Rarity looked over to the clones and sighed with regret.
"What's wrong?"
"Hmm? Oh, Applejack." She considered for a moment. "Well, it's... rather frivolous, really."
"After all we've been through, Ah could use a little 'frivolity.'" Applejack sat next to her. "Come on..."
"Well it's just..." Rarity pointed at their clones. "Insipid used to be crushing on Curaçao, you know? But as I understand it, it was a very childish thing that Curaçao merely tolerated. But after Silvertongue 'dismissed' them, Insipid just decided to abandon her affections, and that left Curaçao to realize she actually liked how Insipid treated her and was actually worried for the unicorn. And then, after... well, I don't know exactly what happened, but apparently Insipid defended Curaçao during a big fight they all had, and then just recently Curaçao has been assuring Insipid that she's not, well, an idiot..."
"...Not sure whatch're sayin' here," Applejack admitted.
"Isn't it obvious? They love each other, but the fates have conspired to make it so they're never affectionate at the same time." Rarity half-swooned in a dramatic sigh. "Suis-moi je te fuis, fuis-moi je te suis... and now they're calling each other sisters, which is wonderful but precludes them ever realizing their true feelings for each other!"
"...Ah dunno," Applejack mused. "Ah mean, Ah'm from a big family, and people don't marry first cousins, buuuuut... fourth or beyond is alright." She caught sight of Rarity's scandalized expression and rolled her eyes. "Ya go back far enough and everypony's related, Rares. Your little soap opera might be on hold for now, but who knows?"
"...yes, who indeed." Rarity turned her look back on the group. "Perhaps.... no, no, we should not interfere." She considered for a moment. "Although... Cadance is the alicorn of love, and there might be a few duplicates of her willing to advise us..."
~~~
Curaçao frowned. "Insipid, I can feel zem manipulating us."
"Like, why?"
"It's zis zing called 'shipping', according to Velvet and 'er new book."
"They're going to put us on a boat?"
"Ah, non. More like trying to push us to be romantically involved."
Insipid gasped. "What? Whaaat? We just got rid of Silvertongue can't they, like, leave us alone?"
Curaçao glanced at the Cadence sitting on a nearby bench trying very hard to look inconspicuous behind a newspaper.
"Curie?"
"We may need to take matters into our own ‘ooves to remove zis... intrusion..."
~~~
"Suzie 'Sweetie' Mash nee Belle." A hand as black and smooth as obsidian clapped on her shoulder. "So good to see you again!"
Suzie groaned. "Go away, Chrysalis."
"It's Kalyani now, actually. Well, when I'm talking to the multiverse at large."
"Please leave."
The obsidian-skinned woman rose her hands placatingly. "Fine, fine. I just thought we could talk a bit, but you're clearly not in the mood. Just thought I'd tell you, I got a message from somebody named Railgun this morning--"
Suzie's eye twitched. "Don't you dare bring my daughter into this!"
"I'm not," Kalyani assured her. "She brought herself into this by sending an e-mail to the Wholesome. And ordinarily, that would be strictly her business as she is a legal adult, but with my world only recently joining Merodi and you being a very important person I thought it might be best to have a discussion before I sent off a reply. Avoid any political explosions, you know. But I guess we can talk later--"
"Sit down."
Kalyani sat down across from her, smiling sympathetically. "How have you been, by the way? That whole thing must have been stressful for you."
"Oh no you don't," Suzie growled. "You brought up my daughter just to get me to listen. You're going to tell me exactly what was in that e-mail--"
"Are you sure you want to know that?" Kalyani asked with a teasing expression. "I mean, I know you're interested in her personal life, but I would assume you don't want to hear about--"
"Will you stop that and take this seriously?!"
Kalyani's smile vanished. "I am. You're asking me for information about a message sent to me in confidence. Literally the only reason I am even considering telling you what's in it is because it's from your daughter--frankly, even telling you about it is pushing the concept of privacy. I've read up on you, Suzie, but your public record doesn't go into your private life. I want to know for certain that telling you anything Railgun asked me won't ruin her life before we start down that road. And to do that," she continued over Suzie's protests, "I have to understand you personally."
Suzie opened her mouth for a moment, but no words came out. She examined the woman's expression, looking for any sign of mockery or deceit, and finding only genuine concern.
"You really care about what will happen to her because of this."
"I care about what happens to everyone," Kalyani informed her solemnly. "I only directly intervene when the fates of my children are at stake, but I am not so foolish as to think my actions do not have impact beyond that."
Suzie sighed. "...Can I at least ask if she requested... intimate assistance?"
"Her questions were not sexual in nature."
"...Good. That would have been a… stressful conversation. And would have meant I didn’t know her as well as I thought I did..." With a deep breath, Suzie pushed away the maternal worst-case-scenario bells that had been ringing in her mind. "Let's... talk."
“Well, you start. Why do you hate me so much? You complained about humans being sex maniacs.”
“I… well I believe I said we have a reputation.”
Kalyani raised an eyebrow.
“Think of it this way. If you’re in a human city, you’ll see a billboard with a well-endowed woman just sitting there drawing the eyes of anyone who cares. You simply wouldn’t see that in a standard Equestria. In a lot of Earths the idea is slapped around everywhere so the ponies kinda just assume we’re obsessed with it. I work a… bit to lessen that stigma, but the fact of the matter is we do talk about it a lot more than they do. ...Though I think they all have in their minds that all we do is bang each other every night after every first date like some Shipping World incarnate.”
“All? And I thought they were the ones being prejudiced.”
Suzie let out a bitter laugh. “Hard to fix your thinking, isn’t it? No, not all. There are lots of humans from worlds like the standard Equis where sex just isn’t really a thing, and there are a lot of pony worlds where ponies act like humans do in the movies. I’m looking at the Fallout Equestria worlds mainly.”
“Not the porno worlds?”
“I avoid those at all costs. Merodi Universalis tends not to seek out relations with them too. Is that unfair? Probably. Definitely. I’m not going to go around trying to change it though…” She put a hand to her forehead. “Geez...”
“This seems more like a reason to hate the way people judge everybody else rather than a reason to hate me, you know.” Kalyani smirked. “Those ponies are going to latch on to a promiscuous human to prove their theories right no matter what happens. In general, ponies may have better ‘morals’ than us, but they think enough like humans. They’ll see what they want to see. And they’ll always be able to find something given the existence of certain worlds.”
Suzie shrugged. “Those silly Builders. Didn’t know what they were making.”
“Or maybe they did and they really were huge perverts.”
“The Wholesome, then?”
Kalyani fixed her with a stone cold glare.
“Sorry!” Suzie tried not to smile and failed. “Look, I am sorry for how I treat you, it’s not how things are supposed to be. ‘As much as it depends on you, live in peace with all men.’ I’ve never been very… good at that.”
“No kidding. Your mouth is still curling up in disgust every time you notice a new feature of my outfit.”
“Not gonna say you’re right. Not gonna promise I won’t come in and wreck your face if you entice Railgun in somehow. But I will say you have the right to exist. Even if there did need to be some holy crusade against what you are, there are much bigger fish to fry anyway. Go and kill Slaanesh for me, would you?”
“Ah, no. Killing gods, usually a bad idea.” Kalyani tapped her fingers together. “Redefining them, on the other hand...”
“And that is a whole other conversation I don’t want to have right now.” Suzie stood up. “Now, I’m going to go have a talk with my daughter. A nice talk.”
“You’re a military woman. Do you even know how to have a nice talk?”
“Ask Cinder about it s- actually, nevermind, not Cinder. Try Blink instead.”
“Worried I’ll corrupt the young minds of the innocent?”
“Yes. Can you blame me?”
“Not really. They are very impressionable.”
Suzie groaned.
“Say hi to Mattie for me!”
~~~
"My goodness," said the local Rarity. She looked from Rachel to Sequin, from the Rarity of Equestria IV to the Rarity who currently had a death grip on Cinder. "Seeing so many of myself..."
Applejack smirked. "Givin' you ideas?"
"I should say so! After all these years denying the Infinite Carousel's advances, I dare say it's time I go on the offensive!" Rarity clenched a fist. "I can create my own multi-Rarity consortium."
The smirk widened. "With hookers 'n' blackjack?"
"Well, they say the Carousel started with changelings. I suppose Chrysalis can get involved."
Chrysalis rolled her eyes as she walked by. "Haven't you taught her to avoid low-hanging fruit?" she said to Applejack.
The local Twilight cleared her throat. "I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but now that we've officially joined the Merodi, that sort of multiversal business venture is kind of... well, explicitly illegal."
"Oh." Rarity wilted. "So it is. Drat."
~~~
A beeping caught Shimmy's attention, and she pulled her phone out. "Oh... well, shit."
Twilight looked over her shoulder. "What's... oh. Yeah, that's bad."
"What is it?" asked Twilight.
"I'm... kind of the local goddess, if you haven't gathered. And apparently, my followers were watching the news..." Shimmy was already typing a text message. "I'm just going to send Ruby a quick message that I'm okay and spread the word I'll have an announcement later, I don't want to start a religious panic."
"Ruby?"
"She runs one of my churches. Actually one of my most reasonable followers, if a little quirky." Sunset finished her message. "Then again she's dating Pinkie Pie, so--"
"Wait, what?!" Rainbow cried.
"The local version of Pinkie Pie," Twilight clarified.
"If there are multiple universes, it makes sense that different Pinkies would date different people," Twilight added.
Rainbow narrowed her eyes. "Oh yeah? Then who's the local me dating?"
"Officially, she hasn't found the right person yet," Shimmy said. "Too busy with the space program. But she's been sort of flirting with a Munarin guy--"
"Munarin?"
"Cat alien." Shimmy held her hands apart a bit. "Local species, about ye big. Calls himself 'Capper' for some reason. They might wind up dating, it's hard to tell if they're serious."
Rainbow sat on her flanks. "The multiverse is weird."
~~~
After the threats of invading armies and cosmic dissolution were dealt with, Rainbow Dash had decided there was only one way to properly celebrate. Not everyone agreed, but a few did come with her. Since they were in Celestia City, they quickly found a restaurant that specialized in post-victory shawarma.
Pinkie Pie still gave the occassional giggle as they were seated. She'd grown out as much as up in her adult years. In the Gem Vein, she could've easily been mistaken for Rose Quartz. "You are such a WCU fangirl."
"Embodiment of Loyalty," said Dash, who'd stayed sleek and svelte. "I am fandom. Besides, the shawarma scene is like the one consistent thing across every Wonder or Marvel Cinematic Universe. The ones that make it that far, anyway. And we freaking earned our Middle Eastern burritos today."
"Not that anyone knows it." Pinkie pulled a thick tome out of her hair, Sweetie Belle's icon and the caption "Arc 1" prominent on the cover, and flipped through the back pages.
Everyone else drew back from her. "I thought you didn't mess with metafiction," said Fluttershy, paling even beyond her greyer-than-Flutter normal complexion as a shudder went through her willowy build.
"Yeah, but not because I can't. Too much self-reference isn't good for a universe under repairs; you might make it notice it shouldn't be working." Pinkie looked off to the side. "Besides, our usual Prophets aren't that self-indulgent."
An orange-skinned man quietly got out of his seat and snuck away from the group.
"But between Shimmy being back and those shiny new Reality Anchors, it's definitely safe to flip through a script we already performed. Maybe Equis Vitis Pinkie could've called out pointers when they mattered, but that would've been real risky, and I'm nowhere near her level." Pinkie riffled through the last part of the book and shook her head. "But yeah, the three of us aren't even mentioned by name, and Apple Bloom's just a voice on a phone at best."
"Silvertongue knew what he was doin'," said the last person at the table. Apple Bloom had turned out much like her sister, aside from the shorter haircut. "I'm still tryin' to find what I missed. Even knowin' what I'm lookin' for, he covered most o' his tracks real well, did most o' his business in other universes. Already found most o' what's there after AJ got me together with Wallflower Blush's group."
"Oh yeah, good point, Wallflower never even came up. Just Applejack and Rarity's ambiguous 'underground connections.'" Pinkie went from air quotes to waggling her fingers. "Oooh, myste~erious."
Dash's face fell. "So when those fire-ice demon things were about to get to Twilight and I did the superhero landing Rainboom, and then you paradropped in dual-wielding those giant party grenade launchers—"
"The whole reason I was able to do that was because it was a funny background event. Which doesn't usually work well in a textual medium, but it got the job done. Especially with the bubblegum cigar."
"This always gives me a headache," said Fluttershy. "And one of my close friends is Fay."
"At least tell me it mentions Fluttershy going all dryad-mecha," said Dash, gesturing wildly, "tossing demons around and going 'I am Floot!'"
"I'm never going to say that and you can't make me."
Pinkie shook her head. "But hey, it could be worse. Scootaloo was a damsel-in-distress MacGuffin for most of it."
Apple Bloom chuckled at that. "More like a Chicken MacGuffin."
Dash reached over the table and punched her shoulder. "That's my sorta-sister you're talking about."
Bloom rolled her eyes. "Like you don't call AJ worse."
"I honestly don't mind not being in the spotlight." Fluttershy ran a hand through her hair and the thin branches within. "I'm still not comfortable with people reading about the park incident."
"Oof, this explains a lot," said Pinkie, studying the LSB Insider July 2019 issue. "This was going to be a five-part subarc, but it grew into eight. Something had to give and we were the something. Part of it, anyway; it's not like Ultrajack or Rarity exploding demons with magic tuning fork needles made it in either. They were mostly there for 'road not travelled' shipping comedy with the pony Rarity and Twilight who went here for their honeymoon." She tapped the magazine's front cover. "We're not the title characters; we don't get a lot of focus."
Dash leaned back, arms behind her head. "It just sucks that we did all that cool stuff and no one's gonna know."
"We'll know," said Fluttershy.
"I guess."
Pinkie just smiled as impishly as possible.
Apple Bloom rolled her eyes, though her smirk didn't shift. "We're 'on camera' right now, ain't we?"
"Of course we are. It's the after-credits shawarma scene!"
Dash pumped her fist. "Yes!"
"Wait, but wasn't the post-fight shawarma scene after the first big victory?" Fluttershy asked. "Because for us this is... a lot further down the line. This is like immediately after they beat that purple guy--"
"It's a shout out," Pinkie assured her, "don't worry about directly matching everything."
~~~
Excerpt from Curio “Sweetie” Belle’s “Journal of Multiversal Events and Guide to Otherworldly Happenings.”
...and that’s what happened in the Silvertongue Incident. Naturally, I wasn’t there for all of it, all the events that took place in the Universe Generator were far outside my sphere of interaction and I had to resort to secondhoof information. That said, sources agreed on what happened for the most part, so I believe it is an accurate retelling.
So, what can we learn from all this?
The obvious back-of-the-cereal-box moral is “don’t try to achieve perfection,” but that’s not exactly practical insofar as this book is concerned. Really, things like this should be obvious, and it boggles me how apparently psychotic geniuses like Silvertongue try this sort of thing all the time. The man was a mastermind of the highest caliber who was able to control his own mind through sheer willpower and he didn’t see this exploding in his face for the longest time. When he did see it explode, he decided to roll with the exploding.
So, he lost a moral. How does this help us?
Well, for one, we should beware of people like him should they come to our world and flap their little silver tongue in our ears, convincing us to do just about anything with the right words. Beware the smooth talker and those who sound reasonable. Just because it seems like they have a better argument than us doesn’t mean they do. The smartest person in the world is not always right.
This seems counterintuitive to logic, since it dictates that when presented with the best evidence we should alter what we think to conform to it since it makes sense. No, I do not have an alternative at the moment, since everything else I thought of also had a failing. Talk to a philosopher - or seven, since we can never trust the smartest guy in the room.
Furthermore, Silvertongue unleashed a wave of destruction and sent an entire universe into a several-thousand year tailspin of suffering and war. Initially, it seems like we should throw up our hooves and panic since we have no hope of doing anything against these godlike powers. I say we have a defense - remain unimportant. If we stick our heads out of the burrow hole all at once, we get sucked into whatever tornado is raging on the surface.
Unfortunately sticking our heads in the earth like some ostrich and ignoring the storm means we won’t be prepared when the meteors hit. Clearly, there must be some kind of middle ground where we are aware of what’s happening and not involved in it. The Crown Princess, mad though she is, might be on to something.
Merodi Universalis, on the other hand, is not trying to hide. They’re sticking everything out of the hole and getting extremely lucky. This has made them absolutely insane as a society. There is a distinct lack of concern and caution in their lives. Admittedly, this has produced an abundance of happiness and camaraderie, but also what I believe to be a bit of naivete. Cinder is perhaps the most extreme example of this: somehow, she has been dragged into the impossible expanse that is the multiverse and manages to smile through all the violence and death she sees. I wonder if it’s some sort of local contagion in Merodi Universalis space, since I seem to have contracted it too. I’m still part of Cryo’s team doing whatever crazy thing she thinks of to do next, and I find myself looking forward to it.
This may explain why they devote one twelfth of their government to Expeditions. Contagious insanity. Or maybe that’s just the Tower, but I’m definitely not an authority on that subject.
In conclusion, we need to lay low and keep our eyes open, watch out for those who would sweet-talk us into whatever they wanted, and Merodi Universalis is clinically insane.
And now the supplemental section. More Important People in Merodi Universalis.
Silvertongue. Historical figure. Known for revealing the Universe Generator to the masses and creating Equis Imperfect. Killed by his creations, the Mean Six, twice. Suspected to be a local substitute for Volkermord in Merodi Universalis for the next few years. Very dead, but if any alternates exist, do not trust a word they say even if it is true. Silvertongue would be able to tell the absolute truth and still lead you to believe a lie.
Mattie “Rarity” Belle. League of Sweetie Belles. Upon first glance she may appear to be a sexually obsessed deviant who is desperate for some action and will stop at nothing to get it. In reality, she is an experienced adventurer and one of the most senior members of the League of Sweetie Belles, sister to the Lost Founder Sweetie Brute. While she is certainly a masochist, in reality most of her advances are jokes designed to get under people’s skin for her own amusement, although research suggests this may not have been the case in the past. She has power within the League akin to a Founder and will be a very loyal - if scatterbrained - Aware ally for anyone willing to put up with her antics.
Winter Lights. Winter was once an elf from Fae Epoque but was turned into a human after an ‘incident’ that is annoyingly hard to get firm details on. She serves as Earth Shimmer’s primary expert on Fay happenings. Like all Fay she is a lover of word games. Even though she is a human she will still speak nothing but the ‘technical’ truth. She’s curious and has a good heart deep down that’s capable of powerful, if confused, love. I shall refrain from defining her further since she tends to defy specifically what’s written down to spite those who try to figure her out. (What are you gonna do about that Winter?)
(Note: received this text when writing this paragraph:
Edit in a series of emojis while you aren’t looking that metaphorically elaborate on your own mental state.
Place in final published draft? Talk to publisher.)
Shimmy “Sunset” Shimmer. If you know a Sunset, chances are you know Shimmy. The major differences are A) she’s a minor deity B) she absolutely hates to be called a god under any circumstances C) she’s both only a few decades old and several thousand thanks to SIlvertongue D) people throw oranges on her. Point D requires more research, suspected to have something to do with the local religion of the Divine Bacon Horse. Like so much in Earth Shimmer, I really am not sure if what I’m being told is a joke or not.
Blackburn. This section was removed by Queen Blackburn’s Request...
~~~
"Hello, everyone. My name's Ruby Rose, I'm the pope of the Church of the Divine Bacon Horse, and I have a few words I'd like to say. I worked hard to prepare the sermon for this momentous occasion... but events outpaced us. So, I guess I'll have to wing it." The pink woman gave the gathered crowd a sardonic grin. "Not that that's anything new."
A scattering of chuckles rose from the crowd.
"At least my notes should still be mostly on point." She ran a finger through her blood-red hair, looking over the work on the podium. "Right... here we go."
The crowd stilled as she rose her hand.
"...More than twenty years ago, Sunset Shimmer stepped into our world and began her journey to apotheosis. Not that she knew it, of course; she was filled with disharmonious urges. Jealousy, covetousness, greed. Arrogance. All things that locked her within herself, prevented the realization of her true nature. She came to us as a child, ill-tempered and foolish. So often do we forget that, looking upon her wonder now; so often do we forget that she who has become our glorious proclaimer was once as petty as the shortsighted jerks who ruin lives without thinking, and I know jerks isn't really a very religious word but I couldn't think of a better one so... yeah..."
The crowd shouted a few suggestions. Ruby rolled her eyes.
"There are kids watching this! Anyway... right, right. At her lowest point, though, Sunset found hands reaching out, and she took them. With those bonds, she began to shed the very constraints that locked her way; she began to extend her soul outward, and what an incredible soul it turned out to be. Sunset Shimmer, who once thought only of herself, felt the danger that threatened the world before any else, and sacrificed her mortal form to become its mender. Sunset Shimmer found the terrified and terrifying core of our reality and soothed its worries. Sunset Shimmer, faced with devastation or conquest, chose instead peaceful synthesis."
Ruby spread her hands wide. "Twenty years have passed since Sunset Shimmer brought magic back to us. Twenty years of wonder and horror, of strange new things and ancient secrets. Twenty years where Sunset Shimmer has refined her craft, working to save as much of our reality as she can--and yesterday, on the twentieth anniversary of the saturation point, we at last welcomed a larger harmony. Make no mistake, Merodi Universalis has among it beings like our Sunset; like she was when she first came, withdrawn in arrogance, like she became during her cleansing, hopeful and bright, and a few as she is now, a beacon to all who need magic and a good dose of common sense. They are akin to her, yet not her, and there have been questions of how they should be treated."
Her hands tapped the podium. "Some say they should be considered false gods and abhorred. But our divine bacon horse would not approve; such reflections are but souls of their own, and deserve not our detestment. Some believe they should be considered prophets of the shelled mystic. But our divine bacon horse would not approve; such reflections are souls of their own, and deserve not our demands. How should we moderate our reactions to such selves, akin to the one we rightfully worship and yet not the same? I ask this of you, then: how would you treat a twin from another realm? Such exists, and has been known to exist since Sunset came to us; our own world hosted a pair to the glorious proclaimer, and ignoring her for the glorious proclaimer nearly led her to consumption by one who wished oblivion. We must moderate our response to the face of our goddess, and know those who wearsunset ' them are but people on their own journey."
Ruby gestured around her. "As are we! And all reflections! Yesterday, we witnessed a warped mimicry of Sunset Shimmer attempt apotheosis and fail--fail because she had yet to shed that which restricted our goddess in the beginning, her arrogance and pride blinding her to the harmony of multitudes! Her foolhardiness, driven by the lusts of one even more hungry for glory than she, tore from us our glorious proclaimer, and what should have been a day of immense joy became, for a time, the most horrific crisis we could have known. Yet Sunset Shimmer, even barred from her rightful place, did not forget us or the ones who made the day possible; she persevered, taking the lifetime of a universe to forge herself and her wits to become the very best she could become. And once the twisted foe who had directed the conflict was brought to an end, she returned and granted mercy."
Her head bowed. "Mercy... And compassion. Let us remember that those who live beyond our borders are their own beings, yet recall they too will need the help of others. Let us not remain ignorant of their sufferings, but assuage them when they come. Let us show them the incredible things our world has to offer, and welcome them in the name of our goddess. The Divine Bacon Horse, Traveler Of Realms, Glorious Proclaimer, Shelled Mystic, She Of The Wonderous Mane, Wellspring Of Magic And Sanity... THE TWICE APPOINTED DEITY, SUNSET SHIMMER! BEHOLD HER, AND PROCLAIM!"
~~~
"....You know what?" Shimmy ‘Sunset’ Shimmer shrugged. "I'm not even mad."
~~~
The battlefield... actually wasn't that bad, given the nature of the local universe. It was if the world's creators had deliberately tried to minimize its production values. For the most part, it was a blank white void. The inhabitants weren't much better. They were Flats, but far simpler than the likes of Burgerbelle. While they spoke with the same monotone lack-of-inflection, their bodies...
Well, not to put too fine a point on it, they were stick figures, and rather crude ones at that, with unmoving smiles and dots for eyes.
"thank you dosey doe," said the stick-figure Princess Celestia... or, according to everyone short of the Tree of Harmony itself, Princess Celerystick. "your actions have saved equesrita."
"yay dosey doe," chorused the crowd, who stood about five feet to Princess Celerystick's left. They didn't so much jump for joy as loop through a two-frame bouncing animation.
Ditzy Doo, agent of ETSAB, just grinned and bore the typos. The locals had certainly coped well with all of the differences that practically made her an eldritch horror by local standards. She wasn't going to begrudge them a harmless quirk or two.
Even if she was starting to hear the Comic Sans.
"I'm just glad I could help," she said. adjusting the permanently borrowed Imperial greatcoat she wore over a jumpsuit that looked a lot more impressive when the viewer didn't know it was the ancient alien equivalent of a hazmat suit. Really, she reflected, she was in no position to judge the strangeness of a universe. "It helped that there wasn't much collateral to damage."
The bouncing came to a stop. Everyone turned to look at the local Twilight's (or Twinkle Sprinkle's) castle, which was little more than a jagged outline.
A jagged outline that was on a mix of jagged-outline fire and more familiar, fully filled-in flames.
Some of which appeared to be burning the other fire.
Ditzy cleared her throat and projected her pegasus aspect wingbow out of the feathers on the back of her neck. "And on that note, I believe I'll bid you all adieu. Feel free to use the communicator to get in touch with us or Merodi Universalis, don't open strange three-dimensional objects, tip your waitress, bye!"
She took to the air and stranger dimensions, leaving the white void behind for a black one, where crystal spheres twinkled like stars. She knew that this was just how her mind processed the nigh-infinitude of the multiverse from within the tiny bubble of space-time her magic made for her, but it was still beautiful.
Ditzy oriented herself towards home, her senses refined from years of practice. She did enjoy her work, but after days like this, she just wanted to get back home to Flash and Dinky. Plus, Celestia City was due to visit any day now, and she didn't want to miss that.
She considered her luck and the slippery nature of time across the multiverse, then poured on the speed.
By the time she arrived home, she could easily see the damage. It wasn't like the cracks that had evenly spider-webbed Earth Shimmer since the Saturation and had largely receded in recent years. This looked like someone had fired a bullet out of the universe. And not a small caliber, either.
Ditzy entered as close to the impact point as she dared. Much stronger magic than hers shunted her left-forward-up-kata-muffin* into a gravity well, where it took her two and a half accidental barrel rolls to orient herself. Once that was done, she could take in both Celestia City and the wreckage thereof.
*After ana-kata and East-West, Ditzy had to devise her own names for exotic axes.
She couldn't help but note that it was strangely comforting to know that it wasn't her fault for once.
Once her wool was sufficiently gathered, she made a beeline for the first point of luminous gold she could find. Shimmy or Corona, a debatably divine Sunset was always good for answers.
Ditzy came to a stop before the Sunset—Shimmy, as it turned out—and said a very useful, all-encompassing expression of total incredulity she picked up on that last mission:
"What the hay."