The azure unicorn paced around the edge of the chamber, examining the arrayed members of Team Fifteen with a critical eye. Nondescript saddlebags adorned the flanks of each team member, all of them filled with enough provisions and equipment to last them weeks on an otherwise-inhospitable world, except for Twilight, whose bags were filled, predictably, with books and reference materials, and Walleye, who had foregone one bag in favour of an elaborate harness and sling to hold her impractically-oversized rifle.
“Keep all hooves inside the circle,” The unicorn instructed, gesturing to the clearly-delineated safety boundaries near the edge of the chamber. “Don’t give me that look, Hooves. More than half of your team are inexperienced and if they aren’t told the rules, we’re going to end up with heads inside walls, or heads inside other ponies’ flanks, or any other on a long list of unpleasant catastrophes.”
“Trixie, just hurry it up,” Rainboom implored, tapping her hooves in impatience. “I hate sitting still.”
“If you’d let Trixie continue, and not interrupt, this will take less time.”
Rainboom huffed, but stayed quiet. Twilight glanced between her and Walleye, positioned next to each other on the departures pad. Apart from a single withering glare the grey pegasus had shot her when they first entered the chamber, it seemed as though Walleye had resolved to simply ignore her presence entirely. It was proving to be annoying for the naturally-curious Twilight, who wanted to inquire about the prodigious bruising sported by both Walleye and Rainboom, reminiscent of a massive brawl.
“Okay. All hooves inside the circle. When Exiting, make sure you have at least twenty hooflengths clearance between you and any obstructions, or you risk bringing them along with you. Orientation is preserved when you transit, momentum isn’t. That’s a safety feature, we don’t want any of you getting splattered because you Exited while flying.”
She shot a meaningful glare at Rainboom, who blushed slightly, embarrassed.
“Your destination is Shell 1, code Four-Five-Echo-Foxtrot-Bravo-Alpha-Four-Charlie. No, Trixie doesn’t expect you to remember that, she just likes to rattle those off from memory. The world is safe, standard society layout, with no known unmanageable aggressors or external threats. We’re letting your Exit residue plant you, so you’ll arrive at the last place you left, which is?”
“Ponyville,” Rainboom answered automatically.
“Ponyville. Local time in Ponyville should be around 11PM in the evening. It’s a Friday, so expect evening partygoers, revellers, and the like. Since three of you haven’t been to this world before, you’ll arrive somewhere near Dash or Whooves. Local climatic conditions are unknown.
“Great,” Lyra muttered, pulling a pair of goggles and a coat out of one of her bags. “Knowing my luck, it’ll be a bloody cyclone.”
“This Gate will remain active and pointed for the next twelve hours. We’ve got the standard guards here,” She paused to point at the pair of guardsponies stationed opposite her. “But nothing to fend off anything big, so in the unlikely event that you’re pursued by Tirek himself, do call ahead and warn us.”
“And if we don’t return in time?” Twilight asked, still attempting to get comfortable under the weight of her saddlebags and the Outsider equipment bundles lashed to them. The fuzz-coated microphone sticking out of the radio bundle had proven to be especially annoying, since despite constant adjustment, its positioning ensured that it poked into her cheek whenever she turned her head to the left.
“Your mission gets flagged as ‘Did-not-return’, we shut this gate down, and send a Retrieval team after you. If you return on your own after the 12-hour window, you’ll likely emerge in either Gate Three or Five, whichever is on Catchment duty today, and get dogpiled the moment you arrive. It’s unpleasant, so Trixie advises you to inform us if you need an extension of your stay.”
“Anything else, or can we go?” Walleye snapped, impatient.
“You may go.”
“Finally!” Rainboom exclaimed, poking the pin attached to her flight suit and vanishing. Walleye, Pinkie, and Lyra followed suit, tapping their respective beacons and vanishing into the aether.
Twilight closed her eyes, sending a short mental command to the thin iron ring sitting at the base of her horn. After a moment, the command returned with an affirmative, informing her that the modified beacon spell inlaid in the ring had activated successfully and would discharge after a momentary delay.
“You can leave, you know,” Trixie stated, fixing Twilight with a look more commonly reserved for a small child.
“I’m about to.”
The world went sideways.
------
The world reformed.
Her skin tingled slightly as the static build-up in her coat equalised with the surrounding air, slowly bleeding off the mild charge she had accumulated during her brief stay on the Exterior. A faint smell of wood and stone registered as she took a breath, a welcome change from the otherwise claustrophobically sterile air that permeated the world she had just departed.
She opened her eyes as her beacon ring shot a small message into her brain, informing her that the transition had completed successfully. Quite opposite that which she had been expecting, a darkened alleyway greeted her, boxes scattered haphazardly along building walls, but otherwise devoid of life.
“Uh, girls?” Twilight called out, willing herself to remain calm despite her unexpected surrounds. She inched forward, wincing at the sound as her hooves connected with the cobblestones. “If this is some kind of joke, it’s not funny.”
No reply came. Apart from the occasional whistling of the breeze through the alleyway and the periodic clacking as she moved steadily forward, the alley was eerily silent. The moon hung slightly off-centre overhead, providing ample, if gloomy, illumination for her to navigate by.
Shaking her head in an attempt to bring some much-needed clarity, she proceeded forward towards the street, fighting to hold back a shiver as she poked her head out. Much like the alley, the street was uninhabited save for a pair of stallion-pulled rickshaws receding from view around a corner about fifty metres away.
“Ponyville, sure,” She muttered to herself, stepping out onto the hoofpath and beginning a slow trot down the street. “This is Canterlot. Ponyville’s a half-dozen miles from here!”
She paused for a moment, inhaling deeply and allowing the familiar subtle aromas of the city to calm her fraying nerves. It might not have been her Canterlot, but it was similar enough on an instinctual level that she could already feel her heartbeat slowing back to a normal rate, and her faculties clearing of the panic that had gripped her not a moment before.
“No chance of a train this late,” she concluded to herself, increasing her speed to a modest canter. “I’ll just have to see if I can sneak into the School Boardhome and-”
The words were snuffed from her lungs as she rounded the corner leading to the Royal Gardens, forcefully colliding with a very solid something and sending her tumbling head-over-hooves in a blur of purple and white.
“Ow,” She moaned, trying to disentangle herself from the tangle of limbs and bags that she found herself an unwilling component of. An alabaster unicorn glared at her, trying her best to disentangle herself.
“Watch where you’re going next time,” she growled, pushing Twilight off her. “Some of us don’t appreciate being bowled over.”
“I’m sorry! wait…” Twilight said, fixing the unicorn with a curious gaze as she collected her scattered belongings. “Do I know you?”
“Pah,” The unicorn scoffed, turning her nose up. “Such rudeness.”
“Better question, do you know me?”
“I could hardly say I know you, but we’ve certainly met.”
“Oh?”
“Not two days ago we collided on this very street! I went to apologise, but as I recall, you were quite dismissive of me. Ran off after something before I could get a word in.
“Oh. I’m sorry,” Twilight apologised, smiling with what she hoped was sincerity. “But I think you have me mistaken for someone else. I’ve never… been…”
She paused, eyes going wide as she recalled the event in question.
“Wait a minute, that was me!”
“Of course it was. Who else could it be?”
“No, I meant it was me me, not some other me. It was me! And you’re… that pony with the bags! and…”
She paused again, grinning. “This is home! I’m home!”
“Indeed you are,” the unicorn confirmed, slowly backing up. “At home. In Canterlot.”
“My Canterlot!” Twilight exclaimed. “This is my Canterlot! Oh, Celestia above this is fantastic! Thank you! Thank you so much! I… sorry, I don’t recall your name.”
“Rarity,” She replied. “You ran off before I told you last time. It’s Rarity.”
“Rarity. How very appropriate. Thank you! I’m so sorry for how I acted before. It was a very strange day, and I’ve been away from home for a few days. It’s so good to be back.”
“I’m sure it is,” Rarity acknowledged. “Living in a city like this, I could understand a bit of loneliness being away from it. I’ve been here myself only a few days and already I can feel a growing attachment. It shall be hard to return to Ponyville.”
“Ponyville!” Twilight gasped. “You live in Ponyville?”
“I… yes?”
“And you say you’re returning there?”
“I am,” She confirmed, a concerned look spreading across her face. “What of it?”
“When do you leave?”
“Tomorrow, by train. I was just now returning to my hotel for the night, I had a… last-minute engagement I needed to attend to.”
“I realise this may sound incredibly strange, but by any chance could I accompany you? I’m a bit displaced at the moment, and I need to get to Ponyville to meet somepony.”
“Displaced? I thought you said you lived here?”
“It’s a… long story.”
“I’m really not sure…” Rarity looked her up and down, mulling over the wisdom of allowing a possibly-crazed unicorn to accompany her home.
“Please,” Twilight begged. “Your generosity would be most appreciated.”
Rarity relented, a resigned smile on her face. “Fine, you can come with me. Do you have a place to stay for the night?”
“I… don’t. Not really…”
“Come along then. Can’t have you sleeping on the streets. And besides. We really must do something about that coat. It is utterly out of control. How did you let it get so frizzy?”
“That’s also a long story.”
------
The world reformed.
Rainboom blinked as her eyes adjusted to the sudden shift in illumination, shaking her head in a futile attempt to force her night-vision to kick in. Beyond the outline of some houses against the skyline and the occasional silhouetted pony, she was effectively blind. Thankfully, the near-zenith moon was helping to shorten the gap between her current vision state and where she needed it to be.
“Revellers, sure,” Walleye muttered from beside her as she phased into existence. “This place is dead.”
“I can’t see a thing!” Pinkie exclaimed cheerfully, drawing wrathful glares from the other three as she started hopping in place excitedly. Not that it stopped her, since she was just as blind as the rest of them.
“Eh, I’ve got this,” Lyra muttered as she ignited her horn, sending a weak glow scattering across their surrounds before the spell completed and discharged.
“Care to cast it on the rest of us?” Walleye remarked sarcastically.
“GET DOWN!” Lyra yelled, diving for Rainboom and Walleye in the darkness.
“Wha-” Rainboom’s reply caught in her throat as Lyra grabbed her and pulled her down, a beam of white light flashing over their heads and slamming into Pinkie’s chest. She dropped like a stone, snoring peacefully.
“Horseapples!” Walleye yelled, rolling to try and make it harder for whoever was shooting at them. “Who’s shooting at-”
Another beam shot at them, slamming into Walleye’s side and throwing her to the ground. Not a second later, a third flew from the darkness and hit Rainboom, adding her to the steadily-growing list of unconscious members of Team Fifteen.
Lyra stood, glaring back at the pair of royal guards, their silhouettes artificially enhanced by her Night Vision spell. She fumbled with her armband, hastily casting a defensive ward to deflect yet another incoming spell beam into the ground. A wave of fatigue shot through her senses, reminding her of her rapidly-depleting spell energy reserve.
She ripped the armband off, fumbling with the jewel. The guards fired again, sending a pair of white beams lancing towards her. In a panic, she threw up another defensive ward, deflecting one of the inbound spells away from her. The second, however, hit her square in the face.
She was asleep before her head hit the ground.