//------------------------------//
// The Portal 
// Story: The Requiem 
// by Onyxian 
//------------------------------//

[A/N] Sorry this took so long, I’ve been busy over the Winter.

It had been four weeks since the awakening of Twilight Sparkle’s older brother, Shining Armor, whose purpose onboard the star cruiser was in question. Unfortunately, as he recuperated from his awakening, he replied to the question with a quick “I don’t know.” and then forced everypony to go about their business as if his purpose there was never questioned. For Twilight, the event was nothing less than a sign of more questions to arise. Why was her brother there? Why wasn’t Pinkie Pie onboard? Why are they there? These important questions flocked relentlessly around her expanded and intelligent mind, and although her knowledge of mathematics and probability was much better than most, she was still finding herself staring blankly out the Observation Deck window, with only her home planet to continue watching. True, a moon orbited nearby, which meant that Luna had to be alive, whether it be on the ship or on the planet; she could not answer. Regardless, she still stared wonderfully out that glass window, gazing beyond the metallic world she had been trapped in for a very long four weeks. Sometimes, her brother, who had also been turned into whatever the rest had, caught her little gazing and often surprised her with his sudden presence. Usually to check on her and make sure she is okay, and sometimes is because he’s lonely without his wife, Cadence. With her absence, he wondered and questioned just as much as Twilight. And once, they both caught themselves staring through the glass, through the only spectrum to which they could experience a world other than the one the had been reborn into.
The other ponies were busy doing other things. Stereotypical things.
Rainbow Dash practiced running constantly on the lower maintenance deck, and barely took breaks. She had grown to be quite well at it, much better than Fluttershy, who sometimes fell when walking too fast in a hallway. Dash had grown not only to her new feet, but to her new body. She was fine with her new form and how it would drastically change things for her. The only thing she hated was the loss of her wings. Fluttershy would have also complained if it weren’t for her shy behavior since Celestia knows when.
Fluttershy, other than constantly tripping, was still trying out her new body, using her fingers and thumbs by cascading them across walls, pipes and other materials. She was one of those characters that anypony could easily identify just by looking at what she was doing then. Curious and shy, she rarely showed her face, and often ate in the Cafeteria when nopony was around. Yes, everypony else felt sorry for her, but they couldn’t blame her. She was alone; no pets, no animals, no nature. All she had was her friends (minus Pinkie).
Rarity usually hung around Edward, who was often checking on ship systems and terminals when he wasn’t eating or sleeping. Question after question did he so gladly answer, and Rarity felt like she was reading a book all the while. She demanded often after waking Shining Armor that she make a better outfit for herself. When Ed said that the ship had no way of doing so, she threatened him in the middle of dinner by saying that she could take all her clothes off and refuse to put them back on until she got her new outfit. Nopony ever saw Ed turn so red in the face before. That was when he asked everypony if they remembered how they got their clothes on. When they replied with a simple ‘no’, he took Rarity to a private area and talked about ‘indecent exposure’. At least that’s what Twilight heard when Rainbow Dash and her were talking.
And Applejack did a mixed variety of things. She played a lot with the ingredients in the kitchen on Deck 6 to cook really enjoyable meals, she joined Rainbow Dash in her jogging around the maintenance deck, she even accompanied Twilight when she gazed in hope out the Observation Deck window. But mostly, she just explores the ship often in boredom. She was often the one who organized meetings in the bridge, and asked the most questions about Equestria, the ship, and so on and so forth. The most surprising answer she got was that Celestia’s control of the sun was falsified through the motionless position of the sun. In fact, it surprised everypony there. And yet again, Ed stood awkwardly in the room like he had when Rarity nearly fainted all those weeks ago.

Twilight gazed silently out the non-opaque, visually blissful window that opened the wonders of space to somepony with little to no comprehension of it’s existence. Wide-eyed, her mind processed the thousands upon thousands of thoughts per second, the images and ideas that constantly popped up, the voices she could so vaguely recall from her time in Ponyville; Spike, Cadence, Zecora, Celestia, Luna, all missing from her now. She thought of how alone she would be without the awakening of her friends, without Edward, without anypony. She would just be cold, fragile, and alone, in the husk that was their star cruiser. Questions were nothing, now. She had none on her mind, trying to cancel them out, so that she could glance in serenity at the ever-expanding universe that she was hopelessly thrust into. No memory of how or why she got there, no explanation to why everypony else wasn’t there, no reason to why Edward won’t land the cruiser on Equestria. There was a lot of things that she was unsure of at this point, ironically so because she usually knows how to handle every situation, with her knowledge of magic and Equestria at her side. But both had abandoned her. It was time for her to figure it out on her own with her best weapon: her mind. And currently, her mind did wondrous things whilst gazing into the infinite expanse of space. So that’s what she did.
Shining Armor, wearing the same black and grey clothing that everypony else wore (including Edward), approached from the staircase, knowing that in the absence of her sister, he would always find her up on the bridge; staring, gazing, wondering of what may happen next. She somehow noticed he was behind her. Perhaps it was the strong connection between them, ever since they were little ponies, in a time where the confusion and darkness of the world never touched them. They played, laughed, fought, apologized, got in trouble, usual kid stuff. So harmless, so trusting...
“Hey,” Shining Armor said, smiling at his sister. “You okay?”
“Yeah. Fine.” Twilight responded, not even turning to face her brother while either of them spoke. From this, Shining Armor speculated his sister’s well-being.
“You sure?” he replied uneasily.
“Yeah.” another blatant answer came in response.
Coming up from her right side, he looked upon her still, anxious face, watching motionless and interested at the glistening stars and the bluish glow of her home. “If there’s anything you want to talk about...?”
“No, it’s okay. I’m okay.” Still mesmerized by the images of space, the blue-haired bookworm tried her best to keep staring, to cancel everything and everypony out, so that she could remain at peace; that’s all she ever wanted.
“Twi, please,” he turned her away from the window, towards him, staring into her eyes which had been broken from the universal gaze. “Tell me.” As if he had read her mind, Shining Armor stood patiently for her answer. Still briefly recuperating from her stargaze, Twilight quickly responded to reassure her brother.
“It’s okay, really. I’m just stargazing, that’s all.”
“Twi, you’ve been doing this for weeks now, and all I can do is join you. Why do you constantly look out that window?”
Ashamedly, Twilight avoided eye contact and instead stared at the floor. “Is it wrong to miss something, Shining?” She then looked back to the window, towards her planet. “Look. Our home, right there, waiting for us to get to it. So why are we still here?”
With a chuckle, Shining replied. “I think that’s a question that you’d have to ask Ed, Twi. I’m not good with technological stuff, just guarding and leading. But if you want to go home, then that’s what we’re gonna do.”
“It’s not as simple as that,” she turns to him with a hopeless look on her pale face. “Ed said-”
“Twilight.” Shining interrupted her, signaling an end to both her argument and their conversation. The word came out intimately and forcefully, like he didn’t want to interrupt but he knew he had to in order to stop his sister’s doubtful mood. For Twilight, the interruption was nothing. There was no point in arguing, arguments divided friends and family, so why would she continue one with her brother? She just stopped talking, continuing to stare out the window, thinking and watching, keeping her mind stimulated and processed, so that the day when she uses it the most comes, she will be ready.
And that day may not be that far away.
“Look, Twilight,” Shining continued apologetically. “I don’t want to fight with you. Not now. But what I do want is for you to keep in contact with everypony else. We barely see you anywhere but here, stargazing like a bored filly. If you ask me, I think it’s ironic.”
“Ironic?”
“You woke us up because you were lonely and scared, right? Well if you’re so afraid of being alone, then why are you always alone up here?”
She paused to think. He was right, she was always alone up here, staring into space (literally). And what was ironic was that she was afraid of being alone. So afraid that she nearly lost her mind, screaming and throwing her hands everywhere, unintentionally waking Applejack.
“Well,” she began. “I’m not always alone.” she finally turned to Shining Armor with a harmless look on her face. “You’re always coming up here to check on me.” Whether she was intentionally trying to get a hug from her brother or not was unknown to her, but judging by the look on his face when she said that, and what he did next, it appeared to have worked.
With a quick movement, Shining hugged Twilight lovingly as she stood open-eyed, with surprise practically written on her face. Her brother embraced her like he always had before, to no surprise for Twilight. Whenever he did hug her, she would always love it. It made her feel so safe, so comfortable, and reminded her of all the good things in her life, like her friends and her family, which all tied back into how much of a good brother Shining Armor was. There was only one other pony that could understand her the way that her brother did, and that was Cadence. But where was she while only her brother could give her compassion?
This is why she kept looking out that window in hope. She was alone. Even with all her friends, her brother, and that cynical Edward, she was still alone. It surprised her that she felt so alone, even with her brother hugging her with only their breathing to be heard, that and the omniscient machinery sounds that surrounded them. With no other alternative to the situation, and in a state of depression and desperation, Twilight hugged her brother back. Rubbing her cheek across his warm, fabric-covered chest, his breaths became more audible to her as she rested her head onto his chest.
“You still want to go home now?” he whispered.
“NnnnNnn.” she mumbled in his shirt.
A smile came across Shining’s face.

It was in the middle of Edward’s terminal exercise.
Rarity had wanted to know so much about the ship and everything else that she demanded to use one of the ship’s terminals. Edward, with a sudden lack of activity, agreed to come along with her so he could help her get familiar with the workings of the terminals, so it could not confuse her. Fluttershy was offered to come as well, and agreed, saying that she wanted to know as much animal facts as possible, to ‘refresh’ her memory, and be ready to take care of her pets again once they land on Equestria. Like Twilight, nopony actually knew when this would happen. They just knew it would. Edward was unsure if he could even pull it off, like he said earlier to Twilight on the Bridge. But there’s always a first time for everything.
Fluttershy was flipping through pages upon pages of digital terminals, seeing if there was one little thing that she forgot about her pet’s way of life. True, she was the best with animals, but she was so nervous that she’d mess up on something so important to her, so she continued to skim relentlessly through the digital realm of terminals.
Rarity was anything but quick. She took her time, finishing a page every minute or so, not quite pacing herself, to the annoyance of Edward, who stood bored out of his mind in the corner of the wide room, murmuring how much of a pain Rarity was to him for the past four weeks. Of course, Rarity didn’t hear him over her eloquent humming as she read. To her, it seemed like an endless game of finding the needle in the haystack, only it was far too entertaining for her to notice it’s trivial and timely nature. And like Fluttershy, she read to learn, and to be entertained on-board the filthy, metallic, undecorated ‘star cruiser’ that she was doomed to reside in for an unknown period of time.
“Edward, dear,” Rarity paused her reading to turn and face Ed, who was still murmuring next to the wall. “Can you tell me where I might find the clothing terminal?” Edward stopped to respond, despite his hatred for her personality, and answered.
“We don’t have a terminal with clothing in it...your highness.” he muttered the last part for personal gain, unheard by Rarity. She was disappointed; and for Edward, that’s bad news.
“Why not? It’s just only the most important item to a high-class citizen such as myself! How could they forget something so important!?”
Edward looked as if he was about to scream, holding back every piece of emotion, managing to answer her just this one time, and imagining the happy moments of him beating his pillow to a pulp and pretending it’s Rarity. “Well it’s not like I was the one who built the ship, let alone put the terminals in here.”
“But who on Equestria could ever forget something so important?! I think I-I might...”
“Umm, guys, I...”
Ed broke. “That’s IT!! Do you listen to yourself rambling about clothing and fashion!? It’s driving me insane, you spoiled mare!! And just because I’m trying to be the nicest pony on this entire cruiser doesn’t mean that you have to complain about everything to ME!!”
“My WORD! Such disrespect for the adult population! How could you ever talk to someone so unfortunate?!”
“UNFORTUNATE?! You know what would be unfortunate; if I threw you out the airlock, you narcissistic prick!!”
“Guys; Edward, Rarity, I...”
“Ignorance out of teenage impulsivity! No wonder Celestia made you a SHRIMP!!”
“I’M NOT A SHRIMP!!!”
The loudest, greatest, most omniscient sound ever witnessed by the Mane Six and quite possibly all of Equestria erupted from all around the ship. The ground and walls shaked, the pipes clinging and clanging as the sound shook all that the ship had in it’s cold walls. Fluttershy squeaked a scream for dear life as Rarity froze in shock and fear. Edward stopped dead in his argument and stood open-eyed at the hallway that was in front of him. Even their clothes shook violently as the sound broke the silence. Nothing but the noise could be heard as the ship experienced an event like no other.
With a slow fade and a silent moment for everypony, the passengers stood motionless. It was not just Edward, Rarity and Fluttershy; it was everypony on the whole ship. Shining Armor and Twilight, on the bridge, ducking in fear at the sound’s destructive nature. Applejack paid no attention to the falling food as she looked at the shaking Mess Hall. And Rainbow Dash slipped at the abrupt end to her lap around the ship’s maintenance deck. Staring with wide-eyes and motionless hearts, the passengers kept silent to wait for whatever may follow after the noise. Not even the machinery made a noise as the silence struck.
Back at the Terminals, Ed broke the silence. “Wha...?”
“W-What was t-that?” Rarity asked in a chilled and frightened voice.
Fluttershy squeaked again.
A look upon Ed’s face indicated their next move. He became more serious and less scared, he frowned and closed his open mouth. With determination and hurry, he turned to the two passengers and told them, “I need you two to get the others to the Observation Deck.”
“Why?”
“Chances are,” he began, running down the hallway. “That didn’t come from our ship.” Within seconds, he was gone. With hesitation, the two acted upon his request, and made a sprint for the other scared ponies. Fluttershy tagged along with Rarity, afraid of what the darkness around the ship could hold.

“What’s going on, Ed?!” Shining Armor yelled in panic as Twilight stood close. The ponies gathered around the Observation Deck’s terminal, which had terrain layouts and landscape patterns duplicating that of Equestria’s. The Deck itself was simple; the walls were almost entirely glass, the floor was the same metallic gray as the rest of the ship, in the middle of it was the terminal, and attached to the walls were smaller terminals with sub-functions of the ship’s performance.
“I think something’s come into contact with the Requiem.” he replied, pressing buttons that had to significance to anypony but Ed’s understanding.
“You mean somethin’ hit us?!” Applejack asked in a surprised tone.
“No, I mean something’s coming past us-”
“Is it an Equestrian ship? Can you tell?” said Twilight curiously.
Ed turned to the passengers. “I can’t. It’s not coming up on the ship’s readings, but it can sure as hay see it. By the looks of it, I don’t think that’s an Equestrian ship.”
A murmur of disappointment and worry began as Ed stopped explaining. Nopony continued questions or explanations until just minutes later Rarity decided to end it.
“Edward, are we in danger?”
He did not respond, instead looking at her with apprehensive bravery. It was clear: no pony knew what was going on, not even Edward, who had been known for his superior knowledge of the situation whilst the citizens lived on-board the ship. He returned to pressing those random buttons, while every second the minds of the friends started to become more shrouded with fear.
“It’s best if we all just calm down and hope that it isn’t anything serious.”
“Yeah, about that whole ‘danger’ thing...”
Edward backed away from the terminal after he pressed one final button. The blast shields covering the windows in front of them began to lift, revealing a larger window than what the crew had saw through earlier up on the Bridge. The colors and shape of their homeworld began to show, the blue aura surrounding it being the first to bleed through the unused glass. As it did, the stars and points in the black void known as space appeared. There was only one thing that was different about the planet: there was only one continent fully in sight from the ship’s view, the continent of the Crystal Empire. Pointed straight towards them from the planet was a grey spot directly in the middle of the landmass. It was nothing they remembered from the Crystal Empire capital city, if anything they would’ve seen a mixed variety of colors in the grey spot’s place. But it was just one solid color, one object. Something was obviously wrong.
“...Does anypony remember the planet rotating like that?”
“No, I’ve...never seen it like that...” Twilight responded, equally in awe. The others could see it too; the planet had somehow rotated directly to face them with the grey object in sight. Not only was there no reason for so, but there was something even more surprising in mind. The entire planet was rotating to a slow stop, one where the grey object faced the ship at an 180 degree angle, a straight line between them and the structure. Ed realized it would have had to rotate at a tremendous speed in order for it to have done that so quickly. There was something seriously wrong here, and he felt as if he was the only one who knew.
That was when the strangest of things occurred. A red light, coming directly from the structure on the planet, came shooting at the crew onboard the Requiem, through the atmosphere, through the glass, and landed straight into the alien clothes of a particular crew member. Twilight flinched back in surprise as the beam grew from where it had landed on her shirt, to shine across her body. The light was scanning her, nopony knew why. It’s purpose remained unknown as the scanning light treaded up and down her body. After a brief ten seconds, it mysteriously disappeared back into the grey structure.
“What was that?!” a scared question came out. Twilight was not sure whether it was Dash or Shining Armor that said it. Either way, it sounded off for their tone. It was clear that the group was scared of what was to come. This had never happened before in the time spent on the cruiser, so they were naturally unfamiliar with how to handle this kind of situation. Even Edward, who spent nearly his whole life maintaining the ship, was afraid of what was happening before his eyes. If anypony was to be scared the most, it probably would be Fluttershy, who was also out of her vision. Twilight couldn’t bear to turn and check if she was right, but she was almost positive that she was. A friendship lasting almost three years seems like enough experience to predict on.
Then, things got really crazy. 
A sudden burst of energy released itself from the ship, the crew, and the planet. A cosmic fuse of elemental power swirled together in just a split second of blinding light. Behind it all was the collapsing flat area within the grey structure. The massive circle within it separated into smaller pieces that divided equally into the circumference of the object. As this rapid process began, a momentous and ponderous new light bled through to blind the afraid crew members once again. The light became brighter and brighter as the divided plates of the massive circle disappeared. What is this? Twilight began to think hastily. Is that some kind of Portal, or Sun? She began flooding her own mind with answerless questions to try and deafen out the frightening situation. But the light kept getting brighter, and the ship suddenly started to tilt towards it.
The floor slanted towards the portal very slowly as the group looked around realizing what was now happening. The light behind that object was something alien, bringing them in with some kind of massive gravitational pull. The time was no longer to hope. It was either evacuate or go down with the ship, and Edward knew which had a more promising ending.
“Alright,” he began. “Twilight, take the Mane Six and your brother down to Escape Pod #2, and I’ll meet you there once I finish packing up.” Hesitating to understand and still in somewhat of a trance, Twilight stood in shock and awe at what had happened. So many new questions burst into her mind about the current situation, all unable to answer with the shock of the ship now tilting towards the opening hole in her own planet. Her mind quickly recovered and soon enough she was now beginning to lead her friends to the escape pods located on the far side of the ship.
On the way, the ship shook and turned in random directions, making it difficult for the poor friends to run with haste. They could only imagine what was happening up front, all the debris and atmospheric material pushing itself into a strange object on the planet’s surface. Twilight tried not to think of the horrible sensation of falling towards something like that with a rapidly increasing speed. But somehow, she was able to remember one such situation, when she was falling to her discontent. It wasn’t comfortable...


“HEELLPP!!!”
Twilight screamed as she fell through the midday sky, through layers of clouds and air. The wind blowing vigorously in her face felt as if her skin was being pulled off her muscle, or like the air was filled with sand pebbles and they bombarded her body as it fell. Her mind rushed as she could see the ground fast approaching. She tried to slow down in the air by fidgeting around while falling, but there was no use of struggling. Although she knew this, her attempts at trying to slow down continued, until she actually stopped falling.
The sensation of pain was gone now, replaced by a feeling of slow, warm winds touching elegantly across her body and her face. She, for just a second in time, didn’t care about how she stopped. The feeling of fear and constant shock was gone, and that relaxed her for those few seconds. Unfortunately, she had been covering her eyes, so she was unable to notice the wonderful landscape of her homeland, Equestria, where she could see all the way to Canterlot, the cultural capital. If she were able to see it, then not even Rainbow Dash, who was to speak shortly, could interrupt her gaze.
“So how was that?” the tomboyish voice came from behind her. Twilight briefly wondered how she didn’t feel Dash holding her to keep her from falling. That was when she remembered the events of yesterday, when she was coronated a Princess of Equestria and became an Alicorn.
“‘How was THAT?’,” Twilight turned around, uncovered her eyes, and faced Rainbow Dash, who hovered above her. “I could’ve DIED, you psychopath!”
“Yeah,” she nonchalantly replied. “But it worked, right? I mean, you’re flying now.”
Twilight took notice of her friend’s words and turned her head to see her newly given wings, which were in action. Just like Luna’s, they worked less than normal pegasi wings due to their size, and made sure she stayed perfectly still within the air. Somehow, Celestia was able to train her wings beforehand to work perfectly! An astonishing thought, it was.
“Erm, yeah. But why did you have to throw me off the cloud like that?!”
“The best way to learn how to fly is to feel the rush!” Putting emphasis on the end, she gestured to the top of the sky like the phrase ‘feel the rush’ was some image in her mind. “And I know you, Twilight.” She looked down to her. “You’re gonna take your time and stick to the ground and keep it boring. In two whole months, you would've been able to fly this high.”
“‘This high’?” A nervous complaint came out.
Twilight looked down.
Before her was the entirety of what she knew as Equestria. Everfree Forest looked to peaceful from her altitude, without all the monsters or the beats that she would normally see or hear upon going near the borders. Canterlot was just on the horizon, and near it were the mountains that surrounded it in protection to outside enemies like Dragons, or worse. From where she was, the capital looked very solid and far away, like a small island in the middle of the ocean. Between them was the town of Ponyville, Twilight’s current home (she doesn’t know how long that could last now that she is a Princess). She could see the residents walking around like little ants at her position. And above it all, Cloudsdale, which floated peacefully and lively in the clouds, the closest point of civilization to Twilight. She wondered if Cloudsdale was now as much a home to her as Canterlot or Ponyville is.
“This does look nice from here.” The purple alicorn admitted. “But I’m still peeved off, Rainbow!”
Dash descended and landed on a nearby cloud. “Eh, I was too when it was my first time.”
“You mean you did this too?”
“Pft. Of course I did. This is, like, the only way to learn how to fly!”
Twilight managed to fly over to the nearby cloud with Rainbow Dash and stand in a stable position. “There’s got to be another way. I don’t think I can go through with that again...”
Dash sighed. “Twilight, when you have wings, that doesn’t mean you can try to fly, or maybe fly, or sometimes fly. It means you HAVE to fly. You were given a special addition to your body that only you can use to it’s potential, that only you can set a limit for. Look at Fluttershy. Not to bash her or anything, but as a pegasus, she’s supposed to spend most of her day in the air, right? Well, instead, she spends all day on the ground. She’s boring and too shy for me to even talk to her straight. As a Princess of Equestria, I cannot let you become somepony like that, you hear me! You have duties to fulfill, ponies to meet, events to host, and sometimes your wings will have to come into use! So are you gonna just wait for your senses to come to you and fly, or are you gonna learn right here, right now, with your ol’ pal Dash?”
Twilight hesitated to answer. She wasn’t aware that Rainbow Dash could speak so lengthy and cleverly. “Erm...let’s do this?”
“Great!” Rainbow then proceeded to push Twilight, screaming and falling off the comfy cloud to her doom, unless she controlled her wings correctly, which she inevitably did, and once again, she chewed Rainbow out for attempting such a risky lesson in flying with her new wings.


“Twilight? Twilight!!”
Twilight came to her senses once she was already inside the escape pod, with her friends, all in horizontally aligned seats that were eight in total, split in half to have four on each side of the aircraft. Edward sat in front, constantly asking Twilight to pay attention to him as she snapped out of her memory trance. It was time to return to the present.
“What? What is it?”
“Strap in your seatbelt, we’re about to launch!”
Following his instructions, Twilight strapped in her seat belt, which she remembered how to do by recalling those experimental speed trains in Fillydelphia. It was not a pleasant experience, back then; she needed the seat belt, alright, but was focused on whether she would need a helmet if she were to ride it again.
Twilight could see all around her the friends that had been with her all throughout the time spent on the ship. Rainbow Dash, who spent her time preparing her athletic physique. Applejack, who prepared meals and socialized with everypony. Rarity, who moaned and complained to Edward all the time. Fluttershy, who spent her time alone in the dark recesses of the ship, shyly wiping the pipes with her finger and eating alone in silence. Shining Armor, Twilight’s brother, who acted as a guardian to them all and cared for his sister. And Edward, the ‘captain’ character, who maintained the ship better than anypony else, and kept situation after situation under control, except this one. Twilight could see now that in this moment of fear and uncertainty, the group of friends were more alike than ever. How?
They were all afraid of what was to come.
“...3...2...1...”
Twilight heard the thrusters on the back of the escape pod powering up just as Edward made them when he demonstrated the systems to her all those days ago. Rarity covered her ears and shut her eyes, preparing for the worst. Fluttershy looked over to Shining Armor, who was purposely setting a good example by staying calm and sitting upright in his seat, buckled in.
“...LAUNCH!”
A pop off the ship wall, zooming through a narrow vent in the ship’s side, the escape pod lifted off. In seconds, it launched out of it’s ignition tube into the atmosphere, where the crew could still see the strange object still pulling in the ship. It seemed the situation had gotten worse since they last saw the outside just a few minutes ago. Now, the hole was bigger, big enough now to swallow the moon and bright enough to blind. A red glow emitted from the structure and reached out to the farthest points of the planet’s magnetic field. Now that they were close enough, a dull but loud noise could be heard from the ship, being pulled into the portal.
“Everypony hold on, I’m gonna try and land on the far side of the planet!” Edward proclaimed so the group could understand on what was about to happen next. Rarity still had her eyes shut and her ears were still being covered by her hands in an attempt to block out all outside stimuli. It seemed to be working, even if she kept banging her head on the seat as the shaking of the gravitational pull continued. Twilight kept looked around at her friends to see how they were reacting. Applejack was looking up out of the cockpit window to see the planet and where Edward was aiming for. Rainbow Dash was holding on to her seat, and was doing the same thing Applejack was doing. Edward’s back was visible, but his expression was not. From what she could tell, Edward seemed pretty scared too.
She couldn’t tell if Edward was trying to avoid the pull of the portal, because he sure wasn’t making any progress towards getting away. The escape pod became trapped in the portal’s gravitational pull, tagging along with the ship, almost equal in motion, as if the two ships were physically connected. To her dismay, it appeared that way almost seconds after ejecting from the ship in the first place. Hope of reaching the surface of the planet and not the portal seemed very dim from where she was standing. She hoped that everypony else had more optimistic feelings than she did. If they weren’t optimistic, then they were most likely filled with the terrifying fear of death and suffering. An instant depression came upon Twilight when she imagined their outlook on this.
“Hang on, guys! We’re going in!” Edward finally let out as the escape pod got closer and closer to the structure on the planet’s surface. The noise of the ship falling into the portal became louder and louder, suddenly Rarity had the need to push her hands more to mute the sounds around her. Fluttershy started to crawl up into a ball and start to sob at what was now happening. Rainbow Dash looked up at the structure through the window and grabbed her chair even more tightly than before, using one hand to do so and the other to hold hands with Applejack, who sat next to her. Applejack shut her eyes and looked downward as she held Dash’s hand. To Twilight, it looked like she was praying. To whom, though? Perhaps anypony that was there. Shining Armor looked out the cockpit window as well, to look wistfully at his home one last time before the inevitable happens.
Twilight turned one last time to the cockpit window. They were now inside the stratosphere, with the debris and cruiser that they knew so much. Fire and smoke followed them towards the portal, closer and closer together they fell to an uncertain fate. Twilight was unsure of what was about to happen, but whatever was going to happen, she wanted to at least see her home one last time, to know that her life was real, that it wasn’t some fabricated memory, and that her friends weren’t experiencing the same. Through the clouds and the sky, the cockpit window cleared to reveal an up close image of the structure.
A complicated mass of alien technology, moving parts, reddish glowing parts, and a giant moon-sized hole located in the direct center; that was what could be called the Portal. Upon first seeing it, the edges of it’s width could barely be seen, indicating the massive size of the portal, with forty-seven kilometers between them and it. A godly red glow bombarded Twilight’s vision, and soon, after descending rapidly towards it, there was not a speck of land visible due to the brightness of the light. Soon, they would be on the other side of the portal, in a world that they knew nothing about, or everything about, or something that was only told in legends and stories. Twilight could only imagine the horrid and beautiful possibilities. But she could not think of what was on the good side of possibilities.
All my life, I had a good time with my friends, family, and teacher. And to think that all of that is probably about to go to waste and dissolve away in death. All my memories and experiences, all the ponies and loved ones that I knew so well, all doomed to go extinct right now like something useless. A shame I wasn't able to talk to my parents or Celestia one last time before I go and pass on into death. It’s sad, of course, but all in all, it’s part of life. And if this is where we are all meant to perish, then let me perish in dignity and honor. Celestia, Mommy, Daddy, Shining Armor, Cadence, Spike, Luna, All my friends, this is it. I've had a good time while it lasted. Yes, I’m young and I've got my whole life ahead of me, but this is where Fate has landed me. This is where I’m going to die. I hope you’re all waiting for me on the other side. Fate, My name is Twilight Sparkle, and I’m going to die now.
And I’m not afraid.

She wasn't afraid.

In a blinding flash of red, the portal engulfed both the cruiser and the escape pod.

The last known members of the Equestrian race disappeared in mere minutes.


An uncomfortable silence followed.