Prologue: Making a Niche in Reality
The In-Between Place
By Voidbinder
Twilight Sparkle, alicorn Princess of Friendship, sat on the floor of her castle library, preparing to tear a rift in the dimensional barriers between worlds. She was reading Starswirl the Bearded's notes on the Crystal Mirror for the fifty-seventh time, and yet she still felt she didn't have near the necessary preparation to attempt her plan.
As she was nearing the end, she heard a distinct buzzing sound coming from her left. Without taking her eyes off the paper, Twilight reached for the source of the sound, her hoof brushing around on the cold crystal floors of the castle until she made contact with an old, leather-bound book emblazoned with a red and yellow sun symbol. The journal that connected her to Sunset Shimmer.
Finally taking her eyes off the scroll in front of her, Twilight turned her attention to the careworn journal. She turned to the Sunset's latest message, and rolled her eyes as she read it.
Twilight, come on, we should cast this soon. I'm starting to get weird looks from everyone for hanging out at the statue on a day off. Seriously, there's nothing more in your library that could guide you.
Twilight sighed, and used her magic to pick up a pen and wrote Sunset a quick reply.
I'm really sorry, Sunset, but I don't want to risk missing something critical in Starswirl's notes. If we fail, we could cause permanent damage to the portal. I could never see you guys again. Just hold on there a little longer, alright?
She didn't have to wait long before the telltale buzzing of Sunset's reply came through.
That's really sweet of you, Twilight. I want to make sure the portal stays intact just as much as you.
But Twilight, we first talked about this a week ago, and I'm sure you've been studying anything you could get your hooves on since then. I know I have been. I think we're ready.
Twilight signed, and rubbed her head.
Sunset's right, Twilight thought. Delaying longer won't change anything. She picked up a pen and wrote back
Alright, Sunset. Let's do this. Ready on your end?
She watched as Sunset's writing appeared on the page.
Ready. We've got this.
Twilight was glad for Sunset's confidence.
If I'd had been doing this on my own, I'd probably never work up the courage to do what I'm about to do.
Twilight bowed her head, and felt a slight vibration as she poured magic through her horn into the portal. She felt her own twisting strands of magic meet the straight lines and angles that made up the portal. Those lines seemed to form a complex shape, reaching out to a point that defied traditional 3-dimensional geometry. At both ends of the portal she felt the complicated web that was the spell that turned ponies into humans and vice versa, but she didn't want to interfere with that.
Twilight pulled back slightly, into an area of the portal that was between both the pony-to-human spell and human-to-pony spell. If she was doing this right, neither spell would trigger, keeping ponies as ponies and humans as humans.
She was about to start tearing when she felt something from the other side of the portal. Reaching strands of power came into contact with her own, and she distantly felt a smile form on her face as she recognized Sunset's unique brand of power. The girl would be on the other side, manipulating the Equestrian magics brought by the Elements of Harmony. Twilight wrapped her magic around Sunset's, and felt her do the same.
Odd, Twilight thought. It feels weirdly like a hug. An inter-dimensional, magical, hug.
The two reached out into the impossible lines of the portal, and slowly pushed on the strands, building a sort of pocket in the mirror. They continued to push, straining to create a large enough space. It felt like pulling on an entire mountain, but Sunset's strength reinforced her own and together, they shifted the lines away, creating the necessary space.
Now came the hard part. They reached out with intertwined lances of power, and very carefully, almost surgically, began to make an incision in the dimensional barrier. They cut a sharp cube out of the empty space, and there, surrounded by incomprehensible angles, Twilight Sparkle and Sunset Shimmer created a new universe.
It was a small one, more of a pocket universe than anything, but it was exactly what they wanted. Twilight slowly retracted her magic, feeling Sunset do the same. They slipped out of their magic hug, and returned to their bodies.
Twilight jumped, snapping back to consciousness with a start. She blinked, eyes refocusing on the interior of her castle library. She turned her attention back to the mirror, and her eyes widened in shock.
The mirror looked different than when she had begun. Instead of the smooth, flat, and silvery surface that she had seen every time she went the portal, she was now faced with a very odd image. The mirror looked less like a mirror, and more like a window, looking out on an expanse of whiteness. Despite the lack of color, Twilight could tell that it was 3-dimensional, not 2-dimensional.
I guess I know that because I made it She thought with a smirk.
She was interrupted by Sunset's journal, which was somehow stuck under her leg. She pulled it out from under her, and flipped it open. She read the message that appeared on the page.
How'd it turn out on your end? The statue base is looking a little weird over here.
She wasted no time in replying
I think it worked. The mirror has changed to look like a window of sorts. It it the same there?
The journal glowed as Sunset's reply appeared.
Yep. It looks like it's looking out on whiteness. Man, this is gonna be hard to cover up on Monday.
Twilight let out a very un-scholarly giggle at that, then began to scribble her next question.
Great. I think we've completed the first step. Now, what do you say we go take a look at our handiwork?
She read Sunset's reply, and then rolled her eyes.
What, you don't want to read some more books first, Sparkle?
She jotted down two words in reply.
Shut up.
Taking a deep breath, Twilight stepped up to the Crystal Mirror- or was it window now? She lifted her foreleg and slowly moved it forward, until her hoof touched the surface. It was cool to the touch, and felt slick but fragile, like the surface of a bubble. Twilight walked forward a little more, and stuck her face into it. The portal resisted, holding her back. She pushed forward, and with a surge of strength, pushed through the surface.
Suddenly, she felt like she was falling sideways, upside-down and forwards all at once. She tried to brace her legs for the impact, but before she was able to get ready, she felt herself landing on something oddly smooth. She looked up, and while blinking her eyes, used a hoof to push her mane out of her face.
Wait, hoof?
She shakily stood up, and looked back at herself. Yes, she was still a pony! That part had worked. As she was looking behind her, she caught sight of the portal. Unlike on either side of the original portal, all she could see of the mirror was a shiny, vaguely oval shape, that held a distorted view of crystal walls and bookcases. Twilight's library.
She pulled her gaze away from the portal, and turned to look at the other side of the portal. There, she saw a similar blurred window-like surface, but she couldn't see the other side of it very clearly, due to the rapidly approaching blur of red and yellow. She walked forward as Sunset Shimmer was unceremoniously dumped out of the portal. The definitely human girl stumbled, and fell onto her hands and knees.
"Sunset!" Twilight galloped over to Sunset as she attempted to climb back to her feet.
"Oh, hey Twilight. That transition's pretty disorientati- Woah!" Sunset lifted her head, eyes going wide as she saw Twilight. She raised a hand to rub her neck. "Sorry, it's just, I haven't seen a pony in a very long time. I'm sorry for freaking out like that."
"It's no problem," Twilight reassured her. "I'm glad to see that the portal kept our forms unchanged."
Sunset raised an eyebrow. "What, you're not glad to see me?" She laughed at the surprise and embarrassment on Twilight's face.
"I–it's not– I– I'm glad to see you, Sunset. Now can we get back to figuring out this new dimension?"
"Sure, sure. Just a minute. I want to see how tall a pony is compared to a human." Sunset walked right up to Twilight. "Can you lift your head to a normal position?" Twilight complied, and Sunset used her hand to measure the distance. The top of Twilight's head, minus her horn, came up to just above Sunset's sternum. "I bet if you stood on two legs, we'd be about equal height" Sunset mused. She seemed to snap back to reality. "So why's this place all white?" Sunset tilted her head back and tried to see how tall the area was.
"I think it's because we haven't put anything here yet. There's no ambient magic, so we'll have to bring that in from Equestria. Then, once we have magic, we can start to form matter in here." Twilight said.
"So, if there's no ambient magic here, I'm assuming you'll have to go back through the portal in order to make it work?" Sunset frowned. "This place is so empty, it's kinda creepy."
"I might not even have to go back through the portal." Twilight trotted back to the gateway to Equestria. "I think, if I just make contact with the portal..." She leaned forwards, and gently pushed the tip of her horn into the mirror-like surface. "Now I just need to concentrate, and, there!" She beamed as she felt the familiar warmth of unicorn magic flow into her. It felt like a great glowing lake, pulsating with energy. She carefully pulled a net of it through the portal, and stretched it through the pocket universe.
Once the area was fully covered in a net of power, Twilight reached deeper. She pushed past the familiar unicorn magic, and felt for the passive powers she possessed as an alicorn. In her mind, she felt pegasus magic, whipping about like a storm, yet somehow bound and controlled. She reached back into Equestria, and saw the true power of pegasus magic.
It was like a storm cloud, overshadowing everything and sparking with power. She reached for it, and pulled a small chunk of the power through the portal. It was similar to how it felt when Rainbow Dash tried to teach her how to shape clouds. She drew the power into the space, and released it. It pushed outwards, filling the space with smell of rain. Twilight felt her wings twitch, and become lighter, ready to pull her into the air, should she wish it.
With beads of sweat rolling down her face, Twilight felt the last magic she was looking for. Earth pony power, strong, unyielding, and tough. Once again, she reached out, and tried to pull on the power it offered. Nothing happened. Her horn erupted with a fountain of power as she attempted to haul earth pony power through the portal. Still nothing.
"...Twilight? Are you okay?" Sunset's voice echoed distantly behind her. Twilight ignored it for the moment. She needed to get all three kinds of Equestrian magic through to the pocket dimension! She strained, pulling with everything she had. Her legs gave out beneath her and she collapsed, the shock causing her to lose control of the power. She groaned, rolling onto her back.
"That didn't work as well as I hoped." Her voice sounded weak.
"Twilight, what did you try to do?" Concern was evident in Sunset's voice.
"I tried to bring earth pony magic into this universe. It didn't want to move." Twilight rolled back onto her side, and tried to push herself into a standing position.
"And you're going to try again? After you just collapsed from exhaustion?" An idea seemed to come to Sunset. "Twilight, how were you trying to move the earth pony magic?"
"With unicorn magic, I guess. It worked well enough for pegasus magic." Shakily, the tired alicorn rose into a standing position. "Why? Do you think I should try something else? I can't control the other magics like I can with unicorn power."
"Well, what if you tried mixing the two? I'm no alicorn, but using the control of unicorn magic, and wrapping it in earth pony magic to give you strength, should be able to help with that."
"That... that could work." Twilight appeared deep in thought. "I guess I can try that." Seeing Sunset's worried look, she hurriedly added "And don't worry, I won't overextend myself." She took a deep breath, and reached out with unicorn magic. This time, however, she felt at her own earth pony powers, and carefully added them to the mix of magic. Her control of the magic seemed off, somehow, but it wasn't anything she couldn't handle. She reached out with the blend of power and once again felt at Equestria's earth pony power. This time, instead of trying to shift the whole thing, it felt like she was coaxing it, growing it like a plant. She led the tendril of power through the portal, and brought it into the space. Still using her earth pony power, she made it grow, reaching out like roots of a tree and filling the space with invisible tendrils of energy.
"Did it work?" Sunset's voice broke the silence.
"Yeah. Yeah it did." Twilight's voice still sounded tired, but less, like working with the earth pony magic had rejuvenated her, instead of draining her. "Sunset, do you need some sort of magic field from your world? The leftover power of the Elements?"
"I'm not really sure. Hold on a minute." Sunset's eyes closed and she grimaced, concentration etched across her features. "Ugh. Nothing. I think I do need some sort of power." She walked over to the portal to Canterlot High, and stuck her hand in it. Immediately, a red glow began to shine around her, and she grew pony ears and a long ponytail. She raised her other hand, and waved it, sending streams of glowing power cascading into the air. She pulled her hand away from the portal, but the glow and pony features did not vanish.
"Should you still be glowing?" Twilight asked
"I don't think so." Sunset replied. "Normally, when I pony up like this, it only lasts for as long as I'm doing whatever caused it. Either I'm still doing something, which I don't think I am, or the increased density of the magic field has the power to sustain a semipermanent transformation"
"That does make sense." Twilight said thoughtfully. "So now that we've brought magic, we should start shaping this place to be a little more comfortable."
"Sounds like a plan." Sunset agreed. "Let's do this together." She reached out, and a glowing stream of red power floated towards Twilight. The alicorn focused, her own purple magic coalescing and wrapping around Sunset's. The two turned, and looked out at the white space that surrounded them.
Twilight felt the space in her mind. Even though it appeared empty, the space was full of power, flowing and washing around. She guided the conjoined stream of magic outwards, and the magic field responded. Twilight grabbed the power, and converted it from energy, to matter. The white ground shook, and abruptly grew dirt and grass, pushing the two girls up as nothing became something. Blue bloomed in the air, spreading out like water and creating a sky. Trees grew around the border, leaving the two standing in what looked like a forest clearing. Looking around, Twilight saw common Equestrian trees, along with what she assumed must have been trees from the human world. In the center of the space, another tree grew, but unlike the ones on the border, this one grew windows, lights, and a door. In about a mintue, it looked like Twilight's old library.
Twilight felt a lump rise in her throat as she looked at the familiar structure. She liked her castle, but the library was her first home in Ponyville. Seeing it again caused her to remember all the good memories she had associated with the place.
Sunset must have noticed the look on her face. "Twilight? Are you alright? What is this treehouse?"
"It's a replica of my old library." Twilight choked out. "It was destroyed a while ago, but seeing it reminded me, well, of a lot of good memories."
"Are you going to be okay?" Sunset walked over to the purple alicorn and put a hand on her shoulder. "Hey, just take a deep breath. We can change the treehouse if you want to."
"No," Twilight took a deep breath. "I want to keep the treehouse. I'm sorry, I just needed to get under control. I'm good now."
"Great." Sunset smiled. "Why don't we go inside and check it out?" The two walked through the door, Sunset's arm still around Twilight. The inside of the treehouse was not a library, but rather an open room with a variety of couches and chairs spread around it. Twilight could clearly see that some of the chairs were pony-shaped, while others seemed more suited to humans. Twilight trotted forward and flopped down on a couch. Sunset decided to take a seat in one of the human-shaped chairs.
"So," Twilight broke the silence. "How's life at Canterlot High?"
"It's been pretty quiet." Sunset admitted. "No large magical invasions or disasters. The girls and I have been doing pretty normal high school stuff. Going to the Sweet Shoppe after school, helping Fluttershy at the animal shelter, cheering Rainbow Dash on at her games, stuff like that. Anything special happen in Equestria?"
"Not really." Twilight smiled. "There haven't been any problems lately. Just a couple friendship problems around Ponyville, nothing special. Applebuck season's coming up soon, so we're all making sure Applejack doesn't try to do it all by herself again."
Sunset chuckled at that. "She tried to do that once?"
"Yeah." Twilight smiled wryly at the memory. "Big Mac wasn't able to help, so she tried to do it on her own. Nearly ran herself to death trying to do that on top of helping me and the others out." Twilight's eyes focused. "Speaking of our friends, do you think we should bring them into this place?"
"Totally. It would be really cool to introduce them to their pony or human counterparts. We may just want to make sure no one else is present when Pinkie meets Pinkie."
A look of mock horror crossed Twilight's face. "I hadn't thought of that. We may want to evacuate all of Ponyville and the area around Canterlot High before that happens."
Sunset smirked at the comment. "So who do you think we should have meet their counterpart first? I'm saying right off the bat- not Pinkie Pie."
"Well, I think the best thing to do would be to think about what's probably going to happen." Twilight visibly went into 'science mode'. "Fluttershy would either be terrified of her counterpart, whether it's human or pony, or she would find them adorable. So we might want to gauge the other's reactions first. Applejack would probably be pretty good with herself, and end up talking about farming in different dimensions."
"That does sound like them." Sunset nodded as she spoke. "Rarity... I'm not sure what Rarity would do. Probably end up talking about how pony fashion differs from human fashion, and possibly try to use herself as a model. So she might be okay to go first, though to the human Rarity, ponies going about without clothes might be a bit of a shock. And then we've got Rainbow Dash. She'd probably end up competing with herself over something ridiculous, having conversations that involved entirely too many uses of the word awesome."
"True. Very true," Twilight mused. "Hey Sunset, I just thought of something. Did you ever find your human counterpart?"
"No." Sunset's reply was curt. "I didn't. Anyways, what do you think we should do? Go back to our respective friends and discuss it with them?"
"Sounds like a plan." Twilight stretched, and got up out of the chair. "It was great to see you, Sunset. I'll keep in touch through the journal, okay?"
"Sounds good to me." Sunset lazily got up as well. "It was great to see you too, Twilight. I'll let you know what my friends say. See you soon."
"See you soon." Twilight walked over to Sunset, and standing up on her back legs, wrapped for forelegs around Sunset in a friendly hug. "Goodbye."
"Bye, Twi." Sunset returned the hug, and then pulled back. She waved as she walked through the door, and back towards her portal. Twilight smiled, watching Sunset slowly shrink in her vision. She realized that the 'pony-up' had never worn off, but that didn't really matter. The girl touched the portal, and abruptly vanished, speeding back to her dimension.
Twilight trotted out the open door, and walked back to the portal to her castle. She smiled as she wondered what her friends would think when she told them she was going to introduce them to their other selves.
She couldn't wait to see their reactions.
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This is a very interesting set-up for a story. I'm curious to see how the characters interact with their alternate selves.
A couple minor corrections:
This is unclear. Are you saying she didn't want to interfere with both ends of the portal? Context makes it seem that she doesn't want to interfere with the web. If that's the case it should say, "she didn't want to interfere with that."
Also, you don't need the commas in the first sentence, but a comma separating the two clauses would be better than starting a sentence with a conjunction. If I might suggest an alternative: "At both ends of the portal she felt the complicated web that was the spell that turned ponies into humans and vice versa, but she didn't want to interfere with that."
"As she"
I've always wanted to see the Mane Six meet the HuMane Six! Can't wait to see where it goes from here.
I have a feeling that Sunset knows about what happened to her human counterpart.. And I got a feeling that it might be not pleasant..
Okay, this sounds interesting. I'm tracking this.
7178815
Thanks for your feedback, I've made the corrections.
And I'm glad for all the positive responses this is getting!
More!
I want to see the human 6 meet pony Sunset Shimmer. ;P
There's the possibility that Sunset Shimmer's copy either dead or not living in the Canterlot area...
This sounds really good so far. Nobody has ever came up with this idea. I can't wait to read more.
underlined the mistake in this part. should be began not because. otherwise a really interesting chapter. definitely very unique. on to the next chapter now
Congratulations, Sunset, Twilight; you've just done things that even Starswirl the Bearded thought were impossible. I wonder if Celestia and Luna will (with complete seriousness) tell Twilight that every alicorn makes her own world in time?
Cows are talking, intelligent creatures in Equestria.
The book is leather-bound.
Guess what leather is made of...
7312138 Well, when you invite gryphons, you need to feed them. And since they are sapient (sentient?) why would they waste resources.
Awesome story, I like where this is headed.
In both places, it should be off
"not glad to see me?"
Because > began
I'll keep my eye out in later chapters for more.
7312092
7312605
Thank you both for catching those, they have been corrected!
...Is this happening right now? Have I finally found the fic I've been fantasizing about? It is! It's the one where counterparts meet! YES!
7362128 you have made that one fic that I have been waiting desperately for someone to write, thx. X )
7373965 A story where the human and pony counterparts interact as their respective original races? I wrote one of those years ago.
Pleasantly surprised to see someone else playing around with this idea, especially considering I've done so little with it myself. Definitely going to follow this story.
This is very interesting. Please continue.
Nice Magic Info! Interesting how they talk about how everyone would react to their counterparts. Hope this gets off Haitus at somepoint, but gonna enjoy what I've got!
transformation(.)"
mintue -> minute
The fic everyone was waiting for.
I think Twi and Sunset may be wrong about Rainbow Dash though - as much as that girl loves herself, we might be in for some smooth selfcest. ;D
Just kidding.
...Or am I? xD