“From all of us together, together we're friends. With the marks of our destinies made one, there is magic without end!” I shouted. The world instantly went black.
A moment later, glittering balls of light flickered to life around me. I was suspended in a seemingly endless void, lit only by mysterious lights and the glow of a strange fog permeating much of the surrounding area. What happened? Did something go wrong with the spell?
“Hello? Where am I? What is this place?” I asked.
As I stood in place, if it could even be called standing, I saw a pony coming from the distance. She was walking through the void as if on solid yet invisible ground. “Congratulations, Twilight. I knew you could do it,” she said. It was Celestia.
“Princess...I don’t understand. What did I do?” I asked. “Am I...dead?”
Celestia hesitated for a moment. “Well...yes, Twilight,” Celestia said, now standing next to me. “And I was the one who killed you.”
“Wh...what?” I asked.
“It was necessary for the next step to take place,” Celestia said. “I’m sure you’ll understand once I explain.”
“Explain what?” I asked. “Wait...are you dead, too?”
“Oh, dear me, no,” Celestia said, chuckling to herself. “I’m immortal. I can travel among the planes of existence and across all universes that exist. And this is but one of many forms I have taken over the eons.”
“So you’re a…” I began.
“A goddess, yes,” Celestia said. “You could say that.”
“I see…” I said. That part wasn’t all that surprising, all things considered; there had always been rumors. “And the ‘next step’ is?”
“You’re an eager one, aren’t you?” Celestia said. “Always thirsty for more knowledge. The perfect pupil.”
“I…suppose,” I said.
“Then we may as well get to it,” Celestia said. “After all, there isn’t much time to waste! We must…”
“Time for what?” I asked.
Celestia just stared with a small smirk.
“Sorry. Please continue,” I said.
Celestia’s smirk grew wider and she remained silent for a long moment.
I shuffled in place.
Finally, Celestia winked and continued. “We must get you to Isekainia at once! They are in dire need of a hero, and only you can save their world!”
“What? Where? Why me?” I asked.
“They have fallen under the spell of the awful Dark Lord known only as the Maleficent Marvolo! You must gather a team and defeat Marvolo’s army of wickedness before the fifth Moon rises in the month of Septembruary or civilization as they know it shall be no more!” Celestia shouted.
“What?” I asked.
“I shall give you three items to help you in your quest!” Celestia said. “First, this enchanted sword!” She raised a hoof, holding up a giant sword that would clearly be much too big for me to carry in any way other than levitation. “Its name is Stealthsmasher! It sounds a continuous alarm whenever enemies are within a mile so that you can never be ambushed!”
“Why would I need a sword?” I asked, deciding that I wasn’t going to get any immediate answers about the bigger picture but hoping to get at least somewhere. “You know I can do spells, right? And wouldn’t that make it so that I couldn’t ambush enemies, either?”
“The next item is this enchanted saddlebag!” Celestia said, leaving the sword hovering in the air and pulling a saddlebag out of…one of her own saddlebags, which I had somehow not noticed before. “It holds an infinite supply of hayburgers so that you shall always have sustenance!”
“Sounds kind of unhealthy,” I said. “Don’t get me wrong; I love hayburgers, but a well-rounded diet is kind of important or else you’d get, well…round.”
“And finally, I present you with the Eye of Discord!” Celestia said, leaving the saddlebag also hovering in the air and now holding up a misshapen piece of rock that certainly didn’t look like an eye.
“Uh…what does that do?” I asked.
“You shall learn in time,” Celestia said. All three objects came down, landing in front of me with a clattering sound despite there being no ground in sight. “Now off you go. Good luck!”
“Wait, uh…I still don’t understand what’s happening here,” I said.
“You have to save Isekainia!” Celestia said.
“Right. Uh...why?” I asked. “And you never explained why you had to kill me, either.”
“They have fallen under the spell of the awful Dark Lord known only as the Maleficent Marvolo!” Celestia repeated.
“Don’t they have their own heroes in, what was it, Easy-Game-ia? I thought you wanted me to learn friendship. I can’t just leave all my friends without saying goodb…wait, this is a test, isn’t it?” I asked. “You just made up the whole quest because you want to see if I’d abandon my friends. Of course that’s it. Well, I won’t. Of course I won’t. And there’s no way you’d kill me; you probably just teleported us to some special room in your castle or something.”
“No, you’re definitely dead,” Celestia said. “You’ll be reincarnated in Isekainia as a lowly second baseman on the worst baseball team in the league! You must recruit new members to the team and work your way up the ranks to become…”
“What is ‘baseball’?” I asked.
“It’s like buckball,” Celestia said. “But not. You’ll figure it out.”
“Right,” I said. “And I’d need a sword for this?”
“No,” Celestia said.
“Then why are you giving me one?” I asked.
Celestia stared. She blinked. She reached out a hoof and slowly pulled the sword away without breaking eye contact.
“I shall give you two items to help you in your quest!” she said.
“You mean my test,” I said. “Again, nice try, but I’m not leaving my friends. Now where’s the exit?” I turned around to look for possible doorways out of the strange void.
“Twilight, this isn’t a test. This is real,” she said, her voice beginning to show a hint of actual panic.
“Let me say goodbye to my friends first,” I said.
“There’s no time!” she said. “You have to go to Isekainia! Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye!”
“I wouldn’t have done that if I were you. Pinkie’s not going to like somepony making a fake Pinkie Promise,” I said, still searching for an exit.
“It’s not fake! I’ll…I’ll…I’ll give you wings!” Celestia said.
Suddenly I levitated higher into the void, at least insofar as anything could be considered to be higher than anything else there. Light enveloped me and I felt two strange appendages suddenly grow from my back; it wasn’t exactly painful, but it was a bit uncomfortable.
“Um…thanks? But I’m still not going. If it’s so important, why don’t you do it?” I asked.
“I can’t!” she cried. “Please! You don’t even have to win the World Series; you just need to make it to the playoffs! That should be enough for the spell cast by Marvolo’s team…uh, army…to weaken and for you to thereby save the world!”
“Sorry, but I’m not going,” I said.
Celestia sighed. “Is that your final answer?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said.
She sighed again, her over-the-top enthusiasm now completely gone.
“Uh…is that it? Can I leave now?” I said.
“Fine. Whatever,” Celestia said. “I’ll reincarnate you in Equestria; there’s no point keeping you dead if you’re not going. But I’m taking these back.” She levitated the hayburger saddlebag and the Eye of Discord into her own saddlebags, and the void dissipated. She had apparently forgotten about the wings.
As my eyes adjusted to being back outside in Ponyville, my friends came over to greet me.
“Twilight? Is that you?” Applejack said. “Wha - I’ve never seen anything like it!”
“Ha! Twilight’s got wings! Awesome! A new flying buddy!” Rainbow Dash said, and laughed with delight.
“Why, you’ve become an alicorn!” Rarity said. “I didn’t even know that was possible!”
“Wow, you look just like a princess!” Fluttershy said.
Pinkie Pie just stared intensely at Princess Celestia, her frown growing deeper and deeper by the moment.
“That’s because she, uh…is a princess now!” Celestia said, eying Pinkie nervously. “Uh…bye!”
As she began to walk away, I could hear her muttering to herself. “Well, that’s a thousand bits down the drain. Unless I can disguise myself as a right fielder? No, I tried that last season. Why did I make that bet? Hmm…there’s got to be something…”
The End
Author's Note
Since when I wrote this, I've learned that there apparently is a baseball isekai. Huh.
