Keep putting one foot in front of the other, and you’ll get where you’re going before you realize you’re tired.
Just something my Pa would tell the sisters and me whenever we complained about working the farm. I don’t think he ever meant for it to be real advice, or even something we remembered past childhood, but I never forgot that. Nowadays, all I can do is put one foot in front of the other, just like Pa said. Some times, I know where I want to go, even if I don’t know how to get there. Most times, like now, I don’t know where I’m headed until I get there. I look up at the door I’m standing at and I realize I don’t know what to do. What to say. Truth be told, I don’t even really belong here. I’ll probably just end up putting my foot in my mouth—Classic Pinkie, I know—and make things a whole lot worse.
Then again, I can’t really imagine what could possibly be worse, so I knock on the door anyway. Nothing happens, but I kinda expected that, so I knock again. And again. And one last time before, finally, I hear movement from inside the house. I wait patiently—as patiently as I can manage, anyway—for what feels like ages before the door swings open.
Sci-Twi doesn’t even look at me, her eyes glued to her notebook. She was scribbling notes, and it took another minute before she remembered where she was and looked up. She seems tired, with dark circles around her eyes, and her hair is a bit of a frazzled mess. Other than that, it looks like she’s okay. Maybe just surprised to see me. Can’t really blame her.
“Oh. Pinkie. Hi.” She’s still writing, clearly trying to get her thoughts out onto the page before they slip away. I know what that’s like. Probably why I run my mouth like I do. I wait until she’s finished and looking up to wave. “What’s up?”
“Was just in the nieghborhood, wanted to check up on everyone,” I say with a shrug. Sci nods, and for a second, it’s quiet. Awkward. Weird. “Are you busy?”
“A bit, yes. Been running some calculations, reviewing the footage, doing tests,” says Sci, completely oblivious. Bless her heart, she’s always had trouble picking up what I’m putting down. “Trying to figure out what went wrong. I have some programs running in the lab, I’m just trying to get my data together so I can…” She looks up slowly, and this look washes over her. Like she just remembered I was standing there in the cold. “Do… Do you want to come in? I can make coffee?”
“That sounds nice. Right behind ya, Sci!” For some reason, Sci-Twi pauses for a second before stepping aside and letting me follow her into her house. I’m not sure what that’s about, but I don’t say anything about it. Not yet, anyhow. "Sorry I took so long to get to you. I wanted to see everyone one-on-one, and that means someone had to be last."
"It's alright. I've been busy, anyway." Sci-Twi walks me down the stairs to her basement, a big space primarily taken up by machines and doo-dads that I'd be too bored to explain even if I knew what they were. The one machine I did recognize is in the corner, her coffee machine, with various snacks and treats stocked up. "How do you like your coffee?"
"Think about the most sugar you can fit in a cup," I say with a grin. It doesn't come as easily as it did before, but I still managed. "Then go ahead and double that."
"Heh. Why am I not surprised?" Sci-Twi pours me a cup, then herself, and passes me my drink. We sip in silence for a second before Sci realizes that she should probably say something. "So you spoke to the others, then?"
"Mostly. Sunset texted me, said she wasn't ready to see anyone. She seems… Well, she says she's hanging in there. Rarity and AJ are doing good, they've been hanging out with each other a lot more. Dash and Shy, though…" I grimace a bit as I dig into my pocket and pull out Fluttershy's magic pendant, which I show to Sci. Even just holding it hurts my heart. "Dash gave this to me. Said… Well, she said a lot of things I won't repeat, but mainly that I better take it before she tossed it in a lake or something."
"Ouch. Dash mentioned checking in on Fluttershy the last time we spoke." Sci-Twi takes the pendant, looking it over one way and then the other. "Looks like things didn't go over to well…"
"Yeah. Flutts says she's out. Says she doesn't want to be a part of… this." I shrug. "Can't really blame her for that."
"No, of course not. Even still, this is going to put a damper on things… The way I understand it, our powers only work properly when we're all together." I know she means well, but that was the least of my worries. I think Sci realized that, because she quickly continues. "Man. They've been friends forever. It's so sad to see them fight… What a disaster."
"Yep. It's been rough for everyone," I say with a sigh. Sci-Twi beckons to a chair next to her computer, and I take a seat. She takes the one next to me, and we sip our coffee in awkward silence again. Okay, my turn, I guess. "Y’know, it's like my Pa always says, no one ever learned anything from a good day." Sci-Twi snickers and, even though I don't know why, it makes me smile. There we go, that's what I'm talking about! I can work with this. "What's so funny?"
"It's just… you said 'Pa'. You sound like Applejack."
"Well, yeah. I moved to the city younger than she did, so I guess I don't have much of an accent anymore?" I shrug. "Sometimes, the country girl in me just slips out a little."
"Country… girl?" She tilts her head, confused. "You're… huh. I always just assumed you were from Canterlot City."
"Nope! RD and Shy are the only ones from here. Rarity is from Manhattan, and me and Applejack, we're cousins, and—"
"What?!" I can't help but laugh. That little tidbit always seems to get people.
"Yeah, yeah, AJ is my like third cousin, eight times removed or something like that. Pretty distant, but we grew up pretty close by," I say. "Well, as close as two farms in the middle of nowhere can be." Sci-Twi nods slowly, still trying to unpack that bombshell. It is pretty weird, AJ and I are about as opposite as can be. Still love her, though. "I guess you haven't been around long enough for that to come up, huh?"
"I guess not. You've all known each other for so long, I feel like I'm playing catch up," says Sci-Twi. One of her doohickeys beeps, and she trails off to check on it, but it's clear that she had something else she wanted to say. She's being weird, even for her. Maybe I shouldn't have come. But being alone these days… I don't think I'd be able to handle it. “Hm… Gonna need more tests…”
"Hey, Sci," I say gently. She jerks her attention back to me, like I just woke her from a nap. "You know you're one of us, right? You don't have to try to solve all of this alone. We're all in this together."
"I… I appreciate the sentiment, Pinkie. Really, I do. But—and please don't take offense to this—I don't think either of us really believe that."
"Sci… Why would you say that?" That kinda breaks my heart, if I'm being honest. My girls are like family to me. Of course Sci is one of us, why wouldn't she be? She's a little different, but then again, so am I. Maybe that's why I felt compelled to see her. Because she'd understand. "Is… Is it something I said?"
"No, no. It's not you. It's just the way things are. I think I've always felt that, but after the Ginseng incident…" Sci lets out a tired little sigh, turning to face away from me. "I've been giving things some thought. I was trying to figure out what went wrong, and I just can't. Everything went the way that it normally does. First, I thought it might've been Rainbow. She was so angry after Scootaloo got hurt, I thought maybe… Maybe she wanted this to happen."
"You think Rainbow did this on purpose?"
"I had to consider it possible. But I ran the numbers, she wouldn't have been able to do that intentionally without burning her own pendant out, and severely hurting herself in the process. Since that didn't happen, I looked into each of us, individually," explains Sci-Twi. "Nothing out of the ordinary. You, Shy, AJ, Rarity, Rainbow, even Sunset, all normal. That leaves one last variable unaccounted for."
"Sci. Stop. You can't blame yourself for—"
"But it's me. It has to be me. I'm the outsider, I'm the one who doesn't belong. I'm a spare cog in this machine, not the right size, and things went off the rails." I can hear the tears rising up in her voice, and I reach out for her. She pulls away, almost sliding out of her seat to get away. “I’m only here because The Rainbooms need a Twilight, anyway. If Princess Twilight was here, Scootaloo wouldn’t have gotten hurt. Ginseng would still be alive.”
“Maybe you’re right. Maybe, if Princess Twilight had been here, everything would be sunshine and rainbows,” I say. It's tough to say, but it needs saying. I need her to understand that we love her just the same as we love each other. “But we’ll never know, because she wasn’t there. That's the thing, Sci, is you're always here for us. The Princess is our friend, of course, but we’re a vacation home to her. We can’t count on her to be here for us when we need her. But I know that we can count on you. And you did the one thing none of us, maybe not even the Princess could have done. You made a choice, and there’s a lot of people right now who are alive that wouldn’t be if you weren’t here. It’s not about you being a back-up Twilight, Sci. You’re our friend. Our Twilight.”
Sci doesn’t say anything right away, and I don’t blame her. It’s pretty easy to not believe me, but everything I said was the truth. Truth be told, Sci and I were never super-duper close. Way different energies, is all. So when she was a bit off around me, I never gave it much thought. I just assumed I wasn’t her favorite person, which, y’know, I get it. But this is different. She thinks we don’t care, she thinks we’re turning our backs on her, and I’m not about to let her sit here and think that she’s not a Rainboom. If that’s even something to be proud of anymore.
“Pinkie… I don’t understand.” Sci-Twi turns back to face me, dabbing the tears from her eyes. “How are you handling this so well? How can you keep trusting me, when I was this close to… Ending up like Ginseng? Why do you even care?”
“Because you’re my friend, Sci.” She asked three questions, but the answer is the same to all of them. “And I want my friends to be happy. I want to be there for them, because as long as we all stick together, there’s no stopping us. I guess that’s just how I cope. By looking out for you guys. I know what it's like to be an outsider, and from one weirdo to another… I'm not handling this. I feel a mess. But if you can hold it together, I can do the same. For all of you.”
It’s quiet again, but not like before. Not awkward and uncomfortable. This is thoughtful, careful, almost soothing. Sci sets her coffee down onto the table, her eyes drifting to her screen and all the tests that she’d been running. She reaches for the machine, but pauses, looking back at me for a moment. We lock eyes and, with a tired little grunt, Sci-Twi hits a button on the nearest console. There’s this low, electric whirring from throughout the room, slowly trailing off into nothing as the machines power down.
“I’ve been cooped up in here too long,” grumbles Sci-Twi. She pulls her glasses off and rubs her eyes tiredly. “I… I think I’m in the mood to order a pizza. Care to join me? Maybe you could catch me up on the group some more? Any other secret familial relationships I don’t know about?”
“Well, Sunset’s my dad, I don’t know if you knew that one.” It takes a beat, but eventually, Sci-Twi chuckles, shaking her head at silly ol’ Pinkie Pie. It’s a small step, but even a small step is progress. “Sure thing, Sci. We can run to the store for some pop and have us a little girl’s night. If you want.”
“That sounds perfect, actually. Except…” Sci takes in a breath, almost like she has to work up the nerve before going on. “Pinkie, do you think you could maybe… not… call me that?”
“Hm? You mean Sci?”
“Yes. I never really liked the name ‘Sci-Twi’, but it caught on so fast, and everyone else has a cute nickname so I didn’t want to be the one to ruin that,” she explains. “You said that I’m not just an back-up Twilight. If that’s the case… I think I’d prefer if you didn’t talk about me like I’m just an alter-ego of the real deal.”
“Oh, man, I’m sorry. We didn’t mean it like that, we just wanted to try to avoid confusing everyone.” Well, duh, of course she doesn’t like that name. I’d say I want to give whoever came up with that name a piece of my mind, but I’m pretty sure it was me. “Of course, whatever you want to go by. Did you have something in mind?”
“I’ve always liked the name Samantha. It’s my middle name,” she says, a bit nervously. She pulls her hair from out of her face, not even able to look me in the eyes at the moment. I lean forward a bit, so she can see my smile, and she starts to get a little flustered. “Um, yeah, Samantha is good. Or Sam, I guess. Sammy. Just not—”
“What kind of pizza are we getting, Sammy?” I say with a smirk. She freezes when she hears the name from someone else’s mouth, and it’s like a weight is off of her shoulders. She looks a little more comfortable. Like she belongs. “I’m a pepperoni addict, personally.”
“Is pineapple off the table?”
“You’re crazy, Samantha. I like it!”
We laugh as we get our stuff together, and for a while, there’s nothing for us to worry about. Not fighting friends, not tragedy, not even Twilight. Just me and my new friend, Sammy, and a big, greasy pizza for us to share.