The other Princess Twilight Sparkle didn’t really understand why that was her name, but it was. She felt more like herself every day in fact, when her friends would return to dream with her. They helped her recover so much. She remembered about the distant mountains to the north, about the picnic they had overlooking the valley. She remembered running through the cool woods as the autumn leaves cascaded down around her. She remembered books, and how much she loved to read them, and share them with others. She remembered that she was a princess, and she remembered her name. She remembered so many things now!
And she remembered how much she had hurt Scootaloo, twice, but even those memories she secretly cherished. It was so hard to hold onto anything in a dream. Memories slipped away so easily, like snuffed candles, leaving you lost in the darkness. She hated the darkness.
Princess Twilight didn’t have to hurt Scootaloo again. She knew that now. She knew what she did was wrong, and she never ever wanted to do it again. She just... didn’t remember what it was exactly that she did, only that it was a bad thing to do to somepony, and vaguely how to do it.
The four fillies had found the princess. Somehow, they caught her. And they made her realize that things were okay now, and she wasn’t going to hurt anypony. Now having fallen asleep for another night, they were walking together with her again, through that strangely familiar castle town. To that strangely familiar castle.
“I still don’t know how this could be my dream,” the purple princess said in disbelief, laying a hoof on the gate into the stone edifice, while the fillies clustered around her legs. “If it was you who dreamed it.”
“It’s gotta be your dream, princess,” the pumpkin orange Scootaloo said, in bright encouragement. “I literally cannot dream what’s in this castle, and if we’re in this dream, the others don’t wake up when I do. I must have just... accidentally fallen into one of your dreams, and I only thought I dreamed it up.”
“Hmm...” Twilight said, not entirely convinced by that. She remembered that it was very hard for a pony to leave their own dreams, and for Scootaloo to just do so accidentally it just didn’t add up. “Well, if it is my dream, then I will do my best to dream it,” Twilight said, facing the castle doors. “Shall we give it a shot?”
“Yeah!” came the chorus of four excited young voices behind her. Twilight pushed open the door.
The door opened with a creak, revealing a grand hallway with a vast, arching ceiling of clear glass panes. The fillies seemed particularly interested in that, looking overhead with awe, but what Twilight was surprised by was the automatic torches, which lit in eerie blue as they entered the room. It was... something that happens. Twilight remembered that.
Was it her dream, after all? Why did it feel so... real, then?
“Well, that worked,” Twilight said, trying to conceal her nervousness. “And it’s a lovely palace. I think it was supposed to be more um... crowded?”
Abruptly they were cheek to cheek with hundreds of ponies crowding around them on all sides, worried ponies, fearful ponies, and very pushy ponies. The fillies disappeared beneath the mass of ponies entirely, before Twilight managed to evert, the hundreds of constructs fading into shadows of memories as the castle was empty again.
“OK... not doing that again,” Twilight muttered, surrounded now by only 4 frazzled looking fillies. They got over their confusion fast though, exploring around with Twilight at all the amazing and new, yet familiar things.
The walls were beautifully adorned with tapestries by the way, of many beautiful styles. The blue ones had moons and stars on them, the yellow had sunlit fields and pastures, the brown ones full of colorful ponies, frolicking together in harmony. Twilight could not remember their purpose, or their significance, only that they reminded her of old friends, friends she hadn’t seen in so long, she couldn’t even recall their faces.
“Let’s try going up the stairs!” the odd tan filly known as Noi said over by a long staircase into the levels above. “I bet there are more clues up there!”
“Well I sup—” Twilight started, but the other three were already scrambling up the steps after Noi. Twilight trotted after them, a bemused smile on her face as once again the tireless efforts of her friends was winning her back more memories. Twilight remembered what was up the stairs, by travelling up them. Travel and memory recall went arm in arm with dreamwalking, Twilight recalled. The second floor had many hallways, and rooms of mysterious purpose. Then there was a banquet room, and what looked like a room for laundering tapestries.
After an incident with rediscovering the reason for a commode, one of the fillies found a secret passageway, that revealed itself when the little white unicorn tugged down on one of the tapestries. She moved aside before falling into it, thank goodness, but the three went down willingly then, flying along a steep spiraling slope that ended them up in a dank stone chamber, far beneath the earth. There were steps leading out, and Twilight followed the fillies up the stairs again, as they traveled left, and right, whispering among each other occasionally, but always knowing where to go next.
“So... is this my dream?” Twilight asked nervously. “You all seem awfully familiar with it.”
“It might be all our dreams mishmashed into one,” Apple Bloom suggested. “Parts of this we ain’t never seen before, but other parts are stuff we saw in th’ waking world.”
“I guess that could happen?” Twilight said cluelessly. She sure couldn’t think of why it wouldn’t happen, though a collective dream was supposed to be more... unstable, wasn’t it? She couldn’t remember. And really every part of this dream was so familiar to Twilight. She felt like she’d walked these halls a thousand times before.
“I don’t recognize any of this,” Noi said sadly. “Everything stopped being familiar the moment we came inside.”
“Huh, but you remembered something outside?” Twilight said curiously.
“I just... I wanted one of the houses out there to be my house,” Noi said, blushing, “It’s always been a fantasy of mine, to live in a land like this.”
“Oh, here, these stairs should lead to the roof,” Sweetie Belle chirped, running over to a final flight of stairs. The others hurried over, and peered upward into the darkness, and Twilight remembered.
“Yes, it does lead to the roof!” Twilight said engrossedly. “And I went up to the roof for something, I remember! We should go to the roof. Maybe I can remember what I did!”
The fillies clustered close together, Noi saying suspiciously, “You aren’t going to go loopy on us if you do, are you?”
“I will never do anything like that again, Noi,” Twilight pleaded. “I made a mistake. I was upset and I wasn’t thinking. I... I don’t know.”
Noi lifted her right forehoof up to the princess and gestured with it. Twilight sighed, lowering her head so that Noi could clamber onto it. So enwreathed in Twilight’s ephemeral, starry mane, with Twilight’s horn at her mercy, Noi said, “Okay, let’s go!”
Up the stairs they went. Through a door, to a parapet high atop the tallest tower. The silvery surface of the barrier around the castle seemed oppressively close up here. Twilight didn’t like that. It wasn’t supposed to be like that. She peered out over the town sprawling away from the castle, seeing it cut in half by this barrier. That wasn’t... right.
“I... I failed,” Twilight murmured distantly. “Somepony was trying to do something and I came up here because it didn’t work, and... at least I could save your farm, even if there was nobody there. I was trying to save everything I could. Noi, can I please try something with my horn? I want to try moving back the barrier.”
“I don’t think we can risk that, princess,” Noi said stubbornly. “If you lose control again...”
“I... don’t think I will,” Twilight said calmly, “But if I do... can you fillies make an exit?”
“Way ahead of you princess,” came Scootaloo’s voice, staring at the door back into the castle. She pulled open the door, and it led into the princess’s personal library this time, and from there, Scootaloo laid out a book pathway into one of Noi’s dreams.
“...alright,” Noi said cautiously, sliding down the princess’s neck and clopping to the floor. “If there’s anyone attacked, I want everyone to grab them and take them to my dream. I’ll wake us up from there.”
“That sounds reasonable,” Twilight said sadly. She wished she wasn’t broken. She wished she hadn’t failed. She wished everything would be okay, but she knew that it would never be okay. Nevertheless, Noi went to wait in her dream of a cottage interior. The other three fillies backed up what they felt was a safe distance, and the princess lit up her horn. She remembered an old, gravelly laugh, telling her the secrets to the manipulation of this magic. She... shifted her horn, and the light from it flickered, then grew bright. The silvery almost-opacity of the barrier indicated it wasn’t complete yet. It wasn’t absolute. She focused on that, worming her magic into the substance of it, and pouring her heart into saving as much as she possibly could.
A bright pulse from her horn spread throughout the barrier, and it began to move, sliding inexorably forward, swallowing house after house. Twilight faced away from the forest grimly, facing her town, seeking the beauty that it had once had. The barrier was straining, the tension too great at this obliquity, but she had to do it. She had to save that poor filly’s home. At the very least... it was all she knew how to do.
Once the barrier could not be widened a single inch more, Twilight spoke the words to end the world. The ancient power washed over her, and her hypercharged mane swirled behind her like a galaxy or a cataclysm. The barrier became... Opaque.
“There, it’s done,” she said with a sigh, the light dying from her horn as the weariness began to set in. Twilight hadn’t exerted herself like that in... a long time. “I don’t know exactly what I did, but it’s done.”
From within the library dream, the four fillies peeked out of hiding, looking at her warily.
“I’m done, Noi, Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo,” Twilight said with a smile. “The barrier is finished. Would you like to see it?”
Cautiously they all ventured out the door, out onto that parapet overlooking a once thriving castle town, now illuminated in the barrier’s omnipresent grey glow. The fillies stared, wide-eyed at the scene before them, which Twilight created.
“Are you seein’ this?” Apple Bloom asked incredulously.
“What’s your house doing way out there?” Scootaloo asked in confusion.
“Which one is your house?” the princess asked curiously.
“It’s that tiny lil’ red one way out there,” Apple Bloom said, pointing to the distant edge of the barrier. “Ah wouldn’t recognize it, but the hills around are just like at our ranch.”
“Are we seeing into another dream maybe?” Sweetie wondered, and Twilight really just didn’t want to think about this. She was afraid of that little red dot, and what she couldn’t remember about it.
“Can we please go to a funner dream now?” Twilight whined, crouching down before them. “I’m sorry I did this, and I don’t know why. I really wish we could think of something else right now.”
“Y-yeah, prob’ly a good idea, princess,” Apple Bloom said somberly. “We cain always come back to this later... just the four of us, now that we know how to get in.”
“So... pirates or robots?” Scootaloo asked thoughtfully.
“Let’s do robots!” Sweetie exclaimed, “We always do pirates.”
“I call grunge monkey!” Noi said, running into the library dream, followed by the others. They were no doubt in search of that incredible “show” the four had shared with Twilight, about those giant mechanical suits of armor. Twilight grinned despite herself, trotting after the four fillies. She really loved that show.
“The fourteenth meeting of the Cutie Major Crusaders is now in session!” Apple Bloom called curtly, rapping her hoof on the stone of the table. The three of them stood in the mysterious CMC HQ behind the secret door in the library, sans Noi who couldn’t yet be trusted with such sensitive information. Noi already had her major, even if she couldn’t really do it anymore. Plus Noi didn’t attend high school.
The lighting in this stone chamber was better after Scootaloo got through with it, with a string of lights hung around the edges of the room, but they still had the candle lit for show. They did bring in a small shelf, on which was an emergency change of pony sized clothes (one of Apple Bloom’s outfits), a cheap scavenged still camera and film, a clock telling them what time it was so they didn’t miss next period, and a bunch of drawing paper alongside a box of crayons.
“Now we don’t got a lotta time before we have to find Big Mac an’ head home,” Apple Bloom stated, “So let’s be quick. First on our agenda is summer break. What’re we gonna do over break?”
“Well, sports camp is out,” Scootaloo said grumpily. “Even if there was a sports camp, the whole city is under quarantine. I’m not gonna turn the whole world into ponies just so I can go kick a ball around.”
“You have to admit, kicking a ball around is pretty fun,” Apple Bloom said with a giggle.
“Can we talk about that dream?” Sweetie whined, “We have plenty to do this summer, if everyone’s going to be a pony by the end of it. That’s not what we should be worrying about!”
“Okay then Sweetie,” Apple Bloom said uncomfortably, “We cain always move to item 2. About the dream, could it have just been mah dream leaking into it? It was a mighty peculiar dream.”
“But she said she wanted to save your farm!” Sweetie Belle protested. “...sort of. She dream-said she was moving the shield to ‘at least’ save your farm, Apple Bloom, and then your farm house was right there. It was like she was apologizing for demolishing it! But it hasn’t been demolished, so I don’t know what her barrier was supposed to save.”
“Where were we?” Scootaloo asked, “I know Canterlot City doesn’t have a... a castle, so where were we standing, if this dream is about the city?”
“We need to go to mah house,” Apple Bloom said, “And find where the other edge of this barrier is. Scoots cain scope out what side of the building we were on, and we just look away from there, to where she was in her dream. Then we cain find where that castle is. Think about it girls, there could be ancient ruins buried underneath our very city! She could be in a dungeon somewhere, held in a magical sleep!”
She frowned at her yellow hoof, adding, “If’n it’s not in the direction of the city, maybe the barrier moved somehow, and the castle is outside it. If that’s so, maybe the princess is out there too, and all she has to do is expand the barrier thingy, and we cain go find her castle and wake her up.”
“Better bring your brother along,” Sweetie said demurely. At Apple Bloom’s look of puzzlement, Sweetie chirped, “You know, in case she needs to get woken with a kiss?”
“Swe—” Apple Bloom turned beet red. “We are not using mah brother to kiss sleeping princesses!” she said in furious outrage.
“No, he’s perfect Apple Bloom,” Sweetie persisited, “He’ll be her real prince charming~”
“Wait, does that mean Big Macintosh is going to have to kiss a horse?” Scootaloo blurted out.
There was a moment of stunned silence, before all three of them were giggling. Sweetie Belle was blushing red now, gasping out, “That’s not what I... meant...!” in between giggles.
“Maybe we should bring along Gummy!” Apple Bloom crowed, and the three devolved into laughter again.
Professor Discord was thoroughly puzzled about this data distribution. At first he was quite happy to disregard it as nothing more than random chance, but there did seem to be a patern to it that wasn’t statistically insignificant. “What you know so far,” he said to the unusually attentive girls who had forced his hand in helping with this mess, “Is that there is a positive correlation between transformees and their location at Canterlot High. The school seems to be a hotspot for transformees, with more than 13% being students or faculty from here, and more than a third of the foal transformees.”
“That’s right,” Sunset spoke up, looking at Discord’s figures with as much comprehension as a teenage high school girl could muster. Which wasn’t all that impressive if as these girls claimed, Sunset was actually older than he was. You would think she could act her age. “We finally have enough data to see some correlation, and we’re pretty sure that something about the high school is doing it.”
“But the statue is quite distant from the mean location at which people began to be transformed!” Twilight said. “And that location isn’t anything strange, or magical that I can fathom.”
“Yes, a location quite separated from the school, out in the front parking lot,” Discord reported. “But do recall that the average is not necessarily the source, if the distribution is skewed. Furthermore, as Canterlot is on the southeast side of the city, so the population to the south and east of us is going to be sparser than that to the north and west.”
The greying man moved his pointer to a map of the school, continuing, “So if the mean location is here, the population distribution is going to bias it, so that the actual source lies somewhere... here.” He moved his pointer slightly south and east, right in the middle of the school’s back lawn.
“But that’s even farther away from the statue!” Twilight protested petulantly. She thankfully was not Discord’s senior, though she was far too old to be in high school. Or to be whining at him.
“Well perhaps your precious horse statue isn’t as important as you thought it was,” Discord replied grouchily. “What we need is permission to dig here, to see if we can unearth some kind of... alien device that could be generating this effect.”
“We can’t go digging in the school’s back lawn,” Sunset sighed, “We’re already in hot enough water as-is. If the principals don’t turn into princesses like Twilight predicted, then I don’t know how we’re going to convince them, until this has gotten so far out of hand that we can’t hope to deal with it.”
Discord shook his head, saying, “Perhaps the issue is not related to the where, but the when. I have something you might be interested in here. You’ve been collecting several different data points, at several different times. You recorded the incidence of ponification organized by where people were at the time of that... facture thing.”
“Quasispatial reified facturation,” Twilight offered unhelpfully.
“Yes yes, whatever,” Discord rolled his eyes, “But you also tried to find where people were when they first started changing, and where they were when Apple Bloom first had that prophetic dream. Here I’ve got the three datasets next to each other. See anything unusual about them?”
After staring at them, neither Twilight or Sunset did, but Sunset Shimmer at least attempted saying, “You mean, the clustering towards Canterlot High...?”
“Yes and no,” Discord granted. “What I did was I measured the standard deviation from that vaunted center point we’ve been talking about so earnestly. And here’s the funny thing, the data set involving the facture has a smaller deviation than the data set based on the moment they began changing. And the data set regarding Apple Bloom’s dream has the smallest deviation of all. I can’t say it’s statistically significant, but what is statistically significant is if you examine the outliers.”
He put up three new diagrams, that had cut out the bulk of the transformees, only displaying locations for the ones who had varied the most from diagram to diagram. And now the girls were starting to get it.
“They’re closer together, the earlier you go!” Twilight said in fascination.
“So maybe we’ve been going about this wrong,” Sunset pondered. “Maybe the moment she found the Golden Apple was the only time we had to measure, because the deviation is the smallest!”
“Well, I can’t say it’s the smallest,” Discord replied contrarily. They looked at him again, and he said, “I’m not sure what I can do for you, with no statistical correlation outside of pure random chaos. Which you claim is my bread and butter, but you simply don’t understand that chaos theory is at its most fundamental state one of unpredictability. If this transformation is a chaotic system, then I’m afraid you’ll never find out when it started. It would be like trying to guess when all the billiard balls on a pool table were all in one place, just by their random position at any given time.
“But if we KNEW when the billiard balls were all in one place,” Sunset postulated.
“Then yes,” Discord admitted, “You could probably make some statistical claims about the probable distribution of this effect.”
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking, Twilight?” Sunset asked with a rare smile.
“I think so Sunset,” Twilight said amiably, “But surely all the balls have fallen in the pocket by now.”
“These billiard balls are people,” Sunset said excitedly, “They remember where they were!”
“So all we need to do is...” Twilight said wide-eyed.
“Figure out when the first transformees were all in the same place!” Sunset crowed.
“Wait, uh...” Twilight frowned. “Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo? I think we might have a few false positives there.”
“Then Noi,” Sunset persisted, “Piña, and Elias. There’s got to be some point that they were all in one place.”
“Along with Cheerilee, yes!” Twilight brightened, “They have to recognize each other somehow!”
“Noi in particular,” Sunset said, “When where a police sergeant and a librarian in the same place? They have to remember!”
“Well what are we waiting for?” Twilight cheered, “Let’s go gather some data!”
The two girls hurried out then, while Professor Discord raised a hand going, “So I should just... stay here then?” but they were already gone.
“Welcome to the club,” came a glum voice at Discord’s feet. The purple girl’s dog was there. He jumped up onto the bed and made himself comfortable, saying smugly in plain English, “You get used to it. Those two really need us quiet supporter types to keep them on the level.”
“A talking dog,” Discord said flatly.
“At your service!” Spike announced. Discord ignored its very absurd existence.
“Hard to say, really,” Noi replied, from where she sat on the fence out in the bright sun, idly chewing on a straw of hay. “I never knew any of those three girls as anything but ponies,” the little tan filly with the violet eyes said in her cute yet bold voice, “Though except Cheerilee... she’s the school librarian, right?”
“Yes?” Sunset and Twilight said, notes at the ready.
“Well, there was a police fair back at the beginning of the school year,” Noi offered speculatively, “We had a whole bunch of the squad out there, teaching kids about safety and good conduct ‘n stuff. That’s really the last time I ever went to Canterlot High, though I could still have run into the librarian at the grocery store or whatever, I dunno.”
“But do you—” Twilight started, only for Noi to interrupt, whining,
“I wasn’t done yet!”
Both girls fell silent.
Noi rolled onto her back, sighing at the clouds overhead, then said, “I remember seeing the librarian at the police fair. Dunno why. She was just standing in the back. I think she got lost or something.”
“But—”
“I don’t remember essactly when it was,” Noi answered Twilight, “You could call the station though.”
Walking alongside a pony was difficult, except when that pony was careful to keep themselves to your pace, and nimble on their hooves. Cheerilee was both those things, now. She accompanied Twilight and Sunset to their portable, happily telling them,
“Why yes, I was at the police fair, just by chance mind you. Scootaloo was there too, I’m sure of it, and no doubt her little friends too.”
Cheerilee frowned, rubbing a foreleg under her chin as she said, “I never could figure out why I left the library to attend that thing. Was just curious what was going on outside, I suppose. It was a slow day.”
Standing outside and chatting had attracted the attention of the people within the portable, and both Professor Discord and that adorable little talking dog came loping out, curious as to what the girls had wrought.
“Do you happen to remember exactly when this police fair was?” Sunset asked the very fuscia pony Cheerilee was now. “Noi didn’t recall, and we’re going to ask the station to look it up, but...”
“I do recall it was early in September,” Cheerilee said frankly. “Right at the beginning of the school year.”
“September 7th, at 12:03pm?” Sunset asked suddenly.
Cheerilee blinked at her, then said, “Yes, actually. That’d be the day, and it was in the afternoon.”
“The time loop...” Twilight mouthed quietly.
“The time loop, of course!” Sunset cheered practically triumphantly.
“Oh dear god, the time loop,” Cheerilee groaned, ears going flat.
“The time what?” the professor asked in puzzlement.
Spike said nothing because he is a dog.
“Oh yes,” Twilight remarked, glancing towards the confused professor, “Your world has been trapped in a year long time loop, for quite some er...time now.”
“And when were you going to tell me about this bit of information?” Discord replied with a very raised brow.
“I did, several times in past loops,” Sunset said teasingly, “You wouldn’t remember, of course.”
“Of course,” Discord said, staring at the girl in disgust, “So, why are you two able to remember?”
“Well, I can’t speculate to the how exactly,” Twilight said, in utter clueless unawareness of Sunset and Discord’s little staring match here, “But it’s most certainly because we’re native Equestrians.”
Discord lost. He looked at Twilight incredulously, asking, “Because you... are horse caretakers? What does that have to do with anything? What do you mean native?”
“Well, we actually came to your world through an alternate dimension,” Sunset said, drawing Discord’s attention again. “Twilight and I were born in the magical land of Equestria.”
Discord stared, speechless.
“I know it’s hard to believe,” the Twilight girl offered earnestly.
“What I believe nonwithstanding, when were you going to tell me about the alternate dimensions to magical worlds?!” Discord snapped at her, “Am I supposed to solve all your problems without knowing that salient fact? What other unimportant factoids haven’t you told me? That you put the stars in the sky? Let me guess, your world has nothing but these adorable ponies in it, who frolic about idylically all day in the Elysian fields. Oh no wait I’ve got it. I’m God, right? I’m some sort of omnipotent being, just deluding myself into thinking I’m the world’s most frustrated math professor, facing a world shattering dilemma?”
“Um, no,” Twilight said uncertainly, “Princess Luna is the one who put most of the stars in the sky, not me. I haven’t been a princess long enough for the opportunity to come up. Equestria is really more mountainous than the Elysian fields, but it does have some lovely fields that ponies have cultivated in its valleys, and I suppose we frolic in them. I think idyllic is a matter of opinion. Oh and... yes, you’re...”
Twilight bit her lip, informing him and Sunset, “Well, in our world you’re technically considered a spirit, but everypony did pretty much come to the conclusion you were some kind of mad god thousands of years ago, when you took over the world and all.”
When Discord could find no words, Sunset facepalmed and told the purple girl, “He was asking rhetorically, Twilight.”
“Oh, heh heh,” Twilight said with a blush, “Heh.”
“I took over the world?” Discord finally managed to blurt out.
“Yep!” Twilight replied pleasantly, “You got better though, after you were harmonized, uh... twice.”
...
“It’s a great treatment for all sorts of manaical maladies!” the purple girl added.
“I’m done,” Discord replied.
“What?” Twilight asked, looking moonstruck.
“I’m done,” Discord repeated curtly, walking away from the trailer, and back to sanity.
“No, wait, where are you going?!” Sunset exclaimed, jogging after him, closely followed by Twilight herself.
“I’m done! I am done. I am not doing this anymore,” Discord calmly explained, perhaps a tad shrilly.
“You have to help us!” Twilight protested.
“Can’t hear you!” Discord shouted, jogging away from her, and singing, “la la la la!” with his fingers in his ears.
Cheerilee stared after the retreating trio, saying, “So, should I wait here or...”
“Welcome to the club, sister,” Spike said sagely from where he stood by her side. “Welcome to the club.”
Cheerilee gave him a thoughtful look, and asked, “...wanna play fetch?”
“Do I?!” Spike said, brightening immediately.
The two of them then hurried off on all fours to seek out a good stick.
“We have to find out exactly where everyone was at 12:03pm on September 7th,” Sunset said, with a wary look at the professor, not currently fleeing the premises of the portable building they’d all finally returned to. (Spike wasn’t there when they got back. Nobody noticed.) “We’re going to... oh, for the love of god,” she facedesked with a weary sigh.
“Yes?” Discord asked curiously, “If you do that, then I can tell you whether the deviation has continued to go down, or if it already passed its lowest point, which is our target time where a data distribution might have some corellation.”
“Yeah, but that means we’ll have to interrogate everyone again,” Sunset groaned, “And try to get them to remember what they were doing almost eight months ago.”
“I don’t suppose you could...” Twilight asked, looking thoughtfully at Discord. The professor raised his palms though, shaking his head, and saying,
“No, no. I’m not a... ‘people’ person you may have noticed. I’ll be happy to crunch your numbers when you’ve come up with some though.”
“I think we’re really onto something this time though,” Twilight said eagerly. “And now with Spike helping, we can go 1.5 times as fast! Say... where is—”
“Well, what are we waiting for?” Sunset said with clenched fists and a vigorous smile. “Let’s go gather some data!”
“Item 3,” Apple Bloom said. Perched on the table in that stone chamber that was their new clubhouse, she continued to look at her short list of agenda items written in blue crayon. “The pony girls.”
“We need to tell them about this dream,” Sweetie Belle said, “But... maybe we shouldn’t tell them just yet. I know they want to help, but...”
“Yeah...” Apple Bloom said glumly. “Poor Ms. Berry.”
“Did she seriously freak out over some imaginary friends?” Scootaloo asked. “I wish I was there.”
“Hey now,” Apple Bloom said admonishingly, “If y’all disappeared, and everyone was telling me you were all made up, I’d be freaking out too!”
“I know, I just... I wish I could do something to help her,” Scootaloo said in frustration. “We could talk to her, and tell her... something, or go out to that barrier thing and find them. If we could find them, then we’d be her heroes!”
“Maybe we should leave that one up to the grownups,” Sweetie Belle said touchily. “We don’t know enough about what’s going on yet, and they have all kinds of equipment to deal with stuff like... that.”
“The edge of the universe is totally something the adults know how to deal with,” Scootaloo said rolling her eyes, “With their extradimensioney magical ghostbuster equipment, right?”
“Okay maybe we should do something,” Sweetie said, blushing deeply.
“Aw, I didn’t mean it in a bad way, Sweetie,” Scootaloo said consolingly, “I just meant you shouldn’t sell yourself short just yet.”
“What we oughta do is find out where that castle is,” Apple Bloom said, “And what we’re dealing with there. Then we cain tell those other girls about what we dreamed. Ah just don’t want them to get all excited and go do something we coulda avoided if we checked out the situation beforehand.”
“I’m okay with that,” Scootaloo said tentatively.
“As long as we leave a note,” Sweetie said, with a calculating look in her cool green eyes, “Otherwise we could get trapped too, and nobody would know to rescue us.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Apple Bloom stated in relief. She was concerned about this point, on account of it felt kind of like going behind their back, but at the same time it seemed like jumping the gun to run to them about every little thing. This adventuring stuff was hard!
She looked at the agenda and faltered in her cheer. “Uh, item 4,” Apple Bloom said, “Diamond Tiara.”
The other two looked at each other silently, before Scootaloo said, “I think we should let her into the club.”
“Well, she ain’t a pony,” Apple Bloom protested, “And she has her major already.”
Scootaloo blushed, saying, “Yeah, but I dunno if she’ll be able to, you know, pursue it. I mean I don’t know how that s-stuff works really. I just thought she really likes mysteries and cool discoveries like this clubhouse, so it might help take her mind off... it.”
“She is definitely pregnant,” Sweetie said in amazement, “It’s starting to get really obvious. I didn’t think that would happen to any of us until after high school.”
“You think she’ll make it, before, you know... pony?” Scootaloo asked worriedly.
“At this point, I don’t know if it would be such a bad idea,” Sweetie said uneasily, “If she just... changed into a filly. You know what happened to the others...”
“Yeah, but a lot of the new ponies are adults now, so new foals are rare,” Scootaloo said hopefully, “She’s taking like, super long to change compared to the other younger ponies. Maybe it’ll... wait?”
“Ah don’t know about you two,” Apple Bloom said a little crossly, “But Diamond Tiara seems fine. She’s tough enough to weather it no matter what happens, and everybody’s all concerned for her.”
The others noticed she was rolling her eyes, and Apple Bloom blushed, stammering, “A-ah just think that Diamond ain’t gonna have no problem. Everyone thinks she needs all sorts of extra special help, but she’s y’know, just bein’ herself with a little bit of a belly.”
Apple Bloom sighed, saying, “She’s not the one ah’m worried about.”
Dinky was so tired of being such a failure. He probably should have been in class, but instead he was hiding out behind the school, sitting by himself, alone. The year was almost over and he wasn’t even ready for finals, but he had so much more to worry about than that it was just excruciating.
He wished he had controlled himself better. He should have seen it coming a mile away. He wished he had never met Diamond Tiara. He wished he’d never even gone to high school. Well, if what that girl said was true, he’d be getting his wish. He couldn’t be a father. He didn’t want to and he couldn’t, and now because he tried to be one, someone else was going to get hurt, who hadn’t even been born yet.
Dinky didn’t blame Diamond if she got rid of it, or had to give it to the orphanage. Dinky wasn’t even going to be able to be there. He was going to have to be something else, someone who couldn’t handle any of this. He did what he wanted without caring about others, and now some kid was going to be forced to go through life without a... father.
He wanted Diamond Tiara again. It built up over time it seemed, bothering him more and more, until he couldn’t help but go to her. Just an innocent desire to be close to her and spend time with her, until it became anything but innocent. He knew not to trust himself anymore, but he didn’t stop feeling it! He loved how un-innocent it got, and he hated himself for loving it. It seemed like he ruined everything he touched, and everything he loved just hurt people.
When they even noticed he existed, that is.
He and Diamond... failed to control themselves, but it might have been salvageable. He’d have to raise a child and go to school, and probably get a job right out of high school instead of attending college, but at least the kid wouldn’t be... gone. At least Dinky would have stood a chance at taking control of the situation, and being the best father he could be. But then that purple girl had come to see him about his destiny as a pony...
Dinky didn’t want to think about that now, or ever, so he forced himself to get up and head on towards his next class. He didn’t know why he even bothered at this point though. He didn’t know why anyone did.
“Yeah, he’s been kind of standoffish,” Scootaloo admitted, “I guess he feels guilty or something. I know like half the school thinks he is, now that they suddenly care about Diamond Tiara.”
“Yeah—well—ah know,” Apple Bloom said in a strained tone, “But ah dunno if it’s just him getting picked on. Diamond’s drinking in all the attention, an’... he’s just being sorta quietlike, you know?”
“Dinky is a very quiet person in general,” Sweetie Belle countered.
Apple Bloom nodded to the unicorn filly. “Heaven knows you’re right, Sweetie Belle,” she admitted, “Ah just got a bad feeling about this. Something ain’t right with that boy.”
There was an awkward silence between the three, and Apple Bloom broke it by saying, “Ah’ll go talk to him. Make sure he’s... y’know, alright.”
“That sounds like a good idea,” Scootaloo said in a relieved tone. “I’d say we all should, but that’d be kind of like ganging up on him, and those white knight kids are already doing plenty of that.”
“And, should we let Diamond know about our secret clubhouse?” Sweetie Belle asked.
“Nah,” Apple Bloom said, “Pretty sure Diamond’s doing as fine as she cain be. I wanna make sure he ain’t thinking of dumping her or nothing before we go do anything like that.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Scootaloo said with a grin. “So, do item 5.”
“Oh, right!” Apple Bloom said happily, “Item 5, our club mascot!”
“We need a cool mascot,” Scootaloo said eagerly, “Like not a pony like the school mascot, but maybe a pet, or a—a gerbil!”
“That sounds like a lot of work,” Sweetie Belle replied uneasily.
Twilight prepped her clipboard, asking, “Alright miss, now where were you on September 7th of last year, at 12:03pm?”
The pony tilted her head, and answered, “Well I hthingk I wahs asshool ash hueshoell, bu’mayfee i’wahsze weegkeng?”
“...this might take a while,” Twilight grumbled.
One bright afternoon in May, two ponies stumbled out of the old, abandoned barn, laughing with each other side by side. One was a caramel brown stallion, aptly named, with smooth, dark brown hair, a blush on his face and a very dusty tail. The icon of horseshoes adorned his thighs.
The other pony’s tail wasn’t dusty, but it was very dissheveled. She was a blue mare with a lot of green in her blue fur. Her blonde tail was ruffled and rubbed the wrong way, and very perky as the two of them trotted away. Dissheveled blue wings clung to her sides, and on her thighs was a bright yellow lightning bolt.
“I can’t believe we zhust did that!” Sassaflash whispered beside herself with excitement.
“Hey it worked, didn’ it?” Caramel whispered back.
“What if shomeone saw us?” she said eagerly.
“We’re poniesh, whassit matter?” he replied. “Zhey don’t even have clothes for us!”
Dancing in a circle and looking at herself anxiously, the pegasus mare said, “They could shtill see me! We need to ge’ cleaned up.”
“I’d give you a hot shower, bu’ zhe creek ish closer,” he said apologetically.
With a yell and a shriek, they sat down in the cold water, sidling up against each other and trying to get used to the cold.
“Did shoo mean that before,” he asked quietly, after they’d gotten used to the water’s temperature, “Abou’ wanting pony babiesh?”
“Yeah, I dunno,” she said looking at her soaked tail unsurely, “I woul’ nevera done that in a million years when I firs’ shange, but I jus’ been really wanting it lately. Have hyou even sheen the foals? They’rh sho cute!” a gleeful smile leapt on her face, despite herself.
They could see three foals in fact, over beyond of the shaded creek, by the main farm house. The orange one was a flier it seemed, and they were playing some game by which the orange one would fly up and look around, then drop down to confer with the others. Then the yellow and white one would accompany the orange one to run around to another side of the building and repeat their actions.
“Too many foalsh already,” the stallion said self consciously, “Sure you wanna add more of zhem?”
“Bi’ late for that, Gashonova,” she said teasingly, splashing water his way. He laughed and splashed back, and that occupied their attention for a while. Once they had calmed down though, laying belly up on the banks of the creek, the mare gazed forward and said,
“It prob’lly won’ work the firs’ time. We should be shafe, but Iunno. Maybe could we do it jus’ a lil bit more, an’ you can just finish outshide?”
“Sheesh, you haven’ had enough already?” he asked her wryly.
“I know!” she crowed, wiggling her hooves in the air. “I’m inshashiable!”
“Remember when you firsh’ change?” he asked. “You didn’ even want anyone to toush you.”
“I feel differen’ now,” she said evenly. “Dunno wha’ it is, jus’ started feeling sho darn good to be a pony. Plush my boyfrien’ turned out to be a hot one.’
“You too babe,” he replied smoothly, using his long, supple lips to give the green pegasus a peck on the cheek. It wasn’t long before they were doing a lot more than that.
“Alright, Cutie Major Crusaders!” Apple Bloom said excitedly as Sweetie Belle finally trotted up to her and Scootaloo. The three of them were once again outside the classroom, preparing for an exciting search through the school’s empty halls for mysteries and secrets. “Once we reach th’ roof we’ll know for sure what we’re dealing with. Are we ready to ‘rock the Earth?’”
When the other two didn’t answer, but stared, wide-eyed at a spot above and behind Apple Bloom, she tilted her head, puzzled.
“What’s wrong, girls?” she asked worriedly. “The motto ain’t working? C’mon we can’t sit around here lollygagging. We gotta get moving or we’ll get spotted by a—”
Someone cleared their throat behind Apple Bloom.
“Hall... monitor...” she finished, soon joining the others in shrunken pupils and laid-back ears.
The three fillies were escorted by the hall monitor straight to the principal’s office. Not even given a lecture to this time, or a warning. An ugly ball of revulsion rose in Apple Bloom’s heart as she kicked herself a thousand times for doing this again. She just... she wasn’t having no fun in class, and she wanted to just play with her friends, just a little. And it didn’t hurt to sneak out just this once. Even though ‘just this once’ turned into almost every day.
Why was she getting in so much trouble now? Couldn’t she sit still for one stinking hour? Well, one hour was fine, but 7 periods was just impossible! Apple Bloom didn’t know why she was turning into this big bad troublemaker, but it was certainly her fault as much as theirs. She’d encouraged her friends to come play with her, and tried to pass off what they were doing as no big deal, and they believed her. It wasn’t their fault. They didn’t know just how much Apple Bloom didn’t have control of herself. And now they were all going to see the principal. Again.
Never in Apple Bloom’s whole life did she think she’d say the word “again” in regards to seeing the principal.
The three of them tried to stand strong together once they got into the principal’s office, but Apple Bloom just wasn’t feeling it today. She wanted to protect her friends to bear the brunt of whatever punishment was coming down on them, but she just didn’t feel like fighting anymore. The three of them stared forlornly at the ground in front of the principal’s desk. Nobody spoke at first, the principal just sitting at her desk looking down at them... judgementally.
“I don’t think you three should finish the school year,” Principal Celestia said cooly. “This is the fifth time that you’ve been truant in the last 3 weeks, and I’m afraid that’s only counting the times that hall monitors have been able to catch you. You continue to fall behind in your studies, because let me guess, it’s ‘boring’?”
“Well it is,” Sweetie Belle said resentfully, not willing to look at the principal, not even sideways.
“I know what you’ve been doing,” the principal said with little compassion. “I know how exciting it is to try and find the ‘school secrets’ but I can assure you that there’s no secrets about this school that I wouldn’t freely give you. You need to stay in your classes, and focus on your studies, or I don’t think you belong in this institution.”
“This is just because we’re little kids!” Scootaloo said resentfully. “You just don’t want us to be allowed here because you think we’re not old enough!”
“That is a very hurtful way to put it,” Principal Celestia said in a chiding tone, “There are many reasons that your... transformation might mean that attending high school is not in your near future. Firstly, you may have many opportunities in the future to succeed in high school, once your bodies and... minds have matured to the point that you can handle it. Secondly, the school is going through some troubling times, and I think it might be too distracting, for you to focus on your studies. Thirdly...”
Apple Bloom kind of sympathized with what the principal was saying... what the principal was repeating, really. It was all stuff she’d heard before, but Apple Bloom didn’t want to admit it. She didn’t want to be some stupid little kid who had to sit around the farm all day not doing anything important. She wanted to be in high school, succeeding at... something. Having heard all this stuff before it was entirely too easy to tune her out, and Apple Bloom’s friends weren’t having much more luck themselves.
Scootaloo kept getting distracted, looking curiously at the literature in the principal’s bookcase, or what she’d written on her whiteboard regarding staff reviews, or the degree Principal Celestia had framed on her wall. Apple Bloom had to admit it was natural to be curious what kind of college degree you had to get in order to become a principal.
Sweetie in the meantime seemed less remorseful as disgusted, with herself and with the whole situation. She just flopped down on her belly, toying with a hoof at a very important piece of carpet in front of the principal’s desk, staring dully forward while the principal’s words drifted into her ears. Apple Bloom kind of wished she could join her, because it was kind of nerve racking trying to stand here and be brave all by herself, defending the three of them from the principal’s accusations.
There really wasn’t much that they could have said to defend themselves. The principal was right. They didn’t belong in this school anymore, and it’d been a mistake to think that they could handle it. There wasn’t anything Apple Bloom could do about it. All she could do was stand there letting the principal’s words wash over her. Scootaloo yawned and scratched at her side with a wing, while Sweetie Belle seemed to have scooted forward out of view of the principal entirely, just fiddling idly around with the hoofprint trim at the border of the principal’s desk. Apple Bloom didn’t like being useless, but what was the point of fighting it, if all the three of them could do was sit there and take it?
“Sweetie Belle?” Principal Celestia said, leaning over her desk to peer at the little pony’s bubblegum colored tail. “I need you to listen to me, Sweetie Belle.”
Sweetie Belle grumbled an affirmative, not lifting her head, so much as turning her ears up straight again to hear the principal better. “Sweetie, I really need you to pay attention for this,” the principal said commandingly.
“We’re all payin’ attention,” Apple Bloom said defensively. “You’re right. We shouldn’t be attending school, and we should all just go home and give up.”
Surprisingly, it wasn’t her friends but the principal who consoled her. With a look of worry to Apple Bloom, Principal Celestia told Apple Bloom gently, “You are all wonderful girls, even if you might have trouble being the best students sometimes. I can’t blame you for anything that’s happened. It just might not be the best idea to continue to put you through the rigors of a high school education.”
“Yeah, okay,” Apple Bloom grumbled. She didn’t feel consoled by that, only babied and resentful.
“I really do have your best interests in mind, when I...” the principal started into it again. Apple Bloom sighed to herself, and just looked to her friends for support. Scootaloo wasn’t much help, standing there with her head tilted back and a bored look on her face. Sweetie Belle had just gone back to messing with the decor lining the bottom of the principal’s desk. It was weird how the school had such a consistent horse theme going on, with their mascot being the Colts, and this hoof print decor everywhere.
“Apple Bloom, are you listening?” the principal asked, and Apple Bloom snapped her head up, saying,
“Yes’m! Ah’m listening about the... interests in mind and stuff.”
“You see? This is what I’m talking about,” the principal said. “Grade school is different from high school for a reason, and you three no longer have the attention span to... Scootaloo, are you asleep?”
“What? No!” Scootaloo snorted, tilting her head forward and cocking her ears. “I was just um—with the thing at the place.”
Sighing jadedly, the principal said, “And you Sweetie Belle, could you please stay where I can see you, while I’m talking to you?”
Ignoring her, the white filly continued so play with the hoof print decor. “Sweetie Belle?” the principal asked again. Silent treatment. Leaning forward, the principal said in exasperation, “Sweetie BeeeeEEELL” Celestia trailed off in an undignified squawk as she, the chair she was sitting in, her desk, and a good portion of the floor started sliding to the side.
The three fillies scrambled back from the principal’s desk, as ponderous, gravelly stone mechanisms ground in the floor underneath them, and a yawning chasm opened up in the floor. Methodically, stone steps slid out deeper and deeper as the pit skewed sideways more and more. Then with a shuddering clash, everything stopped moving, and all was silent and still.
“I can explain!” Sweetie Belle squeaked.