//------------------------------// // The Truth Comes Out // Story: Why Did I Choose to be Trixie? // by Mike the Red //------------------------------// The four of us made the jump, but it took an awful lot out of me. "Okay, now we get into the car here," I said, opening all four doors. My horn was starting to hurt a little. The others exchanged nervous glances, not exactly sure what was going on. "Um, this vehicle here will take us the rest of the way," I said, pointing at it. "Uh, Mike, I don't think I've ever seen anythin' like this," Diane said nervously. "Michael, is this ... thing ... safe?" asked Twilight. "You two are so funny! Trixie has traveled in this vehicle and it is perfectly safe!" she chuckled and hopped into the front passenger seat. "Diane, take the left rear passenger seat behind me. Twilight, you sit behind the other Trixie. It won't be long now," I said. "I'm looking to get a few more hours of sleep. I hope the other Twilight will let us have her guest room. That, or we can sleep for a little bit on the train ride." My state of fatigue betrayed me as I let slip an important piece of information I should have kept secret until we were on that train. "Um, what train ride?" Trixie asked me. "Tell me!" she added quite petulantly. "Oh, you'll find out tomorrow when we're on it. I've planned an extremely important meeting ahead -- one that will determine the future of an entire universe. I will need for all of you to be on your best behavior, for my sake please." I glanced around nervously, hoping I hadn't ruined the surprise. I took a moment to contemplate the upcoming meeting with the Solar Princess. With every pony in their respective seats, I turned on the car and had it teleport us to Ponyville, the good one. It was day-break here and Celestia was waking up, getting ready to raise the Sun for the day. We got out of the vehicle and I locked it up, leaving the key fob on the driver's floor mat. I rested against it for a moment to catch my breath a little. "The tree looks quite familiar," Twilight mused. "So this is that other universe," Diane mused pensively. "I wonder what the other me looks like." "All you have to do is call her name, Diane," I chuckled. "I'll bet she'll be fascinated by YOUR appearance!" "Trixie finds this all a bit too overwhelming for her," she sighed. "Hey, Trix, d' ya always refer ta yerself in third person?" Diane chuckled. "Trixie has been doing that for years, P --" she began. "DON'TCHA DARE!" Diane shouted at her. "Trixie, you must refer to the pink pegasus by her middle name, Diane. Don't call her by the party pony's name. Diane, when I call Pinkie Pie's name, I'm referring to the earth pony, not you. Do you understand?" I asked hesitantly. "I don't like it," she replied angrily. "Did somepony call my name?" asked the bouncing pink earth pony. When she spotted her pegasus counterpart, she gasped. "Ohmygosh! Ohmygosh! Ohmygosh! IsThisReallyHappeningForReal? ICan'tBelieveI'mReallyMeetingME!! CanYouFlyReallyFastLikeRainbowDash?" Pinkie Pie said way too fast and hugged Diane very tightly. "Uh, yer Pinkie Pie?" came the query from the very confused pink pegasus. "YEAH! That's ME! And you're me too! But you're a pegasus! And you can fly! Show me how fast you can go!" "Okay, Pinkie, I'll show you!" Diane grinned, taking off into the early morning sky. She zoomed as fast as she could go, then proceeded to leave a big pink poofy cloud in her wake as a loud boom was heard. This caught the attention of a certain cyan pegasus with a rainbow colored mane and tail, who started flying next to the pink pegasus. The two of them raced each other across the sky, both of them zooming at near sonic speed before Diane punched through the sound barrier again. "NO FREAKIN' WAY!!" shouted Rainbow Dash. Diane caught up with her and grinned, her mane and tail totally poofy, except that the speed they were traveling was keeping it kind of flat. She pointed downward a few times with her left fore-hoof, indicating they should land. The two of them landed near us, Pinkie giggling and laughing when she saw Rainbow's shocked expression. "Holy -- ! Pinkie, that was AWESOME! When did you learn how to fly like that?" "Uh, Rainbow? My name's Diane, and I've been flyin' like that since I first learned how ta!" "Trixie is most impressed, Diane!" she smiled in admiration. "Yeah, but she doesn't have a cool mane and tail like mine!" the cyan pegasus protested. "We've gotta have a big party for all of you! But it's gonna have to wait, though. Mikey? You wanna tell every pony here what the plan is?" "Okay, first we get Twilight. Rainbow, can you go get Fluttershy and Applejack, Pinkie? Can you direct Diane over to Carousel Boutique and bring Rarity to the train station? Trixie and I and the two Twilights will head over to the train station and we'll meet up there for the ride to Canterlot." "Okay, Mike, gotcha," Rainbow said and took off for Fluttershy's cottage. "Diane? It feels funny calling you by my middle name," Pinkie giggled. "Carry me that way (she pointed) to the boutique -- if it's anything like your version of Ponyville, it should look fairly familiar." Diane carried the pink earth pony off towards the boutique. I knocked on the front door of the Library. "Ugh, what time is it?" asked a very sleepy Twilight. She slowly made her way to the front door and opened it to see a version of herself with Trixie's cutie mark and a small white box around her neck, Trixie and me. I stepped aside to allow her to exit the tree. "Wait, you are me?" she asked the other Twilight. "Yes, I am. Pleased to meet you -- I was wondering what my alternate universe self looked like." "I see you still wear the voice box device -- would you be kind enough to demonstrate for me what it's capable of doing?" She maneuvered the knobs on the device to give a sample of the fake RCV. I steeled myself and glanced at Trixie, grinning. "Trixie, you might want to cover your ears for this," I giggled. "HOW MANY TIMES MUST I TELL THEE THAT THOU HAST OFFENDED ME??!!" exclaimed Twilight through her voice box. She giggled and reset the knobs to the normal position. She continued to giggle. Trixie stood in stunned silence, while I chuckled a little. It took her a moment or two to regain her composure. "Trixie wants to know where Sparkle got that device!" she exclaimed, a smile making its way onto her face. "If Trixie had a device like that, maybe her shows would be better!" "Your counterpart there gave it to me. I tinkered with it to get it to do that," she giggled. Trixie turned to me. "Trixie wants to know if you can give her such a device!" she grinned. "We need to be making our way to the train station, we have a ride to catch. Maybe I can have the car drive us there," I mused. I opened the car, allowing everypony to jump in. The two Twilights got into the back seats and Trixie rode shotgun again. TS expressed more confusion upon analyzing two Trixies and two Twilights. "TS, we need to drive to the train station here in Ponyville. Can you engage auto-drive and take us there?" "Calculating. Configuring auto-drive parameters. Commencing auto-drive." TS didn't sound too cheerful at this request. As she drove herself towards the train station, ponies of all races, colors and sizes were startled, shocked, confused, and many of them panicked as she made her way relatively slowly to the train station. TS's proximity alarms were nearly constant and she had to repeatedly sound her horn in order to get the confused ponies to scatter out of her way. "TS, how much more of this? These ponies are becoming a nuisance and they're impeding our progress," I complained. "Michael, please! They've never seen anything like this vehicle, and I'll bet they're scared of it! The sounding of that horn is scaring me as well! Not being able to see what's going on is making me nervous!" Twilight said in exasperation. TS's navigation screen showed a front-camera view of what was in front of us. "Estimated distance to train station, 3.4 miles. We should arrive in about ten minutes." "Twenty miles an hour? Sheesh! I can get out and gallop faster than that!" I shouted in frustration. "Then why not do it, silly?" TS responded. "None of your smart answers, you think you're so clever," I growled. "Park behind the train station if you can, please." I heard a giggling sound coming from TS's speakers. I had no idea I had given her a sense of humor. Trixie and both Twilights chuckled a little at this exchange as well. We continued on, almost constantly hearing the horn sounding, TS alternately speeding up and braking as some hapless ponies stumbled over cobblestones in TS's path. This was definitely going to make the papers and I was never going to live this incident down. I was almost positive that this was probably the worst decision I had ever made while in Ponyville. Eventually, we made it to the train station, TS parking fairly close to it, but far enough away from the tracks so as not to be in the path of passing trains. I turned the car off and we got out. As if the sight of the car wasn't enough of a shock, when every pony saw two Twilights and two Trixies, they were really freaked out. I saw Rainbow Dash, Diane, and Fluttershy approaching the station with Rarity and Applejack trailing behind. Rarity was not very happy to see us. Applejack wore an expression of surprise. Pinkie appeared from behind TS, for some strange reason. "Pinkie, how do you do that?" I asked in exasperation. "Hey, silly billy! You forget who I am, did ya?" she asked, grinning broadly. "Michael, darling! You could have stopped by the boutique and picked me up, you know!" exclaimed a nearly breathless Rarity. Upon seeing the fashionista, the Twilight from the alternate universe ran up to her and hugged her very tightly. "Oh, Rarity! It's been so long! I have missed you so much!" "Twilight, darling, it's only been ... wait ... you're the Twilight from the other universe! Your cutie mark is like Trixie's! Is what they said about me in that other universe true?" The other Twilight started sobbing very loudly, her wailing sounding very odd coming through the voice box. "NO! None of it is true! Nightmare Moon killed you! You were not a serial murderer!"