The Rings

On the same day Sweet Pea entered Equestria...

Lyra Heartstring's daily routine was interrupted by a strange creature that she found near the outskirts of Ponyville. It looked like it was both plant and animal, with a quadrupedal, reptilian shape, green skin - Lyra couldn't tell if it had scales or not - with a few darker green spots, and a pink bulb on its back. Its voice sounded like deep hissing. The creature's bulb opened slightly, and two long, green vines extended out of it. It whipped one of its vines at Lyra, but she quickly avoided it.

"Hey!" she exclaimed, as if she'd been hurt, even though she hadn't.

"Ssorr ee?" the creature seemed to ask. Some ponies nearby turned to stare at the creature, causing it to glare back at them angrily. It slowly turned and walked away, looking ready to attack something.

Out of curiosity, Lyra decided to follow the creature, although she had to slow down several times, for she was a lot faster than it. It was heading towards the centre of Ponyville, and kept attempting to lash its vines out at ponies who approached it.

When they were near the town hall, two other creatures ran towards the plant-reptile: a red fox with six tails, and a yellow rodent-thing with brick-like patterns on its fur.

Wow! They look strangely... adorable! Lyra thought.

The plant-reptile retracted its vines, and the three creatures started "talking", as if they were familiar with each other.

"Ul! Ul! Eex?" the red fox exclaimed, with a happy tone of voice.

"Orr... saa," the plant-reptile replied.

"Ue! Ru ru ru AN!" shouted the rodent-thing, as if it was telling of a child who had misbehaved.

"Vee-OR!" the plant-reptile replied, half-angrily and half-apologetically.

The three creatures then turned around and headed towards the side of the town hall. Slowly, Lyra followed them, making sure her hoofsteps didn't make much noise. The trio were standing next to a fairly wide golden ring, propped up against one of the walls, and seemed to be arguing about something. A few moments later, the rodent-thing walked into the ring and disappeared, followed by the red fox and plant-reptile.

Upon closer inspection, Lyra noticed that they hadn't disappeared. Inside the ring, there was an image of a city, even bigger than Canterlot, with buildings made of yellow bricks. She ducked down, and out of curiosity, carefully walked into the ring...

Jade the Ivysaur wasn't sure where he was. His trainer had decided to spend the night at the Pokémon Centre in Saffron City, and she had let all of her team out of their Pokéballs. Besides him, there was Garnet the Vulpix, Amber the Sandshrew and Sapphire the Golbat. Despite their gemstone theme-naming, the only female in the team so far was Garnet.

It was the middle of the night, and Jade couldn't sleep. When Jade couldn't sleep, he usually went out walking for a bit. He wandered out of the Pokémon Centre, and noticed something propped up on one of the walls of the biggest building - didn't humans call that the Silph Co. building? It was a golden ring, shining in the street lights, wide enough for him to fit through, and he slowly walked though it, out of both tiredness and curiosity.

On the other side of the ring, he seemed to be in some sort of village, though it was hard to tell because it was so dark. Oddly, few windows had light coming from them, and those that did were lit by fire instead of electricity. He got out his vines to feel around, and eventually found the outskirts of the town. It was a field with a few trees here and there, and a stream and a dirt road ran through it. Jade was feeling tired now, and found a place to sleep underneath one of the trees.

I hope I can find Master tomorrow... I always do, right?

When Jade woke up the next morning, he was very confused, to say the least. The park was full of brightly-coloured... things that he had never seen before. They vaguely resembled Ponyta, but Jade had only seen Ponyta briefly a few times. It was usually Amber that his trainer fought Ponyta with. Even stranger, these creatures acted a lot like humans.

One such "rainbownyta", as Jade decided to call them, was poking him with his hoof. It was young, and was exclaiming something in a language that sounded vaguely similar to human speech, but wasn't. Jade realized that this rainbownyta could be a threat, and released several small leaves out of his bulb, aiming them towards it. The rainbownyta jumped away quickly, then screamed. Jade realized that it wasn't a threat, and felt a bit bad for trying to hurt it.

"Sorry about that," he exclaimed, holding out one of his vines like a hand. The rainbownyta didn't notice.

A little while later, another rainbownyta approached Jade. This one was mint green, and much older. While Jade knew that rainbownytas weren't dangerous, he still wanted to tell this one that he needed personal space. He extended one of his vines, telling it to stay away, but the rainbownyta misinterpreted it as an attack.

"What are you?" he asked. He then noticed that a lot of rainbownyta were staring at him, as if they were shocked that he tried to "attack" one of their kind.

Jade, realizing that these rainbownyta were very confused about him, decided to retrace his steps and see if he could find a way back home. He headed back into the village, getting even more stares along the way. Eventually, he saw a golden ring, similar to the one that was in Saffron City, propped up against a cylindrical building. Suddenly, two familiar Pokémon ran out of it and towards him: Garnet and Amber.

"Ui! Ui! Eex!" exclaimed Garnet. Though Jade couldn't fully understand what she was saying, he had begun to figure out what the other members of his team were trying to say, including his trainer. He could infer that Garnet was glad to see him.

"Yeah... I'm fine," Jade replied.

Amber, on the other hand, was glaring angrily at him. "Ue! Ru ru ru AN!" he shouted, as if he was worried about Jade.

"Sorry!" Jade exclaimed.

Jade, Amber and Garnet then had an argument over who would go through the ring first. Eventually, it was settled that Amber would go through first, Garnet second and Jade last.

Leaf was waiting next to the ring outside the Silph Co. building. She'd heard about those rings before - they were called hyperspace holes, and they were created by a species of Pokémon that didn't live in Kanto. When she had woken up that morning to find her Ivysaur missing, she had looked all around the city for him, before eventually deciding, strange as it sounded, that Jade had disappeared through the ring. She had decided to send Amber and Garnet through the hyperspace hole to look for him, but her three Pokémon didn't return alone. They were followed by what looked like a mint green Rapidash, with hair instead of flames, that wouldn't have looked out of place in a cartoon. When the creature noticed Leaf, its eyes widened, and it started bouncing up and down excitedly.

"I see you made a new friend," said Leaf, unsure of what to think about the creature.

Jade seemed surprised at the newcomer, then shook his head, as if to say "I don't know either." Garnet tilted her head, and Amber was looking at the creature, then pointing at the ring. The mint Rapidash, meanwhile, looked slightly disappointed, then bounded back into the hyperspace hole.

Leaf returned her Pokémon to their Pokéballs, then walked towards the gym in order to get her next badge.

What Lyra saw on the other side of the ring awestruck her. The city's building were much taller than any in Equestria, and they all glittered in the midday sun. But even more amazing was what stood right in front of Lyra, something that she'd only seen in old history books: a human. This human was female, had long, brown hair, and was wearing a white hat. Lyra's eyes widened in amazement, and she bounced on the spot excitedly. When she realized that she couldn't understand the human, however, she felt disappointed, before she realized that the rodent-thing was looking at her and pointing towards the ring. She then remembered that there was a translation spell that unicorns could learn, though it was rather difficult to master. Excitedly, she bounded back into the ring, in order to look for a book of spells.