Lessons in Chaos

by TobiasDrake

16 - Disinclined to Obey

Twilight waited patiently outside, watching Fluttershy back gently through the front door. Gripping the doorknob in her teeth, Fluttershy pulled the door shut without so much as a creak of the wood. It was only after hearing the click of the knob that Twilight asked, “How is he doing?”

“He’s snoozing like a cuddly bear,” Fluttershy answered, easing the door shut. “Reminds me of an old friend.”

Twilight smiled, savoring the warmth of a memory shared. She pulled forward the brown hood of her cloak, concealing her mane and horn once more. “Harry was a good friend to you,” she observed.

“Oh, you knew him?” Fluttershy seemed to grow brighter at the knowledge. “Yes, he was normally a very peaceful sleeper, but there were some nights when his snoring could wake even a sloth.” She sighed. “I do hope he and the others are okay.”

“Do you want to look for them?” Twilight offered. “I mean, we still need to meet the scout, but afterwards there could be time.”

“I’ve thought about it, but I don’t even know how to find them. It’s been such a long time since I’ve been here. Do you think they’d be at the cottage?”

“I, uh…” Twilight shrank away from Fluttershy. Sheepishly, she explained, “I think I might have burned your cottage.” Fluttershy’s face grew pale with horror. Twilight quickly added, “The other me, I mean. When I was here before, the whole place had been burnt to ash. The only part that was still standing was the basement. And I didn’t see any animals down there.”

Twilight could feel Fluttershy’s hopes draining away as she spoke. “Oh,” the pegasus whispered, staring straight ahead. “I see.”

Not for the first time, Twilight felt the pangs of guilt for what her counterpart had done. She still couldn’t fathom the horror that had been wrought on an already wounded Equestria by her own hooves. She still held out hope that there was some answer, some explanation that would make sense of all of this, but it became harder to believe in herself with each passing day. “I’m sorry,” were the only words she could find. “There are no words for what I’ve done to you.”

“No,” Fluttershy answered, still not looking at her. “No, there really aren’t.”

“Are you two planning on helping us, or do you just want to mope all day?” Twilight was momentarily relieved to hear Sunset Shimmer’s grumpy voice. Sunset cut in between her and Fluttershy, snapping the tension in half with her cumbersome presence. If nothing else, she certainly had a talent for claiming control of a social situation and making it about her. Sometimes, that might actually be welcome.

Trixie followed behind Sunset Shimmer. On her back, she wore a light blue bedsheet painted with crudely-drawn white stars and cut to an appropriate length. It was certainly a valiant effort to recreate her cape, if nothing else. Twilight guessed it would probably be best not to ask about it.

“Have you seen anything yet?” Twilight asked.

With a flourish, Trixie exclaimed, “The Wise and Ever Observant Trixie has seen…!” Then her voice dipped back down to a normal speaking tone as she continued. “… a few birds, a tree, and a lot of broken cobblestones. But if you’re asking about this scout Zecora mentioned, it’s been Dull with a capital D.”

“H-H-How did you s-sleep?” Fluttershy stuttered nervously. She tried to put on a cheerful smile, but Twilight could tell that the revelation about her home had wounded her.

“Do you even have to ask?” Trixie asked incredulously. “Trixie slept on a broken mattress in a pile of rubble and it was still the best sleep she’s had in moons. Do you know what a broken mattress feels like? It feels like not sleeping in a dingy cage under a mountain that’s always just too chilly to ever become comfortable.”

“It was fine,” Sunset Shimmer said in her usual sour voice, though she added nothing further.

“Oh, you’re so lucky,” Fluttershy said, beginning to find her pep again. “Our house only had one usable bed, but I was able to find a couch that wasn’t too damaged. It must have taken you a very long time to find two working beds.”

“What?” Trixie asked. “No, she—"

“Yes, we found two,” Sunset cut her off. “Why do you care?”

Fluttershy shrank away from Sunset Shimmer with a squeak. Twilight stepped between them, staring down the unicorn. “She was making polite conversation,” Twilight said sternly. “That’s what friends do.”

“Yeah? Well maybe she should….” Sunset stopped herself. She hesitated, considering her words. She looked at Fluttershy for a moment, then shook her head frustratedly. Finally, she sighed and shrugged her shoulders. “Never mind. Forget I said anything.” Sunset stormed off. Twilight continued glaring as she left.

“Huh,” Trixie uttered. “Looks like somepony woke up on the wrong side of the broken-down shack this morning.”

“Is she okay?” Fluttershy asked. “Did she say anything to you last night?”

“She’s been nice,” Trixie answered with disgust, watching Sunset Shimmer disappear around a corner.

“Oh?” Fluttershy smiled. “That’s good to hear.”

“No, it’s weird. Sunset Shimmer doesn’t do nice. She demanded I sleep on the comfy bed. I wasn’t about to argue, of course. But then we found a tea set that hadn’t been broken, and she asked if I wanted tea. She didn’t just make herself tea and ignore me. She asked if I wanted any. That’s not normal!”

“She was being generous,” Twilight surmised. “She’s actually making an effort.” Something about that didn’t seem right. This was much too easy. The Sunset Shimmer she knew needed to hit rock bottom, become possessed by magic she couldn’t control, and then be defeated with the Magic of Friendship before she’d even consider listening.

What was happening in that head of--

CRACK

The sound of wood splintering under force of impact pulled the ponies’ attention away from Sunset Shimmer’s behavior. A few seconds after, there came another crack. The third crack came with the chime of shattering glass.

“Sunset Shimmer,” Twilight affirmed with an audible sigh. Visions of her confrontation with her own Sunset Shimmer flashed through Twilight’s mind. She could see Sunset Shimmer gripping her sledgehammer, poised to shatter the portal between worlds once and for all. Here, in these ruins, her destructive temper posed less of an immediate threat, but Twilight felt that it would still be best to try to rein it in.

The three mares took off at a gallop towards the source of the noise. Two more cracks rang out before they reached the central plaza, where the burnt husk of what was once Golden Oak Library still lay on its side. The sight of its charred remains didn’t hurt any less now than it had the first time Twilight had seen it, but there wasn’t time to contemplate this reality’s broken fate. Another crash of breaking glass met them as they turned down a road that Twilight knew by heart.

Near the edge of town, past where the stone roads give way to hoof-beaten trails in the wild grass, Twilight and her friends came upon the dilapidated ruins of what was once the Carousel Boutique. Several more windows were broken now than the last time she’d seen this place, and there were a few more visible dents in the wooden siding.

Eight purple support poles ringed the building, holding up the canvas that stuck out from the roof. The pole in front of the door to the left now bent inwards from a fracture halfway up its length. A freshly shattered window rested in the center of the front door, which hadn’t been broken the last time she’d been here.

“Heads up!” Before Twilight could react, a rock the size of a bit flew over her head and crashed through the door’s lower window. “Nice throw!”

“You girls are just in time,” Sunset Shimmer said, levitating another pebble from the ground. “I found our scout.”

The vibrant spectrum of colors that greeted Twilight were unmistakable. Rainbow Dash hovered upright in the air two feet from Sunset Shimmer. A handful of scars ran up her legs and down her back, but what drew Twilight’s eye the most was the black patch over her left eye. The edges of a wide scrape that had never fully healed could be seen jutting out from beneath it.

“Celestia’s horsefeathers,” Rainbow Dash exclaimed, dropping her forelegs. Small rocks tumbled to the ground below her. “It really is you!” In a flash, Rainbow Dash was upon Fluttershy, grasping her up by her forelimbs. Rainbow Dash circled around Fluttershy, spinning her in place before coming to a stop with Fluttershy’s forelegs still held up in hers.

“Where have you been?!” Rainbow Dash demanded. “Are you okay?! Do you want a rock?” Without waiting for an answer, she released Fluttershy and zipped back to Sunset Shimmer, grabbing up a stone from the pile she’d left behind. She returned and held out a stone the size of a golf ball. Fluttershy looked nervously at the rock and shot Twilight a quick glance. “Go on, take it,” Rainbow Dash urged.

“Um. Okay.” Fluttershy accepted the rock and held it in her foreleg, uncertain as to what to actually do with it.

Rainbow Dash returned to her pile, picking up another stone. “Zecora said you’d made it back, but I figured she might be pulling my leg. This changes everything!”

“It-it does?” Fluttershy asked.

“Are you kidding? You came back! Nopony ever comes back! Do you know what that means?”

“Um. What?”

“No idea! But AJ will know what it means and trust me, this is big. Super big. Plus, y’know, it sucked, what happened to you.” She glanced at Twilight and Trixie, as if noticing them for the first time. “Who’re your friends? They as cool as Sunshine over here?”

“Sunset Shimmer,” Sunset growled.

“Whatever.”

“This is my friend Trixie,” Fluttershy replied, getting the easy one out of the way. “She helped me escape.”

“The Great and Powerful Trixie,” Trixie clarified. She twirled on her hind legs, then dropped back to her forelegs for a bow. “At your service.” Making that bedsheet cape had done wonders for restoring her self-esteem, Twilight observed.

“Don’t I know you?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“Of course! Ponies far and wide have heard of Trixie’s magnificent—”

“Oh, yeah! You’re that blowhard that made an Ursa Major attack Ponyville.”

Abruptly abandoning her theatrics, Trixie snarled, “Okay, that was not my fault.”

Rainbow Dash laughed. “That thing tore up half the town before we stopped it. Wow, good times, huh?” She held out a stone for Trixie. “Rock?”

Trixie grimaced at the thing as if it had insulted her family. “Why would Trixie want a rock?”

“’Cause it’s fun.” Rainbow Dash fluttered upwards, then hurled the rock as hard as she could. It smashed through a triangle of glass from an already broken window in the Carousel Boutique. “I like to stop by here whenever I’m in Ponyville. Smashing up Rarity’s old stuff helps me get out some of the--”

Before Rainbow Dash could finish, Trixie levitated a pebble from the pile next to Sunset Shimmer and sent it sailing towards the building. It slammed into a decorative iron cast in the shape of a pony, molded into the second floor’s support columns. The stone ricocheted off the pony’s face with a satisfying tone of reverberating metal, then landed harmlessly in the grass.

“You had me at Rarity,” Trixie said sweetly. She spied a solid piece of broken cobblestone lying in the dirt, then floated it into the air and sent it sailing through an unbroken window. “You’re right, this is fun.”

“And this must be her,” Rainbow Dash said, her tone darkening. She hovered upright in front of Twilight, imposingly folding her forelegs. “Zecora told me about you. Come on. Let’s see it.”

Twilight took a deep breath, then drew back her hood. As soon as Rainbow Dash could see her face clearly, her jaw fell open and her eyes went wide with shock. “Horsefeathers,” she exclaimed.

“I thought you said Zecora told you about me,” Twilight stated.

“Yeah, but I was thinking there’d be a vague resemblance. Like, maybe you could be her second cousin or something. This is….” She looked quickly to Fluttershy. “We’re sure she’s not a changeling?”

“I don’t know how you’d ever be sure of that,” Fluttershy admitted. “But Zecora ran some tests and if anypony would know, it’s her.”

“Besides, she casts spells,” Sunset Shimmer added before lobbing another rock at the boutique. “Changelings don’t cast spells.”

“They don’t?” Rainbow Dash asked. The group fell silent, each pony staring in stunned disbelief at the ignorant Shieldmare. “What?! I don’t know! I just hit them; I’ve never asked one for her life story.”

“I have,” Fluttershy replied.

“No,” Twilight asserted. “Changelings do not cast spells.”

Rainbow Dash winced. “See, I want to believe that. I do. But it sounds like something a changeling would say. We don’t do changelings. We took those pals of Fluttershy’s down to Appleloosa and let them go, and then that was it. No more changelings.”

“I’m not a changeling,” Twilight reiterated.

Rainbow Dash sighed with frustration. She weighed her options, bobbing her head back and forth as she argued with herself, then settled on picking up a stone in her hoof and bringing it to Twilight. “You want a rock?” she asked.

Twilight glanced from the stone in Rainbow Dash’s hoof to the broken structure before her. Watching a stone cast by Trixie crack into a support column, she felt ill. It felt as though the stones were striking her with every throw. “I’d prefer to abstain,” she answered. “If it’s all the same to you, I mean.”

Rainbow Dash scowled. “See, that’s the thing. It’s not. You’re a mystery. I don’t like mysteries. They throw all this super complicated junk at you and act like it matters but then it doesn’t mean anything ‘cause the body’s actually a griffin or something. You know what I mean?”

Twilight raised an eyebrow. Slowly, she shook her head. “I’ve never read that, no.” She looked to Fluttershy, who answered with a confused shrug.

“That’s not important! You’re asking me to take a lot on faith here, and that’s in pretty short supply these days. See, I can’t stop thinking that maybe this is a trap. The way I see it, either you’re a changeling or you’re Twilight Sparkle. Zecora says you’re not a changeling and everypony else agrees, but what that leaves isn’t any better.”

“I’m not the same Twilight Sparkle that you know,” Twilight explained.

“Yeah, yeah, Zecora said something about cross-reality bibbledy-squat. I kinda zoned out. But that doesn’t matter. What matters is that I don’t trust you. So what I want you to do is show me that you don’t have any love for the Royal Family. I want you to take this rock and I want you to chuck it at that building as hard as you can. Not, like, a limp underhooved toss that a foal might do. I want to see paint chips flying or hear glass smashing.”

Twilight stared at the rock. It seemed simple enough, but she hated the very idea of it. Every fiber of her being screamed at her not to go forward with this. “That will mean you trust me?” she asked.

“No. Not doing it means I don’t trust you. Actual trust is going to take a lot more than this.”

“… Right.” Twilight levitated the rock with her magic. She looked to the Carousel Boutique. Her heart ached to see it in such a state. Even just looking at it was difficult. Picking it apart for targets that would make Rainbow Dash happy, that….

“Oh, perish the thought! This dress is meant to complement your features, darling, not distract from them. This is your coronation we’re talking about! We’re not getting together to celebrate the dress. That’s why I went with rose for the base. It blends with your natural coat, but it’s still subtly different enough to avoid looking as though you weren’t wearing a dress at all. All we need to add is a light olive around the sleeves and collar, the edges between the dress and your hide. That should pop just enough to create a transitional contrast between the colors.”

“Well?” Rainbow Dash asked impatiently. “You gonna throw that thing or just stare at it all day?”

“Oh, no no no! You can’t wear this old thing. You need a glamorous new outfit for the Gala and I’ll make it for you. No problem at all. It will be my pleasure!”

“We’re not building the Crystal Palace here,” Rainbow Dash criticized. “Just throw it!”

Logically, Twilight knew that she was right. This place was already falling apart. The stone she held would only be a small contribution to the demolition already underway. Besides, the place was long abandoned. It was just an empty building now. It didn’t mean anything, right?

Twilight tried to think of the secrets Rarity had kept from her. She tried to think of that fateful night in the Everfree Forest when she’d learned the truth about Applejack. She tried to think of that horrible betting pool that had torn a gash in her heart every bit as deep as Applejack’s harsh words had. She closed her eyes, concentrated on the pain from that night, and listened as the voices of memory came to mind.

“Oh, I could never,” Rarity insisted, raising a hoof from her sewing and placing it on her heart. She took her hind leg off the pedal to stop the machine.

“I’m sure Princess Celestia would be willing to help you out,” Twilight suggested, more eagerly than she’d intended to. “It wouldn’t even have to be a lot. She can buy you the building and pay for whatever you need to get up and running. The rest would be up to you. I can even help pay for it out of my stipend.”

“I appreciate it, darling. Truly, I do. But I’m afraid I must refuse your generous offer. I do want to open a store in Canterlot one day. Really, I do. It’s been a dream of mine ever since I started thinking about the boutique. But that’s precisely why I must do this myself.”

Rarity’s eyes drifted to a wire-frame carousel sitting on a shelf along the far wall of the store. Twilight had often wondered about the carousel’s significance, but could never find the right opportunity to inquire about it.

With a sad smile, Rarity explained, “The boutique is more than just a business to me, Twilight. I don’t know if you could ever understand, but I built this place from the ground up. I put my sweat and tears into making this work despite all the terrible setbacks. Carousel is more than just a business, Twilight. This is my fillyhood dream. It’s mine, and nopony can ever take that away from me.”

The pebble fell from Twilight’s magic aura, landing in the soft dirt. “I can’t do it,” Twilight said, every bit as surprised in herself as anypony else.

“Seriously?!” Rainbow Dash exploded. “I’m not asking for your first-born foal here. It’s a ROCK. You do this.” She hefted a large piece of granite in her hooves and heaved it with full force at the boutique. The chunk landed a few feet away, falling far short of the building. “It’s not hard!”

“I can’t do it,” Twilight repeated firmly, looking Rainbow Dash in the eyes. “Rarity poured her heart into this place. This business was her dream. It meant as much to her as joining the Wonderbolts used to mean to you!”

The accusation stunned Rainbow Dash. “Wait, you know about—"

“She worked her hooves to the bone to try and make it work. Maybe that doesn’t mean anything to you anymore, but it matters to me. I’m sorry. I can’t understand what you’ve been through, but I also can’t find enjoyment in breaking something that meant so much to her. That’s not friendship. It’s not catharsis. It’s just cruel.”

A few seconds later, she added, “With all due respect, I think your world has enough cruelty without me adding to it.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Twilight caught Sunset Shimmer’s scowl. Sunset gave a guilty look at the rock in her hoof. Then guilt intensified into raw fury, scorching the pile of rocks with raw hate. All of this passed by in a second, and then she dropped her own rock to the ground and stormed away from the group.

“Great,” Rainbow Dash said sullenly, looking at her pile of rocks. “Sure. Go on. Make me feel like the bad guy here.”

Gently, Fluttershy admitted, “I don’t want to throw my rock either. It just feels mean.”

“You’re not the problem here, Fluttershy.” Rainbow Dash sighed, rubbing her hoof along her temple. To Twilight, she said, “Look, I don’t get you. I don’t know what this is about and I don’t like it. Zecora said you’re cool, but I want to know that I can trust you. Right now, I don’t.”

“Oh, really?” A new voice joined the group, speaking out from just behind Fluttershy. Twilight looked back just in time to see a pair of yellow eyes enter her vision. A cyan pony circled around, studying her up and down. “Because I’m pr-e-tty convinced with what I’m seeing here.”

“HEY!” Twilight protested. Without asking, Lyra Heartstrings levitated the side of Twilight’s cloak, revealing her wings. Twilight grimaced and tugged the cloak back down, her cheeks turning a darker shade of purple.

“Oh, wow, wings and everything,” Lyra observed. “You know, she said you were an alicorn and I was like, ‘No way, nuh-uh, that’s gotta be Twilight’s paranoid delusions again.’”

“Wait, you know about this?” Rainbow Dash asked.

Lyra rolled her eyes. In a singsong voice, she chastised, “Maybe if you paid a little more attention to in-tel, you’d have heard about it too.” She looked Twilight up and down once more. Her eyes locked in on Twilight’s horn. The way her head bobbed back and forth as she scrutinized, Twilight was sure she was taking an estimated measure of its length. “The Acting Princess has been turning the palace upside-down about an alicorn copycat.”

“Yeah, but she knows we’re onto her,” Rainbow Dash commented. “Maybe this is a trick. We can’t prove she’s not Twilight Sparkle herself! She might be using magic to make her scars go away!”

Twilight and Lyra both stared at Rainbow Dash as though she’d just suggested picking up the moon with chopsticks. “That’s….” Twilight began.

“… Not a spell,” Lyra finished.

“It could be!” Rainbow Dash held up her hooves. “Look, you know I respect you. But Twilight’s rocking Princess Celestia’s magic. There could be all kinds of spells she can do that you’ve never even heard of!”

“She’s not Twilight Sparkle,” Lyra asserted.

“How do you know that?”

“Because of what she said just now.” Lyra levitated a rock from Rainbow Dash’s pile. “I’m sure this probably seemed really clever in the moment, but you’re not exactly being the Star Swirl the Bearded of loyalty testers here. Shining Armor could have passed this test, and he has two modes: Yes, Ma’am and Time for Lunch.”

“Okay, sure,” Rainbow Dash admitted. “It’s the best I could do on the spur of the moment.”

“And it worked. A lot better than you seem to realize.” Lyra looked back at Twilight. “If she was Twilight Sparkle, come to trick us into taking her back to camp, do you honestly think she would have even hesitated? Even for a second?”

“Maybe?”

Lyra stepped forward towards Twilight, looking her in the eyes as she spoke. “Twilight Sparkle is ruthless, clever, and totally devoid of any sense of loyalty. She’s physically incapable of the kind of empathy that this pony just demonstrated. She couldn’t see the value in another pony’s feelings if her life literally depended on it.”

Twilight couldn’t help but scowl at the accusations. Still, given what these ponies had been through, she couldn’t protest the claims either.

“Yeah,” Rainbow Dash muttered. “Yeah, okay. I guess that checks out.” To Lyra, she asked, “What are you even doing here? I thought you were with AJ, working on the….” She glanced at Twilight and Fluttershy. “Y’know. The idea.”

“Did you see this morning’s broadcast?”

Rainbow Dash shrugged. “You know I don’t pay attention to those.” She raised her forelegs and smiled chipperly, pantomiming as she spoke. “Good morning, Equestria, it’s another lovely day in Despair City. Let me just fill your heads with all the made-up nonsense that will let you keep pretending that everything’s okay while Equestria continues to decay around us.” She concluded her recital by blowing a raspberry.

“Yeah, well, you miiiiight want to start. They got Applejack.”

“WHAT?!” Rainbow Dash wrapped her forelegs around Lyra’s shoulders and pulled her front half upright. “HOW?! WHEN?! HOW?!”

“All good questions,” Lyra replied, extricating herself from Rainbow Dash’s panicked embrace and letting her forelegs return to the ground. She looked curiously at Twilight. “All very good questions, in fact. Applejack’s been wondering the same thing.”

---

Before today, Applejack had never known that the Crystal Empire even had a jail. But here she was, surrounded by red crystal walls on all sides save for one, where green crystal pillars formed vertical bars. Facing the bars, horizontal crystal growths formed the frame of the door. The exterior side had a looped crystal handle for pulling, while the interior was bare and featureless.

A dark blue clump of rock rested atop the handle, enclosing it and barring it from opening. The lock seemed crude, but effective; Applejack had discovered almost immediately after being left here that her strongest kicks couldn’t even budge the door. It had clearly been built with ponies as strong as her in mind.

“I can’t believe Rarity would throw us in here like this!” Applejack had exclaimed to Spike after the first ten minutes in isolation.

“She’s not the same Rarity,” Spike explained. “It’s just like when me and Twilight went to the human world. The ponies we meet aren’t going to be the same ponies we know.”

Applejack sighed with frustration. “I know that, I do. I just thought they’d be more friendly-like. I reckoned we’d be doin’ some explainin’, maybe sittin’ down with a pony or two to let them know what’s up. I sure as shootin’ wasn’t ready for Rares to start screamin’ like I was a hungry manticore out to get her. Somethin’ ain’t right about all this.”

That had been at 7 AM. Within the next hour, the pair found themselves with company. It was not an improvement.

“EEEEEEEEEEE This is so exciting!” Pinkie Pie bounced enthusiastically outside of the cell. The echoing click of her hooves landing on the crystal floor with each bounce did little to improve the high-pitched scream.

For the life of her, Applejack could see little about this situation to warrant such enthusiasm. “Pinkie, would you calm your hooves and sit a spell,” she pleaded, wrapping her right foreleg around the crystal bar before her.

Pinkie landed in front of the cell and beamed at Applejack. “This is great! Don’t you get it? Now that you’re here, everypony can stop being mad at each other and go back to being friends again!” She pranced in place from excitement.

Beside Applejack, Spike grasped the bars of the cell with both claws. “That’s what we’ve been trying to tell you,” the little dragon explained. “We’re not who you think we are,” he explained.

“Uh-huh?”

“Spike and I are from another world,” Applejack explained.

“Uh-huh.”

“We think a friend of ours is lost in y’all’s Equestria someplace.”

“Uh-huh.”

“We need to find her so we can get back home to our world.”

“Uh-huh!”

“So can y’let us out?”

“Nope!” Pinkie grinned. “We got you, so now all the Frowny-Faces have to come home and be our friends. That’s how it works. It’s, like, the rules or something.”

“Are y’even listenin’ to me?” Applejack asked.

Pinkie responded with a pout. “Do you even know how many birthday parties I’ve had to throw for ponies who wouldn’t even come back and celebrate? We just had yours last month. It was a huge blowout! One of the biggest parties we’ve ever thrown in the Empire! And you wouldn’t even call off the meany-facing for one day to attend!”

“I don’t think she’s even paying attention,” Spike muttered.

“Even Twilight showed up! And she never comes to the parties! Rarity made a wicker strawpony shaped like you out of applewood and then Twilight set it on fire in front of the whole town!” She grasped the bars with her forelegs and shook herself silly, screaming “IT WAS SO COOL!”

“Pinkie Pie.” A voice that Applejack knew only too well ripped through the chamber. She felt a pang in her heart from the sound.

Spike latched his claw onto a tuft of hair on Applejack’s foreleg. He shook his head when she looked down, rejecting what she wanted to be true, but knew better than to believe. She nodded to him, grateful for the strength he offered, and braced herself for the reality that was about to unfold.

A pony who, at once, was and was not Twilight Sparkle strode proudly into the jail. A sensation of immense dread crept up Applejack’s spine from the moment she laid eyes on her. This pony looked like Twilight at a superficial level, but she didn’t move like Twilight. She carried her head too high and walked with a militaristic sense of purpose not unlike what Applejack had seen from the Royal Guard. Each step was powerful and commanding; here was a pony who would not be questioned and would not be refused.

This pony looked like Twilight Sparkle. She sounded like Twilight Sparkle. But she was not Twilight Sparkle, not by any measure that Applejack knew. She was a stranger clad in Twilight’s skin, marked by hideous scars and a cracked horn.

Spike gasped with horror at the sight of her face, clapping his claws over his snout. Applejack remained calm, but felt as though she could throw up. Hideous scarring covered the left side of Twilight’s face and ran further down her neck. The burns ran up and over her left eye; the eyelid barely opened more than a slit.

The second she walked into the room, Twilight’s good eye fixed to Applejack. There was no love to be found in that eye. No friendship or compassion. Not even the disappointment and fear that Applejack had grown to expect of late. This was a look she had seen directed at her only a few times in her life and never with such intensity before. This was the eye of hate.

“Has she said anything?” Twilight demanded, her eyes never moving from Applejack. There was an arrogance in Twilight’s voice when she spoke. It wasn’t the sarcastic disdain that Applejack had heard so much from a younger Twilight. It had evolved into full-blown condescension. She intoned her words like a pony who knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was better than anypony who heard them.

“Oh, just some cra-a-zy talk about a friend from another world!” Pinkie chimed.

“Is that right?” Twilight turned to face the cell and Applejack recoiled in horror. She glanced down at Spike for a second, then back up at Applejack. Something about the sight of the little dragon seemed to make her angrier, but she kept her focus. “Leave us,” she ordered, still not looking away from the imprisoned pair.

“Yes, ma’am!” Pinkie Pie bounced towards the door on the right side of the room.

Before Pinkie departed, Twilight delivered another order. “When you get upstairs, tell Shining Armor to send down Sweetie Drops. We might need her services.”

“Ooh ooh!” Pinkie Pie jogged in place excitedly. “Yes, ma’am!”

As soon as Pinkie Pie was gone, Twilight demanded, “Does the name Discord mean anything to the two of you?”

“Discord?!” Applejack exclaimed. “What’s that low-down snake in the grass got to do with this?”

“So you admit it!” Twilight exclaimed. “Discord sent you here to capture me, is that it?” There was a wild frenzy in her eyes that Applejack knew too well. She’d seen that same look once before, when Twilight had missed what she thought to be a deadline. She’d been dismissive of it then, not understanding the lengths that a deranged Twilight Sparkle might go to. She knew better now. This time, she was afraid.

“Listen, sugar, I swear to you, there ain’t no way we’d ever be workin’ for that no-good--”

“You’re lying to me,” Twilight accused.

Spike pleaded, “It’s the tru—"

“YOU DON’T SPEAK TO ME!!!” Twilight exploded. From the vertical crack that ran up her horn, Applejack could see a bright orange light suddenly glowing. Spike was hefted up into the air and pulled against the bars, clawing helplessly.

“You leave him alone!” Applejack exclaimed. She kicked at the bars where Twilight stood, causing them to shake violently. Spike landed on his stomach, and fortune chose that moment for him to belch out a burst of green flame. A rolled up scroll emerged from his fire, landing with a gentle plop on the floor beyond the bars.

Twilight screamed at the top of her lungs and threw herself across the room, enveloping herself instantly in a purple barrier. She stood with her back to the far wall, that same orange glow burning in her horn. Her wild eye moved from Spike down to the parchment that had landed on the floor. Where rage and hatred had once been, now Applejack saw only terror.

“It’s just a letter,” Spike said diplomatically, pointing to the parchment on the floor.

They watched Twilight’s rapid, desperate breaths slow and her composure steadily return. “A letter,” she repeated, lowering her magic barrier. She stood up straight once more and patted down her forelegs. Before long, she had returned to the place of dignity and supremacy she had earlier occupied.

“Special Agent Sweetie Drops reporting,” a voice called from the door on the right side. Applejack couldn’t recognize the name, but she knew the pony instantly. The black suit jacket and dark sunglasses this pony wore did little to disguise the cream-colored mare with a curly blue and pink mane. This was Bon Bon standing at attention, saluting Twilight, with a black briefcase standing on end at her front hooves.

For the first time since she’d entered the room, Twilight took her eyes off of Applejack and Spike. “Where have you been?” she demanded.

“Apologies, your highness. I was investigating your wife’s dressing room. As yet, I’ve found no indications of forced entry.”

“You won’t,” Twilight said with a glower, returning her focus to Spike and Applejack. “These two didn’t come from outside. They were created here or summoned here or something.”

Bon Bon blinked. “Your highness?”

“There are a lot of questions here,” Twilight explained. “I’m counting on you to get answers out of these two.”

“Of course,” Bon Bon replied. “Have I ever let you down?”

“Never.” To Applejack and Spike, Twilight explained, “You might not know this, but Special Agent Sweetie Drops specializes in collecting information. She’ll get the truth out of you, no matter how hard you try to hide it.”

“We ain’t hidin’ nothin’,” Applejack protested. “We’re just here for—”

“STOP LYING TO ME!!!” Twilight threw herself against the cell bars. She stood upright, propping herself up on the bars, with that orange glow once again burning furiously from the crack in her horn.

Behind her, Bon Bon remained professionally stoic. She stood at attention, waiting for instruction. She cleared her throat, reminding Twilight of her presence without saying a word.

“It doesn’t matter,” Twilight said. “We’ll know the—” her hoof landed on the parchment on the floor, crumpling it. “… truth soon enough,” Twilight concluded, lifting her hoof to examine the letter. “And we can start with this.” Levitating the scroll, she broke the seal and read its contents aloud.

Dear Applejack and Spike,

I’m so very proud of both of you, but you must know that the most perilous part begins now. Try your hardest to remain unnoticed as much as possible; if discovered, the damage you could cause to the stability of that world by your presence alone could be catastrophic. I trust you will be able to locate Twilight Sparkle and bring her back here as carefully and quietly as you can.

Sincerely--

Suddenly, the parchment fell to the ground. “How dare you?” Twilight asked quietly. Then the orange glow returned to her horn once more. “How dare either of you?! Do you think this is funny?!”

Spike clamped his snout shut, having learned his lesson from the last time he’d opened it. Applejack pleaded, “Just talk with us for a minute and—"

“Who wrote this?! Was it Discord? Is this his idea of a sick joke?”

“What?! No! Twilight, I swear to you, we’re on a mission from Princess Cel—”

“YOU DON’T GET TO SAY HER NAME!!!” Twilight exploded, throwing herself against the bars once more. The orange glow brightened, lighting up the cell with its intensity. The wild frenzy had returned to her eyes and with it, the terrified panic. Applejack enveloped Spike with her forelegs, shielding him from Twilight’s fury. In this state, there was no telling what the unicorn was capable of.

Twilight’s pupil’s flickered back and forth. Fear crept back into her features as her eyes unfocused, jumping from point to point in the cell. She looked as though she was watching some private events play out, invisible to everypony else in the room. “I won’t let you,” she whispered, seemingly not to anypony in particular.

Behind Twilight, Bon Bon cleared her throat. “Your highness, if I may. I’m not going to get any answers out of them if they’re too afraid to speak.”

Twilight blinked a few times. The light in her horn dimmed and she let herself down again. “Right,” she said, walking for the door. “Yes. Of course. Find out everything they know,” Twilight ordered. When she reached the door, she seemed to return to the situation, turning to Bon Bon with a voice filled with clarity. “I want names, places, rituals. Who they’re in contact with, how they contact them, who else their master is working with, all of it.”

“Of course, your highness,” Bon Bon answered. She saluted once more as Twilight departed the jail. She waited a few seconds past the click of the door, then she picked up her briefcase in her teeth. Without another word, she carried the suitcase over to the front of the cell and set it down on the floor.

Applejack and Spike watched curiously as Bon Bon laid out her case. She stepped down on a metal clasp with her hoof, releasing the latch. The case popped open to reveal a purple interior lining filled with padded foam. The foam insulated a strange mechanism. It appeared to be made out of a dark blue crystal shell with metallic prongs that stuck out at four points.

“What are you going to do with that?” Spike asked with trepidation.

“Look now, there ain’t no need for fussin’,” Applejack said nervously, staring at the mechanism. “We’ll tell you all we know. It started with—”

“Shhh,” Bon Bon replied. Next to the mechanism in the case, Bon Bon bit down on a straight piece of shaped silver. It resembled a bar but with various crooked bends. She lifted the piece in her teeth and carried it over to the door, sliding it into the locking crystal. She turned the bar with her teeth and the lock popped off, landing harmlessly on the ground.

“Out,” Bon Bon instructed Spike and Applejack. The pair looked to each other with confusion as the door swung slowly open. Spike climbed onto Applejack’s back, clinging nervously to her. Applejack stepped out, tensing her muscles for a fight.

As soon as the pair were out of the cell, Bon Bon pushed the door shut again. She hefted her mechanism with her forelegs, and it was then that Applejack realized the object was a precise duplicate of the original lock. The replacement lock slid perfectly into place, latching the door shut.

“What’s all this about?” Applejack asked curiously.

“This?” Bon Bon smiled. “This is done. Well, mostly. I still need to figure out which idiot to peg for using quartz to cage a dragon. Speaking of which, Spike, I need some of your fire over here.”

“Uhh….” Spike dropped down from Applejack’s back and stepped forward. He looked up at Applejack, who nodded. “Sure can do,” he said, less enthusiastically than he’d meant. He waited for Bon Bon to step away from the lock then let loose a jet of fire. The green flames caressed the crystal lock, charring them black.

“More,” Bon Bon pressured. Spike let out another burst of fire. Fissures erupted in the crystal from the intensity of Spike’s heat. “Just a little bit more.” Seconds later, the lock split in half and fell in pieces to the ground.

“That’s perfect,” Bon Bon observed. “Now we don’t have much time. Both of you need to be out of here before the morning shift starts. It’s not much of an exaggeration to say that your safety literally depends on it. Come with me.”

Leaving through a door on the opposite wall from where Twilight had gone, Bon Bon slipped down the eastern hall. She stopped at a corner to peer around it, then motioned at Spike and Applejack to follow.

“Shouldn’t there be guards?” Spike asked.

“There will be, just not here. Nopony ever wants to listen to me work. It’s demoralizing.” She guided them around a corner and into a small closet. “Stay in here until you hear the Royal Guard move out. You’ll know it because Shining Armor will be bellowing orders. Once they’re gone, take a right and follow it straight to the end and out. Once you’re in the city, make your way for the east gate. There will be a trio of pegasi ready to take you to safety.”

“Why are you helpin’ us?” Applejack asked.

“Because I don’t know you,” Bon Bon answered bluntly. “That’s a problem. There’s been a mystery going around the Crystal Empire for the last week and a half, and you might just hold the key to answering it.”

“Twilight?” Applejack asked hopefully.

Bon Bon answered the inquiry with a smile. “The pegasi will take you where you need to go. While you’re at it, when you see Lyra, give her this message: the raven is in its cage and the door is shut tight. She’ll know what that means.”

“I will,” Applejack said gratefully. “Thank you.”

“One last thing. I need you to kick me in the face as hard as you can.”

---

“GUARD!!!” With one foreleg clasped over her right eye, Bon Bon stumbled forward from the stairs screaming at the top of her lungs. “GUARD!!!”

Immediately, Shining Armor descended upon her, flanked by a dozen Royal Guardponies. “Agent Sweetie Drops?!” he exclaimed. “Report. What happened to you? Are you injured?”

“Do I look injured?!” Bon Bon pulled away her hoof, revealing a bruised imprint just under her right eye.” Gesturing wildly at Shining Armor’s stallions, Bon Bon accused, “One of these idiots decided that quartz was suitable to contain a dragon and now they’re getting away! I’m looking at you, Steeltone.”

The third Guardpony to Shining Armor’s left gulped nervously.

“It’s not too late to salvage this,” Shining Armor commanded. “Tell me which way they went. My stallions and I can head them off before they get too far.”

“I didn’t see where they went,” Bon Bon admitted. “However, I did feign unconsciousness after Applejack kicked me. I heard Spike say something about the West Gate.”

Shining Armor clapped his hoof down on Bon Bon’s shoulder. “Good work. We’ll follow the lead from there.” To his men, he ordered, “Secure the West Gate first and foremost. Then I want every pony in the city fanning out from there.”

“I’ll go with you,” Bon Bon offered. “Just let me get a ice pack from—”

“Get an ice pack and then stay in the med bay?” Shining Armor completed her sentence. “Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. You’ve done enough.”

“I can still fight,” Bon Bon insisted. “They caught me offguard the first time, that’s all.”

“You’re injured. I’d be a pretty sorry Captain if I let you go right back out into the field with a concussion. Stay in the Med Bay, Soldier. That’s an order.”

“I….” Bon Bon sighed with frustration. “Yes, sir,” She saluted with as little enthusiasm as she could manage.

To the others, Shining Armor asked, “What are you waiting for? Move out and find those prisoners!”

---

Twilight, Fluttershy, and Trixie traveled with Rainbow Dash and Lyra Heartstrings in the dwindling evening light. Sunset Shimmer had volunteered to remain behind, in case Flash Sentry woke up. Somepony needed to tell him where they’d gone, after all.

The journey had taken them through a part of Ponyville that Twilight had long dreaded seeing with her own eyes. It was worse than she’d ever imagined. She’d pictured apple trees gone unharvested. A collapsed barn. Rusted out wheelbarrows lying next to long-neglected rakes. She’d braced herself for the emotional blow that seeing all of those things would deal to her. She was ready for it.

What she was not ready for was the Flimflam Brothers’ Cider Refinery. There were no rusted wheelbarrows; instead, dozens of Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000s lay in disrepair. Trudging through the refinery ruins, the ground was littered with rotting apples. Several trees out of each grove had been cut down to make room for the automated cider processors. Smaller devices with treads and outstretched hands lay neglected in the dirt, some with apples still clutched in their grip.

There was no barn here to hold parties in. No family home to make cherished memories surrounded by ponies who loved her. A quaint little life that she’d wanted to be hers was gone forever, replaced by a cold and dispassionate foundry made from brick and stone. Well, most of it did; a single wall had collapsed inwards, revealing the inner workings of an assembly line within.

Twilight’s friends had no way of truly understanding why she broke down and cried right there at the gate leading in. They had never known a world different from this. But they gave her the time she needed. Lyra even threw in a warm hug to help her cope. And then it was time to leave; their destination lay far beyond the edge of the South Orchard.

“Fortunately, our asset in the Crystal Palace gave us the heads up,” Lyra finished relaying as the group crossed the boundary from what should have been Sweet Apple Acres to the pear grove next door. Twilight had heard most of this story before and wasn’t really paying attention; her mind remained fixed on the horror that had befallen Sweet Apple Acres. “We were able to clear out of the Empire before the ‘Acting Princess’ had the chance to get her wits together and come after us.”

“Sounds like you got lucky,” Trixie observed.

“Everypony got lucky,” Lyra replied sternly. “The Shield of Harmony is Equestria’s last hope. There wouldn’t be any chance of a brighter future if Shining Armor’s thugs had taken us by surprise.”

“I’m so sorry,” Fluttershy whispered. “This is all my fault. I never wanted to cause so much trouble.”

“Hey, don’t worry about it,” Lyra assured her. “This fight needed to happen.”

“Yeah, cheer up!” Rainbow Dash gave Fluttershy a shove from the right. Fluttershy fell forcefully to the side, scrambling to find her footing. It was only by the thinnest of miracles that she avoided falling down. Rainbow Dash continued on, oblivious to her plight. “All you did was strike the match. This was gonna happen, one way or another. It was Twilight that started all of this.”

That part brought Twilight back into the conversation. There was one thing she’d been wondering about, after all. Irately, she asked, “And that’s when you burned my library?”

Rainbow Dash grinned. “Yeah, AJ wanted to make a statement. Some kind of war declaration to let you know we mean business. You’d stayed in that tree a few times so I thought, why not rip it out and set it on fire? I mean, you burned the clinic, so we burned the only place in Ponyville where you ever spent more than five minutes.”

“If you’re worried about the books, don’t be,” Lyra said. “I made everypony agree to save the books and only burn the library itself before I’d let them have my vote. They’re in my personal collection now. You don’t want to know what Rainbow Dash was going to do with them.”

Rainbow Dash snorted. “Hey, I still like the idea of mailing them to Twilight page by page. But apparently that’s ‘barbaric’.”

“We’re here,” Lyra announced. An ocean of green tents spread out ahead of the ponies, identical in color to the trees overhead. From above, it would be impossible to notice that the camp was even here. Even from their vantage on the ground, it was difficult to make out the full size of the place. It would be too easy to pass right by, never noticing it was there, were it not for the sound of galloping hooves in the distance. “Welcome to Camp Comice.”

Entering the campsite, Twilight lowered her head and pulled her hood closer. The red shroud kept her tail from view while the hood disguised her mane, but neither made her feel any safer. Though the ponies around her seemed no wiser to her presence, she couldn’t stop feeling like a hundred eyes were upon her from every direction. With each passing second, she grew more fearful that somepony would leap up and shout, “That’s her! That’s Twilight Sparkle!”

She was not the focus of everypony’s attention, however. From the moment the first pony set eyes on Fluttershy, the entire atmosphere seemed to shift. Between gasps of shock, murmured whispers were traded from pony to pony. Some stood up to see her better. Others stomped their hooves in applause.

Fluttershy tucked her head down nervously. She squeezed in close to Trixie, making her best attempt at a smile while the sweat beaded on her face. When she heard the stomping, she let out an audible, “Meep!” and tried to use Rainbow Dash to shield herself from view. This was to no avail, however, and she wound up just giving out nervous waves to ponies as she passed.

As the group neared a large tent in the center of camp, Trixie started sniffing the air. “Mmm, that smells delicious,” she observed. “What is that? Trixie is eager to try some.”

“Some kind of apple casserole, I think,” Rainbow Dash answered. “I don’t know. It’s Flim’s turn to cook tonight and his stuff’s usually apple something or other.”

“Flim is here?!” Twilight exclaimed.

“Uh, yeah. Where else would he be?”

Twilight didn’t have an answer for that, but the question stuck in her mind. If Applejack was leading the Shield of Harmony, why would the Flimflam Brothers of all ponies be welcome at Camp Comice? After the sight she’d witnessed, it made her sick to even consider.

“Are you ready for this?” Fluttershy asked, shaking Twilight from her thoughts.

Twilight took a deep breath and nodded. “I think so. Are you?”

“No.” Fluttershy quivered in place. “I-I-I don’t know if I can do this. W-What if she doesn’t like me? What if she’s mad at me for starting all of this? What if she wants to trade me to Twilight for the prisoners?” Fluttershy considered for a moment. “I mean, if the Acting Princess was willing to let everypony go free, I guess that would be okay, but--”

“She’s not going to do that,” Twilight insisted. In a strange way, she was grateful to Fluttershy for the distraction.

“How do you know?”

Twilight smiled. “Because I know Applejack. She can be short-sighted and stubborn, yes, but she’s also brave and compassionate. She’s loyal to her friends and her family….” Twilight hesitated, considering Flim once more. That really bothered her. But she shook it off. “The point is, Applejack has a good heart. She’d never do anything to hurt you.”

“Where you come from, Twilight Sparkle has a good heart too.”

Twilight blushed at that statement. She tried to think of a counterpoint, but there was no arguing the truth behind it.

Fluttershy went on. “I, um… I want you to know something. I don’t blame you for what that other you did to me. I don’t think you should either. I meant to say that earlier, but looking at you and knowing what you, um, the other you did, that just hurt too much. Sometimes it’s hard to even look at you without feeling angry, and sometimes you do talk like her and that scares me.”

“It scares me too,” Twilight admitted.

“But I don’t think you’re anything like her,” Fluttershy explained. “I don’t think you even could be like her. You care too much.” Quietly, she added, “But maybe that’s just my opinion. I’ll stop talking now.”

“Thank you.” Twilight pulled Fluttershy in for a hug. “It’s okay to be scared of this place,” she said comfortingly. “The Fluttershy I know would be scared too. In fact, she jumps at her own shadow on some days.” Twilight chuckled, releasing her friend.

Fluttershy lowered her head. “Shadows can be very mean sometimes.”

“But that’s what makes her one of the strongest ponies I know. She can be scared out of her mind, she can be in the grips of panic, and still never let us down. Fluttershy, I’ve watched you stare down dragons. You saved me from a cockatrice. You helped us save the Crystal Empire from King Sombra!”

“That isn’t me, though,” Fluttershy argued.

“Maybe it’s not,” Twilight agreed. “But it’s who you could be. It might even be who you already are. See, the way I hear it, the Acting Princess tried to make you betray everything you stand for. She threatened you with harm if you didn’t give up your friends. She could have done unspeakable things to you. And you still told her no. You stood your ground and fought for what you believed in. That’s something a hero does.”

Fluttershy closed her eyes and nodded, but she said nothing. She was listening; that much was certain. But Twilight just couldn’t be certain if it was helping, so she went on. “Besides, if anything happens, your friends will be right there with you. Friends can help give you strength when times are hard. They’re there to pick you up when you stumble. When you’re lost and don’t know what to do, a friend can be there to show you the way.” To herself, she muttered, “At least, they’re supposed to be.”

Twilight reached out a hoof for her friend. “You don’t need to be fearless to take each step. Let your friends be your courage. Let them shine in your heart to give you strength, just like they did for you on that day. Can you do that?”

“I think I can do that.” Fluttershy stepped forward and tentatively tapped Twilight’s hoof with her own. Just like that, two friends leaning on one another for strength stepped through that flap into the tent.

The interior was fairly close to what Twilight had been anticipating. A round applewood table sat in the center, surrounded by a dozen folding chairs. Each chair was occupied by a pony, some of whom she knew from Ponyville. Lyra Heartstrings and Rainbow Dash had taken their seats to Applejack’s right, but she also recognized Roseluck on the left side.

The pony in the center, of course, was unmistakable. Applejack sat with one hoof on the table, watching the assembled ponies like a hawk. Like the others, her body showed the battle scars of a life spent fighting. A prominent scar ran vertically up her lip. She wore her well-known hat, but as with their last meeting, the hat’s crown was decorated with a large pink ribbon tied in a bow at the back.

The sense of dread that Twilight had felt the first time she’d laid eyes on that ribbon returned with a vengeance, knotting in the pit of her stomach.

But Twilight had little attention to spare for Applejack and her council. Just two feet inside the tent, she froze staring at the other Applejack standing in the room. Her heart stopped. Her muscles seized. Her breath hitched. Twilight needed no explanation. She made no inquiry. She simply knew.

“TWILIGHT!!!” Spike raced across the room, leaving a trail of footsteps peppered by tears. Before Twilight could react, he’d plunged into her, grasping her neck with his claws and burying his face in her chest.

“Sugar?” The unscarred Applejack, her Applejack, asked. “That really you?”

Reflexively, Twilight closed a foreleg around Spike, squeezing him tightly to her. Her eyes stared straight at Applejack and her voice came out as a whisper filled with shock and wonder. With tears streaking down her face, she said the only thing she could say.

“You came for me. You really came.”

Comments

[Yami Vizzini]

Figures. Applejack waits around too long and then gets captured only just before she was going to leave, instead of, you know, leaving. I guess it worked out for the best, though. Here’s hoping it helps Twilight finally get over herself.

Wow, Mirror Twilight kind of reminds me of Tempest Shadow, though with more of a temper.

[TobiasDrake]

9251264

There are definitely shades of Tempest in AP Twilight - especially the belligerent self-determination and the damaged, mildly volatile horn (I swear, I came up with that before the movie was a thing). I do lament the fact that the movie doesn't take place prior to season 4, barring the characters from drawing a more direct comparison.