Sunset Shimmer and Starlight Glimmer sat on opposite ends of Twilight’s defunct map table, the former having arrived via magic mirror shortly after everypony had left. All small talk the two mares could have exchanged had been exchanged by that point, and they had settled into a vaguely uncomfortable silence as they waited.
A silence that was broken by Sunset. “Isn’t it weird how we all have similar name themes?”
Starlight blinked. “What.”
“Sunset Shimmer. Starlight Glimmer. Twilight Sparkle.” Sunset counted off on her hooves. “Do you think there was, like, an actor our parents liked around the time we were born who was named Noonday Light or something like that?”
“Where did this come from?”
“I’ve had a lot of time to think about it over in the human world. What’d you think?”
Starlight was saved from trying to respond by the doors swinging open. “Oh thank Celestia,” she muttered, hopping down to meet the six Elements.
“I still simply cannot believe we missed the play!” Rarity was stating in a way that might have been misconstrued as whining. “Three times! It’s the talk of every town, and I can tell you for a fact that I’ll be getting requests to do some kind of dress based on it within the next week! How, exactly, am I supposed to do that without having seen it myself?”
“I said I’m sorry!” Twilight groaned. “I had to get Discord out of it before he got himself into real trouble, then no-pony knew where Purple Heart’s counterpart could be contacted, and then-”
“I was there, Twilight,” Rarity said plainly. “I was alleviating stress, not asking for a rehash of the explanation from the trainride in. At least we found Holdfast eventually.”
“Things are getting entirely too meta,” Starlight muttered.
Twilight raised an eyebrow. “What was that?”
“Nothing! Everything go well?”
Rainbow Dash shot overhead, landing lazily in a seat next to Sunset. “Three magical signatures in the bag. The toughest part was just finding the bruise’s little bro. Kid’s got a mouth on him, but we got him to help out eventually.” She jerked her head towards Fluttershy. “Guess the Stare works on wild beasts and teenagers, huh?”
Fluttershy mumbled something inaudible.
“You girls won’t BELIEVE what happened when we went to see Just Duty!” Pinkie proclaimed. “It all started with-”
“So what’s the plan?” Applejack interrupted, a little faster than what would be considered casual. “We got them Magical John Hoofcocks. What’d we do with’m?”
Starlight motioned over to the map. “Give them to me, and I’ll set up the map. I built on top of Trixie’s modifications to make it easier to enter them in.”
“Do you really think this is gonna work?” Sunset asked Twilight, while the rest of the mares gathered around Starlight. “I mean, this is one massive reach. The local versions of Holdfast and Officer- that is, Just Duty weren’t custom-built by Discord. And Purple Heart’s brother is a pretty big stretch from Bael.”
“We just need the baselines.” Twilight dropped into her seat with a sigh. “The villains were based on those boys to begin with, which means they should share a lot of the same markers. Getting the local versions is just a way to filter that out a bit. We cast a wide enough net, and we should be able to pick up at least a couple sets of signals: the original boys, their pony counterparts-”
“Their respective villains, and their counterparts too,” Sunset finished. “I get the theory, but after all the trouble we had getting them here, I’m finding it hard to believe this’ll work so easily.”
“It worked!” Starlight’s voice echoed in the small room. “Wow... that was easy.”
Sunset blinked. “I hate everything having to do with those boys.”
“You get used to it,” Twilight replied.
The map was flickering in and out, as if it was straining to keep the images together. Sure enough, there were a grand total of 12 Cutie Marks displayed. The assorted mares gathered around, looking the map over. “Okay,” Starlight said, “who do these all belong to?”
“Let’s start with the ones we know best,” Twilight said slowly, pointing her hoof at the symbols in turn. “Tree with hanging masks is Purple Heart, the two pieces of paper folded to become one is Light Patch, and the glove is Wits End.”
“Is that what that weird sock is called?” Rainbow Dash asked.
Twilight ignored her and moved on. “I know the local versions of each of them from when I checked on them from the trouble with the Hydra.” She pointed to a theater mask, half laughing and half crying, “Purple Heart.” Next, a teapot with its spout over the handle, “Light Patch.” Finally, a cursive script struck through with a red line, “and Wits End.”
Rarity sniffed. “I don’t know what is going on with that teapot, but it’s certainly infuriating enough for Light Patch.”
“So that leaves six for the villains?” Applejack asked. “How’d we know which is which?”
“Well we know the local ones at least,” Twilight said. “And the ones I can recognize are similar enough that we can match them up.”
Applejack nodded. “Th’ shield with the scales comin’ out of it is th’ Paladin Just Duty’s.”
Pinkie perked up. “We know that ‘cause Applejack got-”
“Somepony please interrupt her.”
Rarity stepped up. “Well, the Holdfast we met had an eagle’s claw supporting two crowns… so I suppose the claw holding a single crown is the villain version.”
“That just leaves Bael and Heart Burn,” Sunset mused. “Which one seems more like him here? A purple tree with a sun and moon on either side? Or a green tree with a sun and moon on either side?”
“Green,” Rainbow Dash answered immediately. She blinked as the other mares stared at her. “What? Green strings, green flames, green monster. It’s kinda his thing.”
“Fair enough.” Sunset leaned on the edge of the map. “So now that that’s sorted out... How do we deal with this?”
The symbols were grouped in clusters about the map, with the majority centering on Snohomare, just east of Seabiscuit. Both versions of Purple Heart, along with Bael, were towards the middle of the town, with the local versions of Wits End and Heart Burn on opposite edges. The native version of Light Patch was a little past that, likely at his home-slash-office. Moving out further, the local versions of Just Duty and Holdfast were in Canterlot, with the remaining Wits End and Holdfast about halfway between the capital and Ponyville. Finally, the other Light Patch and Just Duty were in the Frozen North, north of the Crystal Empire.
“So,” Starlight said slowly, “that settles it, right? Your friends are working with the villains, and totally evil?”
“That doesn’t seem right,” Twilight muttered.
“Ah agree,” Applejack said with a nod. “Ah can’t imagine Wits and Holdfast bein’ in the same pasture without somepony gettin’ beat to high Tartarus.”
“And both versions of Purple Heart AND Bael in the same town?” Rarity scoffed. “There would hardly be a town left if that happened.”
Starlight raised an eyebrow. “No-pony has an objection to Light Patch and Just Duty being together?”
There was silence for a moment. “Nope,” Rainbow Dash said.
“Seems pretty in-character,” Twilight admitted.
“I ship it!” Pinkie chirped.
“Right, so if Purple Heart and Wits End would rather chew on nails rather than work with their villain counterparts and or vice versa,” Starlight asked ,”why are their marks displayed on top of each other?” She stared at the two overlapping marks that failed to make sense... to most of them anyway.
“What if they’re being held hostage?” Rainbow guessed aloud. “Or the villain’s have poisoned them and if they don’t cooperate they don’t get the antidote and will die?”
“Poison doesn’t really seem like Bael’s methodology,” Rarity replied, tapping her chin in thought. “And I suspect that Wits End would rather down a whole bottle of poison than be forced to work with Holdfast again, even under duress.”
“So if it’s not willing cooperation or unwilling cooperation, what is it then?” Rainbow shot back.
“Um... Maybe we should use Occrop’s Plow?” Fluttershy replied, earning questioning looks from several of those present.
“Much as I love the idea of farming being the solution here,” Applejack replied, “I don’t really see how some special plow and the pony who owns it is gonna help.”
“It’s not a real plow,” Twilight said flatly. “It’s a metaphorical plow.”
“What kinda plow is that?”
“No it’s- Forget the plow. It’s a saying coined by ponies when summing up Occrop’s thoughts.”
“Wait, you can own sayings now?” Rainbow Dash asked.
“...No, you can’t,” Twilight finally managed to say. “It means that sometimes the simplest solution is the true one. And what do you think is the simplest solution here, Fluttershy?”
“Well, if they aren’t working with them, willingly or unwillingly... Something is forcing them to work together. Maybe magic has tethered them in some way? Maybe it eve-” Fluttershy was cut off as the map flickered. Suddenly, it went black, followed shortly by a simple skull projecting from the map with a low-quality laughter sound.
Sunset frowned and then sighed with frustration as she stared at the map. “I’m really learning to hate Light Patch.”
“I barely get this reference, and it still makes me mad.” Starlight said before sighing, “I’ll go get Trixie. We’ll see what we can do to wrest control back… again.” She started to turn before freezing, as she was suddenly wearing sunglasses.
“I thought they might help,” Pinkie explained, prompting a laughing fit from Sunset. Starlight just shrugged and carried the two pairs of sunglasses as she left to find Trixie. Twilight simply turned to watch Sunset with a quirked eyebrow until the red-maned mare finished laughing.
“Oh wow... So this must be what it’s like being the only ones to get the reference,” Sunset said, trying to keep from laughing harder at all of the confused or annoyed faces. “You’ll figure it out when you invent computers.” She waved it all away with a hoof as she turned to Fluttershy. “What was that last thing you were gonna say?”
“Oh, uh... I was going to suggest that... maybe even the magic fused them, but thinking about it... If they were fused, wouldn’t their Cutie Marks fuse as well or something, rather than just layer on top of each other?”
Sunset’s smile turned to a frown. “That would make sense… but those three are humans. And humans don’t have Cutie Marks.”
Silence settled over the mares. After a moment, Rainbow Dash threw her forehooves into the air. “Did we just waste a whole day and learn nothing?”