"Twilight?!" Starlight called weakly. Her hoofsteps were slow and slurred, her body jerking back and forth as she struggled to keep her balance. Her condition had improved somewhat. She wasn't in nearly as much pain as she had been a few minutes before. She was able to walk, albeit with some difficulty, and spells were out of the question. A simple flashlight spell to illuminate her still pitch-black surroundings caused her severe pain, her horn still sparking in protest of such a simple spell. She limped on, heading in the direction where she had seen Twilight the last time. The last time she'd seen her, she'd gone after him again, the light she'd generated from her horn fading quickly in the pitch-black darkness, followed by a deafening silence. Despite her injuries, Starlight had to find her. She was her friend, and she had no doubt that Twilight would do the same for her.
Weakly, she broke through a last row of bushes and shrubs and found her. It was as if someone had frozen her in time, her form suspended above Starlight's head. She wore the same look of malice and hatred that she had seen the last time she had gone after her attacker. Her wings were outstretched and curved behind her as she had been flying when it happened. Her horn and the corners of her eyes pulsed with her magical power, a lavender trail extending from behind her for several meters. Her forelegs were outstretched, her mane and tail having been blowing in the wind behind her.
Continuing to limp around her frozen friend, Starlight discovered the extent of Twilight's injuries from fighting the alien intruder. None of them were serious. But Starlight couldn't help but notice the number of bruises, cuts, and other injuries that covered her from head to hoof. It was both uplifting and frightening to see the lengths to which Twilight was willing to go in the name of her friends' protection. Ever since Rainbow Dash had been injured, she'd been relentless in her pursuit of him. She probably hadn't even noticed her own wounds as she'd pursued him with a righteous fury to avenge and protect those she loved. But to see what it had cost her, Starlight had never seen anything like it, whatever those spells had been and whatever power their visitor had wielded.
"Twilight?" Starlight called softly. "Can you hear me?" She moved in front of her frozen friend and repeated what she had just said, waving one of her hooves in front of her face. "Twilight!" She called out once more. She tried in vain to bring the power of her horn to bear, though she had no idea how to help, only to be sent crashing to the ground in pain. "Somepony! Anypony! HELP!" She called with what little strength she had left before she fell unconscious.
"HELP!"
AJ gasped, “Did ya’ll hear that?”
Against all odds, they had all returned - AJ, Rarity, Pinkie, Fluttershy, and even Rainbow Dash. It had been at least an hour since any of them had seen Starlight or Twilight. Despite the potential danger, they had unanimously decided to return to the forest. Rainbow Dash had even resisted mightily when one of the doctors tried to help her, settling for the most basic treatment for what was probably a broken wing and following on hoof, mute after it became clear that whatever had robbed her of her vocal cords wasn't going to go away any time soon.
They all took off at the sound of the call, Rarity leading the way, illuminating the still pitch-black forest as they ran. They continued in the direction of Starlight's last call. They found her in a small clearing, Twilight still frozen in midair, and Starlight still unconscious. They split up between them to check on them, all gasping at the horrible sight.
"Twilight?" Rarity asked as she walked up to her. She used her horn to create another focused beam of light. She shone it into each of Twilight's eyes, looking for some kind of reaction from her eyes. She got none, she really was completely frozen.
"Starlight?" Fluttershy asked as she walked up to the unconscious mare and nudged her with a hoof. "Hello? Can you hear me?"
There was no answer, but Starlight was still breathing, her chest still rising and falling.
"Oh, no, no, no." Applejack began. "What happened to them? Where did he go? Fuck!" She began to pace, quickly running back and forth between her fallen friends.
"Applejack!" Rarity said, quickly grabbing her and bringing her eye to eye, “It’s all going to be okay, darling.” She turned away, "Someone find me some materials!" She turned back to AJ, "I - WE can fix this, we always have, and we always will."
Rarity galloped off, returning with a similar set of improvised materials to what she'd used on Rainbow for Starlight. But there wasn't much she could do. Most of their injuries were superficial, consisting only of various cuts and bruises. Her biggest injury was her exhaustion, brought on by the miles-long chase, the combination of running, casting spells, and minor injuries adding up until she couldn't take any more. Rarity probably knew this, too. She just couldn't face the fact that there wasn't much she could do for them.
Rarity paced around the two, seeming to finally give in to panic herself. Her eyes became wild and manic, while at the same time worried, as she searched for any injury she could to “dress.” the result was a still unconscious Starlight, but now covered in various pieces of foliage.
“Rarity?” Flutterhy called.
“Rarity.” AJ followed, coming up behind her. “Rarity?” She tried once more, resting a hoof on her shoulder. “Rarity!”
“WHAT!” She screamed, her voice breaking. Tears began flowing freely from her eyes as she started sobbing, pulling AJ into a hug with her forehooves. The others soon followed, the severity and stress of the situation slowly but surely breaking them. Over time, they all embraced one another, the tears quickly forming a small, combined puddle beneath them.
“Wait!” AJ said, breaking away, “Look!”
Without any of them having realized it, a small glow had begun emanating from each of their chests, in the same locations their respective elements used to lie. Their tears quickly ceased as the glow gained intensity, one even appearing on the still-frozen Twilight. Their faces quickly lit up with hope and anticipation as it grew ever brighter, before in a blinding flash of light, the elements were invoked once more.
***
Twilight's eyes shot open in panic, before she quickly sunk like a rock in a lake to the ground, coughing and gasping for air, feeling as though she hadn’t breathed in an eternity. She took a moment to catch her breath, before righting herself and taking in her surroundings. All of her friends lay in the area surrounding her, the light emitting from each of them slowly fading. Starlight was there too, similarly getting her bearings.
“H-Huh?” She started, “What-”
“TWILIGHT!” Before she had time to register it, she found herself in the mother of all bear hugs, given by none other than Pinkie. The rest of her friends quickly followed, and she found herself having a hard time breathing again. She didn’t care though, the only thing that mattered was that they were together.
Twilight again gasped for air when released from the hug, taking a few deep breaths before speaking. “Starlight, how do you feel?”
“Much better” The mare replied. Most of her superficial wounds from the chase remained, as did Twilights. However, she was up and walking completely normal again. Her horn and magic, while weakened, were back up to considerable strength. The oppressing darkness that surrounded them up until then was gone, replaced by warm sunlight as the sun re-assumed its rightful place in the sky.
They all heard a loud gasp, their heads quickly turning towards Rainbow, she was hovering a few feet off the ground, her wing back to normal.
“Hey!” She said, bringing a hoof to her throat, “I- I can talk again! WOO HOO!” The group gave a small chuckle as she did stationary backflips, accompanied by random words and statements as she celebrated having her voice back.
“Uh, Twilight?” Twilight heard Fluttershy’s meek voice, “W-Where did he go?”
The realization hit her like a ton of bricks, and she would’ve started panicking, if not for the events that followed immediately after that statement. Twilight heard a small yell, followed by a sudden commotion in the direction of AJ and Rarity. AJ had tripped and found herself halfway down a pit of quicksand, the only thing keeping her out a desperate attempt by Rarity’s telekinesis.
“Help!” Rarity cried. The group converged on where the struggle was taking place, AJ quickly pulled out thanks to a combined effort of telekinesis from Twilight and Starlight, as well as Pinkie biting her tail and pulling backward. Pinkie had put a little too much effort into it, AJ coming out with a pop! and sent into a tumble with the party mare.
Twilight looked back towards the quicksand she’d fallen into, catching just for a split second a shimmer of magic on the surface of the quicksand.
“Wait a second-,” Twilight thought out loud. She walked over to the quicksand, daring to touch its now still surface with a hoof. She recoiled when the same thing happened, a shimmer of magic on the surface in response to her hoof.
“Oh no,” Twilight said, the realization starting to dawn on her. She quickly looked around the quicksand for any more evidence of what she prayed hadn’t happened. An exposed root lay a few feet away from it, the root pulled upwards at an angle, as if something had been caught on it... She looked back to the quicksand, spying an imprint in the shape of the device on its surface that she hadn’t seen earlier.
“Oh no, oh no no no no NO!” She panicked. Starlight came over to see what was wrong.
“Starlight!” Twilight shouted abruptly. “Do you know what that is?!”
“Quicksand?” The mare replied. In response, Twilight once again put her hoof in it, letting the resulting magic shimmer speak for itself.
Starlight's eyes widened, and despite knowing the implications of what she’d seen, still turned to Twilight for confirmation.
“Is that...”
“A portal!” Twilight replied hurriedly.
“And it goes to-”
“The human world!” Twilight finished her sentence for her, grabbing her shoulders and bringing her face to face.
***
Rob shot up with a start, utterly befuddled at what had happened. The last thing he remembered was desperately pointing the remote towards the enraged Twilight, only for his foot to get caught on something, sending him flying backward into nothingness. He looked around, only seeing tropical trees and other vegetation surrounding him. He realized with horror that he couldn’t feel the remote in his right hand, his head shooting this way and that as he searched in a panic. He sighed with relief upon finding it right next to him, just out of sight. He picked it up, shaking any sand stuck to it off. He stood up, stretching for a second, his muscles aching from running for so long. He looked back towards the quicksand he’d emerged from, seeing the faintest hint of a magical shimmer before its surface settled, resuming its appearance of normal quicksand.
“Where am I?” He thought aloud. Up until then, the only way he’d been able to jump worlds was using the remote, this didn’t make any sense! He found himself utterly befuddled that portals similar to the ones he could generate with the remote just existed here.
“Huh?” He said, spying something moving out of the corner of his eye. It was a vine, but last he checked, vines didn’t move on their own, at least, they usually didn’t in whatever world he happened to be in. He heard a low growl above him, followed by clumps of something landing on his head and shoulders. He looked up just in time to see a giant, flytrap-type plant, jaws ready to clamp down on him. He ducked out of the way just in time, landing a few feet away. He climbed back to his feet, preparing the remote upon seeing more vine-like tendrils moving towards him.
“Stay back!” He yelled, aiming the remote this way and that at the oncoming vines. “I warned you!” He shouted again, finally bringing the remote to bear. He quickly pressed Eject, sending a vine crashing into a nearby tree. He heard a pained yell from what he assumed was the plant's head, followed by the vines quickening their assault. Not seeing any other way out of this, he quickly aimed the remote at one vine after the other, each one fading from existence each time he pressed Delete. He cried out in pain when a smaller version of the plant's main head clamped onto his leg. He deleted it with another push of the button. He spied the main head lingering in the camouflage given by the other plant life, but it wasn’t enough. With a growl, Rob charged it, stopping a few feet away before pressing Delete once more. In a split second, the entire plant just disappeared, no cries of pain, nothing. With that taken care of, Rob made his way out into the open, realizing with an exasperated sigh that he was now trapped on an island.
***
Sunset Shimmer laid in bed, pajamas on and ready to sleep in preparation for the coming Monday school day, just shooting some texts back and forth with her friends before turning in. Just as she was about to, though, she was interrupted by the vibrating of her enchanted notebook on the nightstand next to her bed. She kept it there for easy access, as there was no telling when there may be some new equestrian magic that needed containing or just wanted to catch up with her princess friend on the other side. She opened it, finding a new message from Twilight that simply read Sunset! She picked up her pen, quickly writing out a Yeah? in response. She watched as words quickly began to appear on the following lines.
We have a problem, like, a REALLY big problem! Sunset started to become worried at the frantic message, but she was confident it was just more rogue magic, nothing she hadn’t handled before. Her response reflected that.
” What, more runaway equestrian magic?”
“Magic yes, Equestrian. . .”
“Wait, what?”
“I think it's best I just give you the whole story. Yesterday at noon, somepony seized control of the sun and moon from Celestia and Luna, switching the two like one of those light switches you find in your world. It was quite the spectacle, but what frightened the sisters was that whoever had done it not only had the power to take the sun and moon from them but also resisted their efforts to take them back. I and our friends on this side of the portal were tasked with finding whoever had done this, and fast. None of us wanted a repeat of something like Chrysalis, Tirek, and Cozy Glow. Starlight and I used a spell to get a rough estimate of where this magic was coming from and traced it back to the Everfree. Oh, if only we knew what we were walking into-
“Hey, it’s okay, just try to ignore it, whatever happened, it wasn’t your fault.”
“Thanks, Sunset, anyway, as we searched the forest we came across, well, I don’t know how to describe him, just that he vaguely resembled a human, with only one eye, and his form very distorted and filled with static on his limbs and head. Rainbow Dash was the first one to find him, going in head first classic Rainbow-style, I guess wanting to end it quickly. She hasn’t gone into details about what exactly happened, and having seen it myself I can’t blame her. All I know is that one second she vanished into the treetops, fighting with him, and the next she was catapulted back, landing hard into a tree and breaking one of her wings.”
Sunset had to double-take that last bit, placing a hand over her mouth and letting out a small gasp. Sure she and her friends had gotten themselves into some risky situations before, but they’d never actually gotten hurt to any serious degree. This was new, and that worried her.
” Oh Celestia, is she okay?!”
“She is now, but she’s a bit traumatized by the whole thing. She was at least happy to receive an “awesome” metal wing addition to help keep it stable. That wasn’t it, though. I don’t know what he did to her, but for a long time afterward she spoke in a strange tongue I hadn’t heard before. Rainbow loves her voice and being able to talk, as I’m sure you know from your worlds Rainbow, so she just kind of- crumbled under the stress, and the others had to take her back to Ponyville to find a doctor. Rarity surprised us all that night by showing off her prowess as a seamstress, making a makeshift gurney for her in almost no time at all! After that was said and done, it was just myself and Starlight left to find him. It’s hard to describe, but something just sort of broke within me then. All I felt was anger and malice at this mysterious somepony for doing something so heartless to Rainbow, even now I have a hard time comprehending it. Starlight and I chased him throughout the forest, where the longer things went on the more power he seemed to unveil. For starters, he was able to keep perfect pace with Starlight and me, even when we cast Accelero. It was just so- unreal some of the things he did. For example, at one point he did, well, something, and within a few seconds our surroundings had turned completely black.”
“Like, nighttime black?”
“No, not like nighttime, it was pitch black, and we couldn’t see even a foot in front of our faces! Luckily, though, it was easy for Starlight, Rarity and I to use our horns as floodlights to still see. All of it seemed to come from this strange device he held in one hand, every time he attacked us or manipulated our surroundings he always first pointed it at us. In anger, I started firing beams at him using my horn, only for him to raise that device and freeze all of them in mid-air! At one point, Starlight cast a Rope Charmer in an attempt to bind him and stop whatever device he was using. Frankly, a smart move on her part, to try to restrain him to end things. That’s a fairly obscure spell too, somehow, Starlight always finds ways to surprise me.”
“Strange, most of what you just listed can be done with spells, but I’ve never heard of light manipulation like that or just stopping projectiles mid-air. Block them or dodge them sure, but not freeze them mid-air.”
“It’s more so that device that continues to befuddle me, I’ve looked through every book I can find on magical artifacts and haven’t found a single thing that matches it.”
“Strange.”
“That’s not it either- I’m sorry if I start to sound weird Sunset, this next part is just particularly upsetting to me.”
Sunset's gaze quickly shifted away from the latest message, turning towards a small stain that had suddenly appeared on the page. “Is that-?” Her heart started to ache even more at the realization that it was in fact a teardrop that had landed on the page. She was both hurt seeing Twilight in a state like this and angry at whoever had done this to them, she now understood how she must’ve felt that night in the forest, fighting an unknown enemy that had just hurt one of her friends.
“Starlight’s spell almost worked, but somehow it was like he knew when it was coming. He turned around, before all of a sudden this THWOOM sound enveloped us, and Starlight fell to the ground. Her spell had just exploded in mid-air, and when she got back up her horn was sparking and she could barely walk.”
“Starlight...” Sunset muttered under her breath. Another stain like the previous one appeared on the page. “Do you want me to come over? Even if just for a few minutes, something tells me you need somepony, sleep is overrated anyway, heh.”
“I’m fine, Sunset. Starlight just walked in, want to talk to her?”
“Yeah.”
***
“Hey, Sunset.”
“Hey Starlight, uh, how’s your horn?”
“Oh, she told you about that, yeah, I’m fine, back up to 99%!”
“99? Why not 100?”
“Well, see, we’re dealing with a bit of an anomaly here. After the elements were invoked-”
“You used the elements?”
“Yeah, we did as a last resort. I guess Twilight didn’t get that far. I’m running off of word of mouth for this next portion, as neither Twilight nor I were conscious for it.”
“You and Twilight were knocked out?”
“Yeah, after my spell exploded mid-air and I collapsed, Twilight took a second to check on me, before shooting off into the forest for the final time. I wish I could’ve stopped her, but the only thing I knew at that moment was the pain radiating from my horn. There was nothing after a few seconds, just pitch blackness as I struggled to maintain a simple light spell to tell left from right and up from down. Eventually, I limped my way to a clearing where I found her frozen mid-air, whoever we’d been chasing nowhere to be found. The next thing either Twilight or I remember is waking up to find the others surrounding us, the elements activating in the bleakness of the situation. What scares us is what if they didn’t use the elements? Would Twilight have been frozen forever? It was scary seeing her like that, yes there are plenty of spells that can do things like that, but she was just frozen. It’s hard to describe. Doesn’t matter, all that matters is that we’re all still here. Plus, now we know the elements can undo whatever magic that being used.”
“That sounds like such a tough thing to go through, but, and I’m really trying not to sound rude, what does it have to do with me? Twilight said that WE have a problem on our hands.”
“Well, there was one, teeny tiny detail we haven’t mentioned yet. Remember how I said he was nowhere to be found afterward? We have a good idea where he ended up, but I don’t think you’ll like it. In the clearing, AJ fell into what we thought was quicksand. Twilight was the first to notice it, a slight magical shimmer on the surface once we pulled AJ out. it didn’t take long to piece things together after that.”
“So you’re saying-”
“W-well, we don’t know for sure yet, there’s still so little we know about these portals and where they lead. So while it’s unlikely, there is a slight chance he ended up in your world. I say unlikely because we also think he came out of one, somewhere, he was just too strange to be from either of our worlds, so, we might be dealing with something entirely new here.”
"Hang on, what about that 99 percent stuff?"
"Oh, that. Well, ever since he used that device on me, I can't cast Rope Charmer anymore. I can cast everything else, Accelero, Teleportation, even Duplication! But ever since then, I just can't cast this spell. Every time I try, the same pain comes back and I have to stop. This means that while the Elements CAN reverse the vast majority of effects, they cannot reverse every little thing."
Sunset took some time to think and absorb what she'd just heard. Not only had Twilight and her friends battled and technically lost to an unknown being with never-before-seen magic, but there was also the possibility that he'd fallen into their world. AND there was now the possibility that Equestria's natural portals led to more places than just their worlds.
"So you wouldn't happen to have a plan for defeating him if he landed there, would you?"
"No, I'm not really sure how to go about it. There is very little magic in this world. Yes, me and my friends here have the geodes and the elements at our disposal, but that's only a tiny fraction of what's possible in Equestria, and if his magic still works here, that makes things even more complicated."
"Do you want me and Twilight to come over there and help you?"
"No, at least not yet, neither of you would have any magic to use here. Plus, we’re not even 100% sure he’s even here. First of all, we are going to search for him on this side of the portal and look for any new magical anomalies. Then, if we need it, I’ll message you again for help.”
“Okay, well, good luck, and be careful.”
"I will. Until we meet again, Starlight."
"Bye Sunset."
"Bye Twilight."
Sunset closed the book with a heavy sigh before she let herself fall back onto her bed. She stared at the ceiling, her mind racing at what had been said. Whoever their new enemy was, he was dangerous, and they had to find him, fast.