> My Little Pony : Explorers of Dimensions
>  by Jelly Bean
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Prologue: Oops.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Alright, Pinkie, Rainbow, do you have everything ready?" Twilight called, excitement obvious in her voice. "We need to get this done at the proper time, or it'll never work right!" 

"Yepperonie, Twilight! I got everything right here!" Pinkie exclaimed, somehow managing to carry several heavy objects of unknown purpose whilist simultaneously bouncing in place. 

"Yeah, and believe me, it was a real hassle getting Rarity to let these gems go." Rainbow grunted, far less receptive of the ridiculous strain placed upon her back. Even for such an athletic mare, this was a bit too much, not that she would ever tell anyone that.

Rainbow, Twilight and Pinkie were all located on the inside of Twilight's Library/Treehouse. And not treehouse as in what the Cutie Mark Crusaders had, an actual living tree, that was a house.
Magic. Go figure.

Normally, I wouldn't bother describing said treehouse. We all know what it looks like, anyway. But this time, it was much different.
The floors had been covered in some kind of glowing, rubbery gunk, also known to unicorns and anyone who had bothered to read a basic magical theory textbook as a magical insulator. Anything that could be moved on the bottom floor was, and things that normally couldn't were teleported out of the way. 
A large white inscription was drawn across the walls and floor, also glowing, as magical runes and enchantment circles are wont to do, and thin, almost invisible bolts of magical energy crackled along it.

All in all, a very intimidating setup, revealing that whatever spell was going to be cast here required remarkable precision and power, one that would take at least seven unicorns a week to fully power it.

So naturally Twilight would have it done before lunchtime.

"I know, Rainbow, but just think of the possibilities of this spell! Long range teleportation like this has never been attempted before! This would revolutionize modern travel!" Twilight exclaimed with her typical adorkable glee, nearly bouncing in place as she said it.

Rainbow grunted and dropped the gems on the floor roughly. "Twi, if whatever magicky thing you're doing here needs this much stuff to do it, I think it's just too...too...what's the word..." Rainbow trailed off, putting her hoof to her chin in thought, before realizing this was a bad idea and quickly regaining her balance. "Oh! Right! Impractable! No, impractical. Yes, that's the word." Rainbow pointed out.

Twilight frowned and opened her mouth, preparing to launch into 'Lecture mode,' but before she could, Pinkie launched into the conversation with all the timing of a rampaging elephant.
"Silly Dashie, it doesn't work like that! It's a biggo-humongous-super-duper-ubër spell, so it's made to travel really really REALLY long distances! Like going from Ponyville all the way to Zebrica in a few seconds!" Pinkie said, helpfully illustrating her point by stretching her forelegs apart in a "This much" gesture, apparently unaware of the fact that typical physics both prohibits any sort of limb stretching like taffy and the fact that she shouldn't be able to do that on four legs whilist carrying several massive machines on her back."

Twilight blinked in confusion as she stared at Pinkie casually bitch-slapping physics, closed her eyes, took three deep breaths, and turned back to the similarly bewildered blue pegasus, locking the current memory away in an ever expanding mental file called "Pinkie pie."

"Yes, Rainbow, exactly what Pinkie said." Twilight said in a voice slightly off kilter, before levitating the several baskets of gems away from Rainbow, teleporting Spike back upstairs as he tried to sneakily take a few gems, and dropped the basket in the circle. 
The next ten minutes were spent carefully arranging the gems in a specific pattern, while Pinkie held Spike at bay with her incessant yammering.
"Pinkie?" Twilight asked, calling up the stairs.
"And then I was like- 'Oatmeal? Are you CRAZY?!' and then she was like-"
"Pinkie!" Twilight called slightly louder.

Pinkie popped out of nowhere downstairs. "Yes, Twilight?" She said cheerfully.
Twilight once again took three deep breaths. "Pinkie, can you help get the Ontological Inertia Calibrator running? I don't really want to pop out of existence." The magical purple pony said to the physics defying pink abomination.

"I already set it up! I put in batteries, because I knew you'd want to have it going by now!"
Twilight's jaw flapped uselessly for a moment as she tried to comprehend what the insane baker had just said. Really, this was turning out to be a bad day, even by Pinkie Pie standards of unlogic. In the meantime, Rainbow Dash cheerfully took photos of the spazzing purple alicorn with the camera she had gotten by accidentally kicking the Ontological Inertia Calibrator.

Oh, I didn't mention that she was an alicorn? I thought you would have guessed that. I mean, seriously. Keep up with the show. 

Ignoring our little crisis, as 2/3ds of the ponies present in the room are unaware of us even discussing this, Twilight had already begun charging the circle. Bolts of magic flew from her horn, into the runes and also gave everyone in a mile radius of the library frizzy hair. The gems formed complex patterns as the magic arced through them. 
At this point, even Rainbow was intrested. It was certainly pretty, so it's only natural that anyone would be curious.
The excess magic ran across the insulator on the floor and was returned to the air.

And that was when all Tartarus broke loose.

Because while there was a magical insulator on the floor, the runic circle extended up to the walls too, meaning that there was an entire section of the library unprotected.
Normally, it isn't like Twilight to make such a mistake. She wouldn't, too, if it wasn't for one small problem that every scientist, mythical purple winged god-horse or not, dreads.
She forgot something.
In particular, she forgot where the spell she was preforming was. Her library.
Normally, it's actually better for the walls to be unprotected. The magic leaves through there and doesn't all cluster together once it's in the air.
But she forgot the site.
Ponyville had been home to some very strange things and powerful magics. In under a few years, it had to deal with the return of nightmare moon, An ursa minor attack, the Great and Powerful Trixie's day long reign of tyranny, Discord, a dragon, changelings, and the Cutie Mark Crusaders. That's a lot.
And the treehouse had experienced the very worst of it. Almost every magical mishap in Ponyville happened there or near there, in addition to being home to the most powerful unicorn in several hundred years for Celestia knows how long, plus her magical dragon assistant with a direct line to Princess Celestia and Luna, plus Celestia and Luna actually visiting there, plus several full on blasts with the elements of harmony, and to top it all off being Ground Zero of an alicorn Ascension.
It was pretty magically saturated.
So what was supposed to be a ventilation system, ended up just releasing all that latent energy. 

The library flared with a blinding light. Ponies on the streets yelped and covered their eyes, while others looked worriedly at said building, wondering what could cause such a blast.

Inside the Library, it was even worse.  Magic quite literally peeled off the walls, the sinks, the ponies and the books, being sucked into the circle like some kind of vortex. The Ontilogical Inertia Calibrator exploded, and the gems drifting about decided to forgo traditional physics and melt together. All the magic in the entire house, every last bit from all of those years, was sucked into it.

It sat there, glowing, in the middle of the house. 
One second.
Two seconds.
Three seconds.

BOOM.

Now, before I can go around explaining just how badly this spell fucked up, I need to explain it's basics.

Picture the planet as a single, thin pane of glass, that curves around to meet itself. The spell was to essentially use a surgeons precision to piece apart the individual grains, and tunnel your way through to reach the other side in a matter of seconds.

A more powerful version of the spell isn't limited to the planet.

Picture now, the universe. Millions upon millions of galaxies, filled with billions of planets and stars in each one. Not just a single layer. Picture it as a pane of glass, a massive one. Like a coffee table if the crumbs from a particularly nutty cookie were galaxies. And make sure the planets are glass too. And the stars and the galaxies, and moving glass at that. Always rotating. Always shifting. Always breathing. All of that, the wonder of the universe, contained in a pane of glass used for windows, all of it existing, never quite touching. That spell would move with the grain of the universe itself. Fluid. Alive.

What happened instead was the rough equivalent of driving a flaming monster truck into the coffee table while "Eye of the Tiger" Plays in the background, accompanied by an angry horde of hippopotamus. 

It could be compared to, say, rather than lighting a sparkler on the fourth of July, you accidentally set off twelve nuclear missiles.


To say the treehouse blew apart would be an understatement of such porpotions that it could almost be counted as a lie.
It didn't blow up, it was vaporized. It was vaporized so thoroughly that everyone who had ever seen it suffered a sudden moment of doubt that it had ever been there, and that the massive crater in the ground had always existed there.

The very foundations of the planet shook. Continents cracked, avalanches fell, volcanoes erupted, the very water of the oceans was sucked five feet into the air and dropped again. The air cooked and split, and a massive firestorm erupted in a single pillar.

Meanwhile, in Canterlot:

"As you can see, your highness, It would be in our best interests were we to follow the new plan, and totally change the Judicial system. It would not only increase efficiency, but would reduce the amount of biased trials by 50%." Silver Briefcase, the head of the Canterlot Institute of Law finished, never once lifting his head from his prostrated position on the ground." 

Celestia sighed inwardly at the unnecessary formality, but showed no signs of her internal displeasure on the outside. 
"Your concerns have been noted, Silver, and I agree that it is a fantastic idea. It will take some time to implement it, however, but I assure you I will do my very best to use it." The ever-regal Princess of the Sun said, with her trademark gentle smile.

"INDEED. WE TOO FIND THINE PROPOSAL INTERESTING. AS WE HAVE SPENT THE LAST MONTH STUDYING THE NEW LAWS SO THAT WE MAY, AS THE SAYING GOES, "CATCH UP WITH THE TIMES", WE AGREE THAT THE CURRENT JUDICIAL SYSTEM IS IN NEED OF CHANGE." Luna said in the Royal Canterlot Voice, also known as yelling at the top of your lungs.

To Silver's credit, he didn't even blink when Luna brought out the vocal heavy artillery. However, he could have also gone into shock, so there's that.

"Thank you, Your highnesses. I am pleased that-"

Luna suddenly shot bolt upright in her throne. GET DOWN! She roared, the force of it knocking everyone on their stomach anyway, so it was kind of pointless. 

Celestia stared at Luna in shock. "Lulu, what's the matter?!" Celestia cried, all forms of composure or secret nicknames slipping in worry for her sister.

Luna, ignorant or just not caring of the odd stares she was receiving, spoke slowly, yet with an urgency none could ignore. "Something is coming. Something big. Something very, very powerful and very bad, and we need to make a shield NOW!" She cried, the panic eventually overcoming her as she leapt up from her seat.

A few of the nobles rolled their eyes. 'There's Luna.' They thought. 'Why did anyone bring her back? We were fine with one princess, not two.' 

Or at least, that's what they would have thought, if every living being in Canterlot didn't suddenly feel a profound fear penetrate their very minds and souls.
A second later, they found out why as the entire city shook like a pair of maracas. Celestia quickly threw up a shield around all of Canterlot, and not a moment too soon.

Seconds after casting the spell, the universe broke. 
Just broke. Everything. Physics, time, space, reality itself. Shattered like a toy.
Well, not broke into pieces mind you. More like cracked. Yes, a crack. A crack in the very fabric of the universe. The air, the seas the skies, the crack shot straight up in the air and spread out, as if someone had taken a sledgehammer to a 6 inch thick wall of plexiglass. Equestria, quaked. Zebrica quaked. Griffonia quaked. The sun, the stars, the galaxies in the sky. Foom, a crack.

And once it faded, every living being looked outside, and saw what had happened.
And they gasped.

The world was distorted, but only superficially. That would heal. Light and sound were bent, but that would heal. 
What was worrying was the massive, physics defying rip in space time that hovered or sank below the earth and spun along the horizon.
It was coming from Ponyville.

Meanwhile at Ponyville:

Canterlot was bad. Ponyville was worse.
Ironically, it was the crack that saved everyone. Pure fire, pure energy, locked in a rift in the universe. Bleeding out into nothing. Certainly, it still hit but with much less force than it could have. And what the Ponyvillians could see that anyone from Canterlot couldn't was that the cracks were healing.

That wasn't much reassurance. 

Buildings drifted through zero gravity. Inertia took a big steaming dump on acceleration, and trees grew in reverse. It was like discord, but with less chaos, and more broken universe. 
Ponies huddled up, terrified and crying, in the town square. Miraculously, there were no deaths nor injuries, and so there was only a lot of cleanup duty and psychiatrists needed. 

Rarity, Applejack and Fluttershy met in front of Sugarcube corner, accompanied by Applebloom, Scootaloo, and Sweetie Belle. 

"Fluttershah, darlin, what happened to yah?" Applejack asked, concerned about Fluttershy. Her coat was matted down and dirty, and quite scuffed up and scratched. She was weeping, as you would expect something as innocent as Fluttershy to do when caught in an explosion.
In response, Fluttershy only cried harder. 

Horror crossed Applejack's face. "Oh no. Sugarcube, are yer animal friends okay?"

Fluttershy managed to control herself long enough to give a nod of her head, before bursting back into tears. Meanwhile, the cracks in the universe were ashamed of themselves.

"Applejack! Fluttershy! Darlings, are you alright?" Rarity called, pushing her way past groups of ponies, while somehow still managing to look relatively good in the midst of a colossal disaster. 

Applejack nodded. "Ah'm fine, and so is Bloom and Scoots here, even if we're all a little shaken up." Worry crossed her face, an expression that did not look good on her. "But Flutters here...she ain't respondin' tah me, she just keeps on cryin'."

Rarity walked over to Fluttershy, as the terrified Sweetie Belle, following closely behind, spotted her friends and ran to them, giving them a massive tackle hug that was absolutely nothing like how Sweetie normally behaved. 
We'll leave the kids alone for now, because it just doesn't really feel right describing kids crying in fear. 

"Fluttershy, dear, what's wrong? Why are you crying?"

Fluttershy only sobbed harder. By now, some ponies were starting to take notice, and a few were looking around worriedly. No one liked seeing the adorable pegasus cry.

"Please, darling, look at me. No, no, look at me." She said, gently guiding Fluttershy's face with a hoof to look at her. Fluttershy just kind of fell into Rarity, and began crying on her. Startled as she was, the alabaster unicorn mare cared deeply for her friends, and so said nothing.
On the other hand, Fluttershy did say something.
Two somethings actually.
"Rainbow -sob- -choke- dash..." she whispered.
Rarity froze. The two words pinged around in her mind, sitting dormant until she finally realized what the yellow pegasus was talking about.
"Applejack...?" Rarity asked in a small, terrified, hoarse voice. The kind of voice where you know the answer will be bad but you just have to ask anyway. "Where's Rainbow?"
Applejack froze. Rainbow Dash. Her friend. Rainbow Dash, the speedster. Rainbow Dash, the pegasus who never abandoned her friends and should be here by now.

Rainbow Dash, the pegasus who was at Twilight's the last time she saw her.
'How did she forget?' Applejack asked herself, her head spinning. Her stomach felt like it wanted to leap out of her throat. And Pinkie! Where was Pinkie? Pinkie was with Twilight too! And-
Oh.
"Twilight." Applejack said. Oddly enough, it caught everyone's attention. 
"Twilight lives in that library. Twilight was making a new spell." She said, horror crossing her face: And several others too.
"Twilight, Pinkie and Rainbow were all in that library."
With hardly a word, everyone ran over to the library. 

If something can be said about Ponyville's citizens, it's that they care for each other. They panic and yell when danger comes by, but if one of their one is threatened, everyone stands up to the call.

And with that in mind, I would like you to imagine the utter despair that crossed their minds when they walked to the crater, and found nothing. Literally nothing existed there, any more. It was a reverse mountain.

With a single wailing cry, everyone in Ponyville broke down in tears. 

And then pink happened.

What?

Pink.

"Hey, what's everyone crying about?" Came a cheerful, bubbly voice that everyone in Ponyville knew and loved.

And the crowd turned.

And there was Pinkamina Diane Pie, in all her Party-tastic glory. Eight balloons were tied around her tail. Two paper chains were wrapped around her hind leg.
And draped across her back were Spike and Rainbow Dash, Unconcious and charred, but fine.

And the crowd cheered, and rushed forward and hugged and laughed and sung because everyone was okay and-

"AAAAAAH!"

And they stopped. This was getting old, but no less painful.

They rushed forward to the crater, and there, at the bottom, was Princess Twilight Sparkle. 
The downside was that Princess Twilight Sparkle was actively being pulled into a crack in the universe. A great, shiny green hole that was sucking her in. 

And then Fluttershy happened. In one of the bravest acts in her lifetime, she overcame her fear, dove down to Twilight...
At a very slow, halting pace. The winds were difficult, and she wasn't that great of a flier. It did have the added bonus effect of spurring on the rest of the Pegasi and Unicorns to try and help too. From Twilight's perspective, feathers and magic blotted out the sun, and she felt herself slowing. 
And then she stopped slowing.

A pegasus, a light grey pegasus with fury in her eyes and a sharp eating utensil as a cutie mark had hit Bon Bon. And that's all she saw before she was sucked in, and everything went utterly black.

> Awakening
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The first thing Twilight saw was green. A lot of green. Not green as in grass on a field under a blue sky, green as in it occupied her entire vision, like she had painted her own eyes green. Also, don't paint your own eyes green to replicate this experience. It will hurt.

Twilight attempted to speak, but found that she had nothing to speak with. Or lungs. Or a body, for that matter. Panic quickly set in, as it is apt to do when you realize you are missing your body. The area turned purple.

She tried to thrash, but found that movement was impossible. Well, not impossible. She just had no idea how to move like this. The area turned blue.

Before her sanity could go flying out the metaphorical window, a thunderous voice boomed from all around,

"WELCOME!"

Twilight finally figured out how to speak in this strange void, and promptly used her new found abilities to vocalize to screech at the top of her lungs in terror.

"Oh, come now, come now. There's no need to scream."

Twilight disregarded the helpful advice and continued to scream. The area turned red.

"Seriously, stop. That's annoying. I'm a giant voice, do you want to annoy the giant voice?"

Twilight decided she did not, in fact, want to annoy the giant voice and promptly shut her yap. The void turned orange.

"There we go. Just relax, and I can explain what's going on."

"Okay..." Twilight commented, trying as best she could to relax when she was soulstuff.

"Well, let's get the script out of the way. The voice appeared to clear it's throat.  "This is the portal that leads to the world inhabited only by Pokémon. Beyond this gateway, many new adventures and fresh experiences await you! Before-"

What sounded like papers crashing to the floor echoed throughout the void, which, Twilight noted, had changed color.

SHIT! The voice roared. Twilight flinched, both at the volume and at the profanity. There goes my papers... Oh well, I guess we get to the question answering part early."

If the formerly purple alicorn had a face, it would have lit up in glee. "Oh, great! I have SO many questions."

The voice gave an audible gulp.

"First, where are we? No, scratch that, who are you? Why don't I have a body, and why are all the colors changing so rapidly? What are Pokemon? How did I get here? Where did-" Twilight fired off questions at a speed that would make Pinkie proud.

"Woah, woah, woah!" The voice interrupted, irritated. "Let's slow down, and take a few breaths, alright?"

Twilight stopped babbling and took a few breaths. When she finished, she felt much more calm. "Okay, I'm good. So, where are we?"

"Twilight Sparkle, welcome to limbo! And not the limbo where you end up if you die. The other, less scary one." The voice commented.

Twilight attempted to raise an eyebrow but found she had none. "Limbo? Where's that?"

"Limbo is the space between universes. I know you're going to ask more, so allow me to clarify: Universes are separated. You can't just waltz out onto the edge of one and into the other. They have ends, and at those ends is Limbo. Past that, is another universe. It's hard to explain in three-dimensional terms, but essentially you're sandwiched between two universes."

A sense of disbelief emanated from the unshaped soulstuff that was Twilight, mixed with a sense of awe. For where else could she be, in an empty void of ever changing color? What other place could recreate such an indescribable experie-

"Waiiit, did Pinkie spike my drink again?" Twilight asked suspiciously, this suddenly reminding her of an acid trip.

The voice seemed incredulous when it next spoke. "Pinkie spikes drinks?"

Twilight sighed. "Pinkie decided that making everyone stoned as Discord was would be a great idea for a prank."

"Was it?"

"No."

"A shame, that. No, you're not lying in a puddle of your own drool. You blew open your universe and ended up here." The voice commented flatly.

"What do you mean I blew open my own universe?" Twilight asked disbelievingly, with a faint hint of accusation added in for flavor.

"Think for a moment. What do you remember last?"

Twilight gave the impression that she was scowling. "I remember casting a long range telportation spell, and then-"

Horror permeated the space around her as memories flashed through her mind.

A haywire spell.
An explosion.
Flames.
A crater.
A crack in the sky itself. 
Falling.

"Yep, you went and Kool-Aid Mare'd through your own universe. Way to go." The voice snarked.

Twilight was still frozen in shock.

"And if you're worried about your friends, don't be. There were no casualties anywhere. You caused a ton of property damage, though."

Twilight could finally move again. "I...did that?" She asked hoarsely. If she had tear ducts she would be crying.

"No, no. It was partly you, but the universe was already cracking. You see, there's a reason you're here. There's something wrong with the Pokémon universe too, and if you don't stop it, it'll spread." 

"Pokémon?" Twilight asked, some of her horror abated at hearing that no one had died and it wasn't totally her fault. A lot of it still was, though, so it didn't help much. "What are they?"

"Pokémon are...well, you'll see when you get there, won't you? The short story is, they're setinent creatures from another universe, and very powerful. You'll be getting there soon too, so you can see for yourself." 

Twilight didn't like the voice's attitude much, but put it aside. "Who are you, anyway? I can't just keep thinking of you as the voice.

A rush of impossible memories and sensations bombarded Twilight. Many words would express part of what she was feeling as she sifted through aeons of memories, but sadly, none of them included the word 'Discombobulate.' Which is unfortunate, because that's a really fun word. Seriously, say it. 'Discombobulate.' Heh.

After several minutes of stunned awe, both of which are not nearly as fun words as 'Discombobulate', Twilight spoke.
"Oh."

"Yeah, hard to understand, isn't it? Quite simply, I am The Voice. And it seems my role here is ending." 

"What? Ending?" Twilight questioned.

"Ending. This entire time, I've been evaluating you and your personality, to see how you'll fit in with the natives. They don't exactly look like ponies, you know, so I had to make some...'adjustments.'"

"Evaluating me? Adjustments? What do you mean? What did you adjust?"

"Too late, not enough time to explain. Just put your hoof here." A ripple in the everchanging empty void appeared. Before Twilight could voice that she didn't have any hooves, she realized she was back in her pony body.

Twilight put her hoof on the ripple.

The void pulsed once. It pulsed twice. It pulsed thrice, and everything was a mystic purple.


"Congratulations! Your aura has been analyzed, found to be a mystic purple, and you are now departing for the World of Pokemon! Have a nice trip!" 

"Wait! WAIT! What do you mean by aura? I still don't understand what I'm supposed to do! When can I see my friends again? WHAT HAPPENED TO SPIKE?!" The panicky purple alicorn screamed as she began vanishing.

My dear Twilight, it's so simple! All you need to do:

Is live." 


And then, before Twilight could ask another question, she vanished into another universe.



_____________________________________________________________________________

Twilight blearily opened her eyes, her vision blurry and the air stinging them. 

She blinked twice to clear the blur from her eyes, before realizing what had just happened.

"Wha-URGH! That stupid voice! It sent me away without even telling me what to do!" Twilight cried angrily, stomping on the ground.

Even as she was angry, she couldn't help but appreciate the view. She was laying on a large, somewhat mossy rock in the middle of a light, sparse forest totally unlike the dank, dark and creepy Everfree. 

Twilight never knew how much she treasured breathing until she had lungs to breathe with. Instantly, the anger was wiped off her face, replaced with scholarly glee as she realized something important.

She was in an entire different UNIVERSE. Mountains upon mountains of unknown discoveries lay before her. An entire new sentient species, too. Twilight leapt off the rock with oddly catlike agility, and moved quickly around the treeline, investigating every last plant and tree like they were made of gold.

Perhaps they were.

Even as the Alicorn of Friendship ran about eagerly, investigating everything, she felt odd as she moved. Sleeker, faster. More agile. Her vision was more acute. But even as she was curious about that, she was even more curious about everything else. Her split tail twitched eagerly as she thought of all the-

Wait a minute...

'Split tail?' Thought Twilight, referencing her own sensations, not my narration.

Twilight turned around. 

Right behind her, was a long, very pink, very split, very NOT PONY tail.

She gulped, and looked down.

Paws. 
Pink fur.

The former Alicorn of friendship, currently Espeon of Panic attacks, screamed.

And deeper in the forest, something heard her.
> Hi! My name is Skipper!
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

When we last saw our heroine, she was screaming her head off. Hopefully, by now she'll have recovered and gotten on to some delightful- ah, nope, she's still screaming. And running, too. Look at that.

As the above narration implied, Twilight was doing both of those things. It was understandable. Waking up as a pink cat in another dimension would be enough to send anyone into hysterics. Aside from Discord. That guy's nutty as a fruitcake.

Where were we?

"AAAUUUUGH!"

Oh. Right.

Twilight scrambled furiously, trying to get away from...well, herself, I guess. Panicking ponies aren't that smart. The former alicorn, now Espeon, tripped over her own feet in her haste, and rolled down a small hill in the forest, smacking into trees as she went.
Her screams of horror were replaced with yelps of pain. If you need an example of what it felt like, run headfirst into several trees. You can't really print the feeling aside from OW OW OW.

"OW! OW! OW!" Twilight yelled, covering her oddly sensitive head with her paws, noting the existence of furry ears.

Huh. 

Proceeding with Twilight's typical bad luck, she stopped rolling down the hill...
By falling off a small cliff overlooking a beach. Jeez.

Meanwhile...
_____________________________________________________________________________________
A blue Pokémon paced back and forth in front of a tall, somewhat menacing tent with a massive smiling image of a pink, somewhat rabbit-like creature painted on it's fabric walls. No, scratch that, it wasn't painted on, the entire top half of the tent was shaped like the rabbit creature, known as a Wigglytuff.

The blue pokemon could best be described as blue and fishy. Not fishy as in, 'heheheh, I'll steal your wallet' fishy, but actually like a fish. It had two fins, one large blue one on top of it's head and a slightly less large light blue one as a tail fin. It was dark blue on top, and light blue on bottom. Four legs kept it supported firmly on the ground, and two orange spiky gill things on it's cheeks. Two small, black, beady eyes that looked less creepy and more adorable shone with worry as their owner, known as a Mudkip, debated over an agonizing internal decision.

After a moment, his eyes hardened.

"No. I refuse to be paralyzed by this any longer. I have to steel my courage today, or I'll never do it again."

And with those words, he stepped out onto a grate.

"POKEMON DETECTED! POKEMON DETECTED! WHOSE FOOTPRINT? WHOSE FOOTPRINT?" Something bellowed from below.

A different, if still loud voice answered.

"The footprint is Mudkip's! The footprint is Mudkip's!"

The Mudkip cried out with shock and stumbled backward, off the grate. After a moment, he sighed dejectedly.

"I can't...I can't even work up the courage to go in, after all..." He mumbled sadly.

He took out a large rocklike object from...somewhere. Where did he keep that? 

"I thought that by bringing along my personal treasure would inspire me...I guess not." He laughed bitterly. He then picked it up. Nope, didn't see where he put it. Sorry.

"Ugh, i'm such a coward...this is so discouraging..." He mumbled to himself, trudging off.

After a couple of minutes, another group of fishy Pokémon emerged, but these mons weren't aquatic. They were the 'Steal your wallet, heheheh' kind of mons. The first one, a purple floating ball thing that spewed foul gas constantly, addressed his companion, a purple eyeless bat with no feet that have the most irritating habit ever of showing up out of the fucking blue when you go exploring a cave. Seriously, you're all like 'Oh hey, the end of the cave! Let's go save and rest up and stuff' but NOPE! ZUBAT TIME.

...Okay, I'm good.

So the purple toxic floaty ball, known as a Koffing, and the STUPIDEST MOST IRRITATING BAT EVER emerged from cover. 

"Woah-ho-ho. That little runt had somethin' good on him, didn't he?" The Koffing said, with a laugh that did a good job of making me hate him more than the Zubat.

"Heh-heh-heh. Yep, he did, didn' he?" The Zubat commented, doing a successful job of making me hate him even more now. No love and tolerance for this bat.

"Worth a ton, I bet. Wanna go take it from him?"

"Yep."

"Woah-ho-ho!" The Koffing laughed not so evilly as pathetically. 
"Heh-heh-heh." The living personification of annoyance and frustration laughed. They both promptly flew off to confront the poor mudkip, further cementing their status in the story as being jerks.

Oh, but just you wait, Mr. Zubat. Just you wait. Making the author angry at you is not something you do lightly. You'll pay. Eventually...

Er, anyway, back to our falling Espeon friend.

______________________________________________________________________________________

Oddly enough, as Twilight plummeted thirty feet to the sandy ground, she did not scream. Perhaps she had just decided that she had screamed enough for one day. Or perhaps she had a leaf in her throat. In any case, her lack of screamery allowed her to think rationally for the two seconds she would have until imminent pain.

"This will hurt." Came the first thought, in the first second.
"I should teleport." Was the second thought, in the second...second? Bah.
As you may recall, it was two seconds, not three. So after she decided that she should, in fact, teleport, she had smacked into the ground. She rolled limply down the gentle slope and into the shoreline, stopped from rolling into the ocean to float by a simple rock. No, she wasn't dead. She took a piano to the head: A thirty foot fall hurt to her about as much as being whacked with a cricket club.

Note to readers: Do not get whacked with a cricket club. It hurts.

As Twilight drooled unconsciously and deliriously, the same Mudkip from before came dragging himself along the beach. A small smile graced his face as the crablike creatures on the rocks above, known creatively as Krabby, blew bubbles into the air. They did it as much as for everyone else's joy, to see the sun's light reflect off the bubbles and the waves, as for themselves. An artist can enjoy his art, after all.

"I like going here at sunset. The sun always makes the bubbles so pretty." He commented. "It always cheers me up when I'm in a mood." 

He sat there for a good two minutes before noticing something nearby. That something being a crumpled pink shape. Curiosity overcame him, as it is apt to do for all living beings, and he walked over to it.

Then it moved slightly.

"Oh my! There's someone over there!" The Mudkip helpfully stated the obvious in his own surprise. Running now, he stopped beneath the crumpled body and examined it.

It was an Espeon, which surprised him. You don't see many psychic pokémon around these parts, let alone an Eeveelution. 
Two large ,catlike ears extended from the top of it's head, where ears are supposed to be. They were actually longer than it's head. Covered in pretty pink fur from head to paws, two of her four legs lay crossed under her, and she was covered in scratches and a bit of tree leaves. Her long, split tail twitched unconsciously. She was an exceptionally beautiful Espeon, he noticed. 

What was of particular note to the observant Mudkip was that the gem embedded in her forehead. Rather than being the typical red circular shape, it was a deep lavender and, oddly enough, in an odd star shape. 

'How did she get here?' Mudkip thought, mulling over the strange psychic pink cat.

After a moment, he decided to ask her, and that his time could be better served by making sure the mystery Espeon was okay.

"Hey, are you alright?" The Mud Fish Pokémon asked, shaking Twilight gently. "You okay? Speak to me. C'mon." He tried. 

Seemingly in response to his question, the Espeon groaned and clutched at her head. "Aagh. My head. Spike, go away. My head hurts too much to wake up now."

"Spike?" The Mudkip asked to himself, musing over the strange name. "No, I'm not Spike. Are you okay? Do you need some ice?"

The Espeon stood on shaky legs, shook her head and opened her eyes.

And then the Mudkip was awed.

Eyes are wonderful things, you see. They are windows to the soul. You can't lie with eyes. They always speak the truth. Always tell stories. Stories about the people you meet and see and the places you go.

And her eyes were amazing.

Quickly recovering his composure, he asked: Are you okay? I found you lying on the beach next to a rock!" He said.

The Espeon didn't respond. It was just frozen there, staring at him with shock.

Inside Twilight's mind, she was racing. Several emotions coursed through her, but none got through her outer shell of shock. There was disgust, fear, curiosity, and a tad of the urge to squee at the creature. But most overwhelming of all was panic.

This was it. This was first contact. Literally anything could go wrong. The slightest move could say either: 'Please cut my head off and declare war on Equestria, or 'Please make me marry a cat.'

The odd creature in front of her frowned a bit. "Are you okay? Why are you just staring at me?"

"AGH I'M SORRY PLEASE DON'T MAKE ME MARRY A CAT I DON'T WANT TO!" Twilight yelled, jumping up and taking a few steps back.

The Mudkip raised an eyebrow, tried to comprehend what she had just said, and then decided to ignore it and pass it off as post-unconsciousness delirium. "You're okay. You're just on the beach. I found you unconscious and tried to wake you up."

Meanwhile Twilight began both to calm down, seeing as how cats were NOT being rolled down the isle, and mull over her memories of the last few hours.

So she was in another dimension that was collapsing somehow. That was new. Not the other dimension part, she already did that, with the whole mirrors and humans shtick. The collapsing part. That was new.

"Can you hear me?"

Oh. That was right. Extra-dimensional lifeform.

"Oh. Sorry, yes. I...I can hear you." Twilight said timidly. Couldn't risk offending...whatever this creature was. 

"Oh! Good! I was worried you had hit your head a bit too hard." The Mudkip said cheerfully.

From what she could see, typical speech customs were similar to ponies and humans. It would be best to not speak much, lest she risk offending the blue fishy creature.

"No, I just fell a little bit. Believe me, I've had a lot worse." Twilight chuckled.

"Really? Wow." Said blue fishy creature said, smiling.

"So...Who are you?" Twilight asked, having difficulty reigning in her curiosity.

"Hi! I'm Skipper, the Mudkip!"

So his- well, it seemed male, anyway- name was Skipper the Mudkip, then. 

"Nice to meet you, Skipper the Mudkip." She said, extending a paw before she could think better of it.

Before she could realize her mistake of accidentally offending the creature, Skipper the Mudkip took her paw and shook it. Somehow. Despite having rather stubby limbs. 

He frowned a little bit. "No, no. My name isn't Skipper the Mudkip, it's just Skipper. My species name is Mudkip."

Twilight blushed, realizing her faux pas. "Oh! Sorry. I didn't know that, er, I mean I'm not quite from, uh-" Twilight stammered nervously. This wasn't like her at all. Why was she so tense and shy?

The Skipper smiled a friendly smile. His smile, she noted, stretched from both of his...orange spiky things on the side of his face. Gills, maybe? "It's fine! Mudkip aren't exactly common around here. We're kind of a rare species. Espeon, though...no one's seen an Espeon in quite some time. You guys, er, girls, are really rare nowadays."

That simple sentence was a treasure trove of information. There were more than one species on this world. In fact, the way Skipper said it, it seemed like there were many of them. Also, they were both rare species.

You might think it was odd of Twilight to adapt to being a pink cat so quickly. The answer is, she hadn't. But her scholarly side had taken over, which meant that anything but assimilating knowledge at a rate that would stun the Borg would be thrown out the window.

Skipper raised a stubby paw, and pointed to Twilight's head. "What's that? I've never seen an Espeon with a gem quite like that."

Twilight put a paw to her forehead, feeling around for what he was looking at. She quickly noted the source of the question: A gem shaped like her cutie mark, embedded in her forehead. You would think that would hurt, but it was a grown in part of the Espeon species, just like a unicorn horn. 

Twilight's eyes widened. "Oh my Celestia, there's a gem in my head!" She said. 

Skipper blinked. "You mean that's not normal?"

"No! No it isn't! First I'm a pink cat and now there's a stone in my head?"  Twilight panicked.

"Woah, woah woah. So you weren't an Espeon either?"

Twilight froze, just realizing what she had said. "Er, no, I mean, uh..." She stammered, trying to come up with an excuse "Uh, no, my...My fur was just a different color! Yes, that's a good one." She said, apparently unaware of the fact that she had said the last part out loud.

"Oh. Okay, I guess." Skipper said, a bit confused. He decided to move on. "Who are you, anyway?"

"Twilight Sparkle." She said, grateful for a change of subject.

"Really? That's an odd name." Skipper said, even more confused. 

"It's my name, what can I say?" Twilight said, chuckling nervously.

"Well, it's nice to meet you, Twilight!" The mud fish said, with great cheer.

Twilight smiled. "Nice to meet you too, Skipper!" She replied.

But before any actual questions could be asked besides "Who are you", There was a sudden purple blur. 
That sudden purple blur smashed into Skipper, throwing him backward and hitting Twilight in the head. The two hopelessly entangled Pokemon rolled backward, both of them struggling to get away. Twilight finally succeeded, managing to focus her magic enough to teleport away from Skipper...
Just in time to see the not-that-dastardly duo of Zubat and Koffing, holding a rather large rocklike object. 
"Woah-ho-ho! Thanks for the loot, sucker!" Koffing laughed.
"Wha-Hey! You give that back, you jerk!" The angered Mud Fish pokémon cried.
"Heh-heh-heh. Too cowardly to make a move to stop us, eh?" The ridiculously irritating purple bat chortled. Skipper flinched at the hurtful truth.
"Hey! Give him back his...rock!" Twilight cried angrily, unconsciously arching her back slightly.
"Woah-ho-ho. Sure thing...You just got to catch us, first." Koffing cackled, and with that the two idiotic poison types flew right on into a cave.

Twilight growled. "Why those dirty, rotten..." She snarled. "Why, I have half a mind to-" She was interrupted by crying.

Well, not so much crying as sniffling. "T-they're right..." Skipper mumbled sadly, trying in vain to stop himself from tearing up. "They t-took my personal treasure, a-and I didn't even do a thing..."

Twilight's eyes softened in sympathy. She walked over to the Mudkip, noting the absurdity of the situation, and put a comforting paw on his back. "It's okay. We can get it back." She said reassuringly.

"W-we can?" Skipper asked disbelievingly.

"Sure we can!" Twilight cried enthusiastically. "We just need to find the authorities, and then-"

Skipper's hope fell flat. "Officer Magnezone's all the way in Oran Forest, and Deputy Sparks is...well, an idiot." Skipper said, his face sagging. 

Twilight frowned. "Oh. Well, we could also go in after them, I guess." Twilight said. It wasn't that great of an idea: There were no plans on what to do when she got there besides demand they give back his...rock.

"G-go after them? Are you insane?" Skipper asked incredulously. "That's a Mystery Dungeon over there!"

Twilight blinked. She didn't know why, but a chill ran down her spine. "Mystery Dungeon? What's a Mystery Dungeon? Why is it so mysterious?"

"A Mystery Dungeon isn't an actual dungeon. It's...well, no one's sure." Skipper said, taking nervous glances at the cave, as if it was going to eat them. "They're weird places. They change every time you go in them. Things pop up randomly from the blue, walls change around when you don't look at them, and insane Pokémon are everywhere!" He cried.

Twilight's eyes had widened in horror by the time he finished. "Insane? What do you mean, insane pon-er Pokémon?"

"I mean, there are Pokémon in those places, that aren't, well, Pokémon anymore. They've gone mad and start attacking anyone who goes down there randomly! No one even knows where they come from, they just...are!" 

Twilight gulped. "Oh. Well, that doesn't sound safe at all..." She said, pawing her, well, paw nervously on the ground. After a moment, her eyes hardened, and the spark of determination glistened in them. "But that doesn't matter. They stole something from you, and we'll get it back!"

Skipper looked at Twilight with respect...and just a little bit of awe, that he was talking to something much more powerful that he was.

"You...you really mean it? You'd help me get my treasure back from those thieves?" He asked disbelievingly.

"Yeah! It's just the nice thing to do!" Twilight said confidently. 

Suddenly, he hugged her. "Thankyou thankyou thankyou!"

Recovering from her shock, she smiled. "You're welcome. I'll be back in a moment." She said, turning away.

Skipper's face contorted first in confusion, and then realization. "Oh no. You're not going in there alone!"

She turned back, surprise written all over her face. "You want to come too? Isn't it too dangerous?"

"Yes. It is." Skipper admitted. "And I'm scared out of my mind. But the Distortion World will freeze over the day I let someone who's trying to help me get themselves killed." He declared.

A sense of respect blossomed in Twilight. She smiled. "Alright! Let's go, Skipper! We need to teach a couple someponies some manners!"

Ignoring or unaware of the odd word used, Skipper followed Twilight into the cave. The darkness quickly swallowed them.

All was silent.

Until something shifted in the forest, it's rest disturbed.

_______________________________________________________________________________


Beach cave


B1


Twilight and Skipper suddenly found themselves standing in a room about the size of Twilight's bedroom. Blue stone walls with an odd spiky texture enclosed an empty room with no discernible light source. An odd square-shaped tile sat in front of them, in the corner of the room. It had an emblem of a green arrow on it. 

There was no sign of the entrance of which they came through.

"Wha-where are we?" Skipper asked in terror, stumbling back a bit. "What in Arceus's name is this place?!"

"Apparently, this is a Mystery Dungeon." Twilight observed dryly. She walked to the odd plate, and tapped a paw on it. Almost instantly, a wave of green energy emerged, covered the stunned Twilight, and vanished after a brief moment with a *click*. 

Twilight stared at the plate.

Skipper stared at the plate.

"Well, that was odd and totally pointless." Skipper said flatly.

"No, there has to be a point to it. Do I need to do something, or poke it a certain way, or..."

"It's useless."

"Nothing is useless, Skipper."

"Twilight, it's useless."

"IT IS NOT USELESS SKIPPER!" Twilight yelled, irritated. Skipper withdrew, startled. Twilight sighed. "Sorry, I lost my temper for a moment there."

"Let's just move on, alright?" Skipper asked, shuffling nervously. "Let's go."

"Okay." Twilight said, still a bit upset over the incident.

They quickly formed a plan: Twilight would take the lead, and Skipper would watch for any threats. They quickly ran down a narrow hall wide enough for the two of them to stand in single file.

"What are we looking for exactly?" Twilight asked as she ran down.

"Stairs. There are stairs leading down to lower floors. We need to find them, and not encounter any insane pokémon along the way." Skipper said.

Twilight shuddered. "Yeah, that would be bad."

They turned a corner, ran a bit, turned another one, ran a bit, and turned another corner...
Right into another room. The good news was that the stairs were there.
The bad news was that there was a sleeping THING next to it.
It looked like a pink and white rock with eyes, and spiky coral sticks on top and four stubby white legs on bottom.

"A Corsola." Skipper whispered. "They're Rock/Water types, and not that tough. If worst comes to worst, we can knock it out long enough to make it past.

"Okay." Twilight said, not really paying much attention as she puzzled over the odd creature. This was certainly a strange day.

The two of them gently crept to the stairs. There were a couple close calls where Twilight would almost cough, but the crisis was averted by a well placed fin-to-the-mouth.

Sadly, it was all worthless as less than two steps away from the stairs, the Corsola woke up.

You would expect an insane pokémon to start wailing and yelling and start shouting pasta recipes at the top of his or her lungs. Instead, there was no announcement, no fanfare, nothing. The look it the Pokémon's eyes was dangerously empty, as if it was just a fake. A mannequin.

Fluttershy, Twilight noted as she froze in horror, would have fainted.

Without a word, the Corsola rushed the hapless Twilight. There was no room for Skipper to do anything. This would hurt...

Well, it would have if the Corsola didn't harmlessly bounce off Twilight like it had just tried to tackle a wall. The Espeon stared incredulously.

The Corsola tried several times more, but did about as much damage as a fly could to a sherman tank.

Finally recovering from his shock, Skipper used Mud Slap.

It sounds like a stupid move, but it hurts like hell, as the Corsola could attest if it wasn't utterly mad.

Hard-packed mud flew in the Corsola's face, slamming it backward and knocking it out.

Twilight looked between the two creatures. Skipper looked just as bewildered.

"What just happened?" Twilight asked.

"Apparently," Skipper said, "You're a higher level than it was." 

"Level?" Twilight asked. "What do you mean level?"

The mudkip looked at her strangely. "Pokemon have levels. They're like measurements of how powerful we are. That Corsola was probably level two, and it did nothing to you."

"So what level am I?" Twilight asked.

"Look up." Skipper suggested. Twilight raised an eyebrow, and looked up.

And promptly had to stop her mouth from falling open. Above her head, a series of numbers and letters drifted about.

FLOOR B1, LV 20

"What the...what is that? How is it just floating there?" Twilight said, apparently forgetting the fact that magic let her do similar things.

"Mystery Dungeons are weird." Skipper kind-of-explained.

Twilight stammered incoherently for a moment. Then, deciding she didn't want another piano dropped on her head via trying to understand this casual violation of physics, she gave up and made a note to check it later. 

"So what level are you?" Skipper asked.

"Can't you see?" Twilight asked in confusion. It is awfully hard to miss a giant mass of letters floating in the sky.

"Nope. It's invisible to anyone but the person who owns it." Skipper said.

"It says Lv. 20. Is that good?" Twilight asked. Skippers eyes widened. 

"Good?" He asked incredulously. "You're asking if level twenty is good?" 

Twilight winced. She shouldn't have asked.

"It's great!"

Oh. Never mind then.

"I'm only a level five! You must be really strong!"

"Oh! Well, no, not really." She said humbly, blushing.

Before anyone could speak next, the unconscious Corsola glew a bright white...and vanished. Just gone. Poof. Bye, Corsola.

Twilight stared dumbfounded for the millionth time. "What the-Okay, no. I'm not even asking anymore. We're getting your thing back, and I am never setting foot in this place again."

"Agreed." Said Skipper.

They walked down the stairs.

_______________________________________________________________________

Beach cave


B2


The two looked around. They were in a totally different room to the one above: To the point where it should have been impossible for them to end up there. In fact, the stairs had disappeared. There was just wall above them.

"What the-" Skipper started.

"No." Twilight interrupted.

"But-"

"No."

"But the stairs-"

"Not talking about it. We're walking. Okay? We're walking. Nothing physics breaking about walking." Twilight said, a few hairs standing on end in her coat and a faint unhinged tone started seeping into her voice.

"Okay..." Skipper said.

As expected, the area below made no geological sense and had random, winding passageways and large rooms.

Only one of the rooms was interesting. 

"What's this?" Twilight said, holding up a small blue fruit.

"That's an Oran berry. They're very good for you. Just eat one, and you'll be good as new, no matter how much of a beating you've taken." Skipper said in a monotone, stretched voice.

"Huh?" Twilight asked, confused at how odd Skipper sounded.

"That's what it said here, on this paper." Skipper said, holding out a small sheet of paper. 

Twilight read it.

'That's an Oran berry. Don't confuse it with an Oren berry. They're very good for you. Just eat one, and you'll be good as new, no matter how much of a beating you've taken.' The paper said.

"Why is there a berry in a cave?" Twilight asked. "How could the berry get here? Who would even write this for the berry?! WHY IS THERE A RANDOM LABYRINTH IN A BEACH CAVE WITH NUMBERS FLOATING OVER MY HEAD-" Twilight screamed. She sighed. "Okay. I quit. This is even worse than the Pinkie Sense." Twilight said, exasperated. 

"Ready to go?" Skipper asked, once Twilight had finished frothing at the mouth. He had already pocketed the berry.

"Yeah. Let's just get out of here before I go insane." Twilight mumbled, walking away.

They quickly located the stairs and went down them.

____________________________________________________________________________________

Beach Cave


B3


Once again, the nonsensical room layout. 

"How many floors do you think there are?" Twilight asked?

"Four or five, probably. This isn't that bad of a Dungeon." Skipper said. "Treasure Town hasn't been bothered by it yet, so it shouldn't be too tough."

"Treasure Town?" Twilight said as they walked down the corridor. 

"It's where everyone I know lives. It's a pretty small town, but it's pretty diverse. We've got a shop, a bank, a training dojo, a guild..." He said, listing off the town.

"Is there anywhere else?" Twilight asked.

"Well, there's Pokemon Square, but that's really far away. Treasure Town is kind of on it's own." Skipper said. His face fell. "It wasn't always like that."

Twilight waited for him to elaborate, but he didn't. Judging by the pain in his eyes, it should be left alone for now.

The two of them walked quickly into another room, where Twilight was quickly blindsided a purple clam shell with eyes. 

Pokémon are weird. 

"Ah!" Twilight yelled, startled. As you would expect, it hardly did anything. It stung a little bit, maybe. But it was still startling.
The Espeon stumbled backward. The Shellder scooted itself forward. Menacingly. 
Skipper tackled it, and it went flying into a wall.
Which proceeded to warp, and spit out eight more Pokémon.

"Oh no, that isn't good." Skipper moaned.

"Urgh! How is there a wall full of identical shells? That isn't scientifically possible!" Twilight yelled.

"It's a Mystery Dungeon! It doesn't have to make sense!" Skipper cried, backing away from the approaching Shellder.

"It has to make sense somehow! There have to be rules! Even Discord had them!" Twilight said, backing away.

"Who? Never mind, this isn't the time! Do something!" Skipper panicked.

"Do what?! I don't know what to do!"

"Use a move! Kick them, yell at them, SOMETHING!"

You may be thinking: Why isn't she utterly destroying them? She's far from helpless. 

But now she's not a unicorn. She has no magic. Twilight had already tried to incapacitate them, but without magic, she was pretty much helpless.
Well, that's what she thought, anyhow.

One of the approaching Shellder threw themselves at Twilight.

Her eyes widened. And then something, something that had been restraining her, broke.

In the space of a nanosecond, her mind was assaulted with information. Information, and power.
"Get AWAY!" Twilight screamed. Her gem flashed light purple. Her eyes glowed bright white.
The air rippled in front of her, and a wall of pure force flung all the approaching Shellder back. And then into the ceiling. And back down. Up. Down. Up. Down. 
Within minutes, there were several Shellder shaped imprints on the walls, floors and ceiling. The poor Pokémon were beaten black and blue. 
Eventually, the glow cut out, and the unconscious clams fell to the floor, beaten brainless. They vanished a moment later.

Skipper stared in shock. "Woah. Uh, remind me not to get on your bad side." 

Twilight was frozen in horror at what she had done. "I-I'm sorry, I-I didn't mean to-"

Skipper smiled and put a reassuring fin on her back, in an echo of what she had done to him earlier. "It's okay. All you did was try and help. It's nothing to be upset over."

Twilight blinked a few times. "I...okay. Okay, I'm good. Let's just get out of here."

They quickly ran out of the room. The rooms, along with the dungeon, were quickly becoming more complex. 
A few turns, twists and dead ends later, they managed to get to the stairs.
____________________________________________________________________

Beach Cave


B5


Twilight and Skipper stared. Right in front of them, was the stairs. And that was it.  A room big enough for four ponies to stand in if they squeezed together, and stairs. 

"Is...Is that it?" Skipper asked, bewildered.

"I think so." Twilight said, looking around. "I can't see any ways out of here, so I guess we have to go down."

The two of them walked down the stairs.
_____________________________________________________________________

Beach Cave


Beach Cave Pit


The room was unlike the floors above. It was practically an underwater lake, with a large sandbar extending out from where they stood. Two large stone cliffs stood side by side next to the sandbar. A break in the cliffs revealed water flowing out to sea. There was, oddly enough, no ceiling, nor sign of stairs. It was empty sky. In front of them, the sandbar was open, revealing an exit out of the 'cave' leading to more water.

And directly in front of them, the two idiotic poison types floated.

"Uh...Hey!" Skipper yelled.

"Woah-ho-ho! So you two wimps did come after us!" Koffing cackled.
"That takes more guts than we thought you had, chicken." 

Skipper flinched, hurt. He quickly recovered. "Give me...Give me back what you took! It's my personal treasure! It means everything to me!"

"Heh-Heh-heh! Treasure, you say?"

"Woah-ho-ho! It's worth more than we hoped for. We ought to try selling it, it would probably get a good price! All the more reason not to give it back."

"You wouldn't!" Skipper cried, aghast.

Twilight's eyes narrowed in determination. "They won't. Give it back, or we'll take it back." She said. Inwardly, she was shocked at this change in herself. She would never act like this!

"Woah-ho-ho! You want it so bad? Come and take it!" 

The two poison types rushed Twilight and Skipper before she grabbed them both with her new abilities and smacked them into a cliff, then the ground. They both collapsed. To make sure they stayed down, Skipper threw some mud at them.

"Uurgh...Y-your victory was a fluke! You hear me? A fluke!" Koffing cried, winded as he tried floating back up.
"Next time, it won't be that easy!" Zubat coughed as he flapped his wings, frantically trying to fly.
"Here, take it!" Koffing cried, pulling the rock from somewhere and dropping it on the ground. They both then proceeded to skedaddle. Ooh, I love that word. 

Twilight knocked some sand off her coat. "That was surprisingly easy." She chuckled.

Skipper smiled. "Those two jerks didn't stand a chance. Oh! My Relic Fragment! 

Skipper rushed forward and picked it up. "Am I ever glad...I actually managed to get it back!"

He turned to Twilight, grateful tears in his eyes. "It's all thanks to you, Twilight. If it wasn't for you, I never would have gotten it back!"

"Thank you, Twilight!"

Twilight smiled. "It's the right thing to do. Friends help other friends in need."

Skipper blinked, confused. "Friends?" Then he smiled. "Yeah...yeah! We're friends!"

And then the Dungeon exploded.
____________________________________________________________________

Twilight groaned. This was getting way too common.

As she staggered to her feet and blinked rapidly, she noticed Skipper was sitting by the waves, looking out into the setting sun. Twilight walked over to him, and sat down. Skipper turned to her.

"Oh, hi Twilight. You were passed out for a while, so I thought it would be best to let you rest." Skipper said. 

"What happened?" Twilight asked.

"The dungeon exploded. Twice." Skipper said flatly.

"I-what?!" Twilight asked incredulously.

"It blew up, then blew up again. It knocked us out then dumped us out here." Skipper explained. "Mystery Dungeon's make no sense." 

Twilight smiled in spite of her confusion. "You're telling me? I'm the one who went a bit crazy in there." The two of them chuckled, and sat there for a while, watching the waves.

"So..." Twilight said, breaking the silence. "What was that thing we got back, anyway?"

"That," Said Skipper, smiling, "Was my relic fragment."

"Relic Fragment? What is that?" Twilight asked, curious.

"It just looks like a normal stone, but if you look closer, there's an odd pattern on it." He said, setting down the stone. 

Twilight leaned in to get a better examination, ears twitching in curiosity. "You're right!" She exclaimed, noting the swirly pattern on the top. "There is a pattern there! Where'd you find this? What is it?" Twilight asked.

The pattern in question was quite particular. An eight-pointed swirly sun, crossed over with a gear with six ends, an arrow line on each end, extending from the center.

"I found this here, on the beach one day. It just was sitting there, and it kind of...called to me. I've kept it ever since." Skipper explained. "I looked everywhere for where the pattern came from, but I found nothing."

"That's really interesting! I wonder where it came from..." Twilight, well, wondered.

Instead of responding, Skipper frowned. "Twilight, there's something I've been meaning to ask you..."

"What is it?" Twilight asked, worried by the change of mood.

"When we were down there...before that. When I found you on the beach, you didn't know the first thing about being a Pokemon. Like...like you weren't one. You didn't even know what Oran berries are. Or how to fight!"

Twilight was suddenly feeling very nervous. Her ears lay flat back upon her head, and her hair bristled.

"Wh-what's your point?" She asked, knowing very well what is point was.

"Twilight...what are you?" Skipper asked gently.

From Skipper's point of view, Twilight was regarding him with an unreadable expression. Panic was boiling up in him. Had he made a mistake? What if Twilight wasn't some sort of...not Pokémon? What if she was angry at him for thinking that?

Or worse, what if she was?

After a few more tense seconds, Twilight sighed. "I should have told you before." 

Skipper tensed, and his eyes widened.

"Skipper, I'm not a Pokémon. Or at least, I wasn't before now."

Skipper's mouth opened in shock.

"I'm Twilight Sparkle, Element of Magic, Student of Princess Celestia and Princess of Equestria. And I have no bucking idea how I got here, what this place is, or what I am." Twilight said flatly. "Nice to meet you."
_________________________________________________________________


Meanwhile, in Canterlot


"What...what was that?" Silver briefcase questioned, horrified and just now recovering from the blast.

"I...I do not know..." Celestia whispered, her royal mask gone to be replaced with shock and confusion. "How did...LUNA!" She cried, whirling around. "LUNA, WHERE ARE YOU?"

"We are right here, sister." Luna said, surprisingly quiet. She was standing by a window in the throne room, staring outside. Which is kind of the purpose of windows. 

"Luna! Are you alright? Is everypony okay?" Celestia asked, looking around. It seemed that everyone was only stunned and in various states of shock. When she had assessed that no one was injured, she turned back to her sister. "Luna, what are you looking at?" She asked, confused.

"Ponyville." Luna was down to three syllable sentences.

"Why are you looking at Ponyvill-Twilight! Did the blast reach Twilight?" Celestia cried.

"Sister, we think," Luna said, stepping away from the window so that her sister could see. "That the blast came from Twilight."  

Where Ponyville was, there was now a crack.

"Oh my Celestia..." One of the nobles breathed in horror. Celestia would have frowned and sternly reminded her little ponies that she was not, in fact, a goddess despite the fact that she was about as powerful as one were she not utterly stupefied at the sight.

Where Ponyville was, there was now a crack. It was utterly broken in every sense of the word. Space was warped in a way that would make Discord giggle and clap his hands with glee. Things floated when they shouldn't and fell when they should be trees. Hills bent on top of each other like cinnamon rolls. Light spun around in happy circles, never quite reaching it. 
Heat spun around Ponyville in a vortex, burning everything. Arcs of fire and lightning arced around from cloud to cloud to ground to cloud. Things lurked in the rips in space, things everypony in the room felt that should never be seen by mortal eyes.

Ponyville stood, seemingly resistant to the changes around it.

The only difference was that it was grey. Grey houses, grey trees. Movement could be seen through the magnified space, and the beings there were grey. 
And the grey was spreading. 


Time was broken. Celestia could feel it. She was more attuned to the world than anything here, and she could feel time slowing and stopping. Like a virus, she felt it creeping.

The world was screaming, and she could do nothing about it.

Almost nothing.

"Luna." Celestia said, her voice devoid of any emotion. "Get Discord. We're going to Ponyville. I'll meet you there." She said, and she vanished in a flash of yellow.

The Alicorn of the Night turned to one of her guards. "Where hath thou last seen the Draconequus?" She said to the trembling Solar Guard recruit.

"U-upstairs, Princess Luna."

Without fanfare, acknowledgement or even a response, Luna walked out the throne room, out the door and up the stairs.

Doors that had an emblem on them.

An emblem of a yellow, six-pointed sun, overlaid with a bluish-green gear.

____________________________________________________________________________

Meanwhile in Ponyville


The same grey pegasus was held down by a crowd of angry ponies, thrashing and spitting at her captors.

"WHAT THE HAY IS WRONG WITH YOU?!" The charred, recently recovered Rainbow Dash yelled, keeping the squirming and biting Pegasus's hooves and wings restrained.

The Pegasus only redoubled her efforts to thrash.

"Now ya'll better listen here." Applejack growled, quieter than Rainbow but no less furious. "Y'all better explain, and have a dern good reason, why ya went and punched Bon-Bon there," She said, pointing to the cream earth pony who was nursing her cheek, "Or ah'll buck those teeth o' yer's right out of yer mouth."

The pegasus growled at Applejack- A deep, animalistic growl that had no business coming from this mare's throat. In spite of herself, Applejack took a few steps back.

"What in the- What in tarnation is wrong with ya'll?!" Applejack cried, mirroring Rainbow Dash.

The Pegasus, known as Salad Fork, was pressed to the ground by a crowd of Earth Ponies, Pegasi and several different glows of unicorn magic surrounded her, keeping her rooted.

"Mommy!"

The crowd reacted with shock, parting for the light grey pegasus to run up to her mother. "Mommy! Mommy, are you okay?" She cried.

"No, she's not! She went and knocked Twilight into...into...into some green, glowy thing!" Rainbow growled. The filly looked at her with shock. 

"Rainbow!" Fluttershy reprimanded, actually at normal volume. "That's not a nice thing to say- all she was doing was checking up on her mommy!"

"Yeah, well her mommy's going to pay for that!" Came a cry from within the crowd. Similar statements flew up from the mob soon after.

"Don't hurt my mommy!" The filly cried, standing in front of her protectively. 
Normally, this would have made the crowd of ponies feel bad, and blah blah blah friendship report.
Eenope.
Before anyone could do anything, Salad Fork let out an inpony screech and thrashed even harder, trying to bite her own daughter. Lyra and Derpy Hooves ran in front of her, dragging the shocked and crying filly back into the relative safety of the crowd.

"What kind of pony tries to bite their own foal?!" Came an angry cry from the crowd. The yells and jeers reached an untold volume, and it seemed that the crowd would soon beat her to a pulp.

"She isn't a pony." Came another, disturbingly monotone, flat voice from within the crowd. It somehow cut right through their anger, and they stepped aside, a sudden fear filling them.
And out walked Pinkamenia Diane Pie, hair flat as a waterfall.
"She's not a pony, anymore. Look at her. Look at her eyes. That isn't a pony." She stated. The crowd began backing away nervously, suddenly noting the details that they had missed. What they had mistaken for rage, they realized was just...nothing. Not even animal fury. Just a cold emptiness, an urge to destroy.

"What do you mean, not a pony?" Came the timid question from the terrified Fluttershy.

"She's gone. She's just gone. Mad. There's nothing there, anymore. And it'll only get worse from here." Pinkamena stated obviously. "Pinkie Sense." 

And just those two words broke every ounce of courage the ponies had. Even Applejack and Rainbow shifted uneasily.

"G-get worse?" Lyra asked, fear in her eyes.

"This will spread." Pinkamena said. "Whatever happened when Twilight cast that spell, when it blew up, caused this."

"TWILIGHT DID THIS?!" Applejack rounded on Pinkamena. "WHAT'DJA MEAN TWAH DID THIS?!"

"That's an absolutely ridiculous accusation!" Said a disheveled Mayor Mare. "Twilight would never do something like this to another pony!"

"Well, that's because she didn't do it intentionally now, did she?" Came a trottingham accent from within the crowd. Once again, the crowd parted. Man, these ponies like reenacting the Red Sea, don't they?

Out walked The Doctor.

"Doctor?" Rainbow questioned. If anyone could give them an answer, it was the Doctor.

"That's what this little gadget says, anyway. Sonic screwdrivers, love 'em." The Doctor chuckled, holding out a long, silvery sticklike object, before accidentally fumbling and dropping it. "Blast! Confounded hooves, never could quite get the hang of them. Seriously, how do you ponies manage with these things? Really resourceful and flexible, you are..."

"Doctor." Rarity said, interrupting. "You're on a tangent again, dear."

"I am? Oh! I am. Well, how about that?" He laughed, with apparent good cheer. The smile then slipped from his muzzle. "Right. Like I was saying, this was going to happen anyway. She just overcharged whatever she was doing. The amount of PKE energy in one area made her magic," The Doctor held a hoof to his muzzle to stifle a chuckle at the word "Go haywire. Whatever Ms. Sparkle was doing, it broke open the skin of the universe." 

"Pardon?" Applejack questioned, already lost.

"The universe, the skin of the universe! She went and cracked space, blew a big, honking hole in it, flew out one side to the other!" Everyone let out a gasp of horror. "Time, too! See this? See all the grey? Didn't notice the grey, of course you didn't. It's time, frozen time. Your memories are keeping it locked in a specific color until someone points it out. Defense mechanism, you see. Time's frozen. The rain won't fall, trees won't grow. Sun's stuck in the sky, but we won't fry. Ooh, that rhymed! I should go talk to that Zebra out in the forest, learn more rhymes." The doctor rambled. 

Then his face grew serious, the smile vanishing from his muzzle. "But here's the thing: You can't go and blow a hole in the universe without meaning too. And Ms. Twilight would have no reason to do that on purpose, nor would even she have the power to. Which means..." He said, trailing off.

"Which means?" Mr. Cake asked, lost but still curious. "What does it mean?"

"Which means...which means...Ah ha! Which means that someone, somewhere, someTHING had already started it! Already made the cracks, had her finish the job! Someone wanted to blow a hole in the universe, and Twilight was in the perfect position to do so. The only question is, why...no. No, two questions. The first is why, the second is what. What, what, what. What what what what what what what." The doctor repeated. "What what whaaaat happened to you...?" He said, having trotted up to Salad Fork and leaned forward, examining her. "Ditzy, could you pass me my screwdriver?"

"Sure thing, Doctor!" Said the wall-eyed pegasus, picking up the screwdriver with her tail and tossing it to him. 
"Woah!" He cried, and caught it in his mouth. The wrong way. "Ghhhk! Hhgg!" He choked, trying to cough out the screwdriver stuck in his mouth. He eventually spat it out, examined it, saw that it had no damage and then pointed it at the mare.

*whirrrrr*

"Ah ha!" He said, taking it back and examining it, smiling. "Sonic screwdriver, love it! Does anything and everything! Well, aside from wood..." He said, his expression falling. "Oh well, still good. Now, let's see what's wrong with yooouuu..." He said, reading it. His expression suddenly went stone cold, and his eyes widened. "Oh. Oh, that isn't good at all."

"Oh for-, give me that! I wanna see!" Rainbow cried, taking the screwdriver from the stunned Earth pony while leaving the restraint of Salad Fork to the unicorns. "What the- What is this? What language is this?" She said, mulling over apparently nothing but was actually information dumped in her head by the screwdriver. "Scratch that, how is it in my head?! What did you stupid stick do?!"

The Doctor scowled, taking it back. "Don't diss the sonic, the sonic is cool! It's in Gallifreyan, and it's psychic! Also, don't steal my screwdriver!"

"And as for what that is...well, it's spreading. That's what it is. Whatever happened to her, whatever sickness is in her head is spreading, and if it doesn't stop it'll cover everything!"

"Will it reach Canterlot?" Rarity gasped, realising that this could quickly become an insanity pandemic.

"Not just Canterlot, you silly, well dressed mare! Everything! Canterlot, Equestria, the planet, the whole UNIVERSE is at risk until Twilight stops it!"

"What do ya'll mean 'Until Twilight stops it? Twilight's gone!" Applejack asked. 

"No, not gone. She's gone from this universe, but she's still here. Still alive." Pinkamena stated.

"Yes! Yes, exactly that! There's a hole in the universe, holes lead to places! Usually the end of the hole, but this time another universe! Another universe with the exact same problem, and she has to fix the problem! The entire universe rests in her han-hooves! Hooves! Her hooves. I'd do something, but time's stopped. Tardis'll have a lot of trouble getting through a universe falling apart, let alone with stopped time. Wibbly Wobbly, Timey-Wimey ball. Ooh, but I have to do something..." The Doctor mumbled. Then he froze. "Pinkie, how did you know she was in another universe?"

"Fourth Wall Awareness, silly billy!" Pinkie, not Pinkamena said, her hair quickly re inflating with no warning. "I read ahead in the script!"

I have a script? Wait, I don't remember typing that. Bah, curse my memory.

"...What?" The Doctor asked, baffled. "There's a script? What script?"

"It's just Pinkie bein' Pinkie, Doc." Applejack said.

"But the script..."

"Just ferget 'bout it."

The Doctor sighed, then perked up. "Okay, everybody!"

"Everypony." Everypony in hearing radius corrected.

"Everypony! Everypony? Never really understood the way that works. I mean, what do griffins say? Everygriffin? Everyzebra? It's so much easier to say everyone!"

"Doctor." Cheerilee said, patiently but loudly. "You were saying something."

"Yes, I was! About the everybody/everypony thingy. Thingy, thingy thingy OKAY! You're glaring at me. I'm guessing before that, then? Oh! Right! Okay, everypony, we need to do something! Just watch out for someone who's going to be affected by what's got her," He gestured to the thrashing Salad Fork, "Next! If someone goes insane, restrain them, lock 'em up so they can't hurt themselves until Ms. Sparkle fixes it! No, no, don't panic. This isn't some game of changeling in disguise: There's no worry of someone hiding it until they strike or whatever. Look for the person who's kicking and fighting, that's your guy! Stallion! Mare! Pony, whatever! Mayor Mare, please take it from here!" He said, galloping off to his house.

"What? Oh, yes!" She exclaimed, recovering from The Doctor's...Doctor-y-ness. "Alright, everypony! Let's start repairing things! Pegasi, clear the clouds please! Unicorns, please clear the debris from the streets and try to keep floating houses from hitting the Pegasi! Earth Ponies, please find anyone injured and/or lost and bring them to the hospital! Nurse Redheart, please get the medical team assembled! And can someone please keep the Doctor from blowing himself up?"

There was a large explosion from across the town, and a yell of "Bloody hell, my basement!"

Mayor Mare sighed. "Too late."

> How is it bigger on the inside?!
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Skipper had spent the last couple minutes blankly opening and closing his mouth. Your recently-formed friend suddenly revealing that she was an alien kind of tends to do that. 

Normally, had anyone else said that they were not only an Alien, but an alien princess, Skipper would have told them to wait there while he contacted the nice mons in the white suits. There were three things stopping him, that made him reconsider.

One: Twilight had a decidedly un-pokémon name. 
Two: Twilight had utterly no idea how or where things worked in this world, even the most basic knowledge.
Three: Her eyes. Eyes are windows to the soul, and there was just something in there, some little thing that told him he was talking to something so different, so powerful, that it couldn't be any normal Espeon. 

After a few more tense seconds, he finally managed to blurt something out. "Oh my Arceus, you're not kidding, are you." It was a statement, not a question.

Twilight nodded slowly.

Skipper began breathing very quickly. "Oh my Arceus you're an alien."

"Actually, I'm from another universe. And to me, you're the alien." Twilight corrected.

"H-how?" Skipper stammered.

"Long story short, a teleportation spell went wrong and I ended up in this universe, somehow."

"S-spell? Magic? P-princess?! I don't understand!" Skipper cried, holding a stubby appendage to his head despite the fact that should be impossible with his body orientation. 

"You don't have magic here?" Twilight cried, surprised.

"No! Magic is just a fairy tale!" 

"Ooohkay, this is going to take a while to explain."

After calming Skipper down, she spent the next ten minutes explaining Equestria, herself and magic. 

Skipper stared at her in disbelief. "...So you come from a land of magical ponies who can either control the weather, use magic or are really strong, ruled by a princess who is a mix of all three who controls the sun, and her sister who controls the moon. And you recently became one of those princesses after you and your friends used artifacts called the Elements of Harmony on a nightmarish moon and something called Discord?"

"Nightmare Moon, who was Princess Luna after she was corrupted by her own jealousy." Twilight corrected gently.

"And you ended up somehow teleporting yourself into this universe, where you stopped being a Princess Pony-"

"Alicorn." Twilight corrected.

"And became an Espeon and you have no idea how to get back and the only hope that all of your friends and the Princess will be able to find you?"

"That's...about right."

"W-well that's it then. I've gone insane." Skipper declared.

Twilight smiled and began to nod, before suddenly realising what he had said. "Ye-Wait, what?! No, no you're not insane! Oh, I shouldn't have told you..."

He blinked, and leaned in to study her closely, if timidly. "Well, you don't seem like you're lying...and I doubt I could come up with this on my own..."

He nodded, apparently coming to a decision. "Alright. I believe you, Twilight."

Twilight's mouth opened a little in shock. "W-just like that? You believe me?"

"You don't look like you're lying, anyway..." Skipper repeated. "It's a strange story, but it's a strange world."

Still shocked by the quick change of mood, she smiled tentatively. "Well, that's good, I guess."

They both abruptly realised the sun had set, and the beach was falling into darkness.

"We should probably go: the beach isn't that great a place to be at night." Skipper suggested. Then an idea struck him. "Hey! I have an idea!" Skipper said excitedly, unconsciously confirming my own narrative. Twilight looked at him quizzically, an unspoken 'continue' passing between them.

"You were really good at exploring that dungeon, even though you didn't know anything about it. So I was thinking that maybe we could form an exploration team!"

"An exploration team?" Twilight parroted confusedly. 

"An exploration team is when a group of Pokémon join up and explore unknown areas! There's excitement and adventure! We might even find a way to get you back home! We just sign up at the guild and we're an official exploration team!"

Twilight had listened, purplish eyes wide as Skipper rambled excitedly. He was certainly interested in exploring, wasn't he? It had totally changed his behavior!

'It might give me a way to get back to Ponyville, too...I hope Spike's okay.' Twilight thought.

"And they'd give us a place to stay!" Skipper finished.

Twilight raised a paw to stop him. "Do they have a library?" She asked.

"I think so..." Skipper started, confused.

"We're signing up." Twilight stated.

Skipper's eyes widened in excitement, a spark of joy lighting in them. Wow, they're really expressive with their eyes, aren't they? You should make a drinking game out of how many times I mention eyes in this chapter. "You mean it?" He cried excitedly, unaware of my previous tangent.

"Of course! Why would I say something and not mean it?" Twilight said. A somewhat crazed grin grew on her face. "And besides, I have SO many questions to ask."

Skipper gulped nervously, fearing for his continued life.

_________________________________________________________________________


Wigglytuff's Guild



"So, this is it. The guild..." Skipper said, apprehension somewhat visible on his face.

"The gate's closed, Skipper." Twilight pointed out. The gate to the Wigglytuff-shaped tent was indeed closed.

"Scratch that, why does a tent need a gate?" Twilight asked, confused. "There's no real reason for it to be there..."

Skipper made a 'I have no clue' gesture. "Maybe they're just really freaky about security. But I do remember how to open the grate!" Skipper stated.

"Great! Can you open it?" Twilight asked.

"O-oh! Sure!" Skipper said, a slight tremor entering his voice. He then took a few deep breaths. And then a few more. And then he shook one of his legs a little bit, and scratched his back fin. And then he took another few breaths-

"Can you open it NOW." Twilight rephrased. 

Skipper flinched. "O-okay..." He took another breath. 'Okay, Skipper, you can do this. No more backing down.' And with that, he began the incredibly harrowing task...
Of stepping onto a small wooden grate in front of the tent.

"Pokémon detected! Pokémon detected!"

"WHOSE FOOTPRINT? WHOSE FOOTPRINT?"

"The footprint is Mudkip's! The footprint is Mudkip's!" 

Skipper shook with fright, but managed to steady himself.

"Very WELL! You may ENTER!" The unknown voice roared from below.

Skipper practically jumped off the grate.

"You have SOMEONE else with you! Get ON the GRATE!" Said voice screamed whilst continuously stressing words that did not need to be stressed. Like my aunt when she's in a bad mood. Or is that just stress and yelling? 

Dammit I'm on a tangent again.

Twilight stared at the grate curiously. It was obviously a security system, but how was someone down there? Scratch that, why did they need a 'Footprint Examination' grate for a tiny tent? How did they know about feet if they weren't humans? Were there humans here?

"I said TO get on the GRATE!"

Twilight started. 'Oh, right! The grate!' She stood on the grate.

"Pokémon detected! Pokémon detected!" 

"WHOSE FOOTPRINT? WHOSE FOOTPRINT?"

"The footprint is...uhm...the footprint is..."

"Well? What IS it? WHAT'S the footprint?"

"Uhm..." The voice from below, which Twilight was able to determine probably belonged to a child, stalled for a moment. "Maybe Espeon's! Maybe Espeon's?"

'Maybe?" Twilight mouthed to Skipper. 

"MAYBE? What do YOU mean, MAYBE? You're the best in the BUISNESS, sentry Diglett!"

"Well, you don't see that many Espeon's around here, so I can't compare it to anything. I'm really sorry!" The newly named Diglett apologised.

"UGH! Whatever. You, up there! You may ENTER!" The other, unnamed voice bellowed from below.

With a loud CHUNK noise, followed by another assortment of sounds that would take too much time for me too write, the gate retracted into the ground. Twilight and Skipper shared a confused glance, and walked in.

Two things occured to Twilight.

The first was: 'It smells like fish in here.'

The second was: 'Hey, there's a ladder in here! They had the security system there because it extends underground! How did I not figure that out?'

"It smells like Magikarp in here." Skipper commented.

"Magical Carp?" Twilight questioned, turning to Skipper. "I thought you didn't have magic in this world." Which she still couldn't comprehend even now. Though, considering that she had about twenty minutes to digest this information, 'even now' wasn't that long of a time to adapt to a change where physics was totally different.

"Magikarp. It's a type of Pokémon." Skipper corrected. "C'mon, let's go sign up!" 

They went down the ladder, together.


On the first floor of Wigglytuff's guild, an odd multicolored bird with a music note for a head was sitting a few feet away from the bottom of the ladder. It perked up when the two jumped off.

"Excuse me? It was you two that just came in, right?" The bird asked.

"Yes, that's us. I'm Twilight, and this is my friend Skipper!" Twilight cheerfully introduced themselves.

"I'm Chatot! I'm the head of intelligence for Wigglytuff's guild ♪ !" Chatot sang. "Now, shoo! Go on, we don't have time for salesmons or silly surveys."

"N-no! That's not why we're here! Me and Twilight want to form an exploration team...It's kind of why we came in." Skipper protested.

Chatot appeared shocked. "This kid wants to form an exploration team? Surely he must know how hard our training is. The steady stream of recruits that run away from the guild surely have to give them a clue!" Chatot monologued, turning away from them.

Twilight and Skipper exchanged glances. "We're still here, you know." Twilight said flatly.

"W-what? Oh! Nonono, don't mind me! I said nothing!" Chatot exclaimed panickedly. "Follow me, let's get you all signed up!" And with that, the odd bird hopped down the ladder. 

"Head of intelligence?" Skipper whispered. Twilight frowned at him. 

"It isn't good to make fun of pon- er, Pokémon, Skipper."

Skipper winced.

"Are you coming down or not?" Chatot questioned from below.

"Oh! Sorry!" Skipper cried, clambering down the ladder. Twilight followed after a moment.

And by followed, I mean fell down the ladder. Skipper didn't even have time to move before Twilight landed on him. And somehow, in defiance of natural physics, they went tumbling straight at Chatot, who managed to dodge at the last second. He threw out a wing to block them. It worked, somehow, and they both crashed and fell over.

"Ugh! You need to be more careful, you could have killed me!" Said Chatot to the dazed and dinged duo. 

"Sorry..." Twilight grumbled, managing to stagger to her feet. 

"Yes, yes. Well, here's the Guildmaster's room!" Chatot declared, spreading a wing with a flourish at what appeared to be a rather small door, stuffed near a window. Speaking of that...

"Hey! There's light, but we're underground!" Skipper said, practically bouncing up and down.

"Yes, well, of course there's light underground, we're on a cliff you silly sap!" Chatot snapped. 

"Yeesh, who stepped on your tailfeathers..." Skipper grumbled. Twilight was too polite to say it, but she was having similar thoughts. 

The grumpy musical bird opened the doors. With a shrug, Twilight and Skipper followed.

"Guildmaster, we have some new recruits!" Chatot called out, entering the room. It wasn't really all that impressive, but it was still pleasant. There was a lot of grass growing on the inside, as it had been outside, and a couple burned-out braziers sat on either side of a red rug. A few windows let light into the place, and a large banner bearing wiggly lines as a pattern hung in front of the carpet. Oh, and off to the side hung a treasure chest full of gems and stuff, but no one really cared. No, what was interesting was the large, pink, and above all fluffy shape that stood on the rug. With two pointed ears sticking out the side of it's head, there was no doubt that this was some sort of rabbit.

"Guildmaster?" Chatot questioned nervously. "Um, are you there? Guildmaster? Wigglytuff?"

The large pink rabbit spun around so quickly Twilight didn't even see it move. 

"Hiya!" Said Wigglytuff. Twilight's eyes widened to ridiculous proportions and the hair on the back of her neck stood up. 'Oh Celestia, Luna and even Discord, please not again...' she whispered mentally.

"I'm Wigglytuff! I'm the guild's Guildmaster! Though you probably figured that out already." Wigglytuff let out a giggle. "So you want to form an exploration team, huh? That's sooooo cool! I remember when I was in an exploration team too! Mon, that was a really fun time. Me and Armsy were all like 'Boom! Pow! Zap!' except we didn't do the zap, because we can't use lightning. It would be really really really cool if we could though! Then I could cook my marshmallows in the most epic way possible! Or would that be..." Wigglytuff rambled. 

Oh dear lord I've been outmatched at my own game. You'll pay for this yet, Wigglytuff.

Meanwhile, Twilight was quietly hyperventilating. 'Oh no oh no oh no another Pinkie Pie the universe will burn ahhh' were something along her current line of thoughts.

Chatot regarded her with pity. 'Oh. She's met one of them before, hasn't she?' He thought, referring to the Pinkie-Pie esque phenomenon. Then a horrible thought occurred to him. 'Oh Arceus that means there are two of them!' Chatot's pupils shrank down to pinpricks and he turned quite pale at the thought. 

And Skipper was just lost. 

"And then I was like: Oatmeal? Are you CRAZY?!" Wigglytuff exclaimed, unaware of the various mental problems occurring in front of him.

"GUILDMASTER!" Chatot screamed. 

"Huh? Chatot?" Wigglytuff asked, confused and thankfully breaking from his rambling. Yeah, you heard me, Him. That pink menace is male.

"Guildmaster, the signing up? Can we do that? Please?!" Chatot cried.

"Oh! I forgot, how silly of me!" Wigglytuff exclaimed. "We need to get you signed up, don't we?" He pulled out an utterly MASSIVE stack of papers from hammerspace. "Normally, you have to sign all these forms..." Now it was Skipper's turn to be visibly horrified. Well, until Wigglytuff threw them into the air and unleashed a massive stream of fire at them, burning them to cinders. Twilight's jaw hit the floor. "But forms are boring! You know what I say? Just tell me the team name and presto, you're an exploration team!" Chatot went into shock.

"Name?" Skipper questioned, having given up on sanity.

"Yeah, your team name! You can't just be called Exploration Team, that would be boring! All the teams have it. It can be as simple as A.W.D or Charm, to Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolconoconiosis!"

"Peushomunoultra-what?" Skipper asked, as lost as all of you are after reading that word.

"I dunno, I just read it in a dictionary a while ago. Anyway, choose! Choose your name! Choose your name!" Wigglytuff chanted.

"We didn't think of a name, though..." Skipper protested.

"Choose a name! Choose a name! Choose a name!" Wigglytuff chanted. Twilight's jaw was too busy being on the floor for her to help Skipper. Chatot was too busy trying to find his sanity.

"Er, um..." Skipper stammered, thinking. Then a lightbulb turned on in his head. Well, Pokémon don't have lightbulbs, so a candle. I guess. Maybe an electric Pokémon like Ampharos? Bah, whatever. "I've got it!" Skipper cried.

"Team Harmony." Skipper said proudly at his realization of an original and totally-not-at-all-cliché name.

"Yes! Goodie! Team Harmony, welcome to Wigglytuff Guild!"

"YOOM TAH!"


Skipper, Twilight and Chatot all fell backwards at the force of the shout. Seriously, first he's like Pinkie Pie, now he's like Princess Luna.

Princess Pinkie?

No. Nope, do not want that image. Pinkie Pie ruling ANYTHING would be Hell, Tartarus and the Distortion World rolled up into a great big sugary sweet cinnamon bun.

"Gah!" Chatot screamed in shock. 
"Ah!" Skipper screamed in shock.
"Ack!" Twilight cried in surprise. 

"You are now an officially registered Exploration Team, Team Harmony!" Wigglytuff cheered.

"Ooh, my ears..." Twilight said, rubbing her sensitive hearing organs with a paw.  "Wait, Harmony? Skipper, did you...?" She trailed off.

"Yeah, I named the team! Do you like it?" Skipper said happily.

Twilight smiled. "It's a great name, Skipper." She mouthed the team name. "Harmony, Team Harmony. I like it."

"You'll need this!" Wigglytuff said cheerfully, dropping a small golden box in front of them. "Go on, open it! It won't bite. This isn't Dungeons and Dragons, after all." Wigglytuff blinked. "At least, I hope not."

Deep in the mountains of Griffonia before they all blew up, there was a tribe of Monk Griffins. They had perfected the art known as 'Non Audiebat', a supreme force of mind and body that allowed them to ignore all but the most irritating of presences. 
After a few years of living in the same town as Pinkie Pie, Twilight surpassed them by the order of a magnitude.
It was through these skills that Twilight was able to ignore the insane guildmaster, and open the chest. 

And then it did something very strange. 

The chest flared with a bright yellow light, and a few things that could not possibly have fit in there flew out. 
The first was a rather ugly greenish-blue bag, with an emblem of Wigglytuff's hair tuft on it. The second was a small, particular metal pin with two metal wings sticking out of it. The third was a large, odd roll of paper that anyone could tell was a map. 

"Woah! All of this for us?" Skipper asked. 

"How did that fit in there?" Twilight questioned.

"Of course, Skipper! This is an Exploration Team Kit. It has everything an Exploration Team needs! 

'If Rarity were here,' Twilight thought, discreetly smirking, 'She would probably faint at the sight of that bag.' 

"This," Wigglytuff said, holding up the pin, "Is your Explorer's Badge! It has lots of little nifty tricks. You can talk to each other over long distances, get transported out of a dungeon, get you access to places you can't go, be really shiny..." Wigglytuff continued.

The badge in question did seem a lot more interesting when held up. It looked a little bit like a ball split in half horizontally across the middle, with a little pinkish gemstone placed in the middle of it.  It also looked a little bit like a stopwatch. It had two wings on the side, that looked to be made fully out of gold. It was a lot more than just some flat, boring old pin, anyone could tell.

"This," Wigglytuff said, holding up the rolled up map, "Is your wonder map! Any place you've been is automatically written into it!" He unrolled the map. 
The map was a lot more curious than the badge. It seemed like a 3-D projection of the area on paper. Clouds swarmed across the outer edges of the map, like someone had mixed a massive pot full of them with a spoon. And by that, I mean they were swirling. 

"See?" Wigglytuff said from behind the massive map, pointing to a yellow dot. "That's us! We're right there! Just press your paw to it, Twilight!" 

Twilight looked at the map warily before touching a paw to it. Skipper said they didn't have magic in this world, but it seemed an awful lot like an enchanted map to her. And if she had learned anything from defeating nameless or unnamable horrors countless times, it was 'Never touch enchanted stuff that you don't understand.'
Some other things that she had learned were stuff like 'Don't listen to the Eldritch Abomination trying to kill you' and 'Don't throw pineapples at the Eldritch Abomination trying to talk to you, then kill you.' But I digress.

When she did, though, no brain-melting monstrosities were summoned. Instead, the map cleared away most everything else like someone had taken to it with an eraser, and a detailed layout of the Guild appeared on the map.

"Woah!" Skipper said, amazed.

"Yeah, it's really super duper cool, right? But if you like that, you'll think this is the bestest one ever!" Wigglytuff said, throwing the map aside and picking up the bag.

"A bag?" Twilight asked after a few moments where Wigglytuff did nothing.

"It's a SPECIAL bag! Anything you find on your adventures can go in here." Wigglytuff cheerfully chattered. 

"Um, not to be rude, but isn't that what a normal bag does?" Commented Skipper.

In response, Wigglytuff opened the bag and held it at them. 

"Look, I don't really see the...the...the...the..." It was at this point Skipper's brain decided to take a vacation upon seeing the bag, leaving poor Skipper to fend for himself.

"The bag." Twilight said, astonished. "How is it..." She reached a leg inside, and had to stop herself from falling into it.

"Go on!" Wigglytuff said, a massive, somewhat cheeky grin plastered on his face. "What do you have to say?"

"I-i-it's bigger on the inside!" Twilight cried. "How is it doing that?!" 

"Hahahah!" Wigglytuff laughed. "I love that part! You should see your face!"

"How is the bag bigger on the inside than the outside?" Twilight demanded.

"Well, a few years ago, there was this green Pokémon who came to me looking for help repairing...something, I dunno, my head is kind of jumbly-wumbly, anyway, and after I gave him some stuff to do it, he did something with all the Exploration Team Kits that let us make them bigger on the inside! He called it dimensionally transvessal, or something." Wigglytuff explained, hopping in place for no apparent reason.

"The...the...the...the..." Skipper repeated endlessly.

"Oh, and before I forget..." Wigglytuff said, his face becoming uncharacteristically serious, "Do not pull the bag inside out, or put another wonder bag in it. If you do, you might accidentally rip a hole in space-time that would suck you in like a black hole and you would die horribly." 

Twilight began choking.

"Okay! Have fun!" Wigglytuff said cheerfully. 

There was a wordless silence, broken only when Chatot coughed awkwardly.

"Ahem. Uh, yes, we should probably be going now. It's late at night, and I suppose you should get some rest. Let me show you to your rooms." Chatot said.

"Oh! I forgot, silly me! There's something in the bag." Wigglytuff said, turning over the potentially-apocalyptic backpack. A bow and a scarf fell out.

"A mystic purple bow, and a Defense Scarf. Here you go!" Wigglytuff said, tossing it to them.

"A defense scarf? Cool!" Skipper said, finally recovering from his brain-broken phase.

Twilight, on the other hand, was frozen in shock. 'Mystic purple,' she thought, 'Isn't that what that voice called my aura? Mystic purple? This couldn't be a coincidence.' Meanwhile, the purple bow stuck to her face, sitting there.

"Come on." Chatot said, nearing his limits of 'guildmaster exposure' for the day. "Let's show you to your rooms." He walked out the door.

"Huh?" Twilight said, shaking out of her reverie. "Oh. Alright, Chatot." She said, picking up the bag and putting the bow into it, before leaving. Skipper followed shortly after. 

"Bye, friends!" Wigglytuff cheered. 



"Follow me, if you please ♪ !" Chatot sang. He hopped down a stony hallway extending closer to the edge of the cliff. The duo followed closely behind. 

"Here are the crew rooms." Chatot said, gesturing to several stony doors alongside the walls. "You'll get to know them soon. Ah, here we are!" He announced, pointing to a rather rusty metal door, that looked as if it had seen better days, at the end of the hall. "Right through here."

Twilight opened the door. 

The room was pretty simple. A couple of small windows let the light in, and there was some moss growing through the rocks. A couple of small beds made of straw were in the center of the floor. A small bookshelf stood off to the side, embedded into the wall.
"This is where you'll be staying for a while. It's pretty barren now, but you can buy some furniture in treasure town." Chatot said. "I'll leave you two to rest. Get some sleep, there's quite a lot for you to do tomorrow ♪ !" Chatot sang. He shut the door.

Skipper yawned. "I am pretty tired. I'm going to get some shut-eye." He said, settling down into his bed. "You should get some sleep, too." He suggested. He shut his eyes. "G'night, Twilight."

Twilight watched him for a moment, thinking. 'I don't really need sleep right now. All those books waiting to be read...' She almost visibly drooled. 'I can't believe I spent an entire day in another world, and I hardly asked any questions at all! In fact, I kind of just went along with everything, didn't I?' She mulled over this for a second. 
'I didn't even ask anything when I was told that I needed to fix this universe, somehow. How do I fix a universe? There are no studies on fixing universes! 
And how do I get back? How is Spike doing? Or my friends doing?  Or the Princesses!?' 
A thought struck her like a sledgehammer. "My parents..." She whispered. 'Are my parents okay?! I can't believe I didn't even think of them! I'm a horrible pony...' She crumpled to the floor. She almost cried, but her eyes hardened. 
'No. I'm not going to cry. I can fix this, and I will. For my parents, for my friends and for Spike, I'll fix this.' She spared another glance towards Skipper. 'All of my friends. This world or my world.' With newfound determination, she set into reading books.

All the books.

The entire night.

Yeah, she's going to have a fun day tomorrow.

______________________________________________________________________


Meanwhile, in Canterlot


"DISCORD!" Luna yelled, not quite at Royal Canterlot Voice levels. "WHERE ART THOU? AND WE SUGGEST THEE NOT MAKE A RONEO AND JULIMARE JOKE." 

She paced down the Canterlot Castle halls, calling Discord's name. Normally a pristine and beautiful place, the...whatever that was had utterly ruined it. Chunks of stone lay upon the floors, the carpets had been torn and slightly burned, and any glass or statues had been reduced to less than rubble.

Discord's part of the hall was far less damaged, but that was because everything was made of Jell-O. It smelled something awful, though. 

Shaking some Jell-O off her hooves, Luna cast a searching spell.
Which promptly turned to fish.

She stared at the products of her spell for a good minute. Then she started yelling. 

"DISCORD!" Luna screamed. "ENOUGH OF THIS TOMFOALERY! REVEAL THYSELF!" A pie hit her in the face.

Before Luna could metaphorically- and possibly literally- blow up, a laugh echoed throughout the hall. 

"Loony Woona! How nice to see you!" Said yet ANOTHER unknown voice. Thankfully, before we went through another irritating session of 'who the hell are you' the owner of the voice appeared.

And hoo boy, what an owner it was. It was perhaps the oddest creature anyone has ever seen, and considering that we're dealing with Pokémon not a moment before, that's saying something. It was like something out of a biologist's nightmare, sprinkled with a touch of insanity.

It had the head of a pony, the fang of a manticore, the right arm of a lion, the left claw of an eagle, the right leg of a lizard, the left leg of a goat, the tongue of a snake, the right wing of a bat, the left wing of a dark-blue pegasus, the mane of a horse,  the left horn of a blue goat, the right antler of a deer, two bushy eyebrows, the tail of a rather serpentine dragon with a white tail tuft on the end, two yellow eyes with asymmetrical pupils, and to top it all of he had a goatee.

It was also wearing a top hat and carrying a fork, for some reason. 

"Discord." Luna hissed, offhandedly swatting an almond pie out of the air. "Mine sister requires thee."

"Oh? What does Celly-belly want little old me for?" Discord said, turning plaid and shrinking to the size of a throw pillow.

"Surely thou didst not miss the blast that did shake all of Canterlot?"

"Of course I didn't! How could I miss such a deliciously fun bit of chaos?" Discord laughed, returning to normal size and coloration.

His top hat was now a beanie, for some reason.

"Ohoho! Or does Tia think that I did this? Because I'm offended if that's true." Discord said, holding a hand over where a quarter of his heart might have been as if he had been struck. Draconequus biology is really weird. "If I did this, there would be a LOT more monster trucks.

"We do not think that thee would do something like this, nor does mine sister. Wanton destruction is not something thou art apt to do." Luna admitted. "That does not mean that thee cannot assist in fixing it."

"Fixing it? Why would I go around and start REMOVING chaos? That's ridiculous!" Discord exclaimed.

"Discord,-" Luna started.

"So I'll do it!" Discord said cheerfully, taking a bite out of his fork.

"What?" Luna asked, astonished.

"It'll give me a chance to get out of this stuffy old castle, and out into the fresh air."

Luna glared at him.

"Okay, okay! I won't turn the fresh air to candy, this time." Discord surrendered. "Ugh. You Princesses always have to be such a joykill." 

"Discord, we only wish to-" Luna protested.

"JOYKILL!" Discord shouted, pulling out a megaphone from nowhere, before turning it into a pair of jeans that flew away.

Luna, her hair caught and twisted around, glared at him some more. "If thou wouldst listen, you would hear that we suspect the blast to have come from Ponyville." Luna said.

Discord's smile fell. So did the rest of his face. He stuffed it away in a backpack he had just made out of the fork, and pulled out an unhappy face mask. He put it on. 

The backpack, not the face.

Luna facehooved. "We believe that the only being strong enough to cause this much destruction would be the Element of Magic, Twilight Sparkle. We cannot believe she did it on purpose, but until we learn what happened, we cannot make judgements."

Backpack-face Discord frowned. "I have to say, while I do love explosions, that doesn't quite seem right."

"There are no other forces powerful enough in Ponyville or anywhere near, and Tirek still sleeps." Both immortals gave a small flinch at the name Tirek.

"Ugh. I should hope so, he was no fun at all! All I did was turn his grandmother into a grapefruit, and he goes bonkers!" Discord complained.

"But Tirek did not have a grand- Oh, never mind. Discord, we beseech thee. The destruction this has caused is spreading. If it is not stopped, it will forever change Equestria! We must hurry!" Luna pleaded.

Discord would have made another few wisecracks before tagging along, when he felt something. Something cold, cold as death. Along the fringes of his mind, in the pit of his stomach, a great dread began to take hold. "Luna." Discord said, not using any ridiculous names for once. "What did the blast look like? I was ironing my chairs." Discord asked.

Frowning and confused, Luna answered nevertheless. "It was like a crack in the sky and the sea. I could not see far beyond anything, and I found myself looking back at my own body if I tried to focus." Luna recalled. She shivered, something very rare for an immortal to do. "When the destruction stopped, it looked as though..."

"There was a tear in the sky itself." Discord finished alongside Luna. His ears lay flat back upon his head. "A rip in space, a pony misplaced. A crack in the sky, and the world shall die..." He whispered.

Luna took a few steps back. Not only did the words themselves sound...wrong somehow, the expression on Discord's face was an emotion she had never seen before.

Fear.

Discord cursed in several languages at the same time, and conjured a small glass box with a metal panel to the side. "Get in." He ordered Luna in a voice that did not sound entirely like his own, stepping inside himself. Hesitantly, the Princess of the Night followed.

Discord pressed a button, and with a sound not unlike a chair screech, the box smashed through several stone floors above, into the sky, did a barrel roll, and shot straight at Ponyville, a screaming Princess and a cackling Draconequus inside.

_________________________________________________________________________


Blueblood Manor


Inside the manor, Prince Blueblood woke up from his nap, wiped some drool off his face, and stumbled out of bed. He examined his incredibly plush bedroom, to make sure no ugly commoners had broken in and stolen anything from him.

Solid gold four poster bed with silk sheets and pegasus feathers? Check. 
Diamond-studded mahogany drawers? Check. 
Ponesian carpet? Check.
Cabinet of aged wines? Check.
Wall to floor mirror? Check. 
Solid gold Teddy Bear? Check.
Giant gaping hole in the wall? Che-what?!

Blueblood leaned outside. He gazed upon the incredible destruction of the landscape. He gazed upon the droves of panicking ponies below and around. He gazed upon the crack in the sky itself. He gazed upon the swarm of foreign diplomats arriving even now.

His thoughts?

"EXCUSE ME?! HOW DARE YOU!" Blueblood bellowed. "I DEMAND THAT YOU STOP PANICKING FOR YOUR LIVES AND FIX MY HOUSE, SO THAT I HAVE TO STOP HURTING MY ROYAL THROAT YELLING AT YOU PEASANTRY!" 

Silly reader, Blueblood doesn't have thoughts.

He also doesn't have balance, as not a moment after he finished speaking he fell out of his bedroom and onto the stone ground three stories below with a sickening smack. He groaned in pain.

No one really gave a damn.

_____________________________________________________________________

Meanwhile, in Ponyville


"Hm?" Rarity paused in her work, the wood she was levitating falling to the floor.

"What's the matter?" Asked a stocky, short, dark grey earth pony named Baritone, pausing in his hammering of nails.

"I just had the oddest feeling that Prince Blueblood got hurt." Rarity mused.

"YOU HEAR THAT, EVERYPONY?!" Called a bright orange construction pony, fluttering his wings. "PRINCE BLUEBLOOD'S GOTTEN HURT!"

A chorus of cheers erupted from the rowdy crowd of builderponies, and indeed, across most of the Ponyville residents that were in hearing range.

Prince Blueblood wasn't well liked by the population of Equestria. Or literally anywhere, actually.

Hence the rather obscene name the Minotaurs had given him.

Going back on track and away from our politically incorrect douchebag, we take a look at Ponyville. The town looked less destroyed than you would expect of ground zero of a universe-tearing event. This was thanks to the fantastic efforts of Ponyville residents. Houses had been nailed down, street lamps set up, injured ponies found, and foals cared for within a day. You don't really live somewhere like Ponyville without having a reparation plan of some kind. 

The only problem that could not be fixed was that everything was grey. The ground, the buildings, even Sugarcube Corner was grey. The only spots of color were the ponies, and even they looked somewhat greyish up close or from afar. 

The ponies were naturally worried about this, but rather than following the typical example of running around screaming "THE HORROR! THE HORROR!" They just tried their best to stick to their normal life and repair things.

Spike was still unconscious, and Salad Fork was still restrained in the hospital. 

And Twilight was missing.

It was a really good thing that Pinkie Pie was there, or everyone would be too depressed to move.

"Rarity, there's another tree in the way!" Roseluck called from down the street. 

Rarity sighed. "Sorry, dears, I need to go tend to this."

"Bye Rarity!" The rather rowdy group of construction ponies waved. They were actually really nice once you got past their grubby exterior, Rarity thought. 

'They could still use a few baths, though.' Thought Rarity, walking off. 

This was the moment when Pinkie Pie popped out of literally nowhere and began yelling, "TWITCHY TAIL! TWITCHY TAIL!"

All the residents ran to cover. If this was another town-smashing thing, they didn't expect as much luck as they got the first time. 

Instead, a small yellow fireball shot down from the sky, and promptly stopped ten feet above the town, it's momentum stopped by a glowy blue shield. Then it flared up, smashing through the barrier to the sounds of explosions far across town, and hit the street with a small thud.

Then it stood up, revealing itself to be Princess Celestia.

"PRINCESS!" Cried Pine Breeze, dropping his saw and running up to her, then prostrating before her. "Thank goodness you're here! There was this massive explosion, and then-"

"Enough." Celestia said coldly, stopping him in his tracks. "Where is my student?"

Pine Breeze gulped audibly, as did everyone else. There was a general murmuring, full of 'Well, you see...'s and 'I'm really sorry about this, but...'s

"Where. Is. Twilight." Celestia demanded.

Before the situation could get any more problematic than it already was, there was a loud yell of irritation. "OI! Who smashed through the forcefield?" 

Celestia turned around. "I did. Do you happen to have a problem with that?" 

"Yes, yes I do!" Said the Doctor, running around a corner, covered in burn marks. "Who goes and smashes through ahhhi, Princess! Nice to see you again." He said, suddenly realizing who he was complaining to.

"Nice to see you again, too." Celestia said dryly. 

"Right! Greetings are done, where was I? Oh, right! The TARDIS! Why did you go and smash through my forcefield? Now the old girl's gone and locked me out!" The Doctor complained, getting right back into the swing of things. Celestia stared at him for a moment, wordlessly. So did half the town. Hell, I'm pretty sure the bugs stared at him too.

"Did...did you just-" Ms. Cake started, in disbelief.

"Hey! Talking! Me and her! Speaking of that, speak! TARDIS! Why?" The Doctor interrupted.

"...It has been a long time since I have been spoken to in such a way. It is pleasant to see someone who is not intimidated by me. Who are you, anyway?"

"What? What do you mean, who am I? Is that a joke? You've met me befo- oh! Of course, you don't remember, do you!" The Doctor exclaimed.

"I suppose not." Said the thoroughly bemused Princess of the Sun. "Though I suspect I would have remembered meeting someone like you before." Celestia said, smiling a little. It was quickly replaced by concern for Twilight.

The Doctor laughed out loud. "Hah! The same goes here, though I do remember it in this case, which makes my point...moot...huh. Anyway!" The Doctor exclaimed. "Anyway, now I know why you don't remember. Memory seal, tricky thing. Almost like a mindwipe, but this can be restored. But we need a trigger. Trigger, trigger, AHA! A TRIGGER!" The Doctor cried.

Celestia watched him, bewildered. "What?"

"Something simple, can't believe it wasn't the first thing I thought of. Hello Celly, I'm The Doctor." He re-introduced himself, extending a hoof.

A few things crossed Celestia's face. Confusion, irritation, more confusion,
And rememberance.

"...Doctor?" Celestia asked, disbelieving. "Is that really you?" 

"Yep! Really me! Totally my own handsome face. Hah, listen to me, I'm a pony and I'm calling myself handsome. And I actually am!"

"I thought you were dead!" Celestia exclaimed, to which a considerable portion of the very bemused townsponies reacted with shock.

"Yeah, I was for a bit. Then I wasn't! Then my friend was a robot, but that's a different story. Point is, I'm not dead, I'm still handsome, and I am still really upset about the whole forcefield thing!" He complained. Everyone either stared at him or held a hoof to their heads. "Do you have any idea how long it'll take for her to listen to me again? The entire point of the force field was, you know, to be a force field and stop things! And you went and smashed on in! Right through it! I didn't even think it was possible, but you did it, and now I want to know why!" 

"It was in the way." Celestia said nonchalantly. 

"Yes, of course it was in the way! It was supposed to be in the way of big honking stuff falling from space! And you went and meteorited on through! Have you ever heard of knocking?" The Doctor demanded.

"I did knock. I knocked it down." Celestia said dryly. A few ponies laughed, but everyone else was just confused.

"Oh, har de har de har. Well, I hope you had your laughs, because now anything could go plummeting from space into Ponyville, and boom goes the town!" The Doctor cried.

At that exact moment, a small glass box went plummeting from the sky into Ponyville, and boom went the Town Hall.

"See?!" The Doctor demanded. "Now we have to rush over there and deal with whatever's inside!" 

"Doctor, I don't think anything could take that fall, there shouldn't be things inside of it." Said a rather monotonous grey unicorn.

Celestia blinked. "Why is everything grey?" She asked. "And where did all of these ponies come from?"

There was a loud yell from where the box landed, mixed with a horrible gurgling.

"Never mind that, come on! And you! Grey Seas! Stop jinxing things!" The Doctor ran off. Exchanging seriously confused glances, the townsponies and the Princess followed.

Rarity walked back down the street. "Hello, dears, I'm back!" She looked around, seeing the crowd of ponies already quite a bit away from her, the scorch marks where the Princess landed, Pinkie Pie hiding under an upturned table, and the horrible gurgling from quite a bit away.

"What did I miss?" 




> Interlude 1: Havoc at the Castle (And pretty much everywhere else, too).
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

A/N Alright, after a long break I'm back on track. Let's hope I don't lose any more ears.




Canterlot, city of currently broken spires.


"What do you MEAN we can't see the Princess?!" Roared Gold Hoof, stamping his famous golden hoof on the floor in rage. 

The guard blocking the gateway remained unfazed. "I'm sorry, sir, but the Princess is not present at this moment. You will have to try again later.

Gold Hoof practically frothed at the mouth at this point, a sentiment shared by many other frazzled nobleponies standing behind him and cluttering up the castle gates. And the stairs. And the streets. It was basically a very long, very angry line, kept at bay by a single guard with a very pointy spear.

"I DEMAND YOU LET ME SPEAK TO THE PRINCESS!" Gold Hoof screamed.

"I would, but considering the Princess is not physically present, I cannot let you do that." Snarked Wise Sword, the Guard. "You could go and mill about in the empty throne room if you wish, but I don't trust you enough not to break something."

The incredibly irate white unicorn stared in blatant shock at the Solar Guard's disrespect. As did most of the ponies behind him.

"Sir, you shouldn't do that. You could eat a fly." Wise Sword advised.

"Are you...are you MOCKING ME?!" Gold Hoof screeched. His hoof was becoming damaged from all his tantrum-throwing. 

"No, sir. I'm advising you to go away before I start mocking you."

Gold Hoof screamed incoherently.

"Oh, would you look at the time. It's my lunch break. Flowers, could you take post?" Wise Sword called, never taking an eye off the crowd.

"Coming!" Yelled Sunny Flowers, the sound of pounding hooves announcing said ponies imminent arrival.

Gold Hoof snorted. If the guard was being taken over by someone called 'Sunny Flowers', he could surely get past her.

And then Sunny Flowers rounded the corner. Well, rounded is a bit of an inaccurate term. More like 'Demolished'. A massive white-and-gold blur broke more than a few bricks on it's way to the gates. The ground shook...

And an utterly MASSIVE unicorn screeched to a halt in front of Wise Sword, dwarfing anything that wasn't the castle in size. 
"Hey, Sword. Ya' needed me for something?" Rumbled the five-and-a-half foot tall unicorn, looming over Wise.

"You keep them from getting in the castle-I'm on my lunch break for now." Wise Hoof said, walking in, automatically homing in on the kitchen. Maybe if he was lucky, Lemon Grass would make something edible this time.

"Okay, got it. Who wants to try and get past me, then?" Rumbled Sunny Flowers. A particularly stupid pony with a monocle raised his hoof. Sunny flung him into the mass of ponies with a burst of magic. No one else raised their hoof.

"Good. I'd hate to have...problems." Sunny grinned sadistically.

So, we have a ridiculously large unicorn pressuring puny ponies into running away, and also vaguely offensive alliteration. Let's go check up on the rest of Canterlot, shall we? It can't be that baa....oh. Oh. I should really stop tempting fate, shouldn't I?

In case you were wondering, what was once the golden crown of pony architecture was now the kind of rusty, old, corroded crown you keep in the storage shelf in the room you never really go to and forget to clean often my metaphor is slipping, damn. 

Anyway, to put it bluntly, it sucked. Most of the really pointy spires on the towers had gone and blown off. Some of them had landed on the streets below, crushing many buildings. Others had been flung straight into the mountain, like a giant game of drunken darts.More than a few buildings hanging precariously off the cliffside were no longer hanging precariously, because they had smashed into the ground many feet below. The foundations of both the castle and many other, smaller buildings, had been cracked or weakened. The large fountain-y pond below had gone kersplat as well, and was dumping a lot of water down the mountainside. Eventually the water would form a small river and a few more towns would spring up alongside that river, but it was still scary to look at now.

Oh, and Blueblood Manor had exploded, but no one really gave a damn.

You might think: Wow, that's a lot of damage! I thought the Princesses set up a shield before it hit, though, so why is there so much?

Well, here's the thing: They didn't really have much time to set one up. They had literally less than four seconds before a wave of city-smashing death hit them, so what could have been a shield was more like a pulse of magic heading in the opposite direction, with some crappy wooden fences thrown in here and there. It certainly did prevent one thing, though, which was landslides. The explosion would have certainly triggered a lot of rockfalls, and rockfalls when you are on a city in a mountain is a very, very bad thing. Ponies would be pancakes, if it wasn't for that. 

Oh, and there was the giant red swirly cloud shooting lightning into the ground above Canterlot, too, so that might be a problem.

So Canterlot's gone all smashy then. Let's take a look at Cloudsdale!




Cloudsdale


Oh. It's on fire. Well, back to Canterlot then!




Canterlot


"My house is on fire!" Screamed a random Earth Pony, frantically throwing buckets of water on his burning house. Moments later, a squad of red Unicorns teleported in, and started spraying large streams of water at the burning posh home. It was like this everywhere, really. Fires, fires, fires. There were many injuries and more than a few deaths all over the city.

And then there was a horrible cracking noise. 

As ponies and the occasional zebra froze all over Canterlot, hoping to death that wasn't what they thought it was, a massive crack ripped down out of the sky, and hit Canterlot dead on. And it kept going.

It spread from the impact point. The cracks divided Canterlot into four equal square parts, before flaring up with very dark-blue magic.

Before the terrified citizens could even react, the entire city rose up into the air. It spit apart, and began revolving around itself like some sort of demonic Merry-Go-Round.


Meanwhile, at the castle, Sunny Flowers, Gold Hoof, and many many more ponies watched Canterlot spin around and around in silent horror.

Sunny broke the silence. "Okay, everyone, in the castle. One at a time, orderly. There's no point in panicking: If this thing falls we all die no matter what we do." He barked. The terrified nobles surged forward, rushing into the castle en-masse.

Sunny stared after them, shrugged, and ran inside. 

Moments later, a loud siren sound began blaring across Canterlot. 

"CITIZENS OF CANTERLOT. THIS IS AN EMERGENCY WARNING." Came the voice of a Guard, magnified far beyond normal proportions. "AN UNKNOWN PHENOMENON HAS CAUSED LARGE AMOUNTS OF DESTRUCTION ACROSS CANTERLOT. WE ARE CURRENTLY LEVITATING IN THE AIR AND ROTATING AT VERY HIGH SPEEDS. IT IS RECOMMENDED THAT YOU RETURN TO YOUR HOMES AND WAIT UNTIL IT IS DESIGNATED SAFE TO VENTURE OUTSIDE. THANK YOU." The alert spell cut off with an audible *snap*.


Inside the tallest tower, a guard wiped some sweat off his head. "That ought to keep everyone mostly unhurt. Now to panic and scream until someone above me in rank shows up." Said Blunt Spear, the Pegasus fluttering his wings. Then he began panicking and screaming.

Ah, ponies. How funny it can be to see them panic.

Where were we? Ah yes, to Ponyville!




Ponyville


Princess Celestia, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, the Doctor, Lyra, Derpy, Bon Bon, and a bunch of other ponies that would take up an entire page if I named them all ran towards the site of the crash. Large pillars of greenish smoke drifted upwards from Town Hall, and the horrible gurgling was getting louder. Also, everything near it was on fire.

As you can imagine, this told everypony in radius that something was up.

The large mob screeched to a collective halt in front of the Town Hall. The Town Square was utterly ruined, though if this was the result of the crash or the giant explosion from before was unclear. What WAS clear was that there was a giant smoking hole in the building.

"The Town Hall!" Mayor Mare cried in horror. Then she resisted the urge to cry.

Celestia spread her wings, and rose into the air. "Show yourself, whatever is in there! I will not ask again!" She growled. 'I wouldn't normally do something like this,' she admitted mentally, 'But these are extenuating circumstances. I will take no chances, especially if it poses harm to my little ponies.' 

The thing that may or may not have posed harm to her little ponies made another horrible noise. Something shifted in the ruins of the building, and began slowly moving towards them, haltingly.

More than a few ponies began backing away, and Celestia tensed herself.

The horrible abomination took a few more steps...before it tripped, fell on it's stomach and revealed it's face.

Or her face, in this case. Princess Luna moaned in pain, dragging herself forward. 

Celestia's mouth opened a little bit, and her eyes widened. She certainly wasn't expecting her sister to be here. 'Luna, what are you doing here?!' She thought furiously.

The source of the horrid gurgling was also revealed to be Luna, as she managed to steady herself, stand upright...and then violently upchuck into the wreckage, before collapsing back onto her knees. She moaned again.

With that, Celestia lost all regard for her own safety. She ran forward. "Luna! Are you okay?" She worried over her sister's nauseous body.

"Never...again..." Luna moaned. "Destroy...it..." 

Celestia tensed. 'So there IS something else there. I suspected as much. Luna doesn't crash into buildings. Much.'

"Destroy...it...avenge...my...stomach..." Luna gurgled, and rolled onto her back.

A mad cackle burst from within the ruins. No, literally. The words 'Mad cackle' leapt out of the ruins of the Town Hall, accompanied by the actual vocal noise.

"Gahahahah! Oh, that was PRICELESS!" You-know-who laughed.

No, not Voldermort, you dolt. Discord.

"Discord!" Celestia growled. "Where are you! What did you do to my sister!"

"Turns out, Luny-woony gets airsick when you travel at twenty thousand miles an hour." Discord laughed, materializing out of the ruins. He was leaning on a scratched-up glass box.

"You should know better, Discord." Celestia scolded him.

"Ugh. You're such a fuddy duddy, Celestia. You won't even let me call you by that nickname!" Discord complained.

"I hate that nickname." Celestia growled. 

"Nickname? What nickname?" Rarity asked, arriving late to the party. "Why is Princess Luna throwing up on the floor?"

"Discord happened." Celestia said flatly.

"Oh." Said nearly everyone who was confused, accepting this as a decent answer.

"Well, Celly-belly-chelly-nelly-felly-deli-helli-gelly-jelly, what's the problem?" Discord said, flying in circles around her head. Celestia jolted him briefly with a bolt of magic. Discord yelped, holding his singed tail.

"I hate that nickname. Stop calling me that." Celestia growled. I mean, literally growled. Like an angry manticore. More than a few ponies backed away.

"Ugh. You're boring. I'm going to talk to someone more interesting. Buh-bye!" Discord said, skipping into the air...
And then flashing green before falling to the ground.

"Ow! What? How did...Celestia, did you cancel my teleportation, you clever cake-eating Alicorn?" Discord asked quizzically. Celestia gritted her teeth, took a deep breath and resisted the urge to beat him with a rock.

"No, that was me." Said The Doctor, walking forwards. "Hello...Discord. It's been a long time, at least from your perspective." The Doctor said. There was no humor in his voice.

"Hello crazy old brown pony who stopped me from teleporting." Discord babbled at a Pinkie-pie esque rate. "What are you blathering on about now?"

"Discord, unless you want a repeat of the chandelier incident, I suggest you stop goofing around and answer. our. questions." The Doctor practically spat out the last few words. Discord's pupils shrank to pinpricks.

"Doctor?" Discord questioned in utter disbelief.

"Yes, yes. I'm the Doctor, you're the insane pipe cleaner who keeps trying to drive people insane and gets locked in stone. Speaking of that, Celestia, why is Discord out?" The Doctor questioned.

"Discord was redeemed, Doctor. You have nothing to worry about now." Celestia reassured.

The Doctor narrowed his eyes in suspicion, but said nothing. 

"So! Celly! I got told by Ms. Barfsalot to come to Ponyville, so here I am!" Discord sang, confetti erupting behind him. "That reminds me? Where's Flutters? Or Twilight? Twilight never misses a chance to gripe at me." Discord asked, somewhat confused.

"O-oh. Hi Discord..." Fluttershy whispered, peeking out of the crowd. Discord's face lit up in a ridiculous grin. He grabbed her and hugged her really tight to his chest. "Flutters! I'm so glad you could make it! I'm honored, I really am!" Discord pranced around. Fluttershy was turning blue from air loss.

"Discord...I...can't...breathe...." Fluttershy choked. Discord turned into a giant fan with arms and kept hugging her. After a moment, Fan-cord let her go.

"So! What's the rush?" Discord asked.

"Yeah, I was wondering that too." Said a green earth pony.

Celestia recomposed herself. "As you can imagine, whatever caused such destruction here," She guestured to the many ruined buildings around the Town Hall "Reached our ears in Canterlot. I came to investigate, and requested that my sister retrieve Discord to assist if it was necessary." She frowned. "However, I am in the dark about what caused this." The unspoken question hung in the air. 'Do you know what happened?'

Applejack stepped forward. "Ah'm sorry, Princess, we're all in the dark as you are, yer majesty. All we know is that whatever that thing was, it came from Twah's Library." She stated, with some uncharacteristic nervousness.

The unspoken implications did not pass Celestia by. "Is my student alright?" She questioned.

Suddenly, Discord popped out of nowhere in front of her face. "Hey, Celestia. Why did your student blow up her own library?" Discord asked, swinging back and forth on air.

"What?!" Celestia was understandably astonished. She teleported to the library...

Or where it was. As the group ran to her, and Discord rode a motorcycle made of bubblegum around Lyra's head, they found Celestia staring dumbfounded at the crater where the library was.

"Um, Princess? Are you alright?" Asked Rarity, rather nervously. 

She turned her head with ominous slowness. "Where. Is. Twilight." Celestia intoned.

A couple ponies passed out, and the rest started shaking.

Well, except for Pinkie, who was oblivious as always. "Well, Twilight and Rainbow and Me were all in the library and she was working on this really big super spell, but it blew up like WHOOSH!" She said, pantomiming her words. "And then everyone went flying and there was a lot of yelling and then Salad Fork hurt Bon Bon which isn't very nice and I was going to tell her so but then I figured out what happened and then the Doctor knocked her out and we put her in the hospital and then Rainbow Dash fell unconscious again and by the way Twilight's in another world." Pinkie finished. She said all this without taking a single breath. Everyone stared at her blankly. Even Discord was a fair bit stunned.

"What she means, Princess," Rarity said, shoving Pinkie out of the way, "Was that Twilight somehow caused all of this- by accident-" She quickly said, not wanting to get her friend in trouble, "And she somehow ended up in another world. I don't really understand it myself." She chuckled nervously.

Celestia stared at her. "My student did this." She gestured to everything. "And is now in another world?"

"Universe, actually." The Doctor interrupted yet again. "Twilight was casting a Long-range teleportation spell. When it went haywire, she teleported, but into another world. Brilliant girl, er, mare, Twilight, but bad luck follows her everywhere." Commented The Doctor. 

"Like you?" Discord interrupted. Everyone glared at him and he shut up. 

"But even with an Alicorn as powerful as her, Twilight couldn't do this on her own. Something already started the process, and Twilight was just the unwitting pawn in it's plans. Always with the unwitting pawns, reality-bending monstrosities." The Doctor complained.

"Something did this on purpose?!" Celestia asked incredulously.

"Yes, and it'll only get worse from here. Time itself is stopping, and it's spreading. That's the grey you're seeing. We can't fix it because we're not at the wound itself. It's up to Twilight to fix it."

"So my student is alive?" Celestia dared to hope.

"Yes, but if we don't deal with this it won't matter. We can't stop it directly, but we can slow it down." The Doctor said. "We'd have a better chance of that if you didn't hurt my TARDIS!" He complained, causing everyone to facehoof. "Now I need to go and apologise to the old girl. Do you know how many 'I told you so's' I'll need to deal with?" 

"Why are we even listening to him again?" Bon Bon whispered to Lyra.

"Because he's really smart, even if he's kooky." Lyra explained. "Besides, the only other one we could listen to is Pinkie."

Bon Bon winced and accepted the point.

Discord juggled trees in his arms.

Celestia frowned, unhappy with how things were going. "So we can't do anything at all?"

"We have to wait until the wound gets worse before we can intervene at all. Other than that, the best thing we can do is keep an eye out for Salad Fork, and make sure she doesn't hurt herself." Explained the Doctor. 

"Who is this Salad Fork?" Celestia questioned, confused.

"Salad Fork was a pegasus who lived down the street from us." Lyra explained. "She was really nice, too."

Celestia felt a sudden sense of dread. "Was a pegasus?"

The town grumbled and murmured collectively. 

"Ya might want ta' see this..." Applejack trailed off ominously.

Discord juggled arms in his trees.