The Reality War

Almost there… almost there… almo-

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK!

Startled, the Doctor, who had previously been working meticulously for the past few days on a way to not only go from one dimension to another, but do it two more times, and seal the holes they traveled through in the first place, jumped at the sudden disturbance. Then from something out of a Rube Goldberg machine, he hit the wrong button, which in turn activated a circuit somewhere on the other side of the room, that interfered with the neutrino emissions detector he had plugged in there, shorting it out, causing it to smoke, that caused the fire alarm to go off, that activated the water sprinklers, that caused a bowl precariously perched on a ledge to fill up, that tipped over and fell, right on top of the terminal he was working on, crashing through the glass screen, shorting out the console and making him lose his work. “Well… damn,” the Doctor swore. “Oh well, better see who’s at the door.” Walking over to the door and opening it he saw a lavender unicorn with a multi-tone mane standing there, wondering just what she had heard and whether or not she should’ve knocked in the first place.

“Uh…” Twilight started, “the Princess was worried about you, seeing as we haven’t seen or heard from you in days. She sort of wanted an update on how you were doing.”

Eyes bloodshot, brain sleep deprived, and body fueled on coffee, the Doctor responded with a glare that would pierce the wall behind the steel that other looks would normally pierce. “It was going fine, but I seemed to have lost my work station and gained a new swimming pool in its place. But no matter, give me a few hours, a lot of towels, and some more coffee and it’ll be as if I’d lost nothing. Now, I don’t mean to sound insensitive, but please go away.” And with that, he shut the door. Twilight could hear a lot of goings on behind the door, but decided it best to just move on.

Turning around, she regarded the sight before her. It was the great hall, the same one she had her birthday in. Of course now it was a- what did the crew call it? - dry-dock, hangar, repair bay? Regardless, the entire place looked completely alien to her. The once pristine marble floors were brown with grease; the entire room was covered with wires and other bizarre contraptions she’d never seen before. She believed they were called ‘computers’. She couldn’t believe that all of this stuff could fit in that ship. And of course taking up eighty percent of the room was the Normandy. It took Twilight, Celestia, Luna, and a hundred more unicorns, but they had finally managed to move the ship through the window that took up most of the wall closest to the garden where the ship had crashed in the first place. Of course when she said window she really meant the giant hole in the wall where the window used to be until a rather large piece of shrapnel propelled itself through it when the ship crashed. No biggie.

They had been there for a week now, and Twilight was impressed with just how much they had gotten done. Although, she didn’t know what direction they were trying to go in. It looked to her that they were disassembling it more than putting it back together. Sure, most of the ship was still intact, but the wings, thrusters, outer armor, THANIX Cannon, shield generator, and a bunch of other words that were just too big for her to remember were strewn about the floor. Of course their Chief Engineer, Tail, no wait, Tali, said that in order to put something together, you first have to take it apart to see exactly what is wrong. Twilight figured that made sense, but she still didn’t understand any of this. Then there was this one… person? She didn’t know what to call him. He looked a bit like an amphibian and everyone kept calling him ‘Doctor Solus’. Anyway, he wouldn’t shut up about how inferior pony technology was and just how hard it was going to be to put things back together. Actually he wouldn’t shut up period. Apparently they were going to have to get the Normandy as good as new if they wanted to survive not just the voyage back, but also the harsh vacuum of space that they were going to have to deal with when they got back.

Unfortunately, Princess Celestia had to restrict the crew to the castle, seeing as their discovered presence in and around Canterlot would cause mass hysteria. This made them incredibly restless; they were obviously not used to being stuck in one place for an extended amount of time. And then, when her friends asked where she was- as she was staying in Canterlot to help Celestia- she was going to make up a story but Celestia encouraged Twilight to invite them. Who was she to argue? So of course she did. And of course there were seemingly endless hours of questions and answers between them and the castle’s guests. Then, when they had gotten used to each other, Dr. Freeman, a dragon-ish looking crewmember called Garrus, Pinkie, and Rainbow had disappeared, only to be found hours later trying to pull some sort of complicated prank that involved a rubber duck, a miniature proton collider, a mattress, a can of paint and Dr. Freeman crawling around in a bunch of air ducts. Luna was the one who discovered them and just as she looked like she was going to banish them to… wherever it was that particular princess banished them to, she smiled and asked just what their plan was and if they could change it to make the target Celestia. With that, they all ran off to who knows where and haven’t been heard from since. Rarity had made an incredibly unlikely friend, this walking piece of metal that everyone kept calling Legion. Apparently Rarity wanted to try out some designs for different species and found his figure very manipulative. This Legion didn’t seem to mind one bit as it simply followed saying in a monotone voice, “We shall accompany pony-Rarity to a sewing room so she may attempt to, as she put it, ‘make us fabulous.’”

Twilight found it predictable that Spike would choose this particular new friend… Joker. Apparently Joker couldn’t move very fast or else risk grievous injury, so they just sat down at a table ‘shooting the breeze,’ as Joker put it. Which Spike found just fine as he didn’t have to move and he had someone he could just talk to that wasn’t about magic. Truly men never changed, Twilight thought, not even in between universes. Fluttershy was, surprise surprise, very reserved and to herself through all the introductions. Just as Twilight figured that Fluttershy wasn’t going to find anyone to connect with, she found this one person. Apparently they were both avid animal lovers. This person’s name was Jack… just Jack. When Twilight went to Shepard with this news, because Twilight got a weird vibe from this one, Shepard was incredibly surprised with this news. They both went down to check on the two and found them talking about how different animals were in each other’s universes. Shepard later told her that she was surprised that Jack was acting the way she was around Fluttershy, as she is generally a harsh, cruel, and unforgiving person; when she was with Fluttershy however she was being sweet and kind and not menacing in the slightest. Shepard said that when she confronted Jack about this she said not to tell anyone or else she would “Rip out her fucking throat and shove it up her ass.” So of course Shepard made Twilight swear that she wouldn’t tell anyone.

Then there was Applejack. She didn’t even know what to think of this new friendship. Apparently there was this person, except she was blue, with tentacle like things on her head, called Samara. Supposedly Samara overheard Applejack talking to Twilight about how hard it is to manage a farm, and juggle Applebloom. Much to Twilight’s secret happiness, Samara butted in and asked if she might offer some advice. That was five hours ago. So Twilight figured that as long as everyone found something to entertain themselves, and repairs go according to plan, nothing could go wrong.

Walking to the cafeteria, she spotted Tali exiting the Normandy. She figured this as good a time as any to ask her questions. You see, Twilight is an academic, a young one at that. And if there’s one thing that young people and academics don’t like, it’s not knowing things. So the fact that there was this giant hunk of metal sitting here, surrounded by things that she doesn’t know their function to, operated by creatures she doesn’t know anything about, is driving her insane. So much untapped knowledge just waiting for her. So she delved in head first.

Just as Tali was about to dive back into the mess of scrap formerly known as Normandy, Twilight appeared in her way. Now, Tali was all about making new friends, but this was weird. Not Twilight, just everything. The Quarians were geniuses, mainly because they could make anything from anything else. Within reason though. Here she was in the middle of an unfamiliar world, with unfamiliar creatures, using unfamiliar and prehistoric technology to repair one of the most advanced spaceships in the galaxy. Or at least, her galaxy. Shepard had singled her out as the head of the reconstruction project, and she was grateful for that. But it was a lot of pressure, and it reminded her of a human book she had once read where an insane doctor tried to resurrect the dead. On top of that, seeing Twilight in front of her all of a sudden made her dread the next upcoming question.

“So…” Twilight began, carefully planning out her strategy of attack, “I was just wondering, what exactly moves this thing?”

Tali internally groaned. That question. It was hard enough explaining it to anyone else. But this was going to be like trying to explain color to a blind person. “Well…” She was just about to start when she got a brilliant idea. “The Normandy is an advanced reconnaissance frigate class deep space stealth starship. The engine uses a massive element zero core. Element zero of course meaning it has an atomic number of zero. Utilizing vast electrical charges one can alter the mass of any object in the engines field of influence, more specifically, the Normandy. Using Einstein’s theory of special relativity we can…” Twilight just phased out. There were so many words. Why can’t it be as simple an answer as magic? Twilight was smart. Very smart, but she didn’t even know where to begin with this. Einstein? Special Relativity? Does that mean there’s a regular relativity? And what in Celestia’s name is an atomic number? So Twilight just mumbled something and walked away. Tali smiled at her plan’s success and continued on her way.

Three weeks. It had been three weeks since all of this began. At some point- she didn’t even know when- Twilight had developed a headache. Somehow, someway, the ragtag group of pranksters had managed to not only switch the east wing inside out, but also manage to turn Celestia’s room upside down. Twilight had gotten nowhere in trying to figure out how the ship worked and the Doctor hadn’t been heard from since Twilight knocked on his door. Luckily however, the Normandy was almost complete. Apparently they loved to mine planets back in Shepard’s universe and as such, they had a lot of raw materials. Plus, according to Shepard, most of the ship wasn’t actually in that bad a condition as they had originally thought. It took all of their resources, but they managed to put the entire ship back together and even give her a new coat of paint. The shields and weapons were at max power and the engine was outputting maximum power. Celestia, while not actually saying so, was really happy that they were almost done. Twilight could tell, as she is close with the princess and quite frankly, anyone at this point would be happy. They were taking up space, ponypower, and patience. It wasn’t going to all be a wash though as they were getting some advanced medical technology for it. That’s what Dr. Solus was working on: pony specific medicines and medi-gel. So it wasn’t all bad, Twilight guessed. Just as she was walking toward her room in the nearby wing, the Doctor burst forth from his box.

“I’VE GOT IT! I AM BRILLIANT!” the Doctor exclaimed. Everyone nearby looked up from their work, more out of surprise at seeing him all of a sudden after so long of not seeing his bowtie loving self.

“And what exactly do you have, Doctor?” Twilight asked, with a tinge of hope in her voice.

“I figured out a way to not only get back to my universe from the way I came, but also seal that way so no one can come back. And not only that, but I’ve also managed to do this with Dr. Freeman’s and Shepard’s universes too. And not only that…” he said, excitement increasing to dangerously Pinkie Pie-ic levels, “I’ve also managed to hook up a device that will allow the Normandy to do the same for a temporary amount of time.”

“Anything else Doctor? No world problems solved or maybe questions to meaning of life answered?” Twilight asked sarcastically. Although in reality she was incredibly happy that they were going to be able to leave. Twilight felt like she knew nothing around them and quite frankly didn’t like how everyone avoided her like the plague. Sure she might have been a little… apprehensive when asking questions, but that didn’t mean they had to avoid her.

“Nope, that’s it. Oh, and I’ve also discovered a way to travel to other universes other than ours by going through this one. Before you ask, I’ve determined that this is a sort of ‘central universe’. Think of this universe as sort of a circle and all other universes as sort of branches, all coming off of that circle, that one, central point. In order to go from one branch to another, you have to go through the central point. And this happens on a much larger scale. This universe could just be another branch in a much bigger tree. And all of this universe’s branches may be central universes to smaller trees, if that makes any sense. Now obviously it’s a lot more complicated than that, but that’s the best metaphor I could come up with. And to answer your question Gordon, I will be making a pit stop in your universe to drop you off. And also before any of you ask what the path home is, I will tell you. Each of us has a bit of a breadcrumb trail of unique energy. That will show each one of us to the right direction. It will also keep us from going into other universes. If you think exploring new planets is dangerous, imagine exploring a whole new universe.”

Shepard just stared. She wondered: could she maybe seek outside help against the Reaper threat? According to what the Doctor’s told her, since time is nonlinear and all universes have different time streams, she could take all the time she wanted in the other universes without worrying about running out of time in her universe. Just as she was about to ask the Doctor if the device he was going to give him would allow this, he turned to her. “No,” he stated matter-of-factly, “You may not bounce in between universes like a pinball machine. And that’s final.” He turned back to his audience, and noticing a new member, he addressed her. “Princess Celestia, on behalf of all of us, we thank you for your patience and assistance. If you would permit me a few hours to install the device, we will all soon be out of your mane.”

Celestia did a little bow and simply responded with, “It is no problem at all, take your time. As long as you are sure that you will be able to seal off the way. Who knows what could come here after you leave?” As if on cue, a massively blinding light flashed off in the sky nearby. Then a massive shockwave of energy could be felt, as if someone had dropped a pebble into a pond. Only much bigger. Running outside all at once, everyone looked around from the source, not knowing where it came from. All except Dr. Gordon Freeman, that is. He knew exactly where it came from and exactly what it was. Looking off of the balcony and off into the distance, about a hundred miles away, he saw what he hoped it wasn’t: the beginnings of a Combine Superportal. With a distant look in his eye, all he could manage to say was, “Shit.”