Magical Undead Human Princess of Friendship

by totallynotabrony

3: Magical World-Ending Cataclysms

Liv was back to Canterlot High that afternoon. Canterlot High appeared quite normal on the outside, like the kind of place where normal people went to school. Not the kind of place that would be involved with magical ponies.

Well, maybe the statue of a horse out front gave it away. Liv glanced at it, but it was nopony she knew.

She’d almost made it to the door when she froze. Nopony? She smiled and took out her notebook. Fascinating what this brain was doing to her.

After making a note on her observation, Liv went inside. Using her official title, the secretary told her where to find Twilight’s friends. They apparently had a free period and usually hung out in the band room.

As Liv approached, she could hear instruments being tuned up. They began to play a pop-ish song, slow but with emotion.

Liv’s heart swelled. It was clear they used music to express themselves. From the feeling of rhythm already percolating inside her, she knew Twilight had also been in the band. But what instrument did she play?

The intro was almost over and song’s first verse was coming up. Liv knew what she had to do. She opened the door, just as her part came in.

Every once in a while
When I’m feeling blue
I turn to one thing
That I know will always be true

The girls looked surprised to see her. Stunned, really. But they kept playing, as if stopping wasn’t an option.

My friends will be there for me
Always care for me
Be by my side
Make life complete

Liv sang from a place deep inside her that she didn’t know she had. In fact, she probably didn’t, and that was kind of depressing. But while she was on Twilight brain, she was going to live it.

No matter the strife
My friends make life
Blissful and free
They do it for me

Liv felt a comfortable warmth and rose up to her toes. Were the others glowing? That didn’t seem concerning for some reason.

Sunshine and rain
Nothing can tame
The friendship we share
To the end of time!

The song finished. Liv smiled. She felt like she was floating, and the happiness she’d gotten from a simple song and a moment of companionship with the girls was enough to figuratively warm her literally cold heart.

Rainbow promptly poked her in the chest and demanded, “How do you know that song?! Twilight wrote that!”

That was when Liv realized that Rainbow was hovering a foot off the ground on a pair of blue feathery wings. And she wasn’t the only one who seemed to have sprouted something extra. A few of the girls had wings. All of them had tails and furry, pointed ears.

Ravi was going to love this, and also probably never let her forget it. But for the moment, Liv didn’t care. In the song, the seven of them had shared something beautiful together.

That was when Liv felt strange sensations among her hair and on her back. She reached her hands up and turned her head, realizing she, too, had wings and decidedly equine ears and tail, all matching her pale complexion.

Still, that didn’t excuse her from answering Rainbow’s question. The others were putting down their instruments and coming over. Magic sparkled away, reverting them all back to simply human, or in Liv’s case, humanoid. She didn’t even question magic now.

Rainbow’s boots thumped to the ground. She crossed her arms and stared at Liv. “Well?”

“I’m wondering that myself,” said Sunset coming over to stand next to Rainbow. “Who are you?”

“I told you before, I work for the medical examiner’s office,” said Liv.

“And how exactly does that allow you to sing a song only we know, with no practice, and to pony up the first time you performed it?” asked Rarity.

Pony up? This rabbit hole went deeper than ever.

Fortunately, Liv was saved from trying to come up with a plausible reason for why she spontaneously did a magical girl transformation by Pinkie Pie, whose hair was if anything even bed-headier than in the morning. “Who cares why she can pony up? Now we can close Tartarus to the human realm.”

“Sure, I’ll do anything you need,” said Liv. “Including dealing with that thing you just said that sounded suspiciously like Hell.”

“Are we really doing this?” Rainbow asked under her breath. “She just shows up and she’s in?”

Sunset turned to Liv. “What do you know about Tartarus?”

“Well, my Greek mythology is a little rusty, but it’s a place where ancient, evil monsters are imprisoned so that they won’t be able to spread their wickedness over the lands of peaceful creatures.” That was more than Liv expected to remember, no doubt helped by Twilight. She looked at the girls. “I take it someone is trying to open the door?”

“You could say that,” Sunset allowed. “This isn’t the first evil we’ve fought, but it might be the most dangerous.”

“So you’re like some kind of magical superheroes?” said Liv. “That’s amazing!”

“I don’t know if we’ll be able to pull this off without Twilight,” said Sunset. “She was the spark that brought us all together, and being from Eq—being our advisor, she knew more about what we were facing.”

“Well...I don’t know everything that Twilight knew, but I think I might be able to help,” said Liv.

“If all it takes is a song, then yes, I suppose you can,” said Rarity. “That was remarkably easier than I would have expected. Nothing can replace Twilight, of course, but every helping hand is welcome.”

“Wait a moment,” said Applejack, speaking for the first time. “Isn’t anyone else suspicious? She just shows up, having met us yesterday, and she already knows more about everything that’s going on than any of us did at first. And her name is literally live more. This sounds too perfect to be true.”

“When you put it that way,” Liv acknowledged. “And believe me, this is weird from my perspective, too. But I want to help. It’s...what Twilight would have done.”

And it was, she knew. The girls, most of them anyway, seemed to realize that, too.

Fluttershy met Liv’s eyes for the first time since she had entered the room. “I trust you.”

“Thank you.” Liv smiled and pulled out her notebook. “Okay, if we’re going to prevent literally all Hell from breaking loose, we need a plan.”

---

“Doesn’t this seem a little out of the scope of your duties as a medical examiner?” Ravi asked through the phone. “Stopping...Hell, was it?”

“That’s right,” Liv confirmed, using the hands free system in her car because that was the responsible and legal thing to do. “And I think it’s perfectly within my authority as a faithful public servant to do everything I can to stop that kind of thing from happening to our fair city.” She didn’t say it, but she thought And I guess it’s also within my responsibility as some kind of magical undead human princess of friendship. Twilight had apparently been some sort of magical prodigy, and Liv was working on a theory that it had somehow transferred to her. Her ability to “pony up” during the song meant she had some sort of connection to these girls.

Ravi made a sound as if he desperately wanted to giggle, but held it back. “Well, be careful,” he cautioned. “Zombies I can handle, magical world-ending cataclysms are another thing.” He hung up.

Liv looked around her car. Five of the girls stared at her.

“So...zombies,” said Rainbow.

“Oh, it’s, a, uh...work thing,” said Liv. She was well aware how badly the lie sounded, but also well aware that trying to explain further would only get her in deeper.

To her relief, no one questioned it, but she was sure all of them wanted to. Not that magical world-ending cataclysms were ever a good thing, but they sure helped everyone get back on topic quickly.

“So we’ll go back to Sunset’s place and plan from there,” said Rarity. “We need to find whoever has been messing with the multiversal dimensions and get them to stop.”

“Do we have any leads?” Liv asked. Her fingers itched to open her notebook, but she had to concentrate on the road.

“Before Twilight—” Applejack began, but broke off. She swallowed and began again with revised sentence structure “Twilight thought it was coming from this world. Someone here in Seattle was doing it.”

“That does help narrow it down,” Liv acknowledged. “I don’t know how many other universes there are besides Equestria, but it’ll be a lot easier to find them if we only have to search one city.”

There was a moment of silence. Rarity said, “Where did you hear about Equestria?”

“Didn’t someone mention it earlier?” Liv asked reflexively. But no, she realized, no one had. She’d picked it up from Twilight’s brain.

“I don’t think we did,” said Rainbow, voice growing suspicious.

Liv laughed weakly. “Well, I said my Greek mythology is a little rusty.”

For some inexplicable reason, Pinkie laughed too. Liv let out a mental sigh of relief at the break in the conversation.

They pulled up to Sunset’s apartment. Sunset herself was just getting off her motorcycle and let them in.

“If we’re going to do this, we need to get Liv up to speed on the situation,” Sunset said, gesturing them to seats in the living room. There were barely enough places to sit for six. Liv was left out, and stood.

Sunset opened a drawer and pulled out a purple notebook. Liv knew at a glance that it must be Twilight’s. Sunset held it in her hands and looked up at Liv. “So...magic. I know that’s a big topic. If I wasn’t from a place where that was normal, I would think it was weird, too.”

Liv nodded.

Sunset cocked her head. “You’re taking this really well. Better, even, than these five did when they first found out.”

“Well, magic is definitely new, but I’ve seen a lot of weird things,” said Liv. She added, “The medical examiner business is never boring.”

Sunset nodded. “Okay, well, the story gets stranger, but I want you to know what you’re getting into. Twilight and I aren’t from Earth. We came here from somewhere else.”

“You mean through a portal from magic pony world?” Liv asked brightly.

Sunset blinked, as if too stunned to react. The others showed more conventional surprise. “Uh…right.”

“Yes!” Liv did a little happy dance. “That’s what I predicted! I’ll need to do so much more research on this.”

“It’s really scary just how much she’s like Twilight,” Rainbow muttered.

But she wasn’t. Twilight was dead, and no matter how much of her dwindling supply of brain that Liv ate, she would never be Twilight. And giving Twilight’s friends glimpses of what they would never have again was just cruel. Liv sobered, making a conscious effort to restrain herself.

Sunset looked at the notebook, as if looking for a distraction. She opened it and scanned over the first page. “We noticed some activity around town and contacted Twilight to help us investigate. We’d gathered a few clues, enough to know what was being attempted, but not enough to identify who was behind it or what their next move might be.”

She showed Liv the page. It was covered in notes made by a hand that was clearly not used to writing. But the pictures drawn on the paper were clear as day, and Liv’s eyes opened wide.

“I...I think I need to...I’ll be right back.” Liv rushed for the front door, grabbing for her phone. Outside, she jumped in her car, phone to her ear.

“Ravi? Please tell me you still have Salvatore Rey’s body.”