“Jordan, you’re an idiot.”

Jordan Zusk’s eyes narrowed marginally, displaying his displeasure. “Whatever do you mean, Andy?” he asked, voice low. He leaned back in his work chair as he observed the other person in his office.

As he handed a pile of papers to Jordan from across his office desk, Andy Darson facepalmed. “Good God, can you not understand words?” she asked, annoyed. “I mean you’re an idiot! This report on the planet you were sent to explore is bullshit, through and through!” She let out a small, forced chuckle, leveling a glare at him. “Or should I say HORSE shit, because this report mentions tiny talking equines!”

“Yeah, so?” replied Jordan, snatching the report. “There were tiny talking ponies! That’s where I learned most of this report!”

“Tell me, Jordan, do you know what a language barrier is?” Andy asked, massaging the bridge of her nose.

Jordan didn’t reply, scowling.

A small smile graced Andy’s face. “That’s where this starts to fall apart,” she said. “You go to a planet with alien life and they just HAPPEN to speak english? Not happening, ever. Nope.”

“But…” he weakly said.

“And then there’s the matter of their cities,” continued Andy, ignoring Jordan. “Let’s read these, shall we?” She clears her throat. “Seaddle. Detrot. Las Pegasus. Baltimare. Manehatten.” She fixed him with a glare. “Fucking Manehatten.”

Jordan smiled bashfully. “It’s what they told me!” he protested.

“So we discovered an alien equine species that speaks english and made horse puns out of our cities,” Andy deadpanned.

“And nations…” he sheepishly replied.

“Are you starting to see the problem with this?” Andy asked.

“Explain my memories, Andy,” Jordan retorted.

“I will in a moment,” Andy replied. “Let me finish.”

Jordan nodded at her to continue.

“Second problem in this is that you say they have magic,” said Andy. “‘Nuff said.”

“But-”

“Jordan, are you three?” Andy asked. “Magic isn’t real! You can’t poof something into existence or float stuff around!”

“But-” Jordan stammered, reaching into his pocket.

“No buts, next topic,” Andy said. Jordan let out a sigh of exasperation and leaned back. “They have a magical immortal princess that can stop the movement of a planet,” she deadpanned.

“Her name is Celestia, according to Twilight,” Jordan confirmed.

“You used the rotation explanation to explain the strange movement of their sun, correct?” Andy asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah,” Jordan again confirmed.

“Did you get dropped on your head as a baby‽” Andy yelled, her shout echoing around the small space. “This isn’t even possible! The amount of power needed to stop and start the rotation of the planet would be UNTHINKABLE, and if they stopped the rotation, it would be absolutely catastrophic!”

“It can’t be that bad…” Jordan muttered.

“The crust of the planet flexing,” Andy said. “Oceans repeatedly flooding. Objects flying away as they keep their momentum. And if the planet was STOPPED and then it started, well, imagine the ground skipping a couple miles underneath your feet.”

“What if instead of them suddenly sto-”

“A quote from your report says that the sun’s movement was ‘like clockwork,’” Andy interrupted. “Face it, Jordan. There’s no way our executives are gonna take this. I may be your partner, but I have to stop you sometimes, especially if it’s filled with bullshit like this. You might not care about your job, but I care about mine, and this reflects on me, too.”

“Explain my memories,” Jordan said again.

“There was something in the atmosphere of that planet that made you hallucinate,” Andy stated matter-of-factly. “The probes said it was safe, but it wasn’t. So you’re going back, this time with a space suit.”

A grin spread across Jordan’s face. He started to laugh softly.

“What’s so funny?” Andy asked, annoyed.

“Oh, nothing,” Jordan chuckled. “I admit fault in my analysis of their sun’s erratic movement, but I think I can prove a lot of what I said in that report, in about two and a half minutes.”

Andy laughs. “Try it,” she said.

Jordan took his phone out of his pocket and signed in. “I so happen to have video of my time on the planet.” He opened the camera app, selected a video, and played it, showing it to her.

Twilight Sparkle sat across from the camera, eyes narrowed. “Jordan, what is that?” she asked.

“What the…”

Jordan, unseen from this camera angle, laughed. “It’s a phone, Twilight,” he answered. “I’m recording this for NASA.”

“Like a phonograph?” she asked, her suspicious expression being replaced with curiosity. “How’s it so small?”

“Not like a phonograph,” Jordan corrected. “A phone can do a WHOLE lot more than just record sound, but now, it’s recording video.”

“What’s a video?” Twilight asked, leaning towards the camera.

“It’s like a moving picture,” Jordan responded. “It’s basically recording everything you’re doing right now.”

Twilight gasped and leans forward. “Woah!” she shouted. Her horn started to glow. A notepad, quill, and inkpot appeared with a flash of light. “How doe-”

“What the hell was that‽” Jordan yelled, the camera wobbling.

“What the hell?” Andy asked as she stared at the video, eyes wide.

Jordan chuckled. “Just watch.”

“MAGIC‽”

Twilight nods. “Yeah, magic,” she said indifferently. “So? Your ‘phone’ runs on magic.”

“No, it doesn’t, it’s electric, but that’s not the point!” Jordan shouted. “Magic isn’t real!”

“Uh, yeah, it is,” Twilight said, a little miffed. “Wait, what? Electric?”

“No, don’t change the subject!” Jordan yelled. “Magic‽ Prove it!”

With a huff, Twilight stands. “Fine, I will!” she said. Her horn glowed brightly. There was a flash of color, and suddenly, the video changed to a hillside. With a grin, Twilight turned to face the camera. “Magic enough for you?”

“W-what…” Jordan stammered, looking around.

“Teleport,” Twilight explained. There was another flash, and they were back at the table in the library.

“You do understand how fake that looks, right?” Andy said.

“It happened,” Jordan assured.

“You need a machine to teleport!” Jordan yelled.

“Obviously not,” Twilight said. “But you said something that interested me much more. You said something about how your ‘phone’ was electric? How does that work?”

“Twilight, I don’t know off the top of my head,” Jordan replied. “If I had an internet connection, then I-”

“Internet?” Twilight asked, her eyes lighting up. “What’s that?”

“This might take a while,” Jordan muttered. “How about this? A question for a question. We take turns asking. Then we can BOTH find out the things we want to know.”

“That’d work…” Twilight said.

“Okay, I’m gonna kill the video,” Jordan says. “I don’t have enough space on my phone to record all this.”

“Space?”

The video ended, and Jordan put his phone away, grinning. “Does that look like I was high to you?” he asked smugly.

Staring at him, Andy tried to make sense of what she saw. It shouldn’t be possible! This flew in the face of everything she knew of science. It LOOKED real, barring the teleportation, but she couldn’t be sure. “Jordan, pull up the satellite feed for the planet,” she said. “I want to see the video stream.”

“Can do,” Jordan said, walking over to a computer. In a few seconds, he had it pulled up. The stream showed a dark planet, speckled with artificial light and with the sun behind it, shining bright light onto it. The moon was in front of the camera.

“I want to see this… erratic movement,” she said, sitting next to him.

They watched the dark planet for a while through the stream. After about thirty minutes, Andy stood up. “Is anything ever gonna happen? It looks normal to me,” she grumbled.

“Maybe I was wro-” In that moment, the screen flashed bright as light suddenly spread across Equis. The sun and moon blurred into streaks as they whipped across the sky. In just a few seconds, their position had completely flipped, with the moon now behind the planet and the sun out of sight. Jordan and Andy’s mouths dropped open as they stared at the screen, unable to believe their eyes. Eventually, Jordan turned to Andy. “What the fuck just happened?” he asked, flabbergasted.

Andy turned to him. “I’m coming with you,” she said.

“What?”

“We’re going back to that planet and I’m coming with you,” she said, standing up. “We need to figure out what just happened. That should NOT be possible.”

“No shit,” Jordan muttered. “When are we going back?”

“Right now,” she stated firmly.

“Grand,” Jordan muttered, standing up. Shutting off the computer, he grabbed a duffel bag from a shelf to his left. “You ready? I’m good.”

“You seriously have a bag packed that you can grab at a moment’s notice?” Andy asked.

“Yep,” he affirmed, slinging it over his shoulder.

“I don’t,” she said. “Give me about a half hour.”

Jordan watched as she jogged off. He sat down and brought out his phone, starting to play BB-TAN as he waited.

In total, it took about fifty minutes for Andy to get her things packed. She came back with two duffel bags. With a sigh, she dropped them. “BB-TAN?” she asked. “Really?”

“Hey, playing with balls is addicting,” he said, not looking up.

“You need to stop playing with those balls of yours,” she scolded. “You’ve been doing it more and more lately.”

“Hey, I was bored and you were taking forever!” he retorted. “And playing with balls is fun!”

“Just stop ball-busting,” she said, facepalming. “Let’s go.”

Ten minutes later, they stood in front in front of a sleek, silver machine. Jordan looked around nervously. “Shouldn’t we have a technician here?” he asked. “They know how to work this thing the best.”

“Hey, if teleportation worked back in twenty-one thirty four, then it’ll work now,” Andy replied. “And that was almost fifty years ago.”

“This is a very precise, long distance teleport!” Jordan shot back.

“And I’m telling you it’s fine!” Andy shouted back. “We don’t have time. Discoveries are waiting! New science!”

“Whoop de frickin’ do,” Jordan deadpanned. “Fine… for science.”

“For science!” Andy cheerfully replied. “The coordinates for the planet should still be in the system.”

“Set it up then,” Jordan said, walking over to stand in the center of the machine. “Just don’t take too long. God forbid that.”

Three minutes later, Andy walked over to him. “We’re set.”

“Beam us up, Scotty,” Jordan said.

“I hate you, you know that?” Andy said, massaging the bridge of her nose. The machine activated, and the two disappeared. None of them had noticed the small, blinking red light on the technician’s panel.

Author's Note

Jordan: Me.
Andy: The comments section on TSGART.

No, just kidding. So yeah! The prologue! I'd like to thank the commenters on TSGART for pointing out the MANY flaws in the science I used, AND for giving me the idea to make this!

For those who are unaware (probably all of you) BB-TAN is a mobile app where you ricochet balls around an enclosed area to shatter blocks. It's way more addicting than it should be, and I definitely recommend it.

And as usual, tell me if you spot any flaws! I'm used to writing in present tense, and this is past tense, so if I slipped up, let me know and I'll fix it!

Thanks for checking this out!