Rifts of Power and Darkness

Chapters

Power Overload
Heroes Missing
Council Meetings and Strange D-Bees
Welcome to Rifts Earth

Power Overload

Twilight and her friends gathered in the council room of the Palace of Friendship, ready to head off to Canterlot for the yearly Summer Sun Celebration. Rainbow Dash hovered in the air right above Twilight, her forehooves crossed in annoyance at how long their other friends were taking. “Ugh, please tell me Rarity and Pinkie are going to be here soon, I’m missing out on my morning nap.”

Applejack rolled her eyes at her friend’s irritation. “They’re gonna be ‘ere when they git ‘ere Dash, and there’s nuthin wrong with bein’ up this early.”

Fluttershy gave a soft smile herself and nodded in agreement. “Oh yes, I get up early every day to take care of all my little critters”

Rainbow groaned and was about to retort when the door opened and two ponies come walking in—or in Pinkie’s case—bouncing in. “Finally! Where were you two?” Rainbow exclaimed, throwing her hooves up in exasperation.

Rarity looked up to her flying friend with a frown. “I’m sorry for making you wait, darling. I just couldn’t figure out what to wear for this year’s Summer Sun Celebration. And I can assure you, Pinkie’s… distractions didn’t make it any easier.”

The pink Pony gives a gigglesnort with a nod at that, smiling with her typical endless cheer "I was just trying to help speed things up. But! We got here in time anyways!"

Just then, Twilight looked up from the book she was reading with a warm smile “Hey Rarity, hey Pinkie, it’s alright. I figured someponies would be later than the rest, which is why I asked everypony to be here fifteen minutes early. You're not late. In fact, I had just finished going over my spell for the final time. So if you girls are all ready, we can teleport over to Canterlot.”

“Why are we teleporting again?” Rarity asked.

“Because I found this book from the Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters and wanted to try out this master-level teleportation that was in it. I’ve tested it a thousand times on other objects, making sure I got it perfect, but this would help me tremendously in my research, ” Twilight stated.

“Book from the castle?” Rarity asked, a little horrified, a shiver running down her spine as she recalls her own experience with a book from the old castle.

“Come on Rares, what could possibly go wrong,” Rainbow stated with a role of her eyes.

Pinkie lets out a horrified gasp when she hears the dreaded phrase. "what have you done, Dashie?! You never say those words!”

"What? 'What could poss...mmph.'" Pinkie's hoof plug's Rainbow's mouth, cutting her off with a glare. Rainbow just rolls her eyes as Pinkie removes her hoof, giving a 'blech' and spitting out a couple pink hairs. "Okay, okay, I wont go saying that line again. Sheesh."

"So, do you want to give this a try, or not?" Twilight asks of her friends, one of her ears folding to the side with worry that they might still reject it.

“Ahh, why not, it could be fun,” Rainbow said with a confident smirk.

“Yeah! We most definitely won't get trapped in another world and are unable to get home for a really, really, really long time!” Pinkie asked with a grin and a bounce to her step as she poked her head between Twilight and the book. Her declaration earns her a completely befuddled look from her friends, before they each shrug it off as 'Pinkie being Pinkie.'

“Yeah, like that’s likely,” Rarity said sarcastically.

All five friends gathered around the purple Alicorn. “Ok everypony, this will take all of my concentration, so I’ll need you all to stand perfectly still while I cast the teleport spell, that means no hovering or bouncing!” Twilight looked pointedly to Rainbow and Pinkie when she said that, Rainbow landed in a huff, but the pink party pony could not sit still to save her life. Expecting this, Twilight levitated a roll of duct tape over to Rainbow, who took it with a smile.

After doing what needed to be done, Twilight shot Rainbow a grateful smile then closed her eyes and flared her horn with magic power.

The lavender glow spreaded from Twilight’s horn to each of her friends as she weaved the mass-teleportation spell together. She concentrated on the book laid out in front of her and the chapter it was open to. It called for use of a magical ley lines nexus point, the Palace of Friendship being situated right on top of a nexus point of nine different lines converging on a single area. Twilight tapped into that power now.

Unfortunately, the power of the World Nexus proved far more than she anticipated. The lavender Alicorn’s eyes turned pure white as her body was flooded with excess magical power. Her jaw fell open in shock at just how much energy she was channeling as a surge of magical power washes into each of them, the energy making their fur stand on end.

Twilight’s friends each looked at each other worriedly, but were afraid of what would happen if they tried to get Twilight’s attention right then, so they kept silent. The silence was only broken when Twilight's eyes returned to their normal purple hue and they breathed a sigh of relief.

Their relief was short lived. Seconds after they let out a collective breath a second, stronger pressure wave of magic slammed into them, once more overloading the spell while driving the six to their knees. Twilight screamed out as she tossed her head against the incredible magical pressure and worked to safely bleed off the excess magic while trying to maintain control of the spell

The Alicorn begin to panic as she felt the spell slip from her grasp. Applejack—being the first to recover from the pressure wave—got to her hooves shakily and called out, “Twahlight! Yah need teh stop teh spell!” She tried to take a step forward, but the magical pressure pounding down on all of them prevented her from achieving even that simple feat.

“I-I can’t! It’s out of control!” Twilight’s panicked voice cut through the maelstrom of power. Her friends looked to each other in panic just before another wave of power slammed into them, stronger than the last.

This one tore open a rift in the air above the six. Before anypony could even scream their horror, Twilight completely lost control and the spell latched onto the nearest outlet—namely the rift that had just been torn open by a power unlike anything seen in Equestria before. A blinding flash of magenta light lit up the room like the sunrise, and, when it cleared, there was nothing left but six scorch marks in the shape of six-pointed stars on the ground, five surrounding one big on in the center, in an exact parody of the lavender Alicorn’s cutie mark.

Author's Note

Hello everypony! This is my first attempt at writing MLP fanfiction, and my first attempt at writing fanfiction of any sort in a long while. I hope you enjoy the story as much as I enjoy writing it!

Also, a huge thank you to my two editors:
http://www.fimfiction.net/user/Twidashforever
http://www.fimfiction.net/user/lightness7
Thanks a ton you two! Brohoof! /)

Heroes Missing

Up in Canterlot Castle, the princess of the night snuck into her sister’s room to wake her up; a cake held in her magic grip. A muffled snicker escaped Luna’s lips as she floated the cake to hover above her solar sister. With a barely contained laugh, Luna cut her magic, the confection dropped and splattered over Celestia’s face.

The white alicorn bolted upright with a yelp, causing Luna’s laughter to finally be too much to contain.

“We finally got thee, sister!”

Celestia gaze deadpanned at her sister and she quickly used her magic to clean off the pieces of cake from her coat, mane, and her bed. Luna’s laughter died down when she noticed that her sister wasn’t laughing with her.

Luna gave Celestia a nervous grin as she asked,“Um, art thee ok, sister?”

Celestia then smirked and launched the remains of the smashed up cake at her sister, who let out a yelp as her face, neck, and mane were covered in cake. The white alicorn giggled at the look on her sister’s face.

“Who got who now, dear sister?”

The two sisters looked to each other for a moment before Luna jumped on her sister, the two alicorns rolled around the room, laughing. Both of them became covered with the cake until a surge of magic power cut their revelry short.

They look to each other in surprise. “Didst thee feel that, Tia?”

Celestia nodded and looked in the direction of Ponyville. “I did, that felt like it came from Ponyville.”

Celestia stood up and cleaned herself up with a flash of magic, her sister did the same beside her.

“We art certain that whatever it is, our friends can handle it, sister. We should not be worried.”

Luna smiled and nuzzled her sister comfortingly, the larger alicorn returned the gesture, but also gave her head a slight shake

“I have a bad feeling about this Lulu, that magic wasn’t Equestrian.”

Luna opened her mouth to reply, but was cut off by a second, stronger pulse of magic that washed over them. The younger sister scowled to herself and nodded in agreement.

“Mayhap thee art right, sister, but thee art needed for thy Summer Sun Celebration. Go prepare and we shall investigate these waves of power coming from Twilight Sparkle’s town.”

Celestia looked down to her sister and gave her a nod, followed by quick nuzzle. “Alright, be quick Luna, and be careful”

Luna returned the nuzzle quickly before she dashed through the balcony door and took off. Once in the air, she poured all the power she could into her speed to reach the town as fast as possible. However, before she made it halfway, Twilight’s palace, visible even at that distance, was surrounded by a bright lavender light, forcing the night princess to cover her eyes with a forehoof just to hold off the bright light.

As the blinding light faded from view, Luna was slammed with a massive wave of magical pressure that knocked her out of the air for a moment before she recovered, then she looked down towards the Palace of Friendship, expecting the worst. Instead she saw the palace was completely intact. However, Luna knew that something huge just happened there and once more rocketed off towards the palace.

She reached the crystalline palace seconds later and slammed through the doors, her worry over her friend’s safety superseding any worry about things like property damage or doors.
“Twilight Sparkle! Spike! Where art thee‽”

Luna’s cry was answered by a low groan from a nearby staircase, prompting her to rush over towards the sound. She found Spike in a heap at the bottom of a large set of crystalline steps. He gave a groan as he attempted to right himself

“Ugh...what happened?”

“Spike! Dost thou know where we couldst find Twilight Sparkle?” Luna wasted no time getting in the young dragon’s face, causing him to yelp in surprise before bowing awkwardly

“P-princess? I think she was in the throne room, at least, that’s where she said she was going to be casting that spell she found in your old castle to teleport herself and her friends from here to Canterlot. I’m not sure what happened, I was just walking down the stairs one moment, and the next I was laying at the bottom of the stairs feeling like I was just bucked by AJ”

Luna sprinted to the throne room, with Spike being left behind even as he tried his best to keep up with the night princess. Luna froze as she entered upon seeing the marks on the ground.

“W-what’s wrong princess?” Spike panted as he ran into the room. When he received no response, Spike lightly poked her hind leg. “Princess?”

Luna ignored Spike and walked up towards the six scorch marks on the ground with an unreadable expression on her face. Spike followed close behind until he saw the marks himself. His eyes went wide, his mind instantly going back to Twilight’s warnings about teleportation spells and he quickly feared the worst had happened. Fighting back tears, Spike mumbled, “No...Twilight…” The dark alicorn lowered her head and closed her eyes, her horn lighting up with her indigo aura as she casted every scanning and detection spell in her considerable repertoire.

Spike took a couple steps back from Luna, he was watching her intently and wondering if she will be able to save his older sister/mother figure. So intent on her fate, Spike failed to notice the tears that ran down his own scaled cheeks.

Luna stood there for a long while, her horn blazing with power as she attempted to track down where her closest friends had went, or if they were even still alive. Spike sat down nearby while the princess worked, tears streaming unheeded down his face at the thought of losing the one that had practically raised him.

Finally, Luna’s aura faded from her horn and she panted heavily, fixing Spike with a look that brokered no hesitation, only obedience. “Princess Twilight and her friends live yet, but we cannot locate them. Send a letter to our sister to inform her that her presence is required here immediately.”

Spike snapped a quick salute and took off running out of the room up to the study where Twilight kept all her writing supplies. He sniffled and rubbed the tears from his face as he went, a determined expression fixing itself on his face.

Once Spike was out of earshot, Luna lit up her horn once more and ghostly images of the six missing ponies appeared around her as her magic replayed the events that occurred. She watched Twilight cast the spell, the rift appearing in the air, and then the six of them get sucked through it.

As the images faded, Luna fell to her knees with a cry, the tears she was holding back coming forward as her composure shattered from the thought that her friends may not make it home.

“Please...my friends...stay safe. We will find you, I promise, but wherever you are, stay safe.” Luna then buried her face in her forelegs and awaited her sister’s arrival.

Author's Note

And the second chapter of Rifts of Power and Darkness comes to a close, if there's any mistakes please send me a pm and ill fix it up. Next chapter we're introduced to this new world that our brave heroines find themselves in, but will their friendship be up to the task of survival? Who knows, but things are gonna be hitting the fan real soon.
As before, a huge thank you to
Lightness7
and Twidashforever thanks a ton you two

Council Meetings and Strange D-Bees

Commander Johnathan Valorius—John to those who knew him—ran his worried fingers through his short-cropped black hair as he paced back and forth in the Atlantean Pyramid’s council chamber. They had been here for hours debating different strategies to attack the demon city in the ruins of Calgary, each plan ended with failure and overwhelming losses. The losses are expected, even with victory, it's unlikely even half of the gathered forces will survive. However, victory must be achieved, no matter what, if the Earth is to continue living.

The chamber was massive, easily a thousand feet across and another three hundred tall, built in a perfect hemisphere. The ceiling was one massive window that, if needed, could be magically sealed off with powerful wards to prevent all but the most powerful of Gods from peaking in on the goings-on within the chamber. Currently, those wards are running at full strength, the members within taking no chances with Demons knocking at their door. The walls held tens of thousands of seats, and each one held a VIP from various races. In the middle of the room sits a raised platform, upon which stands a tall humanoid form, completely covered with a thick, black robe and holding a tall, ornate staff. This is the Speaker, the one who monitors and controls the council meetings.

John was already sick of it. Than again, he was sick of it six hours ago when they started. As he kept pacing, his piercing green eyes caught his reflection in floor. He was a tall man, Caucasian, just over seven feet tall with an olympic swimmer’s build, two-hundred and eighty pounds of supernaturally augmented muscle. With the mystic tattoos on his face complimenting his angular cheeks and jawline; he made for a striking image. For the long-lived Atlanteans, he looked to be in his mid-twenties despite being over a hundred years old.

His heavily enchanted full plate of full-environmental armor styled after Celestial beings was freshly polished. Not that it mattered, no one here cared about such trivialities as polish or press, it was just expected. The hilt of an extremely ornate sword pokes from between his shoulders, the crossguard having a design of spread, feathered wings while the handle seems to be carved of ivory, with a diamond set in the pummel. At his hips are two more swords, both very plain in design, but to those sensitive to magic they radiate a holy power that is nearly blinding. Clearly, these are demon-bane weapons of the highest caliber.

The gathered leaders sat in seats around the edge of the council chamber with a mystic hologram floating in the middle of the room detailing the demon city. The most prominent feature was the enormous pit over three miles in diameter and a mile and a half deep: the Hell Pit. They were all staring at it like they expected it to change or something. Like their eyes could simply make it not be.

He knew the Hell Pit there was fully operational, and that it was both the source of the demon’s power, and their greatest weak point. His gaze wandered over the gathered people, seeing the Atlantean elders, the ley line walkers, the shifters, the cyber-knights, the Human soldiers of all sorts and all different types of creatures non-earth native, more commonly referred to as D-Bees, and even a couple dragons shapeshifted to appear human. All of the gathered were leaders of their factions, and all of them were arguing over the positives of their suicidal plans while trying to shoot down everyone else's plans.

The Atlantean’s mind was racing as he attempted to think up a plan that would allow their force to come out victorious despite being outnumbered by at least six-hundred to one by the demon forces.

John finally settled on the plan he deemed the most likely to succeed, in spite of the expected heavy losses, and cleared his throat to get the attention of the Speaker, a fellow Atlantean whose task was to coordinate the council meetings so they ran as smooth as possible for a room full of diplomats.

“Could you get the attention of the Council, Speaker? I have a plan that I believe has the best chance of destroying the Hell Pit’s blood pillars while risking minimal Heroes in the process.”

The speaker gave a nod and beat the butt of his staff against the floor, creating a loud bang that grabbed the attention of the chamber. “Johnathan Valorious, True Atlantian of Alexandrea has the floor.”

John gave a nod of thanks to the speaker and stepped onto the dias in the middle of the room. “Council members, I have thought up a plan that, if executed properly, will allow us to destroy the Hell Pit’s blood pillars without losing half, or more, of our force. If we have a quarter of our force deploy to the east, and a quarter to the west to attack simultaneously to draw out the demons. Once the demons have been pulled from the Pit, my team will punch through with our armored personnel carrier, Artimas, to the Pit itself, where we will affix high-explosive devices my tech has devised to each blood pillar. After the devices are set, the withdraw will be sounded and the devices detonated, giving everyone within the dimensional bleed one to four minutes to get out before the Pit begins to collapse.”

“You know that half will not hold for longer than a few minutes?”

“If they keep to guerilla warfare, hit-and-fade tactics to lure out only, no stand-up fighting, they can hold for as long as we need.”

One of the council members spoke up then. “What about the other half of our forces, what will they be doing in the meantime?”

John looked over to the member who spoke up and gave an amused grin. “I was getting to that. The half that is not assigned will be stationed to the south, just outside the dimensional bleed. When the Pit collapses, everyone and everything caught within the bleed will be knocked unconscious for a few minutes, in that time the remaining half of our force will assault the Horsemen of the Apocalypse directly with everything they have. The first few minutes after the Pit’s collapse will be critical to our success, meaning the half stationed to the south will have to be able to travel a long distance in a short amount of time, while being able to hit really hard once they reach the Horsemen themselves. Are there any further questions?”

As the council debated this (suicidal) new plan amongst themselves, John turned his attention inwards, to the connection he had with the sapient city of Atlantia.

Atlantia? he sent the thought out, the reply was received at the speed of thought, a soft, feminine voice sounding in his mind.

Yes, Johnathan?

Can you connect me to the Megaversal Legion?

Of course, Johnathan, one moment please...connected.

Almost instantly, he heard a different voice in his mind. Hello, you’ve reached the Megaversal Legion. How could we help you today, mr…?

Johnathan, how many forces do you currently have available for hire?

We have two full armies currently available to hire, each consisting of fifty-thousand members, how many are you looking to hire, what is the length of contract, where are they to be deployed, and what is the contract to consist of?

I’ll take them all, the length is only a few days, they are to arrive at the city of Atlantia in three days time, when Atlantiawill rift them to Laslo. They are going to be taking part in the Gathering of Heroes against the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, as well as the demon city of Calgary. And charge it to my account, the account number is 9008-2247-5111, I will pay half now, and half upon completion, is that acceptable?

The representative went silent for a moment before replying. very well, that will be two billion credits to hire on two Megaversal armies, they will be in position as you request. Thank you for doing business with the Megaversal Legion and we look forward to working with you in the future.

John pulled back from his conversation and looked over the council chambers once more, finding that the deal only took a few moments thanks to the deal being made through mental communication, therefore it was done at the speed of thought. He was quite thankful that the Megaversal Legion mercenary company had so many forces ready for deployment. The Legion is well known for taking on threats that most planetary armies could not, and winning with minimal losses. Their training and technology are extreme, and he knows that, even with a hundred thousand fully-realized Heroes, such a force could very well mean the difference between victory and defeat when facing the impossible might of the Four Horsemen.

Hours passed before the council eventually decided that the plan that was put to them is the best they had, and as such, they appointed Johnathan Valorious as the leader of the second Gathering of Heroes.

The speaker then stepped forward once more and called out. “I hereby declare this meeting adjourned, go forth and inform your people of the plan we have decided upon.” He then turned to John. “Make sure your group is ready, for you have the most important task of all, making sure that damnable Hell Pit is destroyed.”

John put his right hand as a fist against his left palm, the fingers of his left hand outstretched in an old martial-art type salute and bows respectively to the speaker. “We'll be ready when the time comes.”

With that, the council left the chamber, John being one of the last out. When he was alone he used his communicator to contact his tech and heavy combat cyborg. “Black Skull, how’s the anti-demon bombs coming?”

The reply was a few moments in coming. “They’re done, I’m off with the Russian ‘borgs, having a pre-battle get-together. There’s just under nine hundred holy-water and silver dust infused bombs rigged to the underside of our APC, just waiting for the call to arms now.”

“Alright, keep out of trouble.”

“Hey, this is me we’re talking about!”

“Exactly.”

John cut the comms feed and contacted his Totem Warrior scout. “Running Water, come in...Running Water?” When there was no reply, he thought, Hmm, must still be participating in that sweat lodge ceremony. John cut that feed off and started to walk towards the APC, intending to meditate until he was needed.

As he walked through the city, his mystic senses suddenly alerted him to a powerful magic going off nearby, making him turn towards the origin and call on all of his mystic tattoo defenses. Augmented strength, basic control of and immunity to fire, basic control of and immunity to wind, immunity to lightning, wingless flight and two different skin-tight barriers; one designed to withstand incredible damage, the other designed to protect him from all energy based attacks. So augmented, he flew towards the disturbance as fast as he could.

As he flew, he saw many of the heroes nearby rushing towards the pyramid with him, where the magic originated from, each of them preparing for combat. Sirens and alarms blared out all around the city, alerting everyone to a possible attack. However, when he approached the pyramid, he didn’t hear sounds of combat, instead he heard someone call out for aid. “We have wounded here!”

John flew close enough to observe and intervene if need be, but far enough so he did not interfere with the first responders, the warriors and medics that might be needed. What he saw he could easily class as one of the odder sights he had seen over his long lifespan: six brightly colored quadrupedal creatures that his goggles—enchanted with an Eyes of the Wolf spell—showed him were all good aligned. All of them had powerful magic auras, the purple one had both wings and a horn and, even with his extensive training, John has no idea what she could be. A winged Unicorn? A horned Pegasus? Something else? He wasn't sure. The white one has a horn, making her a Unicorn and the yellow and cyan ones both had wings, marking them as Pegasi, though very much unlike the Unicorns and Pegasi he's familiar with. While the pink and orange had neither, and could pass as normal ponies if it weren't for their unusual coloring and strange proportions. All six were unconscious, with four of them bearing signs of being wounded by what appeared to be ballistic weaponry, the white unicorn with a purple mane, the yellow pegasus with a pink mane, the orange pony with a blond mane, and the purple-winged unicorn with a dark blue mane with pink stripes in it.

As the six newcomers were carted off, their destination a medical ward, which will be guarded until it was decided what could be done with them. Their auroras read as potential allies, but when one faces the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, taking chances is never a good idea.

John dismissed his magical augments with a thought and walked up towards the one who made the call of wounded. “Hello, could you watch over those six and inform me when one of them wake up?”

The psion gave out a courteous, if condescending, “Very well, sir.” The Mind Melter, as his breed of psychic are commonly known, followed the doctors to the cell the new D-Bees were to be held in while John went back to the custom built APC he shared with Black Skull and Running Water. Once there, he made his way to his room, sat down and meditated until he received a message from someone.

Six hours passed before John received a magical message, the arrival of the spell having pulled him from his meditation to listen. “Johnathan, one of the horse-like D-Bees has woken up, and is panicking. It’s the purple one with wings and a horn, it threw the doctors from the room and sealed the doorway with a magic barrier. We… we have not been able to breach.”

That was disconcerting. John stood up and activated his flight tattoo, then flew out of the APC and into the pyramid, quickly arriving at the blocked doorway that had two doctors and a spellcaster, one common to Rifts Earth known as a Ley Line Walker in front of it. The Ley Line Walker in the middle of the doorway was attempting to dispel the barrier, and was looking quite exhausted from the effort. All three looked up when John landed nearby and addressed the nearest of the two doctors. “What happened?”

The doctor glanced towards the barrier for a moment before returning his gaze to John. “The pony woke up a few minutes ago, disorientated. I learned that she’s a female from the tone of her voice, and that her name is Twilight Sparkle. But when I used my psionics to try and calm her down she freaked out even more. She picked up both my partner and I and threw us out of the room, putting up this barrier once we were out. I then called for a Ley Line Walker to dispel the barrier, but so far our attempts have been... unsuccessful.”

The Ley Line Walker in question looked over to the doctor with a scowl. “This barrier is unlike anything I've seen before, there’s an incredible amount of power behind it, much more than I can dispel.”

When John heard that, he grabbed a black grenade from the bandoleer he wore. “Stand back.”

He received curious looks from the other three. The second doctor’s eyes went wide on spotting the grenade in John’s grip he asked, “What are you going to do with that?”

“This is an anti-magic grenade, it releases an anti-magic cloud spell when activated, and unless you wish to have your magic suppressed, I suggest that you stand well back.”

Once the Ley Line Walker and one of the doctors withdrew, the other doctor remained where she was as she did not rely on psionics or magic to heal. John pressed the activation button on the grenade. After a couple seconds, a thick, black cloud came boiling out of the device. John resisted the urge to wince as he felt the cloud suppress his own magic power while watching the barrier before him. Sure enough, the barrier simply winked out when the black cloud touched it, granting them entry.

“I’ll go myself,” John stated.

“Sir, is that wise?”

He thought about it, he was about to face a creature with power he had rarely seen, but…

“Trust must be given before it’s earned. I have a feelings about these D-Bees.”

The Psionic watched as their commander stepped through the doorway to face creatures none of them had ever seen before, all without his magical power.

Author's Note

Phiew, that was a good sized chapter, much longer then my last two! Now we introduce the world of Rifts Earth, embroiled in a fight for survival against the Apocalypse itself. I hope you all have just as much fun reading this as i did writing it.

And as always, a huge thank you to my two editors for putting up with my terrible writing and wrangling it into something worthy of being called a chapter!
Twidashforever
and Lightness7
thanks a ton to you both!

Welcome to Rifts Earth

Author's Note

Hello everypony, I'm terribly sorry about the long wait between the last chapter and this one. Things irl compounded to keep me from finishing this until months after when it should have been out. On a side note, I've got a request from you all. If you think of a question that the Six would ask John regarding Rifts Earth, feel free to suggest it and I'll put in as many as I can into the next chapter. Thanks to all of you for your continued interest in my story! Let us hope that this time it won't take months to get the next chapter out. Anyways, without further adieu, here's my latest chapter!

And as always, I'd like to thank my two editors for making this chapter so much better then it would otherwise be.
Lightness7
and Twidashforever

Welcome to Rifts Earth

The Coalition States forces stationed around the nexus at the decrepit ruins of Old Chicago were alerted to the arrival of more D-Bees by the area beginning to flare with power. The soldiers mobilised with the efficiency born of years of practice to surround the fluctuating portal, railguns and lasers were leveled at the mass of raw magic, the giant robot vehicles readied their missiles for launch in case the being that arrived proved too tough for conventional weaponry.

The power flared once more and the expected rift opened, depositing six disoriented brightly colored equine figures on the ground, much to the confusion of the gathered soldiers, all of which had expected something much more fierce than the six small forms before them.

Just then, the D-Bee arrival alarms sounded off. “Contact, six D-Bees located at the base of the rift, don’t give them a chance to get their bearings, fire!” The command came through the communication array built into every soldier’s helmet and they reacted automatically, laying down enough firepower to devastate a medium-sized army.
___________________________________________________________________________

Once the arcane power of Twilight’s teleport spell finally faded, the alicorn found herself still standing on her hooves, sore, and her horn felt as if she’d overtasked herself again; but she was still standing. The second thing she felt as her senses returned to her was that the magic where she landed felt different from the equestrian magic she was used to. It was stronger, more primal. Her thoughts were interrupted when she heard the soft groans of her friends around her, which told her they were all there with her. She figured they were probably just as sore as she was, but still alive, for which she was thankful after a miscast teleport.

However before she could say or do anything else, there was a series of deafening alarms blaring all around. Twilight's eyes shot all over the place, noting with dismay the large buildings around around her and her friends.

“Girls, get up, we gotta go!” Twilight pleaded with her friends to rise, to get to safety. She was a hundred percent sure their arrival had been what set off the alarms. Alarms meant danger, danger meant troops, and she had no idea if they’d be met with anything other than hostility.

She’d have just teleported them out of there, but after that mass long-range teleport, her personal reserves felt far too drained for even the most basic of spells.

“W-what’s going on?” Rainbow asked, groggily getting to her hooves.

Pinkie noticed the black and white bipedal armored figures with a grinning skull motif helmet, each of them were holding strange devices that were pointed their way, dozens of the figures surrounding them and points them out to her friends. “We’ve got a welcome committee, girls!”

“What the hay are those?” Rainbow asked.

The creatures didn’t give them any warning. Something shot out of the devices they were all wielding. Applejack cried out in pain as she was knocked over to the ground, several red spots appearing upon her flank and side where she was hit.

“AJ!” Rainbow yelled as she moved to her friend, followed by Fluttershy. Only for the bipedal creatures to fire again.

Twilight responded to this one. She focused the last of her magic on raising a shield that blocked the next volley, and then the one after that.

Her eyes went wide, she was simply too weak to keep it up. “Fluttershy, is she?”

“Ahm fine, dun worry ‘bout me none.” AJ got back to her hooves, grimacing at the line of pits the Coalition railguns carved into her side, wounds that Fluttershy was trying to tend to. Unknown to the ponies was that the only reason their friend was still alive after being shot with such high power weaponry was because the ambient magic has toughened all of them, being the creatures of magic they are. However, even toughened as they are, there was obviously weapons that could seriously injure, or even kill them if they were not careful.

“Um, Applejack? We need to get you to a hospital, sooner rather than later, some of these are quite deep.” Fluttershy looked to her friend with a worried expression

Twilight groaned as more of those creatures gathered around them and opened fire. There were more on the way, a lot more, and to make matters worse, her shield was starting to fail. “I-I can’t keep it up.”

“Get those D-Bees!” Someone in command called out, Twilight had no idea who, which way it came from, or how she even understood their language, but she had no more time to think about it as her shield shattered. Almost immediately afterwards, she felt a searing pain along her side and back, followed by cries from Fluttershy and Rarity as they too were struck by the weapons.

Desperate to protect her friends, Twilight tapped into the ambient magic surrounding them and channeled the magic into another barrier around them all, surprised at how easy it was to maintain this second barrier. “Girls! Pinkie, can you tend to them? I’ll try to teleport us out, I can use the magic around us.”

Pinkie gave a salute and rushed over to her wounded friends while Twilight pulled in more and more magic from the ley line nexus they were standing in to power the mass teleport spell.

“Stop them! They’re casting something big!” That voice called out once more as more soldiers began firing on the shield, but to Twilight’s surprise, the resulting drain to her was minimal after tapping into the nexus for spell power.

Finally, the mass teleport spell went off, thankfully this time without any surges of power or rifts tearing open; however, there was still the sensation of being squeezed by the magic to an almost painful level to deal with.

When the spell cleared, Twilight stumbled about a bit before collapsing onto her belly out of exhaustion. Her addled brain barely recognised the forms of her friends on the ground around her, unconscious. The last word she heard before darkness claimed her too was what sounded like a stallion calling out, “We have wounded here!”
___________________________________________________________________________

Twilight let out a soft groan as she regained consciousness, a hoof rubbing at the base of her aching horn for a moment before she remembered the events that led to her current situation. She jumped out of the bed she was laying on, immediately wide awake in her panic.

“Whoa, easy there, don't strain yourself.”

Twilight looked over at the sound of a female’s voice to see three humans standing nearby, all looking her way. Two of them wore what could be recognised as doctor’s outfits, while the third was wearing light armor with a small weapon, similar to the ones wielded by the armored people, holstered at his hip.

“Who are you? Where am I? Where are my friends? Are they okay?”

“Easy little lady, you’re safe here, we’re in the pyramid at Lazlo. Can you tell me your name?”

Twilight looked from the two doctors, to the guard, to the door and back. “I’m Twilight Sparkle… can I see my friends now?”

The two doctors glanced to each other for a moment before the male doctor shook his head. “They’re on the other side of that curtain, but you can’t go see them just yet, they’re still unconscious.”

Twilight jumped to her hooves, a determined look on her face, an action that got the guard to begin drawing on his magic to defend the doctors if needed. “You won’t stop me from seeing my friends! They need me!”

“You need to lay back down”

“Not until I see my friends!”

The male doctor focused his mind on Twilight then. “You will calm down.”

Twilight’s pupils shrank to pinpricks at the touch of the psion’s mind and her horn lit up, the three humans found themselves picked up in her aura as Twilight let out a panicked shriek. “Get out of my head!” The two doctors and soldier got thrown from the room, impacting against the far wall hard enough to crack the light armor they wear just as a purple barrier of magic energy appeared in the doorway.

The soldier, or better known as a ley line walker, groaned and picked himself up then helped up the two doctors. “That was poorly handled, are you two alright?”

The female doctor gave a soft groan as she got to her feet. “We’re fine, can you breach this barrier?”

The walker looked to the barrier in question while the doctor helped her comrade to his feet. “I can try, this is powerful magic though, so it'll take time.”

The psion gave a frustrated groan. “Well, I guess it’s time to call on Johnathan. He did want to be informed when one of these D-Bees woke up.”

When he heard this, the ley line walker gave a slight nod and muttered a quick spell. A small, shimmering blue/white pigeon appeared in his hands, which he sent off to find John to let him know that the winged unicorn D-Bee had woken up. Once the message was sent, he turned to the barrier and started to chant a negation spell, only to gasp in shock at the drain to his magic when it went off.

He took a deep breath to steady himself and fixed the barrier with a challenging glare, then gathered his magic and slammed the barrier with a second negation spell. The walker let out a groan and fell to a knee, a hand went to his head from the exertion. As he stood back up and readied himself for a third and final attempt, he heard the sound of footsteps landing nearby and looked to the side to see the Atlantean he called walking towards them.

Within the cell, Twilight opened the curtain the doctor mentioned and walked past it, seeing her friends all laying on various beds, Rarity, Fluttershy, and Applejack all with bandages wrapped around their wounds, and all of them were unconscious. She barely noticed the two attempts at dispelling her barrier as she walked to the nearest bed, the one holding Rarity.

A few moments later, her barrier simply vanished with thick, black smoke billowing in past where it once was. Twilight looked over in a panic, scooting back away from the black cloud, her horn lit up as she called on protective magic. “Get back! I don’t know what you want from me, but I won’t let you invade my mind again!”

In the black cloud stood a tall human that she attempted to grab with her magic like she had with the two doctors, only to find that she could not direct her magic within the black cloud. Twilight teleported to a spot on the floor between her friends and the stranger. Once there, she called up a small, but exceptionally strong barrier in front of her to protect them all from the being. Confident that the barrier was sound, she began charging a magic beam should he threaten any of them, having expected another attack on her mind.

As she watched the man, he did not attack, and instead just activated a small black device held in one of his hands, which sucked the black mist back into itself. When the mist was gone, the man sat down in the middle of the floor in a rather uncomfortable looking pose, with his legs crossed and his hands placed on his knees. His eyes were staring straight into Twilight’s own, but they held no malice, only curiosity and wariness of the unknown. Twilight was the first to break the silence that had befallen the room.

“Who are you and what do you want with me?”

The human spoke then, his voice soft but at the same time, firm. “I simply wish to speak with you, my name is Johnathan Valorious, what’s yours?”

Twilight’s demeanor went from ready to fight to curious, and more than a bit confused too when she heard that. “Oh, my name’s Twilight Sparkle. Why did that other man try to overpower my mind like that?”

John gave a soft sigh and shook his head slightly. “He was scared, you and your friends are powerful, and he saw that you were beginning to panic, so he attempted to use his psionics to calm you down. A plan that, admittedly, was rather foolish in the first place, but he could not harm you even if he wished to, his powers are for healing, not fighting. On another note, I assume that you have many questions about where you are, am I correct?”

Twilight gave a slow nod to the question. “Yes, and you have questions of your own for me, right? You’re acting as if you’ve never seen an alicorn before.”

The atlantean raised an eyebrow at the unfamiliar term. “Alicorn? That’s what you’re called? Interesting. I’ve heard of both unicorns and pegasi, even met individuals of both races, but none I’ve seen look even remotely similar to you or your friends. And yes, I do have questions for you. What do you say to us alternating asking and answering questions? That way we both get information equally.”

Twilight nodded with an eager grin on her face at the prospect of learning something new, a smile that fell when she looked back to her unconscious friends. “Sounds good to me, but first, I need to help my friends.”

Johnathan simply motioned for her to do what she needed to do. “Go ahead, I can wait.”

She was already moving when John spoke, letting her beam spell fade in favor of a medical scan spell, which she focused on her nearest friend, Rarity. Twilight closed her eyes to better focus on what her spell revealed, then reopened her eyes in surprise at what she detected, and what she didn’t detect. She directed the scanning spell over herself, then over each of her friends to confirm her scans and, sure enough, all of them that were wounded had no sign of injuries anymore. Each that was wounded also had faint residual energy that felt like magic, but also not. In truth it felt closer to the energy used by the man who touched her mind with his.

Satisfied that all of her friends were okay, Twilight canceled the spell and turned back to Johnathan. “What kind of magic did you use to heal us? It’s unlike any sort of magic I’ve seen before.”

“The psion who you threw out of the room earlier was the one who healed you all, the power you’re sensing is psionic energy, or more commonly known around here as ISP.”

Twilight’s ears folded back against her skull when she heard that, suddenly feeling bad for acting so aggressively to the one who healed her and her friends. “Can you bring him back in please? I...I’d like to apologize for how I acted.”

John simply gave a nod and tapped the communicator on his ear, activating it. “Chris, you can come back in, and bring Abbigale back in too.”

A moment later, the door opened up again and the two doctors from earlier walked back in cautiously while Twilight dropped the barrier she had raised and spoke up. “I’m sorry for throwing you two out of the room...you’re not hurt, are you?”

The doctor’s apprehension faded upon hearing the pony’s apology and closed the distance between them, with Abbigale reassuring Twilight with a warm smile. “It’s okay, you didn’t hurt either of us and we understand that you were afraid.” They were interrupted by a rather loud growl that made Twilight let out an embarrassed giggle, a blush appearing on her cheeks. “Sorry, I haven’t had anything to eat since breakfast, is there anything my friends and I can eat?”

Johnathan was the one who replied while the two doctors muffle their own chuckles. “Of course, is there any special requirement for you and yours we need to consider?”

“We’re a herbivorous species, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Okay, one moment.” John activated his communicator again. “Black Skull, I need you to bring in a vegetarian meal for six… yes, you do… no you may not… because I said so… we’re in group containment cell one.” With that finished, he turned his attention back to Twilight. “My colleague will be bringing in food for all of you shortly. You may want to wake them up before we begin exchanging questions and answers, time is not a luxury we have right now, so I don’t wish to answer questions more than once.”

Twilight gave a slight nod and turned to the beds that her friends were resting on, gently nudging them in turn to take them up and called their names as she did as to let them know who it was that was shaking them awake. As Twilight was doing that, the door opened and a massive man made of metal, ten feet tall and three feet broad, walked in, barely able to fit through the doorway. He had a pair of large weapons similar to the ones that the men at the nexus had, but far too large for a normal man to wield slung on his back, with thick belts being fed from slots on his back to them. The metal man also had a black spartan-style helmet bolted to his head and a number of round devices similar to the one John had used when he entered the room, but different colors, attached to his chestplate. In his arms was a box from which the smell of fresh fruits and vegetables wafted.

John was the first to speak up, his attention having been drawn when the door opened. “Ah, Black Skull, thanks for bringing the food for our guests.”

Black Skull set the box down and looked to the ponies, who were all awake by now and staring back at him, eyes wide. “So these are the six ponies that caused such a stir.” He gave a low, grating chuckle and an amused smirk found its way onto his robotic face. “You cause almost as much chaos as I do, though my kind of ‘fun’ generally involves me making things go boom real nice.”

“You can meet them later Black, and try not to scare them, we need all the allies we can get and scaring them is not going to help with that.” Black looked to John and shrugged before turning to leave. “Fine, see ya ‘round.”

Rainbow Dash was the first to recover her senses and blurted out the question that was likely on all of their minds. “What the hay was THAT?!”

Johnathan cleared his throat to get everypony’s attention. “All will be explained shortly, your friend Twilight and I have agreed to have a q&a to quickly exchange information. Shall we begin?” This was directed to Twilight specifically, who looked to her friends gathered behind her. They each gave her a nod and a smile showing they have her back, she smiled gratefully in return before turning back to the atlantean and nodded in agreement.

“Yes we are, I’ll go first...”