Parallel

Chapter 21: Anomaly

Discord got away.

That was the one thought that had been nagging at me the entire walk back home. Discord had escaped, and there was nothing I could have done to stop it. Our friends had each gone home, but Tammy walked with me to my apartment. She walked in silence until we reached our destination, then she kissed me on the cheek and said goodnight.

Even the apartment itself was eerily quiet.

I opened the door and took a deep breath. Now that we had nothing to do I would have to return to work the next day. It would be strange, working in a cubicle next to Phoebe like the fight against a supernatural entity hadn't taken place the night before.

I was sure the party animal could manage it, but I didn't know about myself.

All I could do was go to sleep and hope for the best.

The first thing I felt was the warmth of the sun, and the grass underneath me. I cracked one eye open and let out a yawn.

Standing on all fours, I stretched out my wings and let out a sigh. Without missing a beat I started walking towards the town in the distance. There was something about that spot that kept pulling me there, and now that Discord was missing it was time to start looking into the more questionable things that had been happening to me since I first arrived in Equestria. When I got to the library it wasn't tto surprising that I could hear various sounds of panic coming from inside. I stood in front of the door and frowned.

"I can't find it Spike! Are you sure you put it back on the shelf?"

"I'm positive!"

I raised a hoof and knocked on the door. After a moment of waiting and hearing what I presumed to be books falling all over the place, Twilight opened the door with her magic and smiled at me, "Hello William. I was wondering when you'd get here." Her mane looked a bit haggard, and there were bags under her eyes.

I looked around her and saw the mess she had created. Books were everywhere, particularly in the middle of the main room. They rose, stack by stack, as if they were a small mountain. "Uh... Twi, what's going on in here?"

"Oh that?" She gave a nervous laugh, and I tried to ignore the fact that her eye gave a small twitch, "I'm just looking for a book."

"Riiight. Do you need any help?"

"Help?" she squeaked. Before I could react she had her hooves wrapped around me, "I would love to have help, William. I've been awake since last night trying to find this book. I think it's hiding from me!"

"Twi, listen, maybe you should take a nap."

"Nap? Nap... no time to nap, this is important!"

"Uh huh. Can I come in?"

"Oh you don't have to ask me to come in, William."

I would have normally taken that as a heartwarming sign of trust between the two of us, but the way she said it almost creeped me out. With a resigned sigh, I stepped past the threshold and Twilight shut the door behind me. "What's this about, Twi? What book are you trying to find?"

"A book on dreams. Particularly a book on lucid dreaming and the effect it has on pony mentality. I remember reading it when I first moved to Ponyville, and it was fascinating to me. Right now I need it for a more practical use, and time is of the utmost importance. I have a schedule to keep."

Spike walked in from the other room, a book tucked under his arm and an unamused expression on his face, "She's been like this ever since that weird dream she had."

I tilted my head, "Dream?"

"Yes!" shouted Twilight, grinning at me, "A very interesting dream. Also important. Very important. I woke up right afterwards and started working."

"What was the dream?"

Twilight's crazed expression slightly faltered, "You were there, but you weren't a pony."

Things were starting to make a bit more sense to me. "Spike, you got sleep last night, right?" I asked.

"Yeah."

"Can you clean this mess up and refile all the books while I calm her down?"

"Sure."

"Calm me down? I'm perfectly calm. There's nothing wrong with me at all."

Spike began staking random books together, and I set a hoof on Twilight's shoulder, gently turning her towards the stairs leading to her room. "You need to lay down," I said, "You've been at it all night, and it's time to rest."

"But..."

I shook my head, "Twi, there's no need to tear yourself apart like this. I know what that dream you had was, and I'll explain it to you after you get some sleep."

Twilight closed her eyes, took a deep breath through her nose, and nodded, "Alright. Okay."

"That's better."

She followed me upstairs and got into her bed without protest. Within minutes she was softly snoring, a content little smile on her face. I decided it would be best to help Spike clean up the mess downstairs, and set about doing so.

After helping Spike straighten everything out I found a small cushion in the corner and took to reading a very interesting book I had found called 'Daring Do'. Spike continued to dust and do menial chores, and eventually ended up napping in the corner of the library floor.

Poor little slave.

It was a few more hours before I heard Twilight coming downstairs, still looking quite drowsy. "Fell better?" I asked, shutting the book gently with a hoof and giving her a smile.

Twilight's response was a yawn and a giggle. "I'm sorry about that."

"It's fine, I was kind of confused when it happened, too."

Twilight made the rest of her way downstairs and laid down next to me, tucking her muzzle into my neck, "So what happened, anyways?"

Blood rushed to my face from the small show of affection, and I cleared my throat, "It wasn't exactly a dream. We fought Discord, and we thought we had him, but..."

"What happened?"

"I don't know. There's this woman I met, a Changeling."

Twilight's eyes widened, and she pulled her head away to look at me, "A Changeling?"

"Yeah, her name is Cammy. She's been helping us out. She barely managed to keep us from using the Elements on Discord. Apparently he wanted that magic to hit him. I don't know why."

"It's possible that foreign magic could cause a disruption in your universe, but if that were the case it would have had some sort of reaction just from you taking the Elements to the other side. There's also that fact that an outside party, this Changeling, knows about said effects."

"I know she knows more than she's letting on, and I intend to speak with her about it tomorrow... if I can find her."

"What happened to the Elements?"

"They're in our hands, but Discord got away."

Twilight clucked her tongue and frowned, "Not surprising. He was equally slippery when we went up against him. Now... about this dream."

"Right, that's what we wanted to talk about in the first place. To keep Discord from getting what he wanted I had to take the hit from the Elements. I ended up blacking out. Nearest I could tell I was in some sort of magical coma. You... the human you, cast a spell so you could get into my head and pull me out somehow."

Twilight frowned, "The Elements of Harmony are inherently a good magic. For it to have an adverse effect on you like that..."

"There would have to be something that causes it."

"Clark," she muttered.

"So you remember the dream."

"Every second of it." Her face lit up into a smile, "Oh! This is... this is amazing William!"

"What is?"

"I must have casted a dream spell! Not just any dream spell, but a very powerful one. Since you were having an inner conflict I must have gone in to try and help you straighten it out. Without that inner conflict the negative effect from the Elements of Harmony would disappear, because you would stop subconsciously resisting the magic they put out."

"I was resisting the Elements?"

"Well, yes. They're called the Elements of Harmony for a reason. They represent the harmony throughout Equestria, and in the souls of each and every pony. I would assume it works much the same with humans. Your mind was, for lack of a better word, discordant, so the Elements almost damaged you."

"Okay, that makes sense... I guess."

Twilight giggled and shoved me softly with her hoof, "Of course it does."

"There's something else, too. The spot I keep waking up in. A while back you said you were able to guess that I ended up there, but that still leaves the question of why I'm appearing there and not someplace near the veil."

"That's been nagging at me, as well. Tomorrow we'll be going out to analyze the site. I'll have to reschedule a few things because of what happened last night, but it shouldn't be too much trouble."

Before the conversation could continue Twilight's door almost burst off its hinges. We looked over to see Rainbow Dash, heavily panting with a worried look on her face, "Twi, I'm so glad you're here! Something's wrong."

That didn't sound good.

Dash led us to the south edge of town, where it seemed an entire crowd of ponies had already gathered. The crowd looked like it was about to go into full on panic mode, and I could tell even from a distance that it would only take something small to set them off. A few yards out, Dash stopped and turned to me and Twilight, "I don't know what the hay is happening," she said, "One minute everypony is doing their thing, and the next that thing appears and they're all panicking."

Twilight frowned, "Thing, what thing?"

"Look for yourself."

In the center of the crowd, ponies standing just out of reach from it, was what appeared to be a shimmer in the air. It looked almost like the veil that I walked through, a small patch of space that reflected its surroundings. The muttering within the crowd of ponies was growing louder by the second. Twilight stepped forward, "Please keep your distance!" she yelled.

The crowd seemed to listen, luckily. I was thankful the people in Ponyville seemed a bit more willing to listen than the average city slicker, the last thing we needed was a gawking crowd.

"Please disperse!" continued Twilight, "I'll speak with the mayor and we will contact the princesses in light of recent events. Until then I'll contact the guard and the area will be quarantined!"

I couldn't help but admire how efficient Twilight was at dispersing all those ponies. In less than ten minutes they were all on their way away from the site, and only me, Twilight, and Dash remained.

Of course, there was still the problem of the magical anomaly appearing out of nowhere.

Twilight stepped towards it cautiously, putting up a magical barrier around herself as she did so. When it didn't appear that the anomaly was going to lash out, she let the barrier drop. Still cautious, she was only a few feet away from it, examining it as only a scientist would. "I've never seen anything like this before," she muttered under her breath, "It looks like the veil, but it's not resonating with any kind of magic."

"What's that mean?" asked Dash.

Twilight took a deep breath and stepped away from it, "I honestly have no idea."

Dash let out a harsh laugh, "So, what? It's just a random shimmering spot that happened to appear out of thin air?"

"No," said Twilight softly. "If I would call it anything... it would be a tear."

I sighed, "Can't I just have one normal day?"