A slight twitch of Kye’s right hand set the twin Akrapovic cans growling as the bike rolled forward a couple of feet, before returning to their distinctive low rumble. Indicated turbo pressure was fine. Electrics seemed okay. A quick touch of both brake levers confirmed the pads were gripping the discs nicely.

Clunk.

First gear. Typical grabby clutch, but nothing to worry about. Taking one last drag of his cigarette, Kye flicked it to the ground, extinguishing the butt with his boot.

It had taken the better part of two years to build a bike worthy of running in the TT. A Yamaha R1 crossplane, with a stage three turbo bolted onto the side, modified with a dual carbon battery attached to an electric motor. A unique hybrid system. The bike was overkill, in all honesty.

The race was just as deadly.

The Tourist Trophy, or TT for short, was a controversial motorcycle racing event. Controversial in the sense that almost every year it was held, someone died. Essentially, it was a time trial course set on narrow closed public roads in the Isle of Man, a small island between England and northern Ireland. At the start of the race, the riders would line up and wait for their cue to set off at ten second intervals. The whole event lasted around two weeks each year, often drawing in thousands of spectators.

Heart rate increasing, Kye allowed the bike to roll forward a little further. It was hard to keep the ‘what if?’ scenarios from forming in his mind. Oil on the road? A sticky throttle at the wrong time? Misjudging an apex? All could be deadly when averaging over one hundred and twenty miles per hour on narrow roads. There wasn't any run off area to slide merrily along on his leather-clad ass if he binned it.

The crowd roared louder with every rider that set off, and Kye glimpsed Larry, a middle aged Cross Racing Tech representative, giving him a fleeting thumbs up from the sidelines. Cross Racing Tech was the aftermarket bike parts manufacturer that had sponsored Kye to race in the TT, and it had been Larry who had found Kye—burning through his third set of tyres at a Silverstone track day. After rolling into the pits with the top spot on the podium, a deal was struck.

Now only three bikes from the start line, Kye was half-regretting agreeing to go through with it. A small man wearing a bright yellow high-visibility jacket and holding a camera three times the size of his head was hovering around the start line like an overgrown wasp. Kye gave an obligatory wave to the lens as the rider in front of him tore away. Rolling the last few feet to the start line, he took a deep breath and tried to focus on the turn sequences he’d memorised over the seemingly countless practice runs he’d completed.

With a twitch of his wrist, Kye pegged the engine at a constant four thousand RPM.

“Five seconds,” someone called. Kye didn’t know who. All his concentration was now on the empty street ahead. An eerie sense of calm descended on his mind as the umpire tapped his shoulder.

The bike jolted forward, and the tail end wavered for a split second as the tyre found traction, immediately sending the front wheel up into the air when it did. One desperate lunge over the tank later and Kye managed to level it out, the bike tearing past the seating stands on the rear wheel, before gently touching back down. The dump valve gave a loud hiss as he changed up to second.

Trying not to think of all the embarrassing YouTube footage of that costly cock-up that was sure to be uploaded, he sailed through the first corner without issue. Trees, people, lampposts and buildings all flew past in a blur of colour. The rush of the wind was deafening, and the bumps in the road were throwing the bike around like a rag doll, but he couldn’t afford to let fear roll the throttle back.

The line markings on the road soon became nothing but a blur as Kye navigated the twists and turns, the bike leaving a snarling symphony in his wake. Glancing down at the speedometer, he cringed a little. One of the mechanics had forgot to disconnect it. Suddenly knowing you’re doing one hundred and sixty eight miles per hour on a road that was only designed for forty is not a good feeling.

A crest in the road sent the bike airborne for a moment, and Kye focused on keeping the bars dead straight. He’d seen many tank slappers as a result of a crooked landing, and had no intentions of becoming another statistic. Thankfully, the bike landed perfectly, dead on the line that set him up to take the next corner at a decent speed. It was a blind one, but Kye didn’t slow down. His time had to be damn near perfect to be in with a shot of actually-oh shit!

A TT official was vigorously waving a yellow flag from behind a low stone wall to the left of the road. The right side was flanked by a tall hedge. Dead ahead was what seemed like a wall of fire. He had nowhere to go, and the speedometer read one hundred and no chance of stopping in time.

Well. Shit.

Time seemed to slow down. The flames grew nearer as the rush of air, the whine of the turbo, and the growl of the exhausts became somehow… muted. Kye didn’t even attempt to grab the brake lever. He couldn’t.

People often say that life flashes by in the face of death, but that wasn’t what was happening here. Kye could see everything in perfect clarity, but he could do nothing to prevent what was now seemingly inevitable. He closed his eyes as the flames engulfed him.

He waited for the collision. For the wheels to be swept from beneath him. For the shock, then the pain. But, it didn’t come. Instead, the ground disappeared from beneath his wheels, and then there was silence.

The bars were still clasped tightly in his grip, vibrating.

Vibrating?

The seat beneath him was also vibrating, almost as if the engine was growling away at idle. There was an odd smell of ozone in the air. He opened his eyes, and immediately regretted doing so. Sound seemed to burst back into life. The engine was indeed still running. The Isle of Man, however, seemed to have vanished completely.

It had been replaced by the colour purple, and nothing else. Everywhere Kye looked, was purple. The bike, and he himself also seemed to be weightless.

“What the...” he yelled, his voice devoid of reverb. There was nothing for it to bounce off of.

Unsure of what he was supposed to do, he looked down at the clocks. Turbo pressure was fine, fuel gauge just below full. The Speedometer was reading twenty seven miles per hour. The bike was still in third gear, apparently, the rear wheel spinning merrily.

“I’m… I’m dead, aren’t I?” he said aloud. To no one.

Even though there was no visible source of light, Kye could still see the bike. Even though there ought to be no atmosphere, the engine was still running, and he was still breathing. This place didn’t make any sense.

He blinked, and in the time it took for his eyes to re-open, a barrage of activity assaulted his senses. The void went completely black. The bike was suddenly screaming at the redline, the suspension compressing hard as it came into contact with a solid surface. He felt the rush of cool air over his race suit.

Grabbing the brakes in reflex, he managed to bring the bike to a jerky stop. The only light that could be seen was coming from a silvery orb in the sky, an astounding multitude of stars and the headlight on the front of the bike illuminating what appeared to be a dirt track.

* * *

“Oi, Dave. Turn the telly up, will ya?”

A fatigued barman snatched the remote from the counter, pointing it over his shoulder at the flatscreen mounted on the wall.

“… onto motorsport now, and we have some breaking news. The popular road racing event—the Isle of Mann TT, has just been red flagged. Our correspondent Jane Valderama is live at the scene.”

“Yes Martha, three riders down. One dead, one missing, and one seriously injured. Early reports suggested that acclaimed TT rider Edward Hook lost control of his Suzuki GSXR1000, losing traction over a crest and slamming into the stone wall of a tavern. Eyewitnesses say he died immediately on impact.”

“Ian Bronson, riding a BMW S1000RR, is also said to have high-sided as he attempted to avoid the wreckage. He has since been airlifted to Noble’s Hospital, and is being treated for a broken back.”

“Newcomer Kye Lawson was also unable to stop his Yamaha R1 in time, riding straight into the fire from the ruptured tank of the Suzuki. Neither rider, nor motorcycle has yet been recovered. Officials are still perplexed as to his whereabouts. He was not spotted leaving the scene, nor anywhere else on the circuit. No motorcycle wreckage has been identified, other than the remains of the GSXR…”

“Poor bastards. Where’d ya reckon Yammie’s new boy went, eh?”

“Dunno, mate,” replied the barman absentmindedly.

“This is Jane Valderama, with your deadly motorcycle racing news.”

* * *

Race bikes didn't normally have headlights. Kye was thankful his ride wasn't a typical race bike. Being road legal, it had lights and turn signals. Even a horn and number plate. Not that any of the latter was doing him any good. Assuming he wasn’t lying by the side of the road in the Isle of Mann, a fresh corpse or a comatose vegetable, he could only assume something uncommonly extraordinary had happened.

“I can’t be dead,” he muttered into the cool breeze seeping into his helmet. “Why… Why would the bike be here?” His voice was inaudible, drowned out by the engine rumbling happily away beneath him.

The only logical explanation that came to mind was that this was indeed a “Life on Mars” type of scenario. Great, the nineteen seventies is just what I fucking need.

Silently hoping he hadn’t fallen into a TV show, Kye resolved to just keep riding. This dirt path had to lead to somewhere, right? Wherever that somewhere was, there was no indication of how far it would be. No artificial light shone from the horizon. Only an abnormally large moon accompanied by a magnificent plethora of cosmological artistry shone down on the terrain. The night sky was unlike any he had ever laid eyes on. Countless stars, discernible gas clouds, even entire galaxies adorned the deepest of purple backdrops.

With a sigh of desperation, Kye flicked the headlight switch to high beam and set off along the path to the unknown.

* * *

“Get up! You have no clients today, and you promised to help me run the sweet stall, you lazy whorse!”

“Mmmph,” Lyra Heartstrings, still dead to Equestria in her pit of blankets and pillows, groaned. “S’too early,” she yawned, only partially opening her eyes. The day was much too young to be getting up. Blankets much too warm.

“Oh, no. You're not flanking out now,” Bon Bon growled through gritted teeth, and a mouthful of blanket, by the sounds of it.

*le tug.

The blanket was ripped away, sending Lyra pirouetting through the air. She bounced off the side of her dresser and landed in a heap on the floor. “Luna’s royal box! Bonnie!” Lyra muttered, rubbing the side of her head with a forehoof and glaring daggers at the earth pony.

The cream-coated mare spat out a mouthful of blanket. “Get ready. We have work to do,” she said, before trotting briskly from the room without another word.

Lyra scowled. Her roommate may have had candy on her ass, but she was far from sugar and sweetness at times. Cursing her past-self for agreeing to sit in a busy marketplace and sell confectionary all day, the unicorn began her morning ritual.

Like all unicorns, Lyra’s horn was a conduit for the arcane. Unlike all unicorns, however, she had discovered from a young age that she drew more than the average share from the natural harmonious magic of Equador.

A lot more.

So much more, in fact, that it had led to her being an outcast amongst her peers. Nopony wanted to play with the filly who caused the ground to crack and shake, randomly set things on fire, or made things explode. The fear she unintentionally kindled in the hearts of her peers, their parents, and even her teachers had left her childhood devoid of the kind of friendship that others took for granted.

It was only when she was accepted into Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns that she made her first true friend. A curious little filly by the name of Twilight Sparkle. Together, they had learned to properly control their raw abilities. Though, if Lyra was honest, Twilight had definitely developed a more refined technique.

Clearing her mind of all thought, Lyra stood in the middle of her bedroom and closed her eyes. Her morning routine always began with a session of arcane meditation—a practice vital to unicorns everywhere—though perhaps a little more important to those such as Lyra. Failure to partake in a little “cleansing of the magical palette,” as her mother liked to call it, could potentially lead to some highly embarrassing occurrences.

Or, in Lyra’s case, dangerous occurrences.

Her mother often wondered aloud why Lyra’s cutie mark was a Lyre, and not a Staff of Harmony, or something. She certainly didn’t miss the days when her horn was a ticking time bomb. One day, her father had bought her an enchanted yoyo. She had been so excited to play with it that her horn had promptly turned it into a pile of ash. She still couldn’t look her dad in the eye whenever the subject came up, much to his continued amusement.

Another time, her parents had taken her to the Manehattan Zoo. It had once housed a scarlet-back manticore as the main attraction. After Lyra’s visit, all they were left with was an ornate burgundy teapot sitting in the large glass enclosure. Lyra couldn’t remember the details, but according to her parents, it had looked at her funny.

Once she started going to school in Canterlot, however, such occurrences happened less often. Partially thanks—in no small measure—to Twilight. The mare was a genius in the field of arcane science, and probably Lyra’s closest friend alongside Bon Bon. After her recent move to Ponyville, Twilight had proved herself the bearer of the Element of Magic. In short—a perfect companion to aid Lyra in the study of the arcane.

By the time Lyra had allowed the harmony she had absorbed during the night to harmlessly radiate away, sunlight was streaming through her window.

“Enough polishing your horn already! We’re late!” yelled Candy Ass from down the hall.

Lyra scowled, trotting from her room toward her bothersome roommate. The earth mare had somehow managed to precariously balance several brown paper bags full of stock, a worn old cash register and a barrel of cider on her back. In an admittedly impressive display of perseverance and skill, she trotted down the stairs without dropping a thing.

Earth ponies.

If Lyra tried that, she’d probably end up flat on her back in a pile of cider-sodden splinters at the bottom of the stairs, with her horn jammed in the cash register and toffee apples stuck in her mane. Thankfully, her magical ability made such a skill rather redundant.

Carefully levitating the rest of the parcels and bags, she followed Bon Bon down the stairs and out into the streets of Ponyville.

Author's Note

If anyone spots an typos or grammatical errors, let me know, eh?

Dunno why I typed "eh". I'm not even Canadian...