//------------------------------//
// 7 - Teleporter 
// Story: Starlight, Star Bright 
// by BlackWater 
//------------------------------//








Twilight Sparkle did take some time in finding the key. It was indeed where she believed it to be, but Starswirl must have left it out of the keybox by mistake because it had been half hidden beneath a bag of flour. Starlight, who was next to her, couldn’t help but comment.
“I expected it to look like some kind of magical relic.”
Twilight frowned. “Starswirl was always for function over form. The most decorated relics he had were made by others. Maybe if he had Rarity as an assistant it would look like something more important than a simple door key.”
“You’re assuming that is the key to the teleporter, right?” Starlight quickly picked up on the possible issue.
“Nothing else we’ve found in the city requires a key,” Twilight justified and waved the simple rusty key in the air with her magic.
“There has to be-”
Starlight’s words were interrupted when a sickly green magic aura snatched the key from Twilight’s own magical grip.
“I have what I sought,” Chrysalis exclaimed in that disturbing joy she had expressed back when she thought she had won Canterlot. “Excuse me if I don’t care to waste time with your chit chat.”
Without a goodbye, the changeling zipped out of the storage hangar on her buzzing wings.
“Uh...” Starlight grimaced.
“Great,” Twilight deadpanned.
“Don’t we need to stop her?”
The alicorn stood tall and brightened up, though. “Not really. I mean, it’s not like she even knows how to work the teleporter. And if she tries using it without the proper calibrations...I’m sure some planet somewhere won’t notice the splat.”
“Wow,” Starlight’s eyes widened. “And I thought I was dark.”
“You have no idea what she did to my family,” Twilight frowned again for a moment and then turned it into a smile. She drew up a scroll from behind her and opened it for Starlight to read. “I made sure she didn’t notice what I found next to the key – fully beneath the bag.”
“Note to self,” Starlight read aloud. “Generators 5-6 are acting up again. I suspect a faulty internal transformer array but do not have the time to address it. My timed emergency kickstart spells can power the Star for single trips. Perhaps I’ll have it fixed if I can ever convince Celestia to send support personnel into the city.”
“So she’s not going anywhere without us to jump the generators,” Twilight smirked and gave a “heh” of satisfaction.
Starlight would be lying to herself if she said she didn’t enjoy her marefriend’s haughty disposition. “You are one clever mare.”
“Look who’s talking,” Twilight gave the unicorn a knowing look. “I trust you’ve been scheming behind my back? Maybe planning to tie me up…?”
“Oh, I see how it is,” Starlight fluttered her eyes in response. “I confirm Spike’s safety and now you’re relaxed enough to flirt with me. I’m a little surprised actually that Chrysalis doesn’t worry you as much.”
“I was worried at first,” Twilight admitted as she began leading her mare out of the massive storage hangar and towards the tower. “But I was able to piece together that she is alone. Her hive is not with her. And she doesn’t have much magical power right now.”
“She’s bluffing and can’t really take us on,” Starlight realized.
“Why else would she come up with some absurd plan of manipulation to get ponies here to do things for her? She’s desperate,” Twilight concluded as their hooves clacked against the city road again. “She must have found out about easier targets on another world where she can regain her strength.”
“And we’re not going to let her?” Starlight guessed.
“Nope,” Twilight stated with a fake deadpan and a hidden note of glee.
“So we...what? Send her to Tartarus?” Starlight asked. It was less to her own desires than simple curiosity as to what Twilight would choose.
The purple pony gave a “hmmm” before rejecting the idea. “She’d just die there. No, we need a proper place for her. It just so happens that Celestia wrote to me last week about a special...room.”
Their walk was as boring as ever due to the rusty metal of the empty science city. However, tendrils of purple light were slithering through the red sky. Not knowing the scientific explanation for it but also knowing that there was one made Starlight appreciate the natural beauty of it. The scene went well with the colors of her special somepony.
“For changeling detention?” Starlight guessed again.
They had just come up to the entrance of the tower and rather than walk through the few rooms before the tower’s center, Twilight simply teleported them in. Starlight blinked herself into equilibrium, having had no warning but managing to recover quickly. Twilight got back to the magical screens and began searching for Ruby.
“So do we get a vacation after this?” Starlight walked up to Twilight and hung herself over the mare’s back.
Twilight rolled her eyes but didn’t complain. “Why so eager? This trip has been relatively short. And there’s a lot to learn here.”
“It will be easy to travel here whenever we want,” Starlight added to the observations while massaging Twilight’s shoulders. “Plus, we haven’t tried even half the things in that naughty diary of yours.”
That finally made Twilight pause for a moment and blush. She started working even faster to distract herself, though.
Starlight got back off of her and gave the purple pony princess a plea with puppy dog eyes.
“Fine,” Twilight relented. “But after we get back to Ponyville. I imagine we’ll wind up in Maredina for a few more days.”
Any further conversation was halted by a horrendous scream of rage. Both mares looked towards the doorway that led out of the room and beheld a very flustered looking changeling queen.
“You lied!” the tall shape-shifter shouted.
“I don’t recall promising anything,” Twilight feigned neutrality. “What I do remember is you grabbing the key and flying off.”
“You’ll get it working or I’ll-”
“Calm yourself,” Twilight interjected. “I think I know what the problem is and we’ll help you get the teleporter powered.”
“You’d better!” Chrysalis gnashed her teeth. She was unsure where to go with her rage without tipping her hole-ridden hoof.
Twilight bit her lip to contain her annoyance. It would be over soon, she kept telling herself. And truly she had nothing to fear from the bug-like being. Even if she might be in danger alone, Starlight was with her. She may have only given the mare carefully-worded praise, but she often wondered if a properly trained Starlight could surpass her in power.
Starlight was, in fact, literally ahead of her now that she was leading the way out of the tower. Twilight noted the position of Ruby on the screens before trotting after her marefriend. “She’s locked herself in Rations Office 5,” Twilight explained to the unicorn. “She’ll be there after we’re done with the generators.”
“Good,” Starlight concluded simply. “How’d Chrysalis even rope her into this?”
“Transform into a life-long crush and bait her with promises of true love?” Chrysalis offered with a sickening cackle of amusement. “Where love and greed intersect lies opportunity.”
“Says a changeling,” Twilight muttered under her breath.
As they once more stepped onto the growing-to-be-familiar drab city road, Starlight couldn’t help but question. “Did you mean to get specifically us here?”
They turned around a city block corner and Chrysalis gave a snort of disgust. “You two would be the last I’d intentionally plan to get here. All I did was get Ruby to do the work for me. How she did it was none of my concern. Now I see it should have been if only to rid myself of such an infuriating reunion.”
“It’s mutual,” Twilight deadpanned.
Out of a certain lack of conversational mood, few words were had between there and the Star Teleporter. Twilight had Chrysalis give directions a few times since her mind was struggling to keep up with all the information she was trying to remember about the city. When they arrived at the site, it was little more than what any pony might expect of a mass teleportation device.
A raised platform stood in the center of a city intersection. A myriad of stars were emblazoned on the platform in a circular fashion, growing more dense towards the center. A conspicuous control panel was situated on one street platform away from the teleportation ring. Twilight went there and confirmed the blinking lights upon it.
“Yes,” she nodded to herself. Various readouts indicated the set destination and the machine’s current status. “The power generators must be nearby.”
“Follow the conduits?” Starlight suggested as her forehoof pointed to the thick cables running from the platform, down a street, and into another hangar-like structure.
Twilight agreed and then looked to the changeling, who was hovering over them like a menace. “Once we jump start the power, it should activate and teleport you to the set destination. Get on the platform and we’ll do the rest.”
Not feeling naive, Chrysalis double-checked the control display after the mares headed down the street to the open power building. Her world destination was still set: a place of meek beings easy to steal love from without the threat of resistance – according to Starswirl anyways. Content with her chances of accomplishing her objective, she hovered up to the platform’s circle and fell with a clack onto the exact center.
Meanwhile, Twilight and Starlight were just entering the generator building and taking inventory of how it was designed. Twilight followed the control cables to the consoles near the door and Starlight inspected the generator array that stretched towards the back of the massive hangar-like room. She used a short-range communication spell to more easily talk to Twilight as they went opposite ways.
“I’m seeing dead leads from generators 5 and 6,” Starlight’s voice sounded in Twilight’s mind.
“Just like Starswirl mentioned. And where did you learn this spell?” Twilight responded with a suspicious tone.
“You mentioned it in one of your secret diary fantasies, remember?” Starlight replied with a sultry inflection just to play with her marefriend.
“How much did you read?” Twilight shook her head and continued looking over the generator readouts. Both 5 and 6 had flashing yellow lights indicating a ready start sequence.
“Up until the latest entry,” Starlight recalled. She walked down the aisle between generator 5 and 6 and readied her electrical discharge spell. “You know. The one where you capture me in the caves outside my old town and tie me up before-”
“Okay!” Twilight interrupted. “You don’t need to spell it out.”
“But it’s not like anypony is going to overhear us,” Starlight would have winked at the mare if they were face-to-face. “So what’s the plan?”
“For Chrysalis?”
“Obviously.”
Twilight hummed and then gave an “aha” of discovery. “The control panel back at the teleporter was just a forward terminal. The actual targeting system is here, which means...”
“If you do anything, she’ll see it on the screen right?” Starlight warned.
“Not if I splice in a dummy connection spell and then change the real one,” the alicorn replied smartly.
Starlight paused in her magic charging and blinked. “You can do that?”
“It’s magic. And besides,” Twilight stuck her tongue out even though Starlight couldn’t see it, “I could ask the same about your modification of the sensor tower.”
“Not the first time I’ve modified Starswirl’s work,” Starlight shrugged. “So what’s the target? That room you mentioned?”
Twilight tapped her chin in thought. “Yes. Seems best. Maybe Chrysalis will turn around someday. How are those generators coming along?”
Starlight closed her eyes in concentration. Her body began to lift from the ground as her magical aura surrounded her body and pulsed with a heavy thrum. Her mane and tail began to billow with the beat of it. “Ready to start on your command.”
“I love you,” Twilight decided to say.
Even her close friends didn’t have the ability to handle such magically intense situations. Truly nopony else in Equestria could for that matter – save for the other alicorns. Starlight’s ability made her the only pony she knew of that could relate to her on such matters and her reliability became more clear with each passing day.
Once the new destination was set on the master control panel, she gave the order.
“Power on!”