Caverns & Cutie Marks: Our House Now

by TheColtTrio

Chapter 57: The Long Awaited Goodbyes.

Twilight’s face was a harsh scowl as she bashed out of the conference room and strode swiftly down the corridor back to the throne room. The door swung shut on abused hinges only to open as Sunset departed quickly after her friend. Once more the door swung closed and once more it opened. This time, Bael held the door open for Purple Heart and the pair slowly meandered their way after the two mares.

“I’m surprised you accepted Twilight’s proposal without much fuss,” the purple earth pony commented, glancing up at the bipedal being. “I would’ve pushed for a few more benefits and vacation days.”

“Unless, you’ve forgotten,” Bael chuckled, “Twilight hates you much more than she hates me. You pushing for anything close to the deal I got would be hard fought in the first place. Besides, I quite like the position I’ve landed for myself. Granted, it's a little restrictive in some cases, but the pros definitely outweigh the cons. I won’t have anyone bothering me unless they manage to find me.”

“Fair enough,” conceded Purple Heart.

“I am curious though,” Bael mused, “do you normally go out of your way to share your logical conclusions?”

Shaking his head as they turned a corner, Purple pulled up short, wincing under Twilight’s less than welcoming glare. Bael easily stopped, eyeing the purple colt expectantly.

“No.”

“Then why start now?” Twilight asked testily. She turned, coming abreast with Sunset. “Hurry up. I don’t want to keep all the Princesses waiting.”

Purple Heart and Bael wisely remained silent as they followed the two mares down the corridor and into the throne room. The four alicorn princesses were sitting around a table playing cards. Luna slid a few small confections into the center, prompting Penumbra and Sol Eater to flip their cards over. Celestia ruminated on her hand for a moment then slid a few cookies forward, looked up from her cards and smiled at Twilight..

“Ah, Twilight,” greeted Celestia. “I take it your conversation went well?”

Twilight ground her teeth loudly. “No. But we’ve reached an… agreement regarding Bael. He’s agreed to be on retainer as a mentor and trainer of future protectors of Equestria. In return, he will reside on the Spine Islands in the Celestial Sea.”

“What’s so special about the Spine Islands?” asked Sol Eater.

“In all Equestria’s history, no pony has ever conquered the Spine Islands,” Luna answered, showing her cards. Celestia pouted and flipped her hand over, leading Luna to rake in her winnings.

“Why?” Sol Eater asked.

“Dragons, probably. And they’ve got fire.”

“ANYWAY,” Twilight raised her voice, “Bael will be out of the way and occupied. Nothing from anyone else yet?”

“You’re the first to return,” Luna said, shuffling the cards to deal another round. “We sent your friends to get some refreshments.”

“What kind of refreshments?” Wits asked from the door.

Amber gave the stallion a royal shove out of the doorway. “Hopefully something strong.”

Wits straightened up just in time for Discord to bump him over. “I think it went well,” he purred. “No entities died, and we all grew as individuals.”

“I might die,” Wits said from his place on the floor.

“You’ll be fine.” Holdfast picked him up with magic and set him on his hooves. “Besides, if you do die, I’m sure somepony would be able to resurrect you.”

“I don’t want to experience being re-zero’d,” Wits muttered. “And I’m not sure how I feel about you being nice to me.”

Holdfast gave the stallion a shove. “Neither do I,” he said with a smile.

Wits shuddered. “Where’s Patchy and his harem?” he asked.

As if being summoned, the door opened and in strode the three errant Just Duty’s (Just’s Duty?), as well as Light Patch; all four taking measured steps. Holdfast turned to look at the three versions of Just Duty striding towards the table, before he cast a sharp eye towards Discord. “Did you happen to secretly make me drunk? Or are there three of them now?”

“Only one of them is technically my fault,” Discord replied with a shrug, before tilting his head to observe the four newcomers closer.

“Great,” Holdfast mused. “Just what we need: three older-than-dirt paladins.”

“Technically not a paladin.” Officer Duty replied as he took a seat.

Wits raised an eyebrow. “Did you four… have a good time?”

“About as good as a time you can have discussing the ghosts of the past, even if said past is barely a full moon ago,” Just Duty answered with a shrug.

“As well as whatever other conversations naturally come up when the drink loosens the tongue,” Paladin Just replied with a pleased looking smile. “A bit longer and we might have found the meaning of life, or something as equally deep and important.”

“It’s forty-two actually,” Light Patch cut in.

“What is?”

“The meaning of life; it’s forty-two,” Light Patch replied, plopping into his chair. “In any case, if there were any lingering bad feelings, I think we’ve sorted them out. Or at least found the path to travel to deal with them in due time.” The grey pegasus finished, earning nods from the three Just Duty’s present.

“It’s probably a little late to be asking,” Officer Duty asked, looking at the various royals and unsure exactly who’s castle he was in, “but are there going to be snacks provided during this meeting? Or should I have had lunch before?”

As if to answer the stallion's question, a side door of the throne room opened and was held by Rainbow Dash as Rarity, Fluttershy, Pinkie, and Applejack entered, laden with enough confections and snacks to reduce the value of all sweets at the poker table. Rainbow blinked at Twilight’s surly expression as the door swung closed behind her. “What’s up with you?”

“From the look of it,” Light guessed, “I’d say Purps used his Free Action on her.”

“Huh?”

“‘Piss off Twilight’.”

“Oh. Yeh, that makes sense.” Rainbow replied, dropping into her seat while Twilight grumbled under her breath and the fresh food was deposited across the table.

“Well then,” Celestia said, after everyone present had a chance to fill a plate or two, “now that we have all assembled and had a chance to deal with some lingering feelings, I think it’s time we discuss the major reason that my sister and I came to meet with Princess Amber.”

“Yes, I’m curious to hear what the four of you have been discussing in my absence,” Sol Eater said, pointedly looking between her sister, Amber, and the near doppelgangers to her and her sister.

Discord nodded from his place behind the assembly. “Even I’m curious, and it takes quite a lot for something to hook me. Not just any old worm on a hook will do! Oh no, it needs at least five of them in various mariachi clothes.”

“We find it amusing that simple speech was able to so effectively capture the interest of a being of chaos such as thee,” Penumbra said, a smirk on her face.

“Well, it’s not every day that-”.

“Get on with it!” the three colts shouted; or some variation of it.

Luna began. “Princess Amber and Princess Penumbra have agreed with my sister and I that, in order to promote peace and to keep further incidents from spiraling out of control as they just recently have-”

“We should merge this world with yours,” Princess Amber finished, looking at most of the ponies present, a smile growing as she saw the various reactions slowly growing on the faces present. Her eyes specifically drew towards Holdfast and Wits End; the former grumbled as he pulled out his coin pouch while the latter seemed struck dumb.

“A bet is a bet,” Holdfast said, holding a few coins out towards Wits End. “What they agreed on was more surprising than a simple peace treaty.” After a moment of no reaction, Holdfast lightly smacked the mint unicorn with the coinage.

“I mean, I was expecting to be surprised, but... not this much.” Wits finally mumbled, accepting the coins.

“Something wrong with your eyes, Discord?” Pinkie asked, looking at the draconequus who had one of his paws clamped firmly over his face and eyes.

“Yes, I was so surprised I was a little worried they were going to pop out.” Discord peeked out from under one paw. “And I feel like this moment deserves a little more decorum than me chasing them around the room while Twilight uses her magic to swat them like they were ping pong balls.”

“Things are rarely simple with the three of you involved, are they?” Just Duty asked, looking at Light Patch and only getting a halfhearted shrug in return.

“If things were easy,” Wits said, “we wouldn’t do it.”

“So how does this work?” Holdfast asked. “This… merging of worlds. Is it similar to the plot that Hydra was trying?”

Twilight shook her head. “Not quite. There’s an artifact in my world called the Crystal Mirror that allows ponies to move between Equestria and another world. Now ordinarily it would take decades of work to create such an artifact but…” She shot a look at Wits.

“But you had a master of the bodge to cheat it,” Wits finished. “You’ll want to figure out how to take Projekt out of it for the long term.”

Luna raised an eyebrow. “Projekt?”

“My pet Displacer Beast. She’s gonna need a break.” Wits paused. “Actually, I should take her back to her mother.”

“You should,” Fluttershy muttered.

“We can make that happen,” Twilight. “There’s other methods for trans-dimensional dislocation.”

“Yes,” Wits said, “but none as cute.”

Holdfast stroked his chin. “So it would be a simple doorway? That seems… too easy.”

“Three words,” Light replied, waving his fore hooves like a magician. “Multiple dimensions origami.”

“He’s not wrong,” Wits muttered.

“Here’s a dumb thought,” Purple Heart called from where he lay on the floor beside Bael. “Why not make the portal permanent?”

“...and how do you propose we sustain such a spell?” asked Sunset.

“Well, if the idea of sacrificing scores of unicorns a day to power it doesn’t appeal to you-”

“EXCUSE YOU?!”

“-why not wire it up to a volcano or some geothermal vent? Or install a metric buttload of windmills in the mountains?”

“...I cannot believe that I am even considering that...”

Purple Heart shrugged awkwardly. “If its stupid it but it works...”

“Its still stupid, but I’ll hate that it works,” retorted Twilight.

“You hate it when we suggest something that you didn’t think of,” Wits pointed out.

“I don’t usually think of stupid solutions to problems.”

“Yes, because that’s our job,” replied Light.

* * *

“Ah, I think I see what is wrong. Let me just...” Discord reached over and doodled a duck into the margins of the equation. In response, Twilight looked up and let out a scream of frustration.

“If you don’t stop messing with all of my equations, I will throw you out and figure all of this out myself!” She used her magic to snatch an eraser from under a stack of discarded parchment and moved to erase the duck, only for it to suddenly become a duck with a snap of one of Discord’s paws.

“Twilight my dear, I am at the most serious I have ever been.” Discord replied before tapping on Twilight’s horn. “If you forget to integrate the distracting force of a duck, this is going to cause a feedback loop and your little portals become the largest charged particle lasers the universes will ever see. Don’t forget, half of this portal is going to be in a world that is drenched in chaos magic, if it wasn’t even created by it.”

“What do you mean ‘wasn’t created by it’? I thought you created it for your little ‘game’?”

“So did I, but... Well, I’m never really sure if I’m actually making or replacing or swapping or summoning things most of the time.” Discord finished with a shrug, before doodling a chicken into the margins of one of the equations.

“Huh,” Twilight replied, a thoughtful look on her face as she mentally noted to look into the creation myths of this world later. She looked up at the chicken and sighed. “A chicken's gliding power is integral to making sure we don’t create a wind vortex that could shear away mountains?”

“Oh no, this is a trick I learned from a math professor. Doodling a chicken into the margins to peck away your worries. It helps Fluttershy a lot when we do our taxes.”

“Chaos math,” Twilight started, impressed she didn’t hesitate too much at that term, “isn’t something one should handle without an open mind, should they?”

“It’s generally not recommended,” Discord replied.

“Can you just…” Twilight wiggled her forehooves in a vague manner. “And then this all works out?”

Discord rolled his eyes. “Oh, sure. I could just snap my fingers and mash the two worlds together. But do you know what would happen next?”

“...Chaos?”

“Lots of chaos. That is kinda my whole deal.” Discord sighed, lounging back on a particularly comfortable space above Twilight’s head. “But if you want something more permanent and stable, you’re gonna have to do the heavy lifting.”

Twilight scribbled a few new notes. “Couldn’t we get some of the others to help with this? Like Wits or Light or… well, maybe not Purple, but you get the point.”

“Do you know what happens when you add more people into chaos math?”

“... More chaos?”

“I’d say it's exponential, but you know better than to expect logical progression in these sorts of things.”

“Fair enough, I guess,” Twilight sighed. “I don’t suppose you have any suggestions to help make this better?”

Discord tapped his chin with a claw. “What if we broke everything?”

“Discord, please.”

“No, I’m serious for once!” Discord repositioned himself so that his head was next to Twilight’s. “You see this set of equations here?”

“Yes?”

“Use this.” He handed her a hammer.

“You’re kidding me.”

“Give it a shot.”

Twilight stared at the hammer, then the paper, then Discord, then the paper. “Buck it.” She grabbed the hammer and smacked the paper where Discord had highlighted. “What was the purpose of that?”

Discord nodded, looking at the now crumbled page. “Yep, that looks about right. See how it’s folded and torn along here?’

“Yes, that happens when you hit paper with a ham-” Twilight took another look. “Wait, if you separate the equation like that, then…” She blinked. “And the fold here turned the 8 into a 0, which… How does this make so much more sense than before?”

Discord opened his mouth.

“I know,” Twilight interrupted. “Chaos math.”

“You know, I had a whole song prepared and everything.”

“I could tell.” Twilight transcribed the new set of equations, chicken and all, onto a fresh piece of paper.

“Humph, no one appreciates my musical artistry.” Discord shifted and looked at Twilight, “You know, you seem to be a bit of a natural at chaos math.”

“Every fiber of my being shudders at the thought,” Twilight replied offhoofedly as she continued to work.

“No really, I’m kind of impressed, I think the colts rubbed off on you in more than just expanding your depth of sarcasm.”

“If you think they’d be good at chaos math, then why didn’t you suggest we get them in here to help?”

“Oh, heavens no. Wits is a bit too much like you to probably fully accept he’s good at chaos math. It’s not quite logical enough, I’d guess, for him. Light Patch is probably a born natural at it and willing to go with it, but I suspect he’s also read about chaos theory. And you don’t want to mix chaos math and chaos theory. Even I’m not that crazy. And, well, you and Purple Heart in the same room seems like a source of chaos, not chaos math.”

“How about Spike?” Twilight asked, curiosity getting the better of her, as usual. “Or my other friends?”

“Spike could be good, but he’s still young and too caught up in trope theory. He’d get too caught up on trying to make it all fit some comic book trope.” Discord fell quiet as he considered the rest of Twilight's friends. “I’d say Pinkie would be a good fit, but frankly the idea of her harnessing chaos math scares even me. Applejack is right out, and the rest I don’t know.”

After a few seconds, Discord shook his head. “Well, none of that even gets into whether they SHOULD know chaos math. These are the sorts of things best left to semi-hemi-semi-demi-gods and up.”

“Good point.” Twilight set her paper down. “Fortunately, I think this will do it.”

Discord looked over the notes. “This is… surprisingly thorough for chaos math. How did you manage this?”

“Turns out I was able to learn something from Purple Heart,” Twilight said. “I emptied my mind.”

“Isn’t that kind of mean?”

“But isn’t that accurate for a barbarian?”

“I didn’t say it was inaccurate. Besides, I’m sure you meant it in a zen way.” Discord waited for Twilight to respond for a solid beat. “Twilight?”

Twilight stood up. “Let’s get this back to Amber so we can start getting ready, shall we?”

* * *

“Now, before I explain how this is all going to go down, I think we should address the elephant in the room,” Twilight said, eyeing the three colts at the other end of the table.

Purple Heart blinked, turning to share a confused look with Wits End and Light Patch. Light’s eyes narrowed as he squinted at the large purple earth pony.

“You smuggled one of the elephants in here, didn’t you?” he accused.

“No.”

“Darn. Worth a shot.”

“Forgive me,” Wits raised a hoof, ignoring the muttered ‘no’s from Sol Eater and Penumbra, “but would you be so kind as to explain what we’ve done BEFORE tearing us a new one, Twilight? Please?”

“What Twilight is trying, and failing, to say,” Discord interjected, “is that maybe we should discuss what to do with you three before casting the spell to merge the two worlds together.”

“Yes, and?” prompted Purple Heart.

“Scientifically, it would be prudent to send you three home first,” Twilight said, “then, we cast the spell so that there isn’t some astronomical off-chance of your respective magical signatures mucking about with the formula’s quadratic scripture.”

The colts blinked in unison.

“Hoodawhada?”

“Ow.”

“Is my brain leaking outta my ears?”

Twilight groaned. “It would be safer for you three if we sent you back to your own world before we try merging two separate dimensions! Understand?!”

“Why didn’t you say that in the first place?”

“No need to shout. We’re only at the other end of this long table.”

“Is my brain leaking outta my ears?”

A corona of purple magic formed around Twilight’s horn as she glared at the three colts. “ENOUGH. BACKTALK.”

Wits sniffed loudly. “That wasn’t backtalk.” He formed a pair of hands and grabbed Purple Heart, turning the large colt around so that he was facing away from Twilight. “This is backtalk.” He flexed the hands, which in turn flexed Purple’s back while the suspended colt spoke.

“Stay a while and listen to my backstory.”

Badum-tsh.

All eyes turned to Pinkie Pie. The pink mare was seated at a drumset, drumsticks held aloft as the high hat rattled to rest.

“What?” she asked. “It's a good joke.”

“Seriously though.” Wits dropped Purple Heart off to one side. “Do you really think it’d be safer to merge dimensions without the three of us here?”

“From what I heard,” Twilight said, “the last time you three dealt with interdimensional issues, you ended up stranded in the space between dimensions.”

Wits was silent for a moment. “Alright, good point. But then what? ‘Cause unless Discord decides to run Caverns & Cutie Marks Season 2, once we go back to our world, that’s the end. We can’t come back after that.”

“What, like…” Rainbow Dash drew her forehoof across her neck.

“No,” Wits said. “I mean like ‘leave and never darken my doorstep again’.”

The room fell silent for a moment. “Ah,” Rainbow Dash said. “That kind of ‘it’. You guys go home and...”

“And never return,” Wits finished. “Future storylines notwithstanding, of course.”

“Sooooo, how is this whole ‘sending us home’ thing gonna work?” Purple Heart asked. “Do we have to click our ruby slippers together and all that jazz? Or is it something more along the lines of boarding ships to take us to Valinor?”

“Well, I figured you three would wanna say your goodbyes first,” Discord said. “Leave on a nice, sad note instead of a sour, fast one.”

“I mean, unless any of you have a better idea, I say we make this as quick and painless as possible,” Wits suggested.

“Sounds plan-like,” commented Light.

“Works for me,” Applejack said. “How do we wanna do this then?”

The ponies all looked around at each other, not one of them having any idea where to go next.

“Well, don’t everyone get too excited,” Light grumbled. “Pinkie and Fluttershy with Wits, Rainbow and Twilight with Purps, Rarity and AJ with me. Speak now, or forever hold your peace.”

“Get the old teams back together?” Wits asked. “I won’t complain.”

Rarity raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean, old teams?”

“It’s the parties we had when we first got yoinked into Discord’s game.” Wits pointed around the room. “We’d be ending the way we started off. It’s like poetry. It rhymes.”

“Are you gonna send us back to where we started off too?” Rainbow Dash asked. “‘Cause from what I heard, Wits landed in a lake.”

“It was a creek!” Wits corrected.

“Ah wonder if that crater ya made is still there.” Applejack said, looking at the pegasus with a grin forming on her face at Light’s heavy sigh.

“I’d gather it probably is,” Rarity added, a smile playing on her face. “It was a rather impressive impact he made. And where he got his first self crit.”

“Oh excellent! Maybe I’ll get to see him finish that self crit punch card off finally,” Discord said, rubbing his mismatched hands together.

“I hate to burst your bubble, Discord,” Light added in, pulling out the punch card to show it off, “but I finished that last crisis.”

“Are you serious! I put in so much effort for that and I don’t even get to see the payoff.” Discord crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair, pouting.

“You dropped me into a battle with a tree and gave us a very simple puzzle,” Purple replied. “Clearly, you didn’t put as much effort into our first encounter.”

“Puh-lease.” Discord waved a paw dismissively. “I’d like to see how YOUR first dee-em foray went.”

“I can just tell you,” Purple Heart replied. “I couldn’t hit the pee-sees because SOMEONE-” he glared at Light, “-managed to get an armour class of TWENTY-ONE. And I rolled shite.”

“Hey, you let me start with the magical platemail,” Light Patch replied, “At least you didn’t have the party decide to go back and overthrow an arms dealer giant.”

Wits scoffed. “Excuse you, mister ‘what if we trip the zombie giant onto the broken mast 5 times’. Or should I bring up that time you lost a grapple to a cockroach?”

“The dice betrayed me,” Light Patch said, covering his face to hide his embarrassment as Discord and several others laughed, or at least chuckled. “A lot.”

“What about that time your rogue made two critical successes on the bandit boss through two different holes in a wall?” Purple Heart piped up. “Or that time you looked at a dead orc and said, ‘iza peeg’?” He turned to Discord. “Suffice to say, Dee-eming is a prestigious line of work, with a long and glorious tradition. People like Bronco Lee Mulegan and Matt Mercolt were new to it once and certainly had their difficulties. You just gotta get back up and keep going.”

Discord blinked several times with too many eyes at the purple earth pony. “So what you’re saying is you want another campaign?”

“NO!” The chorus of voices nearly blew Discord off his feet.

“It was just a simple question,” the draconequus muttered. “In any case, are you all ready to do the exact thing you promised you wouldn’t do?”

Twilight sighed. “And what might that be?”

Discord raised a claw. “Why, split the party, of course!” He snapped his fingers, and the 9 assembled ponies vanished into the air.

“Was that truly necessary?” Penumbra asked.

“I’m gonna be completely honest,” Discord said, “I forgot you were here.”

* * *

“GODDAMMIT!” swore Purple Heart as he appeared beside two dour looking mares. “Sonuva carping piss biscuit!”

Twilight muttered several choice words under her breath as she glanced around the rather pristine garden the trio of ponies now found themselves in.

“Of the three, I’m saddled with him again,” she growled. Rainbow arched an eyebrow at the princess, concern evident on her face.

“He musta really pissed you off earlier,” she commented.

“We talked about perspective again,” Purple griped. “Par for the course if you think about our history of disagreeing.”

“You’re boorish and frustrating most of the time,” Twilight retorted. “It's easy to disagree with you.”

“Point. But you gotta admit, I’ve given you some solid life lessons.”

The purple alicorn scoffed. “On what? How to ruin a nation?”

“Exactly. Now you know what not to do in the future.”

“...”

“You gotta admit, he’s got you there.”

“I don’t have to admit anything!”

“ANYWAYS! Since Discord is, for once, feeling like a sentimental old curmudgeon, why not get this over with so that we can get out of your mane?” Purple Heart suggested.

He inhaled deeply and looked at Twilight.

“Rainbow Dash,” he said, shifting his gaze to the cyan pegasus and expertly ignoring Twilight rolling her eyes. “One athlete to another.” He lifted a hoof. “It's been fun.”

Rainbow Dash snorted and tapped a hoof against his. “The beginning was. These past few months, less so.”

Purple Heart shrugged. “It's been a weird year.”

“It's only been a few months.”

Purple Heart blinked at Twilight. “Damn, I need a nap...” With a quick shake of his head, he squared up, looking directly at Twilight.

“Listen, you and I have not always seen eye to eye-”

“I doubt we ever will.”

“-but I’ll miss our talks.” Purple Heart gave a soft, sincere grin. “If, for some inexplicable reason, you find yourself on the other side of the mirror, don’t hesitate to look us up.”

Twilight shook her head and sighed. “You boys...”

His smile spread into a devilish grin. “Or run back screaming.”

She couldn’t help it. She laughed.

“You colts are some of the most frustrating beings I’ve ever had the misfortune of encountering,” she said mirthfully. “I’ve certainly learned a thing or two from you all. And despite our differing views, I might be able to find it within myself to miss you.”

The large purple earth pony snorted. “Don’t hurt yourself trying.” His wide grin and shimmering eyes belied his coarse words.

* * *

With a splash, Wits managed to keep from falling into the creek he’d landed in. “Well,” he said, “that could’ve gone worse.”

The stallion was soon forced underwater by the weight of two mares landing on his back. “Where’s Minty Fresh?” Pinkie Pie asked.

“I think I know,” Fluttershy muttered. She took to the air, hovering just above the water. “Sorry about that, Wits.”

A trail of bubbles broke the surface of the water. A moment later, Wits tossed the pink party pony off his back as he stood up.

“Whoops!” Pinkie giggled. “Sorry about that, Minty!”

In response, Wits spat a mouthful of water at the hyperactive baker. “Ain’t no thing,” he said. “I guess we should say our goodby-” He was cut off by Fluttershy’s forelegs wrapped around him.

“I’ll miss you.” Fluttershy’s voice was barely a whisper. “I-I mean, after everything all nine of us went through, I’m sure everypony will miss everypony. But I-I wanted to make sure you knew that I, specifically, would miss you, specifically. Is that weird? Oh no, I said that weirdly, didn’t I? Sorry!”

“Hey, hey.” Wits patted Fluttershy on the back. “I get it. I feel the same way. After everything we went through over… however many years it’s been now, I kinda thought we’d get a victory lap or something. I wasn’t expecting a pat on the back and a boot to the head.”

“Pretty sure your victory lap was nearly taking over Equestria,” Pinkie pointed out. “Not a whole lot of ponies who can say that!”

“It’s not my fault no-one took me seriously as a threat! If ya’ll had just taken me out when I was still playing around, I wouldn’t have-” Wits cut himself off. “Why are you laughing?”

Pinkie wiped a tear from her eye. “I missed listening to you rant, silly! It was nice to get one last one out of you.”

Wits smirked. “Yeah, I guess that was my defining character trait back then, huh? I’ve mellowed out in my old age.”

“Next time I see you, I’ll make you a cake you can gum without needing your dentures!”

“Sounds good. Wait.” Wits narrowed his eyes at the party pony. “Don’t you mean ‘if you see me again’?”

Pinkie leaned and elbow against Wits’s side. “Do you really think the authors will pass up the chance to pick this story up again in the future?”

“...Good point. They tried to stop, like, twice before. We’ll see how long it takes them to come back after this time.”

“Also, Fluttershy has been holding on to you this entire time.”

“Yeah, I know. Don’t ruin the mood.”

Fluttershy let go of the cyan unicorn. “If you do end up coming back,” she said, “make sure you come say hi, okay?”

“You’ll be the first one I talk to.” Wits smiled. “Pinkie, I seem to have a hug slot available. You want in?”

For a moment, Pinkie hesitated. “You usually complain about not being able to breathe when I do that,” she said suspiciously.

“Hey, it’s the last time I’m gonna get to experience a Pinkie Pie hug for a long time. Give me one for the road.”

“Are you sure?”

Wits rolled his eyes and sighed. He got up on his hindlegs, holding his forehooves out towards Pinkie. “Fine, I guess you are my little Pinkchamp. Come here.”

There was a splash as Pinkie pounced on the unicorn, followed by a sound like a squeaky toy in a hydraulic press. Fluttershy winced, even looking away when the squeaking left the audible range. “That one should last for a few years…”

* * *

Two of the three ponies managed to land gracefully. The third attempted to flare his wings, as he’d come out higher in the air than the other two. Rainbow might be impressed with his stance, Rarity thought, especially for a mostly self taught pegasus. The ‘being impressed’ would have ended, however, around the time Light Patch’s landing became a disaster. She winced as his forehooves clipped a grown over rim of a crater in the dirt.

“You seem to have had a chance to finally learn to use them wings some,” Applejack said as she peered over the crater’s rim and looked down at the pegasus sprawled in the bottom.

“I had some spare time to practice a little,” Light Patch replied from his prone position at the bottom of the crater. “A couple of the Tallon griffs showed me some flight tips.”

“Yes, though I might recommend looking to another pegasus for help with the landings.” Rarity paused for a moment. “Not Rainbow or Twilight however.”

The two mares continued to peer over the edge of the crater at the unmoving pegasus. “Are ya gonna get up,” Applejack asked, “or are we gonna have to carry you around again?”

“Actually, it’s fairly comfortable down here,” Light Patched responded. These wild flowers are fairly comfortable.”

The two mares looked at each other. Then, with a shrug, Rarity tipped herself over the edge of the crater and came to rest next to the pegasus, followed shortly by Applejack once she’d gotten over her shock.

“You're right darling,” Rarity said after she’d gotten herself settled into place. “These are fairly comfortable flowers.”

“It’s a ground cover weed,” Applejack added from her position at the bottom of the crater. “Short, but a lot of leaves and springy branches. We’re jus’ lucky that these guys aren’t seeding, or we’d be itching like we’d rolled in poison ivy.”

“Guess I should be lucky I didn’t crater them on my first arrival here,” Light Patch replied before going as quiet as the other two, memories flowing over the three of them as clouds with just the right shapes hinted at various points in their journeys.

“Is it just me, or does it feel fittin’ that Discord plopped us down here to say goodbye?” Applejack asked aloud.

“It does feel like it bookends things quite nicely,” Rarity replied, earning a noise of affirmation from the pegasus with them. They lapsed into silence again.

“None of us are very good at goodbyes, are we?” Light Patch finally asked, looking at the two mares.

“I’d like to think I know how to leave gracefully,” Rarity admitted. “But this... I don’t know. It feels different.”

“It feels more permanent than most goodbyes I’ve ever had to give,” Applejack added.

“There’s a way of saying good bye from another language I like to use,” Light Patch said. “‘Hasta La Vista’, which most use as ‘bye’. But I like the more literal translation. ‘Until the next viewing of each other’, or something along those lines.”

“Do you really think we’ll be seeing each other again?” Rarity asked, looking at the pegasus.

“I’d like to think so,” Light Patch admitted. “I’d hate to think we’ll never get to see each other again.”

“You’re not planning to try that universal origami stuff you was talking about, are ya?” Applejack asked. “Cuz Twilight might break your legs before you go if you are.”

Light Patch shook his head. “Hah, no. My world doesn’t have any magic, and our tech isn’t anywhere near that complicated.”

After a moment, Rarity spoke. “You don’t think Twilight is going to use her magic to drag any of you back just because she misses the lot of you, do you?”

“Nah.” Light Patch shrugged. “I was actually hoping Discord might be willing to help us stay in touch some.”

Applejack raised an eyebrow. “Yur planning to willingly talk to Discord and ask him to pass mail between us?”

“Actually, I was mostly thinking it’d be fun to play board games or something with him.” Light Patch paused. “And I can’t imagine what levels of awesome a round of Calvinball with Discord could achieve.”

“Honestly.” Rarity huffed, “Sometimes I’m not sure if you really are joking when you say you want to watch the world burn.” she said, earning only a shrug from the pegasus.

“Whut is Calvinball? I ain’t ever heard of that sport.” Applejack immediately regretted asking, as the pegasus off on the route of trying to explain a game whose rules are never supposed to be the same twice.

* * *

The stillness of the room was broken by small sparkles and twinkles of light starting to shimmer from the wall of mirror panels. The intensity picked up, and visible ripples of light began to race across the mirrors until, suddenly, a hole that looked like someone had spilled the insides of a kaleidoscope into a Stargate appeared.

It was about this time that a faint rushing noise was able to be heard. The hole in reality quickly opened wide, and dumped three humans onto the floor of the garage. They had departed what, for them, had been weeks, months or even years, but for the room had only been minutes.

The three sat up from the prone position they’d been dropped into, and looked around before one of them finally spoke. “Welp,” the bespectacled figure said, adjusting his glasses, “it looks like it worked.”

The shortest of the three groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. “That,” he muttered, “was unpleasant. I would’ve appreciated a warning before we got thrown through 27 dimensions of space and time.”

With a groan, the largest of the trio rolled to his feet and staggered for a step or two until he’d readjusted to balancing on only two legs. “Probably Discord’s last joke before we got too far out of his reach,” he grunted. “Then again, he did pull us from here all those years ago.” He blinked. “Has it been years?”

“I have no idea,” the figure with glasses said, walking over to one of the chairs to plop down into it and start rocking. “I barely kept track of the days in the game world, and large parts of our villain saga is hazy. Days and weeks bleed together.”

“It certainly took waaaaaay longer than I expected,” the shorter one said. “Then again, I think when this whole thing started I wasn’t expecting anything. But, between the High School Never Ends dimension and the Twilight’s House of Villains arc, I think I’m ready to spend some time outside, with people who aren’t pastel-colored horses. Feel the sun on my face, breath in the air, and just socialize like normal for a bit.” He paused. “Why do I feel like I just set off a Bad End flag?”

“I’m sure it's nothing too bad,” the big one replied. “Probably just the economy ganking itself again.” He felt an involuntary shiver run down his spine. Coughing to hide his discomfort, he looked down at where his fencing gear lay against a wall. “I unno about you two, but I don’t think we should fence.”

The bespectacled figure looked down at his own gear. “Yeah, it hasn’t really played out too well for us the last two times we tried.”

“Yeah, but what if we-” The short one cut himself off. “No. No, you’re right. I’d rather not tempt fate and end up in a Finding Nemo universe.”

“Yeah, we shouldn’t fence,” The human known as Light Patch finally said, looking between the wall of mirrors and their gear.

“I’d hate to agree with you, but I think you might be right.” The human formerly known as Wits End.

“Yeah... Sushi and a movie then?” Purple Heart in human form asked. Receiving a nod from his two friends, he grinned. “Sounds planlike.”

Comments

[Mix-up]

Goodbye...

[Dravkwn]

Started reading this story when it was still in the previous one as it was churning out and then life got into one of those 'things' and most of my story reading took a hiatus. Now that I've finished this i can say that I enjoyed the ride and the ridiculous number of references.