It was a mid-summer day and the skies had only a few clouds that dotted the sky. The wind slowly rolled across the plains and not a bird in sight. Today was the perfect day to test out my new move, Light Leap. It's not exactly as it sounds. I have the ability to accelerate the atoms within my body to move at lightning fast speeds, but if I go too fast, I end up getting hurt.
My best friend was here with me today. His name is Caramel Blaze. He asked, "Shift, you going to finally attempt the Light Leap today?"
I nodded and replied, "Yeah, but I'm going to need your support, otherwise I might not be able to pull it off."
Caramel said, "Sure, I can do that."
As my red and black hair was slightly moved by the wind, I began to run. I ran faster and faster, soon I was reaching tremendous speeds and within a minute the speed was enough to carry me high into the air. I jumped and my calculations were correct.
I soared into the sky and heard Caramel yelling, "You can do it, Shift! Just a little bit more!" I felt nervous and excited as I flew at intense speeds, and when I reached the right altitude, I began my descent. The wind caused my eyes to tear and within seconds I heard the crack that meant that I broke the sound barrier. I felt my speed increase, faster, faster, faster. Right before I hit the ground I saw an intense light that blinded me and I came to a sudden halt and passed out. Before Caramel Blaze passed out, too, he saw me disappear right before generating a flash of light.
***
Rainbow Dash saw a streak of light that moved even faster than her, and she was moving at an incredible rate of speed. The light was abruptly stopped when it hit the ground and made a small crater.
She told herself, "Good thing this was in the middle of nowhere. If it happened in Ponyville, somepony could have gotten seriously hurt." and swiftly flew towards the crater.
Meanwhile, a crash was heard behind Sugarcube Corner which startled Pinkie Pie. She decided to see what made the loud noise and hopped down her stairs and out the back door. Pinkie Pie saw a tan pony with dark brown hair lying in a heap. She rushed to its side and started prodding the neck asking, "Hello? Anypony home?"
Rainbow Dash was carrying an orange unicorn in her arms and was flying rapidly towards Twilight Sparkle's house.
When she got there, she burst through the door exclaiming, "We've got a pony down! Twilight? Twilight!"
Spike walked up to Rainbow Dash and asked, "Rainbow, who's that? I've never seen him around here before."
She replied, "I don't know! Where is Twilight?"
Spike shrugged, "I don't know. I think she said something about helping Rarity out today."
Rainbow Dash shouted, "Great! She just happened to not be here today!"
Twilight Sparkle had a bored look on her face while Rarity was fitting her with random dresses and saddles as Applejack crashed through the front door of the shop and said, "Twilight, Rarity, we've got a situation!"
She led the two unicorns to Sugarcube Corner and explained what had happened, according to Pinkie Pie. Twilight noticed strange marks on the ground around the crater and tried to remember where she had seen them before.
Pinkie Pie was exclaiming, "...and then it was like FWOOSH BOOM CSSSSH! I bet ponies heard it from miles around! I wonder who this pony is and where he came from and..."
Applejack rolled her eyes at Pinkie's constant chattering and tried to wake the pony up, but she couldn't wake him up, either. Rarity noted, "His mane could probably look just stunning if it was cleaned properly. He's in such a mess right now. When he wakes up I should give him a proper make over."
Twilight Sparkle said, "I've got it! The patterns of the burns on the ground show that this was dimensional travel. Not sure where he came from, but if he manages to warp even a short distance, there's some powerful magic at work."
Then the brown pony closed his eyes tighter and mumbled, "Come on, just five more minutes..."
Rainbow Dash did everything she could to wake up the orange unicorn and after about half an hour of endeavors, the unicorn leapt up and looked around the area. He asked, "How the heck did I end up here?"
Rainbow Dash yelled, "What do you mean how did you get here?! I've been working my wings off trying to wake you up!"
The unicorn lowered his head and quietly said, "I'm sorry. I never expected to end up in Ponyville. I just wanted to pull off a light leap."
Rainbow Dash was confused at what he said and merely slapped him aside the head. She was stopped by Scootaloo, who seemed to pop up out of nowhere, asked, "Hi, Rainbow Dash! Who's that?"
Rainbow Dash replied, "Just some guy that I found in the desert. Now that I think about it, I didn't catch his name. Stranger, what's your name?"
The orange unicorn monotonously answered, "It's Shift."
Sweetie Belle, who was accompanying Scootaloo, squeaked, "Where are you from? I don't remember seeing you in Ponyville."
Shift whispered, "I...I'm from a different universe. A universe where I am a human, not a unicorn."
Apple Bloom was with the others, probably off on some scheme to get their Cutie marks, commented, "That sounds sciency, no wonder you're at Twilight's house. Too bad she's at Sugarcube Corner helping Pinkie Pie with something."
Rainbow dash shouted, "Alright Shift, follow me!" and flew off in the direction of Sugarcube Corner. Shift whipped his red and black mane and ran after Rainbow Dash. Sweetie Belle waved to Spike, who was eating a small serving of sapphires and took off with the other Cutie Mark Crusaders.
Back at Sugarcube Corner, the brown Earth Pony had finally woken up and was had no idea what was going on. All he saw was a pink pony's face asking him lots of questions. He firmly pushed the pink pony away and simply walked away from the mess. Twilight asked, "Wait, where are you going?"
The brown pony replied, "I've got to find a friend." As he walked towards the street, a cyan pegasus flew right past him, not even sparing a glance. Shift barely stopped in time to not run into the brown Earth Pony. He questioned, "Blaze, is that you?"
The pony nodded and said, "That wasn't that difficult." Rainbow Dash had spun around and gone back to Shift and yelled, "HEY! Why didn't you tell me to stop?!"
Twilight, Rarity, and Pinkie Pie had caught up and wanted to know what was going on. Shift said, "This is my best friend, Caramel Blaze. Let's go talk somewhere private. I don't want to tell everybody, er, everypony, here what is going on."
Twilight replied, "Alright, then, let's go to my house." She led the group to her house and locked the door behind her. She then ordered, "In the name of Princess Celestia, tell me what's going on!"
Shift explained, "It was an average day. Perfect weather. It was so great that it was enough for me to finally test the Light Leap. If you're wondering, it was designed to be a form of space travel. Back where we come from, I was able to run at such extreme speeds that I could break the sound barrier. That was the easy part. It took me months of training to be ready for the Light Leap. At the end of each week, I could pretty much move to the next level of super sonic speeds. At one point, I could exceed mach 10. That was when I was almost ready to make a Light Leap. This morning, I began my normal routine. I started running at the edge of the city and continued to increase velocity. I ran faster and faster, until I shattered the sound barrier, then kept going faster. The place where this happened was large enough to practice at. As I continued the speed, I leapt up nearly 90 degrees and headed straight towards the sky. When I reached the right height, I used my powers to charge downwards. I basically ran on air and went so incredibly fast that I finally made the Light Leap."
Even though Twilight had been taking notes the whole time, her she could not contain her jaw from dropping. Rainbow Dash demanded, "Wait, so you're telling us that you went so fast that you teleported? How is that even possible?!"
Pinkie Pie was bouncing around the room with excitement and exclaimed, "Whoa!!! That was a totally AMAZING story! I want to know more! What are humans and how old are you and how'd you get your cutie mark and what does it mean and..."
Pinkie Pie kept talking on until Twilight told her to stop. She skeptically looked over her notes again and shrugged, thinking, Well, whatever happened here has got to do something with science. I suppose it's perfectly possible...Twilight then asked, "I only have two questions. One, will you be willing to let me run some tests on you two? Two, what IS a human?"
The next two days, Caramel Blaze and Shift were being tested by Twilight. They explained as much as they could about their research and how they could have possibly traveled through time and space. Twilight's conclusion: they were indeed from a different universe, their memories were near-perfectly intact, and they seemed like completely normal ponies, outside of the fact that they used to not be. Blaze and Shift slowly walked outside Twilight's house and squinted because they had not seen sun in two days. Shift noticed a sign that read, "Hearts and Hooves day is near! Don't forget to get your special somepony something nice!" He shrugged and kept walking. Twilight suddenly came up behind them and asked, "Wait, where are you two going?"
Blaze nonchalantly replied, "Well, since we've got nothing else to do here, we're just going to wander around and check this place out."
Shift nodded, "If you want to show us around, then please do."
Twilight nodded and replied, "Follow me."
As the three strolled through Ponyville, they stopped at Sugarcube Corner, invited by an energetic pink pony. They entered and were greeted by Pinkie Pie as she exclaimed, "YAY! My new friends! How are ya guys today?"
Shift shrugged, "Pretty good. Twilight has been really nice and showed us around Ponyville."
Blaze nodded and asked, "Hey, what are you baking? It smells awesome."
Pinkie Pie giggled, "Right now a strawberry and plum cake is baking and it is almost done! If you want to try some of the stuff here then I completely welcome you!"
Shift hesitated, "Hm...how about a piece of that cake when it comes out?"
Pinkie Pie's hair bounced as she nodded and asked Blaze, "What do you want? We have TONS of stuff that you can choose from!"
Blaze laughed, "Wow, all this looks great! I guess I'll have some of that." Pinkie Pie grabbed a blue cookie that had pink sprinkles on it and happily handed it to Blaze.
Within a few minutes, Shift had gotten his sugary snack and joined Blaze, Pinkie, and Twilight at a corner table. After the group had finished their sweet treats, they decided to go outside to the town square. A blue pegasus was playing a violin outside, playing beautiful music. Blaze asked, "Who is that?"
Twilight announced, "Her name is Lulit. Her special talent is the ability to play any instrument and play it very well. She comes here often just to play music, and almost everypony likes it."
Blaze was in a trance and sat down near Lulit to admire her and her music. Shift rolled his eyes and asked, "I have a question, too. What is Hearts and Hooves day?"
Twilight was shocked at his question and replied, "It's a day dedicated to having a pony find their special somepony. It's a romantic day that I haven't really bothered to celebrate."
Shift inquired, "So, does that mean you don't have a special somepony?"
Twilight sighed, "Not really... It sometimes puts me in a melancholic mood, but nothing a good book can't fix."
Shift implied, "Well alright. Since Blaze is busy drooling over Lulit, then how about you show me more of Ponyville?"
***
Twilight led Shift to the Carousel Boutique to show him the best clothes designer in Ponyville, maybe even Equestria. As they walked in, Rarity heard Twilight call, "Rarity! You here?"
Rarity responded, "Coming, dear! Just one moment, please!"
A few seconds later, Rarity popped up behind a clothes rack and asked, "What can I do for you today, Twilight?"
"I was just showing Shift around Ponyville some more and was wondering if you might have something that he could show off." said Twilight.
Rarity took a quick look at him and shook her head. After a minute, Rarity finally made her decision and announced, "The only possible way to make this pony stunning is if he had a few rubies in a tuxedo or cape, but I ran out on my last order. If you could gather the materials, I would be more than happy to make something for you."
Twilight nodded and gestured, "Come on, Shift, we have to go find some rubies. Fortunately, I know where to find some."
Shift followed Twilight out and stopped for a second to say, "Thanks. That's really nice of you."
***
Shift trailed behind Twilight Sparkle, which made her ask, "Is there anything wrong?"
"It's...nothing." Shift replied and picked up the pace.
Soon the two unicorns reached a rocky area and Twilight cast a spell to search for the gems. She abruptly said, "Well, looks like I forgot my tools. I should have brought Spike along."
Shift walked over to the glowing spot and began tearing through the dirt with his hooves. Within minutes he dug up multiple rubies from the ground. Once he had gathered the gems, he had crystal-like dust and dirt all over him, which made Twilight slightly giggle at his appearance, forcing a goofy grin on his face. Shift placed the rubies in Twilight's backpack and followed her back to Ponyville.
***
Meanwhile, Caramel Blaze was still laying down next to Lulit. It had been several hours since he had started listening to her music and Lulit finally said, "I had better go. At least I had a few listeners. Good bye, whoever you are."
Blaze shook his head to escape the trance-like state and replied, "I-I'm Caramel Blaze, but you can call me Blaze."
Lulit covered her mouth to suppress a giggle and said, "I might see you tomorrow, then?"
Blaze nodded and watched her leave with her violin. Blaze then hopped on over to Sugarcube Corner to talk with Pinkie Pie.
