After Twilight discovers a book that contains a spell that can take her to a whole new dimension and a potion that grants her new, mysterious powers, Twilight journeys by herself to the new dimension to discover more about these new powers.
While reading a book about other dimensions, Twilight discovers inside a couple pieces of paper: one that's a recipe for a potion, and one that has a new spell on it. After further investigation, Twilight discovers the spell to be one that can teleport her across space, time, and dimensions to a whole new place. After successfully creating the potion and taking it, Twilight develops brand new powers that are completely separate from her magic.
With Celestia's recommendation, Twilight travels with the spell to a whole new universe where she meets Kaleb Foss, a Jedi. She joins him on his ship, the Ebon Hawk, where she travels with him across the galaxy to learn about it and her new powers.
This is a Star Wars: KOTOR 2 crossover that assumes the exile was a light side Jedi who left his friends to explore the galaxy. I know that more back story about all of that is revealed in TOR, but I'm just going to disregard TOR, since that would require me to actually play it to get my info. That, and it would probably throw my story way out of whack.
This story is set very shortly after the exile defeats Darth Traya and leaves Malachor V alone on the Ebon Hawk.
(I've went ahead and marked this Teen Sex for now, and added the Romance tag. There will probably be sexy romance stuff later, but I'll probably have it separate from the main story, sort of like in the story Green. Again, this is subject to change.)
“Damn it!” Twilight yelled at no pony in particular. “That’s the fifth time that’s failed on me!” Twilight pulled the safety plugs from her ears and grabbed the broom and mop to clean up the mess the potion had caused.
The metal desk that she used to mix potions on was stained black from explosions at this point. She growled to herself, rubbing her temples with her hooves. “This mixture is so exact… I need something more precise than an eye dropper.”
She paced back and forth, for she had nothing of that sort in her possession, and she had no idea what to do. She went to another desk that she kept in her basement that had the instructions for the potion. She had found the mixture tucked away in a random book she was reading over alternate-dimensions. It didn’t say what the potion was used for, and the page it was tucked into gave no real clue as to what its purpose was. All she could find on the page was the word “midichlorians” written on the top of the page and circled.
She had also found in the book a spell so complex that it even confused Twilight to look at. It did come with a little more explanation, claiming that it would teleport the user to an entirely new place. Besides the fact that the spell hurt her brain to look at, she decided the potion would be the easier and safer of the two to experiment with first. Easier or not, though, it was giving her lots of problems.
“Twilight! Are you okay down there? The first four explosions I ignored, but this is getting a little insane!” Spike called down from the top of the stairs. “Also, I made you some tea! Can I come down?”
“Yes, please! I need to take a break anyways.” Spike came down the stairway and into Twilight’s lab. Twilight had converted the previously barren basement of the treehouse library into a research lab that sported all the equipment and materials she would need to make simple – and complex, depending on how complex – experiments.
The lab was fairly large, having been carved deep into the ground with plenty of space. All of the building’s water pipes ran across the ceiling of the lab. Twilight had them enchanted to make sure that they would not leak – the telltale sign being a purple aura surrounding the pipes. The space was approximately a 100x30x150 foot area that had all sorts of gadgets and work benches. There were alchemy tables and machines and all sorts of things that Spike could not comprehend. As Spike descended the stairwell, he saw Twilight bashing her head against a wall.
“I take it things aren’t going so well?” Spike said, walking over to Twilight with a glass of tea in his claws.
“I can’t even tell you. This potion I’ve been working on all day requires the most precise amount of ingredients. The eye dropper just isn’t precise enough, and I can’t be right in front of it to see the amount I’m putting in exactly, because it’s too dangerous.” Twilight took the tea in her magic and took a big gulp. She sighed and wiped her muzzle with a hoof.
“What is the potion, anyways? What’s it supposed to do?”
“I don’t even know. The page in the book I found the mixture in had only one thing that stuck out, and that was the word midichlorian at the top, circled. I have no idea what that word means.”
“It sounds like some sort of chemical to me. Have you tried to look at that spell yet?”
“No, I haven’t. I guess I might as well try.” Twilight another took a big drink of her tea. “This potion making has got me exhausted. Let’s go upstairs to the kitchen, and I can look at the spell up there. And thank you for the tea, Spike!”
“It’s no problem!” The two went back upstairs to Twilight’s kitchen. It was midday, so the sun was shining bright through the window. Twilight’s kitchen was glowing in the midday sun. It was a warm, summer day outside. The kitchen was very neatly organized, but not by Twilight’s design. Spike was the one who stayed in the kitchen and kept it so clean. The two sat down at the kitchen table and Twilight laid the spell down on the table, sitting her glass of tea well off to the side, as not to spill anything on it.
Twilight sometimes felt a bit guilty staying down in her cold lab on a day as nice as this one, but she really needed to figure out what the spell and potion were about.
“It’s so much nicer up here than it is in that basement. Now, let’s take a look at this spell.” Twilight unfurled the piece of paper that had the spell on it and spread it flat out on the dining table. To Spike, all he could see was a bunch of weird symbols written out and a bunch of shapes.
“So what makes this spell so complicated compared to any other?”
“Well, it’s sort of hard to explain. You see, how we unicorns do our magic is by using connections in our brains to form it. That’s how to interpret the shapes and geometric figures you see. The different symbols tell you what you’re connecting. It’s actually possible for any type of pony, be it unicorn or earth pony, to make these connections in their minds, but it’s only possible for unicorns, through their horns, to draw the power from those connections. It’s not necessarily the appendage itself, as much as it is what’s inside. Also, what makes it so hard to the other races is that they can’t feel the connections, even when they are made.”
“Anyways, what makes this spell so complicated is how it’s connecting these different elements.”
“Elements?”
“Yes. That’s what we call the different types of connections the mind can make. It sort of works like a language. Here’s an example right here of why this is so weird. You see these four symbols here, in the perfect points of a square around a circle. They’re very basic elements, but the connection it wants you to make with the points on the circle just makes no sense. These elements are what we call ‘squared’ elements. That means the connection they normally make is straight lines. I can’t really explain to you what that means, but the fact it wants you to make rounded connections between the four makes no sense. The entirety of this spell is like that.” Twilight took another drink of her tea, giving the spell a good long think.
“My… My head is spinning.” Spike said staring blank faced at the piece of paper.
“Yeah, mine too. I wasn’t lying when I said this spell makes my head hurt. Trying to make these connections actually physically causes me headaches. But, I’ll never know if I don’t try, I guess. I really haven’t put much effort into figuring this spell out.”
“Do you think the spell is flawed? Like, maybe it’s not written out right.”
“No, that can’t be true. I know that, because I know what would happen if you were to change the stuff here. If you changed the rounded connections to square connections in that one I showed you here,” She pointed to the spot on the paper, “then you have just a simple teleportation spell. Buuut…” Twilight’s ears perked up, and her eyes went wide. “I think I got it!”
Spike blinked at her.
“You see, these elements represent the deconstruction of matter, keeping the matter in consistent shape and form, the movement of the matter, and then the reconstruction of the matter.” She pointed to the different symbols with her hoof as she mentioned them. “ The reason we use square connections between these elements is because it helps us visualize how the spell works. If you accomplish these steps in a curvature order, you have the potential to mess one of the elements up. It’s a lot easier to move matter, especially yourself, in a straight line than it is a curvy line.”
“I guess that makes sense.”
“Keep in mind, this notation isn’t the spell itself; it’s just a visual aid for us unicorns to help make the connection in our head”
“Okay, but you said that it’s hard to move matter in a curvy line. Doesn’t that mean you could mess up the teleportation, and mess up an important element?”
“Yes, it does. No one said this spell was a safe one. So if we look at this spell like I just said, let’s start from the beginning. These elements here are connecting as they would normally; this is the connection you first draw to steady the matter in an object and prepare it for movement. This may seem like a lot of stuff to think about, but it really becomes as second nature as speaking after a while. This is the first step to the most simple of levitation as well. “
“Then here you have that weird circle connection thing. Also, take notice that it’s a full circle. Normal teleportation would leave out this right side here, meaning that there is no connection to the deconstruction phase after the reconstruction phase in the same spell. But this keeps the side, which is odd.” Spike just gnawed on some gems that he had retrieved while Twilight was talking. He nodded his head like he understood.
“Then this third part of the spell is what makes it different from normal teleportation.”
“It sort of looks like the same thing as the second part.”
“You’re right; the connection is the same, but the elements are different. This is… Oh my gosh, this is actually a time manipulation spell!”
“Time manipulation?”
“Yes! This has never been discovered itself as far as I know! Oh my gosh. It’s so simple, too! Let me show you.” Twilight’s horn glowed, and then she disappeared. Spike’s eyes went wide, and looked around, only to be tapped on his shoulder from behind, scaring him to the floor.
“Ahhhh!”
“Oh my gosh it worked! I was able to stop time around me, essentially making the time for me to move behind you non-existent!” She ran back over to the scroll, looking at the rest.
“Okay, so that means that the teleportation is to be used in conjunction with time manipulation… So it wasn’t kidding, this is truly a complex teleportation spell. So this… this connection here represents space manipulation, which is extremely dangerous.”
“Why is it so dangerous? What makes it so different from moving matter?”
“Well, the thing is, is you’re actually manipulating the space which the matter exists in. It’s banned from use and teaching, and there are probably very few ponies in all of Equestria that even realize its existence. The princesses obviously know, and I know, and maybe a couple other scholars. With this spell, I could take the space around this glass of tea, and compress the space to a point where it causes the glass to actually collapse into a black hole.”
“W-what?! You’re kidding!”
“I’m not. As I said, it’s a very, very dangerous spell. It would take a good bit of effort to do it, though. It’s not impossible in the slightest, but it would leave you extremely tired. But, this clarification here in the connection actually tells you how to manipulate the space around you. What you’re actually doing with the transportation spell is not moving matter persay, but moving the space around you. That’s why the connections are curved! It must be safer to move space in a curvy line, because of how gravity works. Also, moving the space around you, instead of your matter, allows you to actually move in the fourth dimension!”
“…You lost me there.”
“We may see in 3D, but our universe is actually a 4-dimensional universe. It’s… very complicated, and warrants no easy explanation. Anyways, the last part of this spell tells you the spatial/temporal coordinates of where you’re going. I really need to tell the Princess about this! This absolutely amazing! But now that I have that figured out -- and I think I could probably attempt to use it if I wanted -- I want to finish that potion. That spell would require an immense amount of energy on my part, though.”
“Could you actually do it?”
“Yes, but I would have to be at full capacity, and I would need a good deal of rest afterwards: possibly an entire day’s worth.”
“Wow… So I’m guessing this isn’t something that a normal unicorn could pull off.”
“Not particularly, no. I think I’ve also got an idea of how to mix this potion; follow me.”
“I don’t know, I don’t want to be around any explosions when they go off.”
“It’ll be fine this time; I promise!”
“Okay…” Twilight finished off her tea and galloped excitedly down to her lab. Spike hesitantly watched as she mixed the potion for the sixth time. It took about five minutes until she was ready for the final ingredient.
“Okay, so how I plan to do this, is like this. I need ¾ of what this eye-dropper drops with one drop. So, if I were to…” she drops the drop in the air and catches it in her magic “…use a magical splitting spell,” She split the drop into perfect halves, “…split one of the perfect halves in half…” she did so, “..toss the excess, and recombine the fourth with the half…” she did so, “…and tada!; The perfect amount that the spell calls for. I will now suck this into the eye dropper and then add it to the potion. Now, let’s retreat behind the glass, just in case.”
Twilight and Spike retreated behind the glass. Twilight didn’t bother putting in the ear plugs this time. She hovered the eye dropper above the potion, and dropped in the drop. The potion let out a small puff of smoke and a pop, but didn’t explode. The liquid turned from a green color to a purple color.
“Aha! Just the color the mixture said it would turn. Now the question is… What does it do?”
“You’re not going to just drink it, are you?”
“Well… honestly with potions, there’s no other way to test them. If the potion was made by the same pony who made the spell, which it probably was if you were to compare penponyship, then it’s probably a legit potion. That spell was a working spell, so I see no reason why this would be a faulty potion. It’s not very much either. Well…” Twilight walked over to the beaker and grabbed it in her magic. “I guess it’s bottoms up. Hmm… I can sort of feel the potion… that’s weird. Oh well, here goes. “ Spike’s eyes went wide as Twilight drank the potion in one small gulp. She grimaced at the taste, but from Spike’s point of view, nothing seemed to happen. But from Twilight’s it felt like she had just had a cold lifted from her head. All of a sudden, she didn’t just see and hear her surroundings; she felt them.
The sensation started small. She all of a sudden felt more aware of Spike’s presence. That awareness became even stronger, and then she could feel all of the objects in the room, and then even herself. Her eyes went wide as her senses were unleashed.
“T-twilight? You don’t look so well.”
“I… I feel amazing. You don’t feel so amazing.”
“I don’t?”
“No, and I can feel that from you; you're worried about me. It feels like I just had a seventh sense opened up to me. It feels so different from magic.”
“So the potion worked?”
“I think so. It had a near immediate effect on me. I really need to tell the Princess about this! Spike, gather my normal travel things; we’re going to Canterlot!”
“Okay!”
It was about six in the afternoon when the train finally pulled into the Canterlot station. Twilight and Spike stepped off onto the platform. Twilight took in a deep breath of the mountain air.
“Okay, let’s take the quick way. Get ready!”
“Okay, I’m ready.”
Twilight closed her eyes and focused her magic, and then the two of them and all of their luggage appeared in Twilight’s old room in the castle. The first time Twilight realized she could do that was a happy time for her. Teleportation became so much easier after she made a modified version of the teleportation spell, which modified the normal spell to actually move the matter directly to the spot she wanted, and not actually moving it across the plane. It took a lot of research, but it made the difficulty of the teleportation rely not on both distance and ability to move the matter, but entirely on distance. It also increased the range, because as long as she could magically focus on the location she was going, which worked for a good two to three miles for her, depending on the day, she could move the matter without having to move it across the distance, only directly to the final destination.
The Princess kept Twilight’s old room vacant, so that she could stay in Canterlot any time she needed to. She moved her travel stuff to the bed and brought with her the saddle bag. Spike jumped on Twilight’s back, and she galloped quickly down the halls to the throne room.
The guards recognized her immediately and allowed her through, where she ran up to the Princess. Celestia seemed surprised to see her.
“Twilight, my faithful student! What a surprise to see you here on such short notice!”
“I’m so sorry if I’m interrupting something important!”
“Oh, not at all. Even if you were, I’m sure that this matter must be just as important, since you didn’t even send me a letter to announce your visit.”
“Again, I apologize very much! It’s just, I made a huge discovery today on two fronts, and I thought you needed to be the first to hear about them!”
“Of course. Here, let’s go to somewhere a little more private and convenient for study and explanation than the throne room.”
“Yes, of course!” The trio made a short trek to the war room right off of the throne room. The room hadn’t been used for its intended purpose in years. Twilight spread out the scroll with the spell on it, and the mixture for the potion out on the table.
“So I was reading a book last night about the possibility of different dimensions existing other than our own, and on a certain page I came across this spell, and this potion mixture. As you can see, the spell is very different from normal spells, and this potion mixture is very precise in its measurements.”
“I’m guessing you didn’t bring these to me so excitedly just because of their discovery in the first place.”
“No! I was able to recreate the potion, and decipher the spell. The spell is actually a sort of teleportation spell, but it’s used to travel across different dimensions and across great spatial distances!”
“My gosh… you aren’t kidding. I haven’t seen some of these connections for over a thousand years. There’s some very complex, dangerous magic in this spell.”
“Yes there is, but it’s completely doable! I haven’t attempted it yet of course, but I know that with enough preparation, I could probably travel to wherever this spell is apparently leading.”
“I’ll have to think on this before I can allow you to go.”
“Of course, Princess. I didn’t expect you to allow me in the first place. I just wanted to bring the discovery to you. As for the potion, it only came with one thing written about it; the word ‘midichlorian’ written across the top and circled. I was able to mix the potion, and then I ingested it.”
“Twilight! That’s a very reckless thing to do! Surely you had a good reason?”
“I managed to make the potion after I deciphered the spell. I was also able to figure out through penponyship that the author of the spell was also the author of the potion mixture. I figured that the potion was legit if that complex of a spell was.”
“I can see your reasoning here; this spell is so expertly woven that it’s a lot more simple than I think even I could make it myself, were I to write it. So what effects did the potion have?”
“Well, immediately after I took the potion, I had this seventh sense opened up to me. It feels sort of like being able to feel magic, but I feel… something else entirely. It’s like I’m feeling the life-force of everything around me. Besides the immense magical aura that you give off, Princess, I can feel what I’m guessing is your life-force, which is also immense compared to that of mine or Spikes. Although, I have another, different feeling from everyone else that feels very much stronger – even more so than you, Princess.”
“Is that all it did?”
“I’m not entirely sure. We rushed here almost immediately after I took the potion.”
“I see… These discoveries are indeed some of the biggest that have been made for centuries. I’m really curious about that potion, though. It can’t be simply an increased senses potion. I really do wish you would have studied it a little more before taking it.”
Twilight’s ears pinned to the back of her head. Even the slightest disappointment from her teacher caused her deep disappointment in herself. “I’m very, very sorry Princess. But I can recreate the potion very easily now, and study it even further.”
“I would like if you were to do that. But it’s fairly late right now. Bring me another sample tomorrow, studied, at noon.”
“Yes, Princess!”
“I assume you still have the old alchemy lab in your room stocked?”
“Of course! I will work on it tonight and have some more for you tomorrow!”
“Thank you, Twilight. I forgot to mention, but it is a pleasure to see you so unexpectedly! I am very excited to see where these discoveries may lead us to. Do you mind if I take the spell with me to study myself?”
“Of course! It is indeed very simple when you figure it out. Again, thank you Princess! I will see you tomorrow at noon!”
Twilight returned to her room and went to work right at her alchemy lab. It was just as well stocked and well supplied as her one back at home. She was able to very quickly mix up a second mixture of the mysterious potion. This time though, she poured a sample into a clear dish to examine through her microscope. What she saw at low magnifications was very underwhelming. It looked like purple water. But once she magnified the liquid to the extreme, a whole new property exposed itself.
That purple water looked so much like purple water because what the potion had done was create a whole new element that functioned much like water does. Something else Twilight noticed was that she could actually feel the potion this time with her new powers. It felt almost alive to her. There was a very strong power working in the potion, and she was determined to find out what it was.
Until about two in the morning, Twilight worked at analyzing and studying everything about the potion. She really wasn’t able to come up with much; it was so different from really anything else she had ever encountered before. She finally called it quits for the night and casted a stasis spell on the potion, to make sure nothing would happen to it overnight. Twilight then took a quick shower and fell right to sleep.
The next morning, Twilight showed up in the throne room right on time with the potion in magic. It was still in stasis.
“Twilight, were you able to find anything out about the potion?
“I’m afraid not much, Princess. What I did find out is that the potion has actually created an entirely new element.”
“Oh?”
“Mhmm. It functions physically much like water, and I can vouch on it tasting nasty, but other than that is just looks and flows like water. There is one other property that I noticed; I can sense the potion with my new sense that I’ve gained.”
“I see. From this I can gather that this liquid must supply the user of the potion with something other than just senses. What is the point of senses that can only sense other things that can sense the senses?”
“Uh…” Spike scratched his head.
“As confusing as that is, it does make complete sense. Maybe if we could travel to wherever that spell would take us, we could learn more about it.” Twilight said.
“That leads into what I was going to tell you. I did a lot of thinking about this last night Twilight, and I’ve decided that I actually want you to use the spell. I want you to investigate what could possibly lie on the other side of it.”
“I… a-are you sure, Princess? I have complete faith in your decision, but it seems so… dangerous.”
“And that it is, my dear student. But I feel that this is something that would benefit us as a race, knowing what this new sense is for, and benefit you as a scholar, going to a brand new place to study something we know almost nothing about.”
“But I’ll probably have to go alone. And what of a return trip? How will I get back?”
“That’s actually why I took the spell with me yesterday. The spell provided spatial/temporal coordinates to the place it sends the user, so I did some figuring of my own and found the coordinates of our own world. It really wasn’t hard.”
“So do you have them?”
“Yes, here they are.” Celestia took out an edited form of the spell and handed it to Twilight.
“When do you want me to leave?”
“Whenever you feel ready, honestly. The thing about the return trip is, when you return, you’ll be returning to a specific point in time as well because of how the spell works. By simply altering some simple numbers, I’ll have it where the spell will put you back down about five minutes after whenever you leave. So however long you will be gone, it will only be about five minutes in our time.”
“Oh wow. That means I don’t even really have to worry about leaving for very long.”
“Indeed. This will also make it to where you aren’t rushed when you get there; you can take as little or as much time as you need to bring back a complete observation; and I expect a complete one.”
“Oh, of course!”
“Before you do leave, though, I want you commit this spell as much to memory as any other spell you know. I want you to draw the connections in your head as easily as you can the simplest levitation. There are so many things that could possibly go wrong with this spell, that a simple flub in the connections could be catastrophic for you and for the entire world.”
“Of course. I will spend all of today preparing for the trip. I think I will leave tomorrow.”
“As you wish, Twilight. I will trust that you will be completely prepared for tomorrow.”
“I will. The spell uses the space around me, so I can bring any items with me that I need, and it shouldn’t add any complexity to the spell.”
“I need to return to some work now, Twilight. Whenever you are ready tomorrow, come to me and I will see you off. I have some preparations to make myself.”
“Yes, Princess.”
“And one more thing, Twilight. May I see that potion? I would like to study it myself, and then possibly even take it as well.”
“Oh, yes! Here’s the mixture, too. It’s not too difficult to make once you get the hang of it.”
“Indeed. I must return to some royal duties now; I will see you tomorrow then.”
“Yes! Thank you Princess!” Twilight skipped off, leaving Spike to run after her.
“Wait, Twilight! Wait up!”
Twilight had first packed her stuff for the next day when she got back to her room. She wanted to make that she fit everything she would need in her saddle bag. She took only essentials, including some very small research equipment. There was no telling what sort of world or reality she would be going to, and didn’t want too much stuff to weigh her down.
After about an hour of debating over what needed to go, she started memorizing the spell. Now that she understood it, it was very easy to memorize. She practiced making the connections in her head over and over again, making sure there was no way she could possibly make an error. She first started by simply practicing making the connections in complete focus. Then, she would do something else to distract her, like read, and try to draw the connections without breaking her focus on reading. It didn’t take her long, and she was able to bring up the spell just as easily as any simple spell in her mental library. Though, she knew that the actual casting of the spell would be much harder. It would take a lot out of her, and she really hoped that she would not end up someplace hostile. Although the spell included spatial coordinates, they weren’t specific. That meant that Twilight could potentially end up at any point in the new place she was going. The same was true for the return trip, which meant that she could even land in the Gryphon Kingdom by accident, or even her own bed. Although, the princess specifically altered the return spell, which she also memorized everything for, so that her return trip would put her down right in the throne room.
When it was getting late, Twilight figured she would practice using her new sense. She learned that she was able to cast out her mind and sense things just as she could with magic. But this had more life to it than magic did. When she focused as much as she could, she could feel the every presence in the castle, including the Princess. She could feel their heartbeats and their emotions. She almost thought she could hear Spike’s thoughts at one point, but that caused her to lose her focus. With time, she figured she could sense almost anything with these new powers.
Before Twilight went to bed, she felt something she hadn’t ever felt before; it felt as if she were being touched. It was faint, but shocking enough that she knew she felt it. Something had reached out to HER. She reached out again, and suddenly felt a huge presence coming from the Princess; she had taken the potion. Their minds crossed each other’s in an embrace that cannot be fully described by any other senses. They allowed their minds to meld together and their senses to mix. It was amazing how much of each other they could know now, just by letting their new senses mix.
Although magic allowed unicorns to sense magical things, it was nothing on the level of this new sense. Unicorns have never found out a way to read minds or feelings with magic alone. And even with Celestia’s absolutely massive magical power, Twilight could not feel her magically through the castle, or even Luna who was much closer. But this allowed her to feel her teacher as if she were standing right next to her.
Twilight could sense that Celestia was just as blown away by what she was feeling as Twilight first had. She then sensed some longing to leave WITH Twilight on her journey. That was something Celestia let Twilight know. In almost an instant, she and Celestia were able to have an entire conversation with emotions alone.
“Twilight?” Twilight’s senses broke as Spike’s voice interrupted her. “Huh?”
“You’ve been laying in dead silence for a very long time now. I was just making sure you weren’t dead.”
“Oh Spike, this is amazing! Celestia took the potion!”
“How can you tell?”
“I just… can. We can FEEL each other’s emotions. We’ve been having a conversation with simple emotions, all the way across the castle!”
“That’s insane!”
“I know! This is the coolest thing since magic!”
“I want to try that potion now!”
“Tell you what, after I get back tomorrow, I’ll make one for you. We might just distribute this potion throughout the kingdom after I learn what it is! Oh this is so exciting I can’t even explain! I’ll never be able to get to sleep tonight!”
“I will. I missed this bed very much. And while we’re on topic, I’m going to go to bed right now. Goodnight, Twilight.”
“Goodnight, Spike! See you in the morning!” Twilight snuggled under her covers, nearly shaking with excitement for the next day.
She reached out to her teacher, and let her know she was so excited. Celestia responded with excitement as well, and then the two were able to express a goodnight. Twilight lay in bed thinking about the new world she would get to see on her own. She tried to calm herself down by casting her mind out to the world. She found that while being so relaxed, she was able to even feel some of the surrounding town. There were many sleeping ponies, and their sleepiness allowed her to calm and feel sleepy herself. When she finally did sleep, it was with a calmness she hadn’t gotten while sleeping in a very long time.
The next morning, Twilight arrived completely prepared with everything she would need in her journey in her saddleback in the throne room. She was also wearing her favorite jacket, in case it was cold where she was.
Celestia greeted Twilight, and the two immediately mingled minds.
“I was about to say I can’t express to you how much I love this new sense or whatever it is, but the best part is I can!”
“Yes. This is truly something amazing. I think that after you return, you will have to tell me everything you can about this new sense, and maybe then we can distribute this potion to the public. Wouldn’t that be something?”
“Oh, for sure. I can’t imagine how this could affect society as we know it! It’s so exciting.”
“I hope you studied that spell well, Twilight.”
“I know it inside and out; I daresay I know it better than a simply levitation spell, heh.”
“Good. So you know where and when you’re going?”
“Well, I can’t really comprehend it, but I know the numbers exactly.”
“Good. Then, if you’re ready to leave, I wish you the best of luck. And Twilight?”
“Yes, Princess?”
“I trust you with all of my heart, but I ask that you be careful. Please return safely to me. Luckily, I won’t have much time to worry about you. Let’s see… Okay, it’s currently 10:35 A.M. All you have to do to arrive at 10:40, is alter the last four digits to be 3958. Even if you forget those numbers, those four digit places won’t make much difference in your time.”
“I won’t forget, though. 3958. That’s easy. And thank you, Princess. I promise with all my heart I will be as careful as possible. I may be gone for years on my end, who knows? But I promise I won’t return unless there’s danger, or unless I have brought back all the information I can.“
“You have my complete trust, Twilight. If anyone can succeed in this task, I know it’s you who can.”
“Okay, I’m ready. Here we go… Goodbye, Princess! Goodbye Spike!”
“Bye Twilight!”
Celestia didn’t say anything, but the last thing Twilight felt before she cast the spell was the Princess’ emotions rubbing against her own. Then, the world turn black for a moment as the space around her was being shifted and moved at an inconceivable speed across to her destination.
What happened after Twilight had used the teleportation spell was all a blur to her. As soon as the spell took effect, she knew she was moving: and moving very fast. Though teleportation is supposed to be instantaneous, the location she was heading to was such a great distance that it seemed to actually take time. In that short amount of time, Twilight was moving at an incomprehensible speed, with the entirety of space seeming to move by her faster than her brain could handle.
After some period of time that Twilight was unsure of, she felt her hooves touch something hard underneath her, and then she passed out.
When she awoke, she found herself lying on a small bed in what seemed like a very small room. Her eyes didn’t open on command, so she inclined to stay where she was and think about her situation. She tried to regroup her thoughts; she had used the teleportation spell,and then she was moving at an incredible speed, and then she found herself somewhere but passed out before her brain was able to process her surroundings.
Luckily, it seemed she had passed out in what was a somewhat safe place, considering they put her on a bed, albeit a tad bit uncomfortable to her liking. After sorting her thoughts, she went through with opening her eyes. She was correct about the small room; it was barely just big enough to hold the bed that she was lying on. The entire room seemed to be covered completely in a dark grey metal. She was on her back on a cushioned piece of metal that hung out from the wall that acted as a bed. The only real feature other than the bed was a door that was almost within reaching distance of a hoof just from the bed.
Although it was obviously a door, Twilight saw no handle. There was some sort of thing on the door that had what appeared to be symbols on it. She sat up in her bed and simply looked at the device, trying to decide whether it was worth messing with, or if she should just sit and wait for someone to come check on her. Now that she was used to her new powers, Twilight was surprised that when she reached out with her mind, she felt almost nothing. There was a sort of sound, but it was very faint. She couldn’t tell anything about her surroundings or whether there were even other living things near her.
Suddenly she felt another conscious brush up against hers, and she retreated immediately. A few seconds after that, the door in front of her slid open from bottom to top. In the doorway stood a bipedal creature with brown robes draped over its body. While she didn’t have the knowledge to judge its gender, it looked masculine in build and appearance to her. It had a very short mane on the top of its head and a small beard around its mouth. It also appeared to have fully functional opposable thumbs, like primates.
She and the creature sat in silence for what felt like minutes, simply staring at each other, waiting for the other to make its move. Twilight grew impatient and decided to break the ice.
“Uh… hello.” She said, giving a very nervous smile and waving a hoof at the creature.
“Uhm… Hi.” He replied back. It was male, she could determine from the voice. So they spoke the same language somehow; that was a bonus already. They continued to look at each other.
“So… Uh, how’re you?” Twilight asked the male creature, having no idea how to proceed with this conversation.
“I’m doing well, thank you. You appear to be doing well too, which is very good. You just sort of appeared in the main room of my ship and passed out immediately.”
“S-ship? So we’re on a boat?”
“Uh, no.” He looked to his left and his right, then to the ground, and then back up at her. “Can you stand?”
“I think so.” Twilight slid down from the bed and felt her hooves hit a solid metal floor with a clunk. Her legs were a bit shaky, but a minute or two of walking would solve that issue right up.
“Yeah, I’m good to walk, I think.”
“Okay, good. Let’s get out of this tiny room so we can talk.” She already liked this guy: straight to point.
She followed the man directly to the left as she left the room that entered a small hallway that lead to a much more sizeable room.
What she was seeing though was very odd to her. All of the ceilings and walls and the floor were covered in the same dark grey metal that adorned the room she was just in. As soon as they entered the bigger room, there stood a large table looking object in the middle that seemed to have holograms appearing from it and hovering above it.
“Wow… I’ve been five steps and already this place is amazing. You have fully working holograms in this world?”
“This world? Are you not from here, then?”
“Well, no.” She stated simply. “I think we both should start with introductions, or this might get really confusing, really quickly.”
“That’s a good idea. I’ll start. You may call me Kaleb. I’m a Jedi master, and captain and sole occupant of this ship, the Ebon Hawk.”
“My name is Twilight Sparkle. I’m a…. an ambassador from the land of Equestria. I traveled here using a strange spell that I found in a book.”
“That just gives me so many more questions to ask. I think you should start first, though.” Kaleb said to Twilight, scratching the back of his head.
“Okay. Where am I?”
“You are aboard the Ebon Hawk somewhere very far past the outer rim of the Galaxy. I’m just saying, I don’t think you realize just how lucky you are that you managed to land on my ship while I was in hyperspace, and not somewhere randomly floating in space.” He stopped for a minute, pondering. “There is no luck, only the force… Okay, next question.”
“Wait. Did you say space? As in, THE space? The black thing in the sky with all of the stars? That space?” Twilight sat down right where she sat, her eyes going wide. She managed to land on a space ship.
“Uh, yeah. Space. Next question?”
“I… I need a moment… I’m on a space ship?! This is incredible! Absolutely incredible! Oh my gosh, the technological advances in this world for you to be traveling on the outer rim of a galaxy, piloting a space ship on your own must be so much farther than we could possibly even imagine where I’m from!”
“Wait, where did you say you were from?”
“Equestria. It very well may not even be from this dimension for all I know. As I said before; I found a teleportation spell in a book, and after much thought and preparation, I decided that using the spell and exploring wherever it lead would be beneficial to us. That’s why I labeled myself as an ambassador.”
“You’re telling me you used actual MAGIC to traverse space, time, and another whole dimension, and you’re impressed by interstellar travel? I don’t even know what to say.”
“I do! This is incredible!” Twilight clapped her hooves together in glee. “Also with that book came the mixture to a potion that gave me some sort of weird powers. The only indication of what the potion was, was a word at the top that read ‘midichlorians.’ Might you have some idea as to what that means?”
“Yes, midichlorians are what make up the Force.”
“The Force?”
“Yeah. I guess you could say it’s sort of like magic, but not. It’s… sort of complicated.”
“I’ve got a while.”
“Yeah, but we just met about three minutes ago. I think there’s quite a bit else we need to discuss before we get to that. Here, come back up to the cockpit with me.” He walked across the room with the holographic table and down another, curvy hallway, and Twilight followed. It went straight for a few feet before curving, and it lead to a single room with a window up front. When she saw that they were indeed sitting in space, her jaw almost dropped to the floor.
There were so many different instruments and panels and buttons and switches that she had no idea what was going on in the cockpit. Kaleb sat down in a chair at the front of the room, and he motioned for her to take the other seat. She complied and sat down in the chair next to him.
“Wow… I’m really sitting in the control room of a real space ship. I still just can’t believe this.”
“Yeah, I guess if you’ve never been to space before, it’s sure something. I remember when I was young: I used to stare up at the sky quite often, admiring the stars. It’s really sad how much you get used to it after so many years of space travel…”
“How fast does this travel?”
“This ship here? Oh, I don’t know the exact speed, but it’s probably somewhere near twenty-thousand times the speed of light, I’d estimate.’’
Twilight didn’t say anything. She simply stared at Kaleb. He returned the look.
“Is that surprising to you?”
“I… I really almost don’t believe you. How? How?! It’s impossible! That is so incredibly fast… I can’t even comprehend that sort of speed!”
“Oh, yeah, I see what you mean. It’s not as hard to believe when you hear how it’s done. This ship -- and most others --have hyperdrive engines that allow them to slip into another sort of dimension, if you will. While on this side of the dimension, the speed of light is as fast as anything can possibly go, on the other side, that’s as slow as anything can possibly go. That makes traveling at speeds many times that of the speed of light much, much easier. If you had to travel the speed of light, it’d take forever to get anywhere. It’s all very neat stuff, if you ever want to read up on it.”
“Excuse me again… this is just… the technology here is so far ahead of ours I can’t even begin to form the correct metaphor. My species has never even reached space before. Electricity is a relatively new thing, honestly.”
“Really? Huh. I have a datapad on it you can read later, if you want.”
“Datapad? If that’s anything like a book, then I’d be all over that. So, where are you headed?”
“Beats me. You’ve managed to catch me at the beginning of a new journey for me. I just left behind the rest of my companions to do some… soul searching of sorts, and some searching for someone.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry if I’ve interrupted something, then.”
“Oh, no worries. Actually, I was just starting to think how lonely this was going to be. If you plan on sticking around for a while, that’ll sure alleviate some of the boredom and loneliness.”
“I… have a feeling I’m going to be spending a very long time in this world. I do have means of returning, but I can here to explore and to learn. If that takes a few years, then so be it.”
“Years… how many days in a year are you calculating? And how many hours in a day?”
“Uhm. 356 days in a year, 24 hours per day.”
“Wow, you even use Standard time dating. That’s sure convenient.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, it’s awfully lucky that you even so happen to speak Galactic basic, let alone use standard years and days.”
“I was also thinking how queer that was…“ Twilight sat and thought for a moment, turning her attention to the blue tunnel that spanned in front of them.
For the first time since she woke up, she sat in silence and thought about the vast amount of information she was just forced to take in. So upon using the spell, she managed to land on a space ship that was traveling at thousands of times the speed of light while in dimension different even from its own. Twilight knew already that there was to be a lot of learning and exploring to be had in this new world.
Her thought process was broken though when Kaleb spoke up.
“So, I’ve answered some questions, now it’s your turn. So tell me about this magic stuff.”
“Oh, yes. Well, you can see this horn on my head.” She poked her horn with a hoof, and Kaleb nodded in response.” That means that I am a unicorn, which is a sub-species of Equestrian, or ponies as we call ourselves. Unicorns like myself are able to channel our natural magic into our horn, where we can manipulate it to cast spells of all sorts.”
“Wow. So Unicorns just naturally have magic?”
“Well, all ponies have magic of some sort. But really, all creatures have magic of some sort. We draw a lot of our power from around us. Allow me to demonstrate.” Twilight’s horn lit up as she attempted to levitate something that she saw lying on the console of the ship. She found that lifting it was taking way more effort than it should. So much so, that it was actually quite hard to actually lift the object.
“Oh… Wow… This is so much harder than it normally is. Normally I don’t even have to think about something as simple as levitation. This world seems to have no magic of its own. I’m having to use all of my own natural magic.”
“This magic stuff… it’s very, very similar to how the Force functions. The force flows through all living creatures to some degree.” Kaleb reached out his hand towards the object, and it seemed to just rise into the air on its own.
“As you can see, with the Force I can do similar things. I can feel a very strong connection to the force within you… You said you made some sort of potion, and that it gave you powers?”
“Yes. When I took it, it felt as if I had so many brand new senses opened up to me. I could hear the thoughts of others, I could feel my surroundings, and I could even communicate completely nonverbally with another pony across a fairly long distance after she also took the potion.”
“That’s incredibly surprising, honestly. The Force usually doesn’t flow so freely from someone who hasn’t actually trained how to harness it.”
“Maybe it has something to do with the sheer amount of magic in my world? Maybe it made it much easier, just like I can hardly use magic here. That explains probably why I’m having so much trouble reaching out with… the Force as I did before. This world is just lacking raw magic in the air.”
“You know, this uncanny connection to the Force and your magic is probably a lot of the reason why you ended up on my ship.”
“Why’s that?”
Kaleb sat and stared forward in thought. “I… I need to think on this myself before I can answer that question.”
“I understand.” Twilight sat quietly in her seat, staring into space as it was, pondering over everything again. Although she just got here and was not planning on returning home until she was finished with anything she planned to do here, she was already excited to get back to Celestia and tell her all about what she had learned in about ten minutes about this new world.
Celestia… It dawned upon Twilight that she wouldn’t get to see Celestia for possibly a very, very long time. She simply hoped that time passed much faster here than back in Equestria. It would leave her absolutely heartbroken if she were to come back to find that her friends were long dead to old age.
“You seem troubled.” Kaleb said without looking over.
“How do you know that?”
“Unlike you, I’ve practiced very, very hard in learning to control my own force, and not that of the world around me. That means I can still sense your emotions. You’re homesick already.”
“It’s not so much homesick as it is I’m afraid about time passage from my world to this one.”
“Oh, I see what you mean. But, you did take the risk to come here, no?”
“Yes, I did. But that would leave it no more heartbreaking to return home to find nopony alive anymore…”
“Nopony?”
“Oh, that’s just an expression of ours… sorry about that.”
Kaleb chuckled. He looked down at some instruments. “I think it’s time to drop out of hyperspace.” He fiddled with some controls, and very soon the blue tunnel there were in faded away, and the stars slowed down to stationary dots in the sky.
“Where are we?”
“Hell if I know; somewhere in the middle of space.”
“Do you not have a specific place that you’re headed to?”
Kaleb looked back down for a moment. “Honestly, I wish I could tell you I knew where we were going. I’m… searching for someone. Someone of whom nobody knows where he went. I don’t know where he went.”
“Why are you searching for him?”
“I don’t even know the answer to that question. I just feel it’s the right thing to do, I guess. Maybe some other time I’ll tell you more about him, and why I think I need to find him. But that’s something I’m not really ready to talk about right now, if you understand.”
“I think I do.”
“Good. Hey, let me show you the rest of the ship. Come on.” Kaleb got up from his chair, as did Twilight. “This is the control room where we fly the ship, obviously.” Twilight nodded and followed him down the curvy hallway.
Kaleb stopped at a room in the curvy hallway that had all sorts of panels and screens. It was a small room, but there was a whole lot of things going on in it. “In this room, we can monitor the security cameras and control a lot of portions of the ship. We always just called it the security room.”
“When you say we, I suppose you mean your old crew?” Twilight replied.
“Yeah. It was hard leaving behind my friends… I didn’t even say anything to them. But, I just know it’s what I need to do.”
“I understand.” With that they left to the big center room again.
“This is sort of a conference room. This holotable here can play holofeed from datapads, show us the current planet we’re on, and all sorts of things. That tiny room right there is sort of a storage room.” He pointed to a door left of where they had just came out of. It was just a tiny room with nothing in it.
“You’ll have to explain to me all of this holographic stuff. It’s very interesting” Twilight said as she admired the star map that was currently displayed on the holotable.
“I have all sorts of datapads on all of this stuff that you can read about.”
“I think you’ll find that reading is one of my strongest traits and favorite hobbies. I do wonder; do you mind if I take some stuff home with me?” She paused for a second and looked down. “Though, I suppose it’s a bit silly to be worrying about what I’m going to be taking home with me this early on. I could be with you, or in this world in general for many years before I return.”
“Don’t worry about it. You can stay with me as long as you need to. You’ll be safe with me, too.”
“Is this a dangerous world?” Twilight asked, a slither of worry creeping into her expression.
“Well, to an extent it is. It’s not horribly dangerous, but it’s not unlikely to make enemies that are more than willing to kill you. It’s just best you stay with me until you learn more about the world. Also, until you learn how to really control the Force within you, you’ll be weak to a lot of different enemies.”
“Wow… I’m glad I managed to land in this ship with you of all ponies then.”
“Uhm… I’m not a- Never mind. Anyways, yeah: this control room is where the crew and I would normally have all of our meetings and what not. Since the holodeck can project the image of the planet we’re on, and even zoom in on where we’ll be, it’s very useful for planning before leaving. It’s also great to plan out space battles.”
Twilight gulped. “S-space battles?”
“Yeah, don’t worry about it. This ship may be a bit old, but it’s still one of the fastest in the galaxy. And her turbolaser turret isn’t anything to sneeze at, either.”
“Well that’s good, then.”
“Now, moving on…” From where they were standing in the room, they took a left into a hallway.
“This here to the left is the exit ramp that you would use to leave the ship, were we docked somewhere. For obvious reasons, it stays magnetically sealed when we’re in space. To the right here is the entrance to the garage. It’s got a workbench and plenty of space to store a swoop bike if the need arises.”
“What’s a swoop bike?”
“It’s a land vehicle that’s good for getting around quickly. It’s also good for racing.”
“Okay, neat.”
“Now, moving on down the hallway here…” They progressed down the hallway where it curved left. “And this here is the starboard dorms. This ship was actually originally intended to be a smuggler’s ship, so there’s a secret stash in the floor right there.” He pointed at a point in the floor that Twilight couldn’t differentiate from the rest of the ship. They walked back out of the room and across the big room one more time where they came to another hallway.
“This hallway to the left here leads to the storage room, where we keep food rations and whatever else needs to be hauled. There’s also another smuggler’s compartment in there. If we continue on down this hallway, we would come to the port dorms.” He led Twilight down the hallway to the left, where they came to an intersection of hallways.
“This room here to the right is the engine room. That right there is the hyperdrive.”
“So that small engine allows you to slip in and out of another dimension, allowing for faster-than-light travel?”
“You got it. I don’t fully understand it myself, for the math and science behind it is very, very complex as you would guess. If you go down that way it leads to the garage,” he pointed straight ahead “and this hallway here is where the medical room where I kept you is, as well as the ladder to the turbolaser and the top of the ship.”
“Wow. So this this is a lot like traditional seafaring ships, then?”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Well…” She stopped and thought for a minute. “You’re using nautical terms like port and starboard. You travel space, like a ship travels the sea. I don’t know, I guess I’m just trying to relate it back to familiar material, you know?”
“Yeah, I know what you mean. So, that was a tour of the whole ship.”
“How do you determine when it’s time to sleep, since there’s no day or night in space?”
“Just whenever you get tired, really. You can sleep in either of the dorms, any bed except mine.”
“Which one’s yours?”
“Starboard dorm, far right bed.”
“Hehe…” Twilight giggled out loud. “It’s funny. You even sleep in the Starboard dorm. The Starboard dorm, in our world, is traditionally where the captain’s room is. Our worlds are so different, yet so similar.”
“Yeah. Maybe someday I can visit this “Equestria” of yours?”
Twilight looked down at the floor for a second. “I don’t know if that’s even possible, to tell the truth. I don’t have any sort of evidence to back up my claims, but I just have this gut feeling that my world is in a place very, very far away from here.” She stopped and thought for a couple seconds more about her trip. Normally when she casts a teleportation spell, she is instantaneously transported to her destination, no matter the distance. She’s traveled miles before instantaneously. But, when she cast the spell not too long ago, she felt like it had taken her a couple seconds to actually arrive on the ship.
“It’s just a gut feeling. I’m not sure if this ship could reach there in our lifetime, thousands of times the speed or light or not. I’m also not sure if I could alter my teleportation spell to bring you home with me.”
“Oh. Well, that’s fine then. You have a lot to see before we think about sending you home.”
“That’s true. Though, we’ve been talking about all the things I’ll see, but where are we going to go? You said you’re looking for someone, but don’t actually know where he’s located.”
“Yes. I haven’t the vaguest idea where he might be, or where he might have even wanted to go.”
“Well, I guess we’d better start going, then. Let’s go back to the cockpit.”
The two returned to the cockpit of the Ebon Hawk, where Twilight took control of the co-pilot’s seat. She admired all of the controls, wondering what all they could possibly do.
“I’ll probably wind up teaching you how to fly this thing, eventually. It’s not as difficult as you might thing. Honestly, it flies itself most of the time; all you have to do is plug in coordinates.”
“Sounds fun! No one is going to believe me when I tell them I learned how to fly a spaceship!”
Kaleb got up to look at the navchart. He stood in front of it for a few seconds, pondering something. “Well, there’s an uncharted system about a day’s flight from here. We might as well go check it out and see if it’s habitable. If it is, it’s as good of a place as any to start our search.”
“Uncharted solar systems?! Oh my gosh I can’t wait!” Twilight bubbled in her seat while Kaleb continued to look at the map. “Exciting or not, all of its planets could be uninhabitable due to atmospheric conditions, or even possibly filled with extremely dangerous creatures. “
“Oh… Well, I can handle myself!” Her mood immediately deflated when she realized something, though. “Wait… I can barely use my magic. Maybe I can’t handle myself as well as I had thought…”
“Are you normally pretty powerful?”
“Well… Not to toot my own horn or anything, but I am widely considered to be one of the most powerful unicorns in the world.” “That’s something. What sort of powers does magic allow you to have?”
“Oh, anything, really. Magic is sort of complicated to explain, but if you know what you’re doing, you can make up a spell on the spot for really anything you want.”
“Anything, huh? So if you wanted, you could say… make this ship just explode?”
“If I wanted, yeah. But, again, I’m so low on magical power that I probably couldn’t now. What about you and the Force? What things can the Force do?”
“Well, as far as powers go, it’s not nearly as varied as I bet magic is. I can pick up things as well, I can heal wounds, I can erect barriers around myself, increase my natural speed, etcetera. What really sets us Jedi apart from non-Jedi is our ability to sense the world around us, though. You were able to experience it when you took your potion, yes?”
“Yeah. I could just feel… everything around me, really. It was such an amazing experience, feeling every life, every object, every action. It was so… satisfying.”
“So that’s one thing your magic can’t do then, I suppose.”
“I guess not. So what are these Jedi you talk about? Are they like the unicorns of my world?”
“Well, sort of. Like with your race, the Force flows through all living beings. Some though are known as Force sensitive. If they are Force sensitive, they can be trained in the ways of the Jedi, which strengthen their entire being, including their physical, mental, and emotional selves. There’s also bad Jedi though, of whom we know as the Sith.”
“The Sith?”
“The Sith are actually a long-forgotten race, but their name remained, and that is what those who follow the dark side of the Force call themselves. There is a light side and a dark side. The light side of the Force is focused on helping out others and doing what is right for the entirely of the galaxy. The Sith, on the other hand, have no real sole purpose other than to do what they want. So many Jedi turn to the dark side of the Force because of how enticing the power you can gain is. It completely corrupts the individual and causes them to turn evil.”
“Oh wow, so that’s a really common thing? I mean, we have some ponies that turn bad, but it’s a very, very rare thing. Really, Equestria is a very peaceful place. We haven’t had a war for over a thousand years.”
“Really, now? Our world has had more wars than you can probably count. This Equestria sounds like a really great place.” “Oh, it is! There’s very little crime, murder comes maybe once every forty or so years at the most.”
“You don’t say…” Kaleb stared out of the front window of the Ebon Hawk in thought. For a few moments the two sat in silence. Kaleb tended to the navicomputer in front of them and set the destination for the star system a couple days away.
“It sounds like you don’t like how much war your world has.”
“No, Twilight, I don’t. As a Jedi, I was raised to defend the helpless against the strong, and I’ve had to do so more times than I wish. Every life that I’ve taken, pure evil or not, resonates in my head. I HATE killing. I hate that protecting people means I need to kill. That just goes against why I protect others, you know?”
“I… I’m so sorry about all of this.” When Kaleb looked over, Twilight actually had some tears in her eyes. “I can’t imagine having to take lives…”
“I’ve thought about this so much over the course of my life. I always think about how I could save someone without killing, but that’s just not an answer. The evil in this world is so… so strong. The teachings of the Jedi tell us that nobody is past the point of saving. We always look for the opportunity to save the lives of others without bloodshed, but that’s just not always an option.”
“It sounds like these Jedi are really great people.”
“Yeah. I like to think the Jedi order is the best thing to ever happen to the galaxy. It’s…” Kaleb stopped and sighed deeply. “I’m sorry, I don’t really want to talk about this any further. It’s such a depressing topic, and this journey was sort of a way for me to get away from it all. In the past month, I’ve had a very, very long and harrowing journey. I might tell you more about it later, but I just need to take my mind off of it for now.”
“I’m sorry about bringing it up… Let’s get on to brighter subjects, shall we?” Twilight gave Kaleb a smile, which he returned. “So are we heading to this system?”
“We are. We’ll be there in 39 hours from now.”
“So what do you do in space to pass the time?”
“Well, usually I meditate on things. Seeing as I have nothing to meditate on right now, what say we get you started on being able to get a strong connection with the Force? I can feel it flowing in excess within you. You gave more potential than any other individual I’ve ever met before.”
“R-really? What about you?”
“Even more than me. As a Jedi master, my specialty is using the force, but you have so much more raw power in you than I ever did. But, we need to harness it.”
Twilight’s brain was aching as she concentrated as hard as she ever had before on a small datapad in front of her. Kaleb sat to the side, hovering above the ground, watching her intently. It took all of Twilight’s willpower to not use her magic to levitate the datapad, but rather the Force inside of her.
“Now, it might be a few weeks before you start to see progress with this. The Jedi order usually only teaches kids, because their minds are open and easy to feed information. But the older you are, the harder it is. Some people take years to finish their Jedi training, so there’s no need to rush.”
Twilight barely heard him speak. She could feel the Force inside of herself, flowing throughout her body. It felt different than her magic did. She focused on taking hold of that energy within her and channeling it. Finally she felt it start working, and she focused on the datapad, and it started to tremble, before rising up off the floor of the ship. She didn’t let the excitement distract her, though, and she kept it up until it floated in front of her face. She carefully span the datapad around a few times before setting it down on the ground.
“Very good! It almost looks like you know what you’re doing completely.”
“This isn’t too different from my magic, really. It’s just with my magic, I have to form all of the equations in my mind and focus the magic to a point in my horn. This requires a different sort of focus, where you allow the Force to just flow from you and into the object that you want to manipulate.”
“Exactly, so you do get the concept just fine. This is going to make you really easy to train. Can you do two?”
“I don’t know; let’s see.” Kaleb sat a second datapad in front of her. She concentrated on both of this this time, and allowed the force to flow through her body and to the datapads. Now that she was used to the feeling, she knew exactly what to do, and the datapads floated into the air. She smiled, and looked over to where Kaleb was floating. She took hold of the three other datapads and hovered them over in front of her.
“I… I’m very impressed.” He said with a dumbfounded look on his face. “I knew you’d be pretty good at this, but this is just crazy.”
“I’m just getting warmed up.” Slowly, she focused on herself as well as the datapads, and she hovered into the air, much like Kaleb. “Let’s see if I can use my magic at the same time.” Her horn flared purple, and a chair from across the room lit up. She focused her magic with all her might, but could not make the chair lift into the air.
“Oh wow…” She let the datapads and herself back down to the ground. “I can’t even lift that chair over there. Normally, I could probably steer this whole ship around if I felt the need with ease. I guess I’m going to have to rely a lot more on the force in this world than my own magic.”
“Maybe if you practice your magic without the aid of a magic filled world, it’ll build your own strength up.”
“Yeah, you’re right. If I can get back to the level I was at before in this world, just thing what I could do when I go back home?! I could become the most powerful unicorn to ever exist! This is so exciting!”
“Calm down now. I don’t want to start training you if you’re going to start doing this for power.”
Twilight’s face darkened when she heard him say that. “Oh no no! You don’t understand, I didn’t mean it like that. I promise, I’ve dealt with a lot of evil back in my own world. I’m actually one of its protectors.“
“I thought your world had little crime and no wars?”
“Well, it does. But, you see, there are a lot of evil creatures that would love nothing more than to take over our peaceful kingdom. I promise that no matter what, you can trust me.”
“I’ve heard that so many times throughout my life I couldn’t even tell you, Twilight. The dark side is so hard to resist, and I don’t think you understand. Because you have such a strong command of the Force already, if we run into any Sith, they’re going to want to recruit you. Bad. The lure of the dark side is stronger than you can imagine…”
“You sound like you’re talking from experience, Kaleb.”
Kaleb sighed and held his head down, rubbing his temples with his thumbs. “This is another topic I’d rather not discuss right now. Just know that for now, I will train you. But if you ever start slipping, I will try to stop you in any way I need to.”
Twilight recoiled at the coldness that Kaleb’s statement held. Would he really kill her that quickly? She trusted herself to never get to that point, but still. He did say that killing was a last resort, though. “I… I don’t…”
After realizing how harsh he had sounded, he sighed once more. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for that to sound so harsh. As it currently stands, you seem to me like one of the nicest creatures I’ve ever met. You end evil in your world without killing. Hell, you might even be a better Jedi than I! Who knows?...” He stood up and walked over to the entrance of the port dorm that they had been practicing in.
“I need to take a break for a bit. Just… feel free to practice. There’s nothing else much to do. Oh, and those five datapads are the ones over hyperspace and holograms and whatnot. I’ll be in the cockpit if you need me.” He quickly retreated before Twilight had a chance to say anything. She could tell that he had wounds that weren’t quite healed yet. She closed her eyes and tried to reach out with the Force to him. Now that she understood how to really channel the force, she was finally able to brush his conscience. She didn’t feel anything though; it was closed off. He probably was trained to not allow anyone into his mind, she assumed.
While Kaleb’s grief worried her, she decided to let him simmer down while she practiced more. Instead of working on her Force abilities, she started to train her magic. The magic in her horn flared and she tried to lift one of the datapads with it. Just like before, she greatly struggled to even manage to budge it. After a lot of effort, it slowly wobbled to life and shakily rose into the air. She wasn’t able to hold it, though, and it dropped back down with a loud clank.
“This is so weird… This is the simplest thing that any unicorn can do, but I’m struggling so much with this…” She looked inside herself for the answer. Normally when she cast spells, her body naturally drew magic from the world around her. In this world, there was none, so her body was having to draw upon her own stores, which were very small. Did all unicorns have such small stores of magic in them? Was this even something she could train?
She engulfed the datapad in her aura again. This time, she focused more on using her magic efficiently, rather than throwing it all at the datapad. To her surprise, this time it seemed a lot easier to raise the datapad into the air. She was able to hold it there for half a minute before her magic waned on her. She was going to have to learn how to control her magic with more efficiency than ever before if she wanted to remain a unicorn.
After she was done training for a while, she decided to try and get some reading done. She resolved to pick a bed in the port dorms, since she was already there, and laid down to read. The beds were surprisingly comfortable, and they made for great reading places.
In the cockpit, Kaleb was thinking about his slip in emotion. Why was so hostile towards her? He guessed it was because of himself; he thought the exact same thing not a few years ago. ‘I’m easily strong enough to resist the pull of the darkside.’ But in the battlefields that he fought the Mandolorians on, he fell so far… Unlike he originally believed, though, he didn’t fall so far that he lost connection with the force. The council did disconnect him. But he had fallen fully shortly before the force had left him.
He knew what it felt like to bend the force to his will, let the power consume him and unleash itself upon his enemies. He had never felt as powerful as he did when he was fighting in the war. Did he become weaker by turning back to the light? No. He did not believe that at all. He KNEW he was more powerful now, but it just didn’t feel like it. He hoped that Twilight was used to being powerful. The way she made it seem, she could do pretty much whatever she wanted with magic, so maybe the Force wouldn’t pull so much on her. Really, her magic seemed even more powerful than the Force. Was that possible?
He didn’t know, but it was probably something he would find out eventually. She was progressing so quickly already with her Force abilities. He had already felt her brush up against his conscience a few minute earlier. It took many people months before they could do that. He couldn’t even do it until Kreia had taught him. That’s when he learned he could hear the thoughts of others. And that’s when Atton had showed him how to combat letting others into your mind. It’s not that he didn’t trust Twilight, but he just wasn’t ready to reveal his past to her quite yet. He figured she was still practicing right now. She seemed like a very determined individual that wouldn’t stop practicing until she could control the Force with as much ease as any master. It really was something…
The next day passed with little interaction between Twilight and Kaleb. Twilight hadn’t realized how many words could be stored in a datapad. Before she had realized it, the datapad she had started reading first on how hyperspace worked, and how hyperdrives allowed them to access it, many hours had passed. She estimated that she had spent eight straight hours reading. With her reading speed, that meant that the datapad had somewhere around seven-hundred thousand words in it. As soon as she was through with it, she came to notice how hungry and thirsty she was.
She went to the cockpit and found Kaleb passed out in the pilot’s seat. She didn’t want to disturb him, so she went to the storage room and found the food dispenser. After a few minutes, she was able to figure out how to work the thing. After withdrawing some water and some sort of vegetable, she went back to the dorm to eat it. The water was nice and cold, and the vegetable was very tasty. It was filling enough, and it left her refreshed enough. But with a full stomach she found her eyelids feeling heavy. She lay down and drifted off to sleep as her mind pondered on hyperspace, and how she might be able to use this knew knowledge and take it back with her to Equestria.
Kaleb was the first of the two to wake. He checked their flight and found that they were still a good twenty hours off the system. He sighed and went to get something to eat. He noticed that Twilight had figured out how to get food, which was good. After a small breakfast, he went to the port side dorms and found Twilight still asleep with datapads all around her.
“Serious studier, it seems. I wonder if all of the other… ponies from her world are so damn adorable.” As he pondered his question, he went to the other dorm to meditate. Still twenty hours to go… What did they always do to pass the time before? It felt like when he was traveling with Atton and all of them that time just passed so quickly. Time seemed to fly when their lives were at threat every step of their journey.
But it is nice to finally be at ease for once. Maybe this is why Revan left? To get away from everything? Kreia never did tell me…
“That old hag…”
And then she had to turn out to be evil. Well, I suppose it wasn’t so much evil, as she just didn’t want to be manipulated by the Force… It had only been a week since he had left Malachor 5 behind him. He still hadn’t had much time to ponder over Kreia’s situation. As far as Sith lords go, she was probably the least evil out of any of them. Really, she was as neutral as they came. I mean, can I really hold it against her, not wanting her fate to be determined by the Force? That’s why she wanted to use me… I was able to turn away from the Force and come back to it, and she wanted to use me as a way to end the Force forever. But that would leave everything so lifeless…
Before he had much more time to ponder, he heard the clopping of hooves on metal that disturbed him from his meditation. He stood and went to find Twilight in the main hold, admiring the center console.
“Did you rest well?” He asked her.
“Yes I did, actually. The beds on this ship are surprisingly comfortable for apparently being a smuggler’s vessel.”
“I was just as surprised as you the first time I slept on this ship. Anyways, we’re about twenty hours still from the system still. So it’ll be a while yet before we land.”
“That’s fine. I still have more reading to do. I finished the one over how hyperspace works. I’ve got so much work to do when I get home to bring all of this technology with me!”
“Electricity is still new to you, yet you think you can bring hyperdrive technology back? You’ve got some big dreams.”
“Of course. The way the hyperdrive works though is not as complicated as I originally thought. I reasoned that with the right sort of magic, we could probably yield the same desired effects that we could use for so many things!”
“Well, I’ll let you get to that. I’m going to make sure my swordsmanship hasn’t gotten rusty in the past week.” Twilight followed him, as the cargo hold was on the way to the dorm. As soon as she saw him pull the lightsaber hilt from his belt, she got curious.
“What’s that thing?”
“Oh, this? This is my lightsaber. A lightsaber is the weapon of a Jedi.” As he activated it, a pure silver blade emitted from the hilt, casting a white light on the dim cargo hold.
“Oh wow! What is it made of?”
“Plasma. A beam of plasma is emitted through a lens to focus it into a blade, and the beam is looped around at the tip back into the lens. The hilt can hold three different crystals: one of the crystals is for color, and the other two effect the nature of the blade.”
“It’s so pretty… But that sounds extremely dangerous. Plasma has to exist at such a high heat. Aren’t you worried you might hurt yourself?”
“See, that’s why a lightsaber can only be fully used by a trained Force user. The blade is essentially weightless, since it’s almost entirely energy. That makes it even more dangerous, because you have no feeling of weight when you swing. But a Jedi has the training and sense enough to feel the blade. You are correct; any other person could very well injure themselves with a lightsaber.”
“Wow… Are they all mostly silver?”
“Oh the contrary; silver is an extremely rare color. It’s so hard to find a silver lightsaber crystal. Most Jedi use blue, green, or yellow, and Sith generally use red blades. The color doesn’t so much determine anything, though. I’ve known many Jedi who used red blades, simply because they prefer the color red. In the Jedi order, the three normal colors typically represent the sort of class of Jedi you are.”
“Blue blades are typically used by Jedi Guardians. They are very skilled in lightsaber combat, but their use of the Force is not so honed as that of the Consulars. Consulars use green blades, and are very adept at using Force powers, but aren’t as good with lightsabers as Guardians. Then there are the Sentinels, who use yellow blades typically. They strike a good balance between the Guardian and the Consular when it comes to their combat skills, but they are also very good at general other skills, like computers and repair work.”
“Wow, it sounds like a sort of neat system. Do you get to pick what sort of Jedi you want to be? Or is it sort of chosen for you?”
“The Order lets Jedi pick for themselves, but you can typically know what sort of Jedi you would be. I was never the best at lightsaber combat, but I was always great with my Force abilities. That lead me to know that I was to become a Consular.”
“But didn’t you say you were a Jedi Master? Or is that a rank?”
“Well, it is a rank, but it’s also a furthered Jedi Consular. I am much more powerful than the typical Consular.”
“I see. What do you think I would be?”
“From the one day I’ve known you, I’d say probably a Consular. But, who knows? I’ve never seen you wield a lightsaber before. I don’t know how you would handle situations. We’ll come to that road when we cross it.”
“Okay. I think I’ll watch you practice while I read.” She returned with the other four datapads and sad down and watched as Kaleb closed his eyes and swung at enemies only he could see.
“Oh, I was going to ask you,” he said, dodging an invisible lightsaber, ”how did you manage to read a seven-hundred thousand word datapad so quickly?” He swung at the enemy, which presumably died as he ducked under a swing from behind and retaliated with a backwards swing of his own while bending over backwards.
“Remember I told you, reading is my thing.” She giggled and continued to read, converse, and watch him all at the same time. “You know, for fighting invisible enemies, you don’t seem so bad at swordsmanship.”
“Always train to make your weaknesses your strengths. A wise person once told me that, and I guess I took it to heart, heh.” Makes me laugh, now that I think about it; Kreia seemed so surprised at how good I had become at lightsaber combat when we last fought on Malachor 5. I guess she didn’t think I ever listened to her.
“I see. Do you mind if I try it?”
“The lightsaber? Sure, I guess. But please be very careful with it. Not for its sake, but for your own.”
“I promise I will handle it with care.” Kaleb walked over and handed it to her. She grabbed it in her magic and twisted the hilt around, examining it.
“I thought you couldn’t use your magic?”
“Well, usually how unicorns handle things is they just throw excess amounts of magic at spells to make them function correctly. I learned that if you use your magic more efficiently, you don’t have to use but a small fraction of the amount of magic. It’s something to get used to, I guess. How do you turn this thing on?”
“There’s a switch. Press it.” As soon as he said that, the blade turned on and startled Twilight. She held it in her magic grasp and stared in awe at the beauty of the silver blade.
“It’s gorgeous; such an ingenious weapon. This blade is hot and concentrated enough to cut through pretty much anything, but it’s crafted with such care and delicacy that only the most finesse of users can properly wield them…” She swung the blade around, taking note of the lack of mass behind the swing.
“What does it feel like if two blades collide?”
“See, it’s a really weird feeling. It’s weightless and offers no resistance in the swing, but when it contacts another blade, they clash just as two metal swords would. It’s something to get used to.”
“I’m very impressed. Brutality and elegance, all wrapped up in one small package.” She switched the blade off and handed it back to Kaleb, who then again switched it on and got immediately back to training.
“It’s nice that you really get it. So many Jedi, even Guardians, just don’t have the right respect for their blades, I feel. That respect will get you a long ways in learning to use one.”
“Do you have any extras?”
“Oh do I. I’ve collected oodles of lightsabers and parts over the course of my journey. I won’t allow you to have one though, until you’ve reached that step in your training. There is a way to go about this, and you will get there eventually, I promise.”
“I understand.” As Kaleb practiced, Twilight read up on how holograms worked. For a good solid hour, the two said nothing else and kept to their activities. Kaleb eventually tired out and got water from the food storage and took a break.
“Man, you weren’t kidding when you said you can read. You’re already almost a hundred thousand words in, and it’s only been an hour!”
“I’m a scholar by nature.” She said simply, her eyes moving almost unnaturally fast across the screen, taking in the information. “Oh, that reminds me, what did you do with my saddlebags? I brought some of my own reading material, as well as some scrolls and quills for note taking.”
“Oh, your bag is still in the medical room. If you want, I can give you a blank datapad to record anything you feel necessary on. They can hold a lot more than a scroll.”
“Thanks, but I’ll stick to scroll and quill.” She continued reading.
Kaleb shrugged and went back to the cockpit. The remainder of the trip was mostly Twilight reading and Kaleb training. They both met up coincidentally to eat, and then went to their separate dorms to sleep away the rest of the trip.
Sleep did not come quickly for Twilight, who was only half way through her datapad on how blasters worked. She yawned and took a sip of the coffee that she had found in the food stock and prepared. It was much stronger than any other coffee she had ever had before, but it was absolutely delicious for that fact. Twilight loved a strong cup of Joe.
She took a moment to set the datapad down and rub the sleep from her eyes, and before she could get back to it, Kaleb stepped in the room wearing night clothes.
“Weren’t you going to go to sleep?” He asked her. “Tomorrow is likely to be a very busy day, and you’ll need all the rest you can get.”
“Weren’t YOU going to sleep as well? I’ll be fine. I’m not stranger to late nights and busy days. Besides, I’m a little nervous about tomorrow, so I decided to make this coffee and do some more reading.”
“Why are you nervous?”
“Well, from the way you described this world, it’s likely to be a lot more dangerous than my own. I just have this feeling we’re going to get into some sort of battle, and I’m afraid of what might happen. It’s not so much that I might get hurt, but more that I really don’t want to hurt anything or anyone, you know?”
“That’s a problem I’ve been wrestling for years. I promise that our relations will be a diplomatic as possible. As a Jedi Consular, I aim to solve any problem with words over combat. But, sometimes that’s just not an option; I can’t promise you anything about tomorrow.”
“I understand.” Twilight yawned again, her eyes starting to get painfully heavy.
“You can stay on the ship tomorrow, if you’d like. “ He offered.
“No. I will not stay on the ship. Besides the fact that you might need help, I can’t allow myself to sit idle while there are things to be discovered for the first time. I’ll do whatever I need to help you out, Kaleb. If that means getting a little rough, I’ll just have to learn to live with it.”
Kaleb shook his head and went to step out of the room. Twilight heard him mumble very quietly before stepping out of sight, “It’s not something you can learn to live with…”
Twilight pondered the statement for a moment before finishing her coffee and setting the cup to the side. She looked at the datapad in front of her and ignited her magic, lifting it into the air. She hadn’t done much to work on improving how much she could do with her magic today. She wish she had worked a little more, but hindsight is 20/20 she figured. For all she knew, the planets could be uninhabitable, and they might have come all the way out here for nothing.
If she kept fretting over it, she’d never get to sleep. She sighed and laid the datapad on the ground and then settled in against the bed. The ship maintained a perfect temperature, so no sheets were needed to stay comfortable.
Over in the starboard dorm, Kaleb lay on his own bed. It was so rare to find someone with as much power and potential as Twilight with no blood on their hands… or hooves, as it were. Was it fair to her that she landed on his ship, where danger was imminent, and the only way to protect yourself was through killing?
It was her decision to come to this world, though, and if she’d landed somewhere other than his ship, there’s no telling what she’d be experiencing right now. The Force had its reasons for putting her with him. The fact that she had managed to land on his ship in mid warp is no mere coincidence.
Though Kreia was confirmed evil, Kaleb still felt an attachment to her. The bond that they shared was broken at that last fight, but he still felt the need to ask himself what she would say in this situation. He knew exactly what she would say, and he could even hear her say it.
“This Twilight Sparkle is perfectly naïve about this world that you can bend her to your will easily. Use her correctly, and she might become the most powerful ally you could imagine.” Along with some other stuff about how she should only be used, not befriended. Her wisdom was great and her advice was always sound. The only problem was the morality question.
Kreia would have scoffed at him for caring about letting her dirty her own hooves, and probably rightfully so. But still, it’s something he was having an awfully hard time getting off of his mind…
Eventually, with enough will power, Kaleb was able to clear his mind and fall asleep. The ship was set to sound a wakeup call when they were within an hour of the planet. As Kaleb drifted to sleep, his dreams began to fill with images of purple ponies.
Twilight gently awoke from her sleep as she heard the sounds of Kaleb’s movements in the main hull. She yawned and sat up in the bed, trying to blink the haziness away. She slowly made her away out of bed and to the cargo hold to make another round of coffee to ease the waking up process.
She took the brush and mirror she had with her from her bags she brought with her and made sure her mane wasn’t sticking up all over the place. She took her cup of coffee to the cockpit where Kaleb was sitting in the pilot’s seat, looking at a small screen.
“Good morning, sleepy head. We’re about thirty minutes from the system. When we drop out of hyperspace into the system, we’ll be able to gauge whether or not any of the planets are even safe for us to land on.”
“What are the chances of a habitable planet?”
“Not too low. Maybe one in every fifteen or so, give or take. That’s only for our kind, too. There’s a lot of planets that have fully sentient species that live there, but the atmosphere is completely toxic for us oxygen breathers.”
“It would sure be disappointing if none of the planets were habitable. I was really hoping to get in some study of a new species.”
“We’ll just have to see.” Twilight took a seat in the co-pilot’s chair, sipping on her coffee as she watched the blue shifted galaxy zoom past them at speeds she still had trouble comprehending, even having read several hundred thousand words on how it worked. She really hoped that she would get to meet a whole new species in the system they were traveling to.
Though, she hadn’t even really thought about the new species that was sitting right next to her. Humans were completely brand new to her, and she hadn’t done any real “study” so far. Maybe it was just the fact that Kaleb was already somewhat of a friend to her that it would seem too awkward? Maybe she would get to spend plenty of time observing humans on their travels, and she wouldn’t have to study Kaleb. Just putting a name with the word studying just made things really awkward.
“Hey Kaleb.” Twilight broke the silence they had, her curiosity starting to take hold of her mind.
“Yeah, what is it?”
“Are humans like you a dominant species in the galaxy?”
“Well, I’d say so. Humans are probably one of, if not the most widespread sentient species in the galaxy. Now, there’s many, many different sort of races of humans. It’s hard to nail it down because of interracial breeding and all of that, but there are some races that like to consider themselves separate. A lot of Mandalorians, for example, are human but claim to have Mandalorian blood. “
“I see. With you as my only example, so far, I guess I was just curious about humans as a species. I’ve been so excited to meet new species, when I’ve seem to forgotten that I’m accompanying one right now.”
“Yeah. You’ll get to know humans very well in our ventures, I’d bet.”
“Good.” Twilight went back to her room and unpacked anything unnecessary from her saddle bags onto her bed, so that she could carry anything that she needed to. She had one bag set aside specifically to carry anything they might find and need to carry, so it was left empty. The other was packed with a quill and a rolled up parchment for note taking, as well as the only datapad she had not read yet; a guide to many different planets and governments in the galaxy. In hindsight, Twilight felt she should have read it first, but it was no real big deal. Kaleb could probably tell her anything she needed to know if it was urgent.
After double checking her three items, she put the saddlebag on and returned to the cockpit. Kaleb was standing at a galaxy map.
“I’m packed and ready.”
“What all are you bringing?” He asked, not looking away from the map.
“A pre-inked quill and rolled up parchment, as well as the datapad you gave me on governments and planets.”
“You’ll need one more thing, though. One second, I’ll be right back.” He left the map, and Twilight began to study it while she waited for him to return. It was very interesting to see a map of a galaxy on a 2D surface. Kaleb wasn’t lying, though: they were right on the edge of the galaxy, and the ship’s icon was almost off the map.
“Okay, I’m back, and I brought you something.” Kaleb stepped back into the cockpit and handed Twilight a sword. She took it in her magic and studied it. It was a fairly long blade with an unbelievably sharp edge, and the blade seemed to hum with energy. The hilt was wrapped in a red material and the guard and weight at the bottom were both black. From what she could tell, there was also a compartment in the hilt of the sword.
“That’s a modified vibrosword. It’s cortosis woven to prevent damage by lightsabers, and it has an ion field around the blade which is good for decimating energy shields and droids.”
“Energy shield?”
“Yeah. Energy shields are a great counter to blasters, and even lightsabers. Swords will cut right through them, though.”
“And you did say droids?”
“Oh yeah. Droids are very, very common throughout the galaxy. They’re made to serve all sorts of functions, from repairing ships to acting as translators, and then there’s all sorts of types of battle droids.”
“Wow. Thank you for the sword, then.”
“Hopefully you won’t need to use it for any other means than as a tool. Here’s a sheath for it, too.” Twilight wrapped the sheath around her fuselage and under her saddlebags, and made sure she could draw it with her magic easily enough. When satisfied, she turned towards the window in the front.
“So, how far are we to the system?”
“Oh, about five minutes, I’d say. Then it could take us anywhere up to another twenty or so minutes to travel to any individual planet in the system once we’re there, since we don’t want to jump into hyperspace in-system. If you’re not careful, you could miss the planet by more than a few million kilometers.”
They sat back in their chairs, and after another five minutes, Kaleb brought the Ebon Hawk out of hyperspace, and the passing stars slowed down and the blue-shifted sky turned black. Now that they were still, Twilight could look into space and see it for what it really was. It was such an amazing site, but she wished she had a better view than from the tiny window of the ship.
Kaleb got up and went to the galaxy map and changed some settings. The computer did some scans of the system, and a map of the star system they were currently in came up instead.
“Okay. We have a blue dwarf star which we already knew, and four planets orbiting it. Of them, two are gas giants. One is a barren desert world, and another is a plains world with blue oceans. Looks like that’s our stop. The desert planet has an atmosphere that could sustain oxygen breathing organisms, so let’s not count it out completely. Okay, it’ll take us approximately ten minutes to reach the planet on engines alone. Engines are starting up, and now we’re on our way.”
“Wait, so the engines went from off to on and now we’re moving? I didn’t feel a thing.”
“It’s a smooth rider, that’s for sure. So when we get there, if we see any settlements, we’ll try and land there. Just because it’s uncharted on the Republic computer doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s completely out of touch with other planets or systems. The Republic has… fallen out of power recently.”
“So when you say republic, do you mean that the galaxy has a republic government, where its citizens elect members of government to make decisions for them?”
“Sort of, yeah. It’s not been that way for a while now, and really the Republic has been reduced to a police force in recent years. And it’s not a great one, either.”
“How many different governments are there in the galaxy?”
“Not too many. Really, Republic space isn’t so much strictly governed. It’s more of a coalition between planets. There are a lot of planets that technically fall under Republic jurisdiction, but no one says anything about what they do. I really hope that after the last big victory a few weeks ago, and the reestablishing of some power in the Republic will help it to sustain itself long enough that it can start to rise of the rut it’s been in.”
“It sounds really complicated.”
“It is. That’s why I would not make a great politician. Oh, there it is! You can see the planet coming up now.” Twilight returned her attention to the space in front of them, and saw a small blue dot had come into vision. As the minutes wore on, the small blue dot grew into the image of a planet with about 50% oceans and 50% land, with frozen polar regions.
“Wow… this is the first time I’ve ever seen a planet from space before. It’s so pretty…”
“It is. Scans show that the oxygen levels are three times that on this ship. Be prepared to be a little light headed when we first land.”
“Will do. Oh, this is so exciting!” The ship decended upon the planet, and after another couple of minutes they were breaking into the atmosphere. The ships hull began to glow a light red color, but it made no signs of causing it any harm at all.
A lot of the planet had a cloud cover, but still a lot was visible as they descended, and Twilight could see more and more features become visible. After couple of minutes and very specific details were becoming visible, and Twilight could see that they were landing in what did appear to be a settlement. The ground got closer and closer, and finally the ships landing gear extended and a light thump shook the ship as they made contact with the ground.
“Okay, this was the first settlement that I found on descent, but there are a lot more. Size wise, this is about a medium sized settlement, relative to the rest of them on the planet. Are you ready to head out?”
“I am! Let’s go!” Twilight and Kaleb made their way to the ramp, which had extended upon landing Twilight’s eyes took a moment to adjust as she stepped into the sun for the first time in a while. They had landed in what appeared to be an area specifically for docking ships, though it was vacant to any other but their own. It was actually vacant to anything but them and their ship.
“Strange, I don’t see or sense any living creatures here… This doesn’t feel right at all. We should investigate.”
“That’s really creepy, but okay. Why do you think there’s nop-body here?”
“I don’t know… There’s a few reasons I could think of, and I don’t like any of them. Let’s go.”
They first took to looking around the dock. This specific one had spots for four ships, with computer terminals at all four spots. The walled-in dock had one exit near the far spot where they had landed. The door lead to a very large and open hallway. It was very wide; so wide, that it could almost be called a street. The floor was lined in a stone, and there were many doors all the way down the hallway. It looked like an area that should have been very busy.
“This is getting worse by the second.” Kaleb said, looking around and trying to reach out to sense anybody. “It couldn’t have been a bombardment, or there would be damage and bodies. There could have been an evacuation, maybe. With the absence of bodies, my worst fear is probably not an option either.”
“And what would that be?”
“Well, there was a Sith lord that my companions and I had to fight a month or two back now. His name was Darth Nihilus, and he was… Well, he was a human at some point. He was a wound in the Force, and held a very great, awful power. He had a hunger that needed sating, and that came in the form of devouring the Force from planets, essentially sucking all of the life from them. It’s a truly terrible thing to come across a world that has had the Force drained from it.”
“That sounds absolutely awful.”
“It is, and I’m glad that’s not the case here. Besides the fact that there would still be bodies, the Force still flows here. My guess is that there was an evacuation from some sort of danger. Before we try any other settlements, let’s look around here and see if we can’t find the reason that all of these people had to leave.”
“I don’t see any indicators of fighting. Blasters would leave burn marks all over, and this place looks as pristine as if someone built it and left it as is.”
“Good observation. You really did read almost all of those datapads.”
“Of course. I could nearly build one if you gave me the parts.”
“I might hold you to that. Let’s continue down this hallway here.” Twilight followed closely by Kaleb as they made their way through the deserted building. Occasionally they would poke their heads in rooms that turned out to be shops and businesses, but there were no people. The building was very simple in design. There was a glass roof that let in natural lighting, and the floor was a light grey stone, and the walls were of a standard metal. As they explored the building, it turned out the large hallway was actually one big square, and appeared to be the commercial district of the settlement.
All of the shops and businesses had been left as if everyone had just disappeared.
“You know, I really feel like there should be at least some signs of pandemonium here. An evacuation procedure would probably leave a mess in all of these businesses, and probably trash in the hallways.”
“But I can’t think of any other reason it could be empty. I get the feeling that once we find the residential area, we can make a more educated guess on that.” The commercial district was connected to the residential district by another large hallway, and to the governmental district by one more. They went straight for the residential, finding that it was mostly all apartments. The apartments were divided into complexes, with a door leading to each complex around the ring. The complexes appeared to only be one story a piece. The complexes opened into a foyer area, with doors leading to each individual apartment.
Twilight and Kaleb walked into the first complex they saw, which was complex L. The door was wide open, and when they stepped into the foyer, they found that all of the doors to the apartments were open as well. They stepped into the closest, and found it to hold all of the original owner’s belongings, still exactly where they had left them when the seemingly disappeared.
“Okay, I am really not liking this!” Twilight looked around the room nervously, and her horn flared defensively, as if someone could jump out at any minute. “This is just way too unnatural.”
“I agree one hundred percent. Something caused these people to leave their homes suddenly, and without panic presumably. Let’s head to the governmental district and see if we can dig up some answers. If not, I say we move on to another settlement.”
“Okay.” Twilight’s voice wasn’t as calm and collected as Kaleb’s was at this time. It was a bit shaky.
“This really seems to be getting to you, Twilight. If you need to, you can stay on the ship if you just feel too uncomfortable.”
“No, no, I’m fine. It’s just… I don’t know, I don’t like how unnatural this is. Not too many things creep me out, but this is one of the few that does.”
“I know what you mean. Let’s get going.” They quickly left the residential dorms and backtracked to the commercial district, and to the governing parts. The government sector of the colony was much more compact than the residential or commercial. The hallways narrowed, and offices and other rooms became more frequent. Just like the rest of the facility, every room was devoid of any life and in the same condition from when all of the residents “left.”
“In here, Twilight. There’s a terminal. Maybe there’s security footage.” The two stepped into one of the rooms with a terminal. Kaleb booted up the terminal, and using a couple security spikes from his pocket to bypass the security measures.
“What are those things?” Twilight asked as Kaleb started searching through the terminal’s logs.
“Security spikes. They allow me to get passed things like passwords and whatnot without a hassle.”
“Are these hard to come by?”
“Not at all. I bought many on my last stop before I set out on this journey.”
“Really? If they’re so widespread and effective, then what’s the point of even trying to have security measures in a system?”
“Oh, it’s easy to make them ineffective, but a lot of people just don’t know how I suppose. Aha, here we go. I found some logs that should hopefully help us figure out what’s going on here. Let’s play this one first…” Kaleb activated the log, and a holographic person appeared in the room with them.
“Everything ran smoothly today and Ryzan reported nothing out of the usual. A shipment of supplies all the way from Aalderan should be here tomorrow, which will give a great economic boost to Mushan, as well as increase the happiness of the residents here because of the new stuff they can get. Tomorrow will be a good day.”
“And the hololog ends there.”
“He said something about a shipment from an Aalderan? Is that a Republic planet?”
“It sure is. That means that this place was known to the Republic at some point. That log was dated about three months ago, so it doesn’t make any sense as to why it would have been cleared from hyperspace routes. Let me check for a more recent one… here. This one is from a month ago; it’s the last one.”
“Our contact with the republic has truly been a great thing for the people here on Mushan. With the new resources and ideas coming in, our people are flourishing and everything is taking a turn for the better. I can’t wait to see what the future ho-…” The man that was speaking stopped mid-sentence, his face went blank, and he walked out of the room. Kaleb and Twilight saw other holographic people in the hallway leaving the rooms they were in and walking down the hall as well. Before Kaleb and Twilight could follow, the log ended.
“Well that was interesting. Are you thinking what I’m thinking, Twilight?”
“Mind control?”
“That’d be it. These people all left this place against their own will, and then someone made sure the planet was cleared from the Republic’s database. This has happened within the last month, and I’ve heard nothing about disappearing planets. That means whoever did this knew exactly what they were doing.”
“But what could the people who did this want with all of these people?”
“There’s all sorts of things they could do to them that I’d rather not think about. This isn’t necessarily going to help us find Revan, but this is something I think we need to look into.”
“Revan? Is that the person you’re looking for then, I suppose?”
“Yeah. I’ll explain more about that later. Where could all of those people gone at once?”
“Maybe they’re still being held on the planet?”
“It’s possible. Sorry you won’t get to study a new species of alien, Twilight.”
“That’s the least of my worries right now. We need to find these people!”
“My thoughts exactly.” Kaleb let out a sigh and quickly walked from the room with Twilight at his heels. They made their way back to the Ebon Hawk. Before they walked up the ramp though, Kaleb stopped Twilight.
“Wait. Do you feel that?” The two stood still and listened to the eerie quiet.
“N-no.”
“Someone is watching us. We need to figure out what’s going on here. Come on.” They rushed up the loading ramp and to the cockpit. Kaleb started up the ship and immediately took flight. The engine’s hummed as they levitated vertically out of the docking bay, spun around in mid-air, and flew westward from the settlement.
“Okay, I’m heading straight to the largest settlement right now. It should only take about five minutes. “
“Do you think this could be of Sith doing?”
“Well, it’s sure possible. Anything can be of Sith doing from what I’ve learned. Any other time, this wouldn’t have gotten by without anyone noticing. But, the Jedi order is broken right now. An event like this would have sent huge ripples in the Force. Even people as strong in the Force as myself sometimes miss things even as big as this.”
“A ripple in the Force? So Force users can sense actions through the Force?”
“Oh yeah. We’ll get to that eventually, don’t worry. There’s a lot more to the Force than meets the eye. If this settlement is also empty, I’m not sure where else we might look. Chances are, after a month, that all of these people will have been moved off-planet.”
“I get the feeling that even if they have, we’re going to run into them at some point.”
“I know what you mean. Okay, we’re here. Let’s go.” The ship quickly landed in the city’s docking area, and Twilight and Kaleb rushed to the loading ramp. As soon as they stepped out, they both knew that this place was to be the same as the other. It was dead silent, save the humming of the Ebon Hawk’s engines. A couple minutes exploring revealed that this place was the exact same as the last settlement; everything looked like it probably did when all of the people lost control of their minds.
“Twilight, I don’t like this. Also, I can still feel that presence watching us. Twilight, I want you to think about something, and don’t take your mind off of it.”
“Why?”
“Just do it. Make sure it’s something you can think about without getting distracted by anything.”
“Okay.” Twilight’s mind instantly turned to thinking more about the hyperdrive and hyperspace. Of all of the information she had taken in from those datapads, it was still the most interesting to her. She thought that, maybe with the use of magic, she could form a spell that would let objects slip into hyperspace. It could potentially allow ponies to travel long distances instantaneously without having to exert so much magic through the means of teleportation. But, that would be too dangerous on land. But in space, ponies could possibly build magic-driven craft to start their own exploration of space and their galaxy. But how would that work, considering their sun and stars move because of the princesses? Of course, she knew about how planets usually orbit stars, and how galaxies and what not work, because that could be seen through tele-
“Okay, Twilight, we’re safe now.” Twilight snapped out of the trancelike state that she was in, finding that they had reboarded the ship ad left the planet and were orbiting it. “That presence I felt doesn’t seem to see us out here.”
“How long did-“
“About ten minutes. You’re really, really good at that.”
Twilight blushed a little, “Yeah, when I put my mind to something, it can easily not get distracted. Not getting distracted I believe is why I’m so successful as a scholar. Why did you have me do that, anyways?”
“Well, I was afraid our thoughts might be read or controlled were we to leave them open. Our minds are probably strong enough to prevent that from happening, because it takes an immense amount of power to control another’s mind, but the fact that an entire planet’s worth of people can be forced to leave without a single argument means our enemy is very much stronger than the average Force user.”
“That really is a terrifying thought… So, where do we go now?”
“Well, I’m not too entirely sure. If we continue on the path that brought us to this “uncharted” system, we’d wind up in the Unknown Regions. Well, it’d be hard to get there, but that’s the direction.”
“What are the uncharted regions?”
“Well, they’re a part of the galaxy that is mostly unknown and uncharted, due to the fact that there lies a cosmic anomaly that makes charting hyperspace routes through it near impossible. Besides: the Unknown Regions are extremely dangerous.”
“What is over there?”
“Some say that the original Sith are from the Unknown Regions. Many believe that’s where Revan went, and that he went to search for the true Sith empire.”
“Tell me, who is this Revan?”
“Revan was a great Jedi once. He was one of the strongest and smartest among the order. There came a war, when the Mandalorians started to attack core worlds, but the Republic didn’t have the resources needed to fight them off. They called for the Jedi Order to help, but they refused, because they were worried of another threat, and didn’t want to act.”
“So they were willing to let the Republic be destroyed because of another threat?”
“And that’s where the controversy starts. Many Jedi wanted to help the Republic, but the Order said no. So many Jedi left the Order to help fight the Mandalorians.”
“And did it work?”
“It did. We were able to push the Mandalorians back and help save the Republic. But, it came at a great cost.”
“Wait – you said we. Were you one of the Jedi that left the Order?”
“I was. I was promoted to general during the war. It was due to my last decision that we were able to stop the Mandalorians but… I really don’t want to talk about that right now. It’s... not a fond memory. Not at all. Anyways, Revan and a lot of the other Jedi fell to the Dark side after the Mandalorian war, and Revan and his apprentice Malak left Republic space and disappeared.”
“Several years later, they returned with a whole fleet of Sith warships and troops, and started a war with the Republic.”
“Oh wow. So they fell, formed a whole army, and returned to attack? Did they just use the old ships that they originally had?”
“Well, no. They returned with a force much greater than left, and the numbers just seemed to grow. Revan and Malak had discovered an old, abandoned Rakatan war factory by the name of the Star Forge. With it, they were able to churn out endless numbers of troops, war droids, and ships. The Republic just couldn’t keep up. “
“To shorten the story a little, Revan got into an accident, and the Jedi order brought him back and had to reprogram his mind to save him. They programed a new identity into him, and he eventually came back and saved the order from his old apprentice Malak. Maybe some other time I’ll tell you more. All of the politics involved can get a little complicated.”
“So you’re searching for Revan, because…”
“Why not? No one knows where he went, and I’m curious. I don’t want to stay in Republic space.”
“Well, why not go to the Unknown regions, then?”
“I get the feeling we’re going to have to. I’ll plot our course for the next system on the hyperspace route. This route actually curves back a little. Let me show you.” Kaleb went to the galaxy map behind the pilot’s seat. “We’re here, near the very edge of the galaxy. The route goes this way, along the edge of the galaxy. The unknown regions start here. The next system is actually charted, and it’ll take a day to get there. After that, I’d say probably another three days until we reach the anomaly.”
“What is the anomaly, anyways?”
“It’s rumored that the Celestial’s made it. The Celestial’s are one of the oldest species in the galaxy. They had the power to move planets and stars and entire systems. It’s said that they created the anomaly to prevent a certain species from spreading to the rest of the galaxy.”
“So they blocked off an entire part of the galaxy to prevent something from spreading to the rest? It must be awful.”
“Who knows? I guess we’ll find out eventually. To actually cross over, though, it’s going to take a lot longer than it normally would to cross that gap without hyperspace. I’d wager about a full year.”
“Wow. Something that would normally take a couple days, takes a full year because we can’t slip into hyperspace.”
“It’ll be an adventure, that’s for sure. Once you get to the Unknown Region, then you really are discovering new things. So if you look at the galaxy map, you’ll see we’re not far from Endor: just a little bit north of it. What we’ll do is hop to Endor, then to Bakura, and then we’re on our own.”
“Well, I’m a little bit worried now. This is the only race I’ve heard of so far with the ability to move celestial bodies outside of our own princesses, and they were scared of something.”
“I heard you mention something about that before. Do they really move your planet’s star and moon?”
“They do indeed. It really isn’t a hoax, as I’m sure a lot of people might think. We are completely aware of how celestial bodies work; it’s just that our own world does not obey the normal laws of physics because of magic. We have Princess Celestia, and Princess Luna, who move the sun and moon respectively.”
“What about when they die? Who moves them then? That takes such an incredible amount of force to move the sun and moon I’m sure.”
“Well, that’s the thing. They don’t die: they’re immortal. They’re both thousands of years old, and have immense wells of magic. If you were to think I’m powerful, I can’t hold a candle to the princesses. While I’m having trouble willing my magic to work in this world, I get the feeling one of them would have almost no problems at all.”
“Wow. I have a feeling they’re what keep your civilization so peaceful.”
“Well, they sure help, that’s for sure. We’ve also adopted a policy of acceptance and friendship as our main social policy. I’d tell you more about that, but it’s surprisingly dull to listen to and to tell.” Twilight looked at the galaxy map in front of her, taking note of their position, and where they were headed.
“So, you said we’re heading north?” She asked, her head tilting to the side a little bit.
“Yes. We have set a galactic north, which makes it a lot easier to get around. Sense it takes millions of years for galaxies to complete one rotation, it stays pretty accurate for as long as any one being need be concerned.”
“I see. Well, I’m going to go to my quarters and start reading on the datapad about civilizations and governments in the galaxy. If you need me, I’ll be there.”
“No problem. The real adventure is about to start, so you’d better prepare yourself mentally for some pretty hardcore stuff.”
“Don’t you worry about me; I’ll be fine. But – thanks anyways.” Twilight smiled. “Well, I’m off to read. See ya’.”
“Goodnight, Twilight.” As Twilight clopped down the hallway, Kaleb went to the pilot’s chair and programmed in the coordinates in the computer. After getting it all settled, he sat back in the chair and kicked his legs up.
“I know I’m going to need to prepare myself mentally…”
