//------------------------------//
// Chapter 11: Tonight, the Stars Revolt 
// Story: Friendship is a Quantum Infinite 
// by angelicoreXX 
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	Bonbon hadn’t taken a single sip of her strawberry milkshake. She was visibly troubled and not even a meal at the local café seemed to change anything.
“You’ve barely even touched your shake, Bonbon. Have some, it’ll make you feel better.”
The once candy obsessed pony sighed, “I’m sorry, Lyra. I’m just not feeling very ‘cheerful’ with all of the crazy stuff that’s been going on lately.” For some reason, an odd fellow impersonating Discord of all characters had been running around Ponyville causing all sorts of havoc and Bonbon didn’t understand a single thing of it. She had those six heroines to thank for somehow saving the town, yet again, but she just didn’t have it in her to smile about it, let alone be grateful.
Her mopey friend had been tugging on Lyra’s heartstrings for the majority of the week and she just couldn’t seem to crack through that cold shell, “Hey! I know! Why don’t we go bowling?”
“Bowling…? Really?”
“Yeah! It’ll be fun! I mean, when was the last time that we’ve gone bowling?” Lyra giggled.
“I don’t think you’ve even once held a bowling ball in your entire life, Lyra.” Bonbon rolled her eyes, “Besides, how can you possibly think of having fun with all of this chaos unfolding? Just take a look at this for pete’s sake!” she plucked a roll of newspaper from a trash bin, “Vanishing pyramids, a second Statue of Liberty in Manehattan, disappearing crops and that large metal ship that crash landed just outside of Los Pegasus!” Bonbon was of course talking about the massive aircraft carrier, the USS Eisenhower, which according to the paper looked as if it had just been through a warzone, “T-This must be it! We’re really in the end times and there’s nothing Twilight and her friends can do about it…!”
The other residents of the café, most of which had gone out just to take their minds off of things had only been reminded of the massive elephant in the room over Bonbon’s panic attack. Though not a single one of them could blame her, all they really had going for them was a fake smile, willful ignorance, and a desperation to do something fun before their time ultimately came.
Lyra sighed and left her bills’ due at the table before escorting her trembling friend out of the establishment. She feared she’d only made things worse, and much worse for those around her who were still trying to pretend as if they still had control of their lives.
There didn’t seem to be anything that Lyra could do to put a smile on anyone’s face that evening, not even Bonbon’s. Perhaps her dear friend might feel better after a good night’s sleep, which they were both going to need for whatever tomorrow was about to bring their way. 

The distant mountains had snatched Princess Celestia’s sun right out of the burning sky, and the orange flames had finally begun to cool. How the sun itself hadn’t disappeared yet was anyone’s guess.
Raine strolled through a basking field at the edge of town accompanied by a little blue Pegasus who was doing her best to haul along a rather large golden trophy covered in a ribbons, “Heck of a victory ceremony. I would’ve thought with characters like that ‘Pinkie Pie’ around that Ponyville would’ve gotten its fill of parties by now.” Raine joshed.
“Gah…!” the crown had pretty much grounded Dash for the time being, “Well…! We ponyfolk… don’t exactly need much of an… excuse to party…!” the trophy was just large enough to carry her ego, and so she eventually grew tired of lugging the thing around and finally abandoned it against a tree, “Phew!”
Raine plopped herself right by the oak’s roots. It was the tallest tree in the area, not to mention one of the only trees for quite a while. Not having had much of a place to stay while in Equestria, and given that Rainbow Dash lived on a cloud of all things, Raine had actually gotten used to calling the tree home. They would’ve called her a hobo back where she came from, but the pixels around the cartoon tree made it just welcoming enough to sleep under, “What a day…! Boy, are my arms tired.” She chuckled.
Dash shot a sneaky grin at the human, “You know, I definitely won that competition, hooves down, but I can’t help think that you went just a teeny tiny bit easy on me.”
“Noticed that, did you?” Raine rested the back of her head into her palms and laid back against the tree, “Well you didn’t exactly give me much of a choice, really. You were just too strong for me.”
Dash flew up into the tree and nested onto a branch just above the prize fighter, “Seriously though! You practically had me! What made you throw in the towel?”
Raine chuckled under her breath. To be honest, she had planned to job to Rainbow Dash from the very start. Although her competitive nature may have become somewhat counterproductive, she had always stuck to the script, “Oh, I don’t know. I guess I just wanted to give you a big-ass trophy before I left.” She gazed up at the little Pegasus watching from up above, “You’re a good kid, Rainbow Dash. I’ve made plenty of mistakes in my life, and missed plenty of opportunities to actually make something of myself. I would’ve gladly stayed here and accepted all of it if it wasn’t for friends like you.”
Dash wasn’t one for emotions. The namby-pamby talk was just enough to shake the bird out of her nest, “You goin’ soft on me already, kid?” She fluttered down and sat beside the girl with a smirk.
“Eh, maybe just a little bit.” Raine choked and out came a laugh.
Dash couldn’t help but join in and eventually leaned her head against Raine’s shoulder as they watched the sky hue from red to purple, “I gotta’ admit, Raine. It’s going to be pretty boring around here without you.”
Raine sighed and her perky smile began to stumble, “Yeah, I’m going to miss you too, Pipsqueak.”

You might’ve thought that Fiona had the nerve of a combat android, or at least some badass Hispanic chick with a red headband and a giant Gatling gun, seeing as she’d entered the Everfree forest yet again even after an already near death experience. She was fortunate this time however, she had Fluttershy to drag along for the ride.		
“…A-Are you sure D-Ditzy would’ve come through here…?” The Pegasus was visibly terrified, or would’ve been had there been any less light in the dark jungle.
Fiona’s grip grew weaker and weaker with every step. The makeshift torch she’d lit before their trek into the treacherous forest had come to be their only hope of making it out alive in one piece. Even she had begun to doubt that Ditzy had even flown into such an awful place to begin with, but her heart kept those legs moving. To think that not even a week ago now she’d nearly been eaten alive in that very same jungle, “D-Ditzy…! Where are you…!?” her rickety whispers just barely got the call out.
They had made their way fairly deep into the forest by now. Fluttershy could no longer measure their bearings. Other than the fickle searchlight Fiona was holding, which only really lit up the few feet ahead of them, it was far too dark to really tell how long the endless stream of derelict trees went, let alone what may have been watching them from behind those trees.
“A-Are you sure this is the way you took before?” Fluttershy quivered.
“I was just about to ask you the same-” Fiona stopped in her tracks at the sound of a snapping branch perhaps thirty paces behind them. She was about to learn the meaning of post-traumatic stress.
“I-It’s okay, Fiona. I-It was probably just a small animal. Just keep moving.”
Fiona could hardly control her breathing. On one hand she didn’t want to make a sound lest she’d alert some horrible monster or a velociraptor or two, and on the other her own wheezing and huffing were just about to send her over the edge, and then another branch cracked.
Fluttershy had glued herself to the girl’s back by now, perhaps to stand close and guard her otherworldly guest given her history with this place, but more so out of fear. She turned her glance, maybe she’d be able to get a good look at the clumsy furball and ease her tension, but all she could see was the black of night. For a second she felt Fiona leaving her hooves, “W-Wait…!” caught up in her own terror, the poor girl found herself scurrying through the woods doing her best to escape the sounds of the crunching branches behind them.
By now she was creating far more of a fracas than any twig could’ve managed as if she was some dumb blonde about to get conveniently axed, which was her original hair color anyway so it only seemed fitting.
“Fiona! Please, wait!” not even the pony’s loudest whisper could calm the human’s fright and eventually Fiona found herself smacking her face into the brim of a wide tree. She fell backwards onto her rump with an, “Umpf!” effectively tossing the torch into the dirt and with a splatter of sparks their only guide faded.
Fluttershy had been fortunate enough to have spotted the girl before the lights went out and immediately rushed to her side, to which Fiona nearly knocked the poor little thing’s lights out. Thankfully Fiona had the combat focus of a paperclip, “It’s me, it’s me…!”
You could’ve heard Fiona’s crackling teeth for quite some distance, and something certainly did.
“I-It’s okay, Fiona. Don’t worry, I’m here with you. We’re going to be alright. J-Just stay calm and we’ll find Ditzy together and get through this-” her pitiful attempts at encouragement ended in a squeak as the canopy shook not far from where they sat. Immediately, the two backed themselves into the tree’s welcoming bark, holding onto one another for dear life.
The bitter moonlight above provided just enough light to recognize each other’s facial expressions and perhaps the slightest silhouette of a few trees in their direct periphery.
The highest branches of another tree flailed wildly, this one much closer now, and finally, Fiona managed the sense to realize just how foolish she’d been to have ever returned to such a miserable place.

“Oh, I do wish you would’ve told me about this sooner, Regina. I would’ve invited over Fluttershy. This batch of yours is simply to die for!” Rarity applied a set of cucumber slices over her eyes which caked neatly over a mask of lavish green goo.
“Really? I don’t think I’ve ever been able to convince Fiona to come along for a spa treatment. Even when I had some time to myself, the girl was always wound up at that animal shelter of hers.” Regina had coated her cheeks and forehead in a smear of glistening cream, “Not that she’d need it anyway. She’s always had such great skin, though I’m not sure she even realizes it half the time.” She giggled. If only Regina knew just how much of that gorgeous pale skin of Fiona’s was probably dangling off of her face by now.
“Oh, would you be a dear and help me along to the mud bath, Regina.” tangled in vines like a lettuce wrap and just as blind, she’d most certainly need some help going for her dip.
Regina had somehow managed to acquire enough Moor detox mud to fill Rarity’s bathtub with, “Of course, darling.” She felt like she was lifting the world’s biggest sushi roll and with a silent giggle she gently submerged the unicorn into the warm vat.
Rarity gave a skin tingling sigh of relief as the mud coated her like a comforter straight out of the dryer, “It’s been forever since I’ve gone for a dip.” It had only been a week at the very least.
Regina sat down on a tiny stool and began working a fine moisturizer through her swirled dark hair. She thanked her lucky stars these charming horses actually knew a thing or two about the finer things in life. It had seemed like an eternity since she’d tended to her curls.
“So… when is it?”
Regina froze, and after a long pause she finally gave in, “It’s that obvious isn’t it…?”
Rarity yawned, “I may be generous, but not without reason. You’ve gone far beyond yourself to show your gratitude. I mean, I usually have to travel across town to the spa just to get a decent mud bath or hooficure, but this is simply amazing!” she digressed and laid back into the tub starring through her cucumber kaleidoscope , “In any case, yes, you were quite the easy read, dear. Now tell me, when is it?”
“Tomorrow…” Regina turned away, “Twyla found a way back. W-We’re going back home and if Twyla’s theory is correct, we’ll all be able to put a stop to Discord.”
The concept nearly shook Rarity’s cucumber glasses off of her face, “B-But wait, how?”
“I-I’m not exactly sure how, but, well, Twyla seemed confident of her plan. If it all works out, Discord should be returned here, the rest of us sent back home, and our worlds returned to the way they were before…”
Rarity tore a few vines in her attempt to make it to the edge of the tub, “…But, what if it doesn’t work?”
Regina was silent, she honestly hadn’t the slightest concept of quantum mechanics, but she knew that one thing was for sure. Regardless of how she felt about Rarity and the rest of Ponyville, she needed to return home and deal with the menace tormenting her planet, not to mention restore order to both of their realms. She might not have much left waiting for her but a few pieces of scrap to clean up, but Regina knew it was for the best.
Rarity found herself stepping all over the words she’d uttered that very same morning, “A-Are you sure Twyla knows what she’s doing? I-I know I said that a pony’s home was important and all, but I don’t want you wandering into some war zone!”
Regina sighed and she turned to the little pony, “This is much bigger than just my friends and I, darling, somehow I believe that us just being here and Discord as well are the key to all this. So it isn’t simply about us returning home any longer. You’ve seen the strange events happening all over Ponyville. They’ve only begun to get worse, and that’s exactly what Twyla mentioned if we stay here any longer… I might not have much to go back home to, but I’m not about to drag your home down with my own, Rarity.”
Rarity threw her eye patch into the vat. As much as she wanted to, there was simply no defeating that logic, “Well, what if we came with you? Let’s say Twyla’s plan doesn’t work. You’re going to need our help!”
“I don’t think that’s going to work unfortunately... Twyla said she was going to need the six of you ponies to remain here in Ponyville so that when Discord was finally expelled back into your world, you’d be ready with those Elements of Harmony. Besides…”
“Besides… what?”
Regina struggled with the words, “The sudden departure… i-is mainly Discord’s doing. He’s set a countdown for us to return back to our world with a gate open for us, and in the meantime, he’s left Ponyville in danger.”
“Danger?” the unicorn raised a brow.
“B-But it’s okay, Twyla’s thought of that too. The six of us returning home should take care of all of that by tomorrow.” The confidence in her words wasn’t very persuading.
It was a lot to take in, and the guarantee was mediocre at best. Rarity placed a hoof over the girl’s arm, “A-Are you sure everything’s going to be okay…?”
Regina was the last person who could answer that, “I really don’t know, Rarity. I don’t have much left to place my faith into these days besides my friends. All I know is that we’re going home, together.”

Elsewhere, there were plenty of happy little distractions to keep the hearts of every citizen of Ponyville satisfied. Most in fact had no idea there was an enormous space station less than a day away from flattening Ponyville in an oily splash of hellfire, but again that was tomorrow’s business.

Twilight Sparkle had all the magic in the world to carry their supplies but Twyla had refused to stroll along without providing some help of her own. Strapped against her back was the most charming little telescope she’d ever seen and in her hand hung a hefty picnic basket packed with all manner of fruits, vegetables and delicious treats.
Twilight took care of a comfy roll of blanket and a set of pillows which followed her down the dimly lit streets of Ponyville, “Just what in Equestria is all that racket?”
“Gee, I wonder what that’s all about.” Twyla’s sarcasm was still wide awake, as was the rest of the town apparently.
The eggheads turned around to the sight of wild bright lights and the snapping tunes of swing with a dash of electronica and a hint of gypsy jazz. 
Though of course no pony had any real fingers, at least none that Pinkie Pie had ever met, Piper led the growing crowd of dancing and singing ponies doing exactly that on every beat, “Suzy’s flashing on the dance floor and sings, that she’s expecting more swinging dreams~!”
A crew of ponies sprung out just in time to catch Piper’s chorus, “Suzy’s flashing on the dance floor and sings, and she knows melody that we still keep playing~!”
The duet between a Spanish barrow guitar and a Gyspy’s tambourine was impossible to ignore, in fact, the beat was downright infectious, “Suzy~!” the more the Caravan paraded onwards, the larger the Palace grew, “Swings~!” the southern violin and bass only served to ground out any utterance of doubt or worry into the gutter.
Octavia had just this once dipped her hooves into the French bayou, unable to resist the temptation of course. A bit of rust had blemished her cello but the jive was just too catchy to pass up.
Pinkie Pie took up a mic and grinded out from the pit of her stomach some of the murkiest Scat-jazz lyrics Ponyville had ever heard, but I’d be lying if they weren’t jamming even harder as a result of it, “Bop~boppodo~bass~boppoitity~de~bopboppity~do~bopboppity~days~!”
“Suzy’s flashing on the dance floor and sings, that she’s expecting more swinging dreams~!” Piper dazzled the microphone and some pony managed to light off a batch of fireworks into the night’s sky overhead just in time for the next rail, “Suzy’s flashing on the dance floor and sings, and she knows melody that we still keep playing~!” a scratchy record player and a rusty guitar guided the entire affair down the boulevard.
“You have got to be kidding me…” Twilight thought she knew Pinkie’s tenacity by now, but apparently not. Double that endless pit of energy and this was apparently what you got.
A necklace of thick white pearls waved along with Piper’s hips which were dressed in a makeshift gown tied out of a table cloth and a blanket. She tossed her hands through the air as her footsteps lit up the night, “Suzy’s flashing on the dance floor and sings, that she’s expecting more swinging dreams~!”
Pinkie Pie joined her in the chorus as did half the ponies burning through the dance floor, “Suzy’s flashing on the dance floor and sings, and she knows melody that we still keep playing~!”
Not even Twyla was safe from banging her hips and snapping her fingers. She notched Twilight with the side of her ankle, “Come on! This is awesome!” the girl had horrible dance steps, given there was no Dance Dance Revolution pad around, but you had to at least give her enthusiasm some credit.
Twilight had forgotten to pack her book on Gypsy Electroswing, let alone having the stiffest hooves imaginable, but that didn’t stop Twyla from dragging the poor awkward unicorn along for the jig.
“Suzy~! Suzy~! Suzy~!” the parade had grown to more than a few dozen ponies. You might think the town would’ve passed on a party given they’d already had an enormous shindig the night before, but there was a reason that Pinkie Pie was held as the princess of parties. Besides, what excuse would you have had to not party with Pinkie anyway?
Twilight managed to get into the groove one way or another and finally discovered that no one really cared just how bad your dancing was as long as you were in a jumping crowd.
Twyla on the other hand just pretended that she was still on a pad inside an old arcade and went to town with the doubles and the half-steps. The others were pretty impressed by her fancy footwork. Twyla burned up a rather embarrassingly lackluster example of her world’s dance moves, but as far as any pony there knew, she was still impressive.

Evenually, the two bookworms were dropped off at a wide grassy noel at the edge of town and the band went on its way, though it did take some time before the scene became tranquil once again.
Twilight wiped the sweat from her brow, “That was a blast! I think that little shindig was even better than last night’s.” she chuckled to herself.
Twyla had nearly caught a case of the jitters over the beat. She had to manually stop her fingers from snapping even after the music had long dispersed, “Heck of a sending off party.”
Twilight didn’t want to see it that way, but given the circumstances she couldn’t have nailed any better. The little unicorn couldn’t help but muster another chuckle and soon Twyla did the same, “Come on, you big goofball. Let’s set up for the night.”
Twyla nodded with a smile and unfurled their blanket.
Twilight effortlessly floated over the picnic basket, opened it, and set up a couple of plates along with a couple of pillows all in one spell.
Meanwhile the teacher had already begun setting up the telescope. The humble little International Space Station was fairly easy to find in the night’s sky. Given Ponyville wasn’t exactly very well lit, they had quite the gorgeous view of the Milky way, “It’s been years since I’ve gotten this good of a view of the night’s sky. You can even see the rim of the solar system.”
“Well of course you can, silly. It’s the middle of the night.” Twilight giggled, “Is the night different in your world?”
Twyla rolled her eyes, “No, no, it’s just that there really isn’t a lot of room in the city for sights like this.”
“What do you mean?”
Twyla sat down beside the telescope, “Well, there’s a reason that they call New York City the ‘city that never sleeps’. You can barely see any stars in the night’s sky with so many lights on.” She sighed. It was yet another reason that she knew she’d ultimately regret leaving.
Twilight could see that same old lonely look in the girl’s eyes and she wasn’t about to let her best friend fall down into that pitiful well she’d been dangling over all day, “Well, come on, Twyla. It’s a beautiful night out.” She began adjusting the focus of the lens, “Where do you want to start from? Oh, uhm…” she took her eye off the lens cap, realizing where Twyla had set the focus towards, “I-Isn’t that the…?”
Twyla nodded, “Yup.” Her tradition always dictated that she start with the guiding hand of the ISS, though by this point the space station was anything but that. Its range was of no concern however, it only served as a reminder of how important tomorrow was going to be. “But don’t worry about all that tonight, Twilight. Let’s just enjoy the view why don’t we?” she didn’t need any equipment to point out that little glowing ‘H’ in the skies, “Crazy isn’t it? To think there’s actually a whole crew of people living up there.”
Twilight just didn’t feel comfortable speaking so lightly on such circumstances, to think that by tomorrow that those very same astronauts could be killed along with the entire town if their plan hadn’t gone exactly by the mark.
Though one could assume that Twyla had just gotten over her caution, or perhaps she was just sick of feeling depressed on her last night she’d ever spend with her very own clone, “Don’t give me that look, Twilight. Come on, haven’t you ever dreamed of exploring space?”
“I-I guess, though I don’t think us little ponies would last very long in the vacuum of space.” She forced a chuckle, and then pressed through the rest of the conversation, “Uhm, so I assume they use suits with tanks of oxygen?”
“Well, they don’t really need them in the space station, only when they leave it to do maintenance on the outer hull.”
Twilight sat and watched her friend go on and on about the cold world beyond the Earth’s atmosphere and just how much humans had discovered about the nature of the space. The everyday citizens of Ponyville, although quite helpful and friendly, were far too preoccupied to worry about their hoofprint within the universe. Winter wrap-ups and apple seasons were far more of a concern than just how small they really were. Fathoming such a scale was almost impossible with what ponies knew considering most still thought the sun and moon both rotated around the Earth and all, which was a subject that Twyla was very careful to avoid given the cultural fabric.
In any case, Twilight could sit and listen for hours. There wasn’t a single person she knew that had such a passion for knowledge and watching Twyla obsessively explain the entire universe was one of the most heartwarming things Twilight Sparkle had ever seen. She bit her lip in a measly attempt to hide a water droplet hanging over an eyelash. Luckily the night’s sky served as a brilliant distraction.
“Did you know that the observable edge of the universe is approximately forty-seven billion light years away from us? Think about that, Twilight. You’d have to be constantly traveling at the speed of light for forty-seven billion years just to reach the end of the universe. Crazy isn’t it?” Twyla gazed up at the planetarium above her, “You know, you ponies are pretty far ahead of yourselves. I bet that you’d be able to reach the stars within a lifetime.” She chuckled, “Just think about it. Twilight Sparkle - Astronaut, space explorer. The first pony in space!”
Although washed over in emotion, the idea was still fairly amusing. The fun fact was pretty interesting too and she made a mental note to jot down the detail into her schedule to write up a report during that next week. Regardless, she thought she had gotten over having to say goodbye, but she was still miles away from it. Thankfully it was still dark out and she didn’t exactly need to feel embarrassed.
That is, until Twyla wiped away those soggy eyes of hers, “Hey now, there’s no need to hide under all those tears. You’re going to miss out on the view.” She reached into the picnic basket and pulled out an apple for the little unicorn, “Here you go, eat up.”
Twilight had seen the trillions of little dots overhead bathing in the mist of the universe thousands of times, she’d even studied and archived every constellation she could find, but there was no way she was going to miss her one thousandth and one stargaze. She took a bite out of the crisp apple, “Thanks, and I-I’m sorry, I’m just a bit overwhelmed is all.”
Twyla hushed the unicorn, “Nope, none of that tonight.” She pointed up into the heavens, “I want you to show me all the constellations that you’ve recorded.”
“Oh, uhm, well okay.” Nothing could break the smile off of that unicorn’s face. She felt like she was being invited up on stage to help test an important experiment. She took a peek into the lens and tweaked a nob, “Well, uh, that’s definitely the space station. Wow, it’s so much clearer now. How did you humans even get it up there in the first place?”
“Little by little, of course. It took a while but it paid off in the end.” Twyla crossed her arms with a smug grin, “Alright, now that isn’t exactly a constellation, now is it? What’s next?”
The demand caught Twilight a bit off guard. Like a nervous schoolgirl at the chalk board, she fumbled the nobs and eventually pointed the apparatus at an actual star formation, “Well, over here’s Virgo, and then of course Libra, and then-”
Twyla rolled her eyes with a disappointing huff, “That’s baby stuff. You can do better than that!”
“Fine! Okay, that’s definitely Andromeda, can’t mistake that at all. Then above that is Cassiopeia, then Cepheus, Ursa Minor, Ursa Major, and finally Camelopardalis. Top that!” her heart was pounding, she hadn’t had so much fun counting stars for as long as she could remember, and even under those watery eyes she still had the most adorable smile you’d ever seen.
Twyla gladly accepted the challenge and scooted over, “What kind of telescope is this anyway, made for fillys or something?”
The little pony laughed, “Quit stalling!”
“Alright then, here I go! Scutum Scobiescianum, Orphiuchus, Serpens Caput,Hercules, and Corona Borealis. Your move.”
Twilight scoffed, “I had those recorded back in magic kindergarten!” to which Twyla couldn’t help but laugh. Whether it was over the clever quip or the fact that ponys actually had a ‘magic kindergarten’ was her little secret.
The remainder of the night went back and forth in a similar fashion. Soon they had both named just about every possible arrangement in the sky including cosmic masses such as planetary bodies, actual stars themselves and even nearby galaxies. Twyla may have fibbed slightly over some of the more advanced stuff, but it was just too priceless watching Twilight struggle to locate the stellar fallacy.
Either way, it was all in good fun and Twilight eventually caught on with a good laugh. The heavens were their star garden and the Gemini sisters were having far too much fun with the whole mess.

The Apple family had absolutely refused to be left behind in all the festivities that night, and so they had gotten together all of their marshmallows, twigs, and stories and set up a small campfire.
“And then by the end of it all, the poor fella’ was all covered in applesauce!” Aprile slapped her knee with a laugh over the tale of some poor farmhand’s first day on the job.
“Now that sounds like a sticky situation.” Applejack chuckled, to which Applebloom nearly dropped her stick of roasted marshmallow into the fire with a squeaky laugh. Thankfully she had her big brother Big Mac around to save the burnt little morsel.
Big Macintosh himself had spent half the day rummaging through the nuclear submarine that had somehow landed beside their farm and so by now the disemboweled hulk of an iron whale had become almost a part of the landscape itself. Though he did wonder what sort of otherworldly treasures he could find aboard the vessel. Perhaps he’d begin using bits of the scrap iron for a welding hobby. Maybe create some giant fixtures and statues to decorate the orchard with. There was a whole host of creativity rolling through the fire before the red stallion.
“How’s the marshmallow, Big Mac? Good?” Applejack nudged.
The big guy bit into the stick and pulled away a tuft of gooey sugary frost before exaggerating a “Yup.”
Applebloom lifted her stick out of the flames. She took a bite but all that was really left was the burnt cigarette of a marshmallow, “Bleh-!”
“Yer’ doin’ it all wrong there, sweetie. Here, let yer’ big sis show ya’.” Aprile popped a fresh marshmallow onto a new twig and handed it to the filly, “The trick is to put it just over the flames, not ‘in’ the flames. Don’t wait ‘til it’s all black and cooked-like. When it starts to brown up, then ya’ know it’s ready. Go ahead and give it a try!”
The little blank-flank took the stick between her teeth and carefully hovered the white puff over the fire, making sure it just barely got a tickle, “Like this?” she muffled through her teeth.
“There ya’ go! Just like that! Now just keep it there for a little while and it’ll be ready to eat in no time flat.”
The marshmallow finally began to rust as the filly swiveled the stick back and forth, actually having the sense to make sure it was cooked evenly. Applebloom’s usual impatience however was just on the verge of dunking the thing into the flames completely, but before she could, “Now you’ve got it, looks about ready to me.” Congratulated Applejack, “Maybe you can get a cutie mark in roastin’ marshmallows!” she teased with a laugh.
Applebloom didn’t take the taunt very well and began to whine before Big Mac had to intervene and break the two apart.
Meanwhile, Aprile helped herself to another kabob of roasted marshmallows picking them off of her stick one by one. She chuckled through her chew as she watched the charming antics of her adopted family. She sure was feeling a might better about herself, considering all she’d been told. Her new hat might not have fit as well as she’d liked but she’d learn to get used to it.
More than anything though, with the lifetime of trauma and tribulations that had been dumped onto her doorstep within a week, Aprile couldn’t help but feel a bit proud of herself. The chemicals still weren’t properly aligned within her mind and her tear ducts may have been somewhat dehydrated by the night’s end, but she was stronger for it and she’d use that loss to move forward one way or another. No matter how hard it might’ve been to take those first few steps, she knew that she was finally ready to go home.

The Everfree forest was far from touching, amusing, or even dull as Fiona and Fluttershy had soon been reminded of. The tree provided no real amount of shelter as their assailant had no need for any such torch to locate its prey.
Fiona screamed through the pummels of branch after branch. How she hadn’t run face first into yet another tree by now was probably the only stroke of luck she was going to have that night. She gazed back if only to make sure that Fluttershy hadn’t been caught just yet.
“Run!!” Fluttershy nearly tore out her own vocal cords over how loud her whispers were.
Fiona needed no such reminders, and then her luck finally ran out. The trees simply weren’t on her side tonight and she went for a bumbling tumble into the cold dirt.
“Get up! Get up!” Fluttershy frantically tried to lift the poor girl, who hadn’t even had a chance to spit a leaf out of her mouth yet.
Behind them within the gap of the forest stomped a forelimb in a pause, giving itself a moment to analyze its query’s seemingly sealed fate. Fluttershy glanced up at a hissing horror that only Ridley Scott himself could’ve sold on screen.
Standing before the two wood be slash victims was a slender figure, no bigger than perhaps Fiona herself. It was fairly dark, but what was clear was the sheen over a pair of walnut shaped compound eyes divided by a series of careful twitching whiskers and antae. A slobbering maw dripped between a set of steak knives it was using for mandibles. Besides its extra rows of legs, the real quivering threat sat within the clutches of a pair of blunt pincers.
Its dinner items clearly weren’t going anywhere, and had huddled against yet another completely indifferent tree. The insect raised a forcep and leapt for his meal, only to find itself in the gnarled maw of a lizard far bigger than any Komodo dragon Fiona had personally been acquainted with. It may as well have been a dinosaur for all they knew, because it certainly didn’t take much effort to swallow the bug whole.
Fiona and Fluttershy trembled in each other’s arms and/or hooves hoping that the lizard’s sight was based on movement.
The tyrannosaur turned to his stolen dinner and flicked out his tongue so that he might better taste the fear lingering in the air. A shining red glare sent chills up the girls spines and its maw covered in jagged serrated teeth glistening in who knew how many types of acids and toxins which certainly didn’t make them feel any more comfortable.
The two sisters were just about to crawl out of their skins, and the lizard before them would easily have assisted in the process had a scythed talon not dislocated a few discs within the lizard’s neck.
Blood began to spill all over the dirt in large pools. The Komodo dragon’s severed nerves sent its body into a flailing panic and with a piercing screech its assassin threw over the dying carcass and helped itself to the beast’s vulnerable underbelly.
“Come on…!” Fiona took advantage of the much larger menu item on the table, grabbed the little Pegasus and slinked away. She wasn’t about to stick around and find out what could’ve possibly taken down something so big, and Fluttershy wasn’t about to argue about it either.

Fiona ran with the pony in her arms until all she could hear was her own desperate gasps for air, and then she ran for what seemed like another hour until Fluttershy finally managed to calm her down, “It’s okay, it’s okay. I think we’re in the clear, Fiona…” it took the little Pegasus a bit more persuading than that, but the girl eventually came to a halt, finally releasing her timid baggage.
Fiona rested her palms over her tired scraped knees and gave herself a minute to breath. She hadn’t gotten a fair lungful of air since probably the first twig snapped behind them.
Normally Fluttershy wouldn’t have fared any better, but her parental instincts had a way of kicking in at the most convenient of times, “Are you alright, Fiona? It’s okay, we’re fine now.” The girl was still in shock, “Look at me, Fiona!” she grabbed her cheeks with her hooves and shook her out of her daze.
“I-I’m sorry! I’m just… T-That was…!” the poor thing was still trembling. She wondered how any pony at all had ever survived with such monsters so close to home.
“It’s alright, it’s alright!” Fluttershy had lost count of how many times she’d repeated the phrase by now, “Let’s just find Ditzy and get out of-”
“Help…!” a shallow voice called from a distance.
Fiona’s focus rose up all at once, and without question she ran towards the echo.
“Fiona! W-Wait!” Fluttershy’s call fell on deaf ears and she was forced to pursue.

They ran through the dewy mist, at least this area of the forest didn’t have so many branches and vines to tangle their way. What lay ahead however was far more eerie.
“Help!”
Fiona barely even noticed the twisted hives of small eggs and scattered bones. The soil itself had given way to an almost skeletal décor that overwhelmed every tree, rock, and hillside that had the misfortune of coming into contact with the black residue. It was as if Fiona was running through Giger’s very own flower garden.
Whatever had secreted such gothic resin was a question Fluttershy didn’t want any answers too. She didn’t want to spend another second in that creepy forest and yet she was flying straight into the very worst it had to offer, “Fiona, wait! Please! I-I think…!”
“Somepony, please help me…!”
Fiona knew that voice all too well, and she wasn’t leaving without her, “Ditzy! I’m here, where are you!?” her calls were far too loud for Fluttershy’s comfort, given this was clearly something’s nest.
“Fiona! You came for me!”
“W-where are you, Ditzy?” Fiona cried. There was a clear voice echoing from right around here but she just couldn’t see it.
“I’m up here!”
The only real source of light Fiona had was the full moon over head and at least some hope managed to shimmer off of the strange cocoon Ditzy was dangling from. The tree at one point had probably grown many exotic fruit, but its only apparent use on this night was as a coat hanger to store future meals, “How’d you get all the way up there, Ditzy?”
“You don’t want to know, trust me! Just get me down! I don’t like it here…”
The hostage was just too far up for Fiona to reach, “Fluttershy, a little pegassistance…?”
“Oh, uh, of course!” Fluttershy darted up to the cocoon. The poor little gray pony had been completely sealed away up to her neck, perhaps to be preserved for a small breakfast tomorrow or even a week from now, “I’ll get you out of there in a jiffy! Just sit tight.” Fluttershy kicked, hooved and even bit, and eventually the egg came loose.
A few hours stuck in that thing had felt like an eternity, but it sure did feel nice to stretch her wings again, “Phew! I thought I was a goner. Thanks a bunch, Fluttershy!”
“Oh, no, don’t thank me. It was Fiona that came searching and found you. The Everfree forest was the last place I would’ve looked to be honest...”
Ditzy gazed down at the curious girl watching them from below. The look of relief in her eyes was unmistakable, “Well, thanks anyway, and thanks for watching over her, Fluttershy.” She darted down and nearly took Fiona off of her feet with a warm hug, “Fiona! I’m so sorry I ran off like that! I was so scared, but I knew you’d come for me… again.”
Fiona wrapped her arms around the little Pegasus, “Gosh, you scared me! But I’m so glad that you’re okay. Now let’s get out of here. This place isn’t exactly very friendly at this time of night.”
Ditzy choked down a sarcastic chuckle, “Right, uh…”
Fiona was suddenly taken aback by the frozen stare in Ditzy’s eyes. Fluttershy was at an even greater loss for words, and before Fiona could ask if there was something standing directly behind her, a few sticky water droplets began to fall. One splattered right over her forehead, but she was far too petrified to face the sudden gust of wind.
“Look out!” Ditzy was just barely had enough coordination to shove away Fiona before a black scythe nearly scalped her mane clean off. The little Pegasus backed away into Fluttershy, who had become no more than a cold statue by now.
Fiona found herself tossed beside a sinewy ankle balanced on a stiletto heel where an endoskeleton met a series of tendons that would normally be strapped on the inside of any leg. Her face wrinkled in horror and her arms and legs long abandoned the theory of ‘sight based on movement’. With the courage of a limping puppy, she managed to crawl her way into the root of a nearby tree.
What glared down at her nearly sent the poor girl into a tear filled panic attack, which it would’ve seen had it any typical conventional eyes. The only real noticeable feature on its cold dead face was a row of teeth. From the stretched gums onward was nothing but a dark shell that extended back into a devilish black frill, which must’ve added at least another ten feet to the monster’s height. 	Bizarrely enough, for something having supposedly evolved in a world where the predominant design of all species involved hooves or at least a quadrupedal stance, this beast resembled a human more than anything else, albeit a human that was doing its best impersonation a tyrannosaur with half of its bones on the outside of a body and a nightmarish looking tail tipped with a talon.
It yanked the scythe out of the ground and leaned in with what might’ve been the largest smile Fiona had ever seen to analyze the exotic delicacy that had stumbled into its dominion. The ghoulish beast didn’t roar or even screech in the clichéd monster movie tenor, it simply breathed. Brass gusts of foul air traveled in and out of the cracks between its teeth, as if it were almost excited more than anything else over its unexpected guests.
It clearly knew what they had done. Stealing one of its meals would normally have been enough to kill over at that very moment, but it somehow noticed that the human wasn’t from this part of town obviously enough, and within that sedan of a skull it devised an even better idea than simply killing her right there and then.

A chariot covered in death pulled in out of the night’s sky, “ALAS! THERE SHE STALKS! TAKE US IN, MY STALLIONS!” commanded the royalty.
“Haven’t you had enough fun for one night, Luna?” asked a small golden bat that looked almost too cartoonish for this cartoon, “I want to get home already and have dinner with that lovely sister of yours. She has such smooth skin over that long neck of hers…”
“STILL THY TONGUE, WELP!” Luna gave the toy bat a swift hoof to the head that would’ve probably cracked the skull of your typical pony, “Oh! I-I’m so sorry, d-did I hurt you, Kivat…?”
He stumbled for a moment against the railing with a wing tip until the spinning stars finally returned to the night, “Let’s… j-just get this over with.”

The hive devil stretched out its massive hand and grabbed hold of Fiona’s leg before she could scream, and then she very well did scream. She did her best to crawl away, filling her nails with dirt and soot, but she was soon hoisted upside down into the air so that the monster might contemplate its scheme with closer inspection.
“Fiona!!” Ditzy cried as she flew off to the rescue.
“Ditzy, wait…!” Fluttershy called out.
The gray little Pegasus, with all the focus her hobbled eyes could gather, darted over the beasts head distracting it for but a moment with a swift kick of her hooves. The monster stumbled briefly, but the strike was more a kin to being hit with a small stick by a four year old, and so it simply flung Ditzy into a brush with the swat of an arm. The pony was no longer of any real importance.
It was all up to Fluttershy now. She sat there trembling as Satan itself turned its attention to the trembling pony, as if daring her to do something about it. It turned its massive head back towards the screaming Fiona dangling from her ankle.
Fluttershy couldn’t bare to see Fiona’s uncontrollable shrieks and cries for help, and so an unbridled strength rose up within the little pony’s big heart, “Hey you!” she flew up to the meet the leviathan eye to braincase, “J-Just because you’re big! And scary! And evil! And drooling with neuro-toxins! And would probably murder a pony in an instant! Doesn’t mean you get to be a bully! You put my friend down right this instant, or so help me I’ll give you such an ear twist…!”
The monster had no such ears and thus didn’t have much to worry about. It huffed a ghastly spew of fog into the pony’s face before moving on. Its business now resided with the human dangling in its clutches and so it stomped its way over to a wiggling clutch of large eggs, carelessly dragging a sobbing Fiona along through the dirt as if she were a rag doll.
Fluttershy did her best to shake the drool off of her coat, “Excuse me! I’m talking to you!” but she was again ignored. She growled before zipping over and finally landing onto the beast’s crown of a shell in a most impatient manner. She trotted over to the forefront of the thing’s black skull, “I told you to let go of my friend! What you’re doing is very rude and inconsiderate! What would your mother say if she saw you treating others so carelessly? Just what do you have to say for yourself…?”
A gnarled ear piercing shriek that would’ve blown away any B movie’s monster screech was exactly what the thing had to say, and it promptly batted Fluttershy over the head with the blunt side of its scythed tail. The blow sent the flustered pony into a daze of spinning stars before she eventually fell off of the monster’s frill. It probably could’ve easily skewered the Pegasus, but one could suppose it would’ve been a waste of energy to kill something so harmless. Either that, or an inconvenience to the plot, you figure it out.
Ditzy managed to untangle herself from the decaying bush just in time, “Fiona! I’m coming!”
The new hostage screamed as the colossus cuffed her hands with its two smaller arms before finally wrapping its much larger remaining hand over the back of her skull and forcing her head over the top of a peculiar egg. The bulb split at its very tip, oddly resembling some sort of erotic innuendo, and inside began to bubble what looked like a sheep’s intestine of all things. It expanded and then sank, making way for what could only be described as a conjoined set of human hands courting between them what appeared to be a very suspiciously painted flower.
Fiona nearly snapped her vocal cords in a revolting shriek as the thing leapt out of its egg, but before the headcrab could show her what a real kiss was, a bleeding red slice of laser severed the terrible little creature in half and ruptured the egg in its wake.
The blast took the hive queen by surprise and it turned with a frustrated snarl to face the rather gallant chariot behind her nest.
“STEP AWAY FROM HER, THY WRETCH!”
“Luna…?” Ditzy was relieved to finally see some reinforcements.
Fluttershy shook her head and stared up at the glimmering sheen of pale armor. She was in the presence of royalty, and knelt partly out of loyalty but mostly out of sheer terror, “N-N-Nightmare Moon…?”
“That’s ‘Princess’ Nightmare Moon to you, doormat!” Kivat hovered over Luna’s shoulder as she shook her head.
“ENOUGH!” the Anti-Princess stepped ahead of the quivering yellow Pegasus, “WE IMPLORE THEE! STAND BACK!” with probably far too many decibels for the little pony to handle before focusing her attention towards the foul beast, “MY BELOVED SISTER HATH ERRED IN ALLOWING SUCH PUTRID FILTH TO EXIST IN OUR WORLD. WE HAVE ARRIVED TO RECTIFY SUCH MISTAKES!”
“Must you be so dramatic, Luna?” the little bat sighed.
“Kivat!” the uppity princess whined, “I’m trying to get into character…!”
The hellbats guarding her carriage hooved their foreheads, and her royal tongue conveniently returned to snap them to attention, “GUARD OUR CHARIOT! THIS SHAN’T TAKE MORE THAN A BRIEF MOMENT!” and then she turned her deathly howls back towards Fluttershy and just about threw her into a brush with a, “STAY BACK… TO A SAFE DISTANCE! AS WE… PUNISH THE EVILDOERS!”
The hive tyrant had grown tired of being ignored and roared something to the sound of a dying falcon crossed with a fuming cobra.
Fiona’s heart had nearly burst out of its chest, fortunately enough her keeper had bigger space fish to fry and carelessly tossed the damsel aside.
Ditzy zipped over to help the poor thing crawl as far away from the monster as possible, “A-Are you alright!? Did it hurt you? Oh gosh, I’m so sorry!”
Fiona nodded profusely, but couldn’t be asked to turn her eyes away from colossus staring down the Princess of the night.
It wasted no time, and with another hiss it lunged its bladed tail at the protagonists. The attack sent Luna off of her hooves and sent her tumbling into the dirt. Regardless of her challenge, she hadn’t exactly been ready for combat just yet, nor was she prepared for the next guillotine which surely would’ve cleaved her head clean off had her partner not caught the attack.
“What’re you doing, Luna!?” Kivat managed with a bonesword caught in between his teeth.
She didn’t have time for a catchphrase and stood right back up only to admire a maw of glass teeth determined to get a taste of high quality horse meat. The teeth were promptly smashed with a swift hoof kick.
The monster reeled in pain doing all it could to hold its boney jaw together, but it had a surprise for the next set of rear kicks flying its way.
Somehow, the recoil hadn’t damaged its inner pharyngeal jaw and so its second set of teeth sprung forth like a piston and grabbed hold of the princess’ armored fetlock and yanked her into the awaiting maw. Like a sprung bear trap, its teeth clamped down and cleaved her back leg clean off at the haunch, or it would have had Kivat not interfered, “Too bad!” (Hah, gotcha.)
Caught between the cracked teeth of the carnifex was the little vampire bat himself doing all he could to keep the jaws apart amazingly enough with his little bat wings, “P-Princess…! Fight… properly!”
“S-Sorry!” Luna gathered all the focus she could muster within her gallant horn. Her leg was slowly being pulled into a meat grinder and given a second more the monster’s ghastly claws would’ve come around to finish the job until she finally shot a blast of laser right into its skull.
The hive queen released both of its prey items and flailed away in a ghastly shrill. The impact had left a smoking crater over its sensory dome. For but a moment, the thing had been left in a thrashing blind daze which was just the opportunity the princess was looking for, “Thanks, Kivat. Almost bit the dust that time.”
“Man! Just what do you think you’re doing!? Don’t thank me! Transform and finish it off already!” the bat nagged.
“Oh, uh, right!” Luna got into position and nodded over to her partner, “KIVAT!!”
His little eyes beamed red, “Alright!” Kivat zipped around the princess before finally sinking his fangs into her soft neck, “Kiva-bite!”
Luna winced slightly as streaks of what could only be described as stained glass instantly covered her body. They almost seemed to resonate the wild tone of a submarine’s twisted sonar, as if to Shout into the Moonlight.
A soft whisper left her lips, “Henshin…” as a slink of chains spun across her chest and around her body. The chains melded into a crimson harness with a bar at the front and without a second to spare Luna snatched the vampire bat from her molested neck and hung him from the rail with a bell’s triumph.
Kivat’s eyes flickered and her body was soon consumed in a mesh of steel chains and with an ear shattering pop, they exploded to reveal a fiery set of golden armor trimmed in brass and crimson in their wake.
The armor was that of a dragon, or perhaps an Empress of even greater royalty. She was covered in gallant talons with a massive gorget of a collar that swept far behind her head. Her wings and head may have been the only things not shielded in gold though the color of her royal crown had in fact hued to match the rest of her prestige.
She kicked a cloud of dirt into the air and within a blazing flash a glorious red cape burst from the back of her golden collar.
“Oh, wow!” Ditzy and her wood be rescuers were nearly blinded by the glowing radiance.
“Oh! Luna, don’t forget your extra-cool sunglasses!” Kivat reminded.
“Sunglasses, but it’s the middle of the night, Kivat.”
“But Luna, don’t you want to forget your name while you collect your claim…?” Kivat chuckled mercilessly.
Luna sighed.
“Don’t you want to see the light that’s right before your eyes…? Come on now, it was your idea after all!”
“I get it, I get it, it’s the look.” She was clearly embarrassed, but dawned a pair of red shutter glasses as the finishing touch that at first glance had looked totally ‘swag’, at least when her sister wore them. Hopefully they’d be back before Celestia noticed her little sister had been going through her things again.
The hive queen finally overcame its migraine and managed to crawl up to its wobbly legs. It couldn’t help but be taken aback by the royal interceptor standing ready to seal its fate, even if the princess was going to do so in the most awkward way possible.
The monster shrieked as Luna’s moon grew to an inescapable intensity, blinding every foul creature the Everfree forest may have thrown at her.
She swallowed her discomfort no thanks to Kivat, and pointed up to the moon, “LOOK CAREFULLY! WHAT IS THE GLOW OF THE MOONLIGHT REALLY…?” the beast fearfully stumbled backwards while a red mist twisted around the princess like a cyclone, as if her words alone were enough to tempt fate.
“Weren’t you going to use the catchphrase about how you always ‘begin on a climax’ instead?” Kivat received a bop to the mouth for his treason.
The leviathan hissed through another roar, it had clearly had enough and met the knight in a desperate charge. Unfortunately for the monster, Luna was about to count up its crimes.
The hive tyrant swung its massive claw and without even breaking a sweat, Luna kicked it aside, performed a front flip just so that her next kick might be that much more insulting, “I WILL FIGHT TO PROTECT EVERYPONY’S SMILE!” and immediately proceeded to beat the queen’s day lights in with a series of seven bone crushing kicks from her iron spurs and a final spinning round house kick as the eighth.
The explosive charges exceeded Kivat’s best expectations and sent the beast crashing into the rest of its nest. Princess, or rather Empress Luna landed perfectly on her hooves grinning as if she’d just taken out the trash.
“Kick her flank, Princess Luna!” Ditzy cheered.
Somehow the fight had brightened both Fiona’s and Fluttershy’s spirits. Although they may have been terribly worried before, the face was definitely being put over at this point.
Luna watched as the monster, which was literally covered in smoking craters, did its best to get up again and defend itself. Though all it really managed to do was blunder under its own battered hulking weight.
“You ready?”
Kivat snickered, “Let’s see if you have the skill for it this time!”
Luna accepted his little challenge with a short giggle.
She took a small fusel from within her armor and placed it between the fangs of the obedient little vampire bat, “Wake… Up…!” Kivat fell from his perch and swung around to Luna’s back legs, each of which were wrapped in golden chains. With a few swipes and bites the chains snapped to reveal a set of blood red devil wings hanging from each leg.
The moon throbbed with her heart as she leaped high into the night’s sky. The monster had finally managed to lift itself back up only to witness a shimmering silhouette under the moon’s pale glow.
The shadow picked out her target and fired. A hard gust broke, and like a bursting Supernova Luna’s final kick shattered the beast’s skull through its own torso and into the ground with such force that it fissured a pair of devil wings into the Earth below. The lifeless husk may have had a second to collapse if it hadn’t immediately exploded into a burst of flames.
The blast tossed Fiona and her two pegasai friends for a screaming loop until they finally found cover at the root of a considerate tree. Eventually the dust settled and from within the fiery shell stood the burning heart of royalty, her companion and a peculiar floating green sphere that seemed to contain the evil essence of the defeated monster.
“I-I did it…!” she took off her red shutter shades and let out an adorable giggle, “The fun has been… quintupled!”
“Why five?” Kivat perched himself over her shoulder.
Luna really had no reason, “It, uhm, i-it simply involved that particular amount of fun, I suppose.”
Kivat teased a laugh. He still had a bit of trouble justifying his partnership with such an idiot, but he’d be lying if he said he didn’t find her simple charm sort of cute, “Oh! Luna, don’t forget! We can’t let it get away!”
“Oh, that’s right!” She fetched a fuestle from her armor and fed it between Kivat’s vampire teeth.
That little orb wasn’t going anywhere that night, and so he made the call, “Castle Doran!”

“Now where are those red shutter glasses of mines?” Princess Celestia had searched through dozens of dressers and had found a pair of them in every shade of every color but bright red, “How am I supposed to turn off my based swag without something tacky? At this rate, I’ll be covered in stallions at the ball tonight for sure! Oh dear, everyone will think I’m-!” before she could contemplate her fashion guilt any further, the entire castle shook.
She found herself thrown into a deep pile of linens and silks that caressed all the right spots, at least until the roar of an enormous dragon shook every hall in the bastion. It almost seemed as if the beast was part of the citadel itself, or at least taking a big chunk of it with him.
“W-What in the Equestria is that!?” the Princess shuttered.
One of the main spires of Canterlot literally unfurled itself as if it were made of a curtain to reveal the head of the hungriest dragon the city had ever seen, not to mention the most ridiculous dragon they’d ever seen. The poor thing’s body had been locked in a much smaller bastion like a giant tortuous and even had a tiny set of wings hanging out of a pair of windows on either side.
The sight was completely absurd, and only got worse once it managed to lift half of the spire off of its back and leapt into the air just in time for the bounding tower to fall again and reconnect itself with the rest of the castle.
Ponies screamed and ran for their lives, but it was not them that the dragon hungered for. Before an alarm could be raised, the beast had somehow fluttered itself off into the distance as if drawn by a ringing dinner bell.
“W-What…. Just happened?” Celestia’s room had been turned upside down about three times in the commotion but luckily, she’d only been vulnerably pinned under a few body pillows, a ten thousand thread count mattress, half of a wine cabinet and a plate of delectable cheese cubes. Needless to say, the ball was now completely unnecessary. All she needed now were the stallions.

“Oh dear!!” Fluttershy quietly shrieked.
A preposterous flying palace with a dragon’s head, four tiny legs, a set of wings and a tail poking out of every end blotted out the moon’s light and landed on the battlefield with an impatient growl.
“Go on! Wolf it down!” Kivat commanded.
The floating green orb wavered and tried its best to escape, but the dragon was far more desperate to feed no matter how awkward its crawls seemed. With a swift chomp, it chewed and gobbled up the sphere as if it were a gumball. With a pounding gulp, it swallowed the morsel and Shouted into the Moonlight before nodding to its masters.
“Good boy!” Luna grinned.
The bizarre dragon gave another roar and bolted into the night’s sky, with surprising agility might I add, so that it might return and rejoin Canterlot’s foundation.
“Until next time!” Luna waved her hoof.
Ditzy scratched the back of her head, “What the hay was that all about…?”
Fiona hadn’t the slightest idea what had just occurred nor did she even bother dusting herself off. She wasted no time and was the first to run over to the golden princess, “T-Thank you!” she repeated at least six times with the help of Ditzy and Fluttershy, “You saved our lives! I-”
“Ah! You must be one of our guests from that other world. A ‘human’ correct? My older sister’s told me much about you and your friends.”
“Oh, uh, yes! My name’s Fiona.”
“A pleasure to meet you, my dear Fiona. I am Princess Luna, but you can simply call me, Luna, if you wish.”
“That’s pretty rare, you know. You should hear the stuff she makes her personal guards call her.” Kivat remarked, “She’s always trying to fill her big sister’s horseshoes, and-” Luna promptly dunked him into the dirt with a dash of magic, “Bah! M-My name’s Kivat. N-Nice to meet you…!”
“Oh, he’s so cute!” The ‘adorable’ bat was just enough to quell her usual fears of Nightmare Moon and dragons alike.
“Careful. He has quite the mouth on him.” Luna giggled.
“And I might just bite you too!” he assaulted Fluttershy with an onslaught of playful little bites that probably tickled her more than anything else.
“Oh! Me next! Me next!” Ditzy hopped around begging for a turn.
“Oh, you want some too, huh? Get over here!” Ditzy barfed out a laugh over the tiny bites. 	Unbeknownst to them thankfully, Kivat was probably having far too much fun with his depraved antics and once he began going to town on Fiona’s sultry neck Luna had no choice but to pull the little vampire away, “Alright, you’ve had your fun you little-!”
“Shall that be all for the night, my sorceress?” asked an impatient devil winged stallion which I almost forgot about.
“See what I mean?”
“Kivat! You’re embarrassing me!” Luna whined, “Though I do suppose it is getting late…” the girls looked as if they’d been dunked into a swamp and then hung out to dry, “And I’d imagine that the three of you would love to return back to Ponyville, now wouldn’t you?”
Fluttershy, Ditzy, and Fiona couldn’t have agreed more. They’d nearly been killed, eaten, and even impregnated that night, though not necessarily in that order, and they would’ve preferred nothing else than to leave that awful jungle once and for all. Fluttershy didn’t care if Zecora had a cure to Pony aids. There was nothing that could convince her to ever return there.
“READY THE CHARIOT FOR A FLIGHT TO PONYVILLE! WE WISH TO LEAVE THIS FILTHY PLACE AT ONCE!” it was simply the normal tongue that Luna used to speak to the hired help with, “Ehem, sorry, you have to be stern with the guards these days, you know how it is.”
They honestly didn’t, but were willing to nod to whatever got them aboard that carriage.
“Come, my loyal subjects. It’ll be my pleasure to escort you home.” She whispered over to Kivat before boarding the coach, “Please try not to be too creepy around them, especially the human.”
“Yeah, yeah, you Buzz kill…” The toy bat grumbled and followed them into the chariot.

The hellish stallions got back into their natural subservient positions under their harnesses, and without any further question they flew off into the night’s sky.
Fiona had nearly fallen out of the carriage, not exactly expecting a horse drawn carriage to actually fly. She may not have believed in Santa Clause anymore, at least for a few years now, but her faith may as well have been restored given the view of Equestria.
Kivat made sure to take ‘good’ care to support the girl throughout the ride, given she was the largest thing in the chariot to begin with, but eventually Luna caught onto his schemes and gave him quite the ring around the ear.

“FAREWELL MY FAITHFUL SUBJECTS, AND MAKE SURE THAT YOU AVOID ALL MONSTERS AND LARGE PLANTS THE NEXT TIME YOU DECIDE TO WANDER INTO THE EVERFREE FOREST!” Luna shouted at the top her lungs, which probably woke up half of Ponyville but let’s face it, it was day time for this princess. She turned and whispered to Kivat just having waving goodbye, “You owe me big time when we get back home, especially for trying to cavort with that lanky ‘human’...”
“Yeah, yeah, alright.” Luna’s older sister provided far more of an enticing affair, but the little vampire wasn’t about to complain. The cuter shy girls were more his cup of tea anyway.

Fluttershy had finally returned to her little cottage on the edge of town and the very first thing she wanted to do was tumble into her bed and fall into a coma, “I’ll be asleep if you need me, Fiona.”
Fiona nodded innocently. She had the same idea in mind, but needed to ask her little friend if she was okay for the dozenth time that night. She sat down at the doorstep of Fluttershy’s cottage and did just that.
“N-No really, I’m fine, Fiona. And again I’m really sorry about running away like that. I-I was just… well, you’ve been so nice to me, Fiona. I-I don’t want you to leave…”
Fiona held the little Pegasus close over her lap, “I’m sorry, Ditzy, but I don’t belong here. I’ve really enjoyed my time here with you and the others, but my friends need me and I need to return home tomorrow.”
Ditzy didn’t want to let go, “But, what’ll I do without you? You’re like, my only friend here...”
“Now you know that isn’t true! You have plenty of friends here in Ponyville that care about you a whole lot.” She could see the restless look in Ditzy’s eyes about to protest the claim, “None of that doubt now, Ditzy! Give yourself a bit more credit and try to have a little more faith in your friends around you. You have a big heart and a wonderful smile.”
“B-But, some of the others pick on me… There’s gotta’ be a reason that they-”
“Oh Ditzy, don’t ever let a couple of bullies get you down. Life is too short to worry about the small stuff. Just do your best and have fun!” she took up the pony’s pouting cheeks with her fingers and forced a grin, “Oh, and make sure to smile and be happy!”
Ditzy couldn’t resist the ticklish giggle, “I-I guess you’re right.” She had no idea how she’d adjust, or how she’d hold up without that girl by her side. What she did know was that there was no denying Fiona’s logic. She was right, and Ditzy knew that she had to stop being so cynical and letting the smallest mistake ruin her day. Regardless, she’d have plenty of time to conquer the company that came with misery, but she had maybe half a day until Fiona left her forever, “F-Fiona…?”
“Yeah?”
“Since you’re leaving tomorrow and all, well, could I…?”
Fiona giggled, “Of course you can sleep over, Ditzy. Come on, I’m sure Fluttershy wouldn’t mind.”

Fluttershy had covered herself in a half dozen warm blankets and smothered the side of her head into a tender pillow. A shower to get the pine needles out of her hair would have to wait until tomorrow morning, not even the pinecone under the sheets would’ve prevented her from getting any sleep that night.
She was exhausted, but the thought clearly hadn’t dawned on the two goofballs tip toeing through her room. The bed shook and stirred the poor Pegasus out of her mild slumber until she finally realized just how little room she had left. “Uhm, pardon me, Fiona, but I thought I told you that no pets were allowed in the bed.” she turned about and sighed over the two anxious smiles snuggled underneath the blankets.
“Oh, uh, hi Fluttershy.” Ditzy nodded.
Fiona giggled, “I-It would only be for tonight, since well, it is my last night here after all.”
“Oh, fine!” a crotchety Fluttershy grabbed a hoof’s worth of blanket and covered herself in it, though unfortunately her exile didn’t last very long. Fluttershy soon found herself in the clutches of some overgrown child who was once again treating the pony like a stuffed animal, except that she had two to sleep with tonight.
Fluttershy’s twitching brow eventually relaxed and she found the ordeal much easier to accept tonight. Her guest would be gone by tomorrow and with it a glimpse into her own psyche. The entire affair was interesting while it lasted to say the least, but regardless, she found comfort in knowing those two snoozing meatballs in her bed were safe and sound, and that alone was enough to win over a smile.

It was probably three o’clock in the morning, or whatever the hell that meant in horse time, and Ponyville had finally gotten its act together and settled down for the night. They’d danced their hooves off in some obscure gypsy swing jazz tune that they had seemingly picked up out of nowhere and the streets were in even worse shape for it.
The little cottages slept in silence all across town. For many, sleeping in wouldn’t be much of a problem, but for a select few it meant returning to a broken home and a bitter resolution, not to mention waking up with your room on fire.

Two little pastry chefs that looked as if they had just come returned home from pony Mardi Gras sat under a porch light atop the footsteps of Sugarcube Corner.
Piper had finally explained everything to Pinkie Pie. She’d told her about Discord’s ultimatum, about Ponyville’s impending destruction, Twyla’s hopefully brilliant plan to avoid it all and how she’d soon be leaving forever.
Piper would’ve brought along a farewell gift, probably something like a delicious cake or an excessive vat of pudding, but she’d basically spent the entire day enjoying all of those things with Pinkie already, not to mention that the Cakes’ business had already been lacking resources thanks to similar guilty pleasures.
“So… you’re really leaving tomorrow? Forever ever and forever…?” Pinkie’s lip quivered.
The human nodded, “I-I wanted my last day here to be spent having a great time with you. I didn’t want to see you sad so, yeah. I’m sorry, Pinkie…”
“N-No, it’s okay. I, uh, probably would’ve done the same thing!” Pinkie forced the best smile she could muster. She notched herself a seat closer and gave Piper a hug. Pinkie Pie never thought she’d ever meet anyone who could match her creative cookie-work, her bubbly spats of vocabulary or even her obsession with the concept of the ‘smile’. She’d discovered a perfect partner for her eccentric escapades and she’d only known them for a week at best and now suddenly, through no choice of their own, they’d be forced to leave as mysteriously as they appeared.
There were so many words that Pinkie wanted to say to her, but ‘goodbye’ was the only one she hadn’t the courage to articulate. That smile did nothing to hold back a tear or two, and eventually, Pinkie began to break, “I-I don’t want you to go yet…!”
Piper closed her eyes. She just couldn’t bare to see Pinkie cry and her only solace was holding the little pony close, stroking her bouncy mane in an utterly worthless attempt to comfort her, “Please don’t cry, Pinkie. I-I don’t want to see you…” Piper couldn’t help herself either, and soon they were both weathering the rainstorm.
Piper hadn’t a single good recipe to success in her miserable little sprinkle filled life, and once she thought she’d finally found that little hint of sugary something, the oven door shut right in her face.
It tore her up inside to see those soggy little blue eyes staring hopelessly up at her, if anything more so than what had become of her home or even her departure alone. However, she couldn’t very well stand by her happy little reputation and let her friends return to the former metropolis by themselves. There was no easy way through any of it, nor was there an easy way to let go of Pinkie, “We’ve had a lot of fun together, Pinkie Pie, and plenty of trouble to boot… but my friends need me.”
“Oh, I know... I’m sorry if I’m being a bit shellfish, but I know that your home needs you, and so do your friends…”
Piper couldn’t resist a giggle under a falling tear.
“Hey! This is serious business!” the pony scowled.
“Y-You said shellfish.”
“Huh? I did?” Pinkie honestly hadn’t remembered saying such an absurd thing, even though it was only a few lines before this very sentence.
“It’s okay Pinkie, no need to get all ‘crabby’ about it.”
Pinkie’s magical smile tumbled off of the girl’s lap with an inescapable laugh, “I guess you’re right, Piper! We shouldn’t feel too upset... We’ve had a ‘halibut’ time!”
Their laughs grew and Piper slapped her knee, “You don’t need to be a brain ‘sturgeon’ to see that!”
“Cut it out, Piper! You’ve got me ‘floundering’ about over here!”
Piper countered with a “Neigh!” and the two bozos found themselves cackling all over the floor.
As Pinkie laid there and laughed her hooves off, she realized this was probably the last bit of fun she’d ever have with essentially herself. The thought was enough to slam the door on that smile of hers, but she kept on smiling anyway, and laughing and having a great time with her best friend. No matter how far away Piper might be, that door would always be open for that crazy little cream puff.

Raine had awoken in a barn of all the meager irony. Her cheek had a lazy streak of dried drivel over it and her skittle flavored hair had been woven in straws of hay, “D-Dash…? Where are you?”
She hobbled to her feet and gazed around the byer, and then she heard something she thought she’d never hear in a place like Equestria, a horse’s shaking huff followed by a lazy neigh in the next stall over.
Raine peeked over the wooden partition to what appeared to be a horse that had probably spent too much time around a table full of purple markers and a Kindergarten class, “T-Twilight? Is that you…?”
The lavender coated mare nodded with a huff. It was her alright, though clearly missing a signature piece of her magical expertise and much larger than her pocket size cousins. Amusingly enough, the long face, lonely eyes, bulky frame, and actual fitting hooves rather than stumped marshmallows actually made her look like, well, a real horse of all things.
Outside of their stalls trotted by another equine that had apparently been bleached in pink and given the most ridiculous poofy mane Raine had ever seen. Her bouncy nuances had long submitted to a headstall and bit with a pair of blinders covering those curious little eyes of hers.
A tall fellow, probably towards the end of his time-share, guided the innocent little horse through the barn. He had a leash in one hand and a rifle in the other, and then Discord turned towards Raine with an unfastened grin, “I hope you’re more useful than this one.”
And then Raine was the horse, and then she woke up in a screaming fright that nearly sent the real Rainbow Dash into a Sonic Rainboom.
Thankfully for her, the tree branch above them disagreed, “Gah! Mornin’ to you too, sunshine! Sheesh!”
Raine chittered through a chuckle and wiped the sand out of her eyes, “S-Sorry about that, bad dream.” She had expected to see the golden sunrise greeting the open field’s early morning, except that she’d plain slept through it, “Oh crap, what time is it?”
Dash began an indifferent shrug and then a shade of revolting shock crawled over her face.
“W-What is it?” Raine triangulated the direction in which the little Pegasus had drawn her alarm, and then realized just how crowded the sky actually was that day. No amount of cloud clearing would have undermined that falling space station now.
It measured probably around the size of the sun itself from the ground’s vantage point. Just about every little docking bay door, satellite panel and bolt were clearly visible. Those astronauts must’ve run out of paper by now from all the notes taken on the Earth’s sudden abundance of colorful horses Raine thought.
“W-We should probably go find Twyla…!” Raine began a route but ultimately crashed right into Aprile.
“Whoa nelly!” even with a pair of battered legs, it’d take a lot more than that to drop the farm girl, “Hold your horses! Oh, no offense, AJ.”
“None taken!”
It sure was a pleasant sight for sore eyes as far as the airline waitress was concerned. The sprite duo with their apples in abundance and with all they’d been through seemed ready to take on the world, and for all intents and purposes basically were, “Sure is nice to see you feeling better, Aprile. You ready to kick some ass?”
Aprile threw up a laugh and knock the pidgeon in the arm, “You’re damn right!”
“Well, uh, hopefully you don’t have to.” Fluttershy pardoned, “Violence is so, uhm, scary.” And she had every single right to hold that opinion.
Applejack stared at the two animal hoarders, “Ya’ll look like you’ve crawled out of a rattlesnake pit in the middle of July!”
“Erm, it’s not even July yet, Applejack.” Ditzy corrected, even though it was well into July by the time this chapter had been posted.
Fiona held back a giggle, “It’s an expression, Ditzy.” To which the bumbling Pegasus offered an, “Oh…!”
The others choked back their laughs to Ditzy’s ultimate dismay. She hid behind her human friend, and before Fiona could scold the offenders, Rainbow Dash fluttered over.
“Oh, Ditzy, you’re such a crack-up! You really need to hang out with us some more.” Dash elbowed the little Pegasus and for once, Ditzy took it all in stride and smiled.
“Uh, sure!” Ditzy was back in their hooves now, and Fiona finally felt comfortable letting her go.
“So, uh, weren’t we supposed to meet at Twilight’s house?” Raine asked.
“We already did, silly!” Piper cartwheeled into the picture, nearly round house kicking Raine in the face.
Pinkie skipped all the way over and in perfect unison landed on Piper’s head with a pose, “Twyla told us to meet up here, since it was probably where you’d be napping.” She snorted.
Dash hoofed the back of her head, “Well, what time is it?”
“It’s nearly three o’clock, sugarcube.” Chuckled Applejack.
“Sheesh! No wonder that thing’s so close!” Raine pointed out the obvious. The others had already done what they could to accept the frightful sight in the sky. A small token of hope was all that Twyla could offer to ease their fears, “I can’t believe I nearly slept through the whole thing.”
“You really mustn’t let the day slip past you like that. It does horrors for your complexion, darling.” Strolling down the pasture with a pair of ridiculous Mercura sunglasses was Regina, who may have fallen off the tallest pedestal in the world with such a tacky accessory, but the diva knew how to make them look good, especially under a giant white bonnet.
Even Rarity rocked a set. Today she may have been the escorting party to another dimension, but tomorrow she’d be a goddess.
Raine had gotten used to the nagging by now, or so she thought, “Hi, Regina.” She answered plainly, stuffing herself into the pit of her aviator’s jacket.
“Oh dear! Have you been sleeping out in the grass or something? You look like you haven’t bathed in a week!” Regina immediately began rummaging the stickers of grass and pine needles out of Raine’s unkempt hair, “Just because you’re off in some alternate universe does not excuse you from proper hygiene!”
Raine’s grumbling was quite the amusing sight for both Rarity and Rainbow Dash.
One look at Fiona was all it took for Regina to throw herself off of a cliff, “Christ, almighty! Did the three of you wander into a dragon’s nest? It looks as if you were just chewed up and spit out!”
To be honest, Fiona, Fluttershy and Ditzy had slept in as well due to obvious circumstances, and it had somehow been more important to be punctual to their meeting rather than spend an hour’s time at best to freshen up. A helpless giggle could hardly be helped.
“I will never understand how the lot of you can go on without at least some deodorant! I mean, look at this! There’s a pinecone dug into your hair, Fiona!”
“Oh, so that’s where that went.” Fluttershy was actually surprised.
Piper and Pinkie Pie nearly fell over in laughter and the others soon followed. Even Rarity couldn’t help herself, though Regina was still far from amused and spent the remainder of their time grooming the nonchalant Fiona, “Shame on you! Can’t even be bothered to groom yourself for your big trip home.”
“So aren’t we missing a couple of folks?” Pinkie pointed out, “Where’s Twyla and-”
A bolt of electrostatic lightning nearly threw the entire group for a loop and within the blink of an eye stood a purple little unicorn surrounded by a floating set of books, a record player and a mystical case. Alongside her stood a proud assistant posed with one hand against her hip and the other pointing straight at the falling space station. She cried out with every fiber of her being, “Allons-y!”
“Allon-what? Alonso?” Twilight’s quirked, “Erm, I don’t think I know anypony by that name, Twyla.”
Twyla held her magnificent stance, “Y-Yeah I know. I’ve just always wanted to say that.”
The reference had flown right over the unicorn’s horn, as if she ever would’ve ever caught it to begin with. Twilight finally laid down all of her books and that oh so familiar jeweled case of theirs, “Anyway, is everyone ready?”
By the look of it, and I mean by the wear dug under those eyes of theirs, they probably weren’t.
“What do you think?” Raine raised a brow.
Aprile put a hand over the pilot’s shoulder, “Cool it, kid. She’s only trying to help.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Twilight glanced over at the little treasure chest that she was still nowhere near ready to open. She was surprised at herself, she thought she’d be ready for this very moment. The fate of her friends and the future of Ponyville depended on this very moment, and yet her hooves were still shaky.
The others fared no better. Piper had the sharpest look of doubt in her and that same doubt was an understatement for Fiona. Raine still had one race left in her and Aprile was on the verge of leaving Applejack with both hats altogether. Regina on the other hand couldn’t have hidden the look on her face in any more accessories.
The ponies knew the stakes, but they were no closer to crossing the line in the sand than their human counterparts were. That chest could’ve remained bolted shut for eternity as far as they were concerned. Perhaps there was another way out of this? Maybe some convoluted ‘Plan B’ that Twilight could think up at the very last moment. Could there be any other way to spend just one more day in Ponyville?
Twyla could’ve read that entire library before her in one sweep. She hardly even had to judge the cover, and she certainly wasn’t any less guilty. She sighed and stared up at the glimmering object invading Celestia’s day, and behind it she saw something that had continued to give her hope at the bottom of every pit she’d fallen into.
It was that same old meek and timid little rainbow, barely noticeable at all and imaginably all the more uncertain of what lied ahead than anyone else there. It just sat there like a scared little girl looking for her mother, completely overwhelmed by the world around her.
Discord’s chaos knew no bounds, and Twyla knew that if they didn’t attend his party tonight that he’d only return again tomorrow with the same old dull hijinks. This needed to come to an end one way or another, but was this really the best thing she could think of?
Twyla had gone through each and every scenario, every factor and she just couldn’t think of any other way to see this through. For probably the first time in her logically scientifically driven life, she’d have to take a leap of faith, and she was going to have to bring her friends along for the ride.
She cleared her throat and grabbed the record player from Twilight’s side, “Listen up, ladies. I know this is difficult, the last thing I want to do is break all of our friendships that we’ve made here.” She glanced over at Twilight with a hopeless look in her eyes, “But this isn’t about us anymore. The worlds around us are crumbling at our feet, erm, and hooves as well, a-and we have Discord to blame for all of this! If we’re ever going to set things right again, then we have to drag him back to this world and make him pay for all the suffering he’s caused before anyone else gets hurt! This sucks, I know, but we can’t be selfish about this, girls. There’s too much riding on us!”
The crowd was eager, but silent.
Piper looked around, and finally stood up, “You mean shellfish?” she shot a wink at Twyla.
“Say what now?” Ditzy bid.
“Huh?” the derailment had thrown Twyla’s speech completely off of its tracks and the only one there who knew what the goofball was going on about was probably Pinkie Pie, who rolled her eyes and kept a giggle under her breath.
Aprile came to the cream puff’s aide, “I think what Piper’s tryin’ to say is that, what’s important is wranglin’ up Discord to pay for his crimes.”
Applejack nodded and tipped her hat, “That varmint’s gotta’ lot comin’ his way!”
“I-I don’t want to leave! B-But…” Fiona had to shift properly into gear to get herself going, “...I-I can’t stay here either knowing what he’s done, and what he could do if we don’t stop him.”
“Damn straight.” Raine threw an arm around the wobbly tulip, which soon blossomed into a rose, “This here’s a joint effort, and we’re gonna’ send him crawling back here begging for mercy!”
“Yeah! And we’ll be ready for him when he gets here!” Dash cried.
“Though I would definitely prefer to, well to be honestly blunt, ahem, spit on his dreadful face and break a god damned heel off through his kidney!” Regina nearly threw off the entire vibe to which Rarity tittered.
“It’s okay, she’s only got one pair of heels left. She’s not going to break them.” The white unicorn whispered over to Fluttershy.
“Oh, well, uhm, I wouldn’t mind if she at least, you know, startled him with them, at least a little bit…”
Twyla sat the record player at the center of the group and shot a glance over at Twilight, “Did you bring that record, Twilight?”
“Oh, of course I did! How could I forget?” she picked an old record out of dusty sleeve and sent it over to her big sister on a cloud of magic, “The third act of Die Walkure is one of my favorite pieces.”
Opera was just about the last thing Twyla had in mind. The gist was more a kin to cinema and specifically the war drums of an oncoming merciless slaughter, “Thanks, this is perfect.”	It took about a second, but the needle eventually caught wind and ‘Ride of the Valkyries’ began thumping through every single heart there, “Time to dance, ladies. Whose ready to make it loud!?”
“Dance? I love dancing! And loud dancing is my favorite kind of dancing!” Piper threw herself into another squealing cartwheel that landed her by Twyla’s side.
Raine licked her lips, “Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about, baby. Come on, Fiona. I’ve got your back!”
“Oh, uhm, okay.” She was probably blushing a lot more than she really wanted to admit.
Aprile hollered with a wave of her hat, “Let’s get this show on the road!”
Regina dipped her shades back into her brow, “I’ll consider getting myself dirty if it means a chance to wrap my talons around the gullet of that mad hatter! But just this once, you hear? And then it’s off to the spa with the lot of us!”
“Go for it, Twilight.” Nodded Twyla.
The unicorn grinned over a cacophony of opened subtext filled with a very specific set of marked spells. She sent a spark of magic towards the jeweled case and with a snap the lock opened revealing the Elements of Harmony. Twilight shot them off one by one, casting each golden necklace around the collars of every pony there, except for Ditzy of course because they hadn’t invented the Element of Stupidity yet, or even better, perhaps the Element of Surprise? Yeah, that’d be great, and endearing to boot!
There was an eager charge in the air that hopped through each jewel and it only grew in excitement as Twilight Sparkle dawned her golden crown, “Alright, we’re ready on our end!”
Twyla threw her arms over a couple of her friends’ shoulders with a determined glare, “Alright, ladies, here goes nothing!”
“We’re going back to nothing? That’s a bit grim there, Twyla.” Piper remarked, “Sheesh.”
The human collective stood in a circle and the ponies soon gathered around them as the charms shimmered and pulsed around their little necks.
“You ready there, Regina?” Aprile whispered.
“Well, probably not.”
“Yeah, me neither.”
Twilight huffed and hoofed through the final length of the spell. She took a breath and gazed up at the stellar anomaly before preparing her magic. 
“Oh, crap!” Twyla cried, completely spoiling the buildup, “S-Sorry everyone, almost forgot about something.” She awkwardly scrambled over to the few remaining books that Twilight hadn’t already checked out and picked out one in particular before pulling the needle off of the record player only to prolong the ultimate destruction of the poor Vietnamese village.
“What’s wrong?” wondered Twilight.
“Here.” Twyla opened the tome to a tabbed page and fingered through a detailed illustration, “Almost forgot about this, Twilight. I want you to throw in this spell if things don’t go exactly as planned.”
Twilight was surprised by how far the ancient alchemists had gotten, and even more surprised by how much Twyla had caught up to the spellbound machinations of ponykind, “A-Alright, will do. You have my word.” 
Twyla had one more thing to give the unicorn before they finally sailed off. She got down to a knee and gave Twilight a tight hug, “Thank you for everything, Twilight Sparkle. The little friends I had left would be gone if it wasn’t for you. T-Thank you so much…”
The unicorn nearly blemished her smile. Saving the lives of so many somehow didn’t seem like enough, “…I-I wish I could give you back your home as well.”
Twyla couldn’t bare to let go, “That’s okay. Knowing that your world is safe is more than enough for me.”
Twilight teared up. She would’ve gladly given up everything she had to give her friend back the life she knew, but the gift was just beyond her hooves, “T-Twyla, please stay safe, and take care of yourself.”
“You too, sis.” Twyla passed her fingers through the little unicorn’s highlighted mane, “Farewell.”
Raine sighed, “Come on, Twyla. You’re killing me over here.” To which Dash chuckled.
Twyla giggled and wiped away a few tears, “Coming!”

Dash casually flew over in a mess of awkward emotions she was too embarrassed to spill.
Raine met the look in her eyes, “Hope you’re ready to kick some ass, Dash.”
“Hah! You know I am, we’ll be waiting and ready.” Dash swung out her hoof and with a smile Raine gladly accepted the ‘ponyfist’.
“Just remember to think of me when you’re doing it, pipsqueak.”
“I’ll knock ‘em dead twice just for you, kiddo.” Rainbow paused for a second, “And, just hang in there, okay Raine?”
Raine chuckled, “Don’t get all soft on me, Dash.”
The Pegasus hid a laugh under a breath of disappointment. She’d hoped to at least get an arm over her shoulder or a rustled mane.
“Oh, get over here you, you big baby.” She gave the little pony a terrible noogie which with Dash’s ticklish laughs eventually turned into a big hug, “Take it easy, Dash, and take care of Gilda. She might be a little rough around the edges, but she’s a good kid.”
Dash was too embarrassed for sentence structure, “T-Thank you for everything, Raine. Thank you so much…!”

Pinkie Pie leapt into Piper’s arms, “We had such super fun time together, but boy am I going to miss you, Piper!”
“I’m going to miss you too, Pinkie Pie.” She held the little pony tightly, “For every one of our birthdays, I’m going to make sure to put one extra candle on the cake just for you.”
Pinkie Pie whimpered, “Oh! I’m going to put in two extra candles for you on my side of the cake!”

Fiona gave her flying little sister a warm hug, “I’ll never forget how kind you’ve been to me, Fluttershy, and please take care of Ditzy for me.”
“Of course I will, Fiona. Just make sure to take care of yourself too.” Fluttershy giggled, “You have a great big heart, just please don’t let it break.” She snuggled between Fiona’s arms.
Fiona giggled, “I promise, Fluttershy.” Her heart was probably far too generous to ever keep such a promise, but she’d do her very best just for Fluttershy.
She caught a glance of a waiting Ditzy, who looked as if she had been abandoned, “Oh, get over here Ditzy.” Fiona walked over to the awkward pegasus and made sure she was loved, “Please, Ditzy, don’t ever feel so bad for yourself and don’t ever believe what any dumb bully ever tells you, and most of all, hold your head up high and make sure that the whole world sees that beautiful smile of yours!”
Ditzy nearby broke down right there and then, but Fiona was there to pull her out of that well, “I-I’ll never forget you, Fiona! Please, take care of yourself. Stay safe!”

Regina picked off her sunglasses and glanced down at the white little unicorn standing by her side.
“I-I’ve never really been very fond for goodbyes, you see.” It was the very last thing Rarity wanted to say to her, “Although I’ll probably never see you again, I just can’t bring myself to say farewell as selfish as that sounds, but please, Regina, don’t ever forget about me.”
The diva knelt and put her arms around Rarity, “Forgetting you would be like forgetting all about everything I’ve ever adored in life, like throwing away all I’ve ever worked for. It would be like tearing out a part of my heart.” She knew she’d brought those damnable sunglasses for a reason, and the mere words were almost enough to break that very same heart, “Oh, I love you, Rarity, take good care of yourself and by all means, go ahead and flaunt whatever designs I left in your salon. They’re all yours.”
Rarity giggled through the tears rounding her cheeks, “I-I could never take the credit for those. I’m not nearly as talented as you-”
“Yes you are, Rarity. Yes you are, and don’t you ever doubt yourself. Keep pushing yourself and by the time you know it you’ll be living at the top of Canterlot.”
The thought burnished a soft laugh out of Rarity and Regina helped it along. At least for this very minute, the two were inseperable.

Aprile removed her hat as if she was staring down at one of the most inspirational monuments she’d ever laid her spring eyes on, “You know, if it weren’t for you always bein’ there to help me back up on my feet, I probably would’ve done somethin’… a little crazy, Applejack.”
“I don’t think you’d ever do somethin’ so awful, Aprile. You’ve got a good head on your shoulders, you’re too much of a good person for that sort of thing.”
Aprile sighed, “For a bit, I think I may have almost let you down.”
Applejack rucked up a smile, “You could’ve plum robbed a cider store, and there’s still no way someone like you would’ve ever let me down.” The little pony lifted planted her front hooves against the cowgirl’s denim jeans, “Aprile, don’t ever lose hope, and don’t ever lose faith in yourself. You’ve gone through something terrible and yet you’ve come out of it in one piece. You’re a bright and tough woman… and before you go I want you promise me something.”
Aprile met those anxious green eyes of hers, still unsure if she could live up to anything anymore.
“Please promise me that when you get back, no matter how bleak things are, that you’ll keep your head held high and you’ll start over on that apple orchard. You put your life, blood and tears into those apples, just like your family did for generations. Please promise me that you’ll rebuild, not just for your family, or the pride, but for yourself. This whole crazy game in life that we’re all apart of needs a heap lot more of people like you, Aprile.”
Having lived on an apple farm for most of her life, and even with the opportunity to taste an apple in high definition, Aprile had nearly forgotten what a real apple tasted like. Even then her heart still ached, but even if she didn’t have the will any longer, she’d still learn to acquire that taste all over again if it was for Applejack, “Golly, AJ. You don’t leave too much room for wrigglin’, but you ‘ought to know that I ain’t one for turnin’ down a promise.” She managed what she could of a smile with the little pride she had left, “I-I won’t let you down, Applejack. I promise.”
AJ shook her head, “No, don’t let yourself down. I already know that you can do it.”
Aprile fell to her knees and held the pony close. It was the only sanctuary she could find to hide her tears, “T-Thank you for everything, Applejack. I’ll never forget you.”
Applejack adjusted her loose duster over her watering eyes, “Keep your chin up and take good care of yourself, n-now go on and get outta’ here.”
Aprile popped her hat back on her head with a distant quivering smile on her face and nodded, “A-Adios… Applejack.”

There was a little birdy in each of their hearts, but it was finally time to depart.
Twilight went over the massive spell one more time until she’d memorized even the punctuation.
Twyla flicked the needle back against the spinning record and with a scratch the Valkyries called out for their aide once more, “Time to get this show on the road, ladies.”
“Right!” they answered the call in unison and got back into their positions.
Twyla grinned over at Twilight for what would probably the last time. The unicorn returned the smile before throwing herself into the ethereal glow of the Elements of Harmony.
An uncertain spark crept from ornament to ornament basking in an electric howl vibrating from each of their gems. They began to glow and a brilliant radiance shot forth blanketing the humans in a sea of colors.
The ponies did their best to concentrate, but couldn’t help but break their focus to give their final goodbyes.
Raine grabbed Fiona’s hand, who thought she’d already been faily overwhelmed given the magic flowing through her body at that very moment. She shot a reassuring wink at the dainty little flower.
Fiona’s uncertainty arched into a perky smile. Even under all of the blush flustering over her cheeks, she felt as if she could take on the world with the hand she was holding.
Within seconds the six humans were washed over in a prism’s jetstream that shot off into the sky. The pillar of colors struck the incoming space station’s belly and carried it back off into orbit, and before Twyla and her friends could wave for any longer, they were eroded away. Their particles broke through the heavens in a bright thunderclap that disappeared beyond the clouds forever.
All that was left of their trip to Equestria was the brightest and most beautiful rainbow any of those little ponies had ever seen. Even Rainbow Dash was completely awe struck by its majesty.
Rarity walked up to her unicorn sister, “Do you think Twyla’s plan will work?”
Twilight gazed up into the rainbow and wondered what sort of world her human friends would end up going back to and what sort of future lay ahead of them. What they had given up for the sake of two universes would’ve been too much for anyone to bare.
“Twilight, dear?”
“Oh, sorry, Rarity. Yeah, I-I hope so…” because if it didn’t, then Twilight had just about sent those humans straight into the welcoming grill of a burning oven. She stared down at the opened spell book that Twyla had left her and for probably the first time in her life, she second guessed herself.