//------------------------------// // 400 years later… (give or take, but still 2 weekends before ‘Chapter 1’) // Story: Double Trixie Trouble // by PrincessColumbia //------------------------------// It was like a nightmarish version of her Aunt Celestine. “OH...MY...FAUST, SHE’S SO CUTE!” came the squealed exclamation inches from her face while her cheeks were being compressed by the flat of a pair of hooves. Unlike her Aunt Celestine, her assailant wasn’t human, nor was she related to Celestia. Well, not technically. Luna, curse her black heart, was grinning like a loon. “TIA, CAN WE KEEP HER?! WE HAVE TO KEEP HER!” “Lu-lu…” another voice startlingly like her own sang out, “Come now, behave.” The tone was that of the patient lecturing mentor, but was somewhat spoiled by the giggling sneaking in. “But she’s so TINY!” the nearly black equine pretty much blasted into her face, “Just look at those cute little cheeks!” Said cheeks were still being mauled by the alicorn’s hooves. Twilight Sparkle chose this moment to pipe in, “Ah...Princess Luna? Could you please let go of Cel...er, Principal Celestia?” Princess Luna simply swept her under a dark blue wing, which proved to be surprisingly strong, holding her so her hooves were several inches off the floor. “Neigh! She shall be my Celly! I shall love her and squeeze her and call her Celly! And dress her in silly hats!” Principal Celestia puffed out a sigh, blowing a lock of hair away from her face in the process. Transforming into a pony upon entering the statue side of the portal had been expected. She had been thoroughly briefed by both Sunset Shimmer and Princess Twilight that such was likely to happen. What hadn’t been expected (and was discovering the downsides of) was how much smaller she was compared to her Equestrian counterpart. Right after passing through the portal, Twilight Sparkle had favorably compared her to a model named Fleur de Lis. She was taller than most ponies, (taller than Twilight, in fact) long legged, and sporting a horn she was told was longer than average. (No wings, darn it all anyway) The lack of pants was actually less disconcerting than the tail she now sported, in the same pastel rainbow coloring as her hair. (Which, she supposed, should actually be called a mane on this side of the portal.) Beyond the species and size difference, (and the Princess’ mane waving like she had her own personal dramatic breeze, how did she do that?) the two Celestias were nearly identical. And what a size difference it was! While she was tall for a pony, she was a dwarf next to her counterpart, and even next to the Princess of the Night she had the stature of a child. And, of course, the pegasus that was her sister, Vice-principal Luna, was laughing her now fuzzy butt off. The shorter, darker sister was smaller than Twilight, but not by much, but with an impressive wingspan...which was flopped out to both sides as she collapsed to the floor. The ponified Principal glared at her sister, “Die in a fire, Luna,” she said matter-of-factly, “Die in a fire.” This only served to redouble the vice-principal’s laughter. Fortunately for the newly minted pegasus’ lifespan, Princess Celestia took matters in hand...er, hoof. “Luna, sister...” the twinkling aura of the larger alicorn’s magic gently pried the dark wing from around the Principal letting her fall to the floor. Principal Celestia scrambled as quickly as she dared to get away from any potential reach of her assailant. “She’s our guest, not a pet.” Princess Luna pouted aggressively. Princess Celestia ignored her aggressively. Vice-principal Luna hiccuped in laughter aggressively. “Hooo-kay!” breathed Twilight, “Who wants some hay-fries?” -~’~,~@ It took the transformed humans a few tries, but they got the hang of eating with hooves after a few bites. Just like walking, it seemed the magic of the portal gifted them with some sort of muscle- and subconscious-memory on doing day-to-day survival tasks so long as they didn’t think about doing them. Princess Celestia was tittering while Principal Celestia’s laughter was a bit more boisterous. Well, the Princess did have a couple millenia on her counterpart, that was bound to produce a more mellow personality. “...and there was Glory and Twilight, completely naked, holding broomsticks and wearing duckbill masks!” The Sun Princess’ laugh upgraded briefly to a guffaw, “The broomsticks and masks we understood, but we had NO idea why they were naked, and they refused to explain why!” Princess Luna was also tearing up from laughter, not even attempting to be as composed as her older sister, “Yon uptight GLORY?!” the lunar princess gasped, slipping into Olde Equish a bit, “Verily, the very mare that defined ‘stick-up-thy-plot’?!” “Wait, ‘Twilight?’” interjected the youngest princess in the room, “You mean your world’s version of me?” The pegasus Luna swallowed the bite of food in her mouth and spoke for her sister, “Oh, no. She was a year younger than Celestia.” she turned to her other-world twin and nodded, “And yes, the very one. Our Glory was doing her best to act ‘proper’ to impress Sister,” she indicated the unicorn with a nod of her head, “She had somehow got it into her head that Tia and I were in the Upper Class simply because our parents had a townhome on the Canterhorn.” The smaller Celestia hiccuped once and drank some water, “Yes, what she didn’t realize was that the property was Auntie Bonnie’s. She just let them live there to tweak Gramma’s nose. She never did like Momma marrying Pappa Crackle.” “...and I’d wager,” interjected Celestia, “That your Twilight was the analogue to Twilight Sparkle’s many-times-great grandmother who studied with us under Starswirl the Bearded.” Princess Luna bellowed a laugh that didn’t quite reach into the Royal Canterlot Voice register, “Canst thou imagine our Twilight and Glory caught out in a similar compromising predicament?” As the Celestias joined the pony princess in laughter, Twilight leaned closer to the vice-principal, “I noticed you’re not mentioned much in this story…” Luna simply grinned slyly, “Who do you suppose told them the clothing was detrimental to the game?” -~’~,~@ Dinner came and went, dessert was nommed, and the five mares retired to a room that Twilight and Spike had dubbed “the receiving room” (well, Spike called it “the crash pad,” but Twilight persisted in ‘correcting’ him whenever he did so, and the drake persisted in his ‘incorrect’ name just to mess with the somewhat neurotic princess) for a bit of a nightcap. The two visitors finished a particularly long pull on some of Applejack’s finest. “Wow!” remarked Celestia, “And you say Applejack made this?”  The educator was having a brief spell of reality dissonance trying to reconcile the teenaged girl she knew with the clearly alcoholic beverage she had just polished off the third mug of. Princess Celestia was somehow able to make quaffing a foamy mug of liquor look refined and dainty. “Oh, yes. The family has been in the business for generations, but our good Applejack has truly refined the recipe to something quite exceptional.” The smaller Luna was blushing slightly, more easily affected by the alcohol than anyone else in the room owing to her purely pegasus nature, which had much less mass to it all around, not to mention being the smallest pony there. “Well!” she exclaimed just a touch too loudly, “I will refrain from tellin’ our Applejack of thish particular use of her talents until she’s old enough to drink it.” She upended her mug and tittered, “...but not one second longer!” So proclaimed, she flopped her barrell and head down on the table, mane sprawling to cover her head, her muzzle only just poking out of the cascade of cerulean blue hair. Momentarily, a not-quite-princess-like snore arose to alert the others that she would likely not be participating in the rest of the evening. -~’~,~@ The evening had wound rather later than either version of Celestia was accustomed to, and Princess Luna had royal duties to attend, so with gently repeated admonishments to keep in touch the Diarchs left the Friendship Castle for Canterlot. While somewhat disappointed that her mentor was no longer present, Twilight took comfort in the presence of her human-world counterpart. Said counterpart was gazing distractedly at the sleeping form of her sister, now curled up on one of the couches in the receiving room. “Twilight, I think I’m going to need to ask to stay the night. I’m not sure how I’ll get Luna home in her current state...come to think, I shouldn’t be driving with alcohol in my system.” The Princess of Friendship marshalled the skills she had gleaned from her association with the Apple family (both versions) and not a few books on the subject of being a good host, “Oh, that’s not a problem at all! While I didn’t think to set aside any rooms specifically for this, I think we’ve got a spare suite next to mine that you can use. You’ll just have to ignore Spike when he’s taking his shower in the morning, he likes to, ah…” she paused, searching for the right word, “‘Preen’ a bit.” Celestia was no stranger to males and the attendant hormones, one tends to be exposed to the like when one is an educator, after all. She grinned, “From what you were telling me earlier, he’s entering his teenage years...so let me guess, either fantasizing about being a sports hero or a superhero?” Twilight giggled, “Usually a knight, actually, but lately he’s had a bit of a superhero kick.” “Oooh, a knight!” Celestia joined in the giggling as Twilight summoned a blanket to cover her sister for the night, “He’s got a damsel in mind, then?” To her credit, the princess did blush, just a little, but giggled even more and leaned in conspiratorially, “I promised not to say exactly who, but I will say that Spike spent a LOT of time in her counterpart’s lap when we were on your side of the portal.” The principal paused to mentally run the events of Twilight’s last two extended visits, following the purple pony out of the room, then giggled even more furiously, “Ah, yes! Might have known...she does have a habit of wrapping males around her little finger. I guess that ability isn’t restricted to human males.” Their laughter, kept quiet as to not disturb Luna, trailed off as they moved on to other topics, Twilight using her magic to lower the light levels enough that, should Luna wake up during the night, she wouldn’t be stumbling about blindly and left the room. Luna, for her part, muttered something about marshmellows and made galloping motions with her limbs. Had the other two seen it before leaving, they would have cooed about how adorable it was and the elder sister would have had yet more ammunition in the eternal War of the Siblings that had been a part of life since the first siblings had graced either ponies or humans. It wasn’t until a full 15 minutes later that one of the tables moved ever so slightly, seemingly of it’s own accord. Having nudged away from the wall just enough a pony emerged, eyes masked and head partially covered by what looked like welder’s safety goggles with the lenses replaced with crystals, headphones only slightly smaller than what Vinyl Scratch wore when she was performing a gig, a boom mic that would normally be positioned in front of her mouth but was presently pushed up to point at the ceiling, looking for all the world like an antenna to mirror the actual antenna jutting up from the other ear, and straps that held the entire thing in place. Black fabric covered most of her body, save her head and tail, the tactical catsuit’s cloth boots muffling the sound of her hooves striking crystal floor. Making nary a sound, the mare crept from shadow to shadow until she was out of the room and in the hallway. She didn’t pause, the layout of the castle having long been memorized from the day it sprouted from the ground and memory refreshed again when she reviewed the floor plans for this mission. It wasn’t until she had made it well into town that she pushed the night-vision crystal goggles up and pulled the mic down, “Agent Drops to Peacock’s Nest, challenge code ‘What’s the sitch.’” “Peacock’s Nest, response is ‘A sitch in time always boils.’” Bon Bon rolled her eyes at the response, glad they didn’t have eyes on her for this operation. Who comes up with these call signs? “Ready to report; good news, we’re not dealing with changelings, over.” The voice on the other end was clearly skeptical, “Are you sure Agent? Princess Sparkle’s report was pretty clearly indicating that she has a duplicate of the Princess’ in her castle.” Agent Sweetie Drops, a.k.a. Bon Bon, snorted. “Yeah, I don’t think you have to worry about these two taking over the government. Both are much smaller than the Princesses and neither are alicorns.” There was a pause, “Wait, so they’re not duplicates of the princesses?” she heard some shuffling of paper, “I’m looking at the report now, it says, and I’m quoting, ‘I’m eager for you to meet your doppelgangers,’ close quote.” Bon Bon sighed, “Yeah, and while technically accurate, let’s just say Princess Twilight Sparkle spends more time around dictionaries than government indexes of hostile forces. She was using the non-changeling version of the word ‘doppelganger,’ the one that isn’t a synonym for ‘shapeshifter.’” A sigh drifted over the airwaves, “Alright, well, thanks for the assist, even if it did prove to be a wild goose chase. I’m sure your after-action report will be...interesting.” “As interesting as a dinner party where nothing interesting happened, sure.” she started doffing her stealth gear, “I’ll have Agent Ditzy deliver the report and leave the gear in the same drop site you left it for me in, that good?” “Yes, that’s fine,” came the reply, “I’ll let you get back to your retirement.” By now, the helmet was the only part of the gear she was still wearing, “Thanks! I didn’t think I’d like it at first, but I gotta admit...the quiet life is nice.” A rueful chuckle was the reply, “Never would have thought I’d hear you say that...just make sure your marefriend gets the message on that. Wouldn’t do to have her breaking a bunch of laws once she hears the legends of humans can be lived just by stepping through a portal as near as her old school friend’s new home.” Bon Bon returned the chuckle, “You never get tired of trying to set me up from a distance, do you Chips? She’s just a friend, really!” “Sure, sure,” came the clearly disbelieving reply, “Peacock’s Nest out.” “Agent Sweetie Drops out for the final time...again.” she flipped up the microphone boom, powered down the headset, and allowed herself a brief moment of nostalgia before stashing the gear and going home to her best friend Lyra.