-----Princess Celestia-----
“Sister, do you not think you were a little harsh on your student?” Luna asks me.* We are relaxing in one of our private rooms, one of my favorites because of the hot tub. I quickly dunk my head, then resurface.
“Lulu, you know what horrors we found on some of those worlds. Some horrors would make the deepest depths of Tartarus here look like a kitten’s playground! Such discoveries are ones I hope our ponies never find.”
“Maybe… maybe they should be allowed to find out.”
I spit out the cake shake I was drinking (An exclusive of the Royal Canterlot Kitchens: my favorite cake, ice cream, and a blend of sweet spices). Such a waste.
“What are you saying, Luna? That we should allow our subjects to dabble in the fabric of the multiverse?”
“Not without restraint, dear sister. It does you no good to dwell on only the bad; many of the worlds we found had many good elements. There is one world I seem to recall where you—”
I quickly put my head underwater, to block out Luna’s voice and hide my rapidly reddening cheeks. However, even trans-dimensional beings had to come up for air eventually.
“—and the way he was swinging you around, dear sister—”
Dunk.
Breath.
“—and then, when he had you at the peak—”
“Luna! Enough!” I splash water on her. “I promised not to speak of the sewage, and you promised not to speak of my little, he he, moment of weakness. However, I concede your point. There are beneficial worlds out there, as well as harmful ones. We must guide Twilight Sparkle to the good, and avoid the bad.”
Luna nods, hiding that smile. “Very well. Shall we return to your student with provisions? Say, if she finds a world, we are the first to explore, so we may tell her if it is a world she can explore freely?”
“Yes, that sounds good. That way we avoid incidents like that one time, when Chaos took on that one form, what was it called?”
“Ooh, I think I know the one! ‘The Lustmaster’, right?”
We burst out laughing at that. As the mirth dies down, I have to get in the last word. “’Thirty nights of fun, guaranteed!’” Another round of laughter.
We are still grinning from ear to ear as I teleport us back to the Ponyville Library. However, the smile falters when I see no trace of my student, only Spike busily cleaning up a stack of books. He turns on the ladder and bows to us. “Princesses! I didn’t expect to see you back so soon! Twilight and her friends went out for a while. Is there anything I can help you with?”
I give an almost imperceptible nod to Luna, and she catches it. I feel her magic begin to flow through the area, probing for a certain signal. “Yes, dear Spike, you can help us. Where did she go, if I may ask?”
Spike opens his mouth to speak, but is cut off by Luna’s gasp. “They did it, sister! I’m not sure how, but they went back to that world!”
I turn my fiery gaze upon Spike, with pupils like a hundred burning suns. “How? How. Did. They. Get. There. Spike?”
He panics, and the words come in a torrent. “Twilight thought you would make her destroy the machine so she built another one in secret that wouldn’t find worlds only go to ones she already knew and then she told me to try and keep it a secret from you and then took all the girls through the portal along with the Elements and please don’t send me to the moon!”
I smile at him compassionately. “I will not send you to the moon, dear Spike. I’ve learned the hard way that solves nothing. Now, do you know the coordinates they went to?”
He sniffles. “Y-yeah. Twilight keeps a copy of everything in her journal upstairs under her bed.” He scrambles to go get it as my mind blanks.
My student keeps a diary? I do not have time to reconcile that thought as Spike descends the stairs, searching for the right page.
“Aha! Okay, here it is, follow me, Princesses! Oh, but watch your horns, it’s a bit small.” And he leads us to the basement, where a small machine sits. It is almost identical to the one Luna locked in the vault, but smaller, and shinier. Spike immediately starts entering the coordinates. “I’m going to activate the portal, so you guys don’t use all your energy trying to find the world, see? I can be smart when I want to.”
“And we thank you for that.” As the portal opens, Spike imparts one last piece of advice. “If you want to get home and, again, don’t want to use all your energy, each of the girls has a Relay on them that will open a new portal right back here.”
“Very good, Spike. At least my student thought ahead.” And we enter the portal to save Twilight.
As the portal closes, Spike rubs his claws together gleefully. “All according to plan, Twilight. Now for my reward!” He ascends the stairs and enters the kitchen, to make himself a batch of double-gem victory cupcakes! Yum!
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We exit the portal in midair, held a lot by our wings. We are still in alicorn form, so by unconscious agreement, we slowly change back to our ‘Angel’ form, our original forms from all those millennia ago.
“Oh, Cel. I forgot how good this feels,” Luna remarks as she stretches out some kinks, with me doing the same.
“I know, Lulu, but remember, we aren’t here to sightsee. Now, where’s Chaos?”
“Um, how about in that direction?” I look where she is pointing, and see a massive outpouring of chaos energy emanating from the nearest city. We glance to each other, and shove off towards the source.
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We are flying over the city, towards the fortress overlooking it, when Luna stops me.
“I see six figures in the square down there. One with soft pink hair, another blonde, two purples, wild pink, and one with a multitude. I think it’s them, sis! I… wait, what is Rainbow Dash doing?”
I look down, just in time to see Rainbow Dash put a gun to my student’s head. From this distance, the report comes faintly.
*BLAM*
-----Twilight-----
Celestia-damn it, I love it when I’m right! I come to near a factory. Discord’s voice comes across the city, but I tune it out. Its basic villain stuff, you can’t hope to defeat me, come and get me if you dare, stuff like that. Goddesses, Ahuizotl sounds more impressive with his speeches than Discord. I try to make for the Academy, but am stopped by none other than the Lord of Chaos himself. He lazily circles around me.
“And where are you off to in such a hurry, Ms. Sparkle?”
“I’m going to meet up with the others and kill you, of course.”
“Oh, but you don’t really mean that. After all,” he tries to give me cute eyes, but I ignore him, “You do consider us friends, right?”
I stop, and look him in the eye. “Actually, Discord, Chaos, Grimmfather, whatever you call yourself, I don’t know what I have in store for you, and I’m just fine with that.”
“Oh really? We’ll see about that.” He rests his claw on my head, and makes an unscrewing motion. I feel my scalp lift off my head (totally gross, by the way), and he plays my brain like a piano. My eyes turn into movie screens. The movie is of when I talked to Spike alone, before coming here. I can feel all the sounds coming out of my mouth.
Okay, Spike. Here’s the whole plan. All you’ve got to do is---------
Static fills the rest of the film. Discord drops my scalp back onto my head in disgust. “A memory blocker, of course. Well, I can see I won’t have any fun here. Now, should I go after Applejack or dear Rainbow next?”
What? “What are you going to do to them?”
“Oh, hopefully nothing.” He flies close, eye-to-eye. “Or maybe everything. All I can say is, watch your back, Twilight.” With a laugh, he flies away, but not before spawning a score of Grimm all around me. Crap.
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I’m trying to get to the square. I still have half the Grim after me. I can only hope whoever’s there can help me hold them off. I did see Rainbow Dash, tied to warn her against Discord, but my plan sunk in a little too well; she ducked down an alley and was gone by the time I reached it.
I reach the plaza second-to-last, due to me trying to avoid the Grimm, unsuccessfully. Applejack comes up to me, and I can see it in her eyes, Discord already tried her, and failed. I struggle to breathe as I turn to watch for Grimm.
“Girls… Grimm… coming after me… Rainbow…”
Applejack nods, then goes over to Rainbow, who’s, of course, sleeping under a tree. I don’t hear the commotion behind me, too busy looking for the pack of Grimm. I do, however, hear the click as Rainbow’s gun chambers a round. I raise my wand; maybe I can cast a deflect—
*BLAM*