//------------------------------// // Arrival // Story: May frienship work // by Furry_or_pegasister //------------------------------// Twilight thinks she's finally ready to cast the spell. Sheer anticipation and excitement flood her as she makes the preparations. Dimensional portals generally need a physical object to hold or represent them, and although the spell she created was weaker than such portals, she still needs that. Twilight surrounds the circle of stakes driven into the basement floor of her castle, supplying and connecting each one with the magic of her horn. Finally, she stops at the stake closest to the gate and concentrates on her magic, navigating in a circular fashion from stake to stake. Feeling ready, she focuses all of her power on the teleportation spell, wishing for outer ponies to appear within the circle. She stays like this for several seconds, sweating with her wings flexed from her effort. A blinding white light fills the room, and Twilight happily realizes that it is the typical light from the teleportation spell. After maybe ten seconds, it disappears, leaving the alicorn with a sense of accomplishment. Twilight is left panting, struggling with her shaking legs not to give in. The spell had taken a lot of energy from her, logically, she had just tried to summon beings from another reality! She quickly looks up from her barely able to focus, wondering if it worked. She gasps again, but now with joy. There are many more creatures there than she had anticipated. Counting them, she realizes that there are about nine in total; seven ponies, a hippogriff and a changeling. However, they all appear to be unconscious. With a new concern, she runs towards them. What if they had suffered damage? She stops in front of the first, an all-white male pony with a short mane, neatly combed back. She looks at him until she sees his breathing, slow and relaxed. Then carefully observes the others, one by one, until she is satisfied with all their vital signs. She sighs in relief, sitting on her backside. She had planned an entire dialogue with her guests, but they are all asleep, or unconscious. She is not sure what to do next. Probably the best option is to move them to a more comfortable place to inspect them well, one by one, until she is sure that they had not been damaged. Determined with this, she calls out to Spike, who was waiting outside the room. He enters urgently. "It worked?!" He asks, his eyes shine like stars as soon as he notices the nine creatures on the ground. "Wow, there are many," he notes, astonished. Twilight smiles at him and stands up. "Spike, I need you to prepare nine pillows in the next room. I will carry them with my magic." "Got it," exclaims the little dragon with a military salute, before running out of there. The alicorn turns her head once more to her guests. She concentrates her magic to her horn, gathering the magic of the air and the earth to manipulate external things: basic telekinesis. She carefully picks up each creature, paying much more attention than she does to objects. She slowly scrolls them as she begins to walk out of the room, still staring at them until they pass the door frame. The way to the indicated room happens without problems. Twilight smiles when she sees eight perfectly lined up large pillows, with Spike placing the ninth. She gently leads each subject and places them gently on the comfortable pillows. She quickly thanks Spike, who hands her a notepad and a quill with an inkwell before leaving. That boy does know her well, she thinks fondly. Once the dragon closes the door behind him, the alicorn decides to start analyzing each creature from left to right, raising the quill and foil with her telekinesis. It feels wrong to investigate sapient beings as if they were rare specimens, but it cannot hurt. At least she would until somepony wakes up so she can talk to him. She walks up to the one at the far left. It's a mare, the only one, she thinks, looking up at the rest of the line. A normal snow-white pegasus with a purple-blue mane, tied in a bun, just like her entire tail. Her colors are very similar to Rarity's, and, like her, she is very, very pretty; a delicate, symmetrical face, with lilac shadow on her eyelids and a small piercing under her lower lip. Undoubtedly a beauty, but nothing relevant there. She writes quickly: Mare. Pegasus. White fur. Purple mane. Piercing on the lip. She checks the mare's flank. Her cutiemark is a paper flower. Origami then. The alicorn draws the flower in detail on the same page of her notepad. She also notices for the first time a bracelet secured to the mare's right foreleg, made of silver metal, with a jewel? Something circular white or cream inlaid, with a strange symbol written there. She realized that every creature has it. How had she not noticed it before? The thing is strange, and even more so the fact that everyone has it. Perhaps they are friendship bracelets, a very childish thing but perhaps common from their place of origin. Wiill ask them when they wake up, she decides, and carefully draws the symbol on the same page, planning to investigate it. With nothing more to do, she moves on to the next one as she turns the page to continue writing about a different individual. A black unicorn, long mane only a shade darker than his fur, tied in a loose ponytail. She notices, with some concern, deep dark circles marking his face; probably insomnia. She writes: Stallion. Unicorn. Dark gray fur. Black mane. Dark circles under the eyes. She checks his cutiemark with the intention of drawing it just like with the previous mare. She finds a kind of four-sided knife, with a yellowish handle that ends in a ring shape. She thinks it's worrisome, but jumping to conclusions is always a bad idea, as it can mean a thousand things. She draws the knife. Finally, she briefly looks at the bracelet, thinking that it would be the same one the mare has, but is surprised when she finds red and a different symbol. Intrigued, she carefully copies the symbol once more. Do the bracelets say their names in any language of their homeland? Positions of any job? Simple pretty words? Her curiosity kills her, but she will have to wait. She moves on to the next as she dips the quill into the inkwell. This time, it is not a pony, but a hippogriff, as big as they usually are. Light blue fur with a navy blue mane, combed forward like a wild toupee and huge wings on either side of his body, with a subtle gradient of blues. His bill and forelegs are washed yellow. She notices that he wears the typical hippogriff collar. Stallion. Hippogriff Light blue fur. Navy blue mane. She also draws the thing on his bracelet, different symbol and color, once again. Before she can continue analyzing them, she hears a gasp from the other end of the line. She realizes that one has already woken up and quickly gives him her undivided attention. An orange pegasus with long blond hair raises his head, but suddenly, he sees his own body. And screams. Twilight winces, flattening her ears on her head. If they weren't ponies before, surely the transformation would be an unpleasant surprise for them, she thinks guiltily. She flies gently towards him, intending to explain the situation. The second she lands, he looks at her in utter horror. "What the fuck?!" He exclaims. He tries to stand up but quickly stumbles, apparently trying to get into a bipedal position. That gives her a clue about their species. "Calm down. Let me explain," Twilight reasons softly, trying to reassure him without much success, because the pegasus looks at her with even more horror. "Kai," he says, joining both hooves and looking focused. The alicorn has no idea what he is supposed to be trying, as the pegasus repeats the word several times. Twilight notices a couple of stitched wounds on his arms and chest, and winces. That must have been painful. "Surely you want to know why you are here ..." she tries to begin, but is interrupted. "You are not fooling me, this is an illusion, hm!" he yells while looking at the ceiling, as if he's speaking to a being beyond. ... He thinks he's hallucinating? Twilight shakes her head. "This is real. You were summoned from an alternate reality and I converted you to my species so that you could survive in this world." The stallion seems to consider her words for a moment, as he visibly gulps. Slowly, he turns his head and briefly searches each of his companions. "You're screwing with me ... Is it really them, hm?!" So they do know each other. It wasn't hard to guess, but Twilight gives herself an imaginary pat for figuring it out. Before she can say anything else, a new voice joins in. "Deidara," it sounds deep and intimidating, and the pegasus feels it, because his expression automatically changes to something else, which she cannot recognize. They both turn their attention to the one who has just woken up, a lavender earth pony with an orange mane, covered in pircings all over his body and with intimidating purple eyes fixed on the pegasus. "Explain this." "Leader!" 'Deidara' seems even more nervous than before, and Twilight can see why. The new pony's aura is definitely strong and terrifying. "That's what I'm trying to solve, hm." The alicorn comes forward and explains the same to the 'leader' as to the pegasus moments ago. He looks surprisingly calm despite how strange the situation probably is for them. "I see," he says. "May I ask for what purpose have you done this?" It is not just a question, it's a demand. Twilight doesn't mind, of course she owes them an explanation. However, she doubts that the explanation she has is enough, so she hesitates a bit before answering. "Curiosity." Twilight smiles at him with the decency of looking embarrassed. The pony's purple eyes stare at her for long seconds, and the princess grows increasingly nervous. She lets out a giggle, trying to lower this tension. Fortunately, the ice breaks when another new presence joins in. "Well, this is definitely something new," says the hippogriff with a big, sharp smile. Twilight lets the air escape out of her lungs as the lavender stallion directs his eyes to him. "Kisame." "Leader ..." The smile disappears and Twilight can almost feel the confusion radiating from the hippogriff. "You're a horse..." Twilight wants to take the opportunity to introduce herself and meet her guests, but her words die in her mouth when the 'leader' stands up on all fours. At first he looked like he would stumble, but he quickly masters it. "Deidara, Kisame." Those mentioned raise their ears attentive to the coming order. "Wake up everyone, I'll offer explanations once everyone can hear them." "Hai." the two chant and quickly stand up on all fours, with much more difficulty than their leader, but succeeding at the end of the day. Twilight watches curiously as Deidara and Kisame move in the direction of their companions, the pegasus at the beginning and the black unicorn respectively. They both place their hoof and claw at the beginning of each pony's spine, and hold it for a few seconds. Before she can continue taking mental notes of their behavior, the lavender pony covers her view. Twilight notices for the first time a ring around his pupil. "I'd like to ask for your name," he says politely, even though Twilight suspects he's mad at her. The alicorn eagerly complies. "I'm the Princess Twilight Sparkle, what about you?" She offers him a hoof. "My name is Pain." Pain takes her hoof and Twilight gives him a friendly smile, but the earth pony's expression remains the same, making her feel a bit uncomfortable. Pain, huh? A somewhat worrisome name, but she isn't going to judge. Both return their respective hooves to the ground. "The title of princess is interesting, but for the moment I need to know more details about the invocation justu that you performed on us." Twilight tilts her head in confusion. "Yoo... tsu?" "The technique." "Ah, you mean spell." The alicorn smiles with a hint of nervousness. They had already run into the first incongruity between their universes. Pain nods patiently. "I used my powerful alicorn magic to maximize a teleportation spell that would intervene with space-time, more like the enchantments of dimensional portals," she pauses for a moment to check if Pain follows. "It was like performing the spell concentrating on teleporting other ponies, but blindly from whom." The stallion seems to analyze her words carefully. Twilight remembers a rather important detail. "Ah! And I also combined it with a transformation spell that would turn you into equestrian species, that is, of this world," she adds. "It was to make sure you can survive in these conditions." Pain nods, and just when he opens his mouth, he is interrupted. "Jashin will make you pay for this, heathens!" Twilight recoils as Pain closes his eyes, looking calm on the outside. "They already woke up Hidan," he sighs.