Caverns & Cutie Marks: Our House Now

by TheColtTrio

Chapter 46: Evil League of Evil Reunion Tour

Three stallions sat around the deactivated map in the middle of Twilight Sparkle’s castle. Each one had taken a seat as far away from the other two as possible, and the tension was thick enough in the air that one could cut it with a particularly sharp metaphor.

Wits End drummed his forehooves on the edge of the map table, and coughed loudly and obviously. “So,” he said, “it’s been a while, huh?”

“For sure,” admitted Purple Heart, eyes firmly fixed on his crossed hooves.

“About a week at least,” Light Patch shrugged.

Somewhere, a tumbleweed rolled through an empty desert. Meanwhile, in the map room, there were a good dozen beats before the silence was broken again. “So how’s you guy’s days been?” Wits asked.

“Coulda been better,” Purple Heart grumbled mulishly. “Got hit by a kinetic strike on my way to stomp some alicorns coming back through the portal.”

“The train got into Ponyville at like 2AM. Rainbow basically airdropped me through a window, and all I got was this dumb shirt,” Light Patch sighed.

“Better than the jewellry,” Purple noted, gesturing with his cuffed hoof at Wits’ head. “I’m grateful Twilight learned something from our... chat, but that thing is definitely just for laughs.”

“The tiara brings out my eyes, you berk,” Wits mumbled.

“You did not get the worst,” the pegasus replied, standing on his hind hooves to highlight the phrase on his shirt: ‘If found, please return to Twilight’s castle.’

Wits scritched at the point where his circlet met his horn. “How does that even work, anyway?” he asked. “Like, the headwear I understand. The cuffs are a little confusing, but they’re symbolic so I get it. But… how does a shirt keep you from bwiping around like a TF2 player on wi-fi?” Light Patch sighed and banged his forehead against the table.

The pegasus started to explain. “It’s apparently not relevant to the plot for me to-”

“You’re muted, buddy,” the Purple Earth Pony interrupted, causing the grey pegasus to sigh again and shift how his head was resting on the table.

“It’s not plot relevant fo-”

“Could you move your mouth a little closer to the microphone?” Wits asked, cupping a hoof around one ear.

“I can’t warp away because it’s not plot relevant for me to do so,” Light Patch groused. “And because it’d be funny if I warped away, because the shirt guarantees I’d end up in, like, a Royal Guard barracks or Sweet Apple Acres or someplace, I’m not giving Twilight the satisfaction of more ponies seeing this dumb shirt.” He paused. “Also my powers are borked and I’m not interested in seeing what life might be like if I was turned inside out.”

The two other colts at the table blinked. “Huh,” grunted Purple Heart. “Fair enough. As for these-” he wiggled a cuffed hoof over the table, “-less symbolic and more practical. This time, they actually do something.”

“Huh.” Wits leaned back in his seat. “That makes this the first time we’ve all been normal since before the High School Never Ends dimension.” He paused. “Aside from the whole ‘being cartoon horses’ thing, that is.” With a shrug, he sat up straight again. “So, Order of the Spinach Puffs reunion meeting? A sharing of the grand plans? What with the jig being up and all.”

Purple Heart cocked his head to one side, brow furrowed. “Y’know what? Why not?” he decided. “Twilight may be dropping eaves, but I could honestly care less at this point.” He settled more comfortably into his seat, a vast difference from his stilted posture just minutes prior. “Hello, my name is Purple Heart.”

“Hello, Purple Heart,” chorused Wits and Light.

“I managed to successfully get Discord out of our hair and somehow wrangled my way into running a government. I am distinctly reminded now why I disliked Four-exe strategy games: too much to actively keep track of and control.” He looked at his fellow colts, his eyes prompting.

“If only it worked like in Age of Empires, huh?” Wits said. He turned to Light Patch. “What about you? What the heck were you doing up in the north anyway? Fighting snow zombies?”

“Looking for the power source I’d use to punch a hole or two between realities,” Light Patch admitted, tapping his fore hooves together nervously.

“And just what were those holes for?” Purple Heart asked.

“Initially? For letting us go home.”

“And?” Purple Heart prompted.

“Come back when we wanted to meet with our various friends around here.”

“And what about after the ‘initially’ phase?” Wits End asked, feeling quite rightly that there was still more to tell.

“Well, remember all of those memes about Avengers: Endgame being the most ambitious crossover ever?”

“What about them?” Wits End asked, narrowing as a single eyebrow as Purple Heart’s lifted.

“What would you say if I was possibly planning to accidentally top it by infinity-plus-one?”

“I’m pretty sure at that point it’s just Kingdom Hearts,” Wits muttered. “To answer your question, I’d say ‘no, don’t do that.’”

“Well, to try and be a little fair, it’s more of a potential calculated result of just trying to fold just three or four universes together,” Light Patch offered up with an apologetic smile.

Purple Heart just stared blankly. “Ahuh...” he mumbled. “And the bandits? Your method of distracting the Crystal Empire and Equestria?”

“Oh no, that was just trying to turn a spot of bad luck with them being near the artifact into a chance at a little revenge for them having beat me up earlier,” the pegasus replied with a simple shrug.

Wits blinked. “So you were trying to cause the end of the worlds as we know it, AND you accidentally started a civil war amongst the riff-raff?” He whistled. “I should’ve stepped up my game earlier.”

“Your game being to support a claimant from a far off land?” Purple Heart asked. “Kings Crusading much?”

“Oh, no no no. That was me turning up my game.” Wits smiled smugly. “In fact, out of the three of us, I’m the only one who actually accomplished the goal he had from the beginning.”

Purple Heart raised an eyebrow. “And what was that?”

“If I hear the words ‘Thanatos Gambit’,” Light Patch groaned, “I’m opening a portal to the Gargoyles universe.”

Wits puffed out his chest with pride. “My master plan,” he said, “was to lose.”

There was silence for a beat. “If that was your plan,” Purple Heart said, “you somehow, miraculously managed to avoid it for as long as possible.”

“I tried really hard!” Wits whined, all pretence of pride lost. “I kept trying the whole time, but it just didn’t stick!” His forehead hit the table with a dull thud. “Why do I fix everything I touch?” he mumbled.

“Haven’t the foggiest,” Purple Heart said drolly. “Of the three of us, you’re the one least likely to be chaotically destructive. I think that title is split between Light and myself. You’re destructive, I’ll admit, but more intellectually. Make messes based on dominos and rarely on string theory.”

“I blame Patchy,” Wits sighed. “His powers probably made it so everything happened in the worst possible way for me, which happened to be the best possible way.” He stopped, then slowly turned towards Light Patch. “Wait… That whole Endgame scenario of yours. Was that why you were talking about the portal between dimensions way back then?”

“I don’t entirely remember that,” Light admitted, looking like he was trying hard to remember, “but I do remember studying the magic mirror portal and wondering about adapting that. But I also have a vague sense of frustration around trying to understand unicorn magic.”

“And then you replaced me with Moondancer?” Wits put a hoof over his heart. “My feelings. Why did you need me for that anyway? Don’t you have the magic of two Chaos gods or something?” Light Patch stared deadpan at Wits End for a couple of moments.

“Wits,” the pegasus replied, “try placing a hoof directly on the center of your forehead.”

Wits frowned, but still raised his hoof. He winced as his horn pricked the underside of his hoof. “Ah,” he said. “I see.”

A chuckle rumbled in Purple Heart’s chest. “Point.” He blinked once then chuckled again. “Heh. Point.”

Wits leveled his hoof at the Earth Pony. “Don’t you dare say ‘we should fence.’”

Purple rolled his eyes. “It’s been so long, I’m not sure I remember how to fence.”

“Maybe we should find a VR game about fencing,” Light thought aloud.

Before Wits could make good on any implied threats, the door to the map room opened. “Ah, good,” Twilight said, closing the door behind her. “I was half wondering if you guys would find a way to break out.” She took a seat at her throne, and steepled her forehooves in front of her. “So, what kind of day has it been?”

“What is this,” Wits asked, “an Aaron Soarin production? Just cast the spell so we can get this malarky over with.”

Purple Heart frowned, eyeing the two magic users warily. “Spell? What’s this about a spell?”

“It’s the reason my powers stopped working, and also why the Orb of Glacious is now the Hemispheres of Glacious.” Light Patch finished by crossing his hooves, “And it was tested on me, so someone else gets to go before me.”

“Let me explain.” Twilight paused, then shook her head. “No, it’ll take too long. Let me sum up. When I pulled you three out of Limbo, your villains got pulled through with you, and a bit of their essence got mixed up with your essences. This is the current theory for why you three took a hard left turn into villainhood.” She paused. “If anypony has any initial questions, I’ve allotted 10 minutes here for them.”

“I can think of a couple,” Light said aloud. “Why did those two lock onto a solid plan whereas I seemed to keep bouncing around? How do you take a glancing hit from a spell? And follow up to that, why did it only mess with my powers rather than strip them out of me entirely?”

Twilight thought for a moment. “In order: Because Just Duty isn’t much of a long-term plan kind of pony; Blame the Orb for trying to target every little bit of villain soul junk; and probably because it was funnier for your powers to start freaking out rather than continuing to be a pain in my flank. Next?”

“Are those serious answers or-”

“They’re as serious as you're getting. Next!”

“Was that wave of something that knocked Wits over during our fight you testing the spell?” Purple asked.

Twilight nodded. “Like I said, it tried to target every bit of Just Duty in this world. Turns out not all of him was in Light Patch.”

Wits made a noise like an elephant who’d just stepped on its trunk. “Stay strong,” he muttered. “Don’t make any obvious jokes.”

“I already know what the next question will be,” Twilight continued, ignoring the snickering unicorn, “so we can either dance around it for another five minutes, or we can move on.”

“Alright, I’ll bite. Where is the rest of the soul junk the spell was looking for?” Light asked.

“Oh good,” Twilight said, “I was worried we’d be asking questions about the lunch menu in a minute.” Her horn glowed, casting a spell on all four ponies in the room. After a moment, that light formed into four pie charts; one for each of them. “This,” she explained, “is a depiction of the ratio of magical signatures in each of our bodies. The largest section is your own, and the remainder is…”

“Not,” Wits filled in. “In case you were wondering, showering doesn’t work to get rid of the icky feeling.”

“Soooo… the ‘not’ part of the charts...” Purple Heart mused, eyeing the graphs. “I’m guessing that’s leftover villainous juice from the Limbo Tango?”

“Basically yes.” Twilight Replied

“Right,” Light Patch looked at his chart closely, “So why do I have two ‘not’ sections?”

“I suspect you have some of Paladin Just Duty, and some of Officer Just Duty, since aspects of both seemed to have been sucked into Limbo with you.” Twilight replied.

Wits pounded his hoof on the table, now almost doubled over in his seat. “Keep it together,” he wheezed. “Hold the line!”

Twilight turned glacially towards Wits. “Keep in mind that you have Holdfast inside you, Wits.”

All humor drained from Wits’ face, along with a good amount of life. “Thanks, Twilight. Really appreciate that.”

“Any time.” Twilight turned back to the other two ponies. “Any more questions on this? Some existential crises perhaps?”

“Certainly explains the strings and Wits’ heightened sense of mental chicanery,” Purple said out loud, though the words were mostly directed to himself. “How’d Light get bamfing and bwiping outta Just Duty?” He blinked and glanced up from the table to see the other ponies looking at him. “Oh. Said that out loud…”

“I’m not sure, entirely,” Twilight replied, tapping a hoof against her muzzle. “In essence, almost all of the magic is Discord’s in base nature, but neither you or Wits can access it in the same way he does.”

“I was the one that had to go into the pony-human world’s Pinkie’s mind. Maybe I didn’t have quite a clean break from that?” Light Patch guessed aloud.

“Or maybe it’s because you can’t really have a power based around swinging big hammers,” Wits said, “so you got a buffer overflow and glitched your way into another power set.”

“What do you think this is, Wits?” Twilight asked. “Some kind of video game?”

Wits stared back at her. “No, I think it’s a childrens’ cartoon.”

The two of them stared for a full second before Twilight turned away. “Fair enough.”

“All this aside,” Purple Heart interjected, “Why is it that while us three have two halves in our goodness/badness pies, you have quarters? Did you happen to skew the partitions wrong or mess up the toppings?”

Twilight glared at the purple earth pony. “I have a theory,” she snipped, “and I’m certain you have an inkling as well.”

“Bold of you to assume I pay attention to things all the time,” he replied.

Suppressing a groan, Twilight flicked a string out to swat Purple Heart’s nose. The construct existed for only a second, but the widening of the colts’ eyes told her they’d obviously seen it.

“Oh,” Purple hummed. “That.”

“Okay, I’m gonna go out on a limb and assume that isn’t just Gau’s monster mimic skill there,” Light replied. “So, you’re saying that the spell that Moondancer used on me was looking for you, because you got the extra soul gunk from pulling us out of the void.”

“Correct,” Twilight nodded, dragging her magic back to her and displaying the chart showing the ratio of magic signatures for herself. “The spell was looking for me.”

The three colts looked at the multiple segments breaking up Twilight’s Pie charts. “There are so many bad jokes I could go after with this.” Wits muttered.

“Unfortunately,” Twilight continued not giving Wits or any of the colts a chance to comment further, “even if the spell had found me I’m not sure it would have easily been able to separate out the Just Duty Magics from everything else.”

“I’m still not entirely sold on that part,” Wits mused. “I mean, aren’t the rules of magic pretty loose in this world? Who’s to say all those pieces of soul wouldn’t just come back together into Just Duty and Patchy?”

Twilight raised an eyebrow. “Do you wanna test that theory?”

“I mean, I wouldn’t test it personally.”

“Then why not let the Princesses of Friendship and Magic handle the Magic side of this problem, hmm?”

Wits slumped in his seat. “You were more fun when you didn’t have three colts’ worth of snark to pull from…” he grumbled.

“All the more reason to get this spell right,” Twilight continued. “Without precise calculations, we could be scattered into individual atoms or fused into a horrific amalgam, and that’d be the end of our adventures real quick, wouldn’t it?”

“Then why not get some more help on it?” Wits sat back up and looked around the table. “I mean, we all have one form of magic or another at this point, right? And since I doubt any of us wanna keep our significant enemy inside us any longer than necessary, I’m sure we’d be more than willing to help.” He paused. “Besides, I have a counter-coup to field against the invading army at your gates.”

Purple Heart snorted. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“With all due respect,” Twilight cut in once again, “none of you are exactly experts in your fields.”

Wits crossed his forelegs in front of him. “If by ‘expert’ you mean somepony who’s the best in their given talent, then I think we qualify by default.”

“Hear hear,” agreed Purple Heart.

“Personally, I feel I’m more Jack of All, Master of Some,” muttered Light.

Twilight arched an eyebrow at the three colts. “And what is it that each of you think you’re an expert at?”

Light, Purple, and Wits all shared a meaningful look. “Causing bedlam.”

A deadpan look smoothed Twilight’s face into a blank mask. “Nooooooooo,” she droned. “Really? Who’d have guessed?”

“You, really,” Purple Heart said. “Considering how long you’ve known us, I’m certain you knew we’d go a little berserk eventually.”

“A ‘little’?” Twilight arched an eyebrow.

“Okay, a lot,” Purple amended. “But still, you have us here, why not let us help?”

“We’re almost as good at bodging stuff back together as we are breaking it,” Light Patch added. “I know my way around a couple of power tools, Purple Heart could hammer nails in with a stare, and Wits could, uhm... hold towels?” The pegasus finished with a shrug.

Wits shot a glare at the pegasus. “I’ll have you know that holding towels is a very important part of the building proc-”

“Alright, fine!” Twilight’s exclamation cut through the skit-in-progress. “As much as I hate to admit it, you three are the closest things we have to experts on your specific magical styles and signatures.” She sighed, taking a moment to think. “If you promise—and I do mean promise and mean it—not to cause any chaos, shenanigans, or potential murders, then I’ll work with each of you to figure out how your magic can help make this spell work.” She held out one forehoof over the center of the map table. “Deal?”

Wits stood immediately, stretching to hoof-bump Twilight. “We have an accord.”

“Indeed,” agreed Purple Heart. “All aboard the Down Rank Train~!”

“Wait, is it a bit late to make a few additions? Because I have a fe-” Light Patch was cut off as his friends smacked him upside the head, “Okay, I’d be fine with cutting it down to just on-” He was cut off as Purple Heart placed a hoof over his mouth.

“He agrees with no additions or riders,” Wits End stated calmly, ignoring the work Purple Heart was having to put in to keep the struggling pegasus silent; at least until a grey wing smacked him in the face. “Light Patch, I swear. We are having a moment here. Stop running it!”

Twilight watched as it dissolved into a three-way match, a small smirk lighting up her face. “I kind of missed this.” Her smile lasted until a stray glass of water and hoof full of feathers impacted her face. “To think I almost missed this,” Twilight deadpanned, using her magic to start plucking the feathers away.

Comments

[Mix-up]

Yeah, the band is back together