Surrounded in flame, I came out of the portal flying through the atmosphere of earth. Looking around and through the heat of the fireball surrounding me, Everything looked normal again. I saw the sky and the clouds and the desert I was falling to. The only problem was that I didn't want to be in a desert. I needed to be in Georgia, at the targeted high school to collect a few of my friends and go back to Equestria. I thought about it for a second, still falling through the sky, and then realized that it was best if I was in an open area such as this. Of course I wasn't sent to Georgia because I've never been there before where a lot of my friends resided, ironically. The Internet did have its ups, and communication was one of them. I turned my body to face the ground head on and braced for impact as I came close to the sand of the desert. As I was turning, though, something caught my eye. It was something shiny, either metal or glass reflecting off of the desert sun and the fireball I was engulfed in. The impact was truly explosive and leveled the mountain of rock I crashed into. Debris was flying everywhere and fiery chunks of metal and fabric were falling to the ground. I looked around after I snapped out of my daze from hitting the ground and realized something truly horrendous. I had just crashed into the laboratory...
I wasn't hurt because I still had my power. I had the power I gained from Equestria after the explosion of the lab locked us in there and We became part of that world. As long as connection to the portal remained open I had a bit of magic ability in this world, at least enough to rip through anyone that got in my way or to teleport to wherever I needed to go. The portal opening was here, around me somewhere, but not physically present. It could be seen by my eyes and felt by others.
Staff members and scientists were scrambling through the ruined halls of whatever was left of the laboratory, trying to assess what had happened and salvage anything they could. There was no time to ask questions or stick around and answer any. I didn't want to have to kill any more than I needed, so I teleported to Georgia, tracking down a cellphone text I remembered receiving some time close to this date. I followed the location of where the message was sent from and came out somewhere in Georgia.
The high school was right in front of me. Class was in session because I could see through a window all of the students sitting in their desks. I looked closer to see my two targets, Aaron and Brenden sitting side by side near the window. I didn't want to draw any attention to myself by busting open the window and ripping them from the classroom, so I had to approach this a different way.
"I'm here to pick up my nephew and his close friend, we're leaving for a... Therapy session, it's very important that they come with me." I said, realizing how extremely sketchy this scenario seemed to the lady behind the front desk.
"I see... Aaron and Brenden you said? They're both in math class right now, room 107. Do you have a doctor's note for their release?" The lady asked suspiciously.
"No, do I need another one? I thought there was already one in for them." I said nervously, thinking about how I was surely going to get caught.
"No, we don't have any note for their release. I'm sorry, sir, but I'm going to have you leave the building if you have no other purpose of being here." The lady said sternly.
"I'm sorry, but this is more important than a pass..." I said, putting one magic bolt through the lady's head as her body dropped down to the floor silently with no one around to witness the incident.
"The dangers of being the front line of defense, I guess." I said sympathetically.
She had already told me the directions to the room, and I knew the general direction after seeing them in the window out in the front of the school. I just had to grab the two of them, send them through a portal, and jump back through myself. It would be an easy task with only one life taken in the whole incident. I would be home with two new friends and the beginning of a great life to live before I knew it. Before reaching the room, I saw another familiar face approaching myself in the hallway. A good friend that I knew, much further back than Brenden or even Aaron. Without George I wouldn't even have my contacts in Georgia. It was all back in middle school, where I had formed the group of my closest friends that I've come to know today. Nick, now known as Silver Dust and Alex, known as Tiki were part of this group. They were the two remaining friends I had made in Florida before leaving for New York during the last summer of our middle school years. George had left a year before that and I had lost contact with him during this time, until now.
"Is that... George? The George I know and love?!" I shouted down the hall.
"What... What's going on in this here school? How did you come here and why?" George asked in pure confusion.
"It doesn't matter, I've found you George! Remember the whole thing I got everyone else into, with the ponies and all?" I asked excitedly.
"Yeah, you got me hooked on it as well, but that's not something to be talking about now. In school. Where other people can hear us." George looked over his shoulder and then back at me.
"It doesn't matter right now, all that I care about is you going back to Equestria with me and Aaron, along with Brenden."
"Oh that's right, you're supposed to be in Arizona or something, right? That experiment going on out there, Eli left a few days ago to join you, but now you're here. What's happening?"
"See, all of that will be explained shortly, probably by someone who's already in Equestria. Don't worry though, I'll be back shortly to tell you everything." I quickly grabbed George by the shoulders after finishing my sentence.
I threw him into the wall opposite of the classroom I was going to enter as a portal materialized and swallowed him up silently and sent him into Equestria. I could feel everything change, he was becoming a part of the world we can call home. I would definitely have a lot of explaining to do later on, but it will all be worth having one more friend to the party. The last step in this process was to get Aaron and Brenden. It was all about to be over.
"I'm looking for Aaron and Brenden." I said calmly as I walked into the classroom.
"Ian!" Aaron yelled out.
"What?! The Ian who is supposed to be in a laboratory in Arizona?" The teacher asked with a shocked expression.
"You just had to say my name, didn't you, Aaron..." I mumbled.
"I need to take these two out of the classroom for..." I couldn't give my therapy excuse because the teacher knows who I am.
"For...?" The math teacher raised an eyebrow suspiciously.
"Faggots, all of em." Another student said in the back of the room with a thick southern accent.
"Go ahead, stand up, which ever one of you tan-backed illiterate hicks was brave enough to say that to me. I dare you." I was really hoping he would stand up, because I didn't care about a low profile anymore.
The student stood and opened his mouth, only for his lower jaw to be the only remaining thing attached to his neck as I blew his cranium off his shoulders with a single magical projectile. The teacher took action and sprinted for me, until I turned around and met his windpipe with a crushing magical punch that probably killed him on impact and sent his body over his desk. Not a single student was brave enough to stand up from their desk as they watched in terror. Maybe a gun would have sent them out the windows and running for the door, but this wasn't a gun. This was a cluster of sparkles that just vaporized two people in front of them, and the weirder of this weaponry probably had a tail showing by now...
"I don't have any more time. Aaron and Brenden. Stand now!" I commanded.
"Where are we going?!" Brenden asked, panic stricken by the situation.
"We're going to the only place I would ever kill someone to send you both to, we're going to Equestria." I said dramatically.
There was no more time to squeeze out of the situation. The door behind me was trying to open and I locked it with a bit of magic. I forced the desks in the center of the room into the air and against the wall, along with the students sitting in them. A portal opened against the ground and my two friends sat there staring at me in awe. Someone or something was at the door now, pounding at the handle and then blowing the handle off. There was no more time to even talk, so I shoved the two of them into the portal with a bit more magic, and off they went. I could feel the same change I felt with George, and I knew they got there safe just before a hand fell upon my shoulder and I was jerked away from the portal. I received a sharp blow to the face, not a fist but a bullet from a handgun, which was just enough for me to lose focus on the portal. The magic blocked the bullet from piercing my skin, but that wasn't what I feared. The portal I had so carefully kept open the entire time closed right in front of my face and all of my power was gone. I felt all of it disappear and the only possible way back into Equestria, the place I was going to call home, gone. Wave after wave of emotion hit me. It all came down on me like rock after rock, crushing the life out of my lungs and gut until there was nothing else to push out. I stood there for what could have been forever, what I wish could have been forever, until I came back into reality. There was an officer with a gun pointed to my face and a teacher from a neighboring room holding my arms behind my back. I had one last incentive to solve everything. Going back is no longer an option so going out was the next best thing after briefly looking over my options. Slipping my hands from the teacher, I lunged for the gun and grabbed the trigger with my thumb. The gun was on safety after I had been secured by the teacher, probably to keep the cop from shooting another bullet off around all the students in the classroom. I fell to the floor, with no strength to continue in me, feeling so defeated that it might not even take a bullet to kill me. The officer handcuffed me and walked me out to another room to hold me for the time being, until a squad car came to take me away. He tried asking questions, but I lacked the capability to speak anymore. It hit me more and more, the realizations of what had happened and what the future will most likely be like for both worlds. Nothing mattered anymore, all I knew was that it was over.
It was all over for me... But not for everypony else.