Twilight woke up before the dawn. This was both expected and not. After all, she hadn’t set an alarm, and she hadn’t locked her sleep to any sort of circadian spell, so the time of awakening would be pretty random.
Still. Middle of the night? She must not have felt comfortable despite conjuring an actual mattress on top of the dry slab she had been expected to sleep on.
Annoyingly, she was up, and she didn’t feel like casting a sleep spell on herself.
She checked herself over, making sure the disguise spell hadn’t faltered while she’d been out. No wings to speak of – good. They already worshipped her as a savior, which was nice, but she drew the line at being worshipped as a god, which is what those wings would make her in most societies. Plus, she needed to at least look approachable to her companions if she were to get any useful camaraderie out of them.
Pinkie was sleeping soundly on one of the mattresses, though she had forgotten to take off her glasses and would have a red mark on the side of her face when she woke up. If Twilight had to guess, this was a pattern with her. The earth pony was hugging the blanket to her rather than draping it over herself, indicating she was used to sleeping with another pony in bed.
Twilight sighed. So she did have a family… a completely ordinary mare, torn away from everything. Twilight usually loved using her type on random adventures, but in most cases she knew what was going on and could guarantee their safety. The fact remained that Twilight Sparkle, Empress of Unity, didn’t really have the foggiest idea what was going on.
Maybe it was time to change that…
Twilight hopped out of bed, glancing at Applejack’s bed, surprised to find it empty. Casting a quick scan spell, she found the pony outside. She was easy to find – the pony had no magic in her whatsoever. Even the ponies in this desert had some arcane energy flowing through them; Applejack was a dead zone.
Twilight trotted out to see Applejack staring up at the stars.
“It’s dark, at the top,” Applejack said – her hoof still tapping in perfect time.
“In your home?”
Applejack nodded. “Beyond the Mesh, there are no lights. Just empty blackness. We’re missing out. Lights from the sky…” She adjusted her hat with her free hoof, smiling.
“So, what’s a mare like you doing out here at a time like this?” Twilight asked, smirking.
“Can’t sleep.”
“Nightmares?”
“Couldn’t even get to sleep to see if I had those or not.”
Twilight pointed at her horn. “I could make you fall asleep, if you wanted. Wouldn’t even be that hard.”
“No,” Applejack said. “I don’t know what that would do to my rhythm.”
“Come on, it’s just a tapping hoof, what does it matter?”
“Everything,” Applejack said in a dry tone that told Twilight she’d just said something beyond insulting. Twilight made a mental note: unlike Pinkie, Applejack was very capable of resentment. It would be prudent to watch her words around the mechanic.
“If you say so.” Twilight looked at the stars. “…I’m going to try to feel the magic of this world, see if I can get any answers. It might take a while.”
“Mhm. Need me to do anything?”
“Watch me, make sure nopony interrupts me?”
“You got it.”
Twilight blinked. “Just like that?”
“You’re clearly the manager of this group of ours. That’s all I need to know.”
“Not all managers are good, you know.”
“True. But where would we be if we didn’t follow orders?”
“If I followed the orders of my old managers most of my galaxy would be enslaved and dead.” This was true, but Twilight knew Applejack had no clue what a galaxy was.
Applejack was silent for a few moments. “I’ll watch you.”
“Good,” Twilight said. She took a few steps away from Applejack until she found a suitably level area. With a quick burst of magic, she removed the sand grains from the cobbled ground. Her rump hit the ground hard, marking the center of an intricate magic circle lined with vine-like designs dotted with the occasional flower.
Twilight’s entire body began to glow a powerful violet and her horn shone like a miniature star. The moment she tapped into the magic of the world, her horn shot a beam into the sky that could be seen for miles around.
And then she lost all sense of scale as her mind took in the entire magical field at once. She hated this part of the spell most of all, and as she suspected it was even worse than usual since this world’s magic was foreign to her. There was barely any awareness of the realm she was in, much less of herself.
That was her first mission. Locate her body so she had an anchor. If she somehow failed this task… well, she had backup spells to keep her from going completely brain dead, but the part of her intelligence that was out here would dissipate into nothing, dying. Considering she was that intelligence right now, she had some pretty good motivation to find herself.
Luckily, even though the magic was foreign and folded in ways that made no sense to her, it was weak, while she was strong. Once she was able to recognize relative strengths in the magical field, she found her body easily. She was a little annoyed to find that this had taken twenty minutes, but everything was fine now.
With a suitable anchor set, she stretched out, feeling the world around her…
Deep beneath the crust, there was a solid layer of magic-producing stone. It was very weak, and if everything she knew was to be believed, it had been weakening at a dramatic rate over the last few years. There were a few places where the layer poked above the sands, creating sharp, dark structures. Twilight wondered what the locals thought of those…
The magic substance reacted to her scans, though Twilight did not know what the reaction meant. Interesting, but frustrating.
Almost the entire planet was desert, Twilight found. There was exactly one ocean and it took up maybe five percent of the surface area of the world. Everything else was dust. It was hard for her to sense signs of civilization with her awareness spread out so thin, but she couldn’t find any major cities.
But when she switched to scanning magic itself she found a few things of interest.
First, there were other spaces. A few specks here and there that shone with abnormal energy that was similar to the magic of the world, but wasn’t. It felt darker, thicker – a bit like syrup, really. Every time she focused on one of these points she was reminded that it wasn’t the magic she had tapped into, so she couldn’t get much information about it.
One thing she could look at was another magical beacon. Nothing compared to her own power, but far beyond anything else the world had to offer. It shone like a white diamond in the world. If Twilight had to guess, it was the real Enchantress.
Hello there, Enchantress. How are you doing?
Get out of my head!
Geez, just trying to start a conversation here.
She’s getting away because of you!
Twilight pulled back – something was happening around the Enchantress. She could feel reality rippling… Something transdimensional was occuring in the area.
“Applejack!” she boomed, speaking through magic rather than her vocal cords, startling the poor earth pony considerably. “Wake up Pinkie! We need to go!”
Applejack, despite being outright terrified of the booming voice coming from the sky, knew who it was and obeyed. She ran into the house, yelling for Pinkie.
Twilight focused on herself, Pinkie, and Applejack. She chose their destination…
It was time for an extreme long distance teleport.
~~~
Rainbow was a heavy sleeper and had slept through many moments of intense combat, not that she would tell anyone this.
Fluttershy was not a heavy sleeper – trained to always be on guard from possible monster attacks. This meant she would notice if the ground shook… not if a pony approached them.
Only Rarity had the awareness and paranoia to wake up. She saw them – a dark shadow in the mouth of the cave, lit only by faint starlight. An intruder; specifically, a thief who was pick-pocketing Rainbow.
Rarity saw the thief pull out the dimensional device, holding it high in a wing.
Not today… Rarity thought, focusing her magic. She could teleport the device away easily, beat the tar out of the thief with her magic, and chide Rainbow for falling asleep while it was her turn to watch! That pegasus was supposed to be an adventurer!
Hello there, Enchantress. How are you doing?
The voice of a being so much more than Rarity smashed into her mind at full force. It wasn’t painful, but it was startling – enough to force her horn to flare up brightly, alerting the thief to her presence.
Get out of my head! Rarity shouted back mentally.
Geez, just trying to start a conversation here.
The thief had already started fumbling with the dimensional device as Rarity lit her horn again. If Rarity didn’t get it back soon, the thief could figure out how to open a portal…
The thief figured it out far too quickly. A portal opened up to the massive expanse of bronze gears.
She’s getting away because of you! “EVERYONE UP!” Rarity shouted, trying to grab the dimensional device – but her magic faltered. At first she blamed the voice in her head, but she quickly realized that shouldn’t have any effect now that it was no longer talking.
Fluttershy and Rainbow were up in an instant, ready to fight – or in Fluttershy’s case, hold a weapon. They did not have time to take on the thief – she was already on the other side of the portal.
I have one chance at this. Rarity focused her magic into her horn, touching the essences of Fluttershy, Rainbow, and herself. She pointed her horn directly to the other side of the portal. She didn’t know how long she had before the gateway closed – she couldn’t waste any time, for they could lose the dimensional device at any moment.
She teleported them to the other side of the portal.
The second half of the teleport went wrong. The three of them shot out of the spell spinning end over end and at high velocity. Rarity felt like a metal spike had been driven through her head right behind her horn, the throbbing pain making her let out a scream.
The last thing she saw before she blacked out was a purple pony standing on the other side of the portal, looking bewildered.
She looked like a unicorn.
Rarity didn’t even have to have a tenth of her awareness to know she was not a unicorn.
She was something much, much more.
~~~
Applejack decided she hated teleporting before Twilight even started the spell.
Even then, her worst expectations had not come close to the disorienting nausea she felt as her body was, wasn’t, and then was again. She reeled so hard she expected she was going to puke; only her body was apparently unable to do so. Was that because it hadn’t fully formed yet or because of some failsafe mechanism? Applejack didn’t know.
All she knew was that she could suddenly feel the clank clank clank, of the Mesh once again, the beat in perfect timing with her hoof and her heart. She had kept perfect time during her entire escapade.
With a proud smile, she opened her eyes to see the beautiful bronze gears of her home, shifting with every clank like the blood vessels of a pony. It was beautiful…
And it was taken from her with a comically insulting pop.
“B-bring it back!” Applejack shouted, turning to Twilight. “You got us here, you c-“ she paused. Twilight didn’t look like she was all there. Her eyes were unfocused and her jaw was sideways, giving off a semblance of confusion. Her horn was still shining like a beacon, lighting up a small area of the sky.
Pinkie waved a hoof in front of her eyes. “Earth to Twilight, what just happened!?”
Twilight’s horn stopped shining. The unicorn fell backward, slumping to her side, breathing heavily. “I… may have made a miscalculation.”
“May have!?” Applejack shouted.
Twilight shook her head, standing up. “I contacted the Enchantress at what appears to have been the worst possible time.”
“Well duh, what were you expecting?” Pinkie asked.
“Her to be asleep?”
Pinkie blinked. “That’s… reasonable, but come on. Since when does anything go as expected?”
“I don’t have time to deal with your neurosis right now,” Twilight muttered.
“Can you get me to the Mesh or not?” Applejack demanded.
“I… I can try. I had some awareness of the portal.” Twilight closed her eyes and lit her horn again. “I’m low on power, but… I think I can do it. I just need to grab hold of the magic of the other side and…”
Applejack’s heart fell. “There’s… no ‘magic’ in the Mesh. I would know about it if there was.”
Twilight frowned. “…I’ve got three, maybe four distinct signatures that were here, and currently aren’t. I’m going to try to follow the strongest through.”
“You can do it, Twilight!” Pinkie cheered. “You are the ultimate wizard!”
“You have no idea how right you are.” Twilight focused. “Strongest isn’t going anywhere, possibly because it’s the Enchantress and she’s locked to this world. So-“
Space rippled in front of Twilight, starting as a white point in reality that quickly expanded to a shimmering ring.
The other side didn’t go to the Mesh. It went to a world of trees. Bright, green trees…
Applejack felt such a deep emotional conflict. It wasn’t home. But it was beautiful.
“I… I’m sorry,” Twilight said with genuine sorrow. “I don’t really know how this works. I might be able to follow my own magic back to my world. But all the others are too weak.”
Wordlessly, Applejack marched through the portal to the verdant land on the other side. It was currently the middle of the day here and everything was so full of life. She walked on top of pointed green things she wasn’t sure what to call, and the trees all looked so different from each other, not at all like she’d expected they would. Were they different kinds of trees? She had no way to know.
There were other living things, too. Small, buzzing creatures flitting left and right. Something with feathers flapping through the air.
By the time Twilight and Pinkie had followed her through, she had already started laughing. She pranced around the green to the beat of the Mesh she could no longer feel.
She no longer knew what to think, really. All she saw was green.
And then she ran into the ankle of a tremendous, scaled beast. Instinctually, she looked up into the thing’s toothy maw.
The eyes tore all joy from Applejack in an instant.
They were an evil, piercing red with wispy black flames coming off the edges. Those eyes wanted her dead.
The monster opened its mouth and roared.