> Caelum Contortum: Snarled Stories
>  by JapaneseTeeth
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> A Hole in the Sky
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Continuities are not unlike parallel lines in Euclidean Geometry; they are never supposed to intersect. Continuities, in the vast majority of cases, run next to each other without ever crisscrossing. And this is likely for the best, as continuities are also not unlike a ball of yarn or that mass of computer wires behind the desk: when they begin to intertwine, separating them is nigh-impossible unless one eventually resorts to picking a line, tugging, and hoping for the best. Needless to say, keeping things thus unsnarled is generally in everyone's best interest, both inside and outside of the continuity.

So naturally, what you are about to witness is something of a non-Euclidean electric knot of yarn comprised of continuities that should never, for any conceivable reason (save simple curiosity), have crossed paths. In that, at least, continuities also resemble a train wreck.






Chapter 1: A Hole in the Sky


Twilight Sparkle couldn't be entirely sure whether her eyes were open or closed. Most likely they were halfway between. After all, she was halfway between being awake and asleep. She blinked a few times and was just barely able to make out the gleam of starlight on the end of her bed. Apparently the lamp had gone out at some point during the night. Normally it wouldn't have been a problem, but that night had been the first of the No-Moon Festivals that Princess Celestia had established so that Equestria would actually appreciate Princess Luna's duties. It was working. There was nothing that Twilight would have appreciated more than some moonlight.

"Ow!" There was a clatter as she bumbled into the stacks of books next to her bed. "Spike, can you light a candle or something? I can't see my hoof in front of my face!" She turned back to the window, which despite the pinpricks of light in the darkness was still quite dim. Either they were due for rain that night, or Rainbow Dash was slacking again and had let some stray clouds drift in. "Spike! Wake up!"

"Mmrnblbl...rar...gem...mbmlbgrf..."

Of course Spike would still be asleep. Just when she needed him so she could...what was it she had to do?

BANG. BANG. BANG.

Oh right. Somepony was at the door. She could hear a muffled voice; loud enough that it definitely wasn't Fluttershy. Rainbow Dash would have just buzzed the window, and if it was Pinkie Pie, it would be obvious. So it was either Rarity or Applejack.

BANG. BANG. BANG.

More knocks. And then more muffled shouting.

Twilight squinted at the door, as if it was somehow going to help her hear more clearly. Maybe it did. She could just barely make out a "tar-nation" among all the shouting. So it was Applejack, then.

"I'll be right down!" Twilight let out a disgruntled whinny as she tried to shake the fatigue out of her head. Magic was already beginning to surge through her body to the tip of her horn, where she could make it manifest as a ball of light. Why she hadn't just done that in the first place, she wasn't sure. She blamed it on the fact that at best she was maybe three-fifths awake, and began to trot down the stairs. Applejack's shouting was getting even louder.

"Twilight! We're havin' an emergency over at Sweet Apple Acres! You gotta get yerself over there now!"

The unicorn jumped the last few steps as she heard the word emergency. There was nothing Applejack liked less than asking for help. And if she was over here at whatever-o-clock in the morning, something had to be seriously wrong. With a flick of her horn, the door popped open.

"What is i-Ooof!" The breath was knocked out of her as Applejack tumbled onto her through the now-open doorway.

"We're havin' a crisis!" Applejack scrambled to her feet, nervously pawing at the floor with her hooves. "Hurry up! You're the only one who'd know what in tarnation is goin' on over there!"

"Calm down, Applejack." Twilight tottered back onto her hooves. "Tell me what's going on?" She squinted. Even in the dim glow of the light she had summoned, it was clear that Applejack's normal orange-y complexion had given way to something more yellow. "Are you all right? You don't look so good."

"Ah'm fine! The sky's the problem!"

"The sky? What about it?" Twilight fought the urge to yawn. She was eager to hear what was going on, but she knew that she hardly looked interested due to her not-fully-awake state. Yawning was not going to help.

"There's nothing there! That's the problem!"

So that was it.

"There isn't supposed to be anything there." Twilight rubbed at her tired head with one of her hooves. Explaining this again was the last thing she wanted to do at the moment. "Tonight was the No-Moon Festival, remember? Princess Luna didn't bring the moon up tonight because she wanted us to realize how important it is."

"Ah know that!" Applejack stomped. "The moon ain't the problem."

"Then what is!-?"

"It's them stars!"

"What about them!-?" Twilight snapped. What she would give for one pony in this town whom could get straight to the point...

"The stars ain't there either!"

"What!-?" Any trace of fatigue in Twilight's body or mind was immediately shoved out by an enormous surge of adrenaline. "That doesn't sound right. Princess Celestia told me that only the moon was going to be affected."

"Well, I dunno about that, but I do know that the stars are missin'. Now get out here and come take a look!" Applejack spun around and galloped down the main road towards her farm.

Twilight flicked her head in the direction of Spike's bed, flipping the baby dragon out of his peaceful slumber and onto the floor.

"Ow!" Spike tumbled into his nightstand as he fought to extract himself from his blanket. "What are you doing?" He poked his head out from the wrap of covers. "Come on, Twilight, did you really have to do that?"

"Sorry, I'm in a bit of a hurry." A quartet of books was lowering itself from the shelves, magically guided towards Twilight's saddlebags. "Applejack says that the stars over Sweet Apple Acres are starting to go out, so I'm going to investigate. I need you to come along in case I need to contact the princess."

"Stars going out?" Spike clamored his way onto Twilight's back. "Any idea why?"

"No, and if I had any idea, I wouldn't be in such a rush." She trotted out the door. "The princess said that the stars were going to be the same, even when the moon wasn't out. If the stars are being affected as well, it might mean that Princess Luna has reverted back into Nightmare Moon."

"Again?" Spike yawned. "Guess you'll just have to bust out the Elements of Harmony again, right? That solved all your problems last time."

"We'll find that out once we get there. I'm hoping that Rainbow Dash just missed a stray cloud or something. If the stars really are disappearing, all of Equestria could be in big trouble. Hold on tight."

Spike barely had time to readjust his grip before Twilight had broken into a full gallop.





"An abnormality in the sky, you say?" Konoemon, the headmaster of Mahora Academy, stroked his beard contemplatively. It was entirely possible that he knew exactly what was going on, and gears inside of that eggplant-shaped head of his were already spinning, working out a solution. It was equally possible that he had absolutely no idea what to make of this report and was merely stroking his beard in an effort to maintain his dignity despite a total lack of knowledge concerning what was going on. "I have no idea what to make of this. Can you describe this abnormality in more detail, Naba-san?"

"Of course, Headmaster." Chizuru bowed. "During the activities of the Astronomy Club last night, we were examining the night sky and realized that a certain section of the sky was wrong."

"Wrong?" The headmaster lifted a massive eyebrow. "How can the sky be wrong?"

"Well, at this time of years, certain stars should be in certain places. In this quadrant none of the stars are in the right places. It should look like this..." She held up a large poster of the night sky. "But it looked like this..." She held up another picture. "It's as if a part of the sky was removed and replaced with something else. The rest of the information is in here." There was a loud thump as she dropped a thick folder onto the desk.

"I see..." The headmaster nodded gravely. He wasn't entirely sure that the two pictures were even different. They both looked like clumps of white speckles on a black background. But still, if the head of the astronomy club had seen fit to report it, it was probably something that needed to be looked into. Besides, there were more than enough other indications that something weird was going on. "Rest assured that we will put our best efforts towards figuring this out. In the meantime, try not to worry yourself about it. You may go."

"Yes, sir. Thank you for your time." Chizuru bowed, and exited the office.

"All right, so what theories do we have?" Konoemon spun around in his chair, facing the half-dozen odd teachers that he had summoned to hear the report. He began to thumb idly through the contents of the folder, which consisted primarily of astronomical charts.

"I spoke with the head of the astronomy department this morning, and he confirmed that such an occurrence is unnatural." Takamichi plucked the folder out of the headmaster's hands. "As far as we know, there is no natural explanation." He flipped through a few pages. "According to this, the abnormality in the sky occurred at about the same time the World Tree's power began to fluctuate. It is highly likely that whatever is going on out there is primarily magical in nature."

"Of course it would be..." Konoemon sighed as he glanced out the window at the enormous tree at the center of the Academy's enormous campus. Even though the sun had not quite set, the tree's ethereal glow was already evident. The glow was, of course, due to the fact that the tree attracted magical energy like a giant magnet, and during especially strong fluctuations, caused the tree to emit light. The mundanes believed the glow was the result of some sort of glow-in-the-dark fungus, but this was the strongest fluctuation in over two decades. Whenever something like that happened, trouble always followed.

No exceptions.





"There, look!" Applejack waved a hoof at the night sky above the orchards. "Now you see what ah was tryin' to tell you about?"

"Give me a minute to catch my breath..." Twilight panted as she staggered through the farm's gate.

"I don't see anything," Spike grumbled as he hopped off of Twilight's back. "What was the point of coming out here if there isn't anything to see?"

"Because there's supposed ta be something to see, but there ain't!" Applejack stomped her hoof in the dirt before pointing it into the sky again. "See? Right there the stars just sorta stop."

Twilight blinked, trying to get her eyes acclimated to the darkness. It did seem a bit darker than it usually did on a clear night, but missing stars couldn't possibly be the simplest explanation for that. Some of the constellations were finally starting to make themselves visible. A chill ran down her spine as she finally got a glimpse of the thing Applejack was babbling on about. Above one of the far hills, there was a dark patch in the sky.

And it wasn't a standard patch of dark either. It wasn't shaped right to be a cloud, and even if it had been, it still wouldn't have been cloud-like. It was missing a certain quality that Twilight couldn't quite put her hoof on. If it would have been a cloud, there would have been more...solid was the best word she could think of, but even that didn't seem like an apt description. If a thing more solid than a cloud was blocking the stars, it would have been more obvious. There would be starlight shining on it, casting some sort of shadow.

But whatever it was that was hanging in the sky, it was somehow even more solid than that. There wasn't any glimmer of light anywhere in it, no brightness peeking around the edges, or reflecting off. Somehow the thing wasn't even casting a shadow. As far as she could see, everything was evenly lit, if a bit dimmer than it should have been.

"Maybe Rainbow Dash let a stray cloud out or something..." Twilight was unable to stop the words from wavering as they left her mouth.

"Nah, that's not it." A bright blur dropped out of the sky with a thump, and Twilight found herself staring into Rainbow Dash's face. "Tonight was supposed to be totally clear for the festival, and I made sure that it was. You checked it yourself." Rainbow Dash sniffed as she turned away and patted herself on the chest with her foreleg. "I'll have you know that as soon as Applejack realized that something weird was going on, I flew right up there to take a look."

"Good!" If Twilight had had fingers, she would have crossed them for good luck. "So what is the thing that's blocking the stars?"

"I have no idea."

"Ugh." Spike rolled his eyes before flopping on the ground next to a tree, curling up between two of the roots. "Figures..."

"What do ya mean?" Applejack reared up. "There's gotta be something up there keepin' the stars from shinin'!"

"Chill out!" Rainbow Dash wrapped a leg around Applejack's neck and dragged her back onto all fours. "As far as I can tell, there isn't anything blocking the stars. The sky is totally clear, okay? That's not the problem."

"That doesn't explain anything!" Applejack huffed. "We still have no idea what's goin' on."

"Just relax for a minute." Twilight closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Rainbow Dash and Applejack stared at her for a moment before looking to each other. Rainbow Dash cocked her head to the side inquisitively. Applejack responded with a shrug. "Okay..." Both ponies looked back at Twilight.

"Did ya figure somethin' out?"

"A little. We know that the stars aren't shining, and we know that there's nothing blocking them..." Twilight turned back to the sky. It looked different now. Or rather, it technically looked the same, but as far as she was concerned, everything had changed, because now she wasn't looking for an object floating in the sky. That had been the problem. Because nothing was there. Nothing at all. Now she could see the sky clearly. And it looked as if someone had torn a piece out of it. "…There must be a problem with the stars. There's a hole in the sky."





"Um...Negi-sensei..." Negi knew who was tapping on his shoulder before he even turned around.

"Good afternoon, Nodoka-san." He dipped his head in her direction. "How are you doing today?"

"I'm fine, Negi-sensei. I just had a question about something...well...Yue also wanted to know, but she had to go to the Library Club right now, so she wanted me to ask..."

"Oh, is it something about the last English test? I admit I threw it together a bit hastily, and some of the questions may not have been clear. I've just been very busy preparing for the Mahora Festival and-"

"Um...it's not about that, actually..." Her face flushed slightly as she leaned in close. "It's um...about a magic thing..."

"Oh." Negi glanced up and down the hallway. It was full of students whom were moving from class to class. Not the best place for discussing such a matter. There had already been plenty of trouble keeping his magic under wraps. Asuna had figured him out only a few days in, and by the time the class had got back from their field trip to Kyoto, another half dozen students, including Nodoka and Yue, had been let in on the secret. And that wasn't even counting everyone who had turned out to be in on it from the beginning. "Um, we should probably talk about...things like that...somewhere else."

"Oh, yes, of course..." Nodoka took a step back.

"But still...I...uh..." Negi stopped for second to keep from tripping over any more words. "Exactly what did you want to ask about?"

"Well, Chizuru-san said that something strange happened in the sky last night. Haruna said that she heard it was something to do with magic..."

"Ah, that's..." He held up a hand as he whispered. "We think it might. We're still looking into it. Stop by my room this afternoon after classes let out and I'll try to fill everyone in on it at once."

"Oh, okay. I'll see you later then. Thank you." She made a quick bow before scurrying down the hallway.





"All right, Spike. Send the letter." Held up by Twilight's magic, a small scroll hovered towards the diminutive purple dragon.

"Will do." Spike's cheeks puffed up for a moment before he belched a large green flame at the roll of paper. It crackled briefly as the fire consumed it. The ponies watched as the glow faded into the night, fluttering towards the Princess's castle at Canterlot. The dragon curled back up next to the tree.

"Ya think that Princess Celestia knows what's goin' on?"

"If anyone knows what happened, it's her." Twilight patted Applejack with a reassuring hoof. As she had begun to compose her letter, the initial terror had begun to fade. There was probably some sort of perfectly logical reason for this, and they were all getting themselves worked up over nothing. "We should probably just get back to sleep. I'm sure when we get up tomorrow everything will be perfectly fine. There is absolutely no reason to worry."

"Uh, guys..." Rainbow Dash pushed her head between the other two ponies. "There kind of is..."

"Please, don't be a worrywart!" Twilight shoved Rainbow Dash's head away and smiled a little too widely at Applejack.

"You might want to take another look before you say that." Rainbow stuck her head back in between them.

"Why?" Twilight muttered through gritted teeth.

"Because that hole is getting bigger."




"...so in short, we're unsure of what is causing this distortion in the sky." Negi turned away from the image projected on the wall of the dorm room to see if anyone was still paying attention. Asuna was slumped over the coffee table, half asleep, and Konoka was distracted with making another round of tea, but Nodoka, Yue, and Setsuna were all perfectly attentive and Kaede was either equally attentive, or asleep. It was hard to tell sometimes.

"The simplest explanation is that someone is siphoning magical energy from the world tree to sustain a magical projection of some kind. The only alternative is that the sky has changed somehow, and that is quite unlikely." He cleared his throat. "Are there any questions?"

There was a rustle from the back of room as Yue raised her hand.

"What are the probable reasons that someone would create such a magical projection?"

"We're not sure." Negi shrugged. "Perhaps someone is trying to hide something. There was some other abnormality that they were trying to cover up, but the projection they used was incorrect. No other astronomers have noticed anything abnormal, so it seems to be limited to the area around Mahora."

"So you think there may be something up there?"

"That's our current theory." Every head in the room except for Asuna's turned to face Setsuna, who had finally spoken up. "The principal has requested that I perform an aerial inspection. Once this meeting has ended, I'm planning to do a flyby to see if I can confirm the presence of some kind of illusory magic."

"Are you sure that that's safe?" Nodoka cast a worried glance over her shoulder. "If nobody knows what's up there..."

"I should be fine." Setsuna folded her arms. "I will not have to approach very closely to determine whether or not there's an illusion, and that's the only reason I'm going up there in the first place. There will be a number of support mages nearby in the event that something happens. I should be fine."

"Oh...okay..." Nodoka quietly turned back to face her teacher.

"You had better be fine." Konoka chuckled as she gently bopped Setsuna on the top of the head. "If you aren't, I'm going to turn grandpa's head into an eggplant casserole for sending you up there."





"Are you sure this is a good idea, Twilight?" Applejack shuffled along nervously at the back of the group. "Ah mean, shouldn't we stay away until we know what that thing is?"

"Don't be such a scaredy-pony!" Rainbow Dash dipped out of the air to tap Applejack on the head.

"Ah'm not scared!" Applejack's mane bristled a little. "I just don't think it's all that smart to go messin' with stuff when we don't know what it is."

"I don't like it either, but it's the only way to figure out what we're dealing with." Twilight gulped as she forced herself to continue leading the other ponies toward the top of the hill. The gap of darkness was definitely larger than it had been, and if her eyes weren't fooling her, it looked like the edge of the darkness was starting to overlap with the top of the hill. It looked so out of place; sort of like someone had taken a painting of the scenery and poked a hole in it.

"Come on, Twilight!" Rainbow Dash buzzed by. "This is taking forever. I'm taking a closer look!"

"Wait! Don't go over there by yourse-" Twilight sighed as the pegasus zoomed towards the black blot at the top of the hill. Attempting to stop her would be a futile effort. "Be careful!"

The response was so faint that Twilight could barely make it out.

"Don't worry! I'll be fine!"





"I'm not picking up any magical readings, other than some sort of pulse from the World Tree." Setsuna examined one of the magical instruments strapped to her arm as she beamed the telepathic message back to the group on the ground. "If there is some sort of illusion up here, it's not magical."

"What about electromagnetic readings?" Negi's voice bounced around inside her head.

"Nothing out of the ordinary. There's something weird up here, but none of the meters are picking anything up. I'm going to move in a bit closer."

"All right. Be careful, Setsuna-san."

"Yes, please." She rolled her eyes as she heard the Headmaster's voice in her brain. "If something happens to you, Konoka will never forgive me."

"It's fine." That was mostly true. There was absolutely no logical reason to suspect danger. Which actually made things worse. Ignorance was the one thing that couldn't be defended against. Still, whatever was up there was just as likely to be perfectly benign. There was reason to be cautious, but no reason to fear. Other than that weird sort of gnawing sensation.

At first Setsuna had attributed it to a combination of nerves and that tingling sensation she always got when she allowed her youkai powers to surface. But there was something else. Not necessarily magic. She was primarily a Ki user, but she knew what magical activity felt like, and this wasn't it. It wasn't Ki either. She had never experienced electromagnetic energy, but she had shocked herself on doorknobs a few times, and this sensation was so different that she knew it wasn't related to that either.

Even worse, it was impossible to tell whether the feeling was even physical. Part of it had to be; she had to make a concentrated effort to keep her hands from shaking. But not all of it. Part of it was definitely in her mind. It reminded her of that feeling she got during her graveyard shifts at campus security, when she wouldn't be able to stop herself from looking over her shoulder to see if someone was there, even though she knew that no one was there; and that if there was, she could have definitely taken them anyway.

She took a deep breath and pushed her wings against the evening air, lifting herself up. Even though the stars weren't visible in the light, if she squinted she could just barely make out an unusual distortion in the air, as if the sky were being reflected in a funhouse mirror.

"I can make out the distortion, but other than that I'm getting nothing. I'll head back do-"

The thought vanished from Setsuna's head as something quite literally appeared out of thin air. It was only about twenty feet in front of her, and to say that it was moving quite fast was a massive understatement.

"AHH!" The object clipped her wing as it sped by, sending Setsuna into a wild spin as she plummeted towards the World Tree. She grunted as she twisted herself in the air. She was still headed down, but at least now the world wasn't spinning around her. But the World Tree was getting far too close for comfort. An ugly burn spread through her shoulders as she spread her wings as wide as they could go, catching the air beneath them. Her feet brushed the upper leaves of the tree as she leveled out, gliding along the top of the foliage.

"What happened?-! Are you all right?" Negi's voice. He had apparently been watching.

"I'm fine. Something flew out of there! I'm going to see if I can catch it."

She squinted at the horizon. Against the brightness of the setting sun, she could see the speck that collided with her. With a flap of her wings, she soared along after it.





"Uggh...what just happened...?" Twilight wasn't directing the question at anyone in particular, which was a good thing because as soon as she opened her eyes, the first thing she realized that there was no one there to talk to anyway. Where Applejack and Rainbow Dash had gone was a mystery.

The next thing she realized was that it was a good deal brighter out than it had been. It wasn't actually bright; the colors in the sky indicated that a sunrise or sunset was in progress, but there was much more light than there had been in the middle of the moonless Equestrian night.

The third thing that she realized (and was somewhat frustrated at herself that it wasn't the first or even second thing that she noticed) was that she was quite obviously not on that orchard hill in Sweet Apple Acres. Taking stock of her surroundings, she was in a treeless field. The only nearby greenery besides the grass were a few neatly trimmed hedges next to one of the many buildings that surrounded the field.

That was when the first stage of panic began to set in. Never in her life had Twilight seen buildings like this; they were enormous, and there were so many of them, all in different shapes. In the distance she could see odd towers jutting out of the landscape. The only time she had ever seen so many buildings of that size all in one place was in Canterlot, and even that seemed small compared to whatever it was she had stumbled into. In the distance beyond the buildings, she could just barely make out a series of rolling hills. And on top of one of those, silhouetted against the sun, was the largest tree she had ever seen.

"Okay, Twilight. Don't panic." She murmured. "You can do this. You may not have any idea what just happened, or where you are, but you're a smart pony. You can figure this out. You just have to think. Think. We were going up the hill, and that hole suddenly got bigger, and you were floating. Or maybe falling. Or something. And I know I saw Rainbow Dash fly by me, so she's probably around here somewhere so if I can find her we can get out of wherever it is we are, and back to Equestria, and the Princess will have figured out what happened..."

The mumble of vague reassurances continued as she hobbled onto her hooves. The book-filled saddlebags weighed heavy on her back, but she wasn't about to dump what were her only possessions at this point in time. She had absolutely no idea what to do outside of her vague idea of "find Rainbow Dash", and behind the bushes seemed like a reasonable start. She could start small. No need to worry about scouring all of those enormous buildings yet. Maybe Rainbow Dash was just behind the bush.

Twilight's heart dropped into her stomach as she craned her neck around the hedge. No Rainbow Dash. Oh well, couldn't worry about it. Just had to keep doing something or else panic would set in. There was a path next to the bush, so she might as well follow it. It had to go somewhere. Maybe Rainbow Dash had followed it too.

She had barely cantered a few steps before she heard voices from, the other side of the bush. She swallowed. Maybe those ponies were nice. They could point her in the right direction, maybe get her a map, and tell her where she was. With much trepidation, she began to saunter slowly out of her hiding place. And as soon as she saw the source of the voices she retreated as quickly as she was physically able of doing.

The books that Twilight had studied in both Canterlot and Ponyville were naturally full of all sorts of mythical nonsense. Merponies, eight-legged horses, all kinds of ridiculous ideas. But still, a few old mares' tales had turned out to be accurate. But out of all of them, she would never have guessed that such a creature existed in reality.

Around the other side of the bush, chatting nonchalantly about some indiscernible subject, were humans.





"So you didn't get a good look at the object?" Konoemon sighed. Of course his hopes of getting any sort of a lead would be dashed.

"Unfortunately not. It was moving too quickly." Setsuna shrugged. "All I could see was that it was blue. There were other colors in there, but it was mostly blue."

"I see." The Principal nodded. The description was nigh-useless, but it was all he had to go on. "I'll let the rest of the security team know. They're currently searching the area where the object disappeared. We'll let you know if we find anything."

"Shouldn't I go with them?" She began to stand up. "The more people we have searching, the faster we'll find- Oof!" She grunted as she found herself forced back down.

"They'll be fine!" Konoka poked her head over Setsuna's shoulder. "You need to relax after all of that. You almost got knocked out of the air, after all. Are you sure you're okay?"

"Well, uh...my wings do kind of hurt..."

"Okay then!" Konoka latched onto Setsuna's arm and hauled her out of the chair. "We can head back to my dorm room and I'll give you nice back rub. And maybe a wing massage."

"Wing...massage...?" The prospect of receiving that was..intimidating, to say the least. "I don't know if that's really-"

"You don't need Setchan right now, do you, grandpa?"

"No, I believe Mana will be quite alright leading the team on her own."

"Good! Let's go, Setchan!"

"O-of course, Ojou-sama." Setsuna stuttered as she followed Konoka out of the office. The other-worldly paranoid feeling in her spine was rapidly giving way to another, much more human-ish kind of tingle.





Nodoka shivered as she walked along the sidewalk outside of the dorm. There was a distinct chill in the air due to the evening breeze, but that was not what caused it. The cause was the enormous disturbance in the sky. It had taken ten minutes of staring for her to even be able to make out where the thing was, but once she had noticed it, it was impossible not to see it.

She didn't know it, but the trembling was caused by much the same feeling that Setsuna had experienced. It wasn't quite the same sensation, but they were similar enough that they could be considered two types of the same feeling; in this case, the division was along the mind/body dichotomy. Setsuna's trepidation was merely the result of proximity; she had been fine until she was actually close to whatever was up there.

On the other hand, Nodoka's uneasiness derived from the simple knowledge (or lack thereof) of something strange hovering above the World Tree. It wasn't so much the thing itself; for all she knew, it was just some sort of totally benign swamp gas. The fact that it was an anomaly to her didn't really matter. What bothered her was the fact that no one else knew what it was, either.

Sure, finding out that magic existed had turned her entire world upside down. She was no stranger to magic weirdness. Since the time she had been let in on the secret, she had received mind-reading abilities, been petrified, been kidnapped by a demon, and was currently acquaintances with at least two demi-humans. The catch was that somebody had been there to explain all that to her, and once she could accept the fact "magic is real", everything else made sense. As long as all the pieces of the puzzle were there, everything was still consistent. Unfortunately, magic wasn't helping to explain the thing in the sky, and nobody was stepping forward with answers.

Nodoka trembled again as she looked up at the sky. She didn't want to look, and there really wasn't much to see at the moment; the disturbance was almost entirely covered by clouds. That was a bit of a consolation. If not for the fact that she couldn't get the thing out of her head, it would have at least given her a bit of normality. Even so, the fact remained that even though she didn't want to look at it, she felt compelled to.

Not that it was in any way directly affecting or controlling her (because it wasn't). It was more that it was too important to ignore. There was a nagging feeling the back of Nodoka's mind that the hole in the sky was significant, and that paying attention elsewhere would be a misuse of her time.

In the future, had Nodoka remembered that precise moment, she would have ultimately agreed with her past assessment. In the long run, the hole in the sky was far more significant than anything else there. She would also have noted that in the extreme short term, her focus ought to have been not on the sky, but on the ground, because that was the location of the bush that failed to notice was directly in her path.

"OW!"

Now Nodoka was experiencing another somewhat strange sensation, albeit one that wasn't totally foreign to human experience like the feeling that the distortion had caused. What she was currently feeling was the rather weird experience desiring pain for the sake of relief. One of her hands was in pain, just as one would expect it to be when it is scratched up and bleeding due to being dragged through a bush. The problem was her other hand. It didn't hurt at all, and whatever it was resting on was most certainly not a bush. It was too soft, too warm, too...fuzzy.

It was unimaginably more disconcerting to find that in a bush rather than simply scratching up both hands, like what was supposed to happen when one accidentally walks into a bush. As such, at that precise moment Nodoka would have gladly taken two hedge-pricked hands in exchange for the unpleasant experience of stumbling into something that was obviously not supposed to be there. Better a familiar pain than an unknown that could be any number of things. Of course, a day later she would consider her brief experience in the hedge the highlight of that day, but hindsight is always 20/20, after all.

Nodoka bit her lip as she slowly forced her head to look down. She inhaled sharply as she found herself staring into the largest eyes that she had ever seen. They were a deep purple, and they seemed be shaking. Nodoka was so transfixed by the stare that one of the last things she noticed about it was that it did not belong to a human face.

The realization made, her first reaction was quite natural: scream. Or at least to try to scream. All she managed was a babble of nonsense as she stumbled backwards. It was just as well, as the attempted scream died in her throat as she finally got a good look at what she had found.

Halfway out of the bush, scrambling to free itself from the branches was a small horse. A small, purple horse. A small, purple horse with a horn protruding from the unusually human-esque hair that hung over its forehead. Nodoka froze as the creature looked up at her, making eye contact. And in that moment most of Nodoka's fear vanished. She was no expert when it came to horses, but she could just tell that it meant no harm. Something about the way the eyes were trembling. Never in her life had Nodoka seen a horse emote so clearly. And the emotion the horse's face was a mixture of confusion and fear.

Nodoka took a cautious step forward. Then she jumped back two steps as the horse suddenly threw its front hooves into the air.

"Please don't hurt me!"

Nodoka's eyes widened. The horse could talk. And it was a distinctly female voice.

"I...uh...don't worry, I won't hurt you..." she stuttered. "Just please stay there and be quiet..."

"Oh...okay..." The horse retreated partway back into the bush, keeping her eyes focused on the girl.

Nodoka fumbled around in her pocket for her pactio card. She had never been so happy that telepathy existed. Even in her thoughts, she couldn't help but stutter.

"N-Negi-sensei, there's something out here that you should see..."
> The Best and Worst Day Ever
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

There are, in fact, many gods. That's with a small "g". I'm not even going to pretend to say that I know much about the big "G"; whether He exists, what He's like, etc. All I know is that if He's there, He's at the top of the totem pole. Or bottom. Whichever end of the thing the end-all, be-all is supposed to go at. What He says, goes, and that's that. So we won't talk about Him anymore.

Small "g" gods, to actually define the term for the purposes of this screed, are any persons who create a universe. The gods have various levels of control over their universes. Or rather, gods choose to have different levels of control over their universes. All the gods are, within the universes they create, omniscient. But some prefer to interfere at every step of the way, and others simply prefer to get the universe going and let it run on its own.

The first of these options is uncommon, but there are documented cases of repeated divine intervention, even if it is not noticed as such by the residents of the universe. The second option is by far the more common, and most gods tend to go the deist route and interact very little, relegating themselves to the role of observer.

Then there is the rarest of all: the god who wishes to merely observe, but is dragging into interfering by his own creation. The god, of course, is not forced to interfere, but if he chooses to subject himself to his universe in that way, that's the god's own decision.






Chapter 2: The Best and Worst Day Ever.


Haruna fumed to herself as she strode resolutely across the campus, headed nowhere in particular. It was that stupid half-knowledge. Everyone is hiding something from me! That much she knew. But what on earth is the big secret? We're friends, aren't we? That was where the "half" part of the "half-knowledge" came in.

Ever since we got back from that field trip to Kyoto, Nodoka and Yue have been acting all strange. Something had to have happened. It's like they're...tighter? I don't know what word I'm supposed to use! But they were already friends. They were already as good friends as they could be without taking the whole relationship into romance territory... Maybe that's what happened! One of them must have confessed and that's why they're always together! They only told me that it was school stuff so that I wouldn't try to tag along! But which one of them? Probably Yue; Nodoka already has a thing for Negi, after all.

But why would they try to hide that from me? I mean, I know I'm the go-to person on this campus for information, but they're my friends! They'd trust me with that. Mostly. Maybe after Nodoka confessed to Negi, she got Yue in on it and now they have to keep things on the down low to keep from getting in trouble. Yeah, that makes a lot more sense. If I were them, I probably wouldn't tell me about that.

But still, they're like never around anymore! Even if they are having some sort of torrid student-teacher love affair, they could at least hang out in the room more often. Being out of the loop like this sucks-

Unlike Nodoka, Haruna's imagination was vivid enough that she didn't even require a distraction. If there had been any onlookers, they would have simply watched in bemusement as Haruna marched resolutely forward into one of the decorative trees that lined the edge of the plaza.

"OW!" Haruna rubbed her forehead, now fully aware of the tree that lay directly in her path. She was not aware, however, of the sounds of twigs snapping above her head as an object that had been resting in the branches of the tree began to tumble downwards. "I need to get a grip. I feel like I'm starting to lose my-" The noise in the tree was now loud enough to merit her attention. She looked up with just enough time to see a colorful (but mostly blue) blur barreling towards her face. "What th-"

CRASH.

Haruna once again rubbed her forehead as she began to pick herself up off of the ground, trying to figure out what had just landed on top of her. She blinked. Maybe she really had lost her mind. If she was still sane, she wouldn't be seeing a blue, rainbow-mane pony flopped on the ground next to the tree. And even in the event that the pony was real, in a sane world, it wouldn't be talking.

"Hey! What do you think you're do-" The pony's face turned a slightly lighter shade of blue than it already was. "Where the heck am I? What's going on!-?"

"Are you okay?" Haruna couldn't think of anything else to ask. Any of the obvious questions were just too absurd.

"I'm fine!" the pony grumbled as she got back to her feet. "What's going on? Me and Twilight were just investigating that patch of sky, and then it got bigger or something...Next thing I knew, I was here. Wherever that is. Where are we, anyway?"

"...Japan."

"Japan? Hmmm...doesn't ring a bell." The pony shrugged. "You have any idea how to get to Ponyville from here?"

"Ponyville?" Haruna cocked her head to the side.

"I guess not. Oh well. See you later." The pony turned around, and Haruna's jaw dropped. There were wings on the creature's back. And they were rapidly unfurling themselves. "Bye." The pony took a tremendous jump.

"WAIT!" Both the pony and the girl crashed to earth as Haruna managed to latch onto her back legs. "You really shouldn't do that!"

"Why not!-?" The pony glowered back at her.

"Uh...let's just say that there aren't a lot of talking ponies around here..."

"So?"

"If the school people find you, they'll drag you off somewhere. You need to lay low for a bit. If you go flying off like, that you'll have a bunch of helicopters chasing you down!"

"Helicopters? What are those?"

"I'll explain later." Haruna made an attempted at a non-evil smile. They didn't come easy to her, but she managed. "Just come back to my room for a little bit so we can figure out what you should do!"

"Fine." The pony's wings slowly folded themselves neatly against her back as she turned around and held out a hoof. "My name's Rainbow Dash. Fastest pegasus in all of Equestria. You may have heard of me."

"My name is Haruna Saotome." Haruna held out her hand, unsure of exactly what to do with it. Oh well, this can't get any weirder. She took hold of the extended hoof and gave it a shake. I just shook hands...or maybe hooves...with a flying rainbow pony! This is the best day ever!





The situation had officially gone from "curiosity" to "crisis". Or at least in the minds of everyone who arrived on the scene of Nodoka's discovery immediately assumed. Priority number one was of course to get Twilight out of sight as quickly as possible. Once they had her hidden, then they could start to figure out what on earth they were supposed to do.

Every last one of them was walking on eggshells back towards the dorm, which was inexplicably deemed the best place to go. Not because it was conducive to secrecy (if anything, it was the opposite), but because it was the closest and most convenient. Besides, a little additional weirdness would probably not be noticed.

Yue, Asuna, Setsuna, Konoka, and Negi set up a human perimeter of sorts, walking as briskly and closely together as they could manage without trampling on Twilight or Nodoka, who was doing her level best to keep both herself and the mysterious purple pony from hyperventilating as everyone else talked as loudly as possible to drown out the clopping of Twilight's hooves.

Negi's knuckles were white as he gripped his staff. It was extremely tempting to attempt to cast some sort of magical cloak over the group, but that probably wouldn't help. At least there didn't seem to be anyone else around.

A few minutes ago his heart had nearly stopped as he had seen Haruna on the far side of the plaza. Of all the people on campus, she was probably the second worst person who could possibly discover what was going on. Fortunately, she was too preoccupied lugging a giant garbage bag along behind her. Haruna was always up to something, but in this case it couldn't possibly be more important than the matter at hand.





"Okay, you can come out now!" Haruna dumped the garbage bag on the floor of her room and quickly spun around to lock the door. When she turned back, she was greeted with a harsh stare from Rainbow Dash, who was halfway out of the bag.

"Are you trying to kill me or something? Putting me in that thing and dragging me along?" She rubbed her head with a hoof. "Were you trying to hit every bump along the way?"

"Sorry about that." Haruna shrugged. "I had to get you back here without anybody seeing you?"

"And why is that?" The pony kicked her way out of the plastic.

"Okay, let me explain." Haruna sat down on the other side of the coffee table. "I don't know where you came from, but-"

"Equestria." The pony interrupted. "From a town called Ponyville."

"Right..." Haruna mumbled. A town called "Ponyville" sounded like something that a six-year-old girl would make up. "Anyway, I don't know what things are like in…Ponyville...but here we don't really have any talking ponies."

"Where is 'here', exactly?"

"Uh...the country is called Japan. The town...well, we're at Mahora Academy, and it's probably big enough to qualify as its own town. We do have our own postal code, after all."

"So you're telling me that there are no ponies anywhere in this whole 'Japan' place?"

"Well...we have ponies..." Haruna scratched her head. "They just don't talk..."

"Okaaay...that's kinda weird." Rainbow Dash raised an eyebrow. "Can you just tell me where the talking ponies are?"

"Um...about that...I don't know...that is to say..." Her voice trailed off. She hadn't really thought of how she was going to explain this.

"That is to say what?"

"Well, as far as anybody in Japan knows, or in the rest of the world for that matter, there aren't any talking ponies..."

"None?" Rainbow Dash cringed.

"None. As far as I know, you're the only talking pony anywhere on this planet."





"So, what is your name?" Negi asked, clutching his pad and pen as if he were some kind of star reporter.

"T-Twilight Sparkle."

"Okay, thank you..." He began scribbling.

Behind him, Nodoka received an elbow in the ribs from Yue, whom sat beside her.

"Nodoka, this would be a good time for you to bring out your artifact."

"Um, I don't think so," Nodoka murmured. "I mean, is it really okay to go into someone's mind like that?"

"I think that the present situation rather justifies extreme measures. We know next to nothing about what is going on, and anything that could shed some light on this event is well worth the trouble."

"Um...excuse me..." Both girls turned to see Twilight craning her neck around Negi, looking at them. "If you don't mind me asking, what are you talking about?"

"She has a magic book that can read peoples' thoughts." Yue jabbed a thumb at Nodoka. "She just doesn't like using it very often because it's an invasion of privacy."

"And you want her to use it on me?" Twilight raised an eyebrow.

"Don't worry; we're not trying to interrogate you or anything." Setsuna held up a hand. "It's just that we don't have any idea of who you are or where you came from, and we want to be cautious. I don't think any of us believe that you mean any harm, but we just want to make sure."

"I guess I can understand that..." Twilight glanced across the room, noting all the eyes that were staring at her. She wished that they could see that she was more afraid of them then they were of her. "If it'll make things go faster, I guess I don't mind if she uses her mind-reading thing..."

"Oh...okay." Nodoka reached into her pocket for her Pactio card. "Adeat." There was a poof of smoke, and the card was gone, replaced by a large and extremely old-looking book. "Don't worry, Twilight, it doesn't hurt or anything."

"Good to know." Despite the reassurance, Twilight couldn't help but feel a sense of trepidation as Nodoka carefully opened her artifact.





"Come on, Rainbow Dash, I'm sure everything will get straightened out eventually."

"Yeah, sure. I have no idea where I am, and you have no clue where I came from, and we both have no idea of how I'm supposed to get back." The pony folded her forelegs as she slumped onto the table. "Can I get some more cheese puffs?"

"Sure." Haruna tore open another bag and tossed it onto the table.

"Thanks." In half a second, Rainbow Dash's nose was stuffed into the food, feedbag style. It was half empty before she withdrew her face, eying the growing pile of empty wrappers on the floor beside her. "Uh...sorry about eating all of your food. We don't have a lot of this stuff in Equestria. These cheese things are really good, though."

"Don't worry about it." Haruna twiddled her fingers. "It's the least I could do. You're in the middle of an existential crisis after all."

"A what?" Rainbow Dash tilted her head.

"It's...um...sort of this thing where you doubt your own existence...or something... Yue explained it to me once, but I wasn't really paying attention."

"Who's Yue?" Rainbow Dash asked before stuffing her head back into the food.

"One of my roommates. I share this room with two other girls."

"I guess the two extra beds should have been a tip off..." the pony muttered between bites of Cheetos. "What are they like?"

"Well, Yue is really smart, but she never really does any homework or anything. She's obsessed with philosophy."

"Philosowhat?"

"Philosophy. Stuff like 'What is the meaning of existence?' and 'Why is there something rather than nothing?'"

"Sounds fun."

"Nodoka is my other roommate. She's really quiet and reads a lot. Quite an imagination though."

"So where are they now?"

"They had some sort of student conference with the teacher. I swear, ever since we got back from our class trip, they've had like a ton of meetings with him. Something weird must be going on. Although Nodoka does have crush on him, so I guess it makes sense..."

"A crush on the teacher?" Rainbow Dash snorted. "Weird. You sound like you have an interesting group of friends."

"Tell me about it." Haruna shrugged. "They said they wouldn't be back for a few hours. Claimed it was an emergency. At least it gives me some time to figure out what to do with you."

"What are you talking about? What are you going to do with me?"

"Well, we have to hide you somewhere or some government agents or something are going to drag you off somewhere?"

"Government agents?"

"Okay, okay. Let me explain this again." Haruna rubbed her forehead. "People are going to want to do experiments and stuff on you to figure out how you can talk and why you have wings. Because no ponies in our world do that. Trust me; you don't want to do that."

"Okay." Rainbow Dash's face was still blank.

"You know what?" Haruna scuttled over to the cabinet, on top of which rested a large television. "This movie explains it a lot better than I ever could." She reached into the cabinet and withdrew a DVD case.

"Men in Black?" Rainbow Dash tilted her head once again. "What is that thing?"

"Don't you have movies in Ponyville!-?" She rolled her eyes. "Seriously...do you have plays?"

"Well, yeah, but those things are really boring. Sometimes my friends would drag me to see them."

"This is kind of like a play, but they recorded it so you can watch it whenever. And it's definitely not boring. There's lots of action."

"Action?"

"Yeah!" Haruna grinned. She hadn't known the pony for long, but she could already tell what movie genres would be most appealing. "Lots of fights, big monsters, stuff blowing up!"

"Okay, I guess we could watch it..." There was a crunch as Rainbow Dash turned herself to face the television, sitting on some empty bags in the process.

"Trust me..." Haruna popped the DVD into the player. "You're going to like this."





Nodoka's artifact sat closed on the counter, mostly forgotten. It had only taken a handful of questions from Negi to determine that the purple pony meant no harm and had even less idea of what was going on than Mahora did. Naturally, it hadn't taken very long for the interrogation to take a much more informal line.

"...and that's how I ended up in Ponyville."

"So summoning the Elements of Harmony granted you magic powers?" Asuna asked.

"Not exactly…" Twilight answered. "I actually had magic powers before that. Unicorns are naturally magical."

"Then what did the Elements of Harmony do?" Nodoka stared intently, looking not unlike a young child listening to a bedtime story.

"Well, they allowed us to use the power of friendship to defeat Nightmare Moon and rescue Princess Celestia." Twilight rubbed her chin with her hoof. "Other than that, I'm actually not entirely sure what they really do..."

"I have a question." Yue raised a hand.

"Yes?"

"Is there any particular reason that Nightmare Moon's imprisonment ended automatically after 1000 years?"

"I'm not entirely sure." Twilight shrugged. "Only Princess Celestia would know that. She's the one who set up the whole thing."

"I see." Just as Yue lowered her hand, another question popped into her mind. "You said that the Princesses were in charge of the sun and moon, right?"

"Yes, that's right." Twilight nodded. "The Pegasi control the rest of the weather."

"Do you think that it's possible that this Nightmare Moon is responsible for what happened?"

"That was the first thing I thought when the stars above Ponyville started going out. Back when she was still Princess Luna she was in charge of making sure that the stars rose on time. I actually had a few books with me about Equestrian astronomy, but I never got to look at them. Maybe if we looked through those we could-"

Everyone in the room jumped at the sound of a loud knock on the door.

"Who is it?" Asuna yelled.

"It's Negi, I'm back."

"What's the password?"

"Come on, Asuna, you know it's me. Open the door!"

"The password was your idea, and now you don't want to use it?" Asuna turned toward the door. "Just tell me what the password is!"

"Fine, fine. The password is 'fungus'. Now please open the door."

Asuna nodded at Twilight, who ducked her head under the table as Konoka opened the door. As the door clicked shut behind Negi, Twilight emerged from her hiding place.

"So what did the principal say?"

"He wants to have a meeting with you some time this week to see if your appearance can shed any light on the situation. He told me to make sure you stay out of sight until then. Maybe once we know more about what's going on, we can find somewhere for you to stay, but for the time being I think you should stay here."

"As if this room wasn't crowded enough already." Asuna's mumble was low enough that it passed unnoticed by everyone else.

"You'll have to keep out of sight if my other students show up," Negi continued, "but during most of the day you'll have the room to yourself."

"Oh, that should be fine." Twilight allowed herself a small sigh of relief. The thought of ending up locked in a cell had passed her mind, and had refused to leave. "I have a few books on astronomy with me, so maybe I can find something in there to explain what's going on."

"That certainly sounds like a plan." Yue stood. "Now that things are settled, we should probably be going."

"Already?" Twilight sighed. Figures. Just as she was finally starting to get herself settled, everyone was leaving.

"Yue is probably right." Nodoka took her artifact from the table. "It would be bad if Haruna got curious."

"Who's Haruna?"

"Our roommate." Yue rolled her eyes. "Let's just say that if she found out about you, it wouldn't be long before everyone knew."

"I see."

"It was fun talking to you, Twilight." Nodoka bobbed her head in the pony's direction. "Maybe tomorrow you can tell me more about your friends."

"Yes, I would like that." The pony bowed back, unsure of how else to respond. "Goodnight."





"So how many of those 'movie' things do you have?" Rainbow Dash stared at the screen, slack-jawed. She wasn't entirely sure what had been going on, but it looked awesome.

"Oh, I've got hundreds of these." Haruna grinned. "I can show you how to work the DVD player so you can watch more of them while I'm in class tomorrow. Gotta give you something to do while you hide in here."

"That would be awesome." The pony tilted her head at Haruna, who had suddenly spun around to face the door. A moment of utter terror had gone through the girl's head as she recognized the sound of the doorknob turning. It only took another half second for her to remember that she had locked the door, but her heart was still pounding.

"Haruna, open the door." A loud knock accompanied Yue's voice.

"What's tha-"

"Quiet!" Haruna hissed into Rainbow Dash's ear as she clamped her hand over her mouth. "It's my roommates! Get under the bed!"

"Under the-"

"Just go! You should be able to fit under it." She gave the pony a shove. "Come on! You don't want them to find you!"

"Okay, okay!" Rainbow Dash grumbled as she wriggled her way under the stack of bunk beds against the wall of the room. It wasn't quite as tight as she had expected, although it was hardly spacious.

"Come on, Haruna!" More knocks. "Unlock the door! Why do you have it locked anyway?-!"

"Just a second..." Haruna called through the door as she slung a sheet over the edge of the bed and shoved her backpack over the gap. "I'm...uh...naked."

"Why are you naked?" There was a perceptible note of annoyance in Yue's voice.

"Well...uh...why wouldn't I be naked?"

"Um, Haruna..." This time it was Nodoka's voice coming through the door. "That doesn't really answer the question..."

"I just wanted to chill out a bit, you know?" She flipped the latch on the door, which immediately popped open. "I mean, I had the room to myself while you two were out doing whatever the hell it is you two were doing with Negi."

"So what were you doing while you were naked?" Nodoka peeked cautiously into the room as if she somehow expected that an unknown presence was lurking within.

Yue surveyed the mess that had been left in the room. "Apparently having an orgy of junk food indulgence, if all this garbage is to be believed."

"I was hungry." Haruna snorted. "Okay, my turn now. So what was so important that Negi called this emergency meeting thing?"

"Just some school stuff. Nothing important." Yue slumped on the sofa.

"You aren't even trying!" Haruna leaped to her feet and leveled a finger at her friend. "If you're going to make stuff up at least put some effort into it! There's something up and you guys are hiding it!"

"Calm down, Haruna." Nodoka put a hand on Haruna's shoulder. "There are just a few...issues on campus that Negi doesn't want us to discuss with anyone. Don't worry about it."

"Easy for you to say," Haruna grumbled as she watched Yue clamber into her bunk. If Yue was going to bed without taking a bath first, something weird had to be going on. Either that or she just was just tired from the meeting running late, but that solution was too easy. Haruna could see the glint of Rainbow Dash's eyes peeking out from a gap in the sheet that was draped over the bed. Maybe this meeting had something to do with the pony's mysterious appearance.

Naaah...





"Dear Princess Celestia,"

The ballpoint pen made a scratching noise as it scribbled the words onto the flat sheet of paper. It wasn't quite the same as a quill and parchment, but it was still workable. The human inhabitants of the weird world that Twilight had stumbled into were mildly confused about how she planned to make use of the implement without opposable thumbs. And she naturally found their confusion to be a bit confusing. Apparently telekinesis was as rare in their world as opposable thumbs were in hers.

"Today I learned that you can make friends with others no matter who they are, even if they're from an entirely different world..."

The pen lifted off the paper. The pony stared at the last three words she had written. She wasn't in Equestria. She wasn't even the same world as Equestria. There was no Princess Celestia in this world. Even if there was, Spike wasn't there to send the letter. Everypony she had ever known was completely out of her reach. Her saddlebags, filled with half a dozen hastily-grabbed books, was the only remaining part of her world. If Equestria was even still around, it was so far away that it might as well not exist.

Her horn sparkled for a moment as the paper crunched itself into a ball and rolled off the table into the trash. She continued to stare blankly at the empty desk. Her mind was filled with the desire to do something, anything that would put her mind on anything other than her current situation. Unfortunately, there was nothing else to do.

Leaving the room was an impossibility at the moment. A nagging doubt at the back of her mind pointed out that she couldn't trust this Negi person any more than she could trust anyone else, but at the same time the idea of skepticism was impossible. None of these "people" had done anything but be nice, if a little wary of her. And that was completely understandable.

Although they must not have been too leery; the two girls were sleeping quite soundly, and despite a decent bit of tossing and turning, the boy was obviously sleeping quite soundly. As she made the observation, she immediately felt the mountain of fatigue that had built up come crashing down onto her eyelids. How long had it been since Applejack had knocked on the door of the Ponyville library?

There was a spark of magic, and the switch on the desk lamp flipped off. There was nothing to do now but rest. Maybe when she opened her eyes to the morning light, she would see the inside of the library. Then she would rub her eyes and make some sort of comment to Spike about the weird dream she just had, and then she could go have breakfast and then she would feel much better.

She closed her eyes as she curled up on the sofa. It wasn't a dream. Dreams didn't feel like this. Dreams didn't tire you out. Never in her life had she dreamed anything that even remotely resembled this. Then again, she had never been sucked into a giant hole in the sky before, either. Maybe when she finally got around to looking through those books she could shed some light on the situation. But for now, her head felt it like it was being squeezed in a vice, and the only remedy for that was some sleep. She closed her eyes and pressed her face into her forelegs.





Twilight wasn't exactly sure how long she had been sleeping. It seemed like she had barely closed her eyes, but her mind was in so much of a whirl that the only thing she knew for sure was that it was still dark. She wasn't sure that she had really heard anything, but she also wasn't sure that she hadn't. A moment later her ears confirmed the unfortunate truth that there had, in fact, been a noise. A sort of scratching rustle was apparently working its way across the floor. And it was getting closer.

She tried not to breathe as the sound stopped. For a brief moment, she wondered where it had gone. Then she tensed even more as the vibrations on the fabric informed her that whatever was making the noise was now scurrying along the couch. She could practically feel it slow down as it approached the end of the couch where she had situated herself.

"Well, well, well." A scratchy, reedy voice whispered out of the darkness. "What do we have here...?"

"EAAAHHHH!" Twilight catapulted off of the sofa as she felt something brush softly across her hindquarters.

"What is it!-? What's going on!-?" There was a crash as Negi tumbled out of his nook, still wrapped in his blanket. "Are you okay, Twilight!-?"

"What the hell is with this racket?" Asuna voice came out of the darkness. "Negi, get the lights on!"

Twilight's eyes burned as the room lights flickered to life. Even though she was half-blinded by the brightness, she could just make out a wriggling shape on the sofa, right where she had been.

"Dammit, you stupid ermine!"

The pony watched in confusion as Asuna took hold of the object, hefted her arm back, and flung the thing as hard as she could towards the far wall. There was a muffled splat.

"Asuna, why did you do that?" Negi scuttled over to the wall where the thrown had landed.

"That's what he gets for sneaking in here in the middle of the night and waking us all up." Asuna huffed as she climbed back into her bed.

"Nee-san...that was rough..." the mysterious voice echoed out from behind the desk. As Twilight's eyes began to adjust to the light, she was greeted by the sight of what appeared to be an elongated white rat with an overly large tail. "I was just curious about our visitor." The creature pointed a short appendage at the pony, who was huddling behind the sofa.

"Oh, Chamo, you're back." Negi grinned as he put his arm on the table, allowing Chamo to scurry up onto his shoulder. Twilight felt a chill on her spine as the ermine stared intently in her direction.

"I sure am. You want to fill me in exactly what happened while I was away?"




Apple Bloom sighed as she glanced at the clock. An hour and a half ago, Applejack had left Sweet Apple Acres to go get Twilight. An hour ago, Apple Bloom had decided to make snacks for when everyone inevitably came back to the house. Half an hour ago, Apple Bloom's hunger had gotten the better of her and she had eaten all of the snacks. Five minutes ago, she had started to worry about her big sister's whereabouts. Currently, she was contemplating going out to search for them. In fact, she was on her way out the door when she heard a familiar voice from behind her.

"Hey, Apple Bloom!" The filly turned around to see Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo poking their heads through the window. "We're going to go try to convert the tree house into a house boat! Want to come?"

"Sure!"

Five minutes later, whatever that thing was that Apple Bloom had been so worried about was completely forgotten.
> Coping with Adversity and Revelations
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

While the gods are typically omnipotent within their universes, very few are omniscient. It's quite an odd phenomenon, as the attributes of divinity are typically identified as omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence. But that's not the kind of godhood we are talking about.


Chapter 3: Coping with Adversity and Revelations


 “Log #1

May 22nd.

It's been two days since I arrived here. I decided that even though I have no way of contacting Celestia or any other ponies I should still write down my thoughts. It should help me calm down a bit if I can get everything onto paper. Writing things out has always helped me organize my thoughts, so hopefully it will keep me from freaking out too much. Here goes.

I mean, I had read about humans before, but I never thought that they really existed. When I found out that this world had humans in it, I just wanted to hide from them. That didn't work out too well. One of them stumbled into the bush where I was hiding and found me. The good news is that she turned out to be really nice. I'm not sure what I had been expecting, but it caught me off guard for some reason.

She told me that I had appeared in a giant, city-sized school where she was a student. She called her teacher using some sort of magic, and he brought some other students out and took me back to their dormitory. Apparently, here, not everyone knows about magic, and because there aren't any other unicorns or talking ponies here they thought I might scare somepony or something.

While I was there, they asked me a bunch of questions about whom I was and where I was from. At first I was a little suspicious, but I'm pretty sure that I can trust them. I think they were even scared of me. It never really occurred to me that they didn't really know what was going on either. We talked for quite a while; they were curious about Equestria, and I had a lot of questions about wherever it was that I've ended up.

There were a couple of humans that I got to know a little. Negi was their teacher. It's a little strange, because he's actually younger than his students, and he actually lives in the building with them. Apparently it's one of those schools where the students stay there all the time. It reminds me a little of when I left home to go study under Princess Celestia. He was very polite, although he seemed really agitated about something. I guess he has a lot on his mind, being a teacher and everything.

The girl who found me was named Nodoka. She reminds me a little bit of Fluttershy. She's quiet, but she was also really nice. She talked to me a little right after she ran into me. I think she was just as shaken as I was, but she helped me calm down. It's probably a good thing that she found me like that; I don't know what I would have done otherwise.

Nodoka is one of the people in Negi's class who do know about magic. She actually had this magic book that lets her read people's thoughts. I let her use it on me for a few minutes. It was kind of creepy, but she didn't use it for long and afterward they didn't seem to be as scared of me, so I guess it was worth it. Nodoka told me later that she doesn't like using too much because it feels weird to look into somepon- somebody else's mind like that.

Negi said that he would take me to talk to the school principal about what to do. Until then, I'm going to stay in his room and do some research. Two of Negi's students are also in the room with him. Asuna can be a little grouchy, but she's not too bad when you get to know her. Konoka is really nice, and she's a really good cook too. They're in class most of the day though, so I'm usually alone in the room.

There's also Chamo. He's an ermine. Asuna says that he's a jerk and a pervert, but he seems nice enough to me. It's actually kind of nice to have him around; I like having another non-human to talk to. He comes in and out during the day, so I don't get too lonely. He even curled up to sleep with me. It was sort of like having a little teddy bear with me, although he wriggles around a bit in his sleep. But it's not like I was really going to sleep all that well anyway.

Nodoka got an encyclopedia out of the library for me so that I can learn more about this world while I waited to meet the principal. (Chamo said he could show me this thing called the internet with even more information on it, but Asuna said that I'm not ready for that yet). So far I've managed to keep myself occupied by reading it. This world is sort of like Equestria, but there are some really weird differences. The humans don't have any control over the weather at all; it just happens on its own and they have to deal with it. They don't have cutie marks either, so it takes them a lot longer to figure out what they want to do.

I guess that writing about all the differences between Equestria and this world would take a really long time, so I should probably leave that for later when I find out more about where I am. They call it Earth, but that seems to be a name for the entire world rather than just the part that they live in. Negi said that there's actually far more in this world than just Earth and it's up in the sky or something. I thought he might have been talking about floating cities like Cloudsdale, but he meant something else.

Anyway, apparently there was a disturbance in the sky here as well. I have a few of the books that were with me when I got sent here, so there might be something in those books that will help explain what happened both here and in Equestria. Nodoka says that the school has a very large library, so there might be some books in there as well that will help us understand what happened. I actually think that I can hear Negi coming back now, so I guess the first journal entry will have to end here, even though I have a lot of other things I want to write down.






“How's your journal coming along?” Konoka asked as she looked up from the stove in the corner of the room.

“It's going fine, I guess.” Twilight turned around awkwardly. The chair was obviously not made to be used by a pony. “It took me a while to get used to this.” She pointed a hoof at the ballpoint pen that was hovering beside her head. “I'm used to using a quill. This is way more convenient though. I don't have to worry about knocking the inkwell over.”

“You still had to use inkwells in Equestria?”

“Yeah, I guess we never got around to figuring out how to-” She stopped as Negi burst into the room, clutching a giant stack of papers in his arms.

“Good afternoon, Twilight. Are you having a good day?”

“I suppose so.” Twilight sighed as she closed the journal. “I've been doing a lot of reading, same as usual. It hasn't been too bad, although I have to admit I'm getting a little tired of being in this room all the time.”

“I have good news about that, actually.” He grunted as he dumped the papers onto the table. “I was talking to the principal again and he says that he'll be able to meet with you first thing tomorrow morning. He's already thinking about possible places for you to stay, so if all goes well you won't have to be cooped up in here for much longer.”

“That's great!”

“It's good to hear that grandpa is finally getting his act together.” Konoka chuckled as poked at the food in her frying pan. “I've been bothering him all day about making time for the meeting.”

“Well, he has been very busy lately.” Negi shrugged. “I mean, he's been consulting with experts all over the place trying to figure out exactly what's been going on.”

“So is there anything that I should do before the meeting?” Twilight asked as she stuffed her journal into her bag. “Do I need to dress up or anything?”

“You'll be fine the way you are,” Konoka called out from behind a haze of steam. “Grandpa doesn't really care much about stuff like that. You should just relax. It's not like he's going to interrogate you or anything. Don't worry about it too much.”

“That's sure easy to say...” Twilight began to climb off the chair. “I mean, even if he does find somewhere else to stay, what am I supposed to do? Am I just stuck here? Do I just hang around until somepony figures something out? Am I just going to-” She paused, recognizing the sound of a laugh being stifled. Or, rather, a failed attempt at a laugh being stifled. And it was definitely female.

“Sorry...” Konoka giggled. “It's just that the 'somepony' stuff is so adorable...”

“Ugh...” Twilight crawled onto the couch and curled herself up. The last thing that she wanted was another reminder that she wasn't in Equestria anymore. So naturally, even the inanimate objects seemed to be hellbent on pointing out that fact at every available opportunity. Even when she had tried to lose herself in the journal, every few seconds the pen would reflexively flick towards the upper right corner of the desk. That was where she normally kept her inkwell on her desk back in her library in Ponyville. It was hard not to think about how far from home she was when every time she got a rude reminder of the fact every time she forgot that she wasn't using a quill.

“Are you alright? Twilight?”

“Huh!-?” She snapped out of her funk to see Negi's worried face looking at her.

“Are you alright?”

“Oh, yeah, I'm fine. Just a little stressed.” She blinked a few times, hoping it would clear her mind as much as it cleared her eyes.

“Well don't be worried. I'll make sure that everything gets taken care of.” Negi smiled broadly as he put his hand on the top of Twilight's head. “I'll make sure of that.”

“Thanks...” She closed her eyes as she rested her head on her forelegs. There was a nagging feeling in the back of her mind that the pat on the head would normally be considered condescending, but at the moment she didn't care. Something about him calmed her down, and that was the most important thing at the moment. He had been trying so hard to help her that she couldn't help but feel at ease. After all, the one time she had managed to forget where she was had been the night before during her conversation with Negi, comparing their respective magical styles. She never would have expected that the one thing that would get her mind off of home was talking about how different it was from where she had ended up...

“I'M BACK!” There was a crash as Asuna kicked the door open. Her arms were wrapped around what appeared to be a gigantic hunk of sod. “I brought some grass for Twilight!”

“Oh...uh...” Twilight eyed the tangle of dirt in Asuna's arms. There was barely enough grass on the thing to make a decent appetizer, but the girl had obviously gone out of her way to bring it, and after two days with no foliage, it actually looked quite appetizing. “Thanks...”

“Oh, good!” Negi exclaimed as he popped out of his seat. “You remembered.”

“Yeah, I remembered,” she grunted. “Where do you want me to put this thing? It's freaking heavy.”

“Just give me a moment.” Negi scrambled over to where Asuna was standing. “I'll get you a newspaper or something to put it on.” He turned back to Twilight. “I thought you might want some, so I had her pick some up on her way back from art club.”

“Thank you.” Twilight could smell the turf from across the room. It wasn't quite the same scent as Equestrian grass, but it was still good enough to make her hungry. The floor trembled as Asuna dumped the sod on the coffee table.

“You're welcome,” Asuna mumbled as she flopped onto the couch next to Twilight, coughing into her fist a few times before finally relaxing.

“Asuna, you're getting dirt all over the couch!” Konoka shook a spatula at her roommate. “Why don't you go clean up before we eat?”

“Fine, fine...” She pried herself off the couch with a groan and began to shuffle towards the door. “Oh, that reminds me...” She turned around. “You're meeting with the Principal tomorrow, right?”

“Yes. Negi arranged it for me.”

“Well, you might want to get cleaned up a little bit before the meeting. I mean, nothing personal, but it's been like three days, and you haven't had a bath or anything yet, and the room is starting to get a bit...horse-y.”

“Asuna, that's rude!” Negi gasped. “You can't say something like that to a guest!”

“Oh, come on!” She rubbed her nose. “Don't say that you haven't noticed. It's not like she can help it or anything, but just look at the couch. It's got purple hair all over it.”

“Still...” Negi crossed his arms. “It just isn't polite to come out and say it like that...”

“No, she's right...” Twilight smiled awkwardly as she examined the sofa, noticing the scattering of purple for the first time. “I really do need a bath or something.” She arched her neck back at took a quick sniff of one of her flanks. “Eagh.” She cringed. “Yeah, a bath would probably be a good idea. I wouldn't want to smell bad or anything tomorrow. Do you have somewhere where I could take one?”

“There's a community bath at the end of the hallway,” Konoka offered. “Maybe we could sneak you out of the room.”

“Yes, that would probably be the best option.” Negi put a hand to his chin and began to stare into space, looking unnecessarily pensive. “Tonight would probably be best. Policy is for everyone in the dorm to stay in their rooms after midnight, so there shouldn't be anyone in there.”

“Sounds like a plan!” Asuna gave Negi a pat on the back; one hard enough that it could qualify as a slap. “And you might want to show Twilight how to use this.” She snatched a lint roller off of the counter and pressed it into Negi's hands. “Sooner or later somebody who's not in the whole magic thing is going to come in here, and they're going to be curious about the purple hair.” She sniffed. “And I think I might be allergic to horses....”







“Do all of you really need to be here?” Twilight mumbled.

“Technically, no,” Yue answered as she scrubbed the pony's back. “But the most efficient way to get you from your room to the bath was to surround you with people.”

“Besides, it'll go a lot faster if we all help,” Nodoka added. “You might want to close your eyes for a moment.” Twilight complied as Nodoka kneading shampoo into her mane.

“Don't worry, you'll get used to this kind of thing,” Chamo commented as he watched from the edge of the water. “Communal bathing is par for the course around here.”

“Why are you even here?” Asuna looked back over her shoulder. “You aren't even doing anything. Why don't you take lookout duty?”

“Nah, I'm fine where I am.”

Asuna rolled her eyes at the ermine before turning back to her post. “Why do I even ask? A bunch of girls in the bath? Of course he's going to...what the heck is that...?” She squinted into the darkness trying to discern whether the figure in the hallway was actually there, or just a figment of her imagination. As the figure began to solidify in her vision, it became evident that it was the latter. She spun around.  “Somebody's coming! Everybody get in the water.”

Ten seconds later, Twilight found herself squashed behind the other girls against the edge of the pool underneath a large, overhanging plant, trying to stay as quiet as possible.

“I thought no one else was supposed to be in here at night!” Konoka whispered.

“They aren't supposed to be here,” Asuna grumbled. “At least we had special permission from Negi...”

“Shhh…” Yue elbowed her into silence as the main door of the bath squeaked open. Yue groaned as she heard a familiar voice echo through the bath chamber.

“Okay, you can come out now!”

“Of course it had to be Haruna...” Yue mumbled. She silenced herself as a loud rustling filled the air, followed by a loud gasp and a voice that she didn't recognize.

“Eaah! Were you trying to suffocate me or something?”

“Oh shut up.” Haruna again. “It was the only way to get you in here without someone seeing.”

“Oh, wow.” The other voice seemed to be ignoring Haruna's explanation in favor of admiring the size of the bath. “This place is pretty nice.”

“Yeah, it really is. Now get in the water before somebody finds us.”

“Come on, just give me a few minutes to fly around first. I haven't gotten to stretch my wings since I got here.”

“Well, you can't fly in here. If someone saw you, even I wouldn't be able to explain it!”

Nodoka leaned over in an attempt to hear better. She knew the voice that Haruna was using. It was the voice Haruna used when she was arguing against something that she actually wanted. Naturally, this didn't happen often, so it was quite recognizable.

“Hey, after keeping me under your bed for the last few days, you owe me! Besides, I already told you about all the awesome tricks I can do. You know you want to see them.”

“Well, yeah. Just not now.”

“I think I recognize that voice...” Twilight began to sidle along the edge of the pool to get a better look. As she attempted to peek out from under the plant, she felt a gentle tug on her tail. She turned back to see Nodoka shaking her head.

“If Haruna sees you, we're all going to get in a ton of trouble. Everybody will find out about you!”

“I'll be careful.” Twilight lowered herself into the water as she slowly peeked out from behind the leaves. She could see a human with long black hair and glasses, shaking a fist and yelling at some unseen entity.

“Will you get in the water already? We don't have all night!”

“Oh, just give me a minute to stretch my wings! I haven't been able to fly at all.”

Twilight tried to breathe evenly. The voice almost certainly belonged to Rainbow Dash. But then, her entire world had pretty much collapsed in on itself a few days back. If that could happen, it was entirely possible that it was a coincidence, and whoever it was only sounded exactly like Rainbow Dash. And apparently had wings.

“Well, if you're going to waste time fluttering around like that, could you at least do one of these tricks you've been blabbering about for the past two days?”

“Sure! How about a Calculated Ricochet Agility Super Hyperdash?”

“I have no idea what that is, but it sounds awesome! Go for it!”

“Okay, here we go!”

Twilight could hear the rapidly accelerating flapping of wings. On the one hoof, the sound was reassuring. She had probably heard it a hundred times; it was unmistakable. Rainbow Dash was on the other side of the plant. On the other hoof, Rainbow Dash's wings only sounded quite like this in a very specific situation: when she was gearing up to perform some sort of epic flight maneuver. As in, the types of tricks that almost certainly couldn't be performed inside the bath.

She considered calling out a warning. Or simply sticking her head out of her hiding place and calling to her friend. After all, if this Haruna person already knew about Rainbow Dash, it couldn't get too much worse-

Twilight snapped out of her contemplations at the sound of a loud splat directly above her. She cringed. That sound was slightly less common, but Twilight still recognized it. Rainbow Dash tended to make that same sound when she miscalculated her high-speed entrances through Twilight's library window.

“EAAHHH!” The combined sounds of a splash and half a dozen screams erupted from the hiding place as the multicolored pegasus crashed into the water. For a few moments, the bath was a tangle of churning water, soap, and rapidly flailing limbs.

“What the hell?” Haruna cocked her head at the splashes and screams that were echoing from the other side of the pool. She didn't really know anything about pegasi, but she was quite sure that it would take more than one of them to raise such a ruckus. It was also more than a little suspicious that more than a few of the screaming voices sounded familiar.

As she began to scramble to a better vantage point, she could make out a group of figures scurrying out of their hiding place. Two of them were ponies. One of them was Rainbow Dash. The other one she didn't recognize. The rest of the people were human. And she recognized all of them. They were her classmates. They froze as they noticed her standing on the edge of the pool, hands on her hips.

“What on earth is going on here?”




“Well, I was flying around, trying to get a better view, and then I looked down and everything was like way too far away.  I tried to fly back down, but everything started spinning and you were floating in the air for some reason; like the hill that had just moved out from under you.  I tried to grab on, but for some reason I couldn't go in the right direction.   I couldn't even see where the ground went.  Then I could see it again, but it wasn't Ponyville.  It was...wherever it is we are.”

“So when you appeared here, you were still conscious and still in the air?”  Twilight swam out of the way as Rainbow Dash rushed past, using her wings to propel herself across the bath.

“Yeah, so I flew down and figured that I should probably hide somewhere until I figured out where I was so I hid in a tree.  Then Haruna found me, stuffed me into a bag and dragged me back to her room.  So I've basically been hiding from her roommates under her bed, and watching movies while they're out.  You should see these movie things!  They're like these pictures that move around and stuff, and there are explosions and robots and people flying around in space!  It's so awesome!  You really need to see it sometime.”

“Uh…that sounds...interesting...” Twilight answered, not sure at all what her friend was talking about.

“Yeah, it was pretty cool.  What were you doing all this time?”

“Well...”  The most accurate answer was something along the lines of “trying not to have a nervous breakdown”, but that probably wasn't exactly what Rainbow Dash was asking.  And Twilight's nerves were still more than a little jittery; the last thing she wanted to do was actively focus on that feeling.  “Mostly I kept a journal and read up on the history of this world.”

“Shoulda figured you'd still be studying...”  Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes.

“Well, I don't know how long we're going to be stuck here, so I figured I'd learn about where I am.  I also had a few of my astronomy books with me, so I've been looking through them to see if I can figure out what happened.”

“So, did you find anything?”

“No...” Twilight reluctantly admitted.  “The only thing I can think of is that Luna is reverting back into Nightmare Moon.  She controls the night sky, and it even took place during the No-Moon festival.  The whole thing just seems very suspicious.”

“Her again?” The pegasus flopped onto her back once again.  “I thought she was on our side now.  She did a public apology and everything.  Even Princess Celestia said she was okay.”

“I know, but we can't be sure.  I can't think of anypony else who's powerful enough to do something like this...”

“Well, if she shows up again, we'll just have to summon the Elements of Harmony again.”  Rainbow Dash crossed her forelegs.  “We beat her once and we can do it again!”

“But there are only two of us...”  Twilight answered.  “We can't summon them like that.”

“Eh, we don't need all of them!”  Rainbow Dash smacked the water with a hoof.  “We totally got this by ourselves.  We only need two elements!”  She thrust the hoof at Twilight.  “You've got the magic-”  She patted herself on the chest.  “And I've got the...uh.... Awesomeness!”

“I think you mean 'Loyalty',”  Twilight responded dryly.

“Yeah, that.  Whatever.”  Rainbow Dash waved a hoof in the air.  “We'll be able to take her out.  Pow!”  She punched the water.

“I kinda hope I'm wrong, and it isn't Nightmare Moon...”  Twilight dodged Rainbow Dash's splashing.  “I got to talk to Princess Luna for a little bit after the Gala and she seemed really nice, like she was really sorry for everything that she had done.”

“Well, maybe you're wrong then.  That's happened before, hasn't it?”

“Yeah...”  Twilight sighed.  “But this is the one time I actually hope I'm not right...”







There had been a number of points in Haruna's life where she had received a revelation so stunning that it resulted in a whole new epoch in her existence. Specifically, the number was two. The first revelation had been her discovery that she enjoyed drawing and didn't suck at it. It had occurred at the age of eight, when some unwitting relative had left an illustrated collection of the works of H.P. Lovecraft next to a box of crayons. The result was the most realistic depiction of the Great Old One ever put to paper; to the point that it was eventually burned, sealed in a canister, and buried.

But the second revelation dwarfed Haruna's discovery of her artistic ability. She would have killed for magic. Not literally, but in a figurative sense, she would have given almost anything to have made that dream a reality. X-ray vision, flight, turning lead into gold, turning herself into an axlotl, magical mustache summoning powers...she would have taken anything. So naturally, when she discovered not only that magic did in fact exist, but that her teacher and two best friends were totally in on it, the feeling was comparable to getting a pony for Christmas.

Of course, the fact that it was all going on under her nose made it more like the pony had actually been there all along, and had only been revealed on Christmas. And then there was the fact that the revelation in question was accidental, so it was really like waking up on Christmas morning to discover that your family had been hiding a pony from you for your whole life, and the only reason you found out about it is because they didn't realize that you would get up early to go to the bathroom. So it was an awkward revelation with a few awkward questions involved, but the revelation in question was so awesome that you can momentarily forget that you've been left out of the loop. So maybe it isn't like getting a pony for Christmas at all, other than the fact that it was in fact a literal pony that accompanied the revelation.

“Okay, stop...” Konoka held up a hand. “Let's go back to the beginning, okay, Haruna?”

The girl just nodded dumbly.

“Good.” Konoka stood up and gestured for Haruna to take her seat. “You're going to want to sit down for this.”

“Okay...” Haruna let herself plop onto the bench next to Yue. Her tremendous tolerance for absurdity was getting closer to its limit than it had been in years.

“Negi is actually a mage.”

“What.” Haruna's eye began to twitch. “But how is that-”

“Shh.” Konoka held up a finger. “You should probably ask him to explain his background to you. Long story short, several of our classmates have been let in on it. Asuna was the first. She found out shortly after he arrived. A few others, including myself, Yue, and Nodoka first learned about Negi's nature during the class trip. Several students were also aware of the existence of magic before Negi even arrived. Setsuna, Evangeline, Chachamaru, and Mana all knew. In addition, a number of faculty members at Mahora are mages. My grandfather is actually the head of the magic association in this region. Oh, Setsuna is actually part Tengu, and Evangeline is actually a vampire and several hundred years old. Also, Chachamaru is a robot.”

“Eh?”  Haruna's brain grounded to a halt.  Even for her, this was far too much information to process in far too short a time.

“Negi's here!”  Asuna called.  Once again, she had been relegated to her position as lookout.  The diminutive teacher scurried around her.

“What's going on?”  He tilted his head at the bath, where Twilight and Rainbow Dash were splashing around as they caught up with each other.  “Where did the blue pony come from?”

Yue stood up and approached her teacher as Nodoka and Konoka began to attend to Haruna.

“She apparently appeared around the same time Twilight did, only Haruna found her before anyone else.  Somehow she managed to hide her in our room.  I'm rather embarrassed that I failed to notice the pony's presence.  Perhaps I was too distracted by Twilight to notice.  It does explain why our room was starting to smell rather pony-like, though.”

“How did she manage that?”  Negi asked, regarding Rainbow Dash's size with curiosity.

“She stuffed me under her bed, that's how.”  Rainbow Dash stuck her head out of the water.  “Sooooo cramped.  Dusty too.  I barely even fit under there.”

“That's because you ate like all of my snacks!”  Haruna snapped.  “I've never seen anyone eat so many Bugles!  Is that what screwed up your little trick?”  She pointed at the circle of cracks on the ceiling.  

“Shut up!”  Rainbow Dash sniffed.  “I'm just rusty.  I haven't been able to fly at all since I got here, and my wings hurt from being crammed under your bed.  Give me some open space and a little warm up time and BAM!”   She thrust a hoof into the air.  “It'll be so awesome you won't even believe it!  When do I get to go outside, anyway?”

“We're working on that, miss...uh....”  Negi's voice stumbled to a halt.

“Oh, right, I forgot to introduce here!”  Twilight threw a foreleg over Rainbow Dash's shoulder.  “This is my friend Rainbow Dash.  She lived in Ponyville, too.  We were investigating that hole in the sky I told you about when we got brought here.”

“Okay, my turn to do introductions!”  Haruna shoved her way past her friends, putting her hand on top of Negi's head.  “This is Negi.  Despite his shortness, he's actually our teacher.  Those girls...” She pointed at Yue and Nodoka.  “…you actually should recognize them already, but just for the sake of a proper introduction, this is Yue, and this is Nodoka.”

“Hello.”  Yue bobbed her head in the pony's direction, starting to blush slightly as she realized that she had been unknowingly watched for the past few days.

“Nice to meet you, Ms. Dash.”  Nodoka bowed gracefully.

“Eh, just 'Rainbow Dash' is fine.”  The pony wagged a hoof in Nodoka's direction.   “I really don't care about--”

“Anyway!”  Haruna stepped in between them.  “The pissed off redhead over by the door is Asuna.  She's a bit abrasive, but she's...tolerable…when you get to know her.”  Asuna gave a sheepish wave before turning back to the door.  “The friendly looking girl next to my roommates is Konoka.  A little bit loopy, but you'll like her.”

“Good to make your acquaintance!”  Konoka knelt next to the edge of the pool and extended a hand.  The pony stared at the appendage, unsure of exactly what she was supposed to do.  After a moment she shrugged and held up her foreleg.  She flinched as Konoka snatched it and gave it a strong shake.  

“Uh...yeah...you too...”  Rainbow Dash glanced at her hoof for a moment looking back towards Haruna.

“And last, but certainly not least, this is Chamo.  If you couldn't tell, he's an ermine.  And yes, he can talk.”  

“Hey.”  The ermine scurried up to the edge of the pool and scrambled onto Rainbow Dash's back.  “How are you doing?”

“I'd warn you about him, but you don't really have any underwear for him to steal.”

“Underwear?”  Rainbow Dash cocked her head at the ermine as she climbed out of the pool, being careful not to tip him off.

“I'll explain later.”  Haruna tossed a towel over the pony's head, forcing the ermine to jump to the floor.  “Get off of her.”

“Okay, here's the current plan.”  Negi waved his arms as he tried to regain the attention of the students and ponies.  “First thing tomorrow morning, we're all going to a meeting with the Headmaster to figure out what to do about the current situation.  We'll try to find you some more comfortable living quarters.”

“Good to hear.”  Rainbow Dash muttered as she shook the water off of her flanks.  “I wanna sleep in a bed, not under one.”

“You could spend the night in my room.”  Twilight offered.  “There's space on the couch.”  She turned to Negi.  “If you don't mind, of course.”

“No, no, that's fine.”  He nodded.  “It's understandable that you'd want to spend some time with your friend after everything you've been through.  The good news is that hopefully by this time tomorrow, we'll have everything sorted out.”

Naturally, it was at that precise moment that an unknown figure quite unwittingly took advantage of the fact that Asuna was distracted, and proceeded to bust through the bathroom door.




Roughly 19 hours later:

“Hey, what's that?”  Yuuna pointed at the ceiling of the bath.  “There's a hole up there!”

“That's odd...”  Akira squinted at the suspiciously pony-shaped dent.  “How on earth did that happen?  It wasn't there yesterday...”

“What a weird shape...”  Ako scratched her head.  “I wonder what caused it.”

“It's shaped kinda like a pony!”  Makie giggled.  

“What are you talking about!-?”  Ako stared at the pink haired girl.  “Why would there be a pony-shaped hole in the ceiling?”

“I don't know.”  Makie shrugged.  “It kinda looks like it has wings...”

“So you're saying that a winged pony caused that...?”  Yuuna rolled her eyes.  “That doesn't make any sense.”

“Well, it does look sort of like a winged pony...”  Akira admitted.  

“There's no such thing as a winged pony!”  Yuuna stomped her foot.  

“Then what do you think caused that?”  Makie pointed at the indentation.

“I don't know.”  Yuuna shrugged before hopping into the water.  “Probably Haruna.”

“Yeah, you're probably right.”  Makie sighed.  “I kinda wish that it was a pony, though...”
> Arrival
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Omniscience in the sense of the god is a tricky subject. First and foremost, omniscience obviously only applies to the universe created by the god, and even then, it is not strictly omniscience. Say a person in the universe wears a blue shirt. The god may not know that the shirt is blue even if the other persons are aware of it. So if someone asks the god "What color is the shirt?", they do not know per se.

Yet, if the god responds with "The shirt is red", they would be correct. But that is more omnipotence than omniscience. In the case of the god, knowledge and truth are directly intertwined. Whatever the god knows about his universe is the truth of that universe, even though it may be contradictory. Reality is whatever the god says it is.







Chapter 4: Arrival


The mysterious figure's arrival in the bath was not synonymous with his arrival at Mahora. As a matter of fact, his arrival on the campus had occurred several minutes before he burst into the bathroom.

Chisame sat at her desk, trying not to fall asleep as she finished photoshopping the acne out of her latest set of photos. Normally she would probably have just left if for tomorrow, but Chiu-chan's website was long overdue for an update. Her fans had been promised an update before the end of the day, and they were damn well going to get one. She took a tired glance at the clock.

Okay, so the update would be half an hour late, but not for lack of trying. She hadn't even bothered to change out of the elaborate maid costume before sitting down at the computer to fix up the pictures, despite how uncomfortably warm it was getting.

"Aaannnd...done!"

She pounded her finger down on the Enter key and the pictures began to upload. It felt so good to get that whole mess out of the way. Now all that stood between Chisame and her bed was the arduous process of untying the two dozen or so knots in the corset on her costume. With a groan, she leaned back in the chair, feeling too tired to even bother going to bed. She would have fallen asleep in the chair if not for the fact that there was a rather loud disturbance behind her. Something like a wet thump followed by a squeaky rustling.

Her neck cracked as she worked up the motivation to look over her shoulder. Noting the cause of the noise, she turned her head back to a more comfortable position and closed her eyes. Then her brain finally got the signal from her eyes concerning the cause of the racket, causing Chisame to leap to her feet, spin around, and scream, all at the same time.

Flapping around on the couch was a person of unidentifiable age and gender. Whoever they were, they were wearing a black full-body wetsuit and scuba diving equipment, complete with flippers, tank, and mask. The person ceased their scrambling at the sound of Chisame's screaming. They slowly looked around the room, apparently taking stock of their surroundings.

"Who the hell are you and what are you doing in my room!-?" Chisame shouted.

The figure mumbled for a moment before beginning to fumble around with the scuba mask, moving the rebreather out of the way and revealing the bottom half of a stubble-covered face. The voice was unmistakably masculine, but simultaneously sounded rather childish.

"Sorry, I seem to have taken a wrong turn somewhere. I-uh...didn't mean interrupt your little…uh..." he waggled his fingers as if it was supposed somehow inform her of what word he was attempting to come up with, "...thing. So if you could direct me in the general direction of Geneva..." He resumed his struggle to get off of the couch. There was a thunk as he rolled off the couch. He hopped back to his feet, and began to scramble across the floor, catching his flippered feet on anything and everything between himself and the door. "...I've got a- uh- rendezvous I have to make so if you could just tell me where the-"

"GET OUT!"

"Okay!" The man spun around and stumbled towards the door, the flippers hooking on the various wires that Chisame had scattered across the floor of her room. There was a crash as he dragged several speakers off of their shelves and onto the floor. He stopped. "Oh, sorry about that!" He unzipped a pocket on his wetsuit. "I can pay for that, I can pay for that! What kind of cash you want? I got Euros, and-"

"OUT!"

He turned and shuffled awkwardly out the door, dragging the speakers along behind him.

Chisame put a hand to her chest as she tried to slow her breathing to a rate that didn't qualify as hyperventilation. Her heart was beating so hard that she could feel it through the corset. And now she was the most awake that she had been in the past week or so. Apparently the shock of a scuba diver seemingly materializing out of nowhere onto her sofa could clean the cobwebs out of her brain in a way that a case of Red Bull could only dream of.

Unfortunately for Chisame, her newfound lucidity of mind allowed her to begin working through the implications of what had just happened. Her door had definitely been locked. Ever since the Negi incident she had made sure of that. Yet the scuba diver had somehow appeared on her sofa. The window was closed and on the second story of the building, and there were no holes in the wall. So there was an unidentified man, and against all reason, it was vaguely plausible that he had teleportation powers. Chisame was rather loathe to admit that last point but the fact that there was a dude running around a dorm full of teenage girls was more important than calculating out the exact means of his arrival.

She rushed out of the room after him.





About a minute later, the five girls and two ponies in the bath found themselves staring in confusion at the scuba diver who had burst through the doors. The equally confused intruder stared back for a moment before speaking.

"Oh, wrong room. I'll uh- be going now."

He turned around and took a step towards the door, only to stop as Chisame's voice came through it.

"There's a man in the dorm! He just ran into the baths! Get back here, you pervert!"

"On second thought, this way." The flippers made a slapping noise as he goose-stepped across the bath towards the door on the far side of the room. He was halfway there when the main door burst open a second time. This time it was Chisame who stood in the doorway, still wearing her overly elaborate maid costume.

She froze for a moment as she noticed the presence of the two ponies. Neither one of them were the proper colors for ponies and one of them seemed to be floating. But her classmates were there, and the presence of the ponies didn't seem to faze them nearly as much as her own presence. In any case, her brain lacked the processing power to deal with the ponies, so for the moment she was just going to pretend that she didn't see them.

"That man snuck into my room! Stop him!"

Asuna rushed forward. Catching up was easy; the flippers had reduced to the man's running speed to roughly that of a two-year-old. Tackling him was similarly easy, for the same reason. Holding on to him, however, turned out to be impossibly difficult. Apparently the combination of the man's wetsuit and the layer of soapy water that Asuna was still coated in resulted in a level of slipperiness comparable to a slapstick-grade banana peel. The redhead face-planted onto the floor as the man wriggled out of her grip.

"Don't worry, I'll get him!" Haruna shouted. Unfortunately, the sound of her own voice drowned out the sound of Rainbow Dash yelling from the other end of the room.

"I got this!" The blue pony blasted towards the intruder.

Haruna charged towards the scuba diver. She may not have been quite as fit as Asuna, but catching up was still a piece of cake. "Tackle a burglar" was up there on her list of things to do before she died. This wasn't quite the same, but it was close enough that she could count it. With the loudest war cry she could muster, she made a final dive at her target.

"EYAAAAAAAEGHE-"

About halfway through her battle cry, the shout turned from one of intimidation to one of surprise. The intruder had tripped on his own fins and gone down, sliding across the soapy floor. His absence allowed Haruna to see that Rainbow Dash was barreling right towards her. Haruna's cry was stifled entirely as Rainbow Dash crashed straight into her midsection. She could feel her feet lifting off the ground. The world shifted into slow motion for a few seconds as the two of them flew backward, ultimately landing in one of the plants at the edge of the room.

Yue rolled her eyes as the scuba diver scrambled to his feet and continued his run for the door. She stuck out a foot as he ran past. He fell flat on his face. In a moment, Nodoka, Twilight, and Konoka were sitting on his back. He finally stopped floundering.

"Chisame, what's going on here?" Yue asked.

"I could ask you the same question!" Chisame snapped. "What are you doing in the bath at this time of night? And what's with the horses? Let me guess: Haruna ordered them off the internet and dyed their fur? And come to think of it, they're some weird looking horses. The proportions are a bit off..."

"You're the one who barged in here dressed as a maid, chasing a man in a scuba suit," Yue answered.

"That's not as weird that!" Chisame said, thrusting a finger at Twilight. "A purple pony? Seriously?" She put a hand on Twilight's head. "You guys even put a horn on it? What, did you superglue it or something?"

"I suppose we should introduce you," Nodoka said. "This is Twilight Sparkle."

"Twilight Sparkle?" Chisame's eye began to twitch. That was the best name they could come up with? Even Haruna could do better than that.

"Twilight, this is Chisame," Nodoka said to the pony. "She can be a little abrasive, but she's nice when you get to know her."

Chisame groaned. She had thought that Nodoka was more intelligent than this. Talking to a pony as if it were a person. Of all the ridiculous-

"Nice to meet you, Chisame."

"Huh?" She looked down to see the horse staring up at her.

"Are you one of Negi's students? I'd really hoped that I'd get to meet more of you."

The voice was unmistakably coming from the pony.

"Y-you can talk?" Chisame stuttered.

"Yeah, we can talk!" Chisame spun around to see another pony, a blue one. But the fact that it was blue was rather overshadowed by the fact that it had wings protruding from its body. And it was using said wings to hover above the bush that Haruna was clamoring out of. "I don't get why you guys are so surprised by that."

"F-flying pony?" She looked back to Twilight. "You can fly?"

"No, I don't have wings. I can do magic though."

"M-magic?"

"Sure, watch!" The pony closed her eyes. Chisame watched in horror as the horn began to glimmer. A purple aura began to radiate from it. There was a sudden flash, and Chisame felt that something had changed. She slowly lifted a hand to her face. It was unmistakable. She now had a mustache.

"Magic...pony...flying..."

Under the best of circumstances, Chisame's brain would have had difficulty coping with the amount of new information. Under the current circumstances, that capability was cut by a fair amount. Her fatigue was starting to catch up to her, and the adrenalin rush was rapidly wearing off. Unable to keep up, her brain went into shutdown mode and she keeled over in a dead faint.

"Okay, now what do we do?" Asuna asked.

"Go get Negi-sensei," Yue answered. "We have to do something about all of this."





Konoemon sighed. He had hoped to be dealing with this disturbance during the day, after a good night's sleep, not at two in the morning. But Negi had informed him that yet another unidentified subject had arrived on campus, and even at his most lazy, the old man couldn't put off addressing the matter any further. He drained a final cup of coffee and stepped into his office.

As per his instructions, all the involved parties were present. Negi was sitting on one of the chairs, waiting patiently. Haruna and Chisame sat behind him, waiting somewhat less patiently, still clothed in their respective bathrobe and maid outfit. Behind them, Evangeline paced back and forth even less patiently. The strange wet-suited man sat next to Negi, held in place by several high-quality binding spells. The two ponies were curled up on the couch against the wall.

"About time you showed up," Evangeline grumbled. "If you're going to drag me out of bed at this time of night, you could at least have the decency to show up on time. What the hell do you need me for, anyway?"

"Because you're one of the most experienced mages on campus. You've probably come across something relevant to our discussion in your hundreds of years of experience."

"Wait, she's magic too!-?" Chisame said. "What do you mean 'hundreds of years'!-?"

"She's an immoral vampire!" Haruna chipped in. "I think. I'm kinda new to the whole magic thing. But that's what Konoka told me!"

"A what?"

"Girls, please be quiet." Konoemon banged on the desk with his hand. "Yes, Evangeline is a vampire. She's very evil and has been terrorizing the world for several centuries. But at the moment she's mostly depowered and not too evil so don't worry about it. I'll leave it to your teacher to explain the whole magic thing in greater detail later on. At the moment we have more important things to take care of. Chisame, can you tell me exactly how this man…" he nodded towards the man in the wetsuit, "…appeared in your room."

"Not really," Chisame said with a shrug. "He just sort of appeared out of thin air."

"You didn't see him appear?"

"No."

Konoemon sighed once again.

"And here I thought we might have had a witness..."

"Witness to what?" Chisame asked.

"Well," Negi began, "a few days ago, the astronomy club noticed an anomaly in the sky. Shortly afterward, Twilight and Rainbow Dash appeared on campus. We questioned them and confirmed that they came from another world."

"They came from a town called Ponyville in a magical land called Equestria!" Haruna interrupted. "They had some weird hole in the sky too. So when they went to look at it, they showed up here!"

"How the hell do you know that?"

"Rainbow Dash has been living in my room for the past few days. I found her in a tree. So I snuck her back into the-"

She stopped as Konoemon cleared his throat. Even though the old man's eyes were completely hidden beneath his eyebrows, she could tell that he was glaring at her.

"Anyway..." Negi continued, "…Twilight has been looking through a few of the astronomy books she had with her. We believe it's possible that the hole in the sky may be a sort of portal between our world and theirs."

"Well, that's sort of true," Twilight said. "None of the books really say anything about being able to go between worlds like this, but one of them had a brief section on portals that let you teleport. The description of the portal is similar to the disturbance in the sky. They might be related, but I don't know."

"Then why don't I just fly up there and see if I can go through?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"We don't want to be too rash about this," Konoemon said, barely even fazed by the fact that he was addressing a flying pony. "And due to the arrival of mister scuba diver here, we can't assume that this portal between worlds thing will lead back to where you came from. I assume that he doesn't come from...Equestria, was it?"

"Yeah, I've never seen anybody like that," Rainbow Dash answered. "Ask Twilight about it. She's the one who's read like every book ever."

"I've never seen any record of humans in Equestria," Twilight said. "A similar sort of being shows up in a few ancient Equestrian legends, but I've never seen anything to indicate that they actually existed anywhere."

"I suppose we should go straight to the source then," Konoemon said. He turned to the scuba diver and snapped his fingers. The magical seal that had been keeping the man quiet vanished.

"I DIDN'T SEE ANYTHING, I SWEAR! I KNOW NOTHING! My girlfriend just dropped some car keys down a storm drain, so I was going to just go down and get them, so I figured that I'd put on my suit and-"

Konoemon snapped his fingers again, and the man was silent.

"Please just be quiet for a moment," Konoemon said, rubbing his forehead. "We're as confused about all of this as you are. We just want to ask you a few questions about where you came from, alright. We don't mean you any harm. Just try to calm down a bit, okay?"

The scuba diver nodded.

"Okay, let's start with something simple," Konoemon said. "What is your name?"

Once again, the old man snapped his fingers. The scuba diver cleared his throat and furrowed his eyebrows before answering with an exaggeratedly deep Scottish accent.

"My name is Steele. Samuel Steele."

"Who do you think you are, Sean Connery?" Chisame said as she stared incredulously.

"You are a terrible liar." Konoemon massaged the sides of his eggplant-shaped head. "Evangeline, would you mind?"

"Gladly." She stomped to the front of the room and faced the diver.

"Oh, hello," he said, dropping the accent in favor of a much more friendly tone. "What's a little girl like you doing up so late?"

"I am no little girl!"

As she spoke, the entire room seemed to become a little darker. Her entire body somehow looked as if it were wreathed in shadow. Her mouth was contorted into a toothy, fanged grin, and her eyes had gone black. Despite the fact that they were inside, her hair billowed as if she were standing in front of a fan.

"I am the Gospel of Darkness, the scourge of the entire magic world! I'm an evil freaking immortal vampire who can make children cry just by existing. And now I had to get out of my nice warm bed in the middle of the night and traipse all the way across this stupid campus because of you. I am not in the mood for your feeble attempts at giving us false information. Got that?"

The scuba diver, who had wilted under her gaze, nodded weakly.

"Good!" She jumped onto the diver, straddling him. She seized a handful of his hair and pulled his head back. "I'm only going to tell you this once: If you don't cut the crap and answer the man's questions, I'm going to..."

She leaned forward and whispered the rest of the threat directly into his ear. Whatever it was she said was apparently so forceful that it nearly caused his eyes to pop out of his head.

"Now then, I'm only going to ask you one more time. Who are you and what are you doing here?"

"M-Morgan Grimes!" he stammered. "I'm a spy for the U.S. My team was trying to keep terrorists from doing something weird with the Large Hadron Collider and the next thing I knew I was here! I don't even know where here is! Just don't do that to me. I don't really like puppets. They creep me out."

"Thank you, Evangeline," Konoemon said as he took his seat at the desk. "You can get off of him now." Evangeline hopped off of Morgan, and resumed her pacing at the back of the room. "Now then, can you tell me where you're from?"

"My operation was based out of Burbank, California. I mean, my real job is being the manager at the Burbank Buy More, but sometimes I get called up for secret missions and stuff. You know, just in my spare time."

"I see..." Konoemon didn't really have any idea what Morgan was talking about. "It seems that you're actually from our world."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, unless you have talking ponies in your world, I think it's much more likely that you're from our world."

"Talking ponies?"

Konoemon pointed towards the back of the room, where Twilight and Rainbow Dash were resting on the couch. Morgan managed to twist his neck far enough around to see them each waving a foreleg at him.

"Oh, them. Right." He turned back to Konoemon, figuring that it would be best for his sanity to think about the ponies later. "So, uh...where am I? Is this like some embassy or something? Because I really need to get going. Gotta meet up with the rest of my team in Geneva."

"You're in Japan."

"Japan. Wow. That's uh- I've never been to Japan before, so that's cool, I guess." Morgan nodded his head as he spoke, trying to sound cool and composed. "Where in Japan, exactly?"

"Mahora Academy."

"And that is...where, exactly?"

"You've never heard of Mahora Academy?" Chisame couldn't keep herself quiet any longer. "It's the largest boarding school in Japan! It might even be the largest boarding school in the world? The freaking school festival gets more visitors than the Olympics! How can a freaking secret agent have never even heard of it!-?"

"More than the Olympics? Really?" Morgan asked, totally ignoring the actual question that Chisame had intended to ask. "That's impressive. I'll have to Google that festival when I get home."

"Make sure you look up the cosplay contest!" Haruna said. The expression on her face made it evident that she considered the whole ordeal more entertaining than anything else. "If you make it to this year's, make sure you stop by the manga booths. I've got a bunch of stuff I'm going to be selling."

"Oh, like he'd be interested in any of the smut you write," Chisame grumbled. Unlike Haruna, she was totally un-entertained by the events unfolding around her. More than anything, she just wanted to be curled up in her bed.

"Hey, I make an effort to appeal to all sorts of audiences," Haruna retorted. "My comics include something for everyone."

"I'll...keep that in mind..." Morgan mumbled. He turned back to Konoemon. The old, eggplant-headed man seemed to be the only person in the room who wasn't either crazy or utterly terrifying. "So, can I go now, or what? I sort of need to be on my way."

"I'm sorry, but that's not going to happen," Konoemon answered. "It's not that you seem particularly dangerous, but I can't really have you running around campus until we figure out what's going on."

"So what, I'm like your prisoner now?"

"No, no, nothing like that. We're just going to have to keep track of you until we confirm that you aren't psychotic or anything like that." Konoemon turned to Negi, "Would you be so kind as to inform Mana that we have a job for her? Normally I wouldn't bother her for something like this, but I can write off her pay as a business expense."

"Uh, can I at least borrow a phone or something?" Morgan asked. "I really should get in touch with my team. It's been like an hour or so since I checked in last, and well...one of them is going to get real worried about me, and one of them is probably going to kill me for not letting them know what's going on. And you all seem like such nice people, so I'd really kinda hate for them to go and, how should I say this, take extreme measures to ensure my- oh crap."

The eyes of everyone in the room (except Konoemon, who was facing the wrong direction) widened as they began to register the presence of two roughly-human shaped shadows that were rapidly descending towards the window. The Konoemon's eyes widened as the two figures burst through the window, showering him with glass as they landed on either side of him.

"See?" Morgan said. "This is exactly what I was talking about..."





"How about this one?" Nodoka held up a flash card with a series of foreign characters on it.

"Hmmmm..." Yue furrowed her eyebrows as she tried to remember what the word meant. "If I remember correctly, it's...'to be engaged in warfare? '"

"No." Nodoka flipped the card around. "'To do, to make'." She stuffed the card back into the stack. "Why do you want to learn this so badly anyway? Wouldn't Latin be a more logical starting point? According to Negi, only the most high-level spells are in Greek, after all."

"Latin may have superseded Greek as the primary language of magic, but the foundations of modern magic were first laid down in Greek," Yue answered. "The reason the ancient spells are more powerful is that they aren't as far removed from their original forms. As such, it is prudent to be knowledgeable about the language."

"Even though you're barely able to do any Latin incantations? Shouldn't you get the easier ones out of the way before you try to learn the advanced material?"

"I'm sure that our training sessions with Evangeline will cover that." Yue took the stack of cards from Nodoka and began to shuffle it. "I'm merely preparing myself for when we get to the more difficult incantations. If I can at least grasp the basic grammar and vocabulary, it will be easier later on."

"That's true, I guess," Nodoka said. "But still, do we have to do this now? You should probably go to bed."

"You know as well as I do that neither one of us would be able to sleep," Yue said. It was an accurate assessment; both girls were stuck in that awkward position where they were utterly exhausted, yet too cognizant to have any hope of actually resting.

"Are you worried about Haruna too?" Nodoka asked. Despite that both she and Yue had been let in on the secret under seemingly more dangerous circumstances, she couldn't help but feel apprehension about the situation. The fact that Haruna had basically been hauled away with that weird scuba diver person didn't help much. If she actually had any idea what was going on, it would be tolerable. But she had no idea what her friend was experiencing, and that was cause for worry.

"A little, I suppose." Yue was more than a little worried, but letting that show would only make Nodoka more anxious. "Although I'm more worried about what's going to happen to everyone else now that Haruna is aware that magic exists."

"You're probably right," she said. Thinking of how Haruna would react to whatever it was Negi would tell her made her smile. "She'll be fine."

"As long as Chisame doesn't go mad from the revelation and start stabbing people. I don't think she'll react well."

"So you think it'll be okay?"

"Yes. Negi-sensei has let so many people in on his secret by now that I'm sure he knows how to deal with it.

"I guess you're right. It wasn't like that strange man was all that threatening. And Negi said that Evangeline was going to be there, anyway." Nodoka glanced at the clock that sat on her dresser. 3:02. "We really should go to bed. Negi did say that he didn't know how long it would be before they got back. And we have class tomorrow."

"Fine, fine. Let me just go over the definite article chart one more time and then I'll go to bed."

Nodoka sighed as she looked out the window. She could just make out the outline of the middle school building in the distance. Something was slightly off; the gentle glow of the World Tree didn't seem as bright as it usually was. Still, after the talking ponies and the mysterious scuba diver, it barely seemed abnormal. In fact, the entire night seemed unusually mundane.

That spatial anomaly in the sky was still there, as far as she knew, but she was hardly familiar enough with astronomy to tell that anything was wrong. Everything looked so normal; it was almost impossible to believe that there were magic ponies on campus.

Then again, her teacher was a mage, a talking ermine lived in a room down the hall, and her immediate circle of acquaintances included a vampire, a robot, and two half-demons. She was even helping her roommate study her incantations. Maybe things were weird, and she was just so used to it all that she didn't recognize it. She could feel her eyelids beginning to droop. She was too tired to think about this kind of thing. She just needed to get to get some sleep. When she got up in the morning, everything would make more sense.





Elsewhere on campus, a student hurried furtively along one of the many paths between the dorms and the University buildings. There were half a dozen or so paths that would get her to her destination quicker than the one she was currently on, but she couldn't risk those. Getting caught outside of the dorm after curfew wasn't an extremely serious offense, but there was no reason to deal with that issue if she didn't have to. The last thing she wanted to do was arouse suspicion, and sneaking into one of the laboratory buildings after hours would raise a few questions.

She could, of course, use the Mahora tunnel system like she normally did when she needed to get across campus in a hurry, but in this particular circumstance that option yielded its own set of problems. Security in the tunnels was typically non-existent, since roughly half the campus didn't even realize they were there, and of the remaining half, most of them didn't have any inclination to go down there.

Tonight was different. Her sources had told her that security around campus had inexplicably been beefed up recently. Chances are that it was related to that "astronomical anomaly" that the astronomy club had picked up. She couldn't be sure though. The most recent information had indicated a second boost in security only an hour or so ago. Even she couldn't figure out whether that meant that they were actually watching the tunnels. In any case, getting caught down there would cause far more problems than just taking an extra ten minutes to get to where she was going.

Going down the alleys wasn't a big deal, though. She didn't like to brag (not too much anyway), but on the occasions when she did, she was perfectly capable of putting her money where her mouth was. Anything powerful enough to actually give her trouble would have tripped the school barrier.

At least getting into the building wouldn't be a problem. She knew most of the security codes, at least for the buildings that it was worth getting into. In this case, it was the University science building, specifically the labs. At the moment there was nothing she really needed from the lab itself, but she still had her reasons. She punched in the second security code and the lab door slid open.

"What is it, Hakase?" Chao grumbled as she lowered her hood. "I'm going to assume that it's somehow related to our plan, as there really isn't anything else that would merit calling me at this time of night, so the only question is exactly what aspect of the plan is involved in this emergency. So what is it?"

"Oh, Chao! Good! You made it!" Hakase stumbled out of one of the closets where she had set up her makeshift bed. "There's been a major complication! A major anomaly has occurred in the magical energy surrounding the-"

"This isn't about that thing the astronomy club noticed, is it?" Chao asked. She hoped it wasn't, partly because it didn't actually affect the plan anyway, but mostly because it was one of the few variables that she had no way of predicting. That fact scared her a little. Not that she let it show. "I already heard about that. As it is now, it should have no impact on our plans."

"No, no, that's not the problem," Hakase said. She paused for a moment as she tried to think of exactly how to break the bad news to her associate. Then she remembered that she really had no concept of tact. It was just a social construct anyway. "There's been a major fluctuation in the energy of the World Tree."

"What?"

Hakase had never really noted how disturbing it was when Chao went pale. It took a lot to get the blood to drain out of her face. Come to think of it, she had never actually seen her experience such distress. It wasn't a pretty sight.

"Well, I awoke due to a pressing need to relieve myself, and on the way back from the lavatory, I noted a discrepancy in the readings," Hakase said. She pointed to one of the many monitors that lined the back wall of the room. The top half of the screen was taken up by a slowly-moving line graph. Near the end of the graph, the line took a sharp dive.

"A 90% drop!-?" There was so much skepticism in Chao's voice that it was obvious she couldn't believe what she was saying. "There is no way that's right. There must be a problem with the sensors."

"I already examined all the information coming in from the sensors, both primary and secondary. All of it is internally consistent, so unless every sensor malfunctioned simultaneously, it appears that the incoming information is accurate. Since the initial drop in energy, the levels appear to have stabilized."

"Is the level constant?"

"No, it appears to be increasing at a rate comparable to that of 29 days ago. My calculations indicate that at the current rate of magical accumulation, the World Tree's mana level will peak roughly a month later our initial calculations indicated."

"So what you're telling me is that a large amount of magical energy simply vanished without affecting the rate of accretion? Where on earth did all of that energy go?"

Chao scratched her head. It was the first time in a long while that something had puzzled her. She was almost feeling worried. Or at least she was now conscious of the feeling. There was always that gnawing sort of doubt in the back of mind that she didn't have everything lined up quite as nicely as she thought she did, but she had buried that feeling under layers of preparation and stubbornness. Now it was threatening to come back to the surface?

"Perhaps the tree dissipated the energy naturally."

"No. That's never happened. Not in the entire recorded history of the World Tree." She lowered her voice to a growl. "Not even in the history from my time. Someone or something drained that energy."

She took a deep breath. It was fairly obvious that her life was going to get even more chaotic than it had been for the past two years. Most of the plan was already in ruins, and it was going to take all the effort she could muster to salvage what was left of it. Not to mention that there was now some completely new variable to contend with; that amount of energy didn't just disappear. Someone was using it for something, and she had no idea who it was.







Apologies for the comparative lack of ponies in this chapter.  I realize they don't get as much focus here.  They come back in the next chapter, though.  The scuba suit guy is Morgan from the (now completed) television series Chuck, which I definitely recommend.