Ponysona 4, the Campaign.

"Get away from everypony, huh? I can relate to that...Obviously we're not really going to the park...What's on your mind...?" She looked at him for a moment, wondering what he was thinking...She was a bit worried about him...

"Oh! Alice!" exclaims Tilt, nearly jumping in surprise, "Of course I can help. Here, let me have a look at the list and we'll sort you out."

Tilt levitates over the shopping list and leads Alice towards the first of the shelves, levitating away a couple of packets and holding them in front of Alice. "Do you know which brand you wanted? I usually prefer A1's curry mix, but it's hotter than a lot of ponies like." she explains, holding up the red pouch, alongside the packets branded 'Lucky Horseshoe' and 'Thai Plus'.

"Hey, Alice? Did anypony tell you what happened last night? When Melody took a piece of your memory?" Tilt asks, after a moment. It wasn't difficult to tell the events of last night were still weighing heavily on the filly's mind.

Zeela: Daisoujo sits ion his haunches in front of you with a soft smile. "It's quite all right. You seem to regret what happened. I'm glad though that our third has a passive healing ability." He rubs at his eye tentatively, a small thin scar on it that seems to actually be still closing up. "If you don't mind, can we walk for a bit and talk together? I still need to cool down after my practice."

Tilt: Alice follows you, glancing at the list with a few careful bites of her lip. "Nii-san likes spicy things, so the hottest one you have. I don't so some mild ones too?" She glances back and forth, not seeing anypony around and lightly kicks your shin. "I was helping! Why'd you make me forget I did?!"

Melody: "I just... Want to talk to someone in private." Shiro takes you to what seems to be a small apartment building, and gets the pony at the counter to hoof the key to room 14 over. "Thanks sir."
"No problem kiddo. Still got the lease until your forty, if you ever want to come back."
Shiro steps walks down the hallway again and turns the key to the room, stepping in and coughing at the small bit of dust. He whispers 'I'm home' and walks in, pulling a dusting rag in his hoof and starting to clean it up. "SOrry for the mess. I don't really come back here much.

Icing: Pearl nods, and writes a bit in her book. Her book's... College level calculus, and not even just freshman level and she seems to be whizzing through it without even looking. "It's just... I'm sorry anyways..." Pearl bites her lip, pushing the calc book aside and pulling out a geology book to, working in both of them with her magic.

Tilt nods, putting the A1 and Lucky Horseshoe packets into the cart, and returning the Thai Thai packet to the shelf. "The Lucky Horseshoe brand sauce isn't very spicy, but if you think it's too hot I recommend adding blended onions as filler. Don't be afraid to use salt and sugar to adjust the taste." she starts moving along to the next shelf, nodding sadly to Alice, "Because sometimes when you're caught up in the moment, you do bad things. Or let bad things happen. It's not the same as not having done it in the first place, but you deserve to know what did happen. What would you like to know?"

They stop at a shelf laden with bags of rice of different sizes, from the 20 kilo bulk bags her parents always called her in to carry, to the smaller 2kg ones.

"What are you planning on making? There's a lot of different kinds of rice." asks the unicorn, switching seamlessly back into the friendly shopkeeper's daughter - it cost her nothing to be helpful on a slow evening like this, and besides, a nice smile and a helpful demeanour would pass itself forwards. Even if it was on shifts with a more serious conversation right now, that was no reason not to help out the siblings with their plans for dinner.

"Alright, no worries, Shiro..." She looked around at the apartment as she entered, blinking a bit and glancing about. "So, this is-..." She cut herself off, looking at Shiro for a minute, moving to get a rag to help dust the place off. "No, it's okay, really...I've seen worse, trust me, eh, heh..." She coughed a bit, but kept assisting him in cleaning the place up as she spoke.

"Well in that case I accept your apology, do not fret over it." Both sides had appearances they needed to keep up, it seemed. Masks and facades. Still, such an acceptance of apology was expected of him not due to being himself, but due to so many other facts... If Blood Mage put her up to this, she was little more than a spy, a tool to be used. He would pity her if he were not in the same boat with worse circumstances. Still, the topic was stale. Again, thank you society, it was his job to change it.

"Those seem to be collegiate level. If you do not mind me asking, what major are you taking that requires both calculus and geology? An engineer of some sort?"

George gets up and walks behind the nurse.
"Something the matter ma'am?"

"That's good..." Zeela mutters and nods, following Colt's lead as he walks. She felt something wasn't right... Daisoujo was being way too nice and friendly to the person who had nearly killed his sister. "um... Did... Somepony else talk with you?"

Tilt: "I didn't do anything bad. I was helping. And you were helping to. Or you thought you were." Alice pouts a bit, before grabbing a 20 kilo bag of Rice and putting it in her cart. "Big Brother eats a lot with his training. Curry with a lot of protein to help him with muscle growth. Where do you keep the fish?" Alice looks around a bit, and you notice she has quite a lot of food in her cart.

Zeela: Daisoujo nods, taking you along a walking path and switching between hovering and walking. "I had spoken to miss Melody. She and I came to a sort of agreement that as long as you don't try to harm Alice, I'll be of help."

George: The mare turns and looks down. "Oh, I... It's nothing, Sir. Just a bit of pain in my legs..." She continues fidgetting a little bit, rubbing her foreleg under her longsleeved blouse, not really fitting of the rather warm day.

Melody: Shiro continues dusting. "Mom and Dad's place. Before... They were in the TV, we lived here. Now I only barely come here. George's let me stay at his house the past few days, but I felt bad for doing that." Shiro puts down his rag and moves to Melody, nuzzling her. "Are you ok though? After Alice and Daisoujo..."

Icing: Pearl looks at both of the books. "It's not a major, both of these are just things I wish to do. But enough about me." She turns to Icing. "Brother said something about the Midnight Channel, and last night, I saw a pony that reminded me of you. But a mare."

"I see, a rather warm day though."
Roll (Perception, Sharp Eyes: Any problems with her forelegs I can see?)

Roll:

Roll (Perception, Sharp Eyes: Who's in the picture?)

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Melody was quiet for a moment, staring at Shiro...She...wasn't sure how to answer that. "I'm...I don't know. I made a mistake...A big one. No, I made two. I'm...Not really sure what to do...What about you? You knew Alice better than any of us..." Plus, he was just a colt, he wasn't supposed to be dealing with monsters yet...His biggest worry was supposed to be...Finding his cutie mark, or whatever it was foals did...

"Whoa! Careful with that!" exclaims Tilt, hurrying to help the other filly move the 20kg bag. "That's enough rice to feed a family for a month!" she quickly moves away the packets to make room for the enormous bag, letting it fall in with a whump.

"Whew." Tilt wipes sweat from her forehead and leans against the cart for a second before standing again and motioning Alice towards the back of the store. "The cooler's this way. We haven't gotten this week's shipment, though - it should be here in half an hour or so if you don't mind waiting a little longer."

"But I think you should know the whole story. Nopony can reach the truth missing a piece of themselves, no matter how small. So, after Zeela knocked you out, we took you and your brother back to the Velvet Room and chained you up, because we were afraid you'd use your horsonas to attack us after we woke you up. There, we treated your injuries, and our boss, Arcana, used magic to heal some of your wounds. Then Melody pressed her nose against yours, trying to get an impression of you as you woke up - you were a bit shocked by that, and you backed away when you woke up to her staring you in the face."

Tilt recounts everything everypony had said while Alice was awake.

"After that, I finally woke George up, and he gave you and your brother a checkup - you were both fine, and he actually noticed that your wounds were closing themselves up quite quickly. Then the question came up of what to do with you - Icing said to wipe your mind and leave you in the alley, Melody did, and to my shame the rest of us didn't stop her. I left at that point, but your brother was waking up around then, he can tell you everything that happened afterwards."

"There's another thing that's important - remember how when we first ran into you, and you taunted everypony else?"

Icing raised his eyebrows, before catching himself and schooling his surprise. "Really? A mare that looked like me? And on that urban legend?" He smiles amicably. "I suppose we all have our doppelgängers. I heard from the rumour mill, not Rumour Mill mind you, just the general sense, that it shows the true love of somepony who is watching it. Somepony out there must have an attraction to this mare."

His laconic smile turns to a mischievous grin. "And I will forget that you just implied I looked like a mare."

'Don't bite me in the rear... I made up such a character to throw off Blood. Don't tell me there actually is one...'

Zeela smiles at hearing that. "That's wonderful..." She said, trying to think of something to say. "Um... So... Ah... How did... Well... Au..."

Tilt tilts her ears forwards quite distinctly, regarding Alice with concerned severity, "You had something to say to everypony. Icing, George, Melody, Zeela, all of us. All of us, except me. Why is that?"

Zeela: Daisoujo chuckles quietly and shakes his head. "I had no intentions of making you uncomfortable, Zeela. Is there anything I can do to help that?" Daisoujo tilts his head, nodding slightly towards a temple. "Maybe if we had a bit of privacy you'd feel a bit better."

Tilt: Alice pauses for a moment, letting Tilt take care of the bag and mumbling, "We just eat a lot of curry and rice." Alice nods at what Tilt says, listening to all of it. "Nii-san told me what he could, but... thanks." She follows Tilt to the back and adding, "You already knew. You faced it. Your running makes you go Dokki-dokki, but you still go even after it."

Icing: Pearl shakes her head. "That's just it. It looked like you because she looked like a mare. It was exaggerated. I thought I even saw a flash of pink mane." She lightly brushes Icing's mane back with her magic. "Like... Like Star Power. Or like Full Tilt from a few nights back."

George: George can see that the mare's forelegs are... Much thinner than they appear, like she's a bit ill. The photo shows a young mare holding a small blanket in her arms, along side two other ponies- a stallion and a mare and the mare pushes it down. "Y-yes, it is a bit hot today. I wish I didn't have to work tonight...

Melody: Shiro continues nuzzling Melody. "... It's... It's like my shadow. You didn't do something wrong. You just wanted to help, or wanted help, and it ended up doing something that wasn't..." Shiro pulls back and looks down, fidgeting with his dust rag. "Alice is... a bully. Or I thought she was. She said stuff to me about not hiding or running and to face what's going on, but I couldn't. I think... I think I actually want to though."

"That's...Fairly accurate...I expected something...Well, something else when I was looking at her last night...For all the sadism though...She does want to help." She nodded, looking at him and placing a hoof on his back gently. "I...Don't know that it'll be easy, but...We'll be there to help you, okay? Though, pretty sure you'll have to be the one to make the steps in the end, but...We can certainly support you...That's what friends are for, right?" She smiled a bit, hoping to comfort him a little.

Icing shrinks back a bit at the sudden telekinetic contact. It doesn't change anything, magic had range like hooves simply didn't, but the movement was a bit startling. He wished unicorns would give some sort of warning before touching ponies, at least a tell of some kind. Her horn was already lit from page turning, that could give a delicate stallion like himself a heart attack. Not that he'd show it. Bad for business.

He does give a frown, though. "That is a lot of ponies that look like pink-haired mares: Me, the school's favoured child, and a track runner?" He holds up a hoof to stop the immediate reply. "No, I know what you mean. That is a lot of urbane legends all at once. Certainly it is odd, but nothing seems to come of it; I have not heard news of anything wrong happening to those two. I will have to watch it myself out of curiosity now, though."

Icing looked at his own homework then, but his interest in it suddenly dwindled. 'Compartmentalize, Icing!' He couldn't see the Midnight Channel to confirm or deny if another pony was in danger until mid-night. Nightmare Moon's powers were many, and varied. Algebraic functions, however, were important day or night.

..."I really look that feminine?"


================================
(After the time-skip, by the by, Icing is going to text everypony that a new Midnight Channel host has appeared according to a rumour he heard.)

"It's true, and I'm glad you understand it," replies Tilt, sliding open the smallish cooler, the shoof-shoof of moving ice betraying the unicorn rummaging pushing around ice. "because there was something our boss said that concerns you and your brother."

"He said you hadn't faced yours either - neither you, nor your brother. Your personas are like the others' - temporary magic, somepony else's magic. You're still in danger - your shadows are still out there."

Tilt lets that sink in a while, leaning into the cooler to check more closely. "Phew. They're starting to go a little fishy, let's wait for the shipment." She closes the cooler and jumps back down, turning back to look at Alice.

"You know, I think you're right. We're both helping. In different ways, but we're still helping. Arcana and Kuro have their wars, but the rest of us, we're all just ponies, you know? Ponies trying to do the best they can." She looks down, and undoes a small pin from her vest.

"Let them have their wars, let's be our own team, we can work together to help ponies find themselves." she holds out her pin to Alice, designed as it is with the emblem of the Wheel of Fortune.

Spoiler:

Tilt: Alice shakes a little bit, glancing back and forth when Tilt mentions her shadow and persona. "W-w-w-what are you t-talking about/ I... M-my persona's me..." She looks at Tilt's pin, taking it quickly and attaching it to her lapel before glancing away. "..."

Melody: Shiro Nuzzles Melody more, pulling away and continuing his cleaning quietly. "... Yeah... That's what friends are for."

Icing: "Oh, no. Just ponies think you're a mare inside." Pearl goes back to her geology notes with a quiet concerned noise, glancing at Icing

Spoiler:

"Indeed."
George takes a quick glance over to the shift schedule.
Roll (Perception: What has this Mare's shifts been over the last week or too been.)

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"It's possible Arcana was wrong," replies Tilt, "But we hadn't even told him you worked for Kuro yet. Do you think it might help if we shared our experiences confronting ourselves? Maybe we if we swap notes we can figure out how this all works."

"Yeah...Come on, I'll help ya clean the place up." She smiled at him for a moment, before going back to dusting and cleaning herself, wanting to lend a hand to him...

Icing gives Pearl an odd look, and checks back into his books.

Tilt: Alice glances side to side, stammering softly but looking down. "... C-can you keep a secret... Even from Nii-san? I... I have my own demon inside... and I'm afraid to meet her... Because... I... I like hurting ponies. And I'm worried she'll try to hurt Daisoujo..."

George: The mare seems to not be working that night, or any nights for that matter. Her name is Ebony, it seems and she yawns. "Y-yeah. I... Sir, do you mind giving me a quick once over. I need to save up money, so going to a doctor's is out of the question right now..."