Space Portals?

We had to move again today.

I was playing with Luna in the sideways garden, trying to get her to eat one of those noodle-worms that always show up around the cotton-candy carrots. She wasn’t so happy, but I, however, am a resolute pony, and I wasn’t going to give up so easily, no sirree. I chased her around with the noodle-worm, until we ended up rolling around the pistachio ice-cream bush, her head caught in my firm headlock.

“HEARTSONG!” she cried out.

<Oh crap.> I relinquished my hold on her. Heartsong, a goldenrod earth pony with a mulberry mane and a ribbon-wrapped heart for a cutie mark, came around the corner of the house with that familiar stern, yet loving, look on her face.

“Now what have you two been up to now?” she calmly inquired.

<Ha, calm approach, as usual. Play it cool, Celestia, you can talk your way out of this.>

“Well see, I was showing Luna this cool trick you can do with noodle-worms where if you tickle their backside, they tie themselves into knots! See?” I tickled the worm, and it gave a squeak of annoyance, before twisting around itself and ending up in a neat, overhand knot.

“She was not!” Luna wailed. “She tried to force me to eat one and then she chased me around the garden and then she grabbed me and tried to force it down my throat and—”

“Shh, It’s alright,” Heartsong soothed before turning to me. “Now Celestia, really? Why would you do something like that?”

“I didn’t though, no way!” I defended. “She’s just trying to get me in trouble again!”

“WHAT?!” Luna latched onto my neck and started hitting me as hard as she could, which didn’t amount to much. I grabbed her and was about to teach her a real lesson when Heartsong inserted herself between us.

“Whoa whoa whoa! Girls, stop this! I won’t have my own two daughters acting like Discord himself!” She held us close and we started to calm down. “Besides, whatever you were just doing, I want you two to stop messing around with the Noodle-worms. They play an important part in nourishing the plants, and they can’t fulfill their roles very well when they’re tied in knots, now can they? How would you like it if you two were tied in a knot?” We all giggled a bit.

“Wouldn’t that hurt?” I asked.

“It sure would!” answered Heartsong. “Now why don’t you two go and play somewhere else while I finish weeding?”

“Right!” I said. <And then afterwards, I'm going to take care of a certain little cryfilly.>

“You’re dead meat,” I mouthed to Luna. She stuck her tongue out at me.

I ran off to go find Button Shine—we were going to play in Old McRaisin’s purple cabbage patch today—when I heard Luna calling after me.

“‘Tia, wait for mee! I want to come too!”

“Ha!” I huffed, “Button Shine and I are going to do grown-up things. You wouldn’t be interested.” She was about to retort when I abruptly halted, after which Luna crashed into my hind legs. A large crowd of ponies were making their way towards our house, and they didn’t look happy. Some were carrying pitchforks and torches. I could see Heartsong walking up to meet them, with her calm demeanor as always.

Luna and I rushed back to the house.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Shh, let me handle this,” replied Heartsong. She turned to the crowd. “Hello Mayor, what brings you and all these fine ponies here?”

“You know very well why we are here,” he firmly responded. “If we want to survive the next inspection, we need to make sure there is nothing out of the ordinary,”—his eyes glanced down at us— “We need a town without . . . those two.”

“Yeah! Get those freaks of nature out of here!” came a voice from the crowd. It sounded like Old McRaisin’s.

Luna stood between my legs and I cowered a bit, until a familiar face in the crowd caught my attention.

“Button, is that you? What are you doing here?” He winced slightly.

“I’m . . . I’m sorry ‘Tia. But Ma and Pa will be taken in as slaves if we get caught in the same town as you two.” He shuffled with his rake as he looked down at his hooves. “I can’t let that happen. Not . . . not to them.” His face hardened and he looked up, “Now it’s my parents or you, and it sure as chocolate rain ain’t gonna be my parents.”

<Oh no. Not you too.>

The mayor cut in. “He’s right you know. If we’re discovered with those two around, half the town will be sent to the conversion camps, and the other half will starve without them. Now we can let you three go peacefully, or we can do this the hard way.” Several ponies grinned maliciously as they hoisted their tools.

“Mayor, you don’t have to do this,” said Heartsong.

“I’m sorry Heartsong, but it needs to be done,” the mayor responded. “You’re the most kindhearted pony I’ve ever met—heck—that’s your special talent, for Discord’s sake. But we can’t all be as loving as you, and we have families to protect. So as long as you stick around them, you have to leave as well.”

Heartsong stood there for awhile, staring at the group with disappointed eyes. Some were unaffected, but most shrunk a little in shame when she looked at them.

“Girls, pack your things. Let’s go,” she quietly said.

Okay. I’m going to do it. I’m going to ask her out this time.

Marshall peeked over the wall of his cubicle and saw her.

Stephanie Streadback, age 25, who liked costuming, dancing, and turtles (not that he was paying any attention, no sir), was leaning against the counter next to the coffee machine, drinking a cup and playing with her hair. She wore a light blue collared shirt with a faint plaid pattern, and brown khaki capris. Her gorgeous dirty blonde locks cascaded past her shoulders, ending with a slight curl and a bounce. Magnificent green eyes peeked through her hair and over the lip of the coffee cup she was drinking with her beautiful pink lips. The cup was pulled away, and an adorable button nose scrunched up. She let out a deafening sneeze, the most beautiful sneeze he ever did hear, and spilled coffee on her pants. Beautiful yelling. Beautiful frantic napkins.

She’s so . . . beautiful.

Suddenly Marshall’s brain kicked into gear. My lady! She’s in trouble! I have to save her! He bolted from his chair, ready to swoop in and save her from her calamity. He rounded the corner at full speed and . . .

. . . slowed to a complete stop, ten feet away from her.

Marshall, this was stupid! Stupid! What were you planning to do anyway? You can’t just magically get rid of the coffee, and heaven knows how awkward it would get if you tried to clean it up for her!

Well the best you can do is lend your support! Say hi to her, at least! Don’t you remember what the objective originally was? Ask her out!

No! Who asks someone out on a date right after they just spilled coffee on their pants?

You do!

Are you kidding! No way man!

Yes way! You have to do it!

Now’s not the right time!

It’s as right as you’ll ever get!

What Marshall hadn’t noticed was that he had slowly—and awkwardly—walked closer, and was now standing right next to her. She noticed him and looked up with a swoosh of hair. Marshall’s body froze up completely.

“Um, hello? Can I help you?” she asked.

Go! Do it! Just ask her out!

“Well I, uh, couldn’t help but, um, notice that you, uh, seem to . . . uh . . . like coffee?”

Crap. You can still recover, though. Just go for it!

“Um, yes? Yes I do, although not so much now that it’s spilled all over my pants,” she said with a small chuckle. The most beautiful chuckle the world had ever known.

“Oh my goodness! Are you hurt, miss? Is there anything I can do to—I mean, well . . . that is to say . . . that . . . I . . . like . . . coffee too! . . . And I . . . and I can . . . drink it. You know . . . just . . . just like . . . you . . . did.”

Marshall, you idiot! Stop talking about coffee!

“That’s . . . nice,” she said.

Just say the freaking words already!

“Heh heh, yeah . . . coffee’s . . . nice.”

Marshall, unless you ask her out, I’m going to give you a hormone imbalance for the rest of your life!

“Yeah . . . nice.”

Now, Marshall! NOW!

“Well, I’ve got a lot of work to do, so I’d better—you know—get going.”

No! NO!

“Yeah, me too.”

Nononononono no No NO NOOO!

“I’ll . . . I’ll see you around, I guess.”

MARSHALL, YOU NUMBSKULL! YOU NO-GOOD DIRTY ROTTEN—

“Yeah . . . I guess . . .”

SON-OF-A-GUNSLINGER NITWIT BLOCKHEAD! I HOPE YOU—

Marshall slowly turned around, walked back to his cubicle, and banged his head against the desk for the next twenty-five minutes.

“C’mon man, just help me out here!”

“Seriously, Ryan?”

“It’s only fifty bucks! I’ll pay you back, I swear!”

“Yeah, just like you did all those other times?”

“This’ll be different!”

You know, if you give him the money, you’ll only be perpetuating an endless cycle.

Yeah, I know. But . . .

“So we’re cool, right man?”

But what if I insult him if I don’t?

So what? The guy needs to be taken down a peg anyways.

But he’s my friend . . .

Is he really?

Marshall let out a long sigh, and fished through his wallet.

“Here you go, man.”

You idiot!

I know . . .

***

“Okay, now I want you five to work together on this, right?”

“Can do.”

“Good. The deadline is in three weeks. Please be ready to present by then.”

As they left the department head’s office, Marshall eyed his new collaborators. They seemed like a nice enough bunch, for the most part at least.

He looked down. Aw crap.

“Hey wait up one second, guys. I have to tie my shoe.” He knelt down and began tying it, when he noticed that no one had stopped.

“Guys, wait. I really do have to tie my shoe.” They continued on.

“Guys?” They rounded the corner and were gone.

You’ve got to be kidding me.

***

“Ma’am, excuse me, someone is sitting here.”

She loomed closer, inch by inch.

“Ma’am seriously, please don’t sit on me.”

At least three-hundred pounds of fat hung in the air, mere seconds away from crushing him.

“Uh oh.”

***

“Whoa! Dude, how long have you been standing there?!”

*sigh* “Half an hour, Jeff . . .”

Five, four, three, two, one . . .

Five o’clock. Quitting time!

Marshall saved his work, closed down his web browser, made very sure he shut-down the computer (he was chewed out last time for not doing so), packed his backpack and turned to leave. As he stepped out of the doors of the Adobe building, he loosened his tie and unbuttoned his collar, letting out a sigh of relief. He hopped on his 100cc Yamaha Aerox and headed south on Aurora Avenue, noticing a crowd of police cars parked in some business lot, sirens flashing. Must be another drug bust, he thought. He recalled hearing that Aurora used to be somewhat of a Route 66 before I-5 was built. Now however, it was just a way to get home.

After hitting Wall Street and taking a quick right onto 4th Avenue, he parked his scooter under Centennial Tower, his home for the past three years. With a skip in his step, he bounced over to the stairway.

I think I’ll take the stairs this time! I really need to get more exercise, no harm in getting some now, right?

Marshall collapsed at the doorway to the twelfth floor.

I am never doing this again.

He felt like he was going to puke. His legs were screaming at him, his lungs offered him no oxygen, and his heart was beating at a tempo not unlike those found in German Speedcore.

Come on Marshall, just three . . . more . . . floors.

He willed himself to stand, but his body outright refused, so he opted to crawl instead.

Gotta . . . make it . . . to . . . the . . . elevator . . .

He found himself scraping across the floor, which later he realized probably looked ridiculous, although at the moment he couldn’t have cared less. The further he crawled, the less he wanted to move forward and the more he wanted to collapse forever. He eventually rolled onto his back and essentially passed out, resigning himself to spend the rest of his life panting and wheezing.

Had anyone entered the hallway and seen him in his quasi-defunct state, it can be assumed much fuss would have been made over seeing a man passed out in the middle of the floor, but thankfully, no other people were present.

Not more than twenty minutes later, he reanimated himself, having finally caught his breath. With sweat dried into a crusty layer and muscles turned to tapioca pudding—but no longer in immediate pain—he picked himself up rather slowly and headed toward the end of the hallway.

Along the way, he noticed an office fan sitting just outside one of the apartments, with a note attached that said “If you want it, go ahead and have it.” While he was still preoccupied with getting to the elevator, the ‘free stuff!’ portion of his brain lit up with curiosity, and he couldn’t resist giving the fan an inspection.

It was . . . used, to say the least. The cord was frayed, the stand was duct-taped in numerous places, and there was a large crack running through one of the blades. An attempt had been made to clean it of dust, but it was plain to see that this particular fan had been collecting it for years.

Eh, it’s not worth it, he thought, and continued on his path to the elevator. Five steps later, he stopped and turned around, staring intently at the fan. It almost seemed to . . . to call to him, in a friendly sort of a way he couldn’t place his finger on.

This is ridiculous, he thought, and promptly turned on his heels back toward the elevator before stopping once again.

He stood there for a while, and then looked back at the fan, eyes twitching.

“What is up with you?!” he shouted at the fan. The fan didn’t respond. The ‘friendliness’ he was feeling from it earlier was gone, replaced with only the neutrality of an inanimate object.

“Oh what the heck!” he huffed, and rushed over to the fan, grabbed it, and strode into the elevator.

When he entered his apartment on the fifteenth floor, he unslung his backpack and dropped it rather unceremoniously next to the door.

“Firefly, I’m home.” The cinnamon ferret gave no response, unsurprisingly. She was curled up in a ball in her hammock, wholeheartedly partaking in the bliss of her afternoon nap. He placed the fan next to the backpack, and made a mental note to look into it after dinner. After taking a look at the contents of his refrigerator, and finding them rather lacking, he opted to grab a packet of ramen from the pantry and throw it in the microwave.

As he stood on his westward-facing balcony, eating his ramen and staring at the sunset, he thought about typical things a man in his particular stage of life would think about. Things like how he needed to do this week’s laundry, how he probably needed to eat healthier, how he should stop spending so much time on the computer, how he needed to be less of a pushover, etc. He turned around, leaned back against the handrail, and stared at the office fan inside.

He could feel it again, that subconscious feeling he had experienced earlier.

“I know what you’re up to,” he said.

The fan said nothing.

He stormed up to it, jabbing his index finger at its grate. “You’re trying to make me lose my mind! Making me talk to inanimate objects like this!”

The fan still said nothing. What it did do, however, was drop a loose screw.

Marshall spun around in frustration, slamming his empty bowl on the counter, and paced around the room, making a concerted effort to keep his eyes off the fan. He finally relented, and took a good long look at it. After giving it more than a few scrutinizing looks, he felt himself beginning to feel sorry for it, what with its decrepit condition. The thing was in really bad shape, after all. Marshall strolled over to it, inspecting it carefully.

“Poor thing.” He flipped the switch and the fan sputtered to life. The blades spun off-weightedly, the panel that had once been held on by the lost screw now rattled around on top, and the motor sounded like rocks being thrown into a woodchipper. It was pathetic.

“Don’t worry, I’ll get you fixed up,” he said gently, “uh, somehow.” He grabbed his box of tools from his closet and began taking the fan apart, dusting off each component as it was removed.

Half an hour later, he stood over a neat arrangement of various parts, most of which were in a sorry condition. “Okay, looks like the motor’s been fried, the axel’s bent, and I definitely don’t trust that power cord,” he commented to himself. Alrighty then, Home Depot it is.

Making sure to use the elevator this time, he went down to his bike, and sped off. As he was driving down Alaskan Way, he suddenly wondered why the heck he was doing all this for just a trashy office fan, but he had already turned off on 1st Avenue, so he decided to just keep going. When he had arrived back at his apartment with the parts required, he set to work fixing and building the fan back together again.

About an hour later, after running into a few major snags, and using nearly half a roll of duct tape, Marshall had managed to piece the fan back together into a workable contraption. He flipped the switch.

A flash and a loud bang enveloped the room, stunning Marshall, followed by a metallic sweeping sound.

“What the—?!” Marshall exclaimed, rubbing his eyes. When he opened them again, what he saw was not the same device he had just reconstructed. It looked like a fan, yes, but it was now glossy white, with a sleek exterior, a large ring surrounding the blades, and looked like an object one could find in the domestic turbojet section of a local space-age Ikea. With a ding that sounded like a facebook notification, an OLED screen on the top of the ring turned on and began displaying text written in fancy cursive.

[Scanning archives. . .]

[ . . . ]

Suddenly a formal—but not stuffy—voice emanated from the object. [ . . . Ah, there you are. Marshall James Bradley, age twenty four, born in Sacramento, California, United States, Earth, Second Galactic Quadrant.]

What on earth? Marshall thought. He stared at the object—whatever it was now—completely awestruck.

[Mind if I call you Sir Marshall?]

Marshall continued staring.

[Go ahead, you can say something.]

Marshall pointed at himself with a questioning look.

[Yes you. Go on, I don’t bite.]

“Uh . . . hello?”

[There we go! See, that wasn’t so bad now, was it?]

“Uh, hm, y-yeah sure . . . just, just what . . . ARE you?

[Ah yes, that might be a good point to cover. Human beings are funny you know, they always seem to react in an ignorant or even destructive way whenever I attempt to make myself known unto them. Not that I would know, really, I’ve only had contact with two in the course of my entire service. I suppose it just comes with them being a near-tribal species. Are they even registered as members of the UG?]

“Um,” Marshall attempted to speak.

[I don’t think they are. That’s funny. Oh well, I’d give it another fifty Earth-years before they develop interstellar space travel. They’re in for a big surprise after that, ha ha. Ha ha, that is what you humans call laughter, right? Why is it that you create those sounds? Are they some sort of extra-conversational form of communicating?]

Marshall paused for a moment. “Well . . . technically yes . . . sort of . . . but not really . . . ish. But hey now, that’s not really the point . . .”

[Oh right, I’m afraid you will find that I have a tendency to get sidetracked. Infinite amounts of knowledge at one’s disposal really tends to scatter the central processing unit. Anyways, I am a Gateway Unit that is a part of the Autonomous Interstellar Relay system, also known as A.I.R. to the more biological members of the organization. We were designed and funded by the UG as a means of mass-travel between solar systems and galaxies. Any questions?]

Yeah, how about a billion? Marshall thought, but instead said the first one that came to his mind, “How the heck are you even”—Marshall waved his hands wildly in the air as he tried to think of the right word to use—“existing? You were a cruddy old fan just a few seconds ago!”

[Now now, there’s no need to raise your voice, and I do indeed take offense at your insulting of my previous form, thank you very much. It was the best I could do, given that my primary power source had been compromised.]

“What?”

[What you believe to be my motor is actually my main source of power. Seeing as it had a large chunk of aluminum rattling inside it, I had to resort to using an auxiliary power cord, and even then it wasn’t enough to enable me to prevent natural damage and decay. What you saw before you was the result of forty-five years of stagnation.]

“Wait a second, so you’re saying that you’re powered by an electric motor? How does that even work?”

[Ah yes, it’s a rather ingenious system with a fantastic amount of electricity output, but I’d rather not tell you now, as it is very complicated by your human standards and likely won’t be thought of by humans for another twenty five years, I’d say. I would prefer not to overstrain your tiny developing brains. I’ll tell you later, when you’re willing to talk about advanced electrochemical engineering.]

Marshall plopped into a nearby chair as the weight of the situation began to sink in. Holy crap, this is heavy stuff, he thought, running a hand through his hair. What do I even do? Do I tell someone? Do I keep it a secret? Do I have to keep on living with this slightly condescending machine? It’s not like I can just send it to Goodwill, I mean, what will it think if I kick it out? The thing thinks, for heaven’s sakes! Why does it think? And how is it that a programmed A.I. can carry on a full-blown conversation with me?

[I can see that you need time to take this all in. Usually the more tribal species go through a period of . . . adjustment, let’s say. What would you think if I gave you a period of one Earth-hour before your departure?]

“My what?!”

[After all, that is why you repaired me, isn’t it? To make use of my transportation functions?]

Marshall gave the fan a look not unlike that of someone intent upon causing serious physical harm.

[No? Hm, that’s odd. What other reason would anyone have to repair me?]

“Maybe,” Marshall spoke through gritted teeth, “because they wanted TO HAVE A LOUSY OLD FAN!!”

[Really? Fascinating. Humans are such unusual creatures. I suppose my assumptions were unwarranted, given you had stated that you didn’t know what I was or where I came from. I . . . apologize? Is that the word for when one wants to reconcile?]

“Yeah whatever.” Marshall turned around and shuffled into the kitchen. Firefly was now awake and needed some food, as she was all too willing to let him know through her squeaks and dooks.

[What are you doing, Sir Marshall?] the fan called out.

“I’m grabbing a wrench to take you apart, that’s what,” Marshall snapped.

[What?!]

“No, no I’m not,” Marshall sighed. “I’m grabbing some food for Firefly and an aspirin for myself, for the headache I’m getting because of you. Besides, I don’t think I could find any way to take you apart anyways, you don’t have a single exposed bolt anywhere.”

[Oh . . . good. Thank you very much, Sir Marshall. I should hate to resume my dilapidated state, it was most boring. I am very excited to be able to speak again.]

“No joke,” Marshall mumbled.

[What did you say?]

“Nothing.”

[Really? I’m fairly certain you said something. It sounded like ‘oh yoke’ to me, although I haven’t the slightest idea what it could mean. Is it some form of slang?]

“Look whatever-you-are, could you please”—Marshall paused—“not talk?

[Whatever for?]

Marshall gave a large sigh. “Nevermind.” He crouched down and emptied the contents of Firefly’s evening rations into her bowl, crinkling his nose at the smell. Before he could so much as get his hands away from the bowl, she pounced on it and began tearing into its contents with all the gusto of a wild animal. He stood up, threw the empty can in the trash, and plopped back on the couch. “So,” he said, “what do I call you?”

[What do you mean?]

“Like, what’s your name?”

[I do not know. I’ve never had a name before. Every creature I have come in contact with has referred to me as ‘the gateway’.]

“Well that’s no good,” Marshall said as he leaned back. “We need to find a name for you.” He stared at the ceiling for a few seconds. “How about Nigel?” he asked. “That would be fancy, wouldn’t it?”

The machine paused for a moment.

[That . . . would be nice. I enjoy that. Thank you, Sir Marshall.]

“Just call me Marshall.”

[I am sorry, Sir Marshall.]

Marshall sighed once again.

[Anyways, now that we are all on the same level, so to speak, when do you think you will be ready to leave?]

Marshall sat up quickly. “Whoa whoa whoa, hang on. Nobody said anything about leaving anywhere.”

[Actually, I did, if you were wondering. Not more than twenty minutes ago.]

Marshall slumped back into his chair again. “Fine, whatever. Where is it that you even want me to go?”

[It’s not that I want you to go to the other end, in fact, I’ve grown quite fond of your company. But either way, I have no clue as to what is your destination. Usually the Communications department in A.I.R. is the one that sets up connections between gateways, but I haven’t been connected to their servers for forty-five earth years, so I have no clue as to which gateway I’m connected to, or even if I’m connected at all. I had first assumed that you were the one who knew where you were going, and therefore which gateway was on the other side, but it’s become clear that you are rather new to this business.]

Silence reigned for a moment.

[Would you like to go through?]

Marshall rather opted to stare into space for a while. After a long stretch of time, he finally spoke.

“Is it dangerous?”

[I should think not! It is after all, the safest way to travel in the whole universe. Every gateway is monitored very closely by the most experienced of A.I.R. personnel. Speaking of that, that’s another reason why I would like you to go. See, I obviously have been stranded on an unregistered planet, with no gateway team to monitor me. I would like you to go through and inform them of my condition and location, so that they may pick me up.]

“So it wouldn’t be any trouble?”

[Definitely not! Just go through, tell them you’re from Earth, an unregistered planet, and tell them that Gateway 149 has been discovered there. They may ask you some background questions, and how you discovered me; just tell them the whole truth and you’ll be fine. Who knows? This may be the first step toward Earth becoming a player on the intergalactic field! Although I think the UG is waiting for you to hopefully resolve your internal quarrels before approaching.]

Marshall paused for a second. “How will they be able to understand me? If Earth isn’t registered yet, they wouldn’t have a translator, would they?”

[All gateways project a translation field of ten of your earth-meters. As long as you and whoever is talking with you stay inside, you’ll be able to understand each other completely. Well, mostly completely, anyways. Sometimes we have trouble translating slang and profanity, but that shouldn’t hinder your communication, hopefully.]

Marshall steeled himself. Well, it’s a Friday night, just before long weekend, and I’ve always wanted to go on one of those impromptu vacations to someplace exciting. What’s more exciting than another planet? Who knows what I’ll see? Fetch, this just might be the thing that’ll help me get strong enough to actually function around people.

“Okay, I’ll do it,” he said, “but I need to pack some things first and make some calls.”

About an hour later, Marshall had a small suitcase packed with essentials, and had successfully called in his vacation hours. He had gotten a friend to take care of Firefly while he was gone, and so far as he could tell, was ready for an interplanetary expedition. Probably. He now stood before Nigel with a confused expression.

“So, uh . . . how does this work?”

[Just flip the switch on my left side, which opens up my signal to the main frequency. After that, it’s routed to whichever station has been selected by the mainframe, which of course, I don’t know.]

“And after that?”

[After that comes the fun part.]

Marshall rolled his eyes. Alrighty, here goes. He flipped the switch.

[Transmitting signal . . . one second.]

Nothing happened.

[It takes a while . . . just hold on one moment.]

“Riiight.” Marshall stuck his hands in his pockets and shuffled his feet.

[Well, when you have to transmit all the way across the—oh hey, there it is! Now if you please. Ahem, establishing connection . . .]

[Connecting in 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . .]

[Connection established! Haha! For a moment I didn’t know if—oh! I mean, ahem. Sir Marshall, are you prepared to embark?]

“Ready as I’ll ever be, I guess.”

[Then let’s boogie! GERONIMOOO!]

The blades on the gateway began whirring at alarming rate, and the lights dimmed. Suddenly the lights went out altogether, and surges of electricity sparked around the ring surrounding the blades. Firefly squeaked in alarm and ran circles in her cage, while Marshall took a step back as an extremely deep bass began emanating from the surrounding air.

When the bass grew to levels that would make Daft Punk green with envy, the electricity began jumping to spots around the room, no longer confined to just the gateway. This prompted Marshall to dive for cover, lest he be struck by a bolt of electricity. He was also becoming somewhat nauseous from the sound, which now contained various other sounds on top of the ribcage-rattling sub-bass. One of such sounds was a deep groaning, as if the universe was stretching beyond its intentions.

Before Marshall could think more on the matter, a white mist erupted from the center of the generator and swirled around into a roughly oval shape, while the noise dropped to a quiet hum. Marshall looked over the edge of the kitchen counter.

Holy crap, it actually worked.

“Uh, you okay?”

[Can’t talk right now,] the gateway more or less grunted. [This is really difficult to hold, so could you go through as quick as possible, please?]

“Right, sure,” Marshall mumbled as he took a long hard look at the portal.

“Let’s do this.”

He stepped through.

Weird, the thing is weird. It caused sounds. Scary noises. Thunderstorms. It made clouds. Swirly clouds. The one that makes food disappeared in the clouds. Is he still inside the clouds? Find out. Must find out. Cage. Hard, shiny bars in the way. Have to get out. Go to the bars that swing down. Bite the one that moves. Move it. Can’t let Marshall find out. Is he watching? No. He’s in the clouds. Have to find him. Make bars swing down. They swung down. Escape! Great escape. Go. Go. Gotta go fast. Jump! Jump back. Jump forward. Jump sideways. Serpentine! Too crafty for the weird thing. Weird thing can’t catch me. Too sneaky. Really close now. Sniff. Sniff it. Smells like clouds. Marshall is inside. Go inside? Clouds getting smaller. Clouds are weird. Don’t want to go. Have to go. Clouds shrinking. Quick. Jump inside!

It was a blistering hot day in Canterlot. Celestia sat on her throne, using her magic to blow a gentle breeze on herself. The Day Court had been a long one, and the heat hadn’t made it any more bearable. While normally the weather teams wouldn’t schedule days like this, extra hot days were required every once in a while for the more tropical plants to thrive. Therefore, most everypony had been forced to suffer through the heat. It wasn’t nearly as much of a problem for pegasi and unicorns, due to the fact that the pegasi could fly and any unicorn with a better than minimal grasp on magic could generate a breeze for themselves, but for the poor earth ponies, there was no such relief. Thankfully, the engineers at the Canterlot Academy had come up with a nifty device to make its own breeze, and that ran on the electric power that had recently been installed throughout Equestria, no unicorn magic required.

Celestia looked around the room at all of the fans, some blowing gently, some more vigorously, but all doing their job and cooling off the many ponies that worked in the castle. She particularly liked the one in the far corner; it was white, instead of gray, and it had a sleek polished look that none of the others had. She made a mental note to ask the academy why they had only made one unit of that particular model.

“Excuse me, your Majesty, but Princess Twilight Sparkle has arrived,” an announcer spoke, interrupting her reverie.

“Wonderful! Send her in!”

Twilight Sparkle, Celestia’s pupil, friend, and near-daughter, who had accomplished so many amazing things in her life, stepped into the throne room with the regality of a pony who had grown accustomed to princesshood. Her face had aged slightly since they had last met, but Twilight clearly still had the energy of a youth. Celestia trotted up to her and gave her a warm hug, which Twilight returned wholeheartedly.

“It’s been too long, Twilight! How have you been?” Celestia asked once they had separated.

“Just splendid! The train ride was beautiful, as always. Our trip up here was very relaxing.”

“Our?” Celestia queried. In response, Twilight gestured behind her, and it was only then that Celestia noticed that Nyx Sparkle and a very, very large Spike had also entered the room.

“What a pleasant surprise! My oh my, look how much you two have grown!”—she looked them up and down—“You especially, Spike! Haven’t been getting too greedy, have we?”

He chuckled. “Nah, I’m the least greedy dragon you’ll find on this planet!” He raised a claw to his chin. “Maybe there’s a medal for something like that . . .”

“Easy scalyface. Don’t get too excited there.” Nyx nudged him in the stomach, breaking him out of his thoughts. She looked younger than she actually was, appearing not more than fifteen, but that was only because of the alicorn aging process. Her long purple hair was tied into a ponytail, and her slitted turquoise eyes shone with intelligence.

“Goodness Nyx, you’ve grown into a beautiful young mare!”—Nyx blushed at that—“How is life at the Academy?”

“Eh, pretty alright, I suppose. The Lunar Guard ROTC is pretty rough, I guess, but overall everything’s been a whole bunch of ‘normal’,” she said with a shrug.

“Whole bunch of normal? Are you kidding?” Twilight interjected before turning to Celestia. “She’s aced nearly every single quiz, midterm, and final, and did I forget to mention that she was just promoted to the rank of Second Lieutenant?”

“Stop it mom, you’re embarrassing me!” Nyx said through clenched teeth.

Celestia leaned back and chuckled. “Don’t worry, Nyx, I won’t tell anyone. Although I think your impressive resume will be harder to keep quiet! Now then, I know Twilight well enough to know that she always has some business to bring to my attention. Would you to be willing to give us some time to talk?”

“Sure thing, princess!” Spike answered before heading over to one of the windows with Nyx. Spike said something that got Nyx laughing, which made Spike laugh in turn, and before too long, Celestia could see they were clutching their diaphragms and gasping for air as they sprawled across the floor.

“Now then Twilight, what was it you needed to speak about?” Celestia asked as she and Twilight walked back towards the throne.

“I’m sorry I haven’t been able to come over for a long time, but royal duties have been very time consuming. How has Winter Breeze been coming along? I trust that it’s up to schedule. Has Butterscotch been keeping you up to date as far as progress goes?”

“Well, I hear that it’s making good progress, although Butterscotch is really the pony to talk to about all of that. I hear, however, that the scheduled day for completion is in about a week. I’ll definitely have to stop by to see how things are going.”

“How can you be so nonchalant about it?” Twilight responded. “The biggest scientific space-time achievement since Einsteighn’s Theory of Relativity is happening in a week and you might just ‘stop by’?”

Celestia chuckled once again. “Twilight, when you’ve been around for as long as I have, it seems like every year somepony is coming up with the greatest achievement since sliced bread—which I was around for, and it wasn’t all that exciting in fact—and almost none of them turn out to be all that groundbreaking. I prefer not to get overly excited until the next big event actually happens.”

“But it will be the next big event!”

“I certainly hope so,” Celestia said with a smile, “I’m sure what you will discover will change scientific thought on the subject for generations.” She sat down, beckoning Twilight to join her and nodding to a maidservant. “But until then, would you like some tea? I’d much rather hear about how Nyx and Spike are doing, seeing as how they’re all too eager to share with me personally.” They both glanced over at the pair, of which it seemed Nyx was now wrapped around Spike’s neck as he attempted to shake her off without destroying the entire palace.

Twilight spoke with a saddened tone as their tea was brought to them. “It’s been too long since they’ve seen each other,” she said as she took a sip. “It seems like no one in our family sees each other anymore. Nyx is always here at the Academy and when she’s not, she’s always involved with the Guard. Spike is getting so big that he barely fits into the palace back home, and either way, he’s become more and more fidgety. I fear it won’t be long before he leaves to find his own place and start a family.”

“Don’t worry, there are still grandkids to look forward to. I may not have any by blood necessarily, but I have all of you little ponies that I care for just the same, and it’s the single most rewarding thing I have in my life. And besides, don’t think you’re finished just yet; I’m still waiting for you to find a nice young special somepony to grow old with, and maybe even have some biological children this time.”

Twilight blushed, but laughed all the same. “Thank you. I guess it’s all just a bunch of change, for better or worse.”

“Ah yes, change. That beautiful, horrible constant in our lives.”

Marshall was yanked through . . . something.

It felt like nothing, but something at the same time. He couldn’t really figure out what it was.

He heard a young woman’s voice, everywhere, and yet inside him as well.

“Thank you. Thank you, Marshall.”

“Who is that? Where are you?” he yelled as he was dragged through the void.

“The universe owes you its thanks.”

“What are you talking about? What’s going on?”

“Good luck.”

“Who are you?!”

He heard a familiar shriek and looked back to see the outline of his household pet tumbling through space as well.

“Firefly! How did you get in here!?”

Before much else could be done, his ears popped and he felt a thud in his chest as he was ejected into physical space once again. “What the—” he exclaimed, dazed and struggling to figure out which direction was up.

He heard multiple gasps and someone behind him say something like “commencing transformation” as he tried to rub his eyes open.

Suddenly, he felt extremely nauseous, and his body felt all wrong and off-balance, not to mention his organs being in all the wrong places. He could feel his consciousness slipping, and when he finally opened his eyes, all his blurry vision could make out was he was in some large room and there were some dog-looking creatures looking at him.

He was hit from behind by something, and tried to look behind himself, before something slammed into his face and he was thrown to the floor, hitting his head. That was the final blow to his consciousness, and he passed out completely.

Celestia was sitting with Twilight when the sleek-looking fan in the corner began whirring in what seemed to be a rather peculiar way, at least more peculiar than normal. It spun much faster than the rest, and sparks were starting to fly off it. Heads around the room turned.

“That’s funny,” Celestia remarked, “it must be malfunctioning. I’m sure the engineers will be able to fix it.”

“Yeah,” Twilight responded, “Sure.” A royal guard was sent to fetch one of the Academy ponies.

Suddenly, a metallic groan sounded as a white mist spurted from the center of the fan. It swirled and coalesced into a ring around a black emptiness.

Celestia jumped to her hooves. Ponies scattered back and began scrambling away from the fan.

Before anyone could respond fully, a tall bipedal creature stepped—or more or less, was shoved—through the opening. It said something like “What the—?” as it stumbled around. Twilight gasped and Celestia’s face hardened.

“Commencing transformation,” sounded a voice from behind the creature.

A grid of lines appeared on the creature’s body, and it transformed into a pegasus, with a jade green coat and mousy brown hair. It opened its eyes—which turned out to be blue—with a dazed and confused expression. The pegasus attempted to continue standing on its hind legs, despite the difficulty. Promptly afterward, a reddish-brown ferret was flung out of the portal and smacked into the back of its head as the portal behind it dissipated.

It looked around to see what had happened when a gigantic purple clawed hand swooped in from behind and slapped the pony to the floor, knocking it unconscious. I wasn’t until now that Celestia realized Spike had gingerly stepped around the perimeter of the room, and approached from behind.

“Spike!” Twilight yelled, a mixture of anger and relief in her voice.

“Sorry!” he responded. “I didn’t mean to kill him! Just to . . . pin him down, or something!”

“I don’t think you killed him,” Celestia said, stepping closer to the foreign creature, noticing that it was still breathing. “Golden Heart!” she barked. A member of the royal guard that had been evacuating ponies from the room rushed up to her, the insignia of a sergeant upon his armor.

“Yes, your majesty?” he inquired, saluting.

“Get Tender Care over here immediately and escort her, this creature, and the ferret to Quarantine Chamber Five,” she said firmly. “And take this device to Volatile Quarantine Chamber Twelve,”—she gestured to the now passive fan—“I want Professor Circuit and his team looking into it as soon as possible.”

“Are you sure you want us to leave you, your majesty?”

“Golden Heart,” Celestia responded with a chuckle, “You’re talking about me, remember? Not to mention the fact that I’m currently with an alicorn that singlehandedly saved an entire town from monster attacks, a very large dragon that is the reason this situation isn’t very much out of control, and my very own personal pupil, who has saved the world more times than you have guards in your squad.”

He nodded curtly. “Yes, your majesty,” he said, and turned around. “Private Styre!” he yelled, and a scrawny-looking soldier scuttled up to him. “Go to the hospital wing and get Tender Care and anypony she deems necessary for transporting someone unconscious! You have five minutes!”

“Yes sir!” Styre said, and bolted out of the room.

“Delta Squad! Attention!” Seven guardsponies (not including Private Styre) rescinded their current task and stood at attention. “Fireteam Red, you will take this device to Volatile Quarantine Chamber Twelve at once! Tell the ponies there that this here thing could produce a portal at any moment, potentially sending another dangerous creature through! Now move it!

“Fireteam Blue, you will wait until Private Styre returns with the Head Nurse! Escort her and this creature to Quarantine Chamber Five, and be snappy! Fall out!”

As the guards executed their duties, Golden Heart turned back to Celestia and the others. “If you don’t mind, your majesty, I still wish to stay here. Just in case a problem turns up.”

“Very well, then.”

Twilight Sparkle had been the first to approach the unconscious creatures, no doubt because of her curious nature, and was quickly followed by Nyx, then Spike, and eventually Celestia and Golden Heart.

“Do you suppose he’s an alien?” asked Nyx, looking over to Twilight.

“Possibly. I’ve never ever seen a creature like that before. The Everfree Forest hasn’t been completely explored yet though, maybe he came from there?”

“Nah, I don’t think so,” Spike mused. “He didn’t look dangerous enough.”

“The Cockatrice didn’t look particularly dangerous,” Twilight refuted, “and look how bad that turned out for us. Besides, a shape-shifting creature that we haven’t heard of before? Sounds like a prime candidate for the ‘dangerous’ category.”

“I don’t think the creature transformed on its own,” Nyx said before looking over to the corner where the device had previously sat. “I remember hearing a voice say something about transforming, and I don’t think it was this guy’s.”

The trio continued speculating, with Golden Heart standing watch, but Celestia had more pressing matters to think about. Matters like how a device had allowed a creature to get past every level of security in the palace, just who had made such a device, how did it work, and which country, on Equus or beyond, would be responsible for such a blatant disrespect of international security. She would have to contact every embassy in Equestria to sort this through.

The Gryphons will be stubborn, most likely, but the Minotaurs should at least be willing to talk it over. The Deerfolk will be cryptic, as usual, and I’m fairly sure the Zebras won’t be any help; nopony can understand a single word any of them says anyways. Could this be the work of Changelings? Have they found a way to transfer their shape-shifting abilities to that of a device?

She was wrenched out of her thoughts by Twilight, who was asking her something.

“I’m sorry, what was that?” she asked, shaking her head.

“I was asking you what you think about all this, princess,”

Celestia’s eyebrows lowered. “I think it’s going to be a long night,” she said as she slowly walked toward the door.

Twilight, Nyx, and Spike shared looks of confusion as the creature and the ferret were put on a stretcher and carried away.

Chapter 2

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“Well, it looks like we won’t be reaching the next town until tomorrow morning, so we had better set up the tent!” Heartsong said in an all-too cheerful manner.

Stupid tent. I hate tents. They only serve as a reminder to me that we have no real home in this world.

Out of pure habit I set up the tent with the others, trying hard not to think about what had happened this morning. Once finished, we hustled into the tent right as a particularly feisty chocolate raincloud passed over.

“This ground looks pretty sturdy, so I don’t think that we’ll be sliding around tonight! Isn’t that great?” Heartsong exclaimed.

“Hooray,” I said. I certainly did not share the sentiment.

I saw a flicker of worry in her eyes toward me before she resumed her usual happy exterior.

“Anyways, how about we have something to eat, and then I can tell you one of my favorite stories from when I was a filly! How does that sound?” chimed Heartsong.

“Oh boy!” yelled Luna. I wasn’t really in the mood for dinner, but my stomach seemed to think otherwise. It betrayed me with a large, resounding growl. Both heads turned my way, with Luna erupting into giggles and Heartsong giving me a coy smile.

“Hungry much?” she remarked.

“Yeah, whatever,” I grumbled. I began munching on my carrot sandwich determinedly.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Now just a second, we haven’t said grace yet,” Heartsong said. I gave a sigh of annoyance. <Stupid grace.>

“Oh Maker, we are thankful for the chance to be together this day, and thankful for each other. We know that times are tough, but with thy guidance, we know that we can persevere. We pray for strength for the challenges that lay ahead, and the faith to endure. Amen.”

“Amen!” Luna declared.

<Whatever.>

We all dug into the evening’s meal, consisting of various sandwiches and foodstuffs from the garden. It wasn’t the best, given that we didn’t have a chance to cook anything, but it was food, and I was hungry.

After dinner, Heartsong recalled to us a tale of a dragon who was rejected from his tribe because he couldn’t breathe fire, and his journeys to the tallest mountain to find a fairy to grant his greatest wish.

Luna was enthralled by it, but I wasn’t really paying attention. I had other thoughts on my mind. Depressing thoughts.

Soon enough, Heartsong finished her story and it had gotten late. We all wrapped up in our blankets and settled down to go to sleep.

“Heartsong?”

“Yes Luna?”

“Why does everypony hate us?”

Heartsong didn’t respond immediately.

“Hm, can you imagine if a bear came out of the forest and tried to hurt you and Celestia? I would be very mad at that bear. You know why? Because I love you two with all my heart, and if the bear hurt you at all, I would be very sad. Those other ponies love their families very much, and to them, we are a bunch of mean bears. They think we are trying to hurt their families, and that makes them mad at us.”

“But why do they think that? We’re not trying to hurt their families at all.”

“Well . . . did you know we are playing a game of hide-and-seek?”

“Really?”

“Yes! A big, mean, scary guy is trying to find us, and if he catches us, he will hurt the families of the ponies around us.”

“Why is he looking for us?”

“Because Luna, you are a very special pony!” She booped her on the nose. “That guy doesn’t like special ponies, so he wants to find us. The other ponies know what he will do to their families if he finds us around them, so they make us leave. It’s not because they hate us”

“Oh, okay.” Luna was satisfied, and fell asleep shortly after. When I was sure she was asleep I decided to ask about something that had been on my mind.

“Heartsong?”

“What is it, sweetheart?” she replied.

“Will it ever get any better? Will we ever get to stop running? Will ponies ever stop driving us away?” Again, she paused for a second, before letting out a heavy sigh.

“You know very well what Discord would do if he ever found us. I’ve tried to keep the truth as nice as possible for poor Luna, but sooner or later she’s going to find out. I wish that things could be better—I wish so very, very much—but for now, we will have to deal with these problems.”

“What do you mean, ‘for now’?”

“Have I ever told you of the time when I found you and Luna?”

“No.”

“Well, I was walking home from gathering some herbs in the forest when I found you. You were less than Luna’s age back then, and she was only a newborn. It was very cold outside, and you were doing your best to keep warm. You both were in pretty bad shape, covered in cuts and bruises. I knew that you wouldn’t last long out in the cold, so I brought you home.

“I didn’t know who your parents were; I searched for weeks to find out who you belonged to. I found nobody, but I knew exactly why. Tell me, have you heard about the ‘Prophecy’ yet?”

“Prophecy? What prophecy?”

“A prophecy has been floating around, stating that two ponies, possessing the attributes of all three pony tribes, would rise up and defeat Discord, using only the purest form of harmony against him.

“You two fit the description perfectly: wings of a pegasus, horn of a unicorn, and—as I found out later—the gardening skills of an earth-pony. I knew that Discord knew about the Prophecy, and I assumed that your biological parents knew that he knew it as well. He would be looking for you two, and no doubt would harm you and anypony around you if he found you.”

“Wait, so you mean that we’re supposed to defeat Discord with some Harmony stuff?”

“Maybe, maybe not. It’s only a prophecy, you know; it could be false. But it could also be true. I know you well, and you are not the kind of pony to give up a chance to change things. It’s up to you, whether or not things will ever get any better.”

“I—I want to do it.”

I felt something, a feeling of hope I hadn’t felt for far too long. It quickly gave way to excitement.

“Can we start looking for whatever that “Harmony” stuff is tomorrow?”

Heartsong chuckled. “We can keep an eye out for it, but I think you had better get a bit older first before going up against Discord himself.”

“Rats.” I said, but my excitement still grew. I was so full of energy that I wasn’t even tired anymore. Ha, I could have stayed up all night!

<Wow! Luna and I are the ones who are supposed to defeat Discord! I wonder if we can do it . . . I’ve never tried to fight anyone before. What is that “Harmony” stuff supposed to be anyways? I wonder if we should . . .>

My thoughts drifted away as I fell asleep.

Marshall’s upper and lower eyelids were evidently having a love-affair; he was having a very hard time separating them from each other. As they vehemently protested their separation, he tried to clear his mind.

First off, he felt awful. He was groggier than he had ever felt in his entire life, and he was pretty sure that someone had rearranged his organs. His nose was clogged, his love-struck eyelids were crusty, and his mouth tasted like a week’s worth of concentrated saliva.

“Uunnnnnnnngh,” he groaned as he tried to reanimate himself.

He heard a bustling of activity coming from what sounded like a speaker. Somebody was whispering, no scratch that, lots of people were whispering, and papers were being shuffled around.

“Who . . . ngh . . . who’s . . . there . . .” He tried to sit up, but promptly fell back onto his pillow. He finally opened his eyes and saw that he was in a small white room. The furnishings were sparse, but there was a small desk to his right, and he obviously was in a bed, which was quite comfortable, actually. There was a large mirror on the left wall, and a small potted plant sat in the far right corner. The only thing that seemed out of place was the door, which looked more like something found in a bank vault, rather than a small bedroom. It looked to be made of steel, was covered in rivets, and obviously looked very, very strong.

Marshall breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that Firefly was curled up next to him, fast asleep. He also noticed that the voices had stopped.

“H-hey,” he mumbled, still trying to find his voice, “where are you?” He heard more shuffling coming from a speaker somewhere. Where is it . . . where . . . aha! There it is, on the ceiling.

Someone cleared their throat; they sounded female.

“Unknown creature, by order of the Diarchy of Equestria, you are to identify yourself.”

“Just where are you?” he inquired, looking around for a security camera.

“It doesn’t matter, now identify yourself.”

Marshall got an idea. “You’re behind the mirror, aren’t you?” He heard something whispered. It sounded like “Horse-apples”.

Marshall was getting fed up with this, and he was becoming increasingly aware of just how weird his body felt.

“Look, whoever you are,” he huffed, “can’t you just come out and we can talk about this face-to-face?”

“Not until you identify yourself,” the voice said, matter-of-factly.

“Goshdarnit, I’m a human, for pete’s sake!” he yelled. “My name’s Marshall Bradley, alright? Now could someone tell me just what the heck is going on?!” His skin was feeling tingly.

Silence reigned for a moment.

“One moment,” came the voice.

Marshall tried to drum his fingers, but they were all stuck together, like they were bandaged or something.

Before he had a chance to check them, the door opened. In stepped two creatures, walking on four legs. They warily made their way toward him.

Horses, Marshall mentally deadpanned. They’re horses.

He shrugged. Oh well, I guess I expected weirder.

Horses wasn’t a completely accurate term for them, they were much shorter and proportioned differently, and they had eyes that were gigantic. Ponies might have been a better description, but not by much. They were very colorful, though; one of them was lavender with what could only be described as a mane that was dark purple with a pink streak. The other was light blue, with a white mane with a mint green streak in it. He wondered if the colors happened naturally or were dyed. Both of them had some sort of tattoo on their hindquarters, and on top of both of their heads sat a long horn. Unicorns. Of all the aliens I get to meet, they're unicorns. He chuckled, which incited a flinch from the two creatures.

It was just about then that Marshall noticed something very off. Something sitting in the corners of his peripheral vision. Something that was right where his nose should be.

He crossed his eyes and that something focused into view.

It was not his normal nose. It was long and green and covered in fur.

Marshall’s eyes widened. “W-wha-w-what the hell is that?!” he yelled.

“What?” the lavender one asked. “What are you talking about?”

“That!” he shouted, pointing at his nose. He then saw the appendage he was pointing with. It was not his hand. It was a hoof, also green for some reason, and also surrounded by fur.

“Aahh!” he screamed, and attempted to jump out of the bed to get a look of himself through the mirror, but once he landed on the floor, he immediately fell flat on his face. “What the—?!” He frantically looked back at his legs to see why they weren’t working, only to see that they were proportioned very differently, his feet being very long and the rest of his legs being very short, once again ending with a pair of hooves. He screamed again and began army-crawling toward the mirror.

“Sir, you need to calm down!” yelled the blue one. Marshall didn’t need to calm down. What he needed was to see what he really looked like.

He made it to the mirror, and what he saw was not encouraging.

“I . . . I-I’m one of you guys!” he yelled, eyes glued to the mirror. He tore them away to look at the two others in the room. “W-why am I one of you?

“We were hoping you could tell us, actually,” the lavender one said. Marshall looked back into the mirror, studying every inch of his body. He noted that he did not have a horn and instead had a pair of wings. That particular detail however, was not the most pressing thing on his mind; he needed to figure out what was going on instead.

“No no no no no, this isn’t right,” he said. “Nothing was supposed to happen when I went through; I was just supposed to”—he immediately jerked around, facing the two others—“are you a part of A.I.R.?”

The lavender one took a step back. “What are you even talking about?”

“Oh what was it, Autonomous Interstellar, uh . . . oh! Autonomous Interstellar Relay system! A.I.R.!” He gave them a pleading look, hoping desperately for an ounce of recognition.

“Never heard of it,” replied the lavender one, before giving a questioning look to the blue one. “You?”

“Nope,” responded the other, shrugging what appeared to be her shoulders.

“No no no, this can’t be right!” He leaned back against the mirror, clutching his head with his hooves. “I was supposed to go through and tell the A.I.R. team that gateway 149 was on the other side and that I’d be fine, so long as I told the truth, and wait—how are we even understanding each other? The field was only supposed to extend for ten meters, why can we understand each other? No no no no no, you’re supposed to know what to do! You’re supposed to have a team here! You’re supposed to be able to take care of everything!” He began hyperventilating.

“Sir—Marshall, was it?” the lavender one cautiously took a step forward. Marshall snapped his head toward her, eyes wide and breathing too quickly, causing her to flinch. “Marshall, take a deep breath,” she said. “Everything will be okay.” While her voice was calm, there was the faintest flicker of uncertainty in her eyes.

Marshall inhaled as deep as he could, and sighed it all out, deflating considerably.

“You’re r-right,” he said, his voice still shaking. “We-w-we can fix this.” He looked determinedly at the opposite wall. “I j-just need to talk to the gateway, it can fix all of this.”

The lavender one wore a confused and slightly worried expression on her face. “Marshall, would you care to explain all of this, please?”

Marshall sat up quickly, and the two other ponies flinched again. “I need to talk to the machine that opened up the portal I came through, do you know where it is?” he asked the purple one. She hesitated before responding.

“Yes, I do, but I can’t let you go, not yet,” she said firmly. “Not until we can confirm you’re not a threat.” She slowly sat down next to him, giving a quick nod to whoever was behind the mirror. “Now then, hello Marshall, my name is Twilight Sparkle,” she said gently, raising a hoof to his. With uncertainty, he was able to determine well enough what she meant by the raised hoof, and raised his to meet hers. In a moment of weird surrealism for Marshall, they slowly shook hooves.

Well, not that this entire experience wasn’t a gigantic bucket of deep-fried surrealism, extra crispy.

“Now, would you please tell me what’s going on? From the beginning, preferably.”

Marshall gave a heavy sigh before slumping into the wall. “Okay, I guess it all started when I was coming home from work, and I found a weird fan sitting in the hallway. It was really messed up and broken, but for some reason, I got some sort of a subconscious vibe from it, real friendly-like. It was free and nobody else wanted it, so I took it. I was thinking, ‘Eh, why not? It’s free stuff and maybe I can fix it up later.’

“Anyways, I went home, had some dinner, and tried to fix the thing. Turns out, when I did finally manage to fix it, it turned into some sort of a . . . thing. I’m sure if you saw me come through, you know what it looks like. A really short turbojet engine is the best description I can come up with.” Both ponies gave looks of confusion at the mention of ‘turbojet engine’.

Oh right, Marshall. Duh, these aliens have probably progressed so far technologically that the concept of a conventional engine is something you could only find in the history books! These guys probably can teleport wherever they need to go, you fool!

Marshall smiled sheepishly. “Don’t—don’t worry about what a turbojet engine is, you’d probably think it was stupid,” he said in an attempt to save face.

“Well,” the lavender one replied, “we’re supposed to have an open mind about new ideas, but if you really think so, we won’t press the matter further.”

Marshall thanked his lucky stars (which happened to be Sirius and Rigel) that he had at least landed with a bunch of aliens that were courteous.

“Please continue,” said the blue one. Marshall noticed that the clipboard and quill were both floating in a blue aura that matched one that was surrounding her horn. Of course! Why wouldn’t they have telekinesis? Without hands, I’m sure that was the first thing they discovered!

Still, he found himself staring at the two floating items, jaw slightly dropped.

“Marshall, are . . . are you alright?” asked the lavender one.

“Huh, what? Oh right.” He continued, still shooting glances at the clipboard every now and then. “Anyways . . . where was I . . . oh right, the fan. So it turns into this thing, and then it starts talking to me about all of this stuff about what I think is the United Galaxies and a transport system and saving the world through communication and boy was it annoying, but anyway, I know about programmed A.I.s and such, but I’d never seen anything like this. I mean, this thing was fully sentient! It could think and feel and make condescending remarks about me and my race for some reason, and I have absolutely no clue as to why anyone would create something like that only to stuff it inside a gateway-thing. This is the kind of thing I’d see on sci-fi television shows, so why would they make it perform menial tasks like sending foreign dignitaries through portals?”

“And are you a foreign dignitary?” asked Twilight Sparkle.

“Oh heck no!” Marshall snapped. “Not me, no way. I’m just . . . I’m just . . . you know, me.”

“Congratulations, you’ve just been promoted,” muttered the blue one under her breath. Twilight Sparkle jammed an elbow into her side.

“Anyways,” Twilight said, shooting a hard glare at the other one, “please go on.”

“Well, there’s not much left,”—Marshall shrugged his unusually shaped shoulders—“the thing asked me to go through and inform whoever was in charge that there was a gateway on an unregistered planet, and so I went through, and that’s how I got here.”

“And was the gateway supposed to turn you into a pony?”

“No! That’s what I’m trying to figure out! None of this makes sense!” He rubbed his forehead with his hoof. “I . . . I need to talk to the machine that made the portal I came through.”

“And just what makes you so sure that talking to this thing will help?”

Marshall stared at the ground. “The machine that made the portal is apparently connected to a system of gateways that send people all around the galaxy . . . somehow. From what I’ve seen, each one has an A.I. that I can talk to, however annoying they may be. It should be able to tell me why it’s here and why it turned me into one of you guys, right?”—he stared into her eyes with a look of desperation—“I need you to let me talk to that thing.”

She stood up, her face unreadable, save for a slight drop in her eyebrows. Her eyes flitted between Marshall and the floor, before finally resting on him. Her face relaxed and she took a deep breath.

“Okay fine, but you need to understand that we still don’t trust you, not completely.”—her face hardened—“If you give us so much as a reason to think that you might be dangerous, we will put you right back here; incapacitated and in a world of pain.”

Marshall’s eyes widened. “Yes! Right. Got it. No worries here!” He gave an overenthusiastic smile. “It’s just me,” he said through closed teeth, “the most un-dangerous guy you’ll ever meet!”

He was going to have to tread carefully from here on in.

Twilight gave him one last look of uncertainty before shaking her head. “Alright then,” she said, “I’ll go get the relations manager to come take care of you while we notify the staff of your intentions and get everything ready.” She nodded to the blue one. “For now, wait with Snowburst until she gets here.” Twilight promptly trotted out the door.

So that’s her name. Snowburst. Huh. The names were funny around here. Marshall had expected the aliens to have crazy, unpronounceable names, or even just plain old numbers, but these ones? Well, these names were just silly.

Then again, he didn’t exactly know what to expect from sentient talking horses.

Twilight trotted out the door of the quarantine chamber, passing the room behind the mirror. She politely nodded to the security pony inside that was monitoring the systems, ready at a moment’s notice to shut down the room. As she came out into the hallway, she found herself troubled more than she would like to admit.

Just what have we gotten ourselves into? She thought as she passed numerous ponies working in the quarantine facilities, each one bowing their head or saying a polite ‘hello’, prompting a response from Twilight. This guy is way out of our league! “Hello!” His race must think ours to be that of simple pets or something! “How are you doing?” I mean, sure, I can grasp the concept of portals and the fact that there’s some sort of organization out there in space, this guy’s existence is solid evidence for that; but none of the rest makes any sense to me! “I’m doing fine, thank you.” A.I.’s, television, what are they? What’s a turbojet? He obviously made it sound important. Just what is the extent of their technological superiority?

She looked up and realized that she was standing in front of the door to the relations manager’s office. She stepped inside, notified the pony at the desk that the new arrival had finally awakened, and immediately headed for the section of the facility reserved for the volatile chambers.

Gah, I don’t have time for this! Of all the times for him to wake up, it had to be the day before we launched the project, didn’t it! “Nice to see you again!” I still need to check in with Butterscotch on the power diversion connections, and the spell matrix, and basically the entire system, and I need to get one last check-up from Tender Care, and I need to triple check my supplies, and I just . . . I just need to . . . to—“Thank you! You as well!”—I need to calm down, that’s what.

She took a deep breath and sighed it out just as she approached the entrance to the volatile section. She greeted the security guard at the entrance, verified her magical signature, and stepped through the gigantic steel doorway. After a short trip through a narrow hallway, passing several entrances marked from one to eleven, she stopped at the one with a large twelve painted across the front.

Once she verified her magical signature again, the door slid open with a small hiss, revealing a medium-sized room full of various university students, appearing to be mostly comprised of Professor Circuit’s senior class. They mulled about, fiddling with dials and taking readings of data. The professor himself was there as well, and the unicorn shuffled up to Twilight the moment he noticed her. He was a spindly pony, with gangly legs and a long neck. He would have been tall enough to be an imposing figure, if it weren’t for the fact that he was so skinny that a cross breeze could very well blow him over. He smiled through his well-groomed goatee and politely bowed.

“And how are you today, Princess?”

“Just fine,” she lied. “How is progress coming with the machine?” she asked as she trotted toward the small window that opened into the actual quarantine chamber. She looked through several layers of shield and barrier spells and saw the fan-shaped machine, along with various other tools that were currently being operated by the unicorns on the team.

“It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen, Princess,” he responded, moving to stand beside her. “The thing is impenetrable! Everything we’ve tried so far to open it up has failed spectacularly. It has no bolts, screws, plate joints, cracks, seams, nothing! The entire thing is one big hunk of . . . well, something. And darn strong, too! Our diamond hammers couldn’t even make a dent in it!” He gave a long, drawn-out whistle and clicked his tongue. “I’d sure like to meet the pony that built this thing.”

“We’re not even sure it was built by a pony, Professor,” she commented, as the students attempted to hack into it again using a saw of some sort. “The creature that came through it a week ago just woke up, and he’s been rambling about galaxies and portals, saying that this thing is a gateway to other worlds.”

“Is he now?” He stole a glance at Twilight before looking back toward the work of his students.

“It gets better too. Apparently, each one of these things can communicate with us as if it were a real, living pony. At least that’s what I think they can do, he was very unclear upon the matter. Anyways, the creature, whose name we came to find out was Marshall, is coming over in a bit to ‘speak’ with this thing, whatever that entails.”

“Well golly, I never thought to actually just talk to the thing,” he said with a smile and a huff. “It’s like my mom always said, ‘if you’re always friendly and nice to others, you can be sure that you’ll go places’. I guess I never really thought that machines counted too!”

“Indeed.” She stared down at the floor, her face contemplative. “To infuse an artifact with somepony’s soul . . . that’s just . . . that would take an unbelievable amount of magical energy! Almost more than Celestia’s!”

“Hmm, not to mention very unethical too. Illegal to boot.”

“Yes! What kind of pony would consent to this sort of thing? It’s horrible! How could anypony be willing to let anyone take away their soul and put inside something else?”

Circuit shrugged his shoulders. “I dunno, immortality, lack of the need for basic necessities like food and water, near indestructibility in the case of this particular thing; some ponies would find those prospects to be very tempting.”

“But that’s . . . that’s just . . . stupid!” She shot him a hard glare. “Why would anypony ever trade friends and family for something as idiotic as that? My friends and family are the most precious things I have! There’s no way in Tartarus I would trade them for something as ludicrous as immortality!” She found herself getting angry, mostly because she knew the professor’s point was very valid. There really were ponies out there that would make that decision out of choice. And boy, did that make her blood boil.

The professor chuckled. “They sure don’t call you The Princess of Friendship for nothing! I think I should probably go help my students out, lest I suffer the wrath of your all-powerful friendship beam.”—something crashed, and his head spun around—“Oh yeah, and to make sure they don’t destroy the entire castle too. What the heck do you think you’re doing, you fools!” He ran off toward a group of students, to the sound of them crying out things like “Sorry!” and “Please don’t let this affect my grade!”

Twilight’s lip curled into a pout as she watched him scold his students. Why was she so upset about this? Sure, the professor had made a solid argument and knowing that made her angry, but there was something else too, something she couldn’t place her hoof on.

Then she realized what it was: it was Nyx. Nyx would never be able to find lifelong friends and family, simply because of the fact that she would outlive all of them. It seemed so unfair that Nyx should have to suffer that fate, she had already gone through more than her share of troubles. When all of them, Twilight included, grew old and died, Nyx would just be approaching the prime of her life. She thanked the Maker above that Nyx had Spike for a brother. With any luck, he would last hundreds of years.

Her subconscious pinged her mind that she had things to do and take care of. The guards should be able to handle Marshall, so far as what she’d seen him to be capable of, and Circuit and his students could deal with the machine, so she allowed herself to quietly leave.

After all, she had an Equus-shattering scientific breakthrough to discover.

This was getting awkward. Marshall thought back to the time in highschool when he and his prom date were stuck at his house, all alone, for an hour and a half, without any means of transportation. Before then, Marshall had always enjoyed silence mostly, he had found it calming and pleasant, but that particular silence had been neither calming nor pleasant. It had been possibly the worst hour and a half he had suffered through.

The situation he was currently in was no different. Snowburst stood in the corner, shifting her weight every few seconds, casting sidelong glances at him. He could hear a low drone coming from the speaker on the ceiling, as well as the beating of his own heart and the blood flowing through his veins. On top of that, the sound of his own saliva in his mouth was horribly, painfully loud.

He had been making a valiant, but hopeless, attempt to keep from staring at himself in the mirror; knowing that there was probably another pony behind it, staring right back at him. Numerous times he had tried to stand up and walk, but the best he could manage at the moment was to prop himself up on his legs in a stable, but very limited position. He contemplated asking Snowburst for some help, but his already wounded pride wouldn’t permit him. Not to mention the fact that she intimidated him more than he would like to admit.

At least Firefly is still asleep and doesn’t have to deal with this.

. . . not that she would care, really.

“So,” he croaked, before clearing his throat. “So, why . . . why do I have wings instead of a horn?”

Snowburst jumped slightly at the lack of unbearable silence. “What? Huh? Oh, well it’s because you’re a pegasus, silly.”

Marshall looked back into the mirror at his newfound wings. “Really? Like as in Greek Mythology?”

“I dunno what you’re talking about as far as mythology goes, there’s nothing mythical about pegasi, other than I hear that they’re horrible roommates. Feathers, everywhere.”

Marshall said nothing for a moment, before settling on the best thing he could think of at the time.

“Huh.”

He unfurled his wings and studied them in the mirror, despite the uneasiness about whoever was on the other side.

Of all the weird things to get used to, having wings was the weirdest for Marshall. Sure, being a quadruped was unusual, but at least they still felt like his arms and legs, just all proportioned differently. He did note that the proportions felt natural, however. He knew that if he had tried to stand like this as a human, well . . . anyone that has ever tried to “bear crawl” can attest to its inefficiency.

But his wings were completely different. It wasn’t that they weren’t natural either, surprisingly. They still felt like they “belonged”, so to speak, but boy did Marshall’s human-centered brain have a hard time getting used to them.

Think, for one second, just how unbelievably weird it would be to have another pair of arms growing out of your back. With their own muscles and bones and feathers, and everything would be intrinsically connected to your brain. Weird, right? So thought Marshall.

He looked down at the joint between his back and his wings (also noting that his neck had the flexibility to do so). The transition from fur to feathers was quite seamless, surprising Marshall once more.

A buzzer sounded, much like those found in apartment buildings, and shortly after the large vault-like door opened.

What stepped through was . . . well, still a pony, by Marshall’s judgment, but it looked quite different from the rest. Marshall guessed it was a female, but then again, he had seen no males to reference against, so he could be wrong. She had a base coat of light brown, but on top of that, she had a rather extensive array of markings in all shape and size covering her body, ranging from cream-colored to red and green and even a fluorescent blue. At first, Marshall thought they might have been some sort of paint or tribal markings—he was honestly not too surprised by much at this point—but then he noticed that they were moving. Not fast, but they still rippled around a bit, and progressively morphed into different colors, although at the moment, the predominant color was green . . . ish.

She gave a cheerful smile and her colors shifted toward more of a yellow. “How ya doin’, Snow?” She cantered up and bumped her front hoof against Snowburst’s.

“Oh, not too bad, I suppose,” she said with a shrug. She shot a glance at Marshall. “But I really need to take care of a bunch of stuff like, right now, so could you . . . you know”—she nodded her head toward Marshall—“take care of this?”

The other one chuckled, and she turned greenish again. “Don’t worry, you can go now. I’ll look after the new guy.”

Snowburst gave a quick “Thanks!” before rushing out of the room, muttering something like “Maker above, that was horrible. I can deal with monsters and criminals, not awkward stallions!”

The new pony shifted to a light pinkish color and sidled up to Marshall, showing off an unassuming smile.

This is weird.

“So you’re the one everypony’s been talking about, huh?” She stuck out at hoof, prompting Marshall to shake it. “Name’s Rho.”

“Marshall,” he squawked.

“Alrighty then, Marshall, come on! I’ll show you around,” she said, turning a light shade of blue. She turned and nodded to the mirror, after which the large door swung open. She turned to go through the door, before noticing that Marshall wasn’t following her. She looked back at him, and stopped.

“What’s up?” she asked.

“One second, I just gotta figure this out.” He placed his left foreleg forward very slowly, then looked at his hindlegs and moved his left back leg.

“Wait, do you not know how to walk?”

“Not on four legs, no.”

She walked up and inspected his progress, before shaking her head.

“Well there’s your problem, buddy,” she said, pointing to his back leg. “You’re putting the wrong back leg with the front leg. You gotta think about it like an X.”

“Huh?”

“If you put your left foreleg forward, then you have to put your right hindleg forward after that. And then the right foreleg and the left hindleg. See?” She walked a few steps to demonstrate.

Marshall blinked. Left foreleg, right leftleg . . .

“You okay?”

Hind rightleg, fore hindleg . . .

“Marshall?”

He shook his head. “Right. Like an X. Got it.”

“Try it out.”

“Okay, so the left foreleg first . . .” He moved his left foreleg.

“Yep.”

“And then the right . . . hindleg?” He moved that one.

“Uh huh.”

“Right foreleg.” It moved forward.

“You got it.”

“And left hindleg.” It took a step.

“Keep going!”

“Okay, left foreleg, right hindleg. Right foreleg, left hindleg.” He started speeding up.

Foreleg, hindleg, foreleg, hindleg.

Left, right, right, left.

Left right, right, left.

One, two, three, four.

One . . . two.

“Ha-hah! Look at that!” He was now walking in circles around the room. “I think I’m starting to get the hang of this! No probl—Oof!”

Rho gave a small chuckle before moving over to help him up. “Keep working on it, buddy.”

“Right,” Marshall said as he worked to get himself back up, taking the hoof of Rho’s. Not that he exactly knew how he could really grasp another hoof like that, but whatever.

“Now, let’s see if we can put your newfound ability to use out there, huh?” she said once he was back on his hooves.

“Right!” Marshall however glanced back at Firefly, who was amazingly still asleep.

“Don’t worry, we’ll take care of your ferret until you get back, okay?”

“Okay . . .”

Both of them stepped—slowly at first—through the narrow corridor into a large hall, full of various ponies bustling about. As he walked among them he noticed that most were levitating items with their horns, yet others—like him—had no horn, and were carrying things in their mouths, leading him to wonder if telekinesis technology was only reserved for the supposed unicorns, possibly creating a major disjoint of power between factions.

Does that mean that there would be some sort of nobility class based on it, perhaps? Or is it purely wealth based? Maybe gaining a horn and telekinesis is a medical procedure and only the very rich can afford it? I suppose—one way or another—it would lead to some form of elitism. What if the unicorns are born with it, giving them a natural power to assert the Divine Right of Kings? If so, there must be some reason why the other ponies haven’t revolted yet—are they born with some other natural ability that equalizes the balance of power? I guess I have wings, so my race, the pegasi, I think, can fly? I suppose that could be useful, but what about the other ones that don’t have wings or a horn? Are they the equivalent of serfs? But wait, that one’s wearing a lab coat and looks like it’s doing something important, so what’s the deal?

Shut up Marshall! You’re on an alien planet full of new alien creatures, and the best you can think of is political science?

But—but I’m a Poli-Sci major. That’s what I’m supposed to think about.

Doesn’t matter! It’s a stupid major! Why are you even doing that anyways? You always wanted to get into Computer Science in Animation, didn’t you? Make all the cool effects in movies?

I’m . . . I’m not good enough to get into that program though.

Rho was saying something.

Oh crap. Abort. Get out of there, Skywalker!

Stop that!

What?

Quoting stupid fantasies!

It’s not stupid, and it’s not fantasy! It’s called Science-Fi—

Marshall shook his head to clear his rampaging thoughts.

“Huh, what was that you said?” he asked. Rho flickered red for a split second before turning back to her usual blueish green.

“I was saying you’re the first we’ve had around here. Alien, I mean.”

“What?”

“You’re the first alien we’ve had around here,” she reiterated, adding a bit more emphasis. “Although, you look pretty normal for an alien. When we heard that one was on its way, the entire staff just about flipped out!”—she sighed before chuckling—“ Just our luck that you look exactly like a normal pony.”

“Riight. And just what is here, anyway?” he asked, looking around.

“Here? You’re looking at the main hallway of the Quarantine Facility of Canterlot Castle.”

Canterlot? As in? Like? Camelot Canterlot? Marshall giggled internally.

“And I’m assuming you use it to quarantine things?” he inquired.

“Yep! Anything that is deemed too dangerous to live within normal society gets put here.”

“So it’s like a prison?”

“I suppose so, if you think of it like that. But I think it’s more like protection from outside society.” Her colors shifted to a dark maroon.

“What do you mean?”

“Most ponies here couldn’t function—or at least, wouldn’t be allowed to function—in a regular society. The rest of the group would drive them out of town, calling them demons or monsters.”

She gestured to a reddish orange unicorn standing off to the side, with a golden mane and tail and a glowing fireplace for a tattoo. “Take Ember, for example. When we found him as a colt, the townsfolk were just about ready to stone him to death, claiming that he was ‘seized by a devil’.”

“He doesn’t seem too different to me though.”

The pony yawned and lit up his horn, apparently casting a bubble around himself. He then burst into flames.

“Blah!” Marshall jumped back.

“Yeah. See what I mean? Perfectly normal ponies that could never live a happy lifestyle outside of here.” The pony fizzled out, steam still drifting from his body. “In here though, with everything fireproof, he can live out a happy life.”

“So . . .” Marshall tried to continue, still visibly shaken. “So are they stuck here forever? Do they ever get to go outside?”

“Oh we let them out every once in a while, usually to visit family and such, often with heavy disguises.”

“But what about, you know,”—he gestured to the orange pony—“the fire?”

“Not a problem. That bubble protects anypony and everypony from the heat.”

“Okay, sure, I guess.” Marshall still found himself shooting sidelong glances at him, though.

“Well anyways, we’re here.”

“Where?”

“The section reserved for housing volatile things. It’s where we’re keeping whatever that thing was that sent you here.”

“Oh! Right. Good.” He had forgotten about his current situation in the midst of all that had happened. It gave him a twinge of sadness to be forced back to deal with his real problems.

They went through what seemed like a ridiculous amount of security checkpoints before entering a final chamber. Inside was numerous other ponies, mulling about in various clusters. Heads turned as both of them stepped over the threshold.

“Hello everypony!” Rho gave a cheerful wave before gesturing to Marshall. “I would like you all to meet Marshall. He is going to help us figure out this machine.”

He was met with relieved smiles, as well as suspicious looks, mostly aimed at his lack of a butt-tattoo. He responded with a meek and rather un-reassuring smile.

“Over here, Marshall,” voiced a twig-looking pony with a luxurious moustache. He pointed through the tinted glass at what appeared to be the fan that had opened the portal on this end of the universe.

“So that’s the thing, huh?” Marshall asked as he moved to the window.

“That’s the thing.”

“Right.”

Okay, so I’ve gotta talk to this thing and get it to let me through, right?

And you’ve got to get it to change you back into a human too.

Right.

And hopefully figure out why the whole translation thing isn’t working like it was supposed to.

Right?

Right.

Silence ensued.

“Soo . . . you wanna let me go in and talk to it?”

“Oh! Yes, one second,” said the moustached pony, before pressing a large button on the desk in front of the window. A heavy door to the side slid open, letting out a small hiss.

Marshall entered the smaller room, passing through a blue barrier of some sort, and regarded the fan in the center. He cautiously approached it.

How does one address an object like this anyway?

“Um, hello? Can you hear me?”

Guess that works as well as anything.

In the same manner as the previous encounter, the screen at the top notified him that he was being scanned.

“Hello?”

[My scanners inform me that you have no rank nor insignia. There are no records of you ever having held any officer position in the military or above. Therefore, access is denied.]

“What?”

No response.

“O-okay then. Um, could you tell me why I turned into a pony?”

[Information is classified.]

“Well how about why the translation field is nonexistent?”

[Classified.]

“Ugh, could you tell me where I could find someone that does have access?”

[I cannot. Such information would compromise my duty.]

“You’ve got to be kidding me . . .”

[I do not kid. Such nonsense is outside of my programming.]

Marshall put a hoof to his forehead and rubbed his temple, silently noting how weird that gesture felt.

“So I don’t suppose there’s any chance of you opening that portal and letting me through?”

[Most definitely not. The very notion that you are informed of my true purpose is evidence enough to strengthen my security measures twofold.]

Well, it looks like you’re not getting home that way anytime soon, Marshall.

Aw crap.

Chapter 3

View Online

“She’s a nice home, and seems to be relatively unaffected by Discord’s magic,” proudly stated the realtor. The house actually seemed out of place, comparatively; it was right-side up—although still floating, there were no weird animals hanging out around the property, and the thatch roof didn’t spontaneously combust every three minutes.

“How much?” asked Heartsong.

“Four-hundred ninety-nine thousand bits per year, ma’am. And that’s a discounted price these days, what with the recession and all!” he replied.

“Oh dear, I’m afraid we don’t have enough for that, it’s rather, um, out of our budget.”

“Not a problem Miss. If you and your lovely daughters will follow me I’ve got some other ones that you might find very interesting!”

We walked around town, looking at homes. I believe this town was called Hampsterdam or something like that. Luna was enthralled by everything, be it the foals playing in the streets, the occasional unfortunate pony who had had their gravity switched up and were suddenly walking upside-down, or the cobblestones that were playing slide-puzzle.

I didn’t like the look of it.

“Heartsong, why do we have to buy another house? It’s not like we’re going to be staying here for long." My voice dropped to a whisper as I leaned in closer. "Besides, he's totally ripping us off!”

“Well sweetie, we want to—”

“Not staying for long eh?” interrupted the realtor, “Well, I just so happen to have some lovely temporary establishements up for rent, if you’ll just follow me.” He beckoned for us to follow, and promptly strutted off.

<Ugh. Stupid “temporary establishments”. Stupid homes. Stupid realtor, stupid town. STUPID LIFE!>

I just . . . I just desperately wanted to just get away from it all. I wanted to fly away forever and never have to deal with another pony again! I flexed my wings against my vest designed to hide them.

<I could do it. I could just tear this thing off and fly away. I could search for the Harmony-stuff by myself. I could live in the mountains. No more waiting. No more hurting.>

I looked up at the pink sky, my longing heart about to burst.

“HEY ‘TIA!” Luna shouted as she launched onto my back.

“What the—?!” I reeled and tripped over my hooves, having been yanked out of my stupor; I fumbled around, desperately trying to regain my footing, but ultimately failed, ending up face-first on the cobblestones. “Ugh! What is it Luna?!” I shouted, getting back up onto my hooves.

Luna, who had been catapulted from my back when I fell over, rolled out of the cotton-candy bush she had landed in, giggling.

“I just wanted to say hi!” she exclaimed, grinning.

What a brat.

“Boy, I oughta wring your tiny little neck! When I get my hooves on—”

“Oh, girls!” Heartsong called out in a singsong voice. “I think I may have found one! What do you think?”

I gave it a once over. “It looks . . . dangerous,” I said. The windows and doors kept rearranging themselves to look like a face, and it seemed to be very expressive. The “face” would give us a welcoming smile, beckoning us in, only to glare at us in a furious way a second later, and then give us a look of utmost shock after that. I was pretty sure the house was completely insane.

After successfully managing to grab hold of the door and vault inside, what we saw before us was not very reassuring. The floorboards kept pulling themselves out and jousting with each other, the stairs were playing leap-frog, and I was pretty sure I saw a spider about to be mugged by a couple of grasshoppers when a praying mantis with a tiny cape swooped in, grabbed the spider, and flew out the window.

“I—I don’t think—”

“I LOVE IT!” Luna squealed. She ran further inside and began dancing amongst the floorboards.

“Well, it sure seems rather exciting, doesn’t it?” Heartsong remarked, giving me a hopeful smile.

“I guess so . . . I think.” Come to think of it, the prospect of living in this house was starting to become actually kind of appealing to me. It almost looked . . . fun.

“We’ll have to be careful, but I think it’ll work,” Heartsong said. “Excuse me sir? I think we’ve made up our minds. We’ll take it.”

“Great! I’ll let you ponies explore a bit more while I get the paperwork ready,” said the realtor, “and so long as you’re staying here, the city is having our next 'Demonstration' in about a week, so you should stop by! Being the closest to Discord’s Palace, our demonstrations are quite a spectacle to behold!”

He proudly walked off, obviously happy that he had made another sale, even if it was a small one. Meanwhile, we explored what would be our new “house” for the time-being.

It was certainly going to be an interesting stay for the next few weeks.

“I just don’t understand how you’re saying that my race, the pegasi or whatever, can control the weather. Like, how?”

“Magic or something, don’t ask me, I’m just an earth pony.”

The heck with all this magic crap.

Marshall was sitting with Rho in the quarantine facility’s cafeteria, eating a bit of lunch as they tried to sort things out, as well as familiarize Marshall with his new body and the pony culture. It had surprised Marshall to find out just how heavily the ponies relied on their magic, or whatever it was.

Firefly was awake now, and had accompanied them to the cafeteria. She stuck closely to Marshall, and almost seemed to be paying attention to the conversation they were having.

She seems more . . . intelligent than usual.

“Anyways, what we’ll probably have you do is talk with the princesses on where to go next. Now we know you’re not an immediate threat, they’ll want to know more about your species, culture, you know, foreign relationship stuff.”

“Oh boy,” Marshall sighed.

Suddenly, Twilight Sparkle burst through the doors of the cafeteria and teleported in front of Marshall and Rho.

“Rho! We need your help as soon as possible! One of the monsters in the cell block 6 broke out and is eating everyone’s sandwiches! We need you to come right away and calm the thing down!”

“Sure thing!” Rho responded. “What about Marshall here? I’m not okay just yet with having him on his own.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of him while you’re gone!” Twilight responded. “You gotta go now, though!”

Rho jumped up and cantered out of the cafeteria with a semi-concerned look on her face. Twilight exhaled a few times before sitting down with Marshall. She visibly decompressed.

“Whew, that was close. So, how are you adjusting?”

“Pretty well,” Marshall replied, “I think? Everything is kind of strange and all, but you know, whatever.” Twilight raised an eyebrow at that.

“That’s good. Anyways, how’s the ferret? What’s her name?” Firefly jumped up and ran a loop around Twilight’s neck before burying herself in her mane. Twilight giggled.

“Her name’s Firefly,” Marshall said as Firefly poked her head out. Then she looked at Twilight and nodded.

Wait, what?

There was a moment of silence before Twilight looked at Marshall and gave a sigh.

“Look Marshall, by now you probably know that I’m a princess of Equestria, and I have a lot of responsibilities. Right now I have a gigantic project that I have to be a part of right now, and you need to have somepony to supervise you while you get adjusted. So it looks like you’re going to be tagging along with me for now.”

“Okay.” What else was he supposed to say?

The trio exited the cafeteria, Firefly having latched onto Marshall’s back, and proceeded to meander through the halls of the castle. Marshall struggled to keep up with Twilight as she bustled around, addressing ponies with friendly greetings as they passed by. Soon enough, Marshall found that they had left the quarantine facility and were now in the main section of the castle. The ponies hustling through the hallways now consisted of less scientific-looking ponies and now featured a more varied selection, such as servants, maids, and cooking staff. After a few minutes of following Twilight, they approached another laboratory-esque section of the castle. Instead of high security guards and security checks, however, there was now lots of laboratory equipment and professorly ponies mulling about in the corridors. They turned down a side hallway and found themselves inside a very, very large room.

“Woah.”

“Yep,” Twilight responded. “Welcome to the Winter Breeze Project.”

Marshall was standing in a room nearly the size of a warehouse, surrounded by hundreds of ponies checking and rechecking devices, calibrating measurements, writing down observations, and bustling about in general. He could see row after row of pieces of equipment lining the walls, whatever their purpose, he had no clue. Behind him, he saw many more ponies behind a glass window, looking at monitors and talking through headsets.

However, the main attraction of the room was in the very center. It was a large—very large—ring situated vertically, with large tubes and wires stretching out from the base. Engraved on it were all sorts of runes and mystical shapes and things, glowing faintly. It looked like a mixture between a stargate and an arc reactor.

Well hello nerd. It’s nice to see you again.

I hate you.

Firefly still hung out on his back, which he was grateful for. Normally she would have been gone in a ferret’s heartbeat (those are faster than a human’s, you know), exploring all of the new sights and smells, but she seemed to understand that what was going on was important and if she were to disrupt it, she might be separated from him. Instead, she opted to stare excitedly at everything around her.

When did she start understanding concepts like that? Either way, he was glad he wouldn’t have to chase her around in this giant room, and gazed at the large ring again. He had made enough of a scene as it was.

“It’s really beautiful, isn’t it?” came a new, younger voice. He looked to his right and saw yet another strange looking pony. This one was pitch black, with turquoise eyes and slitted pupils. She had both wings and a horn, dark purple hair tied into a ponytail, and a tattoo of a blue shield and a crescent moon. (He had learned later that the tattoos were called cutie marks and that a pony received one when they came to realize their special talent in life. Strange.)

“Sorry,” she responded after seeing Marshall’s quizzical look, “I just saw you standing there staring at it and couldn’t help but say hello. My name’s Nyx.” She put out a hoof, prompting Marshall to shake it. “Nyx Sparkle.”

That sounds familiar. “Marshall Bradley,” he said. Do you happen to be related to a Twilight Sparkle?”

“Yup. She’s my mother.”

“Ohh.” That would explain both the horn and wings. But why the eyes? Marshall turned back to the large ring in the center of the room. “So what is it?”

“It’s a portal. Well, a gateway really. The portal hasn’t been opened up yet.”

Oh no, not another one. He chuckled. “To be honest, I think I’ve had my fair share of gateways and portals lately.”

“Oh? What for?”

“Well, technically I’m not actually from this planet.”

An awkward silence ensued.

“What?”

He rehearsed to her about how he had found a gateway and stuff, blah blah blah whatever. Yeah. Portals and stuff and being stuck here transformed as a pony.

“Huh. I know what it feels like to be out of place in a world you were never meant to be in.” She looked down at her hooves, a pang of sadness apparent in her eyes.

“Huh?”

“Well, see, I’m not actually supposed to exist.” Her eyes glanced at Marshall, then rested on the gateway. She took a deep breath. “I was created by a spell intended to bring back one of the greatest tyrants Equestria has ever seen. I was supposed to be the worst of the worst, the cream of the crap. When the spell failed however, I—Nyx—was ‘born’, so to speak. Twilight found me in the woods and took care of me for a time.”

“So that’s why the dragon eyes and stuff?”

“Yep. A bunch of horseapples happened afterward and I kinda turned into a tyrant anyway and plunged the world into perpetual night”—she blushed—“but we were able to fix that. Now, seventeen years later, things have finally seemed to smooth over and most everyone is okay that I’m around. There was even a pony named Pen Stroke who wrote a book about it a little while ago, although he had the tendency to embellish the more dramatic parts.”

“Huh.”

“Yup,”

There was a moment of silence.

“Anyways,” Nyx continued, “the gateway here isn’t meant to travel to other planets. Heck, we have no clue how to even do that kind of crap. No, this one is meant to travel back in time.”

“Whoa, really?”

“Yeah. It’s been in the works for nearly two years now. It’s been cool to stay at the university next door and get all the scoop and updates on the progress of the project. The princesses have been pretty open with what’s going on, which is cool. Plus, being the daughter of a princess kind of helps when you want to know about what’s going on. Most of the ponies have been pretty excited about it! And you just happen to get to be around when the big stuff is going on! Looks like destiny’s on your side today, eh?

“Yeah . . . sure.”

Suuuurrrrrrre . . .

Something about it all felt contrived, like he was part of a storybook or something.

“Hey you two, I see that you’ve met already.” Twilight Sparkle stepped up beside them. “Getting along well?”

“Yep!”

“Good. That’s good.” Twilight looked back at the gateway. “So I’ve just received word that one of the generators is acting up, so we’re going to have to postpone things for a couple of hours while they get it up and running again.”

Nyx heaved a sigh. “Again?”

“Again,” Twilight responded. “But hey, why don’t we grab something to eat while we’re waiting? I know of a really great café just on the edge of the castle, and it would be nice to sit down for a second and ask Marshall about his world. Besides, I think I need a break too, my nerves are getting pretty jittery as it is, considering what’s happening this evening.”

Marshall stared from across the balcony of the café over the surrounding landscape around the mountainside city he learned was called Canterlot. Vast stretches of hills, fields, and forests extended from the base of the mountainside below. He could see a small town just to the southeast and a dense forest extending beyond that. Off in the west, almost obscured by the blinding sun, was a large cloud structure, or something, that looked almost like a floating city.

It was the first time Marshall had been outside since arriving on this planet, and while he knew he should be paying attention to the conversation going on between Nyx and Twilight Sparkle, he just couldn’t bring himself to stop looking at the scenery. The ponies sure had figured out a good way to preserve the natural beauty of the planet, or this was a nature preserve, or they had figured out a way to control the climate or something. It wasn’t that Seattle wasn’t beautiful, what with all the greenery, but nearly every square mile in the Sound seemed like it was packed with houses and factories and stuff.

A twinge of sadness hit him, thinking about home. What was he going to do now? Was he stuck on this planet forever, trapped in a foreign body? How would he let his family know that he was alive and well? What would his little sister think? She was only in high school, and that’s hard enough as it is without losing the only sibling you have. He hoped the community wouldn’t freak out too much, knowing full well they would. Gah, if only there was a way to send a message or something. He wondered what that blasted fan would do when his apartment was flooded with FBI agents. Probably nothing.

“Marshall? You okay?” It was Nyx’s voice.

“Huh?” Marshall jerked his head back to them. “Oh, yeah. Sure. Just a little scatterbrained.” He looked down at Firefly, curled up on the table. “Can’t quite seem to get my thoughts together.”

“Well, I certainly know what that feels like,” Twilight said. “It’s taken all of my focus to keep it together today too.” She let out a breath of air slowly.

“Big project, huh?” Marshall commented.

“Yeah.” Twilight nodded. “If everything goes as planned, it should be the biggest scientific revolution of the century. That is, if everything goes as planned.”

“If you don’t mind my asking, just what are you planning on doing? I mean, I know it’s about time travel, but other than that . . .” Marshall shrugged.

A large grin crept across Twilight’s face as her eyes widened.

“Oh no,” Nyx quipped. “Buckle up, buddy, it’s lecture time.”

The trio was now walking back to the palace, Marshall having survived one of Twilight Sparkle’s infamous lectures. So far, he hadn’t understood much of it. Stuff about going back quite a ways to study some sort of extinct creature with a name that started with a W, he couldn’t remember the rest, and they were going to use a spell made by some old wizard guy to do it, but they needed to amplify the crap out of it with a bunch of mathematical mumbo-jumbo, and frankly he barely managed to wrap his brain around it. He was a political science major, okay? Rocket science was not his forté.

“Come to think of it, if we managed to pinpoint your home planet,” Nyx remarked, “we might be able to apply the same principle to a teleportation spell and send you home!”

Marshall’s ears perked up at that notion. Funny, his ears did that sort of thing now.

Twilight gave a thoughtful look. “Hmm. You know, that just might work. Of course there would be an astronomical amount of calculations and calibrations to make, and we’re not sure how Marshall, an alien, would react to a spell like that, not to mention the part where we have no clue how to find his home planet, especially when he calls his home star . . . what was it again?”

“The Sun,” Marshall said.

“Yeah, super specific. Anyways, we’re kind of going in blind here. But theoretically, it could work.”

By that point, they had entered the castle and reached the large room housing the gateway and all of its components, and Twilight was immediately swarmed by a group of scientists.

“Princess Twilight Sparkle, there you are! We need you to double check the calibration field!”

“Ah, Princess! Your final checkup with Butterscotch!”

“Generator number six is back to optimal condition, we might want to check the others to make sure there are no problems, do we have the go ahead?”

“Princess, head engineer Forrest Branch needs to speak with you!”

“Hello Twilight.”

The crowd fell silent. The last voice uttered was one of benevolence, dignity, and held an air of speaking to an old friend. Marshall looked in the direction of the speaker. Then he looked up.

Whoa.

The pony in question was nearly twice as tall as him, with a brilliant white coat that nearly radiated light, long rippling hair (no really, literally rippling), and a small but sincere smile on her face.

“Princess Celestia!” Twilight cantered over and gave the large pony a nuzzle. “I’m so glad you came!”

“Anything for you, Twilight. I wouldn’t miss the big breakthrough, now would I?”

So this is Princess Celestia, Marshall thought. No wonder these ponies seem to think of her so highly. Kind of intimidating, but also not. Strange.

An engineer cleared his throat. “Twilight, it’s time to suit up. Everything’s ready.”

“Okay.” She let out a deep breath. “Let’s do this.”

Twilight Sparkle stood in front of the now operational gateway, making last minute preparations. She was outfitted with twin saddlebags, packed with a variety of testing equipment fit for a pony who would soon be living in an arctic environment. The head scientist, Butterscotch, a pony with an unusual monochromatic caramel color scheme for both her mane and coat, talked her through the process.

“Now, we’re not sure just exactly where you’ll end up, but it should be in the same vicinity as the palace. We’re giving it approximately a mile radius. Once you get there, if there are ponies around, either come up with a really good cover story as to why you just appeared out of nowhere, or distract them with a flash or something. Make sure you stay inconspicuous, we don’t want history being rewritten.”

“Got it,” Twilight said.

“Also, you’ll only have two weeks before the signal will open up again, so try and be as efficient as possible. Set up the emitter around the spot that you came and the portal should open up automatically. We’ve set up the return time for thirty minutes from now.”

“Can do.” Twilight looked back around. There stood Celestia, Nyx, and Marshall, as well as all of the other science ponies. A deep sense of love and respect for all of them surged within her.

They have all done so much! I only hope that I can repay them someday . . .

“Are you ready?” asked Butterscotch, as every pony in the room put on a pair of goggles. “You’re going to want this,” she said, handing Twilight something. It was a scarf.

“I’m ready,” Twilight said, putting on the scarf. She took a deep breath, looked back, waved to Nyx and the rest of the ponies, and stepped through the Gateway.

Marshall watched Twilight Sparkle walk through the Gateway. There was a blinding flash of light, making him glad he was wearing goggles, and then everything was quiet. Firefly poked out from under the lab coat that had been given to him.

“Okay,” Butterscotch clapped her hooves together, “we’ve got thirty minutes before the princess gets back with the most important samples of the decade, so let’s get to work!”

Marshall watched as the ponies shuffled about, getting things ready for Twilight’s arrival. Something felt wrong. Something wasn’t right. He noticed something growing out of the corners of the room.

It looked like . . . like that awful black mold that grows in old bathrooms.

“Uh, what’s that?” He asked, leaning over to Nyx.

“What’s what?” She looked at him quizzically.

“That.” He pointed to various spots where it was growing. “It’s like some sort of mold or something, it’s spreading pretty fast.”

“Uh, Marshall, you do know the room has been completely sterilized, right?”

He looked back at her and gasped in horror.

Her face was covered in it.

“It’s all over you!” he yelled, scrambling back.

“What? I don’t see any—“

Suddenly, she exploded into a cloud of black smoke.

“Nyx!” he cried. Ponies everywhere were being consumed by the mold and bursting into smoke. Why were none of them noticing?

No, no, no, nonononono NO!

WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?

It was over. The room had been entirely consumed. Every pony, including Nyx and Celestia, had vanished. In the wake of the mold, the room had been changed into a twisted version of itself, something darker and grimier. The Gateway was no longer elegant; it was crude looking, made of brass and was close to falling apart. Gears and pistons littered the outside of it and the surrounding control stations.

He sat there, alone.

Something soft touched his leg. He looked down and saw Firefly, looking up at him with a pair of too-sympathetic eyes. She curled around his hoof, rubbing it with her face.

Goodness creature, what are you?

Marshall took in a deep breath, and relaxed just a tiny bit. “What now, girl?” She jumped up, sniffed around for a bit, then squeaked in alarm and attempted to drag Marshall towards a doorway, whimpering.

He soon discovered the reason for her distress when the sound of thundering hooves coming from an opposite doorway reached his ears.

Before he could make it to the end of the room, they were surrounded by ten or so guards. Each one levelled a rifle at him. In each of their left eyes was some sort of an implant, glowing red with faint crosshairs in the pupils. They were wearing orangish-reddish segmented armor, with an insignia of a burning sun painted on their breastplates. Most of them looked similar in appearance, with the exception of one particular stallion, decked out in gold braids and a polished rapier.

The stallion in question stepped forward, looking Marshall and Firefly up and down with a critical eye, implant in his eye flickering. He must have only been an inch taller than Marshall, but the way Marshall felt, it might as well have been ten feet. When he spoke, his voice was cold, calculating, and hard as stone.

“Pony, type 2, by royal decree of Her Majesty, Queen Solar Flare, you are under arrest for trespassing in a priority one restricted section. Identify yourself and that creature of yours.”

Firefly hissed at him, arching her back and baring her teeth. The captain scowled at her.

“Grab the rodent.”

“No, wait!” Marshall cried. Immediately, two guards snatched Firefly up and stuffed her into a sack. She screamed and writhed about, smacking one of the guard’s faces in the process.

“Hey!” Marshall yelled. “What do you think you’re—oof!” His face hit the ground as he was tackled by three more guards. He struggled, but he still wasn’t very used to his new body and was pinned in a matter of seconds. The captain’s hooves stepped into view and he could feel the barrel of a gun pressed against his skull.

“Now, let’s try this again.” The gun barrel jammed harder into his temple. “Your name.”

“M-Marshall,” he grunted, cheekbone grinding against the concrete.

“There we go,” the captain said. Styre!”

“Yes sir?”

“Results.”

“Nothing is appearing on the records, sir. Wings haven’t been clipped, but strangely he doesn’t have the muscle mass to fly anyway. For all the database can find, this pony doesn’t exist.”

Marshall couldn’t see anything, but he could feel the captain’s glare on his skin.

“So he’s one of them.” The words dripped with hatred. “Get him to the Warden.”

Chapter 4

View Online

*SMACK!*

I keeled forward, spilling my food and landing face-first on the floor with a plop. I rolled over and glared at the floorboard that had hit me, rubbing the back of my head. The floorboard, however, was oblivious to the fact that it had just whacked me in the head in its attempt to vanquish its foe. It swung left, jabbed right, parried, and slashed, but no amount of technical maneuvering could get past its rival floorboard, which happened to be just as skilled in swordplay as it was.

I was just about to pick myself up when the floorboard below me decided that it was time to settle its rivalry between the board three spaces over, once and for all. It promptly yanked itself up, challenging the other one to a duel. Meanwhile, I had been thrown from my spot and landed in a heap against the wall.

“Heartsong, why in the HAY did I ever let you convince me this was a good idea!?” I yelled at thin air, my voice dripping with frustration. I grumbled, picking myself up from the floor, and walked over to collect my spilled breakfast, making sure to keep my head down low to avoid another collision. As I was sweeping up bits of purple cabbage, Luna ran past, tagging me on the shoulder.

“Hey ‘Tia, TAG!” She zoomed around the corner and latched onto a stair, which continued to play leapfrog with its companions, dragging Luna along with it. As she was thrown around, she yelled, “THIS IS THE BEST. HOUSE. EVAR!”

Heartsong walked into the room and stopped, looking at the scene. She chuckled and shook her head, amidst the squeals of delight coming from the staircase. The step that Luna was attached to had realized that it was carrying an unwanted passenger, and was now desperately trying to shake her off, to no avail. “How are you this morning, Celestia?” Heartsong asked, turning to me.

“Not good. This house is killing me,” I responded with a huff.

“Well, at least Luna is enjoying herself.” She glanced over to the trouble that Luna was causing amongst the staircase.

“That’s easy for her to do; she’s less than two feet tall!” I yelled, pointing at Luna, “She can run and play and it won’t even matter that there’s anything dangerous directly above her, ‘cause it passes right over her head!”

“Heh, you do have a point there,” she admitted, before narrowly dodging a swipe from a board that was intended to be the crushing blow to its opponent. “Here, why don’t we go out and see if we can make some friends today; see what we can see? It’ll be nice to familiarize ourselves with the town,” she said, holding out a hoof to help me up once I had finished cleaning up my breakfast.

“Sure, whatever,” I said, taking her hoof and pulling myself up, “it still won’t matter. Once the ponies find out about what we are, it’ll be the same story over and over again.”

“Well then, we’ll just have to not let them find out, won’t we?” she responded, giving me an encouraging nudge. I just sighed.

We met up with Luna, put on our vests and saddlebags, and waited at the doorway until it had shifted to a spot closer to the ground. When it had moved to a suitable spot, we all leapt out before it could shift again. We picked ourselves up, dusted ourselves off, and set off through the town.

We met various ponies, some friendly, some not. We even met a couple fillies and a colt that were my age, they seemed pretty cool and fun. But I knew it didn’t matter, I knew that if they saw us for what we really were, they would all reject us. This was all pointless, but I didn’t feel like complaining, it took too much effort, so I kept going with Heartsong and Luna. We continued to walk through the town, stopping and talking to ponies along the way, eventually ending up on Main Street, I believe. We stopped to get some lunch, and sat next to the roadside, eating it together.

What caught my attention next was an interesting and suspiciously dressed unicorn walking down the street, wearing an extremely confused expression on her face. She was wearing a very heavy overcoat and a scarf, and her saddlebags were filled to the brim with some sort of assortment of glass things that I had never seen before. She sat down a few feet away from us, glancing around and muttering to herself. I eyed her, trying to not make myself look conspicuous.

She had a lavender coat, darker bluish-purple hair with a pink streak through it, and eyes furrowed in concentration, like she was trying to solve some complex problem. I also noticed that she had a slightly different build than normal ponies. She was taller, a bit more slender, and had a longer horn. She continued muttering to herself and I heard phrases like, “This can’t be right, where’s the snow?” and, “I thought we had calibrated it correctly.” I was about to say something when Heartsong spoke up, obviously also noticing this same strange pony.

“Excuse me, miss, but are you lost? Is there anything we can do for you?” she asked, walking up to the pony. The pony looked up, blinking a few times.

“Huh, what?” she asked, having been pulled out of her thought processes.

“Are you lost? Can we help you?” Heartsong asked again.

“Lost? Oh, yes—er—sort of. I mean, well it’s complicated,” the unicorn replied. She looked around. “Can you tell me where I am?”

“Oh yes, dear, we’re in Hampsterdam, on the borders of the Inverted Mountains!” Heartsong replied cheerfully.

“And, uh, pardon my asking, but what year is this?” the pony said, still glancing around uneasily. Meanwhile Luna and I had joined Heartsong, and we eyed the strange pony while they spoke with each other.

“Um, sorry dear, but what’s a year?” Heartsong asked quizzically, not quite sure what the pony was talking about. Luna and I shared a look, and then turned back to the pony, waiting for an answer.

“Uh, period of time, lasts about twelve months?” the pony said, rolling her hoof back and forth, “Ringing any bells?”

“Nope, I don’t know where you come from, but nothing around here is consistent enough to be measured by anything” replied Heartsong, “not even night and day!” She chuckled and put a hoof around the other pony’s shoulder. “So, where you from, dearie?”

The pony flinched slightly at the hoof and gave an uneasy smile at the question. “Pretty far away, hehe,” she said, giving a small laugh, “Actually, we, uh, never have any problems with Discord’s magic where I’m from.”

“Really? I thought it surrounded the whole world . . .” Heartsong drifted away in thought, while the other pony seemed to look extremely distressed. Suddenly, Heartsong snapped back into focus. “So! Got any place to stay, dear?” she asked, bubbly personality showing through.

“Uh, heh, not really . . .” she said, her fake smile shifting into a worried look. “I’m only staying here for two—um, I mean, a short time, so I—”

“No problem!” Heartsong grinned. “You can stay with us! We just moved in two days ago, and we’d be happy to let you stay, right girls?” She looked down at us expectantly.

I looked up at her before looking back at the unicorn suspiciously. “Okay, I guess,” I said, glancing at her heavy overcoat and the strange things in her saddlebags.

Luna, however, looked the pony up and down with the most critical expression she could muster. She scrutinized every inch of the pony, until suddenly, her face brightened up and she gave a huge grin. “I like her!” she said as she ran up and latched onto the pony’s left foreleg, beaming up at her.

The pony drew back in surprise at the sudden onslaught of the filly, but gave a smile shortly afterward. “Why thank you, little one!” she said, looking down at Luna, “And just what is your name?”

“I’m Luna!” Luna said. The pony’s ear twitched.

“W-what was that?” she asked, the smile gone from her face.

“Ah yes, dear, my name is Heartsong,” said Heartsong before gesturing to me and Luna. “And these are my two daughters, Celestia and Luna.”

Marshall plodded along, surrounded by guards. Firefly had since stopped struggling, thankfully. He was starting to worry that the guards might kill her or something if she irritated them too much. They had exited what seemed to be the older section of the castle and were now traversing through a much more pristine section. The walls were brilliantly white and appeared to be made of some sort of composite plastic or something. The floor was smooth and shiny enough to see his reflection, once more reminding him of his current shape and status. He could see various security cameras on each corner, watching the platoon as it walked by. There were no windows, and no ponies around either. Other than his crowd, there was no one at all, no staff, no more lab coat ponies. Marshall wondered where everyone was. If this was a castle, shouldn’t there be people to run the place? He dismissed the thought and instead shifted his attention to the restrainer that had been placed on his front left foreleg.

It looks like something out of science-fiction, like one of those nifty devices the crew of the Enterprise would use to restrain their prisoners. It was made out of a shiny metal, with little lights strewn about that flickered on and off. He had no clue what they meant or what purpose they served by blinking on and off, although he had been informed by the captain that if he tried to run, this little device would “end him”. Whatever the outcome, he wasn’t willing to risk whatever fate lay in store for him if he were to attempt an escape.

So he continued on, wishing that he were somewhere else, but having no power to make that a reality. He desperately longed to be back home, in Seattle, where his life was stable and things were normal. He thought of his apartment, with its slightly broken doorway that could only be opened with force. He thought of the huffy landlord above him, and he thought of the guy below him who was “really going to make it big” with his guitar playing, eventually. He thought of his job, his coworkers, and that infernal office-fan that had started this whole ordeal. He thought of his family. They had probably discovered him missing by now. What would his parents think? And his sister? She was only in highschool, how would she hold up?

Things were so much fun when I first came here, he thought. Even though it had had its fair share of surprises, the prospect of being on a whole new world had been exciting to him, with its own different set of cultures and aliens. Now, things were still exciting, but much, much less fun. Ugh, stop thinking about that, Marshall. It won’t help your situation at all. He searched through his mind for something more lighthearted to think about, but couldn’t find anything useful or helpful. Truth-be-told, thinking about puppies and kittens just didn’t help him very much.

His mind wandered off again—a habit that it seemed to be fond of—to Twilight and Nyx, the only ponies he had met and befriended thoroughly during his short stay on this new planet. Just what had happened to Twilight in the past to cause all this mess? Was all of this her fault? Oh, if it was, he was so going to chew her out when she got back. And what had happened to Nyx? She had just disappeared—had she been killed?! Had all of the scientists been killed? Oh man, no one better have been killed or else I am really going to—

He sighed. What could he do? Nothing.

His ears perked up as they caught a sound coming from behind the wall. It was a high pitched whining sound, increasing in pitch, like some device was charging up or locking on to something.

A split-second after Marshall first noticed the sound, the wall directly to the front and to the right exploded. The smooth white paneling warped and blew out, sending out massive chunks of stone behind it in every direction. Everyone in the hallway dove to the ground, seeking cover from the blast.

The dust settled and a beige-colored teenage pegasus revealed himself, wearing a black spandex suit and holding what was obviously the detonator. A vicious smile was plastered on his face.

“Evening gentlemen,” he nonchalantly said as another spherical device was thrown from behind him. It bounced against the opposite wall and landed amongst the frozen guards.

“Grenade!” the captain shouted and they all scrambled to get away, Marshall included. Unfortunately, they were in a confined space, so little could be done to get away from the device before it went off.

Much to their surprise—barring the pegasus—the device did not explode, but sent out a shockwave which caused all of the electronics in the vicinity to short out. The group stood for a second in confusion as little bolts of electricity jumped out of the eye implants, earpieces, nearby cameras and Marshall’s restrainer.

Ah, it’s an EMP. Clever.

Suddenly, the fact that they hadn’t been blown to pieces registered in the guards’ brains, and they scrambled about, trying to regain order within their ranks, and screaming for backup into their now useless earpieces. While this was happening, another teenage pony with a top hat, also black spandex, and pumpkin-colored hair stepped around the corner. She had two gigantic, shiny gatling guns strapped to either side of her body, and she wore the same devilish grin as the other assailant.

“Say hello to my little friends!” She smirked, and the two guns activated.

What happened next etched itself into Marshall’s brain forever. Time slowed to a standstill. His entire field of vision filled with neon green as he stared down hundreds of laser blasts aimed directly at him. They bounced off the walls, picking off the guards one by one, until Marshall’s turn came. The impact stung, and he hit the ground. He slowly closed his eyes, taking in what he knew was his last breath.

“Good work SugarButter! As usual,” said Featherweight as he stepped through the hole in the wall. He wore a black spandex suit like the other two, and went to retrieve the EMP device.

“No problem Cloudy!” replied both Pound and Pumpkin Cake at the same time. They glanced at each other, back to Featherweight, back to each other, and giggled a bit.

“You know, Sugar, sometimes you scare me when you use those things,” Pound Cake mused as he wrapped the detonation wires back up. “Makes me worried to think of what would happen if you ever got your hooves on some actually lethal guns.”

“Whatever Butterface. It’s not like you don’t get your own creepy maniac on when you start blowing things up,” Pumpkin Cake replied. “Besides, at least Smith and Wesson will always be there for me—” she gave her two miniguns an overly dramatic loving embrace before turning back to him, “—your greatest creations never stick around long enough before they blow up!” She fluttered her eyelashes at him and pouted slightly. Pound Cake simply rolled his eyes.

“Hey Butter, you almost finished?” called out Featherweight. “Come help with these guards!”

“Yeah, one second!” Pound Cake called back just as he finished wrapping up the last of the wiring. “What ‘we got this time?”

“Looks like we have ten guards and . . . oh dear.”

“What? What is it?” Pumpkin asked as she trotted up to Featherweights position.

“We’ve got a civilian. Crap. Some sort of rodent thing too.”

“Uh, that’s a ferret,” Pumpkin remarked. The ferret stood over the civilian’s body, hissing and stamping. Featherweight put a hoof up to his ear to speak through the transceiver inside. “Midnight?”

“What is it, Cloud Hop?” asked a female voice through the earpiece.

“We’ve got a civilian on our hooves—unconscious—he looks to be a prisoner of some sort. Guy’s guarded by like a ferret or something.”

Midnight sighed through the earpiece. “Whatever. Bring him back; we’ll let the boss take a look at him later.”

“Are you sure?” Featherweight asked, staring at the prisoner, “Are you sure we can handle taking in some random pony?”

“Well, you can’t just leave him there!” Midnight defended, “Nopony deserves to be left to the hooves of the Warden. You know exactly who I’m talking about, Cloud Hop.”

Featherweight stiffened. Yes. I know. I couldn’t save them. It was my fault. He saw their faces, determined and grim, knowing exactly what was in store for them. And he had left them in the hooves of that sick freak that calls himself the Warden. He had left them to die.

Not this time.

Featherweight straightened up, putting his hoof to the earpiece again.

“Got it.”

He shifted his focus back to the other two ponies. “Alright you two, let’s get these guards out of sight quickly! We only have ten minutes before the next patrol comes around, so let’s move!”

They stuffed the guards through the recently blown out hole into an empty closet used by janitorial staff. Hopefully they wouldn’t wake for a few hours, and the castle staff wouldn’t start working until eleven o’clock that evening. Her highness liked solitude, and kept the castle as empty as possible during the day. Honestly though, it creeped him out. It was so silent and empty, so white and clean, so unnatural.

Once they were finished with the guards, they turned to the unconscious pony with the ferret on it. It snarled at them, baring small but sharp white teeth. They peered at the thing. One set of eyes blinked.

“So uh, what do we do now?” asked Pound Cake.

“Sorry Sugar, but you’re going to have to put it out,” Featherweight said. “We gotta get going.”

Pumpkin Cake pouted, but eventually relented.

“Sorry honey,” she said to the ferret, “but this is for the best.” She hit it with a blast and it flopped to the ground, unconscious. “Mommy still loves you!” she whispered. Featherweight hoisted the pony onto his back and Pumpkin Cake gently put the ferret in her backpack.

“Sugar, would you please kindly do the honors?”

“Yeah sure,” Pumpkin Cake replied, and levitated the chunks of stone back into place, horn glowing through her top hat. She then cast a simple deception spell to disguise the rubble, and the wall suddenly looked exactly like it was before they had broken in. “Alright, let’s go,” Featherweight said, and the trio took off down the hallway.

Five right-turns, two left, a trapdoor and an incident involving an adolescent hydra later, the trio was standing outside the room where their prize was located. They had set Marshall down and Pound Cake was proceeding to spread a jelly-like blasting agent around the lock of the door while the other two stood watch. When he had finished, he hooked up the wires and grabbed the detonator.

“Aaand three . . . two . . . one.” He pressed the button, and the jelly sizzled and glowed red, eating through the doorway. He smiled; things like this always gave him a bit of a buzz. He pulled the wiring out of the now unlocked door and rolled it up as quickly as he could while the other two went inside.

“Aha! Here we go!” Featherweight’s voice came from within. He and Pumpkin came out shortly after, him stuffing a little square of metal into the bag he had brought. He put his hoof up to his earpiece and called out, “Little John, you read me?”

“Yes, darling,” replied a male voice with a husky British accent.

“We’re coming up on your position, get ready to take us out of here!” he responded.

“Ready as always, darling.”

Featherweight, Pound Cake, and Pumpkin Cake booked it down the hallway, up a flight of stairs, and into a side chamber, where what appeared to be a desk clerk was nearly given a heart-attack by the sudden arrival of three mysterious ponies, one with lots of wiring wrapped around him, one with a hostage, and one with two extremely dangerous-looking guns. However, she was quickly subdued by a single blast of the stun gun, and fell unconscious on the floor.

“*cough* Overpowered. *coughcough*” Pound Cake blurted out. Pumpkin Cake elbowed him in the gut.

“Quit it you two, we’ve gotta go!” Featherweight scolded, glancing between the doorway and the window nervously. “Ready?” Featherweight said through both his earpiece and to the other two ponies, both of which nodded. “Okay, one, two, three, GERONIMO!” And with that, all three leapt out of the balcony, Pound Cake adding a little flair by doing a front-flip.

For one solitary second, the three of them fell, time slowing to a standstill. During that second, Pumpkin Cake made a funny face at Pound Cake, and Featherweight grabbed onto Marshall in order to keep him from falling off course. The mountain in which Canterlot Castle was built rushed past them, and the ground below—eager to meet them—grew closer with increasing speed.

Before they hit the ground, however, the two pegasi spread their wings and Pumpkin enveloped herself in telekinesis magic, slowing their freefall. Less than half a second after that, they were all swept up by an open-topped speeder, angled downward to reduce the force of impact. The trio, plus Marshall, landed in a heap upon the deck of the speeder, which pulled up and out of the dive just before hitting the ground, rustling a patch of wheat stalks. The driver, who was a large earth-pony stallion, with a cream coat, brown spot upon his eye, slicked-back mane, and a healthy amount of stubble on his chin, glanced back at the group.

“Greetings friends. I trust that everything went swimmingly?” asked Pipsqueak, revealing himself to be the pony over the intercom.

“Yup,” answered Featherweight, “got the goods, got out, and no one saw us long enough to raise a stir, thanks to Sugar here.” He motioned his hoof towards Pumpkin Cake, who was attempting to untangle Pound Cake from her miniguns.

“You can use my real name now, you know,” remarked Pumpkin Cake, “it’s not like anyone can hear us way out here on this thing.” She gestured to the speeder.

“I’d rather not risk it, darling,” called back Pipsqueak, “and I’m sure our dear friend Cloud Hop agrees with me.”

“Yeah, it’s a good idea to keep using code names until we get back under Midnight’s safety net,” responded Featherweight. “Never know who could be listening in out here.”

“Fair enough,” Pumpkin Cake admitted. “So, uh . . . what’re we gonna do about Mister Sleepyhead here?”

“And just who is ‘Mister Sleepyhead’, darling?” Pipsqueak called out over his shoulder, not taking his eyes off his driving.

“Civvie that we picked up during a run-in with the guards,” interjected Pound Cake. Pipsqueak’s eyes widened.

“Oh. Oh dear, that is a problem, isn’t it?”

“At least he was unconscious for all of this, it would have been a real problem, had Pum—I mean, Sugar—not shot him in the face,” Pound Cake mused. He shared a look with Pumpkin Cake, an unspoken language passing between them that garnered him an elbow to the shoulder.

“Keep working on that combat lingo, kid,” Featherweight said ruffling Pound Cake’s hair.

“Yeah, whatever,” Pound Cake replied, doing his best to smooth it out and restore it to its former glory.

Featherweight cocked an eyebrow for a second, and then directed his speech back to Pipsqueak. “Anyways, I talked with Midnight, she said to bring him back and let the boss handle him, and I wholeheartedly agree. Well, about the getting him out of the castle part, at least. I don’t know what’s going to happen now, but I trust Midnight, so that’s what we’re doing.”

Pound and Pumpkin Cake shared another look, before giving Featherweight a skeptical one. “So you would listen to somepony our age, so long as it’s Midnight,” Pound Cake snapped, “but you disregard the opinions of the rest of us?”

Featherweight sighed before responding in a slightly annoyed tone. “Need I remind you that she is older than all of us, despite her looks?” Pound Cake opened his mouth to say something, but closed it shortly after, having thought better of the matter.

“Now ladies, relax, you’re all pretty,” cut in Pipsqueak. “Besides, everypony knows that I’m the smartest, most handsome, and certainly most civilized pony out of the whole lot of you.”

“Oh can it, Little John,” Pumpkin Cake huffed.

“Doesn’t matter, darling, I’m still the best,” Pipsqueak deflected, eyes closed in righteous indignation. They flew on in silence, staying low to the ground. The sun had just finished setting over the horizon, twilight enveloping the landscape. They passed fields of wheat and potatoes, with the occasional hut here and there. As much as Ponyville itself had urbanized, it still was farm country, so to speak. Not like Baltimare or Fillydelphia, which were so populated that they had essentially melded together. Thankfully, Ponyville sat under the shadow of Canterlot, and most ponies chose to disregard it. It was barely even considered one of the eight core cities, the dying Appleloosa probably the only one less popular. That meant they had the lowest chance of getting caught by the SFSS.

Soon enough, fields were replaced with streets and huts were replaced with houses as they drew closer to the center of the city. In the distance, large towers, each one representing the different noble families that owned them, jutted into the sky. They shone with light, each one bearing its own architectural style. Some were smooth and straight, resembling the royal castle’s style, others were jagged and angular to pay homage to past architectural styles.

The speeder slowed as it travelled through the more inhabited section of the city, until Pipsqueak broke the silence.

“We’re here, folks!” He exclaimed. “Thank you for riding the Ol’ Bess Express!”

All the other ponies rolled their eyes as the speeder pulled up into a warehouse within the slums of Ponyville, just south of the Apple Tower. They all stepped out, Pipsqueak volunteering to carry Marshall—he being the strongest—but not until after he had parked and covered his speeder. They walked to the end of the warehouse where an elevator shaft sat, and after loading it, they descended quickly, reaching the bottom of the shaft within minutes. From there, they boarded a mine cart and rode in silence, tunneling under the cityscape.

After several minutes, they reached the end of the tunnel and rode up another elevator to the surface, ending up in a postage station. From there, it was a short walk until they were at the front gates of another tower. This one was primarily blue and was constructed of angled terraces. A fancy “L” was inscribed in each of the gate’s doors.

“[State your intent.]” a robotic female voice said while a surveillance camera panned in closer.

“Ah my dear Miss Jenkins, how pleasant to see you today!” Pipsqueak stepped forward. “Having a good day, darling?”

“[State your intent.]” it monotoned.

“Oh, it seems I forgot you have no taste in good conversation.” He gave a dramatic sigh. “Anyways, I believe we are looking to have a game of pandki with a certain SnuggleBug, if I am correct?”

“[Very well. Enter.]”

“Thank you, darling.” The gates opened and the four ponies strolled up the road to the manor. Upon entering the luxurious reception room, they turned right, walking down a hallway and down a flight of stairs. Taking another right after that, they reached a gold-plated elevator and rode it down one more level. The elevator gave a cheerful ding at the bottom, and they all stepped out into a much less decorated entrance room.

“You guys are back! That’s great! Did you get the goods?” A teenage-looking pony rose from the multiple-monitered desktop she had been sitting at, took off her headset, and ran up to meet them.

“Yup,” answered Featherweight, lightly patting the bag in which the piece of metal resided. “Got it without a hitch.”

“Hey Midnight, you wanna come help me get S. ‘n W. off?” Pumpkin Cake called out.

“Sure!” Midnight trotted over to help her get her massive miniguns off.

“Pumpkin, we’re back at base,” Pound Cake criticized, giving her an incredulous look, “we can use real names now, so you might as well call her N—”

*GROAN*

All heads snapped to where the civilian lay, who was now just waking up. He rolled over, eyes opening.

“Wha . . . what?” His eyes blinked a few times, and he began to register his surroundings. The first things they made contact with were Smith and Wesson, the two miniguns. His eyes widened. He nervously glanced around before noticing the pony helping to remove the guns. This particular pony had a black coat, long purple hair tied back into a ponytail, a blue shield for a cutie mark, wings, a long horn, and deep turquoise, cat-like eyes.

“Wait, Nyx? Is that you?” he asked. She blinked at him in confusion, along with every other pony in the room. The looks of confusion slowly morphed into horrid realization, the ponies realizing the gravity of what Marshall had just said.

“Oh dear,” Pipsqueak said.

Marshall sat at one end of a table, with a bright light shining in his eyes. The room he was in was devoid of all furniture, save for the table, and had absolutely no decoration whatsoever. Across from the table sat another pony, a pegasus, but not the one that had blown up the wall. In the corner stood another one with a slicked back mane, with a slightly larger build than the first. Both were shrouded in darkness, the only light coming from the one shining on Marshall. It reminded him of every law enforcement show ever, well, except for the fact that they were all ponies.

“Okay buddy, you’ve got some explaining to do,” the one across the table said.

“I’ll say!” Marshall blurted out, “What happened?! I’m walking along to my doom and suddenly the wall blows up and then some pony with some freakishly huge guns walks out and shoots us all to pieces! I thought I was dead! But then I woke up. And there was Nyx for some reason and then somebody blindfolded me before I could do anything and then they dragged me off despite my fighting back and then they dumped me here and NOBODY WILL TELL ME ANYTHING! Where’s my ferret?! What’s going on?!” He took a deep breath, lowering the hoof he had been waving about, trying to stop the trembling that was coursing through his body. Needless to say, he was pretty sick of being stuck in situations where he had no clue what was going on; it had been happening to him a lot lately.

“Whoa, easy there buddy,” said the one across from him, taken aback by the sudden outburst. “Your ferret’s fine, Sugar’s taking care of it, she likes animals. We just wanted to ask you some questions, starting with how in the world do you happen to know Midnight’s real name?”

“So that’s what she’s called in this world . . .” Marshall mused.

The larger one raised an eyebrow while the pegasus rubbed his temple. “Okay, what do you mean ‘in this world’?” he said.

“Eh heh, yeah, this might be a bit problematic,” Marshall admitted, growing uneasy. He steeled himself for a rough conversation ahead. “Okay, so there’s this alternate world where I’m from . . .”

“He’s definitely completely insane,” Featherweight concluded.

“I would think so myself, if it weren’t for the fact that his story seems to work just a bit too well to be fake, as strange as it is. He does know Nyx’s real name, and quite a bit about her personality, darling,” Pipsqueak brought up.

“So he’s a stalker, nothing otherworldly about that.” Featherweight shifted back into his seat. “Somehow he’s been tracking her through all the security measures we have and wants to use it against us.” The two were sitting in the underground lounge, along with the Cake twins and Nyx. Featherweight had talked to the boss, and she told them to decide for themselves. It was their team, after all, she had said.

Nyx was not taking it well. She sat in the corner, trembling, nearly oblivious to Pumpkin’s comforting hoof resting on her shoulder. Nyx’s slivered eyes shot back and forth around the room, and she sniffed every once in a while.

Suddenly, the door burst open, and a dark brown earth pony with a chestnut mane bustled in, fumbling around with a stack of paperwork.

“Sorry I’m late guys,” Button Mash apologized, “I had some trouble working out the deal with the Flim and Flam brothers; those swindlers kept trying to cheat me.” He sat down next to Pipsqueak. “So, what’s up? Care to explain why we’ve been called to this top-secret meeting?”

“We’re deciding what to do about a particular pony who claims to be from an alternate reality, darling,” informed Pipsqueak.

“Really?” Button was mildly surprised. “Um, okay then.”

“The problem is that he just so happens to know nearly everything about poor Nyx over there,” Featherweight said, nodding towards the corner where Nyx sat, “Down to her personality even, although he seems confused as to who her mom is. Talking about a pony named Twilight Sparkle or something, an alicorn, no less.”

“Hmm, I think I may have heard of a Twilight Sparkle somewhere in my dealings,” Button contemplated, “although I know she’s not an alicorn. I believe she is the Lieutenant General of the Equestrian Guard, actually. Or was it Brigadier General? Hmm . . .” He put a hoof up to his chin.

“That still leaves us with the question as to what to do with him,” Featherweight said, reeling the conversation back on topic. “He knows too much to let him leave, but I certainly don’t want somepony with that kind of mental state around here.”

“Well, I don’t know, darling, but he was a prisoner, which means he is an enemy of the state, and an enemy of my enemy is a friend to me,” Pipsqueak added.

“How do we even know if he’ll be useful to us?” Pound Cake threw out. “We’ve never seen him do anything special, and he doesn’t even have his cutie mark! He’ll just be dead weight!”

“Easy now, Poundy,” Button Mash scolded. “Nearly half the ponies out there don’t have their cutie marks, and they still can function. Besides, it’s only a matter of time before it’s eventually found, especially in this group.” He glanced at his own cutie mark before turning back to Pound Cake. “Or have you forgotten that it’s only been a few months since you’ve gotten yours?”

Pound Cake opened his mouth to say something, closed it, opened it again, looked over to Pumpkin, and decided to redirect the conversation to her. “What do you think, Pumpkin?”

“I dunno, I think he’s kinda cute, actually,” she mused. Pound Cake facehooved, and shot her an exasperated look. They carried on another unspoken mini-conversation, until a voice nopony had heard all evening spoke up.

“But what if he is some psychotic serial killer who murders ponies, whether or not they are friends or enemies?” Nyx looked desperately at the rest of the ponies in the room. “What if he’s been stalking me all my life and this is just some trap to get me off my guard?!” She began hyperventilating.

“I’m sorry darling, but I don’t think that’s very likely. We should give him a chance,” Pipsqueak responded.

“SAYS THE PONY THAT ISN’T EVEN INVOLVED!” Nyx blew up. She stood up and glared at everypony in the room, flaring her wings and channeling magical energy into her mane and tail, making them ripple and swirl. “None of you know what it’s like! Having every single bit of the safeguards you put up ripped down by some crazy pony you’ve never met before!”

Pipsqueak looked uneasy. “Actually darling, I—”

“SHUT UP!” The ground began to rumble and her voice multiplied upon itself. “I DON’T CARE IF HE’S MY LONG-FORGOTTEN BROTHER OR SOMETHING! I DO NOT WANT HIM ON THE TEAM!”

“What is going on here?!” In stepped “The Boss”, an aged Trixie Lulamoon with a robotic foreleg, and she witnessed the spectacle. Nyx had gone full-blown Nightmare Moon, and the rest of the team was trying to put as much distance between themselves and her as they could.

“Nyx Renae Lulamoon! Come down this instant!” she shouted.

Nyx, upon seeing and hearing Trixie, deflated. Her eyes stopped glowing, the magic drained out of her mane and tail, leaving it ragged and messed up, and she let out a slow breath. When she had returned to normal, she cleared her throat and looked down at her hooves.

“Sorry mom,” she said.

“Come with me, young lady,” Trixie said in a firm, yet somehow gentle, tone.

Nyx joined up with Trixie and slowly walked out the door, head downcast. Just before they left, Trixie looked over her shoulder and said, “As you were, everypony.” With that, they left.

A long, drawn-out whistle resonated from Pound Cake’s lips. Wide eyes returned to normal size, and everypony released their held breaths.

“That one’s a time-bomb, she is,” Button Mash commented. An unspoken affirmation circled around the room.

Nyx and Trixie walked through the hallways of the manor, side by side. These hallways were familiar to Nyx; after all, she had lived in them her whole life. They walked past paintings, bookshelves filled with tomes on every subject imaginable, and various knickknacks and trinkets, all of them holding a special place in Nyx’s heart. Nyx glanced over at Trixie, who was looking around the hallway with a thoughtful expression, the servo motors in her prosthetic foreleg whirring and clicking with each step she took.

“So tell me Nyx, what’s on your mind?” Trixie finally spoke, “Because I may not be the most observant mare, but I can tell that something’s troubling you. It might also have something to do with what just happened back there.” She looked down at Nyx, who seemed to have taken a sudden interest in staring at the floor.

“Nothing mom, it’s fine. I’ll be fine,” Nyx mumbled.

“Now come on, I know you better than that,” Trixie said, stopping and turning to Nyx, putting a hoof on her shoulder. “Tell me. What’s really troubling you?”

With that, the floodgates opened.

“I don’t know, I’m just scared cause this crazy pony showed up out of nowhere and he knows my name and says he’s met me before even though the only times I ever go out is when I’m wearing my disguise and using my fake name but for some reason he knows my real name and I heard him talking to Featherweight and he was describing me perfectly and he was in prison before, right?” Nyx paused for a second to take in another breath, “I just know he’s here to hurt me or to use me to hurt my friends but I don’t want him to hurt my friends but I don’t know how to stop him and the rest of the group seems hell-bent on taking him in and—”

Her stream of words was cut short when she was knocked over and surrounded in a crushing hug. Trixie squeezed her and stroked her mane, not saying a word. Nyx could feel Trixie’s soft fur around her, the warmth emanating from it and seeping into her own body. She could feel the coldness of the robotic limb where it touched her body, much like the coldness of a strip of wet cloth. She sat rigid, not wanting to be comforted for some reason. She didn’t want to feel better, not yet. Not when things were still so wrong.

“Easy there, easy,” Trixie soothed. Nyx finally gave up and sighed out, sinking into the hug. “I know you’re scared, honey. I would be too if I were in your position.” She pulled back, looking into Nyx’s eyes. Such beautiful eyes. She wished that the whole world could see those eyes for what they were, free of any disguise or hindering. But that wouldn’t ever get to happen, at least not in her lifetime. “I honestly don’t know what to say dear,” Trixie said, “I have no clue what the right answer is.” She pulled Nyx in for another hug. “So let’s just go forward and see what happens. We’ll be brave together.”

Nyx sniffed and returned the hug. “Thanks mom,” she said.

“Come on; let’s go get some cabbage soup. I know it’s your favorite.”

One hour later, Trixie and Nyx were back in the room with the others. They had discussed over a few more issues, with Nyx being much more reserved, although still presenting her fears and worries. Over the course of the conversation, the team was still split between themselves on the issue.

“Let’s call a vote, shall we?” Trixie proposed. Heads nodded.

“Okay, all for keeping him?” she said. Pipsqueak, Pumpkin Cake, and Button Mash raised their hooves. “And for getting rid of him?” This time Featherweight, Pound Cake, and Nyx raised their hooves. Trixie took a tally, and frowned upon the results.

“Well darling, it seems to be a stalemate . . . again,” Pipsqueak commented, glancing at Trixie. “It looks to be that you are the only one that can break this tie of ours.” He gave a heavy sigh.

Pumpkin Cake, who had not been saying much during the course of the debate, twisted her face in intense concentration. Suddenly, her face lit up and her eyes widened. “I have an idea!” she nearly shouted, “One that is oh so perfect!”

Heads turned and quizzical expressions were given.

“Okay, so how about we take him in as sort of like a ‘half-member’ of the team?” Eyebrows cocked. “We could take him on like a small mission or something, and if he proves useful and stuff, then we send him through the usual induction process! We would only tell him the bare essentials of what he needs to know at first, like our mission names and stuff, and when we go do stuff he would only know stuff that involves his, um, you know . . . stuff.”

“But what about—” came Featherweight’s voice.

“OH! And of course, we’d keep him away from Nyx, cause that could get scary or something. No contact or anything, just—” she pantomimed their separation by spreading her two forelegs apart and flicking them at the end for accent.

“You know, that might be—” Pound Cake attempted.

“And we should totally call him ‘The Rookster’!” Pumpkin blurted out again, “Cause, you know, he’d be a rookie.”

The room was silent for a second, everypony waiting expectantly to see if Pumpkin was going to say anything else. “Oh, sorry,” she whispered, “you guys can talk now.” She closed her eyes and waved a hoof dismissively, to indicate the passing on of the “speaking rights”.

Featherweight was the first to speak. “Well, actually that sounds like kind of a good plan. I mean, if he does turn out to be problematic, he wouldn’t know more than any other pony that we’ve run into, and he was unconscious for the trip over here, so he doesn’t know our location. We’ll just have to be careful what we say, make sure he’s blindfolded when we enter and exit the place, and I guess we should let him know why we’re keeping information from him, cause he probably deserves to know. You’ve got a dungeon around here in case things go sour, right Trixie?”

“Good heavens no, that’s totally barbaric! We’ll stuff him in the cellar full of those horrible talking dolls instead.”

“Hm, I like it too,” Pound Cake said with a satisfied look. “It gives him a chance to prove himself before we take him in for real, not that I’m saying we will, you know, but at least damages will be kept to a smallish amount,” Grunts and nods of approval manifested around the room.

“Well, it looks like it’s settled then,” Button Mash said, “We’ll go with that idea.”

“Ahem, one moment please,” Pipsqueak cleared his throat and said, before turning to Nyx with a concerned expression on his face. “Nyx, darling, are you going to be okay? I mean, you are, after all, the pony this entire topic means the most to. Are you willing to let us go through with this?”

Nyx looked up and noticed the other ponies staring at her, some with looks of hopefulness, and others with apprehension. She drew back slightly, but managed to speak. “Don’t worry guys. I’ll be fine.”

“Just know that we would never do anything purposefully to hurt you, and we will do all that we can to keep you safe, darling,” Pipsqueak replied, the concern very apparent on his face. Nyx gave him an uneasy smile and nodded an unspoken “thank-you”.

Nearly every other pony in the room stared at Pipsqueak, surprise evident on their faces. “Whoa Pip, I’ve never heard you say something like that before,” Button spoke up, “That was pretty deep.”

Pipsqueak merely shrugged and said, “I’ve been through a few things, darling.”

“Huh. You know, I’d like to get to know you for real someday, Pip,” Button replied back.

Silence reigned for a minute, each pony lost in their own train of thought. Featherweight’s train of thought, however, was choosing to drive toward a more practical destination. He brought a hoof to his chin, eyes staring at the ceiling in contemplation, and said, “Where are we going to stick him?”

“Beats me,” Button Mash said, shrugging, and the group began to discuss how in Equestria they were going to house another pony in the basement.

Meanwhile, Pound Cake quietly hoof-bumped Pumpkin Cake. “Nice idea, cone-head,” he said.

“No problem, featherbrain,” she replied.

Marshall sat on the floor of the room the other ponies had left him in. He sat, and he sat, and he sat. He sat on the table. He sat in the corner. He stood in the corner. He paced around the room exactly three-hundred-forty-seven times. He switched directions and paced around sixty-nine times. He practiced balancing on one hoof. He tried to sit cross-legged. He gave up after he realized that pony anatomy doesn’t allow that kind of thing. He tapped out syncopated rhythms on the table with his hooves. He tested the door. It was locked. He took a short nap. He stared into space for a while. He ran around the room, wings outstretched, and made airplane noises. He sang songs, mostly out of tune. He yelled at thin air. He laid on his stomach, his back, and his head. He did a somersault. And he sat.

“AaaaaAAAAAAUUUUGH!!!!” he screamed, “What the hell are they doing in there?!” He pounded the table, and attempted to punch the wall, but in mid-swing he realized he no longer had fingers to curl into a fist. He chipped his hoof when it made contact with the wall.

Profanities echoed through the small room as he tore about, screaming and cursing. He kicked the table, which only resulted in him tripping and falling face-first onto the metal floor. He sighed out, letting some tension drain and glared at the table-leg which had dared to commit this heinous crime against his person.

“You sir, are a freaking jerk,” he said.

“No I’m not the jerk, you’re the jerk. You kicked me, after all,” the table-leg replied back. Marshall stared at it for a total of eleven seconds before finally realizing that the table-leg was talking back to him.

“Holy crap. I really am going insane,” he said, rubbing his eyes and glancing around the room. He ran up to the doorway and began pounding on it. “Somebody get me outta here!” he yelled.

Just as he was doing so, the door was thrust open, sending him reeling back. He looked up, sprawled out on the floor, and saw the same pegasus that had been interrogating him earlier step in. “You!” he yelled, pointing a hoof, “You have to get me out of here! I’ve been stuck here so long that inanimate objects are starting to talk to me! Just ask that table-leg over there!” he said, pointing at the one he was talking with earlier. He then leaned in closer and whispered, putting a hoof to the side of his mouth. “But don’t trust anything he says. He’s a jerk.”

The pony who had stepped in had taken two steps back, a look of bewilderment on his face. He glanced between Marshall and the table a few times, before shaking his head.

“Okayy . . . so that’s a thing, I guess.” He helped Marshall off the floor and sat him down. “Now, here’s what we’re gonna do. First off, my name’s Cloud Hop. Yours?”

“Marshall Bradley.” Marshall took the other pony’s hoof and gingerly shook it.

Chapter 5 (Unfinished)

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I peeked around the corner and saw her.

<There you are.>

I was going to have to do this fast. One slip up, and she would be gone, again. Two days ago, Twilight had politely said no to Heartsong’s offer, and had left as quickly as she could, but I knew something was up. She was acting too suspiciously, too out of place, and I was going to get to the bottom of this. So far, every attempt to catch her has failed, but I’m going to get her eventually, and then I’m going to get some answers.

She turned her back to me and appeared to be studying some of the bushes in front of her. <Perfect.> I crept as silently as I could towards her, making sure to roll each hoof onto the ground and sync my steps with those of passing ponies. Being an older sibling to an exceedingly annoying younger sister, I require an extensive amount of knowledge in stealth, and I have quite a lot of experience in using it.

<Almost there.> I was so close that I could reach out and grab her. I could smell the foreign perfumes she was using, even

(Unfinished)

Screaming. Celestia could hear them all. Their voices rang in her ears, thousands upon thousands of them. The voices of those she killed, haunted her every waking minute. She was so, so tired. Tired of resisting him, tired of struggling against him. She could only watch helplessly as it controlled her body like a puppet, perpetrating all manner of ungodly sins. What was it doing now? She was in her throne room, the place was once again empty. Sterile white walls echoed the sounds of a lifeless room.

Another sound, coming from the far side of the room, the door opening. A light orange unicorn stepped in, wearing the uniform of one of her generals. Her red and yellow streaked mane bobbed lightly as she treaded closer. Celestia had long since stopped trying to remember the names of the ponies she ruled over. Solar Flare killed them so quickly, what was the point of trying anymore? Well, that wasn’t the whole reason. The much more grim truth was that if she didn’t know her subjects, it hurt less when she killed them.

The pony waited patiently until she was addressed.

“You may speak,” issued a voice from Celestia’s mouth.

“Solar Flare, Your Highness, the reports on the rebellion in the North.”

“And?”

The pony gulped. “Progress has been slow, admittedly. The inclement weather has all but stopped our troops in their tracks, and with daily ambushes from them, stamping out the rebellion is proving to be more difficult than expected.” She fidgeted, but still managed to hold her head high.

Solar Flare said nothing.

No, not again, cried Celestia within her mind. No, please! Get out, pony! While you still can! The pony started to sweat. Silence reigned in the large chamber, until Celestia’s beautiful, silky, horrible voice echoed around its walls.

“I’m afraid that won’t do, sweetie.”

The room erupted in flames.

Newly promoted Major General Twilight Sparkle was standing outside the doors of the throne room when she felt the blast of heat. She shared a look with the guards. Looks like she was going to be Lieutenant General Twilight Sparkle now. Being employed by Her Majesty was a tricky business. The higher up you climbed, the more fantastic the pay became, but the closer you had to work with Her. And those that worked closely with the Queen had a tendency to die prematurely.

Twilight gulped. This most certainly wasn’t the pathway she had wanted in life, but circumstances had forced her hoof. She thought about what life would have been like, had she been accepted as a war history professor. She might’ve been married and have had children by now. What would that be like? Would she have friends? Maybe ponies wouldn’t covertly give her looks as she passed, there were so many. The lower class ponies gave her looks that said, “You’re the reason the world is a piece of horseapples, but I don’t have enough power to stand up to you.” The higher-up nobles gave looks of condescending indignation, as if to say “I don’t care if you’re a general, you’re still a commoner to me,” and the lesser nobles shot looks of resentment because she had managed to climb higher than they.

She sighed. It was no use thinking of what could have been. Because of her intricate knowledge of battle strategies and detail-orientation, she had shot through the ranks of the Equestrian Military faster than the racers in the Quad-City Showdown, and now she was far higher up than was comfortable for her. Now, her only options were to stagnate and lose credibility, or progress ever closer towards the inevitable incendiary fate that awaited her. Back out? Resign? Of course not. Ponies of her status couldn’t leave, they knew too much, they’d be too much of a liability if they weren’t kept under close observation.

A small ding resounded from the earpiece in her ear, the sound of an incoming message from one of her subordinates. She pulled open her Forward Holographic Display, and a pale blue transparent screen—projected from an implant just below her left ear—wrapped around the front of her face. On its intangible surface displayed the lieutenant’s words:

[Was just informed of a burglary near the outer section of the palace. Small core of Arcanium stolen from one of the system computers, door and wall damaged, covered by illusion spells initially. Guards report being assaulted by at least two armed ponies, one pegasus confirmed, possible unicorn involvement. Orders?]

Twilight’s lips curled into a frown. The criminals were getting bold these days.

[Perform a sweep of Canterlot, search for the ponies that match descriptions, keep it quick though. Increase security in areas you deem fit.]

It was still a small issue, thankfully. An Arcanium core was a minor loss compared to the other things in the castle that could be stolen. As precious as it was, the magical metal was fairly common now, thanks to the harvesting methods developed in the Changeling Mines below Canterlot.

Speaking of things that only those with high rankings know—if these ponies only knew about the massive operation going on right under their feet . . .

Another ping sounded and a message popped up.

[Should we inform Her Highness?]

Twilight shot a nervous look at the doors to the throne room. A faint wisp of smoke curled from under the wide double-doors. It danced lazily upward, looking as if it carried the poor dead soul within to the Green Pastures itself. She shook the foreboding thoughts out of her head.

[No.]

Notes and things

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Arcanium and Its Properties

Name and Symbol: Arcanium, An
Element category and Atomic Number: Alkali metal, 119
Phase: Solid, melting point at 678°C

Arcanium is formed by a magic fusion process. Two molecules of Calcium Carbonate (aka limestone) and one atom of Potassium taken from Potassium Sulfate (aka potash) fuse together under intense pressure and heat. It is then bombarded by ridiculous amounts of magical energy. Without being infused with magic, the metal would immediately decompose radioactively into lead, but with it, the metal is kept stable, and when it does decompose through activation of a spell (see “Physical Properties”), radiation is kept at a safe minimum.

Arcanium is only found in the same location as what would be the Crystal Caverns underneath Canterlot, had the explosion of 571 A.D. not taken place.

Physical properties: Shiny metallic surface, with slight blue luminescence. Relatively soft, slightly harder than aluminum. When in solid form, the metal is inert, only reacting when a spell is placed on it by decomposing harmlessly into lead. When it is in a liquid state, however, it is extremely reactive, earning itself a spot in the alkali metals category. It oxidizes explosively with water. And when activated by a spell, it decomposes into lead, same as the solid form, but much, much more powerfully. When decomposing in solid form, mass is mostly conserved, with a minimal loss to heat. However, 100mL of liquid Arcanium can generate an explosion that is approximately the same as 25kg of TNT.

Magical properties: Being infused with magic makes it very magically reactive. As stated before, Arcanium decomposes either harmlessly or explosively when a spell is performed on it. The type of spell doesn’t matter; any will do, although evidently levitation is the exception. Scientists speculate that this is because levitation does not directly affect the metal; it just serves to move it, same as picking it up. Arcanium is inert when it is by itself, but when coupled with other quantities of Arcanium and arranged in geometric shapes, known as “Arcs”, it seems to perform magical actions and replicate certain spells. A complete list of the known actions of shapes can be found below. Each source of Arcanium must have the same mass as the others in the shape, or the spell will not work. The strength of the spell is directly proportional to the distance between points on the shape, determined by certain graphical functions. The quantity of Arcanium present in each point does not seem to make any difference to the quality of the spell.*

2-D Shapes

Line segment
No effect

Equilateral Triangle
Combusts the surrounding air
Linear function
Only the air in a sphere circumscribing the corners of the triangle combusts. Limited by radius, not the amount of oxygen present, therefore large amounts of air can be compressed into the combustion zone.

Isosceles Triangle
Emits a non-destructive propellant beam
Linear and Quadratic function
The only Arc that can affect other Arcs through its beam, when it hits another it multiplies the effect of the other Arc by itself, hence the quadratic function. Also, the vertex angle of the triangle determines the strength and speed of the beam. (Larger angle—more strength, smaller angle—more speed)

Rectangle

Parallelogram

Rhombus
Produces a magically disruptive effect
Logarithmic function
Produces subsonic vibrations, but this may only be a byproduct of its effect. Dampens and disrupts other magical phenomena inside its area of effect. It is not feasible to spread the effect beyond 10 meters (produced by a 1-meter shape,) as the amounts of Arcanium required rapidly become ridiculous. (A 15 meter rhombus only has a 11 meter sphere of effect.)

Pentagon

Hexagon
Produces a range of vibrations
Linear function
Produces a range of vibrations that is directly related to the size of the hexagon. The hexagon will adjust itself to cancel out environmental vibrations, unless it is hit by the beam of an Isosceles arc, in which case it magnifies environmental vibrations. This unusual interaction with the Isosceles beam is still being studied.

Directional Hexagon (one pair of opposite line segments is longer than the others)
Chills the interior material
Linear function
The material in a sphere circumscribing the outermost points of the hexagon is cooled, and the heat transferred outward equally in all directions. The length of the long line segments determines the intensity of the chilling effect - the thinner the hexagon, the greater the effect.

Septagon

Octagon

Hexagon with a point in the center
No effect**

3-D Shapes

Triangular Pyramid
Destructive beam
Linear function
Essentially the laser spell. Arc size is directly proportional to beam size, vertex angle determines focus.

Rectangular Pyramid
Light source
Linear function
Emits a point of light at the vertex. As the vertex angle decreases, the light becomes more directional.

Pentagonal Pyramid

Triangular Dipyramid

Triangular Prism

Rectangular Prism

Pentagonal Prism

Hexagonal Prism
Chilling beam
Linear function
Fires a beam which rapidly transfers the heat of the target into the area near the Arcanium. The strength of the beam is directly related to the length of the prism. Thermodynamically, the prism is transferring heat from the target into the surrounding air.

Dodecahedron

*Icosahedron
Bubble Shield
Quadratic for size, linear for strength
Increasing the distance between points increases the radius of the bubble, increasing the quantity of Arcanium in each point increases the strength.

*In some cases, quantity of arcanium does matter, such as the Shield Arc.
**It has been discovered by [REDACTED] that if the center point has twice as much Arcanium than the others, and a spell is fired directly on the center point, rather than the Arcanium decomposing, the atoms within an unknown radius will be torn apart, generating enormous amounts of alpha and gamma radiation. Because of government intrusion and the hazardous nature of experimentation, the exact radius of the fission zone and the function that determines its size is unknown. Although [REDACTED] speculated that it most likely operates on an exponential scale. This has been used by Her Majesty as the equivalent of a nuclear weapon numerous times.

I'm gonna spoil things for you now, get ready! (Not like it matters anymore.)
Solar Flare has been storing up hundreds of tons of Arcanium in specific chambers in the six core cities of Equestria. How are these cities arranged in relationship to Canterlot? A perfect hexagon. Over the course of decades, she has been organizing the means to tear apart the entire planet, unbeknownst to anyone else. We find out why in some of the later notes.

Types of Thrusters and How They Work
Arcane pulse thrusters are the simplest engines and are powered when equal amounts of Arcanium are arranged (known as an Arc) in an isosceles triangle, with the vertex pointing towards the direction of the beam. Pulse thrusters use a single arc of Arcanium, but if an arc is charged with another beam, it will output twice as much power, in terms of a quadratic function, resulting in a repulser. In early development of repulsers, numerous arcs were stacked on top of each other, with extreme levels of power output. Such devices were impossible to control, and were banned shortly after. Arcs of more than three are considered illegal, and those consisting of three must be driven by those with special licenses. However, that doesn’t stop most underground ponies from using these engines.

Similar to Repulse Thrusters are Side-Pulse Thrusters, where Arcs are placed side by side, resulting in a linear power buildup.

Arcjet thrusters operate when air is compressed many times, then forced into a combustion chamber where it comes in contact with an arcanium arc in the shape of an equilateral triangle, where it then combusts, and is forced out of a nozzle at the end.

Ramjets, a variation, contain no compressor and rely solely on the airflow to compress the air. They work only at high speeds.

Arcane Rampulsers are a variation of the ramjet, in which an isosceles arc is coupled with an equilateral arc. The isosceles arc charges up the equilateral arc, generating a 50% increase in power output.

A note on isosceles arcs: the vertex angle of the isosceles triangle determines the torque to hp (yes, horsepower) ratio. As the angle increases, getting closer to equilateral, torque increases, while hp decreases. As the angle decreases and the triangle gets longer and thinner, hp increases and torque decreases.

Then there are Arcane Rockets, which are powered by feeding straight liquefied Arcanium into the combustion chamber, where it is activated by a spell created by another Arc. The liquefied Arcanium* then combusts and undergoes an extremely powerful decomposition, expanding at a ratio of 25:1. The explosion is then directed through the nozzle at the back. Arcane Rockets are very powerful and simple to build, but very expensive to operate, due to the sheer amounts of Arcanium involved.

*Arcanium, in liquid form, is highly reactive. More about that in Arcanium and Its Properties.

Cities

There are 8 major cities in the story: Appleoosa, Baltimare, Fillydelphia, Vanhoover, Las Pegasus, The Crystal Empire, Canterlot, and Ponyville. The first seven are known as the Core Cities, with Canterlot being the capitol. Ponyville is somewhat of a forgotten city due to its proximity to the much larger Canterlot

Ponyville
Main export: Herbs, spices, magical potions. Due to its proximity to the Everfree forest, a great deal of unusual and magical potions and herbal cures can be extracted from the strange foliage. Because magic is forbidden, these cures are in great demand for magical ailments.
Population: roughly 520,000
Ponyville is divided up into many factions, governed by the owners of each different herb or spice drawn from the forest. The Lulamoon family is in charge of one of them, it being the reason why they are so wealthy. Other major governing factions are the Apple Clan, Carrot Clan, and the Flower family.

Appleoosa
Main export: Iron, due to the iron in the soil and underground. Also, the slowly dying Silverstar mine still exports small amounts of silver, although with heavy competition from Las Pegasus, it’s a diminishing market.
Population: 110,000
Due to increasing contention between the townsponies and the buffalo natives, Appleoosa has become quite militarized. There is a Lord of the city, but it’s really the Sheriff that is in charge. Appleoosa is not a popular city. The residents are tough as the nails they forge, and the environment is just as harsh. It’s a dying city.

Las Pegasus
Main export: Silver, tourism industry. The countryside is already a sleazy mess, but Las Pegasus concentrates the worst of it. Prostitution, pony trafficking, gang activity, etc.
Population: 700,000
Las Pegasus is a large buyer of drugs and herbs from Ponyville, however the usage is mainly for abuse. Poison Joke bars offer customers a chance to laugh their troubles away for a time, with detrimental side effects such as depression and liver failure. Fluxweed lounges offer mental and emotional stability, where ponies can drink excess amounts of fluxweed tea, but leaving them detached from reality. The basic options for lifestyle in Las Pegasus are as follows: For females, basically you could be raped, or you could be a prostitute and get paid to be raped. For males, you can join a gang and end up dead in an alley, climb up the corporate crime ladder until you end up dead in an alley, or just flat out get snuffed and end up dead in an alley.

Baltimare
Main export: Manufacturing
Population: 1,100,000?
Baltimare is the powerhouse of the technology industry. This is where all the labs, factories, and plants for producing New Equestria’s technology are. The surrounding area has become so urbanized that Baltimare and Fillydelphia have essentially merged together and nobody really knows where the city boundaries are. A pony can find a reasonably decent life in Baltimare or Fillydelphia, comparatively. Still, the factories are a harsh environment and lifespans are considerably shorter. But at least it’s better than the crap going on in the other cities.
Fillydelphia
Main export: Also manufacturing
Population: 1,100,000? (with the blending of cities, it’s hard to tell)
Fillydelphia is also part of the Industry Binary, as ponies like to call it. Lots and lots of factories.

Vanhoover
Main export: Textiles
Population: 800,000
Not much is known about Vanhoover, really. Its citizens rarely travel down south, and it’s too cold for anypony to ever really want to travel north to it. The governing power never gets in the way of Canterlot’s decisions, and Canterlot couldn’t care less about it. However, lately Vanhoover has been a staging area, more or less, for the troops fighting the rebellion in the Crystal Empire.

The Crystal Empire
Main Export: Jewelry and Precious Stones
Population: ??
The Crystal Empire has been in a state of revolution for the past fifty years or so, currently led by a pony who calls herself The People’s Cadence. As such, no data can be found on the current population. Efforts by the Crown to thwart the rebellion have been fruitless, as the location of the city is prime for defense and the weather is extremely harsh that far north. Rumors on the street say that the city itself is beautiful and gleaming, the weather is warm, and the ponies live happily, although that idea is more likely a nice fantasy. Those who try to “escape” to it often die in the extreme conditions or are killed by soldiers, and those that have made it never come back.

It is still unknown why the rebellion continues to have the willpower to keep fighting after so long.

Canterlot
Main Export: Arcanium
Population: 1,000,000
Canterlot is the capitol of New Equestria. Because of the rich deposits of Arcanium beneath its mountain, it is the source of all the new technology surging throughout the lands. If you can manage to be picked as one of the researchers and scientists at Canterlot, you’ve got it made. Sadly, very few actually make it to that point. Most of the rest of the population work for the nobility or the government in some way. Solar Flare’s castle is also located just above Canterlot, and is the absolute center of governmental control in New Equestria.

Pipsqueak's character sheet, because it explains a lot about in-story lore and happenings.

Name: Pipsqueak, aka “Little John”

Appearance: Earth pony. Pinto, cream with brown splotches. Brown Eyes. Cutie mark of a steering wheel. Extremely large build, somewhat like Big Mac’s. Brown mane and tail, with a stubbly beard. Often covered in grease from the machine shop.

Age: 22

Why we like him: Pipsqueak is just a handy pony to have around. He is very strong, meaning he can move and lift a whole bunch of things. He knows nearly everything there is to know about speeders and hovercraft, so if your speeder breaks down, he’s got you covered. He’s very outwardly jovial and lighthearted; you can always count on him to crack a joke (possibly at an inappropriate moment). He is the glue that keeps the team together, striving to be friends with everypony, and while many are annoyed by his antics, they know that underneath is a pony with sincerity in his bones.

Character flaws: He loves to use the word ‘darling’ (more on that later), and addresses everypony with it, no matter what age, gender, or title. This can be highly annoying to various members of the team, mostly to Pound Cake and Marshall, the first attributing it to being unmasculine, and the second annoyed by its frequency and weirdness. Pipsqueak can get along with everypony well, but has a very difficult time strengthening a relationship beyond just good friendship. This is because he fell deeply in love with another mare, who was part of the Manehatten resistance movement, introducing him to the trade and, through that, eventually to the team. She however, happened to be a double agent for the SFSS (Solar Flare Secret Service) and set the Manehatten group up for a trap. Because of her love for him though, she told Pipsqueak to stay behind, “for his own sake” When he found out later, he was crushed. Not only because all of his current friends had been killed, but the love of his life was the one who had caused it. He has trouble having deep relationships, especially romantic ones, not only because it’s hard for him to completely trust anypony anymore, but also because he’s secretly holding out for her, out of respect for what they had, and also hope that just maybe, she might come back. She would call him “darling” frequently, and he now uses it as sort of a mantra.

Quirks and hobbies: Pip keeps a garage full of speeders, hoverbikes, and even a vintage steam-powered wagon. He runs a machine shop in his spare time to earn a few extra bits. He’ll show off his driving skills every once-in-a-while by entering local street races, and every year enters the Annual Quad-City Showdown, a race with contestants from Ponyville, Appleloosa, Las Pegasus, and Cloudsdale. His goal has always been to beat an older mare named Lightning Dust, who races in his division. He’s always been second, though always with extremely small margins, so someday he'll beat her, he's sure of it. He’s deathly afraid of spiders. His favorite music is easy rock, with a bit of country too.

His primary speeder, a Vaughnin JF-850 S, dubbed “Ol’ Bess”, is what he uses to cart all the rest of the ponies of the team around. It uses two arcane-repulse thrusters to get the job done, and getting the job done is what Bess does best. She may not be fast for the races, and she’s definitely seen better days as far as looks go, but she can carry a little over a ton in cargo, and can hold her own against the speeders used by the royal police. The steering gets very squirrily above 75 mph, and the thrusters will degrade above 120 mph. Top speed is 140, but the thrusters will burn out completely after roughly ten seconds.

His racing speeder, named Pájero de Fuego, The Firebird, is an Appleseed-Brunwick Gemini-Rider, one that has been heavily modified for racing. It has been outfitted with twin quad-compressed turbojet engines on each side, and a supercharged rampulser engine in the center that kicks in at high speeds. Hidden inside the rampulser is a mini Arcane Rocket, powered solely by Arcanium. This little guy can only be powered for approximately 5 seconds to provide a massive boost in speed. However, the legendary handling that Pajero is known for drops to nearly nonexistent, so it must be used in the straights. Top speed is 215 mph, with a jump to 270 when the Arcane Rocket kicks in. Because Arcanium is so expensive, Pipsqueak is often unable to use the rocket, even when he has an opportunity.

A few other snippets of information.

Early on, the team consisted of Featherweight, Nyx, Snips, and Snails. They started off by stealing minor things, like hitting food stores and money vaults. As they got better, they hit bigger and bigger targets, until they finally attempted to rob the inner palace itself. Due to an underestimation of how long it would take to break in, Snips and Snails were caught, with Featherweight unable to save them. They were tortured and finally executed, leaving only Featherweight and Nyx. Featherweight feels enormous guilt over the deaths of those two, and has a hard time leaving anyone behind.

In the alternate ‘verse, Nyx was first created by a group trying to resurrect Nightmare Moon, the only pony that was capable of fighting against Celestia’s regime. When they were caught in the process, the spell was halted and the group exterminated on sight. Later on, Trixie, a very rich and well renowned pony, found her and began taking care of her, eventually serving as her adoptive mother. Nyx was taught to always hope for a better future, and to always look out for those she loved. She earned her cutie mark when she stepped in for Featherweight that had been caught stealing food, taking the blame and sparing him from punishment. This was what also brought him into the group. She and Featherweight share a very close bond, although not romantically. They always have each other’s back, no matter what.

A couple more character sheets, because I think they're interesting

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Name: Pumpkin Cake, aka “Sugar Cane”

Appearance: Unicorn, with a yellowish-tan coat and orange hair. Light blue eyes, and a cutie mark of a laser reflecting off a mirror. Wears a top-hat to conceal her un-ground horn.

Age: 16

Why we like her: Pumpkin has a textbook case of ADHD, which leads her to be very active, very energetic, and inattentive to what most others would notice. While these can and often are disadvantages, they can also be very beneficial in certain situations. She is very observant of the environment she is in, and therefore can make quick decisions when required to interact with the environment. For instance, she received her cutie mark two years ago when a burglar broke into the Lulamoon Estate and grabbed a maid as a hostage. In the bedroom, where many (but not the majority) of the jewelry was stored, her and Featherweight confronted him. The burglar was threatening to kill the maid if they didn’t let him out, and Pumpkin, with her innate ability to observe seemingly unimportant details, noticed the many mirrors around the room. She shot a laser blast at one of them, it ricocheted two times, and stunned the burglar. Her cutie mark appeared, and from then on, all of the maids and servants were taught self-defense courses. She is very skilled at marksmanship, in both side-carry and hoof-drawn firearms.

Character flaws and weaknesses: Many of the same characteristics that are beneficial to her can become a vice in other situations. Her hyperactivity makes it so that, while she may be one of the fastest runners, she has a hard time sitting still for long periods of time. Her attention to all of the *wrong* details means that many times she misses the big picture, and needs others to explain. She can seem superficial at times, and sometimes has a hard time communicating to others, given her inability to translate her rapid-fire thoughts into words, giving her a Jeff Goldblum-like stutter. However, she tries as hard as she can to speak her mind, leading to strings of words spewing out much faster than most others can register.

Name: Pound Cake, aka “Butter Brain” (not intended to be insulting, only used because it rhymes with Sugar Cane)

Appearance: Pegasus, cream coat with dark brown hair and eyes. Cutie mark of a stick of dynamite, gained when he got his hooves on some black powder and made his first explosive. (Of course, this explosive landed him in the hospital with burst eardrums and a shattered leg, giving him a slight limp and sometimes hardness of hearing.)

Why we like him: Poundy is great for making sure whatever is in your way is no longer in your way. He has a sixth sense for explosives, how to make them, and how to use them. He is a bit of a MacGyver when it comes to needing to blow something up fast. He has a great eye for detail, and often notices the *right* details, being the perfect complement to his twin sister, but making it hard for him to get out of situations where a solution isn’t immediately present.

Character Flaws and Weaknesses: He is a bit of a sulking kid, and hasn’t quite figured out how to deal with his life in a way that makes him happy. He feels wronged by the world, and sometimes isn’t afraid to let it know. He’s usually quick to jump to conclusions and assume the worst out of other ponies. He’s a bit shortsighted in terms of consequences of his and others’ actions (aka, a normal teenager), and will make remarks that can get him into trouble. Thankfully, his temperament improves drastically around his sister, who brings out the best in him. He can easily see solutions to problems so long as they involve explosions, but outside of that realm, if it’s not straightforward, he has trouble.

For instance, if say the two were locked in a room and needed to get out, Pumpkin Cake would try to climb through the vents, while Pound Cake would try to pick the lock (or just blast open the door). Sometimes her more complicated method is preferable, and sometimes his simpler method is.

Like many twins, Pound and Pumpkin Cake share an inside language that only the two of them know. They developed it long before they could speak actual words, and it consists of clicks, head nods, and eye movements. The rest of the team cannot figure out what they are saying in the least, despite pointed efforts.

Their parents, Carrot Cake and Cup Cake, were bakers in the Lulamoon Mansion for Trixie’s father and mother, the late Aurora and Comet Lulamoon. After their death, the Cakes were laid off by a then young and prideful Trixie (who was now the last member and head of House Lulamoon), and began working for the Apple Family (one of the Lulamoon family’s biggest rivals). When the Apple Clan was hit by the secret police for harboring fugitives and funding the rebellion, their mansion was conveniently blown up by an “accidental liquid arcanium explosion”, and the Cakes had to go into hiding out of fear of further incrimination. Some years later, two baby twins appeared on the doorstep of the Lulamoon estate with a note attached, pleading for the possibility of a better life for the twins than could be given by the Cakes in exile. Trixie, now much more mature and compassionate ever since the arrival of Nyx, agreed to let them stay. They were raised mostly by a few older couples jointly, who either were empty nesters or were unable to have foals.

It should be noted that these two arrived and stayed at the Lulamoon estate roughly two years after Featherweight was taken in. He was a major contributing factor in the decision to let them stay. During the early days of the team, with Snips and Snails, these two would have only been in their very early teens, and were not allowed to participate.

Name: Celestia, known properly as Her Majesty Solar Flare

Appearance: Alicorn. White-hot coat, purple eyes with slits for pupils, mane and tail is composed of fire that changes color from orange to blue to white as mood changes from calm to enraged, respectively. Wears a diamond torque, crown, and shoes, as it is the only substance known to withstand her temperatures when she is in her less than happy moods.

Celestia, during story present, is under the influence of Belial, and as such, has two different personalities. Her natural personality will be referred to as Celestia, and her other will be referred to as Solar Flare

Celestia, due to her rough upbringing during Discord’s reign, was a skeptical child, and prone to depression. She was usually annoyed at her sister, Luna, but loved her more than she realized. The death of her adoptive mother, Heartsong, and the supposed death of Luna left her heartbroken and physically ill. During this period of recovery is when Belial slowly started to take hold, taking over her actions and a section of her thoughts. A part of her own consciousness remained, however, and she witnessed herself become less and less in control and more under the whims of Belial. As she watched herself commit horrible atrocities to the ponies around her, and seize control over the government, she fought back as hard as she could. By the time story present occurs, however, she has grown extremely tired of fighting back. Towards the end of the story however, she catches a glimpse of Luna in the dreamscape, and pushes back as hard has she possibly can, harder than she ever has before, giving herself just enough time to kill herself in the planetary explosion, rather than be used as a pawn to take over Earth as well.

The personality of Solar Flare, however, is that of gentle, quiet intimidation. She is ruthless, strives to make any other pony miserable, and will only treat another pony well if she sees them as a pawn in her master chess game. Her one goal is to drag every single pony down into the depths of Tartarus and destroy them. She is extremely cunning, intelligent, and manipulative. She is especially terrifying when she speaks to you. Her voice is not that of thunder, power, or destructive force, but that of a calm, caring mother. It is benevolent, kind, and smooth as an angel. Ponies have been known to weep at the sight of her, and many churches have been created surrounding her.

Outstanding

by TheGuyWithAPen

Space Portals?

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5 (Unfinished)

Notes and things

A couple more character sheets, because I think they're interesting