//------------------------------//
// New World(view) 
// Story: My Little Pony: Friendship Beyond Worlds 
// by The Psychopath 
//------------------------------//

"Just a few more adjustments and it should be ready!" Twilight mused to herself.

She adjusted her cactus-leather cap, used a small threading hook in her teeth to pull at the strings tightened around the pulley, and changed the flexibility of the wooden wing made from refuse wood and thin pieces of linen. The noise of her work on her contraption was absorbed by the farming equipment laying about her family's barn. Most of the irrecoverable equipment laid in a pile in a corner. They had been stripped for parts and set to be sold to a scrapper whenever they came by, but it was a rare occasion, judging by the exorbitant amounts of dirt and grime covering the plows, tractors, and manual tools.

To anypony else, the stench of manure and rust mixed together would burn away the nose hairs, but to Twilight, it was a magical scent that made her think of home. A claim nopony else would make, for sure.

"All done!" Twilight proclaimed.

She turned off the many oil lamps hanging from blunted hooks affixed to the support beams of the barn and opened the doors to the bright sun outside.

"Let's do this!" the mare said.

The pony put on her harness and started pulling the flat cart outside, giving it its first sun bath. The mare looked up at the sky and squinted at the intensity. There were a few clouds, but nothing indicated they were heavy and laden with rain. 

Twilight smiled. "Guess I can take a break and stretch my limbs." She scratched her shoulder and looked at her neighbor's home. "I wonder if Applejack needs any help today."

Twilight removed her harness and placed her cap on her new, winged contraption. With a smile, she moved her mane out of her face and wiped her forehead of sweat. Her vaguely purplish dark-blue mane and tail were accentuated by two vertical lines of fuchsia and purple. The earth pony and her family stood out among most farmers in the area due to their vibrant coat that deviated from the usual yellows, browns, and oranges of the area. Twilight tapped her hooves on the dirt scraped clear of life by the massive wooden doors, freeing most of the dark purple crown draped by the fuzzy lavender of her fetlocks. The lavender pony checked her leg accessories for damage. She wore two golden bangles just above her ankles - Heirlooms, as it were, inherited from some ancestors long, long ago. Embossed on them was a six-pointed star, something whose meaning had long been forgotten by her family, much to Twilight's chagrin.

The mare frowned despite herself as she gently rubbed the heirlooms. "Well...can't think about that too much." Twilight looked at the immense fields of apple trees stretching all around the Apple family's fields as far as the eye could see and spotted something orange shifting about.

She hopped over the low, wooden fence and galloped through the field, ignoring some of the rotted apples that fell to the ground crunching under her hooves and splattering juices everywhere. The lavender pony snuck up behind Applejack analyzing a rather large tree and hopped onto her back.

"Hi, Applejack!"

"Bwah!"

The apple farmer bounced backwards, sending Twilight flying and making both ponies fall onto their backs.

"Twilight!" Applejack yelled angrily as she got back onto her hooves. "Ah told ya ta stop doing' that when ah'm workin'!"

"Hey! I work too," Twilight responded with a huff. "I just finished flight project number twenty-four!"

Applejack blinked. "Ya what?"

"I finished the next project."

The orange mare facehoofed and shook her head. "Another one? Ah thought ya liked just workin' on the farm equipment of ours 'n the others."

Twilight brushed dust off her coat. "Sure I do, but what's the point of having all this knowledge if I can't use it to create things?"

The farm pony grunted. "Alright, alright. No need ta get in a tizzy."

Applejack was a somewhat bulky pony thanks to extensive manual labor every day. Her pale orange coat made her stick out from her trees to somepony like Twilight, but even she didn't understand how a pony could sport white freckles across their face when they had fur. The farm pony's orangish black hooves were almost entirely covered by her fetlocks, causing the tips to be caked in dirt. Her blonde mane had been fashioned into a long, braided ponytail that hung over her right shoulder while her tail had been divided into four sections; Three resembled balls of hair and the last one was just the splayed end of her tail. The mare sported a wooden headpiece that wrapped around the back of her head by wooden beads. The front was divided into four rectangles of wood and three, green, apple-shaped ornaments carved by hoof. Finally, around her right foreleg's ankle was a strap of cactus leather that formed a cross pattern.

"Dagnabbit. Can't find mah cutters," Applejack complained. "Put it in mah laces." She grumbled. "Trees growing where they ain't s'posed ta."

Twilight frowned. "Doesn't your grandpa or grandma help you with that?" She looked around. "What about your brother and sister?" Twilight smirked. "Ah, excuse me. I didn't ask it correctly." She cleared her throat, and Applejack slowly stood up while staring at the earth pony with wide, unblinking eyes. "Ain't yer grandpappy 'n mammy s'posed to hulp ya with yer fermin' 'n stuff? What 'bout yer sibbins?"

The farm pony pushed her lower jaw forward in irritation, pursing her lips harder. She jumped on Twilight, got her into a headlock, then started to noogy her. "Ah told ya ta stop makin' fun of mah accent ya metal sniffin' idjit!"

"Ah! Stop! It was just a joke!"

Applejack let her friend go and sighed. "Mah family's gone ta the town nearby to sell our produce. Grandpappy Snappy was mighty excited, too." The mare gestured to an apple tree whose bark was bluer than any tree trunk should be. "Says his new apples'd be the best dern thing anypony's ever tasted." She sat down and leaned against a tree, letting her sore muscles rest for a moment. "What's yer project again? Somethin' ta help with harvestin' apples, ah hope."

Twilight shook her head. "Nope. Another flying machine."

AJ stared at her friend, dumbfounded. "Ah, consarnit, Twi! Ya've gone 'n crashed all the others. Why would this be any diff'rent?"

"Security features, Applejack. Security features," Twilight stated while tapping her head. "You want to come and see?"

AJ scoffed at the idea and stood back up. "Why would Ah? Ah've got apples to harvest, Twi. Ah can't go playin' around all the time lahk y'all're doin'."

"I'm not playing!" Twilight retaliated. "If I can invent a flying machine, then you and your family could go back and forth from the town and cities in a second! Plus, haven't you ever wondered what flying would be like?" She looked longingly at the sky. "To soar through the skies. Feel the cool wind flow over you?" Twilight melted in place with a silly look of satisfaction.

She looked into the distance and just barely made out the village where Applejack's family had gone. It was quite wide, and two rivers flowed through it, letting the townsfolk to gather water whenever they needed it and which served as a great source of water to use in the cooling systems implemented in the red brick walls of the large settlement. Twilight had never really been there, but Applejack's family often spoke of it when they came back. It boggled the young mare's mind.

"No," AJ said bluntly. She kicked the tree she was inspecting, knocking most of the apples into a large wicker basket waiting underneath. "A sayin' mah great great...six times great grandma said was that ponies always envy others of what they have 'n never appreciate what they do have that others don't. A saying our family has kept since." Twilight's ears flattened slightly and she looked away, melancholic. Applejack realized her mistake. "Ah..b-ah!...Pffff. Ah'm sorry Twi. Didn't mean ta bring up mah family's history."

"It's okay, Applejack. I'm not mad at you," the lavender pony reassured. "Just frustrated that I can't find anything on them."

The farmer rubbed the back of her neck. "Ah'd lahk ta say that you'll find some eventually, but...ya know ah hate givin' false hopes 'n the like."

Twilight nodded. "Sure, sure. I'm...going to check on my project. See you later, Applejack."

"Ah'm sorry, Twi!" Applejack insisted. She watched Twilight walk back home and heaved a sigh. "Times like these Ah wish Ah knew how ta fix muh hat ta hide mah face." The orange farmer shook her head and got back to work.

Several minutes later, the farm pony saw something take off from the Sparkle's barn's roof and heard a voice celebrating. AJ saw that Twilight had launched herself from the roof with her newfangled contraption.

"Wh-Twilight!" AJ shouted in panic.

Terrified for the well-being of her friend, AJ hopped over the fence and started galloping as fast as she could to follow the pony. The lumpy terrain didn't make galloping any less exhausting when trying to follow Twilight Sparkle. It was made all the worse when the farm pony realized the contraption was flying further than any of her friend's previous attempts.

"Aw no. She's headed fer the forest!" AJ realized.

Far from the farmlands was a wide forest sitting at the base of very tall and thin mountains that protected the area from a lot of storms but made winters harsh. The forest kept to itself, however, and was easy to manage if it started growing further than it was 'supposed to', but the monsters in it were anything but friendly. If Twilight ended up crashing loudly into it... Something she was just now doing. Several birds fled the trees, chased away from their homes by Twilight's 'flying' machine. 

Twilight removed the round, partially rusted helmet from her head and the brown, cactus leather suit she was wearing and put them in a pile next to the broken device.

"I was so close... I went so far...What went wrong? What am I forgetting?" the mare muttered angrily to herself. A small sense of satisfaction crossed her face, however. "But I did go so far already." 

Twilight started thinking deeply about how to perfect her device further, but the mare just couldn't understand what was wrong. She was quickly pulled from her reverie by the groans of the forest around her, making the earth pony realize just where she had landed.

The trees were tall and twisting as they rose high into the sky. The most prominent bark was a bright orange hue of a tree wider than three ponies standing side-by-side. The earth pony gulped when she saw the spade-shaped leaves of a nearby bush twitch and shake, loosening some purples and greens onto the dirty forest ground. Everypony knew to keep away from this forest. Fully illuminated during the day and glowing with color at night, but the inhabitants...Somehow, light never felt so unsafe.

Twilight quickly dove onto her destroyed invention and pried loose a wooden beam with her hooves and held it in her maw. "Who is it? Come on and show yourself!" The mare looked around, her heart beating against her ribcage. "P...please?"

"Twi?" a familiar voice called out.

Applejack passed between two bushes and shook herself loose of stray leaves and tiny sticks. "Consarnit, Twi! Ah told ya a thousand times ta stop usin' yer contraptions!" she reprimanded her friend.

Twilight sighed in relief and slumped down. "Telling an inventor to stop won't make them stop, Applejack," Twilight wheezed. She pointed to her safety equipment. "And I'm unhurt thanks to my other inventions."

The apple farmer trotted over to said equipment and hummed, irritated. She put a hoof to her chin and gave Twilight a side glance after noticing the helmet had dented in on one area. "Well, can't say that didn't work. Could prob'ly make a decent few coins with that, rather'n tryin' ta off yerself." She noticed Twilight staring at her, perplexed, taking her aback. "What? Ain't the first time ah've told ya this. Why're you so baffled now?"

Twilight pointed behind the apple pony. "What is that?"

"Hm?"

Right next to the crashed invention was a strange sliver floating in mid-air. Its contours were silvery and its interior red, whenever it could be spotted through the undulations. Applejack slowly backed away from it and stared in awe at the light it was creating that only seemed to intensify as time went on. The air around it shifted the appearance of everything into a rainbow hue seen through glass. Everything seemed to undulate as though a heat haze was coming from the rift itself.

"Yer invention went 'n broke reality, now," Applejack stated nervously. Twilight frowned and slowly got up. "What're you doin'?" Applejack whisper-yelled.

"Do you hear that?" the lavender earth pony asked.

"..."

"Ah can't hear nothin', Twi. Get away from that thing," the farm pony said.

"I can hear somepony from the rift," Twilight insisted as she moved closer.

Applejack was too gripped by a variety of emotions to be able to move properly. "What're you doin'? What if it-Put yer leg down!"

"...t..m..er."

Twilight reached forward, and the embossing on her bangle started to glow faintly. "But somepony--"

Suddenly, the rift ripped itself apart and revealed a tumultuous sea of pinks and blues mixing together violently. It angrily started pulling in everything around into its dangerous waters to vanish who knew where. Due to her proximity, Twilight was unable to get away and was partially sucked into it.

"Applejack!" she cried out. "Help!"

The farm pony scampered clumsily from shock to grab onto Twilight's forelegs and strain to pull her. "Ah've got ya, Twi! Ain't lettin' you get eaten by no weird hole!"

Try as she might, Twilight was still slowly getting pulled deeper in. Her body had been half devoured already, and Applejack's attempts to keep herself in place only created divots along the ground. The farm pony was already feeling her muscles tiring from the stress and the colossal effort she was putting into pulling Twilight.

"Ah ain't...gonna let ya g--"

She was interrupted by the rift widening and the hazy effect stretching around them and warping the colors of the forest into a cascade of an everchanging rainbow.

"Wha--" Twilight blurted out before the two ponies were immediately pulled in.

The lavender earth pony felt both hot and cold in this strange space where she soared through. She and Applejack were rolling about the air uncontrollably, and any words they tried to make only came out as an echoing noise which started softly then exploded in intensity, hurting their ears. This dark-blue space thrummed with energy, and the distant blues were sometimes decorated by white spots, flowing white veins, or both. Tendrils of wispy white and blue light flowed throughout this place, sometimes converging into a single point, creating a bright light tinted with a very faint yellow.

"What is this?" Twilight thought. 

She and Applejack were pulled and spun around towards the largest ball of light in the rift space, and some shapes started to emerge, as though everything was trying to remake itself for the visitors to understand what they were seeing. Other rifts started appearing and disappearing in small numbers, but the ponies couldn't see through them.

"Is that...?!" Twilight pondered as she continued to tumble.

She could see...something in front of the immense, wispy ball of light. Getting closer to it, the lavender pony realized that the figure seemed as big as the mountains and only grew the closer she got to it.

"...me...th...light from..." a voice echoed in Twilight's mind. "...onsum...imbalanc...the dark..." it continued.

"What?"

Applejack caught up to her friend, somehow, and grabbed ahold of her foreleg, scaring Twilight. As relief settled in, another rift opened right next to them and pulled them downwards. They felt the temperatures and air pressure change the moment they went through, making their ears 'pop'.