“I present, pancakes for late lunch!” Pinkie Pie cheered, hopping into a kitchen with a plate of pancakes. Everypony stared in awe at the pancakes that stacked almost as high as the ceiling. Pinkie Pie carefully placed the pancakes in the middle of the table, hastily grabbing a few for herself.

“Were this many pancakes really necessary?” Capper asked.

“You must not know Pinkie Pie well enough yet,” Twilight chuckled.

“Yeah!” Pinkie pie bounced into her seat next to Twilight, “In fact, this might not be enough considering how many pancakes I usually eat!”

Capper’s eyes widened, “I don’t even wanna know,” he replied. Rarity giggled and levitated some pancakes onto her and her friend’s plates.

“Thanks Rarity” Capper replied.

“Of course, darling,” Rarity responded.

Twilight levitated three pancakes onto everyone’s plate. Everyone she had invited the day prior was here aside from Fizzlepop Berrytwist, or Tempest as most ponies still called her. Starlight Glimmer put some whipped cream and chocolate chips on her stack of pancakes and immediately dove into her food, snarfing it down like a rabid wolf. She looked back up at everyone else, with whipped cream all over her chin and cheeks. Her friends laughed a bit.

“Oh Starlight, you look just like Santa Hooves!” Pinkie said.

“Or a grandfather,” Discord whispered to Fluttershy.

Fluttershy smiled a bit. Starlight scowled at Discord and licked the whipped cream off her face. She looked back down at her now messy plate of pancakes. Starlight hardly bat an eye before she continued snarfing down the pancakes, not caring about being embarrassed. Pinkie Pie and Skystar, the hippogriff princess, were eating way messier than Starlight was. Skystar had put so much whipped cream on her pancakes it looked like just a mountain of white on her plate that eventually made its way towards Skystar’s mane. The hippogriff looked up at Pinkie Pie.

“You did a great job with these Pinkie!” Skystar said excitedly.

“Thanks!” Pinkie Pie replied, “Though Twilight helped me out a lot.”

Twilight blushed and looked at Skystar modestly without saying anything. Twilight went back to eating her pancakes civilly, with a fork and magic, while Skystar and Pinkie Pie continue gobbling theirs up with their faces and hooves buried in their food. Suddenly, Skystar caught something out of the corner of her eye. She glanced up slightly to see a glow emitting from the hallway. What in Equestria could that be?

“I’m gonna go wash my claws,” Skystar fluttered out of her chair just above the ground, “And….my face…”

“I’ll protect your pancakes while you’re gone!” Pinkie Pie offered, already scooting towards Skystar’s stack of pancakes.

“Thank you Pinkie Pie,” Skystar replied thankfully.

Skystar flew into the hallway where the light was coming from. Once she was out of eyeshot, she licked her claws clean and landed on the ground. Letting out a relieved sigh, she began trotting down the hallway.

“Where do you think you’re going princess?” a voice asked, suspiciously. Skystar skidded to a halt, her eyes wide, as she glanced behind her. She let out a loud gasp.

“Discord?!” Skystar demanded. Her voice dropped to a whisper, “Why did you follow me?!”

“I wanted to know where you were ACTUALLY going,” Discord answered, raising an eyebrow.

“I’m going to wash my claws and face,” Skystar insisted, “I don’t know my way around the castle, if I went the wrong way-”

Discord cut her off, “You were going towards the light weren’t you?”

“Yes I was,” Skystar admitted.

“Then I’m going with you!” Discord insisted.

“Okay fine,” Skystar turned around and began trotting through the hallway again. Discord followed her, hovering inches from the ground just because he could. Skystar followed the light, which got brighter and brighter as they continued. Finally, Skystar made a turn into a room and gasped. Before her stood a door-like structure with the rainbow colored light emitting from the center of it with a ton of science stuff behind it. This had Twilight’s hoof prints all over it.

“Woah,” Skystar gasped, “Is that a...portal?”

“I guess so,” Discord replied, equally confused and shocked.

“Why would Twilight have a portal in her castle?” Skystar asked, approaching it cautiously. Discord shrugged. Skystar stopped right in front of the portal and slowly reached her claw out to touch it. Just as she expected, her claw went right through it. Skystar backed away. Her heart was pounding in her ears.

“Wanna see where it leads?” Skystar asked.

“Did you even need to ask me that?” Discord asked, flying towards the portal. Skystar and Discord slowly tried to step into the portal.

“STOP!” A voice yelled.

Skystar’s eyes widened in fear. She and Discord whipped around to see Twilight, standing at the entrance to the room with an enraged look.

“Busted,” Skystar whispered nervously to Discord.

The draconequus nodded and moved his claw out of the portal.

“Do NOT go through the portal!” Twilight snapped. Skystar gulped and moved away from the portal. However, Discord stood his ground, figuratively that is.

“Come on, one look can’t be the end of the world!” Discord insisted.

“NO!” Twilight shouted.

Suddenly, a giant mallet appeared. Twilight levitated the mallet towards the science stuff behind the portal and began smashing it. The swirling rainbow part of the portal flashed on and off a few times. Both Discord and Skystar backed away from the portal in terror but Twilight continued to smash the portal into pieces. Finally, the middle part of the portal disappeared completely and it was just a normal golden doorway.

Jade placed her school stuff down on the ground and leaned against the outer part of the Canterlot Wondercolt statue. She sighed as she watched everyone leave the school. Her parents had promised to pick her up that day but she didn’t see them anywhere. Jade went to lean on the inner part of the statue but she didn’t feel anything. Before Jade could straighten up, she fell backwards into the statue and everything in front of her disappeared and was replaced with rainbows. Jade closed her eyes and let out a scream, completely petrified. She began spinning faster and faster in a circle. Jade felt like she was about to barf from the dizziness of spinning around and being stretched out like a slinky. What was happening?! Suddenly, all the spinning and stretching came to an abrupt stop. Jade opened her eyes, hoping everything would be normal again but she was still in the rainbow area. Instinctively, she began looking around for some sort of exit but there wasn’t one. She was trapped in this insane world. Jade let out another scream, hoping someone would hear her this time. This couldn’t be the end! Jade began to hyperventilate until she abruptly passed out.

Skystar watched in annoyance as Discord and Twilight bickered about the portal.

“You can’t go through that portal!” Twilight snapped back, “That world isn’t ready for someone like you!”

“And WHAT is that supposed to mean?!” Discord shouted.

“You know exactly what I mean!” Twilight yelled, flying up to look at him face to face as they continued to argue. Suddenly, Skystar heard a muffled scream. Skystar pricked her ears and looked around but the scream had seemingly come from nowhere.

“Be quiet you two!” Skystar yelled, “I heard something!” Twilight and Discord stopped to look at Skystar in confusion. Twilight landed in front of the hippogriff princess.

“What did you hear?” Twilight asked.

“A scream,” Skystar answered, “But it was very faint and it seemed to come from nowhere!”

Twilight approached the closed portal and projected an image with her magic. It was some insane rainbow environment. That must be the inside of the portal! Skystar realized. However, it wasn’t all rainbows. There was something green and red inside. Skystar and Discord came closer and peeked at the sight. There was a small pony, with her eyes closed and entire body shaking.

“There’s a pony trapped in there?!” Twilight gasped, turning off the spell, “Oh no! What have I done?!” Twilight desperately ran towards the broken parts of the portal and tried to repair it with her magic but what looked to be the engine that powered it spontaneously exploded.

“There’s no time to fix that!” Skystar gasped. Suddenly, Discord disappeared in a flash. Neither Skystar nor Twilight needed to be told where he went.

“Discord no! It’s too dangerous!” Twilight gasped.

“What’s goin’ on in here?!” an accented voice asked.

Skystar’s head jerked towards the doorway. Applejack charged in first with Pinkie Pie, Rarity, Capper, Starlight, and Spike behind her while Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash flew over them and into the room. Fluttershy looked around wildly.

“Where’s Discord?!” Fluttershy immediately asked.

“What...WAS that thang?” Capper asked, pointing at the destroyed portal. Skystar and Twilight glanced at each other panickedly.

“Discord tried to go through the portal to the other world,” Twilight began.

“So Twilight smashed the portal,” Skystar added.

“Then we realized a pony was trapped there,” Twilight continued.

“So Discord teleported into the portal to save her,” Skystar finished. Everypony gasped in shock.

“Why was there a portal in your castle?!” Capper demanded, “And why’d you keep it a secret from us?!”

“Actually, most of us knew,” Rarity explained, “Only Skystar, Discord and you weren’t told because you don’t come to the castle much.” Rainbow Dash flew up to Capper.

“We’ll explain all of this later once we figure out a way to save that pony,” she promised.

Twilight ran behind the portal desperately trying to fix what she had broken but she had none of the materials to do so and the pieces were badly broken beyond repair. Starlight and Rarity rushed to her side and tried to help her with their magic. Everyone watched her anxiously until suddenly, Discord reappeared holding a pony.

“Discord!” Fluttershy squealed, “You’re okay!” Discord carefully put the unconscious pony down on the ground.

“Of course I’m okay,” Discord replied nonchalantly, pulling Fluttershy in for a hug. Everyone else looked down at the pony in awe and shock. The pony was a green pegasus mare with a red mane and blue glasses. She laid there unmoving with her eyes closed. Twilight placed her hoof on the pony’s chest. Thankfully, she wasn’t dead, just unconscious.

“Twilight, you don’t suppose this mare came from the other world?” Applejack asked.

“No doubt about it,” Twilight answered.

“What other world?” Skystar and Capper asked.

“Yeah, you never explained that to us!” Discord exclaimed. Twilight looked up at the three creatures. Discord looked down at her furiously while Skystar and Capper looked simply confused.

“That portal leads, well led, to a parallel universe,” Twilight answered, “Me, Spike and Starlight have been there before and there are alternate universe versions of everypony here in Equestria over there except they aren’t ponies. They’re weird creatures called humans who walk on two legs.”

“You callin’ me weird?” Capper asked. Twilight’s eyes widened and she tried to search for the right response.

“And when I went over there,” Spike butted in, “I became a dog!”

“So if ponies become humans and dragons become dogs, what would me, Capper and Discord be?” Skystar asked.

“I’m not sure,” Twilight answered, “I haven’t seen the other versions of you over in that world.” Starlight levitated the unconscious pony off the ground.

“Let’s lay her down somewhere until she wakes up,” Starlight suggested.

“Then fix the portal and send her home,” Rainbow added. Everyone nodded and trotted into the main room.

Author's Note

I'll have Tempest actually appear in this story eventually don't worry.