Chapter 1: In which Twilight questions her sanity.
Equestria. The largest continent upon a planet with the same name. It holds more ponies than there are parasprites in the Everfree Forest and yet, with so many ponies on this rock, why does destiny always pick one? Countless times, disaster has befallen Ponyville, and is up to Twilight Sparkle and her friends to save everypony. That was, until last Wednesday.
Princess Celestia had seen the damage it was doing to Twilight. She had been jumping at things even FlutterShy wouldn't, and that usually ended with a poorly cast obliteration spell, of all things. So she had given her a 'week-off' from everything; to alleviate some stress. Twilight had politely refused as the Elements of Harmony could not be used without her, but it was not until Celestia had said that she would enforce that time off with a unplanned holiday upon the Lunar Surface, that Twilight had agreed. She was now spending her time in the library, reading books for what could have been the Nth time, when she fell asleep.
Another day ends when Twilight finally awakens, face planted within the pages of a book, with what looked like drool leaking through said pages.
"Oh not again..." she sighs, another day starting as resident book-lover.
"I really need to stop that. Most of these are first editions!" She looks at the clock. 11 past midnight. She looks over her left shoulder, then her right. Confident nopony is looking, she wills the book dry and with a flash of purple haze, the book looks brand new.
"Lets see... 'Florence Sherbé's Basic Theories of Magic and Its Uses'. That a second shelf from the top book." Another flash of purple haze and the book is sent skywards.
Poof. The purple haze vanishes in a puff of corny smoke and the whole world sways. A flash of light, in what looks to be a greenish tartan, and the ceiling disappears. Twilight looks around. All of Ponyville has disappeared. What it is replaced with seems to be a barren rocky surface. Kind of, moon like.
"But surely I can't..." Twilight starts to panic when she sees something. A thing, no, a beast. Sitting about 10 yards away, in what looks like a heptadecagon of stones. The beast looked to be about a span taller than her, with long, red hair only upon it's head and clothed in a strange white fabric. Twilight, curiouser than cats around yarn, takes a step towards the beast.
It vanishes into wisps of greenish smoke. Twilight yelps and returns to worry mode.
"Oh sweet Celestia, Mother of all Equestria and those who inhabit it, where am I? What was that thing? Am I on the moon? Did I do something wrong? Did I... EEP!" Twilight had spun around. Standing in-front of her, staring calmly down the steel blade of a six foot Scottish claymore, was the beast. Twilight teleported a step backwards and started preparing what hopefully wasn't the last obliteration spell she would cast.
"Whoa whoa whoa, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to disturb you, I didn't even mean to be here, I mean, I just woke up and teleported here and this isn't home and..." Twilight took a deep breath and stopped talking. The beast stared some more, blinked, and dug the tip of the sword into the ground. It sat on the ground with a grunt and pulled a pair of glasses out of a pocket. The beast looked her up and down and said, in a voice the cross of Clyde Pie and Pip Squeak,
"Streuth. Of all the asteroids in the universe, why doth destiny come knocking upon my door? Why doth she deliver unto me, maidens in despair and expect me to fix the bleeding problem? Why do I get NO BLOODY REST?! I CANNEA DO THIS ALL OF THE BLOODY TIME!"
"What?" Twilight said. Not meaning to say it aloud.
"Nothing nothing, Just shouting whatever gods can hear. So milady... purple horse thingy... Ma'am. What can I do for thou?" The beast said, making an open armed gesture.
"Where am I?" Twilight asked, rather quickly, for her fear was returning.
"How did I get here? If you had anything to do with it I'll..." The beast interrupted.
"Here on an asteroid. No a clue. Nope and I'd like to see you try. Questions answered and out of the way. The name is Stephan, that's with a PH. Easiest way to remember, my language is slightly acidic when I'm cross." Twilight just looked at Stephan with a look of befuddlement upon her face.
"Didn't get it?" Twilight shook her head.
"Oh I got it. It's just... where is... here?" Stephan jumped up, span around on the spot and stopped. He pointed to a star in the night sky.
"See that one there? Brightest star in that cluster of three? Brightest star in the universe. Been around as long as I can remember. At thirteen billion, ninety-seven million and so light-years away, it's the closest sentient beings have ever got to here. Welcome to my home-away-from-home. Now. Who are you?" He said, spinning back round to face Twilight.
"Th... thir... thirteen..." Twilight stammered before collapsing to the ground. "But, that's imposs... improbable. You cannot just..." She stared around at the barren surface.
"But what about air? Or heat? How do you survive out here?"
"Magic. Which I'm sure you familiar with by your teleport display. That circle back there? The one with 17 sides? It's got more elemental runes than you could find under the ground at Tre'Or prison." Twilight added another layer of befuddlement to her already sizeable pile.
"But that's not how magic works. You need training. A focus. A reserve of magical energy. Not even Celestia can move her sun when tired and you don't have a horn, yet your adding atmosphere to a rock, literally in the middle of nowhere and..." Stephan stopped her.
"Where are you from. Nothing in this universe has the power to move suns. I might, on a good day, move it a inch at the most, but gravitational forces are a pain to overcome. Plus moving a giant flaming ball of fission and fusion around just screams misuse of magical energy. The universe would throw a hissy fit and kill the unprepared before they even thought about the idea and..." An idea stopped him. He reached out, tapped Twilight's horn and smiled. He knew what was going on now.
Twilight, on the other hoof, blinked. Everything went blurry, and with another puff of smoke, and a rather amazing tartan light show, she was back in her library.
"What? But how? But..." She stopped. Books were everywhere. Like vandals had pulled every book off of the shelves in the attempt to make her raving mad. She was mad alright. Half of these were first editions! Twilight sighed and collected herself. She started to levitate the books back onto the shelves, the encounter forgotten for the moment. And so, at 11 past one in the morning, another day started for Ponyville's resident book-lover.
Stephan sneezed. He wasn't expecting that. In fact, his idea about what had happened had just been disproved.
"I rather enjoyed that conversation. Pity she had to leave so soon. What did you make of her?" An angel walked out from behind him and picked up a book of the floor.
"She seemed... nice. In a sort of horribly scared way. This would be the first pony we've met though." Stephan picked up the sword and slung it over his shoulder. Waves of confusion and loud strands of thought thundered into his head.
"She certainly is different. Even she is finding this new. What's the book?"
"She dropped it when she landed. 'Florence Sherbé's Basic Theories of Magic and Its Uses'."
Author's Note
This story was written in the space of three days. Three whole days of not sleeping, slight drinking and bouncing ideas off of each other like light on a those 'one-way' mirrors. Add lots of Two Steps From Hell and you have our basic weekend. ~Eruestani
What he's trying to say is that if anything is bad. Then it's bad and will stay that way. We're not ashamed about what we've wrote. We all have to start somewhere. ~AuthorDefiance
Don't let him bother you. Any criticism, spell-checks, improvements would be well-recieved. Sorry for the interrupt. On with the plot. ~Princess Kaiser
Heh. Plot. None of that stuff in here. ~AuthorDefiance.
