The use of interdimensional travel was always a risky, dangerous thing. Celestia had banned such travel so long ago that few ponies, if any, even remembered it was once possible. In fact, such things were only briefly mentioned in the oldest of spellbooks. It was a scary thought, being able to travel to any moment of any dimension at any time, without any knowledge of where you'd end up. A large part of why it was now forgotten Dark magic.
And then came Pinkie Pie.
It was difficult to say exactly why she could see the things she did, and even then, the visions never quite made sense to her. A brief glimpse of the future might invade her dreams at night, and she'd never give it a second thought until it actually happened. Or perhaps the even less easily explained Pinkie Sense, which had been modified into a series of actions with an accompanying result. The point was, Pinkie was the best choice for the mission Twilight Sparkle required. Both of them had experience with interdimensional travel, and had some vague sense of what to expect.
Pinkie, as it was, only had to mentally visualize the description of Hawaii that Stitch had given her last time, in order to get back there. It was a basic concept, Twilight had explained, that you could not teleport to somewhere you had never seen or heard of.
"Beaches. Water. Volcanoes. Aliens. Lots of aliens. Come on, Pinkie, you can do this!" Pinkie thought to herself. Various images began to appear in her head, and a tear in reality slowly rippled in front of her, unseen by anypony but herself.
"What do you see?" Twilight asked.
"Dalmatians," Pinkie said.
"...What."
"Lots and lots of dalmatians!"
"Pinkie! Focus!"
"Stitch! Right!"
And just like that, she saw it. Deep Space, good, had to get closer. Now the inside of a spaceboat. That must be where Stitch was! Pinkie took a deep breath, and plunged through the tear in space. There was a disorienting sense of falling even though her hooves were planted firmly on the ground, and the breath was taken from her as if she'd plunged into a bucket of ice cold water.
Pinkie found herself in a large room. There was an enormous display of controls and blinking lights on one side, over which was set a huge window overlooking a star filled void interrupted only by a beautiful blue and green planet. Inset into the far wall was a heavy metal door, over which was nailed a piece of cardboard with words crudely displayed on it.
Totally NOT super secret lair. Keep out!
Pinkie frowned, and had only taken a few steps towards the door when it swung open, and a lumbering behemoth of an alien creature emerged from it, arms full of wires and metal scraps. These were dropped to the floor upon it noticing Pinkie, and scratched its head.
"You? How did you get out?" It asked.
Pinkie had no idea what it was talking about. "Do you mean out of my room, or out of my mother? Because that's really a personal question, you know."
The alien gazed at her more intently. "Ah-ha! The good news is, you are not who I thought you were."
"Hurray!" Pinkie exclaimed. Then gasped. "But what if I'm not who I think I am?! Then who am I?! Oh! Maybe I'm Rarity! Those clothes are simply horrid, darling," she said, then scrunched up her nose. "Nope, definitely not Rarity."
"Cease with the speaking!" The alien said. "You look very familiar... remind of something I made. Bad news is, you are not her. Which means you are intruder." A thick hand flashed towards her, and she found the barrel of a blaster wedged against her forehead. "Explain your presence or I begin with the shooting!"
"I'm Pinkie! Duh," she said, who didn't know Pinkie?
"Well, Pinkieduh, why are you in my laboratory?"
"I don't know," Pinkie admitted. "I'm looking for Stitch, but the teleport must have brought me as close as it could. Do you know him?"
The blaster was slowly lowered, and the alien started laughing. "KNOW him? Six two six? I made him. Of course I am knowing him!"
"Oh. Well, can we borrow him, just for a little bit? My home is sorta under attack, and we need him back."
The alien frowned. "Back? You have met before?"
"Yep!" Pinkie said.
"And he knows you?"
"I should hope so."
"Well then, we shall settle this quickly. I shall take you to him! And he will decide if he wants to come with you or not. If not, I blast you." He smiled. "Deal?"
"That doesn't seem like a very good deal..." Pinkie said.
"Is that, or I blast you now."
"That seems like a very good deal! Take me to him!" Pinkie ordered.
"That's what I thought. Hold onto your boots, pink horse!"
"But I'm not wearing any- wheeeee!" Pinkie was thrown across the room as the ship suddenly lurched into acceleration, diving down towards the blue and green planet.
***
"Hold still, Stitch."
The alien in question was sitting in a large plastic kiddie pool, which was slowly being filled with water. There were only a few inches in it at the moment, but it was enough for him to cause his ears to pin back in annoyance.
"I know you don't like it, but we have to get you at least somewhat used to water. What happens when you have to be out on a boat and mermaids attack you? Everyone thinks mermaids are pretty and nice, but I know better. They're evil!" The voice came from a young girl with a garden hose, who seemed intent on preparing for every sort of scenario imaginable. Her experiment was interrupted only by a young woman rushing out the back door, and running down towards the direction of town.
"Lilo! I need to get a few things at the market. Please, just this once, don't do anything crazy?"
Lilo waved. "Okay!" It wasn't as if she tried to do these things, they just sort of happened.
Turning back to the pool, Lilo held up the hose triumphantly. "Alright! Now we can continue with mermaid protection training! First- hey, what happened to all the water?"
Stitch sat in a now completely empty pool, conveniently positioned over a recently inflicted series of deep gashes in the bottom of the plastic. He simply shrugged innocently. "Water gone," he said.
Lilo sighed, and threw the hose down. "Well if the mermaids attack you, I'll be there to say I told you so."
At that moment, what appeared to be a large pink horse emerged from around the side of the house, bouncing carelessly up and down. Lilo stared at it, even more so when the large alien followed behind it.
"Jumba! What did you do?!" She demanded.
The alien in question pointed a thick digit at PInkie. "I swear, is not mine! She seems to be a rubber based lifeform, designed specifically to be super annoying! Is deliciously evil, I should make one!" He cackled, rubbing his hands together.
"You will do no such thing," Lilo said.
Pinkie had elected to bounce straight for Stitch, who stared at her in disbelief. "Pinkie?" He said.
Jumba looked disappointed. "So he does know her... Shame, I was looking forward to the blasting."
"Hi, Stitch!" Pinkie said cheerfully.
Stitch climbed out of the pool, and leaped forward to hug her neck. Pinkie giggled wildly. "Look, look, he remembers me!"
Stitch looked at her. "Why are you here?"
Pinkie thought about this for a moment, and launched into such a rapid string of explanations that not even Lilo could keep up.
"...So I came here hoping to find you and then I did find you so now that we've all found each other you really really really have to come to Equestria and help us because we're all in a super duper amount of trouble and we need your help!" She took a deep breath. "Please?"
Lilo had been trying to follow all this, and held up a hand. "Wait, wait, wait. I get the whole talking horse thing, which-"
"-Pony." Pinkie interrupted.
"Right pony, and I get that you have to travel to another dimension to help defeat some horrible monster who's menacing her friends, but..." Her eyes narrowed to slits. "You did this before and didn't take me!?"
Pinkie shrugged. "No offense, but your kind really don't get along that well in Equestria. Celestia says it happened once before with a girl, and mostly everypony just tries to pretend it didn't happen."
Stitch looked torn. "Stitch's friends in trouble, have to help them," he said.
"Alright, fine." Lilo threw her hands up." But please try to be back by the time Nani returns, you know she gets like Frankenstein when she doesn't know where you are."
Stitch saluted, and climbed onto Pinkie's back, then looked at her in confusion.
"Great! I'll bring him back safe, I promise!" Pinkie said, and just like that, once more seemingly popped out of existence.
Lilo gave Jumba a look of exasperation. "I really need to get him a leash."
***
Back at Twilight's library, Pinkie returned in a violent crash which sent Stitch flying into a stack of books. He glared at her.
"Sorry, Rainbow Dash says landing is always harder than taking off..." She smiled in apology. "Twilight! Twilight! Where are you? I got Stitch, we can save Equestria now!" She got no reply, and gradually stopped her bouncing. "Twilight?" She peeked into the other room, as Stitch righted himself and his eyes glowed with supernatural vision.
Pinkie made her way upstairs, as Twilight had been known to immerse herself in her studies, with Stitch slowly following behind her. She cracked upon the bedroom door, and gasped.
Spike sat in a puddle of tears, desperately hugging the leg of a familiar figure. Her gaze was locked in a mixture of surprise and terror, her mouth agape. Once again, Twilight Sparkle had been turned to stone.
"Oh no..." Pinkie whispered for one of the few times in her life, and Stitch instinctively pulled out his second set of arms, as if expecting a fight at any moment. Pinkie had the same thought he was having. Whatever had attacked Princess Celestia in Canterlot, wasn't staying in Canterlot. It had come to Ponyville, and taken out the most reliable source of information they had. It was picking them off one by one, and none of them knew what or where it was.
Spike looked up at them with miserable eyes. "I haven't left her side since I found her. I sent off letters to Princess Celestia but they keep getting returned. I don't understand what's going on... can you fix her?" He asked. Nopony had told him that Celestia had been petrified, it didn't feel right to worry a little dragon like that.
Pinkie couldn't find the words to answer him, and just gazed solemnly at her friend.
"I hope so," she said.