The Prism of Infinity

The Prism of Infinity

Four
From The Beyond

Written by
Jed R.

“Will you accept my friendship?”
Princess Celestia, Friendship is Magic, part 2.

Rainbow frowned at the biped, trying to get a read on his expression. It was odd: somewhere between disbelief and… happiness?

“Who are you, and how do you know who I am?” she asked. She figured it was the best way to start – especially since this creature knowing her name was… well, unnerving, to say the least.

Instead of answering her, the biped looked at Pinkie Pie, his expression hardening. “Alright, CPO Pie, you’ve got my attention. Care to explain this one to me?”

“It’s Rainbow Dash, Captain sir: the real one, or a real one,” Pinkie said with a smile. Her short mane seemed even poofier than it had before. “This proves that this isn’t where we expected to be.”

“We were beginning to think that, too, CPO,” the biped said, more than a little amusement on his expression, “but it’s nice to have some more… some more solid proof.” He chuckled. “Solid. Now there’s a word.”

“It’s good, right?” Pinkie asked him, grinning almost manically. “Isn’t it good?”

Instead of answering her, his gaze returned to Rainbow Dash. “This… I’ll admit, this is definitely a surprise. I wasn’t expecting you to… to be here. Or anywhere, for that matter.”

“You haven’t answered my question, pal,” Rainbow said, almost growling.

Pinkie suddenly moved to stand in front of her. “It’s okay, Dashie! Really it is! The Captain’s a friend.”

“Pinkie, if you even are Pinkie,” Rainbow said, looking at her with something that might almost have been a real scowl if it weren’t Pinkie Pie staring at her with such earnest happiness and worry, “this ship just appeared above Ponyville, it’s big, and it’s clearly armed.” She glared at the biped. “I came here to stop it from hurting anypony, and that’s what I’m going to do. And if you wanna do it the hard way -”

“We’re not going to hurt anypony!” Pinkie cut her off, her mane deflating slightly again, her expression almost hurt. “Honest!” She looked at the biped. “Isn’t that right, Captain? We’re not going to hurt anypony if this isn’t the target, right? Right?!”

The biped nodded slowly, his gaze moving from Pinkie to Rainbow and back again. “At this point, if we’re not sure where we are, then I don’t see why…”

“Captain!” one of the other bipeds said suddenly from one of the stations. “We have incoming!”

The Captain turned to look at the window at once. “What sort of incoming? Missiles? Energy blasts?”

“No, sir,” the other biped said evenly. “Think it’s a tango, judging from the speed and size. Wait, make that two tangoes. They’re approaching fast, heading for the main observation window.”

“All stop,” the Captain ordered.

“Answering all stop, sir,” another biped reported.

“Shields?” the Captain asked.

“We’ve got them at maximum, sir,” another officer said. “But we’re tapping into the auxiliary generators – it was a rougher ride than we thought it was going to be.”

“Of course it was,” the Captain muttered grimly.

“Now reading all stop, sir,” the helm officer said.

“Good,” the Captain said. He pointed to the observation window. “Can we enhance on the tangoes, get a good look at what’s coming at us?”

“Stand by, sir,” the biped who’d spoken first said. The observation window suddenly had some sort of display overlay on it, and that zoomed in on two figures flying towards the ship. Rainbow felt her heart leap into her throat.

Princesses Celestia and Luna were approaching the ship, neither of them looking particularly happy. Luna had donned a metallic silver-blue chestplate, and Celestia wore gold-plated battle armour. Their horns were glowing, semi-transparent shields of energy surrounding them.

“Tangoes confirmed,” the biped manning the console said, frowning. “Profile matches the Selenic Knight and the Empress, but…”

“But what, Mr Reeves?” the Captain asked.

“I’m checking out scan, sir,” the other biped – Reeves? – said, “and we’ve got mana signature discrepancies, and the profiles aren’t one hundred percent.”

“I can see that, Lieutenant,” the Captain said slowly, pointing at them. “What’s their approach vector?”

“Reads as a slow approach,” Reeves replied. “It’s like they’re being cautious. Think they both have their shields up.”

“I can see that, too, Reeves,” the Captain said with a scowl.

“Selenic Knight? Empress?” Rainbow repeated, frowning. “What the hay are you all talking about?”

The Captain waved an arm. “CPO Pie, Rainbow Dash – this Rainbow Dash – is your responsibility. Take her off the bridge if she’s not going to shut up.”

Rainbow blinked. “Hey, you can’t just -”

The Captain turned and gave her an icy glare that made her clam up faster than one of Twilight’s ‘shut up now’ glares.

“This is my ship, my bridge,” he said coldly. “I can do whatever the hell I like. You might want to remember that, Ms Dash.”

Rainbow took a breath and flared her wings out in an aggressive stance. “I won’t let you hurt the Princesses.”

“‘Princesses’,” the Captain repeated, frowning. He looked at Pinkie. “Definitely not where we expected, huh?”

“No, sir,” Pinkie said, sound more serious. “We’re definitely not.”

“Sir,” Reeves said, “we’ve… uh, we’ve got audio from the tangoes.”

“Audio?” the Captain repeated. “How the hell do we have audio? Do ponies come with radios now?”

The biped tapped a few of his controls. “They appear to be… uh, speaking very loudly, Captain.”

The Captain let out a short chuckle. “Speaking very loudly, Mr Reeves.”

“Uh, yes, sir,” Reeves replied.

The Captain sighed. “Alright: let’s hear what they’re saying. Comm, can you tie us in?”

Another biped sitting at a different console tapped a few controls, and then what sounded like Princess Luna’s Royal Canterlot Voice spoke up, channeled through some sort of speaker.

“… we say again, if thou art here with the intent of doing violence, stand down and return with thine ship to the realm whence you came!” she was saying. “If thou wisheth to speak with us, we art prepared to parley with thee!”

“Wow,” one of the officers commented. “Her ye olde English is really tortured, isn’t it?”

The Captain scowled. “Lieutenant Jardine. Can we… send them a response?”

“Uh, not traditionally, sir,” the biped who’d tied the voices in replied, her voice clearly feminine. “We don’t have any speakers loud enough to transmit voice to them so they’d hear it clearly.”

The Captain nodded, before looking back at Rainbow Dash. She frowned at his scrutiny.

“What?” she asked.

“I need your help,” he replied, his tone quiet and serious.

He walked up to her and knelt so that he was eye level with her: Rainbow didn’t know whether to feel glad she didn’t have to crane her neck, or insulted that he was kneeling to do so like she was a foal or something.

“I need you to go out there and speak with them,” he said to her. “You have to ask them to come aboard, so we can… well, parley.”

“Why would I do that when I don’t trust you?” Rainbow retorted angrily. “I still don’t know your name, or where you’re from!”

The Captain simply smiled. “My name is Michael Grey. And in another life, you and I were friends, Rainbow Dash. You trusted me, then. And I need you to trust me now.”

“Oh yeah?” Rainbow asked. “And how the hay do I know that we were friends in some other world?”

“Because,” Michael Grey said, “I know you well enough to know that you find me kneeling insulting. That you’ll get over it because you’re easy going and forget things as quickly as you’re insulted by them, unless it’s an insult aimed at one of your friends of course. I know that you’re ready to kick our faces in. You’ve got a lot of untapped energy, Dash, you always did. But most of all, you’re loyal.” He motioned to Pinkie. “So loyal that you can't conceive of a true friend betraying you, or you'd never have come up here with CPO – with Pinkie.”

Rainbow kept frowning, but there was something oddly earnest about the way the biped looked and sounded… and he seemed to have a general sense of what she was like. Glancing back at Pinkie… this other Pinkie… who was smiling encouragingly, she sighed.

“Fine,” she said. “The Princesses can kick your plot if you try anything, anyway.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” the Captain – Grey – said nonchalantly. “I’m also sure it won’t come to that.”

The Princesses Celestia and Luna were both hovering outside the unknown airship. Celestia was grateful that Luna was with her: as much as she was willing to face this… thing alone, it felt gratifying to have her sister with her.

“They've not made any sign yet,” Luna said quietly.

“No,” Celestia agreed. “But we must give them time.” She motioned to the cannons that lined the vessel. “They haven’t attacked: that, in and of itself, is a sign.”

Luna snorted derisively. “Perhaps a sign that they haven’t seen us, sister. Their ship is… well, it’s very big.”

“True, true,” Celestia said, inclining her head. “But then, you are very loud, when you choose to be.”

Luna chuckled, though it was short and lacking in mirth. “Perhaps. But I fear volume alone will not help should the occupants of that ship choose the path of violence.”

“We shall deal with that should the need arise,” Celestia said grimly, lowering her head. Then, something caught her eye – small and blue, heading for them from one of the ship’s platforms. “Which it might: something's coming.”

Luna tensed, her eyes immediately focused on the inbound object.

“Some sort of Griffon, perhaps?” she asked. “They could have built this vehicle.”

“No,” Celestia said, shaking her head. “Griffons power their air fleet with the enhanced steam produced from burning aurichalcum. It gives them tremendous speed, but it isn’t magic-based. They have no means of simply teleporting a ship…”

She trailed off as the small blue object got closer, and she recognised it. It was the cyan-coated, rainbow maned form of Rainbow Dash, one of Twilight’s friends. Celestia raised an eyebrow as the little mare reached the two Princesses, her expression serious.

“Uh, hi. Uh, your highnesses,” she said, waving awkwardly.

“Rainbow Dash,” Princess Luna said sternly. “To what do we owe the pleasure?”

Rainbow Dash took a deep breath. “The, uh… the guy in charge of this thing wants to speak with you.”

“Indeed?” Luna said, throwing a glance at Celestia.

The Solar Diarch frowned, but then nodded her assent.

“It is in our best interests to attempt a peaceful resolution,” she said quietly. “We will follow you, Rainbow.”

Rainbow nodded, before turning and flying back the way she had come. Luna and Celestia followed, Luna looking at Celestia with a frown.

“Are you sure about this, sister?” she asked, speaking quietly enough as they flew that only Celestia could hear her.

“We will not have the rest of our fleet here in a day,” Celestia replied quietly. “That is too much time. If we can make peace, find out who these beings are and what they want, that will save many lives. It will, at least, buy time.”

The first thing Rainbow Dash noticed when they returned to the airship’s hangar was that more than a few of the odd bipeds were staring at her. Many of them wore the jumpsuit that Rainbow had seen the others in, others wore the more formal two-piece uniform that the Captain had. There were also, to her surprise, more than a few other ponies milling about as well, all staring at her with equal confusion.

Princess Celestia narrowed her eyes. “Do you know who they are, or what they want?”

Rainbow shrugged. “They, uh, might be from the future?”

“The future?” Princess Celestia repeated. She shared a look with Princess Luna, who looked doubtful.

“Well, Pinkie’s onboard,” Rainbow said. “Except, uh, not, well, the Pinkie I left in Ponyville. She’s got short hair. And stuff.”

“And stuff,” Princess Luna repeated. “How very helpful.”

“But she knows me,” Rainbow continued, “and so did their Captain.” She paused, reflecting on his words. It had been scary, how much he’d really been able to say. “So… I dunno? Maybe they really are from the future?”

“It isn’t entirely impossible,” Princess Celestia said evenly, “but it is… unlikely. Time magic is exceptionally complicated.”

“Starting to wish Twi was here.”

“Indeed, she might have a better aptitude for the complexities at hand,” Princess Celestia said quietly. “Still, we shall soon discover for ourselves.”

“Yes,” Princess Luna agreed. “We shall.”

There was an awkward silence as the group continued through the hangar.

“Let’s not waste any more time, Ms Dash,” Princess Celestia finally said with a small smile. “We should -”

She paused, her eyebrow raising archly, as a sudden pink blur appeared at the far end of the hangar, racing across the large space before coming to a dead stop right in front of the Alicorns. There was a pause as the pink Earth Pony took in the two diarchs, and then she grinned.

“I knew we weren’t where we expected,” she said. “You guys look much better without the black armour.”

The two princesses looked at Rainbow with equally puzzled expressions (polite puzzlement in Celestia’s case and irritated confusion in Luna’s). The Pegasus could only shrug.

“Come on,” Pinkie said, motioning for them to follow her, “I know the perfect place to have a big, long, important talk.”

And just like that, she had run off, though slow enough that Rainbow and the Princesses could follow.

This… is too weird, Rainbow decided as she followed the strange version of Pinkie. She only hoped that Twilight was having a better time of all this.

Twilight was not having a better time of all this. In fact, Twilight was feeling thoroughly powerless.

She and the others hadn’t seen the Princesses stop the ship, so all they had seen was the giant unknown machine stop dead in the air.

“What do you think happened?” Rarity asked quietly from next to Twilight.

“I don’t know,” Twilight admitted. “I don’t think Rainbow could have stopped the whole thing herself, unless she sabotaged their engines.”

“If she’d stopped the engines, wouldn’t the thing be crashin’?” Applejack put in. “Otherwise, what’d be keepin’ it up?”

Twilight turned to look at Pinkie. “What do you know about that thing?”

“Nothing and lots at all,” Pinkie replied with a shrug. “It’s like… I think I have to run really concentrate. And even then I can’t do the thing I did before.”

Twilight stepped closer to her. “Maybe you should try. If we’re in danger…”

“We’re not,” Pinkie said at once, and her eyes glazed over. “The Excalibur class is built for heavy duty combat. It wasn’t built to take land, but it has a lot of firepower for taking on multiple tangoes at once.” She blinked. “I… that was helpful, right?”

“Tangoes?” Applejack commented.

Twilight only grinned. “That was helpful, Pinkie. Can you give us any more?”

“I…” Pinkie took a breath. “I’ll try.” She paused. “Conference Room Two.”

“Conference room two?” Twilight repeated. “What’s Conference room two?”

“The perfect place to bring the Princesses, of course,” Pinkie said with a grin. “It’s got nice comfy chairs, a water cooler, a nice table, a nice view -”

“The Princesses?” Twilight repeated, shocked. “What do you mean the Princesses?”

Pinkie blinked. “They’re aboard. They’re aboard the Endeavour.” She blinked again, her eyes widening in realisation. “Oh. Oh.”

Twilight didn’t speak. Her own eyes had become as round as dinner plates, and she could feel herself trembling.

This… this could be bad, she thought.

Lieutenant Commander John Reeves frowned as he approached Captain Grey. The Captain was in his ready room, staring out at the blue skies of… wherever they were, his fingers steepled in front of his face.

Reeves didn’t understand Grey. That wasn’t in and of itself unusual - the number of people or ponies who understood Grey was probably in the single figures, and that number had shrunk in recent times. Still, it was… disconcerting, to work with a man who had so many ideas and yet so little interest in sharing them with most of his crew.

“Sir,” Reeves said quietly.

“Mr Reeves,” Grey said, not turning to look at him. “What do you make of it?”

“What do you make of it, sir?” Reeves replied, looking out at the sky. “I mean… it’s definitely not the Empire. At least, not what we thought The Empire looked like…”

“It’s not the Empire,” Grey said definitively. “These two Alicorns didn’t match our intel. Rainbow Dash is here. The sky’s blue, for God’s sake.” He looked back at Reeves. “These are all pretty big indicators that we’re not where we thought we’d end up.”

“Then, uh,” Reeves said, running a hand through his short hair, “where have we ended up? Uh, sir?”

“The past, maybe,” Grey said, smiling coldly. “In which case we might be able to stop this before it starts.” He paused, before letting out a chuckle. “Or, alternatively, we might be somewhere else entirely.”

Reeves frowned. “Like where, sir?”

“Somewhere with a blue sky, Mr Reeves,” Grey said. “That’s a good enough place to start, don’t you think?”

Reeves sighed. “If you say so, Captain. If you ask me, this whole thing is a shade too freaky for me.”

“If you didn’t want to deal with ‘freaky’, Mr Reeves, you were born in the wrong time,” Grey said with a small smile. “But you weren’t. You were born now. For one reason or another, you are here, now. And so am I.” He looked back out of the window. “And so is Rainbow Dash.”

Reeves took a breath. “Do… do you really think that it’s her?”

“There’s no doubt it’s her,” Grey said at once. “CPO Pie said so, and she’s no fool, no matter the facade she chooses to put on for the rest of us.” He let out a sigh. “Still.” He looked back at Reeves. “Have our guests arrived yet?”

“They’re heading for conference room two, sir,” Reeves replied. “It’s the best we have for, uh, beings their size.”

“Very thoughtful, Commander,” Grey said. He turned away from the window and straightened his jacket. “Well, then. Let’s go meet royalty, Mr Reeves.”

Celestia took note of everything as she and Luna walked through the strange ship. The metal deck and bulkheads implied heavy use of technology, perhaps moreso than any culture Celestia knew. Luna was being similarly on-edge, though only Celestia was able to notice. Luna might have always worn her heart on her saddle more than Celestia did, but she had learnt restraint in showing it to everybeing.

Eventually, thanks to the direction of this strange, changed version of Pinkie Pie, they reached a room labelled ‘Conference Room Two’. Rainbow Dash looked as confused as they were.

“This is a great meeting place,” this new Pinkie was saying. “Come in, come in!”

She led them in, and sure enough, it seemed more than adequate for a meeting, with tables, chairs built for ponies (thought not quite ponies their size, though it would probably work out), and even glasses of water. The main conference table was shining black, made of a material somewhere between obsidian and glass.

“See?” the new Pinkie said. “It’s perfect!”

“Indeed, it seems adequate,” Luna said quietly. “Though I should prefer to speak sooner rather than later with whomever commands this ship.”

“Your wish is my command, Princess,” a new voice said.

Celestia and Luna turned to look at the entrance to the room, and sure enough, a biped in a two-piece blue uniform was standing in the entrance. He had his arms folded, and was looking between the two Princesses with an appraising expression.

“You must be the Captain of this ship,” Celestia said in greeting.

“Ah, that’s right,” the biped said, smiling. “I believe I have the honour of speaking with Princesses Celestia and Luna, I believe?”

“That’s correct,” Celestia said evenly. “And whom do we have the pleasure of speaking to?”

The biped smiled. “I’m Captain Michael Grey, and this is the Endeavour, my ship.” He sighed, steepling his fingers. “I’m sure you’ve got a lot of questions, and I’ll try to answer them as best I can.”

“I have only one pressing enquiry,” Luna said at once. “Who are you, and why are you here?”

Captain Grey clapped his hands together. “Well, that’s the big one, isn’t it? Or, technically, the big two, but I suppose they’re part and parcel of the same gig for you, so…”

“I’d caution you against being overly clever with us, creature,” Luna scowled. “You have invaded the sovereign land of Equestria with a weapon of war. We are within our rights to engage you in battle and destroy you for that alone.”

“Well, yes, you probably are,” Captain Grey said, “but you really don’t need to. We didn’t mean to ‘invade’ you.” He winced. “Well, we kind of meant to invade someone, but not you.”

“That makes no sense,” Luna said.

“Sister,” Celestia said, holding up a wing. Luna inclined her head, and Celestia affixed Grey with a stare. “Explain, Captain.”

Grey took a deep breath. “What you have to understand is, we’re not from your world. We’re from another one. Another universe, actually.” At Celestia and Luna’s blank expressions, he sighed. “Look, it’s difficult to explain -”

“Daring Do and the World in the Mirror,” Rainbow Dash put in. Everybeing in the room looked at her, and she chuckled embarrassedly. “Uh, sorry. In World in the Mirror, Daring Do falls into a magic mirror that transports her to a world like ours, but different. Like, people have bad goatees and they’re evil when they’re supposed to be good, that sort of thing.”

Celestia blinked - suddenly, she could see the mirror of herself again, standing behind Captain Grey. She was mouthing the same words: help me, help me.

Captain Grey chuckled. “The concept is fairly accurate, actually.” His expression sobered. “I’m afraid that we’re off course from where we intended to be.”

“Where did you intend to be?” Luna asked, narrowing her eyes.

Help me, the mirror image mouthed again.

Grey sighed. “A place called the Celestial Dominion. An aggressive Empire, bent on the extermination of my people.”

Celestia felt her blood run cold. Help. The mirror was pleading, tears running down her eyes.

“Who are they?” Celestia asked.

Grey took another breath. “You’re sure you wanna know?”

“I’m sure,” Celestia said, speaking as evenly as she could.

Grey nodded. “Alright then.”

He tapped the table, and a display popped into existence. He tapped the display a few times.

“Computer,” he finally said. “Display three dimensional image of the Empress.”

And then the image of an Alicorn appeared before Celestia and Luna. She was tall, with a cruel smile, red eyes, black armour, and a flowing mane coloured in different shades of grey and blue.

But what really caught Celestia’s attention was her face. It was a face Celestia knew very well, because she saw it every day in the mirror, and she could see it on the hallucinatory mare still standing behind Grey, mouthing help me again and again.

“Empress Celestia of the Celestial Dominion,” Captain Grey said evenly. “You see? We were aiming for Equestria, just not necessarily this one.”

Celestia took a breath, steadying herself. The other her had vanished. She exchanged a look with Luna, whose eyes were wide as saucers, before looking at Grey.

“Tell me everything.”