MLP: Seeds of the Past
Chapter 19 - Working Together, Part 1
Author's Note: "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic" belongs to DHX Media and Hasbro, while I own everything else but Stardust Balance and Beck, who were created by the Warrior of Twilight and FanficFan920… hey, you two better knock it off before I-
*Wham!*
[Stardust] Ah, great, now look what you did, a-hole!
[Beck] Me?! You were the one I was aiming for, yiu damn fool… it's your fault for ducking!
[Stardust] You son of a… *groan* forget it, let me just… make him… comfortable… okay, until he wakes up, I'm continuing this story.
[Beck] Oh, please, what are you gonna do? Make it the way "A Journey Beyond Sanity" is?
[Stardust] I got this, I know his writing style by now; you just shut your muzzle before I decide to kill you off by the end of this chapter.
When Sunset Shimmer had finally opened her eyes, she realized quite a few things… she was a unicorn again, her head and body ached in pain, and she was in some sort of dungeon cell.
"What's going on?" wondered Sunset, speaking in a weakened voice because of how tired and hurt she currently felt. "Where am I?"
Then, to her suprise (and relief), she could see the outline of a familiar pony that was standing in the
shadows. "Oh, thank God - I mean, Celestia… Twilight, you have no idea how glad I am to… um… why are y-you… laughing?"
"Hahahahaha…" As she continued to let out an evil laugh, Midnight slowly walked into the light, and once she was fully revealed to Sunset, the young alicorn said, "It's cause of how the expression was on your face, thinking that I was actually your beloved princess friend."
Now feeling confused, Sunset asked, "Well, if you aren't Twilight, then why do you look like her?"
Midnight rolled her eyes, and shook her head before saying, "It's because I am her evil counterpart… which is why you are in Anti-Equestria…"
Then, the alicorn's horn started to glow with red-colored magic, and Sunset backed herself up against the wall as Midnight concluded her statement.
"... and I think it's time for you to go back to sleep."
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[Beck] Oh, yeah, and I'm the worst pony, right?
[Stardust] Will you ****ing shut it?!
###############
Once Jack and Casey had explained their dilemna to EG Twilight, she quickly led them to her downstairs basement, which was actually a laboratory, and the light-orange teenager let out a whistle.
"This place looks pretty cool, Twilight," said Casey, giving the glasses-wearing teen a positive compliment as he started to look around, and a bashful smile appeared on her face. "How long did it take… oh, sweet, is this supposed to be a-"
"Um, she'll give you a grand tour later, pal," replied Jack, bringing him back to his side, and he looked back at the former Crystal Prep student. "Do you think you could figure out how we can use Casey's watch to get to wherever Evil Stardust might have taken Sunset?"
As EG Twilight analayzed and looked over the special wristwatch, she replied, "Yeah, but I'm sorry to say that something like this might take some time, Jack."
Nodding his head, the young man said, "No worries, Twilight, just do the best that you can."
While EG Twilight continued on with her work, Casey was about to ask another question when he suddenly began to cough a few times.
"Are you alright?" asked EG Twilight. "I think I have a bag of cough drops around here somewhere."
The young man shook his head, and replied, "No, it's fine, I just, uh… *cough-cough*... I think I'll go look for them while you work."
[Stardust's World]
Once he was sure that everypony in the room was calm enough, Stardust said, "Alright, first, we need to make sure that they're not all waiting for us in your world's version of this library by-"
"Got ya covered, Stardusty! Be right back!"
Whoosh!
Suddenly, to everyone's surprise, Pinkie jumped straight into the mirror, and after she was gone, Stardust brought a hoof to his forehead while Twilight's counterpart quickly started to become worried.
"Why would she do something like that?" asked the young alicorn.
Don't remind me, Starswirl, thought Stardust, who was also sensing the princess' concerned feelings, and he said, "I'm sure that she-"
Whoosh!
After having been gone for about 10 seconds, Pinkie made her return, and was licking away some leftover chocolate that had been on her hoof before smiling at everypony that was in the room.
"Well, I don't think they're in the castle anymore," said the pink Earth Pony. "Otherwise, I probably wouldn't have come back to this world like how I did right now."
Before Twilight's counterpart could say anything in response, Rainbow Dash cried, "Pinkie, you almost were about to have Twilight get freaked out… and is Beck still in his cell?"
"Nope," replied Pinkie, shaking her head. "So wherever Evil Star and Evil Us went, they probably took Beck with him, and… what's wrong, Twilight?"
Said alicorn was now pacing back and forth inside of the library, looking very concerned while slowly entering into panic mode.
"If those two are working together now, then that means something worse is going to happen than what they had done to us and Stardust's friends… and my idea of having Casey fuse with Stardust again to defeat Evil Stardust is useless because I caused him to leave off to Celestia knows where after I said that we needed to take a break, thinking it was the right decision to make, but now I'm starting to regret ever saying that tohim since there's no other way for me to ask him to fuse-"
She was suddenly cut off by Stardust's girlfriend, who smiled at her as she placed a hoof on her counterpart's shoulder.
"It'll be alright, Twilight, don't worry... I'm sure Jack can find a sensible way of dealing with this dilemna," replied the young alicorn, trying her best to make her other self feel positive. "Besides, Jack did say to us that Casey would be fine-"
"Not exactly something that sounds very pleasing to my ears," muttered Starlight, who was still annoyed with the gold pony.
Stardust was about to respond, but he found himself sensing the contrasting emotions of both his girlfriend and her counterpart, which was all just one big mixture of concern, panic, guilt, and fear, and it didn't help that he could also sense their thoughts, as well, with his Twilight wanting to believe that everything was going to be fine, and her counterpart was thinking of what could possibly be the worst things to happen now that their enemies were working together.
"I still can't believe you actually decided to just help yourself to a slice o' cake back in our Twilight's castle," exclaimed Applejack, who was now frowning at the pink pony. "What in the hay made ya think that was a good idea?"
"What? I was hungry," whined Pinkie Pie, and while the two of them started to argue with each other, Starlight noticed that Stardust was now gone.
Where does he think he's going?
"Uggggghhh…" moaned Stardust, while laying his head on the desk that was in his bedroom. "So… much… emotions and… thoughts that aren't my own…"
A few minutes later, he heard the sound of somepony walking in, and a familiar voice saying, "Hey, Stardust, I was wondering why I saw this book that has… oh, boy, eyes are closed, and you're having your head down on the desk… everypony not letting you get some sleep again?"
Realizing that this was the Starlight Glimmer from his world, Stardust let out a sigh, and he lifted his head off the desk to look at his friend. "No, it's a little more worse than what happened on that day… um, remember I told you about that one time when Twilight and I met an Earth Pony who came from a parallel version of this world?"
"Was it before or after the whole-"
"After those events."
Starlight became silent for a moment as she tried to remember what Stardust was talking about.
Then, once she did, the young unicorn replied, "Never got a chance to meet him yet, but yeah, I remember… why, is he here?"
"He was, but now he's gone, so that leaves us with his world's version of the Mane 6 because they were almost attacked by my evil counterpart and his friends, who are evil versions of Twilight and the other five mares... " explained Stardust, who was now rubbing the sides of his head with his hooves.
"And because of what I can do regarding the power of balance, both versions of Twilight are unintentionally giving me a headache while I sense their emotions and hear their thoughts… not to mention that your counterpart is upset with me for - wait, what kind of book did you find again?"
Before Starlight could give him an answer, his girlfriend suddenly appeared at the doorway, and she said, "There you are, Jack! How come you decided to come up here?'
"I just needed a moment for myself, love," replied Stardust. "How's your other self doing now?"
A look of concern appeared on her face, and the young alicorn said, "Better, especially since everypony else is helping out… but she's worried about what could happen now that Beck is with your evil self, and Starlight's still upset with you, for some reason."
"Huh? No, I'm not," replied a confused Starlight. "I was making sure he was okay."
"No, she meant the other you," said Stardust, trying to forget about his headache. "I could sense a lot of pain and anger… and frustration… coming from her while the two of us had an argument - wait, where did she go?"
############
After pacing back and forth several times, Applejack stood still, and said, "Alright, so we pretty much got to stop Evil Stardust, the evil versions of ourselves, and Beck from doin' Celestia knows what?"
Twilight's counterpart nodded her head, and she replied, "Yes, but since Casey isn't here, that means he can't fuse with Stardust to turn into Starcade, so now, I'm trying to think of a way for us-"
"Hi, Starlight!" greeted Pinkie, waving a hoof at the unicorn's other self that was now entering the library.
"Um…" Starlight looked at all seven of the ponies, and asked, "So, you're all from another world that's parallel to this one, I presume?"
Everypony nodded their head, and Starlight began to focus her attention on her counterpart. "And… may I ask why you, uh, don't like my friend?"
"Huh? Who do you… oh, right, him," replied the parallel version of Starlight. "I just figured that he'd want to find Casey before taking on these evil ponies - with most of them wanting to hurt your friend, by the way… but he thinks he'll be just fine, which I guess is the same thing he thought while Beck was doing all those terrible things to Casey and the rest of us, even though he and Casey are supposedly really close friends since they've spent almost every day together for Celestia knows how long."
As Stardust and his girlfriend came into the library, Starlight said, "Well… for the record, none of us here knew what was going on in your world because nopony told us-"
"Er…" said Twilight, with everypony now looking at her. "Well, the last message that my other self sent prior to her asking if she could come see us was her telling me that there were strange disappearances… and yes, I did have a bad feeling that something terrible was happening in their world, but me and Jack had to help our Pinkie with her own problem of not eating the nom-nom treats…"
"Nom-noms?" wondered Pinkie. "What are those?"
Before the young alicorn could answer, Fluttershy suddenly went over to [my] Twilight, and asked, "You think we should, um... also mention to Stardust what Evil Stardust said about him wanting to hurt us like he did Sun-?"
"Sunset?" said Stardust, as well as his girlfriend and his world's version of Starlight, and Fluttershy simply nodded her head.
"That… can't be right," replied Twilight. "She was just here a few days ago. Was it the one from your world he-"
Her counterpart shook her head, and she said, "I don't think so… because she came to Ponyville a few days ago when me and Casey were still in the hospital."
"Well, if it wasn't our Sunset… or your Sunset…" wondered Stardust. "Then it has to be one from another world… which means that, if they aren't at your castle, Twilight, there's only one place for them to be at…"
"And, where would that be?" questioned Starlight's counterpart, and Stardust muttered to himself before giving his answer.
"Anti-Equestria."
Insert "The Bells of Notre Dame" by Alan Menken around 3:50 - 3:56 mark.
"Ooooh, can you do that again?" asked Pinkie, and Stardust looked at her, in confusion.
"What are you talking about?"
Pinkie was about to answer him when Rainbow said, "Hold on just a sec, Stardust… shouldn't we go to one of our Sunset's world in order to see if-"
"Oh, yeah, that reminds me," interrupted Pinkie, who was now holding up a necklace that she handed over to Stardust. "I also found this lying on the ground when I went back to our Twilight's castle."
Recognizing it as Sunset's geode necklace, a frown appeared on Stardust's face, and he said, "Okay, we're definitely going to his world now… but I'm guessing that he must have Sunset with them in their version of this castle, which means she'll be guarded by probably his anti-pony friends, so-"
"Oh! Oh! Does that mean we get to wear disguises?" asked a hopeful Pinkie, but after Stardust shook his head, she let out a groan. "Ah, bummer…"
"Well, I think the only pony who needs a disguise is you, sugarcube," said Applejack, looking at Stardust. "I mean, he has a scratch over his right eye, and you don't have somethin' like that, so…"
Before Stardust could say anything, a sly grin appeared on the face of Starlight's counterpart, and with her horn glowing, she said, "I can fix that… close your right eye, Stardusk-"
"Star-dust, and what would be the point of - ow! What the…"
Suddenly, Pinkie let out a gasp of surprise, and she cried, "Hey, look at this, Twilight! Their machine has that one button you told me not to press, too! I wonder if…"
"Pinkie, wait!" cried Twilight's counterpart. "You don't hav - oh, no..."
Anti-Equestria
After finishing up her business with Sunset, Midnight walked back into the throne room, where Evil Stardust was talking with Beck and the others about their plan, and she said, "Stardust! We need to talk…"
"We do? About what?" wondered Stardust's counterpart, and he regretted saying that after Midnight walked up to him.
"You know exactly what I mean," growled the young alicorn, with a hint of a sly smile on her face.
It took a few seconds for Evil Stardust to understand what she meant, so after nodding his head, he turned to face Beck. "Alright, new pony, while I discuss some stuff with Midnight, you and my friends figure out if Casey is with my other self… cause things are gonna go sour real fast if I find out there is a chance of them becoming Starcade. Get the picture?"
"Sure, just as long as you don't interfere with me when it's time to deal with her other self," replied Beck, in a similar tone. "Get the picture?"
Before Evil Stardust could respond, Midnight pulled him out of the room rather harshly, and once they were gone, Beck asked, "Are they together or… broken up…"
"Eh, it's like a love-hate thing, newbie," replied Anti-Rainbow, giving a shrug. "But it'll be a while before we see either of those two again."
"And, why is that?"
Pinkie's counterpart rolled her eyes, and said, "Well, I mean, this story is rated T for a reason."
Beck just looked at her, for a moment, before he shook his head, deciding to forget about it.