Mother and Child

by AlicornPriest

Chapter 10: Freedom

Chapter 10 – Freedom
Hey, everypony! My name is Lickety-Split. My master's name is Mr. Redstone, but he's letting me use his computer, just for today! He says that it's not illegal as long as I don't respond to any comments from unicorns. Oh, and I have to advertise his business so that I'm technically still working. So make sure to stop by Mr. Redstone's Quality Craftlights! They have a special red stripe so you always know it's Redstone!

It's kinda hard using a computer for the first time, but Mr. Redstone says I'm picking it up quick! These things are so cool. I wish everypony could use one, even crystal ponies like me. Maybe someday, we can do things just like regular unicorns all the time. It's okay, though. I don't mind being a crystal pony. I have so many wonderful friends, and we work hard together and have fun.

Maybe if I'm really good, Mr. Redstone will let me play one of his daughter's computer games tomorrow! I have to make sure not to leave a save file, though, or save over hers. That would get me in a lot of trouble. But anyway, please make sure to stop by Mr. Redstone's! Buy one of his Mega Lights to light up your backyard for a special occasion! Maybe you'll see me working in the back, repairing the defective lights. If you could, just wave hello. It would really make my day.

~ssw.blogspace.ec/redstonesqc/?date=06.24.4123

The dream was about Twilight, back home.

In the dream, Pinkie was a ghost, invisible and disembodied, while Twilight explained to her mother what had happened to her. “I don’t know for sure if she’s okay, Mrs. Quartz. She promised she would come home right away, but... it’s been almost an entire day since I sent her back, and I have no idea if she’s still alive.” Twilight sobbed, then fell on Cloudy Quartz, who awkwardly tried to hold her up. Pinkie screamed and screamed, “I’m okay! I’m so close! I just need a few more days! Don’t cry!”

But they couldn’t hear her. Slowly, the scene faded into darkness, and Pinkie snapped out of sleep, awakening in Rarity’s guest room. For a brief moment, she thought she was in her Rarity’s home, the Carousel Boutique. But when she looked on both sides of the bed, she saw Sunfall sleeping on her mattress below hers. This was still the Great Triumvirate timeline. Pinkie groaned and rolled back over in her bed, folding her pillow over her head.

However, before she started falling asleep again, a set of hoofbeats drew her attention. Just in front of the door, Gilt Edge walked past towards Rarity’s room. Pinkie slipped out of her bed and slid behind Gilt Edge, making sure to tread more softly than his own steps. Once in Rarity’s room, Gilt Edge magically closed the door behind him; Pinkie held her ear against the door to listen in.

Rarity was apparently still awake, because as Gilt Edge walked towards the bed, Rarity asked, “What’s the matter, dear? Having trouble sleeping?”

“We need to talk about the two earth ponies you brought into our house today.”

Rarity scoffed; Pinkie could swear she heard Rarity’s eyes roll. “This again? Neither of them are crystal ponies; one’s from another timeline, the other’s--”

“That’s my point.” Gilt Edge stomped his hoof. “Set aside that they are not unicorns. Who is this Pinkie Pie to you?”

“You heard her stories. In another timeline, we’ve been friends for ages.”

“Another timeline!” Gilt Edge shouted loud enough to rattle the doorknob; Pinkie cowered away from the door for a moment. “That Rarity isn’t you. Why does she matter to you?”

“I... I don’t know what to say,” Rarity replied. “I felt a resonance to the poor dear the moment I saw her in the foyer. And even if I hadn’t,” she continued, “I would still appreciate her. Miss Pie is kind, cheerful, and much smarter than she lets on. I would still want to be her friend if I did not have that special connection across timelines we have.”

“Well, I fear that your ‘special connection’ may be blinding you to the truth about who these ponies are.”

“I don’t like what you’re implying, dear,” said Rarity, this time adding a dash of venom to her usual pet name, “but I’ll let that slide. What truth do you think I’m blind to, exactly?”

“There’s a warning going about that a certain prisoner of Sombra’s has escaped: an earth pony filly with a pink mane and white coat.”

Rarity gasped. “Sombra was holding a filly captive? What could possibly possess him to do that?”

“That’s not our concern. We’ve got her right now, and every second we keep her out of Sombra’s grasp is another second of treason against the Triumvirate.”

“You can’t possibly be suggesting we turn an innocent filly like Sunfall back over to Sombra, are you?”

“...Fine, I’ll admit that I don’t like the idea of giving her back to Sombra. I know full well what his idea of the proper treatment of prisoners is like, and I wouldn’t wish that on anypony, not even a crystal. Pinkie, on the other hoof--”

“If you think I’ll give Pinkie up to that monster we call a Lord, you’re grossly mistaken!” Rarity shot back.

“I don’t want them in my house any longer! If we don’t get rid of them, Noble Blood or Sombra will find us with her, and all four of us will be in peril.”

“But Gilt, her necklace, I promised--”

“I don’t care! They both need to leave as soon as possible!”

“Tomorrow night!” Rarity’s voice came out in short, quick breaths--she sounded clearly worked up. “We can’t get them out during the day; too many witnesses, of course. And I don’t want to wake them up tonight. I’m sure the both of them are sleeping like the dead after all they’ve been through.” At this, Pinkie felt a guilty pang grip her.

“Fine, tomorrow night. But it’ll be up to you to keep them out of sight for the rest of the day.”

***

The next morning, Pinkie sat nervously at the dining table, deciding how best to reveal to Rarity that she knew her visit had a much tighter time limit than they’d expected yesterday. Luckily, she didn’t have long to wait, as the first words out of Rarity’s mouth the next morning were, “Good morning, Pinkie Pie. I’m afraid you’ll need to head out tonight.”

“Is everything okay?” Pinkie asked.

“Oh yes,” Rarity replied, no tension in her appearance. “In fact, you must leave tonight for your benefit; Sombra and Noble Blood are looking for you two, and the longer you stay here, the more likely it is for you to be captured. I really, sincerely wish you could have stayed longer.”

“And the time travel necklace?”

“We shall have to figure something out. Perhaps I can have it shipped down to Everfree City once it’s done. Starswirl can no doubt keep you safe until then.”

“Okay. Is there anything you want to do before we have to go?”

“Well, there is one thing I want to show you before you go.” While Rarity pulled out a box of cereal and poured herself a bowl, she magicked a small black square over towards Pinkie.

Pinkie turned it over slowly. “What is this thing?”

Rarity winked. “It is the gateway to the greatest invention in all of ponykind: the Star Swirl Web.”

“Wow! It’s even better than marshmallows?!”

“I... yes. Better than marshmallows.” She walked over, her cereal bowl and a mug full of coffee hovering around her grasp, then drew a complicated pattern on the screen. The square lit up, an image of various cartoony characters sitting together.

"Oh, wow! That's--"

"Just my desktop, darling. It's the opening screenshot from my favorite show. But the Star Swirl Web has so much more to offer. All manner of media, information, forums to talk with ponies across the Triumvirate. What would you like to see first?"

Pinkie pondered this for a moment. "I need... recipes. Recipes for cupcakes."

Rarity blinked uncertainly. "Well... all right." She walked Pinkie through the basic process of opening a search frame and letting the Star Swirl Web take her to where she wanted to be--in this case, ssw.craftycakeslist.ec, full of all the recipes an apprentice baker could ask for. Next, extending the search frame to Crafty Cake's List to find the specific recipe Pinkie wanted--vanilla with marzipan buttercream frosting.

Pinkie looked over the recipe doubtfully. "This... Rarity, who wrote this recipe? It's awful!"

"I thought that might be the case," Rarity admitted. "Crafty Cake doesn't write the list herself. She gets the recipes from her crystal pony bakers and gives it her own personal 'twist' before putting it up on the site. It's not fair or right, but... that's how it goes."

It was another reminder that her current predicament was nothing like how it was back home. Pinkie sighed. "Are there any good recipes on here, then?"

"I'm not much of a baker... or a chef... or much of a foodie at all, unless it comes in a heater box." She chuckled, in that way that belied a long history of coming to terms with an uncomfortable truth. "So tell you what. Find me a really good one, and we'll see if Gilded Edge can make it for us before you go."

Pinkie nodded. The site very helpfully recommended recipes similar to the one she was looking at, so she clicked on the picture to take her to the next recipe. This one was for a vanilla pound cake, which Crafty Cake had decided really needed half as much flour and twice as much baking powder. Worthless. She clicked on the one next to it, a cinnamon Clavier cake with green icing. This one appeared to have had all of its teaspoons changed into Tablespoons--in other words, a cinnamon bomb encased in a drippy frosting. Horrible. The next link on the page made her laugh mirthlessly. What kinda numbskull would put cinnamon and butterscotch in the same pie recipe? She scrolled right past that to--

The next picture made her heart stop. It was a recipe for apple brown betty, which of course reminded Pinkie of her distant relative, Apple Brown Betty, who of course was also Applejack's second cousin, and that made her think of--

"Applejack!" She brought back the search frame and typed in "Applejack," but that only gave her recipes to make applejack, the drink. She clicked back and back and back and back until she was out of Crafty's Book of Lies and Culinary Nonsense and back in the original search frame. "RARITY!" she cried out. "How do I search for ponies?"

Rarity came back around the corner. "Not so loud. Some ponies are still trying to sleep. Who are you trying to look for?"

"Applejack. You remember her, right?"

"The farmpony, yes. Normally, I would recommend the news listing, or the intranet where she worked, but..." Rarity grimaced, and Pinkie could already guess the answer.

"It doesn't track crystal ponies... does it."

"No."

Pinkie sighed deeply. Something inside her was starting to crack, just a little bit. "So, Applejack, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash..." Rarity shook her head. "But Twilight!"

"Maybe Twilight. I think I saw her get mentioned in a news article somewhere. Try the High Canterlot Gazette."

The search yielded a fruitful result. The article bore the picture of a familiar-looking mare with an uncharacteristic flat affect, posed in front of a metal structure covered in wires and screens. While Pinkie pored over every detail of the photo, Rarity remarked, "Oh! She works at the university! That's not far from here at all. I wonder if I've ever run into her at the supermar... ket... Pinkie? Are you okay, darling?"

Pinkie sniffled and rubbed tears from her eyes. "Yeah. It's just... I miss Twilight. My friend, Twilight. She's back home, and she's scared, and... she's waiting for me."

"I know, darling. Believe me, I'm doing everything I can. In just a couple days, I can have that necklace, and you'll be able to stop all this from happening. I know you can do it, Pinkie."

"Thanks, Rarity." Pinkie sniffled. Even in this other world, Rarity still found every possible moment to be generous.

"In fact," Rarity continued, "there may just be one thing I can do. And all I need is a single hair from your poofy mane."

Perplexed, she let Rarity pull a strand with her magic, then watched as Rarity dug underneath her workspace, pulling out bits and bobs that were much too big to fit under that tiny desk. "Turns out, I'd been working on a device yonks ago that could help you, but I couldn't use it without some way to tune it. But Pinkie, you're covered in just the particles I need!"

"Oh! ...Good!" Finally, Rarity pulled out a big box with one of those television screens on the front. On top were two metal antennae sticking out; to Pinkie, they looked like Angel's ears, pointing in two different directions. Rarity suspended the strand of hair between the two "ears," and after a few seconds of buzzing magic, the antennae realigned, revealing the inside of what looked like her Rarity’s Canterlot boutique.

“How marvelous!” said Rarity. “This is showing the exact location of where we are, displaced into your world. Judging by the decorations, I take it this is where your Rarity works?”

“She lives in Ponyville, but yes, this is her shop.”

“What a coincidence.” Rarity shrugged. “But such are alternate timelines. Now, let's see if we can find Twilight and your other friends."

"Okay." Rarity adjusted the antennae on top of the screen, and the image flew through Equestria before landing at the Ponyville library. "Ah, so this is Ponyville," Rarity remarked. "It looks just like Everfree City, only..."

"Not." Pinkie felt the same way. "Sweet Apple Acres is out there."

"Ah." The image on the screen flew again, until landing on a scene of Applejack and Big Mac discussing something or another. The sound was tinny, and the image kept flickering on and off, but that was Applejack, all right.

Pinkie put one hoof on the screen. "It's really her," she said.

"It truly is." Rarity sighed happily. "Simply marvelous."

Pinkie hummed in agreement. After a few seconds, Rainbow Dash came flying in and added her own part to the conversation. "Who should we find next?" Pinkie asked. "Fluttershy? Twilight? Ooh! We could go find my Rarity!"

Rarity's eyes went wide, and she hurriedly moved the image on the screen to a random part of the Everfree Forest. "No, I... don't think that's a good idea. Not at all."

"Really? I thought you would have been all for it."

"All for what?" Sunfall had appeared at the doorway and was pawing the gunk out of her eyes. "Good morning, by the way."

"Good morning, Sunny!" Pinkie chirped. Then, to Rarity, "Change of plans. I know exactly who to go find."

Rarity nodded. "I'm already ahead of you." The image jumped up Mount Canterhorn and to the castle right on the edge of Canterlot, then scrolled through the halls looking for their target of choice. "Do you think her room is where Lord Noble Blood's room is in this timeline?"

"Maybe!"

While Rarity kept searching, Sunfall asked, "Who are you looking for?"

"Just a moment... There!" At the top of the stairs were two doors, one labeled with the sign of the sun, the other with the sign of the moon. The first was closed, while the second was propped open by a yellow magical glow. Pinkie nodded, and Rarity moved into the bedroom marked with a moon.

Pinkie stepped to the side and pointed to the screen. “It’s you, Sunfall! See?”

Sunfall looked at the screen, still half-asleep. But when she saw Luna talking with Celestia, she was spellbound. She refused to look away as Celestia gave Luna a hug and tucked her into bed. Rarity asked quietly, “Everything all right, dear?”

“She’s... beautiful.” Sunfall ignored the tears as they trickled down her cheeks. “She looks so happy. I’m glad there’s a world out there where Silver Wish is happy.”

Pinkie held her tongue; the last thing she wanted was for Sunfall to know the rough truth about Nightmare Moon and the thousand years of separation between the two of them. For the moment, it was enough to let Sunfall appreciate the beauty of the world of harmony. As Rarity followed Celestia out, a thought idly ran through Pinkie’s mind: “I wonder if the Elements of Harmony are hidden somewhere in this world?”

Her thoughts were interrupted by a sudden knocking on the door. Rarity jumped, and the tablet fell to the floor before Pinkie caught it. "Just a minute!" she called out. "You two," she said, turning to Pinkie and Sunfall, "will need to hide for the moment."

"This way, Sunfall." The two of them scurried deeper into the flat; behind them, Pinkie could hear Rarity greeting some friend or another who'd come by to chat. Hopefully, she thought to herself, this would be the last interruption, and she'd get to spend the rest of the day with Rarity before they left for the night.

***

"Rarity..." Pinkie panted her protestations, and even Sunfall looked a little more ragged than usual. "I hate to say it, but it's... a little annoying how popular you are!"

"Yes, well..." Rarity chuckled awkwardly. "If you had come to visit any other week besides Armistice Week, when Gilded Edge and I are at our busiest, we might have had more time for ourselves."

"Still! That was number..." Pinkie counted on her hooves, quickly ran out of hooves, and said lamely, "like a bajillion!"

"I know. And they'll all have to be done by Unification Day by the end of the week, or I'm toast."

"How are you going to get that all done?" Sunfall asked.

Here Rarity preened herself, alight with pride. "You forget, my talent is time magic. If there's anypony with the oomph to make the most of the witching hour, it is yours truly!"

"That's great, but..." Pinkie smiled weakly. "Just don't burn yourself out, okay, Rarity?"

"I appreciate it, truly, darling." She sighed and wiped a bead of sweat from her brow. "Now, with Seafoam's order well and truly discussed, we can finally--"

Another knock came from the door, and Rarity wailed, "Oh, you can-not be serious!"

"It's okay, we'll go back to the room," Sunfall said.

"You'd better must," she replied. "Coming~!" she said, the image of propriety instantly restored.

They waited in the bedroom, but Pinkie's thoughts were spinning. "We can't keep doing this," she said to herself.

Sunfall shrugged. The words having come out, now Pinkie couldn't help but keep processing them. "The longer we stay here, the more likely it is somepony accidentally sees us, and that gets Rarity and her boyfriend in trouble. We should leave. What do you think, Sunfall?"

Sunfall only shrugged again. Pinkie wrinkled her snout. "Okay. Thanks for the vote of confidence." She trotted over to the bed where she'd slept last night and quickly stripped it of its covers. "I used this trick way back when with Princess Platinum. You remember her?"

Sunfall said quietly, "I remember learning of her death the night after she asked for her own share of immortality." She looked at the bed and shivered. "They found her strangled in her own bedsheets."

Pinkie finished tying a knot in them and just stared. "Uh... wow." Pinkie pointed out the window. "Well, uh, we're using them to go out the window, not... that... so... ready?"

They clambered down into Rarity's back garden, which luckily had lines of hedges to block their little stunt from the neighbors. Pinkie looked back and felt a pang of regret for ditching Rarity, but... duty called, so to speak. "Well, no time like the present!" she chirped. "We're on the road to the--"

Sunfall pulled her back just as she was about to pierce the hedgerow. "Hey! What was that for?" she asked. Sunfall wordlessly pointed up in the air, as a black object looking kinda like a camera covered in helicopter blades soared past. "What is that thing?"

"A camera, I think." She pointed as it flew around the corner towards the edge of town. Right where they'd come in, in fact. "They're looking for us."

"What!?" Gilded Edge had made it sound like Sombra was pulling out all the stops, but Noble Blood must have been helping, too. "So we can't leave?"

"I guess not." Sunfall headed to the back door of Rarity's house and prepared to knock on it.

"Wait!" Sunfall turned around, and Pinkie presented the tablet Rarity had given her. It was still showing the article they'd looked up regarding Twilight Sparkle. "Twilight lives in the city, and she could be our ticket out! Let's give it a shot!"

Sunfall looked at her, then at the door. "Without Rarity's help." Pinkie nodded. "Okay."

***

In the end, it had taken a bit of stealth to sneak past the drones, the guards, and the various other unicorns out and about. By the time the sun had begun to slip towards the horizon, they'd only just made it to the university. Another short walk, and they were in the apartments abutting the college buildings, and before too long, they were standing in front of the apartment they were looking for. The doorbell buzzed with shocking loudness--maybe to be heard over whatever was going on inside.

“Come in!”

Pinkie and Sunfall walked quietly into the apartment. In contrast to the outside, the inside was a mess of creeping wires, trailing out in every direction and feeding into various devices suspended on the walls and ceilings or jammed into nooks by the floor. It gave a sense more like a jungle overgrown with vines than a house; Sunfall seemed reluctant to step on any of them, as though they would come to life and grab her by the hooves. Pinkie held her breath and walked over the larger ones as she followed them towards the center of the apartment.

All of the wires drew together in the bedroom, which was filled on every wall with computer screens flashing blue and green against the near-total darkness of the room and the night outside. In front of the largest screen was a unicorn mare, her coloration and mane style nearly impossible to see in the shadows. What wasn’t impossible to see, however, was her magic, which irradiated everywhere to activate dozens of panels, devices, and other equipment, and which glowed with a shimmering purple Pinkie would have recognized anywhere.

“Twilight!” Pinkie called out. It was so good to see her friend again. Rarity was nice, but Pinkie fully admitted that the two of them rarely hung out. But Twilight... Twilight was the spark that held all of them together. After how many years living with her, she could hardly imagine life without her. She was smart, capable, and above all, a kind and loyal friend.

“What do you want?!” Twilight snarled without even looking away from her screen. “If it’s the noise, I told you already, it’s for my research, so just get out of my apartment, you overbearing, grubby mudcrawler!”

“I... what?” Pinkie let the moment fly past her without fully comprehending it. Surely she’d misheard. Surely there were some kind of extenuating circumstances for why Twilight would say something like that. “No, it’s me, Pinkie! I wanted to ask for your help.”

“Pinkie?” Twilight looked up and to her right, lost in thought. “Nope, never heard of you. If it’s for computer help, you can wait until my normal working hours. If it’s for something else, you can find somepony who actually cares. I’m sure my bleeding-heart brother and his bag-of-hammers wife Lady Carnelian would be willing to waste their time on charity cases.”

Rattled, Pinkie stepped back. Sunfall stepped forward and gave a try. “Miss Twilight, please. Lord Starswirl is waiting for me, and--”

“Gross, is that a foal?” Twilight made a retching sound. “Kids are mucus factories and chew on my wires. Pristine, or whatever your name was, kindly get your crotch spawn out of my sacred house of technology, if you don’t mind.”

“It’s Pinkie, and she’s not my... whatever you called her! Look, I don’t know what’s got you so cranky, but you don’t need to be so mean!”

“Mean? Oh, that’ll be my princy, prancy nice mode if you don’t clear out in the next thirty seconds. I tire of this conversation, and I have a very important program to write, so get out of my apartment, now, before I start doing it the hard way.”

“But Twilight... this... I...” Frustrated, angry, and more than a little wounded at Twilight’s attitude, Pinkie felt hot tears threaten her composure. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what I did, but... I’m sorry...” Unable to fight any longer, her butt fell to the floor of Twilight’s apartment, and she began to wail in huge, wracking sobs.

Sunfall looked uncomfortable, and Twilight immediately twisted around in her chair. When she saw Pinkie crying, her eyes grew wide, and she stammered, “W-what are you doing? Why are you crying?”

Sunfall moved to stand between Pinkie and Twilight, as though to shelter the former from the latter. “You hurt her feelings, that’s why. And mine, too.”

“Hurt her feelings? But then... why isn’t she yelling at me? Hurting my feelings back, getting mad?”

“Because that’s not how she works,” Sunfall explained. “She’s very empathetic, and she hates having ponies mad at her. She thinks it’s her fault; she doesn’t really understand that you’re just a bitter, mean-spirited creature who preys on those weaker and less intelligent than you.”

Here Sunfall scowled. “But I do understand that, which is why I find your behavior intolerable.”

"L-look, you have to understand--"

"Oh, I understand. You're smart, so you think you can say whatever you want and nobody will stand up to you, because they need you. You have all the cards, so nobody will put up a fight. Well, maybe you're right. But this is what happens when you talk like that. You cause real pain."

Twilight shook her head. "No, no, it's just--" She walked over to one of the windows and looked out it, more to look away from Sunfall than to see anything out there. "It's just for fun. It's not supposed to be taken seriously!"

"Apparently, Pinkie didn't get the memo." Sunfall's voice was full of venom. "Or maybe there was never a memo, and that's just the lie you tell yourself to protect your ego. Otherwise, you'd have to admit that you've become a nasty pony with no regard for anypony else's feelings."

I..." Twilight collapsed onto her knees, shaking her head as she said, "I didn't know. I just... I didn't know."

While Pinkie gradually pulled herself together, Sunfall walked over and knelt down next to Twilight. "Now that you do know... what are you gonna do?"

Twilight sniffed back a tear. "I'm... I'm just so lonely. I don't... I can't act any other way."

Sunfall nodded over as Pinkie finally stood up and watched the two of them, her eyes shimmering with a mix of pain and joy. "You've got a chance. Do you want to try again?"

Twilight nodded, then stood up and walked in front of her computer monitor. "Hi, Pinkie," she said. "I'm Twilight Sparkle, head computer technician for the Canterlot College of Magic, Science, and Technology. And you are?"

Pinkie laughed. "I'm Pinkie Pie: baker, time traveller, and your best friend!" She opened her forelegs out wide and said, "Come here, you!"

Twilight looked at Sunfall questioningly, who answered the unspoken question: "She's trying to give you a hug." Twilight looked back to Pinkie, who waggled her eyebrows invitingly. With no small amount of reluctance, she stepped closer, and Pinkie jumped forward to close the distance and glomp Twilight in a rib-crushing hug.

"Ow ow ow!" Twilight pulled and strained to get out of the hug. "That's good, Pinkie, that's good!"

Sunfall came around the other side of the desk and chuckled quietly. "That's Pinkie Pie for you. Whether she's sad or she's happy, you really know it."

Finally, Pinkie let go, and they could get to the topic at hand. "You said you wanted my help or something, right?"

"Mm-hmm." Pinkie drew a circle in the air with a hoof. "Sunfall and I need to get to Everfree City to meet up with Starswirl, but we can't make it if we're caught on camera. Can you help?"

Twilight chuckled. "Can I help? Who do you think you're talking to?" At a glare from Sunfall, she coughed and said, "Right, sorry, less sarcasm. Yes, as a matter of fact, I can. There's two best ways I can help you. First, I can give you a manecut."

"A manecut?" Pinkie asked. In a flash, Twilight was next to her, magic flowing around Pinkie's mane as she restyled it in a very un-fluffy shape. When she was done, she magicked up a mirror for Pinkie to look at. "Whoa..."

Twilight had swirled it and colored it and clumped it, then pulled it all in front of her face. All that done, she was totally unrecognizable--as a pony, let alone as a wanted fugitive. As she set onto Sunfall's mane, Twilight remarked, "That's called dazzle camouflage. The cameras won't be able to recognize your face with that; it's deliberately adversarial to the cameras' algorithms."

Pinkie nodded, although most of it was flying over her head. "So it can't tell who I am, got it."

"The other thing you'll need is this." She dug into a drawer and pulled out two tail clips. She threw them to Pinkie, and Pinkie passed one to Sunfall. They put them on, and Twilight said, "That's basically the same thing, only for your cutie mark. It's a microprojector that'll mask the little details that make your mark unique."

Pinkie looked at her flank, but her mark looked... basically the same. "Are you sure it's working?" she asked.

"That's the fascinating thing," Twilight said. "Near-identical cutie marks pop up everywhere, but despite how similar they look, they actually have tiny spots called 'minutiae' all over--little quirks and deviations in the color. Surveillance cameras use those to prevent mismatches, but we can take advantage of them by making microscoping changes all over. Just as effective as a full image change, and requiring much less tech and internal energy."

Now that was the Twilight Pinkie was more familiar with.

Pinkie looked over to Sunfall, who was playing with her dazzle manecut. "Time to go, I think. Thank you so much, Twilight. I owe you one."

"No, really. I'm glad to do it. I think..." Twilight looked at the screen behind her ruefully. "I think I have a lot more to learn about friendship. If I want to be a little less lonely..." She gulped. "I'm gonna need to make some big apologies."

Pinkie smiled. "That's okay! If you make a really honest apology, they'll know you're learning! You're gonna do just fine!"

Twilight gave a weak smile. "I sure hope so." She rubbed a hoof on her back, before saying, "Well, wish me luck."

"Good luck!"

Author's Note:

A chapter several years in the making. Apologies if it feels choppy. I have sworn on everything below heaven and above hell to get this fin' fic finished, even if it's a piece of garbage afterwards. Enjoy!