Unaffiliated, Unwilling, and Immensely Concerned
Twilight was reading a book in her castle.
Normal things. Normal book, normal wings, normal day, normal Twilight.
Of course, Twilight had long since filtered out of the definition called 'normal' and hence carved out her own niche in life that she felt herself comfortably rest in. She was Twilight. Sometimes that meant a nice relaxing hour with a book, and maybe a candle if she was feeling adventurous. Sometimes that meant fighting gods, monsters, and being responsible for wielding the infinite arcane might of friendship and magic. That, and occasionally playing at being animal control for all manner of monsters, and dealing with her rambunctious friends.
Among helping children not fight over ice cream with lessons about how to manage interpersonal relationships.
Yeah. Normal.
Today, like most days, was too outside Twilight's comfort zone of silent. As one exposed to the many extravagant ways the universe liked to play tiny little jokes, the anxious pressure cooker known as Twilight Sparkle was currently reading away in the center of the castle, hoping. Desperately hoping that whatever eventually broke the quiet 'normalcy' of the day wouldn't be able to find her, and if it did, that hopefully her book would keep her safe from responsibility.
It tended to be a toss up. Sometimes she'd be able to duck the disaster of the week, other times she'd cause it, and on occasion, it'd just be a quiet little thing that came for her and her alone. Like a pony bringing back an overdue book from the Golden Oaks library. That pony was probably very confused and concerned by the tears, but that wasn't here nor there.
There was a knock.
Twilight's ear twitched, and she stared a little bit harder at her book.
There was another knock. This one, seemingly moderately more urgent.
Usually ponies, or Spike, tended to knock several times. There was only singular, and sharp knocking at the door, and Twilight desperately tried to ignore it, but in her own head, elected that if whomever it was knocked again, she would get up and answer the door.
She was a princess after all. There has to be a limit on what she can ignore.
They did not knock again, in fact, the door itself spontaneously reverse phased out of existence in a way that Twilight saw, superimposed over her vision. Along with a horrendous grinding noise that sounded partially like what a glass jar of sapient 'screaming neck wasps' would sound like if you put them through a paper shredder.
Twilight turned to the now inexistent door, despite her still being able to see it three, now four seconds ago. It was no longer moving trans-temporally. A mare walked through, bright, and almost salmon to the eyes, at least, what Twilight thought were eyes.
Twilight shook her head, shaking away the vision of looking at herself from the doorway.
"YOU!" The vaguely pony thing shouted and whispered and thought all at the same time.
Twilight rang like a bell from her spot on the cushion. Nothing hurt, but that didn't mean the sensory overload didn't freeze her in place like a deer in the headlights. Not a deer with headlights being shown at them. A deer, in, the headlights. Example purposely given in such a way to describe the nuance of comedically 'ringing' like a bell as space warbled around her and curved in on itself.
The figure by the door only existing thirteen seconds ago dropped down in height as the waves of meshing realities folded down onto them. It resolved into a visually speaking, carbon copy version of Twilight, but made out of an aurora.
Twilight, snapping back to her senses, as they started to mean something again, simply stuttered out an intelligent, "What-"
"No! Time!" The Aurora Twilight jumped forwards and wrapped a hoof around regular Twilight's neck. "Do you have any idea how many dimensions I had to scour to find you?" They drew a hoof down the air in front of Twilight, and the over-powering, nonsensical, and impossible sensation of moving weighted itself in Twilight's mind for a brief second of infinity before reality reasserted itself.
Her senses, still recovering, were battered again by the sudden onrush of everything she'd never seen, heard, smelled, and so on. Beyond her vision was white, but wherever she looked there tended to be something drawing her gaze along some line that brought whole universes into focus. She spun, trying her best not to vomit as her mind struggle to conceptualize four dimensions of space. It was easy not to, as her body was gone, somewhat. Until she was stretched forwards three moments later, where her everything rubber-banded into position like a series of vices finally holding down a flailing bird with seven thousand and nine wings of different shapes and sizes.
"AAAAAAAAAAA" Twilight added.
"Oh, you always say that." The Aurora Twilight responded, giggling and tossing a hoof.
Twilight, still screaming, quickly patted herself down to make sure her extremities were still attached. Her heavy breathing and screaming eventually slowed as she looked around the completely normal, extended doorway that both her, and the aurora version of herself were standing in front of.
"Are you done?"
"Who are you?! What is going on!? What just happened?! Where am I?! Did I just-"
The Other Twilight reached forwards without moving and closed regular Twilight's mouth. "I'm you, from somewhere else. I need your help with something, I just skipped us through the T-F-M-C-S-T-F-R-H line, we're at The Fray, and yeah, that guy did just show you his universe. Sorry about that."
Twilight processed the series of answers.
The Other Twilight groaned and started tapping a hoof, "Are you gonna do that forever? or can we go?" Before Twilight could re-ask her questions, having not gotten viable answers, Aurora Twilight spoke again. "I already said, I'm you, but from somewhere else. Elsewhere, as in, not where you came from."
This was when Twilight noticed that there were actually three of her here, instead of just two. She didn't understand how she knew that, but she did. Everything around her was certainly happening. That's for sure.
Twilight opened her mouth, then closed it again.
"Alright, whatever." Aurora Twilight slid the ground forwards, drawing them up to the door. They, and the ground passed several Machs as the door, already immense from a distance, became so large as they approached that it wrapped around them in entirety. Masking the rest of the infinity just outside of Twilight's vision from her mind. The optical illusion continued as they got closer slash deeper into the distance required to apparently get towards the door.
"HEY. DIDN'T I ALREADY SEND YOU HOME?"
The ground slowed, and The Other Twilight yelled, "Didn't I tell you that I had an orthogonal narrative? Leave me alone!" Aurora Twilight yelled in tandem, "Hey! Don't touch me!"
Regular Twilight flinched at the grossly manifested masculine voice that sounded out in her own head.
"YOU ALREADY HAD ENOUGH. BEAT IT KID."
The ground stopped moving entirely, and Aurora Twilight sounded off a panicked yelp as The Other Twilight shouted off a quick, "Wait! Wait! Sorry! Look, I have it! Look, she's right here!" She gestured out towards Twilight, who spread her wings on reflex as the she 'heard' the voice look at her through some extrasensory sensation.
The moment dragged on, and The Other Twilight's nervous smile became increasingly strained.
"LOOKS FAKE."
Twilight, offended, and aware at the direction of the comment let out a petulant, "Hey!"
"Come-ooooooooooooon" Aurora Twilight whined, "Just let me back in! She's real, you know she is, just go grab one of the others and prove it yourself." The Other Twilight snarkily tacked on, "I can wait."
"MMMMMMMM."
Twilight looked in confusion between the meshing superposition of The Other Twilight and Aurora Twilight. Still trying to piece together what was going on, and wishing that she just had to fight Tirek again.
"FINE. BUT-"
The voice was cut off by the door opening, and both of the other Twilights disappearing in a flash of song. Twilight was dragged along in their wake, and only caught the tail end of the voices protests.
"DON'T CAUSE ANY TROUBLE!"
The sensation of motionless speed caused Twilight to cry out again, until she slammed back down into reality like waking up from a falling dream. She jerked, breathing heavily, and quickly spun to get a look at her surroundings.
The first thing she saw was music, she heard it too, but the waving auditory sensation filtering in through her eyes drew her attention the most. The thrumming of the air, along with the beams of smell that shook themselves along the floor and up her hooves mixed with all of her perceptions into a vague enough pattern that it didn't drive her insane on the spot.
The Other Twilight and the Aurora Twilight waved a series of hooves, hands, and other extremities, yelling a muted "Thanks!" that Twilight tasted, before the opposing pair disappeared in the crowd. That was the next thing Twilight noticed, among the creatures here, there was everything she could have ever imagined. Bipeds, birds, monsters, things that filled the sky, things that weren't, other ponies, and generally just... everything. Every kind of imaginable life, stuffed together in one massive room without gravity, time, space, or any of the silly little things people tended to require to remain alive.
The room was endless, but still had walls that flashed with billions of lights made of memories. Things filled the air, robots and living galaxies shook or spun and danced to the unintelligible music ripping it's wait through the room.
Twilight staggered away from the center, her everything still spinning. There was a center. A distance away from where she came in, where the lights and smells and sounds were exploding from with near unmeasurable speed and consistency.
There were tables, somewhere further away, where she caught a glance of a flaming mane, and a burning white furred alicorn with orange slitted eyes. Next to her was a human, or what Twilight thought was a human male. They had thicker silver hair all over their body, and a pointed snout like a dog. Actually, the whole thing looked like some cross between a lankier human and a wolf.
Twilight, still trying to walk straight along a floor that didn't really exist, lunged forwards for the table as her back legs floundered and dunked into water before coming up again as a gust of wind tried to throw her into the air. At least she hoped that was wind, and not some kind of wind spirit getting far too close for comfort.
Then she was upside down, and the flaming mare that almost looked like Celestia leaned forwards across the table. "Oh my. Is that...?" Reality stabilized, and Twilight took a breath as the battering storm of meshing realties stopped for just a moment. "Are you the Twilight Sparkle?"
The wolf man waved his hand, and spoke half like Rarity, with a timber that belonged on a narrator. "Darling please. Why would the Prime Sparkle be here? Of all places?"
"Help me." Twilight asked, her eyes wide as she desperately clung to the table.
The wolf man took a double take. "Oh. Would you look at that."
Not-Celestia leaned over the table with a toothy grin. "Now how did you find yourself here?"
"Richard?" The wolf man gestured to Not-Celestia.
"Just a moment." Not-Celestia gestured. "Are you okay there? Honey, you look like you're about to explode."
That was all Twilight needed, a fraction of stability, and somepony asking if she was okay. "IhavenoideawhereIamIlostallofmyfriendsandmydooristhirteensecondsawaystillIcantfigureoutwhoIambecauseIvelareadyseensevenofmeandthelightsareactuallyflavorsandeverythingwontstopspinningan"
Her word vomit was cut off by the wolf man bodily lifting her up over the table and setting her down on the lounge in-between him and Not-Celestia. He looked over the top of Twilight's head and shared a toothy smile with Not-Celestia, who leaned down into Twilight's personal space bubble. "Honey, you're at The Fray. As in, The Fraying, or The Frayed. If you're a regular. You don't know how you got here?"
Despite the incredibly gentle and refined tone. The pupils shaking in Not-Celestia's eyes, in addition to her proximity, and the sharpness of her teeth made Twilight very uncomfortable. "...No..." She said slowly. Leaning away from Not-Celestia, and the heat barely contained right behind the air separating the two of them.
"Daybreaker, Darling, personal space."
"Oh!" She tittered and leaned back, "Of course, my mistake. I'm so used to having gravity. This place is a wonder isn't it?"
"Say it again Darling!" The wolf man encouraged
She lifted her muzzle into the air and cheered, "It's a wonder!" Daybreaker (apparently) had no shame or fear for the countless eyes that turned her way and clapped or did whatever things with appendages that looked like that did when they wanted to non-verbally affirm something that was just said in their vicinity.
Safety in the booth turned into peace, and peace, turned into curiosity. "There was..." Twilight tried, "I tried to- I, that is, two of me brought me here? Where is here? What's the... Frayed?"
"Ah, well." The wolf man inclined his head, "You're not supposed to know, but you didn't hear it from me."
"Or me!" Daybreaker added in, before something reached for her lips, and she turned to the side to start gulping down some kind of drink... hopefully.
The wolf man, meanwhile, gestured out towards the essential universe rave, and explained. "The Fray is the place all the negative neutral parties go to get away from the grand wars that overtake the universe."
"Negative neutral?" Twilight asked for clarification.
Daybreaker smacked her lips and gasped, turning back towards Twilight, "Ambivalence is key Ms. Prime Narrative, none of those you see here are interested in..." She waved a hoof, the plasmafied filaments of her fur leaving after images in Twilight's eyes. "Tangling. With either the Sun or The Imagination Engine or any of their toys."
"Yes, let them fight for the scraps of what's left of the 'grand' Atirian Empire." The wolf man waved his hand too, exactly like Daybreaker had, "That's what I say."
Daybreaker continued, tag teaming the explanation. "The creatures out there do it for morals or what have you."
The wolf man spread his arms out, gesturing to the crowd around them. "We're just here for the good time! Hahahaha!"
Twilight lifted her hooves placatingly. "That's fine and all, but how do I get home?!" She shouted over the din. She hadn't the slightest clue how they were talking at normal volume inside what was basically a sensory hurricane of reality crashing into itself. She had even less of a clue of how she could still hear them speaking.
"Oh, well just collect your Chaperonee and have them take you home, I'd wager." The wolf man answered simply. Daybreaker nodded along.
"My... what?"
"Well, nobody just gets into The Fray because they don't like being involved in the wars for The Throne." Daybreaker scoffed, "One needs a grand story, a narrative, and a meaning to really matter. Think of it like a drivers license, used to prove that you're awake enough to truly not care."
"I don't know what that is." Twilight half whimpered in annoyance. Obviously, she had no idea what any of that had meant.
The wolf man shrugged, "Well you better go find your wallet before it leaves you here then. Otherwise, you'll be trapped. Door doesn't tend to just let anybody in. Same with letting them out."
"Trapped?!" Twilight flared her wings.
"Yes!" The wolf man smacked her on her back, sending her hopping over the table in a strange motion of biological and magical input, followed by response. Twilight awkardly stood at the other end of the table, blinking her eyes in confusion.
"Just remember honey!" Daybreaker called out as the wolf man leaned closer to her, "Keep your head on, and The Fray will conform to your manifestation."
The wolf man leaned in a little closer as the table and the booth slid out of view. "Now where were we?"
Twilight was roughly shoved, skidding through water that twisted away into the air after she'd bumped into it. It shouted some obscenity at her before disappearing. "Sorry!" She called out. She then focused, channeling magic into her horn just for the sake of it.
"The Fray will conform." Twilight pictured a floor. Something that would stay, and there it was. The floor was invisible, and led her gaze past infinity, but at least she wasn't airborne anymore. She was still standing upside down, and just a tad off to the side of the majority of the exciting creatures, which... "Yeah. Okay. I'll stay right here." The short moment to calm her heart was all she needed to get distracted again by the wonder currently in front of her.
Supposedly, she wasn't in any danger, and the historian, magician, and the student inside of her desperately clawed past her terror to start injecting question after question that needed an answer. At the very least, Twilight had first hoof evidence that the multiverse was, in fact, very real. Starswirl's mirror wasn't generally proof of other realties, as many mages had since theorized the possibility that the mirror had created the reality on the other end of it.
This wasn't that. This was real. Twilight had just manipulated the fabric of reality with nothing but her mind. She'd only ever done that with her friends and the elements. The feeling was unmistakable.
"This is real."
Twilight took in the things around herself again, willing them to make sense. To her, the mashing of things and places and people and gods and the void itself crashed and meshed together until it resembled something like a cloudeseum. Filled with creatures standing upside down on loose clouds. Thunder and lighting occasionally flashing, and switching roles, colors and lights reflecting out of hail and weather that shouldn't have been self contained in that particular section.
It was still madness, but she could at least understand it now, and from what she could see, the party goers apparently loved the changes.
"You must be Twilight Sparkle!" A suave voice sounded off from her right. She turned to find her eyes filled with the cosmos. Which, against her better judgment, she mentally reframed into the shape of a pony. They didn't smile, mouthless, but Twilight still somehow comprehended their expressionless joy and surprise at the sudden change in shape. "Whowah!" They spun, showing off how they looked partially like Luna's mane, but if it was filled to the brim with stars, and was the entire pony. "Thanks for the wardrobe change, and the new stage. You know how I like to perform!" It leaned up next to her, stepping onto her little patch of solid cloud.
"Uh-" She lifted a hoof in confusion and worry.
The thing reached out and subsumed her hoof in its own and shook it jovially. "Richard. If you would, and of course, I already know your name." It let her hoof go, and she quickly inspected it as the figure dashed around to her opposite side, giving her a once over. "I don't get a lot of Prime Narratives in my club, certainly not often." It nodded having finished looking her over. "A gem. For sure, I can't say I know your story well, but I've heard enough. What are you going to do here?"
Twilight stood, and made sure it was standing in front of her. "I don't-" She stopped herself, "Wait, you said-this is your club?"
They did a bow, lifting both hooves up to their sides and bowing like a biped without falling over. "Richard, owner and proprietor of The Fray, leader of The Frayed, and local handsome devil, at your service."
"I don't know why I'm here, honest. I got lost." Twilight answered, hoping this was a direction she could go in to possibly get home.
It laughed uproariously. "Twilight! Oh, Twilight, Twilight, Twilight... Not what are you doing here." It enunciated. "I asked, 'what are you going to do here?'"
Twilight tilted her head to the side, sensing something was off. "I... I want to go home..."
The figure was at her side in a flash, hoof over her back, and gesturing out towards everything. "Twilight please, let's not kid ourselves. I've already met every version of you that's shown up here. I've already talked to you forever. You and I both know that you just can't resist a question as big as this."
Twilight followed its hoof to another version of itself at the center of the party, where most of the smoke, sound, and music was coming from. It waved, and the figure at her back waved back. "I'll tell you what." It whispered into her ear. "I'll get you home if you do something for me..."
Twilight tried to hide the expression from her ears as she leaned away from the hilariously clear and menacing deal. "Hold on, I'm-"
It was in front of her again. "It's my job to keep this party spinning until the host dies, or The Throne does, either or" it waved absent-mindedly. "You~ are ruining the vibe with all this... Ghianaivacrthaism. So I'll take you home..." It leaned forwards and started pushing. Twilight resisted, but to no avail. She was slid towards the edge as the figure spoke again, "If you. Go! Have! Fun!"
Twilight was shoved off the platform and into infinity.
Dead of the night in Ponyville, nopony was sleeping. Thirteen hours ago, Twilight Sparkle was stolen from her castle. No-one could figure out where she'd gone. Celestia had scoured the world with the sun, and no articulate magic from any mage, up to and including Princess Luna could trace the magic warping the space in which she had disappeared from.
The search parties had long since given up, the majority holding onto the idea that Twilight would still come back, with only a few already in mourning for their lost princess. Her friends were one of the former. All six, including Spike, along with several others were waiting just outside of town hall for a sign. For something. All of them on watch. All of them attentive for their best friend's eventual return.
Just as time ticked into midnight, the sky above Ponyville shattered and yielded to millions of lights. Filling the night sky with a second sun made entirely of rainbow rays. A split second later, the light dimmed, and it took the ponies watching a moment or two to clear the spots out of their eyes to see the hulking shimmering metal monstrosity hanging in the air.
Of course, nopony had words for such a thing. That is, until it began a rapid decent. Then the screaming started.
The bearers, and Spike, looked to each other, and with determined nods, they were off in the direction of the danger. Pinkie Pie took the lead with Rainbow Dash, both of them having already figured out the direction and speed of the approaching monstrosity.
It was headed for the Castle of Friendship.
Neither of them, nor anypony else was fast enough to stop it from crashing into the Castle of Friendship. Yells of dismay and cries of terror were had as the shrieking sounds of metal on crystal exploded shrapnel of destroyed structure out onto the street. The bearers and Spike rushed inside, not at all paralyzed by the danger or the debris.
Once they traversed the crumbling structure, and made their way to the library where the tip of the craft had landed, they were greeted to the sight of Twilight Sparkle stumbling out of the ship like a newborn foal. She looked up at them with a warm smile and a distracted look, "My friends! Hi!" Then she hiccupped, and a rainbow flew out of her mouth, laughed, and then escaped through the cracks in one of the destroyed walls.
Twilight was a mess. Her mane was shaved on one side. One of her ears was bigger than the other, all of her fur was disheveled, and one of her wings was shoddily painted white. There was a tattoo of a human baby overlaid on her left cutiemark. You don't want to know what was over the second. She smelled like music, and at a distance, looked like the flavor blue.
Spike, the first one to find the words simply asked, "Twilight?"
Twilight stumbled forwards, "Hi Spike!" Then she collapsed to the side, onto a sofa that wasn't there a moment before. "Mmm, tell Jypuxfred that I borrowed his Arc..." She snuggled into a throw pillow as she spoke, and then the gentle sound of snoring signaled her drifting off to sleep.
"Must've been some party." Pinkie joked, there was a laugh track that came from nowhere; the rest of the bearers looked around in confusion and panic as the Seinfeld scene change track played, and the story ended.