Everyone awoke in a dark forest, barely remembering the critical situation that had happened. Some of them didn't know, some did. Italy was scared out of his mind, screaming that he wanted to go back to Earth. Well, he remembers what happened. Good thing I do too, Germany thought. England was moaning, "Ugh, what happened? All I remember was that we were lifted off of the ground somehow, then I passed out. Oh, my head!" That means England doesn't remember anything...
Everyone got up, dusted themselves off, and caught their balance. Then, before anyone commented on the situation, America pointed something out. "Yo! Look over there! A light that is obviously an exit out of here is shining through the trees down this path! Let's go check it out." America wasted no time himself taking off towards the light in the distance. France then yelled out to America, "I hate to be the one to wreck your day, but I don't think we can just go off and check something out before we come up with a plan!" America was brought down by France's comment in an instant. "I hate to say so, but he's right. We need a good plan before we just go on a mission," England said. "We need a good plan before we do anything else," Russia exclaimed.
Germany stopped the argument, saying, "Then it's settled! We'll make up a good plan before any further courses of action are taken!"
They stood around for about an hour or two, coming up with the perfect plan for what had been happening at the moment. Many choices were made... Many choices were turned down... For a while, it seemed that they couldn't think of anything. Thier moment of feeling down proved right. They couldn't think of a plan, and so they decided that the group as a whole would simply just go and explore the strange world they now were in. "Ai ya! We just wasted our time doing nothing," China yelled out.
Germany had no idea what to say. He was really considering cursing out everybody for wasting time that they could've used to investigate the world that they had just woken in an hour and a half earlier. And so he did...
******
Twilight Sparkle was in the Golden Oaks Library researching the portal that had recently appeared just the previous day. She spent all day trying to figure out what it was, and why it was there. Fact of the matter was that her and her friends had found it just late in the day, yesterday.
"Whoa! Hey guys, check this out," Rainbow Dash yelled out with excitement. The five other friends quickly galloped over to where Rainbow Dash was floating: underneath a portal in the sky. "What in the hay do you reckon that thing there is," Applejack asked. Twilight was bewildered at the thought of something like this suddenly popping up in the middle of the ever free forest. How did it appear? Why did it appear? What was it there for? Twilight finally snapped out of her stupor and answered Applejack's question. "I-I have no idea. It could be anything!"
Pinkie Pie decided she would excitedly add on to Twilight's answer. "Ooo! Ooo! What if it's a portal of some sort. Or maybe it's a weird kind of cloud!" The five other ponies looked at Pinkie Pie with a weird look of confusion and contemplation. They had no idea how to respond to that answer. Rainbow Dash said, "Okay...?"
Fluttershy cowered behind the others and made a small squeaking noise barely audible to a dogs ears. Rarity asked her, "Uhh, what was that Fluttershy dear? You'll have to speak up if anypony is to hear you." Fluttershy grew weak and a pit formed in her stomach, and she felt very compelled to speak, but couldn't as she opened her mouth. But no words came out. "Fluttershy, Ahh think y'all would be able to speak to your friends," Applejack told Fluttershy straight up. She finally got a grip of herself and her emotions after about five seconds, and spoke clearly to them all.
"I think that maybe if we study it, and take some time, we'll be able to find out what it really is, and what it does."
She didn't really think that, though. She had originally said--squeaked, "I'll just stay back here while you go ahead, so don't mind me!" The truth was that Fluttershy was scared to death of this thing. She didn't want to tell anypony though, since they may ridicule her. But she knew that her friends definitely would NOT do that to her at all. Well, except for Rainbow Dash. She however, against most odds, deduced that Fluttershy was scared to death of it.
"You're scared, aren't you," she said. With the sound of a deep breath, Fluttershy confirmed Rainbow Dash's suspicions and said, "Yes..." She laughed; Rainbow Dash laughed. She laughed so hard that her sides hurt. After three seconds, she instantly straightened out her face and then said, "Makes sense. We do not have any idea what this is, so yeah." Twilight still scolded her for laughing at Fluttershy. She didn't let it go by unscathed. She was, after all, the princess of friendship.
"Rainbow Dash! You shouldn't make fun of your friends," she said. Rainbow Dash defensively stated back to her, "But I couldn't help it! Besides, you saw that I stopped myself as quickly as I could!"
"That doesn't matter! What does matter is that you still did it in the first place! I want you to apologize to her." It was settled, there was absolutely no chance of Rainbow Dash winning this one at all. She felt the crush of the defeat and so did as she was told. And with a sigh, and some sort of resent in her voice, she said, "I'm sorry for laughing at you, Fluttershy. Now can we check this thing out, or what?!"
"Alright, y'all can calm your horses! We'll go on and take a look at this crazy thing," Applejack said, directing it to Rainbow Dash.
As she sat in front of her studying place-- her personal desk-- Twilight spoke to herself quietly. "This doesn't make any sense," she exclaimed. Her mane was frizzy and sticking out all over the place. She had been awake since she woke up the previous morning. For 32 hours she had stayed up. She was starting to feel the symptoms of this, feeling the fatigue and tiredness that came with it.
The mare was drifting asleep, when Spike came upstairs and told her that she needed to get some sleep, or she was gonna crash. Her retort was that she needed to try and figure out what this thing was and prepare the town if it posed any threat. Spike said, "Twilight! You always get like this whenever you're tired. You need some sleep; besides, you can't think straight if you're tired and all." Twilight pondered the thought of falling asleep. "Alright," she said. "But I'm going to finish my studies whenever I wake back up!"
Spike laughed at her reply, then told her that he would take care of the library while she was asleep. She lied down into her bed, closed her eyes, and fell asleep before she knew it.
He took a look at the library and seen it was in a huge mess. "Ohhh... Twilight... Why do you have to do this?" There were books lying around everywhere. "This is gonna take a long time..."