Twilight awoke, but there was no vague smell of destroyed coffee. Spike would be pleased. The dragon had been enamored with the idea of creating the beverage since Cadence brought some back for him, though Twilight did not enjoy the taste much herself. Sadly, his culinary skills were still lacking, and the aroma had seeped into the academy tower they usually lived in.
Wait. That wasn’t right, though. It would have taken at least a week for the place to air out. Right, he exploded the kettle last time. Thank Celestia for waterproof book enchantments. Stil… that meant…
“Oh! Good, you’re up. We have so much to discuss.”
That wasn’t Spike. Much higher pitched, shrill, but still male. The princess looked up, and noted she was in a metal room similar to the army base, though slightly darker. A human in a hooded jacket was staring at her from across the room. She could not see his face, but the figure meant human. Unless it was a fawn, but those sorts of things weren’t common in Equestria, and definitely not on Earth. Twilight rubbed the sleep from her eyes, and mentioned the first explanation that came to mind. “Pervert.”
John the cultist flailed horribly. “What? Why would you- gah! No no no, there are far more important things to worry about! The fate of the world is at stake!”
Ah good. Not a pervert. Still a creep, and a jerkface. “And… where are we again?”
“Oh, don’t worry about that. I had to call in lots of favors to get some privacy, but now we can talk!”
“And you couldn’t back at the base?”
“No, O’Hare would never allow it, and neither would… that woman.” He grumbled, as if she were a mildly overbearing mother of sorts. Still, this proved they weren’t on the base anymore. Way to let things slip, man. “Regardless, the spreading of magic across Earth.”
“Yes yes, we’re working on that. You didn’t have to go to these lengths just to discuss it.” Come to think of it, how had she gotten here? Let’s see... there was the checkups on the magical soldiers, then Twilight had gone for a walk, and there were these donuts out on a table saying “Take One”.
Oh. You devious rascal. Pinkie would be beside herself with indignation if she knew that someone had stooped to corrupting pastries so.
“Yes, but that’s not the problem. The sphinx! We can make more, yes?”
This was… odd, to say the least. “Well, yes, but… why? Things are already, well… messy I’ve heard. We don’t need to be making things worse.”
John was affronted at this. “Worse? Of course we need to shake things up! That’s the entire point!”
“Pardon?”
“You haven’t seen our world. Petty people with petty problems, divided and foolish. You give them magic, and their first thoughts are to use it to crush their imagined foes. No, we need to disrupt that life! They need a problem, a catastrophe, some sea change for them to rally against. And think of it! What better way than to change the people of the world? Make them think about what they take for granted, force them to band together without actually harming them. It’s perfect!”
“It’s horrible!” Twilight was quite worried at the fervor with which John spoke. “These people are scared and worried, and you want to take it a step further? Did you even think about asking Sam what she thinks about this? Last I checked, she was trying her best to cope, and she’s at least a together sort of person. I know lots of fillies who’d be distraught at that kind of change.”
“Eggs and omelets!” The figure of speech flew over Twilight’s head, but she wasn’t really in the mood to listen anyway. “If we can make the world a better place, and we know exactly how to do it, can we really let such fears get in our way?”
“Yes. I’m in no position to decide for Earth how to manage their problems, and I suspect neither are you. Let’s fix the problem we have now first, and talk about your grand plans once things have calmed down.”
John began pacing angrily. “By then it will be too late! Magic will have spread, people will resist, countermeasures will be put in place. Only by doing it now, before people can react to the change, can we ensure that…”
“Forget it. I’m not going along with your plan, and you’re really not in any position to make me do anything.” Erk. John stopped suddenly, trying to wrap his brain around this, though Twilight finished it for him: “Even if you do have a way to keep me here, you can’t make me cast the spells necessary for your little idea, and I’m pretty sure I can leave whenever I want.”
John raised an arm to gesture wildly, but never got a retort out as light filled the room. He looked up stupidly, in time to see a winged lion fall out of some space between worlds, and crush him to the ground. “Ah, there you are, Twilight. We were getting worried.”
“Sam! Why… how? Oh, right. The portal amulet. You didn’t have to, you know.”
Sam got up, and took stock of the odd human lump below her. “No, but it was more fun than sitting around doing nothing. I was bored, I guess.”
“Get off me!” John had regained his composure, and oddly enough Sam started to float haphazardly up into the air. Only a few feet or so, but John had clearly been practicing his magic with great fervor. Twilight would have to grade him highly on the homework, even if she disapproved of his thoughts on how to teach the class.
Sam was amused at being carried around by some strange person’s brain, but wasn’t entirely in the mood for this. “Nifty. But that’s magic.”
“So?”
“So I can just use the energy to do… this.” Sam’s experience with flying had been short and painful, but at least she got the general idea. It might have been a titanic battle of wills between two noobie mages on a level playing field, but Sam was currently floating in the air. All the battle ended up doing was reasserting the pull of gravity, as Sam’s bulk squished the poor sap again.
“Ahh! Stop that, you stupid cat!” Sam glared, and gave a very wide, toothy grin, all close and breathy-like. John stopped struggling, and proceeded to tilt his head to the left, wanting to look anywhere but his impending feline demise. “I’ll be good.”
“Glad we understand each other.” Still, this arrangement would only last so long as John didn’t do anything stupid. Hmm…
The room was small, metallic. A door with a turn-crank stood behind Sam, while a large metal table was to his left, with a few empty cardboard boxes by it. Books, a toolset, and… that’ll do. “Twilight, pass me the duct tape.”
“The what?”
“That grey circle on the table. It is a miracle of science, which I shall have to teach you about when we are safe.”
-------------
Little John Cultist was not happy to be packed in the corner. Sam was no good at this ‘tying people up’ thing, but it got the job done. She had put a cardboard box on John’s head for good measure, so that the cultist could be in the box and think about what he had done. Fluttershy would be proud.
“Well, now what? There’s gotta be an exit here somewhere.”
Sam was confused for a second. “Yeah, door’s right there, why?” Oh. Right, a pony probably wouldn’t be familiar with the idea of a crank door. It didn’t seem like the sort of thing someone with hooves could open, in any case. That was probably the point. “If I had to guess, we’re on a boat.”
“Why’s that?”
Sam struggled. She was stronger as a sphinx, but these sorts of doors were still stupid to open. “I’ve never actually heard of these kinds of things being anywhere else. Make the doors… tight… to keep out water!” The crank started spinning after a few hefts. “…if the ship starts sinking.”
“How would you even make a boat out of metal? That’s kinda silly.” They left, into a tight ship hallway. Sam’s guess was right, though that didn’t help much. Military boats were labyrinths, as far as he could tell.
“Practice. I imagine the first few attempts sank unceremoniously. Regardless, what now? Can’t we just portal back?”
“No, because I have no idea where we are. I need a precise distance and direction to work with.”
“Can we hop to Equestria?”
“I’m not sure on that. If I knew where in Equestria we were, sure. But our maps don’t coorespond to yours, so again, distance and direction.”
“So we could end up inside a mountain, you’re saying.”
The hallway came to an end, with a… ladder of sorts heading up. It was more of a very steep staircase, but it still wasn’t meant for proper travel. Some things had to be scrunched for the sake of space, and military folk were expected to cope, Sam guessed. Upwards, then, for a better view. “No, teleporting doesn’t work like that. You’d just slam into the rock and go nowhere. But, we could end up in the air, or if it’s underwater, this place would be flooded as the sea rushes over to our side. Pressure differences.”
“Gotcha. Well, this should help, come on up.” Sam had entered into an observation room of sorts. Drat. The boat was on the water. Goodness the kidnapper had worked fast. Still, observation posts meant maps, so time to search. “And don’t talk too loud. I’m not in the mood to explain what a sphinx and a pony are doing on a military boat.”
“Or why we escaped.”
“I don’t think they know we’re on board. Or at least, not all of them. This seems more like a place to stash you rather than a concerted effort. Anyway, how does this do for you?” Sam gestured to a map as Twilight finally managed to get up the ladder. She would have to institute proper staircase protocols on Earth when dimensional travel became proper. This sort of ladder was clearly unsafe for pony-kind.
“I can’t read it, remember?”
“Well, we’re… here. When Discord popped me back to Earth the first time, that would have been the same relative location, right?”
“Right. Just world hopping, no change in location.”
“So then Canterlot is here. That’s… 100ish miles west of here, give or take a few degrees north.”
“Great! I have no idea how far a mile is.” Oh. Right. This wasn’t going to work very well.
Clattering and noises were heard from below, followed by John’s screeches of impotence. “I heard them go that way! Please, find them! We can’t let things end this way.”
Sam rushed over to Twilight. “Well, out of time. Just warp us over anyway.”
“But-“
“Do it!” Twilight gulped, pulled energy out of a battery amulet, and launched herself across worlds, dragging the sphinx in her wake.
John shot up the ladder, still covered in duct tape and despair. “No…” One of his accomplices came after him, and put a hand calmly on his shoulder, as if to console him. A donut was offered, but quickly rebuked. It was probably one of the drugged ones, too, because all of John’s friends were idiots. All of them. Even the smart ones. Everyone was an idiot today.
-------------
“Well, I think we figured out which one it was!” Sam’s penchant for sarcasm had not abated, even as they reappeared over 100 feet in the air above a beautiful grassy field.
“That’s not helpful! I can’t fly!”
Sam grabbed onto Twilight, and did her best to ‘fly up’. This slowed them ever so slightly, but Sam was fat, and Twilight flailing. Rainbow would have much to teach them both about how not to kill themselves. A bird watched in amusement as the two plummeted towards the ground. The weather was so strange today.
Lacking any other recourse, Sam flipped over and threw Twilight skyward to slow her descent. This only served to speed up Sam's impending CRUNCH with the ground, and she regretted this immediately. There was a slight bounce, then another SMUNCH as Twlight proceeded to use Sam’s painful form as a cushion. She rolled off, and got to her hooves.
“Let it be known that my ribs are the first to fall in the line of duty for Equestrian-Earth relations.” Sam tried to cough, but this was a very bad idea, and her chest staged a protest movement against further coughing efforts.
“Oh gosh. I’m sorry I’m sorry!”
“Hey, we’re out, aren’t we?” Sam let herself lay spread-eagle on the grass, staring at the sky. “Speaking of which, where are we?”
“Um um…. Okay.” Twilight pranced about nervously, then found a landmark. “I know that mountain! That’s east of Ponyville! So we’re maybe 60 trails east of Ponyville, and 40 more to Canterlot.”
“Groovy. Do be a dear and get someone, would you kindly?”
“Sure! Sure, just… stay right there, I’ll be back!”
Sam let her head plop onto the ground. “Don’t worry! I’m not going anywhere.” Twilight teleported rapidly off towards the horizon, as Sam thought about things other than the party of painful angry things in her chest. “Ow.” This was why Rainbow Dash wanted to be a princess without the heroics, it would seem. Next time, she would take the adventure without the crippling pain. Surely the two didn’t have to go together.
Another world away, Little John Cultist gave in, and ate his donut. It was very good, but he would have preferred world revolution to sugary pastries.