Close Encounters of the Sixty-Third Kind

by Yoshirocks341

Chapter 14: The Reunion...

“Oh, hello there Dusk! Oh, and Butterscotch and Spines! What is the matter?"

Applejack looked up to see that the three Elusive had just listed were indeed running over to them. Dusk arrived first, slumped to the ground, and started to breathe heavily, trying to catch his breath. Butterscotch soon fell in behind him, looking more worried than tired. He carefully bent his knees, allowing Spines to disembark.

“Elusive…your double…” Dusk wheezed. “…Trapped…chasing…figured out….find…others!”

“Hold up there partner,” Applejack replied. “Ah can’t understand a thing of what you’re tryin’ to say. What about Elusive’s double?”

Dusk just continued to breathe heavily. He looked over to Spines for some help in explaining the situation.

“His mare double, which we found out is named Rarity, is currently chasing us,” Spines explained to Applejack. “Also, we’re pretty dang sure she has figured everything out and wants us, especially Elusive!”

“Wants me?” Elusive answered. “Why does she want me?”

Spines hesitated to give him the answer and just bit her lip. Before either of them could ask her why she was doing that, a call could be heard softly coming from the direction where Dusk, Spines, and Butterscotch had just run from.

“Dusk!” it cooed. “Where are you?”

Dusk shot up in panic, barely recovered. “There’s no time to explain!” Dusk told Applejack and Elusive. “We need to find the Rainbow Blitz and Bubble Berry eventually. But first, we have to lose Rarity!”

He scampered off in the opposite direction of the voice. Spines quickly hopped back on top of Butterscotch and they followed in pursuit. Applejack and Elusive exchanged a quick glance, before heading after them.
****************************************************************************************

“Dusk-e-poo!” Rarity cooed once more. She went around a corner and continued into an alley, continuing to call, “Where are you? I can assure you that this is all a big misunderstanding!”

“Er…Rarity, what exactly are you doing?”

Rarity turned around to see Twilight Sparkle walking over. She had along with her Applejack, Spike, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy.

“Oh, hiya girls!” Rarity exclaimed. “I was just looking for somepony, but it seems they have disappeared on me.”

“Really? Why, join the club Rarity, we’re all lookin’ for somepony,” Applejack replied.

“Yes, indeed we are,” Twilight echoed in agreement. She levitated a thick, brown covered book that Spike had been carrying and spread it out in front of Rarity. The pages glowed purple as Twilight flipped through them, looking for the correct one.

“Rainbow Dash flew over to me with Fluttershy just before with what I thought was, and still think is a bizarre theory,” Twilight began as the page flipping started to slow. “She first stated that two colts came by her and Fluttershy. The strange thing about them she claimed was that they seemed just like you and Applejack, in both appearance and actions.”

“They even had the same cutie marks!” Rainbow Dash declared. “I saw the Applejack clone dude’s when I had to fly carrying him, and Fluttershy said that she saw that your clone dude had the same cutie mark as well, right Fluttershy?”
A hint of red covered Fluttershy’s face before she nodded.

“Also, Ah encountered a funny colt when I was workin’ on the barn,” Applejack added. “He got himself injured, so Ah sent Applebloom to get Twilight. When Twilight came over to take a look at him, another colt came not to long after. They both flew to coop after a while. Ah never seen them around before, but they somehow knew about me being an element of harmony, and exactly which one Ah was.”

“I was the one who pointed that out,” Spike gloated. “One of them even claimed that they had never been anywhere close to Ponyville. So, when he mentioned Applejack’s honesty, I geniusly figured that something was up with those two.”

“The colt who arrived after I came definitely reminded me of you Rainbow Dash, due to his brashness and the high velocity in which he took off with,” Twilight stopped turning the yellowed pages. “I didn’t get a chance to talk to the other at all, but Applejack told me that he was very random and energetic.”

“Like me!” Pinkie Pie shot out from behind Rarity, causing her to flinch back. Pinkie Pie turned to her and saluted. “No sign of them to the east of here! Where should we look next captain?”

“Actually Pinkie Pie,” Rarity directed her to the book placed on the ground, “it seems like we are not the only ones looking for our party guests.”

“You see Pinkie Pie,” Twilight motioned to a bolded heading. “These colts may not just be some random strangers who happened to wonder into town. According to page sixty-three of The Universal Guide to Parallel Universes, it might be possible that they are colt versions of us. Personally, I think that is highly unlikely, due to the amount of energy you would need to cross into a different dimension, but Rainbow seems pretty sure of it.”

“It is just like that one Daring Do’s adventure when she discovers a mysterious glass mirror,” Rainbow Dash explained excitedly. “Instead of giving a normal reflection of her, it reflects back an image of a colt that looks exactly like her. Suddenly, a gust of wind pushes a light that was hanging on a pedestal into the mirror and shatters it. As she is scrambling around in the dark, a figure suddenly lights a lamp for her to see. She looks up, and sees the very reflection standing right in front of her! They end up working together, solving all the puzzles that appeared before them! And then, at the end, Daring Do has---“

“Hold up there partner,” Applejack interrupted. “Ah think we all get the point. We don’t need the whole entire fourteen page summery!”

“The main problem to this theory,” Twilight stated, “is that the colts are all a different color than us. If they were just colt versions, they shouldn’t be a different color.”

“I think I can explain that,” Rarity answered. “I know a spell that allows a pony to change the color of their hair and skin to one of those around them. If Rainbow’s idea is correct and they are colt versions of us, which I also agree with by the way, then the colt version of me could easily have casted the spell and changed all of their colors.”

“Well, the only way to figure this all out and see if that’s for sure is if we find them and ask them!” Twilight declared. “Rainbow Dash, you take the skies and scout around to see if you can get an aerial view of them. The rest of us should stay together and ask ponies around town. If we were to separate, the chance of finding one would increase greatly. However, the colts could easily escape, as they have shown to do multiple times.”

“Roger that!” Rainbow Dash shouted as she blasted off into the sky. The others watched her go, and then decided on continuing the search in the direction Rarity had been going before.
*****************************************************************************************

Rainbow Blitz and Bubble Berry had taken cover in a messy alley way. A couple of trash cans had been tipped over and one of their lids had been thrown to the complete other end. Rainbow Blitz first had planned to use it as some sort of resting place for Bubble’s leg, but it was strangely mangled.

“And I thought my place was a mess,” Rainbow Blitz commented as he kicked a loose can that had spilled out of a ripped open garbage bag. “Kind of wish that some of this stuff was useful.”

He glanced down at Bubble’s swollen leg. “How’s your leg feeling?” he asked.

“It’s feeling better every second!” Bubble exclaimed. He took a few steps up and down the alley way, giving carefree bounces now and then to avoid the scattered garbage. He cringed after Rainbow looked away however.

“There you guys are!” a familiar voice shouted. Bubble and Rainbow turned to see Dusk and the others coming their way. They maneuvered their way out of the alley way and greeted them in the street.

“What has happened to your leg, Bubble!?” Elusive exclaimed. He raised up Bubble’s leg to get a good look at the swelling and the pink coloring.

“Well… I was going all detective like to find out information, like we were told to,” Bubble began to tell his day’s story. “I went to the Sugarcube Corner to ask around for some information. There, I was given a task to deliver a blueberry pie. It smelled really good, so I made sure that as I went there I was extra careful with it, you don’t want to ruin someone’s handy work by hitting a little bump and---“

“Can we just get to the part about your leg?” Spines asked impatiently.

“Oh, that happened when I was being chased and tripped on a root,” Bubble responded.

“C-chased?” Butterscotch asked worriedly.

“Yep!” Bubble Berry went off once more. “You see, there were these two colts that I’ve never seen before that came around to Sweet Apple Acres, the place where I was being sent with the pie. They---“

“Sorry to stop you Bubble,” Dusk interjected. “But, can you finish this story when we get to a place that is a little more…private? We are currently on the run from Rarity, Elusive’s mare version.”

“Okey-dokey!” Bubble shouted. “Ooh, we can head into the library! When Twilight was busy working out what was wrong with me, she mentioned that she would barely be at the library today, due to all the things she had to do!”

“Sounds like a good idea to me!” Applejack replied. “Let’s go y’all!”

They quickly headed off towards the Golden Oaks Library. Bubble Berry however, slowly began to fall behind the group, limping now and then on his swollen leg. Applejack looked back and saw this. He casually slowed down until Bubble had reached him.

“Need a lift?” Applejack asked as he motioned to his back.

Bubble grinned back. He quickly flopped onto Applejack. After a quick stumble, Applejack hurried off to regroup with the rest.

After a while, they all arrived at the front door to the Golden Oaks Library. Dusk opened the lone door, and let everyone filed in.

Bubble Berry chuckled as he got off Applejack. “Somepony doesn’t like landscaping!” He pointed to the bushes that had been crushed. He chuckled once more before following Applejack inside.

As everyone was inside, Dusk Shine began to close the door. However, he caught a glimpse of some sort of a fast blur moving up above him in the sky. He blew it off.

“My imagination must be playing tricks on me now,” he reasoned. “The stress of this situation is making me see things.”

He carefully closed the front door to join the others. As the door clicked shut, a lone object slowly teetered to the ground. It only settled on the ground for a moment, before a gentle gust came along and blew the light blue feather away.
**************************************************************************************

Numerous of colorful books greeted our intrepid heroes as they slowly walked around the library’s entrance. It was basically the same library that they were used to, Dusk noted. Books were kept four shelves high and the statue head placed in the center of the room was the same from back home. The wooden walls and the carved steps kept the natural nature feel alive. Flowers were placed around in nooks and crannies, though there seemed to be more than he remembered.

“They put hearts going up the stairway!” Spines cried out. She ran over to get a closer look. “We should totally do that when we get back home!”

Dusk just rolled his eyes.

“So, umm, what exactly are we going to do now?” Rainbow Blitz asked as he strolled over next to Dusk. “I mean, after searching around all that time for information, we really haven’t gotten any closer at figuring out has what happened!”

“Oh, maybe since we left our world from this library, maybe a clue to what happened is here…?” Butterscotch offered.

“I suppose searching around wouldn’t hurt,” Elusive replied. “Who knows, maybe we will even discover a thing or two about our friend Dusk!”

He gave a friendly nudge to Dusk as he walked past him. Dusk rolled his eyes once more and smiled. He followed Elusive through an archway that separated the first floor into two halves by narrowing the walking space. As everyone slowly wandered in this second half, Applejack pointed out where the blue portal had appeared before.

“Ah remember staring right at this very spot,” Applejack stomped one of the corners of the room caused by the narrowing of the arch.

Everyone gazed down at the floor that Applejack was standing on. It looked no different than any other piece of the brown, wooden floor that spread throughout the whole library.

“Well, I guess we should go upstairs and take a gander around to see if anything of importance is up there,” Elusive stated.

Before anyone had the chance to start moving, Spines suddenly stopped them with a loud squeal.

“I hear hoovesteps coming!” she exclaimed.

Everyone paused to listen.

“I hear them too guys!” Dusk shouted. “We need to hide! Quickly, everypony get into the corners, there is no time to head upstairs!”

Dusk dived down into the other corner created by the archway. Spines instead crouched down, hiding herself between Applejack and the wall. Everyone else just looked at them like they had claimed flower pots were brain-sucking aliens.

“Ehh, I don’t hear anything guys,” Rainbow Blitz commented. “I think it all might be in your---“

*Ra-te-te*

The sudden noise of the doorknob rattling stopped anymore words from coming out of his mouth. He and Elusive sprang over to join Dusk in his corner, while Butterscotch, Applejack, and Bubble Berry plastered themselves to the wall and joined Spines in hiding there. The loud bang of a door against a wall could be heard, soon followed by some female voices.

“Umm…I don’t see anypony Rainbow Dash,” one voice stated. Two sets of hoovesteps could be heard rapping against the wooden floor. “Are you sure you saw them go in here?”

“I’m positive!” a different voice shot back. “They must have just gone upstairs or something...”

Soon, more and more sets of hoovesteps rang out, equally proportional to the amount of voices. However, after the conversation between them all began to come into full effect, there was one for voice than hoovesteps.

Dusk gulped. Applejack and Berry Bubble were doing their best to calm down Butterscotch’s nervous shivering. It was making it difficult to shove three colts and a dragoness into a corner when one of them was shaking.

“How are we now going to get out this one?” Dusk thought panicking.
*****************************************************************************************

Eventually, Twilight Sparkle, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, Spike, Applejack, Rarity, and Fluttershy all had made their way into the Golden Oaks Library.

“Ah’ll go around the back, and make sure that nopony leaves, if they are still here,” Applejack told Twilight as she turned to go back out the front.

Twilight observed the room. Nothing seemed out of place. Books were still in order on the shelves. Everything was normal…

“Except…” she thought, “for that…”

Sticking out from one side of the archway, a blonde colored tail had slowly been lowering itself and draping across the floor. Its familiar bouncy curves and color reminded Twilight of someone.

“Actually Applejack,” she called back to the farmer, “I think that won’t be necessary.”

She walked carefully over to Applejack and pointed to the tail that was now lying completely on the floor. Applejack stared at it for a bit, before breaking out into a small smile when she recognized whose it was.

“Berry Bond,” Applejack hollered. “Your tail’s stickin’ out.”

The tail zipped back behind the wall.

“And now you’ve proven that you are there by moving your tail,” Twilight added flatly.

“Come on! Let’s get them then!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed. She shot for the archway but was stopped when Rarity slid in her way.

“Eh, eh eh!” Rarity shook her hoof in front of Rainbow Dash’s face. “It is proper etiquette to have the colt make the first move, not the mare.”

Rainbow Dash just stared back at her. “I really don’t think that matters.”

“Well, it does to me,” Rarity replied. She turned and called through the open archway. “I think we should let these fine gentlecolts decide on how they want this to happen. To be discovered by us, or to have them come out willingly.”

“Ah don’t follow ya,” Applejack responded confused. “What if they ignore you and just try to run away?”

“Excuse me for trying to be polite, that’s all!” she turned back to focus on her fellow mares. As she continued on with the second verse, a flash of purple light quickly appeared and disappeared as quickly as it came. “I thought it would just be proper to show these colts respect! I mean, all we have done today is...”

She suddenly stopped her speech, due to the strange reactions of her friends. Pinkie Pie had started to bounce up and down and wave rapidly. Fluttershy had gone ahead and hidden behind Applejack, who was pointing behind Rarity, along with Rainbow Dash. Twilight sputtered out words like “dah” and “der” before finally falling face first on the floor. Spike glanced down at Twilight, and quickly ran off to get the emergency water bucket.

Rarity cautiously turned around to see six fine colts, along with one young dragoness, standing in a row in front of the archway.

“Ah told ya it wouldn’t work,” the bright orange colt snarked, who was donned with a classic cowboy hat.

“Hey, predicting at least one of their actions correctly isn’t too horrible,” the light grey colt shot back, and to Rarity’s prospective, the most handsome one.

“I thought it was a good idea…” the cream colt added timidly with his long, light pink hair swooping towards the floor.

“I still think my idea of bolting for it was the best!” another colt remarked. His jagged hair along with cerulean skin tone reminded Rarity of what the sky looked like after a rainstorm.

“If these mares trusted us enough to allow us make the call on what to do,” the lavender unicorn colt explained. Even with the three new colors in his hair, Rarity recognized the colt due to his horrible choppy bangs. “We should trust them that they won’t do anything rash with us.”

“I just think it is funny that your mare version was the one to faint,” the purple dragoness looked over at Twilight and giggled while pointing. She had brilliant green scales sticking out from the back of her head down to the tip of her tail.

Before anyone could say anymore, the front door to the library swung up and whammed against the wall once more. Everyone whipped their heads around to face two more colts step into the library. The older colt had pale, white hair that was barely able to keep his light blue skin from showing on his head. The younger colt had thick, luscious brown hair and wore one of the oddest of clothes, a thick red vest.

“Dun, dun, dun!” the bright pink colt, whose hair resembled cotton candy, shouted as he slammed down on his imaginary keyboard.

Comments

[batran]

can't wait for the next one!

[IkioStar]

2752354 Me neither...

[The sprawl infectors]

Why did you have to end it HERE?!

[AlisterRedStar]

Dun, dun, dun I WANT MOre

[Yoshirocks341]

2787697
Thank you. Fixed.