Beep! Beep! Beep!
Rachel thought her alarm clock was going off at first. She groaned, wondering why her blankets felt so much heavier than usual. She would have loved to go back to sleep, but the pounding headache didn’t let her get comfortable again.
She opened her eyes, allowing the flashing red light to register.
I don’t have one of those in my room…
Her eyes focused and identified the source of the light - one of Swip’s screens, flashing “ALERT!” over and over in time with the intense beeping coming from all sides. Rachel jolted herself into awareness with a rush of adrenaline, taking everything in at once. She was alone, Swip’s main lights were out, and there was a plate of bent metal pressed against her chest. There was something sticky running down her face - maybe blood. There was no pain aside from the headache, so she probably wasn't injured anywhere else unless she was in shock.
With a grunt, she forced the metal plate off of her. She was quite lucky Swip’s interior structure was lightweight, otherwise she would have been trapped. Or, more likely, dead, since more traditional spaceships designed for combat tended to be hefty.
“You’re awake,” Swip said, using a basic speaker in the wall. “Stay calm.”
“What… happened?”
“Corona trying to teleport several dozen people at once without warning in front of a forming failure of reality. Stupid, really. Saved almost all of us from what I can tell, but everything’s a mess out there. Some are on the other side of the tear…”
Rachel placed her hand on a wall. “What do I do?”
“While I would love to keep you here, the fact is I’m not safe. You’ll need to leave and… find cover somewhere. This won’t take long to clean up, but it’s going to be ugly until it is.”
Rachel nodded. Even with Swip being tilted sideways, she knew the way to the main docking ramp. She stumbled out into the light, resting upon a chunk of the dimensional drive’s outer shell.
Swip was right. It was a mess out here.
The space that had held the dimensional drive had been torn to shreds. Virtually every pipe had burst open and the exterior walls had caved in, leaving vast swaths of Celestia City’s inner workings exposed for those within to see. Fires of numerous unnatural colors had started spreading across the metallic mesh and a few bolts of electricity shot across the room like lightning in a great storm. A few areas had been damaged so much they punched all the way to inhabited areas that Rachel could hear screams emanating from.
There were several small Merodi ships within the space, but they were all focused on one thing and one thing only - the tear in reality. The nothing that wasn't quite nothing, a failure within the universe to manage itself. Physics had been strained too hard and even the Reality Anchors had been unable to prevent the local collapse from everything colliding.
Had the Reality Anchors not been around the entire universe would have collapsed from a strain that immense.
The ships were focusing precision lasers and space-time shaping tools to combat the rift, but even then it was expanding. Slowly, admittedly, but if they couldn’t contain it soon it would start eating populated areas of Celestia City.
“You need to move,” Swip said. “Forward will work. Away from the thing. You shouldn’t be shot at.”
“Swip…”
“I’ll be fine,” Swip said. “I’ve survived worse. Muuuuuuuch worse. I’m not a squishy human like you. Just move.”
Rachel took in a sharp breath. “I love you, sis!”
“Love you too. Now stop giving me death flags. It’s uncomfortable.” She let out a soft chuckle.
Rachel paled.
“Okay, bad joke - seriously though RUN.”
Rachel ran. The moment she was clear, Swip turned on her loudspeakers. “HEY! ANGEL-BITCH! I HEAR YOU LIKE CANNONS!” She swiveled one of her operational weapons toward Arul, who was currently locked in combat with Nira. A red bolt of thaumic energy cascaded through the air and hit Arul dead on, allowing Nira to encase the angel in a circle of blood and darkness. Arul knew she couldn’t escape the dark master of souls, but she would go down righteously if she had anything to say about it. She collected her energy into her finger as quickly as she could, throwing it right at Swip, blowing out her center.
“Swip!” Rachel cried a metallic shrapnel flew past her.
Swip looked like little more than a metallic skeleton. This did not keep her from speaking.
“Ow,” Swip muttered. “That hurt.”
Arul’s eyes widened in shock as Nira completed her imprisonment spells.
“What? My AI unit is tiny! You’d have to vaporize the entire thing and then check to make sure the black box didn’t teleport itself to another universe! Though, uh… you are a pretty bad shot, because all my speakers are still working. Heh.”
Rachel let out a sigh of relief.
“By the way, I get the distinct impression someone who should be running isn’t. I MAY LACK COMPLEX SENSORS RIGHT NOW BUT I WILL STILL SHOUT IF I HAVE TO!”
Laughing to herself, Rachel ran further away. She caught sight of several injuries, and for the most part the scenes she came across were of people helping others escape the wreckage.
There was one phrase that kept getting repeated that concerned her.
“Where is Sunset?”
The big Sunset of the world kept reality together… She was there when everything exploded. Her power should obviously be at work… but it wasn’t. Corona had been the one to teleport everyone to relative safety, not Shimmy.
Rachel wasn’t exactly sure how bad this was but she knew it was bad.
She caught sight of the six ponies she had baked cookies for not too long ago, the Mane Six of Equestria IV, Twilight and her friends. Rachel knew it was a bit unfair to expect them to take new names this early into their multiversal exploration, but it was still confusing to think about them as separate from, say, the human Twilight that was the local incarnation of magic. Who was also with her friends a short distance away, though she looked sick.
Wait, her friends weren’t with her earlier… Right? Or am I remembering wrong?
A purple pegasus flew past her at high speed. “You won’t be able to catch me! I’m the fastest pony ali-”
Both Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie appeared in front of him, sneering. “Gotcha, Clockwork!” the pink pony giggled, kicking him in the face.
“AUGH!” Clockwork hissed. “This is worse than that time I got punched by Odin in that bar in Louisiana…”
Pinkie giggled. “Nice story!”
“Thanks! It was all thanks to a golden fly-shaped pin, y’know. I can remember it like it was y-” Twilight shot him in the head with a magic laser. “...Like it was last week, ouch…”
“You seem quite lost in your own head…” Fluttershy said, frowning.
“Ah’m bettin’ it’s a side effect of the brainwashin’,” Applejack said, adjusting her hat.
Clockwork twitched. “Brainwashing?”
Rarity raised an eyebrow. “You’re a Chronomancer, darling, from what we know of Tick Tock it takes quite a bit to get you to abandon your job.”
“Silvertongue just showed me th-”
Rainbow clocked him in the back of the head with her hooves. His eyes rolled into the back of his skull and he slumped to the ground.
Twilight blinked. “Huh.” She poked him. “Guess I hit him with a bigger laser than I thought…”
“He is just a normal pony with a special watch,” Rarity pointed out. “Not like the rest of the hooligans mucking about right now.”
“I wish we still had our powers,” Rainbow muttered.
“Our clones had theirs,” Applejack said. “Maybe we do too?”
Rainbow held out her hoof. A small lightning bolt shot out of it. “Oh come on! I would have liked to know that before we got him! Could have been way cooler.”
Fluttershy put a hoof on him and smiled. “Well, this way there was no chance we could have accidentally injured him. We’ll get him to a… brainwashing doctor. Those exist, right?”
Twilight shrugged. “I have no idea.”
“I’m sure we can find out if we only ask…” Rarity noticed Rachel. “Oh, uh… Radical, was it?”
“She has a name?” Rainbow blinked. “I thought she was just the cookie girl.”
Pinkie slapped her in the back of the head. “Dashie!”
“What?” Rainbow asked innocently.
“Rachel, actually.” She smiled. “I think there are brain doctors that can help him, yes, though I don’t know the… specifics. I’m only here because of my sister, Swip.”
Applejack looked to the wreck of Swip. “That bucket o’ bolts is your sister? How does that work?”
“Ooh! Ooh!” Pinkie raised her hoof. “When a mommy ship and a daddy ship and their captains love each other very much…”
Twilight rolled her eyes. “Pinkie, that’s not it.”
“It could be!”
“She’s not the right model of ship for that!” Mattie shouted from the distance. She disappeared the moment afterward.
“The truth is way, way too complicated to get into,” Rachel said, shaking her head. “She told me to run. So I’m running. You girls look safe.”
Rainbow smirked. “Yeah, but we’re goin’ back into the action! There’s gotta be another bad guy for us to take out or something!”
“I only see the rift,” Twilight said. “And I think it’d be best if we left that to the professionals who know what they’re doing.”
“Oh come on, it can’t just be Clockwork! There’s gotta be somebody more da-”
The ground beneath them exploded in a torrent of ice, fire, and rippling space. The six mares and Clockwork were tossed to the side with ease while Rachel was pressed back into a loose chunk of wall.
Diamond Inferno held Corona, giver of life, by the neck. Every time Rachel had seen Corona previously she had seemed larger than life, walking with a presence that demanded attention and respect. Everything about her from her wings to her softly glowing body had been regal, almost divine.
Right now, she looked drained. Her hands were closed around Inferno’s wrist, burning with fire - but the ice of Inferno’s claw was unaffected.
“You got the same power I did in the convergence…” Inferno laughed. “You had more than me to start with. You could have defeated me with ease. But no… You decided to waste it all on saving them.” She gestured with her free hand at the six mares, all of whom were groaning and rubbing their heads. “You should have let the tear eat everyone here. Then you might have been able to stop me.”
Corona scowled. “They can take you…”
“Really?” Inferno threw Corona into the ground like a meteor, embedding her several meters into the twisted metal below. Golden, shimmering blood poured out of Corona’s many scratches. What little magic remained in her automatically went to healing her wounds. “They’re welcome to try.”
Mattie poked her head out from under a large pane of stained glass that somehow wasn’t broken. “I’m good!”
“But master!” Cryo called.
“Trust me on this, we’re good.”
“Heh. Cowards.” Inferno pointed a finger at them. “You will die where you stand…”
“Cower,” Mattie corrected.
“What?”
“We’re cowering. Or, well, Cryo is because it’s dramatic, I’m just sitting here with my tea.” She took a sip.
Inferno stared at her.
“What are you waiting for, mate? Bring on the pain. I am quite bored.”
“Ah…” Inferno grinned from ear to ear. “I’m going to save you for later. You’ll be fun to rip the skin off of… so rare to find someone who appreciates the art.”
“As much as I would love to take you up on your offer, I do happen to like continuing to live. It’s a good thing, life, lets you feel pain.”
“Wise words,” Cryo said.
Curio revealed her presence by pushing a thin slab of rock off of herself. “Can we not make idle threats about ripping each other’s skin off? I get enough of that at home.”
“You’d probably like it if you gave it a chance,” Mattie smirked.
“I don’t think I would.”
“Other you is weird,” Rainbow told Rarity bluntly.
“She sounds so masculine…” Rarity said, breath catching.
“Crikey! Sister, get your mind out of there!” Mattie called over. “You do not want to end up there. Trust me.”
Inferno shifted her shape into that of a unicorn, though she bothered to use her extra magic aura to create some ghostly wings. She pointed her horn at Cryo. “Hey kid, let’s see how deep I can go.”
“Master, she’s flirting with me, what do I do?” Cryo asked.
Mattie, for once in her life, was struck dumb. “But I… you… clueless…”
“No one can resist me!” Inferno laughed. “I a-”
A whip of green flame cracked out from the shadows, wrapping around Inferno’s ankle and throwing her to the ground. She looked up, catching sight of a towering dark form wreathed in emerald fire with lacy clothes, slitted eyes, and a fanged grin.
"I'm sorry, but the title of sexiest bitch in the universe is already taken," Chrysalis informed her in a tone of mock solemnity.
Inferno smirked. “Then I’ll just have to take it from you.”
“You’re not from this universe!” Mattie called.
“This universe won’t exist in a few hours anyway.” Inferno kicked Chrysalis in the chest, forcing two spikes of ice through the skin. She retaliated with a burst of fire and a smirk.
“Forward.”
“I always am.”
Chrysalis summoned green fire around her foot and delivered a kick of her own into Inferno’s chest, only for her foot to get encased in ice. Inferno transformed into a humanoid creature with four pairs of wings and a slasher-smile of a mouth. She bit down on Chrysalis’ leg. This turned out to be counterproductive since her mouth erupted in green flames instantly afterward.
Cryo looked around. “Huh. You know, usually at this point an adult has covered my eyes, or something.”
Curio laughed, taking notes of the fight in front of them. “Can’t say I’m surprised.”
“GET HER IN THE FACE!” Cryo shouted.
“Why would I do that?” Chrysalis asked, feathers growing from her neck and projecting a bow of light which let her fly around easily. “There’s a shortage of pretty faces in the world.”
“If only yours were real, changeling,” Inferno laughed, summoning a torrent of reality-bending ice and throwing it at Chrysalis.
“I have never had plastic surgery in my life!” Chrysalis objected as she dodged. “This is au natural!”
Inferno shifted herself back to her default unicorn form. “You only have one ‘natural’. I can become any reflection of myself… and all of them ring true!” She swished her tail, creating a claw out of her back that teleported behind Chrysalis, only to be consumed by fire.
“You’re both nines,” Mattie said.
Both of them stopped fighting to stare at her in disbelief.
“What? Just being honest here. I've seen better.”
“How many of those ‘better’ were literal sex gods and or demons?” Chrysalis asked curiously.
“None. There’s such a thing as overdoing it, you know.”
“Fair enough.”
Inferno took a pot shot at Mattie out of frustration, but she cracked the crystal bullet out of the air with her whip. She blew on the whip as if it were a smoking gun.
Burgerbelle appeared out of nowhere and shot Mattie the finger-guns gesture. They bumped hoof-to-hand before Burgerbelle just… vanished.
“Soooooooo,” Pinkie Pie said. “Why are we standing here just watching?”
“Because you have to protect the nice civilian cookie lady?” Rachel suggested.
“I mean, yeah, but only some of us are needed to--”
Rainbow charged at Inferno, hooves blazing with lightning--and was batted aside by a burst of magic. She hit a wall and, with an audible squeak, slowly slid down.
“That... might also be a reason,” Twilight admitted. “Uh... fan out and look for survivors!”
"You're good," Inferno spat, "but I've got the power of a god and more!"
Chrysalis dodged a blast of fire, offhandedly throwing up a shield to catch it when it boomeranged back. Her expression was one of exasperated disbelief. "You're really going to make me say it, aren't you?"
"What?"
"I mean I try to avoid saying it, since it's so fucking cheesy, but if you're really going to be an idiot I'm willing to go full anime."
“Ooooh, that answers my question better,” Pinkie said as she pulled a goblin out of a sparking electric pit.
Chrysalis focused her energy into her forehead, producing a crystal - but she kept the feathers instead of swapping them out. She teleported behind Inferno and drove the icy woman into the ground.
“You’re using two aspects!? I thought that was impossible!”
Chrysalis suddenly became significantly hairier and grabbed Inferno by the ankle. “Puny God. Yak smash.”
“Uh oh.”
Chrysalis flung Inferno around like a ragdoll, smashing her into the ground every second with almost musical precision.
“I wish I could just pull things out of my mane…” Mattie muttered.
Pinkie graciously provided her with a pair of bongos.
“Thanks, mate!” She started slapping the bongos vigorously in time with the smashing.
“Oy!” Chrysalis pointed at her. “Banter is fine, but don’t make this a musical number! I have standards!”
Mattie threw the bongos away. This did not stop Pinkie from taking out a boombox and pressing play, but luckily it was an instrumental piece from some video game. “...You know, I should have done this earlier.”
Mattie nodded. “Yeah, it’s your thing!”
“What can I say? I haven't been very prominent. Lost my touch.”
Blink showed up. “Sup.”
“Stuff,” Curio said, taking notes.
“You’re all pretty relaxed.”
Curio shrugged. “I’ll start panicking when Chrysalis goes down.”
“When? Not if?” Chrysalis objected - taking an explosion of energy to the face that grew ice crystals on one half and burnt the other side. “...Really? After I went through all that trouble not to ruin yours?”
“I am trying to kill you.” Inferno snapped her fingers and engulfed the area in a white flame. Chrysalis had to resort to making a shield to defend. "You'll run out of magic eventually!"
"You may have the power ‘of a god’ and more besides, but you could never match mine, for my power is one born of sacrifice and effort, one that has risen through the echelons of all societies, one interwoven with the existence of the soul itself!"
"What?! How could this be?! REVEAL YOUR SECRETS!"
"Mine, you see, is the power of love!" Chrysalis shrugged casually. "Specifically the love and devotion of the, what, ten or fifteen million Wholesome members across the planet constantly fueling me magical energy."
"Booo!" Cryo shouted. "You ruined the anime speech!"
"Fuck you~!" Chrysalis chirped back cheerfully, managing to teleport out of the shield and appear behind Inferno, kicking her right in the butt.
Inferno twisted around, trying to rip Chrysalis’ legs off - shocked to find that she suddenly had four legs. “...You’re not just limited to ‘human’ biology, are you?”
“Nope!” Chrysalis said, sprouting a scorpion tail and two pairs of horns. “You have no idea the freaky stuff you can find in this City.”
“I think I’ve been here longer than you,” Inferno said, transforming into a pony made of pure diamond. “I know exactly what to exp-”
Inferno did not expect a burp loud enough to shatter glass.
"Soooooo..." Fluttershy cleared her throat. "Just to be clear: the young shapeshifting mare who used to be a student of Celestia glowing with deific magic, backed by a Chronomancer and a reluctant angel is the bad guy, and the spiky fiery spider thing taunting her with crude humor that's apparently an alternate universe version of the changeling queen is the good guy. Did I get that right?"
Blink rolled her hoof. "Eeeeeeh, Chrysalis is more 'true neutral' than 'good,' but yeah, she's one of the local hero types."
"True... what?"
"It's an Ogres and Oubliettes reference," Twilight explained. "And not really one that makes me more comfortable with the situation."
Inferno roared, shifting to the form of a great feminine dragon, filling it with as much deific power as she could, forcing many tentacles of pure power to writhe forth.
Chrysalis quirked an eyebrow. "Kinky." Spiky ridges and thorned plates burst out of her skin, outlined by green fire. "Think I can do better though."
"...I need to have a talk with that woman once this is all over," Mattie mused.
“You didn’t figure that out already?” Blink gawked.
“I mean, nine… Probably less now, but overdoing it does have its charms in certain situations.”
“If I’m a nine on the battlefield,” Chrysalis grunted in her match with the tentacles, “then I’m an eleven in the bedroom! It’s contextual!”
Curio lowered her data pad, “I’m not normally one for fighting, but should we… do something? I kind of thought the fight would have been over by now.”
Pinkie nodded in agreement. “Hey!” Pinkie shouted shouted through a megaphone. “We’ve dragged this on for faaaar too long already! Wrap it up!”
Inferno grinned. “Gladly!”
“I didn’t know we were filming a hentai,” Cryo quipped.
“Wait, wha--?” Inferno blinked. “What, no, I’m not going to wrap her up in tentacles I’m going to--”
“Performance issues?” Chrysalis asked, her tone sympathetic. “I can help with that.”
“Oh for the love of--”
“Let me reiterate…” Pinkie said with a tired sigh. “Chrysalis, wrap this up!”
Inferno blinked. “Wait wh-”
Sometimes the simplest attacks were the ones that did the best.
“Yak smash two: smash hard with a vengeance.”
Chrysalis brought one of her now-massively over-mutated limbs down on Inferno, creating a rather impressive crater in the shrapnel that was the ground.
The smoke cleared, revealing Inferno back in her default unicorn form, breathing heavily. “I… am not… done yet…”
Chrysalis chuckled. “You’re not going to be able to go on much longer.”
“I… am a g-”
There was a flash of white light. Suddenly, Mister Discord was standing in front of Inferno, a croissant in his hand that glowed like some kind of holy artifact.
“You know what this is?” Discord asked.
Inferno stared at the croissant, mesmerized.
“This was going to be the perfect croissant. Symmetrical, just the right amount of flakes compared to cohesion, and microbutter. You have any idea how hard it is to make microbutter? Very hard. I was this close to getting it down…”
He took a step toward Inferno, drawing her attention away from the croissant onto him.
“But then I got a little itch. Tried to ignore it, really, thought it was nothing. Things were exploding in reality, and naturally I expected I didn’t have to do anything about it. But then my phone rang…” He grabbed her by the neck with his free hand. “Where is my daughter?”
“...W-who?”
“Ianthe Pratibha Stencil Screwball Discord-Cinch!”
“She… charged at us with the Shard of Madness…”
“Oh, so you’re worthless.” He punched her in the face with the almost perfect croissant. The pastry wasn’t dented, but she was hit hard enough not only to fly out of her socks, but to have the remaining power of Shimmy kicked out of her.
A burst of green fire, and Chrysalis was human again... though her wardrobe had not survived the transition. She put a hand on Discord’s shoulder. “We need her alive, for judicial reasons if nothing else. Plus, you’re probably the only one that can keep this universe together until we rescue Shimmy.”
“Joy,” Discord grumbled, grabbing the spare deific power and bundling it up. “Hmm... I would have thought I’d be able to sense Twilight with this--”
“Silvertongue drained her,” Celia said, sliding onto the scene at last. “The other five are with her right now, she’s doing fine. Visibly shaken from having no magic. Can’t be pleasant.”
Twilight shuddered. “No... no it isn’t. I’ll go talk to her and--”
Rainbow burst out of the rubble. “WHERE IS SHE?! I’M GONNA--”
“Fight’s over, lightningrod,” Chrysalis said casually. “We’re working on the recovery now.”
“...Can I at least kick her a little?”
“Maybe later,” Celia said, trotting down to Inferno.
“H-how could I have been defeated?”
“Dear, you were never going to win. If you beat Chrysalis the rest of them would have rushed you. And if you survived that…” She pointed up at the fleet of Merodi ships that had just finished sealing up the rift. “Our army has successfully combated real demons on their home turf. I do believe you would have been trounced.”
Inferno blinked. Then she groaned.
“So, wait, this entire thing was pointless?” Curio asked.
“Yep!” Cryo laughed. “It was all for spectacle! Woop!”
“Thank you,” Chrysalis bowed, “I’ll be here all week.”
"Could you please put some clothes on?" Rachel begged.
"Is now really the time to be questioning your sexuality?"
"What?"
"I mean, I know I'm hot as hell, but we have more important things to talk about--"
"Th-there are children present!" Rachel sputtered, blushing.
Chrysalis waved. "Hey kids, this is what the human body looks like, you'll find it in most medical textbooks. Moving on."
“I don’t think any of us are human children,” Cryo pointed out. “...Actually, wait, am I the only actual kid here? Curio’s some kind of ghost creature thing!”
“I’m a kid!” Seren shouted. “What is--oh, naked woman, insert awkward here.”
“Okay, one, why aren’t you weirded out?” Rachel asked. “Two, why weren’t you here for the fight?”
“One, I work with magitech and sometimes that means very accurate golems. Two, we were fighting the fiery ice demons that apparently came out of nowhere... did you really miss that? Celia, did they miss that?”
“They missed that,” Celia confirmed.
“Dang it, I pulled off some sweet spells too...”
“The only people who are really uncomfortable right now are the readers,” Mattie chuckled. “Oh, and Rachel, sorry, forgot to count you.”
Rachel made a noise that didn’t quite form into a word.
“So… plan?” Curio asked. “Shimmy’s not here and that’s really bad.”
“We need a headcount,” Chrysalis said firmly. “Who’s missing? Whiphorse, you’ve got that plot junk, can you just--?”
“Right, can’t pull a list out of my head, but I can tell you the mean six are gone. And those are the ones we need to know are over there.”
“Why?” Twilight asked, furrowing her brow. “They don’t have any sort of dimensional magic or connection we can use to find them if they’re all together. We need something str-” She paused. “Oh. The six of them and the six of us.”
Seren nodded. “That would work. You do appear to be regaining power despite having lost the Elements of Harmony completely. Suggests they might be backing you up.”
“...Neat,” Rainbow said.
“You have no idea what I just implied.”
“Uh… no.”
Seren rolled her eyes. “Anyway, this will probably take a few hours to fully sort out… I’ll need you six to stand in a circle on somewhere that isn’t a pile of rubble…”
Rachel decided now was a good time to sit down and put her hand to her head. “This… this is all a bit much.”
“Don’t I know it…” Fluttershy agreed, rubbing her eyes. “...You think they’re all okay? Wherever they are?”
“They better be,” Blink said. “They’re in the Universe Generator and we can’t get to them right away. That’s where the final confrontation will be. We don’t get to be a part of it.”
“They’ll do fine,” Celia assured them, putting a hoof on Blink’s shoulder.
“I just hope Cinder’s okay.”
~~~
Cinder woke up just in time to get hit in the face by an ancient construct several thousand light years in diameter.
Simple math told her that something that large moving fast enough to be visibly rotating should have been impossible. After that, it told her ‘vaporized on contact’ should have been a gross understatement for the effect an impact would have on her.
So the most disorienting thing was that the impact felt no worse than falling out of a low bed. Annoying, certainly got her attention, but not painful by any means.
“Right… Universe Generator… physics probably aren’t going to make any sense…” She stood up and dusted herself off. She was relatively certain she had been floating in zero-gravity just a moment ago, but now that she was touching the immense… thing, it was ground to her. Perfectly comfortable ground too, as if the gravity was keyed to her. Which it probably was.
When it had been flying at her she had been able to identify the shape as a rectangular prism. Now it was only gray ground that stretched out as far as the eye could see. Several galaxies in diameter, but there was no way for her to sense scale while on it. Everything was black nothingness, other featureless gray structures, or the light in the distance that was probably a universe. Right now, it was pinkish. It would have been like the sun if the construct Cinder was on wasn’t jumping around like an insane termite, making the pink dot zip across the black sky so fast it was hard to look at.
Cinder tapped the ground with her hoof. “This thing is moving faster than physically possible and is changing directions multiple times a second. I feel nothing.” She shrugged. “Okay. I’ll just go with this.”
She started walking. It was odd, walking without feeling any air brush past her. No wind to speak of. Air existed in front of her mouth or nose when she needed to breathe, but if she was holding her breath she could wave her hoof in front of herself and feel nothing. The temperature was… nonexistent? She’d touch the ground and feel it resist, but not get any feedback.
The universe wanted her to be comfortable but not to waste resources on that. She hoped the mechanisms behind that didn’t fail after all this time. The thing was so old it made Princesses look like babies…
She looked at the sparkling universe in the center of the Generator now. It had changed - perhaps it was a new universe? Whatever it was, it was giving off a green glow. And while it was jumping around the sky with no apparent rhyme or reason, it generally only appeared on one side of the sky.
Might as well head towards it.
Even though it was probably a galaxy away or something.
She focused, now with a destination in mind, and moved. Something shifted as she did so. She stopped short, looking around in confusion. Nothing seemed different, but she could swear something had changed.
Getting an idea, she plucked out one of her mane hairs and set it on the ground. She focused back on her path and started trotting forward.
The moment she felt something shift she froze in place and looked behind her. There was no sign of the hair.
Smirking, she started trotting back, thinking intently about the hair. This time, when she shifted she could see it: the hair rushed up to her with alarming speed.
“Mystery solved: Universe Generator allows for very fast movement.” She glanced at the sky, finding a cylinder shape slowly twisting through the sky. “Let’s see how far this goes…”
She pointed at the cylinder and jumped. She didn’t feel a sudden shock of rapid motion but suddenly she was moving faster than any physical object should have been able to. She arrived at the cylinder with a superhero landing in nine seconds. “Sweet!”
The entire universe was at her disposal now. She could go anywhere, see anything…
Which, to be fair, was just a bunch of floating shapes and a glowing baby universe.
The glowing universe seemed interesting.
Smirking, she pointed a hoof forward like she was a superhero and flew across the surface of the cylinder toward the now-blue spark in the distance. As she approached, she saw that there were actually two sparks at the moment. A binary universe?
Cinder would have loved to deeply contemplate what a dual universe system might mean but fate had other plans, for none other than Mustard smacked into Cinder at high speed. Both of them had been moving at impossible speeds, but the impact had no effect more than a basic tackle.
Cinder reacted quickly, blanketing the ground with fire that burned bright, fueled by the provided oxygen of the Universe Generator.
“Blasphemer… false princess…” Mustard breathed, heaving.
I wonder how sound carries here… Cinder thought.
Mustard’s cloak billowed in a wind that may or may not have existed and a six-pointed star of magic appeared at the tip of his horn. He unleashed a firecracker spell at her that exploded in several locations around her.
“Hey! What did I ever do to you?”
“You wear her face.”
Cinder’s stomach twisted into a knot. “W-what do you mean?”
“The holy Princess… the eyes of fire and passion…”
“Wait, the eyes actually mean something?”
“It would be best if you never knew what you defile.” He grabbed hold of her with his magic and lifted her into the air, grabbing hold of her soul. “You will never get t-” He paused, furrowing his brow in confusion. “This isn’t…”
Cinder gasped. “I’m not what you think I am!”
“What are you?” Mustard asked, baffled - and scared.
“...Look, I’m not your holy Princess, I’m just a unicorn with fire. And, let’s be honest here, probably the protagonist of this little story. Can you sense that? I’ve got a hero’s spirit or someth-”
Mustard pushed at her soul, face contorting in rage. “Demons must be purged!”
“GAH!” Cinder tossed a beam of fire at him, but her aim was off in her taxed state. The ground below didn’t care. The blue lights vanished, replaced with a deep red one. Her vision began to blur…
She saw herself in the blur.
Guess I’m going crazy from all this soul-tearing…
The sound of Mustard shrieking in terror snapped her out of it. She looked up, seeing herself punching Mustard across the face, turning invisible, and then punching him from behind.
“Sweet!” Cinder laughed as the other Cinder made Mustard look like a fool.
“Hey!” the other Cinder called. “Burn him already!”
“On it!” Cinder jumped into the air and launched a fireball right into his back. His robes lit on fire. He maintained enough of his awareness to stop, drop, and roll along the ground, but this left him prone to more fireballs. The flames were soon far too much for him to put out, and every time he attempted to retaliate the other Cinder would kick him, interrupting the spell. Sometimes she did it while invisible.
Eventually, one of the other Cinder’s kicks made contact in just the right location. The combination of flames and physical battery finally won over - Mustard fell.
Cinder removed the flames the instant he was down with a simple spell. The damage had still been done - most of his coat and mane was gone, and a few places had been burned raw, forming blisters already. He was breathing, though, and the only blood was from the bite he had inflicted on his own tongue.
“Thanks,” Cinder said, turning to her other self. “So… gonna tell me what you are?”
The other Cinder dropped her disguise with a humble shimmer, revealing a blue earth pony with a stylish headband. “Curaçao.”
“Oh, you were one of those six!” Cinder beamed. “I’m Cinder! Good to see a friendly face.”
“I feel ze same,” Curaçao said, smiling softly. “‘Ave you found anyzing interesting? Any ozers?”
“No others, but I’ve figured out you can move real fast if you want. Watch!” She jumped to the left and back to Curaçao, covering a distance larger than the diameter of Earth in the process. “Tah-dah!”
“Discovered zat myself, but good work nonezeless.”
Cinder nodded. “So…”
“We just search for ze ozers.” She looked at the now yellow light in the sky. “Zere is as good a place to start as any.”
“Right! You want to lead the way?”
“Want to? Non. Should? Probably?” Curaçao laughed sadly. “You may find you don’t like my leadership.”
“I’m sure you’ll do fine.”
They zoomed away, leaving Mustard behind.
~~~
Insipid had discovered the ‘flying through space’ thing by sneezing the second she woke up. She was the first in the entire Universe Generator to figure it out, and what did she use it for?
Bouncing into things like a pinball. There was no reason why she did this, she wasn’t so stupid she didn’t know how to stop, she just did. Boing, a few seconds of silence, boing, a few more seconds of silence, etcetera.
“I can see why Pinkie bounces everywhere,” Insipid observed. “Major fresh!”
She laughed to herself, losing focus on her bouncing long enough to fall face-first into her destination cylinder, letting out a soft “oof.”
“...A gift from heaven,” a gray pegasus mare said, unable to hide some contempt in her face.
Insipid did not pick up on this. “Oh, like, thanks and junk!” She laughed. “You stuck here too?”
“Insipid. The idiot of the group. Copy ability. Decidedly low self-esteem but relatively carefree despite. Once Element of Greed, now just a unicorn.”
Insipid blinked. “Uh…”
“Unable to follow context, has no idea who I am. I am Queen Blackburn.”
“Who?”
Blackburn facehooved. “Queen of Hope’s Point?”
“Oh! You were the queen there? That’s nice, that place was pretty cool.”
“You killed my soldiers.”
Insipid blinked. “Oh. I did. I’m, like, really sorry about that. We weren’t, uh…” she searched for the word. “We weren’t nice yet.”
“Torture. Coercion. Murder. Conspiracy.” Blackburn frowned. “Heroism. Devotion. Regret. Rescue.”
“Those are words, yes.”
“Apology not accepted. But you will not be charged.”
Insipid gasped. “You were going to make me pay?”
“Yes. Not in the way you were thinking.” Blackburn frowned. “Allow me to phrase simply. You killed my ponies. I want to kill you. Not convenient to do so, bigger concerns abound. Be nice and you live. Be ‘mean’ and you die. Understand?”
“Y-yes, your majesty!” Insipid stammered.
“Good. Now. What do you know?”
“You can bounce around like a pinball!” She demonstrated.
Blackburn frowned, trying to do the same. She successfully pulled off a loopdeloop the size of Saturn. “Helpful. Telling. Generator is meant to be convenient despite size.”
“Wow! That’s a pretty neat trick, can I have it?”
“You would gain nothing. I deduced that from evidence alone. I have no ‘power’ you could take, my mind is all I have.”
“Oh. Well we need to hurry up and find something, I’m totally empty right now and these bricks aren’t playing nice.”
Blackburn nodded. “Others will be moving toward the universe. That is our destination.”
“Okay!”
Insipid started bouncing forward at high speed. Blackburn ended up following her rather than the other way around. Insipid took a moment to appreciate the sights as she bounced from place to place. The world may not have been all that pretty, but the shapes kept moving and every time she looked back the arrangement was different.
She had yet to figure out that things that big shouldn’t be able to move that fast.
There was a flash of white out of the corner of her eye.
She skidded to a stop. “What was that?”
“What was what?” Blackburn asked, having to fly back to her from a significant distance ahead.
Insipid turned around and jumped back to the white she saw, finding a Rarity with a pink necklace sitting there, crying.
“Oh…” Insipid put a hoof around her. “Don’t worry, I’m here now n’ stuff.”
The Rarity looked up at Insipid with tears in her eyes. “Y-you’re not Brook…”
“No, I’m Insipid.” Insipid frowned. “Why does everypony else get upset when I get their names wrong…?”
The Rarity stared at her. “What?”
“Patience,” Blackburn said, flying into the scene. “She is slow.”
“I was going light speed a minute ago, thank you,” Insipid chided.
Blackburn nodded. “Which Rarity are you?”
“Sequin,” she said, wiping her eyes.
“Queen Blackburn.”
“Have you seen Brook? She… she’s my Twilight. Alicorn, smaller than the others.”
“The only ponies I’ve seen are the ones in front of me.”
“Oh…”
“We can totally look for her though!” Insipid said. “Like, we found you by going to that sparky thing, we can find her that way too!”
Sequin nodded. “T-thank you.”
“Before we go,” Blackburn pointed at the necklace. “What is that?”
“It’s a charm that allows me to talk to Brook wherever I…” Sequin stopped herself. “I’m so stupid!”
“I know the feeling,” Insipid admitted.
“Hold on a sec, I’m going to try to get her…” Sequin closed her eyes and focused, prompting the charm to light up. “Come on, Brook… Twilight… pick up…”
~~~
“You and Rarity?” Shadow asked, gawking.
“Yep,” Brook said as she flew through the empty sky, her face wet with recent tears.
“I’m trying to imagine that functioning. I lack the faculties to do so.”
“That’s because you’re a Twilight - you are a Twilight, right?”
“By… some definitions.”
Brook nodded. “Then you’ll see whoever you see as the ‘right one’.”
Shadow snorted bitterly. “He’s definitely not the ‘right one’. Trust me.”
“Huh?”
“Let’s change the topic.” She looked over her back at the third member of her group. “Immaculate highness, you’ve been quiet.”
The Crown Princess looked at Shadow with surprised eyes. “Just… thinking. That’s all.”
“About what?” Brook asked.
The Crown Princess looked up at the universe being built.
RESTORE THE CAPRIC EMPIRE RESTORE THE CAPRIC EMPIRE RESTORE THE CAPRIC EMPIRE RESTORE THE CAPRIC EMPIRE RESTORE THE CAPRIC EMPIRE
She had been able to ignore that demand for the most part since she’d become the Crown Princess; the Sweetie in her had been able to relegate it to the side to focus more on getting into an advantageous position and spread the warning word about the Merodi. She fully expected that she would eventually gain an empire through the friendships she was making, but she was also content to regulate herself to the shadows of that ‘empire’.
But now, there was something in front of her that had the power to recreate the entire Capra Empire brick for brick.
She couldn’t ignore it anymore.
“Princess…?” Brook asked.
The Crown Princess shook her head. “Sorry. Thinking about… the past. Kinda stuck in it. You understand?”
Brook smiled in sad sympathy. “More than you know.”
“...Thanks.”
Brook opened her mouth to say something else, but her necklace suddenly started flashing. She gasped. “I forgot about this!”
“About what?” Shadow asked.
“My necklace! Sequin’s calling!” She landed on the ground and answered. “Sequin?”
She started talking in response to her own question. “Brook, dear! Oh you have no idea… I’m sorry, I forgot it existed! I’m so dumb…”
“I got distracted by new friends,” Brook responded. “I’m here with the Crown Princess and Starlight Shadow.”
“And I’ve got Queen Blackburn and Insipid and - oh? Uh, Blackburn says not to trust the Crown Princess.”
The Crown Princess twitched. “Remind Blackburn that I want to see Silvertongue brought down too.”
“The Princess says she’s on our side,” Sequin said - at this point the Crown Princess could tell based on the inflection of the voice if it was Brook or Sequin doing the talking, but that didn’t help her with Insipid or Blackburn due to their lack of a physical presence.
Sequin stared at the Crown Princess in shock through Brook’s eyes. “...Backburn admits you’re telling the truth. But you’re also, apparently, an anti-Merodi extremist.”
“Extremist is a bit… extreme,” the Crown Princess said.
“She wants to assist in our endeavor, why should we concern ourselves with her motives?” Shadow asked. “I have no particular loyalty to the Merodi either.”
Sequin relayed this to Blackburn. “...She seems fine with this.”
“Good,” Brook said. “Now that we’re all on the same page, how do we find each other?”
“Like, we could look at the sky and find the same shapes!”
The Crown Princess stared at Brook in shock - that hadn’t been her or Sequin.
“Heavens!” Sequin shouted.
“What the- get out!” Brook shouted.
“Wh-why?” the third voice asked. “More of us can talk at once like this!”
“Insipid, get out of their heads,” Shadow ordered.
“But siiiiiiis…” Insipid whined.
“You’re basically invading a married couple’s bedroom.”
“What, I a- AUGH! Sorry, sorry, sorry!” She left quickly, leaving Brook (and Sequin) breathing heavily.
“How did she even do that?” Brook asked. “The spell requires trust!”
“She’s Insipid,” Shadow shrugged. “She copies and executes, often superior to the original through sheer… it’s not exactly fortune…”
“Oh my, she’s still apologizing…” Sequin said. “The poor dear…”
“She should have respected our privacy,” Brook huffed.
“I don’t think the thought even crossed her mind. A- hmm?” She paused, listening. “Blackburn says her idea was a good one. Look at the sky for shapes.”
The Crown Princess looked up. “The elongated pyramid looks unique.”
“That doesn’t appear to be in our sky,” Sequin said.
“Nothing is ever easy…” Brook sighed.
~~~
“This makes absolutely no sense!” Tab shouted at the top of her lungs. “The physics are adjusted on the fly, but light is still in effect. Or is it? I have no idea, those things are moving so fast they should be vaporizing or experiencing light booms or something, but no, they just seem to move normally, and in time. Maybe light has been replaced! Or maybe, like the air, it’s only there when you need it! Augh! Tablet, help me!”
Grayscale and Red Velvet were watching this meltdown with fascinated faces.
“...This counts as fear, right?” Grayscale asked.
“Ooooh yeah,” Velvet said.
“Guess we have a stockpile in case of emergencies.”
“Real emergencies.”
“I know.”
“...And don’t get me started on the nested universes!” Tab shouted. Her tablet must have given her an annoying response, because she tried to smash it with her hoof. “What good are you if you don’t have the foggiest idea how any of this works? ...That’s obvious! Obvious! I want to know how. AGH.”
“Think we should calm her down?” Velvet asked.
Grayscale shook her head. “Give her a bit. Maybe she’ll figure something out in her panic.”
“How does it know what we need? Just as much air as we need to breathe? The whole flight thing? I can’t detect any mental waves, magic, or anything, it just…” She tapped the gray ground. “It’s just these things! What are they? They’re not nothing they’re very solid. Oh, gee, thanks for reminding me that temperature apparently isn’t a thing here. That doesn't have any terrifying implications at all!”
“Think you can pull popcorn out of your mane, or something?” Grayscale asked.
Velvet pondered this. “Maybe…” She reached into her mane and pulled out a bunch of candy eyeballs in a skull-shaped cup. “...Close enough?”
Grayscale shrugged. “Sure.” She tossed one into her mouth. “Huh. Coconut.”
“Then there’s the issue of the impact! How are we able to punch each other but the things can’t punch us? There’s got to be a physics paradox in there somewhere…”
~~~
Shimmy’s awareness took the longest to coalesce since she had been hit the hardest by the transition. No longer was she affixed to the very reality around her, she just was. It was harder to see like this, since everything was loose and spread out without interacting with anything.
She could see one thing, though. One spark anchoring her to the physical realm, a single avatar by which her entire essence had been drawn into this world.
Slowly but surely, she was able to focus her energy onto the avatar, bringing higher consciousness back into it. Groggily, she opened her eyes. She was slung over someone’s back and moving at impossibly fast speeds.
“Oh, good, you’re awake,” Suzie said. “I was getting worried.”
“Takes more than that to get me…” Shimmy muttered, sliding off Suzie and onto her own two feet. She took a moment to take in the realm of the Universe Generator with her eyes, seeing the same sights as everyone else - the gray shapes and the construction of a universe. She was currently close enough to make out details of galaxies within the new world being made.
Havocwing made herself known. “Bucking finally. You. Find Silvertongue. She says you can do that, so do that!”
Shimmy nodded, sending out her perceptions. She focused…
And stopped before she got very far.
“I… I’m not just a loose avatar…”
“What?” Havocwing asked.
Shimmy turned to Suzie. “I am almost all of Shimmy. I… Earth Shimmer doesn’t have a guardian of order right now.”
Suzie hissed. “The Reality Anchors can take care of that for… a while.”
“How long?”
“We’d need to find a scientist to figure that one out. I am not one of those, and neither is Havoc.”
Havocwing grunted. “So we need to move fast. Duh.”
Shimmy used her power to feel the dimensional fabric, to try and retrace the steps Silvertongue used to get there - but she couldn’t. That part of her had been lost during the convergence. Some Sunset probably had it, but they wouldn’t know what to do with it. Or it could have been divided up between several. She ground her teeth. “Discord better have things under control…”
“I think you can both have faith in him and fear him,” Suzie said. “He’ll keep the world up. Might not be the same when you get back.”
“Magic’s running wild, too, without Twilight…” Shimmy shook her head.
“You need to make a decision,” Suzie said. “Do we try to get back, or do we face Silvertongue?”
Shimmy bit her lip, hesitating for a moment. “Earth Shimmer is only one world, a world that can probably be evacuated if needed. This…” She gestured at three universes that were created in tandem and sent off. “This is too big to risk.”
“Good.” Havocwing got in her face. “So find him.”
Once Shimmy allowed her perceptions to spread in a calm manner, she found him easily. She picked up Suzie and Havocwing, darting through space to a location near the new universe being created. The Universe Generator allowed the three of them to float comfortably.
Silvertongue floated there as well, but he was not alone. Behind him stood Shivershackles and Crackling Leaves, the latter of which was scanning the incomplete universe with an advanced device that kept giving her contradictory readings.
“Silvertongue,” Shimmy said.
“Shimmy Sunset Shimmer.” Silvertongue smiled pleasantly. “So glad you could join me.”
“So you’ve got some kind of plan, big surprise.”
“Actually, I have no plan. I could not have planned for the introduction of the Shard of Madness, nor could I have planned for the nature of the Universe Generator.” He held a hoof out to the universe as it was finished and shipped off to the rest of the multiverse. “I just knew what this was, not how. The original plan was to come here without any enemies, to spend an eternity studying the nuances of the Generator if necessary.”
“You’re not going to get the chance.”
“It appears not,” Silvertongue admitted. “But that does not mean we must battle. All I desire is a single, perfect world, created to my standards. I want nothing more from this place.”
Havocwing laughed. “Yeah, right.”
“Believe me or not, that is all I seek.”
Suzie shook her head. “No. You don’t get to play God.”
“My my, Suzie Mash, bringing faith into a conversation?” Silvertongue smirked. “Do my ears deceive me?”
Suzie grunted. “You’re prodding at an implication that doesn’t exist.”
“But he’s gotten you on the defensive,” Shimmy warned. “He’ll get in your head.”
“That’s why you’re here.”
“He’ll get in all our heads if you let him,” Havocwing said. “Which is why we shouldn’t be talking!”
“Why not war with words?” Crackling Leaves asked. “Significantly more elegant.”
“Why do you help him?” Shimmy asked. “He wishes to become god to a world. Your kind are against that.”
“I am what you may call ‘progressive’, here for the knowledge of what creates gods and godlings. If this bestows that power to so many, would we not have the right to understand it?”
“The ethics of this thing’s existence do not matter,” Suzie said. “The people who made it are long gone. It might as well be a natural part of existence at this point.”
“Like the Tower itself?” Silvertongue asked.
“In a way,” Suzie admitted. “None can control it, and those who try need to be stopped. The same applies here.”
“You speak as if power is a bad thing. You have experience in the matter.”
Suzie smirked. “You could say that.”
Silvertongue ruffled his wings, turning to Shimmy. “And you, is power a bad thing?”
“Some people earn power,” Shimmy said. “I didn’t, I had it thrust upon me. I never wanted this, but I have it, and to be honest that’s probably why I do so well with it. Those who seek power are the people least likely to deserve it.”
“Even if the goal is noble?”
“Worlds have been destroyed on the road paved with good intentions.”
Silvertongue smirked. “And what of perfection? The intention to create that which cannot be faulted.”
“Bucking worthless,” Havocwing muttered.
“Perfection is an ideal which we must eternally strive for but, in practice, is impossible to achieve,” Suzie said. “We have to be content with that.”
“Letting your Book speak for you,” Silvertongue observed.
Suzie twitched.
Shimmy spoke. “No person has the same idea of perfection as someone else. Even if perfection is real, nobody would want it. You only want the perfection you see. We do not.”
Silvertongue sighed, but smiled nonetheless. “Why do I subject myself to pointless conversations, I wonder? I never thought I would be able to convince you for a second, and yet I let this continue.”
“The dance of words is paramount to the direction of self,” Crackling Leaves mused. “How you speak defines who you wish to be.”
Havocwing laughed. “An arrogant self-absorbed numbskull? Quite the impression you’re going for.”
Silvertongue shrugged. “I am rather starved for honest conversation given my way of life.” He held his head high. “We are at an impasse.”
Shimmy nodded.
Both of them activated their powers at the same time. For an instant, there was a bright flash from both of them… and then nothing. Both looked to be struggling through pain, but none of the others could see anything happening.
“What the buck?” Havocwing asked, glancing between the two of them. “What?”
“They’re locked in battle through a higher… something,” Suzie said. “We can’t see it, but it’s intense, I guarantee.”
“Polite of the godlings to prevent their conflict from spilling over,” Crackling Leaves added.
“Right.” Havocwing lit her hoof on fire. “HEY SILVERHOLE! Take this!” She punched her creator in the face. “AND TH-”
Crackling Leaves pulled out a curious device that looked like a gun, but turned out to be a hard-light projector. A giant hand pushed Havocwing out of the way with ease.
“HEY! He’s mine! Let me have him, bitch!” She unleashed a torrent of fire at Crackling Leaves, only for another hand to stop it effortlessly. “GAAAAAAAA!”
Suzie remained completely still, watching Silvertongue intently. Studying him, watching…
“You think I don’t see that Stand of yours…?” Silvertongue said through gritted teeth. “You think I don’t know what it is...?”
Suzie cursed inwardly. “If you know what it is…”
“Oh, yes, that would defeat me, no question. But are you willing to use it on Shivershackles first? Shivershackles, impale yourself on the Stand. Bait her until she uses it out of instinct on you.”
Suzie retracted U-Catastophe seconds before Shivershackles could touch it. She didn’t even want to think about what it would do if it touched such a broken man.
But without U-Catastrophe Suzie was just a normal woman with a lot of military training. She tried to dodge Shivershackles, but his speed far exceeded her own even with the boost from the Universe Generator. He pinned her arms and legs back, pulling them just shy of dislocation. With a shivering grimace, he lifted his hand and encased it in black crystal spines.
He brought it down on her.
Don’t bring it out don’t bring it out don’t bring it out.
The claws hit her in the face, bringing her excruciating pain.
Don’t bring it out don’t bring it out.
The next hit was on her side, the sharp wrench dislocating one of her shoulders.
Don’t bring it out…
Havocwing barreled into Shivershackles at high speed, lighting him on fire. He had not been expecting this by any means and was unable to keep hold on Suzie.
“T-thanks…” Suzie grunted, turning back to Silvertongue. U-Catastrophe was too slow to reach him…
As it turned out, she didn’t have to do anything - the last surprise inhabitant of the Universe Generator appeared behind him. None other than Screwball herself, wielding the Shard of Madness. As before, it was impossible to look at, never able to settle on a single form, but it was always long.
She waved it like a knife and drove it toward Silvertongue.
One of Crackling Leaves’ hand constructs grabbed it from Screwball’s grip at the last possible second, prompting Screwball to faceplant into Silvertongue’s back.
The hand gave the Shard of Madness to Crackling Leaves. She gripped it tightly and examined everyone present with an unreadable expression.
“...This is bad, right?” Havocwing asked, legitimately confused.
~~~
“Something’s going on up there,” Brook said through Sequin. “The magic’s flying like crazy…”
“At least we’re able to use it to pinpoint where we are in relation to each other,” Sequin added.
“Ooh!” Insipid clapped her hooves. “Does that mean we can go to Shadow?”
“Likely,” Blackburn admitted. “Whatever is happening, we must do something about it.”
“Shadow says she doesn’t think even her power can do anything to what’s going on up there,” Brook reported.
“Shimmy and Silvertongue, most likely,” Blackburn mused.
“We have to do something,” Sequin said. “Shimmy needs our help!”
“Crown Princess doesn’t have any ideas,” Brook reported. “We just don’t have the power.”
Blackburn’s eyes widened. Slowly, she moved her head until her intense gaze was focused on Insipid.
“W-what are you looking at me for?”
“Shadow…” Blackburn began. “How hard would it be to execute a teleport of just Insipid right to the source of the most power?”
Brook listened to Shadow’s response. “She thinks she can do it, but she would have to ‘piggyback’ off Sequin’s and my connection, forming one with Insipid.”
“Won’t they need to trust each other for that?” Sequin asked.
“They do, I think. But Insipid will have to be in our heads for a second to establish the connection.”
Sequin sighed. “Fine, I suppose our emotional privacy is worth sacrificing to save the world…”
“I promise I won’t look at the juicy stuff!” Insipid offered. “If I can help it!”
Sequin groaned.
“Hurry,” Blackburn egged. “We don’t know how much time we have.”
~~~
Silvertongue had always known Crackling Leaves was going to betray him at some point.
The question was if she was going to do it now. Such a difficult question. Part of him enjoyed the difficulties of analyzing Fay motivations and psyche; she had always been such a fun sparring partner. Unfortunately this enjoyment was muddled not only by the fact that Shimmy was busy trying to burn his soul alive, but also the fact that Crackling Leaves currently held an artifact powerful enough to terrify universal entities.
The Shard of Madness may have had many powers and mysterious abilities, but it was named for the most prominent of them - it could slice minds. If she got to Silvertongue’s mind…
The risk was too great. It no longer mattered if Crackling Leaves would be loyal to him for a while longer or not - she could not be allowed to retain control of the Shard of Madness. He shouted. “Grab it!”
Shivershackles may have been pathetic, but he was smart enough to know what this meant. Instead of restarting his assault on Suzie he put all his power forward into the single task: reclaiming the Shard of Madness.
Crackling Leaves did not stop him from taking hold of the object. Her own grip, however, did not falter--she looked the slave right in the eye. “Quite the strong servant, aren’t you?”
And faintly, she twisted the object, snipping just one chain link at the center of Shivershackle’s identity.
Shivershackles froze, suddenly unsure what the command meant. He spent a second trying to remember what he was doing.
Crackling Leaves would have used the opportunity to wrestle the Shard of Madness away, but what happened next none of them could have predicted.
Insipid appeared right above the Shard of Madness and grabbed it with her hooves. “MINE!”
She tried to pull it out of their grip.
“No, Insipid, absorb the magic!” Shadow said through Insipid.
“Oh, righ- AUGH MY HEAD WHAT TH-”
The Crown Princess appeared, having hijacked the connection between Shadow and Insipid.
She did not try to grab the Shard of Madness.
She shot it with her magic, tearing it out of all their grips and sending it barreling toward the universe below.
“What are you doing?!” Shadow shouted through Insipid.
The Crown Princess didn’t respond - she charged forward, impacting Shivershackles, Insipid, and Crackling Leaves hard. Shivershackles and Crackling Leaves managed to grab on to her, but the Universe Generator allowed her to keep moving. She wanted to.
She smacked the Shard of Madness out of their reach, hurtling it closer and closer to the universe itself.
“No!” Shimmy shouted, dropping much of her fight with Silvertongue. “You can’t let that touch the universe! It w-”
Silvertongue, no longer occupied, teleported in front of the Shard of Madness’ trajectory. Shimmy teleported next to him, barreling into him like a flaming bullet.
The Shard of Madness touched the edge of the universe…
And the world screamed.
The mechanisms of the Universe Generator stopped in an instant, freezing on the order of some ancient, inscrutable command. The galaxies within the young universe that had previously boiled as millions of years flashed by in the blink of an eye stopped perceptibly moving. Tremendous cracks tore through the sphere as if it were made of ice, cutting it to the core.
It, however, refused to simply die from contact with an artifact of insanity. It held itself together, but only just.
It was into this world that the Crown Princess, Crackling Leaves, and Shivershackles fell, vanishing into the stars themselves…
Silvertongue tore himself away from Shimmy and dove into the world himself. “The game has changed.”
Shimmy grabbed onto him with as much magic as she could muster, but she could not prevent him from moving on. So she followed, creating another avatar to pursue him directly.
The moment the new Shimmy crossed the boundary, the old Shimmy grabbed her head. “Oh… oh no… that’s…”
Heliotrope hands wrapped gently around the universe, hovering over the cracks.
“Screwball?”
“The Shard was kept in the realm of imagination for a reason,” the swirled woman said. “I can control it from here, keep the damage contained. But I would rather retrieve it as soon as possible.”
“Can you tell what’s going on?” Havocwing asked.
“I can see.... Krickaborgs, swarming...”
Shimmy shook her head. “The situation’s complicated--is this everyone?”
Insipid shook her head. “There are notes to the song that have yet to be sung, as dancing the flowers retreat... what? Insipid what are you DO NOT DENY THE RHYTHM OF MECHANISMS! The lost and retrieved, through the vines--”
“Okay, Insipid, you need to get rid of that power now,” Havocwing said firmly.
Insipid got rid of it. “That was… geeeeh.”
“To answer your question, no, that is not everyone,” Grayscale said, flying in with Velvet and Tab, the latter of which was wearing what looked like an eyepatch made out of a miniature skull.
“Literal madness incarnate!” Tab laughed. “You were right Velvet, there is no use hanging on to sanity here!”
“I’d take offense to that, but I’m busy making sure everyone is mad in a sane way.” Screwball glanced over her shoulder. “The patch would work better on your other eye.”
Tab glanced at her tablet. “Tablet agrees. So… I’m keeping it on this eye thank you very much!”
“We don’t have time for this!” Shimmy shouted. “As we talk centuries are passing down on that world!”
“Not epochs?” Shadow asked through Insipid.
“The relative time has slowed, probably while the Universe Generator figures out what went wrong, but…” Shimmy pressed a hand to her nose. “Okay I just watched an entire city get built and destroyed with a nuke while I said that.”
“Then we need to hurry,” Shadow said. “Give me a second…”
A second later, she had teleported herself, Sequin, Brook, and Blackburn there.
“We need to go in there,” Shimmy said. “I can only do so much. He’s… he’s doing and then the UGH.” She frowned. “Things happen way too fast to even relay them. Is this everyone?”
“Nope,” Velvet said. “We’re missing Curaçao, at least.”
“If I had to guess, Cinder’s here too,” Suzie said, holding her ruined face with a hand.
Shimmy used some of her free magic to heal Suzie’s heavier injuries. “Someone find them. I can’t do it, busy.”
Insipid touched her. “I can do it now! Woo!”
She created a miniature rip in space-time by accident.
“Uh… Okay, let’s be a little more careful about this…”
~~~
Cinder held a hoof up to her eyes. “I think there are things exploding over there.”
“We are going as fast as we can,” Curaçao said.
“I know. I’m just getting the feeling we’re going to arrive a little late.”
Curaçao bit her lip. “I ‘ope zey can take care of zemselves…”
Cinder nodded. “Must be difficult, being the leader. I don’t have to worry about what everyone else does all the time, I just do my thing and help where I can.”
“It is… complicated,” Curaçao admitted. “What is ze best for zem? ‘Ow do you balance one wiz ze ozer?”
Cinder smiled. “I like your accent. It’s… unique.”
“Peut-être aimerez-vous ma langue?”
“Wow. I thought the translation spell was supposed to work with that?”
“It is, from what I understand. No idea why it does not.”
“Probably because it’s a defining part of you,” Cinder said with an innocent smile. “If you didn’t speak ‘wiz ze zeez’ you probably wouldn’t be… Curaçao!”
“‘Ow does the translator know zat?”
“It doesn’t. Ka does.” Seeing her confused expression, Cinder rubbed the back of her head awkwardly. “Fate, basically.”
“Ah. So ze luck is real.”
“You sound like you had it figured out already.”
Curaçao nodded to herself. “It… was interesting. I played both sides. Me and mes soeurs - my sisters - we were ‘Dark’ or ‘Evil’. Nozing went right for us. Our missions failed, our targets escaped… we suffered. And now? Zings keep going right, we meet ‘elpful people by chance, and we’re usually where we need to be. Somezing was up.”
“...Why do you seem so sad? Sounds like you all got redeemed!”
“I was ze one who redeemed us. By manipulating zem all - including myself. It was… it was wrong.”
“Okay. So you screwed up, but it turned out good anyway, isn’t that reason to celebrate?”
Curaçao turned to her and chuckled. “You ‘ave an optimistic view on life, Cinder.”
“Yep! A lot of Sweeties do, but I hear a lot of us get jaded after a while. Guess you’re lucky I’m new!” She winked.
“What will you do when you’ve been at zis for as long as ze ozers?”
“I dunno,” Cinder admitted. “I kinda hope I’ll still be like this, despite it all? I’ve managed to keep it so far, and I’ve seen a lot of… disturbed stuff. Heck, you watched me burn that guy back there. I don’t even know what his deal was. But hey, I’m still here, alive, and well, we’re totally going to beat this Silvertongue into the ground. What’s not to like?”
“You seem so confident.”
“I’m just lucky. Also, I’m not looking him in the face right now. I’d totally be screaming if he decided he wanted to scare me.”
“And yet you smile now anyway.”
“Yep!” Cinder smiled. “Live in the moment, I always say.”
They put on the brakes, arriving in the middle of a bunch of floating people, some of whom looked like they had just been through a battle.
“I did it!” Insipid said, whooping. She created a miniature star in her hoof and quickly snuffed it out before it exploded. “Uh… I’m just going to get rid of this now…”
“...Did what?” Cinder asked.
“Nothing, she’s delusional,” Shimmy said, panic on her face. “We have to go now, no time to explain!” She enveloped them all in a shimmering golden globe and threw them into the universe like a catapult.
They passed through the barrier, leaving the Universe Generator empty - and still. Only the Cracked World moved in the ancient construct.