The other me spread the word out to the search parties that both Twilights have been found, much to the relief and worry of her highness’s friends, the Princess of the Night, and the CIA lady. The twin Twilights are in the same room, one of them sitting upright on the bed looking over to the other who’s still unconscious. Both of them were wrapped up from all the cuts they had on them.
I cleared my throat, getting her attention, “I think a little ‘thanks’ is in order?”
“Oh yeah, thanks for saving us back there...” she trailed off, staring at me for a moment. “Do I know you? You kinda sound and look familiar to me.”
“Let me give you a hint,” I said, “you were spying on us a couple of days ago.”
Her eyes widen and threw an accusing hoof towards me, “Wait-a-minute! Mr. Disc! What are you doing here?”
“I think she would like to ask you the same thing.”
“Who?”
“Oh, I don’t think I've told you about the CIA lady that has been looking for you.”
“The CIA?”
“Yep,” I said, folding my mitch-match arms, “Apparently your disappearance has landed me into trouble, simply because I was the last one to have seen ya. She followed me here because I had a very good guess where you might have been. Turns out I was right.”
“Oh,” she looked down, rubbing one foreleg with the other. “Where’s this CIA agent?”
“She’s right here,” the door opened, in which Faust came walking in along with Luna. She turned to me with an expression that I could only describe as restrained frustration. “Julius, I will speak with you about your actions of vanishing from my sight later. As of now,” she turned to Luna, she looks softening, “would you and Luna kindly leave the room for a moment. I want to have a little talk with Ms. Sparkle.”
“Of course,” Luna nodded. I followed my other, another boss out of the room, leaving the agent alone with Twilight.
“You know,” I started, “out of all the other versions of the people that I know, I don’t think we’ve met yet have we?”
“I suppose tho- you are the other Discord that my sister and Princess Sparkle have spoken of?”
“Quite. Say, could I ask you something, it’s been bothering me for a while ever since you saw your ‘mother’.”
“What about it?” Luna raised an eyebrow.
“To be honest, it’s the first time, at least on this side, that I've heard that either of you even have a mom. I don’t know about you and the other Celestia, but from where I come from, neither of my bosses hardly mentioned about their parents. No, scratch that, they've never mentioned it. Look, I honestly thought that maybe they were orphans or something, so I didn't say anything. But now with you calling Ms. Redhead mom, I can’t help but think what’s going on here.”
The other Luna sat down on her haunches, her back to the startle wall, “I see, you wish to know about our past and her correct?” I nodded. “Well, I wouldn't lie to you that I wasn't surprised that, Agent Faust, is from your world of humans. I didn't think that we- I would encounter an alternative version of the mother that I and Celestia know and love. Do you remember how in your world that there vast differences between us?”
“Like have all of you are a talking horse?” I questioned.
She narrowed her eyes at me, “We prefer ‘pony’. But nevertheless, that is one such example. This Faust, the one from your world, is like the mother we know, and yet at the same time, she’s not. For she has the same look like her, even the personality as well, yet it’s not quite her.”
I blinked, “Is this supposed to be one of those Zen riddles because you’re not making much sense here.”
She sighed, “What I’m trying to say is that she may have the same characteristics of mother, but the circumstance to which she becomes our mother has a striking difference. You see, the mother that we grew up with was, indeed, our mother that we were born from. Interestingly, however, she tells me that she didn't give birth to your Celestia and Luna, but rather raised them as her own.”
“Stop right there,” I told her. I grab hold a piece of the wall to pull out a chalkboard. “Let me see if I get what you’re saying here.” Snapping a piece of yellow chalk into existence, I quickly began drawing a line down the middle of the board, and then sketched out characters of three horses on one side and three people on the other. “You’re saying,” I tapped the side with the horses in which the drawing came to life when the two smaller horses went up to the taller one to nuzzle. “That in this universe, your ‘mother’ is your biological parent right?”
She nodded.
“But from where I come from,” I tapped the other side with the three people that when they came to life, look completely confused. “You’re saying that this Faust raised my bosses. Why?”
“That is something that both of them do have in common,” Luna commented.
“And that being?”
“In that father was abusive,” she answered, “as far as I understood from her, she said that she was adopted into the family. But after a few months, the mother of your Celestia and Luna died, leaving it up to the father to take care of the young children. She said that he became violent after his wife died, so it was left to your Faust to not only take care of them but to protect them as well. She told me that she was a few years older than them, by six or seven years, but at the time, she had to grow up fast to make sure they were safe.”
I blinked, I turned back to the board to find the people side was as surprised, if not shocked as I was.
“Did she tell you all of this when I and the… other me, went looking for them?”
“She did,” Luna said, “right away, she told me that she was from your world and why. So of course, I got curious to see if there was any difference as she was. Truth be told, we didn't know that you were gone until Discord popped in to tell us that both Twilights have been found. Still, even when the circumstance was different, the story was really the same.”
“You mean…”
She nodded, “Father, wasn't what one would call kind nowadays. Of course, he wasn't as big of a monster as Sombra or Tirek of course… But after what we've seen…” she shook her head. “It doesn't matter now. I can see that even when she comes from a different background, the personality and nature of her is the mother that I know. Carrying, imaginative, protective, strong-willed, and has a sense of duty to make sure that everyone is both safe and happy. Just like her.”
“Princess Luna!” We looked towards the sound of the voice at the other end of the hallway of the hospital to find five familiar ponies coming our way. “There you are,” Rainbow said as she stopped in front of us. “Is Twilight okay?”