//------------------------------// // Chapter 2 // Story: Dimensional Shifts // by Phxntxm //------------------------------// I woke up groaning as my head throbbed in pain. I don't know what hit me but whatever it was hurt like hell. I sat up despite my head screaming in protest and opened my eyes. Standing before me in a defensive stance were two ponies now, Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash. A part of me thought it was humorous that I had heard enough to be able to immediately identify both of these ponies. The rest of me was just upset that I had gone completely insane for no reason. I wasn't stressed, I didn't have any traumatic events in my life recently, so why did my brain decide to just give up and make me insane. “Shit,” I said as I rubbed my forehead in an attempt to clear my headache. “This can not be happening right now, I am not sitting in front of Twilight and Rainbow Dash.” At this point I wasn't really sure whether or not I would prefer this to actually be real or not. I'd prefer not to go completely insane, but I would also prefer to not have two impossible beings sitting right in front of me. I would actually prefer none of this to be happening right now and return to my completely boring life. “How do you know our names?” I looked up at Rainbow, the one who had spoken to me, she was glaring at me as if I had committed some kind of ultimate sin or something. “Can we seriously quit with this hostility, I've done nothing to either of you! You invade my home, threaten me, then attack me for absolutely no reason. Can one of you tell me what the hell is going on right now.” I snorted and shook my head in disbelief, “I don't even know why I'm addressing you right now, neither of you are real. I've gone insane and both of you are just part of my imagination.” I glanced up at them to see them looking at each other, Rainbow with a sheepish smile on her face and Twilight with an irate glare. Twilight turned back to me and coughed, “Well you were not supposed to be knocked out like that, Rainbow acted a bit brash...like normal.” She whispered the last part as she glanced back at Rainbow Dash, who just rubbed her foreleg in embarrassment. “Look I thought he was going to attack you or something! Sorry!” Rainbow Dash said in a bit of a frustrated tone. I just sighed and looked back at Twilight who had begun to speak again. “Anyway, I want to bring us back to the question she asked. How in Equestria do you know our names?” She asked with less of an angry tone than had been used before. I just shook my head and pointed at her. “No, that's not how things are going down right now. You've broken into my home, I know you have because I know the door was locked, I always lock the door. You knocked me out, whether you meant to or not, and now you're questioning me again. I want answers first.” I huffed out and glared at both of them in turn as the looked back at each other. After a few seconds Twilight turned back to me and nodded, “Okay, we'll answer your questions. I'll preemptively answer the obvious ones though and explain how we're here. Our leader, Princess Celestia-” Rainbow Dash interrupted, “Isn't she like your coworker now, not your leader?” Twilight snorted out, “Please don't interrupt me Rainbow, you know I don't like being interrupted.” Rainbow put out her hooves in an innocent gesture, “Hey I'm just saying.” She grinned at Twilight and received a pout in response. “Anyway, I guess you could refer to her as my coworker, although I would really prefer it if you didn't do that and she's more of my boss anyway.” Twilight said with a sidelong glance toward Rainbow, who in turn just shot another grin towards Twilight. She huffed out before continuing, “Princess Celestia discovered that there was another dimension that was connected to ours. She wanted to learn about this dimension and find out whether or not it was worth keeping around.” I shivered at the implication of that and decided to ask while she was content with giving out answers, “What do you mean by keeping around? Are you planning to destroy our dimension or something if you deem it not worth it?” She gave a start when I asked that, “No of course not! That's not what I meant at all, sorry if it came out that way. She just found it was possible to destroy the link which would get rid of any chance to travel between she dimensions. We want to find out if this place is dangerous enough to immediately destroy the link, if we'd like to make some kind of permanent connection with it, or if we should just leave it be.” I nodded in understanding, “Okay so that explains WHY you're here, now can you tell me how you managed to achieve getting here, I'm a little bit curious how that's possible.” Twilight Sparkle paused for a second and I notice her eyes sparkle just a little bit, which made me giggle on the inside, I also noticed Rainbow Dash roll her eyes before Twilight spoke. She then coughed to compose herself before she spoke, “Well, we had a dimensional portal already, it sent me to a different dimension when I went through it before and it was simple to create a new temporary portal once we already knew how to make one. Celestia sent a kind of probe out in all directions outside of our dimension and when she found it hit something and returned we were able to make a passageway between our dimension and where it hit. Of course it's a bit more complex than that because that's not really how 'directions' work in this kind of sense, but that's the basics to it.” She beamed as she finished her explanation as Rainbow Dash just sat there snickering as she apparently found something hilarious. I nodded as I contemplated her words and thought about that possibility. I don't think that that's something we could achieve with our current technology, but I knew they had magic where they came from so there was no telling what exactly they were capable of. And if they were here right now, and I actually wasn't completely insane, then I couldn't really say they weren't capable of dimensional travel. “Okay I've got another question, how is it that you can understand what I'm saying, and I can understand you, as if we're speaking the same language?” I asked. Twilight opened her mouth to answer but stopped, apparently not actually having an answer. She closed her mouth and pondered the question, looking deep in thought as the question washed over her. After a moment of thought she spoke, “I actually have no idea, that's astounding that that's even possible.” She hummed out as she continued to think, apparently trying to figure out how we spoke the same language. I took a breath in before I spoke, “Well, I believe I have a theory. It will also answer your previous question of how I know who you are. Whether you will like it or not however I have no idea.” Twilight Sparkle looked at me in curiosity, and for the first time since we had been talking I had caught Rainbow's attention as well. I glanced between the two of them a few times before speaking, “I think, in a way, we created you.”