Once the curiosity of the Ponyville crowd had been satisfied, most of the ponies had dispersed to go about their normal business. Besides Trixie, that just left Big Mac, Shining Armor, and Cadance who had arrived right before I started my tale. Let me tell you that the Princess of Love is drop-dead gorgeous in anthro form. Not that I was paying particular attention to her right now as Trixie had flipped from being worried that her husband had become a feral pony, to being delighted to cuddle one. She was constantly stroking my fur and running her fingers through my mane, sending shivers of pleasure through me. Then there was the thing that she did by rubbing the heels of her palm on my withers that put anything that Aloe and Lotus could do to shame. It felt even better than being brushed! But best of all, my head was cradled on her ample chest while she was doing all of that. The goofy smile on my face caused Twilight to look at me funny, but a pony born and bred simply cannot understand the joy of boobs. Besides, she was having her own issues.
Big Mac had finished his chores for the day and took it upon himself to help Twilight relax by giving her a good rubdown. Every time she protested that her wings were too sensitive to be stroked, he would boop her on the nose with an index finger. After some confused blinking, she’d say “What just happened?” then go back to telling our story. I giggled every time – our Princess of Friendship had a built-in reset button. Shining tried to do the same to his wife but she quickly put an end to that with a sharp elbow.
After the recap, we were discussing ways of dealing with Starlight Glimmer. By now it was obvious that the unicorn was maintaining both a levitation spell and an invisibility spell when we arrived in the past, only dropping the latter when she was ready to make her move on Rainbow Dash. She was apparently moving at random so that we could not guess where she would be when she was forced to drop the mana-intensive invisibility spell to charge up for casting her attack.
Trixie spoke up. “So, you two need a foolproof way to surprise this Starlight Glimmer, correct? Have you forgotten Trixie’s Fourth Law of Showponyship?”
I blinked. That was new. Time to make a good guess. “Scout out at least two paths of escape?”
The blue mare frowned while Cadance and Shining Armor got in a good chuckle at her expense. I earned myself a stern rap on the top of my head for my remark. “No. I am referring to the written rules. ‘Establish an expectation in your audience then break it to bring the house down’.”
Trixie continued, “Why don’t you use the same tactics against her?”
“What do you mean?” Twilight asked.
“Invisibility is a two-edged weapon.”
“But if I use it to turn invisible, Starlight will realize what I’m up to and be even more cautious.”
Trixie gave her a knowing smirk. “Not if you misdirect her. Cast it on Mark instead before you go back to the past. Then, when you arrive, don’t bother trying to hunt Starlight. Put on an act and pretend that you’re crying. Your motivation is that you’ve lost Mark to whatever horrible future you just left. Wail and curse Starlight for causing Mark’s death. Meanwhile, Mark is scouting around for Starlight. You might not find her the first time, or the second or third, but eventually, she will appear close enough for Mark to make his move.”
Shining Armor nodded and looked at his sister. “That’s a sound strategy. As long as Starlight thinks that Mark has been eliminated, she will only be on guard against the visible threat. Unconsciously, Starlight will allow herself to be exposed to anypony behind her as long as she sees you in front, Twily.”
Twilight looked thoughtful. “That… could work.”
Trixie looked smug. “Of course it will! Misdirection is key to stage magic, and the Great and Powerful Trixie is the best there is!”
I said, “Let’s do it, Twi. It’s better than anything we’ve come up with up until now. Let’s also switch saddlebags. If Starlight is paying attention, that will be more evidence that I’m gone.” A virtual lightbulb went off in my head. “Hey! Even better. Let’s put your saddlebags inside of mine.”
Twilight’s eyes went wide and her head jerked back. She gave me one of those, “You’re kidding, right? ’Cause it’s not funny” laughs. “Mark, that converts the stored mass directly into energy. I really, really don’t want to reduce Ponyville to debris no larger than a toothpick.”
My ears flattened. Maybe not such a brilliant idea. That also explained why I didn’t see bags with this spell commonly in use across Equestria.
Twilight said, “We should switch saddlebags though. That’s a good suggestion. It will be safer for Nyx, too.” She turned back to Trixie and grimaced. “I’m not really much of an actor though.”
Trixie released her embrace of me, making me pout. She got up and approached the alicorn. “Come with Trixie, Princess. We are going to make the perfect stage assistant out of you.”
She started leading Twilight away and I jumped off the table to follow. Shining and Cadance walked on either side of me – the mare’s delicate fingers tousling my mane with occasional light scratches from her nails sending delightful tremors down my back.
Oh, hell yeah! Even if the acting lessons weren’t entertaining, I wasn’t going to complain either way.
Our ruse was put in motion when we returned to Cloudsdale, and while I don’t think Twilight would ever win any acting awards, I reckoned it was convincing enough.
I quickly understood the limitations of my invisible form. I could not get too close to clouds for fear of disturbing them with my wingbeats. I couldn’t fly too quickly for the same reason. I had to avoid all the other flyers and try to keep Twilight in view as much as possible so we would not be duplicating our searches. Add to that Starlight’s ability to stop a speeding Rainbow Dash in midair from even a mile away, and I had a huge bubble of space to survey. The only advantages I had were that Starlight had never returned to the same location twice and that she more often than not appeared somewhere roughly on the opposite side of where Twilight or I had been at the time she launched her spell at Rainbow Dash.
As Trixie had predicted, I was nowhere near Starlight when she made her appearance. Hopefully, she wasn’t fully on the alert for anyone besides the tear-stained alicorn who was scanning the skies for her. No matter – I was counting on the odds eventually catching up to Starlight and she would get careless – or I would get lucky.
When we landed in whatever alternate future the portal had taken us to this time, the invisibility spell had failed. Twilight had warned me that the temporal vortex could destabilize it, and apparently, it couldn’t survive a second trip. It would have to be re-cast. Hopefully I wouldn’t need it for the moment. At least I retained my pegacorn form. Looking about, it was immediately obvious that this was not the Ponyville that we knew. There were very few houses of the type that ponies would use. Instead, towering structures with perches dominated the landscape, several of them occupied by griffons. There were a few ponies about but they were all wearing collars and chains. I only had a moment to observe this because my attention was immediately drawn by a gruff screech from my left.
“Halt, ponies! You are under arrest!”
Twilight and I immediately shifted to defensive mode, powering up our horns. The source of the command proved to be a huge griffon warrior in full armor standing nearby. He had leveled a sword in our direction.
Twilight said, “What is the meaning of this? We have done nothing wrong.”
The griffon looked at us as if we were crazy. “No slaves may travel without their bonds and in the presence of their masters. That is the law of the Griffonian Protectorate of Equestria. Now – get down from that table and present your necks or forfeit your lives for your crimes!”
I glanced at Twilight who seemed to be thinking the same thing as me – we had big trouble! It appeared that this world had been conquered by the griffons and we faced either slavery or death. Then again, he didn’t know us too well.
“No, thanks,” I replied. “We’ve got better things to do today.”
I had to hand it to the warrior – he didn’t hesitate or try to threaten us more. No, he went straight into a murderous rage. Fortunately, Twilight was on the job and the griffon bounced off her protective shield. I tensed my body but held my power in reserve as I knew no mere physical attack was going to get through her defenses in a hurry.
The warrior backed off and glared at us for a long moment before letting off a series of screeches. Answering calls came from the village and soon after, a squad of griffons flew in to land beside the warrior. One of them had fancier armor and looked to be in charge, an assessment that he quickly confirmed.
“Report, Ripclaw!” he commanded while keeping his eyes on us.
“Sir! These two ponies fell from the sky moments ago and landed on the artifact that I am assigned to watch. Said ponies refused to comply with my orders, upon which I attempted to kill them as per standard procedure. The shield that you now see prevented me from carrying out my duties.”
The commander nodded and turned to a female griffon in his squad. “Return to base and requisition the spell-breaker.”
“Yes, sir!”
A spell-breaker? That sounded very bad for us. These were an enemy that had conquered a nation of magical ponies and obviously had some form of means of dealing with unicorns. I didn’t hesitate to zap that griffoness with a stun spell before she had flown more than a few yards.
“Scatter and shield!” ordered the squad leader. “Ripclaw – get the spell-breaker!”
The warriors spread out, each activating an energy shield on their left foreleg in front of them which fanned out to nearly the height of a griffon. Ripclaw took off and flew towards Ponyville, also raising a shield which he kept between me and him. I fired a burst at him anyway, but his barrier easily withstood the attack. I had to up the ante. I’d only stunned the griffoness because we just needed to buy time before leaving this world, but we might not get that chance if the griffons brought a weapon that could neutralize our magic.
“Sorry about this bud, but you leave me no choice,” I murmured.
I gave him my power shot. The might of my unrestrained mana release was capable of burning through any magic barrier within the three seconds it lasted before I was exhausted. It only needed one. Then there was a jagged hole in the shield and a similar one through the chest of the shocked griffon behind it. He fell to the ground and lay unmoving. I hadn’t intended to kill him – I had seriously overestimated the shield’s capabilities and used too much power in my haste. Unfortunately, the squad commander took advantage of my distress and hesitation to pull off a tactical retreat. As they spiraled away from us, I recovered quickly enough to try stunning more griffons with Twilight’s help, but the lighter spells were ineffective against the shields. They would certainly be back though and with overwhelming force next time. My hooves were shaking; I didn’t know if it was from adrenaline or from what I had just done. I turned to look at Twilight and her facial expression was ashen.
“Twi – I didn’t mean to kill Ripclaw—”
She held up a hoof to stop me and she shook her head. “Don’t, Mark. I know. I hate it but I understand. I may be the Princess of Friendship, but Princess Celestia taught me what happened in Equestria’s past when friendship failed. I had hoped to never see it occur again after Tirek, and I regret that this had to happen to you. Neither of us are warriors, but we are fighting a battle anyway.”
“I’m going to need a lot of therapy when we get through this.”
“If we get through this. There are still several minutes to go before the map table is fully charged. If the griffons get back here with that spell-breaker of theirs before it’s ready, we could be in huge trouble. If they conquered Equestria, they would have had to defeat Celestia at least, and if they have a weapon effective against alicorns, neither of us are going to be able to hold out against them.”
“Yeah, that’s what I figured before I zapped the griffons. Could we turn invisible and hide outside of town for a while? Then fly back here when we know the map table has recharged?”
Twilight shook her head. “There’s too much risk that the griffons will find a way to move or shield the map table so we can’t get back to it. It’s the logical thing for them to do and we also don’t know their tracking capabilities. They may even have something like the nullstone band but improved to not have its deficiencies.” She looked nervously in the direction that the griffons had fled. “As a last resort, I can teleport us to the Castle of the Two Sisters. Let’s hope that any piece of equipment powerful enough to take down an alicorn isn’t easy or fast to move.”
“Amen to that,” I murmured fervently.
That was the worst wait of my life – even more nerve-wracking than waiting to see if Daybreaker turned up. With a few minutes to go, we both groaned as we spotted a team of four earth ponies pulling a large cart. They were being whipped into great speed and headed in our direction, the spell-breaker undoubtedly their cargo.
“We have to stop them, Twilight.”
“I… I don’t know if I can fire on innocent ponies, Mark.”
“Stun one and the others will be tangled up with him when he falls!”
“I can’t do it!” she wailed.
I gritted my teeth. Twilight might know academically what needed to be done, but she wasn’t really a fighter. As much as I detested it, that was my job. I faced the cart and checked my power level with my fetlock band that I had pulled out of my saddlebags earlier. It was low after my attacks on the squad – once more showing how inferior a souped-up pegacorn was to a real alicorn. It would have to do. I took aim at one of the lead ponies and fired… only to have my beam blocked by a griffon leaping between us with his shield. I cursed myself. I had used too little power because I hadn’t wanted to harm the pony either, and now I had almost depleted myself without achieving anything. My remaining power would not be strong enough to get through their defenses.
Then it occurred to me that I didn’t have to – I only had to stop the cart. But it had to get nearer as my range was limited as yet. I sweated as the cart drew close before casting my levitation spell on a rock by the side of the road. It flew into one of the front wheels, shattering it. The unbalanced load on the cart caused it to lean and the corner without support sank until it dug into the ground, making it twist and then flip. The earth ponies were pulled off their hooves but were unharmed, hopefully. I had to hand it to the griffons – they worked hard to get the spell-breaker off the overturned cart even while Twilight peppered them with stun shots, scoring an occasional hit. It appeared to be some sort of scaffolding about six feet tall that held a battering ram, and it was armored with a material that looked suspiciously like nullstone. An attempt by me to grab it proved my supposition correct as my magic seemed to just slide off. The weapon was on skids and the griffons pushed it towards us in slow but steady progress. A solid layer of griffons and their shields surrounded the device, some flying overhead to protect it from above.
The ram reached Twilight’s barrier and the griffons pulled it back and released it to slam against the magic wall. It shattered, making Twilight stagger. I felt a spike of fear, remembering how breaking my own shield spell had crippled my magic casting ability. True alicorns, it seemed, were made of sterner stuff. Twilight quickly recovered and threw smaller personal shields around the two of us so that we remained safe from more conventional weapons. The ram was too cumbersome to hit us as we moved about the map table, but the griffons could now approach us closely and I had no doubt that they had other weapons at their disposal.
Twilight dropped all her attacks that had been keeping the warriors at bay and focused only on maintaining the shields while casting the invisibility spell on me. I think the griffons thought that I had teleported away because they focused all their efforts on Twilight from then on. They were closing in on her when the alicorn activated the map table. I used the dregs of my magical reserves to protect Twilight’s back before we were both swept up into the vortex once more.
Both Twilight and I were physically, mentally, and magically drained when we were dumped into Cloudsdale. I latched onto a ley line to at least get some of my magic reserves restored. By now, I knew exactly where Rainbow Dash would be every single moment before Starlight interfered in some manner. I put myself in places far away from anywhere Starlight had been before, moving my positions as I followed Rainbow through the sky. Also, I tried to stay on the opposite side of where I knew Twilight would be.
A spell blast coming from over my shoulder hit Rainbow Dash at the starting line. I turned around to see the aftermath of Starlight Glimmer teleporting away from the cloud behind me. As I was pulled towards the time portal, I realized the unicorn hadn’t seen me, but that was a closer call than I would have preferred.
When we returned from the past, Twilight had a multi-purpose shield ready even as we exited the portal and landed on the map table. I changed to my normal stallion form while I built up my power levels again. It wasn’t as fast as tapping a ley line, but I preferred to keep my Marklestia alter ego as a secret weapon if needed. An underpowered, single-shot-at-best secret weapon, but those were the cards I was holding right then, so it would have to be enough. A quick appraising glance around didn’t reveal any threats, so I relaxed a little. From what I could see, this was a fairly normal idyllic day in Ponyville, if there truly was such a thing as ‘normal’ when it came to this town. Ponies were going about their business just like any other day. There were no signs of griffons or any other sapient creature, and there was nothing obviously wrong.
“Looks like we’re safe for the moment, Twi,” I said.
She nodded and powered down her shield. “I think somepony has noticed our arrival though.”
I looked in the direction that she was pointing. A mint-green stallion was headed our way and I heard him calling out to some other pony. His voice sounded oddly familiar although I didn’t recall a male unicorn of that coloration. He trotted up to the table and an earth pony stallion was not far behind. Actually, now that I had a good look, there were far more stallions than mares within view – a highly unusual circumstance for anywhere in this gender-skewed country.
“Mark! Twilight! What happened to you?” the unicorn asked, gaping in shock.
I was about to answer when Twilight spoke up in a puzzled tone.
“Lyra?”
I blinked and looked a little harder at the unicorn. Same golden lyre cutie mark, and his voice was an octave lower than the mare I knew. I looked over to the earth pony stallion approaching – light grey coat, dark grey mane, and a violet treble clef cutie mark. Lyra’s fellow musician, Octavia, if she was male.
The two had started a trend. More and more ponies were being drawn to the activity at the map table while Twilight and I could only stare dumbfounded. A light brown mare with a spiky dark brown mane, an hourglass mark, and wearing a bow tie had to be Doctor Whooves. A grey coated stallion with a blond mane and skewed eyes was the local mail-pony. A large yoke-wearing red mare with an apple cutie mark who ambled up had to be Big Mac. Then a pink alicorn stallion arrived accompanied by a white unicorn mare with two-tone blue mane and tail. Their cutie marks confirmed that these were Cadance and Shining Armor. Right then, I started praying.
“Please, oh please, don’t let there be—” I was interrupted by a distraught blue stallion with a white mane.
“What has happened to Trixie’s beautiful mare?!”
I groaned and face-hoofed. “Why me, God?”
As awkward as the transgendered world was for us, it was nevertheless a safe place to rest and recoup our energy. Naturally, we didn’t want to stay any longer than necessary, but we filled the time by making the usual explanations. If nothing else, Twilight and I were getting very efficient at telling our tale to new versions of our friends. We also were treated to some decent food. One constant in every dimension was that Spike was a great chef—although Twilight had to get used to her little brother now being a sister.
Oh – and I took a couple of photos of Cadance and Shiny. I wanted to find out which would make our Shining Armor gag more – this one of him as a mare or him hugging Chrysalis. I did not ask if Shiny was pregnant or had a foal already. That would be too much information for both Twilight and me, I reckoned.
Cadance, Trixie, and I engaged in some male bonding time, though I couldn’t help but be slightly weirded out by the surreal air to the whole conversation. It ended with Cadance teleporting away, only to return with a white paper bag held proudly before him. As I watched, the grease stain at the bottom spread out at a speed easily seen with the naked eye. Cadance grinned. “One Hayburger Deluxe Fried Fish Combo Meal with an extra-large order of waffle fries. Their shake machine is broken again, so they dumped in more fries to make up for it.”
This was pretty darn cool; two menu items from back home I never realized I missed so much. Gently, I took the bag and placed it in my right saddlebag, trying to do so before the bottom of the bag gave up its losing battle and dissolved. I had to swallow my saliva before I could even think of speaking. “Cadance, this is fantastic! Our Hayburger is just as unhealthy but doesn’t have this kind of selection.” I smiled wickedly at Twilight. “Now I just have to convince her not to steal my sandwich.”
Twilight shook her head and doubled down by waving both forehooves back in forth to get her point across. “No. No. Absolutely not! I will never, ever, ever eat fish. I want absolutely nothing to do with that bag. If you want it, you carry it.”
“So you think,” Shining Armor said then turned back to me. “Next time she takes a nap, wave the deliciousness under her nose and see if her mouth waters. In fact, I’ll bet ten bits to your one that she scarfs it down without bothering to wake up.”
As Twilight turned away and covered her mouth, I said, “Sure. I’ll take that bet.” Shining Armor let out a delighted laugh when she heard her ‘sister’ gag. I suppose some aspects of sibling relationships never changed, regardless of the dimension.
From behind me, I heard, “Can’t keep from teasing any ‘me’ you find, can you?”
Turning around, I snorted with amusement at the sight of a male Twilight Sparkle standing in the doorway and glaring good-naturedly at his sister. My Twilight’s eyes threatened to pop out of her head as she stared at her transgendered other self. That set off another round of giggles from the white mare.
Prince Cadance asked, “Where’s Mark?” Then, after glancing at me, he added, “Our Mark, that is.”
Stallion Twilight switched his gaze to me and regarded me with great interest. “Trixie was waiting and pounced on her the moment we came back. She kept protesting that Trixie was being overprotective but he whisked her back to Canterlot anyway. My co-ruler does dote on his wife a little too much, but I can’t deny how much he loves her. Anyway, it was up to Lyra, of all stallions, to fill me in on our transgendered visitors. I hope they can elucidate me on what is happening.”
I noted that, yet again, the local Trixie and Mark were already married. When we got back to our world, I was going to insist on bringing forward the wedding day. Well… as much as a stallion has a say in such matters. If it was good enough for our counterparts, it was good enough for us! But for now, I had to wait. Meanwhile, I had an explanation to give yet again while my Twilight’s mind reset.
After our mana levels were fully topped up, it was time to make our farewells and we headed off to the past once more.
After another failed attempt to locate Starlight Glimmer, the next alternate world seemed as totally normal as the last but still lacked Twilight’s castle. As was my norm for dimensions that didn’t present an immediate threat, I switched to my pegasus form shortly after landing on the map table. Twilight decided to be more cautious, keeping a hemispherical shield over the table and ourselves. Our exit from the portal attracted the attention of a nearby pony who came over to investigate. Abruptly, she stopped and stared at me. Usually, it was Twilight and her wings that were considered fascinating, but this mare’s eyes were practically popping out of her head while she gaped at me in astonishment. I was beginning to get a little nervous and confused when she started squealing.
“EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! IT’S A STALLION!”
I had no idea why being male was so remarkable, but it didn’t escape my notice that several other mares within earshot suddenly stopped what they were doing and started galloping our way. To my astonishment, first one spatial portal then another opened nearby, each disgorging more ponies. Paying closer attention, I saw that a wooden pole was placed in the ground by an arriving mare before a new portal opened in the same location. Each stake was the height of a pony and was topped by something that glowed with an iridescent spray of colors before being replaced by a swirling mass of gray and white. In next to no time, the map table was surrounded by a throng of ponies. Some were reaching out for me but bumping up against the force field that Twilight had kept up. I glanced at her with an eyebrow raised, but she just shrugged helplessly, obviously just as baffled as me. Meanwhile, some of the mares closest to the table had started begging me to come join them. This was getting ridiculous. I stood up on my hind legs and waved my forelegs, motioning for them to be quiet. Eventually, they calmed down enough for me to attempt to find out what the heck was going on.
“Okay, ladies – Twilight and I have been jumping between alternate worlds and this is another new one for us, so we don’t know what’s happening here. So, why in Celestia’s name are you all desperate to get your hooves on me?”
The silence was deafening. All talking and even movement had stopped the moment I started to speak. When I finished, each mare stared at me blankly. If I had been the ghost of a long lost friend, come to speak to a loved one again, this is the kind of shocked reaction I would have expected. A sense of unease started to crawl up my back to join the bewilderment in my head. A familiar tan-colored pony with a greying mane and tail pushed forward through the crowd. I recognized the mayor of Ponyville and hoped that I would get a calm and concise answer from her.
“Young stallion – are you telling us that Princess Twilight Sparkle did not bring you back with her to alleviate our problem?”
Now I was even more confused. “I don’t know what problem you’re talking about, and this isn’t even your Twilight. As I said, we’ve been travelling back and forth through this portal and coming to different worlds. We’ve never been to this one before. What’s so special about me that has you mares so excited?”
The old mare chuckled. “Us mares? Haven’t you noticed the total absence of stallions here?”
I looked around and beyond the still-growing crowd of ponies around us. Not a single stallion among them, nor any within eyesight, and pegasus distance vision is excellent. “Where are they?”
“They’re all gone!” shouted one mare.
“Gone where?” I asked.
“She means that they’re all deceased,” the mayor gravely replied.
I reeled in shock. “All the stallions are dead? What happened?”
“A few years back, an epidemic of a previously unknown disease, probably brought from overseas, raged through the population. While everypony got sick, it was fatal to males. After the disease finished ravaging our nation, over 98% of all male ponies – foals and adults alike – were dead. Of those remaining, many were too young or too old for any sort of intimate relationship. To put it bluntly, the mares of Equestria need virile stallions.”
I gulped. As much as I enjoyed sex, to be regarded by so many mares as a stud stallion was more than a little daunting. Now I understood the hungry looks of the mares around me. While not every one of them was looking for a relationship right now, they all knew that getting access to a stallion in the future was going to be extremely difficult, so they wanted to take advantage of this golden opportunity while it lasted. Unfortunately, they didn’t take into account that I had no desire to participate in a mass breeding program.
And of course, that’s when the guilt hit me. Without males, the pony population couldn’t survive. They were desperate and I had what they needed. It would be very selfish of me not to help them out. I didn’t even have the excuse that this was an altered history. No – this was a different universe which had a problem that would not go away when I left. I felt like a jerk just considering telling them no.
But as I was trying to wrap my head around the quandary, the universe threw another wrench in the gears.
“Dowser?! But I watched you die in my hooves!”
I looked towards the sound of the familiar voice and saw a blue unicorn pushing her way through the crowd. The crown on her head fell off as she surged forward but from the look on her face, I doubt she noticed or cared. Moments later, Trixie was pressed up against the shield and staring up at me with tears in her eyes.
“Trixie doesn’t know how her husband came back from the afterlife, but Trixie longs to hug you and never let you go again!”
I gaped at the visage of my fiancée and gulped. What was I going to do now?
Twilight settled the matter for me. “I cannot lower the shield and you all know it. Do you really want him to die from the same disease that devastated your population? All of you are probably carriers. Mark, take your other form.”
That made more than a little sense. I changed to my long-haired Celestia form and was greeted with an equal amount of gasps of astonishment and groans of disappointment. Well, I guess you can’t please everypony.
I turned 360 degrees to better display my cutie mark to everyone. “I’m still Mark Wells. It’s a long story, but this is my alternate form.”
The field around the table shimmered slightly and everything took on a familiar lavender tint. I looked over to see a very stern Twilight Sparkle now covered with a glowing shimmer of magic. Holding out a foreleg, I saw the same effect had been placed on me. My friend had put up personal shields again, obviously as an extra precaution.
Trixie waved a hoof to get Twilight’s attention. “We are thoroughly aware of how the disease progressed. It required six months and the efforts of thousands, but we have a vaccine that has proven effective in the few instances when a reclusive male was found before the disease burned itself out. Every pony, hippogriff, seapony, and zebra on Equus has been treated three times with the vaccine and scanned to ensure no trace remains.”
“Wait! Seapony?” Twilight blurted out.
Trixie nodded. “Indeed. Equestria has had amicable relations with Queen Novo’s kingdom for centuries.”
Well, that settled that. Definitely a different reality and not an alternate timeline.
The blue unicorn tapped her horn. “Princess Twilight Sparkle, if you would allow Trixie?”
My friend remained stock still for several moments as she doubtless weighed the probabilities in her head. Eventually, she dropped the shield covering the table. Trixie nodded in acknowledgement, then scanned first Twilight, then myself with a wide beam of magic. “Now your stallion form.”
After getting concurrence from Twilight, I changed back. Trixie swallowed and repeated the scan. “Clean.”
A white earth pony mare with a light pink mane done up in a bun climbed up onto the map table. From her red cross cutie mark which matched the symbol on her hat, I recognized Nurse Redheart. She pulled a case from her saddlebags and held it out on her forehoof. “Inject in your flank, just above your cutie mark. The vaccine needs about eighteen hours to take full effect.”
Twilight levitated the case in her magic and opened it. Inside, two rows of five hypodermic needles were held securely in place by a pair of straps around each. She broke the stasis field surrounding two of the needles and floated them closer. A pale green liquid was visible in the clear barrel of the syringe. “May I have a copy of the research describing the disease and the vaccine, please?”
Trixie closed her eyes and three thin books and a pair of scrolls popped into existence next to her. Teleporting in specific items all the way from Canterlot? This unicorn was a far superior spellcaster compared to my Trixie.
Twilight injected both of us with the vaccine, returned the hypodermic needles to their case and addressed Nurse Redheart. “May we keep these samples?”
“Of course. I’ll prepare as many needles or vaccine reservoirs as you like. If you’ll excuse me.” The nurse stepped down from the table and pushed her way through the crowd, eventually disappearing into one of the portals, which I had to assume led to the Ponyville Hospital. I turned to look at Twilight to ask her opinion of the ubiquitous gateways, but she was poring over the scrolls and books, taking notes on two of her own scrolls as she cross-referenced. I had to smile. Once again, protected from the outside world by a wall of paper.
Trixie climbed onto the table and lied down next to me. She turned her gaze upon the throng and said, “While no doubt that many a mare here would give their right foreleg to bed Trixie’s husband right this moment, the Great and Possessive Princess Trixie would like to remind them that Equestria has a perfectly good semen bank program.”
I sighed with some relief. While being a sperm donor had never been high on my list of things to do, that had been a totally acceptable alternative for mares in my home universe who wanted foals without a stallion partner. It was also a guilt-free way of siring foals without being responsible for raising them. No doubt, some of the mares here wanted a little more than a child though. Judging by the salacious looks in the eyes of a couple of them, a roll in the hay was their prime desire. After being without a male for years, I can’t say that I blamed them – not that I had any intention whatsoever of satisfying that itch. Although, as my gaze slid back to Princess Trixie, I wondered if I was going to have to make an exception to that. Despite apparently understanding that I was from another universe, she still referred to me as her husband. I saw in her everything that I loved in my fiancée and it broke my heart to think that she lost this world’s version of me.
“E-Excuse me, Mark Wells?” I looked down to see Cloud Kicker at the edge of the table. “Would you mind just… talking some more?” I saw rapid nods and expectant smiles from the crowd in front of me. They pressed up even closer, pricking their ears forward.
My stomach felt like it dropped all the way through the table. Oh, wow. These mares were so beside themselves with loneliness that just the sound of a stallion’s voice would make their day… maybe their whole year. There was no way I was going to deny them that. Besides, Twilight and I had to take every possible precaution not to unwittingly take the disease with us from this dimension. I settled down next to Trixie, reflecting again how in this reality, they had gotten married. Indeed, a familiar ring graced her horn, but it was made in gold rather than aluminum. She followed my gaze and smiled, encouraging me with a nod.
I turned back to the eager crowd. “Well, my story really began when I started working for the counterpart to your Princess Trixie…”
It was early evening before I reached the part where Twilight and I exited the portal into the current world. I didn’t tell them about my other-worldly origins, but I did change to my Marklestia form for the appropriate sections of my tale. I don’t think any of the mares would have left during those hours if Trixie hadn’t decreed a couple of breaks so everypony could grab some dinner and take care of other necessities.
After I brought everypony up to the point where Twilight and I arrived here, the blue mare declared the presentation over and put up a bubble of silence around the two of us. A tapping sound coming from the table brought our attention back to Twilight, who was frowning at Trixie. The unicorn smiled sheepishly and dropped the barrier then reformed it – this time covering the entire table. With a nod, Twilight resumed her work on the books and scrolls floating around her.
Trixie made sure to speak loudly enough for Twilight to hear our conversation. “Trixie was – I was mistaken. You are not the same pony as the stallion I married. Perhaps you started out much the same, but the events in your life have sculpted you into someone else.” She winked. “Now I just have to decide whether I love you even more now.”
I rolled my eyes but matched her smile. “You’ve heard my story. When did everything take a different turn with me in this reality?”
“Well, you were friends with the Elements of Harmony, but not to the same extent. My Mark never tried eating poison joke, which appeared to precipitate the majority of your bonding experiences, including you gaining your alternate form. We had to find our own ways to stop threats to Equestria. For example, when Tirek escaped Tartarus, high altitude weather ponies kept him slowed down with hail and torrential rain. Using our portals, we evacuated everypony within a fifty-mile radius of him. By the time he struggled into a deserted Baltimare, three weeks had passed and he proved equine enough to die from the plague. Good riddance.”
Twilight’s eyes went wide. I also was a bit shocked at Trixie’s callousness regarding the centaur’s death, but the alicorn recovered first. “Could you tell me about those portals?”
“Ah. You don’t have them, do you? That’s not a surprise as you don’t have a trading relationship with the seaponies in your world… assuming they exist in your reality. Tell me, Princess. Do you remember from the Advanced Thaumaturgic Media class how pure calcite crystals can carry spatial magic spells over a short distance before the thaumatic flux loss becomes untenable?”
“Yes. The dimensional attenuation factor is 0.08, I think. Still, it’s the best material available.”
Trixie shook her head. “It’s 0.076, but the point is the same – only useful for specialized applications where you just need a small amount of magic at the other end of the crystal.” This version of my fiancée reinforced what I had seen earlier. She was a scholar of magic and obviously a powerful mage in her own right. “Now consider the abyssal deeps of the Celestial Sea. Most predators swallow their prey whole. The daggertooth fish has developed a unique counter-strategy: it generates an extremely weak spatial magic field and uses it to teleport back into the ocean, even overcoming the inertia of displacing highly compressed water to do so. Seaponies collect their iridescent scales for decoration, but can you guess what we found when we tested them for magical resonance?”
Twilight frowned and shrugged.
“The attenuation factor is seven. On the flawless scales of the largest and oldest fish, we’ve measured them to be as high as twenty-two.”
I had to wait out Twilight’s gaping look of disbelief. Briefly, I wished I had paid more attention to the chalkboard lectures. “A single scale is an amplifier?!”
The blue mare grinned. “I know what you’re thinking: Can power be amplified twice in succession? Or many times? The answer is no. Also, the scales are single use only. It’s a trivial matter to construct a portal between two of them that lasts no longer than two hours. After that, the scale has to be replaced. Good thing we get them by the bushel.”
Twilight blinked rapidly. “Ummm… could we get a few samples of the portals and the scales?”
“Of course. I’ll get you a copy of the spells we place on the teleportation poles as well. But back to our story.” Trixie turned to look at me again. “Our romance started almost right away, soon after I banished Flim and Flam to the Mustang Archipelago. We were married the week after I invited Twilight Sparkle to join me as co-regent of Equestria.” Trixie craned her neck backward and raised her voice. “Which my Twilight graciously accepted, by the way.” Twilight’s ears flicked a few times and she made a big show about only paying attention to the papers she was levitating in front of her.
Trixie looked back at me with a mischievous smile, only for it to fade away. “The plague hit Manehattan right after we returned from our honeymoon. Within a few days, quarantine zones were put in place all over Equestria, but it was not enough. In just three weeks, almost every stallion in Equestria was infected. The notable exceptions were stallions who had contracted Hemiplegic Fever when exploring the Zebrican Coast or other tropical locales. That was the clue we needed to hone in on the vaccine that taught the body how to fight the infection.” She lowered her head and paused. I covered her back with my wing, even if the gesture was muted by the field that surrounded me. Suddenly, the field winked out and my wing settled on Trixie’s back.
I looked up questioningly at Twilight. She said, “From what I’ve read, I’m confident the threat is minimal to non-existent. We will still need to stay the full eighteen hours, however.”
Trixie gave a weak smile at me and sighed before continuing. “Tragically, by then it was too late. We harvested as much sperm as we could, but despite what I told the mares earlier, our scientists are very concerned about a lack of genetic variability leading to inbreeding. Because of cultural norms, very few mares want to go through with the insemination procedure, even with the seed of their former spouse.” She winced and her ears drooped. “The r-rate of s-successful impregnation is low. The entire sample is sometimes used up without yielding a foal.”
I felt a wave of sympathy for this world’s Trixie. No doubt, she had tried to set an example for her subjects.
She continued. “There is only one thestral stallion left, and I understand seapony losses were nearly as bad as ours. I am very concerned about the future of our world. My scientists expect pony society will likely shrink to a tenth its current size unless we find a solution. To make things worse, Diamond Dogs attacked Canterlot soon after they heard of the Royal Sisters’ disappearance. They were decisively routed, but not before they collapsed the West Wing of Canterlot Castle destroying all the mirror portals. Without that avenue to get help, Princess Twilight Sparkle volunteered to try to reach other realities with the cutie mark table. Three days ago, she was sucked into a portal and I’ve been waiting for word since then.”
I lowered my head. This was a problem far beyond my magical pay-grade. Even thinking back to the technology available back on Earth, I didn’t see any viable solutions. I looked up. “Twilight, any ideas?”
The blizzard of paper now rested on the table and her quills and one ballpoint pen sat idle. If she wasn’t even working through the probabilities of wild ideas, that was a bad sign. “Nothing I can think of Mark. Equestrian magic can’t change the gender of a pony from a mare to a stallion. The genetic information just isn’t there.”
Alright then – time to think sideways. “Could their Twilight be on the right track? How difficult would it be to bring stallions in from another reality?”
“Not practical. We’ve seen how unpredictable the results are. There is no way to target an alternate reality because that was never intended as part of the spell’s design. The only degree of predictability we have is where and when it dumps us out in the past.
I tapped my forehoof on the map table as I wracked my brains. No, I would not call it the ‘cutie mark table’. “What about a second time-travel spell? Could we make a link to their past and pull ponies through or pass the vaccine to them there?”
Trixie shook her head. “No, Mark. The best that could be done is to branch off another time stream – an alternate future that we could not access. More than likely, you’d just end up unwittingly causing exactly what you were trying to avoid.”
Twilight groused. “As I found out the hard way. Creating a mirror portal wouldn’t work either. It can only be created between independent realities, not alternate futures.”
I said, “OK, what’s the easiest way to set up a mirror portal between realities?”
“Oh, like the gender-swap world? Unfortunately, that would require a mirror made in this reality passed over there and vice-versa. Then the linking spell is trivial for alicorn-level magic. Add in a triggering amulet on either side and you’re done.” Twilight stroked her chin thoughtfully. “We could set up a temporary portal if we possessed something of sufficient mass that has the unique quantum resonance of that dimension.”
I started to smile. Trixie looked between the two of us. “What? You have something from a dimension with an excess of stallions?”
Twilight’s eyes went wide. She ruffled her wings and looked down at the table. “Ummm… Mark. Would you pass me the bag, please?”
I played dumb. “What bag would that be, Twilight?”
I could hear her grind her teeth while Trixie looked between us with a furrowed brow. “The bag with all the greasy fries.”
I chuckled, enjoying myself perhaps a bit too much. “I’m still not entirely sure which bag you mean. Could you be more specific?”
The purple alicorn facehoofed and sighed. Her wings drooped in defeat. “I want the bag with the barbaric fish sandwich.”
“Why, of course, Twilight. Why didn’t you say so in the first place?”
Her answering growl made me laugh.
Trixie spoke up. “I don’t follow. What do Mark’s carnivorous inclinations have to do with anything?”
I smiled. “I hope the mares here don’t mind greasy food, Trixie. Because Twilight and I know a Hayburger that might just become the most popular restaurant in any Equestria.”
Twilight and Trixie stayed more than busy opening the initial portal, contacting the gender-swapped Twilight Sparkle (took longer than expected to convince him to enter the Hayburger mare’s room where the bathroom mirror was doing something it was never designed for), passing a trio of mirrors through the portal in both directions, linking the mirrors at the pre-arranged time, and setting up precautionary quarantine and testing areas on both sides. At the end of eighteen hours, Trixie proudly announced to the mares of Ponyville that when the spring heat rolled around in a couple of months, there would likely be a large influx of willing stallions coming to their Equestria on ‘vacation.’
Afterward, we took a very much deserved nap… well, Twilight did. Trixie made a heartfelt request that appealed to my logical and emotional sides... and perhaps other parts of me as well. Fate had given her one more chance to carry the legacy of her beloved within her. When she knelt before me to beg for that chance… well, I simply could not find it within myself to refuse. I had to hope that my Trixie would be understanding. Given the tragic circumstances, I thought my chances of survival were at least fifty-fifty.
Given the same situation, would I do it again?
Oh, hell yeah.
After another failed effort by my invisible self to find Starlight Glimmer, Twilight and I exited the portal. We seemed to have ended up in a classic pastoral scene this time. There were no structures whatsoever aside from the map table which was incongruously sitting in the middle of a wild pasture. I could see maybe half a dozen ponies scattered around, all quietly grazing on the sweet grass and dandelions. That set off alarm bells in my head. Ponies simply didn’t graze – they harvested grass and hay. Most of the time they preferred vegetables and cereals that were properly prepared. To them, pushing their snouts to the ground and feeding on the grass directly was the equivalent of humans trying to eat meat raw and with just their teeth. It was very uncivilized at best, feral at worst. Scanning the group, I saw they were all adults – most of them earth ponies with a couple of unicorns thrown in.
I looked at Twilight and I could see that she was just as confused as me. I decided to investigate.
“Keep your eyes open, Sparkles – I’m going to go talk with the locals.
“Be careful, Mark. Dangers aren’t always obvious.”
I certainly hadn’t forgotten that, but I still took her words to heart. I switched to my pegasus form, hopped off the table and slowly made my way over to the nearest pony. It was an orange-coated earth pony mare with an unkempt blond mane. She could have been Applejack if her hair and tail were tied in ponytails and she wore a hat.
I said, “Pardon me, but can I ask you a couple of questions?”
The mare snorted and trotted away from me before resuming her grazing.
“I’ll take that as a no.” I moved on to the next nearest – another earth pony mare, this time pink with a two-tone purple mane. I repeated my question. She whinnied and drew back from me, then stood staring at me with fearful eyes. I hurried away from her and looked around. “Third times the charm,” I murmured and headed towards a black unicorn stallion. I didn’t even get the chance to talk this time.
The stallion snorted angrily and lowered his horn. Then he lunged at me while his horn started to spark. I took off into the air, dreading a magic attack, but the stallion merely glared and stamped the ground before heading back towards the mares I’d approached. Then I noticed something that I really should have seen immediately. None of them had cutie marks! From my aerial vantage point, I could see that the other ponies all lacked them as well. One stallion and a handful of mares… Damn! I was a strange male butting into another stallion’s herd! These were just animals!
I flew back to Twilight who looked at me with some concern.
“Did that stallion just attack you for no reason?”
I grimaced. “I suppose he had his reasons considering the circumstances. Twi – these ponies are non-sapient!”
Twilight stared in shock at the locals. “Sweet Celestia! A world where ponies never evolved into sapience – it’s hard to imagine.”
“You don’t have to imagine it. The evidence is right there.”
It was a rather depressing scenario, although perhaps relatively safe if these ponies were foraging this close to the Everfree Forest. Or was it the same domain of wild magic that I knew back home? Still, who knew what predators preyed on ponies here? We left that world just as soon as it was practical.
The next time we returned to the future, the township was back, but even at a glance, I could tell that there was something very wrong about it. Many buildings were in a state of disrepair, and those with thatched roofs no longer gave much shelter from the elements. After waiting for a potential threat to arrive without anything happening, I turned to Twilight and said, “I’m going to scout around while the map table recharges.”
The alicorn nodded. “Be careful, Mark. Remember that some dangers took a while to turn up.”
I gestured towards the township. “Somehow I get the vibe that this isn’t one of those situations. I’ll be careful anyway. Would you cast the invisibility spell on me? From the looks of the town, I doubt there are any threats there, but I’d rather be cautious.”
After Twilight did so, I spread my wings. “I’ve got my camera. If there’s anything of interest, I’ll take photos. If you’d drop your shield?”
“Mark.”
At the disappointed tone in Twilight’s voice, I looked down to see her holding out a forehoof. “What’s the problem with taking photos with an invisible camera?”
“…Oh.”
I placed it carefully in her hoof. Twilight made the camera visible with a beam from her horn then returned it.
As soon as Twilight dropped her shield, I took off to check out the neighborhood from a safe height.
It became immediately apparent that the buildings weren’t the only neglected things here. A fountain was dried up and the desiccated remains of fish lay amongst the leaf litter on the bottom. Flower beds were overgrown with brambles and trees had fallen limbs lying where they had crashed to the ground. Weeds grew in cracks in the streets where wagons lay with broken axles or wheels. But the thing that hit me the hardest was the condition of the citizens. There were far fewer than would normally be about, but those that I could see were in poor condition, with ribs showing in many cases. The few who wore some form of clothing now had rags. I recoiled in horror when I saw the corpse of a pony lying on the side of the road while another slowly stumbled past it. The ponies here had been reduced to the point where even the most basic tenets of society had broken down. What had brought Ponyville to this sorry state? Then I saw something that I should have noticed sooner – the flag that flew in the town square. It sent a shudder down my spine when I recognized it – the ‘equals’ sign!
When I flew lower, I looked at the hindquarters of the ponies and saw that they all had their cutie marks replaced by the sign of equality. This was the realization of exactly what I predicted would happen when I learned what Starlight Glimmer had in mind for the ponies of Equestria. Back then I had determined that Starlight’s spell could only make ponies “equal” by reducing everyone’s abilities to the least talented among them. Sooner or later, you would end up with a population that was incapable of doing almost anything. I couldn’t see the citizens of this town all submitting willingly to the process, but having been overpowered by the few in Starlight Glimmer’s little settlement, I figured that if the cult had grown sufficiently, they could start imposing themselves on more and larger groups. A thought even worse than that entered my mind. Perhaps she had found some way to cast the spell across all of Equestria. And knowing the rogue unicorn, she still had her true power to back up her ambitions in this universe.
That opinion changed when I saw what was next to the flagpole. A new life-sized statue crudely depicted a familiar unicorn mare with a haughty grin. I had to suppress my first urge to turn around and buck it into oblivion. Bringing my eyes down, I saw the name “FOUNDER” carved into the pedestal. What surprised me was the faded handmade wooden sign beneath the inscription. It said, “IN LUVNG MEMRY”.
How ironic. Her grandest vision became her greatest victory, and she wasn’t even alive to see the misery it brought. I took a lot of photos before I flew back to Twilight, suddenly afraid that whatever force or spell that had claimed the cutie marks of Ponyville’s residents might still be active. As soon as I landed next to her on the table, I said, “Put up your strongest shield!”
She did so without hesitation before asking why.
I waved a hoof in the general direction of the township, forgetting that she couldn’t see me. “Welcome to Starlight Glimmer’s paradise where everypony is equal and civilization is dying.”
Twilight blanched. “Even I didn’t imagine it would get this bad.”
“I did, and it terrifies me to see it coming true. I want to get out of here right now.”
“Two more minutes and we can go,” she replied.
I sweated those hundred and twenty seconds, my imagination conjuring up a group of fanatics exempt from the equalizing effects so they could do the Founder’s will by stealing our cutie marks and we would never be able to get back home again. More than ever, I was determined to stop that crazy mare, no matter how many times we had to try to catch her or how many different universes we would encounter along the way.
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