Between Magic and Science

“Do keep in mind,” Celestia said, “That this world may be very different than ours, and your form may change if ponies aren’t the dominant species there. Rarity, Vinyl, you should still be able to use your magic, but Rainbow Dash, I’m not so sure about your or Fluttershy’s wings.”

Rainbow looked a bit upset, but hoped that she was going somewhere where her form wouldn’t change.

“What about us Earth Ponies?”

“Well... you may change form to fit whatever the normal is. Earth ponies are the basis of the other types of ponies... Just...” Celestia paused.

“Just, what?” Applejack looked at her expectantly.

“You may want to... Hold on to your hat.” With that, she began to cast the spell. Her horn glowed, illuminating the room with a bright gold light.

“Stay safe, I trust you all with this task...”

Her voice echoed in their heads, and then suddenly Celestia was alone in the throne room.

It was just then that a midnight blue alicorn wearing a similar royal attire as Celestia entered the room.

“I’m here! What is it you needed me for?”

Her older sister sighed, “Luna, you’re late.”

Nexus worked diligently in the lab in his basement. There was something about the projector’s ability to transport matter was wrong. He had indeed opened up the portal to this ‘Equestria’, but it was much too high, like it was in space. How did he manage to pull in Twilight? It could’ve just created a cylinder shape, extending infinitely upwards and downwards, but that would’ve surely caught something else. Also, he noticed that there was no vacuum at all, so he wasn’t really connected to the other world like he thought he was.

No, what he had was simply a window. But if that was the case, then how did it pull in Twilight? Perhaps there was something else that he wasn’t considering. Maybe it wasn’t space he was in, maybe it was just the night sky. His view would obviously not have been the same as what was on the other side. Maybe it was facing upwards, towards the sky. That made sense... but he still could only pull things one way, as he didn’t feel any gravitational anomalies or suction between in the opening.

That lead to another question, why did it drop Twilight off in the middle of the Ashfall Forest, when his projector was right in front of him? Things simply could have just not worked that way, he supposed. It was all a mystery to him, even though he had been studying it as much as he could during his time here. He had to figure out what was wrong with the projector.

Picking up is power drill, he began to unfasten the projector’s metal casing, which stood about 3 feet high. The rod itself was about 4 feet, making for 7 feet altogether. He felt that the casing was warm, and by the time he had removed the front panel, his hands suddenly began to burn as a cloud of smoke escaped the machine. He fell backwards, coughing and dropping the panel to the floor with a loud clang. Hopefully that didn’t wake anyone above him.

He assessed the situation in front of him. Nexus had built the machine himself, and the inside had proper venting. It generated quite a lot of heat, so the proper releases had been set in place. The problem wasn’t that there had been a heat build up, it’s that there was a smoldering piece inside the machine. It must’ve caught fire when he turned it on. It appeared to be the power junction, where the power split into the reserve and main power cells.

There were several reasons that a power junction would break. He was sure it was wired properly, but the levels might have been a problem. Perhaps the generator hadn’t been putting out enough power to hold both cells, causing the junction to pull in power at a faster rate. It also could have been that the generator had put out too much power, and it overloaded. There was no reasonable way to prove either, but they were both equally as valid.

He carefully removed the smoldering part and placed it on the workbench he used for handling electronics. Wasn’t as large as the one in Pride’s office, but he could fit several more in, which he used for different types of materials. There was a knock on the airlock.

“Umm, hello?” Twilight’s voice.

“Hold on a moment, I’ll let you in.” Nexus walked to the door and pulled a lever on one side of it. The large locking mechanism in the center of the door rotated, and the door slid apart into two pieces. A rush of air followed, blowing both their hair in towards the inside of the room.

“Nexus, what is this place?”

“Oh, this is my lab. I do research and science stuff down here.”

“I heard a noise, what was it? And is something burning? Are you okay? You seem okay.”

“I’m flattered by your concern,” he said, getting an odd reaction from her, to his amusement, “but everything is fine. I was just...” he glanced over at the still smoldering piece of equipment, and Twilight caught the object as well. “...Yeah...” he finished.

“If you don’t mind me saying, but this is amazing! I have a lab of sorts in my basement but it’s nothing compared to this! What does it all do?” Nexus was pleased to see her excited.

“Well,” Nexus pushed the lever back into it’s up position, and the metal door closed shut and locked with a hiss, startling Twilight. “That’s the airlock. It makes sure that, in the event that I do something incredibly unsafe and/or unreasonable, nothing gets out of this lab via the air.”

“The air? What do you mean?”

“Well, if I accidentally make some sort of illness, or lots of smoke, it has nowhere else to go but the air filters, making sure that it doesn’t get out.”

Twilight concluded that these ‘air filters’ removed toxic materials from the air somehow.

“Over there are my workbenches, I work with different things on each one. Keeps them organized.” Twilight knew the feeling. Nexus continued, “That’s my generator, that powers all of my crazy projects,” he pointed to the large cylindrical object, almost twice as big as he was, that was in the corner of the room. A cord extended from it and connected to another device, that was like a box, with a rod and ball on top of it.

“What’s that?”

“That’s... the device that brought you here, it kinda broke, and that piece on my workbench is busted. Those are the controls, over there.” Nexus pointed to the array of panel and levers off to the side of the machine. Twilight also noted a piece of metal laying near an exposed section of the machine’s boxlike body.

“Did you build it yourself? What do you call it?” She asked.

“I did build it myself, and I haven’t really thought of a name for it yet.” He suddenly wondered what she was doing down here. “Were you asleep? I’m sorry, did I wake you up?”

“No, I was already awake when I heard the noise.”

“Oh, can’t sleep, can ya?”

“I’m still not used to things here.. or this body. It feels so strange, walking on two legs. And wearing clothes all the time- wait, why do you wear clothes all the time?” Twilight hadn’t noticed before, but she found the clothes normal.

“Well, humans have no fur to keep us warm like other animals, so we created our own way of keeping warm.”

She recalled that those two Raiders had been shirtless. “Why didn’t those Raiders wear shirts?”

“Well, they probably can’t get them. They’re openly hostile towards everyone but themselves- even themselves sometimes- so they’re probably denied proper clothing. It’s their loss.”

Twilight sighed, “Yeah,” She still didn’t understand what drove them to such violence, but it was a good thing that these other people didn’t tolerate it well.

“I suppose it is...”

Then suddenly, there was a loud beeping sound; a device had went off in the lab somewhere.

“Stay safe, I trust you all with this task...”

That was all Rarity heard in her head. She opened her eyes, and pushed her curled purple hair away from her face with her hands. Her hands... odd. She was facedown in the grass, rather unladylike for someone like herself, so she pushed herself to her feet. Feet. Didn’t have those before either. She didn’t recall standing on two legs so normally either.

She looked down at herself. Instead of her normally luxurious white coat, she had only pale, soft, flesh. She wore a white skirt lined with purple, and a white button-up blouse. Additionally, a nice white scarf was loose around her shoulders. Rather stylish, whatever had given her these clothes had good taste. She had claw like appendages at the end of her arms, but they seemed to not have claws on them. Feeling her forehead, she had no horn either. What was she? It didn’t matter what she was, all that mattered is that she and the others... Wait, where were the others? They were right next to her last time she checked, now they were gone. The spell must not have put them all in the same place. Or.. No. She didn't think about alternatives.

She observed her surroundings. A field, it appeared, had stretched out for quite a ways to her left, right, and front, and a treeline of what seemed to be a forested area was behind her. In the distance, she could make out some buildings, although not of a structure she recognized. Perhaps someone would be there. She began to walk, but she thought she saw something moving towards behind the treeline.

She turned around, facing fully towards the trees. Something rustled the bushes, and then a loud roar was heard, stumbling her backwards onto the ground. A large lizard, much like a dragon, but without wings had emerged from the treeline, slowly approaching her. It’s posture, seemed to resemble that of her cat, Opalescence, when she was about to... pounce on something. Her eyes widened with fear, and the monster sprung into the air. She thought that she would be crushed, but a large explosion had knocked it off course and sent it barreling off into the ground at her feet. She pushed away from it, scooting back several feet before she heard another voice through the ringing in her ears. It sounded similar to her own, but male.

“Leave that fair maiden alone!” Another creature, much like her new self, stood a long ways away, holding a smoking tube-like object over his shoulder, with a small glowing glass screen that flipped over his face extending over the side of it. She couldn’t seem him very well from a distance, but she knew that he had just saved her life.

Pride had received a call from Nexus that someone else had arrived into their world from another world, probably someone looking for Twilight, and had asked him to make sure that whoever it was made it back to Tanktown in one piece. He had also mentioned it was near the Ashfall forest, so he came prepared.

He had just fired a high velocity ballistic explosive at about quarter a kilometer away, at a moving target that was right next to the equivalent of a high priority objective, and nailed his target.

Peaceful Pride shook his head. He was thinking in technical terms way too much. Doing heroic stuff like this made him think like that though. He had just shot a rocket at a Basilisk that was in the middle of pouncing on a beautiful young woman. What was he thinking! He could’ve hurt her, or worse, killed her! Throwing the empty rocket launcher aside, he ran as fast as he could to the girl, who was still trying to take in what had just happened.

“Are you with Twilight Sparkle?”

That was the last thing that she had expected her saviour to ask.

“Y-yes I am, I’m here looking for her, where is she?”

“Yeah, she’s in Tanktown back there.” He pointed to the buildings in the distance. The Basilisk stirred, obviously only temporarily down. It rose to it’s feet, eyeing Peaceful Pride menacingly. Pride looked up at it, and noticed a large cluster of it’s scales were missing, as if something had blasted them off... It was the same Basilisk from before, the one that had attacked Nexus. It must’ve been drawn to the dimensional rifts that this girl had made.

“Run,” he told her, moving his arm to push her back.

“Wha- what is that? Why are it’s scales all...”

“I’ve kinda... fought this one before. I did that to him in our last battle...” Pride drew the sword he carried in on his back, and the pistol he had brought on his belt.

“You what? What are you-”

“Look, my friend told me to come and make sure you got to that town in one piece, and I’m going to make bloody sure that you get there! Now run!” Pride was shouting at this point, getting ready to dodge the Basilisk’s next move.

This was going to end now. It swiped at him, and he charged towards it, jamming his sword into it’s face. The Basilisk reclined in pain, roaring, and then swatted him aside, doing it’s best to yank the metal blade out. It did, and roared in pain once more. The sword hit the ground with a thud, and Pride scooped it up. It was covered in the beast’s blood, and it was starting to slink back into the Ashfall.

“You’re not getting away this time...” Pride muttered under his breath as he jumped on it’s back, bringing the sword down through it’s scaly surface. Another roar told him it was working, but an unexpected return sent him flying off across plain, landing on his back some distance away from where he had once been a moment ago.

Rarity saw something fly past her as she ran towards the cluster of buildings, that were slowly growing closer as time went by. It might’ve been a nice walk, but she had to hurry. As she ran, she noticed that the one who had protected her earlier was now on his back. She didn’t really get that good of a look at him before, but now she saw he wore a suit of armor, made of what seemed to be steel. It was more form-fitting than the ones back home, but it was still armor, nonetheless.

“You poor thing! Are you okay?” She asked.

“Yeah... I’ll... yeah...” He seemed dizzy, and she noticed that there was a red substance leaking from a smashed portion of his armor, on his right arm.

“You’re bleeding, darling... Where can we get you treated?”

“My... My friend Nexus has supplies at his house... I could fix it... but...” His head was spinning, “I’ll show you...” he tried to get up, but lost his balance and hit the ground with a thud, his armor clanging. She knelt down and looked him over. He had chocolate brown hair, with blue highlights. Somewhat tacky, but she liked it. He had no helmet, which was odd, but she could see several bruises on his face.

“Let me take that armour over your wound there off...” She said, motioning to his bleeding side. She wasn’t used to dealing with blood, but she had to. He could die if she didn’t do something, but what could she do?

“Okay... just... press in that clamp on my wrist... no... there you go, that’s it, now just slide it off...” Pride talked her through, and she looked horrified at what she saw. Pride looked at it, and only saw a rather deep cut, where the Basilisk had got him, “Not used to dealing with wounds like this?”

“No, I’m not fond of the sight... Excuse me.” She looked over what he had on him. A belt, with a few strange objects, but nothing that looked like she could stop the bleeding with. She looked at herself, and that nice scarf that she had with her. It looked like it was made of silk, too. Not the best material for stopping blood, but it would have to do.

“What are you...” Pride had began. She was using a rather expensive looking scarf to wrap his cut in.

“I have to wrap it with something, dear, so you don’t bleed all over town,” She tried to give him a smile, “Plus, it could get all dirty...”

“Thank you...” His wound was wrapped now, the white scarf stained red from his blood, “I might be able to get you a new scarf...”

“It’s quite alright... Red is in, anyway.”