“Still think this demonstration of an interdimensional bridge was a good idea?” Starlight shrieked as they crouched behind an overturned table. “It’s taking forever to close the rift!”

Purple bolts of lightning arced overhead and singed the edge of the table, leaving a distinct scent of ozone and musty paper that permeated the school auditorium. Books and scrolls of all sizes whirled in the air, glowing with blackish-purple symbols as they whispered eldritch secrets to all in their vicinity.

“In my defence, the chance of a resonance cascade happening was supposed to be really, really slim!” Twilight yelled back as she poured magic through her horn. “Keep it up. It shouldn’t take much longer!”

“Quiet! Class is still in session!” boomed the purple alicorn standing in the middle of the auditorium.

Said purple alicorn was also Twilight, with the distinction of wearing a grey archmage’s robe tastefully embroidered with teal, glowing runes at its hems that probably would’ve made Sunburst and Starswirl cry tears of joy. Her mane waved and flowed in an ethereal breeze, sparkling with stars and swirling with black ink.

A dozen or so students sat in a semicircle before her, chained to their desks with several tomes and notebooks lying open. Some scribbled furiously on their sheets whilst sweating bullets, and others wailed in despair as they squirmed and tugged on their clinking restraints.

“Princess Twilight, please save us!” cried Sandbar.

“Yona not understand this syllabus! Pony magic history not relevant to yak!”

“Oh wow, did you guys know that Chancellor Sliver Tong once tricked a dragon into becoming his accountant? I don’t even know what an accountant is but it sounded really clever of him!”

“I wanna go home!”

Twilight peeped over the edge of her table. “Just hang on, we’re working on it!”

She then had to duck back into cover when lightning lashed in her direction.

“Don’t distract the students!” Archmage Sparkle said in the Royal Canterlot Voice. She then turned to her captive audience and shook her head. “Disgraceful, this school. I really hope that it’s not representative of this dimension. Now, it’s time for a quick test! Gather your notes, open your exam booklets and you will find—”

Twilight tuned out her voice and concentrated on weaving her spell.

The first encounter with an alternate-universe Twilight had been relatively simple and benign: a unicorn version of herself who hadn’t quite risen to the challenge when Celestia had sent her to Ponyville. Somepony else had become the Element of Magic, and she’d retreated to Canterlot as a reclusive librarian with few friends and fewer aspirations. Twilight and Starlight had given her some advice about moving past failures and seeking new purpose, sung a couple of songs, and then sent her home with renewed resolve to make the most out of her life.

Then, it all went wrong after they’d closed the dimensional rift. It had reopened by itself, admitting this particular incarnation of Twilight who didn’t quite seem to grasp the notion of ethical consent when it came to education…

After what felt like an hour of spellcasting, she’d barely made any progress, even with Starlight’s help.

Stars above, why is it so hard to close this rift and send crazy-me home?

“I know what you’re trying to do. It won’t work. Not while I’m disrupting your spell matrices, and I won’t stop until I’m done assessing the quality of your students,” Archmage Sparkle said.

“That’s it. I’m taking her cutie mark away,” Starlight growled as she poked her head out of cover and sent a blast of magic right at the archmage.

The spell struck her in the rump, but aside from the faint glow of magic on Sparkle’s horn, it had no effect.

Starlight blinked a couple of times, then gritted her teeth and fired off another barrage of spells. Some bounced right off her robes, whilst others dissipated into motes of light before they could even hit.

Starlight’s jaw dropped. “Wait, what? How did you counter every single spell?”

“I’m the Alicorn of Knowledge. I naturally know more than you, which includes magic,” Archmage Sparkle huffed. “Nothing to be ashamed about, of course. I’m sure you did your best.”

A vein throbbed on Starlight’s neck as she lobbed another two or three spells, but Archmage Sparkle barely even cared, judging by the way she swatted them out of the way with her wings. Starlight then ducked just in time to avoid lobotomy via lightning bolt.

“Enough. That’s your last warning. If you interrupt me again, the semester... will last... forever!”

“Noooo!” cried the students.

She stomped her hoof, and the auditorium quaked with reverberation. “Quiet! Check your answers. Thirty seconds left!”

Twilight ground her teeth.

This was not what education was supposed to be. There was supposed to be eagerness and joy in learning! Diplomacy and reason had failed. If she had to resort to a little force to end it and rescue the dignity of her students, then so be it!

She drew on whatever reserves she had left in preparation for battle, then stood up to her full height and cried, “That’s enough! You can’t just come in here and impose your idea of—”

“Uh huh, hold that thought.”

Archmage Sparkle waggled a feather at Twilight without taking her eyes off the exam sheets flying into her magical grip from the students’ desks. A red, incandescent beam of magic from her horn seared marks onto the papers as she shuffled them from one stack to another with machine-like precision, far more quickly than anypony could’ve possibly read under natural conditions.

In less than twenty seconds, she was done with what should’ve been at least an hour’s worth of marking.

Twilight felt her legs turn to jelly as she remembered all the activities and social gatherings that she’d had to sacrifice on the altar of grading assignments. To think of all the lost things she could regain if she could just learn that spell…

She stumbled down the steps of each concentric ring towards Archmage Sparkle, and then conjured an empty desk and chair so that she could sit in front of her. She then rapturously whispered, “Teach me…”

Somewhere in the background, she heard the distinct sound of Starlight facehoofing whilst Archmage Sparkle smirked and said, “Well, I never say no to an eager student.”

A little scroll popped into existence and unrolled itself on Twilight’s desk, and her breath hitched in her throat as she committed the social life-saving equations to memory. “Oh my gosh, thank you!”

Archmage Sparkle beamed. “My pleasure.”

Her stack of marked sheets then dispersed to their respective owner’s tables, and were met with groans of varying pitch and volume as the students beheld the carnage of red marks. Only a few, like Ocellus and Light Bulb, sighed with relief at the sight of their relatively unmarred sheets.

“Wait a minute, eighty-two percent?” Gallus cried, staring at his sheet as if it had sprouted tentacles. “I’ve never scored this high in anything!”

“Apparently, some of you work well under pressure,” Archmage Sparkle said with a satisfied nod. She then turned to Twilight and added, “You should consider exerting it more often to coax out that little extra effort, I think. The rest of your students performed satisfactorily as well, taking into account their… diverse backgrounds. This dimension doesn’t really need me, after all.”

Twilight blinked. “Oh. So you’re going to leave, just like that?”

“Of course. There are minds in greater need of education elsewhere.” Archmage Sparkle flared her horn, and the chains binding the students to their desks vanished, along with the storm of books and lightning overhead. Then, after the students sighed and slumped with relief, she smiled at them and said to Twilight, “Keep it up, Princess of Friendship, and maybe someday you’ll have as much of an academic impact on your nation as I have.”

“Hey, you can’t talk to her like that!” Starlight shouted as she dashed over to Twilight’s side. “As Princess of Friendship, she’s managed to change the hearts of bad ponies and turn them to good – something I’m sure you wouldn’t be able to do!”

“Ah yes, I almost forgot about you.” Archmage Sparkle regarded her with a thin smile. “I suppose you do have a point. Reforming criminals is admittedly a useful skill, but then again, had they been properly educated from youth, they wouldn’t have become criminals in the first place, would they?”

Before Starlight could finish sputtering out a response, Archmage Sparkle waved a wing at them and vanished with a flash of purple light and a peal of thunder.

The dimensional rift, which had manifested as a thin crack in reality near the ceiling of the auditorium through which they could glimpse fleeting, multifractal images of the cosmos itself, shrank to barely a sliver of light as they wove the final spell matrices to seal it up, before finally winking out of existence.

Twilight planted her rump on the auditorium’s steps and sighed. “Glad that’s over.”

“Hope so,” Starlight muttered, giving her a sidelong glance and a weary smile. “For the record, I’m glad you’re in this reality instead of her. She’s just given me a new appreciation for how much of a smartflank you can be if you really wanted to.”

“Well, she does have her merits. Speaking of which…” Twilight turned to the students shuffling around the desks. “Class dismissed. I think everyone could use an extended break; get yourselves cleaned up and maybe we could pick up where we left off after lunch.”

They answered her with silent stares, at least until Gallus whooped and flitted off to the dorms with a huge, goofy grin on his face, clutching his marked papers as if they were made of gold. The rest trotted or fluttered after him with varying degrees of enthusiasm, but almost uniformly with palpable relief.

Once they had all left the classroom, Starlight gave her a flat look and said, “Pick up where we left off? Really? Having two interdimensional guests wasn’t enough for you?”

Twilight snorted and waved a hoof dismissively. “You know what I mean. We can stick to theory this time. Besides, it’s not as if—”

A muffled boom shook the auditorium’s doors, and they swung open to admit a Twilight Sparkle unicorn dressed in full Royal Guard armour. The spontaneously-reopened rift crackled in the hallway behind her, spitting out golden sparks whilst screaming students fled the scene.

“I’m Captain Sparkle of Her Majesty’s Solar Guard, and I want to know who the buck is responsible for dragging me through an interdimensional gate!” she bellowed as she stomped towards them. “This is a gross misuse of magic and a clear violation of the Discord Accords!”

Twilight shared a look with Starlight, and then they sighed in unison.

It was going to be a long, long day.

“Okay, I think I know what’s really going on, now,” said Twilight as she leafed through her latest set of scribbled notes on the cafeteria table.

“I can’t wait to hear,” Starlight deadpanned.

The latest variant of Twilight – a thestral wrapped up in so many layers of winter clothing that she’d resembled a bat-winged ball of yarn – had just popped back through the rift, but only after subjecting them to nearly half an hour’s worth of fretting over the excessive temperature and lighting in the school, going on and on about the Eternal Winter Night and how she was so, so going to be banished for witnessing the heresy of Summer.

“Well, it looks like the rift’s resonance is cascading through several alternate realities, gradually losing energy with each successive crossover. We just need to keep closing them as they pop up, and it’ll eventually run out. It’s just a matter of time!” Twilight grinned as her quill danced across the paper, scratching out the final symbols to balance out her thaumic equations. Then, her ears folded back when she completed her estimate. “Problem is that we may get another twenty-something crossovers before it finally shifts out of the resonance frequency…”

Starlight summoned a plate of sandwiches and took a bite out of one, chewing with a full cheek as she said, “So, we just need to keep meeting more of you until it runs out of power? Wonderful. There goes our lunch plan, I guess.”

Twilight flattened her ears. “I’m sorry, okay?”

“I know, I know. I’m just being grumpy.” Starlight sighed and levitated a sandwich over to her. “It’s not every day I get to see ‘you’ having five different kinds of mental breakdowns in a single hour. Why can’t all of them be like Captain Sparkle? She handled the situation like a pro after you’d explained it to her!”

A dull boom somewhere in the upper storeys of the school heralded the arrival of another Twilight.

Twilight grabbed a sandwich and chewed furiously as they cantered up the stairs. “Well, count your blessings, because here comes Twily Number Seven.”

Each variant of Twilight that came through the rift differed from her in one or two significant ways, usually either in terms of pony tribe or an experience which had a strong impact on her upbringing and eventual station in life.

Unicorn, earth pony, pegasus or alicorn, they were all still recognisably Twilight, and therefore didn’t rank too highly on Ponyville’s list of panic-worthy events. Combined with the fact that the appearances were all localised to the school grounds, everyone on campus had been happy to let Twilight and Starlight deal with the rift and its guests whilst they continued with classes wherever possible.

One could almost call it a normal day in Ponyville.

Until they got to the twelfth case, when the rift decided to start getting serious with the species variable.

“Dragon!” Roseluck shrieked.

“The horror, the horror!”

Everywhere, ponies screamed and scattered, knocking over wares and crashing into one another as they sought refuge from the dragon in their midst. She had roughly the same proportions as Ember, only that she stood nearly four times the height of their native Dragonlord and had purple scales, a pinkish underbelly and dark blue dorsal spines.

“Not that I don’t love terrorising a village every now and then, but could you ponies tone it down a bit? You’re giving me a migraine!” growled Dragonlord Twilight as she trudged through the market with one index claw stuffed into her left ear and a thumb in the other whilst the rest of her right-handed digits gripped the Dragonlord’s Scepter.

She’d left a long trail of footprints in the dirt, going all the way back to the school. Her steely eyes remained focused on the spires of Twilight’s crystal palace, visible above the rooftops of the townhouses surrounding the market. A deep gurgle came from her belly, eliciting another panicked chorus from Ponyville’s residents.

“Can’t we just sit down and talk for a minute?” Twilight called out as she flew alongside her at shoulder height. Starlight had elected to remain at the school and focus on sealing the rift.

“Sitting’s a waste of time and we’re already talking. What do you want, pony-me?”

Twilight gasped when she saw her foot descending onto Carrot Top’s cart. “Watch out! You’re going to—”

Crunch.

Dragonlight lifted her foot and winced at the carroty mush. She then turned to Twilight and pointed a claw at her. “Your fault for distracting me.”

“What?” cried Twilight as the dragon ambled off. “Hey, stop!”

She projected a telekinetic field to arrest her momentum, then blinked when the dragon ‘slipped’ through her magic like a wet bar of soap.

“Thorium diet. Promotes growth of anti-magic scales like you wouldn’t believe.” Dragonlight patted her belly and grinned at her. Then, she turned her gaze back to the crystal palace and licked her fangs. “I’m just going to take that home and you won’t have to see me agai—”

“You can’t do that, it’s my home!”

Dragonlight raised an eye ridge and chuckled. “Uh, yes, I totally can. I’m the Dragonlord.”

“Oh yeah? Dragonlord this!”

A rainbow-trailed projectile slammed into Dragonlight’s muzzle and sent her reeling into a house. It creaked in protest as she leaned against the thatch roofing and massaged her lower jaw, and then she yelped and ducked to avoid getting slugged by Rainbow Dash’s second flyby.

A few seconds later, Dragonlight sputtered when Applejack and Pinkie announced their arrival to the scene with a barrage of garden produce and confectionaries to her face. She shielded herself with her arms and wings, lashing her tail ineffectually at Rainbow whenever she found a lull in the assault, but to no avail.

Then, a cupcake and an apple went up each of her nostrils simultaneously.

Dragonlight froze for a second, eyes twitching. Then, her chest swelled with an enormous breath, and she let loose a colossal sneeze which produced an equally impressive jet of steam and mucus, hosing Rainbow Dash out of the sky just as she flew past and plastering her to a house on the other side of the market.

“That’s it!” Dragonlight roared as she wiped frosting and apple mush off her muzzle. “I’m going to flatten this stupid village!”

She then flared out her massive wings, and Twilight barely had any time to shout out a warning before a blast of air sent her crashing into her friends. They lay sprawled together in a heap, and by the time she’d disentangled herself from Applejack, Pinkie and Rarity, she found Dragonlight looming over them with her teeth bared and her claws outstretched.

“Where’s Fluttershy?” groaned Twilight. “We could use the Stare right about now!”

“She’s back at the school helping Starlight keep everyone calm. We didn’t think this version of you would be quite so beastly, even if she is a dragon!” Rarity coughed, and then her pupils shrank to pinpricks when she followed Twilight’s gaze. “Oh dear.”

“Hey, get over here and pick on somepony your own size!” Rainbow Dash yelled from across the square.

“You’ll get your turn, blue pigeon!”

“Oh yeah? Then come over here and say it to my face, lizard-breath!”

Applejack grimaced as Dragonlight turned away and stomped over to Rainbow. “Twi, I don’t suppose you got a plan for getting us out of this here pickle?”

“I could start with this.”

Twilight magically triangulated the positions of all her friends, and after taking a moment to charge up her spell, she teleported herself and all four of them to Berry Punch’s backyard, which hid them from view but was still right next to the market so they could intervene if Dragonlight did anything drastic.

Her growl shook dust from the roof. “Hey, where’d you all go?”

“Twilight?” a new voice called out from what sounded like the far side of the market, coming roughly from the direction of the crystal palace.

Oh no.

“Spike?” All the fury had evaporated from Dragonlight’s voice, replaced with quavering uncertainty. “Is that you?”

Twilight leapt to her hooves and dashed back into the market square, leaping over scattered wares and debris. She was vaguely aware of her friends tailing her, but she could only spare the attention for the defensive barrier she charged up on her horn for protecting Spike.

When she emerged into the square, she found Spike standing in the middle of the street, gaping at Dragonlight. That lasted for a couple of seconds before he slapped his forehead and groaned.

“Okay, let me guess: transmutation spell gone wrong?” he asked with a tilt of his head. Then, after examining her from snout to tail-tip, Spike grinned and added, “Not that there’s anything wrong with being a dragon. You look great, actually!”

Dragonlight lunged. “Oh, Spike!”

Twilight gasped and encased him in a spherical barrier, but that didn’t stop Dragonlight from simply grabbing the whole thing. The sphere rapidly deformed as cracks spread across its surface, and promptly shattered before Twilight could renew the spell or teleport him out of harm’s way.

“No!” she shrieked as she charged forward, spreading her wings in preparation to fly in and snatch him out of Dragonlight’s arms.

“Whoa, what’s with the clinginess, Twilight?” asked Spike.

Twilight skidded to a halt.

What?

“It’s you, it’s really you!” cried Dragonlight as she hugged Spike, trembling as sobs wracked her body. Hot tears streamed down her scaly cheeks and hissed into puffs of steam when they hit the ground. “It’s been so long. I’ve missed you so much…”

“It’s only been a few hours since you left home,” Spike groaned, squirming in her embrace. Then, he spotted Twilight standing at street level and blinked a couple of times before he pointed a claw at Dragonlight and said, “Please tell me this isn’t you from the future.”

“Alternate reality,” Twilight clarified. “Spell mishap at school.”

“Oh, phew.” He then gave Dragonlight an awkward smile and poked her chest scales. “Uh, Twilight? You can put me down, now.”

“I didn’t mean to send you away, Spike!” Dragonlight babbled on, heedless of the growing audience of ponies on the street. “All those things I said, that I did… I never meant to hurt you. You were the best clutchmate I ever had, even if you were a pony. I’m so, so sorry!”

“All right, Twi, I hear you. Calm down,” he said, gingerly hugging her back. “Oof. This is nice and all, but I kinda need to breathe, you know?”

“Sorry.”

Reluctantly, Dragonlight set him back onto the ground, and then gently brushed his cheek with a claw. “You’re so handsome now...”

“Aww, shucks. Thanks!” Then, his grin faded. “But… you know that I’m not the same Spike, right?”

Dragonlight’s spines drooped as she averted her eyes. “Yeah. But… but what if he doesn’t want to see me anymore?”

By then, Twilight’s friends had all picked themselves up and gathered around her, ready to rush in and intervene, but she held them back with a firm shake of her head. She knew a delicate situation when she saw it, and didn’t want to risk throwing in more variables than absolutely necessary. Spike knew how to handle her when she was having one of her… moments.

And this time, she had a teleport spell ready to pull him out of danger if it came to that.

“You’ve got to go home, Twi.” Spike placed a hand on Dragonlight’s knee and looked up to her with glistening eyes. “You’ve got to try and make things right with him. I’m sure he’s waiting for you, wherever he is.”

Dragonlight sniffed. “How could you possibly know for sure?”

“Well, I’m him, aren’t I?” He then looked at Twilight from the corner of his eye and continued, “And I know I would never give up on Twilight.”

“But I…” Dragonlight raised a claw to object, but no words followed. Eventually, she slumped and sighed. “You’re right as usual, Spike. Even when you’re from another dimension.”

Sensing an opportunity, Twilight sidled up to them and coughed politely. “Dragonlord Twilight? If you don’t mind, we should get back to the rift. Starlight’s probably done stabilising it, and once you’re there, we can send you home.”

“Don’t bother. I can send myself home.” Dragonlight then turned to Spike and wiped her eyes before finally saying, “See you around, little brother.”

Dragonlight raised the sceptre, and ponies gasped when its gem blazed with crimson fire. The flames engulfed her, incinerated her, until all that remained was a pony-sized, vaguely draconic streak of bluish-purple lightning that shot towards the school of friendship with a crack of thunder.

Silence filled the market square after the roar of her departure had faded, but it didn’t take long for somepony to start whooping, and soon half the town was cheering for Spike.

“Wow. That’s how you make an exit!” he said.

“I just hope she doesn’t give Starlight too much of a scare,” Twilight muttered as she watched the school and waited for an explosion. When nothing happened, she trotted up to Spike and gave him a nudge. “C’mon. We should go make sure she didn’t break anything else.”

“Go ahead. We’ll catch up after we clear this mess!” said Applejack as they took off.

Twilight’s wings felt oddly heavy as she flew alongside Spike, and she couldn’t help glancing at him every now and then, as if checking to make sure that he was still a dragon.

“Spike, you know that I’d never do the things she did, right?”

“Yeah, I know.” He wiped his eyes and nodded. “But that never stopped me from having bad dreams about it.”

She sniffed. “I love you, Spike.”

He smiled back. “Love you too, Twi.”

“Aww, shoot!”

Twilight gasped and nearly stalled in mid-air. Looking back, she found Rainbow Dash tailing them a few wingspans behind.

Rainbow grimaced and slammed her hooves together. “We totally should’ve asked her if there’s a Dragon Dash where she’s from. I bet I’m just as awesome no matter what species I am!”

“Nice to see you’ve got your priorities straight,” said Twilight with a roll of her eyes. “With our luck, you’ll have many opportunities to ask that question.”

Spike frowned. “Wait, there’s more of you?”

“Unfortunately, yes. They’ll keep coming until we close the rift for good.”

Rainbow pumped a hoof and grinned. “Hah! Dibs on the next Twilight that comes through. I’m totally asking her about other me!”

“Rainbow Dash was delicious,” said Queen Sparkle as she shoved a struggling Rainbow Dash into a pod and sealed the opening with resin secreted from her leg pores. “Not the brightest changeling in the hive, but she should’ve known better than to try overthrowing me. It’s her own fault for ending up a lopsided bug after I ate her wing and leg.”

This is bad, thought Twilight as she strained against the viscous strands of resin which kept her glued to the ceiling of the school’s assembly hall. Somehow, the queen had imbued the stuff with magic-absorption properties similar to the Smooze’s, which allowed the glob of resin on her horn to completely nullify any spell she attempted to cast.

Queen Sparkle had taken them all by surprise, attacking immediately after coming through the rift with such speed and precision that half of them were already incapacitated before they’d recognised the danger. Things only went downhill from there, with her and Starlight fighting a losing battle of attrition as the queen captured them one by one, rapidly switching between monstrous and agile forms to keep them off balance. Stingers, claws, fangs, venom, magic; she had them all in spades, and she never gave them time to make an attempt at diplomacy.

From her vantage point, Twilight could see most of the students cowering on the floor, glued to the stone tiles.

I really should’ve sent everyone home…

The rest of her friends were already hanging upside-down in their personal pods, save for Starlight, who was glued next to her.

“You know, I just realised that you’re the only one who hasn’t been in a changeling pod,” she thought aloud. “It’s surprisingly comfortable.”

Starlight cocked an eyebrow. “Little early to be looking at silver linings, don’t you think?”

“Only because I’m out of ideas. I just hope somepony made it out of the school to call for help.”

“You sound awfully calm about this.”

Twilight attempted to scratch the itch at the base of her neck, but gave up with a shrug when the resin kept her hoof from reaching it.

“She bit me. There’s either a sedative in her venom…” Twilight gave her a lopsided grin, “or I’m losing my marbles.”

Having finished Rainbow’s pod, Queen Sparkle crept across the ceiling to them like a spider. Her figure reminded Twilight very much of Chrysalis when she’d captured them all, except that Sparkle had purple hair and marginally kinder eyes.

“Please, you don’t have to do this,” said Twilight as Queen Sparkle began weaving a pod next to her. “Changelings have solved their hunger crisis in our world!”

“Is that so?”

“Yes!” cried Starlight.

“I’ll take your word for it.” She didn’t stop weaving the pod.

Twilight frowned. “Don’t you want to know how?”

“Not really.”

Her eye twitched. “But… why not?”

“Well, we don’t have a hunger crisis on my side of the rift, for starters,” Queen Sparkle said with a shrug. She then bared her fangs in a sheepish grin and whispered, “Also, I do like the taste of freshly harvested love. Really sorry for the hassle, but a changeling’s got to eat, you know? Circle of life and all that. Don’t worry, we’ll take good care of you once I figure out how to bring everyone through the rift.”

“Oh, come on! That’s a stupid excuse and you know it!” Starlight yelled. “You’re just a power-hungry maniac and you don’t care about anyone but yourself!”

Queen Sparkle gave Starlight a puzzled frown and pressed a hoof to her chitinous chest. “Ouch. That was a mean thing to say. I do care about others, you know. I take care of my children, and even the ponies in my hive have a ninety-eight percent satisfaction rate, with zero fatalities due to negligence! Please don’t judge me based on whatever your native changelings have done.”

“Yeah, so what?” Starlight spat with a roll of her eyes. “You sound like you’ve had it easy. It costs you nothing to be good or generous. Compared to our friend, Thorax, who risked everything he had to care for others instead of himself even when he was starving, you’re just a monster pretending she isn’t one!”

Twilight gulped as the queen scowled and stalked over to Starlight.

Oh dear…

Queen Sparkle growled, “Hey, you take that back. I do care very much for my children, and I would do anything for them!”

Starlight’s steely eyes bored into the queen’s. “Anything? Even if it means sharing your love with them when you’re starving?”

“Of course! I love my children, even the ponies in my hive!” Queen Sparkle cried, jabbing a hoof at Starlight. “You can’t just—”

She suddenly yelped and emitted a blinding flash of purple light.

Once Twilight had blinked the stars out of her vision, she saw Queen Sparkle still clinging to the ceiling, wide-eyed and with her mouth hanging open. Her dark chitin looked softer than before, with a thin layer of peachy fuzz that resembled a moth’s exterior rather than a hornet’s. Her legs, mane and tail no longer had holes in them, and a pair of curly feelers had sprouted on either side of her now-smooth horn.

“Oh, grub,” said Queen Sparkle.

Starlight smirked. “Boo-yah.”

Thankfully, the next few Twilights to come through the rift were far less excitable, so everypony had time to clean up Queen Sparkle’s mess whilst Twilight and Starlight dealt with subsequent visitors.

In fact, one of them was so unexcitable that she didn’t have a pulse.

“So… anypony want to take a stab at what happened here?” asked Starlight.

The skeleton that lay on the floor bore a remarkable likeness to Twilight, possessing both horn and wings. The dark blue mane and tail with purple and pink stripes didn’t leave much room for debate, either.

The bones were immaculately clean, with a slightly bleached, off-white colour and smooth texture that gave the impression of having been polished. Every pearly-white tooth fit perfectly in its grinning muzzle, and even the joints and ligaments flexed with ease when Rainbow nudged its foreleg.

Twilight caught a whiff of something familiar and gingerly leaned closer to sniff at it.

Hmm, lavender.

The same kind of shampoo she used. Fresh, too.

Eventually, Pinkie broke the silence. “You know, you look really good for a skeleton, Twilight!”

“Yeah. Dead gorgeous,” Spike deadpanned.

“More importantly, why do I look that good?” murmured Twilight as she gazed into the empty eye sockets of her skeleton. “Is somepony keeping me as a display piece after my death? Is it in a museum or a university? Am I someone’s trophy? Even if it was for educational purposes, it doesn’t make sense to shampoo a skeleton’s mane!”

“One has to marvel at its quality, though,” Rarity mused as she peered at the skeleton’s silky mane. “I know ponies who’d kill to have a conditioner this good!”

Starlight flicked her gaze between the skeleton and everypony else several times. Then, she shook her head and sighed. “Asking the big questions, huh, girls? Here’s another one: all in favour of sending Bonelight back before something terrible happens? For all we know, she could be carrying some zombie virus from her own dimension!”

Applejack raised a hoof. “No arguments here, sugarcube. Besides, it ain’t right for us to speak of the departed like this.”

Twilight nodded as the rest of her friends solemnly raised their hooves. She channelled the spell in tandem with Starlight to close the rift, and then used a little more magic to carefully lift the skeleton through the—

Two glowing wisps flashed to life, one in each eye socket. Then, Bonelight shuddered and raised her head to look up at them, ‘blinking’ her purple eye wisps on and off as she turned her gaze from one pony to the next.

Nopony moved or even breathed. Their eyes grew to the approximate size of dinner plates whilst their pupils shrank to that of peas.

“Oh, hello!” Bonelight’s grin somehow widened, and her bones creaked and clattered as she waved a hoof at them. “Sorry it took so long to notice I’d been taken out of my sarcophagus. Anyway, you have no idea how exciting it is to see somepony in the flesh after all these years! Ever since the Great Plague of—yikes!”

Seven screaming mares and one dragon shoved the skeleton mare back into the rift.

As the day wore on, subsequent breaches of the rift needed so little effort to close that they sometimes managed to send Twilights home without drama, so long as they didn’t give them enough time to have a proper freak-out.

By then, Twilight had developed a nervous tic and swayed a little with each step, but she soldiered through the last few breaches without taking a break, acutely aware of the aching onset of magical fatigue in her horn. Starlight wasn’t faring much better; she had bags under her eyes and strands of hair poking out at odd angles from her mane, but the promise of an end to the ordeal drove them to the limits of their magical stamina.

Yak, mule, sheep, cow, plus several more iterations of unicorn and alicorn Twilight; they all got sent back home before trouble could start.

“Okay, Twily Number Twenty-eight. This… should be… the last one,” Twilight panted.

The crack in reality sputtered in the middle of Twilight’s office, twisting and contorting as the shadowy figure on the other side slowly pushed through the veil between their dimensions.

Sparks fizzed out of her horn, which felt just about ready to snap like a twig, but they were already so close to putting a lid on this runaway disaster. The sooner they finished it, the sooner she could call it a day and collapse on her bed. She could practically hear her poor, neglected pillows singing out to her, calling her home…

Applejack shared a look with Rainbow Dash and nodded. “All right, ya’ll. Get ready to give her a friendly nudge home.”

Fluttershy, Rarity, Pinkie and Spike hung back in the corner, ready to intervene if necessary.

Then, the rift spat out their final guest with a crackling pop.

Said guest appeared several feet off the ground, but landed gracefully on all four hooves.

Twilight blinked.

Oh, this is new…

The rift just had to play around with one more variable at the last minute, didn’t it?

Stallion Twilight was an alicorn, too. However, he carried himself with an air of dignity that Twilight didn’t feel she could match, standing tall and straight with his head held high, with lively, bright eyes that kept him from looking too snobbish.

With his chiselled physique, unshorn fetlocks and almost glossy bangs, he could’ve passed as Prince Blueblood with a Twilight paintjob, except that she didn’t think Blueblood would ever be caught wearing a V-neck sweater over a long-sleeved collared shirt, plus a pair of rectangular-rimmed glasses.

“Oh, hi girls. What just happened?” he asked in a rich baritone voice as he rubbed his temples. Then, his eyes widened when they refocused on Twilight, and a nervous chuckle escaped him as he pointed a hoof at her and asked, “Magical clone or alternate reality?”

“Alternate,” she said.

“Oh, okay. Well…” he adjusted his glasses and grinned nervously. “I’m Dusk Shine.”

She nodded. “Twilight Sparkle.”

“And I’m Fluttershy…”

Twilight squinted at her friend, but couldn’t meet the teal eyes behind all that pink mane. She could’ve sworn she’d heard—never mind.

“Sorry, I know it looks like the start of a really weird day for you, but trust me, it’s all under control.” Twilight paused to give him a reassuring smile as she flared her horn. “If you’ll just step back into the rift, Starlight and I will send you—”

“Punkie Wunk!” he cried, darting over to Starlight with his wings spread wide.

Starlight stiffened in his wing-hug and went bright red. “Excuse me?”

Dusk froze for a second as well, and then his smile contorted into a wince as he gingerly released her. “Oh shoot, I forgot. Sorry, you just look so much like my Glim-Glam. I mean, you technically are my wife, but from another dimension, I guess.”

“Wife?” Twilight and Starlight cried in stereo.

He blinked a couple of times, then pointed a feather and waggled it between them. “I take it you two aren’t into each other, then?”

“No!”

“Straight, huh? Okay, then.” He grinned ruefully at Twilight. “Guess that really limits your options here.”

What’s that supposed to mean?

“Wait a sec!” Rainbow frowned at him. “Starlight’s still a mare in your universe? What about the rest of us?”

“You’re all mares.” Dusk then pointed at Twilight. “Far as I can tell, she’s the only one who’s gender-flipped.”

Starlight shook her head. “Hang on, back up a bit. Did you actually date and marry me? Even after I nearly destroyed the timeline trying to ruin your friendships?”

“Huh?” Dusk tilted his head. “You never did that. Your ex-coltfriend’s the one who went berserk after we hooked up in Our Town.”

“Sunburst?”

“Yup! Anyway, want to see our boys?”

He conjured a photograph showing two adorable little unicorn colts, both of whom had a mixture of Twilight’s and Starlight’s colour palettes, all crammed in an inflatable kiddie pool together with Dusk Shine and a somewhat chubbier Starlight Glimmer.

Twilight heard her friends – except Starlight – squealing and cooing at the photo, but it all sounded muffled and distorted, as if she was underwater. The walls closed in on her as her breathing and heart rate spiked, and her mind whirled with flashes of the latest family dinner in Canterlot, with Mum and Dad asking when she was going to find a colt and make them some grandchildren…

Enough, brain! It’s too early to be thinking about having foals!

Not to mention that she’d yet to succeed in taking the intermediate step…

Her eye twitched as she glanced at Starlight. She looked a little glassy, too.

Nope!

Twilight straightened up and trotted closer to Dusk. “Well, it was nice to meet you, but if you don’t mind, we have an interdimensional rift to close. So, if you could just—”

Rarity interrupted with a firm hoof on her shoulder. “Now, wait just a moment, darling. Since this is ostensibly the last alternate version of you before we put this all behind us, perhaps we should, ah… make the most of it, wouldn’t you agree?”

“What.”

“Starlight, is there any danger to keeping our guest around for a while?”

Reluctantly, Starlight tore her eyes away from Dusk and blinked. “Eh, who?”

Rarity sighed. “Would there be any problem if we delayed closing the portal?”

“I… I don’t think so.”

“Wonderful! This is—”

“Hang on, since when did we become a democracy?” Twilight cried, gaping at everypony in quick succession. “Why are we even considering this?”

“Why, to seize an opportunity, of course!” Rarity’s measuring tape hovered in the air beside her, and Twilight recognised that sparkly look in her eyes that signalled her imminent entry into the zone. “I’ve just had a few magnificent ideas for stallion-wear that I absolutely must try out on a suitable model, and I’m sure that the girls, especially dear Fluttershy would love to socialise with our esteemed guest.”

Applejack whistled and gently elbowed Fluttershy. “He sure does make a mighty fine stallion, eh?”

“Oh Celestia, yes,” Fluttershy murmured with a dreamy smile as she twirled a few strands of mane around her hoof.

“Well, Twilight and I could use a break. The rift’s not going anywhere, and it’s too weak to do anything even if we leave it alone,” Starlight chimed in, without taking her eyes off Dusk.

Twilight felt her hair curling and springing out of place as the conversation slipped farther and farther out of her control. “You… but I—what? Why do I suddenly feel like I’m the one who’s hopped dimensions?”

Rainbow Dash whispered something to Spike and sniggered.

“Say, hold up just an apple-picking minute.” Applejack peered at Dusk’s flank. “What happened to your cutie mark?”

“Oh, I’m an Equalist!” He turned so that everypony could get a clear view of his rump – making Fluttershy’s entire face do a pretty good job of emulating her mane colour – which had an equal sign in place of his cutie mark. “We’re all about equality in balancing out the talents in our community! Just a little something that my wife came up with.”

“Ooh,” said Pinkie as she peered at his flank, rubbing her chin thoughtfully. She then frowned as she stuck her hooves into his tail and parted the hairs, as if searching for fleas. “But you’re still so purple! Why aren’t you all mopey and greyed out?”

“And isn’t it awful to be bad at everything?” Spike asked.

Starlight, meanwhile, had turned white.

“Well, we managed to work out the kinks in the system,” he said, making a placating gesture with his wings. “Instead of removing everything that makes us special, we worked together and changed the spell to share talents instead. Instead of being equally awful at everything, we’re all equally great! Plus, we got rid of all the silly rules about shallow conformity. Equality in our individuality!”

Starlight’s eyes widened, and her jaw dropped as she stared at Dusk. Twilight could’ve sworn she’d heard a light bulb switching on, and her hair looked just a teensy bit like it was trying to revert to her straight bangs. The corners of her mouth were curling upward, too.

“Okay, just relax. You’re past all that. There’s no need to go back to that philosophy,” Twilight hastily whispered into her ear.

Starlight shivered. “I’m not sure how much longer I can resist…”

“That broad skill-set admittedly sounds nice, though the equal sign looks a little unbecoming, if I may be honest,” Rarity mused aloud.

“Pfft. Yeah, right.” Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. “Jack of all trades, master of none. Not cool.”

“More like master of all trades,” Dusk retorted with a smirk. “Want to race? A couple of Wonderbolts recently joined us, so I’ve got Soarin in me.”

Rainbow scowled. “You’re on!”

His horn flared and engulfed them with light, and Twilight recognised the otherworldly pull of a mass teleport. They then popped back into existence in the school courtyard, basking in the orange glow of sunset.

Dusk inclined his head towards the middle of Ponyville and said, “So, to Mayor Mare’s and back?”

Rainbow crouched low. “On three.”

“Three!” they cried together.

Twilight grabbed Spike and braced herself to avoid getting blown away by the backblast of air. Two blurry streaks surged towards Ponyville’s town hall, whipping up clouds of dust from the roofs and streets that quickly spun into cloud-dispersing vortices. They looped around the town hall once before doubling back, and both streaks erupted into concentric rings of polychromatic light on the way back.

Rainbow Dash skidded to a halt on the courtyard, trailing steam and wisps of rainbow light, neck to neck with Dusk Shine.

“No… no way,” Rainbow panted, oblivious to Pinkie’s cheering and Applejack’s enthusiastic stomping. “Soarin… he can’t do a Rainboom!”

“Well… to be fair, he’s not an alicorn,” Dusk replied with a shrug. “We still haven’t found a way to equalise physical traits, but we’re getting there. Horns, wings and earth endurance for everypony!”

Starlight stumbled over to him and grovelled at his hooves, looking up to him with wide, sparkling eyes as she whispered, “Teach me…”

Twilight facehoofed and groaned. “Right. I think we’re done here.”

She teleported everyone back into her office and firmly herded him over to the rift with magic. “Really sorry about this, but it’s been a long day and we’re all very, very tired and would appreciate if you could just go home so that we can forget this ever happened. Bye!”

“Okay, okay, I can tell when I’ve ruffled some feathers,” he said with a wry chuckle as he held up both wings in surrender. But he dug his hooves in just before crossing into the rift and held fast with his own magic, so he could flash them all a good-natured smile and said, “If you girls ever want to join us Equalists, you can ask Twilight for the dimensional coordinates. Cutie Mark Dissonance Syndrome is at an all-time low, and we’re always recruiting!”

He then winked at Fluttershy, who giggled and practically melted into a puddle of butter.

I think I can guess why Sunburst went berserk…

Twilight rolled her eyes and pushed him into the rift. It crackled and sputtered in protest, but with Starlight’s somewhat reluctant assistance, she managed to close it once and for all, leaving her office blissfully quiet and cultist-free.

“Well, that was rather impolite,” said Rarity.

Applejack nodded. “Yep. Not the best kind of hospitality.”

“You’re kidding, right?” Twilight flicked her tail and jabbed a hoof at the non-existent rift. “Did you see the way he was hitting on Fluttershy like he was some sleazy woomareniser?”

Fluttershy turned a deep shade of red and averted her eyes. “Sorry, Twilight. I’m not sure what came over me.”

“And he’s a married stallion!” Twilight continued. “Not to mention the fact that he was feeding us propaganda about Starlight’s anti-cutie marks-ism!”

“To be fair, he’d improved on it,” Starlight murmured.

“Be that as it may,” said Rarity, “we really could’ve given him a nicer send-off instead of acting like he was an intruder.”

“I know. It’s just that, I think I was… jealous?” Twilight sighed and shook her head. “Also, maybe a little concerned that I was falling for his rhetoric.”

“Join the club.” Starlight ambled off and collapsed onto the nearest couch.

Twilight flopped onto the couch with her, and her wings brushed against Starlight’s flank as she did so. They froze and stared at each other for a couple of seconds, then gingerly scooted over to opposite ends of the couch.

“I think I need a cold shower,” Starlight added. “Or maybe a visit to Sunburst’s…”

“And I need a—”

Twilight paused when Spike brought her a mug filled with pitch-black fluid. She took one sniff, gratefully levitated it out of his claws and downed the whole thing. Then, after taking a moment to savour the warm shot of caffeine to her frayed nerves, she beamed at him and said, “Ooh, thanks, Spike. Glad I always can count on you.”

He grinned and waggled a claw at her. “And don’t you forget it!”

“Speakin’ of which, in case you were thinking or feeling it…” Applejack sat next to Twilight and patted her on the shoulder. “That there Dusk Shine was never going to replace you, no matter how taken-in we may’ve looked. You’re the only Twilight for us. Remember that.”

Rainbow crossed her forelegs and tossed her mane. “Yeah, he wasn’t that hot, anyway.”

“Would’ve been cooler if he had a beard,” Spike added.

Fluttershy looked like she wanted to argue, but she eventually gave Twilight a reluctant nod.

“I… it’s been a long day.” Twilight sighed and gave them a weary smile. “Thanks, girls.”

“Aww, group hug!” cried Pinkie.

“Oof!”

Twilight hugged everyone back with her forelegs and wings, chuckling as she felt her tension and anxiety melting away like snow in their warm embrace. Looking back, it was incredibly silly that she’d considered the friendliest version of herself the most upsetting one.

Not the best day, but so long as I’ve got my friends, it’ll all work out in the end!

Then, her ears twitched when she heard a familiar crackling noise behind the couch, and a pit opened up in her stomach.

No, it’s not possible… I couldn’t have miscalculated!

The crackling grew louder, punctuated by the soft twangs of her hair curling and springing further and further out of place.

No, no, no, no, no…

Her friends broke away from the hug, and their faces glowed with golden light as they stared.

Hay, no!

Twilight jumped when the rift erupted with a flash, and her friends collectively gasped when they beheld the visitor behind her.

Fluttershy shrank in on herself and hid behind Rarity, whose eyes sparkled with renewed inspiration.

Pinkie’s grin widened to Town-wide Party-planner proportions.

Spike stared in awe, rubbing his chin absentmindedly.

Applejack whistled and fanned herself with her hat.

Rainbow Dash had gone cherry-red, with her wings stiffly flared out.

Slowly, Twilight turned around and peeped over the couch's backrest.

Another male Twilight.

Like the others, he closely matched her in colour scheme, save for the dark crimson of his curved, branching horn. He also looked taller and bulkier than her, though Twilight suspected that it was purely due to his massive horn and his bushy, leonine mane and tail. Dark purple scales covered his back and the bridge of his blocky muzzle.

He trotted forward on cloven hooves like a deer’s, silently watching them with bored, half-lidded eyes whilst wisps of smoke and embers danced on the tufts of his fluffy ears. And his mouth was set to a dispassionate, thin line, surrounded by rugged facial hair that looked like it belonged on the muzzle of a comic book villain.

Twilight giggled as her face contorted into a hysterical grin.

“Oh buck, you’ve goatee be Kirin me!”

Author's Notes:

Here, have another entry for the FimFic Feghoot Festival.