Not Used To This

by IronTypeAlpha

Progression

The familiar flash occured and led Twilight and Pinkie into some new world. It had become nothing new now. The same impaired senses fixed themselves in the same amount of time. The only thing that changed was where they ended up. And this new place was probably the most nightmarish of all.

"New friends!" shouted a strange-looking pony.

"Yay! Let's dance!" yelled another one.

Twilight looked around to see that the houses were pink, the sky was pink, and there wasn't a single stallion in the entire mass of ponies.

Without warning, an entirely pink pony, resembling Pinkie Pie, began singing some off-key "friendship" song. To Twilight, it was more like a broken accordion.

"Who in Celestia are you?" Twilight asked, hoping to find some answers.

"I'm Pinkie Pie!" the one who sang said.

"What!? It's just as I feared! Twilight, we need to get out now!" Without any warning, Pinkie Pie (the one who traveled dimensions) fled out of the town.

Twilight followed as the foreign ponies trotted closer to her, staring into her soul with those terrible eyes.

"Pinkie, wait up!" With that, they were both escaping from this horrible land. It would be too girly even for a stereotype.

The portal was nowhere to be seen, though. Instead, all that Twilight saw down the path was the stallion from the castle. Realizing what she needed to do, she started passing Pinkie and charging towards the stallion.

Instead of capturing him and finding out about what was going on about all this, the pony simply jumped out of the way, where another gateway opened. With the stomp of a hoof, the dirt path suddenly flipped into an icey walkway, forcing Twilight and Pinkie into the portal.

---

As they zoomed through the dark tunnel, Twilight kept beating herself over at how close they were. Within a few seconds, both ponies were deposited into a new world.

Twilight noticed how basic this world looked. Very few colors were present and she could only move in four directions.

"Hey! You look like a strong trainer!" a strange man said upon seeing Twilight.

"Huh? What?"

"Let's have a battle!"

The entire world flashed as Twilight was locked into a small arena by some mysterious force.

Hiker Jim wants to battle!

The floating text was confusing enough, but then Pinkie jumped forward and threw a red-and-white ball out onto the field. From the little ball jumped some sort of yellow mouse. The strange man, which reminded Twilight of something called a human, tossed a ball, too. A four-armed something emerged from this one, although it was clearly to large to actually fit in it.

"Use thunderbolt!" Pinkie yelled enthusiastically.

Pikachu used Thunderbolt! the strange text showed.

The four-armed thingamajig's life bar went down, followed by it retaliating.

Machamp used Karate Chop!

The "Machamp" lunged towards the "Pikachu" with one arm ready to chop when a sudden earthquake caused it to trip onto its face. The simple layout of the world began to fade as the ground dissolved, revealing a dark, swirling void underneath.

"What the hay!?" The ground underneath Twilight's hooves threatened to dissapear and let her fall into the storm appearing from below.

When her face turned to the right, she very faintly saw the mysterious stallion again, leaping over rocks that a normal pony could not jump over. Fighting against the strange void, Twilight and Pinkie started to give chase after him. As they neared him, more rifts in the ground started to appear, forcing the two to keep aware.

Knowing this was her chance, Twilight began building up magic in her horn. If this spell were to connect with the stallion, he'd be immobilized, but still able to speak. She increased her speed and fired the spell, which took the form of a laser beam. The attack directly hit him, bringing him to a halt. Well, it should have, at least.

He just kept galloping, completely unaffected by one of Twilight's most powerful spells. It made so little sense Twilight herself couldn't say anything. She just stood there, her jaw hanging to the floor.

"Twilight, RUN!" Pinkie yelled worredly. Pinkie was waving her legs and jumping when Twilight finally realized the 3-yard-thick border of deteriorating ground preventing her from going anywhere.

Continually backing up into nothing, Twilight's hooves failed to cling onto the remaining ground, and she slipped into the dark abyss below.

"TWIIIILIii..." was all she heard as the darkness engulfed her. There was no way of knowing where she was going now. It was highly possible she'd just keep falling down the pit until she starved to death.

---

Twilight's body was face-down in a meadow. It felt as though something otherworldy had led her to this spot.

"Wake up..." some disembodied voice called.

Twilight groaned as she lifted her body from the grass. Her eyes needed to adjust now that the color had returned to the world. And when she saw what stood in front of her, she couldn't help but stare in awe, for in front of her stood Princess Luna.

"Princess, what are you doing here?" Twilight asked before realizing another important question.

"HOW are you here!?"

"The answer's simple, Twilight. I--" a portal opened up and two dark-grey hooves dragged the princess in. The portal closed when Luna was out and the stallion emerged from another portal.

He stood blankly at Twilight. It was as if he were saying something, although she couldn't quite understand it. The grassy field began to melt as the stallion glanced out into the white emptiness beyond them. The world returned to them in what seemed like brushstrokes against a canvas.

This new world greatly clashed with the previous one. The sky was blood-red and a huge factory lay off into the distance, chugging pillars of smoke into the sky.

"What does this mean? Is this something parallel to Equestria?" Twilight fired off question after question, but she stopped after about the 20th one when she realized he wouldn't be answering them.

A siren blared from the factory, making a grating, yet intriguing sound. The sound resembled the screech of numerous things piled into one. And then next thing Twilight saw solved some questions and opened up even more.