//------------------------------//
// Where Parallel Universes Converge for Dummies 
// Story: Dueling Keyboards 
// by FanOfMostEverything 
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Flash Sentry walked out of Canterlot High, head down, hands in his pockets. A shadow in front of him made him look up and smile. “I was hoping I’d see you. Do you think you could give me a bit more advice?”

A behemoth creature, like an eye almost half as large as the school that grew wings from its optic nerve after being plucked from an even greater and more horrible monstrosity, regarded him. That is to say, some of its ever-wandering pupils settling on him for almost a second at a time before resuming their mad dance. A bone-shaking ululation issued from some unseen orifice within a form that did not so much fly as not concern itself with such prosaic concerns as gravity.

“I know you’re busy, Ditzy,” said Flash. “I’ll try to make it quick.”

Countless spawn, wire-thin and many-legged, skittered towards him. They wiggled out of cracks; raced down the school’s walls; emerged from the pool of shimmering, oleaginous fluid that formed as the entity’s trailing feeding tendrils ate into the fundamental substance of Canterlot High’s front lawn. Soon the lesser expressions of Ditzy’s will surrounded Flash, gazing up at him with countless, unblinking, blueberry-sized eyes. Their density was such that the path beneath them already began to soften and deform.

Flash smiled. “Thanks. I owe you one.” He took a deep breath. “It’s… about Twilight. The Twilight from this world. We’re getting along better. She finally remembers my name, which turns out to be more than most people can say. The other day—”

One of Ditzy’s slightly greater scions, as long as Flash’s arm, shaped like a primordial sea worm or a feather from some horribly warped peacock, buzzed and squawked irritably as it undulated about him, as unconcerned with gravity as its core self.

“Right, sorry. Point is, we’re friends, and I don’t think we can be anything more with that.” Flash held up his hands. “And I’m okay with that! She’s a little awkward and still has some issues from Crystal Prep—not hard to imagine why after meeting Principal Cinch—but she’s a good person. We just don’t have the spark I felt with the other Twilight. And…” He sighed. “And I’m not sure if I want us to. Me and Twilight—“

Ditzy roared, part whale, part lion, part tectonic plate, making the windows shake. Her tendrils thrashed, splashing depleted matter for yards in every direction.

Flash rolled his eyes. “Twilight and I,” he said with exaggerated care, “never really made anything official. The other Twilight, I mean. But I know there was something there. Romance with this one… it feels like I’m trying to cheat on Twilight with her twin sister.”

He looked down. “But I can’t be with the one I want. I mean, you put it best. She’s a magical flying alien princess horse. She has more important things to worry about than some high school kid with a crush. To be honest, I have thought about being with her, but I’d be abandoning everything I know.” Flash shook his head and faced Ditzy again. “But I really do love her. What should I do?”

One of the immense feeding tendrils stirred, a delicate structure relative to Ditzy’s immensity, but still at least as thick as Flash’s entire body for much of its tapering length. The tentacle whipped about and gently brushed Flash on the shoulder.

He seized up as a wave of disorientation swept over his body. For a moment, it felt as though gravity were pulling him up, up into the infinite depths that lay within Ditzy’s gaze. His mind reeled from the brief contact, and both mad conviction and past experience told him he was gazing at the face of a god.

Flash shook his head as his much-abused sanity reassembled itself. His jacket had melted, staining his shirt in an eye-watering rainbow that would make Rarity scream at fifty paces, and yet he smiled. As he raced back inside, he shouted over his shoulder, “Thanks, Ditzy! You’re a real pal.”

Ditzy just went back to eating lunch. After all, she had until the end of the period to figure out how to fit back in the building.