Minuette lifted a small bundle of hayfries with a pale blue powder on them up to her face and gave them an intense, accusatory stare. “Why did I try to make you taste like icing?” she whispered.
“Because you wanted to see if your flavor powder worked,” Moondancer said from across the lunch table, her nose buried in a notebook.
“Yeah, I know. But I didn’t consider the downside.” Minuette popped them in her mouth and chewed.
“Which is?” Twinkleshine asked.
She swallowed before answering. “I ruined a perfectly good side of fries.”
“Hey, if you don’t want them.” Twinkleshine smirked and rocked her head. The box of fries lit up pale blue and slowly began to move to the edge of Minuette’s tray.
Minuette put her hoof on top of the box and Twinkleshine let go. “You ordered a large, isn’t that enough?”
Twinkleshine looked at her tray with a large box of fries and a double-burger with extra toppings. “Nope.” She lifted some fries from her own box and tossed them in her mouth.
Lemon shook her head and grimaced as she scanned Twinkleshine’s tray. “I can feel myself gaining weight just watching you eat that.”
“Nopony said you had to watch,” Twinkleshine mumbled through the fries. Lemon wrinkled her nose and lifted a spoon of fruit salad from a plastic container.
“Twinkles, manners,” Minuette said gently. Twinkleshine rolled her eyes but nodded.
Moondancer lifted her head from her notebook and smiled. “I’ve reached a satisfactory stopping point. That’ll do for today.” She flipped the book closed and lowered it into her bag on the ground beside her, and then turned her attention to a cafeteria tray with a bowl of pasta and pulled it closer.
“Early homework?” Lemon asked.
“No, my thesis. I’ve–” Moondancer stopped, considered herself, and shook her head. “Nevermind. I’m aware you may not understand or care. Suffice to say, I’ve made progress.”
“Great to hear!” Minuette grinned and clapped her hooves. “That’s two for us making progress on our theses!”
“Three.” Twinkleshine smiled brightly. “I was able to successfully encode and play back a brief audio-visual record of myself last night.”
“Eeee!” Minuette shook in her seat. “That’s amazing!”
Moondancer’s brow lifted and she nodded and smiled. “Yes, impressive indeed.”
Twinkleshine’s grin widened. “Thanks.” She tilted her head and shrugged. “Granted, it was really bad quality, but it worked. I think the problem is the playback. Trying to use the same rune reading to analyze both the audio and visual information probably caused some degradation. If I use a separate reader for both, it should be much clearer.”
Lemon nodded. “That sounds solid. Is that the plan for tonight?”
“Well, the weekend, but yes. And it’s also the reason I’m treating myself to an extra big pile of junk food.” Twinkleshine lifted her hayburger and paused. “I’m actually trying to cut down, but I’m in a good mood.” She bit in with a satisfying crunch.
“Hey, girls.”
The group turned as Luster slid into an empty chair and set down a tray with a bowl of soup and veggie sticks.
“Hi, Luster.” Lemon nodded at her. “How’re things?”
“Chilly.” Luster rolled her shoulders. “I spent my spare period in the library working, and came outside to find it’s still nippy like early morning. I need to warm up.” She lifted a package of crackers and tore them open.
“So, Dawny, any updates on your thesis?” Minuette asked.
Luster paused and turned her eyes towards her. “Pardon?”
“We were just chatting about what progress we’ve made,” Lemon explained. “I know you’re keeping it private, but I hope yours is going well, too.”
“Oh, I see.” Luster frowned. “Not really. Well, sort of.” She crumbled the crackers into her soup. “I need feedback on it. I was hoping Twilight would be here, maybe get together after school.”
Lemon frowned. “You haven’t seen her, either?” Luster shook her head.
Twinkleshine scrunched her face. “She wasn’t in our dorm room when I woke up. Her bags were gone so I figured she would have been in the library studying.”
“Not that I saw,” Luster said. “I checked just in case. She wasn’t in Advanced Spellcasting, either.”
“She and I have Magical Geography second period, and she was absent there, too,” Moondancer added.
“Wait.” Minuette looked around the table. “You mean nopony has seen Twilight all day?”
The other four all shook their heads.
“Weird.” Minuette looked at the sixth, empty chair at their table. “Where would she be?”
“Some sort of emergency?” Moondancer suggested. “It would have to be, if it’s something worth skipping classes for.”
Lemon thought for a moment. “If she was, she would have notified somepony, right? Ms. Octarine had no idea where she was in Advanced Casting, and if something happened, wouldn’t the teachers know?”
“True enough…”
Twinkleshine shrugged. “There’s no use worrying about it. We don’t know what it is so there’s nothing we can do either way. She’ll pop up somewhere sooner or later.”
Next to the table there was a bright flash of magenta light, and Twilight appeared in a shimmer of magic.
The five jumped in surprise, as did several other ponies in nearby tables.
“Twilight!” Moondancer gaped, her eyes wide. “You know there’s no teleporting on school grounds! You could–”
“Girls.” Twilight stepped up to the table and put her hooves on her. Her eyes were wide and her mane slightly disheveled, but her voice was calm and even. “Meet me in my dorm room as soon as you can, all of you. We need to talk. Sooner rather than later, preferably now.”
“Twilight?” Minuette cocked her head. “Is something wrong?”
“Come to the room, I’ll explain everything there. There’s a lot to explain.”
Twilight lit her horn and she vanished in another burst of magic.
The five mares exchanged glances with various degrees of confusion and nervousness.
Luster looked at the spot where Twilight had been. “Is this good or bad?”
“I’m not sure,” Twinkleshine replied. “But I think we need to go find out, and quickly.”
Twinkleshine knocked twice and pushed open the door to her room. “Twilight?” She took a step inside and the rest of the group crowded in around her.
Twilight sat at the table, whispering something under her breath as she moved a pencil across a notebook. Open textbooks were spread out over her bed alongside notebooks with more hastily scratched writing on them. On Twinkleshine’s bed was a large chart with various numbers and the days of the week at the top.
Lemon stretched her head up. “Is that my magic observation chart?” she asked.
Twilight looked up. “Yes, I borrowed it. Sorry for not asking first.” She lowered her head and kept writing.
Moondancer looked at the textbooks on the bed. She glanced at the pages they were open to, and lifted the cover of one to see the title. “Books on alternate dimensions, celestial mechanics, advanced magic…” she tilted her head and frowned. “I don’t see a correlation between these subjects.”
“Neither did I.” Twilight shook her head but didn’t pause in her writing. “That’s just it, though. We’re asking the wrong questions.”
Minuette stepped up to the table. “Twi, are you okay? You seem...anxious.”
Twinkleshine nodded. “I haven’t seen her this frantic since that time in second year when we got a pop quiz in alchemy.”
Twilight paused again and lifted her head. “I am anxious, but not like that. Not in a bad way.” She looked at the door. “Come in. Close the door, please.” Lemon and Luster walked into the room and Luster pushed the door shut with a hind hoof.
“Alright.” She stood from her chair and faced the five mares in front of her. “I dreamed about Sunset last night. And woke up this morning with an epiphany. More importantly, I had a hypothesis. I’ve been trying to confirm it, and while I can’t definitively say I have done so, everything I’ve gathered is leaning in that direction.”
“What hypothesis?” Moondancer asked.
“Sunset Shimmer exists in another dimension.”
Twilight immediately held up a hoof. “I know, that sounds mad. That’s why I went looking for proof. No other explanation fits, but this one does. We shared more information about our worlds last night. Sunset lives in a world where ‘Princess Luna’ rules Equestria, and has no idea who Princess Celestia is. She attends SGU, but she has a different set of teachers than we do. The businesses in Canterlot are different, pop culture is different, but each is also similar to ours. And – perhaps most importantly – while our solar systems are otherwise identical, in Sunset’s world the primary moon is Elinu and the secondary moon is Nasenu, but we know it as the other way around.”
She paused in her explanation and took a breath. “There’s nothing to suggest that communication between Sunset and I is somehow distorted, so I must assume that what she is telling me is what she is actually saying. And if it is truthful, these facts must have a rational explanation. And there’s only one I can think of that fits everything else I’ve observed about these dreams.”
“Parallel dimensions,” Moondancer said. Twilight turned to her and nodded.
Minuette blinked and let out a breath. “That’s… a lot to take in.”
Twinkleshine frowned. “Not that I necessarily think you’re wrong, but I thought you said you couldn’t prove it?”
“Not yet. That’s why I’m following the scientific method – I have a hypothesis, and I have a test I can perform to verify it.” Twilight lifted her notes from the table and held it up. Equations sprawled across the page, lines and text connecting them in different ways.
Minuette squinted at it. “This is…um...”
“I think it’s a telepathy spell,” Luster murmured, “but it’s heavily altered.”
“It’s a work in progress. But I think I can modify a telepathy spell to utilize the preliminary research I had done on alternate dimensions for my old thesis on teleportation.” Twilight smiled. “If I’m correct, and if I can figure out this spell – which, admittedly, is very complex – I could use it to telepathically communicate with Sunset. I could see her at will and while we’re both awake. It’ll confirm for sure that she and I exist in different dimensions and are communicating mentally.”
Lemon nodded. “That makes sense. But why is it happening in dreams?”
“That is why I wanted this.” Twilight put the notebook down on the table and picked up Lemon’s chart from the bed. She held it up and kept speaking. “You said it yourself, there seems to be a correlation between the position of the moons and magic, right?”
“Yes, but not enough to be certain,” Lemon replied.
“I cross-referenced your chart with my journal. And with this.” She turned her head and looked at the table.
A book with a swirl of stars on the front cover lit up pink and floated in front of her.
Moondancer gaped. “How did you get that?”
Twilight shuffled her hooves. “I...may have hidden it in your bag, yesterday.”
“What?” Moondancer stumbled and sputtered. “Twilight! I-I could get expelled if they find out I stole a book!”
“You didn’t, I did. If I’m caught, I’ll tell them everything. But right now what I found in it is more important,” Twilight said firmly. “This book was way ahead of its time. Some of its theories on magic and ponies have been disproven, but others are right on the mark and some are still being investigated. But what was most interesting was this.”
She set the book on the table and opened it to a specific page. It lit up blue and a holographic image of a solar system projected above it in blue light.
“This book describes a celestial model with only one moon orbiting Equus. Lemon, I looked at your chart closer. There is a direct connection between each of the moons and the potency of magic, no doubt. It’s when the two sets of data for each moon are compared to each other that the system falls apart. But if we had only one moon, all the statistics and equations line up perfectly.”
Twilight flipped the book closed and the hologram vanished.
“With that in mind, I looked at my journals again. My dreams about Sunset occur every time there’s a spike in magical potency. Not every night there’s a spike, but never on a night there isn’t one. And the dreams and the spikes have gotten more common since the year began. Why might that be? What could be happening soon that involves the moons?”
Luster gasped. “The dual eclipse!”
“Exactly. Whatever magic is connecting me and Sunset, it’s strongest when the moons are out, and particularly when the moons align just right. And with the eclipse approaching, they’ve become more frequent.” Twilight rolled the chart up and set it on the bed.
Lemon stepped up to the table and lifted the journal Twilight had shown them. “That’s definitely interesting. But what does it mean?”
“I’m not entirely sure. I still have no idea how Sunset and I are communicating. But I know it’s tied to the moons. And going from your chart, the next spike in magic will be tonight. I might dream about Sunset, I might not, I don’t know. But I do know I already dreamed about her last night, which means this is the perfect time to attempt to contact her again. If I’m wrong, I’m wrong. But if I’m right…if Sunset is speaking to me across dimensions...”
“It would be one of the most revolutionary discoveries in history,” Moondancer finished.
“Exactly. But I can’t make it alone.” Twilight looked at them evenly. “I can’t do this on my own safely, and not in time to be ready for tonight. You five are the most responsible, helpful, intelligent ponies I know. I need your help to do this, and I know that together we can make it happen.”
“Now?” Minuette asked.
“Yes. There’s no telling how long it may take to iron out the equations for this spell, and we’re also going to need to prepare a spell crystal to help focus and stabilize the spell for safety.”
Twinkleshine looked at the clock above the door. “Classes resume in fifteen minutes.”
“I know.” Twilight rocked her head and bit her lip. “If you girls don’t want to skip classes, I understand, we can get started after. But I think this is worth the time now, to make sure we can do it. It’s up to you.”
Minuette shook her head. “If you need me, I’m here. Classes can wait, friends shouldn’t.”
“Same here,” Lemon added.
Luster lifted her head. “Count me in, too.” Twinkleshine nodded next to her.
Moondancer sighed. “I haven’t skipped class since I was a filly, and that was for a very good reason…”
“We’ll be fine on our own, if you–”
“I wasn’t done,” Moondancer said calmly. “I was going to say, if a friend needs my help and support...that’s probably one of the best reasons I could give. Isn’t it?” She gave Twilight a small smile.
Twilight smiled widely and nodded. “Right. Okay, I already had a work plan for us. Here’s what we need…”
“Hold it steady,” Twinkleshine whispered. The end of the needle moved against the sapphire on the bed and continued carving runes.
“I am,” Luster said, the other end of the needle held in her magic. “I’ve been doing a lot of this myself lately, I’ve developed a very steady grip.”
“I can tell. Thank you.” Twinkleshine lifted the needle and blew away some of the gem dust, then lowered it and continued.
As the two worked at the table, Twilight had laid out a large piece of paper on a tabletop retrieved from Lemon and Minuette’s dorm. On the other side of the bed were Lemon and Moondancer, watching and listening as Twilight scrawled on the paper.
“And account for the psilomb barrier...there.” Twilight double checked the equation she was writing and set her pencil down. “That should work, right?”
Moondancer examined the equation and rubbed her chin. “Hmm...theoretically, yes.”
“Theoretically?”
“Twilight, this is trans-dimensional telepathy. Nopony has ever tried it before.”
“I know, but the fundamentals are the same as teleportation, right?” Twilight gestured to other equations. “It’s the same basic principle, sending a magic wave from a source to a destination. It’s just that instead of being a magic wave from a teleportation spell, it’s a thought wave. So it should be much easier to transmit and require a lot less power.”
“That’s entirely true,” Lemon said, “but we’re still talking about something no one has ever attempted – doing this across dimensions. We could be sending your thoughts to some random point in Equestria, into some abyssal oblivion, a completely different dimension than Sunset’s, or even–”
“I know, I know.” Twilight held up her hoof to stop her. “I’ve had this talk before and done my anxiety attacks over it already. But this isn’t that drastic. Even if the equation is wrong, it’ll be safe to try. It’s not like we’re sending my entire consciousness into the middle of nowhere. A single thought wave, a connection of minds, nothing more.”
“Which is still dangerous, just less than teleportation.” Lemon frowned. “I don’t know…”
“Yes, there is some slight risk. But that’s why we’ll be ready.” Twilight pointed her hoof at Twinkleshine and Luster. “The spell crystal will act as protection to prevent any outside force from connecting with my mind, and you five will act as an emotional and mental anchor. The way this spell is designed, I direct my thoughts where I want them to go, and if something goes wrong, you can cancel the spell and snap me back to my body.”
Moondancer nodded. “The plan is sound. It’s the methodology that we’re still uncertain of. Given what we know of trans-dimensional mechanics, all of this should work. But we’re basing it all on theory and conjecture and unproven science.”
“You’re worried about me.”
“No.” Moondancer winced. “I mean, yes, I am worried about you, of course. I mean that my hesitation on this is more about your hopes. I don’t think you should be expecting much from this attempt. I can’t say if success or failure is more likely, but if we fail, I don’t want you to be too disappointed.”
“Fair enough.” Twilight looked at the equations and took a deep breath. “But...I can’t explain it, but I know it’ll work. Sunset is out there waiting for me. I have to get to her.”
Lemon opened her mouth to ask a question, but paused when the door to the dorm opened.
Minuette stepped into the room with a cardboard box floating next to her. “Alright, I visited our instructors for afternoon classes and explained there was an emergency with Twilight and we went to support her when we found out.” She looked at Twilight. “If anypony asks, it’s a personal thing and you’d prefer not to talk about it. I figured that was the easiest lie to get away with. Sorry if it puts you on the spot.”
Twinkleshine and Luster looked up from their work on the crystal as Minuette set the box on the table. “Also, there’s pizza now. We need to eat sooner or later tonight and this is easy to warm up.”
Luster looked at her. “You lied to the instructors?”
“I didn’t like it either, but we can’t say we just skipped.” Minuette shook her head. “It’ll be fine, Dawny. And, it’s not really a lie, Twilight is dealing with a personal matter and we’re helping her.”
Twinkleshine shrugged. “We’ll just leave out the part where the personal matter is figuring out how to talk to her interdimensional marefriend.”
Twilight’s face turned as red as a tomato. “She is not my marefriend! She is a mare that happens to be a friend, but she oh for the love of Celestia, that doesn’t help, does it?” She slapped a hoof to her forehead.
“Nope.” Twinkleshine grinned.
“Twinkles, don’t tease,” Minuette scolded gently.
“Sunset isn’t…” Twilight stopped and groaned. “Nevermind.”
Luster lifted the crystal the two of them had been carving and peered closely at it. “The spell crystal is ready to go.”
“Good timing, I’m hungry.” Twinkleshine adjusted her chair and flipped open the pizza box.
Twilight blinked and looked up at the clock. Her jaw dropped. “When did it get to seven!?”
“About ten minutes ago,” Lemon said. “I think a dinner break sounds like a great idea. We've been working on these equations all afternoon and my eyes are kinda starting to gloss over.”
“I think allowing our minds a bit of rest would be good, too,” Moondancer chimed in.
As the group clustered around the table, Luster looked at Twilight. “What time should we do the spell?”
“Hm…” Twilight tilted her eyes up. “Midnight. I don’t know when Sunset goes to bed, so there’s no telling if she’ll be awake or not, but that seems a logical time to pick.” She looked back at the sheet of equations. “And it’ll give us time to double-check and triple-check our work.”
She joined the others around the table and lifted a slice of pizza.
“Twilight?”
She looked at Luster.
“Yes?”
“Do you really think this will work?”
Twilight hesitated before giving a short nod. “It will. I know it will.”
Minuette glanced at the clock. “We’re on.”
Twilight looked up from the notebook she was looking over; the clock read eleven fifty-five.
Twinkleshine yawned and sat up in her bed. “Okay.”
At the table doing some homework, Moondancer, Luster and Lemon lifted their heads. “We’re ready,” Lemon said.
The five approached Twilight on her bed. “How does this work, exactly?” Luster asked.
“I’m going to do the hard part of projecting my thoughts to Sunset. Luster, Lemon, and Moondancer, you’re going to be my anchors. Maintain contact with my mind, and if you think I’m in trouble, cut the spell and pull me back. Minuette, you’re going to be using the protection crystal and monitoring it.” Twilight floated it into her hooves and gripped it tightly. “It’ll detect if some sort of foreign magic is reaching out to me. If you read that, tell them and they’ll cut the spell. Twinkleshine, you’re overseeing all of it, make sure nothing else goes wrong.”
The group all nodded. Various glances passed between them; concern, nervousness, excitement.
Twilight took a breath. “Thank you. It means a lot to me to have you with me on this. There’s no other mares I’d trust to help me.”
“And we’re happy to do it,” Minuette said firmly. “Let’s get started.”
“Yes.” Twilight laid back on the bed and set her head on the pillow. She passed the spell crystal to Minuette and watched its magic aura change color and it moved out of her field of view.
“Be careful, Twilight.”
Twilight turned her eyes to the side to see Luster standing over her.
“I will. And I know you girls will be there for me if I need you.”
“Eleven fifty-eight. We should begin,” Moondancer said.
Twilight nodded. “Right. Moondancer, Lemon, Luster. Do it.” She closed her eyes and waited.
Above her the three mares lit their horns. Swirls of magic trailed through the air from their heads and encircled Twilight’s head. On the other side of the bed, Minuette laid the spell crystal on Twilight’s stomach and focused her magic on it.
Twinkleshine looked around the group. “We’re ready. It’s on you now, Twilight.”
Twilight took a deep breath, called on her magic, and mentally recited the absurdly complex equations she had memorized for the past several hours. Her horn lit up magenta, and then the aura expanded over her head, undulating under the bands of magic from her friends.
She steeled herself and cast the spell.
A telepathy spell was one of the most basic spells a unicorn could attempt, only slightly more complex than telekinesis. And while Twilight’s variant of the spell had been heavily modified to cross dimensions, at its core was the same fundamental idea – focus on a mare and a thought, and they would hear you. Once the connection was established, it was like holding a conversation.
But first, that initial connection had to be made.
Sunset Shimmer...where are you?
Bursts of color went off behind Twilight’s eyes and she inhaled sharply. Her body suddenly felt lighter, almost weightless. The fabric of the bed under her faded, the feeling of her friends beside her was lost. She saw an endless expance of colors all around her, felt her hooves moving with no impact or sound. Her ears head silence, but within her head it was another matter.
“What’s happening? I almost lost contact.”
Luster’s voice.
“Be calm, this was expected.”
Moondancer.
“Nothing from the crystal, she’s fine.”
Minuette.
The voices were close in Twilight’s mind. She ignored them. She had to move beyond her friends’ presence, go beyond the bounds of space and time. Push past the horizon at the edge of her dreams and find the mare she knew would be waiting on the other side. The mare she was focusing all her thoughts on.
Amber coat, red and yellow mane with a curl, teal eyes, a warm smile, a cutie mark like the sun. By now she knew what Sunset Shimmer looked like as well as she did her own reflection. She focused harder and the bursts of color around her shifted and swirled again as her mind kept stretching out into the cosmos.
Sunset. Sunset!
Twilight poured all the energy she could muster into her spell, projecting her thoughts into the vastness. If she had done her equations properly, they would find their way to the pony they were meant for. But even assuming her work was correct, trying to actually cast and maintain the spell was a trying effort. She was already beginning to tire, but she knew she couldn’t stop.
Sunset Shimmer!
She kept pushing on, putting more and more magic into the spell. She was vaguely aware it was starting to tax her body, but she ignored it. She felt herself shake and couldn’t tell if it was in her mind or her body. She ignored that, too. She kept picturing the face she was looking for and calling out the name.
Sunset! Please!
The swirls of color began to shift. They became more distinct, blurred but possessing somewhat recognizable shapes. Ponies.
Then…
“Twilight?”
Twilight gasped at the familiar voice. Sunset!
“What is this? I’m not asleep.”
Twilight almost laughed, but as she did the colors began to blur again, and whatever Sunset said next was distorted. No! She concentrated on maintaining the connection and the colors halted.
I did it! I found you. She felt a tear roll down her cheek. It’s true…you’re here, I’m here...
“I passed that test and I don’t care what the instructor says, that theory of magic is wrong!”
“I know, I know, you’ve told us before…”
New voices. Voices Twilight had never heard before. Yet they seemed to be coming from specific directions around her. She turned her mind’s eyes about. There were other blurs of color around her that seemed to be shaped like ponies, but she couldn’t make out details beyond the broad shape of an equine.
Who was that?
“You can hear them?” Sunset asked.
Them?
“My friends. We were hanging out, then you...did this…”
“They expect mindless drones that just do as they’re told. Don’t take it personally.”
“I got that one wrong, too, several students did. It’s not worth arguing over, though.”
“And hey, at least we all passed, right? So there’s that.”
More new voices. Twilight saw a cluster of red and yellow lights ahead of her begin to come into focus. Sunset… She could almost see the familiar teal eyes looking back at her. She focused harder, trying to get a better view.
“I’m here, Twilight.”
Those are your friends?
“Yeah. I guess you’re hearing what I am.”
That shouldn’t be possible, this is just a telepathy spell!
“What?”
“Sunset? You okay? You’re kinda spacing out over there.”
“Twilight?”
The first voice, one of Sunset’s friends. The second, Lemon, or Luster? It was faint, Twilight had trouble recognizing it.
“She’s at the limits of her magic, we need to cut it.”
No! Twilight screamed back as best she could without breaking the connection. I’m fine!
“Twilight, what’s happening?” Sunset asked.
We’re speaking through a telepathy spell I crafted. We’re not in a dream, we’re awake, and we’re speaking. It’s true, all true. We’re in different dimensions! I knew it! Twilight cheered in the confines of her head. Sunset, do you realize what this means?
“You’re serious? You did this, on purpose?”
Yes!
“Whoa...okay…” Sunset sounded nervous. “We’re really in different dimensions...that is...a thing…”
“She looks a little queasy. Sunset, did you eat that week-old bagel I left on the counter?”
“No, that was me.”
“Ew, seriously? That thing had mold on it!”
“Oh, it did not!”
The flurry of voices of Sunset’s friends filled Twilight’s head and she did her best to ignore them. Focus, concentrate. Maintain the connection.
“Twilight, what do we do now?”
I don’t know. But this worked once, it can work again. I’ll find a way. I promise. If we dream about each other tonight, or some other night, we can talk in-depth then. I can even show you how I did it, you could probably manage it yourself.
Twilight grunted. The strain of maintaining the spell was taking its toll, and Sunset’s image began to dissipate. I have to go, I can’t keep this up. But I’ll do it again. I promise.
“Right. I’ll see you, sometime,” Sunset replied. “I have to tell them this. They won’t believe it.”
Your friends...I’d like to meet them.
“I’d like that, too. I have a lot to tell them about you.”
Who are they?
With Twilight’s strength waning, she barely heard Sunset’s reply, but she heard it well enough. She didn’t have the energy to respond and let the spell slip away.
Around her the colors receded and the blur that was the closest she had come to seeing Sunset Shimmer outside of her dreams faded into nothingness. With the color drained, she saw only a black void.
Okay, girls… Twilight thought back to her friends. I’m too weak to keep it up. Bring me back.
After a moment, there was no response.
Moondancer? Luster? Lemon?
Again no answer.
Twilight groaned and reached her thoughts out. She turned her eyes through the mindscape and saw only blackness.
Can anypony hear me?
“What is this?”
A chill ran through Twilight’s body.
“A unicorn?”
A new voice, deep and booming from all around her. Twilight tried to pull back within the mindscape but the voice did not fade.
“Are you lost, little pony? You must be. Nopony would willingly be trapped between dimensions.”
What? She began to panic. No, nonono…
“Yes, yes.” The voice laughed. “I must admit, I am pleased. I have been here so long with nopony else to speak to.”
This is impossible.
“If you believe so, you have a narrow grasp of what is possible. Have the old ways faded from your world? How did you come here?”
I...I wanted to look across dimensions.
“Oh?” The voice sounded amused. “Well, you have succeeded. But it is not quite what you expected, is it?”
I don’t understand...I could see her, but this place...where am I?
“Where are you?” The voice laughed again. “Where do you think you are? If you reached out to another dimension, but are now between them, what possibility does that leave?”
Twilight felt numb. A void... an abyss between dimensions…
“Yes...and you do know what they say about the abyss, don’t you?”
A low chuckle made Twilight’s blood run cold.
“When you gaze into the abyss, sometimes the abyss gazes back!”
A pair of giant, glowing white eyes opened in the middle of nothing, rising high above Twilight and looking directly at her. The laughter deepened, shaking the mindscape around her.
Twilight screamed and frantically reached her thoughts out.
Sunset! Moondancer, Luster, Lemon, Minuette, Twinkleshine, anypony!
“Twilight!”
She couldn’t make out the owner of the voice, but she became aware of her mind being pulled through spacetime. In a rush of color and sensation, the eyes and the laughter faded.
A flash. Twilight gasped and saw Sunset standing right in front of her.
Sunset?
Five swirling orbs of energy circled around Sunset before streaming away to loop around Twilight. She began to back away, but the lights were soothing, warm. They encircled both her and Sunset and moved faster. A rainbow formed in their wake, creating a ring of light around the two of them.
“Twilight Sparkle…”
It was not Sunset who spoke, nor the dark voice from before. She couldn’t even place it as one of Sunset’s friends, or her own. She had never heard it before, but somehow she recognized it.
“The spark has been struck. The link has been forged. Find them. Find us.”
Sunset lit up in orange light and moved towards Twilight, glowing brighter.
“Find them. Find us. It is the key to all. Find us. Find us.”
The words kept repeating louder and louder as Sunset’s light reached Twilight and the lights circling them tightened.
“Twilight!”
With a sudden pop and an inhale of air, Twilight opened her eyes and snapped upright in bed. Sweat rolled down her coat, her eyes were wide, and she was gasping for breath.
“Twilight!”
She couldn’t tell which of her friends had spoken. Her mind still felt detached from her body, everything was being experienced through a muffled filter.
Moondancer came into focus in front of her. “Are you alright?”
Find them...find us…
The words continued repeating in Twilight’s head. She struggled to remember more and thought back to Sunset.
“...paper,” she croaked. Her mouth was dry.
“What?”
“Paper!” she said louder. She heard movement and a piece of paper and a pen were pushed in front of her.
With her magic drained beyond anything she could remember, Twilight propped the paper on one hoof and grasped the pen in the other. She quickly wrote down what she could remember, her hooves shaking and the letters uneven. When she was done she let the pen drop and the paper drop to the bed, unable to even hold them. Her eyes were downcast, unable to focus.
Somepony removed the paper from in front of her.
“Names.” Minuette’s voice. Twilight didn’t raise her head as Minuette read.
“Sunset. Starlight. Trixie. Lyra. Amethyst. Sunburst.”
Twilight gave a weak nod.
“What does this mean, Twilight?”
“They’re...her friends…” Twilight whispered. “We...have to...find them…find...”
She tried to say more, but her voice was too low to hear and she felt herself falling back.
“Twilight!”
The last thing she was aware of was her head hitting the pillow and the ceiling of the room blurring into darkness.
END OF PART TWO