AppleBloom one Half: Mirrors Multiplied

by Bumblebee Tuner

((Gotta Be The Twintails...)) under construction

Applebloom ½ : Mirrors Multiplied

Chapter 5

Gotta be the twintails...

Sunset Shimmer was still getting over her initial shock at the discovery that Twilight Sparkle was the nefarious Dark Grasper, one of the four dark generals of Nightmare Moon leading the guildy monster assault on Earth for all the magic en loco aurum. This was naturally a shock to Sunset considering she thought, and genuinely believed, earth devoid of magic entirely until she was recruited as a twin-tailed soldier of justice in the fight against evil. Granted, she herself wasn't to be trusted, because as soon as she understood how this new magic worked she would abandon these ape children to their fate at the hands of their new enemy.

Becoming student council president of Canterlot High had been no small feat, and would hopefully leave her above suspicion for betrayal should she do more with this newly discovered power than give herself a nice rack and decent sized bubble butt. Naturally, using the magic of the twintails to enhance her figure was all for the benefit of their de facto leader Big Macintosh. Mac was nothing if he wasn't the biggest pervert she had ever met, with the biggest crush on bacon tail. And, if Sunset were actually human and the apple polisher didn't have that creepy hairstyle fetish, she might consider him genuine bonding material. Seriously, what was it about the twintails that captured his eye? She had know idea, the only reason she had availed herself of the style in the first place was not a matter of choice.

Upon entering this world Sunset found herself subject to the whims of Ranko Tendo, a lonely and sickly little girl who wanted friends so desperately that she genuinely believed that she'd summoned Sunset using a magical trapper keeper and koi rod of love she purchased from of a gypsy named Toramasa Kobayakawa at the student store. She (Ranko that is) didn't realize the old man was teasing her when he told her not to open the binder until after midnight. Not that she would have known the base of the statue outside her school was a portal to another world, or that it would matter after Sunset used the last of her magic to trap the creepy little bunny boiler in her hastily enchanted bedroom mirror. The girl's sickly grandmother and her butler were so relieved their ward had returned to 'normal' they didn't question any of the lies Sunset cooked up to explain the presence of a unicorn or the fact that she seemed to have amnesia. Sunset still had nightmares about the girl, and it sent sent shivers down her spine even thinking about being that little girl's "pyonkichi" for any length of time. It was only a few short years after this her grandmother took ill, what Sunset assumed was the human word for elders entering the madness of their final heat cycle, before social services sent Ranko in name alone to live with her cousins in Nermia.

It goes without saying she did not expect Akane to return home with an 'almost' unicorn and a goon.

Elsewhere...

Anyone who remembered anything about Ryoga Hibiki knew he was the demigod of unrequited love, third class limited, and the last human descendent of Hercules…which apparently translated into a white Pegacorn with an assorted Rorschach splatter of gypsy markings that changed every time his curse was activated, scratch that, every time he went from shifting twixt rabbit and the devil's walking parody on all four footed things with wings. If it weren't for the mark of the battling god on his torso no one would be able to recognize him from one day to the next. Which really sucked, because he still felt super self-conscious about the horrifying tattoo of emasculating glory. Emilia the angel half turned Pegasus pony hadn't found herself altogether unscathed by the period of adjustment to her new form, but she rather enjoyed her reputation as the wicked witch of slaughter among the Apples. In fact, the two "almost heroes" had made quite a reputation for themselves in the Kyrosian empire as being 'gay' for justice. Gay, as in happy, was a horrible analogy to describe the two mercenaries of Whimsy-Shire, but given the local level of technology put them roughly 200 years before the human equivalent of the common era, in the middle of nowhere between four warring empires, Ryoga supposed it could be worse. Considering three of the neighboring kingdoms depended upon each other symbiotically, yet bickered amongst themselves like children in a high school musical production, with seemingly no explanation for suddenly breaking out into one song or another, other than some form of enchantment gone horribly, horribly, wrong... it was a wonder he hadn't lived up to his reputation as a goon and just picked up all the ponies and bopped them on their heads.

While not nearly as impressive as the crystal empire, Whimsy-Shire being home to all manner of magical beastie that were not of the three narcissist kingdoms run by the Unicorns, the Pegasi, or the Apples was actually really cool. Very cool, like in a perpetual state of autumn or early spring cool. Somewhere near the center of a kingdom Ryoga would call a utopian paradise devoid of fleas, twittermites, parasprites, and bugbears was the shining glass jewel of the Kyrosian empire, the infamous castle of glass. Of course, since there weren't enough jewelers in the world, not even in the crystal empire, much less enough lovecraftian ponies or smithies to smelt or magic enough glass to forge a ziggurat of such complexity and size, what many believed to be a castle of glass was actually a monumental ice sculpture carved out of a glacier like an anthill that had to be maintained with precise weather manipulation and the power of love. Subconsciously Ryoga knew this was total horse-pucky. After all, as the god of unrequited love (if even an unconsciously autistic one to any limited degree), anything that had to do with the elements of love such as service, affirmation, time, faith, hope, charity, and especially lust were within his divination. He may not be able to see through a lie any better than frosted glass; But, to the best of his recently acquired and limited knowledge of magic, there was no plausible way for the ponies to harness the power of the seasons much less negate the power of the sun.

The only other thing that bothered Ryoga about the kingdom was the seemingly endless supply of jellybeans that were coming out of it. In fact, jellybeans were one of the major exports coming out of Whimsy-Shire second only to glass gem corn, soda, oranges, purple stuff, silk, formica, and food coloring. Odder still, practically no one batted an eye whenever Ryoga infrequently shifted forms within the castle walls. And, regardless of species, anyone who wasn't a traveling merchant or from outside the uncanny valley had a very odd manner about them. If he didn't know better Ryoga could swear they were all possessed by some odd wasp like qualities. Then there was the matter of the King Kyros, unlike most of the rest of the castle lemmings who stared unblinking and vaguely reminded Ryoga of mantids waiting for their prey to edge closer, the affable King Kyros really seemed to like Ryoga and was rather disappointed when he learned Ryoga and the pink pegasus Emilia nothing more than a platonic relationship, like there was something he intended to do that would improve the situation. It was just creepy. It wasn't until Kyros introduced his daughter 'Medusa' [an older and shockingly sluttier version of Ranma's mirror clone] who just conveniently, if not suddenly and without warning, seemed to crawl out of the woodwork (in a manner not unlike a larval succubus after the last fruit of the loom) springing from almost nowhere in a way that made things quickly take an awkward turn. It wasn't just that she turned his stomach, no what really put Ryoga off was the way she knew how to call him P-chan with an almost perfect pitch, breath, and match of Akane's voice.

Author's Note:

A/N: There was a skeleton of a story here that I still might flesh out later. But first, I need to get the tent poles lined up for sport in order to have a proper wow at the end. Plus with many of my favorite stories updating within the last 48hrs I could do worse than writing 500 words and pasting on what I'd already written up months ago.