I laid in the bed I first woke up in, staring at the Element of Loyalty on the desk. None of this made any sense. Why did it choose me? Was it just because I looked like the Sunshine from this world, or was there some other reason? Did it have anything to do with whatever brought me here? Is there some destiny I have to fulfill or something?
I was asked to get some sleep, and was offered other Sunny’s bedroom to sleep in. However, the Element of Loyalty brought up too many questions to allow me to sleep. It wasn’t just the Element though. I was also very curious about the world I ended up in. Like, why was I in this bed when I could be seeing that city outside?
No. You know what? Fuck it. I’m going to be exhausted in the morning and I don’t care. I need to see this world at least a little before I leave. I got out of bed and left the room. Starburst did tell me what those buttons were called: sensor pads. Why didn’t I think of that name? I just went right for button. Bah, no tangents now. Maybe later.
Looking over the balcony, Starburst and Sugar appeared to just be sitting on a sofa. A monitor on the wall in front of them was playing some sort of television program, though what that program was, I couldn’t tell. Maybe a documentary. Maybe a soap opera. The mares seemed more occupied with each other though. They were back to talking. Instead of eavesdropping again though, I just hovered on down.
Starburst glanced in my direction. “We do have stairs, you know.” She stated, pointing at the stairs.
I scoffed at her silly suggestion. “Me? Use stairs? Not a chance. We don’t get along very well.”
She gave me an odd look, but shrugged it off. “Um, right. So, what are you doing up? Can’t sleep?” She asked.
I shook my head. “No, I can’t. I have too many questions. Not only about the Element sitting upstairs, but about this world in general. Like, the socks and headset upstairs. What do they do?”
Starburst started her explanation. “Well, the socks and headset are meant to be used together. The headset is an AR device. I assume you know what AR means, right?” I nodded, and she continued. “Okay. The headset has a few features. You probably saw its first one, where it displays information about its surroundings.”
“Yeah, I caught a few places outside before the info overload was too much. Something about a restaurant and a nightclub.” I interrupted.
Starlight’s ear twitched, but she continued. “Yes. Now then, we’re getting off topic. The headset also has other features. The first is a communication application, allowing you to talk to others with compatible communicators. It can be used either with voice commands or by an addition on the HUD. This is where the socks come in. They connect with the HUD, and you could use them to interface with the HUD.”
“Sounds like it would look silly.”
“It’s not the most efficient method, but it works. However, headsets like that are pretty old. There are newer variants, as well as neural implants.” Seeing my confused face, she continued. “They have all the same features that the headsets have, with more additional benefits, such as mental commands. The fancier and military variants even come with virtual assistants to help with managing the applications as well as the user’s bodily functions.” Starburst rubbed the back of her head. “I’ve got a basic one. Our friend Viola has a top-of-the-line variant. She kinda has to, considering her condition.”
I tilted my head in confusion and curiosity. “What do you mean? What kind of condition?”
“Oh, she’s a cyberpony. Most of her body has been replaced or augmented with cybernetic machinery.” Starburst answered, then she continued. “They were forced on her by group of evil ponies who wanted to use her for an attack on Princess Spectra. Luckily we managed to rescue her and put a stop to those ponies.”
Yikes. Sounds like I was lucky not to end up here. Though the implants do sound cool, I’d rather not have one. Sounds like too much of a hassle, plus they’d probably be useless outside of this dimension.
I had more questions though. “So, does Spectra take students or something?” I don’t know why I had this question though.
Starburst nodded. “Yes. She does. In fact, we were considering letting her know about this situation. Then again, I don’t know if she’ll help, or even be supportive. She could see it as a threat, and have you hostage until we get our Sunny back. We’ve never dealt with other worlds.” And from there, she went into full Twilight Panic Mode. Trademark pending.
“What if Sunny decides to attack the other world? What if she was captured and is being held hostage? We could be at war! Princess Spectra hasn’t seen combat in over three hundred years. We don’t know what other worlds could be capable of. What if they have giant robots? Or trained attack walruses? Walrusi? Walruseseses?” At this point Sugar slapped her and she regained a bit of her sanity. Just a bit. “Right, sorry.”
I shook my head. “I doubt you’re in any danger. You have a good few thousand years on them.” I attempted to diffuse her worries. Though I have to wonder why everyone jumps to walruses? What did walruses do to anyone?
There was a knock on the door, making the three of us jump slightly. Starburst looked between me and the door quickly. There was a moment’s hesitation before the knock came again, and Starburst went to open it. I flopped face first on the now empty spot on the couch when I heard a gasp from Starburst. “Princess!”
Well shit.
Out of all the ponies I wanted to meet right now, the reigning princess of Equestria was not high on the list. It wasn’t out of fear of being arrested. Okay, maybe a little. But seriously, why did she have to show up now of all times?
“Good evening Starburst.” I heard the princess say. She had a calm, elegant voice, with a slight synthetic vibe to it. Perfectly reasonable, considering she was synthetic too. “I felt a disturbance in the Elements, so I thought I’d come and investigate.” Oh right, she probably felt the spell Starburst tried to cast on me earlier when it backfired. Starburst did say she was imbued with the power of the Elements. Only makes sense that she’d know when something went wrong.
“Oh, well, there’s really nothing wrong. Just a late night experiment, is all.” Starburst, you’re a terrible bullshitter. You couldn’t use a more obvious “I’m hiding something” tone if you tried. I wasn’t looking, but I’m willing to bet money she did the whole eyes darting back and forth thing too.
“Uh huh.” Yup, Spectra wasn’t buying the bullshit Starbutt was selling. “So tell me, what’s this about the Element of Loyalty?” She asked, her tone suddenly making the whole room feeling slightly colder.
Okay, she was more in tune with those things than I expected. I raised my hoof, not bothering to turn my head to look at her. “Yo.”
I assumed she turned to look at me, and I bet she was frowning too. “Sunshine, you should really take this more seriously. If you lose your connection with the Element, it could - are you even listening to me?”
“I’m sorry Princess, but I’ve had a rough past few hours. The Element is fine. There’s nothing to worry about on that front.” I said, waving my hoof dismissively. The entire week as been rough, but it’s the first few hours in a new universe that gets to me the most.
I heard the princess sigh. “Alright then. Perhaps I could help make your evening a little better.” My ear twitched curiously, and she continued. “I brought with me the new PARGear 380. I know you’ve been using that old 240 model for quite a while, and I wanted to show my thanks for last week.” She sounded like she pulled a complete 180 from a minute prior.
She floated a sleek looking visor towards me. It was definitely more streamlined than that headset upstairs. There were a couple round… well, I assumed them to be earpieces, though with a pony’s anatomy I had no idea how that would work. I accepted the visor and put it on. It somehow stayed on, even though my muzzle was the only thing actually keeping it on. The earpieces were snug against the sides of my head, just under the actual ears. Again, I severely question their usefulness. Or at least I did until I heard a beep from my left, and the visor suddenly lit up with a fancy looking HUD. It was a lot cleaner than the other one, and didn’t give me sensory overload. I could see a compass at the top of my vision, an image of what I assumed to be me on the bottom right, and a small image of my cutie mark on the bottom left, with a label that read, “Mana: 100%.” I spent about ten seconds trying to come to terms with what was on my face before I managed a response. “...What?”
Real smooth, Sunshine.
The princess behind me giggled. It sounded weird, coming from a synthetic voice like that. “I’m surprised by you tonight. I suppose that’s a good thing. It would be a shame if you were predictable.”
Eh, fuckit, I’ll tell her. Screw the consequences. “You think that’s interesting, you should hear this…”
Normally, Twilight Sparkle enjoyed spending time in Canterlot Castle. The home of her longtime friend and mentor brought many good memories of the times and lessons they shared. Now, however, Twilight would rather be anywhere but there. The happy memories had been twisted into memories of lies and deception by a princess that Twilight couldn’t even recognize anymore.
After she sent Sunshine into a parallel Equestria she found - one of many she discovered that day - she went and did further research on humanity’s culture and society. Mainly their books. One in particular stood out to her. And old book written by a human named Orwell. The book told of a disturbing society where dissenting thought is punished and, in her mind at least, harmony is twisted into a dark shadow of what she knew. It stood out not because of the messages it told, but instead of the parallels she was seeing between that old book, and the plans Celestia had for both Equestria and Earth.
There was nothing Twilight could do to stop those plans. Not without help. But the help Twilight needed was either against her, or held prisoner. And those prisoners were against her too. Both worlds saw her as an enemy now. Hopefully she could change a few minds before one of them brought her down. Maybe one of them could stop Celestia.
Thankfully, Twilight knew a variety of stealth and anti-detection spells, so getting around the castle was a piece of cake. Just as long as she didn’t run into the princesses, as she knew her spells wouldn’t hold up against them. Fortunately for her, Princess Celestia was out leading the charge. That left Princess Luna to hold Day Court in her stead.
Twilight passed another set of guards and entered the dungeons. There were two cells occupied at the moment. One was occupied by a group of humans who tried to cross into Equestrian territory. No doubt they would be subjects for Operation: Harmonize. The other cell was occupied by Sunshine’s friends, who were captured the day before. Though strangely there were only two of them left. Both of them were unicorns Twilight recognized as being with Sunshine from the start of this mess.
She quickly cast a sleep spell on the guards posted by the cell, followed by a silence spell so that they wouldn’t be heard, then dropped her invisibility spell. The immediate vocal outrage that came her way from the humans behind her made her glad she cast that silence spell. She cast it again on the humans to make them shut up.
The ponies in the cell looked at her with a mixture of disbelief and confusion. She let out a sigh. “I know you can’t forgive what I’ve done, but I’m here to help.” She said. She wanted to know where the others were, but they probably were as much in the dark about that as she was.
The dark blue unicorn - Twilight reminded herself the mare’s name was Starry Night - spoke up first. “You were blinded by the light of the sun. It’s okay, we all were.”
The white unicorn, Ponyville’s former DJ Twilight remembered, groaned. “Ugh, must you always speak so cryptically? I can’t understand a single bucking thing you say.” She turned to Twilight. “And what are you doing here? Come to laugh at our failure? I wasted my prototype portable party trying to stop those guards.” She sat on her haunches and sighed. “Five months of work gone to waste…”
Twilight cleared her throat and began her carefully prepared proposition. “I’ve come to ask you all a very important question. You’ve all assisted Sunshine for a while now, and now that she’s in another world, she’s safe from Celestia. My question to you is: do you want to go with her or stay and fight a battle you have already lost?”
The proposition was simple. If they said they wanted to go with Sunshine, she’d hoof over the dimension jumping spell and they’d never have to come back here again. They could do whatever they wished, wreak whatever chaos they wished upon the multiverse. It came with its own dangers of course, but they’d survive. Choosing to stay… would be a death penalty. Simple as that.
Starry stepped forward, her face stern. “You come to offer us freedom or death. You expect us to say no? I only have to wonder why you offer this to us.”
Twilight sighed. “I made a mistake. I can’t fix it, but I can help you escape from it.” She levitated a scroll through the bars. On the scroll was a spell matrix, and instruction on how it works. “That’s the spell to travel through worlds. Well, at least the first version of it. You should be able to cast it once every 24 hours. Focus on a specific point you want to go to, and the spell will form a portal to take you there. If you leave any specifics out, the exit point will be random.”
"Why once a day?" Vinyl asked.
"It's a prototype spell I developed at the very beginning of all this to try and find new worlds to explore. While it isn't very taxing on even an amateur spellcaster, it becomes highly unstable when used frequently by the same unicorn. We found this out after one pony... well, I don't know. He disappeared, then showed up again three weeks later, rambling about some unspeakable horrors. Strangely enough, he was terrified of Pinkie and Rainbow." She stopped herself before she lectured on too long. "The point is, unless you can refine the spell yourself, you'd best stick to waiting 24 hours before casting it again."
Starry read through the scroll, then passed it to Vinyl. “Hmm, looks tough, but nothing we can’t handle.” The DJ boasted. “Though, maybe you should do it first, so I know what I’m looking at.” She added quickly.
Starry rolled her eyes and looked back at Twilight. “Thank you. If you see Princess Luna, tell her I said farewell.” She lit up her horn as she started casting the spell, and a moment later, a portal opened up in front of them. “Good luck, Twilight Sparkle, and goodbye.” And with that, Starry Night walked through the portal. Vinyl Scratch followed soon after, but not before giving the humans in the other cell a big raspberry.
Seeing her work done for the day, Twilight recast her invisibility spell and left the dungeons. She needed to get out of Canterlot ASAP, and there was still work to be done. She would not go quietly into the dark, and she will not go alone.