"Wow, it's like each island is its own little world!" Twilight exclaimed as she wrote down the information Spark had explained to her, "Just how many islands are there, exactly?"

"Less than twenty thousand, more than thirteen thousand. It's been a cause for debate for a long time since nobody can agree on the specifics. Like, do you count the uninhabited ones or not? Is that mound of land just a sand bank? Will that islet stay when a massive storm passes by? Stuff like that."

Crucible Spark had been explaining the basics of his home country to the eager princess to the best of his abilities for quite some time. While he was able to elaborate on some details, but left most of it vague because he couldn't access the internet. Spark thought to 'borrow' wifi from Canterlot High when he gets the chance.

"And the single island of Java has a population over a hundred and fifty million?! Last I checked, Equestria only has around five hundred thousand! How does your government deal with that?" Twilight asked again.

Spark shrugged, "Mana aku tahu."

Twilight tilted her head with a confused expression.

The transformed human rolled his eyes, "Beats me. I don't really keep an eye out for the news. I just know that a lot of the less fortunate citizens live in slums. Which, I guess you could compare it to Griffonstone before Rainbow and Pinkie came along." he paused, "That already happened, right?"

"Um... yeah, it did. Do you really know everything that has happened and will happen?" Twilight questioned. Her curiosity about the archipelagic nation that Spark came from was almost immediately swapped by her curiosity about his unsettlingly vast knowledge about herself and her friends, along with that 'TV show'.

"Well, not everything. Just the stuff that's been shown in the cartoon. So only the important or out of the ordinary stuff. Like, I don't know much about any of your more mundane personal experiences. But I might know when the next 'big thing' will happen and what it's all about." Spark explained, "Just so I can get a point of reference, has the Grand Galloping Gala happened yet?"

Twilight tapped a hoof to her chin, "Yes, actually. I think you already know how it went, though."

Spark chuckled, "Yeah, the smooze, Discord almost throwing Tree Hugger into another dimension, all that jazz."

The young princess shook her head and sighed, "He really gave me headache all night. At least Princess Celestia had fun."

Spark slowly nodded, "Mhm." he looked back towards the doors, "Welp, I'm gonna go back to my room. Since it's already pretty late, I might need to take a look around Ponyville tomorrow and draw up a little map."

"Oh! How about you join us? Spike and I are going to shop for groceries tomorrow, we can show you around town as well." Twilight suggested.

Spark stopped just a foot away from the doors, "Huh, alrighty then. At least I won't get lost." he answered before continuing.

The very next day, Crucible Spark woke up early without even setting his phone's alarm. Indeed, it was one of those days where his body was too excited to sleep. He may not show it physically, but he was ecstatic, he was eager to begin his new life in Equestria.

Spark hit himself on the head a couple of times with a hoof. He then shook his head around before sweeping his gaze across the room. Yup, he was still there, in one of the guest rooms of the Castle of Friendship. He swiftly made his way towards a window, and lo and behold, Celestia hadn't even properly raised the sun yet, as it only peeked slightly just above the horizon. He glanced at a clock on the wall, its hands showed five-fifteen AM. Spark decided to get ready for the day because he didn't want to waste this opportunity by sleeping in.

But before that though, he sent a silent prayer to whatever greater power out there for bringing the rift to him specifically out of the eight billion people on Earth, and that he wasn't transported to a dark alternate universe as his human self. While Spark wasn't exactly religious, he certainly didn't want to anger an obscure deity he didn't know about by ignoring them.

He continued to prepare himself for the day while whistling a cheerful tune. Using his newfound mastery over magic thanks to the attributes he had given his OC, he quickly set the king size bed and cleaned up the area used for the little magical practice session he had last night. After everything was cleared, he made his way to the connected bathroom to answer nature's call. Learning how stallions use a toilet was... an interesting experience. At least the shower system was the same.

As he finished drying himself, he decided to eat breakfast first before brushing his teeth, he idly wondered what Spike would make for today.

Just as he was about to exit the room, he heard an odd sound coming out of one of his saddlebags. At first, he simply thought it was his phone, but quickly remembered there weren't any cellular services in Equestria until Sunny Starscout's era.

Spark slowly and carefully approached the saddlebag. When peeked in, he was genuinely shocked at what he found inside.

Within the saddlebag, right between his laptop and power bank, surrounded by rolled up charging cables, headphones, and earbuds, was a brown sack. It was slightly larger than his own hoof, and its opening was held slightly closed by a gold string. He definitely didn't have that back on Earth.

Spark carefully picked up the sack with his magic and held it in his forehooves, 'Apaan ini?' he thought to himself.

He turned the small sack around, observing its exterior. It wasn't long before he found a small paper tag attached around the gold string.

"Bahan Memasak/Cooking Supplies" was written on it.

Spark turned the tag around and read what was written on the other side.

"Gunakan Imajinasimu/Use Your Imagination" it said.

Looking back at the opening of the sack, Spark shrugged and fully opened it. Instead of being filled with items like he was suspecting, there was instead a spiraling yellow portal that had replaced the entrance.

Putting the words on the tag into consideration, he tentatively inserted a hoof into the portal. He soon found out that whatever magical powers that this sack had, it made it significantly bigger on the inside.

Spark tried to focus about the thing he wanted to pull out, he decided to conjure the image of a full bottle of sweet soy sauce in his mind.

He jumped slightly when he felt something brush against his hoof, but immediately tried to grip it as best he could and quickly pulled in out of the sack. Just as he had imagined in his mind, he now held a bottle of his favorite brand of sweet soy sauce in his hoof.

Seeing results of this brand new discovery, he smiled to himself before rushing off to the kitchen. Spark hoped Spike hasn't started cooking yet,

If living with Twilight Sparkle has taught him anything, it was that she was not a very good cook. At least, when it comes to cooking something spontaneously, without a cookbook, proper measurements, and a full set of ingredients and utensils. Hence why Spike was making his way to the kitchen to cook something for the princess, who was currently sleeping on a desk inside of the portal room. She had once again gone overboard with researching, and had knocked herself out while reverse engineering the portal right after she finished her discussion with Crucible Spark. Spike often wonders how Twilight would end up without him as her number one assistant.

When he arrived in the kitchen, he saw Crucible Spark fiddling away with a large pan and a spatula. He was definitely cooking something, as Spike could smell the scent of various ingredients and spices every time Spark stirred or flipped whatever the stuff he was cooking.

"Uh, good morning, Spark. Looks like you woke up pretty early." Spike greeted the extradimensional guest.

Spark turned off the stove, which had been burning an odd red and blue fire instead of the usual orange, and looked towards the baby dragon, "Morning. I'm making breakfast for us, if you don't mind. Any allergies I should know about?"

Spike gave him a smile, "Really? Neat! And no. Twilight gets spring allergies but that's about it."

Spark nodded, "Alright. Why don't you take a seat? I'll bring it to the dining room when I'm done."

Spike gave him a thumbs up before making his way to the dining room. Coincidentally, Twilight had just woken up and was also going to the same location. She perked up when she saw the baby dragon entering from the opposite side of the hall.

"Good morning, Spike." she said while trying to stifle a yawn.

Spike held in a chuckle when he saw her frazzled mane, "Morning, Twi. Spark's cooking breakfast right now. He told me to wait here." he responded before pointing towards the dining room.

Twilight raised an eyebrow, "Did he say what he was going to cook?"

Spike shrugged, "No, but judging from the smell, it's gotta be pretty good!"

Twilight nodded, "Okay then, I hope he doesn't mind the different ingredients, though. I know humans don't exactly like eating flowers."

Spike snickered as he remembered a small incident that happened during their last visit through the portal.

The two of them took their own seats next to each other as they waited for Spark to finish. Thankfully, they didn't need to wait for long since the transformed human to bust through the door with three plates, three large mugs, a bowl of gems, and silverware floating in his magic.

Spark placed everything on the table before taking a seat himself, "This morning's menu: my go-to fried rice recipe with a vegetarian twist and a large glass of lemon tea!"

Twilight and Spike looked at their plates curiously, all three plates were filled with oily, light brown rice, mixed with diced carrots, peas, corn kernels, slices of garlic chives, fried garlic, short slices of green beans, slices of shallots, slices of snow peas, and bits of lettuce. All topped off with an omelette covered with a generous amount of ketchup. The two turned to look at their mugs and found lemon slices floating inside.

"I don't think we have this much stuff in the kitchen..." Spike commented.

"Spark, where did you get the ingredients for all of this?" Twilight asked with a dumbfounded expression.

Spark ate a spoonful before he explained, "Okay, so this morning, I found this thing in one of my saddlebags." he put the magical sack in the middle of the table, "Seems like it can conjure up anything I need to cook, even utensils. And before you ask anything, no, I didn't have it with me until I went through the rift."

"So it just appeared out of thin air? That doesn't make any sense! I know the portal turns saddlebags into backpacks and gave us clothing, but it's never made any magical items before!"

Spark shrugged, "Hey, I'm not complaining. If I get possibly infinite amounts of cooking supplies from this magic bag, then so be it. Now enough talk, and more eating!"

Twilight looked down at her plate with slight hesitation. Taking a glance at Spike, she saw him eating the dish ravenously while taking bites off of the gems from the bowl Spark brought.

She tentatively took a spoonful with a slice of the omelette on it and put it in her mouth.

She ended up finishing first.

After their very quick breakfast, the three inhabitants of the castle began their trek through Ponyville. Spark brought his saddlebags with him, and was scribbling down roads and landmarks on a large sheet of paper in his magic.

Throughout their walk, Twilight and Spike couldn't help but notice the weird looks the ctizens gave their new friend. They turned to Spark briefly to see if he was alright with the attention, and saw the kirin-human looking around this way and that with an awestruck expression while his pencil constantly fiddled with the paper floating in front of him. It seemed like he didn't notice the attention or just didn't care.

"Gila, cuy..." Spark muttered under his breath.

They continued on their merry way towards the market, Spark continued to mumble in his native language and occasionally hum a song from his world along the way. Once they arrived, the three were greeted by a familiar hat-wearing farmpony.

"Howdy Twilight! Spike!" Applejack waved at her friends from her stall before looking at the newcomer, "Huh, new friend o' yours?"

Twilight gave her a smile, "Hello Applejack! This is Crucible Spark. Spark, this is-"

Spark extended a hoof towards the farmpony, "Applejack, yeah?"

Applejack shook his hoof, "Yessir! Nice to meet ya!"

"Ditto. And you can call me Spark." Spark replied with a smirk.

Applejack nodded, "So Spark, y'all new to Ponyville? Can't say I've ever seen a unicorn like you before 'round here." she asked.

"I am. The reason I'm here at all is a long story, but in short, I'm the result of one of her–" he pointed a hoof to Twilight, "–little experiments.

"And I'm a kirin. Sorta like unicorns, but more fireproof, I guess." Spark explained.

"Oh. So what happened? Twilight casted a spell and ya just popped outta nowhere?"

"It's hard to believe, but that's pretty much what happened. Give or take a few details." Spark confirmed.

Applejack turned to the young princess, who was rubbing the back of her head awkwardly.

Twilight let out a nervous laugh, "W-well! he said he's fine with it."

Spark nodded, "Yeah, so now I'm staying at her castle until I can buy a house start up my own blacksmithing business."

Applejack raised an eyebrow, "Blacksmithin' huh? That's a pretty useful profession. Considerin' how long it takes to have our tools repaired, it'll be nice to have somepony here who knows how to make an' fix 'em so we don't have to send 'em away to other towns."

"Better be quick, first customer gets to commission for free!" Spark added.

Applejack gave him a smile, "Will do, Spark."

The three of them eventually said their goodbyes to Applejack and continued on to other shops where Twilight and Spike frequent. Spark constantly drew his map as they went on. They were now going back to the castle, and were silently walking along the dirt road. That is, until Spark remembered something.

"Hey Twilight?" Spark called out.

Twilight turned to him, "Yes, Spark?"

"Remember when I showed you the comics and you confirmed all of it?" he asked.

Twilight nodded, "Yeah, how could I forget?" she joked.

"This was only covered there, and it's really important. I have to know. How did Anon-A-Miss end?"

Twilight stopped her walk, Spike nearly bumped into her, "What the heck, Twilight?!"

"Whoops! Sorry, Spike." Twilight looked back at the kirin-human, "From what Sunset told me, it seems like the rest of the Rainbooms and her have sorted it all out and reconciled. Though they are still very sorry about what happened.

"I actually visited them with Spike to check up on them about a week later. It turned out to be more a of a lecture in the end." she admitted sheepishly.

Spike sniffed in amusement, "You sounded like a disappointed parent when you talked to them."

Spark nodded slowly, "Okay... okay. Good. Because I've read fanfic stories where it ended horribly. Glad to know it's the same as the comic."

"How could it end horribly?" Twilight inquired curiously.

Spark looked towards the encroaching figure of the castle and sighed, "Let's just say, there was chance that Harmony could've forsaken their world."

They finally got back to the castle as morning gave way to noon. When they passed the entrance, Spark noticed a trail of pink confetti that lead towards... the dining room? He smiled to himself, he knew exactly what's going to happen. It seemed like Twilight and Spike realized this as well, and the three of them followed the trail to its destination.

When they opened the doors, they were met with complete darkness. Spark slowly entered, pretending to be completely oblivious to what was about to happen.

'Satu... dua..." he silently counted in his mind.

He heard the sound of hooves shuffling against the floor and excited giggles being stifled.

Just as he counted to three, the room brightened, revealing a sorts of party decorations that filled the entire room. Spark saw a large group of familiar characters smiling brightly.

"SURPRISE!"

Pinkie Pie bounced away from the crowd towards Spark, "Welcome to Ponyville!" she announced as she pulled out a cupcake from her mane and gave it to him.

Spark accepted the gift eagerly and gave the assorted ponies a smile, "A surprise to be sure, but a welcome one!"

Author's Note

Have another chapter of Crucible Spark!

The cover art for Three Outcasts is almost finished! Expect the new chapter to release around early September!

If you want to share ideas on how this story should go, consider commenting!

Corrections and criticisms are more than welcome, I can't improve without those now, can I?
Have a good existence!
:)

"Remembered forever, the land of Equestria"