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?"

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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.