//------------------------------// // Chapter Two // Story: The Mare from the Moon // by Evilhumour //------------------------------// Spliced flicked her ear as she put on her space suit; she was beyond lucky that this was a flare day and she would have enough time to go to the cave. Come to me Spli- “Oh shut your face!” Spliced snapped, her wings twitching furiously as she stormed her way out of her station. She knew that she was throwing all of her possible backup plans in the air but she didn’t care. “You’ve been quiet all this time and now you are opening your non-moving lips?” As she made her way to the cave, she saw the cameras were following her and preparing to shock her when the flare hit, rendering them inoperative. Without giving them a second look, she made her way directly to the cave despite not being there for almost three hundred years. I can offer you such po- “I told you last time, no,” Spliced barked as she sprinted down the tunnel, almost falling over herself. “I am no idiot; even if you were to exist, I am not going to shackle myself to another when I am capable of taking care of myself.” She reached the bottom of the cave where the other mare and the shaft of light were waiting for her. The mare was looking at her with a smirk on her face. “You will need my aid if you plan on leaving,” she purred, tilting her head as she appeared directly in front of Spliced. “A vague threat is not much of a deterrent,” Spliced shot back as she walked through her, with Spliced’s coat bristling. “All I need to do is walk through and I will be in another reality?” “You are making a big mistake, Spliced,” the mare cooed at her, with Spliced rolling her eyes as she stood in front of the shaft of light, a supposedly broken and improper gateway to the multiverse. “You don’t know what you are getting into. You will need my help.” “I highly doubt that,” Spliced said as she stepped through the shaft of light and found herself in the exact same room as before, minus the other mare. Turning around, she saw the shaft of light behind her as well as the exit. “Maybe I am going insane,” Spliced muttered as she walked back up the pathway. “And I have a feeling that the luxuries I have been enjoying are going to come to an end.” With a sigh as Spliced made her way onto the surface of the moon, she tilted her head upwards to get her last open look the coreworld she would have before they confined her to the stat- Her mouth went slack and her eyes widened as the planet was now vastly different from what she was familiar with; the surface was highly undeveloped and so lush with plant life! “That mare creature was telling the truth,” Spliced said with awe in her voice, stunned at the fact she was in a new reality, and one so primitive to boot. No orbital plates, no space stations, no satellites. It was as if they didn’t even have a space prog- “Oh no,” Spliced’s eyes went wider with horror as she realized what exactly the other mare had been going on about. She had put herself in horrible danger if her suit was damaged. If she were to die up here, she would be trapped in a near-infinite loop cycle. She had to get back- BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP She began to panic now, turning around and trying to sprint back to the shaft, but tripped over her hooves and her damn helmet was loose! She could already feel the escape of air rushing around her. This was really bad; she would be forced to slither her way forwards for all time until she could get back to the shaft of light. With her hoof pushing herself forwards, Spiced prepared herself for her next death when there was a flash of blue light in her face and there was a Pure mare in front of her that look almost identical to the other mare. But before Spliced could react to this, she died. It had been a rather quiet night in Canterlot with Luna’s Court finishing up their last hearing a half hour ago and all those servicing Luna were dismissed save for her guards who stayed by her side no matter what she said. The thestrals were very adamant about defending her in all of their abilities when they had failed a thousand years ago, which was always a low blow which always worked when Luna tried to send them away. It had been some time since Luna had returned and slowly and surely, she had found her place back in Equestria and in life. Ponies had trusted her again and there were more that came to her because they wanted her advice and wisdom instead of trying to play her against Celestia. Even better, her relationship with her sister had been improving by leaps and bounds and it was truly as if they were equals. There were, of course, a few duties that Celestia saw to that Luna did not have say in as well as the reverse but they both sought the other’s counsel before making a decision. Life was good for her and she was happ- Her head snapped upwards towards her moon as a bit of magic blipped on the surface. It was almost unnoticeable, so small that she could have dismissed it for a simply natural flare of background magic except she knew that kind of magic was very rare and very specific. It was dimensional teleportation magic; something that should not exist anymore. It was an extremely dangerous procedure if one tried to use it to create a gateway; Starswirl had only managed to do two before failing to maintain the spell for the third one and burned himself out completely. Natural ones were all but either destroyed or hidden so deep that no pony had seen them in centuries yet had garrisons of guardians unknowingly standing to prevent anything dangerous from seeking their reality for their own. “Alert my sister; we are experiencing an unknown mirror,” Luna told her guards, speaking half of the code phrase for a potential dimensional invasion.  “We are going to our moon to investigate. Repeat the message back.” Her guards did so albeit with confusion on their faces. “Princess, what do you mean you are going to the moon to investigate an unknown mirror?” “We will explain upon our return if we deem it necessary enough,” Luna replied. “Pray that it is not.” Before they could voice any words of protest, Luna teleported herself to her moon and several klicks away from the source of the magic blip as to prepare herself from a possible attack from a dimensional traveler or travelers. As she built up a wide range of powerful spells, she teleported closer to the source when she noticed an orange blur on her moon. Teleporting again, she saw that it was an equine shape with a mare looking up at her before she fainted. Luna quickly ran a diagnosis spell over the mare and found an extremely faint heartbeat. Without a second thought, Luna teleported the mare from the moon to the world below.