Author's Note: This story takes place a few years after Defenders of Harmony, thus fitting into the same universe, the same timeline and the same events of Alexandria the Great. If you haven't read either of them, I suggest you do so, just to give you background on the OCs used in this story. Anyway, read and review, if you enjoyed or have suggestions for me to do better.

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Marceline

"Come on, Spence, don't be such a wuss." I said, punching him softly in the arm.

"I'm not being a wuss!" he whined. "I'm not going to do it because Dad told us not to. He wouldn't put up the 'eighteen or older' rule unless he wanted to keep people under 18 from travelling."

"Dude, it's our birthday!" I shouted at my twin, as exact as a copy of me as he could be, punching him in the arm again. "I wanna go see Aunt Sarah."

"One: she's not our aunt. Two: It's against the rules, Three: Mom doesn't want us around Sarah."

"One: I don't care. Two: I don't care. Three: I really don't care about what Fluttershy has to say."

"Shh! She might hear you!"

"The cottage is empty! I could call Fluttershy whatever I want, because she's not here to hear it. I could call her an irksome little skank if I wanted to."

"But you don't want to do that, do you?" asked Mom, walking in the front door. Uh-oh. Note to self: Check to see if Mom is listening before you begin to insult her. "There's no way you meant to say that, so I'll give you five seconds to correct yourself before I lay down a world of trouble on you."

"Er… I… I was just saying that… have you lost weight?" I tried. "You seem younger. Did you get a haircut?"

"Spencer." said Mom.

"Marcy was trying to go to Earth so she could hang out with Sarah." said the little snitch that is my brother.

"Go ahead." said Mom, crossing her arms. "See if I care. Go to Earth."

"Really?" I asked, not daring to dream.

"No, not really. You're grounded. Go to your room." she said. "Spencer, if you don't mind, will you go and keep an eye on her?"

"Of course, Mom." said Spencer, leading me upstairs. I walked in silence, something very odd for me, and shot him dirty look after dirty look until we reached our bedroom door. I opened it and fell onto my bed sullenly.

"Way to have my back, bro." I said.

"What was I supposed to do? Lie to Mom?"

"Yes, actually, you were! Now she'll never go let me see Sarah!"

"Why do you hate Mom so much?" he asked. Ouch. Did he really think that?

"I don't hate her. She's my mom, and I love her, but sometimes I think… maybe Dad made a mistake."

"How can you say that?" he said with disgust.

"Think about it: Dad knew Sarah way longer, they have a lot of the same hobbies, plus Sarah was always there for him, even when he wasn't around her, she never gave up on him. I just feel like they should be together."

"You really feel that way?" he asked.

"Yes, I do."

"Fine." he said, coming closer to me. "Let's go."

"Go where?" I asked in confusion.

"We're going to Earth. Come on, before Mom comes up here." he said, grabbing my hand. "I need your help."

"Seriously?" I asked. No way was he helping me break the rules.

"Hurry up. Before I change my mind." he said.

"Thanks, bro." I said, reaching my left hand forward. He reached his right hand forward and we pushed our palms together. I felt a small amount of warmth growing in between our hands. We pulled our hands from each other slowly, opening the Rift. Once it was wide enough for us to walk through, we dropped on our butts, exhausted.

"Isn't it supposed to get easier the more we do it?" I asked, standing up to begin the transformation. My wings receded into my back, my hooves melted and flattened into my feet and toes. The black fur that was coating my entire body sucked back into me and my face flattened into a more human-like structure. My fire-red mane shrunk into my head a little, leaving me with hair down to my neck instead of my back. I tied my hair up in a loose ponytail while Spencer transformed into his human form. His hair was short and white, just like our Dad's, and he had calm hazel eyes.

"It is going to get easier. We just haven't been practicing like Dad told us to." he said, licking his teeth. He always did that when he transformed, something about his teeth growing and shrinking bothered him. "Let's step through."

"Are you sure that you have it in the right place?" I asked skeptically.

"I never miss." he said.

"What about that time when you were trying to get Dad to Pennsylvania, but we ended up in Paris?"

"Not my fault. You distracted me." he said, dragging me through the silver portal. We fell through to the other side, landing on a table in a semi-crowded restaurant. I looked to the left, dismissing the angry faces of the couple who were sitting down.

"Sorry." said Spencer apologetically.

"Did we make it?" I asked, springing up off the table. I turned to my right, running right into the pale skinned, red-headed, human waitress of Jackson's.

"What are you doing here?!" asked Sarah, herding us into the back room. "Does Chris know you're here?"

"Nope." I said with a mischievous smile. "What's up, Sarah?"

"Nothing much. Why are you here?" she said, stopping us in the kitchen.

"We just wanted to hang out. You know, it's our birthday today, and we were sort of hoping we'd be able to chill out with you."

"So you're telling me that you two opened a portal between dimensions, going against your father and breaking every law of physics I know in the process, just to come have a bite to eat?"

"Pretty much, yeah." I said nonchalantly.

"And Spencer helped? I expected better from you."

"So did I, actually." he said. "Don't tell our parents."

"Alright." she said, giving up. "What do you want to do?"

---

Spencer

Sarah, Marceline and I sat down at a table for lunch. I silently began to dig into my eggplant parmesan while Marcy and Sarah caught up. We haven't seen Sarah since last school year. Last Earth school year. Since Mom wanted us to have a human education, while Dad wanted us to have an Equestrian education, we had to alternate schooling. After a year on Earth, we'd go to Equestrian school and after a year of that, we'd go to Earth and so on. Good thing this was our last year of Equestrian school. I would have gone mad if I was 18 in the 10th grade.

"So you managed to get here without Fluttershy knowing?" she asked, putting extra emphasis on the name "Fluttershy".

"Yup. She has no clue." said my sister proudly.

"That's pretty cool. How did you convince Spence to help you?"

"I told him how much you mean to me and he felt wrong denying me this visit." said Marceline smugly.

"That's not completely true. I mostly brought her here to prove her wrong." I said quietly.

"How do you plan on doing that?" she asked.

"By letting you speak to her and see if your earlier observations are true."

"What observations might those be?" asked Sarah, cutting in.

"She thinks that you should have been the one to marry Dad."

"What?! No! Me and your dad, we're just friends!" she said.

"We know about how you guys kissed the day the Impaler fell. Dad told us the story." said Marceline.

"So he remembers? Funny. Everytime I bring it up, he suddenly has Alzheimer's." said Sarah resentfully

"Don't you sometimes wish you could go back to that day and change something? Have things go differently?"

"Do I wish? Almost every day. Not a night goes by when I don't think 'what if?' But there's no point in groaning over something I can't control. I had my chance and Fluttershy beat me, fair and square. As long as Chris is happy, I'm happy, you know?"

"See Spence? She's so nice and caring and she loves him!" exclaimed Marceline

"So does Mom. Now, I'm not saying that they wouldn't be a good couple. I just think it's a bit excessive to say that they're meant to be together. No offense, Sarah." I said.

"No, I agree. If we were meant to be, we'd be. Everything happens for a reason. Just because you want me to be with him doesn't mean you should disrespect or disobey your mother. As much as I dislike Fluttershy, I will say that she deserves respect."

"She sure does." said Dad, in his human form, taking a spot next to Sarah. He pulled his gun off of his hip and rested it on the table. Next to him slid in Mom (also in human form). Uh-oh. "Hey Sarah. How are you doing?"

"I'm… fine." said Sarah, getting to her feet.

"Sit down, Red." said Mom, crossing her arms. Then, she turned her attention to the customers. "Everyone out! This establishment is closed for the day!" Nobody asked any real questions, simply they got up and left. When the restaurant was completely empty, my parents dug into us.

"What the hell?!" shouted Dad. "What possessed you to sneak out of the house?"

"Er… I… It's… See, what had happened was… I-I-I… Spencer helped!" shouted Marceline panickedly. Wow. Talk about loyalty.

"I only helped to try and get her to listen to Mom!" I said. "She kept going on about how she wanted Sarah to be her mom, and I thought that if she sat down with Sarah, maybe she'd start seeing sense."

"So you think Red would be a better mom than me?" asked Mom. "That's hilarious."

"Red is sitting right here." said Sarah. "Red also has a name!"

"Yeah, but I don't care." said Mom.

"Are you this bitchy to everyone?" asked Sarah, getting to her feet once more. Mom followed suite.

"Nah, just the people who kiss my husband." said Mom, getting nose-to-nose with Sarah. Dad, sensing the battle that was about to go down, jumped to his feet and grabbed his blue pistol, Lunar, to try and defuse the situation.

"Both of you should relax." he said.

"So you don't like it when I kiss Chris? You mean like this?" asked Sarah, grabbing Dad by the shirt. She leaned forward and kissed him on the lips. She pushed him away and licked her lips right in Mom's face. "What are you going to do about it?" Mom grabbed Sarah by the shirt and looked her in the eye with a look of rage and ferocity that I'd never seen in my mom before.

"Keep your hands off my things." said Mom, putting her gun against Sarah's neck.

"I was going to say the same thing." said Sarah, grabbing Lunar from out of Dad's hands and pointing it at Mom.

"Put down the guns!" said Dad, wiping the lipstick from his mouth.

"Stay out of this Silver." said Mom, not taking her eyes off of Sarah. "The less I hear you, the more likely I am to forget that you just let that happen."

"Oh, but he's not gonna forget. When he's with you tonight, or when he's all alone, he's going to think about it. He's going to think about it and dream about it and beg for more."

"Speaking of things people do when they're alone, I read some of the fanfic stories you've written. Now, me and Pinkie have never gone away for the weekend with a set of handcuffs and an extra large tub of butterscotch, but if we did, I'm pretty sure we wouldn't do that."

"I wouldn't mind doing that with Chris." said Sarah, running her finger down Dad's chest.

"Don't touch my property." said Mom.

"Likewise, bitch." said Sarah.

"Okay, I don't appreciate being referred to as your 'property', but I feel like that's the least of my worries." said Dad, grabbing the guns from them both. "Let's settle some things before things get out of hand. First off: I swear to God I had nothing to do with this, Fluttershy. She kissed me, you saw it. Second: In front of the kids? Really? You're gonna point guns at each other with the kids in the room?"

"I suppose we got out of control." said Mom, backing down.

"Out of control. Just like your eating habits." muttered Sarah under her breath.

"What was that?"

"Oh, nothing. I was just saying that you must have lost control of your workout routine, because you're getting a little chubby." Mom's face burned red, and Dad seemed to lose all the color in his. Instead of resolving the situation, he backed away and took a seat next to us.

"Are you calling me fat?" asked Mom.

"She should not have done that." Dad whispered to us. "She should not have done that."

"Yeah, I am calling you fat, Tubbyshy. Problem?" asked Sarah, crossing her arms. Mom looked at her, then at Dad, then back at her. Instead of answering, she punched Sarah in the face. Mom lunged onto Sarah and started to beat her face in.

"Flutters!" shouted Dad, rushing over to break up the fight. "Get off of her!"

"Who the hell does she think she is?!" asked Mom, punching Sarah in the face again and again. Dad grabbed her around the middle and yanked her off, throwing her back towards us. He grabbed the air and pulled apart the nothingness, opening a Rift.

"Kids, go with your mom and do what she says, unless she tells you to bring her back here. I'm going to stay here and deal with Sarah." said Dad.

"Yeah, like I'm gonna let that happen." said Mom. "I already know that she can't keep her hands off of things that don't belong to her!"

"I know you're mad, but do you really have to keep calling me 'things' or 'property'?" said Dad. "Fine, you don't trust me? Marcy, you stay. Spencer, you can go with Mom. Cool?"

"Okay." I said, grabbing Mom's hand. "Come this way."

"Hm." she said, allowing me to lead her through the Rift.

Spencer

Me and Mom tripped through the Rift and ended up in the cottage, where the Rift was closed by Dad on the other side. Mom sat down on the couch and gestured for me to do the same. I sat down suspiciously, afraid that she was going to blow her top. She was being extremely quiet, which is not good, especially not after what she just saw.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

"Am I really so bad at being a mother that Marcy would rather have that… she-devil?" asked Mom.

"It's not like that." I explained. "She's just being rebellious. Surely you've said stupid things like that when you were 14."

"No, actually, I haven't! I never went against my parents."

"Can I ask you a question?"

"Go for it, kiddo."

"Why do you hate Sarah? I know it's more than the whole kissing thing." I said. "What really happened that day?"

"It wasn't that day. It was three years prior." sighed Mom. "When we were at war, your dad was… well, let's just say he was away for a while. We thought he was dead. After we were positive he was gone, we staged a car crash to make it seem like he died to something a bit more human. At his funeral, Sarah cried more than she should've. More than if they were just friends. It hurt me more than it should have."

"You're mad because she cried at Dad's funeral?" I asked in confusion.

"It wasn't just that." she said in frustration. "Maybe you'll understand when you find that special somepony, the one you want to spend your life with. I felt bad because he had something to go back to. In Equestria I had friends, yeah, but nopony to love. If he wanted to, he could've walked right past me and into her arms. I guess I'm still afraid of her stealing him away from me."

"Are you crazy? You know that'll never happen." I said. "Dad loves you. He wouldn't just leave you for Sarah."

"Yeah, I know, but what if?"

"It'll be fine. Even if Dad wanted to leave you, he'd be too scared." I laughed.

"You are one smart kid, Spence." said Mom with a smile.

"So they tell me. Hey, how did you know we were gone?"

"You guys left the Rift open. We just walked through."

"Ah. I knew we forgot something." I said, rubbing my head. "How long are we grounded for?"

"Let's see… You broke the law, went against a direct order from me, forced me to leave home to retrieve you which ultimately ended up with me getting a gun pointed at my throat and with me punching one of your dad's friends in the face so… you're fine. No punishment."

"For serious?" I asked.

"What can I say? I really wanted to punch Sasha in the face." she chuckled.

"Her name is Sarah."

"I know what I said." she said. "Don't correct me."

"Never correct Shutterfly." said a thin, serpentine figure who had appeared out of nowhere next to Mom. He had an eagle claw, a lion paw, a lizard foot and a hoof, along with a goat head, a dragon wing and a feathered wing. A draconequus.

"What the hell are you doing here, Discord?" asked Mom.

"Just popping in for a visit." he laughed. "I haven't seen you since before you were pregnant. Before you gained that baby weight."

"So you're Discord?" I asked in fascination.

"And you must be Marceline!" he said, shaking my hand with his eagle hand.

"That's my sister." I said.

"Of course! My mistake!" he said, snapping his fingers. A glass of chocolate milk appeared in his hand.

"No chocolate milk in the cottage, Discord!" shouted Mom. "In fact, no Discord in the cottage! Get out!"

"Why so rude, Fluttershy? Is that really the way to treat an old friend?" he asked, snapping his fingers again and making the glass disappeared.

"Yeah Mom, why do you have to kick him out? I've always wanted to meet him." Mom seemed to be fighting with herself. She gave me a worried look, then sighed.

"Fine. Talk to him. But I swear, if you try anything on my son, I will murder you." said Mom, twirling a lock of her hair.

"Why would I ever try to harm this precious little angel?" he asked. Not waiting for an answer, he turned to face me. "Ask any question you like."

"Okay. Where do you live?"

"Nowhere. And everywhere."

"Give him a straight answer, Discord." said Mom.

"Spoil sport. Fine. I live in my own personal realm, where anything goes. Pure chaos, sweet and delicious."

"So, you're sort of like the King of Chaos?" I asked.

"King? Ha! Don't be ridiculous! Why be a king when you can be a god?" he chuckled. "My power over chaos is absolute and unrivaled."

"What's your relationship with Mom?" I asked.

"Me and Fluttershy are the best of friends. She doesn't know what she'd do without me."

"Discord used to be super-evil, but I reformed him. Kinda. I sorta cut off his arm and tail during the war." said Mom with a frown. "And while this has been nice speaking to you, I'm going to have to ask you to get the hell out of my house."

"Time to turn that frown upside down." said Discord, snapping his fingers. Light flashed and we were standing on the ceiling, the floor now above us.

"Fix my house, Discord, or so help me!" said Mom.

"Say, where's that little bunny of your's?" asked Discord, changing the subject.

"Angel's with Rarity in Canterlot, getting groomed. Wanna flip my house back or am I going to have to hurt you?"

"All in due time Fluttershy. Maybe after you play my game."

"Everything's a goddamn game with you."

---

Marceline

Spencer and Mom walked through the Rift, leaving me alone with Dad and Sarah. Dad walked over to the Rift and closed it, afraid that Mom would change her mind. He reached down and helped Sarah off the floor.

"Thanks." she said, wiping the blood from her lip. Dad looked at her, then smacked her in the back of the head. "Ow!"

"What is wrong with you?!" he asked exasperatedly.

"What's wrong with me? What's wrong with Psychoshy?!"

"You pushed her and she pushed back." said Dad. Without warning, he smacked her in the head again.

"Ow! What was that for?"

"You kissed me! What is wrong with you?!" he repeated.

"Chill out, I was just making a point. Just like the whole handcuffs and butterscotch thing. Anything to get her riled up."

"What was that about?" I asked.

"N-nothing! Don't look for it! You know what, just stay off the internet! It's a terrible place." sputtered Sarah.

"Just a question." I said with a smile.

"Don't get too comfy young lady!" said Dad, wiggling his finger at me. "This is all your fault."

"How?!" I asked. "I wasn't the one who called Mom fat!"

"You have to admit, Chris, the look on her face was pretty funny." snickered Sarah. Dad tried to uphold his serious demeanor and succeeded for about twenty seconds before he began to smile.

"I can't lie, that was hilarious!" laughed Dad. "You shouldn't have done it, though. Dear God, she's gonna give me so much hell for this!"

"Not if Sarah apologizes." I said.

"That is a fantastic idea!" said Dad. "You and Sarah can apologize to Fluttershy together!"

"Why do I have to apologize?" asked me and Sarah simultaneously.

"Seriously? Do you really have to ask?"

"I did nothing wrong." I said, crossing my arms.

"You broke the law and you really hurt your mother. She might pretend that she doesn't care, but she's sincerely hurt that you would rather someone else."

"I'll apologize. It's not going to change how I feel, but I'll say sorry to make her feel better."

"Fantastic!" said Dad. "Sarah's going to apologize, Flutters is going to forgive you, I'm going to ground Marceline into oblivion, and then we'll see a movie! I love it when friends work things out."

"What?! Why am I grounded?" I asked in outrage.

"Marce, I could have you arrested. You don't have a passport."

"And I won't get one until I turn 18!"

"Then you don't go through Rifts until you're 18. Princess Twilight and I put up that law for a reason. The only reason you're allowed through Rifts at all is because of school."

"Why did you pass that stupid law anyway?"

"To prevent things like this from happening!"

"Why don't you trust me?" I asked.

"Because you're always doing things like this!"

"But Daddy, if you just gave me a chance, you'd see I could take care of myself."

"That's kinda what I'm afraid of."

"But Daddy-"

"Butts are for sitting!" exclaimed Dad. One of his favorite (and most annoying) phrases. "We're not discussing this right now. We're going home."

"Will I pass out this time?" asked Sarah.

"No. That only happens the first trip." said Dad, pulling open nothing and opening the Rift. "You might want to stay human. She might react better if you speak to her face-to-face."

"Alright." said Sarah stepping through the Rift.

"You next, Marce." said Dad, pushing me through.

"Alright, alright, no need to push." I said, tripping through the other side, my feet touching the ceiling. The entire interior of the house was flipped upside down.

"What the hell?" said Dad, tripping through the Rift. He closed it behind him and ran his hand through his hair.

"Hello, Silver." said a long, slender form standing next to Mom and Spencer. His body was a hodgepodge of parts from different animals and he had a mischievous smile on his face. "It's been ages, hasn't it?"

"What do you want, Discord?" asked Dad, crossing his arms. "And what have you done to my house?"

"Always so quick to the point." he said, draping his arm around me. "Now this one, this has got to be Marceline."

"Do I know you?" I asked.

"Call me your Uncle Discord." he chuckled.

"Don't call him that." said Mom. "This is Discord, an old frenemy. He was just popping in for a visit when he thought it'd be okay to flip the house. Now he's going to fix it, or I'm going to kill him!"

"Alright, alright." said Discord, snapping his fingers. The room flipped back to normal and Mom looked quite surprised.

"Woah, really? I thought I was going to have to get Twilight down here." said Mom.

"How is Princess Twilight?" he asked mischievously. "She is still princess, right? Didn't get usurped or assassinated?"

"She's doing a really good job, thank you for asking." said Dad. "Now, it's been great catching up, but I need to have a private talk with my family. Please leave."

"Oh, I will. I just have to give you your gifts." said Discord, reaching into the floor.

"Gifts?" asked Mom. "What are you talking about?"

"Here you go!" he exclaimed, ripping his hand out of the floor. In his eagle claw was three wooden masks, each of them decorated to look exactly like Sarah, Mom and Dad.

"What are those?" asked Dad.

"Let's find out!" giggled Discord, appearing behind Mom. He put the Sarah mask on her face. Then he warped behind Dad and put the Mom mask on him. Finally, he put the Dad mask onto Sarah. Golden light beamed out of the masks and chained to one another. Quickly, they ripped off the masks and threw them to the floor.

"What did you do to us, Discord?" asked Mom.

"What do you think, Fluttershy?" he said.

"I don't notice anything." said Sarah.

"How about you, Silver?"

"I don't see anything wrong." said Mom. "Cool little light show, I suppose, but not your usual chaos."

"Nopony noticed anything?" asked Discord frustratedly.

"What happened to my boobs?" asked Dad, rubbing his chest.

"And why do I suddenly have boobs?" asked Mom.

"And why are my boobs suddenly so much smaller?" asked Sarah.

"I don't know about you, Marcy, but I think they figured it out." said Discord. He pointed at Mom. "What's your name?"

"Don't be dumb. I'm Chris. You know that." said Mom.

"And you?" asked Discord, pointing at Sarah.

"Fluttershy." she said.

"This one?" he asked, gesturing towards Dad.

"Sarah." he said.

"Have fun!" said Discord, as he scooped the masks up. He snapped his fingers and disappeared into a flash of light.

"What?!" asked me and Spencer together.

Marceline

Have you ever seen something that just completely blew your mind? Something so confusing and unexpected that you just sat there and asked yourself "What the heck?". Well, that's what happened when I heard Dad speak out of Mom's voice.

"This is bizarre!" said Mom (er… Dad.). "How is this happening?"

"I don't know." said Sarah (Mom. This is going to get confusing.) "I hope this doesn't last long. I don't know how you live your life looking like this, Red."

"Real charmer, this one." said Dad (Sarah). "Hey! I sound like Chris!"

"You look like me, too." said Mom (Dad).

"Really?" she said. She ran upstairs towards the bathroom. "Dear God, I'm sexy!"

"Spencer." I said quietly. "Please tell me that I am severely misunderstanding something. Just tell me I'm horribly wrong in thinking that they all switched bodies."

"As much as I love to tell you that you're wrong, I don't think you are." he said, rubbing his head.

"We've completely changed bodies!" said Mom (Dad). "Ugh. What's wrong with my stomach?"

"Oooh." said Sarah (Mom). "Yeah, you're gonna be uncomfortable for… a while."

"Why is that?" asked Mom (Dad) uncomfortably. "What's happening?"

"It's sort of… that time again."

"No!" he (she) groaned. "Are you serious? Did this really have to happen while you're on your period?"

"Sucks to be you." said Sarah (Mom). You know what? I can see how confusing this is going to be, so from this point forward, I will be addressing them by who they are, not who they look like.

"Do you guys really have to talk about this in front of us?" asked Spencer.

"How is this happening?" I asked. "Dad is Mom, Mom is Sarah, Sarah is Dad, and I'm confused."

"How long does this typically last?" asked Dad.

"Hm… Too long for you to deal with. You will break." said Mom. "Wait a second. What happened to Red?"

"I'm right here." said Sarah, sliding down the banister. "Wait! What happens when we go into pony form?"

"Let's find out." said Dad. They all closed their eyes and their features began to melt and form, becoming more horse-like. Dad shaped and formed into Fluttershy, body growing and mane flowing down even more. Mom shot up in height and orange fur burst from her skin. A sharp piece of bone jutted from her forehead. Her eyes faded into an amber color. Sarah's hair stayed mostly the same, her eyes became steel grey and she grew black fur all over her body.

"We stole each other's pony forms as well." said Dad, rubbing his chest. "These are going to hurt my back."

"I didn't think it was possible, but I just got even hotter!" said Sarah, running her hands through her mane.

"Don't get too comfy, Red." said Mom. "Still don't like you touching my stuff."

"Really?!" exclaimed Dad. "Can you stop calling me that? It's degrading."

"I'm sorry, I just want her to know that you're taken." said Mom.

"Hey!" I exclaimed. "Focus, will ya? We have a problem, and we have to fix it. What if you guys are stuck like this forever?"

"No complaints here." said Sarah. "I've always wondered what it'd be like to be so gorgeous!"

"Is now really the time for flirting?" asked Dad. "Marcy's right. This is an issue. As beautiful as you are, I can't stay looking like you, Fluttershy. Wouldn't that be strange?"

"Yeah, just imagine if we wanted to have another kid." chuckled Mom.

"I've given 'The Talk' twice now. I don't want to have to do it again, then explain why Daddy's a mare."

"You know, now that I see me from the outside, I guess Red and Discord were right. I am a little on the chubby side."

"So I'm fat now? Is that what this is? Well, excuse me if I like an extra cupcake every now and again! It's not my fault I put on weight! We had two kids and no reason to train, so maybe I'm a little out of shape, but there's no reason to grill me about how fat I am!" cried Dad. We all sat there with astonishment.

"Dude, are you PMSing?" asked Mom.

"What if I am? Why is everything my fault? I can't control this!"

"You totally are! That's rich! Now you know how I feel every month!"

"Focus!" said Spencer. "I've read a lot about Discord and ancient artifacts, but I've never seen anything like this before. Let's take a trip to the library, maybe we'll find something out."

"Okay. Let's hope Zecora's home." said Mom.

"Zecora?" asked Sarah. "The zebra? She lives at the library?"

"Ever since Twilight moved back to Canterlot." said Dad. "Twilight figured that someone had to run the library, so why not Zecora?"

"Seems fair enough." said Sarah, grabbing the door. She pushed it open and led the way into town, away from the cottage on the edge of the woods. The adults were in front, while me and Spencer held back a bit.

"Can you believe this, Spence?" I whispered. "How is this happening?"

"I don't know. This is ridiculous." he said as we reached the door of the giant tree that was Golden Oak Library.

"How do we explain this?" asked Dad.

"Um… I don't know." said Mom, pushing the door open.. "Let's just come out and say it." We walked into the library, where every wall was a bookshelf with tons of books, old and new. Near one of the shelves was a zebra, sorting the books at her eye level.

"Welcome to my book-filled tree, filled with knowledge, as you can see." she said, not turning around.

"Hey, Zecora." said Dad. "We have a teeny-tiny problem."

"Well, speak up, my dear Fluttershy. If I can help, well, I will try." she rhymed.

"Actually, it's me. Silver." said Dad.

"Fluttershy is over here." said Mom, raising her hand slightly.

"Not that anypony cares, but I'm Sarah." said Sarah.

"What is this, this problem tragic? This appears to be Discord's magic."

"Yes it is." said Mom. "Discord put masks on us that switched our bodies."

"Masks? That sounds like magic of quite old. Perhaps it is the Veils of Switching Souls."

"You've heard of it?" asked Sarah.

"No, but I did just peer into this book. Perhaps you would like to give it a look."

---

Spencer

Zecora showed us a thick, leather-bound book with old, dusty pages. She opened it up and pointed to a passage. I looked on in fascination. I loved weird magic like this. I pretty much owe my entire existence to strange and confusing magic.

"The Veils of Switching Souls are ancient masks whose origins are shrouded in mystery. Some reports say that the Veils go way back, all the way to before the birth of the Regal Sisters. They were first used by Discord during his reign over is a Veil for every living pony ever. Every time a pony is born, a mask is created. These masks, for unknown reasons, manipulate the soul of the pony it looks like." I read aloud.

"That didn't exactly help us. At all." said Marceline. "Way to go, Spence."

"Discord used the Veils to cause mayhem across Equestria. When you wear a mask that does not belong to you, your consciousness is put into their body and vice-versa. The only way to revert it is to destroy the Veil." I read, ignoring my sister. "What was that about not helping, Marcy? I think I just found the solution. What did you find, dweeb?"

"What did I find? I found a huge problem, dork." said Marcy.

"And what might that be?"

"The Veils are indestructible to most means. Only a combination of weapons or tools made from certain rare, magical metals can pierce them." she read. "Your move, Spence."

"What metal might that be?" I asked. "I know a lot of them, and maybe I know the ones we need."

"Um… Celestial Silver and Lunar Steel. Apparently, they're both really, very rare."

"I know where to get those." I said.

"What?! Where?" she asked.

"Dad's sword is made from Celestial Silver and his gun is made out Lunar Steel."

"They sure are. Perfect! Now we just have to get the masks. Then we can destroy them and return to normal."

"I can tell, with my eyes, the problem that will arise." said Zecora.

"What is the problem?" asked Sarah.

"Ah. I see." I said, scanning the book one more time. "It says here that if your soul is switched, physical activity can burn out your Shine. You shouldn't do anything straining, or it might kill you."

"Well, that's going to be an issue. We can't overexert ourselves, so we have to ask somepony for help. Let's see, who can we call?" asked Dad. "Where are the girls?"

"Canterlot, I think. No way can we contact them. How about the Crusaders?" asked Mom.

"No, they're guarding Twilight. She has a UNE meeting, and they can't be pulled." said Dad. "We're running out of options."

"I know!" said Sarah. "We need someone to help us, right? Someone who knows how to fight?"

"Yeah."

"Didn't you take Marceline and Spencer to the firing range? And give them sword-fighting lessons?" asked Sarah.

"Yeah. What about… No!" shouted Mom. "I'm not sending the kids after Discord!"

"Why not?" asked Marceline. "We can do it!"

"As much as I don't want to admit it, Marcy's right. We can find him and break the masks!" I said.

"No. It's too dangerous." said Dad. "We'll find somepony else."

I do not wish to make you cry, but in a week, you will die. Unless, of course, the masks are broken. Then lies will be what I've spoken." chimed Zecora.

"We have a week?" said Mom with worry. "And nopony here to help us? Silver…"

"Fluttershy…" he replied, with equal sing-songyness.

"Don't worry, Dad! I'll make sure Spence doesn't get hurt!" said Marceline.

"I'm getting really sick of you, Marcy!" I said. "Mom, Dad, just let us go. We'll be fine."

"I don't know." he said, running his head through his pink mane. "Sounds risky…"

"Silver, we've been talking about this, and I think that, maybe, this is for the best. What happens if Sombra comes back? Don't you want them to be ready?"

"Yes…"

"So what better opportunity than to save us?" she said.

"Are you sure about this?" said Dad. "I'm trusting you completely."

"They'll be fine." said Mom, leaning in to kiss Dad. She got about halfway through when she remembered that she was in Sarah's body. "Whoops! Don't want Red's tongue in my mouth, do I?"

"Don't you technically have her tongue in your mouth right now?" I said.

"Don't patronize me, boy." said Mom. "You know what I meant. Oh, and I didn't mean too much offense, Red."

"Oh no, I understand completely. I don't want you to kiss yourself with me." said Sarah. "I don't think that made sense."

"Don't mean to rush you, but aren't we in a hurry?" said Marceline. "Can we go get the sword and gun?"

"Well, Sarah has Lunar on her hip and Celestial is… Oh no." said Dad. "Fluttershy…"

"What is it?"

"I left my sword at my mom's." he groaned, dropping to his butt. "We have to go get it, don't we?"

"Are you sure that's where it is?" asked Sarah.

"Uh-huh. I last had it on Hearth's Warming, remember? She invited us for Christmas dinner, and I brought it with me, just in case. I forgot it there."

"Do you think you'll be okay?" asked Mom, rubbing Dad's shoulder. "Are you sure you'll be able to deal with her?"

"Why wouldn't I be able to? I've been doing it for the past twenty years."

"Yes, but you never had these hormones bouncing around like this before. I don't think it'll be good if you break into tears in front of your mom."

"I'll be fine, Fluttershy." he said, getting to his hooves. "Everyone in human form." We all did the transformation, shrinking and compacting, returning us to human beings. I licked my teeth and stretched out my midsection. No one else did things like that, but I felt weird after changing shape like that.

"Kids, can you open the Rift?" asked Mom. "I don't think your Dad should be straining himself."

"Okay." I said. I reached my palm forward, touching hands with Marceline. She looked extremely serious and a little ticked off, but I knew she wasn't. I could feel her excitement, her glee. Don't know why, but I could always tell if she was hiding something. We call it our Twin Sense. Her hand met mine and great heat began to build up between them. We pulled them apart, slowly opening the Rift. We opened the biggest Rift we've ever done, this one wide enough for all of us to fit through comfortably.

"You guys are improving." said Dad. "Let's go get that sword." He stepped through the Rift, followed by Sarah, Mom and Marceline.

"Thank you for your help, Zecora." I said, tripping through to the other side of the Rift.

"Just when I thought today couldn't get worse." said an old, familiar voice. "You show up with your goddamn kids. I'm not babysitting so you two psychos can go on a hot date!"

"Hi, Grandma." said Marceline and I in perfect harmony, evilly sarcastic. "We've missed you!"

"Christian, you better get these hellions out of my house before I knock someone out." she said, shooting Sarah a look of absolute ferocity.

"Hey, Mrs. Brookes." said Sarah sheepishly.

"I'm over here, Mom." said Dad.

"I'm Fluttershy." said Mom. "A pleasure, as always."

"Someone best start explaining, or there's going to be some serious issues!"

"You're never gonna believe it." I said. "But let's tell you anyway, just to see how you cope with your son becoming a girl."

"Chris is a chick?" she asked. We nodded. "What's new?"

"I missed you too, Mom." said Dad, rolling his eyes.

Marceline

Grandma reluctantly led us to the living room and offered us a seat on the couch. Spencer and I darted our eyes around the house, looking for a way to mess with her. Tormenting our grandmother was one of our favorite pastimes, the one bad, delinquent thing I could get Spencer to do without feeling guilty afterwards. Our grandmother was short, silver haired, dark-skinned and the most despicable person I'd ever met. Dad never even let us meet her until we were eight, and she's hated us ever since, all because of that one time I accidentally flew through her window… twelve times. I swear, it was an honest mistake.

"Mom, we really don't want to stay, it's just that I left something here and we need to grab it." said Dad.

"In a minute. I just want to make sure I have this straight; This dumbass is now in his psycho wife's body, his wife is in Sarah's body and Sarah ended up in Chris' body?" she asked no one in particular. When no one protested, she started to laugh. "That's just perfect! Whatever you did, you screwed up bad!"

"It wasn't our fault, Ma. Why would we intentionally assume each other's form?" asked Dad.

"I don't know. Probably the same reason you have two kids with Horse Girl over here: You're dumb." she said, jabbing her thumb at Dad. If anyone else said that to our Dad, we'd probably be all over them, but we knew better. We could always get our revenge later. "On a different, but related, note, are you getting a little fat?"

"Why is everyone calling me fat?! You know what? Fine. Since I'm so freaking fat, I'll go on a diet. Even better, I'll stop eating! I'll starve myself! Is that what you want? Would you feel better if I just starved myself to a bag of bones?!" said Dad, crying slightly. Now, our Dad was never exactly Bulk Biceps, but he did have dignity. He lost all of it in that one second he started crying.

"What the hell is wrong with him?" asked Grandma.

"PMS." said Mom simply.

"Ha! That's too funny!" laughed Grandma, hate burning in her eyes. Our grandmother always had this look in her eyes, a look like she was angry, as if she had fought in a long, terrible war. She had more rage and disgust than I knew one person could have.

"Back to the topic, Granny from Hades." I said, returning focus to the task. "We need Dad's sword. Where is it?"

"Shut up, ya little shit. Don't talk to me like that." she said. "I don't even know what you need it for."

"What does it matter?" asked Spencer. "It's not like this is your sword."

"I refuse to be kept out of the loop again." she said. "Now, explain!"

"There are masks out there called the Veils of Switching Souls. There is one for every person ever born. Discord put the masks to their name of 'Switching Souls' and switched our souls. Now we need my sword to give to the kids so they can break the masks and return it to normal." said Dad.

"Discord? Isn't that the one who helped you after your Princess Selina or whatever got shot?"

"Princess Celestia, and yes."

"If he helped you before, why is he screwing with you now?"

"Because, Mom, he's the God of Chaos. Things started to make sense, and he didn't like that."

"I still don't get it. Why send in the Disaster Twins when you have the Elements of Whatever and the Defenders of Whatever?"

"Harmony. Both 'Whatever's were Harmony." said Dad. "You clearly don't get how this works, so let me explain: The Elements of Harmony are Princess Twilight, who is at an important UNE meeting, Rarity, who's in Canterlot or the Crystal Empire making dresses-"

"Don't you mean 'saddles'?."

"Pinkie Pie is working on explosives at the Crystal Empire, Applejack is probably helping and Fluttershy is next to me, burning out her life force. The Defenders are me Isaiah and Robert. Isaiah and Robert are busy dealing with a problem with Rarity's daughter, so we can't call them for help. There's no one else to help, except for the twins."

"And we're kinda on a schedule, so just give us the sword!" I said frustratedly.

"Why do you need to return to normal? This is way funnier!" chuckled Grandma.

"Mrs. B, as sexy as I look right now, I really do want to go back to normal." said Sarah, looking to Mom for help. "You do realise that Fluttershy is in my body, right? She could ruin me!"

"That's true. I was thinking of getting a tattoo, a big one right on the forehead, that reads 'I'm Fluttershy's bitch!'. How does that sound, Red?" said Mom, giving Sarah a wink. Talk about enemy of an enemy.

"All right, all right, I get it, but only because I don't want you to screw with Sarah. Give me a minute." said Grandma, walking upstairs. She bustled around for a while, then returned with a 3-foot long, sheathed sword. She threw it to Spencer, who caught it easily. He pulled it out of the sheath, revealing the golden-orange blade, with it's name, Celestial, running along the edge. Our Dad's super-awesome, undefeatable, legendary blade! He always used to tell us stories about it, how Princess Celestia gave it to him. He told us that, one day, maybe we'd be able to use it. Well, today was that day and I was totally nerding out on the inside.

"Here, you have your sword. Get out of my house." said Grandma.

"Actually" said Mom. "Maybe it'd be for the best if we stay here. We're not supposed to do anything physically exhausting, so maybe we should stay with you, where it's nice and… peaceful. Peaceful is probably the best word."

"I didn't sign up for this." said Grandma.

"Neither did we, Mom, but sometimes you just have to play with the hand you're dealt." said Dad.

"You're not staying here."

"We'll give you five hundred bits." I said, eager to get out of there.

"What's the conversion again?" asked Grandma.

"That would come out to $6250. Seems good like good pay, considering you'd be doing nothing except tolerate your son, his wife and their friend."

"I don't like being bargained with, but that seems fair." said Grandma. "Where's my money?"

"Er… Dad?" I tried.

"Here you go." Dad sighed, reaching into Sarah's pocket for his wallet. While he was there, he grabbed Lunar off of her hip. "Marcy, Spence, I know I shouldn't be, but I'm really worried. Please be careful."

"We will." I said.

"Will you really?" asked Mom.

"Yes." said Spencer.

"Promise not to fight?" said Dad.

"Do you want to feel good, or do you want the truth?" I asked.

"Just try and behave yourself." said Mom.

"Remember what we taught you about swords and guns. Don't point them at each other, for any reason." said Dad, handing me the gun. He never let me hold Lunar, something about not trusting me with firearms. "Be very careful when using them."

"You two aren't just normal pegasi." said Mom. "You're part human, which means you have powerful magic. We don't know exactly what you can do, but if you feel something, a gut feeling, a spark of something, just follow it."

"Now, you're going to need some bullets. I never told you where it is, so I take it you know exactly how to get to the cache?"

"Er… Yeah." I said. "Sorry, Dad. We know you told us not to, but we just wanted to-"

"Yeah, I know, you just wanted to know what we used in the war." said Dad. "Now get out of here! Go on, kids! Stop Discord!"

"Alright!" said me and Spencer, opening a Rift together.

"Oh, and I almost forgot! Don't kill him." said Mom.

"Huh?" I asked in confusion, distracted by the awesome weapon in my hands.

"We don't want you to kill him. Don't taint yourself like that."

"How many have you killed?" I asked bitterly.

"More than I wanted to." said Mom. "Sunset Shimmer and countless other changelings. On a good day, I could take out twenty enemies per battle."

"I don't think you should be giving me advice, since you're such a mass-murderer." I said.

"I'm not a murderer. I'm a soldier."

"You say potato…" I said, stepping through the Rift.

---

Spencer

"You say potato…" said Marceline, walking into the Rift

"What the actual hell?" asked Mom. "What's her problem?"

"Um… I think I finally understand why she says the things she does." I said.

"Why?!" she asked. "What's her problem?"

"No time to talk, we have things to do." I said quickly, jumping through the Rift. I fell through to the living room on the other side, where Marceline was waiting for me, twirling around Dad's gun.

"What was that about?!" I asked, poking her in the side of the head.

"What?" she asked, returning the poke with Lunar's barrel.

"Why did you say that to Mom?" I asked, walking to the center of the room. I stomped my right foot hard, shaking the loose floorboard. The entire floor split down the middle, revealing a set of stairs leading onto the depths of the earth.

"No reason." she lied, following me down the stairs. "Just giving her a hard time."

"Don't lie to me." I said, reaching the bottom of the staircase. We began down the long hallway, lit with small lamps every couple of feet on the wall.

"I'm not lying." she said. Of course she was.

"I can tell when you're lying."

"How?"

"You know how. Twin Sense."

"Well, that's not always right. That's just something we made up, anyway" she said, stopping in front of two large doors. She pushed it open and stepped into the huge, secret armory. I ran across the marble floor, dropped Celestial and grabbed two of the 30 duffel bags. I kicked one over to my sister, who picked it up and slung it over her shoulder.

"I know when my sister is hiding something. You were really bitter. You started to look like Grandma."

"Don't compare me to that hag." she said, unzipping the bag. She reached in, hand not even touching the bottom. "What's in here?"

"Ammo, Chameleon Armor, a few knives, a rifle, two shotguns, a couple bricks of C4, food rations, poisons, antidotes, bandages, tents and an entire mini-library." I listed, digging around in it. "Pretty much anything we could ever need."

"How does that work?" she asked, grabbing a black body-suit out of the bag. Chameleon Armor, normal clothes that became thick, titanium armor whenever you get an adrenaline rush.

"Conjure made these. Bigger on the inside, from what I understand." I said, pulling my suit on. It was kinda baggy at first, then it shrunk down so that it was skin-tight. Marceline pulled hers on, it also shrinking to fit her properly. "Also feather-light. Are we ready to go?"

"Yeah." she said, loading Lunar. "Remember what Dad used to tell us about these weapons?"

"I remember how he told us that, through the entire war, he never turned it on an innocent." I said, grabbing Celestial. "Him and Mom."

"I read up on these. Did you know that Lunar takes the bullets it's loaded with and transforms them into Moonlight Bullets, which are twice as dense, three times as powerful and travel at near-light speed?"

"Yes. I'm the one who gave you the book you read that in." I said rolling my eyes.

POP!

Marceline and I were suddenly in the Everfree Forest. Not on the outskirts, like where our house was, but deep in the dense, dangerous brush. I dropped my bag, unsheathed Celestial and pressed my back against Marceline's, who was pointing the gun around, looking for trouble.

"How did we get here?" I asked.

"That would be me!" laughed a familiar, mischievous voice.

"Show yourself, Discord!" I yelled.

"I'm right here." he said, melting out of a tree. "How's it going, friends?"

"Give us the Veils, Discord." said Marceline, pointing Lunar at his face.

"Please don't shoot me!" he said, dropping to his knees and crying. "I beg you! I don't want to die!"

"Well… just give us the masks and we won't hurt you." said Marceline, lowering the gun slightly. Discord slithered past me and yanked the gun from my sister's hand.

"Really?" he chuckled, twirling the gun around. "No way did you fall for that!"

"Give it back, Discord! That's our Dad's gun!" said Marceline angrily.

"I know. I was there." said Discord, throwing the gun in the air and catching it.

"What do you gain from this?" I asked. "What do you want?"

"Eternal chaos and a ham-and-cheese sandwich." he said. "Although, I could easily get one of those things now." He snapped his lion fingers and a sandwich appeared on top of his head. He knocked it up in the air and caught it in his mouth.

"Discord, just give us the Veils." I said. "We really don't want any trouble."

"I'm sure you don't, but this is just too much fun!" he laughed. "But I do have a few issues with this little adventure."

"Like what?" asked Marceline.

"For one, a little girl like yourself shouldn't be holding guns. Perhaps I should just get rid of this." he said, squeezing Lunar tightly. The entire gun began to emit a deep, midnight-blue glow, confusing me, Marceline and Discord. The light grew brighter and brighter, until eventually…

POP!

The gun burst into light. The light beamed itself at Marcelines left hand, where it reformed into Lunar. She grabbed it, confused but undeniably pleased with herself. That must've been what Mom meant by "powerful magic".

"Cool." said Marceline.

"Since when could you do that?" I asked.

"Since 13 seconds ago. Pretty strange, huh?"

"Ahem." coughed Discord. "I do not like being ignored."

"Oh yes, what were we talking about? No guns for me?" said Marceline. "Well, if I can't have guns, my little brother definitely shouldn't have a sword."

"Little brother?" I said in disbelief. "You were born twenty-eight seconds before me. 28 seconds!"

"I meant you're little as in height."

"We're the same size! We've always been the same height!" I said.

"But let's face it, I'm clearly supposed to be the older one."

"How so?"

"I figured out my magic thing first. What can you do with that sword?" she asked. What pissed me off was that she had a point. I had no clue what I could do.

"I'll figure it out later." I said.

"Hey!" shouted Discord angrily. "I do not like being ignored!"

"And we don't like it when you mess with our family." said Marceline. "So give us the masks, and maybe we'll listen to you."

"I had another idea. Didn't you wonder why I teleported you to the Everfree Forest?" he asked, snapping his eagle fingers. From each of the trees surrounding us dropped several thick, thorny vines. He pointed at us, laughing, as the vines shot forward, straight at my left eye.

"Didn't see that one coming, did you?" laughed Discord.

Spencer

I swung Celestial upwards, slicing the vine in half right before it hit my face. It fell to the ground and began to writhe, eventually growing still. I then turned my attention to the seven or so vines that were wrapping up Marceline.

"Don't just stand there! Do something!" she yelled, as a vine wrapped itself around her legs. The vines hoisted her up, leaving her dangling upside-down above the treetops.

"What do you want me to do?" I asked, scratching my head.

"Watch out behind you!" she cried. The vine I had cut was back, now acting as two separate vines. I sliced them in half quickly, then watched in horror as they grew back and attacked again.

"What do we do about this?" I asked, slicing at vine after vine.

"First, you should cut me down!" she said, angrily brandishing Lunar at her captor.

"Have you considered shooting yourself down?" I asked.

BOOM!

A thundering shot rang in my ears, the sound of a powerful pistol going off, followed by a yelp of pain.

"Ow! The recoil on this is way more than I thought!" she said. "I dropped it and I think my arm might need to be popped back into the socket."

"It's all up to me then." I said, cutting at another vine. "What are these plants anyway?"

"These? These are Hydra Trees." said Discord. "Only found in the deepest, most dangerous parts of the Everfree Forest."

"Hydra Trees?" I said, cutting another vine. "That's an odd name."

"Is it really?" asked Discord. "Makes perfect sense to me."

"Hydra!" shouted Marcy, vines now wrapped around her ankles, wrists and neck. "Like the creature!"

"What do I know about hydras?" I said. "Many heads, every time one is severed, two more grow in it's place, only way to behead it permanently is… Fire!"

"What?"

"Fire! We have to burn them!" I said. "Did we happen to have a lighter in the supply bags?"

"That's about the only thing that wasn't in them!"

"Fire, fire, fire!" I said, lowering my sword in thought. "Where do I get fire?"

"Spence, look out!" cried my sister.

THUNK!

A vine bounced off of my chest, broken and bent. My suit had turned into thick, metal armor, invulnerable to something as frail as this vegetation.

"Thank goodness for Chameleon Armor." I said. "Unfortunately, that doesn't get us any closer to the solution."

"Spence… Help… Me!" gasped my sister, the vine around her neck tightening. She was suffocating and I became very scared.

"Fire! Fire! Where do I find fire?" I asked panickedly, ignoring the heat that was growing in my right hand, my sword hand. Another vine shot at my eye, lightning fast. I instinctively dodged it, although not as fast as I should have. It scraped my cheek, cutting me with one of its thorns. I swung Celestial upwards, expecting to slice the plant in half. Instead, when the sword touched the vine, it caught fire. The vine fell to the ground, burning as I dropped the sword in fear. The blade had become a plume of fire, the same length, width, and shape of the original sword. I grabbed it off the floor and rushed to save my sister.

"Hang on, Marceline! I got you!" I said, transforming into a pegasus. I flapped my wings and took off into the air. I flew up to Marcy and began to slice at the vines binding her.

"Wait a minute!" she said as I ripped the vine from her neck.

"What?" I asked, burning the ones holding her wrists.

"How am I going to get down, you idiot?!" she asked. As she said that, I cut the last vine, sending her to plummet towards the ground. Whoops.

"Oh no!" I cried, flying down to catch her. Turns out, she didn't need me. She transformed into pegasus form in mid-air and caught herself.

"Way to go." she said sarcastically, fluttering down to the ground, left arm hanging limp. "I don't know what I would do without you."

"Probably suffocate." I said, hooves touching ground. I gave my teeth a quick lick, stretched out my legs and looked around for Discord. "Where is he?"

"He must've ran away in the confusion." said Marceline, grabbing Lunar from the ground. "Look, Spencer, I'm sorry. I've been acting really rude lately. I didn't even properly thank you for saving my life."

"It's not too late, you know?" I joked. I didn't know what to do with the sword, so I just threw it to the ground.

"Thank you." she said, awkwardly hugging me with her dislocated arm. "Thank you so much."

"It's fine." I said, hugging her back. She never hugged me. Ever. "Are you okay?"

"I'm really emotional right now." she said. "I'm sort of freaking out."

"Over what?"

"What if we fail? What if Mom dies thinking I hate her?" she asked.

"Well, we better not fail then." I said, pushing her off. "And you can tell Mom why you keep acting like that."

"Like I said, there's no reason. I just feel this way and I don't know why."

"And like I said, there is a reason, you're just hiding it. Hiding it from me, maybe even hiding it from yourself. You buried it deep in your psyche, and you don't even realise why you act like this, but I do."

"Okay, Dr. Phil. Enlighten me; Why do I feel this way towards Mom?"

"I'm not telling you. That's something you have to figure out on your own." I said sluggishly. "Maybe after you talk to her more about what happened before we were born."

"You okay? You seem a little dazed." she said.

"I dunno. I do feel a little weird." I said. I started to sweat, my vision blurred slightly and I was about ready to lose my lunch. "I'm fine. We should focus on finding Discord."

"Are you sure? You look like you're about to pass out."

"I'll be fine." I said, dropping to the ground.

"What happened?" she asked from far away.

"I got cut. Where Hydras poisonous?"

"Clearly!"

"Uh-oh." I said, closing my eyes.

---

Marceline

"No!" I cried. "No! We've been on this adventure for about ten minutes and you're already about to die?" I rushed over to the duffel bags and dug around with my good hand, the right, for the antidote bottles. I pulled out a bunch, each labeled differently.

"Antidotes for Arsenic, Cyanide, Pit Viper venom, Hemlock, even Puffer Fish poison, but nothing for Hydra Trees!" I said frustratedly. I dug back into the bag and pulled out a book, Remedies for Natural Toxins. I flipped through it frantically. When I got to the passage about Hydra Trees, I scanned through it quickly. It said that victims of the Hydra Tree poison had about 13 minutes before their brain shuts down completely. Yikes! Still no antidote! I read further and came to a very useful little passage.

"The poison of the Hydra Tree can be combated with superheated Pit Viper antivenom." I read aloud. I grabbed the Pit Viper bottle and held it over the still flaming sword. After a moment, it began to pop and bubble. I uncorked it as quickly as I could with one arm and poured half of it into Spencer's mouth and the other half directly onto the wound. I had no clue how to administer the cure, but whatever I did worked, because Spencer blinked his eyes hard and returned to the world.

"What?" he asked, sitting up. "What happened?"

"You were poisoned, ya ding-dong!" I said, relieved that he was okay. "Thank goodness that antivenom worked."

"Huh? Were you worried about me?" he teased.

"No, I just didn't want to have to tell Mom that I let you get poisoned." I lied. I helped him up when he took notice of my dislocated arm.

"Need help with that?" he asked.

"You know how to do it?" I asked.

"Do I know how to do it?" he mocked. "Of course I know how to do it."

"Alright. Fine. What do I do?"

"I'm going to take off my shirt really quick." he said, unzipping his suit. He pulled the T-shirt beneath it off and wadded it up.

"What are you doing?" I asked, pretty scared.

"Bite down on this." he said, pushing the shirt in my mouth. I did as he said, slightly confused. "I'm going to count to three, okay?"

"Mh-hm!" I said through a mouth of fabric.

"3.. 2...1" he said. Nothing. I spit the shirt out and caught in my right hand.

"I thought you were going to- Ow!" I began, before he jammed my shoulder back into place with his palm. I rotated my arm, getting a feeling in it besides pain.

"I said I would count to three. You shouldn't have assumed that I would do it when I got there."

"You are the biggest jerk I've ever met!" I said, rubbing my left arm.

"Hey, if you were expecting it, it would've hurt a whole lot more." he said, grabbing Celestial, his still flaming sword. He closed his eyes and the fire began to die down. The fire extinguished itself, leaving the blade just as normal.

"Cool little power." I said. "How'd you do that?"

"Same way you did the teleport thing. We're just awesome."

"Sure are." I chuckled. "What do we do now?"

"It's getting pretty late. I'd say we have about two and a half hours before the sun goes down. We should go gather wood for a fire." he said. We ran into the brush, pulling dead branches from the floor and trees. After we gathered enough, we returned to the clearing. I made a little pile of wood, surrounded by little stones. Spencer pulled out Celestial and placed the tip against the wood. A second later, the sword and the wood was on fire.

"Enjoy." I said, tossing Spencer a dish if magically preserved carrots. We could be in the woods for years and those things would still be perfectly fresh.

"Thanks." he said, popping the lid. "Did you figure it out yet?"

"Figure what out?"

"Why you're so mad at Mom."

"No, Spencer, I did not. I do not know why, but I'm guessing you already knew that. So stop being a pretentious prick and help me!" I said angrily.

"Am I being pretentious? That wasn't my intention. I'm just trying to get you to learn this on your own. If you can figure it out on your own, it'll have much more weight and significance." he said.

"But I can't do it on my own!" I said, turning away to hide my tears. "I don't know why I'm so angry at her, and I feel terrible for it, but I can't do anything about it because I don't know the issue!" He stayed silent, apparently taken aback by how angry I was. I was being unfair to him. He was trying to do a good thing for me and I yelled at him. How typical of me, just jump at people's throats.

"Spence, I'm sorry I got so upset with you. You're just trying to get me to learn something on my own, and I'm being a jerk for no reason. I know I try to act all tough and cool, but you and I both know how much of a wimp I am." He remained silent, which was starting to piss me off.

"I know I'm being sorta bratty here, but the least you can do is acknowledge the fact that I'm trying to apologize! I'm not perfect, I'll be the first to admit that, but at least I'm making an effort! Instead of ignoring me, maybe you could help me figure out what's going on with me!" I shouted, turning around to face him. It turns out his silence was not his fault. His skin, eyes, everything had become cold, grey stone. Next to him was a creature that looked like the spawn of a very confused dragon and rooster. A cockatrice. I turned my eyes away in fear. Mom used to tell me that one look would turn you to stone, such as what happened to Spencer.

"Oh my gosh!" I said, squeezing my eyes shut. "Spencer! Oh man, what do I do?" I felt a claw touch my arm, and I opened my eyes. I don't know why, but I got an impulse, a gut feeling, to stare at the thing attached to the claw. The cockatrice looked at me with slight confusion, apparently amazed that I would do something so dumb. Our eyes met, and slowly I lost feeling in my hooves. It moved up my ankles, all the way to my thigh, before I did it. The Stare.

"Listen here, chicky!" I said. I took on a look of sheer ferocity, determination. I felt a strange sort of power go through me as I yelled at the cockatrice. "You know that colt you turned to stone? Well, that's my brother and I'm pissed that he's a statue! So turn him back!" The cockatrice looked confused and slightly annoyed as it opened it's eyes even wider, increasing the strength of his magic. The lack of feeling travelled all the way up to my ribs.

"Don't mess with me! I'm something you don't screw with! I'm in a staring contest with a cockatrice, and I'm winning! Fix my brother! Now!" I screamed, Staring even harder. "If you don't, I'll have no choice but to call my mom! Do you know who my mother is? My mom runs this forest! Ever here of Fluttershy?" The cockatrice, upon hearing my mom's name, jumped back in fear. Apparently, he did know her.

"You're scared now, ain't ya? Turn my Spencer back or I'll be get her down here!" I shouted. Quickly, the cockatrice stared at Spencer. He began to chip and crumble away, revealing his normal black coat. The layer of stone surrounding Spencer fell of, leaving him dazed and gasping for breath.

"Marcy! There's… a… cockatrice!" he wheezed.

"I'm dealing with it." I said, as the cockatrice removed the stone from my body. I shook off the stone fragments, relieved that Spencer was okay. I kicked the cockatrice in the tail, sending him running into the woods.

"How…?" asked Spencer.

"I used it!" I said excitedly. "I used The Stare!"

"What? Mom said we wouldn't be able to, that it was a freak accident that she could use it. She said it shouldn't exist and that nopony else would ever be able to pull it off."

"She also said that since we're part human, we're magic! The 'Laws of Normal' don't exactly apply to us." I said. "We're awesome! We can do things that nopony could even dream about!"

"I'm glad you discovered something cool about yourself." he said. "Are you as exhausted as I am?"

"Probably more. What Mom neglected to tell us is that The Stare is a strain on the body. I feel like I could sleep for two weeks."

"Please don't." he said, digging into the bags. He pulled out a tent and dropped it to the ground. "Help me set up?" We staked the tent in about ten minutes, then crawled inside, exhausted.

"Should we take shifts?" he yawned.

"I don't think we'll have to. That cockatrice is in no hurry to come back, and I'm sure he told all his demon-spawn friends." I said, lying on my back. "I doubt we have to worry."

"If you say so. At least I can say I'm a light sleeper." he said, taking a spot to my left.

"What's that supposed to mean?" I asked, knowing full well what he meant.

"I mean that you sleep heavier than a sack of rocks."

"I do not." I lied.

"Marceline, once you slept through Pinkie Pie's cannon exploding your bedroom."

"Huh? I don't remember that." I said, confused. I wasn't joking. I really didn't remember.

"Of course you don't, you were asleep. It was on Mom and Dad's anniversary. Pinkie came by with her Party Cannon to celebrate. It backfired and exploded."

"Did it really?"

"It destroyed the entire second floor! We had to call in Conjure to fix it."

"In any case, we'll be fine, thanks to you, Mister 'Sleep-with-one-eye-open'. Good night."

"Good night, Stare Master."

"Don't ever call me that again." I said, closing my eyes. Me saying that pretty much guaranteed that he would be calling me that every chance he got. Excellent. I really liked the name.

Marceline

When I woke up, I felt fresh and rejuvenated. After the whole cockatrice experience, Spencer and I were ready to find the masks and get the hay out of the Forest. We packed up the tent, and sat down to plan our next move.

"Okay, think. Where might Discord be hiding?" I asked.

"I dunno, but I think I know how to find out." he said.

"While you do that, I'll be using the bathroom." I said, getting to my hooves. I rushed behind a tree about 5 yards away and went about my business. When I returned, my brother had three small birds on his left shoulder. At his feet were a fox, a snake and two lynxes.

"What in all of Equestria are you doing?" I asked.

"I told you that I might be able to find Discord. Well, that's what I'm doing." he said. The animals looked frightened of me, so they turned to run. "Don't worry, guys. That's my sister. Sure she's a brat at times, but she's friendly."

"Since when could you talk to animals?" I asked, sitting next to the snake. He looked at me in confusion and flitted his tongue at me. I stuck my tongue out at him, making us seem like the weirdest set of siblings ever.

"Since always. Remember when your slippers got chewed up by a wolf? Well, let that serve as a reminder never to touch my stuff again."

"You prick. I'll get you back for that." I said. "But that's neither here nor there, so let's just get on with it. What did they say?"

"Well, Mr. Wolf Snake didn't see anything, Mr and Mrs. Lynx heard some laughter, Senor Fox says he saw a bunch of trees completely upside down, and the Sparrow Triplets saw a weird animal that they've never seen before. Based off of what they said, Discord is still in the forest with no intention of leaving." he reported. He leaned over and whispered to his posse of woodland critters. Whatever he said made them all scurry off into the woods. "I told them to keep an eye out for anything suspicious. If Discord tries to leave, we'll know."

"Cool. Hey, can I see Celestial really quick?" I asked. He handed it to me, sheath and all. I reared my arm back and threw Dad's magic sword into the woods, as far as I could, until it disappeared from view.

"What the hell?!" he asked in anger.

"Calm down, Mister Potty Mouth, I'm just testing something." I said. "Concentrate on the sword." He closed his eyes and concentrated. An orange beam of light shot out of the woods, right where I threw the sword. The light travelled through the brush, eventually hitting Spencer's right hand. The light reformed itself into Celestial.

"So this is a thing we can do now, apparently." said Spencer, tilting the sword. "Out of curiosity, what would have happened if that didn't work?"

"Um… I'd try to weasel my way out of whatever punishment I would have received for losing a magic sword." I said, scratching my head. "Well, it didn't come to that, so let's just get going."

"Are you sure we have everything, Short-Sighted Sally? Want to throw anything else important?" he said sarcastically. I checked Lunar for damage, then holstered it.

"We're good." I said, slinging a bag over my shoulder. Spencer picked the other up and began to lead the way through the brush. Periodically a bird would drop down onto Spencer's shoulder, tweet and chirp something into his ear, then fly off again.

"Do you think you could teach me to talk to animals?" I asked, after about twenty minutes.

"Nah. You're too temperamental. Maybe when you confront these issues you have with Mom, you'll have a more relaxed nature and a better affinity with them." he said as another bird landed on his shoulder. This time, the bird chirped quickly and frantically, and flew off. Whatever it said caused Spencer to stop in his tracks.

"What did it say?" I asked.

"He said watch out for… the fire-ponies." said Spencer in confusion. "Fire ponies? I don't know what he was talking about, but that doesn't sound safe. We should be careful."

"Fire, huh? Sounds like Celestial will be more or less useless on this one." I said, pulling Lunar from it's holster one more time. I just couldn't believe I was holding such an amazing weapon.

"I don't see Lunar doing anything particularly useful." he said.

"True, true. So far all I've done is dislocate my shoulder." I said. I took a deep breath, nearly choking on the acrid smell.

"You smell it too." coughed Spencer. "Smells like… smoke."

"Yeah. Where do you think it's coming from?" I asked.

"I dunno. Probably there." he said, pointing towards a huge plume of smoke coming from about 5 meters ahead. "I don't know for sure what that is, but I think it might be what the birds were telling me about."

"What do we do?" I asked.

"I suppose we just keep walking. Oh, I have a bad feeling about this." he said. "I have to warn the critters."

"Whenever you have a bad feeling, that normally means something exciting is about to happen." I said as Spencer whistled a little four-note tune. A small sparrow flew in and landed on his left shoulder.

"Hi, buddy." whispered Spencer to the bird. "Listen, I can't talk for long. I need you to find all your friends and tell them to get out of the forest. It's not safe anymore. Go tell every animal you can find to get out, then tell them to spread the message." The bird tweeted sharply then flew off.

"Let's go." I said, pressing onward. We walked in silence towards the smoke for three minutes before Spencer put together what I said.

"What was that supposed to mean? Whenever I have a bad feeling, something exciting is gonna happen?" he said.

"I meant that you find fun things bad." I said. "Whenever something cool or exciting or fun happens, all I hear is 'this can't end well' or 'We shouldn't, what would Mom say?' or 'Marceline, get us down from here, you'll kill us both.'"

"Well, those are all perfectly reasonable things to say in each of their respective situations."

"You're so uptight. I remember having a lot of fun every time you said any of those lines."

"I'm not uptight. I just don't like getting put into stupid situations." he said grumpily. "Something you don't seem to have a problem with."

"Are you calling me stupid?" I asked.

"No, you just do very stupid things."

TSSSSS!

A blob of lava flew over my head, burning the ground behind me. Out from the brush jumped two stallion-like figures, 9-feet tall and completely made of molten rock. I looked at Spencer in excitement, then jumped backwards to avoid another blob of lava.

"Oh, we are not done with this discussion." he said, drawing his sword.

---

Spencer

Marceline shot me that crazy, evil, annoyingly excited look, the look that normally meant something bad was going to happen, then jumped back avoid the lava that flew at her.

"Oh, we are not done with this discussion." I said, pulling Celestial from it's sheath. A blob soared through the air and landed right in front of my hoof. I flew into the air as Marceline did the same. We rose to about 10-feet, then hovered, trying to figure out what to do.

"Lava ponies?" I said, circling around the ponies. "How do we fight them?"

"No clue. Isn't this exciting?" she said with a smile, diving down to attack.

"Marcy, no!" I called. How could she be so dumb? Just run at something made of lava, why don't you?

"Relax." she said, pulling up right before she hit one. "I'm testing their reaction times."

"That's unbelievably stupid!"

"I know!" she said, lowering down slightly. "Live dangerously!" One of the lava golems threw a blob of lava from his chest and hit Marcy in the left wing with it.

"No!" I cried, dropping to catch my sister, who began to drop. She screamed loudly as she flapped her burning wing, sending lava everywhere.

"They're faster than I thought." she said, crying with pain. She pulled out Lunar and pointed it past me, lightning fast, and pulled the trigger. The gun didn't make a normal gunshot BANG! noise, but instead a CRACK!, as though somepony had dropped a vase.

"What did you do?" I asked, whipping my head around to face the lava golems. The one on the left had froze completely solid, unmoving and covered in a coat of ice and frost. "Did you just freeze something made of lava?"

"Yeah!" she said, pointing it at the other golem. He jumped to the side, and chucked another hunk of molten rock at my head. Marceline shot at the blob, freezing it solid. Unfortunately, that didn't stop it's motion and it collided with the side of my head. I fell to the ground, my vision blurring and my eyes crossing.

"Thanks for that, sis." I said. "That's just what I needed: A blow to the head."

"Sorry, Spence." she said, aiming at the other golem. She pulled the trigger and froze it solid. "Are you okay?"

"Oh no, it only hurts when I get asked stupid questions!" I said, rubbing my head angrily. "We need to get out of here."

"What for?" she asked. "We stopped them, we can take a break."

"Really?" I asked. "How do I explain this? These are ponies made of lava. Lava is what?"

"Hot?" she tried.

"Very good. Lava is hot. We froze these lava ponies using…"

"Ice."

"You're two for two. Now, what happens when ice gets hot?"

"It… melts. Oh. They can thaw themselves out."

"Fantastic. Now, unless you have an idea on how to get rid of them permanently, I'm going to have to drag your flank through the woods."

"I have an idea!" she said. "Go into the bags! We have C4!"

"Oh no. This isn't going to end well." I said, digging into the bag. I pulled out 2 bricks of plastic explosives and placed one on the chest of each golem. I pulled Marceline back a yard or two and grabbed the detonator from the supplies.

"Ready?" I asked.

"Go." she said with a smile. I shielded her body and flicked the detonator.

BOOM!

The golems exploded into chips of ice, covering me and bouncing off of my back. I brushed the ice off of myself then pulled out a bundle of bandages for Marceline. I dressed and wrapped up her wing, then flicked her in the forehead.

"You are so dumb!" I shouted. "That lava could've killed you!"

"But it didn't." she said proudly, getting to her hooves. "It could've, but it didn't. Thanks, by the way. I don't know how to deal with burns."

"Neither do I. We should probably get you to an actual doctor as soon as possible." I said, flying into the air. I surveyed the area, checking for anomalies, oddities, and general Discord-esque chaos. I saw the inverted trees that Senor Fox told me about.

"Maybe I should call the critters back." I said to myself. "It is safer." I whistled the same little four-note tune and waited a beat. One of the Sparrow Triplets flew up and landed on my shoulder.

"We dealt with the fire-ponies. You guys can come back into the forest now." I said. He tweeted three times in rapid succession, which meant "Okay, thanks, I'll get right on it." I promised him some birdseed when this was all said and done, and he flew off to gather the others.

"Yo! Spencer!" called Marceline. "I think we have a problem!"

"What?" I asked, floating down.

"What day was it when we started this adventure?" she asked as my hooves hit the ground.

"Sunday. Why?"

"It's Saturday." she said.

"What?! How?! What makes you say that?" I asked panickedly.

"I can smell Pinkie's cake. She said she was throwing a party on Saturday and that there would be tons of cake. Don't you smell it?" Now that she brought it up, I did smell cake. Lots of it.

"That doesn't mean it's Saturday. Maybe she got the date wrong. Maybe she started early."

"That's why I didn't bring it up earlier, but a second ago, this newspaper flew into my face. Here." she said, handing me the paper in her hand that I hadn't noticed. I snatched it from her and read the date. Saturday, February 25, six days since we started.

"Yikes! How has it been six days?!" I exclaimed.

"I don't know for sure, but I'm betting it's Discord." said Marceline. "We have to shift into high gear and get those masks!"

"Sksam esoht teg dna reag hgih otni tfihs ot evah ew!" said a voice that sounded eerily similar to Marceline's. Out of the brush stepped a pegasus that looked exactly the same as my sister, except completely grey, from her eyes to her mane to her coat. Next to her stood me, also completely grey and undetailed. In the Marceline-Imposter's right hand was a gun that looked a lot like Lunar, and in the Wannabe-Spencer's left hand was a copy of Celestial. The Marcy-Impersonator pointed the fake Lunar at my sister and chambered a round.

"As soon as we take care of these clowns." said Marceline, loading the real Lunar.

"Snwolc eseht fo erac ekat ew sa noos sa." said Eni Lecram.

"It's always something." I said, pulling Celestial from it's sheath.

"Gnihtemos syawla s'ti." growled Recneps, drawing his sword.

"How funny is this?" laughed Discord, appearing out of thin air before the copies. "Look at how upset you are! You're… beside yourselves! Bwahahaha!"

"Really?" asked Marcy.

"Yllear?" mumbled Ycram.

"Come on!" said Discord angrily. "That was funny!"

"No it wasn't." I said, ignoring my clone, who would apparently say everything I said, but reserved.

"Fine! You don't appreciate my sense of humor? Eni Lecram! Recneps! Attack." said Discord, pointing his eagle claw at me and my sister.

"What are the odds that they'll get confused and fight each other?" asked Marceline as the evil-twins advanced.

"So unlikely that we shouldn't bet on it, but likely enough that we shouldn't abandon hope." I said, jumping back just in time to avoid the fake Celestial. "To think I might die fighting myself."

"Just imagine that epitaph." said Marceline.

Marceline

I held my clone at gunpoint, afraid to act. My clone held an exact copy of Lunar in her right hand. Funny. I was left-handed. Another thing I noticed is that she wore no armor. A single, well-placed shot could end her. There had to be more to it, though. That would be too easy, and Discord loved making things difficult. As a test, I swung my gun upwards as quickly as I could. Just I suspected, Eni Lecram was faster than me by just a smidge, 0.3 seconds at most. Less than half a second. Sounds like no time at all, but in a firefight against somepony equal in skill, a second can feel like an hour. If I tried to shoot, that small window of time would get me killed.

"Spence! Don't try to fight! He'll always be a little faster than you!" I called, not taking my eyes of my target.

"Enceps! Thgif ot yrt t'nod! Uoy naht retsaf elttil a eb syawla ll'eh!" reported my clone.

"Thanks for the tip." said Spencer, stabbing at his clone.

"Pit eht rof sknaht." said his clone.

"This is hilarious!" laughed Discord. "Marceline is holding herself at gunpoint and Spencer got into a swordfight. With himself!"

"Forgive me if I don't see what's so funny about this situation." I said, my clone reversing everything I said.

"No, I didn't expect for you to. You're so much like your mother." he said smugly.

"I'm not like Mom!" I said angrily.

"What's wrong with Fluttershy? She was such a kind, caring, tender mare. That is, until you two were born."

"Shut up! Kind, caring and tender my flank!"

"I suppose you would only know Commandoshy. You know, the soldier? The killer. The evil. And you're just like her."

"No, I'm not! I'll never be like her in any way!"

"Wanna know how many changeling's she's killed? Too many to count. Hundreds upon thousands of lives lost because of your mom. You know what they used to call her? 'The Yellow Plague'. On any given day, she would spill enough changeling blood to fill a large lake."

"I'm not going to turn out like that! I'd rather die than end up a killer like her!" I shouted, pressing my gun against my neck. My clone did the same, then lowered it as I lowered mine. I pressed the barrel against my temple and, sure enough, the clone followed.

"Hm. It seems you've figured it out." said Discord. "Time is running out, so I suppose I can stay here and watch the fireworks."

"Spencer!" I called to my brother. As soon as he turned to face me, I shot him in the knee.

BOOM!
BOOM!

As my shot rang through the air, so did a second. While my bullet bounced harmlessly off of Spencer's armor, the armorless clone fell to the ground, clutching his leg in pain. A pale-gold blood leaked from the wound where his sister had shot him. The clone Marceline held her still-smoking gun at her fallen comrade, unable to deter her aim.

"Genius!" exclaimed Spencer in excitement. He dropped to the ground in the same position as his clone, then jabbed Celestial at my ribs. His sword barely dented my armor, but Recneps' sword impaled Eni Lecram in the stomach, dropping her to the ground. The fakes dropped their weapons and crawled backwards in fear. Spencer scrambled to his hooves, grabbed both of them and threw me the gun.

"The more the merrier, eh?" he said, flipping and tilting his two swords.

"Poo. That didn't take very long for you two to figure out." said Discord.

"Are they alive?" I asked. "What are these guys?"

"They come from my realm. My world is sort of like your's, with a backwards copy of everypony in Equestria. So, yes, they are living." said Discord. "Why?"

"Give us the masks." I said. "Please."

"No. Why would I give them to you?"

"Please. My parents and their friend are going to die in a few hours. Please, just give us the Veils." I begged, dropping to my knees.

"Kill the clones." said Discord.

"What?"

"Kill the clones and I'll give you the masks."

"Why?" asked Spencer. "Why do we have to kill them?"

"Not you, Spencer. Marceline. Kill the copies, get the masks."

"I don't want to." I said, getting to my hooves. I can't believe I was on my knees, begging for a way out. "I'm not killing anypony."

"No matter what happens, you're going to kill somepony. You can kill Eni and Recneps, or you can kill your family. You're choice."

"There has to be another option." I said.

"Of course there's another option." said Discord.

"What is it?"

"Eni, Recneps, kill Spencer." he said, falling onto his back. Beneath him was a hammock that appeared out of nothing. The copies jumped to their hooves and lunged onto Spencer.

"NO!" I shouted. In that moment, I finally understood. I understand why I was so mad at Mom, why she did what she did, and, most of all, what I had to do. I fired each Lunar once, blasting Eni and Recneps' heads open. They fell to the ground, gushing golden blood. Spencer pushed them off of his chest and scrambled backwards, confused and frightened.

"Marceline." said Spencer quietly. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah." I said, equally quiet. "I'm peachy."

"Is that so?" said Discord. "You're not upset? I just made you a killer, like Fluttershy, and you're fine with that?"

"Yes, I am fine with that." I said. "Better than fine. My mom is strong and brave and just amazing. I was mad at her because I didn't understand. I didn't know what it felt like to be in her position. In my eyes, she killed because she could, and because it was fun, but now I know that's not true."

"Then why did she kill so many changelings?" asked Discord.

"She had to. To protect her friends, to protect Equestria, to protect my dad. I totally get it now. When somepony you love is in trouble, you stop at nothing to save them. You do what you must to protect those important to you. I used to think that Mom was cowardly or selfish to kill just to save herself, but now I realise that just the opposite is true. She was being truly selfless, because she wasn't saving herself. She was saving everyone. She gave up her own purity and morality for the greater good, and that's not an easy thing to do. So yeah, I'm just like my Mom, and not only that, but I'm proud! I'm my mother's daughter and that is wonderful!"

"Yawn!" said Discord. "You finally figured out the obvious."

"You did good, sis." said Spencer. "Thanks for the save, by the way."

"No problem." I said. "Now, Discord, we played your game and we won, so I think we deserve a reward. Say, the Veils of Switching Souls?"

"Ugh. I suppose you did do everything I had planned. Very well. Here are the masks." he said, pulling the Veils out of his hammock. He tossed them to me with a sly grin. "You did well, all things considered. This is your first adventure, no?"

"Yeah." said Spencer. "I think we did pretty good."

"Yes, yes, first adventure indeed. So I suppose that means you haven't met Alex yet."

"Rarity's daughter? The dragon girl?" I asked.

"No, she's a unicorn." said Spencer.

"She is both." said Discord. "And she is neither. In any case, you haven't met her yet, right? Nor Alexandria?"

"Aren't they the same pony?"

"Say, what's today?" he asked.

"February 25th. Why?"

"What year?" he asked.

"Are you dumb? 2036."

"Ah. Not quite there yet." he mumbled to himself. "A little early. Ah well. Not like I could test them while they were in chains."

"What are you talking about?"

"Oh, you have about 49 seconds."

"Until what?"

"Until seven days has passed. That newspaper is a day old. 38 seconds."

"Spencer!" I called, dropping the masks. He pointed Celestial downwards and stabbed each of them. They emitted a faint gold haze and began to hiss and whisper.

"15 seconds. You have to shoot them now." said Discord. I pointed both Lunars and fired.

BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!

Each shot connected with the Veils and blew them apart. The haze dissipated and the whispers stopped. Discord got from his hammock, looking very pleased with himself. He looked from me, to Spencer, then back to me, then started to laugh.

"BWAHAHA! I can't believe you fell for it!" he guffawed.

"What? What did we fall for?" I asked.

"You thought that breaking the masks would fix your parents! Everypony knows that when a Veil is broken, that pony dies!"

---

Spencer

"What?!" shouted Marceline, aiming at Discord. "You made us kill our parents?!"

"Of course not! I was just kidding! Although, they probably are about to die. I'm sure that some confusing things happened in the six days, some things that would start a fight between Fluttershy and Sarah."

"He's right. We should go diffuse that." I said, reaching for her hand.

"One moment." she said. She walked up to Discord and slapped him across the face with Lunar, leaving an jet-black bruise.

"Ah! That hurt!" he said, rubbing his face. "What was that? Instantaneous frostbite?"

"Don't mess with my family ever again!" she shouted. She grabbed my hands and helped open the Rift.

"We have to learn how to do this on our own." I said, spreading open nothingness and stepping into the silver energy. When I tripped through the other side, all I could hear was yelling.

"What were you doing up there, Red?" shouted Mom (who was now in her own body.)

"I was going to the bathroom. Chill out." said Sarah (also in the right body.)

"You've been going to the bathroom like 6 times a day!"

"Which is a perfectly reasonable amount of times to pee. What did you think I was doing?"

"I don't know! Whatever creepy redheads like you do when you have access to the high school crush's junk!"

"Honey, please calm down." said Dad. "She really was just using the bathroom. When we returned to normal, she was still using it. What was she going to do? She couldn't even pee standing up!"

"Hey! It's hard to aim, alright!" said Sarah.

"Yeah, that being said, I'm going to have to ask you to clean my bathroom. Ya know, since your aim is shoddy." said Grandma.

"I didn't miss! I only tried once and I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to pull it off twice!"

"Wow, you're a ditz." said Mom.

"Shut up, Flutterbitch, Sarah's not dumb. At least she's smart enough to know what she wants and has the guts to be open about it."

"Wait, what?" asked Sarah.

"You're gay, aren't you?"

"What? No! What makes you say that?"

"That hair."

"What? What's wrong with my ponytail?"

"No offense, but it does make you look sort of… Lezzy." said Dad.

"Not to mention the haircut you got last month. You looked like Pink!"

"I was trying a new look! And Pink is not a lesbian!" said Sarah.

"Um… I don't know if you noticed, but we've been standing here for a few minutes now." I said. They looked to us embarrassedly then started to applaud, except for Grandma of course.

"You guys did it!" said Dad. "Magnificent! Played it a little close to the chest, but otherwise did a bang-up job."

"What happened to your wing, Marceline?" asked Mom.

"Just like before, I was being stupid." answered Marceline. She walked over to Mom and hugged her tightly. "I'm sorry. I was too quick to judge you. I was being a terrible daughter and I deserve to be punished. As soon as I give Dad the guns, I'll wait in my room for you to get a good enough punishment."

"Huh?" asked Mom in confusion.

"Guns?" asked Dad. "As in, more than one?"

"Yeah. Two swords, too. We stole them from Discord. They're exact copies of Celestial and Lunar. Here, look." I said, handing him the sword. He inspected them, and decided that they were indeed identical.

"Holy cow! Another Celestial?" he said. "Well, since you might need a weapon, you guys can keep the extras."

"Really?" asked Marcy.

"Yeah, as soon as you're off of punishment, which likely won't be until you're thirty! You made your Mom very upset, you broke the law and deliberately disobeyed me, so I'm going to take your cellphone, your laptop, no visiting Storm, no shopping, no more allowance, you better not get below an A on your next report card, you're washing the dishes, taking out the trash, and cleaning Grandma's house for the next 3 months and-"

"You're not doing any of that, Marce." said Mom. "No punishment."

"But-"

"Butts are for sitting! I said last week that there would be no punishment, and I stick to my word. Kids, go home." said Mom, winking at Marceline.

"Fluttershy! You can't be serious! They need some sort of punishment!" said Dad.

"Maybe you should be the one punished. How about that, Christian?"

"What? You aren't my mom, Fluttershy, you can't ground me. And why am I suddenly Christian? I hate when you call me that."

"Well, Christian Michael Brookes, I don't think you understand. I'm in charge here." said Mom. Uh-oh. She busted out the full name. "I don't appreciate your backsass. I'm in my body now, so I don't have to worry about hurting myself. You want to talk back? Why don't you talk back to my fist?"

"Fluttershy… I… what?" sputtered Dad.

"Fluttershy? I don't like how little respect you're showing me, Christian Brookes."

"I'm sorry, ma'am." he said, backing away in fear. "I didn't mean any disrespect."

"I'm sure you didn't, but you need punishment nonetheless. Kids, go home. Now."

"Yes, ma'am!" said Marceline, rushing through the Rift. I followed close behind her, chuckling as my Dad cried out in panic.

"No! Kids, don't leave!" said Dad. "She's gonna… I don't even know yet, but whenever she pulls out the middle name, she's getting ready to open a can of whoop-ass!"

"Oh, Michael!" called Mom, very sing-songy, as we tripped through the other side. We landed in our bedroom, quite pleased with ourselves.

"That was hilarious!" laughed Marceline.

"Sure was! Why did Mom waive our punishment?" I asked.

"I told her what happened, and how sorry I was. She forgave me and told me that it would be fine."

"What do we do now?"

"We have to tell Storm about this!" she said.

"She'll never believe it!"

"That's why it'll make such a good story! Dude, we just beat Discord! I pistol-whipped the God of Chaos! We are legendary!"

"Let's see how long that lasts." I said, flying out the window. Marceline followed close behind me, and we headed for Sugar Cube Corner, where our best friend Storm lived. For a chaos-and-danger-filled week, that was pretty awesome.

"Spencer. You were pretty cool out there." said Marceline, landing in front of the sweetshop.

"So were you. Let's never have to go on an adventure like that again." I said.

"I know. That was horrible. But what are the odds that it'll happen again?" Our eyes met and we broke into laughter. The odds of this happening? Very slim. Which means that it would happen almost immediately after this. The luck of the Brookes family.

Alex

I sat in the basement/training facility/infirmary/armory, waiting for the return of my master. He had been gone for only ten minutes, and I already missed him. He had no assignments for me, not since I found this base two weeks ago. It was simple, and Lord Sombra was very pleased that I found it. We were using the base of Silver Rift to plan our attack. Nopony had been there for over a decade. They moved most of the necessities with them when they settled in Equestria, but they did leave a few useful supplies behind. I was getting hungry, but I hadn't seen a rat in a while. There wasn't much food, so Lord Sombra made me hunt for my own. He told me not to touch humans or their pets, something about not wanting to be caught, so I normally just found rats and raccoons for my food. Not the best meal, but I did as my Lord told me. Suddenly, Discord burst from out of nowhere, wearing a smug grin.

"Hello, Alex!" he said brightly. "Where's Sombra?"

"Lord Sombra is not in right now. He's out doing some very important work, but I can take the message." I said.

"When you see him, let him know I'm done scouting the twins. They're pretty good. They can wield Celestial and Lunar almost as well as Silver and they even have extra abilities they can use with the weapons. For example, when they're separated from their weapons, they can summon them back, and they have some form elemental magic."

"I know what they do, Discord." growled Lord Sombra, walking down the stairs. "I'm the one who made them."

"Did you really?"

"You think Celestia and Luna were smart enough to create such magnificent weapons?"

"Of course not." I said. "They're not even close to your level."

"Let's have at least a little respect for the dead, eh?" asked Discord angrily.

"Back to the subject, you said they're good? How good?" said Lord Sombra.

"They beat my challenge. Barely, but they did. I didn't pull any punches, either."

"Any weaknesses?"

"Uh… Oh! They work really well together, so I assume they depend on each other for combat. Another thing is that they can't open Rifts without the other's help."

"Hmm… Not much to go on, but I suppose beggar can't be choosers."

"I held up my end of the bargain, Sombra. I spent a lot of energy travelling in time, and I didn't do it for free." said Discord.

"How dare you! You don't deserve payment!" I said, outraged. "You should be grateful that Lord Sombra is even allowing you to live!"

"Shut up, Alex." said my master. "He's right. We had an agreement, so I must honor the deal. I'm grabbing them now." His horn began to glow red faintly.

"Isn't it impossible to travel through time?" I asked.

"Not for me. How are they, Sombra? Did they say anything about me?"

"No. They can't say anything yet."

"Why not?" asked Discord. To answer his question, three caskets floated downstairs, one yellow, one blue, and one pink. Lord Sombra placed them in front of Discord and opened them one by one.

"What is this shit, Sombra?!" he asked angrily. "You promised me Luna and Celestia!"

"And you will get them. I just don't have what I need for that yet."

"You've cheated me!"

"No, I didn't. Celestia and Luna will be here soon. Just not yet. And, even though I'm sure you could care less, Cadenza will be here as well. Just be patient."

"What happened to you, Sombra? You used to be a king. Your name used to instill fear in the hearts of all. You conquered kingdoms and crushed all who stood in your way, but look at you now. You're pathetic. Your only ally is a 16-year old filly who shouldn't exist."

"How dare you-" I began.

"No no, Alex, he's right. I am pathetic. I used to sit among gods. Ponies feared to speak my name. Now look at me. I'm in a basement, still recovering from wounds that a little filly gave me! I've fallen." said Lord Sombra. "I have nothing. Nothing at all. But there's a saying. Never fight a stallion with nothing left to lose. I've hit rock bottom. Nothing to lose? That's an understatement. I've played over every scenario in my head, and there is no version of this plan that leaves me in a worse position than I'm in now. I'm weak and desperate, a very dangerous combination, I've heard. I'll get you your precious princesses, Discord, and then I will take Earth and Equestria for my own. This won't fail, not like last time. Now, I can't be stopped!"

"How many evil villains have said that, right before they're stopped?" asked Discord rhetorically. "Just make sure you don't break our agreement Sombra. I scratched your back, you scratch mine."

"Oh, but of course." said Lord Sombra. "Alex! With me!"

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"To meet with an old friend. We'll have to go back to Equestria, but it'll be worth the trouble." he said, leading me upstairs and leaving Discord to play with his corpses.

"Why? Are we recruiting her?"

"Yes."

"What if she says no?"

"Oh, she won't. I'm going to make Chrysalis an offer she can't refuse."

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Author's Note: That's the end of this one. Looks like Alex and Sombra are still on the loose. What's gonna happen with them? Hope you guys enjoyed. If it wouldn't be too much to ask, please review me, lets me know how to do better. Thanks for sticking through to the end, and I really hope you liked what you saw. Farewell!