Finally
Geel nervously tinkered away, if the argonian could sweat, he certainly would be at the moment. Twilight was thoroughly impressed with his craft, but almost felt sorry for him every time he flinched at Taara's growls and comments.
"I still want to melt his face off." Taara flinched at the stinging pain of the magical circuits sparking under Geel's careful worksmanship. The limb was powered by soul gems just like the Dwemer automatons. The dull bronze color of the dwarven metal clashed with the arch mage's robes, but she was thankful she would still have an arm after this, even if she did still hate Geel.
"Come on Taara, he's giving you a whole new arm. And he's really good at this, I am sure it will be fine." Twilight's fingers fiddled about as she sat impatiently but still managing to marvel at the ingenuity of the lizard's craft.
"Yeah, but it really doesn't improve what I or any of us really think about him." She flinched a bit in pain at the last piece of Dwemer artifact being lodged into her stub.
There was a series of clicks and clacks as scaled hands fitted the rest of the pieces together, then a flood of healing energies and Geel looked down at them with a frown. "You know... you guys could really have just waited until I was gone to talk bad about me."
Twilight gave a nervous laugh and a reassuring pat on his back. "Well Geel, I for one am very happy and very thankful for your help in all of this. We could not have done it without you."
Geel gave a warm happy smile, which almost made Taara retch. It was one thing Twilight did not much enjoy about her close friend. Taara was a grudge holder and in her age she was happy in her ways. Twilight was literally the princess of friendship, seeing someone so dead set and determined not to make friends with another person was a little hard for her, especially when that person was already a very close friend. But she had moved past this years ago. A part of her own maturity from this world. Not everyone was perfect, and not everyone was willing or able to just change to fit the needs of a peaceful happy world. Taara was a good person but she still had some things about her that would never fit into a perfect world, the more she thought about it this was the same with everyone she had ever met. Everyone had their problems and none of those problems could ever truly exist in a perfect world. As Taara taught her, perfection and peace is just a lie, a beautiful lie but a lie none the less. The only thing she could do is just her best. Just because true peace was impossible didn’t mean she should not try for it. These memories of lessons taught to her by arch mage Taara were ones she would keep forever.
“Ahem! Well your arm is complete arch mage, the sigil stone is awaiting. You two have a wonderful trip, three sorry.” He chuckled lightly looking down at spike. "I will accept my usual payment, granted this was a tad demanding so I will be needed a little extra. And you..." He smiled at Twilight. "Thank you, it's good to see that someone around here has manners."
Taara glared at him making the Argonian shuffle away.
"Interesting guy." Spike laughed as he hopped up gracefully onto Twilight’s back. He almost never sat there anymore, He was far more mature and independent. And if Twilight was to be honest with herself, Spike had really grown into a whole new dragon. He had hardly increased in size but still he was smart, quick, and ready for anything. Spike had actually joined in on some of Baldir’s little quests. Twilight herself was very different from the young pony she had come to this land as but to her surprise, Spike had grown twice as much as her. Just another thing they would have to laugh about when they came back to Equestria.
Immediately, construction began. In Taara's own words, they didn't need anything too fancy, but certainly something that could be upgraded and used thoroughly afterwards. Construction began in an old nord burrow. The collage usually performed the more dangerous experiments deep within this location. Twilight even got a long drawn out explanation that Taara herself when she first joined the collage found some sort of extremely powerful artifact in this location. It took two days to clear out the projects still going on and to start construction, another day and a half to get messages out to the various people of interest from researchers to trade company representatives to reputable sellswords willing to adventure or guard a dangerous portal, and even a few volunteers who were eager to impress one of the legendary dragonborn. Nearly a week passed before Baldir showed up with a small handful of Companions, apparently he was going to lead the assault with two of his soldiers, and the rest were going to guard the portal and keep anything from invading. But by this time, the construction was nearly complete. Twilight even managed to catch sight of Ra'shala moving about in the area. Some of the locals heard of the project stood outside and protested mildly, but it took only Baldir showing up and giving his reassurance that a "Real Nord" was there just in case anything went wrong. But most of the project knew that if anything went wrong, Taara's fallback plan was teleporting out and collapsing the burrow. The whole project took just barely over a week, but it was well funded and completed perfectly on time.
Taara's staff clacked on the ground to gather attention, the sound reverberated over the walls of the large room, every soul destined to make the trip gathered in. She had their attention, attention that fell on her new arm and for those who knew better, on her as the voice of authority. “Aye, gather round. You few and brave who came willingly, and you whom I paid to be here.” There were some chuckles as Baldir strode in with his two companions, and hoping in from a dark corner Ra’shala popped in calmly and happily with a curious glance.
Taara smirked seeing everyone who chose to arrive. She had to pay Baldir, he would never admit that he came upon his own choice to help out in 'stupid mage crap'. “As you all know, today we finally have all the required ingredients to get our friend and master wizard back to her own home.” Taara flexed the fingers on her new arm as she looked down at it somewhat regretfully.
“Ahem… the plan is quite simple. We will open an Oblivion gate in a safe location, then force our way inside, fight to the nearest castle and find the obsidian mirror. When we do so, I will force it open and we will hop through. After we do this we will try and return twilight to her home and establish a magical gateway that does not rely on us invading Oblivion every trip. As to not freak out the inhabitants of Equestria, both myself and Twilight have created a spell that will translate our forms to a not so unusual form for her homeland. It's not permanent so don't panic, and once we are settled and in no danger of causing panic we can revert back and give a proper introduction.”
Twilight chuckled at the thought of what everyone else would look like with this spell, she could imagine Baldir turning into some hulking earth pony, enough to intimidate even Big mac. Her imagination wondered as Taara continued.
“The general goal here is to get Twilight back home, but also to bind the two worlds together. Travel between the two realms will be easy then, happy ending you know.” Taara chuckled, it was impossible to tell for a normal person who did not know her, but she was always a sucker for happy endings in stories. Decades of war and death, she tended to enjoy those missions that ended happily.
The crowd talked amongst each other for a moment before settling their fallback plans and all the such. Twilight had whipped together a few details that would help them right away when they transformed. It was hard for her the first time and much like her first transformation just because they COULD walk on the number of legs they were used to didn’t mean they would be good at it. And much like she expected it, the mages read it thoroughly and Baldir tossed it aside the moment it touched the palms of his hands.
Twilight’s thoughts were interrupted by an old orc yelling at Arch mage Taara as she ruffled through her bags, it was unclear what they were discussing but he was outraged by something and she seemed to as usual with most of her mild problems, was ignoring it.
“Twilight, are we ready?” Taara looked to her and she nodded looking back to quadruple check the makeshift Oblivion gate they constructed. There was a plethora of guards and mages just outside the room and three of the most legendary and powerful beings in all of Tamriel ready to go at a moment’s notice right there. There was little they were not ready for.
“Everything is here, lets go to Equestria. Errr well… um Oblivion then Equestria. I can’t wait to introduce you to everyone.” Her mind bustled with excitement and worry. Breaking into Oblivion was usually a really bad idea, they got away with it the first time because Sheogorath found it amusing, but if anything came out after they went in, it would meet the finest swords and most powerful magic Tameriel had to offer. She just had few other small things to worry about, like the passage of time. But Taara's research showed some promising possibilities so she didn't focus on that just yet.
Taara just smiled warmly and took up a black soul gem, smashing it over the sigil stone caused the magica to flare up and ignite the gateway into Oblivion with a powerful fiery red light.
Baldir pulled out his axe and gave it a calm twirl “Aye! Everyone stick together, leave any Daedra to me and my boys.” He grinned as he and his two companions entered the gate first, quickly followed by Ra’shala already drawing her bow, then came Twilight with an armored Spike on her back, the college mages, and finally Taara who closed the distance and stepped into oblivion with grim determination.
The first step into the hellish fire pitted doomy world reminded her right away of her first moment in the horrible place. It was so hot and so loud.
“Right ahead! There’s a huge castle, that has got to be your place.” Baldir strode forward bravely, not even flinching as out of seemingly nowhere, a scamp lunged up only fly apart. It was unclear if it was cleaved in two by the heavy nord, or literally splattered. “Keep moving forward lads, we will be in there in in two shakes.” His voice was nearly lost in the storm of choking ash and foul scent of sulfur.
Pressing forward the group finally managed to, with much hopping over lava and minor scuffles with minor Daedra, get into the castle where Baldir enjoyed a few clean rounds of combat with the occasional Dremora and finally they found it. Tucked away in the corner of a back room, a large obsidian mirror. Up near the top of the tower where Twilight vaguely remembered popping out.
Twilight nearly teared up for reasons outside of the harsh atmosphere. Spike seemed to be fine, but Twilight and many others were barely managing in the hellish landscape. Looking back at them, then back at the mirror, her fingertips gently caressed the eerily smooth machine ”Finally, Spike... we can go home. Finally..." She nibbled on her lip and looked back at Taara who nodded. And despite his silence, she could feel Spike gripping her hair tightly from his perch on her back.
Taara raised a hand and forcefully began a ritual, dumping her power into the mirror. Twilight quickly joined followed by a few of the other mages. They wanted to finish quickly and avoid an angry Mehrunes Dagon showing up to ask them how and why they were trespassing in his realm.
They all flinched as the portal fired up. Very different from how Twilight remembered it. A bright light with a sharp snap and constant hiss. The first voice she heard amongst those who stood and stared in fear was Taara. “Royalty first princess…” Taara playfully nudged Twilight who stood uncertainly at the edge of the group, it felt just a touch different, but she froze at something she didn't expect, within the fire, rot and death of this entire realm, she smelled something, the soft touch of flowers and Equestrian air upon he nose. She looked back up at Taara then with a bright grin she happily leapt through followed quickly by Taara who had faith in her friend that she wasn't diving head first into just some sort of random instant death, then with some hesitation the others followed into the utter darkness of the obsidian mirror.