Lyra and Bonbon Take a Trip

by ONWARD_Conwardicus

How it Happened

(Ponyville, three days earlier.)

Lyra was up and out of bed at least one hour before Bonbon had the sunrise greet her wakening. Lyra had marked down the days on her calendar, counting them until today. Today was the day Twilight revealed the big science project she had been working on for the past month, which the fliers said was about another dimension. Lyra had combed her hair until it started coming out, brushed her teeth until they were as white as her eyes, and showered until her coat almost started to fade.

Bonbon was still in her bathrobe with sleep in her eyes when Lyra showed up at the front door.

“Come on! Come on!” Lyra said, looking around to see if anypony else was heading towards Twilight’s house. “Hurry up! We’ve got to get there ASAP! Somepony might already be ahead of us! We’ve got to be the first ones! If we-“

Bonbon’s hoof was in Lyra’s mouth, muffling whatever she tried to say next. “Thirty minutes.” Bonbon moaned. With that Bonbon took out her hoof and left Lyra on the porch to finish getting ready for the morning.

It took thirty one minutes for Bonbon to finish up. As soon as Bonbon came out of the doorway, Lyra grabbed her and carried her all the way to Twilight’s castle. “We need to be the first ones there Bonbon! This is going to be extreme!” On approaching the structure Lyra noticed that nopony else was going inside. “Sweet!” Lyra exclaimed. “We’re first!”

Lyra barreled into the door, pushing it open and revealing a surprised Twilight Sparkle going over a scroll with Spike. “We’re here to see the alternate dimension!” Lyra announced, dropping Bonbon from her back accidentally. Bonbon’s face was green, and she rushed outside of Twilight’s house. After a splaaargh was heard, she soon came back in, looking a little droopy.

“Sorry about the bumpy ride, Bonbon.” Lyra said behind a sheepish grin. “I just really wanted to have seats in the front row.” Bonbon only replied with a disgruntled stare. Lyra knew she was in for it when this was all said and done.

“Well, you are the first ones to arrive.” Twilight commented, taking a sip of her lemonade. “You both came a whole hour early.” At this Lyra smiled, and Bonbon’s stare became one of contempt.

“We’re an hour early.” Bonbon repeated. Lyra dropped her head, as if the words were hung around her neck.

“Well, on the bright side,” Lyra said, “we’re an hour early to the greatest scientific discovery so far in Ponykind. I mean think about it; an alternate dimension where myths are seen every day. It’s a place with so much landmass that the population of the dominant race is over five billion. And,” Lyra’s face brightened before finishing, “it has humans!”

At this, Twilight did a double take. “How did you know that? That was supposed to be something I revealed during the opening introduction!”

“Oh please Twilight.” Lyra said, rolling her eyes. “You of all people should know The Royal Canterlot Library keeps track of all checked out books. I looked at the records of the books on humans and I saw you had been checking some out. I was going to ask you about it, but then I saw your fliers about another dimension, and I knew I had to wait. It was almost too good news to be true; to find a dimension where humans actually exist!”

Twilight smiled, obviously pretending to be interested by Lyra. Trying to fake it until she made it. “Well, according to the research I did, humans are actually the dominant race in this dimension. It has a link to ours that I haven’t been able to quite figure out, but I’m basically going to use that link to make contact with them by sending somepony over there for an hour. I was hoping-“

Lyra didn’t wait to hear Twilight finish the sentence. She had already grabbed Twilight by her shoulders and started a face to face conversation so close their eyelashes were touching. “SEND ME! SEND ME! BY CELESTIA’S HORN SEND ME!”

Twilight pushed Lyra off, a backing up a few feet. “You were actually the first one I considered Lyra. I knew I couldn’t do it since the magic anchors to bring the pony back will be with my magic, so looked at who else had prior knowledge of human society, and I found that you had checked out every book that even mentioned humans. Ten times or more each if I recall correctly.”

“Fifteen.” Lyra corrected.

“Either way,” Twilight said, “I believe your expertise on humans would help me do research on their universe. While you are there, I would need you to take notes on what you see, as well as get some samples of their literature and are you okay Lyra?” She asked, as Lyra had just turned on her side, open mouthed.

Twilight hurriedly went to her kitchen and filled a glass with cold water. She splashed it on Lyra’s face, making Lyra jump in the air and land on her stomach. Twilight got a worried look on her face, likely starting to doubt her choice.

But Lyra could not let Twilight pick somepony else. That would ruin her whole reason in coming to this event. She came to see a human. And see a human she would.

“I’ve got an idea.” Lyra said, still on the floor. “Why not send Bonbon along with me?”

This got Bonbon’s attention. “Wait what?!” she exclaimed. “What could I do to help?” She started backing up to the wall, looking nervously at the two.

“You could help me collect samples while I talk wi-, err, interview the humans.” Lyra suggested, finally realizing she was on the floor and standing up.

“That’s not a bad idea.” Twilight said. “A job this big would probably take more than one pony to do. And if something bad happens to one of you, the other would know what to do.”

“And what sort of bad things should we expect?” Bonbon asked, knees shaking and voice stuttering at the thought.

“Nothing as far as I know.” Twilight said, as if that were a good thing. “Lyra would probably have more knowledge of that than I do.”

Bonbon expectantly towards Lyra, looking for words of comfort. She was biting her lower lip, and sweat was rolling down her face. Lyra knew that if she said one negative comment, Bonbon would shut down and go into safety mode. She would be immobile and not allow any outside input.

“The worst things I’ve heard is that they walk on two legs there. You practiced at home with me once or twice. You should be fine.” The second sentence made Twilight’s ears perk up, but no questions were asked. Bonbon nodded, and her body returned to normal. But Lyra could tell she was still thinking of something.

“I could use help setting up the transport circle.” Twilight said. “Are you familiar with any time or teleportation runes, Lyra?”

“I’m okay with time runes.” Lyra stated, diverting her attention. “I remember some from reading a book on how magic clocks used to be made.”

Twilight went over to a nearby drawer and got out two new pieces of chalk and a slip of paper with the transport circle design inscribed on it. It actually looked like a target, with circles inside circles. She tossed the diagram and a piece of chalk to Lyra and said, “Okay, I have a diagram you can follow. Just work on the second outer circle and I’ll handle the actual teleportation runes. If you see a rune you don’t know, ignore it and I’ll get to it later okay?”

“Got it!” Lyra said, as she began to study the diagram. The second outer circle was comprised of two halves, which she easily knew from the beginning runes were the time away from Equestria and this dimension, while the other half was how long Bonbon and her were going to be in the other dimension.

Lyra realized what she was in charge of now. She was in charge of how long they would be interacting with humans. Twilight would need as much data as possible, so why make it an hour? Why not a day? Why not a month? Or even better…

(The Library, forty five minutes later.)
“Mares and Gentlecolts,” Twilight began, addressing the vast audience in her castle library, “Today I am going to show you what I have been working on for the past month. What the fliers have been saying. I will show you another dimension!”

The audience chattered among themselves for a second until Twilight’s silencing hoof came off the ground. “I am not talking about any dimension either. This is a dimension where myths can be seen every day. Where technology has far surpassed ours. It is the world,” Twilight paused and projected the outline of a shaved monkey in the air with her horn, “of humans.”

With this, more muttering was heard. Twilight waited a few seconds for them to let it soak in, then raised her hoof for silence again. “Now, I ask you all to not try to perform what you are about to see at home. The people performing this project are professionals, and-“

At this, Lyra yelled from behind the only closed door “For Celestia’s sake get on with it!” which made some of the attending ponies look at the door, as if they had never noticed it. Twilight’s stare pierced the door. “I now present to you my two assistants.” She said, gesturing toward the already open door where Lyra and Bonbon had just come out.

There was a bit of pointing at Lyra with more murmuring. They all recognized her as the one who knew about humans, but they obviously didn’t expect to see her participating.

Lyra and Bonbon stepped over the chalk lines, making sure not to mess anything up, lest they go to the wrong dimension. Once they were in the center, Twilight continued talking. “These two will be in the human world for an entire day, but to us it will only seem like thirty seconds. They will bring back with them scraps of human life, which I will analyze at a later date. Now, I will ask you all to stand back. I am about to perform magic.”

Bonbon gulped. Lyra shook apprehensively. The crowd stood back from the circle, and Twilight pointed her horn at the chalk. Lyra was nearly exploding from excitement. She was going to meet humans. She was going to talk to them. She was going to see hands!

A beam emanated from her horn. The white chalk on the ground radiated purple light as Twilight increased the beam’s power. The inner circle that Bonbon and Lyra were standing on surrounded itself in a sparkling translucent blue sphere. The purple light glowed brighter and brighter, until both Lyra and Bonbon had to shield their eyes. Oohs and awe’s were heard from the audience as they flickered out of this dimension.

Lyra could feel her body changing. Her spine was curving and warping. Her legs drew into her body, until she felt she was a sphere. Then she felt her body taking a new form. One that felt familiar, but she couldn’t quite put her hoof on it? What exactly was happening?

Then things went black.

Comments

[Vulpibard]

1585714 because they're in america
Also, I'm impressed by the amount of thumbs ups you got on this!
I can write well but not that good.

[Wolfesblut]

Looks good, the intro was a nice look into the future :) Keep the chapters coming