The Link Between the Worlds

"Is it ready?" asked a very worried Princess Celestia. Shining Armor stood at attention in front of her. "Are the wards up? The guards stationed? Where's Twilight? Is she safe yet?" As her voice grew more and more frantic with every question she asked, she started to pace the ground in front of the castle. She'd been like this ever since Twilight had failed to respond to her letter. The captain of the Royal Guard sighed before answering. Her Highness was acting very unprofessional.

"The wards are active and the retrieval team is ready to go, Your Highness."

Celestia stopped pacing. "Where's Twilight?" she asked, almost pleadingly. She didn't care how uncomfortable being called "Your Highness" made her. She just wanted to see her former apprentice. She could be stuck in some sort of dimensional limbo, she thought. Drifting forever in the void. Celestia shook her head, reminding herself to not loose her cool. That's what Equestria needed.

"The unstable area that you showed us doesn't seem to like ponies. Our strongest soldiers weren't able to break through the barrier. There're hitting it just as hard as everypony else." He chuckled a bit. "It's actually pretty funny to watch. They're taking bets on who's going to get in and everything." Shining Armor shrugged. "I don't understand what's the big deal is. We'll eventually break in, get Twily-" he paused to correct himself, "Princess Twilight, and then it will all be over."

The princess of the sun was silent. She was silent for a very long time. Don't get angry. Don't get angry. she repeated. But this stallion has the nerve to ask you "What the big deal is." Your student is trapped in a portal zone, and he doesn't care in the least. She raised her head, and looked him straight in the eye. "You want to know what the big deal is?" she asked quietly. Shining gulped. He'd said something wrong.

"The big deal is that we're getting a visitor from another universe!" She was practically screaming as she picked up the unfortunate stallion with her magic. An angry Alicorn Princess with the power to banish him to the moon was enough to make him wish he had stayed in the Crystal Empire with his wife. "Some time soon, that castle is going to be the entry point for whatever is coming through! And do you know what will happen to anypony that gets caught in that entry point?" The captain shook his head. "They'll be sucked into the portal as well!" Celestia threw the stallion to the ground as his eyes widened at the implications of what Her Highness had just said. If he survived this, he might never see Twilight again if she didn't leave the castle soon. Poor Twily, he thought. She must be scared out of her mind.

"Uh, Twilight, you might want to see this."

The purple Alicorn raised her head slightly to look up from her book on quantum physics. She grumbled under her breath. She was at the good part and Spike had the nerve to interrupt her.

"What is it Spike?" she called back.

"I think Princess Celestia is trying to strangle your brother on the front lawn."

Twilight snorted at his comment and set down the book. She'd gotten the information she had needed and was going to try out her new spell. In theory, it should align the polarities of an object and magnetize it automatically. The practical uses were endless. Time to see what magic can do, she thought, as she rubbed her hooves together. She paused for a second, feeling a certain spark in the air that hadn't been there before. She waved it away, though, explaining it as her nerves. Spike had given her a letter from Princess Celestia that was so rushed she could barely read it. But the splatters of ink on the page told her that Celestia was worried about something. Too bad Spike had eaten some bad gems and couldn't respond by dragonfire. It was probably just Discord playing a prank on her. After all, who else is there to fight? she thought to herself. I think I would notice if Tirek was back. She smiled at the thought. It was just an ordinary day, after all.

"Uh, Your Highness, what are you doing?"

Both the Alicorn and her victim turned toward the voice and saw that it belong to an orange-coated guard. What's his name again? asked the white stallion. Oh, right! Flash Sentry. The rookie had been the laughing stock of the Royal Guard for the past few weeks, mostly for his crush on the caption's little sister. Shining Armor failed to see much humor in it though.

Awkwardly, Celestia released him, realizing that she was throttling the Caption of the Royal Guard. "I was… trying to convey my concern on this matter to Shining Armor here." Flash took this as a sign to be cautious around the princess for the next couple of hours.

"I came here as fast as I could, sir," said the rookie.

Some other guards yelled from across the lawn, "Hey Flash, worried about your fillyfriend?" which sparked some laughs which was followed by the thump of another failed attempt. Flash winced and Shining Armor silenced the guards with a glance.

"How is the mission going?" asked Flash, apparently over his embarrassment.

"Our soldiers haven't been able to get past a certain point in the grass. It's like they hit a wall. It's a portal to another universe or something. And we can't teleport in for fear of prematurely activating the portal. If Princess Twilight is in there when the portal activates, she'll get sucked in and come out the other side."

Flash took a few seconds to process the information. "So your soldiers haven't been able to get past it."

"That's right."

Flash paused. Should I really ask this? "Well, do you think an Alicorn could?"