//------------------------------// // Are We Dreaming? // Story: Universe and Sparkle // by King Xeno //------------------------------// Steven groaned, and began to sit up, but his body was filled with pains and aches, making it too painful, so he lied back down. Steven looked around and began to take in his surroundings, from what he could tell it was a dark forest, almost like the ones you'd hear in a spooky campfire story, above him was a large amount of broken branches, several large and barely hanging by their bark, but then he remembered something. "Connie!" He shot upwards, completely forgetting about the pain, only hoping to find his friend, and he saw her lying unconscious a few feet away, she was covered in scratches and had a few bruises, but for the most part seemed fine. "Connie!" Steven called again, trying to wake her up, only now becoming aware of a pain in his leg. Looking forward he quickly saw what was wrong, a tree had fallen on his legs, pinning him down, although the tree wasn't too large it was very heavy, making it nearly impossible for him to move on his own. He then heard Connie moan, quickly looking over he saw her getting onto her hands and knees, placing her right hand against her head. She looked up and let out a loud gasp. "Steven!" She shouted, running over to him. "Are you hurt?! Here let me see if I can..." Connie began, before trying to lift the log off Steven's legs, but found herself unable to budge the tree. "Wait here! I'll go find help!" Connie shouted, before turning and running out of his view. "Wait here...? What else can I do...?" Steven asked himself. Twilight ran through the forest, despite the protests from her friends to slow down, she continued, whipping her head from side to side, searching for any sign of the two mysterious figures, hopefully alive. Rainbow Dash was perhaps the only one who was able to keep up with Twilight at this point and noticed something rushing in the exact same path as Twilight, but before she could give out a warning the two collided, smacking heads together. "Twilight! You all good?" Rainbow Dash asked, landing next to her friend, before looking at the creature that had collided with Twilight. "You've got a lot of nerve! Ramming my friend like... that..." Rainbow Dash shouted, but then noticed that the creature was covered in scratches and bruises, now there was a new gash where Twilight's horn had hit its head. "Oh! Uhh... You okay?" Rainbow asked, unsure of what to do at this point, while Twilight got back onto her hooves, and while the others caught up. "I think we found one of them..." Rainbow said, looking back at the creature. It had a light brown skin coloration and wore a blue Kalari with a red sash, its feet were bare of any kind of shoe and it had bandages wrapped around its right hand. Its hair was tied back in a braid. "You all can... Talk...? What is this some kind of dream...?" It asked, with a voice that was clearly female. They watched a she pinched her own arm, and let out a quick yelp of surprise. "Definitely not dreaming..." She seemed amazed that they were capable of speech, but then shook her head and began to speak again, this time in a shout. "Please! I need your help!" She shouted, and this took the ponies off guard. "Help? Help with what?" Rarity asked, closely examining the clothing that she wore, most likely something worn for combat, that much was obvious. "My friend is stuck! Please, you have to help me!" She shouted again, with tears starting to form in her eyes. "Don't worry, we'll help you out! Right?" Pinkie asked, turning to face the others who all nodded in response. The creature smiled then quickly turned and ran, motioning for them to follow. It wasn't very far from a large fallen tree that they saw what appeared to be another of the creature pinned underneath the fallen plant. "Connie? Is that you? Did you find any help?" The second creature asked, with a male sounding voice, and the female ran over, before pulling on the log, but it didn't move. "Please, help me move this tree!" She shouted, still trying to make the massive plant move. It had taken all six of them to move the tree, and it seemed that the male creature was fine, aside from the cuts and bumps that were randomly placed on his body. He quickly moved onto his feet and nearly tackled the female in a hug. "Connie! I'm glad you're all right... What's this?" The male asked, pointing at the gash on her forehead. "That's my fault... We sort of... Crashed into each other... I just can't believe it, beings from another dimension! Here! Omigosh! I almost forgot, I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to drop you in the forest!" Twilight half said half shouted at them, which only seemed to confuse them. "Drop us in the forest? You mean you made that weird purple light?" The male asked, and Twilight nodded. "Oh... Well I'm Steven, Steven Quartz Universe, and this Connie Maheswaran." Steven said, motioning towards himself, then the female creature. "Of course, introductions! How rude of us!" Rarity said, stepping forward. "My name is Rarity." She was quickly pushed away by Rainbow Dash. "Name's Rainbow Dash, fastest flyer in all of Equestria!" Rainbow shouted, before pushing Fluttershy forward. "Um... H-Hello... I'm... Fluttershy..." The pegasus said, barely audible over the natural sounds of the Everfree. Suddenly something pink had leaped before their eyes. "HI MY NAME'S PINKAMENA DIANE PIE BUT MY FRIENDS CALL ME PINKIE PIE! YOU CAN CALL ME PINKIE PIE TOO NOW, BECAUSE WE'RE FRIENDS NOW TOO! THAT REMINDS ME THAT I STILL HAVE TO THROW YOUR 'WELCOME TO PONYVILLE' PARTY! IT'LL BE SO MUCH FUN WITH CAKES AND GAMES AND BALLOONS AND..." The pink pony shouted, startling the two, although she had seemed not to notice, before she could go on, Applejack stepped forward. "Ah' think that's enough fer now, Pinkie. Howdy, I'm Applejack. Mah family an I run the apple orchard on the other side of town." Applejack said, seeming perfectly calm compared to Pinkie's explosive personality. "I'm Twilight Sparkle. I was the one who brought you here in the first place... Sorry about the rough landing..." Twilight said, giving a nervous smile. "If you don't mind my asking... You two aren't some political leaders from your dimension... Are you?" Twilight asked, which confused the other ponies. "I don't... Think so..." Steven said, looking to Connie who shook her head. It was then that the two of them became aware of a thin blood trail tripping down Connie's face, and she let out a sigh. "That hurts... I guess I was so busy trying to help Steven that I forgot about it..." She said, reaching into the black bag that she carried, pulling out a wash cloth. She quickly began to wipe the blood away, but Steven stopped her. "I can fix it." Steven said before licking his thumb, and much to the ponies' disgust, wiped it across the gash. "EEW! WHY IN EQUESTRIA WOULD YOU DO SUCH A NASTY THING!?" Rarity asked, but then much to their amazement the wound began to sparkle and soon healed, leaving nothing behind. "H-How did you...?" Rarity began, speaking for all of them at that point. Steven chuckled before responding "I'm magic." "Magic?" Twilight asked, now intrigued. She looked at Connie, who took a step back. "Don't look at me! I'm just human." Connie said, and Twilight looked back at Steven. Steven scratched the back of his head and chuckled. "Well, half-magic. On my mom's side. See...My mom was a magic alien known as a 'Gem'... And she had come to Earth with other Gems, but the other Gems wanted to destroy Earth... My mom didn't want Earth to be destroyed, she liked it there, so she and several other Gems fought against the Homeworld Gems, and from what Dad says lots of Gems lost their lives... Both Gems and Humans... Eventually the Earth Gems known as the Crystal Gems were taken out until only five of them remained." Steven began to dig around in the pockets of his jeans and found a folded up photograph. "There was my mom, her name was Rose Quartz..." Steven then began to point at the figures in the photo. "This is Garnet. Garnet's a combination of two Gems, Ruby and Sapphire, they fused together and made Garnet. That's Amethyst, she's really fun to be around. She loves to eat and sleep, although Gems don't have to..." Steven explained, but was interrupted by Rainbow Dash. "Don't need to eat or sleep? I'm pretty sure that everything has to eat and sleep." The cyan mare said, but Steven shook his head. "Nope, not Gems." Steven began to put his attention back into the photo. "This is Pearl, she's really smart, and kind of strict, but she can be fun too... When she's not arguing with Amethyst... They argue a lot really. Amethyst is really messy, and doesn't really like to be told what to do. Pearl is clean, organized, and has a plan for almost anything." Steven smiled and began to chuckle. "Who's that?" Pinkie asked, placing a hoof on a man's face. Steven gave a large smile and began to laugh harder. "That's my Dad! He runs the car wash back home. He used to be a one-man-band, but when he met Mom stayed around Beach City for a while. She was the only one to show up to his concert there." Steven explained, but then noticed that the ponies seemed anxious about something. "What's wrong?" Steven asked, and looked behind him to see a large, maned animal standing behind them, with glowing white eyes. "Oh... That's what's wrong..."