The Father of Monsters saw the destruction of Skyros in his wake, yet his thirst for power had been denied by their sacrifice. He stood undeterred, and aimed his sights on a new land, brimming with magic and potential. He expected no opposition, and found none at first…

Until the gates opened, and she stepped through. Here to save us. A monster of our own.

Princess Serena. The Birth and Fall of Dream Valley.

Another beautiful morning welcomed the ponies of Equestria out of their slumber. The sun climbed up from beyond the horizon, its radiance and magnificence unchallenged under the careful grooming of its alicorn caretaker, gently rousing ponies, and a multitude of other creatures alike. It had been yet another peaceful night under Luna’s everwatching care, but now, it was time to start the day. Another seemingly uneventful day from where Princess Celestia screened the horizon.

Summer would soon be over, fall bringing with it the first gales that ruffled the sun diarch's alabaster fur. The sea of endless green, spreading down from the steep slopes of Canterhorn Peak to kiss the horizon as far as Celestia’s keen eyes could reach, had begun its slow change of dress to its telltale browns and creams which her little ponies would have to remedy in their respective customary celebrations.

But the steady coming of the early autumn's chills wasn't gonna stop the Princess of the Sun from gifting a warm welcome to a new, sunny day to her beloved subjects.

At least, it shouldn’t.

And yet, the solar diarch was falling behind in her usual schedule. The ritual for commanding the star was long imprinted in her memory like her own name, and required only but a fraction of mental awareness to tap into the unimaginable amount of magical power required to move the celestial body she had been entrusted to watch over for countless centuries.

No, it was a more urgent thought that filled her waking self as her keen, rosy eyes completed the hundredth lap over the peaceful Equestrian landscape which she was so privileged to marvel upon from the tall reach of her balcony, high into the imposing shadow of Alpha Tower in the heart of Canterlot Palace.

Celestia’s feathers rustled restlessly. She pried the horizon and searched the land, waiting…

‘Any day now, my unusual friend. Any day now.’

Celestia had been waiting for quite a while now, years having passed since the wake-up call that rocked her world. Circumstances beyond her control prevented her from sticking her muzzle in too deep for the sake of Equestria balance, or even from taking any formal aspect of the search into her own hooves. Celestia was relegated to the act of biding her time and trusting an old spirit’s bidding, fretting every morning that the remainder roused her from her dreams, sending her sister on a fit in turn.

The exact date eluded her, yet something in her gut stirred the feeling that the time was quickly approaching. Perhaps even that same day! It was impossible to ignore any longer. Harmony had warned her so in her sleep, whispers mixing with the amalgam of threads and sensations which builds a dream on a restless night. The princess could no longer trust her own awareness of the matter.

It was a long game she played. The longest a mortal creature could conceive, much less follow at every step and spin like she had since the days of old Skyros.

Celestia needed to be ready. The time of half-guesses and shadow-play would soon be over. Her ponies remained blissfully unaware of what was brewing on the horizon, and Celelstia would have it no other way. It was adamant to be so. Imperative.

Soon, a tide of change would wash over her lands with unrelenting fury. Will her most prized pupil be up to the task?

‘Of course she will. She has proven herself so far,’ Celestia had no use for second-guessing herself when Twilight Sparkle was on topic.

The flash of teleportation preceded a set of hooves closing in on Celestia from the neatly-arranged confines of the solar diarch’s room. “Something on your mind, Tia?”

Her baby sister's voice snapped Celestia out of her careful scanning. Her attention drifted from her most-cherished pupil’s newly-grown castle, defying the radiance of her own rising sun with the sparkling aurora coronating the homely town of Ponyville, to meet with the concerned visage of the Princess of the Night.

Luna's questioning eyes clashed with Celestia’s somber ones. The youngest of the alicorn sisters was suspicious of the matters that plagued her sister, yet it offered no clue as to how to aid her in her distress. Her evil self remained banished in the moon she now commanded when the moment had struck her older sister.

The alabaster alicorn’s uneasy front was enough to ring alarms for the youngest of the alicorn duo. Few things could throw Luna, a millennial-long seasoned ruler, cold and collected as the night she brought, so out of the loop.

Yet, when Celestia’s telltale, motherly smile was not present to lift even the somberest of pony’s spirits, it was a clear indication that something bad loomed on the horizon.

“Sister?” Luna gently prodded once more, Celestia’s prolonged contemplation dressing her nerves raw. What could have possibly painted that shade of dread on her dearest sibling this soon in the morning? Luna had noticed Celestia lagging behind in her obligations to move the sun into position while she did so in turn with the pale moon, having sprung her concern into a quick visit. Luna didn't mind taking over her duties if Celestia was simply feeling under the weather, a strange occurrence to befall them since alicorns rarely feel ill.

Perhaps she was just feeling lazy that morning? Luna would take anything but the wary uneasiness seeping in waves from the alabaster mare.

No such luck for Luna, for her eldest sister's mood was not lifted by her presence. “It's almost time, dearest Lulu,” Celestia, serious as a heart attack, a hint of dread hanging on her lips, answered her sister’s call. “Any day now.”

Unbeknownst to the Alicorn of the Night, Celestia had been partaking in this small ritual every single morning for the past few months, screening the land for a clue as to his arrival, that would most surely precede her pupil’s inevitable letter pleading for advice. Letter she’d have to ignore.

Celestia knew Twilight as if she had birthed her herself. It made her feel utterly dismayed for the part she’d have to take on the upcoming play.

Yet, as the time grew near, so did both Celestia’s expectations and concerns, to the point she feared it would seriously interfere with her royal duties. Day court postponed, delegate meetings canceled, social events pushed for future dates.

Fortunately, Celestia was blessed for the return of her youngest sibling. She had Luna to pick up her slack if the need arose, but even such a tremendous event shouldn't take her mind away from her duties to her cherished little ponies.

This new nugget of information answered most of Luna’s questions around the reason for Celestia’s stiffness, but failed to extinguish the ice condescending in her chest, needing no further hint to hitch a ride on her sister’s meaning, for she too had been made aware of what was soon to happen, albeit taking it with a grain of salt, not that much of a fan for prophecies.

This was no prophecy, however. In words and before the very eyes of Celestia, joined by the very spirit Harmony that watched over this world, an unprecedented turn of events would transpire soon that would rock their entire civilization to its core. Alas, under the tide of change, both royals were meant to watch from the sidelines. For the time being, at least.

Luna spit on this choice of approach.

“Are you sure, sister?” Luna’s incredulity required steady confirmation, working a tired kink out of her wings before settling one over Celestia’s back in meager support. Some nights were indeed more eventful than others, she too was in need for her eldest sibling’s reassurance, specially through the incoming storm.

Celestia returned her tired gaze once again to the marvelous landscape stretching beyond the safety of their castle. Luna followed her lead, settling beside her bigger frame, drawing from her the same warmth radiating from the very sun.

Both princesses cast their flaming eyes toward the far-off settlement that harbored this world's greatest heroes in its homely routine. A recent altercation with a power-hungry unicorn had drawn Twilight and the Bearers far into the reaches of Northern Equestria, where only a scarce few settlers would dare the snows and the griffons prowling from the nearby border. The magic of friendship had prevailed once more, and a colorful bunch of misguided ponies had founded a new home once freed of their former oppressor, who had escaped the Elements’ capture and now roamed Equestria, eluding the Royal Guard’s best efforts to pinpoint her and bring her to justice, to both royals dismay.

Another log to add to the bonfire. Another pony led astray under their careful watch. On some days, both princesses, the oldest on a more consistent basis, questioned their continued right and ability to rule over the land they both saw born under their careful leadership.

‘That’s what we have groomed her for, after all…’ Celestia mused inwardly, eyes set over the sparkling, star-shaped sigil coronating her student's castle. ‘And now, we are sure she won’t be alone in that endeavor.’

Those tribulations would have to wait, for Equestria's greatest heroes won’t be able to enjoy this short period of peace after Starlight’s defeat for long, if Celestia’s seasoned gut was indeed on the case. Something big was approaching, something that would change this world forever. For better or worse, only time will tell.

A long, long game was to be played.

“Alexander told me himself,” Celestia mumbled stiffly in answer to Luna’s implied query, her wings twitching at her sides and brushing against her sister’s velvety coat, electing a similar reaction from the smaller alicorn who gazed up at her sister’s frown. “He told me all he could spare without endangering the stream. You know the rules as well as I do, sister.” She cited sagely with a knowing smile for her youngest sibling.

Luna, familiar with the implications streaming out from Celestia’s muzzle, furrowed her brow and scrunched her muzzle, unpleased with her sister’s dismissiveness. Still, she recognized where she was coming from. Star Swirl had been her mentor too. His endless lessons were imprinted on her memories just as they were preserved in countless tomes and scrolls all over Equestria.

“Even in death, he continues to unnerve us so.” Luna snorted with equal parts of humor and displeasure, a fillish side of her peeking out for a brief moment, not a fan of the old wizard's long teachings and arduous training sessions.

A fond grin stitched on Celestia's muzzle, bittersweet memories of past times flooding her in the company of her sister. “That he does, dearest Lulu...”

…

It came like an avalanche, without warning or ceremony, to squeeze the air out of their lungs. A shift in the Aëther tugged at Celestia’s senses, her deep connection to the world's magic gifting her with the sight of ripples shaking the ley lines like a thunderstorm enraging an ocean at peace. Celestia didn't need to search for the immediate origin. Only one place in all the land could attract so much trouble time and time again.

From the towering reaches of Canterlot, they couldn't see it happening this far out, but no hint of doubt filled the silent space between the two alicorns.

Celestia’s gut was right. It was time.

An alabaster wing enveloped Luna’s back over her own embrace, Celestia drawing her sister close in search of reassurance in a rare gesture. Luna offered no quarrel, her senses also flaring and pointing her at the small town of Ponyville, seemingly unperturbed from where the sisters watched events unfold.

With a deep breath and a steady mind, Celestia commanded the sun and tucked it in its place in the open skies, freeing her mind of the pending task. The solar diarch mentalized herself, already hard at work to rearrange her tight agenda for a visit in the upcoming days, but not as the princess everypony loved and cheered. She’d have to take her annual disguised walk though her realm sooner this year.

In the meantime, Celestia could only pray Twilight would hold the front and remain on course.

Her thoughts drifted one last time to their old mentor, his work and wisdom still paramount in this era, but unable to shine a wisp of wisdom pertaining that day, for since times immemorial this land had not lived through a similar occurrence.

“A shame for the old crook.” Celestia picked off her previous conversation with the tiniest of smirks on her muzzle, which did little to mask the apprehension clinging to her rosy eyes.

“Hmm?”

“Some serious competition is on its way...”

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A story by AlexKidd11

TO CHANGE THE WORLD

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“Twilight. Are you sure about this?...”

“Sixteen…”

Treading through the labyrinthine corridors of Castle Friendship, proper name pending, a young alicorn princess tiredly counted the number of times her faithful assistant, and younger first, had warned, pleaded, or sought to coax her out of what she’d envisioned to be the greatest, most jaw-hangingdiscovery of the last century. Perhaps the past millennia!

Yep. Her own words, out of her own mind, straight onto a staggering laundry list of parchment. A true groundbreaker in her very own lavender eyes, more than enough reason for the fire in her hooves that steadily carried her towards her destiny.

The rhythmic echo of a set of hooves and claws bounced unchallenged around the crystalline foundations of Twilight Sparkle’s newly acquired castle, a structure only befitting for a mare of her rank and title. Bestowed by Harmony herself after her and her friend's defeat of the would-be tyrant, Lord Tirek, it’d become the new home of the alicorn and the young drake. Kind of an enforced happenstance after their old library had been reduced to little but charred roots and a messy pile of spilled memories of easier times.

Only the alicorn could traverse its seemingly endless halls and corridors with the strut and confidence of somepony who might as well have been inhabiting it their entire life. Decisive hoofsteps closed her towards the Throne Room, or Thrones Room to be more precise, since six other chairs teamed up with hers to host her closest friends in times of need and crisis.

Well, not that necessarily apocalyptic. More like ‘friendship problems’ as she’d grown fond of referring to them, popping in and out all over the land every now and then. A new, decisive step in responsibility on the long, arduous road to bring the Magic of Friendship to everypony in Equestria and beyond.

As his smaller strides struggled to keep him up the pumped mare’s excited gait, Spike wasn't exactly running out of words to make his point across. “... Because it sounds like something we shouldn't be trampling with.”

“Seventeen…”

Like waves crashing against the cliffs of Horseshoe Bay, the young princess simply wouldn't be deterred by her little brother's insistent, vexing pleas, bringing her ears flat over her scalp in a feeble attempt to shut him out so that she could concentrate back on the hot topic. That hot topic being the complicated jumble of aëtheric equations she was weeding out for mistakes she might’ve overseen in her hurried preparations.

The count was at seventeen since that very same morning, and Twilight knew there were waaaa-hehehey more waiting for her where those came from. For that was the job of the young drake tailing behind her, to Twilight’s dismay, albeit implied gratitude.

“A-And Star Swirl's notes clearly indicate that should we mess up with harmonizing the aëtheric frequencies around the feed-back loop before pushing the funnel into the singularity point, we could unlea-mmmph!”

Spike’s eighteenth warning was dragged to an early, muffled funeral, courtesy of a good muzzle-full of trichromatic tail when the mare’s confident stride had ceased without warning. Spitting out blue, purple, and raspberry-colored hairs alike with a *sppffhtah!*, Spike watched as a sudden stroke of inspiration struck the equine-packaged genius that was Twilight like lightning hit on their angular roof. Theirs was the tallest building around, after all.

“Hmm...” Cocking her head sideways with a pensive hum, lidding her eyes to the dust particles floating in the empty corridor bridging the inseparable pair from their destiny, Twilight's neurons fired aëtheric equations, rune alignments, and thaumaturgical coaxial symmetry in a globulous blend only her gifted mind could strip apart and rebuild like a foal’s puzzle. In her mental works, Twilight extracted her twitching snout from between the loaded pages of the same book Spike was referring to, floating it in front of her while not hindering her traversing the insides of her palace via sheer memory and skill. A feat that she’d only recently managed to accomplish.

“Uh, Twilight?” An awkward minute passed by in contemplative science. Spike tugged on the mare’s tail in an attempt to land her back from Luna’s moon. “Equus to Twilight!”

The alicorn made a swift touchdown, but the news she brought from her trip to the stars were far from Spike’s preferred ones. “We can use Star Chaser’s quasi-protected spell-binding array to overlay and cancel any possible conflicting surges as the dimensional strings harmonize with the targeted frequencies in real time!”

A bit too proud of herself, Twilight freed her tail from the worried drake’s grip and sent him a cocky leer over her shoulder. “And later, you'll say I don't listen to you.”

“You're NOT listening to me!” Spike threw his balled claws up in riot, but Twilight was already lost back in her idol's notes, resuming her path for the Thrones Room, where she would meet with her closest friends any minute now. There was no way in ol’ flammable Tartarus she was going to leave them out of such a historical event!

Left behind to count his reflections on the crystalline walls, them looking back at him like an idiot, Spike's already sore throat squeezed out one last grumble, followed by a puff of smoke slithering out his flaring nostrils. Spike pumped his shorter legs as much as they could carry him and resumed his pursuit of the purple alicorn.

“... triple-checked everything. Like, dotting the I's and crossing the T’s triple-checking.” Spike caught up with Twilight, to find her talking to herself or, as the drake was quick to find, talking to him. Her nerdy obliviousness had prevented her from realizing she’d lost him some ways ago in favor of marveling once more upon the extremely complex, yet beautifully crafted collection of spells and enchantments that Star Swirl the Bearded had envisioned to create the Mirrors that once allowed him to breach Equus’ dimensional borders into completely unknown worlds. Out of the ancient wizard’s own horn, a string of magic she was more than happy to pull from for the sake of science and discovery, two topics she was more than willing to subscribe to since she was a little filly.

Twilight had learned about it some time ago, and now she wanted some of it. Oooo-ho-ho-oh, yes she wanted a piece of that, thank you very much! Even her dreams these past few weeks screamed at her to snatch a piece of that cake if she ever wanted a full night’s rest again!

You see, none of the mirrors worked anymore, half of them having been shattered before the reign of Celestia. The sage unicorn made sure of closing that chapter of his research and burying it a hundred hooves under before his mysterious disappearance, so many centuries ago. The damage dealt to the surviving mirrors was irreversible as far as the young princess had been able to assess. Her mentor, Princess Celestia, had reached a similar conclusion ages ago, yet it didn't necessarily mean that nothing could be learned from them.

Twilight was the mare to find a loophole in the issue. What am I saying? She already did just that.

“I could've already tried, and succeeded, if that ‘Starlight Glimmer’ hadn't called for our attention elsewhere.” Twilight trailed on unphased, peeking behind her to see her favorite, frowning dragon right where she had left him. Smiling cheekily, Twilight returned her attention upfront. And by upfront, I mean back to her levitating notes. “I've got the Princesses’ permission, too. Actually…” Twilight’s gate slowed down in a fit of contemplation as she rubbed her chin with a primary. “Princess Celestia was particularly adamant about it…” She hummed to herself, still at odds with the alabaster’s alicorn’s insistent approval of her methods. Considering how adamant Star Swirl had been on keeping the transdimensional bridges off limits forever, Twilight would have expected the Princess of the Sun to battle her a tad more about it.

“What do you mean?”

She didn't have a straight answer for the questioning drake. Feeling too much piling up already on her shoulders, Twilight opted to brush it off for later musings and focus on more important things. It wouldn't matter anyway once she had completed the experiment of the millennia.

“Don't worry about it, Spike.” Without skipping a beat on her reading, she used her telekinesis to lovingly stroke the dragon’s head crest, her heart warming in appreciation for his invaluable help in crafting this spell… and everything else he slaved to do for her. She’d be truly lost without his company assistance. Especially under their new home, which still felt far from the real deal to the mare.

Hmm, perhaps a vacation was in order for the two of them after this.

“Heh, I’d be out of a job if I didn’t.” Accepting the gesture with a rosy tint on his scaly cheeks, Spike took Twilight's word and filed that thought for a later time. It's not like he didn't trust Twilight. Heck, he could trust his big sister with his life and more.

On the other claw, several years living with Twilight and her… eccentricities had taught the young dragon a thing or two about Equestria’s newest princess, especially the ‘funny’ bits that her ever-curious mind could birth when Twilight was set on something, making reasonable things like overall safety and, you know, common sense, fall back to the ‘optional’ drawer.

Now within reach of the Thrones Room, Twilight sent a gentle kinetic wave to pry the twin doors wide open, feeling a rush of air ruffle her mane as her lavender orbs narrowed over a new set of equations. At the same time, she continued her incessant scanning of her own messy calligraphy, the product of an overworked brain forced to labor into the wee hours of the night. She harbored no regrets on the obliteration of her sleep schedule though. Only a wagon-load worth of caffeine in her system to path it up. Twilight didn't even like coffee that much, but she couldn’t deny its Faust-gifted properotes.

Spike followed in tow, his shorter strides carrying him toward his smaller throne tuckered right beside Twilight's. The alicorn, for her part, stopped right in front of a gap between her place and the Map, the centerpiece of her recently grown castle.

Yeah, grown, from a locked chest with six keyholes, one each for her and her five closest friends. A truly peculiar, yet insightful treasure hunt. On the outside, you'd think of it as a humongous, crystalline, tree-like construction grown overnight right over the grassy meadows of Ponyville’s southern reaches. A fitting shape, she’d thought at the time considering where she’d holed in her previous years in Ponyville, although Twilight was beyond understanding the how or why of such a gift being bestowed upon her so out of the blue. She was more than content with her old library, and her royal status hadn’t changed one iota of the sentiment after that eventful day.

The answer for it was the same as for many others without a proper explanation in this land.

Magic.

Twilight was good with magic. Correction, she was the BEST with magic. It was her Element, it brimmed in her very blood, in her very essence. Her skills in magic were fuel for her confidence, sealing her mind in carrying out her current project. Resting the overflowing book over the smooth surface of the map, filled to the absolute brim with her annotations as well as personal thoughts and takes on the matter, anything she could fit in; Twilight's last check concluded with a green light.

The game was on.

“Yep.” She congratulated herself. “I don't think there's anything else I need to add. Every failsafe is in place, every eventuality considered and ready to be countered, and anything that might have slipped, I'm sure I can muscle through.”

And, by ‘muscle through’, Twilight meant drawing from her honed skills as well as her newfound reservoir of magic, augmented a hundredfold after her ascension to alicornhood, to fix whatever occurrence that wouldn't fall into the masterfully crafted plan, which the mare was one-hundred percent confident would be absolutely nothing.

The experiment itself was simple in its basic layout. Twilight, who’d spent a good chunk of her free time researching Star Swirl's notes regarding dimensional magic, wanted to partially recreate his greatest work on the mirrors, but on a smaller scale, and from the comfort of her own residence. She wished not to travel to other realms… yet. Her hunt was for observational knowledge first, something a simple peek through a window from the safety of her castle should provide without the risks of a transdimensional monster rearing its ugly head to eat everypony and drake present.

She had a countermeasure for that too, just in case.

Only a window, not even a portal in the real sense of the word, contrary to what the mirrors were conceived for. The only thing coming through would be light, and sound too perhaps, depending on the stability of the singularity. And that transit of light will only be in one direction. Meaning that, from the potential native creature’s side, the rift should remain as inconspicuous as a light distortion in the air, similar to the visual effect of a wobbly horizon under hot temperatures being the light close to the warm surface.

She had been saving up for the occasion, on the side. Not bits, though. Her princess status came with a hefty paycheck, after all. Twilight had instead amassed magic in her body by forcing herself into an earth-pony way of life since the gangs’ return from Starlight's village, only a couple of weeks ago, saving up as much raw mana as she could fit within her body without blowing up her core. She’d once harbored the power of three alicorns alongside her own at the same time and played ‘topple the mountain’ with a mad centaur with them. She was used to the sensation of every single fibre of her body bristling with unspent energy.

Sadly, no derailed, magic-stealing centaur’s flank to whoop with it this time, just breaking a small gap between dimensions and sticking her muzzle through, metaphorically speaking.

No biggie.

It had been… an inspiring experience, not to say terribly inconvenient. Her heart went out to her non-magically versed friends. A.k.a, those without a horn in their foreheads.

In a blinding flash of light, a comically long scroll, depicting the entirety of the written monstrosity that was the dimension-breaching spell, materialized over the map, kept in place in the air as Twilight unrolled its contents. The end reached Spike's clawed feet all the way from where the alicorn kept it in her magical grasp, making the drake roll his eyes under the absurdity of Twilight's overkilling tendencies. The mare’s attention was set somewhere in the middle as she planted her haunches on her own throne.

“Geez, talk about going overboard...” Spike sassed to himself.

Twilight's sensitive ears flicked at the drake's snark. “Foolproof would be the word for it, methinks.” She fired back with equal amounts of bite.

“Exorbitant.”

“Flawless.”

“Exaggerated!”

“Unerring!”

“Dangerous!!”

“Pinkie!!”

“GAAAAHH!!”

Both siblings were sent reeling back down into their rears from the mass of pink that suddenly materialized behind their crystalline accommodations. Twilight shed a few stress-induced feathers as she climbed back into the air while Spike was launched over the back of his smaller throne, landing on his tail with a sharp yelp.

“Pinkie!!” Twilight cried in annoyance, forehooves tightly clutched over her fuzzy chest, trying their damndest to keep her beating heart where it was needed. Taking a seat on her haunches beside their latest arrival, she glared daggers at the giggling mare.

“Thaaaat’s me!” The pink menace saluted with too much pep for almost having dragged two of her closest friends to an early grave. “Aaaaaare we ready to par-tay?! Hm? Huh? Are we?”

“... Ow.” Came the flat reply from an out-of-picture Spike.

“Yay!!” Pinkie celebrated with a vigorous clap of her forehooves. Her short attention span, however, triggered to fall over the still unfolded scroll, a searing panic erasing all cheer from her features. “Oh no! Did I miss it?! I’m totally missing it!! NonononoNO!! THE POPCORN!! I NEED THE POPCORN!! WHERE IS THE POPCORN?!!!”

Like the tired exhalation leaving Twilight’s nostrils, the pink one bolted out of the room straight through the doors further from the still recovering pair, only to reappear a second later through the very same entrance Twilight and Spike had taken beforehoof with a steaming, comically large bag of freshly-popped popcorn in her grasp.

“Found iiiiit!~” Pinkie chanted in glee, trotting her merry, bubbly way to her own throne, but not before brushing by the pair and offering them some of her delicious treat with unnerving innocence. “Want some?”

“Heh. Don’t mind if I do.” All transgressions forgiven, Spike grabbed a good clawful of salty goodness and popped them unceremoniously into his fanged jaws. Twilight, for her part, simply rolled her eyes and sent a silent prayer to Faust for some much-needed patience. She loved her friends with all her heart, but some days…

“Oh! I saw AJ on the market on my way here!” Pinkie Pie announced once she’d settled in, rear legs resting lazily over her sector of the map while she munched on her popcorn at a pace that would surely leave her dry by the time the show actually started. “Said she was a couple apples short of finishing the last bushel, so she’ll be along soon!” Another squishy morsel disappeared down her gullet without a bite to seal it. “Mmm, could use some caramel… Oh, I also saw Rainbow Dash. She was napping on a cloud, who would’ve guessed.” Pinkie cited sarcastically, giggling to herself. She received no feedback from Twilight, once again lost in her work. “Yeah. I had to wake her up, though. She was gonna miss the party!”

“Not a party, Pinkie.” Twilight deadpanned, her running eyes glued to the intricate lines of rune work and spellcraft while pretending to be invested in the pink mare.

“Suuure it is!” Pinkie brushed off the alicorn’s bored rebuke like a pesky fly. It was a party as long as she had some say in it! “I had to wake her up with a water balloon!” Another round of mischievous giggles, this time accompanied by Spike's own chuckles. “Hehe, she was soooo mad.”

Speaking of the devil, or the daredevil in the case of the prismatic mare, a rainbow-streaked projectile came raining down the Thrones Room, shattering her personal favorite choice of high-end window illuminating the stance for the umpteenth time, to the castle owner’s visible displeasure.

Always the exact, same, window. Always!

As Rainbow flailed her limbs in an attempt to regain control of her trajectory, Twilight, resigning herself to yet another visit to the local seller down Horseshoe Avenue, didn't even bat an eye from her studying of the ridiculously-long scroll, more than used to Rainbow’s ‘heroic’ landings.

Firing her horn, Twilight needed but a figment of her magic to stop the prismatic mare dead in her wings, leaving a stunned, albeit intact pegasus hanging upside down in a compromising position a few meters over the Cutie Map, to Pinkie’s front-row amusement. A simple dip of her glowing horn, and Rainbow was reoriented vertically and horizontally in stiff succession to face an unflattered Twilight folding the kilometric scroll in her hooves.

“Hehe… Sorry, Twilight” Rainbow apologized sheepishly with a nervous scratch of her messy mane, held aloft within the alicorn’s magical grip.

Satisfied with Rainbow's apologies, or perhaps not, her deadpan glare was hard to read; she released the pegasus from her telekinesis. The prismatic mare was unable to coordinate her wings to spare her the few remaining meters of free fall into a cumbersome touchdown over the pristine surface of the Cutie Map, taking down with her the beautiful outline of Manehattan under her rump.

“Ooooff!” Rainbow grunted, safe and spared of another sprained limb, with only a few chunks of broken glass clinging to her mane and tail, which she promptly rid herself of with a vigorous shake. “No need to be so sore about it…” She grumbled under her breath, breathing through a corner of her muzzle to lift her bangs back to their already-messy selves.

Twilight made her point by ignoring her, yet Spike was doing a poor job of biting down on a bout of laughter. In consequence, there was one pony left to break down into rambunctious laughter at Rainbow’s expense.

Rainbow’s ears twitched and a vein bulged in her forehead. Not because of being made fun of; she could take her landings in stride and pop a new one afterwards; but because Rainbow had been hunting down that same mare that now leisurably ate popcorn while enjoying a morning show without a care in the world.

Rainbow became a homing missile, and was all over the pink mare with the fury of the elements under her wings.

“Hey!! You! I'm gonna have your tail for waking me up like that!” Rainbow spat at Pinkie's face, while the target of the pegasus’ rage simply shrugged her shoulders and plopped another delicious popped kernel into her muzzle.

“You were gonna be late for the party, silly!” Pinkie retorted with her usual spring, to Rainbow’s quickly-draining patience.

“Not a party.” Twilight repeated over the bantering with the same enthusiasm as a bag of bricks.

“I wasn't gonna be late! I had an alarm set!” She pointed out with flared wings.

“Your cloud had an alarm? Oooh, where can I get one of those?!”

“Wha-?” Rainbow quickly brushed Pinkie's usual ‘pinkieness’ aside. “No! I… uh. It was just a short nap, I'd have woken up on time!”

“It's ten in the morning, Dash.” Twilight, having kept a distracted ear on the bickering pair, felt the need to point out the prismatic mare's unusual napping routines.

“So what?!” Rainbow rebuked proudly, with a hoof on her chest as she took back into the air. “I finished cloudbusting duties in ten, seconds, flat.” She fell back into her usual boasting self, landing on her own throne across Twilight’s after a short summersault. “Not much going on after that, so I thought, ‘Why not’?”

A purple eye zoomed in from over the messy pile of notes to dare the prismatic mare to repeat that statement. Rainbow caught her mishap on the fly, rubbing her foreleg sheepishly as she shrunk a bit in her seat.

“I-I mean, not much going on before this... Whatever it is that you wanted to show us.” A muzzle-splitting yawn betrayed Rainbow in her poor attempts to evade the young alicorn’s wrath. “Ugh, couldn't you’ve called for us, like, NOT at the crack of dawn?” She protested exaggeratedly with a sleepy smack of her gums, leaning back on her throne as if ready for another shameless nap.

Twilight opted to pursue the ways of peace that morning, and refocused on wrapping up this last-last-minute recheck to begin warming up her magic, for she knew she would need a good chunk of it pretty soon. Even if her friends could prove to be a bit too much too early in the mornings, she couldn't fight down the smirk stitching on her muzzle. She loved all her friends and their antics, each of them different, each of them special in their own ways. She was far from being a blank sheet herself, her own quirks having been laid out in plain sight more than once.

Twilight loved them all the same. It was one of many things she’d learned about the Magic of Friendship. Things that, as impossible as it was for the young bookworm to picture at first, you would not be able to find collected amidst the endless tomes and scrolls of Canterlot Library. She had to learn about it hooves-on, and not a day passed in which she wasn't thankful for it.

Twilight wanted all her close friends gathered here today. Not so much as to bear witness to her ingenuity, but more of a matter of trust. For Twilight felt that, in the company of those five mares, and not to forget her little brother and faithful assistant, nothing seemed impossible to achieve, not even opening a window to an alternate reality and wave ‘hi’.

She couldn't help but wonder what things she might find on the other side as she finished running her eyes through the last group of notes and equations covering the thaumaturgic resonance calibrations for the incoming flow from the Aëther she’d need to tamper and shape. Would they find ponies on the other side? Perhaps an exact mirror of this world, where the other Twilight was attempting the exact same thing at the exact same time? Heck, if talking about wild chances within an infinite multiverse, it could perfectly be an alicorn version of Rainbow Dash attempting the same feat!

Twilight didn't know whether to laugh or shudder in fear at the thought of an alicorned Rainbow Dash.

Star Swirl had made a conscious effort to omit any and all details pertaining his short ventures into the alternate dimensions he was able to open the mirrors to, most likely to prevent any future curious minds from following in his hoofsteps, both metaphorically and literally.

A small chance might also have painted whatever Star Swirl found beyond the barriers of this universe too haunting or dangerous to even speak of it again, much less write it down for posterity, but Twilight found that possibility unlikely at best.

Star Swirl had been a prodigy among prodigies, the most gifted mind in the recorded story of Equestria. He alone had contributed half of the total sum of knowledge around the field of magic ponies enjoyed nowadays, both in the theoretical sense and the practical. Most unicorn scholars and researchers in the field of thaumaturgy had done little more than study, deconstruct, expand, and refine the bases that Star Swirl had founded during his long years as an academic, with Twilight herself being but another brimming enthusiast.

She could still remember the day she finished that old, uncompleted spell from the old unicorn sage, gaining her her wings and title as the prize for her efforts.

Even to that moment, a year or so having passed since that unforgettable day, Twilight still felt conflicted over her new responsibilities. The worming thought that constantly made her question whether she was even worthy of them in the first place was present in every choice she made around her princess duties.

A bad case of impostor syndrome could not compare to what Twilight had felt on her first days as a true royal proper, taking a very cramped and hurried crash course in methods, behaviors, ways and compromises from her mentor Celestia during the short weeks she had to move to Canterlot, until both agreed that Twilight would excel more at her new responsibilities from the place she‘d grown to love. Place where she’d learned more about friendship in a few years than many could claim to have learned in their entire life.

Now, Twilight had another chance to make her mentor proud. While not falling into the realm of friendship exactly, Twilight still was confident they could learn tons of new things from these windows she aimed to open. New civilizations, new knowledge to discover, new friendships to be made if all things went accordingly and she graduated her spell from window to portal.

Too soon to tell yet. She had to make it work first; there’d be time for cavilations and possibilities after the ‘Congratulations for breaking the rules of space-time yet again!’ party Pinkie had no doubt already organized for the lot of them for that very same afternoon. Thank goodness she had cleared her schedule in hindsight.

“Um… hello, girls.” A meek voice could barely be discerned over Rainbow’s and Pinkie’s bickering. Twilight needed not to extract herself from her work to know to whom it belonged.

“Good morning, Fluttershy.” Twilight waved an inviting wing for the shy pegasus to approach her. “You’re just in time.”

Taking the alicorn’s invitation, Fluttershy trotted into the Thrones Room with her usual, reserved gait before sharing a warm nuzzle with Twilight, both mares making a point of ignoring the squabbling duo for the sake of having an adult conversation.

“My, that looks… um, complicated.” Fluttershy felt like commenting on the contents scribbled on the levitating notes.

She was unable, however, to continue failing at trying to make heads or tails of them any longer, for with a neat pull of her magic, Twilight tucked them all into a neat pile over the map, just beside the tome and the scroll that contained the juicy parts.

Feeling a bit cocky herself, Twilight shook her head with a dismissive giggle. “No, not really. I’ve had worse to deal with.”

“She hasn’t…” Spike flatly noted from his place, earning a tail-slap at the back of his head for his efforts. “Hey!”

“So!” Twilight perked up, pointedly ignoring the drake's fuming to engage in some small talk with Fluttershy. “How is Harry doing? I hope he's recovering satisfactorily.”

Warmed by Twilight's concern regarding one of her animal friends, Fluttershy nodded sweetly. “He is! Those books you let me borrow have been a big help, Twilight. I can't thank you enough…” She concluded abashedly, hiding herself in her mane.

Some things would never change, Twilight could easily tell. “I'm always happy to help, Fluttershy. You know that.” Twilight reminded the shy pegasus with a rub of her back. “You can keep those books for as long as you need.”

“Thank you, Twilight,” Fluttershy replied timidly. A nasty case of intoxication ailed her biggest of animal companions, most likely from a polluted source of water Fluttershy needed still to locate in the Everfree Forest. Zecora was away on one of her ingredient-collecting trips, so it’d been up to her and the knowledge Twilight could spare to bring her fuzzy friend back from under the weather.

The two mares continued chatting amicably, including Spike in their conversation since they didn't want him to be left out. A few calm minutes passed which Twilight greatly appreciated, since the conversation worked wonders to distract her from the fast-approaching moment and budding nerves nipping at her horn.

Not much distracted, though. She had to make sure to keep her head in the game. An arduous task since the back and forth emanating from Rainbow’s and Pinkie's scuffle was eating at her patience like a bunny nibbles on a carrot.

“One sec.” Twilight requested with a strained smile, needing only a thought to teleport the loudest of the two, Rainbow, up to perch on the hanging-roots adornment, a ‘welcome to your new home’ kinda gift from her friends, hanging prone from the tall ceiling of the room.

In a blink of an eye, Rainbow found herself suddenly whisked away from the target of her ire to perch above the gathered ponies like a crow judging the noisy equines from their branch. ‘Hey! What gives?!”

“You were too loud,” Twilight replied dryly while Fluttershy giggled into her hoof. Pinkie and Spike weren't so reserved, folding down into laughter at the amusing landscape.

Rainbow was growing weary of being the target of their unabashed merriment. “But why do I get to be banished?!” She demanded with a flick of her tail.

“Because you can just fly down afterward, Pinkie can’t.” Twilight explained briefly, rolling her eyes at the exaggerated use of ‘banishment’. She could always go and ask her mentor how to land the prismatic mare on the moon next time, if she wasn’t gonna be a flank about it.

“Tsk. Whatever…” Pumping her wings, Rainbow glided down in a fit as the hanging, colorful strings of little crystals twinkled in her wake. Plopping her rump down with a tantrum, Rainbow put on her best frown and fumed for a full ten seconds before Pinkie buried the axe of war with a sweet offering of her salty treats.

Keeping her eyes narrowed in a pout, Rainbow pondered the terms of peace. “... Are they buttered?”

“Puh-lease.” Pinkie almost felt offended by the question, wiggling eyebrows teasingly.

“Cool.” And with that, the two mares were as chummy as ever. “Fffanksf!” Rainbow spoke from behind a muzzle full of popcorn, a seemingly-endless fountain of them for how much Pinkie had already wolfed down. Knowing how Pinkie worked, an infinite bucket of popcorn might as well have been the case between her hooves.

Another set of voices alerted a grinning Twilight of the arrival of the last two missing mares. Rarity was sharing an amicable chat with Applejack, the former retelling some curious exchange with a customer in her boutique as they traversed the main corridor of the castle towards the room everypony else had gathered in.

“... so I finished taking the measures of her trunk, and I simply realized there was absolutely no way I could fit that rhomboid-themed, cross-stitched pattern across the seam as she wanted without the entire tail of the dress sagging down on her flanks!” Rarity recollected with her usual flair and drama. Applejack, used to her friend's theatrics, listened with a bemused smirk as she fixed her renowned hat on her blonde-maned head. “And, you know me, dearest Applejack. I am NOT one to trample a pony’s desires when it comes to their perfect dress, but I couldn't simply go and tell her flat out that half her ensemble was going to end up being stuffing since, well. There wasn't that much meat to go around back there!”

Rarity played with one of her curls as she then sheepishly admitted she had tried her best to convey said message in softer terms, with partial to no success from her customers' offended reaction and promptly storming off and out of her boutique.

Rearing up a hearty chortle, Applejack followed Rarity into the Thrones Room. “Oh, my. That gal’s sure tah be madder than a hen in a pile of Goldie's apple jam! Ahahaha!”

“Good morning, girls.” Twilight greeted the giggling mares. Sharing a brief hug in turn, everypony was finally accounted for in her castle.

“Good morning to you too, darling. Le grand jour is finally here, is it not?” Rarity commented as they broke the hug, wearing her own expectations on her sleeves. “Oh, and to think what kinds of vestments the creatures from beyond might wear. Perhaps I could make a line out of it? I absolutely must come up with a breathtaking set for the big inauguration!” The hardworking fashionista could already picture her in her creative mind.

AJ knew of what big inauguration Rarity was talking about. “Y’all still hooked on opening the boutique in Canterlot?” Applejack asked, searching for her own throne beside Twilight’s. “Load of prim and pampered nonsense tah me, if you ask me.”

“But of course I am, darling.” Rarity waved her hoof dismissively, taking her place beside Applejack. Fluttershy followed her friend's example and glided across the room to her own designated place, the throne and the cutie mark imprinted above it shining briefly every time their occupant planted their haunches on them. “Only tomorrow, I have a visit scheduled to browse the place, and a meeting with this mare I know will be perfect to lend me a hoof with dealing with the… meilleur du meilleur. This is Canterlot we’re talking about! And sadly, I can't be in two places at once!”

“You should ask Twilight. I’m sure she can figure out how in a jiffy.” Pinkie suggested in her jumpy obliviousness.

Ego stroked and all, Twilight offered a short explanation of why that, albeit feasible with enough time and preparation, would still not be a good idea. She kept it short and simple, tired of her friends’ fast dismissiveness of her geeking sprouts. She needed a nerd friend or two beside her BBBFF to vent the storm of thoughts and ideas that followed her everywhere she went. Talking to herself in front of the mirror had grown old a looong time ago… and a tap creepy in retrospect.

“Ooooh!! Perhaps we can use the mirror poo-!”

“NO!!” Five ponies and one dragon chorused in unison, making the poor pink mare shrink in her seat with a sheepish chuckle. Nopony present wanted to relieve the tsunami of Pinkies that had toppled Ponyville to its roots that one time. A collective full-body tremor testified as much.

“Very well, girls… and Spike.” Twilight winked down at the little dragon just about when he was gonna call her up. “It’s time.”

“Eeeeeeheheee!!” An over-excited Pinkie chanted, bouncing up and down as if made out of rubber. Her energy was contagious, and soon all of the ponies were sharing in Twilight’s enthusiasm.

“This is gonna be awesome!!”

“I wonder what kinds of critters we will find...”

“Bet none of their apples are gonna taste as jolly as mine do.”

Giggling at her friends' eagerness to share in this experience with her, Twilight sadly had to take the wind from AJ’s sails.

“I’m afraid that won’t be possible, Applejack.” Twilight elucidated, earning a confused dip of the farmpony’s hat. Clearing her throat, Twilight saw this moment as the perfect one to settle down the basics of the experiment, as well as some safety rules for her and her closest friends' sake. “So, this is how it’s going to be.”

Closing her eyes, Twilight concentrated, tasting the magic inside her as well as around her, feeling the aëtheric currents whispering back and forth. She was ready, and the conditions were ideal. No abnormalities in the flow of magic, nothing out of place as far as her senses read. The map wasn’t reacting in any way, as she feared it might’ve done as a warning of sorts for her not to delve into this particular discovery.

With this, Twilight knew she had Harmony's blessings too. She was ready; she had memorized the spells and assembled them in her mind with the ease of a foal sorting a four-piece puzzle. She was the Element of Magic. Magic was her gift, and her control over it was only matched by her mentor’s milenia of experience. She’d show them once more what she was capable of, how she was truly deserving of the title of Princess.

Show time.

Twilight opened her eyes wide, now shining completely white with magical output as she laid the ground layer of her spell. Soon, a huge runic circle materialized to hover above the mesmerized ponies, multilayered inscriptions denoting the intricate nature of the spell matrix, their meaning lost to the assembled ponies and dragon sans for the purple alicorn.

A resounding hum filled the room and made the ponie’s bones quiver. The magic-charged air tasted like ozone on the mares’ tongues. The atmosphere became one of wonder, the hanging expectation only interrupted by the sound of Pinkie’s vigorous munching.

Twilight paid no mind to it; she was focused on seeing this spell to the end. Her friends were with her. Thus, she was unstoppable.

Twilight’s voice reverberated with power behind her alicorn might. “I’ll search for a weak spot in the dimensional barriers. I’ll try to aim for a dimension drifting close by and latch on to it. The specifications of the spell should help me find a world as close in properties as this one, meaning no holes in the vacuum of space or ripe in the center of a star.”

“Yeah, that’d be something…” Spike muttered, squeezing the spade of his tail nervously between his claws.

“You don’t need to worry, Spike.” Twilight reminded her younger sibling for the millionth time. “It won’t even be a hole in the sense of the word. Just a window. I'll allow only light to pass through at first. We will only be able to see, not hear, nor will anything material come through. So no sweets, garments, or apples to taste… Sorry!”

A smidge disappointed, the ponies understood the necessary precautions Twilight needed to undertake. Perhaps, assuming that this first attempt proved to be successful, she could widen the scope and allow for very short and localized exchanges with the dwellers of beyond. Also, assuming friendly relationships could be established and a semblance of trade agreed upon, this might usher in a whole new horizon for ponykind to explore! Still, she wasn't gonna start the exploration of new worlds by becoming a thief!

… Well, perhaps a book or two if she had the chance. Twilight was sure nobeing would mind.

Not losing her grip on the charging spell, Twilight addressed her friends with an overflowing sense of fondness. “Thank you all for joining me today. You guys being here is all the help I could ever want. However, I’d also like to ask you to keep a close eye on what we’ll find. I’d really like to hear your own thoughts and put them all together. Unbiased research is the best research!”

While not quite following Twilight’s little mantra, everypony and dragon was more than willing to lend a hoof, and claw. Heck, Twilight must’ve been crazy if she thought for a second somepony was gonna fall asleep during the show.

All eyes went to Rainbow for a brief moment, but the prismatic mare was too absorbed into the spectacular construct that floated over their heads to notice.

A few more common-sense rules were then delivered by a tempestuously-excited Twilight; the usual ‘Sit tight, keep all limbs inside the cart, and remember to have a good time!’ speech the ponies all nodded back to in understanding.

“Alright! Everypony, hold on to your flanks!” Twilight called vigorously, small jitters making her full body twitch with bubbling expectation. What wonders awaited them beyond the physical reaches of their world? Oh, she had been dreaming about this for weeks now, her mind barely able to cope with the amount of knowledge minutes away from being absorbed, meticulously cataloged, and posteriorly dissected for the betterment of Equestria, by your one resident, trusty Princess of Friendship.

Knowledge was her life’s goal, to learn about everything there was to learn, no matter the topic or the complexity. Everything tugged at the purple mare’s infinite well of curiosity one way or another. What most ponies labeled as boring or deeply unnecessary, she thirsted for fit in her never-shrink repertoire since her days as a filly. Twilight was painfully aware her pursuit of knowledge had distanced her from many aspects of her filly days, like having a steady group of friends to hang out and bounce ideas or experiences, or simply partaking in the most basic social events.

She’d walked a long road since those lonely days, and knew better now that she had the best friends a pony could ask for in the whole wide of Equestria at her side. Through thick and thin, they had bested the worst Equus could though at them time and time again.

Still, lesson learned, her new, improved self had not dwindled her life-long interest in the slightest amount. If anything, it had only worked to fuel it to new heights with her friends, and now her own subjects, in mind. All she did was for the betterment of the ponies of Equestria. She felt that she could provide more than ‘friendship’, even if friendship was NOT a force to be taken for granted in the slightest.

‘And, if Celestia wills it, I’ll lead our friendship efforts towards the creatures we might find beyond!! Eeeeeee!! This is going to be historic!!!’

Twilight was bursting at seams from excitement. The ground base for the spell was ready to support the next phase. Twilight could feel the channeled magic shifting and molding under her command, primed and ready to tear a gap in space-time a hundred times more localized and powerful than the distortion field generated during a simple teleportation jump. The shifting amalgam of runes and circles spiraled and changed before the gawking ponies’ awe-struck eyes, their obliviousness of its purpose not dwindling the breathtaking experience one bit.

‘Alright, Twilight. That’s step one completed with no fail safes triggered... As expected,’ Twilight granted herself as much. ‘Step two: search and reach out for the most promising target.’

Since she was delving with a proverbial blindfold into the search, Twilight didn't know what to expect as her magical sense brushed beyond the limits of their dimension. The feeling of teleporting had become so routinary to her that she could barely describe any prominent sensations that stood out from the usual 'squeeze your innards out your nostrils ’ momentary feeling that followed her through every warp. Not necessarily uncomfortable or dizzy after so many jumps, and far from painful besides knocking over somepony by accident when you exited. But nothing noteworthy about it either.

Twilight reached with her sixth sense, attuned to the magic that every unicorn worth their horn learned to at least tip into. She felt for the easiest road for her spell to follow and latch on. For a unicorn, or alicorn in her case, it was hard to describe what they experienced while tuning into the flow of magic with their horn. It was similar to what a blind pony would answer if asked to describe how they ‘see’ the world. Colors, sounds, smells… Not quite the senses that guided Twilight in her search. It was more a matter of presence and absence, of forces tugging and pulling. Touch would come closer than any of the previously mentioned, but it still remained an overall abstract experience.

Twilight screened the void between dimensions in contemplative silence, fleeing the severing cold of the nothingness on her own fur, shuddering hard from the sensation yet remaining strong. The intricate amalgam of concentric patterns and runes drawn from the very magic that permeated the land followed her silent commands, its contents and inclinations changing with each new iteration the alicorn tried.

A game of light and shadows had dominated the Thornes Room, From outside, a passerby pony would’ve thought the princess wass throwing a one-pony party. The buildup of magic was so strong, all ponies could physically feel the pressure on their chest.

However, skin-raw nerves melted down to eager impatience as the high of the ride dwindled down a notch with Twilight’s prolonged search, making the ponies slump down a bit in their seats as they waited, and waited, and waited some more. A streak of boredom ended up flashing before a certain prismatic mare, but all of them knew better than to interrupt Twilight when she was this deep in her spellcasting.

“... Eeeee! I’m so excited!!!” Pinkie, the only pony still fully on the ride, couldn't can the short outburst, being chided with a collective hush from the group.

The sheer radiance from the spell engrams painted all over the room outshone the very morning sunlight filtering through the upper windows of the spacious room, crashing and shattering into the array of colors each decorated window possessed. It reached the point that it felt like night had caught up with them all of a sudden. In place of a starry night sky and that night’s full moon, they were rewarded with a far more intricate landscape, undeniably mesmerizing as small wisps of magic appeared and died in the blink of an eye all over the room as the spell ran its course.

“I simply must admit, dear,” Rarity needed to add her two bits. “This is absolutely breathtaking!” She confided in her giddiness, drinking in the sights while her horn reacted to the high levels of gathering magic. She let inspiration run free, translating Twilight's work into designs and patterns for her own future creations.

Twilight spared a figment of her concentration to swell a bit under Rarity’s praise. Not everything was good news for the alicorn, though. The search was taking more time than she’d predicted. In addition to the available paths quickly diminishing in number, she’d glimpsed some reasonable candidates to open the rift into, but none close or stable enough for a proper window to be maintained for more than a few, scarce seconds. Twilight wanted nothing more but the need to wing it at the end, so she kept with her thorough screening.

Just as she was starting to feel concerned about her quickly-draining, yet still-ample reserves of magic needed to keep the party going, something… tugged at her senses. Perhaps that wasn’t the word for it, she couldn't quite put her tongue over it, but it meant good news all the same. Twilight felt it strong in her bursting core and joyfully celebrated to herself. The magical circles shifted and turned in quick succession, new runes scribbling themselves in their wake while others banished into the Aëther.

Twilight latched into the path laid prone before her sixth sense, finding the resistance offered more than reasonable to overcome with the power of her horn. It was almost too easy, she mused to herself. Twilight could've bet her castle that something was helping her, attuning her senses and driving the bridge closer with barely a thought needed from the alicorn. She blamed it on her stellar work conceiving the screening spell, spell that formed only but a small fraction of the monumental, multilayered work that was the whole thing chipping at the walls between dimensions.

Twilight didn't give it further thought. With bigger fish to fry, she opted to trust in herself and her work, since the window of opportunity could very easily slip from under her hooves the moment the dimensions shifted again.

“Found it!” Twilight announced to the group, receiving congratulatory cheers from her friends, only spurring the alicorn on to see it done to the end.

‘Step two is over. Now for the tricky part.’

Tricky would be a serious downplay of the magnitude of that next step. Bending the laws of physics to get you from point A to point B within the boundaries of this world was already a trivial thing for her skill, breaking and bending only the bare necessary laws to see it happen. The teleportation spell itself contained more fail-safes and contingency layers over it than the actual part of opening a mini wormhole and jumping through.

This, however, would require not only ungodly amounts of magic, but all her concentration and a bit more than what she could spare, perhaps. That's where the next layers of her spell came into play. Above anything else, Twilight had to ensure the stability of the gap, closing it prematurely at the first sign of anything escaping the safety margin she drew herself. The spell would allow her to dissipate safely any strings of magic the Aëther might feed back into their plane out of the settled pace and, in case everything went straight to the wall, Twilight could invert the warp in space-time to mass-teleport her and all ponies (and dragon) present out of the Thrones Room to a safe distance away, leaving her castle to bear the brunt of any potential aftermath.

Honestly… she wouldn't cry a river over it if her castle was blown to smithereens. Perfect excuse to grow a new tree-brary to nest in. It also helped that her castle in question was located on the southern outskirts of Ponyville, far from the general populace. Injured ponies were NOT on her agenda for that day.

“Okay, girls. Brace yourselves! Here it comes! Nnngg…!!”

A strength only feasible for an alicorn was required. Twilight pushed herself to her absolute limit to muster it. The alicorn took a mental run before launching a metaphorically-speaking arcane spear straight into the breach of the space between the two dimensions, two focal points of space-time becoming a passage through which Twilight hoped to get a good glimpse of what awaited beyond the confines of their world.

The concentric runic circles saw their contents changed one last time before shattering into a stunning work of light show, the remnants of the screening spell coalescing into flickering particles and tendrils of light, all of them raining down like confetti and drawn systematically into a fixed point a few meters above the Cutie Map where the singularity slowly solidified.

Anyone familiar with the subject would have been ripping their mane out in chunks, for such law-breaking phenomena was well known to be the epitome of destruction in the known universe. However, Twilight’s control remained absolute, barely a breeze being lifted up under the singularities’ influence, whipping the ponies’ manes and tails carelessly into the current, all of them too transfixed to pay it a single thought.

‘It's working it’s working it's workiiiing!! Celestia, I did it!!!’ Twilight chanted inwardly, peeking through her lidded eyelids to get a glimpse of her creation, marveling with deep pools of lavender at the product of long weeks of back-breaking studying. She allowed herself a few seconds of self-celebration before closing them back and bringing her entire focus once more to the game.

The true weight of the strain in the continuum started then to manifest. The craziest of mirror shows transpired in the room as the singularity solidified further, chipping and clawing at the dimensional barriers while self-containing the effects under its gravitational influence… In laymare’s terms, preventing space-time from blowing itself outwards. If a pony were to look to their side, they would be able to see the translucent shadow of their own back play in front of their eyes, since the gravitational pull was strong enough to bend the very light emanating from it into a circular orbit looping around it. Seconds, minutes, hours… time stopped making sense inside the room.

“This is soooohohohow wacky!” Rainbow, having noticed said phenomena, chanted to herself as she saluted her own mirror self at her left.

Twilight felt the spell take over the brunt of the work more and more with each second it solidified a constructive casing over the singularity. Feeling reassured of her progress, Twilight simply let go and allowed the rest to unfold as planned, the brunt of her participation done for a much-needed time-out.

Cutting the flow of magic from her core, she took a big gulp of air to regain her steady breathing, her magic reserves having suffered from a prominent, albeit staged drain. The only thing left for her to do was guide the bridge into its inevitable conclusion, pitching in where the spell might drift off and consolidating the gap the singularity was drilling into the fabric of space-time.

“Almost there, guys!!” Twilight called over the flashes and roar of the very space breaking and folding in front of them. The humming had grown to almost painful levels, the amounts of magic summoned and swirling around the focal point rivaling that of the magic summoned by the alicorn sisters when moving their respective astral bodies.

What had begun with a single spot of light hanging in the air above the map was soon stretched into a thin wound in the fabric of the continuum, its contents still of pure white light but soon to be upgraded to alien landscapes and, even better, civilization if Twilight hit jackpot. Around the ample room, waving tendrils of raw energy materialized and clashed back into oblivion against the singularity’s self-induced event horizon.

It was only a matter of seconds before the first rays of sunlight, born from a totally different sun, warmed the eager ponies in an unimaginable, wordless invitation into uncharted waters.

‘It’s working. Oh, Celestia, it’s working!!!’

Twilight was beyond herself. She had done it again. Since the day she’d finished Star Swirl’s unfinished spell, she hadn't felt such elation for an accomplishment. She was redefining the limits of knowledge, and rewriting history with every whip of her horn that preceded a correction in trajectory and pace.

The consolidated fissure had reached the height of a standing pony at the moment it began to grow in width. The ponies could almost see it. Covering their ears from the roar of the spell, they could almost feel the rays of an alien sun tickling the sensitive hairs of their snouts, all of them hanging at the edge of their thrones.

‘Come on come on come on come oooon!!!” Twilight was growing borderline mad with impatience, needing to put her wings into motion so as not to fall muzzle first into the edge of the map. At her side, Spike had curled into a little ball of scales, the light show too much for the young drake to handle.

Any second now. Any moment now as the humming grew to the point the ponies could physically feel it dragging them down into their seats.

‘Come on come on come on, it’s almost there!! Come on come on come o-’

*CRACK!!!*

A failsafe triggered, the spell warning Twilight through the ripples of the Aëther that something had gone wrong. Another one followed before the alicorn could register the first warning. The feedback loop was deteriorating at an increasing pace, its hold on the singularity disintegrating faster than the alicorn could keep pace with it. The freed energy fell back to feed the growing fissure, pushing the magic deeper into the rupture against Twilight’s commands.

‘No… Nononononono no no NO!!!’

Perhaps Twilight had grown too confident in the ability of her masterfully crafted spell to take the brunt of the feedback. Perhaps too many sleepless nights of work had produced a miniscule mishap in her careful spell-assembling. She’d reasoned that a confined, physical mind couldn’t take the entire magnitude of the dimension breaching by itself, hence the uppermost layer of the spell assuming the drillwork for the mare. She only needed to deliver the initial push and guide it; nothing more, nothing less.

Now, her masterwork was literally disintegrating in front of her shrunken eyes. That wasn’t what tugged at her heart and filled her veins with ice though, but the presence of her friends, who were quickly catching up on the fact that something was not going accordingly.

“T-Twilight?” Fluttershy whimpered, her sacred voice barely audible above the roaring of the unstable rift, her flowing tail curling around herself.

Twilight was unable to look at the pegasus in the eye and tell her that everything was under control, since a powerful wave of raw power shook the entire castle and its inhabitants all over the place, the ponies being catapulted out of their thrones as raging wings began lifting up in an out-of-control funnel.

“Oh no. Nononono this is bad! Bad bad bad!!” Rainbow’s keen experience in weather phenomena sponsored her to cry out in apprehension, quickly shaking the brief dizziness away and launching herself into the air, hoping to diminish the strength of the funnel by flying laps against its flow. She was up in the air and bolting around the room before Twilight could warn her of the dangers that doing so might pose. Desperate ties, desperate measures.

There was no time for warnings, either. Twilight had to take back control. Since the magic making up the spell frame was shattering and being drawn into the singularity, she wouldn't be able to reverse the flow and repurpose it for mass teleportation into a safe distance. Her safety and, most importantly, that of her friends, was solely in her hooves now.

‘Stupid, stupid, stupid Twilight!! Buck!! How could I’ve missed that?!!’ The alicorn mare scolded herself with hars mental slaps, but not dwelling much in her punishment since time was of the essence. Twilight powered up her horn and took notice of the aëtheric currents flowing erratically around her, building a mental image of the situation before deciding on the best course of action. She deemed the spell frame too deteriorated for any hope of salvaging, meaning she had to focus on stopping the singularity before it could grow out of control. Best case scenario, it’d only blow up half of Ponyville along with it, present quines and drake included.

Worst case scenario, it’d grow out of control until it had swallowed the entirety of Equus with it. Funny, she hadn't considered that outcome.

Oh, Twilight was due for some words with Celestia when she caught ear of this.

But before that funny talk could ever arrive, Twilight only had to overpower a singularity currently obliterating the space-time between dimensions and rein it in until the instability proved too much to keep the feedback loop going, and then forcefully dissipate the outcome of the instability back into the Aëther.

Heck, there was a high chance of causing an aftermath inside the pure-energy dimension where all magic came from that might even stretch so far as to reach the Wellspring. A unicorn or two was in for a nasty headache after Twilight was done.

And, all of this, under her own power.

Twilight had to swallow her previous snark. She’d never had to deal with anything worse than this.

Another tremor shook the glass-like structure that housed them. Fluttershy whimpered in a little, trembling ball while Rarity clung to her both magically and physically, anchoring both of them to the ground. Pinkie was nowhere to be seen, yet her screams of fun and elation clashed horribly against the abhorrence of the unfolding situation. Applejack fared no better, doing her mightiest to hold onto the map and her hat simultaneously, sadly failing at the latter after one nasty gust of air knocked her balance out momentarily.

Rainbow, for her part, ran herself dragged in an unsuccessful attempt to counter the force of the funnel, panting and wheezing at her efforts before the winds proved too much for her and she was lost into the funnel, spiraling hard enough to make the Dizzitron feel like your average carrousel.

“TwiliIiIiIiIight!!”

Spike’s cry of desperation, as he too dug his little claws into his crystal throne so as to not be absorbed into the funnel, was the straw that broke the purple pony’s back. Drawing from her remaining reserves, Twilight threw all caution into the winds that roared in her ears and tried to brute-force her way into the deteriorating singularity. She was an alicorn, the Element of Magic. A stupid out-of-control breach in space-time wasn’t gonna trample her magical might!

Her magic took hold of the breach and, as if stitching up a nasty cut, she began to apply pressure over the unstable singularity, opening pathways for the energy to escape while stabilizing the ruptures the singularity created.

It took ALL of her mental prowess and magical output but, after a minute of intense struggle and desperation, Twilight began to feel some progress being achieved. The mare greeted teeth to the point of chipping them and pulled harder, her horn smoking and about to melt from her forehead if she kept it for much longer.

“Just… a… bit… MORE!!!”

Twilight's efforts, while impressive and unwavering, would be halted dead in their tracks as a sense of weightlessness overcame her senses. For the second time that day, she felt something fall out of her control. This time, it was a tad different, if not more controlling. Like the guiding hoof that had eased her search for a candidate dimension, a presence took over her attempts to end the spell. This time, however, it wasted no breath in subtleties to take over things.

Twilight felt herself lose control over her own magic. A rainbow glow flashed before her peripheral vision, stealing the breath from her lungs and filling her up with a sense of identity she couldn't put her hoof over. Where had she felt this before? A small part of her could've sworn this wasn't the first time she was filled with this presence. Far from it, it reminded her of every time she had to wield the Elements of Harmony, taking the brunt of the girls’ own magic as it mixed with her own to mediate the humiliating defeat of more than one foe that dared to threaten Equestria and its inhabitants.

Twilight had become a passenger in her own body, yet was still able to feel the rift’s nature changing before her eyes. Puzzled beyond reason, she could do little besides hold on and watch, stumped out of her feathers as the properties of her spell, meticulously conceived and assembled by her, were being repurposed for reasons unknown.

‘W-What's going on?!! I can’t control it!!’

It didn't take long before the presence withdrew, nor did it change the unfolding catastrophe that was quickly unveiling before the group of terrified ponies. As quick and sudden as it had appeared, the weird sensation left the alicorn mare to regain control of her spellcasting once more.

Driven by instinct, Twilight wasted not a single thought on it and latched her mental prowess to the unstable flow of magic and resumed her previous attempts, the presence leaving in its wake a sense of urgency foreign to her own bubbling emotions. Almost as if wanting something to happen before the rift collapsed, and having succeeded in ensuring so.

Yes, that’s what it’d turned the singularity into. A rift, prim and proper between this world and the other. Not a window to peek through, not a gentle brush against the dimensional walls, but a gateway through and through in all senses of the word.

Twilight, however, did not realize this ‘small’ tidbit at first, too overcome in her straining efforts as she was. And, even if she had noticed the change of nature, it wouldn't have mattered in the short run. Her sole purpose was to dispel the magic safely and spare her closest friends from becoming new, colorful decorations to paint all over her walls.

It took her loooong, strenuous minutes, but the might of the alicorn princess remained unquestioned. Blinding flashes of wild magic, summed to the deafening roar of the funnel that still breathed life to hurricane winds all around them, blew over Twilight like a minor nuisance in her rock-solid stance, wings flared to keep her steady while she focused on nothing else but the flickering gash of magic burned in her corneas. Her horn ached like Tartarus, her eyes crying tears of strain and effort.

Twilight’s prowess surpassed the instability of the singularity. Piercing like a hot knife through the feedback loop, she tore the flow of magic asunder, using her own castle’s crystalline frame to channel the excess of magic safely toward the earth beneath them.

The map, surprisingly, took the brunt of the cascading output, shining impossibly radiant as the entire building was shaken to its core. The winds slowly died down, the unstable singularity flickering madly as if clinging to its last seconds of life before collapsing into itself with an ear-splitting boom, throwing everypony and dragon against the walls of the Thrones Room, while the memories-filled hanging roots swayed with the threat of crashing down all around them.

With the last dying wails of the singularity bouncing around the ample corridors of the castle, only Twilight had remained on her hooves. Panting, heaving madly, and tendrils of sweat clinging to every square centimeter of her coat. She felt as if she’d just finished the Running of the Leaves’ track ten times over, with all four legs and wings tied, wearing her brother’s full ceremonial armor on top.

She’d done it, though. Exhilaration and pride warred with blood-chilling shame, with a tremendous sense of disappointment as the arbiter. No time for that now, as she had more pressing concerns to attend to, and a hefty round of apologies to deliver before she could lock herself in her room and sulk for a full day or two before tearing her work apart in search of the mistake.

That is, if Celestia didn't confiscate it and bar her from ever delving into it again.

Perhaps that’d be the smartest choice.

“G-Girls?… Girls!! Spike!!” A frazzled Twilight called in a heap of worry, attempting to reach the nearest pony, only for her legs to give up under her, grating her a taste of the map’s radiant edge on her muzzle, making her herbivore teeth clank against the crystalline frame. “Ouch…”

A collection of pained groans at least told Twilight her friends were alive and unscathed… relatively unscathed, anyway. Rainbow had ended up tangled in the ceiling string-like decorations, hanging from her rear limbs in a very unflattering position. Applejack's hat was also trapped near the speedy mare, out of her reach. The now hat-less earth pony owner shook the kinks out from her aching limbs before bringing herself up to her shaky hooves. Her earth pony strength spared her of everything besides some nasty bumps and tumbles.

The same could not be said for the less physically-adept members of the group. Moaning drowsily, with their heads still swimming in thick puree, Fluttershy and Rarity untangled themselves clumsily from the mess of limbs, curls, and feathers they’d ended up being dragged into, the former’s wings having caught some of the funnel’s updraft, culprit of their nasty tumble.

Pinkie had ended up perched high in one of the colorful windows' stools that crowned the upper perimeter of the room, seemingly unphased with a lively grin on her muzzle as she drank in the sights from her vantage point. From the collection of battered mares and one still-missing baby dragon, and wagons-worth of notes and diagrams scattered all over the place like a late-September road littered with dead leaves, Pinke had one thing to say about the picture.

“So pretty!” She celebrated loudly with an echoing clop, earning herself another collective round of groans from her battered friends. Her keen sense of hearing, however, caught an out-of-place note amidst the group’s pained symphony. Soon, her eyes followed herer wars in pinpointing the origin. They landed on something that grounded her curiosity, although she couldn't quite make it out from where she was hanging from. “Heeey, what’s that?” She squinted her eyes at the slumped shape, partially hidden behind Applejack’s throne.

‘What's what?’ Twilight’s slurred mind parroted, the mare trying to thread her thoughts in some semblance of order while nursing down the mother of all headaches with a quick spell. Her nostrils twitched, registering a smoky scent, making her heart skip a beat before she realized it was her own, overstressed horn smoking a little.

… Ouch indeed.

‘I’m so going to hear about this from Celestia…’

With the reassurance that all her friends were at least breathing and conscious… Twilight didn't know what she would’ve done otherwise; she endeavored in the search for her little brother, who hadn't answered her roll call.

She didn't have to search long, for Twilight found the drake curled into a trembling ball of scales and spikes, pressing himself up against the map’s root as tight as his little frame physically allowed. Biting her lip and mentally slapping herself hard for having spooked the being she loved the most besides her big brother, Twilight took the dragon into her gentle grasp and sunk him into her fluffy chest, a fuzzy fortress to shield him from further harm. Twilight threw her forelegs around Spike, setting back on her throne and taking a moment to breathe while reassuring his little brother that the danger had passed, and apologizing profusely for the traumatizing experience.

“I’m so sorry, Spike. It's over now.” Twilight cooed, feeling her apologies empty, but unable to offer anything more solid at the moment.

Sniffling a bit, Spike extracted his crested head from the fluffy embrace to gaze up at his older sister with teary eyes, twisting deeper the dagger already poking at Twilight's heart.

“I-It's fine. I-I wasn't scared.” Spike tried his best to stallion it up as the proud dragon he was, but he wasn't fooling nopony, much less his older sister.

“I’m sure you weren't.’” Twilight emitted an empty chuckle, playing along and smiling warmly at the drake, happy beyond measure that he was fine before squeezing the ever-living daylights out from his smaller frame, nuzzling the green head-crest that had won him his name.

“Agk!” Caught off-guard, Spike did his best to reciprocate, but Twilight's new-found earth pony strength was preventing him from little more than fighting down scarce gulps of air down the ol’ pipe.

“Uh, Twilight? Sugah?”

The southern, dragged-out drawl from Applejack spared the young dragon from an early, fluffy grave as Twilight broke the embrace in search for the farm mare. Peering up from beyond the map rim, she found all five mares having regained their hoofing and assembled around a point beyond the circle of thrones, all gazing down at something with cocked heads and a shared sense of unfamiliarity, but the map’s height prevented Twilight from catching sight of it. Rainbow had untangled herself and, ruffling her feathers into their proper place, was the last to join the group of gawking ponies with a puzzled snort, returning Applejack’s missing hat.

“Huh? What’s that?”

Another echo of Pinkie's previous inquiry from the newest member of the Wonderbolts. Running one last exploratory search on Spike to make sure he was, indeed, out of danger, Twilight’s quickly-cast spell revealed no visible damage on his scaly body, internal or otherwise. Her baby brother was one tough drake.

Twilight rested the dragon down on his claws and rose from her throne, too drained to lift herself on her wings, opting to take the long way around the map to join the girls.

Her mind ran wild with possibilities, climbing up a treacherous wall in the road to piece together what had gone awry with her arrangements of spells. And what was that strange presence that had dominated her? Had it worked out things for better, or for worse? She was not going to ping the responsibility for this historical buck-up on anypony but herself, but the strange, unwelcome notion simply had taken root in her mind.

She’d delve into it later, but further elucidations would have to wait, for what initially amassed to be a small twinge of trepidation soon surged into a sea of angst that melted through her steady resolve like a volcano’s pyroclastic flow. Twilight pushed all thoughts of her misfired spell aside the moment she found the target of her friends’ immediate curiosity.

Like a ragdoll’s, the alicorn’s wings sagged and flopped down at her sides. Her breath hitched in her throat, and her heart went on strike to deliver her a stroke on point. Pinprick-like orbs gazed with incredulity from within the free space between her restless friends at the image of a lone creature slumped into a heap on her floor.

A creature she quickly recognized very well from her numerous endeavors into ponykind's scarcely-recorded, almost forgotten past. Sprawled messily over her floor as it was, Twilight fired the connection in an instant, for his overall frame and constitution was an instant match in her mental library, as if the clothes masking the entirety of his body weren't a small-enough suspicion.

Twilight knew the story of Dream Valley, the birth and subsequent demise of the first big pony civilization before they began to colonize continental Westria as a whole. And, cardinally, she knew of the strange creature, arrived from a realm unknown, who aided the ponies in such an endeavor, bringing the fate of Dream Valley to its inevitable conclusion.

‘... A human.’

“Hey, it’s moving!”

Following Pinkie's announcement, the creature, slumped down awkwardly in its bipedal archetype, found enough of a footing to drag itself to a resting position against the nearby wall, droning a long, resounding wince emanating from within clenched, omnivorous teeth.

Hanging hazardously from its back, what Twilight could only guess was some kind of saddle bag barely clung to the left shoulder, a part of its contents having spilled out in an unorganized clatter around it where the zipper had failed at its purpose.

‘No, not it. Him.’ Twilight corrected herself.

The descriptions in those old tomes were detailed enough to grant her some clues about the creature’s identity as he slowly brushed the spots from his eyes and tucked his legs against his chest, his breathing coming in short, pained gasps while the world slowly pieced itself out around him.

Short, brown hair, twisted and tangled as a byproduct of the wild ride he had just been through. Rounded, flat nose drove a bridge between two small, chocolate-brown eyes dancing in their sockets with the dizziness of a roller coaster ride’s aftermath. A flat mouth, not a semblance of a muzzle anywhere, stretched over his features in a long, pained hiss, a set of four canine teeth peeking through the corner of his lips.

No fur beyond a short mane and a sickly amount of hair clinging to his face in the shape of a stubbly beard. The rest of his body was covered completely in clothes of foreign identity, but Twilight needn't peek around to know it harbored no natural coat of any kind.

Big, bulky frame, narrow hips, flat chest, facial hair, short mane… This one was a male, a young one at that, but Twilight could only throw her guesses blindly. She took a whiff of the air, registering a similar scent that most stallions exuded, cementing her initial analysis on the creature’s sex.

Breathing old, dusty descriptions into life did sum up to an eye-opening experience for the well-read mare. Alas, far from feeling joy or elation after cementing a legend with proof and facts, a pit of infinite depth settled in the alicorn's stomach as she slowly came to terms with what had just transpired within the walls of her castle.

Not a window, but a rift. And it had worked.

‘No… Nonononono NO NO!! Faust above!! That’s impossible!!’

“Is it alright?”

“What the hay is that supposed to be?!”

“Are those… clothes?”

“Oh my, I hope nothing is broken. You poor thing!”

The creature finished rubbing the spots out of his eyes, his entire body shaking from the crash of adrenaline under the clothes, the aftermath of the ride acting up to spike each and every one of his survival instincts and send them into overdrive. The ponies had begun to become restless in their small circle, none uttering a word as they followed each of the creature’s slugged movements, seeking to unearth the strange being's nature and intentions.

Twilight had to step up before things escalated further with her friends and the disoriented human… well, more than what they already had. Wiggling some room with her wings in between Applejack and Fluttershy, Twilight stood a hesitant beachhead at the apex of the semicircle of ponies, running a wild search within her ample mental repertoire for a protocol, a set of instructions… a manual? Anything that might reveal the next step she needed to take.

Needless to say, she came up with nothing but an empty mind and profound sense of dread. She’d have to wing the first ever-recorded contact with an extra-equestrial being in their current age. Just like that, out of the horseshoe.

While the purple alicorn chipped at her hooves with a raw wagon of nerves running her rugged, the human felt himself reconnecting with the waking world. The unfamiliar creature's breath hitched down to a series of short panicking gasps and winces when his dancing vision cleared enough to paint his blurry surroundings in glorious two and so diopters, but clear enough to see the impossible unfolding before him.

He casted a few, darting glances around himself. He drank in his unfamiliar surroundings before his entire frame stiffened like a popsicle when met face-front with a collection of strange, miniature equines of sorts, all standing in a circle around him, eyeballing him with unsettlingly big, expressive eyes. Waaaay too expressive for an animal, yet he felt like the newest piece of their local museum.

Back to Twilight, she was ready to blow the entire box of fuses under her strained smile.

‘Celestia’s mane, Twilight!! Pull yourself together and do something!!’

“Uh…” Twilight, running on a blank sheet, sought to at least enact the simplest form of contact with the creature, before she lost her cool and crumbled down into a pathetic pile of apologies and nerves and more apologies.

The human, for she had recognized him to be, fixed his smaller eyes on her, shrinking down under the control of some instinctive fear.

With a careful step, Twilight dressed herself in her warmest, most inviting smile before exchanging the first words between their respective species since eons past.

“H-Hello there, um… Are you okay? Can you understand me?”

Far from her intended goal, the human only recoiled more from the princess’ gentle advances, trying to press himself against the wall and up his unsteady feet so as to escape her slow approach as if a hungry cheetah about to pounce on his neck. The castle’s crystal composition prevented him from a swift run, making him slide back down his butt with a grunt of strain. Twilight took notice of his deep apprehension and rooted herself, reasoning best to wait for a positive reaction from him before trying again. She was unsure if he could ever understand her, much less answer in kind.

Her friends waited assembled around her, leaving the panicking human without a clear escape route, as he was quick to realize Seven heads cocked to the side curiously when the human reached for a pocket inside his disheveled jacket, extracting in a jelly-like grasp what they all easily recognized as a pair of glasses tightly clenched in his blunt claws. A colorful myriad of eyes widened in wonder when they saw the creature use his claws to gently, but surely open them before resting them over his eyes, blinking hard and shaking his head to dispel the cobwebs he believed still clung to him, playing games on his field of vision.

Opening his eyes back to the world, the human was met with the exact same nightmare as the one his blurry vision had provided just prior. That couldn't be right. Simple, he just had hit his head hard on that tender spot behind the ear, and was now seeing things while lying prone over the sidewalk. Perhaps a bus had run him over in his absorption over the phone screen. This was just all a crazy concussion-induced dream. Soon, these weird horses will blur out and become concerned passersby helping him up. And this strange, crystalline room will become the tunnel he had been crossing under.

Yeah. He was sure of it, the only conscious thought he was able to build as panic took hold over him. He tried again for good measure, taking off the glasses and whipping them clean on the seam of his shirt before placing them back over his nose.

Alas, no amount of blinking would dispel the alien landscape unfolding before him, making the tremors dominating his body redouble with the intensity of an earthquake, preventing him from air and reason.

The human recognized the purple pony… talking purple pony’s question in perfect, crystal-clear english. She was seeking communication. Armstrong's speech, on the day he landed humanity on the moon, became a source of inspiration. There was only one thing a human could come up with after landing on his ass in a new world, words which would go down in history!

“........ Huh?”

In an ancient cavern, erased from text, word, and living memory until very recently, an ancient spirit stirred in her slumber. This world, this land she tended for, had experienced its fair share of excitement in recent times.

The spirit foresaw this, and acted accordingly. Yet, unlike her sisters beyond the mirrors, the spirit would not leave any thread unattended, leave any chance to the wind.

An old command resonated within her, older than the world’s history, older than reason itself. Her purpose was as many as it was one. And to achieve it, she wouldn't stay idle. Her sisters, at first, had tried for none. Then, they tried for one. When that failed, they tried for many. All tales ended the same. Far and in between were the occasions where the pieces did not leave the board, the Lifebringer’s work remained true to the path.

She would not stand idly and sway to the whims of fate, as her chosen, physical form would lead one to believe. The Game had been played by her rules since the dawn of magic, and will continue to do so until the Lifebringer deemed it otherwise.

Her gift was foresight, her reach was limitless. An endless sea of possibilities. She conveyed with her sisters beyond the reaches of space and time. She felt this world’s fate stir and change on her roots. Her sisters did not agree with her, yet the time for action was nigh.

The spirit made a mistake, she was forced to do so. This one will have to do.

With the addition of the last player, a new chapter of Game was ahoof. With him, came the tipping point, the dawn of a new era.

Before her, it begins. Just like it had begun, and will begin anew.

Your time has come, Traveler. Fulfill your destiny…

…

…

…

And the world would change forever.

Author's Note

Hey there. For those coming from TSOL, welcome to the promised prequel. To those new, go check this fic's sequel first if you want some noteworthy G5-based HiE content. Reading the sequel first is recommended, albeit not mandatory (specially since it's not finished yet)