“I still think we should have taken a train,” Avi grumbled out loud.
Six-Thirteen sighed while his best friend continued to complain. He agreed there wasn't much space but then there wasn't really an alternative way to get to their destination.
“A train can’t cross dimensions, Avi,” he reminded.
“’Course it can: You just have to modify it, that’s all,” Avi shot back with a smirk.
613 smiled back and Avi continued, “And I’m sure that modifying a train to travel through space and time would have been a lot easier than trying to fly in a rock.” He said this in a casual way, as if he simply said ‘Let's make a paper plane’.
The teenaged prophet let his eyes wander around the interior of the rock in question. It was rather dark except for the pulsing orb of light he had conjured in the center of the meteor. It was a pleasant blackish brown color with bands and flecks of iridium stuck to the walls, floor and ceiling. Although the meteor was travelling at high speed to reach their destination, the two boys inside felt nothing, thanks to 613's pressure adjusting. They had been planning this mission for a while, studied as much as they could and had no idea when or where they would end up. A perfectly normal position for them.
He himself was an interesting person, just about 5’4, with long black hair and shining blue eyes. He wore his usual outfit of midnight-black shirt, pants and skullcap, topping all this with his favorite cloak the color of obsidian. On the floor beside him was a backpack with a variety of items he brought along.
613 looked across the light orb at his companion. Avi was a boy of average height for his age, with dark brown hair and green eyes that seemed more opened than they should be. He was dressed in black pants and a dark green shirt that matched his eyes, his head covered with a skullcap with swirls of colored threads. The teenager was slightly autistic, which was sometimes really helpful, as much as it doesn't sound that way.
Avi pulled a deck of cards out of his pocket and began leafing through them. The back of each card was a mixture of black and blue overlapping lines with the letters ‘FR’ in the middle. The cards had been a gift from 613 after they completed their first project together. After every mission, more cards would materialize in the deck.
"Come on, 613," he called to his meteor-mate. "Let's play."
The prophet grinned and pulled an identical deck out of thin-air, these cards containing the numbers '613' on the back in black and blue. The game worked like war except these cards made the whole thing more fun.
613 went first, drawing the top card and laying it on the floor in front of him. On the card was a picture of a humanoid figure garbed in a red outfit, crescents of red energy seemingly generating from its fingers.
"Blades of Blood," announced 613. "Let's hope your luck is running hot."
Smiling, ever smiling, Avi drew his top card and laid it in front. His card had a picture of a large humanoid in a black and green uniform, its body composed of green crystals.
Avi's smile changed to a comedic smirk. "Sorry. No damage here."
Sighing, 613 drew his next card. They continued with their crazy game for a nice period of time, each one getting their chance on occasion to be the victor in the short 1-on-1 card clashes. At one point, when Avi had won 15 duals in a row, 613 gave a loud warcry and started shooting his cards in every direction, causing an explosion with each impact. Avi started laughing and contributed his own cards, adding to the combustion and detonation but, unlike 613's cards, his deck would rematerialize in his pocket later.
Finally, they ran out of cards to shoot. Laughing, Avi waved his hands in a series of wild gestures until 613 noticed. Avi then asked him, “I know I’m usually the one to know, but when do you think we’ll arrive?”
Straightening his cloak, the prophet took a minute to calm his mind and answer. "We've been traveling for a few hours now. I expect we'll arrive soon."
"What?" Avi moaned dramatically. "Only soon? But I wanna be there NOW!"
"Let's go over the details we have of our journey and try to come to a conclusion of when we'll reach our destination."
“Well, let's see,” Avi began with a thoughtful look. “The two of us are wandering through space and time inside a meteor without any idea how to steer it, we don’t know how long the mission is gonna be but we don’t have to worry about that because of the whole time-world-dimension-grid thingy you’re always going on about, I’m hungry and we’re picking up speed.” He took a minute to take everything he just said into account. “Wait, ‘picking up speed’?” he repeated.
Sure enough, despite the pressure control, the two boys felt their ‘space craft’ going faster and faster. Adrenaline and excitement began boiling within them as they realized they were nearing their destination.
“Looks like we finished our jump,” said 613.
Suddenly, the light orb in the center of the meteor turned red and a voice called out from inside it. “DANGER, DANGER. OUT OF CONTROL, OUT OF CONTROL.” Indeed, the meteor the two friends were in was going faster and faster and the heat was becoming unbearable.
Avi stood up and whistled loudly, “Wowie, we’re gonna make such a big hole!”
“Yeah, save your excitement for when we land,” 613 called over to his friend.
A thought came to Avi. “Aren't we going to crash-land? Like, really hard?”
613 nodded, “Yeah, but I think I've got enough juice to heal us both.”
Reassured, Avi sat down again, resting his hands on his knees and his head on the wall. “Ok, if you say so. Let’s just enjoy the rest of the ride down.”
613 nodded once more. The heat was rising and he wondered how long it would take to get through the atmosphere. He laid his head on the inside of the meteor, soon to be a meteorite. He closed his eyes and waited for the inevitable landing.
*
“Not again!’ Twilight groaned when her 17th quill broke.
It was a quiet evening in Ponyville. All the different ponies who lived in the small town where finishing their work and were going home. The shops were already closed and everypony was settling down for a nice quite evening.
Everyone except for Twilight, that is.
Twilight Sparkle was a purple unicorn mare. She had a long dark-purple mane with two streaks in it, one pink and the other a dark purple. Her tail was colored the same as her mane and on her flank was a pink star with five smaller stars around it, her cutie mark. She was the top student of princess Celestia’s school of magic and was currently engrossed in writing a letter on her recent discovery of Hardening Spells. Unfortunately she had decided to test the spell on her stock of quills and made them all brittle.
Spike, her dragon friend, called from across the room. “Is everything okay over there, Twilight?” he asked with a mixture of sympathy and curiosity.
“No!” Twilight shouted back. “I practiced the Hardening Spell on my quills and it worked and now I’m trying to write a letter on how it came out but the quills keep snapping and breaking!” She stopped to catch her breath.
Spike walked over to her and patted Twilight on the shoulder. “Come on now, Twilight. You've been working super hard all day, don’t get all worked up now.”
Twilight sighed and let her thoughts wander. Recently she and her friends had faced a difficult mission from the Princess: a dragon was sleeping on a mountain near Ponyville and was snoring huge amounts of black smoke. The six mares climbed the mountain, ran through an avalanche and, thanks to her friend Fluttershy’s overcoming her fear of dragons, succeeded in convincing the dragon to go sleep somewhere else. Since then it was just nice normal schedules just the way they were planned.
Until now.
Twilight liked things to be perfect, especially if it has something to do with learning new things. If something, even the smallest detail isn't okay she’ll have a hard time keeping calm about it. She really wanted to write this letter but things just weren't turning out right.
“Let me write the letter for you,” Spike offered. “I saw how you did the spell and you can check the letter when I’m done.”
“Thanks Spike,” Twilight said gratefully
“No problem,” Spike said as he picked up the 18th quill and began to write. "Why don’t you check out the stars with your telescope?” he suggested.
“Good idea,” Twilight replied happily. She loved stargazing and hurried up the stairs to her room where the telescope was. She unbolted her bedroom window and positioned her telescope so that she could look at the sky. She stuck her head out the window and looked up. The sun just set and a loose ray still poked out from behind the horizon in the distance. The first star was appearing in the darkening sky and the air began to cool.
Twilight smiled. It was going to be a good night for stargazing. She returned to her telescope and peered through it. Already she could see some of the constellations and stars she knew by name. She was about to get a quill and parchment when she noticed something twinkling in the sky. She focused the telescope on it and saw that the thing was a meteor.
“Spike,” she called. “Come look at this.”
The small purple dragon hurried up the stairs and to the window before asking, “What’s going on, Twilight?”
“There’s a meteor in the sky tonight!” she answered excitedly.
“What’s a meteor?” asked Spike, scratching his head.
Twilight was happy to get a chance to explain. “A meteor is a piece of rock and metal from space that entered our planet’s gravitational field and begins flying through the atmosphere at about 25 kilometers a second.”
Spike was impressed, “Not even Rainbow Dash could go that fast.”
“I wouldn’t go that far, but yes, a meteor traveling through the atmosphere could go very fast. And when they hit the ground they make huge holes called craters.”
“Wait,” Spike interrupted, “Did you say ‘hit the ground’?”
“Yes, is something wrong with that?”
“It is if it lands on Ponyville” shouted Spike, his panic level rising at a dangerous pace.
"Calm down, Spike," Twilight begged, although she herself was slightly worried. There was a possibility that the meteor was moving in the direction of Ponyville, and the results of such an impact would be devastating. She went downstairs into the library and began rummaging through the many books that lined the shelves. She muttered to herself while she searched for a particular book.
"Dazzling Diamond and Dangerous Dragons, Way of the Warhorse, The Art of Being Organized?" She took a second to consider. "I'll read that later. Ah, found it!" She ran back upstairs to the window where Spike was waiting, levitating a book with a greyish cover beside her.
“What book is that?” Spike asked.
“Space Artifacts and How to Deal with them,” Twilight answered, opening the book at the index. “Meteors, meteors, here we go!” she cried out when she found the part of the book she was looking for. After reading a significant part of the chapter, she turned her eyes to the sky and lit her horn to begin a spell. The meteor was encased in a brilliant raspberry-colored aura, but didn't seem to slow down. Spike was beginning to worry that Twilight's magic wouldn't be able to stop the rock in time when all at once she released her magical hold on the meteor, which continued its travel downwards.
"What happened? Are you okay? Why didn't it work? Will we be okay? Are we doomed? Should I—" Spike's stream of questions were halted when Twilight put her hoof over his mouth.
“Hush, Spike," she said, panting with exhaustion. “The spell did work. It wasn't a slowing spell, it was a destination seeker."
"Oh," the dragon said. Then, "Huh?"
Twilight sighed disappointingly and explained. "The spell tells me things about the target it's used on."
"I get it. What did you find out?"
“Well, two things." Twilight declared. "One: the meteor isn't going to land on Ponyville.”
“Great,” Spike said. “What’s the second thing?”
“It’s going to crash right outside of Ponyville.”
*
Waking up in a place you don’t recognize is an interesting thing. Sometimes it’s nice to feel your new location affecting you differently while other times it’s freaky and scary. Some places are light, others are dark, and some are just plain weird.
That’s a feeling that 613 got a lot.
He found himself in a large empty dreamscape, a blinding white in color. All around him was bright clear nothingness as far as the eyes could see. He found this happening to him a lot. Now all he had to do was figure out what he was doing here.
“Over here,” a voice whispered behind him.
613 turned around, looked for the being that called to him. Standing behind him was a humanoid figure in a white robe. The prophet could feel the divine energy vibrating around him.
“Hello, Gabriel,” 613 said pleasantly, recognizing his angel friend.
The Angel of Strength nodded in acknowledgement. “Hello again, 613. You’re probably wondering what the two of us are doing here.”
“True.”
“Very well, right to the point.” Gabriel began. “You and Avraham are traveling, once again on a quest to seek out more friends in a faraway world. But this time you’ll find yourselves near the start of the story and slowly you’ll come to see the bigger picture behind it.”
613 nodded along with everything he heard, “Okay, got it. Anything else?”
“Yes,” Gabriel replied. “Something’s messing with the fabrication.”
“Again?” The prophet groaned. He hated when people messed with things they didn't understand. He also hated when people messed with things they did understand. That usually meant they were after something, usually a chance to mess with him. “Do you know who it is?” he asked.
The angel shook his head. “No, but you'll want to keep your eyes peeled. You'll be separated from the Republic for some time.”
“It's always been that way, Gavriel. Avi and I are the only beings compatible with a new dimension until it's fitted onto the grid." The prophet sighed. "But we'll try our best. Anything else before we go our separate ways?”
“Yes,” his divine friend replied. “Brace yourself: the impact is going to hurt.”