Back to Equestria

        Marty woke up with a jolt. The room was dark, but he could feel that he was in a bed.

Oh, God. He thought to himself, still groggy. That was a weird dream.

        He turned his head on the pillow, groaning. As he prepared to drift to sleep again, he could faintly hear someone breathing. Ma.

        “Mom? Is that you?”

        “There, there.” A soft, female voice came from the other side of the room. “You’ve been asleep for almost five hours, now.” It didn’t sound like his mother, but Marty reasoned that it was just his ears.

        “I had the strangest dream, Ma.” Marty pulled himself tighter into the soft sheets. “I went back in time, to a strange other world! And there were talking animals.” Marty yawned. “With horns.” He steadily began to fall back to sleep.

        “Well, you’re safe and sound, now.” the voice said. “Back in good ol’ Equestria.”

        “Yea-” Marty shot upright, eyes now wide open. “Equestria?!?!”

        The lights in the room flicked on. Marty turned towards its source, and saw the purple... unicorn, from his nightmare. She was sitting on a bench, gazing at him with concern. Once again, his jaw fell open.

        “You’re a yuh-. You’re a yuh-!”

        “My name’s Twilight Sparkle!” She smiled brightly as she said the name. “You’re in my library, in Ponyville.”

        “You’re a unicorn!” Marty was practically yelling.

        The thing that said it’s name was Twilight Sparkle furrowed its brow in confusion. “Yes, I’m a unicorn. You talk like you’ve never seen one before.”

        “Yeah, that’s right!”

        “What? How could you have never seen a unicorn? I’m pretty sure there are ponies everywhere in Equestria.”

        The bewildered human grabbed at his hair with his hands. “But unicorns don’t exist!”

        “E-excuse me?” she looked offended.

        “Not, uh, that! I mean-” He shook his hands at her. “You exist, obviously. But you shouldn’t! I mean, I never thought-”

        She raised a- hoof? What the fu -to silence him. “Well, it is possible that I don’t exist. I could just be a product of your imagination. Or, you could be a product of my imagination. Or, one of us is imaginary, but thinks they’re real, but it’s really just the other one talking to themselves.”

She spoke the words as they came to her head, it seemed, and seemed very proud of the clever results. “Or, one of us could be a hologram! It would take-”

        Marty listened to the unicorn- Twilight, she said -talk for several more minutes. He was thankful for the time to think, as he continued to stare, slack-jawed, at her as she talked, not listening to anything she was saying. I... What?

Okay, Marty, think. Be logical. Sitting in front of you is a unicorn, who can ramble more than your sister. She seems to have put you into a bed, so she’s probably not going to kill you. You have no idea where the Doc is. Nor the DeLorean.

This is heavy.

“Uh, excuse me?” Marty said.

        “...but I’m never going near parsley again. Huh?” She blinked, then looked at the ground, blushing. “Oh, sorry. I guess I got a bit carried away.”

        “Oh, nah, it’s okay. Really.” The unicorn looked up again and smiled. Huh. “Um, so, first off, where did you say I was?”

        “You’re in my bedroom, in the Ponyville Library.”

        “Uh, okay.” Marty scratched his chin, positioning himself so he was sitting on the edge of the bed. “We are on Earth, yah?”

        Twilight scrunched her nose at the peculiar question. “Yes, the library is built on dirt. No pavement in Ponyville.”

        “Uh, no. The planet, Earth.”

        “...The planet is made of Earth, yes.”

        Marty rolled his eyes. “Okay. Am I in California?”

        “California?”

        He clapped his hands together. “Good! No we’re getting somewhere. Am I in America?”

        “Never heard of it.”

        “Europe?”

        “Nadda.”

        “Africa?”

        “No clue.”

        “Asia? Antarctica?”

        “Nope. Wait, did you say...”

        Marty leaned forward, eager. “Yes?”

        “Stirrup?”

        “Uh, no. Europe.”

        “Oh. No, sorry.”

        Marty sighed. “Okay, what year is it?”

        Twilight looked at him quizzically. “What year? How could you not know what year it is?” Marty’s eyes grew wide and, he clamped a hand over his mouth.

She looked at him for a moment, then gasped. “You’ve been using time magic!? That’s irresponsible! And probably illegal!” The purple unicorn stood up and began pacing around the bedroom. “But hang on, you’re not a unicorn, you can’t do magic. So how did you...” She gasped again.

        “That flying chariot! Does that travel through time? And how does it fly? Does it move under it’s own power? I saw something like that once, but it moved on the ground, and there were unicorns with it, you can’t possibly-”

        “Ah! Uh, Twilight!” Marty threw his hands in the air. She stopped talking. “I’ll tell you about the DeLorean later, okay?” She nodded gently.

        “Good. Now, where’s Doc?”

        Twilight looked around nervously. “Oh, he’s fine. He, uh, was awake when you passed out.” Marty sighed, relaxing now that he knew Doc wasn’t injured. “He freaked out after looking around for a little bit. He also kept talking about somepony named Scott.”

        “Scott?” Marty said. And secondly; “somepony”?

        “Aren’t you... Scott?”

        “What? No! I’m Marty. Erm, nice to meet you.” He held out a hand.

        Twilight stared at it for a moment. “That’s a very interesting paw. Are those all opposable?”

        “What?” Marty thought for a moment before bringing his palm to his face. “Oh! No, see, that’s like, a greeting. Uh, you shake it.”

        The purple pony stared, then gingerly held his hand in one of her hooves- wait, how- and proceeded to shake it, quickly, like a soda.

        “Aha, not quite like that, but alright.” Marty retrieved his hand from her death-grip. “So, what was this about a Scott?”

        “Oh! Yes. Is Scott a deity where you come from?” She sat back down on the bench as she talked.

        “Not one I know of.”

        “The ‘Great Scott?’”

        “The ‘Great-” Marty paused, then laughed aloud. “Hah! No, I’m pretty sure Scott’s some famous scientist. Doc says that all the time.”

        Twilight suddenly seemed very interested. “A scientist?”

        “Yeah, Doc’s a scientist himself, always talks about those old guys. Named his dogs after some of ‘em, too.”

        “He’s a scientist? Oh, wow! I don’t think I’ve ever met a scientist of another species before! I mean, I’ve read Garcin the Gryphon’s works, but to actually talk to one!” Her eyes sparkled with an obvious enthusiasm. “Will you introduce me?”

        “Heh, sure. Um, say, it’s getting a little cramped in here, why don’t you take me to the D- I mean, the flying carriage.”

        “The Dorian?”

        “...Yes, that’s right.”

        Twilight jumped from her chair and trotted yeah that’s trotting, right? Or is that a canter? to the door, opened it, and nodded her head for Marty to follow. He stood up, noticing that he was much taller than the doorframe itself, and went after her, ducking his head as he went through.

Oh, God, more bright light. Marty squinted as he entered the large room. As his vision acclimated, he began to see rows and rows of old-looking books, lined upon shelves in the wall, which curved inwards. The ceilings were appreciatively higher, though, than in the bedroom. In fact, there appeared to be several levels to the structure, with small balconies lining each one.

        Another door led to what looked like a small kitchen. Twilight walked up to the door and yelled into it. “Spiiike! Help me with these books!”

        A young voice could be heard from the room. “Yeah, yeah, I’m on it, Twi.” Marty watched, dazed, as a giant lizard walked out of the room on its hind legs. “Lemme guess, you need your ‘Undocumented Phenomena’ notebook.”

        “Well, that too. What I really need is my autograph book.” Twilight dug through a pile of scrolls on a desk, blindly waving a hoof at Marty. “Spike, meet Marty. Marty, meet Spike. Spike’s my number one assistant.”

        The two boys stared dumbly at each other. “What the hell are you?” They said in unison.

        “I’m a human! What are you?”

        “A dragon.”

Marty blinked dumbly. “Huh. Okay.”

        “Wait, you’re not impressed?” The small purple lizard looked terribly downtrodden about this.

        “Well, yes, I’m impressed. But it’s not as shocking as the valley full of talking unicorns. I mean, I’ve heard of talking dragons. You ever read Tolkien?”

        “Tolkien? Do you mean J. R. R. Tolkara?”

        “Um, maybe?”

        Spike shrugged, steering towards a different topic. “What is a human?” he asked.

        “Oh, well. I am.”

        “You look kinda like a shaved foal.”

        “Ah, thanks?”

        Twilight interrupted the conversation, trotting directly between the two of them. “Spike, those books?”

        “Yeah, yeah.” The young dragon lumbered towards a bookshelf, grumbling to himself as he did so. Marty watched him go, internally reeling at the bizarre novelty of the small assistant. After but a moment, he jumped back as a brushy purple horse tail swatted his face.

        “Gah!”

        “Marty? Come on, this way.” Twilight stood in front of him, waiting for the young human to follow. Taking charge. She’s certainly handling this better than I would, if our positions were switched. He wondered how she was able to hit him with her tail, and noticed for the first time that she was taller than he had anticipated, from seeing her sit down. She only seemed half a head shorter than Marty. Spike’s head came up to his waist.

        “Alright, alright. Lead the way.” Twilight exited the wooden library through a two-part door, and the young time traveler had to duck his head again to walk through.

        He had to squint again. Bright! Whyyy- He rubbed his eyes for a moment, then slowly pried them open.

        He was in a village. Cottages and small storefronts stretch out into the distance, with pointy roofs and dirt streets. Although, aside from being (apparently) color-coordinated, nothing seemed particularly off about the whole place.

        Except for the town’s inhabitants.

        A multitude of unicorns, just like Twilight and the other ones from before, populated the village. They were in an abundance of colors, and came in lots of different shapes and sizes.

        Some of them were looking at Marty oddly. Most of them gave him an off glance, before continuing on their way, but some stood by and watched, waiting to see what he’d do.

Why am I the oddity? Jesus, this is an entire town full of-

“Marty!” Twilight said from behind him. He turned and saw her to the right side of the building he had just exited, standing beside the still-overturned DeLorean. He shook his head in disbelief, and accompanied her by the machine.

        “Sorry about crashing into your, uh” Marty waved a hand at the library. “Tree.”

        “Don’t worry about it. That’s what the forcefield’s for!”

        Marty rubbed his hands together, nervously. “You guys have... you know what? Nevermind.” He turned towards the up-ended car. “You said Doc’s inside?”

        “Yeah, he crawled in a few moments after he got up. He’s been in there for five whole hours.”

        “Upside-down?”

        She blinked. “It’s not supposed to go upside-down?”

        “Not really.”

        She smiled brightly. “Well, I can fix that for you.” The small horse closed her eyes, and her horn began to glow.

        Marty took a step back, shocked. Another, similar glow enveloped the DeLorean, and to his amazement, slowly began to rise into the air.

        His palms began to tingle. He scratched at them absentmindedly as the car continued to ascend, amazed by the impossible feat.

        The purple unicorn, obviously very engrossed in her work, lowered her eyebrows as she concentrated more. The time machine suddenly rose much higher, and righted itself in mid-air.

        Marty cringed as the faint feeling in his palms spread, enveloping his hands entirely in the odd tingling. He shook them, trying to regain the feeling in his fingers.

        Twilight gently lowered the car to the ground, releasing the magic and hanging her head in exhaustion. The tingling in the young man’s palms faded, and he was left wondering about his health. “The hell?”

        “There you go,” Twilight said, quickly recovering. “Don’t worry, I made sure not to hurt your friend.”

        Marty strode up to the car, still rubbing his palms. Through the empty driver-side window, he saw Doc, sitting with his hand sitting on the wheel, his eyes wide. The old inventor did not speak. Marty swung over to the other side of the DeLorean, opened the door, and gently sat down in the passenger side. Doc did not look at him, his gaze still fixed forward.

        “Doc? Y’alright, Doc?”

        The old man’s mouth moved, but no sound escaped.

        “Didn’t quite catch that one, Doc.”

        “I-I said that’s-that’s impossible.” He breathed out the words, gently, almost too quiet to hear.

        Marty leaned back in the faux-leather seats. “I’ll admit, it’s certainly out there. But come on, Doc, you’ve probably had your fill of impossible by now, right?”

        Doc’s head swung abruptly to the right, glaring at Marty with unparalleled intensity. “No I have not! This is utterly and completely...” he twisted his face before uttering the last word, “impossible.”

        Without another word, the inventor leapt from the car and strode down the dirt path, ranting.

        “Shit...” Marty said as he jumped out of the car and followed.

        “Impossible?! You wanna know what’s impossible, Marty?”

        Doc was blazing down the streets of Ponyville, waving his arms at the air. “THIS is impossible! We can not just travel to another world, populated entirely by miniature horses! Miniature horses that talk!”

        “Doc!” Marty ran after his friend, following him into the center of the small town, where there was a larger abundance of the strange unicorns. “Come on, Doc, you gotta calm down!”

        Doc turned and waved his fingers in the young man’s face. “I’ll tell you what’s impossible, Marty. Not a single thing we have experience is impossible, if one merely accounts for the continued existence of the DeLorean as a variable.” He stepped up onto an overturned crate, sweeping his arms out over the startled citizens, who looked up at him nervously. “We do not spiral into some madman’s daydream!”

        “Doc!”

        “What?!”

        “You’re scaring ‘em, Doc.”

        The old man stopped talking, dumbstruck. He glanced down at the colorful beings below him, fear and apprehension written plain on their faces. “Oh, I-I’m sorry, I didn’t...” Doc mumbled an apology before slowly stepping down. That got his attention.

        “Let’s get back to the tree.” Marty put a hand on his friend’s shoulder and led him through the town again, returning to the time machine. “Y’alright, Doc? You kinda flipped out there.”

        “I’m... yes, I’m fine. It’s just- Marty, they do magic. All three of them!”

        “Yeah, I noticed Twilight doing some crazy shit. Made my hands- wait, all three what?”

        Doc waved his hands in the air. “All three equines! See, there,” he pointed towards a brown unicorn with an hourglass on it’s ass, “That’s what they call an Earth pony.”

        Marty peered at the particular horse, and after a moment, noticed the obvious, that had escaped him before- it didn’t have the little horn. In fact, it didn’t have anything peculiar about it.

        “And up there! I don’t know what they call themselves, but they look just like the Pegasus from Greek mythology!”

        The younger time traveler looked up. Amazed, he saw that there were, in fact, several of the horses with wings, coasting lazily through the air. Looking around, he realized that, the unicorns he encountered only made up roughly one-third of the population here. “God damn. You said they all do magic?”

        Doc nodded. “Yes”, he said, “apparently the ones resembling unicorns can perform spectacular feats, the pegasi can move clouds, and the Earth ponies have a natural green thumb.”

        “Doc, how the hell do you know all this?” Marty asked.

        “I was laying in the DeLorean for quite a while, Marty. I overheard some things. And if my initial conclusion is correct, I’m pretty sure I’ve gone mad.” They continued to walk through the town, looking for the library. “Where are we going?”

        Marty looked around at the brightly-colored houses. “We’re heading to... the library, there’s this unicorn...” He stopped walking and looked down the street behind him. “Hang on, where’s the giant tree?”

        “The tree we crashed into?”

        “Yeah, it’s actually a library, and...” the teenager folded his arms. “I think we’re lost.”

        Marty had followed Doc quite a ways into town, and the buildings in the impossible town seemed to all look exactly the same. The old inventor spoke up. “Well, besides the fact that none of this makes sense, why don’t we ask for directions?”

        Marty swiveled his head around the crowd, looking for any of the... horses, that seemed to not be busy. Each of them seemed to be busy with a conversation or menial task, save for one... pink one, who merely bounced up and down with it’s eyes closed.

        The time travelers shrugged at one another, and gently approached it. “Sorry to bother you,” Marty said. “Could you point us to the Library?”

        The pink pony opened her eyes and stopped bouncing. “The Library?!?!” She spoke with emphasis, and from her voice, was obviously another female. “Everypony knows the library’s over thataway!” She swung a hoof towards her right. Marty peered down the road, and saw a few branches sticking up over the houses.

        “Oh, thank you, Miss.” Doc spoke up hesitantly. “We’ll just head on that-”

        The pink earth pony interrupted him with a long, loud gasp. “I don’t know you!”

        All three stood quietly for a moment. Marty tentatively broke the silence. “You don-”

“HiI’mPinkiePieandI’venevermetyoubeforesothatmustmeanyou’refromsomewhereelsebutwhereyoucamefromIdon’tknowsomaybeyoucamefromthatthingthathitTwilight’shouseandturnedovershesaidshedraggedsomeponyfromitandoohthatwouldexplainwhyyourelookingforthelibrarysoifI’venevermetyoubeforethatmeansyourNEWINTOWN!!!”* She inhaled.

        “And that means you need A PARTY!!!”

        Then it exploded.

        Doc and Marty stared blankly at the puff of flour that occupied the space where the small pink horse had just been.

        “What the hell was that? Is that normal?”

        “Nothing about that was normal. I don’t even think that was normal here.”

        The two humans quickly made their way towards the library, where Twilight Sparkle was standing by the time machine, scratching her chin. Marty called out to her. “Hey, Twilight!”

        The purple unicorn turned towards them. “Oh, hi Marty!” She waved, and smiled.

Very friendly, aren’t they? Marty thought. “This is Doc. Doc, this is Twilight Glitter.”

“Sparkle.”Twilight spoke defensively. “Twilight Sparkle. Marty says you’re a scientist! What field do you study?”

Doc brightened considerably at the question. “I’m a patron of all sciences, little miss. However, for a few years I taught physics.”

“Ohh, that makes sense! But from what I gather, you don’t use magic where you come from?”

The inventor adopted a weary expression, resigning himself to being completely oblivious about everything in the strange land. “Yes, that’s right. There are ancient stories about magic, but no scientific evidence to support them.”

“Fascinating! We ourselves have some fairly complex non-magical technology, but nothing on this level!” She tapped a hoof excitedly on the hood of the DeLorean. “And never in a million years did I think one could travel through time without magic.”

Doc turned white as a sheet, and turned towards Marty. “You told her it was a time machine?!?”

Marty sighed. “No, Doc, but you just did.”

“So it is a time travel device! A ‘time machine’, you called it? Nifty!” Twilight returned to inspecting the car with renewed vigor. “Are you from the far future? The past? Another planet? And how is it powered? It looks nuclear!”

Marty spoke up. “Nah, this sucker’s electrical.” He chuckled at his own joke.

Doc ignored him. “Actually, Miss Sparkle, the time machine is only designed to do just that- travel through time. But recently, some additions were added to it that were evidently designed to allow it to travel here. Never in all my life have I heard of anything like this place!”

The old man was ranting again. “And I’ve never heard of another sentient species existing! And magic! That’s impossible! And you all speak perfect English!”

Twilight Sparkle rubbed her chin again, thinking about his words. “Well, I can think of a few possibilities off the bat. Perhaps you are from the distant past? Our species could have been created, or evolved, and we were the first to discover magic.”

“Or the distant future!” The unicorn’s eyes grew wide. “We could have died off, your species was born, and you simply have yet to discover magic? Although, I find the idea of my species going extinct discouraging, to say the least, and not discovering magic is like not discovering fire.”

“Thank you,” Doc deadpanned, “for the high honor you do my species.”

Twilight chuckled. “No offense, of course. I mean, you created non-magical time travel! And from the way you speak of it, you can accomplish it repeatedly?”

The inventor waved a hand. “Of course.”

“Wow. There must be some pretty strict laws preventing the abuse of this technology.”

Marty snorted in the background as Doc visibly swelled with pride. “Actually, there are not. I invented the time machine, and currently have the only one, or, uh, two, in existence.”

Twilight’s eyes grew even wider. “You invented it? Oh, wow! How does it work?”

The old time traveler reached over and opened the side door. The unicorn stepped back for a moment as it hissed, then eagerly peered inside.

Doc pointed to the various buttons and switches throughout the inside of the vehicle. “Most of these are for nuclear and electrical management, half of which became obsolete shortly after I created it, using technology I obtained from the future. This one,” he pointed towards the time circuits, “is a readout of the dates and times you’re working with. And this,” He turned his head and gently tapped behind him, “Is the Flux Capacitor. The secret of Time Travel.”

“Hang on,” Twilight frowned and gestured a hoof at the large ruby, positioned below the Capacitor. “I thought you said you didn’t use magic. That’s clearly a Thaumatic Cell.”

“So you know what this is? This is what brought us here. When we traveled through time, it began glowing. Next thing we knew, we were here.”

“I don’t...” Twilight thought for a moment, biting her lip. “Yes, actually. That’s a Thematic Cell, a sort of magic-holder. I’m assuming these wires connect it to your Warp Capacitor.”

“Flux Capacitor. How does-”

“Wait a minute,” Marty cut off his friend. “If that thing just brought us here, why can’t we use it to get back?”

Twilight piped up. “Because it’s empty. Which is weird, actually. This looks unicorn-made, so there should be at least a little energy left inside, even if you used it all. I’m convinced the magic was drained from the ruby, somehow.” She shrugged. “I can fix it, though.”

“You can?!” Doc clapped his hands together. “Great! You fix it, then we can get home! How long-”

“A month. Two, maybe.”

Doc’s face fell. “Well, shit.”

Twilight raised her eyebrows at the profanity, but said nothing. “I’ll get this into my lab, take a look at it. I’d still like to ask you about your Capacitor, Doc.” She levitated the stone out of its resting place with her magic.

Marty winced and shook his hands, as the bizarre tingling returned. The purple unicorn narrowed her eyes as she noticed the gesture. “Why don’t you both... come inside. I should probably write to the princess about this.”

She trotted again towards the Library, and Marty made to follow. Doc put a hand on his shoulder. “Marty, I want you to be careful. This is a first-contact scenario, and there’s also the fact we don’t know anything about these small horses.”

The teenager stifled a laugh. “Alright, Doc. But come on, they’re... ponies! I don’t think this is gonna be too difficult.”

Twilight called out to them, chipper, from inside the the large building. “Oh, and I can introduce you to my friends!”

The pair glanced at each other before heading to the door.

This was only gonna get weirder.

*(For those interested: Hi-I’m-Pinkie-Pie-and-I’ve-never-met-you-before-so-that-must-mean-you’re-from-somewhere-else-but-where-you-came-from-I-don’t-know-so-maybe-you-came-from-that-thing-that-hit-Twilight’s-house-and-turned-over-she-said-she-dragged-somepony-from-it-and-ooh-that-would-explain-why-youre-looking-for-the-library-so-if-I’ve-never-met-you-before-that-means-your-NEW-IN-TOWN!!! )