Prologue

Author's Note:

Prepare to be amazed, those of you that read this story before, as it is now 1000% better with this new rewrite. The rest of you, prepare to be amazed anyway. Oh, and of course, please leave your thoughts!

"No, Octavia, you just have to trust me. We're not going far, it just had to be far enough away from Ponyville so that we wouldn't hurt anypony if something went wrong." Vinyl Scratch turned and glanced at her friend, with a slight grin showing she wasn't as angry as she sounded. The grey mare, in response, rolled her eyes and trotted a bit to catch up with Vinyl. Only half a minute later, they reached a clearing in the dark forest. In front of them, in the middle of the clearing, lay Vinyl's creation: an imposing mess of wires, mirrors, and other components Octavia didn't recognize. She heard Vinyl sigh and watched as her friend approached the device.

"So, what exactly is this all for?" Octavia slowly walked over, pausing occasionally as though she expected it to blow up, and began inspecting various parts of the machine. She finally gave an impatient snort and looked at Vinyl. Vinyl rolled her eyes and started bouncing in place, a grin once again plastered across her face.

"Come on 'Tavi, I already told you!" Vinyl said exasperatedly.

"When?"

"I dunno, when I woke you up and you asked the first time?" She rolled her eyes, as though she couldn't believe she was going over it again.

"Really? I don't remember that," Octavia said, putting a hoof on her chin pensively.

"Ugh. If anypony asks, you didn't hear this from me, 'cause I'm not supposed to tell anyway, but Twilight wanted my help finding the resonant frequency for making stable portals to the human world. This is what we made. My soundboard and speakers produce a sound, a bunch of science stuff I don't understand happens, and it shoots the result at that mirror." Vinyl paused and looked over at Octavia.

"Vinyl?"

"Yeah?"

"What's a 'human'?"

"Don't you worry about that, it's not important," Vinyl said with a knowing grin.

"Vinyl?"

"Yes, 'Tavi?"

"Why are we doing this without Twilight?" Octavia deadpanned.

"Well... We were going to test it, but the problem is, right before we were going to she had to go help stop a riot in Fillydelphia."

"Riot? Did I miss something?" Octavia asked slowly as she searching her brain for news of the event in question.

"How did you not hear about it? A big group of Earth Ponies have been gathering in the last few months, complaining about job hiring being biased towards unicorns even when they do worse work. Violence broke out, and they needed a princess or really strong unicorn to stop the fighting while negotiations occurred. Seriously though, watch the news more. Anyway, back to the task at hoof." She resumed her bouncing, and Octavia yawned, getting more tired just watching her.

"I couldn't wait for Twilight to come back, so I need you to run the device while I jump in." Vinyl paused for just a moment to catch her breath with the combined jumping and talking, and Octavia took the opportunity.

"Is it safe?"

"Totally."

"Vinyl..."

"OK, fine. We're like 95% sure it's safe, and I'm willing to take the chance," Vinyl said with a grin, but her poker-face wasn't fooling Octavia.

"Vinyl, what's the other 5 percent?" the gray mare asked as she rolled her eyes.

"Insignificant."

"Using fancy language isn't going to fool me Vinyl, I'm not going to help you if this thing could kill you." Octavia glowered at the white unicorn across from her.

"Ugh, fine. The only thing that's really hard to test and we haven't really figured out yet is whether electrical signals in the brain, and thereby any memories that you're thinking of when you go through, get pulled through, but I'm pretty sure we figured it out. Of course, if I'm wrong, I may forget everything about Equestria, but that's not very likely. It's not like there's any chance it will kill me or even maim me, so don't worry about it, I'll be fine. I'm pretty sure Twilight even went ahead and copied my memories into that machine, so if I come back without any memories she can just re-upload me. Or, at least, I think that's what she said it does..." Vinyl said with a gesture in the general direction of a strange device with a giant floating crystal on top.

"Because I trust you, I'm going to believe you in that your memories are actually safe, and that doesn't just play music or something. What if the portal collapses?" Octavia looked around at the devices and machines scattered about the clearing suspiciously.

"As far as portal stability goes, it's pretty stable when we throw cookies in, so I should be fine. Sound good?" Vinyl said rapidly, still bouncing. Octavia shook her head. Most of the time she was pretty sure she was best friends with Vinyl, but it was the times like this that made her wonder why.

"Wait, where did you get-"

"Pinkie stopped by with like a wagon load of cookies, I wasn't going to question it," Vinyl said with a shrug as she motioned over to a box overflowing with snickerdoodles. Octavia yawned again and walked over to the soundboard, since it was probably where she needed to be.

"So...? What do I do?" she asked, hoping to get the whole experience over so she could just go back to bed. Seriously, why were they working at four in the morning?

"I've set it for the exit frequency. Once I'm through, you just need to slide this switch up until it says 42 and I should be able to come back. If I'm not back within five seconds of you switching it, go over to the portal and hit the buttons on the three remaining transmitters to turn them on. That should boost the signal enough to make it time-travel if it needs to, encase the dimensions are temporally misaligned." Vinyl paused, her eyes narrowed.

"Wow, I sound like Twilight..." She didn't dwell on it for long, promptly brightening up.

"Anyway, sound good?" She hadn't stopped bouncing yet, except when she needed to point at the buttons on the portal. Suddenly, she stopped with her eyes again squinted and a serious expression on her face.

"Why was I bouncing?"

"I haven't got the slightest clue. Possibly one of the effects of eating nothing but cookies for the past eight hours. Other than that, let me know when you figure it out," Octavia said as she hit the power button. There was a piercing sound that for a moment made Octavia think her eardrums had burst, followed by a significant amount of whirring, humming, and sounds Octavia could only describe as being lasers. Suddenly the mirror rippled and started glowing.

"Sweet. Well, here goes!" Vinyl said. She waved once at Octavia before diving straight into the portal. There was a blinding flash of light, and suddenly an instrument to the side began beeping and flashing a red light. The display showed a straight line that suddenly started going crazy when Vinyl entered the portal.

"I'm just going to assume that's normal. So now, frequency up to 42..." She slid the switch up and aligned it to the proper position before counting five seconds, shifting her weight from one hoof to another and digging at the ground while she counted.

"Vinyl, I swear if you don't come back I'm going to kill you. Once I find you..." She hurried over to the portal, reaching up and hitting the upper button on the first emitter. Immediately, another machine started beeping angrily. Not knowing if the portal was about to break, she quickly hit the other two buttons. She stood back, waiting for Vinyl to come through, safe and sound. A few seconds, nothing. Octavia was getting terrified by this point, and it wasn't until nearly a minute later when she noticed that something odd was going on with the portal. It was getting... Wider? No, closer. And the surrounding forest was shrinking, as though something was stretching the portal out in a bubble. She backed up, only to realize that no matter how far she moved, she couldn't escape the bubble she appeared to be stuck in. Relative to how long she had already waited, it took almost no time for the portal to wrap all the way around her. As she fell away from the forest into the infinite nothing, she slipped into unconsciousness.

"How the hell am I supposed to know how fast the ball was moving? You wrote the damn problem, you tell me..." I muttered at the paper and in my head, my professor. I had been staring at said piece of paper for nearly an hour, to no avail. It was the first problem of the set, alone on the front page, and the only thing written on it was my name at the top, 'Joseph,' and the date.

"The information I need just isn't here. Seriously, how am I supposed to solve this?" I looked from Octavia to Vinyl, then back again. The two five inch tall plushies stared back at me quietly.

"I suppose neither of you took 'Physics with Calculus' when you went to school. Probably not necessary for a DJ or a cellist..." I mused, looking back down at the paper. Several more tense, quiet minutes passed as I scribbled away on my scrap paper, occasionally erasing and sometimes just flipping to a new page.

"Good gods, it's hot in here." I sighed heavily, wiping sweat off my face and reaching up to turn on my fan.

"Oh, it's already on. When did I do that?" I asked myself as I strained to push my chair back away from my desk and stand up. I walked slowly over to the window, dragging my feet slightly. I slid it open, breathing in the fresh scent of autumn and feeling the rush of cold air on my skin. It was cooler out, not quite cold, but certainly better than the sweltering heat of my dorm. I walked back over with the same lack of conviction and sat down in my chair, already doing the math as I realigned myself at my desk.

"So there are fifteen problems, which means that each one is worth about 6.6 percent. Meaning, if I get every other problem right, I can still manage an A- or maybe an A. Screw it, I'm not doing this problem, which means I'm done. Yay." I cheered quietly and unenthusiastically as I closed my book with a loud thunk, wishing my victory hadn't come at the cost of a failure. I grabbed the work stuff from the desk and dropped it on my high-tech storage unit, also known as my would-be roommate's bed. I had never asked for a single person room, but when I had gone through three roommates in the first month of school, each of whom left for reasons having nothing to do with me, I decided the universe just wanted me to be alone, and I didn't complain. I pulled my phone out of my pocket, glancing at the time as I checked to make sure I hadn't missed anything important.

"Ok, it's only 10:30, so I'm doing pretty well. What should I do with the rest of my time?" I looked down at my idea notepad. There were a few short sentences and some random words written, ideas for different stories that would likely never get written if I didn't keep working on what I had started.

"I should probably do some more writing, but I'm not really sure where I'm going with this chapter..." I realized my phone was still in my hand, and I slid it back in my pocket as I sat down heavily in my chair, staring at my computer. I opened DeviantArt, hoping to find some new watch messages. Failing that, I also checked my email, but it too was empty. I did a quick scan of my folder of computer games, but nothing seemed particularly interesting at the time.

"Ugh... What do... Vinyl! It's your turn to come up with ideas." I declared, looking up at her.

"You could listen to some music?"

"Vinyl, my music is literally always on. For me, at least. I really gotta get working speakers instead of using my headphones all the time... Any other ideas?" I asked her, filling in the parts of the conversation that she was having in my head.

"It sounds like you should go online and buy speakers, then."

"Sorry, I don't really have that kind of money right now. They're expensive!" Of course, I could have gotten cheap speakers, but then I would be sacrificing sound quality, and that wasn't any better.

"You could go to bed like an intelligent person so that you're fully rested for tomorrow's classes."

"Sleep is for the weak, Octavia. I only go to bed on time every other night, or when it's your turn for ideas." I paused, thinking about my crazy sleep schedule.

"Which, ironically, usually happens to be the same thing. Still, I don't want to sleep right now! It's only 10:45! Too early." I ranted, looking around my room. My stomach growled, and I rolled my eyes. I made my way quickly over to my closet, which unlike most I had filled with food and turned into a makeshift pantry. Opening some drawers and scanning the different available items, I searched for something edible.

"Nah, I've had a lot of Pop-Tarts recently." I looked at the box of frosted raspberry Pop-Tarts longingly. They were tasty, but not all the nutritious. I glanced at the box of Macaroni and Cheese, sticking my tongue out in disgust.

"Eww, cheese. I don't even know why I packed this, I'm never going to eat it..." I sighed, wishing that I actually liked cheese.

"How can you possibly not like cheese? I am sure you're just consuming the wrong variety. We need to get you some nice Taleggio or something of that variety."

"Isn't that the stuff people say smells like feet? Why would I want to eat something like that?" I looked at Octavia in confusion; understanding her culinary choices was all but impossible.

"Well, yes, but it is really quite good."

"I think I'll pass," I said slowly, looking back to my closet. After another scan through everything I had at my disposal, there was very little to choose from.

"I don't really have any other food that's both easy and reasonable to make at this time of the night, so that leaves me with one option. It's decided then! Tonight is a Ramen night. The dining hall really needs to be open for dinner later..." I mused, grabbing a pan and package of noodles.

"Ah, the holy grail of college food. BRB, girls!" I began to briskly make my way upstairs to my dorm's kitchen.

"Glorious noodles, how did I live without you?" I asked to no one in particular as I rapidly consumed my food. Far sooner than I would have liked, the bowl was empty, and I was again left with nothing to do and lots of time to do it. I sat in my chair silently for a few minutes, beginning with a few thoughts about what to do next before my short attention span helped make sure I was contemplating the nature of the universe instead. Finally, I turned back to my computer.

"I guess I should try downloading ROM again, if I'm ever going to play." I found myself staring aimlessly at my screen, before again doing nothing.

"Ugh, fine. I'm clearly not going to get anything productive done tonight, so I'm going to bed." I grumbled, climbing out of my chair. I reached over and set my computer to sleep mode, and soon the room went dark. I changed quickly out of my cargo-pants and t-shirt into more appropriate sleepwear, before plugging my phone into its charger. Once my pre-bed routine was finished, I jumped up onto my matress and situated myself under the blankets.

"Goodnight, Octavia. Goodnight, Vinyl. See you both in the morning!" I said before closing my eyes and drifting quickly off to sleep.

Some hours later that night, I was awoken by what likely would have been a blinding flash of light, had my eyes been open. I sat up quickly, and after noticing that I had a huge headache for some reason, looked out the window, expecting a storm outside. However, it was dry and quiet, and after a stray thought on aliens, and another on meteors, I brushed it off as heat lightning, almost going back to sleep when I heard my computer wake up.

"Now that's odd. I didn't even touch it." I winced at the pain in my head and quietly got out of bed, putting my computer back in sleep mode and wondering what it was doing.

"Have you been messing with my computer, Vinyl?" I asked as I looked up with a grin. I gasped slightly and took a step back when I thought I saw her wink, but I couldn't be sure. I stood un-moving for several seconds, staring at the plushie.

"Am I loosing my mind..?" I must have given it up quickly as a result of my headache and went back to bed, because not nearly long enough later, my alarm went off. I slowly opened my eyes, fumbled for my phone, failed my password a few times, and finally shut the obnoxious ringing off. Flopping back down on my bed, I stared at the ceiling. That's when I started hearing the voices.

“Vinyl, I know you like waking up to, ugh, 'wubs', but that was even worse than usual!” a tiny voice said in exasperation. My eyes snapped open. Wait, what?

“Hey! That wasn't me, ‘Tavi,” a second voice said.

"Oh crap, I've finally snapped. I’m really hearing voices now, and I'm seeing things." I climbed out of bed, looking over at my computer and pony shelf. My jaw hit the floor, however, when I realized that my mind wasn't making things up. Staring back at me, across the room, were a pair of purple eyes, set in a fuzzy gray body that was quite clearly no-longer a toy. I paused, my brain having not quite activated yet, and shifted my eyes over slightly. My effort was rewarded by the sight of a white ball of fur with legs, a cyan mane and tail, and a pair of glasses of a very deep violet.

"Oh! Good morning, sleepy!"

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