Back to Equestria

“Wow it looks like it’s from Cloudsdale …” Rainbow Dash remarked as she stared out the window of the Delorean and towards a large white building that sat across a field of perfectly trimmed green grass. The layout of the building was that of a large dome in the center, with a square shaped base spanning around it. The structure was much taller than any building that was back in Ponyville, and even larger than most of the buildings in Canterlot. Like Rainbow Dash had said, the building’s white stone exterior and numerous pillars that surrounded the dome made it strongly resemble the architecture of her own hometown.

“It says here that it is called The Capitol Building, and inside it is something called the Senate and The House of Representatives. Based on those titles they sound like they might be the advisors for the king, queen, or princess who rules here.” Twilight said as she looked down at the tourism map she had unfolded and laid out onto her lap, the map was mostly covered in small little cartoony pictures of the buildings that they represented, but also included basic information such as street names and locations of restaurants.

“Well, it sure is big !” Pinkie exclaimed as she leaned over from her slightly elevated position on the center console to get a better view of the Capitol Building, almost shoving her hand through Twilight’s map in the process.

“Well wha-” Rarity started to say before she was cut off by the loud blare from a large, boxy looking car behind them. Since the girls had headed out from the gas station at the small town they had seen an increasing amount of cars of all different kinds and sizes, with more being seen the closer they had come to Washington D.C.

“Rainbow, keep on movin,” Applejack commented as she flicked her head around to glare at the driver of the car behind them. Rainbow Dash had accidentally stopped while the girls had been admiring The Capitol Building, causing a small collection of cars to stack up behind them.

“Oh yeah … stupid that you can’t just stop with these things. These humans have too many rules.” The rainbow haired girl lashed back as she started moving again, heading parallel to the large white building on their left.

“Oh come on, so far that is the only good quality that I’ve seen them have. Look at how well they can organize all of these different paths for these cars, they even have them in sequential order,” Twilight replied as she continued to look down at the map. “1st street, 2nd street, 3rd street, and right now we’re on 4th street,” Twilight happily added as she ran her finger along the map to point at the various roadways. The organization and structure that surrounded almost everything in this world appealed to her obsessive compulsive nature, almost as much as the haphazard nature her own world sometimes drove her to insanity.

"Well, as I was trying to ask," Rarity said as she looked in the opposite direction of the large white building, "what is that thing ?"

Twilight followed Rarity's gaze, which was directed towards a large white pointed tower that stood off in the distance, before looking back towards her map.

“It’s called the Washington Monument, they really should come up with some more original names.”

Rainbow Dash looked over at the monument for a moment, before turning her gaze back towards the traffic in front of her again, which was moving at a horribly slow pace.

“These cars are awesome when you can actually drive around, but in this city they’re just a pain in the flank,” Rainbow Dash stated.

“Well then why don’t we just park over in that car corral and walk around ?” Applejack replied.

“No, we don’t have time for sightseeing, we have to just concentrate on finding out how to get out of this place. So we have to go right here,” Twilight retorted as she pointed her index finger in a overly dramatic fashion towards one of the little buildings on the page.

Fluttershy leaned over slightly to look down at the building before replying, “Oh yes, garden looks very nice Twilight.”

Twilight looked down at the map and sighed before moving her finger slightly to the left, “I meant the library, it says on here that it is the largest library in this world so therefore it should hold any answers we could possibly need.”

“Really Twilight ? Even in another dimension you are the most boring pony in the world.” Rainbow Dash replied as she turned the car off of the street and onto a smaller one, heading away from the large clog of traffic near the center of the city.

“Well, if you ever want to fly again you better do what I say,” Twilight haughtily replied

Rainbow Dash grumbled a bit to herself, but still headed towards the library while Twilight barked out directions from the passenger seat. Meanwhile, the rest of the girls continued to admire the strange collection of buildings that sprawled around the city, as well as the humans that occupied them.

Eventually the Delorean rolled up over a hill and the library came into view, it also had that cloudsdale-like architecture, with its multiple columns and numerous carved pieces of white stone that made up its exterior. Rainbow Dash pulled the Delorean up into one of the areas where cars are supposed to be put, and after numerous retries and small adjustments, she managed to pull the car in between the white lines just like all of the other cars.

“Do we all need to go in ?” Rarity remarked as she stepped from the car with the rest of the girls.

“Of course, we’ve got an ENTIRE universe worth of information to find out,” Twilight replied as she shut the passenger door behind Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie.

“Ughhhhhhhhh,” Rainbow Dash groaned as she shut the driver’s side door and began to sulk her way up the staircase.

But, when the girls made their way up the staircase and opened the large wooden doors that led into the library, even Rainbow Dash’s mouth dropped at the sight that met them. The large circular lobby was lined at every available surface with mountains of books, and dozens of arched corridors led off to span in every direction, leading to what one could only assume was even more literature.

“Wow,” Twilight finally managed to say, her eyes darting around the huge room with awe.

“Eh, its not that great,” Rainbow Dash said.

“Oh be quiet Rainbow, we all know you are just as surprised as we are,” Applejack said with a  chuckle.

“Alright …” Twilight paused in mid sentence, still mesmerized by the amount of information that had just been laid out in front of her on a silver platter, “lets just go find a little corner where we can make camp at, since we might be here longer than I thought.”

The girls eventually navigated through the corridors of the massive library until they came to a small corner area that seemed secluded enough for them to not be bothered by anypony. It was under the section of books devoted to the history mathematics, and all of the relatively old books that surrounded them on the shelves were coated with a thick layer of dust. In the corner there was several old wooden tables and also a few desks with some sort of machine on them that was comprised of what looked like a movie screen and a little black both. There was also a set of 2 old leather couches that had been set perpendicular to each other so that they both faced an oddly shaped box with a sheet of glass affixed on the front of it.

“You girls just stay here, while I get some books that we need,” Twilight said as she turned around and began to head away from their corner of the library, before turning her head back around again to look at Applejack, “Actually I might need some help carrying all of them,” she added with a smile. Applejack nodded and jogged up to Twilight to follow her down one of the adjacent corridors.

“Well what are we supposed to do then ?” Rainbow Dash yelled as the pair began to drift out of sight, but they were already too far away to be hear.

“Oooo, look Dashie its like a movie projector, but in a box” Pinkie said, causing Rainbow Dash and Rarity to turn around and look over at the pink haired girl.

Pinkie was crouched down near the black box with the glass on the front, except now she had somehow turned the machine on and there was the image of a blonde haired lady being projected onto the glass.

“How does that even wo-,” Rainbow Dash began to say, “you know what, I’m not even gonna question it anymore, this place is just too weird.” She walked over and sat down next to Pinkie Pie on the couch, who was currently holding a small black square that was covered in buttons, and was attempting to press every single one of them.

The pictures flicked back and forth and changed continuously as Pinkie quickly grasped what the buttons did, until Rainbow Dash yelled out stop when the images of several clouds appeared on the screen. The clouds stood on the screen for a few seconds, until several large 3D letters floated out of them that organized themselves to spell out, “Channel 5 Weather Report”. The screen faded, and a man in front of little pictures of the sun and numbers appeared, he started talking about what the weather would be like for the next few days, announcing various figures and numbers that the girls couldn’t recognize, but they did manage to catch the words cloudy and sunny.

“I guess he must be the weatherhuman, Dashie,” Pinkie said, before adding with a smile, “Just like you.”

“Or like I was …” Rainbow Dash replied with a slight frown on her face.

“Thats funny, I didn’t think humans could fly,” Rarity said, she had sat down on the couch a few feet behind Rainbow Dash and Pinkie, who were sitting on the ground directly in front of the black box.

“Maybe they have a machine to do that too ?” Pinkie said as she went back to going through the different images on the black box.

Rainbow Dash thought about if for a moment, picturing in her head some sort of winged combination of a car and a pegasus, before looking back at the pictures on the screen.

Pinkie had stopped moving through the different images and the box currently showed the image of several different brightly colored cars moving down a road, accompanied with an upbeat song as the words “Top Gear” rose up to cover the cars on the screen.

Rainbow Dash and Pinkie eagerly watched and listened to the energetic humans who appeared on the screen. Rainbow Dash seemed to have a unique interest for the cars that appeared on the program, although she didn’t understand a good majority of what the men were talking. While Pinkie seemed to enjoy the highly random antics of the presenters on the program. Rarity on the other hand, who had considered cars to be a vulgar machines from the moment she had set her eyes on them, entertained herself with a stack of outdated magazines that sat on one of the tables nearby.

Eventually the creak of metal rubbing on metal resonated from down one of the nearby hallways, and around the corner came Applejack pushing a well-worn cart covered in books, with Twilight trotting behind her with several books of her own held in her hands.

“We’re back !” Twilight whisper-yelled as they walked up, apparently trying to show proper library etiquette even when nopony else was even nearby.

Applejack sighed in relief as she brought the creaking cartful of books to a rest next to the wooden table, “Yeah, Twi ere’ wanted ever book in the whole place,” she paused to catch her breath before continuing, “it was mighty hard to convince her not to get another cart.”

“Well of course, imagine all the information that could be held within these pages that nopony in Equestria has ever even thought of before,” Twilight replied gleefully as she pulled a chair out from the table and sat down.

“Now everyone just be quiet and let me read,” Twilight added as she cracked open one of the books and turned to the first page.

“You’re kidding me right ?” Rainbow Dash said, who was still sitting in front of the black box with Pinkie.

“You expect us to sit here while you read ALL of that ?” She waved her hand over in the direction of the large stack of books on the cart, with a look of combined annoyance and disbelief.

Twilight looked up from her book, and turned to look towards Dash, but instead of looking at her, she looked through her and towards the black box that she had only just now noticed was running.

“What’s that ?”

“Its like a movie projector, but like super duper smaller and it doesn’t have film and it also has more than one movie and you can change the movie with this thing,” Pinkie blurted out as she held up the smaller black box with buttons in her hand.

“Wow,” Twilight managed to reply after a brief moment of contemplation about seeing yet another unbelievable device in this strange world.

“This is exactly why we need to read these books, if these humans can make all these other machines I’m sure it shouldn’t be too hard to produce one that can get us home. I’ve got here a good selection that should give us a good amount of basic knowledge in a variety of subjects; science, human history, technology, human phyc-”

“Yeah, but what are WE supposed to do while you do your egghead thing ?” Rainbow Dash said, cutting of Twilight in mid-sentence.

“How about you try to read some too ? All of you actually, the more we divide it up the faster we can get this done.” Twilight replied in her standard lecturing tone.

“Ugh, but all those books are boring …” Rainbow Dash began to moan.

Twilight rolled her eyes and reached over to the cart, grabbed a small paperback book and tossed it towards Rainbow Dash, who caught it firmly in her hands.

“Try that, it was in the fiction section so it probably won’t have any useful information, but it looked like it might keep you from moaning for awhile.”

Rainbow Dash looked down at the book in her hands, which was titled “Indiana Jones” and also included a image of a man in a fedora who looked vaguely familiar to her.

“Fine …” Rainbow Dash said as she cracked open the old book and leaned her back against the nearby couch.

All the other girls picked up books of their own and sat down around “their” corner of the library, returning the library back to the same silence it had been before their arrival.