Rival Chitin

by PactOfSkyranger

Astartes (Update.)

Well, what can I say about Astartes?

Our relationship didn’t start out entirely mutual. In fact, it started on a day I did something that basically amounted to a diet.

I replaced Sci-Twi for a week.

In Crystal Prep. The austere anathema of love, overt admiration, and any positivity.

Don’t worry, any of my changelings can do most of a celestial manipulation. The remaining piece was taken up by Moondancer, and a pint of love from the common trust.

Now, you may be confused about the fact I spent a week there when the portal only opens for three days, and I only mentioned building the charger last chapter.

Well, this charger was only meant to function twice, and only for me; once at the beginning, and once at the end. The more recent charger, I buried the schematics in a hidden book in Twilight’s library basement and disassembled. Now, back to the story.

The reason this booster was so limited in passenger and use was that it required a projection of the accretion disk of the portal, amplified and directed by the correspondence book and agitated by my own changeling portal spell.

...Okay, you want simpler terms?

Basically, I brought the portal out of the mirror for a split second and charged it with the magic in Celestia’s book, which is linked to Sunset’s even across the dimensional horizon, then quickly replaced the portal into the mirror while leaving the charge, substituted one made of my own magic into the singularity, then hopped through before the portal remembered it was a changeling portal and wasn’t meant to access another dimension. Synth for the win, yo.

Don’t worry, I left Cricket, the assigned changeling, and Moondancer a note.

Moondancer awoke to the sound of a changeling’s quiet (or as quiet as it could be) chitter, the changeling in question holding a letter in his hoof.

Moondancer cracked it open, and was surprised when it read,

Moondancer,
I have accessed a powerful magic artifact that was used to banish things entirely from this dimension and gone through it.

You and this changeling (his name is Cricket) are in charge of the sun and moon for the week, and I have provided you a suite in the castle.

Also enclosed in this letter are seven pints of love to provide Cricket a bit of extra strength (I WILL be checking to see if any additional love is missing on return,) as well as detailed notes on the celestial manipulation spell.

With trust and friendship,
”Celestia”

Her eyes widened as she put on her glasses and rushed to the castle with Cricket following after.

Anyway, I popped out of the portal and happened to notice somebody.

Since the bug wings and, well, equine stature (for some reason, unlike other changelings, I don’t automatically adopt a human visage, only getting clothes when I shift manually, but it’s okay,) would be offputting, I concentrated and tensed my muscles.

Shnk.

My clawed fingertips came out, my hooves and fetlocks shifting into a pair of arms and legs while my wings were tucked under my elytra and my bones shifted.

When I was fully upright, the magic fully saw right to give me a simple pair of black shorts and a blue shirt with thin green stripes, Torpor Trance’s gold watch and spiral cutie mark emblazoned on the shirt and the side of the shorts.

I looked around, looking for someone to test my innate shifting on, when who should appear but a certain lavender-skinned girl with indigo hair with a purple and pink streak done up in a bun, wearing glasses and walking her purple and green dog. I used a brief disguise to hide my horn and “accidentally” bumped into her.

“Oh!,” she exclaimed. “I’m sorry, I was just, uh...”

I held up a hand (not clawed, of course.) “It’s fine. Tell me, what’s your name, young lady?”

Twilight stammered a bit before she finally said, “Twilight Sparkle.”

Jackpot, I thought as I asked her for a chat at her house about what she did currently and if she had a hobby.

Twilight met me in the basement, telling me she was Abacus Cinch’s prized student, the best in Crystal Preparatory.

“Cool,” I said in my best amazed impression. “I just do impressions for a living. Got a talent for doing them to the tiniest detail, even on somepo-SomeONE I just met.”

“Oh, really?,” she asked me interestedly, not seeming to notice my slip. “Show me.”

I told her not to look at me while I was doing my “impression,” and she turned away, giving me the precise opportunity to jab her neck with the special chemical in my pointer finger, a potent tranquilizer, before shifting into her shape.

I told her she could look then, and as she first laid eyes on me, I said, “Your faithful student, Twilight Sparkle,” in the exact cadence as the ends of her letters.

She seemed delighted, though as she began to ask for more, the chemical took effect and she slumped over in her chair. I imagine she was a little scared at what was happening to her, frantically thinking I had stuck her with some sort of poison.

“Don’t worry,” I said with a sincere tone to her in her last conscious moments, “it’s just a sleeping injection. Besides, it’ll be like you were never gone to begin with.”

I then dragged her into a sleeping bag I had packed (they never ask why I pack two? Jeez,) zipped it up, and left to take her life for a spin.

The atmosphere around the school was stale, especially to someone who can taste emotions on the air.

I acted like Twilight would, grateful for shift instinctual knowledge, and was concentrating on something simple when I was interrupted by bumping into a boy who looked strangely... similar to the head of this reputable school, Abacus Cinch.

The skin was a shade darker and there was a peach stripe in his lighter hair, but other than that he looked just like Principal Cinch as a boy.

I cleared my throat. “Good afternoon.” He seemed surprised I was so social, as if he had only been here today.

“Uh... do you have any relation to an Abacus Cinch? You look a lot like her,” I pointed out.

He nodded and said. “Yes, she’s my aunt. Although while I take after her in looks, my mom Megan is where I get my interests from.”

“Oh, uh, fascinating,” I said in the human Twilight’s typical shyness, cultivated by the hostile if not uncaring environment of this school. “Uh, what would those interests happen to be?”

“Oh, you know,” he said, “horseback, cryptoquantology, writing, adventure, magic, simple things. You?”

I fidgeted a bit to really sell it. “Well, mainly science, achievement, and studies into odd phenomena. Are you interested in CPA?”

He shook his head. “What? No, I’m enrolling in,” he looked from side to side and whispered, “Canterlot High.”

I chuckled. “Well, it has a good curriculum, can’t blame you, but have you heard of the bully problems?” He shook his head.

“Well, from what I hear, this girl Sunset Shimmer just appeared out of nowhere one day, and she’s ruled the school since. Other than that, it isn’t too bad.”

He quirked an eyebrow, to which I quickly said, “Want to see my laboratory?”

He perked up, and the two of us went to spend the rest of the free period there, him following me and me following Twilight’s memories of where the laboratory was.

I focused the equipment on four places; Twilight’s house, Canterlot High, Camp Everfree, and a diner somewhere.

“Why those points specifically?,” Astartes asked, to which I replied, “Call it a hunch.”

Instantly we saw at least some result; a minor magic surge from Canterlot High.

“Fascinating,” Astartes said. “I’ll investigate on site.”

“No, Astartes,” I said. “I don’t think your aunt would want you or me, in these CPA uniforms, coming from the city, tarnishing the school’s reputation by snooping around our rivals on a hunch and a singular datapoint of things that would sound crazy to put in the explanation.“

“You have a valid point, Twilight,” he said as I wrote in the book,

Minor surge, Canterlot High, day 1. Most likely suspect is the elusively forgettable girl codenamed Mist Droplet.

My thoughts were interrupted by Astartes calling to attention a huge surge from the diner! I recorded the data down, saying to Astartes that Twilight just had the idea to monitor these areas, and secretly used my telekinesis to levitate the pen and write,

Medium surge, location codenamed “Sirens’ Rocks,” day 1. Most likely suspect is the three girls codenamed Ruby Triad.

We then broke off for “my” classes, Astartes promising to mark down all the readings.

At lunch, I met with the other five main Shadowbolts.

“You seem a bit paler than your usual complexion,” Sugarcoat said as Sunny Flare pushed me.

“Oh, it’s just something from an experiment I was running yesterday,” I replied, which they bought.

They all noticed I sat with a practiced cadence, and even my shyness seemed rehearsed, but I waved off their concerns as just “going through the motions.”

They seemed to buy that too, but I saw a calculating look on Sugarcoat and Sour Sweet’s faces as they walked off.

Lemon Zest, of course, just banged her head to hard rock the whole time.

After school, I took the readings from Astartes and began to mark them down.

Three surges, one medium, two minor, Camp Everfree, day 1. Most likely suspect is the lead counselor, codenamed Plundermistress. Medium surge is cause for some small concern, as it shows a larger output of Energy E from Items LOE-1 to 7, especially 1 to 5.

Two surges, both minor, Canterlot High, day 1. Most likely suspect is Mist Droplet. Item FF is fortunately being restricted to small memories. No output assumed from Prodigal.

After arriving back in Twilight’s house, sat down in Twilight’s room, where I had moved her sleeping bag For a moment, the two of us just stared at each other.

After a while, I broke the silence. “You know, you’ve been quiet, so I might as well tell you my plan.”

This seemed to intrigue Twilight. “What kind of plan would a Judas, or Pod Person, or whatever you really are, have that wasn’t the typical kind of body snatcher plot?,” she asked.

I smirked, appreciating the old movie references, before answering, “I am keeping a journal of three points of much later interest for you for this week, and recording readings for you under coded names. I met a nice boy, and he shares the interest he thinks you have. He’ll be my lookout while ‘you’ go to all your classes and do your best.”

Twilight, and Spike, who stayed to comfort her this day, just laid down in their bag to rest while I got into Twilight’s bed, shifted away my manifested version of her glasses, and went to bed, though not before saying, “And it’s ‘changeling,’ Twi.”

Twilight graduated from “tied in a sleeping bag” to “reading in the closet” after concerns of temperature arose and I had moved her.

I had given her a listening device so she was allayed of concern that she would be missing lessons, so she waved to me as I walked to Crystal Prep.
————————
Astartes met me, his look somewhat skeptical as we entered the lab. I wondered, did he suspect me?

The first reading we got jolted those prospective thoughts out of our heads.

It was highly surprising and concerning when I got a look at it, so I quickly got out my pen and book and wrote it down.

MAJOR SURGE, Sirens’ Rocks, day 2. Most likely suspect is Ruby Triad. Highly concerning, as it means an especially extraordinary harvest of conflict and possibly Energy E to energize Items RR-1 to 3. Hopefully, concerns of a Scenario DoD-RT are unfounded.

Astartes was confused. “What’s ‘Scenario DoD-RT?,“ he asked.

I assured him it was nothing, though I still had very high levels of concern, flipping to the very first page (I had started on the second) and writing a foreword in.

I, Twilight Sparkle, have only partial responsibility for this book.

The rest goes to a skilled EE, a shapeshifter that feeds on positive emotions, who tried to take my place. He is currently detained and answering questions I have about the readings, consenting to not use Energy E under any circumstance.

He has assured me that all coded terms in this book divulge little to no information about the dimension/area codenamed Beyond the Looking Glass, where most events originate from.

Any coincidental real phenomena with the dates in this book are pure circumstance.

Astartes was busy looking at the screen, his call to attention about a minor surge from Canterlot High preceding a minor surge for the diner. I sighed and wrote.

Minor surge, Canterlot High, day 2. Most likely suspect is Mist Droplet.

Minor surge, Sirens’ Rocks, day 2. Most likely and hoped-for suspect is Ruby Triad. Such would allay my considerable concerns about Scenario DoD-RT, which involves high amounts of mental subjugation for the world.

Well, while Twilight went to classes, I decided to start a fourth inquiry in my own journal, centred around Crystal Prep. I was surprised to see a consistent blip of magic energy moving through the halls, so I wrote down some things.

Entry 1.
I don’t know why Twilight wants those documentations of this odd sort of surges, but I found a few moments to centre a spare tracer array’s readings on the academy.

Imagine my surprise when a blip appeared right off the bat! It seems to be moving to Twilight’s classes, like clockwork.

Odd... It’s a shame I don’t have any way to tell her that. I don’t think she’d be happy with my independent investigation, though, so I shouldn’t show these entries to her.

Luckily, I set the tracing program to tell me when a surge pops up on the other three sites AND I slaved the other two tracers to my phone so I can continue to provide information on the surges and consistently track the “Among,” as I have decided to call it. Wait...

It’s coming to the lab now, Twilight’s free period... I have to cut this entry short until I find a free moment.

“Hey, Astartes,” Twilight said as she came in.

I handed her the latest three surges, one minor from each area her investigation was monitoring, and she thanked me in such a sincere tone.

When the day was over, Twilight slaved the three main tracers to her phone, and I opened mine. To my shock, the Among was heading the same way as Twilight.

I was getting a fair bit frustrated, as I had no idea how the Among could just... head where she’s going without me seeing it outside of the sensor! Is it invisible? Or...? Hmm...

My suspicions piqued, I followed her to her window, wary of her parents, and opened the fifth tracer. Sure enough, the Among was in Twilight’s room. I used my directional mic to listen in.

What I heard proved my suspicions.

I got back in, shifting back to me and letting Twilight out once I was sure everyone was asleep and the door was closed.

“Interesting day?,” Twilight said to me, and I groaned, which switched to moaning as I nibbled on Twilight’s confused appreciation for what I was doing.

“Oh, you have no idea how much it takes to keep up a disguise!,” I said. “And I signed up for a week of writing the almanac of weird things.”

Twilight shook her head, chuckling, and said, “I just can’t believe you can do that so flawlessly, just step into someone’s life.”

I chuckled sheepishly and said, “To tell the truth, I outlawed replacing living people in my hive, save for in situations specifically approved by me or, if I am absent, my Honor Guard or regent. I still pride myself on my abilities, though; they’re a part of me.”

Twilight rolled her eyes smiling and said, “Do most changelings have classes on how to imitate someone?”

“To tell the truth,” I answered, “the only real experience I’ve had in it was ruling the country Beyond the Looking Glass and, well, you.”

Twilight was surprised at how experienced I was with such a low sampling, and even more when I said, “Of course, I have been playing that princess for around a millennium, and still youthful! I don’t look a day over sweet 16!”

She stared in awe, then shyly asked, “Hey, um... do you think I could see what you usually look like? You have a few differences from how I saw you when we met. I don’t even know your name!”

It was then I realized my muzzle and horn had come back, along with the fangs in my mouth as I touched them with my tongue.

I laughed. “Sure, Twi. Just so you know, how I’ll look at the end of it is how I usually look Beyond the Looking Glass.”

I shifted back into my equine shape in a wash of blue and green flame, bones reshaping to quadrupedal with muffled cracks and clawed fingers retracting, flashing my fangs in a smile and fluttering my wings. “I can’t tell you my name so easily, though I usually go by the original moniker of Torpor Trance. I’ll tell you tomorrow. Promise. It’s nice to meet you without all the other veils between us, though, Twilight Sparkle.”

She stared for a moment before asking, “Can I... pet you, your majesty?”

I was surprised, but smiled and said, “Yes, Twilight. And don’t worry about formality, please. I don’t exactly have any changelings here with me to call subjects.”

As Twilight stroked my elytra, my blue Fluttershy-style mane, and brushed my tail, I could feel the affection rolling off of her freely, and snapped it up as a pink mist. “Oh, thank you,” I said. “That affection coming off you is by far the one most decent meal I’ve had in this dimension... other than the sandwiches your mother packs, but those don’t really fill as much as this.”

Twilight blinked. “You can... sense my affection? Consume my affection?”

I nodded. “Pretty much every one of my kind is an emotivore, and hives like mine and the Chrysalians are best attuned to eating positive emotions like love, friendship, and camaraderie.”

At the end of our petting session, I curled up in the closet after shifting back into Twilight and said, “Hopefully I can pull off five more days of this flawed-flank plan.”

“Hopefully,” Twilight answered as we both drifted off to sleep.

I was so shocked, only my fatigue jarred me. The Among and Twilight were one and the same?! Incredible!

I wrote frantically in my journal about this revelation, not believing a single word I was writing.

Entry 2
Twilight is the Among! I can’t believe it!

The real Twilight seems to be not just unharmed, but on good terms with it, though...

I’ll keep quiet about this to both our parents. After all, who would believe me?

The Among doesn’t seem to mean any harm. All it seems to do other than mimicking Twilight is recording the data; I heard it, or rather him, writing while I watched the screen with those two surges. If I can find what he wrote in that time frame, maybe I can discern more of his motives.

What a week it will be... No one is going to believe this isn’t fiction, but I suppose that’s what he wants to happen. After all, it seems like a critically-acclaimed TV show at this point.

Kind of like Invader Lim, now that I think about it. Or since he can shape shift, maybe Glen 10 would be a better comparison?

Or maybe Our Petite Horse: Equan Girls? Judging by the shape, he definitely fits the Shiftling species of the main series...

I suppose instead of the Among, I’ll call him the Shiftling. Actually, that sounds too campy. Imagine it, a real Shiftling... maybe Changeling, like the Fae creature that replaces children? Yeah, that sounds easier to believe.

It’s getting late... “Twilight’s” actions tomorrow will be monitored, just like we monitor the surges.

I closed the book and, under cover of night, returned to the home of my mother, a wonderful woman with tales of fantastical lands and talking... ponies...

Well, I thought, my mother Megan certainly sounds a lot less crazy now, with this Beyond the Looking Glass place...

I noticed “Twilight” was a little fuller coloured than usual. I thought of what he said to Twilight last night.

”Pretty much every one of my kind is an emotivore...“

“...eating positive emotions like love, friendship, and camaraderie...”

From that, I deduced the reason he was paler yesterday was because of Crystal Prep’s cold atmosphere, the emotional clime housing nothing but obsession with achievement.

When he stepped to the computer to check the data on the surges in more detail, I slipped over to his book and read the first page, which painted the picture that he was either building up for a twist or not planning to say he, as Twilight, was the “cooperative EE.”

He turned to the book as I returned to the computer, wrote in the latest minor surge from Camp Everfree as I wrote in the surge data from the house last night into my journal, and left.

He followed Twilight’s apparent routine to the letter, acted just like her. In fact, it wouldn’t be wrong to say that there was no real difference between him and her.

My musings were interrupted by the alarm on my phone denoting a major surge from Camp Everfree, which he also seemed to receive, even though I couldn’t hear a thing from his phone.

When I heard the alarm on my phone, which I had tuned to a frequency only changelings could hear, I was thankful it was free period at just that moment.

“Astartes, what’s the location?,” I asked.

“Camp Everfree,” Astartes told me, and I wrote down the surge.

MAJOR SURGE,Camp Everfree, day 3. Most likely suspect is Plundermistress.

Concern is mainly unfounded, as Plundermistress’ motives stem from defending Camp Everfree from development.

It may most likely result in an abnormal wooden dome of blackberry thorns reinforced with Energy E, however, if LOE 6-7 have been added to the other 5.

Hopefully someone will make a fundraiser for the camp, and soon.

I happened to notice Astartes’ journal, but paid it no mind. Everypony has secrets, after all. The lunch bell rang, and we broke for lunch.

Astartes seemed to give me weird looks when I wasn’t looking, or at least when he thought I wasn’t looking.

When school cut out, I decided to mess with him for a bit and led him to an alley instead of just heading straight home like I usually did.

When I was out of his sight, I turned into him and bumped into him.

His reaction was odd, though. he just smirked and said, “So, you wanted to surprise me by turning into me?”

The two of us looked at each other before I turned back into Sci-Twi in a flare of green. “Your journal has observations of me, doesn’t it.”

“Yep,” he answered. “Four more days of incidents to record?”

“Yep,” I answered in turn, and we both said together, “Bring it on.”

I incorporated his journal entries and data into the book, and we both spent a nice two more days together, meeting in Sugarcube Corner on the weekends. I introduced myself as Elytra to both him and Twilight, gave him a special enchanted book similar to Sunset’s, and we’ve kept in touch to the day.

Okay, time for the next day.

This day, Abacus pried Astartes from the lab for a talk.

I only caught that she didn’t approve of his choice to go to CHS, and that Astartes not only hated the oppressive atmosphere of the academy’s “reputation,” which he implied was built with the extortion of her prized students, but he didn’t want to get into a school “just because my aunt is the principal! And that goes double for you thinking you can control my life!”

I congratulated him for sticking up to her, and we documented the next surges together in what constituted silence.

Entry 3.
Elytra, the changeling that replaced Twilight for the week, has informed me of his plans to kickstart Twilight’s research into phenomena that will occur in the not-too-distant future.

The plan was to do it by documenting a week of surges of “Energy E,” which he has confided to me to be forms of magic from “Beyond the Looking Glass.”

In return, I confided that my mother was Megan Williams, and that she spoke of a magical land of ponies.

He wasn’t insulting about what others perceived as some form of childhood delirium, and even convinced me, and I her, to write down the adventures she had, as he has somewhat confirmed they were real in some sense.

In his words, “Well, Ponyland is one magical land. I may live in another one entirely, but even I know of the Rainbows of Light and Dark, witchweed potions, the Hydian Smooze, and witches that steal the youth from foals. First Equestria, you may be obscure now, but you pack as much adventure as Fourth Equestria.”

Concerning the phenomena, he has confided that they all stem from Beyond the Looking Glass in some way. The Ruby Triad were a trio of conflict-rousing creatures banished here long ago by the legendary Pillars on his side...

Minor surge, Sirens’ Rocks, day 4. Most likely suspect is Ruby Triad.

...especially their leader, who is to only be referred to by his Element; Sorcery. Mist Droplet dug up a stone buried by Sorcery’s apprentice...

Minor surge, Canterlot High, day 4. Most likely suspect is Mist Droplet.

...who was pursuing a memory-erasing sorceress using said stone, and doing a very good job to to recording his steps. As for Plundermistress...

Minor surge, Camp Everfree, day 4. Most likely suspect is Plundermistress. It appears things have calmed down, though minor caution is advised.

...a stray wisp of Energy E in the nearby rock quarry created seven crystals, almost like the Elements for this side, which are codenamed Items LOE-1 to 7.

There’s also Prodigal, a student of Elytra’s under his “Millenial Falsity” disguise of Princess Celestia (if there is a sequel, it will most likely be about the comparison of counterparts between here and Beyond the Looking Glass) who ran away through the Looking Glass itself and became the biggest bully on Canterlot High but has no magic of her own, Gem Dust, Plundermistress’ brother and fellow counselor, named for his cover story of “Gaea Everfree’s” trail of gem dust to signify her return (interestingly, Gaea does apparently exist in some worlds,) and surprisingly, my aunt and Twilight are in under the joint codename of Accretion; Aunt Cinch only being Aunt while Twilight gets the exceedingly long codename of Sufficiently Advanced Technology Is Indistinguishable From Magic, or SATIIFM (sa-tee-fum) for short.

Mom is Light Rainbow, possibly due to her locket (it was faint, but a sweeping scan actually showed trace magic in her locket, lending credence to the confirmation that it is actually the Rainbow Of Light locket from her stories,) and the individual members of Ruby Triad are codenamed Cheesepuff (the hair is puffy and orange,) Grape (purely on colour,) and Blueberry (again, purely on colour.)

Most sapient life Beyond the Looking Glass is apparently equine in shape, though I have heard tales of anthropomorphic cats, griffons, minotaurs, and an odd mishmash creature of pure chaos called a draconequus.

Entry 4
The last day of the school week, and Elytra just snapped in the lunchroom!

He may not have turned back into what amounts to an anthropomorphic form for him (he is apparently capable of shifting his body back and forth from this state, due to being unique among changelings,) but after he was pushed down by our strongest person, he did something really unexpected.

He got out his “Torpor Trance” pendulum. (I am led to understand he only gets it out for consenting customers for his hypnosis service, or when he is REALLY ticked off.)

In a few short moments, he had the guy entirely under his thrall and blocking the entrance.

He summoned a small rabbit sized changeling creature from somewhere (possibly Beyond the Looking Glass) and once he was stung by it and it left, his injuries seemed to heal.

He partially undid the disguise to freak the Shadowbolts out, and explained that he had “been STAR-VING for some good love for the five days of the school week! You’ll have your real Twilight back in three days, I just have to compile the data with Astartes’ entries and we’ll have the draft of a book of weird things that happened this week and nobody knows how.”

Needless to say, everyone was shocked except me, since I actually knew about this.

Well, after that, I brought the real Twilight (and Spike) over to the Shadowbolts.

Abacus, shocked that she had apparently been talking to an odd creature, said, “What are your plans?”

I chuckled. “Just gathering some data, building some bridges for Twilight. Don’t worry, Principal Cinch,” I said to her, “I don’t think anybody is going to believe this more than you. Either way, I know things, and that’s why I can get it precisely correct the first time. One of those things happens to be that Beyond the Looking Glass, Daring Do is closer to the real life than anypony thinks. Now then, the postscript.”

I then got out the book, and wrote on the last page.

If you’ve read this entire book, then you’ve come to the truth.

I, Elytra, the EE “Twilight” was talking about, am the actual narrator of most of the data entries.

I interspersed the journal entries of Astartes Cinch, my newest friend in this world and my stalwart assistant, with my own data sheets when the two of us came clean about that fact that he knew, which was at the point that I had been Twilight for three whole days. I have a feeling they’ll add some intrigue to this book.

Of course, I can make one prediction of a surge for you.

Medium surge, Canterlot High, day 7. Most likely suspect... Me! That’s when I head back through the Looking Glass!

Twilight’s phone is actually the one with most of the data collection slaved to it, so she took over most of the writing for the weekend.

Oh, yeah. And by now, if you've seen any of these events, you've probably suspected that it isn't actual coincidence.

The truth... will be in our next book, Across The Boundary: A Study Of Parallels Between Our World And The Other. It's another pseudo-scientific journal detailing how similar beings across two worlds can have subtle differences (and it'll be packed with some of our personal data on the matter.)

I shut the book to prepare it for the next writings, the ones that would be Astartes and Twilight’s, and smiled as I wrote the title I had come up with.

The title, in bright gold, read,

In smaller lettering under the author names, I put,

Twilight sipped a hot cocoa as I munched on a cupcake, and Astartes wrote down more facts about changelings.

“So, Elytra, What was that creature you pulled out of nothingness?,” Twilight asked me.

I answered, “It’s a Vector. They were originally made to be covert infiltrate-and-inject units, but we mainly just use them for medical needs. The Necrosia they carry is as ethically sourced as possible, made from shed carapace instead of actual changelings, and as you saw in the cafeteria, it’s a potent medicine for changelings.”

“And, hypothetically,” Twilight asked, “what if you used it on someone who was injured, but not a changeling?”

I tensed up, dreading this question, before relaxing and saying, “I wasn’t always a changeling. It’s apparently sheer luck I’m a monarch, especially in the way I am. And like I said, the Vectors were made to inject entire cities with necrosia...”

I put down my cup of tea, “and turn them into more changelings.”

Twilight gasped as I continued. “Changelings that were stronger, but needed to be controlled by other changelings because they kept their memories. Conveniently and luckily, it can also do the opposite, but I made it illegal within my hive to convert in the first place without my approval, and mine alone. Most of my hive had their minds rewired to mine from another, one with less strict policies and monarchic corruption like love hoarding.”

Twilight and Astartes were horrified at the truth of Necrosia, but they nodded and pat me on the back when I said it was illegal in my hive to convert ponies.

“So, um,” Twilight started, “if the monarch is responsible for growing the hive,” she tensed, “does that mean-“

I slammed a hand over her mouth and yelled, ”OKAY MOVING ON NO I DO NOT OVIPOSIT OR FLANK BUMP THANK YOU THIS IS A FAMILY STORY.”

Finally, it came time to go.

Twilight and I had filled all seven chapters of the book with all kinds of things related to the topic; stories about the codenamed individuals, the rest of the surges that plagued the days, journal entries from Astartes, and finally, when it came time to go, I told Twilight, “Things will get more interesting eventually, especially after ‘Destiny Scramble’. After that, you’ll be getting some bigger surges due to the leak of magic after “Project Elementa.”

I turned to Astartes. “Keep in touch with that ‘special book,’ okay, Astartes? I’ll call you when ‘Project Eclipse’ is done; that’s when things begin for the other Twilight, and it also means I get to get off the throne Beyond the Looking Glass.”

“Other Twilight?,” Sci-Twi asked, to which I replied, “Counterparts!”

I then repeated the portal procedure and left for Equestria.

Sure enough, Twilight’s scanner picked up the magic, and she...

Well, she didn’t need to write it down, since it was there in the postscript.

She did add a special thanks to him alongside it, though.

What the next days would bring us, we didn’t know, but at least it wouldn’t be boring.

Meanwhile, I thanked Moondancer and Cricket for taking my duties for the week, and checking the trust, I commended Cricket for sticking to the seven pints.

I then ate a pint myself after my week in Crystal Prep. We shared a laugh as I showed them my “writer’s” first edition of It Came From The Statue Looking Glass, and we had a nice time of it.

And in three weeks, I would reveal myself to Equestria and Project Eclipse would be completed.

Next up to cover is... Ugh. The Gala ticket fiasco.