Cut From The Same Cloth

by TCC56

Cast On

"Twilight! There you are!" Starlight practically stampeded to the door as the Princess of Friendship entered her castle. "Where have you been!?"

Stopping dead in the doorway, Twilight blinked in surprise. "Um, I was taking a walk? I--I thought with Winter Wrap-Up done, a trip through Whitetail Woods might be relaxing. Spike was telling me I should get some fresh air." Her eyes darted about the foyer, looking for something on fire or on the verge of exploding. "What's wrong, Starlight?"

With a frustrated roll of her eyes, Starlight looped around behind the Princess and gave her a shove forward. "You know exactly what I'm talking about, Twilight! When the map calls, we answer! You usually take this way more seriously!"

Digging her hooves in, Twilight ground both of them to a halt just as soon as she started to move. "Wait, what? Starlight, what are you talking about? The map isn't calling me." She wiggled, showing off her flank to Starlight - and her cutie mark that was pointedly not glowing.

Starlight blinked uncomprehendingly, her face almost touching Twilight's butt. "But... it is your cutie mark the map's showing." She looked between Twilight's flank and the map room door. "...Isn't it?"

Both frowned - and hesitantly inched into the throne room.

In the center of the room was the map table they knew so well - and two cutie marks hovered over it. One, Twilight recognized as the purple and red hat that signified Rarity's friend-slash-employee Coco Pommel. The other... well, it was undeniably Twilight's six-pointed star. But it was just as undeniably wrong - the image kept stuttering and twisting, glitching out as it hovered over the Castle of Friendship.

Edging closer, Twilight frowned. "I don't understand. It's never done that before - and my cutie mark isn't glowing, either!" Panic crept into her voice. "What if the map's broken? Starlight, what if it's broken!?" Twilight spun around to her companion. "It's a completely unresearched artifact of immeasurable strength tied directly to one of the most powerful natural forces in the world! Oh, ponyfeathers!" She stomped petulantly. "I knew I should have run tests on it when I had the chance! Now it's broken and we have no idea how to fix it!"

"Twilight. Twilight!" Starlight grabbed the Princess by the cheeks. "Calm down! Look, Spike already sent a letter off to Coco but she's in Manehatten. It's probably going to take her at least a day to get here. We've got time before she does to figure out what's gone wrong with the map and try to fix it. Right?"

Slowly, Twilight's panic receded. "Right! You're... you're right, Starlight. We've got time." She laughed, head shaking. "I almost went Twilinanas there, didn't I?"

"You kinda did," Starlight confirmed with a snicker.

They both laughed with each other, letting the tension ebb.

Twilight drew herself up again, eyes locking on the table. "First things first. We'll need to do a complete thaumatic analysis of the table and its underlying enchantments. That's going to take time, but we might see something obviously out of place or non-functional. It isn't much and I should have done it years ago, but it at least gives us a starting point." The Princess frowned deeply. "I don't want to have to disassemble the table, but if it comes to that I know Spike has the tools to break crystal up and between us we've got enough mending spells to--"

"Um. Girls?"

Both Twilight and Starlight twisted at the sound of a third voice. Their gazes went to the doorway from the library (well, a library, it was Twilight's castle after all) and the voice's source. In the door stood the familiar amber form of Sunset Shimmer. And beside her? A purple unicorn with thick glasses and a flashing mark on her flank.

"I'm hoping you two have an explanation for this," dryly quipped the rogue student.

Silence - like chaos - reigned throughout the room.

Eventually, the Princess settled on some workable words. "This answers so many questions and yet raises quite a few more."

"Can we please start with why I ponied up in the middle of gym class and my butt started glowing?" The nominally human Twilight, by the sound of things, was already quite done with the situation. She adorably stomped forward, getting nose to nose with the Princess. "So you know what's going on here? Maybe you could share that knowledge with the rest of us!"

Starlight quickly interposed herself between the two Twilights. "Right! I think everypony's a little on edge here. Maybe we should all take a deep breath, sit down and we can catch you two up on how the map table works."

---

It took nearly an hour to fully calm the situation and clarify things - and it was rough every step of the way. The human Twilight kept interrupting the explanation about how the table worked to insert her own probing questions about it. Nearly all of which embarrassed the Princess further, as she kept having to admit she never got around to researching and experimenting with the table - a point that the scientifically-minded human Twilight was loudly frustrated by.

Fortunately, Starlight eventually managed to get the basics across and by that point the human was thoroughly distracted by Spike arriving with a stack of books on magic theory. In short order, both Twilights were ensconced off to the side in a ersatz library-pile, muzzles deep in their respective books as they tried to develop theories on how the map table worked.

"Twilight is such a Twilight," Sunset snarked as she, Starlight and Spike looked on.

Spike - who had brought out tea and a snack tray - smirked. "I've got a little experience dealing with Twilight when there's a crisis. Sometimes she just needs a little time to distract herself. In an hour or two, she'll have her thoughts in order and six ways to solve everything."

Starlight added a drop of honey to her tea. "Now that we know the table isn't broken and who it's calling, we just need to figure out where. The marks were over the Castle, but I don't know why it would need those two here."

There was a momentary pause as Sunset sipped her oolong. "Actually, I don't think the Castle is where it wants them. It's just the closest place available since it can't display somewhere on the other side of the mirror."

Starlight Glimmer froze mid-sip, teacup hovering in her magic. Then - with deliberate slowness - she set the cup down. "That really changes things. And--"

"And raises a lot of questions about how the table works," Sunset completed. "Yeah, trust me, I get it. But it's the only thing that makes sense. Why else would it call for one of us? This Coco is needed for something in our world so she has to have a guide."

"The map's never called somepony just to be a guide before," Starlight countered. "But I can't fault the rest of your logic." She pursed her lips tightly, looking over at the pair of Twilights. "Twilight's always nervous when somepony else goes on a mission and it's out of her control. The fact that we're going to send a pony who's never been on one into another dimension is... she's going to be a wreck."

Sunset leaned against Starlight. "And Twilight's going to be a wreck, too. She's always been focused on meeting expectations and goals - ones set by her parents, by her school, by her own neuroses. But this one's a literal magic quest given to her by an interdimensional artifact formed from the building blocks of reality. Plus there's the whole part where she's going to be working with an Equestrian who doesn't know our world at the same time."

The two unicorns simultaneously frowned and looked to each other. And as one, they spoke the same phrase about different Twilights. "I'm going to have to keep her sane."

Spike loudly cleared his throat. Both unicorns turned. "You're both forgetting you have friends to help. Again."

Both Starlight and Sunset blushed with embarrassment.

"Oh," Sunset bashfully admitted, "Right."

---

Neither Twilight extracted herself from the reading before bed - both fell asleep with a book for a pillow, still paging through scholarly works into the dark hours of Luna's night.

This fully explained the next morning, when two unicorns and a dragon were confronted by the twins shambling in at the scent of coffee.

Breakfast - haycakes, at Sunset's insistence to get a rarely available taste from her childhood - was had in near silence out of respect for the pair with the knowledge-hangover. Unfortunately, that silence allowed room for discussion and neither Twilight had gotten it out of their system yet. Thus in short order...

"--So clearly the map uses a variation of Polliwog's Echo to geo-locate the subjects in question. From there it's just creating a projection for the user interface!"

The Princess scoffed. Loudly. "Somepony isn't aware that Berrycloth's Runic Dichotomization Technique is the obvious choice, since Polliwog's work was supplanted by it almost a hundred years ago! It's far more thaumatically efficient." She prodded her counterpart with a hoof. "That's basic knowledge!"

The human Twilight glowered at her opposite . "First, we're talking about a mysterious table powered by a crystal tree, I don't think it cares about efficient uses of energy. Second, basic knowledge since when?"

A thick book lifted in the Princess' raspberry magic. "Since forever. The history of Berrycloth's work is outlined in--"

"You've been holding out on me!" The other Twilight lunged for the book in question, grabbing clumsily with her hooves. "You can't tell me there's no other volumes on the subject and then try to disprove me using one you were hiding! That's intellectually dishonest!"

Princess Twilight batted Twilight away with a wing. "I wasn't hiding it, I was reading it!"

As the two devolved into a slap-fight, Starlight sighed happily. "Spike, have I told you lately that you're a genius in the kitchen? These hashbrowns are perfect."

"Aw, you're just saying that." The dragon blushed, scuffing his foot on the floor.

"No, really!" Starlight paid zero attention to the brawl going on directly behind her. "I never would have thought to add diced scallions and parmesan. It really elevates it." She still had added hot sauce, but the others were too polite to point out that fact.

Sunset - face still slightly sticky from the syrup - spared a glance to the academic battle going on. "You know, if you told me that putting the four most brilliant living magical minds across two dimensions into the same room would result in a slapfight over breakfast instead of solving the mysteries of the universe? I'd have called you crazy."

"Four of the five most brilliant," Starlight gently corrected.

"Who's missing?"

Forking up another pile of hashbrowns, Starlight completed her statement. "Starswirl."

Sunset froze. "Since when is Starswirl alive?"

"Three months ago." Starlight shrugged it off. "We rescued him from being trapped in the space between realities. It was a thing. Could you pass the pepper?"

The pepper was passed - though by Spike, as Sunset was too busy being shellshocked.

Fortunately for everypony involved, it was at that exact moment that the doors opened and an exhausted-looking Coco Pommel tumbled in. "I'm here! I'm here!" Her hooves skittered wildly on the crystal floor, unused to the slick smoothness. "I'm sorry I took so long! I tried to leave as soon as I got your message, but getting a pegasus chariot in Manehatten on no notice is--"

And then the designer froze, confronted with the image of two Twilight Sparkles - one of which was incongruously not a princess - wrestling over the rights to a book.

Spike held out the tea. "They're going to be a while."

Fortunately, it did not. Sunset's red magic enveloped both Twilights, pulling them apart. "Look, I've got to get to work this afternoon so if you two are done? We should probably bring Coco up to speed."

The two shame-faced Twilights didn't look at each other, but both nodded reluctantly. Soon, all seven sat themselves at the table, sharing around the remains of breakfast. After a time to settle, the Princess started. "Coco - I know that Spike's letter told you the basics of the map, but things have gotten a little more complicated since then." She glanced around at the others, letting the weight of the word 'complicated' sink into the depths. "First, I should introduce Sunset Shimmer and... Twilight Sparkle. Who's me. From another dimension."

Coco blinked at that. "What?"

"Sunset's a native Equestrian, but she lives in that dimension as well. They're here because she's the Twilight that has been summoned to go with you, not me." The Princess helplessly shrugged. "Sorry about the confusion of which Twilight was going with you."

The earth pony tilted her head in response. "That's the confusing part you're apologizing for?"

A loud snort erupted from the far side of the table as Starlight almost shot coffee from her nose.

The Princess stammered - and Sunset picked up. "I know this is all weird, and it isn't helped by the fact that you're the only one in the room who hasn't crossed the dimensional barrier before. That's why I'm here to help - I've kind of got a lot of experience with it, so I can help smooth the transition out for you."

Somehow, Coco managed to remain calm despite the madness being presented to her - her voice was even, tinged only bit a hint of worry. "Um. Does that mean I'm going to have to go to another dimension?"

Sunset and her Twilight exchanged glances - Twilight pursed her lips tightly and gave the amber unicorn a little nod. "We think so," Sunset admitted. "Actually, I suspect even more than that. The other dimension is similar to ours in a lot of ways, including that most of the people there are alternate versions of ponies here." She waved a hoof at the Twilights as an example. "Given that it gave you... the Twilight who's not a Princess, I've got a hunch that it's got something to do not just with our world but Twilight's former school, Crystal Prep."

The words meant nothing to the ponies in the room, but the human Twilight cringed a little.

"If I remember your story, Coco, you've got a connection to someone in that school - Suri Polomare."

And as Sunset said that, the light went on in Twilight's head. "Oh! Oh yes, right! I remember Suri! And..." Her eyes widened behind her glasses. "Oh. That's why you look slightly familiar. You're her assistant."

"Former assistant," Coco corrected, her even demeanor momentarily breaking through with venom.

"Former," Twilight agreed, cowed instantly.

Sunset stepped in again. "Former here. Just like there's similar individuals in each world, events tend to play out similarly too. But this world is a little bit ahead of what happens in the other - and I think that's what's going on here. Coco?" She leveled her gaze at the earth pony. "I think you might be getting called to save yourself."

Author's Note:

I've been meaning to use Coco in a story for a while. She's just so dang adorable!

Comments

[Thought Prism]

Okay, this is going to be fun.

[FanOfMostEverything]

Can we please start with why I ponied up in the middle of gym class and my butt started glowing?

I like the implication that ponying up has always come with cutie marks, but no one realized that until now because they were always wearing something.

Nearly all of which embarrassed the Princess further, as she kept having to admit she never got around to researching and experimenting with the table - a point that the scientifically-minded human Twilight was loudly frustrated by.

"In my defense, after Starlight's little... you know, time loop thing, I've been hesitant to mess with the map."
"And those times you were practically begging it to give you something to do?
"Well, if I broke it, then it wouldn't ever give me a mission!"

Spike loudly cleared his throat. Both unicorns turned. "You're both forgetting you have friends to help. Again."

Spike: Expert unicorn wrangler.

Sunset froze. "Since when is Starswirl alive?"

"And do you think you can distract the Twilights long enough for me to fix that problem?"
"No, Sunset."
"I'm just being proactive. He probably has a dozen more artifacts he meant to throw into the human world."

Definitely looking forward to seeing where you go with this. The premise looks fantastic, and watching residents of one world adapt to the other is always a delight.

[Eroraf86]

Well, this is a promising start. I am very curious to see where this goes.

Side note, I double-dog-DARE you to make me feel a positive emotion towards Suri.

[TCC56]

10467622

Side note, I double-dog-DARE you to make me feel a positive emotion towards Suri.

Challenge accepted.

[Armageden]

THIS IS SO KAWAII!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Boltstrike58]

Good start. Don't forget to add it to the contest folder.

[Polychromatic]

Is this meant to take place before or after Spring Breakdown?

[TCC56]

10468315
After - note Sunset's comment about how everyone but Coco has crossed over the dimensional barrier. Twilight's had all her things be horse things before, which is why she can concentrate on freaking out about other problems.

[Malandy]

Cast On as a Cast Offs pun? Nice.

Picture so CUTE!

I guess source is linked in the image.

Nice bit of answering Twilight's questions and stuff!

[Yourtasteinhorsesisawful]

Great start, I'm definitely looking forward to more. There are way too few Coco stories on fimfic.

[LucarioFan2066]

"It's a completely unresearched artifact of immeasurable strength tied directly to one of the most powerful natural forces in the world!

Exactly; it's pretty much the only thing to survive temporal shenanigans, showing up in timelines it really shouldn't. I'd say that it is THE "artifact of immeasurable strength", after it managed that feat.

[Switch Swap]

I like Coco Pommel

[PresentPerfect]

shit, dude, I am so here for this :O

[Bookwurm666]

The other... well, it was undeniably Twilight's six-pointed star. But it was just as undeniably wrong - the image kept stuttering and twisting, glitching out as it hovered over the Castle of

is it calling Sci-Twi?

Slowly, Twilight's panic receded. "Right! You're... you're right, Starlight. We've got time." She laughed, head shaking. "I almost went Twilinanas there, didn't I?"

Both Twilight and Starlight twisted at the sound of a third voice. Their gazes went to the doorway from the library (well, a library, it was Twilight's castle after all) and the voice's source. In the door stood the familiar amber form of Sunset Shimmer. And beside her? A purple unicorn with thick glasses and a flashing mark on her flank.

Called it

"Can we please start with why I ponied up in the middle of gym class and my butt started glowing?" The nominally human Twilight, by the sound of things, was already quite done with the situation. She adorably stomped forward, getting nose to nose with the Princess. "So you know what's going on here? Maybe you could share that knowledge with the rest of us!"

I'd like to see that