"I'm afraid you are not permitted here." Gudrun frowned at the alicorn and her earth pony cohort.
Applejack took a step forward. "Sez who? We're here on official business. You can't jus' toss us out."
"I am quite qualified to do just that." Gudrun rose up to her paws, talons moving into a ready position. "You are on the doctor's black list."
Twilight held up a hoof quickly. "Everypony calm down. Now, ma'am, you may not recognize m--"
"I do."
Twilight cleared her throat. "Besides being on your doctor's blacklist. I am Princess Twilight Sparkle, and while I don't like title-dropping, this is an important matter. We must speak to that pony."
Gudrun raised a brow. "Princess of what? Manehattan only recognizes one princess that I am aware of, and you are small and... purple, rather than large and white."
Applejack thrust a hoof at Twilight. "You never heard of her?!"
"No," stated Gudrun flatly. "Are you leaving now or must I escort you from the building?"
"Ah'd like ta see ya try!"
Fetlock trembled softly. She could hear the spirited argument between Twilight, her first client, and Gudrun. She had thought she had more time! She had hoped she would have more warning.
She looked towards her equipment through her fallen mane that she was in no state to blow away properly. All her work, her progress... She'd gotten better! She'd made lives happier...
She flinched as she heard something thump. She wouldn't add that to her crimes. She frantically opened the door with her magic and rushed towards the front. "Wait!" The door slammed shut in her face in a flash of pain as her snout collided with it.
"What's the matter, doc?" asked a mocking but familiar tone.
"The other yous reacted the same way when their shit came home t' roost," came the same voice, but from across the room.
"One Shot, One Chance," spoke the voice from directly behind the doctor.
She squealed and spun to find Vinyl Scratch leering at her with unwholesome intent. "Boo."
The new Vinyl didn't have the warm musical nature that had practically suffused the pony that went home with Robert. This one felt much less kind. "Funny thing. The chance one of me could overpower you? Maybe one in a billion. But you morons got us all crashing in a pile." She took a slow step forward. "Eventually, I won the lotto."
"I-impossible! Finding your way back..."
"Another lotto won. Enough of me, enough tries, we found you." Vinyl sudden kicked out a fore-hoof, knocking the terrified doctor over like a rag doll. "I promised you'd watch your world burn."
"Why do you keep saying we?" Fetlock scrambled up to her hooves and backed away from the Vinyl, even as she was pursued. "Stop following me! You're still a new unicorn, I'll send you away again!"
"Try it," invited the Vinyl as she prowled after the doctor leisurely. "Go on, hit me with your best."
Fetlock did just that, the magic shaking on her horn in her building terror. Vinyl popped away with a cruel laughter, just for another of her to appear a few feet to the left, and another equally distant to the right.
Both smiled confidently. "You don't get it. Tha's alright. All you need to do right now, is be hurt."
Gudrun's head cocked to the side a little. She was dangling Applejack in the air at that moment. "I have to go." She dropped Applejack to the ground and rushed towards the simple door the led into the back.
Twilight blinked a moment before she rushed after the griffon, even if she did sport a new bruise right over her eye that would likely turn black later. "Wait!"
Gudrun paid neither of the mares any mind as she wrenched open the door and her eyes went wide.
Applejack rushed up right between her legs and peered inside. "What the hay is... goin' on?" Her words slowed as she beheld a half dozen DJ Pon3's all trashing the room. One was busily smashing a chair against the floor, battering what might have once been an arcane drawing with powerful strokes of her magically wielded furniture.
Another had a cheery bonfire going and was tossing in books and papers with wild abandon.
Two were beside Fetlock, pummeling her. They all seemed rather happy every time the doctor let out a bleat of pain.
The last two were facing the front and began stepping forward to meet the new members of the party. "Glad you could make it," said one of them. "The doctor's no fun."
Gudrun glanced left and right as she advanced. There was some hesitation in her movements, but none in her eyes. She was ready to battle.
A can of bug spray came speeding at her head, only to be caught and sent back at the Vinyl that had thrown it. It exploded mid-air in a cloud of dangerous chemicals. The battle was on.
Applejack glanced at Twilight before she scurried in to join the fray. Fetlock looked like she was being beaten senseless. Bad pony or not, she didn't deserve that.
Twilight was in silent agreement, vanishing just to appear beside Fetlock. The two Vinyls on the doctor looked up at her. "Sheet," one of them announced just before Twilight exploded with magic, propelling the two away just long enough to grab Fetlock and vanish again, appearing just outside the room.
Fetlock was sobbing piteously. "None of this was what I wanted. I just... Ponies are happier now."
Twilight patted her once on the head. "Stay here, we have a problem to handle first."
Applejack and Gudrun were proving capable warriors, punching and kicking at the Vinyls. However, each time a truly telling blow was landed, that Vinyl faded away, only for a fresh one to appear. It was a war of attrition, and one side seemed to be immune to it.
Gudrun staggered forward under the unexpected weight of a newly-appeared Vinyl on her back. The break of stance was good enough to let another slip in and drive a hoof into her gut, forcing a pained wheeze from the griffon.
Twilight stayed back, muttering to herself as she tried to figure out what was going on. "That's it!" she cried, drawing looks from all the Vinyls that stared at her with equal intensity. Twilight took half a step back. Together, they stepped towards her.
Applejack tackled one to the ground, but the other five came in a thunder of clopping hooves.
Twilight's mouth widened in fear, but she tried to keep herself calm enough. Intense magic began gathering in her horn, but she wasn't sure she could cast it fast enough. One Vinyl jumped at her, but Gudrun was there, recovered. The griffon's fist slammed into the false Vinyls cheek and sent the simulacrum crashing to the ground.
"None pass me," she challenged, glaring at the others.
It was enough time. Even as Gudrun began to crumple under the combined efforts of the mob, Twilight felt the spell click into place and a wave of purple magic washed free of her in all directions.
Each Vinyl spat out a very unkind word unfit for reproduction before the wave hit them, and they vanished much like they had done when struck well enough. The trick was that they did not return. Peace had been returned.
Applejack let out a loud huff, sore and bruised. "Now that's a tussle t' remember. Shoot, didn't think there was no end of 'em."
Gudrun pointed out. "Thank you for your timely assistance. As you can see, we are now closed for repairs. Thank you."
Fetlock let out a pained little laugh as she slowly forced herself up to her haunches. "T-thank you, Gudrun, thank you... It's alright..."
Twilight turned to face Fetlock. "Are you okay?"
Fetlock winced faintly. "Aren't you going to jail me, or maybe banish me?" She blew her mane free of her eyes. "Maybe both?"
Applejack slowly emerged from the devastated room. "Ah'd be happy with some answers."
Twilight quickly nodded. "Let's start there. I didn't come here to banish or arrest you, but this has to stop. Who were they? I mean, besides DJ-Pon3."
Fetlock sank a little, then began to tell her tale. There were many cases, but many of her notes were consumed in flames. Of those that were left, she was able to accurately explain six of them. "This is case number six." She sighed softly. "My last case, I imagine."
Applejack poked Fetlock gently. "Ya know, ya kinda brought this las' one on yerself."
Fetlock flinched. "You don't think I know that?" Her eyes moved to Twilight. "You can see it, the notes. I made happiness here, I really did. It's my purpose." She weakly gestured back at her cutie mark, even if it had been defiled with markers by the malicious clones.
Twilight raised a brow high. "While you did manage some good, you also caused incalculable damage to other worlds. Those ponies aren't coming out of nothing. Even if we disregard the morality of each particular case, there's the simple matter of mass conservation that is being entirely ignored. You're unbalancing our universes!"
Fetlock blinked softly. "The mass of a pony can't amount to much compared to the entire universe."
Twilight began droning on about how things worked. It was long, technical, dry, and wickedly complex. The important part was that the minute changes made minute charges and the two universes would pull at each other a little. "It won't do anything today, this year, or even this century, but given enough time..."
Applejack rubbed behind her head. "Ya got the short version ah that?"
Twilight applied a hoof to her face. "Imagine two universes crashing into one another, eventually."
Fetlock sank to the ground on her belly. "I can't put them back."
Twilight nodded. "I realize that, but you can stop this, right now."
Gudrun huffed softly. "Am I being terminated?"
Fetlock shuddered and began to cry quietly, defeated.
Applejack gave the downed doctor a gentle pat. "There there, ah'm sure we can find somethin' else fer ya."
Twilight tapped at her chin thoughtfully. "Why don't you do what you've been doing, just without the dimensional magic?"
Fetlock looked up at Twilight. "What?"
Twilight held two hooves up and brought them together slowly. "Help ponies find other ponies."
Fetlock slowly sat up. "But... How?"
Gudrun shrugged softly. "Pardon me, doctor, but I've heard of similar services."
Applejack nodded in agreement. "Yeah, ya could be a private eye, or a match maker."
Twilight smiled gently. "I think the latter is closer to what you were already trying to do. Let ponies submit their profiles to you, then find two ponies that can fulfill one another." She pointed at the cutie mark on Fetlock's flank. "You can--"
"Fill those holes," whispered out Fetlock as she sat up. "Y-yes, of course."
Twilight held up one hoof. "No more using that spell though, you have to promise."
"I promise," swore Fetlock, her ears off to either side. "Sorry for leading you on a merry chase."
Twilight huffed. "You're good at running. We couldn't find you anywhere until we came back to Manehattan and saw an advertisement right there in the paper."
Applejack tipped her head. "Big Mac n' the rest are gonna be plenty sore at me for takin' so long. Ya got this in hoof, Twi?" Twilight nodded, so Applejack got to trotting off towards the train station to get herself home.
The thing about probablity space is that it contains all possible outcomes, including any and all outcomes that personally dislike you. Infinity is not a toy.
Also, Manehattan doesn't recognize Luna or Cadence? I'm not sure if Gudrun is horribly out of the loop or just deliberately obtuse. I'm leaning towards the latter, but you never know.
As for the chapter itself, that was rather abrupt. And it seems more than a little ridiculous that a pony turned to extradimensional abduction when she would've been satisfied with running a matchmaking service.
I can't help but feel you're cutting this off too soon, starving the story of fresh ideas. I do look forward to seeing the further ramifications of the other cases, but you may regret removing Fetlock this early. I suppose we'll see in time.
The doctor is already out of business?
Aww.
I wouldn't really be opposed to any of those... but if they're in a shared universe with Silver things they could fade into the weird happenings of the world and show up eventually.
looks
towards
7805118 Fix'd.
Also, I expected that, like the other chapters, this one named "Twilight Sparkle" would end with making a duplicate of her. Evil fake Vinyl showing up made me wonder if they would wind up killing Twilight and realizing she's too important to not have... or possibly making a new one to contest Twilight.
7805282 How many humans were dislocated to make all those 'vinyl' copies? (bad pun intended, guilty as charged, lock me up)
7805347 Technically just one human displaced repeatedly over infinite probability.
7805353 Multiple universe collapse.
7805353
7805362 There are countless Fetlocks that banished countless humans and made a big pile of ticked off Vinyl Scratches.
That was an ingeniously dirty causality trick there, good show evil-Scratch!
Lucky Twilight found them isn't it?
So long as she equally-transfers them, why not keep using dimension magic? Sure the target gets swapped out for a load of dirt, but it shouldn't destabilize the system that much, right?
Keep going! ;)
She thought - She had thought
would have had moreĀ - would have had more
join the frey - join the fray
- this could also be a clever pun given that Frey is a Norse god and Gudrun is a Norse/Germanic name.
Twilight pat her - Twilight patted her
newly-appearing - newly-appeared
I'm glad that the Doctor was able to survive the consequences of her actions when they came a'callin', and perhaps we'll get to learn more about her in the future.
As for next projects, does Gudrun have a story to be told and paths to follow? She seems interesting for all that we know less about her than we do about the good Doctor.
Barring that, I would not complain to see more of Richard and find out if he grows into a happier and more mature character now that he has his Vinyl Scratch.
I'll bet there's a spell for that if recovering them is important to Princess Twilight, and the ashes weren't scattered too badly.
My goodness, I didn't realize it was that kind of story!
7805718 A little music, I think would be in order to put her motivations in perspective:
7805718 Typos used to balance the universes out, a little. How was the action? No one is telling me.
7806137
The action was solid. There were no wasted words and I never had to stop and figure out what was happening.
7805718 But it was almost this:
"One chance, one shot, that's all any of us ever got"
For one moment she saw all the lyrics of her life, before she was thrown away.
That closure felt a bit abrupt, but it's a solid ending.
As for where to go, I'd personally love to see how Aqua tirned out. Following the good Vinyl would be great too. Or pretty much anything else... you seem to excel at creating interesting characters.
See, this could have been dragged out for years if the doctor hadn't picked Applejack's brother first. And if the doctor had the guts to unmake that Vinyl. As for the matter problem, come on, seriously? Send a 90kg pile of industrial waste in the other direction. Balance restored! No problem, right? And that way our universe would collide with the ponies' one twice as fast! >:D