In the great library of the Castle of Friendship, a tense air had fallen over the room. Three Alicorn Princesses stared, dumbfounded, at the appearance of a fourth, the once-unicorn Sunset Shimmer, while a certain pink party pony’s confetti and decorations drifted slowly from the ceiling.
“Hooray!” a happy, excitable voice punctured the bubble of dread that had threatened to fall over the room. Both Twilights – Princess and unicorn – turned to one side, ready to shout down their meddlesome, if well-meaning, party planner friend.
“Pinkie! What are you… doing?” the Princess’s voice caught in her throat.
Twilight’s did as well. “… Midnight?”
Just to their side, Midnight Sparkle reared up onto her hind legs, and began to clap her hooves with wild abandon, a grin almost splitting her whole face in half.
“Congratulations!” she merrily cheered, even giggled, as confetti pooled atop her mane, “Wooo!”
On her other side, a more familiar pink party pony stared with a worried look in her eye.
“Uh, ye-yeah?” Pinkie nudged the mad not-pony with a hoof, “Midnight? Normally, I’d be right there with ya. Buuuuut…”
Midnight stared at the pink hoof presented to her, a giddy sense of curiosity wondering, idly, how they made the horseshoes blend in so well with the rest of the leg, when she finally noted that the hoof was pointing towards something.
Sunset Shimmer’s eyes blazed with untempered distress. She wasn’t even looking at Midnight, her attention wholly consumed by her feathered appendages.
Midnight’s heart sank. What’s wrong with me? Why am I so… giddy?
Sunset was saying something, just below a whisper, and she was saying it very, very quickly.
“I’m sorry,” she cried, tears streaming free as she clamped her wings down, and tried to back away from the banner, and the confetti, and all the rest of it, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”
Midnight’s mind began calculating.
She didn’t notice Celestia move past her. The ancient Alicorn strode past her world’s visitors, and her fellow Princesses, without a backwards glance.
Manic mood shifts, Midnight noted, I disregarded the Princess’s personal space. New symptom? Old? Giddiness, estimated at 15% higher than normal… make that 25%.
Before Sunset could move her own legs, and make a break for the exit, the large, voluminous white wings were around her, and pulling her close to the pony she’d harmed more than any other.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered again. More tears.
Tears streamed from Celestia’s eyes as well. “My sunshine!” she whispered back, “Oh, my sunshine!”
Midnight continued to think.
It’s been a long day. Mental fortitude goes down with stress and time. And I’ve had, what? Three separate breakdowns? Takes a lot out of a girl…
“I didn’t mean for this to happen!” Sunset cried, though with less and less urgency as she felt herself pressed into the downy coat of the pony who raised her, “I… this wasn’t planned…”
“I know,” said Celestia. Her voice was so calm, and so sweet, at that moment, that Sunset’s body, empowered as it was now, began to relax, “I know. You didn’t ask for this to happen…”
Midnight tried to focus on Sunset, and the eerily familiar Celestia. Not quite identical, she thought, besides the horse-thing. Huh, I wonder what sort of energy-to-mass conversion is going on behind the scenes with the dimension-shift? Are we still the same height? Where would her butt go when she crosses the Mirror…?
So focused on her thoughts, her sudden calculations, was Midnight, that she hardly noticed the Princess Twilight pass by her, in a bit of a stupor.
“How did this happen? I thought you said…” she stared, agog, at the sight of an Alicorn Sunset Shimmer.
Celestia pressed her head into the top of Sunset’s mane, “I don’t know, Twilight. I really don’t know.”
“What’s going on?” Twilight asked of her pony doppelganger, passing by a still-perplexed Midnight without noting the way her eyes were now darting about the room.
The Princess, giving her unicorn self a questioning look, answered swiftly.
“Celestia was visited by a Sunset from the future. But… she was a unicorn at the time. And an old one, at that…”
“Split timeline,” Midnight offered halfheartedly, her mind still miles away as she spoke.
“Split what?” Luna raised her eyebrows, already on edge, “What was that?”
Midnight waved down the question with a hoof, her eyes fixed on something none of them could see. “Some old theory by Mage Meadowbrook. Sunset from a timeline showed up, but not this timeline.”
She didn’t notice the stares coming from either Princess Twilight, Luna, nor Celestia and Sunset.
Twilight, whose eyes lingered on her sister for another moment, turned to the others, and said, "Uh... when Midnight... when I became Midnight, we had the ability to learn about magic, as long as we were in contact with it. She's been picking up things since the Friendship Games, Camp Everfree... we learned all kinds of things, even during the whole Crystal Empire thing, when she took the Crystal Heart."
"Really?" Princess Twilight's eyes widened, noticeably. "She can do that?"
Twilight nodded. "Well, both of us can. She's just better at it."
She returned her attention to her sister, who was now pacing across the floor.
"Midnight?" she ventured.
“Hm,” Midnight paused, and turned to look at the ceiling, “Suppose it could also have been a bootstrap paradox… or a predetermination paradox? Sunset might have to put on some old-mare-makeup and take a time-trip at some point to keep things in line…”
Twilight pressed again, “Midnight?”
“Ooh!” Midnight’s eyes widened, and looked right past her sister, “We could do an experiment! Someone, er, somepony! Get a 4th level Ward spell in place around a teacup. Or Spike. Six of one, half dozen of the other. It should only take a few applications of a chronolocomotive spell to…”
Midnight’s mind began to race, as did her voice. She started speaking, faster and faster, as mystical knowledge came pouring out of her at speed. Even Pinkie Pie began backing away slowly, nearly exiting the library entirely.
“Midnight!” Twilight called again, but her sister didn’t seem to hear her.
“We need a conductor!” Midnight cried out, suddenly, wind whipping around her, though what caused it, she couldn’t tell. Things just… happened in Equestria, it seemed.
Twilight’s face was doing… something. Something with emotions. Midnight couldn’t quite make it out, through the haze of Science wafting through her thoughts.
Need to study that, she noted to herself. See what’s bothering her. Once we see if Time can be split like an atom…
“Crystal conducts magical energy, right?” She looked over, questioningly, to Princess Luna, whose horn was roaring with deep, blue magic. In fact, a similar, golden light blazed from Princess Celestia as well.
Fascinating!
“MIDNIGHT!” Twilight’s voice finally slipped past the dull hum that had started to fill the air about her.
Midnight blinked, and tried to concentrate.
What… what’s going on?
Midnight narrowed her eyes, and noted, finally, how the magic flowing from Luna and Celestia almost… no, precisely looked to be some sort of offensive magical spells. Firbolg’s Blast, if the stream of unbidden magical knowledge sweeping across her memory was anything to go by; the most standard, and upscale-able magical blasts available to unicorns and Alicorns.
But… the blasts weren’t connecting.
Why are they firing at me?
“She’s absorbing it!” a voice shouted.
Celestia? Or, was that Sunset? Why can’t I tell, anymore?
This was all very curious. Midnight could hardly contain her excitement! More magic? More mystery? How thrilling! How fun!
“…Record’s Syndrome, on steroids…!” Twilight, the Princess, cried out.
Record Syndrome, Midnight’s mind recited as magic poured into her, A genetic disease discovered by Akashic Record, Celestia’s original Royal Surgeon. Record’s causes the mystical Mana Channels in the body to be overdeveloped, and become stuck in a permanent ‘on’ position, thereby increasing a unicorn’s mana draw to almost infinite levels, while also causing chronic nerve damage over time. A uniquely unicorn disease, its widespread existence is due to deliberate selective breeding gone amuck during…
There was something wrong, a ringing in her ears.
The whole library was shifting colors now, from its typical purple hue, to a light, though sinister, aquamarine shade…
This is wrong, an intrusive thought suddenly cried out, Something is wrong here. Stop. Think. Think. Calculate.
Time slowed, for Midnight. The whirl of thoughts, panicked fears, and calculations were too much. But, little by little, she began to see the bigger picture, the pattern overlaid the world.
Magic.
The very air, so crisp and clear in Equestria, was absolutely saturated with magic. The ground held it like water after a soft rain. It was inherent to every facet of crystal, every page in every book, and every breath taken by everypony, every creature everywhere. The entire cosmos here was made of magic. There was no escaping it.
And, as Midnight's body reacted with those magical energies, there was no escaping her.
Midnight could see the magic flowing through the world, and she could see it seeping into her skin beneath her coat, her hooves, her eyes and mane.
Her wings, black as night, opened to accept more, and more magic.
This is wrong.
Fight this.
But the magic kept flowing. And her legs kept refusing to move. She couldn’t get back to the portal like this. Couldn’t escape the inexhaustible supply of intoxicating, mind-shattering magic that lay at her hooftips. The edge of her vision began to darken, to fall into darkness.
Her world was becoming a Shadow.
She pleaded with herself.
Move.
The Shadow refused.
No, it responded.
We can't stay here, she shook her head, and grit her teeth, Equestria will be ripped apart.
No, said the Shadow, More. We need more Magic. All of it.
It continued, sneering at Midnight in her own voice, This is what you want. What you always wanted. Magic. Knowledge. Power. Not f̵r̸i̶e̸n̶d̴s̸h̶i̸p̶.
Move! she cried.
Move. Move... MOVE!
Midnight's body betrayed her. She stood still, at the heart of a magical cyclone.
Her eyes met Sunset’s, and a terrible truth dawned in Midnight’s mind.
This, she wailed in her heart, This is the Friendship Games all over again.
Sunset’s eyes were still wet, still weeping. Horror radiated from her. She saw it too.
Midnight’s eyes were steaming, their water burning away from the intensity of the magic flowing through her.
“Help…” she strained to speak through gritted teeth, “… me…”
Three Alicorn Princesses, throwing out waves of magical might, could not dislodge her. Midnight, wrapped in a cocoon of magic, eyes burning with aqua flames, wings of shadow outstretched, could not be moved.
The crystal floor at her feet… hooves… began to boil.
“Twilight…” she thought she said, though thought and speech were feeling harder and harder to make out, “Don’t let me… don’t let me do this…”
Through the strain of magic unleashed, Midnight thought… thought she could still make out the other unicorn through the wall of blue flames that reared up around her.
Stop me.
Please.
“Midnight!”
There was that voice again.
And then, there was Twilight, flying towards her… wings outstretched.
Watching the young unicorn be so consumed by dark magic had, at first, horrified the elder Princesses, who had each in their time seen such a fate befall others, never to be saved from themselves. The fact that this one bore the face of Celestia’s most faithful of students only heightened her own fear and anxiety.
No magic they summoned could stop it, though they each tried valiantly. Midnight herself seemed to resist the darkness… to no effect. All of them were preparing for what must come next, a true battle in the halls of the Castle… when the unexpected happened.
The Twilight from the other world threw herself into the flames.
A torrent of magic bloomed with a light brighter than the sun. The column of magic burst, and swept aside all shadows. Even Luna was seemingly dispelled, and her astral construct failed, for a moment.
As the light faded, the Princesses, Pinkie – hiding by the door – and a distraught Sunset Shimmer, beheld something totally new. A dark purple Alicorn stood at the base of the Mirror portal. In every respect, it was like looking at a second Princess Twilight, only in darker shading, with an aqua stripe running alongside the normal pink. Her wings were black, like those of a hawk, and held themselves outstretched.
Her eyes, as they opened, were almost normal, save for the burning blue corona, which formed across her brow.
“I’m sorry,” she said, her horn briefly flaring into aquamarine light, “We didn’t know… I have to go.”
Her eyes met Sunset’s, for just a moment. Midnight, from her fused form, could see nothing but confusion in her friend’s gaze. If she could see through Sunset’s eyes, she wondered if she would see the aching regret that now filled her sobered soul.
Twilight/Midnight’s horn re-lit, and with a pop and a flash of light, she was gone, the Mirror’s surface rippling with their passage.
Outside of Canterlot High School, a gaggle of teen girls (and one boy with a busted arm) still stood, vigilant beneath the darkening sky, and in waiting anticipation of their friends’ return.
Pinkie Pie was swapping recipe ideas with Cookie Apple, Sonata, who each had something of an interest in food. Even Applejack, who never much cared for anything 'fancy', was suddenly intrigued by the notion of an Apple Taco, and wished to learn more. Rarity was giving Trixie a bit of a lecture on hair care, noting the drab state of the blue girl after one too many drops into the school swimming pool, and possibly one too many visits to the Burn Ward after a firework mishap.
While Trixie outwardly seethed at the implied insult to her skills - magic, fashion, or hair care, it didn't matter precisely - , she was mentally jotting down every word spoken.
And, finally, Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash were having two very different conversations at once with Oakley and Cinnamon Apple.
“So, hooves or toes?” Fluttershy cooed, her great pool-like eyes running up and down Cinnamon’s form with a practiced, veterinarian precision, “Which do you prefer, now that you’ve gotten practice with both?”
Cinnamon leaned away from the deranged animal-lover, and raised one eyebrow at her behavior.
“Uh, toes? I guess?” she shrugged, and glanced down at her boot-covered feet, “Toes are kinda ticklish, but they also feel really good when you squish mud in between ‘em…”
“How fast!?” Rainbow Dash’s snarl itself almost broke the sound barrier, causing most of the girls to flinch.
“Heh,” Oakley grinned, and laid his accent on as thick as butter, “Ah think ya’ll know what Ah said.”
Dash fired back, “There’s no way you’re faster than me! Magic or not!”
“You wanna bet?” Oakley leaned in, a self-assured grin on his lips.
Dash grinned back, and ground her knuckles into her palm, “You’re on, horse-boy!”
“Oakley!” Applejack shouted over them both, “Don’t you dare git inta another scuffle!”
“Darling!” Rarity joined her in admonishing Rainbow Dash, “His arm is still broken!”
To which, Dash scoffed, “Pfeh! You don’t need arms to run a race! What’re we betting?”
“Phone numbers!” he said, quickly, eyes narrowed.
Dash snorted, and almost held out a hand to shake.
“You’re o—”
She blinked. Then, her scowl began to slowly shift from playful… to something a bit more disgruntled.
“Has that ever worked?” she snorted.
Oakley shrugged, “First time I tried it. Did it work?”
Cinnamon let out a disappointed groan.
“Hey, AJ?” she asked her cousin, “Geldin’s illegal fer humans, right?”
“I can’t believe this!” Rarity, still hanging onto Applejack’s arm, shrieked while turning red, “I just broke this man’s heart, and he’s already working his… his wiles on another woman? And on Rainbow Dash, to boot!?”
Dash flashed another scowl Rarity's, indignantly crying, “Hey!”
“Actually, he was like that as a horse, too,” Applejack shrugged, “Never all that picky. Whene’er we switched his feed, he always jes went along with it.”
“Darling? Did you just compare me… to horse feed?”
“Um… horse feed is very healthy, and… uh, nutritious…”
“Do not help her, Fluttershy!”
During this entire exchange, Pinkie, Cookie, and Sonata continued to quietly munch on a pack of popcorn Pinkie had brought out… from somewhere. This was good entertainment, as far as any of them were concerned. Even Trixie, though seemingly uninterested in the suspect popcorn, was quite interested to see where this all ended up.
That was, until the space in front of the statue’s portal flashed with bright, magical light. Every head turned, but with differing intentions. While most seemed excited to see their friends’ return, at least Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Rarity seemed to notice, right away, how the light seemed more… aqua than the usual silvery white.
These three each crouched, slightly, bodies tensing as a honed sense of danger alerted them.
Though, even they were completely unprepared for what they saw, and heard.
Indeed, who amongst them had ever really seen an Alicorn in person?
“Stupid!” Midnight cried out, snarling, tears in her eyes, “I can’t believe we didn’t account for that!”
“Midnight, it’s okay!” Twilight’s voice cracked as it echoed from the still-glowing horn, “The Princess will understand…”
Midnight, however, wasn’t listening. She stomped the ground, hard, leaving a horseshoe imprint almost a foot deep with her current, earth pony strength.
Cinnamon glanced towards Oakley, who had been mercifully struck dumb and silent, at least in her opinion, by the appearance of a magical talking pony princess…
“Oh, I’m sure she’ll understand!” she said, waving one foreleg about, not noticing her lack of fingers, “She’ll understand that she can’t trust the Magic Addict who’ll doom any dimension she comes across!”
Applejack managed to close her mouth, at last, by this point. But she found she really had nothing yet to say about what was going on. What was there to say?
Howdy Twi, Midnight. Why’re you still horses?
Twilight stammered, “She… we can find a way around this. Maybe do coursework she can send over through the portal?”
Wings ruffled, and whichever sister was in charge of their nose – muzzle? – gave a little snort.
“Face it! She can’t bring us over there now! And any magic books she tosses over here will probably… I don’t know! Turn into monsters or something!”
Pinkie Pie glanced, worriedly, from Midn… uh, Twi…?
She glanced back and forth, between the Sparkle Sister, and then each of their friends in turn. All of them seemed just as confused as she was, and so she elected to not say anything yet.
The purple Alicorn dropped her rump onto the ground, heaving an exasperated sigh. She planted her face into her forehooves, and grit her teeth.
“The one time something goes right in my life,” her voice began to crack, “and life takes it back…”
In the silence that followed, Trixie Lulamoon nodded, slowly. She seemed to have a solid grasp of the situation, and her Bestie was clearly in emotional turmoil. She knew, without a doubt, what to do.
And so, she took one, deep breath, raised her hand…
“Um, Midnight?” Twilight’s voice returned, instantly causing the blue stage magician to pause.
“What?”
“We still have hooves.”
They lowered their forelegs, and stared at the most perplexing sight.
“Hm… you’re right. Pony things. That’s new.”
Twilight’s voice somehow carried, with it, the sensation of scratching one’s chin, as she asked, “What do you think caused that?”
Midnight shrugged their shoulders, and continued to stare.
“I suppose it might have something to do with how we… teleported…”
Her voice trailed off. Rarity was about to ask… well, she wasn’t sure what she was going to ask, but it was high time, in her opinion, that someone ask something… only to notice something else.
There was a look in their friends’ eye. A look she’d only seen whenever Twilight had gotten something very… mad sciency in her head.
Their pupils shrank to dots, and their mouth hung open.
“Twilight…” Midnight gasped, “We teleported through the portal. We didn’t…”
“… didn’t walk through it, like normal,” Twilight cut in, her own voice hushed, and contemplative, “We know that physical matter…”
“… transforms when crossing the dimensional barrier. But…” Midnight started scratching her hoof into the ground with a furious speed, “… but magic…”
“… and energy!” Twilight added, while she took control over the other hoof, and began adding her own calculations to the scratches in the dirt.
Sonata glanced up at Fluttershy, who shook her head and pointed back towards Cookie. Cookie shrugged, and looked to Rainbow Dash. And Rainbow Dash, true to form, made a rude gesture when she noticed Trixie grinning at the very idea.
Twilight suddenly became giddy herself.
“And we know Magic follows certain radiological models…”
“Which means…”
The purple Alicorn paused. A huge, face-splitting grin settled onto her features, and she stood up from the ground.
“Ha! It all makes sense, now!” they cried out, in one voice, “It finally makes sense!”
Fluttershy opened her mouth, perhaps to ask what made sense, but more likely to ask if she could pet them.
But the Sparkle Sisters weren’t done.
“Be back, guys!” Twilight called out, and turned their body back towards the portal. The Alicorn crouched low, and seemed to brace herself in a sprinting stance.
“Testing Hypothesis in three!” Midnight crowed, “Two! One!”
And with that, they threw themselves back through the portal, leaving nothing behind but a shimmer of silver light, and the silence of ten desperately confused teenagers.
Only one, of which, had figured out just what they wanted to say.
“Okay,” Rainbow Dash pointed at where her friend had just been, “What the fu--?”
“… and until she can keep herself under control,” Princess Twilight Sparkle sighed, finishing her pronouncement, “I can’t, in good conscience, have her here during our lessons.”
“Yeah, I know,” Sunset shook her head, “It’s just… this meant so much to both of them.”
The library was almost silent, as the four Alicorns stood in a sort of broken contemplation. The only sound that ruined the atmosphere was Pinkie Pie, still sweeping up the confetti and banners left lying about from her ill-timed attempt at celebration.
Luna hummed, and mused, quietly, “I suppose I could teach them through the Dreamrealm… though the applicability would be negligible…”
“And, I can’t just give them magic tomes or something like that,” Twilight waved one hoof about, irritably, “That world has already been messed up because Starswirl kept dumping his magical problems there!
“Not…” her eyes winced as she began a delicate process of backpedaling through that last remark, “Not that he didn’t have the best of intentions, I’m sure…”
As Twilight continued to speak, it all seemed to fall by the wayside for Sunset Shimmer. The golden unicorn – now Alicorn – couldn’t quite sit still. It wasn’t just that her wings kept twitching, and that her feathers tickled her sides. She could feel a sort of nervous energy in her legs, in her hooves.
She felt like a part of her wanted to… to just go running, and never stop. Never look back.
If only the other part of her didn’t want to lay down and alternate between laughing and crying, she might even have done just that.
But I won, she thought, miserably. I actually, finally, got exactly what I wanted. The selfish, egotistical pony got to be an Alicorn…
Sunset’s thoughts suddenly derailed, as something… touched the top of her head. A weight settled there, and it took several long seconds for her to look up, and note Princess Celestia’s head resting atop her own.
She’d never seen such a contented look on her old teacher’s face. Never, in all the years Sunset known her.
“The long way around…” the ancient Alicorn sighed, a genuine smile gracefully touching her features.
“Uh, Princess?” she whispered, not quite sure if she was more worried for Celestia, or scared.
“Please, it’s just Celestia between us, Sunset,” the Princess said, wrapping one long foreleg around her in a hug.
Sunset blushed, but nuzzled into the welcome contact.
“I… I don’t know about that,” she said, “It’d feel weird, you know?”
Celestia laughed, “Why should it? We’re equals now.”
“Yeah… we’re…”
Sunset’s heart stopped.
“C-come again?”
Celestia smiled, beatifically, down at her once-protégé.
“You’re an Alicorn now, Sunset Shimmer,” she said, in a voice brimming with affection, “And that means that you are also a…”
Sunset tore her way out of Celestia’s grasp with newfound vigor. The alabaster Alicorn stood, stunned, as Sunset scampered back, and threw a fearful gaze back up at her old mentor.
She cried out, “N-no! Not that!”
Celestia looked almost hurt, standing there, wings fidgeting at her side, forelegs still miming their lost hug.
“I… what did I say?”
Luna and Twilight’s attention focused on the exchange. A silent look between the two confirmed that neither wanted to take a single step towards whatever this was, unless completely necessary.
Naturally, Pinkie Pie continued to pick up confetti that had somehow gotten behind the bookcases.
Sunset took a breath, and set her shoulders, which came with the unfamiliar tickling of feathered wings, again. But she was able to push that aside, and open her mouth to protest…
When another burst of energy rocked the Mirror.
The mechanical wizardry – and actual wizardry – that made the Mirror functional more than once every thirty moons, began to whir and crackle with arcane energies. The Mirror hummed and groaned, shaking in its mechanical frame until it flashed with silver light.
And a most peculiar creature stepped into Equestria from beyond…
“Hypothesis confirmed!!!” Midnight howled in triumph, pumping the air with her human arms.
Twilight’s voice leapt out from her glowing horn, “Oh! This is so exciting! There are so many new theories to test now! So many ideas!”
Midnight laughed, and looked down at their shared form. She noted the inclusion of her dark purple pants since the last time they…
Did we really only do that last Monday? she wondered. This has been a loooong week.
But, as the fused Sister admired their newfound use of human fingers, they quickly had to address the elephant in the room. Or, rather, the four Alicorns.
Princess Twilight’s mouth had gone completely slack, her mind most likely in the process of a total reboot. Sunset Shimmer, standing only a few feet behind her, currently had a twenty-yard stare etched onto her face, no doubt from the rapid-fire nature of her day thus far.
Pinkie Pie, meanwhile, was jotting something down into a pad of paper that looked remarkably similar to a party planning pad.
And the other Princesses…
“What in Equestria is that thing!?”
“It’s like… like a chicken missing its feathers! Luna! KILL IT WITH FIRE!”
… were seemingly acting their age.
Princess Twilight, Sunset, and Pinkie Pie leapt to the rescue, quickly setting themselves up as a barrier between the Sparkle Sister and the Royal Sisters.
“Wait!” Sunset waved her hooves and wings in front of Luna’s face, blocking her line of fire, “That’s Midnight… er, Twilight…?”
“That’s just what humans look like when they’re channeling Equestrian magic!” Princess Twilight added, “Take a deep breath! Remember what Cadance taught me? In and out!”
As the Princess began detailing her well-known breathing exercise, Pinkie Pie took up the slack. She stopped bouncing, for the moment, and called upon her considerable charade-skills. As she delved into a long-winded description of her own thoughts, her hooves swept this way and that in order to properly provide the necessary visuals to her small, elite audience.
“Yeah! Minus the horn and wings – which Sunny’s friends all get when they use their magic to Pony-Up (trademarked!) – that’s basically how they look normally, or as normal as you can look when you and your nearly-identical twin sister call on your former connection as being one creature to fuse back into a hybrid form!
“And I bet…!” she swiveled around, mid-miming two humans smashing together like used bubblegum, and hopped over the Sparkle girl to emphasize her point, “… that you’ve figured out – since Midnight has some sort of magic addiction, she can’t be in Equestria that long – something about magic and the portals that you’ve been hinting at since the last story, and now you’re here to tell us all about it and move the plot forward!!!”
She followed this with a squee.
Many eyes were on Pinkie Pie. They weren’t surprised, necessarily, by her outburst. It was just that Princess Twilight, Celestia, and Luna had long ago learned to listen when Pinkie Pie started talking like that, and Sunset was amazed that the pony-version of her friend didn’t seem to need to breathe during speeches, either.
Then, the eyes swiveled up to the fused Sparkle.
“Actually, yeah,” Midnight nodded, “That was about right.”
“She only missed one thing,” Twilight hummed through their horn.
“Awww…” Pinkie slumped, “What’d I miss!?”
Midnight’s eyes flared to aquamarine life, and a fell wind began to blow.
“Your explanation took too long. I can't stay to explain.”
Pinkie’s eyes shrank. “Oh…”
Blue flames licked at the edges of Midnight’s wings, as she looked up towards the array of pony royalty charging their horns. She could feel her sister’s willpower holding that thirst, that need, for Equestrian magic at bay, for now.
But that wouldn’t last. They didn’t have much time.
She locked her gaze with the Princess Twilight’s, and smirked.
“Keep the portal open, Princess,” she said, Twilight’s magic building around her, forming the teleportation spell, “I’ll explain… in a safe way… soon!”
There was a flash of light…
…and the fused girl was back in Canterlot City, standing in the cooling late afternoon air, staring at the blank face of the Wondercolt statue plinth.
She breathed in. There was a scent on the wind. It was almost like something Rarity wore, one of those obscenely smelly, expensive perfumes. But, in that moment, as the high of mystical energy faded away, the stench of Prench vanilla bean and some sort of essence smelled like something else.
It smelled like victory…
“GET HER!”
“Where did you even get that much rope!?” Midnight snarled, incredulously, as she struggled against her bonds, “This is too tight, I can’t teleport!”
After nine high school students - minus the injured Oakley - had unceremoniously dogpiled atop the still-fused Twilight-Midnight, the hybrid girl had been so stunned that Applejack and her cousins managed to tie her down with ease. Even after de-fusing, and returning to being two separate people, the ropes seemed to have kept their bonds tight, holding each girl in a separate rope-cocoon on the ground.
As it turned out, even being hopped-up on Equestrian magic didn’t make one immune to a sailor’s knot.
"Ah, shucks!" Oakley laughed, holding what looked like a whole spool of hempen rope, "No Apple would leave home without their lasso!"
Cinnamon, standing nearby, shrugged, saying, "Rope's are too useful to just... not have."
Applejack, strategically placed in a sitting position atop Midnight’s back, laughed, “Fer horses, they sure picked up on family traditions right quick!”
“Well, not letting either of you move or teleport was the general idea, darlings,” Rarity looked down, sympathetically, at her two, near-identical, possibly-finally-driven-over-the-edge friends, “Though, fret not! This is all for your own protection.”
Twilight spat out a clump of grass, and said, “Really? Our protection!?”
“This is ridiculous,” Midnight groaned, “Let us go, and we’ll explain everything!”
“Just hang on a few more seconds,” Pinkie sat, cross-legged, atop Twilight’s back, checking her phone, “Dashie should be back with our ‘Sparkle Scanner’ soon!”
“Sparkle Scanner?” Midnight frowned, “What’s…?”
A blue blur streaked around the corner, and came to a sizzling-fast stop just in front of Fluttershy and Sonata, who stood by the statue. A rush of wind accompanied Rainbow Dash as she skidded to a final stop. To everyone's mutual embarrassment, she then dabbed, and strutted up to the Sparkle sisters.
“Don’t worry, everybody!” she called out, a sickly-looking dog in her arms, “I got him!”
She planted Spike down onto the grass, and stepped away to give him room. Then, she pointed out the two bound girls, and added, “Spike’s a dog. Dogs are their human’s best friend. So, we figured he’d know what was going on with you two!”
“I think you broke him,” Twilight frowned, noting the way Spike just sort of stood there.
Spike didn’t move for several seconds. He stared at, seemingly, nothing.
Then, the purple puppy, calmly and carefully, heaved his guts up onto the school lawn.
Dash flinched, at the sight, and began shifting to an embarrassed shade of red.
“Ah, sorry about that, little guy…”
“Could you have waited five more minutes!?” Spike growled in between dry gasps, “I was still digesting my dinner…”
Fluttershy was at his side in a hot second, a soft, comforting scratch behind the ears for Spike, and a withering glare for Rainbow Dash.
“Oh, you poor thing!” she cooed, “Would eating some grass… or maybe your own sick help your stomach feel better?”
Spike shook free from the animal lover’s – admittedly wonderful – hand, and snorted.
“Ew! That’s gross! Why would I do that!?”
“But…” she frowned, “That’s what dogs do. Right?”
Spike paused. His ears perked up, and his eyes narrowed. He looked up at Fluttershy… and then slowly turned back to his sick.
“Uh… right…” he said, without enthusiasm. The puppy leaned forward, tongue sticking…
“Nope!” he cried out, shaking his head like he was trying to lose a flea, “I can’t! That’s… it’s disgusting!”
Spike made a gagging sound, and started backpedaling away from the mess. Once he’d cleared a bit of distance, the sickened dog stopped, and shook his head a few more times, likely banishing the thought from his mind.
“Everything good there, Spike?” Rainbow said, gingerly, “You, ah… you need a belly rub?”
“I’ll pass, thanks,” he growled, and shot the… that… a disdainful look.
Though, from where Midnight was laying down, it almost looked like he was… sad? It was a passing emotion across his little puppy face, but she was certain she's seen... something.
It was the same look she saw in the mirror each morning.
But, before she could ponder that further, Spike finally seemed to notice his masters.
“Guys? Why’re Twilight and Midnight tied up?”
“Ooh! Ooh!” Pinkie jumped up, with a hand raised and waving like she was hoping to get picked for a game, “I know this one! I know this one!”
Applejack, however, answered first. She got up, off of Midnight’s back, and walked towards Spike and the others.
“They’re acting screwier than a squirrel in a nut factory,” she said, hooking one thumb under her hat, and another over her shoulder at the pair, “They went over ta Equestria, to see if’n Sunset was an Alicorn or not, then they pop back here lookin’ like horses…”
“Ponies…” Fluttershy muttered, unheard, except by the three Apple cousins, who nodded in agreement.
“… but they’re jes’ one horse at tha time!” the farm girl went on, without pause, “Then they start goin’ crazier than usual…”
“I feel like I’m being attacked here,” Midnight scowled.
To which, Twilight demonstrably tugged on her ropes, and said, “You were attacked.”
“… whoopin’ an a-hollerin’!” Applejack continued, becoming more and more animated as she went on, “An then they go back…”
“Okay! Okay! Stop!” Spike jumped up to his hind legs, and waved down the verbal waterfall. Once Applejack paused in her recollection, he sat back down, and started scanning the faces all around him.
“So,” Spike’s brows knitted together, “Let me get this straight. You’re freaking out… because Twilight and Midnight were acting excitable?”
Sonata scratched at her head.
"That was excitable?" she asked, "They looked like they were going crazy!"
"And...?" Spike frowned, and raised a single eyebrow towards his human friends, "How was that different from how Twilight always was?"
There was a moment of silence. Rarity coughed, daintily. Fluttershy scuffed her shoe on the ground.
Dash just looked away.
“Well… when you put it like that…”
“Hang on a minute!” Pinkie Pie cried out. She hopped her way over to the two bound girls, and started waving her hands between them. “They were the same person again! Isn’t that some sort of crazy Equestrian magic thingamajiggie going down?”
“Nah,” Spike scratched idly at his ear with a backpaw, “Well, maybe. They just do that.”
“Since when!?” Rainbow Dash shouted, running both hands through her hair.
“Since Monday,” Spike answered, as casually as if he were commentating on the weather, “Left a big old scorch mark in the middle of the rug, too!
“Not that I’m complaining,” he looked back towards Midnight, in particular, “I mean, that scorch mark is the only time you smell like the Old Twilight, you know?”
He gave a little sniff, and closed his eyes.
“Huh… smells a little like that here…”
The Rainbooms, the Apple cousins, Trixie, and Sonata, all watched in awkward silence as Spike began sniffing the air appreciatively. None of them much seemed to want to make eye-contact at just that moment, instead preferring to watch their own shoes, their hands, or the very first stars starting to come out in the evening sky. The sun was now dipping into the horizon, and the sky was beginning to shift from orange, to a purple hue.
Finally, Applejack took a deep breath, and blew it out, wearily, through her nose.
“Alright,” she sighed, “So… nothin’ weird or freaky’s goin’ on? It’s just them bein’... them?”
“Hey!” Midnight snarled.
Twilight snorted, laughing.
Spike nodded, and said, “Yeah. No more weird or crazy than usual.”
Another moment of silence followed, though this one was, blessedly, short-lived.
“Does anyone besides Trixie think we may have overreacted?”
Twilight raised an eyebrow, and said, with her voice dripping with sarcasm, “Gee, you think?”
“Nice sass, sis,” Midnight nodded, appreciatively.
“I try..."
Fluttershy stepped forward, and knelt down in front of the bound twins, still laying on their fronts in the grass.
“We’re sorry, Twilight, Midnight…” she nodded to each in turn, “We were just—”
Twilight just shook her head, and gave her shy friend a gentle smile.
“It’s alright, Fluttershy,” she said, a slight blush coming over her, “Truth be told, this is just as much my fault for not telling you and the girls about the fusion thing. I didn’t want to worry anyone if it turned out to be nothing. And… for still worrying you all, I’m sorry.
“As for all this? We forgive you. Right, Midnight?”
Her sister just snorted, growling, “No! I demand restitutions! Blood for blood! A pound of flesh!”
Rainbow Dash squinted her eyes, watching the furious purple girl with a confused expression.
“Uh, that was a joke… right?”
Midnight stared back, flatly. Then, she sighed, and settled her chin onto the hard ground.
“Yes, Dash. It was a joke,” she said, her voice softening as she went, “You girls are basically the best thing that ever happened to me. To Twilight. I’d never hold something like this against you…
“But I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t appreciate having these ropes off me, now.”
Applejack sprang into action. She knelt between the Sparkle twins, and worked each knot one-handed. Moment by moment, slack returned to their bonds, until both Twilight and Midnight were free.
Midnight stood up, and quickly went through a few stretches she’d seen Dash doing before a run or a game. She started by pulling on both her arms, high above her head, and then moved to touching her toes, and doing a few quick lunges. Finally, having worked out all the kinks, she breathed a relieved sigh.
“Now, if you don’t mind,” she said, reaching back into her pockets, and pulling out her phone, “We have some Science to do!”
Rarity cleared her throat, drawing Midnight’s attention.
“Yes, Rarity?" Midnight frowned. "Need something?”
“Well, my dear,” Rarity gave what was clearly meant as an apologetic smile, “While you and Twilight were together, as it were – and don’t think we’re not all curious about what’s going on there – you seemed quite absorbed in your little calculations.”
“And…?” Midnight's frown deepened as Rarity's question dragged itself out.
“Ahem, yes, well,” Rarity tapped her fingers together, nervously, “You haven’t actually explained what that was all about. The… manic way you were acting, or how you two became so excited, and over what…”
Midnight’s whole body visibly sagged.
“Eugh,” she groaned, “Do I have to?”
But, one look around at the eager faces of her friends told Midnight that she really didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. Not that anyone looked particularly demanding…
They just looked concerned. For her. Twilight too, presumably. But it almost looked like they cared about Midnight.
No one ever cared about me before...
She sighed. And smiled, faintly.
And now, they all do.
“Right… so, when we got to Equestria…”
“But Sunset…!”
“I said ‘No’!” Sunset Shimmer said, seemingly for the six or seventh thousandth time. She stood in the Mirror room, still, in the heart of a circle composed of three Alicorn Princesses and Pinkie Pie.
The strange departure, reappearance, and second departure of the fused Twilight and Midnight Sparkle had caused a great amount of turmoil for the assembled ponies. But, with Sunset unable to answer any of their questions, the topic naturally drifted back to what had initially caused Sunset’s distress.
Said distress had, happily, subsided for the moment. There were only so many loving assurances from Celestia that Sunset could take before she grew weary of being angry at herself, horrified over her newfound transformation, and utterly miserable at how she didn't entirely hate the sensation of being an Alicorn. Besides, Luna had "helpfully" explained that such delusions of guilt and misery would return eventually, so Sunset had an eternity to sulk over what had happened.
Luna had also made that clear when she warned Sunset about creating self-punishing dream golems. Good advice, most likely, but not the sort Sunset needed right now.
Mostly, she needed advice on how to avoid becoming royalty.
“I’m… actually not sure if it’s even up to us,” Celestia pondered, a golden-shoed hoof tapping her jaw in thought, “Starswirl wrote the Equestrian Constitution, practically by himself, to be air-tight on this. All Alicorns are considered Princesses…”
“But I didn’t earn these!” Sunset waved her wings awkwardly at her side, and groaned, “You’re not supposed to be a Princess without earning it!”
Luna muttered, quietly, to herself, "That's not actually a qualification, or else Tia and I..."
Twilight, having otherwise stayed out of the mother-daughter-like bickering over titles and personal self-worth, snorted, and asked, “What about Flurry Heart? She's as much a Princess as any of us!”
"That's different!" Sunset waved one wing, awkwardly, to emphasize her point, "I really don't want to debate Democracy versus Monarchy with another Twilight Sparkle. So, I'll just say, she's the daughter of a Princess. And you can't blame her for being born, anyway."
Luna hummed, at this, before turning a quizzical eye towards her sister.
“Tia? Did you not once tell me that you adopted young Sunset Shimmer?”
Celestia’s eyes sparkled, suddenly. Her ears perked up, and her wings fluttered, hopefully.
The cake-eating grin was the worst part.
“No! I… wait, really?” Sunset paused in her protest, a light blush coloring her face, before she returned to her usual denials, “What am I saying? No! No! I am not being a Princess! I’ve already decided, that is not a thing that is happening! You don't do the stuff I did and get rewarded for it.”
Pinkie rolled her eyes, and smiled, “Come on, Sunny! You’re always talking about once wanting to be a Princess! Why’s it so hard to just accept that something nice happened to you, for once?”
“NO!” Sunset cried, stamping one hoof in impotent fury, “No! No! N—”
She paused. Her nose scrunched up, and her eyes narrowed.
Then, Sunset turned to stare at Pinkie.
“Pinkie?” she asked, ears twitching.
Pinkie smiled back, innocently.
“Yeah?”
“I only told my Pinkie that… Which one are you?”
To which the pink party planner (and potential) pony could only smile, and shrug.
Sunset scowled, but decided that puzzling out the perplexities of Pinkie Pie would be positively pointless, practically speaking.
However, before another point could be raised on the subject of Princesshood, Sunset was abruptly interrupted by the mechanical whine of the Mirror activating, once again.
“You know?” Princess Twilight sighed, turning back towards her marvelous invention, “Does anypony else feel like we’ve sort of… sucked all the magic out of dimensional travel?”
The Mirror came to life, shimmering with a silver sheen that, quite frankly, was losing some of its mystical allure, by this point in the evening. There was only so many times Princess Celestia, Luna, or even Pinkie, could stand, amazed and enthralled, at the sundering of dimensional barriers, before it started to become a touch mundane.
Yet, there was something different about the portal, this time. Twilight’s eye caught it first, and her mind did a quick calculation, comparing the current ripple in reality to what she’d seen every time before.
It looked… smaller than usual. Substantially so.
Rather anticlimactically, the shifting dimensional veil quickly lost its intensity... before simply spitting its traveler out into the palace.
A hoof-sized hunk of purple plastic clattered across the crystal floor, coming to a halt right at Princess Twilight’s hooves. She, and the elder Princesses leaned over, to examine the strange, foreign object.
Twilight’s eyes slowly lit up, as a faint sparkle of recognition bloomed within her mind.
“I…,” she reached out one hoof towards the object, hesitantly, “I think this is a…”
“It’s Midnight’s phone!” cried Pinkie, who snatched up the object with one lock of her springy mane, “But it looks like someone’s ripped open the back. That’s weird. Do you have any idea how expensive these things are!?”
“Aha!” Sunset snarled, victoriously, “I knew you were my Pinkie! You knew that was a phone! And some-one!? You are so busted!”
“Gah!” the pinkie party planner screamed, and tossed the phone aside, leaving it to ring and vibrate on the floor, “It’s moving!!!”
Watching Pinkie dive for cover behind Princess Celestia’s substantial frame… did make Sunset begin to rethink which Pinkie she thought she had on her hooves. But there was now something else in the room to consider. Something far more sane than Pinkie Pie.
“Phone? Sister?” Luna whispered, and tilted her head, "Is this yet another advancement I missed during my time on the Moon?"
Celestia hummed, almost in-tune with the device’s own rumbling. “Actually, one of my researchers came up with the idea just after you returned. Poor Bell Cracker. Spent his whole life working on such a device, when telegrams and magic exist. Some Manehatten firm was testing it for me, last I checked in on the project.
"But that thing," she pointed towards the rumbling device, "doesn't look anything like a phone, to me. There's not even a lever, or a wire! How are you supposed to ring the operator?"
“Uh, someone… er, pony should answer that,” Sunset nodded towards Twilight, who remained closest to the phone.
Princess Twilight nodded, and quickly raised a hoof.
Then, she stopped, and seemed to examine her own limb a moment.
“Huh… hooves are almost designed to smash these… phones, aren’t they?”
She smiled, and with a quick burst of light from her horn, the Princess formed a tiny sphere of magic in the air before her. She quickly dialed in the appropriate tensile strength of the field, and lowered the orb down towards the delicate glass face of the alien instrument.
And, just as she remembered her human friends doing the last time she saw one of these devices, she swiped her magical ‘fingertip’ across the tiny green light symbol that said, ‘Call Incoming’.
The phone fell into silence. This, Twilight expected.
What she did not expect, was to see the small plastic device split itself open at the seams. She stepped back, apprehensive, as it unfolded into… something else. Something small, mechanical, and awfully spidery for her tastes.
“Is it supposed to do that?” she glanced back over her shoulder.
“Well, it is Midnight’s…” Sunset shrugged, equally mesmerized by the device.
Then, a single, black eye – a camera lens – raised itself up from the phone’s body, and began to flash with an inner light. The light jumped up, out of the camera, and seemed to solidify in the air before the Princess of Friendship.
The haze of light grew, and grew, enveloping the Mirror itself. Until, with a static pop…
“Success!”
… close to a dozen humans – and one dog – stood in the Castle of Friendship, a gleeful Midnight and Twilight Sparkle front and center of the group. A collective gasp seemed to fill the whole room of the castle, as ponies and humans regarded each other with equal mystification and surprise.
The humans were agog, as were the Royal Sisters. Neither knew precisely how to process their shared shock. Trixie, the Apple cousins, and even Sonata, partly shared in this surprise, but were mostly reeling from being included at all in this sort of magical, dimensional mayhem.
Pinkie Pie, by contrast, seemed more or less just as chipper as always.
“Hiya, Pinkie!” said one, waving her hand ecstatically.
“Hiya, Pinkie!” the other said, her hoof ecstatically waving back.
“I… what… huh?” Princess Twilight stuttered and burbled in confusion, “How!?”
“Ooooh!” a voice, so high-pitched that it caused the dog to wince in pain, sounded from the butter-yellow girl to the rear of the pack, “They are so cuuuute! Can I…?”
“Fluttershy!” the purple-haired human gripped her friend’s shoulder, and scowled terribly, “That would be most rude of you! These ponies are certainly royalty. It would be a diplomatic incident…”
Midnight frowned, and shook her head at her friends’ display.
“It’s a hologram, Fluttershy,” she sighed, “You can’t pet them.”
She then waved one hand out, through her Princess self’s face, causing that Twilight to gasp, balk, and generally freak out just a little bit as she swiftly backed up and away from the display of ghostly impermanence.
But… a moment later, her shocked expression began to morph. Surprise and confusion swiftly gave way to a certain sparkle, a hunger.
A hunger for Knowledge.
“Holo…?” she scrunched up her nose, and a grin started spreading across her muzzle, “Technological astral projection? Can human devices…?”
A raspy voice, from the humans, cut her off, shouting, “Twilight!”
Both purple human and pony turned, as two identical voices responded, “Yes?”
“No!” Rainbow Dash laughed, “I meant Princess Twilight. You’re tiny!”
The Princess scoffed, “What? No! You’re all huge!”
Indeed, there seemed to be a rather stark difference in height between the twin Sparkle sisters and the – notably more horsey than Dash was used to – Princess Twilight. In fact, outside of Princess Celestia and her sister, most of the ponies only came up to the humans’ waists.
The ‘human’ Pinkie Pie, sniffed at this.
“Eh, I don’t know what you’re talking about! That’s basically as tall as I thought I was…”
Sunset slapped her forehead with a hoof, and cried, “Which one are you!?”
This Pinkie shrugged, and giggled, "Who's to say there's not just one Pinkie, stretched across the time-space cake-inuum?"
"Continuum," Cookie corrected her.
"Gesundheit," Pinkie chuckled... up until she noticed the small, purple puppy sniffing at her ankle.
“Uh?” she frowned, “Spike? What…?”
Spike the dog grinned. Then, he said, “Hiya, pony Pinkie!”
She gasped, “How did you know!?”
“Human Pinkie keeps bacon in her hair,” he said, casually wiping some saliva from his lips, “I could always tell you apart by the smell.”
Pony Pinkie, who was confusedly a human at the moment, threw her human – though presently pony – self a horrified look.
“P-Pinkie… how could you?”
The other Pinkie scuffed the crystal floor, and averted her eyes.
“I… bacon tastes good, alright?”
“Pinkie! I’ve thrown parties for pigs!!!”
“I’m sorry, but it’s bacon!!!”
The Pinkie who was currently human, but originally pony, took a deep, steadying breath… and instantly let it all out as a surprised giggle as she was wrapped up in a purple aura. The human Twilight held onto her pendant, which shone brightly clenched in between her fingers, and she had an immensely unimpressed look on her face.
“Pinkie?” she said, calmly, “My sister’s phone’s battery is going to run out before we tell the Princess our findings at this rate. You’ll have to sort out whatever… this is, later.”
And with that, she swept one hand forward. Pinkie Pie flew through the air, over Princess Celestia’s head… and vanished.
Then, seconds later, a pink pony popped out of the space presently populated by suppositionary people, but previously occupied by the paranormal magical mirror. She arced, gently, down onto the ground, and bounced twice before settling.
The truly pony Pinkie Pie grinned, sheepishly, up at her human counterpart.
“Eh, I guess we’ll get them next time?”
The actually human Pinkie Pie nodded, as she was hefted into the air by a golden aura generated by Sunset’s horn.
“Next time, for sure!” she giggled, and was given a dimensional heave-ho, sent flying back to her own world.
Now, with both Pinkie Pies returned to where they belonged, Midnight nodded, confidently, and glanced towards her sister. Twilight nodded back, and the two took a moment to let the jitters subside.
This was a presentation, after all. The pitch was all that mattered.
But, as they were about to step forward, and share what they'd discovered… there was a sound. A sniff.
No, a sniffle.
Midnight and Twilight half-turned to the left, and noted one of their participating audience members was staring rather intently at the ponies who – from their perspective – had replaced the Wondercolt statue.
“Sonata?” Twilight frowned, “Is… is everything okay?”
Sonata shook her head, and tried wiping at her eyes.
“Nothing!” she cried, “Nothing’s wrong! It’s… it’s just, I haven’t seen home in… excuse me.”
The Dazzling paused, momentarily. But a moment was all there was, as she turned, and took off at a run. She vanished into nothingness mere feet into her flight, clearly breaking the range of the phone’s peculiar communicative effect.
“That can’t be good…” Midnight sighed. Applejack, standing beside her, signaled her own kin to follow after the fleeing girl. With barely a sound, Cookie, Cinnamon, and Oakley took off, vanishing from sight as well.
Midnight pinched the bridge of her nose.
“Great. I probably just… triggered something,” she stared, glumly, after the fleeing Siren, before looking back to her sister, “I hope that doesn’t mess anything up for Saturday…”
“Saturday?” an eerily familiar voice queried, causing the girls to turn back around, and face their pony counterpart.
“What?” both Midnight and Twilight asked, as one.
Princess Twilight chuckled, lightly, at this bit of oddness, and shook her head. “Never mind,” she laughed, “It just sounded like you were talking about a date. But, that couldn’t possibly…”
She paused. She remembered enough about human physiology to know how similar their facial-capillary blood flow systems were to each other's. And right now, both Sparkle sisters could have given Big Mac a run for his colors.
“Oh… my…” she said, breathlessly, her own cheeks heating up, “But… but I’m not…”
“Not… what, darling?” Rarity asked, her hearing picking up the distinctive sound of gossip waiting to be born.
Princess Twilight shrugged, “Um… anything, actually.”
Twilight’s eyes widened. “Really?”
“You’re ace?” Midnight followed up.
“And aromantic,” the Princess nodded.
Applejack frowned, and scratched at her head with the hand that wasn’t sharing Rarity’s.
“Uh, beggin yer pardon,” she began with a drawl, “But if’n you don’t care about no feller or gal in that way… then what in tarnation was up with you and Flash Sentry?”
“Human body,” Princess Twilight waved her hoof about, aloofly, not noticing the sparkling, faraway look in Celestia's eyes at the mention of Twilight and a boy, “Human hormones. Not that I wouldn’t love to see you all more often, but I’d rather not subject myself to that more than is strictly necessary.”
Slowly, as though by continental drift, every human eye, plus Sunset's, slowly drifted from Princess Twilight… to Fluttershy.
Who also happened to be blushing.
“Oh…” she bit her lip, hiding a small smirk, “Does that mean I win?”
The assembled humans, as well as Sunset, groaned.
“Win?” Princess Twilight asked, confused. Twilight and Midnight just frowned in their friend’s direction.
“Ah, dangit!” the human Pinkie pouted, “I had twenty cupcakes riding on lesbian!”
“At least you didn’t bet actual cash! I’m out soda money for the week!” Dash grumbled, crossing her arms and scowling, “Straight… ha! What was I thinking?”
Midnight’s scowl deepened.
“Did…?” she began, only to feel her sister’s teeth grinding beside her.
Wisely, she held her tongue.
“Did you all bet on my sexual preference!?” Twilight shouted, exacerbated at the antics on display.
“Nah, jes’ the Princess’s,” Applejack said in an appeasing tone, “Once we saw you an’ Timber, well…”
Fluttershy tittered, “No one wanted to bet against Sunset.”
Sunset, smiling smugly, added, “Every wonder where I got the money for my bike’s second helmet?”
Midnight’s scowl lessened, but only by a degree.
“You’re all a bunch of nerds…”
Finally, the ticking of her own internal clock became too loud to ignore. Her phone’s battery wouldn’t last much longer. Midnight spun on one heel, to face her Princess counterpart.
“Alright! Enough fooling around,” she snarled, “We’ve got minutes before my phone battery turns into melted slag, and Twilight and I have some important findings to share!”
She glanced one way. Her human friends, including Spike, were silent. Fluttershy was still grinning, to her friends’ consternation, but collecting her winnings would come later.
Midnight looked the other way. Sunset appeared to be completely done with today, and she really couldn’t blame the put-upon Alicorn for looking like someone had run her over and kicked her dog. The Royal sisters stood off to the side, seemingly baffled by all that had transpired, but also curious to see where it would all go from there, like a pair of nosy neighbors.
One of the Pinkies – Midnight couldn’t tell which – chuckled. “Heh… neighbors.”
Princess Twilight had a quill and parchment floating in her magical aura, and her eyes were locked on Midnight and her sister.
“Right, so,” the human Twilight began, reflexively reaching for a set of index cards that weren’t there, “First off, we would like to apologize for Midnight’s transformation earlier. She was… erm…”
Princess Twilight simply nodded, and wrote a few quick notes on her scroll. Then, perhaps sensing her human equivalent’s pause, she took up the verbal slack.
“Magical Superfamiliarity Syndrome,” she said, casually, “plus a rather unusual case of a magical vacuum existing in nature. I presumed as much.”
Midnight felt her jaw loosen, but it had not yet dropped.
“What?” she asked, exchanging a look with Twilight.
The princess continued, “Oh, well… MSS is a common foalhood ailment amongst unicorns. It’s where a young spellcaster grows too used to depending on magical assistance for daily activities. Over time, this over-familiarity causes other aspects of their physical and mental systems to atrophy, which can lead to a state of magical fatigue, or fugue state, during which they become a super-thaumatic-conductor, which, in turn, leads to wild transmogrification and mutations.
“Not surprisingly,” she rolled her eyes, failing to notice her twin human selves staring at her in complete stupor, “I might have done the same thing back during my studies under Celestia. Kept a ‘Wakey Wakey’ spell active for two weeks straight to cram for finals. I briefly grew a second tail…”
“Said finals were six years away,” Celestia’s tired voice stage-whispered from behind the Princess, who was seemingly worked up to a good lecture now.
“… so, you can imagine how relieved I was to find out somepony was selling hardcore caffeine drinks on campus at the time…”
Ignoring the way both Pinkies fist/hoof pumped right at that moment, Midnight shook her head, and interjected.
“Wait! So… you know what was going on with me?”
Princess Twilight paused, almost surprised to find she wasn’t holding an actual lecture at the moment. She turned her attention back to Midnight, and blushed.
“Oh…” she paused, and bit her lip, “Yes, I did. Sorry. I forget, sometimes, that you might not know everything about magic. If it makes things clearer, simply put: you and your world are so unmagical, that by being in such a magic-rich environment like Equestria after a prolonged amount of time passively using it, you became a magnet for the stuff and it… went bad.”
The Sparkle sisters were left in silence, blinking away the disquieting feeling overcoming them both at that moment.
Human Twilight frowned.
“Uh… thanks for… dumbing that down… for us?”
Human Pinkie Pie leaned over to Rainbow Dash, and quickly whispered, “Bet’cha you’re getting an apology soon!” before waggling her eyebrows at her blue friend.
“Huh…? Hey!”
“Magic… in a vacuum?” Midnight asked, not even noticing the antics behind her back.
Princess Twilight made another note.
“Indeed,” she said, looking over Midnight, “Besides being, uh, magically addicted, the fact that your world is almost a magical vacuum would have made the problem even worse, following Honey Poncare’s Theory of Magic-Law Variances in Vacuums and Chaotic Fields.”
More silence. Followed by an exasperated sigh, from the back of the human crowd.
“How can this Twilight be even more of a dork than the original?” Trixie asked no one, or pony, in particular.
The comment still drew a snort from the purple Princess, despite said exasperation being evident on everyhuman’s face. Even the Sparkle sisters seemed just a little out of sorts when trying to keep up with the Princess.
Sunset Shimmer, however, had not forgotten all of her lessons in magic.
“Basically,” she explained, “Magic likes Rules. When you take away the Rules, like when you make a bubble of magical vacuum – a place without magic – then any Magic you put in there will try and make new Rules. Since Equestria’s already silly magical, the Rules here never change since no magic-vacuum could overpower the entire cosmos all at once…
“Hm,” Sunset tapped her chin thoughtfully, “Actually, that probably explains why I couldn’t figure out how our ‘Pony-up’ magic worked. The human world has no magic, so any magic that we introduced to it had to make up its own rules…”
Princess Twilight nodded at the welcome addition to her point. “And since all of the magic entering your world was from Equestria, with its own rules, while your magic now works slightly differently, it’s still mostly compatible with ours!”
She then did a little tap-dance with her hooves.
“Oooooh!” she howled with joy, “Actual confirmation of the theory! This is so exciting! So much learning going on!”
Luna shared a passing glance with her sister. One that asked: Do you need to tranquilize her?
Celestia’s own glance, one wizened by time and experience, tempered by laughter, motherly affection, and honed by one-thousand years of rulership, spoke volumes.
That look said: Maybe. Standby.
“Well,” Midnight scratched the back of her head, as she took in the sight of the Princess bouncing like an excited filly, “I guess… that’s point one cleared up.”
Silence. The hoof-clops had stopped.
“Point… one?” Princess Twilight’s eyes widened into deep pools of curiosity. “There’s more?”
Midnight mentally weighed how to proceed. The clock was still ticking, and her phone wouldn’t last much longer. Deciding that theatrics could slide, just this once, she would opt for a concise explanation.
“We think the magic lessons can continue,” she said, after a moment of thought, “Though, perhaps not in the way you planned.”
“You realize, until we can fix your… problem,” the Princess gave her human selves a sympathetic frown, “I can’t allow you to reenter the portal to Equestria. This condition can be managed, given enough time in close approximation of magical energies, but you being here would be far too much at once.”
“Which is why you’ll love what we found!” Twilight’s own giddiness came to the fore as she spoke. “Do you remember when you and Princess Luna entered our dreams?”
The Princess indeed recalled that exact adventure, from only a few… well, time was never stable between the dimensions, but for her it was a few weeks. But she did recall joining Luna on one sojourn into the Dreamrealm that turned out to be quite memorable.
“Luna thought that you were being attacked by an Incubus,” she said, glancing sheepishly towards Midnight, all the while, “A dream-demon of sorts… but that turned out to be…”
Midnight rolled her eyes, and groaned, “Yes, we all remember that! It was me, Princess. It was me! We get it…”
“Aaaany way,” Twilight pressed on, scowling only momentarily at her sister’s rudeness, “When you were in our dreams, you’ll recall that you took on a human form. But…”
Princess Luna smiled, and took a few small steps forward.
“Ah, but this afternoon, whilst you slumbered during your test…”
“She WHAT!?”
“… I was presented in my usual form,” Luna said, ignoring the outburst from her successor, “A most curious thing, though I confess to not know its significance.”
“That,” Midnight grinned, ear to ear, “was because, while in Equestria, our dreams were connected to your Dreamrealm thing. But, you essentially astral-projected through the Mirror to reach us over here.
“And since astral-projecting is just like sending a signal,” she continued, her excitement almost causing her to dance in place, “and signals are just a transference of energy…”
Twilight held out her hands, to indicate herself, and her sister.
“Cell phone signals can travel through the Mirror!” she cried, “That’s why we kept our forms when we teleported. We briefly became pure energy in-transit! And signals aren’t translated by the Mirror, like how Sunset’s journal works.”
Princess Twilight’s eyes widened, becoming sparkling pools as she considered what she was hearing. Her jaw loosened, slightly, and a bit of academic spittle began to drip from her open mouth.
Sunset took a few steps forward, bringing herself level with the Princess, and swiped one wing in front of her friend’s face. Finding nopony at home, Sunset closed her mouth with a flash of magic, which seemed to bring Twilight back to her senses.
“T-that’s incredible!” she laughed, manically, “This… this could revolutionize Equestria! I could get a phone from your world, and… and connect to your inner-webs…”
“Internet,” Sunset supplied, with a smirk.
“… and have all the technological and scientific information of a world, at my hooftips!”
The local – pony – Pinkie Pie chimed in, saying, “Ooh! We could visit human land as ponies! Or humans can visit here as not-ponies!”
The human one joined her.
“Parties in two dimensions!”
Somewhere in the castle, a party cannon could be heard firing off a shot.
Sunset sighed, and frowned at her own purple humans.
“Because that’s what my life needed right now. Pinkie Pie outing the existence of Ponies to the entire human world at a surprise block party,” she raised an eyebrow, expressing her disdain for the idea, and added, “Thanks, Twilight. Midnight. You’ve given me another thing to worry about.”
“Oh, don’t be like that!” Midnight crossed her arms, and frowned right back at the new Alicorn, “We just have to lock the Mirror up a little better, that’s all!”
Ignoring the pouting pink pony beside her, Princess Twilight returned to a pensive state. She tapped her chin, thoughtfully, and looked up at her doppelgangers.
“But, how does all this help with your magic lessons?” she asked, carefully wafting a wing through her counterparts’ shins, “I admit your astro-holo… whatever, is an utterly fascinating bit of spell- er, technology. But teaching magic through this sort of apparatus would be difficult. I can’t even see where you are right now.”
“That’s why we wanted to do this demonstration,” Midnight spoke quickly, trying to guess just when her phone’s battery was about to die, “If we could set up two identically-shaped rooms, one on each side of the Mirror, and line them with these sort of hologram projectors – plus a suitable power source and a transmitter – then, we could create a virtual space where we could interact with each other!”
Twilight nodded, adjusting her glasses. “Perhaps some haptic feedback systems could be added to simulate physical contact, or we could just stick to Midnight and I casting on each other, without the need for you to intervene…”
She hummed, and glanced towards the ceiling.
“I suppose we could even build a projector to transfer magic between your space and ours, assuming that we can trick the transmitter into absorbing and redirecting the energy of the spell, as well.”
Princess Twilight shook her head, and spat, “I can hardly understand half of what you two are talking about! How are you expecting me to… build a…?”
Her human friends took a step back, when they saw the look in the Princess’s eye. Even Celestia quietly prepared a ‘Twilight’ level sleeping spell, her personal experiences giving her a sixth sense with these matters.
There was a look to the Princess. Her eyes held a gleaming in them, like a demon that was dreaming, and her smile edged closer to a rictus grin than a living face had any right to be.
She leaned forward, and met Midnight’s eyes.
“An exchange?” she asked, slowly.
“We’ll send you sketches and tech manuals,” Midnight replied, her own grin not much more comforting, “and you send us spells to practice. Those magic journals can copy and paste, right?”
The Princess almost cracked her horn on the floor, she nodded her head so hard to confirm. Then, as she opened her eyes, she took in the two appendages held out before her.
A handshake wasn’t quite as natural to her as a hoofbump, but Princess Twilight was eager to conclude her first Transdimensional Treaty. She took Twilight’s hand with one hoof, and Midnight’s with her wing, and gave each an excited, hard shake.
“Sparkles?” she smiled, a far more natural smile that put her friends, and Celestia, at ease, and said, “I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”
A deep sigh drew all three Sparkles’ attention to the side, where Sunset Shimmer seemed to be deflating into herself.
“Finally,” she breathed, and allowed herself a small smile, “Something… nice, today. You know, to cut in on all the stress and whatever else.”
Midnight and Twilight exchanged a quick glance.
“Um, Sunset?” Twilight said, frowning, “You look…”
“Like you went ten rounds with Applejack in a rodeo… as the horse,” Midnight finished, eyebrows arched, completely ignoring the indignant look on Applejack and Princess Twilight's faces, “How are you feeling?”
Sunset shuffled in place, a moment. She tapped her hooves against the crystal floor, and gave a few experimental flicks of her tail, a quick ruffle of her wings.
She looked back to her friends, and smiled.
“Honestly? I could use a good night’s sleep as a pony. After,” she held out her wings, “I give these a test-run! I'm just tired of worrying and hating myself for this. And I'd never forgive myself for not flying at least once!
“I’ll be back in school tomorrow,” she added, “Don’t you worry about me. Really. I’m… I’ll be fine.”
Princess Twilight swung one wing out, and draped it over Sunset’s shoulders. After giving her possibly-fellow Princess an affectionate nuzzle, she turned back to her otherworldly visitors.
“I’ll send some magic journals with her tomorrow,” she said, the touch of madness having faded from her eyes, “And we can start coordinating on this project! Ah! To be working on academia once again!”
“I do hope,” Celestia chose that moment to step forward, and give her heir a light ribbing, “that your newfound project won’t distract you from the running of Equestria, Twilight.”
“Oh, it shouldn’t,” Princess Twilight laughed, and turned back to give her mentor a coy grin, “At least, not after Starlight and I perfect that spell to be in two places at once!”
“Two…” Celestia’s eyes twitched, almost imperceptively. Suddenly, retirement seemed like it couldn't come fast enough.
The humans in attendance couldn’t help themselves, just then. They broke into a tittering, giggling mess at the sight. This Celestia may have had a more regal presence than their own, but that look of strained horror and confusion was so perfectly that of their Principal, that none of them could hold back a surprised guffaw or snort.
All except for Midnight Sparkle, who scratched at her chin, and pondered. Her brows furrowed so hard, Rarity would have thrown an instant fit about wrinkles, had she seen it.
“Bit for your thoughts?” a voice cut through the haze of her calculations, and forced Midnight to glance down at the amber Alicorn, who only came up to her waist.
“What?”
“You look like you’re trying to come up with a Grand Unifying Theory over here,” Sunset tittered, “Something up?”
Midnight shrugged.
“Nah, it’s nothing,” she waved her friend down, “It’s just I’m surprised the battery lasted as long as it has, in my phone.”
Sunset glanced towards where the mechanical device was, presumably, still projecting its holographic call. Celestia, perhaps in an attempt to distract herself, was standing over the location, peering through the holographic shine, trying to get a good look at the alien device.
“You really cut open your phone?”
Midnight nodded. “Of course! It was the only thing we had that could prove our point. We needed tech that could project a holographic display... assuming a few tweaks were all that was needed.”
“Yeah, but… what about a video call?”
Midnight said nothing.
“Uh, Midnight?”
The purple girl slowly reached her hands up, and covered her eyes.
“Midnight… those things are expensive.”
“… It was for science,” Midnight mumbled into her hands, “For… science…”
She took a long, slow breath in through her nose. Midnight, with great effort, placed her hands at her side, and forced her eyes open. She looked down to Sunset, and was just about to respond, when…
Pop
Crackle
Bang!
Dear Me and Myself,
That was probably funnier in my head. Oh, well.
I believe we should begin our interdimensional partnership by working on the issue of power. Your phone, as I’m sure Sunset’s note already told you, more or less immolated itself into a pool of plastic and metal on my floor. Don’t worry, I won’t make you pay for the damages. But this does tell me we should combine our magical and technological know-how to develop something that can power these holo-projectors in either universe.
I’ll pass along some ideas tomorrow. In the meantime, get some sleep! You can’t be expected to engage in academia without your sleep. Midnight.
Luna won’t be able to assist with your dream problem tonight, I’m afraid. Nor will I, actually. Celestia was a bit too close to the phone when it exploded, and tracking down Trixie to get her to fix the mane is proving to be a bit of an adventure in and of itself.
Take care, Me’s!
Have a good night, Twilight and Midnight Sparkle.
Your Friend,
Princess Twilight Sparkle
Midnight suppressed another snort as she reread the message from the Princess. She lay on her bed, in her pajamas, reading Sunset’s journal once again, not entirely sure if today had really happened, or if she’d dreamed it all.
Knowing my luck, she thought, recalling her midday nap, I’ll go to sleep now, and wake up back on the bonfire.
Actually, considered just how long today felt, Midnight wasn’t really that certain it hadn’t all been a dream. Hitting on Flash Sentry, transferring into Professor… Disqord’s class, sleeping through a test, the kiss…
The kiss with Aria Blaze.
A girl.
Midnight closed the book, and fanned her face with it.
Saturday would be… interesting. Hopefully, when she saw Applejack tomorrow, she could ask how Sonata was looking. Couldn’t have something like that hanging over the date.
A date.
With Aria Blaze.
Aria Blaze, who was, clearly, a girl.
“Why is it so warm in here?” she groaned, and set the book aside.
“Oh, sorry,” a voice answered from the door, “Dad didn’t want to put the AC on tonight…”
Midnight glanced up, and saw her faithful companion watching her.
“Hey, Spike,” she said, unenthused, “You sleeping up here? Or in the kitchen again?”
The purple puppy hummed. He hawed. He scratched one ear, though he probably was planning to do that, anyway.
Finally, he smiled, and said, “The heat rises in this house, and the kitchen is cool, and where the food is. I think I’ll let you do the math on that one.”
They shared a laugh at that. It was funny, actually. As Twilight, Midnight had laughed at her precious dog companion. But it was only now that she started to wonder at the fact that she was laughing with him, these days.
Who knew that following a strange signal, so long ago now, would have led to all… this?
But, as they laughed, she also couldn’t help but think back over the day’s events.
“Hey… Spike?” she asked.
“Yeah?”
Did I just see something?
“Earlier,” she began, slowly, “When Dash dognapped you…”
“Yeah,” he growled, “Yeah… I remember that.”
Did his eyes just…?
She pressed on.
“When Fluttershy said… those things,” she took a breath, “You know. When you didn’t… um, eat your…?”
Spike’s ears stood up. His posture straightened, and his eyes shrank. Just a bit.
Midnight watched him from her bed, her own eyes narrowing, focusing with a laser’s precision.
“Spike…” she said, then took a deep breath. Midnight shook her head, and sighed.
“Spike, you know you can talk to me… to us about anything, right? I saw a look on your face earlier that, well… looked like what I keep seeing in the mirror these days. It worried me.”
He looked away, and towards the floor.
“I know Twilight…” she began, then stopped.
No, that wasn’t right.
“We didn’t like to talk about the Big Questions, after you learned to talk. But, what with everything that’s been going on, I guess I should have…”
“Stop.”
Spike’s voice was quiet. But, just then, Midnight marveled at the weight of it.
He breathed in…
“Not tonight,” he said, simply. Then, he turned his eyes back up to his owner… his human, and he added, “Tonight’s been a bit full. But… maybe soon?”
He smiled. And it was a genuine, puppy-dog smile.
Midnight couldn’t help but return it. And gladly.
"Good boy," she chuckled.
"You know it!"
As her dog left to perform his nightly guard duties, it was at that exact moment that Twilight returned from the shower, a towel wrapped tightly around her head.
“Huh? What’s up with Spike?” she asked, dropping heavily onto her own bed.
Midnight began to shrug… and then thought better of it. She sighed, and rolled her eyes.
“He’s going through an… Us. Basically.”
Twilight’s brows furrowed in worry.
“Memory gaps!?”
“No!” Midnight snorted, cackling and rolling onto her back, “The other thing! How would he even get memory gaps!?”
Twilight blushed, deeply.
“I mean… we do work with radioactive chemicals all the time…”
Midnight rolled about on her bed, laughing great big belly laughs until her stomach began to cramp up.
“Alright! Alright! Laugh it up!” Twilight snorted, “But one…”
The wall shook, suddenly, with three loud knocks. Both sisters paused… and then had to bite down on their tongues to stop another fit, as they could hear Shining’s voice from the next room over.
“I don’t want to have to call in a noise complaint on my own sisters,” he growled through the wall, “So quiet down before I haul you down to the station!”
Both sisters laughed, again. Though, this time they were quieter about it.
Though the prospect of sleep had become somewhat more difficult a prospect for the two girls, these past few days, lethargy was beginning to win out. Slowly, they each inched deeper into their beds, and drew up the sheets.
And then, they stared at the ceiling.
And stared.
And stared.
“I can’t wait for Luna to be free enough to help with this,” Midnight grumbled, her eyes slowly closing as treasonous sleep took hold.
“Just…” Twilight yawned, “… just gotta survive a few more days… nights… whatever…”
Finally, sleep claimed them both. And as they drifted off into that other realm…
There was a small device, sitting in one of the empty power sockets along the wall of the room. This device washed out the carpet in a light, bright purple. The night light had been in that room for years, illuminating the floor, and carrying on its duties in total silence.
Tonight, was different.
Tonight, a Shadow moved on the wall. In defiance of the light, it twisted about, and began to crawl along the floor. A hand shaped of lightless void gripped the sheets to Midnight's bed, and hauled itself up into the air, where its impossibility alone held it, suspended, and without substance.
The Shadow looked down onto Midnight's slumbering face...
And it smiled.