“So, how exactly do you… act around a League Founder?” Cinder asked Suzie. They were standing on board Swip, waiting for a portal to appear in her dimensional ring.
“Like every other Sweetie,” Suzie said. “You met Allure, right?”
“Yeah, but I was literally called in to meet her. She’s nice and all, but that didn’t really feel like… ‘every other Sweetie’.”
Suzie shrugged. “I’m technically a founder, as is Burgerbelle, even if we’re not grouped with the others as often.”
Cinder furrowed her brow. “So… you didn’t actually have to found the League with the original five to be a Founder?”
Suzie tilted her hand side to side. “We generally group ourselves by who was there when we faced the Collector and met Sweetie. The Sweetie. So that’s me, Burger, Allure, Thrackerzod, Squeaky, er… Brute, and Bot—who we’re meeting today.”
“The Sweetie?”
“When Allure took her name, she gave Sweetie the right to keep hers.”
“Sounds like there’s a story there.”
“There is! Quite a fun one, actua-”
A portal ripped open just in front of Swip’s dimensional ring, depositing a small robotic unicorn filly. There was no mistaking her for anything other than a robot: her eyes were clearly digital, her curls fake, and every time she moved her legs it sounded like a servo was about to give out. “Extending greetings protocol!”
Suzie shook the hoof of the filly-sized machine. Then she pulled the tiny robot into a hug. “Good to see you again.”
“I saw you a few weeks ago! Activity: shouting at Nausicaa.”
Suzie lowered the robot to the ground and smiled nervously. “I… yeah, I did spend a lot of time doing that. Don’t worry, we’re both Sweeties. We’ll figure out our differences eventually.”
Swip’s avatar coughed on a nearby screen. “You’ll never do that if you spend as much time as possible away from her influence…”
“Conclusion seems accurate,” Bot reported.
“I just realized that I now have two of you on board,” Suzie laughed. “Your analytical observations will know no end.”
“Swip isn’t that analytical for a robot,” Cinder said.
“Conclusion seems accurate,” Bot reported. Again. She and Cinder hoofbumped.
Suzie rolled her eyes. “Glad to see you’re having no difficulty bonding with Bot whatsoever. Anyway, Bot, since this is basically your vacation…”
“Mission! We shall go explore to obtain a substantial quantity of friendship and experiences!”
“...You’re just upset Thrackerzod and the others are busy, aren’t you?”
Bot beeped sadly. “Affirmative… Everypony’s analyzing the visit to Earth Shimmer, and the League is preparing the City for the world’s magic. And Shimmy. Chances of something going wrong: 99.9%. They have no need for a robot. The City itself has enough processors.”
“Aww…” Cinder said, holding her heart. She knew Bot was significantly older than she was, but that didn’t stop her from seeing a young blank flank making the puppy eyes heart-wrenching. “Don’t worry, we’ll give you something amazing to do!”
Suzie smiled in understanding. “She’s right, Bot. Let’s see… you and Burger can catch up on the mission. Who else do you want?”
“Seren! She can make repairs in emergency situations!”
“Done. And?”
“Squiddy!” Bot excitedly tapped her metallic hooves on the ground, sending vibrations through the floor to everyone around her. “She’s either the coolest or the funniest.”
Squiddy poked her head into the room. “My inkling sense told me I was being insulted. Wanna say that to my face, toaster?”
“Amusement levels rising!” Bot laughed.
“Swip, can you find a random world?” Suzie asked.
“Why do you always ask that?” Swip snarked. “I have several coordinates cached at virtually all times. Of course I can.”
“Swip, dial a random world.”
“Yes, Captain.”
The ring lit up, ripping a hole through reality to a dark urban ruin with overcast skies.
“...Cheery,” Squiddy observed.
“Adventure: initiate!” Bot declared. She bounced through, dragging Squiddy with her.
“...Isn’t she forgetting the rest of her team?” Cinder asked.
“Well yes, but actually no,” Burgerbelle said, waving from the other side of the portal.
Seren was standing next to her, looking up from a data pad in confusion. “Oh. Guess we-”
Pop went the portal.
Cinder shrugged. “I’m going to go play video games with Blink. Wanna come?”
Suzie thought about this for a moment. She didn’t really have any paperwork right now. “Sure.”
“Think Bot will want to play when she comes back?”
“She’ll trounce you. She is a robot.”
“Then we gang up on her!”
“...I think you underestimate her abilities.”
Cinder shrugged. “It’ll be fun either way.”
Suzie smiled—she loved that little bundle of positivity.
~~~
“Tell Chime to meet me at the geode store. She’ll know the one.”
Sweetie Belle pressed ‘replay’ on her tablet for the umpteenth time, keeping her finger on the button a little longer than was strictly necessary. The voice of her sister came to her ears once again. She tried her best to hear any sort of inflection within Rarity's voice—urgency, sorrow, or even joy—but there was nothing. It wasn’t even whispered, just spoken simply.
Sweetie knew this shouldn’t bother her, but it did. Rarity’s voice should always have some sort of life to it. Not… this. Whatever this was.
“That can’t be good for you,” Apple Bloom said.
With a sigh, Sweetie pocketed her tablet and turned to her cyborg friend. She looked human enough, and Sweetie no longer held her appearance against her, but it was still weird to see her silvery smooth skin that doubled as armor and metallic-red hair. The constant soft hum Apple Bloom produced had been comforting at times and aggravating at others, not that Sweetie would mention either to her friend.
“We’ll get her, okay?”
Sweetie frowned. “What if we’re too late? What if she was followed?”
“No use worrying about that until we’re there,” the last member of the trio said, her voice reminding Sweetie that Scootaloo hadn’t come with them. Instead, it was a large woman in power armor that had been tasked with guarding them across the war-torn hellscape that was Earth these days. “Worry about the dangers here. We already had the argument about the trap possibility.”
“Ember, this place is abandoned,” Sweetie pointed out, gesturing at the wrecked urban sprawl they were walking through.
“There have been Lost sightings here, and where there’s Lost, there’s going to be ADVENT.”
“And if they were here, you’d tell us to get down long before they actually showed up.”
“Wouldn’t hurt to keep an eye out ourselves,” Apple Bloom said. “Never know what we might see coming at us.”
“Yeah. Right. Sorry, Ember, just… on edge.”
Ember nodded curtly, maintaining her silence. They continued walking through the wrecked buildings, occasionally passing by a skeleton. Most skeletons were human, but a few were of other creatures with bizarre proportions and figures—and the vast majority of bones showed some sign of being burnt. Evidence of overturned war machines littered the larger streets, both alien and human, though there were far less alien wrecks.
Sweetie was more than a little surprised to see some of the skyscrapers were still standing. Say what you would about humanity, they liked to build impressive things to last.
“Hold up,” Apple Bloom said, freezing in place. “Something’s off.”
“I don’t see anything,” Ember said, readying her gun nonetheless.
“Ah’m not seein’ it. I’m feelin’ it. My circuits—they’re compensatin’ for a dramatic increase in ambient charged particles. Electrons are jumpin’ more than they should.”
“...English?”
“Ah have no idea what it means, just that somethin’ weird’s goin’ on.”
Ember held a hand up for silence, listening carefully.
All three of them heard the laugh, followed by some excited shouting.
Sweetie furrowed her brow. That wasn’t ADVENT… but there was something familiar about the sound she couldn’t put her finger on.
Ember gestured for them to take shelter inside an abandoned storefront, a convenience store that had been looted long ago. They crawled in through the broken windows and ducked low enough that only their eyes were visible, level with the windowsill. Sweetie held her breath as the sounds got closer—not sure what to expect.
She could hear three distinct voices… maybe four. Two were female and sounded human, the others were different kinds of synthetic voices. The sources of the mysterious words came into sight about the same time Sweetie could make out what they were saying.
“Magic is exceptionally low here, I’m not casting ‘firework’,” a young girl said. A young girl with ears and a horn. A young girl that had Sweetie’s hairstyle, eyes, and face. This, alone, would have been enough to make Sweetie’s breath catch.
But the strangest was still to come.
One after another, three other beings that looked similar to Sweetie came into full view. A young woman with white tentacles on her head instead of hair was the easiest to accept. The tiny robotic unicorn gave her pause, but she’d seen things in the world that let her admit that such a thing was at least possible.
But the thing that looked like a perfectly ordinary human at first glance was the one that made her mind blank. A girl, early teens maybe, that moved like some kind of sock puppet and, despite the dynamic nature of her poses, was two dimensional.
“What the f-”
Ember shushed her with a nudge. Luckily, it didn’t appear that any of the “Sweeties” had heard her.
Sweetie managed to calm her mind down enough to focus her attention on the four unusual beings. They were still talking about the ‘firework spell’. Are they from Sunset’s world…? But wouldn't there be only one Sweetie Belle?
“Seren knows what magic’s about,” the squid-girl said. “She’s not going to cast the firework.”
“But it would be fun,” the flat creature said in an eerily monotone voice that did not go with her cheerful expression.
“Why don’t you just make a firework yourself? You can do that. Easy.”
The flat creature jumped to a contemplative pose, thinking deeply.
“Initiating firework protocols!” the robot said. A hatch in the side of her body opened up, revealing a small, red firework.
“Nonononono!” the kid—Seren, probably—said, waving her hands. “This place is a warz-”
The firework went off into the sky and exploded in a beautiful burst of reds and blues.
“Idiots,” Ember hissed.
“I wish I had fireworks,” Apple Bloom said.
“Shh!” Sweetie hissed—even though none of the “Sweeties” outside could hear them over their sudden argument.
“Bot! Squiddy!” Seren put her hands on her hips. “You should know better!”
“I didn’t do it!” Squiddy objected.
“You encouraged it.”
“You could have brought it up earlier.”
Why do they talk to the kid like she’s an adult…?
“Girls!” Bot said, inserting herself between the two of them. “No fighting. I should not have initiated the firework protocol. I am sorry. Let us restart the journey. Nothing bad happen-”
A high impact bullet hit Bot in the side of the head, sending sparks flying as she rolled into the rubble.
The flat creature and Squiddy prepared for a fight; the latter hefting a gun filled with a white liquid while the former pulled out… a giant clock face from nowhere?
Sweetie couldn't see their opponents yet, but she recognized the sound of ADVENT gunfire. Of course the firework had drawn attention. These poor, lost, confusing people were probably about to die right in front of her eyes. And yet, she couldn’t make herself look away. Because they were her, in a way.
So surreal.
The white liquid shot out of Squiddy’s gun to somewhere out of sight—though the target didn’t let that stay for long. The humanoid ADVENT soldier charged forward, not caring in the slightest that the liquid was getting on his sleek red-and-black armor. He let bullets fly, forcing Squiddy to duck for cover behind some loose rubble.
The flat creature didn’t do any of that. She used her clock as a shield, blocking several of the bullets before swinging her arm wild, throwing the clock like a discus. It flew true, hitting the approaching soldier dead-on, knocking him into a second that had just arrived on the scene.
A third was unaffected, however, jumping over rubble to point his gun right in the creature’s face. He pulled the trigger at point-blank.
Nothing happened to his target.
“You had a 40% hit chance,” she said, grinning. She kicked him in the stomach with a steel-toed boot that she hadn’t been wearing a moment ago, knocking him over.
How? She’s a kid!
Without leaning down to pick it up, the creature had the soldier’s gun. Instead of shooting it—like any sane person would have done—she used it to smack one of the soldiers who was trying to get up upside the head.
She’s… fighting nonlethally. That’s insane!
“Done!” Seren shouted, drawing Sweetie’s attention back to her and Bot. To her shock, the unicorn robot had been completely repaired—and her eyes had gone a deep, menacing red. “Burgerbelle, get out of there!”
Burgerbelle. That thing’s name is Burgerbelle. That’s it, the war’s finally driven me insane. No other explanation.
Burgerbelle jumped back to where Squiddy was hiding, giving her a thumbs up.
“Showoff,” Squiddy muttered, coating more of the area with her liquid.
Bot, angrily glaring at the ADVENT soldiers, rose into the air with rockets built into her hooves.
“Aw, come on,” Apple Bloom muttered.
A handful of ADVENT soldiers ran onto the scene, accompanied by a few of the golden, slithering Vipers; feminine snakes with arms. They all pointed their weapons at Bot and fired, filling the air with bullets.
Seren lifted her scepter and created a shield around Bot, letting out an audible wince of pain as she did so. The space around Bot shifted and scattered around the shield, but it blocked the bullets.
“Our turn!” Burgergelle laughed, giving Bot the thumbs up. “Give them some justice.”
Bot nodded. “Targets acquired.” A missile bay popped out of her side that was too large to fit inside her.
“Aw, come on!” Apple Bloom shouted, not that anybody could hear her over the sounds of gunfire.
Six missiles launched from Bot’s bay, impacting the ground with immense explosions that shook what little glass remained in the storefront window out. The smoke soon obscured Sweetie’s view of the situation, but she didn’t hear any more gunshots.
They won.
As the smoke cleared, the cheery voices told her she was right.
“We are definitely in a warzone,” Squiddy said, coughing. “We should leave.”
“We just got here!” Bot complained. “That wasn’t that bad.”
Seren held her head. “I had to put far too much effort into that simple shield. We need to re-evaluate, Burgerbelle. There are more compli-”
Ember moved so quickly she knocked Sweetie over. She swung her gun forward and fired, unleashing a single shot directly into a Viper’s head. The snake let out a pained hiss—and dropped the weapon it had pointed directly at Squiddy’s back.
Squiddy stared at the dead snake in horror. “Wh…”
Immediately, Seren held up her hands. “Don’t shoot! We’re friendly!”
“And stupid!” Ember called, lowering her weapon. “What the hell was that!?”
“A bunch of multiversal explorers running into a warzone?” Burgerbelle suggested.
“We knew it was a warzone,” Seren deadpanned.
Bot made a beeping noise. “We are a team of explorers and part of the League of Sweetie Belles!” She extended a hoof. “I am Sweetie Bot! I extend this hoof in love and friendship!”
“...You really are from Sunset’s world, aren’t you?”
“My world does have a Sunset in it! Affirmative!”
“And it looks like yours has a Sweetie Belle,” Seren said, pointing at Sweetie. “Come on out. We don’t bite.”
A child is telling me to be calm.
With a sigh, Sweetie resigned herself to the insanity and stepped out of the show. “...I’d like to know what the hell is going on.”
“And Ah wanna know how you did all that!” Apple Bloom said, pointing at Bot. “Half of that was impossible!”
“It is because of my coolness ratio!” Bot beeped.
Seren rolled her eyes. “It’s due to a complex magitechnical interface that bonds arcane energy to her neural networks on an atomic level, allowing space to be folded away for maximum space efficiency.”
Apple Bloom gawked. “...You’re not a kid, are you?”
Squiddy snorted. “Apple Bot, she’s the only one of us here who is actually as young as she looks.”
“...Huh…”
Burgerbelle appeared in the middle of the group in a large, red chair that belonged in the study of some multi-billionaire. A book was open on her lap. “Who’s ready for a story? The story of… the League of Sweetie Belles.”
“I am!” Bot said, waving her hoof.
“...Drop the chair,” Ember said. “We have somewhere to be. If you want to tell your story, you’re walking with us. And listening to me.”
“Sure,” Burgerbelle grabbed a giant skateboard and put it under the chair. “Onward!”
There was a soft buzzing noise and the skateboard promptly snapped in half, throwing Burgerbelle out of the chair. Given her expression, that wasn’t supposed to happen.
“Just walk,” Squiddy muttered. “The rest of us have to do it.”
“That statement is false!” Bot said. “You can swim, I can fly, and Seren can teleport!”
Squiddy released a drawn-out sigh. Sweetie watched her put away her liquid gun and pull out what looked like a real weapon with shaky hands. “...Okay…”
I’m keeping an eye on her.
~~~
Ember consistently made combat assessments of their four new companions. Friend or foe or otherwise, you always needed to know the capabilities of everything that could come into play at any moment.
For Squiddy, this was easy. She walked like a trained soldier and had excellent reflexes, though she walked with a rigidity that told Ember she hadn’t been in extended combat recently, and the occasional trembling hinted at shell-shock of some sort. But she had switched away from her childish ink weapons and was now using something called a ‘pulse cannon’ set to the ‘high’ setting. Ember had asked for a demonstration. It vaporized a rock. Useful.
The rest weren’t as definable.
Sweetie Bot had the mixed mentality of a child and a supercomputer. She answered every question she could with an exact number, which proved annoying when an answer was “depending on how you count, twenty-four weapons or one-thousand two-hundred fifty-six.” When asked what kinds of weapons, she started running her motorized mouth spitting out terms far too quickly for Ember to parse them. What even was a ‘rippler’?
Seren gave better answers, despite being a kid, but her problem was that she didn’t know for sure what she could do. “The magic of this world is weak and somewhat unusual. I’m still performing scans to test the limits of my arcane capacity. I’ll get back to you in a few minutes.” Also her power apparently ran on ‘the power of family’, which was a new one. Love and friendship apparently weren't enough.
Ember didn’t even ask Burgerbelle. Though she did figure out that she was a ‘Flat’ and she was ‘in charge’, though clearly this group acted more like a bunch of sisters having fun than an actual military unit. At least they had no issues following Ember’s commands.
They truly were a bunch of multiversal explorers, that was self-evident from Burgerbelle’s existence. They were just here to explore a random world they had found, and since they’d discovered ‘friends’ in Ember, they were going to stick around for a bit.
More help for the mission.
“What are you three doing out here anyway?” Seren asked. Her horn was shrouded in an arcane green glow, and numerous lines of what looked like code were spinning around the head of her scepter. Ember wasn’t sure if she was happy they had a wizard on their side, concerned that the magic might go to her head, or disturbed that a child had so much power.
Processing Seren’s question, Ember decided she shouldn’t have the only say in answering it. She looked to her Sweetie expectantly. She’d know if she could trust herself, right?
Sweetie nodded. “We’re going to meet my sister. We think she’s escaping the clutches of ADVENT.”
“Let me guess, the bozos Bot blew up?” Squiddy asked.
Sweetie nodded.
“Alien invaders?”
“Yep,” Apple Bloom said. “You ever seen anything like them before?”
Squiddy and Seren shook their heads. Bot, on the other hand, had apparently come up with something.
“Memory banks search complete. XCOM series known across multiple worlds, confirmed three—now four—worlds based on the template. This world is the first known fusion, and only known instance in the Q-Sphere.” Bot tapped her head. “Internet access is down.”
Ember had no idea what half those terms meant and that bothered her. “So there are other XCOMs.”
“Affirmative.”
“You can’t access the Internet?” Seren asked, pursing her lips. “You have one of the strongest transmitters.”
“There is no Internet anymore,” Apple Bloom pointed out.
“I meant our Internet, Merodi Multiversal,” Seren smirked slightly. “Or ‘Trixie’s baby’, if you’re in the mood for a joke.”
For some reason, this made Sweetie and Apple Bloom snort.
“Regardless, Bot should be able to access the Internet from anywhere, except in quarantined universes, and this isn’t one of them.” Seren examined the code flying around her scepter in curiosity. “Unless—oh. That’s slightly concerning.”
Ember glared at her. “What?”
“Your universe is highly unstable.”
Ember stared at her in shock.
“Ah remember Sunset talkin’ about somethin’ like that, once,” Apple Bloom said. “Somethin’ about why Discord couldn’t just come in and fix everythin’?”
“I’m surprised you managed to detect that,” Seren admitted. “This universe doesn’t like portals opening or excessive uses of forces beyond its baseline. You’ll get holes in reality, glitches, and if you did something bad enough you could collapse the entire thing.” She turned to the rest of the Sweeties. “Like Earth Shimmer before we installed the Reality Anchors.”
Ember frowned. “Are you telling me that you messed with our universe by coming here?”
“Technically speaking, yes,” Seren admitted. “But one portal will not destroy a universe, or even a planet. That said I do not recommend dialing Swip until we are sure we want to leave.”
“Acknowledged,” Bot beeped.
“Think we could get some of those Reality Anchors?” Apple Bloom asked. “Ah think it’d be good to get extra forces from Equestria if we could.”
Ember tensed up at the suggestion. More aliens? Sure, Twilight and Sunset had proven themselves, but that pony world was filled with so many who knew nothing of war and to whom the struggle meant nothing.
“They’re big, require a ton of energy, and wouldn’t do well in a war zone,” Seren said, shaking her head. “We could probably bring them in if your world wasn’t exploding everywhere. Which it is. I’ve felt dozens of seismic tremors from massive explosions since we arrived.”
“You can feel them?” Sweetie gawked.
“Her scepter’s just a seismometer,” Apple Bloom said. “Nothin’ fancy.”
“Regardless, I can answer your question, Ember!” Seren smiled. “I can still use a decent portion of my power if I channel magic correctly. I’m only limited by how much power it takes to make reality fall apart.”
Ember really didn’t like the sound of that.
Seren, picking up on her expression, quickly added, “and I have no intention of ever testing the limits of your world. That would be foolhardy.” She did a little curtsy that was clearly intended to make Ember go “awwww” and trust everything she said.
Ember did not. Far as she was concerned, this confirmed her suspicions that Seren was a possible liability. The moment things started going sideways and she became some kind of reality-eating rampaging demon, there was a bullet with her name on it. Even if she was a kid.
Several bullets, probably.
They came to a road where a nearby skyscraper had collapsed, blocking the direct way forward.
“We’ll have to go around,” Sweetie said. “Circle the block.”
The other Sweeties looked to Seren expectantly.
“I am not taxing reality for a teleport.”
“Sad beep,” Bot said.
Ember continued walking in the direction Sweetie had indicated. It was as good as giving an order—the discussion over teleporting ended abruptly and the group followed her.
We’re certainly easier to see, Ember thought. She considered asking the other Sweeties to disguise themselves… but no, none of them would actually be mistaken for Sweetie herself, and ADVENT was already aware of other realms. With any luck, if ADVENT saw anything, they’d shit themselves thinking XCOM had secured more otherworldly allies.
But maybe that was just wishful thinking.
~~~
“Pleasant Chime,” Sweetie said.
“I think there are at least two other Sweeties with that name,” Burgerbelle said.
“So much for originality…” Sweetie groaned.
“That does not mean you cannot take the name,” Seren said.
“You don’t even need one right now,” Burgerbelle said. “You’re the local Sweetie. You generally only need to take another name if you start wandering the multiverse and running into yourself a lot.”
Apple Bloom watched her friend’s face go through several conflicting emotions about the whole thing before settling on ‘screw it, doesn’t really matter’ and just smiling awkwardly. “Ah.”
Apple Bloom rolled her eyes. Why not just be Resistance Belle or something? Or just choose something random. Avocadobelle. Makes as much sense as Burgerbelle…
“Hold,” Ember hissed, coming to a dramatic stop. “...Lost.”
Apple Bloom poked her head over the collapsed building they were hiding behind. Four humanoid figures shambled through the streets like zombies, though they were far too gray and misshapen to be undead creatures. Those didn’t exist, anyway. Wait. Did zombies exist in Equestria?
Her thoughts were interrupted by Squiddy jumping over the top of the rubble and firing four bullets of energized plasma from her pulse cannon, impacting the Lost dead on. The energy vaporized them before they had any idea what was going on.
“Squiddy!” Ember shouted. “That w-”
“They were suffering,” Squiddy breathed, lowering her weapon. Head down, she jumped back and fell in line behind Ember.
“...Are there more?” Sweetie asked, nervous.
“Apparently not…” Ember said, surprised. Apple Bloom expected her to chide Squiddy for her actions, but she didn’t do anything beyond her initial shout.
They moved on, kicking through the dust of the Lost like it was nothing.
Apple Bloom had thought Seren would be the problem Sweetie on this mission—but she had shown an almost inhuman ability to look the destruction around them in the face and smile. Squiddy, on the other hand…
Squiddy breathed as though she were suffering just by walking through the area.
“Hello fellow robot,” Bot said, strolling up to Apple Bloom. “How are your servos?”
Apple Bloom blinked—before smiling. “Great! Weren’t stiff at all this mornin’.”
“Stiff servos are 101% horrendous,” Bot shuddered. “But not as bad as the faulty battery.”
“You run on batteries?”
“Self-recharging thaumic energy crystals,” Seren explained from her position a few steps ahead of them. “They continually absorb ambient magic and channel it into all of her systems. Most of her energy she uses came pre-stored. She’s not getting an adequate input of energy from this universe; if she were to stay here for a month or so she’d enter a hibernation cycle.”
“Hibernation cycle!?” Bot hid behind Apple Bloom in fear. “That is 319% worse than the faulty battery!”
“So, basically, fancy solar power,” Apple Bloom said.
Seren nodded. “If you want to look at it that way. It’s significantly more complex, though.”
“So how does she hold all those weapons in herself?”
Seren pursed her lips. “I explained it already, I thought.”
“Try me again.”
“It’s an interface that bonds arcane energy to her neural networks on an atomic level—so she can fold space away for maximum storage capacity. Though that’s just how she can fit so much stuff in there. On a physical level, most of her devices are composed of thin metal sheets weaved together in a hex-pattern that’s extremely strong, but can fold out and away when charged with the correct electrical input. It’s like…” Seren snapped her fingers. “Oh! A pop-up book! Oh I love those, uh, do you have the one about the bear and the honey in your universe?”
Apple Bloom blinked. “...What?”
“Oh. Guess not.” Seren stretched her arms. “I like those books. Simple. Reminds me of mom.”
“Is she…?”
“She’s fine. All of my family is. We saved the universe!” She laughed and let out a little ‘woohoo!’
“Right. Family is magic.” Apple Bloom had to adjust her mind once more to remember that Seren was a child. A child who knew the secrets of magitech robotics. Apple Bloom tapped her arm with one of her hands. “So, can you give me some details about the hex-pattern mesh?”
“Well it’s not exactly magitech, but I’m familiar enough to give you a crash course.”
Bot beeped. “I feel as though I am being treated as an object of scientific curiosity.”
Apple Bloom would have blushed in embarrassment if she could, and Seren had the decency to look sheepish.
Bot grinned. “Maybe I can learn more about myself this way! Continue sciencey protocols!”
Apple Bloom let out a sigh of relief. Seren began to explain in detail the mechanics behind folding metal, as well as a bit about how the magic mesh interfaced with it.
Apple Bloom’s grin only widened as she continued listening.
~~~
Squiddy hated herself for several reasons at the moment.
The primary reason was that her mind would not stop running away with everything she saw around her. This wasn’t an old, abandoned battlefield—this was relatively recent and it definitely wasn’t abandoned. She could imagine the tragedies that happened to create that skeleton over there or that smear against the wall… she knew her mind was just making up stuff and it probably wasn't right half the time, but that didn’t stop her from seeing it.
Second, the shaking. She knew how to handle it, how to aim and hit with it. The pulse cannon wasn’t exactly a point-precision weapon. It was still an extremely high strain on her focus. Her effectiveness was down, and she was already basically the weakest Sweetie on the ship.
Oh, the memories were great too. The sounds of inklings screaming, ducking for cover, and water rushing in to splat all of them into nothing. Or were those the sounds of octolings? They blended together these days.
The worst part though? The sounds of death in her world weren't dramatic. They were fucking silly. Every splat, every screamed ‘woomy!’ every ‘glub?’ was pronounced with an adorable little tone. If a mind reader were to look into her head right now they’d probably laugh. It was so... stupid!
Scratch that, the worst part wasn’t the noise, the first part was that she was fully aware of what she was doing to herself. The anger at all this nonsense in her head would just send her into a spiral, she knew it, and the fact that she knew this made her more angry, which just made it worse and worse…
“Squiddy,” Burgerbelle said, laying a flat hand on her.
“What?” Squiddy growled.
“I can send you back. The world can survive another portal.”
“No. You lot need me.”
“...Squiddy…”
“No, you do need me, you fucking idiots!” She reeled her anger in and took a few deep breaths. “None of you know what it’s like to actually fight out here aside from Seren, and she has serious issues from growing up in that place. None of you understand what it’s like to actively fear for your life for weeks on end. You don’t know what it…” She turned sharply away. “I’m not abandoning you. Too many inklings are deserters. Not me.” She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to tell herself she wasn’t crying. “Not… me…”
Everyone was staring at her in shock now.
“Let me put this simply. I’m not going back. Thank me or don’t.” She walked forward, ahead of Ember. “We started this mission. I’m seeing it through.”
She saw a pair of skeletons laid against each other inside a blown open store window.
You’re not even fighting in the war, Squiddy! You’re just escorting! You…
(( The octoling couple looked up at Squiddy, pleading, but it was already too late. ))
“I don’t fight in wars…” she muttered. “I don’t fight in wars… not anymore.”
She wiped her eyes with her tentacles and looked back. Only Ember was still with her—the others were hanging back. She had probably told them to.
“If you’re going to scold me I’m already doing enough of that to myself,” Squiddy grumbled.
“You’re right. They need you.”
“Duh, of c-”
“You’re right.”
Squiddy let the words sink in. She let out a sigh. “...I’m just an angry inkling.”
“You’re a survivor. Tell me, did you win your war?”
“Nobody won the war,” Squiddy said, kicking a rock out of the way. “Inklings and octolings were fighting and killing each other for no good reason. Some of us figured that out. Tried to stop it. We were slaughtered. Apparently, that was what it took to get everyone to screw their heads screwed on straight.” She paused. “I got away from there as soon as the Merodi showed up. Ran to the League of Sweetie Belles and I’ve never been home since.”
“But you won.”
“Yeah, shit, I won!” Squiddy laughed mockingly. “The war ended and peace was restored. Took everything.” She pointed back at the others. “They don’t understand that.”
Ember snorted. “Definitely not. All those Sweeties—even mine—haven't really, truly fought tooth and nail yet.” She tightened her grip on her gun. “I lost most of my team recently.”
Squiddy’s legs started trembling. “Shit…”
“Squiddy, why are you out here? You don’t have to fight or explore. You have a choice, unlike me.”
“Because it matters,” Squiddy said. “It’s something I can do. Well. We live in a society where everything is given to you on a silver platter. You want to sell flowers? That’s nice, here, have a shop, you’ll probably never have financial worries ever again, and even if you do, we’ve got so many agencies that can give you other jobs that you always have a cushion! What, nobody will ever hear about Squiddy, painter? Who cares, you make art, people buy it, and they appreciate it!” She wanted to break her gun in half, but she restrained herself. “I’m a selfish squid that can’t stand being a nobody. So I’m out here. Exploring. There, that’s my life story. Congratulations, not even Cinder’s gotten that one out of me yet, proud?”
“I’m not really doing anything here. If I am proud, it’s knowing that there are other… people who know what it’s like out there. That it’s not all sunshine, rainbows, and lollipops.”
“This isn’t even the worst…” Squiddy sighed, defeated. “I can face worlds where the darkness threatens to consume anything. But if it’s a war…”
“You served your time, soldier.”
“Not even close.”
Ember narrowed her eyes. “Are you s-”
ADVENT attacked, jumping out from behind an overturned truck. Bullets flew. Ember took one in the lower leg, armor cracking from the lucky shot. She fell to her knee—still shooting, right alongside Squiddy.
ADVENT soldiers were vaporized and shot down—but a Viper crawled out over the truck with a significantly larger weapon. She pulled the trigger, and a heavy explosive flung out. It missed them by a fair margin—but the shrapnel was enough to puncture Squiddy’s skin. Immense quantities of pressurized white ink poured out of the sudden gash in her back, coating the area behind her.
Shit, that needed to go in the front, I could have swum up that.
Seren’s shield went up in that moment, protecting both Ember and Squiddy from further attacks. Bot flew overhead, riddling the remaining soldiers with machine gun fire.
It was over as soon as it had began, unlike the previous encounter.
Seren dropped the shields and laid her hands on Squiddy’s back, flooding her body with magic. Squiddy felt the wound heal and some of her strength return to her, but she also felt the reality around her back vibrate and jitter unnaturally. Seren was taxing things…
She removed her hands from Squiddy and turned to Ember.
“Don’t touch me with your magic,” Ember hissed. “Apple Bloom, first aid.”
“It’s not going to corrupt y-”
“I said don’t!”
Seren lowered her hands, frowning. “If you insist.” She helped Squiddy up to her feet and walked away from Ember while the cyborg human tended to the leg.
~~~
“Tell Chime to meet me at the geode store. She’ll know the one.”
Sweetie lowered her tablet and look at the corner store in front of them. It was completely abandoned as far as she could tell, but even after all these years, it was still identifiable as the place she and Rarity had come to visit when they were kids. They had spent the entire day in Manhattan dragging each other to one thing or other, over and over something the other just wasn't into.
But then they found this place. It sold beautiful, real gemstones. It wasn’t a jewelry store—though it had those things in it—but more of a place to observe natural wonders. Gems, agates, geodes…
She wondered if anyone had bought the amethyst geode larger than she was before the invasion happened. Since the store was still standing, for all she knew it was still in there.
And if it was, that’s where her sister would be waiting.
“I should go in alone,” Sweetie said, stepping in front of Ember and the rest of the group. Ember’s leg was doing fine—or at the very least she was putting on a good act that she didn’t feel it at all. “Keep her from getting spooked.”
Ember nodded, indicating her approval. Carefully, Sweetie made her way across the street and entered the shop. There hadn’t been many looters for gems after the aliens attacked—mostly just food. This meant the inside of the shop still sparkled with brilliant colors as the sunlight poured in through the windows, creating more than a few rainbows inside.
She smiled walking up to the pedestal she remembered. Sure enough, the mammoth amethyst geode was still there, though she was now slightly taller than it was.
Sitting on a round table just behind it was a Viper pointing a rifle in her direction—Sweetie tensed at first, but then she recognized it as a Viper she knew when it lowered its gun and hissed a friendly welcome. A friendly, none other than Angel. And behind Angel… there was Rarity.
"Rarity!" Sweetie shouted, running to embrace her sister. She looked just as Sweetie remembered: a tall, glamorous beauty with just a hint of scales going up the side of her neck, and pronounced canines when she smiled.
Rarity took off her sunglasses, revealing her slitted eyes before warmly returning the hug. "Sweetie! I'm so glad I wasn't imagining things… even when I spoke with dear Fluttershy and she assured me you were fine… after what happened to New Appaloosa…"
"I understand, sis," Sweetie whispered, "I-I lost a lot of friends, but Sunset got us out. I thought it might still take some time before we could see each other."
Rarity stepped back, looking at her sister up and down as if to confirm she wasn't seeing an illusion. "Something happened recently… the whole ADVENT Network was shaken, and the Elders demanded the Speaker's presence… I took my chances and sent a message to Fluttershy, asking her to relay my invitation to the Commander. I'm glad she let you come."
"Oh," Sweetie glanced at Angel. The Viper simply shrugged and hissed. "So that's why Angel's here?"
"Yes, she's going to escort me to Fluttershy's Settlement, although I'm not sure where it is."
Sweetie glanced at the bag of weapons. "I see you brought your equipment."
Rarity grimaced. "With Fugue and other monsters on the loose… these days… one cannot be too careful."
An immense FOOM! shook the earth outside, shaking the two sisters out of their reunion. Without hesitation, Rarity ran outside, ready to face whatever it was that was threatening them, Angel at her side.
Rarity froze in the doorway when she saw what was out there—an immense sphere of metal that resembled an eye. Currently, its outer casing was splayed open, revealing noxious, pulsating flesh beneath that brimmed with psychic energy. It held onto Bot with four coiling tendrils, each one having grabbed onto a leg—pulling.
A Gatekeeper had her.
Bot wasn’t fighting back—she was clearly terrified, but she wasn’t making a move. Why wasn’t she? Bigger question—what was a Gatekeeper doing here!?
Sweetie heard gunfire, Ember shouting… they had been attacked while she was in there. She had been too distracted to notice.
Rarity turned to look at Sweetie with the hint of a question: run?
We have to help them.
Rarity nodded. She pulled her arms back and bared her teeth. She jumped out of the shop and hit the Gatekeeper right in its exposed squishy bits, spraying alien blood everywhere. She quickly tore her hand out before it could close itself, dropping back to the ground.
Her attack forced the Gatekeeper to release Bot. The instant the tentacles were no longer around her, Bot growled. “Target locked.” A machine gun turret popped out of her side and began blasting the Gatekeeper. Angel slithered to the back of the alien, firing from behind. For a split second Squiddy looked ready to shoot the Viper, but she was aware enough of her surroundings to see Angel was acting as a friendly.
Unfortunately, the Gatekeeper’s armor was too hard for measly bullets to have much of an effect. Its center began to glow red hot. Rarity and Bot were just barely able to duck out of the way as the Gatekeeper let loose an immense laser that melted the ground to slag.
Sweetie poked eyes around one of the shop’s walls, looking across the street. The rest of her team and the Sweeties were making quick work of the ADVENT soldiers accompanying the Gatekeeper… but Seren wasn’t. She was resting behind some cover, holding her head.
She probably tried to use magic on the Gatekeeper. That… that was probably what we heard, actually. Magic and psychic powers never did go well together…
Sweetie hefted her gun—she had one, she just wasn’t very good with it. The Gatekeeper was way out of her league, but maybe she could hit one of the soldiers from over here. Aim… fire. Her bullet sailed true, traveling right into the head of one of the soldiers, blowing his brains out.
Good. Disgusting, but good.
And then the Gatekeeper decided it was time to use its most devastating trick. It opened its shell up once more, creating a ball of psychic energy in its tentacles. Bot unleashed a torrent of bullets at it, as did Apple Bloom from her vantage point, but it pushed through them. It slammed the purple sphere into the ground, sending out a shockwave that tossed Rarity to the ground.
The dark aura seeped into the dead bodies of ADVENT soldiers… pulling them up from the dead with a horrifying purple glow that made them so much worse than the Lost they had encountered earlier.
“Take out the Gatekeeper!” Ember shouted. “Take it out!”
The Gatekeeper ignored her and the rest of the attacks coming its way—it had closed itself up once again. It pointed its big laser right at Rarity—who was dazed from hitting her head on a nearby rock.
In truth, Rarity probably had enough physical augmentations to take a direct hit from a Gatekeeper laser.
Sweetie was not able to think rationally enough to realize this. All she knew was that her sister was in danger and she had to do something. She aimed at the Gatekeeper’s central eye and let loose as many bullets as she could, knocking the thing off course—missing Rarity, but interrupting Bot’s missile attacks.
The Gatekeeper turned to face Sweetie, focusing on her with its eye.
She kept shooting, even though she was doing little more than chipping at it.
Rarity—dazed, lost, and very confused—jumped from the ground and into Sweetie, coming dangerously close to being hit by Sweetie’s weapon. The two of them rolled into the back of the store, coming to rest next to the giant geode as the front of the store was blown to shreds.
Sweetie had dropped her gun in the roll. It was actively ignoring Angel’s attacks and Rarity was too far back to do much of anything before the next laser.
But Seren wasn’t. She raised a shield right in front of the laser, absorbing the entire attack.
Sweetie gawked at her as she confidently strode up to the Gatekeeper, encasing it in a magic bubble. How!? She was down!
Seren seemed to sense her question—in response she held her hand out to them. “Family is magic. Us Sweeties may be like sisters… but it’s nothing compared to the power of real sisters. Just throw a few more in and…” She smirked as the Gatekeeper tried to break out of its prison with another laser. “Well, you could save the world.”
Sweetie noticed the air around Seren was sparking with dark specks. “...Seren…”
“Yes. That’s why I’m not crushing it. When the others deal with th-”
She didn’t get to finish her plan. The Gatekeeper decided to open up its shell and access its psychic powers. It knew full well what would happen if it tried to force its way through the shield this way. So much psychic energy and magic concentrated in one place...
The explosion would be enough to take out every combatant in the area.
It lashed out with the inner tentacles.
Seren teleported.
What started out as a psychic explosion the likes of which Earth had never seen became something much, much worse. There was light —and then there was darkness. The rubble, walls, and very air of the world fell away like shreds of paper into a vast, empty nothingness. Sections of reality broke off in vibrating cubes, exaggerated lines, or soft tears like paper. There was no true pattern, for there could be no pattern when reality failed. Even the darkness wasn’t truly dark—parts of it were white, colorless, or flashed random colors in a strobe pattern. It was as though someone had taken a game cartridge, scratched it, partially loaded the graphics, and then gone over the entire thing with a paintbrush of inconsistent width.
The geode shop—and the intersection of Manhattan it had occupied—failed to exist.
A fair distance down the street, Seren’s teleport spell completed, dropping herself, four Sweeties, Rarity, Apple Bloom, Ember, Angel, and an immense amethyst geode in an unceremonious pile.
Everyone was staring at the ‘darkness’ that had once been the intersection. Except Seren; Seren was on the ground holding her head in pain, letting out groans that were almost screams in a regular rhythm.
Ember had a gun trained on her.
But, eventually, Seren’s pain calmed down. Her breathing became regular, and she was eventually able to remove her hands from her had. With a deep breath, she stood up. “...We made it.”
“What the fuck was that!?” Ember shouted, pointing at the failure in reality.
“The cost of survival,” Seren said. “The Gatekeeper was suicide bombing. I had to get us all out of there in an instant. I didn’t really have an option.” She held up a hand and lit her horn, focusing on the reality failure. “As I thought, it’s not malignant. It’ll only grow if you throw more magic into it.”
“It could have been malignant!?”
“N-no, I was just checkin-”
“Why would you need to check if it couldn’t have been malignant?”
“Hey, calm down, Ember,” Sweetie said. “We wouldn’t have survived the Gatekeeper without her!”
“Hiss,” Angel agreed.
“The Gatekeeper wouldn’t be here without her,” Ember spat.
“Wh-”
“Gatekeepers don’t do anything that isn’t high-value. That shouldn’t have been here. It had to be them.”
“We haven’t been here long enough to do anything,” Burgerbelle said, pulling her giant clock out of nowhere. “Couldn't have been us.”
“Um…” Bot beeped sadly. “Analysis suggests they can probably track me.”
“How?”
Bot tapped her side. “I have nearly full magic reserves. I do not need to refuel like Seren. If they know anything about magic, or have seen it in action, they can trace me in a universe like this.”
“They don’t know enough about magic to do that,” Apple Bloom spoke up. “We probably wouldn’t even figure that out without Twilight, Sunset, or you telling us.”
“Hiss,” Angel said.
“Yes, it is more likely they were just after me,” Rarity said. “I am relatively high value.”
“Excuse me,” Squiddy said, raising a hand. “Just checking, the snake is on our side?” Receiving a nod from Rarity, she continued. “Okay. Why isn’t the translator spell working on her?”
“Amusing reasons,” Burgerbelle said.
“Hiss.”
“You’re right, I do want a taco, thanks for asking.”
Angel cocked her head in confusion. “Hiss?”
“Aww, thanks!”
Angel turned to Rarity, asking for help.
“I don’t know what you’re saying, dear," Rarity shrugged.
“Hiss…”
Burgerbelle perked up. “Ooh! A rapids trip! Nice idea.”
“Enough,” Ember grunted. “There is a chance they’re tracking you.”
Seren nodded. “And even if they weren't before, what are the chances the Gatekeeper didn’t have a transmitter of some sort on board? Bot gives out a lot more than just magic signals. If you’re an alien empire and you really want to find a magitech robot, you’ll find her.”
“Observation: we should leave and allow you to sneak away,” Bot declared. “Parallel: wait around the hole and distract them.”
“Good idea,” Ember said.
Bot went ding! and produced a small cubic device with rounded corners and a Crusader shield on the top face. “This is a dimensional communicator. We will contact you soon to bring help. We can’t call in the army because of dimensional instability, but we can give you a few specialis-”
“I think you’ve done enough,” Ember grunted. “We don’t need more magic here.”
“Ember that’s a little harsh…” Sweetie said.
“Hiss,” Angel agreed.
Ember turned to look at Sweetie. "Fugue. Jane. The Chosen. Laetitia and Luna… all of those are magic-related and for the most part a bad thing eventually follows it. Until I we get Sunset back, and Twilight tells me it's okay, I'm not trusting any of it, regardless of the intentions of the users."
“She has a point,” Rarity said, pointing at the hole in reality. “Magic does terrible things to our world.”
“...There is a demon running around because of it…” Apple Bloom breathed.
“Our personnel need not be a mage,” Bot said. “We have the best scientists around! Could improve your weapons, give you intel, that sort of thing! Database reports that we are on decent terms with one XCOM. We could ask them.”
“And then what would that mean for us?” Rarity asked. “More help from other worlds, from… outsiders.”
“Hiss,” Angel grunted.
“Look, Angel, you’re fighting against something that tore your life apart, you’re just like us. These ‘Sweeties…’” she frowned. “I don’t believe I actually got an explanation for what you are.”
“They’re explorers,” Ember said. “Only Squiddy here knows what war is like. Tell me, would you h-”
“I have wished every day since I joined the League that they had arrived before the war ended so they could have stopped it by force,” Squiddy spat.
Ember recoiled in shock. “Bu-”
“Oh, had they actually done that, I would have hated them. Took our rightful victory from us and made our struggles meaningless and all that. That is the number one complaint people have against us when we show up. ‘What did all our struggles mean!?’ Who gives a fish’s asshole about the meaning of your struggle? Less people fucking die!”
“We don’t need you!” Ember retorted, "We're not fighting a war against an approaching army, we already lost once! We don't need new overlords."
“No! You don’t! You’re right!” Squiddy waved her hands around wildly. “This is your world and your war and you can win it without us. But you know what? I think maybe you are better off without us.” She glared. “You won’t understand what sacrifice means unless you make it to the end and look back.”
Ember shot her.
Instantly Seren healed her and Bot had a laser sight pointed at Ember.
“STOP!” Burgerbelle shouted—smacking Bot and Ember in the face at once, knocking them over. “We are not enemies.”
Rarity had a hand over her mouth and Sweetie was shifting around uncomfortably.
Ember glared at Squiddy. “How dare you…”
“Just you wait until you win. Let it stew a couple years.” Squiddy leaned down, scowling. “You’ll wonder if it really had to take as much as it did.” She turned and walked away. “Bot, it’s time to go.”
“W-wait!” Sweetie said. “She doesn't speak for all of us!”
“Hiss,” Angel agreed.
Rarity frowned. “She was a bit more violent than I would have appreciated… but I believe Ember is right, this is a fight we need to do. There’s already enough in here that really has no reason to fight with us.”
Bot frowned. “If this universe were unstable you would have no choice. Evil levels are high enough in this world that you wouldn’t have the right of refusal.”
Ember snorted. "That's exactly what our current overlords said."
“We don’t want your help,” Rarity added.
“And I don’t want to give it,” Squiddy growled.
Seren suddenly burst into tears, falling to the ground. Sweetie was suddenly reminded that, for as small and intelligent as she was, Seren was still a kid. Probably couldn’t handle people who were supposed to be friends fighting like this.
Sweetie sighed. “Apple Bloom? What do you think?”
“Ah don’t know.” Apple Bloom sat down on some rubble. “Ah’m not sure we can make this decision.”
Burgerbelle was suddenly in front of Sweetie, giving her the communication cube. “Take this to your leader.” She winked. “Let her make the decision.”
Sweetie looked to Ember who looked uncomfortable, but nodded.
“Okay.” Sweetie pocketed the cube. “So… Goodbye?”
Burgerbelle nodded. “Let’s pack it up, Sweeties!” She had a hiking backpack on her back now. “Angel, you’re amazing, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”
“Hiss.”
Burgerbelle let out a monotone, disturbing laugh. “You crack me up.”
Angel fixed her with a ‘really?’ expression. “Hiss.”
Burgerbelle pulled a dimensional device out and opened a portal to Swip. The stability of the world was maintained as they left.
With a pop, they were gone.
“...They didn’t leave the distraction,” Apple Bloom pointed out.
“Hiss,” Angel pointed. There were a few cardboard cutouts of the Sweeties standing on the roof of a nearby building.
“Heh,” Sweetie smirked. “Let ADVENT figure that one out.”
Angel turned to Ember. “Hiss?”
“I knew that wouldn’t kill Squiddy,” Ember grunted, turning around. “This way.”
Sweetie nodded, holding the device close to her chest. To be honest, she didn’t expect Commander Chrysalis to be on board with asking the Sweeties for any sort of help—yet. But if they were ever desperate, they needed to have the option.
That’s how Sweetie saw it, anyway.
Frowning, she glanced at her sister. “...You really think we shouldn’t?”
Rarity grimaced. “Sweetie… the world is complicated.”
“But people are dying…”
“Maybe Squiddy was right in that we might live to regret it,” Rarity admitted. “Maybe we do need help. But things are not as simple as a black and white battle as it seems to have been with her… our world was conquered, the aliens promised the exact same thing that she's promising this army would do… and it doesn’t really let us move forward. It might come at a high cost, but it will be us doing it. What happens if we have one set of aliens come in, and we just trade them for another?” She looked at the receding form of Ember. “Even if it’s right, I’m not sure we’d take it. Humanity, I mean.”
Apple Bloom nodded. “Yeah. XCOM is… pretty uncomfortable with most aliens besides Sunset, Twilight, and Angel. Not everyone can just get to know them. ‘Alien’ is the first thing that comes to mind.”
“Or ‘demon.’” Sweetie sighed. “I’m still getting this to Chrysalis.”
Rarity nodded in agreement—setting off after Ember.
Apple Bloom put a synthetic arm around Sweetie. “Hey. It’s okay. We got Rarity back, I learned a bunch of stuff about robotics, we know a bit more about the nature of everything, and you’ve got a nice cube in your pocket. Plus…” She pointed at the hole behind them. “Imagine how panicked ADVENT must be about this thing.”
Sweetie smiled. “They are going to be so confused…”
Together, the two of them set after Ember, leaving the tear in reality behind. For some reason, Sweetie could already imagine a building rising up around the tear, treating it as some kind of historic artifact from the days of the war.
Sweetie decided not to question why she was suddenly overcome with hope. She glanced at the amethyst geode that had teleported with them and smiled.
~~~
Squiddy walked into Swip in a delirium.
“You all look like crud,” Swip commented.
Seren was still crying, leaning on Burgerbelle for support.
“Schedule another session with Sweetaloo as soon as possible,” Squiddy said, voice hollow.
“...Right sure.”
“Where’s Cinder?”
“Gaming in the lounge with Suzie.”
Squiddy walked to the lounge. Cinder had a controller in her magic and Suzie’s fingers were flying madly. Without bothering to even check to see what kind of game was being played, she walked up to Cinder and pulled her into a hug.
“Wh… Squiddy?”
“I’m glad you weren’t there,” Squiddy said, squeezing. “It wasn’t good.”
“O-okay… Do you want to talk about it?”
“...I’m going to Sweetaloo soon as Swip says she’s ready. But… no. Not really.”
Cinder smiled. “Then you don’t have to.” She levitated the controller to her. “Unwind?”
Squiddy looked to the screen, relieved to see it wasn’t a shooter but rather some kind of falling block puzzle game. “...Sure.”
“Query: can Sweetie Bot play?” Bot asked, whirring into the room.
“Sure!” Cinder brought out another controller.
“Hate to break up the party, but Allure wants you back, Bot,” Swip announced.
“Allure’s needs can wait approximately thirty-three minutes,” Bot declared. “I am playing the game.”
Swip’s avatar smirked. “Nice.”
“They can deal with the silver tongue prophecy thing themselves. I am of minimal use in such regards.”
“Wha-” Cinder began.
“I win,” Bot said, pointing at the screen. It showed Bot’s controller in the victory screen.
“What? HOW!? I didn’t even press play!”
“Hax,” Bot said, dimming her eyes to look like sunglasses. “Now let’s play for real!”
She still beat them easily. All three of them.