DISCLAIMER: I do not own Star Wars Rebels or Friendship is Magic. That would be Lucasfilm/Disney and Hasbro, respectively.
In the deepest dark of space, several TIE fighters converged on a solitary craft that was trying to evade a menacing Star Destroyer. Shots were exchanged as the ship maneuvered its way through the flurry of gunfire to get its crew to safety without getting damaged. In other words, a typical day for the Ghost rebel cell.
"Hera!” yelled Kanan Jarrus, a twenty-eight-year-old human male who was the leader of the team. “I'd appreciate it if you could find an opening!"
"Buy me some time, love!” yelled Hera. “Zeb! Ezra! Man the backward gun!"
"Karabast,” muttered Garazeb Orrelios, a Lasat warrior. “Come on, kid.” He and Ezra, a blue-haired teenage Padawan from Lothal, went to the Phantom and started firing the gun at the incoming TIEs. Meanwhile, Sabine Wren, a sixteen-year-old Mandalorian artist, went with the astromech C1-10P, aka Chopper, to the main engine room to fix the shield and communications.
"Ghost to Phoenix Squadron,” Hera spoke through a communicator. “We're kinda busy at the moment but we will meet you in a safe haven."
"Acknowledged, Ghost,” came Commander Sato's voice. “We will be waiting for you."
Meanwhile aboard the Star Destroyer, the Grand Inquisitor stared very intently at the Ghost. What move would the Jedi and his Padawan make next?
“All guns, focus fire on their fuel tanks,” he commanded in a cold voice devoid of any compassion. The Star Destroyer focused its forward firepower on the Phantom.
"Hera?” Ezra Bridger called nervously. “Where is that opening?"
"Found one!” yelled Hera. She flipped some controls and the Ghost began its jump to lightspeed. Unfortunately, a shot from the Star Destroyer's ion laser hit the back of the ship at the moment, damaging the hyperdrive so that it went too fast, even for lightspeed standards. Out of the corner of her eye, Sabine noticed a wormhole open up right in front of them.
"We're about to enter a -” she started, but it was too late. The Ghost entered the wormhole and started spinning out of control. Ezra, desperately holding onto a railing for support, felt as though he were being separated into blobs of putty and then reassembled.
Meanwhile, on board the Star Destroyer, one of the officers said five words that he knew the Inquisitor would not want to hear.
"The Jedi have escaped, sir."
The Inquisitor scowled, furious that his prey has escaped.
---------------------------
“Ezra?”
Hera’s voice called out to him. Ezra did not respond.
“Ezra, are you okay?”
Ezra groaned. He opened his eyes groggily to see that Chopper landed right on top of him. Surprised, he got up and shoved Chopper off him. Chopper warbled a growl, evidently displeased that he ended up on him, and sent an electric shock headed his way.
“Ow! Hey!” Ezra yelled. Chopper giggled.
“Kid, enough fooling around,” Kanan called. “Sabine, how is the Ghost?”
“Well, we are in a better condition than it is,” Sabine replied. “I just ran a diagnostic. Even though the exterior is in one piece, we are going to be stuck here until we can get the main engine fixed.”
“That’s just brilliant,” snarled Zeb. “Are you saying we won’t go anywhere?”
“Not for a while,” Sabine confirmed.
“Great,” Zeb groaned. “Now we’ll be stuck here, without any help, in the middle of wherever here is!”
“Where is here, exactly?” Ezra asked. He opened the door of the cargo bay. And what met his eyes next overwhelmed him.
The Ghost had crashed in the middle of a field. To the far right, a dark forest towered over them like the Imperial buildings on Lothal. Nearby, a winding, snaking river flowed as rapid as a Loth-cat. But the weirdest part was the population. As far as he could see, Ezra saw horses of every size and color walking about, most of them with weird symbols on their back legs. It was apparent that he and the rest of the crew were the only bipedal creatures around.
“Where- where are we?” he asked.
“I don’t know exactly,” Kanan answered uneasily. “We’ll see if we can find some help. And keep your weapons handy. I got a bad feeling about this,” he added, checking to make sure both his lightsaber and blaster were handy.
-----------------------------------
The loud noise had woken Rainbow Dash from her usual afternoon slumber. She could see a large cloud of smoke coming up from somewhere in the field. As always, Rainbow’s first instinct, being the daredevil that she was, was to check the site out for herself.
When she arrived, she was surprised to see an orange and grey spaceship, which had to be as big as Canterlot, lying nose-first in the dirt. One of the doors was opened, possibly by force. Rainbow, too fascinated to think of anything else, dashed inside.
She saw arrays of computer terminals whirring and beeping to life, the stuff that she knew that her friend Twilight would have gone gaga over. She walked on farther down and saw four rooms with unoccupied beds, one of which had colorful artwork all over the front door, which she found rather impressive. But the weirdest sight of all had to be the six mysterious figures she saw walking away from the cruiser.
Are my eyes deceiving me? Rainbow asked herself, eyeing the mysterious green creature with two tentacle-like extensions coming out of the back of its head. She also got an eyeful of a . . . purple haired creature with something on its back? And what exactly was that short orange thing?
“This is too weird,” she said to herself. “I need to find out who these people are. And hopefully Twilight will be able to clear this all up.”
Ezra was getting nervous. He had never felt like an outsider before, and that was excluding all the time he had been on his own on Lothal. With each passing minute, he could feel that he and his friends were drawing more and more unwanted attention to themselves. Sure enough, some of the locals were throwing looks of mingled curiosity and fear their way. A few of them were whispering, muttering, muttering about them, perhaps? His hands automatically went to his lightsaber-stun blaster, but Kanan placed a hand on his back, and he knew that now was not the time to use it. He closed his eyes, and tried to tap into the Force, but for some reason, this place was not as strong with it as Lothal was.
“Hera?” he asked nervously. “Where are we, exactly?”
“I don’t know,” Hera answered with a distinct unease, eyeing the horses around them curiously. “Let’s just find someone who can help us fix our engines. Then we can leave.”
“The question is, can someone help us?” Sabine asked, twirling her blasters. “We seem to have jumped back way into the past.” She motioned toward the horses carrying carts everywhere. Some of them had weird pointy things sticking out of their heads. A few others had wings sprouting from their backs. One thing that most of them had in common, however, is that they had weird pictures of everyday objects on their hind legs.
“I dunno,” answered Zeb sarcastically. “S’pose we can try asking someone around?”
“It’s worth a shot,” Ezra replied. “As long as you don’t try to scare anybody around here. Remember what happened back on Lando’s farm?”
“I . . . wha . . . it was not my fault!” protested Zeb.
“It’s your face’s fault,” replied Ezra smugly.
Zeb growled in anger. “Kid . . .”
“Enough, both of you,” Hera interrupted. “We need to keep walking.”
So they kept going through the town, hoping to find someone who looked like they would have at least some idea of how to fix a starship engine. But as time passed, the town grew less and less crowded, and the Ghost crew’s hopes faded and faded.
“Well, this was a waste of time,” Ezra grumbled as they reached the outskirts of a city called Ponyville.
“If you ask me, this whole place is a giant riddle.”
“If it’s a riddle,” Zeb asked, “what’s the question?”
Ezra smiled mischievously. “Why is Zeb acting like such a . . . WHOA, GET DOWN!” he yelled as a sky blue blur dove straight down from the sky at them. Instinctively, the Ghost team, save for Chopper, sprawled onto the ground. The blur did a few loop-de-loops before stopping in midair to reveal a sky blue winged horse with violet eyes and a rainbow colored mane and tail. Both Ezra and Kanan got up turned their lightsabers on, preparing to defend themselves from the winged creature. Hera and Sabine, meanwhile, drew out their blasters (Zeb took his Bo-Rifle out and turned it into a rifle). Even Chopper got in on the act, activating his electric shocker.
“Well,” the blue winged horse started, “I have seen a lot of strange things all over Equestria, but out of all of them, you guys definitely take the cake.”
“Karabast! Are you saying that I am strange?!” roared Zeb, aiming his Bo-Rifle at the winged horse.
“All of you are,” the horse retorted. “And what in Celestia’s name are those things?” It motioned to Ezra and Kanan’s lightsabers.
“None of your business,” snapped Ezra. “We are in need of some assistance, in case you have not noticed!”
“Yes, we are,” Hera affirmed. “Our ship has crashed in the middle of the field and we need some assistance fixing both our hyperdrive and engine.”
“Huh,” the horse said. “I did not understand what you just said. Fortunately, my friend Twilight Sparkle may be of some help to you.” It did a few loop-de-loops in midair. “My name is Rainbow Dash. Who are you?”
“My name is Jabba. Jabba the Hutt,” snarked Ezra, who found the horse’s name to be truly ridiculous. He pointed to each of the members in turn. “And these are Kanan, Hera, Sabine, Chopper, and Zeb. Where are we, anyway?”
Rainbow raised an eyebrow, clearly amused. “Well, Jabba, you and your friends are in the land of Equestria. Ponyville, if you want to be more specific.”
“Ponyville?” Ezra asked Kanan, who shook his head and said, “Kid, don’t ask. I have never heard of that place.”
“Of course you wouldn’t,” Rainbow Dash replied. “You are evidently not from here, judging by the fact that you all aren’t ponies.”
“This . . . Twilight Sparkle, I take it she can fix our ship?” Kanan asked.
“Well, she is the most eggheaded pony I know, so she has a better chance of solving your problem than I do,” Rainbow replied. “Want me to show you the way to her place?”
“Thanks, but no,” Zeb replied gruffly. “We’ll take our chances on our own.”
“Are you sure?” Rainbow asked. “It’s almost sundown, and almost nopony else is out in the streets at this time.”
“Nopony?” questioned Ezra, who found the word very unusual.
“And this will be okay with Twilight somehow? She won’t be upset with us just going into her house like that?” asked Sabine.
“Nah, I am sure she’ll be okay,” Rainbow dismissed her concerns. “Follow me.”
--------------------------
Twilight was exhausted. She and her assistant Spike had just spent the entire day alternating between reorganizing the entire library and trying to deal with the damage Discord had given her. She sighed, longing to hope for things to return to normal, yet knowing that the possibility was, at best, a distant one. The last thing she wanted was for any anomaly to happen.
As always, it was too soon for her to say that.
A loud knock came from the front door, followed by a familiar voice. “Hey Twilight! It’s me, Dashie!”
Twilight opened the door. She was always happy to see her best friend, but she was definitely not ready to meet the strangers who followed her into the library.
After Rainbow Dash flew in, five of the strangest creatures, who Twilight had never seen before in her life, entered. Except for a small orange thing that rolled around on wheels, the strangers all walked on their back legs. But what struck Twilight as really weird was that two of the newcomers were unlike the others: one of them was a weird purple creature in a green uniform with fur on its face and something long strapped to its back. The other was a tall, slender, green-skinned woman in a brown-and-orange pilot’s uniform who had goggles on her forehead and two long green extensions coming out of her back. The other three creatures were all decked in the strangest sorts of clothes that Twilight had ever seen in her life.
“Um, Dash?” she finally managed to ask. “Who . . . who are these guys?”
“Strangers from . . . out of town. Their ship crashed near the Everfree forest,” Dash answered. She pointed to each of the strangers in turn. “Say hello to Kanan, Sabine, Zeb, Chopper, Hera, and Jabba.”
The robot named Chopper warbled.
“And I take your name is Twilight Sparkle?” the girl named Sabine asked.
Twilight sighed. “Yes, it is, but what is it that you ask of me?”
“As your flying horse friend just said, our ship crashed and we were under the impression that you would be able to help us,” Ezra explained.
“I am a Pegasus, thank you very much!” Rainbow exclaimed.
“Yes, thank you for the completely unnecessary and redundant rehashing of what she just said, Ezra,” the creature called Zeb snapped.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Rainbow interrupted, pointing an accusing hoof at Ezra. “Your name is Ezra? You said your name was Jabba!” Ezra sighed and facepalmed, clearly frustrated by the creature’s inability to understand his sarcasm.
The situation also seemed to be getting on Twilight’s nerves as well. “Look, can somepony, anypony, please tell me what in Faust’s name is going on?”
“Somepony?” questioned Zeb. “Karabast! What’s with the vocabulary around here?”
“Karabast, karabast! What does that word even mean?” Rainbow Dash yelled in annoyance.
“It means right now, there are gonna be some fists flying if you don’t explain what is going on here!” retorted Zeb.
“Can this situation get any more awkward?” lamented Ezra.
As if to answer his question, some new voices came out of the blue.
“Honestly, Pinkie Pie, you need to be a bit more careful-“
“It wasn’t my fault, Rarity-“
“Actually, I think Rarity’s right-“
“Listen to yerselves, y’all are acting like a bunch of fillies now- Howdy, who are ya and what are y’all doing here?”
Twilight’s remaining friends-Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, and Applejack-had just come into the library,and judging by the looks of surprise on their faces, they were obviously startled by the presence of the newcomers; indeed, Pinkie Pie jumped up and gasped, then ran out of the room, while Rarity seemed to be eyeing Zeb’s and Sabine’s uniforms with a mixture of revulsion and intrigue. Ezra and Zeb looked at each other, silently wondering whether it was their bickering that scared the pink pony they saw out of the room.
After what seemed like a long time, Rainbow Dash finally broke the silence. Pointing to each of the ponies in turn, she said, “Oh hey girls. Guys, meet our friends, Rarity, Fluttershy, Applejack, and Pinkie Pie, who you just saw run out of the room.”
“Oh my. What is that you are wearing?” Rarity asked, pointing at Sabine.
“This?” Sabine asked. “It’s my Mando armor.”
“Well, it looks absolutely dull, darling,” Rarity responded. “Come over to my place and I will be sure to dazzle it up.”
“Thanks?” Sabine responded, unsure. “But it is fine the way it is.”
“Yeah, Rarity,” Applejack said. “Yah can’ just go around forcing yer fashion ideas onto everypony who comes by. They may not appreciate it.”
“Applejack, darling, you should know me by now. I was only trying to help,” Rarity countered.
“Anyway,” prompted Spike, who had just finished cleaning the bookcases, “who are you guys and what are you doing here in Ponyville?”
Kanan was about to open his mouth and repeat what Hera had said to Rainbow Dash a few minutes ago when suddenly Pinkie Pie came back with what looked like a cannon and started saying in a really fast and high-pitched manner, “These-guys-are-a-rebel-cell-from-the-planet-Lothal. Their-names-are-Kanan-Ezra-Sabine-Zeb-Hera-and-Chopper-and-they-are-fighting-against-the-Galactic-Empire-which-is-this-group-made-up-of-really-big-meanies-who-want-to-oppress-their-world-and-so-many-others. Kanan-and-Ezra-are-two-Jedi-who-use-the-Force-which-is-this-magical-field-that-allows-them-to-move-things-from-a-distance-and-occasionally-have-visions. Zeb-was-a-Lasat-Honor-Guardsman-who-witnessed-the-Empire-massacre-his-people. Sabine-is-a-Mandolorian-artist-who-was-an-Imperial-Academy-student. Hera-is-a-Twilek-who-keeps-the-team-together-and-who-is-an-amazing-pilot. Chopper-is-an-astromech-who-served-during-the-Clone-Wars-and-was-found-by-Hera-when-he-was-shot-down-over-Ryloth. And-now-they-are-here-because-they-had-a-fight-with-the-Empire-and-their-ship-was-sent-into-a-wormhole-and-crashed-near-the-Everfree-Forest-so-now-they-need-Twilight’s-help-in-getting-their-ship-fixed-so-they-can-go-back-to-their-world-or-else-the-rebellion-is-doomed-to-fail.”
Silence. Nobody spoke. At last, after seemed like an eternity, an impressed Hera started, “Wow! That was pretty much accurate! How do you know?”
“Oh, just a hunch,” Pinkie smiled, a childish spark in her innocent blue eyes. “And now, let me show you how we ponies welcome newcomers into Ponyville!” She lit the cannon, which shot out a cake, balloons, party favors, punch, and all sorts of presents onto a table in the far side of the room. Everyone on the Ghost team, even Zeb and Chopper, were impressed. Kanan turned to Pinkie and said, “Wow, Pinkie! Do you do this often?”
Pinkie giggled. “I do this all the time, silly! Just look at my cutie mark!” She pointed to a design of three balloons on her hind leg with her pink and bushy tail.
“Cutie mark?” Ezra asked, confused. He was starting to get the feeling that nothing in this world would ever make sense.
“A cutie mark signifies what a pony’s special talent is, darling,” Rarity answered, fluttering her eyelashes.
“For example, my cutie mark signifies my exceptional skill at fashion. Pinkie Pie’s is representative of her love of fun and parties. And-“
Her words were drowned out by a long shriek coming from Fluttershy. “Who is that?” Fluttershy squealed, pointing her hoof at Chopper.
“This is Chopper, as I’m sure your friend told you,” Ezra answered.
“I never saw his type before,” Fluttershy cooed. “Hello there, little buddy. I am Fluttershy.”
Chopper warbled a warning that was lost on the yellow pegasus’s ears. “Aw! Isn’t he the cutest thing?” Fluttershy smiled.
Seeing that Fluttershy was not in any way listening, Chopper gave her a quick electric shock, sending the pegasus yelping and running away.
“Chopper!” Hera snapped. The astromech warbled an angry protest. “I don’t care! You can’t go around tazing people-or ponies-like that! Apologize!”
Pinkie was suddenly in front of Chopper, a very angry expression on her face. “Nopony hurts my friends! NOPONY!”
Chopper returned a series of beeps which said something along the lines of, “Oh I can’t, can’t I?” Then he sent another electric shock into the air flying at Rainbow Dash.
“YEOW!” Rainbow roared in pain. “Chopper! I’m gonna dismantle you with our bare hooves!” She dove straight down at Chopper, who had already started rolling away very quickly with an angry Pinkie in pursuit.
“Leave a few parts for me, girls!” Ezra ran off after the two ponies, eager to get his revenge on the droid for shocking him earlier that day.
Twilight sighed and buried her face in her hooves. “There goes my peace and quiet for tomorrow.”