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Verboten

Twilight and Sunset had filled many pages of the communication journal discussing human technology. When the questions got too technical for cursory Internet searches—the fact that Sunset could just casually check the sum totality of her world's knowledge on a whim meant Twilight had never questioned why she chose to stay there—the discussion had included the other Twilight. As such, Twilight (the pony) was by far her world's best authority on electronics, microprocessor manufacture, wireless technology, and so many other disciplines that lay decades in Equestria's future.

That was the key point. Decades in Equestria's future.

Knowing the path to mobile phones wasn't the same as trotting it. The only telephone networks in Equestria lay in the most affluent Manehattan skyscrapers as a showy alternative to speaking tubes. Nopony farmed the rare earths needed for some key electronic components, much less knew how to process them. Even bringing a phone from the human world just squirreled it away in an inaccessible hyperdimensional pocket space as long as that person stayed in this world.

In short, the cell phone in that stallion's hoof should not have been physically possible.

Then Twilight noticed a pony-adapted automobile going down one of the roads. Not a wheezing, straining ponyless carriage like the Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000. No, aside from longer seats, it could've rolled out of a dealership in the human world. Her memory chose that moment to pipe up on why the architecture felt so familiar; the structures also seemed ripped right out of the human world, with only minor concessions to the equine form. She felt an eye start twitching.

"Okay," she said to herself. "Let's not fly off the handle, Twilight. We have several options. They could have some manner of large-scale time travel that hadn't led to a catastrophic paradox spiral. The items in question could be completely magical. Celestia's gambit and Thunderhoof's strangely peaceful regime could've somehow come together to produce a hyperadvanced scientific utopia."

Spots began to swim before Twilight's eyes. She rammed her muzzle into the cloudstuff and willed it as solid as she could. It was no paper bag, but it worked well enough to get her breathing back under control. Once her blood oxygen settled down, she groaned, "Maybe this is why I should've brought the others. " She shook her head as gently as she could. No sense in dispersing her observation platform. "Okay, Twilight. Remember the lessons from trying to disprove the Pinkie Sense: Open mind. Assume nothing. Keep your eyes open and see what you can see."

Once she recast her divination spells, she did just that, watching ponies trot—and yes, drive—about town. After the better part of an hour, steering her little cloud with the gentlest flaps she could manage, Twilight had enough observational data to identify a trend, one she could summarize in a single word. Not "dystopian." Not "sinister" or "miltarized" or even "suspicious."

It was "twee."

Twilight recognized that was somewhat hypocritical coming from a pony who'd chosen one of the more idyllic villages in Equestria to call home, but Galloping Grove felt like concentrated Ponyville. Like a tourist board had extracted the most charming and appealing aspects of the town from the actual infrastructure, then expected ponies to live in that extract. Beautiful houses and charming shopfronts filled the town, but few houses showed any signs of character or individuality or even having been lived in, and few stores indicated what, if anything, they sold. Even as Twilight watched, ponies seemed to give goods away without any indication of payment, like foals playing with imaginary money.

The same superficiality applied to the ponies themselves. There was no purpose to their movements; they just seemed to drift from place to place. They were always happy to talk to one another when they crossed paths, but nopony sought anypony out or even traveled together. They were just... there. Even they didn't seem to know why; Twilight had seen more than one pony walk into a lamppost in less than an hour. There was no way such ponies could've produced technical marvels so far ahead of the rest of Equestria. Even putting aside the lack of any visible pegasi, they didn't even seem capable of looking after their own weather, which still seemed better behaved than Ponyville's.

"Yeah!"

Twilight barely kept herself from sitting up. That cry had certainly had purpose to it. Anything that sounded like it came from a rogue group of Cutie Mark Crusaders couldn't help but sound purposeful.

Careful twitches of her ears found the sources, a pair of foals. A unicorn and a pegasus, no less, blue and magenta coats standing out like broken feathers amid a town that seemed composed entirely of earth ponies in various shades of orange. Their eyes shone with drive when so many looked foggy and vague. They beamed with enthusiasm when so many looked mildly concussed.

"What do we do?"
"We do good! We do good!"

They sang with all the enthusiasm and tonelessness of Scootaloo, but they still seemed like good foals, even before taking their own testimony into account.

Twilight shook her head at her own foolishness. "You're judging books by their covers, Twilight. Just because it's different doesn't necessarily mean it's wrong. Celestia might be right about this place. The only way to know for sure is direct interaction."

Yes, direct interaction.

As an alicorn who was a head taller than most ponies.

When she didn't know any disguise spells that could stand up to minor concerns like motion.

Twilight sighed. "So much for keeping a low profile." She spread her wings and glided towards the town hall. At least, she assumed it was the town hall. It had a large exterior staircase and columns; odds were it was either Town Hall or a library, and she'd happily take either.

She kept an eye on the ponies below as she descended. Most didn't seem to notice her. Only when her shadow passed over a pony did they even react, and by the time they thought to check the sky, she had already gone far past them.

"Ditzy was right. They don't look up," Twilight said to herself. She wasn't sure how much of that was tribal demographics and how much was impossibly advanced electronics, but she wasn't complaining.

She still got startled looks when she landed. She paid the onlookers no mind as she high-stepped her way into what an inscription in the edifice confirmed as Town Hall. With her eyes kept forward and pace steady, nopony who passed by her even thought to question her. Once she fished a piece of paper out of a wastebasket, straightened it out with magic, and adopted a consternated look like a sleep-deprived Luna, they didn't even want to stay in the same hallway as her, resulting in the sudden occupation of more than one broom closet.

It was an old trick that even Twilight had managed to pick up from the court in Canterlot: If she looked like she knew what she was doing, ponies would assume she did. If she looked like she knew what she was doing, she was important, and she wasn't happy, they would scatter to the four winds.

Finding the mayor's office was fairly simple. Top floor, back end of the building, as far from angry townsponies as possible. Twilight cracked her neck, ready to bring all her bureaucratic skill to bear against any obstructive secretary that might stand in her way. She checked the name on the door, opened it, and proclaimed, "I'm here to see Mayor Montague."

An affable looking orange-coated stallion looked up from the desk in front of a wide window. He smiled. "Oh! That's me."

The overall impression was like reaching for a step that wasn't there. "You are?"

"I am!" Montague blinked. "Am I?" He got up, letting Twilight get a full view of him. Between the mustache, the top hat, the suit jacket with tie, and the pince-museau, he was almost absurd in his stereotypical mayoralty. Even his cutie mark matched the hat. He checked the nameplate on his desk, then nodded to himself. "Yes, that what it says here."

"Are you related to the Pies, by any chance?" The words came tumbling out before Twilight even realized she'd thought them.

Montague seriously contemplated that before shaking his head. "Can't say I've heard of them. Now, what did you need me for?"

"Oh. Uh..." Twilight cleared her throat and tried to regather her thoughts. Once the silence had stretched on too long for her comfort, she said, "I'm sorry, I was expecting a secretary."

"A secretary?" Montague chuckled as he walked back behind his desk. "Well, that seems like an awful lot of trouble for little old me."

Twilight needed another moment to process that. "But you're the mayor."

He beamed at that. "I am!"

"So don't you have a lot of ponies vying for your attention?"

Montague nodded enough that he nearly dislodged his top hat. "Oh, yes. You know, before I started, I never would've guessed how much of mayoring was signing autographs."

"Autographs," Twilight repeated tonelessly, keeping her thoughts on "mayoring" to herself.

"That's right."

Heart sinking, Twilight said, "On sheets of paper with a lot of writing already on them?"

Montague grinned. "Ah, I see you've done some mayoring yourself."

"You could say that." Twilight took a deep breath. "Do you do anything besides give 'autographs'?"

"Oh, you know." Montague rolled a hoof. "Ribbon cuttings, toy drives, the usual sorts of things."

"Election speeches?"

"Elections?" He tilted his head. "What do those have to do with mayoring?"

Twilight's mouth worked silently for a few moments. "You know what? I'm just going to change the subject."

"Fine by me!"

"I don't suppose you can tell me anything about Captain Thunderhoof?" It wasn't like Twilight had anything to lose.

"Hmm..." Montague tapped his chin with a hoof. "Well, I suppose there iiiii..." He trailed off, eyes drifting out of alignment.

Twilight took an involuntary step back. "Mayor Montague?"

He just stared at opposite corners of the office, jaw hanging open and beginning to drool.

Twilight became all too aware of being as far from the main doors of the town hall as she could be while still being inside it. She lit her horn, preparing to scan for any mental magic effects or incoming ponies.

The moment her aura grazed Montague, he blinked and perked back up. "Hello there! I'm the mayor!"

After a pause that lasted for moments but felt like weeks, Twilight said, "Hi. I was just leaving."

"Nice to meet you, Miss Leaving." Thankfully, Montague chuckled at his own joke as he took a sheet out of his inbox. "Don't let me detain you."

Twilight swallowed against the growing lump in her throat. "I'll do my best. Thank you for your time, Mayor Montague."

"Any time!" Montague said as he waved goodbye.

Twilight returned the wave, keeping up a smile as best she could until she was back in the corridor. "Well," she muttered once the door closed, "that raised more questions than answers." She ducked into the first restroom she could find, grateful that the town at least made that concession to reality, and teleported up and out of the building.


Another few minutes of aerial surveillance showed no reaction from Town Hall. If anypony had noticed the mayor's fugue state, they were keeping quiet about it.

"Alright," Twilight said from atop her latest cloud. "Something's wrong with this town. The question is what." Her idle gaze stopped when it landed on something notable: Another unicorn. A grown stallion, no less.

Twilight shrugged and spread her wings. "Well, it's kind of like a lead." Another spiraling descent put her in front of an actually identified storefront, one Todd's Comics.

Opening the door brought Twilight into a realm of secondhoof nostalgia. Between Shining Armor and Spike, she couldn't help but be at least somewhat familiar with comic book stores. She didn't recognize any of the titles, but the racks and boxes themselves were universal, as were the boxes of Hocus Pocus: the Get-Together behind the checkout counter. "Excuse me?" she said as she walked there.

The stallion at the register gave an impression of a very long lost member of the Apple family, nearly identical in coloration to Applejack. Even when she knew it was coming, seeing a horn on his forehead when he turned to face her was almost as much of a shock as the cell phone. "Hey. Welcome to Todd's Comiii..." The stallion stared at Twilight. His eyes weren't glassy or dull. They looked all too aware as their pinprick pupils darted between her horn, wings, and face. The stallion began to shake with olfactible fear.

Twilight looked around. Nopony else was in the store. With a thought, she projected a bubble of silence and placed a quick ward on the door. "We have some privacy." She leaned close. "What do you know?"

"Kn-know? I don't know anything!" He bared his teeth; calling it a smile would be giving it far too much credit. "I'm just Todd!"

Twilight snorted. "Horsefeathers. The moment you saw me, you were terrified. Why?"

He held up his forehooves in a warding gesture. "Look, I swear I've been toeing the line. Don't Friendship Beam me!"

"Friendship..." Twilight blinked as she tried to process that. Did they know about the Elements? If the friendship journal got sold here, she'd never seen the royalties. She decided not to offer any information that wasn't freely available. "You mean a reform spell?"

"Reform. Sure. Fine. Whatever you want to call it."

Twilight took a deep breath. "I think we got off on the wrong hoof. I'm new here—"

"Obviously. Why did you think I freaked out?"

There went that twitch again. Slowly, calmly, Twilight said, "Again, I'm new here. I don't know what's going on yet."

Todd opened his mouth, only to snap it shut and shake his head. "Oh no. I'm not falling for this. I'm loyal to the cause, I swear. You don't have to go and throw around the big guns, I'm loyal!"

"Okay. You're loyal." Twilight spoke as though to one of Fluttershy's more skittish animals. "Loyal to what? To whom?"

"You're just trying to confuse me." Todd shuddered. "Or worse, you're not." He cowered behind the counter, forelegs over his head. "I've done nothing wrong!"

Twilight sighed and released her spells. "Okay, Todd. I'm leaving. And I'm sorry."

She walked out of the store shamefaced. Just because she wanted to understand what was going on didn't excuse that kind of behavior.

Foalish laughter brought her head up. The colorful foals she'd spotted earlier stood just a bit down the road.

"Okay, I can make up for that. This should be easy. Just like dealing with the Crusaders." Twilight trotted towards the two, her most approachable smile on her muzzle. "Hi there."

"Hi..." The stereophonic greeting started off happily, but soon trailed off to uncertainty. The foals looked at one another, each shaking their head in turn.

When they turned back, it was with awe-filled gazes. "You're new," said the unicorn.

"What's your name?"

Twilight smiled and sat, putting her close to eye level for them. "I'm Twilight Sparkle. And you?"

Once more, they looked at each other as though confronting some strange new situation. "She's new," said the pegasus. "That means we're new to her."

"That makes sense. Hi, I'm Corn!"

"And I'm Peg!"

Twilight felt very proud of herself for keeping a straight face at that. "Are those short for something?"

"Well..." Peg looked down, dragging the tip of her forehoof against the sidewalk. "Yeah, but I don't really like my full name."

Corn nodded. "And I'm not going to call her Square Peg if she doesn't like it!"

She glared at him. "Cornpone!"

"Sorry."

Very, very proud of herself. "Corn and Peg it is."

"What brings you here, Twilight Sparkle?" said Corn.

Peg's eyes lit up. "Do you need our help?"

"I think I do. What do you know about a mare named Thunderhoof?"

Both gasped and grinned. "You mean Captain Thunderhoof?" said Corn.

Twilight filed away the continued use of the rank. "I suppose I do."

Peg shot into the air in her excitement. "Captain Thunderhoof is the greatest do-gooder of all time!"

"'Is'? That is, is she?" Twilight felt it best not to ask how long this particular Captain Thunderhoof had been around. After all, it might be an inherited title. Twilight herself was part of a dynasty that stretched back to Dream Valley, according to legend.

"Oh yeah!" the foals chorused.

"She gets toys out of trees with the Tornado of Helpfulness!" Peg flew circles around Twilight to demonstrate.

"And when she finds a mean—"

A rush of air and a heavy thump sounded behind Twilight, cutting off Corn. "I was wondering why my ears were burning," said a jolly alto.

The foals gasped with delight, looking at the source of the impact. Twilight turned to look, and her jaw dropped. "Princess Celestia?"

But as soon as Twilight said it, she realized this wasn't Celestia. The mane, though silky and shining, was just hair, colored like the sky at noon rather than a flowing aurora. The body proportions were wrong: the barrel and neck almost stallion-like in their thickness, the wings almost comically exaggerated, the legs absurdly short and thin, and the gold-capped hooves smaller than a foal's. The peytral didn't contain an amethyst, but instead displayed the mare's cutie mark, a thunderbolt bisecting an inverted horseshoe. And what Twilight had taken as a horn must have been part of the golden tiara. No unicorn horn could possibly bend like a lightning bolt.

The conclusion would have been clear even without the context. "Captain Thunderhoof, I presume."

Author's Note:

Quick reminder that telephones—Bakelite rotary phones, no less—have been canon since Season 4. Given the world-shrinking capability of such devices, the only way much of what we see can make sense is if phones are a curiosity and affectation of the absurdly well-endowed.

We never actually see money in Corn & Peg. (At least, not the episode I actually watched.) Exchanges of goods, yes, but no tangible currency. It's a bit jarring when contrasted with the videophones.

Mayor Montague is best described as the mayor of Townsville before he went gray, only without the monocle and as a horse.

I will be forever grateful to Katie Cook for bringing trading card games to a moderately canon Equestria.

Literally everyone Corn and Peg meet already seem to know them. Almost like no one new ever comes to Galloping Grove. Or ever leaves...

And while I'm using Equestrian proportions for most of the town, the good captain gets an exception. Partly for comedy, partly for other reasons.