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// Chapter 55: Are We There Yet? 
// Story: Caverns & Cutie Marks: Our House Now 
// by TheColtTrio 
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The group stepped into Wits’ portal on Equestria’s side, and stepped out into a familiar world on the other. To the surprise of the nine who’d been in this world before, they recognized their location as being in the forest just outside of Roads Crossed. “I’m not sure how I feel about being back here,” Rarity said, finally breaking the silence. Spike, however, had been closely studying the new (to him) world.
    “This must be how O’Neal felt every time he had to return to a Goa'uld world,” Light Patch muttered quietly, looking around.
    Wits End frowned. “This is definitely not where I put the portal. We should be surrounded by sand and Alicorns, not greenery and memories.”
    “Great, that’ll make tracking the princesses down even harder,” Purple Heart added.
    “So then the question is: do we trek to where the portal was supposed to come out and start there?” Spike asked the group. “Or just start asking if anypony’s seen the princesses?” 
    “Well, if we want to go with our classic strategy,” the grey pegasus in the group replied, “we’d split into three teams. Not sure what the third team would do, but why go breaking tradition now?”Light Patch rolled his eyes, before he caught sight of an old stallion sitting on a log observing them. “Hail wanderer, or whatever the greeting was. You wouldn’t happen to have seen a couple of alicorns pass through this portal some moons ago, would you?”
    “Considering this portal’s only been here for about a day,” the stallion replied, standing up from the log he was perched on, “I’d have to say no. But ya’ll might happen to be able to help me.”    
“Much as I’m sure we could help ya,” Applejack answered. “Ahm afraid we really gotta see to our own business.” 
    “I’ve got a message for a party that matches your description to the T,” the old stallion continued, as if he’d not heard—or was just ignoring—what Applejack had said.
    “Hey look, we found what the third group would be doing!” Wits said cheerily, standing on his rear legs to hook a foreleg around Light Patch’s neck. “Going and seeing what Discord wants.” 
    “Just when I thought it was safe to joke about it,” the pegasus sighed.
    “What makes you think it’s Discord that’s left this message?” Twilight asked, eyeing the unicorn cautiously.
    “Who else has the power and control over this world to change where the portal is located just in time for us to come through?” Wits replied with a shrug, causing him to topple as he lost his balance.
    “And get a messenger to us as well,” Purple Heart added, watching Pinkie Pie pronk over to stand in front of the messenger. After a few seconds more searching through his bag, the elderly stallion pulled a rolled parchment sealed closed by a stamped piece of red wax. As the group twisted their heads to try and catch a glance of the iconography on said wax, they all heard the distant sound of dice rolling in a padded wood box.
    “Oh great, we’re back to skill checks,” Wits dryly quipped, just before the results of their rolls filtered in. Most only saw enough to spark a feeling of familiarity, but nothing more. Purple Heart recognized it at once as the symbol of the royal family of the area. Spike, unfamiliar with anything, was at least able to recognize it as being fancy enough to be royal. 
And Light Patch managed to critically fail, and caused his glasses to fall off his face.
    Before Spike could manage to ask what had just happened, Pinkie’s hoof made contact with the message. Immediately, the group suddenly found themselves no longer in a forest, but rather a well-adorned—in fact one might say royally so—hall in a stone brick building. And across from Pinkie, holding onto the other end of the message, was Discord.
    “I’m having a really hard time not gloating about having called it,” Wits muttered.
    “It really has been much too long since we’ve all met here at my ‘table’, hasn’t it?” Discord replied, letting go of the letter at the same time as Pinkie, allowing it to freely fold itself into a paper crane and escape through a window.
    “Being here again ever feels like too soon,” Rainbow Dash muttered, quietly earning a look of sympathy from Fluttershy.
    “Oh come on, it wasn’t all bad, was it?” Discord asked. “Aside from the messiness at the end?” 
    “And aside from all of the self crits,” Light Patch muttered. “Speaking of which, can I have my glasses back, please?” His question was cut off by a snap, as they had returned to their place on his face.
    “It’s not entirely my fault,” Discord muttered. “The dice played their part as well.”
    “Do I even want to know where we are now, Discord?” Twilight asked, trying to keep her focus on the draconequus.
    “Amber’s Castle,” Purple Heart answered before Discord could. The group looked at him, then followed his gaze to the simple table in the center of the room; at which sat two pairs of alicorns and one very familiar royal pony.
    “Hello,” Queen Amber Glitter greeted, nodding politely from where she sat. “I must be honest; I never expected to see you all again.”
    Purple Heart shrugged. “To be honest, we weren’t expecting it either,” he replied. “Funny how things don’t always go as planned.”
    “Indeed,” agreed Celestia. The creme colored alicorn sipped daintily at her tea, ate an entire slice of cake in one go, then washed it down with another dainty sip of tea. “Am I correct in the belief that you, Mister Purple Heart, were the one responsible for sending dear Luna and myself into certain danger?”
    “...yes.”
    Celestia blinked, shared a look with her sister, then looked back to the purple earth pony. “Have you anything to say for yourself?”
    “Not really,” Purple Heart said. “I tried it, it got you out of the way, and you didn’t come back to ream my sorry hindquarters. I call that a win.”
    “You then proceeded to ruin Equestria’s government,” Luna interjected.
    “Eeyup. Not as bad as when I moved to Tutorial Island, but still, I did.”
    Celestia narrowed her eyes at the purple earth pony. “You are being remarkably forthright with your activities and motives,” she mused. “Why?”
    “Excuses are just gonna dig me a bigger hole,” replied Purple Heart. “I’ve got a big enough grave as is.”
    “On that we can agree,” Amber said snidely. She turned to the mares beside the colts and gave a kind smile. “It’s wonderful to see you all again.” She made a point of not looking at the colts when she spoke; a fact Twilight didn’t miss.
    “It’s good to see you again too Amber, and that we’re on the same page.” the purple alicorn said, returning the greeting.
    “Mood Sisters,” Light Patch murmured to his two friends earning snickers from them and looks of ire from Amber and Twilight.
    “Hold up!” Wits shot an incredulous look at Amber. “I get you being pissed at the purple bruise, even if I do think that five years is a bit ridiculous for anything to go on, but what did I do? Or Patchy, for that matter?”
    Amber raised an eyebrow. “Need I remind you of the part where you were hired to assassinate me?”
    “Coerced into assassinating you, AND I gave you full warning!”
    There was a light, polite cough, and all eyes turned. Penumbra sat with a teacup raised to her lips, eyes closed as she enjoyed the taste and the silence. “We may have indulged ourselves,” she said slowly, “in regaining our honorable host with many a tale of thy exploits in the lands beyond the portal.”
    Wits went silent. “I retract my previous outrage,” he said calmly, “and throw myself at the mercy of the court.”
    “Do I even want to know why you're mad at me?” Light Patch asked.
    “General principle.” Amber replied coolly.
    “Ah fair enough, So uh, what are we all doing here?” The pegasus asked, taking a seat at the table.
    Sol Eater snorted, downing her cup of tea in one go. “Annexation.”
    “Integration,” Celestia corrected.
    “Same thing,” Sol grumbled as she poured herself another cup. “You want to merge this world with yours.”
    “I want to give the ponies of this world the option to visit Equestria whenever they so wish,” Celestia shot back. “Including your own subjects.”
    “After losing that war, maybe we’d rather fade into obscurity after all.”
    “Perhaps those two are too different to work together,” Luna mused, watching the two older alicorns shoot passive-aggressive comments at each other across the table.
    “Mayhaps,” Penumbra agreed, sipping her tea. “Still, tis quite amusing to witness.”
    “Agreed.” The two night-colored mares clinked their glasses together with a shared smile.
    “Ehm, excuse me?” Fluttershy said, raising a hoof. All eyes swung around to lock on to the timid pegasus, causing her to release a squeak of surprise and fear that had her hiding behind Applejack. She peaked around the orange mare’s mane, blinking shyly at the alicorns. “What happens now?”
    “My dear, what do you mean?” asked Discord. “Everything’s squared away, isn’t it? The conflict between the Second Alicorn Diarchy and Equestria has been resolved, as has the rebellion of the Thestrals, the bandits have been subdued, the government is only arguing with itself instead of trying to tear itself apart, and I’ve just created Equestria’s first alcoholic cocktail!” He gestured happily at a tall glass filled with amber gold liquid. “Quite an achievement, if I do say so myself!” He winked at the mares. “I am of course referring to the cocktail.”
    “You are still as insufferable as when we first met you,” Purple Heart groaned, rubbing at his eyes with a hoof. “What about sending us HOME? To our own universe perhaps?”
    “And none of that genie bullcarp,” warned Light Patch. “We’re smarter than we were last time.”
    “Are we though?” Wits asked. “I mean, yes we managed to bring Equestria to near ruination, but are we actually smarter than the last time we asked Discord for something?”
    The three colts looked around. However, each mare and young dragon, and draconequus made a concerted effort not to meet one of the three colts’ eyes.
    “No comment,” coughed Spike.
    “Wits, everyone’s being mean to us,” whined Light. “Can we go home?”
    “Not until you’ve thanked our hosts and washed your hooves,” chided Wits.
    “Hngh,” Purple Heart groaned. “You’re just gonna use that as an excuse to glomp Fluttershy for a half hour.”
    One of Wits’ spectral hands flicked Purple Heart in the ear. What was supposed to be a small flick turned out to fling Purple Heart fully-body across the room and into the wall.
    “Hush up,” Wits ordered. “The adults are talking.”
    “That’s a good question, though,” Twilight mused. “Can you send them home again, Discord? They’ve been through so much interdimensional turmoil, is there even a ‘home’ dimension to send them too at this point?”
    Discord guffawed loudly. “My dear, interdimensional turmoil is my middle name! I could send all of you to those three’s dimension if I wanted to.”
    “Please don’t,” Rarity said quickly. “The thought of seeing a cartoon version of myself for sale somewhere makes my skin itch.”
    “But that’s it then, right?” Applejack asked. “Ya’ll send those three home and then… they’re gone forever?”
    “Until the quadruple sequel,” Wits said, only to be immediately tackled and silenced by the other two colts.
    Discord seemed to think for a moment. “Well, I could certainly send you back right now with a snap of my talons, but I’d hate to ruin a perfectly good tea party with goodbyes. Maybe afterwards? I did invent alcohol, after all.”
    “Actually,” Twilight said, “we have alcohol in Equestria.”
    Discord blinked. “You what.”
    “And anyway,” the purple alicorn continued, “we have some things we should discuss before sending the boys back.” She narrowed her gaze at the trio of colts. “Three things in particular,” her attention shifted back to Discord, “that you had a hand in screwing up.”
    “Ah hah.” Discord pulled at the scruff of his neck, letting a puff of steam out from inside. “What three things could you possibly be talking about?”