Don't mess with portals foals.
Twilight stood facing five other mares. Two pegasi, two earth ponies, and a second unicorn also filled the room. She started speaking once they were all settled.
“Girls, remember the mirror portal? The one that sent me to the other dimension?” They all nodded their heads. “Well I think I may have invented a way to reach others!” with that she turned around and put her head down. A violet glow surrounded her horn as she charged up the magical energy required to open a dimensional rift between worlds. The other ponies in the room looked around in awe as the very fabric of reality started to shift and tear itself around twilight’s will. She poured even more energy into the spell as a visible gap between dimensions could start to be seen. Eventually the world gave in to twilight’s feat of magical strength, and a fully functioning rift could be seen crackling in midair. Everyone present clapped their hooves together at her achievement.
The second twilight had succeeded, the mana feeding the portal stopped, causing it to destabilise. In a panic, she tried to reconnect herself to the portal but screamed out in pain. Opening the portal had burned her horn, and exhausted her magical reserves. To try to keep the portal open would be suicide. The portal started to create a pull towards itself, searching for sources of mana to remove what shouldn’t exist. Sadly, this made it impossible to open the door, or to even get their footing. Even the strongest flyer in the room, the prism blur herself, rainbow dash couldn’t fight the forces of the wind and was slowly pulled in.
first went twilight, then a weak butter yellow pegasus with a pink mane called fluttershy. Third was an earth pony with two different shades of pink for both her mane and fur went screaming into the portal. This one was unique though, as instead of screaming in terror, she was screaming a loud “wheee!” noise the whole way in. this pony was none other than pinkie pie herself. After that came the second earth pony, named applejack. The orange pony with a blond mane and signature hat quickly disappeared. The second unicorn, the one with pristine white fur and styled mane named rarity, had been burning a message into the floor of the building. She most likely would have finished had she not insisted in making the letters so fancy. The final mare to be sucked in was rainbow dash. When the portal had concluded that there was no more easily accessible sources of magical energy, it collapsed in on itself with an audible popping noise. It was at that moment that a small purple dragon decided to walk into the room, carrying a comically large plate of nachos.
“Of course they decide to leave without me.” he grumbled to himself, entirely missing the large black letters scrolled in front of him. He then looked around and realising something.”WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO WITH ALL THESE NACHOS!” he screamed before storming out of the room and throwing one of the said nachos into his mouth.
“So Mr. Jackson, you’re saying that you went to a public school for all of your schooling?” The reporter asked. The man sitting across from her smiled before replying.
“Yeah, my parents didn’t want to raise a spoiled brat to take over the company, so they bought a rather small house, and lived there for 18 years.” he chuckled before continuing. “Now, i’m not saying that i never got what i wanted, i just wasn’t getting hundreds of dollars worth of toys a day. If i wanted a video game, i worked for it. I actually own the same consoles i bought when i was ten today.”
The reporter gave a polite smile. “So when did you find out you were rich?”
“When i was 18, that’s when my parents bought me my house. I was surprised to find a mansion. Luckily, i kept my head, and promptly sold it.” the reporter started at him. “It was a test. If they had failed in raising me, i would have taken the mansion, and partied. They were surprised that i didn’t take the mansion at all though. What i did get was a big plot of land, where i am now living.”
The reporter nodded in understanding. “So what do you do now, or do you get money from your parents?”
“I do both actually. I use the money from my parents to keep my house up and looking nice, but i do other things that most people wouldn’t think of for spending money.”
“May i ask what these jobs are, Mr. jackson?”
“Well, a lot of hands on crafts. Blacksmithing, leatherworking, woodworking, and some simple, i guess you would call it clothworking, are the main things. I also have a strange talent for growing bananas….” he trailed off on that last sentence. A bell could be heard ringing and the reporter turned to the camera, looking directly at it.
“Ok folks, that’s all we have time for today. Tune in next week when we have another guest on our show!” with that, jackson grabbed his stuff and waved a hand to the tv crew before walking around back and getting into his car. He sighed when he realised that it would be a very, very short amount of time before the internet figured out what name he sold his crafts under. Grabbing his laptop and mobile internet, he quickly set up a limit on how many of each craft could be bought. He knew though, that by the time he got home, it would most likely already be swamped with orders.
He suddenly heard a clap of thunder and rain started to pour. “That’s strange, there wasn’t any storms scheduled for the rest of the week.” he muttered to himself. Not liking to drive in bad conditions, and assuming they would only get worse, he quickly pulled out of the parking lot and started home.
As fate would have it, he soon had a reason to fear storms while driving. When he was about halfway home, a lightning bolt struck his car, sending it flipping off of the road. He screamed as it impacted the ground, crushing under its own weight. It rolled over itself a few times, before coming to a stop upside down. Somehow in his daze he put his hand on the roof of the car, now facing downwards, and pulled out his knife. Not trusting the mechanism, he cut the seat belt and felt the roof impact his head. Somehow, the glass in his windshield hadn’t broken. He hit it with the pommel of his knife, shattering it. With a second hit the windshield fell apart and he crawled out. He stood up and took inventory, he had his knife, all parts of his body seemed to be attached and fine, minus a little bleeding from his forehead, and at least a half an hour walk home. Somehow, over the pounding of the rain, he heard a voice. He slowly walked over to where it was. When he was about a foot away from the bush he thought it was in, the voice became much clearer.
“There darlings. I do hope this spell works on wherever we are, but not being able to converse with the locals would make this a dreadful experience. Not that it isn’t already, but it would kind of be hard to get any worse.”
A soft cough could be heard before a second voice responded, almost in a whisper. “T-thanks rarity. Luckily this spell was so *cough* easy.”
The first voice, who seemed to be rarity responded. “So this spell will last for about an hour? I do hope somepony will come by during that time. While it is a rather easy spell, casting it on six ponies does take it out of one.” he stopped his advances at those last two lines. Then he made a decision. He had thought of being a vet before he had turned 18, and if these creatures were ponies then he should be able to help them.
“Hello?” he whispered. The voices stopped completely. Suddenly a pink blur shot out of the bush knocking him over onto his back. When he hit the ground so did his head, causing him to scream out in agony. The pink thing that had shot out at him had indeed been a pony, but not like any that had been seen before. It was pink. Completely pink. And while it’s mane was a slightly darker shade, it was still completely pink. Jackson couldn’t seem to get over that fact. It turns out this pink pony… thing, had heard jackson scream. When he got out of the daze that put him in, all he could hear was one word being repeated over and over.
“Sorrysorrysorrysorrysorry.IJustwantedtomakeanewfriendinthisstrangeworldandiheardyourvoicesoiassumedthatyouwouldwanttobeafriendtoobutthen-” he put his finger on her lips.
“C-Concussion. Slower. Small words. Please.” she seemed to understand even with the choppy speech.
“I wanted to be your friend. I accidentally knocked you over. Please forgive me.” he nodded his head before wincing.
“Y-Yeah. I guess?” it hurt him to talk but he persevered for the sake of the other ponies in the bush. Somehow he managed to pull himself to his feet. “I- I overheard that of of your f-friends might be hurt. M-My house is about h-half an hour away. W-We can rest there. Follow m-me.” The pink pony nodded before spinning around and trotting back into the bush.a few minutes later, five ponies slowly walked out, with a sixth that could be seen cowering inside the bush. Something blue-ish dragged the yellow and pink pony out. He could also see that the blue glow surrounded the white… unicorn’s horn? What was happening here? Then he realised the pony the unicorn dragged out of the bush was a pegasus. He did the only logical thing he could. Turn around and walk away. Obviously this was a hallucination caused by the gases from the car and his concussion mixing together. The ponies though thought that he was leading them to his house. When he stumbled the white unicorn’s horn lit again and his headache vanished.
“What the, where did my-”
“I used a spell to remove your concussion dear.” the white unicorn stated. It was true that he had lost all signs of a concussion. This meant he was forced to believe he was being followed by six magical technicolor ponies. Naturally, he freaked out, and bolted as fast as he could from the scene. Screw getting help, screw the car, screw not getting soaked, he wanted to get as far away from these freaks as fast as he could. That was until he did a face plant into the ground. Looking up he saw two of the ponies, a blue one and a orange one, had tripped him.
The white one called out at them. “Applejack! Rainbow dash! that’s no way to treat a host. Even if he was running away from us.”
The blue one snapped back at her. “Well we could rarity, but what about twilight? She’s in no condition to run at even half speed for a few minutes, much less half an hour!”
“True Rainbow, but you two didn’t have to trip him.”
At this point Jackson gave up on the concept of logic. “Ok, i’m lost. Why are there technicolor ponies running around here?”
The purple one turned towards him. “I was trying out a new spell, o-one that would allow me to open portals t-to other worlds. It backfired and collapsed, p-pulling us in.” it was easy for him to hear the pain in her voice.
“So why don’t you just go back?” he asked, “i have no understanding of magic so please explain this to me.”
“B-Basically it sucked all of my mana away, and s-scorched my horn. I can’t regain m-mana with a scorched horn.”
He sighed. “Can you walk?”
“F-For a little bit. My friends seem to be f-fine though.” she winced when she finished that last statement.
He sighed before picking her up. “Nobody that hurt is going to be walking.” with that statement he motioned to the other ponies and started walking. After a minute he noticed that there were only four following him. “Hey, where’s the sixth pony.” he said. The white one, which he had now identified as rarity turned around.
“Fluttershy! Come here dear!” she shouted. The pony had ran back into the bush the second they turned around. He gave a second sigh before walking back and picking her up too. She gave a cute meep the second he touched her, but neither of them were too heavy so he could carry both back to his house rather easily. He quickly walked back and the other ponies started following him again. Then he came to obviously the worst obstacle that they had faced. A small mud puddle. Rarity screamed before running over to him. With a grunt he picked her up before looking at the other three ponies.
“Screw it, everybody else on.” He said while crouching down. The blue one, which he assumed was named rainbow dash, crawled onto his right shoulder before somehow curling up and falling asleep. The second one, who must have been applejack, crawled on his left. The final pink pony, who had knocked him over, crawled onto his head and fell asleep herself. When he looked down, twilight, rarity, and fluttershy had fallen asleep in his arms. Looking to his left, he saw that the only pony awake was applejack.
After standing up and walking for a few minutes in silence, he looked to his left. “So applejack, what did you do back wherever you came from?”
“Ah was an apple farmer. Yah should’ve been able ta figure that out from mah cutie mark.” she then stood up and showed him her flank. He looked back at her questioningly.
“What’s a cutie mark?”
“It’s the mark on my flank, can’t you see… it… oh.” she had looked at it herself and realised there was nothing there. “But why would…” then she realised something. “Wait, i’m a filly again?!” she half shouted. Not enough to wake the others, but enough to hurt jackson’s ears. She suddenly fell silent, and he felt no urge to talk. The rest of their walk back was in silence.
Author's Note
So I know I said that I only wanted to work one story at a time, but due to a bout of writers block I couldn't think of how to make the next chapter work. So here's something that will hopefully be enough to tide you over till the next one.
Getting to know you, er, them.
Jackson awoke with a minor headache. Nothing some advil wouldn’t solve, but annoying nonetheless. He struggled out of bed before stumbling into his bathroom. He grabbed the advil and took two pills before looking at himself in the mirror. Noticing the light beard he had, he decided to shave it off. Grabbing the razor, cream, and a towel, he quickly went about the process. After cutting himself and shoving a small wad of toilet paper on it, he went to get himself breakfast. Then he noticed something strange. It smelled like somebody was already cooking. Since he lived alone he wondered if somebody had come into his house just to make him breakfast. Although he mostly was out of the public eye, a crazy fangirl had broken into his house and done that before…
When he stepped around the corner he needed to correct his thoughts. Somepony, not someone, had managed to get into his house. The events of the night before then came back to him. The car crash, the ponies, and the long exhausting walk home. Since they were all asleep he had decided to just put two of them in each spare room. They stopped talking the second that Jackson entered the room. They just stared at each other for a minute before either spoke.
“H-Hi.” One of them said. After racking his brain he realised the pony was Applejack.
“So I wasn’t dreaming last night?” Jackson said to all of them at once. They all nodded back at him. “Huh, explains the headache.” he walked over and sat down. “So, I see you made breakfast. What time is it?”
“Um, twelve pm.” the purple unicorn one told me while levitating one of the clocks closer to her face.”
“Guess I slept in didn’t i?” Jackson added with a chuckle. “So, I get that you’re ponies, but why do you look like… that?”
Twilight furrowed her brow before answering, “what do you mean? We look completely normal.”
Jackson shook his head. “You look nothing like the ponies from earth. Ours aren’t as colorful as you. And they don’t have wings or horns. And they aren’t intelligent. Basically the only thing you have in common is the name and you stand on four legs.”
“They don’t? So the ponies around here don’t talk? That’s interesting…” she trailed off muttering to herself.
Jackson shrugged before pulling out his phone and tapping something in before turning it around and showing Twilight. “Here’s what a pony on earth looks like,” She snapped out of her trance and stared at the phone.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“A pony.”
“A pony? But isn’t that a pony?”
“Isn’t what a pony? The picture is a pony.”
“That what is the picture on?”
Jason blinked and facepalmed. “You don’t have phones where you come from do you?” She answered his question by blinking with a blank expression. “It’s a device that allows you to talk to anyone in the world no matter where they are, as long as you have one of these devices. It also allows you to access to almost all of humanity's knowledge, minus a few things the public should not know about.”
Twilight’s eyes grew wide after hearing the explanation. “So it's got every single book ever written on it?”
“Well, yes, but you have to buy them. Now i’m not poor by any means of the word, but those small charges can add up rather quick. And at $10-$20 a piece those books can cost hundreds of dollars rather quick for even a slower reader. I do have something to show you later though if you like to read.”
“Can you show me now?”
“Later, but I need some information about you first. Like where do you come from…”
We spent the next few hours discussing the similarities between their world and earth. Jackson explained everything, from science, to sports, to the animals and even further. When they were finished talking, he had shown them around his house. They almost had to drag Twilight out of the library, and actually had to drag Applejack out of the nursery. There was something important that he learned from the ponies though. They had forgotten most of their lives, other than just enough to keep most of their personalities. They had forgotten their families, their other friends, and their lives.
Jackson decided this wasn’t acceptable. He needed to find a way to get them home.
Author's Note
Sorry for the short chapter but i wanted to get this done tonight. My hand also hurts a good bit still but it's feeling better. Also I couldn't figure out how to stretch it out without making it boring. Grammar wise, please point out my errors. Thank you!