that for?"

"You gettin' all moon-eyed over Rainbow Dash as a stallion," huffed Apple Bloom.

Scootaloo swallowed. "W-well, it's, um... Hey, Sweetie, have any of those other usses ever gotten their cutie marks?"

Sweetie smirked. "That was literally the third thing you asked me."

"Oh. Yeah." Scootaloo sighed. "Well, at least one of you isn't going to remember this."

"Oh, Ah'll remind 'er."

The two local ponies locked gazes, one grinning, the other scowling. Sweetie hugged both before they could say anything they'd regret. "I missed this."


Ditzy and Lyra sat on a bench in the park, the latter in a way that couldn't be good for her spine. "It's been almost a week," Ditzy observed.

"Five days. Four if we're counting hours."

"Still, I think we've put it off as long as we can."

Lyra sighed. "I guess. It's just... I don't know. I have a really bad feeling about letting her go to that world."

Ditzy looked at Lyra's face. The unicorn refused eye contact, watching her hind hooves wave. "At least it isn't postapocalyptic."

"Six-Zero-Epsilon is rough, but Sweetie lucked out. She had the friendship of an immortal innocent. Odds are she won't be that lucky again."

"It isn't fair—"

"Oh. Fair!" Lyra barked out a laugh. "We both know how much 'it's not fair' gets you, Ditzy."

"Well, it isn't," Ditzy insisted. "Not to her or to our Sweetie Belle. Or did you forget about the filly who's been effectively comatose for five days? Four if we're counting hours."

The unicorn grimaced. "No." Both were silent for a bit. "Couldn't we at least wait until the end of the day?"

"We'll see."

Lyra finally faced Ditzy. "What's that supposed to mean?"

The pegasus got off the bench and stretched her limbs. "It'll be at Sweetie's discretion. I'm telling her we've found the fragment."

"You don't know where it is." Lyra brought her forehooves to her mouth, but the words had already escaped. "I didn't mean... I'm sorry."

Ditzy smiled "Don't be. You want to protect her. But you can't tie her down. You've seen her mark, Lyra. This is what she's meant to do."

"It's a big cosmic totality, Ditzy. There's a lot of room for stuff I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy, much less that filly."

Ditzy shut her eyes and took a deep breath. "You'll have to let her go at some point, and the longer you wait, the harder it will be."

"I never was one to rip off the bandage." A tingle in her horn made Lyra look up. "Wait, what are you—"

Rays of light flashed out of Ditzy's mane. "Taking the decision out of our hooves." She tilted her head, letting the fragment tumble into one of her wings. She folded it back, the crystal tucked up against her barrel. "I lent it to you. I'm giving it to Sweetie. Important distinction." With that, she walked away.

Part of Lyra knew she should let it happen. Part screamed at her to chase down the pegasus. She took the easier option. "Everypony do the flop."

Blink. Lyra looked around in confusion. "When did I get to the park?" She tapped a forehoof against her chin. "Or did the park come to me..." She shrugged. "Might as well make the most of it." She summoned her lyre, warmed up, and began a tune that had come to her in a dream. "While in the merry month of June, from me home I started..."


Sweetie Belle, Timeline Hopper 1U
Legendary Creature — Unicorn Wizard
Whenever you cast an instant, sorcery, or Unicorn spell, put a level counter on Sweetie Belle, Timeline Hopper.
1/2
Level 2-5> Instant, sorcery, and Unicorn spells you cast cost 1 less to cast.
2/3
Level 6+> Spells you cast cost 2 less to cast.
Spells you don't cast that target you, spells you control, and/or permanents you control cost 2 more to cast.
3/5

Soulspark Fragment 4
Artifact
Spells cost 1 less to cast.
T: Spells cost an additional 1 less to cast this turn.
Scattered across all possible Equestrias, each shard of Twilight Sparkle has all of her power and none of her control.

Author's Note:

Yeah, since I started this idea, Wanderer D published not one but two chapters of The Sweetie Chronicles. Sometimes these take a while. :twilightsheepish: In any case, I chose to keep this where it began in the Chronicles timeline for reasons that will likely be obvious to anyone who's caught up with the story. In any case, I hope I did it justice. Continuity jumping stories are always fun with my take on the setting.

I don't know why I really like the idea of Lyra singing "On the Rocky Road to Dublin," but I do. So I threw it in. It's a 19th century folk song, so I think it's still okay.

Oh, and on the off chance someone's keeping track:

Eight-Six-Epsilon: The Best Night Ever/This Platinum Crown
Seven-One-Gamma: The Immortal Game
Six-Zero-Epsilon: Fallout: Equestria

I have a list of such designations. There are currently ninety-three entries. I may have a problem.