23

Chapter 2

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“All right, we’re alone. Now explain.” Twilight demanded of the three odd new ponies.

The eight of them had moved to Twilights’ library in order to talk in private. They were sitting in the main lobby, Data between Serenity and Bolt on one side, while Twilight and the others sat on the opposite.

“Why don’t you take this one Data.” Said Serenity.

“Yeah, this seems like your kinda thing.” Bolt agreed.

Data considered glaring at them to show his displeasure, but decided it’d be pointless, and that they were right. “Alright. To begin with, we’re not ponies.”

“Well duh.” Said Pinkie. “I mean, really, what unicorn doesn’t know a little magic? And how many pegessises can’t fly?”

Bolt and Serenity, shocked at her sudden appearance, jumped. “How did you get up there?! And where did you even come from?!” shouted Bolt.

“She’s a Looney, ignore it.” Data told them. “Continuing on, we’re actually human. Or at least we were. There are a few questions about how that actually works, but we’ll figure that out later. Before you ask, Twilight, humans are nearly hairless, bipedal creatures with a resemblance to apes. Assuming you know what those are. If not, I’ll find another comparison. We are the only known sentient and sapient species on our planet.”

“The only one?” Twilight asked. “Really? How could you know that? I mean, a planet is a big place, how could you have been everywhere?”

“Personally? With a significant expenditure of time, money and effort.” Data said. “Not that I’ve had the opportunity to do that yet. As a species though, we number at nearly 7 billion, have technology that allows us to travel around the globe in a few hours, and devices placed in orbit that let us see most anywhere on the planet at any time. We have explored the majority of our world, with only the exceptions being the deepest parts of the oceans and some of the deeper cave systems.”

“Without magic?” Twilight seemed skeptical. “Even we don’t have that sort of ability. So if you don’t have magic, how could you?”

“I could show you if I had the materials.” Data said, almost boastfully. “Unfortunately, I don’t, and, even if I did, I doubt that I would have the time. I can give you a more detailed explanation later, but for everyone else’s sake, not right now. The best, short explanation I can give is that, without any other means of development or gaining control of our world, humans concentrated on discovering the physical laws of our reality and put them to use through advanced and complex machines. The more complex the machines became, the more we could, and had to, learn, and the more we learned, the more complex our machines became. Now it’s your turn to answer some questions. First, how many sentient species are you aware of?”

“Not including sub-species, like pegasus or unicorn for ponies, there are 38 known sentient species on Alair.” Twilight immediately answered, going into “lecture” mode. “The ones that you are most likely to encounter in Equestria are Ponies, like us, Griffins and the occasional dragon, like Spike.” Twilight suddenly looked confused. “Where is Spike anyways? And hey, we’re supposed to be asking the questions here!”

“Oh, hey!” a blue hoof shot up with the voice. “I have a question! What’s the most awesome thing humans have ever done?” Rainbow asked.

“The most awesome thing?” Said Bolt. “We went to the moon, girl! In a giant tube that shot fire to move! Even in black and white, it was spectacular!”

“You watched the tapes of the original moon landing?” Serenity asked. “You? I find that hard to believe.”

“Data showed them to me.” Bolt defended himself. Data gave a little nod.

“You went to the Moon?” Twilight said, sounding skeptical, then shook her head. “Never mind. While I find that hard to believe, you’re right, a full explanation can wait. You said that the device that brought you here couldn’t have worked that way. If that’s true, than do you have any idea of how you got here?”

“Outside interference.” Data told her. “Who, what, why and how are unknown, as is whether our transformation has to do with the means we got here or with your reality. Beyond that, since magic exists here, the means of our transportation are more likely to have been magical in nature than technological. That means you’re better equipped to answer those questions.”

“Well,” Twilight started, hoof to her chin, “trans dimensional travel is supposed to be impossible due to the energy cost. Beyond Discord, I can’t think of anyone that would have the potential to bring you here. I can think of a number of theories on how it might have been accomplished though. To begin with…”

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And now they’re talking about the really boring stuff I could follow if I felt like paying attention. Serenity thought to herself. But I can think of better ways to spend my time. She finished, looking towards a certain, bored looking Pegasus.

Standing up, she made you way around the two over-intellectuals, careful not to interrupt, and went straight for her dark-furred friends female counterpart.

“Rainbow Dash, wasn’t it?” She asked as she approached, bringing the pegasus out of her growing melancholic state.

“Hu? What? I’m awake!” She stated, rather loudly, as her head swung around in search of anyone that may try to contradict her claims. Or perhaps, disprove them for her. After a few moments of this, her gaze settled upon the snow colored mare that called to her. “Err, what do you want?”

Giving a calming grin, Serenity walked up to her multi-chromatic soon-to-be-friend, and sat down beside her. “I just wanted to talk, Rainbow Dash. Get to know my new friends a little better. Is that so wrong?” She asked, giving the biggest pair of puppy-dogs eyes she could.

“We,w,well…” Rainbow began, before stumbling to a stop. Looking into those eyes was like staring out at the sea. Calm and peaceful, with not a care in the world, but with the ever-present reminder the sea can turn cruel and harsh at a moment’s notice. This pony could be like the Sea, and Rainbow really didn’t want to see cruel and harsh. “I…” she began, nervously fidgeting. She tried to look away. She couldn’t look away. “I guess that’s okay?” she squeaked.

“Good.” Serenity smiled, allowing her eyes to go back to normal. “Now friend, tell me a little about yourself.”

“Okay?” Rainbow said, not sure how to feel now that she wasn’t trapped in that gaze. “I’m Ponyvilles Weather captain?” She finished. Her cyan body was no longer shaking, but now she felt a bit of perspiration forming on her brow.

“The Weather Captain?!” Serenitys' eyes went wide in appreciation. Obviously, this mare was very important, if only locally. And Weather Captain implied some control over the weather. That was good to know. But her friend still seemed a little nervous. What to do about that? What to do indeed. “Such an important job must be very difficult. But I bet a pony as great as you must have no problems at all.” That should do the trick.

“Oh, well, of course not!” Rainbow jumped into the air, and out of the embrace she hadn’t know she was in. “I’m Rainbow Danger Dash! Fastest Flyer in Equestria! I’m so Awesome, I have my own fan-club.” She finished, lightly landing on the ground, chest puffed out and wings raised. She also wore the cockiest grin Serenity had ever seen.

Perfect.

“That’s wonderful.” She cheered. “But why don’t you tell me some more?”

“Like what?” Rainbow asked cheerfully.

“Everything.”

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Bolt was in a similar state of mind as Dash was. Even if he did actually know what an Einstein-Rosen Bridge was, he simply wasn’t interested. Unfortunately, Serenity had just stolen Dash, and there was no chance he’d be able to get her for a while.

“Bolt, was it?” a voice suddenly asked him.

Turning towards the source, Bolt came face-to-face with the other white pony in the tree. “Yes it was.” He answered. “And you are Rarity, if I remember right.”

“Correct.” She said, with a small smile and a nod. “Now, since everypony seems to be busy at the moment, I thought we could chat?”

Looking around, Bolt found that she was correct. While Data and Twilight were going ever deeper into theoretical methods of transdimensional translocation (their words, not his), and maybe transiting into in-depth cross-cultural analysis, everyone else had decided to ignore them, and find something else to do. Serenity was busy “befriending” Dash, while Pinkie had apparently roped Applejack and Fluttershy into helping set up her party.

Which left Bolt with Rarity.

“Sure.” He said after a moments thought, giving a shrug. “What about?”

“Well,” Rarity began as she sat down, “I was thinking we could talk about you.”

“Me?” He asked, raising his eyebrow. “You’re not trying to pull a Serenity on me, are you?”

“A … Serenity?” She asked, giving him an odd look. “Whatever is that?”

Bolt snorted before answering. “What I call a Serenity is what she just happens to be doing with Dash at the moment.” He chuckled, shaking his head. “It’s when you go up to someone and start asking them all about themselves, making them feel oh so important and special. All without telling them anything about yourself. It’s how she makes ‘friends’.”

“Does she do that often?” Rarity seemed a little shocked, going so far as to back off a little. Or maybe she was rearing up a bit.

“She does it to most everybody she meets.” He said with a sigh and a roll of his eyes. "I think she just hasn’t had the time today. Data and I are the only people I know who are completely immune to her, and that’s mostly just because we’ve all know each other a good ten years or so.”

“Ah, well I suppose I won’t be trying anything like that anytime soon.” She said in mock disappointment. Becoming more serious, she continued. “Really though, I just wanted to get to know you a little better. The three of you seem to be about the same age, but you have very different interests, not that my friends are any different. However did you three meet?”

“Oh, we met way back in first grade. We were each the only ones in our class that were interested in our particular areas. Or at least, the only ones who could come close to understanding what the other two were talking about.

" Serenity, if it wasn’t obvious, has always had an interest in understanding how people work, how to convince them to get along, and stuff like that. This lead to her delve pretty deeply into psychology, sociology, politics, political history and other stuff like that at a very early age.

"Data has always been more interested in mechanical and digital sciences. He’s studied thing like engineering, programing, and advanced mathematics.

"'I prefer to focus on the physical. Mostly that of the body. My goal is to win all the Olympic gold medals. To that end, I practice every event that they have at every opportunity, and have done a fair amount of study into physical training, biology, anatomy, and medicine. I help to train others on occasion to help pay for the equipment I need.”

He stopped as realized just how much he had said, before shrugging and moving on. “No one else came close to understanding everything else we knew at the time, so we talked to each other.”

Rarity blinked as she tried to process everything. ”If you met in first grade, then you were studying all this when you were, what, five?” She gave him an Incredulous look. “That would mean you three are fifteen. Oh you poor dears, you should be trying for your first jobs about now, not being thrown into an unknown world like this. Don’t worry, we’ll do whatever we can to help.” She promised with a smile.

“Thanks. We appreciate it.” He smiled back. “But I think we were actually six when we met.”

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Ashley woke up struggling against a constraining, smothering, force. It tangled her legs and blinded her eyes, becoming tighter the more she tried to escape. There was nothing she could do.

And then she rolled off the bed.

A giggle and a sigh alerted her to the other presences in the room.

“Really, Ashley?” One, who’s voice she recognized as Alexis, said. ”You’re falling out of bed again? Didn’t you get over that a few years ago?”

“Oh, be nice, Alex. You know how Ash can be at night.” The other, Abbey, defended her. “Besides, she wasn’t screaming this time.”

“Oh, ha ha. At least I don’t need mommy to sing me to sleep at night.” Ashley shot back at Alexis. “And aren’t you the one that still thinks there’s a monster in your closet, Abbey?”

“Oh, low blow, Ashley, low blow!” Alexis cried out.

“Right in our keesters, to!” Abbey exclaimed.

And suddenly, they were all laughing. They hadn’t talked to each other like that in years. Not since they found out how much they liked one another, anyways.

After they all calmed down, Ashley took a look around the room they were in. It was luxuriant. The room was a hexagon. The walls were painted in bright reds, pinks and oranges, portraying the setting sun. Two windows were placed in each wall, one on each side of the three beds that the girls occupied.

And that’s when she noticed that they were ponies.

Abbey was a beigeish pony with a pair of wings on her sides. Ashley supposed that made her a pegasus. Alexis was a deep blue color, and had a horn sticking out of her head. Guess that makes her a unicorn. Ashley herself was a bright red with no extra adornments whatsoever. Was she just a normal talking pony then?

“Do you two have any idea how we ended up as ponies?” Ashley asked.

“No clue.” Said Abbey. “We just woke up this way.”

“You know what we should do?” Asked Alex. “We should come up with some new names. Completely reinvent ourselves.”

“Yeah!” Laughed Ashley. “Then maybe you can be something other than…”

Right then, the door opened, admitting a white unicorn stallion in a tux.

“Ah, good to see you three are awake.” He said. “I hope you’re doing better?”

“Yes.” Alexis answered, with some hesitation. “Who are you?”

“My name is Fancypants.” Fancypants answered. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. Might I inquire as to your names?”

The girls look at each other before Alexis answered. “I’m Symphony.”

“I’m Melody.” Abbey says.

“And I’m Rave!” Ashley declares, pumping a hoof into the air.

“Of course you are.” Symphony deadpaned.

Author's Note

So, sorry for the exceptionally long wait.

After putting out the first chapter I got busy (work, mostly), then got distracted, and when I finally got back to being able to work on this, I forgot most of what I needed to write.

This chapter was also going to be three times as long, but I figured it's been too long since I put this out as is.

I'm also going to give myself a deadline of the 31st to get the rest of this chapter out, so hopefully, the next wait won't be as long.