“When considering the history of multiversal exploration in Equestria, one must remember that the groundwork for travelling between universes was already established long before the time of Princess Twilight. While it is true that Princess Twilight had begun the modern age of multiverse exploration, she merely perfected the method of traversing parallel worlds into a practical form, and her endeavors began as a private project exclusive to only her and her companions.
Even so, however, without her insight into the full implications of its potential, modern trans-universal colonization and commerce would never have occurred. And without her support and efforts to gradually expand this endeavor into a national, then international, and eventually cross-universe enterprise, the benefits and impacts of inter-universal travel upon this Equestrian society and many others would never had been fully realized.”
--- Looking Glass, Earth-Pony Historian, “Crossroads of Infinity: A brief history of inter-universal travel” [Equestria Variant AXC-15274]
Twilight Sparkle looked at herself in the mirror.
She scrutinized her own reflection with the care of a veteran researcher, eying for the tiniest details that normal ponies may miss.
It has been a few years since she has arrived in Ponyville, and while it’s true that much has happened and changed since then, she found herself remarkably remained much the same pony she was. For one thing, her mane and tail still have the same violet, purple and magenta streaked hair, done simply in square cuts with bangs, complementing her dark purple pupiled eyes. Her coat color remained the same lavender hue from horn to hoof, interrupted only by the bright magenta-and-white star Cutie Mark she has on both her flanks that defined her incredible talent in magic.
Of course, it would be wrong to say that she has remained exactly the same as she was; even normal ponies grow up or grow old, after all, though she had become far more than a normal pony. For one thing, she has grown taller, her horn has become slightly longer, and had a pair of majestic wings to complement both developments.
There were more changes as well, the result of time and many events, but they couldn’t be seen in a mere reflection. One thing was sure, she was no longer the lonely, antisocial unicorn student of Princess Celestia that left Canterlot for Ponyville those few years ago; she is now the Alicorn Princess of Magic and Friendship, Celestia, Luna and Cadence’s peer, capable of wielding magic of all three tribes, and is an intimate member of a group of wonderful friends through thick and thin. She even had a whole new castle to go with it, a crystal construct shape reminiscent of the poor, lost Golden Oaks Library that she once lived in.
She was not dwelling on thoughts of her past and comparing them with her present, however. Right now, a far less personal, and in some ways far grander question was at the forefront of her mind.
She raised and lowered a hoof, and she watched as her reflection did the same. She tilted her head, and her reflection responded in kind. She hopped once in place, and she followed her reflection as she went up and down in mid-air. Everything she did, her counterpart followed with exact, perfect precision. Twilight giggled at this display.
When she was very young, almost a newborn, she had regarded much the same with her own reflection, piqued with curiosity and amusement at the antics of the filly that she saw in the mirror. She did so even long after she realized, far more quicker than most, that the filly was herself; it was a simple matter of pretending that her own reflection was some-pony else. Her parents had thought it eccentric, but it was, in many ways, the start of her intellectual curiosity that would see her become one of the most learned and gifted geniuses to ever grace Equestria, her achievements in defending Harmony and becoming a Princess notwithstanding.
But certain adventures, with a certain special mirror, had changed the way she had thought of this strange habit of hers.
The Crystal Mirror had been the creation of Starswirl the Bearded, and if there was any-pony who would conceivably discover the Multiverse and found a means to travel through them, Twilight conceded, it would had been none other than Starswirl, the greatest wizard in Equestrian history, an inspiration whose shadow she had followed, and whom she had been trying to keep up, already matched and even surpassed in several ways.
To think, Starswirl had been travelling across the multiverse long before ponies had even invented the steam engine. His own records of the places he had visited was enough to fill an encyclopaedia, once she had finished deciphering the coded language he had used in his notes – well, what was left that she found preserved, anyways.
It was sad to imagine that such a brilliant invention like the Crystal Mirror was left, forgotten and disused, in the depths of the Canterlot Castle, long after Starswirl’s time. And it would had remained so, had it not for Princess Celestia’s previous student, Sunset Shimmer, who had discovered how to reactivate the Mirror and travel through it following centuries of dormancy. Former foe had turned into friend, and now she and Twilight had a few adventures of their own in the world on the other side, another time and place both bizarre and strangely familiar.
It has changed both worlds, but more importantly, it has changed herself, her frontier of knowledge, and how she sees her own place in existence. When she looked at her own reflection in the mirror, she no longer needed to imagine that the mare in front of her was some-pony else – there was no need to, for she know, both empirically and in her heart, that they are out there, somewhere. Even now, at the back of her head, she wondered how many alternate versions of herself were doing the exact same thing as she was, across the Multiverse, looking into a mirror and thinking the same thoughts. How she wished to meet them; there is so much that they could talk about and share…
The Princess paused and shook her head. Don’t get distracted, Twilight, she thought to herself, you’ll get there soon enough, but first… “Let’s get back to work.”
Of course, enabling that to happen is part of the myriad of reasons which motivated her to pursue her current project – to improve upon Starswirl’s method of inter-universal travel. She had the Crystal Mirror, which could take her to any universe that she desires.
But it has many shortfalls in terms of design. In its original configuration, it takes around thirty moons for the portal to reopen a route between worlds; partly as a preventive measure against inducing a ‘paradox’ effect, the accidental synchronization of home timeline’s causality with that of the destination timeline. The other reason was due to the enormous power requirements involved to breach the barriers between worlds. It was partly the latter reason that made Princess Celestia moved the Crystal Mirror to the Crystal Empire originally, taking advantage of the higher ambient concentration of magical energies there to try and reduce the recharge time.
She has modified the Crystal Mirror as much as she has been able to, making improvements that would inhibit the ‘Paradox effect’, as well as greatly increase energy efficiency and charge rate, enabling her now to use it whenever she wants. But then there are other problems – beautifully crafted it may be, the Crystal Mirror is a big, cumbersome thing, which limited where she would arrive in another world, the area she could explore, and where she could potentially return home from. As for going to other worlds, details on how to dial the Crystal Mirror was sadly lost - deliberately destroyed apparently by Starswirl, if some of his notes were any indication. It meant that for the moment, she could only access the world where Sunset Shimmer have went to, as the last recorded use of the Crystal Mirror by Starswirl was to banish the monstrous Sirens that she and Sunset had once confronted there.
(There was also a prototype Crystal Mirror, but that was another story)
If she want to make trans-universal travel more practical, she’ll need to make a device much more optimized and compact than the Crystal Mirror.
She moved back from the large ordinary bedroom mirror she was looking into, and went back to said device, sitting on a table. It was the culmination of months of work, with many hours’ worth of tinkering and testing. Physically, it was a cylindrical-shaped machine, looking like and was the size of a small hoof-held cannon. To an untrained eye, with the addition of an assortment of diodes, wires and fins of undiscernible purposes, it would resemble a large ray-gun from a pulp science fiction comic-book. What looked like a radio frequency meter was present on a square panel mounted on the top of the device, above a dial, a number of switches and a keypad. A long, snaking cord was attached to a metal box on its side, with more assortments of diodes, buttons and dials on a panel on top, next to a power-meter.
A radiator fan on the box started spinning as Twilight threw a switch. Diodes lit on both the box and cylinder lit up. Meters moved and counters ticked. A hum could be heard as the device came to life, which got louder by the moment as power built up within the device. A final few adjustments by clicking a few buttons and turning a few dials, and Twilight had it primed and readied for use.
“Great, now to tell the others to be ready on their end.” Twilight muttered to herself. Then, raising her voice, she called out to her assistant. “Spike!”
It took only a few moments for the green and purple baby dragon to appear at the entrance of the Friendship Castle’s basement lab. “Hey Twilight! I was wondering when you’ll be test-firing that thing today.” He said, quickly coming down the stairs, a familiar book tucked under his armpit, “I always missed it whenever you do.”
“That’s because you’re either usually asleep whenever I’m working on it in the middle of the night, or too busy with other errands I sent you out to do. You wouldn’t want me to bother you when you’re too tired or distracted now, would you?” Twilight teased, taking the book from Spike, “Thanks for bringing me this, by the way!”
“Thought that you’ll dial that place first.” Spike remarked, “Which makes obvious sense, given what you’re doing. Do they know that you’ll try and portal them today?”
“I wrote to them last night. They should be near the statue at around this time. If this goes well, I should be able contact them through the tear and do everything I need to do without complications.” Twilight confirmed, writing down a few things into the enchanted notebook that she had used to correspond with Sunset across worlds. Soon enough, a message appeared, and Twilight went to activate other machinery and make other preparations.
“‘If this goes well’… yeah, sure, here’s hoping for that. I’ll go take a seat.” Spike muttered, before looking around to find some place to sit and watch the test unfold – preferably some place far enough but still have a clear view, and with a few objects to improvise a barricade. He’s been in too many of his surrogate mother/sibling’s experiments to know it’s better safe than sorry.
“Use the pair of goggles from the table, Spike. The portal creation process might get a bit brighter than the Crystal Mirror!” Twilight reminded, moving to grab her own and put it on. Then, when all was ready, she moved behind an opaque blast-screen she has set up in her lab and grab hold of the device’s trigger with her telekinesis. “Test one: portal activation. Initiating!”
She squeezed the trigger. There was a whine and a flash of light; a beam steaked out of the device’s barrel at light speed and into the bedroom mirror. Despite the arcane energies battering it, the mirror did not crack or break. The impact point glowed bluish white, which proceeded to spread across the entire surface within a moment.
As soon as it began, it was over. The beam stopped, but the device remained active. Before them, the mirror had a portal much like the one in the Crystal Mirror
Spike eyed it in awe, “It… it worked! You created another Crystal Mirror!”
“A temporary one. Let’s check…” Twilight commented. She clicked a stopwatch, before grabbing a storage box nearby and pulling out an object. In the world on the other side of the mirror, it was called a ‘smart-phone’, a communication device that could function without magic. Sunset had given it to Twilight as a present during one of her previous visits. (Using it with her hooves had been difficult, given who or what they were designed for, but she mastered it as soon as she started utilizing a touch-stick).
She pressed a few buttons on the smart-phone and dialled a number. She paced as she waited for the phone’s signal to link up with another on the other side. Then, the call dialled through.
“Hello, Sunset?” Twilight began, but was interrupted by a familiar, excited voice.
“Twilight, we saw the portal form on the other side!” Sunset exclaimed, “And it seems like it can be traversed!”
That’s true, Twilight thought, otherwise electromagnetic signals we’re using to communicate would bounce off. “I’m getting Wi-Fi on my end as well. I’ll put the phone on webcam!” Twilight replied, before cantering to a bench where she had set up a home cinema projector. It wasn’t easy to jury-rig a connection between the two devices without breaking either of them, but she had managed.
She wired up her phone and turned on the projector. Sunset Shimmer, in the human form provided by the Crystal Mirror, soon appeared on the projector screen as the webcam app connected. Behind her was the familiar campus building of Canterlot High. What Twilight didn’t expect though was her own counterpart in that human world, wearing a lab-coat and her distinctive glasses, standing behind Sunset and waving her hand.
“Sci-Twi would be assisting us test the portal. She insisted on coming.” Sunset explained.
“I can’t let such an opportunity to learn more about magic and cosmology go to waste.” Sci-Twi added, gawking slightly at the image of her Alicorn counterpart before her. The baby dragon meanwhile was waving to her dog Spike, his counterpart. “When you’re ready, princess.” She said, taking a baseball in her hand.
Princess Twilight nodded. “We don’t know how quickly the portal drains energy and how long it could remain stable, so let’s do this as quick as we can. Test two: inanimate object displacement.”
With that, Sci-Twi tossed the baseball through the portal. It disappeared with a splash of light, and reappeared on Princess Twilight’s end. She picked it up, and examined it thoroughly with an enchanted magnifying glass.
“Inanimate object test: baseball appears undamaged and unchanged in transit. Returning object.” Twilight said aloud, before tossing the ball back into the portal. She watched as it appeared back in Canterlot High, while Sunset wrote down the results in the enchanted notebook.
“Test three: biological displacement.” Sunset declared as she and Sci-Twi brought out a pole, with a caged mouse hanging at the end of it. “Our Fluttershy is going to ‘Stare’ me down so hard if she ever hears about this…”
They stuck the pole through the portal, and Princess Twilight watched as it came out the other side. Quickly, she brought out a special tripod-mounted camera – more enchanted than the magnifying glass for enhanced analytical functions – and begin examining the lab mice.
“From initial observations, living specimen appears to be unharmed and unchanged in transit.” She said, snapping off pictures in various wavelengths – visible, infrared, X-ray, thaumatic and others, all to be developed in a dark room later – as she examined. Indeed, other than scrambling in fear and agitation from suddenly appearing in an alien environment, the mouse appears to be fine in its cage. “Still, long-term evaluation would be necessary to establish any long-term effects on health and composition for both inanimate and animate test samples.”
“This is great! Everything seems to be in order.” Sunset commented as she took the mice back through the tear in space-time, “With any luck, we can begin – wait, Twi, what are you doing?!”
Sci-Twi was standing close to the portal, too close for comfort. Her eyes were wide, staring in awe at the glowing white tear before her. Then, she made an unhinged, disturbing grin. “Test four: Sophont entity displacement!” She declared, and before anyone could react, reached out towards the portal with her right arm.
“Other me, don’t – !” Princess Twilight exclaimed in panic, but then halted and looked in shock when she saw an arm – an unchanged human arm, with a human hand – appear on her end of the portal. Sci-Twi managed to flex her fingers before Sunset pulled her back and took her arm out of the portal.
“Darn it, Twilight, what were you thinking?!” Sunset admonished, flat on her rear on the pavement with Sci-Twi on top of her.
Sci-Twi laughed awkwardly “I – sorry, I guess… I just couldn’t resist.” She excused as she and Sunset got up, dusting themselves down, “In any case, at least it’s evident that species change in transit by the Crystal Mirror is purely a product of its design, instead of the result of any inherent cosmological phenomena in nature.”
“You could had try proving that after we have done more testing to ensure it is as safe as using the Crystal Mirror!” Sunset exclaimed, throwing her arms up, “We don’t know how long that portal could stay open, and if the portal collapsed at that moment, it could have taken your arm off, if not worse!”
“After so many tests, we’re so close to success! I never stopped wanting to visit your home reality, Sunset, even before I went Midnight Sparkle back then…!” Sci-Twi tried to justify herself.
“You’ve got to keep that mad scientist knack of yours under control.” Sci-Twi’s dog Spike said disapprovingly, which caused the dragon Spike in the pony world to yelp in surprise. “Seems like you haven’t got that obsession of yours all out of your system, even after what happened at the Friendship Games.”
Sci-Twi hanged her head in silent shame. Sighing, Sunset turned back to the phone webcam and Princess Twilight. “Sorry about that. We’re still helping her through the worst of it; mental scars don’t disappear overnight, if at all. In any case, the portal is working like a charm so far. As I was saying…”
“Oh right, yes!” Princess Twilight remembered, getting over her shock, and outrage, of Sci-Twi’s unprofessional stunt. “I’ve got copies of the plans for my device here. I’ll send you the data we have collected later through the Crystal Portal. I’ve already triple-checked the details to make sure I haven’t miss anything, but if you suspect anything to be missing, let me know.”
“Will do, Twilight. And I’ll have them photocopied as soon as I can, just in case transit bodies are still unstable with your prototype device and the baseball started disintegrating overnight.” Sunset replied, while Sci-Twi had a nervous, audible gulp as she picked up the rolled-up scrolls being deposited through the portal. “Getting some of the parts here is going to be tricky, but I and Sci-Twi should be able to improvise and develop our own version of the trans-universal portal projector, and we’ll message you for parts if we can’t find any.”
“I’ll be happy to help you any way I can.” Princess Twilight replied, smiling, “In fact, I can give you a few of those spare components right now if the portal…”
Whatever she was going to say next was interrupted when she heard a sizzling noise, coming from the portal. The rectangular shaped tear seems to be flickering, and its edges seems to be starting to retreat towards the centre. There were even a few small stray bolts of arcane energies, arching into the ground close to the mirror. Behind Spike, the various machinery that Twilight had prepared for started to raise alarms, lights beeping, klaxons blared, counters ticked furiously, and in the corner of the projector device, a power-meter indicates the device was running on the last few drops of energy.
“Looks like the portal has reached its limits and is starting to destabilized!” Princess Twilight warned, before she and Spike ducked behind the opaque blast-screen once more “Clear the area!”
“Twi, come on!” Sunset ordered, as she and Sci-Twi picked up the phone on her end along with other materials and ran for cover. It was the last sight of the Canterlot High world Princess Twilight saw before the signal was cut.
The portal’s end was as spectacular as its beginning. The portal’s edges became hazy, and subsequently shrunk, collapsing into a tiny pint-point. Then, the pinpoint of light went out in an explosive blast of light and wild magic, bathing the lab in a blinding glare.
When the light died down, all that was left was an ordinary bedroom mirror, now singed in the centre and cracked at the edges, where the portal was. There were steam and smoke coming out of the mirror, the small charred radius mark on the floor around the mirror, and around the lab.
“… Well, we’re alive.” Spike noted as he and the Twilight edged cautiously out from behind the blast-panel. “Not so sure about the rest of the lab though.”
“Oh no, the portal generator!” Twilight galloped to where the device was mounted. She ran a quick diagnostic check, and then sighed with relief when the results came out. “Thank goodness… I should had remembered that the Orichalcum alloy I used to contain the energies inside the projector could also protect the delicate circuitry from any electromagnetic and arcane energy pulses as well.”
“Same can’t be said for some of the other devices.” Spike said as he ran diagnostic tests on the other equipment in the lab, “Some that are made with what you used are fine, but the others are fried. At least the data printouts from the analysis machines you used haven’t been burnt, even if the machines were.”
There was a chime, coming from the enchanted notebook. Twilight opened it to reveal a message from Sunset. ‘Everything alright?’
‘Physically so, as is the projector.’ Twilight wrote back. She looked at the smartphone, damaged internally beyond use, and added, ‘Not so much everything else. Also, I might need a new phone.’
‘Same here. Our phones are also fried.’ Sunset wrote back. ‘Luckily our smartphones are still within their warranty periods. Might need to consider shielded containers and equipment in any future cascade failures. I read that humans invented something called ‘faraday cages’ that we could use to shield from electromagnetic pulses, which we can also adapt for thaumic pulses with different materials.’
‘Meanwhile, I’ll try to see if I could develop some components that could reduce the after-effects of a portal collapse.’ Twilight wrote. Then, smiling, she wrote, ‘Other than that and a lot of tidying up to do, though, I think this test was an astounding success. I can’t wait to tell the others!’
= = =
Of course, it wasn’t until after another month of extra testing before Twilight decided to inform the rest of the Mane Six, having perfected the prototype and ensured, beyond reasonable doubt, that transit would be as safe. She was positively giddy with excitement when she broke the news; with a compact, portable trans-universal portal projector (Spike had suggested nicknames like the ‘Porta-Port’), she and her friends could explore the multiverse with ease. Now it was a matter of seeing if they would come along for a jaunt.
In hindsight, she shouldn’t be surprised to find the initial reactions of her friends to her proposal to be… cautiously mixed. They had valid, understandable reasons for them, however.
“While it’ll be fun to travel to many other worlds, battling evildoers and helping people, I got a life here in this world, and a farm to take care of.” Applejack said, speaking her mind in her usual honest way. “I’m missing harvest right now just by being here! And when we go jumping across other worlds, my family would be left hard-pressed without an extra hoof for work and the extra bits that would bring.”
“I also got many animals to take care of back in the cottage. I can’t bear to think what would happen to them whilst I’m gone.” Kind and gentle Fluttershy added, meekly as usual, “But if you insist, I… think I can come with you on these trips.”
“I got to help the Cakes back at Sugarcube Corners. I got multiple orders of super-sized, super-sugary, super-deluxe birthday cakes to bake today, all from Canterlot, strangely enough. I’m going to be busy-busy-busy-busy all day long!” Pinkie Pie joined in, waving her hooves for emphasis, “Not to mention that Pipsqueak’s birthday is coming tomorrow and I have to get down to business planning. And who knows what orders that would pile up while I’m in another universe for who knows how long, possibly without parties or cake while at it!”
“We all have some affairs or businesses to run, darling. Winter clothes are selling like hot-cakes now that winter is coming, no pun intended Pinkie.” Rarity noted, brushing her mane on her crystal throne in the Friendship Council, while Pinkie giggled mirthfully, “All the other times we have to go out on these adventures is usually because of the urgency involved, between Princess Celestia and the Cutie Map.”
“And speaking of which, I wouldn’t want to leave our Equestria hanging, going on an adventure in another universe, while another bad guy comes up to trying to conquer Equestria or bring about Eternal Whatever in our absence.” Rainbow Dash threw in her two bits. This surprised every-pony else somewhat, since the impulsive pegasus would usually jump at a chance at adventure without second thoughts. “I may be the best flier in Equestria, but even I know I can’t be everywhere at once!”
“Don’t take this the wrong way, we’re more than happy to go with you on this, but we all have our priorities to take care of first.” Applejack vouched for every-pony.
“I understand, Applejack, and every-pony.” Princess Twilight replied, while writing down a list on a clipboard, “In fact, I appreciate that you all are open in sharing them with me. I have anticipated some of these potential problems, and has made the necessary arrangements to address them. As for the others that I didn’t consider, I may have a few suggestions.”
Twilight hoofed the pages to Spike, who then walked around the Cutie Map to hoof them over to the rest of the Mane Six. They were pleasantly surprised by what they found.
“A generous loan from an agricultural bank owned by the Crown, for hiring farm-hooves and buying equipment?” Applejack read, “Oh Twilight, you shouldn’t have…”
“This was actually Princess Celestia’s idea.” Princess Twilight mentioned, “She understands that Sweet Apple Acres is still struggling a bit financially, and wanted to help relieve the pressure and bring your farm to more modern levels of productivity. She said that considering all you had done for Equestria, you and your family earned it, and hope you consider this your hard work rewarded.”
Applejack scratched the back of her head, feeling flattered by the faint praise. “Much as my pride want me to turn it down, wanting no special treatment and earning my honest, fair share, past experience and common sense tells me to take it; we do need all the help we can get. I guess Granny Smith and Big Mac wouldn’t complain …”
“Aren’t you afraid that this would be considered nepotism by some?” Rarity pointed out as she finished reading hers “It feels like we’re taking advantage of our connection to you and the rest of Royalty.”
“It seems so, but I don’t think many ponies would complain about the Princess of Friendship helping out her friends any way she could.” Princess Twilight noted, “I promise there will be no hard feelings if you do say no.”
“Well, a lot of these suggestions are common sense, as Applejack said; though Sassy Saddles in Canterlot Boutique understood now how I run my business, hiring a few more designers and managers to help out like she suggested does make sense from a business point of view.” Rarity said “I had been meant to expand my business, and I can use the list you just gave me to hire or negotiate for joint-enterprise as a start. I’ll discuss this with Coco when I and Sassy visit Manehatten Boutique this week.”
“Treehugger and her friends would be more than happy to help me take care of my animals.” Fluttershy smiled at Twilight’s suggestion to her predicament, “I had thought about it, and if you and others do as well, I’m sure it would be alright, so long as they don’t make much of a mess.”
Can’t be as much as Angel bunny and you-know-who. Twilight thought snidely, then turn to Pinkie Pie, “Pinkie, your particular problem is actually quite tricky, but I think I have a work-around. Rainbow mentioned Gilda is considering coming back to Equestria for apprenticeship in culinary arts. She has tried applying for a post at Gustav Le Grand’s establishment, but there isn’t any post available there yet. Maybe you could help her out?”
“Of course I’m more than happy to help her out!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed in her usual excited way, almost bouncing in her seat, “When I met her again in Griffonstone, I noticed she looked like the sort who’s willing to work as hard as I do when it comes to bakery! Most ponies in-town probably forgotten her first visit anyway, so she’ll blend right back in. I got all sorts of recipes that I had been wanting to teach her! And if there’s any-pony who I’m sure could make that grumpy birdie smile, it would be the Cake twins!”
“I can see then she could easily fill in for you whenever we go on a field trip.” Twilight turned to Rainbow Dash, “That leaves us with what would be the biggest problem of going universe-hopping: National defence. Rainbow Dash is right; we’ll leave Equestria vulnerable to whoever comes along in extended trips, and when we go universe-jumping, we would have no way of knowing what happened back home, and circumstances beyond our control could prevent us from getting back quickly even if we did.”
“Have you discussed this with the other Princesses too?” Rarity inquired, her voice showing a hint of concern, “Even ignoring inter-universal travel, having villains appearing every next month or after is starting to get on our nerves, not to mention sanity, given all the pain and horrors we often have to endure fighting them off …”
“Luna and Cadence had raised that point to me when I discussed my plans with the other Princesses.” Twilight mentioned, while taking out and going through a document full of plans. “We reached a consensus on what to do about it; the Royal Guards would be seeing a major increase in the budget this quarter, which would be invested in increasing recruitment, improving training and acquiring better equipment. Whenever we go on a ‘jaunt’, Princess Celestia and Luna would put the whole Equestrian Armed Forces on alert. They would be running sweeps personally to ensure all the sealed past evils remains so and new ones don’t emerge. Plus, now we have a draconequu on our side; Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, you two have worked together to reform Discord, can you make sure he’ll keep himself in line and under control?”
“He’s been a good boy ever since Tirek and the Grand Galloping Gala, rebuilding burnt bridges and doing good deeds” Fluttershy, who taught Discord kindness and empathy, reminded Twilight, skipping past the annoying shenanigans that mischievous chaos serpent still gets up to. “I’m sure that he will behave while we’re gone.”
“And just in case, I can extract Pinkie Promises from him!” Pinkie added, having taught Discord how to have fun without hurting others. Then, she glowered menacingly, “No one, not even that zoo-animal-patchwork, breaks a Pinkie Promise and gets away with it!”
Applejack shuddered. Meanwhile Rainbow Dash asked, “What if there’s something only those who can use our Rainbow powers comes along?”
“About that…” Princess Twilight began, “I think it’s time for me to test my student in friendship, to see if she has learnt enough about the Magic of Friendship to use the Elements of Harmony.”
“Who, Starlight Glimmer?” Rainbow Dash asked, to which she received a head-shake in response.
“No, I don’t think she has learnt enough yet, though she is trying her best.” Twilight explained. “No, I mean my first student of friendship. I’m talking about Trixie!”
“That insufferable showboat.” Applejack said, snorting derisively, “You really think she has changed after that stunt she tried to pull on you and all of Ponyville?”
“Now, I know you still feel antsy about her, after all she did. But I think she should be given a chance.” Twilight said, Of course, it was hard when Trixie had humiliated Rarity, Rainbow Dash and Applejack on-stage the first time, and then came back the second time to take-over Ponyville as a tyrant with the Alicorn Amulet following the Ursa Minor incident. “While Trixie hasn’t been most diligent one when it comes to writing friendship reports, what few she did wrote had shown significant progress in making friends and learning humility. You checked her letters with your Rainbow power on, Applejack; even you said that she wasn’t making it up.”
“Well... I even had my folks in Appleloosa confirm that story about her and her associates’ adventure there.” Applejack admitted begrudgingly, but doubled down, “But if you ask me, it’ll still be mighty hard pressed for that haughty, egocentric mare to fit the requirements for being the Element of Magic. Assuming you can still get those Elements back out of the Tree, that is.”
“With Discord having removed the Plunder Vines he planted millennia ago, the Everfree should calm down significantly enough for the Tree of Harmony to hold back with its current reserves. If Trixie removes them in an emergency now, it should be able to last long enough for Trixie to deal with whatever threat she faces and then replace it back in the Tree.” Twilight explained.
“You seemed to have everything thought out before-hoof, Twilight…” Rarity said, noticing something, “How long have you been planning this, really? I can’t help but noticed that you seemed rather enthusiastic, thrilled even, by all this.”
Twilight blushed. “Well, truth be told, I… I had been thinking about it ever since I was a filly. But it wasn’t until Sunset and the Crystal Mirror showing me it was possible that this minor obsession of mine really took off. My life has always been acquiring knowledge and learning magic, but there is only so much of it in one world, and only one of me. With an infinite number of worlds out there, however, there’s no telling how much I can learn, exploring other realms, and even meeting with our counterparts! The potential had been nagging in my brain since I visited the Canterlot High world. If you were an academician, you would understand why I cannot let this chance pass.”
“I can understand, darling… in fact, we all would benefit in our own way from all this. I would love to see high cultures of other worlds and sharing them with our Equestria.” Rarity said, pointing to herself, “Applejack would love to plant other kinds of apples and crops for her farm that only other worlds have.” She continued, pointing to Applejack, whose eyes widened at the prospects. “Fluttershy would love to meet animals unique to other worlds.” Fluttershy actually grinned when she realized this, “There’s no telling what kind of comedy routines and culinary arts Pinkie Pie could learn out there.” Pinkie Pie looked up and tapped her chin, thinking. “And who knows how many contests, fights and other daring-do that Rainbow Dash would get into while we’re in other places.”
“We all stand to gain something from this. Equestria stands to gain everything from this. That’s why Princess Celestia and Luna had given their blessings.” Twilight mentioned. At the confused gazes from her friends, she elaborated, “When I read the records, I discovered that in his exploration of many alternate worlds, Starswirl the Bearded brought back with him many things that has enrich Equestria in ways beyond our imagination. From our magic and technology, to fashion and even simple things like the coffee we drink, many things we had taken for granted has its distant origins in Starswirl’s adventures beyond his Crystal Mirror. If a few journeys could bring such benefits to Equestria, who knows what else we can find that could enrich our realm and our lives even further, from across the void between parallel realities? It’s yet another reason why we should go for it. It’ll be a great disservice to all ponies in Equestria if we don’t.”
“Are you sure there aren’t any ponies in Equestria who would be more than happy to explore the multiverse in our stead?” Fluttershy asked hesitantly.
“I’m sure there are many ponies out there who would jump at this chance of a life-time, and I would like to recruit them into this, when we expand this into a national project. But right now, we all are the most qualified ponies for this endeavour. We have to be the ponies who set the example, who take the first steps and become the pioneers of this new, infinite frontier!” Twilight concluded with a flourish. Then, she asked, “So how about it? Will you join me?”
It took a moment, but eventually the others gave their approval.
“We’re all buddies here, Twi. We’ll be with you wherever you go!” Rainbow Dash declared, her enthusiasm for their future adventures now apparent.
“Besides, now that we are going to have most of our problems squared away, we should be free to make jaunts to other worlds for a while.” Applejack noted happily. “So when do you plan to set off?
Twilight smiled at this wonderful news, “How about another week? That way, we would settle whatever matters we still have on our hooves and make all the proper preparations.”
With that, the meeting was adjourned.
= = =
The departure for the first jaunt went without much fanfare. Princess Luna had advised to keep this as quietly as they could, both for security reasons, and because they still have nothing to show for it yet that is worth publicity. A simple gathering of friends, families and close associates in the chamber of the Friendship Castle Twilight had designated for ‘Jaunts’ was in order, where final checks for everything could be made.
The target reality that was chosen by its relative ‘proximity’ to this Equestria, requiring the least amount of energy with their current portal-caster to breach, thereby the easiest to maintain a connection to, and if the situation requires it, a quick get-away. Even so, when Twilight made a final briefing with the rest of the Elements of Harmony, she warned doing that might not be as convenient as it sounds.
“Perhaps I haven’t find a way to optimize it better yet, or maybe it is a fundamental trade-off by making it all compact, but for the initial few forays into a new reality, once the portal closes, in 7 minutes’ time…” Twilight explained to the assembled ponies, “We won’t be able to return home for at least 48 hours.”
“But why?” Some-pony asked.
“Because of its small size, the mana-collector in the charge box will take around 16 hours to fully-recharge the caster. But for the fabric of reality itself, that may take longer.” Spike pushed in a chalkboard on a trolley, and Twilight drew a few diagrams. “In lay-pony’s terms, the barriers between universes normally behave like a flexible membrane. Both the Crystal Mirror, and the device I developed, breaches that membrane, often at spots where the barrier is the weakest, such as in the Crystal Empire, and here in the Friendship Castle, where large concentrations of reality-altering magic constantly puts the barriers under significant stress. To create a breach, our portal devices magically stretch the barrier out of shape on both ends into a tunnel, creating a passageway that could be travelled through.”
On the blackboard, two lines, one blue and one red, represents the barriers between worlds, with the words ‘INTERDIMENSIONAL VOID’ written in between, while a pony figure stood under the words ‘OUR WORLD’ behind the blue line, and the words ‘ANOTHER WORLD’ behind the red line. At a pulse of magic from Twilight’s horn, the chalk drawings begin to animate; the two lines representing the membranes begin to converge down the centre, the bulges eventually converging, and then, fusing together. The pony figure walked through the passage that form in its wake to the other side.
Twilight paused to let the other ponies digest this information. Then, she continued, “However, the barriers are not supposed to be stretched that way. A stretched sheet of elastic rubber, if you let go, would bounce back to its original shape. In the same way, once so would the barrier between worlds.”
On cue, the animated chalk-drawing on the blackboard collapses, and the barriers bounce back into their original shapes, leaving the pony figure stranded on the other side. Then something curious occurs; like a surface of water upon impact of a water drop, as the membrane surfaces of the barriers on both worlds finish retracting back to the tunnel’s centre point, a bulge briefly formed in the direction away from the INTERDIMENSIONAL VOID, before settling back to a flatter morphology.
“What you see there is a phenomenon which I would call a ‘Barrier Rebound’,” Twilight explained, “The energy or momentum of collapsing space-time membrane causes barrier to briefly ‘squeeze’ together, creating a thicker membrane and/or briefly increasing the relative ‘distance’ between two universes. While I had measured that a rebound usually dies down within 48 hours, for that period of time, not only would it be impossible to reuse the same location to perform a world-hopping jump, even if you had the energy for it, it would be difficult to puncture through the barrier.”
“So wha’ yer basically sayin’ is, once the portal closes, we’ll effectively be stuck in another world fer two days straight?” Applejack summarized.
“In essence… yes.” Twilight admitted awkwardly. “But as our understanding of interdimensional mechanics and subsequently tools improves, I’m sure we could shorten that time period considerably.”
Some of the ponies present shifted uncomfortably at this revelation.
“Not that I don’t have confidence in my sister and her friends handling themselves well in another world, that still sounds pretty risky.” Shining Armor, husband of Princess Cadence, co-regent of the Crystal Empire, and big brother of Twilight Sparkle, stepped forward from the crowd to voice their collective concerns. “If it turns out you landed in a hostile reality, you’ll be effectively trapped there for two days, and would be forced to survive in an unknown environment, completely cut off from any support or egress route, possibly even surrounded by unknown hostile natives. We won’t even know that you would be in danger for that long, let alone help you in any way. We have a term for that back in the Royal Guards academy: ‘Trapped behind enemy lines’, which is one of the worst case scenarios for any soldier on a mission.”
“Well, Daring Do had to do that all the time on her adventures! If she could do that, I don’t see how we couldn’t as well!” Rainbow Dash boasted confidently.
“With all due respect, Ms Dash, Daring Do is fiction. This is reality, and alternate realities!” Shining Armor insisted.
Meanwhile, in a book convention, A.K. Yearling sneezed.
“There are so many unknown dangers that you six could face on the other side, things and situation that no-pony might immediately know how to handle! And if anything happens to you…!”
“Calm down, honey, they’ll be alright.” Princess Cadence, Alicorn princess of the Crystal Empire, wife of Shining Armor, laid a reassuring hoof upon his shoulders, “Twilight and her friends had been to a lot of adventures like this before and came out relatively unscathed. And besides, this is Twilight we’re talking about! I’m sure your little sister would have thought about every possible scenario and had some plans for them.”
“We had thought about it, and made some preparations.” Twilight confirmed. From a backpack, she pulled out what appeared to be a leather-bound notebook, “For one, we’ll stay under a low profile to avoid attention, and get involved with affairs of other worlds only if it’s absolutely necessary. I’ll carry an enchanted diary like the one I gave to Sunset Shimmer that will allow me to regularly contact you and every-pony else back here in Equestria. I’ll update regularly every day, we spent on the other side to report our status. If we miss a check-in at an arranged time, or outright wrote for help, you’ll all know right away.” Even as she elaborated, she hoofed out more enchanted notebooks to the rest of the Mane Six, “And for extra security, everypony would carry one as well, both to keep in touch with each other and being able to independently contact home if we get separated.”
“And what if say… you lost your portal-caster device and couldn’t get back? Or you get subverted or have duplicates created by some-pony evil and sent back to Equestria?” Princess Cadence added, voicing her own concerns. Twilight noted there was a palpable look of fear and anger at the mention of the latter problem, and catches her implications immediately.
“For the former problem, I’ve left design schematics for my portal-caster, which should allow a second device to be quickly assembled; I’ll also be leaving a note of the co-ordinates for the universe we’re visiting. That way, in the event that we lose the device and get stranded, a rescue operation could be mounted.” Twilight reassured.
She would love to go on elaborating how this would also allow for an expanded operation in the future, with other teams of ponies assembled by the Royal government could go out exploring the multiverse, but she left that for a later date. “As for the latter problem, I have this security measure: I have here a number of different trick questions, each with only one specific, fully correct answer.” She gave a few sealed envelopes to each of the other Princesses and her brother, “Read yours some-place private, and don’t tell anyone. I know the answer and the others already memorized their own. When we return, each of you must ask each of us one of the questions you got, and you’ll know that it’s us if we answer it exactly as detailed.”
“What if some-pony who’s trying to impersonate you wrangled those answers out of your brain with telepathy or something?”
Twilight shrugged, “It’s a stop-gap measure. I’ll come up with something better once we started coming back with knowledge and tools that could give us more options. For now, though, these would cover all the necessary bases.”
With that out of the way, and all preparations made, it was time for departure. Farewells were made, and each of the Mane Six had a few words with their friends, associates and loved ones.
“Come on, Dash! Don’t just leave me here!” The orange coated pegasi filly that called Rainbow Dash her surrogate sister begged, hugging her leg tightly. She didn’t entertain the thought of her idol and mentor risking her life and limb adventuring in some other world – at least, not without her.
“Hey, now Scootaloo, I know you want to come with me, but… well, it’s too dangerous for young fillies to come along.” Rainbow Dash explained, as best she could, giving her surrogate sister, and apprentice a stroke in her purple mane, “Tell you what, when you grow up and get yourself trained up, all big, strong and fast like me, you can join me on as many of these field trips as you want, just like Daring Doo and her companions!”
“But that’ll take too loooong!” Scootaloo whined, hugging tighter. “And what if you need me, your sidekick, to help you out of a jam like Daring Doo does?”
Rainbow Dash smiled; having saved the real deal once, she knows how that feels. “Maybe, but I got my friends with me; they won’t leave me hanging like I won’t leave them hanging, out there. And besides, I need you here for a special task only you can do.”
“What, really?” Scootaloo’s ears pricked upwards at that.
“Sure do.” Rainbow Dash confirmed, “With me going out on jaunts with the others from now on, I won’t always be around to look out for Ponyville, and you know how crazy some days could get here. I need you to look after it for me; and don’t forget, you won’t be alone, not when your two buddies here to help you out.” She grabbed Scootaloo’s head, and stared down at it, her smile growing wider as she threw a challenge in to motivate her, “Do you think you got what it takes to protect Ponyville, Cutie Mark Crusader? To be the hero it needs?”
Scootaloo’s sour disposition brightened, and she accepted the challenge issued to her with a salute, “Don’t worry Dash! You can count on me! I won’t let you down!”
Rainbow Dash looked up to three other ponies behind Scootaloo. She looked at Spitfire and SOarin, her superiors in the Wonderbolts. “I won’t let you down, too, madam.”
“We know you wouldn’t.” Soarin said, returning it. “Despite a rough start, you’re one of the finest Wonderbolts we’ve got. Just make sure to come back safe and sound; we got more shows to fly here in our Equestria!”
“And don’t forget that out there, you’re our sole representative.” Spitfire added her two piece, “There’s a duty resting on your shoulders. Maybe someday, some of us would join you on your jaunts and share it with you, but until then, do us and our traditions proud!”
“Yes madam!” Rainbow saluted.
The last pony Rainbow turned to was one she knew from birth; her father, Spectrum Blitz, looked at her impassively. She wished mother could be here as well, but she’ll take what she got.
“Dad?” Rainbow asked, wondering what he has to say.
The proud pegasi merely grinned, “Knock ‘em dead, kiddo.” He said simply, raising his hoof.
Rainbow smiled, and returned the hoof-bump.
“Take care of the farm while I’m gone with the others, will ya?” Applejack said to her little sister Applebloom.
The young filly fidgeted; she also didn’t want her sister to go, but by this point she has accepted it. “I promise, sis. I’m an Apple filly, and a dependable and trustworthy Apple always keeps their promises.”
“And an Apple also remembers the Golden Rule, no matter which ends o’ the world they end up.” Granny Smith, even though an old green mare lacking in mobility, had stubbornly insisted on coming all the way from Sweet Apple Acres to see her granddaughter off. “Don’t know much about this here world-jumping thingamajig, but what I do know is you’ll probably be seeing Apples from other places. Remember to treat them like any other kin, even if they’re from somewhere way off the branches. And always treat every-pony else otherwise the way you want to be treated!”
“I will, granny.” She gave her a hug, then turned to Big Macintosh, her ever quiet and sturdy big brother. “Everything’s well at the farm now?”
“Eeyup.” Big Mac confirmed. The bits and farmworkers from the loan Twilight had arranged came that morning.
“Come back in one piece for the harvest?”
“Eeyup.” The maroon stallion repeated.
“And don’t forget to bring back some new crops to try out?”
“Eeyup.” Came the third time.
Applejack smirked slightly, “Maybe I could also bring back something that would help you speak more freely.”
“No need!” Big Macintosh said firmly, stamping a hoof. He didn’t want a repeat of what happened when Starlight Glimmer tries to befriend him, “I can speak my mind if I want to.”
“I’m sure you do.” Applejack said teasingly.
Fluttershy had given all her family members goodbyes and a hug – and to Discord a few stern reminders to keep in line. She turned to her animal friends, “If you would kindly do so, my little friends, please behave while I’m gone. Treehugger is a wonderful friend, and I don’t want to impose on her as much as I already have asking her and her friends take care of you for me. I promise I’ll come back to talk about all the other strange creatures I’ll find and befriend out there.”
She gave a frightened ‘Eep!’ when her ferocious bear friend… bear-hugged her, whimpering uncharacteristically, while the rest of the birds, squirrels, and other little critters swarmed around her, each chirping, hooting or singing their own take-cares and farewells. Angel the bunny would admittedly miss her caretaker, but right now, he’s standing aside, gleefully thinking of all the wonderful, wonderful things he has planned to make Treehugger’s life a living Tartarus.
“Mother, father, I know this may be asking a bit too much.” Rarity began as she spoke with her own parents. “But please take care of Sweetie Belle while I’m gone.”
“Oh don’t worry about it, sweet heart! We’ll make sure Sweetie would be safe and sound while you’re off on a trip of a life-time!” Magnum, her father, declared loudly.
“You’ve taken care of Sweetie Belle for us for so long, it’s about time we take care of her for you.” Rarity’s mother assured. “Don’t forget to do some shopping while in other worlds! I want to see if those markets there have some good merchandise!”
“Bring back a new doll! Or a new dress! Or maybe a spell book for me to practice my magic with! Please, big sis!” Sweetie Belle practically squeed as she begged, enthusiastic at the prospects of finally being able to spend time with her parents.
Rarity coughed politely and smiled. Her family; she loved them, but they always seemed a burden, somewhat. Between the way her sports fanatic of a father and her shop-a-holic of a mother, they always seemed to be off doing other things and being out of her and Sweetie’s life at Ponyville Boutique. Not to mention how badly they dressed; what are they wearing right now to see her off?!
“Thou hath always brought some much needed brightness upon our fair household.” Igneous Rock Pie said to Pinkie, adjusting his rock-farmer’s hat slightly as he did. “Tis’ would be a shame to see it dimmed with ye gone into the wild-blue yonder.”
“Don’t worry too much, daddy! I won’t be gone long, and when I come back, I’ll throw the ‘Welcome Back, Pinkie!’ party myself!” Pinkie reassured. For emphasis, she fired a shower of confetti from her party cannon.
“Thou shalt surely bring forth mirth and merriment to many a dour world out there as you had us, methinks.” Pinkie’s mother, Cloudy Quartz, casually observed.
“Don’t forget to bring some friends back for Boulder.” Maud Pie, Pinkie’s big sister, reminded in her usual monotone voice and expression. She was filling in for Limestone and Marble Pie, who were left behind to take care of the Pie Rock Farm while their parents went to Ponyville.
“And not to mention some recipes and ingredients for Sugarcube Corners, too!” the tall and lanky Mr Cake added, Mrs Cake beside him, “Having cakes and confections that are literally out of this world is going to bring us record business!”
“I will! And I’ll bring back some wonderful toys for the twins to play with, too!” Pinkie added as she nuzzled Pumpkin and Pound Cake resting on Mrs Cake’s back.
At last, only Twilight remained to see her loved ones off.
Twilight looked towards Princess Celestia, her own idol, former teacher, and now fellow Princess; she and Princess Luna looked back at her. Both, however, kept their silence.
“So ...” Twilight began, uncertainly, “… No advice? No encouragements? No insights? No words of wisdom? No reminders? No discretions?” At their apparent lack of response, she added, “I mean, I know am still thinking about the concerns and misgivings you have raised about my proposed expedition. I know it could be dangerous, and if you think I and the others not ready for this, I can just -”
Whatever she wanted to say next was cut off by Celestia coming forward to give her a comforting equine hug, quieting her. “Have confidence in yourself, my little pony.” Princess Celestia reassured her, “We gave you the go-ahead because we know that you and your friends always had the strength to overcome over any challenge, the insight to solve any mystery, the will to endure any hardship, and the wisdom to make correct judgement in any choices. What is there left to say? We trust you to find your way home and out of danger, even if separated by the gulf between realities.”
“The answers to all predicaments always lay within your heart and mind, Princess Twilight. All my sister had done was merely help you find it.” Princess Luna added, putting a hoof on Twilight’s shoulders, “She has watched you grow from a young, naïve filly into mature, brilliant mare. You have earned not only our love, but every pony who live free and harmonious lives today, because of the times you and your friends had delivered us from tyranny and chaos. In doing so, you have surpassed our expectations, and even ourselves. You can count on us to help you when you need it, but remember that you can always count on yourself. Magic can never find a better wielder, and few ponies could deserve Alicornhood than you.”
“Now go, Twilight; go forth with our blessing, spread friendship and harmony across the planes, enrich your lives and ours with what you find as I and Starswirl had done before, and… and…”
Princess Celestia paused, uncertain how to continue. At the sight of her pained expression, Twilight guessed what she wanted to say. What she was referring to.
“We’ll find him, Princess.” Twilight whispered, “We’ll find a way to go back to that world and save him. No matter how long it takes.”
Princess Celestia gave a thin smile. “Thank you, Twilight.” She said, hugging Twilight once more with her wings and then releasing her.
“Take care of yourself out there.” Moonlight ‘Night Light’ Sparkle, Twilight’s father, said to her for both him and her mother. “We look forward to you sharing stories of your extra-dimensional adventures at Hearths Warming Eve.”
“I will, mom and dad.” Twilight assured, “I’ll bring back the pictures and new books.”
“And maybe something for Flurry Heart as well.” Shining Armor added. Behind him, on his back, baby Flurry Heart waved at her auntie, cooing as her mother leaned closer to nuzzle her.
Starlight Glimmer stepped forward. “Are you sure you’re fine with me staying here by myself?”
Twilight patted her back, “You have gone a long way from who you were already, Starlight. I trust you and Spike to look after the caste and Ponyville while we’re gone. We’ll take you both with us for our next jaunts, if you want to. Just remember to keep yourself open to ideas and new friends until then.”
At the trust placed on her, Starlight gave a warm smile and nodded, moving aside to let Spike and Owlicious, Twilight’s owl, to say their goodbyes.
“Everypony! It’s time.”
The Mane Six putted on their saddlebags, carrying their supplies and tools, and waited before a bedroom mirror at the centre of the room. The others stood back behind the blast panels set up in the chamber. At the throw of the switch, the portal-caster mounted on Twilight’s saddle fired up once more; and before them, a glowing portal appeared, and with it an infinite frontier beckoned, waiting for its pioneers to take their first steps.
“On this day, a new age begins!” Twilight declared, trotting forward, as did the rest of the Mane Six. “Onward, my friends! New worlds, new friends and new adventures awaits us!”
Jaunt 1.0 - Trooper924 First Jaunt Arc Pt 1
The ponies emerged from a puddle on the ground. Rainbow Dash looked around and gave her assessment of their surroundings.
"It's just a field."
"It's not just a field, Rainbow Dash," Twilight Sparkle said as she checked the portal caster. "It's a field in an alternate universe! This is a major historical moment!"
"It's still just a field though," muttered Rainbow Dash, sullenly kicking a flower. "I was hoping the first universe we visited would be, like, ruled by evil warlord versions of us or be populated by snakes or whatever."
"That's....an interesting thought," Rarity said, involuntarily shuddering at the thought of a world inhabited by the slimy reptiles.
"Snakes are nice," Fluttershy added timidly.
Behind them, the portal closed with a shoom. "Well, that's it then," Applejack said. "So, just what are we gonna do fer the next two days?"
"I've already thought of that," Twilight said brightly, momentarily forgetting about the portal castor. She pulled out a list from her saddle bags. "I thought that first we should collect some soil and water samples, have them prepared for analysis. Oh, we should collect plant samples too - !"
"And we can go to that cool party in that town over there!" Pinkie said excitedly.
Twilight blinked. "What?"
"That town over there," Pinkie said, pointing. And indeed, there was a small village off in the distance. "My Pinkie sense tells me that a huge party is about to start there! So can we go there? Can we? Can we? Can we?"
"Um..." Twilight looked down at her list as Pinkie bounced around her. "We weren't supposed to make first contact until at least Step 543 on the list...."
"Come on, Twi," Applejack said, walking up next to the unicorn. "Wasn't one of points of this whole shindig to meet new friends?"
"Well..." Twilight took out a pair of binoculars from her saddlebags and took a look at village. She noted that the buildings seemed to be a mix of Griffon and Diamond Dog architecture as well a few others that Twilight didn't recognize.
"Alright," she said finally, putting away the binoculars. "But we'll take things slowly. We keep a low profile, stick together and try to avoid talking to anyone until we can learn more about this world. And at the first sign of trouble, we leave immediately."
"Yipee!" Pinkie squeed as the group started towards the village. "Trans-dimensional party, here we come!"
= = =
From a distance, unseen by the ponies, a cloaked figure watched them go.
"Strange visitors....what a curious mystery," she muttered, then she shook her head. "No, they don't matter. I must focus on my final victory."
Then she dissolved into mist and disappeared.
Jaunt 1.1 – BrutalityInc First Jaunt Arc Pt 2
Twilight’s Notebook - Day 1 of Jaunt
“… We entered the village from one of the side roads, avoiding any potential encounters with the denizens before melding unnoticed into the crowds that had gathered in the main street. Under the hats and cloaks we brought specifically for these occasions (Plus Rarity’s and Pinkie’s supplies of accessories), we were largely ignored by the locals, their attention diverted by their celebration of a festival.
Now inside, we were awarded a better look of the village than it would suffice with long distance observation. Just what we have seen, heard and recorded hints at the potentially vast differences between the world we were visiting and Equestria from whence we came, although we should remind ourselves that this is merely one settlement, and what find here might not be representative of the whole land. There are several noticeable features, when compared with Ponyville:
For one, this village is much more cosmopolitan; as highlighted by the architectural features from afar, there is a sizable population of griffons and diamond dogs living in the village. Although they are not of breeds that are either common or we could even recognize from experience or books back in Equestria, they all possess the same general biological traits as those back home. There were even a few deer in the crowds, one of which bumped into Pinkie Pie. From initial observations, they seem to get along well.
There are, of course, ponies in the mix, which I consider a blessing as we would otherwise stood out like a crystal ewe among a pack of timber-wolves (Not that I’m comparing the griffons and diamond dogs to the predators, just for the record). Similar to Ponyville, many of them are earth-ponies, with a few pegasi and unicorns in between. Like us, they possessed pastel-colored coats, tails and manes, and even have cutie-marks like us. Their uncanny similarities with us ponies in Equestria are such that, if we didn’t know that we have landed in another universe, it would be virtually impossible to tell that these ponies are not from Equestria.
Another notable difference compare to our Equestria is that this society seems to be firmly medieval; all the denizens wore leather and wool-based clothing that would correspond with those worn in the Equestrian high middle ages, although many prefer to go out naked like we do. There were a few ponies-at-arms apparently from a nearby town, headed by an armoured male griffon, and a younger female griffon which base on her looks appeared to be related to him. Both they and the villagers' mannerisms and habits also resembled medieval life as uncovered by historians and archaeologists, although the local culture is sufficiently alien enough compare to medieval Equestria that I was not able to immediately recognized them as such.
There were no paved roads, no street-lamps, no fire hydrants and water pipes, or even a sewer-line, beyond dirt paths, a few torches, a well and ditches, all which suggests the absence of a modern infrastructure found even in Ponyville. There were not even glass windows on buildings except, from what we later discovered, a chapel which besides the market served as one of the few public places around which life in the area revolves around (More on the religious/spiritual ways of life of the locals later). The locals lack the modern commodities, tools and appliances that we had long taken for granted, which points to a lack of industrialization compare to Equestria.
All these conjectures are backed by the fact that, as we observed earlier, there are considerable farmland surrounding the village and across the river to the west of the settlement, but no structure resembling either a factory, workshop or even a windmill in the area, all of which strongly suggests a land- and agricultural-centred economy that form the heart of many pre-Industrial societies. I suspect the political system is also strongly feudal, unlike the more modern constitutional monarchy of our Equestria. If so, given today seemed to be a very special public occasion, I suspect we shall soon encounter the local lord, baron or whoever is in charge of the fief which this village seems to be the heart of.
One thing needed to be noted before I continue is that we encountered a problem which might also appear in future jaunts in other worlds, one which strained our ability to comprehend or interact with the locals, or find out more about the place we arrived at, at least until we found their equivalent of an inn, which was ran by a young teenage colt and his mother…
Jaunt 1.2 - Grogar-the-oneser First Jaunt Arc Pt 3 (With edits/polishing by me)
"Rarity, will you stop that!" Applejack said, annoyed. "I thought you would be happier since you like medieval-time clothing."
"It's true I like the clothing. It's the plumbing situation I don't like." Rarity said.
"Oh come on, it can't be that bad." Applejack said as they were sitting in the room while the others get food.
"It's smells like someone died in there!" Rarity snapped. "There were literally a colony of flies that shot out when I opened the door.
"Calm down Rarity, we won't be staying here for long." Twilight said. "This is just a first stop."
"HEAHERAEHREWSGSSDJTHSRE!" Pinkie nodded with her cheek bulging with food.
Jaunt 1.3 - zaku789 First Jaunt Arc Pt 4 (With edits/polishing by me)
"Pinkie, I get that you like treats from the carnival, but you'll ruin your appetite for for lunch. Plus, eating with your mouth full is uncouth." Rarity said, but with a slight grin to her voice.
"See, you're perking up already. Now all we have to is wait for Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy to get back here with the food, and we'll be set for tonight on what I'm sure will be a fun adventure." Twilight said happily.
Four hours later...
"How did we all end up here?!" Twilight shouted with shock, as they were sitting in a jail cell.
"Well there's a funny story to that." Rainbow Dash said, blushing with embarrassment.
"She punched the visiting baron's guards." Fluttershy said blandly.
"WHAT?!"
"I thought they were bad guys! They were wearing black armor with a purple tint to it!" Rainbow said defensively. "Plus one of them was near the owner son looking ready to grab him so - !"
"Oh! Did it turn out that the guard who was attacked was actually one of the boy's relatives?" Pinkie asked.
"Yep." Fluttershy said. "It was his uncle to be precise."
"So that means, when Rainbow attacked, she literally struck a guy who just wanted to hug the nephew he hasn't seen in a while." Applejack muttered.
"And the reason we're all stuck here is because rainbow is charged with assault, with us as accomplices." Rarity added with a tone of annoyance.
Jaunt 1.4 - Alex Warlorn (With edits/additions by me)
Twilight’s Notebook
"Inevitably, as we travel the multiverse, making friends, helping worlds and bringing back knowledge and goods back to Equestria, we found ourselves encountering many unsavory characters who have less than noble, if not downright horrid intentions in their use of interdimensional travelling capabilities.
We encountered one group of such individuals early in our travels. What made this one particularly unsettling to us, even to this day, is that we know full well exactly WHO they were. And what they were doing was horrible almost beyond words ..."
= = =
They appeared in a bright pink painfully colored and sugary sweet town. A sign nearby with the cheerful words, "Welcome to Ponyville"... if most of the houses hadn't been blown open, and others had burned to the ground.
"Looks like freakin' Tirek happened to this place." Applejack said.
"Don't even joke darling," Rarity said.
"NO! Why did you come back!" It was ... a pink mare, who sort of looked like one of Pinkie Pie's clones when she made that 'crazy face'... in fact, she had a cutie mark similar to Pinkie's too, except her mane was light pink and her coat was dark pink.
"Come back? W-what do you-" Twilight began to say.
"YOU ALREADY TOOK MINTY FROM ME! What more do you ... you... you not-good-ponies want?!" The other Pinkie Pie broke down sobbing. "I... I WON'T tell you where the others are! Just... just make me not-alive... so... so I can be where Minty is..."
Then... another portal opened... with an identical mane six. "I just know we missed some of those abominations the last time we were... who the hell are you?" The other Twilight Sparkle demanded, raising an eyebrow at the first Twilight Sparkle...
Jaunt 1.5 - zaku789 (With edits/additions by me)
"Stop, stop!" Applejack interjected, annoyed.
"What?" Rainbow Dash blinked.
"You described a world where the Megan was evil, a crapsaccharine world where ponies want to lynch us, and a sugar sweet world which an evil version of us was attacking, seeing it and everypony in it as abominations, and then we show up to fight them." Applejack said "Don't you think all that sounds like a bad fanfic, or at the least a grim-dark one?"
"It could happen! It's a big multiverse!" Rainbow Dash said defensively. “For all we know, this could be happening somewhere right now!”
"Why would you want that to happen?" Twilight asked.
"Well, not the horrible stuff I mentioned. I mean us appearing and stopping evil them before they do all that stuff in the last world." Rainbow Dash clarified.
"What about the other three?"
"Well we stop the evil Megan and her family, show them the error of their evil ways, convince the crapssacharine world to drop the first part of the name and maybe.... I don't know, convince them to be good people." Rainbow Dash said with a shrug.
"It's amazing what goes on in her head sometimes." Rarity said with everyone nodding.
= = =
Meanwhile, in a different world-line...
"Well.... we did it, we defeated evil us, convinced some of Hydia family to turn good, and in return they gave us this potion so that the 3.5 world can live again." Twilight said calmly with all her friends, looking battered and scarred, but satisfied as they view 3.5 ponies playing peacefully with that world, with Pinkie playing with Minty.
= = =
“Anyway, let me finish before you judge!” Rainbow Dash admonished, waving off the nitpicking, “As I was saying, so there they were, us Mane Six and our counterparts, standing off, and the other Twilight demand to know who our Twilight here is…”
Jaunt 1.6 - Kendell2 Magenta Diamond Arc Pt 1 (Crossover/Fusion with Steven Universe)
Twilight's Notebook
The membranes between worlds are...strange. Sometimes, they form natural links between them. Other times, they form brief natural connections. Rainbow Dash insists on calling these worlds 'Crossovers'. A strange but accurate term.
The Mane Cast, to their relief following several other Equestrias that were wildly different or frightening, emerged from a portal to find themselves in a world that seemed identical to their own, at least on the surface.
"So we go from crazy alternate worlds with more Griffins and Diamond Dogs than ponies and other crazy places to...home?" Rainbow Dash asked.
"Things aren't always what they seem, Rainbow Dash," Twilight said. "None of these worlds CAN be identical to ours, something must be different..."
"Hey girls!"
The group blinked, turning to see a small human child with black hair, blue jeans, and a pink shirt with a yellow star in the middle of it run up, waving.
"Ugh, can't we ever NOT skip straight to 543!" Twilight complained.
The little boy blinked. "Wait, uh, Rainbow weren't you back there?" he asked, pointing the direction he'd come from.
"There you are!" said a second Rainbow Dash, flying over, followed by Diamond Tiara, another, darker skinned human girl about Steven's aged, and several ponies the group hadn't seen before.
One was a tall, powerful looking reddish purple unicorn about Big Mac's size wearing pointed shades, her mane like a square afro and a star over half her chest, with two gemstones that seemed to be a part of the inside of her legs, as close to her hooves as possible. Another was a purple, much shorter long haired pegasus with a purple gemstone that seemed to be a part of her chest. A tail, white unicorn of Fleur's build with a well kept yellow mane, a white pearl on her forehead directly below her horn followed shortly there after.
"Whao..." BOTH Rainbow Dashs said at once.
"Wait for me!" yelled a small, green unicorn with a triangular peridot gem on her forehead and a yellow visor over her face, her mane forming a rounded triangle, trying to catch up. A blue Earth Pony with a gem in the middle of her back followed slowly behind her, seeming to want to keep her distance.
"Whao... is it just me or am I seeing double?" the purple pegasus questioned.
"So you're from another universe?" asked the young girl, who was named Connie, the group now in the park. "So that means multiverse theory is true?... Well, beyond the three universes interlinked here."
Twilight nodded. "We've actually been to a few of them."
"That is so cool."
Twilight, apparently BOTH Twilight and the native Twilight, seemed to get along well with her.
"So, you're like...alien rocks?" Rainbow Dash asked, thankfully the fact they'd ALREADY met the native versions of them had smoothed things over.
The small green one, Peridot rolled her eyes. "We're crystalline alien lifeforms who project a holographic physical form...except Steven who is a hybrid."
"Oh...so you're not normally ponies?" asked Rainbow asked.
"No, this is...ugh, how did Steven put it? 'A form you are comfortable with...did I say that right?" she asked, looking to the young boy, seemingly looking for approval.
"Yeah! I saw it in a movie once!" said Steven happily, seeming like your normal kid..
Twilight looked to them. "So what do you really look like?"
"Are true physical forms resemble humans," Pearl, the tall unicorn, explained, seeming a bit cautious about extradimensional visitors, but Steven HAD asked her to give this a chance. "Our true bodies are simply our Gems."
"Yeah, on Earth, we look like this!" the purple pegasus, named Amethyst, her physical body turning into purple energy before transforming into a short human woman with the same coloration and wearing a purple outfit.
Peridot gave an annoyed sigh. "That is still a massive waste of energy to just switch back and forth. Staying in a single form is much more efficient if we have to disguise ourselves!"
Half-way through, Amethyst turned into a purple version of Peridot's pony form and mimicked her.
Diamond Tiara cleared her throat.
"Oh, right. DT always looks like that," said Amethyst.
"What?!" asked most of the visiting group.
"I'm a Gem," Diamond said, in a mixture of hesitance and...well, DIAMOND TIARA. She turned around and pushed her mane up, revealing a diamond shaped Gemstone in the back of her neck that was the same color as her fur.
"Well...didn't see that comin'..." Applejack said while the others looked shocked.
"I take it I'm NOT a Gem where you're from?" Diamond asked, merely getting a headshake. She gave a sigh. "I don't know if I'm happy or upset about that..."
"But, how?" Twilight asked.
"My mom and Pearl found her back on our world a long time ago and sent her over here using the Rainbow Bridge to hide her from some really bad Gems," Steven explained.
"Why?"
"Cause she's apparently the Gem version of an Alicorn," the native Rainbow explained. "Or something."
"She's a DIAMOND! How hard is that to remember?!" Peridot asked, seeming to take that fact anything but lightly.
"We don't know WHY she was there," Pearl explained. "Peridot theorizes the Earth just happened to have an extremely rare material needed to make a Diamond and even the other Gems didn't realize what they'd created."
"But if she's one of you, why is her true form a pony?" asked Twilight.
"Because I WANT to be one," Diamond clarified. "Do I NEED another reason?"
"...I guess not..."
"To be more specific, a Gem's physical form is dependent on their personal preferences," Peridot explained. "She spent her entire post emergence period disguised as such on orders before being put back into Equus' soil to continue growing, then being raised as a pony rather than as a Gem. Absorption of native mana and magic also allowed her to obtain what you ponies call a 'Cutie Mark' naturally. However, she's currently in a compact form, her true size would be roughly twenty feet tall."
Twilight blinked in confusion and looked at Diamond.
The little filly blushed, which apparently she could. "I don't know how to use my powers yet, alright? I only found out I even WAS a Gem a few weeks ago!"
"I see...This world is rather interesting. The divergence point is merely one pony being a different species...and the presence of other worlds."
Jaunt 1.7 - Grogar-the-oneser (Toy Story crossover/homage)
"I know how it happened, I just want to know how we can make it unhappen!" Applejack snapped. Each of them were transformed into toys the moment they arrived, for some reason, and were standing in a yard. "This is just too weird."
"Still, it's quite interesting, and this is coming from someone who experiences changes quite a bit." Twilight admitted.
"Yeah, it's cool!" Pinkie said giggling, but turned serious, "As long as were not in a bad yard."
"What?" Rainbow dash said, confused.
"There are two kinds of kids when it comes to toys; the ones that take care of them, and the ones that are destructive." Pinkie explained.
"Oh come on Pinkie, your being far too dramatic." Rainbow Dash said.
= = =
"AHH!!" Rainbow Dash screamed as she hit a dartboard. The kid that found them shot them from a slingshot.
"I warned you, Dashie!"
Jaunt 1.8 – MtangaLion First Jaunt Arc Pt 5
Rarity sighed. "Honestly, Rainbow Dash. Here we are, actually exploring another world, and you're fantasizing about some entirely different fictional adventure?"
"Only because I'm *bored* of sitting around in a jail cell." Dash leaned closer, lowering her voice. "Can't you magic the keys to our cell over here?"
"I did try, darling. I shudder to think what manner of medieval vermin might be infesting my coat at this very moment. However, the entire cell seems to be lined with cold iron."
"I could probably overpower it," mused Twilight. "Of course, the feedback might tear the whole jail apart, and we're sort of trying to make a good impression."
Before they could make any further escape plans, the door leading to the cells clanged and swung open on creaking hinges. A wolf-like Diamond Dog and a rough-looking earth pony colt entered first, taking up guard posts. Then a female griffon resembling a raven and a gray tabby cat approached their cell... the officer that they'd noticed before. All three of them were equipped with well-worn practical metal armor.
The griffon twitched, squinting at them with one eye, then the other. "Ponies attacking nobles. Now I've seen everything."
"Please, this was all just a big understanding," said Fluttershy earnestly.
Pinkie Pie grinned squeakily. "Would an apology song help?"
"I'm really sorry," said Rainbow Dash.
Applejack nodded. "She really is."
The griffon jabbed a talon towards them. "Yeah? Well, we'll see about that, when our wizard figures out what that cannon thing you had is supposed to do. If it's one of those lame party cannons, you get off with a warning, but if it's a real weapon..." She smirked and scraped her talon along a cell bar, making a horrible screeching sound.
The griffon blinked and inclined her head, noticing something. "What's that you're hiding under your cloak?" She glared at the earth pony guard. "Why didn't you take those?"
"Who?" asked Twilight. "Wait... me? But..."
The griffon officer drew her sword and slipped it between the cell bars, flicking Twilight's cloak aside to reveal that she had both a horn and wings. "By the dragons..." hissed the griffon.
The Diamond dog yipped! "N-Nightmare!" He drew his own sword, snarling and advancing on the cell. The earth pony soldier snorted and pawed at the stone floor.
"No, wait!" cried Twilight. "I'm not a Nightmare, I'm an Alicorn!"
"Whoa, whoa whoa!" shouted the griffon, snapping her wings open to wave the guards back. "Do you really think this cell could hold a Nightmare?" Watching Twilight like a hawk, she drew a coin from a pouch and flicked it into the cell with them. "Let's see your magic, pony. Just lift the coin, and no funny business."
Twilight was confused, but she did what she was asked, lighting her horn and floating the coin in her usual violet aura.
The griffon relaxed, slightly. "There, you see? Nightmares can only use Dark magic. Everybody knows that." She snapped her talons. "Get some more soldiers here. The captain needs to see this... Alicorn."
Jaunt 1.9 - Grogar-the-oneser and BrutalityInc First Jaunt Arc Pt 6
The Mane Six were escorted to a room above the cell they were imprisoned in. Cold iron bars were replaced with an arrowslit of the village keep, from which the afternoon sunlight filtered through. Straw bed was replaced with a table and chairs, next to a weapons rack and barrels containing what Twilight suspect to be oil or wine, based on the smell, either to pour out at invaders or between meals.
The guards’ room wasn’t the captain’s; he and his stallions had a much better chamber back in the baron’s castle. But there was no place else to conduct an interrogation. Applejack noticed that he was big, rough and sturdy in terms of built even for a griffon, of a breed being crossed between an eagle and a mountain lion. Rarity noticed his finely face and beak is marred by a few scars, complemented by white feathers that seems to be starting to grey from age, and some parts of it stained with dots and patches of… something oily black that they couldn’t recognize.
"So you are supposed to be a what?" The captain asked irritably. His gruff voice betrayed his annoyance at the motley group before him. After all, the blue pegasi did attack one of his ponies-at-arms, and offended by calling them ‘bad-guys’.
"An alicorn." Twilight said calmly.
“An alicorn… never heard of any known tribe of ponies called alicorns.” The griffon captain said. He picked up a stylus begin to write down the information on a few papers under candlelight, "How do I know this isn't some very elaborate hoax created by a nightmare to attack this area?"
"Believe me when I say me and my friend would never let a nightmare harm anyone. we might try to cure them, but not work with them." Twilight replied.
"Cure them, HA!" The captain laughed harshly, perhaps a little too harshly. There was a palpable hint of bitterness. "There’s no cure when you become one of those things. Next you’ll be saying Draconequus are real."
"They are real, we met one who was our enemy and later... well, I guess you could say friend who likes to push our buttons." Pinkie added.
"Right..." The captain muttered, giving a look at Pinkie like she had grown two heads.
“Wait, wait, wait, back up a bit,” Twilight interrupted before the conversation could go further, “You know what a Draconequus is, but you never heard of an Alicorn?”
“… Your point?” The griffon captain asked, confused.
“… Excuse us for a second.” She asked, before pulling her friends closer in a huddle, the chains binding their hooves rattling as she did.
“Now, I know this may sound crazy, but between his ignorance of what I am and how differently the Nightmares seems to behave here, I think we’re dealing with a reality where some creatures we faced either doesn’t exist, or exists differently from what we know.” Twilight whispered to her friends.
“Tell me about it.” Applejack muttered, “Knew something was different the moment his second says she don’t know nothing about. I suppose you want us to be cautious at how we throw them terms around, in case they get wrongly suspicious?”
“Pretty much, yes.” Twilight confirmed, “For all we know, a Nightmare here doesn’t mean something as powerful as Nightmare Moon. Maybe they are fragments of some defeated evil overlord, or non-corporeal brain parasites from space, or the monstrous by-products of some mutagenic curse that can spread like a disease…”
“You mean like zombies, or werewolves, or vampires?” Rainbow Dash supplied.
“… Something like that.” Twilight concluded. “Which also means if one of those things shows up, we won’t actually know how to deal with it. We must not rush into a fight with them until we do.”
“Still doesn’t explain how they know the of the draconequu.” Rarity pointed out, “Even assuming it is not something like Discord, what are the odds of two species in completely different universes sharing the same name, with the same pronunciation? Even the ponies, diamond dogs, deer and griffons here refer themselves with completely different names in their own language!”
“Could it be that Discord, his counterparts and fellow quus go dimension-jumping too?” Pinkie Pie asked. “Maybe he or other-he visited centuries ago and we didn’t know it!”
“Its… certainly possible.” Twilight admitted, shuddering slightly at this almost certain possibility, “But if our Discord had done it, he would had told us about it by now!”
= = =
“You meant to tell me that you went hopping around in other universes this whole time?!” Princess Celestia exclaimed, back in Equestria.
Discord crossed his mismatched arms, “Well, you didn’t exactly ask, did you?”
“Do you have any idea how convenient for every-pony it would had been you told us earlier?” now it was Shining Armor’s turn to exclaim, “We wouldn’t have to worry about my sister and her friends stuck in dangerous worlds if you could just snap your claws and bring them back!”
Indeed, Twilight nor her friends had been reporting in on schedule as planned, and that has gotten every-pony worried that their first jaunt is already meeting disaster literally a few hours in; If silence persisted on a second scheduled interval in a row, a rescue mission would be readied and launched the moment the two day ‘barrier rebound period’ ends.
Discord had popped in when the distinct possibility of Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie in danger appeared, leading to him unintentionally revealing that he used to go jaunting all the time.
“Well it’s not as easy as snapping my claws! Well… maybe it is for me, but even my powers have limits.” Discord explained, “For one thing, it suffers the same restrictions as the Portal Caster with the whole membrane rebound thing, so I can’t exactly just go after them for at least another day and a half. I know, I tried before! It all ends in me hitting a wall.”
As if to demonstrate, Discord tore a white glowing tear with his claws, and launch himself to it like a pony-cannonball, only to hit something akin to a wall with an audible ‘SMACK!’, and his cartoonish-ly flattened form sliding off the closing portal.
“Well, can you teach us how to cast the spell required, or at least help us make one?” Princess Celestia asked, “Doing so would allow even more practical travel across the multiverse, free from the restrictions of the Crystal Mirror or even a Portal Caster.”
“Well, I had shown you when I tried throwing Fluttershy’s hippie friend what’s-her-name into the Puppet Dimension. But even that’s not easy.” Discord said while inflating himself back to normal form, “My magic could do it, but you forget; it’s CHAOS magic. It is unpredictable, as its whole shindig is entropy, the breakdown of order to disorder, the end of rules, laws of physics, flow of causality and even common sense. And without those structures or guidelines that govern reality, anything improbable or could go wrong can, and eventually WILL, happen, and I’m the only creature I know who could reliably cast it without say exploding, turning into a pot of petunias, appearing in the heart of a sun, or falling head-first into a manure pit (Usually because I can survive and undo the damage easily). And since it’s unpredictable, even I have no control of where I ended up.”
“So how did you do it without getting lost or blown up?” Shining Armor asked, confounded.
“Well, I usually just do so by casing the magic, and then undoing it when I got bored toying around in that other world and let home universe pull me pack. Not always reliable, mind you. One time, I got lost the connection and got lost in another universe. I have to snap my claws for over five hundred years, non-stop, hopping over countless millions upon millions of universes before I landed back here by chance.” Discord said, rubbing the back of his head, “That might explain why I stopped going on interdimensional field-trips.”
= = =
“Are you mares just clucking like hens there, or are you making an escape plan while thinking we can’t hear you?” The green stallion-at-arms standing next to his griffon captain growled. Some of the Mane Six flinched at that slur, but none of them dared do anything; not when they were surrounded by several more of the stallion-at-arms
“No, we’re not. There’s been enough misunderstandings.” Twilight said, turning to face the captain, “Let me be clear with you that we apologize for our previous behaviour, and swear, with all here as witness, that by all that is true that I am not a Nightmare, but an Alicorn, and as such will do everything in my considerable power as such to protect as many as I can from Nightmares, whatever they may be in this land.”
“A rather bold appeal to a higher power, if an unconventional one. And did someone say that they are an ‘Alicorn’?”
Everyone turned to the entrance of the room, where three figures now entered through. Two were recognizable by the Mane Six: the young azured coloured earth-pony colt with green mane and violet eyes who ran the inn with his mother, his uncle, a larger brown earth-pony stallion-at-arms with silver mane and tail, who nursed a big bruise on his left face blacker than the armour he wore; Rainbow Dash withered slightly from the glare he thrown in her way.
Last but not least who entered the room surprised them; he wore a cloak, which covered him from head to tail until he pulled back his hood to reveal he is a diamond dog, seemingly of a breed resembling a Great Dane Twilight recalled seeing in the Canterlot High verse. A wooden six-pointed star, modest-looking save for a small gemstone, hung from his neck by a string. On his back he carried a leather pouch, seemingly containing various objects shaped like tools and books, embroid on the outside with images seemingly from story books and verses from text that Twilight has yet read.
“Greetings, everyone.” The bruised stallion-at-arms began, “The Pastor asked us to come to this meeting, as witnesses who have had personal contact with our… prisoners.”
“The Baron has requested that I help examine our unusual guests.”
“‘Pastor’ …” Twilight muttered the word quietly, then her eyes widened as she realized something. “You’re from the church we saw, aren’t you? The minister of the village?”
“Very astute!” The big diamond dog yelped, friendly, cheerful and welcoming, even to strangers he just first met. “I am Father Granus, of the Church of the Six Divines, a scholar-brother of the Ascetic Covent, and the ordained minister of the Baron’s fief, incidentally the village’s doctor and teacher as well. Though I see that our young friend, Bren,” He looked over to the young colt standing next to him. “Has yet to introduce me to you back in the inn.”
“Sorry sir, it hasn’t come up in conversation.” Bren admitted.
“It is alright.” He said, smiling warmly, before he walked over to examine Twilight, looking over her.
A few minutes passed, whereupon Granus examined Twilight’s horns and wings - measuring their lengths with a marked rope, holding the gem on his six-pointed star close, which glowed with magic, and looked closely at the feathers with what looked like a crude looking glass - before he passed judgement, “I would confirm with more tests later with the baron’s wizard, though from an initial examination, I would say that, her wings and horn definitely look natural, not a product of dark magic, despite what some of the guards whom I overheard in the hallway kept insisting. That said, I am also at a lost to explain her. She’s abnormal, but not abhorrent.”
“No one here never has seen any pony like me before?” Twilight asked.
“To my knowledge as a scholar, the only pony-like being that has both horn and wings is Suwen himself.”
“Suwen? Is he your ruler?” Applejack inquired
“No, praise be! We had a king, but Suwen of the Sun is greater than any king. For he is one of the Six Divines, those who created this world long before the Regency and even great King Hengroen. And of the mortal races in particular, he was the one who created the ponies.” Granus explained. "If he is what you would call an 'Alicorn', I can say that he certainly isn't one, anymore."
"And why is that?" Rarity asked, curious.
The Mane Six didn’t know it, but the others in the village know he always itches for a chance spread knowledge and teachings of the church. “It is said that when the god of the Sun created his mortal children, the first three ponies, he found them to be frail and vulnerable, and worried they might not survive the world the Six Divines had just created. So, like the other Divines to their mortal children, he gifted to each of them parts of himself; to the first pony, he gave him his horn to wield magic. To the second, a pair of wings to soar the air and control the wind and rain. To the last, he gave his strength, so that they could move the earth. Thus diminished and exhausted, he bound himself to the Sun, where he remained since, watching over his mortal children and the world as the other Divines still do in their own way.”
“With all due respect, pastor, this isn’t a theology lesson, it’s an interrogation!” The griffon captain interreupted, before turning to the group. “Anyways, although you’re seemed to be not a Nightmare, between your unusual appearance and the strange items, clothes and objects you and your friends had brought with you, it’s blindingly obvious that you are foreigners in our land. Which begs a few question.”
“For one, how do you know our language so well?” his lieutenant asked suddenly. At the looks, she explained, “It’s apparent that they cannot have been here long enough to learn our tongue, or otherwise they would had known the likes of Father Granus and the Church. Yet, not only can they speak our words so well, they do so fluently!”
“Well…” Bren interjected, taking out a strangely carved rune amulet from his poach, which the villagers know to be his family’s heirloom “I think I can explain that…”
Jaunt 1.10 - Kendell2 Magenta Diamond Arc Pt 2 (Back to Steven Universe!)
"Though there is ONE power I have figured out," Diamond Tiara (or apparently 'Magenta Diamond', by Gem naming conventions) said, giving a proud look that made it clear she was trying to save face. She focused and threw her mane forwards, her Gem glowing. A regal looking scepter fitting her color pallet and topped by a large magenta diamond emerged, which she grabbed in her mouth.
Twilight blinked. "You can summon a scepter?"
"It's her Gem weapon," Pearl explained. "I believe the Twilight of this universe compared summoning it to your species earning your 'Cutie Marks'."
Twilight cocked her head. "Really?"
The largest Gem, Garnet, nodded. "Every Gem has their own way unique them. "
Pearl concentrated, putting a hoof to her Gem and producing a white spear with a corkscrew style tip. "I rely on focus and concentration."
Amethyst shrugged, pulling a multi-tipped violet whip from her chest. "I just do it when I need it."
Garnet held up her hooves, Gems glowing and causing two red-violet gauntlets to form over her hooves. "I link my mind to the energy of all existing matter, channeling the collective power of the universe through my Gems."
Everyone except Twilight seemed completely lost by this. "Fascinating."
"That's how I do it anyway," Garnet said with a shrug.
"I just...think about what I care about...How I take charge when I need to," said Diamond, looking a bit confused herself. "It's more touchy feely stuff than 'I can just think about it."
"It was the first power I learned to," said Steven, giving a smile as he summoned a rose colored shield with a vine pattern spiraling towards the middle.
Everyone looked expectantly at Peridot, who gave a sigh. "I don't know how, I always relied on my Limb Enhancers...which are still at the bottom of the ocean!"
Amethyst shrugged. "You were a bad guy at the time."
"Well I'm not anymore!"
"So we get special magic involving our special talents, and you get fancy weapons?" The nonNative Rainbow Dash asked. "Kinda cool."
Twilight looked to Garnet, having noticed something during that conversation. "Garnet...if you don't mind my asking...why are you the only one with two Gems?"
Garnet gave a sincere chuckle. "I was wondering when you'd ask."
"Garnet, are you sure you want to tell them about that? Now?" Pearl asked.
"If she's anything like our Twilight, she'll want to understand. And I respect that," the big Gem replied, showing her Gems. "Gems have the ability to combine into something more. In my case, I'm made up of two Gems named Ruby and Sapphire."
"Rubies and Sapphires do go well together..." said Rarity. "But...that is quite the bombshell..."
"Got that right," said Applejack. "Ah can't imagine just...bein' the same pony as somepony else."
"It comes natural to me," said Garnet, giving a smile. "But I'm kinda special. Ruby and Sapphire are in love, and this is how they express it."
"Well, that's taken lovers bein' inseparable tah a whole different level..." Applejack remarked, seeming to try and wrap her head around it.
Twilight got a gasp of realization. "So fusion for you is like being married?"
"For me, that's a good way to put it," said Garnet, seeming HAPPY that Twilight had gotten it. "I am neither Ruby and Sapphire, or just Garnet, I'm their love for each other."
"Ooh! When's your anniversary?! We can come back so I can team up with myself to throw you a BIG anniversary party!" Pinkie exclaimed excitably.
"We haven't really thought about that, the calendar was different," Garnet explained. "We'll get back to you on that."
"Darling... or darlings... which do you prefer?" Rarity questioned, trying to be polite.
"Darling, please," Garnet replied, her tone sounding like she'd expected that.
"Darling, I think that's quite romantic," Rarity replied, and seemed to mean it.
"So did our Rarity," the fusion replied. "Each fusion is a representation of their component's relationship."
"Pearl! Amethyst! Maybe you should show them Opal! Or you and Garnet show them Sardonyx!" Steven suggested, suddenly becoming very excited.
"I could try..." Diamond Tiara suggested.
"Fusion is a tad advanced, Diamond," Pearl replied. "...But it might be a good idea to show it for Diamond's sake. She's only seen one fusion so far..."
"Oh yeah, let's mash it up!" Amethyst shouted, looking excited.
"Sugilite is too unstable," Garnet replied. "But Opal should be perfect."
Amethyst shrugged, but still seemed in an upbeat mood. "Alright, shall we?"
Steven looked to the ponies as both Gems reverted to their true humanoid forms. "They used to have a lot of trouble fusing before, but then I got eaten by a giant bird and they fused to save me...oh, and then we found out Amethyst had some problems and worked them out...it's kind of complicated."
Pearl and Amethyst bowed, their Gems glowing in sync with each other.
[=Steven Universe Soundtrack - Amalgam=]
Both Gems did a dance, Pearl's quite refined and Amethyst's less so, but both seemed to mesh well, ending with a spin where they grabbed each other's hand back to back.
Both's bodies turned into a white light and merged together, rising up and forming into a roughly ten foot tall woman with a blue and yellow outfit, a piece with a yellow star hanging from the front down to her ankles, her pants a light purple. Her skin was a middle color between her components, and her yellowish hairr hung down her back in a huge ponytail. The most notable trait (other than her facial features being a merger of her components) was that she had four arms. Her gemstones had also changed color to match her new designation.
Opal looked down at them and gave a smile. "Hello."
"Whao..." said Rainbow Dash. "That is kinda awesome..."
"She's quite beautiful...well, I assume she is by your species' standards," Rarity replied.
Opal kneeled down. "Thank you, Rarity."
"Wow! You're really tall! Like I mean REALLY tall!" said Pinkie Pie exclaimed, seemingly trying to measure herself compared to the fusion.
Opal gave an amused chuckle. "I know. I have been called a giant woman in the past..." she said, looking to Steven who gave a smile and got stars in his eyes as the ponies looked at her in amazement.
Twilight noted that the voice was neither Pearl or Amethyst's, but a unique voice. "So...Opal is it? What's it like being you...?"
Opal looked thoughtful. "I feel at peace. Amethyst is like a flame, wild and roaring, Pearl is like a ice, ridged and focused. I think I'm like water. Fluid and serine. Especially now."
Twilight cocked her head. "Especially now?"
The fusion nodded, giving a smile. "Amethyst and Pearl...they used to struggle so much when they formed me. I was stable...but felt fragile. Like the slightest nudge would knock me apart...now I feel stable, strong."
Opal looked to Steven and ruffled the child's hair with one of her arms. "Thank you, Steven, for helping them. I feel much better than I have for a long time."
Steven chuckled a bit. "You're welcome! I was just trying to help my friends."
"I know..." Opal looked back to the ponies, then gave a chuckle. "I can feel Amethyst blushing. I suppose I should go before I say something too embarrassing. I admit, I can be a bit forgetful sometimes about what I decided not to say out loud when we were apart. Farewell"
Opal waved and then seemed to poof back into Amethyst and Pearl, who were in the same pose they'd fused in. Amethyst blushed. "Uh...I guess it's a little better to be Opal when we're not arguing in her head..." she admitted, with an usually reserved smile.
Pearl gave a smile as well. "It certainly is..."
Jaunt 1.11 - Alex Warlorn (G1 MLP Crossover)
Twilight and her friends stepped out what looked like another world mirror. They were in what looked like a large white and pink castle.
Magical alarm runes went off at once.
And in teleported a white Alicorn with five blue flowers for her cutie mark, waving blue mane and tail, and wearing golden regalia and four golden horse shoes.
"My oh my... who are you my little ponies? If you wanted to use the cloning mirror to give yourselves children, all you had to do was ask." The Alicorn said politely.
"Cloning mirror?" Pinkie Pie looked back but quickly looked away again remembering the Magic Pond incident.
"Yes my little ponies, single parents and infertile couples use the magic mirror to create clones of themselves who are a foal's age with a basic education to talk and move and who their parent is." Said the Alicorn calmly.
Twilight tried hard NOT to think about if this mirror worked the same as the mirror pool and the moral implications of what she'd done to find the real Pinkie Pie. Even if this held great magical possibilities.
"Hi, who are you? I'm Pinkie Pie." Pinkie Pie asked.
"You don't know me little pony? I am Queen Majesty of Ponyland." Her hooves and horn glowed. "You're from another world aren't you?"
"H-how did you?" Rainbow Dash sputtered.
"I read your minds. It's a gift of one of my golden horse shoes. Forgive the intrusion... but I felt ponies I'd never seen before suddenly appearing in my castle near a delicate magical artfiact, and it would help along."
"Uh would you mind not doing that again? I prefer my private thoughts stayed private." Rarity asked.
"I shall do my best little pony." Queen Majesty said politely and bowing.
"Ah ain't got nothin' ta hide." AJ said proudly.
"I think it's best for your wits you DON'T read my mind." Pinkie Pie said.
"So why have you come here? Is your world faced by a great evil, and you come seeking heroes to aid you in your hour of need?" Majesty asked.
"Uh... nothing like that," Twilight said. "I am Princess Twilight Sparkle. And I merely seek to share knowledge between various worlds."
"The horns and wings were a dead give away as well that you were something else, or I would have recognized you." Queen Majesty said. "So your mother sent you on this quest?"
"Uh... no, Equestria doesn't have a queen. The four princesses rule it equally."
"Ah! So your sister share the kingdom fairly after your mother's passing?"
"No! Uh! Only two Princess are blood sister. And me and the other princess are sister-in-laws."
"So you become on land through an arranged marriage?"
"WHAT? No! I... uh... I just want to say first, it's nice to meet a FRIENDLY face after some of the worlds we've visited."
"It is my honor." Queen Majesty bowed lowly to the ponies letting her horn touch the floor. "Princess Twilight, if you've come here to share knowledge, then let us discuss somewhere where you won't accidentally have a new life to look after."
"Uh, good idea," Rainbow Dash said.
Rarity resisted the temptation to look into the mirror, being the de facto mother of her little sister was more than enough.
"Then please follow me. Dream Castle's drawing room is this way, and I share my land's history and people with you, and you can do the same."
The Alicorn Queen led them out of the room of the magic mirror, which had stack of blank birth certificates on the other side of the door.
On their way, the ponies pass through what Majesty called her 'Trophy room.'
The Elements of Harmony looked around uncomfortably, seeing the mounted heads of... Tirek, a goat like creature with a bell around his neck, Chrysalis and several changelings, Sombra, Radiant Hope, the Umbrum Rabia, Cloud Gremlins, the Diamond Dogs, four hydra heads, Garble The Dragon, and Discord and Starlight Glimmer!
"Admiring my trophies? As Queen of Equestria, I pride myself on eliminating all threats to my little pony's happiness and safety." Said Majesty with a polite smile.
"Uh... where are your guards?" Twilight asked observantly noting the lack of ponies in armor.
"I don't need them." Majesty said warmly. And for a moment Twilight felt enough raw power coming from the mare to make her horn hurt.
Fluttershy looked positively green, with one eye twitching. Looking ready to puke, faint, or scream in rage.
Applejack was as pale as a ghost.
Pinkie Pie's hair had gone straight.
Rainbow Dash's brain looked like it was had stopped working.
"Uh... your majesty... have you ever considered... REFORMING your threats to Equestria?" Rarity said as carefully as she could.
"I reform them all the time, into trees, bubbles that pop, portraits I paint over..."
"Uh, no I mean, let them learn friendship and harmony, and let them contribute to society?"
Queen Majesty let out a heartfelt laugh. "Why would I ever give villains a chance to cause trouble a second time? I did that once with a goblin... and he got my son involved into a kidnapping scheme... never again."
Jaunt 1.12 - zaku789 (Edits by me)
"I must admit sister... it's tough to see Mimic being the great grand-foal to Majesty." Luna said.
"Well, the golden horse-shoes says otherwise, dear sister." Celestia stated, lifting a forehoof up to inspect one of said golden horseshoes.
"Be serious sister, you and I both know Majesty has VERY little mercy for those she deemed a threat. I can count at least some on my wings, and they're barely in the single digits." Luna recalled.
"Yes well, I admit she wasn't exactly the nicest to enemies." Celestia shrugged.
"Nicest? She was known as the 'Bloody Shield of Ponyland' to her enemies." Discord said as popped in. "Anywho, why the sudden discussion about Majesty, anyway?"
"We were discussing the possibility of timelines that have others in control of Equestria. Her name just popped up." Celestia reminded, "If there are any particularly powerful ponies of old who could had achieved immortality and reign over Equestria to this day, it would be her."
'Hmm, odd, but I doubt they would see her. I mean, I'm a spirit of chaos, and I doubt the chances they meet her." Discord said uncertainly.
Meanwhile...
"Let us agree that mare is way too aggressive, and hopefully avoid this world again." Twilight said as they each enter the portal away from Majesty's world, carrying with them copied tomes and commodities that Queen Majesty was happy to share with them.
"Agreed." Rarity said.
"Sounds fine to me." Applejack added.
"Did she really have to mount the heads?" Pinkie asked, completely disturbed at the prospect as the others entered the portal.
Jaunt 1.13 - Kendell2 Magenta Diamond Arc Pt 3
"Hmm...so this is the decide you used to travel between alternative realities?" Peridot asked, looking at the portal caster.
Twilight nodded. "Yes. We used magic from a pre-existing portal."
"It's definitely more advanced than I expected to see..." Peridot replied, the small Gem looking it over closer. "Some aspects of it run on similar principles to our interplanetary warp technology in distorting the fabric of reality, but in an entirely different way. Admittedly, I'm impressed."
"Thanks. Though was are having an issue with the recharge time," Twilight explained.
"Hmm...I can think of a few potential upgrades...unfortunately all of them involve technology I currently don't have access too," Peridot replied, seeming annoyed, though Twilight got the feeling of Trixie being disappointed she couldn't show off about something.
"You built a giant robot in a barn," Amethyst pointed out. "What's the problem, Peri?"
"The only power sources that I could think of would require the same power source as our ships and temples, which I simply cannot access here. Plus, there's the question of whether or not other universes will allow it to continue functioning."
"Oh yeah...and didn't your entire ship blow up when Garnet tossed Jasper into it too?"
"Yes. It was a reactor, what do you expect?"
"Nah, that's about what I expected," Amethyst replied. "I don't know science, I'm more into wrestling."
Applejack blinked. "Wrestlin'?"
The purple Gem smirked. "Oh yeah! It's my thing! Do it all the time back home, and Cheerilee introduced me to a league here."
Rarity gave a shifty look, not knowing how many beings present knew Cheerilee's twin sister was a professional wrestler.
"Not gonna lie, ponies are a lot more fun to wrestle with," Amethyst said.
"Why?" Applejack questioned.
"Cause wrestling ponies is a challenge," Amethyst replied, giving a smirk. "I get to do whatever I want in the ring and no one cares either way, but it's a bit more of a challenge here. It's a bit more fun when I don't have to hold back and STILL have to try."
Applejack got a bit of an intense look. "Ah'm inta wrestler , ya thinkin' what Ah'm thinking?"
Amethyst got a smirk in return. "Oh yeah, bring it on!" She shapeshifted into a stallion about Big Mac's side with a black leotard and purple mask.
"Uh, are you sure this is a good idea?" Rarity asked.
"Earth Ponies are much closer to Gems in terms of strength and durability than humans are in our home world," Garnet explained, as the two marked off an area and started wrestling with each other. "Amethyst has actually lost matches here, we think it's good for her."
"Humans can fight us evenly or even defeat us, but they need proper training," Pearl explained. "Against some...inexperienced underground wrestlers, it's decidedly not fair. I still think it's uncouth, but it is an outlet for Amethyst."
Amethyst body slammed Applejack and tried to give her a flying press, but the Earth Pony rolled out of the way and did a flying elbow drop of her own onto the Gem and getting an off out of her.
"Amethyst likes playing a Heel," Connie explained. "That's what the wrestling manuals I've looked up since learning about it said anyway."
The two exchanged moves...until the earth started shaking and exploded upwards.
"What in tarnation?" Applejack asked, getting up and blinking.
A huge dark green scorpion like creature dug its way up out of the ground with a screen, red crystal forming it's joints, fangs, and stinger. In the center of its head where eyes would normally be was a Bloodstone gem.
"It's a corrupted Gem!" Steven exclaimed, the Gems activating their weapons...except for Peridot who fell back.
"Corrupted Gem?" Twilight asked as the two Rainbow Dashes flew around, distracting the monster with fly by kicks. "That thing is one of you?!"
"Yes, but over time it's become battle damaged and corrupted," Pearl explained, producing a sword and handing it to Connie, who stood side by side with Steven and his shield. "A few of them ended up sneaking over the Rainbow Bridge over the last 5,000 years."
"We need to poof her so we can send her Gem back to the Temple, then maybe someday I can help her!" Steven exclaimed.
"Poof?"
"He means destroy its body," Pearl explained, dodging a sting while Steven blocked a swing of its claw and Connie slashed into its limb. "Deal enough damage and it will retreat into its Gem."
Fluttershy would normally complain about the fact they were attacking an animal...but her sense meant she could tell it WASN'T.
Twilight gave a blast of magic into the monster and sent it staggering back before having to put a forcefield up to block its stinger.
"Hey, Applejack, fastball special!" Amethyst said, shapeshifting into a ball.
"Uh...sure..." Applejack said in confusion. She bucked Amethyst at the Corrupted Gem, the Gem shapeshifting back to normal before doing a spinning attack, slamming into it head on and knocking it back.
The monster screeched and tried to sting down on Steven and Connie, but Steven blocked with his shield...
The river next to the park lifted up in the form of a giant arm and punched the scorpion, sending it flying backwards.
"Thanks Lapis!" Steven called to the blue Gem who hadn't interacted with anyone.
"You're welcome, Steven," Lapis replied.
Jaunt 1.14 - Alex Warlorn
Back in Equestria, the ponies on watch were shocked when a new pony emerged from where the portal had been used. She was an Earth Pony, with a green coat. Her mane was also green with an orange streak. Her eyes were lavender. Her cutie mark looked like a round yellow mirror frame with a blank orange surface making it look a odd sun flower. She had on saddle bags. She also had a tiny mirror frame symbol on her cheek. Her tail base was tied up with a light pink ribbon.
She first looked around happily but then looked rather shocked to see ponies naked without a bow at their base. But she was here to make friends, not judge them. She politely put away her magic mirror (she made it herself with Magic Star's help) she had asked to find the exit point they should use.
"Hello strange ponies of another world! I bring you words of peace and friendship from Ponyland! My name is Mirror Mirror of the Magic Message ponies. After having been host to your emissaries from your world, our protector and leader Queen Majesty has desired to return the message of friendship. share our knowledge and wisdom! I hope we all become fast friends!"
"Uh..." Spike HAD TO ask. "Why are you called, Magic Message Ponies?"
"Oh, that's easy!" She showed off her cutie mark... and a human witch appeared in one... then it shifted to a princess. ""We carry messages within our cutie mark. I carry fairy tales and stories... Wait a minute! Spike, is that you?!" Mirror Mirror hugged and snuggled him. "You're a cute little dragon no matter which universe!"
"Well.. got the cute part right at least. Uh, do you know where MY friends are?"
"I dunno, but I can ask my magic mirror... hmm, they seem to be talking to magic rocks."
Jaunt 1.15 - Grogar-the-oneser (Crossover with Fraggle Rock. Edits by me)
"Hmm.... odd." Twilight muttered as she looked around the ground carefully. "This place isn't Equestria, yet I feel that multiverse-permeating magic is strong here."
"Umm.... twilight." Rarity said, her eyes pinpricks.
"But I don't understand; this place seem normal enough. Granted, it's in a huge cave system, but other than that..."
"Twilight." Applejack said.
"Not now! I'm trying to figure out what this place is..."
"So it's alright that Pinkie eats a bunch of buildings made by little green people." Rainbow Dash stated.
"Yes, yes - WHAT!?!" Twilight shouted as she see Pinkie eating what looks like a skyscraper with a bunch of six inches tall green ant humanoid watching.
"PINKIE! STOP!" Twilight shouted as Pinkie stopped eating half the tower "Oh, I'm so sorry my friend was eating that, I profusely-"
"Hey, why are you apologizing for her enjoying that skyscraper?" One of the inhabitants asked.
Records scratched. Twilight brain fizzed.
"What? but your work -"
"Exactly! With her destructive feasting, we're free to start new constructions, So she just did us a favor." Another said, sounding quite happy.
"You gotta try these things, Twilight, they have a good radish after-taste." Pinkie stated as she pushed it in twilight mouth."
After tasting it a bit, Twilight's eyes widened. "Huh, this taste surprisingly good."
"Of course it taste good! We Doozers take pride in our craftmanship as well as its edibility."
Jaunt 1.16 - morion87 Unknown Power Arc Pt 1
Twilight's Notebook
In all our journey's across the multiverse, one Equestria in particular stands out for me. At that point, I had figured out a way for the device to teleport us to wherever we wanted. The first clue something was very wrong was where it, quite literally, dropped us. Everything after, just made it even weirder.
Even now, I fear for them like no other.
= = =
Deep in the Everfree Forest, outside the ruins of the Castle Of the Two Sisters, the air seemed to shimmer for a minute, before, from out of nowhere, the Mane 6 were dumped unceremoniously in a heap.
Rainbow was the first to recover. "Twilight. I thought you said that wouldn't happen again!"
"I did", Twilight huffed. Taking out the Portal Caster, her brows came together in confusion. "Something's not right. There is massive interference here. Its messing with the portal. More than usual."
"Well, where is it?" Applejack asked.
Twilight turned green as she answered. "We're standing on it".
Every-pony immediately jumped back. Looking down, they were horrified by what they saw. Dead grass. But not just dead, it looked, like decayed flesh. The ground around it looked diseased, not the normal brown, but black and purple.
Looking around, they felt sick. All around them: dead animals. But, deformed. One had two heads. Another, tentacles in place of feet. Yet another had too many eyes. Many more just barely resembled anything at all, but mounds of flesh.
Fluttershy let out a horrified whimper. "What - what happened to them? How could anything do this to them"?
"I... I don't know," Twilight said, sounding like she wanted to throw up. "I've, never heard of anything like this".
"Maybe it has something to do with that big green rock over there", Pinkie said, pointing off to their right. Confused, they looked at what Pinkie was pointing at.
Sure enough, there was a huge rock sticking out of the ground. A sickly shade of green, it hurt their eyes just to look at it. Just as they intended to get a closer look, a voice interrupted them.
"If you value your lives and sanity, do not get near that thing".
Turning around, they came face to face with a squad of Solar guards. Upon seeing Twilight, they brought their weapons to bear.
"Drop your disguise now, Changeling, and you might live to see the sunset", one said.
Twilight was shocked. "But I am Twilight Sparkle!"
"Likely story." another guard said.
"And why's that?", Rainbow asked.
"Because Twilight Sparkle disappeared 6 months ago."
