Sometimes Mattie wondered if she would have been the Element of Laughter if Equis Ultra Fast had any semblance of sense built into it. Her Pinkie sure didn’t fit the bill - Dinkie was mostly demonic and largely obsessed with the destruction of all, cupcakes, and pretending like she knew what was in the Lord of the Rings. Specifically pretending. The psycho didn’t even read the books for the longest time which was pretty much how things went in Equis Ultra Fast. Studies had shown ponies who went there got actively dumber while ponies who left tended to get smarter.
Regardless, Mattie was sure she wasn’t truly an Element of Generosity, not even in the disturbed sense some people probably thought she was. No, she rarely gave anything away, and when she devoted her time to something it was rarely out of a sense of altruism - more for thrills and amusement, really. And, by Celestia, did Mattie spend a lot of time amusing herself.
For instance - she still hung around Cryo. One might think she hung around the icy Sweetie out of some sort of pity or maternal instinct. While that was certainly part of it, in moments when she was being honest with herself and those around her, Mattie would be forced to admit she was really only there because of all the delightfully amusing antics the excitable unicorn brought to the table.
“Master! I found a new recruit!” Cryo declared, dropping a ghostly pale-skinned human with dog ears in front of Mattie, right in front of everyone in the League of Sweetie Belles’ main lobby.
The woman barked.
Mattie looked down from her magazine - Overly Suggestive Leather Boots Monthly - and glanced from Cryo to the ghost. “Jade, what did she offer you?”
“I don’t even know why I’m here,” the floating Jade said, rubbing the back of her head nervously. “I was managing some paperwork with Nausicaa and Cryo said something like ‘you’re perfect’ and dragged me here.”
“Hmm. Didn’t freeze you. Disappointing.”
“If you were me, maybe.”
Cryo coughed. “Jade Harley, we are the great Sweetie team Frostbite! I’m the frost, Mattie’s the bite. Together we lead our troops on great adventures! You would make the best mascot!”
Jade giggled. “Yeah! I would. That’s why I’m the ‘office dog’, remember?” She waved cheerfully at a group of passing Sweeties, all of whom waved back in recognition.
“But… adventure!” Cryo pleaded.
Jade grinned. “You should try staying in the League proper all the time. Adventure comes to you here.”
Cryo frowned. “But we can’t compete with Cinder here! She’s our arch-nemesis!”
“Your arch-nemesis,” Mattie corrected.
Cryo folded her hooves. “A team should share nemesi.”
“Nemeses,” Jade corrected.
“Been talking to Squeaky, have we?” Mattie asked.
Jade gave no response beyond a coy smile that looked decidedly creepy with her dead eyes.
Mattie smirked. “Ooooh! Now do bedroom eyes!”
Jade twitched. “Aaaand like that, I’m gone!” With a twist of space, she teleported elsewhere in the League.
“You ran her off, Master!” Cryo complained.
“Kid, she wasn't gonna mesh well with us. All it would take is one crack from my whip and a misplaced groan of excitement and she’d run off, tail between her legs sputtering nonsense about what’s ‘proper’.” The thought brought a smile to Mattie’s lips. “Would have been fun for a day, tops.”
“But-”
“Look, you wanted more permanent members to the team. She wasn’t going to be one. Try to find Sweeties who’ll be more open to the suggestion, hmm?”
“But that’s just you and Curio!”
“What is?” Curio asked, asking the question from six different illusions of herself at once.
“AUGH!” Cryo shouted, jumping up into the air with a burst of ice. “Don’t sneak up on me like that! I’ll skewer you with ice!”
Curio resolved herself into one body and tapped the ice on the ground. “Cryo ice. Specifically enchanted to be absolutely harmless.”
Cryo blinked. “Why do ponies always have to remind me of that?”
Curio shrugged. “You act like it isn’t true.” She cocked her head, bringing up a display on her visor and altering a few data points Mattie couldn’t understand. “I think if you’re more aware of your power’s effects, you could use it better! Like, hear me out. Careful manipulation of pain to make an enemy think you can kill them on one side, massive overkill on the other to bring about massive geographic destruction amongst even your allies!”
“...But where’s the flair?” Cryo asked.
“You shoot ice out of your hooves, horn, and speak with endless dramatic gusto. How is that not flair?”
Cryo pointed at Mattie, who was currently twirling on one hoof and cracking a whip in the air with perfect time. Had there been a monster facing her, it would have been dead long ago.
Curio frowned. “I don’t suppose I could convince you that flair isn’t everything?”
“No,” Mattie and Cryo said in unison.
“Figures.” Curio recorded some more information. “Anyway, Cryo, I got a Sweetie manifest from Nausicaa. I think there’s some pretty good candidates on here to add to our team. Since I know you’ve been doing th-”
“THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!” Cryo cheered, tossing Cuiro into the air. “Who’s first who’s first?”
“Uh…” Curio consulted her visor. “Calls himself Uvil.”
“A Silver Bell?” Mattie pursed her lips. “Previous experience tells me that might not be such a good idea, mates.”
Curio flicked to the left with her eyes. “Then… got a Sweetie who calls herself Sriracha.”
“Let’s go find her!” Cryo clapped her hooves. “FROSTBITE—AWAY!”
“...Wait, I thought we agreed Frostbite wasn’t fair since I wasn’t in it?”
“Got anything better?”
“Spectrum?”
“...Let’s keep working on it. Maybe Sriracha will have an idea!” She galloped off.
“She lives in another universe!” Curio called.
“Oh, right. To the dimensional port!” Cryo ran past Curio, dragging her out the doors of the League.
Mattie started counting the seconds down in her mind. Five counts later, Jade appeared in front of her. “Mattie! Nausicaa would like to see you.”
“Of course she does.” Mattie rolled her magazine up and smirked. “Quite unlike her to just give a couple fillies a Sweetie manifest for their personal recruiting.”
“What…?”
“She wanted me alone, mate. Some kind of ploy.” Seeing the odd look on Jade’s face, Mattie quickly shook her head. “Oh, no, nothing nefarious! I hope. She’s just not much a fan of those two. Or me. But those two even less.”
“She is pretty grouchy,” Jade admitted.
“You said it, sister. Can’t even get a blush or flustered stammer out of her! Mare needs to loosen up.” She nodded to Jade, indicating that she was ready. One twist of space later, Mattie was standing across from a pegasus Sweetie with an overly-serious expression.
“Ah, Princess Tightcheeks!”
“Nausicaa,” Nausicaa corrected automatically. “Sit, Agent.”
“Trying to get me to calm down by getting all serious and formal?” Mattie chuckled. “Sheila, I know the difference between your ‘I just want to get this over with’ voice and the ‘there’s actually something serious going on’ voice.”
Nausicaa sighed. “I need an Aware individual who can keep her lips sealed. That leaves out most of the Pinkie Emporium.”
“I mean, put me through the grinder and my lips might say all sorts of crazy things. Why, just last wee-”
“Mattie, you have proven yourself a capable Agent despite your complete lack of respect for rules, boundaries, and common decency.”
“Thank you! On all counts.”
“So let’s cut to the chase and ignore all your faux flirting.”
“Who said it was Fax?”
Nausicaa folded her ears back at the annunciated ‘x’. She chose not to comment on it. “Suzie’s team has found a series of ka-infused dimensional waves coming from a Transformational-Mundane universe. You need to be there to feel ka in case something goes wrong.”
“You can count on me, Princess!” Mattie cracked a whip right in front of Nausicaa’s face.
“Right. Yes.” Nausicaa frowned. “You are to keep this a secret. We don’t want the Flowers getting involved.”
“Clever, getting the rest of my team busy so they wouldn’t notice me being gone.”
Nausicaa looked Mattie in the eyes. “I will never understand why you chose them.”
“Matches my Element.”
“You and I both know you aren—” She stopped when she noticed Mattie was giggling. “Get out of my office.”
“Aw, but we were just getting to the good part~!”
“Out!”
~~~
“It looks normal,” Cinder said, examining the world on the other side of Swip’s dimensional ring. Her observation was correct: for all intents and purposes it was a standard Earth city. Brightly colored cars drove around and honking at each other, humans with skin tones ranging from pale to brown walked on the sidewalks with their heads in their phones, and suburban houses sprawled out in most directions. In the sky, vapor trials could be seen.
“It’s not,” Suzie said, tapping her fingers together.
“Isn’t ‘mundane’ as normal as it gets?” Cinder asked.
“Yes, though a true mundane universe isn’t exactly normal. Most universes at least allow for magic, instead of forcing it out of existence. ‘Normal’ would be a standard Earth you could walk on to and cast fireball. ‘Mundane’ means you could walk there and not cast fireball. What we have here is a Transformational-Mundane universe, which is why the probe sent us back a warning.”
“A warning?” Swip laughed. “That probe sent back a panicked mess of gibberish!”
Cinder frowned. “So, it’s mundane, except… worse?”
Suzie nodded. “Transformational universes are ones that force everything that enters them to adhere to a specific pattern. For instance…” Suzie pulled out a disc-shaped communication device and threw it through the portal. It became a smartphone on the other side.
“Oh.”
“And since magical talking unicorns don’t exist in standard Earths…”
“I see why we’re not marching right in,” Cinder said, shivering. “What’d happen to me?”
Swip’s avatar appeared on a nearby screen in a mad scientist’s outfit. “Analysis suggests you’d either be forced into human form or that of a real-world pony. The former might drive you insane. The latter definitely would. All higher brain functions poof for a moment. Stay like that too long and your soul wouldn’t re-adhere to your body when you returned, turning you into a husk.”
Cinder stared at her in horror.
“Statistics imply that at least some interdimensional travelers who hastily jumped through a portal without checking first ended their travels like this.”
“Th-that’s horrible!”
“Luckily, Transformational universes are rare,” Suzie quickly supplemented. “And Transformational-Mundane ones… this is only the second one we have on record.”
“How can we visit places like this?”
“Carefully. With Reality Anchors. Powerful ones. Or just send humans in.”
“You’re the only human on Swip.”
“Yep…” Suzie stretched her arms. “Looks like I’ll be getting to go solo once help arrives.”
Cinder cocked her head. “Help? Why w—oh right! The ka-weird-thing.”
Suzie nodded. “Need someone Aware to watch stuff while I’m in there.”
“Who wants to bet it’ll be Mattie?” Swip asked.
“I’ll take that!” Cinder chirped. “Five bits!”
“There’s no bet if we agree!”
“So? Who really thinks it won’t be Mattie?”
“Absolutely no one who’s paying attention!” Mattie appeared behind Cinder as if placed right into the room by a shoddy editor, laying a hoof on the young mare’s shoulder. “G’day, Sweeties.”
Suzie nodded. “Feel anything weird?”
“I have two whips infused with pain magic at my sides at all times. I always feel weird stuff.”
“...You know what I mean.”
“No, no problems, you’re free to Enter the Mundane! Go! Shoo!”
Suzie put her hands on her hips. “I need to talk to the crew first, set Celia up with command operations, get a headset attached to y—”
Mattie pulled a headset out of nowhere and slapped it onto Suzie’s head. “There you go, cast off!” She shoved Suzie through the portal. “I’ll keep everything managed out here!”
~~~
Suzie was vaguely aware Mattie called out something falsely encouraging as she fell through the portal. She would have shot some kind of retort back through the portal if she hadn’t felt like a part of her soul had been ripped out of her chest.
There goes U-Catastrophe…
The deep, internal buzzing allowed her to ignore the fact that her head and eyes had become significantly smaller while her limbs had grown slightly. The pastel colors of her hair were now stark white. The universe apparently decided her skin could stay white so long as the rest of her became absolutely albino, which meant pale red eyes and an eternal war against sunburns.
Suzie landed in a bush in the middle of a city park. While the portal a few meters in the air had conveniently remained out of sight and mind of the populace, Suzie crashing into a bush did not. As she shakily tore herself out of the bush, numerous people directed their phones at her and snapped pictures.
Suzie decided she didn’t care. She turned and walked away, attempting to look indifferent, but her first few shaky steps were enough to ruin the desired effect. With a sigh, she put her hand to the headset Mattie had offered her. “Gee, thanks.”
“Looks like radio works just fine,” she heard Mattie’s voice from the other side.
“Have you gotten everything taken care of that I needed to do?”
“Yes!”
“And by that, you mean you had Cinder do it?”
“Absolutely.”
“Right…” Suzie paused, deciding that chiding Mattie was an exercise in futility. Taking the opportunity to look herself over, she found that her uniform still fit perfectly and still contained the Merodi symbol, though now it was made out of a somewhat scratchy material. She could feel her weapon resting on her hip, currently a simple handgun rather than a masterfully crafted plasma weapon. Her hair had lost all of its bounciness and now hung stomach-level in a tangled rat’s nest, providing her face no protection whatsoever from the assaulting rays of the sun.
She could already feel her face burning. That may have just been paranoia, but she wasn’t going to chance it. “Can you get me a hat?”
A small portal opened overtop her head and gave her a red, pointed hat with a feather in it.
“...And this won’t stand out at all.”
“Darling, it’s in fashion.”
“I think some people saw you open the portal and got it on video.”
Mattie chuckled. “Suzie, Captain, we’re not the Federation. This is a standard Earth and we all collectively say ‘balls to the Prime Directive!’ So enjoy your hat and newfound Internet fame.”
Suzie allowed herself to chuckle, tipping her hat to the people staring at her with jaws hanging open. “Does Seren have the location of the disturbance for me?”
“Yep, just a short way into the city. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to make way to 347 Abalone Way and locate the source of the dimensional connection disturbance! Neutralize if necessary. This Message will self-delete in 30 seconds.”
“I know what the mission is.”
Mattie chuckled. “Good luck, Agent Belle!”
Suzie gave her a thumbs up. To the people watching, it looked like she was giving her approval to a nearby tree with a particularly loud crow in it. Suzie winked at her audience and took off at a run.
She was delighted to find that her military training had transferred with her. With those first few shaky steps out of the way, she could run like the wind.
None of the bystanders were able to keep up with her.
~~~
Even in mundane universes, there were telltale signs of people who were up to something.
Today, on 347 Abalone Way—which was actually named 347 Lakeview Road in this universe—the telltale sign came in the form of an unlikely duo. Two older people, a man and a woman, walking with each other on the sidewalk and jovially talking like they were old friends.
The oddity here was that the woman was dressed in a prim, modern suit—that of a lawyer or bureaucrat of some sort—while the man looked like a mad scientist who had just walked out of a museum’s back room with his fluffy white hair and wrinkled coat. Suzie knew that, if her Rarity were here, she would applaud the woman’s taste in apparel and chide the man for his slapped-together look.
To be fair, if Suzie had them pegged right, they were certainly dressed for their jobs.
Were Suzie just walking through town on a normal day, she wouldn’t have paid the duo much mind. Odd things cropped up all the time. However, they were the only people that stood out as unique at the current location, which meant they were probably important.
“Brilliant deduction, Holmes,” Mattie chirped in her ear.
Suzie frowned. “Can you confirm they’re what we’re looking for?”
“I can confirm we just spent a fair amount of time establishing them, so unless we’ve got a major red herring they’re what we’re looking for.”
Suzie nodded. “Got it. Continuing, observation only.”
“...Darling, I’m not a soldier. You can drop the… whatever it is you’re doing.”
“Nah.”
“Nice paradox.”
Suzie opted not to continue their banter-filled conversation, focusing instead on following the duo without revealing herself to them. This was laughably easy—neither of them were the slightest bit suspicious of anyone following them. When she strained her ears to hear their conversation, she discovered they weren’t even talking about anything out of the ordinary.
“Were those orchids, do you think?” the man asked.
The woman shook her head. “They were too big and red to be orchids.”
“I should have asked what they were.”
“You always ask a million questions every time we go over there. I’m very surprised you didn’t.”
“Can you blame me? Her research into the quantum fabric of the t-field was absolutely fascinating! Do you remember the…” He noticed a slight grimace forming on her face. “Ah, right, sorry, Elaine.”
“It’s fine,” Elaine said. “Remember, though, not everyone you talk to is Twilight.”
Suzie’s smile widened. In contact with a Twilight. Either this world’s verison, or one from another world. Either way, we’re on to something.
“You must’ve heard something exciting,” Mattie commented.
Suzie nodded, but stayed silent. No use drawing even more attention to herself, even though the hat was still ridiculous and her headset wasn’t exactly small. Come to think of it, talking might make me fit in more, given all the phones I’m seeing…
The duo stopped outside a truly ancient vehicle covered in what was either brown paint of a horrible texture or eons of caked dust. The license plate was falling off, one of the back windows was cracked, and half of one of the back seats were missing.
Elaine fixed the car with an uncertain expression. “...David, are you sure your car can make it back to the office?”
“The old girl has survived everything, going downtown again won’t break it. Weren’t you the one that wanted to save time and effort?”
“I can’t wait for my car to get out of the shop…”
“You and me both. I do like having air conditioning.” David reached into his pocket, eyes going wide. “Uh, well, erm…”
Elaine narrowed her eyes. “...David…”
“I, uh, seem to have forgotten my keys. Back… there.”
Elaine sighed. “Then we’re going back.”
“You sure? We can probably find a way to, uh, call a cab?”
Elaine raised an eyebrow.
“Right, right, that’s silly. I did want to ask her about that flower anyway. Let’s go…” He looked around, scanning the area. Suzie pulled her hat down over her eyes as he glanced over her. Far as she could tell, he didn’t even notice her. “There!”
“...A house under renovation?”
“Well, we can’t do it out in the open! There’s no one there right now.”
Elaine nodded. “Right…”
The two of them set out toward the house in the midst of renovation—slightly on edge, but not enough that they were glancing behind themselves to see if they were being followed. Suzie waited for them to pass her before she turned around and began her pursuit once more.
She poked her head around the corner, finding the two of them alone behind the house, standing next to an empty trash can and a bunch of sealed-up windows. There was a large, rickety ladder propped up against the house that had seen better days.
“Right…” David said, shaking his head. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a strangely cartoonish gun with a knob on the end that made it look like some sort of knock off movie prop.
That doesn’t belong, Suzie thought.
David held up the gun, pointed it, and then bothered to look and see if they were alone.
Suzie was only peeing around the edge of the corner slightly, and with her pale complexion she could have passed unnoticed. Would have, if she weren’t wearing the absolutely ridiculous hat.
David shouted. In his panic, he pointed the gun right at Suzie. “S-s-show yourself!” David demanded.
Elaine’s jaw dropped. “David, what are you doing!?”
“C-come out!” He demanded, shivering like a chiuaua in Antarctica.
Suzie decided to oblige, putting her hands into the air and stepping out into the open. “H-hi,” she said, faking a stutter. “I… I don’t want any trouble…”
“Wh… I… Good!” David decided. “Now how about you just… go and forget about this?”
Elaine looked like she wanted to scream at him and only wasn’t through an immense feat of willpower.
Suzie took a step forward. “Okay, okay, I’ll go and forget about this…” another step. “Strange gun thing of yours.”
“Y-you’re approach-”
Suzie lunged out, twisting forward with her leg in an attempt to disarm David. It was a move she had pulled thousands of times before on many different enemies, both in and out of the line of duty.
But that had been in a body that wasn’t a standard human model. Despite most of her training transfering over in this new world, her extreme level of flexibility could not. In the middle of her wide kick her glutes screamed in agony as they were overextended, forcing Suzie to tip forward all in hopes that she could keep her hip from dislocating.
The final result was Captain Suzie Belle laying face-first on the ground of an alleyway, scrapes all over her hands and face, with a leg that felt like it was on fire.
David lowered the gun. “What the…?”
“Are you okay?” Elaine asked, concerned.
“Yep…” Suzie muttered, pulling herself off the ground and wiping the blood from her nose. “Not gonna live that down for a while…”
“I got it on video,” Mattie said through the headset.
Suzie didn’t ask how this was possible. Instead, she reached into her uniform and pulled her gun out before David had any idea what was happening. “Drop the fancy gun,” she ordered.
David stared at her weapon, frozen, unable to move.
“Look, I really don’t want to hurt you, but if I have to shoot that thing out of your hand it’ll probably break a few fingers.”
“Just drop it!” Elaine hissed.
David’s shaky hand opened wide, sending the device clattering to the ground.
“There we go…” Suzie said, carefully standing up. Normally she would put the gun away at this point to let the two of them calm down, but she didn’t trust herself to take them unarmed with her sprained hip. “Now… I am Captain Suzie Belle of Merodi Universalis. That won’t mean anything to you, but I hope this will: we’ve detected some heavy dimensional anomalies coming out of this universe and traced the source to here. Currently, my best guess is that your gun there is causing them. Am I too far off the mark?”
Elaine and David stared at her in shock - but not the shock of someone who was overwhelmed, or thought Suzie was crazy. No, to them, the words ‘dimensional anomaly’ and talk of other universes made sense. Suzie nodded to herself in satisfaction, deciding now was the time to put the gun away. “I’ll need to take your gun - which I assume is a dimensional travel device - and run some tests on it to determine if it’s doing what we think it is. Will that be a problem?”
“...Not at all,” David breathed.
Elaine wasn’t as agreeable as her friend. “You can’t just... take it.”
“I’ll give it back. And you’re welcome to come to my ship and observe the tests. And if it turns out your device is damaging to reality somehow, we can give you a better one.” Without waiting for a definite response, Suzie walked over to David’s gun device and hefted it in her hand. “Ready to come back,” she told Mattie.
Swip opened the portal before Mattie could respond.
With a smirk, Suzie tipped up her hat and looked at David and Elaine. “Coming?”
~~~
Elaine’s first instinct had been to demand legal answers. Under whose authority do you operate? What if we refuse? Can we appeal to one of your courts?
That was quickly stomped by a desire for self-preservation. The woman was some kind of interdimensional agent and she had a gun. Elaine was already chiding herself for telling Suzie she couldn’t just take the device.
This feeling was replaced by an insatiable desire to see the inside of what was clearly an interdimensional spaceship. David must have felt the same way, because he moved to follow Suzie before Elaine had even finished processing what she was seeing.
A perfect ring of white energy, suspended in the air, led directly to something out of a science-fiction TV show. White metal, screens everywhere, and a soft electronic hum.
The moment Suzie passed the barrier, she transformed. This was hardly a surprise to Elaine, since she had seen herself and David alter appearances several times when jumping to other worlds. However, what Suzie turned into was a surprise.
A human Sweetie Belle with exceptionally fluffy hair.
“S-Sweetie?” David gawked.
“Ah, good, you know about us!” Suzie said with a smile. “Yes, I am a Sweetie.”
“I am too!” a small unicorn with orange eyes said, waving. She looked almost exactly like the Sweetie Belle David and Elaine had met, albeit slightly older. “Welcome to Swip, a ship of Sweeties for the League of Sweetie Belles!”
Elaine stepped into the ship, trying to think of something clever and poignant to say. David interrupted her.
“Oh my… Elaine! This is amazing! Did you feel it? Did you see it?”
“I… what are you going on about?”
“We didn’t change! Look, we look… like ourselves! No cartoon effects, no vibrant colors… nothing! But we’re standing right next to a unicorn and bright woman on a spaceship!”
“And don’t you forget it!” a spunky voice called from all around. Elaine looked around frantically, trying to find it source.
“That’s just Swip, don’t worry,” Cinder said with a smile that calmed Elaine considerably. “She’s the ship.”
“The ship talks!” David grinned. “Artificial intelligence!”
“You better believe it!” A human avatar appeared on one of the screens, her skin tone bothering Elaine slightly since she couldn’t assign it to any particular ethnicity. “Swip here, artificial genius and multiverse explorer extraordinaire!”
“Are you all Sweeties?” Elaine asked.
“Well, I’m not,” a voice with a distinct Australian accent said. It took Elaine a while to convince herself the voice belonged to the elegant Rarity before her. “Name’s Mattie. I’m the extra baggage, you could say.” She winked.
“This is incredible!” All of David’s fear and caution was completely gone. “Do you all come from different worlds? How do you travel? What kind of metal is this!?”
“I’ll answer all of that in time,” Suzie said. “For now, I want to get your device down to engineering so Seren can take a look at it.”
She led the group down a short hall into the engineering room. Elaine had no idea what to make of the dozens of screens - much less the glowing column in the back of the room, the strange buzzing she felt all over her skin, or the child in front of her with pony ears and a unicorn horn.
“Hi! I’m Seren - short for Serendipity!” The child raised a hand to Elaine. “Nice to meet you!”
On autopilot, Elaine shook the child’s hand while continuing to stare at the screens. “David… do you have any idea?”
He shook his head. “This is beyond me too. I can’t even begin to understand what… this pie chart means, even!”
“That’s my lunch plan!” Seren grinned. “I’m thinking of putting gummy bears in the peanut butter today, but I don’t want to forego the salad…”
“Seren,” Suzie said, handing her David’s device. “Think you can find out if this is the problem?”
“Right away!” Seren held out her hands and surrounded the gun in what Elaine easily recognized was magic.
“What… exactly is the problem?” Elaine asked.
Suzie frowned. “It’s hard to explain, exactly. Something has been sending out ka ripples through the Sea of Infinite Possibility, threatening to destabilize local universal connections and draw… unwanted attention.”
“Ka ripples?” David asked.
“Ah, right, well, you see…”
“This might be the catalyst, but it isn’t the problem,” Seren reported. Elaine noted that Suzie was relieved she didn’t have to explain what ‘ka’ was. “It’s just a shoddy dimensional device.”
“S-shoddy?” David stuttered.
Seren nodded. “To travel between universes you have to poke a hole. A proper device is like a needle - it can go in, pull something through, and then you’ll never even notice. Yours is like taking a cleaver to toilet paper.”
“Is that… bad?”
“Inefficient and might cause some local dimensional anomalies. There’s also a decent chance the portal could collapse while you’re traveling through it.”
Elaine was struck by a rather haunting mental image of being torn in half in the middle of dimensional transit.
“For safety’s sake I recommend using a properly tested device.”
David frowned. “But we don—”
Seren kicked a panel on a nearby wall, opening a cabinet filled with disc-shaped devices of various colors. She tossed a blue one to David. “Instructions are on the back. I can help you hook it up to any universes you already know about later.”
David fumbled with the device but managed not to drop it. “Thanks! I… wow, this is really generous.”
“We take after our sisters,” Cinder offered.
“So, if that’s not the problem…” Suzie turned to Seren. “What is?”
Seren shrugged. “I dunno. Ka-based effects are weird and tend to screw with scanners. Probably the only reason we found them was because their device was interacting with the issue, creating easy-to-detect anomalies. We could try to trace importance levels, but I’m pretty sure you already did that with these two.”
“Not really. I just picked them out because they were the only people that looked unique.”
Elaine furrowed her brow. “Because we looked unique? Why would that matter?”
Suzie frowned. “Well, that’s a bit hard to explain.”
Cinder coughed. “In the multiverse, the people who look interesting tend to be interesting, like—”
“—they were part of a TV show,” David finished.
“Exactly!” Cinder cheered. “Wow, you got that quick!”
“Ka refers to some force of narrative or fiction, doesn’t it?”
Elaine realized where he was going with this. “Oh…”
David had Suzie’s full attention now. “You already know about it.”
David nervously picked at his suit collar. “I… I suppose we do. And I have a pretty good idea what the problem is…”
“What is it?”
“...I think it’s time you met Twilight. ...Again, s-since you probably know several already.”
~~~
Princess Twilight Sparkle looked at the group of people sitting in the castle library. Two were people she recognized and had come to consider friends - David and Elaine. Both of them had faces of nervous excitement, though Twilight could tell Elaine was more worried than anticipatory, and that David was just the opposite.
Her other three guests took up a lot more of Twilight’s processing power. Two Sweeties - a human and a unicorn. The fourth would have been the spitting image of Rarity had she not sounded like a stallion with a throat condition.
“I can hear you judging me,” Mattie commented.
“W-what?” Twilight sputtered, almost dropping her tea. “I, uh…”
“By all means, continue…” Mattie insisted, waggling her eyebrows.
“Just get back to the explanation, please?” Cinder asked, smiling brightly.
“And don’t go into every nuanced detail,” Elaine reminded Twilight. “They just need the general idea.”
“Right.” Twilight tossed her mane back. “The short version? The Earth—David and Elaine’s Earth—is the source of numerous universes, including this one. Every time enough humans get together to bring to life a creative endeavor—cartoons and TV shows usually—a universe is born from that fiction. As long as their Earth keeps making new episodes and content for the show, these universes are completely fine. However, when a show is ended, cancelled, or just fades away…” Twilight bit her lip. “All the life in the universe goes out. Wait, no, that’s not exactly right… The people are still there, but they are just…”
“NPCs,” David offered. “Mindlessly doing whatever it is they were last doing. Nothing changes. The world becomes static.”
“Yeah,” Twilight said, frowning. “We’re… currently working on revitalizing these universes by prompting various entertainment companies to continue the endeavor. But there are so many, and the ethics of the whole situation is confusing, and…” Twilight tapped her hoof on the ground. “Let’s just say ‘it’s complicated’ and explain more when you ask questions.” The Princess forced herself to calm down, looking expectantly to the Sweeties. “So…?”
Suzie frowned. “This… is a messed up situation.”
“It’s like a mini Universe Generator,” Cinder said. “Keeps popping out new universes.”
“The universe itself might be a Prophet,” Seren suggested. “If it has a mind of its own—Transformation universes need to have some kind of enforcing component.”
“This is going to attract the Flowers, isn’t it?” Cinder asked.
“Definitely,” Mattie said. “A universe making new universes and then damning them to autopilot hell for eternity? Sounds like something they’d have a bone to pick with for sure.”
“Flowers…?” Twilight asked, dreading the answer.
“...One of the most powerful civilizations on the multiverse,” Suzie explained. “They are masters of ka—the narrative—and are almost religiously devoted to the One True Plot. They might see a world like this as a ‘glitch’ in the story of the multiverse and try to fix it.”
“That’s good, right?” Twilight knew from the way Suzie was talking that it wasn’t, but she had to hold out hope.
“There’s a chance they have an instant cure for you, yes.” Suzie frowned. “But they might also decide the universe just needs to be destroyed. Or they might forcibly remove the ‘ka-curse’ from the universe and leave you with all the unintended consequences. It’s hard to say, they don’t really think like we do. Their entire lives are absorbed in the story.”
“Will we have to defend ourselves?” Elaine asked.
Suzie frowned. “Merodi Universalis is a massive coalition of well over a hundred worlds and numerous smaller allies. The Flowers could wipe us from existence if they thought we were against their precious Plot. The best we can do is be a minor annoyance and try to keep them from finding worlds like yours.”
“Our entire existence is balanced on the head of a pin.” Twilight laughed nervously. “That’s just great!”
“There are things you can do,” Seren offered. “Only use our dimensional device! That’s quiet. It won’t send ripples out into the multiverse.”
“And what if they find us by accident?”
Silence fell across the room.
Twilight sighed. “What we need is a solution. Something that will protect us and stop this… ‘ka curse’ of ours. Do you know of anything that could do that?”
Seren frowned. “...The easiest solution would be to evacuate everyone in the central Earth and destroy it so the other universes would go free.”
“Not possible,” Suzie interrupted before Elaine could start shouting. “Evacuating a universe takes time and resources that will be impossible to keep out of the Flowers’ field of view.”
“I’m not sure what we can do, then. A quarantine maybe? But that might cut off the creative energy to the living universes, turning them into NPC universes too.”
Suzie grimaced. “I don’t know if we can do anything safely.”
“But… we have to do something!” Cinder insisted.
“Hide all the universes,” Mattie said, taking a few steps forward. “Take every universe made by this Earth and seal it all up in one big ball. Make it a true Secluded Multiverse Cluster, right?”
“We… can’t make a quarantine that big,” Suzie said.
Silence fell over the room.
“Can we really do anything?” Cinder asked, voice wavering.
~~~
Sriracha “Sweetie” Bell lived on her family’s pepper farm in Equis Mireoni. She was a simple farmer for the most part, growing every kind of pepper under the sun—and ever since Merodi Universalis had made contact with her universe, exotic peppers from far beyond the miniscule sun of her world. She was well known in her universe for growing the most flavorful and spiciest peppers imaginable. Her name may have been Sweetie Bell, and her talent was understandably sweet peppers, but she loved the thrill of the spice so much more.
So, naturally, she had taken the name Sriracha. It just made sense.
She was a small but muscular middle-aged mare with a bright pink pepper on her flanks. Her mane and tail were short, dirty, and tangled in all manner of places —though usually her mane was at least covered by a pale pink sunhat she wore in hot weather.
She was also an earth pony.
At the moment, she was tending to some imported peppers that literally burst into flames every few seconds. They were round peppers of a creamy, blackish-purple color unless they were on fire, in which case they were bright green. There was a small amount of danger in tending to these due not only to the flames, but also the absurd levels of capsaicin within their skin. If she cut one open without the proper cooking utensils the juices would get on her skin and burn. She knew from experience that the local healers really weren’t sure what to do when somepony was burned by spice heat rather than basic fire.
Even as a farmer, she lived life on the edge. That was how she liked it. It was about as exciting of a life as an earth pony with her talents could have.
Carefully, she pushed a hoof toward one of the black peppers that had just lit on fire a moment before. It would take a few minutes for it to light up again, she should be safe for the nest little bi—
“Hi!”
Sriracha reacted out of instinct—slapping the pepper off it’s stalk and toward the source of the invading noise. A young Sweetie yelped in surprise, raising a wall of ice between herself and the incoming pepper. Ice and spice collided, prompting a small burst of green fire to bore a crater into the chilled pillar.
The Sweetie poked her head out from the side of the ice.
“Oh my Celestia, I’m sorry!” Sriracha blurted, scrambling over to her previous target. “I didn’t mean to attack, I just got carried away, a…”
“I like you already,” the Sweetie said, grinning.
“She does seem to meet the requirements,” another Sweetie said, this one with a futuristic green visor over her eyes.
“...Requirements?” Sriracha asked, cocking her head.
The first Sweetie extended a hoof. “Hi! I’m Cryo, member of the Sweetie Team Frostfire!”
“...name pending…” the other Sweetie added.
“Me and my friend here, Curio, are here to recruit you!”
Sriracha stared at the two fillies. “R-r-recruit me?”
“Yeah! We’ll go on adventures, explore new worlds, and show the other Sweeties that we are the best!”
Curio coughed. “There’ll also be data gathering, diplomacy, puzzle solving…”
“ACTION!”
“...And peace.”
Sriracha looked back and forth between the two of them. “You. Want me. To go on adventures with you.”
The two nodded expectantly.
She pulled the two of them up into a tight hug. “Oh yes oh yes thank you thank you! I’ve always wanted to go on a League expedition but the team I tried to get together lost interest and then I kinda thought that…” Her grin vanished. “...That I wasn’t cut out for it, anyway.”
Curio pulled herself out of the hug, scratching her skin where she had touched Sriracha. “Not cut out?”
“I am just an earth pony farmer. Not really… adventuring material. Probably for the best that I’m here, doing what I’m good at…”
“Are you kidding?” Cryo gawked. “You shot that pepper at me like a gun!”
“You are covered in capsaicin,” Curio added. “It itches just to touch you.”
“Oh! Sorr-”
“That’s a good thing!” Curio interrupted. “Think of how useful it could be! You have a tolerance for pain, can put people on edge with your peppers, and probably have a stomach of steel!”
Cryo gestured at the flaming peppers. “Tell me you couldn’t turn those into weapons. One thwack right into the eye and the enemy is in agony.”
“Delicious agony!”
“Yes. Delicious agony.”
“O-O-...” Sriracha shook her head and took in a deep breath. “Okay. I accept.” She tried to keep a straight, dignified face. She quickly lost it and started bouncing all around in a way vaguely reminiscent of certain happy Twilight Sparkles. “Oh yes oh yes oh yes I get to go on adventures—well I suppose I’ll have to talk to my husband—who am I kidding he knows I’ll love this, and he wants me to take a vacation anyway! I have nothing to worry about! You two are the best!” She picked up one of her fireproof baskets and filled it with flaming peppers. “Come on, I’m already getting some ideas on how we can use peppers to fight the baddies!” Giggling to herself like a filly much younger than the two she was talking to, she pranced on to other pepper pastures, leaving the two alone for a moment.
“Huh.” Curio looked at Nausicaa’s list. “Looks like we won’t be needing this.”
“Bingo…” Cryo grinned. “Cinder, meet Sriracha… a kind of heat you won’t be able to deal with!”
“I think they’ll get along pretty well.”
“N-no! She’s my trump card! Cinder won’t know what to expect!”
Curio rolled her eyes, trotting after Sriracha.
“Wait for me!”
~~~
A white portal opened up over a sleepy town in Oregon, USA. At first, everything appeared like a normal day near the end of summer. Trees rustled, people walked about with smiles on their faces, and the birds chirped.
It was the birds that first told Cinder something was wrong.
They were chirping with the exact same sound. No alterations, no variations, not even any timing differences. Nothing but the same chi-ir-irp! Followed by a few seconds of silence and then chi-ir-irp!
Cinder’s moment of wonder at having been transformed into a tall, graceful unicorn appropriate for the universe they were in was gone. Now she dreaded what she might find if she looked closer at the world they were in.
“...Welcome to Gravity Falls,” David said with a grimace. “An excellent show with two seasons. You could argue that the show needed to be short to be as powerful as it was. But now… all it’s left behind is this.”
He lead Cinder and Suzie into the town of Gravity Falls itself. Everything looked normal. A wide variety of diverse and unique individuals walking around, smiling… doing whatever they normally did.
Not one of them cared that a unicorn had just walked into town. No one even registered their presence. A teenager in a black hoodie laughed at a joke some girl typing on her phone made. He laughed at the same joke fifteen seconds later. A man with a red beard and massive muscles walked around the local pub and punched a lamppost every time he passed it. Birds left and arrived at the same power line over and over.
The sun never finished setting.
“Have you seen this before?” Cinder asked Suzie.
Suzie shook her head. “I… no. The closest is a time loop, but this is… different.”
“It’s terrible,” David sighed. “And it’s been difficult to revive this universe. So many people who worked on the show believe it needed to end where it did. There’s an active push to keep it from turning into something less than what it was. So it’s still… stuck.”
“Surely you could explain?” Cinder asked.
“We’re considering it. But giving them the power of knowing they can define a universe?” David shuddered. “Twilight and Elaine don’t like that.”
Cinder gulped. “Is there… anything else here?”
“Yeah.” David led them out of town, down a road that led into the forest. As they walked down the road, they saw a bus pass. They continued walking, and the same bus passed them again. And again. And again.
“The heroes of the story are on that bus,” David said, eventually. “Leaving Gravity Falls to return to their lives. Except the show doesn’t exist outside of Gravity Falls, so they leave… but they can’t. They’re always stuck remembering the very end of their journey.” He put his hands in his pockets. “I’ve gotten on the bus before. They’re a little more aware than most other NPCs. I’ve… gotten them to think something was wrong before. But it always leaves their eyes.” He put a hand to his face, wiping away a few tears. “...I just want to give these kids a chance to grow up…”
Cinder nodded. “Right. We-”
Hello, bright eyes…
Cinder looked behind herself, into the forest. “...Hello?”
Save the world, bright eyes…
“Who are you talking too?” Suzie asked.
Make the deal, bright eyes…
“Some voice in my head… coming from the forest?” Cinder said, furrowing her brow.
“Oh. That’s Bill Cipher,” David explained. “The villain. He’s… trapped in stone or dying or something in the forest? Twilight sensed him last time she was here.”
Hello, bright eyes…
“Just ignore him. He’s as stuck as the rest.”
Cinder furrowed her brow. “Sure…”
Help them, bright eyes…
Cinder saw the bus pass by again. A knot formed in the bottom of her stomach. “Suzie… we have to do something.”
Suzie sighed. “I…”
“Suzie, we have to. I don’t care what it is or what rules we have to break or what risks we have to take. We need to help these people. They… they don’t even get to die! They just… exist.”
“I don’t think Merodi Universalis can solve this problem,” Suzie said.
“Then… I don’t know, get the Fay involved or... or… I don’t know! Surely there’s an ally or something? Some secret magic device or tool? This is the multiverse! We have options!”
“Options…” Suzie nodded to herself slowly. “I… I might have an idea. But I’ll have to call in a favor.”
“Do it.”
Suzie took out her phone. “...Hey, Corona? It’s Suzie. You’re still in Nanoha’s good graces, right? Good. We might need a little favor from the TSAB.”
~~~
One moment, Suzie was discussing dimensional connection theory with Twilight.
The next, a human woman with orange hair wearing what would best be described as a battle-dress appeared, holding a magical staff with a red magitech orb at the head.
Suzie gawked. “N-nanoha?”
The woman smiled. “Captain Suzie, I presume?”
Suzie immediately bowed. “I didn’t think this would warrant your personal attention…”
“You’re talking about doing something under the Flowers’ noses,” Nanoha said with a kind, motherly voice that told of ancient wisdom and deep understanding. “I want to make sure nothing goes wrong.”
“If this is too mu-”
Nanoha shook her head, a tired but pitying smile on her face. “I’m here to help. The plight of these universes truly is a tragedy. If I can do anything, I will.”
“...Can you?” Twilight asked.
“That depends. Raising Heart!”
The magitech crystal in her scepter flashed. “Stand by ready!”
“Run complex scans on the local cluster. Determine the direct nature of the ‘NPC’ universes’ condition. Suggest courses of action.”
“Yes, master! Working…”
“...I wish we had those,” Suzie commented.
“Corona has a lesser one,” Nanoha reminded her. “...Raising Heart is among the most advanced devices in the Time Space Administration Bureau, however. You shouldn’t be jealous of it’s features.”
“Time Space Administration Bureau?” Twilight asked. “Are you some kind of multiversal law enforcement?”
Nanoha smiled warmly. “Not really. We’re just a group of people who got lucky with dimensional technology and grew to be the largest human society in the multiverse.”
“Nanoha here did most of the work,” Suzie added.
“Depending on which history books you read.” Nanoha closed her eyes. “...It is always a group effort, no matter which society you’re talking about. No one rises to power alone.”
There was a poignant silence.
Raising Heart beeped. “Scan complete. Transmitting data.”
Nanoha’s body twitched for a moment as she was flooded with information. At first, she smiled - then she frowned.
Twilight swallowed hard. “...What’s the diagnosis?”
“I know the solution. But you’re not going to like it.” Nanoha sat down in one of Twilight’s chairs and folded her arms. “The NPC universes are currently being fed directly by the connection to the central Earth. If we cut that connection and artificially wire more connections to the outside multiverse, they would recover.”
“We theorized that, but couldn’t say for sure,” Twilight said. “...But Suzie said doing that would draw too much attention?”
“Not if you do it carefully,” Nanoha said. “Swip runs on a deprecated version of the dimensional drives we use in our ships—one that creates a pocket universe that automatically tunnels connections to every nearby universe. It’s how they found you. Your multiverse cluster is very secluded and with minimal connections—they had to make new ones to get in here and find the source of the ripples.”
“And you can use these drives…?”
“Put them in the right places and they can network connections together quite easily. We can connect the NPC universes to universes like your own that have been revitalized, allowing your cluster to heal itself.”
“Make a ball of connected universes!” Twilight clapped her hooves. “That’s brilliant! A round spider’s web. We don’t connect to universes outside so we don’t draw any attention, and all the NPC universes will be fixed! Why didn’t we think of this?”
“It requires precision we don’t have,” Suzie commented. “Swip’s drive is considered state-of-the-art in Merodi Universalis. It’s… not fine enough to wire connections like this. It’d strain her to even make a few permanent connections with specific goals in mind.”
“Well, we have Nanoha now! And she ca-” Twilight stopped. “...There’s a catch. I remember, you didn’t like another part of the plan.”
Nanoha nodded sagely. “In order to keep the NPC universes active and to prevent the creation of new universes, we have to completely quarantine the central Earth. No dimensional travel in or out, for any leakage could cause universes to return to their NPC state or create a new universe that’ll just become dead later. Everything in the Earth would have to stay in the Earth forevermore.”
“...David and Elaine…” Twilight realized. “It’d be… goodbye.”
“Yes. I am sorry.”
Suzie frowned. “Nanoha, forgive me if this is overstepping, but… don’t you have the capacity to rewrite universal physics? Can’t you just… remove the ka curse?”
“Absolutely. But that would require using technology akin to that of the Flowers. They will notice that. And even if we have the issue fixed before they arrive… I may be the face of the TSAB, but I cannot create a political blunder of that magnitude. We are the Flowers’ allies in the multiverse, if I were to interfere with their One True Plot for something seen as ‘petty and insignificant’ in the scale of the multiverse…?” Nanoha shook her head. “I am sorry, I cannot order that level of machination.”
Twilight had her ears pressed into the back of her head. “So… there’s no hope that there’s another way out?”
“There’s hope,” Nanoha said. “Merodi Universalis is actively researching universe alteration spells. One day, they will figure out the technology. And since they make no secret of their distaste of the Flowers’ methods, taking an action to free you without consulting the Flowers would not be surprising or even a political blunder. It would just be more of the same.” Nanoha put her hand on Twilight’s shoulder. “I will encourage Corona to focus her research. It will take time—perhaps a long, long time—but it will happen.”
Twilight nodded. “I’ll tell Pinkie to prepare a… ‘goodbye for now’ party.”
“I’ll give you as much time as you need.”
“Yeah… Time…” Twilight started chuckling.
Suzie cocked her head. “What’s so funny?”
“Oh, nothing, just how… all our efforts to restart shows were kinda pointless, in the end.”
Nanoha lowered herself to her knees so she was eye level with Twilight. “It was not for nothing. If you had not revitalized worlds like your own, where would the energy to restore the NPC universes come from?”
Twilight’s eyes widened. “Right…”
“You’ve given your cluster enough energy to sustain itself. To break free with new life. I’m just here to do the final pruning. You planted the seeds.” She pulled Twilight into a hug. “Don’t forget that.”
“I won’t,” Twilight promised, tears in her eyes.
Suzie stared at the two awkwardly. This was generally not how one thought a meeting the most influential human in existence would go.
~~~
“...Am I allowed to call something alarmingly festive?” Elaine asked, gesturing at the banner Pinkie Pie had made that said ‘GOODBYE FOR NOW!!! ;P’.
David shook his head. “Not when Pinkie Pie’s involved.”
“I should just label everything she does ‘alarmingly festive’.” Elaine took a drink of her punch and stretched her arms.
The two of them watched, for a moment, their new friends dance, chat, and laugh in the middle of Twilight’s Castle. There were Twilight and her friends, of course, but they were far from the only universe they had helped. There was that Star Butterfly girl, Rocky and Bullwinkle, two sets of duck siblings from DuckTales, and many, many others.
Most of them would still be able to know each other after the quarantine. After all, it was only Earth that was getting sealed off. The rest would be part of the large sphere-like mesh of universes there to pour new life into all the NPC worlds.
The connections in that sphere were already made. Twilight and the rest of the revitalized worlds had dimensional devices keyed to explore worlds in the sphere to keep track of all the NPC worlds as they grew back into their own - with no control from the Central Earth.
Twilight, Star, Aladdin, Rocky… they would all still know each other.
David and Elaine would have to go home, knowing the great secret that their world was probably Flower food if anyone ever looked at it too closely.
“We got to do what kids and adults everywhere dream about,” Elaine said, suddenly.
David smirked. “I know. I made a machine to visit the worlds of my dreams.”
Elaine matched his expression. “You got what you wanted.”
“I got so much more than I wanted. If I’m being honest, I just thought it would be miraculous to see these places. Now? I have friends.” He frowned. “We’re getting old, Elaine…”
“They’ll figure it out soon.”
“How can you know?”
“Because we’re as much of a story as they are.” Elaine gestured at the party. “What kind of ending would it be if we were just… forgotten?”
“A tragedy?”
Elaine smirked and shook her head. “This isn’t that kind of story.”
“How can you tell?”
“I talked to a little white unicorn with bright orange eyes.”
David let out a hearty laugh. “You’re getting overly dramatic.”
“Might as well put on a show, right?”
“I gues-”
“DID SOMEONE SAY SHOW!?” Pinkie shouted at the top of her lungs. “Oh boy! I guess it’s time to bring out the guests of honor!”
Elaine and David blinked, shocked by her sudden presence.
“Ladies, gentlemen, ponies, humans, meese, squirrels, ducks, aliens, and strange fluffy things… May I introduce to you the heroes of the multiverse! Elaine and David!” She clapped her hooves excitedly, triggering several miniature fireworks to go off in the main hall. The entire crowd of characters-turned-real erupted in their own applause, calling out with cheers, encouragement, and thanks. A banner unfurled beneath the ‘GOODBYE FOR NOW!’ message.
‘THANKS FOR SAVING US!’
Elaine put a hand to her mouth, trying to keep herself from crying. When the small crowd ran up to her to give final goodbyes, she couldn't help herself. She shook hands with some, hugged others, and laughed about an old joke with those who felt the need to say something witty. David did much the same on his end, though occasionally he’d run into someone who wanted to rant about science for a few minutes.
Eventually, though, Twilight came up to them—having waited until the last moment to give her farewell.
“I cannot express how much I and our wor—” The words caught in Twilight’s throat. “I… You know what, ditch the whole ‘political princess’ speech.” She pulled them both into a hug with her long, luscious wings. “I’m so glad I got to know you two. I’ve never known anypony quite like either of you. So full of color and life, and yet it hides beneath the surface. So heroic and true to yourselves, but no one would know it unless they knew you. So… I don’t even know.” She released them from the hug. “This is only goodbye for now. But even so… I still owe you everything. Not just my life and my world, but…” She turned around and looked at the crowd. “You gave all of us each other. You taught me about friendships I would never have even considered before. You’ve opened my eyes. Our eyes. There’s so much out there that our single worlds ignore… but together, we have so much more than any world can offer. Thank you.”
Elaine wanted to say ‘you’re welcome’. But she couldn’t. All she could do was pull Twilight into another hug and laugh.
~~~
When Mattie arrived back in the League of Sweetie Belles proper, her phone rang. For a second, there was a text message.
Quarantine completed. No issues. Tell no one. -O
The screen on her phone flashed purple for a moment and the message was deleted.
“Crafty Olivia…” Mattie chuckled, pocketing her phone.
“Hey! Master! Master!”
Mattie grinned. “Ah, Cryo, what do you have for me?”
“Eat this!” Cryo shoved a small green pepper into Mattie’s face.
Instantly, her mouth exploded in agony as the spice within tore at her tongue’s flesh. The shock of the flavor was so much she fell back, mouth hanging open in agonizing bliss. “Aaaaaaah…” She allowed her head to roll back onto the ground.
“Oh my Celestia, are you okay!?”
Mattie lazily glanced at the earth pony Sweetie in front of her. “Ah… the new girl, I take it.”
“Her name’s Sriracha!” Cryo announced. “She has amazing spicy peppers!”
Slowly, Mattie stood up. “...Are you telling me… you found a pony… who can grow endless agonizingly painful peppers for my palette?”
“Yep!”
Mattie grabbed Sriracha’s head with her hooves. “I love you already. Got anything that feels like a nail getting rammed down my gullet?”
“Oh! You’re one of those who are in it for the pain!” Sriracha let out a sigh of relief. “Sorry, didn’t realize.”
Curio raised an eyebrow. “Wait. You’re cool with that?”
“I grow the most exotic and painful peppers imaginable. I get a decent amount of customers like this. Just another way of enjoying the life we have. I guess I have to be a bit of a masochist myself, though I’m more in it for the flavor than the hours spent running my mouth under the faucet. Swimming in ice cream works the best, by the way.”
“Pah. Cooling down your mouth ruins the fun!” Mattie laughed.
“Then maybe you’ll like my pepper ice cream, designed to get hotter when all other spices get colder!”
“Why do you have to be so delightful?” Mattie asked.
“I don’t know!”
“That’s it, tonight, you are cooking us a pepper extravaganza. Time to show these fillies what real pain is!”
Sriracha tapped her hooves on the ground rapidly. “Ooooh, I already love this team!”
“Synergy seems to be working,” Curio admitted.
“SUCCESS!” Cryo hoof-pumped.
“Yes! Success!” Mattie started laughing—and then, slowly, a cold feeling washed over her.
Sriracha frowned. “Is something wrong?”
“Not here,” Mattie said. “Somewhere else…” She frowned. “Sometimes, I hate being vaguely Aware…”
~~~
In an Oregon Forest, a bus drove away from a sleepy little town known as Gravity Falls. The birds chirped normally, the deer of the forest galloped, and on the bus a small teenage boy looked at a note from all the friends he and his sister had left behind in the town.
He smiled.
“Nobody is going to believe us when we get home,” his sister giggled. “What’s our cover story, Dipper?”
“Dunno,” Dipper said, stretching his arms and leaning back in the seat. “Let’s not worry about that until we actually get more than halfway home.”
“But we should have a plan! We’d be all like spies an-”
A purple unicorn with wings appeared in front of them with a flash of purple.
“AUGH!” the twins shouted, backing up.
Princess Twilight Sparkle smiled warmly. “Looks like you two are finally back in it.” She dropped a small disc-shaped device on the floor. “Whenever you’re ready for a bit more adventure.” With a flash of purple, she was gone.
“...Mabel?”
“Yes, Dipper?”
“I don’t think the adventure’s ever over.”
The two of them broke out into grins and started celebrating.
Behind them, far from their sounds of celebration and the magic of an otherworldly unicorn, there was a statue. This statue was triangle shaped and had a single eye in its center, an outstretched hand reaching for something unknown.
The statue was empty.