Chapter Four
More Than a Paltry Kick
“Why… won’t… this… come off!?” Apple Bloom growled and thrashed around wildly, desperate to remove the brick-tower costume covering her head and upper half.
Sweetie Belle giggled. “Don’t fight it, Apple Bloom! We need to find out what powers we have. Besides, your little face looks so adorable in there!”
Apple Bloom’s cheeks reddened in a deep scowl. “Fine. What exactly are your powers, then, Miss Giant Hat?”
“Umm…” Sweetie Belle adjusted her mitre. “Well, in chess, the Bishop can only move along diagonal squares of whatever color it starts on.”
Apple Bloom rubbed her forehead. “Chess? Are you tellin’ me we’ve been transformed into a stupid game?”
“Chess is not a stupid game!” Sweetie Belle stuck out her tongue. “I’m not very good at it, but Rarity taught me the rules. Haven’t you ever played?”
“Nope!” Apple Bloom announced proudly. “What about you, Scootaloo? Ever played chess before?” She tried to turn her head, but ― as it was stuck in place by her costume ― resorted to shuffling to the left until her friend was in sight.
Scootaloo was carefully walking forward along the snowy jungle’s floor, as if balancing on a tightrope. Suddenly, she tipped over, landing with a resounding clang from her armor.
“Blast it all!” Scootaloo shouted from the ground. “A-spite my efforts to maintain sure hoofing, I fall to one side or the other after naught but several steps! Cursed be the feline who bequeathed upon me a handicap thusly frustrating!”
“The knight always moves in an L-shape,” Sweetie Belle explained. “Two squares in any direction, then one square perpendicular. That must be why Sir Scootaloo keeps falling over!”
Scootaloo leapt to her hooves. “Dear Bishop, do tell! What, pray, can I do to avoid such frequent falls?”
“Just be sure to trot in L-shapes,” Sweetie Belle said. “Like this!” She tried to walk directly toward Scootaloo, but her legs flailed under her white robes, carrying her past Scootaloo in a diagonal direction instead. “Whoops! Not like that! Oh boy…”
Apple Bloom gulped. “So what can I do, then?”
Sweetie Belle managed to stop herself and tread back along her diagonal path. “Well, rooks can move as far as they want in the cardinal directions. Like up, down, left, or right. They can’t move diagonally or change direction halfway through a move.”
“Oh. Well, that don’t sound so bad.” Apple Bloom lifted a hoof to take a step just as Scootaloo fell over again. Setting her hoof back down, Apple Bloom cleared her throat. “Just to be sure, I’m gonna wait til we have some kinda game plan.”
“What do you think we should do, Dinky?” asked Sweetie Belle to the only uncostumed filly.
Dinky trembled slightly. “I-I don’t know anymore! I can’t see past these trees, and the cat didn’t help at all, and now we’re all walking in different directions. How will we ever find the Red King?”
A tumultuous roar echoed through the trees. Trunks quaked along with the four little ponies upon hearing it.
“Wh-wh-what was that?” asked Dinky.
Sweetie Belle gulped. “Nothing friendly. Apple Bloom?”
The rook in question tried to crouch lower to the ground, but her costume made it impossible. She also tried to trot closer to Sweetie Belle, but her available directions were limited, as well. Finally, and with a sigh, she resorted to whispering loudly, “Didn’t sound like nothin’ I’ve ever heard in the Everfree Forest.”
“Fear not, my friends and companions in arms!” Scootaloo shouted with one hoof extended. “With my trusty javelin and the blessing of the Ancient Sun, whatever foe may come our way shall surely be vanquished! Victory is our destiny!”
As she finished her speech, a creature like an enormous warthog covered in long, violet fur smashed a nearby palm tree to pieces with no less than eighteen tusks branching out of its blistered lips. It opened its mouth, which somehow extended from just under its snout to the middle of what should have been its ribcage. A long portion of its top half rose like the lid of a trash can, revealing a rope-like tongue amidst the burly tusks, to emit a low-pitched screech aimed directly at the fillies.
Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Dinky all screamed, turning to run in whatever directions they could.
Scootaloo smiled wickedly beneath her visor, unlatching the pole from the side of her armor and holding it at an expert angle.
“Be ye therefore coming at me, bro!” she exclaimed.
The monster roared again and charged over waxy leaves and snow at Scootaloo’s shining body.
{-DD-}
There was no way to identify north on the island, let alone any of the other directions. The strange sky’s stationary lights didn’t help. So Sweetie Belle may have been running northeast, or she may have been running southwest. Either way, she was galloping at a precise diagonal, bound to her path by some unseen force.
She looked over her shoulder. Scootaloo and the monster were nowhere to be seen. Dinky had followed Apple Bloom, and they, too, were out of sight amidst the wintery jungle.
“Oh no!” Sweetie Belle groaned. “How am I going to find them?”
She yelped and skidded to a halt as the world around her suddenly changed. She was no longer running through a frosty rainforest, but rather found herself on a sand dune. Cacti and skittering creatures, lit by the light of stars, inhabited the ground ahead of her for at least a hundred yards, and then ― very clearly ― the world morphed again into a bubbling swamp.
“What is this place?” Sweetie Belle glanced over her shoulder and gasped: the snowy jungle was still right behind her, separated from the desert by an unnaturally straight line. She shifted back to the very edge of the desert, curiously kicking a bit of sand over the line. It landed among the dirt, leaves, and snow of the jungle and vanished just as quickly.
Sweetie Belle’s eyes were wide when she looked to the swamp on the other edge of the desert. “Is this for real?” she asked under breath.
She tried to run across the desert toward the swamp, but her predestined path forced her at a diagonal. Peering in the only direction she could go, she figured she could reach the far corner of the swamp.
“So much for the shortest distance between two parts,” she grumbled, giving a final glance at the jungle before bolting at an angle through the starlit sand.
{-DD-}
“Where’s Sweetie Belle?” asked Dinky.
“We’ll find her soon!” yelled Apple Bloom. “Keep up with me!”
“I’m trying!” Dinky panted hard. “You’re going so fast!”
“I am?” Apple Bloom tried to look behind her, but the costume prevented it. “Argh! What do you see back there, Dinky?”
Dinky dared to glance over her shoulder. Scootaloo and the great boar had fallen far behind. “Nothing,” she said. “I-I think we’re safe.”
Apple Bloom had to slow to a stop before she could turn around. She ushered Dinky to her side and looked all around them warily.
“What was that thing?” Dinky asked, pressed into her uncostumed flank.
“Looked like some kinda… pig monster.” Apple Bloom gulped. “I don’t know, Dinky. I ain’t seen nothin’ like it back home.”
“Ooohhhh…” Dinky whined, burying her face into Apple Bloom’s side. “I’m so scared. Where are Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle?”
“I don’t think Sweetie Belle could follow us,” Apple Bloom said quietly, “and as much as I hate to say it, I reckon Scootaloo stayed back to fight that thing.”
“She’s gonna die!” Dinky’s breath sped up. “We have to go back and save her, Apple Bloom! We can’t let her die!”
“Hey, calm down there, little missy.” Apple Bloom looked down at her. She wasn’t dramatically smaller than the Cutie Mark Crusaders, but in that particular moment she looked younger and more frail than ever. “They’re gonna be okay. Trust me. We three have gotten out of worse sitcheations than this.”
Dinky sniffed. “Y-you have?”
“Sure! Er, I reckon so, anyway.” She cleared her throat. “Look, I’m not all that worried. Scootaloo can more than take care of herself. Sweetie Belle’s got her moments, but she ain’t a sack o’ bricks, neither. And you and me?” She smiled. “Together, we’re as safe as can be.”
“Promise?”
Apple Bloom nodded once. “I promise. Nopony’s gonna die today.”
Dinky looked comforted, but only marginally. A few tears dripped from the corners of her eyes.
Apple Bloom read the panic and pain in her face. More than anything, it was familiar. Before she knew was she was doing, the question came:
“Have you… lost somepony, Dinky?” she asked softly.
Dinky winced.
“I mean… heh, sorry.” Apple Bloom shook her head rapidly. “This place must be gettin’ to me. That’s no kinda question to ask right now.”
“I don’t know what happened to my daddy,” Dinky answered anyway. “I don’t know if he died or… just left us. Mommy never talks about it.”
A lump grew in Apple Bloom’s throat. She tried to get rid of it with a brief cough. “Hrmmm… well, gosh. I’m sorry to hear that, Dinky.” She bit her lip. “Truth be told, I don’t rightly know what happened to my parents, neither.”
Dinky finally looked up. “Really?”
“Yeah. I never met ‘em.” She chuckled. “I mean… obviously my momma had me, er else I wouldn’t be here. But I ain’t never seen a picture, and Applejack’s never said a word about ‘em, and… I dunno, I figured it’s rude to ask.”
Dinky nodded. “Yeah. I’m scared to ask, too.”
The lump returned in her throat as something burned the bottom of Apple Bloom’s eyes. “Well… ahem. Let’s get on home as quick as we can then, huh? Maybe we can find a way to ask together.”
Gasping, Dinky asked, “Do you really mean it?”
“Sure. Why not?” Apple Bloom offered a meager smile. “Kids deserve to know what happened to their missin’ folks, don’t they?”
Dinky smiled and nuzzled Apple Bloom. “You’re such a good friend. No wonder the others love you so much.”
Apple Bloom sighed at that. “Thanks, I guess. Y’know… I’ve never talked to nopony about my parents, Dinky. I didn’t wanna burden Sweetie Belle or Scootaloo. They wouldn’t get it, anyway.”
“Thank you for telling me.” A small smile pulled at Dinky’s lips. “Now… should we go help the others find the Red King?”
“And fast.” Apple Bloom stood taller. “The sooner we get home, the better. Did you happen to see which way Sweetie Belle ran?”
Dinky pointed. “I’m pretty sure she went that way.”
Apple Bloom pointed her nose to the left. “Then let’s hope I can remember any shape-ography from school.”
Dinky giggled. “Um, do you mean geometry?”
Apple Bloom sighed and trotted forward. “This might take a while.”
{-DD-}
“What manner of beast art thou?” Scootaloo taunted, twirling the long javelin over her head with a plated hoof. “Only the fiercest of prey interest me. My blade hath bested dragons and torn regiments asunder! Therefore I ask again, by what means do you hope to defeat me?”
The giant, purple warthog’s mouth ripped upward yet again, screaming its malicious intentions as flecks of yellow spit and phlegm spattered on the ground before the little knight.
“Ha ha! That’s the spirit!” Scootaloo crouched low, aimed her polearm, and galloped forward at full speed. Her tiny wings beat against the inside of her armor. “Let us observe how thou shalt handle mine own show of fury! Raaurgh!”
The monster caught the tip of Scootaloo’s javelin between two of its gnarled tusks and threw her into the air.
She laughed maniacally as she spun, orienting herself many feet above the monster’s head. “Thou hast sown the oats of thine own destruction, great swine! I advance!” She plummeted, spear held straight downward in both of her forehooves.
The massive boar brought its head low to the ground, lifted its hind legs, and bucked at the air. Its cloven hooves collided with the javelin first, deflecting Scootaloo’s airborne attack and sending her spinning to the side.
She landed hard on all four hooves, still laughing. “Ha ha! ‘Twill take more than a paltry kick to distill the wrath of Lady Scootsalot!” She charged again with the javelin held at her side, then spun and slid backwards as the boar moved to catch the spear. Flattened and grinding over the strange jungle’s floor, Scootaloo managed to scrape below the hairy chin of the beast and poked its belly with the blunt end of her javelin.
It panicked, rearing onto its hind legs and kicking desperately at Scootaloo. She swatted its hooves out of the way with an armored hoof, jumped onto its exposed chest, and kicked off backward, effectively toppling the beast onto its back while she landed noisily near its twitching tail.
“More epic battles have been wrought with the weeds in the gardens of Canterlot!” Scootaloo exclaimed. “I take no honor in slaying you, foul creature, but the safety of my friends is my undisputed priority!” She leapt onto its upward-facing belly and prepared to bury her javelin in its heart. “Fare thee well in the realms beyond, my foe!”
The pig squealed, squirmed, and squawked. Scootaloo hesitated for a moment too long. The boar opened its hingeless mouth wide, flipping itself forward and launching Scootaloo as if from a catapult. She slammed into a nearby tree and slid down its trunk with a groan.
“What strange anatomy,” she grunted as she got to her hooves. “I shall have the royal magicians tear thee apart, for science!” She blinked. “Or… whatever similar practice came before science! Raauurgh!”
The boar was ready for her to attack head on or from below, so Scootaloo slammed her pole into the ground and used it to leap over the boar’s hulking head. She landed backwards on its hips and began to stab it mercilessly just above the tail. “Receive my pointy justice!”
The monster shrieked once again and took off through the jungle, smashing through errant trees and vines as it tried to escape its pain. Scootaloo laughed and continued to stab until ― unexpectedly ― she noticed sand kicking up from her ride’s back hooves.
“What’s this?” she asked aloud, surveying the land around her. “A wasteland beyond the jungle? Ho ho! What an exotic setting for my imminent victory!”
Just as quickly, it seemed to Scootaloo, the landscape transformed again, and the boar’s heavy hoofsteps spat up mud and standing water.
“What what!? Stop at once!” She yanked on the boar’s tail and it screeched to a halt on a strip of land between stinking pools of water. The world was suddenly dark and foggy. “A swamp? All too familiar! I don’t want it to bog down my armor.” She laughed at herself. “Bog down! Ha! Oh, that there was a nearby soul to hear and rejoice in my play on words!”
The purple warthog roared and bucked Scootaloo from her perch over its hips. She landed in the mud nearby, but her javelin sunk so deeply that she had trouble pulling it out. “Curses! Foiled by my own pun! Such is the price of my devilish wit!”
The boar spun around and snarled in her face.
She lifted her visor and frowned at the monster. “Thine breath is putrid.”
“Scootaloo!”
The knight turned her head. Emerging from the fog, a castle-costumed Apple Bloom burst into view. She splashed over a stretch of shallow water and gasped when the giant boar rose its heavy head, staring directly at her.
“Scootaloo, what the hay are you doin’ with that thing?” Apple Bloom asked.
“Vanquishing a measly foe, of course.” Her visor still up, Scootaloo flashed Apple Bloom a debonair grin. “Stand back, good rook! The battle is nearly over!”
With a low scream that shook the surface of the swamp’s water, the beast thundered around Scootaloo and charged instead at Apple Bloom. She flinched.
“No!” Dinky suddenly shouted, bounding for her friend from behind.
A strong gust of wind blew a thick patch of fog into the boar’s path. It panicked, swerving to the left and submerging its front two legs in a deep patch of bubbling mud.
Apple Bloom sighed. “Whew! That was lucky.”
Dinky flung her arms around Apple Bloom’s tower of a neck. “It sure was! Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, Dinky. Can you reach Scootaloo?” She wiggled in place. “I don’t got much mobility at the moment.”
“Yeah, I’ll get her!” Dinky tore away from the rook and approached the knight in a shallow puddle of sludge, helping her with several loud grunts to pull the javelin from the mud.
“Ha ha!” cried Scootaloo when the polearm slurped out of its hole. She held it above her head in triumph. “Well done, my Queen! Now the beast has lost all hope of escape!”
Dinky rose an eyebrow. “Queen?”
With a sickening pop, the purple hog yanked itself out of the swamp. Its strange mouth opened wide and its tongue flicked back and forth with rage. Dinky gasped and backed away from the freed monstrosity.
“Fear not, Your Majesty!” Scootaloo hopped forward and snapped her visor shut. “Your champion lives to protect you!”
The warthog ran at them, its many tusks carving swirly shapes through the wisps of fog in the air.
“For the Sun and Her Great Family!” yelled Scootaloo, throwing herself at the boar with no less vigor.
With a mighty swing of its multiplicitous tusks, the monster angrily batted Scootaloo aside. She sprawled onto the stretch of land amidst mud and dark ponds. Dinky gasped and ran as fast as her stubby legs could carry her to the fallen knight’s side.
“Are you okay, Scootaloo?” she asked in a tight voice.
Scootaloo coughed. “This knight has not been taken yet,” she said, rather heroically. “Be swift, my Queen, and hasten away! Take the rook with you, for she shall be… what’s this, now?”
Together, they looked back at the boar. Its eyes were on Dinky… and it was trembling. A few nervous whimpers escaped its throat.
“Ha ha! But of course, Your Majesty!” Scootaloo jumped to her hooves with renewed energy, making Dinky gasp. “Even the beasts of these ghastly woods are wary of your power. Quickly! We must end its life before it escapes and wreaks havoc upon the kingdom!”
The boar turned and ran. Scootaloo chased after it, spurting out bursts of laughter. Apple Bloom approached Dinky, who looked utterly flabbergasted.
“Kingdom? What kingdom?” She turned to Apple Bloom. “What is Scootaloo talking about?”
“I’m not sure she’s got more of a clue than we do,” Apple Bloom admitted. “Come on, Dinky, we gotta catch ‘em. Scoots shouldn’t go killin’ that thing that’s tryin’ to run away.”
“Right!” Dinky ran alongside Apple Bloom, following the sounds of Scootaloo’s manic laughter.
{-DD-}
Sweetie Belle stood at the edge of the swamp, and also at the edge of a lake.
“This makes absolutely no sense,” she murmured, turning her eyes from the foggy swamp behind her to the gorgeous sunset casting orange beams of light across the rippling water. She grinned. “But it is kinda pretty.”
From behind her, a desperate roar split the fog. She screamed and almost tripped over her robes, stumbling diagonally in an attempt to turn around. The monster exploded from the depths of the swamp with a spray of sticky mud. Sweetie Belle shielded her face and cried, “Help!”
“And help you shall receive, dear Bishop!” Scootaloo’s voice erupted from just behind the monster.
Sweetie Belle gasped and clasped her hooves together. “Sir Scootaloo! You’re okay!”
“Indeed, I am full of endurance and mirth! Ha ha!” She jumped into view and waved at Sweetie Belle from a distance.
The giant boar yelped and skidded to a stop at the straight edge of the swamp. It stared out over the lake with twitching, terrified eyes. Sweetie Belle noticed the expression and backed away from it along her diagonal path.
“It looks scared!” she yelled to Scootaloo.
“As it well should be, for fear marks the hearts of the wicked!” Scootaloo stomped closer to the beast.
Apple Bloom and Dinky emerged from the fog, panting. “Scootaloo! Don’t go killin’ the poor critter! It’s through fightin’, don’tcha see?”
“The mind of a beast is as uncertain as its composition. I shall slay it, if only so that we may no longer fear its dark influence on our grand adventures!”
“Scootaloo, snap out of it!” Sweetie Belle shouted. “We have to find the Red King, remember? Let it go back to the jungle so we can get on with this already!”
The warthog turned around, glaring at Scootaloo and growling through its many tusks.
“Look away if you must, fair Bishop, for naught shall stop me from fulfilling my knightly duties to rid this kingdom of Tartarus’ foul bile!”
“What are you gettin’ on about? Scoots, yer our friend, not some royal knight! Come on now, focus, girl!”
“For Queen and Country!” Scootaloo jumped at the monster with incredible athleticism, rising several feet off the ground. “Raaaaurrrgghhh!”
The warthog winced and cowered from Scootaloo’s approaching spear.
“No!” In an instant, Apple Bloom bolted forward in a beeline shot for the warthog. In the space of a blink, she traveled over a hundred feet, zipping underneath Scootaloo in the process, and slammed into the warthog at full speed. The creature was launched like a ping-pong ball off a brick wall, soaring through the air and disappearing beyond the lake with a cinematic twinkle. It screamed the whole way.
Apple Bloom blinked over extremely wide eyes. “Whoops.”
Scootaloo stopped short of running into her and stuck her pole into the soggy ground, laughing. “Good show, old girl! I thought not that such a performance rested within you! Ha ha!”
Sweetie Belle’s eyes watered. “Did… did you kill it?” she asked softly.
“I-I-I don’t think so…” Apple Bloom stammered. “I don’t know what came over me.”
“The Ogelsnort is far from dead,” said an all-too-familiar voice from somewhere in the nearby lake. “And even if it was, I’m sure it would come back sooner or later. We all do.”
“There’s that blasted feline!” shouted Scootaloo. “The one whose curse nearly foiled my fight with the beast! I shall skewer you with my spear of chivalry, you uncouth ― gah!” Halfway through marching to the edge of the swamp, Scootaloo tipped over and landed hard in the mud. “Oh! How I would that a companion might confirm what just occurred as fabrication!”
The disembodied voice chuckled. “What an unexpected side-effect.”
“Make her stop!” said Dinky, approaching the lake. “I want normal Scootaloo back.”
“Remove her helmet and the spell will lift,” the voice complied without hesitation.
After a moment of letting that sink in, Apple Bloom turned a sharp ninety degrees and approached Scootaloo’s head. She yanked the helmet over her face and out of the mud with some difficulty.
Scootaloo groaned and sat up on her haunches, rubbing her temples with two hooves. “What just happened?” she asked in her usual, raspy voice.
“Scootaloo!” Dinky bounded over and hugged the armored filly. “You’re back!”
Scootaloo’s eyes crossed. “I’m back? What do you mean? Did… did I die?”
“What’s with you and death, Scootaloo?” Apple Bloom rolled her eyes. “No, ya didn’t die. But you haven’t exactly been yerself.”
“Huh?”
“Let’s recap later,” said Sweetie Belle, getting as near to the group as her enduring enchantment allowed. “Where’s the Red King, Mister Cat? We’re done with this nonsense and need to find him now!”
With another flighty chuckle, a large brown fish appeared just beneath the surface of the lake’s clear water. It had long, spiky tendrils blooming from around its mouth, but its eyes glistened with intelligence.
Sweetie Belle gasped. “Mister Cat…fish?”
The creature grinned and looked toward the brilliant, setting Sun. “Behold the Red King,” he said. “You ponies never give yourself enough credit, you know. Quite clever, the lot of you.”
Apple Bloom tilted her head. “The Sun is the Red King? How’re we s’posed to remove the Sun?”
The fish didn’t answer, for it was gone.
Scootaloo rubbed her eyes, groaning. “I could not possibly be more confused.”
“I think… hey, there’s something out there, girls!” Sweetie Belle exclaimed, pointing toward the horizon. “There’s something in the water! It looks like a little boat!”
Apple Bloom and Dinky squinted into the Sun. “I can’t see nothin’ and that makes my eyes hurt,” Apple Bloom complained.
“Oh, right. I’m at a better angle.” Sweetie Belle giggled. “Well, there’s a rowing boat out there on the lake. Doesn’t look like anypony’s in it, but maybe it’s for us!”
Apple Bloom shrugged. “Let’s swim on over there, then. Assumin’ I don’t drown in this costume.”
“I think I’ll sink in all this metal,” Scootaloo said, trying to pull the armor from her forelegs.
“Dinky and I will go,” Sweetie Belle said, “and we’ll bring the boat to shore.”
Dinky smiled hesitantly. “Ummm… actually, Sweetie Belle, I can’t swim.”
Sweetie’s eyebrows knit together. “Oh. Okay, then. I’ll, uh… go out there by myself.” She gulped, adjusted her tall mitre, and stepped forward into the water.
Or, rather, onto the water. Her own gasp accompanied one from each of her friends as Sweetie Belle began to trot over the surface of the lake toward the boat.
“Wow! Look at me!” Sweetie Belle cheered, bouncing happily. “I can walk on water!”
“It’s probably just a fake lake,” said Scootaloo, but when she dipped her hoof beyond the edge of the swamp, the water there rippled as her armor pierced its surface. “Huh? Whoa!”
Giggling, Sweetie Belle reached the boat in no time. She peeked over its lip, gasped audibly, and waved her hooves overhead at her friends on the swampy shore. “HEY!” she yelled at the top of her lungs. “YOU GIRLS HAVE GOT TO SEE THIS!”
“There’s no need to shout, Sweetie Belle,” Apple Bloom droned. “You’re not all that far away and sound carries over water.”
“Oh.” Sweetie Belle cleared her throat, hooked one fetlock on the small boat, and pulled it over the water to where her friends were waiting.
Inside the vessel, curled on his side, was a bright red stallion with a thick moustache and a crown upon his head. His eyes were closed and a gentle snoring passed through his muzzle every few seconds.
“Is this the Red King?” whispered Dinky.
“Quick, let’s tip the boat over!” Scootaloo yelled, grasping for a hold on its underside.
“Seems like a right heavy sleeper,” Apple Bloom said, poking the king’s flank.
Scootaloo grunted. “Hello? Is nopony gonna help me? We have to remove the Red King!”
“I think we should wake him up and ask him politely if we can use his boat,” said Sweetie Belle matter-of-factly.
“Uuugghh!” Scootaloo reached into the bottom of the vessel and shook the stallion by his shoulders. “Hey! Red Kingsley! Can you hear me? Get up!” She slapped him across the face. “We need to sail into the sunset or whatcrap!”
“Checkmate,” Dinky said under breath.
The other three looked at her. “Huh?”
Dinky smiled, looking into each of their eyes. She hopped onto a bench in the boat and pulled the king’s crown off of his head. It made a satisfying noise. “Checkmate.”
The stallion sat up with a whinny, eyes wide. He looked around and at the sky, obviously out of sorts. “Harumph! I say! What’s going on here?”
“Of course! Checkmate!” Sweetie Belle beamed. “You know how to play chess, Dinky?”
“Not really,” she said with a humble smile, “but I know how to win.”
“What what?” The Red King struggled to his hooves, swaying the boat back and forth in the process. “This is an outrage! Here I was, quite, taking a nap upon my favorite mirror, only to be interrupted by cosplaying peasants?” He snorted and hopped out of the boat, stomping angrily into the fog of the swamp. “I say, tally-ho, tea and crumpets!”
Sweetie Belle blinked. “Did he say… a mirror?”
In unison, the fillies looked at the bottom of the boat. Indeed, a large, oval mirror rested at the bottom, reflecting the rays of the shuddering sky.
“Yes!” Dinky, still standing on the boat’s wooden bench, curled herself up and cannon-balled into the mirror. Rather than shattering, the surface swallowed her whole, and Dinky once again disappeared into whatever world waited beyond the looking-glass.
{-DD-}
Dinky fell downwards, then sideways, and finally landed on her shoulder with an “Oof!” Dizzy, she got to her hooves and took in her surroundings. Her eyes went up, up, up along the buildings around her. She ogled the tops of the massive skyscrapers kissing the sky overhead. When the awe wore off, she noticed several well-dressed ponies staring at her with perplexed expressions.
She smiled at them, then turned around to see where she had emerged. A small hat shop was displaying several pieces outside its doors, and an upright oval mirror allowed potential customers to see how they looked. Dinky was standing right underneath it.
“Where in Equestria did you come from?” an employee of the hat shop asked, backed against the shop’s own windows.
“Uhhh…” Dinky looked up into the mirror. To her amazement, the periwinkle filly in its glass was ― once again ― not her. The little pegasus on the other side winked one golden eye, turned around, and flew out of sight into the mirrored streets of Manehattan. Dinky leaned closer… only to suddenly receive a faceful of pink bow.
“Gaaahh!” shouted Apple Bloom as she tumbled through the mirror.
The fillies’ onlookers stepped away, gasping.
Scootaloo barreled through next, slamming into Apple Bloom’s rear and sending all three of them tumbling to the pavement. Sweetie Belle emerged with a “Wheee!” and landed softly on top of her friend-pile.
“Wow! Did we make it to Manehattan after all?” she asked with starry eyes.
The onlookers quickly and silently dispersed.