• Published 14th Jun 2015
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Transdementia - Kwakerjak



Pinkie Pie heads to another world to retrieve the stolen Element of Magic, with Penumbra in tow. ("Equestria Girls" as it occurs in the Petriculture AU.)

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Chapter 1: Reappear

Pinkie Pie bounced through the streets of Canterlot, humming an upbeat tune to herself while keeping an ear out for an opportunity to break into a show-stopping musical number. She wasn’t sure why, but the residents of Equestria’s capital seemed far less inclined to join in such displays of emotional exuberance than did those who lived in Ponyville, despite the fact that musical theater was way more popular there (as evidenced by the fact that they actually had a theater district). Perhaps the high population density also meant that there were more folks like Cranky Doodle Donkey who tended to suck all the life out of an improvised production number, or maybe the local theater unions frowned upon amateur productions in the streets. Or, Pinkie thought to herself, maybe the ponies in Ponyville are just more used to being around ponies like me.

If that was the case, then perhaps this was something Twilight Sparkle would be interested in, being one of the leading experts on ponies like Pinkie Pie, even if only a year ago, she’d had no idea that there needed to be a separate category in the first place. In fact, one year ago, Twilight Sparkle, like everypony else, had been under the impression that Pinkie Pie was a normal, if eccentric, earth pony. Indeed, to most ponies, she still appeared to be exactly that (at least when she wasn’t shapeshifting), though by now the fact that she was really a magically unbalanced alicorn was common knowledge, if the fact that nearly everypony in Canterlot recognized her as a princess was any indication.

What most certainly was not common knowledge was the fact that there had been a time when Pinkie Pie hadn’t been a real pony at all, but rather the imaginary friend of a certain precocious unicorn filly until Rainbow Dash’s first Sonic Rainboom had interfered with that filly’s entrance exam at Princess Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns. She and Twilight still weren’t entirely certain how it happened, but their subsequent research and discoveries seemed to indicate that massive amounts of magic were needed to pull it off successfully.

And oddly enough, it had been pulled off successfully several other times, but as was the case with Pinkie’s materialization, none of those instances had been intentional... well, unless Penumbra counted. Once upon a time, Penumbra had been The Nightmare, a fearsome creature who, once upon an even earlier time, had been a set of paranoid contingency plans that Princess Luna had developed in the event that her older sister went rogue, but had ended up corrupting her instead. The Nightmare’s path to her present state was long and convoluted, but it had ended with a tense standoff inside the mind of Twilight Sparkle and a substantial reduction in her magical power. It was this incident that had transformed Twilight and Pinkie from unicorn and earth pony to alicorns (and had paved the way for their eventual coronation as Princesses of Equestria), and had finally allowed The Nightmare to fully materialize as Penumbra Noctis, another unbalanced alicorn who usually looked like a pegasus. In an act of extraordinary magnanimity, Celestia and Luna had granted her clemency, but on the condition that she remain under the watchful eye of Pinkie Pie, who could monitor her for potential relapses into her previous behavior.

At the moment, though, Penumbra was waiting for Pinkie at Celestia’s palace along with Twilight and the four other Element-bearers. Rainbow Dash had requested donuts, and Pinkie had insisted on acquiring them from Donut Joe’s shop personally, rather than sending some guard on an errand. Ostensibly, this was so she could mingle with her subjects, thus fulfilling an important duty as one of Equestria’s princesses. In reality though, she simply wanted to mingle with her subjects because mingling was really fun, especially when you had access to a royal allowance large enough to buy a round of donuts for a restaurant full of strangers.

But all good things had to end, and Pinkie had official business to attend to. Her return had been free of the usual distractions that would normally have taken up her time—again, possibly due to the lack of openings for musical numbers—and she soon found herself bouncing through the cavernous hallways of the palace towards a large conference room, where her seven best friends were in the midst of conversation.

“Who wants donuts?” Pinkie Pie called out as she burst through the doorway, holding aloft a cardboard box of delectable sugary goodness. She had hardly finished the sentence before Rainbow Dash had flown from her chair and grabbed the box from Pinkie’s outstretched hoof, extracting several jelly-filled pastries as she set the remaining donuts in the middle of the large table.

“Fanks, Pinkeh,” Rainbow Dash said through a mouthful of jelly and powdered sugar.

“Hey, uh Pinkie?” Spike said as he stood on his tiptoes to have a look at the remaining donuts. “Did you remember to get—”

“A chocolate donut with raspberry frosting and sapphire sprinkles?” Pinkie finished. “You bet I did. After all, what are twin sisters for?” She slid the specially-prepared treat over to the dragon before turning her attention to the rest of her friends. “So, what have I missed?”

“Nothin’ much, really,” Applejack replied as she bit into an apple fritter. “Twi just gave us the rundown on what y’all are gonna be talkin’ about, but you already know about all that.” She paused to savor the taste of the fritter, as if she were judging it for a competition. “Hmm... if I didn’t know any better (and I don’t), I’d say somepony was usin’ Red Delicious apples for somethin’ other than lookin’ pretty.”

“Aw...” Pinkie said as she slowly dragged one of her forehooves across the polished marble floor. “I thought you’d like them.”

Applejack swallowed and took another bite. “Well, it ain’t like it’s particularly bad. It’s just that in our family’s line of work, you end up with a pretty high standard for apple recipes.”

“Um, getting back to your summit, there’s something I was wondering,” Fluttershy said, speaking up as she perused the contents of the donut box.

“What about?” Twilight Sparkle asked.

“Well, I know that you’re all still dealing with the aftermath of Trixie’s... um... plans, but what about Trixie herself? She’s definitely going to need some help getting back on her hooves.”

“Well, staging a coup doesn’t really help with a pony’s popularity,” Rarity said as she inspected the plain cake donut before her for defects. “Though I suppose we must make a rather notable exception for Twilight.”

Twilight blushed hard at this mention of her abortive takeover attempt. “That was just a series of misunderstandings.”

“And to be fair, she was also dealing with me at the time,” Penumbra added as she brushed aside the locks of her wavy black mane that usually hung over her right eye and bit into a cruller. “This is delicious, by the way,” she added, though her dark blue face retained the slight scowl that passed for a neutral expression in her case.

“Um, okay,” Fluttershy said uneasily as she attempted to redirect the conversation back where she had wanted it to go. “But still, we did all promise to help her out, didn’t we?”

“I suppose that’s true,” Twilight admitted, “but that’s really more of a problem that we have to solve. I don’t see why we need to get the entire government involved. We’ve got plenty to deal with at the top level. Isn’t that right, Pinkie?”

“Huh? Oh, uh, yeah. Of course. We need to deal with the, er, things, that, uh, we’re here to be talking about. And stuff. Could you just, um, go over it one more time?”

“Pinkie,” Twilight said with obvious irritation in her voice, “didn’t you read that synopsis I sent you?”

“Er, not really. I just figured I’d ignore it and just get the gist from listening to everypony else talking about it, but I ended up taking a bit longer getting the donuts than I expected.” The others in the room all stared incredulously at her for a few seconds before she tried mounting a defense: “What? It’s how I managed to get straight B’s in school without really trying. When you have a super-smart creator who makes you as smart as she is, it’s really easy to coast.”

Twilight sighed. “Well, to put it simply, this summit has less to do with cleaning up the mess than it does with establishing ground rules for the next mess. Apparently, there was a little too much ambiguity about which princess was in charge last time, so all of us are going to put our heads together to formalize some contingency plans. Does that sound familiar?”

“Vaguely...” Pinkie responded as she tapped her chin with one of her forehooves. “So... why are our friends here again?”

“Mostly on account of how all these plans assume that we’re dealin’ with the kind of emergency where the Elements come into play,” Applejack said.

“Oh, right.”

“I still don’t see why I need to be here,” Penumbra added grumpily. “I’m neither a princess nor an Element-bearer, and quite frankly, my time and energy would be better spent forging clouds.” Indeed, most of the rare occasions when Penumbra indulged in any outward expressions of positive emotion occurred when she was working at Cloud Nineteen, her bespoke cloudsmithing service. She really did seem to take quite a lot of pride in her work.

“You know perfectly well that you’re a princess in all but title,” Twilight said. “And even if you weren’t, simply being a duchess would give you some significant responsibilities in any case.”

“Actually, that reminds me of something that’s been bothering me,” Rarity interjected. “Why exactly are you continuing with your business now that you’re part of the gentry? Surely your subjects are obliged to give you some financial assistance.”

Penumbra stared blankly at the fashionista for a few seconds before answering. “Rarity, I’m the Duchess of Everfree. There’s only one resident whom I could demand resources from, and so far, I’ve had to accept Zecora’s taxes in the form of tribal knickknacks. Besides, I enjoy cloudsmithing; it helps me clear my mind.”

“Oh...” Rarity said awkwardly. “That... that’s right, I suppose you would need to clear your mind to help cope with your... er... loss.”

Her phrasing was extremely evasive, but everypony (and dragon, for that matter) knew exactly what Rarity was talking about. Despite Discord’s official return to “good guy” status, and his unexpected display of selflessness when he sacrificed himself to save Celestia after the final battle against Trixie, most of the Element-bearers had difficulty accepting that the draconequus had ever risen above the level of “massive jerk” before passing away, despite the fact that Penumbra had obviously come to consider him a close friend before his untimely demise.

Pinkie Pie, of course, knew otherwise. Oh, she wasn’t about to argue with any claims of Discord’s jerkitude. Rather, the mistake her friends had made was to assume that Discord was still gone, when in fact, he was currently crashing in Penumbra’s home. Pinkie Pie knew this because Penumbra’s home was inside of her head.

———————

Discord leaned back in his armchair as he idly thumbed through the dog-eared pages of his copy of The Life and Times of Ahuizotl for the umpteenth time. His eyes glazed over as he stared at the words without making any effort to read and comprehend them; by now, he knew more about Ahuizotl than half of the archeology faculty at the University of Baltimare. “Ugh! This is almost as bad as being a statue!” he said to nobody in particular as he chucked the book into a wastebasket and began pacing around Penumbra’s living room, trying to think of something to do that didn’t involve causing gratuitous damage to his best friend’s home.

This was very important, not just because he valued Penumbra’s friendship, but because Penumbra’s home also happened to be located inside Pinkie Pie’s mind (or to be somewhat nerdier, the non-corporeal space that her imagination had cooked up as an audiovisual/sensory representation of her mind), and at the moment, he really needed to stay on Pinkie’s good side. Not only was she capable of kicking him out at a moment’s notice, but even worse, she might tell her friends that his untimely death had been considerably less permanent than most, thus utterly ruining the greatest prank ever. Fortunately for him, Pinkie placed a very high value on Penumbra’s happiness; otherwise, she might not have let him inside her head in the first place. Still, Discord knew that his status as the one of the few people that Pinkie Pie actively disliked made his position precarious.

Oh, he supposed he understood Pinkie’s concerns, what with his reputation for stabbing his friends in the back when he didn’t get his way and his tendency to flagrantly ignore the safety and wellbeing of others for his own personal amusement, but this time he really did have every intention of turning over a new leaf. Penumbra was just too interesting to be cast aside for something as petty and trivial as, say, absolute power, but he supposed it was reasonable for Pinkie to have some trust issues. He had, after all, once turned her into a cynical grump.

Penny, on the other claw, needed no assistance in achieving grumpy cynicism, as she demonstrated by bursting through her front door and slamming it behind her. “I hate friendship summits,” she announced as she flew over to her couch and landed abruptly on the cushions.

“I take it the meeting was boring?” Discord asked with feigned nonchalance as he glanced over his shoulder, doing his best to hide his relief that the most interesting pony he’d ever met was finally back home.

“Oh, the meetings haven’t even started yet. No, the first evening is devoted to ceremony.” The disgust that Penumbra injected into the last word would have made a normal pony think that this involved raw sewage, or perhaps one of Sweetie Belle’s attempts at cooking.

“They made you get involved in some sort of ceremony? But the last few times you were complaining to me, you pointed out how you’re ‘neither a princess nor an Element-bearer.’”

“You’re right; I’m not, which is why I got saddled with the press conference.”

“Ooh... this sounds good—er, I mean, it sounds positively dreadful and miserable, and not in the least way amusing,” Discord replied, hurriedly correcting himself. He was fairly certain that Penumbra was about to start ranting, and her rants were fun... so long as you weren’t the subject.

“They get twenty minutes to ask questions about what’s going on, but they only wanted to know about me. What was I doing there? Why am I only a duchess if I’m technically an alicorn? Why is there no record of my existence that goes back more than six months? Gah! The nosy little twerps had plenty of chances to ask that sort of thing when I was invested in my title, but there was nary a smidgen of curiosity then.”

“Well, to be fair, most aristocrats are insufferably dull,” Discord said. “It probably wasn’t obvious at the time that you’d be a member of the Equestrian Defense Squad.”

“The what?”

“You know, the tight-knit circle of ponies that does all the things that other countries use their militaries to handle. Well, except for actually fighting battles in the field of combat, though you and your Shadowbolts could give them a run for their money in that department.”

“In any case,” Penumbra continued, “this sort of thing wouldn’t be a problem if I could just lie my way out it.”

This admission surprised Discord, though perhaps for atypical reasons. “You really don’t think you could improvise a consistent cover story?”

“Discord, these are journalists we’re talking about, and ones who were expecting to speak to somepony with considerably more prestige than me. If any of them were sufficiently annoyed enough to actually check my claims, I wanted to be sure that they couldn’t prove I was lying.”

“Couldn’t you just change the records so they reflected your story, though?” Discord asked.

“Hmph,” Penumbra groused. “You don’t seriously think the princesses would go that far to protect me from my past, do you?”

“Oh, you wouldn’t need to bother the other alicorns,” Discord said as he floated behind her to whisper in her ear. “I could change things with a snap of my claws.” He demonstrated, causing a thick manila envelope to appear in midair.

Penumbra sighed. “You know, you really need to give up your little attempts at temptation. It’s a bad habit, and the sooner you get over it, the better.”

“I can stop any time I want,” Discord replied with a scowl as the envelope spontaneously combusted. He floated back to his recliner and landed with a flatulent thud, quickly tossing away a deflated whoopee cushion before he crossed his arms indignantly. “Besides, the only reason the word ‘temptation’ even applies is because I was suggesting something naughty. If I had been trying to get you to do something good, you’d have called it ‘persuasion’ and you’d be bragging to Pinkie Pie about my moral progress.”

“Feel free to keep telling yourself that,” Penumbra said, “but if Pinkie Pie had been here, she would have flipped her lid.”

Discord lifted his snout towards the ceiling and sniffed derisively. “My point still stands.”

“You had a point?”

“Just because I don’t know what the point was doesn’t mean it isn’t standing.” Of course, now that Pinkie Pie had been mentioned, another thought occurred to the draconequus. “Say, where is your warden, anyway? I haven’t heard anything interesting over the radio for a while now.” Discord idly gestured towards the large, antique radio that occupied a prominent spot in Penumbra’s living room, from whence he could listen in on whatever noises were entering Pinkie’s ears at any given moment.

“Oh, that? I’m pretty sure she’s jamming the signal,” Penumbra said. “National security and all that. I daresay you’ll need to make an appearance yourself if you want any chance to hear what’s going on.”

Discord grumbled to himself. “Ugh... why’d Twilight have to make her so insightful?”

“Because she’s Twilight; that’s why,” Penumbra said.

“That was a rhetorical question.”

“I know, but I don’t particularly care.” Penumbra rose from her sofa and began to pace idly around the room. “As for what Pinkie is doing at the moment, I’m pretty sure she’s dreaming, so she’s probably wandering around somewhere else in her mind.”

“Dreaming? Already? Isn’t this a bit early for her?”

“There’s a lot on the table tomorrow, and Pinkie said she wanted to at least try not to fall asleep in the middle of the summit, so she went to bed early.”

“Really? Maybe I could have some fun with her then...” Discord grinned slyly as he eagerly tapped the tips of his talons against those of his lion’s paw.

“Oh, Tartarus, no,” Penumbra said firmly. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned from spending time with the two of you, it’s that you and Pinkie have very different ideas of ‘fun.’ Right now, Pinkie wants some rest, and if I have anything to say about it, she’s going to get a solid eight hours of sleep.”

Discord opened his mouth, ready to deliver a witty retort, but he was interrupted when the Penumbra’s front door slammed open and Pinkie Pie rushed in. “Penny, you need to get outside. Now.”

“Don’t call m—”

Penumbra.

Discord couldn’t remember ever seeing Pinkie Pie with an expression of such earnest seriousness on her face. “What on earth is going on?”

“Emergency meeting,” she said, hardly giving any more acknowledgement of Discord’s presence. “There’s been a robbery.”

———————

Penumbra coalesced back into reality inside of a cavernous room filled with assorted objects, artifacts and dusty tomes. In the center of the room the six Element-bearers stood in a circle with Celestia, Luna and Cadance. Penumbra glanced at a grandfather clock sitting next to a starry window as it sounded three low chimes. If Celestia was awake and fully dressed at this hour, whatever had happened must have been quite serious indeed. “Where is this place?”

“We are currently in the most restricted section of the Canterlot Archives,” Luna said as her sister unsuccessfully attempted to stifle a yawn. “As you might have expected, it is here where we house any information that might prove dangerous for release to the general public, as well as many devices that can allow such knowledge to be put to use.”

“I see,” Penumbra said as she squeezed her way into the discussion circle between Pinkie Pie and Rarity. “And are we simply meeting here for the increased security, or do the contents of this room have something to do with the incident?”

“This room is where the story ends,” Twilight Sparkle said with the barest hint of a nervous tremor in her voice, “but it begins in the chamber where Spike and I are staying.” According to her, after the evening’s formal ceremonies had concluded, Twilight went straight to her guest suite for some shut eye. She had taken off her tiara and set it on the nightstand by the table before trying to get some sleep.

“I was having trouble drifting off,” Twilight said, “mostly because I’ve been thinking about that promise we made to Trixie ever since Fluttershy brought it up. I must have eventually started dozing a little, though, because the next thing I remember was a loud crash after somepony stepped on Spike’s tail—he’s fine, by the way. It looks like it’ll be nothing worse than a nasty looking bruise.

“Anyway, I saw somepony wearing a cloak getting to her hooves, and I also saw what she had in her saddlebag. It... it was my tiara. Apparently, she’d switched it for a fake that’s still on the nightstand, though I obviously didn’t learn about that until later, since I was too busy running after her. I called out for help as I chased after her, and I got the attention of Cadance and a few of the guards, but we couldn’t outrun her.”

“Didn’t you think to try some sort of teleporting thing?” Rainbow Dash asked. “You know, to get in front of her?”

“I did,” Twilight said with a nod, “but it turns out she’s pretty skilled at teleporting, too. I managed to grab her cloak in my aura, but she just teleported right out of it, taking her saddlebag—and my crown—with her.”

“Well, at least that should have given you a chance to glimpse her identity,” Penumbra said.

“It did, and Celestia says my description of her cutie mark is more than enough to figure out who she is.”

Celestia nodded. “Her name is Sunset Shimmer,” she said, her voice still slightly groggy from the early hour. “She’s a few years older than Twilight, and she was one of my top students. In fact, I had originally hoped that she would bear the Element of Magic, but although I had never even hinted at this, she somehow figured out what I was really up to, and came to the conclusion that she needed to amass as much power as possible to face Nightmare Moon when she returned. Soon, however, she was seeking power for its own sake, and going to dangerous lengths to do so. And... well, you all know my biggest weakness as a leader. When faced with what seems to be an irreconcilable conflict, I have but two arrows in my quiver: diplomacy and brute force,” Celestia hung her head as she said this; it was awkward to see such a majestic pony expressing any sort of shame.

Twilight glanced nervously at her mentor for a few seconds before deciding to continue her story, if only to give Celestia the chance to regain her composure. “Well, she ran all the way out of the castle to the Archives, though I don’t know why she didn’t teleport there.”

“Most likely, it’s some defensive spell still in place from when Shining Armor was stationed here,” Cadance said with a sigh. “He kept telling me he should come along for this. He said his instincts were bothering him, but I told him to tend to things in the Crystal Mountains. He is not going to be happy when he learns that his little sister was in danger.”

“She didn’t actually try to hurt me,” Twilight said with some annoyance.

“Do you really think a stallion like Shiny is going to care about a detail like that?”

“Good point,” Twilight conceded. “Anyway, we tracked her here, and Cadance actually managed to tackle her and pin her down, but when she did, my tiara flew into that mirror over there—it was glowing at the time.” She pointed a hoof towards a corner of the room, where an elaborately jeweled mirror stood, its base obscured by a slightly moth-eaten tarpaulin. “The thief... I mean, Sunset Shimmer used the distraction to teleport over there, gave me some lame insult about being a wingless princess, and went through the mirror herself. It turned solid almost immediately after that.”

“That part, at least, is not surprising,” Celestia said as her posture resumed a more composed stance. “She escaped into that mirror to avoid being captured by me the first time around.”

“Okay...” Pinkie Pie said. “So why didn’t you just, you know, go in after her?”

“At first, it was because I did not know how the mirror worked, or even what was on the other side. This artifact was unearthed during a conflict with the Griffon Kingdom seven hundred years ago, and I had neither the time nor the interest to examine it closely once I had determined that merely possessing it would not pose a risk to my little ponies.

“It was only after Sunset’s escape that I determined that it was some sort of portal, and, as a search of this world for Sunset Shimmer produced no results, it almost certainly leads to another one. Beyond this, I know little more, as I needed to refocus my attention on preparing the next candidate for the Element of Magic—which, as we all know, produced much better results.” She winked at Twilight Sparkle, causing her former student to blush slightly.

“Ironically enough,” Celestia continued, “I had actually been considering studying this mirror more systematically in recent weeks, as there are more princesses who can lighten my workload. I had hoped to find Sunset myself so we could discuss things under... less tense circumstances, but it seems that those plans must be set by the wayside.” She then turned her attention to her sister. “Luna, I know this is short notice, but is there anything more specific you can infer about the mirror?”

Luna walked over to the artifact and perused it carefully for a few minutes before she found a series of runes around the edge of the frame. “It is an inscription in a very old form of Equestrian, one that predates the Jovian era.”

“Um... Jovian?” Fluttershy asked.

“I’m pretty sure that means it’s from when Celestia and Luna’s dad was prince,” Pinkie said.

“Actually, the Jovian era began with the reign of our grandfather, Jovian I, but I digress,” Luna said. “I am not exactly fluent in this dialect, but I am able to discern the gist of these inscriptions.”

“And?” Applejack said.

“It is relatively easy to open the portal from this side, but there is a warning that considerable effort is needed to open it from the other, as magic is relatively weak in that world.”

“Well, it is small wonder that she coveted Twilight’s crown, then,” Rarity said as she tapped a hoof thoughtfully against her chin. “After all, it is the Element of Magic.”

“Indeed, and that is why it must be retrieved,” Celestia said as the entire group crowded around the mirror for a closer look. “The Elements of Harmony, generally speaking, do not work properly unless they are all together. The Element of Magic must be retrieved to ensure Equestria’s continued security.”

“But if all the Elements are needed to be effective, why did Sunset Shimmer only steal one?” asked Fluttershy, who was staring into the mirror’s polished surface, as if she half-expected to see something other than her own reflection pop up at any moment.

“She probably was going to,” Penumbra said. “I’m willing to bet that she would have tried to get more if she hadn’t bungled her plan.”

“I’m not so sure,” Pinkie Pie said. “I mean, technically, all of the Elements can still do some magic on their own. It’s just not very much. I know, because Twilight had me help her edit all of Luna’s notes on them.”

“So? What good would that do, other than makin’ things a pain in the dock for us?” Applejack asked as she sat down on a nearby stool and watched the others continue to swarm around the artifact.

“Well, if Luna’s right and the mirror says there’s not a lot of magic on the other side,” Pinkie explained, “then maybe you don’t need very much to cause a lot of problems.”

“Okay, I’m sold,” Rainbow Dash said as she left the ground and hovered over the mirror. “Let’s get over there and get back that tiara!”

“I’m afraid that won’t be happening,” Celestia said gravely. “Taking the other Elements over there may allow you to return with relative ease once the Element of Magic had been retrieved, but if this is a world that is not accustomed to such strong magical forces, then such a display of power could wreak havoc on their fabric of reality. That being said, I do applaud your initial idea. I was unaware that you had an interest in the intricacies of magical theory.”

“Uh, yeah...” Rainbow Dash uneasily as she returned to the ground and began shifting her weight awkwardly. “That... uh, was totally what was going through my head when I made that... uh, suggestion. Because I’m awesome like that.”

“That’s why I’ll be going myself,” Twilight said. “It’s my Element to bear, after all, so if anypony can get it to reopen the portal without help from the other Elements, it’s me.”

“That, too, is a solid plan,” Celestia said. “However, I think there may be somepony better suited to this task.”

At this, Pinkie Pie’s eyes widened in panic. “Oh no. No-no-no-no-no-no-no! I can tell what you’re thinking, and you should stop thinking that right now, because it is very, very doubleplusungood badthink.”

“Uh, Pinkie?” Applejack said as she pushed her hat back and rubbed her forehead. “Ya mind explainin’ yourself a bit there?”

“I think Celestia wants me to go after the Element, presumably because I wouldn’t even need to use it to get back. All I need to do is make a Pinkie Promise, and I can use my imaginary friend magic to take care of that. But if I do that, it could cause as much of a problem as if all the Elements were being used together. I mean, this is really powerful stuff we’re talking about.”

“But darling,” Rarity said, “surely a properly worded Pinkie Promise could let you limit the risk to the other world, could it not?”

“And besides, if you’re worried about that, you can use your abilities to send us a signal in this world so we can open the portal for you instead,” Luna added. “I doubt that would leave as great an impact.”

Pinkie looked around nervously. “Um, yeah... I guess that’s true... but that’s not the only thing! I wouldn’t be able to come alone. Penny would have to come with me, since she lives in my head, and I’m supposed to be watching over her. I mean, we want to keep the risk down, don’t we?”

“I’m fairly certain that the risks Celestia mentioned center on the use of the Elements,” Penumbra said flatly. “That’s not really an issue in my case.”

Pinkie looked shocked. “You’re supposed to back me up on stuff like this.”

“And you’re not supposed to call me ‘Penny.’”

“But there might be other complications from taking along someone who’s living in my head,” Pinkie hissed through clenched teeth.

“What are you two talking about?” Twilight asked.

“Nothing!” Pinkie Pie chirped with a rather forced smile on her face. “It’s... uh, a theory Penny and I have been working on,” she hastily explained, ignoring the pegasus’ glare. “You know, imaginary friend stuff. We’ll let you know more when the thesis is ready for publication. But if I’m right, and there’s a pretty good chance I am, things might get... unpredictable.”

Penumbra, of course, knew precisely what Pinkie was trying to avoid saying: that if she went over to this other world, Discord would almost certainly be tagging along. It seemed that Pinkie’s innate distrust of the draconequus was colliding with her desire to accommodate Penumbra’s wish to keep spending time with her friend.

Unfortunately, though, Celestia had no way of knowing this. “Still, I think you are definitely the best candidate for this task. Despite the fact that the mysterious nature of imaginary friend magic inevitably creates some risks, you also have a solid grasp of standard magical theory, and can therefore mitigate those risks. As for taking along a passenger, I don’t see how Penumbra can possibly be a hindrance to you. Indeed, having somepony to confide in as you face this challenge will doubtless be a great benefit. Pinkie Pie, as a princess of Equestria, you are my equal, and so I can not order you to take on this burden. That being said, I sincerely hope that you shall.”

Pinkie Pie looked around at the circle of ponies, searching for any sort of opening that might allow her to extract herself from the situation. None of the Element-bearers seemed to have a problem with Celestia’s idea, and the other princesses were looking at her expectantly. Penumbra chose to be infuriatingly vague when Pinkie looked at her, simply raising her eyebrow. She turned to Twilight. “Um, are you sure you don’t want to do this yourself?”

Twilight bit her lower lip for a few seconds, but eventually she nodded. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure. As much as I’d like to handle this myself, Celestia made a compelling argument. You’re the best pony for the job.”

Pinkie Pie sighed. “Okay... I’ll do it.”

Author's Note:

Special thanks to djthomp and all of the other supporters on my Patreon.

I've also got an original short story available for purchase on Amazon.