//------------------------------//
// MLP Loops 199 
// Story: MLP Time Loops 
// by Saphroneth 
//------------------------------//

199.1 (LadyStina2)

Ivory Scroll was sitting at her desk and staring out the window of her mayoral office. She had nearly infinite amounts of baseline loops worth of paperwork completed and nopony was scheduled to meet with her for the rest of the week. She pulled out the hard-light hologram that Apple Bloom had set up for her a while back and thought seriously about activating it. She had some movies she had only seen a few hundred times. She could set up her home theater and spend the loop watching movies. Again.

She was just about to hit the button when there was an unexpected knock on the door. She quickly pocketed her hologram device and called out, “Yes? Come in.”

Lyra came prancing through the door and chirped, “Heya, Ivory! You busy or feeling a little loopy?”

“I’m Awake and was actually thinking of abdicating my duties to a hologram, so no. Not busy. Did you need something? An iron-clad contract for something? Or perhaps finding loopholes in a current one?” Ivory asked hopefully.

Lyra waved a hoof and said, “Naw, nothing like that. We were wondering if you wanted to join us?”

Ivory raised an eyebrow and asked, “By ‘we’ do you mean all your personalities? And join you for what?”

Lyra smiled and laughed a bit, “Ha! You got me. But I meant all of me, Trixie, and Gilda.” Her grin turned a little mischievous and she said, “We could use a ninja.”

Ivory’s other eyebrow rose and she said, “Really? What do you need a ninja for?”

“What don’t we need a ninja for?! Come on! You already said you didn’t have any plans this loop. Come with us to Manehatten,” Lyra pleaded.

Ivory shrugged and stood up. “Well if you won’t tell me why, I’m sure Trixie will,” she commented as she activated the hologram. She wrote a quick note to Sparkle and folded it into a paper crane. “I’m assuming we’re leaving now?” she asked as she sent the note out the window.

Lyra put a train ticket down on the desk with a wide smile and said, “The train leaves in an hour. Get packed. I need to see Rarity and I’ll meet you at the station.” She quickly left the office with a short wave and headed out the door.





Ivory stood next to Lyra whom was hopping in place excitedly while they waited for the train to pull into the Manehatten station. The entire trip here, Lyra wouldn’t say anything more about their plans besides mentioning that they needed a ninja.

They disembarked, managing to get ahead of the crowd due to keeping their luggage in their subspace pockets. Suddenly, a voice cut through the crowd-noise.

“The Great and Powerful Trixie welcomes her Great and Powerful friends, Lyra and Ivory,” Trixie’s voice rang out, drawing everypony’s attention to her and to the face-palming griffon, Gilda, standing next to her.

“For birch’s sake, keep it down you daft unicorn,” Gilda grumbled and elbowed Trixie hard enough to knock her wizard’s hat off. “We’re not putting on one of your shows.”

Trixie straightened her hat and smiled at Gilda, “Well, it was more personal than yelling ‘hey girls, over here’. See? They’re here already,” she stated smugly as Lyra and Ivory approached.

Gilda nodded her head at the newcomers and greeted them, “Hey, Scroll-butt. Harp-butt. You get the things?”

Lyra smiled and answered, “It’s Lyre-butt, thank-you-very-much. And yeah. Rarity had them ready for us.”

“Meh,” Gilda shrugged, “Looks like a harp to me. Let’s go.” She turned and started walking towards the exit.

Ivory fell into step beside Trixie and asked her, “Miss Lulamoon, may I ask what our plans are? All Lyra would tell me was that you wanted a ninja.”

Trixie smiled brightly and threw a hoof around Ivory’s shoulders and said enthusiastically, “Ivory, Ivory Ivory. Please. We’re going to be best friends this Loop! No need for formalities. You may call me The Great and Powerful Trixie!”

“Oh no you don’t!” Gilda interrupted.

“Or Trixie for short,” Trixie continued nonplussed. “And we need you for danger! For excitement! And to round out our team! But we can’t talk here. Let’s wait until we get to the base.”

“Your plans involve us having a base?” Ivory tried to get clarification.

“You’ll see!” both Trixie and Lyra chorused in a sing-song.

“Gilda, could you please tell me why I’m in Manehatten,” Ivory asked. Just trying to get some answers.

Gilda shook her head and said, “Sorry, Scroll-butt. I agree with the unicorns. We’ll tell ya everything at the base. It’s not far.”

True to their word, they were shortly inside the penthouse of an apartment building. Ivory looked around the living room and couldn’t detect anything base-like about it. She raised an eyebrow and looked over at Trixie. “Well?”

Trixie levitated some newspapers up from the coffee table to float in front of Ivory and asked, “See anything out of the ordinary?”

Ivory quickly scanned the circled articles and headlines before looking back at Trixie and saying, “You’re not serious. These are fakes, correct?”

Lyra plopped down on the couch across from them and said, “Nope! Totally real. We’ve been researching the situation since shortly after the Loop started.”

“There are supervillains in Manehatten?” Ivory asked flatly.

Gilda grinned and said, “Yeah, Mistress Shadow. The Tyrant. Doomcicle. And several more that I’m forgetting. Funny thing is, there aren’t any heroes flying about fighting these so-called supervillains.”

Lyra, still grinning, said, “And you know what they say about nature and vacuums!”

Trixie nodded and replied, “So since nopony has stepped up for truth, justice, and the Equestrian way, we, the Fantastic Four-“

“We can’t use that name,” Gilda interrupted. “Marvel, remember?”

“Oh, like they have lawyers on Equuis,” Trixie complained. “What’s wrong with a little multi-dimensional plagiarism?”

“Just pick another name,” Gilda sighed while rolling her eyes.

Trixie pouted a little and continued, “We, Name Pending, have decided to form a superhero group to fight crime! And defend the citizens of this city!”

“Oh, oh! Watch this!” Lyra exclaimed excitedly. She hopped up and rushed to a wall, then pulled down on a small statue. There was a loud click and every painting on the wall slid up, revealing multiple computer screens.

Ivory gaped for a moment before asking, “Ok, who’s responsible for this? Equestria doesn’t have this kind of tech this Loop.”

Lyra smirked and buffed a hoof on her chest before answering, “Well… I don’t mean to brag… Yes she does! Hey! We had an agreement! Excuse us for a moment.” Lyra went silent. Her shifting facial expressions indicated there was an intense discussion happening in her mindscape.

While Lyra was mentally occupied, Trixie took over the explanation, “We may have installed the system ourselves with items from our pockets. Miss Mad-Scientist Personality over there has been extremely helpful in setting up the base. And I think Seapony and Human helped with some of the weapon designs.”

“Oh dear. None of them are lethal are they?” Ivory asked worriedly.

“Naw,” Trixie waved off her concerns. “We’ve all been modifying Seapony’s ideas to make them non-lethal.”

“So are ya in, or what?” Gilda asked brusquely.

Ivory couldn’t help the smile that graced her muzzle.











“I’m in position,” Ivory, or Nightfall as she was to be known while in costume, reported into her hidden headset. She was hiding in the shadows on the ledge of a building across from their target.

“Confirming that The Mad Hatter is inside the building. I’m in position,” Gilda, or Eagle-Eye, reported through the headset.

“Roger that. Peter Parker Protocol is active on all sides of the building and along the street. Do we have an affirmative on the probable exit point?” Lyra, or Dr. Personalities, asked.

Trixie, or The Azure Witch, replied, “All exits except the main entrance have been magically sealed. Twilight would have problems getting through that! Remember to bring the razzmatazz, X-Mares. This is our first outing. Let’s make it count!”

“X-Mares? We’re really going with that name? Sounds like I had a species-change spell cast on me or something,” Eagle-Eye muttered.

Nightfall noticed the door opening and said, “Too late to change it now, he’s coming out. Showtime, X-Mares!” Gilda just groaned in reply.

A flamboyantly-dressed stallion wearing a mask and an oversized hat stepped out of the building with a stuffed bag balanced on his back. He furtively glanced left then right. Before he could take another step, one of Trixie’s smoke bombs erupted at his front hooves.

“We are the terror that gallops in the night…” The Azure Witch announced solemnly.

Dr. Personalities erupted into giggles and asked breathlessly, “Did… Is she pulling a Darkwing Duck?”

Nightfall smiled and said quickly, “Just roll with it, we’re on!”

“…We are the chill that runs up your spine! We are… The X-Mares!” Azure Witch exclaimed proudly just as the smoke dissipated. A couple fireworks went off in her general vicinity. The masked mare was standing on her hind legs, posing for the cameras. Dr. Personalities was standing behind her, but was still trying to suppress her giggles.

The stallion cackled and said tauntingly, “You X-Mares think you have the power to stop me? I’m The Mad Hatter!” He quickly whipped off his oversized hat and flung it towards Azure Witch.

Nightfall had been waiting for that move. She quickly tossed a couple of her hardened origami shuriken at the hat to knock it off course. For good measure, she tossed one between the stallion’s front hooves. She flipped off the building and landed next to Azure Witch just as the last shuriken imbedded itself in the concrete. The stallion reared up in surprise.

And that’s when Eagle-Eye made her appearance. She swooped down behind him while he was distracted and cuffed him. “Well, Mad Hatter,” she taunted, “let’s see what the police think of your little hobby.” She looked at the rest of the team and said, “Dr. Personalities, wrap him up nice and tight.”

“You got it!” Dr. Personalities saluted and pulled out some wire. “Nightfall, leave a note, please.” Lyra and Gilda trussed up their opponent to make sure he wouldn’t escape before the police arrived.

Nightfall retrieved one of her origami shuriken and replied quietly, “Already done.” She unfolded it and left it near the defeated villain. They quickly faded back into the night before the authorities arrived.











“Ok, debriefing time,” Lyra announced while they all sat back in their base. She was sipping on a hot chocolate. “Any critiques or comments?”

Gilda raised a claw and said, “I got one. What’s with all the Marvel references? And that opening speech?”

Trixie tossed her mane haughtily and replied, “I can’t help that I know my audience. I’m a showmare after all. And I just haven’t worked in any DC references yet.”

Ivory adjusted her glasses and said, “I have to agree with Trixie. We’re heroes in a world that needs them. We may as well borrow tropes and clichés from actual heroes. And if this isn’t an opportunity for cheesy speeches, I don’t know what is.”

“And that’s from a career politician!” Lyra chuckled.

Gilda cracked a small smile and said, “Ok, ok. Up the cheese factor. I got it. Just don’t expect me to say ‘boff!’ or ‘wham!’ while I’m in a fight.”

“Anything else?” Lyra asked.

“Yes,” Ivory spoke up. “This fight was a curb-stomp battle with us four against one. I think we need to split up for a few weeks. Perhaps do one on one confrontations until one of these supervillains poses a significant threat or there’s a supervillain teamup. The only thing Lyra did this go ‘round was to tie him up. And Trixie just gave a speech. We’re wasting each other’s talents doing it this way.”

Trixie gasped excitedly and said, “Yes! Ivory is absolutely correct. We each need to shine. But! We still want the villains out there to know that we’re a team. Trixie proposes that we split up as suggested, but use an illusion or hologram of the rest of the team for their support. Then the X-Mares can technically be in four places at once!

Gilda glanced thoughtfully at the ceiling and said, “And that would spread rumors about who our ‘main’ combatant is. Then when we do fight together, they won’t expect attacks from all of us. I like it. Can one of you eggheads manage that?”

Lyra and Trixie exchanged looks. Lyra shrugged and Trixie replied, “Easily. We’ll put our heads together and see if an enchanted illusion gem or a hologram would work the best. Either way, we’ll have to get some recordings for the images.”











Ivory was once again perched on the ledge of a building wearing her ninja costume and watching a building. This time, she was doing some solo vigilantism. She had spent some time looking at the local laws and city ordinances and couldn’t actually find anything anti-vigilante. So it was really strange one or two hadn’t popped up before now.

The door opened on the building she was surveilling, and Midnighta, the mare she was waiting on, exited the building. Nightfall smirked beneath her mask and hit a button to activate the hologram program she had planted in front of the door.

There was a puff of blue smoke and The Azure Witch’s voice started her speech again. “We are the terror that gallops in the night. We are the pin that will burst your bubble. We are The X-Mares!” The smoke cleared and revealed the rest of her hero team. Azure Witch was reared up in her showmare pose, Dr. Personalities was hitting buttons on a hoof-held device and looking up occasionally, and Eagle-Eye was hovering slightly above the ground and looking sharply at their surroundings.

Midnighta gasped and started to run. Nightfall threw a couple of her origami shuriken in front of the escaping villain and followed them down. Midnighta drew up short when the shuriken hit the ground.

Nightfall asked softly, “Going somewhere?” She had decided to keep her voice quiet while in costume to go along with her ninja theme.

Midnighta was startled, but quickly regained her composure. “Yeah,” she answered. “Away from here, and you and your friends aren’t gonna stop me.”

“That’s where you’re mistaken,” Ivory chided and approached Midnighta.

Midnighta snarled and said, “I don’t think so.” She leapt at Nightfall with the intent to buck her out of the way. Nightfall smoothly side-stepped the blow and delivered one herself to the attacking mare. Midnighta stumbled and turned to face Nightfall once again. Nightfall smiled behind her mask, knowing that it would only show in the creases around her eyes and gave her opponent a come here gesture with her front hoof.

Midnighta howled and charged once again. This time, Nightfall leapt over the charging mare, did a flip and landed smoothly behind her before delivering a buck worthy of the Apple family. The buck sent Midnighta head-first into a light pole and she slumped to the ground. Nightfall quickly tied her up in literal red tape and left a note for the authorities.

She glanced up at the sky and determined that there was plenty of night left for another fight. She deactivated the hologram and picked up the electronic disk that was its starting point. This Loop started out slow, but it was shaping up to be pretty fun.





199.2 (Vinylshadow)

Time Turner trotted through the Ponyville Market whistling to himself.

He took a moment to stare at a statue of a winged unicorn with a nagging sense of familiarity before he shrugged and continued on his way.

He then stopped, before wheeling around to look at it again.

It was no longer there.

"Oh," he said. "That's probably not good."

Turning again, he leaped back in surprise to see the statue was now in front of him and he got a good look at it.

"My dear Twilight, have you become a Weeping Angel this Loop?" he asked in amusement. "Well, I suppose it'd be best to get somewhere without eyes so you can talk better. That alley over there will do."

Once inside the alley, he stared at the wall and eventually he got the feeling of someone behind him.

"Good grief," Twilight grumbled, sitting down. "Who knew being a statue was so exhaustive?"

"I imagine Discord is well aware," Time Turner said dryly.

"Eh-heh," Twilight replied. "Problem is, without sending ponies back in time and feeding off their potential, I'm doomed to eventually rot away this Loop."

"Just go to any university and set up a little "I'll send you back in time so you can study for your upcoming midterms and tests" booth. You can regulate how far back someone is sent. Just clear it with the Princesses first. Shall I give you a lift in the TARDIS?"

"Thank you, that'd be perfect."





199.3 (Vinylshadow)

Berry Punch whistled as she cleaned a row of mugs, idly listening to the chatter of the bar.

Apple Bloom and Applejack were sitting at a booth, swapping puns and jokes.

"Why did Big Mac's secret sauce never sell?" Applejack asked.

"Because it was too Ranchy," Apple Bloom replied.

Applejack blinked. "Did I already tell you that one?"

"No, I was there when Big Mac opened up a restaurant on the farm with dubious-quality fast food," Apple Bloom said.

"I don't suppose you still have a bottle of his sauce?"

Apple Bloom snorted. "What kind of sister would I be if I didn't?" she said, producing a bottle. "Still fresh thanks to preservation, renewal and stasis spells. Plus, sometimes I use it when the CMC and I are trying for Cutie Marks."

Applejack blinked at her in confusion. "The heck kind of shenanigans would require a bottle of Big Mac's Homemade Hoof-Crafted Premium-Blend One-of-a-Kind All-Purpose Apple Family Food Spread®©™?"

"The kind where you have to write a school paper with a minimum word count," Apple Bloom said with a grin.

Berry Punch snorted, then ducked under the bar when Applejack turned to look at her.





199.4 (Vinylshadow)

"Bwahahaha!"

Twilight looked up at the dais where the usual purple smoke that signaled the arrival of Nightmare Moon had been replaced by thick black smoke.

"Oh no," Twilight said without any inflection. "It is Daybreaker. What ever shall we do?"

As the flaming pony appeared, Twilight pulled a hose out of nowhere - one of Pinkie's, she recognized - and sprayed the Alicorn.

"Arrrrrrgh! My one weakness! I'm melting! Farewell cruel world!"

A thoroughly soaked Celestia got to her hooves, blinking owlishly.

"Hello, what'd I miss?" she asked.

"You weren't yourself," Twilight said. "So I helped you."

"Now I know how Luna feels," Celestia grumbled. "Is this gonna be a common thing now?"

Twilight shrugged. "It's not like we haven't fought your Nightmare form before. Your Baseline self is...nowhere near as impressive as the likes of Nightmare Star or Corona or whatever names you've had previously."

Celestia stroked her chin. "So that's me, you, and Luna with Baseline Nightmares. I wonder if that's an Alicorn trait?"

Twilgiht frowned. "I hope we don't get a Nightmare Flurry Heart. Although that does sound oddly adorable."

"We all have dark sides. Most of us are simply able to keep them under control," Celestia said with a chuckle.

"I'll tell everyone to keep water balloons in their Pockets in case of another outbreak of Daybreak, alright?"

"Har har."





199.5 (Vinylshadow)

Celestia Woke up with a snort over a pile of horrifically deformed pancakes that smelled like something she didn't want to think about.

She pricked her ears as Luna entered the room, holding a flaming frying pan.

"Bacon is done!" she called, dumping the flambé onto Celestia's plate, causing the entire concoction to roar up like a bonfire.

"Luna, stop," Celestia said, pitching the mess into the sun. "I'm Awake."

Luna let out a sigh of relief. "Oh thank you, I was wondering how long it'd take."

Celestia blinked. "You do realize the chance of me Waking up is entirely random, right?"

"I'm aware," Luna said cheerfully. "I've been doing this for the past hundred-something Loops...sometimes for over one thousand years."

Celestia winced. "I'm sorry."

Luna waved it off. "No worries. I've gotten a lot of cooking practice in."

Celestia stared at her in disbelief.

"Hey," Luna said defensively. "I've gotten a lot better. The kitchen didn't need to be rebuilt this time."

""This time" makes it sound like this was a recent development," Celestia noted. "Even after a couple hundred thousand times spent cooking, you've bare progressed beyond charred mess?"

"...I may have gotten some pointers from Twilight," Luna admitted.

"Out of curiosity, does Kirk ever serve you breakfast?"

"Tiberius does, now and again, whenever I have a chance to pick him up. Kirk, on the other hand doesn't, which makes it a little easier to spot when he replaces him," Luna replied. "Although he's gotten wind of that and has started trying his hand at cooking. I've yet to ask him how his crew reacts to that. I'm sure it's worth a laugh."

She coughed as she inhaled a stand of errant smoke. "So, uh...you wanna go out for breakfast? My treat."

"Thank you, that sounds lovely," Celestia said, getting to her feet. "Any word from Twilight?"

"Vacation Loop," Luna said.

"Splendid. Lead on, sister dear. Let's go terrorize the local shelter of flapjacks."





199.6 (Evilhumour)

"Huh," Twilight said as this Loop turned out to be odd, even by her standards.

"Yah can say that again," Applejack said, rolling to face the all dressed double hayburger with the seeds on the bun in the shape of a starburst. "Ah don't think Ah been an apple too often." The apple with the stetson then rolled off to another room in Twilight's library.

"And I haven't been a bag of sugar in ages," the pink bag of sugar with three balloon on the front giggled. "I wonder how Celestia is doing being a cake?"

"DEAR SISTER, STOP TRYING TO EAT YOURSELF!" Luna's sudden shouting all the way from Canterlot told everyone how that was going.

"I gotta say Twilight," the gems in the shape of a dragon said. "I don't know how I am speaking."

"Spike, you're making my head hurt right now," Twilight groaned, looking at her corndog brother trying to figure out how to eat himself when she heard the flush of the toilet and Applejack trotted out of the bathroom. She stared up at her pony friend and asked, "How?"

"Well, Twi, Ah ain't what Ah ate no more, am Ah?" Applejack grinned, fixing her hat.

"How did you go to the bathroom, Applejack?" Twilight asked her friend before she realized what she said and her buns got toasty with embarrassment.





199.7 (Evilhumour)

Twilight Awoke to find herself in the park where she had gone to read the book about the two sisters, a very early starting point for her. Opening it up as she had nothing better, Twilight began to read; "Once upon a time, in the magical land of Equestria, two sisters decided to prank a purple pony by having a pie fall onto her head when she reads this line-wait whaGAH!" Twilight pulled back as a pie flew out of the book and hit her square in the face.

Sputtering as she wiped away the pie from her face, her ears flicked as she heard a whistling sound. Looking up in time to see a pie fall from the sky and hit her square in the face again, Twilight knew she was in for a long Loop.





(BIOS-Pherecydes)

From the Journal of Sunset Shimmer:

Though my journey is over, I still tend to experience Fused Loops a bit more often than other Equestria Loopers. Most of them have been simply return visits to Loops I visited on my journey, but I've seen my fair share of new Loops. One of the first of these new Loops was the Loop that is home to Brockton Bay. It is a place where there are superheroes and supervillains, but the place is a lot worse than the DC and Marvel Branches.

Tragically, I knew little of this Loop when I arrived. I knew of the abilities its Anchor, Taylor, had in baseline, as well as some of her enemies, and the threat called the 'End Bringers.' What else I knew were simply rumors.

When I Awakened, I quickly used the Ping; ever since my mistake in the Honnouji Branch I had made this a priority act for new Loops, if only to avoid the embarrassment. Considering what little I knew of this Loop, making that mistake again would be even more stupid.

Right after I got a set of replies, a large explosion occurred. I figured it was worth checking out...

The journey to the source of the explosion was mostly calm and I used the time to go over my Loop Memories. I had been born and bred in Brockton Bay, raised in a good middle class family which had managed to get me into one of the better schools in the area. Arcadia was a lot nicer than Canterlot High from what I could tell, but at the price of significantly more faculty and security oversight. My Unawake self had been a bit of a cape geek, constantly trying to uncover any of the resident Wards in the school; a group of teenage superheroes who attended class out of costume.

I was pretty sure I had pegged a few of them, but I couldn't be sure. More importantly I suppose was the fact that I had managed to become, if not friends, at least acquaintances with the two members of New Wave; Victoria and Amy Dallon. New Wave had a no secret identity policy so their superhero alter egos were known to the public. Vicky, named Glory Girl in costume, was a superman type cape, known as an 'Alexandria package,' with an emotion affecting aura. Amy was the single greatest healer on the planet, befitting her name Panacea. I recalled hearing that their ending hadn't turned out so happily, and I resolved to try and help if I could.

For now though I put that thought out of my mind as I came into sight of the alley where the fire was spreading. The source was what looked like a cross between a man and a dragon, blue flames burning almost white at the edges as he swiped at a smaller figure jumping back and forth on the rooftop. The flames were parting about a foot around her and she was moving fast enough to outpace the dragonman's claws, what she couldn't avoid being deftly batted aside by a pair of swords wreathed in psychic energy of some type, but it was clear she was losing ground fast.

I'd never seen swordwork like hers, and that actually surprised me more than I had expected. She was constantly overreaching or misjudging her strikes, as if she was used to having much more reach and power; but at the same time every single motion flowed into the next, as if she had trained for years to refine each motion down to the purest most absolutely efficient maneuver possible. Zero wasted energy, combined with continuously flawed execution; a battle proven methodology, set against a novice's inexperience; hesitant caution, and instinctual superiority. And most of all, with every second I watched the motions became smoother and surer; blending into perfection piece by piece.

I really wanted to test my own skills against hers.

"I know right. It's freaking kickass to watch."

HOLY SPRUCE! WHEN THE HEL DID SHE GET THERE?

My Keyblade was out in an instant, before I even had a chance to realize I was doing it, and pointed at a figure in a black body suit and a gray horned mask. She cackled at my reaction, a honest to gods cackle, and sent out a Ping. "Calm your tits lady."

Scowling, I reluctantly dismissed my Keyblade. "Shouldn't you be helping her or something?"

The girl shrugged indifferently. "Nah, Skitter's got it. If she were really worried she'd just call in tall, dark and buggy."

I blinked confusedly, but hesitantly accepted that answer for now. Turning back to the fight, I gaped as the formerly dragonlike man had now become a full fledged dragon; complete with wings and prehensile neck, and standing at least fifteen feet. "You're letting her go up against that with no backup?!" I cried, pointing at the ongoing fight.

She turned to me with a look that screamed amusement despite the full facial mask. "Heck yeah, this is the good part. Watch."

Incredulously I turned back to the fighters, the dragon having grown another five feet in the brief time I'd been distracted. Abruptly, the alley held not just one but two giants. One of which I was horrified to realize I recognized. Wailing on the dragon with fists and blades was the Swarmlord.

This was not good. If there were Tyranids here, then things were easily about to take a turn for the worse. However before I could jump down to interfere, the rooftop was bathed in an inky darkness. Reaching out I was surprised to find a lot of my sensing abilities were somehow dampened by the almost physical darkness, but not so much that I couldn't recognize a quartet of figures atop giant masses of flesh in the vague shape of quadrupeds. Moments later the darkness cleared and I could make out the source, a man dressed in bike leathers and helmet radiating a veritable miasma.

"Told you it wouldn't work. You're still too young to blind older Loopers' senses," the slim blonde next to him in purple and black said with a smirk.

"Can't blame me for trying." he said in a voice which echoed hollowly.

Turning to face me, the blonde tilted her head and gave me a curious look. Despite feeling no psychic energies being used, my mental defenses instantly stood at attention. The girl smirked. "First time in Brockton, yeah? Don't worry, most of us don't bite. Except maybe Bitch here."

The indicated person gave me a quick look before ignoring me in favor of watching the fight behind me. I jolted as I recalled the Tyranid, but the blonde girl spoke up before I could move.

"Don't worry about it. Hermes is Skitter's pet. Her first Loop was as the Tyranid Queen, she's got enough of them in her Pocket by now to fight the originals to a standstill."

My brain froze at that. Then jumped back into action at a mile a minute. "Is she insane!? You can't keep something like the Tyranids in your Pocket, those things are dangerous."

"Big whoop." This came from the last of the capes on the roof, a relatively thin man dressed as a renaissance dandy; complete with puffy shirt and a scepter. "From what everyone keeps telling me, so are Loopers. Don't see me messing my pants any time soon."

"I've got complete control, you don't have to worry." This came from all directions, as a swarm of flying insects buzzed and chirped in a frankly disturbing imitation of human speech. I turned back to the fight, which was coming to a conclusion as the girl perched atop the Swarmlord's head directed a pair of Lictors as they struck at the dragon; who was restrained by a Mawloc that had wrapped itself around him. None of them were full sized, but that didn't stop them from systematically breaking through the dragon's defense; even as he continued to swell in size and strength, his flames now a pure blinding white. A wavering field of psychic energy kept the heat contained, made visible by the heat contained within, distorting the view of the combatants as the costumed woman inside directed her forces.

"Mostly I just wanted to show Bitch and Regent some of the things they'll be able to do later on. It always takes a couple minutes to readjust to using my swords. Give me a second and I'll join you guys." the insects 'spoke' as Skitter and her Tyranids doubled down on the dragon; bolts of psychic energy distorting the barely visible fighting ground as they pummeled against their now helpless foe.

"Feeling sorry for him is a waste of time, you know." the blonde girl spoke up, distracting me from my thoughts. "This guy's the leader of a gang that's known for human trafficking, among other equally unpleasant crimes. Skitter won't kill him, even if he deserves it; she'll just rough him up enough that he can't get back up before the Protectorate gets here, any damage she does he'll heal. Eventually. In the meantime, lets you and us get to know each other a bit."

The renaissance guy snorted. "We'll show you ours if you show us yours."

The shadow guy smacked him upside the head. "Ignore Regent. I'm Grue, that's Tattletale, she's Imp and that's Bitch, Brutus, Judas and Angelica." Each of the others waved, or in Bitch's case grunted, in acknowledgement as he pointed at them.

"And I'm Skitter." A voice spoke up from the side of the building where the insect themed heroine sat atop a giant beetle while several massive spiders enveloped the unconscious dragon, who was quickly losing mass, in silk. She reached out her hand. "Taylor Hebert, Anchor of the Brockton Bay Branch."

Hesitantly I accepted her handshake. "Sunset Shimmer. Traveling Looper I guess."

"Ah, you're one of those Equestrians." Tattletale said with a nod of understanding.

"Wait, she's one of the ponies?" Regent spoke up.

Imp cackled again. "What, you looking for a pony ride?"

"Bite me."

"Deal."

Grue groaned and buried his helmeted head in his hands, while Tattletale just grinned widely. Thus was my introduction to the Undersiders.











The Undersiders were an interesting group. From what I could tell, they had recently Awakened to the Loops, so I had seen more than they had, but they knew more about this Loop. After securing the dragonman, Lung, they had all quickly taken their leave; Taylor Pocketing her Tyranids, which was just so wrong for so very many reasons. Using the dog lizard things and the giant beetle we made good time across the rooftops. I very quickly came to regret my accepting a ride on the one known as Angelica. Much to Imp's amusement. Her loud amusement.

Eventually we moved to ground, Grue's darkness covering our landing and the direction we took thereafter. Even I couldn't tell exactly where we were, or were going; my combat senses more focused on people than buildings. Something to work on later I suppose.

When the oily miasma finally cleared we had come to a stop beside an old warehouse, no different in appearance from any of the others around it at first glance. At least from the outside. The inside however clearly had the lived in feel of a home to several people. Without any concern, Regent popped off his mask and plopped himself down on the couch; resuming a paused game without a word.

Bitch was equally uncaring, her dogs shedding excess skin and muscle by the second as she tended to them. Tattletale pulled off her domino mask with a smirk and waved to the surroundings. "Welcome to Undersiders HQ. I'm your humble host Lisa, pull up a chair, make yourself at home."

Grue removed his helmet with a snort, revealing himself as a rather attractive african american man; probably late teens, early twenties. "Humble?" He shook his head in amusement before holding out his hand. "Brian Laborn."

I smiled and shook his hand. "Nice to meet you. When not watching your teammate pummel a dragon into unconsciousness."

He chuckled and gave a round of second introductions. "Like our resident know-it-all said, this is our base. The idiot on the couch is Alec, Rachel is tending to her dogs and our Anchor is over in the corner, probably Pocketing new troops for her insect armada."

"Food actually." Taylor spoke up. "Gotta keep my spiders fed somehow, and since most of them can't deal with any of the Tyranids larger than a Ripper that means I need to refresh my stock as often as needed at the beginning of a new Loop."

Lisa grinned. "Gonna make the new girl a costume?"

"If she wants one. It's Darwin's Spider silk, so it's good for most forms of protection; other than fire anyway. I make the offer to all new visitors, whether they join our team or not. Better safe than sorry when it comes to Brockton Bay."

I nodded. My memories were pretty clear just how true that was. I was glad my Unawake self had been as big a cape groupie as she had been, it helped fill in a lot of the gaps in my own spotty knowledge. Four major gangs — a group of superpowered Neo-Nazis, an all asian gang led by a dragon and his telefragging assassin, a group of drug pushers hooked on their own product and with more power than sense, and an elite paramilitary mercenary group armed to the teeth with high tech equipment and training — and several smaller ones competed for control of the Bay, barely kept in check by the Parahuman Response Teams and the Wards.

That was about all I knew however, the larger picture and fine details not being something the other me had had access too. Unlike now.

"Can someone tell me what happens here in Baseline? I know of what happens in a lot of Loops; heck, my first few dozen Loops were a series of Fused Loops. But I know zip about this Branch. Could someone please let me know what to expect here?"

Brian's smile faltered a bit, and Lisa's smirk turned serious. It was Taylor who spoke however. "First thing you need to know is the source of our powers. You should have Loop Memories about the first Parahuman, the golden man Scion."

I nodded. He had shown up out of nowhere about thirty years before, and not long after others began showing signs of superpowers. He spent every second of every day helping someone somewhere, from rescuing kittens in trees all the way up to the Endbringer fights.

"So he's the one that created superheroes, capes?"

Taylor nodded. "And he's also the one who'll exterminate everyone on this Earth and every other one in our mulitverse in about two years, up to fifteen if we play our cards right."

I paled, my stomach dropping somewhere between my feet and the center of the planet. "What? Why?"

"Think of his species as a giant multidimensional space parasite." Tattletale chimed in. "If things had gone according to plan he and his partner would have sat back and let humanity stew in it's own powder keg for about three hundred years, testing their Shards — the things that give us access to our powers — in new and creative ways; a trial by fire as they let us discover the most viable strains for their purpose. Then once everyone is a cape, they sterilize their petri dish and collect the 'victorious' Shards. Then they blow up the planet, and every other one in every other dimension in our multiverse, to propel them back out into space so they can try again."

I quickly found a chair. "Shit. So what, you guys have to fight this thing every Loop?"

"Pretty much." Brian agreed. "I got lucky, or unlucky I suppose, the first time around. When Scion started his freak-out, I got caught in the blowout. I never made it to the actual final showdown."

Taylor grimaced visibly and gave Brian a quick, somewhat awkward, hug. Brian returned it, equally awkwardly.

Alec snorted. "At least you made it that far. I got turned into a human glowstick by Behemoth. Hell, if not for the Loops I'd still think the golden jackass was the worlds biggest hero. At least you got the memo before kicking the bucket."

Imp reappeared next to him on the couch, picking up the second player controller without a word. Crap, I had completely forgotten about her. In every sense of the word; like she had just suddenly been wiped from my

"But wait, you said if everything had gone according to plan." I frowned. That hadn't been what I had been thinking about just a moment ago.

...Had it?

Tattletale eyed me with a grin before chuckling. "Caught that did you? Yep, Zion — that's his real name by the way, if anything can be called one — had a partner. After looking over our backup I agree that Eden is as good a name as any for her. Thanks to some really lucky breaks, and a monumental oversight on her part at a crucial moment, she hit the ground at something like mach nine. Then a very nice little girl came along and stabbed her to death. In fact, here she is now."

She turned a smile over my shoulder, and I jumped a little as a woman walked past me. I had been standing with my back to the wall! Where the hell did she come from?

"Hey there Fortuna. Yeah sure, we can talk. Yep, we know about Scion. Of course we're willing to help. No need to go all postal on us. Tell Doctor Mother I said hi, and she needs to get laid. Tell Eidolon to get therapy, daddy's little Endbringers are getting worried. Talk to you later. Bye now."

The woman, Fortuna, paused; clearly shortchanged, and not at all sure how to handle it. She stared around the room, locking eyes with everyone present. The room filled with tension rapidly, and I found my hand itching for my Keyblade, before she nodded with a frown. "Very well, later then. Door to Cauldron." A glowing portal opened midair, and she stepped through; the portal closing behind her.

The relief was like a pressure valve letting off all at once, and the others immediately relaxed.

"What the hell was that?" I demanded shakily. I had seen a lot of things before, and faced a lot of people or people equivalents. Everything about that woman had screamed at my senses that she was dangerous beyond belief, and if she had attacked I would have had a hard time countering; let alone winning. I most likely could have done so, probably, but the damages would have been catastrophic.

Tattletale chuckled. "That was a good sign. Contessa is being reasonable this Loop. It varies pretty wildly how she reacts to Loopers, and most newbies are dealt with rapidly when her path decides they need to go. To answer your question, that was Fortuna. Otherwise known as Contessa, the boogiewoman of the cape world. Essentially her power is 'lolnope.' Otherwise known as Path to Victory, otherwise known as utter bullshit. Believe me, you don't want to fight her. Older Loopers can win, but she makes them earn it. Her superpower is literally 'winning.'"

Alec snorted. "She on a drug called Charlie Sheen. If you take it your face will melt off and yomppph." Imp shoved a ball of paper into his mouth, effectively cutting off his terrible joke.

...Dammit! How was she doing th

"Okay, so she's a villain?" I asked, before pausing. Something was wrong. It was on the tip of my tongue but...

"Aisha, knock it off." Brian groaned, holding his temples irritably.

"Oh come on bro. You know it's funny." Imp, Aisha, spoke up from my right; her arm wrapped around my shoulder. I jumped about ten feet into the air, literally thanks to my ki, and thousands of years of battle instincts reacted before I could think.

The next thing I knew my Keyblade had severed her arm at the elbow. "Oh my god, I'm so sorry!"

"Damn girl, you need to chillax. Hey Lis, you mind giving a hand?" She asked, waving with the dismembered arm at Tattletale's feet.

Lisa sighed. "One of these days you're going to do that with the wrong person, and that Life Gem thing you picked up isn't going to cut it." Nevertheless she tossed Aisha's arm back to her.

Aisha just stuck her tongue out rudely as she reattached her arm, before giving me a cheeky grin. "See, I'm all right now."

"Lame!" Alec yelled and threw a pillow at her.

"These are my friends. These are the people I put up with every day." Taylor said in a goodnatured tone of long-suffering.

"You know you love us." Lisa said with a grin.

Brian and Taylor shared an uncomfortable look before avoiding each other's gaze. Turning back to me Taylor shrugged. "Anyway, she's not exactly a villain; but she's definitely not innocent either. She had good reasons, but she helped do a lot of things which I don't like and I have more than enough bad memories of her being less reasonable from my early Loops to not want to deal with her more than I have to. She's basically the shadow leader of a group calling themselves Cauldron. They're the ones who killed Scion's partner and started cutting her up to make formulas which give people superpowers."

I wrinkled my nose in disgust and made to speak up, but Lisa beat me to it. "Trust us, she deserved it. Humanity isn't the first race her and her partner have encountered, just the last. We don't have a problem with that part, if not for that we'd have probably killed ourselves long before Scion got around to doing the job thanks to the Shards that give us our powers encouraging conflict. Thanks to them, we managed to organize and regulate ourselves; set up things in a way that works, barely, so that we'd stand a chance when golden boy snaps."

"The problem is the Case 53s." Brian explained, tossing me a soda from the fridge. "Apparently they didn't know what formula did what, so they started testing. Supposedly on willing subjects, but when your only other option is death that choice doesn't count for much. And the ones that reacted badly, mutated into inhuman forms or worse, had their memories wiped or were brain washed into making others look good by losing and thrown out. That's going to come back to bite them on the ass later, and as usual, at the worst possible time."

"One of the best people I've ever known tried to help, even though they turned him into what he saw as a monster." Taylor added.

Lisa snorted. "Yeah, because having the figure of a greek god is totally monstrous."

"Says the asexual." Taylor quipped.

Lisa grinned. "Doesn't mean I can't notice." She waited until Taylor had started drinking her tea before continuing. "Or notice you noticing."

While Taylor choked, Lisa turned back to me with a wink. I had to admit, that was pretty funny.

"So besides the group of human experimenting illuminati and the living god waiting to snap, what else is there I have to worry about?"

"Endbringers." Rachel grunted from where she was brushing her dogs.

"Yeah, I have some idea what those are from my Loop Memories but not much to go on. How bad are they?" At my question, the room gained an heavy pall of silence.

"Bad. Think about fighting giant robots, that get progressively harder to hit the further in you go. Their top layer is about as hard as aluminum and it doubles every couple fractions of a percent after that. By the time you get to the center they're basically walking dwarf stars and the core itself is so dense it literally warps spacetime around it. And that's just trying to hurt them.

"Leviathan is a macro-hyrdakinetic. Tidal waves, floods, torrential monsoons. Every motion is punctuated by a water echo of his movements so you're basically fighting him before you even get close to him. Behemoth is even worse, complete dyakinetic. If it's energy, he has control of it. Don't even ask about the time Goku fought him without knowing that particular detail. Just don't. He's surrounded by a kill aura so most people can't even get close to him and causes earthquakes and volcanic eruptions along with his guided lighting. Then there's the Simurgh. Technically the weakest, but if you stay near her too long she'll literally reprogram your brain until you're a ticking time bomb waiting to go off at literally the worst possible moment you personally ever could, and she can do that to anyone in range of her.

"And even if we kill them, there's seventeen more waiting to take their place. Though only two, or three if you count it that way, we know all the details on; Khonsu and the Twins, ones a teleporting time manipulator, one turns cities into death trap labyrinths while her sister picks any three capes' powers for the duration. Three more we have partial ideas on. Their abilities vary a bit on the rare occasions when we've fought them, but their appearances are the same. A woman with a lion's head converting the area into cyrstal, a giant lamia with an eldritch fog effect, and a long haried man with some kind of environment control."

She gave a bleak smile. "And the best part? They're jobbing every fight. If they wanted to they could wipe out humanity within a few minutes, but instead they play this game of escalation. The harder we fight back, the less they hold back."

"Holy... and you deal with this every Loop?!"

Taylor averted her gaze entirely, and Rachel sent Angelica over to comfort her.

Lisa shook her head. "Not exactly. The Endbringers are being created by someone. Not intentionally mind you, but there it is. Apparently for a long time before any of us Awoke, Taylor took the guy out as soon as she got the chance. Then once more of us showed up and Contessa started listening more often than acting, we had her start passing on a message."

"What message?" I asked carefully.

Taylor looked up with a sad gaze. "'Your power gives you what you need. You needed worthy opponents.' Most the time he ends up killing himself, sometimes he tries to kill us, and the rest he just... stops. Total shutdown."

Brian gave Taylor a hug, the Anchor tensing at first before relaxing gratefully. Looking up at me he smiled sadly. "He is the strongest cape on the planet. He can use any power at all, and the only thing he ever wanted was to be a hero. It's the only thing he has left. The fact that he made the Endbringers is poison to everything he is, or was. It destroys him."

I leaned back in my chair with a sigh. "Damn. So that's your guy's Baseline?"

Aisha barked a laugh. "Yeah, no. Not even done."

I stared blankly at her. "You're kidding. She's kidding right?"

"Nope." Alec chimed in blandly.

"What else is there?" I demanded in disbelief.

Lisa grinned bitterly. "Let's talk about Coil, Bakuda, E88, the Merchants and the Slaughterhouse 9."











The rest of the Loop was... well I can't say it was a total trainwreck, but it wasn't pretty by any stretch. Like they had said, Eidolon didn't take the news well; and a few days later Contessa had been forced to put him down the way she had done to Taylor in the Baseline. He spent the rest of the Loop under constant suicide watch. The only semi-bright side to this was that with him out of the picture, the Endbringers went dormant.

The raid on Coil's base, and subsequent rescue of his hostage Dinah Alcott — a powerful preteen precog who he had kept drugged in order to abuse her powers for his own gain — went rather easily due to the Undersider's experience with the task. His power to split timelines and pick the one he liked best meant they had to be perfect to succeed, which made this one of the single most flawlessly executed black ops missions I had ever taken part in. Big Boss would have been impressed, I know I was.

The Slaughterhouse 9 on the other hand was a short but vivid trip to hell. The only bright spot was, because I hadn't been given a Shard this Loop I was essentially the best possible choice to take on their leader Jack Slash. Highly trained, extremely dangerous, but still only base human. This Loop anyway. His secondary power would have clued him in to any other capes' intent a mile away, but since I didn't show anything for him to pick up on I was able to take him on and come out on top. It was an interesting fight, like going up against a long range Iajutsu attack specialist that never learned any other skills; though the earplugs I wore to keep from hearing him made for a unique challenge.

The other fights were taken care of by the rest of the Undersiders, so I didn't see them. The end result however was an amnesiac little girl being taken away by Fortuna, Regent with control of Shatterbird, and the rest dead or incapacitated. After that we spent the next year setting up a perfect ambush for Scion. And when I say that I mean it. Long hours every single day were spent coordinating or planning or directing someone so that we could get off a single surprise attack with a cape name Flechette. If it had missed, and they assured me that it had many times due to Scion's instincts and defenses, the fight would cost billions of lives and at least one planet Earth; so it had to go perfectly.

Luckily it did. With Foil, previously Flechette, having opened the entrance to Scion's private dimension I sent off the largest Spirit Bomb I had ever created — having taken nonstop days of constant effort to gather the needed energy — to destroy him. Hundreds of others did the same in their own way; lasers that could knock the moon out of orbit, nano-weapon tipped warheads, mobile suns, and any kind of area attack they could contribute. All in the name of ensuring Scion's death.

And it worked.

After that things were... well not peaceful, but at least not constantly stressful; waiting for the other shoe to drop. Apparently it wasn't uncommon for the Loop to last another fifteen or more years after that point, but it wasn't all that common either. So I guess I just got lucky. It was nice. A lot more like visiting a Gotham in recovery. With the Undersiders managing to become essentially sanctioned crimelords, and their various abilities — both Looping or not — I'd even say they managed to get Brockton Bay to a status similar to New York in the DC or Marvel Branches. Superpowered crime still happened, but the Undersiders made sure no one that wasn't already involved became so and helped out the community before, during and after.

With much complaining in Aisha and Alec's cases.

Best of all, in my opinion anyway, I finally had the chance to test my skills against Skitter's without worrying about anything going more wrong than normal. To my shock, I actually lost; though it was a pretty even match for a while. Granted Taylor was actually a fair bit older than I was as a Looper and had the advantage of millennia of experience with swords thanks to the Hive Mind, but she didn't actually focus on her swords all that much apparently; which was why she had had to ease back into it at the beginning of the Loop. She made a habit of using every advantage she had though, and kept her skills sharp in her free-time, so it all evened out. It was great, and we had a lot of fun in our rematches.

Eventually though the Loop did come to an end, but I greatly enjoyed my time in Brockton Bay. I made several good friends and helped save the world. What more could a girl ask for?





190.8








-Twilight blinked.

She appeared to be a young human girl, perhaps high school age. Nothing unusual so far for a fused loop, though her loop memories did tell her that this was a world of superheroes and supervillains.

Something about it seemed familiar - not anywhere she'd been before, but she had the sense of having talked about it with someone in the past.

Shrugging mentally, she - Taylor, right - held out her hand and focused.

Magic failed to happen.

"Oh, come on..." Twilight said, checking a few other things. Subspace pocket, wandless magic, psionic powers, ping... by all accounts this was a loop which had decided to be really awkward and restrict her specifically to in-loop powers. And, since this was a loop with superheroines, that presumably meant she was one.

How did you get superpowers in - oh. Oh ew.

Pushing away the memory of her Trigger event - and seriously contemplating a shower - Twilight felt in the back of her mind to see if there was a connection anywhere to some sort of power. It took her a moment to find one, and she activated it.

A moment later, she found her forehooves hitting the floor of her room with a clatter.

Okay, that's good so far, Twilight decided, looking herself over and realizing she was essentially her familiar alicorn baseline form. Which means...

Her horn lit up, and a bouquet of flowers materialized. Then she tried a different spell, one of the ones which hadn't worked before, and it functioned just fine when routed through her horn.

Now this has potential.








Several thousand miles away, the Simurgh paused in her descent towards Australia.

NOPE.





"Okay, let's see..." Twilight said to herself. "Costume... unnecessary, though I suppose I should consider the possibility I change back involuntarily. I'd really rather be some kind of hero, but I'm not sure how it's handled around here. I know superheroes are supposed to go out on patrol... I suppose I could try that."

She charged her horn, ready to teleport, then paused.

"Oh, almost forgot. A name... what are names like around here?"

A moment scanning loop memories made Twilight wince.

"Really?" she asked. "Glory Girl, Narwhal, Kid Win and Clockblocker? And I thought names back home could be odd..."

Shaking that digression off, Twilight made her selection.














Out on the streets of Brockton Bay, Armsmaster leaned his motorbike around the corner.

It wasn't strictly necessary, of course. Physics could be persuaded to look the other way for Tinkers. But it saved a little time, and let Armsmaster concentrate on his visor display.

Take next left turn. Abnormal sounds detected.

Armsmaster duly did so, and brought his bike to a halt.

The street was full of gang members.

Actually, that wasn't quite accurate. The air above the street was full of gang members, all unconscious, and all shrouded in an odd lavendar glow.

"Hello!" said a cheerful voice, from somewhere behind all the criminals. "Are you Armsmaster?"

The glow intensified a little as Armsmaster dismounted his bike, and revealed...

"Hello?" the same voice said, quite clearly the purple winged unicorn in front of him. "Sorry, I'm not very good at cape etiquette yet."

"I am Armsmaster, yes," the Tinker decided to say. "I take it you are a recent Trigger?"

"Fairly recent, yes. I overheard these people talking about shooting children, which sounded terrible!"

The glow brightened a little, moving the various ABB gangsters into neat piles by the side of the street, and Armsmaster's software highlighted the unicorn's horn lighting up to match it.

"What's the normal practice in this situation?" the new cape added. "Oh, I'm very sorry - I should introduce myself. I've taken the name Alicorn, because that one didn't seem to be already in use."

"Armsmaster?" Dragon requested. "Your vitals are-"

The sound of Dragon's voice cutting off suggested to Armsmaster that she'd just accessed his camera feed.

"I've called some PRT transports to pick them up," Armsmaster said. "Are you interested in joining the Protectorate?"

He paused, noticing that one of the unconscious ABB gangsters appeared to be Lung. "How did you incapacitate them?"

"A stun spell," Alicorn answered. "On wide beam. I was worried about the one who seemed to be in charge, but he just took a bit more stunning than normal."

"Please tell me we're recruiting her," Dragon said, having apparently recovered her aplomb. "I think Glenn is going to like her."

Armsmaster thought about that.

He had to agree that such a capable new Cape would be a boon for the Protectorate.  













"Are you sure about this, Taylor?" Danny asked.

Twilight looked over at her in-loop father, and felt a pang of sympathy - it was sometimes hard as a looper, especially one with no personal tragedies in her pre-loop baseline, to remember how much someone could be damaged by the loss of a loved one.

"I am, Dad," she replied. "I have powers, and - well, it's better to use them to help people than to do something else. And this way - I can do something about it. Whatever 'it' turns out to be."

Danny began to speak, then sighed.

"I think I gave you too much of a sense of responsibility," he said. Picking up the pen, he countersigned the documents Twilight had already gone over.

"Thank you both," Director Piggot said, with a sharp nod. "Now, miss Herbert, I'd like for you to have an introduction to the rest of the Wards."

"All right," Twilight agreed. She stood up, pushed the chair back from the desk, and reactivated her power for the loop - transforming back into her Alicorn form.

"Taylor?" Danny said, a little surprised.

"I feel more comfortable like this," the pony replied, truthfully. "See you later, Dad."

"All right," Danny agreed. "Just - be careful, okay?"








"So, what power do you have, anyway?" asked Clockblocker - or Dennis, as Twilight now knew him. "What's your rating?"

"I... don't think I've been formally tested, yet," Twilight replied.

"Obviously a pretty high Changer rating," volunteered Kid Win, whose name Twilight had missed. "Do those wings work? It'd be nice to have someone able to go alongside for more patrols."

"Yes, I can fly," Twilight confirmed. "I can teleport, as well."

Dennis whistled. "How far?"

"I... don't know what my upper limit is," Twilight answered. "I went to the moon to test it, but-"

"You did what!?"

Twilight glanced to her side - that had been Miss Militia, not one of the Wards.

"I went to the moon," Twilight repeated. "I had to bring my air with me, of course, but it wasn't especially tiring so I should be fine for plenty of long range teleports."

"I don't even know what Mover rating you get for that," Dennis said. "Is there a 'Yes' rating?"

Twilight chuckled, then noticed someone coming into the room.

"Oh, great..." Kid Win said under his breath, then spoke more loudly. "Alicorn, meet Shadow Stalker."

Twilight looked up at Shadow Stalker, and blinked.

Swallowed.

"Miss Militia?" she asked, calmly. "Is there a lie detector in the building?"

"I... think Armsmaster said something about building one?" the other Cape said. "I'll ask him."

"Thank you," Twilight said. "I'm afraid it's quite important."








After Alicorn had given her testimony and left (teleporting out with a flash of purple light), Piggot shook her head.

"This is a real mess, you know that?" she said. "What are we going to do now?"

"I apologize," Armsmaster admitted, raising his hands. "If I had had my lie detector finished-"

"That's not the problem," Piggot replied sharply. "If that was our only issue we would have an obvious answer. But we don't."

She steepled her fingers. "There are two options here. Either Taylor - Alicorn - is telling the truth, or she's lying. If she's telling the truth, then we have a case of a Ward involved in bullying and of her school covering it up - possibly because of her Ward status - which would mean the whole Ward program would need to be looked over. Across the whole country. This is above all of our pay grades."

"And if she's lying?" Miss Militia asked.

"Then the cape you, Dragon, Armsmaster and half the wards are going on about is a pathological liar," the director said. "We made allowances for Shadow Stalker and she's, what... Breaker 3, Stranger 2, Mover 1? Alicorn is at minimum a Mover 10 and Blaster 5, and she hasn't even gone through testing yet."

There was silence for several seconds.

"I'll go and finish that lie detector," Armsmaster volunteered.

Before he reached the door, however, it opened of its own accord.

"Hey, uh... you know that new cape?" Velocity said. "Apparently she ran into Hookwolf on the way home, and she's asking where to put him."

"...how did she run into him on the way home?" Miss Militia asked. "She teleported..."  











Armsmaster sat down at his desk, and sighed.

A chat window opened, and Dragon looked out of it. "Long day, Colin? I don't think I see you in that state very often."

"We just finished doing the testing on Alicorn," Colin replied. "It took so long I don't have time to work on the lie detector before going out."

He looked up at the camera. "Dragon, she is ridiculous. The only reason she has a ten in some of those categories is because there isn't a higher one."

"Go on, let's hear it," Dragon suggested.

Colin nodded, glad of the Canadian Tinker's advice. "Okay, so going down the list... firstly, she is the most powerful teleporting Mover ever recorded, and also the most powerful telekinetic Shaker ever recorded who is not the Simurgh - and the only reason we're not giving her the crown is that we've never managed to measure the Simurgh. In terms of variety, her Shaker abilities are essentially peerless."

Dragon nodded on the screen, and Colin moved on. "Brute rating is unknown, but also impossibly high - her strength is not vast offensively, but we were unable to find a weapon able to injure her beyond superficially."

"Breaker?" Dragon asked.

"She used a magic spell which turned her hair - her mane - into fire," Colin said. "We're not sure if that counts, but we're also not sure whether to treat her Alicorn form as being Changer or Breaker - whichever it is gets at least a seven."

He ticked them off on his fingers. "Speaking of which, she also told me - and demonstrated on a volunteer - the ability to make anyone irresistibly compelled to possess an object, based on a spell cast on the object. She made clear that this was far from the only Master spell she possessed."

Dragon winced.

"Tinker is harder to tell," Colin went on. "They often are, but she demonstrated the ability to completely dismantle a guard's gun with telekinesis and then put it back together again with some minor ergonomic improvements - I think either she's a Tinker or she's effectively a Tinker 0."

"She certainly has the mundane skill if so," Dragon agreed. "Blaster seems redundant."

"Her Blaster abilities seem to be limited primarily by her imagination," Colin said. "On request, she fired a beam of numerical expertise at Chris, and it appears to have cured his dyscalculia."

Unknown to the Brockton Bay Tinker, there was a stutter in several automated assembly lines at that news as the AI known as Dragon did a double-take.

"I'm afraid to ask about the other ones," she admitted.

"Going by Taylor's pre-Trigger test scores, and allowing for how they may have been affected by the alleged bullying campaign..." Colin began. "She is obviously a Thinker, though mainly through having an extremely incisive intelligence and an impressive ability to multitask."

He paused. "She does not appear to have a Striker power as such, though some of her 'spells' can only be cast through horn contact, and her Changer abilities are subject to the same issue I mentioned with the Breaker ones. On the other hand, her Trump ability is... impossible to evaluate."

Dragon's expression invited further comment.

"She cast a spell which cancelled out all other powers in the vicinity," he said. "I actually momentarily lost my Tinker powers. She called it the Failsafe spell, and then demonstrated it was not a fluke by also giving half the team butterfly wings and the ability to walk on clouds. I'm not sure if there's even a rating for the ability to nullify everything parahuman."

After a moment, he sat back in the chair. "And she also has a spell which makes it impossible to pay attention to her. In conclusion, Alicorn is completely - wait, no, there was one other thing. Glenn."

"The public relations officer?"

"He has been talking about merchandising for five hours," Colin said.

He rubbed his throat, realizing he was thirsty, and took a drink.

"I think that was good for you," Dragon stated. "You rarely talk that much."

She thought for a moment, then typed on a keyboard below her monitor screen, and the classifications Colin had been talking about appeared.

"I've added up all your recommendations, assuming twelve for world-best," she said. "It's a respectable score in darts. Does Alicorn know that's not the objective?"  











"Taylor?" Danny said, knocking on the door. "Are you all right?"

The door lit up purple a moment later, and opened inwards. "I'm fine, Dad," his daughter said, in her Changer form as Alicorn. "Why? Is there a problem?"

"Well..." Danny began, a little cautiously. "I noticed you've not gone to school."

"Oh, right," Taylor replied, nodding. "Well, there's a couple of reasons for that."

She tapped a hoof on the floor, making her mane shake. "The first is that it's just stressful. I appreciate how much you've helped, I really do, but it's still disturbing to be close to the site of my Trigger event."

Danny's fists clenched at the reminder. Even with Sophia Hess transferred out - to where, he wasn't quite sure - and a crackdown at Winslow, the memory of Alan Barnes backstabbing him to try and save Taylor's bullies was raw.

"The other reason," Taylor went on, as her horn lit up again, "is that I got my GED."

A certificate floated in front of him, and he took it to scan through quickly.

"...perfect score?" he asked. "I mean, I'm impressed - but - how?"

"One of my spells," Taylor answered. "It lets me memorize a book instantly. I got extra copies of all the textbooks and memorized the lot, then did the exams last week."

She smiled brightly. "But this means I have more time to work on other things! I had this idea for turning Lord's Port into a zeppelin port, because that would avoid the obvious problems with Leviathan, and I think I know some ways we can make them able to carry hundreds of tonnes of useful lift. I was actually going to try and get some of Dragon's time for that, Armsmaster knows her and most of the local Capes focus on things that don't really help out..."








"Tinker," Armsmaster said, shaking his head. "Definitely Tinker."

"Why do you say that?" Dragon asked. "It does not appear to meet the definition of Tinkertech."

"It's a four hundred foot long metal-frame airship with a useful cargo capacity of eight hundred tonnes," Armsmaster replied. "How is that not Tinkertech?"

"She didn't build any part of it," Dragon replied. "I was watching. She just drew the designs, and hired workers to do the actual work. The closest it got was that she provided transportation to all the components and some raw materials, but it is definitely independently reproducible."

"...goddamn Alicorn," Armsmaster sighed.

"I've heard others say the same about Tinkers," Dragon said.

Armsmaster was about to reply when Dragon spoke up again. "Colin, trouble. The Endbringer monitoring network just raised an alert - Leviathan is headed for Brockton Bay. It seems the miss three months ago was a one-off."

The Tinker cursed.

"Alert sounded, I'm getting ready to head over," Dragon added, as the Endbringer sirens began to wail. "This time I'm using the mark 35 suit."














"Right," Twilight said to herself. "So. Endbringer."

The annoying thing was, she couldn't remember if she'd run into one of these before. She remembered hearing about them - a time Fluttershy had been one and accidentally given an entire city diabetes? - but tactics, or what was actually going on with them, was a blank.

Mostly.

"Alicorn?" Armsmaster said, contacting her over her Wards phone.

"Here," Twilight replied.

"Good. How many teleports can you do in quick succession? We've got less than ten minutes to gather as many capes as possible."

"Um... all of the teleports?" Twilight asked. "If I have good coordinates, the limiting factor is how quickly I can identify who I'm supposed to bring with me."

"That'll do," Armsmaster agreed.

"Dragon here," the Canadian Tinker cut in. "I'm having capes across the US concentrate in their local PRT headquarters. Can you work with GPS?"

"That's acceptable," Twilight confirmed, horn lighting up. "Hold on a moment, I'm going to make sure my Dad made it to the shelters - then I'll be with you."

"Chicago PRT will be available in twenty seconds," Dragon reported.








"It's good to have so many reinforcements," Battery said, looking around the room. "I only wish we were more confident."

"I know, love," Assault agreed. "But this is what we're here for - and I heard they actually got Lung to agree to join in."

"They did?" Battery blinked. "...how?"

"Are you kidding?" Assault laughed. "He won't travel to fight an Endbringer, but one comes to his town? Plus, I think Alicorn had a word with him."

There was a purple flash up by the front of the room, as that very same Cape teleported in.

"Excuse me, everyone!" she called, raising her voice to a quite amazing level in order to be heard over the thunder of Dragon's suit descending to the ground outside. "I wanted to let you all know that Leviathan is no longer scheduled to attack."

There was the kind of silence that normally indicated mass shock.

"What!?" Velocity asked, having gotten over it quicker than just about everyone else.

"I tried one of my strongest spells on him," Alicorn explained. "I sent him to the moon. Yes, that's literal. No, I do not think he will be coming back any time soon."

She smiled. "I'm afraid I have a few other matters to attend to, but if everyone will form orderly groups outside I'll start teleporting you home again in ten minutes."

There was another purple flash, and Alicorn vanished again.








"What," Alexandria said.

Doctor Mother spread her hands. "I don't know either."

She looked over at Contessa. "And you're not helping!"

Contessa ate another piece of popcorn. "The path says this is helping. It provides important nourishment."

"Okay, so... we knew Alicorn had the highest combined rating any of us have ever seen," Alexandria said. "Unless we measure you by all your powers at once, Eidolon."

Eidolon nodded. "But none of mine are that powerful," he said. "I've tried using telekinesis on one of the Endbringers before, and it works but it doesn't let me do that."

There was a gentle cough from the door.

"Excuse me?" Alicorn asked. "I'm afraid I have a few questions for Eidolon."

"How did you get here?" Alexandria demanded.

"Magic," Alicorn replied. "Anyway. I'm afraid I need to speak with Eidolon on a delicate matter."

"You can tell all of us now," Doctor Mother said. "Or not at all."

Eidolon saw Alicorn was looking at him, and nodded. "Fine, go ahead."

Alicorn cleared her throat, producing a file from under one wing. "David, alias Eidolon. On behalf of your three children, I'm serving you with papers for lack of child support."

"What!?" Eidolon demanded, then jerked back in his seat. "...oh. Oh... god..."

"David?" Alexandria asked. "What is it?"

"I needed a power that would tell me what she was talking about," Eidolon said in a strangled voice. "...I..."

He looked at her. "R - Alexandria," he began. "I created the Endbringers."

Unseen by any of those in the room, Twilight checked something off on her checklist.

"Send Scion to the moon," Contessa said abruptly, still working her way through the popcorn.

"Contessa?" Doctor Mother said, completely lost now.

"The path says it's going to work," the Thinker clarified. "And it will be very amusing, apparently."  











199.9 (Evilhumour)

Zecora let out hum, swishing her tail back and forth as she poured more ingredients into her cauldron. Her lunch was almost done and her stomach was rumbling profusely when there was a knock on her door.

The witch doctor raised an eyebrow as it was odd, even in the Loops, for someone to pay her a visit. Placing her ladle into the soup, she walked open the door to see Aloe and Lotus standing in front of her, looking sheepish.

"Do you happen to have a potion that would take care of hoof rot?" one of the twins asked her.

"Yes I do, but why did you-oh!" Zecora blinked as the other twin placed a considerable amounts of bits into her hoof.

"Great, we'll take a crate!" the twin with the money said.

Wordlessly, Zecora pointed to where the potions were kept, the earth ponies bounding over to abscond with her stock of hoof rot potions. "Bye!" they both called out to her, waving goodbye as they trotted down the road.

Remarking to herself how odd it was, Zecora closed her door and went back to her lunch. Just as she picked up the ladle, there was another knock on her door. Trotting over, she saw it was bright lime green Vinyl Scratch.

"Poison Joke?" she asked.

"Poison Joke," Vinyl answered. "Do ya have one of those potions to fix me as I kinda have date tonight and Bon Bon will kill me if I show up like this."

"Right this way," Zecora said, noting to herself that either Vinyl wasn't Awake or was trying something new. Reaching for the potion, Zecora gave it to the unicorn. "Bath in this and you will be fine, for this date you have the mare will not be blind."

"Thanks!" Vinyl said, pocketing the potion and dropping a sack of bits at her hoofs. "Later!"

Zecora closed her door again after watching the unicorn leave, and went back to her lunch only for someone to knock again. While she wasn't opposed to visitors, this was getting a bit sil-

She froze on the spot, seeing a massive long of ponies and other species, all looking eagerly at her. The pony at the front of the line, one Blueblood using the disguise skills of his aunt, began to open his mouth when Zecora placed a hoof into his mouth to shush him. Turning around, she saw that somepony had placed a sign above her door saying that she had a potion for any ailment for a proper price.

Turning back to her line of customers, Zecora knew two things; one, she was in for a long haul with this little prank and two, she was not going to get to her lunch anytime soon. Turning to face Blueblood, she inquired a bit loudly if he was hear for his usual horn growth potions to the chuckle of the crowd behind him.








199.10 (Awesomedude17)

"Avocados. You're now part of the Avocado family." Shining Armor flatly said.

"Eeyup." AJ replied.

"So I guess avocado's a fruit."

"Yeah, but we've done vegetables before too."

"Okay. Well, I'll be seeing you. Got to talk to Twilight to say something about my wedding."

"Salutations."





199.8 concluded




"...really cool thing about it is that their stings are chemically opposed," the unicorn said, her horn glowing faintly, as a bee hovered just over the wasp on her shoulder. "Which is why you need to use different remedies to cure the effects."

"Oh, really?" Fluttershy asked, looking closer, and gently petted the bee on the fuzz. "Is that like how you have bombardier beetles using a chemical mixture to create their sprays?"

"No, it's a different reaction," said Skitter Spell. "They create a mixture which heats up to boiling point because of hydrogen peroxide."

The pegasus nodded slowly. "Maybe that would be useful for helping sterilize wounds - only in emergencies, of course," she added. "But most of the time it's better to just do the safer option and use the iodine."

"A friend of mine could put together some insects which secreted iodine," Skitter Spell mused. "That would be kind of cool, actually."

"What about really big butterflies?" Fluttershy asked. "I think it'd be nice to have a pet butterfly..."

She yawned. "Oh - oh, sorry," the pegasus winced. "I've kept you up all night..."

"Have you?" Skitter asked, then looked up at the thousands of fireflies providing them with a gentle yellow light. "Oh, yeah... you're right, we did lose track of time."

Turning around, she caught sight of her dragon companion. "Hey, Spike?"

Spike snorted, then woke up. "Zu-waa?" he asked. "What is it, Skits?"

"You know astronomy, right?" Skitter said. "How long until dawn?"

Spike looked up, and did a double-take. "Uh..."

"What?"

"Where did the Mare in the Moon go?"

"Tremble in fear!" came a faint voice, carried by the wind from Ponyville several miles away. "The night shall last forever!"

Skitter rolled her eyes. "Right, forgot. Evil god."

Her horn glowed a little brighter, and she began to gather her Swarm.

"Skits?" Spike said. "Is this going to be like when you got your cutie mark? Half of Canterlot still has nightmares about the Bugpocalypse."

"Of course it isn't, Spike," Skitter assured the little dragon. "This time I've got lots more bugs."

He did not seem to be particularly set at ease.  











199.11 (Awesomedude17) (Winx Club x My Little Pony)

"This is a thing?" Nabu asked.

"Yeppers." Pinkie Pie confirmed.

"I never would've thought that someone would willingly mix cheese and caramel popcorn."

"Me neither, but some people in Chicago thought 'let's do it' and mixed them together."

"Weird."

"Eh. So, want to try it?"

"Why not?"





"-and that's why I devoted an entire wing of my Pocket solely to Chicago-style popcorn." Nabu finished his story to everyone.

"Well, considering Pinkie's involved, I'm not surprised at all." Aisha stared at the literal factory making popcorn in Nabu's Pocket.




199.13 (Detective Ethan Redfield)

(Danganronpa x MLP)

Naegi wasn't really surprised he ended up in...yet again...another killing classroom. It didn't even surprise Naegi that he ended up in one in Equestria as a Unicorn. The victim this time was Santa.Santa being one of those forced to participate was odd for sure, but the Ultimate Hope Student wasn't phased by it. He could easily land with the Ultimate Alien, Dimension Hopper, AI, or Hyper Intelligent Animal.

Thankfully, he wasn't the only one having to deal with this. Twilight was one podium over, staring in annoyance at Princess Celestia. She looked down and continued scribbling away at her scroll, probably something to do with the inaccuracies in this living toy.

"I had a sword fight with Santa!" 

The statement cut through the air like a hot knife through butter. All chatting (and in Twilight's case, scribbling) faded as room collectively asked, "What?!"

Apparently, it was the reason for a wound on one of the pegasus' side. Naegi rubbed his hoof against his horn. Looks like he was in for another weird trial.





#1914 (Evilhumour)

"I blame you for this, Twilight," Candy Cane muttered darkly to his companion as he was without an aide for the moment.

"How was I to know-" Twilight began before the commissar pony glared at her and she fell silent. "Okay, I should have known she'd be interested in him due to his abilities but I didn't tell her to go date him!"

The hero of Equestria simply glowered and grumbled unhappily at the two ponies on a picnic date, pawing the ground before letting out a snort. "If anything happens to Scavenger because Starlight Glimmer, we will have words." He then turned and stormed away, leaving his faithful aide alone with the love struck mare.





199.15 (Vinylshadow)

Twilight Sparkle Woke up standing in Town Hall.

A quick glance through her memories made her sigh; it was a Daybreaker Loop, with Celestia sealed in the moon rather than her sister.

Why the moon, she surmised it was so that she wouldn't have access to a giant flaming ball of plasma with which to feed off of for a thousand years.

Shaking her head, she watched as thick black smoke appeared, shortly followed by the mare herself.

"Muahaha!" The flaming alicorn stared out over the sea of terrified faces before noticing one bored expression.

"You there," she called, pointing her hoof at Twilight. "Why do you not cower before your queen?"

Twilight yawned. "Because I already know who you are."

Daybreaker blinked. "You...you do? Even after a thousand years?"

Twilight nodded.

Daybreaker narrowed her eyes. "Recite my titles. All of them."

Twilight blinked before staring at the other ponies, most of whom now looked confused.

"All of them?"

"ALL OF THEM." 

Twilight pulled out a massive book and leafed through it. Reaching a specific page, she cleared her throat.

"Her Royal Majesty, High Queen of Equestria, Brilliant Leader, Glorious Radiance..."





"Popcorn! Get yer popcorn here!" Spike called as Twilight droned on.





"Coffee! Extra-strength coffee!" Pinkie called. Most of the audience had fallen asleep and even Daybreaker appeared to have nodded off as well.





"-Nightmare Star Corona Daybreaker," Twilight finished.

Daybreaker jerked awake with a snort, shaking her head.

"Yes! It is I, the High Queen of Equestria, Brilliant Leader-ackthpt!"

Twilight squirted her with a water bottle. "Absolutely not. We are not wasting another six hours with that again."

"Fool! You dare talk back to me?!" Daybreaker snarled.

Twilight smacked her with the Destupidinator Stick she had picked up from Doctor Doofenshmirtz a long time ago. It also had the handy side effect of purifying corruption.

Celestia blinked and shook her head. "Goodness me, what happened? I'm feeling awfully Loopy at the moment."

"You went through a rather wonky stint as Daybreaker," Twilight said. "Your titles took a good six hours to list."

Celestia grimaced. "You still have the ETTIATDTCISAS?"

"Evil Things Twilight Is Allowed To Do To Celestia If She's Acting Stupid list? Yes. Why?"

"Add that to the list, if you please. I don't want anyone else to suffer through that. Maybe smack me with a cod or carp."

Twilight stared at her. "You...want me to hit you with a fish?"

"Yes. Maybe say something like "By the cods above, stop being stupid" or "Carp diem, viva la revolucion."

Celestia ducked under the initial squirt of Twilight's bottle and then fled with the enraged mare hot on her heels.





199.16 (LadyStina2)

Celestia looked around the back of Ponyville’s stage worriedly. Her sister’s imprisonment ended several moments ago, announced by the disappearance of the Mare on the Moon. Yet Luna’s corrupted form had still not made an appearance to take revenge upon her. The longer Nightmare Moon took, the greater the chance of a battle between them injuring bystanders. The murmuring of the crowd on the other side of the curtains was getting louder so the crowd was surely larger. And it was nearly time for her to make her appearance and raise the sun.

But where was Nightmare Moon?

Ponyville’s mayor began her introductory speech and Celestia glanced out a window for yet another look at the moon. The face that had graced it for centuries was still missing.

“…. the good, the wise, the bringer of harmony to all of Equestria...Princess Celestia!” the mayor finished just as the curtain started to rise and a lovely bird choir started singing. Celestia glanced around once more for her missing sister before putting on a smile and stepping onto the stage.

She spotted Twilight, her student, and Spike standing with a small herd of ponies whom obviously stopped chatting to watch the stage. It looks like Twilight was able to make friends just as quickly as Celestia hoped she would. Celestia felt her smile brighten at the thought as she started her not-very-well-at-all prepared speech. She hadn’t expected to need it, honestly.

“Greetings, my little ponies, and thanks for the warm Ponyville welcome. I w–“

“MOOOoooOOOM!!!” a filly’s yelling voice interrupted her speech. The yell was followed by a white unicorn with a light purple and pink curly mane running towards the stage. Suddenly the unicorn filly jumped into the air, fluttered her wings and landed on the stage next to Celestia.

Before she could figure out what was wrong with that thought the filly looked up at her and whined, “Mom! Vinyl said I could stay up late and enjoy the party after you raise the sun, but Rarity won’t let me and is trying to make me go to bed!”

Before Celestia could ask who Vinyl or Rarity are, or even why this young alicorn filly was calling her ‘Mom,’ another voice interrupted causing the young filly to squeak and hide under one of Celestia’s wings.

“Sweetie Belle! You know you’re not supposed to bother Mother while she’s working!” a white alicorn mare with a curled purple mane flew in, chasing the filly. She looked up at Celestia and apologized, “I’m so sorry, Mother! Vinyl let her have extra sweets and got her all riled up. I’ll take her home and put her to bed.”

“But Rarity! Nyx gets to stay up! And Vinyl said I could! Mom!!” the young filly, Sweetie Belle(?), complained.

“How Auntie Luna raises our cousin doesn’t mean that your bedtime changes,” Rarity insisted.

“But-“ Sweetie Belle started but was interrupted by another voice.

“Chill out, Rares. I told the tyke she could stay up,” yet another white alicorn entered the assembly hall. This one had a bright blue mane and sunglasses.

The purple-maned alicorn replied through gritted teeth, “Yes, Vinyl. I know. That is precisely why we’re in this position. And why we’re interrupting Mother’s ceremony.”

“Oh. Hey, Mom,” the blue-maned alicorn greeted her with a nod of her head.

“GIRLS!” a loud and familiar voice yelled from the doorway. The familiar voice was matched with a familiar pony. This alicorn was navy blue with a starry mane waving in a non-existent breeze. “What have we told you about family squabbles in public? Now all three of you leave your mother alone and come with me.”

“Yes, Auntie Luna,” the three white alicorns replied grumpily and walked towards an uncorrupted Luna.

“I swear, Tia, I don’t know how you put up with three. Mine can be a hoof-full and I only have the one!” Luna commented towards her in a friendly, teasing tone Celestia never thought she’d hear again. At her comment, a small, black alicorn filly with a dark purple mane looked out from behind Luna and waved at Celestia, then at Twilight Sparkle. Surprisingly, Twilight returned the wave with a warm smile.

Luna continued apologetically, “I’m sorry we interrupted your ceremony, Tia. I’m afraid it was my fault. I assumed Sweetie Belle was old enough to stay up and informed Vinyl Scratch. Then Rarity disagreed because of Sweetie losing sleep this week due to her lessons. And they got away from me. We’ll just get out of your mane and see you later at the celebration. Let’s go, girls.” Luna led the small alicorn parade out of the meeting hall.

Celestia just continued to stare at the door they all exited through and blinked in confusion. The crowd noise got louder as everypony muttered to each other. With the exception of one sky-blue pegasus laying on her back silently laughing. But looking again, she was only silent due to being inside a magic bubble of Twilight’s.

Ignoring that, Celestia looked around for a mirror or some portal that she might have stepped through accidentally. Because last she checked, she didn’t have three alicorn daughters and Luna didn’t have one either. Oh, and Luna wasn’t corrupted anymore.

The crowd’s murmuring had gotten louder the longer she was silent. Drawing on her centuries of experience, she pushed her confusion to the side to deal with it in a moment and put on a regal expression.

“Sorry about the interruption,” she spoke to the crowd which promptly quieted down. “I look forward to celebrating the Summer Sun Celebration with everypony in Ponyville!” She smiled and closed her eyes. She lit her horn, let her magic lift her into the air, and raised the sun. When cheers met her, she allowed herself to drift back down to the stage, open her eyes and smiled.

“Now, I believe there’s a celebration to get started. If you’ll excuse me,” Celestia said to the crowd. She needed to see Luna! It had been a thousand years after all. Then she could hopefully find out where those other alicorns came from.

“You heard the Princess! It’s time to PARTY!!” a high-pitched voice said excitedly as Celestia started to power up a teleport spell. Then there was a loud ‘FWEEE!’ sound before confetti rained down on everypony. This only elicited cheers from the crowd as they started to make their way outside where the festival was starting.

Celestia teleported outside and quickly found the small alicorn herd talking amicably amongst themselves. Including the two fillies. Apparently the bedtime issue had been taken care of. She walked to the group as quickly as she could without calling additional attention to herself.

“Sorry, Mom,” two of the white alicorns chorused once she got within earshot with the other one saying, “Sorry, Mother.”

Celestia barely heard them, however, as she fixated on her sister before enveloping her in a tight hug. She felt tears slide down her muzzle as she confessed, “I missed you SO much, Lulu! I’m so sorry!”

Luna patted her on the back and asked with a puzzled tone of voice, “For… for asking me to foal-sit? It’s really no problem, Tia. Branches knows that I’ve asked you several times to watch Nyxie while I take care of business. Although I did expect Rarity and Vinyl to behave themselves. They are grown mares now, after all.”

Celestia broke the hug and stared into Luna’s puzzled face. Then she glanced at her supposed-daughters and niece. “Luna…” she said slowly. “I think we need to go somewhere and talk. Something has happened and I’m not quite sure what.”

“Oh, hey, Mom. Before you do that, Sunset sent you a message. Thought you might like to read it before the festival gets rockin',” Vinyl offered a vibrating book to Celestia. She had never expected it to vibrate again. Celestia floated the book over to her and opened it to the last page bookmarked.

Dear Princess Celestia,

I am continuing my studies on these humans and their technology from beyond the mirror. I believe that my research into computers, internal combustion engines, and icing structures will go a long way to further Equestria.

I am pleased to inform you that I am still successful in integrating myself into human society. Although I still appear a teenager by their standards, being enrolled in their school has allowed me to be immersed in their society and opens all sorts of avenues for research.

I do miss having hooves and magic though, and am looking forward to the portal reopening so I can finally return home.

Your Faithful Student,

Sunset Shimmer

Celestia quickly re-read the passage before glancing up and seeing her ‘daughters’ surrounding her. She looked back down and flipped a few pages back. Everything pointed to Sunset keeping contact with her while researching what was on the other side of the mirror. With no anger or hard feelings.

She lowered the book and said seriously, “Yes. I think we need to talk. Immediately.”

Luna nodded, sensing the seriousness in Celestia’s tone. “Ok, sister. Vin… err Rarity, please watch the others while we step away.”

“Hey!” Vinyl protested while Rarity quickly stuck out her tongue at her. “I’m the oldest!”

“Doesn’t mean you’re responsible,” Rarity chided and flipped her hair.

“But I like when Vinyl’s in charge,” Sweetie protested.

The three continued to argue amongst themselves like only family could as the two diarchs stepped away. Luna cast a spell that surrounded the two in a dark blue bubble and asked, “What is the problem, Celestia?”

“I’m not quite sure, Luna,” Celestia confessed. “I honestly don’t have any memory of having foals, much less having raised those three over there. Nor of having a niece. No offense intended, but my memories clearly say that you turned evil a thousand years ago and called yourself Nightmare Moon. And I was forced to use the Elements of Harmony to banish you to the moon where your silhouette has been for a thousand years. The banishment was supposed to break today, and I was honestly expecting to do battle with Nightmare Moon. Even the correspondence with Sunset Shimmer is different than I remember! I’m beginning to wonder if I didn’t step into an alternate Equestria…”

Instead of Luna expressing concern, she smiled broadly and cheered, “Huzzah! One moment dear sister. I must send a signal to inform Rainbow Dash that she has lost our wager. Then we shall explain.” Luna’s horn lit up and a small surge of magic exploded into light above them.

“Wager? What are you talking about, Luna? I just expressed some serious concerns to you. Either somepony has managed to mess with my memories or your Celestia is being unexpectedly attacked by Nightmare Moon!” Celestia said desperately.

“Not to worry, sister,” Luna replied calmly. “There is a third option which is much more benign. It can be summed up with the word, ‘Gotcha!’” Luna then reached up and booped her nose.

“Gotcha?” Celestia repeated blankly. “It’s… This is a prank?” She glanced at the alicorns outside their bubble who were starting to walk away and then back at her sister. “How?” she asked.

“Let’s retire to the local library and we’ll tell you,” Luna said cryptically while lighting her horn. A second later they appeared in a wooden building surrounded by books. And Twilight Sparkle, Spike, and a couple other mares she didn’t recognize.

“Hello, Twilight. I see you made some friends,” Celestia greeted her student in all the confusion.

Twilight smiled sheepishly and replied, “A few. This here is Applejack and the pegasus perched on the bookshelf is Rainbow Dash.” Applejack tipped her cowpony hat and Rainbow Dash waved as they were introduced.

“Ah, Rainbow!” Luna interrupted. “I believe I won our wager. Celestia confided in me immediately that something appeared wrong.”

“Yeah, yeah,” the pegasus waved her hoof and rolled her eyes. “I’ll cover your duties next Loop. Figures. I thought for sure she’d go with it and try to figure out what had happened by herself.”

Twilight shook her head and said chidingly, “Dash, you know that wouldn’t work. By the time they got back to Canterlot everypony would be asking where all the new alicorns came from.”

“You sure about that, Twi? Most of those snooty Canterlotians wouldn’t dare ask just in case they end up looking foolish,” Rainbow Dash countered. Twilight suddenly looked thoughtful.

“We’re here, darlings,” Rarity opened the door and ushered the small herd of alicorns inside. “Sorry for our tardiness, but Pinkie Pie caught us and insisted that we bring this box of cupcakes to our ‘Revealing Your Secrets to Royalty Day Party.’ Dash, Spikey-dear, are you two certain that mare isn’t Awake?” she asked as she set the box of cupcakes on a nearby table.

“Yeah. The only Laughters active are Sweetie and Lyra,” Spike replied as Rainbow Dash flew over to the box.

Sweetie had wondered over to a wall and asked, “Hey. Is this the cord Pinkie said to pull?” Without waiting for an answer she pulled it with her magic and a banner unrolled from the ceiling releasing confetti and streamers. The banner read, “Happy Revealing Your Secrets to Royalty Day!”

Celestia opened her mouth to ask the obvious question, but Twilight shook her head and said, “Don’t ask, Princess. Just trust me on this one and don’t ask.”

“I’ll take your word on that, Twilight,” Celestia conceded. “But I must ask, what is going on? Luna mentioned a prank…”

“Right,” Twilight nodded to herself and started explaining, “You see, time is repeating for several of us…”











Celestia was quiet for a moment after Twilight had finished her explanation. She glanced at Twilight who just resumed her unicorn form after demonstrating that she could ascend at will. She glanced at Spike, whom was snuggled up to Rarity as they fed each other bits of the same cupcake. The others had occupied themselves and chimed in during the explanation as necessary.

The evidence they presented was overwhelming and she couldn’t help but believe them.

She suddenly laughed at the absurdity of it all. “I must say, you got me with that prank, Luna. I have just one question. I believe there was mention of pranking Canterlot. Would my ‘daughters’ be up for it?”

“Ooh! I am!” Sweetie Belle cheered.

“Me too! Can I, Momma?” Nyx asked.

Twilight nodded and answered, “You know I never have a problem with you spending time with Luna.”

The fillies looked at each other and something passed between them because they suddenly yelled, “CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS CANTERLOT CHAPTER! YAY!!” They then clopped their hooves together.

“Oh. We’re doing that again, are we? Yay,” Rarity said dryly before looking towards Celestia and answering, “I wouldn’t mind, Mother. I do so enjoy spending time in Canterlot. We’ll need to spend a little bit of time together today so you can get to know us, of course. And what about you, Vinyl, dear?”

Vinyl shrugged and replied, “It wouldn’t be the first time I was Celestia’s daughter. I’m game.”

Rainbow Dash started cracking up laughing. Everypony stared at her until she could breathe again and she exclaimed, “I love it! We’ve all gotten pretty good at pranks, but Unawake Celestia is about to prank all of Equestria! I love our Loop!”





199.17 (Gym Quirk)




Vinyl Scratch Awoke to watch Trixie and Rainbow Dash going through the preliminaries leading to the "shred-off" for the double-necked guitar yet again.

"Excuse me, darling, but could you pass me that Telecaster with the lovely sunburst maple top?" asked Rarity, gesturing at one of the instruments on the wall behind the sales counter.

Wordlessly, as was her habit when Awake on this side of the portal, Vinyl complied, taking the opportunity to fire off a ping.  None present in the store showed any reaction, and no responding pings were forthcoming.

Rarity's timing was impeccable; Dash and Trixie were poised to begin their contest when the fashionista cut loose with a furious cascade of rapid-fire high-distortion notes.

This went on for nearly a minute before concluding in a wall of feedback that faded into stunned silence.

"Thank you, dear," said Rarity as she handed the instrument back.  "I needed to get that out of my system.  Sorry to interrupt, you two.  Please proceed with your competition."

As they watched her walk toward the keyboards department, Fluttershy asked the others, "Um… Does anyone else want to how she did that without an amp?"

Vinyl considered the similarly unplugged Dash and Trixie.  Same way those two were going to, she decided.





#199.18 (Scorntex)

Twilight Sparkle sighed.

She had a plan, obviously. A pony and Looper of her calibre and intelligence did not get to where they were without having some sort of plan.

Frankly, she had been expecting the situation, or one like it, to happen sooner or later. She was actually surprised it had taken as long as it had to happen.

She was vaguely certain that back when the thought had first come to her, Rainbow Dash had been the top choice for causing exactly this kind of mess. That was how long she'd been waiting for the situation to happen.

But the situation was still enough that she had to get the sigh out before getting to work. It saved time. And she did also really want to sigh.

She took a glance across the room, where a large and it had to be said angry-looking bipedal tree-form glowered toward her, mighty oaken knuckles clenched. Then she looked back at Spike, who was trying to look as calm as he could manage.

"Now," she began carefully, "ambassador... my associate is perfectly willing to apologise for his unfortunate slight to your ruler."

The towering tree-form's expression remained unchanged.

"I am Groot." It rumbled darkly.

That, Twilight thought, was not a good start. And given the information packet she'd already received, detailing the exact nature of Planet X, she hadn't been expecting a great start to begin with.

And all because Spike had maybe accidentally forgotten not to swear by trees in front of the rulers of Planet X, who had already been more than a little tetchy at the presence of a group of mammals (whom they didn't like), never mind a dragon (whom, being as they were trees, they were not exactly great fans of either).

The ambassador pointed angrily at Spike. "I am Groot." It declared.

No, Twilight thought, this wasn't a good start at all. It probably wasn't going to get much better, either.





#199.19 (Evilhumour)

[Admin]

"I'm going to get my parents back!?" Rainbow Dash shouted at as Sleipnir broke the news to Twilight and the girls, with the Apple family already celebrating the fact they'd finally get some hard data on their parents Bright Mac and Pear Butter.

"Yes...sorta of," the Admin said weakly. "I just got some data pop up over and over again, and it seems that Windy Whistles and Bow Hot Hoof are your baseline parents but that's just it, names. Once I get some more hard information, I will tell you, I promise."





#199.20 (Evilhumour, Vinylshadow)

"You know Twilight will kill us for doing this, right?" a female voice grumbled softly enough to tell people that she was not as reluctant as she appeared to be.

"No she won't, she'll just enjoy a nice prank once it's done," another voice said softly before the owner to face the sole stallion of the room. "You don't mind this?"

"Nah, you know me sis, I'd do anything to help you," the stallion said with a grin on his face as he leered at the first person who spoke.

"We're ready too," a set of younger voices chimed in and with that, their prank was ready.





Twilight Sparkle liked to think herself as somepony who had seen enough to not be surprised anymore, or at least enough not to be struck dumb.

However, there are events for those even as experienced as Twilight was that can still stun them, still shock them, still leave them speechless.

"I love you too, Zephy," Rainbow Dash cooed at Fluttershy's younger brother, both of the pegasi walking side by side, both as happy and in love as could be, seemingly not noticing Twilight open and close her jaw repeatedly as she watched walk past. The Cutie Mark Crusaders also seemed to be in a relationship this Loop, with what Nyx and Lemon had told her...

"Heya Twilight!" Pinkie Pie said as she hopped over. "I guess with those two dating, we're finally one big happy family or as soon as Zephy pops the question! Aren't you happy sis?" She continued to smile, even though Twilight did not respond to either what Pinkie said or the hug the earth pony gave before leavin, still in shock.

Later that evening, Applejack, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie and Rarirty did  start to worry when they learned that Twilight had not moved from the spot where Pinkie left her that morning and not even someone towing her tree away got a response out of her.

"I think we've might have over done it," Flluttershy admitted with a slight gulp. "Any ideas in how to fix her?"

Twilight chose that moment to walk around the corner, looking around with a grumpy look on her face.

"Has anyone seen my robot duplicate? It got out of the lab again and - why are you staring at me like that?"

Applejack did a double-take, looking between the two Twilights.

Rainbow Dash's eyebrow had developed a nasty twitch.

"You mean...I romanced Zephyr...for a duplicate? That was too stupid to comprehend the time and effort I had to put into making it look realistic?!"

Twilight stared at her for a moment before using her magic to open up the robot's casing to manipulate its innards.

"Sorry about that. I'm sure I'd have been legitimately impressed had I been there to see it. Ah, the memory recording device developed a feedback loop and caused a system crash. Thought I fixed that problem ages ago."

"Huh...robots. Nobody ever e-" Rarity started to say.

"NOBODY EXPECTS THE ROBOT PONY INQUISITION!" the robot Twilight barked before doing cartwheels out of sight.

"...Should've seen that coming," Rarity grumbled.





#199.21 (Evilhumour)

Twilight let out a sigh as her latest book fortress collapsed due to mom and dad not having thick enough novels that she could use for building material and not because how badly she did at her exam today at the princess's school for talented unicorns.

Wiping away the tears again, she still didn't believe mom or dad when they said the instructors were impressed; she had been asked to hatch that egg and failed to hatch it. Not even gettting her cutie mark, which she did, or seeing that sonic rainboom made her feel good as they were attached to the fact she failed her test. She knew she would never get into the princess's school now, that she would end wind up on the streets and -

Knock knock

And there was somepony knocking on her window. Tilting her head as she didn't know any pegasi or have any pegasus friends, she trotted over to the window and opened it, asking, "Hello?"

"Hello there, Twilight, may I come in?" it was a grown up mare that was clearly trying to mask her voice, with her purple horn pushing the window open and it was the princess!

Instantly bowing before her leader, the alicorn landed into her room with a soft trot. "There's no need to bow, Twilight," the princess chirped playfully, forgetting to mask her voice...which sounded very familiar. "So I heard what happened at your test today."

"Yes princes whaaa," Twilight's mind jumped the rail as she saw that the princess looked exactly like her, only a lot older and an alicorn.

"Is something the matter?" Princess her asked, blinking in confusion.

"You're me!"

"No I'm not," Princess her said with her eyes shifting around. "I am princess-oh tree bark, I knew I forgot something," Princess her facehoofed before muttering into her hoof. "It's just a disguise spell Twilight; you mastered this eons ago..." She then remembered she had a guest, namely her...herself? "Um, I can explain this, I swe-"

"Are you me from the future?" Twilight asked princess her, which the alicorn to blink before she started to smile an odd smile. It looked like she was sad but happy at the same time.

"In a way, yes," Future-Princess her said, draping a wing over sides. "I was where you are once and I can promise you, in a few years, you will meet five wonderful ponies who will help you discover the most powerful magic ever."

Twilight gasped at this fact. "What kind of magic?" she asked Future-Princess her.

"The magic of friendship," her future-princess said it with a chuckle and tear running down her face. "With those ponies and the friendship you will have with them, you will wind up doing phenomenal acts of wonder, saving so many people, changing the world for the better with your adventures and so much more. Trust me, I know."

"You promise?" Twilight asked Future-Princess her.

"Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye," the mare said doing very silly gestures before leaning down to kiss her head. "That is one of the most serious promises a pony can make and if you break it, it's a surefire way to lose a friendship."

Twilight blinked at that with new tears running down her face, at the fact somepony was calling her friend. "We're friends?" she asked, suddenly very tired.

"Of course Twilight," the alicorn said, wrapping a wing around her before standing up and tucking her into her bed. "Goodnight Twilight."

With a yawn, the filly looked at her future self and marveled at what she to become one day. Before she fell asleep, she said, "Goodnight Twilight."





#199.22 (Evilhumour)

"You need to go to sleep," Luna said to the mare.

"No, I am almost done!" Vinyl shouted, waving the alicorn away.

"Vinyl, you are about to create a song that creates chaos magic for Discord's birthday and he is unAwake!" Luna shouted. "Does that sound smart to you?"

"No smarter than creating a song that destroys every cake in existence," she muttered under her breath.

"WHATWASTHAT!?" a voice boomed out from the sky.

"Oh great, now Tia is coming after-oh now you fall asleep!"





#199.23 (Evilhumour)

"How did this happen sister? Sisters?" Luna asked Celestia the earth pony, Celestia the pegasus and Celestia the unicorn, all having the same cutiemark and pink mane. She knew her sister was an alicorn this morning when she Woke up.

"That is neither here nor there," Celestia the unicorn said.

"What is the matter is attending to our ponies," Celestia the pegasus continued.

"And we cannot do that as a trio," Celestia the earth pony finished. "So while we work to fix on this issue, we will entrust you with the day court."

"...this isn't an excuse to eat cake all day between the three of you, reform and suffer no consequences?" Luna asked with her ears pointed downward. All of her sisters began to squawk and protest this loudly, looking offended. "Good, because we are out of cake today." With that, Luna trotted off with her sister letting out a loud whine.





#199.24 (Vinylshadow, Evilhumour)

Celestia the unicorn, Celestia the pegasus and Celestia the earth pony all stared at one another.

"There's three of us..." the unicorn said.

"And that means..." the pegasus said eagerly.

"Three times more cake!" the earth pony cheered.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Luna, in her complete Alicorn glory, said in a sing-song voice.

The three sides of Celestia tilted their heads in unison.

"Three times the calories once you fuse back together, which means three times the exercise," Luna said with a grin.

The three ponies pouted forlornly.

"We're never gonna survive this Loop," Earth Pony said.

"I hope this isn't gonna be a common Variant," Pegasus sighed.

"Fine, let's go..." Unicorn turned green. "...Eat healthy."

The other two groaned loudly.

"Wait a tic, I'm an earth pony, I can eat a lot more and store it in magic!" Earth Pony said with a happy grin on her face.

"And I am a pegasus, I can just do sonic rainbooms to burn off the calories!" Pegasus said, hoof bumping Earth Pony.

"And I, as a unicorn, can magic away calories!" Unicorn giggled a bit madly to herself.

"That's...not how things work," Earth Pony said, blinking slowly.

"I'm magic, I don't have to explain stuff!" Unicorn said while summoning a cake and began to fill her mouth.