Fire and Pinkie both encounter each other as they stir from sleep mode and walk downstairs into the living room. They both have a jolt at who's in front of them, knowing what's on their plate right now.
Do I tell her?, Fire thinks. About the dream?
Well, she did say it's something she wants to do...
"Pinkie, I had a dream last night.", Fire begins with. "It was a dream that depicted me meeting your friends from Ponyville and having a great time."
Unsurprisingly, Pinkie bounces on her hooves in excitement, before Fire could say more. "Ooh! How did it go?!", she asks.
"Uh... it went very well, according to the dream. It depicted me having a lot of fun with the meeting, and, uh..." Fire couldn't understand why, but she was hesitant to reveal what the dream gave to her.
"What is it, mom?"
Fire sighs and goes in for the gusto again. "Now I'm interested in meeting your friends in real life."
Pinkie gasps, charges up with the tremors, then bounces around the room in squeals.
"Yippee! Oh, I sowant to tell everyone! But they might be asleep!", Pinkie says, holding Fire in her grasp and giving her a shake.
Fire giggles at her daughter's antics. "Well, they'll wake up eventually.", she says, sitting down in her chair.
Golden Arrow and Maud did wake up eventually, and after they got told about Fire's dream, they all agreed today would be the day. Maud was excited, Golden Arrow a little skeptical, but after being unable to think of many other ways they could continue doing things in this world, he agreed to the trip.
Pinkie got so deeply immersed into the excitement and packing for the trip that she totally forgot to inquire with Maud about the topic from her dream last night.
Hold up, how is this travel going to work? The family members are in a completely different universe from the Standard Equestria, where Pinkie's friends are located. Do they need to go all the way to this world's temple of portals? Does that temple even exist?
Well, yes and yes, but there is a catch.
"Don't worry everyone, this won't be a long, treacherous journey like you two had, Pinkie and Maud.", Fire assured. "I know of a train in this country that will drive to the temple of portals and drop anyone off there."
Pinkie and Maud high-hoof each other. Lucky!
"The thing is, the temple is quite a popular destination in this world.", Fire continues. "Us draconequi love exploring alternate universes. It's not like most worlds where the temple is a deserted, little-known place."
"That's exactly what it is in our world.", Maud says. "It's way, way, out in the middle of nowhere and there are almost no books about it."
"Well, you're in luck then.", Fire said as they stepped off the dock and boarded the train. The train that sounded off with the conductor's announcement: "Next stop, the temple of portals!"
They all smiled. Let's get this going!
Upon reaching the other side of the ride, Pinkie and Maud take sight of the draconeqqus-world temple that looks... exactly like the one they went to. Huh. Yep, it is the same tall, wide, block-y black pyramid.
Heading inside the door... same story. The exact sight from before, the same big, black hall lined with the same row of portals in the same colors, is where Pinkie and Maud are standing.
"Wow. It looks exactly like the one I know.", Pinkie says in disbelief.
"It should.", Fire noted. "The collection of gateways to other universes does share its appearance with every world it's connected to."
"Interesting! And does it also share the access points?", Pinkie asks.
"...For the most part.", Fire responds. "For every universe, there are some other universes that are blocked off from access. In fact, this world was blocked on your world until I unlocked it."
"However, the same may not be true for the other way around. Standard Equestria is easily accessible from this world. It's through portal 232."
Fire points forward as she says that, directing the group to where home, friends, and introductions awaited. They walk forward with her; portal 232 it is.
"Note what I said earlier about blocked-off universes in certain temples; because of that, portal 232 goes somewhere different on your world. Like, it's not always neatly arranged and connected, if that makes sense."
"Also, no temple can provide access to every universe out there, because scientifically, there are an infinite amount of them. These are just the ones that have been found by outsiders so far."
"Interesting! And how did those outsiders find other universes?", Pinkie asks. "I mean, they couldn't have created a portal without knowing it existed."
"Uh... that's a long explanation.", Fire says. "Something that I wouldn't want you two to get a headache over when we're still focusing on you and your friends."
"Okay.", Pinkie agrees. "Bu-ut, maybe one day, we can do a hangout where you teach us all about the portal stuff!"
Maud nods. "We really should do that. Once we're finished here, let's get on it."
Golden Arrow is all in on that idea too. A lecture from Fire about portals and universes and how they're discovered; heck yes. But okay, right now is right now.
The family had continued walking as they conversed, and as a result, they have now made it to the lime-green portal 232. Let's go.
Because the portal paths from a temple never connect to the corresponding entry in another temple, the family gets dumped into a very remote area, with nothing in sight except rocks and a river in front of them, and a long landscape of grass and trees. Which were green this time. Welcome home, Pinkie and Maud.
"Okay, so, how do we get to Ponyville now?", Pinkie asks, not outwardly displaying her heartwarming deja vu of being back home.
"There's a train station not far from here," Fire says, "but I would sure like to be able to surprise your friends in Ponyville. Remember, they are unaware that there are draconequi other than Discord."
"Ooh, yeah!", Pinkie says, bouncing. "That would be a great surprise!"
Fire nods. "So, how about I fly, really high up in the sky, where nopony will see us clearly, carrying the three of you on me as we fly to where your friends are?"
Pinkie wants to love the idea, but she senses a problem. "Yikes! Wouldn't that be dangerous?"
"Nah.", Fire assures, waving a hand. "You two can puff yourselves up and become living parachutes, and I can use my magic to hold you all in place as we fly."
Correct on the living parachutes thing, and Fire was a draconeqqus, after all. "Then yes!", Pinkie exclaims.
"The question is, though, how should I announce my return?", she stalls. "Like, what location, and what method of arrival? Heck, I haven't even told my friends I'm coming back today."
Fire is chill about decisions. "We'll figure that out on the fly.", she says, lowering her back for the other three to hop on. She uses her yellow-aura magic to buckle them on, safe and secure, and takes flight into the Equestrian atmosphere.
...
Buying the time, they did hatch up a plan on the... fly! The plan is for Pinkie to use the tool she uses to make quiet splashes when at a quietness-desiring pool; flying down at full, normal, speed and then abruptly slowing down for a safe landing. Followed by Maud peeking out from behind a building.
As for why Maud won't be floating down, it's because Pinkie's friends don't yet know that she can also do it, and the Pie family wants a full surprise. Not for anypony to get suspicious upon a new sight.
Not finding any holes in it and unable to think of an alternative, they all love the plan. They give it the thumbs-up, and good timing too, as Ponyville's skyline is in their sights. Here they go.
Pinkie and Fire's senses notified them that the rest of Pinkie's friend group was hosting a gathering around the outside of Sugarcube Corner, which was further confirmed when Pinkie saw them from above as they arrived at their destination, using her binocular vision. Wow, that's the perfect time and location for her to announce her return!
"I'm going to do my best to make sure everything goes great from the start, mom!", Pinkie says, giving a salute.
Fire gives a thumbs-up and watches her daughter take the leap, all the way down, to the grass her beloved friends were standing on.
Soon, I will meet them., Fire tells herself.
...
Meanwhile at the bottom, Applejack feels the warm sun over her get shaded away, and sounds off in response "What in tarnation?"
"What's goin' on, Applejack? ...Oh.", Rainbow Dash says, looking up above AJ's standing area.
"Is that... w-w-huh?"
Applejack turns her body backward and cranes her head up to whatever this sun-blocker was. Turns out, it was a pleasant thing. A very pleasant thing.
Pinkie Pie, the ponies' pink, bubbly, treat-baking friend, was right there, floating down right back to them. Returning to their vicinity of seeing her.
This fantastic, fun day for the rest of the Mane Six just got 100% cooler.
"Pinkie! You're back!", Rainbow Dash squeals as she wraps around Pinkie's neck, followed by Applejack hugging around the midsection. The other three ponies detect the noise and walk out of the building, then pile on the hug in tears of joy. They can be heard saying "I missed you!", "Welcome back!", among other beautiful phrases.
"Aww! I love you girls!", Pinkie says, hugging the group back.
"I didn't think you'd be back so early!", Twilight exclaims.
"Things have been going faster than I thought.", Pinkie noted, taking herself on a rapid rewind through her adventure and its timeline thus far. Had Pinkie tried to predict how long the trip would take from the beginning to this point, only five days would not have been her outlook.
The hug eases off and this new chapter of Pinkie and Maud's big saga kicks off.
"So Pinkie, where's Maud at?", Rainbow Dash asks. "I've been told she went on the trip with you."
"About to come out right now.", Pinkie says, pointing her head towards a building behind her on the left.
Maud peeks her head out towards the mares from behind, and speaks to the group with a smile as her full body becomes visible... all in rather fast fashion. "How you all doing?"
Maud's unusually sparkly behavior triggers a lot of raised eyebrows among Pinkie's friends. They don't want to dodge her question or pry about personal matters, but she did seem different.
"We're pretty good.", Applejack answers. "Just been missin' Pinkie."
"Totally fair.", Maud said, looking over at her sister, who let out a squee at her pals.
Twilight changed the conversation's course. "So, how did the trip go?"
"I'll tell you about it at a dining table. Inside my home.", Pinkie sniffled, looking up at Sugarcube Corner.
"Aww, Pinkie! Home sweet home, right?", Rainbow Dash said, showing her other, soft side.
"Mhm.", Pinkie said, shedding a tear.
"Well, let's go get some treats!", Twilight said, leading the way in.
Pinkie and Maud, sitting side-by-side at a lone, circular table in front of the girls' bunched-together round tables to create a TV-host-like situation, prepare, in front of their friends and their treat eating, to tell the entire story thus far.
"So basically, me and Maud, after seeing Limestone and Marble not perform a trick I instructed, asked our parents why we could do all these crazy things, but they couldn't.", Pinkie began with. "First time I had ever really given thought to it."
"Same here.", Maud added. "My whole life, I always just, like, shrugged it off and said 'I don't have time to question it. Just move on.'"
"Right.", Pinkie says. "So we asked our parents about it, and that led to us finding out that, well, they're not our parents."
As expected, Pinkie could see the girls' eyes all go wide. Oh boy, here it comes...
"To put it bluntly, we were adopted.", Maud cut to the chase with. "Without ever being told about it."
The girls, even the ones who had food in their mouths or their forks hanging in the air, completely ceased all movement at the hearing of this info. The ones with food in their mouth made sure to chew and swallow, but as this bombshell exploded in their minds, they had to really push themselves to do so. Swallow food, think about that other thing later., Rainbow Dash said internally.
"Tell me about it. I was as shocked as you are.", Pinkie says, with that shattering moment, from Chapter 1, replaying in her mind and bringing back her old emotions from it. They were very much still around.
Pinkie, hanging her head down with closed eyes, lets the moment of silence go and waits for one of her friends to make a comment, that she was dying to know what it would be.
"Why... w-would your parents not tell you?", Rainbow Dash finally broke the ice with.
"They say it was because they didn't want to treat us as outsiders.", Pinkie said, rubbing her shoulder. "They thought that by hiding away anything different about us compared to Marble and Limestone, that we'd be a tighter-knit family.
Pinkie fully expected Applejack to comment on this, which she did. "Well, holdin' down a lie for darn that many years ain't gonna make ya tighter-knit!"
Pinkie nodded in betrayal at her parents' decision. "I wish they had seen it that way."
Applejack could only guess what kind of old demons she was re-releasing in Pinkie right now, so she tries to reassure and steer the conversation in a different direction. Key word: tries.
"Hey now, you ain't at fault. What happened happened, and I'd say it'd be best for ya to try and move on."
Uh... yeah, this was probably not it.
"Hey now Applejack, let her grieve.", Twilight said. "Pinkie did lose something here; she lost a connection she thought was there all this time, by virtue of decisions her parents made... that did affect her."
Applejack looks at Pinkie and does see the error in her advice, as Pinkie's head hangs down further with still-closed eyes.
"Oh. Sorry about that, y'all. I didn't know the right way to say that."
"No harm done, AJ.", Pinkie assures. "I know it's not our fault. What I'm upset about is that I have to be mad at my parents... but I don't want to be. I still love them and want to spend time with them; it's not like everything I had with them just got erased."
"Oh, is that the problem?", Rarity says. "Well dear, I do have to remind you that nopony is perfect. Cloudy and Igneous may have made a bad decision, but literally everypony has made them. I can attest."
Pinkie had a respond to this in completed planning, but, while looking at Maud, she notices the conversation having drifted off from the path, to which she suspects Maud agrees with.
"Well, I could say what I think of that, but now I'd like to talk about my original parents. I can save my emotional baggage for later."
The girls sit in worry that Pinkie was trying to bottle things up out of fear that she was overwhelming them, which wasn't true, but hey, let's not put extra pressure on her.
"S-o-o...", Pinkie begins with, realizing the extent of what she was about to reveal, "...our original mother, believe it or not, is the same species as Discord. She is a draconeqqus."
Rainbow Dash had chosen the very wrong time to take a sip of her tea; she almost coughs it down the wrong pipe while trying to avoid spitting it out all over the place.
"Whoa, man! So Discord's not the only one?", she says, suspended in the air from the shock.
"Nope!", Pinkie responds. "Our mom lives in a world that's full of them!"
Shocking silence shall ensue.
"Well then, that's a theory confirmed!", Twilight said. "Many books and legends have talked about living draconequi other than Discord before, but none were ever confirmed!"
"Nice!", Pinkie says. "That's always fun!" Twilight nodded in response.
Rainbow Dash was not tuned in to this theory conversation. Over on her leftmost table, she picks up on something. Something gigantic.
"So, wait.", she says. "I just remembered that draconequi can do a bunch of ridiculous things like teleporting objects and 'sensing' things before they happen... does that mean all your Pinkie randomness comes from being born to a draconeqqus?"
"Yep. That's it!", Pinkie answers. "I finally found out!"
Right after saying that, Pinkie sees a customer standing inside the building. A customer she had not noticed.
"You were saying?", the pony asks.
...
Oh shoot...