The Rainbooms were scattered around Rarity’s lounge room, all wearing their preferred sleepwear. The afternoon sun shone through the gaps in the closed blinds, adding to the cosy atmosphere.
Sunset and Twilight were sharing the purple loveseat by the window as Twilight showed Sunset something on her heavily modified laptop. Rainbow sat cross-legged on the floor, leaning up against the arm of a couch as she and Applejack, sitting on the couch behind the rainbow haired woman, tried to best one another in a racing game that was displayed on the large flatscreen mounted on the wall.
There was noise from the kitchen as Pinkie and Fluttershy busied themselves in getting food and drink. Rarity was sitting next to Applejack, scrolling through the news feed on her mobile phone.
“Goodness, did you girls hear the news about the museum?” Rarity asked and the other twenty-somethings in the room looked up from what they were doing.
“Wait really?” Rainbow asked and let out a cry of dismay as Applejack used the distraction to gain the lead. “No fair!”
The farm hand merely smirked.
“I saw that in the newspaper this morning,” Twilight commented. “Someone broke in and stole The Tunisian Diamond.”
“Who would do something like that?” Fluttershy wondered as she brought in a platter of biscuits. She took a cookie for herself and took a seat next to Rainbow.
“Who knows, hopefully the police catch them.” Sunset replied.
“Is Lillian here yet?” Pinkie called out from the kitchen.
“Not yet,” Applejack called back and looked at the others. “Should someone call her?”
“She’s never late, maybe something happened? Does anyone remember where she works?” Twilight asked.
“I’ll give her a call-“ Rarity began.
“Sorry I’m late, the bus was running late again!” a new voice called out as someone entered the house.
A woman in her late twenties walked in. Strands of hair were threatening to slip loose from the low ponytail she’d tied her long orange hair in, pale skin slightly flushed from afternoon chill.
Pushing her glasses back up from where they slid down her nose, she kicked off her battered sneakers and left them by the pile of shoes by the entryway. Her brown satchel was the next to go as she slung it over the back of a vacant armchair and her black trench coat with red lining wasn’t far behind.
The newcomer, now in just a loose white t-shirt, socks, and a pair of grey pants, flopped onto the armchair and heaved out a breath.
“Thank god I made it before dark. I wouldn’t have been able to see shit…” the woman mused, looking around the room. “What’d I miss?”
“We were just wondering where you were,” Rarity said. “Work?”
“The CCC is a complete dumpster fire right now…”
Twilight winced in sympathy. “I know what you mean, my department is just as bad as yours, Lillian.”
“Ugh, can we not talk about work right now?” Rainbow asked, eyes glued to TV. “My boss made me fill out so much paperwork just so I had authorization to use my powers at work…”
“Magic is more heavily restricted here than it is in Equestria,” Sunset said. She paused, thoughtful. “What if we spent this year in Equestria? Maybe that would break the cycle?”
Lillian looked hesitant. “I’d rather not… I kinda have a plan…”
“What’d you do?” Applejack asked flatly as she won the race and Rainbow dropped her controlled in frustration.
“Damn it AJ! Can’t you let me win just once!”
“Nope, not my fault you suck at racing games,” Applejack replied before raising a brow at the red head relaxing in the armchair. “Lils, what’d you do?”
“Oi, I didn’t do jack shit!” Lillian protested and deflated slightly. “S’not like that, different plan, kinda…”
The others in the room took note of her hesitance as Pinkie walked in with two plates piled high with sandwiches in her arms. “Hey Lillian, you want anything?”
“Hey Pinks, I’m good, not hungry yet.”
“What plan do you have this time?” Twilight asked curiously.
Lillian blinked. “Uh, remember that theory we had that my powers banked on the whole friendship is magic thing like yours do?”
Rarity looked intrigued. “You figured it out then?”
“Did you make a new friend?” Pinkie asked as she plopped down on the floor in front of Sunset.
“Uh, something like that…”
“Wait, is it one of the Key Players?” Twilight asked, and at Rainbows confused look added. “You know, the people we’ve determined are integral to the timeline’s stability?”
“Oh, those guys, if they die, everything gets reset right?” Rainbow asked.
“Yeah,” Lillian replied and sighed. “And yes, it’s one of the Key Players…”
“Well, it’s not Henry, he would’ve said something,” Pinkie commented and was confused when everyone looked at her in various states of surprise or exasperation. “What?”
“We’re not supposed to get involved with them, we’re observers only.” Twilight chided, adjusting her glasses as she gave Pinkie and Lillian stern looks.
“To be fair, it was an online forum, and I had no idea it was him until we met in person.” Lillian clarified.
“Who?”
“…Reginald Copperbottom…”
Rainbow held up a hand. “Hold up, isn’t that…”
“Yup, the leader of The Toppat Clan,” Lillian clarified and at the group’s interest, she shrugged. “We’d been chatting even before this Groundhog Day mess started, we met online a couple of years ago through a mutual friend on the same site, I met Reginald in person last weekend and then stuff happened.”
“Stuff?” Rarity repeated flatly.
“My plan is to join the Toppats in the hopes of minimalizing casualties and derailing events enough that something sticks,” Lillian added. “Or at least carries over to the next timeline.”
The others were concerned, and Sunset voiced what they were all thinking. “What if you get hurt? The Toppats are dangerous.”
The calm ease of Lillian’s body language melted away to show how tired the woman was as she gave them all the flattest look she could muster. She took a deep breath, grey eyes glinting with something otherworldly. “And yet you all thought it would be a perfectly fine idea to bring a magical artifact from Equestria over to this world in the hopes of fixing this mess,” She let the statement hang in the air for a moment. “As long as the CCC still have my Orb in their possession I have no other choice but to help sort this out.”
“I always forget that you’re an ancient magical creature,” Pinkie commented. “You don’t sound like one.”
“I don’t sound as I did a thousand years ago because I wasn’t in the form of a human back then,” she drawled. “I changed to fit the times and choose things that would suit me.”
“Back on topic, how does any of this relate to your powers?” Sunset asked.
“Ok so, I met him because I could feel my powers growing stronger whenever I hung out with him online. Since we’ve already established that Equestrian magic works differently than magic native to this world, I figured if I met my friend in person, maybe I’d get more of my power back and be more useful,” Lillian explained. “Everything else I’ve tried to get my magic working hasn’t worked.”
“What about us?” Fluttershy asked. “Has it reacted to being around any of us?”
“Why would it?” she replied bluntly.
“We’re friends… aren’t we?” Twilight was confused, as were many of the others in the room.
“Uh girls,” Sunset said, looking between Lillian and the others. “Maybe we should focus on her idea?”
Rainbow stood up, ready to argue with Lillian.
“If you’re that concerned about my safety, I could always stick to meetings in public places,” Lillian offered. “He doesn’t know I know he’s a Toppat, I could try to change things from the side-lines.”
“Are we just going to ignore the fact that her magic supposedly reacts to a criminal and not us, her friends?” Rainbow exclaimed.
“Can you blame me for bein’ a bit bitter when you girls basically signed me up for a fight I didn’t agree to?” Lillian said calmly. “I have no say in this either way, if any of you want me to end my friendship with Reginald, just inform the CCC. I can’t disobey a direct order from them after all.”
“Truth be told, I reckon you’re on to something Lils,” Applejack said. “Maybe we’ve been going about this the wrong way.”
“Totally!” Pinkie agreed with a grin. “We got this far with our magic endorsed Gal-Pal Power, didn’t we?”
“We have gone through a lot of different options…” Sunset mused and frowned in worry. “Just promise me you’ll stay safe, alright Lillian?”
“Look, this human form may be weak as shit but I’m not that fuckin’ useless…” Lillian grumbled.
“We’re just worried about you. You were so ill when we first met after all.” Rarity said.
Fluttershy nodded. “You gave us quite the scare.”
“Yeah, I get it… I’ll be careful.”
Reginald’s weekend visits evolved into daily calls before and after work. Somewhere along the line their respective jobs were revealed. Before either of them knew it, three months had gone by and their daily conversations were aimless, of everything and nothing. Lillian did what she could to hint at upcoming events, suggest what-ifs, and tried to follow the steady thrum of her gradually returning magic in the hopes of helping him.
Timelines be damned, she was sick of knowing he’d die. Not always of course, but the sorrow that rose upon seeing the image of a destroyed airship or an empty space station escape pod in the news carried with her into the next timeline. Despite his crimes, he was loyal to his own, respectful of her, and a measure of trust and respect existed between the two of them.
He’d offered her a spot in the clan in more than one timeline, and it broke her heart to explain she was forced to work for the CCC until her mission was complete. (She had confessed, once, that she was worried they wouldn’t let her leave)
She found solace in the endlessly repeating year she and the others were stuck in, using the opportunity to maintain her friendship with the Toppat Chief, even if he never remembered, it was enough.
Lillian lived in a CCC employee complex on the main complex. It was spartan, with nothing more than a bed, a wardrobe, and a desk with a basic office chair. There was just enough room to move about and overall, the room was very drab and bare of any personal belongings.
Lillian had her mobile phone charging on her desk beside the laptop she used for work. It was late as she sat on her bed, unable to get nonforfeitable and staring at her phone.
Waiting.
Reginald hadn’t called that evening and she was fighting a losing battle against worry and paranoia.
Bundled in her coat to combat the chill of the desert night, she focused on every little noise she heard, the silence as loud as the rustle of bushes.
Something tapped lightly on the door to her room. She held her breath, she got up and approached the door cautiously. Upon hearing the tapping again, she fumbled for the light switch, and unlocked the door.
She stared for a moment at who was on the other side.
“Reginald, what?” she said quietly and ushered him inside.
He looked terrible, with noticeable bags under his eyes and his clothes rumpled. Brown hair rumpled and his normally curled moustache not nearly as neat as she’d last seen. His second black top hat and gold chain were absent. His eyes darted around the room, taking in every detail before he awkwardly seated himself on her rickety desk chair.
“You were right, about the Government attack on the airship…” Reginald said. “I-I had to offer command of the airship to protect the crew, and Right… I don’t know if he’ll survive his injuries.”
She was about to speak and stopped, heart leaping into her throat.
Peeking out from the collar of his shirt, were a ring of bruises around his neck.
“Holy shit!” she swore. Her power jumped to her defence, to his defence. With it humming quietly around her she stepped towards him, concern written across her features.
“I’m alright, just shaken.” Reginald tried to regain some sliver of dignity as Lillian placed a hand on his shoulder, grey wisps of power coiling around her fingers and reaching out towards his injuries.
“Can I help?” she asked gently.
“Healing magic I presume?”
“Yeah.”
Reginald nodded, and her power leapt from her hand to encircle the bruises. It was as if a time lapse was playing out before her and the skin returned to normal as if he’d never been hurt in the first place. He rubbed the area experimentally with a gloved hand.
“How potent is your magic?” he asked, an edge to his voice she couldn’t quite place.
“Enough for minor injuries, I can’t do much else for the moment,” she replied. “Sorry…”
He waved her off. “No, no, I merely hoped that you might be able to help my Right Hand Man…”
She debated telling him about the cybernetics researcher. She knew he would get in touch with her regardless but seeing her friend (her best friend she realised, fighting back her own worry and panic at his ragged state to focus on helping), Reginald of all people, so distraught, Lillian made a decision.
“I can’t do much but, I’ve heard of someone who may be able to help your friend.”
“Oh Lillian.”
Lillian looked up from her laptop, looking over the top of her cubicle in the office she shared with a few other CCC workers. Rarity was striding towards her holding a bouquet of flowers. Her CCC uniform, a blue jacket, matching hat, and pencil skirt as bedazzled as she could get away with.
The other woman was grinning like the Cheshire Cat as she stopped at Lillian’s desk and gave her the flowers. “Someone left these for you.”
Utterly confused, she accepted the bouquet and examined the little card attached to it.
Thank you for helping- R.C
“A secret admirer perhaps?” Rarity asked excitedly.
“No,” Lillian deadpanned. “Just a thank you gift for some advice I offered.”
Much to Lillian’s annoyance, Rarity was insistent. “Are you sure? I know you can’t recognize that type of behaviour but maybe-“
“Can you not? You know I get uncomfortable about that…” Lillian pleaded. “I’m not like you where I can fall in love at the drop of a hat, as nice as the idea is, just no…”
“Well do you at least know who sent them?” Rarity asked, gesturing at the flowers.
“Yeah, I’ll ask him about it later, you got a vase for these? I don’t have anything to put them in.”
“I saw a spare vase in the supply closet, I’ll be back in a moment.”
As Rarity left, Lillian took a moment to study the flowers, a bouquet of pink carnations. They were certainly pretty, holding the flowers in one hand away from her computer, she used her free hand to clumsily search the internet for the meaning of the plants.
“Huh, gratitude.” Lillian mused.
“I’m baack!” Rarity announced, carefully carrying a blue vase, and placing it on Lillian’s desk. “I already added some water in it for you.”
“Thanks.”
As Lillian stood up to unwrap the plastic around the bouquet and organise the flowers, her co-worker smirked. “You’ve never gotten flowers before.”
“Yeah, and?”
The tired look Lillian gave was enough to silence any arguments Rarity was going to make. The purple haired woman huffed.
“It was just an idea, it wouldn’t be the first time one of us used the timelines to our advantage.”
The subtext flew completely over Lillian’s head as she blinked stupidly. “Huh?”
“You know, go on a few dates, experiment and the like.”
“No, not my style,” Lillian was feeling increasingly more uncomfortable and annoyed the more the issue was pressed. She raised a hand as Rarity was about to continue. “I thought I already explained this, I am demi, and I am not okay with what you’re suggesting. It is not a choice, it is an instinctual reaction firmly rooted in how I function as a living being.”
“And if these are a sign of some romantic thing or flirting or whatever,” she added pointedly. “Then that is a discussion best held between me and the person who sent me these in the first place.”
“There’s no need to be rude about it…” Rarity pouted.
“How is stating my opinion rude?” Lillian shook her head, switching off her laptop and stowing it away in her satchel. “You know what? I’m taking an early lunch and going to bug Twilight for bit, I need to an update on our progress anyway…”
“You don’t look too good,” Twilight commented as Lillian shambled into the computer lab with a little pink bag in hand. The computer expert had her uniform jacket draped over the back of her chair and her hair tied back in a messy bun. “What happened?”
“Helped someone out, they sent flowers, Rarity immediately suspects the guy likes me romantically,” Lillian explained flatly. “My life is not a fuckin’ romance movie for fucks sake…”
“She made you uncomfortable?” Twilight asked as the creature in human form slid into a free chair next to her and pulled out a sandwich wrapped in clingwrap from her bag. Lillian grunted an affirmative as she tore into her meagre meal.
Twilight winced in sympathy. “I hope the argument wasn’t too bad…”
“I have no idea anymore…” Lillian sighed. “So, any updates? I managed to get The Betrayed and Revenged timelines derailed.”
“Well, Applejack’s military work has successfully derailed Valiant Hero, and Pinkie’s still monitoring Henry,” Twilight said, pulling up a document on her laptop. “I still have no idea if he’s aware of the timelines or not…”
“Any news on Ellie?”
“Dmitri is stonewalling our attempts to get Ellie out early. So as usual, we have to rely on whatever Henry does this time,” Twilight sighed and grabbed a file sitting beside her laptop. “Almost forgot, you have new orders from Commander Luna, she’s noticed things have started to stabilize since you started taking an active approach.”
Lillian leaned over and read the file, honestly surprised by the contents. “Never thought I’d get approval for joining the Toppats…”
“Like it or not, the CCC only concerns themselves with spatial, temporal, and dimensional stability. If having you go undercover is our best bet of making significant progress, then who are we to say otherwise?” Twilight stated.
“Would be nice if I wasn’t essentially enslaved to them…” Lillian grumbled, pulling down her coat sleeve to show the metal tracking bracelet on her right wrist to emphasise her point.
“Yeah, maybe handing your Orb over to them wasn’t the best idea,” Twilight admitted. “But we didn’t know there was a living being tied to it, all we knew is that it supposedly held the power to rebalance the world.”
Lillian grunted, in the middle of eating.
“Could you tell me more about what you used to do?” Twilight asked curiously. “Even though we’ve been at this for a few years now, we still don’t know much about you.”
The not-human frowned slightly as she tried to think of the best way to explain it. The exact nature of what she was something she didn’t feel safe revealing, she wasn’t sure she could even put it into words, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t share something with the ever-curious computer nerd.
“Back in the other world, Equestria you guys call it? I was The Caretaker… I revitalized areas that had lost their magic in some way or another, I also made sure things didn’t tip in favour of one type of magic or the other,” she said. “After other beings started demanding I use my powers exclusively for them, their kingdoms, or for one cause or another, I left.”
“Just like that?’
Lillian nodded. “It was bad… they’d caused an eternal winter from their fighting, and with cruelty and insensitivity at the heart of it all, I had to leave or fall prey to my own nature in the process,” she said. “I chose that role as The Caretaker, that was what I wanted to be, so when I couldn’t fulfil that role due to the conflict, I placed a portion of my magic in the Orb and arrived in this world to start over.”
The red head shrugged. “I just slept for a thousand years until things got interesting, then I took on human form and did whatever until you lot decided it’d be fun to poke a magic doohickie with a stick. Worst. Summoning. Ever.”
That evening she sat at her desk in her room, mobile phone in hand, and rang a now familiar number.
“Hey Reginald.” She greeted calmly as the person on the other end answered.
“Ah Lillian, you finished early today?” The former Toppat leader asked cheerfully.
“Yeah, my co-workers were bugging me, and I’d finished my work for the day anyway,” she said, brightening as she looked at the vase of carnations now taking pride of place on her desk. “Thanks for the flowers, they’re pretty.”
“Thank you for tipping me off about that researcher, my Enforcer is expected to be up and about before the month is out.”
“We’re friends, I wasn’t going to just do nothing when you were upset,” Lillian said. “Is that offer to join the clan still open.”
“Er yes? You’re quitting?”
“I have a mission in the field, I’m going to be monitored to hell and back, but my best chance of success relies on working outside of legal operations.”
“Will it endanger the clan?” He asked seriously before catching himself. “I may not be the leader anymore, but I’d rather not put anyone else at risk…”
Lillian hummed in thought, it wasn’t like he’d remember if she told him the details, it might even make things easier if she had his cooperation. The worst the CCC could do is lock her up somewhere or send her to The Wall.
She didn’t mind, she gave up being free a long time ago. She had nothing else to lose after all.
“The reason I knew about the government attack on the airship is because the world has been stuck in a time loop, repeating the last year or so over and over,” she explained calmly. “I was… hired against my will to try and help fix it, and my superiors have decided that I could make more headway joining the Toppats.”
“You warned me the Tunisian Diamond would be stolen by another party, Henry taking over the airship, the plans for the rocket…They’re all a part of this.” Reginald realised.
“And here I thought you wouldn’t believe me…”
“It explains a few things, your apparent ease around me, for one thing.”
“We met before this started by the way, I just didn’t know you were involved until I got roped into finding a solution to this dumpster fire,” she clarified. “Even if you never remember, you’re still my friend.”
“I appreciate the sentiment, So tell me, what were your co-workers doing that frustrated you so much?”
“One of my co-workers assumed the flowers were a romantic gesture, ‘cause I don’t get gifts, I don’t really own much anything really… So I had to politely remind her that she’s making me uncomfortable with the idea, reminded her I don’t think in the same way as most people when it comes to relationships and stuff, and then she tells all our friends and a few of them tease me about it...” Lillian rambled. “I don’t like it, teasing or not, I’m not going to take it well… It just feels like they forget I’m going to approach romance differently than they would.”
She realized something. “Wait, I haven’t told you have I?” and without waiting for answer she went off on a tangent. “Okay, just do a search for Demisexuality and Demiromantic, read the basic definitions. That’s me, both of them, I’m both of those things. There’s a bit more to it than that, but I don’t want to go into that right now.”
There was silence for a few minutes as Lillian impatiently waited. Minutes turned into an hour.
“I see, that’s rather interesting...”
“Eh? What d’you mean?”
“I was just fascinated by the topic is all, it’s not every day I learn something new.”
Lillian stood nervously next to Reginald as the red drop pod flew them towards the airship.
“What if I suck at bein’ a Toppat?” she asked, her insecurities weighing heavily on her mind.
“You won’t, Henry’s agreed to assign you to me for the time being.”
“I’ll still suck though…”
“Just what do you plan to accomplish?”
“Eh… Not have you try to overthrow Henry because then he’ll kill us all.”
“Then I won’t, I trust you.”
She looked up at him. “You do?”
Reginald smiled at her, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Absolutely.”
“Huh… Never thought you would, I was fine with that,” she added hastily. “I just, you’ve always been this constant in all this bullshit, I spend most of my time waiting for the other shoe to drop…”
A thought popped into her head. “Oh yeah, if a woman follows Henry onto the airship, please for the love of god don’t jump the gun and try to chuck Henry off the ship, I don’t want to see you die again.”
He was wide-eyed, staring at her. “I die in some of these loops?!”
“…Yeah, I hate those ones, at least in the ones where you get arrested I make sure to visit you…”
The drop pod reattached itself to the airship with a rumble. Reginald gestured for her to go first when the door opened.
Lillian’s jittery nerves battled with the sheer wonder of seeing the airship in person, the vast expanse of blue that stretched before her as Reginald lead her to the bridge, and just the feeling of knowing she was in a place that not only was pivotal to the myriad of timelines she’d already lived through, but was Reginald’s pride and joy when he was the leader.
The two of them stopped at the sight of the vacant pilot’s seat. Reginald walked over and pulled a note off the joystick.
“It’s from Henry, says he’s gone to check on his house,” Reginald commented and grinned. “Well, if the Chief is out for the time being, I can induct you into the clan without issue.”
Lillian just went with it as he hooked his arm in hers and led her out of the bridge with a beaming grin. “First on the agenda is picking out your hat.”
He led her through the ship to a small room filled out hat boxes. He let go of her arm and gestured to the myriad of hats. “Choose a hat for a base and I’ll ask Slice to make the proper modifications.”
“Okay.”
She walked over to a pile of hat boxes and began sifting through them. There were top hats and hats that vaguely fit the clan's general aesthetic of every kind of colour and size she could imagine.
Lillian however, had thought about what hat she’d choose for several years now. Joining the clan was a bit of fantasy for the not-human, any life where she was free and her magic back was one really. She sorted through hats with purpose, finally picking up a short black hat with a long white feather attached to the side of it.
She unceremoniously plopped it onto her head and turned around to face Reginald, holding the lapels of her coat to strike a pose.
“How do I look?”
“Very nice,” Reginald commented, and she grinned.
“Awesome.”
She was still nervous, but Reginald’s excitement at her becoming a Toppat, even if it was only temporary, was infectious. She found herself in high spirits for the rest of the day.
That timeline sadly ended a few days later.