As the Manesquerade Ball was wrapping up, there were less invited guests in the ballroom and more janitorial and kitchen staff who were emptying tables and sweeping floors.
Over by the punch bowl, Zipp, Pipp, and their friends were polishing off the rest of the beverage before the staff rolled that cart back to the kitchens. Pipp glanced over at the throne, where her mom was lounging in the chair, watching the last of the guests leave as she continually glanced at her phone.
"Mom, everything alright?" Pipp asked, stepping up to the throne. "Where's Alphabittle? Figured he'd be one of the last to leave."
"So did I, dear," Haven replied, as she tucked her phone back under her wing. "But he was one of the first to leave, just as all of you were performing your unity dance. He saw something that made him seriously ill."
"What did he see?" Pipp asked.
"No idea, but whatever it was, he said it was 'impossible.' He left after that, letting me know what was going on when he could make sure he wasn't going crazy. I don't know why I'm already worrying; he's probably not even halfway back to Bridlewood yet," Haven said.
Pipp turned back to her friends who had finished off the punch, and Zipp came up with Misty.
"Mom, I'd like to introduce Misty, our newest friend," the white pegasus told her mom.
Misty took a nervous step forward and gave a bow.
"Thank you for letting me come to this event on such short notice. I had a terrific time, Your Majesty," Misty greeted.
"It's great to meet another one of my daughters' friends, and I'm glad you had such a good time, dear," Haven replied with a tired smile, getting up. "Alright, enough worrying and stressing for one night. He'll get back to me as soon as he can, I'm sure."
"I'm sure everything's fine, mom. He probably thought he saw something that wasn't really there," Zipp reassured her.
After making a quick stop at a snack stand and picking up a few protein bars and a couple energy drinks, Alphabittle made the trip between Zephyr Heights and Bridlewood in record time. He arrived back at the unicorn forest almost completely exhausted, but he refused to sleep yet. He had to know.
He slid the key into his front door, stepped inside, wiped his hooves off on the mat, and immediately went into his bedroom, to his closet, and began pulling boxes out, shoving them out of the way as he made his way back to the bottom boxes in the very back of the storage area. Coming to the very bottom box, he lifted the flaps back, and began pulling out books and papers. About halfway down, he came to what he was looking for, a dusty old photo album, which he carefully pulled out. Blowing as much of the dust off with a long exhale as he could, he set it down on top of the open box, and opened the cover, quickly going through the old photos.
The album wasn't that large, it was one of the last he had been putting together twenty years ago. He came to the last page, and stared down at one of the photos near the bottom of the page.
It was a photo of Misty, in her playpen. He remembered taking this photo, about two months before she vanished. Even though the photo was two decades old, it had spent almost its entire life in the confines of this photo album, so he was certain the colors were still accurate.
Taking a deep breath, he picked up the album and took it over to his nightstand, placing it under the lamp and pulling his phone out and going to the PonyGram app. Looking up Pipp Petals' feed was all too easy, as it was one of the suggested ones on the front page, and he immediately began scrolling down her feed, hoping that she was punctual as she always was with her posts.
Just like had happened at the Ball, he scrolled to the third image down, and his heart skipped a beat as he stared down at the photo.
PippOfficial
Fantastic group selfie from our new pal @MBrightdawn! Amazing time dancing with you all!
Alphabittle's gaze went from his phone screen to the photo in the album, each time the feeling of his heart being squeezed tightened slightly.
He knew he was not going to be able to do this on his own. He had to be absolutely sure that he wasn't seeing things. He got up, closed the photo album, saved the picture from Pipp's PonyGram, and headed out into the middle of the Bridlewood night.
Oak Branch was pulled from his deep sleep by a dull pounding from the other side of his bedroom door.
"Oak? Oak, you in there?" he heard the muffled, panicked voice of his former cook.
Flipping his blanket off of himself, he rolled out of bed, and half-asleep, pulled his bedroom door open, and went over to his front door, and unlocked it. Turning on his porch light and opening the front door, he laid eyes on Alphabittle.
"Alph, do you have any idea what time it is?" Oak asked, then took a moment to see just how disheveled the unicorn looked. "You look like you've seen a troggle."
"Oak, I need someone to tell me I'm not seeing things," Alphabittle explained.
The concern the elder unicorn heard in his friend's voice was absolutely genuine, so he stepped aside and let him inside.
"Let me grab my glasses and get a cup of coffee," Oak said, as he went to back to his bedroom, then over to the kitchen as Alphabittle made himself as comfortable as he could on the couch, which wasn't very at the moment.
Five minutes later, Oak came over to the couch and sat down next to Alphabittle, levitating two cups of coffee with his horn.
"Alright, I don't know how good of an idea this is, because you look like you seriously need sleep," Oak said, passing one of the cups over to his friend. "So what do we have here?"
Making sure the lighting was adequate, Alphabittle opened the photo album to the last page, and pointed to the last photo of his long lost daughter.
"That is the last picture I have of her; about eight weeks before she vanished," Alphabittle explained, as Oak leaned in to take in the details.
Alphabittle turned on his phone screen, went to the gallery, and pulled up the picture he saved from Pipp's PonyGram.
"This was taken eight hours ago in Zephyr Heights," Alphabittle said, setting the brightess to full and set it down on the album next to the photo in question, and watched Oak's face carefully.
Sure enough, the elder's mouth dropped open slightly as he did a double, then triple, then quadruple take of the two pictures.
"Sweet jinxies, Alphabittle..."
Can’t wait for more
REALLY good job on the exchanges, characterizations and future chapter set-up in this latest chapter. Really appreciated Haven checking back up on Alphabittle after the Misty sighting and then Alphabittle looking over the last picture he had of Misty before looking over the most recent picture. Oak's reaction to the similarities between the two pictures (minus the two decade time difference) was also really appreciated.
Jinxies indeed
👀
Hopefully Equestria has it’s own Maury Povich.
Alphabittle, you are the father!
So Alphabittle can now be sure that it was his daughter he saw. Let's see what he does with this revelation...
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Shock, then cornering one of the Main 5 to get answers. Followed by death-by-parental-hug.
Oh and Harmony help whoever is stupid enough to step between him and Misty. Or an enraged father and his daughters kidnapper when the truth of that night comes out. I suspect that particular confrontation is going to one of those "immortality sucks because you can't die no matter how much sheer pain you are in" scenarios.
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Yeah, that'll be interesting to see.
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Even more so when Izzy realizes that Misty is for all intents her legal sister.
One enraged unicorn built like a Gerhard dump truck is scary. That plus a second enraged unicorn with serious magic power and and a creative mind?
Now we wait for the inevitable reunion.
Yes very sweet jinxes exactly
Ohh once again this is really getting more interesting so everybody had a pretty good time at the party and the two princess introduced their mother to their new friend Misty and she was pretty friendly with her but she was also worried about Alphabittle and why did he leave so early and what got him spook and it looks like we got our answer because when he got to his home he checked out the old photo of his lost daughter Misty when she was a baby and trying to find any more reasons photo in a social media especially pipp since she likes to post a lot but the most reason was the party and he saw the same Pony who looks like Misty but he needs to confirm it before he says it so he talked with Oak about it and showed him the photo and apparently yep that is his daughter so I wonder how this will work out guess we'll find out next time
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Yeah. I could definitely see all of that. :-D perhaps Alphabittle and Izzy even learning snow and ice magic on purpose to better combat a FIRE Alicorn.
Alphabittle: Ready, Izzy?
Izzy: Ready, Alfie.
Alphabittle/Izzy: FROSTY SHIVERS! (hitting Opaline with a double dose of ice magic).
Izzy: That FIRE Alicorn thing doesn't seem so hot now, does it?
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Especially Misty’s reaction.
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Never have I taken a word associated with Scooby Doo so seriously.
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I don't know if Izzy has it in her to torture somepony, even in this continuity...but a long series of "not cruel, just perfectly legitimate target overkill on someone with unknown durability" to do many painful things to her to make sure she stays down that leaves her alive but regretting EVERYTHING would fit.
To go "this isn't TV-Y like the source material, welcome to 'R'!" with it...
If the author is willing to go just short of the point where I think my suspension of disbelief would snap even with excellent writing and in the most extreme of plot circumstances I could see her going "MacGyver-but-willing-to-kill" and/or "telekinesis+dexterity+hatpins = extremely low caliber machine gun or Macross Missile Massacre" on Opaline.
When and if they are forced to that point it would be actually EASIER to make me see her making a wall-hanging out of her hide (minus the head because nobody wants her empty eye-holes "staring" at them, especially in the dark), embroidered with the greatest of Misty's and/or Alphabittle's accomplishments in moving past what Opaline did to them (might need a few years before giving it or periodic updates to have enough subjects to embroider the whole thing).
She could also use a glass jar and a preservative fluid that causes shrinkage of tissues to create an art piece entitled "Specimen: The Shriveled Heart of Opaline Arcana".
For the second I must credit a movie I once saw about criminals in rubber masks who kidnap an entire one-room schoolhouse in Australia. The leader's mask was "Father Christmas" (AKA Santa Claus to some other nations). Eventually the children and teacher get away, but are still being pursued. They hole up in a cave and melt down, among other things the metal inserts in the edges of wooden rulers to make pointy bits and... I think they put those on the ends of those same rulers or some natural sticks or something...
They never told the police what happened.to the kidnappers, and it was never connected to the new specimen for biology classes at that school...
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Very creative thinking to realize that spell could be reworked to that application! I approve.