Sweet Valley Twins: Friendship is Magic (Chapter 10)
Title: Sweet Valley Twins: Friendship is Magic
Summary: All the trouble started right after Lila saw the purple Unicorn in her backyard.
Dedication: For Raven and @buffywatcher23
Timeline: Factory reset, just like almost any book.
Notes: This won’t be as aggressively meta as my last NaNo, so if you were anticipating me leaning so hard on the fourth wall that it falls over, I’m sorry. This still will be a bit sassy, but honestly, I peaked with the Hunger Games crossover. Wait. No, I lied. I couldn’t get past the first page without doing my usual thing.
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.
19,738 / 50,000 words. 39% done!
Ten
Megan turned a hate-filled gaze on Rita. “How dare you, Draggle? How dare you steal my daughter and come to this world! You’ve always hated me and the ponies, and now you’ve gone too far!”
“I had no idea she was your daughter? It’s the eighties! Do you know how many people are called Megan in California? How was I supposed to know that Tammy’s mother was the same Megan who visited Ponyland all those years ago? How was I even supposed to know we were in the same timeline? Majesty told me that Ponyland and this world run in different times.”
“You dare to speak Majesty’s name? You monster!”
Twilight straightened up. She had heard of Majesty. She was the most revered leader in Equestrian history. She was so universally beloved that when she passed away, her heir refused to take the mantle of queen, and instead ruled as a princess for her entire lifespan. According to a fascinating genealogy report by famed historian Royal Bouquet, there was a familial link between Queen Majesty and the ruling princesses, Celestia and Luna. In fact, there was a very small subset of ponies who called themselves Majestites who believed that one day Majesty would return, and they’d had quite the internal spat as half of their faction believed that Celestia was Majesty reborn, while the other half were deeply offended by this assertion—
“She was my friend! She helped me become a good person!” Rita said tearfully.
“I don’t believe you!” Megan said. “Nobody here does! Everyone knows that the witches from the Volcano of Gloom are evil!” She turned to the ponies. “Tell them!”
Twilight found herself to be the center of attention, with Megan, Rita, Applejack and Elizabeth Wakefield staring at her expectantly—not to mention the rest of the audience, who were watching the exchange with interest. “Well, it is true that history does not remember them kindly, but….” She looked at Megan and could only see the way she pushed past her daughter to embrace Applejack. It was not the action of the great May-Gahn she had read about. The all-knowing, all-seeing May-Gahn was a being of pure love, one whose sole purpose was to teach the ways of friendship. She had quelled the Smooze with a single song note, one that represented the love and protection she felt for everypony around her. Twilight was bitterly disappointed, and filled with remorse that she had helped events take this particular course. “The stories remember the great May-Gahn as a girl filled with love and kindness, and not somepony who would run straight past their daughter.”
Megan looked taken aback, her mouth fell open, but she said nothing.
“Queen Majesty is an ancient ancestor of Princesses Celestia and Luna—the rulers of our land. She is regarded so highly that the title of Queen was never bestowed on a pony again.” Twilight looked in Rita’s direction. “If she gave somepony a second chance, then I don’t doubt that pony’s worthiness.”
“But you don’t know Majesty gave her a chance!” Megan cried. “And why would she? Draggle was nothing but evil! Majesty would have destroyed her kingdom before she helped you!”
“I don’t know nothing much about the history stuff, but if Twi says that’s what the history books say, then you can be sure that’s what the books say. Ain’t nobody more well-read than her,” Applejack put in.
“Majesty,” Rita said, in a voice filled with sadness, “was the only friend I ever had back then. I mourn her every day.” She shook her head and wiped her eyes. “I don’t have to defend myself to you, Megan. I’m going to find Tammy, she must be so upset.”
She turned on her heel and headed for the door.
“Not without us, you’re not!” Megan cried. “Come along, ponies!”
Twilight gave Megan and incredulous look. “I’m going, but only because I owe Tammy a very big apology.” She glanced over at Elizabeth Wakefield. “And so do you. I wish we’d known that she and her mother didn’t get along.”
“But she did know!” a new voice chimed in. Elizabeth’s twin joined the group with an unsettling smile on her face. “Tammy told her over and over that she wasn’t to have contact with her mother, and she didn’t want to talk about it, but Elizabeth wouldn’t let it go.” Jessica grinned at her sister.
“How would you know that?” Elizabeth asked.
Twilight didn’t have time to process that. Rita was striding away, and Twilight decided that Tammy was the priority—not the twins, who were turning out to be as disappointing as May-Gahn—Megan.
Twilight trotted past Megan and the twins, with Applejack beside her, and they kept the pace until they reached Rita.
“I’m so sorry,” Twilight offered. “I really didn’t know that all this would happen.”
“What’ve you got to be sorry about? You’re just here, you didn’t do anything,” Rita said. They exited the school, and Rita took the lead. “We’ll try home first. That’s the first place she’d go. I hope.”
“But I did do something,” Twilight said. “I thought that she couldn’t find her mother, and you were kindly caring for her until she found her. I helped Elizabeth write the letter that brought May—Megan here.”
Rita sighed deeply. “I seem to remember that you ponies used to keep all the babies in a nursery and take turns in parenting them, so I suppose that made sense to you.”
Twilight shook her head again. “No, I know that’s how it was back then, but that’s not how it is now. Foals grow up with their parents—or at least close family.”
“Still, this world takes some getting used to. If you say you didn’t mean any harm, I believe you.”
“You do?” Twilight was surprised. She was having a hard time reconciling her knowledge of the witches and May-Gahn with Rita and Megan. It seemed that every telling of their stories was backwards.
“Yes, anyone who speaks Majesty’s name with such reverence can’t be all bad,” Rita said.
With a clatter of feet, the twins and Megan caught up with them.
“I don’t think the same can be said of her though,” Rita added with a pointed look in Elizabeth’s direction.
Elizabeth stuck her nose in the air. “I just thought that Tammy should be reunited with her real mother. I have experience in that area. Just ask the Henkels!”
“And I have passed every single government-required check and course, not to mention all the hours of tutoring I’ve taken above and beyond that to know what is best for any child trusted in my care! I’ve spent months of my life building a bond with Tammy, and we were really making progress—” Rita’s voice broke off, and she had to start again. “But of course, a child knows best!” Rita shook her head, and quickened her pace.
“She did know best!” Megan snapped, which caused Elizabeth to smile. “Tammy wouldn’t have run off if she hadn’t found out you were an evil witch!”
“I know I’ve got no horse in this race, but it seems to me that Tammy wouldn’t have run off if she hadn’t been blindsided by a whole heap of emotional revelations right in front of everypony she knows,” Applejack said.
Rita shook her head and quickened her pace still. She reached a house that Twilight had never visited, strode down the path and threw open the door. Twilight followed hot on her heels. She paused and gave Applejack a quick look and an ear flick, which Applejack interpreted correctly, because she turned and blocked the door, keeping Megan and the twins from following them inside.
Rita gasped at the sight of the living room. It had been trashed. Books had been ripped from the shelves and left in haphazard piles at the foot of the shelves, cushions had been torn up from the sofa and left on the floor, papers were scattered, and it looked like a herd of Pinkie Pies had gone through it.
“She was probably looking for money,” Rita said, then added in a low voice that nearly broke Twilight’s heart, “We had been doing so well until now.”
Twilight raised a hoof to Rita’s arm in a gesture of comfort. The best way to help Rita—and Tammy—was to be logical though. “Would she have found any?”
“Uh, why?”
“Because if she did, we can work out where she went. Is there enough for a carriage to another village? Is there—” Twilight floundered. She didn’t know how people travelled in this world—aside from those horrific pony-less metal carriages. “Can she buy transport somewhere else? If there was enough bits to buy a ticket, how far could she go with it?”
Rita thought for a moment. “If she found the emergency fund—and she probably would, she knows it’s on the bookshelf, just in case she needs it—then she could get a bus ticket out of here.”
Twilight had no idea what a bus was, but that sounded hopeful. “Right. A bus ticket. Where do you buy them?”
“The bus station. Come with me!”
They dashed out of the house. “We’re going to the bus station!” Twilight said.
“Actually, I think Tammy would be happier if I just went alone.” Rita gave Twilight an apologetic smile.
“I think I should go,” Elizabeth announced. “You wouldn’t believe how many people I’ve talked out of running away at the Sweet Valley bus station.”
“You’re the problem,” Jessica said, with a certain amount of glee. “She hates you. She told me. I think I should go. I’m the ‘nice’ twin.”
“I think—” Applejack began, but was cut off by a curious groaning sound in the distance.
“What is that?” Twilight asked.
As the sound got closer, it was accompanied by sharp cracks, shattering glass and the tumbling of rocks—not to mention shouts of surprise and then screams of terror.
“Oh no…” Rita murmured.
The groaning sound continued and the group looked down the road, they saw a wave of purple viscous ooze dotted with eyes making their way towards them, with throngs of people ahead of it running for their lives. Everything the ooze hit crumbled beneath it, and the tidal wave continued on its path of destruction, all the while making that inhuman groaning noise.
It crested another house—this one a level higher than the ones around it, and Twilight watched in horror as the ooze seemed to reorganize itself, thinning in some areas so it could bulk up nearer the house in order to wash over it. The house caved in under the weight. Windows burst outwards, walls buckled, people screamed, and soon the house was invisible under a thick layer of purple slime.
It was a lot different from Twilight’s stories. “Is that…?”
“Smooze!” cried Rita. “RUN!”
Note: Majesty was a white unicorn from the G1 My Little Pony line, she was the queen of Ponyland and came with the Dream Castle playset. She wasn’t in the TV show or movie, but it’s been mentioned in more than one fan theory or fic that she is an ancestor of Celestia and Luna. I can’t find any official word from Hasbro on why Celestia and Luna are princesses and not queens—though the theory I’ve seen most often is that it was a show aimed at girls and, as we all know, girls LOVE princesses. (And queens tend to be evil in the Disney-verse.) However, I have to credit A Mighty Demon Slayer Grooms Some Ponies with the idea that it was a mark of respect that the next rulers after her take a different title and retire the title of “queen”. I thought it was a lovely idea and now it’s my fanon.
Rita/Draggle was one of the witches who lived in the Volcano of Gloom. Yes, they were the bad guys, but Draggle seemed to constantly get it in the neck. Her mother and sister (Hydia and Reeka) constantly berated her. In one episode, the witches have captured a few ponies in a net, and Draggle is left behind to watch over them because she screwed something up. The ponies pretend to befriend her, and obviously double-cross her, and leave her tied up, where once again she is berated by her mother and sister. The small contingent of fandom who watched the G1 cartoon (and cared enough to think about it) seems to universally feel that Draggle should have joined the side of good, and the ponies should have been kinder. Basically, Twilight Sparkle wouldn’t pull this shit.
Famed historian Royal Bouquet does not exist. I went to my collection database, got it to randomly generate a name, and that’s who we landed on.
Finally, the video I linked at the bottom of the chapter is my favorite thing in the G1 cartoon universe. I absolutely love the song. Draggle (Rita) is the tall skinny witch, and the small fat one is her sister, Reeka.
This is fun – this video is confirmation that I watched the original series. I was never much of a horse girl, but this song is and the animation is very familiar.
This song is the best thing that G1 animation every came up with. It’s a solid 10, and everything else is a 3 at best.