• Published 15th Nov 2015
  • 670 Views, 31 Comments

Velvet Missteps - PhycoKrusk



Join Velvet Step, ballerina extraordinaire as she tries to traverse dimensions with the help of a stressed-out princess and her father-in-law-sort-of. Between you and me, her chances don't look too good, but what do I know? I'm only the writer.

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Phase 1

“I can’t be in the Crystal Empire! I live in Canterlot!” Velvet protested. “Look, Mister, um —”

“Leon.”

“Leon. I was in my bathroom, right? Doing… bathroom things. And then I was drying my hooves off, and then I was here!”

Leon look at Velvet for a few moments, judging her, and then he nodded. “This doesn’t fall under immigration. Come with me and I’ll take you to the right department,” he said, turning around and walking away.

Velvet stared after him. “You actually have a department for this sort of thing?” she asked as she trotted after him. She stopped trotting almost immediately when she found herself in a large, crystalline room, filled with several crystalline ponies, a griffon (duh) and a crystalline throne with one each of a non-crystalline unicorn standing next to it, and a non-crystalline alicorn sitting on it.

Unbeknownst to Velvet — but beknownst to us — these two were the HABICs*, which does highlight a sort of disturbing trend of crystal ponies always being ruled by non-crystal ponies, but there’s no time to discuss socio-politics.

Velvet’s attention was pulled off the crystal ponies and towards the throne when she heard Leon glaring at her (editor’s note: a griffish glare sounds exactly like a griffon clearing their throat), and she hurried over to avoid incurring his wrath and restarting his background music. Once she was there, he returned his attention to the white unicorn and pink alicorn who were giving him looks that were either thoughtful, or that looked thoughtful so as not to restart his background music. Leon was a seriously scary dude, no joke.

“This mare claims she was using her washroom in Canterlot, and sometime before she finished washing up, she was here,” Leon explained. “She has no passport, so I would normally address this myself, but this seems more like a level ‘Dusk’ dimensional displacement. Enjoy.” Without saying even one more word, the griffon took to the air and flew out an opened window.

All eyes watched him for a moment, and then all eyes jumped to Velvet. Princess Mi Amore ‘Cadence’ ‘Cady’ Cadenza especially looked like she could barely contain herself.

“Oh, this is so exciting!” she exclaimed with a little hop off her throne, unable to contain herself. “We’ve never had a Dusk level event before!”

“You mean besides the time my sister almost destroyed the whole world?” asked Prince-Consort Shining ‘Shiny’ ‘Armor’ Armor before he turned to the audience they had. “Alright, court’s adjourned, wrap it up. Show’s over, ponies.”

As four score divided by four and seven grumbling crystal ponies filed out of the throne room, Velvet had Cadence’s close and undivided attention. The attention was uncomfortably close, much like Cadence was, having almost immediately invaded Velvet’s personal space to scrutinize her with narrowed eyes. “Well, you don’t look like a DB,” she decided, taking a step back. “But I guess that’s how these things usually work, so it’s not really a surprise that you wouldn’t look any different from an earth pony.”

“‘DB?’” asked a confused Velvet an instant before she realized there was a more important question. “Wait, if you can’t tell, then how come Leon could?”

“Because Leon does things,” answered Shining as he joined the conversation. “Once, a whole swarm of changelings tried to invade the Empire, but didn’t bring any documentation. They didn’t make it two steps past the city limits before Leon stopped and detained all of them repeatedly without backup from the regular Guard.”

“He’s a seriously scary dude, no joke,” Cadence said to summarize her thoughts on the matter. “He’s so good at his job that he is literally the entire Department of Immigrations and Emigrations, but he’s a seriously scary dude. Oh, but enough about him.” Once more, Cadence invaded Velvet’s space. “Let’s talk about you! We’ve never had a DB visiting before! Do you need anything? How about some tea? I’ll make you some tea!” Her horn shimmered with a blue field, and she vanished with the pop of a teleport, leaving Velvet stunned and unsure of how to react.

“Well, that should keep her busy for a few minutes, at least” Shining remarked. “Don’t hold it against her. She’s got some family issues that hurt her self-confidence, so she’s always looking for big accomplishments to make.”

“Oh, don’t worry. I get what she’s going through, sort of,” Velvet replied. She shuffled her hooves for a moment. “So, about getting me home….”

“Oh! Right.” In fact, Shiny had forgotten for a little bit. “Yeah, that’s kind of beyond both of us, but luckily we have an in-house expert on these kinds of things. He’s probably an expert, at least, but if he can figure out how to make a temporal singularity work in harmony with a bunch of disparate devices in order to prevent the destruction of the world, this should be pretty easy, right?”

“I guess so?” Velvet replied uncertainly. Getting home sounded quite dangerous, after all. “So, are we going to go see him now?”

“We’re already here.”

What?!” Velvet exclaimed, spinning in all directions one after the other to take in her surroundings. Sure enough, the throne room was nowhere to be seen, and they were now in a crystalline corridor somewhere else in the castle. “When did we get here?! How?!”

“Editing mistake,” Shining replied as he walked down the corridor, not even slowing down.

Velvet stared after him, and then galloped after him. “What do you mean, ‘editing mistake?’”


“Yes! Yes!” Sombra shouted as electricity arced all around him.

His laboratory was dark — the lights were out, after all — save for all that glorious electricity, arcing upwards and along two tall pylons mounting to one of the workbenches, and the angry red field surrounding his horn. “Finally, one age ends and a new one begins!

His horn momentarily glowed even brighter, emitting a sudden, very intense pulse of magic. The electric arcs took on the same color as his fields, and two gigantic bolts flew down to strike the surface of the workbench. After several seconds, the bolts vanished, as did the rest of their brethren; the only light that wasn’t Sombra’s field was an even, red glow emanating from between the pylons.

“Success!” Sombra threw his hooves in the air, triumphant. The glow around Sombra’s horn died, the machinery powered down and the overhead lights came back on. With a manic grin, Sombra looked at his workbench, allowing his eyes to dance over the gleaming serrated blade of the steak knife resting between the pylons. “I’ve done it. The world’s actual sharpest knife!” His horn lit up again, and another blade zipped over from a different workbench. “You hear that, you overhyped hacksaw? ‘World’s Sharpest Knife,’ my salted licorice caboose —” The offending knife vanished in a puff of smoke — “Couldn’t even cut through that two-week old Prench bread. Oh, but that’s no longer a problem, now that I have the world’s actual sharp —” He cleared his throat — “The World’s Actual Sharpest Knife™!”

Lighting his horn once more, his magical field wrapped around the tang of the World’s Actual Sharpest Knife™ — because the handle is always added after the actual blade is made, obviously — and swept it carelessly off the workbench. The blade passed effortlessly and resistance-free through one of the steel pylons, the top half of which immediately tipped sideways and crashed to the floor.

“Wow-wie! Ha ha, that’s, huh.” The smile dropped off Sombra’s face. “That might actually be too sharp.”

With exceeding care, the blade was slowly shifted around within Sombra’s magic field until it was steady and the point was aimed very definitely towards the floor. “Yeah, definitely too sharp for this world. I’ll have to destroy it,” he said to himself, before throwing a glance and a smile towards a table at the far end of the room. “After I slice my sandwich.”

Without warning, the workshop door flew open. “Hey, Pops!” shouted Shining Armor.

“What?!” Sombra shouted in surprise. His magic field failed and the World’s Actual Sharpest Knife™ fell point-first into the blue crystal floor, and then kept falling.

And falling.

And falling, maybe forever.

“Well, that’s the last time we’ll ever see that,” Sombra grumped, glaring at Shining. “Nice work, Armor. It’s so nice to know that I can still count on you to ruin everything!”

“Wait, if you were working on something that important, why didn’t you lock the door?” Velvet asked as she stepped around Shining Armor. “Shouldn’t that have been the first thing you did?”

Sombra stared at Velvet for several uncomfortable moments. “Who asked you?” he demanded. “Also, who are you?

“I can field that one,” Shining replied before Velvet could say anything. “She’s from some other Equestria in some other dimension and she needs help getting back home.”

Sombra stared at Shining. “Um, ok?” he replied uncertainly. “And you brought her here because….”

“Because you’re the second smartest pony I know, obviously. Also, you’re available,” Shining replied casually.

Sombra regarded Shining with bemusement, and then looked to Velvet with a smile. “Would you excuse us for a moment, my dear? Armor has just said something very foolish, and I need to knock his block off.”

“Oh, well, I, um,” Velvet stammered.

“No no, I was just leaving anyway,” Shining interjected. He turned about and made his exit, and as he did, he said over his shoulder, “See you around, number two.”

“I’ll level you later, Armor!” Sombra shouted after him before he turned to Velvet, scowling.

Velvet smiled back nervously.

A second later, Sombra’s horn lit with a red magic field. “Ok, stand still and let’s see what we have to work with,” he said. Several tiny beams of light shined out from the tip of his horn and danced rapidly across Velvet’s body, starting at the top of her head and moving all the way to the tips of her hooves, giving her the distinct feeling of a ball of blunted nails rolling over her; not painful, but definitely unpleasant.

“Wow! You’re from Equestria-Sextus? I didn’t know you could even leave from there!” Sombra exclaimed once he’d finished his examination. A moment later, he raised his hoof to his chin, rubbing it in thought. “Not without a huge subspace disturbance, at least.”


Twilight Sparkle’s Karmageddon Lens fired, hurling a pitch black orb up and up and up into the sky where it exploded — or maybe imploded; it was really hard to tell — and left a sphere of pure negative energy hanging over the Crystal Empire that threatened to destroy the world bigger than anyone ever thought possible.


Exactly like that one,” Sombra concluded, dropping his hoof back to the floor. “Really, I should’ve seen this coming. It’s actually kind of surprising you didn’t pop up sooner, all things considered.”

“So, you know how I got here? And that means you can help me?” Velvet asked, hopeful.

“Pfft! No. I don’t do dimensional stuff. Anymore. This is definitely dimensional stuff that I don’t do anymore,” was exactly not the response that she wanted to hear from Sombra. But it was still the one that she got.

“Oh.” Velvet wilted, casting her dejected gaze towards the floor.

“But I know somepony who can,” Sombra added. He raised a hoof and rubbed his chin again. “She’s all the way over in Ponyville, though, so I guess that’s kind of a complication.”

“Oh,” Velvet said again, perking up a little. Really, it was only that kind-of-a-complication that was holding her back. “So, what do we do, then?”


The front doors of the Crystal Castle opened in a hurry. It was a good thing too, because not a second later a two-wheel mechanical monstrosity — with an attached sidecar! — went careening out of them and onto the street outside. Several ponies who were walking likewise went careening. Out of the way, that is, since the driver, one Sombra Crepúsculo, did not feel inclined to give them much room or even warning aside from shouting, “Out of my way, road hogs!”

Velvet, in the sidecar, was proud of herself, or would have been had she not been terrified. She’d managed to resist asking exactly how they’d moved from Sombra’s lab to the front doors in what felt no longer than a shoddy scene transition (another ‘editing mistake?’). She’d managed to resist asking exactly how and when both she and Sombra had donned brown leather (ew!) jackets, white scarves, hard black skull caps and goggles (still another one?). She’d even managed to resist screaming her lungs out as they went zipping down the paved thoroughfare and then out onto the unpaved highway in what she assumed must have been record time (probably not an editing mistake, but still terrifying). But as they hit the highway, there was one thing she couldn’t resist.

“What is this thing?” she demanded, hooves somehow maintaining a death grip on her seat despite not having fingers.

“It’s a magicycle!” Sombra replied happily, maintaining an unreasonable speed as they went barreling down the road and grinning like a madpony all the while. “It’s like a bicycle, but it’s powered by magic and genius.”

“What’s a bicycle?” Velvet asked.

“It’s like a unicycle, but with two wheels,” Sombra said. “But don’t worry about that! It’s not that far to Ponyville, and then we’ll get you back home.”

“If I live that long,” Velvet whined, sinking down into the sidecar.

“Oh, don’t be such a baby! This is perfect — lean left!”

Without even thinking, Velvet did so, and Sombra jerked his own body hard to the left, tilting the magicycle almost onto the rims of its wheels and lifting the sidecar into the air just in time to avoid being pulverized on a large rock. An instant later, the sidecar crashed back onto the road with a jolt that Velvet felt in her teeth.

“Perfectly safe! Besides, how many other times have you been riding through the Equestrian countryside on a magicycle in another dimension?”

Velvet pondered that for only a moment before her face lit up. “Hey, you’re right!” she exclaimed, throwing her hooves over her head as they zoomed south.

“Adventurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr—watch out!”

Author's Note:

*HABIC: Head Apple Bucker In Charge. Consequently, this does sort of imply that even though Twilight is a princess, Applejack's the one who's actually running the show.



And that bit about the changelings? Totally true; Leon is seriously a scary dude. I know there's a lot of Chrysalis fans out there, but her defeat here was inevitable; we may never know what convinced her that either she or her changelings stood any kind of chance against the Crystal Empire's top (and only) immigrations agent. I mean, just look at his department's acronym! He's a seriously scary dude!