Pipp the Poltergeist was still in the dark room, holding her lucky microphone in her hoof and watching her friends celebrate Hitch passing his test. Using her other hoof, she pulled out her phone.
“How about we celebrate your victory with song and dance?” she cheekily remarked, sounding like she was possessed. “Just warning you though, this party is going to raise the dead…and if you pass out, be ready to meet your maker…”
A fire grew in a lantern sitting below her, something that sat aside a rope and a bottle of hoof polish sitting in a basket…
Meanwhile, outside of Canterlove Studios, Zipp was still laughing cockily with her friends.
“I had a good feeling that everything was going to go without a hitch!” she exclaimed cheerily, a drumbeat and cymbal clash accompanying her joke, leading her friends to give her not-so cheerful looks. “It’ll be the same for both me and Sunny, guaranteed!”
“Let’s not get complacent because of this, Zipp.” Izzy warned her friend. “You’re likely going to be the next pony to be tested. Given that Sunny can take the form of an alicorn, an ethereal being, the spirits are likely going to save her test for last.”
“Even though we could’ve all gone into the building together…” Sprout interjected while reflecting over the situation with his fire being absorbed by Sparky, examining his hoof. “Hitch and Misty were teleported inside there by that spirit. The spirits probably wanted to contend with Hitch first, given that his supernatural power is related to fire and that spirit said something about a fire offering freedom. Now that he’s overcome his trial, the spirits are likely going to be interested in testing the power of Zipp, her being the sister of Pipp, the first pony they tested.”
Upon hearing this, Zipp’s overconfidence became replaced with a modicum of anxiety.
“Wait…” she began speaking in an inquisitive tone. “…are you saying that my relationship with Pipp is what intrigues them about me? But before my sister became “Pipp the Poltergeist”, she should’ve just been no pony to them. Unless…”
Zipp then recalled what was spoken to her in her mind after she had eaten the cookie of Sprout’s that fully awakened her supernatural ability…
“The blood of powerful unicorns runs through our veins…”
“That spirit I saw after I ate that cookie was telling me the truth…” she finished, now pondering a new possibility.
“What spirit?” Sunny asked curiously. “Was a spirit of some pony you know talking to you too, like how my father was talking to me?”
“After I ate that cookie…” Zipp recounted. “I saw a spirit that looked like my sister and heard this distortion of her voice telling me something strange, saying that we carry powerful unicorn blood. But my mom never told me anything about there being unicorns in our family. It wouldn’t even make sense, considering that the pony tribes had been divided for so many moons before our sister and I were even born.”
“When my father was talking to me, he was telling me about the time before Twilight Sparkle…” Sunny replied. “How much have you been told about your family’s history?”
“I was never given information on anything from that far back…” Zipp answered. “Probably because my family wasn’t able to preserve everything about our history. Records from that long ago are prone to becoming lost, illegible, or destroyed. However, I don’t believe that anything’s ever actually gone for good. Pipp was even telling us about how things can’t truly be destroyed. I wonder now if…”
Before Zipp could continue, she began hearing the voice of her sister, what sounded like her singing to a familiar tune…
“Ghosties get all my love, give you spooks in our club…”
“Hey, are any of you hearing what I’m hearing?” she asked her friends.
“No…” they replied in puzzlement. “What are you hearing?”
“My sister singing!” Zipp exclaimed. “It might only be audible to me because of my ability, but…I can hear something coming from…”
Zipp then turned to the window from the room on the top floor of Canterlove Studios where Pipp the Poltergeist had been watching her and the group from.
“There…” she said suspiciously, pointing her hoof to the window before proceeding to fly towards it, feeling compelled to do so by what felt like a trance she was entering...
“Wait, Zipp, no!” Sunny cried in concern. “This could be a trap!”
“And if it was?” a familiar spirit that appeared by Sprout asked.
“What the?!” Sunny, Sprout, and Izzy yelled in shock. “Who are you? And why do you look like…”
“Sprout?” the spirit, Spring, finished their sentence. “That’s not important. What is important is that you have to overcome these trials with your own abilities. I believe in the power of you ponies more than ever now. I was once lost…and had Hitch not defeated me with his own strength, my heart would’ve remained unchanged. It was a harsh wind that made the vikings, but this isn’t just about you ponies needing to find strength within yourselves. This is also about the salvation of souls…”
Those words instantly triggered a memory in Sunny’s mind, causing her to recall the time when she promised her father that she would help the ghosts haunting Canterlove find peace. This provoked her to ask Spring a question…
“Are you…saving my test for last…because you believe I can help you and the spirits who accompany you here rest in peace?”
“I’ve already found my peace…” Spring answered contently, smiling while looking at Sprout. “But the spirits who haunt this building are a different story. Your test isn’t just being saved for last because of our confidence in your power as an alicorn…it’s because the truth you must face will be by far the hardest one to swallow…a truth about how far astray ponies can go…”
Sunny gulped and put a foreleg to her chest nervously.
“For right now though,” continued Spring, changing the subject. “I believe a certain unicorn should be helping her pegasus friend as she discovers the meaning of life.”
“As if I’d forget that.” Izzy retorted before she turned to Sunny. “Seriously, the truth of the reason for our existence is really something.”
“I’m…sure it is.” Sunny replied in a bewildered tone of voice, feeling awkward.
“I’ll be back before you know it.” Izzy told Sunny and Sprout confidently before she prepared to enter Canterlove. “Zipp is going to learn a new way to fly…”
With that, Izzy began trotting toward the entrance to Canterlove. After she left, Spring resumed talking to Sunny.
“We’ll go in after her once Zipp has passed her test.” she explained. “For right now, it’s time I earned my respite in becoming complete with my reincarnation…”
She looked at Sprout again, earning a puzzled glance from him.
“What does that mean?” he asked uncomfortably.
“It means I’m going to be absorbed into your soul…” she answered as she floated towards Sprout’s chest. “Merging with you will invoke a new power…the power to summon familiars from before Twilight’s time…”
Sprout gasped as the spirit entered his body, feeling a strange sensation all throughout it. He then looked at his right hoof, recalling his feeling of an icy coldness in his heart becoming overwhelmed with an inviting warmth…and realized a new fire within him was awakening…
Meanwhile, inside of Canterlove Studios, Hitch was still examining the fire in the jar Spring had given to him after possessing Sparky, a sight that was enticing both him and Misty as Sparky was still sleeping on Misty’s back.
“If what Pipp told us was true…” he mused as he recalled what Pipp had said. “This fire should be a clue to solving the mystery of the familiar’s identity. The benevolent warmth I feel from this flame tells me this familiar should be on our side, so that form of Twilight Sparkle it takes is clearly not something it does out of disrespect.”
“The main difficulty is pinpointing a pony from before Twilight’s time that could possibly be the familiar.” Misty remarked. “Opaline’s the only pony I’ve ever known from before that time and we all know how she’s the polar opposite of “benevolent warmth”. I once heard Zipp speculate the possibility of Opaline being from before that time though. Maybe she’ll discover something during her test that will-”
“Hold on…” Hitch interjected.
“What?” Misty asked in confusion.
“You’ve said Opaline’s name twice now…” Hitch explained. “Sprout said that the spirits of Canterlove hate hearing her name…yet I detect no malevolence around us, something I should be able to sense now that my supernatural powers have grown stronger.”
“That’s because you’re not outsiders, our faith in you growing stronger since you passed Sprout’s test.” an unidentifiable figure with the likeness of Twilight explained after materializing behind Hitch and Misty. “Besides, right now, the spirits of this building are focused on something else.”
“AH!” Hitch and Misty cried, turning around to face what turned out to be Sprout’s familiar.
“They’re too busy listening to a song from Pipp the Poltergeist.” the familiar continued. “It’s a special tune that reminds us all of the inner fire of our souls…can you hear it?”
After the familiar asked this, Pipp’s singing became audible to Hitch and Misty…
“Our ghostly lights! Will always burn stronger! Our flames come together!”
“Oh yeah, I can hear that…” Hitch replied, abruptly feeling languid.
“Me too…” Misty added, now feeling drowsy. “Is this some kind of a lullaby, because it’s making me…”
Misty then yawned as she and Hitch collapsed on the floor unconscious, now sleeping beside Sparky.
“A lullaby, it is not necessarily.” the familiar elaborated. “Pipp the Poltergeist’s music has the power to do all kinds of things. It can put ponies in trances, lull them to sleep, invigorate them, and even send them on a spiritual journey to where all our souls come from and must return to…”
The familiar then looked up, knowing of the fate that Zipp had met when she had entered Canterlove through the window…she now also laid unconscious on the floor as her soul left her body…Pipp, her phone in hoof playing music, then floated over to her sister’s soul, and whispered something…
“Even outside of this world, I’m with you…”
Everything to Zipp had gone black…
“This is a call to you for all walks of life…”
Zipp began to regain consciousness in the form of a spirit as she started hearing what sounded like her sister singing to another familiar melody…
“Lift up your hooves now under the starlight…”
Hearing this provoked Zipp to look at her now ghostly hooves before examining her surroundings and realizing she was in a place that resembled outer space. All around her, there were stars shining in a pitch-black sky. She could also see balls of spirit energy everywhere, balls of spirit energy that appeared to be moving towards something.
“Just riding on forever…”
Without even realizing it after these words became audible to her, Zipp found herself being gravitated towards whatever the balls of spirit energy were moving to, as if her soul was naturally heeding some kind of call. Eventually, she found herself facing what they were heading towards, a ball of spirit energy so large, she felt intimidated.
“Let’s all unite…”
After hearing this, Zipp watched the balls of spirit energy surrounding her begin to merge with the massive ball of spirit energy. As soon as she felt herself being drawn towards the giant spherical essence, she knew that she too would meet the same fate. She joined the balls of spirit energy that had arrived here in coalescing with this enormous mass of spirit energy, and once inside of it, she immediately noticed that she was no longer hearing any singing, but the sound of her own thoughts.
“Where am I?!” she immediately cried in thought as she looked all around, seeing nothing but white. “How did I get here?!”
“Ha ha ha…” a figure with a distorted voice Zipp instantly recognized chuckled. “You’re inside of your maker. You don’t remember how you got here because of the trance you were in from listening to Pipp’s music…but you are now where all souls originate from and must return to at one point…”
Zipp gasped upon seeing the figure talking materialize before her in the form of her sister.
“YOU!” she exclaimed. “You’re the spirit that spoke to me after I ate that cookie Sprout gave me! What’s your deal with pretending to be my sister? And what do you mean with all this stuff about me being “where all souls originate from and must return to”?”
“I happen to be a very distant ancestor of your sister and you…” the figure answered in a smooth-talking tone of voice. “You should feel honored to be a descendant of a figure as prestigious as I, Princess Platinum. And of course, every pony should consider it an honor to reunite with the one who created them once they have left their mortal coil…”
Zipp was taken aback, slowly beginning to process what had happened to her as she looked around.
“Are you saying…” she spoke in astonishment. “That I’m actually inside of…”
“The one we call, “Creator”, yes.” Princess Platinum finished her sentence, talking in a serene tone of voice. “This giant mass of spiritual energy we call, “Creator”, is a collection of souls. We are created by the fragmentation of it after we are conceived inside of it. Creator thinks us up, then we break off from him and enter a physical body. This is exactly where you were back when you were only just a thought.”
“Just…a thought…” Zipp said on impulse, slowly comprehending this revelation.
“Humbling, isn’t it?” Platinum remarked in an ironically smug tone of voice. “Amusing how the most self-assured friend of Sunny’s is the one to be exposed to this ego-shattering discovery as part of her test.”
“Look who’s talking…” Zipp retorted in a slightly irritated tone. “If you’re an enemy of mine hoping this will break me, you have another thing coming. My mind’s been open to the idea of the existence of all sorts of otherworldly phenomena since I was a kid, partially thanks to my sister always being obsessed with the supernatural. I can be somewhat cocky, but it’s been part of my personality since I was a filly to enjoy researching and considering every possibility. You think I never considered something like this to be possible?”
“Oh ho ho…” Platinum laughed condescendingly. “I know all too well about how you’re a nerd…a creative type…just like that unicorn who’s watching over your body as we speak. I am indeed your enemy at the moment in the sense that I’m acting as a threat as a way to assess your spiritual potential. Would you like to see what’s going on inside of Canterlove right now?”
With a wave of her hoof, Platinum caused small parts of the mass of spiritual energy she and Zipp were in to come together and form a screen displaying what was happening inside of the dark room Zipp had entered before she had fallen unconscious. Zipp’s soul gasped as she saw what was unfolding. Her body, possessed by a ghost, had her wings tied down with a rope and was now taking the cord Pipp’s lucky microphone was once on top of and wrapping it around her neck. With it attempting to tie the other end of the cord around a hook on the ceiling that was hanging above a stool on the floor, both the hook and stool being held in place by a supernatural power, all while Izzy was trying to push it away from said stool, Zipp began to feel great dread as it became abundantly clear what was happening…
“Like your unicorn friend,” said Platinum in a sinister tone of voice, “you can now hear the voices of your ancestors, like yours truly. There’s a fragment of my soul inside of your body, and now, your body is listening to its commands, trying to put an end to itself and forcing your soul to merge with it before it can die…”
“You jerk!” Zipp insulted Platinum angrily. “How is this a fair test if my soul is stuck here while my body’s there?!”
“Who said anything about being stuck?” Platinum retorted. “This is the inside of Creator. Although outside your world, it’s also intertwined with your world, allowing you to return to Canterlove whenever you want. You can create whatever Creator’s will allows and have it physically manifest in the mortal realm. You can also interact with any soul back there you have a strong bond with.”
“Any soul I have a strong bond with?” Zipp asked. “Does that include…”
“That’s all for clues.” Platinum replied. “May we meet again on the other side…or this side, ha ha ha…”
Zipp growled as the image of Pipp before her disappeared.
“Curse it all!” she cried, feeling incensed. “What am I supposed to do?!”
“Calm down, Zipp.” another figure with the familiar voice of Pipp began talking to Zipp. “Your mind needs to be focused right now if you want to think of a way to rescue your body.”
“Who said that?!” Zipp shouted, still enraged. “Is that you again, Platinum, trying to mock me?!”
“No Zipp, it really is me.” Pipp answered softly, materializing beside her sister with an Ocean Lily in her mane, a sight that placated Zipp.
“This portrait day, I want you by my side…”
Suddenly, Zipp could hear these familiar words sung to a familiar tune. Not only did she know for sure now this was Pipp from what she had done to remind her of what they had done for their portrait day, she also had a thought about what she had seen earlier when she last met Pipp…
“If Pipp doesn’t show up in pictures anymore…”
“Zipp, there’s something you need to know.” Pipp explained. “You haven’t just been brought here as part of your test. Just like you, I have a part of Platinum’s soul inside of me. She’s been manipulating me…you can’t let her get to you!”
“Wait a minute…” Zipp replied in surprise. “Is part of the reason why you want us to catch you…”
“There’s no time to explain!” Pipp exclaimed in concern. “Your body’s in danger! I can only help you and the others so much because of the will of the spirits! It’s going to take something out of this world to save you. You and Izzy need to put your minds together and find a new way to fly!”
With a wave of her hoof, Pipp then made a lantern appear from the spirit energy below and used her supernatural powers to light a fire inside of it.
“Remember Zipp…” Pipp told her sister wholeheartedly. “There’s a reason for why there’s a realm of fire…it’s because in this world, there’s a fire we all have to keep going no matter what…”
Upon seeing the fire, a vision of the floor of the dark room Zipp had fallen unconscious in flashed through her mind, the sight of a rope and a basket containing a bottle of hoof polish beside the lantern. She then saw her sister telling her something after her body and soul were separated…
“Even outside of this world, I’m with you…”
Pipp then began to vanish…
“Pipp, wait!” Zipp exclaimed, reaching out to her sister in vain before she completely disappeared.
Zipp then began to think back to what Platinum had said about her being able to communicate with any soul from the mortal realm she had a strong bond with.
“I don’t think trying to talk to Pipp again would get me anywhere…” she thought to herself. “I have to talk to Izzy next, but what kind of plan could we concoct to save my body? Pipp’s obviously been trying to give me clues, I just have to put them together now…”
Thinking over everything, one clue in particular began to stick out to Zipp…
“New way to fly…” she pondered. “I already have the power to fly, which would normally make it impossible for me to hang myself to death. The rope…Platinum used rope to tie my wings down…but if it was to be used to help me…with the fire and basket…I know Izzy always carries…oh…but what about the hoof polish? What would Pipp want me to do with one of her products…NO WAY.”
Zipp recalled what Pipp had told her before she vanished and the way she had described her latest products as “out of this world”. Something shocking was finally beginning to make sense to her after she also recalled what Misty had said about Pipp preparing a big surprise for not just her and her friends but every pony in this world and beyond…
“She wants us all to know of the reason for our existence…”
Soon, in the dark room in Canterlove, Zipp’s body was getting ready to step on the stool with the cord wrapped around its neck. Izzy, having done everything in her power to keep Zipp’s body from being hung up to this point, was beginning to worry.
“Come on, Zipp…” she thought frantically. “I can’t do this all by myself!”
“Izzy!” Zipp exclaimed in Izzy’s mind, communicating with her telepathically through Creator. “I know how to save my body!”
“Yes!” an elated Izzy responded in her mind. “There you are, Zipp! Tell me, what do you need me to do?”
“I need you to put that hoof polish on the floor around my body’s neck!” Zipp answered. “Then, I need you to use your magic to move something I’ve crafted below the window!”
“You got it, Zipp!” Izzy cried joyfully, levitating the hoof polish with her magic.
“Whatever you’re trying now, it’s too late!” Platinum proclaimed through Zipp’s body, now on the stool that was released from a supernatural grip and ready to kick it away.
“It’s never too late…to get creative!” Izzy declared confidently as she splashed the hoof polish on Zipp’s neck, causing Zipp’s body to collapse on the floor after she kicked the stool away.
“What?!” Platinum cried, confounded. “Why was my neck not suspended by the cord?!”
“Because you have the neck of a ggghhhooooosssttt now!” Izzy explained cheekily, prompting Platinum to look down and see that Zipp’s neck was now transparent and had passed through the cord. “Zipp figured out that Pipp’s next line of products is intended to give ponies the opportunity to experience what it’s like to be ethereal like her! Temporarily, of course!”
“She truly does have sharp wits, I’ll give her that…” Platinum said as she stood up, only slightly phased by this turn of events. “But I’m not done just yet!”
Izzy’s horn lit up with magic as Platinum raced to the open window.
“Hope that like me, you had a Plan B!” Platinum cried in a derisive tone of voice as she jumped out the window.
Izzy simply smirked as she heard Platinum’s fall being cushioned.
“Hope I had a Plan B?” she retorted. “You hurt my feelings. I always carry around something for a Plan B, as well as Plans C, D, and E…”
A stunned Platinum looked down and saw that her fall had been cushioned by a hot air balloon. Zipp, in the form of a spirit, was in the basket, taunting her with a wave of her hoof saying, “Hi.”. The spiritual fire she had used to make the balloon airborne after tying it to the basket with a rope was imbued with the powerful aura of Creator, stifling any potential movement from Platinum, overwhelmed by the sensation from the heated air in the balloon.
“…Balloons.” Izzy finished her sentence, smiling sweetly as she used the rope around the wings of Zipp’s body to fully tie it up and levitate it back inside of the dark room. “Give up?”
Something in Platinum’s eyes twinkled…
“Alright, you got me.” the restrained Platinum admitted defeat. “But this isn’t the last you’ll see of me…there’s another force besides me manipulating Pipp…tied to the root of all our hatred…”
“The howl of a sore loser is still the howl of a loser!” the spirit of an irritated Zipp fired back as she entered her body and took control. “We’re going to free Pipp from you and whatever else has dared to try controlling her!”
After Zipp regained control of her body, the rope restraining her body became undone and she now felt a new spiritual sensation inside of her. A new power awakening as she could hear someone talk to her in her mind…
“Well done…my child.”
“Creator…” Zipp responded in thought solemnly.
Instinctively, she looked over at the cord Platinum had tried to strangle her body with and went over to grab it. Before she knew it, her body poured spiritual energy into it, causing it to become transparent and glow. Zipp then examined her hoof, and on impulse, she made it become transparent and glow as well…
“Pipp…” she said in a remorseful tone of voice, now realizing something. “I’m sorry I made that despicable insinuation that you allowed yourself to die on purpose…I would’ve died too…the only reason I passed this test is because of you, Izzy, and Creator helping me…”
“The reason for our existence is really something, isn’t it?” Izzy remarked warmly as she affectionately put a hoof around Zipp.
“Yeah…” Zipp replied with a smile on her face as she and Izzy looked out the window. “We’re here to create…to grow and make this world better with our creations…giving others things that are out of this world. That is our call…”
They saw something sparkle inside the fire keeping the hot air balloon afloat…Zipp had been inspired by the fire from Pipp’s lantern to find a new way to fly…remembering how a magic lantern was what transformed that tram car she and Izzy remodeled into the Mare Stream…
However, what Zipp and Izzy didn’t see was the photo Pipp had with her in the dark room…something that was now missing…