Daytime

Canterlot Castle? – Entrance

“What happened to the city?!” Celestia asked, looking over the corrupted Canterlot City in front of her, there was another, smaller castle in the corner of the city, an amusement park, a forest and three large obelisks coming out of the ground in certain spots of the city.

“Well, maybe let’s go to that other castle,” Rarity suggested, “Try to, that is,” She corrected herself. As the seven mares stepped onto the cobblestone streets, a dark goop seeped out from in between the stones, forming into a pair of stuffed animal-like creatures with jagged mouths and button eyes.

“What the hay is goin’ on?!” Applejack asked, staggering back at the sight of these monsters. Celestia tried to destroy them with a beam of light from her horn, Twilight even tried helping, but the monster was taking minimal damage.

“I can just barely see with this mask, maybe I’d be casting something stronger if I took it off,” Twilight thought aloud, she tried to remove her mask and found to be seemingly stuck to her face, she tried pulling it with more force, eventually tearing it off, causing her immense pain, the mask became a purple flame that formed beside Twilight as a white mare with a long yellow mane, red robes, a book and a long trumpet. All the mares stared in shock as Twilight commanded this being as if instinctively.

“Clio, Kouha!” Twilight shouted, the mare beside her blew a white wisp out of her instrument, which hit one of the demons and caused it to explode into light. Rainbow Dash suddenly became bothered by her mask and tore it off as well, creating an armored griffon with odd patterns around its blank eyes.

“Shu, use Garu!” Rainbow ordered, the griffon blasted the other demon with wind from its wings, but it wasn’t enough to bring it down, Celestia attempted to take off her mask, she, much like the other two, ripped it right off, which created a long dragon with a sun pattern along its skin.

“Zhulong, incinerate him,” Celestia menacingly said before the dragon made the other plush beast catch fire, turning it into ashes. The other four mares stared, not knowing it they should be shocked, happy or feeling whatever else they had in mind after the battle that just unfolded. Celestia, Rainbow and Twilight passed out on the streets, leaving their friends very worried.

???

Twilight, Rainbow and Celestia awoke in a golden altar, seemingly floating in nothingness, at the center of this altar was a glowing light in the shape of a pony, it had pitch black eyes and butterfly-like wings and it stood on one of its hind legs.

“Ah, so you are here,” the glowing being began, it lost its glow, revealing itself to be a tall white pony with large butterfly wings, a dark, long flowing mane and a mask that completely hid their face, “Allow me to introduce myself, I am Philemon, mother of all ponykind, and who may all of you be?” They asked.

“Umm, I’m Rainbow Dash, the purple one is Twilight Sparkle and the tall one is Celestia,” Rainbow quickly introduced the three of them.

“I see, very well, you must be wondering why you are all here, what was it that happened in your world, or, what seems to be your world,” Philemon said, “When the other princess destroyed everything, that was not her, it was her true self which she does not accept, her Shadow,” They explained.

“Well, that doesn’t explain everything, please tell us more,” Celestia insisted.

“I brought you here as you must know about the power you used in that fight, the power of Persona,” Philemon said, “This is the power to control the masks one wears in everyday life, the personalities one holds within themselves,” They continued, “I granted it to you all when you were unconscious after that incident, all it will take for your friends to awaken is for them to see a need in assuming who they truly are and removing the mask, showing their real self to the world,” Philemon finished.

“Okay, what about this creepy world? You said it only seemed to be our own,” Twilight said.

“I hold infinite knowledge, but certain pieces of it must be held off for the time being, I apologize, Ms. Sparkle” Philemon responded, looking away from Twilight, “Anyways, you must now go back to the other world, we shall meet again, goodbye,” They said as the three mares returned to the ‘real’ world.

Daytime

Canterlot Market

Celestia, Rainbow and Twilight woke back up and they were in a completely different place, along with Pinkie, Fluttershy, Rarity and Applejack, who were looking over them, they could hear a crowd around them as they got up from the ground.

“Oh yay! You’re all back up now!” Pinkie celebrated her friends waking up, “I mean, it’s good that you’re fine, your highness,” Pinkie changed her tone slightly to refer to the princess.

“No, it’s fine Pinkie, in this situation, I’m not grander or more important than anyone around here,” Celestia said, walking around the odd location for a moment, “Just another lost and confused pony who wants to fix whatever is going on,” She added.

“Well, okay then,” Pinkie said, “So, aren’t you gonna ask something, like, ‘Where are we, this is like the market place, but different’?” She said.

“Yeah, where are we, this is like the market place but-” Rainbow stopped herself as she noticed she was asking the exact thing Pinkie said they would.

“Well, yeah, this is the market place but different, now it’s a fancy mall that looks like a castle,” The pink mare explained, jumping around in excitement.

“We were followed by some of those creatures, but, for whatever reason, they can’t come into this market, mall, castle… Whatever it is,” Rarity said, “By the way, what happened back there and when you passed out?”

“Yeah, did you have some cool dream or something?” Pinkie asked.

“Yes, actually, we wer-” Celestia was interrupted by Rainbow Dash, who explained their dream first.

“We were in this altar place with a butterfly pony dude and he told us about something involving masks and Personas and how this isn’t the real world, but he didn’t say how it isn’t the real world, he just kinda said ‘I have a bunch of knowledge, but I won’t tell you everything’ and now we woke up,” Rainbow said.

“Well, that’s mighty interestin’ but a way out of freaky town would’ve been better than some crud about masks, couldn’ you have asked him about that?” Applejack asked with an impatient tone.

“Well, she did say that this butterfly pony couldn’t tell them everything,” Fluttershy replied.

“So what? Maybe the way out of this place isn’ part of the everythin’ he needs to keep to himself!” Applejack shouted, causing Fluttershy to cower back in fear.

“No, stop fighting!” Celestia stopped Applejack before anything got serious.

“I’m sorry, sugar cube, I didn’ mean to scare ya,” Applejack was immediately apologetic, “It’s just that… What if there is no way out?” She asked herself.

“No, don’t say that, I’m sure we’ll get out of this world,” Twilight tried to encourage her friend.

“How sure can you be? You haven’ been here before, none of us has, maybe we’re stuck here for good,” Applejack said, Rainbow Dash grabbed Applejack by the face and spoke to her.

“We will get out of here, stop being a worrying W… Wendy?” Rainbow said.

“Well, fine, I’m countin’ on y’all, if we can’t get out, it’s everyone’s problem, for a bunch of reasons,” Applejack said, regaining her confidence.

“So, where do we begin? What to do first on our quest to escape from this place?” Twilight asked.

“I know nothing about this place, so, don’t expect an answer from me,” Celestia chuckled, “Maybe we should equip ourselves before going out there,” She said, heading into the mall to find any useful stores, she was soon followed by the other 6 mares, and they went to look for clothes and weapons.

Author's Note

Second chapter, things get interesting, or maybe not.

If you're wondering about the Persona theme, there is none, I just picked mythological figures that had something in common with their user in this story, Zhulong is a sun deity/dragon, Shu is the Egyptian god of wind, which has something to do with RD... I suppose, and Clio is the muse of writing and poetry or something, as of the moment of writing this, I can't be asked to go to Wikipedia and check, sorry.

As the story description hinted (Read: "blatantly said") Philemon is here, doing much of the same that he did in the original game, serving as the guide for the protagonists.

I apologize if Applejack was a bit off-character in the one scene, I'll admit it, I haven't seen the actual show in a while, so I'm going off of whatever I remember, which goes up to Season 4, so... Yeah.