//------------------------------// // 4: Between Night and Day, Trapped in Twilight // Story: The Exes Club // by MarvelandPonder //------------------------------// Flash Sentry didn’t know if he had a boyfriend or not. Of course he didn’t have a boyfriend, per se, he suspected he would have to at least ask before he’d just have a boyfriend. It was too soon for labels. They still didn’t know each other all that well, all things considered. But that didn’t stop Timber from reaching for his hand as they followed after the nurse, and it definitely didn’t stop Flash from taking it gratefully. Letting Nurse Redheart lead the way to one of his best friends’ hospital room, Flash felt a bit selfish. He couldn’t decide if he was more worried about the girls, or more flustered over the hand in his, but if it counted for anything, he wanted to be more worried about the girls. What kind of friend would he be if he wasn’t? He decided he was very, very worried. It didn’t take much for that to be true. When the nurse finally turned to stand in the door of the room, where she might be holding it if the door wasn’t already wedged open, Flash could feel Timber squeeze and let go. Potential boyfriend or no, he hoped that meant Timber was feeling the same fear he was. Well, he thought, I don’t hope Timber’s scared, just that we felt the same way, about the hospital and our friends and stuff, and not because we don’t feel the same way about each other. Flash had to suppress a smile thinking about how Spruce would tease him for getting all tangled in his words even in his own head. Or the fact that there might be an our friends when all this was through. Which, if anyone asked, had nothing to do with why he couldn’t keep that smile from breaking free when all of the girls sat around the room in one way or another. All of them. Rainbow Dash sat with one leg on the windowsill, next to Applejack, who leaned with one muscled arm on the wall next to Twilight’s bed (mostly to take pressure off a sprained ankle). And Fluttershy, holding Angel bunny in her lap, was right by Pinkie, who hung over the back of her chair with Rarity sitting cross-legged on a bench beside them both. Rainbow Dash seemed to be eyeing Rarity an awful lot, and not just because she looked shockingly well-put-together for someone who had been out cold not that long ago. Sunset sat directly on Twilight’s bed, close enough that Twilight could hold her cheek with the hand that wasn’t in a cast. “⁠Sunset, you could’ve been concussed! And if you didn’t let the nurse check, you would never have even known!” “Twi, babe, I promise I’m fine. Chicks dig scars anyway,” Sunset informed her, as if she hadn’t been scared half to death a few hours earlier. She seemed to lose that cool-headed calmness when she hesitated as she went to hold Twilight’s hand and felt the cast. “You’re the one who just came out of surgery. Are you okay?” “It’s a good question,” Timber interjected. “Are you okay?” Flash had to admire Timber’s bravado, especially now that he knew Timber really didn’t know where he stood with those two. Flash never would’ve had the guts to waltz in unannounced when his ex and her girlfriend were having a moment. That much confidence was unreal. It intrigued him to wonder whether it was real or not. But for the moment, the more important fact was that Twilight smiled at them from her bed. Sure, her left arm was in a purple cast, and there was a hairline crack in the right lens of her glasses, but she seemed to have all the energy she would if she was about to take a test. “As I’ve already told Sunset, I’m better than ever. And by that, I mean it’s been a running joke between me and Shining Armor that I’d end up slowly becoming the world’s first android, and look! I’m now 0.05% titanium! Isn’t that cool?” “Robo-Twi is a go!” Pinkie cheered, pumping her fist. “Ooo! Does your new arm come with kung fu fighting grip?” Sunset looked at her girlfriend. “Yeah, please don’t add any upgrades to that.” Timber shoved his hands into his pockets, faltering at the foot of the bed. “Cool. Roboticism. That feeling when your ex has exciting new life plans already…” He brought a hand up and faux-whispered, “Super awkward.” Sunset looked at him like he’d suggested they all go for round two with the threat they’d faced in the park today (or yesterday, Flash was starting to suspect it was yesterday by now). “What did I just say?” Twilight giggled at her girlfriend, and smiled to him. “It’s, um, it’s good to see you again, Timber. I swear I meant for the first time we saw each other again to be, you know, not this, and I also meant to text you more, but then I didn’t know how much was too much or too little, and then things with Sunset started which—oh gosh, I haven’t even asked you if that’s weird for you and⁠—” She stopped mid-sentence, noticing Timber’s pajamas, just to groan. “You still have those alien pants?” “Twilight, the truth is out there.” “Don’t start,” Twilight begged. “Okay but now you’re dating an alien from another world!” Satisfied smirk on his face, Timber waggled his finger at her. “You can’t deny facts, Sparkle.” “Oh, that doesn’t even qualify as a fact by any scientific measures and you know it!” Rainbow Dash pointed. “Yeah, Sunset isn’t an alien. She’s a pony. Everyone knows that.” Fluttershy frowned. “But she is from another world. Technically speaking, is she an alien?” “I think I would know if I was an alien,” Sunset complained. Pinkie Pie gasped. “That’s just what an alien would say!” Sunset squinted at her. “Is it, though?” Timber smirked to Twilight. “So. Glad we broke up yet?” “Very,” she sighed. But smiled more genuinely. “But I’m also really glad you’re here. Thanks for coming.” “Of course. Anytime you save the world from mass destruction and certain doom, I want in. It’s good drama.” He winked at her. “Just don’t wait until you think your girlfriend might be dead to shoot me a text next time, okay?” Sunset frowned at him. “What was that last part?” Flash let his shoulders droop in the sigh to end all sighs. A multi-hour wait in a hospital could do that to a guy. “So you’re all okay? Everybody’s safe?” The room got a lot more quiet than he was expecting. Heavier. Rarity was the first to speak up, “Thankfully, we’re all safe for now, yes, if that’s what you’re asking… ahem. Mm. But otherwise, eh…” Applejack’s gaze dropped to her cowgirl boots. “What Rarity’s trying to say is we didn’t exactly make a new friend out there this time ‘round.” Flash caught Timber’s look, and felt a bit glad he had someone to take this all in with for once. “What do you mean?” The girls didn’t seem to want to answer, which in and of itself felt like icicles forming on his heart. But he quickly realized it was because they were looking to Twilight and Sunset to field this one. Sunset grimaced to her girlfriend, who nodded. Twilight spoke up first. “The person we were up against didn’t happen to stumble across magic by accident. We think he’s known about it for a while and that’s how he’s gotten so powerful. He’s been biding his time in the shadows.” “Fittingly enough,” Sunset grumbled. Timber hugged his own arms. “So, what? Your theory is there’s been some lunatic out there watching your every move?” After a moment’s hesitation, Twilight nodded. “We can only assume. Before I even created my EM frequency detector, I was able to gather intel about the goings-on at Canterlot High with a little amateur sleuthing and a bus pass. If someone was really determined and had access to more resources than I did, they could be watching the whole school.” “Goodness. For all we know, he might’ve been around to see everything,” Rarity said, holding a hand over her heart. “Sunset’s transformation at the Fall Formal, our reunion at the Battle of the Bands, the entirety of the Friendship Games...” “Our time at camp,” Fluttershy whispered. They all looked to Timber, who squirmed at the thought. “Okay! We get it! Total creep-factor. But you stomped him out today, right? It was a tough go, you all took your fair share of licks, but you came together, Rainboomed up, and rainbow lazer et cetera et cetera?” Sunset grimaced. “Not this time. We managed to weaken his defenses enough to disarm him temporarily, but he escaped before we could make sure he can’t do this again. He’s still out there.” Across the room, Rainbow’s seat at the window started to look more like a guard post, because maybe that’s what it was. She’d volunteered to take the first watch. “We don’t know what he wants. We don’t know what he’s fully capable of. No one’s safe until we find him again.” Fluttershy hugged her bunny to her chest. “Or he finds us.” Flash stepped forward. “Okay, no. Normal human common sense, activate.” They looked at him like they didn’t know what he was saying, what strange foreign concept he’d invoked. He worried about them sometimes. “I’m not letting you girls go through this alone. It’s crazy that this guy got away with what he did, but if he did it’s because you friendship experts haven’t asked for help. My dad’s the police captain for the whole city! If anyone can find your guy and keep you all safe, it’s him.” The eight of them looked to Sunset, as if for permission. She didn’t seem to notice, but nodded. “If you’re sure your dad isn’t going to blow our cover, we’d be happy to have some backup on this one. It’s not like we can’t use the help.” Twilight bit her lip. “Just please don’t tell him Sunset’s an alien invader from another dimension. She’s really, really not.” “Although we have our suspicions…” Pinkie added, mostly just to keep the room from suffocating under the pressure of this conversation. Sunset shoved Pinkie off the chair she was on. Pinkie Pie smiled at her from the ground. Sunset grinned back. Still leaned up against the wall, but attempting to make it look like she was choosing to do so, Applejack grunted. “Dang it all…” Rarity poised an eyebrow with so much natural grace Flash almost didn’t remember she’d been to hell and back in high heels. “Applejack? Something to say then, love?” Applejack shook her blonde head⁠—and Flash felt a bit stupid for thinking this but it was genuinely weird to him to see AJ without her trademark stetson. She looked shorter. She more than made up for it in muscle-mass, but she didn’t look... whole. Somehow softer, too. And maybe it was the shiner on her left-eye, but the emotion in her face was more legible than usual, more raw. “We can’t tell Flash’s dad, y’all. We can’t tell anybody. Anything they know might make them a target.” “Whoa, hey, calm down, edgelord, they’re the cops,” Rainbow Dash stressed, and her junior air cadets dog tag shone in the dawning light, right next to her geode. “That’s what they’re there for! To protect people in way over their heads!” Flash didn’t know if he had ever heard Rainbow Dash come that close to admitting they were up against something she couldn’t handle. It made him feel off-balance, but he still tried to look stable. “Rainbow’s right. And maybe you can’t trust every cop out there to keep a secret, but you can trust my dad.” “No, see, that’s our problem: he’s your dad. Flash, you ever think about if something happened to him, what you’d do?” Applejack seemed to know that she didn’t have to press further; he had. When he was little, he admired his dad’s job in the army more than anything, as much as moving preschools sucked every time he got a new transfer. Things got a little more stable for them when he “retired” into police work, but that didn’t mean Flash didn’t wait up to see if his dad came back from an emergency shift. “We’ve got superpowers and we got lucky,” Applejack admitted. “I don’t want to lose more family, y’all.” Timber scoffed before everyone could think too much about the family outside this room they’d want to keep safe. “Yeah, well, gonna be hard to hide that shiner when you go home to Granny Smith. And it’s not like you’re physically capable of lying, either. It looks like we don’t have much of a choice here.” Applejack didn’t meet his gaze, good eye or otherwise. “Valiant effort at selfless sacrifice, darling, truly noble of you,” Rarity told her, patting her hand. “But, as always, we’ll just have to hope that Applejack is wrong. If it’s any comfort, she frequently is. Flash, be a dear? Call the police?” Flash gave a firm nod. “Right. Sounds like a plan. Do we have a name? Anything to identify him?” “Didn’t exactly get a nametag, but we have a good idea. In my world, the pony he most resembles was a tyrant, the lord of shadows. We called him King Sombra,” Sunset grumbled, “but as far as I can work out with Princess Twilight, he’s not from my world. I don’t know if that means he’s the Sombra from this world or… somewhere else. I’d prefer here.” Her eyes convened with her girlfriend’s for some private meeting. “If he’s from out there, some other world, drawing on some other magic... we really don’t know what he’s capable of.” The quiet pressed down on them. The girls, who Flash had seen standing their ground against otherworldly horrors, didn’t know how to respond. Even Pinkie didn’t seem to know how to lighten the mood. They didn’t look like the heroes of two dimensions, or even saviors of the school; they looked like regular teenage girls. They looked scared, exhausted, and desperately in over their heads, all for just doing what they could to help. Flash knew what that was like. “Then it’s a good thing he doesn’t know what we’re capable of, either. If he genuinely had a shot at taking you down and he still left you together, he has no idea what he’s up against.” The girls raised their heads, sharing looks, as if realizing they were all together. All safe in one room, united. That they made it through a natural disaster and hadn’t lost each other. Rainbow Dash nodded to Flash, grinning. She made a show of slapping her knee. “Heh! What an idiot! So much for stalker mastermind.” Flash chuckled. “Personally? I feel kind of sorry for him.” The others started to smile, and laugh a little. Pinkie Pie threw her arms around Rarity and Fluttershy both, squeezing them together. Not that he was an expert in magical energies, but Flash could almost feel a steady warmth settle over him. He hoped that meant what he thought it did. Flash felt a bump against his shoulder. When he looked, Timber sent him a small smile. Flash bumped him right back. Their friends would be okay. When everyone’s parents came, Flash assumed they’d all be grounded until college. Fighting interdimensional monsters on a school night? Sounded dangerous. Parents would never understand. But as far as Flash could tell, only Applejack got in any kind of trouble and that was for not telling her Granny sooner. Sunset hung back with Timber, leaned against a wall, while the other girls fended off tearful hugs, and Flash had to admit Timber looked pretty cute trying to be cool. Flash had to guess it was probably a little early to introduce Timber to his dad properly, but he hoped those two didn’t feel too left out. He expected everyone to go their separate ways, recover over this impromptu long weekend. They’d see each other Monday. But then, he should’ve guessed Granny Smith and the Apples would invite everyone over for a hot meal later. Everyone took a few hours' downtime. By the time Flash drove his dad’s old Camareo (that with a little paint became what he lovingly called the Flash-Mobile) up the long dirt road to Sweet Apple Acres, the evening melted off into soft, warm colours and blue shadows. The Flash-Mobile’s tires crackled over the stones as he eased the car to a stop, headlights casting pathways to the front steps. Timber waited outside the porch, and waved when he saw Flash pulling up. After shutting the door, Flash ambled over to him with some folded laundry in hand. “Hey. Got you a change of clothes. I thought you might want something other than the PJs you didn’t get to sleep in last night.” Timber chuckled. “What? Don’t like my style? Am I not rocking this look?” “I didn’t say that,” he admitted. He left it at that, because if he didn’t he’d tell his not-quite-boyfriend how much he wanted to run his hands through that wild curly hair. Timber didn’t need the ego-boost. Instead he smiled. “Were you waiting for me out here? You didn’t have to.” With the fleecy bomber jacket on his shoulders, Timber’s shrug looked that much more dramatic. His eyes were pinned on the roof of the old farmhouse, an impressive sightline in the aimlessly soft sky still marked by the magic that had torn it asunder. If Flash watched, he could see wispy clouds sinking into the crack and dipping out the other side. “... Honestly?” Timber asked. Flash nodded. Timber surrendered, looking like he was lost in the woods. “I don’t really know how all this works.” “The aftermath of magical battles?” “Family dinners. On Harvest Moon, Gloriosa and I usually order take-out. During Hearth’s Warming we’ll sometimes stay with our Great Uncle Wildwood upstate, but that’s pretty much just the three of us. And more take-out.” If Flash followed his gaze, he saw Pinkie’s sisters playing with Winona and the Cutie Mark Crusaders listening with bated breath to what must’ve been a highly dramatic retelling of the battle by Rainbow Dash. “The only time I really spend with this many people who really care about each other is during camping season. But after, I don’t ever expect any of them to stay.” Flash’s expression softened. He smiled, and took Timber’s hand. “That’s okay. You’ll get the hang of it.” He tried to lead them both up the porch steps, but his hand caught as Timber stayed rooted in place. “I—” He took in a breath, shaking his head. “—I don’t want to overstay my welcome. Twilight wanted me here when the girls were in the hospital, but they’re out now. It’s okay. I should probably get going anyway. Go on inside and have a good time, I’ll text you later about that mall date, ‘kay?” Flash frowned down at him. “Oh. And here I was hoping you’d want to tell the girls about our new superpowers. I thought, you know, maybe they could teach us how to use them. The gay, glowing hand-holding. Best power, by the way.” Timber looked down to see a slight glow around their hands even now, as if they’d caught fireflies. At least it wasn’t a fluke before. Timber locked his eyes on Flash’s, even if he didn’t look particularly confident. “...You sure I belong in there?” “You can, if you want to. If you work to keep the friendship alive. You don’t have to let being the ex define you here. I didn’t.” He thumbed the back of Timber’s strong hand, leaving smears of light behind. “But if you’re worried you don’t fit in, you can always be my plus-one. If… if you want.” The boy Flash hoped he might have a chance at keeping gave him an undeniable smirk in the porch light. When Flash opened the door to the golden light inside, Timber gave his hand a squeeze. “Lead the way.”