//------------------------------//
// An Intersection of Planes 
// Story: Caution: Random 
// by Rokas 
//------------------------------//

	Twilight Sparkle.

The Princess of Friendship stared into the mirror on her wardrobe, her gaze meandering across her image as she mentally mulled over her name. But is that really me? She asked, with a vague feeling of unreality that tinged her thoughts. I sometimes wonder, when I see myself standing there, if I am who I really am, or an echo of who really is? Am I the actor, or the action? She paused, and then leaned forward to stare deep into her own eyes. Who are you?

A sudden crash outside the castle immediately snapped her from her naval gazing, and Twilight shook her head as her thoughts and doubts about her true identity melted back into the confines of her subconscious. “What the hay was that?” she muttered to herself, as she turned and quickly trotted out from her bedroom and into the corridor.

Down the way she saw Starlight Glimmer leaving from another room connected to the long residential hallway filled with doors. “Twilight! Do you have any idea what that was?” the young apprentice asked.

“That wasn't you?” Twilight asked back, in mild confusion.

Glimmer echoed Sparkle's befuddlement. “Er, no, why would it be?” she asked back.

Twilight just gave the pinkish unicorn a flat, skeptical look at that, and then held it until Starlight blushed, folded her ears back, and glanced away. “Okay, right,” the student began, and then sighed. “Unusual magic with unintended but horrible consequences is my thing,” Glimmer admitted, and then turned her head back to face Twilight and gave the alacorn an earnest expression. “But I swear it isn't me today.”

Twilight reined back her incredulity and gave the mare in front of her a nod. “Alright, let's go take a look,” she said, and then turned to trot towards the entrance of the castle. Starlight Glimmer soon fell in beside her, and the two quickly traversed through the castle and made their way to the main doors. Another crash was heard outside just then, and Twilight Sparkle quickly used her magic to yank both doors open.

The scene that was revealed to the two mares would forever be etched in their minds.

A tall, bipedal figure stood in the road that led the short distance between the edge of Ponyville and the castle’s gates. Broad-chested, flat-faced, round-eared, and with a shock of red hair atop an otherwise hairless head, it struck an image of surreal confidence and masculinity, despite its otherwise alien appearance. He—at least I think it’s a he, anyway, Twilight thought—wore a strange outfit that clung to his body, showing off his decently  muscular frame, though parts of the fabric were loose in the appropriate places for movement and modesty. Even more eye-catching, however, was the garish color scheme of his clothes, which ranged from purple for the tights covering most of his body, to bright, eye-searing yellow of his boots and the patch of fabric where his legs met the torso, hot pink gloves that reached halfway up his forearms, and a cape made from a blue fabric that fluttered gently in the breeze. Finally, there seemed to be a symbol on the being’s chest: a line that started on the viewer’s left and then went right, branching off into multiple, parallel lines.

Twilight Sparkle and Starlight Glimmer noticed these details quickly, and then gaped as they saw that the biped was standing opposite of Applejack, who was still wearing the harness to pull a delivery cart, despite the fact that said cart was now obviously a pile of scrap on the road. The two pull arms of the cart were in fact still attached to her harness, and they dragged on the ground behind the mare whenever she moved.

And moved she did, as the apple farmer paced back and forth in front of the strange biped, and a glance at her face showed any who could see that she was livid. “An entire delivery jus’ destroyed ‘cuz you can’t see where the heck you were going? That’s th’ best ya kin say?” Applejack asked as she paced, her accent thicker than normal due to her anger.

“Well, no,” the being replied, evenly. His expression was calm and his tone affable, despite Applejack's clear anger. “The best I can say is that I couldn't see where I was going because I was hurled here by forces unknown and thus had no way of moving or aiming until I had hit the cart.”

“What?” Applejack asked, as she was brought up short by that comment. “Well, why didn't ya say so in th' first place?”

“Because,” the being said, and then shrugged.

A silence fell over the scene for a moment. Then Applejack spoke up. “Because...?” she said, trailing off to invite the strange being to fill in the rest of the sentence.

The being, however, simply smiled at her and folded his arms across his chest. “Because,” he re-stated, with a nod.

Another silence erupted, as Applejack simply stared up at the taller being with a baffled look upon her face. She was soon saved, however, as Twilight and Starlight walked up, and the former cleared her throat. “Uhm, excuse me?” she asked, as she looked over both Applejack and the stranger. “But, what's going on here? And who and what are you?” The latter question she directed up at the tall biped.

“Who am I?” the being said, and then grinned widely and shifted his stance. His hands balled into loose fists and he placed them on his hips even as he stuck out his chest slightly. “I am Random Action Man!”

The three ponies started at that, as the moment the strange being finished speaking they heard music. “What th' hay?” Applejack muttered, before they all heard singing:

He's Random Action Man!
He's Random Action Man!
He does whatever he can
Because he's Random Action Man!

“Where is that music coming from?” Twilight Sparkle asked, as she swiveled her head back and forth faster and faster. “I don't see anything!”

Random Action Man!
Cavorts without a plan!
He prances high and dances low
Not knowing where he goes!

“Oh heavens, it's in my head!” Starlight Glimmer exclaimed, as she sat on her haunches and brought up her forelegs to press her hooves against her ears. “And it's terrible!”

So if you're feeling wan
While you're eating old oat bran
Come have some fun
With that sunova-gun
Random Action Man!

“Make it stahp!” Applejack exclaimed. “It's like it was written by a tone-deaf stallion with no grasp of meter!”

He's Random Action Man!
Yes Random Action Man!
He rolls around the lands
To the joy of all his fans

Fighting evil all day long
With a smile and a song
He is here for you
He is Random Action Man!

The music and song abruptly stopped, and the three ponies blinked at the sudden halt to their experience. “That was torture!” Starlight Glimmer muttered as she regained her normal four-legged stance.

“You guys are really melodramatic,” a new voice said, and the four beings turned their heads to look towards the doors to the castle. There stood Spike, Twilight’s teen-aged dragon assistant, with his arms crossed across his chest, tapping a foot. “That wasn’t a good song by a long shot, but it wasn’t torture.”

“Now now, good sir dragon,” Random Action Man interjected, with an upraised hand. “Ponies are magically tied to musical theory; it’s why they break out into song on occasion and also why such songs frequently expand into mass expositions of song and music.”

Spike looked thoughtful at that, and he brought a hand up to rub his chin. “Huh, I hadn’t thought about that,” he noted, and then shrugged. “Still, they shouldn’t complain; it’s not like the song was that bad.”

“Ya know, it’s kind of rude for both of you to talk about us when we’re standin’ right here,” Applejack observed, with a bit of a pout.

“Apologies, miss,” the taller being said, and then gave a brief bow towards the apple farmer. “But it seemed prudent to explain.”

“But how could you explain?” Twilight Sparkle chimed in, as she cast an appraising look over Random Action Man. “I’ve never seen a being like you before, so how could you know that about ponies?”

“Oh? Have no other humans been around as of late?” Random Action Man asked, with a raised eyebrow. “The Pink Wonder seemed rather familiar with us when she visited S.H.M.U.C. And Loki seemed rather familiar with ponies, especially, though I cannot fathom why he launched himself into orbit upon seeing her.”

The ponies and dragon all stared up at the biped for a moment as they absorbed his words. It was Twilight sparkle who spoke first, “The?”

Applejack chimed in next. “Pink?”

Starlight Glimmer then spoke. “Wonder?”

Twilight blinked, and then groaned as the idea hit them all simultaneously. “Pinkie Pie,” she, Applejack, and Starlight all said at the same time, and then face-hoofed as one. “What has she done now?” Twilight went on by herself, after lowering her hoof back to the ground.

“More like what she hasn’t done!” Random Action Man exclaimed, as he threw his hands into the air and then twiddled his fingers. “She was supposed to come by S.H.M.U.C. with her contribution to the Metahuman Appreciation Day potluck!” he explained, even as he lowered his hands and then struck a pose, one hand held outward as if beckoning, while the other was held low by his hips, clenched into a loose fist. “She even Pinkie Promised to bring her white chocolate cappuccino cupcakes!”

Another silence was needed by the natives to process this information. “Okay, uh, so you’re one of the mythical humans?” Starlight Glimmer asked.

“Not mythical where I come from, but yes,” Random Action Man replied evenly, as he shifted to couch low to the ground and crossed his arms.

“What th’ hay is S.H.M.U.C.?” Applejack asked, even as her expression twisted into greater levels of confusion.

“The Super Hero Multinational Unified Command, of course,” Random Action Man answered, as he stood up and put his hands on his hips.

“And how do you know Pinkie Pie?” Twilight queried. “And why are you moving so much?” she added, as the human turned his torso to the side and brought up his arms to flex them. “It’s really distracting.”

“She’s come around from time to time to help me out, since she and I work alike,” Random Action Man replied, and then tossed his head, and then turned to face the alacorn with his arms crossed over his chest. “And I’m afraid random actions are not only my name, but also my mythos and modus operandi,” he added, before he brought up a hand and gave Twilight a two-fingered salute. “I fight villains with the power of randomness.”

“Ya mean chaos?” Applejack interjected, with a frown. “’Cuz we git enough o’ that from a certain friend of ours.”

“No no, randomness, not chaos,” Random Action Man lightly admonished, and gave Applejack a gentle wag of his finger. “Chaos is where anything can happen, whereas randomness is simply unpredictability within a certain set of outcomes for a determining factor. Chaos is random, but random is not chaos.”

The apple farmer blinked as she mulled over the response, and as such it was Twilight Sparkle who spoke next. “Uh, okay, so you’ve come to see Pinkie Pie?” she asked.

“Indeed!” Random Action Man heartily replied. He then paused, and then stood up on his tiptoes and brought a hand up to shield his eyes as he looked around. “But something is amiss; as I was traveling the Probability Pathways a vergence occurred, and I was hurled from my proper exit towards this lady’s apple cart,” he explained, and then waved his free hand towards Applejack, who blushed slightly at being called a lady. “Thankfully I used my powers to influence Fortune and diverted myself to hit the cart itself, rather than its owner.”

“So, you can alter probability?” Starlight Glimmer asked, incredulously.

Random Action Man ceased his sudden surveillance, and then turned and smiled at the unicorn and gently shook his head as he dropped back to rest his heels firmly on the ground. “No, though I can see how you’d think that. I simply choose the outcome I want amongst the various probabilities, and then distract all conscious minds that can observe the action from doing so in order to let reality shape itself appropriately.”

Yet another silence fell over the group as the natives needed a moment to digest the information. The quiet was soon broken, however, as Spike walked up, with a starry look on his face. “That, is, so, COOL!” he said, while clutching his hands and holding them up against his chest. “You’re like a super hero who can just do stuff without needing to explain it!”

“Exactly!”

Twilight Sparkle shook her head at that. “But, that's not random, is it? Because if you're getting the action you want then it's deliberate.”

Random Action Man sighed. “Milady, you are not listening: I said I get the result I want, but the action is random. Hence, I am Random Action Man.

“Speaking of which,” the human added, and then looked thoughtful for a moment. “I believe it's time for a change of pace, so that we may find out why The Pink Wonder has not come to see me, or why I could not see her directly.”

The natives all looked at each other with mild confusion. “Okay, so, how're ya gonna do that?” Applejack asked, with a raised eyebrow.

“Simplicity,” Random Action Man replied, and then reached down to clutch a handful of his cape. He then whipped it up and over the natives, who all flinched at the sudden motion, and as such their attention was drawn towards the cape itself, which seemed to defy reason as it covered them all simultaneously like a tarp, encompassing and blocking line of sight in every direction but down for a brief moment. Then the cape finished passing over them, and when any one of them looked at Random Action Man they saw the size of his cape had returned to normal.

Not that any of them were really looking at the human, however, as the three ponies and one dragon openly gaped at the fact that they had appeared in the middle of Sugarcube Corner’s main room. Not only that, but the space was in a mess, with tables and chairs tipped over, various baked goods splattered on the furniture and walls, and one of the display cases near the cash register was smashed open.

A noise came from behind one of the surviving display cases, and the five figures in the room turned their heads towards it to see a frightened Carrot Cake poking his head above the top of the case. His eyes were wide and he wore a baking pan on his head in place of his usual hat. The fact that it was strapped down by a set of rubber bands told the new arrivals that it was intentional. “Oh, thank heavens it’s you, princess!” He began, but then flinched as his eyes drifted over and saw the biped. “AH! Another one!” he shouted, and then ducked back under the counter.

Twilight Sparkle blinked and, for a moment, felt torn between two actions. Then she shook her head and walked over towards the display. ‘It’s okay, Mister Cake, he’s not harmful… I think,” she said, and then frowned and glanced over at Random Action Man. “Although he’s not as random as he claims.”

“Really now?” Random Action Man asked, and then crossed his arms over his chest. “What makes you say that?”

“That wasn’t random, what you did,” she said, and then waved a hoof over the room. “We came right to Pinkie’s place of work.”

“Yes, but you weren’t expecting it, now were you?” the human asked, with a wink.

“He has a point, Twilight,” Starlight Glimmer opined, and then waited as the alacorn glanced over at her. “I mean, random does mean unpredictable, and I don’t think any of us could predict something like that.”

Twilight frowned, and then opened her mouth to speak. She said nothing, however, and merely froze for a moment before she closed her mouth and then shook her head. Then she turned and spoke to the stallion hiding behind the counter. “Mister Cake, what happened here? We came looking for Pinkie and it looks like Sugarcube Corner went through a war.”

“Something like him came in and grabbed Pinkie Pie!” Carrot Cake replied, sticking a foreleg up and over the counter to point at Random Action Man at the word ‘him’. “Pinkie Pie recognized him, I think, and they started fighting and tearing up the place. Then he yelled something about minions and a couple of machine things popped up and attacked Pinkie, and while she was distracted he shot some kind of glowing red chain at her and suddenly she started talking about pie recipes and he grabbed her and ran out the front door.”

“A glowing red chain?!” Random Action Man shouted, and then for the first time since the ponies had met him, he looked frighteningly angry as he shot over to the display case and slammed both hands on top so he could lean over and look down at the cowering baker. “How long ago did this happen?” he asked, with an intensity that would brook no argument.

Carrot Cake shivered, but he managed to meet the human’s eyes with a steady, if fearful gaze. “About five minutes ago, maybe less,” he replied, and then sighed and lowered his head. “I just thank the heavens the wife and kids are visiting her mother today.”

“Fortune favors the innocent,” Random Action Man intoned, almost solemnly.

“Well, what’re we waitin’ for?” Applejack interjected, and all eyes turned to see her shucking the harness and the broken pull-arms. “We gotta save Pinkie Pie from whatever nasty what grabbed her!”

“Agreed!” Random Action Man exclaimed, even as he turned and ran for the door. “There is no time to waste!”

The others moved to follow, but Spike found himself suddenly held in place by a familiar pinkishly-purple glow, and he turned around as Twilight walked up to him and then released him from her magic grip. “Sorry, Spike, but I need you to send a message to Celestia and warn her about what’s happening here,” she said, earnestly. “Things are spiraling out of control, and if something is strong enough to grab Pinkie Pie of all ponies, then we may need some help.”

Spike frowned in disappointment, but nodded. “Alright,” he begrudgingly allowed. “I guess you’ll want me to stay safe and ‘coordinate’, right?” he asked, with a hint of sarcasm.

Twilight sighed. “I know you’re growing up,” she said, contritely. “Haystacks, you’re almost as tall as a pony now. But I can’t concentrate unless I know my little brother is safe.”

The young dragon grumbled. “Always gotta pull the heartstrings,” he muttered, and then nodded. “Fine, but I won’t stay sidelined forever.”

Twilight winced slightly at his bitter tone, but a shout came from outside before she could reply. “Twilight, git out here!” Applejack yelled, her tone conveying anger and concern.

“I promise, we’ll talk about this later,” Twilight said to Spike, and then quickly turned and ran through the wrecked dining room and out the main door. Scarcely had she descended the steps down to the street before she had to come to a halt, as she came upon Applejack, Starlight Glimmer, and Random Action Man all standing in a semi-circle in front of two figures, one of whom Twilight recognized as Pinkie Pie.

The other figure was one she would not forget in her lifetime: Bipedal like a human, his legs instead canted backwards and ended not in feet or hooves, but in red, scaled claws. Likewise his hands and arms, where they emerged from his loose robes, were scaled as well, though they looked more like human hands with claws at the end than something more beastly. A thick tail could be seen behind him, scaled like most of the other visible parts of his body. The one part that Twilight could see that wasn’t scaled was his head, which looked remarkably human, save for the fact that he had a pair of horns that grew out from his temples and curved back over the top of his short, slicked-down black hair, and the fact his eyes had vertical slit pupils instead of the round ones of ponies and humans.

Any other information about this strange new figure was harder to figure out, as he wore a long, loose, voluminous silk robe, red for the most part but decorated with abstract designs in yellow and green. It was cinched at his waist by a thick corded belt, which itself was bedecked with pouches. Finally, Twilight realized that a ghostly transparent glowing red chain had emerged from the being’s right robe sleeve and curled through the air to wrap around the head of Pinkie Pie, who stood to the figure’s right. The party pony’s face was uncharacteristically blank, her eyes glazed, and she was talking to herself in a low voice that Twilight couldn’t make out.

Naturally, Twilight Sparkle’s years of leadership came to the fore. “I don’t know who you are, but you had better release our friend!” she imperiously stated, as she walked up to join the others standing in front of the newcomer.

The figure laughed; an eerie, high-pitched sound. “Oh, foolish little pony, did you think I would go to all this trouble to capture the Pink Wonder just to let her go?” he asked, in a speaking voice as atonal as his laugh. “Or to give up the chance to finally put an end Random Action Man?” He sneered at Twilight at the last, which pulled his upper lip up enough to reveal that his normal canines were replaced with tiny fangs. “No, little horses, the only way your friend is going free is when Random Action Man is destroyed for once and for all!” The figure then tossed his head back and laughed again, and again the noise grated on the ears of all who heard it.

Applejack was angry enough to spit. In fact, she did; a quick action cleared excess saliva from her mouth in time for her to speak. “Who th' hay is this guy, anyway?” she asked of no one in particular. Indeed, she kept her eyes locked on the queer villain and his captive.

“He is my arch-nemesis,” Random Action Man said, even as he struck another odd pose; this time with both legs splayed out to the side so he actually stood slightly shorter as he tossed an open hand, palm upward, towards the foe. “The Markovian Man-Drake!”

Both Twilight Sparkle and Starlight Glimmer froze at that, and then both turned to give Random Action Man their best flummoxed expressions. “Wat,” Starlight Glimmer uttered, so bereft of intonation that it sounded less a question and more a statement.

“Are you two just screwing with us, now?” Twilight asked, with a frown.

“How I wish we were!” Random Action Man replied, before he spun around on a heel and then resumed facing towards his arch-nemesis, albeit with a more normal stance this time. “The Man-Drake before you perverts his adjective in order to subdue randomness, instead of embracing it! Once he manages to wrap you in his chains you lose the ability to choose any outcome other than that which is most directly related to the very last thing you did!”

“You're joking, right?” Starlight Glimmer pressed, sardonically.

“That's actually not very Marekovian,” Twilight added in, using her world's version of the name.

The draconid villain hissed at her. “On the contrary, you ignorant little sh—!”

“HEY!” Random Action Man interrupted, with a finger jabbed rather pointedly at the Markovian Man-Drake. “Keep it rated T for Teen!”

The villain stared at Random Action Man for a moment, though he wasn't alone, as Twilight , Starlight, Applejack, and a small crowd of ponies brave enough to watch from the edges of the cobblestone square all gave him incredulous looks. Random Action Man, however, kept his stoic, stony vigil, and after several long moments the Man-Drake rolled his eyes, and then returned his attention to Twilight. “On the contrary, you ignorant little... pony,” he reiterated, grinding out the last word through clenched teeth. “A Markov Chain determines probabilities after a preceding event! As opposed to that... That thing over there!” he sputtered jabbing a clawed finger right back at Random Action Man. “He and his pink pony partner in preventing predations on the populace ignore all logical locii and base their improbable actions from wherever they please!”

“Which is why we're so effective at stopping you,” Random Action Man acknowledged, as he clasped his hands in front of his waist and then flexed by pressing them against one another. “And why we'll stop you this time!”

“And risk the safety of your sometimes sidekick?” the Man-Drake asked, with a sneer. He then yanked back on the chain attached to Pinkie Pie, and the entranced mare choked and gasped for air, while still remaining mesmerized. His point proven, the Man-Drake then let the chain go slack and Pinkie resumed normal breathing. “She is under my power, and the more I squeeze the more the probabilities of something catastrophic happening to her health increase,” the villain said, with a sneer towards our intrepid heroes.

“You monster!” Applejack shouted.

“You’ll never get away with this!” Random Action Man declared.

“Why didn’t I think of that?” Starlight glimmer muttered to herself. She wasn’t quite quiet enough, however, and everyone in the area immediately turned their heads to give her a range of bemused and suspicious looks. She then blushed and cleared her throat. “Oh, uh, right, good guy now,” she said, and then drew herself up straight and stared defiantly at the Man-Drake. “We’ll stop you, villain!” she proclaimed, and then glanced uneasily towards Twilight Sparkle. “How was that?”

Twilight sighed. “Good enough, but we need to talk later,” she replied to her student, and then turned her attention and a hard glare towards the foe. “As for you… Markovian Man-Drake,” she said, grinding out the absurd name, as if reluctant to give it accreditation. “As a princess of Equestria, and Pinkie Pie’s friend, I won’t rest until she’s free and you are tried for ponynapping!”

“I think not, princess,” the Man-Drake sarcastically replied, with a sneer. “You have seriously overestimated your probabilities of success.”

“Ah don’t see how,” Applejack chimed in. “Way I see it, there’s four of us, and one of you.”

The Markovian Man-Drake smiled at that; not a friendly grin, but the wide, devious smile of a predator cornering its prey. “And that’s where you’re wrong, bumpkin,” he replied, and then waved his free arm forward in a grand gesture. “Minions, attack!”

The ground erupted the instant he stopped talking, and fountains of dirt blasted into the air on all sides as menacing figures reared up from the depths. Each one looked like some grim, horrible imitation of a human rendered in steel, twisting cables, and glowing blue eyes. Their heads looked like skulls, and their hands ended in razor-sharp claws. As one they turned towards Twilight Sparkle, Starlight Glimmer, Applejack, and Random Action Man, and their jaws unhinged as they began to ululate.

“He’s deployed the G.N.E.R.D.s!” Random Action Man declared, as he hopped back a step and quickly brought his arms up into a guard position.

“Nerds?” Starlight Glimmer asked, half in confusion, half in fear as the horrific noise of the enemy washed over the group. She and Twilight and Applejack were all backing up, inching away from the Man-Drake’s minion and towards Random Action Man.

“You mean like these two?” Applejack spoke up, with a jerk of her head towards Twilight and Starlight, both of whom shot the farmer angry looks.

“No, G.N.E.R.D.s,” the latter said, with a brief toss of his chin. “Grossly Nitpicking Excitement Reducing anDroids!”

A beat of silence fell over the area at that as the mechanical monstrosities ceased their cries and the three ponies left in the square—all others had fled upon the arrival of the G.N.E.R.D.s—turned to regard Random Action Man with bemused expressions. “Your people have no idea how to make acronyms, do they?!” Twilight Sparkle asked, exasperatedly.

“That’s not the worst of it,” a voice said from nearby. Startled, Twilight and the others spun about to see that the nearest minion had walked up and was now talking in an accent that only Random Action Man recognized as Australian. “I mean, look at you! A unicorn with wings, what kind of ridiculousness is that?” it asked, with a wave of an arm at her. “Bad enough you have one made-up mythical creature that can’t possibly exist, but smooshing two together? Hogwash!”

“Excuse me?” Twilight Sparkle angrily snapped at the minion.

“There’s no excuse for you!” A second minion, with an equivalent accent, proclaimed from near the first. “Look at your head! Your eyes are clearly too big to even fit in your skull, let alone have enough space for a brain!”

“And speaking of wings,” a third chimed in. “Those are clearly far too small to allow something like you to fly! Not unless you beat them like a hummingbird, and maybe not even then!”

“Hey, I fly… decently well!” Twilight replied, albeit with a small blush at remembering her current skill level. “And besides, we have magic that assists with that!”

“Oh, brother!” one of the G.N.E.R.D.s moaned.

“I know, right?” another chimed in. “’Magic’, hah!”

“Hey, what’s wrong with magic?” Starlight Glimmer interjected, angrily.

“Only it’s so bloody lazy!” One of the G.N.E.R.D.s replied.

“A total cop-out!” a second one added in.

“Yeah, it’s not as if it’s all that hard to take six years of university education and dozens of calculus courses to determine a way of designing an organic flying apparatus in such a manner that you don’t need to fall back on the whole ‘magic’ angle!” a third provided, as it crossed its arms.

“Completely unrealistic,” a fourth added, with a nod. “I mean, the only people who use ‘magic’ as an excuse are those lazy sods who would rather write stories of fanciful imagination and adventure instead of settling down with a good number-crunching job!”

“Oh yeah?” Glimmer replied, and then tossed her head. “Well, here’s my rebuttal to that!” she added, and then charged up her horn.

…Or rather, she tried to, but as she stood there in the midst of all the silently waiting bodies—pony, human, and “other”—nothing came to her willing, and her eyes soon widened in fear. “Wha… what’s happening?”

Twilight Sparkle felt her stomach sink as she suspected why she saw her protégé start to panic. Her own attempt to drawn upon her magic a moment later turned that sinking feeling into an icy-cold void. “Why isn’t our magic working?” she asked, more of herself than anyone specifically.

“It’s their special ability!” Random Action Man replied, as he shook a fist at the G.N.E.R.D.s. “By excessively nitpicking at the fabric of the narrative, they undermine the suspension of disbelief that all extra-normal powers rely upon and so render heroes and heroines alike impotent before they strike!”

“’Hero?’ Bah,” a G.N.E.R.D. scoffed. “You think too highly of yourself.”

“What do you expect from someone who’s so arrogant to presume he embodies some kind of metaphysical principle?” another one asked.

“Yeah, well, what about yer boss back there!” Applejack unsteadily chimed in, as she pointed a hoof towards where the Man-Drake still stood with Pinkie Pie. “He’s usin’ some kinda magic whatchamacallit. Why ain’t ya raggin’ on him?”

“Simple,” the lead G.N.E.R.D. began. “He’s using science.”

“Science,” all the other G.N.E.R.D.s intoned as one. The sudden, startling reverence of their utterance sent a shiver down the backs of their opponents.

“Markov Chains actually exist,” the first machine proclaimed. “’Magic’ does not.”

“B-but,” Applejack sputtered, as she pointed her hoof towards the Man-Drake again. “How is a glowing see-through chain made out of some kinda mental thingy NOT magic?” she asked, plaintively.

“‘Translucent’,” Twilight helpfully interjected.

“What she said,” Applejack added, with a shake of her head towards the alacorn.

A profound silence fell over the area then, as the G.N.E.R.D.s became silent and still. A few moments of this passed before Applejack spoke again. “Uh, hello?” she asked, and then flinched as a small metallic whine started to emanate from the mechanical beings before her.

“I think now would be a good time to run,” Random Action Man observed, as he began to inch back cautiously.

The ponies echoed his movements as the whine slowly began to build. “Why?” Twilight Sparkle interjected. “What’s going on?”

“Applejack pointed out a flaw in their internal logic,” Random Action Man replied, as the whine built to a crescendo; he was nearly yelling at this point. “I believe it’s triggered their attack protocol.”

The whine ended, and as one the G.N.E.R.D.s threw their heads back and ululated again, this time with such volume that the buildings around the square shook. Then they lowered their now-red-eyed gazes back down to their foes and leapt forward, arms outstretched.

By then, however, the three ponies and one human had already bolted down the street. “Why don’t you do something!” Starlight Glimmer demanded, with a glance to the side as Random Action Man, despite only having two legs, kept pace with the quadrupeds.

“I was affected by their Ultra-Mimesis field as well!” he retorted. “I will need some time away from them to rebuild my power!”

“How th’ hay are ya gonna do that?” Applejack asked, and then glanced behind them. The G.N.E.R.D.s were slowly gaining on them, their clawed feet ripping up the road and their bodies and hands smashing and clawing apart everything that got in their way; outdoor shop displays, sales stands, even the occasional abandoned skateboard or scooter left behind when the townsponies knowingly hunkered down in their basements when the hoopla began. “They don’t look like they’re gonna let us git away!”

“I’m open to ideas!” Random Action Man replied, with a harried tone.

“Can’t we distract them?” Starlight Glimmer asked, between great huffing breaths. “Even for a few minutes?”

“What th’ hay would distract one o’ those things?” Applejack asked back with more ease, given her active lifestyle. “They’re single-minded as all get out!”

A thought entered Twilight’s mind then, and she glanced to the side at the human keeping pace with her as the group ran through Ponyville’s streets. “They’re nerds, right? So what do nerds where you’re from get all bent out of shape about?”

Random Action Man’s eyes lit up at that, and he grinned. “Of course!” he exclaimed. “Why didn’t I think of that?” the hero added, and then glanced around. “Let’s circle back to the square!”

“Why?” Applejack interjected.

“Trust me!” Random Action Man answered.

“Fine!” Twilight replied, and then turned to lead the group around the corner of the next cross street.

The next few moments were blurs of running, panic, and the horrific cries of G.N.E.R.D.s as they pursued their quarry, but soon enough they arrived back at the town square, albeit with Twilight and Starlight Glimmer trailing behind Applejack and Random Action Man as the two studious ponies felt the end of their stamina approaching. “Gotta… get out… more often…” Twilight panted, as the group came to a stop in front of the Markovian Man-Drake and his captive.

The Man-Drake gave them a wide grin. “Ready to surrender now?” he asked, in a weasely tone of voice, while the pursuing horde of G.N.E.R.D.s swarmed in and quickly surrounded the group. Their hands were held out and open, ready to claw at the hapless heroes facing down their commander.

“Perhaps,” Random Action Man replied, evenly, and then turned and swung his hands up high. “But first, a question!” he loudly announced, as he swept his gaze across the robotic minions of his arch-nemesis. “Which is better: Star Wars or Star Trek?”

Instantly, the G.N.E.R.D.s replied “Star” all of them said as one, but then their responses broke along two lines, as roughly half of them said “Wars” while the other said “Trek”. This was naturally confusing to all save Random Action Man, who simply stood and smiled as a profound, pregnant silence fell across the town square.

“What do ya mean, ‘Star Wars’?” one G.N.E.R.D. asked of a nearby companion who had answered contrarily to his own opinion. “You like that stupid space fantasy story that has as much to do with science as Catholic Catechism?”

“Well, it’s better than that magic handwavium-filled technobabble variety hour that makes crap up as it goes along!” another G.N.E.R.D. replied for his fellow. “How many times did they solve problems by reversing the polarity of some gobbledygook or another?”

“Less often as there were lightsaber fights in the prequels,” the addressed G.N.E.R.D. countered.

Yet another G.N.E.R.D. roared in anger at that, and then pointed a clawed finger at the speaker. “Don’t you dare mention those abominations!”

“Hey!” the first defender of that particular franchise said, as it turned its head to give a death glare to its compatriot, despite the fact that it had no mobile facial features. “I liked the prequels!”

“Blasphemy!” The other G.N.E.R.D. verbally blasted his associate.

“You’re all full of crap!” another robot minion said, and then waited for the others to turn their heads towards it before it spoke again. “Those two universes don’t hold a candle to Warhammer Forty Kay.”

“WHAT!” the previously arguing parties demanded. “That pretentious, overwrought parody of the Byzantine Empire as rendered by a toy company?” one of them scoffed. “It has as much emotional depth as a puddle!”

“Well, it’s still better than your stupid farcical communist utopia,” the addressed G.N.E.R.D. said to the defender of Trek, and then turned its head to the champion of Wars. “Or your fanatical obsession with a series of mediocre movies made by a hack writer who had to have everything re-edited by someone competent just to make it something less than a total screw-up!”

“RIGHT! THAT DOES IT!” One of the G.N.E.R.D.s shouted, and then leapt at its derisive fellow, claws outstretched. The others soon joined in, and within seconds a massive fratricidal battle began amongst the robotic minions. Screams and shouts deriding each other’s preferred vice were barely-heard snippets over the din of metal bodies ripping into each other, and the cloud of dust and dirt thrown up by the scuffle soon clouded everyone’s vision and caused all of the organic beings to cough violently as they fought to keep their air passages cleared.

It wasn’t until said coughing let up that Twilight Sparkle realized she couldn’t hear the sounds of fighting anymore, and she opened her eyes up from their convulsion-induced closure to gaze upon the G.N.E.R.D.s. Or rather, what remained of them, as they had torn each other apart, leaving naught but piles of limbs, ripped metal torsos, and decapitated and/or crushed robot heads.

All except for one, though it only had its torso, head, and one arm which it was using to balance on the stumps of its legs while it perched on a pile of its opponents. “Hah!” it triumphantly shouted, as it looked over its destroyed fellows. “I win!” it further crowed. “And let no one forget that the best sci-fi is—!”

A beam of light blasted its head apart before it could finish speaking, and an angry Man-Drake lowered the laser pistol he had pulled from one of his belt pouches even as the robot body collapsed to the ground. “That was one of the stupidest, most pointless wastes of time and effort I have ever seen,” he said, and then shot a venomous glance to Random Action Man. “And I’ve known you for years!”

“Whut,” Applejack muttered, which drew the humanoids’ attention to her and the other ponies, all of whom were simply gazing around them in shock. “Whut th’ hay jus’ happened?”

“He happened!” the Man-Drake angrily declared, as he pointed the laser pistol in his left hand towards Random Action Man so that his right could maintain his power around Pinkie Pie. “This is what he does! He takes perfectly sensible things and events and turns them into chaotic madhouses!”

“I ruin your plans to gain money and influence, you mean,” Random Action Man replied, his voice holding a note of steel. He crossed his arms over his chest, even as he crouched slightly in a halfway squat. Then he began to alternately kick his legs out in the manner of a particular Russian folk dance.

“I mean you’re a menace even beyond foiling my p—would you stop that!” the Man-Drake shouted, as Random Action Man began his dance. “I have your sidekick in a death grip, a laser pistol aimed at your head, and you still can’t stop being ridiculous for five minutes!”

Random Action Man frowned, even as he stopped moving and carefully stood erect. “It’s simply more fun this way,” he replied, evenly.

“Fun? Fun? FUN?” the Markovian Man-Drake demanded, and began to shake in rage. “There is no room for fun in the world! Fun is a distraction! Fun ignores rules and makes chaos run rampant! Fun is an excuse to never do anything right and to constantly screw up everyone else because you don’t want to conform and get with the program to do things the right way, the only way!”

A moment of silence passed as the Man-Drake paused to heave his chest and regain his breath, into which Twilight Sparkle—still huffing a bit herself—spoke. “How could you think that?” she asked, in a shocked tone. “How could you be so opposed to joy that you despise it so?”

“I am not opposed to joy,” the Man-Drake sneered, his voice now at a more controlled and conversational level. “What I am opposed to are miscreants like him”—he gestured to Random Action Man with his pistol at the last word—“who ignore the rules and then fight back when someone like me tries to force the world to order!”

“High talk coming from a criminal who routinely robs banks and threatens innocents,” Random Action Man countered, heartedly. “But I suppose the only rules you care about are the ones that benefit you. You are naught but a hypocrite.”

“No, I am a man who understood the world until your lot came around,” the Man-Drake retorted, and then slightly shook his head. “But I grow weary of this, and I shan’t let this chance to be finally rid of you pass through my hands,” he added, and then brought up the hand holding the laser pistol so he could more carefully aim it at the head of Random Action Man. “Goodbye, abomination.”

It was then that a noise and a flash came from the air just above the Markovian Man-Drake, and two large figures dropped from the sky and landed on top of him. The sudden weight of two bodies impacting him drove the Man-Drake to the ground in a fraction of a second. His grip on the laser pistol was broken in the fall, and the weapon bounced out of his hand to land almost a full meter away. He managed to maintain his Markovian Grapple on Pinkie Pie, however, and so dragged the pink party pony parallel to his predicament, though it was little comfort to him as he moaned at the pain of having large objects dropped on him. Then the objects moved and climbed off, which made the Man-Drake moan again as the hard hooves dug into his back.

The ponies with Random Action Man, however, simply gazed on in shock for a moment, until finally Twilight spoke up. “Princesses!” she said, in a surprised tone, and then led her friends in a quick bow to the High Diarchs.

Princess Celestia noticed them first, and she started to smile at Twilight Sparkle. Then she laid eyes on Random Action Man and gasped. A half second later she had launched herself at the human in a tackle and then wrapped her hooves around him. The two figures fell to the ground, with Random Action Man on his back and the princess on top, and a moment passed as everybody absorbed this result. Then Random Action Man tilted his head down to look into the face of his assailant and to even his surprise he saw her wearing a starry-eyed expression of joy. “Notice me, senpai,” she said, dreamily.

Twilight Sparkle looked on the scene with complete and utter bafflement. “Huh?” she muttered incoherently.

“Ugh, she’s fangirling again,” Princess Luna said as she walked over and then quickly sat on her haunches next to Twilight. The latter managed to pull out of her flummoxing and turned her head to regard the Night Warder, and then immediately fell back into confusion as unlike Celestia, Luna wore not one bit of regalia. Nor did she have clothing, and her mane and tail were—instead of the waving, starry representations of the night sky—the pale blue locks she had had immediately after her reformation at the hands of the Elements of Harmony. More so, the elder princess’ hair was matted and tangled in places that starkly reminded Twilight of the bed head she herself usually had most mornings. Finally, Luna wore an expression of irritation that went poorly with the bags under her eyes. “This is all your fault, you know,” Luna added in conversationally, as she glanced sidelong to Twilight Sparkle.

“M-my fault?” Twilight echoed, her eyes growing wide and her heart racing as she contemplated the idea that she had done something terrible to her mentor.

Just then, however, Random Action Man stood up, as Celestia had loosened her grip at his silent urging. The human remained quiet as he came upright, managing the feat even with the alacorn still hanging onto his chest with her forelegs. The princess stood on her hind legs so she could keep looking into his face with her wistful smile, and Random Action Man smiled back, though his was a polite, welcoming smile of a friend as he set his hands on Celestia’s forelegs. “Noticed,” he said, evenly, which caused the pony to gasp again and her smile to widen.

“What the devil are you two doing!” the Markovian Man-Drake interrupted, as he managed to stand up. Pinkie Pie remained in his power, but continued to lie on the ground.

“Noted,” Random Action Man said to Celestia, as the pair ignored the Man-Drake. The human also reached up to gently brush the mare’s cheek with a thumb, and his one-word utterance and touch made Celestia gasp a third time. All the air she had taken in made her chest expand, which caused the ruff ponies had to fluff out a bit, and her wings flared slightly.

“Don’t you bloody ignore me!” the Man-Drake demanded. He glared at the two figures with such anger that he forgot to even look for his pistol, let alone reclaim it.

Random Action Man, meanwhile, continued to pay no attention to anyone save the mare in his arms. Then his smile took on a mischievous glint. “Notified,” he said, oddly.

Celestia blinked at the word, but had no time to think of it before Random Action Man, while still holding onto her hooves with one hand, shifted his weight and twisted his body so that his free hand could drop from the pony’s face. He then swung the hand back and, without hesitation, swung it forward again as fast as he could to slam the open palm onto Celestia’s back end. Random Action Man’s aim was perfect, as the strike landed exactly on the softest, most padded portion of the pony’s posterior, and the sharp crack of hand meeting soft, jiggly flesh echoed in the square.

The princess’ reaction was immediate: Celestia’s eyes widened in shock while she reared back completely onto her hind legs and flailed her forelegs as she reflexively drew back from the man who had been holding her hooves. She also let out the loudest whinny any being in Ponyville’s town square had ever heard and flapped her wings unsteadily. So surprised she was that not a single action of hers was coordinated, and within half a second her backwards moving hind legs knocked into some of the G.N.E.R.D. debris and she tripped to fall onto a pile of robot parts. Celestia’s impact sent several loose parts flying, one of which—a half-crushed G.N.E.R.D. head—flew straight up into the air for a moment, and then came back down. The alacorn was still on her back and flailing her forelegs at that moment, however, and her random kicking acting knocked the robot head off to the side; by coincidence, straight at the Markovian Man-Drake.

The villain barely had half a second to register the incoming projectile before it whapped into his head at considerable velocity, and only the fact that part of the G.N.E.R.D. head bounced off of his horns saved him from truly critical damage. They didn’t, however, save him from the incredibly painful result of a dense metal object slamming into his head at high velocity, and the Man-Drake cursed as he brought up both hands to cover the massive welt that sprung to life on his forehead. He then froze as he realized he had used both hands, and he quickly lowered them and opened his eyes from their reflexive closure to look down and to his right.

Pinkie Pie was staring back at him. At first with a bit of a daze, but soon enough her gaze sharpened. Her stare turned into a glare, and her pony friends in the square involuntarily shuddered as they saw an expression that the party pony seldom wore: rage. “You, big, meanie,” she said, as she slowly got to her hooves.

The Markovian Man-Drake blinked and took a step back at that. Then a small but sharp sound reached his ears, and he turned his head to see Random Action Man facing him, cracking his knuckles and shifting his head back and forth to limber up his neck. “I, uh, don’t suppose you’ll accept a negotiated settlement?” the Man-Drake fearfully asked, as he continued to step back.

Pinkie Pie responded by rearing up on her hind legs, reaching behind her with her forelegs, and then withdrawing—apparently from thin air—two very large objects: a cake and a baseball bat. “It’s Ponka time!” she shouted, and then leapt at the Man-Drake. Random Action Man joined her instantly, and soon the three were involved in a fight of such physical irregularity that it would take the language of the Old Gods to describe it.

The other ponies in the square had been reduced to spectators, and spectate they did until their brains started to hurt. Wisely, they turned their attention away from the non-Euclidian furball and turned it upon one another, whereupon Twilight Sparkle gasped as she realized something. “Princess Celestia!” she exclaimed, and then ran over to where the white alacorn had remained on her back amidst the G.N.E.R.D. wreckage. “Are you alright?” Twilight asked, as she reached her mentor.

A wide, canary-eating grin met her worried gaze, and Twilight could only stare down in confusion as Celestia sighed wistfully. “Senpai noticed me,” the latter dreamily said, and then closed her eyes and started to hum tunelessly to herself, all while wearing her massive smile.

Naturally, this confused the younger princess. “Huh?” Twilight muttered, as she frowned down at the unusually-behaving mare. Then a memory popped up, and she blinked and turned her head towards Luna, who had come over with Applejack and Starlight Glimmer. “Y-you said this was my fault?” Twilight asked, in a fragile tone that bordered on the pathetic.

Luna sighed and then shook her head. “Well, ‘fault’ is probably too harsh of a word for it,” she said, and then lit up her horn. She concentrated for a moment, and then there was a sudden flash beside her head as a coffee cup appeared in mid-air. The plain, unadorned ceramic was instantly gripped in the Night Warder’s magic, and Luna levitated it down to in front of her face so she could blow away the steam that was rising from it. “More like that with my return and your and Cadance’s ascensions, Celestia no longer feels like she has to keep up the ‘regal princess’ mask she’s worn for so long.”

“Whut do ya mean?” Applejack asked, confused, as she glanced down at the still humming Celestia. “Yer sayin’ she’s been pretending to be all highfalutin?”

“Verily,” Luna replied, and then took a sip from her cup. “You see, after my…” she trailed off at that, and then frowned as words escaped her.

“Hissy fit,” Celestia suddenly said from the ground, and the ponies around her looked down to see her smile had shrunk to her usual expression of polite interest in the world.

“Ugh, fine,” Luna said, with a roll of her eyes. “After my so-called ‘hissy fit’, she apparently…” Luna trailed off again and blinked as an idea entered her head. “Wait, why am I telling this if you’re back to being sensible again?” she asked, as she looked down at her sister.

“What, and ruin the moment?” Celestia protested. “Besides, you always were the more organized and logical of us.”

A sudden crash sounded nearby, and the group all looked up to see Pinkie Pie clinging to the back of Man-Drake, who was covered in cake and at least three snapping turtles chewing at his robes. The pink pony was herself yanking back on the Man-Drake’s hair with her teeth, while Random Action Man was ducking underneath a bolt of fire spewed forth by the Man-Drake’s mouth; thankfully easier because of Pinkie’s action. The source of the crash apparently was an aquarium that had held the snapping turtles—now in shards on the ground. Then the scene dissolved back into Oddity, and Luna looked back down at her sister and gave her a frown. Celestia looked back up with a pleading expression, and after a moment Luna shook her head. “Fine then,” she grumbled, and then sighed. “Where was I? Oh, right.

“So apparently after my banishment—”

“Hissy fit,” Celestia insistently interrupted.

“Banishment,” Luna repeated, with a glare down at her sister. “If you want me to tell it, then let me tell it my way.”

“Oh, fine,” Celestia replied, as she petulantly crossed her forelegs over her chest.

Luna gave the older alacorn another look, and then turned her head to regard the other ponies again. “So after I was gone,” she began, after taking another sip from her cup, “Celestia decided she had to set a proper example for her ponies, so she buried her usual personality beneath a new public princess persona. And she’s held it that way for so long that it became second nature.”

“It’s not like it’s very hard,” Celestia interjected, when Luna took another sip from her cup. “I’m not that bad, Luna.”

Luna nodded. “True, but you did hold ‘Laughter’, so it was still surprising to see how reined in you were after I was reclaimed by the Elements.”

“Wait a minute,” Starlight Glimmer spoke up, even as the fight next to them rained confetti over the group. “Princess Celestia was the holder of Laughter?” she asked, incredulously.

“Yes,” Celestia replied, and then began to sit up. Soon enough she was on her haunches in front of the others. “Along with Kindness and Generosity,” she added, once she was up.

“What?” Twilight blurted out. “You mean you didn’t hold Magic?” she asked, with a shocked expression on her face.

“Oh, no,” Celestia replied, with a wry smile. “Luna was always the better one of us at magic, with a bigger mana pool, as well. Why do you think I had to resort to using the Elements of Harmony when we fought?” she asked, and then shook her head. “I could never beat her in any kind of contest.”

“B-but that doesn’t make any sense!” Twilight replied, even as a wedding cake from the nearby fight flew over her head and splattered across a storefront behind her. She ignored it, however, as she continued to stare at her mentor. “You founded a school for teaching magic! Hundreds of generations have learned from your example of moving the sun and moon! You taught me everything I know!”

A sigh escaped Celestia’s muzzle. “When you live to fifteen hundred years, Twilight, you’ll find you can learn quite a few things you never had time for, before,” she said, with a hint of sadness in her voice. “I had more than enough opportunity to at least reach a high level of learning and application, even if I’m still not quite Luna’s equal.”

A moment of relative silence met that statement; the nearby fight notwithstanding. “So that means you had Honesty and Loyalty, too?” Applejack spoke up, as she glanced to the younger of the royal sisters.

“Aye,” Luna replied, and then cocked an eyebrow as the three smaller ponies in the group continued to look on the royal sisters with befuddlement. “Was that not clear in the story of my fall?” she asked, and then shook her head. “I lost my old friends over time, and being the Night Warder meant that younger ponies rejected me out of fear as they associated me with nightmares and monsters.” Luna then glanced over at Twilight Sparkle. “How would you react, Twilight, if you could not make friends anymore?”

The addressed pony flinched at that. “Horribly,” she admitted, sheepishly.

“And so did I,” Luna continued, with a sad tone in her voice. “Turned from friendship, the other traits I helped embody twisted upon themselves. Instead of telling Celestia my issues, I lied and said everything was fine, and instead of remaining loyal, I turned on her and attempted to seize power.”

“And when ya came back,” Applejack interjected. “Ya overpowered Celestia again, lied about who ya were, and tried ta entice Dash to split off from us,” she said, in a tone of voice that sympathetic instead of condemning.

“Aye,” Luna repeated. “And now that you know that, you should realize that this one,” she said, and then glanced over at her sister, “can be quite ridiculous at times.”

“So that’s why you invited Discord to the last Grand Galloping Gala!” Twilight Sparkle said, almost in a daze as she contemplated the revelations spoken. “And why you seemed so happy about what he did!”

“Of course,” Celestia replied, with another wide grin. “Why do you think I wanted him reformed? I always knew that if he could only learn to be a decent friend to ponies then he’d be the biggest and best source of mischief I could find.”

“You…” Twilight muttered, in a false start. “You wanted him reformed… so he could give you a laugh?”

“No,” Celestia replied, as her smile disappeared when she took in Twilight’s appearance; wide eyes, hair starting to curl, and faint wisps of smoke emerging from her mane and tail. “I wanted him reformed because I hated seeing him in stone. I wanted to be kind and compassionate to him, and give him a chance to show that he could be better than he was.”

“Oh,” Twilight said, and she seemed to relax a bit. “I guess that makes sense, then, why you had Fluttershy do it, since she knows kindness.”

Celestia nodded, and then smirked as she spoke again. “But also because I wanted him around to liven things up a bit,” she said, and then tossed her head. “It’s nice to have a good clusterflop every once in a while to get ponies shaken up.”

“What?” Twilight uttered, as her shocked expression returned. “You... want ponies to suffer?”

“Not suffer,” Celestia replied, and then brought up a foreleg and waved her hoof around. “I just want to get them to loosen up and stop being so stuffy.”

“You can’t be serious, right?” Twilight asked, and then looked over at Luna. Sadly, she saw Luna shaking her head.

“You should have seen her in the old days,” the dark alacorn said, and then took another sip from her cup. “Back then there were so few things that really shocked ponies that she had to resort to public orgies to shake things up.”

“What!” Twilight Sparkle shouted, though this time both Applejack and Starlight Glimmer joined with her exclamation.

“Oh Luna, stop telling tales,” Celestia said, dismissively. Twilight relaxed at that, though it didn’t last long as the elder mare turned her head towards her younger subjects and continued. “The orgies were in the castle, I just let the public know about them through controlled leaks.”

“WHAT!” Twilight shouted. Her eyes were wide now, and the edges of her mane and tail were starting to burn.

“So I guess you’re not the virginal princess some make you out to be, then?” Starlight Glimmer asked, with a smirk.

“Oh, heavens no!” Celestia replied, with a chuckle. “Sometimes being generous means taking things, as well,” she added, with a wink.

“Augh!” Twilight yelled, as she quickly sat back on her haunches and held both of her forelegs up to place her hooves over her ears, and her mane and tail quickly caught on fire as her coat began to lighten. “I did not need to hear that! Or have that mental image!” she shouted, even as she panted in panic.

“Uh, Twi,” Applejack said, and then pointed a hoof at the alacorn’s mane when she snapped her head around at the nickname. “Yer kinda doin’ that thing again,” the apple farmer added.

“What?” Twilight repeated, even as she started to feel a bit foolish at having used that word so often in the last few minutes. Then she realized that her hooves felt a bit warm, and she canted her eyes up to see the burning flame of her mane just at the edge of her vision. “Not again! Why does this keep happening?” she asked, as she patted her head out of an automatic reflex to snuff the flames.

“That’s probably because you’re related to a fire elemental,” Celestia evenly observed.

The three younger ponies in the group all froze, and then turned their heads to the elder alacorn. “I’m wh—I mean,” she interrupted herself before she could say that word again. “That’s not possible!”

“Says the pony who’s currently on fire and isn’t suffering from it,” Starlight Glimmer observed.

Twilight Sparkle turned her head to glare at her student, but it was Celestia that spoke next. “It’s true, Twilight,” she said, evenly. “You’re the direct descendant of the last child I had, and he was born of a union with a being of primordial power.”

The young alacorn simply stared at her mentor for a long, hard moment. “I’m descended from a fire elemental?” she asked, which startled Applejack and Starlight, as they expected her to focus more on being Celestia’s descendant.

“Well, not descended from an elemental,” Celestia replied, assuredly.

Twilight sighed at that. “Oh, good,” she said, as she began to relax again.

Celestia, of course, was waiting for it. “You’re descended from Ragnaros, king of all fire elementals and lord of the plane of fire.”

“WHAT!” Twilight yelled, and the flames on her head and tail flared. She alighted her wide, now-glowing eyes upon Celestia's calm, almost serene expression.

“You never did explain to me how he managed to impregnate you, 'Tia,” Luna observed. “After all, elementals aren't known for their compatibility with flesh,” she added, and then took a sip from her cup.

Celestia nodded at her sister. “True, but remember, fire elementals mate the same way they do everything else: with utter contempt and hatred for their peers and partners,” she began, and Twilight's eye twitched. “And I had just finished blocking the portal from the Firelands, which cut him off from his servants and stopped his invasion of Equestria, so I'm sure that made him incredibly angry as well. So he kind of just leapt on me and, well...” Celestia shivered a bit and smiled. “I think all of that combined made him so eager to work off some frustration that it kind of bent the normal laws of nature.”

“Are...” Twilight muttered, as her twitch grew more pronounced. “Are you saying my ancestor was spawned from hate sex?” she asked, with increasing horror.

“Of the roughest kind imaginable, yes,” Celestia replied, with a nod. Then she chuckled. “After all was said and done I couldn't regrow my fur for a week, even with magic, and I looked absolutely silly without any feathers on my wings.”

“GAH!” Twilight gurgled out, as she was now borderline incoherent.

Luna, meanwhile, calmly looked at her sister. “That sounds rather traumatizing,” she observed, before she tossed back the last of her drink.

Celestia merely shrugged her shoulders at that. “Not really; I hadn't had any for almost two hundred years by that point, so I was ready and willing to go no matter what came along.” She paused, and then sighed and smiled. “And young Comet Impact was worth all the hassle, besides.”

By now Twilight Sparkle's twitch was now a full jerk of her head. “C-comet Impact?” she asked, incredulously. “That's what you named him?”

“Well, yes,” Celestia replied, and then shook her head. “I originally wanted to name him Coronal Mass Ejection, but my chamberlain at the time threw such a hissy fit that I decided on the more pedestrian name.”

The group of chatting ponies fell silent for a moment, and eyes shifted back and forth from Celestia to Twilight. The latter was slowly turning white as her outrage and frustration mounted, while the former seemed to be patiently waiting. It was Luna who ended the silence as she decided to wade into the obvious bait her sister had laid out. “'Tia.... You do realize the double entendre both of those names represent?” she asked, carefully.

“Oh yes, why do you think I picked them?” Celestia replied, and her smile turned salacious. “It may have been hate sex, but it was really good hate sex; the kind you remember and use in fantasies for years afterwards.”

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGH!” The primal, unearthly roar ripped through the square as Twilight Sparkle snapped. The fires that replaced her mane and tail expanded and swirled around her, lengthening so that they created a veil of fire that surrounded her, and her eyes turned pure, opaque red.

The ponies around her quickly stood and moved back. “Whut's goin' on?” Applejack shouted, trying to make herself heard over the din.

“She's tapping into her primal rage and activating her latent power,” Luna yelled back.

“I will burn you all to cinders and feast upon your matter,” Twilight snarled, as she turned to face her friends and the royal sisters.

Scarcely had she done so, however, when Pinkie Pie bounced up, pulled a cake with brown frosting from out of her mane, and then spoke. “Hey, Twilight!”

The enraged alacorn snapped her head around to face Pinkie. “No more interrup—” Twilight Sparkle began. Ironically, she never got to finish that sentence as Pinkie Pie waited for the fire-bedecked mare to open her mouth before she slammed the large cake into Twilight's maw and somehow made it all fit despite the size difference.

Startled, confused, and with food in her muzzle, Twilight could only respond by chewing on it, and as she did the flames slowly died down and her natural colors returned. She was almost back to normal when she finished the mega-mouthful, and only her mane and tail remained their waving flame appearance, albeit they moved at a much more relaxed pace. “Huh, I feel better,” she muttered, after having swallowed the masticated confectionary.

“Yeah, you kinda looked hungry,” Pinkie Pie replied, with a shrug. “And also kind of stressed, so I figured you needed a nice dose of triple chocolate death cake.”

Twilight Sparkle blinked at that. “'Death cake'?” she asked, worriedly.

Pinkie Pie rolled her eyes, but kept smiling. “It's just an expression, duh,” she said, and then giggle. “You know, like 'death by chocolate'?”

“Lies!” a voice weakly protested, and everypony turned to see the Markovian Man-Drake lying prone on the ground, his robes torn and tattered, with his arms and legs mostly encased by what looked to be some kind of kitchen batter, and Random Action Man sitting on his back. The Man-Drake did have one arm free, but he only used it to point an accusatory finger at Pinkie Pie. “Her cakes are lethal weapons!” he added, though there was no strength in his voice.

“Oh, hush,” Random Action Man replied, as he pressed down the Man-Drake’s hand with his own. His outfit was a bit worse for wear and torn in some places, but overall he seemed to have gotten away with far less than the Man-Drake had suffered. “You're just being a sore loser.”

“Die, all of you.”

“Oh, you,” Pinkie Pie said, with another giggle, and Random Action Man joined in with a chuckle of his own.

“So...” Luna began, cautiously, as she noted her sister giving a goofy stare at the human hero. “Does this mean the danger is thwarted?” she asked, before she charged her horn up and teleported her mug back to wherever she had retrieved it from.

“Yupperooni!” Pinkie Pie replied, with a bounce. “Though there is one teeny weeny problem left,” she said, while holding up a hoof.

“And that is?” Twilight Sparkle asked, seemingly ignorant of her still fiery mane and tail. Her friends behind her weren't, however, and they both looked at the lightly waving flames.

“It's actin' just like Celestia's and Luna's,” Applejack observed to Starlight, sotto voce, while the other conversation was going on.

“It's mesmerizing, isn't it?” Starlight replied.

Applejack nodded. “Like a lava lamp.”

Starlight blinked at that, and then turned to regard the farmer. “What's a lava lamp?” she asked, with a furrowed brow.

Applejack opened her mouth to reply, but then froze for a moment. “Yanno, I don't know,” she said, as she looked to the unicorn. “It just popped into mah head.”

Meanwhile, Random Action Man was starting to reply to Twilight's last question. “Unfortunately, the Man-Drake issues forth his suppressing power as a natural extension of his being,” he explained, even as he spun his free, right hand around in circles on its wrist. “As such dealing with him has drained both The Pink Wonder and myself to the point where we cannot actually transport ourselves, let alone the Man-Drake, across the bounds of realities until we recover.”

“And since we kind of gotta sit on him,” Pinkie added, though she did pause to snerk at the choice of verb, “we can’t really recharge that much.”

“Ah, so you want us to watch him?” Twilight Sparkle asked, with a tilt of her head.

“Nah, if you’d just call Doctor Core I’m sure he could pop over here and take both the Man-Drake and Random Action Man back to their home reality,” Pinkie Pie cheerfully replied.

Twilight blinked at that, and then frowned. “I’m sorry?” she said, and then sat down on her haunches. Her flaming mane and tail settled down with her, and moved to curl around her form. “I don’t who that is, let alone how to call him.”

The reactions to this statement were mostly divided into two groups: Applejack and Starlight Glimmer, both broken out of their reverie by Twilight’s flame-hair moving out of their field of vision, sheepishly walked up to stand next to the Princess of Friendship and looked just as puzzled as she was. Luna, Pinkie Pie, and Random Action Man, however, looked surprised and concerned.

Celestia and the Markovian Man-Drake, meanwhile, maintained their own expressions, with the former still looking on Random Action Man with a wistful, adoring mien, while the latter was simply glaring at everyone and everything that he could lay eyes on. Both of them were ignored, of course, as Pinkie Pie spoke up next. “Uh, but you do know who I’m talking about; you and Applejack both had a big adventure with him back before you became a princess.”

The two ponies named in Pinkie’s reply blinked, and then turned their heads to face one another. “I don’t remember that. Do you, Applejack?” Twilight asked.

“Don’t reckon Ah do,” Applejack replied, with a light frown of concentration, as she and Twilight turned their attentions back to Pinkie Pie.

Said party pony frowned, and then started to pace. “Huh, that’s weird,” Pinkie said, and then glanced over to Starlight Glimmer. “Did you do something to the timeline again?” she asked, knowingly. 

“Wh-who, me?” Glimmer asked, slightly taken aback. “No! Not since I reformed, anyway.”

“And we fixed all of it,” Twilight Sparkle confirmed, with a nod. Then she frowned again. “But what does that have to do with anything?”

“Because, dear Twilight,” Luna interjected, and then waited for everyone’s attention to focus on her. “You sent a report about the adventure to Celestia; I’ve read it myself. So it clearly happened, yet you and Applejack claim to have no memory of it.” She paused, and then shook her head a bit, which caused the bunched up hair of her mane to hit her neck off-kilter. This seemed to finally make the alacorn take note of her appearance, and she held her silence a bit longer as she lit up her horn again. A moment later her mane and tail started to sway and take on their usual appearance, and Luna nodded to herself before she began to speak again. “Clearly something is amiss, though I would rule out time travel as dame Pinkie Pie postulated, since most of us remember the event, and especially because ‘Tia is still being a goofy fangirl of that alternate universe.” Luna shot her sister a frowning glance at the last, though as usual Celestia seemed to just stare dreamily at her fixation.

“If I may?” Random Action Man spoke up, with a casually raised hand. Luna nodded to him, and the human turned to Pinkie Pie and began to talk, though he made sure to pitch his voice so all in the area could clearly hear him. “There was a vergence in the Probability Pathways that threw me off target as I arrived here. I think perhaps someone,” he used on hand to poke the top of the Man-Drake’s head with a finger, which caused the villain to grunt, “may have folded over an opposing state and created a superposition in an attempt to hold me off.”

“Ahh!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed, and her expression brightened. “So we’re existing in the enforced superposition of that episode both having and not having occurred!”

“Exactly!” Random Action Man agreed, as he held his arms out wide in a welcoming expression. He then folded them across his chest and nodded for no particular reason. 

“What does that even mean?” Twilight demanded, and the flames that made up her mane and tail started to dance a little more. Applejack and Starlight both sidled away from her a bit, though the young alacorn did not notice.

“It means that you don’t remember the event because it has been suppressed. This makes your memories of it unavailable until the waveform collapses,” Random Action Man replied, and then shrugged. “Unfortunately, it won’t really clear up until we leave.”

“Which puts us back in that dilly of a pickle,” Pinkie Pie noted, and then shook her head.

“Not entirely,” Luna interjected, and once again waited for everyone to turn their eyes to her. She then gestured towards the still-dormant Celestia. “Mine sister took to watching said reality via scrying spells after Twilight’s report on the matter, and as thus become addicted to the various happenings within.”

“Oh,” Twilight said, and then sheepishly smiled. “I guess that’s the other reason you said about her being odd is my fault?” she asked.

“Verily,” Luna replied, though she smiled friendlily to rob the word of any condemnation. The smile soon went away, however, as the dark alacorn continued. “She can undoubtedly help us contact the person you speak of,” she added, as she looked to Pinkie Pie.

“Yay!” Pinkie exclaimed, even as she hopped into the air to help express her joy. Behind her Random Action Man gave a thumbs-up, and the Markovian Man-Drake rolled his eyes.

“So how are we going to get her to stop being so weird, then?” Starlight Glimmer chimed in, and then gestured to the mooning Sun Princess. 

Luna merely grinned at that, and all who looked upon it gave an involuntary shudder at the dark glee in her eyes. “Thou must be an only child,” she observed, and then lit her horn while she lifted a foreleg. Her aura encased her gilded shoe and slid it off of her hoof, and afterwards the Lunar Princess brought up the now-naked hoof to her mouth and then licked the forward edge of the keratin several times. Luna then turned to her sister once her hoof was sufficiently moistened, and then quickly stuck it into Celestia’s ear and twisted it around.

The reaction from the elder alacorn was instantaneous. “GAAAH!” she yelled, even as she recoiled from the wet willie. Her movement was uncoordinated and as graceful as a brick thrown at a cabinet full of china, and every one of her limbs seemed to spasm as she fell to the ground on her right side. A brief moment of motionless silence passed as all involved absorbed the scene, but it ended quickly as Celestia brought up her head and gave her sister a glare that if any other pony had it directed at them they’d run for the nearest border and exile themselves. Luna, however, merely smiled beatifically at her sister, who slowly began to climb back up. “I hate that,” Celestia growled, even as she moved to sit on her haunches again.

“I know,” Luna replied, as her smile grew into a canary-eating grin. “That is why it is so much fun to use.”

The royal sisters looked at each other for another moment, one glaring and the other one clearly pleased with herself, before a line of magic washed over them. Mildly startled, they turned their heads to see Twilight Sparkle finishing up a scanning spell. “I just had to make sure you two weren’t changelings,” the younger alacorn explained, with a clearly unamused expression. “Since you’re neither acting royally nor like the two ponies I thought I knew,” she added, bitterly.

Celestia shook her head at that. “The longer you live, the more each part of your personality develops almost a life of its own,” she said, and then reached up with her hoof to rub at her ear.

“And the more that your overall personality fluctuates between these various aspects,” Luna added, with a nod. “Fear not if we shift persona at times, for it is neither madness nor trickery, but merely the ravages of time on the mind.”

“Plus they’re sisters,” Pinkie Pie interjected, and then smile broadly as her eyes seemed to lose focus. “I could tell you all kinds of stories about how my sisters and I used to pull all kinds of pranks on each other.”

“All that’s nice an’ all,” Applejack spoke up for the first time in a while, and she walked forward a bit so she could stand in the middle of the conversing group. “But Ah think we’re losin’ th’ forest fer the trees,” she added, and then turned to nod towards Random Action Man and the Markovian Man-Drake. “We need ta git these fellers back to wherever they’re from. And then maybe we can start workin’ on cleanin’ up the mess all this hoopla left behind.”

“An excellent point, dame Applejack,” Luna diplomatically said, and then turned her head to Celestia. “’Tia, since you’re such a fan, could you contact that Doctor Core fellow and have him retrieve our guests?”

Celestia was still rubbing at her ear when she nodded. “Of course,” she said, and then frowned. “How deep did you stick your hoof in, anyway?”

“Please focus, ‘Tia,” Luna sternly replied, albeit with a hint of a smile on her muzzle.

Celestia gave her sister another poisonous look, and then sighed. Then her horn lit up and her aura appeared around her afflicted ear even as she lowered her hoof. “Was waking you up so we could come see the fight so bad?” she asked, as bits of moisture floated out of her ear and then flicked to the ground.

“Yes.” Luna answered, through gritted teeth. Then she took in a deep breath, and then smiled politely as she regained control of her emotions. “So call us even, then,” she offered.

“Sorry, but you know I’ll have to get you back,” Celestia replied, with a grin of her own. The aura around her ear faded, but the one over her horn started to increase in intensity. “But first, let’s get this little episode wrapped up,” she added, and then closed her eyes and concentrated. Everyone fell silent to let her work—even the Man-Drake was subdued enough to remain quiet—and after a minute the white alacorn opened her eyes and smiled beatifically upon the gathering. “I made sure to leave him a message on his machine explaining the situation,” Celestia explained. Her expression then faded into a contemplative one. “Although I’m not sure how quickly—”

A sudden noise that sounded like a cross between breaking glass and water going over a waterfall interrupted the Lightbringer and startled the group. Everyone turned their heads up as it seemed to come from above, and there they saw a large object of some kind floating in the sky above Ponyville. It was shaped much like a cylinder that had been rounded at the front and flattened on the top and bottom, causing it to bloat out to the side. The rear of it tapered down to two exhaust cones and some kind of rudder, and though the top was obscured by the object’s bulk, a flat-sided tower seemed to rise above it. The entire thing was painted black and coated by some kind of tile, though no one could get a good look at it as their eyes seemed to want to slide off of the object if they stared at it too long.

The ponies were gobsmacked, and so they were mildly startled when the Man-Drake sighed. “He arrived in that ridiculous converted submarine of his, didn’t he?” he asked, as he couldn’t tilt his head up to look given his position.

“He always does know how to make an entrance,” Random Action Man observed, with a nod.

Any further conversation was interrupted by a roaring sound, and all who could look up did so in time to see a winged shaped appear from over the top of the unidentified flying object. Its body was vaguely box-like in shape, though it had curves for aerodynamic efficiency, and its wings tilted up to provide a kind of rudder at the tips. Despite these it never seemed to enter true flight, and instead seemed to hover on jets of air as it sidled away from the parent craft, and then began to descend. Seconds later it landed several meters from the group amid a mild windstorm kicked up by its propulsion.

Scarcely had it finished landing when the door on the side just in front of the port wing opened and a lanky, bald, goggled, duster bedecked man stepped out. “Great bloody Hell, Man-Drake! If you so much as touched a hair on Applejack’s head I will break you into a thousand pieces and send them all to different galaxies,” he declared, arm outstretched to point a threatening finger at the villain even as he stomped forward to where Random Action Man continued to sit on the Man-Drake.

“That was quick,” Random Action Man noted, as the newcomer stopped at a comfortable distance.

“I may detest most forms of time travel, but so long as causality isn’t infringed upon I do make use of it occasionally,” the new human declared, in an accent that none of the ponies could quite place. “Besides, the Chronosphere needs to be used occasionally to keep the quantum foam stirred up.”

“Ducky!” Pinkie Pie shouted, even as she bounded over and then jumped up and at the newcomer. She landed on his chest and quickly wrapped her legs around his neck and torso, and despite the suddenness the human managed to stand up to the impact with only a few side steps to stabilize himself. “Did you miss me?” Pinkie asked, as the bald man turned his head to regard hers at point blank range.

“Only because I left my sniper rifle at home,” the man replied evenly, and then brought up a hand to poke at Pinkie’s side, which made her giggle. “Now hop off, Pink Wonder. I’m on the clock, so chop chop!”

“Okey dokey Loki!” Pinkie Pie replied, and then pushed herself off and did a backflip in mid-air. She stuck the landing perfectly, and Random Action Man pulled a sign out of nowhere that showed “10” in bold lettering.

“Actually, he didn’t come today,” Doctor Core said, as he brushed off his coat with both hands. “Said he wasn’t sure he could keep from going Old School Edda on a certain someone,” he added, with a look towards the subdued Man-Drake, who groaned a bit. “But good times shall be had by all in due time,” Core added, and then turned and looked over Applejack and Twilight Sparkle. He raised an eyebrow as he regarded the latter—easily visible given his goggles were actually quite small and only covered his eyes. “Sparklebutt, when did you get an upgrade?” he asked, curiously.

Twilight blushed at the nickname, and her embarrassment only deepened when she heard a few chortles from her nearby friends. “Some time ago,” she ground out, flatly.

Doctor Core’s eyebrow had gone down after his question, but now rose again. “Why so harsh, pony girl?”

“She doesn’t remember you,” Pinkie Pie chimed in, and everyone turned their attentions to her in time to see her frowning a bit. “Mister Meanie-Drake decided to fold probabilities and they won’t clear up ‘til you all go home.”

A moment of silence passed as Doctor Core stood still and absorbed this information. Then he turned his head to regard Applejack. “He didn’t hurt the booze, did he?” he asked, with mild concern.

Several beings blinked at the non-sequitur. “Uh, what do ya mean?” Applejack asked back, confusedly.

“The Apple Family Special Reserve you always have a bottle of ready for me,” Core explained. “You know, the stuff you make harder than hard for connoisseurs like you and me?”

“Uh, wow, ya know about that?” Applejack blurted, and then reached up with a foreleg to take off her hat and hold it against her chest. “Shoot, Ah ain’t had time ta make that lately given all the work Ah’ve had ta do at the farm.”

“She forgot you too,” Pinkie interjected, when Core started to open his mouth.

Doctor Core froze, and then frowned as he turned his head to regard the Markovian Man-Drake. “What have you done?” he growled out.

The villain whimpered a bit, but it was Random Action Man who truly replied. “Nothing that can’t be undone and fixed up properly when we leave and let the superposition collapse,” he said, as he folded the sign he had pulled out into a paper airplane. “So perhaps we should get back to S.H.M.U.C. and hand over the Man-Drake post haste?”

“You’re damn right, post haste!” Doctor Core snarled, and then brought up his left arm and held it in front of him. With his other hand he pulled back the sleeve of the duster and revealed that he wore some kind of complicated electronic device with many controls and at least one tiny screen around his lower left arm. He then pressed a few buttons and then lowered the arm, and scarcely had he done so when a pair of dark humanoids leapt out from the open door to the shuttle, tucked into balls and somersaulting in mid-air. They flew through the space between the craft and the gathering of beings in the town square, and then unfolded and landed in crouching positions on either side of Doctor Core.

The ponies—save Pinkie Pie—flinched at their sudden appearance, and Twilight Sparkle had to suppress a further shudder as she saw the two figures were similar to the G.N.E.R.D.s that had nearly savaged her earlier, in that they were clearly some kind of machine made of metal. But where the G.N.E.R.D.s were designed to repulse and threaten with their appearance, these two were smooth, with graceful lines and a black-painted surface marred only by their joints, a few obvious access panels, and a large plastic front of their head that seemed to have irregular patterns of glowing lights behind it.

“Robo-ninjas,” Doctor Core snapped, and then pointed to the captured villain. “Secure the Markovian Man-Drake in the shuttle and prepare to transfer him to S.H.M.U.C. authorities.”

“Hai!” both machine-men replied, and then quickly went to work. Twilight didn’t quite see exactly what they did. All she knew was that they quickly moved over to the Man-Drake, helped Random Action Man stand up, and then picked up the villain and ran off with him back to the inside of the shuttlecraft. Exactly how they did this was a mystery as their limbs seemed to blur and their movement was so swift that Doctor Core had scarcely finished ordering them before they were gone.

“Good help is so hard to find,” Core said, into the silence that followed the actions that so bewildered the ponies. “But fortunately it’s fairly easy to make if you have the right parts,” he added, and flashed a grin. Then he turned serious, and also turned to face Random Action Man. “Come on, let’s get home then and let the probability skein unfold itself.”

“A good idea,” Random Action Man affably agreed, with a nod. Then he turned to regard the ponies, and then bowed to them. “Ladies, it has been a pleasure to make your acquaintances. If you’re ever in our reality, feel free to stop by S.H.M.U.C. and say hello.”

“Don’t tell them that,” Doctor Core interjected, even as he crossed his arms over his chest as he spoke. “That place is a festering hive of bureaucracy and brooding, overly serious anti-heroes,” he added, and then tilted his head in thought for a moment. “Invite them to Sarasota, instead.”

“Sarasota, then!” Random Action Man exclaimed, and shot one hand to the sky with the index finger pointed up. “But for now, we depart,” he added, as he lowered his finger and then then turned to follow Doctor Core as the latter walked back towards the shuttle.

“Don’t be a stranger!” Celestia called out to Random Action Man, and waved a hoof at him.

The human paused, looked back at her, and then winked before he followed Core into the flying machine. The door snapped shut as soon as he did, and within seconds the craft’s engines powered up. Soon the shuttle lifted off with a roar, and then reversed the course it had taken to arrive in Ponyville to disappear over the top of the large ship hovering in the sky.

“Well, that was certainly something,” Starlight Glimmer spoke into the heavy silence that had permeated the town square after the roar of the shuttle’s engines cut off.

“More like it was a cavalcade of insanity,” Twilight Sparkle grumped out, and then sighed and looked around the square. “Starlight, why don’t you go get Spike from Sugarcube Corner and then go around and let everypony in town know that they can come out now?” she asked, as she looked to her protégé.

“Alright,” Starlight said, with an eager nod. She then practically jumped up and trotted over towards the ravaged bakery.

“Pinkie Pie, Applejack,” Twilight continued, as she turned her head back and forth to regard the two earth pony mares. “I’d appreciate it if you two would get a cart and start hauling away this junk,” she explained, and then lightly kicked at a G.N.E.R.D. component.

“Sounds good,” Applejack said, as she put her hat back on, and Pinkie Pie saluted with a foreleg. Scarcely had they done so when a growing whine was heard from above. The ponies all looked up at Doctor Core’s craft to see that it continued to hover in place, even as the growing, unearthly whine emanated from it. Then the whine reached nearly painful level before three things happened simultaneously: the whine reached a crescendo and the odd sound of breaking glass and water rushing was heard again; a flash of light enveloped the craft and it disappeared; and in the wake of the flash the whole world seemed to be robbed of color for a moment, though hue began to immediately flow back and in less than a second everything was normal again.

Or rather, as close to normal as possible, as twin gasps came from Twilight Sparkle and Applejack. Concerned, the other ponies looked down to see stricken looks on their faces, and for a moment their eyes seemed to flicker back and forth, as if watching movement only they could see. Then the spell over them faded, and they gave each other a knowing look. “Uh, Twi,” Applejack began, as she pulled her hat off again and then used it to fan her suddenly reddish face. “Ah’m gonna make that special reserve, so Ah can’t help right now,” she said, and then donned her headgear once again. “Ah’ll come help tomorrow if’n y’all ain’t done yet,” she said, and then quickly turned and trotted off, with only the briefest of bows to the Royal Sisters in passing.

The two elder alacorns and Pinkie Pie gave the apple farmer an odd set of looks, and then turned their attentions to Twilight Sparkle who looked rather stricken. Even her mane and tail had extinguished themselves and returned to their normal state. “Are you okay, Twilight?” Celestia asked, with concern.

Twilight blinked, and then gave the other mares a brief, sheepish, but strained smile. “I’m okay,” she answered. Then the smile dropped and she turned to regard the robotic wreckage lying on the ground. “Mostly,” she added, and then sighed. “I’m going to need some time to think.”

“I see,” Celestia said, with a nod. Then she looked over at her sister. “Why don’t we take the place of Twilight and Applejack in the cleanup and let them reabsorb their memories?”

Luna frowned. “I was hoping I could get some more sleep…” she began, and then trailed off as Celestia gave her a begging look. “Ugh, fine,” Luna acquiesced, and then sighed and nodded. “Let us get to it then, before the palace apparatchiks hunt us down and throw more paperwork at us.”

“Excellent,” Celestia said, in her regal fashion. Her entire attitude seemed to project the mask of certitude she had worn so well over the centuries, and Twilight almost felt like a filly again as the Lightbringer turned back to her former student and gave Sparkle one of her warmer smiles. “We’ll take things from here, Twilight. Why don’t you go on a walk and work through whatever is bothering you?”

“Nothing’s bothering—” Twilight began, but then halted as she observed the stern look on Luna’s face. Twilight swallowed whatever she was about to say, and then nodded. “Alright, I should probably take some time,” she allowed, and then stood. “Thank you,” she added, with a heartfelt smile.