(Sweet Apple Acres)
"Thanks fer bringin' back mah sister, Miss Pinkie Pie!" Apple Bloom said as the mare in question and 'Blue Lily' carried Applejack into the farmhouse. They were side by side with Applejack sprawled horizontally on their backs.
"No problem Apple Bloom! But I couldn't have done it without my new friend here," the former earth pony replied, gesturing to the mare next to her.
"Why aren't we levitating her again? You're an alicorn for Celestia's sake!" Blue Lily complained, sweat dripping down her face.
"I'm not all that good at using magic yet, so I might accidentally throw her." Pinkie answered sheepishly "But if you didn't want to carry her like this, then why didn't you use your own magic?"
"I'm a dance teacher, so I barely use my horn all day! I don't have enough magical stamina to lift heavy things for long periods of time. Hey kid, do you mind telling your sister to lay off the apples for a while?"
Apple Bloom grimaced, "Ah'll be sure to do that."
The two of them placed the unconscious farm pony on the couch. Granny Smith was sleeping in her rocking chair in a corner of the room, while Big Macintosh was out in the fields plowing.
Pinkie Pie wiped the sweat from her brow with a hoof. "Whew! Now that we're done with this, you've gotta let me show you around Ponyville until Minuette gets back from the clock shop!"
"Is that where she works? Good to know..." the unicorn thought.
"Thanks, but I'd like to look around on my own." Blue Lily replied.
"Aw come on, please?"
"No thank you," the mare politely refused.
"Please?"
"No."
"Please?!"
"No, Pinkie."
"Pretty please with a chocolate cupcake on top?!" the young alicorn asked, pulling said cupcake out of nowhere.
"I thought you said you weren't good at magic yet!"
"I'm not. I pulled the cupcake out of Hammerspace!"
"What?!"
"Just go with it Miss Blue Lily," Apple Bloom advised sagely. "You'll get less headaches that way."
"But how I am a just supposed to accept tha-?!" the unicorn's protests were cut off as Pinkie Pie shoved the cupcake into her mouth.
"Cupcake get! and OH MY GOD IT'S LIKE AN ORGASM IN MY MOUTH!" the disguised being thought, moaning a little while eating the treat.
"Pinkie, I will follow you into the depths of Tartarus itself if get to have more of those heavenly cupcakes." the mare replied, completely serious.
"Then away we go!" she said, dragging her new friend out the farmhouse.
"Wait a minute!"
"What is it now?!" the mare answered.
"I need to use the bathroom,"
"Oh, okay then!"
Blue Lily shut the door behind her magically as she trotted into the bathroom. In a flash of golden flames, she was Isaac once more. The angel man shivered. It was always weird to be a girl.
"Now to check on the polar griffons..." he thought.
Isaac dug his fingers into the top of his skull and then ripped himself in two. Instead of the normal accompaniment of blood and gore, there were his golden flames. When they died down, there was two of the guy! He didn't actually clone himself though. They were two bodies that were controlled by one mind. Each body was half as strong as the original of course. Ahh... The wonders that creative shape shifting could work. Of course when he first figured out how to do this, he got a huge headache due to getting twice the amount of sensory information at once, but practice had turned that into a dull pain the back of his brain(s).
One of them changed back into Blue Lily, while the other teleported out of the room.
The mare walked out of the bathroom with a smile on her face.
"Okay, I'm ready now!"
"Great!" Pinkie dragged her new friend out the farmhouse once more in a surprising burst of speed.
(Pismare Beach, Coltifornia)
Isaac appeared underwater, just under the boat. Thankfully he discovered that he didn't need to breath anymore a long time ago. He swam from out under the ship and to the surface, peeking his head out to see what was going on. The polar griffons holding spears and wearing parkas were at a stand off with the royal guard. All of the beach-goers had left at this point, and the other griffons were watching from the deck of the ship.
"I told you we're here to see the trial of Nightmare Moon!" Skipper, a short but stern looking polar-griffon shouted to a unicorn in purple royal guard armor. Was that Shining Armor? He had a "gift" for him as well. It simply wouldn't do for him to leave Princess Cadance a widow after only a few measly decades together...
"And I told you that you need to dock your ship in a proper harbor first!"
"We haven't had any contact with your country for literal centuries! How were we supposed to know where to park the boat?!"
"Well then you need to go do it now!"
"Okay then where is it?!"
"If you'd let us on your ship we'd show you where it is!" Shining looked exasperated at that point.
"You don't have the clearance to do so, soldier!" Skipper replied.
"Excuse me?!"
Their argument basically devolved into a shouting match at that point. Those watching were trying not to laugh at how red their faces were getting.
From what Isaac could gather, after the polar griffons had stated their reason for coming, the guards were initially sympathetic, so then they just wanted to inspect the ship to see if there was anything dangerous. Skipper immediately denied it, and it just became a cycle of repeating the same thing over and over again. To be honest, he had a reason for not wanting them on the ship. Kowalski had brought some of his machinery along, and more than a few of them qualified as dangerous. Where the polar griffon had gotten the parts to build those machines in the South Pole, Isaac wasn't sure of. They mentioned something about getting the parts from the local seapony colony, but when he checked there were no seaponies to be found.
"Meh, that's something to investigate later.." the angel thought. He would make sure they got out alright before heading off to the Pie Family Rock Farm to get a certain stage magician.
It was as it always was on the Pie Family Rock Farm. The sky was cloudy, the landscape was depressing, and there was nothing but rocks as far as the eye could see.
And Trixie absolutely hated it!
It's not like she had a choice in the matter either. Ever since that disastrous performance in Ponyville, she'd been laughed or kicked out of every town she had tried to perform in since. And to add insult to injury her cart, her home might she add, had been destroyed by that Ursa! Now she was forced to get a job at this stupid rock farm!
"Stupid Twilight Sparkle... She's Princess Celestia's personal student and then became a bucking alicorn on top of that." the blue unicorn mare grumbled, pulling a cart of rocks.
Trixie wasn't even allowed to use magic! The owners' said something about it going "against tradition". She mentally scoffed at that. If that wasn't enough, they had their creepy daughter watching her to make sure she didn't use any.
She took a moment to look back at the face that had been watching her for the past six hours. That same blank, apathetic face.
Trixie shuddered. Truly Maud Pie was the creepiest individual in Equestria, perhaps the entire world! She got back to work before her supervisor actually decided to talk.
"E-Excuse me!"
Trixie and Maud looked up to see a pegasus stallion in a mailpony uniform flying down towards them. When he touched down to the ground, he pulled a small cardboard box out of his shoulder bag and looked at it.
"Are either of you a Miss Trixie Lulamoon?" he asked.
"That would be I, yes?" she replied.
"I have a package for you." he said, handing her the box, which she grabbed in her telekinetic grip.
"Sign please." he said showing her a clipboard which she quickly signed.
"Have a nice day, ma'am!" he said afterwards, flying off to do more mailpony stuff.
"May Trixie open this now?" Trixie asked her supervisor.
"Go ahead." Maud replied in that monotone voice of hers.
The blue unicorn shuddered and proceeded to open her package. Inside there appeared to be a full-looking bag with a note on top. She picked up the note. It read:
Dear The Great and Powerful Trixie Lulamoon,
It's nice to finally contact you! I'm a huge fan of yours. I've been there for most of your performances, including that disaster in Ponyville. After I saw your cart get destroyed, I wanted to help you out! Unfortunately you're a hard mare to find, and then I heard that you were getting laughed out of every town you tried to perform in. After that Twilight Sparkle mare thankfully stopped the Ursa, I tried to figure what actually brought it into town. The two colts who did it, Snips and Snails I believe their names are? They barely got punished for bringing the Ursa into town! They just had Twilight Sparkle give them mustaches. It could have destroyed the entire town and killed a bunch of ponies in the process if that mare wasn't there. You don't really deserve what has happened. Sure you insulted a few members of your audience, lied about your accomplishments, and acted like an obnoxious show-off, but you're a stage magician! It's your job to embellish things for the sake drawing a bigger crowd. Granted you did it the wrong way, but it's not like it seriously hurt anypony.
Anyways, my point is that I want to help you get back on your hooves and then get even better than that. I'm a bit of a talent agent you see. In the bag is approximately 75,000 bits. I want you use it for whatever you need. If you want me to assist you further, meet me at the Four Seasons Hotel in Manehattan. I'll be there for the rest of this month and all of next month, so take your time. On the other side of this note is a photo of me so you know what I'll look like.
Sincerely,
Discerning Eye
After reading the letter, Trixie immediately opened the bag to see that there was in fact a lot of bits in there. Whether or not it was 75,000 remained to be seen, but the blue unicorn was already too far gone to care. It started out as snickering, then chuckling, then giggling, and then full-on maniacal laughter.
"HAHAHAHAHAHA! TRIXIE IS FINALLY FREE OF THIS TRIPE!" she crowed.
She started dancing, whooping, and even doing back flips. There was a wide and toothy grin on her face that wouldn't have looked out of place on a certain pink party pony.
"Hey Maud! Tell your parents that TRIXIE QUITS! I'LL BE OUT OF HERE BEFORE THE SUN EVEN SETS HAHAHAHA!" she laughed madly, bringing her face uncomfortably close to her supervisor.
"What happened?" Maud asked in her monotone voice. If you squinted you could see her eyes had actually widened a fraction of a millimeter.
"I'll tell you what happened! Trixie has finally gotten the big break she rightly deserves! She needs to pack her things immediately. Stardom, here I come!" the blue unicorn proceeded to run off.
(Ponyville, 7:25 PM)
"And this is Carousel Boutique, which is owned by my friend Rarity!"
It had been a few hours, and Blue Lily was only half-listening to Pinkie Pie's ranting as she happily ate a cupcake. After a while you just learned to tune it out. Then something occurred to her.
"Hey Pinkie?"
"Yes?"
"Why does it feel like you've been 'showing me around town' for two months?"
"Because the writer's laptop broke and he wasn't able to finish the second half of this chapter until he got a new one recently?"
"What?!"
"I didn't say anything."
Blue Lily looked like she was about to say something, but then wisely decided against it.
"Besides, that would explain my entire situation." she thought. Then she repressed that thought so as to not have an existential crisis.
"Hey the sun's setting!" Pinkie said, pointing a hoof towards the horizon. Sure enough the sky had turned orange, signifying that Celestia was lowering her sun.
"I guess it is. So, I guess I'll see you tomorrow then?"
"Yep, have a good night! Ooh, and tell Minuette I said hi!"
With that, the two of them parted ways, both unaware of what forces were at work.
(Ponyville, Minuette's House, 11:00 PM)
"Finally, home at last." Minuette sighed, walking into her two-story home after a long day of selling and fixing clocks.
*CLICK!*
She flipped the light switch with her hoof, only to freeze as she somepony who looked almost exactly like her sitting on her couch.
"Hello, cousin." the doppleganger said with a devious grin.
Her screams were never heard outside of her house due to silencing spell.