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// Chapter 43: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA 
// Story: Caverns & Cutie Marks: Our House Now 
// by TheColtTrio 
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    Wits End sat alone in his field office, looking over a map of Equestria. He stiffened and sniffed the air. “You know what I like about you, Jargon?”
    The alicorn stepped through the entrance, his expression as dull as ever. “What would that be, strategos?”
    “I can always smell when you’re coming.” Wits stretched his back as he turned to his aide. “Did you bring the tea?”
    Jargon nodded. “There wasn’t anything called ‘tanna’, but I brought you black tea.”
    “Anything in it? Cream? Sugar? Honey?”
    “...Leaves, strategos.”
    Wits sighed. “Thank you, Jargon. That will be all.”
    “As you wish, sir.”
    The unicorn watched as Jargon gave what could generously be described as a bow before leaving. “He reminds me of someone, but I just can't quite put my finger on it.” A spectral hand formed in front of him, placing a finger on his nose. “Oh, now you’re a comedian?” Wits dismissed the hand with a wave of his hoof.
    With a sigh, Wits turned back to his plans. On his desk sat a stack of troop orders; one for each of the Alicorn regiments. Most of them were simple repositioning orders, meant to stall the advance of the Equestrian forces, or fall back to more easily defensible positions. “Let’s get these signed,” he muttered, raising the mug to his lips, “and sent out with the next mail call.”
    “Sir?” Jargon poked his head through the doorway. “New reports from the front. It seems the enemy’s armor constructs are pulling back.”
    Wits raised an eyebrow. “Pulling back? To regroup?”
    “To reposition, seems like...”
    “I don’t like that,” Wits muttered. “Are they inviting us to get encircled? No. Ironically enough, Purple Heart hasn’t played enough Hearts of Iron for that. Any predictions on where they’re going, Jargon?”
    Jargon scratched his chin. “Word from the front is that half’s going to Baltimare, and half’s going north and west.”
    “Baltimare I can understand. Retaking that would be a moral booster. But why north and west?” Wits frowned. “If it was due north, I could see PH trying to deal with whatever Patchy’s been up to in the Crystal Empire’s territory, but why north and west?”
    “Perhaps they’re attempting to retake the Pony North West region, sir?”
    “We’re not in the Pony North West, Jargon.” Wits groaned as he sipped his tea. “I gave orders specifically to hold south of Vanhoover.”
    Jargon’s eyebrows knitted, as if he were applying all of his brainpower to something. “But… strategos, the 501st has pushed up to the northern border of Equestria already.” The alicorn didn’t so much as flinch at the spray of hot tea. “Shall I get you a refill, sir?”
    “The 501st?” Wits spluttered, wiping tea from his mouth as he stood. “What in the name of Celes- What are they doing up there?”
    “P-preparing for a winter assault on the Equestrian northern territories, sir.”
    “The Crystal Empire?! The Crystal Empire has stayed out of this thanks to whatever frackas Patchy’s caused up there. Who in their right mind would directly engage them now? Who-” Wits’ heart dropped into his stomach. “Jargon, who gave the order?”
    “That would be me.” Sol Eater appeared in the entrance behind Jargon, looming over the alicorn aide. 
    Wits felt his heart descend to someplace around where his boots would be, were he physically capable of wearing them. “Sol Eater,” he said, trying to keep his voice flat but only managing for mildly concerned. “What is this?”
    Sol Eater passed Jargon with a sneer, who had thrown himself onto his knees the moment the princess’ presence was known. “A change in plans,” she purred. “You say this Crystal Empire is a non-issue. I say they’re a staging ground for a strike at Equestria’s undefended underbelly.”
    Wits put his forehooves on his desk, leveling a glare at Sol Eater. “Ignoring the fact that you went behind my back—which I’ll get to in a moment—you’re pulling important troops from their defensive positions.” 
    Sol Eater slammed her hooves on the desk, looming forward to look eye-to-eye with the unicorn. “And you’re pulling your punches, my little princess. The 501st was patrolling an undefended border. I extended that border, and intend to continue to do so.”
    “And how far would that be, pray tell?”
    “As far as I please.”
    Wits forced himself to keep Sol Eater’s gaze, even as wisps of silver light snaked across the floor towards the princess. “You put me in charge of the army for a reason,” he growled. “I won’t call what you’re doing treason, but it is a mistake.”
    Sol Eater sneered. “Funny. Because I’d call what you’re doing a mistake.”
    Wits felt a jolt as his magic hit a barrier: a counterspell woven into an enchantment around Sol Eater’s mind. “Oh,” he squeaked.
    “‘Twas a time we had this enchantment woven into the uniform of every guard in our bastion.” Penumbra materialized from the shadows behind Wits, her hooves making almost no noise as she walked. “A word to the wise,” she whispered in his ear. “Thou would do well to avoid using magic others art familiar with.”
    “Sound advice,” Wits hissed back. “For the record, I wasn’t trying to hurt either of you.”
    “Hurt?” Sol Eater laughed. “I’m impressed, not hurt, my little princess! To walk into a stronghold and enchant two of the most powerful alicorns in their own world?” She grinned down at Wits. “That takes more guts than I gave you credit for.”
    Wits’ eyes danced between the two princesses. “So what happens now? We laugh this off, go get drinks, and get back to work in the morning?”
    “Hardly,” Penumbra deadpanned.
    “It was worth a shot…”
    “You’ll be stripped of your rank, of course,” Sol Eater explained. “As well as… well, that can come later. I will be taking over the war efforts, while my dear sister will begin the process of settling the land we have already.”
    “Our numbers art few,” Penumbra said. “However, a home here shall give our warriors ample reason to fight with the strength of ten.”
    Wits nodded. “Makes sense. And what about me? Foreign relations? Civil service? A penance walk while somepony follows me and rings a bell in my ears?”
    Sol Eater chuckled. “I seem to remember a particular gilded cage that fit you quite well when we first met.” She leaned in close. “As well as a certain dress and… form.”
    “...Ah. Eye candy.” Wits scratched his chin, trying his best to ignore the two princesses, whose faces were only a few inches away from his own. “Well, I gotta admit, that doesn’t sound so bad right now. It’d certainly be a load off my shoulders. But, can I make an alternate suggestion?”
    “We art wary,” Penumbra said. “But… speak it.”
    “Distraction.”
    Sol Eater raised an eyebrow. “Distraction?”
    “Yeah, see, I learned about it while Trixie was teaching how to use magic in this world.” Wits’ expression brightened. “Speak of the devil! Trixie, can you tell these two about distraction?” The two princesses’ heads whipped towards the entrance. 
    ...Only to find Jargon, still kneeling there, and nothing else.
    A pair of spectral hands flung the desk into the air, sending papers and office supplies scattering. Wits took advantage of the yelps of surprise from the princesses to dart away, scrambling for the doorway. “Jargon, with me!”
    “Alicorn of the 12th Polar Warriors!” Sol Eater’s voice sent a shudder down both stallions’ spines. “Your allegiance is to the crowns. Restrain the former strategos and bring him here.”
    Jargon’s eyes jumped between the two princesses and Wits End. He remained frozen for several seconds, his kneeling form still enough to block the exit.
    “Jargon,” Wits hissed. “Don’t do this to me, man.”
    “Jargon!” Sol Eater barked.
    Slowly, Jargon stood, his head hung low. “Sorry, but the chain of command’s pretty clear here.”
    Wits froze, trapped between three alicorns. “I don’t suppose a parley is in ord-”
    Jargon’s forehoof landed on the scruff of the unicorn’s neck. “Come along, sir.” In one smooth movement, the aide lifted Wits bodily from the ground, and hurled him through the doorway like a regulation rucksack being loaded into a wagon.
    “Soldier!” Sol Eater snapped. “Your loyalty-”
    “Sorry, princess,” Jargon deadpanned. “You’re my princess, but he’s my commander. Orders is orders.” With that, Jargon turned and bolted.
    Wits End’s screaming flight was cut off as the galloping Jargon caught him on his back, knocking the wind out of the smaller stallion with a squeak. “What the f-”
    “Sorry about that, sir,” Jargon said, his voice remarkably even. “I’ll do my best to be more careful when tossing you in the future.”
    Wits adjusted himself so that he was holding onto the alicorn’s neck. “Jargon, if you’re saving me from princesses, you can throw me as hard as you feel necessary.”
    “Understood, sir. What next?”
    An explosion of light and sound flared behind them, followed by the trample of hoofbeats. “Are you faster than an angry princess?” Wits asked.
    “Unlikely, sir.”
    “Then teleport us out of here!”
    “As much as I’d love to, sir,” Jargon said, rounding a corner with enough speed to almost toss Wits off, “that’s not really an option.” He shifted his cap, and Wits was able to see that the alicorn’s horn was stunted: little more than a nub.
    “Of course you’d be the one alicorn who can’t wield god-like powers!” Wits grabbed a passing tentpole with a summon hand, pulling the structure down behind them. The shouts of surprise from the ponies inside was drowned out by the winny of rage from Sol Eater. “That’ll buy us a couple seconds.”
    Jargon nodded. “Perhaps Lady Iron Maiden has a plan, sir?”
    “What makes you think that?”
    “Because she’s approaching us quite quickly, sir.”
    Wits had just enough time to turn his head and see the armored alicorn before she slammed into the two of them with all the speed and force of a full dive. He opened his mouth to do something, although he wasn’t certain yet whether it was to scream, curse, or possibly eject his last meal as a self-defence mechanism.
    Before he could decide, Iron Maiden’s horn lit up and enveloped the three of them in her magic, and the floor dropped out of the world. 
    When Wits regained his senses, he was no longer in the alicorn camp. Instead he was… Well, he was certainly laying on dirt and rocks. “Where the flying frak am I?”
    “Sorry, strategos!” Wits was hauled back onto his hooves by Iron Maiden, whose face was both flushed with excitement and palid with fear. “Well, ex-strategos now, I suppose. The only way to be sure no-pony could track us was to do a blind teleport. I mean, if we don’t know where we’re going, how could anypony else, right?” She looked around, while Jargon emptied the contents of his stomach behind a nearby tree. “Anyway, we’re definitely plenty of distance away from the camp. I aimed for about the distance we traveled when we were marching to Cloudsdale.”
    “Iron,” Wits cut in, “the last five minutes of my life have been an absolute nightmare. Please explain literally anything.”
    Iron Maiden blushed with embarrassment. “Right, sorry. Well, Princess Sol Eater was going around to all of the commanders and demanding their loyalty, so when she got to me I was pretty suspicious and told her that of course she had my allegiance, but that was a lie so I guess there goes the ‘infallible’ part of ‘infallible demigoddess’. I knew she had to be planning something that involved the war, and that meant something against you, so when she and Princess Penumbra went to your office, I followed and hid outside the door-”
    “Take a breath.” While Iron Maiden gasped for air, Wits turned to Jargon. “You didn’t notice her?”
    Jargon wiped his mouth on the back of one foreleg. “Apologies, sir. I was a little distracted at the time.”
    “...Fair enough.” Wits turned back to Iron Maiden. “So you decided to go rogue and save me from the two most powerful ponies in your entire existence? On your own?”
    Iron Maiden grinned. “Oh, not on my own, sir!”
    “Who else, then?”
    “The 597th!”
    Wits blinked. “The entire regiment?”
    “Yes, sir! Along with the 12th Polar Warriors, and a handful of alicorns from the others that swore loyalty to Sol Eater.”
    Wits blinked again, since the first time hadn’t made anything make more sense. “That’s… a lot of alicorns. But… why?”
    “Why?” Iron Maiden cocked her head. “Because you’re our friend, sir? And I’m pretty sure that means that we’re your friends. And… well, sir, I guess that friendship beats out centuries of blind loyalty.”
    Wits was beginning to think that blinking wasn’t helping. “Friends?”
    “Wasn’t I clear, sir?” Iron Maiden frowned. “Sorry, I’m not very good at this.”
    “No, no, you’re fine.” Wits waved her concerns off with one forehoof. “I think my brain is still off by a couple of minutes after what just happened.” He shook his head. “Late twenties, and I’m already getting too old for all this…”
    “Not to interrupt, sir,” Jargon interrupted, “but even with a blind teleport, the Princesses will be putting out search parties.”
    “He’s right,” Iron Maiden agreed. The two alicorns turned expectantly to Wits. “What’s the plan, sir?”
    Wits resisted the temptation to blink. “Where are the rest of the… well, the alicorns who like me more than their god-princesses?”
    “Scattered,” Iron Maiden explained. “But we have ways of getting messages to each other that even the princesses can’t trace thanks to the Thestrals.”
    “How many Thestrals?”
    “All of them, sir. According to the one called Mousetail, the only reason they put up with the princesses was because they liked you more than they disliked them.” Iron Maiden’s face flushed. “Th-they’re words, not mine.”
    Wits was silent for a few long seconds. Then, he nodded to himself. “Gather the troops. We’ll be having a rendezvous as soon as possible.”
    Iron Maiden nodded excitedly. “Where?”
    A slow smile spread across Wits’ face. “Someplace safe. Someplace away from the war. Someplace not even Sol Eater would be able to find us.”
    Iron Maiden and Jargon shared a glance: one excited, the other nonplussed. “Where would that be, sir?” Jargon asked.
    Wits grinned. “Inside Twilight Sparkle’s castle. It’s high time I plagued the princess with a personal, heartfelt apology. Maybe a song, with lots of visual aids and metaphors.”
    Iron Maiden’s smile faltered. “Is… Is that a good idea, sir?”
    “Oh, it’s the worst possible idea. That’s what makes it so great.”
“...I don’t follow.”
“It’s the advantage of having a reputation as a tactical genius.” Wits started walking. “No-pony expects you to make an obviously bad move. Come on! We’ll want to reach Ponyville before the rest of the army does.”
    Iron Maiden watched the retreating form of the unicorn. “Does this sound like a good idea to you?” she asked Jargon in hushed tones.
    Jargon shrugged as he started following. “I don’t really see how that’s relevant, ma’am.”
    Iron Maiden remained still, watching the two stallions as they walked away. “I think,” she muttered, trotting to catch up, “I have a bad feeling about this.”


* * *


    With a grunt of pain, Light Patch impacted the ground after another attempt at teleporting. Mostly to vacate Ponyville before an angry Twilight could chase him down. He dragged himself to his hooves and looked around.
    “I feel a little bad for whomever is gonna have to make maps of this bit of history. They aren’t gonna like me and my random teleports,”  Light Patch muttered as he looked around, tugging his clothes close against the chill. “Okay. That teleport failed wildly. Wrong direction and way farther than I meant to.” Light Patch took a few steps around the area he’d appeared in.
    “No forest paths or other obvious signs...” Light Patch pulled out his pocket watch and opened it up only to find the cutie mark indicators for himself and his friends but not seeing the map. Humming with curiosity, he tried closing the pocket watch and reopening it, and then repeated the action when it failed the first time. After the fifth attempt -which still only provided minor fixes or changes and nothing of real use- he decided that the old tech support standby had failed him and he’d have to do something more dangerous. Actually trying to fix it, he closed the pocket watch and placed his other hoof on it. He felt out with his magic to the pocket watch and felt the spell connect with the timepiece.
    Then he dropped it as electricity shot out and burned a hole in a nearby tree. After feeling sure it wouldn’t repeat the electrical attack on it’s own, he peaked out from behind the tree he was hiding behind. He watched for another minute or two before finally walking out to pick the pocket watch back up. He carefully flicked it open. The map was there, if heavily distorted, and the icons for himself and his friends were jumping around wildly.
    Light Patch carefully closed the pocket watch and put it away. Then he focused on his powers and on trying to teleport rather than the usual feeling of being somewhere different along with maybe a change in the ambient temperature, new smells, and even a difference in breeze. When he opened his eyes, he discovered why only one of those had changed and not all. He squinted as he looked at the orb of fire around him.
    “Right, that is the last of my control gone.” The pony sighed and tried to pull the cloak a little tighter around himself. Before he could pick a direction at random however, he was able to pick out a very faint sound. 
Light Patch started to run the moment he was sure he knew the direction the sound was coming from. Using his cloak as shielding, he crashed directly through the worst of the underbrush.
Then came the moment when the sound went from distant and vaguely muffled to clear. He took off running as fast as his legs could carry him. It sounded as some twist of unusual luck had landed him near a train line with a train conveniently approaching.
He was not keen on missing the train. He was keen on missing the trees that were hidden behind the thickest of the underbrush.
This is where his pegasus wings proved to be quite useful. Mostly in allowing him to dodge the trees. It also allowed him to keep the speed up and soon the sound appeared to be coming from behind one last thicket of bushes.
If he hadn’t been in such a hurry, he might have questioned why he couldn’t see the train to either side of the thicket. But tunnel vision had set in quite heavily at this point. He crashed through the thicket and barely had time to register his surprise before the trap sprung. Rather than the expected train, instead it was a stately gramophone that greeted him.
Light Patch hung upside down in the net, confused for a moment as his brain reviewed the last few seconds in detail on repeat as if that would change the outcome. He was broken out of this fruitless loop by the sound of giggles. Well, one set of giggles and one of guffaws, which the grey pegasus remembered that Pinkie liked to say were the boisterous cousin of giggles.
“Did you see the look on his face!” One voice slightly rougher managed through it’s guffaws.
“I did! He was all-” the voice paused presumably for the pony who owned it to adopt an impression of his face, “-and now he’s all-”
There was a second fit of giggles and guffaws, that eventually started to quiet down around the time Light Patch’s brain was finally finished being confused. Light Patch twisted as he tried to look through the net at the two voices. He blinked at the sight of the pink and cyan mares.
“That worked?” they both said at the same time finally having calmed down.
“Wait, what do you mean ‘that worked’?” Rainbow’s raspier voice asked.
“I really didn’t expect it to work,” Pinkie clarified.
“Then why did we set this up?”
“Because it would have been funny if it did.”
“Oh, trust me it’s a real riot up here.”
“You can shush, Mister Caught-in-a-random-trap-in-the-middle-of-nowhere,” Rainbow said, lightly smacking Light Patch through the net holding.
“So why didn’t you think it would work, beyond the obvious?” Rainbow asked the pink party pony.
“Because his powers kind of equal mine, so they sort of cancel each other out, you know. It’s like flaky pastry dough versus tender pastry dough: if you try to mix them together, they just sort of cancel each other out.”
“I know how to make flaky and tender pastry dough.”
“I mean, feeling wise, I know how to do that too,” Pinkie said, using a hoof to send the netted pegasus spinning.
“Hey! Not cool!” Light Patch protested.
“Maybe a better analogy would be ‘playing opposing sound waves’. Ooh! Or matter and antimatter!” Rainbow sighed as Pinkie went on a diatribe of possible analogies.
“Analogies aside, why else are you surprised?”
“Oh, because I expected him to use his teleportation powers to-” Pinkie suddenly lunged for Light Patch, barely even slowing as she caught Rainbow Dash in the action as well.
    With a puff of air, the three ponies popped out of existence from the forest and reappeared in an ice crevice up in the Frozen North.
    Various muffled indications of pain were voiced as they rose to their hooves.
“Great.  Where are we now?” Rainbow asked after a moment of looking around.
    “Even further north, I’d guess. My punishment for trying to use fire to break the net, I bet,” Light Patch groused, tugging at his cloak a little more. “Teleported into the ice again. I’m really starting to hate the cold.”
    “As a pegasus, you’ll get used to it. Now, come on. Let’s-” The rest of Rainbow’s sentence was cut off by a cry of anger above them. 
The three looked up in time to watch a minotaur jump over the chasm. That minotaur was followed by a second pair shortly after and then some griffons. That was also when the trio of ponies realized that the noise they could hear wasn’t their breaths and steps echoing off the ice walls but actually the sound of a battle above them.
A new noise assaulted their ears and the ground shook as three diamond dogs burst into the bottom of the chasm. The dogs immediately caught sight of the three ponies and promptly charged.
Pinkie quickly drew out a bowl of cake batter and tossed it. The dog she targeted blocked the bowl with his arms, but yelped as the batter fell to his feet and froze, sticking him in place.
    Rainbow Dash flared her wings and at the last second burst into the air above the dog that charged her, causing it to slam into the wall behind her and knocking itself unconscious.
    Light Patch ducked under the halberd of the dog charging him and grabbed the end of the shaft, slamming it up into the dog's chin and throwing it backwards. Light Patch then did a perfect swing of his warhammer onto the dog. 
A knowledgeable observer would have complimented him on his form or technique, maybe how perfect his hoof placement was. The astute observer would have pointed out that a warhammer was an odd weapon choice for the cramped conditions or how just doing a follow up blow with the halberd might have been a more efficient choice. 
Most observers, however, would have simply settled for pointing out that he in fact had no warhammer, and the air moved by his empty hooves lacked necessary force. But his follow up kick was quite sufficient. Light Patch looked up from the diamond dog at the two other mares who were watching him each with a separate eyebrow raised.
    “You know that's more effective with an actual warhammer, right?” Rainbow asked.
    “Hey Rainbow, did that style remind you of anypony else?” Pinkie asked, tapping her head trying to summon the memory. Unfortunately, memories are kind of like fish in that they’d really rather you don’t tap the skull. Light Patch was about to comment on where he thought the style was familiar from, but more tremors ended up shaking the words out of his mouth before they could be said. A much larger and, this time, armored diamond dog appeared through the ice.
    “Truce?” Pinkie asked as the dog squared off to face the ponies.
    “Truce, but if any of these diamond dogs turn out to be named Ambul, I’m going to vote we just fly up and into the middle of the battle above the ice,” Light Patch stipulated as the dog charged, bellowing a warcry.
    

* * *


    “A little more to the left.”
    Spike would have rolled his eyes at Twilight’s nitpicking had he not had to balance precariously atop a high ladder against the wall. Instead, he carefully inched on tiptoe to the left, his arm muscles straining to shift the bright red tack to where Twilight needed it.
    “Perfect! Put it in!”
    With a mighty exhale that he totally didn’t consider lighting on fire, the small dragon stabbed the tack into the board with unnecessary force. Nodding his head in satisfaction, Spike stepped down, braced his claws on each side of the ladder, and slid down to the floor. Stepping off, he dusted his hands and strode over to where Twilight stood, turning to gaze up at the spiderweb of strings criss-crossing over a majority of the paper-covered wall.
    “Are you sure there isn’t a simpler way to compile your notes, Twilight?” asked the purpled dragon. “This looks a bit… overwhelming.”
    “Simpler, yes,” Twilight confirmed, eyes darting over the mass of papers and string. “Doesn’t look nearly as epic as this, though.” The alicorn blinked, dropping her gaze from the wall as a scowl twisted her lips. “The sooner we get the villains out of the colts and myself, the sooner I’ll stop acting like them.”
    Spike put a hand on Twilight’s shoulder. “Hey, come on, Twilight. We don’t know for sure that you have any villain in you, right?”
    “There’s two possibilities,” Twilight said. “The most likely one is that I at least have some aspect of Bael in me.”
    “What’s the other?”
    Twilight’s face paled. “...I have some aspect of Wits End in me, which is letting me mimic Bael.”
    “A fate worse than death,” Spike deadpanned.
    “And you’ve got some aspect of a smartflank in you,” Twilight shot back.
    “At least your banter has gotten better because of all this.”
    Twilight opened her mouth to respond, and immediately snapped it shut. “This is serious,” she said eventually, returning to her usual studious manner. “Purple Heart, Light Patch, and Wits End got the majority of their respective villains’ nature in them.” She picked up a pointer and gestured towards pinned pictures of each of the colts in turn. “This is obvious both from how the map reacted to them, and by their behavior. Purple Heart’s manipulation of those in power, Wits’ drive for his own status, and Light Patch’s search for an artifact to change the nature of things around him.”
    Spike nodded. “Makes sense so far. But how would any of that get to you?”
    “Because I’m the one that pulled them out of that limbo they were stuck in,” Twilight explained. “In order to get to them, I had to make direct contact with their magical essence through the dimensional barrier.” She pointed to a diagram that had been repurposed from an analysis on cleaning rags. “Whenever you make contact with something, most of that thing stays intact, but…”
    “A little bit sticks to you,” Spike finished. “I’ve cleaned up enough of Pinkie Pie’s messes to understand that one.”
    “Exactly! This is like if you tried to clean up spilled cake batter using your soul.” Twilight blinked. “Who do you think is at fault for giving me that terrible analogy?”
    “More importantly,” Spike said, “how do we get everything that’s not you out of you? Is there a dry-cleaning for soul essence?”
    “Let’s drop the soul-as-towel analogy, shall we?” Twilight stepped closer to her wall of notes, peering at a collection of formuli scattered between Light Patch and Moon Dancer’s photos. “I’m sure that the spell I gave Moon Dancer should have done something more than just breaking the Orb of Glacious. If anything, it should have split Light Patch and Just Duty apart. If I cast it on myself, it should split out anything that isn’t me.”
Spike coughed. “Uh, didn’t you say it might split like ‘left side and right side’?”
“...Yes. That is the other possibility, yes.”
“Maybe we should make that Plan B, then? 
“A distant Plan B,” Twilight agreed. “Actually, make it Plan Z and lemon scented.”
    “What about the samples you got from the colts?” Spike asked. “Do those help?”
    Twilight sighed. “Yes and no. Having the fresh, preserved samples of the Colts’ magical signatures will help with tracking them, and maybe I can use them to scan myself for any traces of them in me, but it’s not like I can use them as a magnet to draw the rest of the Soul Junk out of me.”
    Spike raised an eyebrow. “We’re calling it ‘Soul Junk’ now?”
    “It’s easier than saying ‘the unknown vestiges of six other ponies that’re causing me to act differently and slowly giving me their powers’.”
    “...Soul Junk it is.” Spike hopped up onto a stool and took a seat. “How about if we treat this like one of those practical exams Princess Celestia used to give you? I’ll ask you questions, and you explain like you’re talking to… let’s say Rainbow Dash. We’ll start with the part that doesn’t match with the others: why did the Orb break when Moon Dancer cast the spell on Light Patch?”
    Twilight’s face screwed up as she thought. “The spell was meant to find the pieces of Just Duty’s Soul Junk, take it, and move it out of Light Patch’s body. The Orb was created to boost magic, so potentially it tried to amplify the spell? But that would only make the spell more powerful, not change the target…”
    The two of them were silent as they pondered. Eventually, Spike tapped the stool. “What if it didn’t change the target?”
    “What?”
    “You said the spell was supposed to find Just Duty’s Soul Junk, right? What if not all of the Soul Junk was in Light Patch?”
    Twilight stroked her chin. “Based on how the spell was developed… It would expand the search to the surrounding area, until it ran out of energy.”
    “And if there was something that boosted the available energy?”
    Twilight’s face lit up with a sudden dawning realization. “Then it would keep searching, sending out a magical pulse! And since the spell didn’t have any limiters on how much energy it could use, it would’ve drawn everything out of the Orb it could!”
    “And without any magical energy-”
    “-then the Orb wouldn’t have been able to hold itself together, and would’ve broken along one of the existing micro-fractures! The spell worked! It just didn’t have sufficiently restrictive parameters!”
    Spike grinned. “I don’t know what that means, but it sounds like a breakthrough!”
    Twilight whirled around, rearranging sections of her notes. “So if that’s the case, then the spell would’ve sought out any other pieces of Just Duty’s Soul Junk as far as the Orb’s energy would allow. Which would mean…” Her eyes landed on a local newspaper article: the one on the duel between Purple Heart and Wits End, and the magical wave that interrupted it. “Spike, did anypony in the Crystal Empire report that pulse from when the Orb broke?”
    “Uhh…” Spike hopped off the stool and moved to a stack of reports—status updates from across Equestria, provided by Just Duty from Bleeker’s things. “It looks like… no? But, wouldn’t a wave like that have reached the Crystal Empire before it reached Ponyville? What does- Twilight?”
    The alicorn had thrown the door open. “I have a theory!” she shouted, already halfway down the hall.
    By the time Spike caught up with her, Twilight was already under the Cutie Mark Map. “Twilight? What’s going on?”
    “What’s going on,” Twilight muttered, “is that I have that proof you were looking for before.”
    “What?” Spike shook his head. “Twilight, the Map doesn’t work. Everypony’s tried to fix it! Even Trixie did, after undoing the sabotage she did before! You can’t find the colts with it!”
    “I don’t need to find the colts,” Twilight said, her voice muffled by something held between her teeth. “I just need to find…”
    There was a sparking noise, along with a yelp from Twilight. A moment later, a few hazy shapes began to take form over the Cutie Mark Map—nothing so distinct that Spike could tell what or where they were, but shapes that definitely existed in some vague manner. “Whatever you did, it-”
“Hold that thought, please!” Twilight jabbed at the underside of the table with her magic. “Narrow the focus down to just the castle… and…” She slid out and stood, mane frazzled and smelling faintly of ozone. “There!”
Spike looked at the symbols hovering over Ponyville, eyebrow ridges knitted as he tried to figure out what he was supposed to see. “What is it?”
“The magical signatures for the Elements of Harmony and the Colts,” Twilight explained, “in the castle, right now.”
Floating over the map was Twilight’s cutie mark. Surrounding that were six smaller, less focused marks. “Twilight,” Spike said, “that’s-”
“The colts,” she finished. “And their villains.”
Spike pointed at the floor under his feet. “They’re here?”
Twilight pointed at the side of her head. “They’re here. That’s why it was so hard to find them on the map even before Light Patch messed with it. The map expects for 100% of a pony to be in one place. I’d say there’s about… two, maybe three percent of each of those six magical signatures in me?”
“...Is that good?”
“It’s a breakthrough in how we understand the fundamentals of magical signatures,” Twilight said, starting to come down from the adrenaline high. “It’s exciting. Not good in our case, but exciting nonetheless.”
Spike stared at the map, eyes fixed on Twilight’s signature cutie mark and the half dozen symbols orbiting it. “So… now what? You confirmed your theory and got the map in pseudo-working order again. What comes next?”
Twilight sat in her throne, restraining the urge to slump bonelessly on the seat as a wave of exhaustion hit her. “Well… I should fine tune the spell formula I gave Moon Dancer so that it’ll separate the Villain Soul Junk from the Colts. With the data we’ve collected, I’m certain a finalized spell matrix can be achieved with a day or two of work. Beyond that-”
The alicorn was interrupted by an alarmingly loud hiccup from Spike that had the small dragon exhaling a burst of green flame. Materializing before them was a wrapped scroll that clacked loudly to the floor.
Twilight picked up the scroll. “Princess Twilight Sparkle,” she read, “please present yourself with all haste before Regent Blueblood tomorrow morning at 9am.” She blinked once. “Oh yeh. Forgot about him.”
Spike coughed, releasing a small gout of flame as he stared up at Twilight incredulously.
“You forgot about him?!” he squawked. A fit of coughing hit him and it took the small dragon about a minute of deep breaths and throat clearing to reclaim enough air to speak with ease. “We’ve gone through two separate regents in the span of several months! One was ‘indisposed’, the other abdicated because the senate got snippy, then the FIRST miraculously came back! How are you not keeping up with the political climate in Canterlot?!”
Twilight swallowed loudly. “Bit busy with applying the scientific method to magical forces,” she replied.
Spike threw up his claws and stomped towards the door. “Am I the ONLY ONE who reads the paper around here anymore?!” He whirled around, pointing a claw at Twilight. “Get some rest! We have an early appointment with bullcarp tomorrow, and I need a drink!”
The alicorn spluttered in surprise, glancing out the window. “But it's early afternoon-”
“Didn’t stop you!” Spike called over his shoulder as he left the map room.
Twilight stared after her diminutive assistant with surprise and no small amount of shock on her face.
“I think he might be in need of a vacation as much as I am...”