//------------------------------//
// Chapter 4: The Fracture - Part 1 
// Story: From Eternia to Equestria 
// by deathtap 
//------------------------------//

The girls bowed low to the Royal Sisters as they slowly descended onto the glowing crystal lake, their most elite guard (except for Shining Armor who was happily off on his honeymoon with Cadence) bravely keeping an eye out for any sign of danger. The sisters had decided to come below and see for themselves exactly what the reports were talking about. How could something like this exist right under their noses? They could scarcely believe their ears when they heard the descriptions the guards had given them. The attack on Canterlot had left the city on high alert. Was it a coincidence then that Queen Chrysalis then knew about the caves? Did she try to take Canterlot to get at this new discovery far below? It had been a mystery as to how the Changelings knew about the extensive network beneath the city and this new discovery only deepened their concern. Was Canterlot really the Changelings' goal, or were they really after this new discovery.

"Princess Celestia," Twilight began as she rose from the ground. "I want you to meet somepony. This is Orko. He's a trollan from another dimension."

"Trollan? Another dimension?" Princess Celestia looked at the strange creature hovering in the air.

"Greetings and saluta-" the trollan stopped in mid-sentence and zoomed right in front of a shocked princess' nose. He leaned in and stared at her horn then whipped around to her sides and inspected her wings. 

The guards had started to make a move, but one quick glance from Celestia reassured them that this being meant no harm. They had been utterly humiliated by the Changelings, getting overwhelmed quite easily against the invaders. Due to this they were eager to prove themselves to their princess. Perhaps a little too eager, and with small remnants of the Changelings still within the city, they were beginning to judge too quickly. 

"Wow! You're a real unicorn!" Orko stated after he was satisfied with his inspection. He nodded to himself much like a foal would after coming up with the answer to a question on their own for the first time. 

Not wanting to spoil the trollan's mood, but also wanting to emphasize a point, Celestia smiled politely before responding with a firm but calming tone. "I'm an alicorn; a unicorn has only a horn and a pegasus only has wings."

Orko slapped his forehead with his hand. "Oh yeah! I guess I forgot that you call yourselves something else nowadays. Back where I'm from all horses with horns and wings were unicorns." Orko tilted his head to one side. "Do you guys have horses here?"

"Yeah, of course we do. Why?" Pinkie replied.

"Oh. Just was wondering. You know how sometimes when you know something that other people don't you don't know what to say about that thing because you don't have anything to compare it with. Right?" 

Pinkie nodded at the Trollan. "I know exactly what you mean!" she exclaimed. "It's so difficult to explain things when they don't know the thing in the first place because if they knew that thing then at least there would be point of reference or something, right? Then it'd be so much easier to explain because it would be explainable!"

"I know!" Orko stated.

Twilight passed a knowing look over her friends who all replied with a smile and a shrug. Pinkie would always be Pinkie, but after the Parasprite incident she made sure to pay extra close attention to whatever Pinkie was trying to say, especially if she was extravagant about it. Still, it was amazing that anypony could keep up with Pinkie and her randomness. But then again Orko himself was an oddity of sorts. Perhaps oddness and randomness went together quite comfortably. It did so in this case.

"We don't really refer to horses that way, Orko. We're all equines. Just some equines are different. There are ponies, horses, donkeys, deer, buffalo to name a few," Rarity put in. She thought it was good to make it a point to let him know that there were equines that might have taken offense.

Orko seemed to acknowledge this. "Wait. Don't you mean ungulates?"

"What?" Rarity asked not quite hearing the trollan properly.

"Nothing. So there are other types, huh? That's great. Back when Castle Grayskull was on the surface we used to get a lot of creatures hanging around. Was fun. Actually, no. Not near the Castle. The castle was always was rocky and kinda... dead, I guess. Animals didn't really come close." 

"How long exactly were you alone here, Orko?" Twilight asked.

He scratched his head underneath his wide-brimmed hat. "Y'know, I don't really know. If your time goes the same as my time... I'd say maybe... oh... hundred or so..."

Applejack furrowed her brow. "A hundred years? That's not too-" 

"Thousand. Hundred thousand, maybe. Just a guess. Maybe shorter. Lost track of time." He burst out laughing at that. "Get it? Lost track of time? Don't know how long I've been here?"

None of the girls laughed. There was nothing funny about it.

"Wow, I guess I've been here way too long. Normally that would've floored the others." He snapped his fingers and a pad of paper and a pen appeared. He scratched something on it and then slammed it shut. As he did, the notepad vanished in a puff of smoke and twinkling lights. "Now that I think of it, that's a really long time."

"Give or take a couple thousand years, that puts the events you've said in a period we call Prequestria. Before... well ancient history." Twilight looked at her mentor. "That's even older than you, right?"

Celestia nodded. "That's right, my faithful student. Much older. That is much before our time. Even before Discord's reign."

Luna looked at her sister, then back at Orko. She was intrigued by the creature. "Have we not seen thee before? In the world of dreams? Thy face is strangely familiar to us."

"Don't think so. I've slept a lot over the years, but I don't really remember my dreams. Could be, I guess. I usually dream of a certain someone. Would be nice to... see her again. I guess."

Rarity could not help but roll her eyes at the last two words as it was repeated much too often. She turned her head in an attempt to relieve the growing irritation she felt when she saw Twilight jerking her head towards Princess Celestia. The trollan was staring at Twilight but it was quite clear that he did not understand what she was implying. It was amusing in a pitiful sort of way. Rarity tried her best to keep from laughing.

"Is there something wrong with your neck, Twilight?" Orko finally asked.

Twilight grunted in annoyance. "No. It's just... don't you see something? If you look around I'm sure you'll notice a few things."

"Notice?"

At that the mare planted a hoof on her face. "I'm sure if you look around you'll see something."

Orko's eyes narrowed. It was clear that he was furrowing his brow in though, but because none of them could see his face they could only assume. He kept looking around slowly rising up into the air. Rainbow hovered next to him out of boredom. He floated back down after a few more seconds and shrugged.

"The power crystals are glowing slower than usual?" Orko asked pointing down at the crystal lake underneath them.

"No! I mean- what?" Twilight looked down. "P-p-power c-c-crystals?"

At once Applejack and Rarity leaped onto the nearest crate, Fluttershy hovered in the air, and Rainbow began kicking the glowing crystal harder, much to the other three's chagrin. She was stopped by a guard who put a hoof on Rainbow's shoulder and shook his head before pointing to Fluttershy about to burst out into tears. At once the cyan pegasus ceased her antics, but not before giving the crystal flooring one last kick for good measure.

"Oh yes. These crystals hold a lot of power. Many things on our world were powered by the energy stored in these crystals. We used them for lights, our machines, weapons... everything! Even shields and force-fields. Oh! And starships! Yeah, without them the starships wouldn't even be able to fly. Anyway, without all this crystal around this place to deflect the magic it would have significant effects on your world as a whole. I guess that was why it moved down here." Orko floated over to Pinkie who was chewing on something.

"Put?" Twilight asked.

"Yeah," Orko replied and took a doughnut that Pinkie offered him. He looked at it for a moment before shoving it into the empty space where his mouth would have been. "Ow! My teeth! I think I need to practice on something softer before eating this."

"Oh! You poor thing! We have some dentists above that-"

"No, no. No need." He snapped his fingers. "There. Nothing like a bit of magic to fix things up!"

"You can grow back teeth?" Rarity asked shocked by this new knowledge. She needed to learn that spell.

"Of course! Why? Can't you? It's real easy." 

While the others were talking about dental hygiene and how to use magic to grow teeth back, Celestia was looking over to Twilight whose mind was on other things. She shook her head to herself, as if she were telling herself off for thinking about something so outlandish.

"Orko, what do you mean by 'put here'?" she asked unable to come up with an answer.

"Huh? What do you mean what do I mean?" He asked. 

"She means who put this down here?" Celestia asked on behalf of her faithful student.

"The Sorceress of course! Before she gave her powers to me. Well, not that she gave them to me, I sort of just took the responsibility seeing as no one else wanted to do it, and I just happened to know a lot about Castle Grayskull and magic. I guess you could say I was the perfect trollan for the job! Being the only trollan is besides the point. And being friends with He-Man sure helped!"

"He-Man?" Luna asked raising an eyebrow. "That is a strange name."

The trollan suddenly appeared behind the princess of the night in the next instant making her jump and squeal in surprise, which delighted Pinkie and Orko immensely making them roll of the floor laughing. Rarity and Twilight frowned, but couldn't help but let out a soft giggle. Even Celestia couldn't stop herself from forming a small smile along the corner of her lips at her sister's cute exclamation of surprise.

"H-h-he just caught us unawares," Luna stated trying to be as regal as possible. Shame that her small blush spoiled the effect.

"Orko, is there anything else? You know. Something you might be missing?"

The trollan looked at Twilight completely and utterly confused.

Using her magic, Twilight grabbed Orko and pulled him to her. She took his head and tilted it towards Princess Celestia. "So, Orko, doesn't Princess Celestia remind you of somepony? I mean someone?"

Orko shrugged, "Yeah. She reminds me a lot of Swift, now that you mention it. The horn and the wings, obviously. Only the white coat and the hair colors remind... me... more... of..." 

There was a long moment of silence as something in the trollan's head clicked.

"BY THE POWER OF GRAYSKULL!" he roared.

"I... beg your pardon?" Princess Celestia stated taking a step back.

"You! You're her! Of course! Why didn't I see it before? You're her-" he stopped and stroked his chin. He began to mumbled to himself. "Not possible. No. Can't be. She would've remembered me. No way, no how. Nuh-uh. Impossible..."

The girls all exchanged looks with each other unsure about what to say or do. Something about the trollan's demeanor had changed and he looked dazed and confused. The way he just floated there made it clear that something was bothering him quite badly.

"Orko? What's wrong?" Twilight asked worried that she had done something that made the trollan feel offended. 

He looked up at her. "What? Nothing. Just, she looks like her, you know?"

"I know! That's why I was trying to get you to put it together!" Twilight replied exasperatedly.

"Can you live for that long? No. Can't be. I saw you... her, I mean. Do you recall anything from your distant past? When were you born?"

It took a moment for Celestia to realize that Orko was talking to her. "I don't remember the day I was born, but from a very young age I was orphaned-"

"During The Fracture?"

"The what?" Luna asked.

"How do you know that? Even our most advanced and well read scholars don't know much about that terrible time, if any of it was true. It was too long ago and only the most ancient tomes in the very rear of the forbidden section of the library have any reference to it." Celestia lowered her head. "It is said that it was the creation of Equestria. Are you saying that we have been wrong?"

"I guess. There were a lot of things happening before that, right girls?" 

"Y-yeah. We saw the creation of the Elements of Harmony and the Changelings and-" Twilight began.

Celestia held a hoof up and her student silenced herself. "You said you saw these things?"

Twilight quickly explained what they had been shown. The holographic room where they could see events from the past as if they were there, they could hear the voices of those that had once existed but were now nothing more than a distant dream. As the she told them everything she could in as much detail as she recalled, it was clear that the girls did not like being reminded of what they had seen. The vividness of the war and the cost had been much too painful for Fluttershy.

But it was the sudden change in Orko's demeanor that worried Twilight. Pinkie tried to cheer him up but could not help. Orko's face looked pained and Twilight could only imagine what those glowing eyes must have remembered to change his mood so significantly. It did not seem to matter to him before, so what would make it change now? Perhaps as time drew closer to his own involvement, he started to recall memories that he had wanted to repress even this far into the future. Over a hundred thousand years. How could anyone stay sane after that?  

"I guess I could show you. Things happened and it... you could say it was worst moment in history, I mean for this world. I can get everything ready, but I'm not going to watch it with you. I feel funny seeing myself in the recordings. Not just that, I don't really want to undo my memory charms as well. Couldn't forget, so I used magic to stop myself from thinking about it. When I do, I..." he suddenly stopped and looked spaced out. A few seconds later he shook his head and looked around confused and lost. It took him a moment to snap out of it. "See?"

"Oh, that's okay. I'll stay out here with you, if you want," Fluttershy said in her comforting tone. 

The trollan shook his head. "I guess you could, but I think it'd be better if you go in. Feels like the right thing."

As Celestia took a step closed towards the drawbridge, the glowing crystals beneath her began to change color. From under her hooves the red huge changed to blue, then orange, then white, then purple, then yellow, pink then the cycle would repeat from red again except the colors cycled faster and faster until they began to merge into each other to produce a steady white glow. Exactly like it had done in the holographic room in the beginning. 

Twilight looked at the trollan. "Orko, what are you doing?"

"I'm not doing this! I don't know what's going on? This has never happened before! I mean, not that I would know, but still! This is-" he cut himself off and suddenly bolts of lightning from the top of the drawbridge struck the trollan. He shook and convulsed as the power fluctuated through his entire body as tongues of lightning hit the lights making the bulbs inside explode in a shower of sparks. 

Fluttershy screamed, Applejack yelled something, Rarity hollered something unladylike, Pinkie said words too fast that no pony alive could have possibly understood what she was saying, Rainbow zipped straight up into the sky, Twilight gasped and instinctively formed a force-field around herself, Princess Luna was smothered by her Night Guards and Princess Celestia found herself behind a wall of her own guards blocking every angle. 

Then everything went black. The crystals under them turned themselves off and everything was bathed in darkness. 

"What's happening?" Twilight shouted as she used her magic to light up her horn. 

"I don't know!" Rarity replied, also using her horn.

The unicorn guards did the same illuminating what they could with their magic, but none of them knew what to expect. 

"Girls, come closer to me. Luna, can you use your magic?" Celestia asked. Her voice was calm, but with it came total control and an authority that could not be missed.

"Yes, sister," came the reply and soon the area was illuminated ten-fold by both princesses.

Then a noise could be heard. It was very quiet at first, but got steadily louder. It sounded like voices. Faint and muffled.

Then, from where Orko had been moments before, a figure formed. It stepped out of the empty space as if there had been a door there. The figure walked until it stood in between the large pillars that held the drawbridge and looked down at Princess Celestia behind her guards. They did not know what to do, as before them stood an alicorn, taller than their princess and strong. That was not what made them hesitate, however. It was the fact that they could see through him that gave them pause. 

Applejack darted behind Rarity. "A-a-a-a g-g-g-ghost!"

"No, it's a light-made projection," Twilight replied in a whisper to her friend. "The hoofsteps aren't making any sounds."

"A hologram?" Rarity asked.

Twilight nodded. "Yeah, that's it! Hologram! Like the ones from inside the castle... wait, didn't Orko say that it was using light inside a room? How is this-"

The figure took a step towards Celestia and the image filled in more. Before it looked like a stenciled drawing, rough and light. Now when they saw it the image was still transparent, but now had color. There was no doubt about it. 

"That's Swift!" Pinkie pointed out. "Right?"

All the Elements of Harmony nodded slowly in response -- even Pinkie, who had asked the question, as if to confirm it to herself as well.

"Hello, little one. If you are hearing this message then we have stopped the destruction of this world and have saved you, and our kind. I am sorry that we could not be there with you, to see you become the beautiful mare you are destined to be, but we have no choice. Perhaps it was our bane for forming the Elements of Harmony, but it has also proven to be our boon. My sacrifice and that of your mother's will not be in vain. I believe it to be so." 

"Sire, we must go. We do not have much time," a voice said from somewhere. "The Elements are almost in synch."

Swift looked to the side, towards where they supposed the speaker would have been, and nodded. "It is time. I love you, my darling. Your mother loved you very much and I wish that the three of us had more time together. I am sorry. Sorry letting your mother go so soon, sorry for locking you away in the Castle, sorry for bringing this atrocity on the world... sorry for leaving you. Words that I will never be able to say to you face to face. You are the best thing that has ever happened to me, and when you look upon the dawn of a new day, please know that I love you. Always will. Take care of the world we leave to you and those who dwell within it. I wish you all the happiness in our world and beyond. Good bye, my dearest daughter. Be safe."

The image flickered for a moment and was gone.

As soon as it did, the crystals beneath them began to glow again and soon the area was once again awash with the red hue of the slow fluctuating light. They all shared a look with each other not sure what to make of what they had learned, nor why the speaker seemed to be talking to Celestia directly, as if the message was meant for her.

Orko picked himself from off the ground and shuddered. "Ouch. Wow. Too much energy."

Twilight picked the trollan up off the ground and levitated him onto one of the hard-case used to carry the lights. He thanked her as he sat down and removed his hat. He rubbed his temples a little bit and scratched his dark blue hair before running his fingers through it. Despite his ancient age, he showed no sign of going bald. This was the first time the girls got to see the blue skin of the trollan and noticed it was a lighter shade than his hair. His long narrow ears sagged along with his mood but he seemed to pick himself up and narrowed his eyes in a good way. He was smiling at them. They couldn't see his mouth because of the scarf, but they did not need to.

Luna was staring hard at the place where the image of Swift had vanished. She turned her head to look at her sister. "Was that our father?"

The question seemed to catch the elder princess off guard. She looked at Luna and smiled gently before shaking her head slowly. "No. We've never met our father, you know that. I can only remember little bits of our mother."

Luna looked down at the ground, closed her eyes and inhaled. As she did, she raised her head towards the ceiling and inhaled a deep breath. The momentary lapse of her royal visage slipped away and was replaced by the strong, proud ruler of the Equestrian nation she was. The Princess of the Night stood all. "Yes. We had forgotten, but only for a moment." 

"My poor body. Remind me never to allow that to happen again," Orko muttered. 

"What was that hologram?" Rarity asked.

"No!" Orko shot back shaking his head impossibly fast. "No. That was no hologram. That was pure magic. A nifty spell, and a powerful one to boot. Never expected that at all. Just like Swift to use an overpowered spell like that. I bet you he didn't realize just how much it'd hurt when he made it. After all, I'm the only living thing with a link to the castle that could survive a soul-bind spell like that. Ouch."

"You're the only living thing with a link to this castle," Twilight pointed out.

"Oh yeah! I guess I forgot about that." 

"Soul-bind spell? What's that?" Applejack asked.

"It's like a kind of message for someone specific that can't be unlocked using any technology or anything. It's really dangerous kind of spell because it saps the life-force of the caster, in this case Swift himself. Then the life-force is... 'borrowed' by anyone lucky enough to be the proxy. Namely me. Just lucky that I'm not normal in that sense. Spells like that are triggered when someone with a certain... essence is within a general area. Wait. That's impossible!"

"What is?"

Orko stated slamming his hat back on and grabbing Twilight's face in his hands and pulling her face into his so their eyes were inches apart. "Nobody can be alive from then!" 

"That's not true, you're still here," Twilight pointed out pushing the trollan back gently to give herself breathing room.

Orko looked at her and furrowed his brow for a few moments. "Oh yeah! I guess I kinda forgot about that! But I'm different! I guess it's better than leaving a message on the systems as they can be hacked. This way it's always a hundred percent secure. It must have taken your genetic signature, I guess. I've never been real good with all this technical mumbo-jumbo. That was always Man-at-Arms' thing. For me it's magic through and through!"

The girls exchanged glances once more as they did not understand a word of what the trollan was saying. Hacked? What did he mean by that? Orko seemed to think that they understood what he meant, but the basic principles of his science were still foreign to them. It sounded so advanced and different from what she knew that Twilight herself was having doubts. She had always believed that science and magic were closely connected, and she had devoured entire sections of the library in an attempt to find out. She once remembered from an anthropology book that stated that if an advanced civilization met with a primitive one, then those beings with their superior technology would deem to have magical powers. 

But would that then mean they were the primitive civilization? Did all the comforts and luxuries they took for granted now come from a past they did not understand nor remember? 

The librarian felt her head starting to spin. This new line of questioning was making her giddy. How much could she learn from this discovery?

"Orko, do you mean that this spell was made to prevent somepony else from hearing it?" Rarity asked.

"Yeah! The magic must've been stored inside the castle and got triggered by one of you. Think of it like a lock, and one of you the key. So... I guess you could say that you were the bottle-opener and the castle was the bottle." Orko cricked his neck. "I guess that's the way it is. But wow. I hope that there are no more messages like that."

"Who d'ya think triggered it?" Applejack asked looking at the trollan.

"You, Your Highness." Orko was pointing at Princess Celestia. "I think it was you. It must be because it activated the moment you stepped towards the castle. But that can't be right. You weren't alive when it was written."

"Wait, you said that someone's essence triggered it. Do you mean that a piece of someone was lost in here and got out when we entered this place?" Applejack asked. 

Rainbow was impressed with the farmer for keeping up with the complication conversation. This wasn't lost on Applejack who gave the cyan pegasus a shove with her shoulder after she started grinning and wiggling her eyebrows at her.

"No. Nothing that simple," Orko responded. His demeanor was no longer jovial; he meant business.

Twilight pursed her lips in thought. Who else could it have been?

"Unless it was genetic. Then that would mean that it would have only come out of activated after I... touched... someone... with the same genetic code!" Orko spun around and looked at Luna. "Of course! The two Princesses... and that mane also! It all adds up!"

"To?" Celestia prompted.

"That this message was meant for you or your ancestors! Don't you see?"

"You're talking about things that none of us can know," Princess Celestia replied. "It could be any of the girls for that matter. Such a long time ago... it could be one of the guards as well."

"You're forgetting that it came out from underneath you, Your Highness," Applejack stated.

Celestia was about to reply when she heard her faithful student's voice. "What was that, dear?"

"What if you could know?" Twilight asked again louder. "What if I said that it was possible for you to see the past and find out exactly who the message was for? What if you could see your mother? Would you want to... if you could?"

The Princess of the Sun opened her mouth to reply, but found that she could not. She stopped herself before she could speak. 

"I would!" Luna shouted cutting in. She blushed a little, but pressed on. "In all my life I have always wanted see my mother... I mean, we would like to see our mother."

"No need to user the royal 'we', dearest sister," Celestia replied patiently. Her mood seemed a little off, and despite the others not noticing it, Twilight saw through her guise. "We're amongst friends now. If what you say is true, Twilight Sparkle, then I..."

Again Celestia faltered. This time the others noticed.

"We must. We must, Tia. This is a gift! Can't you see? This is our chance to finally know our mother."

"I know, Lulu, but... to open such wounds again. It was difficult for me. It took centuries for us to get over her. I'm not sure that I wish to relive those moments again."

Luna furrowed her brow. "But... you said that our mother left us when I was a foal..."

At that, Celestia's face seemed to pale. Something about what Luna had brought up seemed to strike a chord deep within her. The change was obvious enough that even Rainbow caught on.

"It might not even be your mother. It could be your grandmother. The last recordings stored aren't recent. Most of them go back a long, long time ago. I guess you could say that your mother might still be a mystery as all this might've happened before then." Orko put a hand on Celestia's shoulder, much to the ire of her guards. "It's up to you and Luna, of course."

"Well, we sure ain't gonna know anythin' if we just keep mullin' over it. Let's go and see for ourselves... that is if you don't mind, Your Highness."

"Applejack's right, Tia. Please?" Luna looked at her sister with wide eyes full of hope and expectation. 

How could Celestia say no? She had the luxury of knowing their mother, even if their time together was extremely short. Even if she could not remember her personality or what she was like, she could recall her voice, the color of her mane, the life in those deep blue eyes that seemed so full of wisdom. It seemed cruel to have all that when her sister could barely recall anything. Memories of long nights Celestia spent telling her sister tales about their mother in a time when they had no one else except each other. Celestia had put her on such a high pedestal, while in truth she made most of it up. She wanted to give Luna somepony to look up to, and their mother was the perfect candidate. What if she learned a truth she was not prepared to accept. What would it mean?

Still, even if it was painful, even if it would reveal her barefaced lies, Luna deserved the truth. She deserved to see the mother she never knew. She needed her mother, and here was good opportunity. Celestia understood that she did not have the right to say no.

"Okay."

"Great! Let's go on inside!" Twilight replied. "You sure you're not coming, Orko?"

"I'm sure. You just go on inside and start the show. You know how to work it now. I guess I'll be out here. I've been cooped up in there way too long. Be nice just to be out and about, even if out and about is in some huge cave under a mountain." Orko laughed and slapped his knee. After he was done, he wiped a tear from his eye and reached into his sleeve pulling out the remote and offered it to Twilight who took it in her magic. "Everything should be ready. Just head on in and press play. It does have some pretty... strong parts, believe me. But I think it's important too. Something in my gut tells me so."

"Okay. And Orko?" 

The trollan looked up at Twilight.

"Thanks."

He smiled, and nodded.

In the time it took the girls to reach the holo-chamber in the castle, Twilight gave the princesses a comprehensive lesson about what was they were about to experience. She had already told them about what they learned so far, but she quickly added more information withing sparing anything. She gave them the harsh, brutal reality in a simplified form that seemed slightly cold, but the Royal Sisters understood. To Celestia it seemed incredible that such a vast volume of wealth survived throughout the ages and she never knew about it. She had no idea that the world they had was inherited was caught in such a vicious storm.

"Are you ready?" Twilight asked looking at her friends one by one.

Rarity gave a firm nod. Pinkie closed her eyes, took a deep breath, but she too nodded. Applejack and Rainbow exchanged glances before turning towards Twilight and let her know they were prepared. They all looked at Fluttershy. She gave a very slight, almost imperceptible nod. 

"Here. We. Go." 

She pushed the button.