What To Do When Visiting an Alternate Universe: A Guide
While they ate lunch, Twilight quizzed Spike on some of the things that had happened in his world, so that she could compare them to her own and figure out where the two timelines had diverged.
So far, and rather frustratingly for Twilight, it was going perfectly well. Nothing much seemed to be different. In fact, it all seemed to be exactly the same.
They had begun talking about her friends and their personalities, but quickly moved on to comparing just about anyone they could think of, from the inhabitants of Ponyville, to the nobles of Canterlot, to famous celebrities.
And everyone was exactly the same (within a ten percent margin of error. They couldn’t expect to remember exactly everything about everyone. Maybe if Pinkie Pie were there…). Genders. Dreams. Cutie Marks. Jobs. Coat colors. Personalities. Voices.
It was all the same.
So, they moved on to speaking about history, and ended up quickly skipping over much of the ancient eras, as Spike wasn’t very well versed in much of anything that happened before Equestria was founded. He never had much of a head for history, however much Twilight had tried to teach him over the years.
As such, they had now gone on to talking about some more recent events, of which they were intimately familiar with. Twilight would ask him a question, and he would respond in kind.
It was a taxing process, to say the least.
“…Nightmare Moon was imprisoned in the moon for a thousand years, and then conveniently broke out just when Princess Celestia sent us to Ponyville?”
“Yup.”
“And then we made friends with Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie? And then we found the Elements of Harmony, purged Luna of the Nightmare, and freed Celestia?”
“Yup.”
Twilight idly itched a spot on the top of her snout and crossed that item off her mental list. She peered at Spike, who was leaning back in his chair, feet on the table.
“Alright,” she said, “Let’s shoot through the rest of these real quick. Ready?”
Spike grunted in confirmation. They had been at this for a few hours now and he was feeling exhausted. Twilight had been incredibly thorough in trying to figure out what was different between their two realities. Poor Spike had borne the brunt of her grueling investigation.
“So, after that, we decided to stay in Ponyville?”
“Yup.”
“Let’s see here… Gilda? Trixie? Winter Wrap-Up? Parasprites? Owlowiscious? Ruining the Grand-Galloping Gala?”
“Yup, yup, and yup.”
“Discord?” She froze here for a brief moment, a blush spreading across her face. “…The…Smarty Pants Incident?”
He laughed. “Yeah.”
“Mare Do Well? Your greed incident? The Flim Flam Brothers? The Future Twilight incident?”
“Yup.”
“The Great Dragon Migration and Peewee? Queen Chrysalis and the Changelings at my brother’s wedding to Cadance?”
“Yup.”
“The Crystal Empire and Sombra? Pinkie Pie and the Mirror Pond? Trixie’s return with the Alicorn Amulet and her attempt to take over Ponyville? Fluttershy managed to reform Discord? My transformation into an alicorn after I finished Starswirl’s spell that caused everyone’s cutie marks to switch?”
“Yup.”
She stopped here, glaring at him. “Are you paying attention, Spike?”
“Yup.”
“Do you want to organize the library for the rest of the week?”
“Yup.”
“Do you love Rarity?”
“Yup.”
And then his eyes widened as her words actually sunk into his brain. “No, wait! No!” He sat up straight now, paying full attention. “I mean, yeah, I do. But you already knew that. I told you.”
“Of course. Just checking, Casanova.” She rapped on the table. “Now come on, pay attention.”
He shifted in his seat, getting more comfortable. “Ready!”
And then, “Okay... Homestretch.” She rolled her neck, the bones crackling. “The Crystal Mirror and Sunset Shimmer? The Plunder Vines and the Tree of Harmony? The Power Ponies? The Breezies? Flim and Flam again? Rarity turning evil because of that book you gave her?”
He coughed loudly at that, obviously still embarrassed. It hadn’t been his proudest moment.
Twilight grimaced. This next one probably wouldn’t do wonders for his self-esteem either. “…The Equestria Games?”
“…Yeah…” He groaned. “All that stuff happened.”
“Tirek? And Discord almost betraying us? Golden Oak Library getting destroyed? This castle being created?”
“Yup.” He continued before Twilight could say any more. “You know, that was a pretty big coincidence, getting this place immediately after our old home was gone.”
Twilight didn’t respond to that. She really liked her old tree building. She still missed it sometimes. Living in a library had been exciting, though living in a castle that had its own library was good too, she guessed.
She continued on, ignoring his comment. “The Cutie Map and Starlight Glimmer? Discord, the Smooze, and the Grand Galloping Gala? Griffonstone?” She chose to skip over his disastrous attempt at taking over her duties and decisions that one time in Canterlot while she was sleeping. “The Yaks? Moondancer? The Tantabus Incident? Applebloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo finally getting their Cutie Marks, all at the same time? Shining’s and Cadance’s pregnancy? Starlight’s revenge, and the beginning of this whole alternate universe thing?”
Spike blinked, trying to process everything she had just said. She had gone through all those really fast. “Uh. Yeah. I think so. That all sounded right.”
“Flurry Heart’s birth and that whole debacle? The Gauntlet of Fire and you giving up your right to be Dragon Lord to Princess Ember? Starlight’s and Trixie’s friendship? You befriending Thorax at the Crystal Empire? Chrysalis’s revenge, subsequent kidnapping of anypony who she thought could defeat her, and then her almost immediate defeat by Thorax, Starlight, Trixie, and Discord?”
She took a deep breath here. “And, of course, Thorax and the rest of the Changelings are good now, and we finally have had a little downtime, at least, until this happened?”
“Yup.” He pushed away from the table. “That’s all right.”
And with that, Twilight groaned loudly and let her head fall onto the table, defeated.
“Well then!” she groused, “I don’t even know what the difference could be then! We covered just about everything I can think of and it all seems exactly the same!”
“I don’t know, Twi.” Spike was just about as irritated as she was. “All of the other universes we’ve been to have been really obvious. Like, ponies trying to kill us, obvious.”
“I know!” she moaned. “That’s what makes this so frustrating!”
It had all been rather draining on the both of them to have been sitting here for so long, running through all this information in hopes of happening upon something that sounded even remotely different.
Twilight may be driven and scholarly, but even she had her limits.
Spike had his as well, and they were a lot less than hers. He had wanted to give up numerous times much earlier, but Twilight had kept keeping at it.
He walked over to the other side of the table and reassuringly patted her on the back, hoping to alleviate her stress some, and tried to lift her spirits. “You know, it’s probably something stupid, like Pinkie Pie wore a different color hat three weeks ago or something!” He chuckled lightly.
Twilight did not laugh. Something that simple would be so demoralizing and would probably anger her more than anything. That would be a stupid alternate universe.
But, of course, Spike was not so far off. He was correct in assuming that there was only a slight difference between the two universes, but neither of them had even come close to figuring out what it actually was.
And Twilight probably would never know, despite the fact it was practically staring her right in the face whenever she walked into a new room. She could not connect the dots.
Case in point, when they had first entered the kitchen and began making some food (a simple sandwich for Twilight, and some gemstones for Spike, as she had decided that he deserved something nice right now), Twilight quickly realized that most of everything in the room was out of place, much like the throne room had been.
Everything! The toaster, the numerous pots and pans, all of the other cookware, bakeware, and corningware, all the utensils, the decorative baubles that she had strewn about, the coffee pot, the silverware in the drawers, the kettle, the breadbox, the cutting boards, the clay urn that held the spatulas and spoons, the fruit bowl, the island countertop, the cookbooks, the delicate china plates and bowls that were never used. Even all the food in the pantry and fridge.
Every thing!
Twilight just about broke down right then and there and spent the next few minutes frantically moving everything back to where she perceived it should be. Spike watched on in mild amusement, not quite sure what was going on, and wasn’t about to get involved.
If Twilight wanted something to be in a certain spot, then that was where it was going to be. And she had a spot for everything. Spike had realized that at a very early age when he failed to put away some of his toys properly and she very nearly had an existential crisis.
As stated before, it had taken Twilight some months to properly move into this new castle of hers. Everything had to be in the right place, and she had obsessively spent much time to make sure everything was where it should be.
And so, this universe was, in all likelihood, one of the most frustrating places she could’ve ended up in.
Everything was out of place, in her mind. It was all just a little too far to the left.
Was it like that in her universe? She hoped it wasn’t. She would have to check when she got back. Make sure all of her things there were still in their proper spots.
It never even registered that that was, in fact, the difference here. Something so simple was completely overlooked.
Which is why, after she was done grilling Spike about the entirety of history in this world, to no avail, she decided that the next logical stop would be to check the library. There were plenty of books and references there to look through, after all.
There had to be something different.
There had to be something different.
There had to be.
She just had to know what.
Twilight Sparkle did not like not knowing.
And so, they went to the library.
This was Twilight in her element now, researching information. And even Spike in his, helping her research those very things.
She pulled every history book that she had on the shelves, which was quite a lot of them. She was the proud owner of a complete edition of ‘A Wholly Comprehensive and Detailed History of the World’ (all thirty-eight volumes), as well as many, many other equally rare and important books.
Twilight piled all of said books on a table, arranging them in such a way that they looked to be a veritable book fortress of sorts—well, more like a wall or parapet, but the sentiment holds the same.
But of course, just as she got settled in, she realized that, as this world was wont to do, everything in the library was also out of place. As she went to sit down on her normal cushion, it was just slightly too far to the left and she instead sat on the floor.
She screamed.
So, she diverted her attentions to that, and spent at least another hour rearranging everything, making sure it was all right. Maybe even two hours. Spike helped some, though he wasn’t entirely sure why she was freaking out. Everything seemed perfectly normal to him.
And only when she was done did she begin researching in earnest, trying to find even the slightest difference between the two worlds.
She read (read, here meaning “quickly glanced through,” because, while Twilight was a fast reader, there were quite a lot of books and not as much time to get through them all in) through many a history book, but also some others that related to physics, magical theory, geography, mathematics, art, music, sciences, politics, and all sorts of classic and modern literature, all in the hopes of finding a difference.
It was certainly difficult.
Impossible, even.
Now, though Twilight was incredibly smart, it would’ve been laughable to think that she could have accurately compared the two universes properly. There was quite a lot of things in her books, and she could never have remembered everything from her universe so that she could try and contrast it to this one.
She tried, though.
She tried real hard.
But she eventually failed.
It took several hours of speed-reading and a gratuitous amount of skimming through paragraphs and pages before she finally admitted defeat.
Everything seemed normal enough, from what she could tell. Physics were the same. History was the same. Geography was the same, as were art, politics, and everything else. She simply just did not have enough information about her own reality to distinguish the events in this universe from the same ones in hers.
Naturally, if she had the exact same books from her world, she could very easily compare historical events or famous pieces of artwork and literature with the books from here.
But without them, it was a lost cause.
Twilight Sparkle gave up.
She slammed what was her final book down on the table with some force and held her head in her hooves. A loud and irritated whinny built up in the back of her throat.
At some point, Spike had fallen asleep at the other side of the table. He had stayed with her for at least the first two hours or so, helping her as best as he could. But eventually, sleep had taken him, and Twilight decided to let him rest some, as he had already helped plenty.
And so, when Twilight slammed her book down and nickered rather noisily, he jerked awake in surprise and nearly fell out of his chair.
“Wha?!” He tensed up, looking around for any signs of danger. The past couple of years had put him on edge where loud noises were concerned.
Twilight lifted her head sheepishly. “Sorry, Spike. Didn’t mean to be so loud.”
The dragon in question fixed his eyes on her and stifled a yawn. “S’alright. You only nearly gave me a heart attack is all.”
“Sorry!” she repeated.
“Are you that loud in your universe all the time? Maybe that’s what’s different. I feel bad for your Spike.”
She scoffed. “No, I’m not that loud normally. I just…” She threw her hooves in the air out of exasperation. “I give up. I can’t figure out anything that’s different between our two realities.”
“You give up?” he asked, incredulously. “Wow. That’s a rare sight. We need to write that down.” Here, he mimed writing on a calendar. “Let’s see… On this day, let it be known that Twilight Sparkle gave up.”
“Oh har har. At least I tried.”
“Twi, I seem to remember you once trying to run away from home and live in the woods because you were too embarrassed to tell Celestia you had to give up on an assignment she gave you.”
She blushed at the memory, but pushed back. “Yeah? Well at least I didn’t just fall asleep and leave my best friend to read through all these books by her lonesome!”
“Hey! I’m just a baby dragon! I need to rest sometime, you slave-driver!”
“There’s only going to be so long you can play that card, Spike.” She shook a hoof at him. “It won’t be long until you can’t even fit in here, and then where’ll I be without my faithful assistant?”
He shuddered. “Ugh. That’s a long ways down the road. I don’t even want to think about having to deal with that yet.”
Then, the full reality of what she had just said finally sunk in, and she felt as if the ground had been swept out from under her. She suddenly didn’t know what to say.
The prospect of Spike growing up stirred some emotion deep within her. Sadness, she presumed. Maybe some anxiety as well. Definitely a little bit of dread.
This, she could only assume, was some sort of motherly instinct. If that could even be believed.
Now, of course, she really wasn’t Spike’s mother. If anypony got that title, it would be Princess Celestia, who actually raised him when he was first hatched, as Twilight was much too young for that sort of responsibility (and Twilight’s parents were certainly not prepared to take care of a dragon, thank you very much).
But, if anything, the two of them were like brother and sister. They were best friends. They were coworkers. She had certainly never felt like his mother before.
And here she was, worrying about him growing up, and not even the fact that ‘growing up’ for him also eventually meant outgrowing the castle. She was just sad that he was getting older. In a few years’ time, he’d be taller than her.
She smiled softly at him. He really wouldn’t be a baby dragon forever…
It was a heartwarming moment, really. It was something that felt so completely normal. In that instant, she completely forgot that she was even in another universe.
For a brief moment, everything was just fine.
And then, before any sort of conclusion to these new feelings could be reached, there was a well-timed, comedic interruption that stopped everything right in its tracks.
There was a flash of light, a crackle of magic, and Discord suddenly appeared in the middle of the table, just slightly to the left of where Twilight was sitting. He twirled about, searching for her, and when he didn’t immediately see her where he had expected, he shifted his gaze to the right some.
He glared at her, his face a cross between worry and irritation. “Twilight!” His voice was serious. “What is this I hear about Fluttershy having to leave, and why did I have to find out from a note she left me?!”
She scrambled for something to say. Her mind had just been in a completely different space entirely, and the sudden intrusion gave her pause.
“Discord, I—”
But he continued talking over her. “How do we know she isn’t heading into a trap? I don’t trust this Cutie Map thingamajig! You need to take me to it. I want to have a stern word with—”
He stopped abruptly, as if at a loss for words. His eyes widened in surprise, narrowed, and then widened again, before he peered intently at Twilight’s face through a rather gaudy pair of cheap 3D glasses that had appeared on his snout.
“You’re not my Twilight!” he said, appearing to actually be thrown for a loop for once. “What?! I don’t…”
He straightened up now, thoroughly confused, and rifled through a stack of papers that looked to contain numerous charts and graphs. He picked one out and studied it intently for a few seconds, glancing between it and Twilight.
Spike and Twilight weren’t sure what to do. They shared a look of mutual unease.
But whatever was written on the paper seemed to inform Discord of something, for a look of comprehension shot across his face. “Aha! That makes perfect sense!” He leaned in close and looped an arm around the crook of Twilight’s neck, pulling her in close. “Tut-tut-tut, Twilight. Messing around with alternate dimensions again? What would Celestia say?”
“I—”
“Now now, I don’t need to hear your excuses. I don’t care if you want to mess with the fabric of time and space, but just make sure that the next time you travel to another universe, you hit me up beforehand.” He grinned. “We can go backpacking through the multiverse!” Here, he had on an elaborate and dated explorer’s costume, complete with pith hat. “I know how much you love adventure, and I always love visiting alternate timelines! It’s a perfect match!”
Discord looked down at Twilight expectantly. There was a brief pause where she processed what he said. After almost immediately rejecting his proposition on sheer principle alone, she actually gave it some thought, and decided that it didn’t really sound half bad. They were friends after all, and friends did things together.
Right?
She gave Discord a small smile. “Okay. Sure. That actually sounds alright.”
He seemed genuinely surprised for only a second, before clapping his hands together and belting out a boisterous laugh. “Marvelous! Ha ha ha! It’s a date then!”
Twilight really hoped that she hadn’t just made a mistake in agreeing. Discord was…well, he was Discord. He was endearing when you got used to him, at least when he wasn’t overly annoying. At times, he could actually be somewhat interesting and fun to be around.
Sometimes.
But then, as if to shatter the moment, there was a loud, shrill beeping, like the ringing of an alarm clock. Discord looked at the watch on his wrist, a rather large novelty one that had Princess Celestia’s wings in lieu of the normal hands of the clock. It was currently five in the afternoon.
“Good heavens, is that the time? You’ve kept me far too long!” He switched off the alarm and turned to her, clearing his throat obnoxiously.
“Now, if you’ll excuse me, Twilight, I have an appointment with the other version of yourself that’s in your universe.” He glanced down at the clipboard in his claw and at the comically long trail of paper that was attached to it. “It seems I have a rather full docket at the moment. Quite a lot of your alternate yous aren’t in their right universe right now and they all have a scheduled meeting with me two minutes ago, and I’m running late!”
Then, with a jolt, he jabbed a talon in her face, his expression darkening abruptly. “By the way,” he growled, “if Fluttershy were to get hurt in any way while out doing whatever it is that map-table thing wants her to do, you’ll have me to answer to, comprende?”
She nodded tersely. “Of course.”
He smiled broadly and patted her head rather roughly, apparently satisfied. “Well then, ta-ta for now!”
And with a snap of his fingers, he was gone.
Twilight blinked.
“…Okay.” Spike spoke up now. He hadn’t been a part of that conversation at all. “That went well, I guess.”
“Yeah…” She took a deep, steadying breath, recollecting herself. Interacting with Discord always left her feeling haggard and drained. He was a whirlwind of activity, much like Pinkie Pie.
Now, of course, she knew that Discord’s threats were empty. Even if Fluttershy did get injured while away, she would never let him hurt anypony in revenge. At the very least, he would try, and end up making her week a living nightmare, but nothing more.
But she did find herself worrying about agreeing to go pal about different timelines with him sometime. That would certainly be…interesting, to say the least. There was no telling how that would go.
Maybe her Discord wouldn’t know she agreed to do so.
Probably not, though.
Probably not.
Spike spoke again, filling the silence. “I guess that means you really are from an alternate dimension then. I’d expect Discord would know.”
Twilight’s eyes snapped to him in disbelief. “…Did you not believe me?”
His shoulders sagged and he grinned awkwardly. “I can never know with you, to be perfectly honest. I thought that maybe you were testing me to see how I would react if something like this really did happen. Like, you were going to sit me and Starlight down tomorrow and lecture us on what and what not to do if an alternate version of somepony appears here.”
“Spike!” she admonished, “I would never do something like that!” She paused, thinking. “Well, the testing bit, anyways. Having a plan in place in case this does happen again sounds like a great idea though. I can’t believe I didn’t think of that sooner!”
“Great.” His voice was flat. The prospect of now having to sit through yet another of Twilight’s emergency preparedness lectures at some point in the future was not an exciting one. “Glad I could help.”
She rolled her eyes at his lack of enthusiasm and decided not to comment. “Besides, if I was testing you, why would I spend several hours sitting here reading through all these books for no reason?!”
“I don’t know! You like reading books! I mean, you even spent, what—? Three hours? –quizzing me about history and stuff! I thought for sure that this was all some big test.”
Twilight hesitated. “Okay… Maybe I didn’t need to question you about any of that, especially when I just ended up going to the library anyways. I guess I can see what you mean.”
He threw up his hands in appreciative acknowledgement. “Thank you! Another point for Spike! I was freaking out the whole time!”
She smiled. “Sorry. I guess just got excited about trying to figure out what the differences between our universes are, and I got a little carried away.”
“It’s fine, Twi. I’ve been through worse. At least you’re not some horribly evil version of yourself that tried to kill me and take over Equestria or something.”
A shiver spread through her body. “Ugh… Don’t talk like that.” And then, a wide grin found its place on her mouth. “Besides, if there is a universe where I’m evil, I would hope I wouldn’t kill you. If anything, you’d be evil too, still my faithful assistant.”
“Or I’d be disgusted by your actions and I’d lead the rebellion against you,” he pointed out with a smug air, joining in. “We’d defeat you and turn you back to good.”
“Ha!” She chuckled dryly. “That’s cute. There wouldn’t be any rebellions under my rule. You think I would let that happen? I would crush any sort of little uprisings like that before they’d even get started.”
Spike blinked. “Wow.” He was somewhat impressed with how forcefully she said that, “You sound pretty sure of yourself there.”
“Well of course. I have a plan.”
That threw him some. “You…have a plan?”
She nodded. “Mmm-hmm.”
“You have a plan right now to usurp the Princesses, take over Equestria, and rule the country with an iron hoof?”
“I have a plan for everything, Spike. Even that. Just in case.”
“…Just in case you turn evil and want to take over the world…?”
“Yes. At least I’ll have a well formulated plan already thought out, and I won’t have to waste any time developing one. My coup will be swift and ruthless. I predict an eighty-seven percent success rate.”
He merely looked at her, an eyebrow raised.
And she smiled at him.
Neither moved.
He set his eyebrow back down in its usual spot.
“You know what? I don’t even care if that’s true or not. I’m more scared by the fact I honestly don’t know if you’re being serious than by the chance that you might kill us all one day.”
“I am always serious, Spike. Seriously.” Her face was flat. For once, she managed to not betray the slightest hint of her true emotions. Spike really could not tell if she was being truthful or not. Celestia must’ve been giving her lessons.
“Well… Do you have a plan in case I turn evil and go on a rampage or something?”
“Sure. Ever since the last time you did that.”
Silence.
“…And? What is it?”
“I can’t tell you. That would spoil it. You can’t know.”
He would concede her that.
“What about Applejack then? What if she turns evil? Or Mister and Missus Cake?”
Twilight chuckled lightly. “Rest assured, Spike, I have a plan for any apple or cake-related disasters that may occur. I have a plan for just about everything. Just in case.”
Spike did not doubt that she had plenty of contingency plans for any sort of scenario that may crop up. In fact, he knew that she did. But, to him, the question was just how many plans she could possibly have.
And on that, he wasn’t sure.
Twilight Sparkle liked planning things out in advance.
Maybe she really did have a plan to take over Equestria if the need ever arose.
He honestly did not know.
But Spike the Dragon was perfectly fine not knowing things.
So he dropped the matter entirely as another thought occurred to him.
He held up a finger, waggling it in the air. “But you don’t have a plan in case an alternate version of yourself ever appears here! You just said that a few minutes ago!”
She shrugged in agreement. “Yeah, you’ve got me there. I’ll have to do some brainstorming when I get back home.” Her eyes drifted over the stacks of books on sprawled across the table. “Whenever that is.”
The conversation fell back into a more serious territory now.
“Geez, yeah…” Here, he looked at her, as if just seeing her again for the first time. “You know, I just completely forgot you’re from a different universe. I’ve done that a couple times now. You’d think I’d remember that.”
“I know what you mean. Everything’s so similar here that I have to keep reminding myself that this actually isn’t my home.” She gently placed the previous book she’d been reading, ‘A Practical Guide of Princess Luna’s Night Sky in the Modern Age,’ back on one of the piles beside her. “It might as well be, though, since it seems like it’s pretty much identical. I wasn’t able to find a single difference…”
He hummed in thought. “That’s just so weird. You would think that there’d be something different.”
“I know.” She paused, and then slipped into a more academic tone. “I mean, we’re only assuming that based off a fairly small sample size. Maybe the vast majority of alternate universes are only slightly different from one another. Maybe in one I had toast instead of oatmeal for breakfast this morning. Maybe it’s presumptuous to assume that any alternate universe we visit would be so incredibly different. Statistically, that would make sense.”
“If you say so, yeah.”
She didn’t respond, now lost in thought about the implications of such a thing. Maybe they had just gotten incredibly lucky with the amount of extreme deviance they had seen in other universes. That would be a big coincidence, but, then again, what wasn’t in her life these days?
And regardless, she supposed, not everything that happened to her had to be some grand adventure. Not everything was wrapped up nicely at the end.
This was proof of that.
Whatever the difference was in this universe seemed to be incredibly subtle.
And it was infuriating.
So completely infuriating.
She wanted to know.
Spike spoke up, breaking her away from her thoughts. “So then, Alternate Twilight, what’s next?”
She sighed at the question. “I don’t know, Spike. I’m about ready to just go back home. As unfortunate as it may be, I don’t think I’ll be able to figure out what’s different. At least, not without a lot more resources and time that I just don’t have. I think we’ll have to chalk this up as ‘unknown.’”
Spike let loose a deep yawn and smacked his lips. “Should I go get the book then?”
Twilight nodded, and Spike leapt down from his chair and scurried off to one of the many shelves in the library.
See, since she first began interacting with alternate universes, Twilight had started keeping a small log of what each one was and the differences when compared to her base reality.
It wasn’t a terribly large record. There were only less than fifteen entries, but Twilight had really been hoping to be able to add to it today. She wanted to figure out where the timelines had diverged.
Though, little did she know, that the timelines had never diverged because they had never been one, singular stream in the first place. Instead, the two universes had simply run parallel to each other, one just slightly to the left, or slightly to the right depending on how you viewed it.
Spike came back with the book and placed on the table, in somewhat of a different spot than Twilight had been expecting. He opened it up to the first page, which was only barely half full. They simply hadn’t been to that many alternate universes.
But, this one would be their very first ‘unknown’ entry.
“You want to do the honors?” She held up a quill for him to take.
He took it. “Sure.” And in the first column, he wrote ‘ALTERNATE UNIVERSE #12,’ and then next to it, ‘UNKNOWN DIFFERENCES.’
“There,” he said, and slid the book over to Twilight. “Look good?”
Her eyes lingered on the line of words for only a few moments, somewhat saddened that they had to be written at all. “As good as it can be, unfortunately.” Above that entry were the others, all significantly more detailed than the newest one. The universe where King Sombra and the Crystal Empire was warring with Equestria, and the universe where Nightmare Moon reigned eternal, among others.
She took a deep breath and stood up, leaving the book on the table. “Come on, Spike. It’s time for me to go home.”
And so, together, they walked back down to the Throne Room.
Back to the Cutie Map.
Twilight went forward into the room, skillfully navigating past the thrones, as they were where she knew them to be. Spike, of course, expected them to be slightly more to the left, and walked into one of them, accidently stubbing one of his toes rather hard.
As he hopped in place, clutching at his foot, as if that would help stem the pain, Twilight began preparing the spell that would bring her back to her original universe.
That only took three seconds.
She turned to Spike, who cursed under his breath, angrily glared at Rainbow Dash’s throne, and informed it that it would regret the day it had hurt him. Twilight snickered at that, but didn’t say anything.
“Well, Spike, I guess this is it.” She smiled gently at him. “You have a lovely universe here. Glad I got to visit it.”
“Yeah. This was… well, I wouldn’t say fun, but it was definitely eventful. Maybe next time this happens, you just leave me out of it and I can spend the day relaxing instead? How about that?”
“Oh hush, you.” She quickly scooped him in for a hug. “I’ll let you take it easy tomorrow, alright? You deserve it after today.”
“Really?”
She nodded. “Of course. Or, at least, I will. I don’t speak for your Twilight, though. She may not let you off so easily.”
“Oh.” His deflated some. “I didn’t think of that.”
“Don’t worry.” She ruffled the spines atop his head. “I’m sure she will. We’re exactly the same, after all.” And then added, “Apparently.”
They smiled at each other.
And with that, it was time.
“Goodbye, Spike. See you again in a minute.”
“See ya, Other Twi. Say hi to Other Spike for me.” He gave her a curt wave.
“Will do.”
Twilight’s horn sprung to life as she cast the spell.
In an instant, there was a flash, a bang, and a swirling vortex appeared above the Cutie Map.
The portal back to her home reality.
With one final glance at the Spike here, Twilight unfurled her wings and leapt into the portal, which immediately pulled her into its maw, carrying her away.
She was gone.
There was a brief moment where nothing at all happened.
Spike stared up at the portal, unsure what exactly to do.
Another moment passed.
Nothing happened.
Spike grimaced, worry starting to flutter in his chest. Should something be happening right now?
He didn’t know.
Another moment.
And then, without any sort of fanfare or warning, another Twilight Sparkle appeared out of thin air, just slightly to the right of where the previous one had been.
This universe’s Twilight had come home.
She blinked.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~
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I smell a sequel. An alternate universe where Pinkie Pie wore a different color hat three weeks ago.
lol, Twilight saw the differences, she just didn't notice them...
Oh Twily.
Nice job!
7727629 That'd be a great sequel.
7727629
7728725
One of my initial ideas for this story was an alternate universe where Twilight had something different for breakfast that morning, like oats instead of toast. There's plenty of alternate universes out there with equally mundane differences. I could do one where everything is the same, except the color blue is called 'jeel' instead. Or one where someone went and got a haircut a whole ten minutes earlier than they did in another timeline. The possibilities are literally endless.
7729224 That they are. That they are...
this chapter made me think of how Batman tries to plan for everything.
offhand, i can only think of ONE thing he could NOT make a good plan for: if Wonder Woman turned evil.
his best plan was for Superman to deal with her.
he also had a plan for if HE turned evil. he never SAID what it was, he just gave Superman a box. Superman looked into it and was QUITE shocked. it's still a mystery.