There are, in fact, many gods. That's with a small "g". I'm not even going to pretend to say that I know much about the big "G"; whether He exists, what He's like, etc. All I know is that if He's there, He's at the top of the totem pole. Or bottom. Whichever end of the thing the end-all, be-all is supposed to go at. What He says, goes, and that's that. So we won't talk about Him anymore.
Small "g" gods, to actually define the term for the purposes of this screed, are any persons who create a universe. The gods have various levels of control over their universes. Or rather, gods choose to have different levels of control over their universes. All the gods are, within the universes they create, omniscient. But some prefer to interfere at every step of the way, and others simply prefer to get the universe going and let it run on its own.
The first of these options is uncommon, but there are documented cases of repeated divine intervention, even if it is not noticed as such by the residents of the universe. The second option is by far the more common, and most gods tend to go the deist route and interact very little, relegating themselves to the role of observer.
Then there is the rarest of all: the god who wishes to merely observe, but is dragging into interfering by his own creation. The god, of course, is not forced to interfere, but if he chooses to subject himself to his universe in that way, that's the god's own decision.
Chapter 2: The Best and Worst Day Ever.
Haruna fumed to herself as she strode resolutely across the campus, headed nowhere in particular. It was that stupid half-knowledge. Everyone is hiding something from me! That much she knew. But what on earth is the big secret? We're friends, aren't we? That was where the "half" part of the "half-knowledge" came in.
Ever since we got back from that field trip to Kyoto, Nodoka and Yue have been acting all strange. Something had to have happened. It's like they're...tighter? I don't know what word I'm supposed to use! But they were already friends. They were already as good friends as they could be without taking the whole relationship into romance territory... Maybe that's what happened! One of them must have confessed and that's why they're always together! They only told me that it was school stuff so that I wouldn't try to tag along! But which one of them? Probably Yue; Nodoka already has a thing for Negi, after all.
But why would they try to hide that from me? I mean, I know I'm the go-to person on this campus for information, but they're my friends! They'd trust me with that. Mostly. Maybe after Nodoka confessed to Negi, she got Yue in on it and now they have to keep things on the down low to keep from getting in trouble. Yeah, that makes a lot more sense. If I were them, I probably wouldn't tell me about that.
But still, they're like never around anymore! Even if they are having some sort of torrid student-teacher love affair, they could at least hang out in the room more often. Being out of the loop like this sucks-
Unlike Nodoka, Haruna's imagination was vivid enough that she didn't even require a distraction. If there had been any onlookers, they would have simply watched in bemusement as Haruna marched resolutely forward into one of the decorative trees that lined the edge of the plaza.
"OW!" Haruna rubbed her forehead, now fully aware of the tree that lay directly in her path. She was not aware, however, of the sounds of twigs snapping above her head as an object that had been resting in the branches of the tree began to tumble downwards. "I need to get a grip. I feel like I'm starting to lose my-" The noise in the tree was now loud enough to merit her attention. She looked up with just enough time to see a colorful (but mostly blue) blur barreling towards her face. "What th-"
CRASH.
Haruna once again rubbed her forehead as she began to pick herself up off of the ground, trying to figure out what had just landed on top of her. She blinked. Maybe she really had lost her mind. If she was still sane, she wouldn't be seeing a blue, rainbow-mane pony flopped on the ground next to the tree. And even in the event that the pony was real, in a sane world, it wouldn't be talking.
"Hey! What do you think you're do-" The pony's face turned a slightly lighter shade of blue than it already was. "Where the heck am I? What's going on!-?"
"Are you okay?" Haruna couldn't think of anything else to ask. Any of the obvious questions were just too absurd.
"I'm fine!" the pony grumbled as she got back to her feet. "What's going on? Me and Twilight were just investigating that patch of sky, and then it got bigger or something...Next thing I knew, I was here. Wherever that is. Where are we, anyway?"
"...Japan."
"Japan? Hmmm...doesn't ring a bell." The pony shrugged. "You have any idea how to get to Ponyville from here?"
"Ponyville?" Haruna cocked her head to the side.
"I guess not. Oh well. See you later." The pony turned around, and Haruna's jaw dropped. There were wings on the creature's back. And they were rapidly unfurling themselves. "Bye." The pony took a tremendous jump.
"WAIT!" Both the pony and the girl crashed to earth as Haruna managed to latch onto her back legs. "You really shouldn't do that!"
"Why not!-?" The pony glowered back at her.
"Uh...let's just say that there aren't a lot of talking ponies around here..."
"So?"
"If the school people find you, they'll drag you off somewhere. You need to lay low for a bit. If you go flying off like, that you'll have a bunch of helicopters chasing you down!"
"Helicopters? What are those?"
"I'll explain later." Haruna made an attempted at a non-evil smile. They didn't come easy to her, but she managed. "Just come back to my room for a little bit so we can figure out what you should do!"
"Fine." The pony's wings slowly folded themselves neatly against her back as she turned around and held out a hoof. "My name's Rainbow Dash. Fastest pegasus in all of Equestria. You may have heard of me."
"My name is Haruna Saotome." Haruna held out her hand, unsure of exactly what to do with it. Oh well, this can't get any weirder. She took hold of the extended hoof and gave it a shake. I just shook hands...or maybe hooves...with a flying rainbow pony! This is the best day ever!
The situation had officially gone from "curiosity" to "crisis". Or at least in the minds of everyone who arrived on the scene of Nodoka's discovery immediately assumed. Priority number one was of course to get Twilight out of sight as quickly as possible. Once they had her hidden, then they could start to figure out what on earth they were supposed to do.
Every last one of them was walking on eggshells back towards the dorm, which was inexplicably deemed the best place to go. Not because it was conducive to secrecy (if anything, it was the opposite), but because it was the closest and most convenient. Besides, a little additional weirdness would probably not be noticed.
Yue, Asuna, Setsuna, Konoka, and Negi set up a human perimeter of sorts, walking as briskly and closely together as they could manage without trampling on Twilight or Nodoka, who was doing her level best to keep both herself and the mysterious purple pony from hyperventilating as everyone else talked as loudly as possible to drown out the clopping of Twilight's hooves.
Negi's knuckles were white as he gripped his staff. It was extremely tempting to attempt to cast some sort of magical cloak over the group, but that probably wouldn't help. At least there didn't seem to be anyone else around.
A few minutes ago his heart had nearly stopped as he had seen Haruna on the far side of the plaza. Of all the people on campus, she was probably the second worst person who could possibly discover what was going on. Fortunately, she was too preoccupied lugging a giant garbage bag along behind her. Haruna was always up to something, but in this case it couldn't possibly be more important than the matter at hand.
"Okay, you can come out now!" Haruna dumped the garbage bag on the floor of her room and quickly spun around to lock the door. When she turned back, she was greeted with a harsh stare from Rainbow Dash, who was halfway out of the bag.
"Are you trying to kill me or something? Putting me in that thing and dragging me along?" She rubbed her head with a hoof. "Were you trying to hit every bump along the way?"
"Sorry about that." Haruna shrugged. "I had to get you back here without anybody seeing you?"
"And why is that?" The pony kicked her way out of the plastic.
"Okay, let me explain." Haruna sat down on the other side of the coffee table. "I don't know where you came from, but-"
"Equestria." The pony interrupted. "From a town called Ponyville."
"Right..." Haruna mumbled. A town called "Ponyville" sounded like something that a six-year-old girl would make up. "Anyway, I don't know what things are like in…Ponyville...but here we don't really have any talking ponies."
"Where is 'here', exactly?"
"Uh...the country is called Japan. The town...well, we're at Mahora Academy, and it's probably big enough to qualify as its own town. We do have our own postal code, after all."
"So you're telling me that there are no ponies anywhere in this whole 'Japan' place?"
"Well...we have ponies..." Haruna scratched her head. "They just don't talk..."
"Okaaay...that's kinda weird." Rainbow Dash raised an eyebrow. "Can you just tell me where the talking ponies are?"
"Um...about that...I don't know...that is to say..." Her voice trailed off. She hadn't really thought of how she was going to explain this.
"That is to say what?"
"Well, as far as anybody in Japan knows, or in the rest of the world for that matter, there aren't any talking ponies..."
"None?" Rainbow Dash cringed.
"None. As far as I know, you're the only talking pony anywhere on this planet."
"So, what is your name?" Negi asked, clutching his pad and pen as if he were some kind of star reporter.
"T-Twilight Sparkle."
"Okay, thank you..." He began scribbling.
Behind him, Nodoka received an elbow in the ribs from Yue, whom sat beside her.
"Nodoka, this would be a good time for you to bring out your artifact."
"Um, I don't think so," Nodoka murmured. "I mean, is it really okay to go into someone's mind like that?"
"I think that the present situation rather justifies extreme measures. We know next to nothing about what is going on, and anything that could shed some light on this event is well worth the trouble."
"Um...excuse me..." Both girls turned to see Twilight craning her neck around Negi, looking at them. "If you don't mind me asking, what are you talking about?"
"She has a magic book that can read peoples' thoughts." Yue jabbed a thumb at Nodoka. "She just doesn't like using it very often because it's an invasion of privacy."
"And you want her to use it on me?" Twilight raised an eyebrow.
"Don't worry; we're not trying to interrogate you or anything." Setsuna held up a hand. "It's just that we don't have any idea of who you are or where you came from, and we want to be cautious. I don't think any of us believe that you mean any harm, but we just want to make sure."
"I guess I can understand that..." Twilight glanced across the room, noting all the eyes that were staring at her. She wished that they could see that she was more afraid of them then they were of her. "If it'll make things go faster, I guess I don't mind if she uses her mind-reading thing..."
"Oh...okay." Nodoka reached into her pocket for her Pactio card. "Adeat." There was a poof of smoke, and the card was gone, replaced by a large and extremely old-looking book. "Don't worry, Twilight, it doesn't hurt or anything."
"Good to know." Despite the reassurance, Twilight couldn't help but feel a sense of trepidation as Nodoka carefully opened her artifact.
"Come on, Rainbow Dash, I'm sure everything will get straightened out eventually."
"Yeah, sure. I have no idea where I am, and you have no clue where I came from, and we both have no idea of how I'm supposed to get back." The pony folded her forelegs as she slumped onto the table. "Can I get some more cheese puffs?"
"Sure." Haruna tore open another bag and tossed it onto the table.
"Thanks." In half a second, Rainbow Dash's nose was stuffed into the food, feedbag style. It was half empty before she withdrew her face, eying the growing pile of empty wrappers on the floor beside her. "Uh...sorry about eating all of your food. We don't have a lot of this stuff in Equestria. These cheese things are really good, though."
"Don't worry about it." Haruna twiddled her fingers. "It's the least I could do. You're in the middle of an existential crisis after all."
"A what?" Rainbow Dash tilted her head.
"It's...um...sort of this thing where you doubt your own existence...or something... Yue explained it to me once, but I wasn't really paying attention."
"Who's Yue?" Rainbow Dash asked before stuffing her head back into the food.
"One of my roommates. I share this room with two other girls."
"I guess the two extra beds should have been a tip off..." the pony muttered between bites of Cheetos. "What are they like?"
"Well, Yue is really smart, but she never really does any homework or anything. She's obsessed with philosophy."
"Philosowhat?"
"Philosophy. Stuff like 'What is the meaning of existence?' and 'Why is there something rather than nothing?'"
"Sounds fun."
"Nodoka is my other roommate. She's really quiet and reads a lot. Quite an imagination though."
"So where are they now?"
"They had some sort of student conference with the teacher. I swear, ever since we got back from our class trip, they've had like a ton of meetings with him. Something weird must be going on. Although Nodoka does have crush on him, so I guess it makes sense..."
"A crush on the teacher?" Rainbow Dash snorted. "Weird. You sound like you have an interesting group of friends."
"Tell me about it." Haruna shrugged. "They said they wouldn't be back for a few hours. Claimed it was an emergency. At least it gives me some time to figure out what to do with you."
"What are you talking about? What are you going to do with me?"
"Well, we have to hide you somewhere or some government agents or something are going to drag you off somewhere?"
"Government agents?"
"Okay, okay. Let me explain this again." Haruna rubbed her forehead. "People are going to want to do experiments and stuff on you to figure out how you can talk and why you have wings. Because no ponies in our world do that. Trust me; you don't want to do that."
"Okay." Rainbow Dash's face was still blank.
"You know what?" Haruna scuttled over to the cabinet, on top of which rested a large television. "This movie explains it a lot better than I ever could." She reached into the cabinet and withdrew a DVD case.
"Men in Black?" Rainbow Dash tilted her head once again. "What is that thing?"
"Don't you have movies in Ponyville!-?" She rolled her eyes. "Seriously...do you have plays?"
"Well, yeah, but those things are really boring. Sometimes my friends would drag me to see them."
"This is kind of like a play, but they recorded it so you can watch it whenever. And it's definitely not boring. There's lots of action."
"Action?"
"Yeah!" Haruna grinned. She hadn't known the pony for long, but she could already tell what movie genres would be most appealing. "Lots of fights, big monsters, stuff blowing up!"
"Okay, I guess we could watch it..." There was a crunch as Rainbow Dash turned herself to face the television, sitting on some empty bags in the process.
"Trust me..." Haruna popped the DVD into the player. "You're going to like this."
Nodoka's artifact sat closed on the counter, mostly forgotten. It had only taken a handful of questions from Negi to determine that the purple pony meant no harm and had even less idea of what was going on than Mahora did. Naturally, it hadn't taken very long for the interrogation to take a much more informal line.
"...and that's how I ended up in Ponyville."
"So summoning the Elements of Harmony granted you magic powers?" Asuna asked.
"Not exactly…" Twilight answered. "I actually had magic powers before that. Unicorns are naturally magical."
"Then what did the Elements of Harmony do?" Nodoka stared intently, looking not unlike a young child listening to a bedtime story.
"Well, they allowed us to use the power of friendship to defeat Nightmare Moon and rescue Princess Celestia." Twilight rubbed her chin with her hoof. "Other than that, I'm actually not entirely sure what they really do..."
"I have a question." Yue raised a hand.
"Yes?"
"Is there any particular reason that Nightmare Moon's imprisonment ended automatically after 1000 years?"
"I'm not entirely sure." Twilight shrugged. "Only Princess Celestia would know that. She's the one who set up the whole thing."
"I see." Just as Yue lowered her hand, another question popped into her mind. "You said that the Princesses were in charge of the sun and moon, right?"
"Yes, that's right." Twilight nodded. "The Pegasi control the rest of the weather."
"Do you think that it's possible that this Nightmare Moon is responsible for what happened?"
"That was the first thing I thought when the stars above Ponyville started going out. Back when she was still Princess Luna she was in charge of making sure that the stars rose on time. I actually had a few books with me about Equestrian astronomy, but I never got to look at them. Maybe if we looked through those we could-"
Everyone in the room jumped at the sound of a loud knock on the door.
"Who is it?" Asuna yelled.
"It's Negi, I'm back."
"What's the password?"
"Come on, Asuna, you know it's me. Open the door!"
"The password was your idea, and now you don't want to use it?" Asuna turned toward the door. "Just tell me what the password is!"
"Fine, fine. The password is 'fungus'. Now please open the door."
Asuna nodded at Twilight, who ducked her head under the table as Konoka opened the door. As the door clicked shut behind Negi, Twilight emerged from her hiding place.
"So what did the principal say?"
"He wants to have a meeting with you some time this week to see if your appearance can shed any light on the situation. He told me to make sure you stay out of sight until then. Maybe once we know more about what's going on, we can find somewhere for you to stay, but for the time being I think you should stay here."
"As if this room wasn't crowded enough already." Asuna's mumble was low enough that it passed unnoticed by everyone else.
"You'll have to keep out of sight if my other students show up," Negi continued, "but during most of the day you'll have the room to yourself."
"Oh, that should be fine." Twilight allowed herself a small sigh of relief. The thought of ending up locked in a cell had passed her mind, and had refused to leave. "I have a few books on astronomy with me, so maybe I can find something in there to explain what's going on."
"That certainly sounds like a plan." Yue stood. "Now that things are settled, we should probably be going."
"Already?" Twilight sighed. Figures. Just as she was finally starting to get herself settled, everyone was leaving.
"Yue is probably right." Nodoka took her artifact from the table. "It would be bad if Haruna got curious."
"Who's Haruna?"
"Our roommate." Yue rolled her eyes. "Let's just say that if she found out about you, it wouldn't be long before everyone knew."
"I see."
"It was fun talking to you, Twilight." Nodoka bobbed her head in the pony's direction. "Maybe tomorrow you can tell me more about your friends."
"Yes, I would like that." The pony bowed back, unsure of how else to respond. "Goodnight."
"So how many of those 'movie' things do you have?" Rainbow Dash stared at the screen, slack-jawed. She wasn't entirely sure what had been going on, but it looked awesome.
"Oh, I've got hundreds of these." Haruna grinned. "I can show you how to work the DVD player so you can watch more of them while I'm in class tomorrow. Gotta give you something to do while you hide in here."
"That would be awesome." The pony tilted her head at Haruna, who had suddenly spun around to face the door. A moment of utter terror had gone through the girl's head as she recognized the sound of the doorknob turning. It only took another half second for her to remember that she had locked the door, but her heart was still pounding.
"Haruna, open the door." A loud knock accompanied Yue's voice.
"What's tha-"
"Quiet!" Haruna hissed into Rainbow Dash's ear as she clamped her hand over her mouth. "It's my roommates! Get under the bed!"
"Under the-"
"Just go! You should be able to fit under it." She gave the pony a shove. "Come on! You don't want them to find you!"
"Okay, okay!" Rainbow Dash grumbled as she wriggled her way under the stack of bunk beds against the wall of the room. It wasn't quite as tight as she had expected, although it was hardly spacious.
"Come on, Haruna!" More knocks. "Unlock the door! Why do you have it locked anyway?-!"
"Just a second..." Haruna called through the door as she slung a sheet over the edge of the bed and shoved her backpack over the gap. "I'm...uh...naked."
"Why are you naked?" There was a perceptible note of annoyance in Yue's voice.
"Well...uh...why wouldn't I be naked?"
"Um, Haruna..." This time it was Nodoka's voice coming through the door. "That doesn't really answer the question..."
"I just wanted to chill out a bit, you know?" She flipped the latch on the door, which immediately popped open. "I mean, I had the room to myself while you two were out doing whatever the hell it is you two were doing with Negi."
"So what were you doing while you were naked?" Nodoka peeked cautiously into the room as if she somehow expected that an unknown presence was lurking within.
Yue surveyed the mess that had been left in the room. "Apparently having an orgy of junk food indulgence, if all this garbage is to be believed."
"I was hungry." Haruna snorted. "Okay, my turn now. So what was so important that Negi called this emergency meeting thing?"
"Just some school stuff. Nothing important." Yue slumped on the sofa.
"You aren't even trying!" Haruna leaped to her feet and leveled a finger at her friend. "If you're going to make stuff up at least put some effort into it! There's something up and you guys are hiding it!"
"Calm down, Haruna." Nodoka put a hand on Haruna's shoulder. "There are just a few...issues on campus that Negi doesn't want us to discuss with anyone. Don't worry about it."
"Easy for you to say," Haruna grumbled as she watched Yue clamber into her bunk. If Yue was going to bed without taking a bath first, something weird had to be going on. Either that or she just was just tired from the meeting running late, but that solution was too easy. Haruna could see the glint of Rainbow Dash's eyes peeking out from a gap in the sheet that was draped over the bed. Maybe this meeting had something to do with the pony's mysterious appearance.
Naaah...
"Dear Princess Celestia,"
The ballpoint pen made a scratching noise as it scribbled the words onto the flat sheet of paper. It wasn't quite the same as a quill and parchment, but it was still workable. The human inhabitants of the weird world that Twilight had stumbled into were mildly confused about how she planned to make use of the implement without opposable thumbs. And she naturally found their confusion to be a bit confusing. Apparently telekinesis was as rare in their world as opposable thumbs were in hers.
"Today I learned that you can make friends with others no matter who they are, even if they're from an entirely different world..."
The pen lifted off the paper. The pony stared at the last three words she had written. She wasn't in Equestria. She wasn't even the same world as Equestria. There was no Princess Celestia in this world. Even if there was, Spike wasn't there to send the letter. Everypony she had ever known was completely out of her reach. Her saddlebags, filled with half a dozen hastily-grabbed books, was the only remaining part of her world. If Equestria was even still around, it was so far away that it might as well not exist.
Her horn sparkled for a moment as the paper crunched itself into a ball and rolled off the table into the trash. She continued to stare blankly at the empty desk. Her mind was filled with the desire to do something, anything that would put her mind on anything other than her current situation. Unfortunately, there was nothing else to do.
Leaving the room was an impossibility at the moment. A nagging doubt at the back of her mind pointed out that she couldn't trust this Negi person any more than she could trust anyone else, but at the same time the idea of skepticism was impossible. None of these "people" had done anything but be nice, if a little wary of her. And that was completely understandable.
Although they must not have been too leery; the two girls were sleeping quite soundly, and despite a decent bit of tossing and turning, the boy was obviously sleeping quite soundly. As she made the observation, she immediately felt the mountain of fatigue that had built up come crashing down onto her eyelids. How long had it been since Applejack had knocked on the door of the Ponyville library?
There was a spark of magic, and the switch on the desk lamp flipped off. There was nothing to do now but rest. Maybe when she opened her eyes to the morning light, she would see the inside of the library. Then she would rub her eyes and make some sort of comment to Spike about the weird dream she just had, and then she could go have breakfast and then she would feel much better.
She closed her eyes as she curled up on the sofa. It wasn't a dream. Dreams didn't feel like this. Dreams didn't tire you out. Never in her life had she dreamed anything that even remotely resembled this. Then again, she had never been sucked into a giant hole in the sky before, either. Maybe when she finally got around to looking through those books she could shed some light on the situation. But for now, her head felt it like it was being squeezed in a vice, and the only remedy for that was some sleep. She closed her eyes and pressed her face into her forelegs.
Twilight wasn't exactly sure how long she had been sleeping. It seemed like she had barely closed her eyes, but her mind was in so much of a whirl that the only thing she knew for sure was that it was still dark. She wasn't sure that she had really heard anything, but she also wasn't sure that she hadn't. A moment later her ears confirmed the unfortunate truth that there had, in fact, been a noise. A sort of scratching rustle was apparently working its way across the floor. And it was getting closer.
She tried not to breathe as the sound stopped. For a brief moment, she wondered where it had gone. Then she tensed even more as the vibrations on the fabric informed her that whatever was making the noise was now scurrying along the couch. She could practically feel it slow down as it approached the end of the couch where she had situated herself.
"Well, well, well." A scratchy, reedy voice whispered out of the darkness. "What do we have here...?"
"EAAAHHHH!" Twilight catapulted off of the sofa as she felt something brush softly across her hindquarters.
"What is it!-? What's going on!-?" There was a crash as Negi tumbled out of his nook, still wrapped in his blanket. "Are you okay, Twilight!-?"
"What the hell is with this racket?" Asuna voice came out of the darkness. "Negi, get the lights on!"
Twilight's eyes burned as the room lights flickered to life. Even though she was half-blinded by the brightness, she could just make out a wriggling shape on the sofa, right where she had been.
"Dammit, you stupid ermine!"
The pony watched in confusion as Asuna took hold of the object, hefted her arm back, and flung the thing as hard as she could towards the far wall. There was a muffled splat.
"Asuna, why did you do that?" Negi scuttled over to the wall where the thrown had landed.
"That's what he gets for sneaking in here in the middle of the night and waking us all up." Asuna huffed as she climbed back into her bed.
"Nee-san...that was rough..." the mysterious voice echoed out from behind the desk. As Twilight's eyes began to adjust to the light, she was greeted by the sight of what appeared to be an elongated white rat with an overly large tail. "I was just curious about our visitor." The creature pointed a short appendage at the pony, who was huddling behind the sofa.
"Oh, Chamo, you're back." Negi grinned as he put his arm on the table, allowing Chamo to scurry up onto his shoulder. Twilight felt a chill on her spine as the ermine stared intently in her direction.
"I sure am. You want to fill me in exactly what happened while I was away?"
Apple Bloom sighed as she glanced at the clock. An hour and a half ago, Applejack had left Sweet Apple Acres to go get Twilight. An hour ago, Apple Bloom had decided to make snacks for when everyone inevitably came back to the house. Half an hour ago, Apple Bloom's hunger had gotten the better of her and she had eaten all of the snacks. Five minutes ago, she had started to worry about her big sister's whereabouts. Currently, she was contemplating going out to search for them. In fact, she was on her way out the door when she heard a familiar voice from behind her.
"Hey, Apple Bloom!" The filly turned around to see Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo poking their heads through the window. "We're going to go try to convert the tree house into a house boat! Want to come?"
"Sure!"
Five minutes later, whatever that thing was that Apple Bloom had been so worried about was completely forgotten.