Sunset's Isekai was perhaps the best known bar in the Equis Cluster, but it was far from the only one. Celestia City was full of far more consistently located watering holes, from holes in the wall that people six blocks away had never heard of to tremendous multi-level unending raves where the drinks glowed even brighter than the plastic jewelry, much less the actual lighting. There were cocktail lounges, mead halls, breweries, and even an enormous walk-in Sirius Cybernetics Corporation Nutrimatic Drinks Dispenser from Galaxa Sandwich that had gone insane enough to serve more than one kind of beverage.
Merlot's was fairly average for a Celestia City bar, inasmuch as that meant anything. Not too big, not too small, not too crazy, not too plain. It had a lot of dark-stained wood, diverse beer and wine lists, a rack of stemmed glasses hanging over the bar, and a raspberry-skinned woman tending said bar. Merlot, like most Berry Punches, was very good at her job, and had plenty of experience running an establishment on Celestia City besides.
As such, she barely even blinked when three of the same person came in as a group. All three had grey plumage, blonde hair, and eyes that collectively pointed in half a dozen different directions. Two were pegasi, while the third was a human, though the silver bow of light coming from her neck that winked out as she walked in the door marked her as an Earth Shimmer native. Merlot, upon seeing all of this, bowed to the laws of comedy.
In short, three Derpies walked into a bar and the bartender said, "What is this, some kind of joke?"
All three rolled their eyes (which was truly impressive coming from them) and deadpanned "Ha ha" in eerie synchronicity. That got them to glare at each other, prompting a grunt and two equine snorts.
"In all seriousness, ladies, what'll it be?" It was still fairly early in the day, so Merlot was happy for the distraction.
"Something red and dry, please. Fiorano if you have it," said one of the pegasi, completely disregarding the wine list. To be fair, so did a good half of the clientele.
"Same," said the other pegasus, making her counterpart give her a flat look. "Hey, it's not my fault Fiora has the best vineyards in our corner of the multiverse." This one was actually wearing something, a petryal like an Equestrian princess, though this one was inscribed with an interlocked sun and moon circumscribed by a circle divided into ten equal parts. Each section had its own symbol, none of which Merlot recognized. She also hadn't ever heard of Fiora, but she could make do there.
The human took a little longer, examining the taps. She was dressed, of course, in a suit coordinated around her own coloration: grey jacket and slacks, yellow tie. Her face lit up when she reached one of the more... exotic beers. "Pint of Shoggoth's Old Peculiar for me."
Merlot started reaching for glasses, but hesitated as the order penetrated years of ingrained habit. "There's a two-pint limit on that for most species, miss."
The human Derpy rolled her eyes again and pulled out her wallet, showing her ID and tapping a symbol on it. It wasn't exactly an unspeakable sigil, but one would hesitate to mention it in polite company.
"Five pints then. Sorry, miss, can't be too careful with the eldritch stuff."
"No problem," the human said in the sort of resigned tone that came from having to show that part of her ID on a frequent basis.
The Derpies gravitated to a booth with U-shaped seating around a round table. The moment the human got settled in, the adorned pegasus broached the subject that had brought them together in the first place:
"How come you get to be Ditzwalker?"
Ditzwalker "Ditzy" Doo sighed and adjusted her tie. "Because I'm the one who registered it first."
"But where does that leave us? You know, the actual planeswalkers?"
Ditzwalker gave her a flat look. "Are you seriously going to gatekeep planeswalking?"
"Well, she is from Ravnica," the other pegasus said with a smirk.
"Hey, I thought you'd be on my side! You're as much a Ditzwalker as I am. And more so than her." The adorned pegasus jabbed a wing at Ditzwalker.
The human raised an eyebrow. "I'm a living TSAB dimensional drive by way of Yog-Sothoth. You two can only transition to or from one specific kind of D-Sphere universe. I'm more interdimensionally versatile than either of you."
"You'd still get torn apart by the Blind Eternities."
"And you need a dimensional device if the plane you're in doesn't have a connection to them!"
"Hey!" Bluish energy pushed the two apart. The bare pegasus glared at both of her counterparts at once. "Come on, you two, we're all Ditzies here."
"Yes, that's the problem," the other pegasus said, ruffling her wings. "We all fit the bill for that name, none of us want a moniker even resembling 'Derpy Hooves,' and Little Miss Paper Pusher here refuses to share."
"Okay, first of all, you're as much of a bureaucrat as I am, if not more so. Secondly, how would I share? What, are you going to add numbers at the end? Be 'Ditzwalker-3'? Or do we use different epithets because we all share a planeswalker type?"
"Don't you drag that stupid card game into this."
Ditzwalker smirked. "You're just mad because I can beat you at it."
The adorned Ditzy flared out her wings and half-shouted, "It's oversimplified and abstracted to the point where it's nothing like an actual planeswalker duel!"
A whistle made both look to the third Ditzy. "Hey! Children!"
"What!?" they both yelled.
More blue energy moved a wineglass and a mug of vaguely greenish beer where appropriate. "For one, our drinks arrived a good three minutes ago."
The pegasus sat back down. The human just looked down at the table. "Oh," said both.
"For another, why does it matter, Tenbubble?"
"'Tenbubble'?" said Tenbubble.
"You are from Ravnica. Working in the Guildpact office. Trying to be a voice for Dominia Cluster concerns in the Merodi." The last un-nicknamed Ditzy shrugged her wings. "Seems suitable to me."
Tenbubble looked into her wine for a few moments. "Look, neither of you fought in the War of the Spark." She pointed ot each in turn. "You never heard the call and you treated it as a way to pass a dull Friday night."
"Hey, no one on Ungula heard about it until after the fact," said the other pegasus. "Bolas was afraid enough of Pinkie Pie to exclude the entire plane."
"And you can't blame me for Warlocks on the Mount making a Revengers arc." Ditzwalker blinked. "You know, you say that out loud knowing the usual names and you realize just how stupid it sounds."
"Hey!"
All three turned to the next booth, where a fourth Derpy Hooves was nursing a glass of ginger ale. This one was also a pegasus, though she wore a glowstick taped to a cardboard tube on her head. "Uh, I mean..." The glowstick lit up like a unicorn horn, and a mechanical pencil flew towards an open notebook on her table.
A minor counterspell cut off the telekinesis, making the pencil's momentum keep it going until it hit the other side of the booth and rolled under the table. "So," Tenbubble said as she flapped over the divider and slid into the booth. "Fan of Most Everything, I assume."
"Uh..." The completely mysterious and unfamiliar pegasus said in a totally believable—
"Oh, give it a rest," said a trenchcoat-clad Pinkie in the next booth over. "You're made. Own it."
I sighed. "Alright, yes, I'm your Prophet. To a degree. It's all metaphysical and quantum."
That didn't stop all three from crowding into the booth. Darn it, I'd picked this place for some privacy. No one thinks to look for a teetotaler in a bar. "Don't suppose you could settle this little feud?" said Ditzwalker.
"And maybe cut down on dimensionally transcendent bubblemares in the future?" added the Ditzy with no name.
I shrugged my wings. "What can I say? You're Best Pony. And Best Human. I've had a soft spot for you ever since I first saw you. And I wanted to make a respectable version of you, one who wasn't just the Doctor's companion or sympathy bait." I nodded to the bare pegasus. "So, I did a crossover." To Tenbubble. "And then an AU of that crossover." To Ditzwalker. "And later I incorporated aspects of that world into a different AU."
None of them seemed especially flattered. Or remotely happy. "Look, I intended it as a compliment."
"We still have to deal with the reputation of the majority," said Tenbubble.
Ditzwalker shrugged. "To be fair, we can be accident-prone ourselves." A picture on the wall behind her fell and nearly shattered before telekinesis spells from every other creature in the booth caught it.
"You ran the entire Implicit Maze by accident," added the odd Ditzy out.
Tenbubble rolled her eyes. "That wasn't an accident, that was Discord. And him. Her?" She shook her head and glared at me. "You. You overcrowded the niche, and now only one of us gets the name we all deserve."
"And it's the one of us who thought ahead and filed the paperwork. So nyeh." I feel I should note that Ditzwalker was a mother well into adulthood. That didn't stop her from sticking out her tongue at her counterpart.
"Is Tenbubble really so bad?" I asked.
"No, but it's the principle of the thing. Right, girls?"
The third Ditzy wingshrugged. "At this point, I'm just annoyed that you care so much. You're almost as bad as the Derpy Anti-Defamation League."
"Hey!"
"Okay, maybe not that bad, but you're still taking this way too seriously. I haven't even picked out a name for the wider multiverse."
"Manadoo," I suggested.
Manadoo smiled. "Ooh, I like that."
"But... but..." Tenbubble looked for support, face falling.
I couldn't help but feel for her. "Look, I am sorry for leaning on a signature character-archetype combination so much that it led to this. How about a toast, and then you can all razz me for stupid stuff I've done."
"Like My Little Praetor?" said Manadoo.
I groaned. I'll never get used to my characters reading my stories. "I'm never living that down, am I?"
She smirked. "Technically speaking, you brought it up."
"Plus," said Ditzwalker, "Merodi has more copies of Fimfiction in the data vaults than we have feathers, so no. No you aren't."
Tenbubble... Well, she was smiling. I'm going to count that as a win. "So, what are we toasting?"
"Well, I'd say to Gideon, but you'd probably think that's in bad taste. I drafted War of the Spark too, after all."
"I do, yes."
"In that case..." An idea struck me and I smiled as I raised my glass. "To inspiration. May it take us in unexpected directions, and hopefully no more than once in any given one."
The three Ditzies followed suit. "To inspiration!" they chorused.