Celestia stood there looking at the impossible thing that lay in the middle of the throne room. The guards on duty had blanched when they found it at the front gates and elected one of their number to bring it straight to the throne room. Which would have worked much better if the guard chosen hadn't dropped the strange bag held in his magic right in the middle of the floor and it which point it had rolled out. The guards parted as Celestia walked up to stare at it, wondering if this was some kind of trick. Celestia lit her horn with a spell and quickly scanned the area confirming what she was seeing. She could feel the residual darkness that still leached out.
“It’s real” Celestia murmured softly to herself, as she looked down upon the head of Grogar, a surprised expression on his face.
“Guards, to me!” she shouted; two of her faithful palace guards, golden armor shined brightly, stepped up quickly, “”Gallant Blade awaken Luna and have her come here immediately, Stalwart Shield go fetch reinforcements from the barracks; no one is to come into this room.” Both of the guards acknowledged her orders galloping off on their respective missions. Celestia continued to look down at the head wondering who had killed one of Equestria’s greatest enemies and why they had decided to drop the head in here. Was this a threat, a warning?
Gallant quickly returned with Luna who trotted in and saw the guards staring at the floor and the expression on Celestia’s face. “What is it dear sister?” She quickly pulled up to the gathering and stopped short as she saw what lay on the floor “Is It true?, Grogar is dead? Who has done this?”.
“I don’t know” snorted Celestia gently, “ But I worry about what this means and the message being sent here”. “
So,” Luna started, “what do we do with this? We must know more about what happened? And what this means for the future” a scowl crossing her face for a brief instant. “We are rid of a great danger, it seems, from an anonymous benefactor no less, but I feel this portends something much bigger going on”.
“I agree Luna, we must investigate” Celestia said, pointing at the head and its slowly spreading stain.
“Then let us investigate what we have” Luna stated, lighting her horn and picking up the head with her magic. Celestia grimaced, and could see several of the guards standing around beginning to turn a shade of green as Luna turned the head over, blood and bits of tissue dropping from the underside. What had done this? Luna mused. The head had been crudely hacked off at the throat and a small hole was evident just below the ear, as she turned the head around, a larger hole was seen on the opposite side, a mash of black sludge and brains oozing out. Judging from the drying this had happened a few days ago at most. Luna shared a look with Celestia “A coup maybe?” she stated. But no Luna thought, whatever had done this had been quick and unexpected; and able to overpower Grogar. Which meant whatever had done this was powerful, and using some form of unknown weapon.
Prior
My life had gotten weird lately. No scratch that, on a scale of 1 to 100 of weird I had hit mango9000 and gone out through the other side. Which somehow explained why I was currently laying hidden in some bushes covered up with twigs and scrub and overlooking a decrepit looking castle trying to stop a goat necromancer from a girls cartoon. Which even saying it in my head still didn’t help the WTF factor. Nor the fact that I really belonged more in a lab then laying here with a rifle that had been obsolete 40 years before I was born and trying to ring a bell that would rob the evil goat dude of his power, all so I could get the hell out of here and be sure I could eat. The raids I had been doing lately against the screwy looking denizens of this horrible fog shrouded hell hole had not netted a lot in the food department, and what I had found had been way past its sell by date. So while I still could I had made an executive decision, kill the big bad and see about getting back home.
Once, again I chided myself on my colossal fuck up that had landed me here. We hadn’t been trying to build a dimensional portal device; no it was supposed to be a simple preliminary safety test of a negative gravity field device for use in an Alcubierre drive. Fuck I’m not even a physicist, I’m a biologist! But the accident had left me stuck in this in-between place, well with actually about 70% of the lab, including everything within a sphere of approximately 50 feet of the device, which thankfully included the truck I had driven in and parked inside there that Saturday to do some testing.
I played the scene back in my mind once again as I lay here waiting to get a good shot at the bell. I had 5 rounds loaded in the magazine of the Mosin (aka the truck gun) and all I needed to do was hit the bell and get it to ring. I chuckled, I never thought that a drunken evening of watching youtube uploads of shitty 80s cartoons would pay off.
I thought back to that sucktastic day, I could see the rodent cages we had lined up near the output to check for lethal effects near the field, the whole mini accelerator and feed phusor set inside a metal walk in box with some leaded glass viewports and several cameras. We needed this data, I huffed at the memory of how this was so important just a short while ago, I had loaded the cages next to the field output, and watched the mice scurrying around in their cages. The initial tests at 1-15% had been successful and quite boring and I had been given the go ahead to pull up to 33% power for the next set of tests. After that I would wait a while and then sacrifice and necropsy the mice to see if it had any effect. So far the other results had yielded nothing and we getting close to the renewal on our funds. We desperately needed proof we could bend space as we proposed and well not kill everything around us at the same time. Not to mention with only 3 of us in the lab we were all pulling overlapping duties, my experience with building test equipment on top of the biology background is what had gotten me hired, and in a very short time was going to bite me in the ass.
Supposedly, we needed to pull it up to at least 50% power to show a measurable deflection in the gravitational field according to the math and several excruciatingly boring lab meetings we had gone over. I had come in on the weekend to get the data we needed for the lower power tests and controls, instead of you know sitting with a beer at home. I checked the cameras, loaded labview up to get the data collection software going and typed in the power percent for the feed. I could hear the vacuum pump running evacuating the phusor chamber and the accelerators.
I shook my head out of my daydream and quickly peeked again at the tower with the bell, the rifle steadied on some piled up debris, I needed this damnable fog to clear so I could get off a good shot. I receded back into my memories as I waited; I checked the vacuum, less then 150 microns, good, I walked into the test chamber and opened the deuterium valve and flooded the phusor chamber. Quickly closing the door, I hit start on the test program. Now all I had to do was wait 30 minutes and let the program proceed. I pulled out my phone and began the wait, with the occasional glance up, the phusor camera feed showed a nice glow and we were getting particle flow, power was creeping up to 25% and the feedback between the phusor and accelerator stage was progressing nicely.
Then it happens, I’ve replayed this part in my head over and over, the phusor starts glowing even brighter, enough I can see light leaking past the shielding, and I’m getting neutron counts higher than expected but lower then a runaway reaction, which shouldn’t even be possible? I slam my hand down on the emergency stop button and nothing happens. “Shit, shit, shit..” I yell, the power level is going up faster and faster as the feedback overcomes the shutdown, and the valve for the deuterium feed is currently inside a chamber that I definitely do not want to enter. This is not good at all, although the instrumentation is starting to read fluctuations in the gravity field, and holy shit it does work, and there is a good chance I may not live through it. Ok, time to abandon ship and get the hell out of here, distance- R2 is your friend for radiation and bad things in general. Evidently, I’m too slow as the whole device flashes and everything goes white… and then it’s over. I look back at the device and it’s powering down on its own.
That’s about when I feel the wind blowing, inside, and turn to look at the corner of the building farthest from the device, which doesn’t exist anymore. Instead I’m looking out upon a grey desolate landscape clouded with fog though a sharply cut missing chunk of the building.
I snapped back to my current situation waiting for the fog to clear. That easily the hundredth time I had played through that particular memory, that had been 2 or so long months ago and playing with the device had not been able to get me back. Although, I had figured out what lead to the runaway condition, I think, but something was blocking me from leaving here, hence my going after the damn head honcho goat as I figured he was the cause. Suddenly, the fog shifted and I had a good sight on the bell. I looked through the iron sights and focused on the bell, well here goes nothing, and I slowly squeeze the trigger blam!....CLANG! I feel the rifle kick against my shoulder and shortly after hearing the clang of the bell as it hit.
Quickly I racked the bolt loaded a new round and fired again blam!....CLANG! blam!....CLANG! blam!....CLANG! blam!....CLANG! Mad minute my ass, I fired off the 5 shots as fast as possible, the noise of the rifle and flash definitely alerting anyone inside to my position, but it didn’t matter the bell was ringing and I had someplace to be. I quickly got up, and shoved another stripper clip in the Mosin and racked the bolt forward. Time to go end the biggest threat in the area now that I had supposedly weakened the old goat. I began heading towards the opening in the crumbling wall I saw earlier.
Ok, well running sucks, I hiked to the opening in the wall and quickly peered around, a multitude of different creatures were running around, but the goat was visible on the balcony standing next to a donkey, which seems kinda familiar. I raised the rifle and aimed for a heart/lung shot on the goat, which I missed. I watched as the round tore through his throat and he fell off the balcony.
“Fuck” I said under my breath, well that works. I quickly put 1 more round into the body laying on the ground and 1 into the donkey on the balcony, no sense in leaving anyone in control here. All the creatures of the castle, some goblin looking things or something? whatever were running around in hysterics trying to get away. I ran forward towards the downed bad guy, there was going to be none of this let the bad guy recover because you think they are dead crap here. I brought the rifle up as I came closer and put another round through the head and one into the throat again, more black sludge looking blood oozed out. I slapped another clipper strip in just in case. As I got closer I could smell the foul blood coming off this thing, well no goat meat for me it looks like.
Anyways, time to finish this, while no one was paying attention I pulled my knife out and began hacking at the throat, cutting off the loop of bells? Jewelry, whatever? around the neck. I pulled up on one of the horns pulling the head back as the blood covered the ground and began cutting to the base of the skull and C1 until I had the head completely freed. I grabbed the freed head by the horn and took off running to get the hell out of here. It was time to fire up the device and see if I could head home or at least somewhere with decent food.
I had gotten away it seemed, I guess being evil didn’t lead to the most competent staff, as I crested the hill to where I had parked my truck. I opened the door and tossed in the rifle, I grabbed a plastic bag and shoved the head in and placed it on the passenger floor. Time to head back to the building serving as my home base and see if I could finally get out of here.
After a decent drive I pulled up to the building, I guess my home now, got out and slung the rifle over my shoulder, and pulled open the sliding door to drive in. The makeshift cover over the missing part of the building was still holding, and I still had a quarter tank of fuel in the truck. The lights were off as the power was no longer hooked up and I was going to need power to get the device up and running again which meant hooking up the inverter on the truck to get power and leaving the rollup door open so I didn’t suffocate on fumes.
This was a matter of minutes at this point to get this hooked up and wait for the computers to boot up. I got the flow going to the phusor and had the program loaded. I looked towards the main device and the modifications I had made, especially the "governor" I had hacked together so that I could control it to some effect at this point. MacGyver would be so proud. I had also moved the cages out as there were empty anyways. The mice had survived the initial jump, but well, I didn’t have a lot of supplies and meat is meat.
Soon the phusor was glowing and I brought up the extra program I had put together to control the device, at 26% power I started to get the same run away condition as before, but this time I knew what was going to happen and I throttled the power slowly until I had opened a small rip in space within the cleared out chamber, no more gray static from being dimensionally cockblocked by the dead goat it looks like. I could see glorious daylight streaming through the hole along with what looked like grass and some not-evil looking buildings in the distance. Not home, but it looked a hell of a lot better than here, and if my hunch was correct I knew just what the dimension next door was going to be. An evil grin slid across my face as I realized I even had a present for the ruler, a present currently making a mess of my floorboards. I hit the power override and let the power build to take me to the new destination, and the world flashed to white.
I could see sunlight and buildings in the distance when I initial opened the portal to view the destination, well not like I could change that really. I had set the power feed increment and the governor to produce an area of effect (screw it I'm calling it a bubble) slightly larger than before so I didn’t clip anymore of the building. Foolishly I had expected to arrive within the same plane as the ground and upright and within sight of what I saw when I initially opened the portal. However, the lack of options for testing the hunk of junk that hurled me to this place as far as arrival is concerned put me at a disadvantage. Evidently there was some sort of shift in location with the white flash of the full power bubble because the next thing I knew it was dark, very dark, only the lights of the device, the computer and the truck were lighting anything, I could see darkness out the roll up door and hear an echo of the exhaust of the truck into some kind of larger space.
I walked over and looked out the roll up door to see a large dark opening, with what little light that came from inside reflecting from the walls. I grabbed my phone and turned on the flashlight to see where the hell I was.
Shiny, huh. All I can see are reflective areas in the wall, probably crystal of some kind. Great I’m underground in a cavern, which narrows it down some I guess and I just realized I’ve displaced whatever sphere of material was here before I jumped to this place, which might be very bad I thought if it decided to cave in on me.
I walked out of the door across where the first transition of "Earth" dirt led into the little bit of that other places dirt I had taken with me with the last jump, and after a short bit of that into the rock that made up the floor of the cavern. Looking back over the building I could see that evidently the cavern was actually a bit smaller then the initially sphere of displacement as a perfectly curving arch of the wall of the cavern loomed over a good chunk of the building where it had been carved out, the surface was extremely reflectively likely due to being cleaved smoothly by the bubble that surrounded the building. I’d have to be wary of that in the future it looked like, or figure out how to weaponize what in effect was an extremely sharp cutting field… hmmm some definitely interesting ideas there.
However, if I couldn’t find a way out I was going to be extremely screwed when the air ran out or I starved to death etc… I needed to find my way out of here and first off I needed a better light then what my phone could provide. I also needed to shut down the truck before I suffocated due to exhaust fumes too. I walked back inside, opened the driver’s side door, leaned in and turned off the truck. Damn, I definitely got a woof of unpleasant odors when I opened the door. I’m going to need to get rid of that head soon before it stinks up the place. I opened the glove box and got out the bright Cree led flashlight I knew would be in there. I scooched out of the truck and turned on the flashlight, quickly walking back outside to take a better look around.
Shining the flashlight around told me the cavern, well aside from my new addition to it, wasn’t all that big, but where was an opening? Swinging the light down to the floor I saw what looked like a portion of a path which went towards the wall parallel to the building I had arrived in. I followed it with the flashlight until it stopped at the transition zone of my arrival, if it kept in a straight line that meant the exit was effectively behind the lab. But where did it start at? I followed it back the other way straight into what looked like an outcropping from the wall, which didn’t make any sense at all. I walked towards the rock outcropping and as I got closer I could see the path curved around and there was opening that was not readily apparent at first.
Hmm, let me think which way do I need to go and how am I going to track my progress, at least I probably don’t need to worry about air then, well I guess there could still be poison gases. Ok, this kind of sucks, where is the green grass and signs of civilization I saw before? More importantly I had not been eating very well lately and I wanted some food soon.
I walked back inside and decided to gather some supplies and prep for a walk, I also needed to pick a direction. The rifle was definitely coming in case I ran into anything down here I needed to worry about, but some water and a way to mark the walls as I walked would be nice.
About 15 minutes later I was ready to go. I had dug out my messenger bag from behind the seat of the truck and shoved what I thought would be necessary into, slinging it over the other shoulder from the rifle. I decided to head outside the building and pick a direction. Further digging behind the seat had found my crowbar which I hooked through the loop on my jeans just in case. As I exited I turned around and shut the roll up door and locked it. No sense in tempting fate anymore than necessary, especially as lately it felt like fate had a serious hard-on for screwing me over. Now which way to go?
I knelt down and shined the flashlight on the path in an area I hadn’t walked. Now that I looked at it closely I could see that it had been disturbed not too long ago and it seemed whoever had been down this way had moved towards the outcropping, so looks like I’m going that way.
I walked towards the outcropping and around it where the path followed, here I could see the walls should signs of mining where another chamber connecting this one had been broken into. I pointed the light forward and walked on, I’d make a mark on the wall and floor if I came to a junction.
After about 15 minutes of walking I started coming across more signs of mining, but more importantly I started smelling fresher air and feeling a light breeze occasionally, from what seemed to be airshafts cut into the rock every now and then. I was getting closer to an exit if felt like.
I had left the connecting caverns some ways back and was heading down a tunnel hewn out of the rock, thankfully the support beams while old looked reasonably sturdy. Turning a shallow curve in the tunnel I came to a pair of shut and rusting iron doors before me which blocked any going any further. But more importantly a faint light seemed to be coming through the doors.
Walking up to the doors I put my cheek against the rust, closed one eye, and peered out the crack of the door. It seemed the tunnel continued for a little bit and then opened up to what looked like a natural overhang of rock up ahead, more importantly I could sunlight and my way out.
I backed off from the doors and looked them over to figure out how I was going to open them. I didn’t see a handle on this side at all. The doors looked like they had been put in place to keep people from going into the mine after it closed. I expected they were locked from the other side and I was going to have to force them open with the crowbar. Wait, the hinges were on this side. I walked to the right edge of the door and inspected the hinges top and bottom, simple enough looking design, I would just need to pop the pin and then the door should open. I would just need to be careful when I did it so the door didn’t fall on me. But it also meant it would be obvious someone had been down here. Hmm.
Looking at the hinges it seemed the right side also seemed in better shape and less rusty so these would be the easiest to lever out. I backed up and imagined how the door would fall when I popped the hinges, if I stood to the side I should be out of the way. Setting down my bag and rifle, I got the crowbar and placed it at the bottom hinge and started pulling against the pin. Slowly the pin seemed to shift upwards, but the rust was not making my life any easier for getting this to move. I kept pulling against the crowbar at which point I slipped and managed to wham my knuckles into the door and drop the crowbar.
FUCK! Fuck! Fuckity fuck. That fucking hurt, I cradled my hand blowing on it gently. I needed this cursed door open, time to get back to work.
Well 20 minutes and several minor injuries later I had popped the bottom pin completely out and had the top pin just barely holding on. All I would need to do was pop it up a bit more to clear and then get out of the way of the door, quickly. I tapped the pin up a couple of more times and suddenly it came free, I jumped back to get out of the way and was rewarded with absolutely nothing happening. The door hinge had shifted a little and that was it. Why hadn’t it fallen in yet, was the other door holding it up that much? I put the crowbar at the edge of the door and pried while keeping my body as far away as possible. With a great lurch the door tilted some and began to fall. Leaping out of the way the door half slid half fell to the floor with a good sized crash. After eating a decent amount of dust it kicked up I could see freedom for the first time since entering this damn mine.
I scooted past the door and walked to where the light was. It appeared to be midday as I let my eyes adjust and looked out at what I could see and what a sight it was. A slow whistle escaped my lips as I looked out, I was up high, very high on a shelf of rock jutting out of the side of a mountain. I could see forest and some mountains in the distance. More importantly I could see railroad tracks crossing a grassland not too far off that appeared to head towards the base of the mountain I was standing on.
Looking around I could see a disused path that curved off from this ledge and looked like my way off this mountain and more importantly towards where I could get a good meal and maybe a real bed for the night. Sleeping on the bench seat in the pickup had gotten old really fast. Sniffing my shirt I also really needed a bath, and maybe to burn these clothes.
Looking at the sky it looked like I had at least a few more hours of daylight left. Enough time to see where that path lead and still let me get back while it was still light out. I started walking down the path which hugged the side of the mountain. It had obviously been cut with an intention of being able to get a cart down it. Bit of a drop off to the side though…hmmm I wasn’t going to get this chance again and my bladder was calling and it was a beautiful vista provided.
Well peeing off a cliff it turns out is only amusing for the first 10 seconds or so, how disappointing to learn.
After a bit longer of walking I came around a bend in the mountain and my jaw dropped. Hanging off the side of the cliff ahead and below me was a castle that looked like it gave civil engineers nightmares. I’m not even sure what kind of cantilever design was required to keep that thing hanging there. More than that though I recognized that castle and confirmed what I had suspected, that was freaking Canterlot,and I knew right where I was.
I handled this new information calmly… ok total lie, I’m sitting here hyperventilating and wondering if I’ve had a damn stroke. Suspecting something of this magnitude and confirming it were two very different things and to say I was handling it well was a bit of an overstatement. The implications about the nature of the universe and fiction lead to some very unpleasant musings on my part that I didn’t really want to think about right now.
The biggest thing crossing my mind was that in no way in hell did I want to get anywhere near Ponyville or the main (heh., mane) characters and get sucked into their particular brand of insanity. I was also hoping that what I knew about this world and its leaders had been censored or flanderized for a kids show. Otherwise, the thought of sapient beings with the level of maturity and poor decision making they showed having that kind of power and handling life ending apocalyptic events on a regular basis was a fucking scary ass thought. Like beyond the ability to have rational thought scary. Also, I'm really hoping to find a pub, because I needed a beer or eight to process all of this.
Deep breath, and I needed to make up a plan of action. But also do some information gathering so I knew exactly what I was dealing with. I needed a test of some sort, something that was definitely not TV Y so I knew how this world really worked. I knew exactly what I needed to do…
