Crossover- and Over and Over...

Location: Universal stream Equine 612.9 Iota- AKA ‘The Ponyverse’

The gentle light of the moon shined down on the planet below, bathing the silhouettes of the mountain range in a pale glow. Angular roofs and spires jutted off the side of one particularly large mountain as lights from various buildings dotted the city below, highlighting places where the residents had decided to remain awake despite the late hour, or, in some cases, highlighting some of the cities more 'shady' establishments.

At the base of the mountain, a much smaller city was visible. Despite its diminutive size and further distance, one could just make out some of the more prominent buildings, such as the town hall and the giant, hollowed-out tree that served as the town's library.

Coupled together, the two cities made for a very serene landscape...

Not that the scene's lone viewer cared.

Said being was about four stories tall with inky black and deep maroon armor covering its bulky frame. His bright red optic sensors surveyed the picturesque view not for its beauty, but rather out of curiosity for what would become of this land once his plans came to play.

"Hey, Shiftech! GLaDOS needs yah up here!"

Shiftech winced slightly at the voice before beginning to fold in on himself, changing into his vehicle form. In seconds, the distinctive thumping of helicopter rotors filled the air as the bulky flier slowly ascended the mountain. Upon reaching the top he converted back to his robot form, landing on the rocky surface with a THUMP.

"Y'know, Ten, there's a sleeping city a few mountains over that would REALLY hate to be woken up by your shouting." Shiftech chastised.

"Aw, their pathetic organic ears can't hear me all the way over here," Diesel Ten replied, waving his claw-arm dismissively. "And for the last time, call me Dieseltron."

Shiftech studied his ally for a minute. Diesel Ten was strange in that he was a living living train who was capablecapable of transforming into a somewhat bulky tan robot with a skinny brown right arm formed of the claw that was mounted on the top of his train mode. The ‘trainsformer’, who had recently renamed himself Dieseltron, had just been beaten by his worst enemy- another transforming train named Opthomas Prime- when Shiftech found him. Dieseltron was all too happy to join the larger robot’s inter-dimensional league of evil.

Shiftech continued walking past two more of his allies- a massive Bio-Mechanical being named Teridax and an armored female warrior named Nightmare Moon.

Teridax- better known as Makuta- was a being of darkness and shadow. A fusion of Cybertronian technology with his own bio-mechanical makeup granted him the ability to morph into a massive dragon-like beast that looked like it came straight from the Pit itself.

As for Nightmare, she was similar to Teridax in many ways. Both were beings of darkness, they wished to take revenge on the inhabitants of their home worlds, and they both possessed organic-based alternate modes, Nightmare’s being a winged unicorn known as an ‘alicorn.’ However, in order to increase her versatility, she had also adapted the form of a sleek jet.

As Shiftech walked by Nightmare, he stopped. “So tell me, what is it like to return to your universe of your origin?” he asked without looking at her.

The sinister femme drew in a deep breath before letting it out slowly. “First chance I get… Celestia is dead.”

“Don’t be too cheerful; you might hurt something,” Shiftech muttered with more than a hint of sarcasm.

Continuing on his way, the bulky robot approached another femme who was working on a large machine. Her white armor glistened in the moonlight, causing her skinny form to seem to glow. The large wings on her back coupled with the glowing almost gave her an almost angelic appearance- ironic, considering her murderous tendencies. Upon hearing Shiftech's heavy footsteps, she turned her faceless square head so that her single yellow optic faced him.

"How goes the operation, GLaDOS?" he greeted.

"Quite well, actually," she replied, her heavily synthesized voice carrying a note of enthusiasm. "The Dimensional Quantum Tunneling Machine is ready for testing."

A sinister gleam shone in Shiftech’s optics. "Excellent. Begin the power-up sequence."

GLaDOS nodded before directing her three-fingered hands to an armored orange box. Opening the lid carefully, she withdrew a small, semi-transparent blue cube and inserted it into the DQTM.

The six-story machine hummed to life as GLaDOS typed commands into the interface module.

Behind him, Shiftech could hear his other three allies approaching to watch the show. His cheeks pulled up slightly in a mouthless smile. They were about to witness history in the making.

A brilliant blue glow came from the top of the device. After receiving an approving nod from Shiftech, GLaDOS pressed one final button, firing a blue sphere of energy into the sky.

The gathered robots watched as the sphere rose several hundred feet into the air, emitting a noise that was similar to that of GLaDOS' hand-held Portal Device. The sphere then exploded into what seemed to be a cross between a blue portal and a black hole.

"The interdimensional portal seems stable," the white femme stated. "Now, let's see if-"

She was suddenly cut short by the sound of crackling energy. Looking up, the five robots saw the portal begin to fire bolts of blue lightning through the sky.

"What's going on?!" Shiftech roared.

"Energy from the portal's destination is reacting negatively with the portal itself!" GLaDOS replied, furiously typing commands into the device.

"Destination?" Teridax questioned. "When did you set a destination?"

"I didn't!" came the reply. "The portal seems to have opened up to a random destination!"

A massive bolt of energy suddenly erupted from the rapidly expanding vortex, arcing through the air toward the smaller town at the base of the nearby mountain. As it traveled, small portions of energy broke off from it, materializing into what seemed to be several smaller vortexes that spanned the distance between the portal and the smaller town.

"Was that supposed to happen?" Dieseltron asked, drawing annoyed looks form his comrades.

"Well, on the bright side, at least the original portal seems to have calmed down," Nightmare stated.

Shiftech carefully studied the new portals that had appeared in the distance. That energy bolt had no doubt given off some major energy readings, and possibly even caused some interdimensional anomalies.

And he knew just who liked to investigate both of those things.

"Troops," he stared, "Prepare yourselves. We may be having some unwanted company very soon..."

**********

Location: Ponyville Library

Twilight Sparkle groaned in annoyance as she pulled her blanket over her head. Insomnia was something that she rarely, if ever, experienced. Yet here she was, curled in a fuzzy purple ball under her sheets, mane horribly unkempt, wishing her mind would just shut up and fall asleep.

The sound of a baby dragon snoring softly pounded against her ears, further preventing her from getting any rest. Outside, the wind caused two tree branches to clack against each other. On top of that, somepony’s squeaky shutters could be heard plain as day.

The purple unicorn groaned in annoyance as she put her pillow on top of her head in an attempt to drown out the noise. She never noticed just how many sounds went on during the dead of night, and it was not a discovery she was happy to make.

Rolling over, she threw a quick glance out the window- then gasped, almost falling off the bed in surprise.

There, in the sky high above Ponyville, was some kind of swirling blue vortex.

Mind racing, Twilight knew that her sleeplessness was a result of her strong magical powers sensing the vortex. But what was it? Was it dangerous? And where did it come from?

A brief glance at the clock on her dresser revealed the time to be about two in the morning.

The unicorn sighed to herself as she exited her room and began descending the wooden staircase, already suspecting that her books would likely have little information on ‘swirling sky vortexes.’