The Paddock Gate

Canterlot War Room

Just Past Dawn

The room was dim, lit only by a torch and the few shafts of sunlight poking through the small windows on the far wall. Dust floated about the air. On one side of the table stood Celestia and her sister, Luna. On the other, across a large map of Equestria, stood Rainbow Dash. She was the commander of Equestria's dragoon force, an elite pegasi unit trained to fight in the air as well as on land, tasked during peacetime with patrolling the outermost borders of the Equestrian Empire and reconnaissance of potential threats. It was one such duty that lead to the hastily arranged, early morning meeting between the three. Dash had only described the matter as "extremely urgent," leaving Celestia wondering what could be so important to turn the quiet morning she had planned into another work matter. Running an Empire is quite stressful.

"Present your report, if you please," Celestia said, with Luna nodding in agreement.

"Of course," Dash pointed at a spot on the map with her hoof, west of Whitetail Wood in a hilly grassland, "Late last night we were performing a routine patrol of our western borders when we encountered a bright flash in this region. On one of the hills, we discovered a large stone gate. Except this was no ordinary gate, it had a wall on the back, and couldn't have been more then fifteen feet long on the inside. Yet the inside was dark and seemed to stretch on forever, with no end in sight."

"And there was nothing inside?" Luna asked.

"No, however we had a mage attached to our camp nearby use a seeing spell to investigate. It appears the gate is some kind of portal. It revealed a city beyond it, except... it wasn't of our world."

"Are you saying this portal led to another world?" asked Celestia, now taking an interest in the report.

"Exactly. The city was near the ocean, with large rectangular towers that reached towards the sky. The inhabitants were some kind of biped, never documented in our world, even in the legends. And there were so many of them."

"Are they dangerous?"

"No, they seem harmless. Perhaps even a bit slow and clumsy. I doubt they'd be a threat to us, however I believe its in our best interest to strike and conquer their world before they discover us first. We should't risk a foreign attack this close to Canterlot."

"Indeed. Thank you for this information," Celestia said, "Give us a moment to discuss the situation. Please inform Twilight and Applejack of the situation, and form an expeditionary force of every available pony. If we fight, we must be ready."

Rainbow Dash nodded, bowed, and trotted out of the war room. Celestia turned to Luna.

"What do you make of all this?" she asked.

"If the report is correct, we must conquer this land before they prove to threaten our Empire. A swift and uncompromising takeover."