She's finally found a stallion that is everything she's ever wanted! He understands her competitiveness, needs for speed, and her hatred of boredom. There's just one problem. He could destroy the world.
After constant hassling from her parents combined with the long nights spent with only Tank for company, Rainbow Dash decides to give the dating scene a try. Unfortunately, it isn't until she's given a few stallions in Ponyville a chance to impress her does she realize the perfect stallion has been right in front of her the whole time! He understands her competitiveness, need for speed, and her hatred of boredom. There's just one problem: he could end up destroying the world.
"So good to see you again, sweetie," the mare from across the table said. Her multi-hued mane matched Rainbow Dash's, as did the stallion seated next to her.
"Yeah, thanks for taking me out to dinner," Dash replied, sliding the empty salad bowl away from her. Thankfully, food had delayed any conversation from turning to a most tender subject that had kept Rainbow making up excuses as to why she couldn't see her parents if they came to visit from Cloudsdale. Her ears folded down. A sideward glance from her mother to her father told her everything she needed to know. How she wished she could teleport, like Twilight, out of this restaurant before the first words came across the table.
"So, do you have a special somepony?" her mother asked, a bit too politely. To Rainbow, though, it was not polite at all. It was the same thing they inevitably asked her about every single time they visited. Sure, they'd have fun spending time with their daughter in her new town, but without fail, her mother couldn't go a visit without asking about her romantic life.
Dash sighed. "No, Mom."
"Oh."
That 'oh.' To an outside observer, it sounded innocent enough. But Rainbow knew that packed within those two letters, there was enough judgement for ten ponies. Luckily, her father never asked about anything like that. But he never stopped her mother from asking either, so he was guilty by association.
Just in time, the waiter came by to refill their drinks. Rainbow pulled him aside and ordered a double shot of tequila. She'd need it if she were to make it through another evening of her mother's judgmental staring contests.
At long last, Rainbow had bid her parents goodbye and found herself flopped onto her cloudy couch. Dash sighed, rubbing her eyes. The floor of her living room wasn't spotless, but it was far from a stye. A few scattered take-out boxes and old magazines littered it while Tank slowly navigated the obstacles in his path.
As she glanced around her living room, an intruding thought entered her mind. Why didn't she have a special somepony? She banished the idea. Her mother couldn't be right! Not that she didn't love her mother, but she certainly didn't love her diamond-dog-with-a-bone nagging. Once she got something in her head, she wouldn't stop bringing it up until the issue was resolved. Her daughter's love life was, unfortunately, no different.
Rainbow huffed, folding her forelegs across her chest. Why did she need a special somepony? Another pony would just slow me down! she thought. How could I have time for cuddling on my couch with another pony when I have to work and practice? I'd never have time to talk with someone after a hard day of work or have my wings rubbed when they were sore or... no! Dash flung herself off the couch and marched toward her room.
In contrast to her living room, her bedroom was relatively clean. Two vintage Wonderbolt posters hung framed on her wall, autographed by the team. She couldn't recall a time when her bed was ever made, as she never saw the point in making it every day. After all, she would just get back in it in a few hours, so why make it for nopony but herself to appreciate?
Rainbow trotted into her bathroom, catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror as she reached for her toothbrush with a wing. Her wind-blown mane was knotted in places, and her feathers needed a preening. The more she looked over herself, the more the intrusive thought from before began creeping in. Why didn't she have a special somepony?
It wasn't like she couldn't have gotten one. She just never tried! There had never been a task Rainbow Dash couldn't accomplish when she set her mind to it! Rainbow brushed her teeth with renewed vigor as she continued looking over herself in the mirror.
"Look at you. You're a hot, twenty-two year old mare, and you'll have stallions fighting each other over you!" Rainbow smiled at herself in the mirror. She'd show her mother. She'd show everypony! Dash would have a colt on her foreleg by the end of the week, tops! Her confidence renewed, she took a quick shower and went to bed. Laying on her mattress, a thought occurred to her that hadn't before. How would she introduce herself to any of the stallions in town? There weren't that many to begin with, and the only one she knew in passing was Applejack's brother.
An unfamiliar anxiety washed over her. She'd never had to introduce herself to others with the endgame being a date. How would she bring it up? Should she wait until it seemed like he's receptive to the idea? Or should she just cut to the chase and ask? All these questions and more raced through her mind as she stared at the ceiling. Dash could feel her confidence quickly evaporating as she considered the reality of her situation.
Rainbow ran a hoof through her mane. Who could she talk to about dating? Twilight would probably have a book on it, but since when have books ever done anything for anypony? she thought. I don't think AJ knows anything about that kind of thing, Pinkie would think it was just a game or something and I've hardly ever seen Fluttershy with anypony but us, so that leaves...
"Rarity." Rainbow moaned, dragging a hoof across her face. She knew what asking her for advice would likely entail. To anypony else, helping out a friend in exchange for some advice wasn't that big of a deal, but anypony else wasn't Rainbow. She figured she'd have to model a dress or give her opinion about a color scheme. Dash mulled it over in her head for a few more minutes as her eyes began to close.
She supposed as long as nopony saw her in whatever frilly dress Rarity wanted modeled, she could get it done quickly, and then soak up all of her tips and ideas about how to get stallions to go on a date. After all, Rainbow would only need to get a hoof in the door. Once whichever lucky stallion realized who he was fortunate enough to take to dinner or whatever it was ponies did on dates, he'd be practically asking her to marry him.
At least, that's how it went in the movies Rainbow had absolutely no interest in and therefore had never seen. Ever. Not once.
A knock at Rarity's door drew her from a form she'd been working on all morning since breakfast. She stuck the pins she'd been holding in her mouth into the form's chest angrily. A centerpiece of fabric simply wouldn't stretch over the chest of the mannequin. Realizing how fruitless asking a form to 'suck it in' would be, she trotted towards the door as her visitor continued knocking impatiently.
"Just a minute!" she called from inside, a mix of impatience and song in her voice. She reached the door and unlocked the deadbolt; the boutique wasn't set to open for another hour. Instead of a customer, Rainbow Dash waited nervously outside. Rarity always appreciated a visit from friends, but suffice to say that she had certain friends that were more inclined to visit her than others. "Rainbow, what a pleasant surprise. Do come in."
"Thanks, Rarity. Sorry for buggin' ya so early," Dash mumbled, stepping inside.
"Oh, it's not a problem. I wake up far earlier than this to get Sweetie Belle ready for school," she replied. Rarity walked back to her form, still debating the idea that she could have needed to let out a seam. "So, what brings you by so early?" she asked, not turning away from her task.
This was the moment for which Dash had steeled herself. She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. "Yeah, I wanted to talk to you about something..."
Rarity smiled. She knew Rainbow wouldn't be so bashful if it weren't a subject well outside of her comfort zone. "Come now! Don't be shy about it, darling." Rarity glanced over her shoulder.
A throaty groan escaped Dash's lips as she stomped her hooves. "Okay, okay." A calming breath settled her nerves as she took a seat on one of Rarity's many couches. "I wanted to ask you about... dating."
Rarity fought the urge to spit out the pins carefully stored between her lips. She returned the pins into the form's chest, blinking rapidly as she struggled for the right words. "Oh! Well... that's extremely flattering Rainbow, but I simply couldn't date one of my friends—"
Dash snorted in annoyance. "Not you! I want your advice on dating!"
Rarity breathed a sigh of relief as she faced Rainbow Dash. "Ah, well, why didn't you say so?" She smiled, levitating a waiting tea kettle from the stove and pouring a glass of tea before offering some to her guest. Rainbow declined as Rarity took a slow sip. "Dating is a rather broad subject. What exactly did you want to know?"
"Well... I just want to know how to ask a stallion on a date. I mean, do I just cut to the chase and ask? Do I dance around the question?" Rainbow's look of uncertainty was something Rarity was quite unfamiliar with. She took a moment to let Dash's question marinate in her mind.
"A lady never asks a stallion, it is always his job to initiate," she began, sipping her tea. "But, the rules of etiquette are constantly evolving, and it is not unheard of for a mare to take charge."
This wasn't exactly the answer Dash was looking for. She was all about definitives. Give her a black and white answer, and she was good to go. If there was one thing she hated, it was gray areas. "So which is it? Do I ask, or do I wait for him?"
Rarity sighed. "I wish I could give you a clear-cut answer for every situation. But the truth is, every stallion is different. You must simply play it by ear." Rainbow slouched. This was not going like she thought it would. "But, I can see the idea would make you a bit uncomfortable, so I'll do you a favor."
Dash swallowed nervously. "A favor?"
"Of course, darling. I can arrange a date with a few stallions I know in town." Her eyes flicked up from her tea. "But, do you think you could do me a favor in return?"
Rainbow sighed. The moment she'd been dreading had finally arrived. "Yeah, what is it?"
After Dash had held her pose for an excruciatingly long time in an uncomfortably tight dress, Rarity retrieved her little black book. "Okay, let's see who we've got..." She flipped through the pages of her book before stopping about halfway through. "Ah, I believe Big Macintosh is free this afternoon," she said, raising her eyebrows.
"Uh... well, I mean, I guess I could give him a shot."
MACINTOSH
Rainbow munched quietly on her food as they sat in the middle of a partially full dining room of the Hay Barrel. It billed itself as a 'country kitchen', but all that really seemed to mean was the decor gave the impression of eating inside a farmer's shed. She knew why Mac picked this place.
As odd as the atmosphere was, the food was good. As the meal wound down, she recalled a few tips Rarity had given her in regards to a successful date. The first step was good conversation!
"So, how's stuff going at the farm?" she asked genuinely.
"Fine. Lots a' apples this season I suspect," he replied plainly, glancing up at her from his three-wheat salad.
Rainbow nodded, swirling her remaining food around her plate with a fork. She knew he was a stallion of few words, but his stoic nature seemed to be stonewalling her attempts at holding a discussion. "Anything new with AJ?" she asked.
"Eenope."
Rainbow's eyes leveled at him, though he wouldn't have known; he was far more interested in his food.
The entire night he hadn't said more than a few sentences. Maybe he just truly wasn't her type. Then again, how could he be anypony's type if he didn't talk? Rainbow was growing a bit frustrated. She was trying her hardest to get to know this stallion, and he didn't seem to be putting any effort to get to know her. Was it possible Rarity neglected to mention this was supposed to be a date?
"Is there anything you want to talk about, or was this just an excuse for you to eat somewhere other than your house?" The annoyance came through loud and clear, causing Mac to look up from his plate. Not that there was any other way for him to enjoy his food. Earth ponies didn't have the benefit of being able to use utensils.
"I thought it kinda weird that Rarity wanted me ta go have dinner with you, and now I think I know what she was after," he explained calmly.
Rainbow raised an eyebrow. "You mean she didn't tell you this was a date?"
"She mentioned you were lookin' for a stallion ta spend some time with. I suppose it's partly my fault for not realizin' what she meant by that."
The tension in Rainbow's shoulders eased. It seemed they'd just gotten off on the wrong hoof. Still, Mac was pretty attractive. He had muscles, cut features, and he was a hard worker with a successful business. There was no reason this date couldn't be salvaged. "So, now that you know it's a date, you want to get ice cream or something? I kinda cleared my night for this."
Mac's eyes shifted as he glanced around the room. "I'd love to, but there's somethin' you need ta know about me before we go any further."
"Okay," said Rainbow.
"I don't like mares."
Rainbow's expression dropped. The dream stallion of nearly every mare in town didn't like mares!
"You mean, you're... gay?"
"Eeyup."
Dash let out a heavy sigh as the waitress came by and asked if there was anything else she could get for them. Rainbow could think of a few things.
"How could you not have known he was gay!?" Dash snapped at Rarity after bolting through an unlocked boutique window.
"Will you please keep your voice down!" Rarity shot back in a harsh whisper. "Sweetie Belle has school tomorrow!" Dash landed on the couch and glared at her. "I'm sorry, Rainbow, but how was I supposed to know? He never talks about himself!"
"He never talks about anything! I might as well have gone to dinner with a cardboard cutout of Big Macintosh!"
Rarity took a seat on the couch opposite Rainbow. "Besides, it's certainly unrealistic to think your first date in—how many years?—would net you the stallion of your dreams."
"He didn't have to be the stallion of my dreams! Just one that wasn't gay!" Rainbow replied shortly.
Rarity held up a hoof while closing her eyes. "Rainbow, I guarantee you that the next stallion is not gay. In fact, he just broke up with his marefriend."
Dash was wary of letting Rarity try again, but she figured the date with Mac was just a fluke. "Okay, I'll give you another chance."
Rarity smiled, clapping her hooves together. "Excellent, meet him tomorrow at the—"
"I'm picking the place this time," Dash insisted.
CARAMEL
Rainbow had the good sense to meet her next blind date at a bar in case she needed to make an exit. The Horn and Wings Tavern was just about the only watering hole in Ponyville, and the drinks were always cheap and strong. That would prove its worth if the date were to take a turn for the worse.
She arrived first and took a seat in a booth and waited. She had actually known of this pony as well. He'd been part of the Winter Wrap Up ground team every year. A shadow loomed over Dash as a surly voice rumbled behind her. "I thought I told you never to set hoof in my bar again?"
Without turning around, Dash growled a reply. "And I thought I told you the next time I came in here I expected a free drink." She turned to see a burly unicorn standing behind her, a look of contempt on his face before it broke into a laugh the both of them shared.
"It's been too long, Rainbow!" he bellowed. "I'd thought you'd forgotten about your old pal Frosty."
Dash chuckled. "You know nopony mixes a whisky sour the way I like them but you."
"Well, that's why I tend bar. So, what brings you by? Usually the alcoholics sit at the bar."
"I'm on a blind date."
Frosty raised his eyebrows knowingly. "Ah, you know I met my wife on a blind date. Maybe it'll work out better for you, though." Dash and Frosty shared another laugh before he offered her the free drink.
"Yeah, I guess I'll take it. Can't be too careful, right?" Rainbow replied. Frosty left to get her drink just before she spotted her date. Caramel was a tan colored pony with a wavy brown mane. He wasn't built like Macintosh was, but the soft lines of his face made him a different kind of handsome. Dash waved to him and got his attention. He slid into the seat across from her and smiled. So far that was more than she'd gotten out of Mac the entire evening.
"Rainbow Dash, right?" he asked.
"Yeah, I've seen you around town," she replied.
"Oh, heh, yeah, I do odd jobs, usually subbing for ponies when they're sick or something," he admitted sheepishly.
"That's gotta be pretty cool, though, getting to do all those different jobs." She was doing a great job at keeping the conversation going. Maybe her first date was just a fluke! Caramel seemed easy to talk to, and it didn't hurt that he was pretty good-looking.
"Yeah, some of them are, and sometimes they're not so fun. I had to pull a plow on a farm for a few weeks once. I was worn out every single day." He smiled at her, catching a small laugh in his throat. "But what about you? I bet being an Element of Harmony is all kinds of cool."
Rainbow recalled another tip Rarity had given her. If he asks about you, he's interested. A smile and a bit of a blush came to Rainbow's face as she realized Caramel could be second, third, and fourth date material. I knew finding a special somepony couldn't be that hard! she thought triumphantly.
The rest of the night went swimmingly, and by the end of the evening, the two of them had a serious buzz going. They stepped out of the bar and raced each other to the bench outside, laughing like foals as they went. Rainbow found herself liking Caramel much more than she thought she would at the outset of this date. She leaned against him on the bench as he put a foreleg around her. The night was going well, as ever more advice Rarity had given her sprung into her head.
A lady never gives herself to a suitor on the first date. You must leave something to his imagination. If you must do something, kissing is always a good way to show your affection.
Keeping this in mind, Rainbow devised a plan. "Hey, you want to go someplace a little more quiet?" she asked, looking up into his shining blue eyes.
Caramel nodded knowingly. "Yeah, I think we can do that."
Rainbow smiled and fluttered off the bench, tugging playfully at his hoof for him to follow her.
After a few minutes walk, they ended up in a field outside of town. They settled in a soft patch of grass, laying on their backs looking up at the stars. After a bit of forced conversation, Rainbow found herself leaning closer to his lips as he did the same. This is it, Rainbow! Now you can finally get your mother off your back!
ONE KISS LATER...
"I-it's just... Sassaflash and I used to come out here and look at t-the stars!" he sobbed, his tears now flowing down his cheeks.
Rainbow rolled her eyes. She had gone from having the hots for this stallion to outright pity. If there was any chance he had with her, it had evaporated. Apparently, Rarity had neglected to mention how attached he was to his former flame. I am going to cut Rarity for this, she thought as she tried to comfort the weeping stallion as best she could. Ignoring the extreme awkwardness now hanging over them both, she glanced up at the stars. Why is finding a cool, handsome-yet-awesome stallion so hard?
This time, Dash decided to knock on the door instead of flying through the window. Mainly because she had to carry Caramel back to his house after he'd passed out in the field, and her wings were sore. He was a lot more drunk, and a lot heavier than he looked.
Rarity answered the door, smiling brightly. Her smile faded as she met with Rainbow's annoyed stare. "Come now, there is no way Caramel is gay too!"
Dash stepped inside and stretched her wings before turning back to Rarity. "No, but he did start crying as soon as we stopped making out," she explained flatly. "Thanks for telling me he was one of those clingy types!"
A look of indignation came over Rarity. "How was I to know he'd still be hung up on her? They broke it off weeks ago!"
Rainbow sighed heavily, placing a hoof on her forehead. "Just forget it. Thanks for trying, Rarity." Dash exited a window before she could call out to her.
"Oh dear," Rarity said to herself, summoning her little black book. She levitated a quill and ink jar to her side and began scribbling. "Perhaps it is time I updated these entries..."
It was late as Dash flew across town towards her house. She wasn't the type to give up, but dating wasn't like sports or racing. She couldn't control what the stallions she'd encounter would be like. Those two dates were taxing enough! She shuddered to think that she might have to go on an untold number of them and still not find the stallion right for her. Half of her just wanted to find a stallion to show off to her mother to get her to stop asking when she'd get a special somepony, but the other half wanted to try for a meaningful, fulfilling relationship.
On her way home, she spotted many lights still burning inside the library where Twilight lived. Figuring she could possibly check on the latest Daring Do novel release date, she circled down, landing softly in the yard.
Rainbow lifted her hoof to knock, when she noticed the door was ajar. With a faint squeak, the hinges swung open. Dash stepped inside and called out for Twilight. Not a sign of her or Spike on the library floor or upstairs in her bedroom loft. It was then she noticed a light coming from the basement. Rainbow assumed her usual hover and floated down the stairs, peeking around the wall.
There, in between all the other machines in the makeshift laboratory, she saw Twilight and Spike observing a screen of some kind that seemed to be wired to a metal ring in the center of the room. Inside the ring, a pool of silvery liquid sat suspended, shimmering like water beneath the lights in the basement.
"Twilight?" Rainbow called, startling both her and Spike.
"Rainbow? How did you get down here?" Twilight asked, removing her goggles and taking off her lab coat. "I thought I told you to start locking the windows?" she whispered harshly to Spike.
"I did lock the windows!" he snapped.
"The front door was open," Dash said flatly.
Twilight glared at Spike before smiling at Rainbow. "Ah, well, what brings you by?"
"Nothin' much, just wanted to say hey. What's this thing?" she asked, gesturing to the monitor they'd been studying.
Twilight ordinarily liked to keep her experimental machines secret, but she never passed up an opportunity to show off her latest creation to a curious mind.
"It's my trans-dimensional portal creator!" Rainbow stared blankly at her, waiting for the inevitable explanation to follow. "It allows me to look at any of the infinite number of parallel universes!"
"Parallel universes?" Dash parroted dumbly.
A shine in Twilight's eyes brightened as she took a deep breath, ready to explain exactly what she meant. "There are an unlimited number of universes that exist just like ours do. They exist parallel to ours, some with only minor differences, some with differences so unthinkable, we'd hardly recognize them!"
Rainbow raised an eyebrow. "Differences like what?"
Twilight grinned. "I'm glad you asked." She stepped up to her console and began typing away with her magic. "What did you have for lunch today?" she asked.
"Roasted squash. Why?" A few strokes of the keyboard and an image of herself eating a cucumber sandwich appeared on the screen.
"In universe five hundred sixty six, you ate a sandwich!" Twilight exclaimed, as though it were the most exciting thing that had ever happened to her.
"That's the only difference? What I had for lunch today?"
"That's right! Now let's try some of these other more interesting ones I catalogued." Twilight began typing once more and a universe of bipedal creatures with hideous spider-like appendages on the ends of their hooves appeared on screen.
"Sweet Celestia, what are those?" Dash asked, withdrawing in horror.
"They call themselves 'humans'. Look, there we are!" Twilight zoomed in on a group of six, standing in a circle. The human version of herself seemed to be using one of her joints to keep a ball bouncing on her hind leg. The very thought of a leg bending that way sickened Rainbow.
"Next!" Dash pleaded, covering her eyes with her wings.
"Here we are as dragons in universe twenty-five," Twilight said. "And look, Spike's a pony!" She began typing away again, bringing them to a universe that looked identical to theirs, only with one slight difference. "And this, is universe sixty-three. This is what we'd look like if we were born stallions!"
Rainbow's jaw dropped as she looked at her gender-swapped friends. They were all there, including her! The male version of herself was quite... striking. He was built like Macintosh, yet seemed as confident and cool as she was. "So... is that guy... me?" she asked.
"Technically yes, but he lives in another universe, so technically no! Isn't trans-dimensional theory fun?"
"Sure," Rainbow nodded absently. "So, what is this part for?" she asked, pointing to the waist high silver pool.
"That's for interaction between universes. You can send things to the other viewed universes with it, but the effects on those universes are unknown and potentially catastrophic, so I've never used it."
Rainbow shot a confused glance at Twilight. "You've never used it? Then why did you build it?"
She opened her mouth to reply, only to realize she had none. "I... I'm not sure." Twilight's mood bounced back almost immediately. "But, I'm sure I'll find a use for it eventually!" Twilight glanced at the clock on the wall. "Wow, it's getting late!"
Rainbow nodded, checking the time. "Yeah, I'm pretty tired. You think I could crash on your couch tonight?"
Twilight smiled. She was always one for sleepovers. "Sure! Just let me get Spike in bed and I'll get you some blankets."
As Rainbow settled into her bed, her mind kept drifting to that stallion version of herself she'd seen earlier. What was it like to be a stallion? Had he just gone on a series of disastrous dates too? Was his mother constantly pestering him about when she'd have grandfoals? She had to know.
Once Rainbow was sure Twilight and Spike were asleep, she crept out of the living room and into the basement. The lights turned on automatically as a computerized voice welcomed 'Twilight Sparkle' back into the lab.
"That's not creepy..." Rainbow remarked, strolling back over to the machine they'd been using earlier. On the table beside the console sat a binder with the words 'A dummies guide to building and operating your own inter-dimensial portal creator.'
Rainbow grinned to herself. "Sometimes it's too easy." She flipped the binder open and found the operations page of the manual. As she scanned the lines, she looked up from the book. A large 'on/off' button stared back at her. She pushed it, and the machine hummed to life. She snapped her head back towards the basement stairs, listening carefully for the sound of an awakened Twilight. Hearing nothing, she turned back to the console.
She grabbed a stirring rod from a nearby counter with her wing and typed in the correct numbers one by one to re-open the portal to the universe with her male self. At this point, all she wanted to do was see how he lived his life, and how things were for the opposite sex version of herself.
The screen flickered to life and she saw her counterpart lying awake in bed. He looked disheartened, a frown gracing his sturdy jaw. "What a rotten date..." he muttered to himself, though Rainbow could hear every word.
Had he just gotten done with a bunch of bad dates too? The coincidence was a stretch, but Dash decided to keep listening. He groaned to himself as he flung a pillow across his bedroom. "I'll never get Mom off my back now!"
He had! This stallion had just gone through what she had to the letter, Rainbow would have bet! At that moment, she had a thought that was also vocalized by her male counterpart.
"Why can't I just date somepony like me?"
Dash looked up at the screen, then towards the shimmering portal Twilight had shown her earlier. A smile spread across her face as she hovered back upstairs, leaving the machine on.
Rainbow had to think of a way to lure her male counterpart into her universe. Recalling that he was simply her with something different between his hind legs, she thought about what would entice her to blindly head into another dimension.
Then it hit her. She hovered into Twilight's kitchen and gathered the ingredients to make the most irresistible sandwich she'd ever constructed. Which, to her, was simply everything edible she could lay her hooves on piled between two slices of bread. Tomatoes, lettuce, cucumbers, celery, carrots, radishes, and daffodils sat atop her masterpiece. She set it on a plate and carried it downstairs, fighting the urge to eat it herself. She was hungry—starving, in fact, but she figured male-her would be hungry about now as well. She only hoped she could catch him before he made a snack himself. She grabbed a spool of fishing line Twilight kept in her lab for one reason or another and tied it around her sandwich.
Looking back to the monitor, she breathed a sigh of relief, finding her male self still brooding in bed over his bad date. She secured the other end of the fishing line around a lifting belt Spike wore to protect his back when moving heavy boxes. Dash put it on, planning to yank as hard as she could the moment guy-her grabbed the sandwich. If she knew herself, he wouldn't let go, and before she knew it, he'd been in her world! Her plan was to bring him here, show him off to her mother, and then send him back. Simple enough, and it would only take a day, two days at the most!
Rainbro Dash—as she'd taken to calling him— rolled over onto his side, just as Dash dropped the sandwich through the portal. He felt something fall on his bed as he looked over, noticing a perfectly intact food item resting on his blanket.
"I was just thinking about making this!" he gasped. "Do I have food summoning powers I didn't know about?" he asked himself aloud. The fishing line attached to the sandwich was thin enough to be invisible in the darkness of his room. "Maybe I can summon something to drink, too!" He narrowed his eyes, concentrating on the space beside his sandwich and putting his hooves on either side of his head, as if to amplify his powers.
Dash grew impatient and jiggled the line, making the sandwich jump in response.
"Ah! Devil sandwich!" he shouted, scrambling off the bed and scurrying against the wall. Rainbow decided against moving the line again until he grabbed it. He peeked over the edge of his bed, staring at the food that had frightened him earlier. He grabbed one of his loose primary feathers and poked it, studying the reaction.
Nothing.
He rose slightly higher from the edge of the bed. Slowly, he reached out a hoof and touched the bread, withdrawing it quickly. When nothing happened a second time, he rested his hoof on it. Content that he must have been seeing things, he picked up the sandwich in both hooves and brought it to his mouth.
Rainbow sprang into action, flapping her wings as hard as possible, pulling her male counterpart up into his ceiling and through the portal with a shout of terror. He shot through the portal machine and slammed hard into the roof of Twilight's basement, knocking himself unconscious.
Dash fretted, looking up at the ceiling and hearing Twilight stirring above her. She quickly pressed the 'off' button on the machine and pushed her unconscious lookalike underneath a table before covering him with a blanket. She flew as fast as she could manage up the stairs and plowed back into the couch. Rainbow covered herself with the blankets and pretended to be just waking up as the sound of Twilight's hooves came down the stairs.
"Rainbow? Did you hear something in the basement?" Twilight yawned.
"Nope, just you coming down the stairs," she whispered, rolling over and sliding a hoof beneath her pillow.
"Hmm... I better go see if everything's alright down there."
Rainbow's ears shot to attention. She climbed off the couch and followed Twilight. "I'll come too! You know, in case it's a wild animal or something."
Twilight stopped and looked at Rainbow. "Why would a wild animal be in my basement?"
Rainbow shrugged. "It could be a serial killer or something! Don't you watch horror movies? The basement is where everything bad always happens."
Twilight rolled her eyes and continued down the steps as Rainbow silently prayed her would-be coltfriend was still out cold. The lights came back on and the computer voice greeted Twilight. "Celestia, can you run the surveillance footage from the last ten minutes?" Twilight asked.
A lump rose in Rainbow's throat as she waited for the oddly-named computer to playback her escapades.
"Cameras were offline for a system update during the past hour," it replied.
"Drat," Twilight mumbled. Rainbow breathed a sigh of relief. "Everything looks to be in order... maybe I was just hearing things. You may power down for the night, Celestia."
Rainbow raised an eyebrow. "You named your computer voice Celestia?"
Twilight's ears flicked and her cheeks flushed with embarrassment. "N-no, it's an acronym!"
"For what?" Dash asked.
Twilight narrowed her eyes before making her way back upstairs. Rainbow took a last look at the lump beneath the far table. She'd have to come back for him as soon as Twilight was asleep. She took back her position on the couch as Twilight climbed the stairs and bid her goodnight.
After about thirty minutes, Rainbow hovered back down into the basement. This time, the lights didn't turn on, so she had to feel her way along the wall to reach the table she put her new friend beneath. After a few stubbed hooves, she managed to locate the table, and the thankfully still breathing Rainbro. She lifted him up and threw him over her back. After carrying Caramel, her wings were aching, and the flight back to her house would be a painful one.
She managed to hover up the steps to Twilight's front door, but had to set him down for a moment. He was far heavier than she anticipated. There's got to be an easier way to do this... Dash thought. Thinking for a moment, she grabbed his hind leg and attempted to fly with him dangling below her. It worked, and the load was considerably easier to bear. It would only be a short flight to her house, where she could let him wake up and explain what had happened. After all, if she was just like him, then he'd totally understand her reasoning.
Rainbow finally made it to her house and flopped him down on her porch, panting in exhaustion and wiping the sweat from her brow. Once she'd caught her breath, she took him underneath his forelegs and began dragging Blitz inside her house. She recalled from what she'd seen that his bedroom was almost identical to her own, so putting him in her bed would likely be the least jarring place for him to awaken.
She lugged him onto her mattress and sighed. Dash could certainly go for one of the sandwiches she'd created earlier. Content with his position, she went to the kitchen.
Crumbs were the only thing left on the plate as Rainbow snored softly, propped up against the wall of her bedroom. Her male counterpart began to stir. As his eyes fluttered open, he moaned, putting a soft hoof to the lump on his head. "What kind of crazy dream..." He rolled over, eyes widening. A strange mare with a coat and mane that matched his own sat slumped beside his bed. Worse still, she had eaten his sandwich!
A cry of terror tightened in his chest as her eyelids slowly opened. "Oh, good, you're awake!" Rainbow yawned.
"Who are you, and why are you in my house?" he demanded, sitting up in bed.
"Your house? This is my house, guy," Dash replied indignantly.
"You think I don't know what my own house looks like?" he asked.
"Look, you're probably thinking it's really weird to see somepony that looks so much like you, but I can explain. What's your name?"
He hesitated for a moment before revealing. "Rainbow Blitz."
"Cool, I'm Rainbow Dash. I'm your—"
"Long lost sister!" He smiled proudly.
"Ugh, no! Stop making this creepier than it has to be," she said, standing up. "I pulled you into my universe with Twilight's portal thing. In this universe, I'm you, but I'm a girl instead of a boy."
A look of recognition crossed his face. "My buddy Dusk mentioned building something having to do with portals when I stopped by his place after that terrible date I had with Toffee—"
"Was she cool for most of it, then awkward and clingy afterwards when you went to make out in the fields outside of town?" Dash interrupted.
"Yeah... how'd you know that?" Blitz asked, stunned.
"I'm you, just female! Our lives are pretty much the same except for... well, you're a stallion."
Blitz was silent for a moment, before looking into Dash's similarly colored eyes. "So, you mean here, in this universe, everypony I knew as a stallion... is a mare?"
"Now you're gettin' it!" Rainbow cheered.
A sly smirk crept onto Blitz's face before Rainbow struck down what she knew—by virtue of his stallion-ness—he had to be thinking.
"You can get that idea out of your head right now!" she snapped. "You're only gonna be here for a day or two. I just have to show you off to my mother and then you're going back where you came from!"
"Oh, that is such a good idea! Why didn't I think of doing that?"
"Dunno, but I got you first. If there's time, and we can sneak back into Twilight's lab, maybe I can return the favor. No promises."
Blitz nodded, sending a dull ache through his skull. "You think I could get some ice for my head?"
Twilight rubbed the sleep out of her eyes, shielding them from the sun shining through her window. A yawn escaped as she stretched her legs. Spike still slept soundly in his basket as Twilight tread carefully down her steps to check on Rainbow. To her surprise, she found her couch empty, the blankets still crumpled at one end.
Huh, she must have gotten an early start, she thought, heading towards the kitchen. Twilight lit her stove and filled her teapot with water. After setting her teapot on the burner, she summoned her itinerary and checked her schedule for the day.
"Let's see..." she hummed, flipping to the correct date.
7:00-7:05 Exit sleep cycle. 7:06-7:10 Prepare morning tea/judge Spike for still being asleep. 7:11-7:12 Recall Spike is still a baby by dragon standards, and needs his rest. 7:13-7:14 Reprimand yourself for being judgmental/write to Princess Celestia about how judging others can lead to incorrect assumptions. 7:15-9:30 General science/breakfast.
She smiled to herself, crossing the first four items off the list. Twilight closed her planner and trotted down the basement steps. "Celestia, power up."
The lights and machines in the basement flickered to life with a soft hum.
"Welcome, Twilight Sparkle."
"Good morning, Celestia. Can you run the processor logs from last night?"
"Certainly. From before or after your terminal login at 12:34 a.m.?"
Her words gave Twilight pause. "Login? I never logged in last night after I went to bed."
"My records indicate a login and portal activation at that time. Would you like me to run error diagnostics?"
"No..." Twilight trotted over to her portal machine and noticed the remnants of a sandwich scattered near the interaction gateway with a spare piece of fishing line. She narrowed her eyes. "Spike!" she shouted from the basement. "Have you been fishing for girl-Spike with the dimensional portal again?"
"So, is your Mom as judgmental as mine?" Blitz asked, pressing the icepack to the lump on his head.
"Yeah. I mean, I love her and Pop and everything, but every time they visit she brings up the whole 'special somepony' thing," Rainbow replied.
Blitz nodded. "Yeah, it gets old. I just can't believe I didn't think to kidnap you from your universe first. I hope the guys are okay without me."
"I'm sure they're fine," said Rainbow, laying back on the edge of her bed. "We're gonna have to go out for breakfast. I haven't been to the store in forever."
"Heh, me neither," Blitz admitted, stretching his wings. He sat up in bed and noticed the slow crawl of Tank nudging his way into Dash's bedroom. "Hey, you've got a pet tortoise too?"
"Yeah, his name's Tank."
"Oh. Mine's Armor. She's a lady tortoise... I think. I'm not sure how to tell," he said, putting a hoof to his chin.
Rainbow grinned. "I just took Fluttershy's word for it that Tank was a boy." She hopped off the bed. "I'm starving, you ready to eat or what?"
Blitz tossed the icepack on the bed and joined Dash. "Definitely. You owe me a sandwich."
"I swear, it wasn't me!" Spike plead indignantly. "I learned my lesson after last time!"
"Celestia recorded a login on the portal machine last night, and you and I are the only ones who know how to operate it," Twilight chided, waiting for him to come clean. "On top of that, the fishing line was out again!"
Spike looked at the remnants of the sandwich scattered about the portal. "So you think I did it?"
Twilight stamped a hoof. "Well only you and I were—" She paused. Spike recognized the dawning of an epiphany.
"Yeah, girl-Spike only eats gems, so why would I try to lure her here with a sandwich?" he asked impatiently.
"Rainbow," Twilight whispered to herself, turning quickly to the console and typing furiously to bring up the last universe accessed. "But how could Rainbow figure out how to use this thing?"
"Maybe this had something to do with it?" Spike held up the binder Dash had used the night before.
Twilight slapped a hoof to her forehead. "Why did I write that thing in laymen's terms?" After a few moments of typing, she brought up the designation of the last universe to be accessed using her invention. "Universe sixty-three."
The monitor flashed a warning across the screen. Twilight gasped. "The energy output is off the charts! She must have brought something through the portal." She turned to Spike. "Watch the library, I'm going to Rainbow's."
Rainbow stood outside her home with Blitz, looking over the sleepy town as it began to stir. He stretched his wings and legs, cricking his neck from left to right. Dash glanced over her shoulder. "Look familiar?"
"It does. My buddy Bubble Berry works at a bakery that serves a pretty solid breakfast." Dash looked at him quizzically. "He's pink, got a really frizzy mane and tail?"
She nodded. "Yeah, her name's Pinkie Pie, here."
"Is it still at the corner of Stirrup and Saddle?" Blitz asked.
"The only place it's ever been," Rainbow replied, hovering over him.
"Huh, well, if it's still where I think it is, I bet I can beat you there!" Blitz darted off the cloud and streaked into town, the multi-colored stream of light fading away from her.
"Oh, I was just thinking about doing that!" Rainbow growled to herself, taking off after him.
Due to his head start, Blitz managed to beat Dash to the front door.
"Ha, looks like I'm the fastest pegasus alive in two universes!" he boasted, his hoof resting on the handle.
"No fair! You cheated!" Rainbow complained.
"Maybe you can try again after breakfast." Blitz smiled, opening the door for her. Dash narrowed her eyes before walking inside. Pinkie frantically waved at her friend as Dash approached the counter, Blitz trailing behind her.
"Hiya, Dashie!" she said cheerfully. "Is this your brother?"
Rainbow glanced back towards Blitz, noticing his smile as he looked Pinkie over. "No," she said, elbowing him, the air in his lungs rushing out of his nose. "This is my coltfriend, Blitz."
Pinkie extended a hoof. "Nice to meet ya, Blitz!"
He met her hoof with his own as he tried to catch his breath. "Nice to meet you too..." he wheezed.
"Let me get two of my usual, Pinkie," Dash said. "Also, can I borrow the phone real quick?"
Pinkie set a rotary phone on the counter and slid it toward her. "Sure, Dashie!"
"Grab us a seat, will ya?" Rainbow asked him before turning back to the counter and dialing her parent's number. "Mom? Hey, it's Dash. Listen, are you guys free tonight? I wanted to grab dinner with you and Pop tonight." She glanced back at Blitz as she leaned on the counter, Pinkie busily preparing their breakfast behind it. "Oh... yeah, Wednesday's good. It's just there's somepony I want you to meet."
Rainbow held the receiver away from her ears as a loud cry of happiness blasted out of the earpiece. "Yeah, just calm down, and we'll see you then, okay? Alright, love you, bye." Dash hung up the phone and exhaled deeply. She trotted over to where Blitz was sitting.
"So, our date all set up?" he asked, a hoof resting on his cheek.
"Yeah, but you're gonna be here for another few days," Dash replied. For being kidnapped into a parallel universe by his female self, Blitz seemed to be taking everything in stride.
"That's cool, work won't miss me. My job pretty much does itself."
"What about your friends?" Dash asked.
"Well, they might wonder, but as long as I show up eventually, they won't worry about it."
Rainbow paused for a moment. "... Really?"
"Yeah, guys don't usually get involved in each other's business. As long as I'm back in a few days, they'll be okay." Blitz put a hoof to his chin. "Unless Eris escapes again, or King Nymphamos attacks. I'm an Element of Awesomeness, by the way."
Dash jaw hung slack for a second. "That sounds way cooler than Harmony..."
"But enough about my universe. When do I get to meet the rest of my lady-friends?" he asked, the same smile from earlier this morning creeping across his lips.
"Hopefully never," said Dash, leveling her eyes. They may have been more or less the same pony, but they certainly had their differences.
"Oh come on, I'd let you meet your guy-friends if you were in my universe!" Blitz pled.
Rainbow rolled her eyes. "Fine, if we have time, but you can't meet Twilight. If she finds out I stole you from your universe, I'd never hear the end of it. And she'd probably send you back before I could show you to my mother."
Pinkie delivered their food, the conversation dying as they both dug in.
"As good as the stuff in your universe?" Rainbow asked.
Blitz smiled. "Yeah, it's pretty good. But I think Bubble makes it better."
"No way! Nopony makes better breakfast cupcakes than Pinks," Dash replied.
"Except maybe... Bubble," he countered with a grin.
"I guess we'll have to agree to disagree." Dash scooped up the last bite of her breakfast and sat back in her chair. "So, now what do you want to do?"
"I dunno, what is there to do in your universe?" he asked.
"Well, normally, I just go sleep in one of Applejack's trees." Dash answered.
Blitz couldn't help but chuckle. "Applejack is my buddy's name too. I'm guessing he's a girl here?"
"Duh."
"And I'm guessing his older sister is now her older brother?"
Dash smiled. "You're not as slow as you look."
Rainbow paid their check and they bid Pinkie goodbye. The two of them stepped out of the shop, squinting at the sunlight of the early morning. "So, I kinda want to know what AJ looks like as a girl," Blitz said, rolling his head in her direction lazily.
"You just remember who's fake coltfriend you are, hot shot," Rainbow grumbled in a manner Blitz couldn't decide whether she was sincere or joking.
"If it makes you feel any better, my fake relationship with you means way more than any real relationship I might come up with while I'm here," he put a comforting hoof on her shoulder.
She brushed it off. "Just be sure to keep your hooves to yourself while we're around town, okay?"
MEANWHILE, IN BLITZ'S UNIVERSE...
Dusk sat sprawled over his couch, holding a book over his face with magic. The rest of his pals lay strewn about his living room floor with various books in front of them. He glanced over the top of his book, counting his friends quickly and realizing they were one short of his normal count.
"Anypony seen Blitz lately?" he asked, his pals pulling themselves from their books and magazines.
"Last I had seen of him, he was intent on a date with that Toffee, but I hadn't heard from him since," Elusive remarked, before burying his nose into his issue of Stallion's Quarterly.
"Huh. And nopony's seen him since last night?" Dusk asked. His friends shook their heads.
"I'd wager he took her back ta his house," Applejack said.
Dusk smiled wryly and nodded. "Nice."
"Rainbow Dash!" Twilight called angrily from below Dash's floating home. Upon receiving no reply, she huffed to herself and cast a spell. In a flash, she teleported to Rainbow's porch. "Rainbow, if you and other you are in there, you need to come out here!" she shouted, trying to mask her anger.
With no reply from within, she let out an cathartic shout, stomping her hooves on the clouds. "Of all my friends to endanger the universe, how did I know it was going to be Rainbow?" she asked herself, wondering where on earth she could have gone. Twilight inhaled deeply, closing her eyes and trying to calm herself. "It's okay, Twilight, you just have to think like Rainbow," she told herself. If I were Rainbow, where would I be at nine in the morning?
Rainbow and Blitz circled over the neat rows of trees dotted with ripe apples. As they lost altitude, they landed in a sturdy tree. Blitz rested on a thick branch as Rainbow found her own. As he settled in, Blitz exhaled softly. "I guess trees don't change much from universe to universe."
"Nah," Dash replied. "These trees are the best thing to sleep on besides clouds—"
"Not today, they ain't!" A voice from below them called, shaking the tree as though it were in an earthquake. Both pegasi fell from the lofty branches, hitting their flanks hard on the grass below.
"Geez, AJ! You could have just asked us to leave!" Rainbow complained, rubbing her sore rump as she stood up.
"Well, I'd swear I was seein' double!" Applejack declared, taking in the two ponies. "This your brother or somethin', Rainbow?"
Blitz dusted himself off and got to his hooves. "Nice to meet ya, Applejack. The name's—"
"—Spectrum Shift!" Rainbow completed, the first name coming to her mind after having sat through one of Twilight's boring study sessions during the midnight release of the latest Daring Do novel.
Blitz slowly looked over to his counterpart. "Spectrum Shift?" he asked.
Dash laughed to herself before placing a hoof around his neck. "Duh! What, did you forget your own name?" she asked playfully. "I picked up this lug in Cloudsdale. Not bad, eh?"
Applejack looked at the both of them carefully. "Nope," she replied, still eyeing the new stallion with suspicion. Her scrutinizing glare vanished as quickly as it had come. "Pleased ta meet ya, Spectrum!" she said, extending a hoof. 'Spectrum' met her hoof and smiled.
"Nice to meet you, too."
"Sorry ta interrupt your normal nappin' schedule, but Mac and I have some buckin' ta do."
Blitz covered his mouth with a hoof, stifling his chuckling. "Her name is 'Mac' here?" Rainbow cut his laughter short with a jab to the ribs.
Applejack laughed as her brother trotted behind her, pulling a cart full of empty woven baskets. "How silly of me, I forgot ta introduce ya to my brother!" Applejack extended a hoof towards the stallion hitched to the wagon. "Spectrum, this is Big Macintosh."
Blitz had to crane his neck upward to take in the freckled stallion's face. Mac was a full head taller than he was, and much more built. "Hey," Blitz managed. The stallion before him was a far departure from the sweet little filly he'd known in his universe.
Mac raised an eyebrow, looking over Blitz in much the same way his sister had. "Have I met you before?" he asked.
Before Blitz could answer, Rainbow stepped in front of him. "Nope, he just moved from Cloudsdale. We've really hit it off since I met him," she explained quickly. "He's my coltfriend." The Apple siblings failed to notice the nervousness behind Dash's smile.
Mac gave him one last look before instantly switching moods. "Well then, good ta meet ya, Spectrum. Be good ta Rainbow, ya hear?" he said, smiling.
Blitz shook his hoof. "Don't worry, I will."
"Well, shoot, I'm glad ya found a special somepony Rainbow," Applejack told her, placing a basket below the tree they had been sleeping in. "But Mac and I've got some work ta do. Unless y'all want ta stick around and help us out?"
"No, we've got other stuff to do," Rainbow and Blitz said in unison. They looked at each other and laughed before bidding goodbye to Applejack and her brother.
"Land sakes, Macintosh, you'd think those two were made for each other." Applejack commented as they flew toward town.
"Eeyup."
The bell above the door at Sugarcube Corner rang softly as Pinkie Pie bounded from the kitchen to the counter. "Welcome to Sugarcube Corner! Our specials today are—" she paused after noticing her customer. "Oh, hiya Twilight! The usual?"
"Actually, I was hoping to find Rainbow Dash. Has she been by here, by chance?"
"Yeah, she was here this morning! She had a new coltfriend with her, but I could have sworn they were brother and sister!"
No... she wouldn't... she didn't...Twilight thought as her eyes narrowed. "Any idea where they went?" she asked urgently.
"Hm..." Pinkie thought for a moment. "That way!" she said, pointing a hoof out the door.
Twilight sighed. "Thanks for the help, Pinkie..."
She walked sullenly towards the exit, when her nose bumped painfully into the glass. Using her magic to open doors had become a reflex at this point. Perhaps she had just been distracted. She concentrated on the door and it swung open. As she trotted outside, Twilight decided there was no way she'd be able to hunt down Rainbow Dash if she didn't want to be found. Thinking quickly, she charged a teleportation spell, and whisked herself away to Sweet Apple Acres. If she couldn't find Rainbow Dash, she could at least warn the other girls about what she was up to, and possibly get them to help her find Dash and her new 'friend.'
The flash of her spell caused Applejack to miss her buck against the tree.
"Tarnation!" she cried before landing hard on her belly. Mac placed a hoof over his mouth to stifle a giggle, which had disappeared by the time she'd gotten to her hooves. "Twilight, how many times do I have to ask ya not ta scare me like that?"
"I'm sorry, but I'm in a bit of a rush." Applejack dusted off her hat and placed it back onto her head before squaring herself against the tree for another shot.
"Alright then, what can we do for ya?" she asked, giving the tree the buck she had meant to give it a few seconds before. Apples fell neatly into the baskets waiting below the branches as she smiled towards her brother.
"I just need to know if you've seen Rainbow Dash today."
Mac nodded, and Applejack turned from the tree. "Actually, ya just missed her."
"When you saw her, was anyone with her?" Twilight asked urgently.
"Actually, yes. Some fella named Spectrum Shift. Claimed he was her new coltfriend, though I thought it was kinda weird ta picture the two of them together. He looked like he coulda been her brother."
Twilight clenched her jaw. I can't believe she would actually attempt to date herself from another universe! She'd had some insane ideas before but this? This could kill us all! She fought the urge to gag at the idea of Rainbow fornicating with what was essentially herself.
"Somethin' the matter, Twilight?" Applejack asked, noticing her stifled wretch.
She thought about explaining the scenario to Applejack. The thought passed as quickly as it had come. After all, no reason to worry the others with the possibility of universal destruction if there was a chance she could fix everything before anypony found out what had gone so horribly wrong. As it happened, the machine Twilight built wasn't exactly legal in the strictest sense.
"No, nothing's the matter, but if you see her again, I need you to keep her and her... 'friend' in one place. I have to find both of them."
Applejack smiled, blissfully ignorant of the circumstances by which Rainbow's coltfriend had been brought into their world. "Well that shouldn't be a problem for too much longer. I'd wager she'll stop by your house ta see ya eventually! She was showin' him off like he was her prize winnin' hog!"
Somehow, I doubt it, Twilight thought. "Thanks, but if you see them again—"
"Say no more, Twilight. We'll keep 'em here and come find ya."
"Thanks." She took a few steps back and charged her teleportation spell, only this time, her first attempt fizzled out, managing to singe her mane and tail, but leaving her in a black ring of burnt grass where she stood. "What is with me today?" she shouted to herself as she concentrated. The second try brought her back to the library, startling Spike off his ladder. Luckily for him, he was only a few steps up.
"Any luck finding Rainbow?" he asked from beneath the pile of books he'd knocked over.
"None," Twilight sighed wearily.
Spike paused as Twilight took a glance down the stairwell leading to her basement laboratory.
"So... is all that stuff you warned me about really going to happen?"
Twilight rubbed her eyes with her hooves. "I'm not sure. Everything regarding alternate universes is still purely theoretical... or, it was purely theoretical."
Spike stacked the books he had dropped and took a seat on the couch. "So, what are you gonna do when you find Rainbow?"
She looked to him glumly. "Hopefully, she'll let me put her friend back into the universe where he belongs, and we'll put all of this behind us."
Her assistant's expression soured. "You aren't gonna punish her? I got my comics taken away for two weeks for just trying to do what she did!"
"Need I remind you that the machine I built is not exactly legal?" Twilight's expression soon matched Spike's. "Besides, she'll get hers. Don't worry." If we survive this...
Spike reclined against the couch, his arms folded. "What, you think the Princess is gonna send you to the moon for being you?"
She bit her bottom lip, a habit she'd had since she was a filly. Twilight only ever did it when she knew she could be in trouble, whether it be with her parents or a princess. "She expressly forbid me to mess with the fabric of the universe! I'm just a victim of ironic process theory!"
"Ironic what?" Spike asked.
"Ironic process! If I told you not to think about a pink elephant, what are you thinking about right now?"
"Oh," he nodded.
"By telling me not to tinker with the fabric of space and time, she inadvertently put the idea in my head until I just had to build a dimensional portal!" Twilight groaned, racking her brain to try and think of a way to locate Rainbow before anypony important found out there was an extra being in their universe. "Which is why I have to find Rainbow, fix this, and then smash that thing before anypony else decides they want to date themselves!"
"So when you said 'other stuff to do...'" Blitz commented.
"Yeah, not really much of anything," she replied as they glided across the sky. "Beat's applebucking though."
"I hear that," Blitz agreed. "So now what?"
Rainbow put a hoof to her chin. "Well, we could hang out back at my place, I guess."
"Sounds good, but won't Dusk come looking for us there?"
"You mean Twilight? Hm... I guess she would," Rainbow admitted. "We're gonna have to move my house."
Blitz shot her a concerned glance. "We?"
"Hah, sorry. I meant you."
Before he knew it, Blitz found himself tied to a harness, which was tied to the supports of Dash's house. "Sorry, I only had one strap," Rainbow called from the window.
The sweat dripped down Blitz's chin as he pumped his wings, the house inching toward the southern plains. "I know... where this harness... came from!"
Though he couldn't see it, he could practically feel the blush creeping up Rainbow's cheeks. "I didn't know he was gay! You can't blame a mare for trying!"
After moving the house what felt like miles, Rainbow unhitched Blitz and brought him inside. After getting him a glass of water, they both sat down on the couch in her living room. "So, now what?" he asked.
Rainbow shrugged. "I didn't have any other plans except to hide from Twilight until I can show you to my parents."
Blitz nodded. "So, your place is pretty much like mine, right?" he asked, glancing around.
"I guess," Dash replied.
Blitz stood from the couch, taking a step towards Rainbow's record player. "So, you wouldn't mind if we listened to some music?"
Rainbow squinted at him. Something in his tone wasn't right. It was as if he knew something no one but her should have known. "Yeah..."
Blitz plunged a hoof behind the record player, retrieving a vinyl jacket that drew Dash off the couch in a rush. Before she could snatch it away from him, he removed the record from its case.
"Top ten greatest love songs of all time?" he asked, smirking. Dash hoped she didn't look so smug when she did it.
"How did you know about that?" Rainbow demanded.
Blitz leveled his eyes. "Really?"
"Oh, right. Well, don't act all superior! You have it in your house, too!"
Blitz's smile faded. "I know." He looked over the track list and then back to her. "I was kinda hoping to listen to it."
The anger faded from her eyes. "Uh... well, I guess we could."
Neither would admit it, but they'd both secretly hoped to listen to this particular record with somepony special one day. Both of them knew the other felt this way, but they couldn't be sure. The risk of embarrassment was simply too great. Instead of talking, or poking fun at each other, they just sat on the couch as the record began.
Although Twilight had warned against it, Dash felt this was one of her better ideas.
"Spike, if we don't find Rainbow and other Rainbow soon, Equestria is doomed."
The young dragon stepped quickly down the stairs into Twilight's basement laboratory. "So, at least now we know why what Rainbow Dash did was bad news?"
"Yes we do," Twilight replied, her frazzled mane sticking up from the fortress of books she'd built around herself.
"Great!" Spike said, clapping his claws together. "Why?"
"It'd take some time to explain plainly, but suffice to say that unicorns, pegasi, and earth pony magic would all be gone in a matter of weeks!"
Spike scratched his scales. "Gone? Like, gone gone?"
As the record played on, Blitz and Rainbow talked into the night. Rainbow had never had more engaging conversation! They both clicked so perfectly, she wondered why everypony didn't simply fish their alternate self out of a portal to hang out with.
"Can you believe Twilight actually didn't want us to meet each other?"
Blitz snorted. "Yeah, that sounds like Dusk all right... 'Don't do this, the universe will explode, don't do that, you'll rip space-time...' he mocked in his best impersonation.
"That's pretty good," Rainbow giggled.
"He's a good guy and everything, he's just a little bit..."
"High strung?" Rainbow completed.
Blitz smiled. "Yeah, you got it. But I guess that could be useful sometimes. He helped me study for my Wonderbolt reserve test."
"Me too! She figured out I had to learn by flying over stuff," Rainbow added.
"Oh, yeah! He really had a lot of patience with me, especially after I kept goofing around with his owl and Barb."
"And, when you think about it, all we really had to learn was just a paragraph of information anyway," Dash replied.
"Did Twilight ever turn you into a griffon or a dragon?" Blitz asked.
Rainbow folded her arms. "No..."
"Me neither. I guess I could just ask my buddy Gildon..."
The record had long since run out, leaving the needle off track and hissing silently.
"Listen, Rainbow, I know you brought me here to be your pretend date, but, haven't you ever wondered what actually having a special somepony would be like?" Blitz asked.
Truth be told, she certainly did. It was something that put her in a bit of a bind. Her reputation maintained that she needed nopony, and probably never would. But in her heart there was a void. One that she never felt comfortable talking about, and thus never talked about with anypony; not even her five best friends. But now that she was simply talking to herself, perhaps she could finally express herself the way she'd always been afraid to.
"Well... yeah. Haven't you?" she asked.
"Of course!" Blitz replied quickly. "But... I can't bring myself to talk about it. I'm supposed to be the dauntless cool guy who—"
"Never lets anything slow him down?" she completed.
"Yeah." Blitz smiled. "Think we'll get our first real kiss anytime soon?" he asked, not counting both their earlier encounters with male and female Caramel.
"I hope so. Was your last date as awkward as mine?" Dash asked.
"Yeah. Crying mares weird me out."
A brief pause entered the room before they both looked up at each other.
"So, I just had an idea..." Blitz began.
"I think I had the same one..." Dash added.
"It's not weird, I mean, it'd be like kissing yourself in the mirror, right?"
"Yeah! Only the mirror is alive... and has lips..."
"Yeah..." Blitz said, softening his tone as he wrestled with his morals. "But, it's just a kiss, just to get our first real one out of the way," he reasoned.
"Right, just to see what it's like!" Dash added.
"Just so that we can say we've done it," Blitz finished.
Another awkward pause filled the room as they sat up from their positions on the ends of the couch. Both were nearly apple-red, but neither had the stomach to laugh at the other. Wordlessly, they leaned in, hearts pounding in their chests as their lips inched closer to each others.
Twilight poured over her maps, trying to calculate the kind of wind conditions favorable for hiding a cloud house, and cross-checking them with the locations she'd already searched.
"Any luck?" Spike asked, bringing her a glass of water and a bowl of asparagus spears to snack on.
"Almost," she replied, raising her nose from her work. "According to these wind conditions, there's really only one place she could be, but unfortunately it's a pretty big swath of sky to search."
Spike nodded. "So, do you want me to keep your dinner warm for you while you teleport out there?"
Twilight sighed, sitting back on her stool. "Unfortunately I won't be doing too much teleporting. My magic has been acting up lately." Spike had read horror stories from some of Twilight's medical journals of unicorns' troubles with unstable magic. He agreed it was wiser to hoof it until she could see a specialist.
"At least you've still got your wings," he reminded her, walking over to the kitchen to start their dinner. Twilight stared at the section of Ponyville she'd circled in red ink when she noticed the water in her glass begin to ripple.
Before she had time question it, a great rumble shook the treehouse. Twilight and Spike echanged confused stares.
"Oh Celestia, it's another Changeling invasion!" Spike cried, dashing beneath the kitchen table.
Twilight stood static for a moment. "I don't think so, it felt like it came from the base—"
The basement door exploded open, revealing a trio of Twilight Sparkles. The first was a cyborg, only a few sections of her body remained flesh and blood. The rest of this Robotwilight shined a brilliant chrome in the afternoon light. One eye was its normal purple, while the other glowed with an electronic light, as if backlit from behind. The second was a battle scarred warrior of the wastelands in a lycra battle suit with the skulls of her enemies hanging from a belt around her waist. On her face, a scar running from her forehead to just above her lips distracted from her eyepatch and shortly cropped mane. The third Twilight's mane shimmered in the light, and waved in an absent wind. Around her neck shined the regalia of Princess Celestia.
"Twilight Sparkle of universe 77, you Rainbow Dash, and Rainbow Blitz of universe 63 are under arrest!" The robotwilight proclaimed.
"What? On what grounds?" Twilight demanded.
"The council of Twilights demands your presence!" Celestia-Twilight replied. "You must stand trial for compromising the fabric of the universe."
Twilight gasped. "Now wait just a minute, I've never—"
"Seizing protocol initiated!" Robotwilight fired a holding spell, narrowly missing her target.
"Twilight, run!" Spike shouted, blowing a smokescreen between her and her pursuers.
Ordinarily, Twilight respected the rule of law, and ordinarily, she would have gladly sorted this whole thing out in a calm and civilized manner. But once magic starts flying around, courtesy goes out the window.
She quickly flew out of her window, leaving behind a curling plume of smoke in her living room. Spike tried to make a break for the door, but found a cold steel claw wrapped around his ankle, lifting him off of the ground.
"I have her Spike," Robotwilight beeped.
"Freeze him temporarily," Celestialight instructed.
"What about the other Twilight?" Solid-Sparkle asked.
"You and I will catch her." Celestialight replied, glancing over her map. "I have a feeling I know exactly where she's headed."
With only an inch to spare between them, a distant shout ruined the moment.
"Rainbow Dash!"
She groaned. "It's Twilight," she said, pulling herself away and heading toward the window. "How did she find us?"
Blitz followed her to the window to see Twilight racing toward their house on unsteady wings, being chased by something straight out of a dream.
"Is that... is she being chased by more Twilights?"
Twilight barreled through the wall of her house, spitting out cloudstuff and scrambling to her hooves.
"Hey! What's the deal breaking into my house?" Rainbow snapped, forgetting that she was technically the one in trouble.
Twilight looked at her, and then Blitz. "I didn't want to believe it!" Twilight growled. "I can't believe you'd take advantage of my trust like this! I can't leave you alone for a second, can I?"
"What? You never told me I couldn't use your stupid portal thing!" Rainbow shot back defensively.
"I thought it was implied that bringing something into a universe where it doesn't belong is a bad idea!" Twilight countered. "I guess common sense isn't so common!"
"If you're not supposed to bring anything back with it, then why make it able to do that?"
While Twilight busily berated his twin, Blitz stared worriedly at the two Twilights still heading straight for Dash's house. "Uh, guys..."
Before any could react, the house moved from beneath them, Celestialight's magic collapsing the cloudy floor. All three fell from the house, halting inches from the ground, fastened securely in their captors holding spell.
"I swear Rainbow, if we make it out of this, you're never staying at my house unsupervised again!" Twilight whispered as their three pursuers approached them.
"Where are you taking us?" Blitz demanded, struggling against his magical bonds.
"To the Twilight zone. All of you are in big trouble!" Solid Sparkle replied. "Universes are not toys! The laws of physics are just that; laws! And when they are broken, there are consequences!"
"Wha, why me?" Blitz stammered. "I was tricked in to coming here!"
"We'll decide what you were when we convene the council," Celestialight replied, teleporting them back to the library basement, where Robotwilight had already prepared the portal.
Twilight put a hoof over her face. "Celestia's gonna be so mad..."
As soon as the other Twilight's stepped through the portal, the prisoners marveled at a city designed and built entirely by Twilight and her various iterations. Every corner had a bookstand or tea cart, and every other building was either a bookstore or a library. But, even more distracting than the buildings, were the residents.
"Excuse me, but where are you taking us?" Twilight asked, still hanging upside down in her captors magic. Her tone suggested she'd long since given up making sense of everything she was seeing. Although in the back of her mind, she relished the opportunity to be the mare that proved the multi-verse theory. In her universe, anyway.
"Well, if you'd have responded to any of our thirty correspondence letters, you'd know where you were going!" Celestilight snapped indignantly.
"You got letters from yourself?" Dash asked.
"Apparently, but I just threw them out! I thought they were pranks!" She replied defensively. "What would you have done with them?"
As they walked through the main thoroughfare, all manner of Twilight's from every conceivable universe gathered along the street to watch the procession of the rogue Twilight. Dragon Twilights, griffon Twilights, dark magic wielding Twilights, fashionista, farmer, stunt flier, party planner, veterinarian, and a thousand more variations of Twilight all gawked at the three prisoners.
Curiosity getting the better of her, Twilight had to gather as much information on this place as she could. "Excuse me, but... what is this place, and why is everyone some version of me?"
Robotwilight turned her head around 180 degrees and explained as the group continued forward. "This is the Twilight zone, built by the council of Twilight's after the War of the Elements in some of the universes. It was built as a final refuge for Twilight's who had either ruined, lost control of, or been rendered powerless by events in their universe beyond their control."
Twilight's jaw fell open. "So... all these Twilight's are... homeless?"
"Not all are without a universe. Most were summoned here because of your actions. Very few Twilights have actually met such a fate." Even as a cyborg, Robotwilight could see the concern in her counterpart's eyes. "Don't worry, we take care of all of our Twilights. They are, after all, us."
Dash watched library after library, research center after college pass by her as they headed toward a central spire with Twilight's cutie mark emblazoned on its front. "Not a bar in sight. This place was built by Twilights, alright."
"Am I the only one freaked out by this?" Blitz asked "I mean, why are there so many of you?"
"Well, as you probably already know, there's more than one universe that exists parallel to ours. Apparently, all the Twilights from a bunch of other universes got together and built... this."
They entered the towering building and found themselves before an elevated table of ten Twilights. The three that had captured them, as well as a Luna-Twilight, a ninja Twilight, pirate twilight, secret agent Twilight, astronaut Twilight, superhero Twilight, and doctor Twilight. The chamber doors slammed and locked behind them as Celestialight released the three of them from her magic, dropping them harshly to the floor.
"Now can I repudiate these charges?" Twilight asked, an edge of venom in her voice at being dragged out of her universe.
"I don't see how!" Astrotwilight replied. "The evidence is indisputable!"
"Evidence of what? I still don't even know what I'm being charged with!" Twilight shouted. LunaTwi silenced the rumbling chamber with a hoof.
"It is only fair. Twilight Sparkle of universe 77, and Rainbow Dash of universe 77, you are charged with the crime of destroying your universe."
"I know I saw it land over here..." Scootaloo mumbled to herself, searching the tall grass for the baseball her classmates had been playing with at recess.
"Let's go Scoots! Recess is almost over!" Apple Bloom shouted from home plate. This was why she hated playing the outfield.
"Hang on!" she called back, raising herself on her short wings to try and see over the grass. She gained a few inches and spotted a hint of white a few feet away. She dropped down and trotted through the weeds only to find something peculiar. The white she had seen had come from the ground, though it wasn't their baseball. It seemed to be a hole in the ground, except instead of dirt, there seemed to be... nothing! Just an empty white space.
"What the..." Scootaloo said to herself as she examined it closer. Near her hoof was a clump of dirt. She kicked it toward the hole and watched as it rolled into the white void and disappeared. It seemed the space had swallowed it up!
"Guys!" she called back to the group. "You gotta come check this out!"
