Songs of the Spheres

by GMBlackjack

045 - The Reach of the Sparkle Census

A Sweetie Belle went from being in a comfy room in the palace, to dropping into the mud under heavy, unrelenting rain.

Except she didn’t. She was vaguely aware of both locations in her mind, almost as if one eye was seeing the palace while the other saw the depressing weather, only the resolution was so low it was hard to differentiate them. Her mane was nowhere near as wet as it should have been getting in anything that could be considered unrelenting rain.

She had been expecting the locations to resolve themselves in an instant – the fact that she was aware of both at once for more than a microsecond concerned her. Then when the feeling of both worlds started to fade, she panicked. She lit her horn, attempting to pull on something on either side, to possibly drag herself through by her own power and avoid the unsettling thought that she might be cut in two.

Her efforts were completely in vain. The vague images of the palace and muddy landscape retreated from her senses completely, replaced with overwhelming blue. She could see all shades of blue dancing around her as if she were inside some kind of aurora, the dance of beauty hypnotizing her.

She was now standing on top of a slab of chiseled stone bricks that floated in the mysterious blue aether. She could see half a staircase made of the same material to her left, and a loose column floating slightly below her. She could have sworn the staircase led to something, but as she twisted her head to get a look, the platform she had seen out of the corner of her eye vanished.

She’d never been to somewhere like this…

She checked to make sure she was still Sweetie Belle. She was – a young unicorn mare with a unique cutie mark on her flank. She was not aware that virtually all Sweetie Belles got some variation on the Crusader shield, so she did not think it that unusual that her mark was a pale musical note in front of a shattered, pink starburst. Everything about her was as she expected to find it, including all things she wished didn’t translate with her.

What she did know was that something had gone wrong. She knew, somehow, that she wasn’t supposed to be here. That this place wasn’t part of her journey. And that set her on edge.

“What brought me here…?” she wondered aloud, speaking with a voice that held worry, but nowhere near as much fear as a mare her age should have felt in the situation. Instead of cowering, or calling for somepony, she leaped off her platform onto the stairs and started climbing them, just to see what happened.

Just because she wasn’t supposed to be here was no reason not to explore.

~~~

Charter-Princess Evening Sparkle stood on one of the many solid black balconies of Castle Bleck, allowing herself to stare deep into the murky whiteness that surrounded the structure. Her mouth twisted into a frown of uncertainty, only accentuated by her defining features. Her long, pointed wings were drooping and the metallic hearing devices pulled her ears down further than they would normally have been. Her normally windswept mane seemed to sag, a trait normally reserved for the Pinkie Pies of the multiverse.

She was looking for answers in the murky whiteness. Answers she knew she wouldn’t find.

It had been a few weeks since General Toph Beifong, Corona Shimmer, PhD, and their entire team had vanished from this very universe. The entire collection of allied universes had sent their best scientists over, and they had easily found the coordinates to the universe that they had gone to. The problem was the connection was almost certainly one-way. No probes they sent through returned anything back, no matter how much energy or magic was packed into them.

The only reason they knew the team was alive was because of the mystic oculi of Lai, who graciously used their divination to determine that, at least for now, all members of the team were alive and well.

Eve still wanted to see Corona’s face. Corona had probably seen Eve’s face – given all the recorded messages she had sent through – but Eve couldn’t see hers.

She was quickly running out of ways to get Corona back. She had gotten every bit of information about this place that they could from those who knew about it. She had even gone to the ancient structure that was Flipside-Flopside, only to find that its denizens had no idea how it operated, merely living there and using it to access other universes connected to the Castle. All that seemed to remain was for Eve to wait for her people’s dimensional understanding to catch up to the problem. And that could take… Years. She didn’t want to leave Corona there for years. For all she knew the one-way universe was a horrible, dangerous place with death around every corner, and the team had only managed to survive because of their experience with many different worlds.

She sighed, forcing her gaze away from the milky space around her, but not really looking at anything on the perfectly smooth castle either. She just stared into the distance, trying to force herself to leave this universe, to go back to Equis Vitis and perform her duties as Charter-Princess, the effective leader of the multiverse. There were many official appearances she had neglected, a lot of work she had offloaded onto Spike so she could be here and research personally…

Eve knew she had to go back, and was slowly convincing herself to take out her dimensional device and return. She took one last look at the operation on Castle Bleck – machines composed of both human metal, pony magic, and Gem crystal lattice were strewn everywhere, every last one analyzing the dimensional fabric of this location, flashing lights as they discovered new things, but none of them blaring a discovery about the world they needed to get to. They could see nothing.

Eve saw one of her counterparts, Sparky, the version she had known the longest. Human, purple, and a well accomplished scientist at this point. She may have grown very disillusioned with all the government secrets and political plays that were happening as of late, but she knew Corona better than Eve herself did. She likely wouldn’t leave here for a long, long time.

The Charter decided it was best not to disturb her, to make her feel guilty for staying so long. Sparky did not have the responsibilities Eve did, so bringing them up would only be rude and detract from her work. Eve briefly wondered if she was being selfish in her thoughts, but she quickly pushed the ideas out of her head. She pulled out her disc-shaped dimensional device, memories of when she first met Sparky flashing through her mind.

She sighed, setting the dial to the Mushroom World. She could dial Equis Vitis directly from there.

But then something caught her eye and gave her pause. There was a letter on the ground in front of her hooves, bearing a seal with her cutie mark on it. She picked it up, wondering what it could be. Celestia rarely sent her letters anymore, preferring to use the much more reliable Interdimensional Email System that would go right to her phone in most universes. Plus, going through the trouble of sending a letter through magic to this universe from Equis Vitis was rather inefficient.

Curious, she broke the seal on the letter.

She was no stranger to translating between universes. She had used portals, stargates, ‘flipping’, pure magic, and any number of other methods to jump the boundary between worlds. The feel of this method was not of one she had experienced before, though it was reminiscent of an adapted teleport spell. The flash of white light she had experienced probably looked to everypony else like she had just decided to teleport herself, albeit without her natural magic color.

She was suddenly standing in a plain, square room with simple beige tiles and green striped wallpaper. Behind a wooden podium was a purple alicorn of a slightly smaller stature than Eve’s own, notably without the silver ear devices or windswept mane. Much closer to what Eve would describe as a ‘standard Twilight’.

The standard Twilight spoke. “Name?”

Eve, despite her prior depression, let a confident smirk come to her face. I certainly wasn’t expecting something like this, but I can already tell this is going to be fun. “I am Charter-Princess Evening Twilight Sparkle of Friendship and the-”

“No need for titles. Birth name only please.”

Eve blinked. Ah, the familiar feel of bureaucracy. “Twilight Sparkle.”

The standard Twilight scratched a tick mark on a sheet in front of her, telling Eve that she probably dealt almost exclusively in Twilight Sparkles. Curious. She tore a piece of paper off a pad and placed it on a tall stack of papers, handing it all to Eve. Wordlessly, she directed Eve to an exit door.

Eve raised an eyebrow, but figured it was best not to make a fuss. Clearly this Twilight was at her wit’s end with her job; best not to aggravate her. The Charter walked out of the room, finding herself in a hall with similar wallpaper and tiling to the room she just been in, which was to say boring. There was only one door at the end of the hall.

Curious, Eve turned on her hearing devices for a moment - the slight pain she experienced from forcing herself to hear was prominent, but she didn’t plan to listen for long. “Next!” the Twilight called from behind the closed door. Eve heard the sound of a pop followed by a “Name?” The voice of another Twilight came through the door – one clearly much more angry and bewildered than Eve had been.

Eve smirked slightly – sometimes it helped to be interdimensional, so you could just take this sort of thing in stride. She turned her ears back off and opened the door at the end of the hall. She found herself in a waiting room filled with many different Twilights, the walls and floor of the same dull design everything else had been so far. The vast majority of Twilights were alicorns, though Eve spotted a couple unicorns sitting in the corner. She was not surprised to find that only one of them had a defining feature besides herself – a single scar across one eye.

Eve saw they were all busy staring at and filling out the forms presumably given to them by the receiving Twilight in the other room. Eve opened her mouth to speak to the closest Twilight.

“Read the rest of your letter… and please, don’t talk to me right now. I need time to process this.”

Eve nodded to herself, understanding the reaction. She did chide herself for not reading the letter in the hall; it seemed obvious in hindsight. She summoned a chair from the aether so as to not disturb any of the other Twilights and unfurled the scroll, preparing for what was assuredly going to be an interesting read.

This is a mandatory summons by the Inter-Universal Council of Sparkle.

You have been called upon to participate in a trans-dimensional census of all possible entities falling under the designation of “Twilight Sparkle.” Upon breaking the seal on this envelope, you will be teleported into pocket dimension 5P-4RKL3. Please follow any and all instructions given by workers during the registration process. After registration is complete you will be returned to your home dimension with a token that can be used to return to this pocket of reality at any time, as well as a complimentary bookmark. We will contact you again if any additional information is required, or if you have been selected for census duty.

We thank you for your cooperation in ensuring the efficiency of this operation.

Twilight Sparkle

Designation: DB-9K>Z

Grand Secretariat of Equine Resources

Eve raised an eyebrow. If they can do all this interdimensional power, why didn’t they just have the spell activate upon reading? …Unless there are Twilights who don’t read, I suppose… Actually, come to think of it, why is all this paperwork paper? They clearly have a large influx of Twilights and a digital interface would be much more effective…

Her next thought was. Yeah, I’m definitely not reporting for census duty. Though this tells me they haven’t encountered another dimensional Twilight, at least not one on a large scale. This is definitely going to be an interesting day.

Another Twilight came into the room – a standard one. She opened her mouth to address Eve, and she warmly accepted it rather than rudely interrupting. “W-what is going on? H-how is this possible?”

Eve smiled. “Don’t worry. This is just a census of all beings like us across the multiverse. Your letter will help a bit, so make sure you read it. After that, I think we fill out this paperwork.”

The new Twilight, still a bit dumbfounded, relaxed a little and nodded. “R-right.” She moved into the room a bit and sat down, looking at her letter.

Eve pulled out her dimensional device, but didn’t activate it. She just checked the coordinates of the universe she was in, finding that her system did not have the letters sequence ‘5P4RKL3’ anywhere in it. She shrugged, labeling the universe Sparkle Census.

Instead of taking one of the inkwells and quills from a nearby cabinet, she summoned a pen from the aether and began to work on the forms, all the while racking up things to complain to the higher-ups about when they finally realized what she was. She wondered how long it would take.

Probably a while, given the lethargic expression on the silver-badge-wearing government employee Twilight watching all of them.

Good. That gave her more time to figure out exactly how she was going to go about this.

~~~

Pinkie Pie appeared in the center of a circular stone slab with seven columns around it. She saw various platforms and staircases surrounding the circular platform, their gray, dulled color standing out against the blue aurora that seemed to surround everything.

“Of course,” Pinkie muttered to herself. She took a step to the left, waiting for the rest of her team.

Renee appeared next – a Rarity with a fashionable detective hat and a ring line on the base of her horn, though the latter detail was only noticeable to people who were looking for it. “…Pinkie? What just happened?”

“Our portal was intercepted,” Pinkie said. “Other than that, not sure. The others will be joining shortly.”

“…Surely they saw us vanish and won’t come in after us?”

The third member of the team, the yellow Flutterfree, appeared on top of Renee. Her ears were slightly pointed, her eyes red, and a few of her teeth were sharpened. “Oh! Sorry Renee – wait. This isn’t Equis Eldritch.”

Renee grunted. “Intercepted, apparently. Let’s move before the the others fall on us.”

Flutterfree and Renee moved to the side just in time to let the fourth through, Nova Glimmer. She landed on her hooves and looked around, confused. “I could have sworn I saw you all on the other side…” She examined the high-tech touchscreen wrapped around her hoof, checking it for unusual readings. “This place certainly isn’t normal.” She lit her horn, the small black device around it accentuating her magic into a striped blue and pink pattern as she scanned for details. “No time dilation - at least not internally… But a lot of space dilation…”

Renee looked at Nova standing there without getting crushed. “You think Vriska’s luck saved her?” she asked.

“Possibly,” Flutterfree answered. “Or, as I think Pinkie would say, we’re just waiting for comedic timing.”

Nova glanced at Pinkie. “…Should I move?”

Pinkie grinned. “Probably.”

Before Nova could do anything, the humanoid gray-skinned dual-horned shape of Vriska appeared, her boot hitting Nova right in the head. Vriska smirked, flapped her cerulean butterfly wings, and adjusted her glasses. “And I ace the landing. The crowd goes wild!”

Pinkie gave her a pity clap.

“You just don’t understand my stage presence…”

Nova levitated Vriska off and her and tossed the girl to the ground. “Right, so that’s everyone. I’m going to take a wild guess and say we can’t dial out for some reason.”

Pinkie pulled out her dimensional device and tried a few settings. “Bingo.”

“Fun. So… What are we going to do?”

Pinkie smirked. “What we always do when we go to a new universe, silly! Explore!”

“I meant about us not being able to return.”

Pinkie winked. “Same thing!”

Nova facehooved. Renee smirked. “You’re one of the ponies who put her in charge, dear.”

“I wonder at times if I should mutiny,” Nova muttered.

“Now Nova, what would Eve think of that?” Renee asked, putting on an exaggerated expression.

Nova rolled her eyes and didn’t dignify that with a response.

“Hey, Vriska!” Pinkie called. “How much luck do you have?”

“Standard amount,” Vriska called. “I’d need to find a small city to get enough luck to slip between dimensions. Not entirely sure that’d work here.”

“Nova, is this like the Brain in the Sinkhole? Do we have a signal we can override?”

“Not that I can tell,” Nova said, reading through all her scans. “Can’t make much sense of this place, to be honest.”

“Question,” Vriska said, holding up a hand. “What am I supposed to think when you don’t tack on ‘to be honest’ at the end of your observations? That you’re lying all the time?”

Nova facehooved. “That’s an Applejack question, not a me question.”

Pinkie turned to Flutterfree. “Can Lolo see anything?”

Flutterfree blinked. “You know, I haven’t tried.” She closed her eyes, activating a power within herself. Normally Lolo was an invisible force when used, but whenever Flutterfree focused on tapping into its power with any serious focus, it appeared clearly to everyone as a mixture of pink spirograph patterns and green intertwining mathematical curves. The flower-like spirographs tapped into the hidden nature of things, attempting to reveal them, while the green lines extended all around to increase the range of the search.

A few stone platforms that were previously hidden from view appeared, but otherwise nothing happened.

Flutterfree dropped Lolo’s activity. The power became invisible again, but the platform remained in their sights. “Not much to see, apparently,” Flutterfree commented. “My attention was drawn to the edges of platforms. I think if we move off this disc we’ll see other things. Also, gravity is reversed on that staircase.”

“Good to know,” Nova commented.

“Let’s take the inverted staircase then!” Pinkie declared. “Seems the most interesting.” She bounced to the floating staircase, easily flipping herself upside down for the gravity. The rest of the team shrugged and followed. Nova and Flutterfree had no difficulty at all given their magic and wings, while Vriska just got lucky and landed perfectly. Renee…

She missed the jump and fell off the staircase, screaming, into the blue void below.

Nova used her magic to catch her and bring her up. She was still screaming. “Renee. It’s fine.”

Renee blinked. “Oh. I see it is.” She flushed slightly. “I guess I haven’t left all my old ways behind me, have I?”

“Some things never change!” Pinkie called. “Now come on, I see a very long platform at the top-bottom of this staircase!”

Flutterfree looked back the way they’d come. “The platforms on the other edge of the disc are… gone.”

“We’re never going to be able to see very far in front of us,” Vriksa pointed out.

Flutterfree extended Lolo’s green strand to the disc. “Well, I’ll use Lolo as a trail then. We’ll always be able to follow it back.”

“How far can you extend her again?” Nova asked.

“A few miles,” Flutterfree said. “I can also always see what’s happening at certain locations.” She forced a spirograph to appear in the center of the disc, not that anyone else could see it in this form. “We’ll know if anyone else shows up there.”

“Good enough for me,” Vriska said.

Pinkie nodded. “Onward then! We’ve got a mystery to solve!”

It didn’t take long for them to lose sight of the disc they had appeared on. They jumped to a strange, cubic piece of stone, and the disc vanished, but they could see many more platforms of differing shapes and sizes. After a few more jumps, they started to see patterns. There was a clear preference for staircases and flat slabs, though they had seen geometric shapes, rounded arches, and even a few larger ‘pieces’ that looked like entire buildings; albeit ancient, ruined buildings.

Gravity was always consistent on any one platform, but every jump carried with it the risk of gravity changing. It always treated the closest stone ‘piece’ as ground, but the direction was inconsistent and on the round platforms this inconsistency turned out to be a big issue if you couldn’t balance.

Vriska was currently standing on a spherical piece of stone at a ninety-degree angle to the others. “See? Easy?”

“Luck is cheating,” Nova deadpanned.

“Bah, I’m just good at balance.” Flapping her wings, she returned to the gigantic platform that resembled the Roman Coliseum, if the entire floor had been made of the same stone brick pattern rather than sand.

Nova furrowed her brow. “We’ve been moving around a while now. The readings haven’t changed, and there haven’t been any signs of life besides these structures, and none of them even have markings on them.”

“I haven’t seen anything at any of my nodes, either,” Flutterfree added. “How’s your map doing, Nova?”

“Well enough to know that this place isn’t Euclidian. This Coliseum would be right on top of that donut staircase if it were. Clearly, it is not.”

“We need a new plan,” Vriska said. “How about we jump? Would we fall forever?”

“A question to ask later!” Pinkie said, pointing. “Look! People!”

Three people – humans – had just appeared on the other edge of the Coliseum. The leader was an old man with a gray hat and gnarled staff. His companions were a man with metallic green balls on his clothing and a strangely shiny smile standing alongside what appeared to be a woman walking like a frog.

Both Pinkie’s team and the old man’s team tensed when they fully noticed each other’s presence.

Pinkie, to her credit, just smiled and waved. “Heeeeey there, who are you guys?”

The old man spoke with an aging voice, but also with deep conviction. “We are an exploration team for the United States of the Multiverse.”

“Oh, how crazy is that?” Pinkie declared. “We’re explorers too! We don’t exactly have a name for our alliance, but, you know, Unification is still being processed.” She giggled.

Vriska raised an eyebrow. “Never heard of the United States of the Multiverse.”

“And we’ve never heard of you!” the man behind the old leader called, entering what appeared to be a sort of battle stance. “And I see green trails coming off that yellow pegasus there!”

Both the froggy woman and Renee asked the same question at the same time. “A Stand user?”

The old man narrowed his eyes. “I do not trust this situation in the slightest.”

“Aw c’mon, have a little trust!” Pinkie encouraged.

“That’s exactly what someone trying to fool us would say,” the woman said.

“…Good point,” Pinkie admitted.

The two teams stared at each other from across the Coliseum, both unsure of what to do next.

~~~

Equis Cosmic was known as ‘that universe with all the spaceships and real estate’. Princess Cosmo Sparkle, the leader of a galactic pony empire, was not ashamed of this label by any means. She loved having the races of the multiverse fill up her once lonely galaxy, breathing life into a world she had once thought her race would stand in alone.

That said, the most recent race that had shown up was… interesting to say the least.

“You’re staring at me again,” a ‘human’ Twilight Sparkle said, herself a member of the mysterious ‘Flat’ race. They had come from a universe recently freed by Pinkie’s team, where everything spoke in monotone voices and bounced up and down like pieces of cardboard instead of using body language. The physics of the universe they were native to was, admittedly, rather limiting. Now that they had come out to the larger multiverse they had grown accustomed to a more ‘standard’ physics model. They had gained the ability to use full body language and expressions, though they still didn’t move their mouths when talking, still spoke with strange monotones, and still looked flat no matter what angle they were examined from.

This particular Flat went by Twi-Reaper - Twiree for short - because of her unusual ability to transform into a type of synthetic spaceship life-form known as a Reaper. Otherwise she walked around looking like any other human Twilight, except with a black military hat on for some reason.

Cosmo sighed. “Sorry. You have to admit, you stand out like a sore thumb.” She realized it was a bit odd for her to say this, since she was a tremendous alicorn with a beautiful flowing mane and enough magic to set off panic alarms by walking into the wrong buildings.

“I like it that way,” Twiree declared. “So… Do you like the fleet?”

Cosmo looked out the window of the space station they occupied, examining the hundred or so dark Reaper ships outside, all of which looked like a cross between a bug and a squid. They also looked flat, despite Cosmo having been on board the ship-people numerous times. “I don’t know. I’m not certain letting ships with the ability to hypnotize most people move freely is a good idea. Even if you say you won’t, and I know you aren’t, people are still going to ask questions.”

“The moment you figure out how to disable it, you tell me,” Twiree said.

Cosmo nodded. “It appears as if your ships ‘just work’, Twiree. Nobody can figure out how to upgrade your systems, much less turn them off.”

“Then it’s a good thing we’re so powerful, right?”

Cosmo smiled. “Certainly.”

“I predict obsolete ships in a few years,” an AI chirped from a crystal on Cosmo’s regalia. “Progress is unavoidable.”

“Starlight…” Cosmo shook her head. “They’re unpredictable and, despite adapting somewhat to our universes, still don’t fully operate by our rules.”

“That’s what makes us awesome!” Twiree declared, giving a thumbs up to Cosmo and the Starlight AI. “Got anything for us to blow up?”

“Unless the University decides to attack or something, no,” Cosmo said. “Just take this area of space as your own and enjoy it. It’s yours. Don’t go enslaving anypony.”

“We won’t!”

And then two letters appeared in front of them.

They stared at them.

“Starlight, where did these things come from?” Cosmo asked.

“Unknown. Could be a Celestia. Or a Spike. I am not aware of all the developments of magic messaging.”

The two versions of Twilight Sparkle lifted the letters up. Cosmo opened hers first.

“Name?”

Cosmo blinked at the small room she was suddenly in. “Wha…” she shook her head – she was being asked a question. “Princess Cosmo Sparkle o-”

The Twilight Sparkle behind the podium sighed. “Birth name. No titles.”

“Twilight Sparkle.”

There was a quick mark on a piece of paper and a large stack of paperwork was given to Cosmo. She was directed out of the room.

Cosmo raised an eyebrow. “What is this?”

“Just go to door at the end of the hall, you’ll understand.”

Cosmo nodded slowly, walking out of the room and down the hallway. She heard a “Next!” come from the receiving Twilight’s mouth as the door closed behind her. Then she heard “Name?” again.

She was not surprised to hear Twiree’s distinctive monotone voice. “What in Celestia’s potatoey behind just happened? Egad!”

Cosmo decided to wait for Twiree to get out, taking a moment to actually read the letter and gain some understanding of the situation.

“Name, please.”

Cosmo was most interested in the token. Return to this dimension from any universe? That must have taken some doing. Corona’s all-purpose-dialer was still a bit shaky and awkward to use, not to mention excessively flashy.

“Twi-Reaper of th-”

“Birth name only.”

Cosmo furrowed her brow, checking her own dimensional device. The coordinates did not match up. She supposed there was more than one way to determine one’s place in the multiverse. She wondered if this Council of Sparkle had run into any other multiversal societies… Clearly not one with Twilight Sparkles in it, but that didn’t rule out the possibility of others.

“…Plastic horse number one?”

“…What?”

“I don’t know what I first was! I’m a derivative creation!”

“…What’s the name you went by most of your life?”

“Twilight Sparkle.”

Cosmo was struggling to hold in her laughter. Twiree came through the door a few seconds later, the face of the receiver Twilight that of somepony who couldn’t wait for the work day to be over but also knew it was still technically morning.

“So. This is odd,” Twiree said. “Not as odd as home, but still.”

Cosmo levitated the stack of papers out of Twiree’s hands. “Read your letter, it’ll help.”

Twiree did so as they made their way to the door at the end of the hall. They entered the room filled with Twilights, and were pleasantly surprised to find Eve there.

“Ah, Cosmo! Twiree!” Eve said, getting up from her chair. “I was wondering if I was going to see any familiar faces.”

“So, you got dragged into this mess first?” Cosmo asked. “Fitting, I suppose.” She glanced at the pile of partially filled out papers in front of Eve. “You’re cooperating?”

“Yes. I’m waiting until they realize what I am.” She glanced at the employee overseeing them. She seemed to not care that they were talking, or even notice that they seemed like old friends.

“…Are our government workers like that?” Twiree asked.

“On Earths? Sometimes,” Eve said. “On Equis and the Hub? Generally not. And Twiree, don’t look now, but it seems most of these Twilights haven’t seen a human. Or, if they have, your speech patterns and motions are freaking them out a little.”

Twiree blushed and waved to the other Twilights in the room. “Hi! I’m Twiree! I don’t bite!”

Half of the Twilights moved away from her.

Twiree sagged. “What does a girl have to do to be liked around here…”

“Fill out paperwork,” Eve commented. “Lots of it is simple, but they sure like abstract questions. I’ve taken it upon myself to answer everything with absurd accuracy.”

“Let’s work on it together then. Be good little Twilights,” Cosmo commented. “Starlight, prepare to provide scarily specific data.”

“Yes, Cosmo,” the AI said.

“Here’s a fun one,” Eve said. “Favorite color.”

“White,” Comso said.

“I think you’re the first to not put down ‘Purple’ or ‘Lavender’ in a while,” Eve commented.

“It’s the color that burns against the dark loneliness of space,” Cosmo decreed. “A reminder that we are not lost in the void.”

“Woah… Poetic,” Twiree commented.

“Total magical output over the last six months,” Eve read. “Starlight, got those numbers?”

“Yes,” the AI chirped. “I have Cosmo’s down to the seventeenth decimal place. Rest of you just get full numbers. For Twiree that’s an issue since her number is so small, but at least we’re not putting down the highly incorrect zero.”

“Better than the rest of these Twilights are doing,” Eve commented. “What do they expect them to do? Estimate?”

“The horror!” Twiree declared. Cosmo nodded in agreement.

One of the other Twilights heard the conversation. “Wait, can you give me a number for my magical output?”

Cosmo lit her horn. She grabbed a quill and scribbled the number on the Twilight’s form. “Not as accurate as what we have on the rest of us, but certainly better than anything you could have remembered.”

“…Doesn’t this refer to magical output? Like, including stressed times?”

“As I said, the spell only gives an estimate based on the strength of your thaumic essence,” Cosmo decreed.

“…Thanks,” the Twilight said.

“Do me next!” another called, walking up to her.

Cosmo smiled – she was going to be here for a while. But she was several thousand years old as it was; waiting was nothing to her.

Twiree was starting to twitch from boredom already, however. Hopefully she didn’t decide to go full Reaper and destroy this room with her sheer size.

~~~

Groups consisting of only one type of individual from across the multiverse were not rare. In Eve’s little alliance, there was one group in particular that people thought of in relation to this – the League of Sweetie Belles. They had no census, no mandatory membership, none of that. What they did have was a lot of young white unicorn mares (and girls) who had a lot of fun together ranging from a day at the Pinkie Emporium to saving a universe from a cruel monster or something. They were young, but few of them could still be considered children.

Quite a few members of the League were currently walking up what appeared to be an infinite staircase floating among blue aurorae.

So many Sweetie Belles. The default from Equis Vitis still had the name Sweetie Belle, but all the others had their own nicknames. Thrackerzod, Sweetie Bot, Squeaky Belle, Sweetie Brute, and the two humans, Burgerbelle and Suzie Belle. Burgerbelle was the only one of them who was a child, though she was one of the Flat race so it was unclear if she was actually going to age or not as time went on. Suzie was from the world known as Earth Vitis, Sweetie Belle’s direct human counterpart.

“I’m bored,” Sweetie Brute moaned. “Can we punch something yet?”

“You may attempt to punch me,” Thrackerzod answered. “Then you will discover the power of the Old Ones at your throat, driving your mind even further into insanity than it already is. You will likely try to punch me again, and then the cycle will perpetuate itself until your brain is so mushy you start to think that you are the target.”

Brute blinked. Then grinned. “Sweet.”

Squeaky Belle facehooved. “Brute, don’t,” she said, her distinctive helium-like voice heavily contrasting the gravely and deep voices of Brute and Thrackerzod. “We need to stay together and not fight. We’re in an unknown location for unknown reasons with unknown danger and unknown enemy status!”

“Burger,” Burgerbelle commented in the monotone that was signature of her kind.

Suzie looked down at the young girl. “Sorry, I already gave you the last one.”

“Oh. …We need to get out of here before I kill someone.”

“The danger levels have doubled,” Sweetie Bot droned in a robotic voice that was somehow much more expressive than Burgerbelle’s. “Beware the Burger Girl.”

“Yes yes, we know,” Sweetie Belle – the Sweetie Belle – said. “As the de-facto leader of all of you, I decree that we stop talking about killing and violence and instead focus more on finding a way out of here.”

“I thought Thrackerzod was in charge?” Burgerbelle asked.

“We don’t have to make the chain of command rigid,” Squeaky reminded their newest member. “The League is all about equality, adventure, and… well it was about cutie marks, but virtually all of us have them now.”

Every Sweetie that wasn’t a human glanced at their flanks – all with variations of the Crusader shield on them, even Sweetie Bot, despite the fact that she didn’t appear to actually grown in size as time went on.

“So beautiful…” Sweetie commented. Despite having had it for so long, she still couldn’t stop staring at it.

“We’ve stopped moving,” Thrackerzod commented, nowhere near as infatuated by her mark as the others. “Not moving means not looking for new things and not finding a way out of this mess.”

“Can’t you just ask your demon buddies?” Suzie asked.

“I am cut off from Azathoth,” Thrackerzod said. “I feel no connection to the Embodiment.”

“Oh cool!” Sweetie Belle declared. “That means you can think truly for yourself now, right? Riiiiight?”

“…What a terrifying thought,” Thrackerzod muttered. “But true. Though I have doubts my individualism is worth being stuck in a blue death trap for eternity.”

“I thin-” Suzie began, but her words were cut short by a loud crack. All the Sweeties looked down, shocked to find that the stone platform they were standing on had cracked through the middle. The smaller half broke off and started falling into the depths of the blue aurora below, dragging Suzie, Squeaky, and Brute with it.

Bot acted quickly, leaping off the platform and flying down to them, catching Suzie and Brute in her front hooves while her back unleashed rockets to keep them from falling further. Squeaky teleported herself to a platform that was not falling apart.

Thrackerzod felt the ground beneath her shifting, but she refused to lose focus. She teleported the rest of the League to the platform Squeaky was on, reasonably sure she got everyone. Bot dropped those she saved on top of them all, creating a pile of adorable white fluff. She landed and bowed. “Saving quota reached at 114%!”

“I think Bot’s processor is broken,” Brute commented, crawling out of the pile and shaking her head. “It’s over a hundred percent again.”

“But there are only seven of us!” Bot commented. “We saved eight.”

Thrackerzod and Sweetie Belle blinked. “Wait, what?” All the Sweeties pulled themselves up and out of the piles. They checked and, sure enough, there were eight of them.

Sweetie Belle went over a mental checklist. Me, Zod, Bot, Brute, Squeaky, Suzie, Burgerbelle, and… She came to a Sweetie Belle she didn’t recognize.

“You didn’t come here with us,” Thrackerzod addressed the mare.

“Uh, no,” the eighth Sweetie said. She was young – maybe not quite a full grown mare – and had a unique cutie mark on her flanks of a shattered starburst and musical note. “I came alone. I heard screams so I ran over and… Well, then I was in a pile of myself. I do have to admit, this is new.”

Thrackerzod sniffed. “She has touched eldritch before,” the deep unicorn decreed. “There’s something else off about her as well. A significantly higher magical output than a normal Sweetie.”

“Zod, lay off,” Sweetie Belle called, putting on a warm smile. “We’re the League of Sweetie Belles. I assume you’re named Sweetie Belle?”

The eighth Sweetie nodded. “Yep.”

“Do you… Have a nickname we can call you? To avoid confusion.”

The Sweetie pondered this. “Well, I call myself Interdimensional Sweetie sometimes…”

“Mouthful,” Brute pointed out.

“I’ve also gone by… Allure before.”

Sweetie Belle picked up on the tone in her counterpart’s voice. “You don’t like that name.”

“…No. It was given to me in a universe by a horrible manipulative pony who wasn’t really my father. …Sorta.”

Sweetie Belle looked at her, something stirring within her heart. “…Thrackerzod, are you feeling something from her?”

“I’m feeling a lot of things from her,” the eldritch unicorn commented. “Be more specific.”

“Like… She’s ‘bigger’.”

“She’s smaller than you and me.”

“That’s not what I mean…” Sweetie said, putting a hoof to her chin. “I’m not sure how to describe it. But… I think she deserves the name Sweetie Belle.”

“Oh boy, back to name-prefixes?” Squeaky grabbed her head. “Ooooooh boy.”

“No,” the lead Sweetie Belle declared. “I”ll take the name Allure. It won’t be painful to me. You can be Sweetie Belle, Interdimensional Sweetie.”

The Sweetie Belle stared at her. “...You don’t know what it means.”

“Do I have to? It won’t mean to me what it means to you. To you, it’s a bad memory. To me, it’s taking something I think sounds nice and making it my own to help somepony else.”

“...Thank you.”

“You’re welcome!”

“You’re choosing a name!?” Suzie blurted. “You said you weren’t going to choose one!”

“It just feels… Right,” the newly-dubbed Allure said, extending her hoof to the mare with the honor of being called Sweetie Belle. “I, Allure, extend an invitation to you, Sweetie Belle, to join the League of Sweetie Belles.”

“What comes with membership?” Sweetie Belle asked. “I mean, it sounds really nice, but I don’t really know what you do.”

“Get lost in a maze of impossible blueness,” Thrackerzod deadpanned. “That’s what we do.”

Brute cheered. “And we’re great at it!”

Allure rolled her eyes. “We’re a bunch of friends who have fun across the multiverse. Sometimes we have great adventures, other times we just hang out at the Pinkie Emporium.”

“…Pinkie Emporium?”

“An amusement park run entirely by versions of Pinkie Pie.”

Sweetie Belle’s jaw dropped. “That sounds equally amazing and terrifying.”

“That’s the general consensus,” Suzie said.

“We should probably introduce ourselves,” Allure said. “I am Allure now. This is Thrackerzod, Sweetie Bot, Squeaky Belle, Sweetie Brute, Burgerbelle, and Suzie.” She took a breath. “Wow there’s a lot of us.”

“What is your story?” Sweetie Belle asked.

“Simple version?” Allure waved a hoof in the air. “Our Twilight – Eve – discovered interdimensional travel and has been creating a multiversal society over the last few years. I eventually joined in on the fun on an adventure where I met several versions of myself, and we just stayed together after that, doing whatever we wanted. Unlike Pinkie’s or Toph’s group, we don’t have any real missions. We just do what we want.”

“Which usually does not involve getting lost,” Squeaky added. “Something intercepted us and brought us here.”

“Same,” Sweetie said. “I was between worlds and then… Here. I was not supposed to be here. By the way, half of you have bizarre voices.”

“An oddity of our universe cluster,” Allure said. “Most Sweeties actually sound like you and me.”

“I know. I’ve met a few.”

“That’s what I’m curious about,” Suzie said. “What is your story?”

Sweetie smirked, the expression of someone who had clearly told her story a lot of times. “Well… Back in my original universe, I shattered my Twilight’s essence into a… lot of pieces. They were spread across the multiverse, and my body was sent out as well. I’ve been collecting fragments of Twilight and moving from universe to universe, trying to re-assemble her.”

“You remind me a bit of Vriska,” Allure said. “She’s trying to find her home as well, and her friend. Though her friend isn’t in a million pieces.”

Sweetie blinked. “I’m… not the only one? That’s… I’m not sure how to feel about that really.”

“You’ve seen some things,” Thrackerzod said. It wasn’t a question.

Sweetie nodded slowly. “Yeah.” She looked at them all, looking like she desperately wanted to talk about something else. “You… are part of a multiversal society? Would you… know how to get me home?”

Allure took out her dimensional device. “Well, not right now, since this place keeps us from dialing out for some reason. But if you have any sort of connection to it within yourself, we can probably find it. Depends on how far away your world is, from what I understand.”

“So… That’s a maybe?”

“That’s a maybe,” Sweetie declared. “Actually, why not tell us what worlds you’ve been to? We may have been to some of the same ones!”

Sweetie clearly started going through a list in her head. “Well, there was one where Twilight and Trixie were a couple…”

“Could be any number of universes,” Suzie pointed out.

Sweetie seemed mildly surprised that didn’t surprise them. “The one where prankster Nightmare Moon took over Equestria and used Twilight as a… special kind of slave.”

Allure winced. “Ouch.”

“Lots of Nightmare Moon worlds,” Thrackerzod commented. “A few are pranksters. Can’t say I’ve heard of that use of Twilight though. Eve generally takes care of any Nightmare Moon that’s evil if the denizens of that universe can’t.”

“Oh, you help worlds like that? I generally don’t get to accomplish that much…” She shook her head. “There’s the one where the Elements of Harmony were immortal.”

“That’s a new one,” Squeaky said. “At least, as far as we know, only Twilights are immortal.”

“…Is it normal for Twilights to be alicorns then?”

“Most are, yeah,” Allure commented. “I take it yours was a unicorn?”

Sweetie nodded. “And most of the Twilights I encountered are as well. …I guess I’m an outlier, huh? Even with the cutie mark…”

“It means you’re unique,” Squeaky said, smiling. “I think that’s what Sw- Allure sees in you.”

“Heh. Yeah. Let’s see… Everyone’s gender was swapped in one, a universe where Prince Blueblood was experiencing the same day at the Gala over and over again…”

“Oh, that jerk?” Allure said. “Wow, that must have sucked for you.”

Sweetie raised an eyebrow. “Wasn’t horrible. Blueblood makes a nice adoptive brother.”

Blank stares.

Sweetie grinned. “I see I finally got something that fazed you.”

“Yeah,” Allure said, shaking her head. “Did not expect that one…”

“There was the one where ponies turned Equestria into a wasteland,” Sweetie continued.

“I recognize that one,” Allure said. “Megaspells, right?”

“You’ve been!”

“Not me personally, no. I read a book from there though, written by some mare named Littlepip. She’s actually working for Eve now. Though… from what I hear that world isn’t much of a Wasteland right now.”

“Really? Did they fix it since I was there last?”

“They fixed it before we arrived. Years before. We came in the after-party.”

“Oh! …Well then, did you meet the Goddess-Trixie? Puppysmiles?”

Allure rubbed the back of her head. “I… don’t know about Puppysmiles, but I do know the Goddess is dead.”

“…Oh.” She looked at the ground. “…Well then. Spike?”

“Yeah, that world’s Spike is still around.”

“Ask him about me,” Sweetie said. “I only met him very briefly at the end of my stay, but if you can…” She furrowed her brow.

“We’ll try. Anywhere else you’ve been? I can tell you’ve got quite the list,” Suzie asked.

“The one where my everypony was fighting a war against my ‘dad’ and some guy named Titan, the one where I could see the essence of magic and was taught by Discord, the one with a weird time distorting fairy world, and the one with humans and ponies working together to fight aliens.”

“Yeah, sorry on the rest of those,” Squeaky said. “All either not familiar or too vague and common.”

“She’s not talking about one,” Thrackerzod said.

“You can sense that?” Sweetie blurted.

“I may look like a unicorn, but I am not. I am what you might call a demon, though an Eldritch Scion would be more accurate.”

Sweetie backed away. “You’re… one of them?”

Thrackerzod frowned. “…I think not. I think you encountered a True Demonic presence, based on the energy flowing off of you that isn’t from the shards of Twilight Sparkle. I am sorry for what you must have seen.”

“T-thanks.”

Squeaky pulled Thrackerzod back. “Eheh… Don’t mind Zod here, she’s a little creepy and morbid, but deep down she has a heart and will defend us with her life.”

“Doesn’t she just return to the Embodiment when she dies?” Burgerbelle asked.

“Probably not in here,” Thrackerzod commented. “Too secluded.”

Sweetie Belle blinked. Then she shook her head and laughed. “This… This is refreshing. To see so many of you who are me, but who also understand.”

“…Only Thrackerzod has any idea what you’ve suffered,” Allure said. “I can feel that we haven’t been through as much as you, despite having been at this longer and having visited more worlds.”

“I don’t think that matters,” Sweetie said, grabbing Allure’s hoof. “We are Interdimensional Sweetie. We are the League of Sweetie Belles.”

“I take it you’re in?”

“Of course I’m in! Now, let’s find a way out of this strange place!”

“Ahem. Now may not be the time to mention this but someone’s watching us,” Suzie said. “There’s a column over there with a man behind it.”

All eight members of the League of Sweetie Belles turned to look at the floating column. They heard a deep sigh. “Welp, I’m made!” a male voice declared. A human figure clad in full armor and orange fabrics leaped off the column and onto the piece they were all standing on. He was huge for a human – comparable to Jotaro – and wielded a large halberd. “The name’s Gilgamesh. It sounds to me like we’re all in the same pickle.”

Allure blinked. “Oh. ...Oh, this place is drawing dimensional travelers, isn’t it?”

“90% likely conclusion!” Bot declared.

Allure rubbed her horn. “This could get really complicated, really fast…”

~~~

“Name?”

“Sparky Sparkle.”

The Twilight taking her name let out a snort. Sparky fixed her with a look. “What?”

“Nothing.” She wrote the name down on a piece of paper, chuckling. She handed Sparky the paperwork and directed her down the hall.

“I don’t have time for this! I need to look fo- and you’re not listening to me anymore. Great.” She clutched the papers in her hand and charged down the hall, stewing inwardly. How dare they take her away from her work? She needed to find Corona! She…

She threw the door to the room with all the Twilights in it. “Ah, Sparky!” Eve called, smiling. “I was wondering when you were going to notice your letter. I assumed you got one.”

Sparky blinked. “Is this YOUR doing?”

“What? No! I was dragged here just like you, Cosmo, Twiree, Twix, and Equis Eldritch Twilight here.”

Equis Eldritch Twilight was not a pony Sparky knew. The name told her she was Thrackerzod’s Twilight, and that was it. Sparky could have sworn Thrackerzod had mentioned her Twilight was a unicorn, but the pony before her was an alicorn. “…Is this all of us?” Sparky asked.

“Probably not,” Cosmo said. “But we’re approaching completion with our papers. Here, let’s help with yours. Starlight’s great when it comes to data you wouldn’t normally know.”

“Uh…”

“Just go with it,” Twix, who was still a unicorn, said. “Means you don’t have to figure out what any of it means.”

Equis Eldritch Twilight took a swig of beer presumably conjured up by one of the other Twilights in the room. “I did not become the god of arcane relations to be subjected to a stupid census.”

“Renee would chide you for speaking so highly of yourself,” Eve commented.

“What? My Celestia calls herself a god all the time!”

“Your Celestia is a violent dictator,” Eve said, barely paying E E Twilight any attention.

“Man, it still feels so weird hearing ponies say that without instantly having a fear of death.”

Twix shrugged. “I’m just waiting for Trollestia to give me wings or something.”

“I wouldn’t count on it,” E E Twilight said. “You have to be prepared for this sort of thing over years, geared up and bred, and… Oh wait, that’s right, I forgot. The textbook case is Eve. Just solve a spell and BAM.”

“I wouldn’t put it past Trollestia to just give me wings for a day and then remove them,” Twix commented.

E E Twilight glanced at her. “…How did you…”

Twix shrugged. “I’m no Pinkie, but I’ve picked up cues over the years.”

Sparky turned to Eve. “Eve, why are we just letting ourselves be subject to this? We can demand to see their leaders.”

“Oh, we will,” Eve said, smirking evilly. “We’ll fill out their forms. And then I’ll open a dimensional portal right in front of mc-sleepy-pancake up there and make her freak out. I’m compiling a list of complaints. ‘Abduction of the Charter-Princess’ is sure to send chills down the spines of whatever kind of pony this Grand Secretariat is. Or the rest of the Council, I suppose.” She rubbed her hooves together. “I’m almost looking forward to it!”

Sparky blinked. “…What about Corona, Eve?”

Eve sighed. “Sparky… I want to find her too. But I think we both know that, not only do we need a break, but we don’t have the resources to find her yet.”

“…I’ll agree to the break. But as soon as we’re done here I’m going back to the Castle and I’m going to find her.”

Eve smiled sadly. “If that’s what you think needs to be done. Who knows, maybe you’ll be the one to solve the problem with your science!”

Sparky looked away, unsure of herself.

Cosmo put a hoof on Sparky’s shoulder. “Do not doubt yourself, Sparky. You have a drive and intelligence within yourself that surpasses most Twilights. You are, to put it mildly, a technological genius. If you apply yourself, you will succeed, given time.”

Sparky nodded slowly. “Right.”

“But for today, give yourself a chance to relax,” Twiree said, grinning. “Trust your Flat doppelganger, we’re going to have some fun today with a multiversal civilization.”

“…Are you sure we want to upset them?”

“Upset? No,” Eve said. “Make panic internally? Yes.”

“That’s a form of upsetting.”

“Ah, they’ll realize we’re friendly soon enough,” Eve dismissed. “We’re all Twilights here.”

“Mhm…”

~~~

“Do you guys have any names?” Vriska shouted at the humans at the other end of the Coliseum.

“I am Gandalf,” the old man spoke, tapping his staff on the ground for emphasis. “This man is Gyro, and the other is known as Froppy.”

“Ribbit,” Froppy said.

“Dumb name,” Vriska said, folding her arms.

“Wanna say that again, pasty?” Gyro said, plucking a green metal ball off his clothing. “Cause we can go.”

“Oh, I’d love to see what those balls of yours can do…”

Renee facehooved. “This is a landmine of bad wording.”

Pinkie cleared her throat. “Hello Gandalf! Gyro! Froppy! I’m Pinkie, this is Renee, Vriska, Nova, and Flutterfree! We don’t need any trouble or anything!”

“What are you doing here?” Gandalf asked.

“Lost,” Nova said. “Dragged here while en-route to another dimension.”

“Same,” Froppy added.

Pinkie pulled out her dimensional device. “This is how we travel universes. It’s not working right now. You?”

Gyro pulled a round ball out from under his hat, blue rather than green like the ones on his clothing. “This. If you know what Stands are, then you should know about Spin. You use it to activate this.”

“Spin?” Flutterfree said, cocking her head. “Is that anything like Hammon?”

“What’s that?” Gyro muttered.

“Clearly their Stands are of a different kind,” Gandalf pointed out. “Since most of them are horses, this does not surprise me.”

“We actually got it from a human wor-” Flutterfree began, before she noticed Renee and Nova glaring at her. “Uh, yeah. Guess I’m not supposed to say things like that. Oops.”

“Secrets, eh?” Gyro said, taking a few steps forward. “How about you tell us those secrets? Like what this place is?”

Nova rolled her eyes. “Non-Euclidian limited-visibility universe. No idea why or how it’s blocking our escape, or how it brought us here. We came in together and got sent here instead of our actual destination.”

“Have you found anything of interest?” Froppy inquired.

“Just lots of rocks and gravity weirdness,” Pinkie giggled. “This Coliseum is the biggest one we’ve seen!”

“No markings?”

“Nope,” Pinkie confirmed. “Not a one.”

Gandalf rubbed his beard. “This is most concerning. Not one, but two groups dragged here by some unknown force while they were traveling elsewhere…”

“Could others be dragged in here as well?” Flutterfree asked.

“It’s safe to assume so.”

“…There could be dozens,” Renee said. “And they might be only a few platforms away from us and we couldn’t even see them! This place is huge, after all…”

“Hooold it!” Gyro shouted. “Why are we talking with them? For all we know they could be the ones who put us in this mess!”

Vriska pointed a finger. “Hey, ballsy, that’s my line! I bet you’re responsible.”

Nova and Froppy facehooved/facepalmed. “Stop being dense.”

“You stop being dense!” Vriska and Gyro shot back to their respective teammates.

Pinkie held up her hooves. “Okay, so, nobody knows if we should trust the others’ side. That’s fine, we don’t have to trust each other. Buuuut it would probably be better if we stick together. If either of us are responsible, one might slip up! But if both of us are just trapped here and telling the truth, we could work together! It’s win-win!”

Gandalf nodded. “That seems reasonable, unless one of us has an extremely creative plan that involves leading us around.”

“Well then you guys take the lead!” Pinkie cheered.

“Pinkie!” Renee hissed.

Pinkie made her tail twitch on purpose and winked at Renee.

“Oh. Well, okay then.”

Froppy narrowed her eyes – she’d seen the tail twitch and wink. She whispered something to Gandalf.

Gandalf leaned into his staff. “We accept. Now we-”

“OH FRICK!” They heard a female voice scream to the left of the Coliseum. Everyone turned to see what appeared to be a girl with pale-blue hair and red gloves standing there. She was staring at Pinkie’s group. “Uh… FANCY RUNNING INTO YOU HERE!”

“JENNY!” Nova shouted, horn lighting up with impressive power. She shot a bolt at Jenny, blowing up a significant portion of her and the Coliseum wall behind her. She regenerated on the spot, as was her custom, but the fight had already begun.

Gyro summoned his Stand “Ball Breaker!” He called. The entire coliseum began to rotate as the green humanoid appeared, swirling with crackling energy. Flutterfree activated Lolo, ensuring that everyone could see Ball Breaker – the sudden visibility of the Stand startling Gandalf and Froppy.

The full activation of Lolo also revealed the blue crystalline Ivan standing next to Jenny. He let out a deep sigh and shook his head. “Of course…”

“Why are we spinning!?” Jenny shouted.

“Ball Breaker is an amazing Stand!” Gyro shouted. “It is the power of Spin incarnate, with it I ca-”

Vriska decked Gyro in the face. “You talk too much.”

Gandalf raised his staff, summoning impressive white magic. Renee attempted to catch it in her shielding, but her magic was pathetic compared to his own. It exploded, and the Coliseum rocked, all the while continuing to increase its Spin.

And then Froppy sighed, deciding that yes, it did look like they were going to have to fight.

Pinkie twitched. “OH COME ON!”

~~~

“So… You travel worlds how, exactly, mister Gilgamesh?” Allure asked the tall Gilgamesh as he and the rest of the League leaped onto a platform shaped like an arch.

“The Void.”

“And how does that work?”

“It just works,” he said. The unicorn who had been allowed to keep the name Sweetie Belle knew he was probably smirking under his helmet, but nopony could see that.

Allure quizzed Gilgamesh more about his area of the multiverse, which apparently only had a few pony worlds, much like how the explored ‘east’ multiverse held mostly pony worlds with a handful of human worlds. Sweetie paid cursory attention to the discussion, learning more about larger-scale multiverse structure, but she found the armored man to be a bit too obsessed with legendary treasure and weapons.

She was much more curious about the existence of Burgerbelle.

“So… Why do you move like that?”

“Something about other-world physics,” Burgerbelle said without moving her mouth. She shrugged. “All I know is I’m here now and I feel great. Do you know how to summon a hamburger?”

“Uh… No,” Sweetie said. “I’m just thinking, how are you talking without moving your mouth? Or your lips?”

“The mysteriousness is immense,” Bot said, injecting herself into the conversation. “All tests are inconclusive.”

“But… How is that even possible?” Sweetie asked. “What’s making the noise?”

“Noise comes from the mouth,” Bot answered. “Cannot determine anything else.”

Squeaky coughed. “Sweetie, Burgerbelle here comes from a world where things are different. You know this world we are walking around in has differences in gravity?”

Sweetie looked up to see Gilgamesh on a platform above them. “Yeah, I see that.”

“Well, imagine if universes could have other things changed. Friction. Time. The nature of sound itself. Laws of motion.”

“So what, are things like Conservation of Energy not a thing in some universes?”

Squeaky nodded. “Many systems of magic break the ‘rules’, though most don’t. Burgerbelle comes from a place where reality was dictated by ‘Creativity’. We don’t fully understand what it meant, and I’m not sure we want to.” She gestured at Thrackerzod. “Zod comes from another sort of different world. That body isn’t her real form. Her real form exists in a state of multiple dimensions we can’t see all at once. If we were to enter her true home universe, we would either die or go mad.”

Brute butted in. “I wouldn’t!”

“Your madness is well established,” Squeaky deadpanned. It didn’t have the effect it was meant to due to her helium-speak.

“Yay!”

Sweetie raised an eyebrow. “Does she really have insanity?”

“We think so,” Squeaky said. “She likes being brutal to things. Punching. Killing. She likes suggesting roofies as a solution to just about every problem, for some inexplicable reason. My Scootaloo may have been worse, but at least she had some smarts in there.”

“Your Scootaloo was brutal?”

“Yeah. We did have to be though – the three of us were undercover Generals in our world, bred to fight a perfect war.”

“…That sounds insane.”

“-ly brilliant,” Squeaky finished with a smirk.

“I’m serious, you’re not much older than me. You had to be a kid… That’s not right.”

“No, it’s not. But it was extremely effective. The enemy could never figure out who was giving the orders. And… Well, the war is over now.”

“Are you saying the ends justify the means?”

“I’m not sure what I’m saying, Sweetie,” Squeaky admitted. “What I am saying is that it’s behind me, and at this point there’s no use dwelling on it. I am what I am.”

Sweetie smiled. “Sometimes I wish I could be somepony like you.”

“What? Raised to be a General?”

Sweetie shook her head. “No. Able to leave the past behind me.”

Squeaky smiled warmly. “It is a nice skill. But what I went through is nothing compared to you, from what I can tell.”

Sweetie nodded. “That… That doesn’t change anything. Your sufferings are still your own. Don’t lessen them just because somepony’s had it worse.”

“Words of a friend?”

“Paraphrase, of sorts,” Sweetie confirmed. “The world I was in just before this one. It was the first time I saw humans. Wasn’t expecting to see more so soon.”

“Get used to it,” Suzy said, having overheard her comment. “Humans are the most common race in the multiverse, so much as we can tell. We’ve just got so many ponies here because we’re in a cluster of pony universes. The Tau’ri explorations in the western multiverse have yet to actually find any pony worlds there.”

“Wow. Wonder why they’re the ones?”

“No idea,” Suzy said. “I’m not Eve, I don’t ask the big questions. Sw- Allure up there does. But that’s why she’s the leader.”

Sweetie Belle looked ahead to where Gilgamesh and Allure were talking, Thrackerzod trailing just behind. “…She’s me, isn’t she? The me I would have become if I… Hadn’t messed up.”

“I don’t think so,” Suzy said. “You seem a bit… different. More magically inclined. Allure has never been good with magic, and is still only passable with it. Zod does all the heavy spell lifting.”

“Huh…” Sweetie said. “…I think I’m going to go talk to her, you don’t mind?”

“Not at all,” Suzy said with a wink. “The League treats conversation fluidly. Which is to say it starts up and breaks off all the time because there’s so many of us all the time.”

Sweetie nodded and trotted to catch up with Gilgamesh and Allure.

“…and that’s how I got my seven millionth copy of Excelipoor.”

“You have some bad luck,” Allure commented. “Never got the real deal, did you?”

“Held it a few times,” Gilgamesh admitted. “But I never can keep ahold of an Excalibur. Other legendary weapons, yes, but that one? It eludes me.”

“Sounds like you may have a Beat curse.”

“Beat curse?” Sweetie asked.

“Oh,” Allure said, taking in Sweetie’s presence. “Didn’t see you there, you move pretty silently huh? Yeah, a Beat curse. It’s… Well I really don’t understand it, since Starbeat really doesn’t like explaining things at length. It’s a curse that makes you… do things a certain way? I think? Starbeat’s makes her feel uncontrollable romantic attraction toward random people at seemingly random times.”

“…Weird.”

“Yeah, I don’t really know what I’m talking about,” Allure admitted. “So, what’s up?”

“I was wondering. Did you ever actually become an apprentice under Twilight Sparkle?”

“Me?” Allure laughed at the thought. “She struggled to teach me proper telekinesis! So, yeah, no I wasn’t her apprentice. That’d be Nova. Though I believe her title is Protégé.”

“Ah. Like Twilight was to Celestia?”

“Right!”

“What’s Nova like?”

“Well, her name was originally Starlight Glimmer, and she used to be evil. Enslaved a town, tried to destroy time, all that. She’s now a member of Pinkie’s team and keeps time from getting destroyed. She’s very snarky and… Let’s just say she doesn’t have as much tact as other ponies.”

“Ah.”

“Really phenomenal at magic though.”

“Does she have any artifacts?” Gilgamesh asked, suddenly.

Allure sighed. “Is that all you… No. Her tools would only work for a unicorn.”

“Shame. Do any of you have artifacts?”

“If you want to go steal an artifact, find the red bug-king Siron and take his staff,” Allure commented. “That thing’s more trouble than it’s worth.”

“I shall go on this quest to steal the rod! And I sha-”

A human woman’s fist came flying out of seemingly nowhere, beaning Gilgamesh right in the face. His strength should have been able to withstand the blow and injure the incoming wrist, but instead the attacker’s fist remained perfectly healthy and Gilgamesh went flying backward, over the edge of the platform they were standing on.

“Ha!” the strangely normal-looking woman shouted. “That’ll teach you not to kidnap little adorable unicorns!”

Every Sweetie Belle facehooved. Thrackerzod teleported Gilgamesh back up.

“…Why would you do that? Now I have to hit him again!” the woman said.

Allure cleared her throat. “Mister Gilgamesh is not an enemy nor is he kidnapping us. He’s lost here just like we are.”

“Told you,” a version of Sunset said, teleporting next to the woman. “But do you listen? No.”

“Who are you two?”

“Well, I’m Sunny, since apparently I can’t just be Sunset,” Sunny said. “This is Jane.”

“Jane bio identified!” Sweetie Bot declared. “Ooooh, you’re a dimensional traveler too!”

“Just adding more and more evidence to the pile that something’s drawing our kind here,” Thrackerzod muttered.

Squeaky nodded. “The question is why. Or how. Got anything on that, Zod?”

Zod shook her head. “Nothing.”

“Wait, hold up,” Jane said, raising a hand. “Zod? As in, Thrackerzod?”

“…Yes?” Allure said, cocking her head. “You heard of her?”

“I know her. Hey, Zod! It’s me, Jane!”

Thrackerzod blinked. “…I have no idea who you are.”

“You… Don’t? But what about-”

“Just like Discord,” Sunny said, putting a hoof on Jane. “Not all of them are the same.”

“But Zod is already a version of Sweetie Belle! How can there be more than one Zod?”

“There was more than one of all of us, at one point,” Allure said. “Copying universe.”

“Wait, that’s a thing?” both Jane and Sweetie said at the same time.

“Yeah, it’s a thing,” Allure said. “…Not anymore though. A guy named Rick destroyed it.”

“Rick…” Gilgamesh said, clenching his fist. “That man had Excalibur…”

Sweetie glanced around the group and to Jane’s own somewhat angry face. “It certainly seems like this Rick isn’t very popular.”

“He’s banned from interacting with the alliance,” Bot piped up. “I hear Pinkie even gave him a death threat!”

Sweetie blinked. “Wait, what? Pinkie!? Pinkie’s don’t… Well I guess there was that one time… And that one other time… Yeah, I’m not surprised anymore.”

“Pinkies are quite volatile,” Thrackerzod said. “We should be thankful that most Pinkies take our side.” She stopped in her tracks. “Everypony, I sense something. Be on your guard.”

They found themselves on a circular disc platform with seven columns and a gap where an eighth should have been. Nearby was an inverted staircase. Other than that, they saw nothing.

Thrackerzod furrowed her brow and lit her horn, scanning the area. “Well isn’t this a pleasant surprise.”

“What?”

“I’ve found one of Lolo’s nodes,” Thrackerzod said, walking toward the center of the disc. “Ahem. This is Thrackerzod to Flutterfree! We have the League of Sweetie Belles here, plus a new Sweetie, a man named Gilgamesh, Jane, and Sunny. We will follow along your path to-” She blinked. “Lolo just vanished.”

“…Can anyone explain to me what’s going on?” Jane asked.

“Flutterfree has a power she’s named Lolo,” Thrackerzod answered. “It can spread itself thin and watch over certain areas. I used my soul-sense to see the normally invisible body of it, which was set to observe this area. Something must have happened on Flutterfree’s end to make her recall Lolo.”

“A fight?” Brute asked.

“Possibly.”

“Then let’s go to the fight!” Brute cheered.

Allure shook her head. “We don’t know for sure which way it is. All we know is that Flutterfree is here, and maybe which direction she went. But without an actual path… We can’t find her.”

“So we stay,” Squeaky declared.

Sweetie raised an eyebrow. “Waiting? In a place like this?”

“It’s something,” Suzie admitted.

Gilgamesh twirled his halberd. “In that case, MISS JANE! I challenge you to a duel for insulting my honor!”

“You can’t be serious.”

“I am serious. I never kid. Except when I was a kid. And when I act like a kid,” he chuckled. Then he produced a sword, somehow wielding the halberd one-handed. “Come at me.”

Jane rolled her eyes. “Sure, why not?”

Thrackerzod frowned. “Hold it you two. I’m still sensing something here. It isn’t Lolo.”

A ball of pink fluff dropped from the sky, hitting the circular platform in the center, driving a crack right through it – not enough to separate the two halves fully, but hard enough to knock everyone down.

A flat-maned version of Pinkie Pie stood up, pupils the size of pinpricks, and her teeth somehow sharp. “Looks like your auntie Pinkie has too many Sweeties to deal with! Let’s cut the number down, shall we?”

Jane wasted no time. A sword was summoned into her hand from seemingly nowhere and she charged. And then Pinkie wasn’t there anymore, she was behind the woman.

Jane, to her credit, was expecting this, almost as if she had experience with this exact type of opponent. She twirled around in a perfect motion, bringing the sword down on the Pinkie’s head. It bounced off.

“Damn,” Jane cursed, flipping back so the Pinkie’s gigantic knife couldn’t hit her. It was at this point the Sweeties that could attack did so. Sunny, for her part, fired a bolt of fire.

Gilgamesh decided to one-up her. “Flare,” he decreed. Magic flew from his hands and into the Pinkie’s body.

“Ooooh bad bad move Gilgamesh!” Pinkie chided, already feeling her insides heat up to supposedly intolerable levels.

Gilgamesh narrowed his eyes. “How so, pink one?”

Pinkie put the bomb mask on her face. “I can explode and be just fine. You’ve just given me quite the boost! The answer is yes, you can explode twice!”

“TAKE COVER!” Sunny yelled.

And the Pinkie exploded twice, shattering the stone disc into a dozen pieces and engulfing the entire platform in smoke. The rumble rippled through the unusual universe, shaking up the platforms everywhere…

~~~

Eve looked through the sets of paperwork for herself, Cosmo, Sparky, Twiree, Twix, and E E Twilight. “I think we’ve got it. Everything done with higher than average accuracy, exactly what they want for their files, I’m sure.” She smirked. “Almost time for the fun to begin.”

Cosmo nodded. “In a minute though, I’m still helping some of the others with their papers. Or, well, Starlight is, I’m just the vessel.”

“I work you like a slave, apparently,” Starlight chirped.

“Funny,” Cosmo commented.

Eve arranged all their stacks of papers neatly and prepared them for turn-in. She saw the door open again, announcing a new Twilight. As she had gotten used to this past hour, she began to speak without really looking at who had come through the door. “Hello. You should probably read your le-”

She didn’t get to finish her sentence. She lost her grip on the papers when she registered who was standing in the doorway.

She was an alicorn Twilight Sparkle; her defining features being from her color scheme. Her purple coat was darker, her mane was more of a deep blue, and there was dark magic about her.

Brutalight Sparcake.

Eve’s ears flattened back instinctually, but the rest of her took a posture of unbridled rage. Her eyes glowed like spotlights, her mane began to swirl with the magic that made up this universe, and her horn prepared a spell designed to bore its way through her skull. Had anypony present been a Stand user, they would have seen a powerful white glow with three nested gyroscopic rings amidst it appear behind her. Great, judging eyes lined the rings of her Stand, ready to do its master’s bidding.

Brutalight just screamed like a scared little filly, tears coming out of her eyes.

A sign of stress.

A sign of having too much to cope with.

Eve dropped the show of power instantly. “…Do… Do you know who I am?”

The ‘Brutalight’ whimpered and shook her head.

“I… I’m sorry,” Eve said. “It’s just, somepony with your fac-”

The moment Eve took a step forward, ‘Brutalight’ scurried into a corner, folding her wings around herself.

Eve looked down at the ground, ashamed.

Cosmo put a wing around Eve, gesturing at Twix to go comfort the ‘Brutalight’. “Eve…” she spoke, her voice soothing.

“I… I was going to kill her. I was…”

“The mare whose face she shares took your hearing, and the lives of many,” Cosmo said. “Had it really been her, escaped from Nautica, you would have been right to take drastic action.”

“But… But it wasn’t!” Eve blurted. “Look at her! She’s a scared pony!”

The ‘Brutalight’ was accepting a comforting hoof from Twix, but wasn’t saying anything, or even looking out through the cracks of her wings. Eve knew she wouldn’t be out for a long time because of her.

Sparky put her hand on Eve’s other shoulder. “Let’s just turn the papers in and do what we wanted to do, okay? She probably would benefit from us going anyway.”

Eve nodded. “I’ll… I’ll be sure to check in on her later. But… Yes. Yeah, you’re right.” She took in a deep breath and stood tall.

“…You recovered quickly,” E E Twilight declared.

“I have to,” the Charter-Princess responded. “It’s my job, essentially.”

“That it is,” Cosmo said. “Twix, come on. We’re done here.”

Twix patted ‘Brutalight’ on the back one more time. “Hope you… get better. Ask the mares around here what to do on your papers. Some of them have some idea.” She trotted up to join the others. “Yeesh, she’s been messed up.”

Eve nodded. “I… I know.” She shook her head, leading all of them to the employee with the silver badge. “Ahem. Miss Sparkle?” she asked.

“Yes?”

“The six of us worked together and have our forms to fill out. We’re all good friends, so I hope you don’t mind.”

“Of course not, friends are always a-” she blinked. “…Wait a minute. You can’t be good friends. It clearly says here you’re all from different universes.”

Eve smirked, pulling out her dimensional device and dialing the Forest. “I am Charter-Princess Evening Sparkle of Equis Vitis, and I am one of, if not the, most important individual in multiversal society in the alliance I am a part of. I have been a good girl and filled out all your paperwork – as accurately as I possibly could, I might add – now you be a good girl and take us to your leader. Or leaders.”

The Twilight paled at these words. She glanced at her silver badge. “I… I think this is above my pay g-grade,” she stammered. “Ah… Just… step on the platform over there. You’ll get your designations and I…” she flipped through a booklet with the title Census Duty and You, clearly dissatisfied with the information it contained. “I’ll have you teleported to one of the Council’s waiting rooms! Yes, that’ll work. You’ll, uh, receive your designations in your mind and then you’ll… Er…”

“We’ll wait?” Eve said, raising an eyebrow. “Fine by us. But we’ll be timing you.”

The Twilight gulped. “O-of course. R-right away. If you h-have any interdimensional business that needs t-tending to, don’t hesitate to use your device to return. …Actually, don’t do that, only use it to make calls, I can’t have you vanishing.”

“All right,” Eve said. “We won’t leave. Just step on this pad right here?”

“Y-yes,” the Twilight said, lighting her horn. “The coordinates have been changed.”

The six of them stepped on – and all of them suddenly got a series of letters and numbers encoded into their mind that represented them. Eve sensed she was given a special designation – AΩ-4219. Alpha and the omega, huh? Wonder what exactly I did to get that.

Then the six of them were in a well-furnished waiting room, complete with coffee, crackers, magazines, and a few other snacks. The wallpaper and tiling was still exactly the same though.

“You think a million different Twilights could be more creative,” Sparky commented.

“Or maybe they just can’t agree on anything,” E E Twilight said. “Also, apparently I’m M4-N-delta-P5. I guess you have a name to call me now.”

“Welcome to the party, M4,” Twiree said. “Now, I wonder if there’s anything juicy in these magazines!”

Eve opened a cupboard and found Sparkle Census Code. She smirked. “Cosmo, I think I found something for us to read while we wait.”

“That’s going to be really, really boring,” Twix commented. “I wouldn’t bother.”

“That is why she asked me to come over rather than you,” Cosmo pointed out. “I agree we should at least attempt to be versed before they show up. It could be hours, for all we know.”

As they studied the code of the Census, back in the actual paperwork room, a certain mare looked out from between her wings.

The six of them were gone.

Good.

Brutalight let a cruel smile come to her face. That was just too easy.

~~~

“Okay, I’m saying it now,” Nova said. “This Gyro guy is ridiculously overpowered.”

“Oh? What makes you say that?” Pinkie asked.

Nova gestured at how they were holding on for dear life on the edge of a rapidly-spinning Coliseum.

“Oh, yeah. That. Funny, that.”

“NOT REALLY!” Jenny called, holding on a few meters to their left.

“YOU CAN SHUT UP!” Nova called back.

“…I thought we agreed I wasn’t evil last time?”

“I CAN STILL MESS YOU UP JENNY! MESS YOU UP GOOD.”

“Pff. I could be pounded into pulp and still survive.”

“It doesn’t have to be permanent.”

Gyro’s own team wasn’t doing much better – Froppy and Gandalf were barely hanging on at the other end, while Renee had encased herself in a crystal bubble to keep herself steady. Only Gyro, Vriska, and Flutterfree were actively doing anything of use – and Flutterfree was just using Lolo to keep herself rooted to the ground and make sure Vriska could see Gyro’s stand.

“GYRO!” Gandalf called. “YOU ARE GOING TO SPIN US OFF!”

Gyro smirked, his false golden teeth glinting in the blue light. “I’m not making it spin any faster, old man.” He smirked. “Just let me teach this bitch a lesson and we can move on to the others.”

Vriska ducked under Ball Breaker’s attack, but was unable to dodge a direct attack from one of Gyro’s own steel ball projectiles. The green sphere hit her in the arm, using the Spin to throw her back. She was open to attack from Ball Breaker.

She tried again to steal luck from Gyro, but Ball Breaker got in the way, and despite being able to see the Stand she apparently couldn’t steal the luck from it. The Stand kicked her right between the legs, driving her into the ground. Stone chunks went flying.

Gyro’s eyes widened, curiously looking at his leg. “Huh. Guess Ball Breaker lives up to his name.”

Vriska winced, pulling herself up to her knees. “Utter… Bastard…”

Gyro smirked. “I’m quite the guy. You know, I think I might actually have a song for you…”

Vriska summoned her dice and threw them at Gyro’s feet. His momentary distraction of looking for a song had given her all the time she needed. The dice rolled a high result, producing a very satisfying result – a wrecking ball from nowhere. Ball Breaker was unable to do anything to the wrecking ball before it hit Gyro. Gyro attempted to use the Spin on Vriska’s rolled attack, but the velocity at which he accelerated was too much. He didn’t lose consciousness, but he lost his concentration. Ball Breaker was forced back into Gyro’s body, and the stable Spin of the Coliseum began to drift back to a more manageable speed.

Vriska stood up, hands on her hips. “H-ha! I win!”

A steel ball hit her right between the eyes, knocking her over.

Gyro laughed, wheezing and holding his chest. “H-ha! I win!”

Vriska groaned, rubbing her head. “What the fuck is your deal?”

“My deal? Let me tell you abou-”

“ENOUGH!” Gandalf said, slamming his staff into the ground, sending out a magic shockwave that forced everyone who had just gotten back on their feet to fall back down. “Gyro, cease this contest. The rest of you…” he narrowed his eyes. “You’ll be coming with us.”

“What makes you think we’re going to do that?” Nova said.

Gandalf encased her in a sphere of white magic, freezing all her motions. “This is why.”

Pinkie tensed. “Gandalf… I know you don’t like to do this. Why don’t we put the staff down, and talk thi-”

“I cannot take any chances,” Gandalf decreed. “You are all far too powerful to be trusted without a leash.”

“Yeah! Gandalf!” Jenny whooped. “Good on you for choosing the right side!”

“This applies to you as well.”

“I don’t give a rip about that unicorn,” Jenny deadpanned. “What makes you think I”ll do wh-” she saw Froppy sitting on top of Ivan, having wrapped the crystal man up in her tongue. “IVAN! Again? …You were captured by a frog? How in…”

“No illusions,” was the only answer Ivan offered, making no attempt to even struggle against the froggy tongue.

Jenny curled her fists. “I just… I…”

Pinkie took in a breath and opened her eyes. “Gandalf. Listen to me. We want to work together.”

Gandalf recognized something sinister in her tone. “…Are you threatening me?”

“I can get Nova out of there before you can do anything,” Pinkie bragged. “And then where would you be?” Suddenly, she was behind him. “I have a certain… set of skills, you could say.”

Gandalf narrowed his eyes. “You aren’t sure you can. You tensed earlier.”

“Observant! But do you really wanna take that chance? It’d be much better if we could be friends. Or at least not try to hold each other hostage. I-”

Jenny teleported herself to Froppy and kicked the frog woman in the side, forcing her tongue to release.

Steam shot out of Pinkie’s ears. She opened her mouth and instead of a word, a high pitched BEEP came forth, before turning into a regular sentence. “-it Jenny! Why would you do that!?”

Jenny hoisted Ivan up and saluted. “Sorry, no time to… To…” Jenny was beyond surprised to see one of Gyro’s steel balls hit her in the face. Renee had thrown it with her magic. Ivan shot off a shard of crystal, Pinkie drew her hammer, Vriska prepared her dice, Gandalf raised his staff…

And then a blue phone box fell out of the sky, sideways, bringing the entire conflict to a standstill.

The Doctor poked his head out of the side of the TARDIS, the now open door billowing smoke. “Okay, clearly… Clearly that did not work.” He waved smoke out of his face as he left the TARDIS behind him. “That’s going to take a while for her to repair… Boy oh boy oh boy. He put a hand to his head and shook hit. “Eeegh. What on earth have I walked into?”

“Three-way free for all,” Jenny said.

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. “Riiiigh-”

Vriska threw her sword at the Doctor. He dodged by a hair’s breadth. “Who the- oh.”

“HEY ASSHOLE!” Vriska called. “REMEMBER ME?”

“Oh I could never forget-”

“OH BOY DO WE HAVE A LOT TO TALK ABOUT, YOU AND ME.”

The Doctor pointed the sonic screwdriver at her.

“…Really?”

“Yes. Really,” the Doctor coughed. “Pretty sure there’s something in you I can aggravate… Considering how beaten and battered you look.”

“Bullshit.”

“Okay fine, it’s complete baloney.” He put the screwdriver away and shrugged. “But! But, you still don’t want to kill me!”

“Gog, your face is much more annoying than the last one,” Vriska put a hand to her forehead.

Pinkie turned from the Doctor to Vriska. “So… I take it you know each other?”

“Know each other? Oh you bet we do,” Vriska spat. “He and I traveled together for a long time. And there’s a ton of things wrong in that fucking sick mind of his, I could go on for days. But let’s start with primary complaint A. You know exactly where Earth C is.”

“Well I wouldn’t say exactly and – bother, just shut up a moment, Vriska, would you?”

“Me? SHUT UP? Do you eve-”

“Good, good.” the Doctor put on a smile. “So, just to make sure everyone’s caught up to speed, we’re stuck in a universe that’s drawing in dimensional travelers seemingly at random. I am the Traveling Doctor, and that there is my TARDIS, a spacetime machine. Now, that TARDIS is one of the most advanced and fully optimized machines in the multiverse. I just spent the last few hours trying every trick I had in the book trying to escape this universe. As you can see, that didn’t work.”

“What does that mean to us?” Gandalf demanded.

“It means that I, a man who knows the entire multiverse, has been trapped here. If that’s not a sign of something exceptionally sinister at work, I don’t know what is.”

“So basically, you’re telling us to panic,” Flutterfree deadpanned.

“Yes! Wait, no. No that’s not it at all! The point is, quite clearly, none of us would have the capabilities to do this.”

“Except you,” Jenny pointed out.

Pinkie twitched. “I’m going to have to start dealing out ‘shut up’s like they’re candy, aren’t I?”

“It’ll certainly be something like that,” the Doctor said.

“What’s the best course of action?” Gandalf asked.

“You’re actually trusting this guy?” Gyro interjected, but seeing Gandalf’s nod he shut up. Apparently the gray wizard knew something Gyro didn’t.

The Doctor folded his hands. “At the moment, I suppose we find as many of our compatriots as we can and form a band.”

Flutterfree cleared her throat. “I spotted the League of Sweetie Belles and a few others back where we started. My group, that is.”

“And how did you do that?” Jenny asked.

“Lolo. My Stand,” Flutterfree said. “It was interrupted in the fight, but I saw them. I can find the way back.”

“That sounds wonderful!” the Doctor said, clasping his hands together. “Unless anyone has any better ideas?”

“YEAH!” a gravelly voice declared – one that was unfortunately familiar to too many here. “STOP BEING SENTIMENTAL PUSSIES!” This was punctuated by a burp.

Everyone – including the Doctor, Jenny, and Gandalf – let out a pained sigh. They knew who it was – Rick Sanchez and Morty. The mad scientist with no moral code whatsoever, and his grandson who everyone thought needed to be somewhere else.

Rick smirked at them, his distinct spiky blue hair drawing their attention as he entered the Coliseum. “Doc, you see, as it turns out Time Lord technology just isn’t cut out for this sort of thing.”

“If you could have escaped, you would have already,” the Doctor grunted.

“I was searching. I can get out of here with just a toothpick and my own hair.”

“You have no idea what’s going on here.”

Rick laughed. “Bah. Twelve-pier type universe, constructed by the Weavers in the Dark Era, repurposed with an interception quota keyed to regular travelers.”

“That’s obvious,” the Doctor decreed. “But the security measures are beyond that.”

“You telling me you haven’t tried the microverse tunnel?”

“How are you going to make a microverse with the supplies you have!?”

“That’s a yes!” Rick pointed and laughed. “You burned out your TARDIS without doing that? Oh, and here I was thinking I was talking to some enlightened immortal alien who travels through time.”

“Excuse me? I ne-”

Vriska interrupted. “Can you two just fight already and kill each other? Seriously, the multiverse would be so much better off without either of you running it into the ground.”

The Doctor and Rick continued shouting at each other, with Vriska occasionally butting in just to point out that they both were complete assholes.

Morty decided to sit down next to the ponies. “Hey.”

“Hey. You don’t look much older,” Nova observed.

“Time difference,” Morty said. “Slower on my end by quite a bit. What’s been going on in your neighborhood?”

“Oh, you know, just trying to unify a multiversal society,” Renee added. “No biggy.”

“Cool. Cool. How’s Twilight doing?”

“Eve, now,” Pinkie said. “She’s doing good. Rick definitely traumatized her. He’s still not welcome.”

“If the Doctor weren’t doing so good a job of it I would be giving him a piece of my mind…” Renee declared, narrowing her eyes. “I might just do it anyway.”

“So… You got Vriska on your team?” Morty asked.

“You know her?”

“Heard of her,” Morty said.

“Anything… bad?” Flutterfree asked.

“Nothing compared to Rick. She’s been responsible for a lot of death, but… Definitely still a hero.”

“Good,” Flutterfree said. “…They’re still going at it.”

Jenny decided enough was enough, teleporting between the two of them. “ENOUGH! I. Am. Tired of this! Just stop the fighting! Work together for one stupid minute and use your phenomenal minds to get us out of here!”

“Find others,” the Doctor said.

“Microverse,” Rick said, folding his arms.

“Well then why don’t we just split up?” the Doctor said, waving his hands around.

“What a great fucking idea!” Rick blurted, drawing a gun and pointing it at the Doctor. “How about I just split you up into a million pieces? No regeneration from this baby, Doc, no siree.”

The Doctor put his hands in the air. “W-why?”

“I dunno. I’m bored. Drunk. Sick of walking around in circles. Or maybe I just want to mess with Flagg, who knows?”

“You do more of Flagg’s bidding than any of his actual servants.”

Rick raised an eyebrow. Then he made a decision. Shooting the Doctor would have long-term consequences that he would likely live to regret, but hitting the TARDIS…

“Riiiiick….” Morty said, sensing what his grandfather was preparing to do.

Rick shot the TARDIS.

The explosion tore the Coliseum in half.

~~~

“Heh,” Eve said, closing the Sparkle Census Code. “They only have minimal regulations for multiverse-aware Sparkles. I guess they assume they won’t have anything big. They probably don’t have any experience with other societies.”

Cosmo furrowed her brow. “They don’t seem to be malicious though, merely studious. At worst, highly obsessive-compulsive.”

“What’d you expect? They’re us.”

Twiree huffed. “I can say for a fact that I am not obsessive-compulsive.”

“You’ve stacked every single magazine in this room you could into a perfect column,” Eve observed.

“Uh… Yeah I guess so.”

Twix pulled out her phone and checked the time. “It’s been an hour, officially.”

“It could be much longer,” M4 pointed out. “This is bureaucracy, Twix. You don’t just get to go ‘oh, sweet, something unexpected? Let’s just drop everything and deal with it.’ Doesn’t work.”

Sparky looked at the ceiling. “Maybe we should have just gone through orientation and caused a ruckus in the general population.”

“That would have just been rude,” Eve said. “They may have a desire to announce this in a particular way. We don’t want to force their hoof that much without first learning who they are. Though I’m pretty sure we can guess what forty million Twilight Sparkles will do.”

It was then that the door to the room opened with a small click. A grandiose alicorn stepped through the doorway. Her height was slightly above that of even Cosmo, and her mane was distinctly more impressive than Cosmo’s flowing magical locks, instead swirling with the power of what appeared to be a galaxy. On her chest was a pin that identified her as the Grand Secretariat, Council Member.

“Ah, we’ve been waiting,” Eve said, taking a step forth. “I am Charter-Princess Evening Sparkle of Equis Vitis. The Twilights you see before you are all my colleagues – Cosmo, Sparky, Twiree, Twix, and M4. We have some questions.”

“I am the Grand Secretariat.” She raised an eyebrow at that. “That’s some trick you pulled.”

Eve smirked. “Well we were kidnapped without warning. We should probably be livid.”

The Grand Secretariat sighed deeply. “While that is true, you clearly are not.” She glanced at Sparky. “…Most of you. I wonder why you decided to give that Twilight such a hard time.”

“For fun,” M4 said.

“More than that,” Cosmo added. “If we were found or discovered at that point, it would be better for you than if we were discovered among your general population. This allows you more control, if you can accept that. The only Twilights who know are the ones we helped out in that census room and the employee.” She blinked for a moment, clearly not used to looking up to talk to anybody.

The Grand Secretariat nodded. “I see that, though you are aware the ponies you helped will probably spread the news.”

“Unavoidable,” Eve commented. “We’ve encountered thousands of Twilight Sparkles that know of our existence, even if they aren’t part of the alliance. I think chances are good you’ve already let one through. I mean, what are the odds you get me first and not some others?”

“Unlikely,” the Grand Secretariat admitted. “Your point is a valid one. We have no need to keep such a secret from our population, however. They’ll probably be ecstatic about this.”

Eve chuckled. “I’d imagine so. I remember how I was when I first went out and began exploring…”

The Grand Secretariat’s expression softened, accepting that she was talking to another Twilight, not some foreign ambassador. “Do you mind describing your alliance to me?”

Eve nodded. “As we explored, some universes we encountered joined us. There are a few dozen of them, ranging from Equis worlds like our own, to spaceborne places, to entirely human worlds in the western multiverse. Or E-Sphere, I suppose, if the Stars are to be believed.”

“It is not easy to get a Star to talk,” the Grand Secretariat commented. “But yes, the information is accurate. We have heard the E-Sphere term from other sources.”

Eve continued. “After an attack from another multiversal society known as the University of Doors that tried to erase us from time, we decided we no longer needed to just be friends, but form a fully Unified conglomeration. The process is coming along nicely, with eight of our worlds planning on being the founders, and several others lined up to join afterward.”

“How much longer are you expecting for this to become official?”

“Few years. Local time. There’s already been a lot of processing happening. Hammering out the details and getting the public on our side at this point. Surprisingly easy compared to Disclosure.”

“Not something we’d be aware of,” the Grand Secretariat said, shaking her head. “Most worlds only have their Twilight Sparkle contact us. Very few of them actually interact with us on a full scale. You could say this is the only universe we actually own out of the millions upon millions we have eyes on.”

Eve raised an eyebrow. “You’ve really never run into other societies?”

“Besides the Stars? There are actually a couple. The Eldritch Embodiment, and another group that I would rather I not reveal to you.”

“Mysterious,” Twix commented, but said nothing further.

Eve nodded. “That is your choice. We’ve encountered the Embodiment as well – actually have one of their kind in our employ – and the aforementioned University of Doors.”

“You have an Embodiment being with you? How’d you pull that off?”

“Luck,” M4 said. “She was on my world, trying to kill me to fulfill a ‘contract’ for abusing Eldritch power. Turned out there was a third option.”

“Mmm. And this… University?”

“We are not on speaking terms with them,” Eve declared. “After they tried to wipe us out for no reason other than ‘meddling in artifact acquisition’, we struck an accord that we wouldn’t touch any universe they had a beacon in, and they wouldn’t touch anything we had a beacon in. That was the last contact we had.”

“I will need to contact them myself at some point, to tell them of our existence. You understand, of course.”

Eve nodded. “I don’t expect much, but if you can get them to talk and play nice, I won’t stop you. Have anywhere I can give you the coordinates?”

“Later. Speaking of coordinates, I assume you’ll want a trade?”

“We’ll give you ours if you give us yours.”

“Not counting secret or blocked worlds.”

“Of course. Deal?”

“Deal.”

The two mares shook hooves.

“That was easy,” Twiree said. “Wish I could still summon easy buttons from nowhere, though.”

“You’re from a low-res universe, correct?” the Grand Secretariat asked.

“Uh… That sounds right?”

“Their universe is unique,” Eve explained. “Far as we can tell, anyway.”

“Not entirely,” the Grand Secretariat clarified. “Exceedingly rare, but I’ve seen a couple of beings like her.”

“Oh sweet! Any around?”

“Sadly no, they rarely come to the Census.”

“Aww…”

“Which leads me to a question I want to ask you,” the Grand Secretariat said. “We have never come across a group of Sparkles with extensive multiversal connections, such as yourselves. This puts us in an odd situation. Usually, we automatically allow every single Sparkle to become a citizen automatically, no qualms about who they are or what they do. It occurs to me that it should not be automatic in this case. Being a part of two multiversal societies might reflect badly on you.”

Eve nodded. “Cosmo and I definitely cannot, seeing as we’re leaders of our respective worlds. The rest of you... I honestly don’t mind if you accept citizenship. We’re not picky back home.”

Sparky shook her head. “Nope.”

Twiree and Twix shrugged. “Don’t see why not,” they answered.

M4 pondered this for a while. “I’ll take it. But, Grand Secretariat, I do have a question.”

The brilliant alicorn smiled. “Ask away, little one.”

“Why do you all think that’s endearing…” M4 shook her head. “There’s clearly a step above citizenship, isn’t there? Those ponies you have working for you, with the badges. More… official ones.”

The Grand Secretariat raised an eyebrow. “I see what you’re getting at, but I fail to see why. You know so little about us, why would you want to become an employee?”

“My world’s leader, Celestia, is… The fact that I said this never leaves this room, understand? She’s a brutal leader. Effective, probably not evil, but brutal. Brutal enough that the other universes are cautious to even deal with her on friendly terms, generally cutting ties when possible. The alliance doesn’t really have any reason to accept or deal with us.”

“I see. You were thinking you could be a more official ambassador between our worlds?”

“It… seems like something more worthwhile than using these wings just to look pretty, eternally terrified of actually going against Celestia despite technically having the power to do so.”

“Will she not be upset at this?”

“She might,” M4 admitted. “But I think I’m safe.”

The Grand Secretariat smiled warmly. “…Believe it or not, M4, I’ve met other versions of you. Not just Twilight, but the Twilight that exists in an eldritch lock and under a brutal self-proclaimed god. Most are rather unpleasant to be around. You are different. You should be proud.”

M4 gestured at Eve. “I owe it to her version of Rarity. Got me to look at things a little differently.”

“I shall arrange for a more detailed tour of our facilities, to describe to you what working with us would actually entail. If nothing else, it will give you a good picture to tell the others.”

M4 bowed. “Of course.”

“Cosmo, Eve, you two are the government authorities in the room. I shall take you personally to talk to the University and discuss future relations.”

Eve nodded. “That seems fine.”

“And for you three… You’re bored. I suggest taking a stroll through the Sparkle Census proper, enjoy the luxuries we have.”

Sparky raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

“About half the buildings we have are bookstores.”

Sparky’s grumpy exterior faltered. “H-half?”

“Half.”

Twix blinked. “This place is Twilight heaven.”

“What about our token and bookmark?” Twiree asked. “The letter sai-”

Suddenly all six of them had a token and a bookmark.

“I wouldn’t use the token if I were you, I’d wait until this is all resolved,” the Grand Secretariat suggested. “But there you go. Let me make some calls, and we can all go about our ways.”

~~~

A chunk of stone flew through the blue space, singed slightly from an explosion. Holding tightly to the chunk were four versions of Sweetie Belle and the woman known as Jane.

“I see another platform!” Squeaky shouted. “Everyone, get ready! Jane, I’ve got Brute, you get Allure and Sweetie!”

“Which is which?” Jane asked.

“Get the ones I don’t have in my telekinesis!” Squeaky blurted, lifting Brute off the platform. She teleported, taking herself and Brute to safety.

Jane rubbed her hands together, nervously. “Here goes nothing.” She grabbed Allure and Sweetie by the backs of their necks and kicked off the hurtling chunk of stone. She perfectly twisted her body through the air, adjusting to the sudden shift of gravity. She pulled her arms back so the Sweetie Belles wouldn’t suffer most of the impact force. She hit with a satisfying smash, cracking the platform slightly, but nothing serious enough to be concerned about.

She winced slightly as she set the two unicorns down. “Ow…”

“You’re pretty strong,” Allure observed. “Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it,” Jane muttered, rubbing her leg. “Ow…”

“Did we see what happened to the others?” Sweetie asked, worry evident on her face.

“I saw Zod and Sunny flying the opposite direction,” Jane said, standing to her full height.

Squeaky furrowed her brow. “I thought I saw Gilgamesh fly away, but I’m not sure.”

“Considering that we aren’t charred pieces of fur and meat, they’re probably fine,” Allure commented. “Though I do worry they won’t be able to stick a landing in this place…”

“We need to find them,” Jane said. “We…” she put her hand to the bridge of her nose and shook her head. “Dammit. We have no way to do that, do we?”

“Zod was the one with the soul sense,” Squeaky said. “That’s the only thing I think would really work in this place. Not that even that would tell you much, given the mess of directions…”

“I need to find Sunny,” Jane said. “If there’s one psychotic Pinkie out there, there might be worse things.”

“I bet Rick’s here!” Brute blurted.

“Lovely,” Jane muttered.

Sweetie spoke up. “…Psychotic Pinkie? Is that a common thing?”

Squeaky frowned. “It’s… more common than a lot of other variants. Most Pinkies are happy party ponies, don’t you worry.”

“Something worries me though,” Allure said. “She had a bomb mask. Only our Pinkie has that mask, as far as I know.”

“What? Some kind of evil twin?” Sweetie asked.

“Maybe,” Squeaky said. “Or maybe she stole it. We already know Flutterfree is here, Pinkie probably is as well.”

“Pinkie versus Pinkie smash fight!” Brute suggested.

Jane shook her head. “This is getting us nowhere. We need to do something.”

“Walk around until we find others?” Squeaky suggested. “That’s all I’ve got right now.”

Jane curled her hand into a fist.

“It’s not ideal,” Allure admitted. “But… I really don’t think we have many other options, unless we want to see what happens when we let ourselves fall for eternity.”

“Pass,” Sweetie decreed.

Jane folded her arms, but nodded all the same. She started walking in a random direction, hopping onto a spiral-shaped ramp platform. The Sweeties followed after her.

Sweetie thought to herself while they continued on. They had an enemy right now – and that enemy was a Pinkie. Murderous, insane, and just plain terrifying. That was certainly bothering her, as was the fact that nobody even took a moment to think the explosion might have killed her. It was just accepted as fact that the Pinkie was still out there, probably hunting for them.

But there was a worse thought in her mind. That Pinkie was probably just like them, drawn here by force, from wherever she was in the multiverse. Whatever had brought them here, it was above that Pinkie. It was above all of them. And it hadn’t even shown its face. …If it even had such a thing.

“I am going to gut whoever’s done this,” Brute muttered to herself.

Sweetie turned to her gravelly-voiced counterpart. “What if they don’t have a physical form?”

“I’ll attach that Pinkie to my leg and then punch it.”

“…That’ll work?”

“Yep. …Probably. It’d do something.”

“Hey. Mind if I ask a question?”

“Not at all! Make it deep, personal, and juicy!”

Sweetie smirked. “Why are you so violent all the time?”

“It just feels right to smash the pulp of my enemies into the ground with a satisfying crunch!” Sweetie Brute declared.

“I don’t think that’s it.”

Brute raised an eyebrow. She looked beyond Sweetie. “I grew up in a cheerful world without consequences. Equis Ultra Fast has some amazing problems with it, but it’s still a cheerful Equestria with lots of friends and random adventures. I wanted to dye capes with chicken blood, and nopony stopped me. Nopony ever stopped me. Out here, they think I’m useful. And it feels good to be useful, you know?”

Sweetie frowned. “I guess so. But don’t you ever think you’re a bit, I dunno, much?”

“Bah. No such thing. Liking the feel of the skulls of your enemies beneath your hooves is just fine! Muahaha!”

Sweetie got the feeling she was supposed to be terrified of this version of herself, but she couldn’t bring herself to take Brute at face value. There was an air of… of absurdity about her. It was odd.

“INCOMING!” Allure shouted, snapping Sweetie out of her thoughts. In the relative distance, a large chunk of what appeared to be half of the Roman Coliseum was sailing toward them, spinning slightly.

Jane put her hand to her face. “…I see people on that thing.”

Squeaky took in a deep breath. “HEY! LOOK OVER HERE!” she shouted with the highest pitch she could manage, which was definitely shrill enough to shatter glass had it been around.

That got the attention of the people on the Coliseum fragment. “I see… Pinkie’s team!” Squeaky told them. “I think the-”

Nova teleported herself, Vriska, Pinkie, Flutterfree, Renee, and a tied-up Jenny to the platform. Sweetie took a moment to look at them – Pinkie was indistinguishable from any other normal Pinkie she’d seen, but the others all had a defining feature. But it was more than just a red eye here, a hat there – she saw something in their eyes that she didn’t usually see in the versions she ran across. These ponies weren’t naïve, but they also weren’t beaten down by what they had seen. Sweetie had encountered both ponies who held simple lives, and ponies who had been forced into brutality and lost so much. These ponies… They still had joy.

A smile came to her face. She felt safe around them already.

Allure ran to Renee and hugged her. “Renee!”

“Oh, Sweetie! I guess you got dragged into this mess as well then?” She hugged her sister. “Don’t you worry, we’ll find a way out of this.”

“It’s not Sweetie anymore, sis! I chose a name!”

“Oho? Finally decided that you weren’t the Sweetie anymore?”

“Yeah. I’m Allure.” She tossed her mane back. “Fitting, right?”

Renee smirked coyly. “Indeed it is. Wherever did you get the idea?”

Allure pointed at Sweetie Belle. “From her. She’s the Sweetie Belle now. She’s been through a lot – traveling on her own across worlds.”

Renee walked to Sweetie Belle, smiling. “Hello, Sweetie Belle. I am Renee Jackson.”

“…Jackson? That’s… different.”

“Oh, I’m married dear. I understand that’s not that common.”

“Ooooh!” Sweetie perked up. “Who to?”

“A man you probably wouldn’t know. Daniel Jackson, archaeologist from a version of Earth.”

“…A human. You. Married a human.” She blinked. “Excuse me while I process.”

“What? There’s nothing wrong with that!”

“Oh, not like that!” Sweetie smiled nervously. “I met a Twilight who was interested in a human, last world I visited actually…”

Nova blinked. “A Twilight? Weird. Twilights seem to be the least likely out of all of us to actually hook up with anyone.”

“…It’s just I’m used to thinking of ‘Rarity’ as…” She realized where she was going was probably a little insulting and stopped.

Renee put a hoof on Sweetie’s shoulder. “I know what you mean. All of us have changed out here, Sweetie. We definitely won’t be the ponies you remember. It’s one of the reasons we change our names. We all say it’s just practical, but it also represents that we’re different now. That we’re no longer ‘standard’.”

Sweetie nodded. “I see. I suppose I have only seen you married once, to Blueblood.”

“WHAT!?” Renee shouted, aghast.

“He was much nicer in that universe!”

“…I would assume so, if he actually lived up to my standards. Anyway, you’d like Daniel, though I don’t think he’s here. He had no reason to leave the Hub, so no chance to intercept one of his translations…” Her cheerful demeanor lessened slightly as her thoughts drifted to her husband.

Flutterfree walked up to them. “We’ll get you back to him, don’t you worry.”

Sweetie felt something come from Flutterfree and touch her – touch her real self. What lay behind the appearance of a simple unicorn. The façade fell instantly – and Sweetie froze as her inner, very private self was exposed for all present to see.

She was made of crystal, in reality – her hair was quartz, her coat was shimmering. Her eyes were solid orbs of rock and little dots of obsidian speckled her body, mostly on her legs.

She knew they could all see. But she couldn’t move – she just stood, emotionally frozen, unable to think due to the sudden shock.

“So beautiful…” Renee said, a hoof to her mouth.

Vriska took action. She pulled Flutterfree back. “Stay away from her.”

“Wh- Why?” Flutterfree asked. “She’s so-”

“I said back off,” Vriska said, leaning down to be eye level with Sweetie, the illusion of a normal unicorn slowly returning to her. They just stared at each other, silent, for a full minute, while the rest of Pinkie’s team, the Sweeties, and Jane just watched.

“What did they call them?” Vriska asked, voice soft. “In the world you were in.”

“…Changelings,” Sweetie said, voice haunted.

Vriska nodded. “The one I spent time in called us the changed. Simpler, but a bit more demeaning.”

“You’re changed too?”

Vriska shook her head. “No… They couldn’t break me. I was too defiant.”

“How’d you survive?”

“I’m conditionally immortal. I can only die if the death is Heroic or Just in some way. Being killed by a slave-master demonic being for being defiant is neither. They really wanted to kill me, but not even the Beast himself could. So instead of changing… I was subject to every death imaginable.”

“I can’t tell if that’s worse or better.”

“It was a tradeoff,” Vriska said. “Though I don’t have a permanent bodily change to remind me… constantly.”

“How’d you get out?”

“My Twilight saved me. The one I was traveling with.” Her eyes gained a distance to them. “She… She couldn’t take the horrors of that world. She evacuated as many as she could without the Beast finding out, but the moment he did…” Vriska sagged. “She destroyed that universe.”

There were a few gasps from the audience. Sweetie and Vriska didn’t hear them. Sweetie just looked right into Vriska’s eyes. “I… I don’t blame her.”

“Doesn’t make it right,” Vriska said. “She beat herself up about it for so long afterward. There were happy, normal people in that world, still. But… We didn’t have the power to destroy the Beast with any other method. …And as you can probably guess, we found that there was definitely more than one version of the Beast out there. That world… That world type is not unique.”

Sweetie hugged the troll, a few tears rolling down her face. “It’s… so cruel out there, sometimes.”

“I know,” Vriska said. “But we have to watch. To make sure we aren’t the source of the cruelty. …Gog knows, I’ve certainly been the source of too much…”

“You’re a good person,” Sweetie insisted. “I can tell.”

“You met me two minutes ago,” Vriska deadpanned.

“And the first thing you did was talk to me. That’s good, Vriska.”

Vriska smirked. “Well then, I guess I’ll take it! Vriska, best empathizer ever!”

“I wouldn’t go that far.”

Vriska shrugged. “I’ll take what I can get.” She turned to Flutterfree. “She won’t feel comfortable being revealed, Flutterfree, even though we’ve already seen.”

“I… I know,” Flutterfree said, sagging. “I… I want to hug you and say I’m sorry, Sweetie.”

“Not your fault,” Sweetie said, wiping her face. “I understand. Whatever you did, it’s automatic, isn’t it?”

Flutterfree nodded. “I’m still sorry.”

“You’re forgiven. Try not to worry about it, okay? Just… I’d like to look like a pony.”

Flutterfree nodded. “Yes, of course, wouldn’t dream of doing that again.”

Allure walked up to Sweetie and smiled. “And just for the record, none of us care what you are or what you’ve been through. You’re still Sweetie Belle.”

Sweetie smiled. “Thanks. …Anyway, I have a question. Why’s that woman tied up?”

Everyone glanced at Jenny. “Oh, her,” Renee said. “She’s a bit of a ruffian who was largely responsible for trying to erase us from time. Not exactly evil per se, but we can’t exactly trust her.”

Jenny grunted. “Try to erase universes from time once and you get it held against you for the rest of your life…”

Jane raised an eyebrow, speaking for the first time in a while. “Erasing universes from time? You expect it not to be held against you?”

“Well when you put it like that it sounds unrealistic.”

“It is unrealistic! What kind of person does that for… for… Why did they do it?”

“They were hired,” Nova answered.

“FOR MONEY!?”

Jenny sighed. “Can we move on?”

“Sure!” Pinkie said. “Ahem. So, we’ve all been meeting other dimensional travelers, and have clearly been brought here against our will. Some of us have been separated from others, and really want to get back to them. There’s also a few unsavory types walking around, including a psychotic version of me.”

Sweetie blinked. “How’d you know that? You weren’t there! We didn’t mention her yet!”

Pinkie turned to Sweetie and smiled. “You’ve met more than a few Pinkies in your travels, right? Don’t we seem… unique, most often?”

“How so?”

Pinkie smirked. “Oh, say, being able to do different things in a nested time loop, despite every other pony following a predictable pattern.”

Sweetie’s jaw dropped. “How…?”

“The how is such a big secret that not even my friends know – yet. But it’s still good to realize it. Pinkies tend to know things. Sometimes it’s nothing more than a sixth sense, but often it’s a lot more.” She winked. “Most of us don’t make a big deal about it, but out here, well, it helps a lot. So make sure to remember this – if you’re in a universe where you think ponies won’t believe you, or where ponies think you’re a threat, try the local Pinkie Pie. There’s a chance she just knows. Consider it a tip.”

Sweetie grinned. “Thanks! That’s a- wait. You’re telling me this for a reason, aren’t you?”

Pinkie smiled sadly. “Yeah. We’re not going to be able to get you home or help you on your journey today. You’ve still got a song of your own that’s been interrupted by this – you’ll have to get back to it.”

“Oh…”

“But, I can give you something! Bring out your notebookbook!”

“How do- nevermind.” Sweetie rolled her eyes. She lit her horn and pulled her book out of her pocket dimension. The journal, record, and holder of many objects was encrusted with numerous magic spells and crystals. Sweetie flipped it open to a blank page.

Pinkie pulled a pen out and scribbled a bunch of numbers and sequences on the sheet. “If you ever get access to a dimensional device of any kind, Sweetie, the stuff on these pages should let you find our world, Equis Vitis, or the Hub.”

Sweetie looked at it. “I don’t understand any of this.”

“Yeah, you probably won’t. But anyone who knows about dimensional devices should be able to use it to get you here. I don’t think you’ll find anything like that until after or near the end of your quest. But after that, come by and say hello when we’re… Not trapped in a big blue aurora thing!”

“Oh!” Allure called. “And we can look for any fragments of your Twilight for you! Save you the trouble of finding a few of them, if we can!”

Sweetie looked at the notebook, circled the page with the dimensional coordinates and theory on it, and put it away. Then she beamed. “Thanks. A lot. Any other tips for my journey, anyone?”

Jane spoke up. “Find someone special.”

Sweetie smiled. “Yeah… I don’t think I’ll be hunting for that. I never get to stay around very long, or bring anyone with me. But thanks.”

“What are we all giving her advice for?” Brute blurted. “We’re not done yet! We’re still stuck here! We gotta do something!”

“Might not have had time for it later,” Pinkie said. “This was the best moment.”

“Do you know why we’re here?” Sweetie asked.

“No,” Pinkie said, twitching slightly. “No idea. And that really bugs me. I’m aware of lots of people who are here, and that Eve isn’t here and doing something fun elsewhere, but the reason eludes me. Maybe the other me knows.”

“Capture a Pinkie…” Vriska mused. “That’s going to be difficult.”

“No doubt!” Pinkie said. “No, I don’t know why she has the bomb mask either. I just know she’s here, somewhere. And out for blood.”

“Then we gotta stop her,” Allure said.

“Yeah!” Sweetie cheered.

“Everyone, prepare yourselves!” Pinkie said. “Joint mission find-out-what’s-going-on-and-capture-other-Pinkie is A-GO! THIS WAY!” She bounced along more of the stone rocks, a big grin on her face.

Sweetie decided she liked this Pinkie, and no longer felt confused as to why she was in charge. It just seemed right.

~~~

Brutalight Sparcake had left the Sparkle Census Orientation tour the moment she found an opportunity. The sooner she became unpredictable, the less likely Charter-Twilight – or Eve, apparently – was to be able to trace her the moment she realized she’d been duped. Someone would check Nautica eventually and find she wasn’t there… And she couldn’t allow herself to be caught.

Her first plan had been to wait until she got her dimensional token and bookmark, but she’d scanned the tokens other Twilights had – one-person only. That was not helpful in her mission to free Nautica, nor did it help her get to any other universe. So she’d bailed and begun her search for some other method. The tokens were clearly just regulated dimensional devices – they had to have more complex things around.

And since this was a collection of millions of Twilights, one thing in particular was easy to find.

Information.

Brutalight had no doubt there were a few government secrets around, but she also knew that something as fundamental to this world’s existence as dimensional travel wouldn’t be covered up. So she was currently on the lookout for a library.

And Celestia, was she enjoying herself. The urge deep within her to kill had been forgotten momentarily. She was just elated by what she was seeing and smelling. Masses of purple moved to and from hundreds upon hundreds of buildings that went on for miles. The soft artificial light above everything… The buildings built with such perfect mathematics… The way everypony just knew where they were going and how to run a city structure smoothly… It was amazing. It looked like how a city should look. A restaurant here, a theater there, and bookstores. Bookstores everywhere.

Oh, and the smell. Not only did it not smell like endless seawater, but it also smelled like books. Freshly printed, ancient, magical… Every flavor of book. She was in heaven right now.

Despite her unusual color scheme, few Twilights paid her any mind. She was just another variant among millions. They weren’t rude – merely uninterested, or trying not to get themselves confused. Which worked for Brutalight since she didn’t want to be noticed. But she sure noticed other Twilights. A white one with a fiery mane. A hydra. What appeared to be a fusion between Twilight, Sunset, and Starlight. She could have sworn she even saw a pony with her color scheme, making her ruse back in the paperwork room much more credible.

She smirked – this just got better and better. They would never be able to find her now. And her luck was only increasing, because she finally saw something that wasn’t a bookstore, but a library. There was a sign that said no checkout, read-in only, but Brutalight didn’t mind. She knew spells for quick information absorption.

She walked right in, a smile on her face. It, for once in her life, wasn’t a fake smile – she really was giddy about what she was going to find in here. The librarian Twilight – a deer – saw her and grinned back. “New, I take it?”

“Yes. And I want to learn everything I can.”

“What topic? Duality? Time? Dimensions?”

“Dimensions. Dimension travel. Dimension varieties. Anything like that.”

The deer whistled. “You’re going to be here a while. All of shelf 3B is on that. It’s why I had to stop checkouts – too many Twilights demanded to keep the books forever.”

“I can imagine,” Brutalight said, tapping her hooves together. “Thanks!”

“Don’t mention it!”

It occurred to Brutalight that she had actually said thanks. Great Celestia, her mood must have been through the roof. She decided she didn’t have any problems with this at the moment. She walked up to shelf 3B, making a cursory inspection of titles. A thick, purple volume entitled Dimensional Magical Theory called out to her. She took it, went to a table, and started reading, caring little that there were two dozen other Twilights at nearby tables doing the same thing.

The information was absolutely fascinating, and it described numerous methods for dimensional travel, most involving some sort of device, but she did eventually find what she was looking for. A spell for dimensional travel that worked on ‘picturing the universe you want to go to’. It cost an absolute ton of magic, a bit more than she thought she had on her right now, but with a little magical scumming it would be doable. Except…

For the first time she found information she didn’t like. The personal dimensional spell was prohibited by the ‘arcane lattice’ that permeated the entire Sparkle Census. Only spellcasters with a specific license could use it. They didn’t want just any-Twilight getting a hold of the secrets to unhindered dimensional travel, did they? Well, there had to be ways around this. The tokens may not have been exploitable, but there were surely other things…

She pulled her letter out again. Just like the tokens, the spell in it was personal and only worked for one universe. But… These letters had to be given to new Twilights somehow, didn’t they?

Brutalight closed up the huge purple tome and placed it back on its shelf. She did a bit more inspection and found the book she needed – Dimensional Application in the Sparkle Census. She skipped the parts about employment, the cycle of universes, and duplicate differentiation. She did stop to read the part about how the time dilation for the Sparkle Census was so extreme that, once you left, it would be like no time had passed. Apparently this universe had been chosen as the location for the Census because of that very fact. Curious.

But not what she needed. She needed to read about the letters. There it was – the letters ran on a machine deep in the Sparkle Census called the Examail Center, or just X-mail. The device was exceedingly complicated and the inner workings weren’t exactly public knowledge, but the book described the basics. The X-mail Center had a highly complicated ‘grinder’ device beneath it that always looked for new universes, and universes connected to those universes, and so on and so forth. Each universe it found had a ‘magic probe’ sent into it, that would search the space for a Twilight, while the few universes that didn’t allow magic were catalogued for personal visitations by exploration teams. The ‘probe’ would recognize Twilights and request a letter from the X-mail Center, which would then use its immense magical power to teleport the letter to her location. The probe could take eons to search an entire universe, and didn’t stop after finding a single Twilight, but given the sheer number of universes it was searching and the tendency for Twilights to cluster in certain locations, it worked just fine.

Brutalight’s evil smirk returned, replacing the simple joyous grin she’d had but a few minutes ago. This grinder device, the one that found new universes. It was in the X-mail center. She could hitch a ride with one of the letters, then use the spell she had just learned to travel anywhere she wanted.

She put the book back on the shelf and walked out of the library. The librarian spoke up. “Have a nice day!”

Brutalight ignored her. Who had time for pleasantries? She had a mission.

~~~

The other half of the League of Sweetie Belles – Thrackerzod, Bot, Suzie, and Burgerbelle – had a group of their own elsewhere. After the explosion they had found themselves with Sunny and Gilgamesh, and since then they had picked up two other dimensional travelers.

“So, how many of you did you say there were?” Suzie asked the pair.

The human Twilight and Sunset pair smiled. Twilight put on her ‘explaining’ face and answered. “The Sunlight Slider phenomenon is almost a ‘law’ of the multiverse. We’ve run into no less than a dozen different pairs on our journeys. Some of them are romantic; some aren’t. Some of them are lost; some are traveling just because they can. The fact is, there’s a lot of us, and I’m surprised you haven’t run into any before this big mess of ours.”

“Curious,” Thrackerzod said. “From our experience, Twilight is the least likely one to hook up with anyone.”

“Eh, that might just be pony Twilight,” Sunset commented. “They’re not immune, but I do see more humans than ponies out here.”

Sunny spoke up. “I met a pair of Sunlight Sliders. Me and Jane, that is. The amount of sappy things that left those two’s mouths put us to shame.”

“Yeeeeah, sorry about that,” Twilight apologized. “Some of us get a bit overbearing.”

Sunset snorted. “You could say that.”

“DIIIIISGUSTING!” Burgerbelle droned.

Gilgamesh pointed at the youngest member of the group. “This girl knows what’s up.”

Burgerbelle beamed with pride. “Yes!”

Suzie facepalmed. “Ugh…”

Thrackerzod stopped short. “Something’s coming.”

“The Pinkie you guys mentioned?” Sunset asked.

“No,” Thrackerzod said. “I’m getting a very distinctive eldritch feeling. Be on guard.”

Gilgamesh drew his halberd and a gigantic pistol. “I’m always on guard.”

“Sure it won’t be something like you?” Sunny asked Thrackerzod. “Maybe it will be the Thrackerzod I know. She’s an Evermore traveller too, like us.”

“I would recognize a signature derivative of my own. This is not it.”

“LOOK OVER HERE!” an overly chipper voice yelled. The loud individual was a tall, humanoid creature with four arms. She had two large fuchsia wings that matched the color of the carapace on every inch of her body. Two yo-yos hung from her hands, and her six eyes were the only features on her otherwise flat face. “HIII!”

“FEF!?” Thrackerzod blurted. “What in the name of Azathoth are you doing here?”

“Distracting you,” a deeper, authoritative voice droned. Thrackerzod cast an attack spell behind herself without looking, but it was too late – the bug-demon chief Siron had already extended his staff at Thrackerzod. The staff latched onto Thrackerzod, pulling at her existence. Her eyes lost the deep fire they had to them, and the intense red aura of her magic vanished, replaced with the soft green most Sweetie Belles had.

Thrackerzod fell to the ground, breathing heavily. “W-WHAT DID YOU DO!?”

Siron raised two of his hands into the air, keeping the other two held tightly onto his staff. “I took all the eldritch energy within you. I half expected you to be an empty shell when I was complete, but it turns out that I was wrong.”

Thrackerzod tried to kill him with a death spell – but only a soft green spark left her horn. She stared at her horn in disbelief.

“Stand back!” Sweetie Bot shouted, standing in front of Thrackerzod. “I’ll protect you!”

Twilight, Sunset, Sunny, and Gilgamesh readied for battle while Suzie leaned down to protect Burgerbelle.

“I do not know who you are,” Siron degreed. “But know this staff contains much more power than what was stored within that filly. If you let me take all the Sweetie Belles with me, I won’t harm any of you.”

“Buck that,” Sunset said, readying herself. “I’ve g-”

Sunset’s reward for talking first was a green and red beam that tore a hole through her chest, disintegrating her heart in an instant.

She tried to speak, but found she couldn’t. She slumped to the ground.

This predictably sent her Twilight into a rage. A purple sawblade construct flew at Siron, but he was able to deflect it with his own magic. Gilgamesh and Bot moved as one, firing their guns without holding back. Siron’s staff acted, erecting a black wall of tentacles not unlike what Thrackerzod would create in a similar situation.

Fef leaped into action for her chief, swinging her yo-yos wide. One hit Bot to no effect, but the other wrapped around Twilight’s neck and slit her jugular. She tried to howl in pain, but only gurgled, managing to stumble to where Sunset had fallen.

Siron didn’t even let her have a moment, crushing her neck with his magic.

Sunny finished casting a complicated spell. A lattice of amber crystals appeared around Siron, pointing their sharpest edges right at him. They flew at him from all directions. Siron figured out with some difficulty that the projectiles were telekinesis resistant.

He had to use his staff to protect himself, a burst of black surrounding him and devouring all the amber shards. Gilgamesh took the moment to attack, bringing his halberd down on Siron’s head. Siron used one of his free hands to catch and break the handle of the weapon.

“How in…?”

“MISSILE LOCKED!” Bot yelled, firing off a missile that should not have been able to fit in her tiny body. Sunny infused it with explosive fire.

Gilgamesh got in on the fun – despite the disaster last time he had used the spell, he did it again. “Flare.”

Siron was engulfed in heat and fire, his entire form no longer visible to the attackers.

“…What was he?” Sunny asked, bewildered.

“Dunno,” Gilgamesh said, throwing a boomerang at Fef without looking now that he no longer had a better opponent to face. She fell flat on the ground, tangled in her own weapons. “I do know there was no wa-”

Siron’s fist flew out of the clearing flames, punching a hole through his neck. Gilgamesh fell backward, lifeless.

Siron stepped out of the flames, staff held in one of his higher hands. Green, red, and black energy coursed through many cracks in his crimson carapace, giving him the appearance of something held together by neon lights.

Sweetie Bot froze in fear. He had clearly been damaged – but all the cracks they’d made were just filled. It was as if nothing had been accomplished.

Sunny didn’t let this deter her. If fire wouldn’t do it, perhaps a multi-elemental blast. She put everything she had into a concussive force of ice, lightning, earth, and a mixture of other powers.

The staff summoned a black shield that absorbed everything. Siron levitated Sunny into the air with his red telekinesis. “I don’t know who you are. I don’t know who any of you are. But you stood in my way. And you…” He pointed his staff at her. “Like Thrackerzod, you have something in you.”

“Don’t you dare!” Thrackerzod shouted. Then her eyes widened – her voice wasn’t deep. She sounded like a normal Sweetie Belle.

Siron ignored her, pulling the energy from Sunny. “Something interesting in there… a dimensional power that does not come from within you or without… Something beyond…” he laughed. “Exactly what this Juju is meant to control.”

Sunny felt something at the core of her being vanish. She knew in an instant that her innate ability to translate to other universes had just been removed.

“Why?!” She yelled. “Why do this?!”

“Because I need hostages,” Siron declared. “People love Sweetie Belles. They always want to save them.” He narrowed his eyes. “Goodbye, Sunset.”

“Wh-”

In an instant, Sunny had a hole where her heart used to be. Impossible. I had all the defenses up. I…

Siron’s staff flashed an evil dark color. There was much more in there besides just Thrackerzod’s power. Much more.

The last thing Sunny saw was Siron rounding up the four Sweetie Belles. All four, terrified, broken, scarred…

What did Siron need hostages for!?

~~~

There were precisely four individuals trapped in the blue aurora that hadn’t been encountered yet by anyone but each other. These four had become fast friends, though two had already known each other prior.

Their names? Star Butterfly, Marco Diaz, Ditzy Doo, and Jenny Everywhere.

Their appearances? Blonde teenage girl with heart blush stickers. Teenage boy with simple red hoodie and hair. Gray-skinned human with feathers on her neck. A woman who could only be described as the ‘everyman’ made female.

Star waved her wand at Jenny. “So you’re telling me you’re, like, everywhere?”

“Versions of me, anyway,” Jenny said. “It’s in the name. I’m everywhere. I’m pretty sure a universe that one of me hasn’t visited at some point is beyond rare.”

“And you’re sure you don’t need dimensional scissors to travel?” Marco asked, holding up his pair of scissors. He tried again to cut the fabric of space-time. Nothing happened.

Jenny nodded. “Yep. I’m what I call a shifter. I just slip through the cracks of worlds – sometimes without meaning to. It’s a little disorienting, but also a lot of fun!”

“And you’ve neeeever seen a place like this?” Star asked.

“Nope,” Jenny said, shaking her head. “I mostly tour Earths though.”

“Earth, best world,” Marco said, smirking.

“Hmph,” Star commented, folding her arms. “Mewni is better.”

“Jenny, as the resident ‘Everywhere’, what do you think about Mewni?”

“Never been,” Jenny said. “It’s not a standard world.”

Star gasped. “That just means it’s something special!”

“I’ve been,” Ditzy said. “It was brief. I had corn thrown at me. I still don’t know why.”

Marco smirked. “But Earth is, according to the illustrious Everywhere, the most common world. So it’s special as well.”

Star folded her arms. “Or just like pennies in the multiversal purse!”

“…Odd metaphor.”

“I know!”

“It’s nice to have some regularity,” Ditzy offered.

“Didn’t your world suddenly change one day? Or did I hear that wrong?” Jenny asked.

Ditzy rubbed the feathers on the back of her head. “Yeah, that’s why I said it would be nice. I don’t really get a lot of regularity. Just a lot of bouncing around, magic transformations, and insanity. Lots of insanity.”

“Sounds fun!” Star chirped.

“It can be.”

“Hey, what’s that up ahead?” Jenny asked, pointing at the next platform, one shaped like a cross. There was some kind of fuzzy pink lump sitting on it.

“Dunno,” Star said smiling. “It’s pink though! I want it!”

Marco threw his hands in the air. “Star, we don’t know what this thing is! It’s the first thing we’ve seen since we’ve gotten here besides Jenny!”

“It’s a Pinkie,” Ditzy offered. “...Maybe. Something seems off.”

Jenny, to her credit, didn’t engage with her companions. She slowly walked up to the pink fluffy thing, curiously looking at it. It looked like a horse… But it was a little small.

The pink pony looked up at her with deep blue eyes.

“Why hello there!” Jenny said, smiling. “Are you lost too?”

“Yeah.”

“THAT PONY JUST TALKED!” Star cheered. “Best! Day! Ever!”

Ditzy looked at her, suddenly struck with the realization that she was the sane one in this group.

Jenny kneeled down, taking the pony’s talking in stride. “What’s your name?”

“Pinkie Pie.”

“Well, Pinkie, we’re going to find a way out of this mess,” Jenny said softly. “Do you want to come with us?”

Pinkie ignored the question. “Have you ever heard of the One Steve Limit?”

“What?”

“Oh, it’s just a thing to follow. To avoid confusion.”

Jenny raised an eyebrow. “I don’t see-”

Pinkie pulled a sword out of her mane and drove it right through Jenny’s skull. The psychotic pink pony let out a sigh of relief. “Ah… That’s better.” She removed the sword and tossed Jenny’s body into the blue aurora below. She turned to Star, Marco, and Ditzy. “So! Who wants to go on a-”

“SPIDER WITH A TOP HAT!” Star yelled. The wand in her hand surged, summoning forth a small spider with a top hat on it.

Pinkie didn’t wait for the top hat to turn into a laser-shooting gatling-gun like she knew it would. She leaped off the edge of the platform after Jenny’s body, laughing the entire time she was within their auditory range.

Marco, Star, Ditzy, and Spider With a Top Hat just stared down into the abyss; long after the pink pony had vanished.

~~~

Eve, Cosmo, and the Grand Secretariat stood in front of a giant television screen located deep within the Sparkle Census.

“This is… well, we just call it the Display,” the Grand Secretariat said. “We can use it to communicate with other universes, anywhere in the database.”

“How’s it work?” Eve asked.

“Opens a tiny portal, enough to send a small spark spell through. It latches onto that spell and broadcasts image signals through it, allowing a display to appear on the other end without actually having a screen. It sends images back as well, all the while making sure the extreme time-difference is compensated for with its own dilation spell. Useful for talking to Twilights that may live in extreme environments.”

“I can imagine,” Cosmo said. “Starlight, upload the coordinates of the Ninth World to the Display.”

“Done,” the AI chirped.

The Grand Secretariat blinked. “…I would have preferred to know you had an artificial intelligence on your person prior to this moment.”

“Just a Starlight in here living the dream,” Starlight responded.

“…Fair enough.” The Grand Secretariat lit her horn, accessing the inner workings of the Display. “Anything I should expect?”

“Some girl named Jenny,” Eve said. “She should be easy to deal with and direct you to the University itself. If they don’t detect the display, we can always turn on a beacon, make them think we’re trying to claim this universe. That’ll get their attention.”

The Display fizzled to life, showing an image that was unmistakably the Beanstalk of the Ninth World – a tremendous space elevator that housed an entire city at its base. Humans were the most common race, but any number of completely alien forms could be seen walking at the edges.

After nothing happened for a few seconds, Cosmo gave the beacon code to the Display. Instantly, a troop of Dracogen soldiers appeared around the Display.

“Ah! Hello, Dracogen Enterprises!” Eve said, smiling. “This is the Grand Secretariat Twilight Sparkle of the Sparkle Census. She wishes to speak with the University of Doors.”

The leader of the troop, a red fish-skinned man, made a call, calling it a “Code P-9.” A second later, a holographic image appeared of a bizarre creature made of a synthetic, papery material coming out of a cubic interface. Blue lights flashed on the ‘face’ of the cube.

That’s YVND, Eve sent to the Grand Secretariat’s mind. Not part of the University directly.

YVND spoke. “Why should I direct you to them?”

“Because I want a second opinion,” the Grand Secretariat said. “Right now, the only stories I have about the University come from these mares, and as I believe you know they aren’t very positive ones.”

YVND nodded. “Very well. I shall patch you directly to the Headstone. I do not expect the conversation to be long.” The hologram faltered, buzzing with static for a few seconds before coalescing into a new form – that of a five-limbed robot wafting with glowing blue magic.

Looks like the Headstone has changed.

“A new society, hrm?” the robotic being chirped.

“Yes, I am the-”

“I got all the information already, no need to repeat yourself. You call yourselves the Sparkle Census?”

“Yes.”

“There are no Twilight Sparkles here, so you are of no concern to us. Do you wish to distinguish your beacons from the Charter’s?”

The Grand Secretariat raised an eyebrow. “Yes?”

“Send the desired frequency over now so we may determine which worlds are under your purview, and which ones are ours. Any overlaps are first-come first-serve. We will let you have any such worlds for the next month unless we find reason for dispute. Is this all?”

“I was hoping to open relations…”

“The University does not need to interfere with the affairs of other multiversal societies. It is a mistake the previous Headstone made, not a mistake I plan to repeat. We will stay out of each other’s way. Goodbye, Grand Secretariat.” The feed cut.

“Is that all you wanted?” YVND asked, appearing on the feed again.

“No, but it’ll do,” the Grand Secretariat answered. “I don’t suppose you have anything to say?”

“At the moment, no. I will create a more formal method by which to communicate. A line to the Dracogen communication center is being transmitted to you. Use that to get our attention next time, you sent us into high alert.”

Eve raised an eyebrow. “Does that apply to us as well?”

“Yes, it does,” YVND decreed. “Though I can’t see why you would want to talk with us. Now please disconnect, whatever you’re doing to adjust for the temporal dissonance is blowing out the sensors in this universe.”

“Apologies,” the Grand Secretariat said. “Different methods will be used from now on.”

“See that it they are.” YVND vanished. The Grand Secretariat shut the Display off.

“They were… cheery,” she commented.

Eve shrugged. “They weren’t as angry as I was expecting. I guess that’s what new leadership does. I think they explicitly didn’t want us contacting them again last time.”

The Grand Secretariat raised an eyebrow. “Was I being used as an excuse to dance around a treaty?”

Cosmo smirked. “Perhaps.”

“Wait, what?” Eve shook her head. “…Cosmo, why did you not let me in on that part of the reasoning behind this?”

“You might have objected,” Cosmo said. “Besides, now we have communications and a ‘treaty’ between the University and Sparkle Census. Worked out for everyone involved.”

“…Huh. Sorry, Grand Secretariat.”

“It is no issue,” she responded. “We are all known for using occasional underhanded tactics to get a desired result. The art of simply not saying something is an ancient and powerful one.”

“I’ll say,” Eve agreed. “Or, if you’re Pinkie, say a million things that have nothing to do with the secret.”

“Or any number of other random methods.”

“That, in and of itself, is a method…”

“True,” the Grand Secretariat said, summoning a book she had just been reminded of. “This reminds me, do you have a working Pinkie theory of any kind?”

“What do you mean?” Eve asked.

“Why they are so different. So energetic. So beyond physics…”

“Well, my Pinkie admitted that she knows things, but she also said she can’t tell me why or how.”

The Grand Secretariat blinked. “…That’s rare. Most Pinkies won’t even admit they have something different about them. Tell me more.”

Eve smiled. “Our Pinkie seems standard, at first, but when you get to the meat of it…”

~~~

Thrackerzod couldn’t think.

That wasn’t true. She could think. On the level of a simple organic being.

She no longer had the backup methods of information access stored in her eldritch nature. She had no memories that she didn’t form with this body. She had no power. She knew she was Thrackerzod, ‘high’ demon in service of Azathoth and the Eldritch Embodiment. But she could no longer comprehend what that meant.

She was nothing but an organic mind. If she had memories of the Embodiment, she would go crazy. The thought that her home was now toxic to her was horrifying.

She knew how to get her powers back – a simple circle and a dimensional device could tap her soul into Azathoth’s nature again. But she couldn’t do that in this place. In this place she was just a plain unicorn, barely more than a filly, who could scarcely comprehend what was going on around her.

Who spent all her time trying to realize her place in existence, but shying away because her true nature was impossible for her current self to comprehend.

She realized with some horror that she was probably going to be driven mad by this simple paradox of memory.

Was this what others felt when she confronted them?

She wished she could remember what she confronted them with…

She started crying.

Bot glanced at Thrackerzod. She was so out of it she had to be carried by Suzie. “…Is she going to be okay?” Bot asked, having long since stopped trying to get a response out of the completely normal unicorn.

“I… I don’t know,” Suzie said, sighing. She turned to Burgerbelle, who wasn’t doing much better – barely able to walk behind Siron in her tearful state. All of them were.

Thrackerzod was dimly aware of this. If only we had a hamburger. All our problems would be solved.

Suzie hefted Thrackerzod. “Come on… Allure and Squeaky are gone Zod… You’re the one who knows what to do…”

“Your leaders are scrambled,” Siron said. “Take charge yourself.”

Suzie glared. “Not everyone is a warrior, Siron.”

“Everyone should be,” Siron responded. “And soon, everyone will see that.”

“How? What are you going to do?”

“…You’re not as terrified of me as you look,” Siron said. “Trying to get information about my plans from me? That’s not something a scared girl does. That’s something a clever mind does.” He turned to face her. “But you aren’t a warrior of the mind. I can see it in those eyes of yours, girl. You hesitate. Flinch.”

Suzie couldn’t meet his eyes.

“Thrackerzod was a proud warrior,” Siron continued. “Unflinching. Able to act even after she had been broken, for a time. That is the kind of person you should become to survive – or, if not that, to have honor.”

“Yeah!” Fef emphasized, lessening the threatening nature of Siron’s speech considerably. “We’ve gotta stand strong!”

Siron, despite this cheery interruption, seemed to find it fitting. “Yes, Fef. As you can see, Suzie, there is more than one type of warrior. But what defines us is an unwavering urge to fight for ourselves and what we care for. Your pathetic willingness to give in for the sake of feelings and friendship… It cannot be tolerated.”

“Are you trying to convert me?” Suzie blurted.

“Perhaps. Or perhaps I just haven’t had someone who disagrees with me around as of late.”

“Yeah! Fl-”

“Fef, say nothing,” Siron said. “Our plans need to remain completely secret, there is some chance they get something out.”

Fef nodded. “Right. Sorry, Siron.”

“Just be more careful,” Siron stated. “All we need to discuss with them and those around us is how to get out of this place.”

“I was beginning to think you had caused this, somehow,” Suzie muttered.

“Just another one in the trap,” Siron muttered. “Since walking around and exploring has done nothing, the purpose of this place – if there is such a thing – is to meet the others trapped here. I think there may be two dozen or so here. The answer is either for us all to meet up and work together – or for there to be a last man standing in a conflict.”

“A game?” Suzie said. “What kind of game is this?”

“I don’t know,” Siron answered, narrowing his eyes. “And depending on who the designer is, the way of the warrior may not be the way to win. Which is why you live.”

“Leverage.”

“Yes.”

Suzie paused. “…You know there’s a chance this is just some ancient universe left behind by an unknown civilization that acts on its own. Doing things just for the sake of doing it. There may be no reason.”

“If that is the case, we are likely doomed,” Siron stated. “No one here has the resources to analyze the universe from the inside out… I saw that Doctor. He had tried.”

“The Doctor’s here?”

“And several other geniuses. Rick, for one. They’re stuck as well,” Siron clutched his staff. “The world we are in is beyond them.”

“…You respect this place, don’t you?” Suzie blurted.

“It has all of us trapped. We are powerless,” Siron elaborated. “Of course I admire something that is this effective against everyone in it. If there is a being behind this, it has power. Perhaps not honor, but a warrior’s instinct.”

“Or it’s just bored,” Bot suggested.

Everyone stopped in their tracks.

“What?”

Siron took in a breath. “The machine has a point.”

Fef blinked. “She does?”

“If you had unparalleled power… Wouldn’t you be bored? And just start doing things to break the monotony?”

“Totally!”

Siron put a hand to his face. “This could be problematic… If the only reason we are here is to ‘see what happens’.”

Silence fell over the two demons and their four prisoners. They kept walking, on the lookout for anything, anything at all. There was nothing.

Thrackerzod opened her eyes and looked up at Suzie. She managed to choke out two words.

“I’m sorry.”

The soft, gentle voice was too much. Suzie started crying after such a long time keeping it in.

Siron didn’t stop her. He didn’t even chide her.

~~~

Sparky, Twiree, and Twix sat in one of the Sparkle Census’s many Hayburgers. This particular one was run by an earth pony Twilight who had mastered the art of hoof-magic. Each and every burger was essentially a potion in a more substantial form. Sparky and Twix had ordered magic rejuvenation while Twiree had ordered Unlimited Energy Extreme. The other two were watching her cautiously, waiting for the insanity to kick in.

Twix took a bit of her hayburger and turned the page in a book she had just bought. “I have to say, that bookstore Twilight really knows how to give me a good read. I mean, mmm, I’m not a standard Twilight and this is just amazing.”

“That book’s enchanted to be interesting, I bet,” Sparky said. She looked out the window at the sea of purple ponies walking around.

“You haven’t touched your food!” Twiree said, having already downed her burger… Without opening her mouth. Somehow.

“Not hungry,” Sparky said.

Twix sighed, closing her book. “Sparky, what’s up?”

“I need to be looking for Coro-”

“That isn’t it,” Twix said. “Everybody knows if that was really what’s bothering you, you would have left by now. But you’re still here.”

“I… I don’t know,” Sparky said. “Actually, I do. I just… When this all started, I was beyond excited to explore, to find out more, to make new friends, to learn. Now? I can’t stop hearing about… All the terrible things. There’s nuclear wasteland worlds. Worlds with horrendous creatures that torment every living thing. Versions of myself who have destroyed everything. And there’s all the secrets, pressure, and underhanded things.”

“It’s what has to be done in the face of all the darkness,” Twix said. “The magic of friendship doesn’t always work, you know, as much as we want it too. There are… other forces.”

Sparky put her chin in her hands and sighed. “I invented that dimensional device everyone holds now, or at least the theory behind it. Some days I wonder if I shouldn’t have done that. Just… Let the explorations remain just small explorations and not enable a society to form.”

“I don’t think that would have stopped it long.”

“Plus, you’ve done a lot of good!” Twiree said. “My universe wouldn’t have been freed without you! Many ruthless leaders have been deposed, evils sealed away, and the quality of life on virtually every world in the alliance has increased!”

Sparky shook her head. “And then there are horrible superweapons we can’t let anyone know about, deceptive stories about scientific procedures, things not said in order to keep the population in check, and political pressure to ensure cooperation. Gem Vein and Lai are riddled with these sorts of things. Yes, I get it, it’s needed, and I can’t think of an alternative to it. I just start thinking it’s not worth it… Or the multiverse is just evil, or something. Maybe that’s the real enemy, existence itself.”

“Could be,” Twix admitted. “Why not fight it directly then?”

“…I can’t do that,” Sparky admitted. “It requires… too much. Too many lies, too many deceptions, and I know there are people who get sent to their deaths.” She looked into the distance. “I miss the days where it was just me, Corona, and the girls, and it looked like nothing would change. But we got older… And the world changed drastically…” She shook her head. “I think I need to pull out of the game. Stop studying all the high-end science and just… become a librarian, or something. Live on Earth Vitis in a town where there’s little danger of an interdimensional incursion.”

“If that’s what you want. Some people are just more suited to settling down. Maybe raising a family.”

“W-who said anything about raising a family?!” Sparky said, flustered.

Twiree smirked. “Ooooooh, listen to that stutter! Got somebody in mind, hrm…?”

“I… Er…”

Twix rolled her eyes. “Go easy on her, Twiree.”

Twiree deflated. “Aw…”

Twix looked out the window. “I think you should do it.”

Sparky blinked. “Hrm?”

“Look at all those Twilights out there. They could be out exploring the multiverse, using the resources of this place to discover bold, new things. But they aren’t Eve. They’re running hayburgers, shops, and above all opening bookstores. It seems like that’s what most Twilights want to do, apparently. Cool as all this is, most of them just don’t feel the drive Eve does.”

“I’m not Eve…” Sparky said, turning the thought over in her head. “I’m definitely not Eve.”

“No, duh,” Twiree said.

“We were different before we even met too,” Sparky wondered. “I think the Fluttershys were the only other ones like that. The rest… the same. I wonder why that is.”

“You going to run some experiments to find that out?” Twix asked.

“God, no,” Sparky laughed. “I’m pretty sure I am just going to become a librarian at this point. Not here, of course.”

“Of course.”

“Of course!” Twiree echoed, wanting to get in on the ‘repeat’ fun.

Sparky rolled her eyes. She grabbed her hayburger and took a bite. She took one chew before stopping short. She spat it out, gagging.

“Problem?” Twiree asked.

“That’s… not meat… I can’t believe I didn’t realize…”

Twiree and Twix started laughing. After Sparky stopped gasping she joined them.

~~~

“Plan…” Pinkie muttered to herself. “Nova, what’s my plan again?”

“Step One: Find people. Step Two: Ummmm… Step Three: Escape,” Nova deadpanned.

“There’s gotta be a better way to do this,” Jane muttered.

“If you want another goal, it’s to defeat the crazed Pinkie!” Allure suggested. “That’ll be nice!”

“I’ve got another side-quest,” Vriska suggested. “Find the Doctor and kick his teeth in.”

Renee turned to Vriska. “What did happen between you two?”

“Have you ever had a friend for years only to discover they were lying to you about basically everything?” Vriska asked. The rest of her team, Jane, and Jenny (still tied up) nodded. “It was like that. He was… one of the first people I traveled the multiverse with. I learned a lot from the asshole about how things work. But I was always trying to get home. And he knew it. But he would never take me, and I had always assumed it was because he didn’t know where all the worlds were. But lo and behold, captain immortal asshole of time did know. And after that… I realized all the other things he’d done.”

“Oh?” Renee asked, egging her on to continue.

“I remembered… All the times he’d manipulated me to produce a specific reaction just because he wanted a particular outcome. All the times he talked me out of using my power because we had no ‘right’ to interfere. All the times he just demanded everything about him be a secret. All the times he’d walked away from a problem not because it was too big for him to handle, but because it ‘wasn’t his business’. And then, like a complete hypocrite, all those times he let his emotions get the better of him and destroyed things. The man may not be a killer like myself, but he’s destroyed far more lives than I could ever hope to.”

“…Siron,” Flutterfree said. “That’s who I’m imagining right now.”

Nova nodded. “Yeah. He seemed… to always be there for us. Against Majora… And then it turned out he never was. He was always plotting.”

“And none of us could believe we didn’t see it sooner,” Renee said. “I think… I think we understand, Vriska. The pain.”

Flutterfree nodded. “I don’t think the Doctor’s a Siron though… I think he’s just misguided.”

“Couldn’t you say Siron’s just misguided, in a different way though?” Allure suggested.

Pinkie spoke up. “One has all the power and doesn’t think he should use it. One doesn’t have the power and thinks he deserves it.”

Renee gasped. “S-Speak of the devil, and he shall appear…” she said, pointing at a platform that had just appeared in their field of view.

There stood Siron, Suzie’s neck held tight in one of his hands, while the other three Sweeties were tied up behind him. “Don’t move or I kill these fillies.”

“GIRLS!” Allure shouted, voice cracking. Squeaky had to hold her back from doing something crazy. Brute growled, hoofing the ground aggressively.

Nova lit her horn, preparing a complex teleport.

Siron raised his staff. “You don’t want to do that, Nova. I can still kill them with this.”

“I bet I can teleport that away from you,” Nova muttered.

“You’ll find it’s protected,” Siron said. “Furthermore, if you think you all can rush me in one attack, know that Fef is hiding nearby and will kill someone in the chaos. Your best course of action is to listen to me.”

“Yeah, right,” Vriska said, looking at him with her eye. “Let me jus-”

“Vriska, look at this staff. You know what it is, don’t you?”

“So it is a Juju,” Vriska said. “…I haven’t seen something from my home worlds in a long, long time. What’s that one do? Time jump? Shift everyone through a calendar? Cause candy crush madness?”

“It’s intended to kill Horrorterrors,” Siron stated. “You know what those are, don’t you?”

Vriska nodded. “So who gave you it? Lord English? Caliborn? …Calliope?”

“I do not know who the green god was all those eons ago, Vriska. I know it was bestowed to my kind to be passed down to me, where I would finally unlock it.”

“What’s a Horrorterror?” Nova asked Vriska.

“You know that Azathoth Thrackerzod is always talking about?” Vriska asked.

“…Yes?”

“Imagine a lot of those guys.”

Renee sighed. “I’m afraid the illustration is lost on us…”

“It’s enough for my point,” Siron said. “Majora was pathetic fuel for this staff. I have since found a much more suitable source and made it my own. I easily killed the four interdimensional warriors protecting these four with it. I have my doubts I could take you all on at once, one of you might get lucky. So here we are. You are all going to listen to me, or these prisoners die. All four of them.”

Jane ground her teeth. “Bastard.”

“I don’t know who you are,” Siron said. “But whatever you’re thinking of doing, don’t. I sense the same power in you that I sensed in that unicorn. I could take it away with this Juju.”

Jane’s pupils dilated. “You didn’t… You couldn’t have…” She took a step forward.

Sweetie pulled on her with her magic. “No! Jane, don’t! We have to-”

“There is no way you beat Sunny,” Jane said, clenching her fist. A power surge sent Sweetie flying backward. “It’s flat out impossible. We kill gods. You’re just a bug!”

Flutterfree acted first. Now that Sweetie wasn’t near Jane, she didn’t care about not getting close. She leaped toward Jane – not caring that the woman’s appearance changed the moment she got within a meter. Jane was taller, covered in ancient burn marks on one arm, and covered in brutal scars just about everywhere else. Her eyes were black, with only a single red pupil in the right.

Flutterfree tackled her, wrapping Lolo around every one of Jane’s limbs – but the ‘woman’ tore them effortlessly, despite not being a Stand user. She glared right at Flutterfree, face that of rage.

Flutterfree used her Stare on Jane. Jane froze in place, unable to look away from the deep, red, vampiric eyes.

“Nova… Please tell me you have a time stop prepared…” Flutterfree managed.

“Done,” Nova said, freezing Jane in time. “Now we just need to find something strong enough to keep her…”

“I can weaken her considerably,” Siron offered.

“We’re not going to do what you want,” Allure shouted at him. “Let her keep herself!”

“As long as you keep her restrained somehow,” he said.

“So…” Pinkie said, grunting. “Siron, what’s the plan?”

“We’re going to force all the others to join us,” he answered. “If they won’t, we kill them. Simple as that.”

“Why?” Sweetie blurted.

“Because we need to get out of this place. And as far as I can tell, the purpose of this place must be us. So I’m going to bring us all together.”

“Under you,” Jenny prodded.

“Yes. Under me. As it should be.”

Nova ground her teeth. Pinkie had to put a hoof on her to steady her. “All right, Siron. Lead the way.”

They set off, the frozen form of Jane carried by Nova.

Jane couldn’t even think – she was frozen. Frozen on a single thought.

Sunny isn’t dead.

~~~

A feather in Gilgamesh’s inventory lit on fire, covering his entire body in holy flames. His wound healed to manageable levels and he took his first after-death breath.

He stood up slowly, casting Curaja on himself, restoring his vitality to full. He checked his inventory – that was the last Phoenix Down. He’d need to return to standard Void worlds to get more. So hard to come by…

He looked at the three bodies – Sunny, Sunset, and Twilight. All very dead.

No matter. He was alive now, he could fix that. He lifted his hand into the air, conjuring magic into his limb. “Arise. Arise. Arise.”

Holy light enveloped the three bodies, healing their wounds in a couple seconds and restoring light to their eyes.

Sunny gasped. “What the… Holy…” she shook her head. “In all our god-killing days…”

Twilight rubbed her head. “Ow… Headache…”

“You’re welcome!” Gilgamesh jingled. “Deus Ex Gilgamesh, at your service!” He bowed.

“The problem isn’t solved,” Sunny said, shaking her head. “He got the Sweeties.”

Twilight nodded. “We’ve got to go after him. He won’t be expecting us to be alive.” She noticed that Sunset was still slumped on the ground. “…Sunset?”

Sunset’s head twitched. She slowly craned her neck to meet Twilight’s stare. The sight of her face made Twilight and Sunny jump back - her features were twisted, as if animated by strings rather than life. Her eyes were dead, and her mouth hung open slightly. The thing let out a laugh. “Death… A fun thing… You should tr-”

Gilgamesh stabbed her through the head with a holy sword before she could finish her sentence. Her head exploded, disappearing into smoke.

Twilight shrieked. “WHAT DID YOU DO!?”

“Came back wrong,” Gilgamesh said, standing up. “Outside the Void’s universes, that happens sometimes to people with spirits that aren’t quite right. She would have tried to kill us.”

Twilight ran over to the burning corpse of Sunset. “Sunset!” She wailed. “I… We…” She couldn’t say anything – she just broke down.

Sunny gulped, looking to Gilgamesh. “Let’s try not to die again.”

“I’m out of self-revives, so that’d be a good idea,” Gilgamesh commented.

Sunny nodded. “We’ll head out in a minute. Let’s… give her some time.”

“Fine by me. I would figure saving those Sweeties would be more import-”

“IT IS!” Twilight shouted, standing up. Sunny detected trace amounts of magic flowing from the Sunset’s corpse into Twilight. Flaming wings shot out her back, a horn of light lanced forth from her forehead, and the cuffs around her wrists lit up with fire. “We are going to save those girls. And Sunset will be avenged. I am the Sunlight.”

Normally, Sunny would have tried to discourage the use of a dead lover’s magic to empower oneself for revenge, but she held her tongue. It was better right now for them to have extra firepower against… that Siron. “We need to track them,” she said, trying not to look too closely at Sunlight.

Gilgamesh nodded. “Lucky for you I’m an excellent tracker. The scuffs on the stone from that carapace of his are easy to follow. This way.” He hoisted his sword and charged. Sunlight followed after him with angry tears.

Sunny shook her head at the tragedy and followed.

~~~

M4 decided she liked the Twilight known as 4T. There was nothing to differentiate her from any other Twilight besides a Census badge; her appearance was normal, just like M4’s. Apparently 4T was far from normal, though – she was one of those Twilights who weren’t happy just asking questions, getting answers, and then sitting down. She had to explore, to understand, and to adventure. In those ways, she was like Eve. Had she been the one to discover dimensional travel, M4 had no doubt that 4T would have become Eve, given time.

4T was currently showing M4 around the Examail Center. “And that in the center is the dimension grinder, one of the seven wonders of the Sparkle Census,” 4T declared, holding out a wing and a hoof. The dimension grinder was immense, easily as large as Canterlot Castle itself. It was round in shape, overall, though the handful of spires that came from seemingly random sections were quite pointy. Hanging wires and valves channeled into the grinder from all sides, providing it magic, power, and information. Gigantic screens displayed the coordinates of every single universe it was testing, including the ‘nesting order’, or the path that led back to the Sparkle Census universe.

“Impressive,” M4 admitted. “Why don’t you have these interesting things in the waiting room? It’d get Twilights more interested.”

4T shrugged. “We’re in the process of changing a few things, that being one of them, but aesthetics is a secondary concern as I’m sure you’re aware.”

“Right.”

4T teleported them to a level below. The grinder was still visible, but none of the screens were. The underside didn’t look any more or less interesting than the top.

What was on this level were conveyor belts. Letters rolled in, mass produced by a matter fabrication device, all heading toward one of three magical teleporters. Every handful of seconds, one of the letters was hit with a burst of magic, and teleported away.

“This is where your letter was just a couple hours ago,” 4T said. “Produced here, then enchanted with a dimension as soon as one is found, then sent away. If a letter doesn’t receive a response in a few days, another one will be sent. Or – hey, maybe one of the Twilights who works here all the time can tell you more.” She pointed at an alicorn Twilight with a hard hat, the letters GM printed on it. “Hey! GM!”

GM looked up. “Oh! Uh… What are you guys doing here?”

“Giving a tour to a potential new employee,” 4T said. “She’s from a multiversal civilization, looking to become a bit of a diplomat between our worlds.”

M4 waved. “Hi. GM huh? Lucky letter combo.”

“It definitely is,” GM said, stretching her wings and folding them behind her back. “It also helps that my job title is General Manager. I won the lottery.”

4T nodded. “M4 was wondering about how this place worked.”

GM raised an eyebrow. “You saw the conveyor belts didn’t you?”

“Larger-scale.”

“Oh. Right.” GM moved to a large computer screen. “Here’s the controls for the Letter Network. Every letter has a magical transponder we use to locate it. They ping off each other to maximize efficiency and lower the drain on the grinder itself.”

“A thaumic web across dimensions?” M4 said. “…What do you use it for?”

“Nothing,” GM said quickly. “Well, besides determining which letters haven’t been seen, or which ones have been forgotten about.”

“That strikes me as inefficient,” M4 said. “I mean… I’m new here and all, don’t think I’m telling you how to do your job, but wouldn’t you be able to turn this web into a scanner for, well, just about anything dimensional in nature across the multiverse you’ve got covered?”

4T blinked. “Huh. That does seem like a good idea. Wonder why we don’t do that…”

GM’s smile grew. “Yeah. Isn’t that strange? Guess it’s just another bureaucratic inefficiency that 4T here is gonna have to iron out. Heh.”

“Guess so,” 4T groaned. “Probably should take you to the research labs, so you can see how much of a mess that is…”

M4 held up a hoof. “Wait a moment… GM, are you hiding something from us?”

GM clearly gulped. “Whatever gave you that idea?”

“Well now I’m sure you’re hiding something,” M4 said, pushing. “You see, there are cues of lying, at least in nervous people. Twitching, exaggerated movements, darting eyes, overly large smiles… gulping.”

4T blinked. “…M4, I think you’re right. She is hiding something.”

GM narrowed her eyes. “Well great, now I’ve got to take care of you two.”

“No, just tell us what you’re using the network for, we hav-”

GM lit her horn.

M4 suddenly felt really tired…

~~~

Brutalight dropped her invisibility spell. GM, M4, and 4T all lay on the ground, asleep thanks to her handiwork. She would have preferred to listen longer, but she couldn’t have been sure what GM’s spell was going to be. There was clearly a conspiracy of some sort going on here. It would have been ever so interesting to find some real dirt, but she had to put her own escape above her desire for knowledge.

She made a cursory inspection of the information onscreen. From the information she had absorbed in the books, she had a general idea of what it displayed. Letters in millions upon millions of universes. Their connections, their movements… But there was also something else there. There were several spots of blue light spread around the network, unmoving, sitting at locations between universes. Odd. There was nothing between universes. Connections didn’t actually have physical ‘distance’, merely an energy requirement to pass through.

It would be interesting to look back into this once she returned.

But first…

She turned to the conveyor belts. They were still operating. All she had to do was get on one of those letters and go to another universe. She’d have to time it just right…

But she was Brutalight Sparcake. Of course she could time it right. She was getting out of here.

~~~

Gyro, Gandalf, Froppy, Ivan, and the Doctor traveled in their own group, the Doctor taking point with his sonic screwdriver.

Their current plan was to find the TARDIS. It would, if nothing else, be safe on the inside. Given how long it had been since the explosion, the insides should have been fine.

“Are you sure you can find it?” Gyro demanded. “Nothing we have can make heads or tails of this place!”

“I am a Time Lord,” the Doctor stated. “In the section of the multiverse from which I hail, time and space are so fluid the very rules of inter-universal causality can be altered like a lightswitch. On. Off. We have learned to adapt. I know exactly where the TARDIS is in relation to us, and it will only take a bit more hopping around to arrive.”

“I don’t know…”

“I trust him,” Ivan said. “The Doctor’s name is associated with many things. A liar is not one of them.”

The Doctor forced himself to stop at this. “…You heard Vriska, didn’t you?”

“Clearly a personal matter. You’re heralded as a hero.”

“You’ve only seen a small section of the multiverse…” the Doctor said, shaking his head. “You will find that the name of the Doctor can mean anything. That of the Traveling Doctor even more so.”

Froppy turned to Gyro. “He knows what he’s doing.”

“What, all it took was a little speech?”

“Exactly,” Froppy said. “That’s all I needed. I’m not sure what kind of man he is… But he isn’t misleading us. Not right now.”

Gyro folded his arms. “Fine. But until I see a blue phone box I will remain-”

“There she is!” the Doctor cheered, his somber tone gone in an instant. “She’s even upright!”

Then the doors of the TARDIS opened from the inside. All five of them froze when they saw Pinkie inside – Pinkie with a flat mane and a knife in her hooves.

She looked them over. “Shame. I was hoping Rick would find it first.”

The Doctor took a ready stance. “I would ask how you got past the TARDIS security system, but that would be pointless. I know what you are.”

“You don’t. Not fully,” Pinkie said, twirling her knife. “That’s the twist!” She leaped into the air, knife held over her head. “Let’s see if yo-”

One of Gyro’s steel balls hit her between the eyes, pushing her back into the ground. She stood up, rubbing her head.

“I forgot how OP you were…” Pinkie muttered.

“That should have knocked you out at least,” Gyro commented. “Good show. Goodbye.”

Pinkie dodged to the left, avoiding the invisible fist of Ball Breaker.

“The hell!? Sh-”

“No, she can’t see it,” the Doctor said. “She doesn’t need to. She’s thrown aside her inhibitions. We need to run.”

“Spoilsport!” Pinkie called. “You know I’d just stab one of you in the back…” she giggled. “Oh, whatever. Time is candy!” She produced a squeaky hammer. “Wheeee!”

Gyro sent more steel balls at her, but she deflected all of them with her squeaky hammer, a comical squee going out every time she hit one. At the same time, she twisted her body to avoid the actual punches of Ball Breaker and the Spin it was inducing around her. “Gotcha Gyro! I g-”

Ball Breaker landed a hit on her stomach, forcing her to drop her squeaky hammer and go flying into the air higher… and higher… and higher…

Gyro blinked. “…Usually they come back down.”

Ivan put a hand to his head. “The gravity could have altered up there due to another platform. I’d consider it a victory.”

Froppy narrowed her eyes. “She was too confident. She’s not done with us.”

The Doctor nodded. “No doubt, but we’ll have some time befo-”

“NOPE!” Pinkie shouted, falling out of the sky at a speed far faster than terminal velocity. She brought a very real warhammer down on Gandalf. He managed to raise his magical shield just in time, holding her immense force above him.

“You shall not pass,” Gandalf decreed, entrapping her in his magic now that she was close.

Pinkie giggled. “That’s what you think.”

There was a party cannon behind Gandalf. It went off, knocking him forward, into Pinkie. He lost control of his spell – enough for Pinkie to produce a sword. Gandalf fell into the blade.

“GANDALF!” Gyro yelled. He moved, but it was not him who got there first. Froppy’s tongue wrapped around the freshly freed Pinkie. The sticky appendage yanked hard on the pink pony, throwing her off the edge of the platform and down into the blue aurora.

“INTO THE TARDIS!” Froppy yelled. “NOW!”

The Doctor, Ivan, and Gyro didn’t need any prompting. They ran for it, Gyro in the back. Gyro turned just as the door started closing.

A single pink hoof stuck itself through the door, holding it open. Pinkie pulled the door back open. “Heya!”

Gyro just went with an old fashioned kick to the face to get rid of her. He forced the door of the TARDIS shut. “…I’m not a fan of running, but that clearly wasn’t going to end well.”

“Gandalf…” Froppy said, trying to steady her breathing.

“Nice place,” was Ivan’s comment of choice.

The Doctor placed his hands on the console. “I can move us to a different location in this uni- Oh no.”

There was a giant cake on the part of the control console reserved for in-universe location management.

“This is going to take too long,” the Doctor said, furrowing his brow. Whatever he was going to say next was cut off when the entire TARDIS started shaking.

“What’s that?” Gyro demanded.

“She’s moving us!” the Doctor shouted. “She’s gone completely off the deep end!”

“Where’s she taking us?” Gyro demanded.

“How would any of us know that?” Ivan asked. “She’s clearly psychotic.”

“I… Just.” Gyro threw his hands in the air. “Fine. Anyone got a plan?”

“Help me get the cake out of this console,” the Doctor said. “That’s our best bet.” He flicked on a screen on a back wall. “We can see what’s happening outside with this…”

Three kids appeared on the screen – teenagers, one with gray skin. They saw Pinkie carrying a TARDIS, apparently recognized her, and ran off.

They could hear Pinkie laugh. “Run my little children! It’s best if you stay far away from everyone else! Remember nothing but me about this whole trip…”

~~~

Siron and his captives heard fighting, but they couldn’t see it. They heard the sound of a deranged pink pony laughing above all other things. They heard the screams of children…

Siron clenched his fist. “That could be a problem.”

“Hey, at least you won’t have to convince us to fight that thing,” Vriska commented. “Hard to be more evil than you, but from the sounds of those laughs, we got ourselves a true-born murder-crazed psycho.”

Siron didn’t remove his grip on Suzie’s neck. “We’re going in the direction of that laughter. With our firepower, we can take her.”

Pinkie sighed. “I am not looking forward to having to kick myself in the face again…”

As they set out, Sweetie Belle looked frantically around for a way out of the situation. Siron still had a grip on Suzie’s neck, and they still had no idea where Fef was…

“What are we going to do?” she whispered to the rest of the League.

Squeaky racked her brain. “I have no idea. If this were a military op, I’d give the order to rush him with the acceptable risk of losing the hostage. But this isn’t a military op. There’s no armies or countries on the line. This is just us.”

Allure narrowed her eyes. “There’s going to be a fight soon, a big one, right?”

“Yesss….” Brute said. “And then, we are going to save Suzie and make Siron feel sorry he was ever born…”

Sweetie looked at Brute, thinking for a moment about the brutality of the statement. But… it looked like they needed to do that. She had no idea how strong he would be otherwise… “Right.”

The voice of Vriska entered all of their minds. You girls planning something over there?

Squeaky motioned for all of them to act natural. She tapped her hoof on the ground once, to indicate yes.

Good. When the fighting breaks out, we do everything we can to get Suzie out of his grasp. There’s a group following us that’ll take care of Fef. We’ll release Jane and Jenny as well, so this entire place is going to blow like a pop stand.

Squeaky tapped the ground to confirm.

“Plans… Plans are good,” Sweetie said. She turned to the vacant form of Thrackerzod. The mare was no longer crying, but there was still no life in her eyes. “…Did you get that?”

“Mm? Yes…” she said, almost in a whisper. “Yes… Good plan…”

Sweetie looked at Allure. “…I thought she’d be better without her darkness.”

Allure sighed. “I thought she might be as well. …Clearly not. She needs it.”

“We have to get it back to her. And save Suzie. And stop all the bad guys. And get out of here.”

“Tall order.”

Sweetie nodded. “At least we’re not going up against the incarnation of evil.”

Allure smirked. “I like the sound of that.”

Siron glanced behind him, hearing the raised voices. “What are you all so happy about?”

Allure put her hoof over her mouth. Sweetie glared at Siron. “We’re talking about what we’re going to do to you after this is over.”

“Plotting revenge…” Siron let himself chuckle. “Carry on. After everything, life would be boring without the occasional attempt on my life. I expect to see all of you a few years from now, ready to challenge me and my race. I would want it no other way.”

Sweetie narrowed her eyes. “Something’s messed up with you.”

Siron turned away from them. “Our worlds are just different, Sweetie Belle.” He was clearly no longer paying them much attention. The group moved on in silence, preparing for an encounter with pink fluffy death.

~~~

Eve, Cosmo, and the Grand Secretariat stood at the top of a tower within the Sparkle Census, looking at the sprawling expanse of buildings below.

“Not even 1% of your members are actually here right now, are they?” Cosmo asked.

“You’d be correct,” the Grand Secretariat answered. “The Census has very few permanent residents, compared to the number of Twilights who are part of us. Many never come back here. Some only return when looking for an answer to a mysterious question. To others, this is just another city they visit sometimes. There’s even the occasional team sent here on a Friendship Problem Mission by the Tree of Harmony or a version thereof.”

“That reminds me of a question I had,” Eve spoke up. “The Tree of Harmony – evidence we’ve been collecting suggests it used to be a Star. But the Stars were multiversal, and we’ve found so many versions of the Tree.”

“Not all versions of the Tree are a Star,” the Grand Secretariat said. “A lot are, but I wouldn’t say the majority. Many of the trees really were created by Starswirl and not based on an already present Harmony Force, like I assume yours was. But as for those that are the remnant of the Star known as Castor...” She looked into the distance. “It is one of the things we know about the Star Society. They had alternates, just like we do. There were thousands of Castors. Thousands of Corots. Thousands of Siriuses. But unlike us, they didn’t live alongside their counterparts, they made their minds one. We have no idea how, but every version of Castor was the same Star in their society, connected through magic beyond our understanding at all times. So, in many ways, there was only one Castor, and she did the same thing every time. She always ended up crashing into a world that eventually becomes Equis. Sometimes.”

“That’s one of the strangest things we’ve noticed,” Eve said. “While there’s a lot of commonality, and Standard Equis is everywhere, it seems like the origin of our world changes from universe to universe. There’s sometimes a creator alicorn. Sometimes everything just happened naturally. Other times…” she put a hoof to her chin. “Why would dozens of different start conditions and histories result in nearly the same outcome at nearly the same time?”

“Ah, the Thread,” the Grand Secretariat said. “Not a force we understand, at all. We’ve been able to detect this strange force around worlds, individuals, and events, as if it’s tying them together.”

“We call it the Beat,” Cosmo said.

“A fitting name, given its generally rhythmic nature.” She shook her head. “We are certain it is the reason for so many similarities – alternates, converging probabilities, goals – but we haven’t the foggiest idea how. Or why. Or what it even is.”

“Welcome to the club,” Eve said, furrowing her brow. “Though we never thought it was responsible for alternates and converging history… Though that makes sense. It seems tied to patterns and events…” she shook her head. “I don’t pretend to be the expert. I could have you talk to Starbeat, she spends all her time studying it since she’s cursed by it.”

“It sounds like something for the scientists to iron out later.”

It was at this point an alarm went off in the Grand Secretariat’s ear. She lit her horn, face serious. “What is it?”

A voice came out of her horn, that of a Twilight. “Tampering at the Examail Center.”

“That’s not enough for a class N alert.”

Realizing that there was probably an important message she wasn’t hearing, Eve turned on her ears and winced.

“Twilights were sent to intercept. The entire squad was wiped out by strange swords that killed with one slice and prevented healing magic.”

Eve gasped. “No…”

The Grand Secretariat glanced at Eve while continuing her conversation. “Do we know which Twilight it was?”

“Darker color, otherwise standard alicorn. Running through records now.”

“It’s Brutalight Sparcake,” Cosmo said. “She’s the Twilight we warned you about. The one we had imprisoned.”

The Grand Secretariat nodded. “I understand. I guess my warnings went un-implemented.”

“No, that’s not it,” Eve said. “When we were working on our papers we saw an alicorn come in we thought was her, but didn’t act like it. She…” Eve stamped her hoof on the ground. “She fooled us!”

The Grand Secretariat spoke into her horn again. “Search recent arrivals, within the last three hours.”

“Found her,” the voice came back. “Twilight E carrot-P pound R zero. Tracking her.”

“I’ll deal with her personally,” the Grand Secretariat said, hanging up. “…When you warned me about her you could have mentioned the pony that looked like her.”

“I’m sorry!” Eve said. “I didn’t-”

“I know,” the Grand Secretariat interrupted. “But right now ponies have just died in the Sparkle Census. That doesn’t happen. I’m not going to hold you accountable, our security did let her through, but you are going to help fix this problem of yours.”

Eve nodded. “Of course.” She shut off her ears, in order to be ready.

They teleported away.

~~~

Rick and Morty ran across platform after platform, following a little ping on a yellow sensor in Rick’s hands.

“Rick are you sure we should be running toward the noises?” Morty asked his grandfather.

“That’s where the TARDIS is,” Rick said. “And we need that thing for the microverse.”

“Oh, that thing you shot and blew up?”

“The Doctor needed to be kicked down a peg. Plus, I wouldn’t have had free access if he’d been near the thing.”

“You were trying to kill the Doctor. The Doctor, Rick!”

“There are other Doctors out there. Again, if I wanted to kill him, I would have at least aimed at him Morty. Screw your brain on right.”

“Not that one and you know it!”

“He’s a self-entitled asshole who needs to stop finding immortality loopholes.”

“God, Rick, do you realize how much you’re describing yourself?”

Rick didn’t dignify this with an answer. He just returned his focus to the device in his hands. “Getting close. Hard left, Morty.”

“Har- woah.” Morty skidded to a halt, noticing that the platforms came to an abrupt halt. They stood on the edge of a round platform with eight spokes, and the spoke was barely large enough for Morty to stand.

In the center of the round platform was the TARDIS – with a pink pony sitting on top of it. She grinned. “Hi, RICK!”

Rick stopped short, narrowing his eyes. “Who the fuck are you and what the fuck do you want?”

“Oh, dropping the bombs already I see?” she giggled, producing a long knife and twirling it on top of her hoof. “Let’s see. Do you remember the Pinkie that promised she’d kill you if you did something?”

“I have so many death threa-”

“That’d be the interdimensional Pinkie, Rick,” Morty said. “The one we saw trapped in here earlier.”

Rick blinked. “Right. That one.”

Pinkie jumped off the TARDIS and twitched. “On that day, I promised myself I’d kill you. I became this so I could do it. So, to answer your questions… My name is Pinkamena Diane Pie. You killed my friends. Prepare to die.”

Rick pulled out a gun and fired. Pinkie just appeared behind him and drove a sword through his chest and pulled up, cutting him in half effortlessly. She was not surprised in the slightest to find the Rick was made out of smoke. She threw the knife behind her, swirling her hammer around at seemingly random.

She hit the invisible Rick, sending him flying into side of the TARDIS. He grunted. “Ergh…”

Pinkie opted to just throw knives at him instead of getting close again. He activated a device to deflect them, but one got through and hit him in the arm.

“RICK!” Morty yelled.

“Don’t yell, Morty,” Pinkie said. “Be happy. Be happy that he doesn’t care enough about you for you to be worth taking hostage.”

“…That’s not a good thought.”

Pinkie laughed. “Well, it means you get to live through this! Probably. I might just lose all sense of pony-ness and kill you after. I’ve gone completely bonkers, see.” She produced a machine gun and tried to riddle Rick with bullets, but he somehow dodged every last one.

Rick pulled out a strange, round, crystalline device. “I am not going to die to a pathetic pink pony.” The device activated, sending out a shockwave that knocked Morty out like a domino and paralyzed him to boot.

Pinkie just grinned. “Nice try.”

“Fuck…” he muttered, resorting to pulling out a gun and firing it at the TARDIS. Pinkie pulled a mirror shield out of nowhere and reflected it into his other arm. Rick fell back.

“Guess what, Rick?” Pinkie giggled. “There’s nothing here for you to use! I’m blocking the TARDIS, you’re running out of supplies on your person, and there’s nothing here but blocks of stone. Your tenacity means nothing here.” She dropped her weapon, opting for a long, overly sharp knife. She started to sing as she moved closer to Rick. He fired at her again and again, but she always just shifted at the right moment, twisted to the left, or jumped over whatever he threw at her.

“I want to cut you open, see your colors run!
I want to play I want to have a friend to have some fun!
Don’t be afraid, don’t cry, just give in!
This is the last time I’ll see you again!”

She pinned his arms and legs to the ground with knives, stopping his retaliation. A weapon appeared in his hair and shot her, boring a hole just under one of her eyes. She didn’t care.

“So come on, relax, just sit still!
You belong to me and you will~!
Keep quiet and look me in the eye!
Cos-”

The poofy-maned Pinkie appeared and hit her across the head with a hammer. “STOP!”

The psychotic Pinkie laughed. “Of course! You had to save him – someone had to, at least this early. I’m not surprised. Just, oh, livid. Why do you let him live, Pinkie Pie?”

“This isn’t what we do!” Pinkie called back. “This isn’t our type of par-”

“IT IS NOW! HE KILLED ALL MY FRIENDS! ALL OF THEM! THE DAY YOU GAVE HIM YOUR ULTIMATUM, I VOWED HE WOULD PERISH BY MY HOOF!”

Pinkie’s eyes widened as she put two and two together. “No… No… Pinkie-X?!”

“Yes! Pinkie-X!” Pinkie-X cheered, laughing. “Oh, you know, the mare who knew the universe was gonna die ahead of time, along with you? The one who convinced you she was going to stay?”

“You were going to stay!”

“Last minute heebie-jeebies!” she cackled. “Couldn’t stay. So I left just before it happened. I could have lived normally… But nope!” She pointed a knife at Rick. “He needed to pay. And it just so happened that I was in a unique situation to actually be able to do it!”

Pinkie hefted her hammer. “You let the death you were supposed to have consume you.”

“Exactly! Wasn’t even that hard! Just exaggerate the power a little bit, drop the inhibitions, and presto! I was a monster. It feels liberating, you should try it!”

“No,” Pinkie said, hitting her counterpart with a hammer, tossing her off the platform. “I will never be you. I’m not the only survivor of a universe that was supposed to fade into nothing.”

Pinkie-X gasped. “Oh my! You don’t know!”

Pinkie blinked. “…Don’t know what?”

“You’re going to be so mad when you figure that out,” Pinkie-X laughed.

“…That doesn’t matter.” Pinkie hit her counterpart again. “You’re coming with me.”

“Alrighty! Sure, I’ll be a distraction. Bring on the bloodbath!”

Pinkie sighed. “That’s one way of looking at it.” With a push off the ground, the two pink balls of fluff bounced onto another platform, and into the sight-range of Siron.

“PREPARE YOURSELVES!” Siron shouted.

~~~

“Shit shit shit…” Brutalight swore to herself as she teleported quickly through the Sparkle Census.

To put it simply, the letter teleportation network turned out to have a highly subtle security spell to prevent exactly what she had been trying to accomplish. Then the guards had shown up. Then she had to kill them. And then the real alarms went off.

She knew she was being hunted. Because of her color scheme, she wouldn’t just be able to vanish into a crowd. Not to mention the fact that an ‘evacuate sector’ alert had gone out, and the streets were quickly losing all Twilights as they returned to their home universes in an instant.

She couldn’t just return to Nautica, she’d never gotten a token…

She realized with panic that she didn’t have a plan anymore besides run. And run in a universe controlled by a multiversal association of Twilight Sparkles was probably a bad idea…

She didn’t see any other option though. She kept running.

Her teleport-gallop was interrupted when a Twilight Sparkle made entirely out of purple miasma appeared in front of her. “Come with me if you want to live.”

Brutalight opened her mouth to ask a question, and then decided to just screw it and follow the miasma Twilight without a fuss. The Twilight seemed to appreciate this, nodding to her and gesturing to a nearby building. They entered one of the doors to find a bookstore inside.

The miasma Twilight floated to the back of the building and pulled on a small, blue book. The two of them were teleported away to a large room with no entrances or exits. The floor was made of glass, below which a complex series of gears could be seen, every notch marked with a magical rune of some kind. A handful of other, angry looking Twilights stood in the room, looking at Brutalight.

“Welcome to the underground,” the miasma Twilight said. “This is our outgoing device. It only needs a few more minutes to spin up, but then we can take you away.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“The Council doesn’t do enough, that’s why,” another Twilight said. “So we’re going to make them. It seems like you may have something for us.”

“There is a prison world by the name of Nautica,” Brutalight said. “It has my friends and numerous other prisoners I’m sure could be of some use.”

“Good,” the miasma Twilight said. “They have no idea where we are. And they won’t be able to find us in just a couple minutes.”

~~~

Sweetie Belle readied herself for the perfect moment. She saw the two Pinkies coming, bouncing in their direction. Pinkie-X leaped off of Pinkie, pulling a red metallic axe out of nowhere. Siron acted, focusing on her with the energy of his staff…

NOW. Went Vriska’s psychic burst through the minds of everyone.

Sweetie knew her cue. She moved, leaping next to Siron while most of his focus was on Pinkie-X. He did see her, but it was too late. She pulled a beautiful, crystalline blade out of her pocket dimension, cutting the hand that held Suzie completely off. The dark energies flowing through Siron went to replace the limb, but Sweetie had already placed herself between Suzie and Siron.

Siron would have killed Sweetie and Suzie in an instant, but the plan took this into account.

For Jane had been released.

A blade glowing with the power of a legend none knew cut Siron down the back, making him scream out in pain. He slammed his staff on the ground, surrounding himself in a protective bubble of eldritch energies, but Jane was far too persistent. Her power was too strong – Siron may have wielded power within that staff beyond most of what Jane had seen, but his body was still that of a mortal. And mortals were easy pickings for Jane. She drove a boot into his chest piece, cracking it in a dozen different places. Blue blood spurted out as he skidded back a few feet.

He knew one thing in that instant.

If he played his cards right, he could beat Jane. Tear a part of her soul away, force her to make a mistake in her rage, and then kill her. He could do it.

He could not kill her if she had backup.

Vriska came flying from behind Jane, placing a boot right in Siron’s face. Jenny came from the other side, infusing her glove with transdimensional energy that went right through both his natural and eldritch armor. His staff returned power to him, but still he stumbled and gagged.

“Dammit…”

He was going to lose this fight.

But he was a warrior. He would never back down. If this was his end, he would go down with as much fire as possible.

Jane’s magics were too strong to destroy in an instant, and that Jenny had a habit of regenerating from any wound. It was time to see if Vriska was being Heroic right now…

He drove the staff at her, shooting her with Juju energy – and missed.

She was stealing his luck.

Vriska grabbed him by the neck. “Nice knowin’ ya.” She pulled him over her head and smashed him into the ground, cracking the platform.

Siron, despite his current unlucky disposition, still fought. He tapped into the power in the staff bestowed to him so recently, pushing his assailants back. He stood tall.

“JUST DIE ALREADY!” Jane shouted – but then the rage in her eyes died out as she noticed what was happening behind Siron.

Fef had been tossed into view by Sunny. She was alive. The rage drained from Jane’s face.

Siron took his opportunity, driving his fist into her stomach. It did go through – but he broke all his fingers in the process on her truly absurd defensive magic.

Jane, to her credit, barely flinched at what had to be outrageous pain. “Not many get through my defenses…” she muttered.

Jenny punched Siron and Vriska kicked him, forcing his fist out of Jane’s chest. He went sliding back.

Fef wasn’t doing much better. Sunny, Renee, Nova, Gilgamesh, and that flaming Twilight now known as Sunlight were on her. Despite her skill with her weapons, she had lost her stealth advantage. She was not going to win, and Siron knew it.

“FIGHT TO THE END!” Siron shouted.

“GOT IT!” Fef responded. She planted a foot on Gilgamesh, pushing him into Nova before she could initiate a time spell. She swirled her yo-yos around, nicking Renee, Sunny, and Sunlight.

Sunlight took the opportunity, grabbing hold of the yo-yo and pulling Fef in. The yo-yo swirled with enough force to cut Sunlight’s arms down to the bone, but the woman just flat did not care.

Fef pulled the second yo-yo through Sunlight’s chest – but still, the fiery being cared not.

“Why aren’t you dead!?” Fef shouted.

“I’m about to be. And so are you,” Sunlight decreed. She turned her entire body into an explosion that rocked the platform everyone stood on. Both she and Fef were vaporized in an instant.

Sunny sighed visibly.

“FEF!” Siron shouted, pain evident in his voice. He struggled against his opponents – but now Gilgamesh and the others were on him as well. His eldritch energies lashed out, but he no longer scared them.

They scared him instead.

A warrior does not let fear control him.

Siron roared, continuing to fight back against immeasurable odds.

Pinkie-X and Pinkie fought in the air. “Would you look at that!” Pinkie-X said. “That worked! Siron’s going down!”

“So are you,” Pinkie said. “You… You are a disgrace to Pinkies.”

“Yep!” She lifted a hoof to stop Ditzy from crashing into her, forcing the magical wings coming out of her back to destabilize.

Pinkie had to take a moment to throw a balloon to Ditzy so she wouldn’t hit the ground too hard. “You won’t hurt anyone else.”

Pinkie-X pulled a knife out of her mane, sneering. “Guess whaaaaat?”

“No!” Pinkie said, grabbing for the knife, but Pinkie-X was already behind her.

“Random knife throw of death go!” Pinkie-X decreed, throwing the knife at a random individual on the ground.

Allure didn’t see it coming; she was busy watching the struggle with Siron.

Thrackerzod, even in her ruined state, did. She didn’t need her mental faculties to act. She leaped in front of the knife, ready to take the blade for her friend.

Allure saw Thrackerzod move, having just enough time to register the knife coming right for the two of them. There was no time to speak, just enough time for Allure to process what was going to happen. The knife was going to hit Thrackerzod in the neck… But at the speed it was going it would probably go through Thrackerzod, and hit Allure in the face. There was a chance the knife deflected off her horn, bu-

She didn’t get to continue the thought experiment. Sweetie Brute leaped into action, punching the knife just before it reached Thrackerzod. The blade cut her front leg down the middle and spun out of control, missing Thrackerzod entirely and cutting Brute through the neck. Blood spurted over Thrackerzod and Allure. Blood sprayed from the mare as Brute fell to the ground.

“Take… That…” She managed before her breathing stopped.

“BRUTE!” Allure screamed, running after her. There has to be someone here who knows healing, there ha-

The next wave of force from Siron’s defense hit. Anypony standing strong or prepared for it would have no difficulty resisting the shockwave. But the limp body of a young unicorn was nothing but a ragdoll to it. Brute was thrown off the edge of the platform into the aurora below.

Allure lit her horn, attempting to grab Brute’s body with her telekinesis, but the body was too heavy and moving too fast. “SQUEAKY! NOVA! ANYPONY!?” Allure yelled.

Squeaky was fighting Siron. Nova was trying to fight Pinkie-X. They didn’t hear her.

Pinkie and Sweetie heard her though. They heard the devastating pain in that voice, the further loss of innocence, the shattering of her world.

Sweetie knew she would not be able to lift Brute at this point – so she cast a lightning spell at Pinkie-X. The bolt connected, but only singed the pink pony slightly. It would have been comedic if the mood weren’t so tragic.

Pinkie-X laughed. “I think we should play again!” she produced another, identical knife. “Which one of your friends is next, Pinkie? What do you-”

A green steel ball hit Pinkie-X in the side of her chest, forcing her body into a tailspin.

Gyro spat on the ground as he walked into view. “THAT’S FOR GANDALF!”

Rick stood next to him, holding a truly gigantic piece of machinery clearly cobbled together from items inside the TARDIS – definitely used without the Doctor’s permission. He pointed it at Pinkie-X. “No pink bitch gets to tell me I’m going to die.”

“I AM A PONY! NOT A DOG!” Pinkie-X shouted, forcing herself to stand. She produced a gun out of her mane and aimed at Rick.

Rick was faster. A burst of blue-green energy wrapped inside orange fractal patterns burst from the device, hitting Pinkie-X in the face. A sound of ticking could be heard all around her. The gun went first, dissipating into thin shards that were basically sheets of paper before vanishing.

Just like how her universe had been destroyed.

Pinkie-X looked to Pinkie to speak her last words.

“Now you won’t know until it’s too late.”

Pinkie-X was no more.

Siron was the only true enemy left standing – and with a steel ball to the face, his muscles finally gave out. His limbs locked and he fell to the ground, unable to exert himself anymore.

Vriska produced her sword, ready to cut off his head in one fell swoop.

~~~

Sparky, Twiree, and Twix received the evacuate sector alert just like every other Twilight – directly in their minds. They quickly reached for their tokens. After all, if they were being told to evacuate, it was probably for a good reason.

They would have left had I not stopped them.

“You need to stay,” I said, drawing their attention. “M4 is in the middle of this at the Examail Center. You need to find her.”

Sparky blinked. “Wha…?”

To them, I just looked like a normal alicorn Twilight with an artificial eye in my chest. It was best if it remained that way, for now. But I needed to get them to act.

“Twix,” I said, addressing the one pony at the table who knew. “You need to go there. It’s what needs to happen. It is the next line.”

Twix’s eyes widened in understanding. “We need to go. Now.”

Twiree blinked. “What? What did that even mean?”

“It meant… Something. Yeah. We need to go to this Examail place.”

Sparky looked at my eyes. She saw somepony who was not just telling the truth, but telling an urgent one. “Okay. We’ll go, mysterious Twilight.”

I nodded. “It’s Twilence. Thank you. And for what it’s worth, I am sorry.”

“Sorry?”

But I was already gone.

Sparky stared at the place I had just been. Twix snapped her out of it. “Wonder about it later, we need to move. Something big is happening.”

They stepped outside to find the streets almost abandoned – Twilights had clearly listened to the evacuation order. They saw the Examail Center in the distance, but none of them were great at long-range teleportation.

Twiree solved this problem by transforming into a Reaper and carrying them the distance in a matter of seconds. She transformed back into her Flat form and grinned. “Instant travel in style, girls!”

The three of them ran into the doors of the Examail Center. Red lights were blaring on every wall in the building.

They saw bodies of Twilights – petrified, lifeless forms. Sparky knew exactly what had happened to them the moment she saw them. “…Brutalight.”

“What?” Twix asked.

“The pony who took Eve’s hearing. She’s here.”

Twiree and Twix readied themselves for a fight. They followed the trail of petrified corpses down a flight of stairs, to a level with conveyor belts continually feeding letters into teleporters. One of the conveyor belts was frozen, with an alert of some kind on it.

“Two of the Twilights aren’t petrified!” Sparky called, leaning down to check them. Their designations came to her as she checked – M4 and 4T. They had been the victims of a powerful sleep spell. Sparky undid the enchantment, but they weren’t going to be very aware of themselves for a while.

Maybe they could answer some basic questions in their grogginess though…

“What happened?” Sparky asked M4.

“GM… The Twilight… She was suspicious… Then… What…?”

4T pulled herself up and stumbled over to a console. Rubbing her eyes, she pressed a button. “Emergency shutdown! Code four-T-alpha-charlie-nine-pi.”

All the conveyor belts stopped in an instant. They could still hear the grinder operating, but all processes had been brought to a standstill. 4T grunted. “We… We’ll need higher clearance to purge the… Whatever… she’s doing… Ugh that was a powerful sleep spell…”

Twix was the one that saw her – a Twilight in a hard hat trying to carefully sneak up the stairs without being noticed. “Hey! Where do you think you’re going!?”

GM glanced back at them with panic. “Ponyfeathers.” She teleported away.

Sparky had a pretty good idea where she’d gone, and Twix did as well. The two of them executed a short range teleport outside the building. Sure enough, there GM was, galloping away.

She pulled out her return-home token.

Sparky shot it out of her telekinesis with a magic laser. “No you don’t! After her!”

Twix didn’t even need to be told.

The chase across the Sparkle Census began.

~~~

One of Gyro’s steel balls hit Vriska in the hand, stopping her sword from landing the killing blow on Siron.

“What the fuck!?” She shouted. “Gyro, I had him!”

Gyro looked at his hand like he couldn’t believe what had just happened. “I… I was just told to do that. Who the hell…”

“Me,” a new voice declared, walking into view on top of a spherical piece of stone. He was a blue, humanoid, metallic creature with numerous blue spikes coming out of his head that resembled far-reaching groups of hair. His face was made of rigid metal – the only indication of life coming from glowing red points in the black recesses that were his eyes. “I told you. I’m also telling you to stop everyone from fighting or trying to kill each other.”

Jane tightened her grip on her sword. “You know what? Who cares about that guy?” She swung her sword down at Siron, only for Ball Breaker to induce Spin in the blade, tearing it from her hand.

“Please, stop,” the blue being said, holding a hand to his head. “Stop killing each other. The test is over because someone tampered with the settings. I’d like very much to know who managed to do that.”

Rick grinned. “Aha! I knew I had you there!”

“Rick, I was watching you closely, you did not have time to initiate your microverse plan. You can rest easy knowing it would have worked, of course I would have stepped in the moment you did it and blocked the new universe off. But even if you did manage to do it in secret, that would not have altered the interdimensional web holding you all here.”

“You…” Nova muttered, seething. “You did this! Who are you and why?”

“I know him,” Pinkie said. “I met him when I was running away from my problems. He’s… He’s like Melinda, except on a larger scale. Trying to fight him would be a bad idea…”

Jane wasn’t having any of that. “Oh, really? Well I’m not going to admit defeat, I-”

Gyro threw a steel ball at her. She retaliated, deflecting it with nothing but her hand, crushing the metallic weapon in her grip. She pulled back to throw the crumpled lump at the metallic man.

The ball sailed straight through the hologram that was the metallic man.

“In case it isn’t obvious, I’m not actually here. I’m safe and sound in my office,” he said, appearing in the middle of all of them. “I’m only making an appearance because something unforeseen happened.”

“You didn’t answer Nova’s question,” the Doctor said. “Why did you do this?”

The man looked at them all. “Think of this as… an audition.”

~~~

Eve, Cosmo, and the Grand Secretariat traced Brutalight to a bookstore – an abandoned one. They filed into the building to find not a single sign of Brutalight. All the books were well organized, there was no evidence of a fight, or much of anything at all.

It was just a bookstore.

Eve bit her lip. “Where is she? She went in here, we know it…”

The Grand Secretariat lit her horn, scanning the room. “I sense that she was in here very recently, but isn’t anymore.”

“Teleport?”

“I should notice if a personal teleport occurred… And then we should have still been able to track her physically.”

“…Did she go offworld?”

“Impossible,” the Grand Secretariat said. “She was never given a token, and the others will not work for her.”

“Unless she got help,” Cosmo said, running her hoof across a bookshelf. “I sense another pony in here as well. One with a significant store of magic…”

The Grand Secretariat frowned. “If somepony helped her, that suggests there are ponies in the Census hiding from us.”

“Probably are,” Eve said. “We get a lot of enemies from within on our side of things. I wouldn’t be surprised if you’ve got a traitor Twilight…”

Cosmo tapped the crystal that held Starlight. “How can we track the two of them?”

“Magical signatures analyzed. The non-Brutalight’s is strong enough to be tracked. They moved toward the back of the store.”

The three alicorns did as Starlight suggested, finding themselves at the back bookshelf.

“They grabbed one of the books,” Starlight said. “…It activated an enchantment. An extremely well hidden one, even knowing it’s here I can’t pin it down.”

Eve started pulling on random books, trying to activate it.

“Are we sure that’s a good idea?” Cosmo asked.

“I do-” Eve pulled on the right book, and the three of them were stealth-transported to the secret bunker room. The gears clicked below them and the center glowed with a soft blue power.

They didn’t particularly care about that. What they cared about was Brutalight and the ponies she was with.

Brutalight saw them. “Fuck.”

Eve glared. “You are going back to Nautica, Brutalight.”

The blue power in the center of the room flashed, creating an active portal to a snowy world.

Brutalight smirked. “I don’t think so.”

~~~

Sparky and Twix ran after GM. The two pursuers had adopted a mounted pursuit – Twix offered the legs, and Sparky created a rocket-like burst of magical energy to propel them forward even faster.

GM glanced behind herself, a pained expression on her face. She teleported on top of a building. Twix followed with her own teleport.

“She’s got more magic than I do… Just a unicorn here!” Twix reminded Sparky.

“I’ll teleport next time,” Sparky said.

“And you have even less than me! Not to mention this little rocket boost! How are we going to- oh wait, right. Obvious.”

‘Obvious’ was Twiree transforming into a Reaper and flying overhead, firing orbital bombardment lasers at GM. The buildings she ran across were destroyed in an instant.

“We sure are lucky this place is evacuated…” Twix muttered.

“What is that!?” GM shouted back at them. “I… what!?”

“Twiree!” Sparky called. “A Flat. Hope you enjoy!”

GM decided that, clearly, fleeing wasn’t an option anymore. She spread her wings and flew into the air, sending a barrage of spells at Twiree’s hull.

“THAT’S NOT GOING TO WORK.”

GM paled, realizing Twiree was right. “No… No no no!”

Sparky pointed at her, smirking. “Do you realize now?”

“Just let me go! I… I’ll be forced to kill you if I don’t think I can win otherwise!” GM shouted, tears coming to her eyes. “I don’t want to do that! And… And if I do lose, I’ll be forced to kill myself! You don’t want that! Just… Just let me go!”

Sparky blinked. “Are yo-”

“She’s telling the truth,” Twix said, narrowing her eyes. “I think.”

“Twiree!” Sparky shouted. “Reapers can indoctrinate right? Start doing that!”

GM freaked out. “NO THAT IS THE WORST THING YOU COU-”

Twiree started shaking the air around GM with a super low pitched, droning noise. It wormed its way into GMs head, trying to mold it like putty.

Sparky knew it took a while for Reaper Indoctrination to have any long-term effect, but when used directly the short-term scrambling of the thought process was incredibly effective. The way GM grabbed her head and started screaming incoherent gibberish was a bit beyond what Sparky was expecting, but she was going to take it.

“Twiree, see if you can trap her in your carg-”

Something in GM forced her to act against what she herself was at her core. “I’M SORRY!” A dark red beam shot forth from her horn, going right for Sparky. She raised a magical shield, expecting to be able to block it easily.

It passed right through the shield and her body. No part of her body exploded, no blood came out, and no bruises formed.

Her heart just stopped. He lungs couldn’t move, and her brain was barely able to process anything she was seeing. Vision blurred to black, sounds that were probably shouts from Twix faded to nothing, and the sensation of ground beneath her fell out. It became void.

Did she even have a body anymore?

She had no idea. She barely had any idea.

She tried desperately to hold onto anything: idea, image, or otherwise.

Corona…

~~~

“An audition?” Nova echoed, glaring at the blue metallic man. “Care to explain?”

“Gladly,” he said, pacing around the area despite having nothing more than a holographic body. “Using a pre-existing network of dimensional connections, I created a program that would, when activated, scan an area of the multiverse for individuals who were versed in travel. Once it located these individuals, it would wait for them to translate – through any method – and intercept them as they were translating, bringing them here. I would then watch while these few dozen individuals interacted with each other. I would study how they fought, how they made allies, what their abilities and dispositions were.”

He motioned for Gyro to come to him. “Then I would take whoever I decided was worth pursuing to work for me. Gyro here was my first choice.”

“And the rest of us?” Allure asked.

“Those of you who weren’t chosen would be sent back to translation without any memories of the event. To you, it would seem like your friend just vanished in a translation accident. Since time in this universe means almost nothing in other universes, it would seem instant to anyone looking at you. None of you would be able to trace anything that had happened here.”

“…Slave-driving monster,” Vriska muttered.

“That is how you see me. It won’t be soon. Even though I had to end the auditions early, after I make what selections I can, I will send you back and you still won’t remember anything.”

Several gasps rang out.

“There are many of you trying to make backup memories, or write things on your bodies. That will not work. You will be returned as you arrived – well, assuming you’re still alive.”

“You’re not going to get away with this,” Jane said. “This… ploy of yours.”

“For all you know, Miss Jane, you’ve already been the victim of a similar ploy. How would you remember? I’m sure you’ve been exploring long enough to have translated somewhere and realized that, for some reason, one of the people you left with didn’t arrive at the destination. Sure, it could have been natural. Or it could have been someone like me.”

Jane didn’t have a response for that.

Sweetie did. “You’re just like the Beast.”

“Sweetie Chronicle, I am not a demonic entity with no purpose besides amusement and being evil. Those I take live the life of heroes. They retain their personalities, minds, bodies, powers, and everything that makes them them. They just cannot refuse my orders.” He snapped his fingers, a sound he was very satisfied with.

“You change them. You force them. Your only difference is that you don’t think you’re evil.”

The man shrugged. “Wouldn’t call myself good either. Merely necessary.” He put a hand to his chin. “Well, it’s becoming clear to me that I will not be able to figure out who messed with the network. But that is not something I need to know. I’ll just take who I want and wrap this up.” He pointed at Siron. “You, come here.”

Siron’s rage-filled eyes lost all defiance in an instant as something entered his mind. He walked to the man and took a spot beside Gyro.

“Gyro was selected because his tenacity and power set was exactly what I needed to keep you under control while I spoke. Siron, I chose you because you have power, drive, and had this actually been a contest, you were so close to winning.” He looked at the rest of the travelers. “I would have chosen Pinkie-X as well, but Rick erased her from existence. Therefore…”

“You won’t be able to put a chip in my head, magical or otherwise,” Rick muttered.

“Rick, come here.”

Rick’s eyes locked forward and he walked up to Siron. “…What the fuck. This can’t be real, I have a million differen-”

“You are a dangerous one, Rick,” the man said, looking closely. “You ruined the society of the Council of Ricks. But let it be known, the Council? It was on a civilization level below my own. You may have had access to fantastical minds and technology, but I have things even you wouldn’t be able to comprehend. And since you’re always more effective in pairs…” he pointed at Morty, gesturing for him to come. Morty had no choice. “You too.”

“R-Rick? What are we gonna do?”

“Listen to the blue buckethead, apparently,” Rick muttered.

“You’ve g-got a plan, right?”

“I’ve always got a plan.”

“Your recursive mental double-reacharound has been destroyed,” the man said. “Clever trick you were planning, but ultimately foolhardy. And just in case… Rick, disable any other plans you have to defeat me.”

“Fuck you,” Rick muttered, pulling a strange blue orb out of his ear and throwing it off the edge of the platform.

“And if you sense it come back, you will tell me before it can do anything.”

Rick twitched.

The blue man walked to the edge and chuckled. “Do any of you know what this place is?”

The Doctor nodded. “A remnant.”

“Right on the money, Doctor! A remnant. Perhaps of the Weavers themselves, though I am personally of a mind it isn’t anywhere near ancient enough for that. It, itself, is an experiment in space and time, to bring the ideas of folding space together with visual illusions and gravity. Abandoned so long ago… What they learned from this, if anything, is lost to the annals of metatime. In other words, a perfect place to appreciate the true vastness of everything.”

“…You’re crazy,” Ditzy observed.

“Quite true. But I am quite effective.” He pointed at nothing. “Ivan, I choose you for daring to be clever enough to use illusions at a time like this.”

Ivan revealed himself to be next to Jenny, messing with some Numenera technology. He dropped it and walked to the other four.

“Wh- am I not good enough?” Jenny blurted.

“You’re just a billion year old child,” the man dismissed. “You have knowledge and power, but lack consistency. You’re more useful to me if you remain at your position in Dracogen Enterprises.”

Jenny fumed.

The man walked to Jane and Sunny. “You two… You two are very interesting. A powerful couple from a faraway dimensional incident. Old, wise in the ways of the multiverse, and a threat to most gods.”

“You bet we are. Why not take us? I’m sure we won’t find a way to kill you anyway,” Jane deadpanned.

“You’re less dangerous than Rick, and I’ve already taken him. What makes me hesitate is your desire to settle down. You already have a permanent home on Equis Vitis. You won’t be as effective out in the field with that attitude.”

“I’ll never be effective to you.”

“It would just take slightly harder-handed conditioning.” He nodded to himself. “I do think it is worth it though. J-”

“STOP IT!” Sweetie yelled, summoning her sword from the aether and holding it to Siron’s neck. “Stop it or I cut off his head, right now.”

The blue man held up a hand to make sure Gyro, Ivan, Rick, and Morty didn’t try anything. “You’re a clever filly, Sweetie Chronicle.”

“If you give me any orders I cut this guy’s head off without thinking.”

The man folded his hands. “I’m not sure you really will, Sweetie Chronicle, but you are correct in assuming I cannot take that risk. Not the least because I can’t actually condition you to me.”

“Why not?”

“There are certain individuals for whom conditioning would be dangerous. Those part of something larger, for instance. You have a powerful flow of ka, little one. One that it would be unwise of me to tamper with. It is the same reason I haven’t taken any of Pinkie’s group, despite Vriska being, quite literally, the catch of the millennium.”

“Gee, thanks,” Vriska muttered.

“So here’s the deal, Sweetie Chronicle. You have my Siron. You have leverage. If you return him to me, I will take Jane and Sunny as my servants, and then I will return the rest of you to your worlds. I will take no more – I would have liked Gilgamesh, but I can cut my losses. However, if you refuse, I will allow you to kill Siron and take some of the League of Sweetie Belles instead.”

Sweetie froze. “Are… Are you toying with me?”

“I’m making assurances,” he said. “I believe you’ll let Siron live with these conditions, regardless of if you were actually willing to kill him or not in the first place.”

Sweetie began to sweat.

“Take your time.”

~~~

The Grand Secretariat and Cosmo faced all the extra Twilights in the room. Cosmic and Harmony magic flew out in a powerful flurry.

This flurry meant nothing to the deaf Eve, who was focused entirely on Brutalight and the open portal right next to her. The dark alicorn had opted to run rather than face Eve, galloping for the opening. She lit her horn, preparing a teleport.

Eve was not going to let that happen.

She summoned her Stand. Nopony in the room could see it but her, and that was just the way she liked it. The three rings aligned perfectly, creating a disc shape. A swirl of blue and white energy coalesced in the center of the rings, indicating the activation of its ability.

The green energy of the portal died instantly, vanishing. The glow on the runes below them vanished, becoming nothing more than etchings in the machinery.

Brutalight whirled around with a sword – but found that her blade had not only disintegrated, but that her own telekinesis had failed her. She tried to cast a laser, but her horn was dead. Her internal organs twisted inside her, driving a feeling of sickness deep into her.

Brutalight pushed through it. She reached for a wrench nearby, finding that her hooves no longer had any traction to them. She didn’t care – she lifted the wrench with her wing and hurled it at Eve.

Eve’s horn didn’t even light up to deflect it. Some aura just shot the wrench deep into the side wall.

“What… What are you doing?”

“I could brutalize you in ways you cannot imagine,” Eve said. “Boil you atom by atom and yet keep your consciousness in a jar. Sew all your bodily orifices shut with thread made from essence of ants. I could throw you into Majora’s black hole.” Her eyes bored deep into Brutalight’s poor excuse for a soul. “But, instead, I’m just going to send you back to Nautica. That’s the difference between you and me.”

With a flick of Eve’s head, Brutalight was no longer in the Sparkle Census. She was back on a world covered in water, ready to begin cursing the heavens anew.

Back in the Sparkle Census, Eve turned to Cosmo and the Grand Secretariat. They had easily taken care of all the other Twilights. “Grand Secretariat, I need to place an anti-translation matrix on a planet.”

“It shall be done in only a couple of minutes our-time,” the Grand Secretariat said, already getting on her horn-phone to order some ponies around. She talked with them for a bit.

Cosmo looked at Eve. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. She’s locked away again, and even if she did get translation knowledge, she still won’t be able to escape. And I didn’t lose it and kill her on the spot. So that’s good. Yes.”

“You’re still having flashbacks.”

“Of course I am! That mare traumatized me! I have dreams about her torturing me that never go away! But… But I am okay. I don’t feel like destroying an entire civilization, and I don’t feel like blowing Nautica up. I just… I just want her to stay there, forever.”

“Whatever you’re talking about, stop,” the Grand Secretariat said. “There’s a situation at Examail Central. I need to shut down the entire letter system – someone’s hacked us. You need to go find your friends. They’re chasing a traitor.”

Cosmo and Eve glanced at each other, concern crossing their faces.

~~~

“Sparky!” Twix yelled, watching in horror as the human fell to the ground in an instant.

She’d raised a shield! Twix had seen it! But the beam – it had just gone through. Through everything. Not a scratch on her body…

Soul magic.

A spell specifically designed to kill without leaving any wounds that could be healed. Intangible, accurate, and brutal.

What’s Eve going to think? What’s Corona going to think? I got Sparky killed! I… Twix had enough awareness about her to dodge the incoming soul laser from GM.

“I’m sorry!” GM shouted again, firing another laser. “Orders! I… I can’t ignore them!” she grabbed her head, still reeling from Twiree’s noises. “AAAAAAAAAAA”

Twix dodged another soul laser. “Twiree! Shoot her or something!”

“SHE IS TOO CLOSE TO ME FOR WEAPONS FIRE.”

Twix retaliated with a bolt of her own, missing GM by miles. “Then… jump away! Shoot from a distance!”

Twiree didn’t question this idea. She initiated a single-instant FTL jump. This destroyed every building from where she started to where she ended about a kilometer away.

The effect of the indoctrination lessened with distance. GM was able to gain some of her mental faculties back – enough to see the attack from the planetary bombardment laser come right at her. She swerved out of the way, but it caught her wing, burning it off.

She screamed. In that instant, GM lost all hope of winning the fight. She lit her horn, preparing to use her soul magic on herself.

Twix narrowed her eyes – she knew she was only going to get one shot at this. She fired off a singular, tiny magic laser at the falling form of GM. It hit her right in the horn, cancelling the soul spell and making her lose consciousness. Twix caught GM’s limp form in her magic. “…We’re gonna get that conditioning out of you, don’t you worry.”

Twiree floated back, slowly, before turning back into her normal form. “We got her!”

“Yeah,” Twix said, setting GM down gently. “We did.” She glanced over at the body of Sparky. “…But I don’t think she’s getting back up.”

Eve and Cosmo appeared on the scene in a flash of purple magic.

“Where’s the traitor?” Cosmo demanded, ready for a fight.

Twix gestured at the prone form of GM. “We got her. Bu-”

“SPARKY!?” Eve screamed, her voice cracking. She teleported right to the human, propping her body up with her telekinesis. “Sparky don’t you do this!” She levitated her glasses back onto the motionless face. “Sparky! SPARKY! Y-you still need to find Corona! You n-need to k-keep us from going too far! You need to show us t-the way! You… You need to save us from ourselves… You…” She couldn’t take it – she buried her face into the clothing of her old friend.

Bitter tears and wails of agony escaped the mouth of the Charter-Princess that day as she held the scientist who had been too pure for the multiverse.

From my vantage point on a nearby building, I wiped my eyes.

I left.

I couldn’t watch anymore.

It was too painful.

Who cared if the alternative was worse? That woman lived up to her name. She had a unique spark of light in herself. A spark that was extinguished by cruelty, necessity, and fate.

She never got to become a librarian.

She would have been happy there.

~~~

“What’s it going to be, Sweetie Chronicle?”

“I… I…” Sweetie glanced around nervously. Just a few more seconds… Have to buy some time… “Why do you keep calling me Chronicle?”

“Spoilers,” the man chuckled. Then he paused. “You might understand the meaning of the word in the future, you might not.”

“It doesn’t matter to her,” Pinkie growled.

”I can use it should I wish, Pinkie Pi- Wait… asking me a question?” he put a hand to his chin. “It’s almost like you’re stalling for time… What could you possibly be stalling for?”

Sweetie didn’t look down, but she knew – knew Thrackerzod had been moved right underneath Siron. Right under his staff. Sweetie had no idea how much longer it would take for Thrackerzod to regain her power, but…

“Sweetie, are you hiding something from me? Some angle I’m not seeing?”

“Yes,” another voice declared. “She’s hiding me.” The voice started out feminine and meek, but quickly became deep, guttural, and authoritative. “Look at the head while I sit at the feet!”

Thrackerzod leaped into the air, red returning to her eyes and darkness swirling around her. “BY THE NAME OF AZATHOT-”

“This was your plan? Seriously? The name of Azathoth means nothing in this secluded pla-”

“You aren’t transmitting from this universe,” Thrackerzod said, lighting her horn. “You left a connection open. By scanning your hologram I have found a way out.” A magic circle pentagram combo appeared in the air behind Thrackerzod, brimming with red, unholy light. “And I can use that. I-”

The man sighed, snapping his fingers. The magical circle vanished in an instant and Thrackerzod fell to the ground. “I admit; that was more of a plan than I thought it was. But, sadly, I have more control over the fabric of existence than you planned for. Who was it coordinating this in minds behind my back? Vriska? Probably Vriska.” He turned to her. “I’m sorry, Thief, but your gambit failed.”

“Wasn’t mine,” Vriska huffed. “The Sweetie over there had most of it. I just told people to move Thrackerzod.”

“And guess what?” Pinkie said, holding up a timer with ten seconds left on it. “Your time is up.”

“Time?” the man shook his head. “There is no time limit…”

“The Grand Secretariat is going to order the network of dimensional letters shut down right… about… NOW!”

The metallic man realized too late what she was referring too. In a universe parallel, the Grand Secretariat disabled all of the letters, recalling all of them for the time being and bringing the grinder to a full halt. The virus that had been placed in them – the virus that was keeping all the interdimensional travelers in the blue aurora – activated its destructor protocol.

Everyone but the metallic man himself was teleported to the places they were originally going to before being intercepted.

“Of course…” the man grunted, clenching his fist. “The Census operates on slowed time as well… Events can happen there while events happen here. Why didn’t I see that!?” He growled. Now they would remember him. Remember what had happened here. What he was. Some of what he was doing.

He wouldn’t be able to operate in this section of the multiverse like that.

He could try to hunt down and kill all of them… But no doubt some had already sent messages to their governments, or made sure they wouldn’t just forget one day. Not to mention that the Doctor was one of them…

He would just have to cut his losses and get out of dodge.

The man snapped his fingers, summoning the five servants he had selected before time ran out: Gyro, Siron, Rick, Morty, and Ivan. “We’re leaving,” he said, opening a portal to another universe with ease. “All of you, time for orientation.”

Gyro smirked at the man. “They got you good.”

“Yes. They did. But it was pure luck. Nothing but pure. Luck.” He sighed. “I can admit defeat though. They’ve kept me out of their worlds. If that is a good thing or a bad thing, I cannot say, but they certainly won.”

“Pussy,” Rick muttered.

The man didn’t dignify Rick with a response. He just waited for them to cross through the portal before closing it. He cut the holographic transmission, leaving the blue aurora universe abandoned once again.

~~~

“FUUUUUCK YOUUUUUU SHINY BLUE GUY!!!” Vriska shouted to the heavens, giving the clouds in the sky the bird. “Oh, did I not say that loud enough for your arrogant prick of a mind to hear? I said FUUUCK YOUUUUUUU! GET DUUUUUUUNKED ON!!!”

Pinkie and Flutterfree let out immense sighs of relief. “I wasn't sure there was a way out of that one…” Flutterfree said, wiping her brow.

“We’re fine now!” Pinkie said. “Out alive, with all five of us, and with memories!”

Nova rubbed the back of her head. “Yeah…”

Renee stamped her hoof on the ground. “Girls.”

“Hrm?” Nova said, looking up.

“I need to go find my sister,” Renee said. “…One of her friends has just died.”

The four who had been celebrating and relieved prior were suddenly brought back to the cold harsh reality of the world. People had died in that horrid place – and not just bad people. Leaders. Friends. Lovers…

“You… You go do that,” Pinkie said. “I need to talk to Eve.” She shook her head. “Everyone else take the next few days off. We all need a break.”

Nobody complained about this.

As Pinkie left, though, something nagged at the back of her mind.

What is it I don’t know?

~~~

Allure did a head count.

Zod. Bot. Squeaky. Suzie. Burgerbelle.

No Sweetie.

No Brute.

Good, Allure thought. I don’t think I could have handled seeing her body.

Thrackerzod took in a deep breath and let it out. “I… I feel incomplete. And it is not because I lack Azathoth’s essence in me. The connection is restored. It is…”

“Brute is gone!” Bot wailed. “Why? Why did that happen?”

Squeaky tried her best to keep her features flat. “Death is a part of war. We knew… We knew what we were doing when we started exploring.”

“But we don’t do that!” Suzie said. “We don’t purposefully go to unknown places! We aren’t in danger as much as the others! We… We were going to have fun today! Not lose one of us!”

“Two,” Allure corrected. “Lose two. Sweetie isn’t here either.”

“She’s back wherever she came from,” Squeaky said. “Still looking for the shards of Twilight Sparkle.”

“You… You think she’ll be able to find us some day?”

“I hope so. I think… He would have taken more people had she not been there.”

Thrackerzod nodded. “She had a unique spirit. She deserves to keep the name.”

“And we will always remember her,” Allure asserted. “Her. Brute. And all the other Sweetie Belles we meet along the way.”

“Affirmative,” Bot agreed.

Renee opened a portal in front of them and walked out. She rushed to Allure and hugged her tight. “I’m so sorry…”

Allure couldn’t hold it in. She started crying. “Renee I… I…”

“I know it’s not okay,” Renee said. “It will never be okay. Ever. All I can say is that I’m here. I’m here for all you girls.”

The rest of the Sweeties hugged her – sans Thrackerzod, who stood to the side, looking down at the ground.

Her eyes watered.

She had lost everything that made her herself in there… Had become a completely normal unicorn…

She finally, after all these years, understood what it meant to be one of them. The pain. The sorrow. The limitation. The fear. The…

She couldn’t stop herself. She threw her body into the hug pile as well.

They remained like this for a few minutes.

Thrackerzod eventually broke the silence. “There’s something we need to do.”

Everyone turned to her. Wordlessly, Thrackerzod opened a portal to a very particular universe.

Equis Ultra Fast.

Sweetie Brute’s home.

Thrackerzod led them right to that world’s version of Carousel Boutique and knocked on the front door. The Rarity of this world, Mattie, opened the door, a harrowed look on her face.

“…You know,” Thrackerzod said. It wasn’t a question.

The world shifted. Mattie opened the door again, without closing it.

“…What i-”

“Just tell me, Thrakerzod,” Mattie said with her strangely Australian accent. “I need to hear it.”

Thrackerzod cleared her throat. “Mattie. I… We… I… I can’t do this.” Thrackerzod shook her head.

Allure gulped, holding out a hoof to keep Renee from talking for them. “Miss Mattie? Sweetie Brute… is gone. It was a… A psychotic Pinkie.”

Mattie closed her eyes and bit her lip hard enough to draw blood. “T-thank you for telling me. E-excuse me. I need a… A moment.”

“We understand,” Allure said.

Mattie went back into her house – not bothering to close the door properly, just ‘editing’ it back into a shut position. She walked to her fridge and took out a gallon of ice cream.

She stared at it for a minute.

She threw it out the window. “Worthless tub of dairy…”

She grabbed a glass from the cupboard. Water. She needed water. Delicious… Sparkling… Water…

She threw the glass across the room into a nearby wall, shaking all over. “This… Isn’t the pain I want…” she managed through the tears that rolled down her face.

She crumpled to the floor and didn’t move for hours.

~~~

Jane and Sunny sat in their house in Appleloosa. They had been silent ever since they’d gotten home.

Jane talked first. “Sunny… Are we allowed to settle down?”

“What kind o-”

“I’m serious. Is there some force out there that just won’t let us enjoy our lives!?”

Sunny sighed. “…Maybe.”

“What’s going to happen next? I lose my translation as well? What about a part of our souls? Maybe we end up like that Pinkie, transformed by some psychotic demon-lord, scarred forever by brutal trauma? What if it only happens to one of us? Or… Or…”

Sunny pulled her in for a hug. “Jane. It’s… I don’t know. But if there is something out there, something messing with us, it doesn’t really matter. We will deal with whatever it gives us, okay?”

“…Okay.”

~~~

Jenny looked at her Wall Of People I Really Want Dead.

There were three photos, each with a plaque under them of the target’s name. There was The Professor, Carl Carlson, and Metallic Blue Asshole.

It had been a while since she’d declared war on a single person with enough passion to place them on the wall.

But he had Ivan. And he had toyed with her like she was a child.

He would live to regret that.

Whatever his name was.

…That was quite possibly the part that angered her the most.

~~~

Froppy hopped into the presence of perhaps the most powerful man in the entire United States of the Multiverse.

“Ribbit. You asked to see me, Ambassador?”

The man nodded. He was rather muscular, tall, and had long blond hair with curls at the ends. His suit was simple, professional, and also light pink. Above the pink suit was his face – the features were smooth, but not young, and his eyes were very serious.

“Yes. Froppy of Earth-MH1-Japan, you are receiving virtually every award we can give you for exemplary service to your country, as I am sure you are aware.”

“I am extremely honored.”

“Due to your exemplary service, I am also extending a unique offer to you. Instead of being put on assignment after a short break, you can leave my service permanently. You have given us more than enough information and service in this one outing than you could be expected to in your entire record. You’ve earned the right to settle down.”

“With all due respect, I want to be reassigned as soon as possible so I can search for Gyro.”

A smile came to the Ambassador’s face. “I expected as much. I will demand you take at least a few weeks leave, so a psychiatrist can check you and keep you grounded, but I will put you on a new team right after that. One with the explicit goal of not only finding this blue man, but also all the other travelers he had trapped in his game.”

“Thank you.”

“That is all, Froppy. You make your country proud.”

“Ribbit. Thank you again, Ambassador Valentine.”

~~~

Sparky Twilight Sparkle

Earth Vitis

2001-2026

Scientist. Mage. Friend to all.

Eve stood, staring at the gravestone of her old friend. The humans had been around earlier – Applejack, Pinkie, Fluttershy, and Rarity – but they had left. Eve knew they would be back. They would not be able to put their old friend out of their mind.

And neither would Eve.

But Eve stayed longer, because she knew… She knew that Sparky had wanted to leave. Had wanted to have a simple life.

Now? Now she would never have that life. Never realize what her potential actually was. She had been so young… And so tired of everything…

“Who’s going to make sure I don’t go too far now?” Eve wondered.

“Us,” pony Pinkie said, suddenly next to her. Eve didn’t even flinch. “You know. Me. Flutterfree. Celestia. Luna. Your friends.”

“…I know. But she was the one who called me out. I didn’t really have anyone checking me besides her.”

“I will, Eve. You know that.”

“Yeah…” Eve shook her head. “You know what sucks?”

“That she’s gone but because she’s gone you think that things have turned out pretty well?”

“Yeah. Yeah that’s exactly it. We have a good, strong tie with the Sparkle Census, because of her we were able to free everyone from that blue guy, and… And, well, if she hadn’t done what she did before that moment, everything could have crumbled. We could have lost people. …More than we did.”

Pinkie sighed. “Sometimes… Sometimes there is a time when death needs to happen. And when it doesn’t, things go wrong.”

“Are you thinking about Pinkie-X?”

“Yeah. We… That is, Pinkies… We have the power to change things. But sometimes, there’s a cost. She accepted her cost, which… Which really scares me. Will I accept a cost like that, someday? Will I become a psycho just because I can’t accept something?”

“At least you have a choice.”

“Choosing isn’t always good… And I know that knowing isn’t always good either, but… The way she spoke about it. It’s important.” She shook her head. “I don’t suppose you’d have any idea what kind of big secret I have no idea about, do you?”

“No,” Eve lied through her teeth, tears suddenly rolling down her cheeks at high speed. “No, I-I have no idea…”

Pinkie pulled her into a hug, none the wiser. “There, there, Eve. There, there.”

“There…” Eve said, choking on her breaths. Each one was painful.

~~~

The metallic blue man led the five newbies into his office. “And this is my office. It’s white right now, but sometimes I like it black. The aquarium can be stocked with any fish you feel like picking up, but that’s not a command. And that’s my desk, it…” he froze. “It has a person in it.”

“Collector,” the man in the chair said, rotating around. He tossed the Collector's second – a woman with pink hair and an eyepatch – to the ground. “You’ve stepped into my sphere of influence.”

The Collector didn’t flinch – but he was still afraid. “Flagg, why are you here, and what do you want?”

“Simple, really. Give me Siron back. I have need of him. Do that, and we will leave with no further interaction with you or your people. Keep him, and you’ll find out why the multiverse fears the name Randall Flagg.”

The Collector sighed. “Fine. Take him.” He snapped his fingers, removing the conditioning on Siron. “Take the Juju too.”

“Glad we had this talk,” Flagg said, smiling. “Have a nice day. And give my regards to Lightning when she comes to, she was most delightful.”

“Bastard,” Gyro blurted.

Flagg grinned at Gyro. “It would be a better use of your resources to struggle against your Master than to wage war against me.”

Gyro got the implication.

“Until our paths cross again, Collector.” With an exaggerated bow, he and Siron were gone.

The Collector moved to check Lightning. She was still alive, hardly damaged at all. “You four,” he told the newbies. “Tend to her every need until I get back. I have contingency plans to make.”

He left them with her, nervously tapping his knuckles together.

Was this a sign that the time was coming soon?

No… Not yet. But it was closer than he had previously thought.

~~~

Sweetie Belle returned to her part of the multiverse in an instant. She felt the comfy room in the palace and the rain again. The fuzziness went away.

Well, they had won, she guessed. That had been a bit sudden, but she realized it had to be. She hoped the League was going to be okay without two members… They seemed strong. She kept in mind what Pinkie had told her, and remembered the dimensional secrets she carried in her book. She smiled as she went from being in a comfy room in the palace, to dropping into the mud under heavy, unrelenting rain. Which would have been annoying at most if not for one little detail.

She had been dropped right in front of an enormous tank.

With a rather loud meep of surprise, she jumped and rolled out of the way, rain water and mud splashing around as she scrambled back and away from the gigantic tank, green eyes wide and mouth agape as she took in the colossal machine that had almost rolled her over.

It rolled past, spraying her with a fresh cloak of mud and debris. “Stop! Stop!” a mare shouted, as it rolled on. Then the mare jumped from the rear of the tank into the mucky ruin. “She’s not dead and she’s not red,” she called out as she walked through the obscuring rain. Step by step she came into view.

The rain sleeted along white hide and black metal. The unicorn’s hide was interrupted here and there by obvious mechanical limbs. Red and black mane and tail lay limp in the wet as she approached. “Hey! You okay?” she called out.

"Guh." Sweetie spit out some mud and shakily stood up, blinking. "I'll be okay, I think... just let me get rid of this." Purple and white energy emanated from her horn and slowly the mud dripped down until she was completely clean, if still soaked through to her crystal core. "I have to say, I've tasted a lot of mud but this is the worst so far," she confessed grumpily. "You really need to watch where you're driving that mech of yours, though. I almost became one with the road."

“Hey, look before you teleport,” the mare said as she nodded back towards the idling tank. “Come on,” she added with a nod over her shoulder. “Let’s get out of the rain.” She struggled to reach the back of the tank, her heavy metal limbs bogging her down more than once before she reached the rear of the vehicle. Hands popped out of the ends of her forehooves, and she clambered up, then looked back at Sweetie and offered a hand up... something most ponies didn’t do.

“Blackjack, what are you doing?” the stallion asked as he peered down at the strange mare.

“Offering someone we almost ran over a ride, okay, P-21?” Blackjack replied without averting her eyes or her easy, slightly tired, very wet smile.

"It's the kind thing to do!" Sweetie added, calling up to whoever was up there as she gratefully took Blackjack's offered hand. "I'm kinda lost here, you know? Just let me hang out until I get my bearings and then I'll be out of your mane. Pinkie Promise!"

Blackjack considered her a moment at that, then shrugged. “No problem.”

And the journey of Sweetie Belle continued…

Author's Note:

This chapter makes heavy use of two other multiversal fanfics on this site. I usually don't credit things until the end of an arc, but these deserve special mention and you should go check them out!

The Sweetie Belle (Sweetie Chronicle) is from the Sweetie Chronicles by WandererD, one of the best stories on this site. I can only hope I gave her justice.

The Sparkle Census is an idea originally crafted by Skyward Shoe in their story of the same name.

There are also a few other stories referenced that aren't as central, including Sunlight Sliders and Oversaturation (you're welcome FOME ).

-GM, master of fics.

Comments

[Gemseeker]

Crossover with 2 (or more) of my favorite fics on this site! I know which chapter is my favourite this arc. Unless you have something truly amazing yet to come. Then again, you probably do.

While it was quite long this chapter was a lot of fun to read. The connection between to two plot threads at the end was executed very well.

I wonder who that metallic blue Collector is, but I suppose we will be seeing more of him in the future. There's a lot of story left!

[the other sans]

one clearly much more angry and bewildered than Eve had been .
three kids appeared on the screen – teenagers, one with gray skin

1. Extra spacing.
2. Forgot to capitalise.

[FanOfMostEverything]

Interesting to note that Littlepip is apparently working for Eve. I hope they were able to get her out of the SPP, or at least repair some of the damage she endured. (Heck, Equis Cosmic technology might be able to give that world's Celestia a physical body again.)

I wouldn't call the True Fae of Arcadia demonic. (Of course, in the World of Darkness, demons are rogue subroutines of the God-Machine, so there's a bad case of terminological collision at work.) I definitely wouldn't call them evil. Trying to describe the Fae as good or evil is like trying to describe mineral samples as vanilla or chocolate. If anything, they're basically debateably self-aware fragments of ka, assuming I'm not mangling the term. They live through and as stories.

Very interesting choice to add the Sunset Sliders near-law of Shimmer-Sparkle interaction. We even see it apply to pairs other than the one in the relic universe.

Siron never seems to ask himself a key question: What if the thing you most care about, what you're willing to fight for above all else... is someone else? What if you fight for your friends? No one said the two philosophies were completely incompatible. And with the loss of Fef, he might be able to understand that... though I wouldn't give him good odds. Especially not when he knows that he's attracted the personal interest of Villainy incarnate.

Thrackerzod may have regained her power, but Jane's Sunset didn't. Is there any way she can recover without the Juju?

A tragic time, but one still rich with new possibilities. Looking forward to seeing what's next.

Meanwhile, on Earth Shimmer...

The local office of the Equestrian Time-Space Administration Bureau was carefully folded into a storage closet of Canterlot High's gym, but it was no less professional for its bizarre location. Lyra Heartstrings—an agent from a distant Equestria, not the girl who still attended the school—strove for similar professionalism in her stoic demeanor as she listened to Ditzy's report, so still she didn't even crease her lime-green three-piece suit.

"And that's the story. Weird blue guy, weird nantuko, and a whole bunch of familiar faces in weird contexts."

"I see," said Lyra. Her nod made the room's light bulb glint off of the organic crystal embedded in her forehead. "Would you like my professional opinion?"

"Sure," said Ditzy.

The response was calm, even, and measured. "Holy shitballs, you are lucky to be alive."

Despite everything that happened, Ditzy found her lips twitching upward. "I gathered as much, yes. So what do we do?"

Lyra blinked. "Excuse me?"

"I mean, if nothing else, we could tell Sweetie Belle about the group of her." After a moment, Ditzy added, "Assuming she doesn't already know. Future powers and all."

"Ditzy, you don't quite understand the magnitude of the forces you were dealing with. Multiple individual beings you encountered are as or more powerful than the entire ETSAB given sufficient time and resources, and that blue entity didn't just put one of them on a leash, he got Rick Sanchez to put the leash on. We are a multiversal society only by a technicality. It is a very big pond out there, and we are an individual zooplankton. What we are going to do is pray to anything that listens that nothing that could suplex Sunset has any plans for this universe."

"Oh." Ditzy looked down and wrung her hands. "I guess this doesn't leave the closet, then?"

"Well, Sunset already knows, and I will have to inform my superiors." Lyra groaned, clutching at her hair. "Princess Prudence herself will want to hear about this."

"Who?"

"Classified. Slip of the tongue. But aside from that? Yeah, best you keep this under your hat for now. This world is still figuring out magic; it doesn't need this thrown in the mix. And maybe fly a little closer to home in the near future."

Ditzy gave a sad nod. "Understood, Ma'am."

[Voltaje]

Why must you kill twilights?, she didnt deserve that T.T

[GMBlackjack]

9020802

I wouldn't call the True Fae of Arcadia demonic. (Of course, in the World of Darkness, demons are rogue subroutines of the God-Machine, so there's a bad case of terminological collision at work.) I definitely wouldn't call them evil. Trying to describe the Fae as good or evil is like trying to describe mineral samples as vanilla or chocolate. If anything, they're basically debateably self-aware fragments of ka, assuming I'm not mangling the term. They live through and as stories.

...Feel like I need to comment on this. You're right, for the most part, they are ka based entities ( though admittedly almost my entire understanding of them comes FROM the sweetie chronicles, so I may be slightly misinformed ) but it seems to me they can certianly be evil as well, or at least do evil things.

Vriska may or may not understand that, I'm not saying one way or another. What I am saying is if she DID know they were ka based, she A) shouldn't be talking that freely about that and B) it wouldn't make sense to Sweetie C anyway. Demonic forces are the closest thing Merodi can understand right now.

But in terms of the way the multiverse works in esoteries ( I forget if I outlined this already or in the future ) there are three main classes of power. Arcane, Spirit, and Eldritch. Arcane is 'external' power, Spirit is 'internal' power. Eldritch can usually be defined as 'bestowed' power, but that doesn't hold to the acutal 'gods' that bestow the power in the first place - think of Eldritch power as a power that 'transcends' normal power, in a way that defies logical explanation. Divine, Demonic, or Deviant (neutral). if you don't fully understand ka, any use of it would appear to be a version of Eldritch.

But as Pinkie will love to tell you, ka-based powers are completely separate from the other three classes and operate separately.

This, of course, gets even more confusing since the different styles of power can mix very easily, producing Demonic-ka, Arcane-Divine, etc.

...The point is I spent a lot of time thinking about this and wanted an excuse to infodump something I think gets glossed over by readers sometimes.

Shoosh, I like large-scale worldbuilding.

-GM, master of ESOTERY THEORY.

[Galliar]

I knew things were going too well. It says something when one of the least standout things to happen in a chapter is Gandalf dying to a interdimensional clone. Forgive the essay, I just have a lot of thoughts.

The Collector's description made me immediately think of Metal Sonic. Blue, Metallic, spiky haired creature? Unless I find out otherwise, that's how I'm going to picture him too. He's clearly not a friendly character. That said, I don't actually think he's just evil either. He definitely thinks he's doing the right thing. Maybe gathering forces to fight a power beyond any one dimension? Certainly not the Reapers, they've become rather silly by all appearances, and not so genocidal as usual. Flagg perhaps? Certainly possible, but I'm not familiar enough with King's works to say. Other? Maybe other.

Pinkie X coming back makes a sad amount of sense. Girl lost everything, and unlike Evening wasn't able to cope with the loss. It's not a far stretch that Pinkie Pie could go crazy if pushed. It would not even that hard. That's been a fact since Party of One. The death of everyone she knew, even if they were clones? She needed to go, but no one can really blame her for breaking. And I'm guessing Evening is going to get found out some day. That'll hurt...

What caught me off guard was Sweetie Chronicles Sweetie. Just after Mente Materia in her timeline too. Does this mean that Wanderer D's Cosmic Discord is connected here too? Things to think about. It was a delight to see her though. Especially with the Sweetie League. Sweetie Belles that aren't just like she used to be? Spectalcular! How many more iconic Sweetie Belles are there left to use, at this point?

And you had Blackjack show up. Blackjack is now confirmed to exist in your multiverse. That's probably how so characters died this chapter. And it even explains how a few were allowed to just get better! If her blank is still running around in the Fallout: Equestria universe that the alliance found, I only hope she doesn't drunkenly stumble into the spotlight. Not because I don't like Blackjack, I love Blackjack. I also don't want your entire main cast to die. As an aside, it's a shame they've already made contact off screen. I would've loved to see the explorers learn about the Ministries.

Speaking of death and destruction following someone everywhere, it was nice to see Rick lose. He absolutely deserved it. He's also definitely not going to be the one to break free of the Collector. Not Gyro either. I've got money on Morty personally. Maybe Ivan helps. I hope we get to see their adventures too.

The traveling Doctor seems to have made a lot of people very angry, something which is generally regarded as something of a bad move. Everytime we've seen him he's tried to act like he holds the moral high ground, but he's let a lot of people down over the years. I feel like he's going to become a more frequent character going forward than he has been, just becuase he's tied to so much of the multiverse characters predating the Charter getting the stone.

The Sparkle Census is the first actual multiversal hub of sorts that the alliance has found unrelated to their own that hasn't tried to kill them, so that's to be celebrated. Sure, their poor oversight and security got a major reoccurring character killed, but hey, it happens.

Corona is going to be devastated when her and Toph's team get out of edgy Little Big Minecraft, or wherever they are, isn't she? Sombra please call your friend ASAP when she gets home and be a good amiga, sì?

Too much happened to go through all of it. These were the things that stuck out the most to me.

[Zaten the Changeling]

oh god this one is over half a million words and STILL not done
I will read this thing
when i get the chance
*sigh* I have too many stories on my hooves.

[Keywii_Cookies55]

9020802

If you're interested in how Jane and Sunset cope, you may be interested in reading my side series called the Evermore Echoes that stars them specifically the two part short named Backlash.

Part 1: https://forums.spacebattles.com/posts/47149144/
Part 2: https://forums.spacebattles.com/posts/47182419/

Be cautious if you decide to read beyond this point, as there's a pretty major Song of the Spheres spoiler in the Echo directly following Part 2, but everything before that is perfectly safe to read. ^-^

[Ebguinea]

9021687
Where do Stands stand? They seem to be a mix of Spirit, Eldritch and ka, with some Arcane mixed in depending on the Stand and user. I get the feeling that they are above most things in terms of the "absolute-ness" of their power, with them trumping most other non-Stand equivalents.

I haven't read or watched any of JoJo but the feel I get from what I've read about it is that it is a very "ka" heavy series with Stands' being absolute conceptual powers.

I'm curious as to how they work within Songs, where they rank and how they interact with other powers in a multiversal setting, and just how you've decided to fit them into all of it.

Given how central you've made them I'd like to hear your thoughts, plans and ideas involving them if you can share them without too many spoilers.

-And I know you have them, you tie everything together so well that something so prominent probably has a really interesting place waiting for it. If not, then I hope this has helped provoke some thoughts for you.

[Malandy]

Came here for the Oversaturation.

Was nice, even at the parts that weren't that.

Also checked the TVTropes page.

In conclusion, I found this a bit darker than I like, so actually not gonna read further without good reason.

But this is pretty good, I guess? Although, I feel like I'm missing a lot, but hey, jumping in at chapter 45 and all, from Chapter 1.

----

Typo?

creality > reality

[GMBlackjack]

9021803
Stands are almost completely Spirit-based powers. Some of them (Bohemian Rhapsody) are highly ka based, but most are not. Jotaro's Star Platinum, for instance, is his inner spirit that manifests as a ghost that punches good and can stop time. The only reason it trumps most other powers is becuase Stands have this nasty 'rule' of 'only being seen by other stand users and only being affected by other stand users'. (Notably beings like Thrackerzod could still hurt a Stand, or anything that physically manipulates souls.)

Now, while the Stands themselves are rarely ka heavy (most really just are special abilities with an odd twist, few of them are even Eldritch or Arcane as most of the power comes from within, though there are exceptions to everything with Stands.) Now, what is heavly ka-related is what power a Stand manifests and how it relates to the person who uses it. It can have nothing to do with them, or it can be a perfect match for their personallity. This has nothing to do with the nature of Stands themslves, this is just the 'Narrative' tilting the 'randomness' of the Stand roll for something fitting.

I have decided that, on Earth Stand Stands are essentially an alien invention/parasite that was given extra power on Earth after they crashed there. (Jotaro mentions some of this when he talks about the Stand Arrow.) Sadly, this acutally isn't important, since Stands are just one of *many* different ways to gain power. They serve mostly as a way to provide bizarre and interesting abilities to people without overcomplicating *how* they get them.

So yeah. I do have a backstory and origin for Stands, but it turns out to not really be important. Stands are simple in the Esoteric Theory - they're almost completely Spirit, but little bits of the others thrown in depending on the effect.

(To answer another question, yes, Jojo's is a heavily ka infuenced series, but that's more because of memes than Invoking Tropes.)

-GM, master of comments.

[Ebguinea]

9022421
Ah, they seemed almost entirely Spirit driven to me, but with them seeming to be bestowed upon the user and the Stands themselves being separate from the user with powers usually unrelated to the character of the user, I got confused.

So it's more that the Stand arrow/pill interacts strangely with the spirit of the user that explains the oddness of the powers - in story anyway. The real reason being more The Plot Requires You Have This Power.

Well that is useful for seeing which way the ka of the story is going to flow - by looking at what power someone gets and how it can be applied in the narrative.

Thanks for clearing that up for me, the centralness and oddness of them made me think of them as a Big Thing story wise instead of them just being a Device.

Edit: Another thought - will the characters be running into any other sources of power out there in the multiverse? It seems that they are going to need as sharp an edge as they can get. Are they going to be amassing as many different powers as they can or are you going to limit how often they get their hands on new sources of power?

Considering that it seems they are going to eventually be in the same leagues as the higher tiered multiversal civilizations - if they aren't going to be the underdog victors, anway - then they will probably eventually need as many contingencies as the Doctor or Rick. More, even.

[GMBlackjack]

9023341

Edit: Another thought - will the characters be running into any other sources of power out there in the multiverse? It seems that they are going to need as sharp an edge as they can get. Are they going to be amassing as many different powers as they can or are you going to limit how often they get their hands on new sources of power?

Considering that it seems they are going to eventually be in the same leagues as the higher tiered multiversal civilizations - if they aren't going to be the underdog victors, anway - then they will probably eventually need as many contingencies as the Doctor or Rick. More, even.

Some characters will gain new powers and become absurdly powerful, but for the most part the majority of them just get better at what they know. After all, raw power isn't everything, and the Alliance is known for talking their way out of a lot of problems rather than resorting to explosions and violence. Individual characters won't find all that many new sources of power - Stands are hard to trump in terms of variety in abilities, usefulness, and effectiveness against other powers. Magic is resilient enough to produce most of the other effects you need. Characters do increase power, yes, and a few are going to get absurd - but the main strength isn't in individual power, it's in the society.

The biggest way they get stronger? Expanding influence, making friends, contacting allies. Majora was a horrendously powerful threat that, as of now, no single person in the alliance could take care of. But as they are now the Alliance would make somewhat quick work of a Majora. Their power increases as a society - but, notably, so do the things they encounter. There are a class of beings so high up our protagonists will never come close to them.

I do have a very clear set power ceiling, even if it is a ways out there.

Ya wanna learn more about the full scale of the multiverse, you should check out our discord or the spacebattles forum (linked at the top of the story). There's a LOT of background information that isn't exactly clear in-story yet.

-GM, master of PCs.

[Ranun]

I kinda forgot who Vivian is. Can anyone help ? I have no idea who to place in that name.
@edit: can you belive I placed a Demon into the place of Vivian between chapter 25-36 ?

[everydaygamer]

Great chapter, was surprised to see Sweetie Chronicle Sweetie Belle. I've admittedly only read a few chapters of that story it's good but not really something I could get into especially considering the length of the chapters.

That said please stop killing Twilight, even Game of Thrones doesn't upset me this much with character deaths.

[GMBlackjack]

9027297
Vivian is the purple shadow girl introduced in 009. Her homeworld was supposed to be a mystery for the sake of being a mystery, but it was revealed in 044 what the world was. Otherwise she's just a semi-regular character - purple shadow girl with a nice hat and sometimes shows void or fire powers. She does different things depending on where you are in the story.

And that's not that hard to believe, after all Fef (a demon) was closely related to Vivian in certain chapters, and Vivian has shown knowledge of eldritch.

-GM, master of pies

[Undeadking243]

I really hope that this becomes canonical to TSC and Oversaturation.

[GMBlackjack]

9367424
For TSC, I know Wanderer D has read this chapter, but I have not heard from him one way or another on the subject matter, so I'd assume not.

For Oversaturation, I think it is since it's referenced a few times later (once in Fan's own words) but you'd have to go ask him to clarify if it is or not.

-GM, master of previews.

[AppleTank]

Re: Census
One would think they'd be a bit more worried about accidentally calling in an evil Twilight who knows how to pretend not to be.

[keybounce]

Movie length ... so commenting as I read, without having seen the other comments.

her boot hitting Nova right in the head.

That's not Jenny nor a wimp :-)

Designation: DB-9K>Z

Yep, when she took in all that alicorn magic, it was a DBZ type of fight, power level > 9K.

Actually, 9x25 had that level of power in its fight as well.

Meanwhile: Hidden platform/blocks, a staircase with an inverted gravity well, an "infinite" fall in a blue sky ... this is a Mario world, right? :-)

“No time dilation - at least not internally… But a lot of space dilation…”

Gravity was always consistent on any one platform, but every jump carried with it the risk of gravity changing. It always treated the closest stone ‘piece’ as ground, but the direction was inconsistent and on the round platforms this inconsistency turned out to be a big issue if you couldn’t balance.

Ok, this is Super Mario Galaxy. Complete with some platforms going poof as you leave them -- yep, we have levels like that.

“…Plastic horse number one?”

“…What?”

“I don’t know what I first was! I’m a derivative creation!”

Bhwah -- I lost it here. Sorry.

“Total magical output over the last six months,” Eve read. “Starlight, got those numbers?”

Which Twilight writes down 9001?

“Uh… FANCY RUNNING INTO YOU HERE!”

“JENNY!” Nova shouted, horn lighting up with impressive power.

Ok. You've established that this place is drawing in people from anywhere. You've established that there might be any number of said groups. And now you find someone with a good amount of tech and resources, and ... you work together, right?

Sigh.

Did you place a beacon saying "keep out"? No. OK, then you have no reason to complain, and it's not like she can do anything about it, right? She didn't try to hide herself.

Seriously, fine, you dislike her. That doesn't make her "kill on sight".

Starlight Nova, take the opportunity to talk to her. Maybe you can convince her to change her ways? Maybe you can subtly change her outlook, perhaps even with some cutie mark magic on the sly ... oh wait, you're supposed to be past that, aren't you? :-)

Meanwhile, yet another stand user thinks that talking is a free action :-)

...

Oh no. Oh dear:

Her purple coat was darker, her mane was more of a deep blue, and there was dark magic about her.

Brutalight Sparcake.

* I really should have seen this coming *.
Nautica is NOT proof against this sort of thing. Someone reaching out and taking ... ponies? people? Individuals? yea.
Someone taking individuals out of other words doesn't care about penal colonies or keep out signs.

Yea. And if Brutalight has a "come back to this universe anytime" thing, there is no keeping them under control.

Oh dear.

====

The bookstore world. Of course it's the bookstore world.

Hmm ... 3B for dimensions: Bedknobs, Broomsticks, and ... what's the third B?

Ahh. Jenny Everywhere. I tell you, when I first saw Jenny of the Red Gloves, I was wondering if she was going to be a variant of J.E. Here we have the real --

You ... You killed her?
You brought her in just to kill her?

I'm not sure what the big deal is with Eve/Twilight-X vs Twilight. They differed in all of a day and a half. Twilight-X was a perfect copy of Twilight, indistinguishable until she put a mark on her hoof. She is Twilight for everything except her own personal view/belief, and she's taken the mantle of being the Charter Twilight just fine. Why is Pinkie-X, who clearly has a different personality, so concerned about warning, or failing to warn, them about Eve being Twilight-X?

“That’s… not meat… I can’t believe I didn’t realize…”

Didn't the restaurant call itself the Hayburger? Serves ponies?

Wait. Sparky? SPARKY?

Good old named main EqG Twilight Sparky? Sci-Twi, dead? Really, dead-dead?

“You aren’t transmitting from this universe,”

Nope. If you have a one-way pocket dimension trap, and you are able to detect someone opening a micro-connection to go outside, and you want to be able to both observe the battle inside, see who wins, and stop that micro-connection out, then yea, you have to be outside of the pocket. And if you are outside, and transmitting in, there's an opening.

Really, as soon as you said that you were safe in your office, sending a hologram in for them to view, you kinda gave away that you had at least a communications channel opening, minimum, for energy/information to travel. Not to mention that if a micro-connection could let people out ... really gave your game away.

===

Well, this was a chapter. Not at all what I expected to see.

You killed major characters. No plot armor (either type).

Well, here's what I didn't see, what I expected to see in the author's notes.

1. Jenny Everywhere -- the shifter archives. http://jennyeverywhere.net/about/
Check here to find out more about her.

2. Her copyright statement. Shame on you GMBlackjack:

The character of Jenny Everywhere is available for use by anyone, with only one condition. This paragraph must be included in any publication involving Jenny Everywhere, in order that others may use this property as they wish. All rights reversed.

3. While she was created back in 2002/2003, I first ran into her in the 2007 massive webcomic crossover/mega story. Warning: It makes this, and Homestuck, look like a Novella (bigger than a short story). It took over a year, and covered more than 50 webcomics, and at least two forums. The comics are all archived, but I believe all the forum discussions are now lost to time.

http://www.dragoneers.com/crossoverwars/

(NB: while ALL of the comics are archived, the default on that hub is to show them in the original comics. However, after more than a decade, some of the domains have gone dead.)

[keybounce]

Your take on The Doctor is ... different. I'm curious: which reincarnation(s) are you trying to model after / what point in the timeline? When he first showed up, I would have said 10 or 11, now I'm not so sure.

The BBC's Doctor doesn't actually do much dimensional crossing; what little of that he's done has either been externally caused, or accident/damage caused. This one seems to have an upgraded time/space machine that does time/space/dimension travel.

Meanwhile, The Collector revealed to a bunch of our heroes that he can't condition/order them to do things, and he has limits on what he can do, to the point that he doesn't want to risk fighting them when prepared. So, what's to stop them from making one big adventuring party, tracking him down, and getting their ... friends companions back?

[runtrivena]

9894471

Your take on The Doctor is ... different. I'm curious: which reincarnation(s) are you trying to model after / what point in the timeline? When he first showed up, I would have said 10 or 11, now I'm not so sure.

The BBC's Doctor doesn't actually do much dimensional crossing; what little of that he's done has either been externally caused, or accident/damage caused. This one seems to have an upgraded time/space machine that does time/space/dimension travel.

Wanderers (Vriska and the Travelling Doctor's backstory) author here. To add to GM's comments, the Travelling Doctor is an incarnation somewhere between Doctors sixteen and twenty-three, who's modified the TARDIS for dimensional travel some time after anything that's been on TV. I write him at least a regeneration or two earlier than that, while the Songs version is probably somewhere in the twenties. His history is probably mostly the TV version, but that should by no means be considered completely reliable...

[omegasnowfall]

“Me,” a new voice declared, walking into view on top of a spherical piece of stone. He was a blue, humanoid, metallic creature with numerous blue spikes coming out of his head that resembled far-reaching groups of hair. His face was made of rigid metal – the only indication of life coming from glowing red points in the black recesses that were his eyes. “I told you. I’m also telling you to stop everyone from fighting or trying to kill each other.”

Is this some kind of alternate Metal sonic?

[Darklight902]

10099317
I believe he is the marvel villain, "the collector" based on what flagg called him

[Cozy Mark IV]

Very nice work, I'm really enjoying this : )

A note to GMBlackJack - I'm still catching up on this story so please forgive me if you've already done this.

Take a look at this battle where the Deception comes to the aid of the city of Stripped Gear. This author knows how to write battles, and if they're willing to share their characters you would find plenty of good ones to chose from.

Another story worth asking after is Split Second by Wille179 in which Twilight becomes the benevolent god of death.

A monster worth asking after would be the 'shadow ponies' from "Daring Do and the Tome of Shadows": flat 2D black shadows that are actually alive and will peal off the wall and give chase when someone wakes them with light and then takes the light away. They produce a soft hiss of static that grows louder as they close in.

And one final character for when you need an unstoppable powerhouse: Gravity Resonance and Fusion Pulse, the original names of the our favorite rulers from thousands of years before the founding of equestria. "Days of wasp and spider"

And after plugging all these other great authors I'll throw one other in out of poor taste: if you want a horror story world that fits in neatly, check out the short "The Frozen West". Simple but potentially useful, and yeah, you're welcome to it if you want it.

[Silent_Knight]

Equis Cosmic was known as ‘that universe with all the spaceships and real estate’. Princess Cosmo Sparkle, the leader of a galactic pony empire, was not ashamed of this label by any means. She loved having the races of the multiverse fill up her once lonely galaxy, breathing life into a world she had once thought her race would stand in alone.

I read the 1st line and this cane to mind

[Silent_Knight]

What did Siron need hostages for!?

I WILL FUCKING END YOU SIRON

[kistecool]

What source are the Flats from again? I’ve picked the story back up after some time, rereading “Starcross Society,” and I remembered them, searched them online, and couldn’t find them.

[GMBlackjack]

10218333
EQUESTRIA GIRLS! the parody series

A series of meme-tastic youtube videos.

-GM, master of mink.

[SuperSaiyanDiclonius]

9894463

Wait. Sparky? SPARKY?

Good old named main EqG Twilight Sparky? Sci-Twi, dead? Really, dead-dead?

He did kill off the OG Twilight and replace her with a copy after all...I realized after writing this just how long ago you left this comment, but I'm still gonna reply.

[Lab 39]

Can anyone tell me which characters have died at this point?

[Icy Creation]

Wow, after reading this again this chapter managed to bring the wetness of my eyes. Seriously. Sparky's death was so sudden, yet it has so much impact. And then there was Pinkie-X (Who I really didn't expect to be sad for after her introduction here) and Sweetie Brute.

And then there was the death of Fef. When O first started re-reading this, I thought I remembered a decent bit. I've learned that that 'decent bit' is not nearly enough, and I never expected to be /happy/ about Fef dying. I liked her in the beginning. I even held out hope that maybe she was controlled somehow when she betrayed them. But no, she's just gleefully, unrepentantly evil. And unlike PX, I don't even have a shred of sympathy for her.

[Biglulu]

Brutalight acted normal and happy for once, and didn't kill M4 and the other two Twilights at the grinder, even though she easily could have instead of putting them to sleep. She seems to be more focused on escape now instead of a murderous rampage, and killed the guards only after being hunted. I hope there's hope for her getting more of that happiness.

[RoboRed]

Man, this one hit hard.

I'm already aware that none of the major characters have any sort of plot armor, but Sparky...that was just a really sad case. I thought back to her a few times over previous chapters, thinking about how she was an important character and supporting character for Corona-Shimmer. But it felt like she had just been forgotten about. Just fallen to the wayside for a long time as Corona and others went onto bigger grander adventures. And there was something building up to the side, how she mentioned her misgivings about the universe and what Corona was up to to her, that I felt was building up to something. When she mentioned her woes to the other Twilights and the opportunity was brought up for her to have her own path, separate from all the craziness of the alliance, I figured she'd have her chance to settle down happy in her own life, taking up a better place in the story, and work out things with Corona in a smaller side-plot.

...And then it all just got cut tragically short.
...Just...goddamn, dude.

Also,

Bitter tears and wails of agony escaped the mouth of the Charter-Princess that day as she held the scientist who had been too pure for the multiverse.

From my vantage point on a nearby building, I wiped my eyes.

I left.

I couldn’t watch anymore.

It was too painful.

Who cared if the alternative was worse? That woman lived up to her name. She had a unique spark of light in herself. A spark that was extinguished by cruelty, necessity, and fate.

She never got to become a librarian.

She would have been happy there.

Holy sudden perspective change, Batman. (how come no one else has commented on this?) Wonder who this individual is? Are they related at all to this Randall person? And is the GM (hmmm...) Twilight being controlled by the Collector?...Or perhaps something greater...

So, other stuff. Well, the pieces on the grand interdimensional game board have definitely been shaken up. There was a bit of happiness upon seeing this bit:

“Uh, no,” the eighth Sweetie said. She was young – maybe not quite a full grown mare – and had a unique cutie mark on her flanks of a shattered starburst and musical note.

And realizing, "It's her! The one!", and being quite excited to see her part in the League and when Allure got her name. But then, what feels so shortly after, I got to see what fate befell Sweetie Brute that was referenced by the others in League of Sweetie Belles. That was a little rough. Oh, speaking of the League, OG appearance of the Sparkle Census here, I guess. And first appearance of Suzie. Anyways, Chronicles Sweetie Belle played her part very well in this chapter. And I loved the part where her true self was accidentally revealed by Flutterfree and she had a heartfelt moment with Vriska and the others. That was nice. Now she's back on the long journey of jumps again, off in the PH universe now (which I believe is where Wanderer D last left her off for a while around when this was written). She left a big impact on the other Sweeties before she left though.

Speaking once again about Sweetie Brute, seeing Mattie's reaction to the news - a character who I'm largely used to seeing being loose, bombastic, and extremely carefree, just breaking down like that...Yeah that really hit different.

The rando deaths were impactful. Twilight and Sunlight from wherever dying was sad. Sunset dying twice was a bit of a crotchkick and Twilight/Sunlight later going out in sacrificial glory was tragic. Sunny came back at least but it was an initial shock death nonetheless.

Also, you killed Gandalf. shame on you.
At least, I think maybe you did? I find the wording here interesting:

There was a party cannon behind Gandalf. It went off, knocking him forward, into Pinkie. He lost control of his spell – enough for Pinkie to produce a sword. Gandalf fell into the blade.

"fell into the blade". Not "onto". Maybe I'm reading too much into it and being to hopeful. But well, it's something.

Speaking of Pinkie-X, that was a shock reveal. And a twist in the knife to Eve's story (which still hurts). I'm surprised Pinkie wasn't aware of Eve not being the original Twilight, unless she's playing towards getting her to outright admit it. In any case:

“Choosing isn’t always good… And I know that knowing isn’t always good either, but… The way she spoke about it. It’s important.” She shook her head. “I don’t suppose you’d have any idea what kind of big secret I have no idea about, do you?”

“No,” Eve lied through her teeth, tears suddenly rolling down her cheeks at high speed. “No, I-I have no idea…”

Pinkie pulled her into a hug, none the wiser. “There, there, Eve. There, there.”

“There…” Eve said, choking on her breaths. Each one was painful.

...Yeah. That hurts.

Other stuff...congratulations on doing a big subversion of expectations. The way things were building up with the set pieces of the remnant dimension and many characters getting brought together leading up to a big battle, and the size of this chapter, I thought for sure that Siron was going to be killed in this one. Instead he gets spared at the last second and turned into a pawn in someone else's game.

👏👏👏

Well played, damnit. Fef got offed, though. Which is kinda sad, much for the same reasons I commented on regarding Siron a couple chapters ago. Early friend-turned-foe going on a dark path.

Rick and Morty showed up again. Always amusing to see them. I never got the feeling that they were in ultimate peril though and I turned out to be right. Sucks that they're chained up to a grander baddie now.

Jenny got dealt a swift kick from being knocked down a few pegs and having Ivan taken from her. I keep thinking of her as an antagonist but yeah, did did get used earlier and now this happened. This made her a bit more of a sympathetic character. Will be interesting to see how she develops later.

Also speaking about "Jenny", this "Jenny Everywhere" person...is she at all related to the Everykid/EveryMan? I never read the chapter that was linked to in LSB since it led back here and I didn't want to read anything else going on here yet.

Back to characters knocked down a couple pegs, not used to seeing Vriska at this low of a point. This encounter left her vulnerable at a lot of points, in combat and character-wise. There were some open moments with her past history of whatever-it-was where she could relate to Sweetie Belle, and then whatever history she has with the Travelling Doctor (also knocked down a bit). Yep, she's a pretty powerful player, but there's always bigger fish in the multiverse.

Thackerzod got temporarily mortalized (and knocked down a couple pegs) in that zone and had a character-developing moment. Then there was this:

The rest of the Sweeties hugged her – sans Thrackerzod, who stood to the side, looking down at the ground.

Her eyes watered.

She had lost everything that made her herself in there… Had become a completely normal unicorn…

She finally, after all these years, understood what it meant to be one of them. The pain. The sorrow. The limitation. The fear. The…

She couldn’t stop herself. She threw her body into the hug pile as well.

Man...

Brutalight Sparcake got a well-deserved knocking down a few pegs, but unfortunately not before leaving a ton of damage. And I have the feeling this is not the last we'll see of her.

And on that note, back to Sparkle Census world. Well, interesting world. Lore dump. But despite having some important stuff going on, I feel like it played very much second fiddle to what was going on in the remnant world. Which, to be fair, I guess is what it's purpose was. But it felt so minor and diminished in comparison? I don't know, just my thoughts. Could have been more apart from the Brutalight and Sparky bits. It'll definitely be seen again within this story.

So, that all happened. Lessee...looking ahead-oooh...might be headed off to FoE-land next. That place, while interesting, doesn't inspire happy thoughts. And everyone is still barely recovering from all that just happened. And we still need to settle what's going on with Corona's team.

This was a mother of a chapter to read, this comment took my entire evening and then some to write (but it had to be done)...and I need a heavy drink now. Fuck.

Few other notes, should you care: Definitely a few typos here. Can't remember all of them (and not gonna go looking back) but I remember seeing you use "Suzy" a few times instead of "Suzie", and "Thackerzod" was once misspelled as "Thrakerzod".