Chapter III: Enemies Made Acquaintances
Spike glanced around the room, his claws tapping the bed he was sitting on. Really, this place wasn’t bad, necessarily. He got his own bed, for one, a luxury he didn’t have back home. He didn’t blame Twilight for that, of course; she was still the best big sister of all time, regardless of what the Crusaders insisted. Golden Oaks only had one bedroom–which was more like a loft, now that he thought about it–and it only had space for one bed. Thus, he slept in his basket.
He laid back and stared at the ceiling. Even though he could definitely get used to a mattress like this, he still yearned to be back home. He never really thought he’d get homesick so easily, especially after his impromptu trip to the Dragon Lands earlier that year, but he guessed being in an alternate universe with no way home would do that. Well, he supposed that they hadn’t exactly confirmed they were in a different universe, but magic mirrors like that always led to a parallel world in his comics. Like the one connecting Equus-616 and Equus-1610 in the Power Ponies comics!
This new world wasn’t all that bad, thinking about it. He could walk on clouds without Twilight casting a spell on him, he didn’t get weird looks because he was a dragon, and the food here was dang good! King Dedede had offered all three of them a slice of cake each as a bit of a forced apology for attacking Twilight. Spike and Sunset had each devoured theirs in seconds, but Twilight kept acting weird around hers. She’d taken a couple bites of it, sure, but after that her eyes had widened and she’d taken it off to the room they were offered.
He sat back up with a sigh. Homesickness was one thing, but at this point he was just kind of bored. He glanced at Sunset, who was asleep on the bed she claimed earlier. He had offered to help her earlier (a proposition that Twilight shot down faster than Rainbow Dash could fly), but by now he was glad she had told him no. That look Sunset had had earlier was haunting. Instead, Spike turned his gaze to Twilight. She was still staring intensely at half a slice of cake, a few pages of notes haphazardly scattered around it. Even now, she cast another spell, gave a disappointed sigh, and marked something else down.
“What are your secrets?” she whispered.
Okay, she’d hit the point that she was talking to inanimate objects. Time to interrupt it before she went mad again. Really, there was only one proper way to shock her out of a study session like this.
“You gonna eat that?” he asked.
“Eventually,” she hummed, not taking her eyes off the paper.
Spike narrowed his eyes. She’d entirely started focusing on studying; this was worse than he thought and he needed backup. Glancing at the clock, he noted that it was 5:39. That should be close enough to usual dinner times that Sunset wouldn’t mind being woken up, right?
He cracked his knuckles and walked over to her. Hopefully this went better than the time he woke up Twilight when she was seventeen–he was glad he could take getting blasted through two walls just fine even back then. Dragons were made of some tough stuff and he hadn't been injured, but the memory stuck out for him by it being the single most apologetic he had ever seen Twilight.
Preparing himself for a potential bout of angry telekinesis, he shook Sunset awake. Sure enough, he was near-instantly picked up in an aquamarine aura and braced himself, but the expected toss never came. Instead, he was roughly dropped right back down as Sunset sat bolt upright and winced.
“Gah!” she shouted before she cringed as she rubbed her forehead near the base of her horn. “Jesus fucking Christ I forgot how much mana burn hurts.”
“Language,” Twilight berated absently, still glaring daggers at her slice of cake. “Don’t repeat anything she says, Spike.”
“Don’t worry, Shining already taught me all the swear words ages ago,” Spike claimed.
Twilight pursed her lips and looked up. “I guess I’m going to have to have a talk with my brother when we get back home, then.” She looked at Sunset, who was massaging her temples. “Still, it’s a bit rude.”
Sunset gave Twilight a flat look. “I nearly died making sure your stupid ass had a place to research a way back to Equestria, so I’m gonna say whatever words I want to.”
Twilight frowned and looked Sunset over a bit. “You nearly died?”
“I got better,” Sunset defended. “Apparently tomatoes here are really good instant recovery spells.”
Twilight’s right eye twitched. “What?”
“Yeah, it’s weird,” Sunset agreed, “but hey, if eating a tomato means I don’t need life-saving surgery, I’ll take it.”
Twilight growled and tore three pieces of paper in half.
Sunset blinked in surprise. “What was that?”
“Oh, nothing,” Twilight said with a sarcastic bite. “Just my largest hypothesis on why eating a couple bites of this cake healed my leg. I’ve subjected it to every diagnostic spell I know, looked at it while casting lens of truth, even,” she gestured to the table, upon which was a cobbled-together machine of some sort and a glass of water, “ran it through a makeshift spectrometer. As far as I can tell, it’s not laced with a healing potion, it’s not laced with a painkiller, and it’s chemically, magically, and physically identical to a regular cake.”
Sunset shrugged. “Different universe, different rules?” she suggested.
“Sure, but those rules should still be consistent,” Twilight argued. After a moment, she flared her magic, organized the rest of her notes into a neat pile, and grabbed a fork. Stabbing her cake, she continued. “I guess I’ve gotten just about all I can out of this thing, so it’s time for me to take a step back, reevaluate how this universe works, and,” she grinned, “science the shit out of it.”
Spike pouted. “How come you’re allowed to swear?”
Twilight rubbed the top of his head affectionately. “Because I’m twenty-three and you admitted that you already know most of them.”
“That’s all well and good,” Sunset interrupted, “but what about, oh I don’t know, figuring out a way back?”
“Learning how the physics of this world works will help us find a way back!” Twilight retorted. “You have to be careful with these sorts of things. Everything I know about interdimensional travel says that you can’t just rip open holes in spacetime willy-nilly!”
“So...exactly what you did when you cast some sort of spell on Star Swirl’s Dimensional Mirror?” Sunset deadpanned.
“Th...that Mirror was Star Swirl’s?” Twilight stuttered, her voice clipping up an octave in shock and panic. “Oh no no no, this is bad. This is really, very, extraordinarily bad!”
Spike faceclawed. He knew where this was going.
“How does Star Swirl’s involvement make this situation any worse than it already is?” Sunset inquired.
“Don’t you get it?” Twilight practically shouted, launching across the room and violently shaking Sunset. “I destroyed a priceless magical artifact made by the Star Swirl the Bearded! My personal hero! Do you know how much knowledge we may have lost from that one mistake?”
“Ow, ow, Twilight I have a migraine please stop shaking me,” Sunset pleaded.
Almost immediately, Twilight stopped her shaking and fluttered backwards a meter or so, her ears flattening against her skull. “Sorry.”
Sunset went back to massaging her forehead. “It’s fine. I don’t think you should be too worked up in that respect about destroying the Mirror, though. I mean, I hate that we don’t have an immediate way back, but it’s not like you burned down the Library of Alexandria.”
“The what?”
“Alternate universe shit,” Sunset unhelpfully clarified.
Spike snapped a claw. “Hold on a sec. Fire! What if I try to send a scroll to Princess Celestia?”
Twilight looked over at him with wide eyes. “Spike, you’re a genius! Take a letter, please.”
Dutifully, Spike picked up a piece of paper and a pen as Twilight began dictating. “Dear Princess Celestia, I hope this letter finds you well. Spike, the attempted thief of my Element–whose name is Sunset–and I are all alive and well. We currently believe we are trapped in another universe and are actively looking for a way back to Equus. In the meantime, we are staying at Castle Dedede in a nation called Dreamland. The King offered us a place to stay after we explained our plight to him. Please let my friends know that I am okay and that I miss them. Your faithful student, Twilight Sparkle.”
Twilight and Spike glanced at Sunset, who had been progressively cringing harder and harder as Twilight spoke. “Is there something wrong with the letter?” Twilight asked.
Sunset didn’t answer for a few seconds. Eventually, though, she looked up. “You didn’t really mention that you had to fight Dedede and I had to fight Kirby for us to stay.”
Spike’s eyes narrowed. He knew that tone of voice; he’d heard it from Twilight numerous times. She was deflecting. He wasn’t exactly going to point that out, though. Whatever her true problem was with the letter, he didn’t really care.
“Princess Celestia hopefully doesn’t need to know that,” Twilight said.
Spike gasped as overdramatically as he possibly could. “You’re keeping something from the Princess? Who are you and what did you do with Twilight?”
Twilight just rolled her eyes and playfully cuffed Spike on the back of the head. “I just don’t want them to worry. Send the letter, please.”
Spike breathed a lick of green flame over the folded up piece of paper, and it dissolved into sparkling smoke before their eyes. The trail started out optimistically, rising as his magic should allow it to. Unfortunately, all the cloud did was circle the ceiling thrice, resolidify, and hit the ground back in front of Spike in the form of a letter once more.
Sunset smacked her lips. “Well, that was a bust,” she said calmly, but Spike could see the relief in her eyes.
Twilight looked down with a sigh. “It was a long shot, anyway.”
Spike reassuringly laid an arm across her withers. “It’s okay, Twilight. I’m sure we’ll find a way back soon.”
Twilight wrapped a foreleg around him to pull him into a hug. “I hope so, Spike. I hope so.”
A knock at the door snapped everyone’s attention away from the somber air. Plastering a smile on her face, Twilight opened it with her magic, revealing Bandee.
“Hi,” he said, a bit awkwardly. “King Dedede asked for me to fetch you guys. Dinner’s starting soon.”
Well, Twilight thought, that’s certainly one way to make sure all that food doesn’t go to waste.
As an official apology for his actions towards Kirby (though Twilight privately suspected that it had more to do with Bandee pressuring him), King Dedede was hosting a massive banquet with an open invitation to all residents of Dreamland. The spread was impressive, with a wide variety of food available from a multitude of different climates. From bananas to grapes, tomatoes to radishes, anything anyone could want to eat was available. He even accommodated Spike’s diet when she mentioned that dragons eat gemstones!
Spike was currently animatedly talking with Bandee while working through a sapphire, though he was making occasional glances at the desert table. Twilight would have to keep an eye on him to make sure he actually finished the meal she had prepared for him before he dived into the cake. Bandee caught her eye and the two seemed to come to a silent understanding. He nodded at her and kept talking with Spike, presumably content to make sure the young dragon didn’t make a beeline for the pastries.
General Bandana Waddle Dee was an interesting one. Despite claiming to be new to a managerial position, he was able to command respect and had the same knack for strategy that Shining had, even when he was usually the smallest thing in the room. Hay, he seemed to be one of the few beings that Dedede actually listened to. She definitely owed him one for getting the King to let them stay.
King Dedede himself was…odd. On one hoof, he was unreasonably selfish, stupidly powerful for no discernable reason, and all-around, kind of a jerk. On the other, he was honorable, incredibly loyal to his subjects, and surprisingly competent in matters of ruling. Enough so that he and Twilight were able to have an actual conversation on it.
“So you say that Dreamland didn’t have a centralized government before you rose to power?” Twilight clarified.
The King nodded. “I thought I’d step up and add some structure to the place, y’know? Planet Popstar’s a big place, and if some other country decided that they wanted to take over, there’s not much we could do without a leader!”
Twilight nodded, mentally noting down the name of the planet for later. “I see. I suppose that’s an angle I’d never thought of it from. Somepony else has always been in charge of the military back in Equestria, and on top of that I’ve only been a princess for a few weeks.”
Dedede blinked. “Oh? Sounds like a bit of a story if you’re that new to the throne.”
Twilight fluffed her wings a bit. “I just earned my wings by completing an ancient magical spell and fixing a mistake I made myself.”
“Giving yourself wings makes you a princess?” Dedede asked, a bit confused.
“Apparently, but it doesn’t have to be getting wings. I know of one case where a pegasus gave herself a horn,” Twilight answered. “Of those of us in Equestria with royal titles, four of us are alicorns. Princesses Celestia and Luna are the country’s diarchs and control the Sun and Moon, respectively, my sister-in-law Princess Cadance rules over the Crystal Empire to the north, and I don’t have any land claims yet.” She stopped to consider something. “Come to think of it, the only non-alicorn royals are Prince Blueblood, who claims to be descended from Princesses Celestia’s and Luna’s older brother–who himself wasn’t an alicorn and died over a thousand years ago–and my brother Shining Armor, who gained the title of Prince-Consort when he married Cadance.”
Dedede, for his part, looked interested. “That’s a neat system you’ve got there. Those reigning princesses, Celestia and Luna, you said they’re over a thousand years old and control your world’s Sun and Moon? I’m kinda surprised one of them isn’t a queen.”
Twilight nodded. “Princess Celestia was offered the position when she first ascended, but she didn’t want to outrank her sister. And as far as I know, alicorns stop physically aging at around the age of thirty and just get bigger for a few decades afterward.” She looked down. “I know we can get powerful enough to throw around celestial bodies like they’re made of cardboard on top of that, but frankly I’m not sure I’m really qualified for the position of princess. A few weeks into the job and I’ve vanished off the face of Equus.”
Dedede chuckled. “Ah, I’m sure you’ll do a fine enough job once you get back home. Don’t be afraid to mess up; I know I have.”
“The food-stealing?” Twilight asked.
“The food-stealing,” Dedede conceded. “Not my brightest moment, I’ll admit. And at this point, I absolutely know that I can’t beat Kirby, so I don’t think I’ll be trying anything like this again anytime soon.” After a moment, he snapped his flipper, somehow. “Oh! Just to let you know, don’t try to mess with Popstar’s Sun and Moons while you’re here. I’m pretty sure they’d take offense.”
Twilight blinked. “They?”
“Our Sun and one of our Moons are sapient,” Dedede explained as Twilight’s brain suddenly had to reboot. “I’ve talked with the Sun. She’s a nice enough fellow.”
Choosing to spare her sanity and focus on something else for the time being, Twilight’s attention turned to the pink ball devouring food item after food item a few tables away. Apparently, this was the Kirby everyone was so worked up about. He seemed cute and non-threatening, but Twilight had met Angel Bunny. She knew just how easily that cute exterior could be a facade, and Sunset had fled to the opposite side of the room as soon as she caught sight of him. Given that Kirby had quite literally inhaled a fourteen course meal and was getting his fifteenth, she had a good reason to be weary. Granted, he did wave cheerfully at her once he realized that Twilight was looking at him, so she wasn’t entirely sure what to make of it.
She was sure that anything with that bottomless of a stomach was a threat, though. She’d had to replace her entire pantry once after Pinkie raided it, after all!
“I’ve gotta say,” Dedede mentioned, pulling Twilight out of her musings, “you’ve got me kind of curious. What kind of mistake was so big that fixing it got you immortality?”
Twilight frowned in concentration. “Well, to explain that I’ll have to tell you about how my friends and I met. And to explain that, I suppose I’ll have to tell the tale of Nightmare Moon…”
Sunset sat alone at a corner table, picking at her food as she wearily glanced around. Another course disappeared down the gluttonous pink demon’s gullet, vanished into the aether as it was unable to satisfy his boundless hunger. A creature most cultures on Equus considered so powerful as to be a goddess casually chatted with another being that could potentially beat even her in a fight. A fire-breathing dragon–young, but still nigh-immune to most spells and did she mention he was a dragon–was watched over by a general who had the respect of an entire military. Any one of them could probably end her life in an instant if they were so inclined.
Why the fuck had she thought hoodwinking them was a good idea?
Especially if Twilight discovered her true intentions for stealing the Element of Magic. She was already uncomfortably close to slipping up when they tried to send that letter, and if Twilight knew about Sunset’s plans she probably wouldn’t hesitate to keep her locked up somewhere. No, she needed to keep herself useful to Twilight–somehow–and also not reveal any smidge of her actual plan.
And if they did figure out how to communicate with Equestria, she needed to somehow stop her from letting Celestia know that she was there. If Celestia found out that Sunset had returned...
She shuddered. Celestia couldn't find out, her life depended on it. So, she needed a cover in case her plans came up in conversation with Twilight. Maybe she could say that she was paid to make the heist? Would Twilight even buy that? Sunset chuckled. Perhaps she would; she was pretty naïve.
“You alright?” came a sudden voice from her left, and Sunset shrieked and fell off her chair. Her salad bowl crashing down on her face right afterward did not do anything to improve her mood.
A snicker sounded from above her. “Sorry for startling you. I was gonna talk with Kirby over there, but you looked like you needed a friend!”
Sunset lifted the bowl off her head as she sat back up and looked at the being talking to her. He was short–about the same size as Kirby, actually–and was a lighter pink, almost lavender color. He was an armless sphere with brown shoes and giant eyes, a wide smile crossing his face above a red bowtie. Combined with the two-tone jester’s hat, he looked downright adorable.
Kirby had taught her to be weary of cute things, though. “Who’re you?” she inquired as her eyes narrowed.
The jester grinned. “I’m Marx! What’s your name?”
Me carefully adding trauma to my characters to make the plot more interesting:
Marx's sudden but inevitable betrayal will be for the sake of character development, I promise!
Also, Dedede can be rather eloquent if he's not behaving like a selfish man-child. So at this point in his character arc, you can get a decent conversation out of him maybe 20% of the time.
I apologize for the slightly shorter breather chapter, but not every chapter can be nonstop action. This one is very character-heavy and is focused on Spike's reaction to the whole situation, Twilight and Dedede getting to know each other better, Sunset's continual shifting of her plan, and a bit of setup for Milky Way Wishes. Hopefully I was able to portray their thoughts well enough!
Revenge of Meta Knight is fast approaching, but the Halberd's construction isn't quite complete yet. Instead, next up is a glimpse into how Equestria has reacted to its newest princess vanishing!
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So I see you’ve decided to change Mr. Bright to Ms. Bright. I do not mind the change.
Can’t wait to see how Equestria reacts to Twilight and Spike being gone!
F*CK F*CK F*CK MARX
11337428
I should probably clear that up; I'm using the idea that the Sun and Moon that fight in MWW's opener aren't Mr. Shine and Mr. Bright. Instead, I'm headcanoning that they're Mr. Shine and Mr. Bright's divorced parents.
Ya know given just how fequently Dreamland is invading by eldrich horrors Dedede has a point, honestly if eldrich abominations are as common as in the game more 'conventional' conflicts are probably daily.
Also just realized that Ado appears before 64 so Sunsets going to have her first encounter with a human... while in her pony form.
Oh! Hello Marx! Nice to see you. I'm already sad for Sunset.
Speaking of, Sunset is already terrified of Kirby, I wonder what she will think when she will see him (or learn about him) destroying by himself a whole futuristic flying battleship (which is also a carrier, I must remind. It never uses fighter ships, but we see during the Revenge of Meta Knight game a whole hangar full of them).
KILL IT! KILL IT WITH FIRE!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1Tro63088w&ab_channel=DueWill
Oh no... NOT HIM!
It’s Marx! Kill it!
Uh-oh.