3 - Rarity Tuesdays Part 2: Lunch, Magic, Fashion, Repeat
Breakfast, and all its related dramas, blowups, and meltdowns out of the way, all in the Sparkle household left to their own devices. Spike had disappeared, Night Light and Twilight Velvet decided to plot in the comfort of their offices, and Midnight chose to be more literal about the whole ‘devices’ thing.
She had spent the morning over in her… Twilight’s… nah, screw it. It was her lab! Their lab, at least. And she wanted to see that everything was still working correctly. Happily, nothing appeared to have changed in the heavily modified shed, so Midnight could at least trust her memories with regards to it and its mess of devices and inventions. Twilight had made sure her genetic locks still functioned, so all the tools and devices in here still worked for Midnight as well.
Which was good, because she’d come here to find something specific. Two somethings, to be exact. The first was the Sparkle family photo album she knew Twilight would have taken out back to the lab. And she knew that because of the second something she was here for.
Midnight, despite not exactly being Twilight at the time, could remember the days after that whole Memory Stone fiasco. They, Twilight and Midnight in a sense, had been in the lab working on what Twilight hoped would become a ‘fix’ for any similar memory-altering magical disasters in the future.
What they’d ended up with was a small device built out of a couple microwaves and a video-projector. The Memory Scanner didn’t… quite work like Twilight had hoped. It couldn’t really protect you from having memories altered, or lost, and it couldn’t copy memories. All it could do was tell you whether your mind had been messed with, and how badly.
Still, nothing to sneeze at. Midnight opened up the scanner’s little computer screen and flipped back to the last user.
“I can’t believe you wouldn’t have at least checked after Smarty Pants… aha!”
Right there on the screen was the readout from Twilight’s last memory check. The tiny screen currently read:
Subject: … Twilight Sparkle …
Memory Alteration: … Affirmative …
Memory Deviation: … 100% of Baseline …
One-hundred percent memory restoration. She re-read the timestamp. One day after Wallflower Blush’s plan to erase their memories crumbled along with her Memory Stone. Truth be told, up until the Split, that girl was pretty high up on Midnight’s list of people to personally destroy before tearing down reality itself to get at Equestrian magic. No one erases Midnight Sparkle’s memories. That was, until she did it to herself. It would be a bit hypocritical to be angry with Wallflower at this point.
She held up the photo album. It was a thick tome, filled to burst with every significant moment in Twilight’s life that she and their parents had ever caught on film, and later digital. She slowly drew one hand along the cover, her fingers lingering on the gold-lettering.
Using the device would yield results faster. Twilight would have just popped this thing in, like she’d done before, and figure out how extensive was the damage done to herself.
“I am not Twilight,” Midnight whispered to the album, and then with an angry flick of her magic, she threw it open to a random page.
She saw herself staring back at her. Well, not exactly herself. And she wasn’t staring back so much as the little, kindergarten version of who she used to be was staring at a book in her hands that most of her peers wouldn’t be reading until… well, in some cases like Rainbow Dash, never. Physics had been an interesting read.
Little Twilight sat reading amongst a gathering of her… Midnight struggled to call them friends. Little Twilight didn’t have those, no matter what universe you were talking about. But Midnight was happy enough to realize she could name each of them. Minuette, Twinkleshine, Moon Dancer, even Lemon Drops…
All except the blue girl with the silver hair. She sat towards the back of the group, who were otherwise content to eat cupcakes at a birthday party. A birthday party where Twilight was more content to get ahead of her reading.
The blue one was… playing cards? Odd…
And unfortunate.
“Well,” she sighed, “there’s another memory gone the way of the proverbial dinosaurs. Maybe Twilight would remember…”
She slammed the book shut.
“Enough of what Twilight remembers…”
She set the book into the device’s receptacle, little more than a few repurposed office equipment her mom had blown through trying to make a publisher’s deadline, and with a few buttons and switches pressed, the machine was ready. Prompted by the catalogue of memories in the album, a quick scan of her hippocampus would tell her…
Well, how much of her survived yesterday.
Spike was a dog. That was all he was content to be. That was all he needed to be. That’s all the universe had made him to be. Dogs were simple. Dogs were not complex. Dogs were man’s… girl’s best friend.
But right now, he was silently cursing the ability to think about his own thinking. That had never happened before he learned how to talk. He’d tried to get Twilight to talk to him about it, but she always got a faraway look whenever they started talking about consciousness, the nature of the soul, and all those other things he’d rather not think too much about, since as a dog he shouldn’t be able to think about those things.
In short, he was bothered. He sat in the center of Twilight… and now Midnight’s bedroom, just next to the scorched carpet that depicted their ‘Cutie Mark’ or whatever it was called over in pony-world, evidence of his friend’s bizarre teleportation excursion the night before. He’d been there since after breakfast, and couldn’t help but sniff at it.
There was something off about it. About the whole room, actually. And the more he sniffed, the more he started to notice other things wrong.
Twilight’s sheets still smelled like her… but not quite. Her carpet had her scent… but it was off somehow. Her books, Smarty Pants, even her dresser and writing desk, all had something off about their smell! Without Twilight here to reinforce her own scent, he found he couldn’t find a trace of her original scent anywhere!
Except… except for the scorch mark. Alone in the entire room, the entire house for that matter, it remained entirely Twilight.
Scents were important to dogs. To smell a thing was to know a thing. But Spike wanted to be a dog. And this was getting complicated. Very un-doglike. If there were a Union for dogs, he’d be filing a complaint with them. The fact that he knew what a union was, and could joke about it was another aspect of his new nature Spike was rather keen on not thinking about.
But this included Twilight. So, he had to think about it.
If… if the Original Twilight smell came only from the place where she and Midnight had fused… what did that say about the girl he knew as his best friend? What did that say about the girl he’d blown off this morning?
“Okay Spike,” he said to himself, “If the place where they fused smells right, and the places where they came apart smells wrong…”
Curse sapience, Spike thought, glumly. He really didn’t need to be making these sorts of philosophical connections this early in the day. But now that the idea was forming in his head, he couldn’t ignore where it led.
“… Twilight smells funny because… because the Twilight I knew isn’t the Twilight I know now… she’s… both of them…”
He slapped his head with a paw. Idiot! How could he have made such a puppy-mistake!? Midnight didn’t smell like Twilight! Midnight was half of Twilight’s scent! Their shared scent was the original!
“Oh woof,” he sighed, “Spike… you just turned your nose up at your owner… bad dog…”
But, instead of wallow in his sudden shame, Spike perked his ears up and looked around. It was subtle, but he could hear the lights and electrics in the walls flicker. It was such a quiet surge of power that he knew no one else would be able to tell.
But dogs are good at that sort of thing. And he’d seen that power surge before.
Spike spun around and darted out of the room. He flew down the staircase, leapt out the door to the backyard, and quickly found the door to Twilight’s lab sitting off to the side of the lawn. Or… Midnight’s… the Twins’ lab.
He needed to make this right, and if Twilight was doing something in her lab… even if it was only sort of Twilight, that meant she was doing something crazy. Something crazy that Spike’s rejection had no doubt driven her to! Bad dog! Very bad dog!
Locked. But locks were nothing to Spike, the Brave and Glorious! He continued his charge, ready to run up the door as he did this morning to let Cadance in… when the genetic lock registered him approach. Spike went sailing through the open door, landing hard on his belly, and found himself sliding across the entire lab in a single go.
It took Spike a few moments to shake the stars from his vision. His highly sensitive dog-senses slowly came back as he did so, slightly dulled by crashing into one of Twilight’s bigger, more… metal machines. Why she designed things that hurt so much, he’ll never know…
But as his senses returned, he heard her. Spike looked about until he spotted Midnight… his owner, his friend. She sat at one of the cluttered countertops in the laboratory, her head tucked down deep into her arms, all laid down on the table.
He knew that sound. Every day Twilight had gone to Crystal Prep, he could remember her laying her head down just like that. Crying just like that.
“… Midnight?” he watched her, hesitantly. The smell of her machine’s heating plastic and electrical charges masked all else.
The girl turned around suddenly. She hadn’t heard him come in. Spike caught a glimpse of her face, just as she swept back around. Midnight furiously wiped at her tears with one arm, her breathing forcing itself to steady again.
“Spike… I didn’t hear you come in,” she didn’t turn around.
“I… I heard the power surge,” he said, trotting closer, “You always… well, Twilight always came here to do experiments when something was bothering her. Or when she thought she could fix something with one of her inventions.”
Midnight chuckled, but there wasn’t a hint of humor to it. “Yeah… Remember when… when she thought she could build a solar-laser to melt all the snow so she could still go to school during a blizzard?”
“Oh, yeah. That was nothing,” Spike laughed, deciding to play along, make sure she knew he was still her dog, “Remember how she built that teleporter?”
Midnight half-turned, just enough to see Spike in her periphery. She still looked a mess.
“Yeah, I do. And what happened to all those apples she tested it on. If we’d known Applejack at the time, she’d be so mad…”
Spike nodded, “Definitely. And Pinkie would’ve never forgiven you if you ever told her about that Instant-Pastry-Machine.”
Her face became unreadable as Spike chuckled at the memory.
“I… don’t recall…”
Alright, Spike thought, she’s not getting it. He should just go in for the apology now.
“I’m really sorry, Midnight,” he reached out a paw to touch her ankle.
Midnight suddenly locked her gaze right on him. “Excuse me?”
“I’m sorry,” he repeated, sitting back on his haunches and giving her his best apologetic ‘puppy eyes’ he could muster up, “This morning, I was obsessing about how your scent’s different. And that made me act like a real jerk to you. You and Twilight are, like, half of the same scent, and it took me too long to realize that.”
“… half?”
He nodded, “Of course! It’s like… when you were both Twilight, you had a smell. And like I always say, if you can smell a thing, you know a thing. So, when you two split up… I guess you guys took half your smell with you.
“But,” he continued, “I just realized that you’re not someone else just because you’ve got a different name now. The scent is there, it’s just off for both of you. So… I’m sorry.”
Spike waited. She would either tell him he was a good boy, or a bad boy. There was no…
He was surprised at how quickly she hauled him up into the air, and equally so because she did it with her crazy magic! She pulled him right into her arms and gave Spike that good, old Twilight-cuddle-hug he always loved. Now if he could just get a belly-rub out of this…
“Thank you,” he could feel her tears drip down onto his fur, “thank you…”
“Hey, come on! I’m girl’s best friend, right?”
She smiled at that. A real, genuine smile. “Alright, best friend… you up for some fetch in the yard?”
Spike nearly leaped out of her arms, shouting joyously, “You bet! Let’s get going already!”
It was suddenly a good day. Spike was a good boy. He’d done his dogged duty. He’d made his human happy. And as he raced across the grass, he let the tears and the gloom of the lab fade from his memory until there was only the joy of playing with his girl.
Besides, he had no idea what that machine she’d been working on was. And he had no idea why she’d be so upset over a flashing number. Flashing over and over and over…
Finally, the prophesized hour came. Night Light and Twilight Velvet ventured out to Canterlot Mall, Midnight in tow, and asked her to select a place for lunch.
It was the most terrifying moment in her life. Outside of a hamburger, fries, toast, and eggs, she’d never really eaten anything before. She could remember eating, as Twilight, but there was a critical difference between recalling something and experiencing it firsthand. But, in her immediate panic, she didn’t really get that across to her parents.
“Um… sushi?”
And just like that, they were sitting in the sushi place where Sunset worked. She was obviously still in school at the moment, which suited Midnight just fine. The Sparkles ordered a variety of rolls, and sat down to perhaps the most necessary, and most awkward parent-child discussion imaginable.
It was a strange, strange feeling for Midnight to be on the outside of a typical awkward Sparkle freak-out. As Twilight, she’d always assumed her family was merely eccentric. But being trapped within one’s own head, with only one’s own thoughts and memories to reflect upon, had given Midnight a new perspective on her parents, Night Light and Twilight Velvet.
Oh, they were certainly kind, loving parents who only wanted to foster their children’s talents… but they were also freaks. Socially-oblivious freaks who’d somehow found each other, and wanted to spend their lunch getting to know her… despite the fact that she already knew them…
They started off the conversation by not starting it. Night Light and Velvet just… smiled a lot. They would smile at Midnight, and then glance away as if they were taking in the sights, as opposed to merely trying to avoid eye contact. Eventually, this wore thin, as Night Light decided to finally initiate first contact.
“So, Midnight… How’s it going? Everything alright with you?”
No, she thought, I just blew up at my former sitter and oldest friend over repressed anger issues, lost the respect of my own dog because of how I smelled, and then wept at a computer screen that basically confirmed I have catastrophic brain damage.
“Uh, yes…” she said, in the typical tone of a teenager who doesn’t quite know what answer she’s expected to give to that question. At least she had Spike back…
Her mother nodded, her stepford smile somehow merging with a frown, “We’re just concerned… dear,” she said, placing one hand in an approximately-comforting way on top of Midnight’s own, “You haven’t been… yourself lately…”
“Understatement of the year,” the sarcasm dripped from Midnight’s mouth as she gently drew her hand back.
“We just… want to help you get better,” Night Light said, solemnly.
“What?” Midnight raised an eyebrow. That sounded like an intervention…
Velvet tightened her grip. “We think you have a pr… oh?” her gaze drew Midnight’s own, just catching a glimpse of her father shaking his head furiously and making chopping motions towards his neck with one hand, clearly signaling an abort-mission.
“… a place here…?” Velvet ended lamely, the question mark practically hanging over her head.
Midnight’s eyes narrowed. “I… appreciate the support, but…” her eyes snapped wide, one hand pointing behind her parents’ heads.
“What!?” she cried, “Is that Cadance and Shining making out!?”
Twilight Velvet practically leapt up on the seat, hands gripping the back of her seat with white knuckles, “Where!? Where!? Did it finally happen!?”
Night Light, similarly, twisted himself almost completely around to get a look, twisting just enough for the flashcards in his jacket’s inner pocket to lean out just a bit.
With a flick of her wrist, and the briefest touch of her magic, Midnight gripped the cards in her blue magical aura and snatched them across the table into her waiting hand. Both her parents turned back to stare, a mixture of shock and embarrassment washing over them.
Midnight held the deck out to her parents, like the murder weapon at the end of a detective novel. But like any good criminal once caught, they didn’t immediately fess up.
Rarity would have loved that analogy, Midnight thought.
“Small-Talk flashcards.” It wasn’t a question, if the unimpressed tone of Midnight’s voice was any indication, “Didn’t we get you these?”
Her mother, face still contorted in shame, said, “We?”
“It’s just so tiring having to correct myself when sifting through shared memories,” Midnight began cutting and rippling the deck of cards, “so when I say ‘we’, I’m referring to anything from before Twilight and I… went separate ways.”
“Oh…” Night Light's forehead beaded with sweat, “W-where did those come from…?”
Velvet sighed, “Hun? I think we’ve been sussed.”
Night Light folded his arms and glanced down at the table, “There wasn’t anything about this on the cards…”
Said cards evaporated in Midnight’s clutch, sent back home with a simple Recalling Teleport, though from her parents’ startled faces, Midnight supposed that looked worse than it was.
She sighed, then said with some amount of tenseness in her voice, “You know you can just… talk to me, right?”
“We… we didn’t know if you’d…” Night Light fussed with the collar of his shirt.
“Twilight always liked her personal space,” Velvet said, trying to return to a genuine smile… and failing, “Conversation with her is usually scheduled, structured. You know how you… how she is.”
Midnight might have said something… impolite. She might have raised her voice. She may even have set something on fire. But a newfound calm had begun to settle in her chest, as though Cadance had laid the burning fire in her heart into a bank of snow. At least for now, there was no anger.
She took a long, cleansing breath.
Which came out in a choking cough as the server appeared out of nowhere.
“Hiya folks!” the pale blue girl with striped blue hair smiled like her last name was Pie, “I got a number 1, a number 4, and the Catch-All platter?”
Sonata Dusk placed the meal down on the table… and then glanced up into Midnight’s distressed face.
“Oh… Twilight? Right?”
A final, hacking cough, “Midnight, actually...”
Sonata stood up straight, head nodding knowingly, “Right, the clone thingie. How’s that working out for ya?”
Midnight stared, then shook her head, “Fine… it’s fine… how are you here!?”
Sonata kept smiling, “What d’ya mean? I got a job!” She pointed out her blue-and-white uniform proudly, “And I didn’t have to mind-control anyone to get it!”
“No,” Midnight pinched the bridge of her nose, “I mean, you’ve been back in town less than a day! How did you already get a job? And where are your sisters?”
“Ah!” Sonata nodded, “I get it now! Well, Sunset had all sorts of blackmail on the vendors around here, so all it took was a phone call to…”
Midnight blocked her mouth with a telekinetic aura, “Never mind. Forget I asked.”
“Well,” Sonata laughed when Midnight withdrew her magic, “It’s not like anyone would hire me without help. There’s a literal thousand-year gap in my resume.”
“I…” Midnight was caught for a moment at the word resume, if only because she only just now realized she’d need one with her own name on it.
She blinked away the thought and carried on, “That makes sense… but why a sushi restaurant? Aren’t you technically a fish?”
“A fish-pony!” Sonata corrected, loudly enough that a few other patrons turned to stare. She, not noticing or not caring, simply carried on herself, “And for your information, some fish eat other fish…”
A new voice, older and raspier, interrupted their conversation from the register. “Hey! New girl! Do you think I hired you because I liked you!? If you’re going to remind me of my shame, at least help some more customers!!!”
“Oop!” Sonata squeaked, “Coming! Nice meeting ya,” she waved back at Midnight as the thousand-year-teenager took off.
In the silence that followed that… bizarre meeting, Midnight simply stared after Sonata, wondering on so many levels as to just what happened. But her pondering on the sheer scale of the improbabilities involved was cut short by a short, coughing sound.
Midnight swiveled her head back to her parents, whose startled gazes were locked with her own.
“So…” Night Light sipped his water with a shaking hand, “Fish-ponies?”
Velvet leaned into the table, “Blackmail!?”
Night Light followed, “Is this some sort of magic thing?”
“Is Sunset a criminal!?”
“Oh,” Night Light paused, “Yes, I suppose that’s a bit more pressing…”
Midnight’s eyes unfocused at the barrage of questions. They were coming so quick, so sudden, that it was like watching a flash flood form in real time. And she was right in the floodplain.
“Is this Sunset some sort of bad influence…?”
“How long has this been going on…?”
“Where are the gills…?”
“Wait! Wait! STOP!” she held out both hands, pleadingly, like she was reaching for a breath of air.
Night Light and Velvet paused, if only to catch their breaths and ready the next assault. But Midnight could see the strain and pressure clearly on their faces. There was a tiredness, and an eagerness for answers that they’d waited and waited for patiently, possibly as far back as the Friendship Games.
Possibly as far back as…
Midnight began calculating.
“It… might be the memory-loss talking,” she said, slowly, drawing a worried look from both her parents in spite of their previous haggardness, “but did Twilight ever… actually explain all this magic business to either of you?”
Astonishingly, as both Twilight Velvet and Night Light readied their next bevy of backlogged questions, they stopped. Mouths agape mid-query, they leaned back in their seats and exchanged gazes.
Night Light spoke first, “Um… I mean, Cadance explained the gist of the Friendship Games…”
“And that… woman, Cinch’s part in it,” Midnight wasn’t sure if she hated her former principal more, or if her mother did. Slightly comforting, in any case, to hear that hiss accompanying mention of her…
“But,” her father folded his hands, “We respected our daughter’s privacy.”
Velvet nodded, “If Twilight wanted to talk to us about something important, she would have.”
Both were knocked from their thoughts by a snort and a guffaw from across the table. Midnight was suddenly thankful she hadn’t been drinking anything.
“And what’s so funny, missy?” Velvet asked with a touch of scarlet in her cheeks.
“I… I get it now!” Midnight buried further chortling in her chest and tried to subdue her laughter, “Twilight always looks up to authority! I can’t believe I didn’t make the connection until now…”
When both her parents remained silent, urging her on with their eyes alone, she leaned in and said, “She’s terrified of you!”
“Us!?” the Sparkles nearly jumped out of their seats.
“Well, not you! But… she’s terrified of disappointing you! Of being anything other than your perfect baby girl. And you’re both the same way! Kind of obvious, in hindsight. You’re…” the smile that had formed on Midnight’s lips died.
“You’re… you’re both terrified of me.”
Protests began to form in the mouths of both her parents, but a moment of hesitation had gone by, confirming the hypothesis.
Velvet seemed to realize that first. “It’s just…” she wracked her brain for the words. Should have been easy for an author. “We just didn’t expect any of this. It all happened so fast!”
“It’s partly our fault,” Night Light scratched the back of his head, “We… we always trusted Twilight to handle her own affairs. I suppose we should have done more.”
“You did everything,” Midnight knew the tears would come soon, and so she had to speak now, “I was Twilight, up until a year ago! You two were the… the greatest parents a girl could ask for. But that’s not who I am anymore.”
She took a deep, deep breath, and checked to make sure Sonata wasn’t coming back.
“I am not Twilight,” she said, with finality, “But I’m still your daughter. I still remember all the family trips, every Hearth’s Warming party at Nana’s, every science fair! I…”
Midnight swallowed, “I love you, even if you don’t remember me…”
There. There it was. All out and in the open. Midnight had finally said something, something that put her heart out there. Now all that was left was the odd stares and…
She felt something on her hand. Velvet’s hand had reached out and gripped her own. Night Light’s had followed, close behind.
“I’m so sorry, baby,” Velvet sniffed, “This must have felt like Grammy Sparkle all over again…”
Her dad said nothing, but Midnight could see tears forming in his eyes, and in hers…
“Eugh,” she sighed, “Enough with the crying!”
Though their faces were momentarily shocked, Velvet and Night Light gave way to glad smiles as Midnight wiped at her eyes and tried to smile back in return.
“If Twilight didn’t tell you guys everything, I guess then it’s all up to me.”
Velvet, fighting back a thrill at the prospect of answers, lightly protested, “But… if Twilight didn’t think to tell us…”
“I’m tired of what Twilight thinks,” Midnight took up her chopsticks and snatched at a particularly flashy bit of sushi, “And they’re my secrets too. If I want to tell them, so what? It’s one more thing to prove I’m not her!”
Night Light started to reach out as Midnight swiped her first bite of lunch in a spot of green paste, “Um… honey? That’s wasabi. You…”
Too late, Midnight tossed the sushi back and downed it in a single bite. Velvet and Night Light watched, eyes wide, waiting for the inevitable meltdown. The last time…
Midnight’s nostrils flared, and her face reddened.
“Oh dear…” said Velvet, “It happened again…”
But then, instead of gasping and crying, as was expected, Midnight smacked her lips contentedly. “Ah! Now that is my kind of heat!”
Night Light narrowed his eyes, “You… liked it?”
“Yeah, this stuff is great! Why have we never tried it before?” Midnight quickly popped another sushi roll in the wasabi and chomped down.
“… we have…” said Velvet, hesitating.
Midnight paused… only to swallow. She shrugged, and said, “Well, I can’t remember, so who cares?”
She leaned forward, spearing another bite. “So… Magic…”
What followed… well, the food was gone within minutes. Night Light spent the entire lunch chewing on the same piece of crab again and again and again, but Twilight Velvet was, unsurprisingly, a glutton for drama, and found herself piling on the sushi as more and more extraordinary details about her daughter’s life came tumbling out of her… other daughter.
A rehash of Twilight’s misery at Crystal Prep began the tale. As furious as her parents had been once they’d learned the extent of Cinch’s mischief, Midnight wasn’t quite prepared for just how… quiet they were while she regaled them with a few anecdotes. That time Lemon Zest ‘accidentally’ sealed her locker with gorilla glue. That other time Indigo Zap convinced the school choir to add ‘Twilight Barf-le’ to their Hearth’s Warming show.
That time she stopped caring anymore and became a monster.
“I…” Twilight Velvet interrupted for perhaps the only time, “I suppose that would explain the fire out on the porch?”
Midnight just nodded, fully enraptured in her story-telling mode, “I might have told Cadance about how much I resented her for not doing more… but I’m good now."
She took another hit of wasabi as her father asked, “Are you still upset? About it all?”
Midnight let the heat blow through her nostrils. “Oh, I’m always furious about it. It’s… kind of scary how angry I am most of the time.”
Velvet, in a rare moment of levity, chuckled and whispered, “Maybe you should vent by writing a book…”
And unlike when Velvet had made the same offer to Twilight, Midnight just said, “Yeah, okay. I’m already breaking molds today.”
They had to stop a moment, to let her mother get her breath back.
“So, when they hand something to you, do they call it ‘hoofing’ something?”
“Yes, dad, for the last time. It’s not that weird for them.”
“But what about if they use their mouth? Or their magic?”
“No, they still call it ‘hoofing’. And ‘hoofwriting’, just so we’re clear.”
“…oh. But what about hygiene? Writing with your mouth…”
“For the last time! They are magical horses! Not everything over there makes pure biological sense!”
“… and that’s how we figured out the whole… memory thing,” Midnight finally hit last night, took a deep swig of her water, and finished by adding, “And… that’s it. That’s everything.”
Night Light sighed as though he’d been holding his breath for the past few minutes. This was because he had. Listening to his daughter describe, in meticulous detail, how to perform what he could only see as a magical lobotomy…
It set him a touch on edge.
His wife, by contrast, seemed fine. Totally fine. She stared into the middle distance for a few minutes as Midnight described the Princess Twilight, and some of the… abridged events surrounding Midnight’s brief time-traveling foray into the future during that whole Crystal Empire debacle…
Quite frankly, Midnight was incredibly impressed thus far. Night Light may have been obsessive over details… the Sparkle curse, Midnight would generously describe it… but her mother was practically the definition of high-strung and in need of a calming night in.
Yet, here she was, taking the retelling of the incident which nearly destroyed reality in stride, like she was listening to another author’s story and silently contemplating how she could have done it better.
Well done, mom.
Less encouraging, however, was the face Twilight Velvet made once the story had concluded. She simply closed her eyes, steepled her fingers, and leaned across the table to make sure her daughter understood the importance of what came next.
She was calm. Eerily calm.
Motherly calm…
“So… Timber Spruce,” she narrowed her eyes wickedly. “I assume you knew about him?”
Midnight ‘eeped’. She suddenly, desperately hoped Twilight hadn’t taken all of their acting talent as well with the Split…
As lunch concluded, with Midnight having held onto at least a few of Twilight’s secrets, the Sparkles bid one another heartfelt farewells. There were hugs, and kisses, and promises to have more talks later… and maybe make some more memories later as well.
But just before her parents left for home, leaving Midnight at the Canterlot Mall to meet with her sister and their friends, Twilight Velvet revealed their little surprise that wasn’t a surprise thanks to Cadance. They handed Midnight a smartphone, easily and with little regard, as though it weren’t the most significant gift she’d ever received in her life.
And that was how Midnight found herself alone, at the mall, wandering from shop to shop, fiddling away at her new phone. Naturally, her mom had already added contacts for Midnight. These included the local library, emergency services, and… Spike.
Midnight was happy enough to remember Twilight building a phone receiver into his collar. Better than not remembering something else. She tugged at her shirt as she considered who she could call first, the ill-fitting feeling returning since this morning.
Seriously, if Twilight messed with their clothing just to spite her…
“Twilight!”
That doesn’t bode well, Midnight thought. Best ignore it. They’ll realize soon enough…
“TWILIGHT!!!”
A blue-and-silver blur ran right up to Midnight, startling her as it came to a screeching halt. Its sudden appearance caused her to toss her precious phone up into the air. Were it not for a timely flash of blue magical light, it would have been little more than fabulously expensive plastic scattered across the mall floor.
Midnight brought the device back to her hand, then took a very, very deep breath. When she shot the interloper a glare, she didn’t want to accidentally set them on fire, after all.
Not until they had a chance to grovel.
Said interloper, however, appeared to be a teenage girl with azure skin and a swirl of silver-and-sky-blue hair. Midnight was… half-sure she’d seen her somewhere before, but just couldn’t place her.
“Oops,” she said, the panic in her eyes shifting to the phone for a brief moment, “Sorry about that…” then, she grabbed Midnight’s shoulders, shouting, “Twilight! I need your help!”
“You have a funny way of asking for it,” Midnight growled.
“Please Twilight, I…” the blue girl’s face drew down into a narrow, questioning look, “Um… did you do something different with your hair?”
Midnight sighed. Did she really deserve this?
“No,” she said, after a moment, “Because I’m not Twilight. I’m…”
Trixie’s eyes popped out wide, “Oh! You’re Midnight!”
That… what? But who…?
“Do… do I know you?” Midnight cringed, slightly, at the thought of yet another memory gap jumping up like this. “Are we… friends?”
“I helped you save the world yesterday!” the girl confirmed the memory gap theory, “Or, at least Pony-Trixie did! And I helped her!”
There was something there. Not a memory, per say, but part of a recollection. Like before with Everfree, Midnight could see the outline of a memory.
“Wait…” her face twisted with the effort of restoring that memory, “You… you’re Starlight’s friend… no, Pony-Trixie is. You helped convince Disqord to switch sides?”
Trixie’s anger faded, replaced by a sort of cautious worry, “Are you feeling okay? Trixie didn’t have much time to talk to you before, but I assumed a clone of Twilight would be a bit better put together. Also, Starlight…?”
“Hey!” Midnight snapped, “I’m fine! I just… when Twilight and I split, we didn’t split the personal memories as well as we could have!”
Trixie huffed, “So, you’re saying you forgot about the Great and Powerful Trixie? After everything we’ve been through!?”
Salvage this, Sparkle, Midnight thought to herself. “Well… what did we go through?”
Trixie’s pout turned into… panic?
“Well… technically… um, I sold out the Rainbooms to the Dazzlings,” she tugged at the collar of her magician’s cape…
“So, don’t count that,” Trixie added, “But I did help Sunset stop Wallflower with the whole ‘memory-stealie stuff’!”
Memory… stealie stuff. Oh, wow.
“Alright,” Midnight conceded, “That’s not nothing…”
“And Trixie has been Twilight’s rival in academics since before Grade-school!”
Midnight raised an eyebrow, “Why is that a sign of our friendship?”
“It’s not,” Trixie answered, truthfully, “I just wanted it known.”
This is rapidly going nowhere, Midnight thought as she rubbed her temples. “Look, you said you needed help?”
Trixie nearly leaped out of her shoes as she suddenly remembered her purpose here.
“Right! Tw- Midnight! I need help! My Great and Powerful Assistant had to go back to Equestria, and my gig starts in ten minutes!”
“I… gig? What sort of gig?”
Here, Trixie smirked. “Why… Trixie is a Great and Powerful Magician! Her feats of magical might are spoken of from Canterlot High to the lands of Equestria itself!” She pulled a deck of cards… seemingly from nowhere, and began to shuffle it.
Admittedly, she shuffled well. Cards spun and flipped this way and that, to the point where Midnight could reasonably say she’d never seen better. It wasn’t magic, but it was still rather impressive. Trixie eventually folded all the cards back in-between her hands… before pointing at Midnight herself.
“Check your pocket.”
Midnight chuckled, “I’m wearing a skirt.”
“Trixie meant your sleeve!” Trixie frowned.
Humoring the magician, Midnight reached over to her left sleeve… and felt something shift. Wide-eyed, she reached up her short sleeve, and found a Five of Clubs tucked away.
… Magic!?
“How!?”
Trixie smirked, “A magician never reveals her secrets.”
“That’s amazing!” Midnight stared at the card, checking its flawless corners for any sort of marking. “It’d be more impressive,” she noted after a few moments, “if you could guess the card as well…”
Trixie blushed, “I… can only do the second part of that trick. Yet, anyway,” she coughed and held out the split deck for Midnight to return her card to.
But as she reached out, Midnight couldn’t help but feel the strangest sense of déjà vu sweep over her. She paused, her mind returning to its calculations. Was it the cards? Was is Trixie? Was there a funny smell, or something about the lighting…?
Wait. It couldn’t be…
Midnight glanced around. It was still a while before the schools let out, so there was weirdly no one here…
“Trixie? Why are you here? Don’t you have school?”
The blue teenaged magician was still holding out her deck for its missing piece as Midnight asked that. She shrugged, “I have an early period in the morning, so I get out before everyone else. It makes getting a good spot for my show easier.”
Satisfied, Midnight held up a single finger, “Wait one.”
And flashed away in a blaze of blue flames.
Midnight reappeared moments later, clutching her photo album. As she felt the mall’s linoleum floor under her feet, she took note of a distinctive sound thrumming the air. It sounded like a screaming girl’s voice, but she didn’t know why the mall would be…
Oh, Trixie was freaking out. The magician was sprawled out on the floor, her cards still landing about her, tossed as they were in her initial panic from watching her childhood friend explode in front of her.
“Trixie! TRIXIE!!!” Midnight leaned down and gave the blue magician girl a hard, open-palm slap across the face.
GAH! Midnight thought, internalizing her scream, the point was to hurt her…!
“Ow!” Trixie rubbed her sore cheek, her glare both angry and slightly embarrassed, “I’m sorry, but normally people don’t explode around me… usually…”
“Oh, shut up you whiner,” Midnight sighed, then held out the album to her, opened to a particular page, “Does this look familiar to you?”
The magician snatched the album away, miffed somewhat at Midnight’s mysterious magical, some would say miraculous immolation, and took a look. Her eyes narrowed at first, as she took in all the details of the picture she was shown, and then widened suddenly with realization.
“Hey, that’s me! That looks like… Moondancer’s fifth birthday party! I remember that!” Her eyes were actually sparkling as she looked at the picture.
Midnight really didn’t like what she was about to say. “Well… I don’t,” she grabbed one arm with the other and tried to avoid looking directly at Trixie, “And I’m, like, ninety-percent sure that Twilight doesn’t remember you from then either. Canterlot, maybe, but…”
Trixie frowned as she looked up at Midnight, “She… doesn’t?”
“No… sorry. Twilight’s always been bad at interpersonal stuff.”
“But,” Trixie stood up slowly, but never let go of the album, nor managed to drag her eyes away from it, “But back then… I thought we were…”
Oh, sweet Sun and Moon… it was like kicking a puppy. Sure, a somewhat annoying puppy that was so full of itself it was liable to declare itself master of all it perceived… but a puppy, nonetheless.
Midnight reached out one hand, and set it on the girl’s shoulder. “Um… Trixie?”
Trixie’s eyes were the most puppy-dog eyes Midnight had ever seen on someone that wasn’t her own dog. Spike couldn’t hold water compared to Trixie.
Midnight sighed, “You needed an assistant…?”
The hug was instant, and found Midnight’s cheek squished up against Trixie’s as the blue-magician grinned from ear to ear.
“This will be the best thing EVER!”
This was the worst thing EVER, Midnight thought glumly about twenty minutes later. She stood behind a cheap curtain set up outside of a pawnshop, and she was wearing the most… wretched outfit she’d ever had the misfortune of coming across. It was like an unholy fusion of leotard and skirt. All of the crassness, none of the elegance.
At least the color was nice. Sky blue had always been one of Midnight’s favorite colors.
“Alright!” Trixie Lulamoon threw one arm around Midnight, her ridiculous wizard cape flipping over their conjoined shoulder, “Just follow my lead, smile, remember what I told you about the box, and remember:
“The Show Must Go On!”
Midnight rolled her eyes at this. How did she get roped into this again? She watched Trixie stride up to the curtain, and prepare to draw it back. They could both hear muttering on the other side of the curtain, a crowd of people having gathered for a cheap magic show on the streets of Canterlot City.
And just as Trixie gripped the curtains, Midnight started to feel it. She began to remember just why Twilight never enjoyed the idea of joining the Rainbooms as anything but a backup singer…
Fear. Stage fright. It had always been Twilight’s heel, her weak spot. And… Midnight had forgotten it until this moment!? Oh, this was bad. This was very bad. She couldn’t do this. There was no way she…
The curtains flew apart.
“Ladies and Gentlemen!” Trixie struck a proud magician’s pose as she looked out over the… sizeable crowd that had gathered in front of Flim and Flam’s Emporium. “I’d like to welcome you all to the show! You will behold today the awesome power of the Great and Powerful Trixie!”
She stage-turned to wave a hand to Midnight, “And what is a Great and Powerful Magician without their Great and Powerful Assistant? Let me hear your appreciation for my lovely assistant, Miss Sparkle!”
There it was. Time for her legs to lock up. Time for her hands to sweat. Every silly public appearance and performance had taught Midnight that human eyes were the enemy. She just had to wait for her heart to begin pounding and…
It started pounding. But the shaking didn’t come. The sweat didn’t leak. Her legs…
Carried her towards the stage. All those eyes, all that light applause… it wasn’t terrifying at all! It was like fuel. It was… like magic.
The show went off without a hitch. Midnight, carried on a wave of audience-dispensed adrenaline, played the part of the magician’s assistant well. She distracted the audience from noticing Trixie’s… tricks, and she kept the stage clear and open for the primary performer.
And what a performer! Midnight idly wondered if she’d be half-as-enthralled with Trixie’s stagecraft if she’d known the girl outside of today. Did Twilight consider them friends? Did she even respect Trixie?
Midnight decided she should. Trixie may have a personality like a cheese-grater, but Midnight had grown perceptive in her year-long exile into her own subconscious. All she’d had for a year were memories of conversations and people to analyze, like an endless stream of boring movies she’d seen over and over again. She’d gotten good at seeing past the surface of people. The surface was where the boring parts of people were. And Trixie… may not be the sharpest tool or the kindest or the most dependable. But she had a real talent for this.
And the crowd? They ate this stuff up! Midnight could have been… generous in saying that people loved a good show. She almost wouldn’t doubt it with the way Trixie carried on, one minute throwing all her energy behind an acrobatic twirl, and in the next dropping a clever joke or pun or even full-blown speech like she was the Bard incarnate. But, in truth, Midnight suspected that people just liked being fooled.
After completing the sawing trick, Midnight knew the grand finale was up. And while she deftly maneuvered the box and its frightfully fake limbs out of sight, Trixie took back center stage like she was a Princess returning to her kingdom.
“The Great and Powerful Trrrrixie,” she did, indeed, say it that way, “would like to thank you all for attending today’s performance. And, as you’ve been such a gracious audience, Trixie would like to grace you all with one final performance!
“For her last trick, Trixie would like to…”
Here, she pulled off her peaked wizard cap and, drawing out her audience’s expectations like a pro, turned it over, “… pull a rabbit out of her hat!”
The crowd chuckled at Trixie’ exaggerated antics, appreciating her skill as well as her impassioned showmanship. She pantomimed a great and furious struggle, with her arm at times appearing to vanish entirely down into her hat as she pretended to fight with the rabbit she claimed to be conjuring.
The audience laughed. Midnight, hiding just behind the curtain, joined in with them. She wondered again if she’d find Trixie’s antics as amusing if she were still wholly Twilight… before deciding that, for once, she didn’t care.
Then, with a magnificent flourish, Trixie brought the act to its conclusion. She heaved her hand back out of the hat… revealing the delightful flare of a firework as it roared up and out of her hat to the applause of her audience.
Applause, that suddenly turned to silence as the little rocket curved awkwardly in the air and slammed into Flim and Flam’s sign.
And then it exploded.
The whole front of the store burst into flames, and the sign seemed to instantly unmoor itself from the building with a heinous creak of wood and the pop-pop-pop of cheap fasteners and nails snapping in two. The last thing the panicky, screaming audience saw… was the huge metal sign crashing directly atop the teenaged performer.
Trixie vanished with a flash of fire.
Instantly, Flim and Flam were out of their store, blasting the wreck with fire extinguishers… that were far past expiration and merely sputtering, and phones were out and in hands all throughout the crowd. Some were snapping pictures. Some were notifying authorities.
Through it all… not a word was spoken. How could this happen? Everyone had been enjoying themselves. Now, the people were horror-struck…
Until a single voice cut through the silence.
“Ta-da!”
All eyes swung up to the roof, where a blessedly familiar blue magician stood triumphant, hands held high, smile beaming with the thunderous cheers of the crowd, Flim and Flam amongst them, now worrying only about their sign, instead of a crippling lawsuit.
And not a single person seemed to notice that Miss Sparkle and Trixie, the Great and Powerful, were both heaving great big sighs, expertly hidden beneath the calm exterior of professional showmanship. They failed to notice the slightly blue tinge to the flames which appeared to engulf the performer just before the sign fully collapsed on top of her.
They also failed to notice just how tightly the magician and her assistant hugged one another during their bow together before the applauding audience.
It was edging near four in the afternoon when Twilight finally sent her sister an all-clear text, alerting her to head straight over to Carousel Boutique for her fitting with Rarity. That text had come right in the middle of Trixie and Midnight’s show, which perfectly explained why Midnight and Trixie were, around half-past four in the afternoon, sprinting towards the Canterlot Mall still in their magician outfits.
“You sure…” Trixie sucked down air, “… it’s okay… for me to… come along…?”
“You’re my… friend… right?” Midnight called back to the magician.
Trixie smiled… then frowned. “Why didn’t… you teleport… us?”
The two girls slowed their pace, down from a sprint to a run, and from a run to a jog. After a few extra yards they came to a staggering stop, each with hands on knees, panting at the effort they’d just put in.
“One,” Midnight said slowly as her breath returned, “I might have panicked and forgot.”
“Now that sounds like the Sparkle I remember,” Trixie half-laughed, half-gasped. When she saw the irked look on Midnight’s face, she added, with almost childlike glee, “Bestie?”
Midnight snorted, smiling, and said, “Two, we’re already here.” She pointed one hand to the store just ahead of them.
The small, purple fashion shop stood in between two drab sets of other businesses, just around the corner from the Canterlot Mall. Its bright purple walls and colorful displays marked it as chic, unique, and magnifique, as Rarity was often wont to proclaim of her employer’s most fabulous of stores.
The two girls spent another minute catching their breaths. Each knew how important presentation was to a performer. Showing weakness, even athletic weakness, was death to them. The fact that both noted this, and giggled when they saw the other also clearly attempting to control the rhythm of their breaths, sort of confirmed their odd little friendship.
Midnight entered first, the ringing doorbell announcing her appearance.
Twilight, standing nearest the door, turned at the sound and said, “Midnight! It’s about ti… what the heck happened to you!?”
Trixie, entering after Midnight, sourly sighed, “Hello to you too, Twilight.”
“Oh? Trixie? How…? Why are you here?” the bespectacled twin glanced back and forth between her sister and the magician.
Midnight pulled at the sky-blue skirt she still wore, and grinned, “After lunch, I decided to help my Bestie with her performance. Gotta say,” she threw a half-hug around Trixie’s shoulders, “I could get used to doing that!”
Seeing the mild concern in Twilight’s eyes… Trixie fully approved of Midnight’s goading. “Oh yes! Our Great and POWERFUL performance will not soon be forgotten by any who witnessed it. I couldn’t have done it without you, Bestie!”
Twilight cast another glance between the two. “Are… are you two pranking me?”
“Nope,” Midnight let her arm fall, “I just wanted to show off my new friend.”
Twilight’s eyes… sparkled. “Friend? You made a friend!?” She threw herself at Midnight, and wrapped her twin up in a tight hug around her neck.
“I’m so proud of you! Even if it is Trixie…”
“Hey!”
Trixie’s ire was mollified as Twilight reached out one arm to grab at the magician and pull her into the Sparkle hug.
In the midst of their giggling, however, Midnight had begun to make an observation.
The main room of the boutique was completely filled. By everyone. Yes, everyone. Applejack and Rainbow Dash were hauling boxes filled to burst with cloth and needles from the main room into storage, though not without sparing a glance towards the strange reception going on at the door. Pinkie Pie was sitting with Fluttershy and the bizarre-yet-human Disqord along the low stage at the far end of the room, caught in the middle of an animated discussion.
And Sunset Shimmer walked over towards Midnight from the backroom’s door.
“Took you long enough,” the red-and-gold headed former bad-girl smirked, “I know Twilight hates this sort of thing, but I’d thought you’d love to show off a little.”
Okay Midnight, keep it together. Like you practiced. Pretend she’s just a friend. She’s just a friend that you didn’t curse, and whose personal core values you didn’t violate in the worst way possible only yesterday when you potentially made her into an immortal goddess of magic that will outlive all she loves and cares for.
“Hi Sunset!” Midnight said too loudly, and with too much of a grin.
Self-banishment to the moon looking good right about now, she thought. Midnight immediately cringed at the sound of her own voice.
Sunset raised a confused eyebrow. Then, she walked up to Midnight, and planted one hand on her shoulder.
“Don’t be nervous,” she said, quietly, “We’ve all made mistakes here. The girls forgave you once, technically. And we’ll do it again.”
Midnight blinked. She really didn’t know what to say. That hadn’t cut to the core of what was currently bothering her, not even close. But it still felt…
She turned her head, and took in the room again, stopping at each of the girls. Rainbow Dash gave her an enthusiastic thumbs-up. Fluttershy, even with her special someone swooning besides her, had only a gentle smile for Midnight. Pinkie and AJ smiled and waved. And her sister and Trixie just stood at her side, arms and hands holding her in friendly embrace.
No one was crying. No one was screaming. There wasn’t a fire anywhere, nor a scowl, nor any hard feelings or sorrow.
The whole room felt like it was a filling balloon of… good feelings. Of friendship.
And that balloon proved flammable indeed as the Zeppelin of Friendship crashed straight into the powerlines of Rarity’s fashion sense.
“Good HEAVENS darling what are you wearing!?”
Minutes later, and Midnight found herself alone in the backroom with Rarity, a whole set of racks along one wall showing off the fruits of Rarity’s labor, assembled outfits and ensembles awaiting final approval.
Midnight herself stood with Rarity before a set of tall mirrors set to show every side of Midnight at once, watching as Rarity made final adjustments to her measurements and began rushing to and fro to grab this and that garment.
And the whole time, Midnight felt her cheeks flush hot and red. Standing in front of a crowd in that magician’s outfit had been one thing. Standing here, in only her undergarments, in front of one of her friends… was a bit much.
Rarity, looking up at one point from her own spectacles, noticed. “Oh, my dear, Midnight. Do try and relax! There’s no need to be embarrassed.”
“Easy enough for you to say,” Midnight grumbled, “You’re not half-naked.”
The fashionista tittered. “Well, perhaps. But in any case, you really should relax,” she began rifling through one rack, “There’s really nothing to be embarrassed about. You’re gorgeous, darling.”
Rarity’s eyes flashed, and she darted back to Midnight with a pair of dark-purple jean-pants, “Try these on! They should fit marvelously!”
Midnight eyed the garment, but only for a moment. She didn’t want to catch a cold, after all.
“These… seem different,” she said as she slipped the pants on, “I usually wear skirts for a reason.”
Rarity, now checking her assortment of blouses, shook her head and murmured a negative, “No, you don't. Twilight always wears skirts, outside of that Ghastly thing with the circuitry-pattern. You’ve not had the chance to decide for yourself, and if you were going for an anti-Twilight look… pants would fit the ticket.”
“Um, I think I have enough memories left to know I used to wear skirts,” Midnight snarked, finally comfortable enough with something covered to stand up for herself again.
“Do you now?” Rarity half-turned, one brilliantly crystal-blue eye gazing upon her client with the precision of a surgeon. Midnight reflexively straightened under that gaze.
Rarity returned with a sky-blue blouse, and a jacket. The jacket was the same shade of purple as the pants, and even seemed to be the same denim material.
“Rarity?” Midnight questioned as she took both clothing items in hand.
“Darling,” her voice seemed to click with the sheer poise in her tone, “Now, I want you to be honest with me about something. And I do mean, honest.”
Midnight threw the blouse over herself quickly, then returned a nod.
“Did you ever feel… uncomfortable today?” Rarity’s eyes honed in on Midnight’s like a bird of prey catching sight of a meal, “Your… blouses not sitting right? Skirts not sitting properly?”
Eyes wide, Midnight asked, slowly, “H-how did you know?”
Rarity smirked, but said nothing. She instead grabbed the dark jacket and began to help Midnight put it on.
And once it was on… Midnight almost couldn’t believe what she saw. It would be fair to say her folks would have called someone else wearing this particular ensemble a ‘hooligan’. As Twilight, she might have called someone else that. But, as she took in her own form, she couldn’t help but slowly turn. First this way, and then that. She shifted her weight, popped her hips out one way, then another.
She… she looked good.
“This is weird,” Midnight managed after an extended silence, “It looks more like something the Dazzlings would wear…”
“Naturally, my dear,” Rarity beamed, holding up a pair of scissors in one hand, and a pair of boots in the other. “You’re not Twilight, so the same clothes won’t work for you anymore. But you and the Dazzlings… and I mean this with the very best of intentions, darling… share a similar sort of energy.”
Midnight pulled on the boots, and made sure to tuck them underneath her pant-legs. When she turned back to look at Rarity, she gave the fashionista a look she hoped would encourage her friend to continue.
Rarity took the hint. “The Dazzlings… Sonata, Aria, and Adagio, all share this sort of, je ne sais quoi. A sort of aggressive allure. They feel dangerous…”
She leaned in close, very close to Midnight’s face, the blade of a scissor drifting mere inches between them. “Dangerous, yet alluring…” Rarity sighed… and then cut a loose strand from Midnight’s jacket-collar.
The fashionista pulled away, leaving Midnight flustered.
“What… what does that have to do with my clothes not fitting? I thought Twilight had just pulled a prank…?”
“Nonsense!” Rarity fetched a bright-yellow belt, “Your clothes don’t fit anymore because I made them for Twilight’s exact measurements. And while you two are nearly identical…”
Nearly?
“… you hold yourself in a completely different way,” Rarity smiled. “It’s like… you have a confidence… and an energy that Twilight, as much as I love her, never had. She’s withdrawn. You, at least judging by what Trixie and you were doing earlier, thrive in conflict! Excitement! ART!”
The first ensemble complete, Rarity spun the completed girl about to show her the whole look together. “You want to be… Powerful. Desirable. And I can tell that just by looking at you.”
Midnight was practically transformed, just looking at herself in the mirror. There was no nerd-girl here. No mere tulpa. This was a girl who knew what she wanted. This was someone powerful, someone beautiful.
Even accounting for the studs and bits of metal stuck to the denim.
“So…” she said, slowly, “You think I’m a punk?”
“Punk is in, these days,” Rarity grinned, “And I’ve picked out a whole suite of outfits for you! Just enough to get you started. I would recommend looking into brighter colors than before, to compliment your darker complexion.”
“That’s…” Midnight couldn’t take her eyes off of Rarity. This wasn’t just generous; it was insanely generous. The phone was probably the most expensive single thing she’d ever been gifted, but the wealth of all this clothing…
“It’s too much, Rarity,” Midnight sighed, “I can’t ask you to…”
“Tut, tut!” was the sudden reply, “Trying to get out of my generosity is a terrible faux pas! I would never allow it.”
But there was a gleam in Rarity’s eye, “Besides, you will be repaying me, in a sense.”
That wasn’t comforting. But… “What is it?”
“Twilight would never… never let me do this,” Rarity’s eyes sparkled, dangerously, “But I plan to one day be the greatest fashionista in the country, perhaps even the world! And to do that… I need models.”
Oh… no…
“Today?”
“Just for our friends,” she said, the smile fading with her hopes. “I just wanted to see that confidence. That… je ne sais quoi for myself…”
Midnight spun around to face Rarity eye-to-eye, “Done.”
Rarity was, finally, speechless. “Are…?”
But Midnight would not be questioned, “Yes, I’m sure. You’ve been so generous, it’s the least I could… no…”
An idea came to her. It wouldn’t be hard. She’d… sort of done this once before…
“Hold still,” Midnight commanded, and swiftly brought one hand up to Rarity’s neck. The girl ‘eeped’ and nearly slapped aside the hand… but Rarity was an excellent judge of things. At least, she knew she was.
Rarity had decided to trust. A light flicker of magical flame jumped from Midnight’s hand to the geode pendant at Rarity’s throat, shifting color as it leapt from one to the other. And as the purple flame vanished, something changed.
A flash of inspiration. That’s what it felt like! That blinding burst of creative energy when one went from thinking about an idea, to having an idea! And Rarity just had one…
She blinked. She blinked several times. And when that stopped helping, Rarity rubbed her eyes and stared at Midnight again.
“… What was that?”
Midnight smiled, “Test it.”
“But… I don’t know how to do something like that!”
“Yes, you do.”
Rarity paused. Then, she took a few steps back. A light strain seemed to overcome her features, and as Midnight watched, magic began to flow. Rarity drew it up in her familiar way, forming a magical shield in the shape of a gemstone.
But she did not stop there. Rarity focused, and caused the shield to shrink down until it was the size of her hand… and then flashed with purple light.
She held up the result, a small, floating mirror.
“My word…” she stared at the crystal-clear image, “It’s so small, but I feel like I’m looking at a full-length mirror!”
“You are,” Midnight laughed, “The spell shrinks one end of the mirror without changing what it’s reflecting. You… basically have a portable magic mirror now.”
Rarity tore her gaze away from herself, and gave a gracious look to Midnight, “Darling… it’s wonderful. How did you…?”
Midnight shrugged, “Twilight and I were going to surprise you for Hearth’s Warming,” which was half-true, “But I had to do something for all this.”
That appraising eye returned, taking in Midnight with clarity.
“I think…” Rarity smiled, “You’re going to do well with us, my dear…”
The afternoon would prove celebratory in the Carousel Boutique. Under the guise of ‘moving inventory’, the Rainbooms had closed the shop early and allowed themselves a little space to give Midnight a full and hospitable ‘Welcome’. What they expected, however, was far from what they got.
AJ and Dash expected Twilight 2.0, a shy nerd-girl egghead who would try her darndest to stay off the impromptu stage they’d thrown together, and try to escape total and complete embarrassment by any means. Trixie seemed to join that camp… at first.
Pinkie and Disqord each expected Midnight to freak out over something and burn… well, the whole world down. Fluttershy shushed them both, and insisted that Midnight would be fine. Though, she still had her camping blanket ready… just in case something caused a fire she might have to put out quickly…
Sunset said nothing. Even Twilight had noticed the way Sunset… didn’t quite know how to act around Midnight, mirroring her sister’s exact feeling towards Sunset. That brief interaction before was about as much as Sunset was seemingly willing to commit to tonight.
Twilight didn’t know what to expect. But what she absolutely did not expect, was to watch her veritable doppelganger strut confidently out of that backroom, accompanied by Rarity’s beaming grin and a throbbing fashion musical track through the store’s speakers.
Midnight strode out onto their little fixed-up stage… and dominated it. Every step she took drove home the simple, powerful fact that she was Midnight Sparkle, and everyone here would know and accept that.
Dash, AJ, and Trixie whooped and hollered as she came out, sheer surprise turning them instantly from doubters to full-throated fans in an instant. Fluttershy seemed enthralled by the initial, punk-chic Rarity had pulled together, and would, as the show went on, seem to make mental notes for her own wardrobe. Disqord appeared slightly put out that this would appear to be yet another happy ending, but chose not to rain on Fluttershy’s good mood. Sunset laughed, and smiled right along with her friends, her own doubts and fears vanishing instantly, at least on the surface.
Pinkie was just happy that everyone else looked happy, and cheered on Midnight with laughter and confetti.
But Twilight… could only stare. Her sister seemed to just feast on the attention. She became the center of everyone’s focus for the evening, even Trixie, who Twilight always thought of as an attention black-hole.
It was the first time that Twilight fully realized that, for all their similarities, she and Midnight were… different. And that was good! It was good for them to be different, and to live their own lives and to be their own people.
But as she watched Midnight strut about triumphantly, confidently… Twilight couldn’t help but wonder… if she still had all those qualities she now saw reflected in her sister. And that… brought up one, final terror. A thought both sisters had been thinking since that morning, but that neither were quite yet willing to tackle alone.
If Twilight Sparkle’s memories, talents, and very personality had been split into two separate, individual people… did that mean that, for this Twilight and Midnight to live…
… did the original Twilight Sparkle die?
And now you're imagining what happens when you use a Star Trek teleporter... 
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Clearly you are not watching enough Isaac Arthur. He can tell you exactly what happens when you use one of those.
This was great.
Nothing else to add.
A kitten, then.
"In her defense, that's her work uniform."
"Yes, and the fact that she never burned that place to the ground only shows the depths of her restraint, especially given your skill with flames."
"It's part of the Canterlot Mall."
"Your point?"
Overall, a very good day for Midnight... though the implications still lurk in the background. Disqord may have dismissed this one too readily. There's a lot left to deal with.
9946870
Maybe I should get you to write my jokes...
This was a great chapter! I was going to list off some stuff I liked, but then I realized I would just be summarizing the entire chapter.
I will say though that the part with Spike and Midnight was interesting. Just seeing how he figured out that Twilight and Midnight are two halves of the same person he used to know. If that makes sense. 
9947147
Spike lives a hard life.
Honey I shrunk the kids reference?
Midnight making friends and finding her groove
Two more instances of the Mysterious Night Life replacing Night Light XD
"It's Just A Show, I Should Really Just Relax"
10233548
They're ponies!!!!
That sure was 1 heck of a chapter with info I just learned
TRRRRRIXXXXIIIEEEE
And now you're imagining what happens when you use a Star Trek teleporterOh, I'm not the only one who has thought about that question. It's been bugging me a bit, for years
This is fantastic! I like Midnight building her own identity.
Why? I think she would be happy.