The More Things Change...

Owwwww…

Okay, how many times in a row have I woken up in pain? Four? Five? I’ve lost count at this point. Ah well, the good news is that at least wherever or whatever I seem to have been laid upon to rest is really soft. I tried actually getting up and out of bed, but the pain made me recoil, so I just settled for opening my eyes.

You know, in the… one, two... five days I’ve been a pony, I’ve seen some very odd, yet so familiar things. I’ve seen my room, if I was a girl. I’ve seen Equestria from the inside. I’ve seen Pinkie Pie working at Cinnabon. I’ve even seen another me. That was all blown out of the water by what I saw.

The walls of the room I was in were a sleek, polished-looking black color. They were decorated by glowing white lines running all over the walls, providing a passable amount of illumination. To my left was a desk with the satchel I had, along with some kind of headset with glasses attached. There was also a pair of transparent white socks. To my right was a dresser with an odd futuristic-looking alarm clock and a picture frame. The alarm clock showed the time on a holographic display, rather than an LED one like I had back home. The picture frame showed what looked like me with another pony, though it was hard to tell from where I was. In front of me was some sort of television monitor or something of the sort. It was a flat black rectangle on the wall, outlined by more of those glowing white lines.

The first thing that came to mind was that this place looked like something straight out of Tron. All we need is a light cycle and we’d be set. The second thing was that this obviously was not my guest suite, nor was this remotely like anywhere I’ve been before. So that begs the question… Where the fuck am I and how did I get here?

I tried to search my memories. Let’s see… I was at a party. I know that much. The dress is in that satchel. How it fit in there, I don’t know. I guess the satchel is pretty big on the inside. No, focus Sunny. It’s weird that I just refer to myself as Sunny completely, right? Blargh, bad tangent! So I was at the party, and then… and then my friends showed up… And they… attacked me? No, that can’t be right… Something else happened… But what? I can’t remember…

Of all the times for my shitty memory to come back and hit me in the face, it was now. Sighing, I worked through the pain and sat upright. Come on Sunny, you’ve been through worse. Just get out of this incredibly comfy bed and find out what the fuck is going on. Deciding my thoughts were wise ones, I quickly jumped out of bed. The pain would go away eventually anyway.

I made my way to the dresser and took a look at the picture frame. That was definitely me in the picture. But I had no idea who the other pony was She resembled the room I was in. A mostly black colored alicorn with glowing white lines all over her body. Her mane and tail were glowing white, and she had striking blue eyes that almost looked… artificial. Well, I would put it past this pony to have some sort of cybernetics done to her, based on that look. I noticed a left and right arrow button on the frame, and figured the frame was electronic. Ah hell, let’s see what other pictures are on this thing.

My hoof somehow pressed the tiny left button and I was greeted with a new picture. This time it was of a group of ponies I didn’t know. There was a white unicorn mare with something I didn’t recognize on her back, a cyan earth pony mare holding a wrench that looked way too big to be of any practical use, a dark purple pegasus mare that looked like she had something done to her eyes, a green earth pony mare who looked rather cheerful, a nerdy looking pink unicorn mare that reminded me of Twilight, and once again, me. The more I looked at this picture, the more confused I became. Why was I in these pictures? Who were these ponies? What the actual fuck was going on?

Putting the picture frame down, I opened the dresser. The only things in there were a couple pairs of stockings and a dress. They also matched the Tron-like quality of the room and that alicorn. I closed the dresser and looked at the alarm clock. The holographic display read 10:42pm. So it was rather late at night. Whoever lived here must be asleep. Now… How do I leave?

Sure, laugh now, but remember when I described the room? I didn’t mention a door or window, so I have no idea how I got in here, or how to get out. Perhaps there’s a hidden door somewhere. This was a very futuristic, or at least a very Tronlike room, so that was not out of the question. I looked around the room for something that resembled a button. I did eventually find a circular depression in the wall. I pressed my hoof to it, but it didn’t react. Maybe if I twist? I twisted my foreleg to the right and the black walls quickly turned into white walls, giving the room much better illumination. Well… I can see clearly now, at least. The room as it was was just a bit too dim.

I saw another indent in the wall and noticed it had the image of a lock to the side of it. I pressed my hoof to it and twisted right again. It didn’t budge, so I twisted left and the lock opened. A portion of the wall immediately slid away, revealing a doorway. Well, I found the door… Almost immediately, I heard faint voices from somewhere else in the building.

Looking out the door, I was on the second floor of a sizable house. In front of me was a hallway that overlooked the first floor. I snuck to the balcony and peeked down to see two of the five other ponies in that picture. Mainly, the two unicorns. They hadn’t noticed me yet, so I decided to keep it that way for now, and listen in on their conversation.

“Are you sure she’ll be okay? We don’t even know what did that to her.” The white unicorn said. I’m gonna assume she was talking about me.

“I’m sure. While she seems to have suffered a mild concussion, it was probably just the result of her hitting the ground too hard or something,” the pink unicorn responded, “you know how Sunny gets during training.” Yep. Definitely talking about me.

“I still think we should tell the princess. Her aura was completely out of control, and I fear something bad may have happened to her head. Those kinds of injuries do not suggest an accident.”

“So you think she was attacked? By who? Who could stand up to Sunny and win?” Um, anyone with a brain and an ounce of strength can, numbskull. I’ve already been defeated a few times. Then again… scratch the brain part.

“I don’t know Sugar. I think it might have been a unicorn who knew their way around a mind-altering spell, considering her brainwaves were vastly different than what they normally are.” Well that’s one name down.

“...You make that sound like you regularly study our brains...” She sounded concerned, and I would be too if somepony-er, someone decided to study my brain without me knowing.

“Well, I got bored and decided to conduct a harmless experiment on our neurological activity, to find a pattern. I did, and when I checked Sunny, that pattern was completely shattered. It’s like she’s a completely different pony.” Because I most likely am, you stupid smart mare.

“So what does that mean? And please, in Equish.” Heh… Equish.

“It means her personality, knowledge, skills, and even possibly memories will be completely different.”

“What do you mean by possibly her memories?”

“I mean that she won’t have her memories of us. A skilled unicorn with a lot of planning could fabricate a lifetime’s worth of memories and implant them into a pony, but more than likely her memories are just gone or very fragmented.” Well that’s a scary thought. Twilight could have just completely shattered my memories and conception of who I was with just a little more forethought. I’m glad she fucked up.

“So what do we do then, Starburst?” And there’s the other name. Now I know at least who these two are.

“Simple, the powerful harmonic frequency of her Element should restore her to the Sunny we know and love.” Wait, what? Element? Like, Element of Harmony? Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh fuck! I’m out of one frying pan, then right back into another, much fancier one. I wonder how much they’d believe me if I told them I was a dimensional traveler, and not their Sunny. If they have no experience with the multiverse, probably very little. Neither Starburst nor Sugar brought up the idea of an alternate Sunshine, which meant I was probably boned. I needed a plan.

Sniff sniff.

...First, I needed a shower. Then, I’d make that plan. Moving away from the balcony, I went looking for a bathroom. My eyes spotted another one of those button things on the wall. Eh, I’ll call them buttons. It’s easier on my brain. I pressed the button and another door opened. The inside was easily recognizable as a bathroom.. Then again, the bedroom looked like a bedroom. Maybe it's just doorknobs that are always hated by the future. I shut and locked the door behind me. Being confronted in the shower was just something I didn’t want.

The shower itself was a decent size, so I wouldn’t be uncomfortable with my wings open. There were no knobs, so it took me a moment to find some way to turn the water on. A small panel caught my eye and I pressed it. It flipped and showed what I can only describe as a holographic control panel for a shower. That was it. This panel was only for the shower, and yet it allowed for so much control. Control over the exact temperature of the water in Celsius, Fahrenheit, Kelvin, and even some temperature I didn’t recognize, and will probably avoid for my own safety. It also control over exactly how much pressure the water would come down at, which I found odd, but could understand. Though water pressure was again, something I would not touch for my own safety. These two settings I could understand, but like an unneeded infomercial, there was more. The lighting specifically in the shower, the color of the water; it even had the option to automatically apply shampoo and conditioner, as well as a quick-dry option.

Tentatively, I pressed my hoof against the holo-panel. Strangely enough, contact was made with the light. So it was like hard light or something? The technology behind what should have been a simple shower just baffled me. Was this what those ponies had to deal with on a regular basis? This was insane! Then again, this could just be a luxury for upper-class ponies. Anyway, I had a shower to take. It took a moment, but I found a suitable setting for me.

As soon as the water turned on, my body was flooded with relief. It was like the stress of the last few days was being sucked down the drain with the water. I actually felt like my old self again, if only for a moment. I considered using shampoo, but this wasn’t my house. Ah fuckit, if I’m going to take a shower, I might as well go all the way. Taking a bottle of lavender-scented shampoo, I began washing my mane and body fur. I reached to turn the water off, but then I realized something. Oh, forgot the tail. Once that was done, I gave myself a little more time to rinse the soap out and then turned the shower off.

As I found a towel and started drying myself off, I realized something. Unless the room was soundproofed, the others know I’m in here, and just took a shower. There was also the fact that I forgot to make a plan while in the shower. Ah well, I’ll wing it. I finished drying myself and went to the door, putting my ear against it. By the sound of muffled voices on the other side, I could rightly assume they knew I was in here. Right, well no more beating around the bush. I’m clean, and ready for whatever this world has to throw at me. Unless it’s Stud Muffin, because fuck Stud Muffin.

The door, after being unlocked, opened to reveal the two ponies, Sugar and Starburst. I’m sure they had last names, but I didn’t know them. Sugar had a white coat and yellow mane. Though, what I didn’t see before is that her back is speckled with colorful dots. Seeing that her cutie mark, now that I can see it, is a cookie, I can guess her last name. Starburst had a pink coat and a purple mane, which was done up into a bun. Her cutie mark was three six-pointed stars. Oh great Dew lords, if she’s a Sparkle…

The three of us just kinda stood there for a moment, awkwardly smiling at each other. A cough from Sugar broke the silence. “So… You’re still Sunny, right?” She asked, getting a slap in the back of the head from Starburst for that.

Starburst gave Sugar a brief look of annoyance, before turning back to me. “Sorry about that. We were just worried about you. When we found you unconscious, we had know idea what happened to you.”

“To be honest, I don’t know either. I think I was attacked, but I can’t recall who did it.” I said in return.

“Well in that case, we’ll do our best to to find this villain and bring him slash her to justice!” Sugar announced, pumping a hook up in the air. “You just take it easy, and try not to forget us.” She added, which prompted another slap from Starburst.

“Sorry about Sugar. We were discussing how you might have had your mind tampered with by whatever attacked you. Please, we would like to be proven wrong. Tell us you know who we are.” Starburst pleaded.

I just let out a sigh. “Sorry to disappoint, but I don’t.” I admitted. Sugar and Starburst both suddenly looked very dejected. “Though if it makes you feel any better, if someone did mess with my head, it wouldn’t be the first time this week.”

3000 Years Too Late

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I sat in the bedroom, mulling over what just happened. Sugar and Starburst told me to get some rest while they came up with a plan to “get their Sunny back.” While I had no doubt that they were indeed missing their Sunny, I knew for a fact I wasn’t the Sunny they were missing. If anything, whatever attacked me and sent me here switched us, which meant their Sunny was with my friends. That gave me a little bit of hope, at least. Things weren’t completely unsalvageable.

For the time being, I needed to make sure I didn’t lose myself to yet another member of the Sparkle family. This is just my luck, isn’t it? I get stuck with some possible distant ancestor of Twilight, who once again threatens to take away my memories and replace them with someone else’s. Ah well, I can put this time to good use.

I got off of the bed again and tried to see if I could find anything else worth investigating. I started with the desk. The headset and glasses definitely piqued my interest, so I tried them on. Immediately, what could be described as a HUD filled my vision. It showed labels for everything in my view. I could see what was in the satchel without even looking inside it. The indents for the door and lights were clearly highlighted, and I even saw a couple others that I didn’t notice before.

I noticed the socks on the desk were labeled as “ArcanoTech Interfacer Socks. For use with augmented reality systems and neural implants.” Well, that sure got my attention. I picked up the socks and spent the next minute or so putting them on. Getting socks on, especially thin ones like these, with hooves was not the easiest thing to do. Once I did get them on, I looked at my hooves. They were so thin and transparent, didn’t even look like I had them on. That was actually pretty cool.

I walked over to one of the wall buttons. Or was it a knob, like the lights? I’m sure these had some sort of technical term, but for now my primitive pony brain would have to come up with a primitive pony word. I’ll stick with button. The button was labeled as a window. I proceeded to press the button, and a section of wall lowered to reveal a sight that took my breath away.

Beyond the window was a massive cityscape of blues, purples, and whites. Glistening skyscrapers pierced the night sky while ponies rode on what looked like hoverbikes and other hovering vehicles down the streets below. The HUD from the glasses started labeling everything so quickly I couldn’t keep up and was forced to take them off. I didn’t even get to read most of them. There was something about an office building. I saw a restaurant logo, I think. I definitely saw something resembling a nightclub, and based on the clock, which now read 11:27pm, I’m sure the place is open and packing. I wanted to check that place out, but last time I was forced to get drunk and was almost carried away by Stud Muffin. The only thing that saved me was the fact that I was with Vinyl. If I go to this club, I doubt I’ll have the same protection.

My ear twitched and I looked behind me to see the door had opened. Sugar and Starburst walked in. I braced myself for whatever they were going to do. “Alright,” Starburst began, “since you seem to be rejecting the idea that you’re who we know you are, we’re going to ask you a few questions so we can know who you think you are.” She explained in a somewhat condescending tone. Bitch was talking down to me, like she was in the right for this. “What is your name?”

“Sunshine.” I answered without hesitation. “I had another name before all this, but thanks to everything that’s happened, I refer to myself as Sunshine more than I probably should.”

My answer seemed to surprise Starburst, but she kept up her questioning. “Where are you from?”

“A lovely little place called America. It’s in another dimension. I’m trying to get back.”

“What is this place like?”

I waved a hoof dismissively. “Oh, ya know… Land of the free, home of the brave and all that jazz. It’s not perfect, not even close to some of the places I’ve been. But it’s home, and that’s what matters.”

“Does the name Princess Spectra mean anything to you?”

I tilted my head at this one. “Nope. The only princesses I know are Celestia, Luna, Cadance, and Twilight. Why? Is Spectra a princess in this dimension?”

The two looked at each other for a moment before nodding at me. “Yes, Spectra is our only princess. The princesses you named have been dead for a few millennia now.”

I swear on me mum my jaw hit the floor at this. “Um. Okay… History lesson now please.”

Starburst sighed and began explaining. “Alright. So about 3000 years ago, a technological boom started in Equestria, headed by Princess Luna and Princess Twilight. However, with the boom came a change that the nobles were not happy with, as Luna depowered them. So in retaliation, the nobles assassinated her, hoping that would reinstate them. Instead, Princess Celestia struck them down in a grief-filled rage, destroying a good chunk of Canterlot in the process. Afterwards, she abdicated the throne and her power to Princess Twilight. She was never seen again.

“Twilight, in all her knowledge, knew that unlike Princess Celestia, she would not live for thousands of years, and as she was not the dating type, she doubted that she would ever produce an heir to Equestria’s throne. She did eventually have a foal, but the fact that I’m here should make that obvious.

“Princess Twilight sought a way to make sure Equestria would have a stable leadership for years to come. That way would come in the form of an AI, created from a mix of technology and the Elements of Harmony. She was named Spectra, and once Twilight passed away, she took over. Though, it’s hard for a computer to run a country, so she had a physical body built. That way, she has an easier time controlling the sun and moon, can appear in public, and enjoy life like the rest of us ponies.” She finished her lecture, leaving me to piece together what I just heard.

I grabbed the picture frame and looked at the picture of the alicorn again. “So this alicorn is Spectra? She looks good for someone who’s a 3000 year old AI…” I said. Almost instantly, another question came to mind. “Hold on… A 3000 year old AI? How is that physically possible?”

Starburst shrugged. “We assumed it was due to the Elements of Harmony. The Elements themselves are known to be at least 4000 years old, possibly longer. It’s the most powerful magic in Equestria. Twilight assumed imbuing Spectra with the power of the Elements would allow her to never become corrupt or age, and it seems like those assumptions were spot on.”

“I see… So where are the Elements now?” I had to ask, though I was already sure what the answer was.

“They’re downstairs,” came the immediate answer, “I brought them over just in case we needed them. And since we know that you don’t think you are who we know you are, I’ve decided to fish out an old spell from Princess Twilight to assist in fixing your head right up. Sugar, could you get our Elements, please?”

Sugar nodded and left the room. I had just one more question to ask before they did whatever they were going to do. “So, why do you wield the Elements? Why not Spectra?”

“Spectra can’t use them because she technically isn’t a real pony. She doesn’t have a soul, just an artificial mind and body. While she hasn’t really minded that for a couple thousand years, it did mean she needed to find ponies capable of using them. A couple groups have used them in the past, whenever Equestria has faced a crisis, but the last group to use them before us was about 700 years ago.” Starburst explained

Well at least I got an answer as Sugar walked back in, two of the Elements in her magical grasp. “Alright, here they are.” She announced.

I recognized one of them immediately as the tiara holding the Element of Magic. Of course Starburst would get that one. The other one, I didn’t know. The necklace held a red gem shaped like a sun, which matched my cutie mark. So if it was red, that meant… Loyalty? Starburst took them in her own telekinesis, setting the tiara on her head and putting the necklace around my neck. I’ve never worn anything like this before. The metal felt cold around my neck, but the gem held a bit of warmth. Or maybe it was just me, I dunno.

I held my breath as Starburst stepped forward, horn lit. I could have made a break for the door at any time, but I knew that I would just tire myself out. I had to take this like a man. Or mare, whichever. Starburst’s horn touched my head and I felt a surge of magic envelop my head. My vision swirled into a blur of colors and it became a lot harder to think straight. The world just seemed to slip away as Starburst’s spell messed with my head. Did this qualify as mind rape? I don’t know.

I needed to find a way to hold onto myself. I tried to mentally reach out to my own memories. If I wanted to keep my head in the right place, an anchor point would be needed. A mental image came up. My mother was there, in that old blue car she used to drive. I was there, watching her get angry at herself for making such a stupid mistake. She had just popped two tires running over some railroad tracks. Yes, this was a strong memory. An early one, for sure, but still strong. What else did I have? Ah yes, the Tiger Cruise. That was fun. A couple years in the Boy Scouts. That time I was… run over by a car… I’d rather forget that one, but I needed it at the moment. School, my friends, my home. It all came back to me.

Yes, I know who I am. I am me. I am not an Element of Harmony. I am not a pony. And I most certainly am not going to be stopped now that I’ve been through so much. Not by a Sparkle. Not by you!

Suddenly a force pushed me back and I landed against the wall. My vision cleared up and I saw that Starburst was at the other end of the room, also having been pushed back. Sugar stood between us, clearly stunned by what just happened. Starburst stood up, rubbing the base of her horn. “Ouch… I didn’t see that coming.” She started towards me again. “Did the spell work? Are you our Sunny again?”

I stood up and shook my head. “I told you once already. I’m not your Sunny. I never was. Do you believe me now?”

Starburst just seemed angered by my rejection. “Then where is she? What did you do to our Sunny? What even are you!?” She demanded. “Well!?”

I felt an odd warmth in my neck, but I ignored it and glared at Starburst. “I dunno. I’m just as much of a victim as your Sunny. More than her, in fact, since this is the third world I’ve been to. And to top it all off, I’m about 3000 years out of my comfort zone tech-wise.” I took off the socks and showed them to her. Well, more like waved them in her face. “Like, what are these supposed to do?” I pointed at the headset and glasses. “And what in the seven whats is that supposed to be?”

Before Starburst could answer my questions, or more likely yell at me more, Sugar stepped between us and pointed at me. “Hold it!” Look, the Element.” I looked down and saw that the Element of Loyalty was glowing. I had… absolutely no fucking clue what this meant. “It's chosen you as its wielder…” Oh… Wait, what the actual fuck?

“Woah, hold on. What do you mean, it’s chosen me? What about your Sunny?”

“The Elements can be used by more than one pony, if they embody that Element well enough.” Sugar explained.

I gave a forced laugh. This was a joke, right? Me, as the Element of Loyalty? “I think it must be mistaken. I’ve got no loyalty in me. I’m abandoning a world to a crazy ruler just so I can get home. I can’t embody loyalty.”

Sugar shrugged. “I guess the Element sees something in you that you yourself does not see. Besides, I wouldn’t worry about you using it. I’m sure we’ll get our Sunny back and send you on your way long before we have to use the Elements again.” Aaaaaand you just jinxed it. Great.

Mysteries

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I laid in the bed I first woke up in, staring at the Element of Loyalty on the desk. None of this made any sense. Why did it choose me? Was it just because I looked like the Sunshine from this world, or was there some other reason? Did it have anything to do with whatever brought me here? Is there some destiny I have to fulfill or something?

I was asked to get some sleep, and was offered other Sunny’s bedroom to sleep in. However, the Element of Loyalty brought up too many questions to allow me to sleep. It wasn’t just the Element though. I was also very curious about the world I ended up in. Like, why was I in this bed when I could be seeing that city outside?

No. You know what? Fuck it. I’m going to be exhausted in the morning and I don’t care. I need to see this world at least a little before I leave. I got out of bed and left the room. Starburst did tell me what those buttons were called: sensor pads. Why didn’t I think of that name? I just went right for button. Bah, no tangents now. Maybe later.

Looking over the balcony, Starburst and Sugar appeared to just be sitting on a sofa. A monitor on the wall in front of them was playing some sort of television program, though what that program was, I couldn’t tell. Maybe a documentary. Maybe a soap opera. The mares seemed more occupied with each other though. They were back to talking. Instead of eavesdropping again though, I just hovered on down.

Starburst glanced in my direction. “We do have stairs, you know.” She stated, pointing at the stairs.

I scoffed at her silly suggestion. “Me? Use stairs? Not a chance. We don’t get along very well.”

She gave me an odd look, but shrugged it off. “Um, right. So, what are you doing up? Can’t sleep?” She asked.

I shook my head. “No, I can’t. I have too many questions. Not only about the Element sitting upstairs, but about this world in general. Like, the socks and headset upstairs. What do they do?”

Starburst started her explanation. “Well, the socks and headset are meant to be used together. The headset is an AR device. I assume you know what AR means, right?” I nodded, and she continued. “Okay. The headset has a few features. You probably saw its first one, where it displays information about its surroundings.”

“Yeah, I caught a few places outside before the info overload was too much. Something about a restaurant and a nightclub.” I interrupted.

Starlight’s ear twitched, but she continued. “Yes. Now then, we’re getting off topic. The headset also has other features. The first is a communication application, allowing you to talk to others with compatible communicators. It can be used either with voice commands or by an addition on the HUD. This is where the socks come in. They connect with the HUD, and you could use them to interface with the HUD.”

“Sounds like it would look silly.”

“It’s not the most efficient method, but it works. However, headsets like that are pretty old. There are newer variants, as well as neural implants.” Seeing my confused face, she continued. “They have all the same features that the headsets have, with more additional benefits, such as mental commands. The fancier and military variants even come with virtual assistants to help with managing the applications as well as the user’s bodily functions.” Starburst rubbed the back of her head. “I’ve got a basic one. Our friend Viola has a top-of-the-line variant. She kinda has to, considering her condition.”

I tilted my head in confusion and curiosity. “What do you mean? What kind of condition?”

“Oh, she’s a cyberpony. Most of her body has been replaced or augmented with cybernetic machinery.” Starburst answered, then she continued. “They were forced on her by group of evil ponies who wanted to use her for an attack on Princess Spectra. Luckily we managed to rescue her and put a stop to those ponies.”

Yikes. Sounds like I was lucky not to end up here. Though the implants do sound cool, I’d rather not have one. Sounds like too much of a hassle, plus they’d probably be useless outside of this dimension.

I had more questions though. “So, does Spectra take students or something?” I don’t know why I had this question though.

Starburst nodded. “Yes. She does. In fact, we were considering letting her know about this situation. Then again, I don’t know if she’ll help, or even be supportive. She could see it as a threat, and have you hostage until we get our Sunny back. We’ve never dealt with other worlds.” And from there, she went into full Twilight Panic Mode. Trademark pending.

“What if Sunny decides to attack the other world? What if she was captured and is being held hostage? We could be at war! Princess Spectra hasn’t seen combat in over three hundred years. We don’t know what other worlds could be capable of. What if they have giant robots? Or trained attack walruses? Walrusi? Walruseseses?” At this point Sugar slapped her and she regained a bit of her sanity. Just a bit. “Right, sorry.”

I shook my head. “I doubt you’re in any danger. You have a good few thousand years on them.” I attempted to diffuse her worries. Though I have to wonder why everyone jumps to walruses? What did walruses do to anyone?

There was a knock on the door, making the three of us jump slightly. Starburst looked between me and the door quickly. There was a moment’s hesitation before the knock came again, and Starburst went to open it. I flopped face first on the now empty spot on the couch when I heard a gasp from Starburst. “Princess!”

Well shit.

Out of all the ponies I wanted to meet right now, the reigning princess of Equestria was not high on the list. It wasn’t out of fear of being arrested. Okay, maybe a little. But seriously, why did she have to show up now of all times?

“Good evening Starburst.” I heard the princess say. She had a calm, elegant voice, with a slight synthetic vibe to it. Perfectly reasonable, considering she was synthetic too. “I felt a disturbance in the Elements, so I thought I’d come and investigate.” Oh right, she probably felt the spell Starburst tried to cast on me earlier when it backfired. Starburst did say she was imbued with the power of the Elements. Only makes sense that she’d know when something went wrong.

“Oh, well, there’s really nothing wrong. Just a late night experiment, is all.” Starburst, you’re a terrible bullshitter. You couldn’t use a more obvious “I’m hiding something” tone if you tried. I wasn’t looking, but I’m willing to bet money she did the whole eyes darting back and forth thing too.

“Uh huh.” Yup, Spectra wasn’t buying the bullshit Starbutt was selling. “So tell me, what’s this about the Element of Loyalty?” She asked, her tone suddenly making the whole room feeling slightly colder.

Okay, she was more in tune with those things than I expected. I raised my hoof, not bothering to turn my head to look at her. “Yo.”

I assumed she turned to look at me, and I bet she was frowning too. “Sunshine, you should really take this more seriously. If you lose your connection with the Element, it could - are you even listening to me?”

“I’m sorry Princess, but I’ve had a rough past few hours. The Element is fine. There’s nothing to worry about on that front.” I said, waving my hoof dismissively. The entire week as been rough, but it’s the first few hours in a new universe that gets to me the most.

I heard the princess sigh. “Alright then. Perhaps I could help make your evening a little better.” My ear twitched curiously, and she continued. “I brought with me the new PARGear 380. I know you’ve been using that old 240 model for quite a while, and I wanted to show my thanks for last week.” She sounded like she pulled a complete 180 from a minute prior.

She floated a sleek looking visor towards me. It was definitely more streamlined than that headset upstairs. There were a couple round… well, I assumed them to be earpieces, though with a pony’s anatomy I had no idea how that would work. I accepted the visor and put it on. It somehow stayed on, even though my muzzle was the only thing actually keeping it on. The earpieces were snug against the sides of my head, just under the actual ears. Again, I severely question their usefulness. Or at least I did until I heard a beep from my left, and the visor suddenly lit up with a fancy looking HUD. It was a lot cleaner than the other one, and didn’t give me sensory overload. I could see a compass at the top of my vision, an image of what I assumed to be me on the bottom right, and a small image of my cutie mark on the bottom left, with a label that read, “Mana: 100%.” I spent about ten seconds trying to come to terms with what was on my face before I managed a response. “...What?”

Real smooth, Sunshine.

The princess behind me giggled. It sounded weird, coming from a synthetic voice like that. “I’m surprised by you tonight. I suppose that’s a good thing. It would be a shame if you were predictable.”

Eh, fuckit, I’ll tell her. Screw the consequences. “You think that’s interesting, you should hear this…”

Normally, Twilight Sparkle enjoyed spending time in Canterlot Castle. The home of her longtime friend and mentor brought many good memories of the times and lessons they shared. Now, however, Twilight would rather be anywhere but there. The happy memories had been twisted into memories of lies and deception by a princess that Twilight couldn’t even recognize anymore.

After she sent Sunshine into a parallel Equestria she found - one of many she discovered that day - she went and did further research on humanity’s culture and society. Mainly their books. One in particular stood out to her. And old book written by a human named Orwell. The book told of a disturbing society where dissenting thought is punished and, in her mind at least, harmony is twisted into a dark shadow of what she knew. It stood out not because of the messages it told, but instead of the parallels she was seeing between that old book, and the plans Celestia had for both Equestria and Earth.

There was nothing Twilight could do to stop those plans. Not without help. But the help Twilight needed was either against her, or held prisoner. And those prisoners were against her too. Both worlds saw her as an enemy now. Hopefully she could change a few minds before one of them brought her down. Maybe one of them could stop Celestia.

Thankfully, Twilight knew a variety of stealth and anti-detection spells, so getting around the castle was a piece of cake. Just as long as she didn’t run into the princesses, as she knew her spells wouldn’t hold up against them. Fortunately for her, Princess Celestia was out leading the charge. That left Princess Luna to hold Day Court in her stead.

Twilight passed another set of guards and entered the dungeons. There were two cells occupied at the moment. One was occupied by a group of humans who tried to cross into Equestrian territory. No doubt they would be subjects for Operation: Harmonize. The other cell was occupied by Sunshine’s friends, who were captured the day before. Though strangely there were only two of them left. Both of them were unicorns Twilight recognized as being with Sunshine from the start of this mess.

She quickly cast a sleep spell on the guards posted by the cell, followed by a silence spell so that they wouldn’t be heard, then dropped her invisibility spell. The immediate vocal outrage that came her way from the humans behind her made her glad she cast that silence spell. She cast it again on the humans to make them shut up.

The ponies in the cell looked at her with a mixture of disbelief and confusion. She let out a sigh. “I know you can’t forgive what I’ve done, but I’m here to help.” She said. She wanted to know where the others were, but they probably were as much in the dark about that as she was.

The dark blue unicorn - Twilight reminded herself the mare’s name was Starry Night - spoke up first. “You were blinded by the light of the sun. It’s okay, we all were.”

The white unicorn, Ponyville’s former DJ Twilight remembered, groaned. “Ugh, must you always speak so cryptically? I can’t understand a single bucking thing you say.” She turned to Twilight. “And what are you doing here? Come to laugh at our failure? I wasted my prototype portable party trying to stop those guards.” She sat on her haunches and sighed. “Five months of work gone to waste…”

Twilight cleared her throat and began her carefully prepared proposition. “I’ve come to ask you all a very important question. You’ve all assisted Sunshine for a while now, and now that she’s in another world, she’s safe from Celestia. My question to you is: do you want to go with her or stay and fight a battle you have already lost?”

The proposition was simple. If they said they wanted to go with Sunshine, she’d hoof over the dimension jumping spell and they’d never have to come back here again. They could do whatever they wished, wreak whatever chaos they wished upon the multiverse. It came with its own dangers of course, but they’d survive. Choosing to stay… would be a death penalty. Simple as that.

Starry stepped forward, her face stern. “You come to offer us freedom or death. You expect us to say no? I only have to wonder why you offer this to us.”

Twilight sighed. “I made a mistake. I can’t fix it, but I can help you escape from it.” She levitated a scroll through the bars. On the scroll was a spell matrix, and instruction on how it works. “That’s the spell to travel through worlds. Well, at least the first version of it. You should be able to cast it once every 24 hours. Focus on a specific point you want to go to, and the spell will form a portal to take you there. If you leave any specifics out, the exit point will be random.”

"Why once a day?" Vinyl asked.

"It's a prototype spell I developed at the very beginning of all this to try and find new worlds to explore. While it isn't very taxing on even an amateur spellcaster, it becomes highly unstable when used frequently by the same unicorn. We found this out after one pony... well, I don't know. He disappeared, then showed up again three weeks later, rambling about some unspeakable horrors. Strangely enough, he was terrified of Pinkie and Rainbow." She stopped herself before she lectured on too long. "The point is, unless you can refine the spell yourself, you'd best stick to waiting 24 hours before casting it again."

Starry read through the scroll, then passed it to Vinyl. “Hmm, looks tough, but nothing we can’t handle.” The DJ boasted. “Though, maybe you should do it first, so I know what I’m looking at.” She added quickly.

Starry rolled her eyes and looked back at Twilight. “Thank you. If you see Princess Luna, tell her I said farewell.” She lit up her horn as she started casting the spell, and a moment later, a portal opened up in front of them. “Good luck, Twilight Sparkle, and goodbye.” And with that, Starry Night walked through the portal. Vinyl Scratch followed soon after, but not before giving the humans in the other cell a big raspberry.

Seeing her work done for the day, Twilight recast her invisibility spell and left the dungeons. She needed to get out of Canterlot ASAP, and there was still work to be done. She would not go quietly into the dark, and she will not go alone.

Catching Up

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Ceruline and Charcoal Embers sat on the bed as the other Sunshine finished explaining about where she came from. Charcoal’s normally calm look was replaced by excitement. Ceru just wanted to see her Sunny again.

More than once Ceru caught Sunshine looking nervously at Princess Luna. She could somewhat understand it. She was looking back at a relic of her past, according to her story. A story mothers told to their foals, of what Equestria was like many years ago. Ceru could imagine her reaction would be the same if she met Starswirl in the flesh.

When Sunshine finished, Luna looked at her sympathetically. “That is an interesting tale, and I’m sorry to hear that you too were thrown from your world unwillingly.” She said.

Sunshine immediately whipped her head around to stare at Luna. “What? You mean I’m not the first from my world to come here?”

Luna shook her head. “Nay, young Sunshine. We met another pony earlier today who appeared to be your doppelganger. I suspect she is from a world different from ours, but not yours either.”

“In that case,” Charcoal spoke up, her calm demeanor having returned, “it would not be out of the question to say that you swapped places with our Sunshine. So I think we should pool our efforts into finding a way to send you back home and get our Sunshine back.” She adjusted her glasses as she finished, and looked towards Ceru.

Ceru nodded her agreement. “Right, we need to get our Sunny back first, then we can plan on what to do next. Um… Anypony have an idea of how to do that?”

An awkward silence filled the room, broken by an exasperated sigh from Charcoal. “Dimensional travel is always so complicated.” Just then, a portal opened in the middle of the room, and from it, the ponies Charcoal recognized as Starry Night and Vinyl Scratch stepped out. “And yet… It seems remarkably convenient.”

Sunshine’s reaction was more or less expected. She cowered behind the table. Luna stood straight up, ready to attack. Ceru jumped off the bed and ran to hug the tired-looking Starry. “You made it!” She cried joyfully.

Starry idly returned the hug, then noticed Princess Luna and immediately dropped into a bow. “Princess! I apologize for intruding so suddenly.”

Luna’s expression softened as she realized the intruders were friendly. “Rise. I take it you two are friends of these two?” She asked, motioning to Ceru and Charcoal. Starry rose from her bow and nodded. “Very well. Then we have some information you might be interested in.”

“Oh, and what’s that?” Came Vinyl’s voice from behind Starry.

“It appears another wrench has been thrown into our plans.” Charcoal said, gesturing to the table, where Sunshine had her head poking out from behind. “That’s not our Sunshine. Apparently she’s from another universe, a futuristic one apparently. Our Sunshine is stuck in that one, while she’s here.”

Vinyl gave an arrogant grin. “Oh, don’t worry about that. We got a spell that’ll get us there. Though Starry just used it, and apparently it’s too dangerous to her health to use again for 24 hours. That means I gotta cast it this time, I guess.”

As Vinyl began to prepare to cast the spell, Starry interrupted her. “Hold on. You need to focus on the precise spot you want us to travel to. Otherwise we’ll just end up scattered.” She reminded the unicorn she had come to know as quite absentminded.

“Right, right.” She waved Starry off and turned to Sunshine. “So, tell me about your home so I can get a good feel of where I’ll be dropping us off.”

Sunshine thought for a moment. “Well, I live in Canterlot. 343 Carousel Road is the address.” She said.

Vinyl held up a hoof to stop her. “Waiwaitwait. You live right on Tavi’s old address? Is there a club nearby?” Sunshine nodded. “Dude, that’s awesome. It’s like a parallel universe, only you live in the future. Okay, I think I know where to drop us off.” Vinyl lit up her horn again, preparing the spell.

“You sure?” Ceru asked.

“Yes, now stop distracting me.” Vinyl confirmed, and everyone shut up. An uncomfortable silence followed, as Vinyl poured all her energy and concentration into the spell. Then, after a moment, she cast the spell. The air in front of her rippled before a portal opened up. Vinyl gaped for a moment, before letting out a victory whoop. “Yes! I did it! Come on, let’s go!”

Ceru looked nervous about going through, but watched as Sunshine jumped through first, followed by Starry and Charcoal. She jumped through next, and Vinyl brought up the rear. A bright light overtook Ceru’s vision for a moment, and when it faded, she found herself on a linoleum tiled floor. She stood up and took a look at the room she and the others found themselves in.

It was a public restroom. Simple as that. Based on the one occupant that was staring at them, it was a stallion’s restroom. Either that or he was a pervert. The group largely ignored him, though Vinyl gave him a wink through her glasses. He gave a nervous smile back, then dashed out of the room. Probably to alert the authorities, Ceru thought. Vinyl seemed to share a similar thought. “Bah, we should have taken him hostage.”

Starry shook her head. “One witness won’t hurt. We want to at least be subtle. Not breaking the law would be a good start to that.” She said.

“Yeah, right,” Vinyl scoffed, “because what we’re doing is totally subtle. Nopony is gonna suspect a thing.” She gave the others a grin as they all suddenly became aware of a low rhythmic pounding from outside the restroom.

Starry slowly raised a hoof to her forehead. “Vinyl, tell me you didn’t…”

“What? I needed to focus on an exit point, and I know this place better than anypony.” Vinyl defended.

“I don’t know how you could possibly know about a nightclub in a different universe, not to mention thousands of years in the future.” Sunshine interjected. “And why are we in the stallion’s restroom?”

“Through the power of music, my dear.” Vinyl gestured toward the exit. “Well? This is your homeworld, right? Lead the way.”

Sunshine looked like she was going to raise a further argument, but remained silent as she led the group out of the restroom. As they left, the pounding of the bass quickly grew to blaring music and a mob of dancing ponies. Sunshine turned to lead them out of the club, but a purple pegasus mare stopped her. “Oh, Viola, good to see you.”

The mare smiled at her, but also seemed a bit confused. “Good to see you too, Sunny. Weren’t you at home with Starburst and Sugar? They called in earlier and said you got hurt.”

Sunshine shook her head. “It’s a long story, but I need to get home ASAP.” She said.

Viola stepped aside to let her by, but caught sight of her envoy. “Who are these three? They don’t register on my ID scanner.” The mare asked.

Sunshine bit back a groan. “They’re tourists. We need to get-wait, three? But there were four of them. Where did-?” She noticed Starry pointing towards the DJ booth, where Vinyl was approaching . It just so happened that the current DJ was a robotic lookalike of the alabaster unicorn. “So much for subtlety…”

The robot DJ seemed to notice her presence and turned to her. “Sorry babe, fans aren’t allowed up here. You can get an autograph after my shift. Nice cosplay though, you look just like me.”

Vinyl rolled her eyes. “Pfft, why would I want my own autograph? I’m here to liven up this bland party.”

“What, bland? Just who the hay do you think you are, talking to me like that? This is the greatest nightclub in Equestria, with me as its greatest DJ!” The robot declared, striking a pose for the crowd, who could hear everything and were watching the exchange, as the music had stopped. They gave her a cheer, boosting her ego and proving her point.

Vinyl just scoffed, unimpressed. “Yeah, and that was meant to prove something? So tell me, why isn’t this crowd as lively as it should be? Have you lost your touch?” She asked teasingly, poking a hoof at her.

Vinyl-bot glared at her. “Not as lively? How dare you suggest such a thing! I have been managing this nightclub since Princess Spectra’s coronation. Well at least the versions of me that have come and go over the years. Something about wear and tear and memory fragmentation.”

“I’m going to pretend I had any idea of what you just said, and then I’m going to take over this gig.” Vinyl deadpanned, clearly having run out of bucks to give regarding Vinyl-bot. “Also stop repeating what I say, unless you want me to call you my boring reflection.” The crowd let out a bunch of scattered laughter, causing Vinyl to give her a smug smirk.

“Bori-” Vinyl-bot caught herself before she could echo Vinyl’s words again and huffed, ignoring the continued laughter from the crowd. “You wouldn’t be able to handle these turntables anyway. The technology is far too advanced for you. Just go back to your snooty marefriend and leave the partying to me.”

Vinyl gasped, hurt by that remark. Or at least she would be if her reaction didn’t include a greatly overreacted death faint. When she picked herself up, she laughed. “Tavi, a fillyfooler? Ha! Couldn’t be farther from the truth. Besides, we’re more like sisters than lovers. Just shows how much an imposter like you knows about me. Now stand aside and let a pro show you how it’s done!” She shoved the android aside and took the mic. “Enough of that poser DJ Pon-bot. It’s time you partied with the original!” She shouted as she took control of the booth.

The confused faces of the ponies on the dance floor were quickly wiped away as the music started up again, with a much different beat. From Ceru’s point of view, the party seemed livelier with Vinyl than it did with her robotic counterpart.

Ceru looked to the others, and noticed Sunshine and her friend had left, while Starry and Charcoal were going around the dance floor to confront Vinyl. Ceru hurried up to join them. She spotted Vinyl-bot grumbling in the corner, but not making any attempt to regain control of the booth. She couldn’t help but grin when she noticed the bot’s hoof was tapping along with the music.

Charcoal tapped Vinyl’s shoulder. “Um, we have a job to do, remember? We shouldn’t be wasting our time here.” She insisted.

Vinyl just waved her away. “You go on ahead. I’ll catch up with ya. I already told you I know where the place is, anyway.”

“But we don’t,” Charcoal pointed out, “and Sunshine already left.”

Vinyl pointed towards the door. “Across the street, three or four buildings down. 343 Carousel Road.”

Sighing, Charcoal relented. “Fine, we’ll go on ahead. By the way, how do you know how to work that?”

“I don’t, I just let my musical instincts guide me to epicness.”

“Right, and Daring Do is secretly a real pony.”

Vinyl whipped her head around to stare at Charcoal. “Wait, really?”

“No, that’s just a rumor. Seriously, don’t believe everything you read in magazines.”

“Aw. Well, I’m not going anywhere, so when you pick up our Sunbutt, just come on back.” With that, Vinyl turned her attention back to the party.

Charcoal sighed, turned around, and went back down towards the exit, where Viola and Sunshine were waiting. Starry followed soon after and Ceruline took up the rear. “Alright, let’s go.”

“And so I’m here, speaking with an android princess. Now that I think about it, this is probably the third strangest thing that’s happened this week.” Putting on the Element of Loyalty had to be the first, followed by hitting Rainbow Dash in the face with a frying pan.

As I was giving my recap - again, I might add - of what I went through, Spectra had moved to a seat opposite me. Starburst had pulled out a tablet and noted down everything I said. It’s almost freaky how similar she is to Twilight. Sugar was just lying on the floor. She fell off the couch laughing around the frying pan part and never bothered to get back up.

Spectra cleared her throat. Again, super weird from an android. “Well, that was a really… interesting story. It sure widened my view of other worlds.” She said.

“Well, despite the dangers I’ve faced, I have to admit, it’s been pretty fun. You know, in that crazy adrenaline rush sort of way you get at a roller coaster. Then again, I hate roller coasters. I get queasy in cars, not to mention coasters. Wait, I tangented again. Dammit.” I really need to stop doing that out loud.

“You do that a lot. I counted at least 32 times you tangented from your story to mention something completely unrelated,” Starburst pointed out, “or maybe about 20 of them were just really random occurrences, like that garishly colored mare on the ferry.”

I shrugged. “I dunno. That mare was there. I never talked to her though.”

“See? That’s what I mean! Your mind is so unorganized! Are you sure it hasn’t been tampered with?”

I shook my head. “It’s not that. I just have a sort of… mental condition. Nothing to worry about. It’s actually more hazardous to my health to try and treat it.”

“Well, I’m sure our doctors can do something to-” Spectra spoke up, but I held a hoof to interrupt.

“No thank you. I’ve lived with it for 10 years now. I’m fine. There are more important things to worry about.”

“That’s a responsible outlook, I guess.” Spectra got up and walked to the door. “I’ll be heading back. We need our own Sunshine back. However, if you have any need of me, my door is always open.” With that, she opened the door and was about to step outside when a beeping was heard. I peeked over to look and saw her looking down at an unusual device on the ground. It had a circular base with a lot of wires and coils sticking up out of it. As it beeped, it released small sparks of electricity. It looked kinda like a landmine, but with electricity. Though, what really stood out was the freaky distortion of the air as it seemed to ripple around the coils.

My mind’s usually slow cogs turned much faster when I realized what that was. “EMP!” I dove for Spectra and tried to push her out of the way, but she was just a little to heavy to move effectively. The mine detonated, showering Spectra and I in a cascade of electromagnetic energy. The house took some of the energy too, cutting out the lights. To me, it actually felt pretty tingly. Like a wave of paraesthesia cascading over my whole body. The visor did go blank though. For Spectra, it was a bit worse. Okay, a lot.

“Oh no, Princess!” I heard Starburst shout. She teleported over to us, much more concerned about the state of Spectra than myself, and rightly so. The alicorn android was completely rigid, her glowing mane and tail completely dark. Starburst lit up her horn and gave Spectra a quick scan. When she finished, she let out a sigh of relief. “Oh thank the stars, she’s still alive. Her body is fried though, and her harmonic energy is fading. Sugar quick, gather the rest of the Elements. We need to use them to save Spectra. Also we need Frosty to fix her body.”

Sugar nodded and ran upstairs. Starburst tried to comfort and keep Spectra stable. Meanwhile, I picked myself up off the floor and took a look outside to see if I could find whoever planted that EMP. Some sinister laughter answered that inquiry pretty quick. “Who knew all it took to assassinate a princess was some copper wire and a bit of ingenuity? Oh well, this isn’t my world.”

A yellow orange alicorn mare stepped into the room, immediately glancing in my direction. “Ah, there you are. Remember me? No, I don’t suppose you do.” Her horn lit up, and I felt myself get lifted off the ground and thrown over the couch, where I landed hard on the floor. I got back up, only to get thrown again, this time into a wall. “And stay down, like a good little toy.”

My back hurt, my legs hurt, and my head hurt, but I stood back up anyways. “Toy? What the fuck do you mean by toy?” I growled.

“Didn’t you hear? The glorious Princess Celestia gifted you to me as a toy to play with as I wish. And as you’ve figured out by now,” she said, lifting me up to her face, “I like to play rough.” This time I was thrown into Starburst, knocking her over. “But really, you aren’t that interesting at all to play with like this. Maybe I’ll make you a servant instead. How do you feel about a maid uniform?” She laughed again, a really disturbing, hollow sort of laugh that makes me feel she really isn’t all there in the head. “Hold still.”

Before she could continue, Starburst got up and launched a spell at the alicorn. It knocked her back, but only really served to piss her off. She picked up Starburst and threw her across the room. Then the alicorn picked me up again and threw me out into the street. It didn’t burn as I slid to a halt, not like tarmac. It was a relatively smoother surface like a polished stone. Still hurt like fuck though.

As I stood back up on much shakier legs, the alicorn walked back outside. “You know, I’m getting the feeling you don’t appreciate me. And here I was trying to catch up with my ol’ plaything after you so rudely ditched me. You really wound me.” Her horn lit up again, a ball of magical energy forming at the tip. “I’m gonna have to teach you some manners! Maybe if I don’t kill ya, we can try again. If I do, well I have a whole world to play with.”

She shot the ball at me. I didn’t have time to dodge, so I just braced myself for the impact. Someone, anyone, help!

And then I closed my eyes as everything turned yellow.

Blinding Light

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The first thing I noticed is that I wasn’t in any sort of pain. At least, not any more pain than I was already in. The second thing was I felt unusually warm. Not uncomfortably warm, more like a tent made from a warm blanket. Never mind, those get uncomfortable pretty fast. Um… Like sitting next to a fireplace or campfire? That’s the best I got.

I opened my eyes and immediately had to shut them again. I was surrounded by a blindingly bright yellow light. Fucking hell, am I in a sun? Turn that shit down, please. I noticed instantly that the light was no longer trying to pierce my eyelids, so I tried opening them again, blinking a few times to get used to the change. A yellow dome surrounded me, blocking my vision. Did I do this?

Apparently I did, because I felt a pounding on it. “Oh, now come on! What’s this? You can’t hide in there forever!” I heard the alicorn say. I could feel her pounding on the dome, but I couldn’t see her.

I mentally asked the dome to be a little more transparent, and it obeyed, giving me a nice yellow-tinted view of the world around me. I could now see the alicorn pounding on the dome, but she wasn’t getting through, fortunately. Behind her, Starburst stood in the doorway, looking around, possibly for the rest of her friends. A small crowd had also gathered to watch the confrontation. I swear a few were recording it, the useless fucks.

The alicorn finally stopped pounding for the moment and looked through the dome at me. “Hey there, care to lower the dome now? I promise not to punish you if you do as I say.” She said, after throwing me into a wall and out onto the streets. I think not.

“What even is your name, anyway? I can’t keep calling you that creepy alicorn in my head.” I had to ask.

“Princess Lemon Drop, future ruler of the first Equestrian colony in another dimension. Just as soon as the humans embrace Harmony and a permanent bridge between worlds is installed.” At least I have the name to this bundle of crazy.

“Hang on, were you the bitch that tossed me into this world?”

“Maybe. You having fun with my little game?”

My eye twitched. “Game? Is that what I am? Just a game? A toy?”

She seemed to mull it over for a second. “I thought we decided you were going to be my maid now. Do you want to be a doll instead?”

Either my vision started going red from rage, or it was the dome. Either way, I was pissed. “No! Just fuck off!” I flared my wings what I guessed were an aggressive manner, and the dome burst outwards in a sort of explosive flash. Lemon Drop got caught in it and was sent flying over the house before she caught the air with her wings.

If Lemon was surprised by my outburst, she didn’t show it. “Well pardon my generous offer then. Maybe you’ll rethink it after I-” She was cut off by a beam of magic impacting her wing, coating it in ice and forcing her to land. “Okay, now I’m just annoyed. Who is responsible this time?” She demanded, flicking the ice from her wing. She was answered by another ice beam to her face.

As I stood there, snickering at her annoyed expressions, I heard someone call my name. “Hey, Sunny!” Running down the street were my friends and companions, Charcoal, Starry, and Ceru. Beside them was a purple pegasus I recognized from the pictures and a splitting image of myself. Ceru immediately ran up and tackled me in a hug. “How many times do we gotta catch up to you?” She asked teasingly, then cast a look toward Lemon Drop. “It looks like we got here just in time. How have you been?”

I returned the hug briefly, wincing as she hugged a sore spot. That was to say, my whole body. She quickly let go after noticing. “Oh, the usual. Someone’s trying to capture me. This time it’s Princess Citrus Fruitcake.” I snarked, glancing at the alicorn in question.

“That’s Lemon Drop!”

“That’s what I said, Sour Bitch. Get that fruit cocktail out of your ears and listen for once.”

Ooooh, that really ground her gears. Her face went three shades redder and her horn glowed three shades brighter. “That’s it! I offered you a nice surrender deal. I even offered to make you my personal maid, and this is how you treat me!? I’ve had enough of your insolence!”

“Dude, haven’t you met me? I’m nothing but insolence.” I pointed out.

“She’s got a point,” Charcoal added.

With a scream of rage, Lemon fired a blast of magic at me. Ceru tackled me out of the way before I could dodge myself. The blast left a nice little hole where I used to be. Could I have summoned another dome to block that? Well I better figure it out now, because it doesn’t look like she’s gonna let up. Her horn lit up again as I tried to remember how I made that first dome. I just… asked for help, right? Okay, gimme a shield! As I thought that, a glowing yellow shield formed on my left foreleg. Well, that’s close enough. Pretty cool th-oh shit! I held up the shield as another blast came from Lemon. It hit the shield and ricocheted up harmlessly into the air. Well, unless it hit a bird or something.

I turned towards Ceru, who was looking at me in awe. “I didn’t know you could do that!” She exclaimed. “What else can you do?”

“I dunno,” I replied with a shrug, “maybe we can find out later.”

Starry briefly drew Lemon’s attention with another blast of magic, but she shook it off again. From the corner of my vision, I saw Starburst and Sugar dash out of the house and join her two friends on the street. Then I noticed two other ponies beside them, which I recognized at a glance as the earth ponies from the picture. So all six are finally here? That means I get to see the Elements in action up close and personal.

Sure enough, all six had donned their Elements and stepped forward. “Lemon Drop! On behalf of the kingdom of Equestria and Her Majesty Princess Spectra, we will put an end to your reign of terror right here!” Starburst announced as their Elements began glowing brightly.

Lemon didn’t seem to take kindly to the idea of tasting the rainbow though and spread her wings, either to launch a counter-attack or flee. Starburst noticed as well and shot me a look. Oh for the love of-fine. I turned to my friends. “Charcoal, with me! We gotta cut off her escape! Starry, cover us!”

Charcoal nodded, ditching her bags and taking to the air. I flew up as well, noticing the shield went poof at some point in the last few seconds. The two of us flew up and behind Lemon, where I finally got a good look at her cutie mark. A… glass of lemonade? Huh, alright. Lemon glanced at us briefly, her horn lighting up. Starry was quick to react though, disrupting the flow of magic to her horn with a blast from her own. With a cry of pain and rage, she looked back down towards the group and dove at them.

The Elements were still charging for some reason, so I had to act fast. I dove for Lemon myself, wrapping my forelegs around her and tackling her to the ground. “Quickly!” I cried out. “Use the Elements!”

“But you’ll get hit too!” Starburst countered.

I saw Lemon charge her horn for a spell, so I slammed a hoof into her head to break her concentration. “Don’t worry, what’s the worst it could do to me? Just do it!” The Element Bearers looked between themselves before nodding and unleashing the power of the Elements on us.

And then for the second time today, everything got really bright. I felt at peace for the first time in… probably forever. The light was so warm, so comforting. And I was laying on something really soft. Maybe… just a little nap wouldn’t hurt...

As the rainbow light faded, Starry and the others were enveloped in a warm sensation, like a blanket had been wrapped over them. Starry in particular winced as she felt a brief burst of fragmented magic in addition to the harmonic resonance. Before she should deduce the source of this magic, she heard an exclamation from one of the Bearers. “What?! Where’d they go?” Sure enough, Starry saw that after the Elements were used, Sunny and the alicorn - Lemon Drop, she said her name was - were nowhere to be seen. Upon further inspection, Ceruline and Charcoal were gone as well.

“I don’t know!” another said, “This has never happened before! Usually the Elements just restore harmony or imprison evil. They haven’t banished anypony in 4000 years! Does the moon look any different?”

They looked up to see the large white sphere orbiting above them. “No, it looks the same as it did ten minutes ago.”

“Maybe there was outside influence.” Starry wondered aloud.

All six sets of eyes turned to Starry. “How? Explain how somepony could have influenced the Elements.”

Starry shook her head. “No, you misunderstand. I felt a different kind of magic in play other than the Elements when they connected, but it was not coming from them. It was coming from… somewhere else.” She lit her horn and tried to scan for any residual traces of the magic she felt. When she didn’t pick anything up, she was about to stop with a sigh, but then the same energy she felt when casting the portal spell rushed into her horn. Pain exploded in her head and darkness claimed her consciousness.

When Starry regained her senses, she expected to be on couch, or in a hospital. Or at least still lying where she fell. Instead, she seemed to be lying on a hard wood floor. “Wh-where am I?” She looked up at the ceiling of the room she was in, where a large skylight showed a vast starscape beyond. Sitting up, Starry could see the rest of her surroundings, which looked to be sort of bar or tavern. Strangely enough, there were no doors. She idly wondered if the skylight was the only entrance, but shook that thought away. A look at herself revealed that she was transparent, like more of a ghost. Her breath caught in her throat, and it took a moment to calm down.

There was one other pony in the tavern with her. A pink pegasus mare behind the counter was cleaning a mug with a disinterested look on her face. As Starry sat up, the mare glanced up to look at her. “Ah, hello. Sorry to say, but we’re closed for the night. I’d ask how you even got here in the first place, but that stupid look on your face tells me you don’t know.”

Starry turned to the mare and walked over to the counter. “Excuse me, but I’m confused. Where exactly am I?” She asked.

“That’s… sort of a hard question to answer. The short version is that you’re dreaming. The confusing version is that you aren’t. Transdimensional magic is strange like that.” The mare said.

“Transdimensional magic? I… Yeah, I remember scanning some strange residual magic, and it invaded my head. I didn’t expect magic left over from the Elements of Harmony to be so volatile.” Starry gave the room another look over. “So the magic dragged my consciousness into a sort of dreamlike state, but you said this isn’t really a dream?”

The mare smirked and tapped the counter with her hooves. “Congrats Starry. Boss says smart cookies get rewarded accordingly, so here.” She pulled out a box of chocolate cookies from behind the counter and tossed one over to Starry.

Starry caught the cookie in her magic and just stared at the enigmatic mare in front of her. “Who are you, anyways? How do you know my name?” Starry took a bite of the cookie. There was a second bite. There was no more cookie for a third. It kinda surprised her that she could even eat it when she wasn't really there.

The mare shrugged. “I’m not important. This is a dream, remember? I’m a figment of your subconscious, or some dumb shit like that. You’ll probably forget all this when you wake up anyway.”

Starry tilted her head. “I don’t think my subconscious swears like Sunny. Luna certainly wouldn’t like it. And you said this wasn’t a dream.”

The mare chuckled. “No, I don’t think she would, and yes I did say that. The dimensional magic tried to pull your mind into the Viod, but thanks to us, you were saved from a fate worse than death. Now all we gotta do is send you back. Simple.”

“How is that simple? Wouldn’t you have to know where I was to send my consciousness back? Or… You were spying on us.”

“Ding ding ding. She’s right again.” The mare tossed another cookie at Starry. She glared and tossed it right back. “Fine, be that way. Yes, we were conducting surveillance. It’s kind of our job. Allow me to introduce myself. Strawberry Breeze. We’ve been keeping an eye on you, just in case.”

Starry glared at her, before sighing in resignation. “Can you… tell me where Sunny is?”

Strawberry nodded. “She was a foreign element in that world, so the Elements harmlessly moved her onto another. Probably one she’d be needed on. You were spared just by not being in the general line of fire. The magic that attacked you was from a rift left over from that.”

“Okay, so about getting me back?

Strawberry reached under the counter and flipped a switch or something, because a hatch opened up in the floor and a glowing pink crystal rose out, hovering just in front of Starry’s face. “Touch your horn to that and you’ll wake up from this weird not-dream. You won’t remember any of what you’ve seen or heard here, but you won’t entirely forget either. It’ll be like a crazy dream to you. I’ll also throw in knowledge of where the rest of your friends are, free of charge. Or you could not do that, and your body will eventually perish. Your choice.” She said those last two sentences in an unsettlingly cheery tone.

Starry shivered as she felt an immense power radiating from the crystal, but if Strawberry was right, this was her way to… wake up, she supposed. “You’re right. Thank you, and goodbye.” She closed her eyes and gently touched her horn to the crystal, and felt the familiar tug of teleportation as her consciousness slipped back where it belonged.

When Starry opened her eyes, she found herself lying on a bed this time. Three blurry figures were watching over her. She blinked a few times to regain focus, and saw that they were a pink unicorn mare, this world’s Sunshine, and Vinyl. Vinyl in particular perked up when she noticed Starry stirring. “Hey, you’re awake! I was worried you’d never wake up.”

Starry sat up, fighting through a sudden and sharp pain in her head. “I-it wasn’t that long…” She rasped. Her throat felt dry, and she realized she was very thirsty. Vinyl levitated a glass of water to her, which she drank from gratefully. “Or maybe it was. How long was I out?”

“Two days.”

Starry would have done a spit take if she had the spit to do it. So she settled on coughing dryly. Taking another long drink, she managed to put more words together. “T-two days?! It barely felt like five minutes!”

“That’s kinda what happens when you get put in a magically-induced coma.” Said the pink unicorn pony to her right. “Hi there, I’m Starburst Sparkle. I must say, you must be a very close-knit group if you’re chasing each other across worlds.”

Starry blinked. “Um, yeah, I guess we are. Hi. Care to explain what happened after I passed out? My head’s a little fuzzy after that strange dream I had…”

“Well,” Vinyl started, “I waited for you to wake up for hours, but eventually I got lonely.” She turned to the other ponies. “Don’t get me wrong, you’re cool and all. But I just kinda got… homesick.”

Starry paled. “You mean you went back to…”

Vinyl nodded. “Yes, I went back home to Ponyville. And you’ll never guess who I found there!” She looked giddy, like she was about to start jumping for joy.

“...Twilight?”

“No, Octavia! Apparently they just sent Lyra and Tavi back to Ponyville and put them under house arrest. I don’t know what happened to Tyler, Rain, or Blueberry, but I can only hope they’re alright.”

“Huh… Alright, what else?” Starry asked.

“Well, Tavi and I sat down over some coffee and talked about what we were up to-”

“It was more like you were rambling like a madmare over your exaggerated exploits because you refused the decaf.” Came an accented voice from the other end of the room. Starry looked over and saw Octavia standing in the doorway, her mane damp and limply hanging from her head after a recent shower. “Thanks for letting me use your shower Sunshine. It was confusing at first, but the water was bliss.”

“No problem.” She replied. “How’re you liking your old house?”

“It’s different, but strangely comforting. I always did like the modern style over the traditional decor those stuffy nobles back home preferred,” she smiled at Vinyl, “I blame you for that.”

Vinyl matched her look with smug grin. “Guilty as charged.”

Starry did a double take, then looked back to Vinyl. “How’d you convince her to come back with you?”

“Actually, she convinced me to let her come along.” Vinyl sheepishly said.

Octavia scoffed. “Vinyl shows up on my doorstep, we have a nice chat, and then she says she has to go back, and insists I stay behind for my own safety, without even telling me why she was leaving again. I was not having any of it. I may be an earth pony, but I’m far from defenseless.”

Starry tilted her head in confusion. “Vinyl, if you could have just gone home, why did you come back? If all was fine back home, you could have stayed there.”

“Pfft, you kidding? I’ve been having a blast. I’ve seen and done things I’ve never imagined. I wouldn’t forgive myself if I left this little adventure now.” Vinyl’s enthusiasm sagged a bit. “Well, what little I have done was pretty awesome. What about you? Why are you still here?”

Starry laid back down and stared up at the ceiling. “I was originally asked to accompany her by Princess Luna. But even though we failed, I’m still here because I’m enjoying myself. Plus, somepony has to keep the rest of you in check.”

Octavia scoffed. “Please, the only thing that can keep Vinyl in check is my bow going right up her-”

“Tavi!” Vinyl interrupted, her face suddenly several shades of red, much to the amusement of the others.

“Right, right. I know. I said I’d never speak of it again. Sorry, but I couldn’t resist the temptation to embarrass you after how often you do it to me.” Octavia smirked and left to give her mane a proper brushing.

Starry got out of bed slowly, with Starburst’s help. “Sorry we couldn’t get you to a hospital, but you have no records of any kind, and Princess Spectra can only do so much with the nobles breathing down her neck.”

Starry shook her head. “It’s fine. I just need some food and rest and we can move on.”

“Move on?” Vinyl asked.

“I don’t quite remember how, but I think my dream told me where Sunny is. We can catch up to her again.”

So You Wanna be a Superhero

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Two days earlier...

Owwww…

I think I’m getting a feeling of deja vu. Let’s see… Lying on grass? Check. In pain? Check; I must have been hurt by something else, because there’s no way getting hit by the Elements of Harmony should hurt this much. Someone is trying to kick me awake? OW! Fucking checkmate.

“Sunny, get up!” I heard my assailant say. The voice was clearly Ceruline. She must have gotten hit by the magical Skittle beam too.

I growled quietly. “It wasn’t pleasant before, and it isn’t now. I will get up when I’m damn good and ready.”

“Well fine, little miss grumpy flank. I’ll just have to carry you then.” And there’s another check. Right, enough of this bullshit.

I stood up slowly, stretching like a cat. “Alright, where’d we end up this time?” I asked. Getting a quick look around, we were in a large grassy meadow. A nice flat open area, probably great for a picnic.

“Approximately 300 meters southeast of Ponyville.” A second familiar voice said from my right. Charcoal was here too. “I took the liberty of doing some scouting of the area, since our other little friend is absent, as well as the rest of our party. I didn’t find any of them.”

Other little fr-oh right, Lemon. “I guess the coward ran off. Ah well, Starry and Vinyl will catch up eventually. For now, let’s take a look around. Maybe there’s some fun to be had here.” I looked down, noticing the visor Spectra gave me. I dunno if it would still work, but it looked stylish as fuck, so I put it back on. Much better.

Charcoal and Ceru glanced at each other. “You seem to be taking all this in stride. Are you okay? Really?”

My mood faltered and I sighed. “You want the truth? I’ve broken down a couple times already. The change from a relatively peaceful life to always having to look over my shoulder, not to mention a species and sex change, has really worn me down. It doesn’t help that I wasn’t right in the head to begin with.”

“So, what are you going to do about it?” Ceru asked, “I mean, how are you going to deal with this? All of what’s happened to you?”

I took a deep breath and did my best to smile. “Same way I always do: with humor.”

My friends shared another glance, before Ceru looked back at me with a shrug. “Alright, but if you need support, we’re here for you.”

“‘Kay, I’ll remember that. Now let’s introduce ourselves to a completely new Ponyville.”

“Wait,” Charcoal called out.

My ear twitched in annoyance. “What now?”

“Right now is a great time to test what that serum did to you. It gave you some strange magic, so let’s see what you can do with it.”

“That’s a good idea,” Ceru added, “you could do shields under pressure, but can you do them again at will?”

“Why would I shield me from myself?” Two confused faces later, I sighed. “Bad joke, okay. I’ll see what I can do.”

Let’s see… Before, I just thought up what I wanted. Does it still work that way? I mentally asked for a dome shield like before, and voila, one appeared around me. A smile crossed my face. “Okay, that is officially awesome. I just will it to happen and it happens.”

“Interesting. It sounds less like magic and more like a superpower,” Ceru said, then suddenly got really excited. “Like the Power Ponies! I guess you’re Radiance. I can be Mistress Mare-velous and Charcoal can be Saddle Rager.”

Charcoal raised an eyebrow. “Um, I don’t think so.”

Ceru shrugged. “Suit yourself. Sunny, what’s it like in there?”

“Very bright,” I responded, “Ceru, try breaking the shield, I wanna test something.” I could feel Lemon pounding on the shield before, but I wanted to find out how far that went. Ceru nodded and bucked the shield. It felt like a very dull thud against my body, like it was pressed against a wall and someone on the other side was hitting it. I could feel the vibrations, but it didn’t hurt. “Huh. Neat. I can feel that, just barely.”

With a flick of my wings, I dispelled the shield. To my surprise, the light seemed to absorb into my body. I appeared to glow for a brief second before returning to normal. Strangely enough, I felt a burst of energy afterwards, like I just had an energy drink. Ceru circled around me eagerly, almost like a shark. “Amazing… You can absorb the light into you. What did it feel like?” She asked.

“Like I had a shot of NOS. In other words, it felt good.” Emboldened by this new feeling, I decided to try something else. What if I could use this as a weapon? Could I make a sword? I imagined a sword held in my hoofgrip. And as I pondered how strange that phrase sounded in my head, I could feel the light flow up my foreleg and form into a solid yellow blade. The cool thing was that I could feel the sword as if it were an extension of my leg. “Oh, this is definitely the coolest thing I’ve ever done.” I gave the sword a few practice swings against some of the tall grass, and it cut through it like a machete.

Ceru was right beside me, grinning from ear to ear. “That is so cool! You really are like Radiance! Only less elegant.”

I matched Ceru’s grin with one of my own as I got another idea. “I don’t think I wanna be a prissy superhero. What if I wanna be a Pokemon?” Yes! I could use this cool ability to mimic a Pokemon’s Solarbeam. Now, how does it work? I absorb solar energy and unleash it in a powerful blast. Okay, I think I can do that, but I better take it slowly. I don’t wanna blow up. I stopped for a moment, dispelling the sword. I don’t know how I absorbed the light before, but if I could find out how to do it actively, as well as figure out a way to fire the beam, I could do it.

I closed my eyes and spread my wings, trying to feel the light shining down from the sun. It felt warm, pleasant. I wanted to feel that energy flow into me, and it did start doing just that. I could feel a warmth inside of me, growing quickly. I wanted to get that warmth out in one powerful burst. I could hear Ceru saying something, but I chose not to pay attention, instead wanting to focus on the solarbeam. If I got distracted, it could all blow up in my face.

I needed an exit point for the energy, somewhere to fire the beam from. I decided to focus the energy into my mouth, and the warmth quickly flowed where I told it to. I opened my eyes to see a small ball of light forming just under my nose, slowly building in size. Alright, now to release the energy in a concentrated beam. I took a deep breath and exhaled sharply. To my surprise, the energy did get released in a beam, though it was a lot faster than I expected. It went from my mouth to the ground about 100 meters away in less than a second, creating a small explosion of dirt when it made impact. The shockwave of the blast blew back my mane and knocked loose my visor.

“Huh, not exactly what I expected,” Charcoal commented from behind, “though it was still very impressive. Good job.”

I didn’t immediately acknowledge her compliment. I just stood there, dumbfounded by what I just did. I just used Solarbeam. I just did a fucking Solarbeam. You could almost feel the shit-eating grin on my face as that realization came.

Ceru meanwhile was jumping up and down in excitement. “I can’t believe you did that! That was incredible! Your wings and cutie mark went all glowy and then you just went PEW and fired a laser! You could give unicorns a run for their bits with power like that!”

My ear twitched and I turned to face Ceru, my smile dissolving into confusion. “My what went glowy?” I had to ask. I also straightened my visor.

“Your cutie mark glows when you use these unusual abilities. Perhaps it’s a side effect?” Charcoal inquired.

I shrugged, waving a hoof dismissively. “Maybe, I don’t care. All I know is that I can do really cool things. It seems the serum was designed to turn me into a living weapon. And while it’s really awesome, at the same time I don’t want it completely going to my head.” Yeesh, imagine me going mad with power. That would be scary.

“What I wonder is where you’re getting this magic from. What is causing you to be able to do this? I’m not an arcane scientist or a biologist, so I can’t really know for sure.” Charcoal looked towards the distance at Ponyville. “Maybe the local library could have some information. Twilight Sparkle designed the formula, maybe she got the idea from a book.”

“It’s a long shot, but sure, let’s check and see.” I nodded, and the three of us began the walk to Ponyville. The town itself looked peaceful, though a few ponies were whispering about an explosion they heard earlier. I guess we were noticed. Let’s hope they don’t piece things together. The library was still the same as it always was, and this time there was no big castle in town so I assumed Uni-Twi lived here and not Ali-Twi.

The assumptions were confirmed as we stepped inside and saw Twilight sitting at the table, her face buried in a book. I didn’t see Spike, and it occurred to me that in all my travels, I have never seen that purple dragon. At all. Ever. I’m kinda disappointed by that. Well, he wasn’t here, so I’m gonna have to wait a little longer to see him.

I stepped over to the nearest shelf and started browsing the books, trying to find anything on exotic magic. There were a few interesting books on magical theories, but none of them delved into the type of magic I was looking for. So I turned to the one pony who might know. “Hey, Sparkle.”

Twilight jolted up from her book and looked around quickly, her eyes eventually resting on me. “Yes, can I help you?” She asked irritably. Methinks she was doing more than reading there.

“You got any books on light-based magic?” I asked, “We’re looking to do a little research for a project.”

Twilight tilted her head as she thought. “Yeah, I think I do. Hold on.” She floated three books out from the shelves and briefly flipped through them. “Aha, here we are. Does this help?” She floated the books over to me, and I read the covers. The Elements of Harmony: A Reference Guide. No. Harnessing the Sun: Solar Energy and the Magic Within. Maybe. Daring Do and the Medallion of Shadow. Huh. Sounds cool, might be worth a read anyway.

I took the second and third book and tucked them under my wing. “Yeah, I think they’ll do for now.” I didn’t really have anywhere to take them, so I just sat down at the table and opened up the book about the Sun.

“Hey Sunny, if you’re going to stay here, Charcoal and I are going to look around.” Ceru called out. I nodded my acknowledgement and the two left the library. I’ll meet up with them later. For now, let’s see what’s in this book.

“If there’s anything else you need, I’ll be downstairs,” Twilight said, opening the door to the basement, “I can see if there are any other books on the matter while I’m down there.” She shut the door, leaving me alone with these books. I was okay with this; it meant a peaceful read.

“Honey, I’m hoooome!”

Fuck.

Can I Take a Mulligan on this Dimension?

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My wings twitched irritably as the newcomer entered the library. I could feel his arrogance radiating off of him like the world’s most obnoxious spotlight. I didn’t even have to look at the fucker to know, so I didn’t. Nose, meet book. You’ll be spending a lot of time together. Ooh, a section on theories involving converting solar energy into electricity. Equestria looked to be a long ways away from developing solar panels if it only appeared in sparse amounts in obscure books.

Unfortunately since I was the only other pony in the room, I was the first thing that caught the attention of Lyle McDouchebag. I could almost feel his gaze try to burn through the book. “You’re new here, aren’t you?” He asked, almost hesitantly. “Yeah, I know everypony in Ponyville, and you are definitely new here.”

I flipped the page. There was nothing on the particular brand of magic I was using yet, but I kept reading. Maybe if I just ignored him, he’d go away.

“Shy one, huh?” Guess not. “I find that cute in a mare. Well, I’m sure you’ve heard of me anyway. I’m only a national hero.” Great, don’t know you, don’t care. Go the fuck away.

Finally, I found something on harnessing solar magic. Magic involving solar energy is rare among unicorns, usually being exclusive to Princess Celestia. Celestia typically likes keeping her secrets close to her chest, but unicorns gifted in solar magic reportedly experience increased energy in sunlight and feel a weak connection to the Sun. Examples of solar magic include-

“Hey, are you listening to me? I don’t like being ignored.” He said sternly, pulling the book away from me. “Or are you that bookworm-type character that I have to help out of her shell?” I finally had to look at the rude fucker. He was a tall pure white alicorn with a jet black mane and deep blue eyes. Needless to say, I did not like this guy. Oh great, another one. Just what I fucking needed.

I adjusted my visor and gave him a cold stare. “Sir, I don’t know who you are, but this is a library. I don’t care if you’re best friends with the librarian or in her pants, but that does not excuse you from your inconsiderate actions and obnoxious behavior. I came here to read a book, and that’s what I’m doing.” I said with my best Charcoal impression, taking the book back. It was then I noticed an Element necklace around the guy’s neck, complete with a solid white gem in the middle that seemed to glow with the whole color spectrum. Oh you have got to be fucking kidding me.

“In her-what?” His face contorted into something resembling frustration before he let out a sigh. “Okay, maybe I deserved that. I shouldn’t have acted the way I did. I’m sorry. Can we start over?” He asked.

I didn’t want to, but a nagging, almost tingling feeling in the back of my head told me I’d regret it if I didn’t. I reluctantly nodded. “Very well. Hello, who are you?”

He raised an eyebrow at my shortness, but I wasn’t really willing to be forthcoming with this guy. “I am James, a traveler from another world, and transformed into a hero for Equestria. Good to meet you. What’s your name?”

“Odd name, but alright. Sunshine, amatuer meteorolgist.” I lied. No way I was gonna tell him I was essentially a fugitive from another world myself. I already had one alicorn on my ass, I didn’t need another. Of course, it wasn’t really a lie, as I did consider myself that. It was just a hobby though.

“Uh huh.” He took a look at the books I had. “What’s with the books? Wouldn’t a meteorologist be looking at weather books instead? And besides, what’s there to study when pegasi already rule the weather?”

That tingly nagging feeling came back. I had to say something. “First off, can’t a mare have a little enjoyment in her life?” It still felt weird referring to myself that way, but I mentally shook it off. “Second, while earth ponies tend the plants and pegasi control the weather in Equestria, the same can’t be said for the rest of the world. There is always more to learn about the world we live in. I’m sure you don’t know everything about your world, do you?” I asked, to which he shook his head. “Okay then.”

He stood there for a second more before sighing. “Sorry. Again. Sometimes I forget how new I am to Equestria, even though I’ve seen-nevermind, you wouldn’t get it. Where’s Twilight?” Oh, don’t change the subject, I know exactly what you were gonna say.

I hid my smirk in a smile and pointed towards the basement door. “Basement. She said she was gonna look for any other books on light and solar magic.”

“Why solar magic? Isn’t that Celestia’s forte?”

That feeling was really bugging the shit out of me, and I had no idea why. It was like a headache, but without the pain. “Yes, but there are are a select few ponies that can be gifted with it as well, and after the matter crossed my path, I began research into seeing how it could be put to use in other ways.” Even though I’ve only been at this for a few minutes, suddenly I had a whole speech ready. “Remember, the source of all life on this world comes from the sun. Imagine if ponies other than Celestia could put that life-giving power to use in different scientific and arcane fields. We could change the world with this knowledge!”

The tingle stopped as I pondered what the hell I just said. It was completely ad-libbed on the fly, but it felt so real. I felt genuinely excited about the possibility of changing a world I just set foot on. I really sounded like an overeager scientist there. Almost like Twilight. Or I could be two steps from actual villainy and just not realize it. I dunno which worried me more.

“Sure, but in the wrong hooves, knowledge can be very dangerous. I’d hate to have to use my Element on such a lovely mare.” He said, giving me a sincere smile.

Memories of Stud Muffin threatened to crop up again, and I shoved them back down. “Element?” I had to ask.

“I’m actually the long lost 7th Element of Harmony. Apparently it was lost over two thousand years ago, and it brought me here to Equestria. Even gave me this sweet new body.” He did a pose, and somehow a magical spotlight shone down on him from nowhere.

“Uh huh…” I suddenly regret every decision I ever made today. This guy is the culmination of ultimate stupid. I had to almost physically refrain myself from just facedesking right on the spot. “Well if you’re done I’d like to get back to my book. It was nice meeting you… James.” It really wasn’t nice. I felt my IQ drop several points just talking to him. Or maybe I gained some. I dunno, that crazy rant I went on kinda scared me.

James walked towards the basement, but stopped and turned back to me. “Hey, if you’re going to be in Ponyville, maybe I can show you around? Or we could have a lunch together?” Was he trying to ask me out? Seriously.

I sighed. “Cliche dictates that if I say no, my stomach will growl and embarrass me, then I will have to say yes anyway. So I will just beat around the bush and say yes. Though since you offered, you’re paying.” If there’s one thing I’m going to take advantage of while I’m here, it’s getting free meals out of this unsuspecting idiot.

He chuckled and shrugged. “Alright, fair enough. You seem more genre savvy than other ponies. Most of them acted exactly as you described when I ask them.”

I gave him my best smug smile in return. “If you’ve seen what I have, you’d pick up on these things. I’d tell you myself, but you wouldn’t believe them though.” I said with a wink. The second thing I’ll do is troll the everloving fuck out of this guy.

“Heh, well whatever new story a character like yourself brings to my life, I’ll be glad to help it unfold. See ya soon, Sunshine.” And with that, he joined Twilight in the basement.

Fucking finally. I was able to read in peace again. “Now then, where was I?” I opened the book back up and flipped through the pages until I found where I left off.

Examples of advanced solar magic include large-scale light spells (see spell matrix example, page 46), heat resistance up to 5000°C, plasma conjuration, and powerful offensive spells. Most detailed information about the complexities of these spells are restricted by the Crown, and only given to high-ranking military officials and archmages.

This was all fascinating information to read about, but aside from the last one, I haven’t demonstrated the ability to use any of these other spells. And besides that, they were meant for unicorns. I’m a pegasus. Big difference. Maybe I could try finding more information elsewhere, but for now this was a dead end.

I continued looking through the book, even going to page 46 to see that spell matrix. There was nothing more I could find or understand about solar magic that would help me. Shutting the book, I let out a frustrated sigh. “That was almost useless.” I looked over to the Daring Do book. “Well I guess I have some extra time to kill.”

As I started reading, Twilight came back out, James following close behind. Seriously? James? Couldn’t he have picked a pony name, at least? I swear that was gonna bug me. I asked Twilight if she found any more books, but she shook her head. “Sorry, I didn’t find anything else down there.”

I shrugged. “That’s fine. The one useful book you did give me said that this sort of stuff is usually restricted by Celestia. I don’t think I’ll learn any more from public libraries.”

“So where else would you look?” James asked. “The Royal Archives? I doubt you’d be able to get in.”

I shrugged. “Eh, I’ll make due. At least I know what I’m dealing with now. Also this book is really good.” I added, holding up the Daring Do book.

Twilight tilted her head. “Really? I’ve always found that to be a low point in the series. For one thing, the whole story is completely unrealistic, even for Daring Do. Not to mention it feels like you’re only reading half the story, like there’s a completely different half that we’re not being told about. It drives me crazy!”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “I dunno, seems fine to me. I can even see a bit of myself in Daring here.”

Now it was James’ turn to tilt his head. “Really? How so?”

I shook my head. “Not important. Now I guess you’re here to take me to lunch?”

To my surprise, Twilight giggled. “Another pretty mare caught your eye, lover boy?” She asked. The hell’s that supposed to mean?

James glanced at me, then to Twilight. “Maybe. I just feel something special about her, ya know?”

“Hey, right here. I can hear you, ya know. Let’s just get food. I’m hungry.” I said quickly, putting the book down. If this fuck is really going to try pulling a Stud Muffin on me, I better have my mouth full so I can let my hoof do the talking. ...NOT LIKE THAT YOU PERVERTS!

I left the library, Mr. Too-cool-to-use-a-pony-name following close behind. Of course, he was the one taking me to a free lunch, so I let him lead. On the way, my eye caught sight of a pair of wanted posters attached to a post. Being the curious free spirit that I am, I went closer to investigate. The posters had a bounty of 1000 Bits each for the capture of two dangerous agents of chaos. There were two illustrations shown for them. The first was of a dark-colored unicorn mare with her mane bunched up into a spiky ponytail. The second was of a… human?

What the fuck? Humans are evil here too? Glancing back at the alicorn fuckwit, I could believe it. Maybe I was just naturally distrustful of people who have their heads stuck up their own asses. I also saw behind him were two mares staring at him longingly. Does this guy have his own harem or something? ...Oh fuck, he wants me to join that, doesn’t he? The realization hit me like a freight truck with its brakes cut. Of course this clusterfuck of Gary Stu cliches had a harem of just about every mare in Ponyville. He probably had the princesses at his beck and call too.

I took one more look at the human on the poster. It was definitely a woman pictured there, no doubt. I had to wonder if she was brought here with James, or came separately. Also, why was James turned into a walking embodiment of every bad fanfic while this chick was labeled a villain. Maybe the unicorn had something to do with it. I might just have to look into this myself. I snatched the posters off the post and tucked them away, probably into some sort of weird pony hammerspace. I’ll do it later. First, food.

A Story Within a Story

View Online

The cafe was a… quaint little place with a nice view of the center square, where Town Hall sat right in the middle. I popped a squat on one of the outdoor tables while James flagged down a waitress. It didn’t take long before one showed up and handed us our menus. I settled for a fruit salad and lemonade. I forgot to tell her to leave out the fruit I didn’t like, so I’d just pick it out and toss it to James. While we waited, my hopes for a quiet meal were dashed.

“So. You, um… You like fruit?” The fucker asked in quite possibly the most awkward way I’ve heard that didn’t come from my own mouth. The guy obviously has never had an actual date in his life if that’s his pickup line.

I held in a sigh. “Yes, I do like fruit. I’m quite fond of green apples. I like their sourness.” Mmm, just the thought of eating sour food like apples or candy makes my mouth water. I’m told that’s a natural reaction due to conditioning or something. It’d be a nice research project later. Not now though, those are tangent thoughts.

“A fan of sour apples?” He asked, as though I were the only pony who dared like the heretic apple.

“Yeah, I also like oranges and lemons. Just sucking the juice out of them is so satisfying.” Shit, my mouth is starting to water. Just deal with that before you make a mess, dumbass. Right, okay. Wait, what was he saying?

“-esting, I guess. Or maybe that’s the wrong word.” Maybe I finally got through to him that I was too weird for his tastes and he’ll back down from his seduction attempts. “I dunno, I think it’s kinda cute.” Or I could just make him think I’m more cute. For fucks sake, I’m batting a hundred today.

I had no retort, so I just dug into my pony hammerspace for anything to use as a distraction. It was an odd feeling, knowing I had some unexplainable pocket in reality In which I could store whatever. Probably how ponies got by without pockets. I’d have to see how much I could put in there until I needed a saddlebag. NO, not now, that is for later. File under “tangent” and shove it aside.

I fished out the wanted poster of the human woman and looked at it some more. Honestly, she seemed more curious than threatening in the illustration, like whoever drew it was just wondering what kind of threat she could be.

I heard a disapproving snort from across the table, and looked to see James shake his head at the poster. “Scum like her make me sick.”

“Why? What did she do that made her an agent of chaos? And what even is that anyway?” And did I count as one? Depending on who you ask, you’ll get two extremes. My friends think of me as innocent, and true to pony nature, stick behind this little herd of friendship in an attempt to keep each other safe. Kinda endearing if you think of it that way. On the other hand, hoof, etc, I’m seen as a terrorist pretty much, with the level of attention that’s been thrown my way to keep me away from Celestia’s master plan, whatever it is.

“It’s… a long story.” I wasn’t really gonna press further, but he decided he wanted to tell it anyway. “Back in my old world, I used to hang with this group of friends after school. One of them was this girl who, let’s face it, was probably more manly than half the boys. She had an interest in guns and cars - two things from my world, too long to explain what they are - and went camping a lot during summer. Anyway, we kinda were close. And by kinda, I meant we were dating.” Oh, so he did have a date in his life. I stand corrected.

“Now, I get that Equestria encourages herding, due to the extremely skewed gender ratio, but it’s different where I’m from. We typically only have one partner. So when I found out she was cheating on me with the head cheerleader, I… Well, I kinda flipped, and I may or may not have decked the dude in the face.”

His story was interrupted by a near spit-take from me as I tried to hold in laughter. His girlfriend cheated on him with the head cheerleader? Didn’t that sort of thing usually happen in reverse? He glared at me and I waved him off. “Sorry, sorry. I just thought of something funny. Carry on.”

“Uh huh. Where was I? Oh yes. So after that, I dumped her. It hurt me that she cheated on me, and I kinda faded in and out of depression a few times. It wasn’t until I got to Equestria that I finally started to feel better. It helps that I found a society that values loyalty and friendship. The herding doesn’t hurt, either.” He gave a grin that I think was supposed to make me feel better, but really just churned my stomach.

I glanced away, towards the cafe, hoping the waitress would show up with our food. Alas, it was not to be. “What’s taking them so long? We didn’t exactly give them an order for hot meals.”

James shrugged. “I dunno. This usually happens when exposition dumps are given.”

I sighed. This wasn’t gonna be easy on me, was it? Fine, might as well dig deeper into his backstory. “So if you’re from the same world, how come you’re an alicorn and she’s not?”

“This is why.” He said, gesturing to the white gem around his neck. “The Element of Virtue. It was supposedly lost for thousands of years, when it was actually on my world. I stumbled upon it during a family vacation, and it transported me here, granting me the power to save Equestria from evil, as well as gifting me a new body to do it with.”

Something about what he just said struck me as extremely odd. I couldn’t figure out exactly what, though, The tingling feeling in my head had returned, and made it harder to concentrate on one given topic. In fact, it got worse. My entire body felt numb, as though my head just stopped sending signals to the rest of me. And yet, it didn’t seem to show. I could still see James look at me as if my body hadn’t gone into sleep mode.

He suddenly leaned off to the side a little and waved at someone behind me. I couldn’t see who it was, as I had no control over myself. I could very numbly feel my foreleg move, but I wasn’t the one to move it. My mouth moved on its own, but I couldn’t hear it, for some reason.

I could hear James just fine though. “I know, right? As for why my ex isn’t a pony, I think it’s just because whoever summoned her here specifically wanted a human. Humans are a naturally chaotic species. We’re basically pure evil to ponies.”

Time seemed to slow as a new voice spoke in my head. “Hmmm… I can’t rewrite your character. Interesting...”

The fog surrounding my mind began to clear, and I felt partial control over my body begin to return. “Wha? Who are you, and what did you do to me?” I asked, probably sounding crazy to anyone around me. I looked, and James didn’t move. In fact, no one did. It was like they were all frozen in time.

The voice spoke up again, still in my head. “I am simply known as Weaver. Weaver of what, you may ask? Stories, dreams, worlds… I weave reality into stories for my own entertainment. My will shapes the dreams of the characters I create and the worlds they live in.”

“So… You’re a god?”

Weaver chuckled inside my head. “No, dear pony. I am simply an author. Though to characters such as yourself, I might as well be. I can shape your world, your history, your destiny… And yet, I can’t. Not to you. Why is that?”

“Beats me. Can you just not do this again? I’d rather you not make my destiny to be part of this guy’s harem.” I huffed, crossing my forelegs. I meant business. Probably.

“This guy? Ah yes, James. A fascinating discovery, he was. Well more like he discovered me, rescued me. So I repaid him by making him the hero of the story of his dreams. He can’t know about me though. It would ruin the story if he knew about the author of it.” I could almost feel him shaking his metaphorical head. “So please don’t tell him. Or anyone. I’d hate to have to retcon that again.”

“Well since you asked nicely, I won’t. He already thinks his life is a story anyway.”

“Heh, I guess I haven’t masked my influence as well as I thought. Or he’s just that genre-savvy. Maybe I’m being a bit to cliche?”

“Most likely. But what was that about a rescue? Aren’t you like an omnipotent, metaphysical being or something?”

“Hehe, no, pony. I do have a physical form, and I’m not omnipotent.”

I waved a hoof suddenly. “But waitwaitwait. Didn’t you say you could shape entire worlds? You’re an author, you’re supposed to be a god in the stories you write.”

There was a pause before Weaver spoke again. “True, but something happened long ago. I lost the ability to weave my stories fully, by one more powerful than me. I was left weakened, almost powerless until I was rescued. The world you stand in was conjured up from James’ mind. Apparently it’s from a television show he likes. Odd, but I’m not complaining. You ponies are cute, and I always enjoyed writing musical numbers.”

“Um… Thanks.”

“The last pony I told of the true nature of your world had a panic attack and an existential crisis, yet you remain calm. Supposedly. I can’t peer into your mind like I could with other ponies. You’re like other humans in that regard. I can’t do anything to the being of James’ world. You wouldn’t happen to be from there, would you?”

“No. Wherever he’s from, I’m not.” No way I’d be lucky enough to have my world this close anyway.

“You continue to intrigue me. When I first sensed your presence, I sensed an opportunity to write a new character. I tried, but ultimately I can’t change you.”

“Well I think I’m fine with that. I don’t want to be part of your story.”

“Too late. You have already inserted yourself into my story, and I can’t rewrite you or write you out.”

Of fucking course. “What about what you’ve done to me already?”

“I only wrote your current actions, nothing more. What I’ve been able to do until now is because you were unaware of my presence. My curiosity has led me to reveal myself to you, and forfeit my limited power over your character. It never would have lasted anyway.”

“What if I just left? If you never saw me again, there wouldn’t be an issue.”

“Ah, but you’ve made an impression on our protagonist, and that would cause a new story to unfold where he would believe you’ve gone missing and search for you.”

“Couldn’t you write a new me?”

Weaver paused to think it over. “I suppose. It wouldn’t be the first time. But if you ever turned up again, there’d be a lot of issues. Unless, like James and myself, you aren’t from this world. Huh, that would explain why I can’t rewrite you.”

I smirked. “Or I just have plot armor, even from you.”

“Heh, that too. I have to wonder if the one who took my power wrote you and sent you here to mock me.”

“I hope not. I’d rather not think about such things. Contrary to my calm approach to you hijacking my body, those kinds of thoughts freak me out more than anything.”

“Very well. I must pass on one more warning though, before I leave you. Don’t provoke James. I wrote this world to be his own personal power fantasy, and that includes his Element. While he doesn’t have much skill in using it, it’s still very powerful. I can’t write his assured victory like I could with any other villain I put before him. In short, while I am a near-god in how I weave this world, he is just about the same thing, in a more personal sense.”

I cast another look at the still frozen James. “You probably jinxed it. Now I’m gonna end up provoking him in some way.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Multiple precedents.”

Weaver chuckled. “Sounds like your story is an interesting one.”

“Well so far it’s been part-running for my life, part-sitting around and talking.” Get us a few sets of armor and we could act out an episode of RvB. “Thanks for helping keep the trend going. Now I’m due to be attacked by someone.”

“Well I won’t keep you. Goodbye for now, strange pony.”

Weaver’s presence faded, and time resumed once more. And with it, James’ rambling. “But I’m not human anymore. I’m an alicorn, the pinnacle of harmony. I’m the hero of this tale.”

I held up a hoof to stop him. “You gonna stroke your own ego any further, or are we gonna eat?” The waitress had returned and set our food down. Thank you Weaver. It was odd thinking that the world I occupied was created and controlled by another. I wonder what would happen if he decided to end his story. Would the world just cease to exist? As I started eating my fruit, a cold chill went down my spine. I shuddered. No, those thoughts lead down dark paths. I tried to focus on my food, or my surroundings. No matter what though, my thoughts kept drifting back to Weaver.

James must’ve noticed my discomfort. “You okay, Sunshine? I’m not making you uncomfortable, am I?” He asked.

I shook my head. “No, it’s something else. My thoughts like to wander, and sometimes they go down some dark paths that really make me scared.” The whole turned-into-a-mare thing and the subsequent adventure kept my mind off these topics, but the talk with Weaver has finally brought them back.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No! I-I mean, no thank you. I don’t like thinking about it.” I returned to my fruit, idly glancing around at the ponies going about their day. I noticed a pink pony, Daisy I think her name was, looking at me with a spiteful glare. James noticed her as well, and Daisy gave him a smile and wave before sprinting away. “...What was that about?”

“Daisy? Oh, she’s a complete yandere. Been pining for me from afar, and has more than once sent bee-filled flowers to my herdmates.” He shook his head. “Nah, I learned once already, never stick it in crazy.”

“Pinkie Pie.” I countered.

“...Touche.” We shared a laugh. I finished off my fruit salad. I even ate the fruit I didn’t like. Was I just that distracted by my thoughts that I didn’t notice? “You’re a fast eater. I’m not even halfway through my lunch.” Ah yes, my patented vacuum mouth, om nom nomming 50% faster than more traditional mouths.

I just shrugged. “I was hungry.” I thought I caught a glimpse of Daisy again, but it was probably just a trick my eyes were playing. “Hey, I shouldn’t have to worry about getting attacked by one of your more obsessive followers, right?” Never hurt to confirm.

James shook his head. “No, though a few ponies have gone missing recently. No clue where they went though. I know there are a few evil folks running around, and I’ll take care of them when the time comes for a fitting climax.”

“You really are pushing this story thing of yours a little far, don’cha think?” I know now it really is a story, but he shouldn’t. Enough reason for me to ask.

“Sorry, it’s just this whole thing feels like I’m in a fictional world still. Things happen just like they would in any story. Which leads me to wonder…” Oh no, I knew that look in his eye. “Would you like to join me and the girls tonight? Perhaps we can work out what kind of character you are?”

Inwardly, I cursed Weaver’s very existence. More specifically, for making this world a harem anime. Outwardly, I simply shook my head. “I’m waiting for some friends to catch up with me, then we’re going out.” I half-lied. I hoped my other friends would find us soon so we could leave. Stupid Elements for sending us here…

Actually, why did they send us here?

I was pulled from that thought by two approaching ponies, Charcoal and Ceru. Finally, some welcome faces. Both appeared happy to see me, but something was… off. “Hey, find anything interesting?” I asked.

Both their eyes shifted to James, then back to me. “Yeah, who’s your… friend?” Ceru asked back, an almost strained smile on her face.

Before I could answer, Jame stood up and gave them a bow. “James, Alicorn of Virtue and Hero of Equestria, at your service.” He introduced himself.

To my surprise, neither of them seemed at all skeptical of him. Instead, they seemed impressed, almost flustered. “W-wow, that’s quite a title.” Ceru commented.

“Thank you. I take it you’re both friends of Sunshine?” They both nodded. “Lovely. I was just inviting Sunshine here to spend the night with my herd and I. Maybe she’d feel better about it if her friends were along with her.”

I shook my head again. “Sorry, I just wanted a free lunch out of you. I’m not interested in going any further.” I said firmly, getting up.

“My offer stands, and I’d like to extend it to you two as well. I’d love to get to know the three of you more.” Geez, he was a persistent one, wasn’t he?

“We’ll… think about it. Maybe it’ll be fun.” Ceru said. For some reason, an alarm began ringing in my head. Weaver can’t rewrite me… but can he rewrite my friends?

I turned to Charcoal and Ceru. “Well we should get going. I’ve got a few things I wanna check out.” That was an excuse. I just needed to get away from this guy. Invoking his wrath would just be a repeat of every other fight I’ve been in. Except this time, I don’t think my friends would be of any help. Especially if they were turned against me. Nope, bad thoughts. Go away! I’ll be fine. I’ve managed this long. And now I have weird superpowers that I have yet to deeply research.

As I walked away, that dark part of my mind decided to speak up again. But I haven’t managed well. It’s been by pure luck and the mercy of my opponents that I’ve lived this long. If I were to face one that wished more than superficial damage upon me, would I even last a minute?

I shook my head again, desperately trying to clear my head. “No,” I thought aloud, “I can do this. I have to.” I looked at my surroundings. I was in a market. Stalls were set up along the road. Ponies were all around, buying and selling goods. Produce mostly. I caught sight of Applejack near the end of the stalls, selling her own produce. I didn’t see my friends. “Did I lose them, or…” Did they not follow me?

My suspicions that Weaver could somehow rewrite their characters when I was safe had grown. Really, Weaver? You say you’re gonna leave me be, then immediately steal my friends instead? You’re a backstabbing son of a bitch. Now he’d gone and pissed me off. They had stuck with me through all this bullshit. I’m not leaving them with a questionable author spirit thing and a fucknugget alicorn.

I pulled the wanted poster out of hammerspace again and took a good look at the human on it. Fine, we’ll play your little game, Weaver. I’ll give you a story you won’t forget.

Tracking the Prey

View Online

I stood before the entrance to the Everfree Forest. Honestly, it was kinda disappointing. I’ve been in plenty of forests, and this one seems no different, if a bit darker. Looking up, the canopy was a lot thicker than I’d expect from trees this size. I’ve seen forests with much bigger trees have thinner canopies. Then again, they were pine trees, so why should I be surprised?

Before coming here, I’d tried to look for my friends. Just to alleviate my worries. It was for naught though. I found them in the library, having a party with James and the others. Could’ve just been a Welcome to Ponyville party from Pinkie, but fuckit, I’m gonna be a pessimist today.

So after that, I came here. If a human was gonna hide out away from ponies, it had to be here. Weaver wouldn’t want it any other way. Besides, it was the safest and most dangerous place to be anyway. Sure, there were plenty of things that could kill you here, but nature was rarely that vicious if you were a prepared survivalist. At least, I think. I’m not one, so I wouldn’t know.

The human had to be in this forest somewhere. I just had to find her. Easy right? Pfft, yeah. Not really. Entering the forest, I set on down the main path. This path I was pretty sure led to the old castle, and by now seemed so well tread predators should avoid it. Of course, no way the human would be anywhere near this path, but I didn’t need to go running blind through the forest.

The forest itself was rather peaceful. It was quiet, with only the distant sounds of small wildlife and my own hoofsteps keeping me company. The plan was to travel a decent distance, then take to the air and try to find signs of, well, anything. Admittedly, it was a weak plan, but I had nothing better.

After about… I think half an hour, I stopped to rest briefly. My legs were starting to wear out. Considering everything I’ve been through, I’m surprised I hadn’t gotten tired sooner. As I sat there on the path, the sound of hoofsteps caught my attention. That was surprising. I wasn’t expecting to run across anyone while I was out here. Was someone following me? No, wait, the hoofsteps are coming from in front of me. Someone was heading towards Ponyville. No, multiple someones. There were more than one set of hoofsteps.

As the ponies in question approached, I saw they were the Cutie Mark Crusaders. What the fuck were they doing here? Apple Bloom noticed me first and walked right up to me. “Hey Miss, you alright? Lost or something?”

I stood up and shook my head. “I’m just going on a walk through nature. Maybe try and find that old castle. I only stopped here because I’ve had a rough week, and it’s finally caught up to my legs.”

Scootaloo and Sweetie looked at each other nervously while Apple Bloom tried to cover for… something. “Oh, you don’t want to go there. It’s all old and dusty, and there’s nothing to see anyway.”

Oh? Well, I actually wasn’t going to go, but methinks something be there anyway. “Any how would you know that unless you’ve been there?”

“We weren’t there,” Scootaloo blurted out, “we were on our way back from Zecora’s.”

“I didn’t say that you’ve been there, I implied that you had to have been there to know that it wasn’t worth visiting,” I shot back.

“Oh.” Scootaloo received a slap on the back of the head from Sweetie for that outburst. “Ow, hey!”

Apple Bloom cleared her throat to get attention. “Anyway, we could help you get there. We know the way, and it’s easy to get lost in the Everfree.”

I raised an eyebrow suspiciously. She was being too negotiative. Too smart. Yet, also too obvious. Something was clearly up, and I was willing to bet they’d either lead me in circles until I gave up or they’d lead me right there, but run on in ahead to hide whatever it was they were hiding. Or whoever. “Thanks, but no thanks. I can find it myself. You three better run home before I catch flak from your folks for keeping you in here.”

The fillies all looked at each other before a rustling from behind me made them scream suddenly. “AHHH! A MANTICORE!”

I flinched and folded back my ears to protect my sensitive hearing from their verbal attack, before turning back to the source of the rustling. There was no manticore. The bushes rustled again, and rabbit hopped out. It took a look at me and hopped away. I just stood there, dumbfounded by the sheer wat. Then it hit me. “Those pricks! They ran back to the castle, didn’t they?”

Hoofprints on the trail confirmed my suspicion that they ran further into the forest. Great, now I had to find them before they actually found a real manticore. Or they’d probably just be at the castle. I hoped for the latter. I still can’t fight. Still, why go through so much trouble to keep me from the castle? Well, it wasn’t that much. They just tried to convince me not to go, then distracted me with the oldest trick in the book while they booked it in the other direction. “Fine, I’ll play your game. Don’t expect me to give up easily though. I’ve got a lot riding on this.”

With newfound resolve, I continued my trek into the forest, eager and curious to find out just what those fillies were hiding. Before long, I came across my first roadblock. And a classic one at that. There was a fork in the path, and I had no idea which way to go. “Well… Shit.”

I had two options: either go left or right. Neither way looked promising, but I needed to track down those fillies to find the castle. Track down… That’s it! If I could find their hoofprints, I could track them that way. Looking at the two paths, one was clearly more disturbed than the other. Is that due to hooves or something else? Looking at the right path, I could make out hoofprints as well as… a drag mark? What would they need to drag like this? The mark was about three inches wide and seemed to start at the edge of the path, where… odd, there was a hold there. Wait… Odd hole? Drag mark? Did they really...?

Following the drag mark to its end, there was a wooden signpost lying in the bushes, the sign clearly reading “Castle” on it. “So they pulled the second oldest trick in the book, but instead of swapping the sign around, they just removed it entirely. Clever.” I couldn’t help but laugh. “This may fool any random pony, but I can’t be stopped by just meager tricks.” The sign was not double-sided, and it was pointing right. So the right path was correct. More hoofprints on the path confirmed it. “These kids really don’t want me finding the castle. What’s next, breaking the rope bridge?”

…

“I can’t believe they broke the rope bridge…” I mumbled incredulously as I looked upon the ravine that separated me from the old castle. The rope bridge was lying on the side of the ravine, just like it was in the series premiere. Maybe they didn’t notice, or forgot, or whatever, but I have wings. I won’t fault them for trying though. They tried damn hard to keep me away. But I won, so ha.

A casual flyover brought me to the front door of the castle. I tried to be as quiet as I could, but I’m going to assume they noticed me anyway, or at least have one more trick up their furry sleeves. A quick look up showed that the sun was starting to go down. I probably still had a couple hours of light left. Hopefully I could make it back by then. I’d rather camp near Ponyville than in the middle of the forest.

I slowly opened the front door, peeking in just a bit. The old and crumbling hall of the castle was certainly occupied recently. A firepit sat in the middle of the floor, very recently and half-assedly extinguished. Some of the logs in the firepit were still lit, too. The ground around it was wet, suggesting a bucket of water had been dumped rather inaccurately on it. Dousing a campfire and just abandoning it? Kinda careless… If it wasn’t for the stone floor and walls surrounding the campfire, I’d call that a pretty bad fire hazard.

I stepped into the castle hall and gave the campfire a closer look. There wasn’t anything I could use to put the fire out, and I wasn’t keen to stomp it out. A quick glance up at the nonexistent ceiling showed no clouds in the sky either, so that was out. I guess I’ll just have to leave it. I turned away from the campfire and inspected the rest of the hall, looking for any other sign of habitation.

Something that did stand out to me was the floor. Most of it was covered in a thin layer of dust and dirt. I would expect such an old structure to have a much thicker layer of dirt covering the floor. Maybe someone came by and did a little cleaning, I dunno. But near the firepit, there were drag marks in the dirt, leading towards one of the corridors before stopping. Maybe I was just being paranoid, but it felt like an ambush. Like, I would go in there and those fillies would pound me with a peanut butter-filled water balloon or something stupid like that.

Odd paranoia aside, I was already out here. There was no point in not looking around, especially since this room had no ceiling and there were some very gray clouds rolling in. It even smelled like rain was imminent. So like any normal person, which I was not, I decided to seek the safety of a ceiling. That meant following the non-trail into the corridor. But of course, I’m an idiot, and I also decided to alert the peanut butter-wielding enemy to my presence. “Hey, anybody home?”

Now, in my defense, I wasn’t expecting an actual answer. I certainly wasn’t expecting a big-ass rat to jump at my face from the shadows. So if anyone heard a girly shriek, that totally wasn’t me. Luckily at least one of my hooves was paying attention and punched (read: swatted pitifully) the rat away from my face while did a tactical retreat back towards the main hall.

As I caught my breath, my ear flicked at the sound of retreating hooves. Those pricks threw that rat at me, didn’t they? And I bet it was fake too. Dammit, I’ve been smeckledorfed. Those girls will do anything to keep me away. Fine, time to play dirty. I have no idea if I can use these new light powers like this, but nothing ventured…

Feeling the warmth inside me, I closed my eyes and tried to focus it outwards, slowly. I’d rather not accidentally explode. Channeling the energy was the tricky part, but I’ve done this a few times already. Okay weird solar magic, give me a beam of light. No explosive solarbeam this time, just a simple light beam. I opened my eyes and released the energy, and I could see the beam travel from me to the far end of the corridor, lighting it up for about a second before dissipating. I could barely hear the yelps of the fillies echo from the other side. “Heh, that got their attention.”

Grinning, I went back into the corridor, pausing briefly to kick the discarded fake rat. It wasn’t so dark in here I couldn’t see, but it wasn’t bright enough for me to see clearly. The visor was pretty good at utilizing the light that was there though, and was a big help. Of course, then it started getting darker as I rounded a corner, soon turning pitch black. “Damn, how does someone navigate this place?” Remembering what the others said about my cutie mark, I tried focusing the inner warmth outward again, this time just to see if I could get a glow going. True enough, my wings and butt both started giving off a nice yellow glow, letting me get a sense of my surroundings once more.

I had entered a small room, where it looked like someone ripped a teenager’s bedroom out of their house and just planted it in the middle of an abandoned castle. There was a bed, dresser, bookshelf, television, desk, safe, and a few other things. Everything had a starry night sort of theme to it, and the thought of that made me miss my other friends who were once again left behind. Looking around the room, I stopped at the bookshelf which was fully stocked with all sorts of books. Books on guns and hunting, some non-fiction books of a variety of subjects, some fiction books, a high school yearbook, and even some Equestrian books on cooking, magic, and creatures. Even an atlas for both Earth and Equestria. “Wow, this is almost as many books as I have.” I mused.

“Comes in handy when you’re stuck in a world that wants you dead.” Came a girl’s voice from behind. I turned around. Then I looked up. The human from the poster was standing right in front of me, crossbow in her hands and pointed right at my face. Instinctively, I backed up, right against the bookshelf. She grinned at my reaction. “Dunno how you made it this far pony, but you’ve seen too much. Do it.”

I was so focused on the weapon in front of me, I couldn’t react properly to what she said, and something struck me in the back of my head. “Ow, dammit! That… hurt…” I suddenly felt very dizzy, and the glow faded from my body as my world spun. I think I fell over, but I couldn’t be sure since everything was so fuzzy.

“Sorry dear, I had to.” A vaguely familiar voice said, and I noticed an orange-ish blur come into view. “Should we restrain her for now?” The blur came closer, both of them, and I felt them lift me up before I finally lost consciousness.

Date Night

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Sometimes I have to wonder why I bother putting myself at risk like this sometimes. I could have just found a nice place to settle down and live out the rest of my days peacefully. Instead I continue running around, having zero clues about what I’m doing and what I’m supposed to be doing. And to make it worse, I’m dragging other ponies along who have done nothing wrong aside from be associated with me. I’ve pretty much just become a transdimensional drifter, wandering from world to world trying to stay ahead of those that seem to have a crazy grudge against me.

I’ve avoided getting captured pretty well up until now, but my luck seems to be running out. That chick knocked me out without so much as a hello. Quite rude of her, really. All I wanted to do was talk to her, get to know her side, and come up with a plan to give Weaver and James a big slice of humble pie. Then again, what could I really do against them?

“Nothing, it would be suicide to fight them as you are now.” A voice in the back of my mind said. Or… wait.

It occured to me that my eyes were closed, and I could open them. So I did. And I saw a… bar? No, seriously, it looked like a bar. Straight outta some medieval or fantasy land. Wooden floors, walls, tables, counters… though the seats were nice and plush. I should know, as I found myself sitting on one, at one of the tables. They were set up like restaurant booths too.

Another pony sat opposite me, looking down at a menu with a very bored expression. She was almost unbearably pink, though not as much as Pinkie. And was that… strawberries I smelled? She glanced up at me, smirked, and pointed at the table in front of me. “You gonna keep staring at me or you gonna order something. I’m not on the menu.”

I-what? I wasn’t staring! Still, I quickly turned away from her, feeling heat in my cheeks. Then I glanced down at the table. There was another menu sitting there, so I picked it up and opened it, hoping to hide my face. I only got a giggle in response from the mare. “So, uh… Where am I exactly?” I asked.

“Oh, you got put into a magically induced sleep and now you’re dreaming. I just thought I’d pop in and offer you some advice. Now you gonna order or what? I don’t got all night.” Fine, fine. I looked through the menu and picked out a chicken and potato chowder. “Ah, nice choice. And perfect timing, our waitress is here.”

I turned and saw a dark blue pegasus mare walk over, dressed head to hoof in a maid uniform. “Hey, have you decided yet?” She asked. Somehow, she looked familiar...

“Yeah. I’ll have my usual, and the guest gets the chowder special.” The pink mare said, handing over our menus. She nodded and walked out.

“So what was with the outfit? This a maid cafe or something?” I asked.

That got a laugh out of her. “No, it’s just what she wears. It helps her think clearly.” She paused, grinning at me. “Though if you want, you can try one on too.”

The heat instantly returned to my face. “Th-that’s not what I-I don’t want to wear-”

Her laughter cut me off. “Oh don’t worry, I’m sure we can spare an outfit for you. They’re not my thing, but I’m sure you’ll love it.”

“Don’t even try it. The last thing I need is another identity crisis.” What was even with ponies wanting me in a maid outfit lately? Am I being punked by the universe?

She shrugged. “Eh, you’ll get used to it. I did.”

“What?”

She waved me off. “Eh. That’s a story for another day. But silly me, I haven’t introduced myself to you yet. I always forget that when dealing with alternate Sunnies,” she held out a hoof, “Strawberry Breeze, transdimensional scout and top-notch assassin.”

I shook her hoof. “I’m going to forget that, most likely. Sunshine, drifter I guess…”

Strawberry chuckled. “We call your type a Traveler. I guess drifter works too.”

“You with that other group? What was their name called again…?” Names escape me too easily.

“Calcutta? Pfft, such a silly name. No, not anymore. We’re a splinter group, with a little longer name: The Eques-verse Defense Bureau. Our goal is just the protection of those in our little section of the multiverse, rather than the whole thing. Easier that way.” The waitress came by some glasses of water, apologized for how late she was getting these to us, and left.

I took this opportunity to take a sip of water. “Why are you telling me all this? Isn’t this sort of thing classified?”

Strawberry shook her head. “Not to you, since you’ve been in contact with other groups. You get the privilege of knowing. You also deserve to know that Calcutta has stopped buying you time to get home, so you can’t go back.”

The spit take left my mouth before I could stop it. “WHAT!? What do you mean I can’t go back? I’ve been thrown all over the place, just trying to get home again. Now you’re telling me all the shit I’ve been through is for nothing?”

“You were deemed a low-priority asset, and so instead of a temporary replacement, they made it permanent. More efficient that way. Luna wasn’t happy with that decision either, but since Calcutta ditched the Eques-verse, they’ve phased out support missions involving Equestrian Travelers entirely. Now the EDB is left with picking up the slack.”

“Well that’s fucking bullshit. Do they not care?”

“Nope, but we do. That’s why we’ve broken our silence and come to you directly. We want to help. Well that and it seems your method of travel is quite inefficient and dangerous. Your pal Starry nearly got herself killed investigating the rift that was left behind after your last jump.”

“Is she okay?”

“Yeah, she should be fine in a day or two, and will be along to find you. But enough about that, I’m here to try and help you find your place in the multiverse. And it starts with your magic.” The waitress finally came by and delivered our meals. “For now, we’ll eat, then I can start putting you through some training exercises.”

“Training exercises? Like what?” I asked as I started eating the soup. It was good soup.

“What can you do with the magic you’ve been given? Lemme fix that, what have you already done?”

“Well… I made a dome shield, a sword, and I did a solarbeam…” I counted off the things I could remember doing at least.

“Okay, so you’re about where my Sunny was when she started her training. Alright then, it’s simple. We’ll run you through a year of basic training, a few years in some prestigious combat schools across the multiverse, and you’ll end up a pro in no time.”

I gave her a firm glare. “Yeah, how about no? I’m not doing that.”

Strawberry shrugged. “Well fine then. How about just a few classes on some of the cooler tricks you can do then? Maybe work on efficiency, get you moving faster, controlling your attacks better. What you’ve been doing so far is just down to instincts pre-planted within you.”

“How do you know so much anyway?” I asked, taking another spoonful of soup. It was about half done.

She just grinned at me knowingly. “Figure that one out for yourself. It’s not hard.”

Grumbling, I finished my soup. “Okay, then maybe you can answer this. Why do you care what happens to me - to us? We’re not exactly significant.”

“That’s likely true, but we’ve been doing this for a very long time. Sometimes we get bored and decide to play chessmaster, and sometimes we just want to help Travelers find their place in this grand cosmic ocean.” Strawberry reached out a hoof. “So how about it? Wanna find your place? Maybe even your destiny if you really believe in that?”

I looked down at my empty bowl, then back up at Strawberry, then down at her hoof. “I dunno… I’ll need some time to think it over…”

She smiled at me and retracted her hoof. “Take all the time you need. We’ve got eyes and ears on you, so if need be we can talk again anytime. Your friends will be along in a couple days too, and we can pass on a safer method of travel then. From there, the multiverse will be yours to explore as you see fit.”

I smiled back. “Thank you. I may not be able to go home, but…” Something about this opportunity fills me with emotion. Anticipation? Excitement? Not quite… “I’ll make the best of it.”

“See that you do.” She turned to the waitress, who had just returned. “Well it seems our time is up. Remember, please don’t try anything stupid. I can’t save you every time you fuck up. Moongleam, cut the dream link. Wake her up.” The wait-Moonlgeam nodded and she booped my snoot with her hoof. Everything went black for a moment as I found myself losing consciousness again.

When I opened my eyes again, I found myself lying on a cold stone floor, looking at a stone cold bitch. She was sitting on her bed, the crossbow was still in her hands, and she grinned when she noticed me. “Well hey there. Feeling comfortable?” She asked in a very teasing tone.

I was gonna sit up and answer, but I found I couldn’t move my legs. Or my head. Or really anything else. “C-could be better…” I managed to squeak out.

“Good.” She stood up and approached me, sitting in front of me. “I gotta admit, you’re a lot more tenacious than most hunting parties. The rest get scared off.”

“Well first, I’m not a hunting party. Second, everyone else must be a total moron, because it wasn’t hard at all to get here.”

She glared off to the left. “Tch. Those kids really botched this one.” She stood up again and went out of sight. “What about you? You’ve been quiet so far.” She asked someone apparently off to the side.

“I-I dunno… I don’t think I should get involved.” The offscreen character meekly replied. That voice did sound familiar though. Where have I heard it…

The girl sighed. “Ya know, I expected more from you. I hoped you’d be able to match that asshole who ruined my life, given you’re also one of those winged unicorns.”

Winged unicorns? You mean… “Cough Drop, that you over there?”

There was a short period of silence before a familiar yellow pony shuffled into view, her previously poofy orange mane now looking scragglier than mine. “It’s, um… It’s Lemon Drop…” She mumbled, not even making eye contact with me, preferring to look at her own hooves.

I was gonna make another snarky comment, but I took a moment to examine just how pathetic she looked. She must have realized it and flinched away. In the end, there was no snark, only confusion. “I’m… bad with names… Sorry.” She didn’t respond, but she shuffled a hoof in way not too different from how I would imagine Fluttershy would do it. “What happened to you? Last night-”

That got a response. “I don’t know!” She snapped, turning back towards me. “My thoughts were a jumbled mess. Whatever she did to me… It drove me mad. I never wanted to…” She trailed off, so I picked up from there.

“Rule over Earth with an iron hoof? Make me into your little plaything?” There was no malice in my voice, but she recoiled as if I punched her.

“I wasn’t thinking clearly! But then when the Elements were used on me, suddenly my thoughts cleared and I saw everything that I had done, that I had wanted to do…”

“Geez,” the girl had been sitting on the bed, listening to our chat, and finally spoke up, “I thought I had it bad. That’s fucked up.”

“Yeah, it is…” Lemon’s horn glowed and whatever was keeping me bound loosened, letting me move again. “Sunshine, I… I’m sorry. I don’t expect you to forgive me, but can I at least try to make it up to you? Who I was last night… That isn’t me.”

I chuckled. “I think that’s blatantly obvious. Don’t worry, I forgive you.”

“Wait, you do?” Lemon turned sharply to face me, bewildered. “Just like that?”

I nodded. “Just like that. I don’t hold a grudge. Grandma taught me not to hate when it’s better to love. And don’t get me wrong, I don’t love my enemies. But it’s not like I hate them. Except maybe Celestia. And Weaver.”

“Weaver?”

“Some kind of demigod or something in this world. Warps reality through the guise of storytelling. Brainwashed Ceru and Charcoal into going with that prick James. Nearly did the same to me.”

“So that’s how this all happened!” The girl stood up slamming the crossbow on the bed in anger. “I can’t believe that fuck used a god to summon me here just to make my life hell! He called our kind evil! Can you believe it? Made me into a monster in these ponies’ eyes and forced me into hiding!”

“Talk about the ultimate petty revenge.” I quipped.

“Hey, watch it bubblegum. I can still put a bolt through your ass.”

“Actually,” I summoned a small dome shield around me, just to show off, “you can’t.”

“Huh… Cool party trick.” She picked up the crossbow and calmly shot at the shield, which blocked the bolt. “You got any others?”

“A few.” I answered. “Not enough to fight against James. Not yet at least.”

“You want to… fight James? Have you seen what he’s done to those who cross him?” She loaded another bolt into the crossbow and set it down. “Whatever this Weaver guy gave him, it’s way too overpowered.”

“Yes, but if we can beat him, we can break whatever spell has been placed over Ponyville, making all the mares fall for him. Maybe you could even get home.”

She seemed to mull it over for a bit. “Fine… But we’ll need a plan. A good one.”

“What about you Lemon? You willing to help out? We could always use an alicorn on our side. Then after this, maybe we can start fresh. Put the weird megalomania behind us.”

Lemon nodded. “I dunno if I can actually stand up to him, but I’m in.”

“Great, as for you...” I turned to the girl. “I never got your name.”

“Oh, um, Jesse. It’s Jesse.”

“Huh. Fitting.” I shook my head. “Whatever, we need to come up with some sort of plan to get to Weaver… Any ideas?”

Silence.

“This is gonna be a long day…”

Practice Round

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It really wasn’t that long of a day. We spend the remainder of the evening brainstorming until Lemon brought up the idea of using me to infiltrate one of James’ parties. I quashed that idea quickly, refusing to spend more than five minutes near that guy. Then after a moment of silence, a few questions were asked. “You two seemed to get along when you captured me. What’s up with that?”

Lemon shrugged. “We were both lost souls looking for answers, and I had a sort of dream after getting hit with the Elements. A pink pony, telling me where to find Jesse.”

My ear twitched curiously. “Oh really? I had a dream involving a pink pony after you knocked me out. She offered me training with my magic.”

“Yeah, speaking of which, what was up with that weird glow? I’ve looked through the magic books, and they said nothing about pegasi doing that.” Jesse asked.

I threw up my hooves. “Now that! That’s a weird story I only know half of. Experimental magic serum. For making super soldiers. Or something. Fuck if I really know, or care. I just know I got injected with some of that shit and now I can shoot lasers.”

“And why didn’t you shoot me when I had you at the end of a crossbow?”

“First, I barely know how to use this power other than ‘think about doing it, and the magic does it.’ Second, I’m not a fucking psychopath.”

“Right. Fair enough…”

Things got quiet again after that, and with no further ideas thrown out, the three of us eventually retired for the night. Jesse gave Lemon and I a couple sleeping bags the CMC would use when they apparently went camping in the Everfree Forest, the dumbest idea if I’ve ever heard one, but I guess everyone in this world has the same low bar for intelligence as James. Then again, we’re camping out in the Everfree Forest…

Touché, world.

So with that in mind, we said our goodnights, made ourselves comfy, and went to bed. Or at least tried to. It took some fiddling to get my wings from folding uncomfortably in the bag. By then the others were fast asleep. “Typical. Can’t get comfy and I’m the last one to fall asleep. Just like my old campouts. Whatever, hopefully we’ll get something sorted out tomorrow...”

“Hey check that out!” Vinyl exclaimed, pointing towards a stage set up by the flower shop. “There’s one of those traveling magicians in town.”

I looked over the crowd that had gathered around the stage, and sure enough there a teal green unicorn mare alongside some magician’s props. Disappearing cabinets, sawed-in-half boxes, the works. Oddly enough there was an abundance of mirrors around the stage. “I know stage magicians are all about smoke and mirrors, but I think this one went too far in one direction.” I quipped, to Vinyl’s amusement.

“This one better not be like other magician.” Octavia grumbled. “I couldn’t stand that pompous attitude.”

Vinyl shrugged. “Eh, Trixie wasn’t that bad. Except for her showboating, lies, lackluster magic, destruction of Ponyville, enslavement of Ponyville… Okay, yeah. She was pretty bad.”

Ceru bounded ahead towards the stage. “Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s go see the show!”

As the rest of us followed, Lemon piped up. “What’s the deal with unicorns doing magic shows anyway? It’s not like Earth, magic is real here. No need to fake it.”

“Well it’s simple, really.” Starry said. “You see…”

…

“What do you think, Sis?” I asked, extending a hoof to her, which she took to help her stand up.

“I think you’re crazy to have done this… how many times now?”

“Um… let’s see… One, two, three… Fuck if I know, lost count at five.” I said with a shrug. Wave just looked at me weird, then walked over the railing and looked out at the wide open skies. “Pretty nice, huh? Probably the best world I’ve jumped to yet.”

“Yeah. Is this what it’s like being a pegasus? Seeing the whole world beneath your wings?” Wave asked, not looking back.

“I guess… I’ve only been this way for… what, a week? And I’ve only gotten to really enjoy the skies twice. Been grounded for the most part.”

“Yeah, I can imagine. Still hard to believe though…”

I flexed my wings as I joined Wave in leaning against the railing. I had to admit that the skies seemed to be calling me to play in them once again. But being so high up, I was rather reluctant to do so and leave my sister alone. Heh, did I really call her my sister? I guess I have been too quick to abandon my old life…

“Hey, Wave… I-”

…

“So what do ya think, doc? Can you do it?” Vinyl asked.

The cyan earth pony took one look at me, her gaze hovering over my wing, before chucking. “I’m no doc, except with machines. But yeah, we can do it. Oh, I suppose I need to introduce myself. Frosty Works, mechanic extraordinaire.” She held out a hoof.

I shook it happily, wincing as she somehow had a very powerful grip. “Sunshine, fuck-up extraordinaire.”

“Oh, now don’t go anything that. It’s not good for your self-esteem.”

I scoffed. “I lost that long ago. Been coasting off of insanity lately.”

“I can tell, if what Vinyl here said was true.” Frosty turned to her assistant, a light tan thestral mare. “Bronze, take this young lady’s measurements while I warm up the forge.”

Bronze gave an exaggerated salute and started gathering my measurements, while Wave looked about ready to cry. “I’m so relieved…”

…

What were those? Dreams? Maybe. Seemed too straightforward. Memories? Certainly not, even I’d remember that. Visions? Wouldn’t be the first time, but… “Wait, where am I?”

An endless starry void stretched all around me. No way to tell which was was up, down, left, or purple. Wait… “Is this the dreamscape?” If I was here, then…

“Clever observation, little one.” Came a regal voice from behind. Turning showed the obvious form of Princess Luna. “Here I walk through the dreams of my subjects, offering advice or quelling nightmares.” She walked past me and opened what I can best describe as windows of my previous dream flashes. “I must admit your dreams intrigue me. Divination is a rare talent exclusive to the magically gifted, and it’s never taken this form.”

“It’s not divination, Princess. It’s more like a precognitive dream, if that’s what this is. More psychic than magic. Don’t really care, anyway. These are nothing special.” I waved a hoof dismissively at the dream windows.

Luna looked between me and the dream windows as if thinking about trying to change my mind before sighing and closing them. “Seems so. I cannot gleam anything from these visions, as if they were merely random moments in time.”

Luna and I stood quietly in the starry void for a moment before an idea came to mind. “Can I use the dreamscape to sift through my memories?” Luna looked confused for a moment, but nodded. “Sweet!” I tried thinking about some of the more memorable events over the last few days, and a good few dozen windows open in front of me, each showing a different memory since I turned into a pony. Luna seemed to peer curiously at the various memories while I looked for one in particular.

“What is this memory? Did you make enemies with young Sparkle?” Luna asked. I looked over at the memory she was looking at. It was the one where Starry came to protect me from Twilight’s memory erasure.

Twilight narrowed her eyes at me. “The spell didn’t work? How? You don’t have any magic defenses. Either way, you lost. You don’t have any friends aside from those I made for you.” She said.

“That’s where you’re wrong!” A voice from the side said. We both turned and found Starry Night standing there, her horn glowed a deep blue. “I am her friend, and the stars say that her destiny is not yours to control.” She said.

Twilight ignored her and turned back to me. She fired a beam from her horn. I braced for it to hit me, but it never did. Starry Night deflected it with her magic. Twilight glared at the blue unicorn. “You must understand. Sunshine has reached status red. She can no longer go about freely.” She said, pointing at me.

“Kinda. Long story, you were there. Well, you from another universe.”

“You are from a parallel plane? Like the great hero Sir James?” Luna asked.

“Pfft, great hero my ass,” I scoffed. “But yeah, I’ve kinda been wandering around universes. Met a couple other versions of you.”

“You’d do well not to speak ill of the one who has saved our world more times than you could ever dream.” Luna warned, glaring at me.

“Yeah? Well maybe I can return the favor. Just looking for one memory in particular… Here!” I grabbed the window I was looking for and expanded it. It was my earlier conversation with James - and Weaver. I paid close attention as it played.

I skipped ahead a bit. This wasn’t what I was looking for.

I sighed. This wasn’t gonna be easy on me, was it? Fine, might as well dig deeper into his backstory. “So if you’re from the same world, how come you’re an alicorn and she’s not?”

That was it. Something about that was trying to click in my head. I knew I had the info somewhere in my head, I just needed to find it.

“Most likely. But what was that about a rescue? Aren’t you like an omnipotent, metaphysical being or something?”

“Hehe, no, pony. I do have a physical form, and I’m not omnipotent.”

I waved a hoof suddenly. “But waitwaitwait. Didn’t you say you could shape entire worlds? You’re an author, you’re supposed to be a god in the stories you write.”

Bingo. He said he has a physical form and was rescued by James. But how? The only thing James had to say was that he found the “Element of Virtue” during a vacation. Simply putting 2 and 2 together… Weaver was the Element! I finally had a target. Now came the hard part. Strawberry said that taking on James as I was would be suicide, but now if I were to save my friends, he directly stands in my way. And if I were to go a step further, I might be able to save the whole world from this fate.

“What were you looking for?” Luna asked, having moved beside me.

“The creator of this world, who stripped its inhabitants of free thought, to be puppets dancing on the strings of one arrogant teenager.” I stated.

“Sir James? But he is a hero, not a villain.”

“I know that, but the one who made him a hero is, no matter what he may claim to be otherwise. And I may end up looking like the biggest villain of all, but I will do my best to save my friends from this god-pretender.” This was silly, foolhardy, even downright insane, but somewhere in my head I knew it had to be done.

“And how will you do that?”

“I have no idea!”

A couple more windows floated by, showing my first time meeting Charcoal and Ceruline. Luna and I both shared a look through these memories. “These ponies, they are your friends?”

I nodded. “Yes, and they’re in trouble.”

“How do you know?”

I paused, looking back at the previous memory of what led me to seek out Jesse. Was I too hasty in thinking they were under Weaver’s control? Were they in or out of their usual character?

Both their eyes shifted to James, then back to me. “Yeah, who’s your… friend?” Ceru asked back, an almost strained smile on her face.

Out of character, definitely. I had to do something or I risk losing them to James and Weaver. “It’s a gut feeling, Princess. I just know I have to try.”

Luna put a hoof on my shoulder, looking stern but supportive. “Your loyalty to your friends is commendable. But you must know the trouble you will be in should you be wrong, or fail. James may have shown me mercy, but he did not show others that he faced the same. My sister and the Elements may try to stop you as well.”

“I’ve spent this long running from them once before. If push comes to shove, I might not be able to run from them again. I’ll just have to take them as they come.” I paused, looking up at Luna. “Unless you’d be willing, under the guise of plausible deniability, to offer a distraction.”

“I’m not sure about this creator, and even less sure about posing yourself as a villain towards our greatest hero, but on the off chance you’re right… I’ll keep Celestia from interfering, at least. When do you plan on making your move?”

“Couple days, tops. I’m thinking I need to train and come up with a proper battle strategy. That won’t happen quickly, but I can’t take too long.”

Luna nodded. “Okay. I might be able to separate Sparkle and her friends from Sir James for that long. Should you be successful in saving Equestria from this god-pretender, you will have my thanks. If you’re wrong…” she glared at me again, her form briefly shifting to a more Nightmare-like one, “there will be nowhere in this world or any other you will be able to hide from our wrath.”

“...Duly noted…”

…

The Dreamscape quickly fell away and I woke to a face full of sleeping bag. After some flailing to get out of said bag, I noticed that Jesse and Lemon were already up. Lemon was even cooking eggs and bacon on a camping stove. “Morning ya butts. What’s up with the food? Where’d you get actual bacon?”

“Yanked some stuff from a Walmart back home. Hopefully no one saw me.” Lemon answered, not looking back. “Morning, by the way.”

I blinked. “Wait, you can go go to another world and back?” Sure she used her power to steal something, but it was fine as long as she wasn’t caught, right?

She nodded. “Yeah, I have a somewhat more stable version of the spell your friends have been using to try and catch up with you.” I wasn’t aware of what kind of spell my friends had, but if Lemon had that kind of power, why didn’t she leave? She could have gone anywhere, so why stay with us? “Alright, it’s done. Come and get it.”

Lemon passed both Jesse and I a paper plate with scrambled eggs and bacon, as well as a cup of orange juice. “There will be no leftovers, as we’ll need to keep any potential hungry creatures from nosing out the camp.”

“Here here,” Jesse said, raising her cup, “though I wouldn’t be adverse to some bait to lure in future meals.”

We settled down to enjoy our breakfasts, but something nagged at me. “Lemon, you were part of Operation: Harmonize, weren’t you?”

She paused, slowly nodding. “Yeah. They captured me, transformed me, rushed my conditioning, then sent me after you.”

“Figured… Were you meant to become an alicorn?”

She shrugged. “Dunno. If I wasn’t, they never told me. Or if they did I forgot.”

“One more question. You know who you were before? Just curious.”

She raised an eyebrow at me, but answered anyway. “A trucker, named Tyler.”

I froze. “The Tyler who had the RV with Lyra? That one?”

She nodded. “Yup… Small world, huh?”

“Yup… Sorry about losing the RV, I have no idea what happened to it. And… good to see you again, I guess.”

She chuckled weakly. “Yeah. It’s fine, I don’t plan on going back for it anyway.”

“You sure?” Jesse asked. “If you aren’t interested in it, I sure am. Beats having my bedroom transported to this old castle.”

“If we can find it, sure. You can have it.”

“Sweet!”

The rest of breakfast was quiet. Afterwards, Lemon put all the scraps and trash in a pile and was about to cast a spell when I had an idea. “Hold up, I wanna try something.” With mumbled acceptance, she stepped back as I approached the trash pile. Focusing on the magic inside me, I noticed I had a lot of energy stored still. Maybe energy collection was passive rather than active. So I took as much of it as I could, focused it into the shape of a mallet, compressed and heated that mallet up to the point where it looked like plasma, then grasped it with a hoof and slammed it onto the trash. When I lifted the mallet, only a scorch mark remained on the stone floor. “There ya go, I guess. A little scrubbing and it’ll be good as new.”

“Wow,” Jesse commented as I dispelled the mallet and felt the energy return to me, “lasers and plasma mallets? Superpower lottery winner, this one.”

“I hope not. The lottery is a curse.” I remarked. “I just felt like I needed some practice with my new magic. And I’m gonna need a lot more if I want to take on James.”

They both looked stunned, so I filled them in on my dream. The visions faded pretty quickly from my memory but the talk with Luna I remembered. “...So I figured I’d train today and, ready or not, take him on tomorrow so I can try and take down Weaver.”

They both sat silently, contemplating for a moment. “You’re nuts,” Jesse eventually said, “I like nuts. How can I help?”

“Me too. I want to try and make up for what I did. I want to help.” Lemon said, standing up. “And I have an idea how. Follow me.”

Lemon and I took off towards what seemed to be a courtyard on the outskirts of the ruins. It was nice and open, perfect for testing the limits of magic. Jesse found her way to us shortly after. “So, what’s the plan?” She asked, taking a seat on a rock.

“I say we play Mythbusters. Er, Magicbusters, I guess.” I suggested. “Basically we take an idea of what we want to try, and treat it like a science experiment. Hypothesis, experiment, gather data, and repeat. Only issue is figuring out a control.”

“Okay,” Lemon agreed, “what’s the first myth?”

“Well… What exactly are the properties of my light magic? Am I actually taking photons and either solidifying them or turning them into plasma? Or is it something more akin to raw magical energy?”

“That’s something we might be able to test. I don’t know how we’d be able to measure it though. None of us are experts on mana or aether or any of those other magical terms.” Lemon said.

“We’ll also need to take measurements. So for that, it might be worth a trip to gather writing materials. Maybe a tape measure.” Jesse added.

“Right. Lemon and I can head into town and grab some supplies. Jesse, could I ask you to to maybe sweep up the courtyard? We’ll be working with a lot of heat, and I don’t want any fires starting accidentally.” Jesse nodded, and went back to her camp, coming back with a broom and a small bag of bits which Lemon took. “Much appreciated.”

Lemon donned a poncho to hide her wings and I donned my visor because it looks cool. The blue tint it gave my sight was gonna take a bit of getting used to though. Then with a flash of magic and a pop, Lemon teleported us to the edge of the Everfree. “Alright, I’ll grab the supplies. You head to the library. Figure out what we need to know to make proper tests. I’d say even ask Twilight if she’s home.” Lemon instructed.

I nodded in agreement. I didn’t really want to meet Twilight again, and even worse would be meeting James again. However, we needed to know what we were doing. Performing these experiments blind was worse than not doing them at all. “Alright, meet back here in half an hour?”

“More or less, sure.”

And with that, we went our separate ways. I didn’t actually remember how to get to the library, but wings made that irrelevant. When I got there, the place seemed oddly empty. Well, it usually was, I guess. So I began browsing magic books for some of the more scientific material needed. And wow who knew you could treat magic as a science?

It turns out the place wasn’t so empty after all, as a little purple lizard came walking in. Finally, my first meeting with Spike! It wasn’t really all that exciting, actually. “Hey there, can I help you?” He asked.

“Oh, uh, yes. I was here yesterday looking for magic research material. I’m looking for something more. Doing some experiments and I need to know what I’m doing.”

“Hmmm…” Spike gazed around the bookshelves. “What kind of experiments?"

"Whether light or solar-based magic utilizes properties separate from more traditional kinds of magic. Then I guess we’d go from there.”

“Huh…” Spike grabs a blue book from the shelf entitled Magical Energies and Properties. “Here, this should be what you’re looking for. You looking for any help with your experiments? I may not be Twilight, but I’m not her Number One Assistant for nothing.”

I wanted to say yes, but since we were working with one of Equestria’s most wanted, I’d wager that letting Spike come would be a bad idea. “I don’t think so. Twilight needs her best assistant, right?”

Spike seemed to visibly deflate. “Oh. Um, not really… Since James came along, she’s been talking less and less to me…”

I scowled. Well that wasn’t right. James was hurting Spike’s relationship with Twilight? This wasn’t my job to fix, but… “You know wh-”

I froze mid-sentence when the door opened and Twilight walked in, looking… very disheveled. “Hey Spike... You mind getting a shower started?” She asked, her voice dripping with exhaustion.

Spike jumped, rushing over to Twilight. “T-Twilight! What happened?”

“I, um, had a run-in with a monster…” She answered noncommittally.

My bullshit meter was spiking, but I guess Spike’s wasn’t as finely tuned. “What?! Are the other girls okay? What about James? I would have thought he could take care of it. Weren’t you supposed to be with him?”

She nodded. “They’re fine, Spike. I just need to get cleaned up. Then I can, uh, get back to the others.”

Spike nodded and ran upstairs, leaving me alone with Twilight. She turned to me, and must have spotted the book I was holding. “Studying magic?”

“Yeah, a friend and I are gonna do some experiments. Figure out the properties of certain kinds of magic. Should be fun.”

She seemed to perk up at the word experiments. “Really? Mind if I tag along?”

Absolutely not. For many, many reasons. “No, I think we got it. Besides, shouldn’t you be heading back to James as soon as you can?”

“I-uh, yeah, I guess...” For a moment she looked dejected, before Spike came back, announcing the shower was ready. “Thanks Spike, you’re the best assistant I could ask for.”

“Aw, thanks Twi. You know you can count on me.” Spike smiled, and Twilight returned the feeling.

“Always.” She said before running upstairs to shower.

Those two need to reconnect. Hopefully when I take care of Weaver they’ll have that chance. With book in hoof, I left the library and made for the rendezvous spot. I was early, so I spent a few minutes fiddling with a stick, pretending it was a sword. Eventually Lemon showed up as well, carrying a bag of supplies. “Hey, were you followed?”

Lemon shook her head. “No, you?”

“Hopefully not. Twilight seemed to be acting shifty when she came in to take a shower, but I left while she was still in there, so I doubt she could have followed me.”

“Alright, let’s go then.” Lemon lit up her horn, and with another pop, we were back at the castle courtyard. It looked a lot cleaner too, not as much dirt and leaves everywhere.

“Hey, welcome back. Got the place nice and cleaned up. Got the goods?” Jesse asked, to which Lemon answered by floating the bag to her. “Alright, I think we’re set.”

“Sweet, let’s bust some magic. Jesse, take notes. Experiment one: What the fuck is my magic made of?”

The next half hour was spent absorbing light, concentrating light, forming constructs, and all the while Lemon took measurements with both tools and magic. Eventually we figured out that while my magic was actual light, there were two odd things about it. First, I could manipulate the light around me without having to absorb it directly by just reaching out to it. It wasn’t too accurate, but we could work on that, and it wasn’t draining at all as long as I had a steady source of sunlight. The second was the magic itself. There was none. At all. No mana was present in the light I projected. It was pure light, and somehow I could treat it like both energy and matter.

That was the best part, actually. I could absorb and fire it like a laser or manipulate it like matter, forming light into a solid or plasma state. Though I quickly learned it will not stay in a plasma state for long without an electromagnetic field to hold it. Getting light into a liquid or gas form has proven beyond my reach somehow. Probably because I can’t wrap my head around how I’d use it. Lamps, lasers, plasma, swords, shields… All these I get, and can easily use. Liquid light? What the fuck would I use that for? A drink? Fuck if I know what that would taste like.

“So we know two things from our experiments. One: the ability to manipulate light is extremely versatile, and quite handily breaks the rules of matter. At least as far as I know. Two: it’s all somehow done without without any mana usage at all.” I summarised.

“So how do you wanna call this?” Jesse asked.

I sighed. “I’m gonna say it’s not magic. Not in any traditional sense anyway. Maybe it is when it’s in me, but not out of me. So I’m saying it’s more like an extraordinary ability than a magical one.”

“Extraordinary?”

“Yeah, a non-magical ability. What, you never played a tabletop game?” Lemon remarked.

“...You’re both nerds.”

“Good. I’d hate to be anything else.” I countered, giving Lemon a hoof bump.

Okay, with that settled, we moved onto how much power I could store and release. And let me fucking tell you something about that…

“Okay… Maybe try blowing up the forest… slightly less.” Lemon said, staring at a 15-meter wide crater in the forest outside the courtyard while I hovered above.

“What? You wanted me to put as much energy as I could into that shot. That was about all I had. Look, see? Even my butt stopped glowing.”

Oh yeah, that was another thing I learned. My Cutie Mark glows when I channel light. It was about the only detectable source of magic we had, and we used how brightly it glowed as an indicator of my internal light reserves. Since it stopped glowing that meant I was running empty. And then that fact hit me like a truck, along with a wave of exhaustion that nearly sent me crashing to the ground if Lemon hadn’t caught me.

“You alright?” She asked.

I nodded weakly. “Yeah… I think. Guess power is tied to stamina.”

So we took a break for lunch while I charged my batteries, so to speak. Lemon had whipped up some pretty tasty sandwiches and we were sitting down in the courtyard to enjoy them when the sound of hoofsteps echoed from elsewhere in the castle. “Damnit… Got a visitor.” Jesse muttered. “Looks like I won’t be joining you for further testing. Sucks being a fugitive.”

“Well hopefully after tomorrow you won’t be anymore. Now get going and hopefully they won’t spot you.” Lemon said, shooing her away.

After Jesse left, we finished our food and once again incinerated any trash. “Right-o, feeling better now. What say we work on reflexes?”

“How do you propose we do that?”

“Fire some sort of spell at me, and I’ll try to summon a shield to block or deflect it.” It often took a few seconds for me to gather or charge the energy needed for me to do anything with my magic, and if I were to pull this suicide mission off, I had to get that down to a second or less.

“Alright.” She agreed, and we took positions on opposite ends of the courtyard. “Ready or not, here I come!”

She fired off an ice bolt at me, and I know it was an ice bolt because I was too slow and took it right in the chest. Stung like a motherfucker. “Dammit, go again.” Another bolt, another failure to block, but that one missed. “Again!” She fired another bolt, which finally impacted against a properly timed shield. “Ha! Yes!” And when I put the shield down, Lemon decided to immediately throw another bolt at me, which nailed me straight in the snoot. “Ah! Fuck!” As I wiped the frost off my face, I heard Lemon laughing. “Yeah yeah, yuk it up.”

“That’s not me.”

We looked around, and spotted a certain lavender unicorn approaching me. “Sorry, I know you said you didn’t need my help, but I was curious about your experiments.”

“How’d you find us?” Lemon asked, glaring daggers at Twilight.

“It wasn’t easy. After my shower you had already left, so I had to figure out where you were conducting your experiments.” Twilight began explaining, but Lemon cut her off.

“No, how’d you find us?” She repeated.

Twilight looked at Lemon for a moment, then sighed. “I’ll admit, it was a bit of guesswork and a hunch. Tracking across dimensions is surprisingly difficult.”

Oh, this was our Twilight, the one who was responsible for our transformations. I knew my bullshit meter was spiking earlier. “So what brings you to us now? Looking to finish the job yourself?”

Twilight recoiled, shaking her head quickly. “No no, nothing like that. I just… I wanted to apologize properly. In person. I’ve done some terrible, unforgivable things to both of you… But I’ve changed. I want to make it right.”

“Oh, you want to make it right, huh?” Lemon snarled. “How about we twist you into a form you don’t recognize as your own, scramble your mind, and turn you into a megalomaniac?! How’s that for a start?!”

“Lemon, stop. Please.” I pleaded.

“Stop? Why should I stop? She didn’t! It’s thanks to her that I almost became a monster!”

“Well since she’s here, she did stop. And you can hold a grudge as long as you want. However you’re wasting energy you should be saving for the fights that actually matter.”

“Oh, so you’re just gonna forgive her?”

“Of course not, but I said before I don’t hold grudges. I don’t accept her apology either. Talk is cheap.” I walked up to Twilight, who looked about ready to cry from Lemon’s beratement. I wasn’t about to help that, as I formed a paddle of light in my hoof and slapped her in the face with it. “That’s for not letting me take home any leftover pizza.”

Twilight recoiled from the slap, apparently not expecting it from her confused look. Turning around, Lemon had an equally baffled expression. I couldn’t help but laugh. “What? You expected something else? Bitch I take my pizza deadly seriously.”

“Fair enough, I guess…” Twilight said, rubbing her cheek. “But I have a question… I sent your friends along to help you. What happened to them?”

“Ahhhh, finally…” Vinyl sighed, stretching her legs in the Ponyville sun. “We’ve finally caught up to her again.” She gazed around the open field. “So where are they?”

“I’m not sure…” Starry lit her horn and released a blue pulse of magic. “Her magic signature is all over this area, so she was here. Maybe within the last day.”

“Okay, but that still doesn’t answer the question. Where is Sunny now? And the others? And that nutso alicorn too?”

“Vinyl, please calm yourself.” Octavia placed a hoof on her friend’s shoulder. “I’m sure they’re nearby.”

“Yeah, but… You feel like we might be walking into a battle for the fate of the world?”

Octavia shook her head. “Can’t say I do. But if there is such a battle, I’ll buy you a drink. How about that?”

“Yeah, sure. Now let’s get going.”

I'm Not Ready for This

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“Oh, so that’s why you’re here on your own…” Twilight mused. The three of us had taken a juice break as I told Twilight about the events up to this point. “I can’t imagine that… Me, an alicorn?”

“Really, that’s what stuck with you? Not the far future world with its own Element bearers or the world we’re in now, run by a sick-in-the-head puppetmaster and a harem anime protagonist?” I had to ask. I even took off my visor and showed it to her. “Come on, this is cool at least, right? A nice souvenir?”

Twilight nodded absentmindedly. “Yeah, sure… But that one detail just kinda stuck with me because I wonder… What did I do in that world to deserve such an honor? ”

I shrugged. “Who knows. Maybe you could earn it yourself if you play your cards right.”

Twi shook her head, but I’m not sure if it was to clear her head or just her denying it. “It doesn’t matter now. Worrying about the what-ifs doesn’t help any of us, and I shouldn’t go searching for power I didn’t earn. Besides, I came here to help you.”

“That’s what I don’t get. Why track me down and offer your help? Is this some sort of apology for everything?” I asked.

“Yes and no.” Always a catch with this mare, I swear. “It’s complicated… But I figured the best way to apologize is to help you get home again. Though… I’m sorry to hear that isn’t an option anymore.”

I snorted and turned away, not pleased by that reminder. “Yeah, well I hope you’re sorry. This whole mess is your fault after all.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Twilight visibly flinch at that. “I know… I want to somehow make it right by you. Both of you.” She put a hoof to her chin. “But the mare you described to me… I wonder if she’s the same one I met.”

“You ripped us away from our homes and tried to make us into cutesy pastel soldiers for a would-be tyrant.” Lemon growled, standing up. “I’d say that exempts you from any forgiveness.”

I held a wing out towards Lemon. “Okay, Lemon. Cool your tots. Anger gets us nowhere. Besides, you probably still have a home to go back to.” Lemon huffed, but sat back down. “And Twilight. You’re saying you met this mare too?”

She nodded. “Yeah, back when we were researching dimensional magic, she showed up, gave me some notes she had on the subject, and left. Never found out who she was or how she got those notes, but if she’s the same mare you saw in that dream, it makes sense.”

“Odd, but that’s for future Twilight to worry about.” Lemon huffed. “Let’s focus on this Weaver guy for now. Anyone got a plan to deal with him?”

The next morning, Twilight and I stood on a hill overlooking Ponyville. We both had our manes done up in ponytails, at her insistence. Something about us not getting mixed up with any alternate selves. I had also left my visor with Lemon. “Alright, you remember the plan?” She asked me.

I nodded. “Yeah, you just had to remind me twice. Don’t worry, it’s probably settled in my head. Probably.”

Twilight sighed. “I suppose that will have to do. I have my doubts about the plan though. Are you sure it will work?”

I sighed as well. “I really hope so.” Looking down at Ponyville, I wasn’t feeling as confident as I was yesterday. What if I can’t get close to him? What if I can’t act my way out of a paper bag? What if we can’t get Weaver separated from James? What if we can’t overpower him? What if everything I’ve thought was wrong?

“Sunny?” Twilight’s voice snapped me out of my thoughts. “Are you sure you can do this?”

“Nope, but if I don’t do this now I will break down and never get it done. So let’s just do this shit before I have a panic attack.”

“Panic attack? I didn’t picture you to be the kind of pony to get anxiety like that.”

“No, but I’ve been under a lot of stress lately and it’s starting to catch up hard. After this, I want to find somewhere I can relax for the next forever.” I stated matter-of-factly.

Twi rolled her eyes. “We can probably grab some ice cream afterwards. Will that be enough?”

“Probably. As long as you’re buying.”

“Fine.” Twilight looked towards the sky. “We should hurry. The letter I sent will only buy us so much time.”

So this is me making a decision that will change lives. Making an impact. I hope I don’t fuck it up… “Okay, let’s go then.” I sighed, and we walked together into Ponyville.

Ponyville was… okay, hear me out. It felt artificially lively. Ponies wandered about, and I noticed they were actually aimless. I caught a discussion between two ponies, and they literally just sounded like a formless background conversation. A group of fillies just giggled and kicked a ball around. I tried asking them what was so funny and they didn’t know, but went back to giggling anyway as though the ball was telling them funny jokes.

“It’s all a backdrop. A stage.” I heard Twilight say behind me. “None of these ponies know what they’re doing, or why they’re doing it. It’s just to set a scene.”

“This isn’t right. Were they like this yesterday?” I may or may not have forgotten. Don’t judge me.

“No, ponies seemed normal yesterday.”

A sinking feeling crept into my gut. “This is a setup for something. Either we’re expected or we’re going to interrupt something Weaver’s planning. Either way, I don’t like it.”

“I admit, not the best start, but we can work around it.” Twilight said, trying to sound confident.

“You know what they say. No plan survives first contact…” I murmured, and Twilight nodded in understanding.

“If I had a bit for every plan that fell apart at the beginning…”

We split up, Twilight heading for the library. My target was Sugarcube Corner, but as I was walking, I saw something… odd. A dark red unicorn mare with a wild and spiky dark blue mane was pushing what looked like an oversized 90’s PC with not one, but two lasers sticking out of the top at odd angles. An amplifier was literally duct taped to the side, and what I am very sure was a toy rocket had been jammed into the middle of the amplifier. The unicorn stopped in the middle of the road and wiped the sweat off her brow, while ponies around her continued on as if this was completely normal. And while normally I’d agree with them, or just not care, my current situation deemed this as worth investigating.

I gave the unicorn a wave as I approached. She seemed to notice and gave a small wave back. “Hey,” I greeted, then had to ask, “what’s up with this? Some kind of new-age art exhibit?”

Whatever I was expecting, it wasn’t what she actually said. Or should I say he said, because It was definitely a stallion’s voice coming out of that mare’s mouth. “Actually no. It’s something I’ve been tinkering with for a few days. Still untested, but with the scale of what I’m trying to accomplish, I couldn’t afford to risk getting discovered.” He turned to the contraption and fiddled with the dials on the amplifier as I pondered the pony in front of me.

“So… What is this, exactly?” I asked again. “Where’d you get this stuff to make it?”

“Occasional rifts in reality between our world and the human world have deposited a few things here and there. I’ve found what I can, and with a few dozen spell matrices mixed in, I’ve made what I like to call the Reality Normalizier!” He said with a flourish at the end.

“Riiiiight… What’s it do?”

“It should correct the alterations in reality brought upon us by the dimensional interlopers. Ya know, James and his tagalong Jesse.”

“Really?” I wondered, feigning ignorance. “What did they do?”

He grumbled and gestured to himself. “Well for one thing, I used to be a respected professor at Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns. Now I’m some sort of mad scientist who goes crazy at the mere sight of that alicorn.”

“Seems to me it’s more James than Jesse doing that. I found out what’s really causing the changes.”

That got his attention, as he teleported right in front of me. “What!? You know what’s causing the abnormalities in reality?”

I gently but firmly pushed his face away from mine. “Yes. That is what I just said.”

He backed up quickly, looking embarrassed by his outburst. “S-sorry. I just needed to know for sure. So then, what is it? This kind of knowledge could save our world.”

“O-oh, right.” Would Weaver know if I spoke his name aloud? Shit, did I already speak his name before? I can’t remember! “W-well it’s-”

“Look who decided to show their face in Ponyville again...” I froze as I heard the voice of James behind me. And he sounded pissed. Fuuuuuuuck… Not now! “Dr. Eclipse, I thought I made it very clear to you that the next time I saw you again would be the last, didn’t I?” I turned around to see him decked out in almost ethereal armor, glaring daggers at the red pony. Eclipse, apparently.

And then I heard cackling. I turned back and Eclipse’s demeanor had completely changed. “You fool!” Also his voice had changed, sounding more like a crazy mare’s voice. “You have fallen right into my trap!” Oh right. He mentioned he turns into a mad scientist when he sees James. He did not mention that he turned into a mare as well. Well, he already looked like one. He, or she stood on top of her machine. “And now my greatest creation, the Internetinator! With it, I shall project your world’s internet right into the minds of every pony in Ponyville!”

Internet...inator… What the actual seven fucks is this lunatic going on about? Whatever it was, it seemed to scare James, so I guess it was good. “No! You’ll drive everypony insane! No single mind can handle that much porn!” Ooooooof course he went there… “I’ll stop you, once and for all!”

“I don’t think so, not this time.” I felt the pull of magic lift me up, and before I knew it Eclipse had me grappled by the neck. Fuck, here we go again… “I have your new little marefriend here, and a very unfortunate fate will befall her if you even so much as light that horn of yours.” She made sure to emphasize that threat by tightening the magic grip around my neck very painfully. I flailed around, trying to get free or even get a breath in, but because magic is fucking cheating I had no luck. Then the grip loosened and I went limp, panting for air. I looked back at James and saw he had taken a step back.

Well fine, if he’s no help, I’ll have to find someone who can. My eyes scanned the crowd, hoping to see Twilight, but she wasn’t there. Wait, was this crowd always here? And it’s full of mares… An absolutely moronic plan formed in my mind, so stupid it just might work. “Hey everypony! First one to stop this nutcase gets a free kiss from James!”

“What?”

“What!?”

“Yeah!” And with a rousing chorus of screams, the crowd charged. I saw earth ponies kicking and pounding on the machine while unicorns threw objects from afar. Eclipse looked around, shocked that the crowd was attacking, and James looked equally bewildered. I gave a smug grin of satisfaction as a pegasus charged right for the madmare, but was blocked by a shield. Another one came from behind though, tackling Eclipse to the ground and releasing her grip on me.

I fell onto the machine butt first and felt myself push something. Sitting up, I saw it was a big red button. Sorry, a big red self-destruct button. “Was that always ther-” My wondering was cut off as the machine exploded, sending everyone flying backwards. Well everyone but me, who got the deluxe treatment by getting sent flying straight towards James.

The feeling of magic around me came back as James caught me. Once again, squirming my way out did nothing to help as he brought my face close to his. “Well, if it isn’t my dear little ray of sunshine. Love what you did with your mane.” He glanced back over at the dazed, but unharmed crowd. “I guess you won. Now for your prize.” Shit shit shit, I don’t want a kiss from you, creeper!

“Well, if it isn’t my dear little ray of sunshine.” The image was there. Brief, but clear in my mind. A certain brown, muscular pervert who wouldn’t leave me alone. It flashed through my mind, and I felt like I was in his grasp yet again...

“No!” I think I panicked a little at the thought of Stud Muffin, because the next thing I knew I was lying on the ground and James was nowhere to be seen. Wait, there he was, climbing out of a hole in the wall of a building across the street.

Shit, I shot him with my laser face didn’t I?

“What. The hell. Was that?” James said as he got back up and dusted himself off. “Your friends mentioned you had some kind of superpower, but that… That actually hurt.”

“Good.” I spat.

“What? What’s wrong with you?”

“Oh, nothing. I’m just tired of being treated like a damsel to be rescued, like a prize to be won. I’m tired of running, and I’m sick and tired of fucking perverts like you!” I felt the energy build inside again as I ranted, and couldn’t catch it in time to prevent me firing again at James. This time he deflected it with a shield, sending the beam straight into the air. Welp, I guess that’s one way to signal Twilight…

“I think I see now…” James said as his armor covered him further and a sword appeared in his magic. “You’re the villain of this day, driven mad by your power. Now I have to save you.”

I felt my eye twitch at his sheer stupid. “What? Where did you even get that crazy idea? Who’s feeding you this bullshit?” Oh right, Weaver. I still gotta separate them… Good job me, you fucked up the stealth option.

“Enough! I will not face these insults without challenge.” The gem on his chest -Weaver- fired a rainbow beam at me, which I just dodged out of the way of. Then another beam fired at me, and I put up a shield of my own to block it. A third beam fired that I took to the air to dodge. “Come on, didn’t you say you were tired of running? Fight!”

Oh trust me, I was going to. I needed to see what he was capable of first. Check for weaknesses. Maybe he realized it and was trying to goad me into fighting, into making a mistake. “Not gonna happen, bucko. I’m not stupid.” I said, crossing my hooves. Of course, when he spread his wings, I realized I made a bit of a mistake. “Oh, right…”

He took off, straight for me, his sword prepped for a swing at me. I met his blade with my own, and for a moment I felt proud of myself for blocking his attack. Then that moment passed, as the alicorn that was almost twice my size continued his swing, treating my mass as though it were insignificant and tossing me through the air onto a cloud. “Fuck… Okay, no more swordfighting this guy…” I mumbled to myself as I got back up. My only viable method of attack was from a distance.

I took to the air again and dodged another beam. He’s not relenting, is he? I fired back with a beam of my own, which he dodged. I fired again, and he blocked it with his sword. Okay, this is getting me nowhere. I need a better plan.

Going back down to the streets of Ponyville, I ignored the shouts of James as I went looking for Twilight. Two-on-one was much better odds. It didn’t last long, as I felt myself panting, and ducked into an alley. Sitting down for a moment, I could feel the ache in my limbs, and a slight burning in my lungs. Damn, I’m not cut out for this, am I? What was I thinking? I wasn’t, really.

Unfortunately my thoughts were interrupted by the sound of hooves behind me, and I threw myself the ground to avoid a swing from his sword. “The hell, man? I thought you wanted to save me, not cut my head off!”

James stood over my prone position, looking dissatisfied. “I channel the Elements of Harmony through my blade. It’d only kill you if the Elements wanted you dead.”

“That doesn’t make it any better!” And then I realized too late my mistake. I’m on the ground in a prone position in front of a big alicorn with a sword. I’m really batting a thousand today, aren’t I? Then I glanced down at his chest. Weaver was completely exposed. Wait a minute, this is my chance! The energy I had built up was getting rather low, that was probably why I had gotten so tired so quickly. So I only had one, maybe two good shots left in me. Here goes nothing… I closed my eyes, gathered as much energy as I could, ignoring the fatigue the rest of my body was feeling…

“So you concede then? Fine, then the Elements shall judge you.”

...and unloaded it all straight into James’ chest.

There was a flash of light visible even through my closed eyes, I heard a bang and a cry of pain, then a crash. I tried to open my eyes, but all my body wanted to do was rest. Come on… not now…

Then there was another weaker flash and the familiar tingle of magic. Before I could panic again, another flash came with the feeling of dizziness. “You should be safe now, he won’t think to look here.” I heard Twilight’s voice say. I finally mustered the strength to open my eyes, and found myself looking at the ceiling of the library. Twilight’s bedroom, to be exact. I breathed in, preparing a sigh of relief, then I held it when Twilight’s face came into view. She looked pissed. “What were you thinking? Fighting him wasn’t part of the plan!”

“I wasn’t thinking… Not after having a flashback of that prick Stud Muffin. I panicked, shot him, then tried to prove I wasn’t weak...” I slowly sat up, my body protesting all the while.

“Trying to prove you weren’t weak?” Twilight parroted. “To who, me? Him?”

I shook my head. “Myself, I think. I don’t think I did a very good job.”

“Clearly not. But it’s fine. We just need to regroup, come up with a new plan, try again once this all blows over. I’ll see if I can get a checklist sorted.” Twilight said, probably more to herself than me.

“No, we need to press the advantage.” I protested.

Twilight shot me a look that screamed ‘are you stupid?’ “You want to continue fighting? In your state?”

“If we don’t take care of Weaver now, they’ll be more defensive when we try again. We may not be able to beat him next time. We need to finish this before they have a chance to recover.”

“You need to recover first! And I most certainly will not try and fight him myself. Reality-warping Element of Harmony aside, he’s an alicorn!”

I slowly stood up and walked to the window. Looking outside, I saw the glimmer of light that was James flying around, very likely looking for me. I also felt the warmth of the sun again, and some of the fatigue left me as my body absorbed the sun’s light. “Whew, that’s better.” I turned back to Twilight. “Just gimme a few minutes. Sunlight seems to restore my energy.”

Twilight tilted her head, then produced a notebook and pen. “Interesting… Your body’s vitality is connected to your energy reserves? And both are replenished by sunlight?”

I nodded. “Seems that way. Quite quickly too, but it is also used up quickly.”

“Then this might just work. We’ll need Lemon here too. Her magic may not be as strong, but it could give us the edge we need. Stay here, wait until we get back, and absorb as much energy as you need.” Twilight said. She lit her horn and vanished in a flash of magic.

So I stood there at the window for a few minutes, enjoying the light and the view, when I saw James looking this way. Shit, I left myself exposed! I quickly ducked down and curled up in the sunbeams. Yes, like a cat. Don’t see me don’t see me don’t see me… I layed there for a moment before risking a peek outside again. James was no longer looking my way, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

And then I jumped as I heard a flash of magic behind me. “Sunshine, we’re back.” Twilight said. Getting too jumpy... “Sunshine?” I turned back around to greet her, and saw Lemon there with her.

“I’m fine, you just startled me.” I said, taking a breath. “Trying not to let the stress get to me.”

Twilight seemed to look around for a moment before setting eyes on me and squinting really hard, in a way that made me uncomfortable. “Sunshine, is that you?”

“Who else would I be, the pizza guy? Do I need to deliver hot and cheesy goodness in 30 minutes or less?” I huffed indignantly. “...Fuck, now I want pizza.”

“What?” Twilight shook her head, looking confused. “No, I mean-”

“Dude, you turned invisible.” Lemon said, cutting her off. “When did you learn to do that?”

“What?” I looked down, and sure enough I could only see a faint shimmer where my hooves were. I lifted one to get a better look. “Woah.”

“How’d you do that?” Lemon asked. “Can you teach me?”

I shrugged, though they probably couldn’t see it. “I dunno. I just wanted to not be seen, and I guess poof! I went invisible.”

“Fair enough. The magical augmentations are meant to be simple to utilize. Raw magical power you can just bend to your will makes it easier to use, as if it were an extension of your natural magic. Not as precise or varied as actual spellcasting, but not as strict either.”

“Uh huh… So I can use it to turn invisible then.”

“Yes, and can you please use it to turn visible again? It’s really hard to see you.” Oh yeah. After willing myself visible again, and internally giggling at how cool that was, Twilight produced a sheet of paper and a pen. “Better. Noting this down for further research. Now then, how shall we take care of the reality warper now that somepony has made Subject J hostile?” She asked, giving me a brief glare.

“Subject J?” Lemon and I asked at once.

“I refuse to call him by his human name. It feels… wrong.”

Lemon rolled her eyes. “Right, like turning us into ponies and overwriting our identities is right. At least he still thinks his name is his own.”

I pointed at Lemon. “You, shut your butt. We’re here to work together. So, you’ll be coming with me to fight Fuckstick out there. The goal is to get that gem off of him and toss it into the void.” Then I pointed at Twilight. “And you will search for my friends. Get them out of Ponyville, and they’ll hopefully snap out of it.” And finally I pointed at myself. “And me. I dunno why I’m instructing myself. I just want to be included. Any questions?”

Lemon raised a hoof. “Yes, do we get cool codenames?”

“No.”

“Please?”

“No.”

“Please?”

“...Fine.”

“I take it back. No more codenames.” Lemon grumbled as we left the library. She had donned a cloak to hide her wings and I had gone back to being invisible, so the two of us could walk around town casually. No sense in drawing attention to ourselves before we were ready.

I chuckled and gave Lemon a friendly nudge. “Too bad, ‘Princess.’ You asked for this.”

“Easy for you to say ‘Angel.’ You’ve got a cooler codename.”

“Whatever, now shush. I think he was over here.” I said as we turned a corner. Sure enough, James was there, sitting at a cafe table alongside Charcoal and Ceruline. Finally. Figures they’d still be with him.

I took to the air and perched on a nearby rooftop to get a better view while Lemon casually strolled up to an adjacent table and sat down, pulling up a menu. James, Charcoal, and Ceru seemed to be in the middle of a discussion, so I leaned in to listen better.

“So how did you meet her anyway?” James asked them.

“Oh, it was awful.” Ceru replied, with visible tears in her eyes. “She came to us, asking for her help with some kind of weather project, then the next thing we knew, we were being taken on some wild ride to take over Equestria.” What the actual seven fucks? Where did any of this come from?

“Yes, thank you for driving her off. You’ve saved us from months of pain.” Charcoal added. Months? I’ve only known you a week or so.

“It’s fine, ladies. Just doing my job. But now, we need to focus on stopping her for good. Maybe show her the error of her ways.” James said.

Right, I’ve had enough. Weaver! Let my friends out of your stupid story and I might just let you live.

I felt that familiar numb tingle in the back of my head as Weaver felt my presence. “But the story is just getting to the best part. Your little villainous twist gave me new inspiration. And if you’re lucky, we can give you a reformation arc.”

Weaver, listen. Last chance. Let us go, or we put an end to your story. I’m in no mood to put up with your bullshit.

“We?”

James appeared to take notice of the cloaked alicorn nearby and poked her on the shoulder. “Excuse me, I don’t think we’ve met. What’s with the cloak?”

Lemon shrugged him off. “Excuse me, I’m trying to get some food. Buzz off.”

James didn’t seem to take this well, getting up from his seat. “What’s with ponies today being so hostile? Don’t you know who I am?”

“Nope. Don’t care. You’re annoying me. Shoo.”

This seemed to piss off James, and he grabbed the cloak with his magic. “Hey, I’ve saved Ponyville twice today alone. Show me some re-” He was cut off as I saw Lemon’s horn light up and grab James, then telekinetically throw him over her shoulder and through the table. The act brought the cloak with him however, exposing Lemon’s wings.

I couldn’t help but laugh at the show of dominance. Yes, we. Weaver, meet ‘Princess’ Lemon Drop.

The few ponies in the area had various reactions. Some stared in shock. Others, seeing the other alicorn, reflexively bowed before her. Most fled though. Ceru and Charcoal seemed to be in the first camp. “What are you doing here?” Charcoal asked, while I noticed Ceru’s hooves start glowing again. I’ve really gotta ask her about that…

Lemon stood up and briefly glanced back at the two before turning her attention back down to James. “By the authority and power granted to me by Her Majesty, Princess Celestia, I hereby banish you from this world.”

“What? What are you talking about? You can’t banish me!” James protested.

“I wasn’t talking to you.” Lemon said coldly before taking the chestpiece which held Weaver in her magic and ripping it right off of James. “Hmph, you think you’re so powerful, but what are you really? Nothing. Now return to nothing.” With that, she used her magic to open a portal. This one was pitch black, and shimmered with an aura of wrongness that seemed unnatural.

“Wait!” I heard Weaver plead. “Why don’t I offer you a story of your own? Be the heroes of this world instead. Defeat all the monsters you could ever dream of, be adored by thousands! Infinite power!”

Lemon laughed and shook her head. “How cute, but we’ll have to pass. Self-aggrandising stories like that just lead to narcissism. Not to mention a fragile ego. Now then, where were we?”

“What about a romantic comedy? You two would make a great-” Weaver’s pleading was silenced when Lemon threw him into the portal, which closed right afterwards.

The effects of removing Weaver were immediate. Ponies all around us clutched their heads, looking pained and confused. A statue down the road that once presented a proud, heroic alicorn stallion changed into a more friendly earth pony mare. And all around us, anything that was of or about James vanished. Once the initial wave of changes passed, ponies all went about their day, some of which stuck around to gawk at the alicorns outside the cafe. As for James himself, he didn’t disappear or change, oddly enough. He didn’t disappear or change back into a human, but still remained a big white alicorn.

Of course he also remained an oblivious dimwit too. “What was that all about? Who were you talking to? And where’d you send my element?”

“You ask too many questions.” Lemon said with disdain. “Your ‘element’ was chucked into the void between dimensions, where it shall never see the light of day again. You no longer have any power in this world. Goodbye.” She lit her horn and in a flash, the alicorn was gone.

“Wait! Get back here you bitch! I’m still the hero! I will still save the day! I always do!” James shouted into the sky, much to the confusion of the ponies around him. With a flap of his wings, he took to the air to search once again, leaving me alone with my friends.

So I uncloaked myself and jumped down from my perch to say hi. “Sunny!” Ceru exclaimed, embracing me in an almost bone-crushing hug. “Where were you? We lost track of you. Also I think I blacked out a bit. I last remember seeing that white alicorn, then suddenly the one that attacked us is back and attacking him. What happened?”

I returned the hug, though not as intense. “Bit of a long story. Short of it, Lemon’s cool now. Twilight too. Though they aren’t cool with each other, since Lemon is another Harmonize victim. Also that white pony is a shithead. Like, Stud Muffin levels of shit.”

“Okay… We missed a lot then.” Charcoal said. “How about you fill us in on the rest over lunch?”

“Now that sounds like a plan.” I said, feeling my stomach agree.

Of course, plans around me never work out, as I heard a thump right behind me. “You! You did this, didn’t you?” Yep, James had found us. Yep, he was pissed. Nope, I wasn’t about to take any further shit from him.

I calmly turned around to look up at him. “Sir, I have absolutely no idea what you are going on about.”

He bent his head down so that his nose was almost touching mine before yelling right in my face. “No one remembers me! I saved them all and there’s no sign I ever even existed!”

Oh, so that’s what happened. I couldn’t keep the grin off my face as I responded. “I’m sorry, who are you?”

His scream of primal fury sent warning signs visible from orbit, so I quickly jumped back and formed a shield over my friends and I as he sent a fucking massive beam of magic at us. Fuck, even without Weaver this guy still has a lot of power. The energy flowing around us swirled pretty shades of blue, but we were toast if the shield faltered. When I noticed a crack in the hardlight, fear started creeping in that it would break. I was gonna put some more energy into sealing the crack, but Ceru stepped forward and placed a glowing hoof over the crack, which sealed it up for me.

A few seconds after the attack started, it stopped. I dropped the shield and saw that the beam left a path of destruction in its wake. The cobblestone roads were ripped up and burnt, and any building in its path was more or less toast. “Oh dear, I hope no one was hurt by that.” I turned back to James, the grin right back on my face. “You must be a pretty bad guy to try and hurt innocent ponies like that.”

Apparently I hadn’t learned my lesson, because James picked me up in his magic and brought my face right up to his. “No! I am the hero, you are the villain! We fight, I win, you lose. That’s how these stories go!”

Shame, because I was having too much fun poking this bear to stop now. “Sorry, it appears you got the wrong script. Clearly you are the villain here.” Of course, I’m no saint either. No hero would do the dumb shit I do. Or swear as much. Probably.

So with a second scream of primal rage, he found the best course of action to prove he was the hero was to slam me into the street. Immediately, my entire world exploded into pain. I might have blacked out for a second because the next thing I knew, I was in somebody’s living room. My vision was blurred and I’m pretty sure that the metallic taste in my mouth was blood. My ears were ringing and I struggled for breath. Fuck… Is this how my stupidity finally gets me? By pissing off an egomaniac with the cheating power of magic?

Suddenly a bottle was shoved in my mouth and some kind of thick liquid poured itself down my throat. It tasted somewhat sour, and kinda like strawberries. The pain faded a little, my vision cleared up, and the ringing in my ears stopped. I blinked and looked up, seeing a pink pegasus mare standing over me, her long blonde and pink striped mane covering part of her face as she looked down at me. Wait a second… Aren’t you…?

She chuckled briefly, taking the bottle and stowing it in her bags. “I didn’t invest so much in you just to have you die to some jerk with a power complex. That potion restored a bit of your vitality, but it won’t mend broken bones. Stay down, and I’ll see you again soon.” She said, then walked away. Way to be mysterious. What the fuck did that even mean? I tried sitting up, but a stabbing pain in my chest forced me back down. Ow, okay, staying down.

Shortly after, I heard hooves coming my way. Better not be James coming to finish me off… No, the pair of white and gray coats told me a different story. “Oh hi, did I crash through your living room?”

“Sunny? The heck happened to you?” The white one asked. You’re my Vinyl? And Octavia too?

“Pissed off a god. Or some jackass who thinks himself a big hero. Fuck if I care anymore… Too much hurt.”

“Where are the others?”

I weakly waved whichever hoof hurt the least. I think it was my left one. “Somewhere. They’re probably okay.” There was a moment of silence before I added. “Hey, if you see a big white angry alicorn, don’t let him know I’m here…”

“Righty-o. Uh… Tavi, see if you can get her some help. I’m gonna find the others.” Vinyl said, then started to walk away.

“Hang on, why can’t you help?” Octavia protested.

“Because you’re better with the whole… dealing with ponies… thing. Also you’re gentler than I am. And stuff.”

“You just want to use that thing you brought with you.”

“And can you blame me? It’s awesome!”

“And destructive! You blew a hole in our wall! And the neighbor’s wall! And blew all the hair off her cat!”

“She deserved it for scratching my butt! Besides, I toned it down a bit. Now I’m going to find the others, you just get her to safety. Bye!” Vinyl finally ran off, leaving Octavia to deal with me.

I chuckled, wincing at the pain it brought. “So, what brought you back?” I asked, trying to break the ice.

“Oh you know, the ever-present call of adventure and excitement.” Octavia said with complete sarcasm.

“You just wanted to make sure Vinyl didn’t do something stupid.”

She sighed. “Pretty much. You too.”

“How’s that working out for ya?”

“0 for 2 so far. I’ve got my work cut out for me it seems.” She went and grabbed a pillow, setting it under my head. “Just rest here for a moment. I’ll be right back with some help, and we’ll get you to a hospital.”

I let out a sigh and closed my eyes as Octavia left. “Hospitals… Fun.”

Aftermath

View Online

It wasn’t hard for Vinyl to find where the fighting started. The holes in the wall had to stop somewhere, and a small corner cafe was the right spot. Interestingly, there was a second bit of damage where it looks like someone fired a big beam of magic that scorched everything it touched, except for one little circle right in the path that remained nice and not broken. Vinyl gawked briefly at the clean circle before glancing back towards where she came from. “Damn, I dunno what that mare got herself into, but I want some of that.”

It also wasn’t hard for Vinyl to find the others. Ceruline and Charcoal Embers were unconscious on the ground and being looked over by Starry, who had found them first. “Ah, there you are,” Starry said upon spotting Vinyl, “did you find her?”

Vinyl nodded. “Yeah. She was beat up pretty good. Tavi is going to get her to a hospital.”

“It looks like they were also attacked. Ceruline got away with only minor injuries, but Charcoal’s wing looks sprained. I’ve arranged for them to get taken to the hospital as well.”

Vinyl watched as a group of ponies came up to them with two stretchers and a cart. As they loaded up Ceruline and Charcoal and carted them off, she turned back to Starry. “Alright, now what about who did all this to them? Do you know?”

She shook her head. “Alas, I do not. If that alicorn from the other world was still crazy, I’d lay the blame on her. I haven’t seen her around though.”

Alicorn… Sunshine’s words came back to Vinyl. “Speaking of which, there might be another one around. Sunny kinda hinted it could’ve been him that did it.”

“Just another danger to consider. You should join them. Get somewhere safe.”

Vinyl stomped her hoof. “Hey! Just because I can’t fling spells around like you, does that mean I can’t defend myself?” She pulled out a black anklet and put it on her foreleg. “Trust me, I can handle myself.”

Starry only glared at Vinyl. “You mean like you said you ‘got this’ back with Blueberry? I don’t think she’ll forgive you for not only getting caught, but destroying her house on top of it. And we’re up against potentially two alicorns. No, I will not risk your safety by letting you test out whatever gadget you’ve come up with this time on angry gods who could crush you with a thought.”

“And you think you can do a better job? I seem to recall you getting caught right alongside me. Neither of us can stand up to them. Not alone.”

“I’m not going to engage them,” Starry argued, but relented with a sigh, “but fine, if we have to fight, it might as well be together.”

Before they could leave to look for the alicorns, there was a flash and a pop, and two ponies that they immediately recognized as Twilight and Lemon Drop appeared in front of them. The two pairs or ponies stared at each other in surprise before Starry and Vinyl lit up their horns to escape. “Wait! We’re here to help, not to fight!” Twilight pleaded.

Starry didn’t let go of the spell she was about to cast, but glared at them both. “I gave you leeway before, Twilight. But this alicorn attacked us before.”

“Yes, and that was before the rainbow laser,” Lemon said, “but I’m… more me now. It’s me, Tyler.”

“Tyler?” Vinyl asked. “Like, the dude with the cool RV? The buck happened to you?”

Lemon nudged her head towards Twilight. “She happened to me. The whole Harmonize thing. Apparently I wasn’t supposed to become an alicorn, and I wasn’t given any cool superpower, just a lot of knowledge and some accidental insanity from being rushed through the process.”

“Yes, and I am still trying to make things right. We can at least reverse the effects on you as long as no serum was used. But that’s for later. Where are the others?”

“Hospital. Sunshine was apparently wounded fighting an alicorn, with Ceruline and Charcoal getting caught up in the fight as well,” Starry answered, “we were about to look for this alicorn and assess the threat ourselves.”

“I dunno, he must be a pretty tough customer if he can do… well, that,” Vinyl said, gesturing to the trench gouged in the road, “and Sunny must be a pretty tough cookie if she can take it.”

“Not tough enough it seems,” Lemon said, “I shouldn’t have left her here, but I couldn’t hold character forever, and I didn’t want to fight him directly.”

“Don’t worry. We shouldn’t have to fight him anymore. I’ve called for help.” Twilight reassured.

“That’s a relief.” Lemon said with a sigh.

“Yeah,” Vinyl agreed. “Oh, nice ponytail, Twi.”

The relief was short-lived however, as their discussion was interrupted by a large white alicorn slamming down onto the street. “You!” He shouted, pointed at Lemon. “You took away everything from me! And now I’m going to make you pay!”

“Dude, I don’t even know you.” Lemon said, then added after a bit of thought. “No wait, I do. You’re just a kid with a superiority complex and too much power for your own good. Get a life, find a hobby. Do something other than try and convince the world you’re something you’re not.”

“That’s easy for you to say! You’re a princess!”

“I’m a fucking truck driver. Trust me, there’s a place out there for you if you just get your head out of your ass and look for it.”

James wasn’t having any of it apparently, as he fired a blast of magic at Lemon. She ducked out of the way and grabbed him with her magic. “Listen to me! You’ve been tricked by this power into believing you’re some great savior, but you’re just a kid. Don’t throw your life away chasing some dream of being a great hero. You can do far more good just by being who you were.”

“I was a nobody before Equestria!” James yelled, dispelling the telekinesis with a burst of magic. “Here I was a hero. I was worth something to the world!”

“Hate to break it to ya, but not everyone can be super special. You just have to find something that makes you happy and hold onto it. Sure, it could be these ponies. But your obsession has become just plain unhealthy,” Lemon dodged out of the way of another beam, “case in point: you’re just attacking me rather than trying to face your own mistakes.”

“Just shut up! You ruined my life!” James had tears in his eyes as he fired another beam that went wide.

“Wow, Jesse was right. You are a whiner.” Lemon muttered.

With a shout of rage, James pounced on Lemon, the two then tumbling to the ground as he tried physically assaulting the smaller alicorn. Lemon guarded her face with her forelegs and pushed him back with a magic pulse, followed by a strong kick to his stomach with her hind legs. As James reeled from the blow, she picked herself up and tried to get airborne, but James had recovered and dragged her back down to the ground, where the two once again wrestled with hooves and magic.

Vinyl meanwhile fidgeted with the anklet on her foreleg as she watched the fight. “Come on Starry, we should help her out.”

Starry eyed the anklet wearily. “I’m not sure what magic you have in that accessory of yours, but if it’s anything like the gadget you had before, I’d say it’s best if you sat this one out.”

“Oh come on, not you too!” Vinyl threw her hooves up in exasperation. “You blow up one house, and nopony lets you live it down…”

“I wonder why…” Starry deadpanned as the two alicorns broke contact, Lemon managing to kick James off of her again. She was going to finally step in to assist when the sound of several sets of hoofsteps caught her attention. She turned around to find Twilight leading the rest of her friends towards them. No, this was this world’s Twilight. The Twilight she knew had her mane up in a ponytail. But when Starry turned to look for her, she wasn’t there, having likely teleported away.

“Hey! What are you doing?” Rainbow shouted, and Starry took a moment to realize she was shouting at her and Vinyl. “Get out of here! It’s not safe!”

“We can take care of ourselves, thank you very much!” Vinyl shouted back.

“Okay, but if you get hit as well, don’t come crying to us!”

“Get hit by what?” Vinyl asked, before noticing the necklaces (and big crown thingy) each of the mares was wearing. “Oh right, that. Shit we should probably move then.”

“Ignoring the fact that human dialect has been a negative influence on your vocabulary, yes.” Starry said before turning back to the fight still ongoing. “Lemon, if you don’t wish to get blasted again, I’d advise getting clear of the other alicorn.”

“Easier said-” Lemon paused to block a kick to the head, “-than done!”

Starry sighed and lit her horn, with Twilight noticing and following suit. Lemon and James were both enveloped in a blue and purple glow and forcibly separated. Lemon was then released, where she quickly opened a portal and fled.

“She could have done that the whole time?” Vinyl asked incredulously.

James, meanwhile struggled in Twilight’s grip before turning to yell at her. “Twilight, you let her get away!”

“Silence!” Twilight hissed, her face a mixture of fury and disgust. “You have no right to complain after what you did to us!”

“Wait, you remember me?” James asked, his anger evaporating into confusion and hope.

“Vividly.” Rarity answered. “We didn’t at first, everything was just kind of blank, but after hearing of a disturbance we put on our Elements and everything flowed back to us. Every. Last. Intimate. Detail.” She spat those last few words in disgust.

“Wait, I thought you all loved me. Why do you sound like you hate me now? When did I become a bad guy?”

“When we all lost control of our bodies and became puppets for your sick fantasies.” Rainbow said.

“Yeah! It wasn’t fun at all!” Pinkie spoke up. “Puppet-me never threw a party for anypony but you, as if she didn’t even care about anypony else! I missed 36 parties because of you!”

“Darling, focus.” Rarity put a hoof on Pinkie’s shoulder to calm her. “But yes, while some shell of our former selves were puppeting our bodies, we had neglected all aspects of our lives that didn’t revolve around you, and any fabricated feelings we had. It was frankly the worst month of our lives.”

“It’s not his fault.” Lemon said, somehow appearing behind Vinyl to her great shock. “Not directly, that is. There was some other entity, called Weaver, that manipulated this world to suit his fantasies, while he was completely unaware of it. It seems unfair to blame him for the puppeteering stuff.”

Twilight took a moment to think. “That may be true, but that doesn’t excuse everything else he did to us. He has a lot to answer for, and I think I know just the thing to help with that. Girls?” Twilight’s Element started glowing, and the others quickly joined in. James gave one last attempt to get free, and broke through Twilight’s magic grip. But before he could get away, he was consumed by the rainbow wave that came from the combined power of the Elements of Harmony.

When the light faded, James was seen unconscious on the ground, not a statue and still a pony. Gone were his wings and horn, leaving him a normal earth pony. His coat had taken on a slight pinkish hue and his mane and tail had acquired a few different colored highlights as well as grown in length and volume. He was also considerably smaller, and his face was rounder and softer.

Vinyl, Lemon, and Starry stared at the new form of James in stunned silence, with Vinyl being the first to speak. “Did they just… No way…”

“Walk a mile in their hoofsteps…” Starry muttered. “That’s one way to teach a lesson…”

“Is it just me or is this just… a thing all Twilights are into?” Lemon asked.

Vinyl shrugged. “No clue, but speaking of which… How you holding up dude? What happened to you?” Vinyl asked Lemon, eager to change the subject.

“It’s still weird listening to myself talk sometimes, but I’m more or less accustomed. Now let’s get out of here. I’ll tell you what I remember on the way to the hospital.”

“Hold it!” Rainbow shouted, causing the three to pause. “Who are you and why shouldn’t we blast you too?”

“Because I’ve already been blasted once recently.” Lemon responded unenthusiastically. “It wasn’t the most pleasant experience. And we’re just travelers who happened to be in the right place and time to help out.”

“So it was you who freed us from his control?” Twilight asked.

Lemon shrugged. “Yeah, but it was Sunny who figured out what was happening. I just finished the job. Now then, our friends are in the hospital because of him, and so we’d like to check on them.” And before any of them could continue questioning, Starry and Lemon lit up their horns and the three poofed away in a flash of magic.

Owww…

Waking up always seemed to hurt since I became a pony, but this time was more painful than most. This time it hurt to actually breathe. My chest felt tighter than usual too. And then the smell hit me. Disinfectant, books, and just a hint of lavender. Right, I was taken to a hospital, wasn’t I? Or is this a library? I opened my eyes and was greeted by a rather empty blue room. To my left was a bookshelf and an opaque dividing curtain, where another patient was likely resting.

My chest was still sore, but after a few minutes, the pain died down. So I just laid there until someone decided to check up on me. That took about another few minutes, when a doctor pony walked in, followed by Octavia. I could have made one of those dumb “am I gonna live” jokes, but I really couldn’t bring myself to care enough to say anything beyond “fuck.”

“Well, nice to see you too.” Octavia remarked.

“I heard what happened. Gotta say, you’re one tough cookie.” The doctor said, looking over a clipboard. “Only a few cuts and bruises, and two fractured ribs. Didn’t even break a wing.”

“Lucky me.” I groaned.

The doc continued. “We’ve cast a few mending spells already. You should be good to go in a day or two.”

“Oh joy, I get to spend the night this time.” I said, making no effort to hide the sarcasm.

“Oh come now Sun,” Octavia said, “it’s not that bad.”

“Maybe in Equestria, but fuck American hospitals…” With sigh, I sat up, wincing at the pain in my chest. “Alright, fine. I’ll give your hospital a shot. Let’s see that bookshelf.”

While a nurse came in and adjusted my bed so I could sit more comfortably, Octavia rolled the bookshelf over so I could get at it better. I picked out a book with a neat looking airship on the cover, probably a steampunk novel, and was about to start reading when Vinyl burst into the room, followed by Lemon and Starry.

“Heeeeey, saviors of the day coming through!” Vinyl announced, nearly knocking over the doctor as he was making his way out.

“The hell are you going on about?” Lemon asked as she entered. “I was the only one that did anything. You just stood by and watched.”

“Savior by association. Still counts.” Vinyl said.

“That’s not how it works.” Starry countered.

“Totally how it works. We’re awesome.”

I put the book down and crossed my arms. Forelegs. Whatever. “Oh sure, come in. It’s not like this is a hospital or anything.”

“Oh, hey Sunny.” Vinyl approached my bed and looked through the bookshelf briefly. “That other guy has been taken care of, so all’s good. How’re you feeling?”

“Still a bit sore. Also dreading the boredom that’ll come with an overnight stay.” I said.

“That sucks. You know where the others are? Ceru and Charcoal should also be around here.”

“We’re over here.” Came Ceru’s voice from the other side of the curtain.

Vinyl pulled back the curtain so we could all see each other. Sure enough, Ceru and Charcoal were chilling on the other beds. Ceru just had a couple bandages, but one of Charcoal’s wings was fully bandaged up.

“Hey, you guys got hurt too, huh?” I asked.

“Yep.” Ceru nodded. “It’s not bad. I’ll be out in a couple hours. Charcoal will take a day longer. I heard you will too?”

I nodded back. “Unfortunately. I’ve been to a hospital a couple times before, but never spent the night at one.”

“It’s not so bad when you get used to it.” Ceru said in a way that made me think there was a story behind that. I was about to inquire when the door burst open again and the whole gang of Twilight and friends poured in. This world’s Twi, based on the lack of a ponytail.

“Oh sure, come right on in. We’re having a party.” I deadpanned.

Big mistake, those words turned out to be, as I suddenly got a face full of Pinkie Pie. “What, a party? But where are the streamers? The balloons? There isn’t even a single cupcake in here!”

I lightly shoved her away before she pressed herself on my chest. “That was sarcasm, Ponk. But if you get us a muffin, I’ll stick around for a party before we go.”

“What kind of muffin?”

“Chocolate.”

“You got it!” And in a puff of smoke and streamers, Pinkie zoomed out of the room.

“Go?” Twilight asked.

“I dunno if you noticed… Maybe the strange alicorn gave it away, but we’re not from here.” I said.

“Well, where are you from?”

“Another world. Actually a few other worlds. I’m from one world, Lemon here is from another, and the rest of them are from a third world. And if that wasn’t confusing enough, I’ve been to two entirely separate worlds before coming here. So yeah, it’s been a crazy week.”

And as if on cue, a flash of purple signified that my Twilight had just teleported in. “Hey, sorry I took off like that. I didn’t want this world’s Twilight to… see… me…” She trailed off when she saw the other Twi stare at her.

Holding back a laugh, Vinyl stepped between the two. “Hey Twilight, let me introduce you to Twilight. Twilight, this is Twilight.”

After a few explanations, the others got to talking, congratulating Lemon and I for beating Weaver. I tried asking what happened to James and Vinyl just said, “you don’t want to know.”

Pinkie came back quickly and brought with her enough muffins to feed everyone, even the other Twilight and some of the hospital staff. After that, visiting hours ended and everyone left, allowing me to finally read that book I picked out. I must have gotten really invested in the book, because the next thing I knew it was the middle of the night. Ceru’s bed was vacant, leaving only Charcoal and myself here. I wondered how it got so dark, but I was still able to read. After a thought, I blinked and suddenly the room was lit again. I blinked again and it went back to being dark. “Built-in night vision, nice.” I muttered before settling down to sleep myself.

When morning came, after the doctors came in and did their checkup, I was let go. “Try to take it easy for the next day or so.” They told me. “You should be fully good to go by then.”

“Thanks. What about Charcoal?” I asked.

“Ms. Embers will stay with us a little longer. We need to make sure her wing will mend properly.”

“I thought it wasn’t broken.”

“No, but a sprained wing can cause lasting problems if not treated properly. You should know how important that is, being a pegasus.” They said, one of them looking at me quizzically.

“Right, right…” I played it as cool as I could. “I’ll be going then. Bye.”

After I got as far away from the hospital as I could, I made for the Everfree castle, where Lemon, Twilight, and Jesse were waiting. Jesse was packing some of her things into a backpack. “What’s up? You going somewhere?”

Jesse nodded. “Yeah. Home.”

“Between the three of us, we’ve found Jesse’s home dimension.” Twilight explained. “So we’re prepping a little excursion there to find her house, then we’ll start moving her belongings back where they belong.”

“Yeah, so we won’t be making it to the party, unfortunately.” Lemon said. “You go on ahead, and save a cupcake for me, will ya? I haven’t had one yet, but I hear Pinkie’s baking is to die for.”

“Right. Party. Almost forgot.” So I took off again, this time towards Ponyville. And even with the extra stamina this pony body has given me, I still ended up panting from exhaustion by the time I made it to Sugarcube Corner. And wow, it looked so much bigger in-person. It also didn’t look nearly as edible as you’d expect. So after taking a moment to recover, I peeked in through the window. Somehow the interior was completely pitch black, defying the laws of physics and properties of light. So naturally Pinkie was in there planning on giving a good old fashioned surprise to us. Ceru, Vinyl, and Octavia were likely in there as well. What they didn’t know was that I can also defy the physics of light, and a great idea formed in my head.

I had learned a few tricks over the last day, and it was time to put them to use. I turned myself invisible. I knew this was accomplished by bending the light around me, but normally I wouldn’t be able to see. My magic or other fuckery though, I could still see. The invisibility wasn’t perfect unless I stood more or less still, but I could move around in the darkness without being seen well enough. Speaking of darkness, I had night vision. I could see in the dark. This opened a whole bunch of possibilities for me.

So while invisible, I crawled under the saloon doors of Sugarcube Corner. It was still rather dark, but after blinking on the night vision, I could see much better. Ponies were hiding behind several tables. I could see my friends hiding behind a table off to the right. The banner hanging from the ceiling read “Welcome to Ponyville & Thanks for Saving Us From the Meanie Author Guy & Welcome to Equestria.” I could also hear whispered voices.

“Did you see her?”

“Yeah, I thought I saw her by the window.”

“You think she knew about the party?”

“I did say there was going to be one.” That one was Pinkie, so I was able to track her voice to behind the counter.

“Did you tell her it was going to be here?”

“...Oopsie.”

Alright, time to execute my plan. I crept up behind Pinkie and prepared to pounce.

“Maybe somepony should go and bring her back here. Just be careful not to ruin the-”

“SURPRISE!” I shouted, springing up and dropping my invisibility. The effect was immediate and better than expected. I swear Pinkie jumped so high she bounced off the ceiling. The lights came on soon after and everyone turned to me, where I gave them the biggest grin I could. “Gotcha.”

Pinkie matched my smile and burst into giggles. “Now that’s a new one! I’ve never had somepony turn the tables on me at their surprise party before! Heehee, that’s a good trick. How’d you do it?”

“A few tricks I learned over the last day, and a love of messing with people.” I gave her a quick boop on the nose. “Now come on, this is a party, right? Let’s have some fun!”

And so the party began. I walked around, getting to know some of the guests, then forgetting their names immediately. I also grabbed a chocolate cupcake. And maybe a second chocolate cupcake. Okay, a third chocolate cupcake. Don’t give me that look, they were fucking great cupcakes. Some party games were also set up. I noticed musical chairs and pin the tail, but I also saw Applejack with some handheld catapults. “Howdy!” She greeted me as I walked over. “Care to test your skill?” There were some cloth bean bags in a bucket beside her and some velcro targets hanging on the wall.

“Yeah, sure,” I nodded, “set me up.”

Applejack handed me one of the catapults and three bean bags. “Give it a shot then. Take as many tries as you want. See if you can beat Raindrops’ score.” She said, pointing at a chalkboard that had several ponies’ cutie marks next to a score. The top score belonged to a triple raindrop cutie mark, followed by Twilight’s.

“Huh. Impressive.” I wasn’t really sure how to calibrate the catapult, so I loaded it up with a beanbag and launched. The beanbag smacked against the wall, missing the target completely. Seeing that, I adjusted my aim and launched another one. That one actually hit the target, sticking to it. “Hey, there’s a hit.” Third bag also hit the target. Applejack tossed me some more bags, and I set up the next one to be launched when the host of the party bounced over next to me. “Heya Ponk.” I said.

“Ponk? I’m pink, silly.” Pinkie replied.

“Yeah. Pink. Ponk. Add a little black, and it becomes punk.”

Pinkie giggled. “Nah, my punk days are behind me. So, enjoying the party?”

“Haven’t had a party like this since my 10th birthday, but that was a pool party.” I said. “So yeah, it’s pretty nice.”

“Oooh, when’s your birthday?”

“A couple months from now. I’ll be long gone by then, so I wouldn’t worry about it.” I said. Pinkie deflated slightly, so I gave her a pat on the back. “Don’t worry, if I can find another Pinkie by then, she can throw me the best party ever. Maybe it’ll even have a pool.”

She bounced back quickly after that. “Oh, do you think maybe I could be invited? I’ve never been a guest of a party I threw.”

“We’ll see. I dunno what’ll happen yet.”

“Okie dokie.” She glanced down at the catapult in my hooves. “Hey, how about a contest?”

Well, the first time I competed against Pinkie, I lost. “Eh, why not? AJ, a fresh set of bags please.” Applejack tossed us both a few bags as Pinkie picked up a catapult, winding it up with her mane. “So, anything new with you?” I asked Pinkie, looking to start some small talk as we flung our bags.

“Yeah, we were saved from this crazy guy who could control reality as if it were a book.” Pinkie said, feigning ignorance as to who did the deed.

“Really? Sounds a bit outlandish.” I mused, deciding to play along.

“I know! Then we found out the ponies who did it are new to Equestria. So I had to throw them a double-party!” Pinkie giggled.

“Well it sounds to me like whoever these ponies are would be appreciative of the party.”

“I hope so, though one of them couldn’t make it. So I guess I’ll have to save her some treats.”

“Make it a cupcake. She’ll probably like the cupcakes.” I looked up at the wall, and Pinkie’s bags were much better aimed than mine. “Ah well, lost again.”

“Again?”

I shook my head and set down the catapult. “Don’t worry about it. Great party, Pinks.”

“It’s what I do!” Pinkie smiled. I could help but smile back. “So what are you gonna do next, huh? What’s your next big adventure?”

And goodbye smile. I hardly knew ye. “I dunno… I wanted to find a way back home, but some weird transdimensional whatchamacallit replaced me with some kind of clone, I guess. Not sure what, exactly. So I’m on my own.”

“Aw, well that’s no fun. You got any other family, maybe? Friends? When I left home, I was really sad because I was super lonely, and didn’t have any friends. But then when I went to Ponyville, I made a whole bunch of friends, and the Cakes are like a second family to me. And now I’m not lonely because I have two families and lots of friends! I could introduce you to some of them, and then you’d have lots of friends too!”

I let out a half-hearted laugh. “I appreciate the offer, but I don’t think I’ll stick around. I’ve got a few friends, might stick with them.” I paused, remembering something. “Actually… I had a sister, I think. Or at least she thinks she’s me sister. Long story.”

“Why not pay her a visit? I know my sisters miss me, and I keep telling myself I gotta visit more often. But sometimes things get in the way, ya know? So I treasure the time we do get to spend together even more!”

“Pinkie, you are a fountain of wisdom sometimes, you know that?” I asked, my smile returning.

“I hope so, because the chocolate fountain is busted. Maybe I could substitute my wisdom for more chocolate until it’s fixed.”

“Probably not the best idea. I don’t think you’d make a good chocolate fountain.”

I moved on to enjoy the rest of the party while Pinkie bounced back into the kitchen, hopefully just to get more food and not to try the chocolate fountain idea. However the thought of my “sister” lingered in the back of my mind throughout the day. Last I saw of Ocean, she was begging me not to leave. What happened to her after I left? Was she still going on with her life, worried about my wellbeing? Did she forget I exist? Did Celestia target her for whatever reason?

I was disrupted from my thoughts by Lemon and Twi finally showing up. “Hey Sunbutt,” she said, walking up to me, “you save me a cupcake?”

“Hey Juicebutt,” I replied, “you check the table?”

Before Lemon could check the table though, Pinkie popped up and handed her a plate of cupcakes. As the two exchanged pleasantries, I wandered over to Twilight. “Oh, hey Sunshine. What’s up?”

“I had a question. Mind if we talk in private?” I asked, and Twilight nodded. We moved outside and I asked my actual question. “Do you know how Ocean is doing?”

Twilight blinked. “Ocean? Your- the pony I imprinted as your sister? Why are you asking about her now?”

“Pinkie and I were talking, and I got to thinking. I can’t go back to my own home. I got nowhere to go aside from… the multiverse, I guess. But for a brief time, Ocean was my sister. Hell, she might be the only family I could have now. And family should always be there for you to go back to. So I was just wondering if I should… go back to her. See how she’s doing.”

She stood there for a moment, seeming to contemplate my words. “I think I get how you feel. I can’t really go back to Equestria after I abandoned Celestia, but I still want to help make things right, for both worlds.” She levitated her journal to me, and I took a peek.

After a talk with Princess Luna, I’ve come to the conclusion that Princess Celestia is no longer fit to lead Equestria. Everything she’s done in relation to the humans, from Operation: Harmonize to this sudden attack against their military, has been horribly handled. The humans we’ve converted are no better than they were before. In fact, some of them have displayed signs of severe mental damage. It’s been suggested that the Elements can possibly cure this, but we’ve since abandoned Celestia so I doubt we can get the subjects the care they need.

As for the rest of humanity, my opinion on them has changed. Before, I saw them as something close to Discord; they were chaotic and violent, not worthy of our friendship. But since then I’ve come to realize that we’re no better than some of the monsters in human history books. It was inequine of us to impose not only our ideology, but our very species onto these people who didn’t even deserve it. Now I fear that Equestia will never find any common ground with humanity, and that they may never come to trust us.

So, what to do about it? Luna has suggested open rebellion, but many of the ponies who did not migrate to Earth, especially in the cities of Canterlot and Manehatten, share Celestia’s beliefs. Not to mention how beloved Celestia is by pretty much everypony. To incite rebellion would be to possibly start a civil war, one that I fear we may not have the support to win. Of course, inviting the humans in to support us would work, but their method of war is messy and would leave us vulnerable if they decide to take Equestria for themselves. One thing we were right about humanity is that they are extraordinarily opportunistic, and many of their leaders could benefit from a dose (or several) of Harmony. Then maybe they might see some actual peace.

And now that I bring up that possibility, I realize we can close the portals at any time. That this whole thing can be stopped if we can just convince Celestia to abandon Earth. Easier said than done however. There are too many ponies on the other side that I’m concerned we wouldn’t be able to retrieve them all.

I need some time to think about my options going forward. Do I confront Celestia directly? Work with the humans? Should I look for ponies willing to help find peace?

Note to self: find Spike, organize a checklist. I need to clear my head.

Closing the journal, I handed it back to her. “Sounds like things are going pear-shaped with you as well. Wish I could help, but if it involves fighting in any way, you got yourself the biggest, fattest “no” I can possibly give you. I’ve already made up my mind.”

Twilight shook her head. “No, I don’t want to fight either. But if Celestia won’t see reason, then thousands could get hurt, or even die. You and Lemon were part of Operation: Harmonize, so-”

“We were test subjects!” I snapped back. “We were not volunteers! Hell, you ripped me from a parallel Earth as part of an entirely different experiment, so I’m a double guinea pig. I owe you nothing and while I’m grateful for your help, it doesn’t even begin to pay back what you did to us and every other subject of that twisted project.” I dissipated the sword that I didn’t even realize I’d conjured and lowered my hoof. “...Sorry about that. Got a bit heated.”

Twilight wilted at my outburst but tried to compose herself. “No, you’re right. I have no right to ask anything more of you. I’ll do what I can to set things right, but only after I solve my current problem. Is that okay?”

I nodded. “Yeah. Saving two worlds from each other is a bigger problem than a couple displaced people, no matter how much it might suck for us. We’ll make something work.”

We didn’t share a hug or anything, but we just kinda looked at each other, having come to an understanding. “So… should we go back in?”

I shook my head. “I’m not really in the mood for parties anymore. I think I’d rather leave early, if you’d be okay with that.”

“What about your friends?”

I looked back through the window. Vinyl and Octavia were playing that Pin the Tail game. Lemon was enjoying cupcakes. Ceru and Starry were having a chat with Rarity and Rainbow Dash. And Charcoal was still in the hospital. These friends of mine, we’ve been through a lot this past week. But after yesterday, I think I’d finally had enough of this adventuring thing. It’s put me in far more danger than I’m comfortable with, and I needed some peace and quiet.

“If they want to go back with me, great.” I said with a shrug. “The more friends, the merrier. But I just want to find a home for myself now. I’ll make new friends if I have to. Would be far from the first time.”

“I… see.” Twilight said, in that tone of voice that suggested to me she really wanted to argue my position. “I won’t stop you, but I do suggest asking them before you go.”

“I will. But I’m leaving tomorrow.”

I’ll finally be done running.

Rain Splash was not done running.

As the disguised Changeling galloped through the rain-soaked streets of Port Orchard, he could still hear the sound of footsteps behind him. Daring a look back, he caught a glimpse of the human raising his weapon. He quickly ducked into an alley as a pop echoed behind him and the wall where he was a second ago gained a new hole. “Sweet Ambrosia, why do humans have to be so much scarier than ponies?” He asked himself.

As the footsteps grew closer to his position Rain backed away, ready to start sprinting again. But then there was the sound of a magic blast and then a thud. What was that? Hive reinforcements? Curious, Rain poked his head out, and what he saw was so much worse.

A tan unicorn stallion decked out in the ornate gold armor of a high-ranking Equestrian Guardspony stood over the unconscious body of the human soldier. He was looking over the human’s weapon with a sneer before snapping it in half with his magic and tossing it away. “Barbarians, the lot of them…” He muttered before turning to Rain Splash. “You can come out now, insect. I don’t plan on hurting you. Yet.”

Slowly, Rain Splash stepped back into the open, dropping his disguise. “H-how’d you know what I was?”

“Because I’ve been looking for you. You have information I want, and I expect you to cooperate, or this human will be the least of your worries today.”

“Wh-what do you want?”

Field Marshal Nimbi walked right up to Rain Splash, who stood trembling in the rain. “You were with Sunshine and the rest of her traitor friends when she was defeated. And since Twilight defected as well, you’re the only one who has the information I desire.

“Where is my sister?”

AtDD II: Cross Dimension Road Trip

by StrawberryGamer

The More Things Change...

3000 Years Too Late

Mysteries

Catching Up

Blinding Light

So You Wanna be a Superhero

Can I Take a Mulligan on this Dimension?

A Story Within a Story

Tracking the Prey

Date Night

Practice Round

I'm Not Ready for This

Aftermath