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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"You callin' me a liar, stripey?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Author's Notes:

Here we go, the start of an Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny. A batch of interdimensional counterparts versus their own secrets and a bottle of liquor that can get gods smashed. Who will win, and who will spend the next decade over the toilet bowl, begging for the sweet release of oblivion? To be honest, even I don't know exactly where this is going to go, and if you have any good (or so-bad-they're-good) ideas for questions or dares, feel free to PM me with them!

Also, I've been asked to mention that Abstract Twilight, from Faith and Doubt and The Abundance are taken from a point in time after defender2222's upcoming sequel, The Should Have Been King, which is why she says that she has met capricorns. Aside from that, I have no knowledge of what defender2222 has planned for that story, so no worries about spoilers.