"Science is a many splintered thing", Vinyl Scratch commented upon the sight of two youngsters - one business-styled, the other in XIX century outfit - discussing complicated (at least for her) matters related not only to science, but to magic and theory of probability as well. The funniest thing was that the author of the future science-magic-related work was not a mage. All in all, Octavia didn't care about her being an ordinary.

"Thank you, Victorian", she finally said. "When will we get to practical part?"

"If you want it, I may show you a couple of ways right now".

The mentioned "ways" appeared to be potions. All right, not potions, liquids like that "mirror" liquid that had once sent Derpy to the parallel world. But this time it all was more complex - and, despite being potentially dangerous, more attractive, so soon enough Octavia and Victorian Turner had an audience and a chance to practice the explanations.

"When it's my birthday, I'll get loads of such fizzy drink", Vinyl noticed upon the sight of a bubbling liquid of strange shade (just between pink and orange, maybe related to peachy) in the test tubes and glasses.

"Yeah, watch out for it not to explode", Time Turner added with a smirk.

"Vinyl, should you measure everything with your DJ scale?" Blast Turner interfered. "It may be someone's bubbly brain as well".

Derpy knew that he meant her, but was not offended. Blast was always such. He did have a heart of gold, but it was covered with layers and layers of cheekiness, rudeness and far too much self-esteem. What to say, every family has its freak. And secondly, Derpy knew that she wasn't the cleverest or the beauty queen or anything else. And she could lose her mind anytime.

However, this time it wasn't her losing her mind.

The experiment was interrupted by Glimmer and Quote, who burst into the room, having nearly stuck in the doorway at first. The eyes of both were popped with horror, and they both were heavily breathing, and actually it was Victorian who prevented their more than possible collision with the towers of test tubes. He stopped the boys in mid-run with his magic and brought them over onto the first floor of the bunk bed, where they finally returned to earth.

"Where's the fire, little bros?" Blast asked, ready to lose his temper any moment.

"No fire!" Glimmer shot out, having unintentionally thrown a pile of pens on the bed table around with a sudden shot of magic. He was quite fine in taming his abilities when calm, but they always came out of control when he was worried - or freaking out, like now.

"That's... that's..." Quote took several deep breaths (good boy, Derpy thought - if his hidden powers broke out, it would be worse than a tornado) and gasped: "That's Hobo!"

"Hobo?!" everyone present exclaimed.

"But I've been here all the time, boys", sounded from the upper floor of the bed, and legs in shabby checkered pants dangled in front of the two. Pretty soon they were gone, replaced by Hobo's face chin up. "Anyone can prove it".

Glimmer and Quote stared at each other, as if demanding explanations. Finally Glimmer spoke again:

"B-but we saw it. You were in the highest room, and you were..."

"What? Was Dandy trying to bring my photos to life again?"

"I told you I've finished it!" Dandy's voice was followed by a sound of firework rocket cracking, meaning frustration. "And don't pretend to be sillier than you really are, Hobo. You've seen me here from the beginning!"

The talk was broken by hissing from the test tubes - the liquid in them must've thought it became over-boiled milk, and orange foam flowed out, letting out the smell of... what? It was most like the smell of burnt fruit, but who sensible had ever fried them without any additions? Except, perhaps, bananas... Thank goodness it didn't last long, bit the result was so hot that only the present mages coping with their abilities (Dandy, Victorian and Vinyl) were able to get rid of it. When it was over, Hobo occupied the place on the bunk bed's first floor, and Quote decided to go on:

"I and Glimmer saw you, Hobo, in the attic room. But you were... you... were... different".

"What?" Hobo's thick brows arched.

"You were dressed differently, in something like a spacey-wacey suit from sci-fi movies", Glimmer caught up, "and you hair... was in a bit different style... a bit like mine..." he moved his fingers over his fringe combed to the side, "and your wings..."

"What was wrong with them?"

"They weren't feather-y", Quote mumbled - that must've been the part scaring him the most. "They were... like bat's. Skinny and black and with claws on their tops".

"But it was you", Glimmer stated again.

"Excuse me!" Hobo spread his bluish black wings out, having made some feathers fall from them (that was the feature of his that irritated Dandy the most - Hobo hardly ever cleaned his wings and never moved a comb over his tail, while Dandy made his tail look fabulous every morning). "I think these are quite real. No claws, no webs".

"Holy chips..." Victorian muttered upon the sight of the attic room. It wasn't really dirty or dusty here, in fact, the only thing contrasting with the tidy view was broken glass scattered around the floor. Reflective glass - dozens of crossed eyes stared at Derpy from them.

"What's that, Victorian?" Octavia asked.

Victorian pointed at the frame next to them which had contained a mirror, but now everything left of it was the remains along the frame:

"See?"

"Yes, we see a broken mirror", Vinyl commented.

"No. You look, but you don't see. If it was broken in an ordinary way, the bits would've been under it. And here they are all around, really far from the source!" Victorian exclaimed.

Dandy's face got paler:

"You mean..."

"It was broken from the inside!" Victorian finished.

"Well, bro? You're the specialist in parallel worlds here", Time reminded.

"I know, Time, but..."

"AHH!"

Everyone turned their heads to Hobo, who now was clutching his right wrist - there was a fresh wound on the back of his right hand. And he hadn't touched anything. For sure.

"That's more serious that I thought", Victorian muttered.

A/N: Nobody and nothing is forgotten. Guess who's going to come to dinner this time...