"Uh--" Jacqueline gave me a confused look. "Yeah, I have Tin foil, but... I don't think that would work--"
"Yeah that's cause you're human," I explained dismissively. "If you're a pony or a time lord it works fine. Right Shy?"
Erishy had snuck into the corner of the room, working on one of the costumes in order to distract herself from... well, what I let slip. Still, she spared me a smile. "Yeah, some tin foil and the magic of friendship."
The cosplayer raised an eyebrow. "I... seriously doubt it works like that."
"And that's exactly why you aren't me."
"...what?"
I rolled my eyes. "Okay, this is like the parasprites. I need a tin foil hat, preferably with antenna. I don't care about quality, but I need it in the next... oh... ten, twenty minutes?"
"...what?"
"I would recommend just trusting her this time," Erishy stated.
"...Alright, but I want an explanation." Jackie began folding me a metal head adornment. "A real one."
"What do you mean? I said I wanted--"
"Yeah," she cut me off, "I've been traveling with you for a while Reid, and your randomness is the kind without a point. When things have a point you aren't random."
"It's a theory Jackie... One that needs to be tested before it is explained." The pegasus gave the cosplayer a soft look. "If we explain it now... It'd be bad. Tomorrow okay?" Her voice was almost heartbreaking in its gentle desperation...
"Very well, darling. Here is your... hat."
Jackie handed me a convenient distraction, leting me tear myself away from the urge to go over and comfort my vocal sister. "Thank you. Really". I placed the hat on my head, cocking it at a slight angle and giving the two of them a confident grin. "And now... TO NAP!"
"I hope it works!" Erishy called after me with with a giggle.
***
One of the benefits of being Pinkie Pie is not getting tired. Sleep is a simple on-off switch. So when I snuggled down into my bed wearing that ridiculous metal hat and shut my eyes, I was instantly transported to a rolling felt landscape above which the floating and far more realistic chunks of my own multiverse of stories drifted like clouds.
"Okay.... we're asleep." To my right, a pink felt pony gave me a curious glance. "What now?"
"I dunno, look for something different?"
"Like what?"
My mind poured over the usual tropes of the situation. "A hole in the universe? You think in felt. What's felt usually attached to?"
"Cardboard, I think."
"Then look for cardboard!"
The two of us began poking around the landscape, searching for loose fabric. It took us a while to realize that the dream was, in fact, growing darker; the various object in the sky gathered like a stormcloud, blocking light from the suns and stars I used to flit about so casually. Once we did notice, we realized the light was closing on a felt representation of Sugarcube Corner, growing brighter even as it grew smaller. A quick search revealed a peeling fabric near the base of the image.
"That was... convenient," I commented wryly.
"Lucid dreaming, we control the environment."
"Until we're not in our own head anymore." I clasped my hands together, steeling myself. "Well, shall we on?"
"Hold up! As the lady here I have to ask, are you seriously going out like that?"
"...Like what?"
"Like that!" The felt pony gestured at me. "Like, a big black spot and a pair of hands connected to a blue... bunch of... lightyline thread things!"
"...since apparently that's my self image, I'm going to say yes."
Pinkie grinned. "Alright just checking. ALLONS-Y!" She jumped into the patch of old cardboard without another thought.
"I always thought it was pronounced Allonsoy...." I commented, following her example.
The journey between minds was actually incredibly quick, almost instantaneous. One minute the land was made of felt and the next Pinkie was landing head-first on the tiles of a dark blue floor. I looked around the room, noticing some details; runic histories woven in glowing silver lines decorated the floor and walls, and high above us a great glass dome led to a view of a starry sky, in which the earth rested peaceably.
Of course, the thing that was most noticeable about the room were the two plush dolls that greeted us. One looked exactly like pinkie, aside from the stitches; the other, however, had a gloriously curly R sewn onto its forehead. Both of them floated up to us in an azure glow as Pinkie righted herself.
"Well, I can't just leave well enough alone can I?" squeaked the unaltered one, dead eyes focusing on me.
"Nay, verily we hath nothing better to do than bother the princess in her sole remaining refuge," its companion replied in a voice that sounded as though it should have come from Mister T, flanking us.
The unaltered doll spun around us slowly. "Well surely we can resolve or own pathetic quandaries without her aid, can we not?"
"Nay! We hath no other option but to invade her very mind, which has apparently not been violated enough already!"
Then, without warning, the two dolls were flung away. They dissolved into glimmering dust, flying up through the glass dome and swirling through the stars until they were lost to eternity. It was only then that we heard the deep breathing and turned to see the other occupant of the room.
Broken, crying, and small, Luna still glowered at us from her alcove in the wall.
Pinkie and I glanced at each other.
I was the one who stepped forward first. If... floating could really be called stepping. "Well... yeah, we're a little worried that you just vanished. Not going to lie there. But it's not because 'oh my gosh we need you what's going on.' It's more... 'is she hurt?'"
Pinkie took the time to wrap her forelegs around her... something I couldn't do, since I didn't have anything resembling arms. "Both of you... if you've fused, I know both of you have been through some horrible things. But we're here for you."
The alicorn pushed her away, bitterness in her voice. "I... Have been alone in my head for hours now, with Tara enchanted or whatever he did, I can't see what she is doing, or talk to her." She summoned another doll, this one human, and stared at it for a few seconds; her eyes suddenly shifted to slits and the doll burst into flames. "I am a prisoner in my own mind!"
Pinkie blinked at the outburst. "Ooooookay. That sounds like a super duper big problem."
I nodded, looking up at the floating Earth. "Well, assuming everything here is metaphor... maybe she's up there? Or down, I guess."
"It doesn't matter. Discord has won." She slumped to the ground. "He split Twilight in two."
Pinkie stared at her. "Wait... what?"
"Okay, hold on. In two?" I shook my head at the enormity of her statement. "How did he split her in two, she looked pretty... well, she looked whole, anyway, in the picture I saw." My hands clasped together. "Unless you mean he split her mind..."
Luna nodded. "Magic and mind were split he said, meaning even if you get to Isaac, the element might not appear." Her head drooped, resting on the tile floor dejectedly.
"Excuse me for being so... well, blunt, but quite frankly I don't see how stealing her magic would hurt her mind."
Pinkie gave me a nervous smile. "Reid, maybe you could be a little nicer to Luna--"
"Nonono, I'm genuinely curious. How is a unicorn's magic related to their mental stability?" I began to pace around the room. "I can understand how it would make her feel crippled, but the element of magic... it's a mental state, right?"
"Yes, but Isaac is not the mind, just the magic. So he may not be able to gain the element. You would have to find the other half and we have heard nothing of a second Twilight." Luna rose, looking through the skylight to the world. "Maybe you are right and she is simply not on the moon..."
I steepled my fingers. "So what you're saying is... Discord's hidden a piece."
Pinkie gave me a strange look. "What?"
"That's what this is to him. A game. Maybe not exactly but that's how I think when I think how he thinks." I began to pace around the area, tapping my fingers. "Discord's hidden a piece and if we don't find it we lose... which makes the Twilight we know, effectively, worthless to him."
"Hey! No Twilight is worthless!"
"No, I didn't mean it like that. I meant..."
If I had a mouth I would have grinned.
"Ah. So, Dissy, if Isaac is so worthless to you, then why is he in the hospital?"
Luna's eyes snapped to me in shock. "In the hospital? What happened?"
"He got shot," I waved a hand. "Not good, but he's alive. Question is... why'd he get shot?"
"PAPA attacked Fluttershy," Pinkie pointed out.
"With knives, and she was isolated. I'm pretty sure somebody was guarding Isaac, and sneaking a gun past security is a lot harder then it looks in the movies. Especially if they have magic, since magic is a total unknown... that gunman had to have had help."
The party pony had been in my head long enough to see where I was going. "But if Discord helped him... then he's still playing the game."
"Exactly. You don't try to eliminate a piece that isn't a threat. Dissy's still worried that Isaac could be used against him. He doesn't think he's won yet... which means he hasn't."
Luna started looking a bit more hopeful, nodding as I explained it. "So... So if I can get out of here, and talk with Tara, we might still have a chance."
I put a hand on her shoulder. "We always have a chance."
"Yep yep yep! I learned that long ago. See I'd just left the rock farm and I was making my way in Las Pegasus when I met up with this minotaur--"
"Pinkie? Focus."
"But it's an awesome story!"
"I'm sure it is, but right now we need to figure out how to find Tara."
"Well why doesn't Luna just fly up to that representation of Earth?"
I was about to answer... when I realized it was an excellent question.
Luna realized we were both looking at her and shrugged. Waving a hoof and making the skylight vanish, she floated up and through it, bringing us with her. The small round building was the only feature on the grey moon; a gazebo much bigger on the inside then it was outside.
"This is what it really looks like, you know." She said, her eyes distant as she looked around the craters and dunes.
I took in the grey sand, the craters, the mountains... "You mean, this is what Equestria's moon looks like. I think... Earth's looks a little different. No offense."
Pinkie gave me a flat look.
"...it is very beautiful, though, I backpedaled hastily. "Don't get me wrong. It feels... valiant."
The princess of the night did not reply. She simply stared out at the landscape for a moment longer.
Then, suddenly, we were all flung upwards with her magic, escaping the small gravity of the moon and shooting towards earth at a blistering speed.