Spike walked into the workroom attached to the area of the castle designated as the Ponyville Public Library, his steps perfectly confident despite his carrying a stack of books as tall as he was. He set the books down by three similarly-sized stacks and brushed his hands off with an air of finality. “There we go,” he said, “that’s every book you’ve ever referenced for this project, Princess Twi.”
“Thank you, Spike,” Princess Twilight said. She looked around the room with a smile, taking in the sight of her notes carefully separated and organized into piles on desks around the room, the large rollaway chalkboard standing in a place of prominence and well-stocked with chalk sticks of various thicknesses and colors in its tray, and the invisible but tangible energy of scholastic acumen about to be applied to a big problem. Sci-Twi was standing by one of the desks, fiddling with her pendant and the magic detector as she gave the books Spike had just brought in a nervous frown. “All right,” Princess Twilight said, “any questions before we start?”
“I have one,” Sunset Shimmer said from the other side of the room from Sci-Twi. “Why are Starlight and I here? The Map didn’t ask for us.”
“True,” Twilight said, “but you’re both available and experts in the theory and application of new magic. It would be criminal not to have your minds working on this as well.” Starlight, standing next to Sunset, blushed with pride.
“So,” Sci-Twi said, “where do we start?” She levitated the top sheet of notes from the desk by her and perused it. “Looks like you’ve already hit the esoterically technical level of information,” she proclaimed. “I can’t make sense of a word of this.”
“Yes, I suppose a brief overview of what I’ve gleaned so far is in order,” Princess Twilight said, walking over to the chalkboard. She levitated a piece of standard-width, white chalk from the tray. “Let’s see,” she said, grabbing the nearest stack of notes in her magic to consult. “Where to begin… Ah.” She drew a small circle on the board, and then launched into lecture mode. “Obviously, it’s a given that are multiple, distinct universes, each governed by unique laws that govern everything from the nature and operation of magic to the forms that sentient beings can and cannot take. Here in Equestria, there are a wide variety of sentient beings, and magic seems to take almost as many forms, most of them tied to a particular race, but the bipedal and mostly hairless ‘human’ form is forbidden. In the world of Canterlot High, however,” she said as she drew a second circle next to the first, “the humanoid form is the general rule for sentients – dragons apparently being the exception.”
“We know all this already, Princess,” Sunset said.
Princess Twilight glowered at Sunset. “As I was saying,” she said, turning back to the chalkboard and drawing several more circles around the first, “because these laws of magic and morphology are so drastically different from one universe to the next, I’ve concluded that the boundaries the define each universe are impermeable by ordinary means.” She drew a thick line and then a sequence of stick-ponies running into the line and bouncing off it.
“Now, when I say ‘boundaries,’ you’re probably imaging something like the universe being contained in a bubble or balloon, but that’s not quite accurate.” She turned and pointed in the general direction of the Portal Mirror. “After all,” she said, “the Mirror isn’t sitting at the farthest corner of our universe, up against some impassable barrier. And the two portals that the Order-naries and Tau’rin first arrived through are both fairly close by – above Fluttershy’s front yard and out in a clearing in the Everfree Forest. So, the ‘boundary’ of the universe, for lack of a better term, seems to exist in every place at once, in a spatial dimension we can’t normally perceive or interact with. Unless, perhaps, that dimension is the same one a unicorn’s teleportation and summoning spells utilize…” Her lips pursed as her mind wandered on that tangent for a bit, and then she shook her head and asked her audience, “With me so far?”
“Clear as mud,” Spike said, giving Princess Twilight a thumbs-up and a cheeky grin. She gave him an unamused look.
“I’m following so far,” Sci-Twi said. “Now, when you said the boundaries are normally impermeable… Well, that’s clearly not the case, since you have two examples of universes being linked.”
“Right,” Princess Twilight said, returning to the chalkboard. “The Mirror and what I call the Tau’rin Chain.” She sketched the Mirror on the right end of the board, and then drew a jagged shape in blue chalk a little to the left. “They’re fascinating in that they’re so different while doing essentially the same thing” she said, “The Mirror is a deliberate construction of what can only be highly advanced ancient magic, ordinarily tied to the cycles of time for security, and passing through it is a painless experience, putting aside the brief loss of balance that comes from switching from pony to human and vice versa. The other portals…” She shivered as she called up a memory she’d rather forget. “They’re everything the Mirror isn’t,” she said at last. “They’re more like wounds in the fabric of space, mostly closed now but never healed. They can be torn back open with the right kind of spell, and to travel through them is to enter a… place of nonexistence between the universes. A place the Mirror manages to either bypass or move you through so quickly you never notice. It’s maddening.”
“You, uh, have personal experience with that?” Starlight asked, sharing a disturbed looked with Sunset.
“I do,” Princess Twilight said simply. “It’s partly why I know making a direct portal to Taryn is even possible.”
Sci-Twi approached the chalkboard and picked up a piece of chalk. “So,” she said, “I take it the ultimate goal is to take this,” she pointed to the jagged portal sketch, “and make it more like this,” she tapped the picture of the Mirror.
“Almost,” the Princess said. “The portals at Fluttershy’s and the Everfree lead to a world called Valden. Counting it, there are twelve universes between Equestria and Taryn. A stable portal one could travel through without going unconscious would be ideal, but the most important thing is to cut out the need to trek through dozens of other, strange worlds just to visit some friends.”
“Right, right,” Sci-Twi said, “it just seems reasonable to work toward making the portal safe and sane at the same time we tackle the biggest issues. Namely: how do we… punch through the boundaries of the universe, and into Taryn in the first place?”
Princess Twilight sighed. “That is the biggest problem,” she said. “I’ve worked the theory down to the point I could teach classes on it from memory. I can open and close the pre-existing portals – Mirror and otherwise – without breaking a sweat. What I can’t do, despite all my knowledge and alicorn-level magic, is make a new portal.” She looked at Sci-Twi with a big, hopeful, and somewhat creepy smile. “But then the Map told me to get your help, Sci-Twi,” she said. “So, any genius ideas yet?”
Sci-Twi met the Princess’s smile with a flat look. “I still haven’t seen all the data yet,” she said.
“Right, right,” Princess Twilight said, “I’ll let you study. Here,” she levitated one of the stacks of notes over to Sci-Twi, “these are my theories on how to make contact with other universes. Look those over first, and tell me if any of them are close.”
“Princess, I’m hardly an expert on portal magic,” Sci-Twi protested gently as she took the stack in her own magic.
Sunset Shimmer suddenly got a thoughtful look on her face. “I almost don’t want to mention this,” she said, instantly catching everypony’s attention, “but, out of everypony here, you kinda are the most experienced with portal magic, Sci-Twi.”
“What do you mean?” the two Twilights asked in unison.
“Two words,” Sunset said, walking over to Sci-Twi and pointing at the magic detector she was wearing, “Midnight. Sparkle.” Sci-Twi gasped and backed away, holding one front leg up defensively.
“What are you talking about?” Starlight asked.
Sunset addressed Sci-Twi by way of answer, “When you turned into Midnight, you had the magic of the Portal as well as that of my friends. Our fight culminated in what I assume was the gap between our world and this one. Maybe, if we can replicate that in a more… sane manner…”
“No,” Sci-Twi said. “I see where you’re going, Sunset, but I don’t want to relive that. Ever.”
“But…” Sunset started to say.
“No,” Sci-Twi said firmly, turning away and burying her attention in the notes she held.
“Twilight, just listen,” Sunset said, trying to approach her friend, only to be stopped by Princess Twilight.
“Let her be,” the alicorn said, a deeply thoughtful and knowing look on her face. “At least for now.”