I have no idea what happened here.
Divide by Zero
“Hi, Twilight!” Pinkie Pie exuberantly greeted her friend as she bounced into Ponyville’s library. “What are you—WOOOOOOOW!”
Twilight sighed in exasperation. For the past week, she had been working on a new spell that would revolutionize the world. It was similar to the one she had used before to go back in time and warn herself not to worry about a perceived—you know what, go watch the damn episode, I’m telling my own story here. Anyways, it was very similar to that one, only it could be used multiple times, and would last until the unicorn casting the spell decided to cancel it. She had been on the verge of finished the spell—there was an extremely complex mathematical formula that needed to be cracked before it would work—when her friend had burst in.
“What is it, Pinkie?” she asked, knowing that she would be unable to get anything else done that day. Things had a tendency to get weird (see: completely insane) when Pinkie did just about anything.
“Well, at first I just came here because I wanted to check out that one book filled with tasty recipes for cupcakes and also to say hi to you because you’re my friend and I like saying hi to my friends but then I saw that big chalkboard with all those numbers and now I kinda want to know what it’s for!”
Twilight stared at her, amazed that she had been able to say that all in one breath, then shrugged it off as “Pinkie being Pinkie.” Now that she thought about it, that phrase probably passed through her head three or four times a week. One of the weeks when nothing got destroyed.
She snapped back into focus, as in, finding a way to get the bright pink pony out of her mane so that she could invent practical time travel. She sighed, then explained, “This is a mathematical formula that in theory will dissipate temporal feedback energy across the space-time continuum, giving time-travelling ponies the ability to stay in the past or future for longer periods of time than is currently possible. The problem is that I can’t quite figure out how to—”
“Solved it!” the pink pony enthusiastically exclaimed. “Ooh! Do I win a prize? Is the prize candy? Oooh, please tell me that the prize is candy!”
Twilight walked over to the chalkboard, smirking, and said, “Pinkie, this is a quantum formula that diverts energy across every point and time in the cosmos. It is highly unlikely that—” her jaw dropped when she saw the change Pinkie had made. One tiny change in a bit of division, the part to calculate the temporal energy differential generated by the initial spell that transported the caster across time. There were just two problems. One was that it was correct, and solved the equation. This was only a problem because of the second one: the number that was being divided by was zero.
Twilight squinted in confusion at the impossible equation. “Pinkie... how did you—?”
“Lucky guess!” she said happily, bouncing around the room. Suddenly, she was right in front of Twilight. “Are you gonna try it out now?”
The unicorn was uneasy. And a little bit ecstatic, but mostly uneasy because an equation that was literally impossible was also possible. She shrugged mentally. Last time she questioned why things around Pinkie worked the way they did, she had gotten several heavy objects dropped on her in a span of several seconds. Since then, she had decided to take what happened around her at face value.
“Yes, Pinkie,” she said, smiling. “And since it wouldn’t be possible without you—or at the very least would have taken a lot longer—I’m going to take you with me!”
A look of sheer joy crossed the other mare’s face. “Twilight, do you really mean it?”
“Yes, Pinkie, I do,” Twilight said, still smiling. “It’s the least I can do for you.”
A lavender glow surrounded the two mares as Twilight began the spell. A bright light appeared, everywhere in the room—everywhere in the multiverse, actually—as she poured more magical energy into her spell. Suddenly, there was a flash of light, and then nothing, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say everything, although perhaps the best description would be something.
Twilight wasn’t really sure where she was. Basically, she was completely surrounded by white. She couldn’t hear anything—because there was nothing to hear—or feel anything except for a strange floating sensation. She tried calling out, “Hello? Is anypony there?” There was no response, except for a strange echo. She was starting to get scared now, floating there in the void with nothing and no one as far as the eye could see. She began flailing about in a panic, crying out and not really sure if she was actually moving because she had no frame of reference. Finally, far off in the distance, she noticed a pink dot. Hoping it was her friend (or anything to take her mind off of the nothing, really) she began trying to swim towards it as if she was in a pool.
An indeterminate amount of time later...
She had been moving towards what she had dubbed “the anomaly” (at least, she hoped she was moving towards it) for what felt like eternity, although in reality she supposed it could have been anywhere between a few seconds and several lifetimes ago. Without anything to use as a frame of reference, she had no idea how long she had maybe been moving towards the anomaly. I wish I could just think it and be there already, she thought.
Without realizing it, her mental wish had translated into physical motion, instantly (as in, literally instantly, without any of this sissy “speed-of-light” bullcrap) transporting her across several quintillion miles to her destination. It took a second for her to hear another pony babbling.
“Oh my gosh Twilight you’re here it’s so good to see you I was wondering if you were here after this is the only pony well not technically pony but person, anyways he’s the only person I’ve seen here since whatever it is happened and you’re the only pony I’ve seen because obviously I can’t look at myself! Where are we?”
Twilight was taken aback by the Earth pony’s verbal assault, and recoiled slightly before tightly hugging her. “Pinkie!” she shouted, not even noticing the odd echo anymore. “I thought I was never going to see you again!” She noticed an odd sound, sort of like a pony using a typewriter. Curious about what was making the noise, she began swinging her hooves to turn herself around. She was not prepared for what she saw.
It was a weird creature, sitting in a chair and typing on what appeared to be the keyboard part of a typewriter. In front of it was a strange glowing slab, and next to it was a small box that appeared to be made out of metal. The creature itself was sitting strangely, with its legs hanging down off of the edge of the chair, and—you know what, fuck suspension of disbelief and the fourth wall. You already know that it/I is/am a human. Oh, also, it/I is/am the author and narrator. And since this is going to be slipping in between first and third person several times a sentence, he/I has/have decided to put anything in third person before the slash, and anything in first person after the slash. This could get a bit difficult to read. Good luck.
Anyways, rather than have to endure a lengthy explanation of where exactly they/we are, how they/we got here, and what it/I is/am, it/I typed onto its/my computer—which he/I suspected he/I had sent back in time using his/my author powers—’Rather than bother to explain everything, he/I decided to just make the knowledge about all of this appear in her mind like he/I did with Pinkie.’
Twilight’s eyes widened in amazement and shock, then she said, “So you mean that, because the spell involved dividing by zero, it was incorrect and correct at the same time, something the universe couldn’t handle causing us to be thrown into a netherspace because we were at ground zero or are the creator of this story?”
The Author/I nodded as he/I typed this, which also caused it to happen.
“And you’re basically a god with complete control of this place and our own reality but not really?”
Again, he/I nodded.
“And the only reason I’m saying all of this is so that the readers know what’s going on?”
Another nod.
“Jeez, talk about a deus ex machina.”
“Yup,” he/I said. “And now,” he/I continued, “I’m going to send us all back to our respective worlds because I’m not actually sure what’s going on anymore, and the readers are probably even more lost.” He/I continued typing as he/I spoke. “Goodbye, Twilight Sparkle and Pinkie Pie!”
Darkness began filling up whatever the trio was in as Pinkie and Twilight waved. “Good-bye!” they called out in unison. Everything went black.
Suddenly, the two mares were back in the library. Twilight looked at Pinkie, and without changing the expression on her face, asked, “Never speak of this again?”
Pinkie simply nodded, before bouncing out of the library.
