It was a peaceful morning in Ponyville and Twilight was reading up on another book about spells. The air was warm, the town was silent, the ponies were happy, and everything seemed calm. All of this helped put Twilight’s mind at ease; she was recovering from another Pinkie party. Suddenly Twilight’s ears flickered, she could hear the sound of cantering towards her door and it was rapidly approaching. Twilight braced for impact as the door swung open and Applejack was there in the doorway panting. After catching her breath she finally managed to wheeze, “L…Lyra’s at it again, Twi.”
Twilight rolled her eyes as she said, “Oh boy, let me guess, it’s about other forms of life?” Twilight was getting rather annoyed with all of these interruptions by Lyra. It was the third time this week she was getting attention on her theories. Applejack nodded as she turned around and burst into a gallop towards Town Square. Twilight closed her book with her magic and followed behind the earth pony.
When they arrived in town square, a bright turquoise unicorn had set up a large chalkboard with all sorts of calculations on it. What made this pony different from others was her unnatural ability to remain bipedal. Twilight moved to the front of the crowd to hear the unicorn shout out, “Citizens of Ponyville, I have figured out what was wrong with last week’s calculations and have now proven that there is other life out there.” The unicorn would continuously point towards the chalkboard behind her as she walked towards each pony.
A stallion from the back of the crowd shouted out, “Hey, Lyra! If there is other life, how come they haven’t visited us yet?”
Lyra took that snarky comment simply as an opportunity to explain her theory as she said, “Because they live in an alternate universe entirely. There’s a theory that there are infinite realities with infinite possibilities.”
A pink earth pony bounced over top of the crowd as she exclaimed, “Does that mean there’s a pony that throws better parties?” She was getting nervous at the thought of there being a better pony than her at parties.
Lyra simply laughed as she said, “That, my friend is impossible. Nopony can party harder than Pinkie!” Lyra walked up to the chalkboard to begin her explanation but ponies began to laugh at her.
One pony within the crowd yelled out loud, “Give it up, they don’t exist. If anything is possible, then how come they haven’t visited us yet?” The crowd immediately went silent; it was a valid argument after all. Lyra stood there before the silent crowd, her mouth unable to spew out an explanation. She was deeply hurt at what the pony had said.
Lyra stuttered before saying, “I… I don’t know why.” Lyra suddenly dawned a look of depression and deep hurt as she sat back down in her chair, her elbows resting on her hind legs as she slouched over. Lyra was silent, she couldn’t answer that question, nor did she want to. She looked like she was finally going to accept defeat. The crowd of ponies silently laughed amongst each other for Lyra’s display of humiliation. Eventually all of the ponies had left, except for a well known group of six ponies. This group didn’t understand what she knew, but they could understand how she felt.
Twilight slowly trotted up to Lyra and said in a calm voice, “Lyra, you have a brilliant mind for music and science. I think that you’re going to have to give up though, you’re humiliating yourself and we hate to see you so sad at the end of the day. I think you need to focus on another hobby, like magic.”
Lyra nodded her head as she sniffled; she wiped the tears from her eyes as she said, “Okay. But I know their out there, we just need to find a way to poke a hole in the fabric of existence.”
Twilight’s ears perked as an idea popped in her head, she lifted Lyra’s face as she said, “How about I help you? I think I know a spell that can open a gate to anywhere, and you just need the right set of mind to determine the place.”
Lyra’s face lightened up at the opportunity Twilight presented her with. Immediately Lyra said to her, “Yes! Oh yes please! Can we do that tomorrow?” Lyra jumped up onto her hind legs and picked up the ponies into a large hug. Lyra’s heart was filled with joy, she could finally come close to proving that there is other life, even if it’s a plant.
Twilight simply giggled as she said to her, “Though I have to be honest, all you might see is a blob or a plant. You might not get anything at all; chances are very small you’ll get an intelligent being like us.”
Lyra had a huge shiny smile on her face as she said, “Just you wait, I know there’s something out there.” With that, Lyra waved her hoof goodbye to the six before galloping home. She may have been capable of walking on her hind legs, but running was a different story.
As she galloped into the distance, Rainbow Dash turned to the lavender unicorn and said, “You really believe her? She’s obviously crazy.”
Twilight looked towards the cyan pony with a look of insult on her face as she said, “Rainbow Dash, that’s a horrible thing to say, she obviously strongly believes in something and I felt it would be necessary to help her learn that she’s wrong. I’d rather help fail with her than insult her.”
Rainbow Dash, obviously feeling guilty for saying that about Lyra said, “You’re right, you have to give her a chance. I’m no egghead, like you,” Dash pointed a cyan hoof at Twilight before continuing, “but this stuff looks like it was done carefully. I mean, no one just doodles calculations onto something to look smart right?”
Twilight smiled towards Dash before saying, “That’s true. I guess we’ll have to find out tomorrow. See you girls at my house at about noon.” With that said, Twilight vanished away, leaving the rest to return to their homes and daily business.
*****
Lyra burst through the door to her room with a large grin on her face as she said out loud, “This is it! I can finally prove to everypony I’m right!” Lyra galloped into her room, the walls were covered with drawings of creatures that resembled apes, but were bipedal like her. Her workstation was littered with pages covered in calculations, blueprints, and drawings. Lyra ran to her bed and pulled out a large blueprint and a box containing a unfinished device that fixed around a unicorn’s horn. She trotted over to her workstation and spread out the blueprint with her magic, immediately getting to work on a device she would obviously need. The next few hours were spent tirelessly working by hoof on this creation of hers; rarely taking breaks to relieve stress by playing the harp. It took her a few tests to get the device finally finished, but in the end it was all worth it. Lyra said to herself as she floated the device into the air, “Finally, all that work leads to this. This is test number six of the amplifier.” Lyra strapped the device around her horn; she looked like she was wearing a metal party hat Pinkie would give her. Lyra turned the device on, at first the hum was deep and quiet, but it quickly grew into a loud hum. Lyra closed her eyes and said to herself, “Focus… float the harp towards you.” Lyra began to picture her harp slowly moving towards her and was greeted with the feeling of a harp travelling at high speeds towards her face. Lyra was thrown back off of her hooves because of it, but wasn’t hurt in the slightest. In fact, she had never been happier in her life. Lyra jumped into the air as she shouted, “Success! I have increased my magic’s strength tenfold!”
Suddenly, a familiar voice to Lyra could be heard outside her room as it said, “That’s great, Lyra. Now go to bed, I never thought you would be like this when I chose you as a roommate.”
Lyra laughed as she said, “Oh hush, Bon-Bon. I have my reason to be happy.” Lyra was giggling like a schoolfilly as she jumped into the air. She barely had to focus at all to use her magic with the device on.
Bon-Bon called from the other room, “That’s great, I have a job interview tomorrow and I need my sleep. And so do you. I’m assuming you have some more inventing tomorrow.” After that, Bon-Bon shut her door and didn’t speak for the rest of the night. Leaving Lyra to put her new toy away for tomorrow, she had it all planned out. As she was walking towards her bed, she looked at a display on her wall which had a piece of metal inside it. The metal had an image of two creatures, one obviously male, and the other female. Beside it had what appeared to be half an image of their constellation. Lyra kept this artifact as her own secret, finding it in the Everfree forest when she was a filly. Ever since then, Lyra was inspired to find its origin and only now is she coming ever so close. The unicorn would repeat how excited she was for tomorrow until her eyes were too tired to stay open and she fell asleep.
Meanwhile in another reality, a human named Alex Mulroney was standing at the curb of a street. He had his iPod in his ears blaring music at max volume. He really didn’t care what people thought of him. Alex had bright green eyes and short curly hair. He was about six feet tall and wore glasses. He was the kind of person who really didn’t care what people thought of him. He was a goofy, witty, and sometimes (more like mostly) stupid. As the bus slowly approached, a shorter man walked up beside him and said with a sigh.
“Science fair is tomorrow, wanna come see my project?”
Alex simply shrugged and said “Sure Justin, why not? It’s not like I have anything to do after I see the doctor.”
Justin grew a look of worry as he looked up at his friend and said “Still fighting depression?”
Alex gave a long sigh, his eyes closed with pain every time he heard that word as he said “Yeah, the medication is helping a little, I think I might need to change my diet or something.” One thing you should know about Alex is that he suffers from depression. Every now and then you may find Alex thinking of ending his life, but he always makes it out alive even if he doesn’t want to. Alex took a deep breath in as he said, “I think I might have found a way of fighting it though.”
Justin wiped the blond hair from his eyes to look at his friend as he said, “Oh yeah? What is it?”
Alex couldn’t help but crack a smile on the side of his face as he said, “I watch My Little Pony, I know you’re going to laugh but that show for some reason is really well done!”
As Alex predicted, his friend couldn’t help but burst into a laugh as he said, “You legit? That’s really gay, I’m sorry. But that is just sad, you watching a show for little girls.” Alex felt his heart sink as he watched his friend mock him, he had been watching that show for the past few months and Justin was the first person he has told so far. Obviously it didn’t go over so well, but who could blame him, he’s never seen the show.
Alex tried to keep a straight face as he changed the subject, “So what is the project you’re working on again?”
Justin’s face brightened as his friend mentioned science He pulled out a blueprint as he began to explain. “Well, I’m making an atom smasher. Also known as a HADRON collider. It’s supposed to smash two hydrogen atoms together to recreate the Big Bang on a smaller scale. This project cost the school a couple hundred thousand dollars so I hope to God that this works.”
Alex face grew a look of deep concern as he asked “What would happen if something were to go wrong?”
Justin’s face went from a cheerful look to a dark and serious look as he said “A black hole is all I can say, if another atom gets in the way it will reverse the effect of an explosion, causing an implosion of infinite power. It will be doomsday for all of Canada if this fails.”
Alex began to have a mini panic attack. He has always acted brave but when the opportunity to be a hero presented itself, Alex was either shitting his pants of backing away. Alex gulped and held back his look of fear as he said “But that won’t happen, you’re a smart guy and probably thought of a way of avoiding that right?”
Justin simply shrugged as he said, “It’s very unlikely as it is, but you can never be too sure. Hey the bus is here, see you later today.” With that said, the yellow/orange bus pulled up to the two and they climbed in. The bus slammed its doors shut before slowly pulling out into the street again. Justin sat near the front with his friend while Alex made his way to the back, and sat alone. Alex was never really the one to be social in the morning, he just liked to listen to his music as he imagined what he would add to his story he writes. I guess I forgot to mention his love for writing. He could never get grammar too right in his opinion, but lots of people said that his stories did have potential. In fact, one of his stories was being turned into an audio book. Alex closed his eyes as the right music began to play; he pictured what it would be like living in Equestria. Being able to live in a world without ridicule or fear of humiliation, a world without crime, famine, and disease, and a world that was nothing like this disgusting planet where kids killed themselves because they were different. That’s one thing Alex hated, the bullying that took place, if it’s such a problem, then why aren’t the cops involved? Alex broke into a smile as he pictured himself walking through the cartoony villages filled with smiling faces and cheerful residents. Suddenly the dreams ended as abruptly as they began when the bus jerked to a stop in front of the school. Alex slowly got off last and walked towards the location of his locker, he kept his hood hung low to hide his day dreaming face from the assholes that surrounded him. As he got to his locker he found new art carved into it saying, “Move to Québec, faggot!”
Alex could hear the silent snickering coming from behind him, he didn’t do anything about it because he wasn’t brave enough. He just simply bottled up his emotions because that’s what tough men do, apparently. Alex got his books out of his bag and locked his locker and headed to his first period. Since the author of this book hates explaining all of the boring stuff he is deciding we should just skip all of the boring school stuff and get to phys-education. When Alex walked into the gymnasium, the students were playing dodgeball, which was odd for a grade 11 class. As soon as Alex stepped in, a ball moving as fast as a train rammed him in the testicles. Alex could feel the crushing pain between his legs as he dropped to the floor in pain. As he rocked back and forth one you gentleman said from the other side of the room, “I didn’t know he had nuts.” Alex jerked his head up as he heard the laughing. His heart sank deeper than ever as he was humiliated in front of everyone, he slowly got to his feet and stormed out of the gymnasium. He didn’t care it wasn’t the end of the day, he had to get out. Alex quickly put his clothes on and headed for his locker. In the hallways he met Justin, who was wearing a lab coat and goggles.
Justin’s face dawned a look of worry for his best friend as he said, “Alex, are you okay?”
Alex’s eyes were filled with tears, he just wanted to disappear as he said, “Take a look, fucking genius. Am I okay?” Alex swung his locker door open, stuffed everything into his bag, put on his coat and rushed for the door. He didn’t even close his locker; it was empty with nothing to steal. As he walked, he tried his best to hold in his tears, it would only make the situation worse if he was caught crying.
A voice blared over the speakers saying, “Attention all teachers, Alex Mulroney is attempting an escape.” With that, Alex rushed for the door before they could lock. Alex burst through the door and ran for home, never looking back, never thinking twice. His only escape from the pain was at home, which he arrived at eventually. Luckily for him, his mother wasn’t home yet so he slammed the door behind him and dragged his feet towards his room. As he closed the door behind him, Alex let out the biggest scream he could, tears pouring from his eyes. He launched his fist at the nearest wall, creating a hole in it. Alex jumped on his bed and violently tore a portrait that said “It gets better.” As hard as he could, Alex smashed the framed painting against the floor. Shards of glass sprayed everywhere as it made contact. Alex jumped from his bed and picked up the nearest piece big enough and brought it to his wrist. With a violent jerk, Alex slid the blade across his arm as blood began to dribble out. For the next minute Alex screamed in agony and emotional pain as his wrist was continuously cut. His wrist felt like it was on fire as it became covered in blood.
Alex eventually calmed himself down and bandaged himself up, he then walked into his room and lay on his bed and repeated, “I wish I lived somewhere else.” When the tears ran dry and his breath as shaky as possible he said in a whisper, “In Equestria.” Alex took a few deep breaths and walked over to his computer and turned it on, within a few minutes he had his favourite show playing. As the intro song began to play, Alex’s heart began to feel a false sense of love. He envied this world all too much to the point where he wished out loud he could live in the cartoon world. Before he knew it, night was setting. Alex’s cell phone began to ring; it played a tune that was based off of a My Little Pony character which always made Alex smile.
The phone read Justin’s number before it spoke through the speaker, “Hey Alex, listen, I’m really scared for you after seeing you in so much pain today. Just so you know you were let off easy by the school because I told them you were in emotional pain. I hope you’re alive to hear this; I really want to see you at the presentation tomorrow. Ciao.” With that, Justin hung up. Alex thought long and hard at what he had just heard, he never knew his friend cared for him that much. This fact brought a smile to Alex’s face as he solely got into bed and fell asleep.
After every breath he said to himself, “I wish I lived in Equestria.” Alex didn’t even realize his eyes were getting heavy as he slowly drifted off to sleep before another day of pain.
Alex’s eyes opened slowly as the morning sun rose, he was sort of excited to see how Justin’s project would turn out today, and seeing as the entire day would be spent at the science fair, there wasn’t going to be any real school work. Alex slowly got out of bed and dragged his feet towards the kitchen; his mother was making breakfast for him.
“Morning sweetie”, she said in a voice that hinted that something was amiss. “Listen, I don’t know what’s going on in your life right now, but I know for a fact, that it does not warrant self deprecation. I took the liberty of scheduling a session with a psychiatrist.
Alex was flabbergasted at what he had just heard. He could only stare blankly at the table while his mom prepared breakfast. He couldn’t believe he forgot to clean up the bloody mess he left behind. But at least it meant that he could get some help before he takes his own life, which he was scared of.
Alex continued with his usual morning routine, which included a bowl of oatmeal, which dispite his mental break down after the events that followed the previous day of school.
He decided to just wear a button up shirt and jeans, Coupled with a hoody featuring the logo of (insert band name he liked here) . Looking up from his fimfiction account after checking the status of the stories he was tracking, Alex was shocked to find that he was nearly late for the bus to school. Grabbing his shoes from the corner of his room and running down the stairs while simultaneously trying to put on his sox, he rushed out the door and down the side walk hoping that this time he may get at least a sliver of good fortune. Luckily he arrived just in time for the bus as it slowly pulled up. Alex got on and headed for the back, for some reason he was extremely happy this morning and began blaring some music from his favorite show, this of course earned him some stares from those who could here the loud music and could not find out what in the hell it was, or where it came from. But as always these stares and looks of confusion just served to make him smile even wider. When the bus arrived finally at school, a few news vans and cars were parked outside the school. As Alex walked into the gymnasium, he could see a large silver tube stretching across the gym in a circle. A large copper device stood in the center connecting the pipe to the other end forming a tight seal. By the complex look of the thing, this was obviously the atom shooter thingy. After looking at it for a while, Alex took a seat at the front of the crowd as the lights dimmed and everyone went silent. Slowly the blond haired friend of Alex walked out in front of the device.
Justin cleared his throat before saying, “Thank you everyone for coming. Today, is a very special day. Either I get a PhD in theoretical physics, or we all die in a black hole.” The crowd quietly laughed at Justin’s secret warning as he continued, “This here is a hadron collider, and it will be firing one hydrogen atom around this pipe until it reaches the speed of light. Then once it’s nearly traveling as fast as light, it will collide with another hydrogen atom to create a miniature replica of the universe’s biggest explosion.” Justin went on to explain in great detail just how the machine worked, and what he hoped to learn from this mini-explosion. Alex was beginning to fall asleep when he finally heard those magic words everyone in attendance of the fair had been waiting for. “Let’s begin.” With that, Justin pulled out a remote and pressed a button what seemed to be an oversized red button. The large copper machine menacingly hummed to life as a light of increasing intensity slowly became visible through the tiny window. Alex watched in awe as the smartest child alive blew away the audience with his sciencing (that’s a word I use so shut up).
/)^3^(\
Simultaneously in Twilight’s library, Lyra waited impatiently while the lavender unicorn stood over a book. When Twilight had read enough she turned to her turquoise friend and said, “Are you ready? Remember, we’re only looking for a plant, just poke your horn and cast a small spell to retrieve the plant okay?” Lyra shook her head with excitement; she finally had the chance to search for alien life. Twilight motioned every pony in the room to stand back as her horn began to glow. Twilight used as much energy as she could as a small purple hole began to appear in mid air. The hole looked like a vertical purple whirlpool that shot bolts of electricity in random directions, when the hole was big enough Twilight shouted, “Ok Lyra, the portal should be ready for the next step! Be quick though, I don’t think I can hold this thing open for much longer.”
Lyra’s horn began to glow as the amplifier was set to her head. Lyra shouted out, “Okay!” Lyra quickly jammed her head into the hole. She quickly retracted her head and said to the crowd, “Not seeing anything yet. Im going to try to increase the power of the spell.”
Twilight shouted out in horror, “No! That’s too dangerous!” But it was too late; Lyra sorely underestimated the efficency of the magical amplifier she had built. Immediately Lyra began to scream when she began to feel her horn being dragged through the dark chasm that was the portal had become. The hole suddenly began to pulse and radiate energy that was blowing books off of the shelves and pushing the windows to the point of shattering. Rogue energy began to fly out in all directions, dissipating in a violent display of distruction. Lyra closed her eyes out of instinct with the sudden realization that she was unable to control the force dragging her through the dark vortex.
*****
Justin’s project was going quite smoothly. The light was getting brighter as Justin showed no sign of fear at all. The news reporters fell silent as Justin said aloud, “Now behold… The Big Bang! On a much smaller scale of course…” He then flipped a switch that launched a hydrogen atom towards the one already traveling in the collider. At first everything seemed to be going as planned, but all of hell broke loose, it began with a visible change in the color of the light visible from the small window in the collection potion of the collider. What was expecting to be a collision, releasing only a few neutrons and free floating quarks, turned out to be a significantly larger implosion that began to suck everything towards it. The crowd of people began to scream as it dawned on them that there worst fears were being realized before their very eyes.
Alex knew this was the end of the world as he knew it when he shouted out in vein, “How can we stop this?”
Justin yelled from behind a nearby desk, “It’s a worm hole; maybe something with the mass of an adult would clog it and hopefully stop it. But that’s just a theory.” Justin turned to look at Alex, what he found was an empty seat; he turned his head to see Alex running towards the chaotic worm hole. Justin screamed at the top of his lungs, “Are you fucking crazy? What the hell are you thinking!?”
Alex broke into a small smile as he held onto the stage saying, “I was never the brave one, or the happy one. Now I’m about to change them both, goodbye Justin Reilly.” With that, Alex let go of the stage he was holding onto. As he was dragged into the swirling vortex, a small grin appeared on his face. He could finally end the pain of being bullied and could die a hero that saved the entire world. He had never felt happier in his life.” As Alex made contact with the storm he could feel his entire body being stabbed by needles and pins. His entire body felt like it was being stretched into spaghetti as everything went black.
*****
Rainbow Dash was pulling as hard as she could on Lyra’s tail, but it was no use. Twilight was in a panic as she stood there, helpless, here eyes still obscured by a layer of shining white magic. Dash shouted as loud as she could from between here teeth, “Let go, Lyra!”
Twilight screeched from the top of her lungs, “No! She has to pull it through otherwise the portal will fold in on itself, causing all of the energy contained within it to be released in a single blast!” Twilight then began to use her exhausted magic to pull Lyra through. Eventually Twilight could feel some movement, hopefully meaning that progress was being made. Slowly, the turquoise unicorn could be seen as a whole body. But following her wasn’t a plant, or an insect, or a tree. It seemed to be much… bigger. What soon followed looked like a hairless ape wrapped in cloth. It appeared to be unconscious as it was slowly dragged out of the hole.
Twilight shouted again, “Pull harder! We need to get this thing through at all costs!”
After what felt like an hour of pulling, the entire creature could be seen, except for one finger, which was still pulled thin. With one last tug from the ponies, they managed to get the creature out safely. With one problem solved another arose. The creature may have been pulled through. Energy left over from the casting of the spell propelled it skyward, smashing it through the roof of Twilight’s home as it continued its journey onward. The ponies were knocked off balance by the shock wave and were knocked unconscious when their heads were smashed against the bookshelves.
The creature continued to soar through the air until it reached its maximum height and slowly began to descent towards the Everfree Forest. The creature was lucky enough to fall next to a large tree whose branches aided in slowing down his descent until it was simply sliding across the branches until it slid onto the ground. It simply laid there, unconscious but breathing, and unfortunately it was too deep in the forest for anypony to see where it had landed.
Back at Twilight’s, Lyra slowly regained conciseness and shakily stood up before saying groggily, “Where is it? I can’t wait to see it!” Lyra’s eyes fluttered across the room, looking for any sign that the creature was still in her presence. Then when she looked towards the ceiling, she saw the large gaping hole and suddenly realized what must have happened. Lyra said to herself, “Oh dear.”
