> Crisis of Infinite Twilights: Truth, Dare, or Drink
>  by CrowMagnon
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> The Players
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Truth, Dare, or Drink
by CrowMagnon






"...Honeycrisps, Pink Ladies, Red and Gold Delicious..."

Faith raised an eyebrow as he entered the BUTTS break room to find Zapapple rattling off a list of apple names to a glassy eyed Twicora. Dusk Shine was nearby reading a history book, his eyes widening with surprise every so often when he found a particularly interesting case of the gender-reversal from his native dimension. For some reason, a bag of flour with the crudely drawn image of Twiley's face took up the seat beside him.

Meanwhile, off in the far corner, Princess Aurora hummed to herself while using her magic to write short notes on a series of index cards, placing each one face-down on top of one of several stacks as soon as she was done with them.

He quickly spotted his own Twilight pouring herself some tea and watching the farmer, so he walked over to her. Pointing toward Zapapple and Twicora, he asked, "And what is going on here?"

"Twicora asked what sort of apples they produce at Sweet Apple Acres. Zapapple's been going on like this for a good five minutes now."

"I see... well, would you like to accompany me to the training room? A new Twilight has arrived, and insisted on meeting Captain Sparkle and the Green Lantern. This one is from Bridle Bay."

Twilight tilted her head in thought. "Bridle Bay? Why does that sound so...? Wait, are you saying she's a...?" Faith replied with a knowing smirk, but that was all she needed. "Huh. Okay, this I have to see. Preferably before somepony gets their head cut off."


-----


Meanwhile, Agent Coltson led a purple capricorn deep into the annals of BUTTS. "And here's the training room, Princess Tremor," he said, leading her to a thick metal door. "We have excercise equipment, and a large sparring area that two of your counterparts are making use of right now."

Seafoam Tremor grinned. "Nice. I'd like to see what some of these pony-me's are made of." Pushing through the door, she scanned the room until she quickly found the two ponies she was looking for, soldier and superhero locked in...

... Conversation. Instead of sparring, GL and Cap. Sparkle were going over diagrams with arrows and symbols all over them, like hoofball players discussing their playbooks. Moving past Seafoam, Agent Coltson called out, "GL, Captain, there's someone new who'd like to meet you."

The two unicorns set their diagrams down upon hearing Agent Coltson's voice and walked over to greet the new arrival. Once they were facing each other, Coltson said, "Ladies, I'd like to introduce Seafoam Tremor, Princess of the--"

"--Capricorn!" Cap. Sparkle blurted out. Realizing she'd interrupted, she chuckled nervously. "Heh... sorry. I was just surprised." Turning to Seafoam, she said, "A friend back home told me about the capricorns, but I never thought I'd meet one myself... let alone one who is 'myself.' Let me start over, I'm Captain Twilight Sparkle of the Everfree branch of Luna's Rangers."

"Twilight Sparkle, Green Lantern of sector 2812. You can call me 'GL', and her 'Captain', though. With all of us Twilights gathered together, it just gets confusing otherwise," GL told her with a wink, then held her hoof out. Seafoam returned the greeting by bumping hooves together, then did the same with Captain.

"I'll do that, GL. So, what were you two up to? When I heard there were a couple of soldiers in here, I expected you to be training."

"We were," Captain replied, bringing over some of the diagrams with her magic. "Just before we were brought here, we had a fight with one of our evil counterparts. Our efficiency wasn't anywhere near what it could have been, so we've been working on hammering out some new tactics for the rematch based on what we know of every one of us BUTTS has gathered so far."

Captain frowned and muttered, "We'd be further along, too, if we hadn't gotten teleported away, then brought back to find our diagrams turned into five-dimensional origami..."

GL laughed and put a foreleg around Captain's shoulders. "I tell you, this mare could give Mare-Do-Well a run for her bits when it comes to preparation. So how about you, Seafoam? You look like you can hold your own in a fight, so what can you bring to the table?"

Seafoam's grin widened, showing off her sharp, shark-like teeth. "Well, since you're asking, there's only one real way for warriors to show each other what they can do."

Spinning around on her front hoof, Seafoam swung her razor-sharp tail around in an arc toward the other mares' throats.


-----


"No, I don't really think she's going to cut anypony's head off," Abstract Twilight said, rolling her eyes. "It was just a joke."

Dusk looked at her incredulously. "Have you ever actually met a capricorn before?"

"Sure I have. And just because they're more militaristic than us, that doesn't make them a race of psychotics." If she were going to start pointing that hoof at anypony, it would probably be the alicorn stallion carrying a bag of flour on his back because it was 'like the little sister he never had.'

From the back of the group, Princess Aurora said, "Nor should one make assumptions of any being solely based on their race, any more than you would wish for others to assume that all ponies are alike. One of my student's friends is a capricorn, but one who is far, far more concerned with making friends and making them smile than with causing any sort of harm." All the while that she spoke, the ancient alicorn continued using her magic to jot down notes on index cards.

Dusk Shine hesitated before speaking quietly, as if afraid of summoning some terrible monster as he told the others, "... Lady Tsunami once commanded her people to murder every other living thing on the planet if anything ever happened to her..."

After a very awkward moment of silence, Zapapple drawled, "Goes to show what Ah've always said. 'Never trust anythin' with a sword on its butt.'"

"Whether you claim that it was said or wrote, I am doubting that is an actual quote," Twicora teased.

"You callin' me a liar, stripey?"

Dusk shook his head. "It doesn't matter, even if she isn't as crazy as the capricorns I know, she went straight for the gym. The gym GL is in." Seeing a few of them look to him in confusion, Dusk elaborated, "Seriously, haven't any of you read a comic book? GL's a superhero! Whenever superheroes meet another warrior, they pretty much have to fight."

"She and Captain Sparkle seemed to be getting along quite well," Faith pointed out, the abstract somehow having managed to go five minutes without injecting himself into the conversation.

"But they met in the middle of a fight with a supervillain, so they already showed each other how tough they are without having to fight each other. The capricorn Twilight is a newcomer, and she went specifically looking for those two when she arrived." Seeing the doors to their destination up ahead, he held back. "Everything I've ever read tells me that when we open that door, it'll be a melee."

Zapapple snorted in derision as she pushed forward and placed her hooves against the doors. "And Ah thought your thing was you're supposed ta be a stallion. There ain't nothin' ta worry about." With that, she shoved the doors to the training room open.


-----


GL looked up from the pages that she and Cap. Sparkle had been working on, many of which now had an added layer of red ink to show edits made to the tactical diagrams, courtesy of the quill pen Seafoam held in her own magic. While GL waved to them, the Captain was looking over the revisions with such intense concentration that she didn't even notice the new arrivals. "Are you sure about that?" The Ranger asked. "I ran that formation through my mind a thousand times, and..."

"Well, we do have a habit of getting lost in our own head," Seafoam admitted with a shrug. "That's why I'll never forget the most important piece of advice Lord Tydal ever taught me about tactics. 'Figure out what works, and keep doing that.' Trust me, I've tried this approach before and it works better than you'd think on paper."

Captain let out a humble chuckle at that. "That sounds a lot like something my old drill instructor would say. Thanks." Finally spotting the other Twilights out of the corner of her eye, she stood up. "Oh, hi! Everypony, have you met Seafoam yet?" To all outward appearances, the Ranger was smiling as she stood close to the capricorn, but a few noticed the strain at the corners of her mouth as she whispered, "Remember, they're civilians... please don't introduce yourself to them the way you did us..."

Seafoam snickered and whispered back, "Oh, so you're saying I shouldn't stop short like I did with you? Whatever you say, Captain." Even though Cap. Sparkle was roughly 87% certain that this was a joke, the pallor this comment brought to her face brought a genuine laugh to the capricorn as she stepped forward to introduce herself. "Hello, I'm Seafoam Tremor. And I heard about you all on the way here." She flashed her teeth in a shark-like grin, and to their credit, the male (who looked more like a librarian than an alicorn Prince to her, or possibly a baker with that bag of flour he was carrying around) was the only one who seemed disquieted by it.

Seafoam wasn't the only one to notice Dusk's twitchiness as Twicora elbowed him in the barrel. "A shame we did not make a bet. I see no signs of battle yet."

GL snickered. "Battle? Nah, just a bit of showing off, right girls?" The other two nodded, Seafoam doing so more enthusiastically than Captain while GL continued on. "Seafoam here's got some serious gymnastics, Captain showed off some of her spells, and I showed her what my constructs can do." While she recounted this, GL used her power ring to make a recreation of the three of them pulling off various feats for each other. "So, what brings you all over here?"

"We wanted to get to know our new arrival," Princess Aurora replied, making her quill and inkwell disappear in a flash of magic as she smiled happily. "And I just finished working up a good way to do it!"

As everypony turned to the regal alicorn, she took the stacks of index cards that she had been writing on and summoned a short coffee table to set them down on. Seeing that she had their attention, she explained, "I've been thinking that it's a bit boring just waiting here while waiting for our little friend Scootaloo and the others to return from overseas with another batch of us, so I came up with a game to help us pass the time, if you are all interested. It will help us to get to know each other better, and avoid any unfortunate misunderstandings." For a moment, she grinned toward Dusk with a teasing twinkle in her eye, which caused the prince to cough and start digging at the floor with his hoof as he looked away.

Faith looked at Dusk with an amused smirk before turning to Aurora and asking, "Would this be a 'Twilights only' game, or may I participate as well?"

"Careful," the abstract's companion warned. "If this is one of those games where we tell each other things about ourselves, it'll take a lot longer with him playing."

A round of laughter went through the group, and Aurora answered, "Given that your ties to each other were strong enough to bring him across dimensions with you, I would say that to play without Faith would be incomplete. Questions will be asked of each of us, so when it is your turn, why don't you both answer together?" At that suggestion, Abstract Twilight and Faith looked to each other, shrugged, then nodded in agreement.

One by one, the others agreed to play as well, so Aurora used her magic to summon cushions for each of them to sit on in a circle around the coffee table. Up close, they could see that each of the cards were face down and sorted according to topic, which was displayed on the face-up side.

While they settled in, Aurora explained, "As you can see, the cards are sorted according to the following topics: 'Friends & Family', 'Relationships', 'Deeds', 'World History', 'Impressions', and 'Dare'. The first four subjects are self-explanatory, with questions pertaining to ourselves and our worlds. 'Impressions' is different, in that it asks questions pertaining to the impressions we have gained of this world or our counterparts, and 'Dare' could be anything. The first five are sorted in such a way that the questions grow more personal the farther down the stack we go, but I have shuffled the 'Dare' deck so that even I do not know which order they are in."

Twicora pointed a hoof at the cards. "So how do we play this game? Pick a card with a question, then answer to the same?"

"Sort of," Aurora replied. "Once a topic is chosen, we draw the top card for that stack. The one who chose the topic answers the question, followed by the rest of us in turn, going clock-wise around the table. The last one to answer then gets to choose the next topic and draws from that stack. If, for any reason, you do not wish to share your answer with the group, you may abstain from doing so and incur a penalty. The penalty is to either draw from the 'Dare' stack and do whatever it says, or drink a shot."

"Well that ain't much of a penalty," Zapapple smugly interjected. "Maybe fer you weak-livered horn-heads, but Ah've got a real mare's constitution."

Seafoam gave the farmer a predatory grin, her tail swishing from side to side (to the discomfort of Captain and Dusk, who were seated on either side of her). "O-ho, that sounds like a challenge to me."

Aurora's perpetual smile took on a mischievous edge. "Oh, I assure you both that it will be if you choose to drink." Her horn glowed for a moment, and with a flash of magic, a large bottle filled with a glowing, twinkling liquid appeared in the center of the table alongside a shot glass. "This, my little doppelgangers, is a bottle of Starshine from the year 273. Distilled in the dream realm from the light of the night stars themselves, it takes two centuries to properly ferment, and can never be exposed to the light of the sun.

"When properly prepared and cared for, however, it takes on a flavor that is beyond reality, and a kick that has been known to literally transport the unwary drinker into the world of dreams. It is for this very reason that it is illegal to drink it in Equestria without my personal supervision. Even diluted... well, about four hundred years ago, I accidentally dropped a bottle into the Neigh Orleans water supply.

"The very next day, they invented Mardi Gras."

The ancient Princess looked at the reactions of her counterparts as each of them stared at the bottle in silence. Some, like Captain, edged back from it as if it were a megaspell about to go off. Others, particularly Seafoam and Zapapple, looked like they were poised to take a shot just to test themselves. "Well, then, any further questions? No? Very well, I'll start us off."
> 1st Card: Family
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	For an organization like BUTTS, dedicated as it was to monitoring a mare who had once been the most powerful and potentially unstable unicorn alive (who had recently been granted godhood and political power... because reasons) it was vital to maintain constant surveillance. Naturally, such a state of vigilance resulted in a great deal of data being gathered on Twilight and the many strange phenomena which occurred around her. This data was all fed into a centralized office within BUTTS; the Aggregated Nexus of Unusual Surveillance.

Agent Coltson was a consummate professional, but even he knew that there was something horrible about the circular portal of wedge-shaped panels leading into the Nexus. Still, he placed his hoof on the scanner beside the door, and as the panels slid open, a blast of frigid air blew out of the sphincter-like portal.

From inside, Wall Breaker poked his head out. "Oh, hi Agent Coltson! What are you doing in this cold open? And by that I mean--"

"Yeah, I get it. It's... pretty self-explanatory," Coltson interrupted as he pushed past the Guard. "I'm here to get a copy of some security footage taken recently. You?"

Earlier...

"Thanks, Wall Breaker," Night Light said, taking his coffee from the Guard. Even if his son was the only one worth half a damn when threats to Equestria showed up, he could appreciate that they made good gofers. He took a long sip before suddenly choking and dropping the cup to the floor.

"What's the matter? Did they forget the cinnamon?"

Night Light shuddered. "My neural implant alarm's just gone off! Wall Breaker, there's been tampering in the Aggregated Nexus!"

Coltson blinked in horror. "Don't tell me there's been a security breach! There's so much sensitive information kept in there, if it got leaked..."

"What? Oh, no, don't worry about that. Your ANUS is still locked up tight. I haven't seen any signs of penetration or leaking. You're right, though, that would get messy, and probably create a huge stink."

Agent Coltson resisted the urge to slam his face against the wall. It was a mighty battle that would have inspired epic poetry if anypony could have seen the struggle within his mind. Eventually, he decided to simply return to the topic at hoof and asked, "... Okay, so then why did Director Night Light send you here?"

"That? Oh, somepony bumped the thermostat."

"... The director has a neural implant that only goes off when somepony messes with the air conditioning?"

Wall Breaker smiled cheerfully. "Yep! Apparently, every dad in Canterlot has one. Good thing, too. There are only so many homeless ponies for the Princesses to toss into the generator."

Coltson stared at the Guard for several seconds before shaking his head. "Ah, buck it. You want to come watch a video of Captain Sparkle flipping out?"

"DO I?"






Truth, Dare, or Drink
by CrowMagnon






Princess Aurora glanced around the table at the others. To her left sat Dusk Shine (and 'Twiley'), then Seafoam, Captain Sparkle, Green Lantern, Abstract Twilight and Faith, Twicora, and finally Zapapple.

Reaching out with her magic, the regal alicorn took the top card off of the 'Friends & Family' stack. As she had sorted the cards herself, she didn't really need to look, but did so anyway as she read out loud, "'Tell us a little about your immediate family.' Well, my closest family member is of course my elder brother, Prince Morning Star. Like the other gods of our world, we were given life and shape by the Creator, Vad Skypole." She paused briefly as Captain's eyes bugged out, and she started to sputter something out, only to rein it in as soon as she saw Aurora looking at her. Tilting her head in confusion, Aurora asked, "Is something the matter, Captain?"

Captain looked around the table at the other Twilights, much like a sinking mare searching for a life preserver. "Isn't anypony else going to react to...? I mean... it's..." Seeing that none of her counterparts were reacting to Aurora's claims with surprise, her ears flattened and she hung her head. "No, I... I guess we're all going along with it... Sorry for interrupting."

Leaning away from Captain, Seafoam whispered to the other pony next to her, "Captain's kind of got mood-swings, doesn't she? Mare should get some help for that." Then she remembered that her other neighbor was Dusk, who nodded to her while cradling the bag of flour with Twiley's face drawn on it. Sitting up straight, Seafoam reminded herself, "Right... all ponies are crazy."

Aurora coughed daintily as she got herself back on track and resumed her story. "Well, as we are all children of the same 'father', the rest of the gods are our brothers and sisters, but I wouldn't say that we're a particularly close family,except for Fuzzy Thinker, the god of the griffons. He raised us until Morning Star grew old enough to take Equestria back from the chaos which had claimed it at that time, so we consider him more a kindly uncle than a big brother. Aside from Morning Star, I also have Princess Cadance, whom father created after I was forced to banish my brother into the sun." Aurora smiled fondly, her eyes focusing on a point immediately in front of her as if she were reading her memories like a book. "Raising my little sister gave me much-needed purpose beyond the detached, rote mechanics of ruling Equestria, and her boundless love helped me to open my heart to my little ponies despite the despondency from losing Morning Star. There are others whom I love as though they were family, and one in particular who I'm sure will be joining the family soon enough, but we'll get around to them sooner or later."

Turning to the stallion to her left, Aurora nodded her head. "And I would say that sums it up. Your turn, Dusk."

Dusk Shine nodded and addressed the mares surrounding him. "Okay, well... not much to say, really. Like most of you, I was born a unicorn, so my family's pretty normal. My dad, Star Shine, is a novelist, and my mom, Moonlight, has a government job." He screwed his face up as a realization suddenly dawned on him. Looking around at the training room, he mused, "Now that I think about it, if I really am the gender-flipped version of this universe's Twilight, then that probably means her job is running an agency to spy on me... I wish I hadn't thought of that... A-anyway, aside from them, there's my BSBFF, Gleaming Shield. She's married to Prince Bolero, the alicorn god of love, and I don't know if in-laws count, but he was my foalsitter and a real big brother figure to me when I was young. And finally there's my daughter."

"DAUGHTER?!" The combined shout of the surprised mares and one abstract nearly sent Dusk flying back into the far wall, but he managed to brace himself so that he only ended up flopping over onto his back.

To the surprise of most present, Faith's reaction was more anger than surprise. Practically snarling at the other stallion, his metal wings flared threateningly. "You have a filly, and you've just been sitting here with 'Twiley' this whole time instead of tearing apart heaven and earth to get back? What kind of father are you?!" Pushing himself to his hooves, he made ready to launch himself at Dusk with violent intent before the magical aura of his companion surrounded him.

"Faith! Sit. Down," Abstract Twilight commanded, using her magic to yank him back down onto the cushion so that she could stare him in the eye. "Just because you're still hurting over what she did to you, that doesn't give you an excuse to throttle anypony!" Seeing the others now staring at them, Abstract Twi sighed. "Sorry, Faith's just got some... abandonment issues. Family's a tender subject. Dusk, please tell us about your daughter."

For his part, Faith allowed himself to get reined back, if only to give Dusk the opportunity to justify his apparent apathy. That didn't stop him from looking as though he was preparing to shoot murder-beams out of his eyes if he didn't like what the alicorn prince had to say.

Dusk pulled himself back up and hugged the flour bag more tightly. "It... it's not like I don't want to get back to her," he insisted. "I just know that there's nothing I can do until Rolla-- I mean Scootaloo and the others come back! Besides, Rollerbelle's not like pony fillies. She's--"

Once again, Dusk was interrupted, this time by the door getting opened by what appeared to be a two foot tall salt shaker with a toilet plunger sticking out the front of it. Gliding toward the group, it looked at each one through a small telescope sticking out of the dome on top of its conical body and waved its plunger before addressing them with a stilted monotone.

"Hello, every-pony! My name is Rollypolly! Grand-ma Velvet wanted me to introduce myself, and ensure that you had adequate sus-tenance! Do you require snacks?"

Everypony stared at the baby Dalek, and Aurora idly picked her stacks of cards up off the table while Captain Sparkle slammed her head against it. Immediately, the baby dalek perked up and rolled over to her.

"Mother! You have returned! But how... oh, my apologies, Captain Sparkle. I was momen-tarily overcome with how similar your technique is to mother's."

Dusk looked to Faith and gestured toward Rollypolly with his hoof. "So... yeah, if he's here, then I'd say Rollerbelle is doing just fine on the other side."

Taken aback, the abstract simply stared and let out a small "Huh."

"My apologies for interrupting your game! Should I tell Grand-ma Velvet that snacks are not required?"

"Perhaps in a bit, thank you," Princess Aurora said, smiling down at him. "It's very nice to meet you, though, Rollypolly. Would you like to sit with us for a bit while we continue?"

The dalek focused its viewer on Aurora for several seconds before rolling over toward her. "Affir-ma-tive," he declared, drawing a tinkling laugh from her as she wrapped a large wing around his metal shell.

The mood having calmed down, Aurora nodded to Dusk. "Now then, you were telling us about Rollerbelle?"

"Oh, right! Well... I was caught up in this whole thing where everypony I know was telling me their insane theories about Rollalong's secret origin. Your guys' version of him is that Scootaloo filly, by the way. So this male version of The Professor, a time-traveling alien from my universe, shows up and drags me into protecting his world from a dalek invasion. Long story short and skipping the stupid parts, while we were on their ship, Rollerbelle and I bonded, so I took her from her people and adopted her as my own daughter."

Faith coughed when his companion elbowed him in the ribs, but he looked a little sheepish as he said, "Well... that's really not what I was expecting. I apologize for flying off the handle like that, I didn't realize your situation was so... unique."

"And a new rule," Aurora added with a stern touch of iron to her motherly voice. "The next time one of us does 'fly off the handle', they will incur a double penalty." She smiled sweetly, but in such a way that no creature around the table had any doubt that discipline would be strictly enforced. "Just to keep things civil, okay?"

They all quickly nodded in agreement. "And I'm done... Seafoam?"

The capricorn nodded. "Well, I don't have any gods or... whatever that is in my family tree," she said, pointing toward Rollypolly. "My father, Angler Lamplight, is a scout in Lord Tydal's army specializing in deep-sea reconnaisance." She smiled fondly and toothily as she reminisced. "He's always telling stories about the strange and unique creatures he encounters down there. My mom's name is Twilight Velvet. She used to be a pony, but fell in love with my dad so Lord Tydal transformed her into a capricorn. Now she works primarily as a chronicler, recording the deeds of our people."

"As for my brother, Terrapin..." Seafoam sighed and shook her head. "For whatever reason, he was always infatuated with the stories mom told about ponies. I guess Miss Prissy must've needed a few real soldiers in her ranks, because Celestia took him away and turned him into a unicorn... Ugh, we had such a big fight when he moved out. He even changed his name to 'Shining Armor' to be more like a pony! We didn't even talk until right before his wedding to that scrawny, glittery piece of leg-candy, 'Cadance...'"

The way she spat out the alicorn of love's name, it sounded like a curse word coming out of her mouth. Recalling that the name had come up before, and in what context, she looked to Aurora. "Oh, right, she's your little sister. Some offense."

"Some taken," Aurora replied good-naturedly. "Did you manage to make up?"

Seafoam sighed. "... Yeah, sort of. I mean, he's still my brother, and I love him, and all... I just don't get him! Why would any capricorn want to be anything else? I just don't understand why he wanted to get away from us so badly..."

"I doubt that he wants to put you on a shelf," Twicora supportively offered. "Far more likely that he simply felt he needed to find his true self."

"Yeah. An' his 'true self' is a no-good Canterlot snob," Zapapple groused. Leaning toward Seafoam, she asserted, "Anypony that won't stand by their family ain't worth frettin' over! If he wants ta leave fer some stuck-up bimbo, you tell him not ta let the door hit his plot on the way out." To Aurora, she added, "All the offense," which caused the regal alicorn to raise an eyebrow.

Seafoam smirked appreciatively in Zapapple's direction. "Heh, well, that's it for me. Captain?"

Captain Sparkle groaned and pulled her face up off the table. She cast a leery glance toward Rollypolly, then shook her head before addressing the others. "Right. Well, my mom, Twilight Velvet, is a novelist. My dad, Night Light, works for the Civil Service Bureau. His devotion to public service rubbed off on me and my big brother, Shining, who is the youngest soldier to make Captain of the Guard in Equestrian history."

Whatever had been upsetting her about the previous 'Twilights' and their stories, it slowly melted away to be replaced with pride as she reminisced about her family. "He's a lot like the one in this world, really. Strong and noble, but humble and devoted to serving Equestria. And he always supported me when I decided I wanted to join the Guard with him, helping me train my body and magic before I enlisted. Honestly, the biggest surprise I had when I met this world's version was finding out he was married to Princess Cadance instead of Luna."

GL blurted out, "No way! You mean there's a world where my BBBFF and Cadance aren't the most sickeningly meant-for-each-other couple in existence? Well, aside from the one where they're brother and sister. Biologically," she added, cutting off Zapapple before she could say anything.

Captain shook her head. "No, and don't get me wrong, I like Princess Cadance based on the couple of times I've met her. My brother's just been smitten with Princess Luna since we were foals, hearing the story of how she was trapped in eternal sleep for a thousand years. Heh, I'm sure part of why he joined the Guard was because he wanted to be her hero. He's always been a hopeless romantic, so I was really happy when I found out it worked out for him. Maybe your brother's just too much like mine in that regard, Seafoam?"

The capricorn snorted, but did seem to warm to the idea as she admitted, "Well, Terrapin always was a softy."

Captain smiled a little and turned to the ring-bearing mare on her other side. "Your turn, GL."

GL grinned. "Well, my parents aren't much different from Captain's. As far as my Shining goes, he's married to Cadance, and like me they both have power rings tied to the emotional spectrum. Unlike mine, which taps into the green energy of willpower, Shining's is connected to the blue energy of hope, and Cadance's to the violet energy of love." Turning to Faith and Abstract Twi, she shrugged. "Not much else to say, other than I love my family. Your turn, guys."

"Dare," Faith replied without a hint of hesitation, causing his companion to roll her eyes.

"So you're going to wimp out on the very first question? You big baby," she teased, shaking her head with a smirk. "Well, I've got nothing to hide, here. I have a good relationship with my family. We had a massive blow-up around the time Shining was supposed to get married, and I'll admit I have my share of the blame for that, but we worked things out since then and there isn't really anything else to say."

Aurora tilted her head and asked, "What about Faith?"

"Huh?"

"Well, you two are so close, you're practically soulmates," Aurora replied with a smile. "I just couldn't help but wonder. Are you a couple, or is it more of a brother-sister relationship?"

Abstract Twilight's eyes went wider at the alicorn's question, and while the others were left wondering which insinuation was causing her more shock, she turned to her partner and stared at him for several seconds before hanging her head and muttering, "...Dare."

Laughing softly, Aurora reached for the top Dare card with her magic and levitated it over to the metal-winged duo.

Faith chuckled at his companion's change of attitude until they looked at the card and read what it said. Abstract Twilight's jaw dropped, and she told Aurora, "You are a sadist."

"Well, she is 'you,'" Faith reminded her. "So you only have yourself to blame. Is it too late to take a shot?"

"I'm afraid so," Aurora replied with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes. "The card's orders are absolute. So, which one did you draw?"

The two of them sighed simultaneously, then took a step back away from the table and faced each other. After giving each other a resolute nod, they began doing a little dance.

"Sunshine, sunshine
ladybugs awake!
Clap your hooves
and do a little shake!"

The crowd around the table immediately exploded into laughter, with all but Seafoam, Twicora and Zapapple instantly recognizing the silly little song and dance, and those three guffawed loudly over how silly they looked wiggling their rumps at each other. Several whistled and made cat-calls while staring at Faith's backside.

Dusk snickered and shook his head. "Wow, I had no idea just how dirty that looked until I saw mare-me doing it."

Abstract Twi picked up on that as she and Faith sat down and asked, "Wait, you know that routine, too, Dusk?"

"Of course," the stallion replied. "It's the special greeting Prince Bolero and I have. We do it every time we get together. Why?"

Dusk suddenly realized that he'd drawn the attention of every mare present. Some of them were blushing, some looked horrified, and the remainder were both. "... What? Come on, it's just a silly greeting between two guys. Why are you looking at me... like... that...?" He slowly trailed off, his mind rather abruptly piecing together that he was among ponies for whom gender dynamics were in many ways opposite, and throwing images of mares wiggling their tails at each other into the forefront of his brain.

While Dusk started turning beet-red, Faith loudly interjected, "Moving on, now... I believe it's Twicora's turn?"

Twicora cleared her throat as she tried to stifle the last of her giggles. She then sat up straight and placed a hoof over her chest as she began to rhyme. "By my parents, I was told that on the year that I was foaled, my father was tasked by Celestia to serve as a diplomat to the nation of Zebrica. Alongside him, my beloved mater volunteers to help poor villages which have no water. As those before have said, my brother is also a noble sort, though his talents are turned less toward war, and more toward sport. Though his skills on the gaming fields are not to be taken lightly, he is known by the jocular nickname, 'Mighty Whitey'."

Captain asked, "So he's an athlete? What does he play?"

"The game is called 'Vita', and the comparison should suffice. It is much like your hockey, but obviously not on ice. Zebras move a ball about the field by striking it with clubs. Needless to say, the players take many drubs. Though from the grassy plains to the desert sands, most of the violence is among the fans."

Princess Aurora interjected, "Oh my, that sounds rather hazardous. Are you alright with your brother playing such a violent sport?"

Twicora laughed. "As much as any of you might be with him putting on armor to face Equestria's enemies." To Zapapple, she said, "And at last it comes to your turn. Is there anything more about your family that we might learn?"

Zapapple tilted her hat back and replied, "Not much else ta tell! Fer those of you who ain't heard the story, Ah was adopted by the Apple family when Ah was a newborn. Ma and pa were the best parents ever. Pa was this big ol' giant of a pony. A lot lahk Big Mac is now, but... moreso. He was quiet, but not 'cause he didn't feel comfortable talkin'. He jus' had so much presence, he could fit a whole speech's worth o' meanin' into a few words."

The earth pony smiled and closed her eyes. "Ma... Ma was fancy. She was one o' them ritzy Orange ponies from Manehattan, an' everypony always kept tryin' ta figure out how a classy lady lahk her ever found herself givin' it all away ta be with an apple farmer. Hay, even Ah didn't get it fer a while. One day when Ah was jus' a tiny thing, Ah asked her, 'Ma, why're you an' Pa together if'n yer so different?' An' she says,"

At this point, Zapapple cleared her throat and did her best to affect a posh Manehattan accent. "Zappy, dear, you're trying too hard to compare us based on what you see on the surface. But whether on the farm or in the city, our hooves walk upon the same earth, and our roots reach deep underground. You might look at us and see an Apple tree and an Orange tree, so different that they could never stand together, but if you look deeper, into the heart of the earth, you would see our roots... our souls intertwined."

There was a moment of silence around the table before Faith voiced what most of them were thinking. "Your mother certainly had a way with words. It sounds like she could have been a poet."

"Heh... that she did... Passed away, both of 'em, not long after Ah got mah cutie mark. Freak storm outta the Everfree hit real sudden-like while they was workin' the far north orchard. They... they got caught up in a flash flood. Weren't nothin' anypony coulda done. After that, it was Granny an' Big Mac, the oldest of us, who took the reins raisin' the rest of us. Applejack an' Ah, we were 'bout the same age an' helped out best we could. 'Specially when it came ta raisin' li'l Apple Bloom. She was jus' a foal back then, barely able ta walk straight."

Zapapple grinned widely. For a number of the ponies gathered, it was the first time they'd seen a genuine smile on the rather surly farmer's face. It didn't last long as she added, "And if'n ya heard it from any o' these others, yes, it's true Ah married Big Mac. He's the best pony Ah ever could'a hoped for, so any o' you pretty purple princesses got anything ta say about it?"

As cast a challenging glare at the unicorns and alicorns, Aurora replied, "Only that I'm flattered you think I'm pretty, and happy that you found true love. Trust me, after having to deal with the nobility since the classical era, your relationship is far, far more wholesome than many I've seen."

This caused Zapapple to pause, deflating slightly without anypony present trying to get on her case about it. Unfortunately, this gave GL, who hadn't heard the entire story, a chance to ask, "What about your biological family?"

"... What about 'em?" Zapapple asked harshly.

Despite Twicora and Captain frantically shaking their heads and waving their hooves around to stop her, GL asked, "I was just wondering, because you didn't mention them at all. Do you know how you lost them?"

Zapapple ground her teeth. "Ah didn't. Ah never lost 'em. Ah never even knew who they were 'til Ah came ta this world an' met their doubles, seein' as how they threw me away fer bein' born without a magical purple boner stickin' outta mah skull!"

The look on Faith's face was just as aghast as when he had first heard that Dusk Shine was a parent, and the only reason his companion didn't hold him back was because she was as stunned as he was.

Similiarly shocked, Seafoam asked, "They abandoned you... just because you're an earth pony?"

"And your Sunny... I'm sorry, I mean your Celestia allows this?" Aurora asked. Her tone was as calm as usual, but something in her voice had a chilling effect on the rest of the room, and the lights themselves seemed to dim as though the area around the table was being partially transported to the dark, cold blackness between the stars.

Summoning up her quill and another index card, Princess Aurora wrote down a memo to herself, ensuring that she would remember to devote a portion of the annual budget to research on inter-dimensional travel. At the end of the memo, she wrote, 'Teach Sunny's double a much-needed lesson.'

Once she was done, the room returned to normal, and Aurora smiled sweetly as she dispelled the writing implements. Zapapple didn't really notice, though. She just told the group, "Anyway, Ah don't care! Ah came out of it better'n most. At least Ah'm alive, an' got taken in by a real family. Now, Ah answered the dang question on the card, so it's mah turn ta draw!"

With that, she reached a hoof out toward the stacks.
> 2nd & 3rd Cards: Jobs & Romance
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	With Wall Breaker at his side, Agent Coltson walked through the ANUS housing all of the pertinent data gathered over the years of observing Twilight Sparkle.

"Wow, it's amazing how much footage BUTTS has collected on just one mare," Wall Breaker mused as they walked through an enormous warehouse filled floor-to-ceiling with rows upon rows of shelves, and each shelf contained dozens of crystals.

"Yep, each crystal is enchanted to contain a piece of surveillance, sorted by subject matter, date and time," Agent Coltson explained to the guard. "As erratic as Twilight's magical surges can be, it's vital to store absolutely everything."

Wall Breaker looked around as they reached an intersection, and took note of the labels at the end of each shelf. "There sure are a lot of rows for 'Twilight Sparkle taking a bath.'"

"Princess Celestia's orders. Water has unique properties that interact with unicorn magic, so she insisted that we be especially vigilant in our surveillance during times when she's likely to be surrounded by it."

Wall Breaker quizzically tilted his head. "Really? I've never heard--"

"Princess. Celestia. Insisted," Coltson replied, pointedly enunciating each word. "Now, then, it should be around this way... ah!"

Coltson led Wall Breaker through the maze of shelves until they reached an unmarked blue door. Pushing it open revealed a room filled with banks of monitors, which were staffed by goats who mostly just seemed to stare blankly at the screens. Walking over toward one screen in particular, Coltson looked at it and saw the Twilights gathered in the training room.

Tapping the nearest goat on the shoulder, Agent Coltson chuckled and asked, "Say, can you rewind that feed back to when Seafoam first came in? I'd like to get a copy, if that's okay."

The goat looked at him with a blank, creepy stare for a few seconds, but then bleated in the affirmative and began working the controls. A nearby screen that was simply showing Twilight Sparkle's bathtub got switched to the feed of the training room and began rewinding while the real-time video continued beside it.

As the two stallions waited for the one screen to go back to the requested point, Coltson and Wall Breaker saw Zapapple Delight throwing a bit of a tantrum. "Wow, she sure got angry about something," Wall Breaker mused.

"Not too surprising. In some ways, the society she's from is still stuck in the dark ages. Especially in her version of Canterlot."

Wall Breaker nodded. "So I suppose we'll want to attach the 'Dark' tag to her Functionality in Canterlot?"

Agent Coltson shrugged. "Probably, but I don't think they even have a fic yet. Still, I wonder what set her off this time?"

"Only one way to find out," Wall Breaker replied, reaching for the volume knob. "Ow!" he exclaimed as an exceptionally large jot of static electricity shot from his hoof into the equipment. "Huh. I didn't even notice any carpeting on the way here."

Coltson narrowed his eyes, staring at Wall Breaker's hoof. "Hold on a second..." Kneeling down in front of Wall Breaker, he held the other stallion's hoof in front of his face.

"Agent Coltson, are you... proposing to me?" Wall Breaker asked. "Because I'm flattered, but Princess Misty is the jealous type, so I doubt she'd let you join--"

The guard was cut off as Coltson glared at him, then pointed down at a small device latched onto his hoof armor. Coltson then scraped it off and set it on the table in order to get a closer look. "It's... much smaller than any model I've ever seen, but it looks like a tiny surveillance device. Wall Breaker, did you come into contact with anypony who could have put this on you?"

"I don't think so," Wall Breaker replied. "I went to get Director Night Light his coffee, went to Ponpan and helped defeat a giant dragon/vampire duo, then his implant went off, I had a little chat with one of the Twilights, then I fixed the thermostat and met up with you."

Coltson blinked. "Wait... one of the Twilights? Which one?"

Wall Breaker shrugged. "I dunno, they all look alike to me. Why?"

"Because around that time, the only Twilights who weren't in the training room or the aquarium were together in the break room! And that means..." Trailing off, Coltson yanked the headset off of one of the goats and started fiddling with the knob on the side, filling his ear with static while Wall Breaker leaned in close to listen in. "How do you work this thing...? Director? Director!"

After a few seconds of adjusting the settings, Coltson heard the comms channel clear up. "Director Night Light, this is Agent Coltson! I have reason to believe that there's a rogue Twilight in the facility, and she's managed to sneak some sort of transmitter into the ANUS. I repeat, sir, we have a bug in our BUTTS!"

"Ohhhh mmmmyyyy!"

Agent Coltson frowned. "Wha... who is this?"

"Sounds like George Takei. I think you misdialed," Wall Breaker replied.

Grumbling to himself, Coltson went back to fiddling with the settings until a nasal voice asked, "Director Night Light's office. What is the nature of your call?"

Sighing in relief, Coltson replied, "This is Agent Coltson. Tell the director that we have a security leak in the ANUS, and--"

Coltson found himself cut off by a sudden burst of laughter from the other end of the line, the voice transitioning to Twilight Sparkle's "... Wow, I'm sorry, but you guys are drek at acronyms. I haven't seen fails that epic since my last Hedgemazes & Humans campaign. Fraggin' Marketing Department boss..."

Coltson looked to the monitor showing the training room, and just like before, every Twilight that didn't have to be held in a water tank was gathered in there. "And who are you? Are you with the League, or...?"

"Me? Just think of me as a concerned citizen, chummer." This time, the voice didn't come from Coltson's earpiece, but from the monitors all around him. As he looked around the room, icons started to cover each screen with images of a highly stylized purple unicorn's face sticking her tongue out while a speech balloon read, 'Naughty-naughty! No peeping!'

As Coltson's jaw dropped, the new Twilight continued speaking. "Specifically, I'm concerned about ponies who like to spy on others from the shadows. That's right, I'm in your system right now, rummaging through all your dirty laundry. Once I get the good stuff, I'm blowing your ANUS open wider than Burrito Wednesday."

Coltson's ears flattened with worry while Wall Breaker shouted, "Dun dun DUNNN!"






Truth, Dare, or Drink
by CrowMagnon






Zapapple's hoof hovered over the stacks as she thought for a few seconds before picking up the top card of the 'Deeds' stack. "What's yer current occupation? Well that's easy. Apple farmer! Aside from tendin' to the trees, Ah handle the bookkeepin', too."

Princess Aurora nodded and answered, "As for me, I serve as head of state for Equestria, as well as tending to the night sky. And with Morning Star growing more settled into his role as an equal diarch, I've found myself able to take a little time to personally teach a few courses in advanced magical theory at Aurora's Academy for Gifted Ponies."

"Yeah, an' only unicorns count as 'gifted,' Ah bet," Zapapple groused quietly.

"Oh, hardly!" Aurora asserted. "Education benefits every pony. Besides, I myself possess traits of all three tribes, so why should a school with my name attached to it focus solely on one? That just sounds horribly regressive to me." The Princess noticed, however, that even as she asked that question, several of her counterparts (each of them graduates of Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns) suddenly felt the need to clear their throats and focus their attention on various random spots around the room.

Dusk coughed into his hoof as he told the others, "Well, um... I'm a Prince, but I'm usually only involved with governing when Prince Solaris and Prince Artemis are kidnapped by evil plants... or going on vacation with my big sister, my brother-in-law, and Lady Tsunami while her capricorns get prepared to horribly murder us all..." He cast a sideways glance at Seafoam, who rolled her eyes. "So... aside from that, I've got an ongoing project to restore Solaris and Artemis's old castle, but mostly I still work out of the Ponyville library."

"Well, aside from some of them being total pansies who can't take an obvious joke (seriously, like any capricorn would ever actually follow through with some 'Doomsday Plot') I'll admit it's nice to see a few versions of Equestrian royalty who do more than spend all day wiggling their useless pink asses," Seafoam said. "When Lord Tydal granted me a royal title, it came with the responsibility of commanding the eastern guard. I'm also heavily involved in our army's Research and Development division." Her mouth spread apart in a wide, toothy grin. "I'm especially fond of the field-testing phase."

"And I find myself both intrigued and disturbed..." Captain murmured before telling them, "As for me, I'm a member of Luna's Rangers, ever since... ever since Princess Luna returned, and I left the Guard."

"I'm sorry, I'm a little confused," Faith said. "Wouldn't Luna's soldiers be a part of the Guard?"

Captain shook her head. "Oh, no, it's a civilian organization, though we do operate with the crown's blessing. It was founded roughly a thousand years ago, soon after our Princess Luna fell into a thousand year sleep. The founder, Nyx, became known as the first Ranger by roaming Equestria and protecting ponies from monsters that started lurking in the night without Princess Luna's influence to keep them in check. When other ponies started banding together to follow her example, they started calling themselves Luna's Rangers as an homage to the fallen princess."

Abstract Twilight rubbed her chin in thought. "Nyx... Nyx... why is that name familiar? It sounds like an OC..."

"Not the name of any Oceanic Creature I've ever heard of," Seafoam replied.

"I do not know what a Nyx is, but it sounds divisive," Rollypolly mused from under Aurora's wing.

Twicora asked Captain, "Anyway, regarding their origins, you have given us a view. But what is it that you and your Rangers actually do?"

"Oh, right. Well, our job is to keep dangerous animals out of inhabited areas. The contract varies from region to region, but towns and counties arrange to keep a small detachment of Rangers trained and ready to prevent monster attacks. Ever since I was promoted to Captain of the entire Everfree region, I've had to ensure that we have enough personnel to patrol the outskirts of Ponyville and the surrounding trade roads."

"Maybe you should put on a mask and go freelance. A lot less red tape that way, and Mare-Do-Well could use a stand-in for when she needs to make public appearances," GL teased before addressing the others. "As for me, I'm a full-time member of the Green Lantern Corp."

Focusing her will through the ring on her horn, GL summoned her uniform around herself. "As a member of the Corp, it's my duty to protect my sector from space-faring criminals, and keep the peace among the worlds in my jurisdiction."

"Hey, you didn't say the chant this time! Does this mean you don't always have to say the rhyme?"

"You mean the Green Lantern Corp's oath? Well... technically, I only need to say it when I'm charging my power ring."

With a wry smirk, Abstract Twi retorted, "So the rest of the time, it's just for dramatic effect, huh?"

GL stuck her tongue out at the metal-winged alicorn. "I bet you're just jealous that you don't have a cool thing to say when you're about to beat some bad guy's flank into the ground."

"No, that's my department," Faith interjected. "And I'm more of a 'dissect their motivations and verbally eviscerate their reason for being' sort of abstract."

Aurora laughed at that and asked GL, "You say you monitor many other worlds? You must be stretched awfully thin!"

"Actually, not as much as you'd think. All things considered, sector 2812 is a pretty peaceful corner of the universe. There's the occasional band of space pirates, but most of the problems in the worlds under my jurisdiction are things that the locals can solve themselves without a super-powered space cop breathing down their necks. In fact, out of all the worlds in sector 2812, my home planet is so rich in valuable minerals and resources compared to others that it's like a magnet for creeps like Larfleeze. And even compared to the rest of the world, the nation of Equestria has so many supervillains in it that, yeah, I check in on other planets periodically, but most of the action I see is right in my own back yard."

"I see. That must be both convenient and distressing," Aurora observed.

GL shrugged. "Well, it does let me stay close to home, and to the ponies I care about. Besides, it gives me more time to work as leader of the Super Friends of Equestria. Funny story, just the other day, we had a group meeting and Lord Tydal was running late, so--"

"Woah, woah, woah!" Seafoam quickly interrupted, causing Dusk and Captain to lean away as her tail started lashing angrily. "Horseapples! I call horseapples! Lord Tydal... THE Lord Tydal is in your 'Super Friends' group... and you're the leader?"

GL blinked in surprise at the sudden outburst. "Well... yeah."

Seafoam pointed her hoof at the superhero. "You are the leader. Not the God of War and of the Sea, who has accumulated millennia of experience and skills in both combat and leadership. You're saying that he... is subservient to you. No offense, but I've seen what you can do. You're pretty good, but you aren't that good."

GL opened her mouth to let out a retort, but then paused a moment to think about it. "Huh. You know, when you put it that way... I guess it's just never really come up before. It's not like I order him around or anything. It's just up to me to set the overall strategy when we're acting as a group, and he's usually okay with whatever I come up with. And when he isn't, he makes sure to let me know exactly why."

Seafoam settled down a bit and sat back on her cushion. "Well... I guess that does sound a bit more like him..."

While GL let her uniform vanish, Faith said, "As for me and my partner, we are mostly working to help the nation rebuild from a war that our Equestria suffered through a few years ago."

"A war...? How bad was it?" Captain asked.

With a bitter grimace, Abstract Twilight replied, "Not nearly as bad as it could have been, but a hell of a lot worse than it should have been..." Cutting off Faith with a hoof over his mouth when he looked about to elaborate, she added, "Sorry, it's kind of a sore subject, and it would take way too long to explain from start to finish. We've got good ponies, abstracts, and a few others working with us, though, so aside from a few... interruptions by the occasional raving megalomaniac, things are going about as well as they could be."

Faith nodded and grinned to GL. "Indeed. I don't suppose you and your superhero friends would be willing to come by now and then as pest-control?"

"Just shine a Green Lantern signal up at the night sky, and I'll be right there," the hero replied with a laugh before looking to Twicora. "That makes you the last one up, Twicora. What's your job?"

The zebra-taught unicorn replied, "One could say that I remain a student, as I am forever learning, but that is more a by-product of my mind's constant yearning. Through Zecora's teachings, I tend to the frail and the sick with all manner of remedies herbal and alchemic. She has also taught me the ways of the world of spirit, so that I may face the darkness on behalf of those who fear it."

Under her breath, Captain murmured to herself, "First gods, then spirits... seriously...? What next, Zombie Twilight?"

Despite the hushed tone she kept her voice at, GL overheard the last four words and leaned in to whisper, "I sure hope not. Black Lanterns are some of the last things we need right now."

Captain sighed. "Yeah... Wait, what?"

While this was going on, Twicora was already in the middle of drawing the next card. Lifting up the top of the 'Relationships' stack, she read aloud. "'Are you single, dating, or married?' Hehe, well, this question is bound to make Abstract Twi feel harried." Said Twilight's cheeks flushed noticeably as Twicora answered for herself. "Well, I hope it doesn't make me sound like a jerk, but I'm pretty much married to my work. I start mixing potions at sunrise, and when the day is done I don't have time for stallions, be they zebra, pony, or otherwise."

Zapapple nodded. "Well, y'all know mah answer already. Married to the most hunkalicious stallion in Ponyville."

"I can't help but envy you a little, Zapapple," Aurora wistfully replied. "Unfortunately, being the Princess of the Night carries with it certain... connotations. For whatever reason, my little ponies seem to think that if I'm not a pure, untouchable virgin, then I must be a hedonistic sexual predator who pounces nubile stallions and mares in the night."

Aurora shook her head, her ever-present smile showing obvious strain as she added, "Forced to choose between the two, I prefer the former, but is a little middle ground too much to ask for? Just a little? I haven't had a special somepony in six centuries, and now that my brother's back... Ugh, you don't want to know."

Dusk groaned and rolled his eyes. "I can actually guess. The closest thing I've had to a relationship in years was a one-time fling with a griffoness named Harmony Grabber. Thanks mostly to Mr. and Mrs. Cake, though, it turns out half of Ponyville thinks my friends and I are shacking up together in every possible combination. Seriously, can't six guys hang out at the gym, have a picnic, or have sleepovers without other ponies thinking there's something else going on? My friends and I are close, sure. Our destinies have been intertwined since we were colts, but that doesn't mean anything romantic, right?"

There was a long, drawn-out moment of silence before Seafoam put a hoof on his shoulder and told him, "Dusk...? That is, without a doubt, the absolute gayest thing I've ever heard."

"And also pretty hot," Twicora added, suddenly causing everypony to stare at her wide-eyed. Realizing that they were all looking her way, Twicora's stripe-painted cheeks started burning red as she stammered, "D-did I say that out loud? I-I was just joking, of course not!"

With both Dusk and Twicora looking ready to crawl under the table and die, Seafoam snickered for a bit, only to end up sighing. "Unfortunately, I can't say I'm doing much better on that score. Between my work and keeping in touch with the friends I made when Lord Tydal sent me to Ponyville, I haven't really had much time for anything serious. There is one guy, Narwhal Razorfin, in my dad's scouting detachment I've flirted with a bit, but our schedules never seem to line up."

Captain nodded sympathetically. "It's tough, though at least I have my friends to help me break out of my shell and play wingmare for me from time to time. I've dated a few stallions... *cough* and mares..." She glanced from side to side, looking at her counterparts to see if any of them were judging her over it, but even Zapapple, whom she had assumed would be the most conservative of the group, was just looking at her without so much as a raised eyebrow.

The raised eyebrows belonged to GL instead, but the teasing little smirk took any threat of judgement out of her expression. "Oh? I didn't know your barn door swung both ways, Captain."

Captain blushed, shyly tapping the tips of her hooves together. "W-well it didn't exactly come up while we were drawing up battle plans, but... yeah, I guess so. I mean, I never really thought about it much, because the only relationship I'd been in before I left the Guard was with a stallion, but my version of Ponyville... well, the gender ratios are heavily skewed there, so when I moved there, I ended up with a lot of... invitations on my first Hearts & Hooves Day."

GL playfully elbowed her Ranger counterpart in the ribs. "Sounds like you've got some fun stories to me. As for myself, I guess I'm with Zapapple in the lucky few. I'm not married yet, but I've been seeing this pegasus stallion in the Guard for a while now, and we're getting pretty serious. His name's Flash, and--"

Captain's eyes suddenly bugged out. "Wait... Flash? Pegasus? Flash Sentry?"

GL blinked at the interruption. "Yeah. How'd you know...?" She trailed off as a sly grin spread across her face. "Wait a minute, don't tell me, your Flash is the one--"

"--I dated when I was a cadet in the Guard. Yeah." The two looked at each other and simultaneously mused, "Some coincidence, huh?"

"Well, I'm going to take a drink. All this talk about romance is giving me a headache that makes me want to kill it with another headache," Abstract Twilight said, reaching for the bottle of Starshine with her magic, only to have it yanked from her aura by Princess Aurora.

"Careful, there, this liquor has to be portioned out very carefully," Aurora warned. Looking to Faith, she asked, "And will you be joining your companion?"

The silver alicorn smirked at Abstract Twilight and mused, "Oh, I want to soak in this moment for a while, first. Who exactly was it who called me a 'baby' earlier for trying to dodge a question?"

The alicorn of the stars responded by fixing Faith with a stink-eye that would have done a family of skunks proud. "I am going to get drunk, and if you don't join me, I am going to tell them exactly what you have waiting for you back home. Unless you want me to tell them alllll about Teeeeee..."

Faith's grin wavered. "Oh, come on, seriously?"

"Arrrrr..."

Faith brought a hoof to his face. "Ergh, fine, I'll drink! But only because I know how you'd tell the story."

Abstract Twi turned to Aurora with a horseapple-eating grin. "Two glasses, please."

Princess Aurora chuckled and summoned two shot glasses. She then popped open the bottle and very, very carefully tipped it over each of them. A tiny splash of shimmering, shining liquid was poured into each one, barely enough to cover the bottom. Abstract Twilight and Faith both leaned in close to examine the miniscule amount, then looked up at the regal alicorn with a quizzical look.

"Trust me," she said with a mischievous smile.

Both alicorns took a glass up in their magic and raised them up. They looked into each other's eyes, and Faith said, "Well, as they say in Ponpan..."

"Kampai," Abstract Twilight replied, and the two of them tilted their heads and glasses back to let the glowing liquor slide down their throats.
> 4th Card: Special Talents
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	The fact that so few ponies seemed to know or care much about the esteemed position Twilight Sparkle held as one of Equestria's princesses, let alone her tenure as Princess Celestia's personal student of so many years, was a testament to the effectiveness of BUTTS.

In order to keep ponies from looking too deeply into some of the incidents which had given cause for the organization's existence, BUTTS had carried out a decade-long campaign of subliminal suggestion, media manipulation, and drugs in every major water supply in the nation with the aim of crafting a particular image for the focus of their work. Aside from an extremely modest level of celebrity, the average Equestrian citizen would look upon a mare who had helped save the world on multiple occasions, had close personal ties to their immortal sovereign, was already related to royalty through marriage before elevating herself to godhood... and then shrug it off with a resounding "Meh."

None of this had any effect on a certain alicorn princess being unable to get a cab in Manehattan, mind you. It really is that hard to impress anypony there.

The success of BUTTS's work over the years did make it difficult at times to justify their continued operation, however. Although Celestia herself remained perfectly aware of every vital service BUTTS had covertly provided for her former student, to the few others who knew of its existence, the fact that Twilight Sparkle's antics so rarely made the headlines was seen as a sign of obsolescence rather than competence. Most were nobles and bureaucrats who were more than happy to simply accept Princess Celestia's word that BUTTS was a necessary institution and leave it at that.

But there was always that one. The one pony who ranked highly enough to be aware of such things, while also possessing the levels of both egotism and stupidity needed to question the goddess who raised the sun every morning.

"I say this entire 'crisis' is nothing but a fraud, perpetrated by a couple of second-rate, low-born charlatans in the hopes of squeezing more bits out of the treasury! Lite-Brite here is nothing but a common swindler, trying to hijack the government for his own gain."

That one pony, of course, was Prince Blueblood.

"I'm not trying to hijack Equestria," Night Light snapped. "I'm trying to save it! With so many of my daughter's counterparts entering this dimension, especially the evil ones, BUTTS is needed now more than ever!"

"Ah, yes. The 'League of Evil Twilights'," Blueblood retorted derisively, making air-quotes with his hooves while he did so. "We in the noble class have dismissed such claims. I've seen no evidence whatsoever that this so-called threat even exists!"

Night Light was about to shout something borderline treasonous (though under the circumstances, he was fairly sure that Princess Celestia would give him a pardon) when he was interrupted by a beeping noise. "Ugh... just a moment, I need to take this," he said, pulling out an emergency headset and placing it on his head. Turning away from Blueblood, he growled, "What is it?!"

On the other end of the line, Agent Coltson's voice started to say, "Director, we have a security breach! A new Twilight's--"

Coltson's voice suddenly cut out in a burst of static, only to be replaced by one that Night Light recognized as belonging to his daughter. "Hi, 'daddy.' Gotta say, I'm pretty impressed. My dad's just a regular Mr. Johnson, but you? You're sitting in the big 'top fascist' chair. I'd stomp in applause, but my hooves are kind of busy hackin' your files."

"Hackin' my files?"

"Hackin' your files," she replied smugly.

"Thwartin' my plans?"

"Thwartin' your plans?"

"Are you?"

There was a brief pause before the Twilight on the other end of the line snickered. "Oh, maliciously."

Night Light smirked. "Bitchin'. I don't suppose you'd be willing to repeat that for this smarmy, metrosexual asswipe who's trying to cut my funding?"

"I heard that," Blueblood huffed.

"Good, then I don't have to say it louder."






Truth, Dare, or Drink
by CrowMagnon






"Wow."

"Yeah."

"It's like... it's... wow."

"Yeah."

Most of the others stared at Faith and Abstract Twilight, hoping for more details. If nothing else, the way the tiny bit of liquor made their eyes shine was interesting, but only for a little while. Eventually, Zapapple lost patience and asked, "Well? Ya gonna keep mutterin', or are ya gonna tell us what it's like?"

Abstract Twi smacked her lips and replied, "Okay, well... you know that feeling when you're in bed and the room is cold, but you're wrapped up in a warm blanket and you know you don't have anything to do that morning, so you feel like you can just lay there forever? That's what it tastes like."

"Say, have you noticed, Twilight? It feels like things have gotten less... zany since we've been here. I didn't really notice before, but everything seems... clearer at the moment," Faith observed.

Captain spoke up, replying, "Oh, you noticed? That's just because the Author's different." The others looked to the soldier, most with quizzically raised eyebrows. Coughing into her hoof, she explained, "Something a friend of mine told me about, once... The Alternate Universe Threshold of Reality. The way he explained it, each universe--or sometimes a group of universes--has a unique 'Author' signature. When somepony travels from one universe to another, the Author of that world will assert itself on them, often causing changes in behavior to conform to local reality. The fact that we're all congregated together away from the action has probably given us our own Author for the time being, though the local reality's will re-assert its influence on us once we get out of here and involved with the mission again."

Faith looked toward the door. "Huh, I expected that 'Wall Breaker' character to pop in for some reason."

Twicora narrowed her eyes, scrutinizing the Captain. "Why would somepony who claims to know about inter-dimensional rules believe that she had been pranked so stubbornly, like a mule?"

Captain blushed and glanced toward Rollypolly as the baby dalek poked its eyestalk out from under Aurora's wing. "The one who told me about it... he had experience with that sort of thing, but he needed an extremely advanced vehicle in order to travel through time and relative dimensions in space. I just couldn't believe I was yanked from my own world so easily that I never even noticed it. Plus, I was under a lot of stress when you showed up..."

Dusk chimed in by asking, "Well, anyway, isn't it Faith and Abstract Twi's turn to draw?"

"Actually, GL was technically the last one to answer a question. Therefore, it would be her turn to draw. Besides, those two seem a little distracted," Aurora replied while the duo waved their hooves in front of their faces.

GL chuckled and created a tweezers construct, which she used to draw the top card from the 'Deeds' deck. "Heh, alright. Let's see... Ooh, 'How did you discover your special talent?' Now that's a funny story. When I was a filly, I went through the entrance exam to get into Celestia's School for Gifted... um... Unicorns." She paused a moment, remembering Princess Aurora's comments on the subject and gave the alicorn a 'what can you do?' shrug.

"Anyway, it's time for my final test. A test of magical ability. I'd studied and studied and practically worked my horn off practicing what little magic I could perform back then, so imagine my surprise when they brought in--"

Dusk interrupted, asking, "A dragon's egg?"

Taken by surprise, GL's eyes went wide. "Uh... yeah, actually. But here's the funny part. So they tell me I'm supposed to hatch this thing, and I have absolutely no idea what to do. I'd never read anything about hatching dragons, so I just pour every little spell I can possibly think of, but nothing's so much as chipping the shell. Eventually, it feels like I'm not actually doing anything at all, so--"

"You apologized to the proctors for wasting their time and gave up?" This time, it was Captain who interrupted, her voice low and hurt.

"... Yeah," GL replied. "But it gets better, because just as I'm about to leave, there's--"

"The Sonic RAINBOOM!" Abstract Twi blurted out, rearing up on her hind legs. "An' it startles you so much, yer magic goes nuts, hatchin' Spike and turnin' yer parents into plants!" She flapped her wings a bit to keep her balance, but ended up over-correcting and tumbling back against Faith. "Hee... I think that Starshine's starting to kick in."

GL groaned. "Oh come on, you all have the exact same story? Well that takes the wind out of my sails," she grumped.

Captain flinched a little. "Well... mine ended slightly differently..." she said.

With a sheepish grin, Dusk added, "And my dragon's name is Spines."

"It's actually very similar to the test I put my own student through," Princess Aurora admitted. "Although she hatched her pet phoenix, Mina. But that test was to determine whether or not she would be the future bearer of the Element of Magic, and now that I think on it, I've yet to see you perform any traditional unicorn spells."

GL tilted her head. "Element of what, now? Sorry, this is the first I've heard of anything like that. And I'm still pretty good with regular magic--That's what my cutie mark represents, after all--but I use the power ring as much as possible because in some ways, it's actually more difficult." She grinned, reaching up to tap a hoof against the ring on her horn. "You can learn spells just by memorizing them and understanding the formula that make them up. The way to go about it has already been established through empirical testing. To make a construct, I have to focus on creating something from scratch out of sheer willpower. My magical training does help with that, though, so it's not like any of it went to waste."

Turning to the abstract duo, she asked, "So... I guess we know her cutie mark story, but do you feel up for telling us about your special talent, Faith?"

Faith, who was looking somewhat discomfitted by how closely his slightly more inebriated companion was leaning against him, cleared his throat. "Well, no harm in that. Long, long ago, when the draconequus Discord ruled Equestria, I was an infant pony."

"Ya mean ya weren't born an abstract?" Zapapple asked.

"Abstracts aren't born. They come from the ranks of mortals... in most cases." Faith shook his head as he explained, thinking briefly about the current abstract of Laughter. "Fate certainly has a sense of irony, there. No, I and the ones who I would come to think of as my family were all mortal ponies during Discord's reign. When we became abstracts, I was still practically a newborn foal, and the pure, unsullied faith of an infant caused me to become the embodiment of that trait.

"Unfortunately, that means I don't remember much of it. As far as my memories are concerned, I have always been as I am, so I'm afraid I don't have much more to tell. What about you, Twicora? Forgive me for my rudeness, but I couldn't help but notice that you have a Zebrican life symbol instead of a cutie mark."

Zapapple raised an eyebrow as Faith gestured to the starburst symbol so similar to some of the other Twilights, but painted on Twicora in the same color as her stripes. "Life symbol? Ah thought she jus' painted somethin' there on account o' bein' a blank-flank."

If the striped unicorn took any offense from either comment, she simply shrugged it off. "Without the paint, my flank would be bare, it's true, but I don't need one to advertise my talent for potions and brews. My journey of self-discovery is just as meaningful to me as any cutie mark could ever be.

"When Shining and I were merely filly and colt, the embassy came under assault by a tribal revolt. Zebras and ponies met in a terrible clash, the aggressors led by a warlord named Whiplash."

Aurora groaned under her breath and muttered, "Ugh. Him..."

Zapapple leaned in and whispered, "Y'all recognize the name?"

"He's... technically my brother-in-law. Thank Vad Skypole he's mortal, so he'll be gone in fifty years or so..."

Twicora cleared her throat, giving her whispering counterparts a chastising look before continuing. "The rebels invaded the building, and many good guardponies did fall, though my brother surprisingly managed to disable many through his skill with a Vita ball. Whiplash's parting shot, however, struck him with a dart tipped with a poison that slowly encroached on his heart. My parents sought Equestrian doctors who could counter the toxin, but did not find any. I, however, recalled reading of curative plants in my textbooks on local botany. Even still, I could not find a cure, and my brother's death seemed so terribly sure..."

Twicora softly dug at the floor in front of her with a hoof, looking down at the table. Sensing that she was trailing off into unpleasant memories, Seafoam asked, "Well, it turned out alright, didn't it? You said he's an athlete now, right?"

Twicora nodded, a bittersweet smile on her face. "Yes, today he's healthy as a horse. I just remember how terrified I was back then, and how it could have been much worse. Though an antidote was beyond my scope, I did find a medicine which kept him alive long enough that there was hope. One day was as long as he was expected to survive, but he lasted for the three that it took for Zecora to arrive.

"Her knowledge of medicine is beyond compare, and because of the antidote she brewed, Shining's life was spared. When she heard that he had been held back from death's embrace by a mere tot, she offered to take me on as her apprentice right there on the spot. Later, I was given the life symbol in a shamanic rite. To me, it represents the stars that guide the lost with their light."

To Twicora's left, as well as her surprise, Zapapple started stomping the floor in applause. This spread around the table, with all giving a few stomps except Aurora, who smiled warmly and mused, "That's my niece... She is as fortunate to have you for a student as your brother is to have you for a sister."

Twicora blushed, but smiled at the compliment before gently ribbing Zapapple. "And I almost thought that with your pride, you would have rooted for the other side."

The earth pony hmphed. "Ain't lahk Ah hate all unicorns. Jus' the ones who prance around, noses in the air thinkin' their horns make their farts smell lahk cinnamon rolls."

Dusk perked up. "Oh, I know a spell for that! It actually alters the molecular structure of..." Seeing Zapapple give him the stink-eye, he coughed. "Never mind."

Remembering it was her turn, Zapapple turned a bit to show off the zap apple on her flanks. "As fer how Ah found mah special talent, it came the first time Ah helped Granny make zap apple jam! If'n ya ain't ever seen it bein' made, it takes a lot o' steps that don't seem ta make no sense. Especially fer a li'l filly bouncin' around, singin' the alphabet while wearin' bunny ears on her head." When some of the others struggled to stifle their laughter at that image, the farmer smirked. "Yeah... 'bout that point, Ah started thinkin' Granny was just funnin' with me an' AJ, mahself. In fact, the more Ah thought 'bout it, the sillier it all seemed an' the madder Ah got."

"Oof, I know how that goes," Abstract Twi said, looking slightly more sober again while a few others nodded in sympathy. Mostly with images of a physics-defying pink party pony in mind.

Zapapple continued, but eyed the bottle of Starshine with a hint of longing as she did so. "Ah jus' couldn't wrap mah head 'round the idea that paintin' polka-dots all over the kitchen could have anythin' ta do with makin' jam. Came to a point Ah jus'... exploded. Started shoutin' at Granny... sayin' she was either havin' fun at our expense or jus' plain senile."

The farmer let out a laugh and shook her head. "Shoulda been watchin' mah flank, because AJ started wailin' on me soon as the words flew outta mah mouth. An' rightly so, Ah reckon. Big Mac pulled us apart 'fore we could send each other to the hospital, but he took a few licks in the process. Once we simmered down to the point we could listen without buckin' each other in the head, Granny sat us down an' told me 'bout the meanin' behind all the little rituals.

"Maybe it helped that Ah was still too steamed ta listen to mah head, but as Granny was talkin' 'bout the zap apples an' all their likes an' dislikes, Ah realized she was talkin' about 'em almost as if they were people. Now, Ah'm an earth pony, but it was always AJ who had the kinship with the land. Ah'm good with workin' out the most efficient way ta run a farm, but generally in a practical sense. That day, though... Ah started ta feel somethin'. While mah head was distracted, mah heart started talkin', an' Ah realized jus' how much the zap apples were livin' things full of magic.

"More importantly, Ah realized how much Ah'd been bangin' mah head against the wall by tellin' mahself that jus' 'cause Ah didn't understand somethin' at first, that meant it was wrong. Ah realized Ah needed ta start payin' more attention ta how things actually are than jus' how Ah say they should be. An' when Ah started doin' that... well, Ah started noticin' little things Ah'd never realized before. Ah started ta actually see the way the jam reacted well to the things Granny had spent her life figurin' out. After an accident with some clothespins, Ah even noticed the apples seemed to lahk it when Ah walked around 'em with clothespins stuck on mah tail. Took five years of experimentin' to figure out that seven in the tail an' three in the mane was the best amount... Ah think they've got a thing fer prime numbers.

"Heh, anyway, point is that when Ah opened mah mind an' realized that Ah had a real, meaningful connection with the zap apples, that's when mah cutie mark popped onto mah flank."

"That was a wonderful story, Zapapple," Aurora said. "I'm afraid that, compared to the two of you, my own story will be quite boring... so I'll take a 'Dare.'"

Blithely ignoring the surprise of the others, Aurora picked up the top card off of the 'Dare' stack and giggled as she read its contents. "Oh my. Alright... Rollypolly, I'm afraid that I'll have to get up for a bit, but feel free to take my seat."

"Certainly, Prin-cess Aurora," the baby dalek replied, moving onto the cushion as Aurora removed her wing from him and stepped back, standing at her full, impressive height.

Gathering power into her horn, Aurora's magical aura spread out from her horn, gradually covering her entire body. When she was completely obscured from sight behind her magic, there was a sudden flash and a popping sound, after which the regal alicorn was gone from view.

"I don't get it. Where'd she go?" GL asked. She was immediately startled and answered by a flash of purple zipping by mere inches in front of her face.

Aurora giggled, slowing down and hovering over the center of the table with flaps of her wings as she revealed herself to be no larger than a kitten. "I apologize, GL, but it's been quite some time since I had an opportunity to really stretch my wings, and the training room is so much more spacious this way." With that, she flitted over toward Rollypolly and created another, smaller cushion for her to settle on atop the dalek's domed metal shell.

Captain blinked in surprise, picking up the card with her magic. "So... you shrank yourself and have to stay that way for the next three rounds?" she asked, reading the card.

"Indeed, and I have to say that it's rather novel having to look up to everypony, even with Rollypolly's help."

Abstract Twi grinned and leaned across the table, held back from flopping across it by Faith. "D'awww, you're so cute!"

This caused Aurora to titter from her perch. "It's been a long, long time since anypony's called me that, and I thank you for it. I just hope that, given the source, it isn't seen as a form of narcissism."

"I don't think so, given the circumstances," Faith replied with a smirk, pulling his partner back down onto her cushion. "So, Dusk, anything to add?"

"Not really," Dusk replied with a shake of his head. "My story's pretty much exactly the same as GL's and your Twilight's, except with the genders switched. What about you, Seafoam?"

The capricorn shrugged. "What's to tell? We capricorns don't dwell on 'special talents' like you ponies do. Yeah, we have individual strengths and weaknesses, just like any other creature, but when something needs doing, we get it done instead of moaning about how we don't have a tattoo on our asses to tell us we're good at it. I'll take a drink instead."

While Seafoam used her magic to levitate the bottle and one of the glasses over toward her, Aurora cautioned, "Now, remember that this is very, very potent liquor, my little capricorn."

Seafoam snickered as she poured out a small splash of the shining liquid into her glass, though it was still a good four times more than either Abstract Twi or Faith had imbibed. "Relax, princess. After seeing those two, I have a good idea of how much I can handle." With that, she raised it to her lips and tossed it back. After swallowing, she smacked her lips a few times. "Mmm... oh, wow. That tastes like that warm, fuzzy feeling you get at the end of a good battle... when you're standing on top of a pile of your enemy's dismembered limbs."

Going pale with horror, Dusk asked, "How is that a taste?! No... no, wait... there is no possible answer that would make me less terrified."

Seafoam laughed and lightly punched the stallion in the shoulder, and the more observant noticed she was already a bit wobbly while doing so. Not to mention that the liquor's glow seemed to be glimmering in her eyes. "Oh, man up. It's just... oh... hey, I never noticed before but... you're kinda good-looking. And sparkly... hehee, sparkly... Dusk Shine is twilight sparkly! Hey... are you a vampony? Because I heard vamponies spa--"

"NO THEY DON'T," Captain shouted at the top of their lungs, mere moments before Dusk and Faith were just about to do the same. Seafoam winced from the volume, and her bladed tail began to lash from side to side.

Seeing the capricorn's agitation, Captain quickly modulated her voice and said, "Sorry... reflex and bad experiences."

Seafoam narrowed her eyes, baring her teeth at the Ranger... but that expression spread into a smile as she leaned in to nuzzle Captain's neck. "Aww, that's okay, I forgive you. After all, we're buddies, aren't we, Cappy? Cappy...ricorn! You're practically a capricorn! That makes you my very friendest best..."

Captain started to blush as it quickly became apparent that either Seafoam was messing with her, or she was a very affectionate drunk. "Uh... yeah... h-hey, why don't you lean on Mr. Sparkle for a bit instead?" To her relief and Dusk's dismay, the capricorn did just that and started nosing at his wings.

Trying to stifle her laughter (but not very hard), GL asked the flushed Ranger, "So, that leaves you. What's your story, Captain?"

Captain Sparkle suddenly remembered that it was her turn, and shook her head. "Oh, right! Well..."

The others watched the embarassed soldier close her mouth, giving the bottle of Starshine and the 'Dare' stack each a long, wary look before she let out a sigh of resignation. "Okay, well, mine started like yours, GL, but... I failed. There was no Sonic Rainboom. I never even heard of the Sonic Rainboom until years later when I joined the Rangers. Nyx, the first Ranger, was the only pony in history who was said to have created one, and one of my subordinates was practically obsessed with recreating it."

Captain glanced toward Rollypolly. "I didn't find out why until later... Anyway, my magic never got jump-started the way it did yours, so I ran out of the testing chamber and bumped into another applicant who was practicing her own spells to prepare for the test. There was a flash and... well, the next thing both of us knew, we were in a little-used part of the castle. Then, while we were trying to find our way back, we found out that there was a dangerous monster running around back there. A cockatrice that had been in the middle of getting transported to Princess Celestia's menagerie, but which managed to escape somehow and petrify the guards.

"Neither of us had any idea where we were, and as soon as the cockatrice was aware of us, it started stalking us through the corridors. We had no way of knowing if anypony was going to come help us in time, so I started thinking up ideas to get out of the situation. Even back then, I could figure out that the ones I'd come up with wouldn't work, though, so I thought up more. And then some more, and more, until my brain was crammed so full of plans that it felt like my head was going to explode.

"And then I finally figured one out that had a good chance of working. I needed the other filly's magic to compensate for how useless my own was back then, but we set up a trap for the cockatrice... and I was the bait."

A gasp rose up from many of the other Twilights. Seafoam blinked and slurred, "You seriously put yourself in front of a monster that turns its prey to stone just by looking at it? When you were a filly?" With another toothy grin, she exclaimed, "That is hardcore!"

Captain blushed again at the compliment and nodded. "I had to! It was the only way to make sure it was in the exact position we needed it to be when we sprang the trap, and she needed to be out of sight so it wouldn't notice her casting her spells." A humble smile spread across Captain's face. "And it worked. She did her part perfectly, and we incapacitated the cockatrice long enough to head out and find an adult. Princess Celestia herself congratulated us for our quick thinking... even offered to take us on as her personal students, but..."

Captain bit her lower lip, letting out another sigh before continuing. "I just couldn't accept. I'd always wanted to be a scholar, and the opportunity to learn from Celestia herself was beyond my wildest dreams, but the instant she made the offer, I saw myself back in the testing room... failing. And then I saw myself failing over and over again in front of her, constantly disappointing her. Even when I tried to imagine myself succeeding... I would see myself tearing myself apart out of fear of failure."

Dusk and Abstract Twi flinched, Captain's description of her feelings hitting rather close to home for them. Even GL grunted a little, thinking of the stress she'd put herself through during her time as Celestia's student. The superhero reached out and put a foreleg around her counterpart's shoulder.

Captain was startled for a moment by GL's gesture, but soon smiled in return. "It's okay. I know now that it wouldn't necessarily have been that bad if I'd accepted. Especially seeing all of you, and how you turned out. But back then, I just couldn't picture any future where it worked out for me.

"Besides, it wasn't just about where I was so sure I'd failed. Finding a plan out of the thousands of options available and putting it into action. Putting myself on the line to protect another pony. I realized that I did have a special talent, and that I could still use it to serve Equestria. As soon as I realized that... well, that's when I got this."

Captain twisted her body to show the starburst-shaped compass rose that was her cutie mark. "It represents my talent for tactics and strategy. The ability to navigate through countless bad ideas and half-baked plans until I find the one that leads me to the best end possible."

Seafoam rose to her hooves and slurred, "You sayin' you have the best end here? 'Cause I take inception to that! Watch me work it!" With that, she turned around and started twerking her fishy rump, forcing those closest to her to quickly lean out of tail range. "Yeah! Yeah, that's right, it's too hot for ya, isn't it?"

"I did caution her," a bemused Aurora reminded the group as Seafoam's tail blade cut a notch out of the table.
> 5th & 6th Cards: Best Friends & Crushes
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Twilight smirked to herself as her laptop downloaded and sorted through the truly obscene amount of surveillance footage of her local counterpart. While it did so, Night Light asked, "So, what exactly is it that you want? Are you part of Nightfall's League?"

"Oh, that would be so convenient for you, wouldn't it?" Twilight asked mockingly. "I'm sure you'd love to just file me away with the big, bad, 'blargh, me so evil' crowd. Well... keep wondering, because where I'm sitting, you and your Mr. Johnsons have been gathering too much data as it is."

She raised an eyebrow as numerous pictures of her double singing to herself in the bathtub. At least, it looked like singing until Twilight realized that her counterpart's hooves weren't above the water line. "Way... way too much. Drek, man, she's your daughter!"

"... You found the bathtub pictures, didn't you?" Twilight could faintly hear the sound of Celestia's voice coming from the other end of the line, followed by Night Light again. "The princess says, 'No. Please. Don't delete those. We are willing to listen to your demands, just don't destroy them forever.' What? No, your highness, there's nothing strange about the way I'm emphasizing those words in particular. And I'm certainly not just saying that because of your inability to detect sarcasm."

Again, Twilight faintly heard Celestia's voice, and though she couldn't make out the words, the alicorn certainly sounded relieved.

"Now then, I hope you understand my position on the matter," Night Light said after that. "So, what should we call you? You know, to differentiate you from all the others?"

Twilight actually hesitated for a moment, trying to figure out what just happened. Still, she couldn't help but grin a bit as she selected that batch of images and tapped the 'Delete' key with her hoof. "How about I just use my alias from back home? Skyelight."

"Skylight?"

"Yeah, but with an 'E' after the 'Y'. See, that's what I do over there. I break into the dark, shadowy places that ponies like you don't want the herd to know about, and I expose them to the light of day."

"So you're a professional troublemaker, then?"

"And proud of it," Skyelight replied. "You think you run a secret organization. BUTTS would barely be an afterthought back where I'm from. Megacorps rule the world like the dragons that run at least half of them. They take whatever they want and don't care who gets stepped on along the way. Mr. Johnsons like you and my dad, you bow and scrape to the powers-that-be like a pack of mangy diamond dogs because you think it makes you something more than just another scrap of food for the beast.

"That's why ponies like me and my chummers exist. We run in the shadows cast by the megacorp towers, but we don't get lost in them. We know what you know... that secrets have power. Unlike you, we feel we have a duty to diminish that power.

"We're nopony, and we're everpony. We're nowhere, and we're everywhere. All by myself, I was able to jander right into your home base and hack your most secure databases. Soon, everypony in Equestria will know exactly who you are and what you've done, and no matter how hard you look for me, you will never find--"

Before she could finish, the door to the janitor's closet that Skyelight was holed up in opened. She looked up to see Agent Coltson and Wall Breaker standing in the doorway with pleased looks on their faces.

As casually as she could, she looked at the stallions and said, "Hey. 'Sup?"






Truth, Dare, or Drink
by CrowMagnon






Seafoam lay on her back, looking up at the ceiling. "So mom was like, 'You're on drugs!' And I tell her, 'No, I'm not on drugs, I was just thinking. Can you get me a Pepsi?' And she's like, 'No! You're on drugs!' When all I wanted was a Pepsi, and she wouldn't give one to me!"

The others carefully watched the capricorn, who at least had seemed to reach a mellower stage of her inebriation. GL asked, "That's rough. So, what's a Pepsi?"

"What's a what?"

"A... a Pepsi. That thing you wanted."

Seafoam blinked up at GL. "Never heard of it. Is that a kind of cake?"

Princess Aurora giggled from her perch atop Rollypolly. "It's like having Pinkie Pike here."

Meanwhile, eyeing the bottle of booze like it was going to jump at her, Captain Sparkle picked a card off of the 'Friends & Family' stack. "Let's see... 'Outside of your family or significant other, who would you say is your best friend?'" She let out a sigh of relief that it wasn't more embarrassing. "Well, that's a tough one. My friends are all really special to me in their own way. I suppose if I had to pick one as the one I'm closest to, though... I'd have to say Fluttershy, even though she's away on tour a lot these days."

Zapapple blinked. "On... tour? Fluttershy?"

"As in, Butterscotch's double?" Dusk asked.

"I've gotta admit, I'm surprised, too," GL added. "My Fluttershy's a great team-mate, but she's got extreme stage fright off-duty. I guess if she got over that, though, I could picture her singing in front of ponies."

Captain shook her head and laughed to herself. "Oh, she's not a singer. I mean, she does a little as part of the performance, but she and her husband are motivational speakers. Heh, if you think I'm neurotic now, you should've met me before I made friends with Fluttershy and Iron Will."

In the silence that followed, Captain looked around and could practically hear the stares of ponies and capricorn gaping at her.

Abstract Twi was the one who finally broke the silence. To her partner, she said, "Faith, I think there's something funny about that drink. It's making me hear crazy things."

"That's just the multiverse for you," Faith replied.

Captain looked around. "Oh, come on, it can't be that weird. What, is it the interspecies thing? Iron Will's a great husband and friend, and--"

"Oh, I'm sure. I think it's the idea of Fluttershy going around telling ponies how to be more confident that has us confused," GL interjected. While the others nodded. "I mean, that's like picturing her as a... I don't know, a criminal lawyer or something."





Meanwhile, in universe DL-6...

Judge Ivory Scroll adjusted her glasses with a hoof as she read the papers in front of her. "Now then, we will be proceeding in the case of Ponyville vs. Spike the dragon. Is the prosecution ready?"

Applejack chewed on the piece of straw in her mouth for a moment before spitting it away and looking straight at the defendant. "Ah am, yer honor. Sorry, Spike, but it don't matter how much Ah lahk ya." Rearing up on her hind legs, she pointed an accusatory hoof at the baby dragon. "Y'all're gonna have ta pay yer debt ta society!"

Ivory Scroll looked toward the defense bench. "And is the defense... ready?" Tilting her head, she asked, "Defendant... where is your attorney?"

Spike sighed and looked over to his side, where a yellow-and-pink ball quivered in terror under the table. "I am so doomed. Your honor, I don't suppose you could declare a mistrial?"

"Denied. The case of Ponyville vs. Spike will begin on schedule," Ivory Scroll replied, banging her hoof against the table in front of her, eliciting a squeak from under the defense bench.



Ivory Scroll glared over her glasses at the blue, spikey-maned pegasus who had shouted. "Mr. Wright, that was your final warning. Bailiff, get him out of here!"





Captain shrugged and smiled. "Well, I won't go too deep into it, but she hit a low point early in her life, and learning to see past her problems and move beyond them has defined her ever since. Being able to share that is why she's the Element of Laughter in my world."

GL replied, "Okay, when we get some time after the game, you're going to have to tell me what these Element thingies are. As for my best friend... well, that's a tough one for me, too. I've got the Super Friends, and I'm good friends with some of my fellow Green Lanterns, like Tomar Re and my mentor, Sinestro."

As she named each one, GL created a holographic image of a bipedal alien dressed in uniforms similar to her own. One vaguely resembled a sort of bird. The second was smooth-skinned with pointy ears, neatly trimmed facial hair, and a stern expression. Then she created a third hologram that was similar to Sinestro, but with a more powerful build, rounded ears, and a cocky grin. With a snicker, she pointed a hoof at him. "That one's Hal Jordan. We aren't really close, but he's fun to be around when Sinestro isn't giving him a hard time about taking the Corps more seriously."

GL left the holograms up a bit longer while she closed her eyes in thought. "I guess if we go based on who I spend the most time with, though... well, Spike's more like a little brother, so I suppose it would be Trixie Gold." Adding another image, this time of Trixie in full costume, along with her parasprite-shaped robot companion. "She's the only other member of the Super Friends who operates out of Canterlot. The rest all live in Ponyville or Bridle Bay. Heh, she and Spike are constantly snarking at each other because she's kind of a showpony, but I can tell she really tries to be a true hero under the bluster."

"She does, doesn't she?" Faith replied, smirking at his partner. For some reason, Abstract Twi just groaned and facehooved. Turning to the others, the mirror-winged alicorn mused, "As for me, I suppose I would say Celestia and Luna."

From atop Rollypolly, the shrunken Aurora asked, "Really? From our earlier talks, I would have thought your relationship with them to be too strained to consider them friends."

Faith waved it off. "Pssh, water under the bridge. I'm sure that you know how we can fall into long arguments with ponies who are close to us."

"Maybe, but most of us don't revel in it like you do," Abstract Twi retorted. "My best friend is definitely Spike. He's not just a little brother to me... he's the one creature that I've always been able to depend on to have my back. That... that means more than I can even begin to describe."

Faith put a hoof on his partner's shoulder as her head began to droop. At the same time, Twicora smiled reassuringly and told her, "There is no need to hang your head. Some of us understand very clearly without it needing to be said. There are many zebras who did not wish their knowledge and culture to be shared with a pony. I spent much of my fillyhood quite alone...-ly."

A groan erupted from around the table at the painfully flubbed rhyme, and Twicora's cheeks flushed. Still, she insisted, "To do that as an example is what I meant. My rhyming is usually perfectly cromulent. Still, zebra children would pounce upon every little fault, and it stung like a wound packed with salt. When Zecora took me on as her student, though, she showed me trust and faith to the end. That is why she will always be not just my mentor, but my truest friend."

"Nerrrrrrrrd!"

Twicora glared over at Zapapple, who shrugged and replied, "Sorry, but yer teacher is yer best friend, so Ah have ta call you a nerd. It's the law!" When Twicora rolled her eyes, Zapapple turned to the others. "As fer me, aside from AJ, mah best friends are Flim an' Flam. Those two've been real swell since they turned over a new leaf, an' Flam's done right bah AJ."

Captain blinked in shock. "Wait, what? Flim and Flam? Those two? But they're a couple of greedy swindlers! In my world, if Applejack hadn't outsmarted them, they would have turned the Apple family into indentured labor on their own farm!"

"Now, now, let's not jump to conclusions," Faith replied. "Remember our reaction to your Fluttershy? The version of them that my Twilight and I know are reformed. Maybe a little overly fond of gambling, still, but their creativity and talents have been turned to good purpose." Turning to Zapapple, he grinned and said, "I'm more pleasantly surprised that, even with your background and impression of unicorns, you're so willing to befriend a couple." A thought occurred to him, and he asked, "They are unicorns, aren't they?"

"Pfft, course not!" Zapapple replied. "Lahk Ah'd let a unicorn touch mah sister? No way, no how! Flim an' Flam are good, hard-workin' ponies who got screwed over bah unicorn business magnates. Got most o' their inventions stolen from 'em with sleazy contract an' patent shenanigans, but they still made the Super Easy Cider Squeezy 6000. Sure, they got ta thinkin' that dog-eat-dog was the only way to succeed in the world, but it's lahk Ah was tellin' Flim the other day while he was chargin' up the Cider Squeezy. Some ponies are jus' rotten apples, but ya can't let them spoil you."

There was a moment of awkward silence before Dusk asked, "Charging... how, exactly?"

"Magic, o' course! How else're ya supposed ta fuel a machine that runs on magic?"

Seafoam was the only one who had the courage to follow up by asking, "Magic from his... horn?"

Zapapple snorted. "Well he sure doesn't blow it out his plothole!"

Even the drunk capricorn seemed at a loss for how to respond to that as she joined the purple ponies in sharing gobsmacked looks with each other. Rollypolly swiveled his eyestalk around the table and asked, "I am con-fused. Are those not the primary attributes of unicorns?"

Zapapple's eyes widened as the dalek spoke, staring at him as if had just slapped her. After a few seconds, her eyes 'derped' at odd angles, and she gasped with abject horror as a terrible truth dawned on her. "No... no! NO! Say it ain't so! IT CAN'T BE! No! No, not mah sister! Mah own flesh an' blood!"

"But you're adopted," Abstract Twi reflexively pointed out, though it went unnoticed amidst the farmer's freak-out.

Zapapple brought her front hooves up to her temples, clutching her head as she wailed, "Mah family... mah perfect, lovin' family... polluted! Stained..."

She then looked up at the others, her eyes wide and distraught as she turned to her counterparts with a tense, desperate grimace of a smile. "At least... at least Apple Bloom's still okay, right? She's a good kid! She wouldn't have nothin' ta do with no unicorns! She's got good friends... Scootaloo... Sweetie B--" A hitch in her voice cut her off, and she gasped in horror. "Oh, Luna, no! Apple Bloom... mah darlin' little sister... her friend... Scootaloo is a secret unicorn!"

Zapapple sat there, frozen with a look of disgust and shock on her face until the pinging of tiny hooves on metal as Aurora started laughing and stomping her front hooves against Rollypolly. The farmer started trembling and biting on her lower lip to hold it in, but quickly lost the battle as she flopped onto her back and started rolling around in uncontrollable laughter.

"Ha! Oh, sweet Luna! Oh, fer the love of li'l apples! The looks on-- Hahaha, the looks on yer faces! Ya actually thought... AHAHAHAHA! Oh, mah stars an' cider, Ah can't believe ya actually bought it!"

Another groan rose up from the group, though it was followed by embarassed chuckles as they accepted that they'd been had. When her laughter eventually ebbed enough for her to take a few deep breaths, Zapapple dragged herself back up to a sitting position and wiped mirthful tears from her eyes. "Ha... hoo-whee, that was good fun. Ah'll be takin' mah Gropey now!"

Seafoam sputtered drunkenly and waved her hooves toward Rollypolly. "Hey now, not in front of the... 'kid!' Besides... I'm not drunk enough for that yet."

"It's a very badly named award for stage actors," Captain explained to the capricorn before muttering under her breath, "And the judging system is completely rigged."

Seafoam replied with an 'ahhhhh' of comprehension before resting her head on Captain's shoulder. "You're so smart..."

While Captain started turning red again, Princess Aurora giggled. "So, what's your real answer, Zapapple?"

The farmer adjusted her hat. "That was mah real answer. They may have horns, but they made some amazin' machines, an' got cheated out of 'em by Canterlot snobs. Maybe it took a while 'fore Ah was really willin' to accept 'em, but by helpin' 'em get back on their hooves without stoopin' ta that level, Ah lahk ta think we're stickin' it to those hoity-toity elites."

"Living well is the best revenge. Or at least in the top three," Aurora replied sagely. "As for my best friend, like Abstract Twilight, I have a faithful dragon companion. My dear Spyconious has been with me since I was a filly, and though he's grown rather too large to frolick with as we did when we were young, or even to comfortably fit anywhere in Canterlot proper, he remains my dearest, most steadfast friend."

The near-perpetual smile on her tiny face grew wistful as Aurora reminisced, "When my brother was first consumed with madness, I was paralyzed. It was Spyconious who took the Elements of Harmony and safeguarded them from Morning Star until the situation grew grave enough that I realized there was no other choice but to use them and banish my brother into the sun. And even though it wasn't until Cadance came into my life that my heart truly began to heal, Spyconious dutifully supported me for centuries and ensured that I continued to give Equestria the leadership it needed."

Aurora laughed. "Some say... well, said at the time, that the reason he's grown so large is because he considers the entirety of Equestria to be his personal hoard. I've always believed that he simply needed to grow to accommodate the size of his heart."

A chorus of "D'awww," rose up around the table, including from the dalek Aurora was perched upon. As it faded, Dusk said, "Well, I hope that's the sort of relationship Spines and I have to look forward to. She's a little flighty, especially when my friend Elusive is around, but she's always so eager to help, and she's fantastic around the library. I do feel kind of bad that she gets to feeling like she's not very useful, sometimes, but I honestly can't imagine my life without her. How about you, Seafoam?"

In response, the capricorn princess glomped and nuzzled him. "Mmmm, my best friend out of all my friends? That'd have to be... Princess Aurora!" Wobbling a bit while leaning against the stallion, she pointed to the tiny alicorn and proclaimed, "You're my best friend ever for bringing that beautiful bottle into my life!"

With a laugh, Twicora said, "Though you may feel that way after drinking such an amount, I don't think that answer will count."

"Yes! Yes it does," replied a nervous Dusk as he tried to nudge Seafoam away without getting her angry. "Your turn, Seafoam! You answered, so you have to let go of me and draw a card!" When the capricorn snickered and her horns began to glow with magic, though, Dusk groaned. "Oh, right... you can do that."

Plucking up a card with her magic, Seafoam didn't even pay much attention to which one she was drawing from until she held it in front of her face. "Describe a time you have either had an unrequited crush, or another has had one toward you. Both if applicable."

Glancing to either side, the drunk capricorn laughed as she saw that both Captain and Dusk were blushing like a couple of extra-ripe plums. "Ooh, some ponies have stories!" she teased before rolling her head back in thought. "Lessee, crushes... Ahh... well... I'd say our cute little sparklepire here's hot for my plot."

"What?! N-no I'm not!"

Seafoam gave Dusk a leer that was as lascivious as it was horrifying. "I never said I was talking about you. So you're admitting you are a vampony!"

Dusk blinked several times, his mouth moving but no sound beyond a strangled gurgle came out as the gears in his brain all jammed. Deciding to spare the stallion much further embarrassment and confusion, Captain diverted attention to herself by blurting out, "I had both happen to me!"

Fortunately, this had the intended effect of prompting everyone to look straight at her. Unfortunately, this had the intended effect of prompting everyone to look straight at her. Clearing her throat, the blushing Ranger tapped her front hooves together. "Um... one of my Rangers... his name's Pokey Pierce. He's... apparently had a massive crush on me since I moved to Ponyville. My it's-comp-- I mean, my friend Cloud Kicker keeps telling me to give him a chance... and I'd even consider it, because he's really cute, a good Ranger, and he's only a few years younger than me. I just can't, because he's my subordinate. It would be an abuse of authority."

Zapapple narrowed her eyes at Captain, raising an eyebrow as she asked, "What's an 'itscomp?' An' what does it have ta do with the Ponyville town chariot?"

Captain stomped her hoof against the edge of the table, shaking some of the cards loose. While Aurora scooped them up with her magic, Captain snapped, "Don't call her that! She's a good pony!"

Zapapple just smirked back and asked, "Oh-ho, Ah see. Y'all're a Kicker-licker, huh?"

Both Seafoam and GL leaned away from Captain as the Ranger began grinding her teeth together, the air around her beginning to shimmer with a heat haze. Seeing the effect the farmer's words were having, Twicora leaned toward Faith and whispered, "Sorry, but I don't understand. What does the term 'town chariot' mean in this land?"

Just as softly, Faith whispered back, "It means everypony's had a ride."

Twicora gave Faith an odd look until comprehension finally dawned. "Ohhh. I can see why her honor would be something you would wish to defend. But earlier, why didn't you say you had a marefriend?"

"Because she isn't my marefriend," Captain snapped, directing a harsher tone toward her zebra-taught double than intended. "We aren't dating... she's my it's-complicated."

As she got the decks sorted again, Aurora asked, "And what exactly is an it's-complicated?"

Captain bit back the response she initially intended, Aurora's resemblance to Princess Celestia (albeit momentarily scaled-down) encouraging her to calm herself before she spoke. "Exactly what it sounds like, Princess. It's complicated... and it doesn't have anything to do with the question. Your turn, GL."

"Ah-ah, you didn't finish answering the question," Abstract Twi pointed out before GL could speak. "You only told us about the pony who has a crush on you. Who's the one you had a crush on?"

Realizing that she was right, Captain winced. "Stupid, traitorous speech center of the brain," she muttered to herself. Once again, she warily eyeballed the 'Dare' stack and the liquor bottle, weighing their threat against anything she might want to keep secret. Then she glared at Zapapple again. "Can I say without certain ponies being jackasses about it?"

The farmer grinned. "Nope! But Ah'm just bustin' yer chops, Captain. Hay, Ah may've never bucked that particular tree mahself, but that pegasus gave me some good pointers before mah honeymoon. Big Mac an' Ah didn't get out of bed fer two whole days."

This admission caused Captain's glare to soften a bit as she blushed again, but she still kept a wary eye on the farmer. "Well... alright, but if you want to talk smack, do it at me, not ponies who aren't even in this universe," she cautioned before telling the others, "Anyway, my crush wasn't anything serious. You all remember the other filly I was with when I got my cutie mark? Well, she was taken on as Princess Celestia's personal student, but we stayed good friends throughout our childhood. She was always so pretty and glamorous and confident, I sort of developed an innocent filly crush on her."

While she spoke, Abstract Twi started to frown as a horrible, disgusting thought squirmed its way into her mind. And though it was patently impossible, as far as she was concerned, it wouldn't go away. "No... no, don't say it... don't say it..." she murmured under her breath.

"And what is her name, if I might ask?" Faith asked, making his partner's blood run cold as she realized that he might have had a similar impossible thought.

Captain grinned a little in GL's direction. "Well, she's no time traveler... I've met her family."

Abstract Twi began shaking her head. "No, no, no..."

"Trixie Lulamoon," Captain said, getting startled by the sudden wail of despair erupting from Abstract Twi.

"Not... one... word," Abstract Twi growled at Faith, who simply waggled his eyebrows at her.

"So... I take it you know her in your world?" Captain asked, only for Abstract Twi to groan and rest her forehead on the table.

GL looked between Captain, Zapapple and Abstract Twi before chuckling nervously. "Alright, then. Well, I certainly won't be able to match the drama level Captain brought to the table," she said, gently teasing the Ranger. "When I was Celestia's student, I just didn't have any interest in romance, so Flash is pretty much the only pony I've been seriously attracted to that way. I did think that Trixie Gold had a thing for me a while back, though. She seemed like she was always looking for excuses to spend time together on- or off-duty, and every so often when her guard's down, she can get a little more physically affectionate than you'd expect from a pony who's just a friend.

"So I asked her about it, figuring I'd try to let her down gently, and as soon as I brought up my suspicions, she got this really queasy look on her face." GL shook her head. "At first I thought she was just afraid of rejection... then she threw up."

Seafoam asked, "She spewed on you?"

GL laughed. "All over my hooves. So... yeah, that pretty much evaporated the whole theory that she was crushing on me. I guess she's just a big fan of me and Flash in the future, because she was acting the same way around him. And that's all I've got for me, so what about you two?"

Abstract Twi raised a hoof while her face remained firmly planted against the tabletop. "I'll take a drink. A double if Faith starts going on about what a ladies stallion he thinks he is."

With an offended scoff, Faith asked, "That I think I am? Excuse me, but it isn't my fault I catch mares looking at me."

Abstract Twi lifted her head and retorted, "You think Doubt was attracted to you! The psycho who hated you enough to try to destroy the world."

"Love and Hate go hoof-in-hoof, remember?" As an aside to the rest of the group, he added, "Literally. Lovely couple. I've been helping them look into adoption agencies."

Twicora shook her head in bemused wonder at Faith's comment, then said to Aurora, "I'll take a drink too, as long as you're pouring. I don't have any story that wouldn't be boring."

"Make that one fer me, too," Zapapple replied. "Rate things are goin', Ah won't get a taste otherwise!"

"Me too," Dusk added. "Sorry, I know I'm skipping a turn, but I don't have any stories worth telling."





"Butterscotch, you can't do this!"

The yellow pegasus merely continued to work on the potion he'd gotten from Zecoro; it needed to be stirred just right or else it would spoil. The bubbling caldron let out hisses and pops as he moved the wooden spoon through the viscous liquid. Dusk and Harmony were struggling against the tight ropes Butterscotch had bound them with, trying desperately to escape the terrible place they found themselves in.

Actually, if one wanted to be truthful, it wasn't that terrible at all. In fact, it was rather nice; Butterscotch had rented a room at the Four Seasons for this little kidnapping. They each had their own bed (Butterscotch claiming it wouldn't be right for him and Dusk to share a bed until after they were married), and the balcony gave them an impressive view of Neighagra Falls. The staff had been very nice, serving them all breakfast in bed, providing complimentary plush bathrobes and even giving them each a massage (how that one mare had managed to work out all the kinks in Dusk's back, despite the fact that he was tied up, he never knew). All and all it was a lovely vacation... save for the fact that they had been kidnapped by a quiet pegasus who wanted to use a potion to get Dusk to fall in love with him.

"I wish these ropes weren't enchanted," Harmony said, struggling to break free.

"I wish I'd taken up Butterscotch's offer to go to the bathroom before we began all this," Dusk said, regretting that second cup of coffee he'd had (which was odd... Dusk never drank two cups of coffee at home...)

Butterscotch smiled to himself as he ladled out some of the potion. "Don't worry Dusk, now that I've added the roofies my magic brew is ready. One sip and you and I can be together forev-"





Dusk shuddered and mentally thanked whatever cosmic powers ensured that Red Gala Apple had shown up to stop Butterscotch and break him out of his amnesia with the swiftness of a hackneyed plot device... and not the sort of 'plot device' the pegasus had been planning to use on him if he'd had a chance to use the potion.

As he pulled himself out of his thoughts, Dusk looked around and saw everypony staring at him with their mouths hanging open. Seafoam put a surprisingly gentle and comforting foreleg around him as she said, "Dude... that's messed up."

Dusk's eyes flew open, and he went pale. "Oh gods... I just flashbacked out loud, didn't I?" He received stunned nods in reply, and Aurora magically summoned more glasses, pouring a splash of Starshine for everypony, not just the ones who had asked for them. As one, and without exception, everypony (and capricorn) downed their shot.

Granted, it took Aurora longer than the others to finish at her shrunken size, but she gulped down the liquor and set the glass down with her magic. "Well, that was... supremely unsettling."

"No kidding," Captain replied, rolling the tiny bit of Starshine around in her mouth before hesitantly swallowing. Despite her fears of its potency, to her it tasted refreshing and invigorating, like the sensation of working through a problem and finding the last piece of data needed to make it work without fail. It was almost enough to get her to stop picturing her cheerful pegasus friend running some sort of drugged-up lesbian harem.

After a few seconds more, Aurora said comfortingly, "Well, perhaps this will make you feel a little better. I can't say that I have many stories of individual ponies to tell. Before banishing my brother, I was always something of a bookworm, more interested in my studies and improving the machinery of government to deal with romance. Then when I sat upon the throne alone, I had even less time to myself for such pursuits. Likewise, my little ponies... well, I've already told you how frustrating it can be to maintain a respectable image.

"And despite my best efforts, there are still ponies who make me reconsider writing freedom of the press into the constitution. Particularly when Morning Star was returned to me by Sunny and her friends. My... enthusiasm at having him back at my side was 'creatively' re-interpreted by certain ponies with too much time on their hooves."

With a tiny grimace, Aurora's horn glowed as she summoned a comic book out of thin air, where it landed on the center of the table. The others leaned in to get a better look. On the cover was a depiction of Princess Aurora, though they quickly noticed certain artistic licenses taken. Her eyes and smile were altered slightly to give her a sultry look, and the eye was naturally drawn toward her rump, which was drawn noticably rounder and more inviting than reality.

As if the drawing wasn't enough to convey what sort of material the comic contained, the title was even less subtle. Abstract Twi read aloud, "The Adventures of Princess Bro-con and Prince... Horny Star?!"

Captain, Abstract Twi and Dusk all simultaneously let out a flat "What?" while Seafoam started snickering uncontrollably. Using her magic to open the comic, snickers erupted into full-blown guffaws as the Twilights were shown an inside cover page of 'Princess Bro-con' swooning over her brother, who most of them instantly recognized as an alicorn version of Shining Armor drawn to be even more masculine and sexually appealing.

GL facehooved as they flipped through the pages. "Oof, we have things like this in my world, too. We call them 'Tiwhinny Bibles'. Superheroes are prime fodder for them... though I've got to admit, most of the ones about me aren't this well-drawn."

Blinking in surprise, Twicora asked, "That's a surprise. You've read these sort of comics with your own eyes?"

GL shrugged. "The Pink Pie-er collects them. I don't know why, and I don't ask why. Frankly, I'm probably happier not knowing."

"Well, that makes it my turn to draw," Princess Aurora said, hopping off of Rollypolly and removing the cushion from his head. With a flash of magic, she was soon back to her original size and sat back down on the floor. "Now then, we haven't done much with..." She trailed off as she reached for a card, however, then looked upward. "Hold on... did the rest of you feel that?"

"Feel what?" Captain asked, suddenly on edge, but secretly grateful for an excuse to tear her attention away from the comic.

Aurora tilted her head. "I could have sworn I felt a slight gravitational shift. Almost like a ripple spreading across a pond after a stone has been thrown into it, or a tremor before an--"

Without warning, the ceiling imploded above them as something purple punched straight through it and slammed into the floor with enough force to create a crater, shockwaves of kinetic force exploding from the point of impact and sending everypony flying until they smacked into the opposite wall.

The air was choked with dust, and the interior lights had all been knocked out by the explosion, but a shaft of sunlight shone in to illuminate the room as battered ponies (and one very drunk capricorn) slowly dragged themselves back up to their hooves. Being the sturdiest of them, Aurora was the first to stand, and she began checking on the others to ensure that they were alright. Once she was sure that none of them had any injuries worse than a few cracked bones, she looked toward the crater and gasped when she saw...

... The bottle of Starshine sitting in the beam of light. Already, the sunbeams were causing the dream-liquor to evaporate into nothingness. "No, you were supposed to last all night at least!" she wailed.

Then she looked further and saw that there was one more pony in the room than there had been before. It was another Twilight, but one that none of them had met before. A unicorn, she looked just like GL or Captain except for a silvery ornament on her left ear, and the stylish black coat which covered most of her body, a purple starburst cutie mark sewn onto each flank of the suit.

Also unlike either of the other two unicorns, this one didn't have so much as a scratch on her despite being at ground zero of the impact. In fact, she was already standing and dusting herself off, and as soon as she saw Princess Aurora's silhouette through the dust, the unfamiliar mare braced herself and surrounded her horn with a strange purple energy. "Don't come any closer, 'Celestia'! I'm not even started yet," she threatened.

Whatever it was, it was no type of magic that Princess Aurora was familiar with, but the alicorn could instantly tell that this Twilight had a great deal of it. Speaking as soothingly as possible, Aurora replied, "I'm not Celestia, my little pony, and I would really rather not have to fight, if possible." Using her magic to clear the dust away so that the newcomer could see her better, she smiled and introduced herself. "My name is Princess Aurora. And you are...?"

The new Twilight's eyes widened in shock at the sight of an alicorn version of herself. After a couple of seconds of registering this, however, she narrowed her eyes and growled, "I'm Twilight Sparkle, Madame President of the Equestrian Herd. And I am tired of these sick mind-games!"

And with that, Princess Aurora suddenly found herself with a miniature black hole being thrown at her face.
> Interlude: Madam President
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	"Where's the bomb?! I'm a loose cannon with nothing to lose!" Wall Breaker shouted, spraying the unicorn with spittle as he stomped a hoof down on the table that he, Agent Coltson and Skyelight were sitting around.

Skyelight wiped Wall Breaker's saliva from her face, clearly unimpressed as she turned to Coltson, who was simply sitting across from her and smiling calmly. "Okay, so that's the 'bad cop' bit. And since you're just sitting there looking like my high school math teacher, that makes you the 'good cop?'"

Coltson didn't say anything, but Wall Breaker was suddenly beside her and pointing at him from across the table. "Calm down, Coltson! Just calm down! I've got this. I'm sorry, Ms. Skyelight, but my partner goes nuts sometimes, and I can't control him. Now, I want you to walk out of here as much as you do, but you need to give him something, or there's no telling what he might do. Just tell us where you hid the formula, and you can be on your way home tonight."

Skyelight stared in confusion at Wall Breaker. "What about the bomb?"

"So you admit that there is a bomb," Wall Breaker retorted, suddenly wearing a Zebrican ritual mask, which Skyelight realized was too large for him to have been carrying around without her noticing. Never mind that she hadn't seen him put it on. Shaking a wooden rattle in her face, he exclaimed, "I call upon the spirit of truth to possess this unicorn!"

Skyelight blinked a few times. "Sooooo... now it's 'culturally offensive cop?' And that makes you..." She turned to look at Coltson again, and while the agent hadn't moved, he was now wearing a bright red fez. "What the drek...?"

While Wall Breaker started dancing and shaking his rattle around Skyelight, Agent Coltson gave the hacker a calm smile. "I have to give you credit, Ms. Skyelight, you really did an extraordinary job slipping in here and getting access to our most secured information. But despite your antagonistic stance, I'm thinking that we can still get along."

Skyelight scoffed. "Yeah, I've heard that one before. Usually before somepony like you pulls out something sharp and pointy." As if waiting for the cue, Coltson bent down and pulled a small black case up from under the table. Setting it down, he flipped it open to reveal a large syringe filled with a clear purple fluid. "... Like that."

Agent Coltson grinned warmly at her, though the way the syringe's tip gleamed under the light hanging over the table dominated her attention. "It sounds like you've had a rough time over in your home dimension. That's why I'd really rather not have to use this," he assured her.

Less than assured, Skyelight asked, "What's it supposed to be? Truth serum?" When he shook his head, she started to sweat. "Some sort of... torture juice?"

Agent Coltson laughed and shook his head again. "No, no, this is the antidote," he explained while reaching into his coat to pull out a pocket watch.

Skyelight blinked, not feeling any better about that in the least. "A-antidote? For what?"

At the same time, Wall Breaker had taken off his Zebrican mask and instead danced around with his face painted a bright orange and his mane done up in stiff green curls. "~Oompa loompa doompity dugh! Tell us your secrets or we will--" Coultson pressed a small button on the side of his watch. There was a tiny *thwip* sound as a needle shot into Wall Breaker's neck, causing the stallion to blink and wobble groggily before flopping over with an "Ugh!"

"For that," Coltson replied while pulling his fez off. Seeing Skyelight look between him and Wall Breaker in shock, he assured her, "Oh, don't worry, he'll be fine. I can wake him up, if you prefer." He gestured toward the syringe on the table. When Skyelight shook her head vehemently, his grin widened. "So, Skyelight, why'd you let yourself get caught?"

"Excuse me?"

Agent Coltson leaned back and shrugged. "Well, like you said, you just 'jandered' in here and tricked Wall Breaker into bringing that device into the ANUS to access our systems. If you hadn't hijacked the Nexus so obviously and started taunting us, I'm willing to bet that you could have been out of here already. Nopony would have been at all the wiser if you hadn't taken the time to do that. You wanted to get caught."

Skyelight sucked in a deep breath between her teeth. "... You are pretty good. Okay, you're right. I made sure you'd know I was there."

"And why did you do that, Skyelight?"

The unicorn grinned a little more confidently. "Because sifting through all that data would take a while without my best tech available. By making you aware of a security breach, I was able to determine what you prioritize most highly when you... clenched your ANUS, so to speak. And while the Director and I were having our back-and-forth, I was also busy transmitting that data to my partner on the outside."

"So you were working with somepony else? Who?"

Skyelight leaned back smugly as she replied, "Another Twilight with a particular set of skills. Skills that make her a nightmare for ponies like you. Now, you can let me walk out of here and that will be the end of it. If you don't, she will take your deepest secrets, she will expose them, and she will use them to destroy you."


-----


Celestia tilted her head quizzically at the director of BUTTS. "Night Light, why are you crying?"

Night Light wiped his cheeks, which were streaked with tears despite the wide grin on his face. "I... I don't know, your highness. I just felt this enormous sense of fatherly pride all of a sudden."

Prince Blueblood scoffed and opened his mouth to speak when the throne room doors exploded inward, turning the noise that came out of him into a cross between a gurgle and a high-pitched scream. This was thankfully cut off when a gold-armored pegasus was hurled at him through the now-open doorway, knocking him out. The guard was more fortunate, being merely shaken up as he righted himself and immediately ran to Celestia's throne, weeping and blubbering the whole time. "Princess Celestia! She's a monster! Help us, pleeeeease!"

Night Light and celestia both looked toward the door to see a Twilight step into the throne room, her body clad in a long black coat and surrounded by a purple glow. Glaring murderously at the ponies at the other end of the room, she asked, "How dare you? HOW DARE YOU?!"

Stepping forward, Night Light said, "Now, Twilight, I don't know what you're specifically talking about, but I'm sure that you're confused. If you'll let me, I can explain--"

Before he could finish, Night Light found himself yanked up off of his hooves, surrounded by an aura of the same energy that surrounded Twilight. In his case, though it began squeezing him with enough force to force the breath out of his lungs.

Focusing her attention squarely on Celestia, Twilight growled, "You think that pulling memories of my father out of my brain is going to stop me from ending you? Did you really think that I'd forget the truth so easily?" Narrowing her eyes at the princess, she squeezed harder. "My father never existed in the first place!"






Truth, Dare, or Drink
by CrowMagnon






A few minutes later...

Princess Aurora reflexively leaned back as the newcomer formed a singularity right in front of her. Her own horn glowed, grabbing it with her magic and holding it away before it could reach her. Once it was clear to both that the singularity wasn't going to reach Aurora, the regal alicorn gave her a motherly smile. "Oh, my, you've created a powerful, tightly focused positive mass field? That's amazing! I haven't met a unicorn capable of that since Sta--"

President Twilight didn't give Aurora the opportunity to finish. Instead, she aimed her horn at the captured singularity and fired off a warp field.

The instant that the two fields of biotic energy met, the warp explosively unraveled the singularity and sent Princess Aurora flying backward. Despite also being in the blast radius, President Twilight stood firm by bracing herself while her biotic barrier absorbed the energy of the blast. In the aftermath, she looked from side to side as she saw other forms moving around the edges of the room. She snorted with anger, her left front hoof pawing at the ground in front of her. "Come on! You think you can break me? Just try it!"

While she laid down her challenge, a lasso fell around her neck. "If y'all insist," Zapapple retorted around the other end of the rope as she yanked it taut hard enough to lift President Twilight off her hooves and swing her around. The Madam President's biotic barrier prevented the impromptu noose from squeezing her throat enough to cut off her air. Even when she hit the floor again, she was more disoriented than hurt.

Picking herself up, she focused a warp field on the lasso around her neck, unraveling the rope on a molecular level so that she was free before the earth pony could yank her off her hooves again.

At the same time, Seafoam came up on her from behind and swung her tailblade at the President's head. As hard as she swung it, though, it simply bounced ineffectively against her biotic barrier and served only to get the President's attention. With barely a thought, a kinetic blast struck Seafoam with the force of a runaway truck, slamming her into the far wall and keeping her pinned there.

"Get her, Twiley," a male voice cried out, and the Madam President turned to see a flash of purple flying toward her. She reacted swiftly and entirely on instinct, unleashing a warp field on the attacker, only to realize a moment later that it was nothing more than a bag of flour with what looked like her own face crudely drawn on it.

The warp easily tore through the bag, but the powder inside continued to sail toward her, the fine grains slipping through her barrier and covering her from hose to tail in flour. She immediately started coughing, her vision temporarily obscured by the cloud. By concentrating on her biotics, however, she was able to push the powder off her body.

Still, the moment it took her to get vision and lungs clear gave GL, once again in full costume, to summon up constructs of chains and shackles which wrapped around her body and held her in place. This included a sheathe that slid itself down over the black-clad unicorn's horn.

"Nice rope-work, Zapapple," the hero said to her earth pony counterpart.

Dusk cleared his throat. "Uh... you know, she wasn't the only one who helped," he pointed out.

"You're right! I'm sorry, I didn't mean to exclude anypony."

The stallion smiled. "It's alright. I'm just glad--"

GL used her ring to lift up the tattered remains of the flour bag. "If it weren't for 'Twiley' here, we'd have all had a much bigger fight on our hooves. Let's hear it for Twiley!"

Dusk's face fell, the corners of his mouth immediately dropping downward. "Wha... what? But I--"

GL cut him off with a grin and a wink. "Seriously, you did good," she told him before looking around. "Everypony else okay?"

"I am alright," Princess Aurora insisted as Abstract Twi and Twicora helped her up. At the same time, Captain Sparkle helped right Rollypolly, who had been knocked onto his back.

President Twilight didn't have much room to move her head, but she used what she had to look around in disbelief as more of the... her... stepped forward and surrounded her. "What the hell is this?" she growled through angrily clenched teeth.

"This is us kicking your supervillain flank," GL retorted. "So, are you one of Nightfall's goons, or independant?"

"Supervillain? Are you certain?" Faith asked.

"Wearing a coat like that? What else would she be?"

"Madam President of the Equestrian Herd," Aurora replied before President Twilight could.

Dusk Shine asked, "I don't suppose we could shorten that to 'MP'?"

"May we?" Aurora asked the shackled unicorn. "Then perhaps we could discuss the situation, leader to leader. I would like to clear up any misunderstandings which might be fueling this hostility you have for us."

"Speak for yourself. I'm good to go another round," Seafoam groused.

For her part, MP Twilight's glare eased for a moment against Aurora's continued calm and diplomatic approach. That did not last, though, and her face hardened again. "If you want to know more about the Herd, look us up on the extranet. You aren't getting anything more than that out of me. I know what this is... you're just trying to confuse me, like those weird security programs."


-----


Several minutes earlier...

In the infirmary for the Royal Guard, several soldiers sat around in a circle. A pegasus turned to show off his bandaged wing. "So when Twiock was smashing stuff, I got hit with a chunk of that bakery that sells those great mini-quiches. Broke my wing in five places."

"That's nothing. Just look at what Delirium did to me," squeaked the pony next to him, who looked normal except that his head had been shrunken down and turned into that of a mouse.

The next one scoffed. "You guys both got off lucky. Baby Twilight ate me!" When the others turned to stare at him in disbelief, he sheepishly added, "... I got better."

After him, a unicorn Guard with a thousand-yard stare trembled, eyes watering as he practically whispered, "Captain Sparkle... she... she..."

"It's okay, man. Let it out," one assured him, supportively wrapping a foreleg around the traumatized unicorn's shoulders.

With a grateful sniffle, the Guard burst into tears and sobbed, "She... said I was the sorriest excuse for a Royal Guard she'd ever see-he-heeeeeeen! Why would she do that?!"

The others gasped in shock before gathering around to offer their support and condolences. "There there... it's okay, you're safe now," the mouse-headed soldier squeaked soothingly. "Twilight Sparkle won't be terrorizing us anymore."

That was when the wall exploded, and MP Twilight strode through the opening. Looking at the soldiers, she narrowed her eyes. "Oh, great," she muttered to herself. "And me without a record player. Guess I'll just have to do this the Shepard way."

The Guards collectively clutched each other and let out a high-pitched scream as her horn lit up a biotic aura.


-----


"So what are you all supposed to be? Are you designed to lower my guard by evoking specific emotions? Or are you reflections of the memories whoever's on the outside is trying to pull out of my head?"

Her counterparts blinked in confusion and looked at each other after MP's accusation. Dusk Shine stepped forward and said, "I don't know what you think is going on, but everypony here is just as real as you are."

"Stop lying to me!" MP shouted, straining against her shackles as desperation entered her voice. "I know what's real! I spent my entire life in a lie, and I'm not going to get sucked in again!" Glaring at Captain Sparkle, who swayed slightly from the starshine in her system, she growled, "You and the green one, you're just reflections of how I need to constantly be strong for everypony!"

Turning her head toward Zapapple, she snapped, "And you're here to make me feel guilty about Applejack!"

Zapapple took a half-step back at that, her eyes going wide. "Why...? What'd ya do to mah sister?"

Instead of answering, MP turned to Abstract Twi and Faith, focusing on their metallic wings. "And you're probably here because of what happened to Rainbow Dash..."

Then she turned to Aurora. "You're obviously supposed to be Celestia..."

"Seriously, what happened to Applejack?" Zapapple asked.

Next, she looked to Seafoam. "And you... okay, I don't actually know what you're supposed to be. Some kind of... krogan-hybrid thing?"

"Krogan?!" Seafoam's nostrils flared as she snorted angrily and reared up on her hind legs. "No pony calls me a krogan!"

Dusk Shine quickly leaned back away from the temperamental capricorn. "Woah, careful there! What the hay's a krogan?"

"...No idea," Seafoam admitted, "but I didn't like the sound of it."

Smirking at Captain, Twicora piped up to the Ranger, "This level of denial is rather familiar. Have any ideas for getting through to her?"

"One..." Captain replied. "We could get her drunk so we're all on a level playing field."

Dusk gave her a bemused look. "What?"

"Yeah... I don't do so good with the planning when I drink," Captain replied. A few of the others looked at her more closely, and saw that she was obviously having a little more trouble keeping her balance than the others. Rollypolly made sure to roll up beside her so that she would have something to lean on.

"Lightweight," Seafoam playfully snarked.

Zapapple asked MP again, "Seriously, what happened ta Applejack?!"

MP glared up at the farmer and snapped, "You know what happened! I kept her out of prison, even when she started screaming at me that I'd betrayed our friendship! Is that what you wanted to hear?! Fine, that's a freebie, but you're not getting anything else."

Zapapple sat down, unsure whether she should be worried about the unanswered questions that response brought up, or relieved that her sister's counterpart sounded like she was alright.

Meanwhile, Twicora looked around and mused, "You know, I just realized that it's awfully quiet. You would think BUTTS and the Guard would be responding to this riot."


-----


A few minutes ago...

Celestia looked down at the hole that MP had made in the ground below after getting herself forcefully ejected from the throne room by the sun goddess's magic. Beside her, Night Light lay wheezing on the floor.

"Oh dear, she's punched a hole straight into BUTTS headquarters. I should mobilize the Guard immediately before one of the good Twilights gets hurt."

Blueblood rolled his eyes as he got his head bandaged up by a palace medic and sarcastically scoffed, "Nooooo, you think? She's just a super-powerful lunatic, she couldn't possibly cause any trouble."

Celestia thought about it and smiled. "You're probably right. Guard, tell your men that they don't need to get involved."

The pegasus who had earlier collided with Blueblood nodded enthusiastically at that order. "Gladly, your highness!"


-----


"Yeah... I dun' think the Guard in this world would be much help, anyway," Captain replied.

Faith decided to step forward and get everypony's attention. "True. That being the case, we should ensure that the Madam President here doesn't cause any more damage."

"Sure thing. I can carry her to the holding cells, no problem," GL replied.

"Actually, I was thinking of letting her go," Faith replied, to the shock of everypony present, MP included.

"Y'all outta yer cotton-pickin' mind?" Zapapple asked.

Abstract Twi rolled her eyes. "Yes, he is, but let's hear him out. If we don't, and he turns out to be right, he'll be even more insufferable."

Faith grinned at his partner. "This is why we get along so well," he replied before turning back to MP. "The issue, as I see it, is that you believe that we are all illusions, designed to confuse you and dredge up your secrets. I assure you, neither is the case, but let us assume for the moment that you are right, and we are all just pieces of your mind made manifest. That doesn't mean that we're you're enemy. Did you consider the possibility that we might actually be here to help you? A mental defense mechanism to keep you sane while fighting off whatever is being done to your mind."

MP looked up at the abstract as though he were crazy. "That's... that's ridiculous. Even if I could believe that, you don't look like a piece of my mind. I don't even know you."

"I'm Faith. That's both my name and the abstract concept I represent," he replied. "That means that I'm your sense of faith, if I truly am just a projection of your inner self. As such, I'm thinking that the rest of us should place some faith in you. After all, you don't want to hurt any real ponies, do you? You just want to get back home and take care of your herd."

MP hesitated, searching Faith's words for hidden traps. "You know that's what I want," she replied.

"So how about this? Green Lantern here releases you from those chains, and you are under no obligation to say anything that you think would harm the herd. We will do everything that we can to help you get home and whole again, and in return, would you please stop trying to destroy us? You would only be harming yourself, in any case."

MP thought long and hard about what Faith was saying to her, her expression flickering back and forth between cold anger and an almost desperate need for hope. "That's... I just... how am I supposed to believe you? How can I be sure this isn't just a trick?"

"That's why it's a leap of faith," the abstract replied. "But even if you can't believe me, or them, or anypony in this entire world, you do have somepony that you do believe in, don't you? Your friends."

MP's body stiffened at the mention of the other Directors waiting for her back in New Ponyville, a faint sparkle shining in her eyes that wasn't there before. "My friends...?"

Faith nodded. "Even if you can't believe in anything you see, I know that you have faith in them. They'll come through for you. As long as you stay strong and believe that they're on their way to save you from whatever peril you are in, nothing will be able to break you."

MP looked up into Faith's eyes, then around at the others. She saw confusion, uncertainty, and some lingering hostility in a few cases. Her own mind was a roiling storm of doubt and fear, but as her thoughts turned to her friends and her number-one assistant, she knew that Faith had a point. Even after everything that had happened to the Herd since the foundation of New Ponyville, they would turn the galaxy inside-out to find her. And though she wouldn't want them to put themselves in danger for her sake, she could have faith that when they pulled themselves together, they could achieve anything.


-----


Meanwhile, in the ANUS, Agent Coltson grinned as he watched events in the training room play out over the video feeds. Beside him, Skyelight, aka Hacker Twilight, was still looking surprised at having been allowed to physically enter the center of BUTTS's information hub.

"Is that why you brought me here?" she asked, tilting her head toward the image of Faith and MP on the monitor. "Even after I said I wanted to destroy you and everything you stand for..."

Agent Coltson gave her a nod. "Granted, it seems really contrived that Faith there tried the same approach at the same time, but I really got the feeling that you just want to make sure that our world doesn't wind up making the same mistakes that yours did. So to keep that from happening, you'll have access to our intel, and you can make any suggestions you like that will help us do our job without abusing the information in our hooves. Call it a gesture of good faith."

Skyelight looked at the surveillance systems and replied, "Huh... Okay. I really wasn't expecting that... Alright, Coltson, I'll play along for now."

Agent Coltson smiled warmly at the hacker while pointing toward MP on the screen. "Glad to hear it. I'm just glad to have you and your partner there on our side."

Skyelight turned to Coltson with a blank look. "Partner? Wait, you thought she was my partner?"

Coltson blinked a few times, his good mood faltering. "Well... yes, with the destroying and everything. You mean she isn't?"

"Noooo... Oh, drek! I forgot to tell her to hold off on the next phase of the plan!"


-----


"Now then, it's time we moved on to the next item on the agenda," Princess Celestia said. "Regarding Prince Blueblood's proposal that all ducks in Canterlot should be required to wear long pants, I believe--"





Before the loud cry even finished echoing throughout the throne room, another Twilight strode in. This one was wearing a smartly tailored lavender business suit. On the lapels, two pins were attached on prominent display, one on either side. On the right lapel, she bore a badge shaped like a pink heart with the scales of justice in the center. On the left, she bore a badge shaped like a silver spiral twisting toward a small blue sapphire.

Standing tall and confidently, the new Twilight pulled a stack of papers from her saddlebags, telekinetically presenting them to the princess. "Twilight Sparkle, ace attorney," she proclaimed by way of introduction. "Princess Celestia, you are hereby issued a Cease & Desist order, requiring you to immediately put an end to all BUTTS activity!"