“But it has nothing to do with hula hoops,” Meg said to her past self. So far, the encounter had gone exactly as she had remembered it. Next she expected the pegasus to depart hyperspace without uttering another word, believing she had been offered all the help she was going to receive.

The suspense is killing me. That sarcastic thought had imposed itself on her. The fake suspense ended seconds later, for without so much as a goodbye her past self went back through the portal. To the infinite void she shared, “I still don’t know how to say goodbye to one’s self.”

Fortunately, it was knowledge rarely needed.

Meg touched the portal with a finger and it went dim, flat; her past self was about to test whether it was still open and would find it had been closed. Now to focus on the next time loop, the one where she’d let herself be kidnapped. Little had she volunteered about that mission, details of which her past self would eventually choke on.

I was so naïve back then, she thought to herself, remembering how in not even half a year… those few weeks had done much to remedy that.

The time travel spells were easier to cast as a pony. Only the fact that she had remembered her future self being human caused her to resume that form here. Her past self, she also remembered, had recently acquired a pendant that allowed her to switch between human and equine, leveraging Discord’s magic. Long ago she had learned the isomorphic mapping spell, allowing her to transform into any species all on her own. She used it now, and her equine spine once more bore saddlebags full of gear.

Summoning the raw magic of this place, where the fundamental forces of nature remained undifferentiated, she resumed her journey into the past. Just a few years to go.

Twilight engaged in the ritual of brewing tea, adding the precise quantity of leaves to the kettle. President Serrell stood at the panoramic windows, hands clasped behind his back, looking out at the sky above distant Ponyville. The sun hovered above the horizon, its daily journey complete. Any second now day would change over to night, and shortly after that the meeting would start.

The sun dipped below the horizon. Seconds later the moon rose. “Even seeing it with my own eyes, I find myself doubting.”

Twilight concluded the heating spell. “I know what you mean. A planet orbiting a sun? Absurd.”

“And it looks exactly the same—except during sunrise and sunset.” He turned around. “An astounding coincidence.”

“One of all too many.”

Serrell approached the mahogany table, a grim smile on his face. “A topic for another day.”

The door opened, and Princess Luna entered her sister’s private tea room.

Twilight was caught off-guard. “Luna?” And here she was making tea.

The Princess of the Night nodded to the foreign head of state. “I persuaded my sister that I would be better suited for this meeting. I hope you do not mind.”

Serrell shrugged. “You are co-rulers of Equestria; and should word of this meeting get out, I doubt it’d matter to those trying to remove me from office as to which of you I spoke with.”

And maybe she’s right. Luna did seem more in tune with how politics was played by humans. Twilight looked down at the tea set. “Tea is all I have, I’m afraid.”

“It shall suffice.”

Luna took a seat at the table, opposite from the chair procured for the President, who himself sat down. “That was one of the Articles of Impeachment,” she said. “Colluding with us to further our nefarious aims, to paraphrase. I noticed a distinct lack of detail on what these alleged aims might be.”

Serrell exhaled. “No one can agree on what they might be, but that’s okay because they must be nefarious. Then there’s the other Article of Impeachment: my being complicit in the locking up of American citizens without due process in a foreign prison, i.e. Tartarus.”

Which Twilight found preposterous. “I was the one who detained them and locked them up. Your agents gave them every chance to avoid that, but they refused to cooperate.”

“Well, to be fair, I did agree to the Tartarus gambit, but then there’s no one who knows that who’d leak that fact, not that that’s stopping Eric Tanner from implying I was involved anyway. Regardless, they’ll claim in the upcoming Senate trial next week that I failed to protect our citizens from you. Whether it’s from malice or incompetence doesn’t really matter.”

“Would we be called as witnesses?” Luna asked.

“Probably, but obviously they can’t force you. However, should you refuse, you shouldn’t set foot in the USA.” He looked down into his teacup. “Not that there’s a jail that could hold you.”

Twilight sighed. “True, but that wouldn’t help our cause.”

“It would not.” Serrell looked up. “What is your cause, exactly?”

“Friendship, of course!”

Serrell shook his head. “I know you’re sincere, but don’t be surprised if that isn’t received as well as you think it ought to be.”

Twilight rolled her eyes. “I’m not clueless.”

“What about Meg?” Luna asked.

“It’s certain she’ll be called as a witness. She can refuse so long as she stays here, just as she refused the House, but… you know the drill.”

“Is a pardon still off the table?”

“It won’t keep her from being subpoenaed, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“But it would allow her to return home,” Twilight said. Well, to a new home. Her last apartment was now rented to others.

Serrell allowed himself a long sip of tea. “It would get the FBI off her case, yes, but she would still be in danger from… less savory elements of society. I’m not sure what can be done about that. Maybe if Senator Routledge had been removed from office, but…”

Twilight practically snarled. “But he wasn’t.”

It never got as far as impeachment, not even close. For all the evidence Twilight and Meg had gathered, none of it tied the senator to the actions of the so-called “The Section.” Worse, Routledge had argued that evidence was obviously fake, computer generated—or far worse, magically created. That the means by which those videos had been recorded could not be revealed, because Serrell had classified the existence of magical time travel, did not help matters at all. Of those directly involved with the kidnapping, the very few who had initially been willing to talk as part of plea deals suddenly went silent, once it became clear the evidence against them was unusable. Their cases had never gone to trial either.

Sometimes Twilight wondered if the president had his priorities straight.

“And for me to issue that pardon, under these circumstances, would look incredibly bad.”

Twilight slammed a hoof. “Then Meg can testify only as a prisoner. That’s unacceptable.”

“Twilight, please. Calm down.” Luna closed her eyes in thought. “Would Meg testifying remotely, from Equestria, be possible?”

Serrell sighed. “Technically, I suppose so, given what you can do with cell phones and stuff, but I doubt the Senate will go for it.”

“Then she could testify in person as a pony,” Luna said. “They would be unable to hold her.”

Twilight gaped; Luna seemed serious. “Yes… that’s true, I mean, that’s how those—our means of crossing over works, but wouldn’t showing up as a pegasus just create more problems?”

“Would it? It’s common knowledge now, is it not?”

For the first time in quite some time, a smile appeared on Serrell’s mouth. “It would certainly shake the box. They wouldn’t expect that.”

“That is all well and good.” Luna looked Serrell in the eyes. “But we are ignoring the manticore in the room. How would Meg’s testimony help you? Should she not spare herself the ordeal?”

“Same for me,” Twilight said. “Especially since most of what we could say has been classified by you.”

He sighed. “It’s more that your non-appearance hurts, rather than what you might say would help. You two are fact witnesses. They’ll claim I’m preventing you from testifying, because your testimony would be damaging.”

Luna nodded. “That would be their logical course of action.”

Twilight looked back and forth between the two, and sighed. “I’ll think about it. As for Meg, that’s her decision.”

Meg typed away at her workstation, working on the simulation software that modeled magic fields. At this point she was doing it more for Twilight than for her job at the Department of Energy. Not that she’d had much opportunity to spend her human salary. It was her job as Royal Advisor that now covered her no-longer-token Equestrian expenses.

A Royal Guard walked through the converted cavern. The two guards were her only company this late at night, there to ensure no unauthorized persons came through the portal. Human counterparts were on the other side. Their job seemed primarily to take her into custody should she return to her own world, and the guards’ job was primarily to make sure their human counterparts stayed on their side of the portal.

Surprisingly few had tried to enter Equestria uninvited—if only because Discord had been persuaded to shift the portal over to the vault that had been used for magic experiments. Though never acknowledged, word of the portal’s existence had of course gotten out. After the first few gatecrashers armed with live streaming had managed to enter the facility and found only an ordinary wall for their efforts, the problem had pretty much taken care of itself. Not that they stopped believing in the portal, oh no. It obviously got moved, and they would find it.

Well, they weren’t wrong. So far, no one with access to the vault—a select few—had talked. On this side of the portal, a new room had been dug out and the portal moved into that. It was one of many security upgrades. A proper, public portal was being talked about—behind closed doors, of course—but so far it was only talk.

“We need to talk, Meg.”

Meg jerked her head to the side. “About what?” Twilight must have just teleported in.

“The upcoming impeachment trial.”

She knew where this was going. She turned back to her workstation. “Not doing it.”

“Just hear me out, okay?”

Meg sighed. “Just get to the point.”

“Do it as a pony. Then they can’t hold you.”

That caught her off-guard, for that option had never occurred to her. Even so: “But what would that accomplish? What could I possibly say—what I’m allowed to say—that would make a difference?”

Never mind what showing up as a pony might do to her.

“The mere fact that you do not will hurt Serrell’s case and help Routledge’s. Luna agrees.”

“Will you testify?”

“I’m not ruling it out.”

Meg plunged her face into her hands. “I am so sick of this.”

“Maybe flip a quantum coin?”

“I’m sick of that too. I am not going to run my life by coin flips.”

Twilight answered with silence.

“Fine. I’ll flip a coin.” Meg navigated to the website she had visited all too often. “Should I flip a coin to determine whether to appear before the Senate to testify?” She started the stream of quantum mechanically generated random hexadecimal digits, then immediately stopped it and looked at the first digit. “No. Go figure. I guess I have to decide on my own. The multiversal quantum supercomputer has spoken.”

“Then think it over. That’s all I ask.”

Twilight teleported away.

Meg groaned. “What’s to think about.”

There was one last item for Twilight to cross off her checklist. Sunset Shimmer and Moondancer had something to show her. They had been rather mysterious about it, just said to meet them in the mirror realm.

The mirror stood before her. Twilight walked through the mirror, and nearly fell flat on her face—and not because she had become a biped. Canterlot High was gone! In its place was a control room right out of some human sci-fi movie, full of hi-tech consoles and computer displays. “What in Celestia’s name happened?!”

Both of them were seated at a console. Sunset Shimmer spun around in her chair to face her. “We finally figured out the true nature of this place.”

“Why it looks the way it does,” Moondancer added.

Twilight looked behind her. There was a wide, floor-to-ceiling pillar. No statue. “And that would be…?”

“This realm is pure magic,” Sunset said. “No other fundamental forces of physics are present here.”

Twilight shook her head. “No, no, no, no. Magic is the one thing that cannot be used here. That’s what caused that leak!”

“Only because this place was magically simulating a non-magical realm. You could say, in a manner of speaking, that its programming couldn’t handle intense harmonic magic, like from the Elements.” Sunset shrugged. “We broke the simulation.”

Twilight looked around the control room—controlling what?—as the implications sank in. She wished she had a horn here, so that she could directly probe the magical underpinnings. “How did you move the portal from the statue to here?”

Moondancer stood up and walked towards her. “We didn’t move the portal; we changed the simulation.”

“What?”

“When a pony enters this realm—unoccupied—the realm conforms to her expectations. Canterlot High had always been here because we didn’t know any better; we expected it, therefore it was here.”

Something wasn’t right. Twilight fixed her gaze on Sunset. “But why would you be thinking of human equivalents to Ponyville residents when you came here the very first time?”

“I wasn’t.” She exchanged glances with Moondancer. “We, uh, have a theory about that.”

Twilight facepalmed. “I’m not going to like it, am I?”

Moondancer cleared her throat. “One resident of Ponyville was conspicuously absent.”

“Two, actually,” Sunset said.

Twilight groaned. “Myself and Spike.” She looked up. “But at that time, both of us were living in Canterlot, so that doesn’t actually explain anything.”

“Oh.” Moondancer grimaced. “Right.”

Sunset waved it off. “That doesn’t really invalidate the theory. Look, I don’t have any proof—don’t really have any evidence—but what if you went back in time and came here before I did, establishing Canterlot High and its students and faculty, and left only after I arrived. You and Spike wouldn’t have equivalents because you were already here. Well, maybe Spike went back in time with you?”

This was giving her a headache. “Sure, why not, what’s one more time loop?” A thought came to her: “Wait a minute. You mean we don’t have to become humans in this place?” Maybe she could one day come here as an alicorn and probe the magical underpinnings of this realm.

“Strictly speaking, no,” Sunset said. “That was just another part of the simulation. We don’t have material bodies here at all; we can set it to have any form we want. Didn’t you notice that Discord always remained his chaotic self?”

Twilight nodded.

“I don’t know how, but he knew how to override the form this realm tried to impose on him.”

“Override the simulation from within,” Twilight said. Discord could not be separated from his magic. That’s what Tirek had said, and this place was supposedly nothing but magic. “Remember he got rid of all the occupants?”

Sunset looked up in thought. “Yeah, he did that, didn’t he?”

Twilight remembered something, back from when she’d first learned about the magic leak to the human realm. “Discord also created that mirror. Claimed that this place was nothing but a reflection of our own realm… that it doesn’t exist unless somepony goes through to observe it.”

“He might have been jerking you around,” Sunset said. “Tends to do that, you know.”

“Tell me about it.”

“But, in this case, it’s more or less consistent with what we found out. It was a reflection of our realm because somepony went through expecting it to be, and thus observed it to be.”

“What about isolating our two realms?” Twilight asked. “He said that too.”

“The better question is, what would break that isolation?” Sunset asked.

Moondancer answered, “Portals.”

“Portals,” Twilight repeated.

“Yes, portals.” Sunset waved her hand at the consoles. “This all controls the portals between the Equestrian and human realms—creates, moves, destroys. I simply went through the mirror expecting a portal control room, and here it is.”

Twilight walked over to a monitor. According to what she saw on it, one portal currently existed. There was also the longitude, latitude, altitude, width, height, and orientation of both ends.”

“I already checked out those coordinates,” Sunset said. “They accurately describe the portal we know about.”

“But what if it’s showing this because you expected it to show this?” Confirmation bias literally made real. They’d have to watch out for that.

Sunset had a ready answer. “We briefly created another portal, from another spot in the cavern to the opposite side of the vault. This is the real deal.”

Twilight couldn’t take her eyes off that monitor. “But where were all these controls hiding before? How did Discord create that portal if this wasn’t here?”

Moondancer shrugged. “We don’t know.”

“How did you know—or even suspect—the portals were controlled from this realm?”

“Suspect, really,” Sunset said. “The main clue was what Tirek had said, that the portals did not directly connect the two realms, that this realm was the intermediary. There’s also the fact that from within this realm Discord could open and close that other portal to hyperspace.” She pointed at the pillar Twilight had come through. “It’s on the other side, like before.”

This changed everything. Maybe it even solved the unsolvable! “Could this create a portal into Tartarus?” And provide a way to for Tirek to escape?

“Uh… I don’t think so? I mean, there’s no way to specify which realm. One endpoint is assumed to be in the human realm, the other in ours. What does latitude and longitude even mean in that place?”

“See if it’s possible.” Twilight met Sunset’s eyes. “It’s important.”

Those eyes widened. “Sure. Important.” She stole a glance at Moondancer. “I mean, if Tartarus is no longer escape-proof due to this… we ought to find out sooner than later, right?”

Meg couldn’t get her mind back into her work, as hard as she tried to do so. She might as well go home. Her Equestrian home. The only home she now had.

After locking her computer’s desktop, she stood up and put her saddlebags around her neck, then squeezed her pendant. A pegasus once more, she put on her mining helmet and switched on its lamp. As she trotted over to the locked exit, she said in a raised voice, “I’m leaving now.”

A guard came by and opened the door for her, after magically unlocking it. “Have a good night,” he said.

“May be too late for that,” she muttered.

The guard had the good sense not to reply to that. The door closed behind her and relocked.

Meg walked through the old mining tunnels. In the solitude, she thought it over yet again. It was true they could not hold her so long as she arrived via one of Discord’s plaid pills; she could return whenever she wanted and there was nothing they could do to stop it. Even if they knocked her out and kept her unconscious, the failsafe would kick in once the magic ran out. None of that could prevent them from killing her, she supposed, but, one, they wouldn’t do that and, two, it was literally impossible; she had met her future self—who was very much alive.

Well, if they had a magic generator… no, that was overthinking it, and none of that was the real problem anyway. She had never appeared in public as a pony. Didn’t matter that that secret was out; there was a big difference between hearing she was a pony and seeing it on television during an impeachment trial. Would she ever be able to go out in public again? As if I could anyway, she rationalized. Well, it was true, wasn’t it?

But what could she say under questioning? She had little doubt that most of it would involve classified information. But was that really a problem? So she’d just give non-answers, pretend to have a poor memory; she had seen that song and dance played out enough times. The point was she’d be there, thereby proving Serrell was cooperating or whatever.

Routledge. The man behind the curtain, the man who had her niece kidnapped—even if they couldn’t prove it, not even circumstantially. He’d be one of the inquisitors on the Senate Judiciary Committee. How could I deal with him?

By the time she had walked out under the night sky, she still didn’t know. After stowing her helmet in a saddlebag she took wing, Luna’s moon providing ample light to fly by. Gaining altitude, the thought crystalized: the senator must be made to pay. That would justify appearing before the Senate—the consequences to herself be damned. Yet that only begged the question: how to make him pay?

A few minutes later she had flown up and around the mountain and was approaching the palace, her not-so-temporary home. A guard, armor shining in the moonlight, was flying in her general direction—no, definitely heading towards her. That was unexpected; what was up? She slowed down to a hover as they met. “What’s going on?” she asked.

“Meg?”

“That’s right.”

“Her Highness requests your presence.”

“Princess Celestia?” Now? Must be important.

The guard coughed. “The other one.”

“Oh.” Late at night. Right. “Where may I find her?”

“The throne room.” Message delivered, the guard departed.

In those rare situations when Luna had initiated contact, it had been in her dreams. Doesn’t make it less important. Meg resumed flying, and soon she was gliding in to a landing at the palace entrance. There wasn’t much activity. Ponies still preferred to conduct their business during daylight hours. Luna seemed to have made her peace with it, perhaps because it gave her the time to patrol the dreamscape for nightmares.

The throne room was a ghost town—no, not quite. An aristocrat was in discussions with the princess, and a few staffers hovered nearby. Upon hearing somepony enter, Luna looked up. “We’ll have to put this aside for a half-hour or so. Everypony please vacate the throne room.”

Meg took that as her cue to approach the throne. Quickly the others departed, and from that throne Luna closed the doors and gave them privacy. “I figured a change of pace would be appreciated,” Luna said. “To meet in person instead of in a dream.”

Meg shrugged. “I suppose? Anyway, would this have anything to do with a conversation I just had with Twilight? I’ve decided to do it, by the way.”

Luna looked surprised. “Do what?”

“Be a witness at the impeachment trial. Twilight mentioned you agreed that’d be a good idea.”

“I see. We did have a meeting with President Serrell earlier this evening—but that is not why I requested your presence. Have you given any thought as to how, in the past, you shall break Tirek out of Tartarus?”

It had been months since that particular nightmare, when Luna had conveyed royal… non-disapproval?… to that act. “Not really? I mean, I have no idea how we’re supposed to do that. I just assumed that when the time was right something would turn up. It would have to, right? It will—did happen.”

“I believe you should be more proactive. As was pointed out before, it would be best if it happened under our terms.”

And not under other terms that happened to be sufficient to close the time loop, Meg recalled from when Luna had disrupted her Tartarus nightmare. “Well… not sure where I’m supposed to look for the answer. Many had tried to figure out how he escaped, right? Without success?”

“I agree that revisiting well-explored terrain would be unproductive. However, you are human; I imagine that would bring a different perspective to the problem.”

“Maybe it does,” Meg replied, “but that ‘different perspective’ has yet to work any magic.”

“Keep your mind receptive to possible solutions, and be aware that a solution could come from any direction. That’s all I can ask.”

“I guess I can do that.” Meg took a breath. “Can we go back to the impeachment trial? I said I’ll do it, but there’s the detail of how I’ll do it. I doubt it’ll make Serrell happy.”

“Serrell’s happiness is not our responsibility.” Luna raised an eyebrow. “Would it make me or my sister unhappy?”

Meg had no idea. Only one way to find out. “I want to take Routledge down for what he did to my niece. The only way I can see to do that is by revealing how I collected the evidence against them, through methods classified by the White House.”

“I see.”

Meg couldn’t read Luna. Awkward seconds passed. “The way I figure it,” she continued, “it’s not his to classify anyway. It’s Equestrian magic. Sure, I get it: he believes if this got out it’ll only make things worse, and for all I know he’s right. But wouldn’t taking down Routledge and his goons more than make up for that? And it’s not like magical time travel isn’t already known. Twilight did it in one of the cartoons!” And she couldn’t change the past, an important point to get across.

“Have you considered the possibility that Serrell might be persuaded? You could be invited to the next meeting.”

She hadn’t, actually, but didn’t care to admit that. “And what if he can’t be? I’ll do it anyway; I don’t think it’s in his power to stop me.” The Senate did not need presidential permission, that’s for sure.

“Did you flip a quantum coin over it?”

Not you too, she inwardly groaned. “No, and I’m not going to.”

More unreadable seconds passed.

“I shall discuss this with Celestia and Twilight. Taking down the senator would make all of us happy, naturally; nonetheless, the potential for collateral damage must be assessed. I ask that you consider making your case to President Serrell.”

The doors to the throne room opened under Luna’s magic. The aristocrat and staffers re-entered.

Meg bowed, as was appropriate in a public setting. “I’ll take that into consideration.”

In the infinite void of hyperspace existed an endless plane, softly glowing a deep and near ultraviolet purple. It took a while for Meg to locate her destination, her old office from which she had been—would be— kidnapped. It helped that magic generators were rare at that point in time; their presence discolored the skin of the universe, rendering it tangerine. That the kidnappers helped themselves to all the magic generators in the facility also provided a reference point in time. All that was left was to pass through the skin and wait.

No, there was one more thing. Meg resumed her human form; she had to do that now, as her original universe would not permit violations of its conservation laws. That out of the way, she cast a teleportation spell and appeared in what was once her office.

Nostalgia overwhelmed her. It had been so many years since she’d last seen it. There, on the desk, was the photo of the two of them in Hawaii. She still had it; digital pictures did not degrade with time. How ironic she had arrived at a time, like her own, when there was no Steve anywhere in this universe. Only this time it was because he was in Equestria, along with her past self, on that trip to Las Pegasus.

Meg plunked into her old chair, memories flooding back. Before her was her old workstation. Here and now it was state of the art; by the standards of her own time, it seemed hopelessly outdated, little better than an abacus, a relic in a museum. There was not a trace of magic in its operation.

Enough reminiscing. She checked the time on the computer. About an hour for her to prepare her office for ransacking; the goons were to get what they were supposed to get—and nothing more.

“I was quite sincere,” Andy said. His face beamed from her computer monitor. “Our time as enemies has passed. Why shouldn’t we collaborate?”

Twilight still had not accepted the former Lord Tirek’s offer, first made back in Tartarus, to cooperatively investigate the similarities between the human and pony realms. There was no specific reason why. She just couldn’t help but feel she’d regret it. Somehow. Eventually.

But if that were the case, that he had something nefarious planned, there was only one way to uncover it. So when Andy’s desire for this chat had come in through channels, she took Luna’s advice and agreed. Twilight only added the condition that it’d be a video chat. Not having been to his current residence, talking to him in person would have been too inconvenient. She couldn’t use a plaid pill to go there directly, and using a portal was too risky as she wouldn’t have the option of the pill’s return spell.

“Okay, let’s start now,” she finally said, “with the subject of language. You witnessed the development of modern Equish, right?” A human pen hovered over a pad of paper.

“Excellent!” he exclaimed, clapping his hands together. “I did. However, I would not use the word ‘development.’”

“Oh?”

“Modern Equish did not so much ‘develop’ as appear fully formed.”

The pen continued hovering over a blank sheet of paper. “Fully formed,” she repeated. “It had to form somewhere.”

Andy nodded. “One would think so. English certainly formed here in this world, I have learned, over the course of many centuries.”

“I’m well aware of that.”

A shrug. “I assume magic was somehow responsible, though that would be more your specialty than mine.”

And there was an all-too-obvious explanation, not that she was going to mention time travel to the former centaur. It begged the question anyway. How do time travelers get an entire population of ponies to switch over to English, accent and all? And to do it so thoroughly that no trace remained of their earlier tongue? There wasn’t a spell for that!

“How do you know Equish didn’t evolve over centuries?” she asked.

Andy looked up and to the side, lost in thought. “I can’t prove it,” he eventually said. His eyes returned to the webcam. “One day, I learned of a large population of ponies, all of whom spoke what would become known as Equish. I don’t know how long they were there—generations certainly—so it’s possible their language evolved over time. But even if it did…”

He was lost in thought once more.

“Even if it did,” he resumed, “it bore no similarity to any other language I was aware of at the time.” He paused again. “Another strange thing to consider: that part of the continent, where Equestria is today, was uninhabited wilderness the previous time I had passed through, maybe two—no, three centuries earlier. I’m not sure where those ponies had come from.” He rubbed his chin in thought. “Actually, I had not previously encountered ponies anywhere prior to that. Donkeys, yes. Goats, yes. Even cows. But not ponies.”

Twilight didn’t know what to make of that as she wrote it all down. It raised more questions than it answered. Time travel, again, while superficially providing an answer, again begged the question. A large number of ponies couldn’t be sent from the present to the distant past, thus becoming their own distant ancestors. She now knew enough about genetics to understand that was—at best—highly improbable.

Unless… “What happened to this population? They didn’t somehow all die off after transferring their language to another population of ponies, did they?”

Andy was not amused. “I hope you are not accusing me of genocide.”

The thought had occurred to her, though on reflection she regretted thinking that; Lord Tirek had wanted to conquer and rule, not mindlessly destroy. “It could have been a pandemic, or a natural disaster,” she quickly said. Even if some had survived, so long as their descendants had all died out before modern times, it could still work.

“To my knowledge they were the ancestors of present-day Equestrians. There were no other ponies so far as I know. I do know that Celestia and Luna were born to them.”

“They established their rule by defeating Discord,” Twilight said, seeing where this was going.

“I gave them all to Discord to do with as he pleased,” Andy said with a wave of a hand. “They were too far away for me to bother with; that’s why it took so long for me to become aware of them.” He sighed. “In hindsight, that may not have been the wisest course of action.”

Since it had directly led to his imprisonment in Tartarus.

It’s ancient history, she tried to tell herself. Nothing would be served by holding him accountable for what he had done so—no, he had already been held accountable, by his long imprisonment in Tartarus. Regardless, it confirmed that those ponies hadn’t died out, that their descendants—amongst them Twilight herself—still lived. They could not have been time travelers from the present.

So where had they come from? As tempting as it was to visit them in the past and find out, that wasn’t an option. Traveling that far through time was simply impossible. Not now, anyway—not in the foreseeable future either.

“Now that wasn’t so bad, was it?” Andy looked at her expectantly. “Imagine what we could accomplish if we had quality time together.”

“Don’t push your luck.”

He threw up his hands. “Hear me out first. I’ve been invited to visit my old home at Knossos, what’s left of it anyway. Perhaps you could come along? There would be a stopover in Athens; I figured we could visit that cave that led me to your realm. Who knows? You might detect some residue of that portal, though after so many centuries I wouldn’t get our hopes up.”

She would have jumped at that chance not so long ago; it had become academic, now that the mechanism behind those portals had been discovered. Andy didn’t know that. Should she tell him? No, he had no need to know. And he was almost certainly right, that there’d be no residue to detect. That could be her excuse to decline.

On second thought, however… Knossos had contact with the Equestrian realm. The human legend of the minotaur originated there. It was probably a long shot, but could evidence of that contact survive to the present day? She could arrange to go there without him, but only Androgeos, son of King Minos, who became the centaur Lord Tirek, could fluently read Minoan.

And as for that cave… who’s to say it didn’t have evidence of Equestrian contact?

Andy was patiently waiting for her reply.

Even better, might he not also let loose a few details concerning his escape from Tartarus? Meg would love learning how she would free him.

“I accept.”

Susie ran up the stairs with Dinky close behind her, both shouting noises of excitement.

Once they were out of sight, Matt considered his sister. “Do you always have to visit us as a pony?”

Meg drifted down onto the sofa and folded her wings. “Plaid pills only work for magical creatures. You know that.”

“You could have a unicorn bring you over?”

Meg frowned at him. “You’re missing the point. If a SWAT team forced their way in here, guns drawn, I want a quick exit.”

Matt sat down next to her. “Aren’t you getting a little paranoid? We’ve been back for a month and no one has so much as knocked on our door.”

“Which only proves they’re not interested in you… and that they don’t have a clue I’ve been visiting.”

“Or maybe that thought has occurred to them, and they don’t care as much as you think.”

Meg shrugged. “Oh, sure, I bet they have this house under observation, but they haven’t seen me at the front door—or any door. Very few know how it works.”

“Then by your own argument it’s safe enough to visit as your human self.”

She sighed. “If it’s the human me you miss, you’ll just have to come to Equestria to see her.”

He shook his head. “When was the last time you were even human?”

“The last time I used a keyboard, for your information.”

Matt grimaced. “Sorry. It’s just that I can’t cross over on a whim to visit you. You couldn’t bring me across right now even if you wanted to.” He looked at the blank screen of the TV. “Too bad none of those alleged portal sightings were real. I mean, just because Andy used one thousands of years ago to enter Equestria doesn’t mean they exist today.”

Meg threw him a wry smile. “Hey, if it prevents everyone from knowing how we really cross over, so much the better.” The smile became evil. “But if you want a portal right here in your house so you can visit whenever you want, that can be arranged.”

A flat look. “Don’t joke about something like that.”

“It’s not a joke. Well, not the part about the portal itself. We recently discovered how they are made and controlled. But putting one here would be a very bad idea. If word ever got out…”

He stared at her for a few seconds. “You’re serious.”

“Yeah. We could set up a big portal right now, let people and ponies go back and forth for business, tourism, whatever. Except.”

“Except for all the craziness going on right now.”

“Right.”

Matt ran his hand through her mane. “Speaking of craziness, what about the trial? I assume you’ll ignore the Senate, since you ignored the House’s subpoena.”

“I’m considering it.”

His hand froze. “Now I know you’re joking.”

Meg’s ears flattened. “I’d do it for one reason and one reason only, to get back at that bastard for what they did to Susie.”

Matt pulled back his hand. “That isn’t how it works. They ask the questions. You answer what they ask. Get real. Even if you cooperate, do your best not to rock any boats, you’d still wind up behind bars. That’s your reward for showing up.”

A grim smile. “Not if I show up as a pony. They can’t stop me from returning to Equestria whenever I want. I don’t have to play their game.”

“Show up—” He shook his head. “Look, if it was only your life at risk, then maybe you could do what you want. But if you’re going to drag Susie into the limelight, just when it seemed everything had returned to normal for her.” He glanced at the ceiling, at where his daughter was playing with a unicorn filly. “What passes for normal, these days.”

Meg stared at him. “And so long as those goons are out there, you’re at risk of being used to get to me.”

“Then what are they waiting for?”

She looked away. “I don’t know. Doesn’t prove they won’t.”

“Did you ever consider that maybe, just maybe, they don’t care about you anymore?”

“They care enough to have a warrant for my arrest for their bullshit accusations, to subpoena me to testify before Congress.”

Matt threw his hands up. “All the more reason not to do something stupid. Just saying.”

Meg’s head dropped to the cushion. In almost a whisper, she said, “I know it works out for me, somehow.”

It took Matt a few moments to respond. “What, your cutie mark told you that? or something?”

“My future self.” She turned away. “I met her—me—whatever.”

More moments passed. “No, you’re not joking.”

“An occupational hazard of time traveling,” she muttered.

“And what about the rest of us? How does it work out for us?”

“I wasn’t told.”

Matt stood up. “Keep that in mind.”

“This is fascinating, Spike! The ancient Greeks did not consider unicorns to be mythological. They really believed they existed.”

Spike put the cup of hot cocoa on the desk next to the computer. “It’s not like unicorns don’t exist.”

“But they never saw one!” Twilight lifted the cup in her magic. Tiny marshmallows were already starting to melt, just as she liked it. “They thought unicorns were in a place called India—” She pointed at the words on the screen as she read them. “—‘a distant and fabulous realm.’”

“So ‘India’ is just another name for Equestria?”

“No, apparently not. It’s a country in the human realm. I don’t think they mean what we mean by the world realm.”

Spike took a sip of his own cocoa. “So were there unicorns in India?”

“No… apparently not. It’s all based on relief sculptures seen in yet another ancient civilization. They weren’t even based on ponies—or even horses. That didn’t happen until many centuries later.”

“I dunno. Doesn’t prove it wasn’t based on actual unicorns. We know that portal existed.”

“Yes, in Greece. Where they never saw a unicorn.”

Twilight continued scrolling through the webpage. She couldn’t help rolling her eyes upon encountering the “unicorns can only be tamed by a virgin” myth. Cadance would love that one. How do these things get started? And humans used the word alicorn to refer to the substance out of which horns were composed—as well as the horn itself? Well, they were certainly right to believe it had magical properties, though not so much medicinal ones. Her eyes went wide. “They ground up the horn into powder!?”

Spike spit out a mouthful of cocoa. “What? How? I thought they never even saw one?”

“It’s…” She cast a spell to clean up the mess. “There, that’s better. Not unicorns, obviously, but other animals—fake alicorn powder.”

“Do they still do that?”

Her jaw set. “I certainly hope not. I will not tolerate that happening to any Equestrian unicorn.”

“Uh, or alicorn?”

The worry on Spike’s face was as plain as the fins on his head.

Her smile was determined. “I can look after myself.”

“Maybe you should bring someone along with more, uh, experience in such things?”

Experience? Who has more experience dealing with Tirek? Discord? Possibly. But he can’t go to that realm. Celestia? Perhaps, but she has a country to run. Meg? Sure, she knows the human realm but that doesn’t mean she knows anything about ancient archaeological—

“You’re not suggesting…”

Spike nodded. “Can a human Andy be any worse to deal with than Ahuizotl or Caballeron? And ancient ruins are right up her alley.”

And I’m sworn to secrecy. Ahuizotl and Caballeron were only hive-less changelings role playing a part, she now knew. It was part of the deal to gain their assistance, to have one of them masquerade as Meg the pegasus. In exchange, they were granted permission to freely mingle with ponies—so long as they behaved themselves, of course. So far they had. They’d been mingling all along, after all, without causing problems. One was in Ponyville even then, serving as the librarian at the Golden Oak Library.

Part of that deal was, for the time being, to keep their changeling nature a secret, until a path to acceptance and integration could be found.

Regardless, Twilight couldn’t deny Daring knew her way around ancient ruins. And just because her villains were fictional didn’t mean she lacked understanding on what made them tick. That’s how she wrote them so convincingly, after all.

“I’ll suggest it to her,” she said. “She’ll probably have to go as Yearling, but that would work too.”

“Sure! Researching the next Daring Do book.”

And why not? She’d even include that in the invitation.

Twilight finished her cocoa and locked her computer. There was a changeling she needed to see.

Tomatoes. Eggs. Honey. Carrots. Aged hay. Various flowers. Meg’s saddlebags were filling up nicely. Up ahead she spied an apple cart. Applejack spied her back and waved.

Sure, why not? She still had room for some apples.

No sooner had she arrived than the orange mare greeted her. “Howdy, Meg! Haven’t seen you around these parts much.”

Meg looked over the cart, wondering what to get; at least eight varieties were laid out, each in its own basket. “I know. Spending most of my time in Canterlot these days. Only here today because Dinky was visiting my niece.”

Applejack nodded. “Susie did make a few friends while she was here, I reckon. Apple Bloom wouldn’t mind seeing her again.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“Need some help making up your mind?”

They all looked so good. “Well, I know I want about a pound. That’s all I can carry, I’m afraid.”

“Not a problem! Looks like you’ve been busy shopping.”

Meg shrugged. “Doing my part to support the Ponyville economy.”

A gust of wind ruffled her mane.

“Hey. What’s up?”

“Meg, here, is about to buy some apples.”

Rainbow Dash took offense. “I pay for them!”

“Eventually.”

“I’ll let you choose which ones,” Meg interjected, heading the inevitable argument off at the pass. She reached for her bit bag.

“One pound of apples, coming up.” Applejack proceeded to select a variety of apples and place them in the scale.

“So,” Dash said, addressing Meg. “How about we fly back to Canterlot once you’re done here. You could still use some flight training.”

Meg gave her a blank look. She was planning on flying back anyway, but what she had in mind by “flying” and what Rainbow Dash had in mind…

“I mean, you are spending most of your time as a pegasus now, so it wouldn’t hurt to improve your flying skills.”

Applejack adjusted her Stetson. “She does have a point, to be honest.”

Meg exhaled. “How much do I need to improve. Twenty percent?”

Dash returned a blank look of her own. “I dunno? The point’s to improve, to strive for awesomeness.”

Meg shook her head. “Sorry. I’m under lot of stress right now.” And to be fair, that twenty percent gag was a throw-away line in a single episode. It was even possible it’d never happened.

“All the more reason for flight training.”

And the worst part was? Meg couldn’t deny Dash was right. How long was she going to live primarily as a pegasus?

At least I don’t have a horn. Twilight was even more insistent on giving Steve magic lessons. Flying was as instinctual to a pegasus as walking was to a human; spell casting to a unicorn… not so much, not if the unicorn wants to do anything beyond telekinesis. The book knowledge and training required to do serious spell work was daunting. It was something easy to overlook, when a certain purple pony made it look so easy.

Applejack broke the silence. “Steve isn’t around, is he? Do you already have train tickets back to Canterlot?”

Rainbow Dash was speechless; apparently she hadn’t considered that possibility.

“No, I’m alone. Steve’s been tied up helping to make sense out of the data being gathered from one of the stars.”

Dash looked up at a star. “That one?” The one star bright enough to be seen in daylight.

“Yeah, that’s the one. Princess Luna’s keeping it near us, so that it’s easier to visit. They’ve been up there three times already.”

“But not you?” Applejack finished bagging the apples. “That’d be three bits.”

Meg counted them out. “Nothing I could contribute.”

“So what is a star, exactly?”

“A gigantic diamond stuffed full of incredibly sophisticated spells.”

Dash snorted. “Diamond? Better not mention that to Rarity.”

“It wasn’t on my to-do list.” Meg stowed the apples in a saddlebag.

Now a giggle-snort. “Better make sure it’s not on Twilight’s to-do list either!”

“That’s enough, sugarcube.”

Meg sighed and looked at Dash. “I’m ready to return to Canterlot.”

Twilight looked up from a book. “Well, that didn’t take long.” Spike had brought a disguised pegasus mare into the library. They were both approaching her.

On reaching the desk, Yearling adjusted her fake glasses. “I was already in the area,” she explained. “I had a feeling something worth my while was here.” She grinned. “My cutie mark, you know. Looks like it was right once again.”

While other ponies had similar cutie marks, in appearance, none to Twilight’s knowledge had that specific ability. She wondered how well it would work in a magic-less realm. She doubted she was the only one who wondered. “So you’re interested in visiting ancient human ruins?”

“That’s why I’m here.”

“In the company of the former Lord Tirek?”

“I believe ‘former’ is the operative word. As a human he does not concern me. And he is the domain expert here, is he not?”

“He can read the long dead Minoan language, originally being a Minoan, yes.” It was looking promising so far, but there were a few more details that needed addressing. “There will be a lot of publicity, possibly even a camera crew filming a documentary. Who do you intend to go as?”

Yearling faked surprise. “Why, as a world-famous author doing research on her next book, naturally. And if the publicity surrounding our little expedition increases human awareness of my books, why, who could have guessed?”

Twilight wanted to role her eyes. Something worth her while all right.

Yearling looked up in thought. “Though having use of my wings would be nice. Nothing like getting a bird’s-eye view of things.”

Spike waved that off. “Oh, that’s not a problem. Just go invisible.”

Yearling raised an eyebrow at the dragon.

“We can talk about that later,” Twilight said. “Though calling this an expedition is not accurate. The sites we’ll be visiting are international tourist attractions, very much on the beaten path. We’ll be staying in hotels, not tents. Actually…” Twilight looked thoughtful. “We can return here each night. Probably should; it’d be considerably safer.” They would still have the hotel rooms; no human need know they wouldn’t be sleeping in them.

The disguised pegasus thought it over. “It’s an option. It’s just that often at night happen the most interesting things.”

What those things could possibly be, Twilight could not imagine.

An elevator dinged in the distance.

Meg grimaced. The program to zero out all unallocated blocks on her ancient computer wasn’t done yet. Yes, the technology was archaic, but did it really need to take so long to erase a few terabytes?

Maybe it wasn’t them. It was still a bit early. But who else could it be? Unfortunately, she didn’t really know how it all went done; her younger self hadn’t been here. It had to be pieced together from what limited sources they had. The important bit was that she would after a week or so inexplicably escape their clutches. How she would accomplish that was obvious.

A solid clunk reverberated through the empty cubicles from a key card being scanned. Meg stared at the monitor, sighing. It didn’t really matter; the files she had deleted had been sufficiently obliterated. The entire disk was encrypted, naturally, but that was irrelevant. As the the old joke went, any encryption could be defeated with a five dollar wrench, and her plans did not include resisting interrogation—much, anyway. Gotta keep it believable.

The front fire doors slammed shut.

Meg killed the program and erased any evidence of its existence, and from the screen the telltales of its execution. It would have to do. There wasn’t much that could be recovered, and so much was still there to be found that they’d never suspect more had once existed.

And if that somehow turned out not to be the case, well, she would play it by ear. There was no historical evidence they had recovered the deleted files.

She pretended to work on some code and waited.

It was not a long wait.

The closed door to a familiar tea room loomed before Meg. Inside that room was her President, waiting to speak to her. She wouldn’t be alone; Twilight and Luna were in there too. For all the good that would do her. This wasn’t really their problem.

Wings twitched uneasily.

She forced them to be quiescent. But it made her aware she was equine.

That would not do. She would face her elected leader as a fellow human.

One pendant squeeze later, her hand hovered in front of the door. Nothing could be heard. That was to be expected, of course. The best privacy spells in existence guaranteed that.

Get it over with, she thought with a sigh. She knocked.

Immediately the door glowed lavender and opened. Meg entered. The door closed behind her, and Twilight’s horn stopped glowing.

Everyone was looking at her, especially Serrell.

“S-sorry I’m a bit late,” Meg lamely uttered. There was only one chair and it was occupied. She went for the pillow opposite Serrell and sat cross-legged on it. It would have to do.

“It’s alright, Meg.” Luna gave her best reassuring smile. Still not as good as Celestia’s, but every bit helped. “We all understand how difficult this is for you.”

All? Her eyes met the President’s eyes. Nothing there to contradict Luna’s statement.

“I had assumed…” He tried again. “Are you not a pegasus here in Equestria?” He hastily added, “Not that that has any bearing on the subject at hand.”

Meg looked down at her hands. “At hand,” she repeated. “I guess so.” She dropped one hand and with the other lifted her pendant. “I can be whatever I want whenever I want, thanks to Twilight.”

“In Equestria, that is,” Twilight added.

“Yes, but only in Equestria,” Meg said. “I figured being human was appropriate given the topic.”

Serrell shrugged. “Whatever makes you most comfortable. I have been informed of your intentions, but here’s your opportunity to express it in your own words.”

This was it; what should she say? She could trust Luna to have faithfully passed on what she had told her. The fact that this was happening proved Luna had been right, that Serrell was receptive.

But receptive was not approval.

Meg decided this wasn’t the time to beat around the bush. “I want to take Routledge down for what he did to my niece. That is the only reason I’ll subject myself to the crap I’ll have to endure by testifying at your trial—no offense…”

“None taken. Believe me, I thoroughly sympathize.”

And now to blow the bush into smithereens. “And if to do that I have to use information that you have classified, then so be it. I think the time for secrets is over—and quite honestly, they are not your secrets.”

Serrell looked more tired than anything else. “I can’t realistically stop you; I can’t even say you’re wrong. But I must minimize collateral damage. Do you disagree?”

“No, of course not.”

The President got up and drifted towards the panoramic window. He gazed at the unusually bright star near the horizon. “This insanity has to end somehow.”

His gaze shifted to the moon. Eventually, he turned around to face the table.

He addressed the other human in the room. “What, specifically, do you intend to reveal?”

“That I was the one who documented the kidnapping of my niece, and that I used time travel to do it. I may also point out that time travel occurred in a second season episode.”

He nodded. “That has been a sticking point, how those photos and video were obtained. Obviously expensive movie-magic fakes—if not actual magic fakes—so they claimed.” He waved it away. “Unfortunately, it’ll take more than your word to take him down. You’ll just be accused of perjury. Another federal crime you’ve allegedly committed.”

But what had she got besides words? It wasn’t as if she could take them all on a trip through time! What was I thinking? But there had to be something she could do!

Serrell returned to his chair at the table and wearily sat down. “Regardless, we need to shake the box, to break out of the rut we find ourselves in. Let’s not forget that it isn’t just about Routledge. Too many still insist ponies are just photorealistic computer-generated fakery, created for some nefarious purpose. And of those who concede ponies are real, too many believe they must have evil intent—starting with the creation of propaganda in the form of that cartoon. That’s what this trial is really about.”

The cartoon. It always boiled down to that cartoon. It’s why so many believed colorful ponies can’t be real, while so many others are convinced they’re real but up to no good. If it had never existed, then this would have been a normal First Contact situation—whatever that meant given that it also would have been the first First Contact situation. She gave Serrell an imploring look. “Still nothing on the cartoon’s origins?”

He raised his hands in defeat. “We’ve questioned everyone associated with it going all the way back to G1 in the eighties. Nothing.”

“Maybe I should’ve talked to some of them myself,” Twilight conceded. “I had my reasons at the time, avoiding potential time loops you know, but…” She gave a wan smile. “A little late for that now.”

“It would have convinced the doubters among them that you are real,” Serrell said, “but beyond that it wouldn’t have accomplished much.”

Meg stared at her reflection in the table. “I know time travel is involved somehow.”

“That may be,” Serrell said, “but how? It’s not like there was a mysterious package left on someone’s doorstep.”

There was no answer to that.

Twilight broke the silence. “Perhaps a change of subject is needed. Are you aware that Andy has been invited to visit his old home at Knossos?”

“As a matter of fact, I was going to bring that up myself. There’s a small problem: he doesn’t have a passport.”

Twilight looked confused. “So give him one? I think I may need one too. He’s invited me to come along. Actually, make that two. A. K. Yearling will also be coming along.”

Wait. What?

Now Serrell looked confused. “Does not Equestria use passports?”

“Not under normal conditions,” Luna replied.

Serrell took a breath. “I’m sorry, but I cannot help you with that. We can only issue passports to citizens, which none of you are. For you and Ms. Yearling, the solution is simple: create an Equestrian passport and issue it to yourselves. You have the authority to do that, I assume.”

“Sure, but what about Andy?” Twilight asked. “He was never an Equestrian citizen, and even if he was, well, we would’ve stripped him of citizenship.”

He tapped the fingers of one hand on the table. “It is what it is, I suppose. We’ll work something out with the Greeks. They invited him, after all, so they’ll just have to deal with it somehow. And I’ll make sure they know two ponies will be accompanying him. With Equestrian passports. They don’t have to accept them, since they have yet to officially recognize you—nor has the E.U.—but I’m sure Andy can help persuade them to let you in.”

Twilight finally noticed Meg’s shocked expression. “I guess I ought to have mentioned it sooner? Do you want to join us?”

“Me? No. I’m fine. You go enjoy yourselves. Besides,” she added, looking at the President, “Greece has an extradition treaty with the U.S., right?”

He nodded. “Almost certainly. I can get back to you on that if you wish.”

“That’s okay. I’m not going. I need to rethink about testifying in front of the Senate.”

“I can put you in touch with a trusted advisor, if you’d like.”

It couldn’t hurt. And there could be committee members who are on Serrell’s side. They could be counted on to ask favorable questions. This advisor could even arrange for that.

It wasn’t “cheating,” she reminded herself; it was how the stupid game was played.

If she actually went through with it.

“I’ll keep it in mind,” she finally said. Her crossed legs were starting to hurt. “Do you need me for anything else?”

Quick glances across the table. “I do not believe so,” Luna said.

Meg stood up, relieved to get out of that awkward position. “I’ll let you know what I decide,” she said, and she left the room.

There was a secluded spot in the royal gardens. Meg had already checked to see if they could use it that evening, and they could. There were advantages to being a royal advisor. Using his horn, Steve laid out a blanket, then Meg placed the basket in the middle. The basket was full of produce she had bought in Ponyville.

“So I don’t know what to do now,” she concluded, after recounting her meeting with the president. She flipped the lid open.

Steve’s eyes went wide in disbelief. “You got hay?”

“Not just any hay. Aged hay.”

“That’s a thing?”

“Apparently. I couldn’t believe it either when I saw it. A bit pricey too.” She shrugged. “I figured we had to try it at least once.”

He looked doubtful. “Well, cheese could be aged, not to mention wine, but still… I mean, how do they age it? Just leave it out in the sun for a few years or something?”

“I have no idea. Didn’t ask.” She reached out and lifted a strand. “Might as well get it over with. Hopefully it’s not an acquired taste.” Into her mouth the strand went and she bit off an inch. Slowly she masticated, until a verdict could be rendered. “Not bad, actually. Definitely some subtle, complex flavors there.”

Steve followed suit. “Yeah, see what you mean. I wonder if there are hay snobs like we have wine snobs.”

“I bet there are pony wine snobs too.”

“Yeah, I bet you’re right.”

They both finished their strand of hay in silence.

“Well, I guess I’m not a hay snob,” Meg said, “because I don’t think it’s worth the money, but I don’t regret trying it once.”

“Once is enough for me too. So. I’ve been thinking. You know what would really ’shake the box’ as Serrell puts it? Create a nice big portal—”

“You know why Twilight would never agree to that.”

“Hear me out. Not a portal to Canterlot or Manehatten or any other city or town. Have it go to the middle of nowhere—I’m not finished yet—what is now the middle of nowhere. Give that spot to Discord to do with as he pleases, the condition being that anyone who visits returns unharmed. Let the pony deniers try to deny that!”

“That’s… an idea. There would have to be other conditions, of course. Like no one must be allowed to leave this—I dunno, let’s call it a ‘theme park’ for lack of a better term—leave this theme park and escape into Equestria proper.”

Steve lifted another strand of aged hay out of the basket. “Wasn’t there a fanfic about a theme park of Discord’s? And something went wrong with one of the attractions?”

“Don’t remember. Only matters anyway if Twilight approves of this theme park idea. Maybe you should forward a link to her.”

“You let me deal with book-horse,” intoned an all-too-familiar disembodied voice. “And there’s no need to concern yourselves by what some hack writer coughed up.”

Steve groaned. “What have I done?”

Twilight gasped in surprise.

Princess Luna glared. “I do not recall inviting you to this meeting.”

A lion’s paw waved it away. “A mere oversight, I’m sure.” He conjured up an imposing granite throne, right where Meg had previously been sitting, and conjured himself upon it in a seated position, for some reason holding an ordinary plain box. “As it so happens, I have excellent news for you all!” He shook the box until it begged for mercy.

Serrell watched in fascination, not saying a word.

Discord frowned. “Get it? ’Shake the box?’”

“I, uh, must confess I didn’t expect my first encounter with you to go this way.”

Twilight slowly shook her head. “It’s best to just let him do whatever he intends to do and get it over with. I apologize in advance for whatever that may be.”

Serrell held up his hands. “No, no, that’s okay. I’m on record as being in favor of shaking the box, and if anyone knows how to do that, it’s Discord.” He folded his hands and addressed the draconequus. “What do you have in mind?”

“Well, to be completely honest—that is a key aspect of friendship, is it not? Honesty?”

“Get on with it,” Twilight droned.

“I just thought you’d like to know I was taking my friendship lessons seriously. Anyway, as I was about to say, it wasn’t my idea. I heard it from Meg’s husband—Steve, wasn’t it?—just now and I thought—”

Twilight threw him a skeptical look. “You were just talking to him?”

“More like eavesdropping on their picnic, if you must know—”

“You could use more friendship lessons.”

Serrell interrupted. “As fascinating as this is to watch, could we move on to the idea?”

Twilight rubbed her forehead. “Yes, just get it over with.”

The granite throne vanished and Discord reappeared over the mahogany table. “Imagine a theme park, where chaos is the theme.” Below him, on the table, a miniature… well, Twilight assumed it was a theme park, not having seen the human equivalent. There was a plaza in the middle, but surrounding it were… she doubted human theme parks had a pyramid shaped building that rotated tip over base. And how large was this supposed to be?

“This theme park shall be in the middle of nowhere, far away from any town or city. A portal will connect it to the human realm. Humans may visit by the thousands each day, experience my chaos, and return unharmed by their experience. Let the deniers try to deny they were in Equestria, that ponies and magic don’t exist.” An evil smile grew. “And if any ignore the warnings about leaving the premises except via the portal, I get to have some fun.”

Luna frowned. “Harming humans is unacceptable, even humans attempting to leave this ‘theme park’ of yours to enter Equestria.”

“I would have to concur,” Serrell said.

Discord dutifully placed a paw on his chest. “Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.”

“However,” Serrell continued, “the idea does have merit. The devil’s in the details, of course, but you are better qualified to address most of them, I’d think.”

“I can think of a big detail off the top of my head,” Twilight said. “Would ponies be visiting this theme park of yours?”

“Why not? Shouldn’t humans have the chance to meet actual ponies?”

Twilight couldn’t deny they should, nor could she deny some ponies would welcome the chance. Even she and her friends might pay it a visit. But there were concerns. “We can discuss that later, once I’ve had time to think about it.”

“So it’s a definite maybe?” Puppy dog eyes pleaded for approval.

I know I’m going to regret this. “Maybe.”

Up. Out. Down. In. Up. Out. Down. In. Wings and lungs synchronized. Heart racing. Cloud crawling closer, the moon rising above it. What was I thinking?

“Faster, Meg! Faster!”

Rainbow Dash was hardly breaking a sweat as she paced her.

“I.” Gasp. “Don’t.” Gasp. “Think.” Gasp.

“Don’t think. Do!”

Muscles were burning out. “I’m.” Gasp. “Not.” Gasp. “An” Gasp. “Ath—” Gasp. “—lete!”

“Neither is Twilight. If she could do it, so can you!”

That cloud, their destination, was finally visibly moving closer.

Meg started her cool down—too soon, but falling out of the sky was not an option either.

“I’m proud of you, Meg. You’re making awesome progress!”

No longer was she gasping for air. “Twilight doesn’t count, you know. Alicorn, remember? Earth pony endurance?”

“She still didn’t know how to properly use her new wings.”

The cloud was approaching rapidly now, too rapidly. She grabbed air, shedding speed, and began her descent. “Maybe you should try being human sometime and do speed typing or something, see what it’s like to master a body part you’ve had no prior experience with.”

“Speed typing?”

Dash was actually intrigued by the possibility. So long as it involves speed, Meg theorized.

It didn’t last. “Twilight won’t let us become human, you know that. I know there’s that mirror realm, but that’s not the same—at least, that’s what Sunset says.”

“It’s not,” Meg confirmed, “though I guess it’s not really that different where it counts. Anyway, it’s only temporary. My future self told me that. We just have to figure out how to prove it’s safe for the Elements. And we will—eventually. Don’t know when, though.”

Meg collapsed onto the enticingly fluffy cloud. I’m gonna pay for that.

Dash lightly touched down beside her. “I’ll let you catch your breath for a few minutes.”

Meg groaned. “No, Dash, I’m done for today. Besides, I have to visit my brother, and I’m gonna be late as it is.” The flight back would have to be a lot slower than she’d expected. “Something came up.”

“Nothing serious, I hope?”

“Don’t know; he wouldn’t elaborate. Hard to say if that’s a bad sign or not.”

But she’d be prepared for the worst.

Meg left the invisibility on after she arrived in her brother’s house. First thing was to determine if anything suspicious was going on. Silently, she walked into the living room—

And stopped dead in her tracks. Seated across from her brother was a tall, middle-aged woman with shoulder-length hair dyed a quite unnatural shade of red. It can’t be.

Whether this counted as a bad sign or not, she had no clue, but invisibility was not going to solve this mystery. She switched it off. “Sorry I’m late.”

The woman threw an arm behind the sofa, the better to twist her torso around, and stared wide-eyed at Meg. “A pony. An actual flesh-and-blood pony. You just arrived from Equestria?” She leaned to the side to snatch a glimpse of Meg’s cutie mark. “I don’t recognize you.”

“That’s Meg, my sister. Meg, this is Lauren Faust.”

“You actually got turned into a pony.”

“Yeah, magic, you know?” Meg carefully stepped forward. “Why are you here? How did you even find me?”

“Fair enough,” Faust declared. “Short answer: I want to see proof with my own eyes. Could you take me there, right now?”

“Only a unicorn can do that, and there are few who I would trust to do it.”

“Like Twilight Sparkle, I assume?”

“Technically an alicorn now, but yeah she’s top of the list.”

“Do you know her personally? Like, could you fetch her now?”

Meg wasn’t sure what to do. Faust had up to now conspicuously avoided any public comment on ponies being real, other than to remind everyone she had left the cartoon several years ago. She must have been questioned by the Feds along with all the others, and obviously—along with all the others—had nothing to tell them. “Why now? This time perhaps give me the long answer?”

“I’m… getting to it.” A pause. “I’ve gotten the impression Twilight doesn’t want to see me. I’ve certainly tried hard enough with every string I could find to pull.” She gave Meg a questioningly look.

Meg rounded the corner and stood in front of the sofa. “You’re not wrong, but not for the reason you’d think.”

A nervous laugh escaped. “She doesn’t want to meet her creator?”

“No pony thinks of you that way, just so you know. They didn’t even know humans existed, much less that cartoon, until quite recently.”

“And they don’t know how the cartoon became a documentary on their lives?”

Meg shook her head. “No more than you do.”

“Huh.”

“And they’re not happy about it, either.” Meg waited silently for her to continue, wondering if she should leave. Was there a point to this? Briefly she closed her eyes, amazed that she’d even consider cutting short an audience with the one-and-only Lauren Faust. It didn’t help that her flight muscles were sore and getting sorer.

“The long answer. Right.”

She took a breath. “When I first heard about ponies in the real world, I thought it was a joke. When I saw Twilight on The Late Show, I wondered how much money Hasbro paid them to promote some upcoming project. It wasn’t the first time Colbert did something like that.”

“Smaug to promote The Hobbit, I know. He even mentioned that.” There seemed no reason to mention that Meg had been backstage, in the green room, while Twilight was making her talk show circuit debut.

“Yes, he did. But Tara insisted she had nothing to do with it, and my contacts at Hasbro insisted… well, I think they were still trying to wrap their minds around it. But I couldn’t accept it. I mean, I created that cartoon. I’m no god; I do not have the power to turn a cartoon into reality.

“Then there was the whole Tirek/Andy thing, and the final straw was when you became the news. I decided to look you up, using your connection to the convention, found your brother, and, well, here we are.”

“Yes, here we are.”

“Would you mind telling me why Twilight won’t see me?”

Meg supposed there was no harm in doing so. “It’s nothing personal. It applies to everyone associated with the cartoon. The problem was that the episode scripts were being written well before the actual events took place in the real Equestria. Twilight hasn’t had the best experience with time loops, so… you know. This was before it was known that the fifth season no longer followed reality, making it irrelevant.”

Faust nodded in understanding. “It’s About Time. I guess that makes sense. But then why hasn’t she changed her mind?”

“I think she’s been reconsidering. But she’s a busy mare and I guess she doesn’t see it as a productive use of her time?”

“Could you put in a word for me?”

“Sure. I’ll mention it the next time I see her.” Meg turned to leave; she could really use that massage right about now.

“Wait.” Faust hesitated. “Would you mind if I asked a personal question?”

Meg had already taken a few steps; she did not wish to invoke the return spell in Faust’s presence. “I suppose,” she said, turning around.

“You had a choice, right? About becoming a pony?”

She rolled her eyes. “Yes, I very much did it of my own free will. No, I’m not permanently stuck as a pony; I can change back and forth whenever I want—in Equestria, anyway, as that sort of magic doesn’t work in our universe. No, it didn’t hurt. No, I don’t have a cutie mark when human, and I’m still coming to terms with having one. Yes, it sucks not having hands, but it’s great having wings. Don’t mind the tail and ears, either.” She forced a smile. “You can tell I’ve been asked too often these sorts of questions.”

“Still coming to terms…” Faust grimaced, but persisted. “Did you choose to become a pegasus, as opposed to a unicorn or earth pony?”

“That I had no say in; the spell did what it did.”

“Do they actually work?—the wings I mean—even in our world?”

This was getting tiresome, and the wings in question were definitely hurting. “If it’s a demonstration you’re asking for, I’m afraid I have to decline. I just had a flight training session with you-know-who and I overexerted myself. But, yes, pegasus flight magic works here just fine.”

“You-know-who. As in Rainbow Dash?”

“You got it,” she singsonged. “So if you don’t mind, I really need to get going. I’ll have Matt pass along what Twilight decides.”

Meg didn’t wait. She invoked the return spell, letting Faust see her disappear into thin air.

“How considerate of you to leave the door open for us.”

Meg stopped typing mid-keystroke. It certainly was considerate of me. They’d never be—no, that spell wasn’t in place yet. It was this event that had led Twilight to put that structural integrity spell into place. Right? It was so long ago…

She turned around and faced Jackson, trying to act the part. “Ex-excuse me?”

“No excuses for you, traitor.” He pulled out a gun and pointed it at her. “Get up.”

Meg stood up. Acting the part had suddenly become a lot easier.

Jackson stepped backwards out of the office, keeping the gun aimed, and yelled, “Virgil, come here!”

Meg knew she wasn’t in any real danger. Even if she didn’t know she’d eventually escape, there was always magic—not that using magic was a real option. That’d be too revealing.

Someone came running, presumably this Virgil.

“Take her prisoner and drive her to the warehouse.”

A blank look. “Prisoner? Where would I put her?”

“Figure it out!” Jackson yelled. “And find something to tie up her hands.”

Imbeciles. She doubted they could’ve kept even her past self from escaping.

Fortunately for Jackson, escape was not in her plans.

Not yet.

Twilight stopped in front of the door to Meg and Steve’s apartment inside the palace. A variety box of donuts, fresh from Donut Joe, hovered in front of her. She pressed the doorbell.

The wait was short. The door opened, revealing Meg, whose eyes fell on the box. “A peace offering, or something?”

“I wouldn’t go that far, but I figured it wouldn’t hurt.”

Meg stepped aside to let Twilight in. “I suppose not.”

“Wings feeling better? Rainbow Dash should not have pushed you so hard.”

“No pain, no gain, as they say.” The wings in question unfolded and Meg gave them an experimental flap. “Getting better, but I think I’ll stay on the ground for another day.”

A small jar of plaid pills rose from Twilight’s saddlebags. “I brought some for you to keep, so that you don’t have to come to Ponyville. Just keep them out of sight.” Two pills lifted from the jar, then the jar flew all the way to a kitchen counter.

“Before we go,” Meg said. “Did, uh, did Discord come to see you about a—”

“He interrupted our meeting with Serrell.”

Meg grimaced. “Sorry about that. We didn’t know he was listening to us.”

“No harm done, I guess. Serrell was actually open to the idea.”

“It’ll happen?”

Twilight sighed. “Let’s just say I’m thinking about it. Ready to go?”

“Sure. What’s the departure point?” Meg twitched her wings. “Sorry it couldn’t be your throne room.”

“Luna’s observatory. It has a view to die for. I’ll teleport us there, if you don’t mind.”

Meg shrugged. “Not in the mood to fly anyway.”

One teleport later, and the two mares were outside the observatory, its dome closed to protect the telescope from the weather. Twilight sent a pill over to Meg. “Anything I ought to be aware of?” Twilight asked.

Meg shook her head. “Not really. I’ll drive, and I’ll turn off invisibility as soon as I see everything’s okay.”

Twilight nodded, and they both swallowed the pill.

Meg brought them to Matt’s living room. Twilight immediately recognized Matt and Lori, naturally, but seated across from them was a woman she had seen only in pictures.

“We’re here,” Meg announced.

Lauren Faust jerked around and her jaw dropped, her eyes locking first onto Twilight, then her glowing horn, then on the glowing, floating box, then back and forth between those last two. The alicorn stepped forward, presenting her best smile of friendship and sending the box of donuts ahead of her. “A little something I’ve brought from Canterlot.”

Faust hesitantly plucked the glowing box out of the air. Strange how humans always react that way the first time they encounter telekinesis, Twilight thought. It didn’t seem to matter that this human had created—so far as she knew at the time—the ability of unicorns to manipulate their environment via telekinesis.

“Donuts?” Faust asked after removing the lid.

“Donut Joe’s, right?” Lori asked. “Those are good. Say ‘hi’ for me the next time you see him.”

Faust jerked her head back to Lori. “Wait. You’ve been to his shop? It’s real?”

“Yes?”

She put the donut box aside and stood up. Addressing Meg, she asked, “You’ve been there too?”

“I’ve been to many places inside Equestria, and a few places outside it.” She turned to Twilight. “Why don’t we cut to the chase and bring her back with us?”

“Yes, let’s.” She smiled at her alleged creator. “Please stand beside me.”

Faust warily complied. “Anything you should warn me about? Vertigo, nausea, that sort of thing?”

“Nope! You wouldn’t even notice if your eyes were closed.”

Twilight gave her a second to close her eyes, but those eyes remained locked on herself. She englobed Faust in her magic and invoked the return spell. The human stumbled as the background changed from living room to outdoor balcony.

Faust took in her surroundings. “Where are we?” she asked. She took a step to the not-high-enough-for-humans railing at the edge of the balcony.

“Canterlot,” Twilight answered. “This is the tallest tower of the palace.”

“Bigger than I imagined,” the human said, taking in the vista.

“It is the capital of Equestria.”

Faust scanned the streets below. “Lots of colorful ponies, no question about it.”

Twilight walked up beside her and pointed a hoof. “In that direction is Ponyville.”

“Oh wow. Wish I had binoculars. Those orchards over there? Must be Sweet Apple Acres, right?”

“It sure is. And over there, at the edge of the Everfree Forest, is Fluttershy’s cottage.”

“Now I really wish I had binoculars.” She held a hand above her eyes and squinted. “Maybe I can see it?”

After giving her a minute to take it all in, Meg said, “Don’t forget to look up. Those aren’t birds.”

Faust looked up. “Pegasi. Flying pegasi.” She looked down at Meg. “Any weather projects right now?”

Meg shrugged. “Doesn’t look like it, nothing obvious anyway.” The skies were clear.

“Can you do weather magic?”

“I’ve had some light training; nothing I could demonstrate right this moment. No clouds.”

Twilight was about to suggest she could make a cloud, right there on the balcony, when she got a sharp glance from Meg. Got it, no demonstrations. Perhaps Meg was right; the point of this wasn’t to provide their guest with the full, guided tour. But what, exactly, was the point? How long should this visit last?

Faust walked along the railing, apparently lost in thought; the railing extended all the way around the tower. She came to a stop where it overlooked a palace garden, the one in which Discord resided for many centuries as a statue. Her curiosity extended to the statues present. “It’s just I can’t believe this is all real. I thought I had created all this. Obviously that’s impossible, I’m no god, but…” She threw up her hands. “I can’t explain it.”

Twilight could only sympathize. “Neither can I.”

In the garden there was an empty pedestal. “I’m guessing that’s where Discord was imprisoned?”

“It is,” Twilight confirmed. “To be honest, I’m half-surprised he’s not here to greet you. But one can never tell with him.”

“Perhaps he’s too busy planning his theme park,” Meg offered.

“Theme park?” Faust asked.

“I haven’t approved it yet,” Twilight said. “But if I do, don’t worry, you’ll hear all about it along with the rest of humanity.”

The human was starting to look a bit worried. “Should I be personally concerned about Discord?—when I’m in Equestria, anyway.”

Meg shook her head. “No, he’s reformed. Doesn’t mean he won’t try to psych you out now and then, but nothing you truly need to be afraid of. I speak from experience. He can even be useful. He helped me create a voice synthesizer for The Smooze. A combination of computers and chaos magic.” She sighed. “Still needs a lot of work, though.”

Now it was Faust’s turn to shake her head. “The Smooze? I don’t even know how to process that.”

Neither did Twilight, if for different reasons. Progress had stalled long ago on that synthesizer. More than once she had wondered if the draconequus was deliberately holding back, to frustrate their efforts to learn from Smooze about the ancient past. But why help at all, in that case? Asking Discord himself would get nowhere; she’d been down that road too many times.

Faust resumed walking along the railing, eventually returning to her starting point. She gazed at distant Ponyville. This seemed as good a point as any to return her to her realm. “I’ll need to return you soon,” Twilight said. “But before I do, I was wondering if we could come to an agreement.”

“An agreement? About what?”

“To work together on finding out how your cartoon mirrored our reality. I know you’ve already been questioned by your government, but it may be possible to uncover answers with magic, answers you are not aware you have.”

She jerked around, alarmed. “Magic? You want to use magic on me? Like, right now?”

“Not right now,” Twilight said, doing her best to be reassuring. “And never without your consent. In any case, I don’t know a relevant spell. I may have to create one from scratch.”

“You… do know that not everything was created by me. Your names, for example; I had to reuse names from earlier generations that had already been trademarked by Hasbro.”

“I know,” Twilight said. “And Tirek and Smooze were introduced in the first generation. But we need to follow up on any and all leads. I’m even willing to accompany Tirek—former Lord Tirek, now Andy—on his visit to his original home in Minoa, to study how it interacted with the precursor to Equestria.”

Faust shook her head. “Yeah, never saw that coming: Lord Tirek was originally human. Funny, given that G1 featured a human, a girl named Megan.” Faust looked at the orchid pegasus. “Awfully similar to ‘Meg,’ wouldn’t you think?”

“Huh? I mean, it never occurred to me, but, I guess?”

“Hard to see how it could be anything other than a coincidence,” Twilight said. “Their names are about the only similarities they have.”

Long seconds passed. “About using magic on me,” Faust finally said. “I’ll have to sleep on it. Quite honestly, though, I have to admit magic is probably involved somehow, so maybe magic is needed to get to the bottom of this.”

“No, I mean it. Order whatever you want. It’s the least I can do to repay you for all that you’ve done for me.”

Meg continued to scan the menu, shocked by the prices. Yearling must have found the most expensive restaurant in Canterlot. But, hey, she can afford it. Upon turning the page, she blinked in disbelief, hoping it had been an illusion; it wasn’t. “A entire section devoted to aged hay?”

The author beamed. “It’s their specialty. No other establishment has as large a selection, sourced from all across Equestria. Have you ever tried it?”

“Once, yeah. Bought some in Ponyville—and I thought that was expensive.”

“It was… interesting,” Steve said.

“Really? You can get it direct from the farmer in Ponyville? That would cut out the middlemare.”

Meg shrugged. “That’s what I did.”

“There you go! You just saved me enough bits to pay for this meal. There’s a high-end restaurant in my casino that offers aged hay.”

Meg turned to the next page, which held the wine list. Which happens to be aged grape juice, she reminded herself. All ludicrously expensive, naturally. And she’d bet it’d taste the same—to her, anyway—as something affordable. She went back to the entrées.

“Did you know that I’ll be accompanying Twilight and Andy on their trip to Knossos?”

“Yeah, we’ve heard,” Meg said. She was having trouble deciding between a dish that’d be familiar to humans, or going full pony. “I was even present when the subject of passports came up between Twilight and Serrell.”

“So that explains it. Just received mine. Never had one before, never needed one.”

“You’ll need one to cross national borders in the human world,” Steve said. “Technically, you ought to need one to enter the U.S. from Equestria. I have no doubt that one would be needed to cross over using a portal, when one is established.”

“But I have one now. So I present it after Twilight brings me across?”

“Uh…” Meg looked to Steve, to see if he’d answer that. He shrugged, so Meg guessed she should answer. “They’re not really set up to handle our current method of entering the country. They kinda expect you to enter at an airport or a border crossing.”

“I suppose,” Steve added, “arrangements could be made for an immigration official to meet you on arrival, if you really want a U.S. stamp in your passport.”

“Or fly back from Greece to the U.S. instead of directly returning to Equestria,” Meg said. “Quite frankly, you should consider yourself lucky you can avoid the hassle of going through lines at customs.”

“And let’s not forget the whole getting-a-visa thing,” Steve said.

“Visa?”

“Equestria doesn’t do that either?” Then Meg remembered she hadn’t applied for a visa when she visited that archaeological dig in Minotaur lands. She had assumed Twilight took care of it. “You know what? If that hasn’t been brought to your attention, it’s safe to assume Twilight’s handling it.”

Yearling leaned back. “Fascinating. Anyway, I do believe I need to experience this hassle of customs for myself—so that I could include it in a future novel.”

Meg returned her focus to the menu. “You could just go to Tartarus, if that’s what turns you on. No, that’s unfair to Tartarus.” It really wasn’t such a bad place to visit—if you weren’t an inmate. She definitely preferred Cerberus to the typical customs agent.

The disguised pegasus gave Meg a curious look. “I’m sensing there’s a lot left unsaid there, but that can wait. Right now, I’d love to hear the latest on the impeachment trial. You’ve been asked to testify, right?”

“‘Asked’ is such a polite way of phrasing it.” That pasta dish look intriguing. It was loaded with several varieties of flowers. “Just had a consultation with one of the president’s men, to discuss strategy.” Quite expensive too, even for this place. Was it because of the flowers? It was true she didn’t recognize any of them. Maybe they’re aged flowers.

“Care to offer me a peek behind the curtain?”

Meg looked up at Yearling. Yep, flowers it is. “I’m not sure what to say,” she began. “I mean, if you put it all verbatim into one of your books, it’ll bore your readers to tears.”

A smirk. “A skillful writer knows what to omit or when to indulge in poetic license.”

Meg shrugged. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you. So, the Senate Judiciary Committee is overseeing the impeachment trial. Senator Routledge is the chair of that committee, and his faction will do their best to ask me the sort of questions whose answers will condemn President Serrell. But there are also committee members who are on Serrell’s side, and they’ll ask me the other sort of questions, those whose answers will exonerate him.

“That consultation focused on two areas. First, how to answer the anticipated hostile questions in the least damaging way possible; and second, brainstorm friendly questions and the answers I could give to them.”

Her expression soured. “I was also warned that I might not care for how I would be treated. There’s talk of having me on a leash—you know, in case I planned on escaping or, I suppose, even attacking someone. Some think being on camera wearing a leash, like some dog, may actually create sympathy for me. Even if true, I’m not sure it’d be worth it.”

“A leash can’t prevent you from returning to Equestria,” Yearling pointed out. “Right?”

“And I’d be happy to prove it to them by doing just that, once they were done questioning me.”

Yearling looked to the side in thought for a moment. “Maybe you shouldn’t do that so publicly. It would fuel fears over the danger magic could pose to humans.”

Meg remembered what Routledge had said during Tirek’s release from Tartarus, after he had witnessed Discord messing around with the journalists. “You may be right,” she conceded. “It could play into Routledge’s hands.”

“Hands…” Yearling muttered. She pulled a small notepad from her dress and a ball-point pen. After scribbling some notes to herself, she put them back. “If I’m going to have humans in my novels,” she explained, “I need to pay attention to how they speak. ‘Play into hands,’ not ‘play into hooves.’”

“Makes sense to me,” Steve said.

Meg was merely curious as from where Yearling had acquired an obviously human artifact. Probably got it from Twilight. Saves having to carry around a pot of ink along with a quill.

“Anyway, cheer up,” Yearling said to Meg. “Nopony ever said politics was easy. I, myself, try to steer clear the best I can.”

“I wish I had that option.”

“Then let’s exercise that option for right here and now. What’s it like to fly across oceans in one of these flying machines of yours?”

The chartered jet leisurely approached, its engines distressingly loud. For all their technology, Twilight wondered why humans couldn’t create a fast flying machine that wasn’t so bucking noisy. She put out a sonic shield, just enough to cut the volume down to something tolerable.

“Thanks,” Yearling said, her ears returning to the upright position.

“No problem.” The magic generator she was carrying held several pounds of recovered U-235; she could afford to splurge. She addressed the Secret Service agents next to her. “It’ll be quieter inside, right?” If not, well, a spell like that doesn’t need much magic, and she always had the option of returning to Equestria to fetch a new generator.

Agent Reubens answered her. “Quieter, yes, but far from silent. Many people use ear plugs or noise-cancelling headphones, but many others aren’t bothered.”

“Right. Rainbow Dash did mention something about that when she rode in that helicopter you piloted out of the Crystal Empire. When the doors were closed.”

He laughed. “It’ll be quieter than that.”

Yearling looked expectedly at Twilight. “Sounds like a story I’ve yet to hear.”

“It’s a long story. I’m sure Rainbow Dash would love to tell it to you.”

“She did commandeer the seat next to mine,” Reubens said. “That pony is obsessed with flying.”

The plane edged towards them. “Too bad Rainbow doesn’t have the opportunity to fly with us in this flying machine.” Not from a lack of trying. But there just wasn’t any reason for her to come along on this journey.

It stopped, engines still running though not quite as loudly. A door near the front opened—from the top, not the side. It swung down, revealing a flight of stairs that almost reached the ground. Three humans appeared from inside and hurried down the stairs, two of them lugging cameras on their shoulders and the third carrying a long pole with… a microphone? Once on the ground, one cameraman pointed his camera at the top of the stairs and the other pointed it at the ponies and the agents. A microphone hovered above them.

What in Equestria is going on here?

Oh, she thought, chagrined. Right. Not Equestria. She sighed. Question still stands.

Before she could entertain any more thoughts, the former Lord Tirek stepped outside. “I’m gratified you didn’t change your mind!” He gestured with a hand. “Come aboard! You’ll love it. This is the way to travel!” He looked down at the cameraman recording him. “Got it?”

He got a thumbs up in response.

Seconds passed as the other camera was pointing at her. Evidently she was supposed to say something, but what? It was time for answers. “What’s going on?”

Andy was taken aback by the question. “Did I not mentioned that a documentary is being made on our trip to my birthplace?”

“You said it was a possibility, yes, but we’re not there yet.” She frowned; a camera was still pointed at her and the microphone still hovered above her. “And why is this being recorded?”

Andy waved it away. “It’ll almost certainly go unused, but it doesn’t hurt to record it anyway. You never know. Maybe it’ll be used in a ‘behind the scenes’ featurette. Anyway, it’s how we’re able to fly in this chartered jet; it’s being paid for out of the documentary’s budget.” A really big smile. “I am learning so much.”

Fine. She knew what was going on. But… “So what am I supposed to say?”

Yearling jumped in. “Ask me if I’m ready to go.”

“Huh?”

“Just do it. In character.”

“In character?”

A calming exhale. “You’re acting, playing yourself. Just pretend the cameras aren’t there.”

Really? Yes, she decided: Really. Fine. Even so… “We can do it over again if I mess up, right?”

“Sure,” the cameraman said, “but we might use the screwups for the blooper reel, if we decide to include one in the DVD/Blu-ray version.”

“Blooper reel?”

“Just ignore it for now,” Andy said in exasperation.

Yes, let’s get it over with. Twilight met Yearling’s eyes. A few seconds to find the right state of mind, and: “Ready to go?”

“I’m always ready.”

Twilight barely suppressed an eye roll. This was reality, not one of the author’s brainstorming role-playing sessions with her changelings. Besides, shouldn’t she be in character as “A. K. Yearling,” not “Daring Do?” And yet, looking at the cameras, she had to wonder if this counted as reality.

Twilight got a thumbs up from the cameraman. “Now we’ll film you entering the plane.”

“Will there be a moment you won’t be filming us?”

“Plenty of them.”

Somehow, Twilight failed to find that statement assuring. In resignation, she said, “Tell me when to start walking.”

“Let us go inside first,” Agent Fowler said. “Make sure there’re no ‘surprises.’”

“Surprises aren’t in the script.”

Agent Reubens through his sunglasses glared at the cameraman. “Don’t tell us how to do our jobs, and we won’t tell you how to do yours.”

Andy quickly interceded. “They’re Secret Service. Best to let them be.”

The cameraman looked back up at Andy. “You’re joking, right?”

“Afraid not. They were assigned to protect me when I returned to this world. They’re obviously here to protect the princess.”

“Not me?” asked Yearling, somewhat miffed.

“Apologies, Ms. Yearling,” Fowler said, “but only foreign dignitaries fall under our protection. That being said, it’s unlikely a threat against you would not also be a threat against Her Royal Highness.”

The cameraman remained skeptical. Twilight was beginning to wonder just who did he think he was? “Even outside the country?” he countered. “Kinda outside your jurisdiction for anyone other than the President.”

“It is true,” Reubens said, “that we would have no authority within the Hellenic Republic. Even so, our presence signals the importance that President Serrell attaches to the safety of our Equestrian guests, a signal that will not go unnoticed by the local authorities.”

A resigned sigh. “Suit yourself. Do your check for ‘surprises.’”

The agents started off for the plane, leaving the ponies alone with this human.

“Perhaps we should be properly introduced?” Yearling asked.

“Indeed,” he heartily agreed. “We shall be spending a lot of time together, so let’s get the formalities out of the way. You may call me Kyle. I’m the producer-slash-director-slash-occasional-cameraman of this documentary. That means I decide how the money is spent and I get to tell everyone what to do when the camera is recording. If you go on board that plane, I’ll be paying for your transportation, hotels, and food. I expect a return on my investment.”

What did I get myself into?

Kyle pointed at the other cameraman. “That’s Mike.”

“Hello,” Mike said, giving a wave of a hand.

“And that’s Dominic. He’s the soundman.”

“Could I get an autograph sometime? It’s, uh, it’s for my niece.”

Somehow Twilight doubted that, but it hardly mattered. “Sure.”

Agent Reubens stepped out of the plane, said, “You may come aboard now,” and went back inside.

“Andy!” Kyle called out. “Step outside to welcome your companions onto the plane.”

He did so.

Kyle got his camera into position. “Start walking,” he told the ponies.

Twilight levitated all their luggage, the agents’ included.

“Even seeing it for myself,” Kyle muttered.

With a shared glance, Twilight and Yearling did as instructed and began walking.

I really hope I don’t regret this.

Meg experimentally gave her wrists a twist; they freely turned. The spell she had surreptitiously cast still functioned. Packing tape was all her captors could find. The point of the spell wasn’t to free herself, of course—she would be a mostly model prisoner—it was to protect her skin.

She adjusted her position. Being in the back of a van loaded with stolen property, including at least one operating magic generator, was not the most comfortable way to travel. Leaning forward from the side, she took a peek through the windshield. No mistaking those archaic wind turbines lining the hills on either side of the highway: Altamont Pass.

Knots formed in her stomach. So that’s where they held me. An industrial warehouse in Tracy—and they were taking her straight to it. At least I’ll be long gone when what happens happens.

Living through that once was quite enough.

Rarity hummed to herself as her magic delicately unfolded onto a ponnequin the dress worn by Meg for the Grand Galloping Gala. “Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer I create something more… suitable?”

Meg shook her head. “I want to look my best when I appear on camera with a leash around my neck, and that dress will do nicely.” She certainly wasn’t going to appear naked on national television. “Just, I dunno, add some subtle reinforcement around the neck?”

The fashionista gave her that look. “To avoid being damaged by that leash, I assume?”

“Yep.”

“To be treated like a recalcitrant dog,” Rarity muttered as she inspected the part of the dress in question.

“That’s what my advisors are going for, the visual juxtaposition of an exquisite dress and the inevitable leash—since, you know, they can’t handcuff me on the account of having no hands.”

“‘Exquisite’ is a given.” She looked up from the dress. “Fortunately, I’m always up for a challenge, though this hardly qualifies. It’ll be ready in a few days.”

Five days. “That’s fine.” Five days till her just-scheduled appearance at the trial. This is happening.

“Anything else, darling?”

“Meg!”

Meg jerked around and spotted Sweetie Belle entering the shop. “Yes?” It wasn’t terribly hard to figure out what the filly wanted.

“When can Susie come visit us again?”

“Sweetie, darling, Twilight is not available right now. It will be some time before she returns. You’ll just have to be patient.”

“Well, can’t you bring her across? Can’t any unicorn do it?”

“Darling, that wouldn’t be a good idea—”

“In theory, yes,” Meg interrupted, “but it’s best left to ponies whose special talent is magic.”

“Precisely so,” Rarity said with relief.

“I’ll talk to Sunset Shimmer—and to Susie’s parents—and see what I can arrange. But no promises.”

“I can’t wait to tell Apple Bloom and Scootaloo!” Sweetie chirped, then she trotted over to the stairs and galloped up them.

Meg sighed. “What part of ‘no promises’ did she not understand?”

“I’ll manage them, so don’t you worry about it.”

“Thanks.”

No other incident delayed Meg’s departure from Carousel Boutique. Once outside she paused, wondering, now what? She had taken the train to Ponyville because of the dress, but she was now free to fly back to Canterlot. It was still several hours, however, before she was to pay Sunset a visit at the mirror. She had some time to kill.

Decisions, decisions.

I know, I’ll pay a visit to one of the changelings. They weren’t a bad bunch, once you got to know them. One was usually at the tree library, serving as the new librarian. Which one didn’t really matter; they all took on the same form, leaving ponies none the wiser. The changeling in residence also functioned as a messenger between Twilight and Daring Do.

A function that had become moot for the time being.

What did the changelings do when their “hive leader” wasn’t around? Perhaps they could use the company.

The walk over to the library was pleasant enough. A carefully arranged partial cloudiness kept temperatures just right. Ponies were out and about, seemingly without a care in the world. And it had been months since the last incursion from the Everfree Forest—if a sick and confused manticore could be considered an incursion. Fluttershy wouldn’t let anypony else lay a hoof on it.

After a few minutes the ancient and hollowed out tree was before her. Without knocking—it was a library during its hours of operation—Meg went inside. There was the librarian, straight out of central casting: a mare wearing spectacles, graying mane, a cutie mark of a book. She was talking to… Lyra?

They both turned to look at her.

“Not interrupting anything?” Meg asked.

An awkward smile from Lyra. “No… I ought to be going anyway.”

Wait a minute. Meg and Twilight had stumbled upon Lyra and one of the changelings in the Everfree, when they’d been conducting one of their time travel experiments. The one where the time travel spell repeatedly failed until she had been looking in the direction of where the changeling and Lyra had been at their time of arrival in the past. “What’s your connection to the changelings?” she blurted out.

“That’s… complicated,” was all the unicorn said before hurriedly departing.

With raised eyebrow Meg turned to the disguised changeling. “Would you care to answer that?”

“Not my place to comment,” was the simple answer.

Meg kept her gaze on the librarian; it didn’t work.

She looked somewhere else, anywhere else. “I suppose I could try asking Daring—”

Realization dawned. Back in the forest, they hadn’t yet learned of the connection between the changelings and Daring Do. In hindsight it was obvious: Lyra was using the changelings to pass messages back and forth with the author, the same as Twilight was now doing.

The changeling shrugged. “You’re certainly free to ask her.”

Meg sighed. “I certainly am.” And that pegasus would be just as likely to answer as Lyra was.

“Have you heard anything from her?”

Was that a touch of unease? They’re probably not used to being out-of-touch with her, she decided—and Daring had gone where no changeling could follow (presumably). “I’m not really in the loop on this one, but I wouldn’t worry. By now they’re probably in a plane flying over the ocean to their destination.”

“I must confess I had never heard of you or your books during my brief reign of terror, and the prison library in Tartarus sadly lacks any Equestrian titles.”

“And I must confess I was at the time in the Griffon Empire, doing research for Daring Do and the Eponymous Emerald. I didn’t learn of your ‘reign of terror’ until after it was over.”

The banter was playful enough; naturally, it was all for the camera. Kyle the director had the idea of having Andy and Yearling converse, the logic being that they should get to know each other if they were going to be on a team. Twilight couldn’t deny that logic; that it upped the celebrity factor of this documentary surely was a coincidence. At least it allowed her to be off camera.

“Is that why you’ve joined us? To do research for your next book?”

“Can’t slide one past you,” Yearling remarked. “Having a Daring Do book set in the human realm would be beneficial for sales, in both realms. But, believe it or not, I do have a background in archaeology—write what you know, as they say—and I wouldn’t mind putting that training to work at ancient ruins of human origin.”

And you already did. Not that Yearling was going to mention that here. And, to be fair, she probably meant ruins of human origin in the human realm. Regardless, it was the first Twilight had heard of her background. An archaeologist past had never been mentioned in any bio of the author she had read. She’d have to look deeper into that the next chance she got.

“It remains to be seen if there’ll be anything you can apply your training to,” Andy said.

Yearling wasn’t the least bit fazed. “We’ll see. I hope so, and I feel the humans should hope so too. I bring a different perspective, obviously, and so do you.”

Andy smiled at that. “I certainly do.”

Kyle interrupted. “That’s a good point to break.” He looked towards Twilight. “Anything you’d like to add to this topic?”

Twilight was gazing out the window at the boundless ocean, so far below. “Not particularly,” she said. She fully expected Yearling to utilize her training, but not necessarily in the presence of these humans. And by “humans” she excluded Andy, of course, as only he knew the locations of several points of interest. That wouldn’t make Kyle happy. She wasn’t sure how much that mattered.

“I’ve been sat here, listening to this delightful conversation, and I would like to add that I, for one, am quite interested in the different perspectives these two have to offer.”

That was the resident domain expert, Professor of Aegean Studies Samantha Hutchinson. She was in the back, near Fowler and Reubens. Twilight hadn’t exchange many words with her yet, but any person who has written multiple books was alright by her. The professor’s distinct Trottingham accent didn’t hurt—or British, as it was known here.

“I can assure you,” Twilight said, “that neither of them are known for keeping their perspectives to themselves.” She turned back to the porthole. “I can’t believe we’re going over five hundred miles per hour. Nothing seems to move down there.” Not that there was much to see, just flecks of white against the ocean. Even the occasional cloud passed languidly below them.

The professor got up, walked over, and took a seat near Twilight. “We are seven miles up, I should think.”

“Equestrian airships don’t go that high; they don’t need to. Not with magic to reduce air friction.”

Samantha’s face lit up at the word “magic.” “Are there spells to aid archaeologists? Could any of them be used here?”

The camera was pointed at them. “That would be Yearling’s department, it would appear.”

“Don’t look at me. I’m not a unicorn.”

All attention was back on Twilight. Her tail twitched. “I would have to look into it… but I doubt it.” If only because if such spells existed, Yearling ought to have heard of them alongside her unicorn classmates—which reminded her to find out which school she had attended. “But general magic, such as precise telekinesis, would obviously be useful.”

“Pegasi flight magic can be quite useful too.” Yearling smiled. “Daring Do sure finds it so.”

“Is that how your wings work?” Samantha asked, pointing at Twilight’s wings. “I mean, would they work in our world?”

“I’d be happy to demonstrate they do,” Twilight said, “but not in this tight, enclosed space. Perhaps once we visit a suitable site, I could offer you a birds eye view—if you wouldn’t mind being magically levitated far off the ground.”

Kyle immediately said, “Let’s do that.”

Samantha wasn’t so sure. “I’ll… consider it.”

“Can you levitate a camera man?” Kyle asked.

Mike, the cameraman, was not amused. “We have a drone, you know. An expensive drone.”

“Yeah, yeah, you’ve made your point.”

“I wouldn’t mind being levitated high in the sky,” Yearling said. “To experience flying, like a bird.”

And she said it with such a straight face too. “It would be my pleasure,” Twilight said. “It would help you write Daring Do’s flying scenes with greater verisimilitude.”

Yearling didn’t miss a beat. “I look forward to the experience.”

“Speaking of Daring Do…” Samantha began. “You wouldn’t happen to have one of your books on you I could borrow—possibly even buy?”

Yearling sadly shook her head. “I don’t have one on me right now, and even if I did I certainly could not sell it to you. My human lawyers are quite clear on that. Hasbro’s lawyers are the problem; they feel they are entitled to some of the revenue. It’s under negotiation.”

“That’s a shame.”

“Fortunately, they are not laying claim to book sales in Equestria.”

Twilight grunted. “They wouldn’t get far if they tried and they know it.” The current lack of a copyright treaty unfortunately worked both ways. Complexities like this, where a few scenes from a Daring Do book got incorporated into an MLP episode, didn’t help. She couldn’t help but feel that this was all posturing to make the treaty under development as favorable as possible to the humans. The royal sisters’ advice was to posture right back at them.

“I don’t suppose I could buy the book in Equestria then?”

“Not my department,” Yearling said, nodding at Twilight.

It was days like this Twilight wished she was still just the Ponyville librarian.

“We would love to tag along and film it.”

“It really does look like a control room out of a sci-fi movie.” Meg wandered about, taking a closer look at each of the monitors.

“It’s what we envisioned,” Sunset said, “but it turns out that could have been a problem: we envisioned it. Moondancer and I are not exactly experts in human technology.”

Moondancer stood by a monitor. “We believe our lack of deep understanding of computers is limiting what we can do here.”

Meg processed that for a moment. Then she selected a console and sat down. There was a keyboard builtin to the console and a wireless mouse to the side. She grabbed it with a hand and moved it about; the cursor moved likewise on the monitor.

Her attention switched to the user interface displayed on that monitor. It was vaguely Windows-like. The sole application running appeared to be the portal manager. The sole icon on the task bar was for that manager. There did not seem to be any way to launch anything else, any way to find what else was installed. They’ve both used human computers; why was this so limited?

She went through the portal manager’s menu bar, looking to see what functionality was there. Again, only the bare essentials were present. A manager like this ought to maintain a log of all activity, of all portals created and destroyed over the years—millennia? There was nothing she could find. Maybe a log file was being written to, but there was no way to look for it never mind inspect its contents.

Meg could only conclude that just the mere impression of a computer was being emulated.

She leaned back. “Yeah, I see the problem. So what do we do about it?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Sunset walked over to the pillar hosting the portal back to Equestria. “First, we all leave; second, you return first, with a proper control room in mind; and finally, we follow.”

Meg stood up. “Let’s do it.”

Sunset immediately went through the portal. Moondancer was next to reach the portal and to go through it, with Meg right behind her.

Three ponies stood before the mirror.

Meg took a deep breath, concentrating on what a proper portal control room should be: it would have “real” computers, as she understood them. Exhaling, she went through the mirror.

Everything looked the same, superficially. She wasn’t surprised. The appearance was not the problem, so she hadn’t wasted any effort on expecting anything different.

She walked over to a console and sat down. There was now a USB hub in the console. Hopefully it might even work; she had no way to test that at the moment.

The monitor was dark, in power-saving mode. However silly that might be in this simulation—or whatever it was—that’s how a real computer ought to behave, so that was a promising sign. She took hold of the mouse and moved it.

It was the moment of truth.

The monitor came to life, revealing a perfectly normal Windows desktop, right down to the default desktop background image. She clicked the Windows icon in the bottom-left of the task bar, and up popped the Start Menu. So far, so good. In due course she found and launched the command prompt. It came up, showing the familiar prompt. She typed “DIR \” and the usual top-level files and directories were listed.

“It looks like it worked,” Moondancer said, standing behind her.

“Yeah. This really raises questions about how this realm operates. I mean, I find it really hard to believe it’s ‘simulating’—or whatever the heck it’s doing—a perfect replica of a human designed and manufactured CPU, running an actual copy of Windows. It sure didn’t get all that from me. No one person remotely knows all that stuff.”

“And then there’s Canterlot High,” Sunset said. “They even had a version of the internet. Whoever imagined that into existence had detailed knowledge of both human technology and the residents of Ponyville.”

Meg sighed. “Kinda narrows down the suspects, doesn’t it?” And she was top of the list, though a future Twilight or Sunset could also be up there.

The portal manager was still in the task bar. Meg clicked it.

“That looks promising.”

“It sure does, Moondancer.” The menu bar was fleshed out. Meg went to see what was under “View.” There was a history menu item! She clicked it.

Three rows were displayed, one for each of the portals they knew about, only one of which was currently open. All the information was there: latitude, longitude, when it was created, when and if it was closed, and so on.

“That’s it?” Sunset asked. “We know portals existed millennia ago.”

There was a button for filtering options on the bottom of the window. Meg clicked it. It was as she had suspected. One of the filters was a date range; it only went back a year by default. She typed in a ludicrously ancient starting date then clicked “Apply.”

Nothing happened for a second, then a wait cursor appeared. It kept on rotating. And rotating.

“A perfect simulation of that too,” Meg muttered. “Maybe I shouldn’t have put in such a large range.”

“Anyway to cancel it?” Sunset asked.

“Not that I can see. Who do we even blame for this lousy user interface design?”

“Us? We imagined it, sort of, didn’t we?”

“Whatever.” Meg stood up. “No point in sticking around. Hopefully it’ll be done when we come back.”

Moondancer was walking around the room, searching the walls for something. “I wonder if there’s any place to grab a bite here. I don’t see any doors.”

“I wouldn’t mind a snack myself,” Sunset said.

“I… didn’t think of anything outside this room,” Meg said.

“I didn’t either,” Sunset admitted. “But whenever we wanted to leave this room before, we simply went back out the mirror. Never occurred to me there ought to be other rooms here.”

Moondancer had stopped walking and was facing them. “Same for me. I wonder what we’d find if we cut a hole in one of the walls?”

What would they find? A void of pure magic, whatever that was? “I’m not in the mood for experiments,” Meg said. “Let’s just go the the Royal Café.” There she could bring up the subject of Susie and the Crusaders.

All gathered at windows on the right side of the plane. A few miles to the south-east was the Acropolis, lit up on top of a hill jutting up from a sea of city lights. Andy whistled. “Athens sure has grown over the millennia.”

The plane drifted closer to the ancient and ruined structure on the hill. It was a slight diversion, but one the pilot had been happy to make. I wonder if we could visit it, Twilight thought. Structures like that were surprisingly rare in Equestria, no doubt due to the Discordian era. And this structure, if she had her timeline straight, must have been built with only muscle power and primitive tools. At least ponies had magic.

Andy pointed out the window. “And that’s where the portal was located, in one of the caves in that hill.”

“What, you mean under the Acropolis?” Samantha practically shrieked.

“None of that was there back then,” Andy replied, shrugging. “It was just a hill with a lot of shallow caves.”

“Thoroughly researched caves,” she added, somewhat dejected, “many now open to the public. I don’t see how there could be anything left for us to discover.”

Twilight recalled something the then-centaur had said back in Tartarus. “You said it was located in the surrounding mountains, not in an isolated hill in the middle of the city.”

He shrugged again. “So I told a half-truth. I wasn’t yet ready to give up all my secrets, not before my freedom had been secured.”

“I suppose we should be thankful,” Samantha conceded. “How many people have searched the mountains for that portal—yes, we know it’s no longer there, but they wouldn’t care. They’d bet on it having returned.”

“I can safely say it has not returned,” Twilight said. Now that we have control over them. But it had become moot; this site had obviously been picked clean, and it was unlikely she’d detect anything magical in nature. Might as well visit it anyway for the sightseeing. She was sure Kyle would agree with that. “Can you describe the cave?”

“Its distinguishing feature was that it had three openings. Nothing else like it.”

“The Cave of Pan,” Samantha instantly supplied. “I’ve been there several times. Never suspected it once hosted a portal.”

Kyle slapped his thigh. “The Cave of Pan it is, then. I’ll arrange a trip.”

“Shouldn’t be a problem. That cave is open to the public.”

Open to the public. Nope, nothing left there to find.

She met Yearling’s eyes in mutual understanding. If they were lucky, they’d find out if her cutie mark worked in this realm.

Over the next few minutes the plane descended towards Athens International Airport. Twilight tried to glimpse the runway they’d be landing on, but it wasn’t possible to see what was directly in front of them. Nonetheless the ground steadily approached, and soon enough she felt a nasty thump as the plane touched down, everything still racing past the window way too fast.

The engines got louder, oddly enough, but regardless they slowed down and soon they were traveling down the road at a sensible speed. A few turns later and they came to a stop in front of a hanger, where a welcoming committee full of official-looking people awaited them. The local media was also present.

Kyle quickly assessed the situation. “We’ll just acquire their footage. You should go first, Andy. They’re obviously here for you.”

Andy stood up. “Twilight should be by my side as a fellow monarch—even if my title as Prince is now honorary.” He looked expectantly at the alicorn.

Twilight hesitated. What was he up to?

“Then consider that if not for you, I would not be here now.”

Why not. Twilight got up and followed Andy to the door. The co-pilot was already opening it. She wasn’t taking any chances, though; she put a shield spell in place.

In defiance of Andy’s intentions, the door wasn’t really wide enough for the both of them. He stepped out first into the night and onto the door-turned-into-stairs to hearty applause and flashbulbs. Leaning to the side he encouraged Twilight to poke her head out the door, which she did—to stunned silence and even more furious flashbulbing.

Great, she thought. They didn’t really believe I existed either. What could she do about that? It wasn’t as if she could personally visit each and every human in this realm!

Andy went down the stairs. “Come now! If you believe in me, you must believe in her. How else could I be here? Back in my old stomping grounds and not rotting away in Tartarus.”

Yearling joined them at the foot of the stairs, holding out her Equestrian passport. “So who stamps the passports here?”

The warehouse was on the small side; even so, the floor was mostly bare. Off in a corner workbenches had been set up, and several people were working there. Against the wall were free-standing shelving, mostly bare. Numerous boxes of stolen stuff had been laid about at random. This was where “The Section” was researching magic, research that was to be turbocharged by what Meg had left on her desktop computer.

It ought to have made her feel guilty, to be enabling what would happen, and perhaps her younger self then vacationing in Las Pegasus would have felt guilt; life experience, it turned out, was an excellent immunizer. Besides, immutable past was immutable.

“So what are we gonna do with you?” Virgil, the driver of the van, said. The other one, the one who had ridden in the passenger seat, stood next to him.

Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at her, unsure what was happening.

Unbelievable. And just over there was a storage room whose door had a key lock on the outside. “You could release me, so I could bring down the forces of good upon you,” she suggested. They’ll figure it out.

“Wake up and smell the roses,” Virgil declared. “We’re the forces of good around here.”

White was the dominant color; what wasn’t white was a shade of gray, with the exception of orange accents. The furnishings were simple and clean designs made of wood. It had a certain elegance of its own, even if it did not offer the impression of luxury. Twilight wished Rarity could see this. Surely she would have been fascinated by this Aegean design language.

The officers had left, having found nothing of concern in the house Kyle had rented in the Neos Kosmos area, not far from the Acropolis. A security detail would keep watch outside for as long as they were present and another would accompany them wherever they went. Whether they were there primarily to safeguard “Prince Androgeos,” as they preferred to call him, or whether it was to also safeguard Yearling and especially herself, as Reubens predicted, wasn’t clear to Twilight—not that it really mattered.

It certainly did nothing to address the pressing issue of the moment.

“Yearling and I will take one of the upstairs bedrooms,” Twilight said.

Kyle consulted the floor plan in the paperwork. It was a house architected like no house Twilight had ever seen, subdivided into three self-contained apartments. “That leaves the other upstairs bedroom,” Kyle said. “Remember each bedroom has just a single queen-sized bed and a sofa bed.”

The two Secret Service agents looked at each other. “One of us should be in that other bedroom,” Fowler said. “Any objection?”

Reubens shook his head. “No, you take it.”

“And as I am the only other woman…” Samantha said.

“I guess we share the room. Just remember I take the security of the ponies very seriously.”

“I quite understand.”

“Alright, the upstairs apartment has been taken care of. That leaves the two ground floor apartments, with a total of three bedrooms. You can have the one bedroom apartment to yourself, Mr. Reubens.”

“Thank you.”

Kyle clapped his hands. “Now that’s all been taken care of, we should all get a good night’s sleep. We’ve had a long day, we’re all jet lagged, and we have a busy day tomorrow.”

The monitor was blank. Surely just the screen saver. As if screens in this realm needed saving. Well, they shouldn’t. Meg twitched the mouse.

“This… doesn’t look good,” observed Sunset.

No, it didn’t. The portal manager wasn’t running. Meg doubled-clicked on it. What popped up showed the status of all currently open portals. She went to the history menu item and clicked it.

“Great,” she said. They were right back where they started. “I guess we shouldn’t have attempted to augment portal management to support portals to Tartarus. Looks like it rebooted the system, if that makes any sense here.”

“But did it work?” Moondancer asked.

Meg navigated to portal creation. “Nope, doesn’t look like it.” Try as she might, she could find nothing to select a realm. It still hard-coded the human and Equestrian realms. “Might as well restart the history dump.” She went back to history. This time, she set the filtering options to go back a mere 5000 years.

And got a wait cursor.

“This time we’ll let it go to completion,” Sunset offered.

“Why should it take so long?” Moondancer asked. “Aren’t computers supposed to be fast?”

“Beats me,” Meg said. “Who knows where or how the information is recorded, or what it takes to retrieve it. Remember that computers didn’t exist thousands of years ago.” The Tartarus problem returned to her thoughts, and she slumped in the chair. “Why can’t it be as easy as taking a plaid pill. Just think ‘Tirek’s cell in Tartarus’ and—boom!—there you are.”

Sunset Shimmer and Moondancer stared at her.

Meg stared back. “No. That’s crazy. It can’t possibly work. Wrong realm. Restricted magic.”

Sunset kept staring at her. “I grab him with my magic and invoke the return spell. Nopony has a clue what happened. The perfect escape.”

“That’s…” Meg groaned. “Fine. There’s only one way to prove this can work—if it works.”

Twilight gently deposited their luggage onto the gray tile floor. It was just as well they had actually packed stuff; maybe questions would’ve been raised if customs had found them to be empty? She closed and locked the bedroom door, then cast a privacy spell.

She looked out the window. It was night. Her internal clock refused to believe it; she woke up only a few hours ago on the flight over. “So this is jet lagged?”

Yearling stood beside her, also staring into the darkness. “Weird realm. Why isn’t it the same time of day everywhere, like in Equestria?”

The astronomy lessons could wait. “It’s… different here and let’s leave it at that. For now.”

“Well, I’m not sleepy. Should we go check out this ‘Cave of Pan?’”

It was night, true, but it wasn’t dark, not really. The glow from all the street lighting and other outdoor sources of light rendered navigation feasible. Even so… “The inside of that cave will be pitch dark. If I provide light, it may be noticed by others. We’re not in the middle of nowhere, like I thought this cave would be.”

“You don’t have a spell to block the light from escaping the cave?”

Actually, she did, now that she thought about it. “We would still have to find that cave. In the dark. Is there really such a rush? There’s no reason to expect we’d find anything.”

Yearling slumped. “Maybe I’m just itching to stretch my wings. I’ve never worn this outfit for so long before.”

Twilight wasn’t sleepy either. They could simply return to Equestria; they had never intended to sleep in this realm. But what if there was something for them to discover? Did she really want that discovery to be part of a human documentary?

Well, possibly yes, actually. But she’d first have to know what it was in order to know if she did.

Twilight walked over to her luggage and opened it. The laptop computer, the one she reserved for accessing the human internet with all its attendant dangers, floated out and over to the bed. “Let’s see what we can find out about this cave.”

After using the wi-fi password they had been given, a quick search for “cave of pan” revealed there was no shortage of such caves, many of them in computer games. She added the word “acropolis” and got what she wanted—including pictures. “Three openings, just like Andy said.”

“Northwest slope,” Yearling added. She had already ditched the cloche hat and fake glasses.

Looks like we’re doing this. Twilight switched off the magic generator in her saddlebags, which she was still wearing. “If we’re going to do this, we’ll do it invisible.” They had gone invisible as soon as the generator switched off and their magic bubbles re-activated.

Yearling—Daring? No that didn’t seem right when she wasn’t wearing anything, not the least her explorer outfit—stretched her wings. “So cast the spell and let’s get going.”

“We’re already invisible—trust me on that. Inaudible too. Long story.”

“I can see you. And hear you.”

“And I can see and hear you. We’re still invisible and inaudible.”

Yearling shrugged. “So we just sneak out the bedroom and up to the roof-top garden?”

“Safer to just teleport to the other side of that window. Start hovering.”

Princess Celestia entered the chamber behind her throne and closed the door. “I can spare a few minutes, Meg. I trust this is important.”

Moondancer fidgeted in her seat at a simple and functional table. Sunset Shimmer was calm, accustomed to being in the presence of the princess. Meg got down to business.

“We think we’ve figured out how we broke—will break—whatever—Tirek out of Tartarus. We need to put it to the test.”

“I see. Please continue.”

“We use one of Discord’s plaid pills.”

Celestia blinked. “That possibility had never occurred to me. I agree it must be put to the test, and soon. I shall oversee it personally; the Tartarus bureaucracy requires a delicate touch.” She turned to leave. “I shall send for you once I have cleared my calendar.”

A pair of winged ponies approached the Acropolis. It was impossible to miss, what with its ruins lit up like a Hearth’s Warming Tree. But what they sought was below, unlit, on the side of the hill upon which the ruins had been built.

“Pretty sure it’s this way.”

Daring Do banked—it was impossible for Twilight to think of her as anypony else under the conditions, naked or otherwise—to go clockwise around the hill, and Twilight followed her lead. In the dim glow of city lights, it wasn’t hard to see the caves as they went by. There were quite a few, all of which had been used to worship ancient gods, according to what they had read, even before the massive constructions on top had been built.

Andy hadn’t seemed to care about that. Perhaps Minoans worshipped different gods.

“There it is.” Daring descended. Twilight spotted it too. Even in this light, there was no mistaking those triple entrances.

A modern stairway, with metal steps and rails, led straight to the Cave of Pan. They landed at the top. One entrance was to the left, the two others to the right. They weren’t that far apart from each other—less than ten feet? “Any preference?” Twilight asked.

Daring thought for a moment. “Not really.”

“Getting anything on your cutie mark?”

The pegasus shook her head. “Hard to say what that means in this realm.”

And their magic bubbles did not extend into the cave from where they were. Twilight would switch on the magic generator once they were inside and crank it up.

“We’re not going to learn anything out here.” Daring walked to the left entrance and went inside.

Twilight followed. Once inside, she put her checklist into action. First, she turned the magic generator back on and dialed it up; there would be no shortage of magic to impede them. Second, she cast a spell to render the entrances impermeable to light. The cave now pitch black, she cast an illumination spell to dispel the darkness.

“I’m impressed,” Daring said. “No shadows.” She looked back at the alicorn. “Not from your horn?” She scanned the cave. “I can’t even tell where the light is coming from. Didn’t know you could do that; honestly I expected a horn light.”

“That would cast shadows.”

The cave wasn’t very big, and apart from having three openings it didn’t seem all that interesting. Some plants grew at the entrances, and water seeped down a wall—no doubt slowly but surely enlarging the cave. A path connected the entrances, and past the final one it burrowed into the hill, the sides closing in as it did so. It looked like a throat if anything, complete with “tonsils” bifurcating the way. Even a pony could not go far down that path; it wasn’t clear just how far it even went.

But apart from the intriguing geology, there was nothing. Whatever had been here to worship Pan was long gone, hopefully in a museum. To expect anything from Andy’s era, back when a portal to Equestria was here…

Daring made her way over to Twilight, eyes on that throat-like formation. “Maybe here? It’s really vague.”

“What here? Was this where the portal was?”

The pegasus sighed. “Beats me. I may just be imagining it. I certainly don’t see anything; I don’t think it’s something that might have fallen into a crevice back there either.”

“I’m sure if something had, it’d have been found ages ago.”

“I wouldn’t say otherwise. Are we done here?”

Twilight gazed at the formation, thinking. It had been a long-shot, at best, true. She could search for magical traces, but after so long… even in Equestria it would be pointless. Here where magic decayed away like the radioactive substance powering her magic generator, it was doubly so. It still would have been nice to confirm Andy’s story.

“Yeah, we’re done. We can return to Equestria. Save ourselves the flight back to the house.”

“Uh, uh. Not without my disguise I don’t.”

I suppose not. Twilight preceded to undo the steps of her checklist. “Okay, we’ll fly back.”

Meg’s last two plaid pills waited in her saddlebag. Both of them would be needed. One for Meg herself, because only she had been inside Tartarus and thus knew where to go, and one for Sunset Shimmer, because for the test to be valid a unicorn would have to return with a “prisoner”—Moondancer filling that role. The latter was with Celestia, her “breakout” on hold as the princess used her “delicate touch” with the bureaucracy.

All Meg and Sunset could do was wait in the Zephyr’s observation lounge until they received word to go ahead.

Meg looked at her saddlebags again.

“There’s always the portals,” Sunset reminded her. “We know how to reboot the system if that history dump refuses to finish.”

Meg didn’t respond. There was no need to repeat her refusal to go through a portal while her world’s insanity persisted; the return feature of the pills was too invaluable. Didn’t mean a portal wouldn’t be useful; Susie could be brought to Equestria that way. She stared once more at the Gates of Tartarus and the guards patrolling it.

They suddenly reacted to something. It was another guard galloping from the direction of Tartarus. The newcomer slowed to a halt at the gate, to be scanned per protocol. After passing the scan, the guard resumed galloping to the ship.

“Let’s see what the word is,” Sunset said as she trotted to the door and opened it.

The guard arrived seconds later, breathing hard. “It’s a go. Tirek’s old cell.”

“Making it as realistic as possible,” Meg fatalistically observed. She got the jar holding the pills out of her saddlebag. “Let’s get this over with.”

Sunset came over and used her magic to lift the pills out of the jar. She presented one of them to Meg.

“Just remember that if it doesn’t work, we’ll probably find ourselves high in the sky over some random location—in which realm I won’t even speculate.”

“Be ready to invoke the return spell. Got it.”

Meg extended her wings and began to hover. Both ponies took their pills into their mouths but did not yet swallow. Just outside Tirek’s cell in Tartarus, Meg thought, then swallowed.

Bars filled her vision, and she fell to the ground. Ouch. Yep, they were in Tartarus alright. Barely functional flight magic. There was Moondancer, inside the cell, oblivious to her arrival. To her side was Sunset, and to her other side… Celestia, standing next to several minotaurs. All waiting. Invisibility seemed to be working; there had been some debate on whether that would work in Tartarus.

“Let’s kill the invisibility in three… two… one… now.”

The minotaurs became quite unhappy.

“Naturally, we will look into countermeasures,” the princess assured the Tartarus officials.

“They haven’t broken me out of this cell yet,” Moondancer said.

“We don’t know if we can even return to the Zephyr ourselves,” Sunset added.

Who are we kidding? Whatever this realm had against magic, chaos magic was evidently exempted. “Let’s just get it over with,” Meg said once again.

Moondancer positioned herself at the bars. Sunset got as close as she could to her and grabbed her in her magic. They both vanished.

Meg sighed in resignation. So that’s how we do it. Still left the question as to when they’d go back in time to do so.

The officials had become even less happy, if that was possible. “You still believe Cerberus was removed from Tartarus in this same fashion?” one of them asked of Celestia.

“I would think that likely.”

“But why? His removal was obviously unnecessary in light of this demonstration.”

“A way of covering their tracks, perhaps?”

“Quite effective, too,” another grumbled. “We were all convinced he had to have exited via the Gates.”

Meg had no desire to be a part of this conversation. What would these minotaurs do if they ever found out she and Sunset were the ones who broke Tirek out? “I should return to the others,” she hesitantly put out.

Celestia gave her a nod. “Of course. I shall not be here much longer myself. Please inform Captain Shooting Star of our imminent departure.”

Their bedroom was exactly as they had left it. Yearling was already putting back on her disguise. “I’m returning to Equestria now,” Twilight said. “You can return when you’re ready.”

Twilight invoked the return spell, returning her to her residence within the Castle of Friendship. Midday sunlight poured in through the windows, matching what her internal clock had been insisting. “Maybe sleeping here isn’t the wisest choice,” she muttered.

“You’re back?” called out Spike’s voice from upstairs. Seconds later he peeked between the railings. “There’s a message from Celestia.” He pointed at the desk.

“A message? From Celestia?” It had to be important; Celestia knew she would be in the human realm. She lost no time in levitating the scroll over.

“So what’s it say?”

A bright flash. “Wouldn’t you rather hear what I have to say?”

Twilight frowned at the gleeful draconequus. Come on, Twilight. You know it’s best just to let him get it out of his system. He wasn’t going anywhere until he did. She returned the scroll to the desk. “I’m listening,” she tolerantly said.

“I’ve made excellent progress on my theme park. You simply must pay it a visit! I’m so looking toward your feedback.”

Right. A chaos theme park. It had completely slipped her mind. “Wouldn’t Meg be better suited for that? It’s for humans, after all.” Almost immediately she regretted saying that; Meg didn’t need this either.

“Of course, of course,” Discord said, waving a claw around. “Unfortunately she’s tied up with Sunbutt right now, and you know what a party-pooper she is. So you are the lucky pony!”

Twilight thought Meg was the lucky one. She held back a groan. This theme park was something she’d have to eventually personally inspect, there was no question of that. But did it have to be right this second? “I’m rather tied up myself right now. I’m accompanying Andy on a visit to his original homeland.” He was about to point out the obvious. Twilight preempted him. “I’m just here to get some sleep.” She looked around; why hadn’t Yearling returned yet?

Discord wasn’t buying it. “It’s noon.”

“Not in Greece.”

Paw slapped forehead. “Right. That insane heliocentric world of theirs.”

“Long time, no see, Discord.” Yearling stepped into view. “Having better luck with your casino?”

“Wait, what?” Twilight couldn’t believe her ears. “You have a casino, Discord?”

Discord looked dumbfounded as well. A lit human lightbulb suddenly appeared above his head. He grabbed it and threw it away; it shattered into nothingness against a wall. “You also just returned from Greece. Having fun exploring human ruins?”

“Ask me again tomorrow.” Addressing Twilight, she said, “The Discordant. It’s not far from Planet Do. Discord doesn’t own or operate it; he’s more of a creative consultant for them.”

“They barely listen to me,” he grumbled.

What would a Discord-themed casino even be like? That is, if Discord could have his way. “Maybe I could talk to them, encourage them to pay more attention to your ideas?” It only seemed fair. Any who entered knew what they were in for, presumably wanted to experience it—within reason.

He waved it away. “I appreciate the offer, but that lot is too risk-averse. You’ll get nowhere with them. It’s only because of Celestia they did as much as they had.” He snapped his talons in renewed excitement. “I’ll put a casino, a proper casino, in my theme park!” He vanished.

Yearling quirked an eyebrow. “Theme park?”

“You don’t want to know.” The scroll from Celestia beckoned. And Celestia knew about his casino? Her magic retrieved it once more, this time without interruption.

“Uh, so what’s it say?” Spike repeated from upstairs.

Twilight wished she’d had the option of avoiding this encounter with Discord.

Sighing, she unrolled the scroll and read it. “Looks like we might be able to find out about all portals created in the past, exactly when and where they existed. That’d be nice. Oh, this—” She remembered Yearling was present. “We may have figured out how Tirek escaped from Tartarus.” That must’ve been why Meg was “tied up” with Celestia.

Too bad Discord wasn’t still around. She would’ve loved to ask him whether those plaid pills could do that—why they could do that. Well, maybe not with Yearling around.

Twilight rolled up the scroll and sent it up to Spike. “Put it away, Spike.”

Spike grabbed it out of the air and departed.

Yearling look up at the sunlight streaming through a window. “So how are we supposed to get some shuteye?”

Twilight doubted the humans were doing much better. “Maybe there’s a spell I can adapt. Let’s go to the main library.”

No sooner had the Zephyr docked in Canterlot, Meg, Sunset Shimmer, and Moondancer rushed to the mirror. Surely, after all this time, the history query would have completed.

Meg was the first through the mirror. The monitor was in power saving mode, of course. She twitched the mouse and waited for it to awaken.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” she groaned.

“What could’ve caused a reboot this time,” Sunset asked.

“Maybe it’s simulating beta software,” Meg grumbled. “It’s all the rage.” Perhaps they’d never find out about ancient portals. She restarted the portal management app.

“Two active portals?” Moondancer exclaimed.

Indeed there were. “How can there be another portal?” Meg asked. “No one else has access to this realm! I mean, Twilight does, but… no!”

“Better shut it down,” Sunset said.

“Right.” Meg selected the offending portal, then clicked the close button. “Permission denied?! What the hell is that supposed to mean!”

Moondancer pointed at some numbers on the screen. “Perhaps we should be more concerned about where that is?”

Meg took a look. The numbers were coordinates. The location on Earth was 37.97083652°N, 23.72611062°E. “We need a map.” There was also the location within Equestria. “Better make that two maps.”

“Don’t look at the drone!”

“Does it have to be so noisy?” Twilight folded her ears. It wasn’t the volume so much, it was that whine. Still she did her best to ignore it as she climbed the stairs, along with the others, to the Cave of Pan. The sooner they got inside, the sooner Kyle would be done with that bucking camera drone.

“And try not to fold your ears!”

She rolled her eyes. Sure, don’t do that either. A silent, magical lift system for drones ought to be at the top of her list of potential exports. She considered the groggy humans; make-up mostly hid evidence of their lack of sleep. Maybe that circadian rhythm adjustment spell she cooked up would sell well too. She and Yearling, in contrast to the others, were ready to tackle the new day.

One by one they arrived at the top of the stairs, in front of the now familiar trio of openings. “Stay there a moment and contemplate the cave. Any words, Andy? Wait for the camera.”

Mike the cameraman and Dominic the soundman quickly got into position between Andy and the cave. “Go ahead,” Mike said.

“I can’t believe it’s been thousands of years since I last stood here,” Andy began. “It almost feels like it happened yesterday.” He smiled at a private joke. “Almost.”

He addressed Twilight. “In there was the portal. I’m sure there’s nothing left to find after so long, but I can at least point out its exact location.”

“Maybe we’ll get lucky.” She might as well play along—for the camera’s sake, if nothing else.

“Okay, now go inside. Make it look like it’s the most important thing you’ve ever done. Get moving; we can’t keep the public away forever.”

Looking back down, Twilight could see the growing crowd being held back by Greek security forces.

The cameraman went in first, walking backwards. “Keep going,” Andy told him, “staying to your right until you bump into, well, a wall that’s been gouged out. Better take it slowly.”

Mike waved it away. “Been here before. Don’t worry about me; I know what’s back there.”

Andy shrugged and entered next. He eyed the eroded limestone. “A bit bigger than I remember, if I’m not imagining it.”

“It could well be,” Samantha offered.

Twilight entered next; the others followed. She looked around as if seeing it for the first time; she was seeing it for the first time, in natural lighting. Slowly, pacing the cameraman, they made their way to the other end, where the “throat” was. Could it really have been located there? Perhaps Daring’s cutie mark had worked after all.

“Just around this bend,” Andy said to his retinue.

That would be the throat.

“STOP!” Andy yelled to the cameraman.

Mike turned around and saw the portal he had almost walked through.

The crystal-studded collar, there on a table. One of the crystals had been removed and was currently being X-rayed. Meg knew they would discover how spells were encoded in the crystalline matrix, and from there on to encoding new crystals with spells. All done without supervision by trained unicorns. What could go wrong?

She already knew the answer.

That collar had once adorned her Pinkie Pie doll, the one that started it all. She got that doll back once the magic leak had been closed—sans the collar. No one could explain what had happened to it, not that anyone had really cared; neither had Twilight returned the GPS tracker that the FBI had put on her car. So how did they get that collar from the Feds? A rhetorical question, naturally.

She still had that priceless autographed doll, protected by a preservation spell.

Her office computer had been placed onto an adjacent table. The cables had just been plugged in and they were turning it on. One of them waved her over, demanding, “Your password.”

Their mood had really soured when Jackson and the others had failed to return. They still didn’t know what had happened, though they speculated plenty. Maybe she was supposed to tell them? She’d give it a little more time.

But first the password. She couldn’t make it too easy. But “crack” she eventually would. What she had put onto that computer needed to get into their hands, for it had gotten into their hands. It was small consolation that everything they would do with this knowledge, they would do of their own free will. And hubris.

If only they’d had the decency to do it in the middle of nowhere.

In utter disbelief Twilight trotted to the portal. There was no way anypony would’ve used that portal control room to create this, and yet here it was. Stopping at the boundary, she peered about. Not much could be seen under Luna’s moon, not with Earth’s sun shining through the openings behind her.

Samantha, mouth agape, stood beside her. “Is that what I think it is?”

Twilight fumed. “Equestria? Yes.”

Kyle stood behind her. “Any reason we can’t go through? I, uh, can’t help but notice that you haven’t.”

Yearling joined the party. “We don’t know where that is. There might be dangerous creatures out there.”

“Uh, what stops those creatures from coming here?” Mike asked. He was pointing the camera at the portal.

Yearling—and Mike—had a point. At the very least she needed to verify there was no imminent danger. But she also needed to return to her castle, so she could send a message to Celestia and have this portal closed.

“Should I go down and contact the security forces?” Reubens asked.

They had to be informed—if that portal couldn’t be closed real fast. “Give me a minute to see what we’re up against.” Twilight stepped through, ready to cast defensive magic.

She stepped onto grass and kept walking. As her eyes adjusted, she could see that the grass continued until it reached a forest. It seemed safe enough—indeed, the grass felt manicured—but she still didn’t have a clue where she was. The portal control room would tell her, of course, if only she was there.

Twilight looked up at the night sky and spotted the unusually bright star. If there had been any doubt, that confirmed this was Equestria’s realm. Luna was still keeping it as close as possible, so that she, Steve, and Arcane Scroll along with some of his grad students could study it. I really ought to find out what they’ve discovered so far. But there were so many demands on her time.

She turned around to go back and froze. In the dim moonlight she could see behind the portal a wall. A tall wall that extended far in both directions. There was a huge gate, a gate that when open was huge enough to pass a hydra. And the signage that spanned that gate in an arc…

“DISCORD!”

Most waiting on the other side of the portal exchanged confused looks, but Twilight only had eyes for the asymmetric being who emerged from behind the portal. “Glorious, isn’t it? Still a work-in-progress, naturally.”

Twilight stomped towards the draconequus. “Do you have any idea how much trouble this portal is about to cause us?”

“Trouble? Nonsense. I’m doing you a big favor! Help you kill two birds with one stone, as humans like to say. Go on your trip with ‘Andy’ and check out my theme park.”

“I’ll just stay on this side of the portal,” Andy called out from the other side.

“A wise choice,” Discord declared. “But the rest of you are welcome!” He waved at them. The camera was glued to him.

“And what about everyone else?” Twilight demanded. “That cave is open to the public!”

“They’re welcome too! Think of the boom to the Greek economy.” Paw to muzzle he theatrically whispered, “I hear they could use the help.”

The others had worked up the courage to come through the portal; only Andy and the Secret Service agents remained on the other side.

The camera was still on her and Discord. Mike was cleverly taking in the surroundings by pivoting around them.

How do I deal with this? Why couldn’t he be more patient? She had to try reasoning with him, even as she knew from painful experience how that would turn out. “It’s nighttime,” she began. “It will always be night here when their sun is shining there. You can’t expect humans to fully appreciate in the dark what you’ve created here.”

Discord stroked his goatee. “You may have a point.”

Her hopes rose, against her better judgement.

He snapped his talons. “I’ve got it! I’ll just raise the Sun!” He raised his claw high—

“NO!”

Discord sighed, dropping his claw. “Yes, you’re right. Celestia is rather possessive of that orb.”

I have to do better. “Shouldn’t the portal be inside those walls? You were supposed to ensure that humans couldn’t go into Equestria proper.”

“Oh, those walls? They’re just for show. What’s the point of an entrance if everypony bypasses it?” He pointed at Kyle, who had wandered to the edge of the forest. “The real security? See what happens when he tries leaving the grass.”

Twilight lost no time in teleporting over to the director, startling him. Not wasting time on an explanation, she teleported him back to the portal.

She returned to Discord. “We’ll talk about your security measures later.”

He sighed, shaking his head. “I’m hurt. You act like there’s a monster out there, hiding amongst the trees, ready to eat stragglers.”

Maybe she should trust him, even a little, by now? Permanently harming his “playthings” never was his style.

“For your information,” he continued, “it’s just a fun little barrier. You don’t even feel anything. All it does is reverse your direction. The faster you run into it, the faster you’ll run away from it.”

Twilight was starting to feel rather foolish. “And if you dig under it or somehow go over it?”

“Figure out a way to get past it?”

Twilight nodded. There wouldn’t be, of course; that is what she expected to hear, along with no small amount of pride.”

“Well, in that case, the timberwolves will get you.” He looked away for a moment in thought. “Perhaps I should put up warning signs to that effect?”

Now she felt foolish for feeling foolish. “Yes, I’d strongly recommend that.”

This wasn’t getting her anywhere. The signage above the entrance mocked her: Discordland: The Discordiant Place in the Multiverse. She couldn’t even find the will to point out that “discordiant" was not a word; it somehow felt appropriate.

Yearling had approached them, the only one with the nerve to do so. “Would I be correct in saying that you’d like as many humans to visit as possible?”

“You always did have a good head for business on your withers,” Discord conceded.

“Then this portal simply won’t do. It’s too small. You can’t even make it bigger, because it’s inside a small cave. And even if you could, the cave isn’t that easy to get to. And as Twilight mentioned, to spend all day here, they’d have to stay up all night there. You’ll never fill this place up with humans using this portal.”

Discord sagged. “You’ve made your point. The portal will be gone in a few minutes.”

He vanished.

“You heard him!” Twilight shouted. “Back through the portal, now.” Resuming a normal voice, she said to Yearling, “I’m envious. I’ve only seen Fluttershy manage him that well.”

The pegasus shrugged. “Don’t know what to say.”

The two mares began walking to the portal. It still bugged Twilight. Yearling had used facts combined with solid logic—but so had she. Did Yearling use better facts and logic? But facts and logic were usually ineffective with Discord; he was too good at twisting arguments to his favor. But he didn’t even try with Yearling’s argument. Could he be treating me differently than how he treats others? Why? What would that mean?

The others had returned to the cave by the time Twilight and Yearling reached the portal. No sooner had they passed through it than it closed, once again revealing the “throat” formation. Reubens and Fowler were still there. “Did you inform them?” Twilight asked.

“No,” Reubens said. “We could hear your conversation with Discord, so we waited to see how it went.”

“We could inform them anyway,” Fowler added.

Twilight sighed. “No, it would only complicate matters for no benefit.”

“That’s what we figured,” Ruebens said.

“No benefit?” Andy asked. “I’m not so sure—oh, not to us.” He nodded at the throat of the cave.

“I see what you mean,” Reubens said. “Informing the security forces of a portal may cause chaos.”

“Yes,” Andy confirmed. “Fortunately for us his options for messing with this world are limited.”

Is that what motivated this? He always had shown an interest in humans. But then why back down so readily? It just didn’t make a whole lot of sense. Would they ever understand what made Discord tick?

Kyle approached her, jolting Twilight out of her thoughts. “Do you think it’d be possible for us to do a documentary on this ‘Discordland?’ You know, get a look behind the scenes, cover the grand opening, stuff like that.”

“Maybe? I mean, I could ask him, but you do know what you’d be getting yourself into.”

“Yeah,” Mike said. “Maybe you should sleep on it first.”

Conflicting emotions played over Kyle’s face. “Maybe I should.”

Moondancer leafed through the atlas. It didn’t take long for her to locate the desired page. “Here,” she said, her hoof touching the page. “Northeastern edge of the Everfree. No nearby towns or settlements.”

Meg had looked up the other set of coordinates on her phone. “And the other end in Athens, somewhere in the Acropolis. A major tourist attraction. That portal will be noticed.” Of the mares present, only she had noticed that Equestria used the same latitude/longitude system used by humans. Because of course they did.

“Humans in the Everfree.” Sunset sighed. “We need to inform the princesses. Like, right now.”

“It would be nice to know how that portal got created,” Moondancer said. “The princesses will ask.”

“But we don’t know, and we’re not going to.” Meg came to a decision. “I’ll do it. I’m meeting with Luna soon anyway.” She got out her phone. “Could one of you magically project an arrow on the map?”

“I can,” Sunset said, and did so.

Meg snapped a photo. “I guess I should get going.”

After departing the Royal Library, she made her way through the palace, keeping an eye out for Celestia in case she crossed paths with her. But uncrossed their paths had remained when she finally arrived at the private tea room.

The door was closed, of course, nor could she hear anything from inside the room, no matter how she adjusted her ears, as to be expected. She hesitated, for she was early. This is too important. Furthermore, it concerned the other occupant of the room. She knocked.

The door glowed in the color of Luna’s magic and opened. Meg entered. “Sorry for being early, but something has happened that both of you need to know.”

President Serrell raised an eyebrow. “Oh? This ought to be good.”

“Another portal has been created. We can’t shut it down, get ‘permission denied’ when we try. It goes from the Acropolis in Athens, Greece, to the northeastern edge of the Everfree Forest. We need to send the Royal Guard there immediately to stop people from coming through and getting, well, killed.”

Luna held up a hoof. “You may relax, Meg. The portal has been closed.”

“You already knew about it?” she asked as she made her way to the table.

“Twilight was there and she went through it. It leads to Discord’s new theme park. It is he who created the portal.”

“Agents Reubens and Fowler were there too. They reported back to me, and I of course passed it on to Luna. Needless to say, my life would have gotten a lot more ‘interesting’ if that portal hadn’t been shut down.”

“But none of us knew the precise location of this ‘park’ within Equestria. It is you who has uncovered that information.”

Meg took a seat, still digesting what she just heard. “Discord can create a portal we don’t have the permission to close.”

Luna cocked her head. “That does sound disquieting.”

“And he knows how to operate the simulated computer console—no, that’s an assumption, maybe he can bypass the simulation—oh, I don’t even know what that means.” What, exactly, was the nature of the simulation? No one knew. All she knew was that she had not imagined any kind of system security, and if she had she would’ve given herself root access.

“We may safely assume Discord’s understanding of that realm is far greater than ours.”

“It certainly exceeds mine,” Meg grumbled. She got up. “I guess I should come back when I’m supposed to be here.”

Serrell signaled her to sit down. “Since you’re here, let’s discuss your upcoming testimony.”

Meg sat down again. “Well, Rarity has finished her work on my dress. She, uh, assures me that it will survive a leash on my neck. I don’t know what she did, it looks pretty much the same to me, but I have no reason to doubt her. It could be something magical.”

“So long as it looks appropriate.”

Luna looked up in recollection. “Meg wore it to the Grand Galloping Gala. It was exquisite. You will not be disappointed.”

“The Gala, eh? Can’t wait to see it myself.”

“Wait a sec.” Meg got out her phone. “I have a picture.” She navigated to the picture in question, then hoofed the phone over to the president.

Serrell shook his head in wonder. “I still can’t believe you can do that with hooves.”

Meg shrugged. “I just… do. It helps not to think about it, quite honestly. Fingers are still better.”

He shook his head again. “I’ll take your word for it.” He looked down at the phone. The dress was on a ponnequin in Rarity’s workshop. He let out a whistle. “That will set tongues wagging, no question about it.”

“That’ll make Rarity very happy,” Meg said. “She wouldn’t be against taking on human clients someday, maybe even opening a shop in the ‘human realm,’ as she puts it.”

Serrell let out a sigh. “If only that day could be sooner rather than later.” He gave the phone back to Meg.

“Perhaps Discord has the right idea, with this theme park of his?” Luna offered.

“It’s hard to say. The devil’s in the details. You’ve had a lot of time with him, haven’t you, Meg?”

“Not as much as Twilight, and certainly not as much as Fluttershy.”

“Enough to form an opinion about his motives?”

Meg got up and walked over the panoramic windows, staring out at the sky. “It’s hard to say. I think he’s trying, but he doesn’t get the desired results, not often enough anyway. I mean, just consider this impromptu portal. His heart may have been in the right place, but the execution left a lot to be desired.”

“Indeed.” Serrell got up himself, stretched, and joined Meg at the window. “Fortunately, Yearling was there to persuade him. Twilight wasn’t having much luck.”

“Oh? Guess we should consider ourselves lucky she went along.”

Luna joined them at the window. “It bought us some time, but it is clear we need to find a way to make this park work. Discord has his heart set on this.”

“Well, for starters, we need a proper terminus for that portal,” Meg said. “One with plenty of parking.”

“And in the Equestrian time zone,” Serrell added, “though I suppose anywhere in North America would be close enough.”

“Another of those unexplained coincidences,” Meg muttered.

“A mystery for another time,” Serrell remarked.

“Sorry. I shouldn’t let it get to me like that.” Easier said than done, unfortunately.

Over the croplands outside Ponyville, pegasi were assembling rain clouds. Serrell was studying them. “I wonder what it’d take to have weather management in our world.” He looked down at Meg beside him. “It is possible, right?”

“I think so. I know standing on clouds work. Probably need a magic field that encompasses all the clouds, I’m guessing.”

“Yeah, that could be a challenge.” He gazed some more at the weather pegasi at work. “Could we arrange for an experiment, to see if it could be done?”

“I’ll pay Rainbow Dash a visit before dawn. I suspect she’ll be up to the challenge.”

“Before dawn? Wouldn’t she be a—ah, right. You really do that? Visit dreams?”

“She sure does,” Meg said. “Took care of a nasty nightmare of mine, too.”

“That… must have been an interesting experience.”

“It makes the dream lucid, and I can remember it as well as if I’d been awake, so yeah—and that was one strange dream. Tartarus, Celestia, The Tree of Harmony, Jackson and the other human prisoners, and even the Cutie Mark Crusaders.”

Serrell shook his head. “Can’t imagine how those all could fit together.”

“It seemed to make sense at the time.”

“Speaking of which,” Luna said, “I’m glad that you finally figured out how you broke Tirek out of Tartarus. My sister is quite pleased with you.”

“For making her deal with those prison officials? I was happy to get out of there before their attention could focus on me.”

Luna cocked her head. “She said it was… tiring. But their concerns are also our concerns; it is not in our interest for others to do what you will do… have done.”

“I’m staying out of this one,” Serrell said. “Don’t need to know how it was done, don’t want to know. I’m just glad all these time loops seem mostly an Equestrian problem.”

Meg turned around and walked back to the table. “Just because you don’t know about a time loop doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. There was a time when none of us knew about any time loops anywhere; they still existed.”

“Point taken.” He headed back to the table himself. “It’s hard to wrap my mind around.”

“It’s no fun living it either.”

Serrell retook his seat, the one of human design. “Any more thoughts or concerns about your upcoming testimony?”

“Not really.” A thought came to her. “Did you know Lauren Faust sought me out?” Would that have any relevance to her testimony? Seemed unlikely…

Lauren Faust?” Luna asked. “Who’s she?”

“Alleged creator of your world,” Serrell replied first to the princess. “No, and I’m surprised quite frankly.” He leaned back in his chair. “She wanted to stay out of this mess, according to the reports. Couldn’t believe it was happening anyway. What did she want?”

“I’d say those reports are out of date. She wanted to see proof with her own eyes. Wanted to know why Twilight seemed to be avoiding her. Long story short, Twilight agreed to meet her and gave her a quick visit to Canterlot.”

Serrell contemplated that, tapping his fingers together. “Did she happen to offer insight into how her cartoon matched reality?”

“Nope, she’s as clueless as the rest of us. Said she wasn’t a god, which was why she refused to believe it in the first place.”

He rubbed his eyes. “Doesn’t sound like it changes anything. Will there be future contact between Lauren and Twilight?”

“Probably. It looks like I’d be the intermediary.”

“Let me know if anything develops.”

Several thousand years old, and the Parthenon was looking every day of it. Twilight could not help but wonder how the Castle of the Two Sisters managed to remain in such relatively good shape. Possibly because it suffered merely benign neglect? Samantha had provided running commentary of its history as they approached it—mostly for the camera, but Twilight had paid attention, noting how one civilization’s architectural triumph got successively repurposed by later civilizations who cared little for the motivations that drove the original creation, and had anyway long since lost the ability to maintain and repair.

“Along the top,” Samantha continued, “on all sides, ran exquisite statues and friezes. Many did not survive to the present day, and most of those that did had been removed and shipped to museums in other countries. The few that remained suffered damage from modern air pollution, and to save them had to be taken down; those are in the museum nearby.

“As you can see from the scaffolding and the crane, restoration is in progress. Started over a quarter century ago, the work will not be finished anytime soon. The classical Athenians took only nine years to build it, mining over a hundred thousand tons of Pentelic marble from a quarry ten miles away. Decorations took another six years. All without the aid of modern technology, such as that crane.

“The sculptures honored the Greek gods, Athena most of all; other mythological beings were also depicted.” The professor turned to Andy. “Including centaurs, as it happens.”

That caught Twilight’s attention. The portal had been nearby, after all.

Andy was intrigued as well. “As is well known by now, I never returned after becoming one myself, nor am I aware of any other centaur who had gone through the portal or had ever encountered a human.” He smiled. “Of course, the portal had closed after me. If humans and centaurs had ever mixed, it must have been before my time.”

“Have you heard of Pirithous, king of the Lapiths?”

He searched his memories. “Can’t say that I have.”

“He was friends with Theseus, the founder and king of Athens?”

He shook his head. “He was unknown in the Athens I had visited.”

“He’s not known to have actually existed,” she conceded. “But then, neither were you and yet here you are.”

Andy shrugged. “Don’t know what to say.”

“Perhaps he was born after your alleged murder? He was said to have built a palace on this hill, but you have said there was nothing here.”

“Perhaps,” he conceded. “How were these centaurs depicted? I assume there’s a connection to this Pirithous.”

“Yes,” she confirmed. “According to the myth, he was getting married and the centaurs were invited to the wedding. They weren’t used to wine, so they got drunk and tried to abduct the bride and other Lapithan woman. Battle ensued and Theseus, a guest at the wedding, came to Pirithous’s aid. The centaurs were defeated and expelled.”

Andy guffawed. “Centaurs can no more get drunk than horses. Both rapidly break down alcohol. It was one of the pleasures denied to me, and believe me I tried.”

Humans really have that much trouble with alcohol? Twilight had never been in the presence of a drunk human. If Andy had gotten drunk after his return, he had done it in private.

Samantha directed a query at Twilight. “And ponies?”

The camera targeted the pony. “It takes dedication, and it doesn’t last long.”

“Huh. Well… sometimes a myth is just a myth.”

The Secret Service agents had been staying back, content to take in the sights, but Twilight noticed that Reubens was talking on his phone. Fowler was close by, apparently interested in the conversation. Neither looked particularly happy.

The phone call ended. All business, Agent Reubens strode towards her. That conversation evidently concerned herself, and she doubted it was good news.

The others had taken notice. Kyle was not pleased. “We’re trying to shoot a documentary here.”

Reubens ignored him, stopping in front of Twilight. “The president is asking for your assistance, Your Highness. There is what we assume to be of magical origin an ongoing incident in the small Californian town of Tracy.”

The door to Meg’s prison opened. Her accommodations had improved considerably since her arrival. Her captors had built a makeshift room inside the warehouse and even put a half-decent cot in it, upon which she was lying on her back. No toilet in that room, of course. Or shower. Or change of clothes. A man came inside carrying her dinner.

“You can’t keep me here forever,” she ritualistically stated.

There was no answer as the man placed the tray on the small table. They had grown tired of repeating their intention to swap her for the ones who, she had informed them, were by then “probably” in Tartarus.

It was time to start wrapping things up. “They’ll never agree to it, you know. They refuse to believe you have me, right?”

“So they claim.” The man spun around at the door. “Then we’ll make them believe, and for your sake you’d better hope that won’t be necessary.” He took a step towards her. “Any suggestions how to persuade them?”

Meg swung her feet over the side of the bed and sat up. “How about I escape and tell them myself?” Not that she’d actually tell anyone in this time period, obviously, but that wasn’t the point.

The man barked a laugh. “You’re not going anywhere.”

Meg shrugged. “Believe what you want. I know a thing or two about magic.”

He counted off on his fingers. “You don’t have a horn, you don’t have enchanted crystals, and there is no magic in this part of the warehouse.” He counted off his fourth finger. “And you’re still here.”

Thereby proving assumptions were dangerous. “So what happens when someone opens that door and I’m not inside?”

Agent Reubens was dead serious, that much Twilight could tell. “What leads you to think this incident is of magical origin?” She had no reason to doubt that it was—Serrell would not lightly ask for her assistance—but she needed something to go on.

“They couldn’t give a good description of what was happening, basically because nothing like it had ever been seen before. A warehouse in the industrial section of town has… imploded? Air is rushing in from all directions. At the center of it all… they can’t really describe it. All they know is that nothing that goes in remains intact. And it’s getting bigger.”

It sounded oddly familiar, but she couldn’t place a hoof on it. “What precisely happens to objects that go in?”

“I couldn’t tell you. We need to get there ASAP. I suggest taking a shortcut through Equestria. A convoy will be waiting in Sunnyvale to take us there.”

Which wasn’t Tracy. “How long will it take to drive there?”

“This late, around an hour.”

Maybe use the portal? But she would return to Ponyville, and the portal was in Canterlot—and she had nothing prepared to transport the humans. The hour, maybe longer, drive would have to suffice. “Okay.”

“You go on without me,” Yearling said. “I don’t see how I could be of assistance.”

“Wait a minute!” Kyle shouted. “How long will you be gone?”

Twilight threw him a scowl. “This is a tad more important,” she said. “You’ll just have to do without me.”

“I quite agree,” Andy said. “I wouldn’t mind offering my own assistance, but a ‘shortcut through Equestria’ is not an option for me.”

“What does that even mean, a short—”

Twilight invoked the return spell, transporting herself and the two agents to her private residence. “I’ll be back in a second.” She teleported to her bedroom and retrieved a pill—no, two pills—and got her phone, so she could message Meg—and teleported back downstairs. “We’ll go back to the hotel first to retrieve our luggage. That shouldn’t take long.”

“No objection from us,” Fowler said.

And that’s what they did. A few minutes later they were back in Equestria. “Spike!”

A head poked through the railings above. “Yes?”

It seemed silly at the time, but Twilight was now so glad Spike had insisted on having his circadian cycle adjusted too. “I have a message for Luna.” After giving it to Spike, along with some details supplied by the agents, she turned to them. “Where in Sunnyvale?” she asked. She had put down her luggage; the agents held on to theirs.

“The Department of Energy office, in the parking lot behind the building,” Reubens responded.

Twilight swallowed the second plaid pill and took them there. It was night, of course. Three vehicles were lined up, ready to go. “The middle SUV,” Fowler said. Lights began flashing on the other two.

After the agents put their luggage in back, all three took a seat inside the spacious vehicle and the convoy departed.

Naked. The TV camera leered at her, herself being the only person in the Senate chamber who forgot to wear something. None of the others seemed to notice or care, least of all the one holding her leash.

A leash counts as clothing, right?

A sharp yank made her yelp. “Bad pony. That is not the correct answer.”

What was the question again? It had somehow slipped her mind.

“I think that’s enough of that.”

The arrival of Princess Luna brought clarity. The question remained unremembered—for that matter, nor could she remember the “incorrect” answer she had given. Par for the course; it was a dream. She scanned the chamber with new clarity. “Could we have a change of venue?”

The leash thankfully dissolved away. Recalcitrant dog, indeed. Rarity could be blamed for that bit of imagery. Only three more days to the real thing. Meg again scanned the chamber; everything else remained the same. Senator Routledge waited, patiently, yet uninterested in the uninvited alicorn.

“I would first like to take this all in, if you would not mind.”

The hearings had been put on pause. It no longer held power over her. “Getting rid of that leash was enough, I guess.” Meg rubbed her neck with a hoof. “Are you here just for the nightmare, or was there something else?”

“The latter, unfortunately. President Serrell has asked for our assistance. Twilight is even now on her way to a town called Tracy.”

No reaction from the senator. He was a figment of her dream anyway. He could only react as she would expect him to react. “Wait, Tracy? As in California?”

“You know of this town?”

“Well, we’ve driven through it, stopped at a gas station. It’s on the way to the Sierras.” A blank look. “Mountains with a lot of tourist destinations.”

“Ah,” Luna said. “It appears there is a magic incident taking place there.”

“What kind of incident.”

“That is unclear.”

And would obviously remain unclear until Twilight could get there and investigate. But why Tracy? “Too bad I wasn’t involved sooner. I could’ve taken them right there. Well, to Tracy, if not the precise location of the ‘incident.’”

“Then I ask that you go there now. The message from Twilight states that Steve’s special talent may be of use.”

That didn’t sound good at all. “But how would I find it, especially at night? There’re a lot of square miles to search.”

“I was given an address. Would that be sufficient?”

“Exactly what I need. I hop over there, go to the address, come back, and return with Steve.”

Oh.

“One small problem: I’m out of plaid pills.”

“I shall personally deliver some to you right now. Wake up.”

Meg awoke to a dark bedroom, her husband in bed next to her. “What time is it?” she mumbled. She looked at the clock on the nightstand, its hands enchanted to softly glow. Almost two in the morning.

Luna would be there soon.

She sighed and gave Steve a prod with a hoof. “Wake up.”

It took a harder prod.

“What…” he groaned.

“An emergency. Luna will be here any second.”

His horn glowed and a light switched flicked on. “Did you say Luna was coming?”

“I am here,” proclaimed the princess from outside the bedroom.

“Be there in a second!” Meg shouted. “Get the short version from Luna while I get ready,” she said as she rolled out of bed. Her phone was on the nightstand. There was a message from Twilight. It had the address in Tracy. Tapping it brought up the location on a map. A few miles from that gas station? She put on the phone holder Rarity had made for her and put the phone against it, letting the magic lock it in place.

She was as ready as she was going to be. Leaving the bedroom, she found a plaid pill floating in the air waiting for her. “I didn’t know you had your own supply.”

“Twilight gave them to me before she departed, so that I may visit President Serrell.”

Right. How else was Serrell in that room? Twilight was in Greece at the time.

She was wasting time. “Should be back in a few minutes.” She went for the pill.

“Wait. You need the address.”

“Already have it.” Meg held up the leg with the phone. “Twilight messaged me.”

Steve waived a hoof. “Go already.”

Meg went. The gas station was open but idle, as to be expected at this time of night. She brought up her phone, checked her orientation, and leaped into the air. The ground fell away. Maybe that flight training wasn’t a waste of time after all. It wouldn’t be long before she got there.

Once she got to a cruising altitude of a half thousand feet, she focused more on the map on her phone than on the ground. What was she supposed to be looking for down there anyway?

One mile. Another mile. Oh. Meg put her leg down. In the distance were a perimeter of cars, lights flashing atop them. A rather large perimeter. At least a thousand feet in diameter. She doubted there were that many police cars in the entire city. Inside that perimeter a few flood lights had been set up, with another turning on as she watched, illuminating… the remains of a large building? It looked like an implosion, the walls crashing inwards. But there didn’t seem to be enough stuff, and what about the ceiling? In the middle… she couldn’t make sense of it, like darkness through a funhouse mirror. If only the sun was shining.

How close should she get?

Who was in charge down there?

If Twilight had her phone with her, and evidently she did, it would be best to call her. But she could anticipate what the alicorn’s first questions would be. She came to a hover well above the perimeter and prepared to take a picture. Before she took it, she realized she was drifting over the perimeter. There was a breeze here. She was pretty sure there hadn’t been one at the gas station. It was easy enough to correct for. She took the picture.

Unfortunately, to send it, never mind make a phone call, she had to switch off her magic bubble’s invisibility, for it did not make a distinction between radio and visible light. This high up in the night sky, she figured it was safe enough.

After sending the picture, she called Twilight.

“Meg, you’re there?”

“You got the picture, right? Where are you?”

“I got it. I was hoping you’ve been there before. Hard to make out what’s there in the center; I’ve already seen drone footage. I don’t recommend you getting much closer without me. I’m about fifteen minutes away. Is Steve there yet?”

“Not yet. I have to be on the ground to fetch him. Who’s in charge down there?”

“Agent Reubens here. FBI is in charge. I’m in contact with the head of operations there. Look for a flashlight waving about.”

Meg scanned the area below her, but did not see such a flashlight. She began to circle the containment area. “Looking for it,” she said. “They won’t try to arrest me, will they?” She’d just return to Equestria if they did, but that would defeat the purpose of her being there.

“They will not. A state of emergency has been declared. The president has made it clear that ponies are to have free rein within the containment zone—all ponies.”

A state of emergency. Is it really that bad? Some would question the wisdom of giving free rein to ponies. Some would claim ponies were somehow responsible for this emergency—because magic, right?

She flew over the assorted media, bathed in their own pools of light. Of course they’d be here. No waving flashlight down there, she was glad to see. “The press is here,” she warned into her phone.

“We know,” Twilight replied.

Of course she knew; she was in the loop via Reubens. There was probably little she could tell her she didn’t already know.

She found herself drifting towards the perimeter again. That breeze kept shifting direction. It was pulling her lower too. Easy enough to correct for, but something about it didn’t seem right. Oh, right. It’d be obvious if not for the sleep deprivation getting to her.

The anomaly was sucking in air. Where could it all be going?

There. The waving flashlight. Meg began her descent. “Found it. Going in for a landing.”

A few seconds later: “They’ve been informed.”

Nice to know I’m expected. Meg wasn’t sure if she was being sincere or sarcastic. Not being able to descend that steeply, she spiraled down, making sure to spiral down outside the containment zone, breeze or no breeze. Rainbow Dash, of course, would’ve dived straight down and pulled out at the last possible second to a perfect touchdown. Meg doubted any amount of training would enable her to do likewise.

She made her final approach. The flashlight pointed right at her. Despite what Reubens had said, she hoped that’s all that was pointed at her. It certainly made it difficult to tell who she was approaching.

“I’ve landed,” she said to Twilight over her phone—but more to let them know she was in touch with others—and to them, she said, “Do you really have to shine that in my eyes?”

The flashlight switched off. It took a few seconds for her eyes to adjust to the lesser illumination of the nearby street lights. There were three G-men—none of whom were pointing a gun at her. A promising start.

“Sorry,” the flashlight owner said. “I’ve never seen a flesh-and-blood pony before. You’re really a former human?”

Here we go again. “Right now I’m not human.” So they knew who she was, and still no guns pointed at her.

“Can the smalltalk,” said another. “I’m Special Agent MacAuley, the one in charge here. There’s supposed to be a unicorn with you?”

“I’ll be back in a minute with him.” Meg invoked the return spell.

Luna was still there. “I was beginning to be worried.”

“Is that Luna I hear?”

Meg lifted her phone and put the audio on speaker. “She’s here, Twilight. Anything you want to tell her? Make it quick. I really should get back ASAP.”

“Just surprised, that’s all. I should arrive in a few more minutes.”

Plaid pills floated over to Meg and Steve. “Be careful, Twilight.”

“I will, Luna.”

Steve walked over to Meg, pill in mouth. Meg nodded. A few seconds later, she was back in Tracy, this time with Steve at her side. “Switch off the invisibility,” she told him. “On the count of three… one… two… three.”

“I don’t believe it,” the third one said.

“What I don’t understand,” MacAuley said, “is how you can come straight to Tracy, while this Twilight had to drive all the way from the coast.”

Missed opportunity is what it was, but Meg chose instead to say, “Magic doesn’t always make sense.” Especially when it was Discord’s magic.

He waved a hand at Steve. “So what is it you unicorns do?”

Steve took a few steps to the zone. “In this case, investigate.”

Meg caught up to him. “Twilight said not to get closer until she arrived.”

He stared at the anomaly. “No argument from me.” He closed his eyes and lit his horn.

Seconds passed. “What’s he doing?” MacAuley asked.

“Investigating,” Meg answered.

Steve reopened his eyes. “I can’t sense anything from here. I either need to get closer or I need a much larger magic field. You think Twilight has a generator with her?”

Meg shrugged. “If not, we can go back and get one. Sounds safer than getting closer.”

“You don’t want to get too close to that,” MacAuley warned.

“Why?” Steve asked. “What happens?”

“You notice this breeze?”

“Yes.”

“It gets stronger the closer you get, like it’s sucking the air out.”

Like? “Is the air being sucked into it or not?” It sure seems like it.

“Beats me. And it’s getting bigger. That’s why it’s an emergency.”

“Have you sent a drone in there?” Steve asked.

“It didn’t survive.”

“I see.” Steve continued to stare at the anomaly. “I’m beginning to have a clue as to why Twilight wants me here.”

“Which is?” MacAuley asked.

“I’d rather not say yet. Twilight should be here soon.”

The convoy came to a halt. Agent Reubens opened the door and got out, leaving it open. Twilight jumped out and scanned the area. There. She began trotting towards the two other ponies present. Beyond them was the containment zone.

Once she was close enough, Steve called out a question to her. “Do you have a generator on you?”

Twilight nodded. “In my saddlebags.”

“How big a bubble can it create?”

She considered the anomaly. “Not that big. We’ll have to get somewhat closer.” A possibility came to her as she reached them. “Unless it’s maintaining a sizable magic bubble of its own.”

“How likely is that?” Meg asked. “I mean, magic presumably created that, but is magic needed to maintain it?”

“We don’t know what it is,” Steve said.

“Only one way to find out.” Twilight turned up the generator to maximum output.

Meg grimaced, stepping back a few feet. “That brings back memories.” She stepped back a few more. “That’s concentrated magic, all right.”

That would’ve been after the leak had been closed, Twilight remembered. When Discord was pushing all the magic remaining in the hyperspatial tube back into Equestria. She hadn’t experienced it herself, though Celestia had found it “bracing.” Twilight wasn’t finding the generator’s concentrated magic unpleasant in the least. Was it an alicorn thing?

“I don’t feel anything,” MacAuley said.

The other two humans looked at each other and shrugged. “Me neither,” said one of them.

“I wouldn’t expect you to,” Twilight said, “not being magical creatures. You okay, Steve?”

He experimentally lit his horn. “It’s… interesting. Not exactly pleasant, but I can deal with it.”

“Then give it a go.”

The unicorn closed his eyes and put his special talent to work. Twilight put to work her own magical senses.

“Is this going to take all night?”

“Perhaps,” Twilight admitted. “I’m not sensing anything from here.”

“Me neither.” Steve ducked under the yellow tape marking the perimeter and kept on going. “How far should we advance?”

Twilight caught up to him. “As a first approximation, whichever comes first: the wind gets too strong, or one of us senses something.”

Steve grunted. “If the latter, I do hope that happens before the point of no return. You do know that drones sent in there cease to function, right?”

“Actually, no. At what point does that happen?”

“We’re nowhere near that point—yet.” It turned out that Special Agent MacAuley had been following them.

Twilight glance behind her. Reubens and Fowler were beside him. They would be the president’s eyes and ears, she knew.

One hundred feet.

One fifty.

Two hundred.

The breeze was gaining strength, becoming outright wind. Air flow ought to quadruple in speed as the distance was halved; that seemed to be happening.

Two fifty.

Three hundred.

“Stop,” Steve commanded. “I’m picking something up.”

Twilight strained her magical senses. “I’m not.”

“So what is it?” MacAuley asked Steve.

“Something is messing with space-time. It’s… expanding in there. That’s what’s sucking the air in, newly created vacuum.”

“So how much air will it gobble up?”

“Potentially? All of it. Unless we stop the expansion.”

The agent digested that. “Would that destroy a drone?”

“Maybe? Depends how fast the expansion is… would rip it apart.” He shook his head. “No. If it was that fast, it would be pulling in air a lot harder… wait…” Eyes closed in concentration. “I think time is being dilated in there too. That would slow down the air flow. Could also mess with the drone’s remote control, even if it stayed intact, by doppler-shifting the radio waves.”

“Is there a way to compensate for that?”

“Theoretically? Sure. The Huygens probe that was part of the Cassini mission to Titan had to do just that. But it’s tricky; though the probe was engineered to do that, an oversight almost doomed the mission. Drones for use on Earth aren’t engineered for that, and I very much doubt they can be quickly modified to handle it.”

Maybe without magic. Twilight knew of spells that could compensate for time dilation; her fear was that such spells were the cause of the anomaly before them. But how could humans know of Star Swirl’s work, never mind use it? For now, they were only unfounded fears. No need to share them yet.

“I’m surprised a pony would know of that.”

Steve let his horn rest and turned around to face MacAuley. “I’m the other human-turned-pony, if you must know. I also happen to have a Ph.D. in Physics from Stanford, so you may trust that I know what I’m talking about.”

The agent threw up his hands in submission. “Fine, so now I know.” Still, a smirk. “But I bet you didn’t learn how to use that horn at Stanford.”

Steve sighed. “No, I certainly did not.”

“I taught him, if you must know.” Twilight stared at the anomaly. She needed to uncover the spell work that created it. Only then could she figure out how to end it. “I’m afraid we’ll have to get closer.”

“I wouldn’t recommend it,” MacAuley said. “The wind is bad enough here.”

A valid point, but there were ways of dealing with that. “Steve, how much farther until space-time becomes… unhealthy?”

“Between another two and three hundred feet, I’d say. I can definitely stop us before that point was reached. The real problem is this wind. It’ll overpower us well before that point.”

It had already done that to most of the interior of the former building. The concrete floor was holding up well enough—except right under the anomaly itself. Concrete would not effectively resist being pulled apart by space itself expanding.

“I can request a suitably heavy vehicle,” MacAuley offered, “and have it anchored.”

“How long will it take?” Reubens asked.

“More hours than I like.”

“I don’t think it’s wise to wait that long,” Twilight said. “A shield spell combined with a telekinetic anchor should suffice.” She cast a slightly porous shield and the wind faded to a mild breeze—only to be replaced, as demanded by this realm’s insistence on balancing the books, by the strain of transferring its force deep into the ground.

MacAuley looked around at the translucent bubble enclosing them all. “Amazing.”

“You get used to it,” Fowler remarked, offering a smirk of her own.

“You sure you can keep this up?” Steve asked.

Twilight checked the generator. The drain was high, but several pounds of U-235 held an incredible amount of energy. “The generator’s good.”

“That isn’t what I meant.”

Was the strain that obvious? “I’ll manage.”

Our lives depend on it.

They started walking.

“I’m not sensing anything anymore,” Steve said.

“The generator was already maxed out,” Twilight said. “Powering this spell has shrunk the magic bubble somewhat.”

“Not by much, I hope. I can’t tell if we’re dangerously close without it.” He examined the ground ahead of them. “Though I suppose it ought to be visually obvious too.”

Fortunately the lights illuminating the anomaly weren’t directly behind them, so their shadows didn’t obscure the ground. They kept on advancing, step by step.

Another ten feet.

And another.

“I’m sensing it again.”

“And I’m still not.”

The anomaly was now close enough to reveal some details. It seemed to be spherical in shape, maybe five or six meters in diameter, but it was hard to tell given the darkness. It didn’t reflect any of the lights, nor was it opaque to them. Lights on the opposite side were visible, but oddly distorted. It seemed to be resting in the crater that it created, but the bottom of it could not be seen from this angle. Flying would solve that, but it wasn’t an option with the others dependent on her shield.

Despite the shield, the breeze was picking up strength as they got closer. On second thought, flying above the anomaly wasn’t an option even if she had been alone. Maybe Rainbow Dash could avoid being sucked in; herself, she wasn’t so sure. Twilight decided against tightening the shield; better not to hide the danger any more than necessary.

There.

Twilight went a few more feet then stopped. “The ambient magic has changed. This anomaly is generating its own magic field.” But how? If Steve was right, any magic generator originally inside there had been ripped apart.

“What about active spells?” Steve asked.

“Working on it.” There must be an active spell involved, if only to generate this field. She closed her eyes and focused her magical senses, searching.

“Twilight… not that I want to rush you or anything, but the sooner we go back the better.”

“Almost there…” Having to keep up the shield spell and the telekinetic anchor was not helping.

“I’m serious. I think your magic generator is adding power to whatever is going on in there.”

Is it? She switched tracks, tracing the flow from her generator to the anomaly and… “Got it. Let’s get out of here.”

No one had to be told twice. “So what’s the verdict?” MacAuley asked as he ran after the trotting ponies.

My worst fears confirmed. “I know what spell caused this. What I don’t know is who could’ve possibly cast it here—or why.” Precious few could have cast it—and she refused to believe that her future self had done so. There was no conceivable or justifiable reason for doing this.

The yellow tape marking the perimeter approached. On the other side of it Meg had been waiting patiently, looking half-asleep. Twilight slowed to a walk and dropped the shield spell.

Ruebens took a moment to catch his breath. “I think I can answer the ‘who’ part. We have some leads that The Section had set up shop here, but we didn’t know precisely where or for what.”

“But it’s becoming easier to guess,” Fowler added.

“What’s this about The Section?” Meg asked.

Her husband answered: “It’s possible they might be involved with this.”

“Great,” Meg muttered. In a normal voice she said, “The wind picked up strength while you were there.”

It wasn’t by much, but a pegasus could be counted on noticing something like that.

Steve was looking at the anomaly. “It’s grown visibly larger too. I was afraid of that.”

The others turned around to see for themselves.

“Shit.” MacAuley glared at Steve. “What do you mean by that?”

“We were supplying it with additional power.”

Twilight cringed. “He’s right.” That was how she tracked down the spell. But she was still missing something. “It was already growing, before we arrived, correct?”

MacAuley carefully answered, “That’s right.”

She turned to Steve. “Then where does that power come from? It’s safe to say they were using the magic generators they stole from the Department of Energy. Would those be up to this, if they were even still functioning?”

“I have to say no. And we have a bigger problem.”

“And what would that be?” MacAuley asked.

“It’s safe to assume magic will be needed to fix this. That means getting a magic generator near the anomaly. If we’re unlucky enough, we’d need a sufficient quantity to encompass the entire anomaly.”

Twilight supplied the conclusion. “And we now know it ‘feeds’ off any generator in close proximity.”

“Exactly. Though since it maintains its own magic field, a small generator may be sufficient.”

“Maybe that’s part of the solution. Figure out how it’s doing that and block it, starve it of magic.”

Steve didn’t reply immediately. “Be careful. Magic may be what’s stabilizing it. Starving it could be catastrophic. You said you know what spell caused this, right?”

“I do.” Her head sagged. “It’s a variation of Star Swirl’s space expansion spell, similar to the spell used on Celestia’s high security vaults. But it’s been incorrectly cast.”

“So you know how to fix this,” MacAuley stated.

Twilight stared into the abyss that was the interior of the anomaly. “Not yet.”

“You can’t keep me here forever.”

The man—Meg still didn’t know his name—slammed the door behind him. “And you’ll have to do better than your last attempt.”

“I got out of this room, didn’t I?”

Without bothering to open the door, never mind unlocking it. There was no need to limit herself to three dimensions. She had invoked her own version of a “return spell,” a spell that returned her to hyperspace.

She had deliberately let herself get caught, of course, and get caught inside the building no less. “Next time, I’ll get out of this building.”

Conflicting emotions fought for control. He settled on a sneer. “Despite your best efforts, we accessed the advanced spells kept on your computer.”

Her efforts to prevent that had only been enough to look convincing. The past was immutable, after all. But she had little trouble looking crushed. “You should not meddle in matters beyond your comprehension.” Even as she said it, she cringed at how clichéd it sounded.

“Fortunately, you ‘know a thing or two about magic.’” He literally finger quoted that. His eyes turned stone cold. “You have a niece, do you not?”

Steve had not returned home when Meg woke up the next morning in her bed. She hadn’t stuck around in Tracy; there wasn’t anything she could do there. Twilight did suggest before Meg departed that a software model for the anomaly would be helpful. A model certainly wouldn’t hurt, but not one created while sleep deprived. Not that she got a good night’s sleep. Her upcoming appearance before the Senate made sure of that.

But that was two days away, and this crisis was now, so where to start?

Best to start with breakfast.

Meg got out of bed and made her way to the kitchen. She stopped before she got there. There was a folded note card on the table with her name on it. It bore a royal seal.

After picking it up and unfolding it, she read it. It was a request that she attend a working breakfast with the princesses. Guess I don’t have to make myself breakfast, was her first thought. Her second thought was to wonder which princesses would be present. Celestia, certainly. Luna, probably, though it wouldn’t be breakfast, technically speaking, for her.

Twilight, that was the question. But since Steve hadn’t returned, presumably neither had Twilight. And those two would have the most up-to-date information.

The card had not stated what would be “worked.” Maybe she shouldn’t make assumptions. Just make herself presentable and go. She’d find out soon enough.

Dawn had broken. The sun was only minutes away from rising unassisted. This was a state of affairs that didn’t exist in Equestria, where the transition from night to day was far, far shorter. It was the first time Twilight would experience the human realm’s version.

The wind at the perimeter had strengthened in the last few hours. Presumably the anomaly had grown in size to match, but that was surprisingly challenging to determine—and not just because it had been until recently night. It wasn’t opaque. It didn’t glow. There was no obvious boundary. Whatever was on the other side of it was plainly visible, if somewhat distorted. Maybe slightly dimmer too, with the hint of a tint. The interior was there for them to see, but all that could be seen was… nothing.

“Can you get a lidar unit here?” Steve asked, a mug of coffee floating before him. He was talking to MacAuley, who also had a mug. It was the only way they were staying awake. “We need to measure how big it is—on the inside—and more importantly, how fast it’s growing. Also determine the geometry in there; light can map out the geodesics.”

Lidar? Whatever that was. She still found it amazing how many inventions humans had with which to do what ponies did with magic. Like measuring the size of this anomaly. She had already ruled out using the spell for measuring a realm’s size. Not that it wouldn’t have worked, but because it would require exposing the anomaly to another magic generator. It was growing fast enough on its own.

“Sure,” MacAuley said. “We can get whatever we need. But we can see the dent in the ground it’s making. Isn’t that a good enough approximation?”

Steve shook his head. “It’s a lot bigger on the inside than the outside; that’s where all the air is going. A laser is the only thing we’ve got that can pass through it in one piece.”

“How can you be so sure of that?” MacAuley shrugged. “Not that I can see any harm in trying.”

“Because we can see through it.”

MacAuley did just that, gazing at the far side. “Yeah.” He turned to a subordinate. “Go requisition one.”

The subordinate nodded and left them, careful not to spill any coffee from his mug.

“So where is all the air going? I mean, can we get it back? Has it left our universe or something?”

“No, it’s still very much a part of our universe. Think of our universe as a rubber sheet, ignoring the fact that this sheet is two dimensions instead of three. Now think of this anomaly as a bubble in a rubber sheet. If we can shrink it, make the sheet flat again, we get all the air back.”

“And if the bubble… pops? Does everything bleed out of our universe into… whatever contains our universe?”

Steve shook his head. “I wouldn’t worry about that. The rubber sheet analogy is flawed, but I don’t have anything better. It can’t pop. It’s not even a bubble, really, in that it doesn’t ‘extrude’ outside the universe; that’s not how space-time curvature works. It’s not how the expansion of the universe itself works. There is no ‘outside the universe’ as far as the laws of physics are concerned.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

No outside the universe… But there was, of course. Even if this realm’s physics was oblivious to it. “Perhaps we should go out there and take a look,” she told Steve. “A different perspective could help.”

He thought about it. “No idea what we would see, but I guess that’s the point. If we can locate this spot. And if you-know-who cooperated.”

MacAuley raised an eyebrow. “You-know-who? Any reason I should remain ignorant?”

Twilight sighed. “Discord, if you must know.”

“I thought he couldn’t come to our world.”

“He can’t. That’s not what I’m suggesting.”

“Then what are you suggesting?”

Twilight hesitated. She looked to Steve. He shrugged. “You might as well tell him,” he said.

The FBI agent was waiting.

“Fine. We can go outside your realm, into the hyperspatial void between our realms, and take a look at this anomaly from the outside. No idea what we’d see, but, as Steve said, that’s the point.”

“I thought he just said there was no ‘outside.’”

“No, I said our laws of physics don’t acknowledge an outside. There’s very definitely an outside. Both Twilight and I have been there.”

“Can our scientists accompany you?”

Twilight frowned. “Unfortunately not. Discord claims that he can only keep magical creatures alive in that place.” And yet Future Meg, apparently in human form, was able to handle it all on her own. Must have been due to future technology. Regardless, it was of no help to them in the present.

MacAuley locked his gaze onto a certain unicorn. “May I assume that you are now a magical creature?”

Steve was unfazed. “If by that you are asking whether your scientists can be turned into magical ponies so they can accompany us, the answer is yes. Would they be willing to do that? It is not a decision to make lightly.”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here,” Twilight declared. There were enough things on her to-do list without adding the training of additional humans-turned-ponies.

“I’ll pass that along,” MacAuley said, evidently content not to discuss that topic further. “Do you think you can fix this from—hyperspace, was it?”

Twilight and Steve exchanged glances. “I wouldn’t depend on it,” Steve said.

The phone in Twilight’s saddlebag started playing the My Little Pony theme, which meant Meg was calling her. Custom ring tones were an fortuitous discovery; she could now ignore any unknown caller. The rare such call she’d actually care about usually left a message. She retrieved her phone from the saddlebag and accepted the call, putting it on speakerphone. “Hi, Meg.”

“Do you have a few minutes? I’m in a meeting with the other princesses. They’d like an update.”

“And little old me!”

Discord’s there too? Twilight couldn’t imagine what… well, they could use his help anyway. “Sure, we can give an update.” She waved Steve over. “Why don’t you summarize what we’ve come up with so far.”

Steve did so. While he was doing so, MacAuley had come over uninvited. Twilight didn’t think it productive to point that fact out. “Are you willing to escort us there?” Steve concluded with a question directed at Discord.

“I wouldn’t miss it for anything. I can almost taste the chaos it must be causing, all the way here in Canterlot.”

MacAuley fumed. “That ‘chaos’ you’re tasting may end up destroying our world, if we can’t put a stop to it.”

“And my help you shall have. A dead world is a dull, boring, chaos-free world.”

“Don’t argue with him,” Steve softly said.

MacAuley glared at the unicorn, but then thought better of it.

“Who are we addressing?” asked Princess Celestia.

“Special Agent MacAuley. I’m in charge here. And to whom am I speaking?”

Twilight face-hoofed.

“Princess Celestia. I can assure you, Special Agent MacAuley, that we shall provide whatever assistance we can to end this magic-based threat. It is deeply troubling that there is one, in the first place, in your realm.”

“Your Highness. Perhaps it was inevitable there’d be a first,” he conceded. “Fortunately, there is reason to believe ponies were not behind this.”

“As much as I wish that were true, I am not so sure. I am familiar with Star Swirl’s space expansion spell. There are few ponies I would trust to cast it. I have always myself cast it on the few vaults in my palace that would benefit from it. It is difficult to imagine how humans could have learned of this spell, much less cast it.”

MacAuley gazed into the anomaly. “Unfortunately, forensics is impossible when the spell has destroyed evidence of its own casting.”

“A not uncommon occurrence when that spell is cast incorrectly.”

He drank some coffee. “So how do you recover from that? Can we not do that too?”

“I think I should answer that.”

“Of course, Twilight.”

“There are spells to deal with this,” Twilight began. “I am of course familiar with them. The problem is, they won’t work in this realm. They don’t conserve energy, can’t conserve energy, which this realm won’t tolerate, and it isn’t obvious how to fix that.”

MacAuley sighed. “It is obvious that it cannot be fixed?”

“No?”

“I guess that’ll have to do for now.” Sudden realization struck, and he pointed a finger at the phone. “You received a phone call from… Canterlot, was it?”

“I’ve got my phone with me,” Meg said.

“And you’re there, in the same room as Princess Celestia and Discord.”

“I am here as well,” declared Princess Luna.

“Us too,” Cadance said. “We happen to be in town.”

“And you’re doing a great job, Twily.”

Did he even recognize all those voices? He hadn’t recognize Celestia’s. “Uh, in order, that was Princess Luna, Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, and Prince Shining Armor.”

He waved that away. “Your phone is getting a signal in Equestria?”

Over the phone, Meg simply said, “Magic.”

“Magic.”

Twilight smiled. “That’s right. Magic.” The full explanation would no doubt go over his head.

Steve changed the subject. “Look, I’m running on fumes here and coffee can only do so much. Until we can get that lidar there’s not much more I can do here, so I think I’ll return and try to get some shuteye, then maybe help Meg with modeling the anomaly in software.”

“Quite honestly, I think I’ll need Twilight’s help with that, because of the magic component. Unless, Twilight, you think Sunset Shimmer knows that spell.”

“She does,” Celestia said, preempting Twilight.

Steve was pointing off into the distance. “Are we on camera?”

MacAuley turned around. “Not good.”

Twilight looked for herself. A human with a shoulder-mounted camera was standing next to a parked van, using it to obscure their presence—attempting to use it, anyway. Another human, behind the first, was pointing some sort of… was that a large funnel of some sort? Whatever it was, it was pointed in their direction too. Reubens was already purposefully striding in their direction.

“Is that a directional mike?” Steve asked.

“Looks like it,” MacAuley said.

Agent Reubens reached the pair. Neither had tried to escape him. The funnel was no longer pointed at them. Was that the “directional mike?” What did it do?

“How long do you think they were listening to us?” Steve asked.

“Your guess is as good as mine,” MacAuley replied.

Twilight’s eyes widened in alarm. “They were listening to us?” She remembered the camera. “Wait, was what we were saying being recorded?!” It had never occurred to her that there could be technological equivalents to eavesdropping spells here.

“Yep,” Steve said with a sigh. “And if we’re really unlucky, they were transmitting, not recording.”

The phone. It was still in her magical grasp. She looked down at it. “Did you hear that, Celestia?”

“Yes, Twilight. You are best suited to determine the prudent course of action.”

“Damage control,” MacAuley dryly noted.

That was obvious, but how? She didn’t even know how long they’d been there! Her only consolation was that the others were just as caught off guard—and they were familiar with the technological possibilities.

They watched in silence as Reubens questioned the two men. It wasn’t much longer before the interrogation ended and he started back. The other two made haste and headed back to the media pool.

“So?” MacAuley asked once Reubens returned.

“They got everything starting about the time the subject of lidar came up. They were transmitting, so that’s that. It’ll be all over the news soon enough.”

“Great. Time to get started on that damage control. So if you’ll excuse me…”

“Sure,” Twilight said. She turned to the Secret Service agents. “You too?”

Reubens and Fowler shared a glance. “I’m afraid so,” he said. “I’ll go make the call.” And he departed.

“I’m going back now. Let me know when the lidar arrives.” Steve vanished.

“Just us two left,” Fowler said. “You should probably go back too. Doesn’t look like there’s anything else you can do at the moment.”

There didn’t seem to be. Maybe her time would be better spent working with Meg on that simulation software. She looked down at her phone. It was still communicating with Meg’s phone. “Any ideas over there on what I can do?”

Several seconds of silence. “There does not appear to be,” Celestia said.

What? Not even a… creative one from Discord? “Okay. I’m returning. Talk to you later.”

Meg followed Sunset Shimmer through the old mining tunnels, the latter’s horn lighting the way. It was a refreshing change from the helmet light she usually relied upon. When they reached the locked door, the unicorn was able to unlock and open it with her magic—another refreshing change. Normally, Meg had to knock and wait.

A royal guard came to investigate immediately, of course, but relaxed upon seeing them, content to close and magically re-lock the door. Meg quickly noticed all her co-workers were present and gathered around a whiteboard.

There was also someone else present, seated in a chair out of the way, who was far more interested in the new arrivals than in the whiteboard: Lauren Faust.

“Could someone fill me in?” Meg asked.

Diana paused her scribbling on the whiteboard. “About the situation in Tracy, or our unexpected guest?”

“I’ve been to Tracy, seen the anomaly for myself. Twilight was there too. Are all of you being dragged into this?”

“Top priority. We’re to do whatever we can to get a handle on it. If Twilight was there, could she confirm magic was involved?”

“She sure did. Has a good idea which spell it was too: one of Star Swirl’s, though incorrectly cast. That’s why Sunset is here, to help me model it in software.”

Faust joined the conversation. “Star Swirl, as in ‘the Bearded.’”

“The one and only,” Meg replied. “I don’t want to be rude or anything, but this is the last place I’d expect to find you.”

“Faust’s getting the VIP treatment,” Jake, their manager, said. “Word came down from on high.”

Their guest shrugged. “I don’t know what you did after I last saw you, but all the sudden my calls were being returned and… here I am. Or should I be thanking Twilight?”

“It could have been either of us,” Meg said. Though it was probably my mentioning you to Serrell that did it. She walked towards her workstation. “If this is top priority, I’m assuming we’ll have all the computing resources we could want to run my model of the anomaly once I get it running?”

“Money is no object,” Jake declared.

As opposed to when I ran the simulation that came up with the necklace for my Pinkie Pie doll. She arrived at her workstation. Whatever happened to that necklace? She had gotten the Pinkie Pie doll back from the FBI, but it was missing its collar. No one seemed able to explain what happened to it.

“When do you think you can have something to run?” he asked.

“I don’t know how to model it yet. I guess I can start with a black hole simulator, because something is definitely being done to space-time. The big unknown is how that space expansion spell is interacting with the field equations, never mind what the hell is powering it.”

Faust asked, “How are you going to use a keyboard with hooves?”

Meg’s hoof stopped short of her pendant. “I wasn’t. I was about to go human. Easier to sit in this chair, too.”

“Right. You can do that here. But before you do that… could you fly a bit? I’d like to see a pegasus flying up close—if you’re not exhausted from flight training again.”

“She’s never flown for any of us,” Martin pointed out.

“You never asked,” Meg shot back. The cavern was big enough, so long as she kept it slow and easy. She decided that humoring her wouldn’t hurt. “Sure, I can afford a minute or two.”

So she stepped away from the computer, extended her wings, began flapping, and lifted a few feet off the floor. Next she carefully flew over to Faust. “So what do you think?”

“I’m thinking…” Her eyes were tracking the slow flapping of Meg’s wings. “I’m thinking that you’re barely exerting yourself—which ought to be impossible.” She threw up her hands. “I know, I know. Magic.”

“You’re right on both counts. I’m not exerting myself; I can keep this up indefinitely. And magic.”

Diana approached her. “But pegasi can fly in our universe, right? You must be violating conservation of momentum; you’re not moving enough air, to put it mildly.”

“It doesn’t feel any different flying in the other universe. I don’t know how it knows, but flight magic compensates. Over there, momentum is conserved; the equal and opposite momentum is carried away by gravitational waves. But only over there; here, it isn’t conserved.”

“How do you know that?” Jerry asked.

Meg was beginning to wish she had simply claimed ignorance. “My husband figured it out shortly after becoming a unicorn. Telekinesis works the same way.”

“Okay… Regardless, how does magic ‘know’ how to deal with the limitations of our universe?”

“I, uh…” Meg turned her head to the unicorn in the room. “Do you have a clue?”

Sunset looked up in thought. “Can’t say I do. There is much we don’t understand about so-called instinctive magic, even as to how it works in our own realm.”

Meg returned to the floor and squeezed her pendant, eliciting a shocked squeal from Faust.

“You get used to it,” Diana said.

“I sure have,” Meg commented as she walked on two legs back to her workstation. She sat down and logged on to her computer.

“I-I can’t even begin to imagine what it must… must be like to experience a transformation like that!”

Meg spun around in her chair and threw Faust a smile. “That makes two of us. I don’t experience anything. Really. And I’ve tried. It’s always something that has happened, never something that is happening.” She returned to her computer. “Probably better that way.”

Martin rubbed his chin in thought. “Stream of consciousness is unaffected by the transformation. So when your brain is transformed between human and pegasus, its state is perfectly and instantaneously mapped from one to the other. That sounds like one hell of a computation that’s being performed damned fast.”

“It’s magic,” Meg said with a sigh. “What do you want?”

“To understand it, of course. If we could harness it… just imagine what else it could ‘compute.’”

“Who says it can ‘compute’ anything?” Jerry said. “It’s magic, not a computer.”

“Still looks like it’s computing to me.”

“On what? No conceivable computer can begin to compute that!”

“Maybe this proves we’re living in a simulation. That’s what we should find out!”

“We can worry about that later,” Jake said. “After we save the world.”

“Not even then,” Sunset said. “That particular spell is beyond my ability to cast. Beyond any unicorn’s ability to cast.”

“She means it’s alicorns only,” Meg said. “Or Discord. So don’t get your hopes up.” She started typing, creating a new branch in the repository holding the black hole simulator. Then her hands went slack. “That was the easy part. Still have no idea how to model the spell.”

Sunset scrunched her face. “A spell cast incorrectly. Which makes it worse. We don’t yet know how it was incorrectly cast.”

“Maybe the simulator can help figure that out?” Diana suggested. “Vary the parameters until it matches observations.”

“That could work,” Meg said. “Especially since we have an unlimited computing budget. One small problem though: we don’t have observations to match against—not yet.”

“And what are the parameters to vary?” Sunset added.

“Well,” Martin began. “There’s an obvious one to start with. It’s a spatial expansion spell, right? The field equation has a term tailor-made for that, the so-called cosmological constant. What if the spell manipulated that?”

“It’s as good a place to start as any,” Meg said. “There’s still a problem though. Star Swirl didn’t have a clue about Relativity. His spell would only manipulate space, ignoring that it was connected with time.”

“Which is why,” Sunset continued, “that spell must be cast with precision, otherwise things can go horribly wrong. And that includes problems with time.”

“And Steve reported that time dilation is happening inside the anomaly. Plugging in a non-zero value for the cosmological constant won’t cause that.”

Martin shrugged. “Doesn’t mean that’s not a part of it. Maybe if the spell was written with knowledge of General Relativity, that’s what it’d do, directly. Because it wasn’t, maybe it’s doing it indirectly, via some Rube Goldberg contraption. It’s only his genius that got it to work at all.”

Sunset gave him a studied look. “You know what? I can’t say you’re wrong. But it does make me wonder how he managed to avoid destroying our realm before he got it working.”

Twilight’s head sank onto the open book. Her head jerked back up again. “Maybe I could use some coffee,” she groaned. She was still running on Greek time. That had become as unhelpful here in her library as it had been helpful the previous night in Tracy.

“Latest set of books from Celestia.” Spike walked in, yawning, with three books in his hands. “She thinks these are the last she’ll find.”

All were quite thick. “Put them over there, Spike.”

He did so, adding them to the existing pile. And yawned again. “Maybe you should catch some shuteye?”

“There’s no time for that. That anomaly had doubled in size, at least, while I was there, maybe more.”

“Then at least use that… what did you call it? That ‘jet lag’ spell?”

She yawned. “Won’t help. It only lets me fall asleep when I otherwise couldn’t; it won’t keep me awake.”

“Tea? Coffee?”

She’d prefer tea, but she needed something stronger. “Coffee.”

“Whoa. You really are struggling. Be right back!”

As the baby dragon hurried out, a disguised pegasus entered. “Save the world yet?”

Twilight eyed the too-energetic Yearling. “How are you managing to stay awake? And no, not yet.”

“It’s not that late. You’re working yourself too hard. You should take a break.”

Her head slumped back onto the book. “Maybe you’re right. I can hardly think straight.” She looked up at Yearling. “How would Daring Do solve this one?”

“She wouldn’t. This isn’t her kind of story.”

Twilight sighed. “I suppose not. So what did I miss in Athens?”

“Well, in addition to the Parthenon, which you saw, briefly, we also visited the Old Temple of Athena, the Sanctuary of Zeus Polieus, the Theater of Dionysus Eleuthereus—”

“I get the idea.”

“Also an impressive museum,” she hurriedly finished. “Seeing so many ancient ruins belonging to an alien civilization… they’re like nothing I’ve ever seen before.”

Maybe it was just as well I had to depart early. Visiting ruins for the sake of visiting them didn’t do much for her. “They are human, after all. So when do you leave for Knossos?”

“Tomorrow.”

Spike returned with a mug in claw. “Hey, A.K. Would you also like a mug of coffee?”

She shook her head. “No thanks. I plan on going to bed soon.”

He set the mug down in front of Twilight. “Probably a good idea.”

Twilight stared at the mug, not disturbing it.

“You might still want to go there,” Yearling said. “There’s still the question of that minotaur myth.”

That was her motivation for tagging along. It hadn’t become less important just because of the anomaly. Maybe she could find an hour or two. But if she didn’t go back now, how would she get to that palace?

Seemingly reading her mind, Yearling added, “I can take you there when you have the time.”

Of course she could; that’s how the plaid pills worked. It would be better to do so while Andy was still there, when they had official permission to poke around, but that wasn’t absolutely necessary.

“I’ll let you know.”

Another of Star Swirl’s space-manipulating spells opened up in a window. As originally written, they were comprehensible only to a trained unicorn. Meg had translated them into something comprehensible to humans during her preparation for this mission. She loaded it into the magic simulation software, as demanded.

“None of these spells is going to form a wormhole to Equestria,” Meg dutifully commented.

“It’s obviously possible; you’ve proved that often enough.”

Meg said nothing more. She had given them enough chances, lost cause it may have been, but she’d had to try—if only for her own sake.

She would depart that night. They would carry out their threats against Susie as a consequence; that was the point of goading them. The immutable past was immutable; paradoxes were forbidden. Yet there she could sleep easy. They were not monsters. No harm had come to her niece, not even psychological.

Even so, she wished she could apologize to Susie. It was too late for that, alas. Once she returned home, she decided, she would visit the statue of Susie that still stood in Canterlot, the one celebrating the harmony Susie had dedicated her long life to fostering between humans and ponies.

Soon after she had awakened, shortly before dawn in Greece, Twilight teleported into the cavern. Meg was where she’d expected her to be, at her workstation interacting with her computer. Steve, still a unicorn, was by her side, and Sunset Shimmer by her other side. The other humans were in front of a whiteboard. The equations scribbled there were obviously derived from general relativity, though nothing like she had ever seen in a book.

“Any progress?” she asked.

“Hard to say,” Sunset replied, still focused on the monitor.

“We may have figured out what’s powering that thing,” Steve said, “at least from a purely theoretical standpoint. But nothing else seems plausible that’s also consistent with the conservation of energy.”

Twilight thought they’d be more excited by that. Knowing what powered it meant knowing how to stop its growth. Right? “So how would we shut it down?—from a purely theoretical standpoint.”

“We don’t know if it’s safe to do so,” Sunset said. “The magic field would collapse, and there’s reason to believe that will destabilize it.”

“And we haven’t figured out yet what ‘destabilize’ means.” Martin mimed an explosion.

Twilight grimaced. Everything she knew, everything she had just read, about cleaning up after miscast spatial expansion spells, was useless. It was bad enough that those books, scrolls, and codexes all took it for granted that energy need not be conserved; worse was that they were oblivious to the possibility of magic going away. Of course that could have catastrophic results!

She’d have to start over from first principles. “Okay,” she began. “First of all, what is powering the anomaly?”

“Everything being sucked into it,” Steve said.

“Everything what now?”

“The long version. Mass is energy. The inside of the anomaly is time dilated. Dilated time lowers the energy content of mass. Inside a gravitational field, that ‘lost’ energy becomes kinetic energy, thus keeping the books balanced. But the anomaly isn’t a gravitational well; nothing is ‘falling’ into it. So instead the energy is being turned into magic, keeping the spell powered. We believe the spell is causing the time dilation.

“Put a barrier around the anomaly so that nothing gets sucked in by the ever-growing interior vacuum, and you cut off its source of power. But then the spell fails, and we don’t know what happens next. Theoretically, the time dilation cannot be undone with replacing the extracted energy. But the state of space-time in there is not natural; it cannot persist as is once the spell dies.”

Which, no doubt, was why those corrective spells were incompatible with the conservation of anything.

She took a deep breath and exhaled. “So what do we do next?”

“Collect data until we can adequately model it,” Steve said. “Only then will we know our options.”

When would that lidar unit arrive? It hadn’t done so during her nap. “Can we at least slow it down? Put a partial barrier around it?”

Steve and Sunset exchanged glances. “Maybe?” Sunset said. “Problem is, we don’t know how much of a barrier is too much.”

Twilight sighed. That was another item for the todo list: figure out how to tell when a partial barrier gets dangerously effective.

Martin raised his hand. “Just a quick change of subject, but you might want to know your creator was here a few hours ago.”

Creator? Oh, right. “Please do not refer to Faust that way. She would not appreciate it either.”

“Uh… sorry?”

“Why was she here?” How she got here was obvious enough: the portal.

Meg spun her chair around to face her. “She’s getting the VIP treatment. Was invited to visit. She wasn’t here very long.”

“Okay, I guess.”

But it was a reminder of a different to-do list item: figure out how to tell if Faust had ever been magically influenced in any way. She looked at the whiteboard once more. Faust would have to wait.

Meg’s phone rang. She answered it, putting it against her ear. “Kinda busy here. World-ending crisis, ya know.”

Twilight wasn’t able to pick up the other side of the conversation, no matter how she directed an ear. After a few seconds, Meg put palm to forehead and muttered something indiscernible. “Okay,” she eventually said, “I’ll take a look.” The call ended.

Meg’s hands got busy. “Twilight, you better get over here.”

Twilight obliged, wondering what had gone wrong this time. By the time she got there, Meg had brought up a story on CNN’s website: Ponies Created the Anomaly. There was a video and Meg started it playing.

It was exactly what she was afraid of. There she was, with Steve and Special Agent MacAuley, talking over the phone to Meg and Celestia. The picture and sound were surprisingly good, considering how far away they were. It was heavily edited, highlighting Celestia’s lack of certainty that ponies were not involved.

Senator Routledge was on next, standing in front of the Senate building: “You all heard it. Princess Celestia all but admitted ponies caused this. And you heard President Serrell’s henchman trying to pin this on humans. Humans! As if any human would have a reason to put this world—the entire world—in peril. But these aliens… yes, aliens… do have a reason—to eliminate a threat! And the president—our president—wishes to provide cover for them. If there had been any doubt before that Serrell must be removed from office, there can be none now.”

He paused for a moment. “But he is not the only traitor to the human race. Do not ignore who was in the room with the Equestrian princesses. Meg Coleman shall have much to answer for when she comes before the Senate Judiciary Committee, under oath, in two days.”

Next was the panel to discuss this breaking news. It made Twilight sick to watch. Equestrian offers to help get rid of the anomaly were dismissed by at least half of them as underhanded ploys to make matters even worse. Even the others had to admit ponies were probably responsible, because magic—just as Celestia herself admitted.

“He doesn’t let a crisis go to waste, does he?” Meg closed the browser window. “Especially one his goons created.”

Shocked expressions all around. “Say what now?” croaked Dianna.

“You heard me. That’s what Special Agent MacAuley was referring to.”

“You can’t be serious,” uttered Martin.

Meg swung her chair to face them. “Look, you don’t want to believe me? Good for you. You don’t want to get involved. Trust me.”

She stood up. “I’m going home. I’ve got a Senate interrogation to prepare for.” She started walking. “About time I took that seriously. I’m gonna take that bastard down one way or the other.” Raising her voice, she added, “Twilight, please have Rarity deliver my dress to my apartment.”

“You can’t leave now!” squeaked Dianna.

Meg had gotten halfway to the exit. “There’s nothing more I can do here anyway until we get more data.” She squeezed her pendant and resumed her equine form. “Don’t worry. It’ll all turn out fine in the end.” She threw them a forced smile. “It has to; I’ve met my future self.”

Blank looks from the remaining humans in the cavern.

“Guard! I’m leaving now.”

A guard trotted over to the door, reaching it just after Meg did. A few seconds later and the pegasus was gone.

Sunset Shimmer had come over to Twilight. “She left without a helmet light.”

“She’ll be fine. Probably. Pegasus sense of direction, remember?”

Sunset just looked at her.

Twilight sighed. “Guard? Make sure she reaches the surface safely.”

The stallion nodded and left the cavern.

The cavern had become eerily silent. Twilight found that the humans were staring in her direction. How much had Meg ever told them? Not much, from the looks of it.

“She met her future self?” asked Jerry.

“What’s her beef with the senator?” asked Martin. “I mean, apart from what we just saw.”

“She commissioned a dress from Rarity?” asked Dianna.

Everyone looked at her. “That’s what you find astounding about all this?” Martin asked.

“Considering our day job? Yes. And her beef is about the kidnapping of her niece, or did you forget that big speech Serrell made?”

“Look,” Twilight said. “I know there’s a lot you haven’t been told, but these questions aren’t productive right now. Maybe when Meg’s in a better place…” She sighed. “You know what I mean.”

Martin stepped forward. “Yeah, but time travel? Can’t we just go back in time and prevent this from happening?”

Jerry punched his shoulder. “Duh, obviously not, or they would’ve done it!”

There was nothing to do but to put this subject to rest. “That is correct. The past cannot be changed, nor is it possible to create a paradox. Believe me, I did the experiments.”

Dianna raised her hand. “And don’t forget that episode where you went back a week in time to warn yourself—”

Twilight threw her a nasty look. “I haven’t forgotten.”

“Uh, right, sorry.”

Attention drifted over to Steve, asking the unspoken question.

“She needs her space right now.” The question remained unspoken. “And she can fly back to the palace… and I can’t.”

This was getting out of hoof. What would Celestia do? She always knew what to do.

Too bad I don’t.

Might as well start with what she could do. “I’ll teleport you back. We should check on the status of that lidar unit anyway.” She looked at Sunset. “What are you going to do?”

The unicorn thought it over for a moment. “I think I’ll accompany you. I want to see the anomaly for myself, and I want to see the lidar in action.”

“Shouldn’t we be there too?” Martin asked.

Twilight squinted at the humans. “I’m not stopping you. You all have cars, do you not?”

The guard turned around and re-entered the labyrinth of tunnels, his horn still lit. It was just as well the guard had showed up to escort her. Meg probably could have found her way to the entrance—if her mind had been free to focus on that task.

In the other direction was daylight. She got a running start and leaped into the air, rising as fast as her wings could drive her. It was a poor substitute for taking down that miserable excuse for a human being.

“Need some advice?”

Meg turned her head to the voice. Discord was flying beside her—on his side. It was bad enough when Rainbow Dash did that. “Are you actually omniscient, or do you just do a good job of faking it?”

“I try to be well informed where my interests are concerned.”

I don’t need this right now. What were the odds that his “advice” would be helpful to her? “And just what are your interests in this matter?”

A tiny paper fan was fluttering beside her now, both sides of which featured a picture of the senator’s face. “I heard what he said about me,” the picture’s mouth said, “when ‘Andy’ was being released from Tartarus. You could say I’m not… the biggest fan of his.”

Meg rolled her eyes. “That makes two of us.”

“So I gathered.” He changed back. “You will be facing him soon as a witness in the impeachment trial.”

It was so tempting to come back with a snide remark, like tell me something I don’t know. She settled for: “What’s your advice?” He was going to provide it regardless.

“To cause maximum chaos, of course!”

Meg grabbed air with her wings, halting her forward momentum. “This isn’t a joke to me!” she screamed.

Discord backtracked to the hovering pegasus. “Do I look like I’m laughing?”

“Forgive me for thinking that ‘maximum chaos’ might not be the most constructive course of action.”

“You are forgiven—if you would at least hear me out.”

The top of the mountain wasn’t that much higher, and Canterlot was just on the other side. She looked back to the draconequus, who was now seated in a hovering plush chair, paw and talon clasped, patiently waiting.

It wasn’t as if she could escape him.

“Fine. I’ll hear you out.”

He unclasped his paw and it now held a modestly sized whiteboard. With a tap the word “change” appeared at the top. “Chaos promotes change. You wish to change the fortunes of a certain senator, and there is not a more powerful tool at your disposal.”

Another tap, and another word slid into position below the first. “Chaos shields against predictability. Being predictable enables others to counter you.”

The third word flew over and landed under the other two. “Chaos underlies creativity, and you need creative solutions.”

“I sure do,” Meg muttered.

The whiteboard disintegrated into a flock of white butterflies that, after several seconds, took up position to form the final word. “Chaos is the enemy of order. Systems and organizations depend on order, and there is one organization in particular you wish to destroy.”

The Section. “I’ll have to admit that… wasn’t the worst advice I’ve heard. Still… easier said than done.”

Discord nodded. “For you, yes. Alas, my chaos magic is of no use to you in your realm.”

“It can’t just be mindless chaos; the cure can’t be worse than the disease.”

“I can assure you that my chaos is never mindless.”

Surely there were counterexamples? Like, when, the chaos he caused while Fluttershy was trying to befriend him in season three… no, he was making the point they were wasting their time. Meg decided it wasn’t worth the effort, and she resumed her flight home. “You’ve given me a lot to think about.”

“It’s not often I hear that,” he said, then vanished.

And there was a lot to think about. For starters, what would be the non-chaotic approach? Confront her inquisitors with a bunch of facts and reason? She had seen enough televised hearings to know that would accomplish nothing. Questions were asked not to acquire information; they were asked to score points with their constituents back home. Inconvenient answers were at best ignored, and everything she said would be twisted by the spin-masters when they appeared on the news channels. Nothing would change.

And that assumed she had any say over the questions asked.

Well, she had some, from the president’s allies on the committee, but Routledge ran it.

Chaos was sounding better every minute.

The breeze at the perimeter had become a wind. Twilight looked around for Special Agent MacAuley, but she didn’t see him.

“So that’s it,” Sunset Shimmer said. She held a hand to her face to block out the late afternoon sun.

“Sure is,” Steve replied, likewise shielding his eyes. Both had elected to cross over as humans, the better to use human scientific equipment. “We should find the lidar and get it set up.”

It was hard to tell if the crater at the bottom had grown larger; presumably it had. Perhaps a different perspective was called for. “While you’re doing that, I’m going to look at it from above.”

“I’m sure there’s aerial drone footage we can look at,” Steve said.

She forgot they could do that. “I’d still like to see it with my own eyes.”

Steve shrugged. “Suit yourself. Just don’t get sucked in.”

“I’ll be careful.” And have the return spell on a hair-trigger.

Twilight took off. As she gained altitude, she scanned the ground looking for MacAuley. But by the time she thought she might have seen him, she was too high to be sure. Maybe it was enough for him to see her; he’ll seek her out when she landed—though she did notice a large crowd of humans at a distance, being held back by what she assumed was law enforcement.

Not before she was as high up as the perimeter was horizontally distant from the anomaly did she begin to fly over to it. She assumed that right above the anomaly the air was flowing down as fast as it was flowing across the perimeter at ground level, and she compensated accordingly.

She was over it, and she flew in a circle compensating for the downward draft. Looking straight down she saw… dirt? The floor of the building had been sucked up, that much was clear. But she wasn’t quite seeing unobstructed ground either. The substance of the building’s floor was still there, just… dispersed? The expansion of space would do that if it was fast enough to overcome the material’s tensile strength. It was almost certainly strong enough to overcome gravity—or maybe it was the hurricane force winds at the boundary.

She shuddered to think of what had happened to any persons inside. How many?

Twilight circled once more, then she aimed for her starting point; she had seen enough.

An unpleasant, high-pitched buzzing sound grew louder. She had heard a sound like that before, at the Parthenon. There was a drone in the air with her, and it was approaching. Her ears locked on to it, and her eyes followed. There it was. Who was controlling it?

It was heading right for her. Fast.

She knew the operator could see what the drone “saw.” Nonetheless, it wasn’t changing direction, so Twilight did.

The drone altered course—to intercept her once again.

This wasn’t an accident.

Twilight waited until it was seconds from colliding with her and then teleported to where the drone just was. She watched as it flew away from her. Was that it?

No. The drone curved around until it was on a new collision course.

Whoever it was clearly meant business. Twilight’s jaw set, and she prepared to telekinetically crush its propellers.

No. It was evidence.

Once it got close enough, she tracked it with her magic. A little bit closer… She magically grabbed it and invoked the return spell.

Back in her residence, she telekinetically held it in place, ears flattened against the noise. The drone didn’t fight her, not really; its operator could no longer communicate with it, control it. She spotted the on/off switch and she switched it off. That did it. The propellers spun down, and the noise subsided.

Spike appeared at the railing upstairs. “What was that?!”

“Everything’s under control, Spike.”

“Is that a human-made drone?”

That had been asked by Yearling, who was at the door. “It sure is,” Twilight responded.

“That was what was making all the racket?” she asked.

“Uh huh. Sorry. I didn’t have many options.”

Yearling walked over to inspect the drone. She had seen the one used in Athens, of course. This one was a bit bigger, a more serious looking machine—if that made any sense. Twilight was quite sure a high-speed impact would have left a mark on her.

Twilight’s phone rang. She got the phone out of her saddlebag. It was Sunset. She accepted the call. “I’m fine.” That prompted Yearling to look up at her.

“What happened?”

“A drone tried to ram me. I captured it intact.”

“Special Agent MacAuley here. Can you bring it to me? We may be able to trace its owner.”

They could do that? “Sure. I’ll return in a minute.”

“I suggest you drop it off then immediately return to Equestria. I cannot guarantee your safety at this time.”

Twilight looked at the drone. This threat may have been removed. Were there others, from that crowd she saw? “What about Sunset Shimmer?”

“No one knows she’s an Equestrian right now.”

Because she’s currently human, of course. That she could be a human was not widely known; it was the perfect camouflage. “Are you okay with that, Sunset?”

“It seems safe enough for me and Steve. I’ll call you when we’re ready to return.”

Twilight wanted to see the lidar in action, to help gather data on the anomaly’s internal geometry. She was perfectly capable of keeping herself safe, if necessary. But what about the others? They currently lacked magic. All she’d accomplish by being there was to attract the attention of the wrong people.

Sure, she could be invisible—but that would complicate interactions with the others.

She sighed. “Okay. I’ll be waiting.”

The call ended.

Yearling was still looking at her. “Trouble?”

Twilight frowned. “I guess you could say that. That anomaly is causing a lot of anti-pony sentiment.”

“Don’t forget Knossos is an option. We’re still getting the red carpet treatment.”

Maybe this was the excuse she needed. “Maybe I will—but not right this second.”

“I’ll look you up when I return—uh, by the way, that’s why I’m here right now. I need one of those pills. It’ll be dawn soon in Greece.”

“Be right back.”

As Twilight went to get one of those plaid pills, she thought about Sunset and how being human allowed her to hide in plain sight. If only she could transform herself into a human, she could be there with them right now. What stopped her was the fear that the Element of Magic would not survive her transformation into a magic-less creature. The same applied to the other Element Bearers.

But she remembered what Future Meg had told Present Meg, that no harm would come to the Elements. That she and Meg would figure out how to prove that, by creating a time loop that would result in a paradox if it wasn’t true. Or something. It wasn’t obvious to Twilight how to do that. Paradoxes were impossible regardless, and you couldn’t force something to be true just because it’d be a paradox if it wasn’t. The time travel spell would simply fail, avoiding the paradoxical time loop.

As Yearling took the pill and vanished, Twilight decided it was time to talk to Meg about it.

Celestia had just raised the sun; she still insisted on doing that every now and then. The palace gardens were not yet open to the public. Meg followed the paths, devoid of ponies and humans, heading toward an aging statue of a pegasus in flight. Once it was in her sights, its purplish color caught her off guard.

A pair of eyes formed and gazed back at her.

“Hey, Smooze. Scrubbing it clean?” It had been too long since Fluttershy had had a talk with the local pigeons.

His mouth appeared, though of course it remained frozen in a vague smile. “Susie’s statue doesn’t get the attention it deserves from the staff.”

“Can’t fault them too much, you know. She’s before their time.”

Meg had little doubt it’d look as good as new once Smooze was done. The standard statue preservation spell guaranteed that. “Just got back from the past, back around the time I created that first speech synthesizer for you.” She threw him a mischievous smile. “Remember that?”

“I’d rather not.”

She couldn’t blame him. “Well, Discord had his reasons.”

“I know; it’s why I forgave him. But seeing your reaction when you finally found out who that mysterious ancient alicorn was almost made it worthwhile.”

“Hah! At least you could see my reaction. You were just as shocked. We all were.”

“With one exception: Discord.”

Yes, Discord. “He got a sneak peek, you could say.” As did I. But the draconequus possessed senses Meg did not. And speaking of Discord… It was long past time for an intervention. She would discuss it with Twilight when she saw her that afternoon.

Meg endlessly walked around in circles, perfectly matching the course her thoughts took. Chaos as a concept was easy to throw around, but as the basis for concrete action? Not so much, not if the point was to achieve specific goals—at least if one was not a draconequus.

There was only one goal: take down Routledge. So what chaotic action could she take during her televised appearance in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing? She wasn’t a Spirit of Chaos; her only tools were words. Well, sure, maybe she could try using weather magic—no, that was just stupid. Even if she could make it rain or something—questionable given that she’d be on a leash, so no flying—it would only play into his hands, boosting him not tearing him down.

Words it would have to be, but what words? Mere utterance of facts and reason would get her nowhere, she already understood that, and anyway that was by definition the opposite of chaos.

But lies and nonsense were also non-starters. Perhaps they were a form of chaos, but chaos of a primitive and unsophisticated form. Discord could not have meant that. Right? Didn’t matter; lies and nonsense would not be more effective than facts and reason, not once the talking heads on the news channels were through with her.

There was a knock at the front door.

She was getting nowhere anyway; going in circles tended to do that. Answering the door would be a welcome distraction.

So answer it she did. Opening the door revealed Twilight, who was carrying a large box in her magic. “Can I come in?” the alicorn asked. “I’ve got your dress—and there’s something I’d like to talk about.”

Meg eyed the box, then returned her gaze to Twilight. It seemed to be important, whatever it was. “Sure.” She stepped aside. “What’s on your mind?”

Twilight entered and set the box down out of the way. “It’s about what your future self told you concerning the Element Bearers going human. That we could prove it would be safe for the Elements, by creating a time loop that’d be paradoxical if it wasn’t safe.”

Meg realized they’d let that slip through the cracks. “Why now?”

Twilight summarized what had happened at the anomaly. “So I figured this was a good time to explore the option of going human.”

“Creating a paradox,” Meg said. Just the distraction she needed. She resumed her circular path. “A paradox that would only occur if the Elements were harmed.” The pegasus trudged around the circle. “Nothing’s coming to me. I mean, we know it has to involve a time loop, and in this loop you have to go human, and… I dunno. Go back to being a pony, I suppose, and check on your Element, and if it was harmed… then what?”

“Go back in time and tell myself not to transform? But then I won’t, so I wouldn’t know my Element was harmed, so I wouldn’t go back in time, but the past is immutable, so I did, which meant the Element was harmed. Maybe the answer is that the time travel spell fails; that eliminates the paradox, but the Element is still harmed, so that’s no good.”

Meg completed another circle. “We need a time loop where your transformation takes place only if the time travel spell succeeds, and it succeeds only if your Element is okay after the transformation.”

Twilight tilted her head. “But how do we do that?”

Meg ran through the conversation she’d had with her future self. It was all about reality itself being a quantum supercomputer. They just needed to run the correct “program,” a program that would answer the question, Does a bearer transforming into a human harm the bearer’s Element? How do they come up with such a program?

She froze. Maybe they were looking at it from the wrong angle. “We don’t have to. Our future selves will tell us how.”

“I don’t get it.”

Meg approached her. “A time loop serves as a program running on the quantum supercomputer that is reality itself. Have the time loop compute not only whether the transformation is safe for the Elements, have it also compute how to figure out whether it is safe! If the time loop can be created, then it is safe.”

Twilight tilted her head in the other direction. “I still don’t get it. We still have to figure out how; we will become our future selves.”

Meg smiled. “No, we won’t, because our future selves will tell us how to do it.”

“So… you mean we will go back in time to tell our past selves what we were told by our future selves.” Twilight closed her eyes in thought. “Then where does the knowledge come from?”

“Well, technically, from the wave function collapse. The wave function, over time, forms a superposition of every possible outcome, some more probable than others. The time loop causes any paradoxical outcome, through destructive interference of the wave function with itself, to have zero probability of occurrence. If there is a way to figure out whether you going human is safe for your Element, that outcome has a non-zero probability and will be selected. If there isn’t, the time loop is paradoxical by design and the time travel spell fails.

“There could be multiple ways of figuring it out, each with a non-zero probability. Which one is selected by the wave function collapse is unknowable and random, but we don’t really care which one is selected, just that there is one.”

Now it was Twilight’s turn to walk in circles. While the alicorn was lost in thought doing that, Meg wondered whether this could be used to solve her “chaos” problem. But she quickly decided no; there was no apparent way to create a paradoxical situation from the lack of a chaotic solution—or the lack of a way of figuring out a chaotic solution. What even constituted a “solution?” The problem lacked proper definition.

Twilight stopped and looked at Meg. “I’ve got it. First, we specify a time and place for our future selves to visit us. If they are a no-show, we can assume my going human will harm my Element. But say they show up. They somehow convince us it is safe, tell us what to do to prove it, and we shall do it. The key is—and we have no idea how they’ll do it—the key is that they’ll have to convince us, that there is no possibility of our future selves, I dunno, actually being changelings in disguise on a mission to trick us into destroying the Elements.”

Meg spent a moment trying to poke a hole in that plan. “Sounds reasonable, I guess, but a no-show only means we don’t know it’s safe, not that we know it’s not safe. A time travel spell could fail for any number of reasons.”

“In that case we try again, with a new place and time. If we keep getting no-shows, the odds build that it truly is not safe.”

“Fair enough. So how much of a hurry are you in? I mean, we could do it right here, right now, but, to be honest, I’m not really in the mood for it.” Meg turned away. “I’ve got too many other things on my mind right now.”

“Do you have to be present?”

That… was a good question. “I suppose I don’t have to, strictly speaking. I’m not an Element Bearer.”

“Do you want to?”

“I…” Meg exhaled. “Let me sleep on it, but don’t let me hold you up beyond that.”

Luna had just raised the moon, and Sugarcube Corner glowed in the moonlight. Twilight went inside and found Mrs. Cake behind the counter. “Is Pinkie around?” The place was busy, she noticed; perhaps it was best she didn’t talk to her here.

“She’s in the kitchen, Twilight.” After studying her face, she added, “Is everything all right?”

“What? No. I mean, yes: everything’s fine!”

A few heads were turned their way.

“Kitchen’s that way, Dearie.”

Yeah, I know. She took the hint and got moving. Once she got there, she found Pinkie was busy cleaning pots and pans and other stuff.

She did not pause her work upon noticing her. “Oh, hi, Twilight! What’s up?”

It was best to just get it out of the way. “Pinkie, uh, by any chance has your Pinkie Sense been going off recently?”

The pink pony put a stack of clean dishes away, then she put a hoof to muzzle. “Weeelll, now that you mention it, I did have a right ear twitch followed by an itch on my back-left frog.”

Not what she was expecting. “What does that mean?”

Pinkie perked up. “That somepony would ask if my Pinkie Sense has been going off recently! And somepony did. You!”

Now she was starting to feel foolish. “And that’s it?” After all, she knew nothing bad would happen—yet did she know Meg’s future self was being completely honest? But what was the point in being dishonest about her ability to prove that the transformation would be harmless to her Element? Either she could prove it or she couldn’t.

“Were you expecting a left ear twitch followed by an itch on my back-right frog?”

Twilight’s face went blank. “Should I?”

“I dunno; I can’t read your mind, silly.”

“Well, what does a left ear twitch followed by an itch on your back-right frog mean?”

“That we’ll be visited by our future selves.” Her face scrunched. “Or is it the other way around? I always get those two mixed up.”

Mixed up? “How often do those two occur?”

“More often than you’d think.”

Yeah, not touching that. “Well, I’m expecting to be visited by my future self in the not too distant future. Does that count?”

“Sure does! So it must be that a right ear twitch followed by an itch on my back-left frog means that we’ll be visited by a future self.”

“But I did ask whether your Pinkie Sense had been going off recently.”

Pinkie shrugged. “Coincidence.”

Twilight sighed. “Right. Coincidence.” Pinkie Sense is what it is. She had to accept that. “Thanks, Pinkie.”

“Your welcome!”

As Twilight departed Sugarcube Corner, she wondered if this confirmation by Pinkie Sense was sufficient. If she was to be visited by her future self, then the time travel spell worked, and if that worked, then it proves the transformation was safe. But if she skipped the visitation as a result, then what was causing Pinkie Sense to fire?

Sounded like a paradox.

Or would the possibility—no, she wasn’t going down that road again. Pinkie Sense is what it is. That’s final. She would just have to go through with it and avoid any possible paradox.

The moon had barely moved while she’d been inside; she had the whole night ahead of her. Being on Greek time was becoming inconvenient. She should take Yearling up on her offer and visit Knossos; afterwards she could go back on Equestrian time.

But that was tomorrow. Maybe she should just get the visitation by her future self out of the way now.

No, not an option. She had to let Meg sleep on it first.

Twilight looked up at the moon again. Perhaps she could keep company with Luna tonight, take advantage of the situation.

Meg knocked on the door to the cavern, finally able to catch her breath. Momentarily, the door opened revealing a Royal Guard. “I’ll take you to the intruders,” the guard said.

Entering the cavern, she spotted her three human coworkers. “Their word isn’t good enough?” she asked, pointing at them.

“With all due respect, ma’am, they have no authority here.”

Dianna shrugged. “We just work here, I guess.”

Meg sighed; it was too late for this. She first went over to her workstation to drop off her mining helmet, then said, “Take me to them.”

The guard started walking and Meg followed. Shortly they arrived at a secure room that had been constructed near the portal for just this purpose. Inside were two humans. “I can confirm the man is my husband and the woman is Sunset Shimmer,” she told the guard.

The guard turned to the humans. “Sorry for the inconvenience.”

“That’s quite alright,” Sunset said. “You were only doing your job.”

“Mind if we borrow your pendant?” Steve asked.

“Go ahead.” Meg dipped her head as he removed the pendant from around her neck. “Should I ask why?”

Steve squeezed the pendant and resumed his equine form. He levitated it over to Sunset. “Nothing too shocking. They offered us a ride back, it was a chance to discuss what we found out, and we figured that you’d probably be here anyway.”

“Yeah, well, on top of my own issues, Twilight paid me a visit and gave me an issue of her own to think about—no, don’t ask. That’s for Twilight to share.”

Sunset levitated the pendant back to Meg, returning it to its proper place around her neck. “We, uh, should’ve known better than to assume.”

“Well, since I’m here now, you might as well fill me in on what you discovered.”

“Let’s join the others first,” Steve said.

Meg led the way. “By all means.”

Once they had entered the main cavern, Steve began to fill everyone in. “We have some numbers to plug into your simulation, enough to narrow down the search space. It wasn’t easy; that lidar unit was never intended to measure astronomical distances.” A grim smile. “It didn’t like it, kept reporting internal errors, but with a few phone calls we figured out how to get around that.”

Astronomical. “So… just how bad is it?”

“It takes one point one six three seconds for light to cross the anomaly, or about three hundred and fifty thousand kilometers. It’s increasing by about nineteen kilometers every second—our seconds, don’t forget. The apparent diameter, from the outside, is nearly tripling every twenty-four hours—two point nine three to be exact.”

Meg collapsed to her haunches. That was enough to suck out all the air on the planet, no question about it. It was only a matter of when. The amount of air being sucked in would increase by an order of magnitude each and every day.

Yay for time dilation. It was the only reason air wasn’t being sucked in even faster. All Equestrian air too? Maybe they’d have to close the portal, to prevent that. Or did they? She had never felt a breeze from the portal; there’s no way the air pressure could be identical on both sides, not every hour of every day. Yet no one has ever mentioned having to pop any ears either. Magic?

Focus. “Can you measure the time dilation? That’s an important number for the simulation.”

Steve frowned. “Not yet. I’m hoping spectroscopy would give us that answer. The absorption bands are affected by time dilation. But we need a suitable white light source for that. Or maybe stimulate the atoms—somehow, probably with a laser—and observe their emission bands. That might work better. Either way, we need equipment we don’t have—yet.”

“What about geodesics?”

“We’re working on that too. I’m not sure we can do better than observing where a laser beam comes out correlates to where it went in. Unfortunately, that doesn’t tell us the actual curved path it took inside, only the cumulative effect of all the curvature the beam went through. Maybe we can deduce that if we had enough going-in/coming-out pairings? Sort of like a CAT scan?”

“Maybe? I suppose I could see if such an algorithm exists, but aren’t we forgetting something?”

Everyone looked at each other. “Like what?” Martin asked.

Meg sighed. “Look, getting a good simulation going is nice and all, but how can it help us fix this thing? We know we have to replace the energy extracted via time dilation, and given the amount of mass flowing in every second, it’d make the energy output of an H-bomb look like a firecracker.”

Steve laid a hoof on her withers. “Meg, we have to start somewhere. Besides, we don’t know where that energy is going. Maybe only a tiny amount, relatively speaking, is being converted into magic or expansion. Maybe the rest is being stored, somehow, like a compressed spring. We just don’t know. That’s what we need to model.”

We just don’t know. That was the problem. Eventually, they would know—right? Not if the world was doomed; then there would be no future. But if there was a future.

Well, she had met her future self, right? But for all she knew, all that meant was she had escaped the destruction of the Earth by remaining in Equestria. Her future self had not volunteered any information on this topic.

Meg headed to the door. “I’m going to find Twilight.”

If Twilight was to have a visitation from her future self, they might as well have her future self delay that trip to the past until she knew the answer.

Twilight stood in front of The Mirror. She was tempted to “expect” it as a place in which she’d retain her alicorn form, so that she may probe the magic underlying this realm of pure magic. The problem with that, however, was that query on historical portals. It’s been a few days since anypony had last checked on it. Surely it had finished by now. But if she changed the rules by which that realm operated, it would reset the simulated computer.

That had already happened several times. Probing the magic would have to wait a little longer.

She went through the mirror, expecting it to remain exactly as it was.

And so it was. There was the console where the query had been entered, and Twilight walked over to it on two legs. The monitor was dark; she understood that to mean the screen saver had kicked in—it seemed silly that a simulated screen would need saving, but that was part of the simulation.

She gave the mouse a shove, and the screen dutifully came to life.

“Great,” she muttered. Instead of a list of past portal openings, there was a dialog box complaining “operation timed out.”

“If I didn’t know better,” Twilight said to the empty room, “I’d say somepony didn’t want us to know.”

But did she know better? She wasn’t an expert on computers; that was Meg’s area of expertise. Yet she had had plenty of experience using real computers, and she had never encountered such problems with what ought to be a simple query. Why should it take so long? Archivists at the Royal Library were faster than this at retrieving data!

On the other hoof, there was that portal Discord had created at the Parthenon. Meg had tried to close it, but couldn’t; she lacked the authority to do so. Could Discord be behind this too? Granted, they had the authority to do the query. Maybe this time he was being subtle about it? One cannot expect consistency from Discord.

Which, of course, raised the question as to why he would want to keep them ignorant of the details, when they already knew he had done it.

Twilight sighed. She would bring it to Meg’s attention the next time she saw her.

Returning through the mirror back into Equestria, she set out for the throne room, that being the most likely place to find Princess Luna in the early evening.

The stroll through the palace was placid enough; not many were around this late to bow to her as she passed. It was kind of refreshing, actually. Could she even get away without her regalia? Best not; her mentor would not approve. How would Luna feel about it? She didn’t know. But then, Luna was no less likely to be seen in public without her regalia than her elder sister.

Soon enough the foyer to the throne room came into view. The doors were closed, and Luna’s staff were on the wrong side of it. That probably meant a private audience was taking place. Technically, it was within her rights to intrude, but what was the hurry?

A unicorn approached her and bowed. “Princess,” she began. “Your presence would be welcome.” She held a hoof out to the throne room doors.

That was unexpected. Luna couldn’t have known she was coming; were there ponies out searching for her? She nodded in response and continued on.

As she approached the throne room, a pair of Royal Guards opened the doors with their magic—but only enough to let her through. Luna was sitting on her throne, and she smiled as she noted Twilight’s entrance. Only as the doors were closing behind her did Twilight discover who had been granted the private audience.

In a raised voice, to cross the distance, Twilight said, “I just came back from the mirror realm, Meg. The query ‘timed out.’”

“Timed out? I’m beginning to think something fishy is going on.”

“Thoughts of Discord had crossed my mind too.”

Meg stood up. “Well… yeah, maybe. But let’s put that aside for now. About your upcoming visit from your future self. I have a suggestion to make, to take advantage of that.”

Twilight reached the throne by which Meg was standing, as Luna observed in silence. She briefly wondered what they had been discussing, not that that was any of her business. “What sort of suggestion?” she asked in reply.

“We don’t know how to deal with the anomaly—today. But we will in the future, or at least I certainly hope so. So why not have your future self tell us how it was dealt with? Have the ‘program’ solve two problems at once?”

Solve two problems at once? Was that feasible? What if the anomaly couldn’t be dealt with? Well, her future self could inform them of that too. But where was the potential paradox? If the time loop occurred regardless of whether it could or could not be dealt with… What if could not became self-fulfilling? Because they were told it could not, they didn’t even try, so it wasn’t. No paradox in that!

Twilight shook her head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. There’s no potential paradox, none that I can see, so we may get an answer we don’t like instead of no answer at all, even if an answer we would like was also possible.”

Meg grimaced. “Because it’s random. You’re right. Too dangerous. No way to constrain the set of outcomes to those desired. Forget I mentioned it.”

Luna tilted her head. “Could somepony explain it to me?”

“If you really want to know,” Twilight said, “I can explain it later. I was planning on keeping you company tonight anyway.”

“Truly?”

“Side effect of being on Greek time.”

“I’d love to hear an explanation of that too.”

Meg took a step towards Twilight. “I’ve decided to be present when your future self visits.” She looked around the empty throne room. “I guess we could take care of it right now, if you want.”

All six Element Bearers appeared in front of the closed doors to the throne room. “The past looks aaawfully similar to the present,” Pinkie Pie proclaimed.

“Except for the extra Twilight Sparkle by the throne,” Rarity said.

The new Twilight stamped a hoof. “Girls, please!” She cleared her throat. “Ahem. My past self does wish to take care of it right now.”

The first Twilight scowled. “Was it asking too much to let me say it out loud first?”

Applejack adjusted her Stetson. “Told ya we ought’ve arrived a minute later.”

“That’s not how I remembered it!” complained Future Twilight.

Present Twilight stamped her hoof. “Can we just get on with this?”

Canterlot High was before her; Meg had made it a point to expect whatever was already there, so this wasn’t her doing. Off in the distance, over to the side, a volleyball game was in progress. One of the players had unmistakable rainbow hair.

Twilight hadn’t failed to notice. “He held nothing back, I see.”

“Yeah,” Meg replied. “Not hard to figure out who he’s with.” This intervention was overdue.

Twilight shielded her eyes with a hand and looked around. “So where do we start?”

Meg pointed at the game. “Start with Rainbow Dash?”

Twilight gulped. “Nope, not awkward at all.”

The Twilight from the future cleared her throat. “Yes. We’ll get on with this right now.” She glared at her companions. “The sooner the better.”

“Hey!” Dash protested. “I didn’t do anything!”

The Twilight of the present wondered why she’d brought them. “Why did you bring them?” Meg asked, apparently wondering the same thing.

“That will be clear in a minute,” Future Twilight said. “But first thing’s first.” Her horn lit up, then she no longer had a horn.

Twilight stared at the human now standing in front of her. Long, black hair. About the same height as Meg as a human. A skirt with her cutie mark on it. This is what I’d look like as a human? It wasn’t that different from her mirror realm form, just with proper human coloration. Assuming she wasn’t looking at a changeling. Yet she recognized the isomorphic mapping spell in action—nor was there a cascade of green fire that marked a changeling’s transformation. On second thought, it made her wonder how that mirror “knew” what that mapping spell would produce.

While this was all persuasive, it wasn’t proof.

“And back again.” The human was once more an alicorn.

Wait. How was the spell cast again? Yet it indisputably was—by an allegedly magic-less human.

A smile. “You’ll figure that out.”

Twilight groaned.

“I know. I remember groaning too. But that’s what the wave function collapse has given us.”

Twilight took a deep breath and exhaled. “Fine. Then you also remember that this demonstration, so far, falls short.”

“Indeed I do!” She addressed her friends. “It’s time. Let’s prove I still bear the Element of Magic!”

Rainbow light swirled around the six mares as the Elements within them awakened. Twilight had never observed from the outside the transformation into their Rainbow Power forms. She had to admit it was almost convincing.

“Then try to doubt this! Let’s zap her, girls!”

Twilight froze in shock. “Wait. WHAT?!”

The rainbow beam slammed into her, suffusing every cell of her being with harmonic energy. It was… pleasant, actually. Sort of relaxing. Was this what Meg had experienced? It didn’t seem like it; time still insisted on being perceived. But she was already connected to harmony, already a magical being, an Element Bearer no less.

Speaking of which… the Element of Magic within her had noticed. It was reacting, resonating—with itself!

That settled it. The being in front of her could be none other than her future self, still the bearer of the Element of Magic. She had personally witnessed her transformation into a human and back, evidentially with no harm to her Element.

The prismatic glow faded away. The six mares had reverted to their everyday, unpowered forms. “Our job here is done,” the other Twilight said, strangely lacking conviction.

“Wait!” Meg shouted, trotting over to them. “What about the anomaly? How was it fixed?”

Future Twilight scowled at the pegasus. “I thought we agreed a time loop cannot safely solve that problem for us.”

“That’s quite the assumption, darling. That it was fixed.”

“But we’re not saying it wasn’t,” Rainbow added.

Meg advanced upon them. “Yeah, yeah. Twilight coached you on what to say—and what not to say. But answer me this: What’s the point of Twilight going human if humanity was destroyed?”

That’s a good question. And obviously her future self would remember it being asked.

And her future self had an answer prepared, as if reading from a script. “You’re assuming there’d be no point to me visiting the human realm incognito prior to its destruction—assuming the anomaly did, in fact, destroy it.”

“And that point would be?” Present Twilight asked.

Meg shook her head. “No, Twilight. The point is that none of them seem terribly shook up by the hypothetical destruction of my world.”

“Maaaybe,” Pinkie countered, “it hasn’t happened yet!”

Meg gave a smile of victory. “Then you could have led with that and avoided this whole conversation.”

Pinkie replied with a sheepish grin.

Future Twilight sighed. “Yep, just as I remembered.”

Her horn lit up, and all six disappeared.

Twilight and Meg looked at each other. “I guess that means we do fix the anomaly?” Twilight asked.

“Yeah, let’s go with that.”

Princess Luna approached them. “I doubt I would have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.”

“I’m beyond disbelieving anything a time loop throws at me.” Twilight conjured a notepad and pen out of thin air. “Guess I’d better record what just happened.”

“So you can regurgitate it when you go back in time with the others,” Meg said.

“You got it.”

Luna tilted her head. “Then… where did those words—”

“It’d take too long to explain,” Meg said, “and it’ll only give you a headache. I guess I’ll be going. I should investigate that portal history query time out. Thanks for the talk, Luna.”

“I am glad to be of service. On your way out, please inform my staff that they may return—unless you, Twilight, wish to talk privately?”

Twilight shook her head. “No. I’ll just be by your side as you carry out the Court’s business.”

Luna looked at her like she’d sprouted a second head. Twilight realized she hadn’t the opportunity to mention why she had come. Luna returned to her throne, barely suppressing a laugh. “Try not to be bored.” She tapped her sister’s throne with a hoof. “I don’t think she’ll mind.”

Now that she thought about it, Twilight realized that there had been an absence of petitioners outside. “I guess we’ll see what happens,” she said before she ascended the stairs to the thrones.

Meg stepped through The Mirror, hardly noticing the transition from four to two legs. She walked over to the console and flicked the mouse, bringing the monitor to life. Sure enough, there was the query time out dialog box. She dismissed it.

“So what do I do now?” she muttered.

There seemed little point in running the query yet again. She could try a shorter date range, do a binary search to find out how far back they can go before molasses set in. But somehow she felt she already knew the answer.

There really was no other logical explanation. However this realm worked, it was currently modeling human computer technology. In any sane application design—and all this was based on her own expertise, presumably—that query would result in a SELECT against a table in an SQL database, a logging table to which a row is appended when a new portal is created, modified, or destroyed. She couldn’t imagine such a query taking days to run—and it certainly ought not take that long to time out!

She could spend the time trying to reverse engineer the program, maybe try attaching a debugger to it—if she even had permission to do so—but if what she suspected was correct, it’d be a waste of time. She wouldn’t be allowed to succeed.

It was time to talk to Discord.

On second thought, maybe she was overthinking it. Sure, now it was modeling human computer technology. It most certainly wasn’t when those ancient portals were open. Where was that information stored? How would it get mapped to a modern database? Could that be the problem? Maybe it wasn’t doing an SQL query at all; maybe it was executing a remote query against—well, whatever kept that ancient data.

Regardless it didn’t feel right, and she already knew that Discord could and did mess with the emulated computer. And like it or not, he was the closest thing to an expert on this realm.

It was still time to talk to Discord.

She looked at the time on the monitor, which conveniently matched Equestrian time. It was getting late.

She sighed. Tomorrow.

Luna had been quite right, as it turned out. Only one pony had sought an audience with the Princess of the Night, a mare whose filly suffered recurring nightmares. Naturally Luna offered her assurance that she would take care of it. Indeed, before midnight struck, Luna departed so that she could safeguard the dreamscape; that was something Twilight could not participate in, much less help with, so she went her separate way.

That left the rest of the night. There wasn’t much to do; pretty much everything was closed. She returned to her castle for lack of better options. There, at least, she could always catch up on her reading. But as she perused the stack of books…

No, there was something else she could do first: visit the anomaly. It was getting late, true, but not so late that no one would be around. She got a plaid pill from the dispenser and took it.

The anomaly itself wasn’t visible at night, of course—to the extent it was visible at all. Floodlights still illuminated the perimeter of tape, which had been moved back. A lot. No crowds that she could see—or hear. There. Inside the perimeter some activity. She trotted over, mindful that there could be bad actors.

It was a needless concern. Present were three humans: Martin, Steve, and Sunset Shimmer. It reminded her to give Meg more plaid pills—perhaps Sunset should get some too.

They were so focused on a device that they failed to notice her until she was practically on top of them. “Decided to drop in for a late night visit, eh?” Sunset asked, her voice raised to be heard over the ever-present wind.

“Not much else to do at night, as it turns out.” Twilight nodded at the device on a tripod. A laser beam shot out to the anomaly; it seemed to disappear inside it. “Scanning the geometry?”

“Trying to,” Martin said. “Jerry’s on the other side. Surprisingly difficult to match up the entry with the exit.”

“It doesn’t go straight through?”

“Oh, sure, if it’s aimed at the exact center. But that’s not very interesting.”

Jerry’s voice came from a phone lying on a tray below the device. “Okay. Got it positioned on the beam at this end.”

“Starting it now.” He pushed a button. Nothing obvious happened. Answering Twilight’s unspoken question, he said, “The beam is now tracing out a pattern. We’re recording how that pattern is distorted as it goes through the anomaly.”

“Thus telling us something about its geometry,” Twilight guessed.

“Correct.”

“Any conclusions yet?”

“It’s not symmetrical, we figured that much out.”

“Is that bad?”

“Don’t know.”

“I suspect it has to do with the distribution of consumed matter,” Steve said.

That seemed reasonable to Twilight. After all, they believed it was that matter that was powering the spell.

The effort continued for another two hours before they called it a night. During that time Twilight noticed the wind got a bit stronger.

She returned home and spent the remainder of the night catching up on her reading. She made a lot of progress; nopony else was around to interrupt. But all good things come to an end, and shortly after sunrise a disguised pegasus found her. “Aren’t you back rather early?” Twilight asked A. K. Yearling.

“Got too dark for filming. We spent most of the day driving around the island as Andy provided commentary on what used to be there. Samantha ate it all up, of course, peppering him with questions. I found it pretty interesting too. But maybe it was just as well you skipped it.”

Considering her reaction to Yearling’s gushing over the minutia of the Parthenon, Twilight couldn’t argue. “But you will be visiting Knossos tomorrow, right?”

“With or without you.”

“Then it will be with me,” she declared. Afterwards she could get back on Equestrian time.

Yearling turned around and departed. “Then I’ll see you tomorrow.”

When tomorrow came, Meg took to the air, heading towards the old mine entrance. Once she reached the backside of the mountain, she decided it was as good a place as any. Still flying to the main entrance, she called out. “Discord, we need to talk!” It was unlikely to work, of course. He rarely showed up just because you called out to him.

Minutes passed by. The defunct ore processing facilities came into view. As she touched down at the mine entrance, she resigned herself to flying over to Ponyville during lunch to seek out Fluttershy.

Once inside she extracted the helmet from a saddlebag and put it on. But before she could turn on the light—

“FIRE IN THE HOLE!!”

A kaleidoscopic blinding flash!

But the exact opposite of a loud bang, like the very existence of sound itself got nullified.

Over too many seconds Meg’s sight returned, revealing a draconequus outfitted in full mining attire. “. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .” she failed to say.

“. . . .?” Discord failed to reply.

A puzzled look, then a lightbulb lit above his head. He snapped his talons. “That better?”

“What are you doing here?”

“Mining for chaos of course!” He examined the closest section of the tunnel wall—completely unaffected by the… whatever that was—and sadly shook his head. “Nothing.”

“Mining for chaos. Sure. Whatever. Could you hold off until I’m safely past? But while you’re here, mind if I ask you a question?” That’s probably why he was here, she figured; he just had to make a big production out of it.

“Walk with me.” He set out down the tunnel.

She was heading that way anyway so she followed. Every now and then he’d tap a rock with a perfectly ordinary pickaxe; each time nothing unusual happened. Eventually she took his silence as acquiescence. “Are you preventing us from accessing the portal log dating back to ancient history?”

“Yes.”

“You admit it, just like that?”

He briefly stopped to tap again, then continued. “Yes.”

“Why?”

He gave her a hurt look. “It would be terribly predictable if I didn’t give a simple, direct answer now and then.”

“No, I mean, why block access? We already know you created those portals, so what are you hiding?”

He shrugged. “Maybe I have nothing to hide. It would also be terribly predictable if I only hid something when there was something to hide.”

“So would always hiding something when there was something to hide, but I’m not aware of you ever failing to hide in that circumstance.”

“Absence of evidence is not the same as evidence of absence.” He stopped to tap again, and again the result was a perfectly ordinary tapping sound of metal against rock. He sighed, saying, “Not promising.”

“What do you want to happen?”

He looked at her in surprise. “Something chaotic, obviously!”

Meg sighed. “Obviously.” She resumed walking. “I’ll leave you to it.”

More tapping behind her, then: “Give ’em chaos tomorrow!”

Thanks for reminding me. Not that she could possibly forget her upcoming trial appearance. She continued walking. “We’ll see.” A sudden thought, and she turned around. “I don’t suppose you’ve heard anything about that trip into hyperspace to study the anomaly from that angle?”

“Can’t say that I have.” Another perfectly normal tap. “Nopony tells me anything.”

Meg sighed. Maybe if you weren’t so hard to get a hold of. She resumed walking.

A symphony of vuvuzelas blared behind her. “Jackpot!! Pure chaos!!”

Meg pointedly ignored it—the best she could, anyway. Eventually she was alone with the sound of her hooves. Thoughts of tomorrow’s impeachment testimony flooded in. It almost made her want the cacophony of those vuvuzelas. Almost.

She plodded along, her body on autopilot. As the locked door came into view, no insights had come to her. She wished the trial was already behind her.

Once she was on the other side, she surveyed the room. None of her co-workers were there; most were at the anomaly, she knew. Steve would be there soon himself. She thought Sunset Shimmer would be there too, but there she was, sitting in front of a computer busily typing away—with hands, no less. “Did you drive all the way back from Tracy to the portal?” Meg asked.

“Had no choice, really. Steve and I went there as humans.” Sunset rotated her seat to face Meg and lifted a familiar looking pendant that hung from around her neck. “Made one for myself. I, uh, did a quick study of yours when I borrowed it.”

Meg squeezed her own and resumed her human form. “You can do that?”

Sunset shrugged. “I wasn’t sure I could. Might’ve required alicorn-level magic, but apparently not. The pendant doesn’t actually do the transformation—”

“It just triggers the chaos magic that’s already in place, I know.” She walked over to her own workstation. “Mind creating one for Steve? If it’s not too much effort.”

“No problem, now that I’ve made one myself.”

“Speaking of chaos… I just ran into Discord in the tunnels.”

“What’s he doing there?”

No, there was no point going into details. “Being annoying, mostly, but it did remind me that he’s offered to take us to the anomaly from the hyperspace side of things. If we’re going to do that, we ought to do it soon.”

“Yeah, I’ve been thinking about that, actually.”

Not the response she’d expected. “Huh?”

“What I mean is, there’s no point, really, unless we could actually learn something, and I’m not sure what that’d be. We can’t use analytical magic on it for the same reason we can’t in your realm.”

Meg slumped. “Because it’ll fuel its growth.”

“If we can even cast magic outside the realm that’ll reach inside it.”

I bet my future self knows the answer to that. Too bad she hadn’t become her yet. “Yeah, maybe we shouldn’t rush. Who knows how the rapid expansion of space-time inside the anomaly affects adjacent hyperspace anyway?”

“Not my area of expertise, I’m afraid.”

“Nor mine.” She’d ask Steve at the next opportunity.

Sunset typed away. “But this is my area of expertise.” She finished whatever she was doing. “Just sent it to you. What you need to model that expansion spell.” She exhaled. “Maybe.”

“Maybe?”

“It wasn’t cast correctly. There’s an unlimited number of ways they could’ve messed it up.”

Meg opened the email from Sunset. Lots and lots of equations. “Yeah.” She scrolled down. More equations. “Let’s get started.” Anything to take her mind off of tomorrow.

Twilight found herself in a modest bedroom in Athens. The bed hadn’t been slept in, of course. “So what now?” she asked.

Yearling walked towards the door. “Join the others. They should be waiting for us.” She nodded at the door handle. “A bit awkward for hooves.”

Twilight studied it for a moment, then quickly with her magic turned the lock, turned the doorknob, and pulled the door open. No question that if pony tourism ever became a thing, humans would have to accommodate them somehow. “After you.”

The disguised pegasus went through, and Twilight followed, closing the door behind her. Yearling led her to a common area, where the others were all, indeed, waiting. “Look who’s here!” she declared.

Kyle looked up from his phone. “Excellent! Shall we be on our way?” He didn’t wait for an answer, getting up. All the others took his cue and got up too.

There wasn’t much for Twilight to do but follow them. That didn’t mean she couldn’t satisfy her curiosity along the way. “Have you heard much about the anomaly out here?”

Kyle was already at the door. “None of us read or speak Greek, so we follow the same news online we’d follow anyway.”

“I do, actually.”

“None of us except for Professor Hutchinson,” he corrected. “Did Celestia really admit that ponies were probably responsible?”

Twilight cringed. “You heard that.”

“Sure did,” Mike said.

“She had… incomplete information. I can’t say more at this time.” More like, it wouldn’t be productive here and now to say more.

“Celestia’s not omniscient. Who knew?” Andy whipped out his phone. “I’m amazed that magic can make one of these work in Equestria.”

Kyle opened the door. “Let’s get going.” He waved everyone through. “Our jet is waiting.”

Once outside, Twilight said, “It’s useful. That’s why I have my own phone with me.” Not that she was in the habit of keeping it on her in Equestria.

“Did you get a new SIM card for it?” Dominic asked.

“SIM what now?”

He shook his head. “Your phone won’t work here then.”

“It won’t?” She pulled it from her saddlebag and checked. Nope. “Ponyfeathers.”

Samantha snerked. “You actually say that.”

Twilight sighed. “Where’s the van?”

Meg started the simulation. On the monitor they watched hours of work come to fruition. The space-time grid expanded in the middle, stopping once the volume had doubled. Proper time within the region matched proper time outside it. “Looks like we modeled it.”

“Can’t disagree,” Sunset said. “That’s how the spell ought to behave when cast correctly.” She stepped back. “I’m afraid that’s all I can assist with. I think I should help out at the anomaly now.”

Meg didn’t know what more she herself could do either, in the absence of additional data. “Sure. Go ahead.”

It wasn’t long before she had only her thoughts to keep her company.

Three red intact columns, holding up a small piece of intact stone… ceiling? Twilight wasn’t sure what to call it. An outdoor corridor? Two broken columns, still freshly painted red, continued off to the side. Behind the columns was a stone wall with a mural painted on it; it looked like it could’ve been painted yesterday. All around it were ruins.

Andy pondered what he saw. “Not exactly as I remember it.”

“I’m assuming this bit here has been restored,” Yearling said.

Samantha adopted her lecturing voice for the camera. “This is a restoration, of course. Arthur Evans, who excavated this site a century ago, did extensive restorations, many that have been criticized as inaccurate, some even that had led to further damage.”

“I’ll reserve judgement for now,” he said after a moment’s consideration. “To be fair, I have no idea how long our palace was occupied, what changes had been made by generations after mine.”

“It was destroyed and abandoned around thirteen seventy-five B.C.E.; that much we know—that’s about three thousand four hundred years ago. We also know the Mycenaeans had been using it by that time for the better part of a century.”

Andy snorted. “Surely you’re joking.”

“I’m… afraid not. They invaded this island and destroyed every other palace around fourteen fifty B.C.E. Perhaps the earlier eruption of Santorini presented them with the opportunity; it’s hard to say.”

His eyes were locked on that mural. “Our great empire—the work of my father, who ushered in an age of prosperity by wiping out piracy in the Aegean—destroyed by nobodies.”

Samantha opened her mouth, then thought better of it. She said instead, “At least this narrows down when you disappeared. It had to be before fourteen fifty, but after sixteen hundred B.C.E., as that was when Mycenae got started—so far as we know, of course.”

He sighed and redirected his gaze to the professor. “I can narrow that down further, assuming my understanding of when Mycenae formed is the same as yours. I would say not long before fifteen hundred, possibly a bit after.”

Yearling stepped closer to the pair. “Then the invasion could well have happened in your lifetime, had you lived out your life here.”

He looked down, clenching his fists. A deep breath later and he forced himself to relax. “I would’ve been a decrepit old man,” he told himself, “useless.” He looked up and scanned the fallen stone walls. “And even if we had won then, would this palace be in any better shape today?”

It was a rhetorical question none dared answer. Twilight wanted to move on to the subject of the minotaur, but… now… did not seem the time to do that.

“Here ya go, dearie.” A cinnamon and daisy swirl vanilla shake was deposited in front of Meg. It’d seemed silly flying all the way to Ponyville to get one, but it’d been a while since she last had one. Besides, it didn’t seem so far to fly anymore. All that flight training was paying off.

“Thanks, Mrs. Cake.” She was the only customer in Sugarcube Corner this late at night, and that suited her just fine. Even Pinkie wasn’t around. As she sucked in the creamy goodness, the door opened.

Of course it couldn’t last; maybe she should’ve taken it to go. Too late now. Trixie had spotted her and was making a beeline towards her. Now what could she want?

The Naked and Unadorned Trixie took a cushion on the opposite side of the table. “Just the pony I needed to see.”

Well, at least she wasn’t in her stage persona. “What can I do for you?” Meg asked around the straw.

“I’m assuming there won’t be any engagements in the human realm in the foreseeable future?”

“’Fraid not. Got a world-ending catastrophe going on right now.”

The unicorn cocked her head. “You mean like last Tuesday here in Ponyville?”

“Was there?” Meg shook her head. “Sure. Of course there was. Sorry, but I spend most of my time in Canterlot these days.” She sighed. “Look, humans aren’t use to that, and even once that’s taken care of, I just don’t know when you could perform there. Things are sorta also messed up in other ways.”

Trixie got up. “I’ve already decided to go back to Las Pegasus. I appreciate the help and all, but I need to earn a living.”

Well, that was easy. “You can’t wait forever, I understand. If the situation changes, I’ll send word to you.”

“That’s all I can ask.” The showmare departed.

Meg nursed her shake. There was only one way to change that situation, and her appearance tomorrow in front of the Judiciary Committee was the way to do it. Somehow.