"So... there isn't a problem?"
The two white hands flicked through a large number of papers within a folder. After selecting a few particular sheets, the folder was placed into a small drawer on the desk.
"Twilight Sparkle, you managed to prevent our school from being involved with dark magic users dominating our world. Twice. I don't care whether or not you are an actual Canterlot High student. You're welcome here anytime."
Although Principal Celestia's hair didn't have the same wavy properties as Princess Celestia's hair, it still had the colors and texture that made it look almost divine. Instead of the light brown overshirt and purple inner shirt that she had worn the previous times Twilight visited, she wore a black and white suit and tie, with a black inner shirt and a white overshirt and tie.
"Thank you." Said Twilight. "I'm sorry if I was a disruption."
The principal collected all her papers and placed them on the side of her desk. "I told you quite some time ago Twilight, my door is always open. Now if you excuse me, I have some matters to discuss with Vice Principal Luna."
Twilight opened the door for Celestia as she exited the office. After closing the door behind her, she walked down the hallway to rejoin Sunset Shimmer.
"So how'd it go?" Sunset asked.
"Well, saving the school and the world seems to of given me enough of her respect for her to allow me to join you in your school activities."
Sunset smiled. "That's great. Come on. I've got biology in about two minutes."
The two girls walked down the hallway in silence. This felt wrong to Twilight, who thought that friends should always have something to talk about. But when two friends happen to live in two separate dimensions, its pretty hard to think of a subject to talk about.
'Books!' She thought. 'Of course! How could I be so dumb?'
"So, Sunset, have you read..."
Her words were cut off as she felt a sudden impact hit her from the front, sending her crashing to the floor.
"Whoa." Uttered a familiar voice. "I'm so sorry, I didn't... Twilight?"
She raised her head and found herself looking at a head of spiky blue hair and a pair of blue eyes looking down on her.
"Flash?"
Flash Sentry held out a light orange hand in a gesture of help, which Twilight accepted as she was lifted up to her feet. "Wow Twilight, I haven't seen you in like... months."
"Yeah... " Once again, Twilight found herself struggling for words, but to her luck, Sunset rushed to her side.
"Twi, are you okay."
"I'm fine," she responded, feeling happy to see that Sunset cared so much about her physical state. "I'm fine. I just bumped into Flash, that's all. Actually, I've gotten pretty used to it."
'Holy crap.' She thought. 'What is this, the...fifth time we've bumped into each other? How does that even happen? Maybe I should do some research on the science of collision probabilty.'
"So, Twilight," said Flash. "Any reason why you're here? I mean, I can't exactly think of any time you came to Canterlot High and it didn't involve dark magic and some evil bitches trying to rule the world." He quickly turned to Sunset Shimmer. "No offence."
"None taken," replied Sunset, though she did not look amused.
"Oh no worries. No evil magical plots this time. At least...none that I know of."
"Well that's good to know..."
Suddenly, a girl with light blue skin and purple hair ran down the hallway and grabbed Flash by the hand, dragging him away.
"Flash baby, hurry up. We're gonna be late for chemistry!"
He raised his hand in a gesture of goodbye towards the other two girls. "Sorry. Gotta run. I'll catch up with you later!"
And with that, they both disappeared around the corner.
Sunset turned towards Twilight, with a sorry look on her face. "I'm sorry. I forgot to mention that Flash started going out with Mystery Mint a bit after the incident with the sirens. I probably should have told you that earlier..."
"No worries. I'm fine with it."
"Really?" Sunset looked pretty surprised. "I just figured...you seemed pretty into him and...I didn't really expect a very positive reaction to...that."
Her words hit Twilight with a sudden realization. She had just learnt that Flash was in a relationship with another girl. She should have been feeling complete despair right now. Instead she felt...nothing.
"I guess I just...got over him."
"Okay." For some reason Sunset looked really happy to hear this. "Mint made a good point though. We should probably get going."
***
In Equestria, Twilight was at the mature age of twenty five. It had been years since she had any experience of school, so attending a class at Canterlot High was a very fascinating experience. She had already gone to a few classes when she first visited the school, but the experience was still fresh. What made it extra fascinating was the fact that she was attending Biology, and she got to learn some pretty interesting differences between the ponies of this world and the ponies of Equestria.
No wings, no horns and no Cutie marks. It was like a race of Appleblooms.
Afterwards, the class moved on to Physics, where the Human version of Cranky Doodle Donkey asked them if they could cause a chemical reaction with the various elements placed on their tables. Cranky didn't seem to put into account that two of his students were equestrian geniuses who had studied under Celestia herself. The resulting implosion left a grey scorch mark on Sunset's goggles, along with a new hairstyle that made her look like she was about to go out on Nightmare Night. Seeing her in a state that spoke of scientific disaster caused a strange surging feeling in Twilight's chest that she didn't recognize.
The sound of another, more violent implosion caused Twilight to turn her head and see that Pinkie Pie and Derpy Hooves had caused a similar accident, only their scorch marks were hot pink and there were a bunch of pink bubbles floating around everywhere. They were working with little more than Zinc, copper, and carbon. How was that even possible?!
Science was followed by break, and Twilight's friends started to ask a lot of questions regarding Equestria and its culture.
"How are you supposed to pick things up without fingers?' Asked Fluttershy.
"Well, me and other unicorns tend to just levitate objects, but Equestrian ponies have a type of electrostatic charge in our hooves that allows objects of small sizes to stick to them."
"What's it like to use magic?" Rarity asked.
"Its...hard to explain. To actually use simple magic like telekinesis and teleportation just requires intense thought. I think about the destination I want to go and poof, Im there. Though it gets harder to accomplish depending on the distance. And trying to lift really big objects can put some serious strain on your mind if you aren't a trained unicorn. More advanced spells are a different thing, they have this...kind of code that you have to set your mind to. Its hard to explain to non unicorns."
"What's it like being in heat?" Asked Pinkie Pie.
The questions stopped after that.
The remainder of the school day wasn't particularly special. Twilight already knew her Math and English, and it wasn't too different in the human world. These lessons were followed by lunch, where they were participating in something called Taco Tuesday. Twilight was unfamiliar with what a taco was, and asked Applejack, who explained what was in them.
Twilight then learned what beef was, and immediately regretted asking that question.
The girls continued to ask questions regarding Equestria, while Twilight, Sunset, Rarity and Fluttershy dined on some salad. The others chose to consume Tacos, which made Twilight feel almost sick.
Lunch was followed by Geography, which was a lot more interesting than the two previous lessons. The human world was very different to Equestria, and this fascinated Twilight. She felt like asking if she could borrow some of the textbooks they had.
In particular, they were learning about a place called India, and did some work on its rainy seasons. The princess was amazed that there could be so much rainfall in a place where there were no Pegasi to control the weather.
'Okay now I definitely need a book on this subject.'
As Geography ended, so did school, and the seven girls all left the building at the same time, talking about their various experiences of the day.
"Y'know I really don't see why anyone would want to live in India." Said Rainbow Dash. "Hotter than some deserts, yet you still get rained on like hell. Where's the fun in that?"
"Are you kidding me Rainbow Dash?" Replied Fluttershy. "Have you seen the beautiful biosphere that climate has created? All those beautiful trees, flowers, and all sorts of other plants. Oh, and all the animals that come with it. Frogs, lizards, monkeys..."
"Cobras." Rarity interrupted, shuddering as she did.
"Oh yes, those too. Southern Asia just has such a wonderful variety of animals."
As they reached the edge of the school grounds, where several buses and cars were waiting, it looked like the group was about to disband.
"Sunset?" Twilight asked.
"Yeah," she responded.
"Is there any chance... like... if you don't have any plans... if I can possibly tag along?"
Sunset mouth shifted into an apologetic smile. "Sorry Twi, with the window of time I have tonight, I don't think I can fit doing my homework and spending time with you in my schedule."
Twilight expected an answer like that, but she still felt sad to hear it. "Okay. I understand."
"Can you still come tomorrow?"
"Of course." Answered Twilight, who was happy to think of that option.
When they said their goodbyes to the other girls, they walked over to the statue in the center of the school grounds.
"See ya, Twi." Said Sunset.
"You too." She responded.
They gave each other a quick hug, and after parting, Twilight turned around and walked into the portal that led to her home.
And walked into nothing but solid glass.
The resulting impact to her head sent her crashing onto the floor in a dazed state. She suffered a few seconds of blurry vision and ringing ears before her senses came to.
"Twilight!" Sunset called, rushing to her side. "Twilight are you okay?"
"I'm fine." She replied, trying to sit up. "Just...help me up please."
Twilight felt Sunset hoist her back onto her feet. Not for the first time, she realized it was harder to balance when you have only two legs instead of four.
"That doesn't make any sense." Said the princess. "I told Spike to keep the book in its place."
"Well maybe he had to move it for some reason."
"But why?" Asked Twilight, who had a sudden idea. "Do you still have your journal."
"Yeah, of course."
"Maybe I can get a message to Spike using the book's connection."
"Good idea."
Sunset placed her backpack on the ground and took her journal out of the back pocket. Twilight wrote a message to Spike asking for him to open the portal, and waited for a response.
An hour later, that response didn't come. Sunset decided to let her bus leave without her, saying that she could just walk home. Twilight was elated to see that her friend didn't intend on leaving her.
"Twilight." Said Sunset. "Have you ever considered the idea that the book is exactly where its supposed to be?"
Twilight was confused. "What do you mean?"
"What if there's something wrong with the portal itself."
She let this idea sink in. What could possibly be wrong with the portal? Was it damaged somehow? If so, how did it get damaged?
Sunset's eyes widened suddenly. "Wait, this is unlikely, but did you bring Starswirl's book?"
"Yeah, I thought it would be good to bring it along."
"I think we need to give it a look through."
Twilight took the book out of her bag, and placed it before them. They looked through the pages for any sign of an explanation. After a while, she believed she found the answer.
"Wait, look there." She pointed at a specific part of the text. "Starswirl mentions that halfway through the portal's activation cycle, the arcane levels dropped suddenly, and he theorized that there was a counter reaction to the reaction that opens the portal. What if he was right?"
Sunset looked like she was catching on. "So if the main reaction allows the portal to break through the inter-dimensional barriers without assistance, than the counter reaction would prevent the portal from opening with assistance."
It dawned on Twilight what this meant.
"I don't think I'll be going home any time soon."