“Nice to meet you.” Raspberry panted a bit as they touched. What the hell, seriously, she’s a pony! Pony. End stop. First Rarity, now this. Stop thinking about non-human females, dumbass! “So…”
“I hope he didn’t go on about the room and board thing,” she said, sitting down on the bed, “Because this room has been totally empty for four straight days. Not to mention the extra food at the dinner buffet serving no one.” She fluffed her mane. “Well… it goes to charity eventually… or else Flash speeds through it.”
“Okay,” Raspberry said, his mouth watering. I haven’t eaten in half the day…
“You know that he needs you more than you need him, don’t you?” asked Dawn.
Raspberry nodded, and he sat on the bed beside her. He asked, “Why did he have to leave so quickly? I have so many important things I need to talk about.”
“Ah, he’s probably with secret agent-ish ponies in some back alleyway somewhere,” Dawn replied, flicking her left hoof, “I know he’s terrified down to his very bones about being disappeared. Just like everypony else that think they know something that the Princesses wouldn’t want them to know.”
“Princesses?” asked Raspberry. Wait, there’s more than one? Or is Celestia just the queen with a consort? Or something…
“Princess Celestia…” Dawn started, and then she shook her head, “I hear weird things. Terrible things. I know that she wouldn’t go kidnapping ponies in their sleep. Or banishing mass numbers of them into nothingness. I just know it. I don’t believe any rumor I hear. I’m not that stupid. But something HAS to be happening.”
“Kidnapping?” Raspberry asked. Well… I guess I don’t have to worry about Celestia, or so I was told. Or… Well then, the cowpony couldn’t be telling the truth. Could he? I’m not worrying about Rarity one bit.
“Oh, Raspberry,” she responded, “It’s almost all garbage. Almost all of it. ‘Mad Princess Celestia stepping off of her Canterlot throne to secretly purge Equestria of her enemies.’ That makes for a juicy story. But that’s it. And all you need to know is that Knack is scared right now. And…” She put her head in her hooves and chuckled. “I never in a million years thought I’d say this, but here goes— I genuinely feel sorry for that stupid old colt.”
“Well… okay…” muttered Raspberry. Maybe it isn’t garbage. You don’t know what I know…
“I… I know I’m dumping on you, but I haven’t had anypony to talk to,” she said, “And goodness knows big sis is less responsive than talking to the blasted wall.” She looked at Raspberry, and he noticed that she was trying to keep from crying. “It’s just been… so bad. All of this mess couldn’t have already come at a worse time. Nopony wants to hear just ‘The Attractions’, obviously.”
“Obviously,” repeated Raspberry.
“It’s ‘Twilight Crash & the Attractions’. It always was that. It was the full five-piece. That’s the only thing anyone outside of Coltsville cared about,” she said, rubbing her eyes with her right hoof, “And it was just… Just…” She smacked Raspberry’s left side. “Magic. Pure, undiluted magic.” He could almost see stars forming in her eyes. “It was ‘pop with power’ almost like ‘ice with fire’.”
“They must have really been something,” Raspberry murmured, and he motioned his left hoof. He seemed to be getting a pretty good feel of her warm, soft flank. A few seconds later, he pulled away, feeling ashamed. Geez, even universe to universe travel won’t stop you, you horny bastard! Cool it!
“You could only really feel it live,” Dawn went on, talking as if in a trance, “It was like raw, white heat. You were hit by this solid musical wall. You felt in your hands. You could almost smell it… almost taste it... And they were so blasted FAST. It was over before it even really began.”
“What happened?” asked Raspberry.
Dawn burst out laughing. She leaned down and almost whacked her head upon the floor. She said, “You’ll ask five ponies and get five answers. And six, of course, if you count Knack. But you shouldn’t.”
“I shouldn’t trust him, then,” Raspberry muttered. Well… shoot…
“Oh, my friend,” she said, sitting back up, “If he was going to cheat you, he would have already cheated you. He’s never, ever one for changing his mind. You meet him in a good mood, and then he’s your ally and advocate for eternity. He never goes back on his word.”
Raspberry stood up. This is… nice… But seriously, I feel like if I don’t eat something this very second and get my blood sugar up there’s another migraine coming on. And God knows what I’ll invite into this world if that happens.
“The problem is,” said Dawn as she also got up, “If you meet him in a bad mood, and you get his mind made up in the other direction… then… well…” She rolled her eyes. “Let’s just say that even if you offer him one night with a black-lace covered Princess Luna on the royal bed, you STILL wouldn’t be able to dissuade him about you. Mules are more open-minded than Knack.”
“So that’s why it went from ‘Twilight Crash & the Attractions’ to ‘The Attractions’?” he asked, and he moved a bit towards the door.
“Sure, pretty simple story, really,” she replied, “AND… It’s also in part why Coltsville’s claim to fame went from being the city of…” She took a gulp and put on a dramatic announcer’s voice while waving her hooves. “Five-piece supergroup Twilight Crash & the Attractions, hoorah!”
Raspberry chuckled a little.
She went back to her regular voice and said, “And THEN Coltsville became the city of Velvet Crush, the master DJ of destructive beats, AND Twilight Crash & the Attractions, the four-piece fluffy lounge-pop act for birthday parties and mayoral events.”
“Ah, so that had already happened,” Raspberry said, “You already lost a member a while ago.”
“Pop without power sells pretty well, though, I’m not complaining,” she remarked, “Or at least it SOLD… and we we’re able to survive relatively well without Velvet Crush for months and months and months. Then, Twilight Crash left. And for the last four weeks, life has been unbearable.”
“Geez, I’m really sorry for you,” said Raspberry.
“No, really, it’s okay,” she said. She paused, and then she lied back on the bed. “It’s just… You know… I had been really hoping. I had been thinking that any day now Velvet Crush would just come back. The only pony Crush really, truly hated was Twilight Crash. Crush could at least tolerate Knack.”
“Oh…” Raspberry said, and he made some more steps over to the door.
“But Twilight Crash, may Luna bless his soul,” Dawn went on, “Always just wanted to be like, say, Fancy Pants. He only played music for the accolades. He wanted to be RESPECTED. To be doted on. And his heart was for slow, soft, little filly stuff. And, well, that’s just… done. Crash is pure history now.”
Raspberry edged himself towards the door. I have to get out of this ‘VH1 - Behind the Music’ crap…
“So,” she said, and he turned around and buried her face down on the bed. “I KNOW Knack has been talking to Crush constantly. I KNOW there was no reason why Crush would have anything against seeing the three colts here— that Crush used to consider like brothers— altogether on stage with him again.”
Raspberry opened the door, and leaned himself out. He said, “Well, it was nice talking to you…”
“The buffet is in room 222, not down the stairs,” Dawn murmured, pointing over in that direction with her right hoof while her body remained face down on the bed.
“Thanks!” Raspberry said.
“By the way, would you like to know what the ‘T.S.’ stands for?” she asked, waving both hooves in the air mindlessly and still muffled by the bed.
“What?” asked Raspberry.
“Thaddeus!” she responded, “Thaddeus Quentin Knack is the colt’s full name.”
“That sounds… interesting…” Raspberry began.
“YES IT DOES!” Knack hollered. Raspberry hopped forward with an ‘eep’ as Knack muscled in through the door past him. Knack went on, “It sounds rather interesting. Hence, ‘Mr. Knack’ or simply ‘Knack’.” Knack sized the papers and writing materials off of the bed— ignoring Dawn as she laid face down silently. Knack stuffed the papers into the top dresser drawer. Then, he grabbed the entire drawer and whipped it out off of its hinges.
“Hey,” Raspberry muttered flatly.
“I need this— the whole thing!” Knack declared affirmatively, and he draped it onto his back with his magic. Knack sped out of the room, paused, and then he leaned his head back through the door. “And both Crash and Crush left for their own reasons. Got that?” Knack then hurried downstairs.
Raspberry opened his mouth as if to say something, but he closed it again. He placed his backpack in a laundry basket sitting beside him, and then he shoved it underneath his bed. Dawn was still lying there on the middle of his bed, facing down without a single sound. Raspberry motioned his hooves a few inches above her head, stopped, and then shrugged.
He headed down the corridor towards Room 202. You know… if I wasn’t me, and I was something else… that would have been a totally awesome moment to take advantage of. Probably. If I wasn’t me, of course. He paused when he came up to the door.
“But then again,” he muttered, feeling a freezing cold chill going up his spine, “Who’s to say that I know who I really am?” He flashed a huge grin. He glanced at his reflection in the doorknob. He spotted two ponies layered on top of each other. He stopped, blinked quickly, and then shuddered. He smashed his head against the door, and then he rubbed the side of his head with his left hoof.
“Get. Out. Of. My. Head. Now. Dammit.” He moaned, bonking the door with each word, “I’m getting pretty tired of this!” He leaned back and surveyed the corridor. He was alone, at least at that moment. He leaned down and stared at the floor. “Dammit. Dammit. Dammit. Dammit. Dammit. Dammit.”
Raspberry stood back up. He saw a black mare with dark green eyes wearing with a dark green fedora eyeing him from about two doors over. She meekly smiled, and then slammed the door. Raspberry shrugged, and then he went into the buffet room. The door smacked open and stayed open behind him.
Raspberry took a deep breath. He then muttered, “Paradise.” It was a large open room with eight ponies milling about. Ten tables with four chairs each stretched across the middle of the room. Right under the far wall sat a huge, long table with bin after bin of items, every one of them steaming. Raspberry sped over to the corner. A plate with a knife and fork quickly flew through the air and then floated right in front of him. Raspberry sidestepped to the left.
The bin contained a variety of greenish lumps with a flowing brown sauce on top. He took a whiff. Pony food. NOPE. He sidestepped again. The other bin featured a smattering of small flaky bluish-gray sticks littered on top of each other. He took in the industrial wasteland style odor. Again, pony food. NOPE. 100% human on the inside here. Raspberry sidestepped a third time. This new bin contained a bunch of small finely wrapped bags. Promising… maybe…
Raspberry lifted one to his nose with his magic, and he found a familiar scent. Oh… can it be? OATES! He lifted another bag. Okay… so… pretty good… hm… He shot a glance left and right, and then he licked the bag. Oooh, soybeans! He gazed upon the bin, and then he picked up a dozen or so bags. He sidestepped once again. The bin in front of him held a huge mountain of something scrambled fluffy and yellow. What the heck could this be? He took a scoop and then a sniff. Oh, my, goodness… EGGS? Raspberry let out a little squeal, and then he piled it onto his plate.
The next bins contained piles of golden-brown slices shaped a bit like giant graham crackers. Whatever it was, it smelled too much like waffles for Raspberry to resist. He detected a jar of syrup to his right, and then he poured it all over everything on his plate. Raspberry moved over to the closest table and sat down. It all looked so delicious that he could barely keep himself from smashing his face onto the plate. Raspberry took his fork and then stabbed a mound of eggs, leaning himself forward.
“HELLO AGAIN!” Knack yelled. Raspberry buckled forward, smashing his plate onto the floor and almost tipping the table over.
“Uhhhhh… hi,” Raspberry replied as Knack leaned forward until they were almost cheek to cheek.
“I’ll take care of that immediately,” Knack whispered into Raspberry’s ear. Knack bucked backward and spun his head out the door. “DAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!”
“Sir, what is it!” Dawn responded, speeding through the door.
Knack pointed one hoof at the shattered plate and another at Raspberry’s empty table. Knack rotated his head, and then he swung his hooves as if he was conducting a mini-symphony. “DUPLICATE!” he yelled. Dawn nodded and headed over to the buffet line. Knack turned back around and leaned over again almost cheek to cheek with Raspberry.
“Right,” Raspberry muttered.
“So, where were we?” Knack said, and Raspberry gave a mini-shrug. Knack cocked his head, paused, and then stepped over to the other side of the table. He took a set, and then went on, “Yes, right, so I needed to inform you that the other three members of the Attractions are indisposed at the moment. It might be a few hours, but I guarantee you that you can start rehearsing sometime tonight.”
“Oh, that’s good,” Raspberry replied, and Dawn placed an identical plate in front of him. She made a mock-salute, and then she calmly trotted towards the door. Raspberry leaned his head over and eyed her flank as it jiggled with every step. He couldn’t see any intimate parts in detail, but still the supple curves seemed to shine. It felt a bit like looking at a mannequin or airbrushed swimsuit catalog yet far more enjoyable.
“You like what you see, don’t you?” she asked, smiling as she shoot a glance back at Raspberry. She then popped out the door.
“Okay, then,” Knack said, and Raspberry saw him trying and failing to hide a giant smirk, “I knew that you also had other non-musical questions you needed to ask me. Since, after all,” Knack slid his head to the right and looked up at the ceiling. “I know anypony and everypony that MATTERS in this town. And a musician such as yourself would surely appreciate having connections in this town, anyways.”
Raspberry held up his right hoof in a ‘just one second’ pose. He leaned forward and then smashed his face onto the plate. He seemed to inhale the entire contents, leaving just a splattering of crumbs. Raspberry sat back up and saw Knack staring at him blankly. “Right,” Raspberry said, reaching for several napkins, “Thank you very much. I’ve needed to talk to you for a while.”
“Sure,” Knack replied.
“So I need information about gems,” Raspberry said, “Information about legends and history surrounding jewels and gems. I’m looking for this special amulet-type thing. It’s really important that I find it, and I mean SOON. It’s not just important to me so that I can use it. It’s also very important that I keep it out of the wrong hands… hooves.”
Knack leaned back in his chair. His face seemed to go through several different shades. He stammered, “Yes, gems… the history and legends of gems… it’s a very, very INTERESTING topic, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know exactly what this particular jewel looks like, not really,” Raspberry continued, “I do know that it has special magical powers. Well… wait…” Raspberry’s eyes glazed over as he tried to remember. “That’s not quite right. It has special SCIENTIFIC powers. Nothing whatsoever to do with magic at all.”
“Science,” Knack quietly repeated. The very word seemed to cause a small transformation in him. He placed his hooves upon the table, and his head bobbed up and down slightly. Raspberry could almost hear the gears turning in Knack’s mind.
“Scientific powers. The ability to, when exposed to certain energies at a certain level, expose the fabric between worlds,” Raspberry wet on, and Knack gazed at him intently. “It was pretty simple, actually. I don’t know exactly how I— how WE— first found it. It was some glorious accident when the substance entered our complex.” Raspberry took a deep breath. Scenes flashed through his mind. The pictures and images just flowed through his subconscious, and he could barely make anything out. He felt as if he was an editor looking through negatives and trying to guess what the actual film was.
“Please, please go on,” Knack said. “Of course, beings with highly specific scientific knowledge have been under a lot of— shall we say— outside pressure lately. Letters unanswered. Books disappeared. Offices closed. Things locked down.”
“It was just… crazy,” Raspberry said, sliding his head to rest on the table. “But when I held it in my hand for the first time that… that… shiny, fluffy, crystal-like substance… It felt right. It was like a mother holding her child for the first time.”
Knack took a gulp.
“So I need to find it now. To send me back,” Raspberry declared. “And to keep it safe.”
“But… but… If you had the gem you’re looking for wherever you CAME from,” Knack said, “Why would it be over HERE, NOW in Coltsville. Or in Equestria. In anyplace around here? I don’t get this at all. If you had it back where you came from, then it’s still over there— right?”
“It… it… it…” Raspberry stammered. Memories sprang into existence but then vanished again a second later. “It wasn’t the gem that sent me here earlier today. But the gem could bring me back. It’s a different gem in Equestria verses where I came from, yet it’s also the same. It’s hard to explain. It’s like…” Raspberry eyed a small tuft of paper and a pen from Knack’s vest pocket.
“This?” asked Knack, and he placed both items on the table in front of them with his magic. Raspberry pulled the paper towards him. He drew a set of various human stick figures walking up and down alongside a little house. He flipped the paper over, and then he drew a set of pony stick figures alongside a little barn. Raspberry then scribbled a solid blue sphere in the middle, pressing down harder and harder until he tore the paper. Knack surveyed Raspberry’s every movement.
Raspberry held the paper up in front of himself. “Here they are, outside of Equestria,” he said, tapping the human side that faced Knack. “And here is their version of the… the… the ‘substance’, let’s call it.” He tapped the blue circle. He then flipped over the paper so that the pony sized faced Knack. “Tell me what you see.”
“It’s our world, and it’s where we’re sitting here— right now,” Knack muttered, his voice growing faint.
“Yes, and what else do you see?” Raspberry asked as he tapped the center of his own side of the paper.
Knack reached over his right hoof, and he felt the indentation and half-inch-sized hole on his side of the paper. It seemed almost like reading braille. “I see our world’s equivalent of the exact same ‘substance’ as you called it.” Knack said. Then, he leaned over and peeped through the tiny hole with his right eye. “And to imagine one falling through this with such a tiny, nasty little misstep… it’s a painful thought…”
“It’s somewhere in Equestria, and it’s in the form of a jewel. That’s about all I know,” Raspberry said. “And I KNOW it’s a completely unbelievable story.” He rested his head flat against the table.
“It often is the longest and least believable stories that are the truest,” Knack responded.Raspberry flipped his head back up, and the two ponies gave each other an understanding look. Knack leaned over and whispered, “Even in this part of Coltsville and even in my own hotel, it’s not quite safe enough to talk about this around the rest of the guests that openly. Just answer me this— what does the substance look like? What is it, precisely?”
“The— the technical term we used was ‘hyperspace’,” Raspberry murmured, “But I can’t remember more than that name. I really can’t. Sorry.” Knack tapped Raspberry’s side. It felt like a coach comforting an injured player. Knack started to walk out the door.
“Wait!” Raspberry shouted, and then he stared at the floor. He felt as if his head was going to cave in from the inside. He held up his right hoof, and then he looked back up. “I can… a bit…” He lowered his voice. “It was something that fluttered through the air almost like a gas, and if it escaped it was gone forever. Yet you could hold it in your hand and then catch a bit of it.” Raspberry waved about his front hooves in the air. “A dull kind of pinkish-red, with bubbles upon bubbles going through it. It was… flying cotton candy.”
Knack rubbed his chin, deep in thought.
“I have no idea what the Equestrian equivalent is. I really don’t. Just that it would be small. I could only catch a baseball sized wad of it, and that was enough for our experiments,” Raspberry said. “That’s… that’s the absolute limit of what I can remember.”
Knack stepped over to Raspberry. In a low voice, Knack replied, “Four things. First, I’d like to thank you. Second, eat something. For Celestia’s sake, you look like you’re about to keel over.”
“Praise Celestia,” Raspberry muttered sarcastically.
“Third, you have more powerful friends than you realize.” Knack said. Then, he pressed his right hoof hard against the table, and he repeated, “Powerful friends. Forth, I’m sorry to say that I can’t help you specifically. You’ve been told, I’m sure, that you need to see a dragon. But, I know the right dragon for the job. He’s always around here tomorrow. Until now, if I were you I’d relax, take a good nap in your room, and then spend the night practicing with your new band.”
Raspberry got up as Knack stepped out the door, and then Raspberry made himself four more buffet plates. Satisfied, he trotted back down the corridor to his room. He hurled himself onto his bed. ‘Your new band’? Really? Well then, that sure as hell sounds like a colossal waste of time for someone who has powerful friends… Yeah, it’s really a good idea to be banging on drums like a freaking monkey while a Stalin-style purge is going on through the whole damn city.
Raspberry glanced out the window. It had gotten just a bit dark, but the hustle and bustle went on as loud and busy as ever. No… This can’t be going on like that. It just doesn’t make sense. The world here is too sickeningly pure, so child-like, and so innocent for something that dramatic to be going on. I get ponies clamming up, sure, but there isn’t bumping off in the streets. There isn’t a Princess Celestia SS division rounding up intellectuals and strangling them in their beds. It’s got to be something more subtle. Something outside of what meets the eye is going on. I just know it. Raspberry pulled his backpack out from under his bed.