“Celia?” Suzie asked from the other side of the lounge table.
“Hmm?” Celia said, looking up from her cards.
“We should go on a mission. Together. Explore somewhere new. Try to… get things back to the way they were? Or somewhere… better than here?”
Celia grinned. “Excellent idea. But dear, are we leaving Burgerbelle in charge of Swip?
“I’ll make sure she behaves,” Swip beeped. “Don’t worry.”
“Then we leave immediately!” Suzie declared. “Swip, call Cinder and…”
“Seren?” Celia offered.
“Yes, Seren. We’ll go with her. We’re going to the next world!” She clapped her hands together. The two of them galloped over to the portal gate, almost giddy to go on an adventure together.
“Captain quest! Captain quest!” Cinder cheered, the chant quickly matched by Seren.
“Children, children…” Celia said, smirking. “This is more than a captain quest. It is a friendship quest. Whatever lies beyond this gate shall increase our bond… forthwith, or something!”
Cinder gasped. “You lost the poetic words!”
Celia winked. “Oh. So I did. How audacious of me.”
With a roll of her eyes, Suzie touched her hand to the gate and activated it. “Everybody through! Burgerbelle, you’re in charge until Swip decides you’re not!”
Burgerbelle poked her head in through the hallway. “You keep using that term. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
Suzie saluted and walked through the portal backwards, inviting the other three to follow her in. With a pop, they arrived in yet another new world.
~~~
“Reason for visit?”
Cinder blinked twice, turning her head this way and that as she struggled to orient herself. There has been no sense of transition—no tingle of teleportation, no swirling portal or mystical gateway. She had been with her friends, and then…
“Reason for visit?” repeated the creature in front of her. It was a young mare wearing a starched white collar, seated behind a cheap metal desk. Her hair was cut short in the punk style, a natural black streaked with electric green, and there was a tattoo on her face. A rubber stamp wrapped in red tape, right under her left eye.
A bureaucrat. She was a bureaucrat, seated behind her flimsy little folding desk, paperwork spread out before her. And when Cinder lifted her head, she saw the sign up against the wall behind her: “CITY OF VISION, IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS.”
“Um,” she hesitated, a small frown tugging at her features. Then she realized she was sitting on a little folding chair as well, and when she turned around, there was a waiting room behind her filled with neat rows of uncomfortable benches.
Suzie, Celia, and Seren were there too, all seated on different benches under a sign that read, “PLEASE TAKE A NUMBER.”
They all had a number, but none of them seemed certain how they’d gotten one. And there was Cinder’s number too, stuck to her hoof, “#119.”
“Hey,” the voice of the mare behind the counter, grating and harsh, snapped her head back forward. “I get paid by the hour so I can sit here all day, but maybe you want to answer my question so I can process your paperwork?”
“Um. We’re…” Cinder’s frown tightened as she looked at the mare, and when her eyes drifted to the paperwork on the table, she saw that some of it already had her information filled out. There was her vaccination history on one form, and another was an Equestrian passport with her photo on the inside cover. “Explorers.”
She glanced back at Celia quickly, shooting her a look she hoped conveyed the proper fearful confusion.
Celia glanced back with a similar expression, although with less fear. Don’t be too obvious, coming right out with what we are might be… bad.
Cinder took a breath and returned to the receptionist. “Yeah. Just exploring. Vision looks interesting, I must say… nothing like it in Equestria.”
“Reason for visit, tourism.” The mare was an earth pony, and in her teeth, she grasped three stamps at once. Each was stainless steel, filled with moving parts, and each in turn produced a loud snap as the mare brought it down on Cinder’s passport. “The red stamp is your transit permit, the blue stamp is your visitation license, and the purple stamp is your habitation exemption. Length of stay?”
“Um…” Cinder looked back at Celia once again. “I’m not sure.”
“I’ll put you down for a week.” A pen scratched against paper. Twice more, one of the big metal stamps rang out. “And, what’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?”
Cinder’s head snapped forward. “I’m sorry?”
The mare held up the form she was filling out, pointing at the question at the bottom. “I just fill out the forms, lady. You want to answer or not?” And it was at the bottom, in little black ink with three lines to fill in an answer. What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?
“I burned down my school,” she said, almost without thinking. Something in the back of her mind instantly told her that was wrong, making her narrow her eyes in confusion. Had she done anything worse than that while out exploring? Maybe, but nothing that came to her attention. There had been a lot of unintentional mishaps, but they’d always done their best to put those right. If they were allowed to.
Was there some failure of neglect she was forgetting? Or…
“Arson.” The mare wrote it down, stamped the form one last time, and dumped all her documents into a manilla folder. “Welcome to Vision, the tourist guide is in there with your documents, have a nice day.” She tapped a button on her desk, and an automated voice called out number one-two-zero. “Next!”
“Wait, I don’t-”
“I said next, lady. Don’t make me call security.”
Cinder got the impression that the “get detained by the cops and explain yourself” plan wouldn’t work here, so she scampered out of her chair. Once she was on her hooves and had a better view of the room, she could see how large it was. The benches for waiting in line easily had room for two hundred ponies, and there were twenty desks at the front for processing paperwork. But the four of them were the only ones there, and only one of the desks was staffed.
Her hooves were damp.
Looking down, she found she was standing in a puddle of water. The carpet squelched under the pads of her hooves, bubbling as more water rose up beneath her. It wasn’t like a coffee spill, but like the carpet was thin layer sewn on top of a sinkhole. Maybe, if she pressed hard enough, her hoof would go right through the floor and down into the water beneath. The water was there, beneath the floor, waiting for her. She could smell the brine and the salt and—
Hey, Celia’s telepathic message snapped her out of her stupor. Her head shot up, lights dancing in her eyes. Are you okay? You spaced out and you look off.
Cinder frowned, thinking back to her. I’m not sure if it’s the seawater or something else about this place… I’m fine.
Seren had the ticket number 120, and so she rose to take Cinder’s place. There didn’t seem to be a rule against Cinder waiting for her, but it was clear where she was supposed to go next. A large set of double doors marked one end of the waiting room, an ugly red exit sign affixed above them.
And, perhaps Cinder didn’t feel like waiting for her three friends to get their paperwork processed. She pushed open the doors and went on without them. And when the doors shut behind her, she felt like she was standing in a dream.
Before her stood a city of white stone, built on an impossible scale. Under a sky with no moon and no stars rose buildings hundreds of stories tall, so grand they seemed to her like cliffs, like walls that stretched to the sky. Twinkling motes swam through the space between them, like faerie lights or breezies or airships moving in the night, and the chasms those structures created were criss-crossed by bridges of silver and glass.
All of Canterlot could have been a single neighborhood of this city. All of Ponyville could have fit into a single of its towers. And when she looked more closely, there was more! There were machines of brass and steel that climbed the towers to clean them, trams that ran along rails made of light, and the most strange and beautiful birds flitting from tower to tower.
They waggled as they moved. Like fish.
And when she lowered her starstruck eyes, she saw she was indoors, on the third story of a bedazzling indoor market. Thousands of merchants were set up all around her. The proper stores ringed the outside of the space, accessible through doors like the customs office, while the lesser merchants pitched their tents in the square. It was like a medieval fair, perhaps.
Or something from Ponyville, though it had never been this nice.
“Hey Equestrian,” said a stallion’s voice to her left. When she turned her head to look, she saw she’d misjudged. On the rail leaned not a stallion but a pegasus colt, just old enough his fetlocks were coming in, but not old enough he needed to shave them. He looked like a classic flyer. Strong build, athletic stance, broad shoulders and big wings. And he had tattoos on his side.
That was strange, she thought, in a pony so young. One tattoo on his shoulder of a silver bit and a crook, one on his ribs of a pony with swirls in their eyes. Plus his cutie mark of course—three turning gears.
“Oh, that’s not my name,” she said. “I’m Cinder.”
“Well hey, Cinder.” He mimed tipping his hat with a hoof, though he wore no such garment. “You look lost. Help you find something?”
“Just waiting for my friends to get out of customs, so not yet. We all might need you later, though.”
“Customs takes forever to process paperwork. You’ll be waiting all day.” He looked her in the eye, matching their gaze across the short gap between them. “Want to go for a walk instead? I’ll show you around.”
And Cinder thought, no, of course not. It was obviously a terrible idea, to get separated from the group. Then she said, “Sure, sounds like fun. What’s your name?”
The colt bumped his hoof to hers. “Sprocket. Pleasure to meet you, Cinder.”
She paused a moment then and checked that the communications disc on the back of her neck was still there. And it was, so what was the harm? She was hardly going to get mugged by a colt whose voice hadn’t finished changing. “So, what is there to do around here?”
“The upper ring is mostly ice cream and bars and food and stuff, and all the gadget shops are down on the floor. Take your pick.”
“Floor,” she said, and they descended down into the colorful tents.
Such wonders were on display there. There was a unicorn selling guns that shot grappling hooks, an earth pony selling pocket lighters that shot sparks three feet, and a pegasus with tornados in jars. She saw on merchant cut a bloody gash up his own arm with a knife, but before she could shout in alarm, it regenerated before her eyes. “Regenerative tonic!” he called to the crowd. “Don’t leave your life to chance.”
And then there were the weapons. Crossbows that loaded themselves, knives that cut concrete like it was butter, spears that folded into a cylinder the size of a pencil but that could shoot lightning bolts when they were extended. Shields and armor and vehicles and more. And books! Endless books, offering insights on topics from nuclear engineering to rebalancing her chi.
She picked up one book. A thin little thing, with gold foil on the cover. “You Can’t Go Home Again—Your Self-Help Guide to Admitting You’ve Changed as a Person.”
“Great book,” the bookseller said, beaming radiantly at her. “Changed my life. You want it? For a pretty mare like you, a special deal; only fifty bits.”
“Fifty bits?” Sprocket answered for her, letting out a disgusted snort. “You’re taking her for a ride. I’d get that self-help crap for half a bit in a bargain bin downtown.”
“It’s fine. It’s fine.” Cinder put the book back. “I don’t need it. I was thinking of a friend.”
“Then perhaps I could interest you in this instead,” and from under the counter, the bookseller produced a thin white tome. Becoming Unique: How to Develop the Skills and Gifts to Stand Out in a Crowd. On the cover were a gaggle of identical mares, all pointing at each other and laughing, like they were the best friends in the world.
“How did you…?” Cinder frowned. I thought I’d already learned that lesson...
“I’ve been running this bookstore for years. You get a hang for these things.” He offered it her way. “Twenty bits.”
Sprocket scoffed at that price as well, but she paid just the same. The merchant gave her a set of saddlebags made from paper, which awkwardly rested across her back as she walked away. “That was strange.”
“I don’t buy any of that self-help junk,” Sprocket said, letting out a snort. “Wanna circle around and see if your friends are done? We’ll circle around the long way so you can see the whole bazaar.”
“Sure, thanks.” She marched along with him, her mind neither on him nor the road, but inwardly focused. This place isn’t this nice. For some reason, she couldn't rest easy. Her mind kept diverting her into strange places, and taking her back to days long past. The whole market was wondrous, even better than some parts of Celestia City, and she’d loved looking at all the gadgets. And yet, as they walked away, the whole thing took on a chill feel.
And her hooves were damp. She was standing in a puddle again. As she and Sprocket walked across the grass towards the far end of the market, it was like her hooves were sinking. Not into mud. There was no mud. The grass just bowed inwards, bending like a sheet of rubber, and water welled up underneath it. The smell of brine pushed through her nostrils, into her head, behind her eyes and through her brain.
Like she was damp all over. Like her whole body was wet. A shiver passed through her.
“Right this way,” Sprocket said, holding open a door for her. Mercifully, her hooves left the grass and she stepped back onto white stone. They were out of the bazaar proper, and into some kind of access or maintenance corridor that ran around the perimeter under the shops. They walked down it for some time, taking a left, then a right, then a left, then going down a flight of stairs.
“Wait, shouldn’t we be going up?” Cinder asked. This is the wrong way.
Sprocket looked deep into her eyes. “You’ve gotten turned around. This is the right way. Keep going.” And when he put it that way, it all made sense. She was confused. Shouldn’t she trust her guide?
After all, she thought, this is the part of the story where I get mugged and kidnapped. The last thing she’d want to do under such dire circumstances was get lost. If anything, the situation made it even more important that she trust her guide.
Then she saw the stallion waiting for them ahead. He was an enormous bruiser of an earth pony, standing twice her height, his coat painted with muscle. A half-dozen tattoos covered his skin: a bat on his face, a block of ice on the left shoulder, a suit of armor on the right, a pile of bits on his side, a set of knives over his ankle, and two fireworks shooting off on his ear.
His original cutie mark was melting. The skin under it wept fluid, covered in so many blisters and welts it was like his flesh was boiling.
That snapped her out of her trance. She leapt into action, magic collecting around her horn. Hooves spread, back straight, she thrust her head forward, and a bolt of fire shot across the gap between them.
The block of ice on the earth pony’s shoulder flashed, and her bolt of fire fizzled away in mid air, reduced to a cloud of harmless steam.
Ice tattoo means ice powers, she thought, right. Then she tried to run.
But Sprocket tripped her, and before she could get back up, the bruiser was on top of her, and his hoof smashed the back of her head directly into the stone floor. Her comms device shattered, her vision swirled, her body went limp, and then it all went dark.
~~~
Underwater again, Suzie thought, looking up at what were clearly fish swimming above them. Good thing Squiddy’s not here.
When she had first come out of the Immigration Office, she had been prepared to go with Seren to investigate the ice cream stores and figure out what this city was all about. She was mildly interested to see how some of those sparkling weapons compared to her own firearm, but at that point she had noticed Cinder wasn’t with Seren.
Seren didn’t have any idea where she was.
So Suzie had made a call.
“What do you mean you can’t sense her?” Suzie demanded, communication disc to her ear.
“I mean I can’t sense her,” Swip’s annoyed tone came from the other side. “You guys are underwater, the city has some weird magic going on, I’m not a perfect find-it machine. Need me to call in backup, or something?”
“No…” Suzie frowned. “Not yet. But keep tabs on us in case something goes south.”
“Roger.”
Suzie pocketed the communicator. “Celia should be faster. She’s pretending to be a unicorn.”
Seren shrugged.
“Leave a message for her, we don’t have time to waste. Who knows what’s happening to h-”
Celia walked through the doors, a satisfied smirk on her face and a false horn superimposed over her crystal. As soon as the doors shut she replaced her expression with a deep, brooding scowl. “I worked my magic, moved it along. Cinder’s mind went fuzzy as soon as she got over here. I tried to keep a hold on it, but she vanished. Swip can’t find her?”
“No,” Suzie said, wringing the sleeve on her wrist. “Which means we’re going to have to do this ourselves.”
“Seren, you’ve been out here the longest.” Celia forced a smile. “What have you found out so far?”
“Ponies have more magic than usual,” Seren explained. “There’s a few who are normal, but most have significant amounts of excess. I’ve correlated this to the tattoos.” She pointed to a green pegasus stallion with the image of a mare biting her own tail on his ribs. “Scanning spells revealed that they aren’t ink-based but are made of the same pigment as a cutie mark. Extra talents.”
“Like that version of Starlight with the Staff that actually worked?” Suzie asked.
Seren shook her head. “Those had to be stolen. I’ve seen numerous duplicate marks - that pony biting its own tail is really popular.”
“This society is all about cutie marks, at least in this area,” Celia observed, adjusting her form slightly to create a false set of diamonds on her flank. “And you two aren’t getting as many strange looks as usual.”
Suzie glanced at the closest ponies to them, catching at least three staring right at her. She would have expected fear, confusion, or perhaps curiosity from them. Not the cold, calculating looks she was receiving now.
The cold expressions vanished the moment they realized she was looking, replaced by a hung head in two cases and a warm smile in the third case. For a moment, Suzie thought she must have misread the earlier expressions.
“Oh, we got ourselves a den of thieves here, girls,” Celia laughed. “We’re walking commodities. Especially you two, you’re not normal. You have to be worth something because of that.”
Suzie let out a deep sigh. This was not the time for her to lead; she knew full well she wasn’t the best at navigating places filled with cheats unless she had the option to be threatening. “Take point, Celia.”
“Thank you,” Celia bowed to Suzie in respect. As though a lightswitch went on in her body, her expression lit up, taking the shape of a dopey smile. “Yoo-hoo!” she waved at the smiling mare who had kept Suzie’s gaze. “Maybe you can help us?”
The amber mare kept the smile. “Well, geez, I don’t know how little ol’ me can help, but I’ll try!” Suzie made a quick inventory of all the extra cutie marks the mare had, though some could have been obscured by her pale dress. A pair of hooves clasped together, a pile of bits, and right on her cheek there was an abstract ‘S’ symbol Suzie couldn’t pasre.
“We’re looking for my sister,” Celia said. “Her name’s Cinder, she looks like me but way smaller. Has a triple-colored shield for a cutie mark? Orange eyes.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, I can’t say that I’ve seen her! Maybe you can come with me and I-”
Celia waved a hoof in front of the mare’s eyes, making her tumble over her train of thought. “Excuse me, I’m looking for Cinder. Unicorn?”
“I…” Suzie caught the mare searching Celia’s body, presumably for extra cutie marks. “I’m sorry, I don’t thi-”
“Oh you’re really in it, aren’t you?” Celia snorted, waving her hoof again. “Hello. White unicorn. New. Where?”
“Into the market. That way?” She stared at her hoof in confusion.
“Thank you for your time!” Celia said, grinning. “Come on, girls!”
They stepped into the bazaar. The ponies in tents were shouting out prices in attempts to get others to buy things, and Suzie’s unusual appearance only served to get more offers shouted at her. Forcing them out of her attention, she leaned her head next to Celia. “Mental suggestion already?”
“She was going to scam us, but she knew—her eyes twitched in recognition slightly.” Celia turned to Suzie with a sad smile. “We need to work on trust, remember?”
A small pit formed in Suzie’s stomach. “Right. Sorry.”
“It’s okay to question, just pointing it out. Now I—”
“Hey!” A stallion selling books waved. At Celia, not at Suzie. “You look like just the mare for this book right here!”
Celia raised an eyebrow, trotting over to the stands. “You Can’t Go Home Again—Your Self-Help Guide to Admitting You’ve Changed as a Person,” she read aloud. “Eerily topical, my good friend.”
“Can’t take the credit, your little friend was drawn to it. Fifty bits.”
“Little friend?” Suzie blurted, ramming her hands on the stand. Given her height, she had to stoop down to do this, causing a sharp pain to shoot up her back. “Where i—”
“Calm down, Suzie,” Celia said, patting her on the back. “You understand, she gets so worked up in this job.”
“Oh?” the bookseller said. “What’s that?”
“Surveys. When you bounce all around Vision you get to some truly nasty locales. I’m sure you understand.”
The bookseller’s smile remained but his words didn’t come out quite so quickly next time. “I do.”
“Great. I’ll buy this book.” Celia dropped the bits in front of him, tossing an extra two in for good measure. “And you are going to tell us where our ‘little friend’ went.”
“She was with some pegasus. Went behind my shop. I don’t know where they went after that.”
“Describe the pegasus,” Celia said, flipping the book open and reading the heading.
“Young, voice still changing, yellow, two mantles on his left side. Original mark is a gear.”
“Thank you,” Celia said while Suzie made note that the extra cutie marks were called mantles. They went behind the stand, walking to the back of the bazaar.
Celia stopped at the back-most tent, one selling special enchanted knives. “Excuse me…”
The hooded mare running the knife shop pointed one of the blades to her neck. “Whatever trick you’re about to play on me, don’t. I-”
Celia smacked the knife out of the mare’s hoof, moving at just the right angle for her pointed hooves to draw a slight amount of blood from the knife seller. “No tricks, then.”
“I’ll call Security,” she said, barely any hint of fear.
“You’ll find that my word will beat yours, shiv.”
The mare considered this. “I’m not giving you any knives.”
“A yellow pegasus and a white unicorn moved past here. Both young. Where did they go?”
The mare snorted. “Oh, that’s all? The hatch over there. Good luck finding them in that maze.”
Suzie ran to the hatch and swung it open, finding a massive hallway that had several exits and not a single pony within to ask questions. The pipes running along the ceiling trembled and shook, letting an eerie noise fill the hall as though someone were screaming in the distance.
“Seren?” Suzie asked. “Can you trace… anything?”
“Cinder’s magic has never been very distinct and all these extra marks aren’t making it any simpler,” Seren said. “I’m sorry.”
Celia trotted into the hall, looking for any evidence of Cinder, or even a suggestion of which way to go. Tracing her hooves around the pipes for a moment she let out a sigh. “Nothing here. Just… wet metal.”
“Seren, keep a map of where we explore,” Suzie said. “Don’t want to get lost. Any indication of non-euclidean space?”
“Not nearby,” Seren answered.
“Good… let’s try… door number one.” She turned to the left and found a stairwell deeper into Vision. A pit slowly formed in her stomach. Before Cinder came along, she would have just marched down the stairs without a second thought since there was no way to tell which direction was “right.” Now, she couldn’t help but feel Cinder would have some sort of observation about which direction would be “appropriate” in the situation they were in.
You’re just letting it get to you, Suzie told herself. You’re just concerned for her. Treat this like the normal missions you used to go on. You have your wits and your team, that’s all you need.
“If we can’t find her, we’ll find someone who can help us,” Suzie said, descending the stairs. She had to stoop considerably to keep her head from hitting the overhead.
“I’ll keep my eyes out for someone actually willing,” Celia offered. “I haven’t seen any yet.”
“That’s not normal for ponies…” Seren said.
“No. It most certainly is not.” Celia bit her lip. “Nothing makes you realize how much you depend on the local friendliness until it’s suddenly gone.”
Suzie held her hand close to her pulse cannon, just in case. She’d never know when she might need it. They descended the rest of the way down the stairs until they came to another level of the aquatic city. Here, the colors and riches of the bazaar were completely absent. Instead the dark, dank nature of the bottom of the ocean was on full display. The buildings were made from worn stone wound with rusting, metal pipes that zigged and zagged every which way. The glass ceiling stood dirty, clouded by accumulated mire nopony was cleaning.
Ponies did not walk through the streets with smiles. They held their heads down, refusing to make eye contact with anypony else. In a nearby alley, Suzie saw a bunch of teenagers living in a cardboard box riddled with holes. She wasn’t sure if they were sleeping or not. Everything was weak. The exception to this were the ponies in the local equivalent of a police uniform—they held themselves with arrogance and a steeled glare that dared the ponies to try anything under their watch. The citizens of Vision gave the guards a wide berth, fearful.
Suzie snapped her fingers, pointing at the cardboard box. “Seren, help them.”
Seren scampered over with a huge smile on her face. Suzie didn’t watch—she walked right up to the guards and put her hands on her hips. The stallion in the lead was a dark, bulky specimen, but Suzie was a human and only larger alicorns were eye level with her. Looking down at the guard she sneered. “I take it you’re local law enforcement?”
He got over the shock of talking to something taller than him rather quickly. “Yes, we’re with Security. Who’s asking?”
“Captain Suzie Mash, Mero—”
He snorted, interrupting her. “There ain’t a Captain of your race i—”
“Not one of your captains. We’re visiting.”
“Visiting?” He seemed even less convinced by this. “Vision doesn’t get visitors.”
“Funny, the immigration office did seem a little empty. Guess this place isn’t that lucrative.” She gestured angrily at the ponies living in the cardboard box. Only two of them were responding to Seren’s food and magic. “They were starving.”
“Yeah. So?”
Suzie curled her hand into a fist. “You are law enfor—”
Celia put a hoof on Suzie’s shoulder to steady her. “How about we forget about all that and get some help from these professional Security ponies? I’m Celia, Chalcedony. You are?”
“Lieutenant Drove,” he said, nodding to Celia with a hint of respect.
“Excellent, a Lieutenant! I won’t waste your time longer than necessary. There was a fourth member with us less than an hour ago—teenage unicorn of a similar complexion to my own with bright orange eyes, named Cinder. We believe she was taken somewhere against her will.”
“That’s all you got?” Drove asked.
Celia nodded. “We traced her into the pipes up those stairs… and then lost the trail.”
With a snort, Drove turned his back to them.
“Ex-cuse me!? We’re talking here!” Suzie shouted.
“Your unicorn’s dead, filly. Nothing we can do. We’re done here.”
“You can’t just walk away!”
“We’re on patrol. Can’t stay.”
“Get back here!” Suzie ran after them.
“Filly, get your lanky limbs out of my face, I have a job to do.”
“If you won’t listen to me I’ll find someone who will. Who do you report to?”
“Oh for the…” He put a hoof to his muzzle. “The precinct isn’t far away, you can submit a complaint.”
“I’ll do a lot more than submit a complaint…”
“You can try.”
Celia coughed. “While you do that, Seren and I will do our own research, okay?”
“Yes, fine,” Suzie said, waving a dismissive hand.
“Don’t punch the chief of Security in the face!”
“I’ll be fine,” Suzie growled. “But if he wants to play hard, I’ll play hard back…”
~~~
Just as not all of Vision was a bazaar of fanciful delights and slightly creepy cheerfulness, not all of vision was a hovel with ponies living in cardboard boxes and starving to death.
It was true that most of Vision was like that, however. After twenty minutes of teleporting, exploring, and poking her muzzle where it didn’t belong, Celia decided it wouldn’t be a stretch to classify Vision as a hellhole. It was shockingly easy to find dead ponies just sitting around with nopony who cared enough to tend to them. If they weren't dying, they were raving lunatics, and the more of those “mantle” marks they had the crazier they were.
For instance, the three-legged freak that was currently trying to eat Celia whole. He had dropped down from the ceiling as she walked through a seemingly empty pipeworks hall, his body covered in hoof to snout in so many marks Celia couldn’t count them. He opened his mouth to reveal several rows of jagged, glassy teeth that glowed with an unnatural aura.
Celia flipped her hoof to the side, embedding her pointed limb in the stallion’s skull, shattering the bone with ease and contacting brain matter. Not willing to take any chances, she cast a lancing laser spell from her gemstone, burning a hole between his eyes, down his neck, and through his stomach.
Unnatural black puss hissed out of his wounds as he dropped to the ground, dead in an instant.
“Geez…” Seren said, lowering her staff. “You work fast.”
Celia cleaned the murk off her hoof and checked that she wasn’t infected with any kind of curse from the sludge. “Those ‘mantles’ could have had any number of effects. We don’t understand them well enough to take any chances. He put himself too close to me, and now he’s paid for it.”
Seren poked the body with her scepter. “There has to be some kind of side-effect to these extra talents.”
“Madness appears to be the primary one, though for all we know that’s just the city getting to them. I believe Sweetaloo would say this place is not suitable for psychological development.”
Seren frowned. “Why can people have spectacular works of art and still let children starve in the next street?”
Celia frowned. “We’re broken.” She continued onward without another word, Seren clacking along at her heels.
They came out of the pipeworks into an area of Vision that wasn’t a bazaar, but also didn’t look like ponies were about to drop dead from malnutrition. There was a mild Security presence and a few ponies actually wore smiles on their faces as they walked to and from various storefronts. Somepony must have been paid to clean the place, since the streets were devoid of littered garbage and the windows showed the rest of Vision clearly.
Not for the first time, Celia noted the purple starburst atop the highest tower of Vision. An indication of Twilight Sparkle if ever there was one. Once they found Cinder, there was likely going to be a very interesting conversation at the top of that tower…
Celia hoped this was a tragic story and that Twilight would be willing to help them. She didn’t want to deal with another evil Element of Magic. It was always a pain.
“Well, look what the cat dragged in!” A graceful blue mare said, trotting up to them. “Aren’t you two fine specimens! And you!” She grinned, winking at Seren. “You’re simply the cutest thing!”
“Aww, thanks!” Seren chirped.
“Whatever backwards plan you have to scam us or kidnap Seren, I suggest against it,” Celia deadpanned. “I know the death spell and I will use it if I so much as get an inkling that you’re going to go through with that plan that’s written all over your face.”
The mare froze. After regaining some modicum of awareness, the first thing she did was check Celia for mantles, shocked to find none. Celia had seen this reaction often enough that it wasn't surprising. However, this mare recognized Celia’s false cutie mark. “R-rarity?”
Celia smirked. “What if I was?”
“F-forgive me, I didn’t k—” she started trembling so much that she couldn’t manage more than half-sputtered syllables.
The local Rarity is feared. Interesting. “Ignorance is no excuse. Now, t—” The mare passed out in front of her.
“...I think you overdid it,” Seren said.
“I underestimated the effect Rarity’s image has on this place…” Taking a moment, Celia replaced her false cutie mark with a crystal chalice and reshaped her mane into something more akin to a Fluttershy. She couldn’t do much about her face quickly, unfortunately, so that would just have to stay. It might be good to have an intimidation bonus anyway.
She continued walking through the shop district. Her eyes were peeled for Cinder—but there was no sign of the unicorn, nor anypony who might have any idea where she was. Celia was able to pick out two ponies planning a murder, seven different mares trying to hide mantles under frilly dresses, a stallion trying to look rich despite not having an actual penny to his name, and several children playing a game where the loser was trapped in a cardboard box for fifteen minutes and laughed at.
It’s almost like the ponies have a human nature, rather than an equine one, Celia mused, finding this more comparable to human cities than most pony ones. But even then, this was something worse. Even the pits of human habitation generally weren't like this.
In the distance, she spotted a mantle shop filled with hundreds of colored bottles that no doubt gave the ponies their unique cutie marks. She had every intention of dropping in to investigate, but her ears picked up something much more interesting before she completed the trek.
“...Y’all...”
The sound was scratchy, likely from a speaker of some kind, but there was no doubt about it. That was the voice of an Applejack. Older than standard, to be sure, but unmistakably an Applejack. Taking a hard left, Celia dragged Seren into one Sweet Apple Cafe, a quaint little locale decorated not unlike a restaurant in Equestria might have been with bright tables and a homey, welcoming interior with little bits of hay strewn about. A welcome contrast to the harsh neon that dominated Vision.
There was, in fact, a radio in the cafe, bringing Applejack’s serenading voice to the patrons of the establishment. Which, at the moment, was just the two of them.
“Ah know things are difficult right now, and that this ain’t what we expected when we founded this city. But Ah want y’all to know that we’re still here, workin’ to bring this place back from the murk…”
Celia was very interested to hear what Applejack had to say about Vision. However, her listening was interrupted by a scream. Looking up, she was greeted by the owner of the establishment—an orange pegasus with a sea-green mane, two colors in constant war with each other. Celia’s eyes quickly picked out wings that were just slightly too large to be natural and a physique that was a bit too convenient to come from a pegasus who lived at the bottom of the ocean in an enclosed environment—attractive, yes, but also suspicious. Barely visible on the interior of her back leg there was the common pony-eating-its-tail mantle.
The mare was staring at Celia and Seren like she was looking at a pair of ghosts. Her plot hit the ground and she started mumbling to herself. “It’s finally gone to your head…”
Celia gently approached her, forcing all the hard lines out of her face. “Hey…”
“It’s…”
“I’m Celia. It’s okay.” Gently, Celia lifted up the mare’s head with a hoof, pointed sideways so the sharp edge didn’t scrape. “You?”
“...Swiftwing…” she said, seeming to accept Celia’s existence. Her gaze drifted to Seren, terrified. “What…?”
“I take it you knew the local Sweetie Belle?” Celia asked.
Given Swiftwing’s reaction, Celia assumed she was right, at first.
“Not the local one,” Switfwing said, understanding crossing her features.
Celia’s eyes widened in surprise. She knows. Interesting.
~~~
Far from the oppressive depths of Vision’s ocean, Celestia City drifted through the stars of a different universe. Of its billions of residents, not a single one was starving. Granted, the citizens still had to deal with other problems—culture suffocation, endless development, overabundance of information—but for the most part citizens were happy and life was good, barring the occasional nearly-universe-ending calamity that struck, but not a single one of those had actually doomed the city so at this point people were pretty sure they never would.
On any given day, something exciting was always happening. Often multiple somethings. For Allure, Sweetie of Equis Vitis and Founder of the League of Sweetie Belles, today was something special—even if it wasn’t about her directly.
Squeaky Belle’s Luna—a calm, collected leader who went by the moniker Jingle—was being promoted to the Second of the Aid Division, and Squeaky was throwing her a little party in the League as a celebration.
“Really, you didn’t have to do this,” Jingle said, lifting a cup of sparkling magic juice off a tray Jade was holding. “I’m not doing anything amazing.”
“There are only twelve Divisions, and only twelve Seconds,” Squeaky said, huffing. “You are one of the most influential people in all of Merodi Universalis now! That means we had to do something. Specifically, something Trollestia wasn’t involved in.”
“Thanks for that,” Jingle chuckled. “Still, it all seems to be moving rather fast. It seems like yesterday I was fighting Chrysalis in the war… and now I’m here. Helping people. That’s all I do!” She laughed nervously. “In charge of hundreds of worlds’ resources…”
“You’ll do great,” Allure said, winking. “You’ve always done what’s best for ponies. I’m sure you’ll figure out how to help… well, everyone.”
“Yesss, everyone, a demographic that includes more people than we have resources.” Jingle forced a smile, unable to suppress an eye twitch. “Who gets what and how much and…” She sighed. “I guess that’s why it’s me, huh? You have to care and know how to make the hard decisions.”
“That’s why you’re perfect!” Squeaky squeaked.
“Sometimes I wish Trollestia’s spell worked outside our universe.” Jingle downed another cup. “Would solve a lot of problems if everything just worked out fine all the time..”
“Some would say the Tower does the same thing,” Squeaky pointed out.
“...Except when it doesn’t,” Allure shrugged. Her communicator rang. She didn’t think anything of its impeccable timing. “Hi! What’s so important that you used the emergency number?”
“We found her,” Celia said from the other end.
“...Who?”
“The Sweetie Belle. She passed through here.”
Allure dropped her phone.
Squeaky and Jingle stared at her. “Allure…?” Squeaky asked.
Allure broke out into a grin. “They found her, Squeaky. They… Jade! Cancel everything for today, I’m leaving!”
Jade let out an annoyed bark. “I’m sure the Valgari dignitary won’t be that insulted…”
“This is more important, it’s her! The Sweetie Belle!” She turned to Jingle and gave a quick salute. “Sorry, I’ve got to check this out. Send a message to Zod and Bot, they’ll want to be here for this too. Whenever they get back from… whatever it is they’re doing. Squeaky?”
“I’ll join you later,” Squeaky said. “I’m still Jingle’s General.”
Jingle groaned at the alliteration.
“Have fun! I know I will!” Allure ran off, clicking her hooves together.
The long search would be over! She couldn’t want to get to the universe and see what it was like!
~~~
Cinder woke up strapped to a medical bed. Realizing she was restrained, she let out a sigh. She didn’t know what she was expecting.
Carefully, she opened her eyes.
Right in front of her was a rolling table filled with various needles, knives, bone saws, and unusually shaped scalpels. About half of them were cleaned so well they sparkled like precious gems while the other half were rusted and covered in blunt edges.
Her heart went into overdrive, shocking her entire body awake. She let out a loud gasp, sucking in the sea-salty air all around, piercing her lungs with sharp cold and triggering a coughing fit.
“Oh, look who’s awake…”
Cinder decided she hated the shrill, arrogant voice more than anything she’d ever known.