Author's Note

As you can tell, this story is told from a first person (pony) view. The perspective will change from time to time. Breaks in events are represented by dashes. After those there will be a name, this name is whoever the next sequence is being experienced by. If there is a break and no name, then assume it's from the perspective of the previous sequence. Although most of the time Mark will be used for perspective, often an outside perspective is needed to better get a point across.

Chapter 1: First Contact

Twilight Sparkle

Bored. How can Twilight Sparkle, princess of friendship, powerful Alicorn and owner of one of the largest libraries in the world, be bored? I roll over onto my back and watch my assistant scribble on the ludicrously long scroll in his claws. We are currently in a large empty room, but it's by no means ordinary. While I'm not taking care of royal duties, fighting war gods in mortal combat, or traveling the continent with my friends, I'm continuing my studies in magic. It is my special talent after all. Me and my mentor both agreed that experience is the best teacher, so together we created this room. Its walls contain a numerous amount of enchantments.

There are several magic nullifying barriers put up to prevent any more dangerous and unstable spells from causing destruction. There is also a time based repair spell. Any structure or being brought into the room that is damaged will return back to a neutral state after a short amount of time. On top of that there's an enchantment that dulls pain. It's directly proportional to any sustained pain, making it so one feels the same amount no matter the injury. There is still a small amount of pain though because It's important to be able to tell if you're missing a limb. Thankfully that hasn't happened... yet.

All of these spells would be wonderful to have on a day-to-day basis, but these enchantments required several days of two Alicorns pouring magic into them to become this potent. I've taken to calling the room Spell-slinger's Retreat.

"Okay Spike, where did we leave off last time?" I ask my assistant.

He scratches his head with the end of his metal quill. "Right in the middle of the I's."

Together, me and Spike had compiled a list of every spell we could find in a book. We alphabetized them and made it a goal to at some point attempt to use every spell. This endeavor began relatively soon after I received my castle. Normally this would excite me. Learning new magic is just a part of my existence. Without magic, I'm not me, but after becoming a princess, the boost in magic has made many spells trivial in their execution.

Spells used to take hours of studying for me to learn, but now my natural abilities have surpassed a certain level of complexity and I find most spells able to be mastered in moments. Sometimes even seconds. However, there are still convoluted and strong incantations. Many of them are too dangerous and risky to be performed even in a room such as this, but those are the ones I want to try the most. There's even more powerful spells in the forbidden wing of the Canterlot library, but even though I'm now a princess and have access to the wing, I know those spells are for emergencies and extenuating circumstances only. Alas, my need for safety and responsibility outweighs my thirst for the thrill of using those spells, and I end up being bored by the simplicity and ease that casting has now.

"Alright Spike, let's begin."

"Well, thankfully we're done with the induction spells. I don't think my mind could take much more of those. If I have to go through another 'induce projectile vomiting' spell, we're gonna have to go back and redo that amnesia spell."

I wince as I remember back to that day. We agreed that I would cast the induction spells on both of us so we could observe and experience the results. Some of them were pleasant, others, not so much.

"The last one I have checked is Inferno, so the next one is Infestation Manifestation. It's in Nature's Ferocity page two-hundred thirty."

I focus and summon the book in front of me. I flip to the page and study the words on it. It's pretty simple really, after one glance I can tell it consists of several small teleports and an invigorator. I can also tell I might need a bath after this. I close the book and return it to its place of origin. I will my magic to make my thoughts a reality. After a few short seconds I feel the magic in me flare up and focus it through my mind and out of my horn. The action feels similar to lifting a heavy object with your hooves and quickly dropping it. After the release a swarm of black insects floods the room. Though I've read plenty of books on insects, I can't identify the species currently flying in the room. The buzz of the creatures in deafening and the whole room is now a black blur. I feel a tingling sensation all over my body, a mixture of the bugs touching me and my own skin crawling from looking at them. After another seven or so seconds, the bugs vanish from the room as quickly as they appeared. I look over and see Spike laying on the ground. Oops, forgot to warn him.

"You okay Spike?"

Spike sits up and spits out a bug that vanishes along with its friends.

"Yeah, just a little grossed out. Jeez Twilight, all you had to do was glance at that one and you could cast it. If you keep this up, you'll be giving Starswirl the Bearded a run for his bits."

"It's true I'm becoming good at learning spells, but I'm still light-years away from creating my own. Anyway, I don't mean to sound big-headed, but can you skip to one that's a challenge?" My boredom is beginning to reach peak levels.

"Hmmm..." The young dragon observes the list and finds a suitable endeavor. "How about Interdimmensional Portal?"

This piques my interest, but I shoot it down after I realize its potential dangers.

"We can't do that one, the results are too unpredictable and risky."

"Well, then how about the next best thing? Interdimmensional Screening."

That actually does sound like the next best thing. I get to use my magic to interact with another dimmension without risking any damage to either plane. On top of that I also get to observe it.

"Sounds perfect, where's the spell?"

"It's in Cosmic Bender's personal research journal, page ninety-five. If I remember correctly the princesses never allowed his personal journals to be published because many of his spells were incomplete or had too large of a risk attached."

Many journals from unicorn researchers were moved from the Canterlot library to mine. Now I'm starting to have second thoughts. There's a reason the journal wasn't published, but if I read the journal carefully and think it over thoroughly, I should be able to confirm the spell's stability.

"Okay then, how about we take a lunch break, and while we're at it I'll verify whether the spell is safe to use."

Spike looks to me with wild eyes. "Oh thank Celestia, I'm starving."

With our stomachs now full, it's time to begin the spell. I've been mulling it over for the last fifteen minutes, and I can tell why the princesses wouldn't want this journal to become public knowledge. Even though it would take somepony gifted in magic such as myself to pull off, if put in the wrong hands, a lot of these spells could devastate life as everypony knows it. The screening spell, however, seems to be safe.

The spell in a sense tears a hole into reality. Cosmic Bender theorized that dimmensions are basically on top of one another. The best way to describe it was an onion, with each layer of the onion being a different dimmenion. It would take weeks of study and calculations to intentionally and consistantly peek into a certain dimmenion, but there exists a vesion of the spell that chooses a random depth to cut at. There's no telling what I'll be able to see. It could range from literally a dimmension of nothingness to an image of an alternate version of myself performing the same tasks I currently am.

"Okay Spike, I need you to stand behind me. Also, you need to keep silent, as this is going to be a frangible procedure and I don't need any distractions until it's complete."

Spike nods to me and quickly scrambles to get behind me. Show time. Unlike the last spell, this one requires a constant stream of magic. A lot of energy is required to make the initial tear, but afterwards the amount of magic needed to maintain it is small, or atleast in theory it is.

I flare my horn and begin to send waves of energy into the open space before me. In my mind I picture hooves constantly trying to tear apart a pool of water. The concept is basically the same. When you try to seperate the water, any surrounding water flows in to fill the gap you just created. The same applies to the physical reality in front of me. The difference is that every time I do it, the structural integrity of that reality is weakened. I feel a slight tug on my magic. This is the most crucial stage. In front of me I have created a vaccum of nothingness. Now I have to peel back the nothingness to reveal whatever dimmension may be behind it. I strain against process. Not surprisingly, trying to delete nothingness is relatively difficult. My body is beginning to ache from the strain. I'm almost at my breaking point when finally there is an enormous let up, but I can't stop now. Now I have to quickly contruct a barrier around the window I've created to prevent this reality from collapsing back in. I push in what I think is a strong enough barrier and open my eyes.

Right in front of me is a miniscule hole. This hole has a color in it that is unlike any color in the room currently. Perfect. Now all I need to do is expand the opening. With just a little more thought and a slight push of magic, the hole expands to roughly the size of a bathroom mirror. Now that the hole is stable and at an optimal size, I slowly begin to relax my magic.As I relax I see the opening tremor and take note of my margin. Just as theorized, little magic is required to keep the gap open. In fact, it's almost negligible.

"Woah" Says Spike from behind me.

Woah indeed. The image in the gap is one of a forest. It's currently night in the vision, but what I assume is moonlight makes many details visible.

"Alright Spike, let's make sure I didn't accidentally create a portal. Go around to the otherside and tell me what you see."

Spike moves from behind me and travels to the other side of the hole.

"I don't see anything. How can that be?"

I giggle with pride at my accomplishment. "It's because a screen is only done using two of the space-time dimmensions. If I were to add the third and fourth, it would create a portal that could be stepped through, but when using two, it can only been seen through from one direction."

Spike moves back around the screen and positions himself next to me.He chuckles.

"It's a little dull isn't it?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I expected to see some sort of monster ponies, or maybe some weird lights and weather, but this just looks like a boring old forest.... Wait... what is that thing?"

"What thing?"

"There's like, two black ovals at the bottom of the screen."

I look down and sure enough, at the edge of the screen are two black ovals. I refocus more magic into the screen and pan the vision down. Slowly, a figure comes into view. From what I can tell, the figure has four limbs, a head, and a torso, but all of them are uneven. The black ovals are connected to the end of the figure. From what I can tell it also might be wearing clothing, which if it is, means it's sentient. If it's sentient, then why is it out there alone? Why isn't it moving? Is it sleeping? Does-

Suddenly a sharp pain ravages through my body and I yell.

"Twilight! Are you okay!?"

I can't respond as another wave goes over my body, only this time rather than bringing physical pain, it removes all vitality out of my body.

"What's going on Twilight!?"

My legs buckle underneath me and I fall to the floor breathing hard. What just happened? Whatever it was, I need to get this screen closed. I stop supplying magic to it but it doesn't shut. Now that I've stopped feeding it magic, I can tell what the problem is. The screen is sucking in magic the around it. I can feel myself being drained and look over to see Spike begginning to show signs of fatigue. I look up at the screen and see that it is now glowing a brilliant green color. This is bad. If this screen is sucking in magic like I think it is, then considering I just opened it in a room enchanted to the brim with magic, it might absorb enough to turn into a portal. I gather the energy to stand and glance again into the screen. The creature inside is now moving. This is really bad. At this point I can visibly see the magic from the walls flying towards the gap. If this thing is absorbing magic, then the only way I'm going to close it is if I can produce enough of my own magic at a higher rate than the now forming portal can absorb.

I flare my horn once again and focus my magic. I begin willing the void to close. I push against the invisible force with all of my might. The effects of the strain can be felt in my entire body but I keep going. My vision is slowly beginning to fade and I attempt one last push. A blinding flash of green fills the room. I think I did it. I open my eyes which I didn't realize I had closed and take the breath I didn't know I was holding. I look up. The figure from before is now standing in front of me.

"Pony?"

The figure falls landing on the solid ground. A nap sounds good right now. Darkness takes over my vision.

Spike

I rub the temporary blindness caused by the sudden flash of light out of my eyes and let them readjust. That was super scary. I glance myself over and make sure everything is in place. I feel a bit of fatigue, but as far as I can tell nothing is missing. Now to check the rest of the room. I'm still in the same grey room as before, which is good. Atleast this means I didn't get sucked into another dimmension. Now I can see Twilight. She's laying limp on the floor, but there's something else. It's the thing that was on the screen. It's here, lying motionless next to her. I move over quickly to Twilight and check her over. She's breathing but it seems labored. She also doesn't seem to have sustained any sort of injuries, or at least not ones I can see or help with.

With this information I turn my attention to the odd creature in the room, only, it's not odd. I feel like I've seen something like it somewhere befooOOOOORE! OH MY GOODNESS! It's one of THOSE things, with the portals and the hands and the highschool and the dancing. But what's it doing here? I thought that world could only be accessed with that mirror. Maybe we opened up a sort of backdoor.

Okay Spike, this is no time to theory-craft. I need to get a letter sent to Celestia fast. Horsefeathers, there's no parchment down here, and I can't leave Twilight alone. I look around and see the list of spells on the ground. I guess that'll have to do. I use my claw to seperate a chuck of the scroll off the end. I find my metal quill, flip over the parchment and begin writing.

Princess Celestia,

Twilight's been in an accident and I can't leave her to get help. We are currently in the spell-casting saferoom of Twilight's castle. The events that have taken place cannot be explained via quill and paper, please come as fast as you can and bring a medical expert.

-Spike

Satisfied with my work, I roll up the piece of paper and teleport it to Celestia with my fire. Now the waiting game. I hear a faint shuffling over next to twilight. I move to investigate. Twilight's breath has become more labored. I feel the top of her head. She's... outrageously cold. What in the world? I move around her body once again to make sure she's not losing blood. Everything seems fine, but I don't have a view of anything on her underside.

I move to her backside and flip her over. Wait, she's still warm over here. I begin to feel up the length of her torso. No questioning it, her body becomes more cold the closer I get to her head. This doesn't make sense. I look over to the nearby bipedal body. Maybe this can provide me some answers. I place my claws on the head of the being and... it's incredibly warm. Maybe this is normal? I move to the other side and make a slight tear in its clothing. I place my claw on its exposed leg. It's less warm. I mull this over in my head, letting the mental gears turn. What if...

BEEEEEELCH

I watch as a new letter leaves my mouth along with a flare of green fire. I watch the fire as it...no, that's not right. Normally the fire would dissipate upwards but instead it sinks and moves towards the creature from the portal. As the flame falls on top of it, it dissipates. A switch flicks in my head. I stand up and quickly move back to the lower part of the creature. I grab its two limbs and begin to drag it backwards. Celestia, this thing's heavy. Through much effort I finally move the creature to the furthest wall in the room. I set the limbs down and rush back over to Twilight. I grab her front hooves and do the same, only this time to the opposite wall. When I arrive I let myself fall, succumbing to the strain of lifting the two bodies. I put my claw on her head once again. It's warmer now, still cold, but definately warmer. I can even see some color returning to her face. I glance back over to the creature. Was it... absorbing(?) her magic? I saunter back over to the center of the room and pick up the still rolled scroll from the floor. I open it and begin reading.

Spike,

I am en route with a medical team. Please watch over Twilight in the meantime.

-Celestia

I've never seen a letter this short from the princess. She must be just as worried as I am. Nothing left to do now but sit and think of what I'm going to tell Celestia when she gets here.