> My Little Portal-Break: Portal-Broken
>  by shieldgenerator7
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Chapter 1: Arrival
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Somewhere, on the edge of Ponyville, a space-time distortion formed. One little pony stopped to watch it form. The image of the edge of the Everfree Forest twisted and soon became enveloped in a view of someplace other than the Everfree Forest. How it was happening was a mystery to the little colt. 
Trotting closer, the colt went up to it. Coincidentially, at this point in time it fully opened and a tall red-headed man stared into the sky. 
The colt cowered, took a step back, and scurried a little distance away, not knowing what to do or think. It would have run away in fear if it weren’t for its blinding drive to satisfy its itch of curiosity.
The colt stared at the two-legged being standing before it in a circular archway to another location – actually a whole other world. He stood about 6 feet tall and wore sneakers, jeans, and a t-shirt. The symbol on his shirt bore a cross-embellished shield. The figure didn’t even notice the curious colt as he stared into the Equestrian sky.
“Ah,” he breathed in a deep breath. “Equestria, it’s good to see you again.” He then stuck his hand in his pocket and pulled out a slab of some kind. It was black but somehow cast a light glow on his face, which changed colors as he rubbed his finger tip on it. “So, just a quick check up on Equestria, and then it’s off to the Mushroom Kingdom to solve some sort of block ghosting glitch. Sounds like an interesting day.” 
He pocketed his slab and walked through the archway, waving his hand behind him briefly. The archway closed and the view of the Everfree Forest was restored. As he walked forward, he noticed the hiding colt. 
“Hey, you look scared,” he said, crouching down to the colt’s eye level. “Is there something wrong?”
“W-what are you?” it said.
He gave a quizzical look, and then stood up again. Putting his hand to his full-fledged beard, he whispered audibly to himself. “I’ve been here before and never got asked that question… Is there something I’m forgetting?” After staring off into the distance for a little bit, he took his hand off his beard and stared at it. “Oh, that’s right! Haha! I forgot. I was a pony last time I came here. What happened this time? Oh, right. I used the general coordinates from the portal gate room, instead of using the ancient pony-portal that automatically transforms its passers-through.”
“So, you’re not a pony?”
He crouched down and looked it in the eye. “Uh, no.” He looked at the colt’s reaction and could tell that his presence wouldn’t be handled well by the ponies of Ponyville if he remained human during his visit. “Hey, I need to find Twilight Sparkle. Do you know where she is?”
The colt nodded.
“Where is she?”
“In the library, most likely.”
“Ok, thanks,” he looks around, trying to see the library from this side of town. “Hey, where are we exactly?”
“On the south-east side of town, near the Everfree Forest.”
“Ok, thanks,” he patted the colt on the head as he opened a portal from where he stood to about 10 feet above him. “Ok, looking through this portal here… Aha! The library should be in this direction at this angle…” He opened another portal that opened up into the Ponyville Library. He closed the viewing portal and turned to the colt. Generating a small stone out of electro-magnetic energy, he held it out in his hand for the colt to take. “Here, take this. If ever you’re in trouble, activate this and you will be protected.”
The colt looked into his eyes curiously and then turned his attention to the shield stone. He looked back at him as if to say, “Really?”
“Go on, take it. As a token of appreciation for helping me out.”
The colt smiled and gleefully bit the stone. 
He patted it on the head before disappearing through the portal, which closed right behind him.
Inside the library, he could hear voices above him. Somehow, he had gotten the wrong angle and had portaled into the basement. Nonetheless, the voices were distinct. He heard Twilight’s voice, and some other pony’s voice. They were arguing, and, not wanting to disrupt or intervene, he decided to take a short break before asking Twilight for any official news.
He decided the Sugar Cube Corner would be the perfect place to do so. Opening a portal there would be easy, since he had done it before from the library. In fact, all he had to do was find the space-time distortion left by his previous portal and reopen it. “Easy as pie.” 
The portal opened up to the stair case to the living quarters above the shop.
“OOF!” he reacted as a tower of towels attacked him and knocked him onto the stairs.
“Who’s there?” came a high-pitched muffled-by-the-towels voice. “What are you doing in my home?!”
“Oh hey, Pinkie Pie!”
“Heeeeyyy…..” she muttered, trying to place where she knew that voice. “I know that voice… Shield?” Before he could respond, Pinkie had dropped all the towels that were blocking her view. Getting a good look at him, she gasped. “GAH! You’re not Shield! Who are you? What are you? The stair monster?!”
“Pinkie, it’s me, Shield,” he put his hands out horizontally palms down and made a slight up-and-down motion. “Don’t panic.”
“Shield! It is you!” Pinkie jumped up and hugged Shield with a mighty hug only Pinkie Pie could give. “How’ve you been? And what happened to you?”
“Happened? Haha, no…” Shield pushed Pinkie Pie off, stood up, and brushed himself off. “This is my true form. I’m a human.”
“But you were a pony last time!”
“Yeah, that was because I came through one of Equestria’s magic portals. This time, I created my own. Heh, it doesn’t have that transformation side effect.”
“Oki-doki!”
“So, Pinkie, I’m here mostly for business.”
“Ooh! What kind of business? Cupcake business? Brownie business? Cookie business?”
“No, I’m here to check up on this world. Is it doing alright? Have there been any space-time rifts or distortions opening up?”
“Not that I’m aware of…” Pinkie put a hoof to her face. “Except for the one that lets me jump from my kitchen to the Ponyville park via my oven! That one’s super fun!”
“What?!” Shield gasped. “That sounds dangerous! I better take a look at it.”
“Nah, it’s fine. It only happens when I turn the broiler on.”
Shield gave her a quizzical glance. “Are you sure?”
“Absolutely-positutely!” She gleefully smiled.
“Anyway, I’m mostly here to talk to Twilight about these matters. But she’s apparently busy with somepony else at the moment, and I didn’t want to get involved.”
“Oh, that’s probably Heartbreak,” Pinkie rolled her eyes as she started picking up the towels. Shield bent down to help. “Twilight’s been trying to teach her all about friendship.”
“Hey, wait a second… what are you going to do with these towels?”
“Put them away, like I always do.”
“But they fell on the ground!”
Pinkie looked confused.
“They fell on the ground, and now they’re all dirty! They’re contaminated!”
“Oh silly! They’re not dirty! Look at them! Still all fluffy and pink!”
“No, they pick up bacteria and viruses off the floor when they fall. They’re dirty!”
“They don’t look dirty.”
“But they are.”
“But then, if they’re dirty… then that means I have to wash them again… and if I have to wash them again… I won’t have time to make the cupcakes… and if I don’t make the cupcakes, then my friends won’t have dessert at our picnic today, and if they don’t have dessert at our picnic today…. They’ll go stark raving mad for cupcakes!” Pinkie’s eyes narrowed in a stare of terrifying realization.
Shield laughed. “Pinkie, you’re so adorable.”
Pinkie gasped. “I gotta go!” She tromped down the stairs with the towels and into the back room.
Shield stepped down the stairs after her. “Pinkie wait! Where are you going?”
“I’ve got to incinerate these towels before they cause an outbreak, so that I have enough time to make the cupcakes before the picnic!”
“Wait! Pinkie! You don’t have to incinerate them. Just wash them.”
“But washing them takes Big O of t time to complete, where t is the number of towels, and incinerating them just takes Big O 	of 1 time! There’s no time to lose!”
Shield appreciated the computer science joke, but had no idea how Pinkie would have known about that. Sometimes he wonders whether he’s telepathic and his thoughts leak into other people’s minds… Nah, that’s probably not true.
“But isn’t that a waste of towels?”
“It’s better than causing an epidemic! Quick! Hand me that matchbox over there!”
Without thinking, Shield obeyed. “But if you can’t wash the towels again…”
“Quick! The gasoline!” Pinkie pointed to a corner in the back room.
Again, without thinking, Shield portaled the gas can over to Pinkie, who poured it all over the fluffy pink towels.
“…Then you can let me do it.”
“No time to lose!”
“No, wait! Pinkie!” Shield puts a shield lock on both the matchbox and gas can. “I’ll wash the towels for you. Go bake your cupcakes.”
Pinkie’s pupils widened again as she realized what he was trying to say. “Oh… Haha, silly me!” She giggled and pranced off towards the kitchen.
Shield looked down at the pile of gasoline-soaked towels and scratched his head. “Crash. What have I gotten myself into? I hate washing towels.” Shield looked around the back room area. “Any washer-dryer combos in here? No? That’s what I figured. Looks like I’ll be washing these by hand.”
Shield took the towels to the wash tub and piled them in. They filled the tub halfway. Shield turned on the water and let them soak. “What am I supposed to do? I’ve never washed anything by hand before.” Shield rubbed his beard and thought. “Ah, I’ll just wash these later. Right now I have to go and see if Pinkie Pie needs help making those cupcakes.”
Shield paced through the hallway to the kitchen, where he was stopped in the doorway.
“Stop! Don’t come near! This is a very delicate process…” Pinkie Pie momentarily held out a hoof before returning it to her task at hand, er, hoof: pouring the dough into the cupcake molds.
“Wow, you’re already on that stage—” Shield started before being warned by another hoof gesture. He shut up and watched the cupcake master work her wonders.
After the last of the cupcake molds were filled, Pinkie skillfully placed them in the oven and shut the door. “There! What were you saying?”
“Uh… I don’t remember…” Shield rubbed his beard and then picked something to talk about. “So you’re having a picnic with your friends today?”
“Yes indeedy! Rarity’s going to be there, Rainbow Dash is going to be there, Applejack is going to be there, Fluttershy is going to there…”
“And Twilight?”
Pinkie nodded. “Yep, Twilight’s going to be there, and of course, me! I’m going to be there!”
“Cool! So then I can talk business with Twilight at this picnic?”
“Well,” Pinkie thought for a second. “It’s a friendly picnic and is usually just between the six of us, but I brought Maud one time and this time Twilight’s bringing Heartbreak… maybe I could bring a guest and that could be you!” Pinkie cheerily pointed at Shield.
“Great! That sounds good!”
“But… she’s been awful busy lately with Heartbreak and all. They might be arguing the whole time…”
“I’m sure two ponies can’t argue all the time,” reassured Shield. “Or at least, I hope not. How long until the picnic?”
“Eeeks!” screamed Pinkie. “That’s just the thing! All that extra time with the towels has put me behind schedule! The picnic is in 30 minutes and the cupcakes need 20 more minutes bake time, plus 10 minutes for frosting and taste-testing time, and then, I have to get there in lickety-split! Well, if I can cut my travel time to just about 10 seconds, then I should be fine. Can you run from here to the park in 10 seconds?”
“How far is it?”
“About 2 miles.”
“Haha, um, no.” Shield laughed. 
“Then we’re doomed!” Pinkie Pie yelled. “We’re going to be late! Well, maybe actually not really… if I leave you behind, I can get there in no time at all, so I can tell the others that you’ll be late.”
“But they’re not expecting me, are they?”
“Hmmm… good point. Not that I know of. Ok, well just come whenever you can then!”
“Okay!”
An interrupting voice yelled from upstairs. “Pinkie! Did you wash the towels yet?!”
Pinkie looked at Shield. Shield grimaced. “I’ll get right on that…”
In the back room, Shield grumbled to himself. “You couldn’t just let her put them away, now could you? You had to inform her about the dangers of germs…” As he looked down at the flammable towels, he considered his options. “Well, I could portal back home real quick and wash them in my washer, but then it’d be two hours before I got back… unless I got my time-speed friend to speed up the washer for me, but he’s probably busy. I could go back home and bring one of my towels back… but then I’m missing towels and my towels might look out of place here. Or… or! I could get some towels from the library! Yeah!”
Shield ran up the stairs to the place where the portal opened to the library basement. “Oops, I forgot the shut this…” He jumped through and ran to the library bathroom, where he grabbed two towels and then raced back through the portal, shut it, and portaled the towels through the bathroom door.
“Thanks, Pinkie!” said the voice of Mr. Cake on the other side.
Shield laughed. “Haha, somehow he must not have realized it was me.” He went back down to the kitchen to check on Pinkie Pie.
“So, you took care of the towels?”
“Um, yes, kind of. Well, for the moment. I’ll have to get back to you on that.”
“Oki-doki!” Pinkie smiled as she stirred something in a bowl, which looked to be completely non-cupcake related.
Soon after the timer dinged and Pinkie Pie got the cupcakes out of the oven. She used a spatula to spread the frosting from the bowl onto the cupcakes. It turns out the bowl was cupcake related. (Author’s Note: lol I completely didn’t plan it that way. Some how I pictured Pinkie mixing something in a bowl but didn’t connect it to the cupcakes until after I wrote the part about her getting them out. Haha, funny how the brain works, isn’t it?)
“Hey, can I help with that?”
“Sure, but be extra careful! If just one cupcake gets extra frosting, Twilight will go nuts!”
“Haha!” Shield stopped in his tracks to laugh for a second. Then he continued to the counter to help Pinkie. He inexpertly flung the frosting from the spatula onto the cupcakes, or at least the general area. “Is this how you do it?”
“No silly, like this!” Pinkie expertly curled the spatula around the top of a cupcake to make a smooth creamy swirl. “See? Just like that!”
“Ok…” Shield followed suit, but it didn’t turn out as nice. “Is that good?”
“Uh…” Pinkie winced. “It’s… better… Hmm… Maybe the problem is you’re using your hands. Try putting the spatula in your mouth.”
“Is it clean? The spatula?”
“Yeah, I just washed it.”
“Ok, I guess… not sure how this works, exactly…” Shield put the spatula in his mouth sideways and tilted his head to dip the spatula in the bowl of frosting. Then he watched Pinkie as he swirled the spatula around the cupcake top. Looking down on it, he frowned. “Uh… how is… this?”
Pinkie’s face orgasmed. “Eeks, not quite right. Maybe you should go back to using your hands.”
“Hmmm, I have a better idea.” Shield took a sample cupcake with a perfect swirl and generated a shield around the frosting. Then, etherizing that shield to make it able to pass through anything, he picked it up and hardened it so he could dip it in the bowl. He scooped enough frosting to fill the void in the shield and placed it on a cupcake. Then he etherized the shield to take it off without disturbing the frosting on the cupcake.
“Aha! How’s that!” Shield excitedly pointed at the newly frosted cupcake.
“Perfect!” Pinkie cheered. “Now let’s hurry up. We haven’t much time.”
Shield and Pinkie finished dressing the cupcakes, eating the ones that Shield had badly frosted. Then they put them all in a basket.
Looking at the clock, Pinkie shrieked. “Eeks! There’s only 9 seconds until the picnic should begin! I don’t have time to run there!”
“Could you even run there that fast?”
“Dunno. But we’re going to be late! Unless…” Pinkie smiled. “Here we go!” She turned on the broiler in the oven and a space-time distortion in the oven wrinkled and opened a portal to the Ponyville Park. “I told you there was a portal in there!”
“Are you sure that’s safe with the broiler on?”
“Yeah, it’s not hot yet, see?” Pinkie touched the broiler element with her hoof. “Come on! Let’s go!” Pinkie crawled into the oven and came out under a tree branch. Shield tried to follow her in, but he wouldn’t fit. 
“Hold on a second, I’m coming. Here, take the cupcakes.” Shield watched as Pinkie pranced off with the basket of cupcakes to her friends. “Okay, just gotta find the destination and bring the portal out into the kitchen… ooh. No, can’t do that.” Shield felt a strange electro-magnetic sensation when he tried to move the portal out of the oven and into the kitchen. A strange feeling like space-time might collapse around this point. “So I guess I’ll be taking the long way there. Oh well, at least that’ll give Twilight and her friends a chance to catch up before I arrive.”

> Chapter 2: The Picnic
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	“So sorry I’m late everypony!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed as she entered the picnic blanket area. “Some extra-dimensional stuff caught me off guard.”
“Actually, you’re right on time,” mumbled Heartbreak. “Right on time to see Twilight push hay down my throat.”
“Shhh!” Twilight angrily glared at Heartbreak. “I thought we had a deal? You can come to the picnic if you eat hay, or at least stop grumbling about it.”
“Sorry, I forgot. I’m not allowed to express my opinions.”
“She apologizes for once, even if sarcastically,” whispers Spike to himself as he takes a note.
“I heard that,” grumbled Heartbreak. “Oh, I’m just so tired today…”
“What’s keeping her up so much lately?” asked Rarity, spitefully taking a sip of tea, hay included.
“Nightmares mostly,” Twilight replied.
“Anything cross-dimensional?” Pinkie asked.
“Cross-dimensional?! What, about my past? I don’t have nightmares about my past!”
“Heartbreak, she’s only asking a question—”
Pinkie cut Twilight off mid-sentence. “…Because there’s somepony here today that might be able to help.” Pinkie smiled.
“What? Help me fix nightmares? No thanks, I don’t need the help.” Heartbreak’s hat flopped down over her eyes and she lifted a hoof to put it back in place.
“Wait, who?” Rainbow Dash asked.
“A cross-dimensional somepony.”
“A cross-dim-what-now somepony?”
“Cross-dimensional.”
“What in the hay does that mean?”
“Wait, do you mean…” Twilight squinted as she thought.
“Shield? Eeyup.”
“I was going to say the doctor, but okay.”
“Wait… Shield? Shield who?” Rainbow Dash still didn’t remember.
“Oh you know… that unicorn from that portal on the edge of the Everfree? The one that stopped the cross-dimensional rift forming with that one universe with those weird shape-shifting robots?”
Rainbow Dash looked in the corner of her eye for a second, then it clicked. “Oh yeah, that one. How’s he doing?”
“You’ll soon see for yourself!”
“Just tell us already! Can’t you just tell us instead of making us guess all the time?”
“Calm down, Heartbreak,” ordered Twilight.
Before Heartbreak could respond, a shadow creeped up over the hill towards the picnic area. However, Heartbreak couldn’t make out the details of who it was or even look in its direction because of the blinding sun. When the sun finally stopped blocking their vision when it entered the shade of a nearby tree, something looked weird. It was a creature of some sort wrapped in soaking wet pink towels, taking clumsy step after clumsy step towards the picnic area. A small glow of electro-magnetic energy could be seen from under the clever cover of the towels.
Finally the pink moving thing made it to the picnic area. The pink towels fell off one by one and uncovered a damp-clothed Shield, who vaporized his hand extension “hoof shields” and stood straight up. All the ponies except Pinkie and Heartbreak gasped and instinctively moved backwards.
“What is that thing?” asked Applejack.
“What is what? I can’t see any—” Heartbreak looked up from underneath her hat and looked at Shield’s face.
“Don’t worry,” Pinkie said. “He was a unicorn before but he’s naturally a human—”
Before anypony else could respond, Heartbreak lounged out at Shield, knocking him over. 
“Why?! Why?! Why do you get to come here? To get banished here? With your form intact? With your gender intact? With your name?” With every point, Heartbreak slaps Shield on the face with one of her hooves. “Why do you get to get stuck here like me with everything you hold dear? All your memories, all your feelings, all your thoughts, all your… your you? Why?! It isn’t fair! It’s just not fair! Why do you get to keep everything while I lose everything?!”
Twilight got a hold of Heartbreak and restrained her from doing anything further to Shield. “I’m sorry, Shield… she’s just a little… unnerved right now.”
“More like jealous,” mumbled Rainbow Dash under her breath.
“Are you okay?” Fluttershy asked, examining Shield’s face.
“I’m fine.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, really, I’m fine,” Shield confirmed, standing up and brushing himself off. “I’ve got a shield on. I didn’t even feel a thing.”
Heartbreak glared even more angrily at him.
“I don’t know what I did to deserve that but I’m sure we can work out our issues somehow.”
The glare he got from Heartbreak wasn’t reassuring. It actually made Shield melt on the inside a little, knowing that someone could hate him so much. He almost let his mental state slide into his past self’s usual self-thrashings. It would have been so easy for him to backslide and insult himself and his own petty weaknesses. But not this time. He looked at Twilight.
“So, um, sorry to be a bother, but I’m here for business mostly.”
“Oh, not for the cupcakes?” moaned Pinkie.
“And that is?” Twilight asked, still restraining Heartbreak.
“Just a normal check-up. I have to check to see if the space-time rift is still sealed, and make sure no other space-time abnormalities have shown up. Then I can be ‘out of your mane’ and back in my world.”
“We’re not trying to get rid of you, sugarcube,” Applejack stated. “We’re just…”
“Going through some tough times, is all,” finished Twilight. “And unfortuneately I’ve been too busy to check the status of the space-time rift, so I don’t have a report ready.”
“Wow, Twilight forgets to do something?” Shield says reactively. “Oh, I mean, ok then, I guess we don’t have anything to talk about. I’ll have to check them by myself then.”
“Well, yes, I’m sorry. But if you come back another time I’ll have the report ready.” Twilight notices that Heartbreak has stopped struggling and lets her go.
“Wait!” Heartbreak rushes up to Shield and hugs his legs. “What other world?”
“My world…”
“What’s your world like?”
“It’s…” Shield searches for a relevant adjective. “…Good…”
“Is everypony human?”
Shield glances at Twilight for approval. “I’m not sure if I should be telling you about my world. Princess Celestia signed an agreed with the Multiverse Council that there would be no long-lasting interstellar connections… so I’m not really allowed to tell you…”
“It’s alright. You can tell me,” Heartbreak pleaded.
Twilight nods.
“Well, my little pony,” Shield sits down and Heartbreak stares intently into his eyes while he speaks. “Yes, my world is full of humans like me. It’s a very dangerous place for ponies, though. Because in my world ponies aren’t sentient beings like they are here. They’re treated as cattle, pets, and even food sometimes. It’s not a place you want to go to.”
“But you don’t understand,” pleaded Heartbreak. “I’ve been to that world. I’m from that world!”
“Huh?” Shield looked confused. Then he looked at Twilight. She nodded. “So you’re from my world?”
“Yes!”
“Well then how did you get here? And why are you a pony?” Shield’s mind went racing. “Crash! Did you get here from the ancient Equestrian portal? I shouldn’t have forgotten to close it…”
“No! I don’t even know what that is!”
“So, how did you get here?”
“Long story short, I was sent here by the Fae, perhaps you’ve heard of them?”
“Um… no, actually. Actually not.”
Now it was Heartbreak’s turn to be confused. “Then how did you get here?”
“By portal. It’s a bridge between two locations, or in this case, two alternate universes.”
“Alternate universes?” Heartbreak immediately perked up. “So, you can travel between alternate universes?”
“Yes, yes I can.”
“Can you travel to any alternate universe?”
“Theoretically, yes.”
“Can you take me to my alternate universe?”
“That depends. I can’t just figure out which one is yours. There has to be an already established connection, or a random one will be generated. Unless you have a connection, there is no way to guarantee it’ll be your alternate universe.”
“Great!” Heartbreak jumped up with joy. “Twilight! Thank you so much for being my teacher! I’m going to miss you! Spike! Thanks for being there when I needed you! Fluttershy, you’re so adorable I’m just glad I can squeeze you.” Heartbreak gives her a big hug. “Rarity, even though you’re a marshmallow, you’re still pretty cool and I admire your work ethic. Applejack—”
“Hold on here, Heartbreak,” Twilight says. “There’s no guarantee Shield can send you back. You heard what Celestia said. There’s no way back.”
“But don’t you see? He’s got different magic. Magic that can transcend space-time! Just what I need to get out of here! To get out of this form!”
“Whoa, hold on a second,” Shield protested. “I didn’t make any promises. If I don’t have a pre-established connection—”
“You can’t make the portal,” interjected Heartbreak. “But we do have a connection!”
“We do?” asked Twilight, thinking.
“Yes!” Heartbreak then mumbled under her breath, “If it’s still there, that is. With my luck it might not be.”
“So, is it ok that I just whisk this pony away from this world without Celestia’s knowing?” Shield grimaced uncomfortably at the thought.
“Yes! Of course it is! It’s free will, right? This is me, freely willing to be whisked away. No need to bother Celestia—I mean Princess Celestia.”
“Alright then, where to?” Shield asked.
“To the Cloudsdale weather factory!”
“But I already checked there, there’s no magic there that I could trace!” Twilight argued.
“Well, it’s worth a shot,” Shield shrugged. “Plus, it’ll give me a chance to check for space-time rifts up there. If she claims there’s a connection there, there might also be a rift forming. Who knows?”
Twilight didn’t believe it for a second, but before she could take action, Shield had opened the portal to a room outside the factory.
Stepping onto the clouds, Shield made an electro-magnetic platform to stand on. Rainbow Dash flew out and stood by the door. 
“It looks like I’ll have to let us in, huh?”
“If you don’t mind,” Twilight replied. “I’ll perform the walk-on-clouds spell on everypony.
Rainbow Dash swiped herself and the “guests” into the facility and they walked in. “Actually, Twilight. We should probably only go in ourselves. I mean I can’t let everypony in.”
“That’s fine. I don’t want to be up in there anyway,” promptly replied Rarity through the portal.
“Oh, and Shield…” Twilight grimaced.
“Yes?”
“I’m not sure if they’ll let you in… as you are…”
“Mm-hmm…” Shield bit his lip and nodded. “So what do you suggest?” 
“Temporary metamorphosis,” replied Twilight matter-of-factly.
“Um, I don’t know… isn’t that hard to do?”
“It’s easier than explaining to the weather guard why he should let in a foreign alien into the secure weather factory.”
“Hmmm, you have a point. But I’m really not comfortable with changing shape…”
“See? I’m not the only one! Being turned into a pony is harsh!”
“Heartbreak!” yelled Twilight.
“So, here’s what I’ll do,” stated Shield, moving right along. “I’ll make a portal stone to the park. When you get inside where the connection might be, activate it and a portal will open. Afterwards I can close the portal and no harm done.” Shield generated an electro-magnetic stone and programmed its activation procedure. “Here you go.”
“Okay, here goes nothing.”
Shield waited outside in the park, enjoying the other ponies’ company. “Sandwiches? Yummy!” He grabbed one and took a bite. His eyes went wide and he spit it out. “Bleh! What is this stuff?”
“Hay,” stated Applejack.
“My reaction exactly,” said Heartbreak.

> Chapter 3: The Connection
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Back at the factory, Rainbow Dash and Twilight convinced the security guards that they needed to check the scene of the incident once more, despite it being a while since it had happened. Once in the right location, Twilight activated the portal stone and Shield walked through with Heartbreak.
“Why couldn’t you just portal in here in the first place?” asked Rainbow Dash.
“I could have, but I didn’t have sufficient coordinates and so was a tad bit off. And plus I don’t want to be randomly making portals everywhere. The fabric of space-time might rip. Anyway, where is this connection?”
“In there, if anywhere,” Rainbow Dash pointed to an empty cracked vat.
Shield climbed up the ladder to look into the vat. It had been emptied, but not repaired yet. It still needed repaired before it could be used again. But the fact that it was empty was very helpful to Shield. He floated down to the bottom of the vat with his shields and examined the space-time area.
“Anything?” Heartbreak looked nervous as she was uncertain whether or not the connection could be found.
“Definitely some kind of space-time distortion was here. It’s been closed, and perhaps even fixed.”
“What does that mean?”
“If it’s been fixed, then that’s the equivalent of blowing up a bridge.”
Heartbreak’s heart broke. “The one chance I get! The one chance I get! Gone!” She banged the side of the vat. The echo vibrated the vat’s hull and loosened some of the material. A little dust floated out of one of the cracks.
“Wait, I think I found something!” Shield probed the area. “It may have just been patched, which is pretty sloppy distortion work, but it still makes it hard to detect.”
“But I searched there when it was still fresh!” Twilight exclaimed. “How could you sense it now and I couldn’t then?”
“You searched it? What did you do?” Shield called out. “Come in here, Twi.”
Twilight teleported into the vat. “I just used a detection spell. Nothing major. It was still full at the time.”
“Aha! Maybe that was it?”
“What was what?” Twilight looked at Shield with a puzzled expression. Then it dawned on her. “Of course! The rainbows have a magical energy! They may have masked the magic trail left behind!”
“Yes, and wait… rainbows are magical?”
“Yes.”
“Ok, nevermind. Back on topic. You also need to consider that this magic is from an alternate universe, correct?”
“As far as we know, yes.”
“Then that limits the extent that you can detect it. For example, can you detect this?” Shield makes a portal between his hands.
Twilight’s horn glows for a second. Then she gasps. “No! It’s giving off no magical signature whatsoever!”
“That’s because it’s not magic,” Shield grins as he closes the portals. “You used the wrong kind of detection spell. Whatever made this portal is some kind of different magic or not magic at all.”
Twilight looks baffled with herself.
“You mean I could have been home all this time if only Twilight had used the right spell?! I can’t believe this!”
“It’s not that simple,” defended Shield. “Detecting it is one thing, opening it is another. Luckily, I specialize in portals…” Shield’s face contorts in frustration as he tries to open the portal. “There’s… just… one…thing… ah!” Shield backs away from it for a second to regain his composure. “keeping me from opening it!”
“What is it?”
“I’m not sure. It feels like some sort of knot, or something. It’s not space-time or anything to do with that. I’m not sure what it is….”
“My magic spell?” Twilight asked.
“I don’t know. Try it.”
Twilight’s horn glows up, but Shield interrupts her.
“Oh wait! The detection spell? Maybe, I don’t know. Maybe somehow it helped seal it, or maybe that’s how it got patched instead of fixed! Maybe your spell prevented it from closing all the way!”
“How would that have happened?”
“I don’t know, but if using your detection spell caused it to not seal properly, but also caused it to not open properly… then maybe…. Just maybe….” Shield rubbed his beard. “Could you perform an anti-spell?”
“Hmmm… you mean a reverse detection spell?”
“Yeah,” confirmed Shield, sticking his hands in his pockets.
“I’ve done a reverse spell on small things like coat-shining spells before, and other spells that change things, but never on a detection spell before. It’s never even crossed my mind that there could be a reverse detection spell…”
“Well, whatever you did may have had a side effect on the connection. Is there anything in the spell that might cause a side effect?”
“Come to think of it, there is one thing,” Twilight thought. “Ok, so if I do the reverse of the side effect part of the spell, I should be able to reverse the spell’s effect on the connection and it should open. Correct?”
“Yes,” Shield said. “But wait… if it was trying to close when you cast it, it might still be trying to close completely now. So when you undo the spell, I might have only a small time window to open it.”
“Ooh, sounds tense,” Twilight commented. “Ok, are you ready?”
“Yes…” Shield stammered. “Uh, not quite. My heart rate is accelerating; I’m getting nervous. If don’t do this right, this connection could be lost forever. And then…”
“And then…”
“And then I don’t get to go home?” Heartbreak squealed.
Shield bit his lip. He held out a hand to Twilight. “Ok, let me calm myself down. Catching a breath…” Shield breathed in and out deeply to slow his heart rate down. Taking a final breath, he gave the word, “Ok, I’m ready.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure. Go ahead and perform the anti-spell.”
Twilight’s horn glowed, as she prepared to perform the anti-detection spell. Shield’s heart raced again as she did so, despite Shield’s calming techniques. 
“It’s ok, self. It’s ok, self,” he whispered to himself as he prepared to all at once detect, grasp, and reopen the connection. 
“It’s done now.” Twilight looked at Shield.
Shield’s mind raced in split-second time as he saw in “slow motion” the connection unknot and become viable again. He detected a very faint distortion pattern, one that would be difficult to grasp, especially as it grew fainter split second by split second. Shield’s heart grew faster with every split second that the connection faded away. Shield grasped onto the faint distortion and threw energy into it to make it open again. It stuttered, and ceased to fade away. However, the pull to close completely was strong, as if some force were constantly trying to fix up this space-time distortion. Shield pulled with more power as he tried to get the distortion back up to the levels that allowed him to open the portal. Whatever place that was on the other side was very distant, even in terms of alternate universes. Little by little Shield could feel the distortion slowly but surely come back into being. “Space-time distortions don’t close this fast naturally. There’s gotta be someone or something on the other side who desperately wants it closed.” 
“Shield, please! Please, Shield, please!” Heartbreak desperately called out to Shield to put all his might into reopening the connection. She started flailing about and kicking the vat. The vibrations echoed throughout the vat, and vibrated Shield and Twilight. Shield winced as he felt the connection weaken through it.
“Heartbreak! Stop that! You’re making him lose the connection with all that vibration!” Twilight shouted.
“Vibration! Vibration!” Shield got distracted by Twilight’s word. His mind wandered off onto something somehow more interesting at the moment than opening a space-time distortion. As he thought about vibrations and their frequency and amplitude, his grasp on the connection weakened and it slowly slipped towards nothingness. “Vibration… vibration…” Shield whispered. “Frequency!” Shield’s focused face would have given an excited look if he wasn’t in so much strain from his current task. “Frequency!”
“Frequency?” repeated Twilight.
“Frequency?” retorted Rainbow Dash.
“Frequency!” Shield couldn’t explain right now, but he knew one thing he could do to give himself an advantage. He modulated the frequency of his electro-magnetic hold on the dying connection to see if a certain frequency would speed the reopening. Much to his happiness, it did. The connection started opening back up at twice the speed it had before, but it still required a lot of effort to make it do so. “It doesn’t matter if it requires all this effort,” Shield said aloud, strained. “Once I get it open, it’ll stabilize itself.” The connection slowly took to the level that allowed Shield to open its portal. 
“I see it! I see it!” gasped Heartbreak as she wiped away tears of doubt with her hoof.
A little tiny circle of the alternate universe appeared, just big enough to get a fly through. Shield tried to open it more, but found that opening it was a lot more challenging than stabilizing the distortion. The portal still had an unnatural desire to close forever.
“Man, whatever is through that portal really doesn’t want to let us through!” Shield winced as he drew more power to open the portal. “I’m playing portal tug-o-war with something on the other side!”
“Can’t you open it further? I can’t fit through there!”
“I’m… trying… AAAH!” Shield cries out in strain as he puts more force into his attempt. The portal opens a little more, enough to fit a pony’s head through. He tries to modulate his electro-magnetic frequency again, with little success. “Heartbreak! Get in here soon! I’m not sure how much longer I can hold it open!”
Heartbreak immediately clambered down the side of the vat, with Twilight’s help for a soft landing. She rushed over to the portal and stuck her head in. She put her hooves through, but, couldn’t get her body to go. “A little wider! I can’t fit!”
“Alright…” Shield shut his eyes and focused all his energy on opening the portal wider. Frequency modulation, amplitude modulation, anything he could think of. Not much of anything was helping. “If only I had… just one… more person… opening… this thing…” As much as Shield tried, the constant force to shut the portal was draining his energy to keep it open. “I’m not sure how much longer I can keep it open!” he said in one big gulp of air. The portal closed an inch, locking Heartbreak’s head into the other side of the portal. 
Heartbreak futilely attempted to get back out, but found her head stuck. She panicked. “Help! I’m stuck! I don’t want to die!” She imagined the portal would chop her in half if it closed with her in it. A proper space-time beheading, almost.
“Twi…light…” gasped Shield. He was straining as hard as he could, and was visibly growing weaker. His limbs were trembling and sweat was pouring down his face.
“What can I do? I don’t know anything about portals!”
“Twi…” Shield groaned. He was visibly losing ground in portal diameter. It started hugging Heartbreak’s neck.
Twilight quickly gathered her thoughts and everything she’s experience about things like this. Teleporting, portals, aliens, alternate worlds… mind picking. She had learned to mind pick. Yes! That’s what she could do! Mind pick! 
“Ok, Shield, this might tingle a bit, but hold steady, I’m not going to hurt you.” Twilight cast her spell on Shield, accessing all his memories.
“Whoa!” Shield flinched, and lost enough portal ground to make it uncomfortably pinch Heartbreak’s neck.
“Oh please oh please oh please I don’t want to die a female earth pony!” “My heart might not be the only thing broken today… Oh why did I have to ask for this? I could have enjoyed restarting a new life with Twilight and her friends. I could have had a new life in Ponyville! But instead, I’m here, about to die, and my corpse will end up in two alternate universes. Swell, just swell. Is this what you wanted Fae Queen? Hmm? Is this what you wanted? Well, I hope you’re happy.” She spat on the ground where her head stuck out through the portal.
“Hang on!” Twilight urged as she sifted through all of Shield’s memories. “Portal portal portal portal portal… Aha! Portal!” Twilight processed as quickly as she could what Shield knew about portals. She then on the spot attempted to create a new spell that allowed portal creation. She tested in mid-air above her head, and seeing that it didn’t work, she tried again.
“Twilight!” Shield coughed. “I… can’t…”
“Hold on, Shield!” Twilight urged. She revised the portal spell and tried it again. Nothing, but this time, she felt a tingle of electro-magnetic energy.
“Hold… on…” Shield choked, running dry as he tapped into his reserve energy. The portal closed a hair-length’s. Shield was barely holding on.
“Almost there…” Twilight again revised her spell and tried opening another portal. No success, but she tried again, thinking she may have just implemented it wrong.
“Much… longer…” Shield wheezed. “Twilight…”
“Hold on, just one more…” Twilight tried again, and ZAP! A tiny portal was created in front of Twilight. The electro-magnetic energy she conjured to make it tickled her horn in a funny-strange way. “Alright, here it goes!” 
Twilight multiplied her new spell a hundred fold and zaps the portal with as much portal-opening electro-magnetic energy as she can muster. The portal stops closing, but holds steady.
“What? But that’s a powerful spell! How is not opening?”
“You think I’d know?” whispered Shield, in sheer pain. “It’s a strong force pulling it back!”
Twilight then realized the raw power Shield was capable of, and appreciated the effort he was putting into it. That inspired her to put her best horn forward. She multiplied her spell a thousand fold, the electromagnetic feedback starting to numb her horn. “If my horn goes numb, what happens? Do I lose magic ability for a while? No, no, focus. Focus.” The portal starts to open a tad bit, but only crawling. “Great, at this rate, my horn will be numb before she can get her head out.”
She multiplies her magical power ten thousand fold. The feedback is starting to hurt in her horn, and her head is starting to go numb. She feels little electric tingles in her feet where she’s grounded to the vat floor. The portal is opening more visibly. Heartbreak finally gains some wiggle room, and can almost take her head back out. 
Finally it opens enough so Heartbreak can free herself, and so she does. She comes out crying, scared to death that she almost died in a portal. Rainbow Dash flies in and hugs her.
“Guys, Heartbreak’s out. You can release the portal now,” says Rainbow Dash.
Heartbreak breaks from Rainbow Dash’s embrace to cry out, “No! Don’t! I still want to go back! Even…” She chokes on a tear. “Even if…” She still is having trouble getting it out. “Even if it ki…” She chokes on a tear. “…ills me. I want to go back!”
Tears start forming in Twilight’s eyes, and she can’t tell whether it’s from the shock of the moment or the electro-magnetic feedback. She closes her eyes, and concentrates. One hundred thousand times, one million times, ten million times…. Twilight’s pain increases exponentially, and soon she is surging with electro-magnetic feedback all throughout her aching body.
Heartbreak sees how much effort both she and Shield are putting into opening the portal, and breaks down in tears of joy that she would have such friends who would go to such lengths for her. At the same time, it angered her that she would need such special treatment. The two sides of her raged on as the tears streamed through her eyes. Rainbow Dash tried to comfort her, but it only made it worse, knowing that the toughest tomboyish-est pony was doing something completely out of her element. Loyally staying by her side even near the end… wait, isn’t that what loyalty is? What Rainbow Dash is known for?
The portal gradually opened wider and wider as Twilight poured her tears and pain and sorrow into opening it. Soon the portal was wide enough for two ponies to enter side by side.
“It should stabilize by now!” Shield claimed. “The fact that it isn’t says there’s something there that doesn’t want it open!”
“You’ve said that already!” Rainbow Dash replied.
“I know!” grunted Shield. “What if it tries to send her back once she’s through?”
“What if?” repeated Heartbreak, still crying. Her mind clouded with images of the nine people that did this to her trying to push her back out, even though they supposedly would have no memory of her.
“So?” asked Rainbow Dash, yelling above the noise of Twilight’s lightning.
“We need someone to go with her, to make sure everything’s ok!”
“I’ll go!” Rainbow Dash bravely declared.
“No, you’d be powerless,” claimed Shield. “If they’re powerful enough to stop this portal from opening, who knows how powerful they are. I can’t let you go through, Rainbow Dash. You have a life here. You have a duty.”
“My duty is to my friends! No matter how heart broken!”
“What about your other friends? Would you abandon them for the sake of this one pony?”
“Don’t do it Rainbow Dash. Stay here. I’ll be alright.” Heartbreak could barely speak from all her tears.
“I’m not leaving you, Heartbreak.”
“Sorry, Rainbow Dash,” grunted Shield, slowly losing energy. “I’m going. I’ll protect her.”
“But I can’t just leave her in her time of need!”
“It’s not your place Rainbow Dash. It’s mine. I’m the space-time traveler, I’m the one that should go. Not you.”
“But—”
“Nothing, Rainbow Dash. That’s final.”
“What about you? Won’t you get stuck there?”
“I’ll be fine!”
The portal had grown to the size of the inside of the vat. Shield approached the entrance, and motioned towards Rainbow Dash to give him Heartbreak. Rainbow Dash looked him in the eye for a second, and then looked back at the crying Heartbreak. She determined what she would do. 
“No!” Rainbow Dash bolted for the portal, but before she could enter, Shield stopped her with an electro-magnetic wall. Rainbow Dash crashed to the vat floor, unconscious. Shield then grabbed the immobilized weeping Heartbreak from her and stepped into the portal.
“Sorry, Rainbow Dash. Farewell, Twilight,” Shield made a final salute before stepping through into the room in the alternate universe.
“So long, Shield.” Satisfied that they made it through, Twilight let go and collapsed on the floor. The portal immediately closed and vanished.
On the other side, Shield made an electro-magnetic cover over Heartbreak. “It’s time to go to sleep, Heartbreak.” He said as he wrapped the cover around the crying pony, who scrambled and struggled to get out of it. “Now it’s time for me…” Shield collapsed over the cover he made and went to sleep.

> Chapter 4: Meeting Her
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	18 or so hours later, Shield’s eye lids open and he sees nothing. He rolls over and tries to go back to sleep, but he knows it’s futile as he’s already slept long enough. Finally, he opens his eyes to see what he can. The only thing he can make out for sure is the shield cover he made. It had a faint light blue glow to it, but not enough to light up the rest of the room.
Shield generated a small shield stone, and modulated its properties for maximum light output. The room was filled with blue light, and Shield could make out what looked to be a stasis machine, a door, and more importantly right now, a light switch. Going over to flip the switch, he checked the ground periodically to make sure he wasn’t going to step on anything. The floor was clear enough, but Shield still checked as a matter of habit. Finally, flipping the switch, he absorbed the energy from the light stone and it went out.
The overhead lights flooded the room with white light, making Shield’s shield cover look almost non-luminescent. Drowsily stepping over to it, he absorbed the shield’s energy and it faded away. Underneath, Heartbreak looked up at Shield.
“Good morning, Heartbreak,” Shield said groggily.
“Shield?”
“Yes?”
“What took you so long to wake up?! I’ve been waiting a whole half a day! I’m super hungry and stained from my own waste! Not only that, but my muscles are cramping up from not being able to move!” Heartbreak was rather angry.
“Lay off, will you?” Shield responded. “I needed to recharge. I didn’t know what was over here and didn’t have time to explore it yesterday.”
“Where are we?” Heartbreak tried to turn her neck, but found it very painful to do so.
“The room where the connection led to. Do you recognize it?”
“No. The room I left planet Earth from was dark. Very dark. This place is well-lit.”
“Well it was dark before I turned on the lights.”
“I can’t move! Shield! I can’t move!”
“What do you mean you can’t move? I released the shield.”
“I’m stuck because my muscles have frozen in this position, thanks to you!”
Shield stared blankly at her for a second. “Oh yeah, sorry about that. I wasn’t thinking straight last night. I should have left you some wiggle room.”
“Fix it!”
“What?”
“Don’t just stand there! Help me move! Fix it!”
“I don’t know what I can do…”
“Just do something, like with your magic or something…”
Shield gave a quizzical look as he tried to come up with a plan. “You think that’s magic. Well, it’s not.” Shield would have laughed if he wasn’t so tired at the moment. “But here, I’ll try using an EMP.”
“What’s that?!”
“Electro-Magnetic Pulse. Makes all sorts of interesting side effects. Mostly on electronics, which seem to fill this room. I’ll keep its area of effect in this vicinity to avoid destroying any equipment here.”
Before Heartbreak could protest, Shield sent a wave of electro-magnetic pulse energy towards Heartbreak. Heartbreak felt a tickling sensation like she was being electrocuted by a AA battery. 
“Hey! That hurt!”
“Did it work?”
“No!” Heartbreak said without even trying.
“Oh come on!” Shield grabbed her head and rotated it to the right. “Is that better?”
Heartbreak shook her head back and forth. “Yeah, actually, it is. But I still can’t seem to move my limbs. 
Shield pushed her on her side and moved each limb one by one. “There, try it now.”
“Much better. But that doesn’t change the fact that I’m still wet.”
“Do you want me to change your diaper too?”
“At least have the courtesy to give facilities to use while you take your time beauty sleeping!”
“Hey, don’t yell at me!” Shield’s face scrunched up in anger, and he realized what he was doing. “Whoa. Ok, let’s not get angry here. Anger creates irrationality. And oh man oh man am I terrible when I’m irrational. Hold on, let me get my bearings…”
“I can’t believe you! Lock me under some magic blanket while you just lay there and snooze!”
“Heartbreak, I’m not going to listen to unless you talk in a normal voice.” Shield stared at no position in particular as he tried to process the situation.
“I mean what kind of idiot—”
“So, Heartbreak,” Shield breathed in to change the subject. “Do you know this place? Does it look familiar?”
Heartbreak finally decides to take a look around. Eyeing the “stasis tube” she runs up to it and gasps. “Oh!”
Shield follows her. “I think that’s a stasis chamber of some sort.”
“Stasis chamber? No! That’s the device they used to eject me from this world!”
“Really? Are you sure?”
“Yeah I’m sure! Do I look like I’m lying to you?”
“Ok, let me examine it… no space-time distortions are around it anywhere. Either it’s not what you think it is—”
“Which it is!”
“…or they’re really good with fixing their space-time distortions.”
“I think the answer is rather obvious.”
“Yeah, judging by the hard time opening that portal, I think it’s gotta be the ladder.”
“Speaking of the portal, can we go back?” 
Shield probed around for space-time distortions. The only ones he could find were the small ones he created by making shields. “No, there are no portal space-time distortions. The connection is gone.”
“So we’re stuck here then?”
“Hmhm,” laughed Shield, mouth closed. “Yep, but not to worry. I know Equestria’s coordinates, and last night I figured out this place’s coordinates relative to Equestria’s when I stepped through. I could make a portal back.”
“Hmm…” Heartbreak looked at her hoof. “Wait, I’m still a pony! I thought I’d turn back!”
“What? Turned back to what?”
“Don’t you remember? A human! Here, in this room, the Fae stripped me of my humanity and turned me into a pony! I should have turned back when I stepped through that portal!”
“Portals aren’t magic, Heartbreak. They don’t transform you like that.” Shield thought for a second. “Except Equestrian inter-world portals. They have some kind of behavior where they change the passer-through into another form when they pass through.”
“Why couldn’t you have made one of those?”
“I don’t have magic, Heartbreak. I can’t transform people—or ponies—when they walk through my portals.”
“But what about the Equestrian portal? Can’t we go there and then use that one?”
“It’ll turn you human, yes.”
“But it won’t bring my past identity back?”
“No, it won’t. Whoever you were in your past life is gone.”
“But you said you could bring me back!”
“And I did. We did. Back to the alternate universe where you originated.”
Heartbreak started to cry. “So I’m stuck like this? I can’t ever go back to being who I was?”
“No, but there is something we can do…” Shield stated, rubbing his beard.
“What?”
“Go find someplace to eat breakfast. I’m starving.”
“Why didn’t you mention it sooner?”
Shield hurried over to the door and opened it a crack. Peeking through, he saw nobody was in sight. He opened the door all the way and snook out, lighting his own way down the dark hallway that grimly greeted him.
“Where are you going?” loudly whispered Heartbreak.
“I don’t know. Out. Follow me, and be quiet.”
“Why don’t you just portal out?”
“One: because I don’t know where in this world we are. Two: I’m still recharging. Can’t use portals yet. Three: stay quiet and keep walking.”
After looking both ways in the dark hallway, Heartbreak begrudgingly left the safety of the lit room to follow the hallway where Shield led with a rather dim light. Shield crept through the hall, and suddenly stopped and backtracked. Heartbreak crashed right into him.
“Hey! Watch what you’re doing!”
“Sorry,” stated Shield, obviously distracted by something. “There’s something in that room.”
“What is it?”
“A space-time distortion of some sort.”
“Where to?”
“I don’t know, but there appear to be lots of them.” Shield tried the door. “It’s locked, we’ll have to come back another time.” He kept moving. Soon he came upon a bathroom. “Hey, you can go in there and wash up.”
“But it’s dark in there,” complained Heartbreak as Shield pushed the door open.
“You want to wash up right?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, go wash up!” Shield generated another light stone and threw it into the bathroom.
“But I’m still not used to washing myself as a pony… and all the facilities are made for humans!”
“Fine, I’ll help you…” Shield said, annoyed. He hated washing things. Using paper towels and water from the sink, he washed the waste off Heartbreak’s coat. “There? Better?”
Heartbreak just grumbled.
They continued on down the hallway. Finally they found a stair case and Shield walked down it. Realizing Heartbreak wasn’t following, he stopped. “What’s the matter?”
“Stairs.”
“What about them?”
“Don’t you get it?! I’m not used to being a pony! Stairs are scary!”
“Here, I’ll carry you then.” Shield knelt down on the stairs to pick Heartbreak up.
“No, I don’t want to be babied.”
“Then what do you want?”
“I want—”
“Nevermind, I’ll just carry you with my shields.” He generated shields around her in a harness shape, which locked on and dragged her down the stairs in mid-air.
“Let me go! This isn’t right!”
“Stop complaining! This is what you wanted!” Shield generated a shield around her mouth so she couldn’t talk. He continued all the way down the stairs. Luckily, at the bottom, there was an exit door. Pushing it open, Shield and Heartbreak were finally free. Shield released his electro-magnetic hold on Heartbreak.
“You didn’t have to go and do that!” yelled Heartbreak.
“Shhh! You’re not meant to be in this world in your current form. I’ll have to hide you while I go get some food.”
“And put me in a cage again?! No way!” 
“Sorry, but there’s no other option.” Shield pushed Heartbreak up against a wall and made a comfortably-sized box shield around her, and then changed its color to match that of the building’s.
He walked down the nearest street and conveniently found an internet café. “What luck. Nice.” Walking up to its doors, he quietly said to himself, “Man, that Heartbreak sure lives up to her name. I’m afraid it might be starting to affect my psyche.” Opening the door, he could smell the sweet smell of bakery pastries. “Or, then again, maybe I’m just hungry.”
After ordering his breakfast, and some for Heartbreak, he sat down at a table with his food and logged into the café’s wifi with his phone. “Let’s see if this guy exists in this alternate universe…” Shield tried to think about what to search for, but he completely blanked. “Wait, I don’t know anything. I don’t know her past name, or anyone that might know her.” He then got up and took the food to Heartbreak.
After being released, Heartbreak verbally attacked him. “What took you so long?” She would have continued, but then she smelled the sweet smell of donuts. “Are those… donuts?”
“Yes, they are.”
“Do they have hay in them?”
“Not that I’m aware…” Shield stated, handing her one. 
She took it with her mouth and chewed happily. “Hmmm! So tasty! And… no hay!”
“Anyway, I was going to google you to see if you exist in this universe, and then I realized that I don’t know anything about your life here.”
“Well, I don’t remember my name either. But I remember the names of people I knew.”
“So, is there someone we could go to to see if they remember you?”
“I guess… but how would that help? I’m a pony, in case you haven’t noticed!”
Shield just gave a blank stare as he ate a donut.
“Ok, google this name,” Heartbreak whispered it in Shield’s ear. “And don’t use it too much! It’s special! If I ever hear you say it out loud…”
“Ok, ok,” replied Shield, typing in the name. “Ok, so here’s the address. Do you know where that is?”
“Idiot! I already know where she lives! I thought you were going to try and prove I still existed here!”
“Well, I thought we could go speak to her. Or, you know, that I could. With you being a pony and all. If she remembers you, then you’re not wiped out from time.”
“As if I could remember my own name! How is this going to help?!”
“Quiet… let me think,” Shield demanded, rubbing his chin.
“I can’t believe how much of a disappointment you are!”
“Quiet, I have to think!”
“I mean, seriously!”
“Seriosuly, Heartbreak! Shut up!” Shield straight outburst at her. Then realized what he just did. “Oh crash. I’m sorry. I’m getting bent out of shape. I shouldn’t do that.”
“No, I’m sorry too. I shouldn’t rag on you like I’m doing.”
“Apology accepted. Moving on, thinking of a solution.”
Heartbreak sat quietly eating donuts while Shield thought.
“Aha! Maybe she would realize you’ve been missing! Is she someone you saw fairly often before you disappeared? Maybe she’s worried about you and will mention you by name!”
Heartbreak mulled it over in her mind. “Yeah! That just might work! But then what? I still can’t see her. Not like this.”
“No, but that would prove that you haven’t been erased from history. And I could deliver a final message from you to her.”
“Ok, but what if she doesn’t remember me?”
“Well, we’ll think of something.” Shield stood up and threw the donut box into a nearby dumpster. “So, where do we go?”
“But I can’t walk around town like this! I’ll look weird!”
“True,” Shield thought, rubbing his beard. “I can hide you with shields, but the disguise needs to be clever. I would just portal us there, but…” Shield tried to make a portal between his hands. Space-time distortions formed, but no portals emerged. “I still can’t use portals yet.”
“How about a…” Heartbreak winced at the idea even as she spoke it. “…leash and collar?”
“Um… I don’t know…” Shield uttered. “How about an ice cream cart? I could put you in there and wheel you there!”
“But then how am I going to point you in the right direction? Wouldn’t it sound weird if an ice cream cart started talking?”
“Hmmm… I guess so…”
“So then let’s do the leash and collar idea. I can easily lead the way without attracting any attention.”
“But you’re still out of this world. People will recognize that your form isn’t completely pony-like. Unless… I could make a shield drape for you, which would cover most of you, and could also keep out the sun.”
“Keep out the sun? I like that idea. Let’s do it.”
Shield generated a drape over Heartbreak to disguise her a little more. Then they set out to go to the one person that might have missed her during her past life.
Once they got there, Heartbreak told Shield her message and waited at the edge of the sidewalk. Shield went up to the door and knocked.
After a moment or two, Shield heard the door unlock, and a beautiful woman stood staring at him. “Hello.”
“Hello, are you the resident here?”
“Yes?” She gave him a weird look.
“Ok, would you happen to know of a certain missing person?”
“What kind of certain missing person?”
“Anyone that may have gone missing in the past week or month.”
“Yes, actually. Two people.”
“Two?” Shield looked surprised.
“Yes, two.”
“Well, who are they?”
“First, a couple weeks ago, my boyfriend Anthony  moved out, and I never heard from him again. I fear something bad happened to him. And then, not long after, my husband Dave disappeared. Went to work one day and never came back.”
“Have you called the authorities?”
“Yes, of course. Wait, aren’t you one of the authorities?”
“No, I’m not.”
“Then who are you? What are you doing at my door step asking me these personal questions?”
“Calm down, miss. I’m just a messenger. I am hear to break to you some good news and some bad news.” Shield stretched out his hand to calm her down.
She tried to hold back a tear. “Ok, tell me. What’s the bad news?”
“I’m sorry, but your friend is gone. He won’t ever be coming back.”
She covered her face with her hands and started quietly weeping.
“The good news. The good news is that before he left, he left me a message to take to you.”
“Message? From you? Why would he deliver it to you? Why wouldn’t he deliver it to me personally?”
“It’s complicated, but that’s not important. What’s important is that he has a message for you.”
“No, no! You’re lying! He’s not dead! He’s still alive! You’re holding him captive!”
“Mommy?” a little girl tugged at the woman’s pants. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, sweetie. Just go back to your room and play with your dolls.”
“Just let me tell you the message!”
“No, I won’t! I won’t accept it!”
“Please, you have to listen—” Shield was cut off by a forceful shove off the porch. He landed in the flower garden.
“Hi,” Heartbroke came up to her to give the message in person. A tear was dribbling from her eye.
“What is this? Some kind of elaborate prank? A talking pony?” she slammed the door shut, and audibly cried on the other side.
Shield looked at Heartbreak and Heartbreak looked at Shield. Shield was still lying in the flower bed, not knowing exactly what just happened.
“What do we do now?”
“I don’t know, Anthony,” Shield said as he got up out of the dirt.
“Who’s Anthony?” Heartbreak then gasped. “Is that me? Is that my name? Is that really my name? How could I not even remember my own name?”
“Well, if it was stolen from you, and erased from your memory, then I guess that’s how. But really, Anthony was the guy who lived here, correct?”
Heartbreak nodded.
“And you’re Heartbreak, a pony who lives in Equestria. The name “Anthony” does not really suit you anymore.
Heartbreak started to sob. “So even though I have my old name back, you’re saying I can’t use it?”
Shield nodded.
“Well, forget you! Anthony is my name and I’m going to use it! Whether or not I’m a pony who’s been stripped of everything I’ve ever had! It’s my choice to have a name, and I choose ‘Anthony’!”
The door opened and the woman looked down at the pony. “Anthony? Is that you?”
“Yes, it’s me!”
“But how?”
“The Fae did this to me,” muttered Heartbreak. “They stole everything I ever had. My life, my body, my name, my very existence. They even attempted to erase me from history.”
“Oh Anthony, I’m so sorry…” she came out and hugged Heartbreak. “I’m so sorry this has happened to you. I’ve missed you so much.”
“I’ve missed you too,” Heartbreak echoed. They cried in each other’s embrace for a while. Tears of sadness, tears of joy, tears of regret, tears of hope. As much as she wanted to be back with her again, Heartbreak couldn’t think of how to reintegrate with this world or how she could ever go back to being her past self. She came to the realization that she must say good bye. “But…” Heartbreak stuttered. She knew what she had to say, but she couldn’t get it out. “But I… I’m not…” As she attempted to say it, her eyes watered up and her throat clogged with tears. She could barely say a word, let alone a sentence. “I’m not An…” She choked again as she tried to say it. “Not Anth…” The tears overtook her and she hugged her former girlfriend even harder. “I love you,” she squeaked under the strain of the tears.
“I love you too,” she choked as she hugged Heartbreak tighter with her arms. She could sense what she was about to say. She didn’t like it, in fact she despised it, but she knew it needed to be said. “I… I under… understand.” She finally let out, tears streaming down her beautiful weeping face.
Heartbreak sobbed even more. She could feel a terrible burden being lifted. “You know…” She breathed in and out trying to talk through the tears. “I’ll always… remem…. remem…” Her breathing pattern fluctuated rapidly as the tears continued to pour out.
“I know, I know,” she answered.
Heartbreak continued, as best as she could, “And I’ll… I’ll always… always love… love… love you.”
“I know, I know,” she hung on tight for fear of Heartbreak vanishing.
They shared their embrace as long as they could, crying their sorrows away, wishing things could change, that they could be undone. But there was no going back, there was no way to undo the terrible evil that the Fae had inflicted upon Anthony. They both knew it, but neither wanted to accept it yet.
Finally, Shield interrupted. “We’ve got to go, Heartbreak.”
“No! No! No!” Heartbreak held on. “I don’t want to go! Can’t I just stay here?”
“Anthony…” she choked through her tears. “Heartbreak… you have to…”
“I don’t want to! I want to stay with you! Can’t I stay with you?” *Sob* “Can’t I at least be your pet or something? As demeaning as it would be, it would be better than going back to that other world!”
“No, Heartbreak, you know…” She sobs. “You know that you must go. You don’t belong here anymore. I’ll love you and I’ll miss you forever, but you must go.”
Heartbreak continued crying. She knew it. She knew she couldn’t stay. She knew she had to go. She just didn’t want it to be that way. She wanted her old life back. She wanted Anthony’s life back.
“We’ve really got to go, Heartbreak,” Shield urged.
She continued sobbing, as her former lover pushed her away. The embrace finally broken, they looked at each other’s tear-stained cheeks. “I love you, Heartbreak.”
“I love you, too!” She jumped to hug again, but Shield intercepted and pushed her off the porch.
“Heartbreak, we’ve got to go.”
“I’ll always remember you!” Heartbreak said to her.
“I’ll always remember you!” She called back.
Shield put the disguise back onto Heartbreak and they walked away towards the point in spce that they had entered through.
On the porch, Heartbreak’s friend continued to cry as she waved Heartbreak goodbye. 

> Chapter 5: Departure
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Heartbreak didn’t say a word on the way back to the Fae’s secret hideout. She climbed the stairs on all fours and opened the doors with her mouth without complaint. Her thoughts remained caught up with her former lover and how she might never see her again. At least the memory was still there. Princess Celestia would not be taking that away from her.
“Ok, here we are,” stated Shield, approaching the locked door they had passed by before.
Heartbreak just looked at the lock and didn’t say anything.
Shield generated an electromagnetic sword and rammed it through the door knob. It loudly popped through its hole in a very unnatural way. Then Shield kicked the door open, and the deadbolt fell out and pinged on the metal floor inside the dark room. Shield lit the room with his light stone and found the light switch. The room was empty except for a control panel on one wall. It had several buttons, a slot for a test tube, and a readout display, which said, “Transfer complete.” He looked at the test tube, and noted that it was labeled “Anthony.” The contents looked like blood.
Heartbreak nudged Shield. Looking down at her, he saw the expression on her face.
“I’m not sure what all of this is,” Shield admitted. “But from the looks of it, it seems to be some sort of alternate universe jumper.”
Heartbreak continued her stare. It was sad and inquisitive at the same time.
“I imagine that when they “erased you from history” they teleported to an alternate universe where you were never born.”
Heartbreak looked a little alarmed at that.
“Don’t get upset. It’s a possibility for everyone. There’s always an alternate universe where you were never born. There’s plenty of alternate universe where I’ve never been born. I’ve actually been to some of those places.”
Heartbreak looked a little comforted at that.
“But the thing is, if they go there, they’ll still remember you, and well, mind wiping. If they can wipe your name from your memory, they can wipe their memories of you from their minds as well. But the thing is…. The thing is…” Shield rubbed his beard in thought.
Heartbreak just looked at Shield.
“They’re going to an alternate universe where you don’t exist. What about them? They probably already exist in that alternate universe… What are they going to do about that?”
Heartbreak didn’t even give it a thought.
“Hmmm, I don’t know. I can imagine what they’d do, I guess. But I don’t want to think about it. What I do want to know, however, is how did they manage to pinpoint exactly where they would go? It appears that this test tube is some kind of input. Telling the machine who they don’t want to be in the alternate world they go to. Well, if they leave here, then that explains why Dave was missing, I take it?”
Heartbreak nodded, remembering that he was one of the nine.
“Well, I can’t say I know all the answers. I’ve never seen a machine like this, nor has anyone else I don’t think.” Shield rubbed his chin. “Well, I can tell you one thing: there’s a lot of space-time distortions in here. It looks like this thing teleports or makes portals a lot. I can’t really say much more unless I open them up.”
Heartbreak just looked at Shield.
“But, I’ll save that for another day. I’ve got to save my energy for a portal to Equestria.”
Heartbreak broke out a slight smile. 
Shield and Heartbreak returned to the room they entered through. Heartbreak said one final silent goodbye to this world as Shield opened a portal to Equestria. Being relative as the coordinates were, Shield opened a portal very near to where the original connection was established. He landed right in the middle of the vat. Heartbreak and Shield walked out onto the vat floor and Shield closed the portal behind him. The clang of Heartbreak’s hooves on the vat floor attracted nearby attention.
“Who’s in there?” yelled somepony from the factory room.
“This is security. Come out whoever you are!”
“Crash! I gotta go!” Shield winced. He found the space-time distortion created by the portal stone that Twilight activated. He opened it up and found himself in Ponyville Park. Heartbreak followed him through before he closed the portal.
The Cloudsdale factory security and the investigators there were too late when they climbed up and looked into the empty vat.
“Whoa, that was a close one.” Shield crouched down and took some deep breaths. “I don’t know why I got so scared back there.”
Heartbreak didn’t answer.
Shield looked around the Ponyville Park. Nopony was in sight. Except for one little colt.
“Hey, you!”
The little colt scampered over. “Me?”
“Yeah! Do you know where Twilight Sparkle is?”
“You mean you still haven’t found her?”
Shield laughed. “Haha, no I found her alright. But I lost her again. Do you know where she is?”
“No, but I think I heard on the news of an alicorn being admitted to the Ponyville Hospital.”
“Thanks, kid,” Shield said, patting him on the head. “Stay safe!”
The colt walked away, thinking to himself, “Wow, Princess Twilight must be the hide and seek champion.”
Using the same method he used before to find the library, Shield portaled to the side lawn of the hospital. Making sure to close it, he turned to Heartbreak. “You have to go in there and inquire about Twilight. We have to make sure she’s okay.”
Heartbreak nodded.
“Here, take this with you,” Shield said as he generated a portal stone. “Activate it when you get to Twilight.”
Heartbreak walked in.
“Hello, can I help you?” asked the secretary.
“Yes, I’d… I’d…”
“Yes?”
“I’d like to… see… somepony?”
“Alright, who is it?”
“Twi… Twilight.”
“Are you a family member or friend?”
“Uh… student.”
“Okay, she’s in room 21 on the second floor. The stairs are on your left.”
“Thank you,” Heartbreak said shyly as she went up to Twilight’s room. She found Twilight and Rainbow Dash both in the same 	room, being treated for different ailments. Both were either unconscious or sleeping. Activating the portal stone, Heartbreak took a step back as Shield climbed out and closed the portal.
“Twilight! Are you ok?” Shield asked. He then noticed she was hooked up to an oxygen machine and was being treated for several third-degree burns and electrocution. Her levels her all normal for her current condition and the chart at the end of her bed looked like it said she was going to be ok. “Oh, Twilight,” softly spoke Shield. “You gave so much. Just for your one friend.”
A tear sparkled in Heartbreak’s eye.
Spying Rainbow Dash, Shield walked over and checked her status. “Just a concussion. Wow. She can fly fast enough to damage her own self. She is truly incredible. I should have found a better way to stop her.”
To that, Rainbow Dash woke up. “Hey,” she whispered.
Shield came over to her bedside. “Hey,” he said back. “How are you feeling?”
“Like my head just exploded. How are you?”
“Tired,” Shield stated.
“Did you get Heartbreak back home?”
“Yes and no,” Shield motioned towards Heartbreak, who came over to see Rainbow Dash.
“Hi,” she said.
Rainbow Dash smiled, then looked concerned. “You didn’t get back home?”
“This is…” Heartbreak paused to think about what she was going to say. Saying this would mean a lot to her about what would happen in her future. Finally, she allowed herself to say it. “This is my home now.” Even having said, it still didn’t feel quite right.
“We went to her alternate world and made peace with a few people she knew,” Shield filled in.
“It’s mostly all better now,” Heartbreak added.
“But you didn’t get you old life back!” protested Rainbow Dash.
“It’s ok. I’ve got friends here that would stand up for me no matter what. Back there…”
“Your past friends didn’t stand up for you?”
Heartbreak thought about this. She didn’t want to reflect negatively about her friends, but the truth is, that her friends abandoned her. They cut her loose. They weren’t good friends like the mane 6, who would have defended her against Princess Celestia even though they ran the risk of losing their own lives. “It doesn’t matter anymore. What does matter is that I’m here now, and I’m here for my friends. As you all are—and were—here for me.”
Rainbow Dash smiled. “That’s cool,” she said as she closed her eyes and went back to sleep.
“Are you going to be alright here, now?” Shield asked.
“Yeah, and besides, I don’t need you here. You’ve done your part, and now it’s my job and Twilight’s job helping me fit in. You can go.”
Shield looked a little miffed, and was about to react. Then he stopped himself and instead replied, “Ok then, if you don’t need me then I guess I’ll go. Have a good life.” He got up to reopen the latest portal.
“Wait! One last thing!” Heartbreak put a hoof up to Shield. “You said the Fae went to an alternate universe where I didn’t exist?”
“Yes.”
“So does that mean there’s an alternate universe where I’m still Anthony and this never happens?”
“Well, actually, if it’s any consolation, yes. There exists an alternate universe out there somewhere where Anthony is still Anthony and Heartbreak never is.”
“But going there is near impossible without a connection?”
“Correct.”
“So if I find a connection, I can go to the alternate universe where I’m still Anthony?”
“Yes, but…” Shield pointed. “I know what you’re thinking. But it doesn’t work that way. If you as yourself go to that alternate universe, you don’t become human…”
“But instead I just meet my former human self…” Heartbreak’s ears flopped down.
“Yes.” There’s an awkward moment of silence. Then Shield moves and speaks. “Ok, I’ve got to go. See you later.”
“Wait!” Heartbreak embraces Shield, or at least as much as she can, which happens to be just his legs. “I want to tell you how happy I am, how relieved I am that you came along.”
“Yes, I know, Heartbreak,” Shield replied, not knowing what to do.
“I mean really! I am so happy you came and let me see her one last time!”
“You mean—”
“Don’t say her name! If you say her name I will kill you! I am so happy that you opened that portal and helped me back there. Thank you so very very much. I appreciate everything you’ve done for me thus far.”
“Okay, you’re welcome,” Shield tried to move his legs despite her grip. “I’m glad to have helped, it’s what I do. But I really must go.”
“Thank you thank you thank you.”
Shield pushes her off his legs and picks her up, looking her in the eyes like he would if he was holding a cat or a puppy dog. “Heartbreak, I’m happy for you. I’m glad that you could finally get over this, and that I could help you in some small way. I hope the best for you.” And with that, he drew her close and hugged her as best he could, and she hugged him back. They both smiled as they shared the embrace. Then Shield put her down and patted her on the head. Turning towards the portal and opening it, he added, “Have a good life, now, okay?”
“I’ll sure try!” Heartbreak waved.
“And tell Twilight and Rainbow Dash sorry and thank you, and that I hope they feel better!”
“If you think I can remember all that—nevermind. I sure will!”
And with that, Shield closed the portal and continued his task starting from the side yard of the hospital. Even without Twilight’s report, he could still check the status of the major known space-time distortions, and found that pretty much all of the patches were still in place and still closing slowly, which was optimal in this prime example.
It was only slightly difficult for him to not get noticed by other ponies, but he managed. After saying good bye to Pinkie Pie and the other mane 6, he left out of the same portal he came through. 
Back in his own world, he met with trouble. He had forgotten that he was supposed to submit a delay report and warn the Multiverse Council that he wouldn’t make it to the Mushroom Kingdom on the same day. Thousands of mushroom blocks had glitched out because he was a day or two late. Unfortunately for him, the adventure he had with Heartbreak was not a good enough excuse. When he found out that the Multiverse Council had grounded him for two weeks, he was… heart broken.

THE END