Like every day in Ponyville, the sun rose gracefully and peacefully into the still, baby blue morning sky. The air was calm and still, not a breeze of wind blowing to betray the perfection of the majestic dawn. It was almost as if some greater force was using the weather to tell some imaginary audience that everything in Equestria was perfect, exactly as it should be. As if nothing at all was wrong.
Naturally then, it didn't take long before, with the swift opening of a door or lifting of a blind, a peering pony could watch with bitter familiarity as Princess Twilight Sparkle tore across the town square in the direction of her castle. Quills and pieces parchment from her early morning shopping excursion exploded into the air and onto the dirt street as she sprinted, but if she noticed them she made no indication that she cared. Instead, even though her eyes were locked directly on the path in front of her, the entirely of Twilight's focus was directed solely on the pulsating light emanating from her cutie mark.
The door to the castle had exploded open before Twilight was even ten feet in front of him, allowing her to leap up the steps and with a quick fluttering of her wings soar into the living room. Finally she allowed herself the solace of a break as her hooves skidded to a halt and she slid the short remaining distance to her throne.
A crashing of glass signaled Rainbow Dash's approach moments later, and she was immediately seated in front of the map wearing a wide and toothy grin.
"Who else was called?" she chattered excitedly, evidently thirsty for adventure.
"I guess we'll find out in a second," Twilight replied.
Gradually, the Cutie Map began to glow and sparkle with magic as it was activated, buildings and trees and mountains forming from nothingness to light and finally into concrete shape. Ponyville stood near the center, a familiar site to anypony who had ever seen a map. But Ponyville was not the town in which Twilight and her friend's cutie marks were dancing above.
"Oh no..."
"A...all of us...?" A hint of wariness entered Rainbow's voice, although it would have been eclipsed to anypony who did not know heras closely as Twilight and her friends. "There?"
It did not take long before Rarity, Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy arrived in suit, dashing through the still open door and taking their respective places to gaze at the map before them. Each muttered their familiar, respective greetings, as if they had gathered for hooficures instead of an epic journey into the unknown. The map had been quite a regular occurrence in the six of their lives as of late, and it's demands had at least become expected from all of them. Nevertheless, the looks of comfortable familiarity did not last long as each pony looked at the map glowing on the table.
Twilight watched, face blank of all emotion as she instead devoted her attention to analyzing those of her friends. Rarity had looked initially pleased when she had first saw where the cutie marks were leading them, but her look did not take long to droop to the uncertainty that the rest of Twilight's friends shared.
"The Crystal Empire?" Applejack voiced everypony's nervous thoughts, "Ah reckon this is the first time the map's called us all there at the same time."
"Not just the Crystal Empire," Rarity pointed a hoof at the specific tower spire the cutie marks seemed to be infatuated with.
"Isn't that where they keep..." Fluttershy began with a gasp.
"The Crystal Mirror," Rainbow Dash cut in, finishing Fluttershy's sentence for dramatic emphasis, even though it would honestly be rather unfeasible for her to be able to do so.
"But since when do we all get to go through there?!" Pinkie Pie exclaimed. "Normally it's just Twi who gets to have all the crazy-cool, inter-dimensional fun!"
"I...I don't know why it needs all of us." Twilight confessed. "Do you girls...I mean...do you need to prepare or anything? Last time I was days in there. Who knows what'll happen if the map wants us all there at the same time."
"When do we ever prepare for anything?" Rainbow Dash countered evenly. "Nah, let's run in blindly, as usual! It's funner that way!"
Twilight's eye twitched, but she said nothing. Besides, grammatically correct or not, it wasn't as though what Rainbow Dash said was untrue. When did they ever prepare for anything? The map had led them to a strange village in the middle of nowhere, and they headed towards it without a single thought, and without so much as telling anypony else where they were going.
Still, Ponyville High was a circle of hell Twilight was less than enthusiastic about. The flesh devouring bi-pedals had made for good Nightmare Night stories, and at least her friends had been consistent even despite the vast weirdness of everything else. But with the six of them all through the portal at the same time...Twilight wasn't quite looking forward to how Pinkie Pie would react to the humans...or, more accurately, how the humans would react to Pinkie Pie. Still, at least there was no way the situation could get any stranger once they were through.
"Right?" Twilight said out loud.
Princess Celestia, Luna, and Cadence were waiting by the Crystal Mirror when Twilight and her friends arrived, chatting amongst themselves and staring straight into the magical portal in front of them.
"No, no, no," Luna was saying, "Their first album was much better than their first album—"
"Twilight!" Celestia greeted, turning around with a smile as the six mares barged dramatically into the room. "Thank you girls for coming so fast!"
"We came as fast as we—" Twilight was in the process of saying, before stopping abruptly, "Uhh, you're welcome. How did you know that the map called us?"
"In the entirety of the magical realm of Equestria, did you really think you had the only Plot Map?" Luna mused, "We had glowing maps before your grandmother's grandmother's grandmother was even the inklings of an idea of a fetus—"
"It summoned us, too," Celestia clarified, cutting Luna's moody response short.
"Perhaps it's just me..." Rarity took a step forwards, analyzing the Crystal Mirror closely, with one eye slightly squinted, "...but it seems as though the Mirror is...already pink."
"Yes," Cadence agreed. "It was like that when we arrived. None of us cast any magic on it. It's like...something else is opening it, from their own side."
"Needless to say, this is much too interesting for us to simply ignore," Celestia said. "And as such, I propose we run in blindly, without preparation."
"It's funner that way," Luna agreed.
