That’s It. I Give Up. I’m Leaving.
Pinkie Pie ran screaming out of the library, charging through the streets shouting, “Everypony panic! Run for your lives! Abandon ship abandon ship! Evacuate the city! Evaaaacuuuuaaaaate!”
Her headlong gallop was abruptly stopped when she came face to face with a uniformed member of the town police. The mare glared Pinkie Pie to a halt, and Pinkie shrunk back, smiling abashedly, saying, “Whoops, sorry!”
Then Pinkie Pie ran past her, charging through the streets whispering respectfully and quietly, “Everypony panic! Run for your lives! Abandon—” something snagged her tail.
Pinkie Pie looked back, and it was the policepony again, biting her tail. Greenish fur with bright blue hair under her cap, she was an eveningpony Pinkie didn’t see around often. Nutmeg was her name, if Pinkie recalled. (Pinkie recalled, by the way.) While Pinkie Pie stood there staring innocently at Officer Nutmeg, the mare looked back at her in puzzlement. Nutmeg asked in a somewhat nasal manner of speaking, “Is there a problem?”
Pinkie’s eyes widened, and she nodded frantically, saying, “Yes, there’s a huge, superrifically scary and not good problem!”
She made to run off then but the officer grabbed Pinkie Pie’s shoulder and pulled her back to face her again, saying, “Wait!”
Pinkie waited, and the officer gave her another appraising look, saying in a less than impressed voice, “It sure would be nice if there were somepony whose job is to deal with problems, who you might want to talk to instead of running screaming—or whispering—through the streets in a panic.”
“Boy would it!” Pinkie declared hopefully, “You wouldn’t happen to know anypony—” Pinkie Pie blinked, staring at the officer. “Ohh,” she realized, fidgeting nervously, “Right.”
Taking the officer’s cheeks in her hooves, Pinkie said, “You have to help me find my friend you know the princess Twilight who has been having trouble lately and isn’t doing so well and she may have gone a wee bit cuckoo when we weren’t looking again and I need to find Rainbow Dash or we’ll end up fighting giant hydras again or worse so if you could just go and tell the other police ponies that there is a purple alert I would really appreciate it because then I wouldn’t have to run through the streets panicking and waking everypony up even though they probably should be awake in case she tries to cure ponies from laughing at something in a context she doesn’t understand... again!”
Taking her face back to herself, Nutmeg squinted at Pinkie Pie, saying, “Come again now?”
“Tell the police there is a purple alert,” Pinkie Pie repeated, “I need to go find my friends.”
“A...” Nutmeg’s warm amber irises shrunk as she said, “By purple alert you mean... the princess?”
Pinkie Pie nodded, saying, “It is a super big time doozy of a purple alert. You might want to run.” Then she took off for the highlands as fast as her hoofsies could carry her.
Rainbow Dash was over by the lake when Pinkie got there, which is to say Rainbow Dash’s house had drifted over by the lake. Pinkie saw the darkening cloud in the dimming evening light, and scooted to a halt, pulling out a megaphone.
“Rainbow Dash are you asleep???” she asked projecting her voice as loudly as she possibly could. There was a scream and a small explosion of cloudstuff right around where Rainbow Dash’s bedroom would be. Pinkie Pie couldn’t suppress a giggle.
“Pinkie Pie, what is your problem?!” Rainbow Dash shouted, suddenly in Pinkie’s face. “Are you trying to wake up half of Ponyville?”
“Nope,” Pinkie said curtly to her rainbow friend, “I’m trying to wake up all of Ponyville. Twilight is doing it again.”
“What’s she doing?” the pegasus asked, flapping back a little less antagonistically to listen to Pinkie.
“Twilightsecretlydugoutaholeinthe—” Pinkie babbled, before Rainbow Dash stuffed a hoof in her mouth and said,
“No wait. Slowly.”
“Twilight secretly dug out a hole in the wall of the library’s basement,” Pinkie explained slowlyer, but still pretty quickly, “Deep inside it, she’s been plotting a scheme so crazy, even I can’t understand it! Except that Twilight blames Rosy Pink for everything. Twilight snuck away while nopony was looking just now, and we don’t know where she is, or what she’s doing.” Pinkie pulled the burnt horn suppressor out of her space and presented it to Rainbow Dash on an upturned hoof, “Also this.”
“W-what?” Rainbow Dash said stunned, staring at the suppressor, “But she was... she was getting better!”
“Tell that to her plot hole,” Pinkie replied glumly, “Now we gotta get the others, and... I already told the police to raise a purple alert. And then we figure out what to do.”
The rising sound of distant sirens drifting through the air from Ponyville added veracity to Pinkie Pie’s claim, not that Rainbow Dash ever doubted her. “Great,” Dash groaned, “I’ll go get AJ, and you get Rarity and Fluttershy. Do you have any idea where Twilight might be?”
Pinkie gestured with the burned out horn suppressor.
“Right, forget I asked,” Rainbow Dash said, facehoofing. She blasted off without another word, and Pinkie Pie went heading in a different direction, not a measurable amount slower than her friend. Fluttershy was already heading to meet with Rarity when Pinkie Pie intercepted her. See the order they decided on was Fluttershy finds Rarity, then she and Rarity find Pinkie Pie, so Pinkie just shortcutted the process.
“Fluttershy!” she shouted, making the butter yellow pegasus squeal and leap into the bushes. Wincing, Pinkie Pie approached the bushes, whispering, “Fluttershy! It’s me, Pinkie Pie!”
“Oh Pinkie,” the bushes said tearfully, “I heard sirens, and ponies running, and I was trying to find Rarity, but I don’t know what’s happening!”
Pinkie inhaled, taking in a big, deep breath.
“Twilight is doing it again,” Pinkie said, holding a hoof out to the bushes, “C’mon, let’s go find Rarity!”
Fluttershy crept out of the bushes, and Pinkie smiled brightly, glad to see her friend was okay. Fluttershy may have smiled (a little bit), and gesturing broadly, Pinkie Pie hurried them both on their way. The streets were mostly empty when they got into Ponyville. Doors were barred and shutters shut. Dressed in a very fetching violet evening cloak, with a sparkling diamond brooch, Rarity was already talking with the town watch when Pinkie and Fluttershy arrived.
“Oh thank heavens,” Rarity said in relief, pulling back her hood upon seeing those two approach. What was under it wasn’t nearly so well thought out, as Rarity herself looked extremely stressed and positively disarrayed. “Have you seen Twilight anywhere?” she asked them hopefully.
Pinkie gestured with the burned out horn suppressor.
“What did she do to that thing?” Rarity exclaimed in horror, “I didn’t even know you could burn out horn blockers!”
“Maybe she held it up to a candle?” Pinkie Pie shrugged.
“Oh dear,” Rarity continued heedlessly, not even entertaining that idea, “This means she could be anywhere!” Why, she could be in Canterlot by now! Or Las—well, Las Pegasus is a bit of a way, but she could be well on her way to Las Pegasus, to enact some dire revenge against the innocent inhabitants of the city who wronged her! That noble prison guard could be in trouble this very minute!”
“Let’s get to the library,” Pinkie said nervously, “Maybe Rainbow Dash has seen her, when she was going to get Applejack.”
“But Applejack isn’t in Las Pegasus, is she?” Rarity asked in confusion.
Pinkie groaned, and just dragged her two friends along with, until they were all running side by side.
“What took you three?” Rainbow Dash asked as they ran up, “We can’t find Twilight anywhere!”
Rarity continued to babble frantically, “What if she’s gone to awaken the dreaded Ursa Minor, to enact some dire revenge against the innocent cows who—”
Then Applejack trotted up and plugged her mouth, saying, “We cain’t assume the worst just yet, Rares. This is Twilight we’re talking about. Even crazy, she’s gonna stay sensible.” She released Rarity, who stepped back somewhat mollified. “Now what’s goin’ on with Twilight now?” AJ asked around.
“Everypony, follow me!” Pinkie announced anxiously, running into the library. Down in the basement, she showed them the piles of books and boxes. Checking inside a box, Applejack asked in confusion, “Why are all these boxes filled up with dirt?”
“Back here,” Pinkie said, crawling into the book hole, “Come on, it’s the only clue I’ve got!”
It was a little tight, but they all managed to fit in Twilight’s secret hole. The princess hadn’t dug it out very large before covering the walls with diagrams and mysterious equations. Rarity took one look at the frighteningly frenetic black scratches all over and fainted, but nopony really noticed asides Applejack moving her rump to catch her friend from falling.
“Land sakes,” Applejack said as Rarity leaned heavily against her, the cowpony taking off her hat at the sight of it, “What is goin’ on with that mare?”
“It’s hard to say,” Pinkie replied, pointing at the part that said, “ROSY PINK,” “There’s only one part of it that’s legible!”
“She’s probably created another language again,” Rainbow Dash said, squinting at the diagrams, “It’s kinda mixed up, but it’s definitely some sort of contingency plan.”
“What do you mean?” Pinkie asked worriedly.
“Well Twilight has really terrible mouthwriting,” Rainbow Dash said, “But this part here looks kinda flowcharty, and this over here’s a checklist, with everything checked off except uhh... circle twiddle square ex twiddle tee brace, whatever that means. So she’s probably trying to figure out what to do about Rosy Pi—”
“This horrible penmanship!” Rarity cried out in distress, reviving from where she draped across Applejack’s back, “You cannot tell an ‘R’ from a ‘P’! How did we let her go for so long in such distress? We simply must get her a decent mouthwriting instructor!”
“I think we got bigger worries than mouthwritin’” Applejack said disgustedly.
“Oh, yes of course,” Rarity said, blushing.
“Didn’t she destroy her horn protector?” Fluttershy said worriedly, from where she was hiding behind Applejack’s tail, “Why would she use mouthwriting if her horn was working again?”
“Yeah, how long has she been working on this?” Rainbow Dash asked, her wings spreading worriedly, “She had to have dug this out by hoof!”
“Let’s—uh,” Applejack said, lifting a hoof to push Rainbow Dash’s wing out of her face, a bit hindered with Rarity still draped across her back, “Let’s reconnoiter outside an’ try to figgur out what to do. Kinda crowded in here.”
The oneun friends shuffled out of the library, into the long shadows outside the tree. As orange as a sunset, a farm pony named Applejack shook her head cluelessly, getting an understanding look from the others. “Where would she go?” Rarity spoke at last, “There’s been no news of Rosy Pink, no new sightings, no evidence of anything!”
“Maybe we should just... throw out idears of where she’d have gone,” Applejack said, “It cain’t hurt to share ‘em. Maybe one pony’s stupid idea’s a smart one in’n’nother.”
“She can’t be in the library,” Pinkie Pie asserted, “I searched high and low, and I even found her secret passage, but Twilight was nowhere to be seen. She has to be somewhere else. Otherwise, why did she break her horn thingy?”
“As much as I want to avoid unhelpful hysteria,” Rarity said, pausing and glancing around at the others. “...what? I do! And I think Las Pegasus is starting to sound like a distinct possibility. It’s the last place we saw Rosy Pink, and it may be that Twilight is desperate enough to look again.”
“Maybe she’s in Canterlot,” Fluttershy suggested, “And she left because she had something really important to tell the princesses!”
“Wouldn’t she at least leave us a note, then?” Pinkie Pie asked. The others muttered vague assent to that.
“Oh, I know!” Rainbow Dash shot up, saying, “Maybe she’s at—”
“The Rift!”
Smiling, Dash turned and said, “Yeah that’s what I was gonna—woah, mare. What happened to you?”
The coal blue mare in question was dressed in what was left of a white labcoat, shredded with black smoky holes, along with her flaxen mane and tail. She looked like there was something heavy weighing her down, despite carrying nothing on her back, and her fur glistened with the sheen of sweat. “She’s at the Rift!” the mare squealed shrilly, fear in her violet eyes, “The princess did something to everypony! Nopony could move a muscle! My friend is still back there—you have to stop her!”
“That’s Twilight’s Stop spell,” Rainbow Dash said to the panicking mare, “Don’t worry it wears off as soon as she gets tired.”
“What happened, dear?” Rarity asked the mare with deepest concern, “And how did you escape that spell?”
“M-my friend, she teleported me as far as she could,” the mare said miserably, “I think I’m the only one who got out. You have to help—what if the princess is coming after me?!”
“Then your friends are free,” Rarity replied easily, “It’s no sort of dark magic. It’s just a spell, and as powerful as she is, Twilight can’t cover a whole town in it.”
“But she can cover us in it,” Rainbow Dash retorted, “How are we even supposed to get close to her without her slapping it on us instead?”
“What if you go so fast, you can hit her before she even sees you!” Pinkie Pie suggested.
Rainbow Dash shook her head saying, “Twilight could get hurt. I’m not gonna do that.” Then a lightbulb went off and she looked at Pinkie again saying, “You could sneak up on her though!”
“I could?” Pinkie replied a trifle uneasily.
“You did before!” Rainbow Dash crowed, “So now you just do your... sneaky thing, and get Twilight’s horn disabled, and the rest of us can swoop in and save her. Stop her. Whatever.”
“How did things get so frightful with Twilight?” Rarity asked with a frustrated sigh.
“Well I dunno,” Rainbow Dash grumbled, “But I don’t care what she says. There is no way that it has anything to do with Rosy Pink.”
The Rift site was completely silent, save for the pleasant humming of one mare. The waning sun cast warmly over the tents and buildings, none of them even ruffling in the wind. A sparkling magenta glow covered everything and everypony, who were all mostly staring in horror in the direction of the Rift, frozen in place save for the soft puffs of breath in the air, eye movement in some, and head movement in a few. Those few had a mouth zipper spell to keep them from disturbing the princess’s progress.
Pinkie Pie had a really really bad feeling about this. Everypony thought Pinkie Pie was some kind of superpony, but Pinkie didn’t even know if she was a pony, or if she was some kind of ponylike alien who’d fallen from the sky in a rocket ship from her doomed planet, only to be lovingly raised by her family despite her weird powers manifesting. She was pretty sure that wasn’t true, but it’s not like her family was around anymore to ask them.
They thought she was some kind of superpony, but Pinkie Pie frankly felt like she was just faking it all the time, barely scraping by when everypony thought she’d cleared it by a mile. She could sneak up on the purple princess, maybe more than anypony else, but it wasn’t that simple, or sure, even for Pinkie Pie.
The wind caressed her round, pink curves as she shifted herself left and right to adjust the trajectory of the kite she was strapped to. Pinkie Pie didn’t think that was anything special, but apparently not many ponies had ever gone on an adventure where they had to learn to descend silently from the sky strapped to a giant kite. Really it wasn’t anything Rainbow Dash couldn’t do, and Dashie didn’t even need a kite!
Ponies didn’t understand just how scared Pinkie Pie got, and it was her own fault really. Her heart was in her chest when she tried to soothe the leaves of the trees rushing beneath her hooves, begging them to stay silent while Pinkie Pie slipped past them to land delicately on a tree branch, leaving the kite to soar away on its own to a safe distance.
If anypony had asked her if she was okay, Pinkie would have just smiled, laughed, cracked a joke, anything to keep them from seeing her in distress. She knew that was wrong, but it was something that just happened to her every time, like a weird sort of reflex, like how Fluttershy still had to deal with her fear of crowds, even after having overcome them. With nopony around though, only her target in sight, Pinkie Pie was free to feel fear.
She wrapped her arms around the branch, keeping the stiff pink hooves from clonking on the wood, and keeping the rough bark pressed firmly against her round tummy. Pinkie whispered not so much a formal spell, but just a hope that she wouldn’t be noticed. “If I fall into your eyes, forget before you realize.” Then she let herself slip off the branch and descended swiftly to the ground.
Pinkie Pie stopped a little bit above the ground, before slowly descending the last few inches through the air. That was actually a trick Applejack taught her, though Applejack used it to keep the apples falling into their baskets, and it was Pinkie’s idea to use it to soften her landing. Something about the spacey stuff and folding it, really Pinkie was just mimicking what Applejack did.
It let her land silently though, even in the extreme quiet of the Stop spell. Twilight hadn’t seen her yet, Pinkie Pie knew for sure. If Twilight ever saw Pinkie Pie, she could immediately cast that spell on her, or bind her in magic rope, or any number of things. The first rule of combat with unicorns is that once their horn is lit, you lose. Pinkie Pie couldn’t afford to lose though, and Twilight was a princess now, not a unicorn, so it totally was going to work.
Plus Twilight was kinda bad at combat.
Sneaking up on the princess when Pinkie had reached the earth was easy peasy. Twilight was paying attention to the containment vessel surrounding the Rift and mumbling to herself. Her horn was shining brightly with the accumulated spells she was maintaining. Even with a completely fresh magic reserve, even Twilight couldn’t keep up a casting like this for long. Five, ten minutes, and her horn would flicker and darken, unable to channel any more magic, kinda like when you tried to swim and your leg got a charlie horse, except in a horn and totally different, according to unicorns.
The containment vessel cracked open. Pinkie Pie couldn’t wait. Silent as a wraith, she was seen by some frozen ponies on her approach behind the princess, but they couldn’t, or didn’t speak. This was the moment of truth. It was all up to Pinkie Pie. Twilight was pouring her magical light directly into the Rift which was growing angry red again, and the princess had to be stopped. Pinkie Pie had to get the princess down so that her friends could rush in and assist, and the day could be saved. One slip and she’d fail, but Pinkie Pie knew she wasn’t going to slip up. Her knee wasn’t even pinchy.
Of course... there was no Pinkie Sense for when your Pinkie Sense failed.
Pinkie Pie’s swift, decisive kick to the back of Twilight’s head hit a sparkling magenta shield that suddenly appeared as Pinkie Pie’s hoof struck it. “Aha!” Twilight declared, starting to turn around, “I thought you might—” Pinkie jumped on her from behind, desperately grappling for Twilight’s horn. It was like licking a rainbow, except with your hoof. “Let... go!” Twilight shouted, and then Pinkie Pie wasn’t. She kicked out and she was again, only a few meters distant from where Twilight had started to teleport her. Pinkie Pie would hate to have popped out miles away in Ponyville, that’s for sure!
Rainbow Dash took the opportunity to dive bomb Twilight, while Pinkie Pie looked frantically around for a stick in this bare, meticulously cleaned science crater. Her—her party space! She had a megaphone, a ball, a cannon, a party blower, a burnt horn suppressor, a plate of lasagna, three quarters of a raspberry chocolate cake, a bucket of confetti why oh why hadn’t Pinkie Pie thought to bring a stick?
With a magenta flash, it was over. Pinkie Pie couldn’t move a muscle except the ones she could, and Rainbow Dash was similarly suspended there in a magenta moment in space. “Anypony else?” Twilight shouted out. Nopony else came running from the shadowy forest around them. “I know you’re out there, girls!” she shouted in a chiding tone, “Not gonna bother me? Good. I’m almost finished here.”
Twilight once again began pouring her magic into the Rift. This was not good. Not good! Why did she have so much magic?! It was like she had been saving it up, or something! “Yes...” Twilight murmured, heedless of her frozen friends around her, “That’s right girl, you know where she is. Go get her.”
In that moment, Rarity came charging out of the forest screaming like a little pony, running up to Twilight with her cloak magically expanded and held beside her like a billowing net. Pinkie didn’t really understand, because how was catching Twilight in a net going to even slow her down, assuming you could do so?
Rarity couldn’t, because with an extra pulse from Twilight’s horn, Rarity and her cloak froze in mid-air, magenta magic warring with crystal blue crawling over its surface. Rarity didn’t exactly scream internally, but her frustrated squeal couldn’t move the cloak one inch closer to the princess. Then Applejack smashed through the stiff cloth, with a tree branch in her mouth.
“No—!” Twilight started to say as Applejack brought the branch slapping sideways against Twilight’s horn. It flickered wildly and Twilight took a step back, wings spreading in panic as she said, “Stop—” another thwack, and everypony except Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie went tumbling down from where they’d been frozen in motion. Two more thwacks and everypony was free, though Twilight had already been swarmed by the science ponies. Rainbow Dash dropped like a stone, and Pinkie Pie ran forward like a... stone.
The shouts of “Hold her still!” and “Sleep spell!” soon could no longer be heard, as everypony turned with horror to the sound of that now familiar bass rumble. The Rift was moving again. It dragged through your bones to even hear it move.
“Yes!” Twilight could be heard shrieking above the noise, “Take that Rosy Pink! Take that and eat it!”
Several ponies scrambled to contain it again, but it was pulsing now, and the ponies levitating the two halves of the silver shell collapsed in pain. Two runners took up the halves, but as they neared, bolts of glowing red wrongness from it struck them down with cries of pain and fear. Then two more tried, but they were running out of ponies!
At last a group of four, two unicorn/earth pony pairs got the shell closed around it. The pegasi started to hammer in support struts when the whole thing exploded, peppering everypony around it with molten shrapnel. “Fall back!” a rough mare’s voice shouted out, “Get away from that thing!”
“Oh Celestia!” a squirrel voiced mare swore, as from the flickering red point of pulsing light, a billowing darkness seemed to erupt, like a flame made out of shadows, and it started carving forward at frightening speeds. “Everypony run!”
Panicked and scrambling, ponies fled from the crater, running every which way as long as it meant getting away from that thing. Twilight was peacefully sleeping thanks to like a million sedation spells, and/or knocks to the head, but Applejack heaved the unconscious princess onto her back shouting, “This’s more’n you deserve!” before running for her life.
Pinkie and Rarity flanked Applejack as they tore out of there. Where they were going, Pinkie Pie didn’t know. She wasn’t sure anypony knew. They were running for Ponyville, but that was the way the Rift was headed! Pinkie Pie just wished somepony’d had the foresight to send a message to Princess Celestia before all this went down, because her help would really be appreciated at this moment!
They broke out of the treeline just as the sun vanished below the horizon and with a burst of blinding light overhead, the princesses gated in.
Everypony came to a surprised halt at an advancing scattered line of police ponies, oh and also the rulers of Equestria. Princess Celesta and Princess Luna descended from a blinding light in the sky, the solar diarch looking worn out and weary, and the lunar diarch repeatedly blinking her eyes and squinting as though she was seeing spots for some reason.
“Twilight Spark—” Princess Celestia started to say, then noticing Twilight slumped over Applejack’s back. “Oh my, what happened? Is she alright?”
Applejack said in a frightened voice, “She’ll be okay, but th’ Rift’s headed this way! We gotta do something!”
“What?” Celestia said, her eyes widening as she looked up beyond Twilight to the frightened screams still drifting out of White Tail Woods.
“Princess Celestia, Princess Luna!” Rarity declared breathlessly, running out of the woods up to stand beside Applejack, “To run into you here is... what luck... you wouldn’t... know how to stop a runaway Rift, would you?”
“It’s moving?!” Princess Luna shouted, staring among the ponies fleeing the woods as Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy descended from the sky to unite with the four friends there on the ground.
“It’s more than moving,” Rainbow Dash shouted, “It’s tearing a path through the forest! Trees just explode when they hit it!”
“Oh this is terrible,” Fluttershy moaned, “It could be here any minute. Why is it headed straight for Ponyville?”
“Minutes Z and seconds PS, to be specific,” Rainbow Dash said, looking beseechingly to the princesses, “Do either of you know how to stop this thing? Princess Luna?”
“Return to it what was taken from it,” Luna stated automatically.
“Not exactly an option right now!” Rainbow Dash replied unhappily, “Princess Celestia?”
“I’m afraid I know little about spatial rifts, save that they are very dangerous,” Princess Celestia said, shaking her head, “And very rare.”
“But can you stop it?” Dash asked desperately.
“I will do what I can, my little ponies,” Princess Celestia said soberly, “But if Twilight couldn’t stop it...”
“Stop it?!” Dash squawked in outrage, “She started it!”
Princess Celestia stared at Rainbow Dash.
“We will discuss this later,” the princess said darkly, facing the screams coming from the woods and lighting up her horn, “Now please give me some space. I’m going to try something.”
“Princess Celestia!” a Trotwood pony shouted, running up: a hot pink haired mare whose white coat covered much of her yellow fur, “The containment vessel ruptured! You have to help us!”
“Containment vessel?” Celestia asked, delighting her horn. Alas, whatever Celestia was going to try would remain a question for the ages.
The pony continued to babble, “Please it’s a class 3 thaumospatial isolation chamber composed of a multidimensional silver alloy with—”
“Are you capable of creating such a vessel?” Celestia interrupted the chattering mare.
“Oh no, Professor Flask’s team assembled the rift containment vessel,” she replied.
“Find them all, and bring them to me,” Celestia replied urgently, “Hurry!”
The mare ran off, and Princess Celestia actually looked worried. “I’ll have to take them to the Canterlot laboratories for proper equipment and materials. Luna, I don’t suppose you can try to slow this thing down?”
“Can and will, sister,” the dark alicorn said confidently, “Go get your containment vessel, for it is my power that waxes in the midnight hour.” Celestia paused uneasily, but Luna shouted, “Go!” And just like that, the princess of the sun meekly trotted off after the mare from before who was darting frantically about gathering science ponies together.
“Unicorns, lend me your horns!” Princess Luna commanded, “There is a terrible evil coming this way and only your magic can stop it without harm. Pegasi, assemble before me!”
Well, it’s a good thing that it wasn’t nightmare night, because instead of pretending to cower in fear, a host of flustered winged ponies gathered in front of the princess. “Something is coming which may put ponies in danger,” she told them, “You need to find anypony caught in its path, and carry them out of harm’s way. Go! Wait by the edge of town until you can see where to evacuate.”
They went flapping off towards town, and Luna said, to a bunch of unicorns cantering up to her, “If you know how to raise a barrier, do so at the edge of the woods. I have only encountered a Rift once before, but it is a fearsome foe that can wreak havoc with your light field despite being of hopefully tiny size. Worry not if all you are capable of is lending your strength...” Her horn lit up then in brilliant blue, and a shimmering field appeared to block the entire boundary of the forest, “For I need you to lend me your strength, and reinforce the barrier you see before you! Hurry, put your hearts into it!”
Hearts and horns began to glow, figuratively and literally respectively, while other unicorns’ magic colors started to diffuse into the barrier. At last Luna turned toward such ponies as Pinkie Pie and Applejack gathering towards her, saying, “You who remain are the only ones who can save your village, should it break free from our spellcraft. Any ponies of earth, I need you to watch for a rift in space, and move any important buildings out of its path.
A ragged cheer of affirmation was all Luna got before settling down to wait.
The waiting game was tense, and noisy in its stillness. There were still cries of fear and even injury coming from the forest. Had ponies been caught in its path? Surely many were damaged by the splinters from the exploding trees. At last, the pegasi overhead shouted, “Here it comes!”
A pulsating reddened hole burst through their combined shield like tissue paper, but Luna expected that. “Surround it in a close cylinder!” she shouted over the deep bass thrum, drawing her magic in a complex chamber that closed around the hole, while somepony next to her shouted,
“Not a cylinder! That won’t wo—”
Luna cried out, falling to her knees as her shield was abruptly crushed into an hourglass shape, then shattered outward faster than it could dissolve into motes of light. She blinked back tears of pain from the monstrous backlash, and to her horror, she saw the Rift swell like a boil, some shapeless, keening horror erupting from its depths.
“Void monster!” she shrieked, struggling to her forelegs and surrounding the blurry monster in a cage of light. It looked something like a minotaur crossed with a lion, and was struggling within a second, slippery magical membrane that warred with Luna’s magic like a thing possessed. Luna winced as within the short time she’d stopped to contain this creature, the thunder of exploding plaster suddenly resounded in her ears. She looked up to see the Rift travelling merrily along while the building it went through started to fall.
“It has reached the buildings! Evacuate everypony now!” Luna ordered, probably needlessly as there were already ponies clearing a path for the Rift, and several shrieking ponies were dangling in pegasus arms, so they certainly were evacuating everypony now. Luna turned to the Void creature which while still in severe distress, was not even testing the strength of Luna’s wards. Luna’s magic couldn’t penetrate that membrane around it though, and it had at least a somewhat recognizable anatomy, so instead of bringing it to an enchanted sleep, she levitated a fallen 2x4 and beaned it firmly on the head.
At least the shrieking stopped.
“My little ponies, contain the monster!” Princess Luna declared, turning away from it to aim her horn at the spatial anomaly that was leaving a disintegrated gash through some poor pony’s flower garden.
“Wait!” a mare shouted before Luna could fire off her spell, and it was the same pony’s voice from before, a bright red unicorn with striking green hair.
“The shield needs to be ovoid, your highness!” the hot pink mare who had first spoke shouted, “To ideally distribute the forces! Like an egg!”
“Hurry then, what are its curvature coefficients?” Luna commanded, climbing back to her forelegs while ponies scattered out of the way as the infernal ember in the sky trailed along blithely across the field towards the town.
“I don’t know!” the mare shouted in anguish back over the deep bass thrum filling their bones, “Everypony who knows went with Princess Celestia to craft a new vessel! I’m just a grad student!!”
“We’re going to have to experiment then,” Luna said, whipping her magic at the Rift, only to find it rebuffed. Her second attempt surrounded it with an egg shaped shield, that ...kept moving along with the Rift.
“Blast!” she shouted, running after the Rift now, and her shield.
“Try grounding it to a world line,” another mare in a white coat suggested alongside her, a green unicorn with auburn orange hair, “The containment has to be geolocked somehow!”
Before Luna could figure out what that second unicorn mare meant by world line, the unicorn fired a green blast of magic at Luna’s shield around the Rift, and attempted to enact what she had stated magically. This Luna could understand, and Luna let her magic cradle the unicorn’s desperate struggle, steadying her and aligning her with the thaumatic frequencies this mare sought.
“Anthracite, I need a world line!” the mare shrieked, struggling to keep her green horn layered in a second level aura.
A less excitable voice quickly announced, “Meters south VV, north BD down FW,” but Luna didn’t get a good look at the pony who said that before the orange and green mare was on the move.
“Get these buildings out of the way!” that mare shouted, galloping crazily between them as she attempted to wrestle the Rift’s course in the direction so indicated. Luna followed in what one would have called curiosity, were the situation far too dire to be wasting time on curiosity. The princess had to dodge a falling building as the Rift took out a hefty support beam, but it was mere moments before the mare she was following had reached what she called a—
“Oh, a leyline!” Luna realized, hooking with her own magic what the mare was struggling to pull to the surface. A stream of the mare’s arcane force lashed from it to convolve the ovoid shield in a way Princess Luna had never seen before. It looked vaguely like an excavation charm, but with many of the sworls mirrored. As fascinating as that was, the important thing was that the Rift gave a creaking groan, then shuddered to a stop.
Then its pulses strengthened dramatically. The rumbling hum was deafening, and yet everything started getting blown away from it in complete, eerie silence, as if the buildings were constructed from wet tissue paper, in gale force winds. Clinging to a support beam as ponies and other things were blown past her, Princess Luna tried to concentrate on inverting the spatial distortion, using a trick she learned from the Borean war along with her own hefty magic reserve. The space calmed enough for the other unicorns to rush in, and they wove a tight egg around the Rift in glowing lines of light, immediately tethering it to the leyline. Luna helped where she could, turning crude scribbles into runes inscribed with pinpoint precision, when she recognized the runes at least.
At last they had a... temporary solution. Several unicorns along with Princess Luna were keeping the arcanic construct intact. The glowing lines and curves in the air shimmered from blue to green and back. Ponyville had... lost a neighborhood at worst, so the first thing she asked when the Rift was wrestled to a halt is, “Was anypony hurt?”
The pony Princess Luna asked had no horn, but had a physic’s story mark. She was directing ponies here and there, and immediately stopped to bow once the princess addressed her. “Spare me your supplications!” Luna demanded, “Your ponies need you standing!” With a frightened squeak, the mare scrambled to her hooves. Supposedly this “fear” was the sort of thing ponies enjoyed nowadays, curiously enough. Nevertheless, Luna quieted her voice and her temper, saying, “Please, aid the wounded. You can inform me once the crisis has passed.”
“Yes, your highness!” the mare said, doing what looked like it was trying to be a salute. “I mean, yes Princess Luna!” She galloped off then, while Luna watched with amusement. The magical cage around the Rift shattered behind her.
“Blast it all thou spawn of Tartarus!” Luna swore, spinning around and trying to recover the weave, but the Rift just powered through it, the last wisps of magic shredding before its distortion as it accelerated further into town. To Luna’s absolute horror, another Voidspawn was ejected from it. How many of these things were lurking about?! Such a Rift had to be attracting unwanted attention. Fortunately this Voidspawn also had a physical form, and a recognizable head, so a swift strike knocked them unconscious before they could so much as scream like a banshee. But as Luna was dealing with the writhing long-legged menace, the Rift continued blithely on, until somepony shouted,
“It’s headed for Town Hall!”
Of course it was headed for Town Hall.
“To me, unicorn scholars!” she shouted, “Trap it again! It must not reach the Hall!” She wasn’t sure of the leyout of Ponyville, so there was little she could do to geolock another temporary containment. Fortunately, Luna was not operating alone, and soon the ponies who could do so had located and emerged another leyline, a large one it looked like, travelling underneath the Town Hall. At least the Hall looked like it would survive intact. Luna’s attempts to correct the course of the Rift were slowly perturbing its path away from the tall, permanent building with terribly vulnerable strong foundations.
When Luna once again drained the area around the rift of its formidable spatial inertia, the same ponies from before rushed in and formed an ovoid cage of magic, and once it was complete, lashed it to the leyline. This time, Luna did not take her eyes off it for a second. Her horn was burning with overuse, and she couldn’t imagine what some of the unicorns here were going through. Nevertheless, every attempt the Rift made to break free, Luna whipped back into smoothness. It was a tedious and exerting process, and it looked like only she had the arcane mastery to do so on the spot. So for the time being, she was stuck babying this thing.
“Where art thou, sister?” she grumbled under her breath.
Princess Celestia was, of course, down in the undermountain forges of Canterlot, using a giant hammer to beat glowing hot silver sheets into multidimensional folds.
Pinkie looked behind herself. Beyond the fourth wall of the hospital room Pinkie Pie stood in, ponies were doing battle downtown with the meanest pinhole in all of Equestria. You could even see a little bit of the disaster through the window. Pinkie Pie wasn’t out there, because... they already had a dowser, and Pinkie’s friend was in trouble too. A trouble Pinkie didn’t know what to do with, but trouble nonetheless.
Turning to look forward, Pinkie Pie regarded her fallen friend. The Princess Twilight looked so serene in her forced sleep. It almost seemed a shame to wake her. They needed her to wake up though, because only she knew what she had done to the Rift.
“Don’t worry, doctor,” Rarity told the blue unicorn mare with the stethescope standing by, “She may be fearsome at times, but her friends are here, and I’m confident there’s nothing friendship cannot solve.” She winced, and added, “...eventually.”
“I’ve also added a sedative to her IV,” the doctor said humorlessly, “Just enough to keep her relaxed when she awakens. Please, let me know if you need assistance, and...” a touch of emotion entered the doctor’s voice as she said, “Please, help her. Twilight is our Princess, and we can’t... right, she should awaken momentarily.”
Twilight awoke surrounded by her friends. She murmured something softly, sliding open her violet eyes.
“Twilight, don’t worry, you’re okay,” Pinkie Pie said hastily, “Everything’s all taken care of.”
“Yeah, the princesses will probably have that Rift taken care of before you know it,” Rainbow Dash said. There was a thunderous boom in the distance, followed by the sound of screaming ponies. “...or not.”
Twilight jerked up in bed, only to sway dizzily and almost collapse again. “Twilight, you mustn’t move too quickly!” Rarity said urgently, “You were em... injured, and need your rest!”
“Please Twilight,” Pinkie pleaded, “We just need a liiiiittle information on how to dispel the... rifty thing you did, and you can go back to your nice little nap.”
Twilight looked from Rainbow Dash, to Rarity, to Pinkie Pie, and her answer was, “Whatnot.”
“Oh, Whatnot can help?” Pinkie asked hopefully.
Twilight grimaced at that, and said, “No, Whatnot can... help speak spell. Still not speak... vocabulation incomplete without spell.”
Everypony facehooved.
“On it,” Rainbow Dash shouted, blasting her way straight out the window. Fluttershy made sure it was open first. It wasn’t long before the distant screams around the town were dominated by one long, continuous scream that seemed to be growing louder and louder. Rainbow Dash dove back in through the window, with a purple haired, blue unicorn in her arms. Whatnot stopped screaming as Dash set her to the hospital floor, and just looked around in bewilderment.
“You need to do your magic thing, so Twilight can talk again,” Rainbow Dash clarified for her.
“O-oh. Oh! It wore off, sorry. Let’s...” Whatnot only stammered a moment, panting breathlessly, before lighting her horn and looking at Princess Twilight. And looking at her. And looking.
“We’re kind of in a hurry!” Rainbow Dash declared, “Saving Ponyville and all, you know?”
“Oh, gosh sorry I was just...” Whatnot blushed and fired a bolt of rune inscribed magic straight down Twilight’s horn. Twilight put up little to no resistence at this, instead giving a relieved smile. “I’ve been calibrating it to slowly adjust as she learns more of her correct vocabulary,” Whatnot explained nervously, “She’s getting her language back, really she is! Even—”
“Thank you, Whatnot,” Twilight Sparkle interrupted, “But I think Rainbow Dash said something about being in a hurry?”
“Oh it’s nothing the princesses cannot handle,” Rarity assured her with an uneasy smile, “But we could use some information on just what you did to the Rift.”
Twilight stared at Rarity, before a blush came to her face, and she shrank down in her bed, mumbling, “Oh, right, that.
“Sorry, I just... I knew you girls wouldn’t approve of my actions, but I’m sure it will work this time,” Twilight said with a hopeful nicker, “See, Rosy Pink couldn’t be found via conventional means, but she’s inextricably entangled with the Rift itself. When I noticed a wild Rift could move, a plan formulated in my head. What I did was inflame the intra-universal border, until it destabilized enough to no longer be geolocked. Then it would just drift along the landscape, right over to wherever Rosy Pink is.”
With a wolfish grin, Twilight declared, “If Rosy won’t go to the Rift, then I’m going to bring the Rift to her!”
She looked from horrified face to horrified face, and her grin faltered as she said uncertainly, “What? Was it something I said?”
“With all due respect, darling,” Rarity said in a calm, collected voice, “Are you insane?!” she shouted in a less than calm, not so collected voice.
“That there Rift’s been carving its way through the landscape for hours!” Applejack said angrily.
“It’s totally wrecking the town!” Rainbow Dash shouted accusingly.
“Trees are exploding!” Applejack added angrily.
“Even both princesses can’t stop it!” Rainbow Dash added equally angrily.
“What?!” Twilight said, trying to stand up, having little luck of it. Twilight lifted a hoof under the drip line for the IV going into her arm. “I’m... intubated? What’s going on out there?”
“The Rift has entered Ponyville,” Rarity said with little enthusiasm.
“What?!” Twilight shouted, “Why would it come this way? Rosy isn’t here!”
“How do you know she isn’t here?” Rainbow Dash asked, “Maybe she’s hiding right under our noses!”
“Hang on, sugarcube, we’ll get you over by the window,” Applejack said, offering her broad, strong, orange side for Twilight to hang onto. Rarity’s magic untangled Twilight from any stray tubes or sheets that might have hung her up, and Fluttershy carried along the IV stand. So Twilight forced herself forward to the window, staring out at the smoke rising from the destruction. It looked like a fire was spreading, because pegasi were driving rain clouds over there in droves.
Opening the window, Twilight stared at the destruction, at the... screaming things the portal was dumping out. Even from the hospital, you could hear them. “That’s... no. No no no no are those Void creatures?!”
“Spawning out of the portal yes,” Rarity confirmed dryly, “It seems much more active now that you’ve destabilized it.”
“We have to get out there!” Twilight said, looking frantically back at the oneun of them.
Applejack frowned, while Pinkie Pie fidgeted uneasily, Fluttershy said nary a word, and Rainbow Dash bit her lip then said, “You kinda caused it, Twilight, so the princesses don’t want you to make it worse.”
“Make it worse?” Twilight protested, “I didn’t cause... well I suppose I technically did cause it.”
“You attacked the research ponies, almost beat up your own friends, then used your freaky magic to make the portal even worse!” Rainbow Dash shouted intensely.
“Destroyed your horn suppressor, deceived your friends, violated building codes by excavating without notice, vandalized crown property,” Rarity said as if reading off of a list.
“And skipped dinner!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed, staring at Twilight with an expression somewhere between worry and open fear. “Your lasagna is cold, but I saved you a plate on the way here, but the rest is in your refrigerator because I made too much, so... here,” she held out a plate with some sad looking lasagna composed of noodles, cheese, marinara sauce, eggs and some chopped veggies, all baked together with love. Now completely lukewarm.
Twilight looked at them all guiltily, leaned forward, and took a long, slow bite of the lasagna. “Mmmm!” she said as she chewed. She... swallowed.
“Twilight, there’s far more—” Rarity managed to say before Twilight threw up all over the floor. “Twilight!!” she shrieked along with a gasp from the others.
“Oh no...” Twilight moaned, staring at the... unswallowed lasagna. “Pinkie I’m so sorry,” she said, looking up at Pinkie with honest distress in her eyes, “I tried to eat it I really did, I just feel so...”
Twilight held a hoof to her head, while Fluttershy hurried in with the doctor who took one look at Pinkie Pie and shouted, “Are you trying to feed her lasagna?! Okay that’s it, everypony out! Leave me to the patient alone, out out out!” she furiously herded the onetwo out of the room, and closed the door.
Putting her head against the door for a moment, the doctor turned to Twilight and said, “Sorry, I’ll have somepony clean this up. You... shouldn’t be eating anything right now.”
Twilight gave a surprised laugh at that, saying, “That’s the first time anypony’s said that to me in quite a while.”
“Let me get you off that IV,” the doctor replied, walking up to her, “I think you’re calm enough that you don’t need any more of that stuff.”
Twilight looked at her IV with new eyes, looking back to the doctor and saying too calmly, “Some sort of... drug?”
“It’s just something to help you relax,” the blue mare replied, taking Twilight’s arm in her hooves.
“Silophine?” Twilight asked curiously, as the doctor cautiously removed the IV in her arm.
“Um, yes,” the doctor said distractedly, “You’ve heard of it?”
“I used to read a lot,” Twilight replied with an apologetic shrug.
“Hmm,” the doctor vaguely acknowledged, pressing a cotton ball over the wound left behind. “Anyway, it should wear off in an hour. Try to stick with easily digestible foods like sugar and hay until it’s out of your system. Your friends are waiting for you out in the hall . And your... your highness?”
Twilight blinked a moment at the worried doctor, then gave her a testy look, before saying, “Uh, yes, my loyal subject?”
“Okay yeah that does sound kind of silly,” the doctor admitted with a soft giggle and a blush, backing up from the princess. “I just want to ask you if you can please never do anything like that again?”
Twilight looked questioningly at the doctor, who hastily continued, “That is to say, I mean... you’re a... princess. I mean no offense, but...”
“But...?” Twilight prompted, a little irritated, but mostly concerned.
“You are very powerful,” the doctor told her gravely, “If somepony else is a danger to themselves and others, they can be restrained, medicated even. If that happens to you... there’s not much we can do about it. If you don’t take care of yourself, it puts us all in danger. So please, princess, take care of yourself.”
“I will,” was what Twilight should have said. She should have said it easily and automatically, but with her experiences as of late, all Twilight Sparkle could tell the worried doctor was,
“I’ll try.”
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This really puts want it need it to shame.
Twilight p l e a s e
8345714
Remember the episode where she got counseling for it, so problems like that wouldn't ever crop up in the future again? Me neither!
8345755
She'll ...try.
Seeing this chapter name brought only one thing to mind. Eric Cartman saying 'Screw you guys, I'm going home.'.
8345771
Great. Now how will I spoil the chapter's secrets before people even read it?
Knew Twilight was being crazy and was out of her über basted mind from the start and doesn't consider all the consequences of what she does when she starts to become obsessive about something. Maybe this might be the wakeup call that everyone needed to realize what Twilight was out of her lavender horned mind in how she was leading with the issue of Rose Pink and blew things out of proportions on the subject of her. She attacked the research team and intensionally unleashed the porthole, without thinking through the consequences of her actions unleash true monsters for the beyond on under the flimsy pretext of putting back the order of the world.
Yeah, Celestia's going to throw the book at Twilight this time, maybe the entire library...
doctor is stupid. he shouldn't have taken the iv off. i also think twilight did that knowing she shouldn't be eating. calm, doesn't mean cured. just means she can trick them easier.
8345845
oh boy are you gonna like the next chapter.
8345847
Don't worry, with her vague, peripheral knowledge of the situation from secondhand sources, I'm sure Princess Celestia knows exactly what to do.
8346080
Xylazine is some hard stuff, you don't want to use it much. Anyway it was already mentioned she's on some sort of medication, but as any shrink will tell you, medication won't help if the patient's not also willing to seek counseling. though... that guarantees them a paycheck, so I dunno how much you can trust their word at it.
Thing is though, what she did would have been effective. The rift would have gone right to Rosy Pink and sent her away. It would have killed a bunch of ponies, destroyed major parts of Ponyville, the town where Pink is, and everything in-between, left voidspawn all over the place, but sometimes you've gotta crack a few eggs.
8346117
agreed. and i don't see the doc as a shrink, just a medical doctor. i question the logic in leaving her unsupervised, i know she is medicated, but even in he medicated state she wanted to go out and do something. i'll be looking forward to the next chapter
8346118
You do not want to see Twilight Sparkle attempting to make an omelette.
8346127
Twilight's not unsupervised anymore.
8346140
did i miss anything? girls re outside the room, only the doctor is inside, and an open- if not unlocked window, seeing as whatnot was brought in thru it
Rampant speculation ahead.
This is a human isn't it? I just know it.
This feels like a poor decision. Isn't there a prison cell or an anti-magic field they can keep her in? Maybe Ponyville really is just that used to this kind of madness.
Too bad they dont have an Alicorn grade prison cell on hoof. you ever read elementals of harmony? Ponyville had a dedicated team of anti-magic specialists to deal with Twilight when she went bananas
Neat, Hopefully this is a wake up call for Twilight. Not gonna hold my breath though.
As for Celestia... well she has such a great track record! I'm sure she will be a big help!
Surely she wont just ignore a problem until it is literally trying to destroy the world and kill her right? Like she did with Luna! And Like she did with sunset shimmer! right?
I was personally hoping for some Celestia on Twilight discussion because Celestia is one of the (if not the) only pony that can cut through Twilight madness. Not from sanity or understanding mind, Twilight just puts a disturbing amount of trust in her. At least in cannon it looks like if princess Celestia told Twilight to jump of a bridge she would probably do it. And if she survived she would write a paper about her experience.
Sadly I have a sneaking suspicion that the royal sisters are not going to end up being the voices of calm and reason I was desperately hoping they would be. Moving my hopefulness into "I hope they dont make the situation worse"
Maybe when Discord frees himself he will be the voice of rationality.
Also you tease! You left off with Luna potentially grilling Fluttershy about the situation and we never got to see it! How will we know what they were talking about now! Were going to probably have to wait multiple chapters!
8346341
Well, there's Tartarus. But no seriously there are prisons that could... hold most unicorns, and there are horn blockers that... most unicorns can't burn out. But this is a doctor, not a cop, and the police know full well they're not equipped to incarcerate a princess. A purple alert is not a call to arms, but a call to evacuate. Calling Celestia and Luna is the way they deal with Twilight, and those two are a bit busy, so they're pretty much... treading water in regards to her at the moment.
Plus Twilight's with her friends now. That isn't just a sentimental gesture in Equestrian society.
I don't... like involving the princesses a lot. They're "more special" than other ponies, and they do best in a passive, supportive role, while normal ponies take the spotlight in their struggles. Plus human culture treats royalty special, name-dropping stuff like "the princess addressed her court with queenly wisdom because she carried the true heir to the throne which she alone had the royal blood to bear" as if we'd all just nod and accept that as inherently true. Sometimes (most times) it's like non-royal people don't even exist, with all interaction about princes and lords and kings and queens, and I get really tired of it.
There should be a Bechdel test for royals in fantasy stories.
However, there is a lot of er... princessly stuff next chapter, so I hope you'll find it satisfying.
Oh wait, you're serious.
And he'll have a superhero cape, too!
Shame on you, wanting to peep into other ponies' dreams! Those are very personal, and you wouldn't want to violate her privacy!
8346165
Hm... maybe I should state more explicitly that her friends are waiting outside the room.
Aw, I'm sorry, Title.
"Rainbow Dash said, facehooving"
"facehoofing"? Or is this something similar but distinct?
"She’s at the Rift!"
Oooh. I wonder if Twilight's planning to use the Rift as a Rosy Pink tracker? And if it will look and act as an incredibly dangerous tear in reality being wielded by a mad alicorn. Conspicuous, at least?
"“ What"
Extra space?
re earth pony space folding:
Huh. Neat.
"thing exploded peppering everypony"
"thing exploded, peppering everypony"?
Hooray, the Princesses are here!
(Also, I'm wondering if gating is different from teleportation. I'm guessing so, but I wonder how.)
"Princess Celestia said shaking her head"
"Princess Celestia said, shaking her head"?
"a Trotwood pony shouted running up, a hot pink"
"a Trotwood pony running up shouted, a hot pink"?
"For I need you to lend me your strength"
Why the emphasis on the "your" there?
"while other unicorn’s magic colors"
"while other unicorns' magic colors"?
Move the buildings out of the way. Grand. :D
"the hot pink mare shouted who had first spoke"
"the hot pink mare who had first spoken shouted"?
"that mare shouted galloping crazily between"
"that mare shouted, galloping crazily between"?
"wrestle the rift’s course in the"
"Rift"?
"Luna followed almost curiously, were the situation far too dire to be wasting time on curiosity."
Hm... Somewhat odd wording anyway, but "were not the situation"?
"the important thing is that the Rift gave a creaking groan"
"thing was that"?
"sure of the leyout of Ponyville"
I was going to suggest "layout", and then I read on and got it. :)
Hm, interesting. So most buildings aren't actually permanent (meaning fixed to the ground, or something broader?)? And are strong foundations normally terribly vulnerable, or is Luna only speaking of this instance?
And Princess Celestia at the forge. :D
"staring at Twilight with somewhere between worry"
"staring at Twilight with something between worry"?
"marinara sauce, eggs and some chopped veggies"
"marinara sauce, eggs, and some chopped veggies"?
"leaned forward and took a long, slow bite"
"leaned forward, and took a long, slow bite"?
"and saying too calmly, Some sort of... drug?”"
Missing quotation mark?
"Twilight blinked a moment at the worried doctor giving her a look, before saying"
Who is giving whom a look there?
"No, come back mister title..."
Please? We'll miss you...
(...Why is it that the title here is hitting me with the most sadness I remember having from a pony fic in a while?)
8346377
"Hm... maybe I should state more explicitly that her friends are waiting outside the room."
I read that commenter as being aware of that but thinking that that's not close enough. I'm not sure it is either.
At this point I’m torn between advocating for her imprisonment in Tartarus or her execution, before she causes an XK class end of the world scenario.
...Also, the title appears to have changed gender at some point between Right, right, so... Projecting and now.
8346377
nah you're fine on that front. I pictured them waiting outside the room when reading. sorry by the way, I'm a bit cynical with these things- I see many different perceptions of it often enough. :)
8346563
It's a position that doesn't have the best worker retention.
8346524
It sure is looking that way. Good thing (snerk) Princess Celestia is going to cure Twilight Sparkle's insanity.
8346498
No, gating isn't different from teleportation, but gating is different from winking.
The oak and the willow, etc. There are advantages to having a portable building.
Obviously it's because you haven't been reading enough pony fics. You better get cracking!
Thanks for fixes.
8347391
"It's a position that doesn't have the best worker retention."
Ah. :)
"No, gating isn't different from teleportation, but gating is different from winking."
Ahh, thanks.
"The oak and the willow, etc. There are advantages to having a portable building."
Thanks.
"Obviously it's because you haven't been reading enough pony fics. You better get cracking!
"
:)
"Thanks for fixes.
"
You're welcome!
Should have the chapter ready tomorrow.