Looking carefully, I could make the partial structure of a parking garage. Landing on a clear area nearby, I was confused to why such a structure was even here in Equestria. They didn't seem to have automobiles of any kind, nor did they have architecture that was bland like the building was. The plume had dissipated to a decent degree, enough to reveal that part of the garage had collapse. Even the original entrance was covered in debris, enough that not me or any pony for that matter, would be able to get inside.
Guards quickly got out of other chariots while pegasi guards kept watch from above. Seeing the second chariot land, the rest of the group came out and Shining rejoined us.
"What is it?" Shining asked.
Celestia shook her head and stared at the structure. "I don't know... It's not Equestrian, that's for certain."
I had to speak up once I realized the architecture. "It's human. A parking garage, well most of what's left."
"What is a parking garage?" Celestia asked.
"It's a public place to store cars while you're out at work, shopping, or anything else that would call for a trip in to town."
"What's this car you speak of?"
"Oh right. Well a car is like a self-propelled carriage, except it goes way faster. It's powered by electricity stored in capacitors and allow what would make an hour trip for walking at a human pace to being a short stretch that would take minutes or even seconds, depending on the route you take."
"That's rather efficient, especially for a "slow species" such as yourself. Nothing against you or anything."
"That's fine. Horses, or ponies as you are, were used as the major form of transportation before automobiles were invented. We even at first called them the horseless buggy."
"Yes, you told me about the fact that your species is the only sentient ones on your planet."
"Now, how do we get inside?"
The next thing we all heard had gotten us by surprise. "Dans le parc de stationnement." Rarity suddenly said. We all turned to her, confused to what language she was even speaking. She simply stared back and shrugged. "What? Am I the only one who speaks Prench?"
The looks on our faces already answered for us. Turning away, annoyed that we didn't even know any Prench, she simply stared at the garage and pointed to a small sign on the side of a part that was still standing. Indeed it had the Prench, or rather French, title of the garage on a board for all to see.
I turned to Celestia for a moment. "Is it safe to go inside?"
Shining was the one to answer. "I'll get my unicorn squadron to use their magic to keep the building stable and make an entrance. Be warned, we can't keep it up forever."
Celestia nodded and told that I would have to be accompanied by a unicorn pony for protection. I and Rarity were with Shining, while Twilight served to lead the others, along with a unicorn guard. Celestia, being the equivalent to a goddess followed us alone.
I watched the guard squadron use their magic to rip apart an opening. It was large enough to fit us through without hindrance, thankfully. Finding proper footing proved to be hard. We had to dodge rebar, metal, and concrete chunks to get inside. It was dark, except for areas where light was able to sneak in. Eventually, we reached the ground floor of the part that was still standing. Cars, with their round curved bodies, were all parked in there spots. Some had been moved a bit during the "collapse" with most of their windows broken into a million small round pieces. Others were lest fortunate, having chunks of concrete ranging from softball to even cars from other stories falling on top of them, crushing the others upon impact. I wondered if their insurances covered trans-dimensional teleportation...
Some ponies would get close and one pegasi was close enough that he decided to give the car a firm buck. The results was the sound of a blaring horn, which spooked all of us. I even had to cover my own ears, less I wanted to need a hearing aid with my eyes.
"Khalass! Turn that blasted thing off!" I shouted.
Not knowing what to do, he simply kicked it again and again, hoping it would stop. Reminding myself that I was the only one who could stop it, I quickly ran over and reached my arm inside to grab the handle once I noticed the window was down. The door opened and I quickly sat in the driver's seat before turning the alarm off. It was a relief that the dreadful alarm was gone and I began nursing a slight headache that had formed.
"Why in Celestia's name did that happen?" asked Rarity.
"Anti-theft alarm. Cars are expensive and people tend to leave things in them." I told her. I looked around to see that the car was mostly empty, except for a few things like a music player still connected and an unopened bottle of soda. "Well, no doubt someone's going to be very unhappy once they find out their ride home is missing."
"Can you turn the car on? Maybe we can see how they work."
I shook my head. "No. I don't have the key to the vehicle. Besides, there's no road to drive them on and only some of the cars here are worthy of off road driving, not to mention there's no way to get it out of the garage."
Getting out of the car, we continued our search around the garage. Eventually, we reached the still surviving corner of the garage where the elevator and stairs were. None of the ponies wanted to try the stairs, seeing that they wouldn't accommodation their quadruped structure.
"I guess we'll turn back until we can be sure the second floor is safe," said Celestia.
We continued to look around for a few more minutes. The rest of the ground floor was like everything else. Cars, crushed cars, and a few motorcycles as well. We went back outside to allow the unicorn guards that were holding the structure up to rest. Indeed it had been tiring on them as many simply allowed their legs to fail and they flop on their stomachs after releasing their magical grasps. Some wound pant while others went to some water flasks that had been brought within a few hidden compartments on the chariots.
"Roya, how could something from your world arrive in ours?" Celestia asked.
I thought for a moment. There were some theories to what would happen when an object within a pocket of space was to achieve 1.0c, the speed of light. Maybe cross dimensional travel would be possible then, but these were immobile structures. There was also the fact that I was simply walking through a park in Dubai before coming here. A few other theories appeared in my head but only a few few actually seemed plausible. "What's the most technologically advanced thing you ponies have done currently?" I asked.
"A few years ago, we did achieve nuclear fission in Chicolt. Arcane logic crystals can be achieved to a decent size, allowing arcade cabinets."
"So you have maybe basic computers and you've only recently achieved nuclear fission for peaceful research purposes. That wouldn't be enough... What's the fastest speed achieved by any pony?"
The sound of someone's throat being clear caught our attention. We both turned to Rainbow Dash, who was standing there with her wings out in some sort of pose. "You hold the fastest record?" I asked.
Dash gave a confident nod. "Nopony can out-fly me!"
"She is right. Rainbow Dash has achieved mach two before. No other pegasi has reached that speed and very few can even achieve mach one or even do a Sonic Rainboom," Celestia commented.
I sighed. "Mach two isn't much and it shouldn't be possible by biological means anyways."
Dash seemed offended at my comment. "Oh yeah? What do you humans have?" I noticed that her wings flared even more in response. It was obvious she took my statement as an attack.
"Not counting Sling Drives, we have jets that can hit mach 4, though it's not common. With Sling Drives, we can achieve .01c or 1/100th of the speed of light itself in space."
"What? That's not fair! You're using egghead stuff!"
I sighed for a moment and simply stood there thinking. "Sling Drives seem to be the only answer... but the closest test Sling Drive I know off was at the edge of Dubai, in a properly contained and protected facility."
"Could it be an accident a the facility that caused this?"
"I-I don't think so. The garage is from France, which is thousands of kilometers away. Not even a Sling Drive can affect anything in that dista..." I was cut short by a Royal Guard pegasus with a scroll in his mouth. He quickly landed in front of Celestia before giving a proper bow.
Taking the scroll out of his mouth, he began to speak. "Princess Celestia! I have news from Princess Luna in Canterlot!"
"Let me see. We'll talk about this later, Lt. Roya." said Celestia. Taking the scroll, the solar alicorn quickly skimmed it before giving it back. "We'll have to talk about this later, we're needed back in Canterlot. Shining! Keep a detachment here to guard the place. Human technology cannot be left unattended."
With a salute, Shining quickly barked out the orders. I began following Princess Celestia to the chariot before Shining stopped me for a moment. Turning around, I noticed something in his magical grasp. Within the familiar blue aura was a handful of unused rounds for my pistol. Giving me a reassuring smile, I plucked the rounds from out of the air and placed them in a pocket of my jacket. "Thank you Shining." Giving a salute, seeing how appropriate it was, I quickly returned to the chariot and we soon were heading back Canterlot to deal with whatever the scroll had pulled us too.