1. Exit Twilight
The town was called Poniszawa, and it straddled the border between Equestria, the Griffin Kingdoms, and Konja. In ages past, when Latigo had been a sovereign nation, it had been a town built around a mighty fortress that defended Latigo against the incursions of griffins and Konjavic ponies both. When Latigo’s king had died without an heir nor legitimate claimants to his throne nearly seven hundred years ago, looking like it would fall into civil war and fragment, Equestrian armies had marched in, Luna citing an ancient, nearly forgotten claim to the kingdom. There hadn’t been much that Latigo could do to resist Equestria, but then again the Equestrians had proven themselves to be excellent new lords, ruling with a light touch and quickly turning Latiganskis into full citizens of Equestria, rather than mere vassal subjects. In time, the distinction between Latiganski and Equestrian had blurred to practically nothing, and within two hundred years Latgio had become a willing province of Equestria, helped along, no doubt, by the fact that the provincial lord of Latigo was a full viceroy within the halls of the Night Court, second only to Luna herself in power
Poniszawa’s great fortress was, indeed, the only true casualty of the Equestrian invasion. The Equestrians had constructed a newer one several miles away, larger and easier to defend, and the old fortress had been abandoned for years before somepony had the bright idea of turning it into a tourist attraction, a proud symbol of pre-Equestrian Latiganski culture and military history. However, at this time of year – late spring, early summer – Poniszawa wasn’t yet being visited by tourists. Late spring and early summer were times for beaches and picnics, not the exploration of old, inland ruins. Its tourist season was the fall instead. As such, the town was, at the moment, quiet, and out-of-the-way, and perfect for a pony looking to hide someplace familiar.
Twilight Sparkle telekinetically tightened her cloak about her throat and made sure her cutie mark was covered, as she walked into the bad part of Poniszawa, the lower-class neighborhoods, the slums. Of course, if one had taken this neighborhood and moved it to, for example, Manehattan, then it would have instead been the kind of place to start a family and raise foals in. The ponies here didn’t even lock their doors at night. Some even kept them open to make a breeze.
Still, it was a place where she was unlikely to be spotted by anypony who might recognize her. As she trotted past one of the gangs of disaffected youths that Poniszawa had – one of whom wished her a pleasant night – she pulled her hood up over her head, offering only a curt nod to the pony who’d spoken to her as she made her way towards the motel she remembered.
When she was younger, her family had often vacationed here, spending time away from business, the Night Court, and everything else, just spending time together as a family. They hadn’t stayed at this motel, of course – but it still made the town dig up an awful lot of memories for Twilight, memories she wasn’t sure she wanted dug up, but at the same time memories she suspected had to be dug up.
Checking into the motel wasn’t hard; about a year ago, she’d learned how to create a sort of magical “pocket,” just outside of reality, where she could store things, and of course the most sensible thing to store there had been money. The House Starlight – her family’s House – was one of the wealthiest in all of Equestria, and even though she was on the run, with no way to replenish her money, she still had an awful lot of bits held at the ready. As long as she kept her head down and her cutie mark covered, she could still enter the small towns and hamlets of Equestria and buy food or spend a night in a warm, reasonably clean bed.
She could have done that someplace far away from Latigo, of course, but after recent events…after months and months of hiding her face and moving furtively in the dark – she’d needed to think, and depending on where those thoughts took her, she’d want to be in Latigo, as close to the provincial capital of Latysława as possible. As she looked around the motel room – a bed, a bathroom, and very little else – she really couldn’t help but think of her home, her family, her books, everything she had waiting for her in Latysława if only she could gather the courage to go home…
…but then, as always, she saw her face. Trixie Lulamoon, staring at her with a smug and arch look, convinced of her own superiority. And why shouldn’t she be? She had fooled everypony, everywhere. She had the respect tutelage of the Princess herself. She was the bearer of the Element of Magic. She had a position of moderate respect and authority as the Representative of Ponyville. All of it built on lies – lies! – about her magical talent, about her work ethic, about everything. She was a fraud, a fake, and it was her fault that Twilight was on the run!
…or so Twilight had thought for a long time, told herself for the past several months. As she clambered onto the bed and under its covers, she couldn’t really summon up the anger she’d felt for so long anymore…and she found herself being forced to point out to herself that she was the one who’d overestimated her own abilities, she was the one who had brought a mind-slaved Ursa Minor into a populated town in the middle of their Eventime festival just to prove a point.
Twilight sighed, closing her eyes. She needed sleep, first and foremost. And then – in the morning – she would make her decision.
---
Twilight was woken by the sound of her motel room’s door unlocking. She’d always been a light sleeper – provided she hadn’t gone on a study-binge of several days, anyway – and her ears easily picked up the sound. Her eyes were instantly open, and only the barest of moments later, she was standing on her bed, horn glowing a bright, angry purple in challenge.
Whoever was on the other side of the door realized that their surprise had been ruined, and so instead simply bucked it open – and Twilight found herself staring at a tall, lithe earth pony mare in the uniform of Poniszawa’s police.
“Twilight Sparkle!” The pony proclaimed, pointing a hoof forward. “You are under arrest for – ”
The police pony probably had more to say, but Twilight’s eyes snapped shut as her horn’s glow increased in intensity, and she popped out of the room, appearing in a flash and burst of magic outside the motel, eyes wide and taking in everything she could. She saw, near the motel’s office, a number of additional police officers, along with the gang of “disaffected youths” from earlier – one member of which had apparently recognized her face and was even now in his mouth clutching her wanted poster, with its thousand-bit reward for any information that lead to her.
The sky, meanwhile, teemed with pegasi, carrying glow-gem torches that shined light down onto the streets below. The pegasi noticed the flash of her arrival, and instantly called out to their companions even as they centered their lights on her. Twilight gasped in surprise as she turned to run –
– and was tackled to the ground by a unicorn, a unicorn wearing a form-fitting black outfit with silver lightning strikes along its flanks, over a thick jerkin that felt strong enough to repulse arrows. The unicorn’s horn glowed bright yellow.
“Twilight Sparkle, I am officer Haymaker of the Shadowbolts,” the unicorn informed her. “You are wanted by the Crown. Do not resist your arrest.”
Twilight resisted her arrest by doing the first thing that came to mind – lashing out with a front hoof, catching the officer in the jaw. He stumbled, apparently not expecting her to resist, but by now Twilight was surrounded by a swarm of police ponies armed with batons and ready to subdue her. First, however, they would have to catch her – and that was not a likely prospect as she closed her eyes, thought of a spot on the road to Poniszawa several miles away, and teleported –
Only to smack into something. Twilight saw nothing but stars for several moments as she lay on the ground, shaking her head. By the time she’d recovered enough to stand, she found herself standing outside the old Poniszawa fortress, on the edge of town – and just inside a bright pink bubble, a bubble that seemed to stretch around the entire town, as far as she could see – a bubble that was now shrinking.
Twilight’s eyes widened. There were only two ponies in all of Equestria strong enough to make a shield spell this large – and if Princess Luna had been making it, it would have been blue. That could only mean that Shining Armor, captain of the royal guard – her big brother – was here.
Twilight shifted from hoof to hoof, trying to teleport again. All that accomplished was smacking into the bubble. She teleported around town, trying to find another way out, but it didn’t help as the bubble continued to shrink, its center always focused on her as she moved and shifted around town. Even worse, the shrinking bubble was informing the police and the Shadowbolt – or were there more than one? – exactly where she was.
Twilight’s mad teleporting, then trying to break through the bubble with magic, carried on for several minutes. Eventually, however, the bubble was only fifty feet wide – then twenty-five feet – then ten feet – then even smaller, four feet, barely large enough for her to stand in. She had come to a stop in Poniszawa’s town center, near a fountain, her presence illuminated by street lamps that were swiftly joined by the pegasus ponies and their glow-gem lanterns, then the remaining police officers, the Shadowbolt, Haymaker – and galloping alongside him, a white unicorn with an electric blue mane and tail, out of uniform and with a look of near panic on his face even as his horn glowed brightly. Twilight’s heart skipped a beat at the sight of her brother, before she desperately began trying to teleport again, slamming her hooves against the shield even as the police ponies formed a ring around her, while dozens of Poniszawa’s citizens, awoken by the commotion, looked on from their homes or came out into the streets.
Not like this. Not like this. She didn’t want to see her brother again like this! She was vaguely aware of Shining Armor and Haymaker arguing over something, before Haymaker eventually stood aside and let Shining Armor through. The white unicorn all but galloped to the shield, the police ponies parting to let him through.
“Twily!” Shining Armor called. The name cut through her like a knife as she froze, her back to Shining Armor.
“Sh…Shiny?” Twilight asked softly.
Shining Armor came around, trying to look Twilight in the face, but she turned from him, again and again until he gave up. She didn’t want him to see her – she didn’t want to see her brother again like this, trapped in a field of his own creation, trapping his fugitive sister!
Shining Armor placed a hoof on his own shield. “Twily, please,” he said. “Look at me. Please, I need to know you’re alright.”
Twilight felt wetness in her eyes. She closed them, hunkering down. “What are you doing here?” she asked softly.
Her brother tried again to look at her; she again turned. “Time off,” he said. “I wanted to see the old castle, before tourist season started…thought that maybe you’d be here. I don’t know how or why, but I knew it, I knew, Twily. Because I’m your big brother.”
Twilight stifled a gasp. Her tears were flowing freely, now, and from the sound of his voice, Shining Armor wasn’t having any easier a time keeping his own emotions in check. “S…so you brought the Shadowbolts?” she demanded.
Shining Armor hit his shield. “No – yes – Twilight, you’re a wanted mare and the most powerful magician I’ve ever known. The Shadowbolts were probably keeping an eye on me in case you tried to get in contact with me. But I didn’t think about that…I just wanted to see you. Twily, please, look at me…please…”
Twilight shook her head. “Not like this. I didn’t want to see you like this…”
“Twilight, please, stop trying to run – ”
“I didn’t want to see you like this, Shiny! I didn’t…I was going to make a plan! In the morning, I was going to make a plan, I was going to decide to go home or keep at it, keep trying to show that Lulamoon is a fraud! But now that’s all ruined and you’re here and…and…it’s not supposed to happen this way!”
“Twily, I’ve talked to the Princess. She said herself that she’s willing to be lenient. That you’ll get the smallest possible sentence for what happened in Ponyville. She just wants you home safe, I want you home safe, mom and dad – ”
Twilight choked at that, hugging herself tighter. “H-how is…how is dad?” she asked.
Shining Armor was silent for a moment. “Not…not well,” he said. “He’s not taking it as well as everypony thinks he is – as he thinks he is. Twilight, please look at me, please…”
Twilight shook her head. “N-no. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this…I need to – need to – ”
She tried teleporting again, but to no avail. She tried again, and again, and again, each time running into the shield that was Shining Armor’s signature spell, his special talent of protection made manifest. Eventually, Twilight found herself heaving for breath, and no closer to teleporting out of the shield than before.
“You can’t break out, Twily,” Shining Armor said. “Nothing gets through my shields.”
Twilight rifled through the spells she knew, trying to find a way out – and, almost to her own chagrin, she did. It was an old spell, nearly a thousand years old, one that she’d learned from one of the forbidden tomes she’d gained access to while wandering Equestria. “There might be one,” she said through a shaking voice. “It was…it was a teleporting spell. The most powerful teleporting spell I’ve ever found, I think the Princess herself made it…so powerful that I’ve based all my teleportation spells on it. They’re all just smaller versions of this spell…”
Twilight stifled a slight laugh as she turned around, looking at Shining Armor and smiling a little. “I’ve never cast it before,” she told him as he looked at his sister, burning her face into his mind. “It…it takes a lot out of a pony. Maybe too much…always worried that I might overchannel if I tried…and you know what it would take to make me overchannel?”
“Twily,” Shining Armor said, putting a hoof on his shield bubble. “Twily, don’t – ”
Twilight put her hoof up as well, through the bubble, touching Shining Armor’s hoof through it even as her horn glowed bright, even as she recalled the spell, pushed it to the forefront of her mind and just began dumping her magical energy, her power, herself, into the spell. It was enough that there was an audible thrum within the shield – enough that magic was bleeding out of it, swirling dust and pebbles beyond the shield’s boundary, creating a wind that whipped at the manes and tails of everypony even as Twilight glowed with a bright lavender light.
“Twily!” Shining Armor said, not shielding his eyes against the painful glare that his sister glowed with. “Twily, stop!”
“Not yet,” Twilight insisted. “Not yet – it was too soon, Shiny, but don’t worry, I’ll – ”
Twilight didn’t get to finish the sentence. All at once, everything seemed to push away from her – Shining Armor, his shield, the police ponies, the town, just pushed away in all directions, bleeding out until there was only black, black everywhere – blackness that reached out and claimed Twilight Sparkle.
---
The place didn’t really exist. But if it had – it wouldn’t have mattered, because it had no air. But if it had air – then it still wouldn’t have mattered, because nothing could survive in this place, even assuming that it existed in the first place, which it did not.
But if it did exist, and if there had been air, and if somepony could have been there, then they would have heard nothing, because what happened was far too complicated for mere sound.
But if it had not been – if there had been a pony in this impossible nonexistent place, breathing air that wasn’t there and hearing a sound that couldn’t be made…
Crack.
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Nice job breaking the multiverse, Twilight.
Huh... well that just happened.
So, this is the incident that Shining was telling Trixie about in "At the Grand Galloping Gala"?
Okay, she had better get punishment for this.
Uh-oh.
There are a couple of places where a light editing pass might be needed, especially near the start, but overall this is looking good.
Why did this have to get posted right before I went to sleep!? You're updating like crazy these day's, not that I'm complaining! :D
oh well not sleeping now.
I liked the history lesson on Poniszawa and it's conversion into a historical tourist trap, it suits the family well, that they'd spend their holiday's in such scholarly places.
Interesting idea giving Twi a pocket dimension, I have mixed feeling about it, but that's likely to do with personal head canon on Twilight's powers, and it was well executed regardless glad to know Twi hasn't been suffering to bad on the money front at least.
Twilight comes across as very sympathetic & relatable here, which was the point.
Nice to see that given enough time Twi was able to realize to seem extent that she'd done wrong, even if she can't admit Trixie is the element of magic, though she also seems conflicted on that front as well.
Very well done scene with the bubble shield. Twi and Shining scene was very heartbreaking.
Epic ending there, both with the blackness claiming Twilight and the "impossible place"
Great chapter and an excellent set up for the cross universal shenanigans, I can't wait for more!
Dammit, Shiny
1964201
Personally, I'm hoping she gets perspective more than punishment.
I don't think L!Twilight's a bad pony, she's just been making atrociously bad decisions, and has been too afraid to own up to them.
Also, poor Shiny. He just wants his family back.
Twilight, the unicorn voted Most Likely to Sprout Wings three years running. Seriously, if she ever decided to drop the moon onto some spot in Equestria, I wouldn't want to be standing there...
A Twilight Sparkle backed into a corner is a dangerous Twilight Sparkle...
Pretty heart-wrenching to see the brother and sister meet up after all this time and still not get any closure. The Crisis will be more than just a bunch of worlds colliding.
Let's see how this Final Countdown goes from here.
1964308 Hey, there are times I wish Mane-verse Twilight gets her head verbally ripped off. *Shrugs* Here or M!Six, she needs a good talking-to. At least.
Even more fun: the upcoming scene, whether here or in Crisis itself, where L!Twilight and M!Twilight rip each other's metaphorical heads off about the flaws that they can see "in the mirror."
oh boy. This won't end well.........
1964308 Indeed, her go-to response to social anxiety appears to be a magical excursions on a sliding scale from calamitous to apocalyptic.
What a messed up kid...
Ooooo, me likey.
Am I the only one who thought it was hilarious when Haymaker got punched?
Great job cracking the universe, Twilight.
I am so going to read this... even if it does take a tagline from one of the most overhyped pieces of dreck I've ever watched in my entire life.
I mean, Transformers 3 sucked, but it's not like anyone expected it to be good.
3.bp.blogspot.com/-0LkCMi0K4tU/T0-iDvRLFpI/AAAAAAAABt0/hsAX07l-qSI/s400/8611.Pinkie+Pie+popcorn.jpg-610x0.jpg
Lovely. Say, is Crisis on Two Equestrias a reference to a certain straight-to-dvd animated movie?
1964907
What are you talking about? Lawrence of Arabia is a great movie!
1964925
It's a reference to Crisis on Infinite Earths, a mega-crossover that DC comics did in the 80s.
Uh, oh. This should be fun...
1964977 But Owlman is a great superhero!
1964925
I would say it's a reference to the comic book industry, myself.
Excellent work as always, RDD.
*unfolds a chair and sits*
Dis gonna be gud.
This chapter reminded me of an old sci-fi story about an institute researching alternate realities. They turned test subjects into dimensional travelers by tying them to a machine that unstuck them and making them extremely uncomfortably, leaving away as the only available escape direction. Yeah, I know it's weird...
So i'm not the only who thought it was a reference to DC comics instead of that movie of which we do not speak?
1964977
Rut Roh, Shaggy, wasn't that kind of a blood bath? I mean they killed (hippish) Super Girl.
Then tried to bring her back.
When they tried to bring back Batwoman, they brought her back gay...does this mean Trixie finally gets some?
I can't wait till it's done, so I can read this then Crisis
......
Leave it to Twilight to crack a hole in the universe, talk about the ultimate escape.
Always enjoy the world building in these, it always feels like you put the extra effort into it.
It's starting!
fc06.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2012/038/7/3/lyra_bounce_by_kitchiki-d4ozbr6.gif
1964599
I think that describes both Twilights
Oh, dear. She was almost ready to admit that just maybe, she might have been wrong and WHAM, she broke reality. This is far worse than enchanting a doll.
That being said, her meeting M!Twilight will be far more traumatic than L!Trixie meeting M!Trixie. I mean, the other Lunaverse versions of the bearers would to one extent or another give the Mane Six pause but to see what she could have been in a world that feared the Sun would probably be the thing that finally gets the screw-ball to see reason.
IT BEGINS.
By the way, has Twilight crossed an Alternate or a Parallel?
Because that's kind of important.
Alternates are fine. They're on the same causal-planar field, so travel is easy and safe, provided you're in the right areas of the Omniverse. It really varies from place to place, but as long as the barriers around your Alternate aren't too rigid, you can slip in and out with relative ease.
Parallels, not so much.
Bridging a Parallel basically means you're creating a connection between two places that are really not ever supposed to interact with one another. It's risky business, and it only leads to branching Parallels which get messy fast.
Ironically, Alternates run on the exact same causio-temporal track to each other, and Parallels are constantly branching off into more Parallels. Makes no sense, but that's the Omniverse for you.
Don't even get me fucking started on nested multi verse clusters. Especially chain clusters.
Motherfucking chain clusters. You take out one Alternate, and every Alternate afterwards has a total event collapse. Easily the worst kind of cluster to find yourself living in.
Please don't turn Lunaverse!Twilight into Superboy Prime... of all of the possibilities in the multiverse, that would be the Worst. Possible. Thing.
1966340
...um...I'll give you the same explanation I gave vazak:
1966399
Under no circumstance will I be turning anyone into Superboy Prime.
1966432
Ah, so they're Alternates in a large, loosely packed cluster. Likely either ellipse or orbital, by your description.
If the drifts happen in a regular, constant pattern, it's likely orbital. If they were irregular and random, then it would be more of an ellipse. A loose cloud as opposed to a tight series of orbits around one another, you see.
Good thing too, because Spiral and Chain clusters are the ones that have Prime Alternates, and those suuuck because as I've mentioned, if you were to incite an event in, say, the 10th alternate, every alternate from 11 onwards would feel it in some way. The effects get more pronounced as you approach the Prime alternate, leading to the whole thing where if so much as the planet Earth were to be destroyed, every Earth (and Earth analogue!) In that cluster just ceases to be.
And that is why you need to take good care of your Primes. Be active in your cluster, and all that.
1966496
A mix of both regular and orbital. Some universes move in regular patterns...some don't. Like the
thirteentwelve moons of Eberron.1966517
Oh my god, I know, right?
And then you have those times when clusters move around each other, and everything just goes out the door when you get to that point, because, hey, that alternate wasn't here yesterday! Looks like our alternates just got switched around, and we'll likely not see that other alternate for fucking eons
Motherfucker. That just ruins my entire weekend when that happens.
1966584
...your entire weekend is ruined because Xoriat, the Realm of Madness, the fell plane of the Daelkyr whom the demons themselves feared and whom the Dhakaani Empire gave their lives to ensure that it could never again enter Eberron's orbit?
See, most people see that Xoriat's exile is one of the few times when the motiff of
thirteentwelve things was considered a good thing for Eberron.1966432
Magic lightning is still a bit shaky to me, if it's used.
I get the sudden impression the two Twilight will bee swapping places?
1966664
Well, yeah, when you want to get rid of the asshole Alternates, it's great.
But man, when you have good relations with a world populated by sentient hats, and all of a sudden their alternate gets jacked by the causio-gravitational pull of some ellipse cluster that just happened to skim your cluster?
I mean, yeah, it's an accident, but that shit can tear families apart if they're on different alternates at the time. Loving, mixed-species hat-human families.
1966777
...this is officially a very strange conversation.
1966432
Wait struck by lightning to go through dimensions? Why do I get the feeling that this may some how end with Trixie gaining a Dangerous Forbidden Technique overclocking mode (possibly of the Cast From Hit Points type) that ends up looking something like this when engaged:
cdn.derpiboo.ru/thumbs/1300/600/2012/10/09/00_20_26_284_117516__UNOPT__safe_trixie_rage_artist_dotrook
1966883
That looks badass! and super awesome! In equally epic measures!
kinda makes me think of "storm avatar"?
I actually quite like the idea of a cool but very risky magical spell like that plus ticked of Trixie getting her effects is cool.
1967454
Neither am I, to be perfectly honest...I just make stuff up as it comes to me.
Meh. I look to the Lunaverse to subvert tropes. Ponies (particularly Twilight) breaching universes with an insanely powerful, but slightly altered teleportation spell within the first few chapters? Sounds extremely familiar.
It sounds like the nicest slum ever with the nicest vicious gangs. We agree about the size of little ponies:
A pony is a little horse and these are little ponies. The bubble shrank to 4 feet (the tip is the hoof to the ankle or wrist I presume ;-). That puts Twilight Sparkle at the size of a large dog. This is how I see things:
Mares:
Meso
Stallions:
Robust
Alicorns:
Gracile
I figure that the mares are about 50 kilograms, or in old fashion units, 100 pounds.
Despite being only a little taller and longer, because stallions are so robust, the stallions are about twice as massive, or about 100 kilograms.
A full grown Alicorn such as Night-Mare Moon in the CelestiaVerse, Celestia in the CelestiaVerse, Luna in the LunaVerse, or Corona in the LunaVerse, despite being twice as tall as a stallion, has a mass of only twice that of a stallion, because they are so gracile, or 200 kilograms.
Mares and stallions are little ponies, but Alicorns are big ponies, just shy of being small horses.
1966432 Got it. Each spell is designed to tune to a specific quantum frequency by setting your molecules to vibrate at the proper resonance in the 14 special dimensions. If you don't know what frequency you need to set it to, you're kinda screwed because, again, it's resonating in 14 spatial dimensions...and one temporal as well. And you can't even perceive most of them. So returning home would be a problem. Especially when you consider you can't just do the whole "trace back your own signature" idea from SciFi because that's just stupid. In order to be in the alternate reality you have to match it. You cannot be in a reality you do not match. Therefore you don't have a quantum signature to trace because your quantum signature matches the world you are in by default.
Or magic, that works too.
Oh, and a bolt of lightning to power it? That's about 50,000 gigawatts, or about 44,000 times as much energy as time travel supposedly takes. Then again, a lot of it was probably lost in the transfer method, so blah lah blah science.
Hoo boooooy. Dammit Twilight.
I don't blame Twilight in the least for running. "The princess has promised leniency!" Saying those words is what we call a 'zero cost tactic...' If it works, then you get an easy capture, and if it doesn't, you haven't lost anything anyway. Rulers typically do not offer leniency to those they go to the trouble of actively hunting and posting rewards for.
I feel like Twilight has found the space that eldritch abominations would come from...
How's that pronounced? I've never seen a
lbefore._______________