"There were some who were...less than happy with the arrangements that had been made, but most were in agreement that things had turned out for the best..."

"We seek an audience with Princess Mi Amore Cadenza and Prince Shining Armor to discuss the fate of our people in this land!" Bryce's voice rang out clear as crystal (pun intended), and a brief silence followed before the voice from the tower replied.

"REMAIN WHERE YOU ARE! WE WILL COME DOWN AND MEET YOU!"

The three of them remained still as they heard the sounds of something descending a stairwell and exiting through a door before the guards appeared before them.

Now, Bryce had warned them beforehand that the local inhabitants weren't human, but Jonathan didn't think anything could have prepared him for the sight now before him. Approaching them from the base of each tower, clad in crystalline armor and crystalline swords at their sides, were two small horses. No, not horses. Ponies. Though they were a bit bigger than your average pony, standing about six feet from their hooves to the tops of the plumes on their helmets. What's more, they were also made from crystal. Seriously, was there anything about this place that wasn't crystal? The one on the left was made of yellow crystals and had a black tail, as well as a horn protruding from his forehead, while the one on the right, who was slightly larger than his comrade, had purple crystals and a green tail and wings sprouting from his armor. At first, the five of them all stood there in silence, each party sizing up the other, before the unicorn finally broke the silence.

"Greetings, humans. I am Commander Golden Spear. This here is Lieutenant Diamond Hoof. Which of you is the spokesman for your party?"

Bryce bowed his head in respect, prompting Dave and Jonathan to do the same. "Greetings, Commander. My name, as you know, is Bryce Hammonds. Currently, I am the primary spokesman for both our party and the rest of our group on the mountain, though each of us present hold a level of authority to speak."

Golden Spear returned the nod. "In the interest of time, I'll get right to business. The princess is away right now, but I will be happy to speak to Prince Armor and see about a private audience, but on two conditions. The first is that you will need to wait here, as your species has never been seen in Equestria, I would risk a panic by bringing you into the city. The second is that you will need to hand over any and all weapons you have with you to Lieutenant Diamond Hoof."

At this point, Dave spoke up. "We would be more than happy to meet your requests, Commander." His voice was gentle, like an old and wise father (probably because that's exactly what he was). Nodding his recognition, Golden Spear then turned and nodded to Diamond Hoof, who unfurled his beautiful crystal wings and, despite the laws of physics, took off, gliding up to the tower and returning with a large box cradled in his forehooves. The two older members of the company removed their handguns, making sure to unload them to avoid accidental discharge, and Bryce removed his machete, knife, and taser. The pony guards eyed the more advanced weapons a bit suspiciously, but made no comment. Suddenly, Golden Spear's horn glowed with an orange aura, and an identical aura surrounded the box's lid, slamming it closed before jumping to the key, which turned, locking the box, then floated into a small pouch on the Commander's armor. As Diamond Hoof flew back up to the tower with the box, Golden Spear's horn glowed once more, and a small group of items appeared with a flash, startling Dave and Jonathan, though Bryce seemed unfazed. The orange aura took hold of a quill and paper, dipped the quill in a vial of ink, and began writing. When the letter was finished, it rolled up and floated over to Diamond Hoof, who took it in his mouth and flew off towards the palace at the center of the empire.

Once he was gone, the quill and inkwell poofed out of existence and the four of them sat in silence, awaiting a response.

*******

A short time later, Lieutenant Diamond Hoof returned on foot. Well, hoof rather. He was accompanied by another individual. The first thing Dave noticed was that, unlike the two ponies they had already met, this fellow seemed to be flesh and blood rather than crystal, with white fur under his strangely purple armor, which was adorned with some sort of star crest, and a shaggy blue mane with a horn seemingly made of bone interrupting its locks; he was a unicorn, the, like Commander Spear. As he approached the group, Bryce bowed to him, and Dave and Jonathan followed suit. The white unicorn returned the gesture, bending one of his forelegs slightly before rising and addressing them.

"Greetings, and welcome to the Crystal Empire. My name is Shining Armor. My wife and I rule and protect the Empire. I must admit, I never expected to see humans here."

"You've seen humans before?" Jonathan asked.

Shining Armor shook his head, his mane bouncing as he did so. "Not me personally, but my sister has, though not in this world. My knowledge of humans is limited, but I do know that you can't find them anywhere on the face of Equis. Tell me, how did you get here?"

"You may want to sit down." Bryce stated flatly. "It's a long story."

Four of the six present seated themselves in the grass beside the path, though Golden Spear and Diamond Hoof elected to remain standing next to the prince. Bryce started by making introductions and telling the ponies a bit about who they were and where they came from, then described the events leading up to their arrival, starting from the barbecue, then moving through the alignment, wall of light, and waking up in the mountains. He explained that none of them had any idea why what happened did, or how it pulled them from their world to Equis, which was apparently the name of the planet they were now on. Shining Armor was silent through the entire story, but muttered a thought to himself when Bryce had finished.

"I wonder if this has anything to do with the Crystal Mirror." He seemed to be speaking more to himself than anyone else.

Bryce shook his head. "Not likely."

Shining seemed surprised that Bryce knew what he was talking about. "You said you didn't have any idea what could have brought you here. How, then, do you know about the mirror, or that it's not responsible?"

"One question at a time. First, I know about the mirror because, in our world, this entire reality," he made a wide gesture around them, "is portrayed in a television show and series of movies designed to teach our young about friendship. I don't know how they were able to know that there was another world filled with talking ponies, or how they knew about events going on here, but one of the movies addressed the Crystal Mirror and the parallel world on the other side, so that's how I know about it. Second, I know it's not responsible because we're not from that world. If we were, it stands to reason that we would have turned into ponies, seeing as ponies transform into humans when they cross the portal."

Shining Armor nodded as if this all made sense to him, though Dave was fairly lost. When Bryce had mentioned a TV show, Dave had guessed pretty easily which show he was talking about, though neither he nor his kids had ever watched My Little Pony. He always thought it was a bit pointless, something super sappy only for the girliest of little girls to giggle at. At this point, though, he was really glad that Bryce had.

"Well," the pony prince continued, "I suppose we should get to the negotiations then."

Negotiations didn't take long, since they really didn't know much, and Shining Armor seemed to be a lower-level prince under higher authority, so he couldn't authorize much. When negotiations ended, arrangements had been made for a private, guard-operated train to take them to a small town outside the nation's capitol, a place called Ponyville, where they would be met by four other princesses and hopefully get more answers. In the meantime, they would be supplied with tents to get the out of the blizzards of the frozen north, as well as food and other supplies, but they couldn't go inside the city.

"The emotional state of the Crystal Empire is reflected all over Equestria." Shining Armor had explained. "It's part of its magic. If I let you into the city, the citizens may grow uneasy and fearful, which would then spread across the country. I simply can't risk that."

The only drawback to the arrangements made was that they had to give up any and all weapons, though Commander Golden Spear had assured them that a small number of guards would remain near their camp to keep them safe, and Shining Armor told them that the other royalty may decide to return their weapons to them at a later time.

*******

"Absolutely not!"

The three of them had returned to the mountain before the sun began to set and explained everything that had happened, minus the fact that the world was filled with multicolored talking ponies. Bryce still firmly believed that that was something everyone should find out through experience. After all, there was really no good way of breaking that to everybody, and even with Dave and Jonathan backing him, he wasn't sure everyone would believe him.

Anyway, everyone was fine and dandy with the arrangements until they mentioned having to give up their weapons. That made several individuals unhappy, though one was definitely more vocal than the others.

"I refuse to to go defenseless in an unfamiliar place with only the word of strangers!" AJ yelled at the top of his lungs, before finishing with "I'm keeping mine!"

Bryce pinched the bridge of his nose. AJ had been going on like this for nearly fifteen minutes now. Honestly, it was quite childish. Noah and Braden hadn't liked it either, but Braden disarmed at the request of Jonathan, and Noah had done so because he realized that peaceful negotiations with the locals were hinging on them not posing a threat. AJ, however, had refused, quite adamantly, and waas now waving his machete around, threatening anyone who came anywhere near him. Everyone else in the building was ready to go before it got too dark, and they were all starting to reach their limit with his attitude.

Bryce let out a long breath before running his hands through his blonde hair and looking back up at AJ. "AJ, please--"

"No! Absolutely not!"

"But--"

"I refuse!"

That was it. Bryce had been pushed past his limit, and his gaze changed from exasperated to enraged."That's it. You want to keep your knives? Fine! But you will be the only one left on this God-forsaken mountain! The rest of us are willing to set aside our own personal wants in order to get answers and possibly get home, but by all means, if you want to be selfish, go ahead! If you want to keep your stupid machete and your stupid taser and your stupid knives then BE MY GUEST! But if you do, you will be left behind. We will move on without you."

When Bryce finished his rant, his friend Ceili came up and put a gentle hand on his shoulder. Losing his temper like that was not something he did often, nor was it something he was proud of, and only a few currently present had seen him like that before. So as he looked around at the slack-jawed faces of his peers, the fire in his eyes sputtered out, and he let out a tired sigh.

"I'm sorry guys," he apologized as he bent down to grab his backpack, which contained what few possessions he had left. "Come on everyone. We need to get there before nightfall." With that, he shuffled out the door and into the snow, followed by all but AJ, who simply stood there, confused by the sudden turn of events.

Author's Note

Hey everypony!

So, I've been getting kind of annoyed at how long it's taking for me to get anywhere in this story, and the subsequent boring chapters that result from it. I promise, I'm not doing it on purpose, I just didn't realize how much build up this story needed. In an effort to fix this, I'm trying to cut back on the amount of descriptive detail I apply, and I'm starting to exclude non-essential dialogue, like with negotiations and such, where the conversations take a long time.

I realize that not everypony has long portions of time to dedicate to reading long chapters, so I'm trying to keep my chapters to around 2,500 words each. I may, however, start writing longer chapters for a few chapters in interest of getting to the meat of the story faster. Please bear with me. I promise the things are starting to pick up speed. We saw Shining Armor in this chapter, and we'll be seeing many more familiar faces in the next, including the royal sisters and a certain draconequus

As usual, please leave any feedback or concerns or even plot suggestions in the comments. Constructive criticism is always appreciated!

Thanks guys!
~Moon Guard