The Reunion 8 Event.

Nova woke up a few hours after falling asleep. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and looked around the room. Where am I? She thought. Oh right, I stayed the night at that library. Sweetie Belle! Oh I hope that Twilight Sparkle pony found a spell.

Nova tried to get out of bed but got caught in the covers. After some fumbling, she managed to fall flat on the floor. “Ow…” she groaned, rubbing her head with a hoof. She then noticed that her hoof was black. “Gross” she grumbled and, in a flash of green light, turned into her blue unicorn form from before. The changeling allowed herself a rare smile, she liked this pony, she even thought it up herself, right down to the cutie mark; two masks, one of which was laughing, the other was crying, colored green. They were typically what ponies think of when they think of acting, and the green was her own personal touch. Nova quickly let the smile fade. Changelings can survive for a long time on a small amount of love, with the nourishment diminishing depending on how negative the feelings are, but showing emotion of their own diminished their stores. Already Nova was starting to feel peckish. I wonder if Twilight Sparkle has any love to spare… she shook her head, no, I must earn my own food. And with that, Nova trotted out of the room and down the stairs.

Surprisingly, it was still night time out. I must not have slept as long as I thought Nova mused, as she approached the desk Twilight Sparkle was slumped over. She doesn’t really seem like a princess right now does she? She seems like a college student. She giggled at the thought that Twilight Sparkle was a regular college student and looked over her shoulder. The book she was sleeping on appeared to be a “how to” book on teaching young unicorns how to do magic. Gently, Nova poked Twilight with a hoof.

“Hm?” the princess groaned. “Oh I must have fallen asleep studying again.” She stretched, “nothing yet. I’ve looked at everything in this library but I can’t find anything on the strange magic that your friends used. I’m sorry Nova.”

Nova nodded, “It is ok Princess.”

Twilight rubbed her head with her hoof, “please, just call me Twilight. I never really got accustomed to people calling me Princess.”

Nova nodded and wandered around the library. She lazily skimmed the book titles. “An Analysis of Equestria’s Mountain Ranges,” “The Anatomy of the Blue Frilled Water Strider,” “Door.” She stopped. “Door?” she wondered aloud, and looked back toward the book she had accidentally skipped past.

Twilight walked up behind her. “Ah, that book. Every reshelving day I cast the spell to remove the books from the shelves and it just stays there. No one checks out books on doors so I usually just ignore it. Come to think of it, I don’t even think I’ve read it before.” Reaching out with her magic, she pulled the book out, but instead of floating down to the pair like it should have, it simply turned and made a clicking sound.

“Huh?” Twilight wondered. She reached out with her magic again in an attempt to force the book into her grasp when Nova tapped her on the shoulder and pointed a hoof in the direction of a large wall that had opened up in the side of the tree house.

“A secret passageway?!” Twilight exclaimed. “I never knew about this, I wonder what’s down there.” Quicker than Rainbow Dash on an off day, which is still quicker than Twilight’s ever moved before, she dug her way into the hole, exclaiming, “By Celestia’s mane there are a lot of books down here!”

“Convenient” Nova pondered.

“Oh yes I’d say it was, but hey I needed to push you in the right direction if I want those mares back, do you know how much havoc their little apprentices cause? It’s delicious.” Came a voice from behind Nova. Whipping around, she spotted a large, snakelike creature with body parts of a multitude of different animals adorning his body. “Oh hello there, you’re Twilight’s new friend aren’t you? Are you the one who’s going to go find all those ponies who disappeared a night or two ago?”

Nova nodded.

“Good, those ponies are under someone’s control, there’s no fun in that.” He grinned, “I wish you luck in your little escapade. Tootle loo~” He waved and disappeared in a flash of light.

Nova blinked, confused as to what just happened but came out of her reverie when she saw Twilight Sparkle ascending the stairs with a pile of books the size of two ponies standing on their hind hooves.

“Oh there you are, there were so many new books down there! Oh I’ll read these right now, you go back to sleep, I’ll wake you when I’m done.”

Nova opened her mouth, “uh. Done sleep,” she said, in her broken Equestrian.

Twilight raised an eyebrow at this but quickly composed herself. “Oh don’t worry! I’ll help!” and as her horn started to glow, Nova’s eyelids started drooping and she saw a smile on Twilight’s face, the crazy smile of someone who’s way too into books. Nova blacked out and Twilight levitated her back up to her room. “She needed rest anyway” she reasoned, and opened the first of the books.

Several hours later, Nova felt herself waking up. It wasn’t the normal method, it was more like she was coming out of a trance, and once she was fully awake she realized that that’s exactly what was happening.

Twilight’s horn stopped glowing and she had a grin on her face. “Hello there Nova, sorry to wake you, you just looked so tired” she gushed.

Nova put a hoof to her head, only to realize it was her jet black changeling hoof. She yelped and abruptly transformed back into her ponysona. She looked up at Twilight, an embarrassed blush adorning her face, but the purple alicorn didn’t seem to notice.

“Well now that you’re up I have so much to tell you! First things first, Starswirl the Bearded knew a lot more about parallel universes than I originally thought. As it turns out, he was part of a society of Starswirl the Bearded but from a bunch of different dimensions. Collectively, he, well sometimes she, er… they came up with multiple theories and laws about parallel universes. For one thing, our worlds are defined by how we differ from a certain universe, which he dubbed the ‘canon’ universe. I don’t know why he called it that, I guess maybe he didn’t have the word ‘constant’ 1000 years ago. Either way, the canon universe is the first option that appears when traveling between dimensions, which is why it’s identifiable at all. We’re not the canon universe by the way, we’re an offshoot caused by some decision in the past, I wasn’t able to figure out what that was though, but how fascinating is it that we currently live in a parallel universe?” She stared at Nova, eyes shining with the acquisition of new knowledge. “I can’t believe I’ve been living in this library all these years and never found that room! I mean sure the ‘doors’ book was pretty inconspicuous but I should have noticed when the reshelving spell didn’t work on it, come to think of it can changelings do the same type of magic as ponies? We should try out some spells with your hor—“ she was silenced by a light blue hoof.

Nova stared at her, removed her hoof from Twilight’s mouth, and opened her own to ask a question. “So how do I help Sweetie Belle?” she asked, choosing her words carefully so as to not stumble.

“Oh! Yes, yes. You see the issue is, Starswirl the Bearded wrote the words for the spell in an ancient language that I can’t read. I haven’t a clue why he decided to do this but the only way I could think of would be for you to travel there on your own, after all, the words are somewhere in your subconscious. You can’t remember all of them on your own but they’re in there, so if I use those words I think I can send you to the worlds that our friends were sent to.”

Nova perked up at this. “Really? Why do we wait?” she asked excitedly. She could rescue Sweetie Belle and the rest.

At this, Twilight bit her lip. “Well, the thing is, the magic’s not easy to do. I don’t think I can send you more than once.” She looked toward Nova, who appeared to be about to break down crying. “Oh! B-but chances are I can send the others once you rescue them. You’ll each just end up doing your own rescue missions.” Twilight smiled, “don’t worry, we’ll fix this, we always do.”

Nova nodded and smiled weakly before taking a deep breath and asking, “what now?”

Twilight blinked, “well since neither of us necessarily know the words I’ll have to figure out which spells to use, then I have to find the actual universe jumping spell itself. You should probably gather some supplies, I don’t know what you’ll see out there or how much it will differ from our universe. The other ponies were sent there for some reason so we can assume they’re capable of supporting life, so I don’t think you’ll need to worry about oxygen, though I don’t know what will happen to you or your counterpart in that world, if one exists. Will you replace her? And if you do will you keep your body how it is now? We’ll just have to find out.” She looked at Nova, “are you sure you can do this? I’m sure we can figure something else out if you want to let me or the other former bearers of the Elements of Harmony to go in your place.”

Nova shook her head, “quicker is better” she replied. “Also, seems fun” she gave a small smile. “I go get ready now,” and with that she trotted out of the library.

Twilight smiled as she left but when she was gone her smile faded. “I’ve never traveled between worlds before, I really hope they’ll be ok…” sighing, she got back to work. “I’ll just make it as safe as I can.”

Meanwhile, Nova was trotting through the streets of Ponyville. She hadn’t brought anything to the reunion, since she didn’t expect to stay for more than a few hours. She laughed bitterly at the irony of that, she had no idea how long it would take now; she could be gone for months depending on how long it took to rescue Sweetie Belle. Eventually, Nova noticed her stomach growling. She sighed, she would have to find some way to get some love, preferably without deceiving anyone. After the incident with Queen Chrysalis all those years ago, which gave changelings a bad name, they had tried to avoid deception, but sometimes it was the only option. Sighing, she looked around and noticed a couple sitting on a bench. One was a sea green unicorn with a two-tone mane of white and the same color as her fur, and the other was a cream colored earth pony with a blue and pink mane. Maybe I can just go back to the library Nova thought, but as she was turning around, she saw the unicorn get up and trot away with a strained look on her face. Nova sighed, I’m sorry, ponies as she transformed into the sea green unicorn from before and walked over to the cream colored earth pony.

“Oh Lyra, back from the bathroom already? Did you forget to wash your hooves again? I told you, just because you don’t have fingers doesn’t mean you don’t have to—“ she was cut off by the fake Lyra’s lips touching her own.

As quick as she started, Nova finished her kiss, mumbled “sorry,” and ran away, leaving a very confused Bon Bon sitting on the bench.

Soon after, Lyra came back from the bathroom, grinning. “Bon Bon, I remembered this ti—“ she was cut off by a hoof striking her across the face.

“Not in public!” Bon Bon yelled and ran away.

Lyra just stood there, holding her hoof against the area she got hit. “Uh… what?”

Nova galloped back to the library, guilt absorbing most of the emotion she ate. She slowed down and tried to calm herself down. That Lyra pony didn’t see us, so I didn’t ruin the relationship. Everything’s ok, everything’s ok… Nova took a deep breath and walked into the library.

“Oh hello Lyra, how are you today?” Twilight asked once Nova had reached her.

Looking down at herself, Nova realized she was still using the sea green unicorn’s form. She blushed and transformed back into her personal ponysona.

“Oh! Nova, I’m sorry I thought you were Lyra.” Twilight blinked, “uh, probably because you looked exactly like her…” she trailed off. Shaking her head, Twilight regained her train of thought. “Sorry, do you have everything you need?”

Nova nodded.

“You don’t appear to be holding anything, are you sure you want to do this without any supplies?”

Nova blinked, looked around, picked up a book with her mouth, and stood there staring at Twilight.

“Uh, you don’t necessarily have to bring anything, it’s just a suggestion.” Twilight clarified.

Nova spit out the book and said “oh.”

There was an awkward silence until Twilight spoke up. “So, you’re ready then?” Nova nodded. “Ok! Let’s go down to my lab, I have everything set up down there.” And so, with that Twilight led Nova downstairs to a room with a large number of machines whose functions Nova could only guess at.

Seeing the amazed look on her companion’s face, Twilight smiled and explained. “I supposed I’ve built the place up a bit over the years, originally it was just a chair with a strainer that I used to try and figure out the pinkie sense once.” She shook her head at the memory, “anyway, let’s get this done” she motioned Nova toward a pentagram-looking shape on the ground.

Nova stepped into the center and looked around until Twilight started talking more. “Ok, now I want you to think back and try to remember the spell that they were chanting, I’ll start casting the spell.”

Nova thought back and tried to remember the words the ponies were chanting. She could only find snippets of her friends’ voices, but when she opened her eyes, the pentagram was glowing a pinkish purple color, the same as Twilight’s horn. “Keep thinking of them” she commanded, and Nova complied hastily. “I think… I’ve got one! I don’t know which pony you’ll be looking for there and I don’t know what it will be like. Try to keep your identity hidden, we don’t know what they think of changelings in that world, and above all,” She opened her eyes and looked at Nova, “be safe.”

At that moment, the pentagram lit up and obscured Twilight and Nova’s vision.

When it finally calmed down, Twilight looked at the pentagram on the floor. Nova had vanished, as expected. Twilight closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Good luck.”