Chapter 4

Torenon and his remaining Thalmor soldiers returned to their base camp in the Everfree Forest, they used healing potions and spells to recover from the damage they all took from their failed attack.

Torenon used his own healing spell to heal his broken ribs when he said, "Clearly we underestimated those creatures, but at least we know how they fight, so we should be ready next time we face any of them."

"Ready?" One of the Thalmor soldiers asked Torenon, "Do you need to be reminded that you were nearly killed yourself by those winged horses?"

"It was my own mistake," Torenon admitted, "I assumed Dragonborn would be the only real threat and that alone has cost us greatly, I'll contact our government for reinforcements, but in the meantime, we'll stay put in the camp to recover our strength."

the other Thalmor soldiers simply grumbled in response as they continued to heal themselves. Torenon pulled a crystal ball out of his robes and casted a spell and it, which caused it to start floating in mid air, glow a green light, and then project what seemed to be a holographic projection of what seem like a group of nobles of the Aldmeri Dominion, which consisted of a small group of Thalmor mages sitting in in a row in a long, narrow table.

"I have confirmation that the Dragonborn is in this strange world that I have learned is called Equestria," Torenon told the nobility of the Dominion, "I have also learned that this is a world mainly populated by sentient horses with varying colors on their coats, manes, and tails, as well as having strange symbols on their flanks."

"Are they hostile?" one of the Dominion nobles asked.

"I will admit I have made them that way toward the Thalmor," Torenon answered, "I saw the Dragonborn being escorted by 2 winged horses that have shown to be obviously part of Equestria's military, I attacked them because I thought we had the advantage of superior numbers, but Dragonborn convinced the winged soldiers to let him take the bulk of my troops, they nearly killed me and the Dragonborn wiped out half my men, so I was forced to retreat."

"You should've figured such a tactic wouldn't work on the Dragonborn," another of the Dominion nobles critizied, "He is known to have single-handedly fought large groups before, you let your overconfidence cost you dearly."

"Rest assured, I won't make that mistake again," Torenon said, "But I will still need reinforcements."

"See that you don't" another of the Dominion nobles said, "We'll get you what we can, but we're still trying to regain our strength from the Great War, we can't afford to engage an active campaign on this world, are you certain you can find something here worth all this trouble?"

"I know this world can somehow greatly suppress the powers of Daedric Princes," Torenon answered, "I don't think I need to tell you how invaluable it would be if we got our hands on something that has that kind of power."

"Very well, you may proceed for now, and if you manage to kill the Dragonborn along the way, all the better, but if this turns out to be more trouble than its worth-"

"It won't be," Torenon interrupted, "I'll make sure of it myself if I have to."

The projection of the Dominion nobles vanished and the crystal ball returned to normal as Torenon grabbed it and placed it back in his robe.

Torenon then said to his men, "there is something I need to tend to elsewhere, just call for me if something demands my attention."

Torenon walked out of the camp and went to see Trixie waiting for him in a small clearing nearby.

"Well, Dragonborn is clearly beyond my strength," Torenon said, "Time for the plan 'B' we talked about."

"That is where Trixie fits in, right?" Trixie asked.

"Precisely," Torenon said, "you said Ponyville is not far from here, right? as we planned, all you have to do is approach the Dragonborn, tell him that a Dragon was terrorizing everyone in Ponyville but briefly flew off to get to a certain town, tell him Twilight Sparkle worships the Dragon and is the only one that knows where its going, and that Dragonborn will have to rough her up to get her to tell her where the Dragon is. I suspect that whether or not Twilight is able to defeat him, which is highly unlikely, she'll be weakened enough that you can approach her and unleash upon her your desired arcane revenge."

"Trixie supposes that can work," Trixie said, "But where do you benefit from this exactly?"

"If this Twilight manages to defeat Dragonborn? He'd be out of the way," Torenon answered, "If she can't defeat Dragonborn, he might get arrested or executed for attacking her, which would still mean he'd be out of the way, or at least he'd be forced out of town from making an enemy out of your kind, where at least he won't be getting help from anyone here. However this turns out, it would do wonders for the Thalmor's efforts against the Dragonborn."

"Trixie supposes that makes sense," Trixie said in agreement, "Don't worry, Trixie knows a shortcut to get ahead of him so that he'll think I came from Ponyville."

"Then you better get to him quick before he gets there too early," Torenon said, "Just hurry right along, I will wait here."

Trixie nodded and dashed off.

Meanwhile, on the road to Ponyville.

"WULD NAH KEST!"

Dragonborn dashed several feet forward with his Whirlwind Sprint Shout, still dragging the unconscious Royal Guards with him. He then starting running until he was able to Shout again and, "WULD NAH KEST!" Whirlwind Sprinted again, rinse and repeat.

"I just hope Brynjolf or no one else in the Thieves Guild hears about this," Dragonborn said to himself out loud in a deadpan tone, "Otherwise, there'd be laughing coming from the Ragged Flagon so loud that I'd be able hear it all the way from Windhelm."

Dragonborn looked ahead to see a silhouette of what looked like a town from a distance. Dragonborn figured that is must be Ponyville up ahead.

"It'll still take me a bit to get here," Dragonborn said to himself, "But at least I know I'm on the right track."

Suddenly, he sees Trixie, who seemed to be coming from the town, running toward him as if something terrible has happened.

When Trixie got to him, she stopped briefly, trying to catch her breath, after a few seconds, Trixie spoke in a overly dramatic tone, "OH! woe is us! such a tragedy! oh, if only we know of a mighty hero that can save us!"

"Mighty hero, you say?" Dragonborn asked, thoroughly flattered, then boastfully said, "Well, you're in luck, you just happened to stand before the mighty Dragonborn!"

Dragonborn decided to temporary let go of the Royal Guards he was dragging, which Trixie only just now noticed, Torenon didn't say anything about the Royal Guards after his encounter with them escorting the Dragonborn. But Trixie could tell the Guards weren't dead and decided not to question it.

"Oh, really, gallant warrior?" Trixie asked, pretending to be in awe, "Oh please, you must help us! a terrible dragon has terrorized our fair town, it has left for somewhere but it will be back to bully us even more! PLEASE! you must save us by slaying that horrible beast!"

"So the Dragons are in this world too?" Dragonborn asked, he was still too far from the town to get a good view of how it looked, and he knew it. But by the same token, he was slightly suspicous of the azure-colored pony's over-dramatic talking, but decided to go along with it for now, "Well, fear not, lass, for you just happened to be turning to the perfect Nord for fighting dragons. Do you know where the Dragon left for?"

"None of us have any clue, oh dashing swordsman!" Trixie said, still trying to uphold her 'traumatized villager' facade, "We were all too scared of the dragon to follow it, but there is one pony who'd know and she lives in this very village up ahead, her name is Twilight Sparkle."

Twilight Sparkle? What kind of name is that? sounds like a pet name a Dunmer would give to their Azura-devoted child or something. Dragonborn thought, then spoke, "Where can I find this... Twilight Sparkle?"

"She lives in the Golden Oaks Library, it's a big hollowed-out tree built as a library, very easy to spot, much like Twilight is, she has a lavender coat, a purple mane with a pink stripe on it, and a purple tail. Be careful, Twilight worships the Dragon, she won't just tell you where the Dragon is, you might have to rough her up to get her to talk."

"Good enough, don't worry, I'll take care of everything," Dragonborn said as he grabbed the Royal Guards he was dragging down the road with him and continued down the road with a "WULD NAH KEST!"

The booming Shout from so up close caught Trixie completely by surprise, to the point where Trixie's heart felt like it jumped several feet up.

"Torenon already told Trixie about these 'Shouts' that human can do," Trixie said to herself, at genuine awe with what she just saw, "but to see this for myself... no wonder Torenon's men didn't stand a chance against him, what else is he capable of?"

Trixie and Torenon later reunited on a hilltop just a short distance outside of Ponyville, they were simply waiting to see how their plan will be turning out.

"He seemed to have fell for our trick," Trixie informed Torenon, "He's heading for Ponyville as we speak."

"Excellent!" Torenon said in a pleased tone, "the only way this plan could fail is if-"

Torenon was cut off when he and Trixie heard a certain deep roar. The High Elf turned to the direction he heard the roar and saw a silhouette he was all too familiar with.

"What!-? How is this possible?" Torenon asked, "Those portals are way too small, it should be impossible for one of them to come through!"

Meanwhile, in Ponyville....

The town is filled with tremendous anxiety, ever since the Mane 6's encounter with Boethiah a day ago, almost everypony in Ponyville, as well as everypony in Equestria for that matter, were considerably on edge with the idea of being threatened by creatures from another world.

This was not helped by how just recently today, there were strange portals that suddenly appeared at random parts of Equestria, which was why Princess Celestia had Royal Guards posted on any portals that her subjects were able to find; to keep anypony from going in those portals as well as to watch for anything that comes out.

In the Golden Oaks Library, Twilight was struggling to find anything that could tell her how to close the portals, despite how even Princess Celestia couldn't find anything. The fact that Boethiah is using a form of magic completely foreign to anything in Equestria made it impossible for the Equestrians to even understand how the said magic works.

Spike came downstairs to see Twilight still futilely searching the ground-level shelves for whatever can get her anywhere involving Boethiah.

Spike could tell Twilight was stressing out from this, he asked with great concern, "Twilight? are you alright?"

Twilight sighed, then sat down, wiping the sweat off her forehead, "No, I'm not alright, Spike, but thanks for asking."

Spike moved to Twilight's side and started stroking her mane as an attempt to comfort her.

"It's just so frustrating!" Twilight said in agitated voice, "First that Boethiah showed up, she sent those Dremora creatures to attack us, now we have these portals appearing everywhere. And no one knows what to do about it!" Twilight took a deep breath and sighed again, she then spoke somewhat more calmly, "At least with Discord, we knew what we had to do to beat him. But Boethiah, I have absolutely no idea what to do, no pony in Equestria does."

"Come on, Twilight! you're anything but 'no pony'!" Spike encouraged as Twilight turned her head to him, "You're one of the smartest ponies I know! You and Princess Celestia are the only ponies I can imagine figuring this whole thing out. So what you can't find anything in the books?"

Twilight thought for a moment, then suddenly hugged Spike, much to his surprise, she then said, "Thanks, Spike! and you know, you might be right. I might just be looking in all the wrong places, but where else could I find all the right answers?"

Spike hugged back, "You'll think of something, and who knows? maybe the things we need to know will fall into our laps, you never know with this-"

"DRRAAAAAAAAAGOOOOOOON!" called out a panicking voice outside.

Twilight and Spike rushed outside, they saw several ponies running around, screaming in panic. the Royal Guards Celestia posted earlier were doing what they can to restore order.

"What's going on?" Twilight asked.

Carrot Top starting running past Twilight and Spike, she screaming "Help Dragon attacking!" She suddenly to Spike and said with a calm, friendly voice, "Don't worry, we don't mean you, Spike," then returned to running around in panic.

Suddenly, Twilight and Spike could hear a deep, monstrous roar echoing through the air, that was when, just seconds later, they saw a Dragon fly over Ponyville!

But this Dragon looked very different from ones ones in Equestria, it had no front legs but had large wings where they could be and it had brown-ish gold scales all over its body. but it looked no less intimidating.

The dragon landed on the roof of one of the Ponyville houses and spoke briefly in what seemed like an actual language of sorts, but neither Spike nor Twilight could understand anything he said, until the dragon then spoke in their tongue, "You world is strange, but it matters not, you will tremble before the might of the Dov as the Joore Se Taazokaan, the mortals of Tamriel had many ages ago!"

"YOL TOOR SHUL!" the Dragon 'shouted' as fire came out of his mouth. causing the house in front of him to start to catch fire.

Twilight turned to Spike and said, "Spike, quickly send a letter to Princess Celestia, tell her what's going on then stay in the library where its safe, I'll go gather our friends and see what we can do."

With great haste, Spike ran back into the Library to do as he was told. Twilight quickly ran to gather her friends.

Author's Note

(Author's note: ooh, cliffhanger! And in case any of you will freak out later, keep in mind I was thinking up this story just before Season 3 of MLP:FiM came up, so please don't get mad if you find afew things that are contradictory to the events of season 3. The farthest I'll go chronologically is having this story take place after 'Crystal Empire' for reasons that will be explained later. Aside from that, thanks for the feedback and stay tuned!)