“So Twi, ya'll wanna run this through one more time for us?”
The six ponies had gathered together in the basement of the library, where a spiderweb of runes and glowing spell lines blanketed the floor, the walls and a substantial portion of the ceiling. Smiling broadly, Twilight slipped seamlessly into lecture mode.
“In theory it's quite simple. Picture our world, our universe, everything that makes up our reality as a sheet of parchment.” Her horn lighting up, she slipped a piece of paper in front of her, laying flat in the air. “In this model, we regard each separate reality as it's own distinct 'plane'.” Several more pieces of parchment floated up into the air, taking up position at seemingly random points within a short distance of her example sheet.
“We don't currently know how many 'planes' there are, but the number of known ones continues to grow. Now, planes don't simply sit in place and exist, they move and drift, a little like leaves in a breeze.” Keeping pace with her explanation, the sheets of parchment began to start slowly moving around, some coming near each other while some were left in a void. “When two planes come near each other, they start to influence each other. This can manifest as strange weather, strange magic, or in some cases, strange creatures.” Some of the sheets drifted towards the first sheet she had held up, the edges touching or overlapping at some points. “Most of the time, the effects are small enough that they aren't felt. This time however, the Royal Orrery has reason to believe that we're in for a pretty dangerous alignment.”
Many sheets of parchment began to drift towards the one Twilight had been using as her primary example, until the original page was completely obscured by the pages around it. It was nearly as thick as a slim book.
“As well as coming into alignment with many more planes than normal, there are signs that some of these planes are home to particularly violent beings. The recent trouble with Diamond Dogs to the East is, from what we know, due in part to this alignment. Just like there are some alignments that seem to make Unicorn magic stronger or Earth Pony crops more responsive, whatever we're coming into alignment with is making the Diamond Dogs way more violent, organized and strong than they normally are. That brings us to why I called you all here.”
Telekinetically straightening out the parchment, she deftly set it back down on the stack she had taken it from. Still in total exposition mode, Twilight turned to face the the blanket of spells and runework that covered her basement. “The problem is that we just don't have the forces to repel a massed attack from the Diamond Dogs. They've always outnumbered us, but they've always fought between themselves too much to be any real sort of threat. Whatever is coming into alignment is changing that though, and Princess Celestia is worried that they might manage a coordinated attack on Equestria. To defend against that we need a weapon, and a weapon is exactly what I'm going to get us!”
She began to get enthused, her passion for magic seeping into her speech as she began to gesture to swaths of spellwork. "We're going to summon some...thing from another plane! Something with parameters! Here, see these symbols? Whatever we summon, it's going to be clever!” she swept a hoof to indicate another segment, to the untrained eye hardly different from the first. “It will be resourceful! It will be inclined to get along with Pony folk! It will be familiar with combat, and adaptable to new situations!” She turned to face her slightly recoiling friends, her mane slightly askew while she panted lightly to catch her breath from getting worked up.
“I am going to summon us a champion!”
~~~~~~~~
It had been a pretty long day for you.
Classes were classes after all, but this schedule felt like it was going to be the death of you. You had what people called a 'scheduling doughnut', where you had morning class and night class but nothing in between. This was only really annoying because you lived too far away to go home between classes, meaning that you had to be down there by eight in the morning for your first class and you didn't get home until well past eleven at night.
As you open the door to your shared apartment- unlocked, as was the norm when any of your less than ideal roommates were home- all you can think about is just going to bed and blacking out. You can't help but grumble a little as you hang up your coat though, you seemed to be the only one that actually turned off the lights when you left a room. Leaving the living room in darkness, you walked down the hall to your cluttered room.
“FUCK! NO FUCKIN' WAY, THAT'S BULLSHIT! THIS IS-” You grimace as you pass by the room next to yours, home of one of the angriest gamers you had ever met. The rage was a constant thing with him, and living with it was just another thing you wish you had never needed to get used to. Taking a deep breath to calm yourself, you tried to ignore the bellowed invective and just tunnel-vision your way to bed, finally flopping down without so much as bothering to change.
~
Two hours. Two. Dos. Zwei. You had been fighting a losing battle to get to sleep for, according to the clock, a total of one-hundred and twenty minutes. Every time you thought you were going to finally slip off, he would yell something. He would slam his desk. He would lean back in that profoundly squeaky chair. He would do something invariably loud and abrupt and often crude, and it would wrench you back out of sleep. You had tried everything by now, you were getting quite sick of it. You must have asked him to be quiet like five times by now, and it was just getting stupid. Laying there in the dark, you swore to yourself. One more time, if he made one more sound, then by-
*WHIRR-THUMP*
Alright, you legitimately have no idea how he made that sound, some sort of cross between a lightsaber being drop-kicked down a flight of stairs and someone playing hacky-sack with a halibut. This late at night, you didn't really care either. Anyone else you would have forgiven. Anyone else, at any other time, you would have let it go. Sadly, it was him, and it was now. Rolling over and not bothering to open your eyes, you took a deep breath and roared as loud as you were able:
“IF YOU WAKE ME UP ONE MORE TIME, I'M GOING TO RIP OFF YOUR HEAD AND SHOVE IT UP YOUR ASS!” in quite a mood, you braced yourself for him to continue being loud. To your surprise and slight relief, you didn't hear another peep from him. Smiling, you snuggled deeper under the blankets, blissfully unaware that neither you nor your bed were no longer located in your room, and not noticing the six brightly coloured and utterly terrified equines slowly creeping up the set of earthen stairs and leaving you alone.
Author's Note
So this is still in its super early stages. I would hugely appreciate feedback on this, I can fix things quicker if people point them out to me!
Getting up on the wrong side of the bed
You're pretty bleary as you wake up. It's dark, way darker than you can remember your room being. Normally even with your cheap blinds pulled shut there were at least street lamps to contend with. Blinking sleep out of your eyes, you manage to at least get one coherent thought together: I have to go to the bathroom. That in mind, you swing your legs out of bed to get up.
Your floor had been covered in many things since you moved in, chief among them being clothing and used dishes, but you don't remember a solid piece of smooth hardwood being on the list. You reach down to let your hands do some fact checking for your feet, and sure enough it's solid wood as far as you can reach. Not entirely empty though. You feel yourself knock something small over, and you fumble to pick it up and try to identify it. ...A candle? Why is there a candle in here? Oh gross, what was this sitting in? It takes you a moment to realize that the seeming bottom of the candle, as well as now your hands, are covered in some sort of tacky liquid. Feeling around on the ground, you identify a line of it the substance. Feeling that it's not that wide, you stand back up and step over it - managing to step right into some other patch of the stuff. Cussing, you stumble a bit before banging your knee on what feels like an oddly low end table, and by the sounds of it knocking some heavy objects off. Sitting there and rubbing your bruised knee, you can't help but be a little vocal.
"GODDAMN I AM DONE WITH THIS! WHAT THE HELL MAN!" Your sleep-addled brain has, at this point, decided that this is some roundabout, overly elaborate prank from one of your roommates. You've also decided that you're going to acquaint him with the business end of your cast-iron frying pan.
At this point your roof opens.
Well, not exactly your roof as you quickly realize, but a door that was way higher up than your roof should be. As light filters in, you see that you're not in anywhere that even resembles your room. It's all wood, and with the exception of your bed all of the furniture is way too low. Before you can speculate as to why there's some sort of big fancy circle around your bed with candles, you hear a voice from the now open door, speaking in a language that you've never heard before. Looking up, you see a small purple face looking down at you, a horn parting the creature's hair. You feel as though you should know who or what this is, but like a dream that you try to remember, the more you think about it the less you can remember. Blinking in confusion, you look back up. "Hey, can you understand me? I've kinda got a whole lot of questions that need some answering."
The purple creature brightens at this, and begins talking animatedly. It points to the circle around your bed and continues to yammer on in whatever language it's speaking.
"Uh, okay? I can't actually understand a word you're saying. You wanna do charades on this one, or..." you barely start your second sentence before the creature smacks itself in the face. Staring at you, it's horn starts to glow, and it suddenly feels like your ears just popped so hard that someone else should have heard it. More than a little bit painful in fact, and it leaves you crouching and clutching your head with a loud ringing in your ears. As your hearing comes back, you can hear the creature again, but this time you can understand it.
"Sorry! Sorry! Sorry! That shouldn't have been painful, that was just a simple translation spell! Are you okay?" You groan a bit, and looking around you see that the creature- unicorn! it's a unicorn! some part of your brain yells at you- has come down the stairs and is looking at you with big, concerned eyes. You stand back up, nodding at her- it definitely sounds like a her, now that it sounds like she's speaking English. You're certain that you know her, and it feels like her name is on the tip of your tongue. "Sorry, this is bugging me so much. Have I met you? I mean I think I'd remember meeting a tiny purple unicorn, but you seem super familiar."
She raised an eyebrow at you. "No, I've never seen you before. I don't even know what species you are or which plane you're from- though I bet I could figure that second one out without too much work. Anyway, my name is Twilight Sparkle! Who would you be?"
You open your mouth only to realize that you actually have no idea. At first it feels like the mother of all brain farts, but as you continue to think you realize that you can hardly remember anything. Deciding to handle things one at a time, you decide you'll need a placeholder name. You're about to tell her that your name is Anonymous before the mental image of a retarded twelve year old at a computer flashes through your head for some reason. Shuddering, you scramble to think of something else. You realize that as you stall, Twilight is looking progressively more concerned. Right as you're about to try to sell her on your name being Mister Doubtfire (again, you're not sure why) she pipes up.
"Would you, ah, mind if I check something? Could you please kneel down?" Shrugging and still trying to think of a better name, you crouch. You see her horn glow, and a moment later it feels like someone is gently brushing the inside of your skull with toothbrushes, just hard enough that it almost hurts. For now it just feels rather unpleasant. Mercifully, it only lasts a moment, after which you let out a breath you hadn't realized you were holding. Twilight is giving you a very worried grin. "Care to share?"
She kicks at the ground nervously. "Well, it seems that your species doesn't quite have the natural resistance to magic that pretty much everything from this plane does. Along with that mental probe being way too easy, it seems that the spell that I used to bring you here-" she gestures to the circle, marred by your footprints "kinda poured a whole bunch of raw magic through you. Anyone with any resistance, it would have just passed harmlessly around, but in your case..." she took a deep breath. "...it seems like it kinda shorted out your memory. It's not gone, just kinda shut down. Uh... please don't be mad?"
"But that doesn't make any sense! I mean, before you walked in, I was yelling at..." You stop as you realize you don't actually remember anymore. Someone who sucked, you're pretty sure about that. Nervous, you look to her. "I was JUST yelling at someone. Why can't I remember who?"
"The more your brain operates, especially in a high magic environment like Equestria, the more it's going to try to hide the part of your memories that got hit. It's like an injured animal hiding a wound from a predator."
You sit down on what you dimly realize is a table, but is the right height to be a chair to you. After sitting there a moment, you speak up.
"So... going home. How would I arrange that, exactly?" Twilight's ears drop and she lets out a small sigh.
"That's fair, I don't really have the right to kidnap you, and I guess losing your memories isn't a good first impression. Let me lock in on where I grabbed you from first, I can send you back after that." Her horn lit up, and you unconsciously flinched a bit. "Don't worry, I'm not actually going to be touching you, just your... well, aura, I guess the term would be." After a few moments of this, her horn stops glowing. "Alright, I'm pretty sure I can trace back to the area that I got you from. I'm gonna open a window, tell me if it looks familiar or not. Don't wanna drop you off at the wrong place if I can help it, after all." Mutely you nod. Stepping back, she ignites her horn again, far brighter this time. You're pretty sure you can feel your teeth vibrate as the spell goes off, and as she relaxes a slightly blurry image appears in the air.
It's the interior of a house, and it looks pretty filthy. Laundry way too wide for you has been abandoned on the couch, and the nearby kitchen looks like an absolute mess. As you watch, the viewport seems to move through the house, going past the various people living there- all up despite the darkness outside the windows. Looks like they're at computers mostly, and your stomach turns with familiarity and revulsion as you look at this batch of people that you're certain that you know. As it comes to the last one, he seems to be screaming himself red at the screen, a vein visible in his neck even despite the blur. As the spell fades out. both you and Twilight are silent for a moment.
"So... did that look, uh... familiar?" You look at her, thinking how best to phrase your response.
"Yes, yes it did. It also looked gross and like there were some real jackoffs living there." You stand up from the table, stretching for the first time since you got up. "If it's alright with you, I think I'm gonna stay here a bit before I go back, if that's okay with you. Like, until those people either move out or die from sheer unpleasantness." Looking down at her, you see that she's beaming.
"You're gonna like it here. Come on, let's get some food into you, then we can see about clothes and a name, Mr. anonymous."
You suppress a shudder.
