Chapter 2- I'm not in Canada anymore (Revised)

Chapter 2- I'm Not in Canada Anymore...

"In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again."

                              -Lewis Carroll

Ponyville, Equestria, Tuesday, 2nd of April, 2:15 PM, 2205 AC

Twilight Sparkle jumped at the sound of thunder, it wasn't the sound that startled the purple Unicorn. No it was the strange feeling that came with it. Almost as if she was being rained on again, only this rain was icy cold and carried a sense of dread.

The monsoon that had been ravaging Ponyville had stopped half an hour ago. Within that time the rest of the mane six had gathered in Twilights library and were awaiting the arrival of Princess Celestia.

An hour earlier, the situation had reached a critical point as the magic of Unicorns and Pegasi had started failing all together. Even the sturdy magic of Earth Ponies started failing  as Twilight bore witness to Big Macintosh being unable to even nudge a fallen tree from the road, a feat he would have preformed easily on better days.

Then out of nowhere, magic started returning to the ponies. Pegasi began making progress against the storm and after an hour of battling, they defeated it.

Twilight had sent another letter to Princess Celestia. Detailing all of what had transpired. The Princess had responded in writing that she was coming to Ponyville to investigate, and so Twilight had gathered her friends to wait for the princess.

Twilight looked to said friends now, they were all in the main room of the library. Rainbow Dash was resting from her ordeal in the monsoon, her cyan chest rising and falling evenly. Rarity sat delicately on a single cushion, looking as poised and elegant as ever as she sipped from a cup of tea that she had Spike make for her. Fluttershy was tending to Rainbow Dash, changing the bandages in her cuts when need be. Applejack was leaning against one of the many bookshelves with her hat pulled down over her eyes; supposedly asleep. Pinkie Pie was bouncing in circles continuously, with a joyous smile on her lips and singing random tunes.

She was lucky to have them Twilight realized, lesser Ponies would have hid in their own homes and cowered in fear, yet not a hint of fear showed on any of her conscience friends faces, even Fluttershy showed only concern as she tended to the downed Pegasus on the floor.

Twilight sighed and thought about the strange feeling she had experienced just a moment ago, it had been a sense of dread and foreboding, it felt almost… instinctual.

The Unicorn was forced out of her stupor by a knock at her door, coming down the stairs from her small platform-window-bedroom-thing. Twilight opened the door with her magic as she reached it, revealing Princess Celestia standing behind it.

The Princess looked as regal as ever, her rainbow mane moved as if blown by an invisible wind, her coat glowed like the sun she commanded, and a small motherly smile was upon her lips.

"Princess!" Twilight instinctively bowed her head, she heard a soft chuckle from the Alicorn in front her and then an even softer motherly nuzzle as the Goddess of the Sun gently pushed Twilights purple head back up.

"No need to be so formal, Twilight" the princess said in a serene voice "We are friends are we not?"

The purple Unicorn nodded rapidly "Yes Princess, friends, please come in!" Twilight moved hurriedly out of the way so the Princess could pass. Said Alicorn found herself feeling that her student could do with a good clonk over the head, thinking better of it Celestia entered the library.

Upon seeing the royal, the ponies inside bowed as well, that is excluding Fluttershy, who was preoccupied tending to Rainbow Dash.

"Rise all of you" Princess Celestia's past feeling had amended itself and now believed that everypony needed a good clonk over the head.

"I hope you are all doing fine after that storm" the Princess looked at the unconscience Pony on the floor when she said that.

The yellow Pegasus hid behind her long pink hair before speaking.

"She… Should be waking up soon" Fluttershy said this in little more than a whisper, the princess had to strain her ears to hear the muttered sentence.

"Well I am sure she is in good hooves, Fluttershy" the shy Pegasus blushed at her name and hid further behind her hair.

"Twilight" the princess said suddenly, turning to the unicorn in question "I wonder if I could have a quick word with you" there was an unmistakeable 'alone' hiding in that sentence.

Twilight nodded "In here princess" the Unicorn lead the royal through the door at her right and into the kitchen. The kitchen itself was simply furnished, with a small oak table in the centre and simple cupboards lining the walls.

Princess Celestia turned to her student.

"Twilight what I am about to tell you is very important, I would like you to keep it to yourself. Maybe share it with your friends but that remains to be seen" Twilight found herself a little stunned, the Princess had suddenly switched from a motherly figure to a serious profile that was largely unfamiliar to Twilight.

Now her mentor was asking her to possibly keep secrets from her friends, the mere idea made Twilight uncomfortable, but Twilight trusted the Princess and knew she must have a good reason for it. The purple Unicorn nodded determinately.

The Princess allowed herself a small smile before diving into a lengthy lecture.

"For the past month or so I have been feeling…off, some sort of old internal instinct told me that something was wrong. Following my gut feeling I had checked thousands of different things, the Castle of the Pony Sisters, the Gryphon Kingdom, the Discord statue" the Sun Princess shook her head "Nothing was amiss, but then I checked the status of Equestria's magical fields" Twilight raised her eyebrows at this "As you know Equestria is covered in a magical field that connects all things and all lifeforms, it is the heart and soul of life as we know it and where we draw our magical strength from" The Princess paused to let this sink in before continuing.

"Now for the past few days this field has been weakening and came to the point where magic was failing completely. You yourself experienced this during the storm, but then suddenly the field gained strength again and things returned to normal" the Princess paused again, thinking to herself  "You know most of this already, you also are probably felt that pulse just before I arrived, that pulse was the entire field shutting down completely, albeit if only for a second. If anypony was using magic at the time it would have shut down instantly along with the field" Twilights lavender eyes widened at that, she had never read anything on this scale to have happened before.

"What does this mean?" The purple Unicorn asked, the princess smiled grimly

"I do not know" the Sun Goddess said sadly "But I have a plan to find out" the Alicorn looked Twilight in the eye "A plan that involves you"

Twilight wasn't surprised by this, she had come to expect this from the sun princess, Celestia would ask Twilight to handle situations that she herself would usually take care of, it was the princesses way of testing her pupil.

Twilight broke the silence that had been reining "And what is this plan?" The princess smiled at her student

"You are to join a small force of Royal Guards and enter the Everfree forest, there you will locate the central focal point for the magical fluctuations and collect data on it" Twilight thought this over for a while, mulling over all the factors and variables, eventually she spoke up

"I just have one question" the princess tilted her head and gestured for her to continue, Twilight smiled

"Can I bring my friends?"

                                                                      ~~*~~

Outside Ponyville, Equestria, Tuesday, 2nd of April, 2:25 pm, 2205 AC.

Waking up has always been a difficult task for you Human types. You lie there for several minutes, not realizing your awake until some external force jolts you awake.

Jason lied in a large flat grassy field, to his left a dense forest could be seen, so dense that it blocked most of the sunlight from reaching the ground. To Jason's right the field continued until vision was broken by a series of hills that denied line of sight to whatever lay beyond.

The Human lay there for several minutes, his brain an hour behind real time and struggled to process mountains of sensory data (having less success then it would have if Jason had smoked a pound of Marijuana) while its host body just lay on its back and stared up at the fluffy clouds above. To Jason it felt as if he was between worlds (a rather accurate feeling) and the Universe couldn't decide which to place him in.

And then that external force came.

A sound that for all intents and purposes sounded like thunder but wasn't in fact thunder. As the sound registered in the mess that was Jason's brain, the Universe suddenly decided that it would throw the annoying Human into the world that his brain was located in, which was Equestria.

As the rest of Jason raced through the Void and slammed together in Equestria. The Human brain that controlled him suddenly gained function again and processed all the data received and came to the last fact that immediately put Jason's body into danger mode.

This wasn't home.

Jason slowly sat up, his back damp from the wet ground and he took in his surroundings. The forest enclosed the field he was in and only stopped when

it reached the hills. Jason realized his heart was beating twice its normal rate and forced himself to calm down, panicking would not help the situation. Jason gathered the relevant facts and tried to process what happened.

I was in my driveway, staring at the sky and now I'm in a field.

…

"Well shit" The Human said out loud, it felt good to hear his own voice, something that reminded him of normality.

Jason forced his brain to work rationally, treating the situation as if he had simply gotten lost in the woods.

'Supplies' he thought, Jason grabbed the small green day bag that had been with him before he transported, inside was the items he had planned on taking on his hunting trip (Besides a crossbow of course) a compass, six pop-off flares, a flare gun with twelve rounds, a canteen full of water, rope, and a hunting knife.

Jason digged out the knife and drew it from its sheath, it was sharp, serrated near the hilt and curved at the end. Jason pressed the flat of the blade to his lips, practically kissing it, drawing confidence from the weapon. He re-sheathed the knife and attached it to his belt, having done that Jason closed his day bag and secured it to his back.

The Human slowly stood up, testing his leg muscles and once again took in his surroundings

'Gain a point of reference' he remembered

Jason jogged quickly to the hills that blocked his view and climbed to the top. From there he could see that beyond the hills was several miles of that dense forest until it stopped and gave way to what was quite clearly a small town.

Jason's face broke out in a smile 'Civilization!' He thought joyfully, he knew what to do next, digging the flare gun out of his pack he loaded it and pointed the muzzle skyward.

"Let there be light!" The Human shouted outloud pulling the trigger, the end of the gun exploded as the flare soared upward leaving a trail of red sparks in its wake, as it reached its maximum altitude the flare exploded into a bright shower of scarlet sparks.

Jason replaced the gun back into his day bag and started jogging into the dark forest and towards the town.

                                                                      ~~*~~

The six royal guards stood like statues.

Princess Celestia was over by her chariot, giving instructions to its drivers, the two armoured stallions absorbing all of her words.

Twilight and her friends sat together, waiting for the princess to lead them into the Everfree forest. A feat that none of them were thrilled about but even more concerning things held their attention

"So what exactly are we looking for?" The rainbow Pegasus asked for the fifth time, the purple Unicorn in which she was addressing sighed heavily

"I told you" Twilight said "Not even the princess knows. Apparently it can be everything from a stone to a fruit, or it could simply be a energy field" the bookish Unicorn paused "…It may even be a living thing."

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes.

"I know all that but what I want to know is why we are trying to find it?"

Twilight ground her teeth together but forced herself to speak calmly

"Because" she said patiently "Whatever it is came from or is connected to a completely different world, we could learn innumerable things from it."

Rainbow Dash looked like she was about to question Twilight again but a certain orange Earth Pony decided to step in

"Rainbow ah don't think ya'll should bother yourself or Twi with this, the Princess thinks its important and that should be good enough for anypony"

The Rainbow Pegasus shrugged and walked off to annoy the guards and Applejack sat next to Twilight who was staring blankly into the Everfree forest. Wondering what- if anything- could be in there.

The Princess sent off the guards by the chariot, they saluted and flew away. Celestia made her way over to the group and addressed them

"Are you prepared?" She asked, Applejack, Fluttershy, and Twilight nodded, all of them sporting saddle bags.

Rarity- who up until this point had been lying on a sun chair wearing a wide brimmed sun hat, a pair of overlarge sunglasses and holding a sun reflector to her face- waved her hoof in acknowledgment

"Of course Princess!" The Alicorn in question smiled at the sight.

"What about you Rainbow Dash?" The Pegasus in question was currently waving her hoof and making silly faces at the guards. At the sound of Celestia's voice she immediately spun around and gave the Alicorn a salute

"Ready when you are princess!" She said patriotically. Celestia nodded and gestured for the mane six to follow

"Let us away then" the six friends fell into step around the princess, the royal guards made an arrow formation around the group with Celestia at the point.

They had come to the edge of the forest and were about to enter when something odd happened; a light, bright red and sparkling, flew into the air before exploding in a shower of sparks.

Twilight Sparkle looked in wonder at the light, it wasn't magic that much was sure but all logic and reason told her it was because nothing else in Equestria or anywhere could have done that besides magic.

"What was THAT!" Pinkie Pie said pointing at where the light had exploded. The six friends stared at the few sparks that remained.

"That kinda looks like them lights that Trixie had, they sparkled too" Applejack sounded just as unsure as the rest of them, suddenly entering the forest seemed like more of a feat then it did before

"No" Celestia's voice was quiet but one could hear the fear in her voice, the mane six looked at the Alicorn.

She was afraid, her eyes were wide and filled with it, in fact she looked like she was going to be sick

"Princess?" Twilight asked "What is it?" The Alicorn didn't answer immediately, her gaze went from where the spark had exploded to the direction it came from

"There is only one being in all of creation who can do something like that without using magic" the princess said, almost to herself

"And I pray to the sun that I am wrong" the six ponies heard this and exchanged scared and worried glances

"Princess?" Twilight said again "What are we facing here?" Celestia broke out of her trance and turned to

face her student, a calming smile coming to her lips

"I am still unsure, I have a guess but I think it best to keep to myself unless confirmed, we can however safely assume that we are dealing with a creature of some sort and one with some manner of intelligence" there was a pause.

"Um… what sort of creature?" Fluttershy asked timidly, Celestia smiled warmly at the yellow Pegasus.

"Whatever it is I am sure you can handle it Fluttershy" the Pegasus in question cheeks became tinted with pink before she hid behind her mane.

"Anyway" the princess said "we should get going, tally-ho!" The mane six looked at the princess in confusion.

"Tally-what?" Pinkie pie asked, Celestia sighed in nostalgia

"It means 'Lets Go' it is a… very old saying" that's all the princess have them before she lead them into the forest.