“Can we move the Rift?” Princess Luna asked the council of assembled scholars. They stood in a conference room in Ponyville’s quaint town hall. Sounds of activity in the office area and the surrounding town seemed somehow slowed and muted, as ponies moved quietly and carefully in this fragile situation.
“I think the question is not whether we can, but whether we should,” the blue stallion doctor told Luna, with a grim expression.
“It would ruin everything in its path, from here to the Badlands,” a pink, red haired scholar known as Cooperate said, “It’s just a bad idea.”
Adjusting her rather racy black tie, the green doctor Ownharp said, “Even if we could clear a path from here all the way to the Badlands, it would destabilize long before that.”
“Could we at least get it a sufficient distance from pony settlements?” Princess Celestia asked tensely.
“With all due respect, your highness,” Dr. Ownharp replied in the smooth Trottingham manner many of these scholars shared, “We don’t get to decide where the Rift goes. It will only follow the Traveller gone through it. If you can convince Rosy Pink to come out of hiding, she could move to where you need the Rift to go.”
“At that point, we simply toss her through the Rift, and the problem is solved,” Princess Luna said impatiently, “We are looking for solutions, not mere idle speculation.”
“At the speed it was going, it couldn’t have made another 20 miles before exploding,” Cooperate pointed out, “It’s going to take out Ponyville one way or another if we turn it loose.”
“Regarding containment,” Princess Celestia said evenly, “The potential for a more secure vessel...”
“Impossible, in the time we’ve got,” the dashing stallion known as Dr. Harness said, shaking his head, “If it’s possible at all, that is. The current vessel is corroding at an accelerated rate; the subdimensional folds seem to be being temporally bent. Even if we replace it every few weeks, the Rift is just going to get less stable from here. I’m afraid that without Rosy Pink, an explosion is... going to happen.”
“What about a controlled explosion?” Cooperate suggested, “Some way to limit the damage to a city block, or...”
“Sure, if you could construct a silverion egg the size of a city block,” Dr. Ownharp replied testily, “And then we’d have a city block sized egg ready to explode on us.”
“Cease with thy objections and present a solution already!” Luna declared tempermentally, “Has anypony an idea what we should do about this?”
Dr. Harness was the one to speak after a time, looking cooly at the night princess and saying, “There is no solution any of us can give you, except that ponies need to get away from this Rift. Our shadow traps are working for now, but if anything more substantial comes through that... isn’t a human, ponies might get badly injured, or worse.”
“You vastly understate the danger, good doctor,” Princess Celestia said frankly, drawing all eyes to the deadly serious princess. “An unstable rift like this could scar Equestria for centuries,” she said, “There may be nothing we can do to stop it. It does seem there is only one feasible course of action. One that gives our little ponies the best chance at minimizing losses and at the very least, surviving.”
The evacuation of Ponyville went about as well as expected. There was a foal screaming in protest as the little colt was taken away from the only home he knew, and at the next house, a mare screaming in protest, as her friends dragged her away from a century of memories and hard work that she had to just leave behind, what she couldn’t carry with her that is.
Ponyville was a dreary, frightening place these days. Pegasi had mostly flown the coop, leaving nopony to manage the twisted, swirling clouds that shaded the sky, silently stirred as if by a great hand around the new Rift site right in the middle of town. Thunder rumbled frequently, with irregular flashes of lightning, but no rain fell.
The Rift had started spewing forth those horrible shadows, or some analog thereof, overwhelming the shadow traps, and its spatial distortions had made at least three anomalous locations in town, where travelling left was the same direction as travelling right. Its effects had none of the guided whimsy Discord brought to town, only a mindless angry intent, like a beast enraged, trapped in a poorly fitting cage.
At least Fluttershy’s flarrets were well fed.
The Bearers had been informally, formally helping where they could. Applejack had hung behind after seeing Granny, Big Mac and Apple Bloom on their way to a little vacation in Appleoosa. She helped Strawberry and her folks, and Bubblegum pack up their affairs, what they could carry in a cart, that is. Strawberry’s family had been living in Ponyville for quite a few generations, and there were a lot of things of value that you couldn’t take with you. Cultivated gardens with some trees and bushes that only bore fruit after ten years of growing. Antique cookware made from rare, high quality, and heavy iron. Top quality stone blocks from the walls of the cellar. Home.
Bubblegum was easier to deal with, having family in Baltimare she could go home to. She was a recent transplant, who followed her friend Sea Swirl to Ponyville, to try and make her own way in life, and didn’t really appreciate having to go run back to momma. Nopony appreciated this. The foals were worse off, because foals have a sixth sense for this sort of thing. They look at the grim expression on your snout, and they know you aren’t planning on having a home to come back to, but they’re too young to understand why.
Well, Applejack didn’t exactly understand why herself, but she understood enough. Of all the ponies in town, there was one pony Applejack wasn’t helping at all anymore, and she wondered if she would ever find it in herself to speak to Twilight Sparkle again. Applejack hadn’t bucked an apple tree in three days, running around and helping the ponies in town. All those apples needed harvesting, but she couldn’t even bring herself to look at them again. She didn’t want to say goodbye.
Fluttershy had been dealing with animals, which were both worse and better than foals. The woods outside of Ponyville were a very quiet place these days, with everything that growls or squeaks absconding for better pastures. Most of what Fluttershy found herself doing was involved in keeping animals from running away. Beloved pets that couldn’t wait for their owners to get ready, Fluttershy had to teach the pets that some things are worth risking one’s safety, and she had to teach the ponies that the pets were right. Ponyville was not a good place to be right now.
Those wonderful creatures that Rosy had discovered, and apparently bred somehow, were invaluable in stopping the shadows from making Ponyville an even less friendly place. Antivores were so rare, possibly because there wasn’t much to eat that didn’t exist. Flarrets, glowflies, dryads, phoenixes, twittermites, healworms, dust vines, and of course the Tantabus. Fluttershy had even once heard a theory that windigoes fed not on hatred, but the absence of friendship. Aside from that, she couldn’t think of any creature who consumed the absence of something.
She wished she knew of a creature who could consume holes in space.
There was no real time table for how long they could keep the Rift stable, but Fluttershy was okay with staying around. She did kind of deserve it, for leaving unsaid what needed to be said, and letting things get worse and worse. She couldn’t believe Twilight simply hadn’t thought to look into the consequences of destabilizing the Rift, vastly shortening their time window to find Rosy Pink, and return her home. Fluttershy hated the thought, that all Rosy had worked for could be for nothing, thanks to the blunders of ponies like her. If Fluttershy herself had to go live her life as a stallion... she didn’t think she would.
Rainbow Dash was never going to lift another cart full of top quality stone blocks if it was the last thing she ever did!
The weather in Vanhoover was snowy this late in the Fall, but much more pleasant than the darkening skies of Ponyville. Unlike some ponies, Rarity was sensible enough to get away from that place. Boutiques could be rebuilt, and dresses resewn, but not if there was nopony to do it. Rarity had no boutique in Vanhoover, at least not yet, but that’s not what she was here for. Rarity’s satellite locations had already each received a pigeon with instructions on who to expect coming from Ponyville, and that they might need to be a place to stay for a while. But in Vanhoover, she was here on a different business.
“With all due respect miss,” the gruff stallion said, only for Rarity to poke the silken puff in his collar, saying,
“With all due respect to you buddy, I’m not exaggerating. I ain’t playing you for a fool. The heart of Equestria is being evacuated, every gosh darn pony within miles SF of Ponyville. You needta get your shelters ready, because there’s gonna be a ton of ponies coming in! You needta open those new buildings, and you need more beds and bedclothes. That’s what I’m here for. All I want is to make sure nopony sleeps in the cold tonight. That’s what’ll go down if you aren’t ready for it.”
“The construction—”
“Put it on hold!” Rarity shouted angrily, “Ponies need what we got right now, not some thing that’ll be ready in a month!”
Rarity sighed, releasing some of the hot anger hidden in her, and sidled up to the stallion, adding, “You’ve been a real pal about all this. I’m sorry I hafta chew your ear off. But I want you to know what we’re looking at, when you make your decision. You don’t want ponies losing their trust in you any more than I do, so be prepared because disaster’s gonna strike. Worst that could happen, either you’ll only need shelter for a BeV of ponies for the next few days or so, and we’ll all go home happy, or you’ll be able ta see with your own eyes why they can’t go back home again. They say not to look directly at it y’know, should the worst possible thing happen.”
“I... hear what you’re saying, miss Rarity,” he said grudgingly, “And I really am grateful you’re helpin’ setting up all of this. All I can promise ya is I’ll see what I can do. I ain’t gonna risk ponies by trying to shelter them in places that are going to fall down don’t y’know.”
“I couldn’t ask for better, mister Mayor,” Rarity said with a practiced smile of relief, “You don’t have to promise me nothing. I just wanted you t’know what’s going on, in case anypony tries to give you a different story.”
“It sure is a relief to get the straight story from a trusted tail,” he said with a matching smile, “I should be thanking you, really. With how much you helped the city way back when, you’ve never shown anything other than good heart. You can bet the council’ll be hearing about this. I don’t suppose we could stop for a coffee after this is over?”
“Sure, I could go for a cup of Joe,” Rarity said, sighing inwardly. She really needed to think about perhaps occasionally going out with stallions who weren’t already married. But she did have him over a barrel, and the least she could do was give the mayor of Vanhoover a pleasant afternoon. “I’ll let you know when I’m free.”
Rarity traipsed down the stairs with a rough grace to her stride, heading out of city hall. She swaggered down the street, and ducked around the corner, where she leaned up against the wall. Once she’d gotten a moment to herself, Rarity grimaced and gagged, wiping at her tongue with her hooves.
“This is why I don’t come here anymore,” she groaned, sinking down against the wall.
Mr. and Mrs. Cake were already gone. They left a week ago, taking their foals to safer pastures. Sugarcube Corner was closed and quiet, and eerie underneath the swirling stormclouds. Most ponies were smart enough to get the hay outta Ponyville, perhaps into Dodge, or wherever else they chose to flee. Pinkie Pie remained though, because of all the ponies foolish enough to stay, Pinkie Pie was one of the few who deserved it.
Pinkie Pie watched from afar as the stragglers packed up their things and readied to leave. She saw Berryshine packing a cart, while her little Ruby fussed at her tearfully, and after some debate, a kind of expensive looking jug was tossed out and a large plush bear was put in its place. She just watched Berry breaking down in tears, looking at her house, and Pinkie couldn’t help her at all.
Pinkie wanted to approach her. She wanted to help, but Berryshine knew Rosy Pink. Pinkie had seen them together many times, talking and laughing, and being friends with each other. Pinkie Pie would have been surprised if Berryshine ever spoke with her again! Golden Grape came to help Berry pack up her stuff, and herself, and Pinkie was curious when they’d become friends, but that had to do with Rosy too.
She saw Vanilla Sweet trotting along with some visitor who’d come all the way up from Andalusia to help get her to safety, and Pinkie Pie couldn’t ask about him, because no way Vanilla would talk with her either. Not after what Twilight did to her friend, thanks to Pinkie Pie. Pinkie saw Seaswirl, and Goldenrod, and everywhere she looked she saw ponies touched by Rosy Pink, and hurt by Pinkie and her friends.
Then Pinkie saw somepony else who was foolish enough to stay, except she didn’t deserve it at all. She just noticed Bluebell peeking out the closed curtains on the window of her house, not packing her things, not leaving Ponyville or anything. She had a foal! Pinkie Pie couldn’t let either of them risk their lives needlessly, but what could she say to them?
Bluebell was the pony who would have hated Pinkie Pie most of all. Bluebell saw Pinkie and her friends at their worst, and she knew that this was all Pinkie’s fault. What could Pinkie say to her that didn’t end in more shouting and tears? What could Pinkie say to anypony?
“Bluebell, you have to leave.”
“Why should we leave?” the blue pegasus replied obstinantly to Pinkie Pie, standing in the doorway of her house, standing stiff legged around Pinkie ever since the... day that everything went really wrong.
“Ponyville’s too dangerous!” Pinkie Pie protested, looking in vain for the filly who still hid from her. “You have to leave, before something goes really, really wrong! Just look outside at all this... dark, empty, swirly bad weather not-goodness!”
“I didn’t leave when you brought Discord down on our heads,” Bluebell insisted, “You fought Tirek in the middle of town! How is this any different?”
“The difference is that this time, we have a warning!” Pinkie replied urgently, “We stopped the... we held off the bad stuff, and now you have a chance to escape! Tirek didn’t give you a chance. He was already here. And with D-Discord, there was nowhere to escape. But now if you... if you leave now, you could get outside the area of destruction in just a few hours! And when it... if it goes bad, you’ll be safe.”
“I suppose you’re right, it was kind of hard to flee without any warning,” Bluebell said suspiciously, “But you’re still here! Why do I have to run, if you think it’s safe enough to come yell at me even more?”
“I’m not—!” Pinkie stopped and took a breath. “I’m not yelling, I’m just trying to help you. And I don’t think it’s safe to stay here, not even for me. But I don’t care about me! You and Rainy didn’t do anything to deserve this!”
“And you did?” Bluebell asked crossly.
“Yes!” Pinkie insisted, “I did a lot of bad things, and I was a downright meanie pants to you, and Rosy I just... I walked in on her, and I get in everypony’s way, and I’m sorry but...”
This wasn’t working. Pinkie Pie was supposed to be inspiring her to leave, not cowering before her! “I’m sorry I... listened to Twilight, and didn’t even try to stop her like you did,” Pinkie admitted shakily, “You hid Rosy and... and your filly was so brave that it made us all so hopping mad, and all I ever did was help Twilight get worse.”
“Pinkie, is it really so bad?” Bluebell asked, tail low in worry. “We’ll just weather this like we weathered everything... else.”
“I’m sorry Bluebell, but it really is so bad,” Pinkie replied, a little deflated herself, “If anything else goes wrong, the whole town, and country, and everypony in it could be just... gone. You need to leave.”
“I almost paid off the house!” Bluebell protested tearfully, “It was my first real... it was going so well! And now we’re going to lose it... all? This is my home now!”
She toed at the the ground mournfully, while Pinkie said in what she hoped was a soothing tone, “It’s just for a few days, until me and my friends try... whatever. Then you can come back and maybe everything will be fine, and your home won’t be vaporized or anything. But if it’s not... at least you’ll be alive. Maybe you can... rebuild. Sorta?”
“But what about Rosy Pink?” Bluebell asked in alarm, “I have to stay here, because what if she comes back, and we’re not here? She could stop by any day now, and I bet she would know how to save the... town.”
“Well, maybe you should leave a note,” Pinkie Pie said tiredly, “Telling Rosy that she shouldn’t be here right now because it’s dangerous, and telling her where you’re staying outside of Ponyville, so she can find you.”
Pinkie thought that was some clever advice, but when Bluebell didn’t respond, just standing there in her doorway, staring at the ground with her ears low, Pinkie had to ask, “Do you have any place you can stay, outside of Ponyville?”
“S-some relatives in Cloudsdale,” Bluebell said mutedly, “But I don’t know about Rainy. They don’t... know about her yet. It’s... complicated.”
Pinkie Pie silently wavered a moment, before hesitantly asking, “You’re a... really strong pony, right?”
“Well, I mean, um...” Bluebell replied, edging back into her house, “Kind of, yeah?”
“Don’t worry I’m glad you are,” Pinkie said quickly, “I just have seen you on construction crews, but never doing weather work.”
“Well I sure don’t know a cloud from a fog bank,” she said with a blush, “When ponies are constructing things, I guess I haul stuff and... these days I’ve been digging out roads. I’m hardly in the shelter anymore at all, since we... got this house and all.”
“I’m just asking, because I might know somewhere you could go,” Pinkie told her, “It’s not the... happiest place, but there’ll be plenty for you to do.”
“Really?” Bluebell asked, surprised, and her foal was even peeking out from behind her legs, “You’d share something like that with me? But I’ve been a jerk to you!” Blushing, she stammered, “T-t-that’s not what I meant, I mean...”
“You haven’t done anything I wasn’t really asking for,” Pinkie Pie assured her, “I don’t think you’re a jerk at all. You’re just in a ...tricky situation sometimes. I’m the one who was a jerk to you! We even broke into your house!”
Bluebell smiled incredulously at that, saying, “Gosh, and I thought you were mad with me. Is that why you haven’t been talking with me?”
Pinkie nodded glumly.
“Well, it was upsetting, sure, but I mean...”
Bluebell seemed to have a hard time putting it to words, so her blue haired, yellow filly squeezed between her blue furred legs and squeaked up at Pinkie assertively, “Rosy got away, so it’s okay!”
“Y-yeah I guess she did...” Pinkie said with a blush, looking down at little Rainy Feather. She was getting so big these days, it wouldn’t be long before she was her own pony, assuming nothing happened to her in the meantime. She almost came up to Pinkie Pie’s chin!
“So, no hard feelings,” Bluebell replied, drawing Pinkie’s attention again, “I just want to put this all behind us and just have everything be okay in Ponyville again.”
Pinkie wanted to assure them both that it would be okay, that Pinkie and her friends would figure something out and save the day, but she just... didn’t know anymore. She didn’t know if she and her friends could fix their own problems before the Rift went kablooey.
“South of the Ghastly Gorge, there’s a little... rock farming community,” Pinkie replied shiftily, “They’re always looking for ponies who can lift and um...” she slightly leaned to glance at Bluebell’s folded wing, “...cut rocks. If you go there, tell them you’re friends with Pinkie Pie, and I’m sure they’ll give you and...your foal a place to stay.”
“Pinkie... thank you,” Bluebell said with an uncertain smile, “I guess that’s the best we could ask for. And I want you to know I don’t blame you for what the princess did.”
“Do you blame Twilight?” Pinkie Pie asked quietly.
“Well... yeah?” Bluebell said curiously, “She’s the one who put us all in danger.”
“She would never have done it if I hadn’t hurt her,” Pinkie Pie said seriously, “I made Twilight upset, and... sick, and I didn’t even know it, until... this happened.”
“You didn’t mean to though,” Bluebell insisted, “You didn’t want to hurt me or Rainy or... Rosy, like the princess did.”
“I don’t know if you’ll ever believe me, Bluebell,” Pinkie Pie said sadly, “But Twilight never wanted to hurt anypony either.”
Twilight Sparkle wandered the abandoned streets alone. This was an odd thought for Pinkie Pie to have as she stared at Bluebell’s house, now cold and empty for two days. Bluebell was one of the stragglers, so not many ponies were left anywhere near Ponyville anymore. Pinkie had managed to save a lot of them, even Fluttershy, she hoped. There were a few scientist ponies in the vicinity of the Rift. Just a skeleton crew of the Trotwood team brave, or stupid enough to stick around to try and keep things stable. All the new human ponies had been spirited away to safety, since without Rosy they couldn’t stop the Rift from destabilizing, not any more than anypony else.
Looking around for Twilight, Pinkie noticed there were a disturbing number of ponies, who couldn’t be convinced to leave. She saw Junebug who just waved at Pinkie like it was another ordinary day. She saw Bonbon, who had sent Lyra packing, but was still here standing around for... reasons? Derpy was still fluttering around seemingly without a care, and that eccentric inventor by the name of Time Turner was sneaking around behind buildings as if he didn’t think anypony knew he was there. Ponies had so much trust in the Bearers, it was scary, because they were still here, the egg thingy around the Rift was getting all rusty and yucky, and Pinkie still didn’t know if she could do anything about it.
Thunderlane and Rainbow Dash were swooping around overhead, pretty much alone in trying to deal with this gloomy weather, just trying to keep things from getting worse. There were some ponies from town hall, the mayor and the purple organizer known as Amethyst Star. They were seen talking quietly with the princesses... the two princesses, and their retainer of guards. There were a few police ponies poking around for stragglers they could hustle out of town, like that pony Pinkie had never seen before, or Press Pass, who was trying to avoid them in order to report the last moments of Ponyville, Orange Swirl who—wait a minute.
Pinkie Pie took a second look at the mare creeping about the city streets. She was just an earth pony of colors blue and raspberry red. There was nothing unusual about her, save for the fact that Pinkie couldn’t recall ever seeing her before. Pinkie had heard about her once before... from a pony who visited from Tall Tale, who said she was really nice and helpful. But it wasn’t the same knowiness that Pinkie Pie usually had for ponies. It was an unknowiness, like somepony who didn’t quite fit in the grand scheme of things.
Was it one of the human ponies who were still wandering around for some reason? But that was impossible! The humans had gotten pulled through just a little over a week ago, but it was three months ago that Pinkie Pie heard from Lavender Skies about this pony. Blue... something. Pinkie Pie didn’t know her name.
Pinkie Pie didn’t know her name.
With dark clouds swirling overhead in the quiet, cold, mostly empty streets, Pinkie Pie saw what could have been their salvation, or their doom. The... the pony who had to be Rosy Pink, she didn’t even know that Pinkie knew. How could Pinkie Pie possibly know, if Rosy had changed her colors? Was that a thing you could even do? Rosy’s mane was no longer pink, but more along the lines of Roseluck’s magenta mane, and her fur was no longer cream colored, but a striking, cerulean blue.
Pinkie stared, frozen with terrible indecision. What she had to do was obvious. If Rosy returned home, all this could be avoided. All Pinkie Pie had to do was sound the alarm, and chase Rosy down, and throw her through the... throw her through the Rift. And make Rosy be something she didn’t want to be, and banish her from Equestria forever.
It could save pony lives, even if the ponies here all knew what they were getting into. It could save... Ponyville. It could bring everypony back, hale and whole. It wouldn’t force ponies to choose between which of their most precious possessions to leave behind. It could put a smile on Bluebell’s face, when the house trust that she finally earned was safe and sound. It would be absolutely, horribly, terrible if her house got blown up and Bluebell couldn’t live here anymore. And it would be terrible for Rosy if she had to... had to be a human, and a stallion, and go through that, but so many other ponies were depending on that happening. Pinkie had to raise the alarm! It was the only way!
Pinkie Pie stood there, and did nothing.
A curiously giddy relief warred with the guilt looming up inside her as Pinkie Pie just couldn’t do it. She couldn’t choose between Rosy and... and everypony else. Ponyville was just going to be destroyed, and that was that. Ponies just had t-to get interrupted a little early, because Pinkie Pie wasn’t going to do it. She couldn’t hurt Rosy, not again, not even if it... saved everything.
Then Pinkie Pie finally spotted Twilight Sparkle.
Twilight Sparkle wandered the streets alone. Mumbling to herself with a book floating in her face, always trying to find a solution to this mess. To Pinkie’s horror, Twilight was wandering straight for a collision course with the magenta blue mare. Neither pony seemed to notice the other. Rosy was looking the other way as if worried about something coming from over there, and Twilight was... well... learning how to read again. Not much would disturb her from that.
Pinkie didn’t want Rosy to go! She just couldn’t stand it! She ran forward, but stopped, but how could she interfere without warning Twilight, and the princesses and the guards, and why was Rosy Pink even here if she wasn’t going to return home? It was the moment of truth. Rosy’s blue-furred rump was going to smack into the side of Twilight’s head if neither of them moved out of the way. So Pinkie dashed forward and hipchecked Rosy—or whatever she was called now, sending her sprawling sideways while announcing to Twilight,
“Hey! Twilight! Long time no see!”
Pinkie smiled.
“Did you just... knock somepony over?” Twilight said, looking up from her book in surprise.
“No!” Pinkie said, “I mean, yes! I mean, nevermind her! Why don’t we go talk about your... Introductory Equestrian Grammar textbook? Wouldn’t that be fun?”
“Pinkie, what’s going on?” Twilight asked, looking suspiciously at the mare. No!
“Yeah, what’s going... on?” the mare said in a worryingly familiar voice, climbing to her hooves. Nonono, couldn’t she have changed her voice? This was terrible! “I was busy uh, walking here!”
“I–I just thought you m-maybe might just accidentally bump into the princess,” Pinkie babbled frantically, “And she might change you into a toad or whatever Princesses are supposed to do to ponies.”
“That sounds more like a witch than a princess,” the mare said with a raised eyebrow. That got a chuckle out of Twilight, who admonished Pinkie,
“I am not considered a princess anymore, you know that...” she looked at the mare again, suspiciously, “Wait, did you just call me a witch?”
“Not if you are going to change me into a toad, uh, princess,” the mare replied, irises narrowing.
“You know, a lot of ponies call me a witch behind my back, but there’s only one pony who ever said it to my face,” Twilight said, peering thoughtfully into the mare’s strikingly violet eyes, the same shade as Twilight’s own. “What’s your name, if I might ask?”
“B-blue Raspberry,” the mare stammered, taking an involuntary step back, “I’m really sorry,” she said, “I didn’t mean to upset you, I just...”
“And were you always called this, Blue Raspberry?” Twilight asked.
“Sure were!” Blue Raspberry said with a nervous twitchy smile, “That’s what my mother named me.”
“And what was her name?” Twilight asked cooly.
“Blue uh—Rasp...melon...um—” the mare stammered.
“Stop scaring this nice innocent normal pony, Twilight!” Pinkie exclaimed, trying to step in between them. “She’s not a human pony, and she’s not Rosy Pink because... because... because look, she has a story mark!”
Pinkie almost collapsed in relief herself at that revelation. The mare they were facing had three very distinct magenta raspberries on her blue hips. “Oh thank goodness,” Pinkie told herself, and also out loud to Twilight, “I thought for a minute she had to secretly be Rosy Pink, and all this time she just changed her colors somehow. But even you said that humans can’t get story marks.”
“I think we all have Rosy on the mind,” Twilight said a little nervously to Pinkie, then turning to the mare, “Sorry miss, I didn’t mean to be rude.”
“N-no it’s fine, um...” the mare said, in a voice that was still hauntingly familiar, even after not having heard it in so long. “Sorry, days of walking were not —” was as far as she got, before somepony emptied out their bathwater from the second story, soaking Blue Raspberry from withers to tail.
Silence descended.
Pinkie wondered what was—Blue Raspberry bolted, right as Twilight Sparkle squealed roughly, “Help! Guards!” She lit up her horn and snagged the fleeing Raspberry by the tail, shouting, “It’s the Traveller!”
The mare’s flight had turned to a panicked flailing in mid-air as Twilight grunted with effort, resisting the mare’s efforts to break free, and now Pinkie could see it. The mare’s story marks had melted and run right off the sides of her hips, leaving her hindquarters blue, but bare.
“Guards! Please!” Twilight begged in a choked voice, and Pinkie’s head spun to face her friend, who sinking to the ground, eyes flowing with tears, her horn flickering as she cried, “I can’t do this! I can’t do this!”
While the guards trotted away from the princesses to surround Blue Raspberry, Pinkie rushed to her sobbing friend, hugging her desperately while Twilight wept over and over again, “I’m sorry... I’m so sorry... I’m so sorry...”
Twilight Sparkle just wanted to make things better. She just wanted to be better. She didn’t want to be standing here, here in the beautiful kingdom of Equestria, watching Rosy Pink forced to leave it forever. Everything would be wonderful after this. Applejack would speak to her again, because her farm would be saved. Twilight’s friends would return and comfort her as well as they could. Her library would still be standing, her precious books untouched. She wouldn’t be a princess in title, but that was perhaps a better outcome than when she had started.
There would be no humans to trouble their world anymore. None of their fascinating and twisted culture, no strange movies of herself that shouldn’t be, no strange technologies such as the Internet or ICBMs, and no strange coupling between light and magnetism. It would, like every story, end, and everypony could go home shaken, but still sound, with their homes still intact, everypony except for one single pony whose fondest dreams were going to die.
Twilight tried to understand it, just why Rosy, now named Blue Raspberry in trying to escape their wrath, why she didn’t want to be a stallion again, or to return to her old world. Fluttershy had spoke quietly with her about it, and it was painfully obvious, once Twilight was no longer... doing it again. Rosy would suffer simply because she loved being a mare, and she loved Equestria, even more than most Equestrians. The most Rosy could wish for now was not to forget her fond memories of something that she loved, that was lost to her forever.
It would be just like if Twilight had to leave Ponyville forever, only knowing it as a fond memory, never to see her friends again. Twilight hadn’t been born in Ponyville any more than Rosy Pink had been born in Equestria. Twilight would have to make new friends in an alien world that just doesn’t make sense, with no hope of ever reuniting with her old ones, and... somehow Raspberry was the same way. Somehow Equestria had become her home, long before she even came here, and now to save them all, they had to send her away.
The Royal Guard dealt with Blue Raspberry in the end. The Bearers were only allowed to stand helplessly by, with whatever other ponies who wanted to come witness this event. This... betrayal of everything good and just in the world. It was impossible, inconceivable, yet there they were, just standing on the sidelines, while Blue Raspberry got escorted to her doom.
Well, some of them at least. It was so rushed, a lot of Twilight’s friends never even knew what was going on. Rarity was still off fielding refugees in Vanhoover, and Pinkie had convinced Fluttershy to go east to help with the other coast’s communities. Applejack was nowhere to be found, probably somewhere lost out in the orchard, among the trees she loved. That left Pinkie Pie to the left of Twilight Sparkle, and Rainbow Dash above her, with nothing to do but watch.
The swirling clouds overhead cast an ominous atmosphere as Blue Raspberry was escorted along with her entourage. She was at the lead, but there were more ponies accompanying her. Ponies who had trouble walking: human ponies. Most were silent and stoic, many relieved they would soon be human again, but staying quiet about it for the sake of those who were crying for the lost opportunity, wishing that their story didn’t have to end this way.
There were ponies in the crowd of spectators who were crying too. Ponies who knew Rosy, who hadn’t fled too far away to return to Ponyville to see her sentence carried out. Bluebell was here, and nopony bothered her or her crying foal. A foal who never should have to face something like this. Nopony should ever face something like this. Nopony should ever face their entire family dying before their eyes, but this... this was something else. Pinkie Pie grew up into a wonderful pony with lots of friends and a real second family. She... endured and prospered, and was a better pony for having experienced her loss.
This? Nopony was learning any lesson from this. There would be nopony who could comfort that foal, or tell her that Rosy was in a better place now, because whether Rosy or Blue Raspberry, the place she was returning to was not her home anymore. The person Raspberry was becoming was not herself.
Twilight knew that the needs of the many should come before the needs of the few, but... what were they even saving? A neurotic baker, a friendly farmer, a sophisticated dressmaker, a reclusive animal caretaker, a daredevil weather pony, and a librarian. That was Twilight’s small window into the many that they would be saving. Many ponies who all had... good lives, and deserved to live them, but now their lives would all depend on sending a wonderful young mare who had been a friend to all... into suffering without end. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, but what does it say about the many, when the few have to suffer for them? Were they even worth saving, if the only way the many could be saved was for one pony to be so terribly... lost?
Twilight didn’t know, and as the guards formed a closed half-ring around the Rift, and pushed Rosy forward, a desperate need to do something rose in the beleagured librarian. The princesses weren’t even looking at Rosy. Princess Luna was presiding behind the guards in case of emergency, but she was looking away and closing her eyes wearily. Princess Celestia was presiding on the other side, not looking at Rosy, but instead giving Twilight a sympathetic, pleading and sorrowful look. A look of... familiarity. No. No!
The guards were ready for Twilight’s blind rush forward; she knew they would be, but she couldn’t just stand there. She had no plan in mind, just an overpowering need to do something, to fix her mistake, to find another way. What could she do? All the magic in the world couldn’t make this better. “It should be me!” she screamed, her eyes flooding with tears as they pulled her back, “It should be me!”
The strange, yet familiar raspberry-haired blue pony turned then, and gave a surprised look, briefly meeting Twilight’s eyes. On seeing Twilight, Blue Raspberry’s features softened, and she gave her a gentle, soothing smile. Then Blue Raspberry turned to face the Rift again—its silvery containment now a mess of corrosion and soldering—and walked forward. This was the pony they were going to have to sacrifice. This was the pony who—
Tears still streaming down her burning eyes, Twilight sunk to her haunches, unable to look away, but not wanting this to happen. This was wrong. Something was wrong. It shouldn’t be Rosy. It should’ve been Twilight. She was the one who deserved this, and it wouldn’t work because the Rift only cared about the thrice doomed Rosy Pink.
Even with its shell in place, the heat from the Rift could be felt from 200 feet away. The technicians removed the shell, and it pretty much crumbled apart on its own as they touched it, scrambling away to relative safety. The Rift emerged, an angry red, pulsing tear in space sending ripples outward that disturbed the crumbled dust and debris around it and shook through their very bones.
The throbbing seemed to ease and the oppressive heat died away, as Rosy approached the Rift, her hooves making little puffs of dust as she waded through the disintegrated rubble at the epicenter. Behind her came a line of ponies, one pony and one guard for each human that had fallen through the rift.
Once again before Rosy’s eyes, the hole in space blossomed and grew, opening like a sphincter, or a wound, the edges ragged and crackling with dull red lightning. Within was... what looked like an abandoned city, like the streets of Manehattan, except that there was rubble everywhere, and everypony, or everyhuman, was completely absent. There was one odd looking metallic cart near the portal, but it looked like it had long since been abandoned. No carts were pulled on the strange black roads, no creatures travelled the sidewalks, or sold trinkets from carts on the street corner. This was where the Rift had... ended up. Right in the middle of a road. No wonder they abandoned the city.
Twilight stared through it with a burning curiosity that she no longer tried to hold down. Anything to avoid thinking about the mare approaching the portal. How big were their cities? Twilight hadn’t thought to check. Did they hitch themselves differently to their carts, with only two feet to pull with? The edges of her vision were darkening, but she stared even more desperately. Did they really explore the entire globe? Did it happen recently, or were there any abandoned, forgotten ruins that nopony had explored for centuries? How do telephones really work? How could something be both a particle and a wave?
Rosy hesitated at the last minute, freezing in front of the portal. Reluctant to the end, it seemed. But what could she do to escape? The guards were taking no chances, ready to intercept any attempt to run away or disable them, and the hungry Rift felt like it was reaching out, to snatch Rosy and take her away from them forever. The blue and maroon pony stared into the face of certain doom as the Rift began to crawl towards her, then on the other side of it, some humans ran into view dressed in strange looking armor with thick face masks. Rosy stomped hard on the ground, kicking up what looked like a ball on a string, or a dark grey balloon that popped up in the air. Another swift kick with her foreleg sent the thing flying through the portal straight at the humans, as she turned to look up behind herself, and shouted, “Now!!”
The Rift slammed closed in an instant, the searing heat blasting outward with an angry rumbling. Rosy lifted a hoof as though to shield her face, but then brought it slamming down again. The guards barely had time to step forward when the blue maroon pony stomped the ground one more time, and a second... grey... balloon popped up, but this one she kicked hard. Its cord trailed down behind it as her kick sent it soaring up into the air. An orange pegasus was diving out of nowhere then, with flight goggles pushing back his bright red hair, swooping down and snatching it in his hooves. Then he took off vertically into the sky in an explosion of power. The cord grew taut as its slack ran out, right up to the aperture of the Rift.
And the angry, pulsing hole in space began to follow.
It chased after the fleeing pegasus, and his... tethered ball whose cord was going through the Rift to its matching twin that... was a sympathetic charm; this was brilliant, no this was insane!! Relief and horror flooded into her as Twilight stared straight up along with everypony else while around her the rumbling died down and the heat faded. Twilight couldn’t even—she—she couldn’t even....
Around where the Rift had risen into the sky, the debris settled, and a cool breeze started to blow through the area. Pegasus guards made to pursue the fleeing orange pegasus and his rift, but Princess Celestia shouted, “Hold!” and they stopped in mid-air, joining everypony else in just... watching.
Far overhead, a green pegasus was flying up to meet the orange one, who then swooped into a slow diving glide as the green one continued upward, finally penetrating the swirling clouds covering the skies of Ponyville. An instant later, the Rift followed, and blew the clouds outward into a giant ring, a silent explosion as it passed through them, that sent sunlight streaming down from overhead. Ponies winced, shading their sensitive eyes, and the green pegasus could no longer be seen in the bright blue sky.
“Blue Raspberry,” the golden princess said, looking steadily at the nervous looking pony at the center of it all, with no less than a dozen spears trained on her.
“Yes, your highness?” the raspberry haired earth mare asked politely, backing up a step still ankle deep in suspiciously well placed dust, freezing as her blue furred rump met spear points.
“What is this?” Celestia said, gesturing overhead with a hoof without looking away from the mare.
“We’re uh... taking the Rift to a safe distance,” Raspberry said with a blush in her cheeks, “Straight up, about SF miles... it should take her about C.F minutes.”
“...and how much time until the Rift cascades under these conditions?” the princess asked.
“I don’t know, your highness,” Raspberry replied with lowering ears. “Hopefully enough.”
Celestia didn’t mince words. “Everypony run!” she shouted, rearing back away from Blue Raspberry to project at the crowd, “Get as far away from this place as you can! Go!”
The ponies were galvanized like lightning by the actual fear in the princess’s voice, and maybe a healthy dose of magic. Technicians, bystanders, guards, the Bearers, with a rumbling of hooves everypony scattered, running full tilt away from the epicenter. Even the human ponies tried to run, starting to panic as they fell over their own hooves. Rosy herself dashed away like the legions of Tartarus were on her heels, but in her own blind panic it was easy to pluck her off of the earth, until she found herself floating in the golden light of Princess Celestia.
“Luna!” Princess Celestia shouted to the one who was not so moved by the power of her voice, “Help them!” she declared in a desperate pleading tone, waving her hoof at the ponies who had fallen and couldn’t get up.
“Understood, sister,” Luna said seriously, trotting up and collecting the various ponies in her magic, whispering to them soothing half-truths, that they needed to calm down, and everything was going to be okay.
“We are going to have a long conversation, you and I,” Princess Celestia said, staring the purple eyed Blue Raspberry muzzle to muzzle.
Perhaps wisely, and definitely terrified, Blue Raspberry didn’t choose the current moment to speak.
Celestia waited long enough to see Luna had gathered the ponies who couldn’t run, and successfully gated them out of the area. Then she and Raspberry went on a little teleportation themselves, straight to the Canterlot dungeons. They didn’t see much use, these dungeons, nor would they, because as soon as Raspberry saw she had entered those damp stone cells, she outright begged the princess, saying, “Please, Princess! I need to see it! I promise I won’t run away, and I promise I’ll explain. Just can you... can you come watch with me? I won’t run away I just need to know if it... if it worked.”
“I have serious doubts to your veracity,” Princess Celestia said flatly, “But such an event has not happened in over years VeP. There may be no pony left alive who has seen it, other than myself. ...very well then, Blue Raspberry. We shall see the extent of your folly.”
In the tallest tower of Canterlot, a massive telescope was mounted, for gazing at the stars. They would need no such thing for a pony and her princess, who came walking out onto the balcony, with only a dizzying drop for what looked like miles below to the valley floor. Not what one would normally think of as a prison cell, it was still adamantly clear that Raspberry had nowhere else to go.
Elsewhere in Canterlot, Princess Luna took a head count, and every human pony was accounted for, Blue Raspberry excepted. They huddled around her like foals, some literally foals, while she spread her wings over them and looked westward, facing her own shadow as the afternoon sun burned down overhead.
In an undisclosed location, a certain team of quite possibly soon to be banished science ponies were training their telescopes and measuring instruments at the sky, shouting at each other rapidfire commands.
Pinkie Pie was neck and neck with Rainbow Dash as they tore away from that epicenter as fast as their hooves and wings respectively could take them.
Everypony else, for the most part, had no warning.
Amid the dust in the zone of destruction in the center of Ponyville, a purple wing flapped up. With a wingbeat, the dust blew away from a lilac pony laying on the ground.
“Huh?” Twilight Sparkle said groggily, struggling to her hooves. She brushed herself off, then folded her wings, rubbing her eyes sleepily.
“I must have passed out,” Twilight remarked, looking around at the empty square, “Where is everypony? Did I miss something?”
Then there was a second sun in the sky.