“Oh no! Oh no no no no! STARLIGHT!”
There was no answer to Twilight’s frantic call, and as she reached the threshold of the room where the flash had come from, the reason for the lack of response became immediately clear:
It was empty.
For a moment Twilight just stared, her eyes sweeping back and forth across the room, as though she’d just overlooked Starlight somehow and a few seconds’ worth of closer examination would locate her. But Twilight’s frantic looking around failed to produce the other mare, nor locate any reason for her to calm down. If anything, it made her anxiety grow worse.
This room, on the second floor of her castle, had originally been her backup laboratory. Her primary laboratory had been in her basement, just like the one she’d had at the Golden Oak library, but it had grown too crowded to work in once she’d started storing the mirror portal to Canterlot High there. Fortunately, her new castle had rooms to spare, giving her plenty of space in which to set up a new magical work-area.
That was why, when she’d acquired a new book on magical theories and practices from antiquity, she’d designated this room as her backup laboratory. The concentric circles of runes described in the tome had required a wide area to inscribe, and she’d been meticulous in laying them down with utmost precision. Or at least she’d thought she had. But when she’d shed the drop of blood necessary to activate the spell – which should have created a portal to the Crystal Empire, allowing her to visit Cadance and Shining Armor without needing to use the train or exhausting herself with consecutive uses of alicorn-enhanced teleportation – it hadn’t taken her to the destination she’d intended.
Instead, it had deposited her on another world entirely.
Everglow.
The question of what she’d done wrong hadn’t been one she’d had the luxury of indulging in at the time, however. Issues of getting herself and Spike (who’d been drawn through with her) to safety had taken priority, as had finding a way home. But in the course of returning to Equestria, she’d picked up so much new knowledge – thought-based spellcasting, alien gods who bestowed their followers with special powers, new techniques for constructing magic-imbued devices, and that was just scratching the surface! – that pouring over her imperfect portal had simply been less interesting. To that end, she’d moved her research into a new room on the ground floor, one she’d deemed her “auxiliary backup lab,” after sealing her backup lab off so she’d be able to come back and examine the portal at a later date.
Though in hindsight, just putting a velvet rope in front of the doors hadn’t really been enough.
That much had been proven when Applejack and the Cutie Mark Crusaders had accidentally reactivated the portal and gotten lost in Everglow while Twilight had been out. It was a situation that she hadn’t even been aware of until some time after it had happened, lost in analyzing all of the magic she’d acquired on that world.
Ironically, it had been Lex – having fled back to Everglow when Princess Celestia had rejected his demand that she and Luna abdicate in his favor, leading to an outbreak of violence that he and Celestia each blamed the other for instigating – who had brought Applejack and the CMCs back. That he’d done so, despite knowing how poorly he would likely be received by everypony else, had motivated Twilight to try and broker a peace between him and the princesses, setting up a second meeting with herself as a mediator. That it had resulted in him assuming authority over Vanhoover with Celestia and Luna’s blessing had been a positive outcome…or at least, it had seemed like it at the time.
Pleased with how well things had gone, and still somewhat mortified by not having realized that several ponies she cared about had disappeared, Twilight had scaled back on her magical research, instead putting a renewed focus on maintaining her friendships. Dismantling the accidental portal – still sitting in her backup lab, waiting for another drop of blood to trigger it – had thus been, quite literally, on her to-do list when she’d found out there’d been another incident of ponies getting lost in Everglow: Pinkie Pie, Diamond Tiara, and Silver Spoon.
That, at least, hadn’t been her fault; rather, it had been Applejack’s use of Severance – under the baleful weapon’s influence – that had sent them there. And while Rainbow Dash had helped AJ banish the weapon shortly thereafter, those three were still lost, prompting Twilight to put together another expedition to that world to try and find them. One that had been cut short when she’d gotten a letter from Princess Celestia informing her that something terrible had happened to Luna…
And now it’s come to this, thought Twilight miserably as she stood in the threshold. I let myself get distracted again and again, and Starlight’s paid the price for it.
But she and Silhouette would be the last ponies to pay for her carelessness, since now the portal would never open again.
“Twilight!” called a familiar voice, growing louder as Spike rounded the corner at the other end of the hall, running toward her as fast as his little legs could carry him. “Twilight! What happened?! Are you okay?! Where’s-, WHOA! What happened here?!”
The reason for Spike’s surprise was obvious. The tables that had hugged the far walls were in disarray, knocked over and strewn about haphazardly. The walls were blackened, as though scorched. Debris was scattered everywhere.
But most notable was the long gouge in the floor, cutting right across the runic circles, irreparably marring the delicate inscriptions.
Gulping, Spike looked up at Twilight. “Starlight?” he asked hesitantly. “Silhouette?”
Unable to take her eyes off of the disaster zone in front of her, Twilight shook her head helplessly. “I don’t know. I heard Starlight’s voice from in here, telling Silhouette not to move, and then there was a flash, and now…”
“They’re probably on Everglow, right?” From the tone in his voice, it was clear what answer Spike wanted to hear. “I mean, I know this looks bad, but if they’re not here then that has to mean that they made it through, don’t you think?”
“I don’t know,” repeated Twilight, but this time there was an underlying note of panic in her voice, her breathing coming heavier as she started thinking of all the ways things could have gone wrong. “Trans-spatial magic is delicate; any sort of disruption can lead to all kinds of unintended consequences! They might have made it to Everglow, or they might have ended up somewhere else entirely! Or worse, what if they didn’t make it anywhere?! I was stuck outside of physical space for a few seconds when I fought my duel with Lex, and it was horrible! If they’re trapped there, then-”
“Twilight!” Fumbling with a paper bag that he kept for occasions such as this, Spike held it over her muzzle. “Twilight, calm down! Breathe into the bag!”
He needed to say that a few more times before Twilight got the message, taking hold of the bag in her telekinesis and keeping it in front of her face as she frantically held one foreleg up, placing it over her chest and then straightening it out in the calming gesture Cadance had taught her. Even so, it still took almost a full minute for Twilight to begin coming down from her panic attack. “Thanks Spike,” she murmured as she finally got her breathing under control, belatedly realizing that the little dragon had come alone. “Where’s Soft Mane?”
Spike nodded back the way he’d come, an uncomfortable look crossing his face. “Using a healing spell on her mom. That Silhouette guy clocked her pretty good.”
Biting her lip at the thought of such a sweet mare being beaten unconscious, Twilight’s face was despairing as she looked at the wrecked room. “Spike, what happened? What was Silhouette doing here?”
“I don’t know.” Spike slumped over, dejected. “I was coming back to the castle to see Soft Mane, but when I got here, I heard some crashing coming from inside and found Grass Patch unconscious and Soft Mane fighting that guy. I tried to help, but he got ahold of me and told her to back off or else…”
Twilight’s eyebrows rose, alarmed. “He took you hostage?!”
Spike nodded, a miserable look on his face. “He kept asking about the portal. ‘The one to that world where Lex Legis gained his power,’ was the way he put it. We kept trying to stall him, since I was pretty sure you’d be back soon, telling him we didn’t know what he was talking about, but he kept getting angrier, and Soft Mane was worried about what he’d do if we kept it up. She was taking him here when we heard you come back, which was when he made us hide in that linen closet.”
“Oh Spike, I’m so sorry!” Picking the little dragon up, Twilight hugged him. “You must have been so scared!”
“Of that guy? No way,” huffed Spike, though he didn’t fight the hug. “I was just angry he got the drop on me. It’s a boyfriend’s job to rescue their girlfriend, not the other way around!”
Fighting down the urge to snicker, Twilight put him down. “I’m sure Soft Mane will forgive you.”
“I hope so, I really want to be a good boyfriend to her,” sighed Spike, before glancing past Twilight at what was left of her backup lab. “So, can you tell if Starlight’s okay?”
Taking a deep breath, Twilight took another look at the wreckage in front of her. “Stand back.”
Only paying partial attention as Spike acknowledged her request and moved away from her, Twilight took another deep breath, and then began casting a spell.
Peering into the magical spectrum a second later, she tried to put together what had happened with the portal.
That the room was flooded with conjuration magic wasn’t surprising; although the name made it sound like it was concerned exclusively with bringing something to the caster’s location, it was actually a catch-all term for any sort of magical translocation effect. At least, it was the catch-all term on Everglow, since that world had a more sophisticated magical classification system than Equestria.
What was more concerning was the residual instance of evocation magic, which was the type of magic concerned with offensive spells. That had to be from Starlight Glimmer; she’d said her horn was recovering enough for her to start casting some modest spells again. If she’d fired a magical blast at Silhouette, maybe while he was activating the portal…
Her eyes moving toward the large furrow dug across the runic circles, Twilight realized that was probably Starlight’s doing. Had she fired a beam at Silhouette and missed? Or had she been trying to disable the portal before the crazed earth stallion could activate it?
“Twilight?” called Spike timidly from behind her. “Have you figured anything out yet?”
“Just a second, Spike.”
Another look around the room turned up no new auras, causing Twilight to frown. She hadn’t expected to find any additional magic, but she hadn’t found out anything definitive either. More information was needed, but her spell had turned up as much information as it could…which meant that her best option was to feed it some of her own alicorn magic, enhancing it and hopefully giving it enough of a boost to give her some clue about where the two had gone.
Fortunately, she still had a little alicorn magic left. Equestrian teleportation wasn’t made for long trips, so teleporting everypony here from the train, then taking herself and Starlight to Canterlot, and then coming back to Ponyville had depleted a lot of her reserves, but she had enough left for this.
Closing her eyes as she slowly fed extra power into the spell – thought-based magic wasn’t meant to be enhanced on the fly like this, requiring careful augmentation so that the spell-form didn’t crack under the strain of taking on additional energy – Twilight gave it as much as she felt it could handle, then opened her eyes again.
Thankfully, it had worked. Able to see the residual auras in more detail now, Twilight’s brow furrowed as she studied the imprint of the conjuration magic that had taken effect. Although she’d never examined the lingering magic left by previous uses of the portal, she was able to compare what she saw now to the plane-shifting spell she’d learned during her time on Everglow. Comparing the diagrams and conceptual models of that spell to the residual magic now… “They made it through.”
“To Everglow?” came Spike’s hope-filled voice.
“Yes.” Smiling in relief, Twilight dismissed her spell with a thought as she turned to face her number one assistant. “The quantized gradient of the spell shows that it was regularized until-”
“Um, Twilight?” interrupted Spike. “Maybe explain it in a way that someone who isn’t a magical genius can understand?”
Not sure whether to huff or giggle, Twilight did neither, instead taking another breath before trying again. “I think the portal activated in the split-second between when Starlight fired her spell and when it struck the circles, so they would have been transported before the magic was completely disrupted. That means they probably made it through okay.”
“That’s great!” cheered Spike, only to pause as he saw Twilight’s lack of enthusiasm. “Isn’t it?”
“We still don’t know where on Everglow she is,” murmured Twilight, more to herself than him. “Moving between different planes of existence is difficult enough that there’s usually some imprecision involved in reaching an exact destination, and with the tail-end of the spell interrupted, they could have ended up anywhere on that world.”
“Well, what about sending her a letter?” offered Spike.
Twilight blinked, momentarily thrown back to the letters she’d been telling Starlight she needed to write just a few minutes ago. “A letter?”
Spike nodded. “Yeah. You write it down, and I’ll send it to her, just like we did when Pinkie Pie was lost over there.”
But Twilight was already shaking her head. “She won’t be able to write anything back. If I tell her to go to Viljatown and wait for me to come find her there, that won’t do any good if she’s too far away to get there. That’s why we never found Pinkie until Discord brought her back.”
“Okay, well, how about sending her instructions on how to cast the spell to send letters back?” shrugged Spike. “I mean, she’s a really powerful unicorn, right? If she can beat all of Lex’s friends and then almost defeat him all by herself, I bet she can learn that spell no problem.”
Her eyes lighting up as she realized he was right, Twilight couldn’t stop herself from grinning. “That could work! Spike, you’re a genius!” Picking him up in her telekinesis, she gave him a happy nuzzle. “This is why you’re my number one assistant. Come on!” Placing him on her back, she turned and galloped down the hallway.
“If everything goes well, we’ll have Starlight back before the princesses’ train arrives tomorrow morning!”