One Hour Earlier
“Unbelievable...” Twilight Sparkle muttered, reading a report hovering in front of her, “Just unbelievable!”
For the last week or so, cell phone, television, and radio signals within about a fifty kilometer radius of the general Ponyville area had experienced massive interference from an unknown source at least a dozen times, lasting anywhere from ten seconds to a full hour. Computers had been destroyed, radios jammed, aircraft navigational systems screwed.
The newly formed Equestrian Science and Magic Administration, as well as a few scientists from NASA and an advisor from the United States Geological Survey, had put together a team to investigate. It was being led by Dr. Robert Frost from NASA, a renowned particle physicist, as well as Twilight Sparkle from ESMA, a new but promising addition to the field of Magical Studies.
The team had immediately set up a small sensory array near the edge of the Everfree forest, and the results that they received revealed that something in the area was giving off large amounts of electromagnetic radiation. While that certainly explained the interference they had been experiencing, the event had only lasted two seconds, so the most information they could gather was that the source was in the general direction of the Everfree forest.
As the scientists had been setting up their advanced instrumentation, another event had occurred. It had only lasted a nanosecond, but it had emitted an electromagnetic pulse so powerful that all of the instruments the scientists had been setting up were fried instantly, satellites in space detected gamma rays consistent with that of a small nuclear explosion, and billions of dollars of computers were destroyed in an instant.
“What they hay could be causing these?” Twilight asked as she looked up. The man kneeling next to her, Dr. Frost, shrugged.
“I’m at a blank here,” he said, “All of our scientific instruments are beyond repair. We’re gonna have to take an inventory, but we’re looking at millions of dollars of damage at the least. We’re not gonna get new instruments for weeks, so we’ll have to make do with what we have. In the morning, we’ll deploy EMF detectors throughout the Everfree, try and narrow down a location, hope that there isn’t another event as devastating as this one.”
Twilight nodded and sighed. “It’s too bad the computers recording the data were destroyed as well. We’ll have to start from scratch.”
“Can’t start from scratch when you had nothing to begin with.” Frost joked. Twilight looked at him with an unamused expression. “Go home, Twilight,” he said, “There’s nothing to do here. Get a good nights sleep for the last time in weeks.”
Twilight sighed. “I guess you’re right.” She said, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
As she walked back to her tree library, doubts started ringing through her head. Why did ESMA put me in charge? I don’t have any experience! Millions of ponies are counting on me! What if I can’t figure it out? I’ll never get to work in the scientific field again! Calming herself down, she took a look around. It was painfully obvious the damage that had been caused. The entire town was powerless, and although it wasn’t as pronounced in the daytime, it would be sunset soon, and ponies would have to resort back to candles, lanterns and flashlights.
Approaching her front door, she thought she could hear voices from inside. Pausing for a moment, she made entry, and was shocked to find herself face to face with Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, a man with a gun, and herself.
I reacted instantaneously, bringing the gun up and instinctively pointing it at the newcomer. Before It occurred to me that I was pointing it at the wrong pony, I was struck by a powerful beam of magic that sent me flying.
Crying out in pain, I hit the ground hard, my weapon flying out of my hand. I heard another beam of magic being fired off, followed by the sound of somepony crying out.
“Wha...?” I heard Twilight say.
I could see my gun lying directly in front of me, but as I reached out, trying to grab it, it was seized by the glow of bright, lavender magic. The weapon was floated up and far out of my reach.
“Nuh uh! You know, It’s too bad I don’t actually have any potion on me right now,” Twilight said as I turned onto my back to look her in the face, “Too bad I can’t just cast a spell to do the same thing. Oh wait! I can!”
I started to push myself off of the ground, trying to think of a plan, a distraction, anything, when Rainbow Dash spoke up.
“So it’s true!” She exclaimed, “I thought he was crazy, or making stuff up, but it’s actually true!” Rainbow glared at her. “You’re murdering an entire species!”
“Murder?” Twilight exclaimed, “It wasn’t murder! We were redeeming their species! Those humans, they’re so, so... violent, so... cruel, so... smelly!”
As glad as I was for the distraction, I still wasn’t sure exactly what I could do. I could tackle the unicorn, but she would easily be able to toss me off.
“So are ponies!” Rainbow replied hotly, ignoring me, “Everything the humans do, we do! We just don’t see it because it’s us doing it!”
“That’s not the same-”
“Not the same thing? Why isn’t it the same thing? Just because it’s us that’s doing it, it becomes right?” Rainbow finished. The two mares stared at each other for a moment or two.
Then, she smirked. “Nice try. Thing is, I know that they’re evil, and I know Rainbow Dash would know that too. You’re not Rainbow,” she said, “You’re just like them.”
Twilight fired another bolt of magic, this one hitting Rainbow Dash squarely in the chest. “Agh!” she cried, flying backwards. Rainbow hit the bookshelf behind her, and was knocked out in an instant.
“How dare you.”
Twilight Sparkle’s voice echoed through the room, but it was the other Twilight Sparkle who was speaking. She was standing up, her horn was glowing, and she looked downright furious.
“What are you, a changeling? How dare you come into my library, pretending to be me? How dare you attack my friends?” she demanded. In a sudden burst of power, she attacked her counterpart.
The other quickly cast a block spell, deflecting the spell harmlessly into the ceiling. She threw a bolt in return, which was blocked yet again. The two dueled quite fiercely in a ferocious display of power, but it was painfully obvious that they were both evenly matched, and neither was going to win anytime soon.
I could at least try to give “Good” Twilight an advantage. I started to sit up, wincing as a hard object dug into my probably sprained right ankle.
Wait a second. Hard object. What could-
I would have facepalmed if I had the time.
Reaching down, I grabbed the Beretta 92FS 9mm pistol from the holster on my right ankle and turned off the safety. Getting up onto one knee, I pointed it at ‘evil’ Twilight, and I pulled the trigger.
With a loud SNAP, the bullet flew out of the barrel and hit her in the shoulder. With a yelp, she fell back.
Twilight looked at me fearfully, but decided to take the advantage and pinned Twilight to the ground with her magic. “Who are you? What are you? A changeling?” She demanded.
The other Twilight grimaced. “Nope,” she said simply, obviously in pain. With a pop, she teleported away.
For a moment, no one moved. I kept my gun pointed at the spot where she had been lying, the spot where there was now a splatter of blood. The only thing I could think was, Why didn’t I fire a second shot?
Twilight spoke up. “What just happened?” She asked, shock and fear making its way into her voice as the adrenaline in her system faded. “Why do you have a... a gun? Why did you just shoot her? Was she a... changeling?”
“No, she was not,” I replied, turning my safety back on, “I honestly have no idea what just happened.
I was getting more and more sure that these ponies were, in fact, not evil. I was clueless as to what was going on, though. Twilight was not the only one confused.
“What’s going on?” Twilight asked again. I sighed. “Sit down.”
“Who are you? What are you? A changeling?” Twilight demanded. The other Twilight tried to move, but grimaced as a sharp pain stabbed its way into her right shoulder. “Nope,” she managed to reply before forcing herself to teleport.
The unicorn rematerialized in a strange environment. She was surrounded by trees, but they were not the friendly, calming trees of the Whitetail Woods. Rather, these trees were thick, dark and oppressive. She recognized the location almost instantly as the Everfree forest.
Perfect, she thought to herself, Just perfect. She tried to get up, but as she stood, the sharp, stabbing pain rippled through her body once again. Crying out, she collapsed to the ground.
Twilight looked down to examine the hole in her shoulder. It was definitely not clean. There was no exit wound, which meant the bullet was still in her shoulder.
Obviously, the optimal thing to do would be to bandage up the wound best she could, then get to a hospital, but that was out of the question. Although they would probably treat her, there was no telling how far humans had managed to infiltrate pony society.
Twilight was racking her brains to figure out why Rainbow, Pinkie, and probably all of the other ponies on this world were siding with the human. There was the possibility that the ponies in this world were just as evil as the humans, judging by what Rainbow had said. There was also the equally likely possibility that the humans had fooled, or possibly brainwashed, all the ponies on the planet.
First things first, though. She had to take care of her shoulder.
She would have to remove the bullet, then bandage the hole. Although she was not that proficient with medical spells, this wasn’t the first time she had to treat a bullet wound in the field.
Picking up a stick, she placed it in between her teeth and conjured a magical dagger. Slowly, she drove it into her wound. As the pain built up, she bit down hard on the stick, muffling the piercing scream. After about a minute of agonizing pain, a bloody, metal lump dropped to the forest floor.
Panting with pain, Twilight started to regain her senses. This was the second time she had to dig a bullet out of herself, so she was a bit more prepared for the pain than last time. It would probably have been a far cleaner job if somepony else had dug the bullet out, but since she was alone, she had caused quite a bit of unnecessary damage. Casting a small but effective disinfectant spell, she grabbed her empty saddlebag with her magic, and started tearing it into strips.
A snap echoed from the forest.
Twilight stopped in her tracks and looked about. The Everfree was dangerous in the best of scenarios, but it was getting to sunset, and she was injured. The snap could have been a falling tree branch, but it could also have been a small creature, a monster, or even a pony, either lost or looking for her. She prepared a spell to attack with.
Something burst out of a nearby bush behind her, and Twilight instinctively whirled around and hurled a bolt of deadly purple magic at it. She heard a squeal, followed by the soft thump of a small critter falling to the ground, then silence.
Twilight peered at the ground, and was surprised to see a small white shape lying on the ground. Walking over to it, she identified it as a bunny rabbit.
Oops.
Well, nothing to be done, she thought to herself. She was starting to walk away when she heard more squealing from behind her.
Oh, she thought to herself, he’s not dead.
Walking back over to him, she knelt down and frowned. “Aww, you’re in pain. Here,” she said, firing another bolt of magic. “There you go.”
It was the kindest thing to do, she thought to herself. She finished ripping her saddlebag to strips, and then proceeded to bandage her wound.