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// Chapter 8: Falling out of the Sky 
// Story: Friendship is a Quantum Infinite 
// by angelicoreXX 
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	Parties are usually events people go to have fun, enjoy themselves, and meet new friends, maybe even get lucky. Not that Twyla ever had the social skills to properly flirt in the first place, nor was she used to the club in the first place, but at least they served as a momentary vacation.
A night out with essentially cartoon characters may have been the equivalent of leaving your social training wheels on, but at least the cake was good, or at least it should’ve been.
Twyla really needed it, and so did each of her human friends. It was a colorful and convenient distraction that could just barely cap a bottle full of emotions. As much as she had tried to swallow her fears and enjoy the only creative antics Pinkie Pie knew in which to cheer up her friends, it was simply impossible. As best as she had aimed for a smile the entire time, she couldn’t help think about the dozens if not hundreds of young smiles in the back of her mind.
What manner of cruelty would steal all of her children away from her when she wasn’t looking like that?  She would’ve given her own two legs to save them all, to have at least held each of them in her arms in their final moments. It wasn’t her fault, she was an entire universe apart, but none of it eased her guilt, not even that wonderful party could have come close.
Out of shame, Twyla had been one of the first to leave that night. It wasn’t that her Dance-Dance Revolution techniques weren’t spot on, she just simply couldn’t take it any longer. How in the bloody hell could she have possibly enjoyed herself knowing what she did? She knew that the key to managing your stress was personal time and fun, but this was too much.
Twyla laid there in the tiniest Fischer-Price bed she’d ever slept in staring up at the ceiling of Twilight’s tree house. The bed, which was covered in stars and clouds, looked like it had originally been designed for a small dog, or perhaps a baby dragon, but it was the best Twilight could provide on such short notice. None of it however had made one bit of difference. The emptiness of the ceiling above her seemed quite welcoming as she contemplated the consequences of her absences from school.
The room had begun to fill with a faint pink glow from the morning sun, though she could probably have counted the hours she had been awake already. She had spent so much time wondering if she’d ever be able to go back home, wondering if she’d ever even want to go back home. The thought of having lost her beloved career had been far too overwhelming, but what was the point now? She no longer had anything left to go back to. No more lesson plans to go over, no more tests to grade, no more smiling little faces patiently waiting for her next lecture. She even missed the occasional spitball. She had spent so much time silently crying to herself that night that she had become completely numb to such a notion.
She looked over across the room at her little pony facsimile. Twilight Sparkle was still sound-asleep as was her number one assistant. She wondered how the unicorn was able to sleep knowing her back up plan had utterly failed, though she imagined with a friend like Pinkie Pie around, it was hard not to keep your hopes up. To imagine that the little baker had devoted so much of her time to the simple almost childish ideal of making everyone around her smile was almost unbearable. In her rush to separate herself from such undeserved indulgences, she had completely forgotten to thank Pinkie for the party which was just enough to allow one more streak escape down her cheek.

She sighed and silently sat up. Twyla had had enough of being pathetic for one night. She was logical, and an optimist at heart. If there was anything being a teacher had taught her it was that she had to keep her chin up, even if she no longer had any more classes to teach. She still had good friends by her side, although they were probably doing far worse than she was. Ponyville was a wonderful place full of amazing characters and good friends, but she knew this couldn’t last forever. She couldn’t stand the thought of forcing her burden on these sweet little ponies any longer.
Twyla got up out of her crib and made her way down the winding set of stairs, which she had managed with a single step.
Normally she would never have stripped down to her underwear and buttoned shirt in someone else’s home, not that she was used to it anyway, but with only a single pair of clothes she didn’t exactly have much of a choice. She dawned her lavender teacher’s dress and blouse and did the only thing she could think of to climb out of her rut; she picked up a book and started reading.

“Rise and shine, Aprile!” one of Applebloom’s favorite past times was charging through the house with a ladle and frying pan at the crack of dawn.
Without even a startle, Aprile sat up out of her tiny blanket and pillow to the filly’s surprise.
“Were you even sleepin’?”
She sure as hell hadn’t gotten any sleep, and it wouldn’t have been any surprise if Applebloom had actually known why, “Is everythin’ okay? You look like you’ve been cryin’.”
Aprile took up her hat and sat it deep over her brow before ruffling the little pony’s mane as if she was her own beloved little sister, “C-Come on, sug’… We got work to do.”
Applebloom knew something was wrong but couldn’t quite put her hoof on it. She gazed back at the farm girl as she got herself dressed for the day ahead, her shins still covered in bruises that would’ve put most in a wheelchair. Though she couldn’t help but notice how they barely seemed to bother Aprile, as if she was walking on phantom limbs or worse that she just didn’t care anymore.
Aprile buttoned her shirt before a mirror and buckled her belt. She washed her face over the pre-school sized sink and remotely gazed back at herself. Her normally determined jeweled eyes had softened, completely indifferent. For all she knew her big brother and little sister were gone along with every single one of those loyal farm hands that she had gotten to know over the years. The farm could’ve been a smoldering pile of ash, all of her family’s hopes and dreams dashed over some comedian’s terrible joke. She could hardly even enjoy last night’s party. Aprile may have had one sip of cider before leaving. The cake looked great as always, but she just didn’t have the stomach for it.
But the very worst part of it all was deep down how she had given up. She no longer saw any point in working on a farm, neither her’s nor Applejack’s. What was an apple but a simple red fruit anyway?

Applejack’s first instinct was to say ‘good morning’. That was just what you did, in the morning, “Rise an’ shine, mornin’ there Aprile.” She tried her best to stay cheerful over the circumstances, naively hoping her twin would be feeling better, but she clearly wasn’t.
Aprile nodded plainly, “Mornin’.”
Applejack had prepared some eggs and biscuits with a side of apple turnovers and apple juice for the girl, who was plum grateful for the meal as she sat down at the table to eat, even if the blank stare in her eyes hadn’t changed at all. AJ had no idea how to make things up to her, she could practically see right through the girl.

The farm basked in a sea of golden orange glow and the somber day had finally got under way. They still had plenty of work to do seeing as it was the middle of apple bucking season. The fact that their worst rivals having set up shop right next door hadn’t made the fields any easier to work.
Big Macintosh had already gone on ahead with a couple of saddle drums by his sides. He was doing his best to keep them steady as Applebloom happily rode inside one of them, throwing his balance off completely.
Applejack slipped on her own harness of barrels to take out to the orchard. She wanted so desperately to say something sunny or at least helpful to her big sister, but she just couldn’t manage the words.
Aprile was moving at her week’s slowest pace. She nearly stumbled through getting her backpack on, as if she hadn’t just spent all of yesterday with it. The unbreakable determination in the farm girl’s heart had completely fallen over. She had become no more than a dry husk only useful for menial labor. 
It was just about the most disheartening thing Applejack had ever witnessed. Apples were her passion. She could never have imagined getting tired of something so precious, and yet the best example of it was staring right back at her, “Aprile, listen, I-”
An electric whirling hissed from just across the fields, and just before Applejack could beg the question, a thundering clang tremored under her hooves. The two struggled to maintain their footing for a moment.
“Oh, what now?!” it must’ve been Discord AJ thought, still bitter from the night before, but there was no time to ready the cavalry. They dropped their barrels and sprinted over to a funneling cloud of smoke, “It’s comin’ from where those Flim-Flam brothers were plantin’!”
The two farm girls happened upon the strangest sight resting over a field covered in applesauce and downed trees. One of them had no idea what the hulking behemoth was, the other was still trying to figure out how it could possibly have gotten there in the first place.
“How in the world… did a blasted ‘submarine’ get all the way out here?!” Aprile ogled the towering beached whale, or at least half of it anyway. The black naval submarine completely towered over the farm, as if some sort of downed sky scraper. The vessel had been apparently smashed in half with a large gash that utterly gutted through the side of its hull. You could see all of the multiple decks and layers of the ship that hung out of its fatal wound like the remains of an intestinal track.
Though the most ominous part of it all was the lack of any actual crew. For a submarine so large, it was completely silent. Not a single survivor, body, or corpse was visible. Whether the ship had been evacuated or simply had sunk to the bottom of the ocean before finally landing in Equestria was a question Aprile was too afraid to get any answers to.
“A subma-what now?”
Aprile was far from a Naval expert, nor had she ever been so close to anything in the Navy’s arsenal to speak of, “I-It’s like a big boat that humans ride inside, except it can go under water. It’s used by humans for… things like war.” She hesitated to even mention that last part, though she wasn’t about to scare the little pony with the possibility that it may have been carrying nuclear warheads.
“War? Just what the heck’s so important that ya’ll need something that colossal to fight with?” Besides a few very minor and local incidents, Equestria had always been a fairly peaceful land.
With a sigh, Aprile couldn’t help but feel a bit embarrassed for her entire civilization, “Stupid stuff… money, politics, resources, land… That sort of thing. Human beings are usually pretty neighborly folks, but every once a while some of us take our disagreements a bit too far… and a lot of people have suffered for it. Ain’t exactly something I’m too proud of.”
In the back of her mind, she couldn’t help but think of just how conniving and devious Discord must’ve been. To take such a large bite out of something so enormous, he must’ve been the devil himself. The poor crew must’ve fought with everything they had before meeting their final hour.
For the government to have called on such firepower within barely a week, the demon must’ve put the city through all kinds of hell.
For what felt like the dozenth time, she wandered back to her old farm. The cheerful faces of her family ran through her mind and she had to slap her cheeks a few times to shake away the thought. Aprile was just too proud to share her feelings with anyone else. It’s what they made bottles for.
Aj could see the girl’s eyes meandering once again and she still couldn’t think of a way to reach out to her. Aprile was a good person, maybe a bit stubborn, even a tad naïve, but she had a heart of gold and the pony knew there had to be more good people like her in the human world. They couldn’t all have been so foolish enough to harm each other over a simple feud, “Well, uh, we all get into squabbles about stuff that ain’t always important sometimes. It’s a part of life I suppose.”
Before she could come up with any more inflated justifications, a yelp ran out from just around the vessel’s hull, “Help! Please! Some pony! Any pony! Help!!”
“It came from this way!” Applejack led the rescue around the hull’s bend until the two came across an over turned engine. It was the massive magical tractor the Flim-Flam brothers had been using to usurp the apple fields, and Flim himself had become pinned under the wreckage. He luckily didn’t appear to be seriously injured but was unable to escape, even with the powers of their combined free market sorcery, “Ya’ll alright? Is he hurt?”
“Oh thank goodness you’re here, child!” Flam was ever so relieved to see a familiar face, “It’s Flim! He’s stuck under the machine! We were chopping down the old trees to plant new ones with apples attached to them when that giant… ‘thing’ arrived! It nearly crushed us both!”
Flim groaned under the weight, he had been fortunate enough to be caught under an empty spot but his haunches were still pressed for luck, “I-I' don’t think I’ve broken anything, but… I just can’t seem to free myself! You simply must help me! Please! You can’t just leave me under here!” Flim was much more terrified than he would’ve let on.
Flam used every spark of magic available in his horn, but just didn’t have the kinetic charge to raise the massive contraption, “I-It’s just too big! I can’t lift it!”
Aprile couldn’t believe these two could actually pass for farmers in this world, let alone for anyone that worked outdoors, “Ya’ll must be used to workin’ in a cubicle or something. You’re doin’ it all wrong!” she cracked her knuckles and went to work digging through the soil beside the trapped unicorn, “Lend me a hoof would ya’, AJ?”
“Now just hang on one cotton-pickin’ minute!” Applejack had spent far too many years working through the dirt to tell a serious injury apart from cold hooves and she wasn’t about to let this opportunity go to waste, “If we help ya’ll out, then ya’ll have to promise to leave our farm once and for all! I don’t ever want to see ya’ll botherin’ Sweet Apple Acres ever again!”
“Fine! Fine! Whatever you want! Just please save my brother!” Flam would’ve even given them their formula to the estranged apple seeds if they had just asked.
AJ coldly nodded to her comrade, “Start diggin’.” Such a tactic may have been a tad underhanded for someone so ‘honest’, but Applejack knew what the stakes were and she wasn’t about to provide even an inch of assistance to anybody who had threatened her family’s business without a catch.
They cleared out as much soil as they could as Flim looked on, “Hurry! I think it’s beginning to sink!” As enormous and heavy as the tractor was, it wasn’t actually being pulled into the dirt below, but that didn’t stop his desperate paranoia.
Aprile could nearly reach the end of his ankles caught under the mass as she quickly dragged out the soil handful by handful until the unicorn finally had some wiggle room.
Applejack conveniently took a length of rope from underneath her hat and tied one end around the unicorn’s waste. How she managed to tie the rope with the practice of a pair of hooves was beyond this author, but it was far easier to simply continue rather than think up a better way to have executed it, or wait! We’ll have Aprile do it instead! Right, so then with the help of Applejack’s suggestion, the human with her incredibly useful opposable thumbs tied the length because it clearly made more sense that way instead of being convenient to the plot.
AJ took the other end of the rope in her teeth as Aprile held Flim by his hooves and at the count of three, they both gently pulled.
“Careful, careful!” Flam railed.
For a second, Aprile thought she hadn’t dug the hole deep enough, but with almost a cartoonish pop, the unicorn gave way and flopped out the crevice with an “Umpf!”
“Oh thank goodness you’re alright my brother!” Flam was ever so relieved.
Flim shook himself off and brushed a stain of muck from his vest, “I thought I’d be stuck in that jam forever!” he turned his gratitude to the liberators, “I can’t thank you both enough!”
Applejack threw a glare at the entrepreneurs, “No, you probably can’t, but you can do Sweet Apple Acres a favor and follow your end of the agreement!”
“Oh, uh, about that…” Flim consulted his brother over the terms of their contract as Aprile palmed the side of her face.
Flam returned with a compromise, “How about… we split our profits, eighty percent for us, and twenty for Sweet Apple Acres? We could do a joint venture and combine our businesses!”
Applejack dug her hoof into the dirt, “That didn’t work the last time you two showed up, so what makes you think we’d agree to it this time around?!”
“Alright! Alright! Fine then.” Flim interjected, “How about we drop apples all together? You guys handle the apples and we’ll take up something like… pears! Yes! Pears sound just delightful don’t they brother?”
“Excellent idea old brother of mine! Pears are the trending talk of Equestria right now. What better opportunity?”
Applejack bit her lip in an attempt to mask her unbridled fury, “…W-What did you just say…?”
The human shook her head. Her previous frustration for the two had slowly dwindled into pity, “Ain’t ya’ll got any shame?”
Flim scuffed the dirt from his straw hat with a cocky grin, “There’s nothing to be ashamed about in a little opportunity. We’re simply-”
“Get out of my sight right now!!” Applejack wanted to tear her hat in two as she smashed her hooves into the dirt. She literally cursed them down the road, shouting up a storm that would’ve made Applebloom’s ears bleed. How dare either of them violate their agreement with none other than the dreaded ‘P-word’!
The Flim-Flam brothers scurried for their industrialist lives lest they be smashed down into something that would actually have been profitable to a free market.
Applejack huffed and puffed and threw her hat down into the dirt in a fit. She couldn’t believe the nerve of those two unicorns. She had just saved one of their lives and yet they were still determined to steal away her family’s hard work. What a miserable start to what should’ve been a hopefully normal day.
Aprile strolled over and picked up the hat, dusted it off, and plopped it back onto the pony’s head as she watched the brothers disappear into the distance. Normally, she would’ve been thankful to see that Sweet Apple Acres was safe once again, but her passion just wasn’t there anymore.
The pony’s rage had subsided with Aprile’s simple considerate gesture. Applejack should’ve felt relieved to know that her farm would survive another year, but she had more important matters to take care of, “Aprile, listen, I’ve never been too good with words an’ such, but I can’t tell you how sorry I am for what Discord’s done to you. The way he swept ya’ll up into something ya’ll had nothing to do with, I-I couldn’t imagine what it must be like to lose your family and everything you’ve worked so hard for. I just can’t even think about it, but I want you to know that what I’ve told you before still stands. You’ll always have a home here on Sweet Apple Acres! You ain’t gotta pay for nothing. Y-You don’t even have to work if you don’t want to!”
Aprile turned away with a sigh and shadowed her brow with her hat, “You don’t have tell me all that, sug’. This ain’t your fault, it’s something I gotta’ accept and move on with. There’s nothing I can do about it.”
“But that ain’t true! You don’t have to let Discord get away with it!”
“And just what should I do about it? I’m just a regular ol’ human. Not even them fancy gold trinkets ya’ll carried around could beat him! I can’t even go home and pick up the pieces, I’m worlds away!” she kicked a plot of dirt with her boot, “What’s the point in pickin’ apples i-if…” her voice shook and she pocketed the burden, “I-I’m sorry, Applejack. I shouldn’t be bringing you down with all this. You have your own family to take care of.”
“But you are a part of my-!”
“Cut it out, AJ. We ain’t sisters like that, I’m just your shadow is all.” Her stubborn heart nearly broke in half, “I don’t want to be a bother. I-I’ll help out around your farm but don’t you dare feel sorry for me. I don’t want any hand-outs either. I’m still gonna’ pull my weight around here until I can find a place of my own, and that’s that.” She had to hide her face from the pony before finally working up the nerve to walk back towards the farm. There was plenty of work to do still, even if all the added stress had been lifted. It was the middle of apple bucking season after all and the barn needed fixing after Discord’s fiasco the day before.
She was so close yet so far away. No matter how hard she tried, Applejack just couldn’t reach her. With each of her steps, with every second that the human got farther and farther away, the pony just wanted to scream.

It had been almost a week now since the sky fell and New York City still hadn’t budged an inch. The sun had risen to greet the few teetering sky scrapers that had been using each other for support. The city was still listless and whoever had been unfortunate enough to remain was living in the subway stations feeding off of sticks of gum from the snack machines.
The city’s mighty Empire State building had lost some of its dignity leaning slightly to one side. Although somewhat handicapped, the skyscraper still impressed Discord, although he had felt the need to renovate the observation deck at the top of his new palace. The change wasn’t anything too fancy of course. He had simply felt it necessary to remove the high reaching safety rails from the balcony’s edge. While the design had the best of intentions, they were simply too much of a hindrance on a perfectly gorgeous view of the city. However, the vista was the very last thing on his mind at the moment.
As if lying on a patch of grass, the spirit stared up at the dim gray sky above. He had an aching crick in his neck that simply wouldn’t go away and although he was quite literally at the top of the town, he felt as if was standing completely underneath the barrel, “Confound those girls, they drive me to drink!” It was unfortunate that most of the city’s alcohol had ultimately past its prime due to the ‘unforeseen’ circumstances, “Bah! And my neck is still killing me from that flaming flyer. I need a break from all of this…”

Discord found his way to a dilapidated salon where he was determined to get a manicure. He had been through quite an ordeal, if we could even place that here, and he needed to treat himself, “Oh it was awful! They tried to ruin all of my sprinkle covered fun! And then they picked on me and called me petty and immature and childish!”
“Are you serious, girl?”
Discord had to hold his blubbering back while his lizard talons and crab claw got did, “Oh, and that isn’t even the worst of it! Then one of them tried to choke me!”
“Tch, triflin’ bitches. Don’t you worry, honey. Moma’s gonna’ take care of you.”
“Oh, you’re the best a super villain can ask for, dear. When are you getting off today? We should go grab a bite to eat.”
Discord wasn’t very familiar with human job shifts, nor was he familiar with working in general, and so he ran into a wall over what the woman would have responded with.
He had given her an endearing backstory filled with obstacles yet an optimistic sense of worth and a no nonsense sassy attitude. Her name would’ve been Monique. She had a child to feed at home but luckily her boyfriend who was probably too good for her anyway had stayed and took great care of their family, however, he was a high school dropout and couldn’t find work and so half of the time the bills all fell on Monique. Their apartment was filled with its share of disagreement but they always worked through it for the greater good of their little boy who they adored. One way or another, they were going to put him through college and, “Oh, just what am I doing with myself…?”
There he sat, by himself with his leathery green hand in a nail dryer that wasn’t even plugged in in a salon that was filled with nothing but dust and overturned chairs. Had the clever Discord really been reduced to nothing more than mindlessly creating monologues in his spare time? Where was all the chaos?
He tossed the nail dryer across the room into a pile of tattered junk and looked deep within his twisted soul, “Maybe they’re right? Could I really be just obsessed? Am I losing my touch?” he recalled his recent string of tricks and pranks, some of which had started off innocently enough but eventually had led to genocide. They were anything but clever, nothing more than a psychopath’s fantasy repeating itself over and over again.
Discord wandered aimlessly out of the abandoned boutique only to be nearly taken off of his feet by the strangest sight. A locomotive straight off of the Equestrian railroad itself had come tumbling out of the sky. The sausage linked series of Easy Bake ovens were as plain as day before they collided with a nearby building. The impact finished it off and sent it colliding into the entire next block over.
Discord had to elevate himself into the air to keep his absurd tuxedo dry of any troublesome dust. As if walking on thin air, he strolled over a few buildings for a better look and gazed into the crater. There wasn’t much left of the crash, but the debris was clearly copy-written by Hasbro.
The demon began to brainstorm. Could his exchange within time space have had unintended side effects? As much as he would love to have bragged, he was no physicist, but was intelligent enough to realize that he, being completely alien to this world and vice versa with the humans he inadvertently traded off would probably have left a few wrinkles within space-time.
No wonder that copy of Rainbow Dash had her flying machine! That part made perfect sense now and even made that entire affair slightly funnier.
Not that any of this had affected him really, nor should he have cared honestly. Each of the universes would probably have folded onto one another and eventually everything would’ve crossed over into each other’s domain in a horrible mess and he wasn’t about to clean any of it up. The key properly lied between those human women and himself somehow.
Discord couldn’t help but sigh however. The oncoming wave of eventual chaos would eventually render his fun completely pointless. It would be like knocking over a fruit stand during an earthquake. Who would bother to notice? It was a question that had begun to plague him for the last couple of days now.
It was all he could think about. Was his entire point in life wrapped around the expense of others? As if their torment really meant anything to him, but the fun was becoming dull, dry, and almost meaningless. He had at least proven some effort in his last visit to Ponyville.
Deep down he had felt as if the flood had gone too far. It was quite the dramatic introduction and it suited him quite well, but to kill? There was no punch line in that. You hit someone in the face with a pie, not a brick. It was like a prank that had gotten out of hand at some point, although he honestly felt no sympathy over tossing Princess Celestia into the mire. That by itself had given him enough satisfaction to last a lifetime.
At least with a roving gang of terrifying but ultimately harmless cake monsters there’d be an inch of fun. Someone might get hurt, maybe scrape an elbow or shin or be put into a coma, but it wasn’t going to kill them especially with those girls constantly running around and saving the day. It may have been clever at some point but ultimately fruitless and if not for a quick desperate thought he would’ve been slapped back into the granite prison he had come to hate more than anything else.
Had he really lost his touch? Discord refused to answer that more than likely out of shame if anything else. Either way, whether his jokes were falling on deaf ears or not, life as he knew it was ultimately going to come to come down to this; a sick and barren land that had become completely abandoned.
Those ponies didn’t have to yank him off stage because the audience had left long ago, “I never thought I’d ever feel so miserable. To think I’d have been back in the saddle for but a week only to become tired, jaded and out of jokes.” He felt like a super villain that had already assassinated the city’s hero and just didn’t know what to do afterwards. “How utterly pointless all of this is slowly becoming.” Discord gave a lazy sigh. For probably the first time in his long life he felt lonely.
And then it hit him! The protagonists hadn’t been vanquished just yet and he still needed some entertainment, but not just any entertainment, he needed a glorious and inspiring climax!
He thought about the revolving door leaking out of time-space and came up with a simple but clever idea.
A small twinkle caught the apple of his harlequin eye. It was a small star that fluttered about in the early day’s sky. What a star was doing so close that it was visible to the day’s naked eye was a tad perplexing, but with closer inspection and bit a of plot convenience, he was able to deduce the aberration, “Oh! That’s just simply brilliant! This is so perfect. Whoever said you were losing your touch, Discord old buddy?”

“Spike! Have you seen Twyla anywhere?” Twilight had slept in, which was incredibly unusual for such a studious reliable pony. She had been through quite a bit in the last day and had barely even eaten, but there was no time for excuses!
Spike on the other hand was far more lenient towards himself, “How should I know…? I was trying to sleep.” He yawned half way through his pleas to set the alarm clock to snooze.
The little unicorn was frantic, searching all over her library for the human. How such a considerably large creature could’ve vanished without making enough noise to wake them up was beyond her. She could only imagine where Twyla had run off to considering the day before.
Twilight scampered passed the jeweled case and paused to glance over at it. She knew very well that Discord could strike again at any moment and even with the Elements of Harmony by her side, he could still come and go as he pleased. Chaos could be raining down on the streets of Ponyville at this very moment and there would’ve been nothing she and her friends could’ve done to stop it.
A loud yelp nearly sent her fumbling off of her hooves, “What happened?!”
“Oh, I just couldn’t find my favorite pillow is all. But don’t worry, Twilight, I found it. Don’t know how it got onto the floor like that.” Spike buttered up the pillow and sank back into dreamland.
Twilight rolled her eyes with a groan, “I don’t have time for this! I have to find Twyla!” even with danger looming over Ponyville, she was slightly more concerned with Twyla’s morale more than anything. She knew deep down that Twyla was probably putting on a strong front, and she wanted to be there for her.
“I’ll be sleeping if you need anything!” Spike cried as the front door slammed shut.

The pages of a worn down book rapidly flipped as Twyla searched for some kind of error, perhaps a hint of fine print that would’ve falsified her hypothesis, but she simply couldn’t find any. The idea was as plain as day, she just simply needed the right opportunity, the right variable for the equation and everything would fit right into place.
A few ponies gawked and whispered to one another over how obsessed Twyla looked with the large tome in her arms as she passed through the quaint boulevard in the middle of town. She was so focused on her reading that she probably would’ve walked right into a wall, and probably right through it at the determined pace she was walking. She might also have walked directly through a second wall given just how frustrated she was at the time.
She growled under her breath, which startled a few of the passing by spectators, “I can’t believe how stubborn Aprile is! I-I mean I know, well, I can try to imagine anyway what she’s probably going through… but this is serious too!” She was sounding more and more like an idiot, not that anyone nearby understood what she was going on about, but she figured her anger was coming across as pretty stupid anyway, “I-I guess it’s almost as serious as what she’s going through… I mean, it is important that we get home somehow, though I can see what she meant considering the circumstances. Heh, maybe the others are feeling better.”
She wondered who she should go visit next until a cupcake bonked her over the head, stunting her stroll to a stop.
“Oh! Sorry about that, Twyla!” Piper waved from atop the exaggerated roof of Sugar Cube Corner.
Twyla stared up at the girl with a twisted look on her face, “Just what the heck are you doing up there, Piper?”
“Oh! Uh, I fell asleep up here, apparently!” she snorted, “So because I fell asleep up here, Mr. and Mrs. Cake are making me clean all the cupcakes and stuff off of the roof!”
“How’d those cupcakes even get up there in the first place?”
“Oh, well, I guess I was kind of hungry after the party last night, so, uh, yeah.”
Twyla needed the chuckle, but there were more serious matters to attend to. She waved down the mad baker, who plummeted to the ground more than actually climbing down. Though thankfully Twyla was agile enough to catch the package, at the very least with her entire body, “Ugh! Sheesh, didn’t you use a ladder or something?!”
“Of course I used a ladder silly! It’s right over there!” Piper blindly pointed to a feeble wooden ladder just a mere ten feet away before finally lifting herself off of the poor teacher.
Typical Piper antics Twyla thought, it was no use complaining so she got right to the point, “Listen, Piper! I don’t want to interrupt your work or anything, but I’ve stumbled upon something important here.” She picked her volume off of the dusty road and flipped it open to a bookmarked page, “I’m not sure how much Pinkie Pie’s told you about magic, but there’s a spell here that can probably get us home! It’s going to take some work from Twilight and probably a few other unicorns but I think we can do it.”
“Home…?”
“Yeah Piper! I mean, I know things may be a tad grim at the moment, but we can’t just stay here and-”
“Gee, I don’t know Twyla…” Piper wasn’t one for feeling sad, although she was terrible at keeping up that reputation especially around her friends. The word ‘home’ brought a torrent of mixed emotions, one being the thought of so many adorable old folks she had befriended over the years. The thought of them suddenly vanishing wasn’t something she wanted to accept just yet. Until she could face her demons, Piper wanted to remain here in Ponyville where colorful distractions were a plenty, “I-It’s just that, well, I didn’t exactly have much to go back home to before we all got here. I didn’t even have a job before we left and I was already pretty late on my rent, and well, with the Cakes offering to take me in in exchange for helping out around the bakery and all, I don’t think I could be happier…!” Piper really wanted to be happy about it, it was all she had ever wanted in a world that was full of dazzling bright colors and happy smiles, but deep down, the trade-off just hadn’t been worth it.
Twyla gazed back at her, “Oh, come on now, Piper. We don’t belong here. We’re not ponies, and our home is in trouble. You saw what happened yesterday, these ponies who’ve taken us in couldn’t stop Discord. If they can’t stop him then it’s up to us to go home and stop him ourselves.”
“I-I guess, but…”
She put a hand over Piper’s shoulder, “Do you really want to live here in fear of that guy? He can just appear whenever he wants and shoot up the place! We just can’t burden our friends here with that sort of thing.”
Piper’s brow narrowed and she turned away from her friend, “I-I just don’t see what we can really do, and even if we did beat him it’s not like there’s anything left to go back to… You heard what he said!” The names of all the people she knew kept rolling through the back of her mind and the fact that every one of them was probably dead was insufferable, “T-They’re all gone! And there’s nothing I can do about it, Twyla! There’s nothing left to go home to, but I have a home here, and although I might not have been able to save anyone back in our world, I’m not going to let anything happen to my friends here! And even if I can’t stop Discord, I’m going to make sure the ponies here keep on…!” Piper couldn’t even mention the word ‘Smiling’ before bursting into tears.
Twyla was powerless to stop her as she ran back into Sugar Cube Corner in a whimpering hysterical mess. She hated to see Piper cry, it just wasn’t like her, but she couldn’t bring herself to disagree with her either. However, Twyla still knew that this issue had to be resolved somehow even if she had to return to an empty classroom. It was for the best of both worlds and she wasn’t about to send these ponies to do the fighting for her.

Perhaps Fiona might’ve understood her solution?
“I’m sorry, Twyla, but Fiona just isn’t feeling very well right now. She’s still pretty upset about all of her little animals that she was taking care of.”
Twyla stood at the foot of Fluttershy’s doorway, feeling as pointless as a Mormon missionary ironically enough, “Can I at least talk to her? This is pretty important. I think I’ve figured out a way for us to get back home!”
“Oh, I don’t think that’s such a good idea. You guys should just stay here for the time being, that is, if you want to. I-I don’t think it’s very safe for you to return home yet. I know Discord can be a little scary at times, but-”
Twyla sighed through the pony’s ramblings, “That’s kind of the point. Look, just explain to her what I just told you. It’s really important and there’s no way I’m going to leave her behind.”
“Oh, uhm, I’m really sorry but you’ll have to excuse me, Twyla. I think Fiona needs another hug. I-I’ll let her know what you said though of course. You can come back later when she’s feeling better, that is, if it isn’t too much trouble for you come back later, if that’s alright with you...” Fluttershy continued another series of apologies until Twyla eventually gave up and marched off of Fluttershy’s property with a groan.

She desperately needed to clear her head. Regina was one of the wiser more sensible members of the group. At least Twyla would be able to garner some support from her, she had hoped anyway.
Ultimately, she came upon a note at the door of the Carousel Boutique labeled, ‘Closed for the Day’. “No way! You two get your fat-asses out here right now!” the businesses hours just weren’t convincing enough not to slam her fist against the dainty salon door.
Twyla nearly batted Rarity across the face with another knock, but managed to stop just in time.
“Can you not read the sign? We’re- Oh! Hello Twyla! I’m terribly sorry about that, please do come in.” The little unicorn extended her exclusive welcome and allowed the human to enter, “I’m sorry if things are a bit messy inside. We stayed up the entire night.”
“Oh, don’t worry. You should’ve seen my apartment.” Twyla lightly chuckled under her breath, “I’m glad to see Regina took everything well then I guess.”
“Oh, uhm, well not exactly.” Rarity brought her guest over the kitchen, which was an even more cluttered than the salon itself.
Regina sat at the center of the kitchen covered in a welcoming white bathrobe that she had probably whipped up for just such an occasion. She had veins of shadow streaking down her cheeks as she gorged over yet another tub of vanilla ice cream.
“Regina… Oh sheesh, I should’ve stayed with you instead of leaving last night. I’m sorry.” Twyla snatched away the lady’s spoonful of guilty pleasures and placed it alongside all the other spoons. She wrapped her arms around the poor thing.
“Oh Twyla, stop it. I just hate for you to see me in this condition. I was just a bit overwhelmed by everything is all, but I’m fine now thanks to my little sister here.”
Rarity giggled, “We stayed up all night and chatted. Misery loves company as they say so I thought it was the least I could do. Although I’ll probably need to restock my entire fridge, but what are friends for right?” the unicorn’s eye twitched over that last bit.
Twyla played through a sarcastic chuckle, “Well, I’m glad to see that you’re feeling better at least. It seems none of us have really taken this whole situation very well.”
“That’s not surprising, although I have to admit I am a bit relieved however. I mean, I’m still uneasy about losing so many of my loyal assistants and collogues, not to mention my home and all of my assets…” She starred up at Twyla, “But you guys are still here with me. The five of you are really the only friends I’ve ever had. You have no idea how lonely the cat walk can be, especially when you’re just some fancy hood ornament.”
Twyla smiled warmly, “I don’t know what I’d do if I had lost any of you. We’ve all taken quite the blow, but we’re all still together…  And that’s why we need to fight back!”
“Do what now?” curled the celebrity.
Twyla cleared the table, tossing a trio of milky tubs onto the floor, “Sorry Rarity.” and clumsily slammed her enormous book against the finish.
“Oh, it’s quite alright, the floor’s already a mess as it is.” the unicorn was already doing her best not to think of how exactly she was going to clean her entire cottage by tomorrow.
She flipped open the tome to a marked page, “Here! This is one of the books Princess Celestia gave us on our trip. She wanted us to prepare for the worst and I think I’ve found out a way to get us back home. It requires the use of the Elements of Harmony and apparently a ton of magic, but this says right here that it can be used to transport ponies, and I guess humans in our case, across universes and into new worlds!” There was that look again. Twyla already saw the excuses coming.
Regina was a bit anxious to reply, “I-I suppose that’s helpful, but to be honest sweetie, there doesn’t seem to be much use in going back home now. I mean, if we had gone back before it may have meant something, but we’ll probably only get back just in time to get, well, you know…”
“Oh come on! Not you too! Look, we can’t just leave our home in the hands of that monster! Even if it has been blown to smithereens, that’s our home and we have to stop Discord before he hurts anyone else!”
“I just don’t see the point dear.” Regina winced, not wanting her retort to have come across as so insensitive, “I don’t want anyone else to get hurt, but we’re just humans. We don’t have any magical powers or abilities like these ponies do.”
“She’s right Twyla.” Added Rarity, “Not even the Elements of Harmony were enough to stop him. I-I honestly don’t know what’s going to happen next and deep down I’m still worried…”
“Besides…” Regina hesitated and tried her best to choose her next words carefully, “I-I just don’t know if I’d even want to go back, even if things were still okay.”
Twyla quirked in disbelief, “What’re you talking about, Regina? What about your career and all of your life’s work?”
The star sighed and she hid her cerulean eyes away from her friend, “I’m just so sick of all that, not of designing fashion, but of the limelight. I’m so tired of the editorials, the paparazzi, the interviews, the book signings, the shows, the exclusives, the hosting, all of it! It’s all such fake rubbish!” she slammed her fist against the table, knocking over a few more emptied milk tubs, to which Rarity’s heart sank just a bit more, “This is all I’ve ever wanted! To have my talents recognized is one thing, but at least here I have time to create and see my dear friends. I’m not someone’s puppet here, I can do honest good for others. I-I know it may seem-!”
Twyla could barely believe what she was hearing, “Oh! So you’d rather give up your home for some lofty paradise? You’re being selfish, Regina! There are people-!”
“Don’t you dare lecture me!” Regina snapped out of her stool, shifting the table over, “You don’t know what it’s like! At least you still had a social life! No one ever treated you like someone else’s trophy or praised you for your looks rather than your work! Maybe you were used to ‘baby-sitting’ in ‘your’ career but at least you had some god damned privacy-!” she took a hot slap across the face that nearly sent her over the table.
There was no bandage large enough to cover that torn open wound. Twyla had to regain control over her breath just so she could speak again, “It was selfishness like that that got my ‘babies’ taken away from me…” she swept up her book under an elbow and scurried out of the salon before they could catch a wind of her whimpering.
Regina had to calm her nerves and collect herself. She gazed blankly into the empty kitchen around her as Rarity struggled to come up with the right words.
“I-I’m so sorry, Regina, but… I think she’s right.”
The girl tightened her fist and slammed it against the defenseless table once again as a teardrop pooled into a stain of milk below, “I-I know she’s right, I just…” She was living her greatest fantasy, but at what cost? Was it actually worth it to live out your dream, the way you wanted it, all the whole living in fear of what might come tomorrow? Considering all she had lost already, her passion’s tiny scratch of grace at the edge of Ponyville was just tempting enough to hang onto, although it didn’t exactly keep her from wanting to rip her hair out.
Rarity slowly walked over to her and placed a hoof over her lap, “I don’t know how to fix all of this for you, and I certainly don’t know if whatever Twyla’s planning will work, but you can’t live like this, Regina. None of us can. I don’t know what we’ll do if Discord comes back again, but I do know that he will and I don’t think we’ll be so lucky next time.” Rarity turned about and began magically picking up the empty cartons from off of the floor, “We’re powerless against him this time, and well, although Ponyville’s certainly no Canterlot, I simply don’t know what I’d do if anything happened to my home.”
Regina’s expression crumpled and she doubled over onto the counter in ball of silent tears. To think she had lectured Rarity the day before on the topic of ‘friendship’. She couldn’t remember the last time she had felt so ashamed of herself.

“This is gonna’ be so bucking rad!” Rainbow Dash snorted.
“I know right! I can’t believe she’s still asleep!” Gilda was just as excited.
Somehow while in her endless slumber, Raine had been tied up to the top of a flag post. She had become somewhat of a symbol for the party the night before, probably the best human ambassador Ponyville had ever saluted to.
Just before Dash nearly let out a yelp to finally wake up the polecat, Raine began to stir and slowly her groggy eyes lifted. For some reason, the breeze was extra strong today, she hadn’t the slightest idea why, and her ego was especially feeling taller than usual, even amongst the petite ponyfolk.
She attempted to rub the stardust out of her eyes but found that her arm was caught on something. Perhaps her arm was still asleep, but when she turned to investigate all she saw was the avenue fifteen feet below her, “Gah-!” she struggled to free herself but then realized just how much flexibility the flagpole had, “Get me down from here!!”
Both Gilda and Dash tumbled over in a laugh, hardly able to breathe while Raine became the town’s new loudspeaker. Even at the behalf of the girl’s laugh over just how much she struggled to break free and yet keep herself from breaking an ankle on the way down, not a single bystander, not even Gilda or Dash themselves, appeared to notice the faint twinkle between the clouds above.

“You should’ve seen the look on your face! It was priceless!” Dash giggled.
Raine scratched the back of her head, still a tad embarrassed but it was all in good fun. Though she still couldn’t understand how they could’ve gotten her up there in the first place, “Gosh, you guys are killing me over here. That was pretty funny though.” She couldn’t help but laugh a bit at her own expense.
“I know right!” Gilda chuckled, “Hey! By the way, do you two wanna’ grab a bite? I’m starved.”
Raine stretched out her arms, “Breakfast huh? Sounds solid. Uhm, this might sound kind of weird but… Is there any ‘bacon’ around here?”
“Baking? Like, a muffin?” Dash had never heard of such cuisine for obvious reasons.
Gilda rolled her eyes. Griffons were omnivores but she knew better than to mention such a thing around ponyfolk.
The stunt pilot took the hint from Gilda’s expression, “N-Nevermind, yeah let’s go get some… fruits and veggies or something.” Raine’s tummy rumbled. It had been an entire week since she had anything close to a decent burger or at least some chicken nuggets and all the greens were beginning to get to her. Maybe going vegan might’ve suited someone like Fiona but Raine needed her meat.
The trio came around a bend to a familiar little café. It was still somewhat early so the patio remained neat, or would have if not for the restless woman stuffing her yap with a sandwich over a book.
Raine strolled over and sat down along with her two cronies, “Hey there, Twyla. You feeling any better today?”
Twyla groaned, having plastered her face into the bridge of her tome out of sheer aggravation, “I guess, I don’t know, if anything I think I feel even worse!” She lifted her head and wiped away a tear and a leaf of lettuce from her meal, “Oh, hey there Rainbow Dash, and Gilda was it?”
“Yup, you can call me G.”
“Ah, it’s nice to meet you, G. So you’re a griffon?” asked Twyla.
“Yup, part eagle, part lion, and all awesome. Me and Rainbow Dash go way back to our Junior Speedster flight camp. It’s been a while but let me tell you, it sure does feel nice to be back in Ponyville.”
“It’s ‘nice’ to have you back!” Dash threw a hoof around her flight assistant with a cheeky smile, “So Twyla, what kind of book do you have there? You don’t look like you’re having too much fun reading it.”
Twyla sighed and stared down at her open page, “This was one of the books Princess Celestia gave Twilight and I before we left Canterlot. It’s a spell book with some supposedly pretty powerful stuff inside and I think I’ve found a spell that can get us back home, but none of the others seem very interested in going back, especially after what’s happened.”
“Regina filled me in last night. It’s still kind of hard to believe…” Raine added, taking a couple of bites out of Twyla’s sandwich. Don’t blame her, she was hungry and Twyla probably wasn’t going to finish it anyway.
“Well, what did happen?” Gilda prodded.
Twyla hid away a glance, “Something awful, something too terrible for a place like this. Something so horrible that even if you did survive the initial blast… you’d want to be dead anyway.”
Raine scooted over and wrapped an arm around her best friend.
Dash slammed a hoof over the table, “What I wouldn’t give to break that Discord in half! He’s gone too far this time. How could he do such a thing?! It’s too evil, even for him!”
“It wasn’t just him, it was our world doing their best to fight back. I guess they just got desperate and started dropping the bombs early…” Raine had no idea if they were able to evacuate the city in time, but part of her simply didn’t want to know, “But why would you want to go back there anyway? I mean, you probably wouldn’t last very well with all the radiation.”
“Well what else can I do, Raine? I can’t just sit here and do nothing! Besides, how else are we going to stop him?”
“Hey! I was pretty close yesterday.” Raine tried to get a laugh out of the girl, but the timing was awful.
“I think we’re going to need more than just some sneak attack next time.” Dash remarked, “Discord isn’t just any idiot, he’s a smart idiot.”
“I just can’t stand sitting here like this…” Twyla held up her forehead as she gazed down at the text that she had read nearly a dozen times by now, “I’m sorry but I can’t stand the sight of this place anymore, I can’t stand how peaceful it is here. I shouldn’t be living in such a tranquil town while my home is probably still burning. I don’t care if going back kills me, because sitting here in this café doing nothing is killing me already.” The library would never take back such a book with all the craters Twyla’s fist had worn into it, “I just can’t let him get away with this!”
The others were weary of her plan, but couldn’t bring themselves to argue against her resolve.
“You know, Twyla, to be honest, I actually really like it here.” Raine began the same shtick Twyla had heard all morning, “And I-”
“Oh, just save it! I’ve heard it enough times today already!” Twyla attempted to leave the table, but was restrained by a strong grip.
“No, wait! Hear me out. Look, I don’t know how much you remember about my races or my fights, but I’ve never been that great at either. The truth is that I’ve never won a single race or match… ever. I hardly ever made anything off of that stuff. I was barely scratching by as it was just to feed myself with what I could afford. I’m sorry if I ever lied about that stuff, but I was too embarrassed to admit just how much of a failure I’d become.” It was advice she had spent the previous day giving Gilda, and it was time for her to take her own medicine, “At least here I don’t have to worry about that though, I don’t have to worry about getting kicked out of my efficiency this month or whether or not I’ll be able to eat tomorrow. At least here I can be a failure in peace, blissfully ignorant peace.” Raine turned back to face her friend, “But you know what? As much as I’d like to just sit here and hope for the best, I can’t very well let you go back by yourself. I might have less than nothing back home, but I’d have even less here if you left me, Twyla. You’re one of my best friends and I don’t know what I’d do if I ever lost you…”
Those simple words were enough to drive a silly smile over Twyla’s face, “Oh, Raine. How could you ever call yourself a failure?”
“Well, I mean, I haven’t exactly done a lot with my life…” Raine began.
“Who cares? Haven’t you ever seen ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’? No one’s a failure if they have friends, Raine.”
Gilda and Dash couldn’t hold back their peachy smirks as the girl leapt up and gave Twyla a tight hug, “You’re the best...!”
“Oh, cut it out, you! Now come on, we should probably find Twilight Sparkle right away. She’ll know what to do.” Twyla turned to the blue Pegasus, “Rainbow, would you mind grabbing the others and telling them to meet us at Twilight’s library as soon as possible?”
“Sure thing! We’ll go right away.”
“Thanks a bunch! It was nice seeing you two, we’ll catch up again later.” And with a nod, the two ladies were off to hopefully go bake up a portal.

There was really no apparent threat against Ponyville, at least yet anyway. The skies were clear regardless of Rainbow Dash’s attention to detail and a happy sun had risen to raise the spirits of all the little ponies in town, though none of this would’ve reassured Twyla’s wild paranoia.
“Do we really have to run? I don’t see the rush, Twyla.” Raine easily kept up her jog with the teacher. She wondered just how many months had gone by since Twyla had gotten any exercise at all.
Not surprisingly, Twyla was running as fast as she could and probably putting her heart through all manner of hell in the process. She had to adjust her stride simply to respond, “H-Have you not been paying attention… lately…?!”
Raine sighed with a crinkled look on her face, mostly grumpy due her hunger. A ‘grass sandwich’ was not what she had pictured under the term ‘a bite to eat’.
“If we can make it to Twilight’s library, I just know she’ll be able to think up something with this spell!” Twyla bumped her shin into an ottoman shaped just like Twilight Sparkle and sent herself flying face first into the ground, somehow managing to pull Raine along for the ride.
Twyla curled in pain over her knee as Raine lay over the miserable girl shaking her head.
“Out of shape and completely uncoordinated. Tsk, tsk, tsk.” She mocked.
“Oh swivel on it, Raine!” Twyla threw the weight coach off and turned to a Twilight Sparkle who had barely noticed the incident, “There you are Twilight! I’ve been looking all over for you. I think I’ve found a way that my friends and I can get home and hopefully put a stop to Discord’s tricks once and for all.” She then realized the unicorn was far too preoccupied with something in the far off distance, “Is everything alright, Twilight?”
“Oh, uh, yeah, I was actually looking for you as well. Good thing we bumped into each other.” The pony couldn’t take her eyes off of the object and began trotting back to her cottage, “Come with me a second, I need to check something out at my library.”
Twyla glanced over at Raine for an answer but only received a blank shrug. She sighed and finally submitted into following the unicorn home.

Twyla had gotten used to ducking in through the tiny library doorway but Raine had to make the extra effort.
“As long as I’ve been studying astronomy, I’ve never seen anything at that point of the sky at this time of day.” Twilight galloped up the stairs and out onto the balcony to her armature observatory. She magicked her telescope, adjusting for height and point, and aimed it at where she thought she had seen the anomaly.
“What’re you talking about, Twilight?” Twyla perched over to get an idea of just what the unicorn was going on about. She had to contain her giggles over the tiny telescope Twilight was operating, it was actually rather adorable up close, “Just what’re you looking at? You know it’s the middle of the day right?”
“I know what time it is and I know how to operate a telescope!” Twilight blistered, still searching for the object.
“I can’t take this anymore!” Spike leapt out of his bed, taking his pillow in one arm and his blanket in the other, “I’ll be out on a branch if you guys need to wake me up again.”
The hissy fit hadn’t helped Twyla contain her snorts while Twilight simply sighed and returned to her day watching, “Ah! There it is!”
“Where’s what?” Raine hadn’t been to a Discovery Zone since preschool, so she really had to work her way up the stairwell to get up to the balcony, “Are you guys seriously using a telescope? You dorks know it’s the middle of the day right?”
“That’s what I said! I mean, it’s at least four hours before you can even see Venus at this time of the year.”
Twilight groaned and nearly shoved the eyepiece into Twyla’s socket, “Just look for yourself! Doesn’t that look odd?”
She had to adjust her vision a bit, but lined up in the lens was the clear brightly lit silhouette of a capital ‘H’.
“I’ve never seen anything like that before. It’s either incredibly massive or it’s entering the atmosphere.” Twilight gulped, “I have a bad feeling about-”
“What the hell?!” Twyla blurted out.
“What happened?” prodded the unicorn.
Raine hunched over, scratching her noggin over the ‘science’ at play, “Spit it out already!”
Twyla turned to the two eagerly awaiting an explanation, “It’s the god damned International Space Station!”
“Huh?” the spectators quirked their heads.
“The what now…?” Twilight had heard the words ‘space’ and ‘station’ and simply couldn’t register the thought.
“It’s a station… in space! Duh!” Raine rolled her eyes, actually expecting the pony to grasp the concept.
“You mean… humans actually live in space…?”
“Not exactly, more of a select few scientists that have been chosen to study the environment out in space as well as study the Earth from beyond the stratosphere. When I was younger, I used to go out to stargaze at night with my telescope and get beautiful sneak peeks of the constellations and planets, but as a tradition, I always began at the ISS, erm, the International Space Station.”
“It was so boring!” Raine had only ever tagged along for the midnight barbeques.
“But just what the heck is it doing in this universe?!” Twyla could hardly keep her eye off the lens cap, “I hope they’re okay up there, good thing they just got supplies a few weeks ago. I guess the wrinkles in space-time are starting to bring in all sorts of things.”
“So, uhm, I don’t mean to interrupt because I know this is very serious, but I’m still trying to wrap my horn around you humans going off into space. You guys never told me you’d been in space before...”
“Well not us, at least not yet.” Raine assured, “You have to be pretty awesome to be sent off into space, I mean, we humans do want to leave a pretty good impression on the rest of the universe, so they only send off the coolest people they can find.” she forced a yawn, "Yeah, we've pretty much explored our entire galaxy already."
“Shut up, no we haven’t.”
“Hey, I’m just trying to make us look good in front of the ponies, alright?”
Twilight could hardly hold back her excitement, let alone her list of questions, “That’s so amazing though! I mean-!”
“It certainly is, isn’t it?” a large fly entered the room through the opened balcony, “Humans certainly are curious creatures, aren’t they Twyla?” As insignificant as the insect was, not a soul there could mistake the aberration, especially those demonic harlequin fetus eyes of his.
“Fitting costume, Discord. Mind if I squash you?” at the earliest opportunity, Raine swatted her hand to kill the pest, but her attacks simply faded through the bug, “Oh, come on. Not this crap again.”
“Oh yes, the beauty of metaphysics. When will you puny humans ever catch up with the times?” the pint sized Discord cackled “No one’s wasting their time with dinky space stations anymore, it’s all about sub-light travel these days.”
“So it was you that brought them here! What? An entire city wasn’t enough for you?” Twyla wanted to crush the little insect under the sole of her shoe.
Twilight charged her horn and attempted to restrain the diminutive demon, but her magic was no match for quantum light, “What’re you planning, Discord? Your grudge is with us, remember? Don’t involve them!”
Discord playfully buzzed around the girls, “Oh, but you see, it’s far too late for that. They’ve already gone and caught themselves in my little web.”
“That doesn’t even make sense, Discord. You’re a fly, not an arachnid. They’re not even part of the same class.” Twyla was clearly the expert here.
Discord pretended not to hear the nature lecture, “Anyway! To answer your question, yes I brought them here through one of those pesky wrinkles in time-space. I’ve been dodging cabooses and carriages back in your world and I felt it was only fair for me to give something back.” He chuckled under his breath.
“And what’s that supposed to mean?” charged Raine.
“Really? Do I really need to explain the subtext here?” the demon sighed, “Alright, fine. It’s very simple my little pets. I’ve dragged over your precious little eye in the sky up there as my parting gift to Ponyville. It’ll probably arrive by tomorrow in a spectacular splash of fire and mayhem! Oh it’ll be wonderful!”
“What?!”
He had a jolly good laugh over their combined reactions, “Although, I didn’t just bring them here without a catch of course.” The insect fluttered about Twyla’s head like, well, a pesky insect, “As I’m sure the lot of you has figured out, time-space has begun to fold between these two parallel worlds. Objects and entire structures alike being exchanged between universes at random blips in time! Magical isn’t it? However, the table remains open! Nothing’s been taken from your world as of yet in this transaction.”
“So what’re you implying?” the teacher wagered, “Is this an invitation?”
“Astute as always, my dear.” Discord pattered her head with his tiny forelimbs, to which Twyla scurried away in disgust, “Somewhere up in the heavens above lies that same tear in the fabric of time-space. If you can reach it, the exchange will be even, and you’ll be able to return home. However, the portal will close the moment the space station hits the ground, and instead of the six of you, something else will be taken out of this world.” It was quite the juicy detail, or so he thought anyway.
“What kind of stupid exchange is that? We already know what you’ve done to New York. We’ll just die with all the radiation that’s still there. We might as well just stay here and save Ponyville along with those astronauts!” even Raine was clever enough to see through the ruse.
“Oh, don’t worry, I used my powers to scrub out all the radiation long ago, almost immediately after the bombs fell. What? You didn’t expect me to sully this beautiful mane of mines?”
“Humans don’t have manes, you idiot.” Twilight pointed out.
“Oh whatever! I still look gorgeous, even as a repulsive fly! Anywho, the door remains open, for now anyway. You want to come back home? You want it back so badly? Then come and take it back from me! Show me just how much you’re willing to sacrifice in order to return to your world!”
“Why you little-!” Raine would’ve mashed the demon into a faceless glob of goo ten times over by now had Discord not remained in constant violation of the natural laws.
“Oh! And one more thing. Before you get started on your Babeling little tower, you may want to take care of what’s entering your foyer at the moment, Twilight Sparkle.” And with a stifled laugh, Discord vanished yet again before their very eyes.

“What the heck was that supposed to mean?” Raine probably should’ve imagined the worst.
Twilight certainly did, and the sudden clamoring against her front entrance downstairs certainly hadn’t improved her hopes very much either.
“I-I’ve got a bad feeling about-” Twyla held her precious book tightly as a loud crash finally threw the door open. They could see four tall shadows casting themselves against the steps and onto the wall of the arching stairwell. Their movements were careful and calculated as the silhouettes appeared to inspect every inch of the unicorn’s living room.
Twyla silently waved them both away from the top of the staircase.
Raine was suddenly all too frightened to question her judgment.
Twilight trembled back against Twyla’s leg, “W-What the heck are those…?”
It was the only hint the figures needed apparently, as each of them immediately snapped to attention and rampaged towards the staircase in a gnarled flurry of grunts, moans and screams.
“Barricade the door!!” Twyla had hoped her years of survival planning for a zombie apocalypse would’ve paid off.
The last thing they saw were the gaunted and contorted blood thirsty faces of Piper, Aprile, Regina and even the timid Fiona before the door slammed under Twyla and Raine’s combined desperation. The unicorn was doing all she could to help hold down the shuddering door with her magic. It pounded and railed under the weight of the ghoulish invaders as their moans begged to be let in.
“Were those who I think they were!?” Raine shouted, still in disbelief as she shoved her entire body up against the door, “Just what did he do to them…!?”
“Just hold onto it for a sec!” Twyla grabbed the nearest thing she could find, which unfortunately for the cottage’s resident was the elfin bed at the center of the room. She threw off the sheets and pillows as quickly as she could and wedged it against the door.
“Hey-!”
“Not the best time to argue with me!” Twyla began grabbing any and all objects in the room that she could find and piled them up atop the bed, the more weight the better. She piled up almost every book in the room, anything she could find, even that gaudy royal case of the Elements found itself stacked up. Even Twilight’s beloved telescope would have to lend a hand and eventually Twyla herself backed herself into the fortification.
“Just what in Equestria is wrong with them?!” Twilight cried, pausing from her magic to throw herself against the barrier.
Twyla had expected the worst, but this was far beyond anything she could’ve imagined, “Shut the window!”
“A-Alright-!”
“I said shut the window!!” her terror pleaded under the banshee screams and otherworldly howls coming from behind the door.
Without another word, Twilight snapped her windows shut and even locked them with her sorcery, “This is awful! I’m afraid Discord’s corrupted your friends as he did with Ditzy, b-but they seem so… different. Almost deranged! This isn’t at all like his normal distortions.”
Raine wasn’t sure if she should’ve been happy for their lack of zombie outbreaks in Equestria, or downright frustrated with their lack of preparation for such an event. All she knew at that very moment was to shove every ounce of effort she had against that thrashing door.
“They won’t just make fun of you if they get in here, they’ll eat you alive and kill you. He’s turned them into… into zombies!” There wasn’t even enough time to grief. Grief would’ve gotten you killed here, but that didn’t stop her from shedding a few anxious tears anyway.
“Z-Zombies?!” cried Twilight.
She was at a loss for words. Twyla wasn’t sure what was worse, her lack of preparation and imminent doom or losing her friends to the gambit. She was hoping Twilight’s ‘friendship spell’ or at least the useless Elements of Harmony would be enough to bring them back from the dead. She had to keep reminding herself that everything would be okay somehow just to preserve her sanity. She had already lost full control of her emotions so her wits might’ve been all she had left. She could barely think under the hammering screams behind them.
It was all just happening too fast, too far ahead of her years of apocalypse planning to counter. There wasn’t any mass media suppression or even a chance to buy up a shotgun. There would never have been enough time to survive a zombie attack, and at the same time save the zombies from themselves, the idea was simply unheard of but the thought of having to put them down couldn’t register. The more she thought about it, the more she could slowly feel her mind losing the battle against her worst nightmares.
“Keep it together, Twyla! We’re gonna’ need you for this!” Raine shouted under the shrieks.
Twilight stared up at her big sister. She had no experience in the field and searched for an answer in the girl’s uneasy quivering eyes.
She felt as if she about to throw up, but Twyla swallowed down her fright and gave her cheeks a few slaps, “Keep it together, girl.” She repeated to herself a few times. She had to work with the hand she had been given if everyone was going to get out of this in one piece. A book, a magical firecracker, and a mixed martial arts fighter were all she had at her disposal, but it would have to do.
There was no easy way around it this time. Years of Left 4 Dead and zombie horror movies had prepared Twyla for the very worst, maybe not to this extent, but it was a decent tutorial. There was only one way to save this party, and one way or another, it involved opening that horrible door.