~Present day. Ponyville. The Friendship Castle~

Twilight waited in the map room of her crystal tree castle. Ever since Starlight Glimmer had managed to manipulate the table map, Twilight had wanted to study it to find out how it works. She had to wait for Starlight Glimmer though as she currently knew more about the map than her.

The doors to the room were encased in a magical glow and they swung open to reveal the friend Twilight was waiting for. "Hi Twilight, sorry I took so long. Pinkie just won't let me go!" Starlight said with a smile. Ever since Twilight had offered to be her friend, Starlight Glimmer had been hanging out with the others and realised how much she had overreacted when her friend left.

"It's good to see that you have been having a great time Starlight. This is what making new friends is about. You got to learn to make new connections." Twilight said as she closed the book she was reading.

"Yeah. Looking back, I guess you could say I over reacted. Making a village and removing everypony's cutie marks? What was I thinking?" Starlight replied.

"Well as long as you learn from your past endeavours, I'm sure you won't repeat again. A fall in the pit, a gain in experience." Twilight answered. "Ok Starlight, I guess we can start with the table map. How did you managed to use the map?"

"Well, I broke into your palace once before the lecture and spent some time trying to find the strongest source of magic in your castle. I found it coming from the middle of the map. The raw magic coming from it is not like the normal ambient magic around us, rather it feels old and powerful. Something like the Solar or Lunar magic that the princesses use or the chaos magic that Discord throws around." Starlight paused for a moment. "I simply modified Starswirl's spell to direct the magic to be able to bend time, allowing me to travel back much further in time."

"I see. From what you are saying, this magic in the map is old and unique. The fact that you are able to go back a few years in time suggests that the magic within is potent. Maybe even more powerful than the Princesses." Twilight climbed onto the map. "So you were saying that the source of it is coming from the centre of the table?"

"Yes Twilight, but you may need to do some digging, it was coming somewhere from the base in the middle." Starlight pointed out.

Twilight closed her eyes and focused on the magic emanating from the table map. Sure enough, her magic senses were able to sense the magic described by Starlight. She traced the magic to it's source. Wow, this magic is really potent. Only thing I know that could be this unique is the theorised magic by Starswirl that exists between dimensions. Soon, she found the source. It was coming from a shard slightly larger than the size of her hoof. Twilight mentally noted it's position and opened her eyes.

"There's a shard in the table that is the source of that magic. I have to agree with you th at it is extremely strong magic. It could be the rumoured magic that exists between dimensions. Want to try to extract it?" Twilight asked.

"If you want to, I'll be willing to help. But how are you going to get the shard without damaging the crystal." Starlight answered with a tone of skeptism.

"Oh not to worry, the book there has a really interesting spell that allows the caster to turn certain parts of an object completely pass through-able. I'll use that spell and all you gotta do is to just grab the shard." Twilight replied. "You ready?" she asked as her horn lit up.

"Oh, I'm ready." Starlight answered eagerly. "Lets do it Twilight."

Twilight casted the spell onto the table. Sure enough, a transcluent tunnel formed. Starlight looked down the tunnel and saw the shard that Twilight mentioned. She grabbed it with her telekinesis and pulled it out. As soon as the shard was out of the table though, the landscape features on the table map disappeared, leaving a flat top table.

"Ok Twilight. I got the shard." Starlight called out. Twilight in response nodded and powered down her spell. The transcluent tunnel immediately turned solid again. She looked at the shard that Starlight had laid on the table. It was a beautiful thing the shard was, faint colours of red and yellow pulsing softly within it. She then looked at the now plain table. So when the shard is removed, the map loses it's power? she observed.

"Do you have a way to interact with it?" Starlight asked.

"I'm not sure what it is. If it has a conscience, I can cast a mind merge spell to speak with it. But if it doesn't the only thing we can do is to conduct experiments with it." Twilight said after thinking a while. "I'm going to try to communicate with it. Could you ensure that no one disturbs me while I try it?"

"Will do Twilight. Take as much time as you need, It's what I can do for you as a friend." Starlight said as she walked out of the map room. "I'll be outside if you need me." The doors closing behind her.

......

Twilight started the preparations for the merge spell. Closing her eyes after casting the spell within the spell circle she drew, she felt her self floating out of her body. Willing her conscious, she directed it to go into the crystal shard.

'Hello? Is anypony here?" She called out. No response. she tried again and was met with the same silence. Se tried a third time. "My name is Twilight Sparkle, I'm the bearer of the element of magic and the princess of friendship. I would like to speak with you, the Tree of Harmony?"

Finally a response. "A tree of what? Well. If it a consolation prize, I can't feel it if it is raining at least." A voice replied.

"Err. Hi? May I know who you are?" Twilight asked.

"I'm a Minutemen from the Commonwealth. The last thing I recall was fighting a raider who had a Fat Man."

Fat Man? Minutemen? Commonwealth? What are all these? Is he an alien? Twilight wondered. "Are you an alien?" she asked.

"Alien? No Babe. I'm a human. Name is Preston Garvey. Man, I don't know what you are, but your timing's impeccable. But right now there are some villages that are having trouble. Here, I'll mark it on a map for you." the voice replied.

Right before Twilight could reply, she felt her mind being quickly pushed back into the body, the merge spell being quickly broken.

......

Starlight felt a surge of the unfamiliar magic coming from the map room. She quickly turned around and pushed open the door. Behind the door, she was greeted with trouble. The shard was hovering over the table brightly, white light coming from it. Twilight lay on the floor, slowly trying to stand up. The shard emitted more light and 4 limbs started to grow out from the centre. The top two limbs were slender and ended in a fashion similar to Spike's claws. The bottom 2 limbs were ended in a fashion similar to Spike's bottom legs but with smaller claws at the end. A separate rod of light appeared infront of the developing shape and began to change it shape. On one end of the rod, it became bent at an angle with a rectangular end. On the other end, the rod was lengthen and made thinner.

After a while, the light started to fade away. Twilight could easily see the creature's feature. It's shape reminded her of her form over in Sunset's world. In the human's hand, there something that appears to be meshed together from various mechanical and electronic parts strapped to a regular wooden rifle stock. A clear glass cylinder was at the back of the various electronics attached to the wooden stock and it had a crank attached to the back. The human was wearing a long and dirty coat and had a colonial hat. He landed on the table map, it in response immediately showed the map of Equestria again.

"Now, as I was saying" Preston started. " There's a settlement near the city of Appaloosa that has a friendship problem. Here, I'll mark it on the map." He pointed at a spot on the table map. Immediately, Twilight's cutie mark appeared and started to hover over the spot pointed by Garvey. At the same time, Twilight's cutie mark on her flanks also began to pulse.

"Wha..." Twilight was shocked. Preston Garvey started to walked out the door. "Nice weather we are having today. Good luck Princess."

Author's Note

And it took 2,944 words to make a settlement joke. What should Twilight do now to escape the curse of Preston Garvey?