Girl Talk and the Fate of the Multiverse (Part 2)
“It's why Celestia wanted only me to cross over the first time. You see …" Twilight paused before rushing the rest out, "it’s just that every use of the portal further destabilizes the boundary between our worlds is all.”
“”WHAT?!”” eight voices yelled out, accompanied by two eeps. Spike snorted in his sleep.
“Just a little each time!”
“How much is a little?” asked Jackie. “And didn’t you also say something about blending?”
“I did, but it’s okay.”
“How is blending two worlds and destabilizing them okay?” asked Rad.
“Because Star Swirl the Bearded knew it was a problem when he created this portal and put in measures to counteract the stability issues! It’s not the first portal he made, you see, and he learned from his prototypes. This won’t be like the older ones!”
“What happened with the older ones?” asked Renae.
The five native ponies, aside from Twilight, traded looks of recognition. “Oh dear, not again,” creaked Share.
“It’s okay this time!” Twilight tried again. “Star Swirl fixed that issue with this portal. That’s why it opens every thirty moons. Each time it opens on its own it does so when the cosmos of each universe are in full alignment, allowing the portal to do a little tidying up of amalgamations and quantum instabilities.”
"Huh?" Primo quirked her head. "Can you try that again in Equestrian and not Egghead?"
Twilight rolled her eyes. "This portal unbreaks things every thirty moons."
There was a rush of relieved sighs all around.
“We’re speaking ‘Equestrian’ right now?” asked Rad.
"But what about in between those thirty moons?" Jackie pressed on. "Why are you looking so jittery?"
"Uh," Twilight croaked, beginning to visibly sweat. "There's a tiny, tiny chance that forcing the portal open before the Battle of the Bands may have broken that feature."
“”WHAT?!”” ten voices yelled out this time. Spike rolled over in his sleep.
“Slight chance!” Twilight insisted. “I worked with my counterpart to design some monitoring equipment to chart the instabilities as they occur so we can be better informed as to how many uses is too many and if I broke anything!”
Twilight gave a twitchy laugh, looking over her friends’ various expressions of disbelief and worry.
“What did you mean by ‘blending’ earlier?” Jackie repeated her question.
“There was another portal to another world we all went through,” Ponyjack answered. “Didn’t change into humanes or nothing, stayed as ponies, but it was a mighty different world. There was another Celestia and Luna there. Didn’t meet other us’es there’ but saw a poster of them, so we know they was there.”
“It was like opposite world!” Peachie announced. “Celestia and Luna were evil!”
“It was very dark,” added Posey.
“The portal ended up exploding,” added Primo, “and our world started to merge with that one.”
“It gave us a terrible fright,” Share shared. “But it did all work out in the end.”
“That was Star Swirl’s first portal,” Twilight took over, “It had been overused in the past and damaged. This portal was designed to not cause those problems.”
“But there’s a chance it will now?” Jackie pressed.
“I won’t be able to confirm that, one way or another, until thirty moons after we first met at that Fall Formal.”
“Our first Spring in college,” Renae commented.
“So what kinds of things could happen?” Jackie’s tone deepened.
Ears flopping down, Twilight sighed. “With the old portal, the first signs the worlds were beginning to blend were that cooks in one world ended up making the same dishes on the same days as their counterparts. A book borrowed from one world would cause one to vanish in the other.”
Jackie turned to her counterpart, who looked back to her with a concerned eyebrow above the other, before turning back to Twilight. “If the worlds blend too much, could a person die because their counterpart died?”
There were surprised looks, and Ponyjack put a pastern over Jackie’s foreleg. “Ah’m not sure Ah like where this is going.”
Instead of replying, Jackie waited for an answer.
“Well,” Twilight began, “I haven’t seen that case before, nor did Star Swirl or Celestia mention that ever happening in the past. I can’t believe that would be an early sign of the universes beginning to blend, but …,” she paused, “if the worlds ever become blended to a significant degree, that’s not outside the realm of possibility.”
Jackie shut her eyes tightly.
After a moment, she turned back to her counterpart. “We both lost our Ma, but my Pa is still alive.”
Ponyjack drew back, sitting up with a gasp and Jackie put a foreleg over her back before finishing, “And my Grand Pear died over two years ago.”
There were gasps all around and Ponyjack put a hoof over her heart before she and her counterpart turned back to Twilight.
“No!” Twilight jumped up from her bench. “Girls, it took years for anything to really show up before. And this portal correctly zeroed out any irregularities that may have previously existed between our worlds when it last opened on its own during your Fall Formal. It’s only the uses since the sirens showed up that have had any impact on them, and each use only has a slight effect.” Twilight addressed Jackie and then Ponyjack in turn. “Your father, and your grandfather won’t be affected. Sixteen uses in one day could be rough, and we certainly won’t want to be using the portal again for a while after this, but they will be okay. I promise.”
“”You’re sure?”” the Applejacks asked, leaning into each other.
“I promise. At worst—worst—we may be reaching the level of cooks making the same meals in both worlds, but I can’t see how we’d be beyond that already.”
The Applejacks looked at each other in relief and gave each other a hug. “You’ll tell me about him, right?” asked Ponyjack.
“Of course Ah will,” Jackie replied, giving her counterpart soothing pats on the back. “Ah wanted to save it as a surprise for later till Ah heard about the world blending. Was hoping to invite you over.”
Rad watched the Applejacks a moment with a concerned expression. “So, if she-demon Shimmer had sent all her zombie students through the mirror that time, what would have happened?”
“I don’t really know how many uses the portal can handle but I don't think our universes would have survived all of the students crossing at once,” Twilight answered grimly.
“Sunset would feel so awful if she broke our universes,” commented Butterfly.
“And now that we’ve used it thirty times, is the school going to start serving hay at lunch?” asked Shindy.
“They don’t already?” asked Primo. “What kind of school doesn’t serve hay?”
“We humanes don’t eat hay,” Renae explained.
“What, fish and worms then? Are you like griffons or something?”
“Wait!” Rad cut in. “What about the magic that’s been showing up in our world? Is that the worlds being unstable? Will we stop being able to pony up after the thirty moons? Will our geodes will still work?”
“ ‘Pony up’?” asked Primo.
Twilight shook her head, returning to her bench. “The changing magic concentration and potency seem to be a separate issue. That’s not having any impact on stability on a universe level according to Twily’s scans, at least not anymore. We’ve already fixed the original leak from the Friendship Games. Instead, it looks to be that trace amounts of Equestrian magic have been revitalizing the formerly unusable magic native to your world.”
“If Twily’s been keeping track of this, why didn’t she stop the five of us from using the portal together?” asked Jackie, a rough edge coming back to her voice.
With a cringe, Twilight turned back to the Applejacks. “I never told her using the portal contributed to the destabilization of our worlds.”
”Why wouldn’t you tell her that?!”
“I never thought it would be a problem.”
“”How could it not be a problem?”” the Applejacks yelled back.
Twilight sat up straighter before answering. “Because the portal can only be opened from this side and it’s located in my private study. Only a few ponies have access to it. I only set up the remote trigger recently and it requires Sunset’s journal. I thought she’d be the only one using it. And a few uses over two years wouldn’t have any noticeable effect.
“"Unlikely or not—"" the Applejacks started before Jackie nodded to her twin.
"—you still should have said something," Ponyjack continued.
"Why’d you leave something this important to chance?” Jackie finished.
“Because Sunset’s family misses her,” Twilight called back, perhaps a little rougher than intended, before sighing. “I’ve been trying to get her to reconcile with them, but she keeps making excuses. I didn’t want this to become another one. And I didn’t want to put Twily in an awkward position by asking her not to tell Sunset.”
The Applejacks mulled this over, a bit of wind taken out of their anger. ““But you’ll tell her now?””
“Twily or Sunset?”
The Applejacks answered with a glare.
“Both of them,” Twilight voiced their answer. “I’ll tell them both.”
”Like you should have before,” Jackie insisted.
“I’m sorry, Applejack. Both of you,” Twilight turned to her other friends. “And the rest of you as well. I should have made sure you all knew.”
The others all nodded back at her with varying degrees of forgiving smiles and pardons. Except for Peachie who seemed to be sweating.
“Peachie?” Twilight addressed her. “Are you alright?”
She gulped. A large bulge appearing in her throat before she coughed. “Habanero flavored popcorn,” she choked out.
The Fluttershies gave Peachie suspicious looks.
“You have habanero too?!” cried Shindy. “You only gave me jalapeño.”
While Shindy fired a still cold can of whipped cream into Peachie’s mouth to help soothe her throat, Primo called out an, “Anyway!” hoping to shift off to less dramatic—or 'Pinkie'—topics. The others all turned to her. The pause that followed made it clear that Primo hadn’t actually had a topic in mind when she spoke up.
“So …,” Rad attempted to help out her counterpart while still fishing for a topic herself. “How about … that … Zephyr Breeze? Exactly how does a pony get a five-o’clock shadow anyway? Or any kind of facial hair through fur? And how do you shave it without getting the fur too?”
The sudden random topic succeed in derailing the tension so well her friends’ trains of thought took time to find their tracks again.
Twilight frowned again at the silent correspondence journal. The Applejacks turned to each other and had their own conversation.
“Zephyr has clippers for that,” Poesy answered finally. “Cuts just the stiffer hair stubble and leaves the soft fur behind. I think there’s some magic involved. And that’s not a five-o’clock shadow. He thinks the stubble makes him look masculine so he only shaves once a month. It takes that long to get past the stubble stage.”
“Heh, masculine, right,” laughed Primo. “My Dad has to shave twice daily to keep the whiskers away.”
“I can’t imagine having to shave every day on top of everything else I have to do before greeting the public,” Share commented. “So happy I’m not a stallion. Not that we mares don’t have our own necessities to think about.”
“I know what you mean, darling,” Renae chimed in. “We may not have to shave our faces, but there’s so much else to consider for maintaining the feminine form. Shaving our legs for instance.”
Share, Posey, and Primo reacted with disgust. Twilight commented thoughtfully, “I was wondering about that. My legs start to feel scratchy at the end of my visits.” Peachie started into a new bag of popcorn. The sudden activities pulled the Applejacks out of their conversation to see what was going on.
“You shave your legs?” Share cried with a shiver. “I just can’t imagine.”
“Wait! What are you even shaving?” asked Primo. “Daring mentioned humanes don’t have fur.”
“We grow hair on our legs,” Renae answered. “It can be a struggle to keep smooth with all of life’s other daily chores.”
Share looked down at her legs incredulously. “You don’t like having fur?”
“What? Oh, this fur is fine. I quite like how soft it is.” Renae brought her forelegs up to her cheeks and rubbed them gently with a giggle. “Back home, however, it’s the same kind of hair beards are made out of. Quite unappealing.”
Share shivered at the image in her mind.
“I guess that makes sense,” Primo agreed. “I could do without heat week. One awful week every year.”
“Two for us earth ponies,” Ponyjack added.
Primo snickered, “It’s why there’s so many of you.”
“Hay, that’s tribalist,” Ponyjack complained with a blush.
“Twelve for us,” countered Butterfly.
“TWELVE?!” shouted six ponies.
“How do you get any work done?” Asked Ponyjack.
“Now I’m glad I never stayed longer than three nights at a time,” breathed Twilight before turning thoughtful. “Come to think of it, your world did seem to have a larger population.”
“That’s what I was saying,” claimed Primo.
“How does your society even function?” added Share.
“I guess you have a lot of those kinds of parties?” suggested Peachie.
“Oh my,” squeaked Posey.
“Um,” Butterfly restated as soft as her blush was loud, “we don’t actually go into estrus or, um, heat. We have menstrual cycles, and periods. But the cramps can be pretty bad at times.”
Six surprised ponies turned into three confused ponies with the remaining two nodding in understanding.
“Like elephant shrews?” asked Posey.
“Shrews?” questioned Share.
“Elephants?” Primo focused on instead.
“Some bats do it too,” Posey added. “Like the free-tailed bats.”
“But Daring Do said humanes don’t have tails.”
“No tails either?!” Share cried.
“You read Daring Do too?!” Rad perked up. “Awesome!”
“You know her too?! Alright!”
“We were in her first movie!”
“There’s a movie?! Did Daring play herself or was it an actress?”
“Huh? You mean A.K. Yearling, right? She was on set for a bit. I got her autograph, but she just wanted to see how the sets matched her books. She didn’t do a cameo or anything.”
“She didn’t play herself? Well, that makes sense. She wants to keep her privacy.”
“She can’t play herself, she’s just the author.”
Primo blinked in surprise before settling into a cocky grin. “So, you don’t know, do you?”
Sensing a competition had started, Rad set into a challenging glare. “Of course I know …. Know what?”
Primo casually shined a forehoof on her fur. “You’ve never been on a Daring Do adventure.”
“I was in the movie!”
“Maybe, but I was in the real thing. Twice!”
“There is no real thing. It’s fiction! Awesome fiction, but still.”
Primo just smiled, letting the smug blare out of her.
“You can’t be saying she’s real in this world are you?” Rad blinked, looking to Twilight. “Is she?”
“Twice,” Primo repeated.
“Ohmygosh, Ohmygosh, Ohmygosh!” Rad pranced on her bench until her excited wing flapping raised her into the air, her hooves continuing to dance on nothing. “Is she real in our world too? What about Mount Vehoovius? Cirrostrata?”
“Ahem!” Twilight cut in. “Our Daring Do values her privacy so I don’t think we should be talking about this.”
“I win this round.” Primo declared.
““Here we go,”” the Applejacks rolled their eyes and turned back to each other to pick up their own conversation where it left off.
“What?!” Rad’s wings stopped and she flopped back onto her bench. “Well you may know someone who’s super awesome, but I am super awesome! And I can prove it!”
“Heh! You’re on!”
“Whoa!” cried Twilight. “We have more important things going on here right now!”
“Yeah, but can we do anything about them while in this train?” countered Rad.
“Well ….”
“And it’s going to be a while until you all get to Ponyville,” Primo explained.
“True.”
““So?”” the Rainbows asked, leaning in toward Twilight.
Twilight groaned and turned to look at the journal still sitting silently on her own bench. “Fine,” she relented.
“”YES!””
“BUT!”
“Flank,” Rad answered, getting strange looks her way. “Ask Scootaloo about it later.”
Twilight grumbled and continued, addressing Primo specifically, “You know where the train station it. You know where the portal is. And you know when this train is scheduled to arrive.”
“Yes, yes, and yes,” Primo agreed.
“Then you better make sure to meet up with us when the rest of us get to town.”
““Yes, ma’am!”” the Rainbows saluted.
“Okay, Rad,” Primo turned to her counterpart, “what do you say about a speed test?”
“I say, ‘about time’!”
Primo shot out a forehoof which Rad bumped with one of hers excitedly before the two of them opened the nearest windows and flew off.
The remaining ponies in the train car listened as their excited shouts faded into the distance when, suddenly, there was a loud bang on the roof, followed by another, then a scraping sound sliding toward the end of the car, some screaming, a thud, another bang not on the roof, and finally, loud groaning.
“What was that?” Spike shouted, something finally waking him up.
“Ah don’t know, but those screams sounded familiar,” Ponyjack called out while rushing to the door at the end of the car. Her counterpart and both Rarities followed up behind them, not taking time to voice their agreements.
Sliding open the door leading to the next car, the four mares stared at three fillies in a heap against the next door. Pieces of a broken hang glider were strewn about and falling off the train.
““Apple Bloom!”” the Applejacks shouted.
““Sweetie!”” the Rarities gasped.
The two fillies in question and their pegasus friend looked up to them, ears down at the tone of shouts, but eyes wide once they realized their double-vision wasn’t a product of the harrowing flight or the resulting crash.
“Two Applejacks?!” shouted Apple Bloom.
“Two Rarities?!” gasped Sweetie Bell.
“Two Rainbow Dashes?!” hoped Scootaloo.
““What in the Sam Hill do you think you’re doing?!”” the Applejacks admonished.
““Did you just—?! You could have gotten hurt!”” joined in the Rarities.
Apple Bloom and Sweetie cringed under the double weight of the double scolding.
“Scootaloo?!” Twilight added, bringing up the rear, just when Scootaloo was beginning to think she had gotten off the hook.
“Uh, hay, Twilight,” Scootaloo squeaked. “Just dropping in?”
The five mares all shook their heads disapprovingly at the trio, but when a bend in the tracks started turning the train, Twilight was quick to teleport them all back inside their car in a flash of purple.
“Ho—Jumping jackrabbits!” Jackie shouted.
“What just happened?!” Renae followed up.
“Just a teleport,” Ponyjack explained in a calming tone.
“Happens all the time around our Twilight,” Share followed up. “You get used to it.”
Jackie and Renae glanced at each other, expressions still surprised, before realizing they’d seen stranger things and shrugged.
The young pony pile unpiled themselves and stood up in front of the adults, sheepish expressions on all of their faces. Apple Bloom and Sweetie kept switching between their twin elder sisters.
Mere seconds later those expressions turned to excitement as they chanted together, bouncing on their hooves, “”I have another sister! I have another sister!””
“Where’s mine?!” joined in Scootaloo.
Twilight sighed and walked to a train window, pointing a hoof up and toward the south.
Scootaloo trotted up, wings buzzing, and followed Twilight’s hoof.
In the distance were two rainbow tails.
Her face lit up and she pressed it into the glass with a squee.
That squee was cut off once she realized the tails were far outpacing the train, with no indication of coming back.
“Nooooooooooo!”
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Poor Scootaloo xD
What do you mean, the universe keeps breaking.
Its ok, every 30 moons it gets reset.
What, you just turn it off and turn it on again?
Only?! Jalapeño is better, anyway! Any day!
If you're going to the trouble to use the ñ in jalapeño, why skip it in habañero?
Aww. So harsh. Sorry Scoots, no double rainbow for you. Yet.
9875213
The ñ have been tripled. Thanks for the catch.