Worlds Apart

by NannyLamb

Chapter 2: Portals

Sombra sped fast away from the seemingly ever-multiplying guards that pursued her. The steel-lined hallway was long, and the vault that she needed to hack into was supposedly at the very end. She only worried that when she'd get there, she'd be cornered.

Panting, Sombra turned invisible, hoping to somehow lose the guards. The sound of wild gunshots rung in her ears. Her invisibility was steadily wearing off, and the men were still hot on her trail.

She was almost there. Almost at the vault that held a mysterious artifact, one that nobody really knew much about at all. Sombra knew that if something is so much of a mystery, it must hold great power. So she had searched.

She had searched everywhere, across all devices around the globe, and found only a blank website showing a single photo that just wouldn't load.

But said photo came with a caption:

King Cosmos's Scroll - Use Wisely

01010110 01100001 01110101 01101100 01110100 0010000000110001 00110101 00110000 00100000 01010010 01110101 01110011 01110011 01101001 01100001 01101110 0010000001010011 01110101 01110010 01110110 01100101 01101001 01101100 01101100 01100001 01101110 01100011 01100101

The caption was followed by a series of ones and zeroes- binary code. It was nothing compared to what Sombra did on a daily basis, however. She easily decoded it, and soon, she had an address.

Now, however, she was in trouble.

Sombra reached the end of the hallway. The dead end of the hallway. Then she frantically searched for a control panel, somewhere, something that she could hook her hacks up onto to open the vault, but she found scarcely any technology inside of the wall for her to operate. Whatever source it stemmed from was somewhere many floors up, out of her hacking range, and it was also protected by highly advanced security tech.

The guards were closing in on her.

I could hack them! No, not effective enough, they'd still be able to shoot.

Twenty meters.

I could translocate to escape! No, I can't throw it that far, and I still wouldn't have gotten what I came for.

Fifteen meters.

I could turn invisible! No, they'd find me at some point, and it wears off too fast anyway.

Ten meters.

Sombra panicked. She desperately spammed buttons on her hacking screen, racking her brain for any one of the hundreds of hacking methods that she had apparently forgotten when she most needed them.

Five meters.

Warp inside! Just warp inside, something, anything, por favor!

A gunshot. Sombra crumpled, clinging to the cold edges of the vault door as if for dear life. Pain blossomed across her back and through her body like a time-lapse of red ink in water.

Despite the pain, she continued trying and trying to hack her way out of this ugly situation, thinking that it couldn't end like this. She couldn't end like this.

Then Sombra hit a button, and something seemed to happen, but she wouldn't know, because, at that moment, she fell. Unconscious.

---

"Oooooooh! This is so exciting!" Pinkie Pie screamed at Princess Luna while rapidly bouncing in the alicorn's face, so fast she was almost vibrating. "New friends, Princess. We're making NEW FRIENDS!"

The pink pony squashed Luna's face before madly cartwheeling back and forth around Twilight's library. Luna rubbed her cheek and chuckled, happy to have Pinkie as her entertainment. Then the Princess noticed a bright light out of the corner of her eye.

They're here!

She was about to announce Sunset and Juniper's arrival, but it seemed that Pinkie Pie was way ahead of her. In other words, she (somehow) fell from the ceiling and squashed the two ponies the moment they came through.

"Wha-!" Sunset exclaimed. "Pinkie!"

Pinkie jumped up excitedly.

"Hi! I'm Pinkie Pie, but I think you already know that. No, I know that you already know that! Cuz you're both good friends with the other Pinkie Pie from your world! Anyway, I'm Pinkie Pie! Did I already say that? I already said that, didn't I! Silly me! Anyway, you're Sunset Shimmer and you're Juniper Montage and we're going to be really really good friends! YAY, FRIENDS!"

She blew a party cannon in their faces.

"Okay, Pinkie," said Sunset, "quiet down a bit. Juniper hasn't been here before and it might take a while for her to get used to it."

She looked over at Juniper, who was now a light yellow pegasus pony with three blueberries for her cutie mark. She still wore her purple spectacles and her trademark green pigtails in her mane.

Juniper attempted to stand upright, the way she was used to in the human world, but quickly lost her balance and collapsed back on all fours.

"Whoah," she said under her breath, shakily walking in a circle in an attempt to properly view the rest of her new form. Then she looked over at Sunset.

"Do... do I have... wings?" she asked.

"I guess so," Sunset replied, "Hmm. I've been wondering what type of pony you'de be if you went through the portal."

Juniper looked at her.

"What?" she said.

"Well, there are three types of ponies in Equestria: earth ponies, unicorns and pegasi. I guess I didn't mention that, either, did I?"

Juniper shook her head. Then she squinted her eyes, studying Sunset's face.

"You're a unicorn?!?"

"Yeah."

"So... you can use magic."

"Yeah."

"That's so cool!"

"I guess so. But It's not that crazy here in Equestria. I mean, there are plenty of magic users here. This world basically runs on magic," Sunset explained.

"Wow."

Suddenly Pinkie Pie was hugging them.

"Come on, less talking, more chit-chatting!" she yelled.

"Aren't those the same thing?" asked Juniper.

The two ponies were saved by Princess Luna, who used her magic to pry Pinkie off of them.

"Hello," she said, "Sunset Shimmer, Juniper Montage. I am Princess Luna, the mother of the Night and the governess of the Dream Realm. I would like to welcome you both to Equestria. Even if it is just a short visit."

Luna winked at Sunset, who had gotten down on her knees while Juniper simply stood there, staring. After a second, however, she noticed Sunset's position and promptly fell over as she scrambled to bow before the Princess.

Luna chuckled.

"That won't be necessary, my little ponies."

She helped Juniper to her hooves.

"So now what?" said Sunset.

"Oh, oh, oh, pick me, pick meeeee!"

They looked over to see Pinkie Pie bouncing on the spot with her pink hoof as high up in the air as she could get it.

"Yes, Pinkie?" Sunset said, raising her eyebrow.

Pinkie bounced towards them.

"We..." she gestured to herself and Luna, "could give you..." she pointed her hoof at Sunset and Juniper, nearly smacking Sunset in the face, "A TOUR OF PONYVILLE!"

They all just stared at her. Then Pinkie looked at Luna.

"COME ON LET'S GO!" she yelled, then wrapped her forelegs around Sunset and Juniper and (somehow) dragged them all the way to the front door of the castle in a fraction of a second, leaving Luna in the library to follow. With a smile and a sigh, the alicorn lit up her horn and teleported to join the others.

During the tour, Pinkie asked Juniper a lot of random questions as Juniper slowly got used to talking with Luna and coordinating her hooves with each other.

"So this is Sugarcube Corner!" Pinkie Pie exclaimed, gesturing to the sugary-themed house in front of them, "this is where I live!"

She dashed through the door and came back almost immediately with a tray full of desserts.

"Cupcake?"

Pinkie held the tray up in Juniper's face.

"Yes, thank you, Pinkie Pie," said Luna, smiling and taking three cupcakes in her magic. Sunset and Juniper giggled.

After Sunset and Juniper took their cupcakes from the tray, they moved on to the next building.

"Is this a garden shop?" Juniper asked.

"Yep!"

"Can we go in?"

Sunset looked at her.

"Why?" she asked.

"I really like gardening."

"Okay!" shouted Pinkie.

She quickly rushed up to the door and rapidly rapped her hoof on it. The door was opened by a pale earth

pony with a rosy red mane and tail that matched her rose cutie mark.

"Oh, hello, Pinkie!" said the pony.

"Hi, Rose! I have new friends! This is Sunset Shimmer and Juniper Montage!" Pinkie raced around and, before she knew it, Juniper was standing in front of Rose. "Juniper wants to see your shop!" said Pinkie.

Juniper smiled and waved.

"Hi."

"It's good to meet you, Juniper! My name's Rose. Now please, do come in." said Rose in a cheery voice. She stepped to the side to allow Juniper to enter.

"Is that a blue zinnia!?!"

"It sure is!"

Sunset chuckled to herself as she watched her friend get all excited over flowers.

She smiled up at Luna.

---

About half an hour later, the group returned to Twilight's castle, Juniper carrying a small tote bag in her mouth that contained a potted blue zinnia.

"I think Juniper and I should probably be getting back to our world," said Sunset Shimmer, heading towards the library.

"Okie-Dokie Lokie!" said Pinkie Pie as she bounced ahead.

"Dish hath been really fun," Juniper said, her voice distorted by the bag in her mouth.

Soon they got to the library containing the mirror portal.

"Goodbye, Sunset and Juniper," said Luna, "it was very -ahem- fun spending time with the two of you."

"YA, IT WAS SUPER AMAZING!" Pinkie shouted, once again cartwheeling around the room.

"Bye, Princess! Bye, Pinkie!" said Sunset. Juniper waved goodbye to them as well.

Then the two of them disappeared through the portal, not noticing that as soon as they entered, it turned a peculiar purple.

Comments

[Ze1a7in]

Haven't even read, but the fact you outright say this is a crossover means you should have used the crossover tag.