Love Is A Miracle
Chapter 2: Stranger in a Strange Land
Tiffany shielded her eyes with a hand when the green light grew too intense. As programmed, the machinery immediately went into automatic cool down mode. The scientists continued their observations of the latest data from each of their stations, while the noise died down. The main light automatically switched on and flooded the room. Tiffany quickly moved towards the platform without even waiting to hear the results. Her eyes went wide and she nearly jumped in celebration upon first glance.
“SUCCESS!!!!!” she shouted happily and held her hand up to high five the nearest scientist. Other scientists let out cheers as Tiffany’s excited mood spread. Tiffany looked back at her audience to notice Stella and security chief Knight applauding vigorously. “Begin phase two and initiate safety protocols,” Tiffany announced, still grinning.
Scientists sounded off with shouts of “Phase Two!” as they pushed buttons and flipped switches. The platform in the center of the room began descending to a lower level of the laboratory. Tiffany hurried over to Stella. “Would you care to join me downstairs to watch phase two, Miss Canterbury?” she asked excitedly. The older woman shook her head. “I’m afraid I must excuse myself; the time I can spare has been exhausted. Congratulations again on your success. I look forward to learning more about today’s events,” she replied cheerfully. Tiffany smiled and nodded as the president departed.
The head scientist then faced the head of security. “Would you care for an escort down to laboratory B?” he then asked. Tiffany looked away and pretended to be deep in thought for a moment. “I don’t know. I’m not sure if being escorted by some macho security guy whose into nerdy science girls would be such a good idea.” she replied and playfully stuck her tongue out at him.
“Well, this lab is in such a rough neighborhood and we’re surrounded by all sorts of questionable characters. You can’t be too careful.” he winked.
Tiffany let out a girlish giggle as they walked together to the sub-level. They arrived in a laboratory that was partitioned by a thick glass wall. On the other side of the glass were several people wearing biohazard suits sampling the atmosphere inside the sealed platform. The team leader addressed Tiffany. “All our checks are complete. No foreign contaminants detected. Target’s life signs are stable.”
The team began to clear out as Tiffany moved towards a door next to the glass wall. “Are you sure you should just go walking in there without any form of protection?” Knight cautioned.
“What could possibly go wrong?” she asked while smiling mischievously.
The security chief raised an eyebrow and chuckled a bit. “You just recreated a scene straight out of science fiction. Anything could go wrong.”
“Well then maybe you should join me,” Tiffany teased and pushed several buttons on a keypad next to the door. Tiffany entered as the door slid aside.
---
Twilight Sparkle could barely hear the muffled sounds over the ringing in her ears. As the ringing began to subside she could hear machinery and somepony talking. Twilight could not understand what was being said just yet. When she opened her eyes the world appeared bright and out of focus. The pony’s head bobbed dizzily for a moment. Twilight shook her head to remove the last traces of drowsiness. Regaining her bearings she began taking stock of what happened.
The first thing she noticed was how cold the floor had become. It was no longer the wooden stage, but a large metallic circle that was encased in featureless glass, save for a small speaker positioned where the base of the glass met the edge of the circle. Beside her lay the Element of Magic tiara and her enchanted crystal. Looking beyond, Twilight noticed that the glass tube she was in sat in the center of a featureless glass room whose ceiling appeared to be one solid light. The floor was also featureless and appeared to be a solid slab of pure white marble, like that of the royal palace.
“Did I get teleported somewhere? Is this someplace else in the palace?” Twilight thought out loud. The strange talking she had heard earlier started up again; this time sounding much faster and more excited. “Um, hello? Is somepony talking to me?” she asked and squinted. Her eyes began to grow accustomed to the intense light and as they did she started to notice something else beyond the glass.
“Waaah-!”
Twilight yelped as she was startled to see several strange creatures lurking outside of the glass. They were tall, wore clothes, and stood on two legs. They each had hand appendages similar to Spike’s claws. They had no hair on them except on their heads. Some of them had longer hair while others had short hair. Twilight’s analytical mind couldn’t help but wonder if the different hair lengths determined their gender.
“Hello?”
“She’s trying to communicate! Bring out the pictures! Get the linguists working on her language!” Tiffany ordered. A scientist ran up carrying a large pad and easel. He set up the easel and placed the pad upon it. Tiffany immediately flipped the cover to the first page. The page showed a simple drawing of a person and a pony smiling and extending a hand and hoof out to each other in friendship. Tiffany pointed to the picture and then to herself.
“Friend.”
Twilight looked confused by the motions made by Tiffany. ‘Are they trying to communicate with me?’ she thought. The lavender unicorn sensed she was not in danger, so she stood up and looked closely through the glass at the picture. Tiffany saw that Twilight was trying to understand and she repeated herself.
“Friend.”
Realization dawned on Twilight. “Oh, you don’t speak Pony so you’re using pictures,” she remarked aloud. She smiled and mimicked Tiffany with her hoof. The pony tried to form the strange utterance with her own mouth. “Fffffr-end.”
Tiffany gasped and nodded excitedly. “Yes, friend! I am a friend! She’s understanding us!” she said and quickly flipped the page to another picture. An image of a person over a picture of Earth was shown. Tiffany pointed to the person and said, “Human.” She then pointed to the picture of Earth and said, “Earth.”
Twilight listened and put a hoof to her chin in thought. She could understand what Tiffany was trying to do but forming the words was difficult. “Hhhue-mun. Errrrf.”
Tiffany nodded again and smiled. “Yes, that’s right!” she said. The next page showed the same picture on the left with the addition of a pony standing over an image of the Earth on the right. In the center of the page was a large door. Over the door was an arrow pointing from the pony to the person. Tiffany pointed to the picture of the Earth under the person and then to herself. Twilight looked at the image and slowly nodded in realization. ‘Oh I see. So I somehow ended up here on this ‘Earth.’ That explains it.’ Tiffany then pointed to the Earth under the pony. Twilight smiled and replied, “Equestria! That’s the name of my home.”
Tiffany looked confused for a moment. ‘Wait, which word is the name of her home?’ she thought. The pony’s language was like nothing she had ever heard before. Twilight picked up on the puzzled expressions and put her hoof to her face. “Ugh, this is going to take a while.”
“Doctor Sparks! We’ve been feeding it’s language into the translation program but our results are inconclusive,” reported one of the linguists over the intercom. “Before it crashed we were getting language origins from Germanic, Mandarin, Slavic and Swahili. In just ONE sentence! Other sentences produced origins from Latin, Greek, Aramaic, and…. ancient Olmec.”
“All those languages? How is that even possible?” Tiffany replied.
“I have no idea but we just crashed the program again. This time it reported Navajo, Italian, Hangul, and Spanish!”
Twilight had no idea what the ‘humans’ were discussing. She could tell they looked upset and confused over something. Finally the pony decided to do something she should have done sooner. She concentrated until her horn began to softly glow red. The sight of the red glow caused some of the spectators to panic and duck for cover. Tiffany watched in curiosity, unable to move from her spot.
The security chief was already running in the moment the glow appeared. “Tiff, look out! You have no idea what-!”
“There. That should do it. You should be able to understand me now.”
Everybody’s eyes suddenly focused on Twilight, some with jaws dropped. The glow had ceased from Twilight’s horn and she smiled in expectation. When no one immediately responded she tilted her head slightly. “Can you hear me now?”
Tiffany, after being momentarily stunned, nodded.
“Good!”
“But how are you speaking English?” Tiffany asked.
“Oh I’m not speaking English. I simply cast a translation spell so it sounds like I’m speaking English. To me, you’re all speaking Pony,” Twilight explained.
“I hear Japanese!” said one of the scientists.
“The spell I cast allows everyone in range to hear the language they have the most affinity to within a twenty hoof radius.”
Tiffany smiled in awe. “Did you just say you cast a spell? As in, a magic spell?”
“Yeah, magic. Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of magic before.”
“Well, yes, but only in story books. It doesn’t really exist. The closest thing to magicians that we have are illusionists,” Tiffany explained. As the scientist talked she studied the little pony. Twilight Sparkle appeared to stand four feet high with her head reaching up to her chest. Tiffany was reminded of a typical pony but with a smaller and more expressive face.
Twilight put a hoof to her chin and began to think aloud. “Hm, no magic. So you must have used science to bring me here. But if you don’t have the laws of magic to contend with then you only need to consider natural physical laws. So in the absence of magical laws you humans must have developed some other physical laws to compensate which is impossible without the laws of magic; which means if the laws of magic don’t exist here then I must be in another dimension!” she concluded.
Tiffany smiled and nodded. “That’s right. I invented an inter-dimensional portal that brought you over from your dimension into ours,” she explained.
“You were able to do that without magic? How do you control things at the atomic level? What methods do you use to harmonize the molecules? I have so many questions and I don’t know where to begin! What kind of world is this? What kind of civilization do ‘humans’ have? How did you develop?” Twilight rambled on excitedly.
“I’m curious as to how she can be so nonchalant about being pulled into another dimension,” Knight wondered aloud as he listened to the pony rattle off so many questions. “It reminds me a bit of somebody else I know” he whispered playfully to Tiffany.
“Oh after traveling through time, all over Equestria to Tartarus and back you get kind of used to strange trips like this. I assume you have the means to send me back right? Of course you do! You wouldn’t just bring me here without being able to send me back. That wouldn’t make any sense!” Twilight said with a laugh.
Tiffany looked at Twilight with a nervous grin and then looked away. The pony picked up on this and tilted her head slightly. “You DO have a way to send me back. Right?”
The scientist coughed nervously for a few seconds while Twilight’s jaw dropped. Tiffany broke out into a fit of giggles. “I’m so sorry. I couldn’t help it,” she said in-between laughs. “But the look on your face was priceless!”
“Dr. Sparks, you shouldn’t tease the pony from the other dimension,” Knight murmured.
“I know but I couldn’t help it. Knowing how I would react, it just came to mind-” Tiffany said before laughing some more.
Twilight took the laughter as a good sign and let out a sigh of relief. “Oh, good. So you do have the means to send me back. I admit, you got me pretty good there. You could give Pinkie Pie a run for her money in the prank department.”
“Yes, we can send you back once the system has cooled down and re-energized. Before we do, however, I was hoping we could take the opportunity to learn about each others' worlds. I have so many questions!” Tiffany stated.
Twilight smiled and nodded. “Of course! But could you let me out of here first?”
Tiffany motioned to the scientist by the control panel for the glass chamber. He pushed a few buttons, which caused a hissing of pressure release, as the glass tube rose up to the ceiling. Twilight levitated the tiara onto her head and carried the crystal with her magic as she trotted off of the platform.
“Thank you, that’s much better. With all the excitement I completely forgot to introduce myself. My name is Twilight Sparkle,” she introduced, putting a hoof up to her chest. As she did so, one of the scientists peering through the doorway remarked, “Can a pony even move like that?”
“My name is Tiffany Sparks, the chief scientist of this facility,” she introduced, putting a hand up to her chest. “This man here is Sean Knight, the head of security. I couldn‘t help but notice you are wearing a tiara; are you a princess?”
Twilight shook her head and laughed a little. “Oh no, I’m not a princess. But I am the personal student to Princess Celestia, ruler of Equestria. She rules alongside her sister, Princess Luna.”
“Oh, then why are you wearing a tiara? And what is that crystal for?” Tiffany asked curiously.
“This tiara is the symbol for the Element of Magic. I am a bearer of one of the six Elements of Harmony,” Twilight stated proudly. “And this crystal is something I was showing at the Canterlot Magical Conference,” she displayed. All the humans looked at her in confusion. “It was a convention for magic and science. You kind of teleported me during the closure of my presentation. I was using the tiara and the crystal, in conjunction with a spell, to create a long distance instant communication device.”
Sean raised an eyebrow. “It sounds like you invented a cell phone.”
Twilight looked confused. “A cell wha-?”
The man pulled out a small rectangular device with a number pad and digital screen. “This is a cellular telephone, or cell phone for short. It lets us talk to people around the world in real time,” he explained. The cell phone was enveloped in a magical aura and ripped away from his hand. Twilight stared at it in fascination.
“This is AMAZING. How did you make something like this without magic?” the purple pony inquired while studying it intently.
“I didn’t actually make it. Uh, I really don’t know how they make these things,” he admitted sheepishly.
Twilight returned the cell phone to Sean and looked at Tiffany. “First you have to tell me how you teleported me. Since you don’t have the ability to harness magic, you must have compensated somehow.”
Tiffany grinned and rubbed her hands together. “I’m so glad you asked. You see we begin with the properties of astrophysics….”
---
“Hey! What happened to the connection!?”
“Ah dunno, Pinkie. Hey Rarity, ya got any idea why we can‘t hear Twilight?” Applejack asked the white unicorn.
“Don’t look at me, darling. Twilight only showed me how to turn it ‘on’ with my magic. I really wouldn’t know what to do if something went wrong,” Rarity replied.
“Oh, do you think Twilight is okay?” Fluttershy worriedly asked.
“I’m sure she’s fine. We probably just have to hit the stupid crystal or something,” Rainbow Dash stated as she floated and brought her hoof up to strike. Rarity immediately moved the crystal away with her magic.
“Crystals are delicate, dear, you don’t just go hitting them. Really, you need to learn how to treat things more carefully,” Rarity scolded.
“Ah whatever. I still think the crystal’s already broken,” the blue pegasus said and flapped her wings in defiance. Pinkie’s tail suddenly twitched and she hopped sideways just as a burst of green fire took them all by surprise. Rainbow Dash crashed on the floor as a scroll landed beside her.
“Oh it’s a letter from Spike,” Applejack said and unrolled it. All five ponies huddled together as Applejack read the letter out loud.
“Dearest friends of Twilight Sparkle, I want to assure you that Twilight Sparkle is well. However, an odd event has occurred at the Canterlot Magical Conference which renders Princess Luna and I unable to determine her location. We urgently summon the Elements of Harmony to Canterlot. Signed, Princess Celestia.”
“Oh dear,” squeaked Fluttershy.
“Come on, ya’all. Twilight needs us! Let’s move our flanks to the train station,” Applejack called out.
“If Twilight’s missing then I’m gonna fly on ahead. See you in Canterlot!” Rainbow Dash said before running out the door and taking off. The other four ponies ran to the Ponyville train station.