Spike would have slammed the door to his room, if he hadn’t been worried about the fact that everything in the castle was made of crystal. Instead, the door closed gently, but in a passive-aggressive way.
“Keep out of the way, Spike,” he muttered, claws clicking against the floor as he paced. “Don’t touch the map, Spike, it’s broken enough as it is. Keep an eye on the library while we see what Discord wants, Spike. It’s not like we’re going to be thrown into another world or anything. No, stay behind while I check on Sunset Shimmer, Spike. We wouldn’t want you getting fleas in that world again.” The dragon devolved into grumbling as he hopped onto his bed, folding his stubby arms over his chest.
“I can do adventures,” he said to the very decidedly unoccupied room. “I’m an adventure-y sort. I’m sure a dragon would’ve been useful in Discord’s game world. But noooooooo! I have to stay behind because someone has to keep an eye on things.” Spike unfolded his arms so that he could plop his chin into his hands. “Why is it that now of all times is when Ponyville decides to be dull and unexciting?”
With a sigh, he flopped onto his back. Twilight, the rest of the Elements, Sunset, and Starlight had reconvened to discuss what was going on with the map, and with their three colt friends. And since they were busy, that means Spike was expected to stay out of the way. “That seems to be happening a lot lately,” he grumbled. “Seems like whenever something halfway interesting happens, it’s time for Spike to exit the scene.”
He let out another, longer sigh as he rolled off the bed, landing next to a bookshelf of his personal collection. Unlike the rest of the books in Twilight’s library, this one was sorted by series and chronologically, and held his assorted comic books. “Might as well keep rereading these until the new Jockey’s Unusual Escapades comes out,” he muttered, carefully running a claw across the different sections. “Let’s see… X-Mares, Juan Piece, Celestiale Bodies…” He stopped at one section, then pulled out a comic from the middle. “Paladins of Equestria.” He muttered, the name suddenly sparking a memory. He hurried over to his desk and pulled a scroll he’d gotten in the mail a couple of days ago.
He quickly found the scroll and started to open it. He remembered it was a reply from Canterlot Castle, but had come by mail rather than fire or spell. In his mind it could mean only one thing: a reply to the letter he’d sent to ‘Paladin Duty’, as he was known in the comics. Unrolling it, his smile morphed into his usual face for disappointing but predictable news. “Guardsman Specialist Just Duty is currently out of Canterlot on secret assignment, and won’t be available for a while,” he muttered, reading the text. “Also, seeing as we get a number of these letters: while Just Duty does resemble one of the prominent members from the comic series ‘Paladins of Equestria’, that is only because he was chosen as the artistic model by the comic’s artists, and we remind you that the comic books are just works of fiction. A fact that Just Duty has been told to remind those who note the similarities he enjoys playing up.”
Spike sighed and rolled the scroll back up. He wasn’t surprised at the response; they had to keep the story up, even if he was in the know. He was hoping he’d have gotten something from Just Duty himself, but in all likelihood he probably was out of Canterlot. Spike wasn’t too disheartened, however. This was the method that Just Duty had told him to use should he need to inform him of something important.
With another sigh, the dragon tossed the scroll back onto his desk and walked back to his comic book collection. His mind was already focused on one member of the Paladins, so he figured it’d be a good time to refresh himself on some of the others. Plucking out a couple of his favorite issues of Paladins of Equestria, he sat the pile on his bed, soon taking a seat next to it and opening one of the early comics to the beginning.
‘Paladins of Equestria’ was something he’d reread the moment they’d gotten back from meeting Equestria’s version of Just Duty, so most of the plots were still fresh in his mind. This one, he recalled, was a relative low point in terms of writing. A fairly typical ‘good guys turn evil’ story, with Paladin Duty and a few relatively new characters facing off against members of the established cast. He yawned, thinking back to when he’d read the same plot in an issue of ‘Captain Equestria: Crystal Empire Soldier’.
After a few pages, Spike paused. The formerly good characters had turned evil after returning from an interdimensional adventure, where they’d been fighting against versions of themselves from a world where everypony’s morals had been reversed. That thought stuck in his head, and he set the comic aside to search through the other’s he’d grabbed, coming back with one later in the same arc.
One quick flip through the pages confirmed his memory. The face-heel-turned characters had turned evil from exposure to their counterparts’ Multiuniversal Quinessence; a fancy term that basically translated to “what makes that version of the character unique”. Spike’s brow furrowed as he kept reading. Now that he was really focusing on it, the characters weren’t so much evil versions of themselves, as they were mergers of the two versions. They acted like themselves, but with the motivations, goals, and ethics of their evil sides. Like a near-perfect pairing of the hero and the villain.
“Holy snapdragons,” Spike gasped. “That’s why those Cutie Marks are overlapped.” The dragon hopped off the bed, clutching the comic in his claws. “They’re not working together. They’re stuck together!” He flung the door to his room open, racing down the hallway towards the map room. “Twilight!”
* * *
“Why is it so hard to find three colts and three villains?!” Rainbow Dash demanded as she angrily dropped into her seat in the Map Room. “You’d think there would be a trail or two of destruction to follow, but NOOOO! Nothing! Nada! Zilch! Null! Zip! BUPKIS!”
“Ohmygosh just CHILL!” Sunset cried, casting a silencing spell on the rabid pegasus. “You’ve been complaining since we got on the train! I can’t take any more!”
“I take it your travels yielded less than satisfactory results?” Rarity asked primly, dabbing at her face with a kerchief. “At the cost of sounding redundant, we too met with a similar conclusion to our search: the colts and their villainous counterparts are nowhere to be found.”
“Perfect,” Twilight snarled, dropping her forehead onto the map table. “Just. Freakin’. PERFECT.” Each word was punctuated by her forehead meeting the table over and over.
“Ain’t no reason to go beatin’ yerself up, Twi,” Applejack soothed the overwrought princess, leaning away from a frantically miming rainbow-maned pegasus. “At least there haven’t been any reports of disasters or such from across the country.”
“That’s what concerns me,” Twilight grumbled, scowling at the Cutie Marks on the map. “If they were causing trouble, it would be far easier to track them. Just follow the-”
“Corpses!” Pinkie interrupted around the cupcake in her mouth. The pink earth pony blinked and looked around, wilting slightly under the combined gazes of seven less than pleased mares.
“Was that really necessary?” Starlight asked weakly, her usual pinkish countenance turning to a faded green.
“It wasn’t,” Fluttershy gulped. “Please don’t do that again, Pinkie Pie.” The pink mare winced and nodded once.
Twilight sighed, turning her gaze to the map table again. The markers flickered, as if taunting her for her failure at locating their owners. “It seems the map has a delay on it, or it just froze at the point in time where they could have been in these places.” She gestured at the map’s flickering surface. “And if we can’t find the colts, then they clearly don’t want to be found.” With a sigh, she cast a counterspell on Rainbow Dash, who had begun trying to flap her wings fast enough to cause audible vibrations in the air.
“Which makes it all the more worse that we can’t find them, because they’re probably scheming together!” Rainbow gasped. “They must be planning to take over Equestria!”
“I think you’ve been readin’ too many of Spike’s comics, Dash,” Applejack said. The door to the Map Room crashed open, revealing a panting Spike. The little dragon gasped and wheezed his way to the table and flopped onto it, tongue lolling out of his mouth.
“What’s so… bad about… comics?” he panted.
“What the hay got you all winded?” Applejack asked, staring at the out of breath assistant. Spike craned his neck around to look at the orange mare.
“I was… running.”
“From what?!” Fluttershy asked.
“Nothing. Just thought... running up here with... the realization I just had would... be the best idea,” he retorted, taking deep breaths in between words. The mares jerked in surprise.
“Why run?” Sunset said. “We’re not going anywhere.” The little dragon inhaled deeply and exhaled, eyeing each of the mares in turn as he regained his breath.
“No, I’m the one that never goes anywhere,” Spike replied, before taking one last deep breath and slowly letting it out and plastering a smug smile on his face. “But I think in this case, it’s worked out for us. I think I figured out why the colts have been able to avoid you all this time... Well, ignoring the whole map sabotage anyway.” He shrugged, then held up the comic book he’d brought with him. “Behold the answer to your problems: The Paladins of Equestria, issue number 66, subtitle Mind Welds.”
“What does a comic book have to do with those boys?” Sunset asked, before Rainbow Dash shoved her out of the way.
“No way! I didn’t know issue 66 came with an alternate cover,” she said, looking closely at the comic. “They must have realized how trite the whole ‘heroes merging with their villains’ story they’d set up was and gave it better cover art halfway through printing.” She suddenly froze as Spike’s smug smile grew stronger.
“Thank you, Rainbow, for saving me from having to sum it up. You said that the colts and their villainous counterparts, or the local versions from Sunset’s world touched by the Game’s version of them, all got sucked into that portal but we never found them here in Equestria. Well, it’s simple. Because the colts and their counterparts were all merged.” He finished, beaming. “I will accept any and all suggestions of genius-hood now.”
Starlight blinked very slowly at the young dragon. “That is definitely one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard.
“No no,” Rainbow Dash said. “He’s got a point. Besides, it’s not like he’s taking plot points from the Inconveniencing Joke arc. Now that would-”
“Can we stay on topic, please?” Rarity sighed. “What does a comic book have to do with what’s going on with the colts?”
Spike shot a glance at Twilight. “Come on, Twi’,” he whispered at her. “You were there. Back me up on this.”
It took a moment for Twilight to get where he was going. “Oh. Oh! Paladins!”
“Great,” Starlight muttered. “It’s spreading.”
Twilight turned back to the rest of the mares, her horn glowing as she summoned holograms of three figures; herself, Spike, and the local version of Just Duty. “When the boys showed up in Sunset’s world, I went to check on the local versions of the villains so we could track them, just in case they had anything to do with that world getting rewritten. When we met Just Duty, he revealed that those Paladins of Equestria comics are partially based on true events.”
“A disinformation campaign,” Spike cut it. “So that rumors of the actual Paladins’ actions would lose credibility.”
“If there’s a comic about this merging between versions via alternate dimensional magic,” Twilight continued, “it means that it might be one of those true events… which means-”
“The colts are evil!” Rainbow Dash punched the air. “I knew it!”
“Might be evil,” Applejack corrected. “Not ta put a bad apple in th’ barrel, but couldn’t that be one of them disinformation bits Spike was talkin’ about?”
“It might be,” Sunset mused, “but if not, then it opens up the possibility. Jogress’ Theories on Magical Mutation mentions the possibility of fusing two creatures into one, but it’s posited as a possible explanation for the existence of things like chimeras.”
“But in practical application,” Starlight interrupted, “merged creatures are highly unstable. Haven’t you read Tucker’s Observations on Magic and Ethics?”
Sunset snorted. “Of course I have!”
“You know that book was restricted ‘cause future villains kept applying what they read in it, right?” Twilight asked. Both of the unicorn mares immediately fell silent. “In any case, we need some way to figure out if Spike’s comic is factual or not.”
“Well, it’s not all factual,” Pinkie proclaimed, skimming through the comic at high speed. “Unless Tempest Fugit’s superpower is to breathe in spandex like that.”
“Gimme that!” Spike snatched the book away, his cheek scales turning a shade of magenta. “I tried contacting Just Duty—our version that is—but I just got a form letter back. Apparently,” he shot a harder glance at Twilight, “no-pony respects the Princess of Friendship’s secretary enough to write a letter from scratch.”
Twilight coughed into her forehoof. “I guess I earned that one. Thank you for finding this, Spike.” She turned to the rest of the girls. “I-”
Spike coughed loudly into his claw.
“...Spike and I will go to Canterlot to meet with the Paladins. If a Princess asks for it, they’ll have to send somepony.”
“I’m going too!” Rainbow declared. She blinked, shifting with embarrassment at her outburst. “I’m kinda maybe sort of a fan of the Paladins’ Comic too.”
“You hide it well.” Twilight restrained her urge to roll her eyes and sighed. “Very well,” she allowed, wincing at the cyan pegasus’ squeal of excitement. “Anypony else want to join us in badgering the Paladins for legitimate information?”
Starlight shrugged. “Why not?” she said. “I’m not one to pass up a chance to irritate government officials. Seems like fun.” Twilight gave the unicorn a deadpan stare and Starlight chuckled lightly. “I’m kidding! It's a joke. You like jokes, right?”
“I’ll come too,” Sunset decided. “It's been a while since I’ve been to Canterlot. I’m interested in seeing how the old place has changed in my absence.”
Twilight gave a loud sigh. “Why do I get the feeling that you two have other agendas for this trip?” she asked, eyeing the two unicorns.
Sunset and Starlight shared a look and turned to smile innocently at the Princess of Friendship. “Whatever could have given you that idea?” they chorused.
“I’m a have to beg off joinin’ ya’all,” Applejack said. “Gotta look after the farm a spell while Granny goes off to the Badlands.” The orange mare cringed. “She’s got a monthly poker game she runs with a few old friends a hers.”
“Me too,” Pinkie added. “Mister and Missus Cake need a little vacay, so I’ll be watching the store for them.”
“And my boutique won’t run itself,” Rarity piped up.
“I need to watch the animals,” Fluttershy said.
Twilight arched an eyebrow at the yellow pegasus. “Any animals in particular?” she asked.
“No,” the pink-maned mare said. “Just all of them.”
“Riiiiight,” Twilight hummed. “Well then, see you all back here in a week or so?”
As the two sets of ponies headed towards the exit, Sunset moved alongside Twilight. “So, does this count as splitting the party?”
“Don’t even start.”