It Was All the Portal's Fault
“Can I have my phone back now, please?”
Princess Twilight didn’t look up. Her eyes were shimmering with reflected light and her mouth was half open in wonder as she slowly scrolled down yet another webpage with a single purple finger. Sunset frowned.
“Twilight?” No response.
Sunset reached over and poked her Equestrian friend in the arm. “Twilight!”
“Gah!” Twilight squawked. She fumbled with the phone, the slick device slipping through her fingers, and clattering to the table. Twilight gasped in horror, and scooped it back up, clasping it protectively to her chest.
“Sunset!” she chided. “You made me drop it!”
“It fell six inches,” Sunset replied dryly.
“It could’ve shattered!”
“It’s got a case on it, Twilight.”
“It does? Where?”
Sunset sighed. An hour ago, it had been fun and kind of adorable to watch the actually-a-pony Twilight play with Sunset’s new cellphone. Twilight had been so dumbstruck, and completely overjoyed with the miracle that was a touch screen and internet access- Sunset had been having a good time just sitting back and watching her friend be amazed over and over again at the capabilities of the device.
Now she was bored.
“Twilight, can you please give it back? It’s gotta be almost dead by now.” Sunset plaintively stretched a hand over the coffee table. Twilight jerked away, her violet eyes widening.
“It can die?!” The princess frantically started looking the phone over, flipping it around and inspecting the headphone jack with concern. Sunset let out a long breath.
“No, I meant-”
“You told me it wasn’t alive! Or magical!” Twilight accused. “How can it die? Does it do that often? Is it sick? Injured? DOES IT NEED MEDICAL ATTENTION?!” Her voice rose, worry pitching it a few too many octaves high for Sunset’s patience.
“Calm down!” Sunset groaned. “Like I’ve said a million times already, it’s just human technology. It’s not alive, and it’s definitely not sick.” She finished with an exasperated eye roll to settle her point. Twilight gave a sheepish cough.
“Oh. Right.” She cleared her throat. “Sorry.” The purple teen fell silent for a moment.
Sunset took the opportunity to inch closer to the phone clutched in Twilight’s hand. The tips of her fingers were centimeters away from it when Twilight tightened her grip, and held it up again.
“It’s just so mind blowing- The power to search anything, anywhere, anytime! All in this tiny little box!” Twilight beamed, a dreamy sigh escaping her lips as she returned to the small screen. Sunset sighed, and rested her head heavily on her hand.
“So close, yet so far,” she muttered sourly, resolutely pouting as she watched Twilight hunch over the dimly glowing device. Twilight looked entirely enraptured once more, occasionally using one finger to poke at the screen and staying completely silent save for a few involuntary gasps of joy.
“Sunset!” Twilight cried. “Look at this! It’s a webby-thing that has those moving pictures on it! That is so cool!”
“Website,” Sunset corrected for the billionth time. “And yeah, I know. Videos are cool. Now can I have my phone back? Please?” Twilight didn’t seem to hear.
“Sunset,” she breathed. “This is amazing. There’s so many of them! This is...” She hesitated, then lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “This is almost better than a book!” Twilight gave an elated giggle. Sunset raised an eyebrow, looking thoroughly unimpressed.
“Uh huh.”
“Do you realize what a revolutionary piece of technology this is? If Equestria had machines with only a fraction of this thing’s power...” Twilight trailed off, her gaze far away. Sunset blinked.
“But Equestria has magic, Twilight. You don’t need a phone when you can cast spells.”
“Yes, yes, but we’re still writing paper letters! Recording everything by hoof in books! This could advance Equestrian technology- No! Equestrian life -to heights that ponykind has never even dreamed of before!” Twilight was positively glowing now. She grabbed Sunset’s arm with her free hand.
“Sunset, you have to let me bring this to Equestria so I can learn ALL about it!”
“What?!” Sunset yelped. She stared at her friend in wide eyed disbelief. “Twilight.”
“Yes, Sunset?” Twilight asked perkily.
“Please, please tell me you’re kidding.”
“Um, no.” Twilight looked curiously at Sunset. “I wouldn’t joke about this kind of thing.”
“That’s what I was afraid of.” Sunset said with a groan. She shook her head, and looked Twilight square in the eye.
“Twilight, listen. Bringing technology like this through the portal could do some serious damage to the balance between our worlds. There are some ponies out there who would use the information on this phone to try and come here, to CHS, and wreak havoc- Look at what I almost did! Besides, I don’t even think the Internet would work in Equestria, and even if it did, that phone can’t hold its power forever. Once it runs out of battery, it’ll be completely useless. And that portal is pretty magical itself. You said it turned your baby dragon into a dog- If it can do that, imagine how it could mess with an important piece of tech like this!” Sunset paused to draw breath, then launched back in.
“Besides, it’s my phone. I’ve let you play around with it, but that was a birthday present, and I can’t let anything happen to it. There’s no way that I’m going to let it go through a magical, cross-dimensional portal of all things.” Sunset reached over and snatched the phone out of Twilight’s hand. She made to slip it back to its rightful place in her jacket pocket, when Twilight interrupted.
“Ya know,” said the former alicorn thoughtfully. “I never did explicitly mention what happened at the Fall Formal to Princess Celestia.” Sunset froze. Twilight smiled slyly.
“But I’m sure she would be quite interested to hear about how you threatened to kill me, blew up half a school full of innocents, stole and unlawfully used an Equestrian artifact that was the sovereign property of a princess, and repaired the front of the school building so shoddily that the front doors still fall off sometimes!” She finished cheerfully.
Sunset slammed the phone back down on the table.
“You know perfectly well that only happens to the doors because Rainbow Dash loosens the hinges for her stupid pranks.” Sunset growled. Twilight leaned forward, looking all too excited. Sunset glared at her.
“Three. Hours.” She spat. “Then I want my phone back, or so help me, Twilight Sparkle...”
Twilight sprang up, grabbed the phone, and tucked it carefully into her skirt pocket. Then she lunged over the table and caught the seething Sunset Shimmer in a hug.
“Oh, thankyouthankyouthankyou!” She cried. Sunset scowled at the opposite wall over the midnight blue head, determinedly unhappy with this arrangement. Twilight must’ve noticed, because she only tightened her grip on Sunset’s waist. Finally, after several long seconds of awkward contact, the orange girl sighed, her expression softening fractionally.
“You better be careful with it,” she warned. “Those things aren’t cheap.” Twilight held the hug a moment longer before detaching her arms and straightening up with a reassuring smile.
“I know! Now, I’ve got a date with some analytical instruments back at my castle, and only a three hour one at that, so if you’ll excuse me...”
“Yeah, yeah,” Sunset grunted. “Get going before I change my mind, Princess.” Twilight nodded happily, then turned and practically sprinted for the door.
“Oh, and make sure to stop by Sugarcube Corner when you have time,” she called over her shoulder. “I had Pinkie Pie bake a ‘Sorry for Threatening You With Blackmail Cake’ in advance, and it looked delicious!”
“Lemon or vanilla frosting?” Sunset asked. Twilight paused with her hand on the doorknob.
“Um, chocolate..?”
Sunset stomped her foot. “Ponyfeathers!”
“Bye!” Twilight yelled, swinging the door open, and disappearing down the hall. “See you in three hours!”
***
Twilight screeched to a halt in front of the apparently solid statue, her heart racing.
“Okay,” she muttered to herself, struggling to contain her smile. “Ready to change the world, Twi?” She patted the phone in her pocket, took a deep breath, and struck a heroic pose. Meanwhile, a passerby passed by, looking confused as to why a heroic pose was being struck in front of a large stone horse. Twilight studiously ignored him, closed her eyes, and slowly, majestically lifted a leg to begin her royal descent back to her homeworld.
She then promptly tripped over a pebble, which catapulted her headfirst into the portal with a shriek, her skinny arms windmilling frantically. The passerby blinked.
“That was NOT what I meant to-AAAAAAUGH!”
...And there was that familiar feeling of being stretched apart like putty, then pummeled back into the shape of a different species, all the while shooting through swirling rainbow hyperspace. It got old after a while. Unfortunately, Twilight barely had time to acknowledge how strange that sounded before the portal unceremoniously spit her (now equine self) onto the cold, smooth floor of her castle.
“Oof,” she mumbled, pulling a face as she peeled herself off the ground. “I am never gonna get used to tha-”
FOOMP!
A huge weight burst to life on Twilight’s shoulders, immediately shoving her back into the hard, crystal floor. Her eyes bugged out, and several small cracks were heard as the alicorn’s fuzzy body flattened into a painful pony pancake.
“Bluh...!” Twilight choked out, vainly trying to wriggle out from the crushing pressure. “Kuh- GRRRGH!” Concentrating with all her might, the squashed princess channeled a quick burst of magic through her scrunched-up face to her horn, and managed to teleport a few hooves to the right. Mercifully on all four hooves once again, Twilight shook herself viciously, trying to regain feeling in her limbs after being forcibly compressed. She then turned around, eyes narrowed and looking quite indignant at just being squashed- Before she stopped dead. Justifiably so, since the thing that had landed atop her was nothing other than an inexplicably humongous stack of paper.
“H-how? What? Why?” Twilight sputtered, looking entirely lost. She gazed in utter confusion at the neat tower of paper, noting its plain black binding on the side, and thick, sleek cover perched on top... Wait. Twilight blinked. This wasn’t a simple stack of paper- It was an incredibly thick book. The princess sat down hard, her eyes growing so large they threatened to overtake the rest of her face. Her stunned silence was broken by a loud shriek of joy, that would’ve split the eardrums of anyone unlucky enough to be within a 10 yard radius.
“EEEEK!” Twilight squealed. “Giant book! GIAAAANT BOOOOK!” She took to the air, her wings buzzing with excitement, and hovered near the top of the monstrous volume in question, scanning the cover excitedly. Meanwhile, a small, pudgy dragon who had just reached the doorway fell to the ground, clutching his head.
“My eardrums!” Spike wailed. Twilight took no notice, her face slowly dissolving from “overjoyed”, back to “befuddlement”. The cover had no title. Or author. Instead, it showed several square icons, with small labels, like “Messaging” and “Music”. There was a little battery sign in the top right corner, half full, and a background image of Sunset Shimmer with her arms around the Canterlot High versions of Twilight’s friends. Twilight frowned, as the gears started turning in her brain. Could this be..?
Twilight gingerly flipped the cover back, revealing a page with a tightly compacted Table of Contents, in tiny font. The princess squinted at it, horror growing inside her as soon as she read the first line.
Sunset Shimmer’s ePhone- Functions and Applications
Twilight gulped. Something told her the phone had not reacted well to the trip through the portal. Her fears were confirmed after she flipped to a random page in the middle, finding an entire chapter of every text Sunset had ever sent, and another containing over 300 photos, most of them (What was the word Sunset had used?) selfies. Even scarier was the incredibly thick section labeled simply “Internet Searches”.
Twilight used her magic to slam the phone -er, book- shut, and she smacked her head angrily against the home screen/cover. So much for advancing Equestrian technology. Now the only new thing she was going to have to develop was a way to somehow shove this gargantuan book back through the stupid portal so she could give Sunset her precious phone back.
“Dumb magic,” she growled, smushing her face further into the cover. “This is all the portal’s fault.”
***
Sunset chewed thoughtfully, nodding to herself. The chocolate frosting wasn’t half bad.
“Hey, Pinkie,” she called.
“Yeeees?” A curly pink head popped out from Sugarcube Corner’s kitchen door.
“Mind giving me the recipe for this ‘Sorry for Threatening You With Blackmail’ cake? It’s quite tasty.”
“Sure thing, Sunny! I’d be happy to!” Pinkie chirped, vanishing back into the kitchen. She reappeared with a piece of paper and a wide smile. “I didn’t know you were a baker!”
Sunset chuckled. “Not really. But I was Princess Celestia’s student for most of my life, so I’ve sorta got a soft spot for cake. Guess it rubbed off on me.”
Pinkie nodded like this made perfect sense, and slid the recipe across the counter next to Sunset’s plate with a wink.
“Say, Sunset,” Pinkie said, readjusting her three foot tall chef’s hat. “If you're not too busy, I’m working on another cake right now- Wouldja like to help out?” Sunset set her fork down, intrigued.
“Another one, huh? Who’s this for?”
“Princess Twilight, actually.” Pinkie grinned. “It’s a ‘Sorry the Phone/Portal Thing Didn’t Work Out the Way You Wanted’ cake.”
Sunset raised her eyebrows. “Really? Interesting.” She took a final bite of her cake, smirking, then stood and pushed her plate away.
“Yeah, I’d love to help. What flavor frosting were you thinking?”
Okay, my first EVER fanfic, based off a fun little idea I've been playing around with for quite some time. How'd you guys like it? Was it sufficiently random enough for ya? 
Thanks so much for reading, and please give it a like if you enjoyed it- It would mean a lot to me! 
-Sunsketch
Side Note: Yes, I realize the indention is all over the place... Something must've gone funky when I imported the Google Doc. Hopefully it's not too distracting! 
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OK, fell over laughing when I read this. This was great I look forward to there being a sequel to it perhaps twenty sequels to it.
A short, funny little fic, though I would have also liked to see Twilight's attempts to get the phone back, and Sunset's reaction. Maybe even Twilight having to pay for a new phone or something. Still, not bad.
Although you really should try to put blank lines between paragraphs. It helps improve readability a whole lot. Not that this isn't readable, but it really would be better with blank lines.
7845118
Guess you'll just have to wait and see! 
Thank you so much! I'm really glad you enjoyed it- And I was considering a sequel...
7845158
And I'm glad you liked it as well, and I really appreciate the feedback. Just one question... What are blank lines?
7845343
Well, what I mean is this. Here's what you have:
It should look more like this:
You've avoided a wall of text by making different paragraphs, but it's best if there was that extra line there to full improve readability. Just another press of the enter key. Actually, it appears like that on the HTML version of your story. I've seen that with other stories on here. Seems like a difference in line spacing or something. I'm not sure. I've never published anything on here so I can't say with 100% certainty. Just try tinkering with it when you post a story.
Was that helpful?
7845367
Ah, thank you very much. I'll definitely try that on later stories.
Its always fun to imagine Princess Twilight playing around with human technology.
She would probably miss physical pages, but all that information at her fingertips, yeah. Good thing she didn't find out she can carry hundreds of books on a phone yet. Let's hope that sending it back through the portal will restore it to its normal form, assuming Twilight can even fit something that large through the mirror. Figures that Twilight would be happy to see a giant book, well, as long as its not crushing her. Wonder if Pinkie has "Sorry the portal transformation broke your phone" cake ready (probably).
7845440
It is fun isn't it? And yes, thank goodness no one told her about ebooks!
Now imagine a 64 gb flash drive with a couple dozen movies, thousands of books, a few games even, etc etc coming through the portal..
7845469
Oh no....
7845655
7845588 Princess sparkle. dead by Nerdgasm
Crazy Twilight is best Twilight.
This isn't an importation problem. The problem is that spaces have variable width—whatever it takes to make the right edge of the text line up in a straight line. Spaces used to indent a line should be immune to that, but fimfiction doesn't work that way. That's a bug in my opinion.
There are only two real workarounds to this: either don't indent at all, using a blank line exclusively to separate paragraphs, or use a tab character to indent.
Congratulations on publishing your very first fanfic. I enjoyed reading it; it was very funny and plausible. Great job!
Like you, I'm also a new fanfic writer who just published his very first fanfic just last month. Perhaps you could give my story (http://www.fimfiction.net/story/357390/driving-lessons) a read?
Keep up the good work! I look forward to reading more stories from you in the future!
Small typo:
its
7845801
Ah, thank you. I'll fix that!
For a first time, this was brilliant!!! Loved it.
7845820
Thank you so much!
7845823 My first story has exactly 4 likes and 2 dislikes. You, good sir/ma'am, are the real MVP.
7845795
Aw, thanks so much! I'll definitely give your fic a look.
7845829
7845786
I quite agree.
7845793
Good to know- I'll definitely be using blank lines on my next story, as it seems to be an issue. Thank you very much, though! I appreciate the troubleshooting help a lot, since this is my first time on the site.
7845440 well she could always cast a shrinking spell to compact the Book in size before moving back through the portal.
If her Unicorn self can do it to a pile of luggage belonging to herself and her two kids for a cross-country trip from Ponyville to the Crystal Empire for hours on end (only ending when she smacked her carry-on bag filled with it upside Shining Armor's head over a keluffle involving her daughter when the spell was ending), I'm sure that her Alicorn self would have no problems with this book issue.
That was pretty good!
7845907 I see you are referencing RHJUNIOR and his continuation of Past Sins by Pen Stroke. I've read it too.
So... Sunset lost her phone? Or sending it back trough the portal will fix it?
This was a fun little read. Really good for a first fanfic. Never would have guessed. The giant book was a really nice surprise.
7845829 You have one more than me of each, sadly....
7845974 I don't follow.
7845907
Actually, yeah, that would make a lot of sense. And here I was envisioning a furious Twilight trying to shove the giant book through the tiny portal...
7845926
Thank you so much! I'm glad you liked it.
7845959
Oh, I'm sure it'll transform back when or if Twilight can get the book through the portal. It's not gone forever, don't worry.
7845972
Thanks a bunch! I really appreciate it.
7845469 that an understatement, imagine bringing over a Harddrive or a laptop with 1+ terrabyte over and we might see ponyville get flattened.
7845993
You said "My first story has exactly 4 likes and 2 dislikes. You, good sir/ma'am, are the real MVP."
And you have more than one like and dislike than me. :( That's what I meant.
7846003 Yeah, but a thumb drive is a bit more portable, and more likely for someone to forget it in their pocket.
Congrats on hitting da big time... proud to be the first to follow you !
7846109
Thank you! And yes, I shall never forget my first follower- Thanks for having faith in me.
7846051
), but, well... is I-was-just-really-anxious-to-get-this-thing-posted-before-my-schedule-got-so-crammed-I-had-no-time-to-deal-with-it a valid excuse? 
Yeah, can't deny you've got a point there... I probably could've spent more time on Twilight and her giant phonebook (Ha! See what I did there?
I’m not sure what the writing staff would do—there is that deleted Friendship Games scene showing Princess Twi with a handful of Equestrian bit coins—but this is a hilarious take, and Twilight’s reaction to the AWESOMELY MAGNIFICENT POTENTIAL rings true. I’m guessing the portal dumped whatever happened to be in the phone’s memory at that moment into the book.
I do agree the ending would be snappier without the last scene between Sunset and Pinkie. I’m not sure, though, whether it would be possible to relocate that scene or it simply would have to be sacrificed for the sake of pacing.
7846133
Thanks for the feedback! Criticism is always appreciated, and you make a very good point. I could've definitely ended without the Sugarcube Corner scene, but I couldn't bring myself leave Sunset forever in disgust with the chocolate frosting- It wouldn't be right.
I personally find the twist to be clever and hilarious. Little issue with the indentation but all in all a cute fic. 7/10.
I loved this! Could barely keep myself from laughing out loud.
And Twilight now understands the burden of knowledge.
I wonder what would happen if we sent all of our politicians through the portal. Would they all turn into snakes?
7846004 Ah
7846557 no they would become Fiery Demonic Hell Snakes
Hhaha the universe has a sence of humor
I wonder how that would effect a game console...
I was expecting the book to be full of binary code, but I suppose magic is convenient enough to translate that for her. Just not too convenient to not troll Twilight, though.
Seems legit to me.
Well that was a fun read. Poor Sunset.
Well, that's certainly a different take on the "Twilight steals Sunset's phone" concept.
This is your first fic?
Pretty great for a first try! 
Actually a nice read in general. 
I didn't notice the spacing thing until you mentioned it, but I think that's because I'm really tired and it's really late. You should probably make sure that doesn't happen in future stories, should you write more, but it's really not a deal breaker for me. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to sleep. 