It was a beautiful day. The sun smiled, the trees swayed, and the birds chirped a little tune. A green earth pony and big brown furry yak lied on a sloping hillside, watching the flowers under the shade of a tree, on whose branches sat a pink hippogriff and blue gryphon. Sandbar sighed in contentment, “Sigh…I love springtime; it always has been my favorite! Don’t you think so, Yona?” The yak nodded. “Yona like spring, but like winter even more! Yaks smash through snow very strong! But springtime have no snow, only grass. Still, Yona enjoy spring.”

“Oh Yona, couldn’t yaks do anything else other than smashing?” commented Smolder, who was basking in the warm sun just outside the tree’s shade. “Yaks best at smashing! Smash all year round! Yaks even have yearly festival where you-” “Smash stuff, we get it. Easy to guess when you’ve heard it a thousand times over,” Gallus cut in from atop his tree branch, though Yona didn’t seem to flinch, probably a sign she had gotten used to his merciless sarcasm.

“C’mon Gallus, don’t be such a meanie!” cooed Silverstream. The pink hippogriff flew down and pressed the yak into a tight hug. “Without her smashing strength I wouldn’t have gotten free of that huuuuge boulder!” The yak smiled at the compliment.

“Ok fine, I’ll give that an exception,” grunted the blue gryphon, shifting on his branch; he remembered that time when Silverstream got herself stuck in a pile of boulders, and Yona had to smash them to get her free. Ocellus, who was sitting against the trunk reading a book, squinted her eyes at Sandbar with curiosity.

“Um, Sandbar, what’s that on your cutie mark?” she queried. The earth pony turned to his flank and found his cutie mark of three turtles glowing with lime green light. “Huh, now that’s interesting, never seen it before. Oh Yona, you’re glowing too, on your fur!”

The yak inspected her fur and, true enough, saw it glowing, only this time dancing around her brown hair as she lacked a cutie mark. Ocellus glanced at both Silverstream and Gallus and noticed the same thing about the duo. “Uh, Silverstream, Gallus, your feathers– they are glowing too!” Both checked themselves respectively and found it to be true. “Now what’s all this?” grumbled Gallus, a mixture of curiosity and annoyance as to what it all was about.

“Hey Ocellus,” called Silverstream. “You’re glowing as well! We’re all glowing! Gasp! I wonder what this could mean!” They all noticed the glowing, except for Smolder; the orange dragoness was still enjoying her bask. She yawned and opened one eye, only to see five pairs of eyes staring at her. “What? Can’t a dragon bask? I mean, it's in our blood to love heat, right?” Gallus facetaloned. “No Smolder, we aren’t looking at you for that. Your scales, look.” Smolder looked and could now see that her back scales were glowing. “What’s this? Why am I glowing? Uh, why are y’all glowing?”

“Yaaay, now we all are glowing!” chirped Silverstream, unable to keep her curiosity at minimum level any longer. The six creatures now looked like glowing anomalies, though it didn’t seem to bother any passer-bys, although it did bother them as to why they were glowing, except for Silverstream; the hippogriff was too excited to care. Gallus thought for a bit, then had an idea. “Maybe we should go see Headmare Twilight about this? After all, she’s like, the smartest pony in all of Equestria? Ok, maybe not smarter than Princess Celestia but eh, she could probably tell us what’s going on.” Nodding in agreement, the six started off towards said princess’ castle, hoping she would explain what all this glowing weirdness was all about.

Twilight Sparkle entered the throne room with the widest grin Equestria had seen. Princess Celestia had just dropped by and given her a gift. A gift! From the Princess of the Sun! It was a scarce, indeed rare, thing for Celestia to just show up and give something, much less a present, so it indicated that whatever she had given might be extremely important. Just as she sat down to undo the golden ribbon that bound the box, the table began to hum and blink. “Ooh? Maybe there’s a friendship problem we need to solve! Wonder what it could be this time!” She beamed with extra excitement, expecting any familiar cutie mark to hover over the holographic map of Equestria, which was beginning to surface onto the great table.

In a flash, a mark appeared, and Twilight would have yelped in anticipation if not for the fact that it wasn’t a cutie mark that appeared, but rather a color – and a brown one for that. Confused, she leaned over, where the little ball of brown light hovered over the map aimlessly. Twilight charged up her horn and prepared to capture the anomaly for inspection, but before she did so, more came, this time in beams of pink, blue, and orange light. The strange things hovered over the map with the same aimlessness, and Twilight glared at the spectacle like it was some strange magic show. Then to her surprise, a cutie mark appeared – of three little turtles – which to her slight relief and curiosity she recognized as Sandbar’s. The ball of lights stopped their little dance and converged together, a low magic hum beginning to emanate. Sandbar’s cutie mark inserted itself into the anomaly, and before Twilight had any chance to blink her eyes, Bam! The ball exploded into a great big flash of bright white light, nearly blinding the princess. Thankfully the flashed ceased and said colors disappeared; she rubbed and blinked her eyes in rapid succession before taking a look at the Map, at which she melted into pure confusion: it had changed.

“Ok, whaaat is going on here?!” she cried, staring at the Map dumbfoundedly. A holographic chain of islands running from the top-left to bottom-right were displayed instead of the usual Equestria, and cast in big bold letters were a script of an unknown sort, its curves and serifs glaring at her like a formidable force. She did not pay attention to Starlight Glimmer trotting in from behind the open doors.

“…wilight? Twilight? Twi– oh, hey Twilight! I was just gonna ask if you had any more of that tea that um…what’s it called..? Oh yes, matcha! I find that it really soothes my headaches, which has lately been really bothering me; and also, before I forget, we still have tha– Woah…what is that?” Starlight leaned in and, seeing the altered Map, fell deadly mystified. “Uh, Twilight, what happened here?” “I–I don’t know Starlight! It just– a bunch of colors and Sandbar’s cutie mark just appeared right here and poofed into a bright white light, and then when it disappeared this was here!” Twilight slumped into her warm seat. “And those big bold letters…Celestia-knows-what it is!”

“Uh-huh, these are weird indeed. Wonder if we could magically fix it?” An idea flashed before Twilight, but before she could answer, the doors were besieged with a knock so loud it scared the living daylights out of the two mares. “Coming, coming!” grunted the princess, annoyed by the suddenness of whoever wanted to visit. Immediately after she turned the knob of the door six colorful creatures burst in, nearly knocking her over; her grunt could not be heard over the cries of, “Oh, Headmare Twilight!” coming from the Young Six. “Hey you all! Whatever’s brought you here?” she asked, trying not to get annoyed as she closed the door. “We were just lounging and enjoying the weather when this happened,” said Sandbar, showing his flank where his three-turtled cutie mark was still glowing. “Yak hair also glowing!” chimed in Yona; the rest followed suit and showed their glowing areas. Twilight and Starlight were rather stunned.

“Wait, do you think…no, no, no it can’t be, the Map can’t have called you all, because its changed…” Ocellus’ ears perked. “What’s changed Headmare? And what do you mean by ‘The Map called us’?” she questioned. “Oh it’s, well…come, I’ll just show you.” The princess led the six toward the throne room, where the Map glowed ever so brightly, the mysterious map on full display, and all over it, next to dots, little markings, and geographical info was more foreign writing, possibly the names of those particular locations. “If there’s any friendship problems around Equestria, this special map will activate and send somepon– I mean, somecreature, to solve it. Everytime the Map calls somepony, the map of Equestria will surface and the cutie mark of whomever is called will float over a location. But this isn’t Equestria! It’s a map of some…mysterious land whose name and details I don’t even know!” Twilight let out a frustrated sigh, her hooves resting on the crystalline table. The six gasped in awe at the map, Ocellus even more as she took a good look at the writing. “Wait, so, if the map is supposed to be Equestria and its changed to this, doesn’t it mean that something happened to it?” analyzed Gallus. “Uh well, I was just about to do some study when Sandbar’s cutie mark and a bunch of colors just came in here and poof! changed the map! And worse, its all written in some strange writing that I can’t identify, and if I can’t identify what this is, then how am I gonna fix–” “Wait, did you say colors? What colors?” asked Ocellus, her mind beginning to piece something together. “Uh, I dunno, brown, pink, blue – there were two blues, one light, one dark, orange…then Sandbar’s cutie mar– Wait.” She turned to Ocellus, whose expression was now something in between shock, surprise, and fear. “Wait, aren’t those our colors?” said Smolder, her face and that of the rest turning into realization.

“You said something like the Map calling us. Do you think there's, like, some friendship problem that it needs us to solve?” Ocellus wondered. “But this isn’t Equestria! The Map won’t send you all to some unknown place!” called Twilight. Silverstream piped in, “Well maybe the Map just went funny and needs a little fixing! Back in Mount Aris, Dad always has something that needs fixing, and I tell you, Mom always gets–” “Uh, Silverstream, the elephant in the room?” quipped Gallus, a hint of annoyance escaping his beak. “Oh right, sorry! I mean, a Map that solves friendship problems just called us to somewhere! Gasp, you think, perhaps, it might be a dangerous place? Full of wild animals and flesh-eating…creatures..? Eek!”

“Uh, Silver, I’m pretty sure that the original Map won’t send us to such a place, let alone this…I dunno, map-with-weird-shtick?” sighed Gallus.

Twilight looked up as she suddenly remembered the idea that had crossed her mind before the six came. “Actually, I could try to reset it; it should return to normal, but it will take some time. Just gimme a sec…” She began powering up her horn, purple magic sparkling to life as she mustered a reset spell. Reeling a little, she fired the spell toward the table, expecting a reboot to follow shortly after. Sizzling with electric sparks, a bright white flash emanated, engulfing the map. Instead of a reboot, the six students suddenly floated into the air, eyes wide with shock and fear as a sparkling white aura began to cover them. Twilight had instantly realized that something had gone very wrong and was now trying to muster a reversal spell to halt the strange phenomenon. It was too late. The aura completely wrapped the six screaming creatures into a big ball of bright light and, with a hiss of energy, floated over the map, inserting its arcane self into it, and disappeared with a flash into oblivion. Silence ensued.

Twilight, Starlight, and now Spike, who had come into the throne room to see what was going on, stared at the table with wide eyes and dropped jaws in shock and disbelief in the wake of the whole event, which could not have lasted more than ten seconds. It took some time for a beeping sound to make its way into their ears, which shook them out of their frozen statuette positions; trotting over to the map, Twilight’s face contorted into ferocious fear as she eyed a location marker, inscribed with squiggly writing that she took as its name, blinking with stark calmness; her heartbeat running at miles per minute, she realized that her students had been teleported to wherever this unknown place was.

Author's Note

Can anyone guess where they've been teleported to?