Several ponies and humans. 9:05 am on Day Three.
A lot of things happened in the next five seconds, both on Earth and in Equestria. I’ll cover them one at a time, but for maximum chaotic effect, imagine them all happening at once.
Most obviously, Principal Celestia was engulfed in an ethereal fireball. There was a brief, brighter flash of white, and the human body of Celestia was transformed into an alicorn before it could be consumed by an excess of magical energy.
Luna, seeing what happened to Celestia, instantly came to the correct conclusion that another round of mind-swappings was now underway. She looked up at the Moon, and screamed in terror.
Princess Celestia, seeing her sister’s counterpart panic, also came to the correct conclusion as to what she was afraid of. She summoned up a magical shield around them both, and shot a beam of energy into Luna’s head to try and keep her mind in place, but she could feel it being pulled out of Luna’s skull, to make way for the other Luna. Thinking fast, Celestia changed her spell, replicating the effect of an intense brain freeze. Luna’s cry changed from fear to pain, which quickly faded, as no brain freeze is really that painful. After a few moments, Celestia felt the pull die off, and after waiting a couple of minutes more, removed the spell.
Spike had not liked his first car ride, not one bit. He had jumped out of the car as soon as Twilight had burst out, running in a random direction, and Shining Armor and Cadance had run after him.
Twilight Velvet and Night Light, seeing the dopple of their daughter disappear into the side of a stone statue and noting all tartarus breaking loose in their peripheral vision, simultaneously came to the same illogical conclusion, leaping through the portal themselves. They at least used the magic-cancelling mat, although not on purpose.
Gnosi Augur and Meridiem Tempest had collapsed mid-run. They spent the five seconds just figuring out what had happened to them, and where the streets of Canterlot had gone. They hadn’t even gotten to the point of realizing they weren’t ponies anymore.
Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, their family members and Archbishop August had all been too far away to be affected. Pinkie Pie and Maud shared a significant look over what they had witnessed, before opening the van door and leading the others over to see what they could do to help.
And Sunset Shimmer just stood there.
In the basement of the School of Magic, Celestia fainted. Her mane reverted to pink hair, she shrunk down in size, and her wings faded out of existence.
The attention of Rainbow Dash, Applejack and Twilight Sparkle, all of them humans in filly bodies, was on the mirror portal. They saw a second copy of Twilight, this one older, stumble through, followed by her parents. This last bit was rather confusing, as those same parents were also standing behind them.
Bow Hothoof and Windy Whistles weren’t in the School of Magic, as has been established. So nothing happened to them. Shining Armor was out doing his guard duties for the day. Like Rainbow Dash’s parents, he didn’t expect to see a loved one returned to their rightful body before lunchtime at the earliest. Shining had brought Spike with him on his rounds, to answer the question “how hard could it be?” (Answer: a lot). So nothing happened to them, either.
Gilda suddenly stood up on her hind paws and looked around her in panic. “What the f—?!” she tried to scream.
She was stopped by the hoof of Fluttershy shoved into her beak. “Don’t you dare!” she screamed at human Gilda.
Fluttershy had been paying attention to Raven’s complicated explanation of a few minutes prior, and being somewhat a pessimist when it came to the affairs of humanity, had instantly concluded that something was going to screw up, and picked more switching as one of the possible outcomes.
“You listen here, Gilda!” she said, flying up to be above the very confused griffon. “This is a near-perfect world, of peace and understanding between all creatures. One of the many, many ways that it is superior to Earth is the lack of swearing. I will not have Equestria befouled by your filthy vocabulary.”
Gilda squinted her eyes at the yellow pegasus. “You’re awfully angry for such a cute little thing,” she quipped.
“You’re one to talk,” Fluttershy retorted.
Gilda looked herself over. “F—!” she tried to get out, only to be hoof-blocked once more.
The two sets of Twilight parents looked around in confusion. The fact that two of them came through the portal so soon after Twilight was what prevented them from switching minds with each other.
Trixie sucked her thermos with all her might, and so also escaped switching with her human counterpart. “Ow,” she said faintly.
And Raven just stood there.
P. Celestia—Canterlot High School.
Princess Celestia dropped her shield. Standing tall, she looked around, and instantly locked eyes with Sunset Shimmer.
“Well,” she said darkly.
“Well,” Sunset replied archly. She pointed over at the plinth. “I assume that was Twilight Sparkle?”
“Yes,” said Celestia, looking down. “I picked her out to be your replacement.”
“Well,” Sunset repeated. “How’s that working out for you?”
Celestia rolled her eyes before looking up. “She has...enthusiasm.”
Sunset nodded.
Celestia resumed her scan of her surroundings. She spotted several humans peeking at her between blinds in the window. With a sigh, she walked over to the plinth, then summoned a very large tent into existence that completely covered it, and her. The round walls were made up of alternating vertical panels of red and yellow, atop which was a conical roof made of triangular panels meeting at the top, colored the opposite of the wall panels they touched. Atop the structure was a pennant flag with Celestia’s cutie mark on it.
“Oh, what stories of epic heroism have you seen?” Luna asked herself. She turned around to see the eyes of the curious students. “Get back to class!” she yelled, scowling. The eyes disappeared. She realized that some of them belonged to teachers. She then pushed aside a flap to enter the tent.
The Princess used her magical senses to study the plinth. “Sunset, the book,” she commanded, not even looking behind her at the red-and-golden haired girl.
“Yes, Your Highness,” Sunset said snarkily, handing it over. She then looked down at a pebble, putting one hand to her temple and extending the other in a gesture of command, trying to will the rock to lift into the air.
Nothing happened.
Celestia took a moment to examine the ball point pen located inside the book before using it to start writing on the page with her name on it.
P. Gnosi & Meridiem.
The two fallen ponies in human bodies rose to their knees, slowly examining themselves.
“Gnosi, did you turn me into a strange alien creature?” Meridiem asked.
“I was going to ask you the same thing,” Gnosi replied.
They looked behind them to see two other creatures with forms similar to their own: Pinkie and Maud. They quickly filled them in on what had happened.
Examiners Gnosi and Meridiem accepted the news calmly. This was far from the first time that a magical mishap at Celestia’s School of Magic had transformed one or the other of them into an alien form, although...
“A stable mind transference has never before been accomplished, to my knowledge,” Meridiem said. “This could be an interesting field of study.”
Archbishop August, who had been standing behind the Pies and had heard most of the conversation, sighed inwardly before stepping forward. “Welcome to Earth,” he said, before pointing at the tent. “It appears that your princess is also a visitor to this world. Perhaps we should speak with her together.”
Gnosi and Meridiem nodded, then rose to their feet. They helped each other walk towards the tent. August walked slowly behind them, trying to nerve himself up to the task of speaking with his goddess.
Raven—Equestria, Basement of the School of Magic.
Raven read the words on the page of the Zero-X book over and over again, trying desperately to will into existence a universe where they weren’t true. Her Princess was in another universe, and she had ordered Raven to carry out her will in Equestria. The absence of her ruler, her friend, her life, left a gaping void in her heart.
“Hello?” a voice behind her cried out. A voice that should have been the Princess’, but it was not, because it was scared, and the Princess was never scared of anything.
With a deep sigh, Raven turned around to take in the sight of the pitiful weakling unicorn that had replaced the mighty Princess Celestia of Equestria.
“Principal Celestia,” she said in as calm a voice as she could manage. “I need you to calm down. You’re going to be in that body for quite some time.”
“I don’t understand,” the Principal whimpered. “I can just go through the portal and she can switch us back, right?”
Raven closed her eyes in frustration. “No,” she said. “The Princess cannot return to Equestria without relinquishing all of her magic. Anything else risks destroying the portal utterly.” She re-opened her eyes and looked at the pink unicorn directly. “And if she de-powers, who will cast the spells to put everypony else into their bodies? We are missing the human Rarity, and the pony Applejack. And Equestria cannot go an entire day without a Celestia presenting herself to the public. There would be widespread panic.”
“Yes.” Principal Celestia closed her own eyes so she wouldn’t have to see any more alien creatures, and took a few calming breaths. “I know all of that. I was just...well I was just panicking myself.” She opened her eyes. “I’m sure I can impersonate...” She noticed that she was at eye level with Raven, so she examined herself. “Why am I not tall? What happened to my color? My mane? My wings?”
Raven made the nearest wall reflective, so Principal Celestia could examine herself. “This is what the Princess looked like in the first few decades of her life. She only achieved the form you know when she became an alicorn. Since this mind swapping involves the pony taking their magic with them...”
“I’m stuck looking like this,” Celestia concluded. “So I’m useless to you.”
“Don’t you have mages?” Rainbow Dash asked, butting into the conversation. “One of them could whip up an illusion spell of the Princess, right?”
“All of our trusted mages are in Yakyakistan, following the false trail left by Sunset Shimmer,” Raven explained. “Sure, we could recruit some random pony with a talent in illusions, but I would prefer it to be you if at all possible. And the Princess agrees.”
“There’s still the matter of appearance,” Celestia said.
“And that I am going to solve,” Raven said. She walked around the corner of the room and up the stairs.
Several ponies peeked their heads around to see what would happen.
Vinny the royal guard opened the door. “What is it, Raven?” he asked, seeing the obvious worry on her face.
“The Princess has temporarily lost all of her magic,” the aide told him. “I need you to get every magical charging artifact in the city down here as soon as possible.”
“Wow!” Vinny exclaimed. He turned around, prepared to dash off.
“Vice-Captain!” Raven ordered, causing the other pony to freeze. “There are two devices located in the nurse’s office of this building, on the second floor. Have somepony bring those down here while you go out and get the others. That way we can start restoring our princess as soon as possible.”
“Yeah, I’ll do that,” Vinny said, before dashing around a corner. “Hey you two!” his voice could be heard commanding. “We have a crisis on our hooves!”
Raven closed the door and descended the stairs to stand before the Principal. “See? Once we get enough magic in you, you should transform into a duplicate of the Princess.”
“What if her alicornhood went along with her magic?” Celestia asked.
Raven took in a sharp breath. “We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,” she said quietly. In a louder voice she said, “Now I have to go and clear the Princess’ early schedule, and then round up the human Gnosi and Meridiem. Currently, the plan is as follows: as soon as Pinkie Pie arrives by train, there should be at least six humans matched up with six ponies: Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Twilight Sparkle, Pinkie Pie, Gnosi Augur and Meridiem Tempest. That group will go through the mirror portal to be switched with their pony counterparts by the Princess. Remember, the goal is to use the mirror the absolute minimum number of times, and to be absolutely sure that any individual crossing from Earth to Equestria discharges before crossing. And Principal Celestia?”
“Yes?”
“As soon as you have the right form, you’re leading the search party looking for Rarity. The role will be largely ceremonial, as I will be doing the actual searching, but your presence is absolutely necessary to hold together the frankly second-rate ponies gathered to perform this vital job. I expect you will find it distressingly similar to your day job. That’s what your counterpart keeps telling me.”
“I see,” said the Principal. With a sigh, she walked over to the magical book. She looked down to read the most-recent entry and smiled. “I see that my sister is wishing me luck.”
“As do I,” Raven said. She turned around, re-ascended the staircase, and opened the door. Four guards were waiting there with the charging artifacts belonging to the school. “Take those downstairs. I trust I do not need to order you to keep the current status of the Princess a secret?”
“No, ma’am,” the stone-faced lead guard replied.
Raven walked out of the doorway, and the guards carefully descended with their valuable cargo.
P. Twilight Sparkle.
Pony Twilight had started crying as soon as she had found out what her action had caused. “It’s all my fault the Princess is stuck on Earth,” she sobbed.
Her parents surrounded her on either side with their embrace.
“You couldn’t have known, Twilight,” Human Twilight said. She was acutely aware that her words had much less weight because they were coming out of a filly’s body with a filly’s little voice.
“Of course I should have known!” Pony Twilight barked back. “It was a magical artifact traversing the boundary between a magic-rich and a magic-poor setting. The equations practically write themselves!”
Human Twilight was lost for a moment in thought, trying to pull those equations from the other Twilight’s head into her own. “Well, unless you unicorns have figured out how to reverse polarity, then it’s best for you to leave the past in the past.”
“It’s possible,” Pony Twilight countered. “But the mana requirements are so high that it’s difficult even for the Princess to accomplish.” Thinking over her counterpart’s words, she wiped her eyes with a fetlock. “And yes, that’s sound advice.” She then took a moment to look over the smaller Twilight. “Hey, what did you do to my horn! ...No, I’m sorry, that was me, wasn’t it?” She leaned in close, then gasped. “Doesn’t that hurt?”
“Well I felt a little something when the wind hit it an hour ago,” Human Twilight said, raising her hoof up towards the stripped surface of her horn, but stopping herself before she made the mistake of touching it. “But no. I have no knowledge of how magic works, so as not to send any mana through it.”
Pony Twilight nodded her head. “That makes sense, I hope you told everypony who you were as soon as possible.”
“Err...”
H. Twilight Velvet & Night Light.
Pony Twilight’s parents, seeing that the two purple unicorns appeared to be getting along, pulled aside their once-human counterparts.
“I hope you’re adapting well,” Pony Night Light said.
Human Night Light lifted a hoof and gave it a once-over. “Well we figured out standing and walking pretty fast, so this shouldn’t be too bad.” He put it down to look at his mirror image, looking for any differences in appearance. “So, what do you do for a living?”
“I’m an astronomer, and Velvet here is a magical researcher.”
“I imagine you don’t do the same thing,” Pony Twilight Velvet joked.
“No,” said Human Twilight Velvet. “I’m a financial advisor, and my husband is a dietician.”
“Although astronomy is my hobby,” Human Night Light added.
Pony Night Light looked around, to be sure that nobody was about to hear what he was going to say. “Look, we need to discuss what’s going to happen with our daughters...”
H. Rainbow Dash.
It turned out that this wasn’t the first time that Princess Celestia had needed a magical boost to deal with a threat to Equestria. It was just the first time in living memory that the Princess had looked like that. So it was with practiced ease that the guards had made their modifications to the charging artifacts, removing the booths attached to each one and setting each one up so that it sent a beam of magical energy down, the two beams converging in the same spot. Celestia stood in the designated spot, and her charging began.
Human Twilight was all over the machines in an instant, using her enhanced senses to study them. Twilight—both Twilights, actually—already had a habit of speaking her observations out loud as a way to organize them in her brain. And Pony Twilight was right there beside her, eagerly taking in this unprecedented chance to examine the working innards of an actual artifact.
So yes, the human Twilight had retained her ability to see how things worked just by looking at them, even without the sedative. But now she saw intriguing patterns instead of full equations, and she was no longer suffering from a manic episode.
Meanwhile Gilda had been standing still, her back to the wall, watching and listening to everything that had been going on. Once the guards had left the room, she had casually strode over to one of the two artifacts, looking it over. She ran a claw over the surface, and then had turned around and casually leaned back against it. The device was sturdy; it did not move under her weight.
The whole time that Gilda had been standing against that wall, Rainbow Dash had been stealing glances at her, trying to figure out what to say. (The whole time, with the exception of that time she had interrupted Raven’s conversation with Principal Celestia. And that other time she wrote a message to her counterpart in the magic book.) Now that Gilda had changed position, she finally thought of something to say, and tried her best to walk casually over to her. “So, you don’t think this is a dream or anything, do you?”
Gilda said nothing for a few moments, staring at the cutie mark visible on one side of the cerulean pegasus. “No, this is no dream,” she said at last. Looking around her, she said, “This is where the Markists get their magic from.”
“You believe in magic?” Rainbow asked incredulously.
“I’d have to be an idiot not to. I grew up in a city seeing highly improbable acts on a daily basis. Sure, any one of them by themselves could be explained logically but put them all together and it’s obvious that something supernatural is going on. I’ve seen The Omen.”
Rainbow Dash, having never seen that movie, missed the connection.
“So now I’m in some griffon’s body,” Gilda continued.
“Yeah, you switched bodies with your counterpart. You see, this is an alternate universe.”
“OK, Rainbow,” Gilda said laconically. “So when do you think we can go flying?”
Rainbow froze as she was forced to process several startling revelations at one. She decided to deal with them in chronological order. “How did you know what a griffon is? How did you know it was me? And you can’t fly, because you haven’t got any magic.”
Gilda turned her head to look at the glowing light of magic surrounding Celestia, chewing the inside of her cheek in lieu of a toothpick. “One. I’ve watched Harry Potter, although I will pound you if you tell anyone. Two. The mark on your rear—which is so you it’s sickening, combined with the dumb look on your muzzle. Hey, Fluttershy.”
“Hey,” Fluttershy whispered from her spot by the wall.
“Three. I’m fixing that right now.” Gilda patted the side of the charging machine with a claw for emphasis.
Rainbow Dash reached forward and experimentally touched the side of the machine with a hoof, jerking it back at the strange sensation that it gave her, the feeling of magic finally entering her magicless body. Then she leapt forward and embraced the thing with her wings. “Gimmie!”
Gilda had to put a claw over her beak to contain the laughter.
Fluttershy cautiously walked up to stand before her.
Gilda raised an eyebrow in admiration at the pegasus’ audacity. Noting her cutie mark she said, “So, Little Butterfly, how are you holding up under the pressure?”
Fluttershy looked away as she composed her response. “I kind of wish I could stay forever.”
“That good, huh?” Experimentally, Gilda stepped away from the artifact and flexed her wings. A powerful burst of air briefly lifted her into the air. “Interesting... Hey RD, are you full up yet?”
Rainbow Dash stepped back and tried out her own flying ability. “Yeah,” she said.
“So let’s say we take a look around,” Gilda suggested. “Like the black-haired pony said, we’re not doing anything for a few hours. We could catch up on the way.”
Rainbow Dash smiled. “I’d really like that. Are you coming, Fluttershy?”
“Of course Flutters is coming,” Gilda said, pulling her into a wing-hug. “I need her as my censor, right?”
“Right,” Fluttershy grumbled in a tiny voice.
Gilda guffawed. “This place has really given you a backbone!” she exclaimed. “Any other friends you want to drag along?” she asked Rainbow.
“Applejack, do you want to walk around Canterlot with us?” Rainbow asked.
Applejack looked up from her deep reverie. “No, I’d just keep you birds on the ground.”
“Are you alright?” Fluttershy asked.
“I just...I just want to go home, as soon as possible,” Applejack told her. “I...I need to see my parents.”
Fluttershy nodded. “We’ll come back after lunch,” she told Principal Celestia. She had noticed that the Principal had observed the entire conversation.
Celestia, figuring she was in charge in the absence of Raven, nodded.
The group of three winged creatures exited the room.
A moment later, Gilda ran back, picked up the pen, and wrote something in the book before leaving.
Celestia, stuck in the beam of rejuvenating magic, hoped whatever she had written wasn’t too serious.
P. Trixie.
“Twilight, this is Trixie, my best friend,” Pony Twilight said.
“Yeah, she’s the one who outed me,” Human Twilight said.
Trixie, who had been trying to contain herself throughout the interminable conversation between the two Twilights, rushed forward to hug her friend. “I was so worried about you!” she exclaimed. “I’ve heard so many horror stories about Earth. Most of them derived from horror movies, I admit.”
“It seemed like a nice enough place for the short time I was conscious to experience it,” Pony Twilight said.
P. Celestia—Earth, Under Celestia’s Tent.
“Princess, is there any chance we might be allowed to stay in these bodies?” an eager Pony Gnosi asked Celestia. “The chance to study how magic works with a new species, in this ‘solarium’ that the archbishop describes, would be a fascinating experience. Even if you did prevent publication for reasons of national security.”
“And I haven’t had a chance to exercise my Sociology minor in ages,” added Pony Meridiem. “I love working at your school, but Harmony knows how I’ve wished for a worthy sabbatical.”
“What about the offer to help Twilight Sparkle?”
“Helping a pony in need obviously comes first,” Meridiem answered, looking over at Gnosi to get a nod of affirmation. “This would be pending that.”
“I think the decision to stay in those bodies would be up to your counterparts, as well as your employer,” Celestia said cautiously, gesturing at the Archbishop.
“Well, I wouldn’t want to force my bishops’ hands,” August said. “But I would think the chance to see the source of their faith up close and personal would be a chance they would be fools to give up. Their learnings could revolutionize Markism. Not to mention whatever advances to the knowledge of human magic that you would be able to provide us, Mr. Augur.”
“Please, call me Gnosi.”
“I don’t know...” the Princess said.
“The human Gnosi Augur and Meridiem Tempest can absolutely be trusted to keep any secrets that you ask of them,” August pleaded. “Both in Equestria and when they return to Earth.”
Celestia sighed. “I’ll pass the question on to be answered by the bishops when they are found. Let’s not think of anything else until that matter is resolved.”
H. Luna.
The Princess looked over at Vice-Principal Luna, just as the trauma of her recent near-possession suddenly caught up with her. She walked up to her sister’s counterpart and summoned up a soundproof sphere around the two of them. “How are you holding up?” she gently asked Luna.
Luna took a moment to calm her breathing. “It’s...not half as bad as the time she actually had control of this body.”
“You’re safe now,” Celestia assured her.
Luna nodded. As she looked through the Princess’ flowing mane, she saw Sunset Shimmer sink down to sit on the grass at the far corner of the tent, examining the pebble she failed to move earlier.
Celestia noticed this and looked over at her shoulder. “I...I’m sorry about what you might have witnessed earlier. Sunset really knows how to push my buttons.”
“And vice versa,” Luna observed. “I’m not really mad at you. No, my ire is reserved for her mother.”
Celestia looked curiously over at Sunset. “Her mother? She doesn’t have a mother. She’s been living in the palace since she was six.” She looked back at Luna, to be met by a punch in the face.
“You did this to her!” Luna cried. To Celestia’s incredulous look she said, “You’re the one she thinks of as her mother.”
“She never told that to me!” Celestia said, rubbing her sore jaw.
“She’s too stubborn to ever say it out loud,” Luna told her.
“This is ridiculous!” Celestia protested. “She should know full well that I can’t love a mortal. Not again.”
“Are you telling me you never told her that you loved her?” Luna asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Oh, of course I did when I first took her in. It was the only way to get her to go to sleep at night.”
“And when was the last time you said it?”
Celestia thought for a moment. “The night before I made her my student. Right before she turned nine.”
“And you don’t think there’s anything wrong with that?” Luna demanded.
“It’s alright!” she protested. “My father stopped saying he loved me at the same time, right before he started using us as...pawns...” Her tone in that sentence had shifted from self-defensive posturing to open-mouthed shock.
And then Celestia used her magic to make Luna slap her again. Hard.
Wordlessly she turned, popped the bubble, and walked over to Sunset, who rose with uncertainty to her feet.
Luna observed a great deal of confusion on Sunset’s face. She had watched the (to her) silent confrontation, and seemed equally split between wanting to attack Luna for daring to strike the Princess, and wanting to cheer Luna on for putting the would-be goddess in her place.
“What was that all about?!” Sunset demanded.
And then Celestia summoned another sound-proof bubble around herself and Sunset, so now Luna was the one trying to figure out what was going on based on non-verbal cues.
The Princess appeared to apologize profusely, and it looked like Sunset might even have forgiven her, until the Princess appeared to say “I love you.” This turned Sunset completely against her, and Celestia stood and took a stream of virulent shouting from her ex-student. Eventually Sunset said something that went too far, and Celestia started shouting back. At one point in the following hyperbolic exchange Sunset dropped to her knees and pulled open the top of her shirt, apparently mock-begging the “almighty” Celestia to strike her down with a lightning bolt for her impiety. At that point Celestia broke the bubble and stalked over to Luna. Sunset meanwhile stalked over to her Zero-X book, which was now sitting on a mahogany rostrum that Celestia had summoned into existence along with the tent. She busied herself with flipping through the pages.
“That didn’t appear to go well,” Luna observed to Celestia in a low voice.
Celestia sighed. “I think it might be too late for the direct approach. She said she’d rather live here with no magic for the rest of her life rather than spend five minutes in the same world as me.” When Luna didn’t show the shocked expression she expected she added, “Magic is the core of her cutie mark. Living without it would drive her literally insane, and she knows it.”
“So what are you going to do?” Luna asked.
Celestia looked over at Sunset, who was staring at the sun mark on the cover of her book with a look of seething rage. “I’m going to save her,” she vowed. “Even if I have to throw myself under the cart to do it.”
Just then Sunset started reading aloud from a message she had found in the book:
“Sorry to drop this on ya, but I sort of left my body robbing the Barnyard Bargains on the corner of T and 47th when your magic thing snatched my soul. Mind straightening that out for me? Thanks a ton. Gilda the Human.”
The tent was filled with a simultaneous groan. Fluttershy’s groan was so loud it could be heard from the other side of the tent!
Raven—Equestria, the Basement.
“Make way, coming through!” Vinny the Vice-Captain cried out, leading more than a dozen guards carrying seven magical chargers. He halted on seeing no big white alicorn in the room. “Princess Celestia?”
The demure pink unicorn using her teeth to hold a feather pen and write a message on a book looked up at him. “I’th Thelesthia,” she said. With a frown she spat out the pen and repeated. “I am Celestia. Set up the artifacts over there.”
“...Yes, Your Highness!” Vinny exclaimed after a startled pause.
As soon as the artifacts were successfully configured and aligned, Celestia stepped into the blindingly bright light.
The guards stood around, watching.
Raven then came barging in at top speed, dragging Human Gnosi and Meridiem with her. “Did somebody say it?” she demanded. “Did somebody dare to ask, ‘what could possibly go wrong?’” She looked accusingly around at everyone in the room.
They all shook their heads.
Celestia pointed at the book. “If you had a premonition, it was probably tied to that.”
Raven walked over and looked at the message, followed by Celestia’s messy reply. “Guards, return to your stations,” she said in a dangerously quiet voice. When they were gone she asked, “Where’s Gilda?”
“She, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy went out to see the town. I didn’t get to see the message before they were long gone. I’m sorry.”
Raven sighed and looked around her. The Twilights were busy talking to Trixie and each other. The parents of the twins were having an argument. Applejack was stuck in a funk. “No, it’s alright,” she told Celestia. “I told you that charging was the most-important thing. By the way, how are you feeling?”
“Well I definitely have all the magic in me that I can hold,” Celestia said, looking down to confirm that she still hadn’t transformed into an alicorn. “Is this a sort of phase change situation, where I stay a unicorn until I hit a tipping point, and then change?”
The human Celestia may have majored in Education in college, but she minored in Physics.
“No,” Raven said with a frown. She flipped a master switch that turned off all of the chargers at once, then moved one aside so Celestia could escape. “You were right, you are just a unicorn. I’m going to need to find an illusionist.”
“Maybe not.” Trixie had noticed the sound of the artifacts powering down, and had caught the end of the conversation between Raven and Celestia. “My counterpart created a solid hologram generator.”
Human Twilight appeared to teleport into a position less than a hooves’ width in front of her face. “Really?” she asked. “I thought that technology was confined to the federal government!”
“Tell that to the Crystal Prep Alumni Association,” Trixie replied. “They snuck a generator into every wrist computer.”
“Really?” Human Twilight repeated. She brought her arm up out of reflex to check out her own wrist computer, but of course she didn’t have one as a unicorn. “I read through the online manual multiple times...”
“And you wouldn’t have found it,” Trixie told her. “It was a completely secret function.”
“Are you telling me that Principal Cinch would deliberately hide that information from her own... Wait, this is Principal Cinch, a woman who hoards information like a miser hoards gold. Of course she put a ton of secret features into the wrist computers.”
“Would that kind of technology fool a unicorn?” Pony Twilight Velvet asked.
“Well we might as well find out,” Raven said. She picked up the wet feather pen for a moment, then dropped it in disgust and produced another one from who knows where. “Ponies can hold back their spit,” she informed Celestia as she began writing. “Having dry lips is practically the basis of their entire civilization.”
“Oops,” said Celestia, feeling sheepish.
H. Trixie—Earth, outside Canterlot High.
Human Trixie came running out of the doors, eager to discover what was behind all the wild rumors regarding what was going on out here. She saw the tent, inwardly shrugged, and then walked over and through the tent’s flap. And then she paused. “Hello, Princess Celestia,” she said. “You summoned me?”
“It’s good to finally see you, Trixie,” the Princess said. “Your pony counterpart had a lot to say about you.”
“I’m about to be smote, aren’t I?”
“No, because you recognized your mistake eventually and did your best to make up for it. And also because I don’t smite anymore. The reason I had the Vice-Principal call you here is because Principal Celestia is currently in Equestria, and she needs your illusion device in order to impersonate me.”
Trixie thought for a bit. “My illusion...oh! The pip boy! Sure, give me a moment.”
“Trixie...”
“Yes?”
“Is there any way you can quickly put together a second ‘pip boy’? I need to put on an illusion of my own, and if I can save my magic for emergencies by using a technological solution, I’m all for it.”
Trixie grimaced. “The pip boy was the result of a lot of trial and error. I’d need a Twilight Sparkle to throw another one together in any reasonable amount of time.”
“Oh is that all?” the Princess said casually. “I happen to have a spare Twilight Sparkle.”
P. Celestia. 11:15 am.
“Please send both Twilight Sparkles through the portal,” Celestia had written in a note addressed to Raven. “I need the human, and I would like to speak with the pony.” She had had the magic-absorbing mat removed from in front of the portal, so that Pony Twilight would be able to keep her magic.
Two copies of the same purple girl emerged from the portal, one aged nine and the other aged fourteen. The younger one with the older mind was wearing a set of casual children’s clothes summoned into existence by the portal. The older one with the younger mind was wearing the hospital gown and robe she had worn when she had jumped through the portal in the other direction.
“Which one of you go to Crystal Prep?” Trixie asked.
When Human Twilight raised her hand Trixie beckoned her over to stand beside her, at a table that had all of Trixie’s tools carefully laid out.
Pony Twilight meanwhile looked up at the Princess with a terrified expression.
“Are you going to smite me?” she asked in a little voice.
The Princess rolled her eyes. “No, I am not. You made a mistake, and you are sorry.”
“I am sorry!” Pony Twilight insisted. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
“Well first, let me get you dressed in something decent.” With a flash of the Princess’ horn, Twilight’s attire was replaced by a genuine wizard’s robe, in purple with yellow and white stars. (No hat.)
Trixie’s jaw dropped—it looked a hundred times better than her performing costume. “...Could I get one of those over my current clothes? In blue, with the hat?” she asked in a small voice. “Pretty, pretty, pretty please?”
Celestia smiled indulgently. Pony Trixie had told her last night that her counterpart’s passion for magic and for using it to make children happy was her best personality trait. Another flash of magic, and Human Trixie’s wish was granted.
“YES!” Trixie crowed, jumping up and down.
Everyone stared at her.
Trixie stopped jumping. She turned back to a stunned Human Twilight. “Right—so where were we?”
Princess Celestia turned back to her pony student. “Twilight, I heard something from Raven, and I wanted to know if it was true: Can you learn any spell, just from watching it being cast?”
Twilight thought for a bit. “I...think so. I only cast one spell that way so far.”
“Well why don’t you try one?” Celestia suggested. “If in fact you can do it, you can help us in our work of getting everything fixed up here on Earth.”
“Oh! I can try to teleport! I’ve seen you do that plenty of times!”
“Actually, that’s a rather difficult...”
“Here I go!” Twilight exclaimed, and then bamfed out of existence. She came back into existence a few meters away, a half-meter off the ground, and on fire.
Before she even had a chance to scream, Celestia had put out the fire, put her on the ground, and healed her of her injuries. “Maybe not that particular spell,” she said to the trembling form of her new student. “But you got most of the details right. Stick with me and we’ll see what else you might be able to learn.”
“OK,” Twilight said in a very small voice. She should have been terrified, especially considering what she thought she saw out of the corner of her eye during her teleport, but the fact that the Princess was acting as her personal magic tutor was too absolutely amazing for her to be anything but giddy.
Human Twilight Sparkle needed a stepstool in order to help Trixie with her work of modifying and programming Twilight’s wrist computer into a holoprojector. It turned out that the device already had Principal Celestia’s likeness programmed into it, a lucky break, and a reason for the Principal to have a long talk with Principal Cinch when this was all over. Getting Princess Celestia’s form into the pip boy took several scans of the alicorn from all possible angles. That pip boy was then put into Sunset’s backpack and lightly tossed through the portal after tapping it a few times on the magic-draining mat, just in case.
Sunset sighed. “That backpack contained all the human technology I was going to sneak back into Equestria and use to overthrow you,” she confessed to the Princess. “You might as well have it all, now that the jig is up.”
“Did you manage to fit a shoulder-mounted rocket launcher in there?” Trixie asked.
“What’s that?” Sunset asked.
“I’ll take that as a ‘no’,” Trixie said. “I’m willing to bet that you wouldn’t have been able to overthrow the Princess.”
As if the Princess needed confirmation where the pony Trixie got her cynicism from. As for Sunset...
Sunset Shimmer.
Sunset retreated to in a corner of the tent, trying not to get in the way. Mostly, though, she was looking at Princess Celestia, still in her alicorn form.
Human eyes were a bit different in what they could see compared to pony eyes. They seemed really good at details, at picking out the one little thing that was important. ...Like a hunter’s eyes, she realized. And what these human eyes were telling Sunset was that despite having every reason in the world to hate her, Princess Celestia was still the most beautiful, awesome being in the universe. She hated having these feelings, because the Princess would always do something to prove them wrong.
And then that being locked eyes with her and walked right up to her, a very serious look on her face. A bubble of silence appeared around the three of them. Three, because Pony Twilight Sparkle was standing right there, her eyes wide open and expecting to be taught an amazing new spell at any moment.
“Sunset,” Celestia said to Sunset, “despite having a counterpart over there, I cannot be in two places at once. Equestria needs me to return to it, else there will be a panic. And I need to lower the sun and raise the moon. I feel that the ponies will not be available to switch before I have to use the portal.”
“And if you use the portal, you have to discharge all your magic,” Sunset replied.
“It will take hours to recharge and then I won’t be available for quite some time after that to cast the switching spell. Despite everything you have done to destroy my trust, I need you to cast the spell for me during the time when I’m unavailable.”
“Well sure, Princess,” said Sunset without hesitation. “You’ve got every reason to be angry with me, but I hope you’ll remember that I never used my magic against anypony weak or powerless.”
“That is correct; you used your words to destroy them instead.”
Sunset said nothing. (Twilight said nothing as well, but was only now beginning to realize that there was a serious conversation going on around her.)
“I can change your human form to make it possible for you to cast spells again,” Celestia said with a sad look in her eyes. “But the spell I’ll be using is not entirely the right one, because I don’t have the time to develop the right spell. You’ll look human, but every other human will look at you and see something wrong, something...evil, that they can’t define. You won’t be able to discharge using any known Equestrian artifact, and you won’t be able to use the portal without causing a feedback explosion big enough to take out half of both Canterlots—a smaller version of what would happen if I used the portal without discharging first.”
Sunset was initially quite frightened on hearing this description, but she soon calmed herself. “But you would be able to reverse the spell, so that’s not a problem. Right?”
Celestia frowned. “No, Sunset. Think through the logistics: You are going to switch my counterpart and I before this is over. And after that happens, I will fully be a human in this world, and unable to cast spells. If I do this, there is no way that I know that you can ever return to Equestria.”
Sunset’s mind reeled. “Surely there’s some other way!” she exclaimed. “Can Princess Cadance help?”
Celestia shook her head. “She’s powerful, yes, but still woefully inexperienced in magic. There’s no way to teach her either of the two spells in time. And you saw what Pony Twilight Sparkle did with a teleport spell.” (Twilight looked at the ground in shame.) “The only other unicorns that could work are in Yakyakistan right now—thanks to you—and teleporting there would trigger a war.”
“What if the timing worked out?” an increasingly desperate Sunset asked. “If every human and pony showed up right now, could you do it all yourself?”
“Yes, except for switching the two Celestias,” the Princess said somberly. “And I can’t do that.”
“And Equestria cannot survive without the Princess,” Sunset concluded, equally somber. She looked up at Celestia. “This is my fault; I’m the one who trapped these ponies here. This is the price I willingly pay to make things right. Do it. Cast the spell on me.”
Celestia charged her horn, then stopped. “Promise me that you won’t conquer this world with the magic that I will unlock.”
Sunset’s jaw dropped open in the shock of disappointment. “Do you really think that the reason I wanted to be an alicorn was for power?”
“Was there another reason?” Celestia asked cautiously.
(Twilight looked nervously between the two.)
Sunset broke eye contact. “...No,” she lied.
Celestia closed her eyes in disappointment. “So be it.”
And she cast the spell. Sunset couldn’t figure out why Celestia included the plinth in the spell and considering Celestia’s stern expression, it was unlikely that she was going to get an answer to the academic question any time soon.
(Twilight nodded in satisfaction—the Princess had made the spell really easy to pick up. Although, she didn’t think she’d have any reason to give magic-and-ugliness to a human anytime soon.)
P. Rarity.
Now that she was ready with the Principal disguise, Princess Celestia could accompany Archbishop August to the police standoff that they had confirmed was in progress at The Height’s branch of Barnyard Bargains. Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy were going to accompany them, to be used if necessary to calm Gilda down.
Their parents were probably going to insist on going along.
Shining Armor was hovering around, an anxious Spike squirming in his arms, waiting for the right moment to hug Twilight. He knew better than to get close to her when she was in the zone like she was now.
Pinkie Pie and Maud were in a corner, playing jacks.
Rainbow Dash had taken her turn to look at her page in the book. She found a long message from her counterpart explaining what she had been up to. She stated her intention of switching schools as soon as she got her body back, and the fact that Fluttershy was the primary reason. She then said that the reason she bothered to tell her counterpart this was in order to strengthen the human Rainbow Dash’s resolve—the more people she told, the more she felt she had to go through with her promise.
The pony Fluttershy read all of this over Rainbow Dash’s shoulder, and said nothing.
Rarity approached Vice-Principal Luna, who had stepped in for a moment to see how things were going. “I think I caught something about a deadline?” she asked.
Sweetie Belle positioned herself close enough to overhear the conversation.
“Yes, the portal closes at midnight tonight,” the Vice-Principal replied.
Rarity felt like she had broken out into a cold sweat, although of course she was far too much of a lady to actually do that. “And when does it next open?”
“We’re not really sure,” Luna told her. “On the Equestrian side, it’s ‘thirty moons’, which is two-and-a-half years? But the relative nature of time between the worlds is uncertain. It could be ten years...or a million.”
(Luna didn’t really believe this. Based on the dreams she had shared with Princess Celestia, she figured that the actual time would be less for Earth than for Equestria. But she was fairly sure she knew why Rarity was asking these questions, and the girl’s next statement confirmed it:)
“I know that the last pony is Applejack. She swore me to secrecy because she wants to stay here for a while longer, but I cannot allow this charade to go on for a minute longer. Vice-Principal, may I be excused to go retrieve her?”
“Well, you’re not exactly in class now,” Luna said with a smirk. “And what about you, Sweetie Belle? Shouldn’t you be at Platinum Junior High right now?”
Sweetie Belle faked a deadly contagious cough. It was adorable.
“I better drive you down there myself,” she said with a sigh. “I already have Cheerilee running the school right now as it is. Come along, you two.”
“Wait, does that mean you’re letting us enter the fabled Faculty Parking Lot of Canterlot High?” Sweetie excitedly asked with a squeak.
Luna shook her head. “I make one remark about the sacredness of the Lot, and nobody lets me forget it. Come on before I change my mind.” She smiled evilly as she added, “We’re taking Celestia’s car.”