> Blades and Crystals: An MLP and Gravity Falls Crossover > by 78_Percent_Eggs > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Chapter 1: Two Worlds > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It was a warm summer day, and the sun’s rays were falling between the leaves in Gravity Falls, Oregon. Two twins stepped out of the Mystery Shack and sat on the porch. “So, Dipper, what do you want to do today?” The first twin asked. She wore a pink sweater with a pizza on it and had gleaming braces. “I don’t know, Mabel. Maybe we could… ” The second twin started, pulling out a worn leather book. He wore an orange t-shirt with a blue vest, and had unkempt hair. “Nope!” Mabel exclaimed, cutting him off. “You didn’t even hear what I was about to say.” Dipper said, slightly annoyed. “I didn’t need too!” she smiled. “It was probably about your dumb journal.” “Hey, this isn’t dumb. It’s a gold mine of scien...” Dipper started. “Pfffffft. Who cares? I don’t.” “You’re not even making any sense anymore. Do we want to go find something from here or not? There are so many cool monsters!” he said flipping through the pages. “What I’m trying to say is all of our adventures are us looking for things in that book. Maybe if we didn’t use the book for once, we could go on our own adventure! Maybe discover something that even the author of the journals hadn’t found yet!” Mabel shouted, clutching her rosy cheeks. “Well… the author seems to have explored everything, Mabel. I’m not sure we’ll even find anything undocumented. How about we try to find a hippocorn? They live right-” Mabel flicked Dipper’s hat off his head and giggled as she hopped off the porch. “First one to find something incredibly amazing that no one has even seen before wins!” she shrieked as she dashed between the trees in the heavy forest. “Wait! Mabel! Stop!” Dipper shouted as he put his white and blue hat with a pine tree onto his head. He frantically tried to chase after her and, knowing about all of the monsters that could be lurking in the forest, Mabel could be in some serious trouble. Twilight Sparkle was in her castle using the magic flowing from her horn to wrap a present for Pinkie Pie. It was, after all, her birthday. Today in Ponyville, the sun was shining, the birds were chirping, and all the cheery residents went around doing their daily tasks such as buying food from the market, playing with their fillies, and talking with their neighbors. Twilight smiled as she saw all of the happy ponies through her window frolicking in the afternoon. She shook her head. She better get to finding the decorations. She did promise to bring them, after all. Where were they? she thought as she stomped into a different room. “Mabel! Stop running so fast! Slow down!” a tired Dipper panted as he tried to keep up with a frantically running Mabel. “C’mon! Try to catch up with me, chicken!” “I AM NOT A CHICKEN!” Dipper said with a push of energy in his running. “Twilight, where did you put those balloons again?” Spike called from the room over. “Somewhere in the library, I think. Ohhh I can’t remember! This is a disaster! I’ve been so caught up in my studies that I’ve been forgetting where everything is! Why couldn’t Fluttershy be the one who held all the party supplies?” Twilight panicked, pupils different sizes. “Calm down they’re in here somewhere. Sheesh. Someone’s a little moody.” Twilight teleported right in front of the baby dragon. “SPIKE I AM FREAKING OUT PINKIE’S PARTY IS IN AN HOUR AND WE STILL HAVEN’T EVEN FOUND THE SUPPLIES! Oh my gosh I think I know where they are!” With a flash of purple light, she was gone. Spike blinked a couple times. He grumbled something about paranoia and went to see if he could find Starlight Glimmer. Maybe she could have a civilized conversation with him. The twins were staring at a temple. A big one at that. It had faded brown stone and carvings of swirls all over the walls. Dipper frantically flipped through journal 3 to try and find something on this subject. Alas, there was nothing. “How did you even get us into a mess this bad?” Dipper yelled as he slammed the book shut. Without a lack of answers, Dipper felt very upset. Surely the author must know something about this. Even if he did, no information was found on the structure. Dipper sighed and sat down. “Well maybe we could explore, I mean, it’s about noon.” Dipper said glancing up at the sun. “YES!! Guess it was a good thing that I accidentally found that button, huh?” “I guess.” Dipper said with some amusement on his face. To find this temple, Mabel had tripped on a large rock and gone flying. By the time Dipper caught up, Mabel was already getting her revenge by kicking it over and over again and screaming at it. Dipper could only watch from the sidelines of this intense battle knowing there was nothing he could do. She had kicked it so many times, eventually causing a large square portion of the rock to fall off, revealing a single bright red button. I think you, the reader, can guess what they did after that. “If you hadn’t found it, we would have been lost, which I guess we still are, but now at least I can fill in some of the empty pages in the journal with something new.” said Dipper as he bent down to examine the “rock”. “Hey Mabel, check it out. The whole thing is fake. Who put it here? Why?”, said Dipper beginning to pace with a smile. “This could not have been built by ancient people, yet this could not have built now. I mean, do we even have the technology to make entire temples emerge from the ground with the push of a button? The temple is so ancient yet the technology so advanced! Haha! This is amazing. I have to write this down in the journal. What do you think Mabel?” Dipper said already jotting down every detail he could think of in the book. “Sweet! So let’s go inside!” Mabel said, already standing under the archway and obviously not paying attention. “Ok.” agreed Dipper. He was pretty frightened to go such a dark cave. It could be haunted like the convenience store, he thought to himself, but quickly cleared his mind of the thought. He sucked up his courage and marched bravely inside after his impatiently waiting sister. He was sweating and his heart was hammering but he told himself that he needed to do this, for science and the mystery of this town, he thought. He tried not to let Mabel see how nervous he was. She followed behind, with eyes darting in every direction, trying to absorb as much of grand entrance as she could. A loud bang came from down the hall. “Is she really that worried?” Starlight asked curiously while brushing her mane for the party. “Yeah, she’s kind of freaking out.” Spike stated as a yell shook the room. “Thanks for coming in here to talk to talk to me, Spike. It’s nice to know that whenever I feel nervous, I can talk to you.” Starlight said, beaming. “Well, what are you nervous about?” Spike asked curiously. “It’s not really that big of a deal, but I’m nervous that during the party, a ton of other ponies will be invited, so I guess I just hope Twilight hasn’t spread my story around too far.” “Relax, Starlight. Twilight’s a good friend and you know she wouldn’t tell everypony that tale.” Spike said in a reassuring tone. Starlight felt a lot better with Spike there. She knew he was right. Twilight wouldn’t tell everypony in Ponyville about how Starlight Glimmer turned an entire village into brainwashed communists then almost destroyed Equestria with a time spell. Starlight shuddered. She didn’t want to think about that right now. As they say, the past is in the past. As long as you learn from your mistakes, you can still go forward and lead a new life. At that moment, a “WHERE ARE CAKE!?!” came from the other room. Starlight giggled. “Well Spike, thanks for talking with me. I feel a lot better now. I better see if I can go help Twilight before she has a double heart attack. Later!” “Later Starlight!”, Spike waved. Starlight shut the two large doors and began to walk down the long, curved hallway to where what sounded like the noise of a dying cat was being emitted. “So Dipper, is this cool, or what?” Mabel said as she bounced around. “Umm, yeah, t-totally.” Dipper stuttered. Around them, several tunnels shot off in different directions, all with cobwebs and vines covering them. Mabel had darted into the first one she saw, Dipper following after her. After a few minutes of walking, Dipper realized that they were in some giant maze. “Ugh, Mabel! You got us lost in a maze of some sort. Let’s retrace our steps and see if we can… Whoa Mabel check this out.” They both stopped walking. The walls of the tunnel showed intricate drawings of a small blade on a pedestal and people bowing to it. Not just people were bowing, too. There were also unicorns, robots and a selection of other things that he couldn’t identify. Above the blade, there was a jagged line with stars all over it. Below it, a gem or crystal of some sort. I wonder what this is all about Dipper thought, running a hand over the carvings. He looked over his shoulder to where Mabel was standing a moment before. She was not there. He frantically looked right and left for Mabel. She was nowhere in sight. “MABEL!” he called. No answer. “Thanks again, Starlight. I was so panicked, I forgot the simplest of tracking spells.” Twilight said sheepishly. “No problem. That’s what friends are for.” Starlight said with a smile. The two mares were on there way to Sugarcube Corner, where the party for Pinkie Pie was being hosted. Pinkie currently was out of town and in Manehattan for the day with Rainbow Dash and Applejack, so they had to hurry and get the party up and running before she came back. The two mares galloped down Ponyville’s main part of town, holding all the party decorations in their magic. Spike was trailing behind them as they trotted. Once they reached Sugarcube Corner, Mrs. Cake was standing at the counter, waiting for their arrival. “Hello, dearies. Did you bring the decorations?” “We did indeed!” Twilight said, showing her the streamers, balloons, and confetti. “Great! I’m going to go help on Mr. Cake on Pinkie’s birthday cake. Meanwhile, you girls can go ahead and get started decorating. Tata!” Mrs. Cake announced cheerfully. “I can’t wait! This is going to be the best party yet!” Twilight yelled. “Now time to organize!! Squee!!” Dipper ran as fast as his legs could carry him. He has been running through twists and turns for over 10 minutes, in search of his missing sister. Finally, he couldn’t go any farther. He sat against the wall and put his head in between his hands. I knew we shouldn’t go in. She could have been eaten, she could have- All of a sudden, he heard a familiar voice. “Dipper?” Dipper immediately sat up and tried to find out where the noise was coming from. He saw Mabel at the end of the hall. “MABEL!” he cried,“Where did you go? I’ve been looking everywhere for you! I’ve been running around for a long time. Where DID YOU GO!?!” Dipper yelled the last part. He was half grateful that she was back but half furious for her leaving him. “Well, while you were looking at the drawings on the wall, I saw a firefly and I went to follow it. It lead me to this super spooky cave thingy and I really think you should come check it out.” Mabel said, a hint of apology in her voice. “Um.. okay fine. But don’t EVER LEAVE AGAIN! Do you even know how much I was panicking? I thought you died or something!” Dipper yelled, almost half annoyed. “You’re right, Dipper. Sorry.” Mabel said, foot scraping the ground. “It’s okay, we’ve come this far anyway. Besides, when I meet the author, He’d probably appreciate some additions to his journal. Show me the way to this room you found.” A wide smile grew on Mabel’s face. Twilight Sparkle walked home drunkenly, stumbling as she took each step. Once Pinkie had come and everyone yelled, “surprise”, the rest was a blur in Twilight’s mind. Everything had gotten out of hand right when Applejack came in with a keg of cider and DJ Pon-3 arrived with her best party dubstep mix. The only thing she remembered was loud music and Berry Punch and Carrot Top dancing on the tables with lampshades on their heads. She had decided to excuse herself from the party early. Even now, she was able to hear the music still thumping at Sugarcube Corner. Twilight took a glance at the old clock tower. 12:00 AM. She was glad she snuck out when she did. “What do you think it means, Dipper?” Mabel asked curiously. “I-I don’t know.” Dipper responded, still in awe. They were in the center of the ancient maze, a grand room with a tall ceiling held up by pillars with carvings on them. At the end of the room, a small staircase with about 3 steps lead to a pedestal with some sort of a blade, enclosed in dusty glass. Curious about this artifact, Dipper walked up the stairs and removed the glass. After a couple coughs, the dust cleared and he saw the relic clearly. It had a polished white handle and was about 15 inches long, with a diamond and an onyx encrusted into the opposite sides of it. The blade itself was curved into the shape of a fang with beautiful spiral carvings on it. The whole thing wasn’t actually that big, but it was so well carved and shaped it didn’t look like any human made it. They wouldn’t be capable of something this magical. This might be the thing from the carvings!, Dipper thought. “Hey Mabel, come check this out.” Mabel, who had been busy watching a frog, waddled over. “What is it?” “Look.” Dipper said, pointing to the blade in its stand. “Oooooo It’s pretty. Let me see-” “NO!” Dipper yelled, slapping her hand away from it.“It could be booby trapped. I’ve read all about some ancient artifacts around here and apparently, 97.6% of the time, they are booby trapped.” he said, reading out of journal 3. “Well, what about the other 2.4%, huh? It could be one of those.” “It probably ISn’t.” Dipper said angrily. “It MIGHT!” Mabel yelled as she sprang forward. “STOP!” Dipper screamed as he grabbed Mabel’s arm instinctively. A huge flash of white light came from the pedestal. The blade began to glow blue. Mabel tried to pull her hand away from it but her hand was stuck there like it was covered in Gorilla Glue. The twins slowly felt themselves rising off the ground. Mabel had her left arm attached to the blade and her right arm attached to Dipper’s left arm. They were like a chain. She couldn’t let go of Dipper either, but it’s not like she wanted to anyway. Suddenly, they both felt all the energy and strength drain from them. Dipper felt it it all coming out of his left hand. It felt like his left arm was a straw, and someone was sucking all of his energy out of it. Mabel felt Dipper’s power flow into her but it just passed through her, and took her energy along with it. As the blade did this, more and more of its carvings started to glow blue, as if the inside was hollow and it was slowly filling up with something. Once the blade drained the twins of this mysterious fluid, the light vanished, the twins toppled to the floor, and all was silent. 5 minutes later, Dipper sat up and regained consciousness and looked around. Everything looked the same as it did before. The dirty mud bricks, the blade in the stand, and a rat here and there. Only one thing was different. Part of the blade was glowing. Some of the engravings on the sharp part of the blade were glowing neon blue. Dipper wondered why only about ⅛ of the dagger was pulsing with light. Maybe it takes our energy. Dipper pondered. I did feel like I was having the life sucked out of me. Is that the stuff it sucked out of us? What is is exactly? I mean if it was our energy, we would still be unconscious, probably hardly able to move.Why does it need it? How did it do that? If it’s partially “full” does that mean we don’t have enough of what it n- “BOO!” Someone popped out of nowhere and grabbed Dipper’s shoulders. Mortified, Dipper wheeled around at the speed of light, screaming at frequencies only dogs could hear and slugging his attacker in the face without a second thought. “Ow, you big, dumb jerk. What was that for?” Mabel whined on her knees, clutching the side of her face. “Oh my gosh Mabel! I am so so sorry! Why did you sneak up on me like that? Are you trying to make me lose my mind for second time!” Dipper shrieked. “Sorry but I woke up after you did and I just saw you pacing back and forth. I called your name like a bajillion times and you didn’t answer so I tried to scare you and see if it would rattle that big brain of yours.” Mabel said, tapping on her forehead. “Okay, okay you’ve made a fair point. I do get lost in my thinking sometimes. Just promise me one thing.” “Anything, bro.” “Never EVER, for as long as you live, ever scare me like that again or I may end up punching you twice as hard.” Dipper threatened in a joking manner. “It’s not like you’d get very far with those noodle arms anyway.” Mabel said while trying to choke down a laugh. Dipper resisted with all his might the urge to make it three times harder. Twilight unlocked the door to her castle. It made a large creaking sound as she walked inside. It was dark and empty. She gently closed the door behind her and started to walk to the kitchen. She illuminated her pathway with light from her horn. For the next couple of hours, she would be all alone. Starlight and Spike were still at the party hamming it up. She slowly made her way to the kitchen and walked to the pantry. She needed some real food after all the punch, cupcakes, and cider she had consumed. Using magic, she pulled a muffin and an apple out of the pantry and set it on the table. She pulled a chair out, sat, and began to slowly began to pick at the muffin. “So, Dipper, what do we do now, Mabel asked, twiddling her thumbs. “I don’t really know.” Dipper said nervously. He flipped through journal 3. “Ooooo, there has to be something.” he said impatiently. “Dipper, this thing is really neat.” Mabel said happily as she held the dagger in her hands. Dipper looked up and saw her. He immediately panicked.“Mabel! Put that down!” The last thing he wanted was a repeat of what that knife did last time she held it. Mabel didn’t move. “It’s fine Dipper. It already did all of the sucky stuff. Look. I can hold it and I’m just fine. Dipper calmed himself down. She’s right. He thought. I guess it already took what it wanted from us. I hope what it took is not valuable. “It’s cool.” Mabel said, spinning it in her hands. “Maybe it is a magical sword or something. Maybe It’s the fang of a giant magic wolf! Maybe-" “Can I see it?” Dipper said. “After I’m done.” Mabel replied, sticking her tongue out. Dipper grumbled and jammed his hand in his pockets. “Hmm.” Mabel said while examining every inch of the blade. “Maybe they used this weapon to fight off creepy dudes!” she said thrusting it in the air. Mabel raised the weapon above her head. “Take this, you invisible jerk!” she shouted as the blade was coming down. As she began to do a diagonal slash with the weapon, time began to slow down. The blade was pulsing very fast and the whole thing was glowing top to bottom in bright white light. “MABEL!” Dipper cried. He was not stuck in slow-motion. Mabel was in the air, an excited look on her face and her legs out stretched. Dipper began to panic. He dashed over to Mabel and tried to pry the wretched thing from her grip. It wouldn’t budge. As the blade came down, it made a sudden and startling noise. RIIIIPPPP! It sounded like it was cutting through hard fabric. Dipper took a couple steps back and watched, half terrified and half in awe, as it started to rip through the air. It made a jagged cut in pure nothingness that kept getting bigger and bigger. Through the cut, he could see nothing except a wavy purple substance that looked like it had stars embedded into it. The blade stopped cutting the rip further and fell to the floor from Mabel’s grasp. She returned to normal speed and fell to to the ground with her hands outstretched to catch herself. All the blue that had been inside the blade was gone. “Mabel!” Dipper cried as he rushed over to her. He bent over her. “Are you OK? Do you need help getting up?” “No I-I’m fine. Ugghhh. My head hurts.” she said while holding her head in her hands. “I’m just glad to see that you are OK.” Dipper said, relieved. “Yeah… I’m just- WOAH!” Mabel suddenly said, eyes bulging. “Is that what happened when I tried to kill those invisible dudes?” “Uh… I guess so.” Dipper said, glancing back at the rip thing. Mabel got on her feet in a heartbeat. “Look what’s inside! It’s like magic purple stuff. Purple is like my favorite color!” she yelled. She paused. “What’s it doing Dipper?” asked Mabel suddenly. The substance inside was suddenly moving back and forth very fast. It slowly began to form an image. He could see a long hallway being formed, with several pillars and tapestries attached to the wall. Once the purple stuff finished forming this shape, a bright flash of white light came from the rip. Both twins took a couple steps back. When the light vanished, all the magical goo was gone, and the only thing he saw through the rip was a long, dark, curved hallway made of crystal with many green doors on both sides. Both Dipper and Mabel stared in wonder at the newly formed portal right in front of their eyes. > Chapter 2: All Alone? > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight Sparkle turned her head. It sounded like somepony was ripping fabric down the hall of her castle. She stopped and listened for a few seconds. Silence. Twilight shrugged. She turned her attention back to the half-eaten muffin and chewed slowly. She was so drunk from Pinkie’s party, she was probably just hearing stuff. She stopped thinking about the random sound and began to ponder the more important question. How in Tartarus did flying Rarity heads end up in her kitchen? Mabel stared down the crystal hall with wonder in her eyes. Dipper could practically see the whole thing reflected in them. He too was dumbstruck at the sight of this portal, but Mabel’s freaking head looked it was about to blow up. “EEEEEEEEEEEEEE” she squealed quietly. “This is amazing! It looks like a castle. *GASP* I wonder if there are princesses in this world. Haven’t you always wanted to meet a princess Dipper?” Mabel said, spinning in a circle like a princess wearing a dress. “Uhh… not necessarily.” Dipper said in a hushed tone. “Mabel, remember to be quiet. It looks like it’s night in wherever this castle-thing is. Also, it’s too orderly to look abandoned, therefore, I can conclude someone or something probably lives inside, is sleeping, and would not like to be disturbed by two children.” “Ugh, Dipper. Why do you have to ruin everything magical and fun with your geek stuff?” Mabel replied, throwing back her head in annoyance. “Mabel, it’s not geek stuff. It’s just logic. I’m going to have one more look through the journal and see if there is anything on the subject of crystal buildings and then may- “ECHO!” Mabel shouted, followed by an "ECHO ECHO echo echo..." that rang through the crystal hall. Dipper slapped a hand over her mouth.” What did I say?” he said through his teeth. “Homkhayyy.” She mumbled through Dipper’s hand with her arms crossed. After about 2 more seconds, she resorted to licking brother’s hand, immediately getting him retract. “Ewww, Mabel! Why do you always do that?” he said, wiping his hands on his grey shorts. She gave a nonchalant shrug. Dipper gave her the evil eye then returned to his book. While Dipper was buried in the journal, Mabel seized the opportunity. Quietly, she swung herself into the dimensional rip and landed on her feet in the crystal hall. She looked around. She was breathless at the sight. Carefully she tip-toed down the hall. There were pink and yellow diamond shaped lights hanging on the ceiling. Mabel smiled in bliss. Maybe a princess did live here. She squeed softly at the thought. Then, she remembered Dipper and swung her head around and looked back at him through the rip. He was still buried in his book, frantically flipping through the pages. “Pssst. Dipper.” Mabel whispered down the hall. She saw Dipper look up, eyes bulging and mouth open in disbelief. He made frantic motions signaling for her to go back through the rip. Mabel just silently chuckled and shook her head. This time, Twilight was sure she heard someone yell “ECHO”. She waited. Nothing happened. Twilight looked up at the ceiling in frustration and let out a long “ERRRRRRRRRR” and pushed her seat back. She swayed as she stood up and ran into her kitchen door. She didn’t know how much more of this drunkenness she could take. She began to meander down the hallway towards the library to see if she could find a spell to cure this wretched feeling. “MABEL!” Dipper whispered curtly. “COME. BACK. NOW!” “Dipper, there is no point in discovering a new land and opening a portal if you can’t go in it. Think about all the possibilities! We could meet a fairy or something.” Mabel said, thinking about the prospect. “Mabel, I just think, well -” “Enough, Dipper. If you won’t go, than I will!” said Mabel pointing at her chest. She turned on her heel, and dashed down the gleaming hallway. Dipper didn’t waste a second and hopped through the rip. He quietly ran down the hallway to try and find Mabel. He looked down every hallway and memorized the way he was going so they might have a chance to get back. He couldn't find her anywhere. Upon checking a door that turned out to be a bathroom, he heard a sound coming from a couple doors over that made his blood run cold. “ERRRRRRRRRR!” Twilight sauntered down the left hall towards the library, head hanging low. All of a sudden she heard gentle hoofsteps running down the walkway to her right. She looked with wide eyes. Nothing. She crammed a hoof in her ear. Let’s just hope I find a spell to cure my current state. I’m probably just imagining all this. She walked a couple more yards when she saw something directly to her left that stopped her in her tracks. She saw a floating purple vortex that stood in the middle of the path with an occasional lightning bolt here or there. On the other side of this portal, she could see muddy brown bricks. She stared at it for good 5 seconds before dropping her head back to the floor. I’m really losing it. She thought as she opened the doors to the library. Dipper screeched to a halt. He saw the back of Mabel’s straight brown in the room in front of him. “Mabel!”, he whispered loudly. She turned to look at him. “Dipper, check out this room. It’s amazing!” I want to live here! Do you think Grunkle Stan will let us?” Dipper ignored the question and walked around the circular room in awe. In the center of the room lay a large crystal table that had a map of some sort spread out. Dipper had never seen or heard about such places on this map on Earth. Circling the table were six thrones of some sort. Each had a symbol on the top. These symbols were three butterflies, three balloons, three apples, three diamonds, a multi-colored lightning bolt, and a large purple 6-pointed star. On the ceiling, many tree branches were hanging low and tied to their ends were blue, pink and yellow gems. “Whoa, are these crests or something?” Dipper said, looking at the one with the purple star. He noticed that a small throne with no markings lay next to it. “I don’t know, but they sure are comfy!” Mabel said, sitting in the chair with the balloons. Upon seeing her, he shook his head and remembered the task at hand. Grab Mabel, get out. “C’mon Mabel. Let’s get out of here before we raise any alarms or something. I don’t like the feeling of this place.” Dipper said glancing back and forth. “Awww, but Dipper-” “No! Mabel, I’ve been hearing strange noises the entire time I’ve been in here. I’m telling you we are not alone. Let’s just get back to the portal thing before we get caught by whatever lives here.” Mabel looked around the throne room. She didn’t want to leave. It was so pretty with all the diamonds and tapestries. But her brother made a fair point. They didn’t know what lived in here, and she had heard a couple noises herself. She sighed. “Okay Dipper, let’s go.” She hopped out of the balloon throne. Dipper began to walk down the hallway with Mabel at his side. It was pretty dark so he pulled a flashlight out of his vest and flicked it on. “There” he said. “That should light the way.” As they walked down the hall together, Dipper was trying to remember the directions to the portal. It was after all, a big castle. “Okay, right, left, left, go straight until… … now, aaaaand we should be-” Right in front of them, they could see the rip sealing up, slowly patching itself together. “NonononononononoNO NO NO NO!” Dipper said as he dropped his flashlight and rushed towards the closing vortex. With every step he took, the portal was getting smaller and smaller and smaller until…. It was gone. “NO! This can’t be happening. Are we trapped?” He said frantically running around in the spot where the portal used to stand, waving his arms. Without a word, he took the blade out of his vest and began slashing the air, trying to open another rift. “You kept the dagger-thing?” Mabel asked curiously as she watched him attempt to cut through the air. He paused to catch his breath and he put his hands on his knees. “Yes, I did. I didn’t really know what it was for, or why it was there, but since we had just discovered it I couldn't just leave it there. I thought maybe it could bring us back home and open another rift like it did last time when you held it, b-but it’s not working. I-I don’t know what to do now.” Dipper said, sitting against the wall with his head in his arms. Mabel took a seat next to him. “Well, look on the bright side. Maybe we will get to live here in this magic fairy castle. This is like, everybody's dream.” Dipper stood up. “That’s it Mabel. We're going home. And I’m not going stop trying until we get there. I only think of how nervous Wen-” Mabel gave him a sly look. “I mean Grunkle Stan, of course. Haha I was never saying anything else.” he said putting the flashlight and blade back in his dark blue vest pulling out journal 3 with bright red cheeks. He began to flip through it like a madman. “Dipper, you know there is nothing in there about where we are in that journal. You've looked through it like a squillion times on our journey.” “I know!” He said. “It’s just helped us so many other times that it must have something. Plus, I want to read up on vortexes, portals, and that kinds of stuff to see if there is any possible way home.” Dipper pointed at a page that looked about half-way through the book. “It says here there are two types of vortexes. Teleportation and Interdimensional. The problem is, I don’t know if we’ve teleported here or if this is some kind of strange dimension. I’m guessing dimension since that map-” He was cut short of his sentence by what sounded like some magic explosion. Both the twins turned their heads in the direction then looked back at each other in fright. Dipper grabbed Mabel’s arm and pulled her down the hall. “C’mon! Before the resident of this place finds intruders in their home!” He said as they bolted around the nearest corner. Twilight opened the door of the library, feeling like a million bits. I knew there must have been a spell to cure drunkenness. She thought as she clopped down the hall with a smile on her face. Just to make sure she was no longer hallucinating, she peeked around the corner where she had seen the weird vortex. It was gone. She sighed a sigh of relief and drooped her head, letting out a big yawn. Boy it’s late. She thought. I best be of to bed. She walked down the hallway towards her bedroom with blurry eyes and a tired mind. She had just opened the door when she heard gentle hoofsteps running down the hall. Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap… She rolled her eyes and gave a slight smile. It was probably Starlight or Spike. They must have come home from the party and now were trying to scare her. “Starlight? Spike?” she called. She heard her voice echo through the castle. “I know you’re there. You can come out!” She called. No answer. Twilight began to sweat. Was this a prank, or were there really intruders in her house? She began trying to calm herself down when she heard the sound of a slamming kitchen door and hoofsteps running down the hall. Panicked, she teleported into the interior of the kitchen and a sense of dread began to creep through her veins. The first thing that she noticed was that one of her frying pans had been stolen from its spot on the counter and the pantry door was wide open. With a quick investigation, she could see that this thief also had stolen some apples, celery, a couple muffins and a hunk of bread. Twilight’s knees began to knock. Her teeth began to chatter. She knew now that there definitely was a thief in her house. What more could they want? Were they going to kidnap her? She shook the idea out of her head. I’m an alicorn princess. I can fight off whoever is in my home! “STOP THIEF!!” she yelled and listened closely. She heard a faint whisper and the sound of somepony running frantically down the hall. She gave a faint smirk. She had them now. Dipper and Mabel ran as fast as their legs could carry them. They heard footsteps running right behind them. There has to be some exit in this huge castle! He thought as he turned right. Mabel was carrying a bunch of supplies that they had stolen from the kitchen. In her left hand, a bag of food they had stolen from this place’s pantry. In her right, a frying pan for self-defense. They didn’t know how long they would have to stay here so the more prepared they were, the better. As they rounded another corner, a spark of hope ignited inside of Dipper. Before them, a huge door, the biggest one that they have seen so far. “It must be exit!” he called to Mabel. “Quick! Out the door!” They sprinted as hard they could to try and reach the door before their pursuer caught them. Just as they were about to reach the door a large flash of purple light stopped them in their tracks. “AH HA!” Twilight yelled. She lit her horn and illuminated the thieves. “I’ve caught yo-” Twilight forgot everything that she was about to say when she saw the creatures her light was shining upon. She had never seen anything like them. To her, they looked like hairless monkeys with clothes on, although one was much more colorful than the other. They both stood on two legs. The colorful one held all her stolen kitchen supplies. They reminded her of the people in human Equestria but these creatures greatly differed from them in many ways. They looked back at her, mirroring her expression. Her mouth dropped open and her mind began to race in fear. Her horn began to glow in preparation of a knockout spell. Dipper and Mabel stood staring at the creature that had teleported before them. It was a Purple Unicorn with wings. Dipper was in an absolute state of shock at the mythical being in front of them, while Mabel was in an absolute state of happiness. All my dreams have come true! They both stood staring at each other for about 10 seconds without a word or movement. Dipper blinked. The unicorn blinked. Mabel blinked. A frantic look suddenly came across the unicorn's face and her horn began to glow and sizzle like a laser beam charging up. That’s when Dipper got a clue to what was about to happen. “MABEL! GET DO-” The beam of light hit Dipper straight in the chest and he toppled onto the ground, unconscious. Where Mabel once stood in awe of the unicorn, she now stood in horror and anger. “Nobody. Messes. With. My. BROTHER!!!” Mabel yelled as she charged forward with the frying pan. The unicorn, preparing another laser to shoot looked over her shoulder and the moment she did… WHAM!!! She took a blow right on the left side of her cheek and you could hear the sound of impact from a mile away. Because of the impact, the magic shot out of her horn early and hit Mabel right on her forehead, causing her to fall unconscious as well. Twilight breathed in and out several times before putting a hoof to her face, realizing what the colorful creature had done and slumping onto the floor, instantly passing out, just like they did. All was silent in the castle of friendship. > Chapter 3: The Discovery > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The next morning… Pinkie Pie trotted down ponyville’s main road, humming a tune as she rounded a corner of the square. As she looked left and right she could see many ponies giving her a wave and a wink with sick looks on their faces. No matter what the color of their coat was, their faces were all the color green. “Hi, Berry Punch! Great party yesterday, huh?” Pinkie asked getting muzzle to muzzle with the earth pony. Berry Punch responded to that statement by turning away from Pinkie and walking straight into a wall. Pinkie gave a small giggle. “Glad you liked it that much!” As she skipped down the road, she quickly noticed that she was one of the only ponies that didn’t make moaning noises every 5 seconds. She shrugged. It didn’t matter anyway. They are just sick because they had so much fun their body didn’t know what to do with it all. She thought as she passed the spa. “Well,” Pinkie said outloud to nopony in particular. “I gotta run to Twilight’s. No time to stop and say hello.” Tonight was the night Pinkie, Applejack, Rarity, Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash were all going to spend the night at Twilight’s castle. What better way to end a birthday than to spend a whole night with your best friends? “I can’t wait to see the look on Twilight’s face when she sees how early I am to the sleepover!”, she said as she approached the large, sparkling castle. “WHAT A SURPRISE!!” She squealed, jumping in the air and almost touching a cloud. She landed back on the dirt with a large dust cloud surrounding her. She hummed as she knocked on the large castle door. “Oooh Twiiiiiiiiiliiiiiiiiight? It’s me Pinkie Pie. Your bestest friend in like the whole universe.” No answer. “Well, maybe she’s not home right now.” Pinkie smiled as an idea popped into her head. *GASP* “Maybe I’ll have time to throw her a Welcome back to your house party! There can be cake and balloons and ice cream and Gummy can come too and- I should get started NOW!!” she shrieked as she opened the castle door quickly and it hit the wall. It took only 2 seconds for Pinkie’s happy mood to vanish when she took in the sight around her. On the ground, lay Twilight in an uncomfortable position, clearly unconscious. What frightened Pinkie the most was that on the right side of her head, she had a black eye and a swollen cheek. Next to her were to strange creatures, both of them knocked out too. Pinkie noticed that one of them was holding a frying pan. “AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!” Pinkie let out a deafening scream, slammed the door. and bolted out of the castle. She thought the best thing to do was rally her friends and see what they could do. First stop, Sweet Apple Acres. Pinkie ran across ponyville with unmatched speed, going so fast that you could mistake her for a huge, rose-colored light particle, leaving only a trail of pink in her wake. Her legs moved about a hundred miles per hour. “APPLE JA-AH-AH-CK!” she yelled as she screeched to a stop in front of her house. She pounded on the door. “Applejack! Applejack! Applejack!” Pinkie wailed. “Quick! It’s an emergency!” Applejack gallopped down the stairs and flung the door open. “Wha-what is Pinkie? Is someone hurt?” she asked, eyes darting in every direction. “Worse. TWILIGHT DIED!!!” Pinkie screamed, a river of tears soaking her now perfectly straight mane. “WHAT? Sugarcube, are you sure?” Applejack said with panic in her eyes “Yeah… she was laying on the f-f-floor and… there were 2 creatures that attacked her… and-and she had a black eye… “Then we don’t have any time to waste C’mon!” Applejack said. They both ran towards ponyville as fast as they could possibly go, to gather their other friends. 20 minutes later… The mane 5, Spike, and Starlight ran to Twilight’s castle in a hurry and pounded on the door. “Twilight, Twilight, Twilight!!” Spike said as he pounded on the door. Silence. “Oh for Celestia’s sake OPEN THE DOOR!!” Pinkamena shouted. Spike cautiously opened the door, a creaking sound slowly filling up the room. They all gasped at the sight before them. Fluttershy rushed to Twilight’s side. “Twilight, can you hear me? Please Please Please don’t be dead… “ “I think she's just unconscious.” “What do we do?” “Look at her eye!” “She was definitely hit with something. Hard.” “Twilight!” “Spike, write a letter to Princess Celestia.” “Fluttershy, go to your cottage and get some bandages.” “Rainbow Dash, go to the kitchen and get a bucket of water.” “On it.” “I can feel a pulse. She’s OK!” The ponies were squabbling with one another, trying to shake Twilight awake, check her pulse, and bandage her eye. Rainbow Dash came soaring back from the kitchen with a bucket of freezing water filled to the brim. She leaned over Twilight and poured the whole thing on her head. Twilight’s body instinctively started thrashing about and she sat up with wide eyes, gasping for air. “TWILIGHT!!”, her friends all shouted, crowding her and squeezing her to death with hugs. “Hi everypony! Wh-What are you all doing here? And why does the left side of my face hurt so much?” she asked putting a hoof to her eye. And then the memories came flooding back. The party… dark castle… muffins… frying pans… two hairless creatures stealing all of her stuff… She shook her head and began drying herself with a towel. “Do you remember what happened? Who did this?” Starlight asked with concern. Twilight took a deep breath in, doing her best to produce a clear image of what happened that night in her mind. “There were… There were 2 weird creatures… stealing my stuff… they looked like monkeys…” “You mean these guys?” Pinkie asked, pointing a hoof at 2 unconscious beings. Everypony trotted over and looked at what Pinkie was pointing at. They had been so panicked over Twilight they did not notice the strange creatures slumped against the wall. “Wha-what are those?!?” Rainbow Dash asked Twilight with a hint of fright in her voice. Twilight took a nice long look at them. “I honestly don’t know. I’ve never seen, read or heard of these things before! But, they do remind me of my Canterlot High friends. They had hands and stood on 2 legs. These appear to be bipedal as well. But these are much different from them. These have tan skin, brown hair, and are much, much smaller… Plus, Canterlot High was in another dimension… Ooooo I’m feeling very unprepared.” She said with an uneasy look. Spike cautiously walked over and poked the creature with the hat on it’s nose. The creature then scrunched up his face and turned his head ever so slightly to the left. Everypony jumped back. “They’re alive!” Rarity said in an overly-dramatic voice, putting a hoof to her forehead. “They could wake up and kill us all!” Pinkie shrieked. “Now, everypony.” Applejack said with evident fear. “Let’s not freak ah’selves out before we even know what actually happened. They could just be… lost? I don’ know… Fluttershy, have you ever seen these things before?” “I-um… no. No I haven’t.” She responded shyly, hoof scraping across the floor. “Well, whatever they are, they’re trouble.” Rainbow Dash declared. “Look what they did to Twilight! They attacked her! They stole her stuff and then hit her in the head! When these things wake up they’re gonna-” She was interrupted by a rather large belch coming from Spike, sending a scroll flying across the castle. Right before it hit the wall, Twilight’s magic grabbed it. “You guys sent a letter to the Princess?” she questioned as she unfurled the scroll. “Yeah, we kind of panicked.” Starlight said sheepishly. “I was the one who wrote it.” Twilight cleared her throat and began to read out loud. Dearest Starlight Glimmer, Your message sends me great worry. I have sent 2 medics to aid in Twilight’s recovery and Solar Captain Shining Armour and a couple of other guards to investigate the crime and see if they can piece together the whole story of what happened that night. I would come myself but I have been recently called to Aquastria by the ruler of the land and my cousin, King Leo, to discuss urgent matters. When Twilight awakens, have her send a letter to me, confirming that she is alright. Yours Truly, Princess Celestia “She’s sending over other ponies? That’s good, I would really like to classify these creatures. Also, I fink I haf a toof looth.” Twilight said, feeling her teeth with her tongue.” “Well, be glad those medic ponies are coming over.” Rarity said. “They’ll get you tidied up before you can say ‘Hoity Toity’!” “Thanks guys, you’ve been a really big help, I don’t know what I’d do without you!” Twilight said, looking around at all the beaming faces. “I better start on a letter to the Princess. Spike, can you grab me a fresh scroll?” “You betcha!” Spike hollered, already a ways down the hallway. At that moment, knock could be heard on the door. “Twili? Are you okay?” a male voice came from outside the door. Twilight’s face lit up at the sound. “It’s okay, BBBFF. I’m in here! Applejack, could you unlock the door?” Applejack trotted over and lifted the latch on the door. Shining Armour, two royal pegasi guards, and 2 medic ponies came through the door. “Oh, LSBFF, I’m so glad you’re okay!” Shining said as he embraced Twilight in a tight hug. “ Princess Celestia told me what happened and I came as quick as I could. Where does it hurt?” Shining motioned for the medics to come forward. “Really, I’m fine. Fluttershy brought bandages from her cottage.” “I’m glad. Now who did this? When I lay my hooves on them I’m gonna-” “Shiny, don’t stress yourself out. I’ll tell you everything that happened.” Shining sat on his rump, listening intently to his sister. Twilight began to tell her sibling everything about last night she could remember, from the raging party to the creatures she encountered. Shining Armor gave a small whine when she got to the part with the frying pan. “So you’re telling me, that these 2 things just showed up out of nowhere and started stealing your food?” Shining said pointing a hoof at the two unconscious beings surrounded by the guards and her friends. “Pretty much!” “Well, are you sure you have never seen or read about these things before?” “Yep. But I think they might be a subspecies of human.” “And you were sure that you had all your doors locked?” “Now that you mention it, I don’t think I did. My friends were able to get in, and I was so drunk I don't even think it occurred to me.” “Well that’s probably how they got in. You said you’ve never heard about these before? We should probably take them to Canterlot and see if an animal and monster specialist can identify them.” “Good idea. When does the next train to Canterlot leave?” “Noon, I think.” “Well” Twilight said glancing at a clock on the wall. “It’s eleven thirty now so let's head over to the station.” As Twilight stood up, she heard a feminine voice from across the room say something like, “hi imamaaaaaabel?” There was a collective intake of breaths. “Can they...um, talk? Is that a different language?” Fluttershy said curiously. “No they speak Equestrian. When they knocked me down the the male one said ‘get down’. I think he was warning the other. Then the female yelled ‘nobody messes with my brother’ right before she was about to hit me. Well now I know that the two are related. Maybe twins, perhaps.” Twilight said knowingly. “Also, can you call the medics over I've been curious to know how much damage they caused to the side of my face.” The medics cantered over and began inspecting every inch of Twilight. The two pegasi guards came down one of Twilight’s many hallways, their faces emotionless as usual. Twilight didn’t even notice their absence. “May I ask where you went, good sirs?” Twilight inquired. They both stooped down into a low bow. “Your highness," one said, "We have been investigating the castle for any other clues as to what these being did here and how they got in. The only thing we found was this.” He pulled out an object. “Is that a… Flashlight?” Twilight asked, embracing the flashlight in her magic. “Most ponies don’t own these. They cost a lot. Plus, look!” She pointed a hoof at the the on/off switch. “No earth pony or pegasus would be able to use these. Flashlights were designed for non-unicorns so they could produce light. They could be easily turned on and off with the tap of a hoof and carried around in mouths. This switch, however, looks like it was made for their hands, therefore I can conclude that this was was invented for their own species. That shows that they have a civilized lifestyle. Though one could tell right off the bat by the clothes they're wearing. The stitching is perfect!” Twilight looked around at all the ponies in the room. They all murmured in agreement. “You have really good observation skills, Twi, but I guess that’s because of your eggheadedness.” Rainbow said with a coy smile. “Thanks! I do read a lot of Dial S for ‘Sassy’ books. They’re detective novels. You should try that series, Dash! Rarity reads it too.” Twilight replied. “Nah, I’m good with my Daring Do.” Very faintly in the distance, A train whistle could be heard. The 12 ponies and 1 dragon turned their heads towards the noise. “Y'all, ah think we better hurry it up. The trains ‘bout ta leave!” Applejack said quickly. “But how are we going to transport the creatures?” Starlight asked. As if on cue, a small sphere of pink light quietly surrounded the beings and lifted them ever so gently in the air. The twins did not stir, still out cold. The large bubble containing them hovered a few feet off the ground. The ponies turned to see Shining Armor with his horn glowing a hot pink and a expression of concentration on his face. He slowly opened one eye. “I got it Twili.” He said. He motioned with his hoof for all the ponies to follow him out the door. As they all stepped outside, a torrent of sunlight and civilians came barreling towards them. “What happened?” “Is the princess okay?” “What are those?!?” “Has Tirek come back again?” “HUMANS!!” “Are we all gonna die?” “Can bring muffins into the ponyville villain-shelter?” After pushing their way through an ocean of ponies, they were finally able get tickets and step onto the train. A couple of paparazzis flashed their cameras. It reminded Twilight of the time Fluttershy became a well know supermodel. A loud whistle blew. “The Friendship Express is leaving the station.” The conductor called from up front as he poked his head through the door separating the train compartments. He was a simple stallion with a brown mane and a yellow coat, wearing a conductor's cap. His eyes got wide when he saw the passengers on the train. There sat the Princess of Friendship, The captain of the Solar Guard, and the rest of the bearers of the elements of harmony. He took a long gander at the creatures wrapped in Shining Armor’s magic. “Umm...sir? Are those creatures your pets? If so are they domesticated? We don’t allow any feral and untamed animals on the train...sir.” “You have nothing to worry about, good stallion.” Twilight said. “We’re just taking these creatures up to Canterlot to be classified.” The conductor looked weary. “Of course, your highness. Call me Sun Steam. I’ll be your conductor for your journey and my assistant, Butter Drop, will be here to attend to all your needs.” A tan unicorn with a cherry mane entered through the back of the compartment. “Pl-please enjoy your trip, your majesty.” He bent into a bow and on coming up, he went way too fast and hit his head on the ceiling. He blushed and walked out as quick as he could. The unicorn came around, giving each pony (and dragon) a cup of water. Twilight let out a sigh of relief. They appeared to be the only ones on the train. What a lucky break. She didn’t need anymore ponies up in her face. Word of her injury and encounter with these things has probably already reached every end of Equestria. Twilight rolled her eyes. She would probably have to go through even more ponies than she did in Ponyville to even get off the train station. She didn’t really like all the attention but she probably wouldn’t even have been here if it weren’t for her friends. They helped her up, wrote to the princess and tended to her injuries until help arrived. Being with your friends sure beats being all alone like I was last night., Twilight thought. If my friends were there, those jerks probably wouldn’t even be able to touch a hair on my head! Twilight’s train of thought came to a sudden stop. Wait a minute… “Starlight? Spike?” The purple alicorn called as the said beings turned to look at her. “Waaphh?” Spike said with a mouth full of caramel that he got from the candy trolley “Where were you two last night? You guys kinda live in my house and you never made any plans to sleep somewhere else. At least not that I know of. I was wondering why it took some pony so long to notice me passed out on the floor of my castle.” Starlight’s cheeks turned red. She lifted a hoof and began to answer. “W-" “IfiguredthatStarlightandSpikeweren’tatthecastlebecauseifTwilightwasuncontioustilmorningitmeansthattheyneversawherlastnightsowewenttowhatwasleftofSugarcubeCorneraftermymega-epic-awesome partyandfoundSpikeundermybedandStarlightinanoverturnedapplebobbingcratesoweshookthemawakeandweweretotallylike-” Pinkie Pie began to deeply inhale to the point where her eyes were going different directions. Before she could say anything though, an orange hoof was shoved in her mouth. “Breathe, Sugarcube, breathe! I think we all get the point.” Starlight rubbed the back of her neck, an embarrassed smile on her face. “So yeah, Me and Spile may have passed out at the party. But I mean, with all the cider we had, who could blame us?” They all shared a collective laugh as the train rumbled down the tracks to the great city of Canterlot. > Chapter 4: Canterlot and Confinement > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- In a small, beaten shack, there was a old living room. In that old living room, there was a tattered, orange lounge chair. On that tattered orange lounge chair, sat an old man with an unusually orange nose and a red fez. In his right hand he held a can of Pitt Cola. Yes, Stanley Pines was living the life, butt on the chair and eyes on the TV screen. He couldn’t have asked for a better day. He made a whooping $10,000 off a couple of suckers from upstate, shoplifted a loaf of bread, and on top of it all, the season premiere of Baby Fights was on tonight. As the smackdown between Joey and Tootsie began, The red-headed Wendy poked her head through the doorway. “Ah, Wendy! Did Soos try to eat the dog treats we put out again?” “Actually, he did, but that’s not why I came. Have you seen Dipper and Mabel? I haven’t seen them for like, the whole day. I think they went out in the forest to go mystery hunting or something and we were supposed to all hang on the roof tonight, and I know that that is something Dipper would never bail out on.” Said Wendy, internally giggling at the thought of Dipper’s massive crush on her. Stan bolted upright. Oh no oh no oh no... The kids! He knew he was forgetting something! And the forest of all places? The kids could be in serious danger. So many times he had looked through his bro- He shook his head. No, he shouldn’t be thinking about that. The kids were his top priority now. He darted out the door, nothing but his blue striped underwear, white under shirt and pink slippers to clothe him. Outside, it was dark and windy, the stars bright. Wendy followed him out the door in a hurry. Stan wheeled around and grabbed Wendy by the shoulders. “When was the last time you saw them?” “Uh-uh.. I was at the cash register… They said they were going to sit out on the porch…” Stan was no longer listening. “KIDS!!!!” “I’m sorry, princess. Through all my work in creature studies, I’ve never come across creatures such as these.” Twilight sighed. “Ok, thank you m’mam.” Twilight and the rest of the ponies were inside of Dr. Clawhauser, the creature specialist’s laboratory in Canterlot. She was a blue unicorn with a black mane and an animal paw as a cutie mark. Through her mane was a single green stripe. Several unbreathing and stuffed animals sat in jars and stands. This made Fluttershy very uncomfortable, her eyes towards the ground almost the whole time. A manticore X-ray was hung on the wall, labels on every part of the bone. The ceiling was fairly close to the ground, as Twilight thought that Big Mac’s head would just barely scrape the surface. Papers were littered across the counters, and DNA test tubes sat sprawled here and there. This made Twilight very uncomfortable, her eyes towards the ground almost the whole time. Shining Armour had set the two creatures down on and animal examination table. The medics and the guards had left them at the door of the lab, for they had other duties to attend to besides following Twilight around all day. Shining embraced the creatures in his magic bubble once more. Maybe they would have to take these guys to the Princess. She is over 1000 years old, she must have seen this species before. As they all began to take their leave Dr. Clawhauser called out to them. “Wait!” They stopped to look at her. She trotted over to the bubble and tapped on it. “Since these creatures appear to be unclassified, I was maybe thinking we could keep them in my research fascility downstairs. Studying creatures is great, but finding an entirely new one, well, think how much research I’ll be able to accomplish! Well now that I think about, these animals look closely related to the chimpanzee family, or they could be part of…” She trailed off, lost in her train of thought. Twilight turned to the group. “I actually think that it would be a good idea to keep them here. I mean, technically speaking, we haven’t exactly found a place put them and I don't think Shining wants to carry them forever.” Rainbow Dash piped in. “I’m with Twi.” Everyone else agreed and Twilight turned back to the blue, spacey unicorn and shook her out of her trance. “Wha..hmm?” She said, startled. “We’ve agreed to let you keep these creatures in your lab.” Dr. Clawhauser let out a squeal of delight. “All right now, I want you to follow me downstairs to the…” Mabel slowly groaned and opened her eyes. She saw bright pink everywhere she looked. She half sat up and took in only a portion of her surroundings with bleary eyes. She saw little spots of color outside of her pinkness and heard a couple of voices. She groaned and flopped back down. She knew exactly where she was and what was happening, and she did not like it. These jerks had come back for her, to haunt her once more. She scrunched up her face and inhaled deeply, preparing to release all her anger on these monsters who had come to torture her again. “...facility where I keep my live subjects.” Clawhauser said. Right as she finished speaking, the female groaned and sat up. The silence in the room was unmatched. Everypony was watching the creature slowly open a part of her eye and look around. No pony dared moving. The female then flopped back down and let out a bigger groan then began to grow angry. Everypony took a step back and became nervous. “Twilight? Wh-what are they doing? Do they know…magic?” Applejack stuttered. Twilight gulped in response. The creature inhaled. Everypony flinched and… “I WILL NEVER EAT YOUR PAW EVER AGAIN, YOU POSSESED DEVIL DOG! STOP HAUNTING MY DREAMS, TURDBLOSSOM!!!!” Then she rolled over and went back to sleep. Everypony opened one eye and cautiously returned to normal standing position. “Whaaa…..?” Rainbow began. “She was sleep talking, guys.” Twilight said with a face of relief. “Probably dreaming, but this means they might wake up soon, so let's get down to the facility and confine them.” They all nodded and began walking down to the end of the hallway, where a staircase to the lab basement was located. Dipper was faintly aware of someone talking. Probably Grunkle Stan, He thought. Making Stancakes, or something. He rolled over. “Grunkle Stan, can you keep it down? I’m trying to sleep.” The noise stopped. “Thanks.” The ponies were really moving now. This is the second time the creatures had stirred. After running down the stairs, Clawhauser slid open a metal door and inside the room, and quite a sight was seen. Several centipedes were crawling around in cages. A timber wolf was asleep on the floor of another. A couple fruit bats hung from the ceiling in a large steel box. Everypony gasped at the many animals around them. The racket coming from the animals never seemed to die down. “There! My last empty cage!” Dr. C said, pointing a blue hoof at a large iron, hollow cube with a swinging and see-through door attached to it. It was about 10 feet tall and sat in the back of the basement. Everypony trotted over to the cage then looked at Shining Armour, who was still carrying the creatures in his magic bubble. With a look of concentration on his face, he moved it slowly into the cage, and began to make it descend. Until a fly landed in his ear, that is. Concentration broke, his eyes snapped open and he reached to scratch his ear instinctively. The bubble popped, and both of its precious dwellers fell hard on the metal ground with a THUNK! The male began to rub his hand on his head and groan softly. “Shining, what did you DO?” Twilight hissed through her teeth to an apologetic looking unicorn. They didn’t have time to bicker though. The male creature was getting on his feet. Twilight quickly closed the cell door. Everypony took a couple steps back and watched in awe as the male began to stretch out his hands and yawn, as if done taking a nap. He began to open his eyes sleepily and slightly crack open one eye. “Mabel, how many times have I told you. Don’t roll me off the bed when I’m slee… Wait a minute…” With eyes wide open now, he began looking at the steel walls enclosing him and panic came over his face. Dipper began hyperventilating. Where were they? They were… Imprisoned… Or stuck? And where was…? His eyes found Mabel, laying on the ground and unmoving. “Mabel!” He cried rushing over to her. “Mabel wake up wake up wake up!” He shook her shoulders back and forth with a ton of force. “The horror…… Kermit the snowman……no lunch breaks...” She was apparently not about to wake up. “Oh man oh man oh man oh man…” He was cut short of his muttering with a sneeze. He froze. Every muscle in his body stood at a standstill. Only now, through his peripheral vision, was he aware of the transparent fourth wall, and the colorful… Things that he could see looking at him through the door. Slower than a snail, he turned his head to the right, getting an eyeful of the creatures mirroring his expression of shock. There were……. Rainbow unicorns…...and some giant, lizard thing? > Chapter 5: First Impressions (Part 1) > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dipper stood staring slack-jawed at the 9 pastel horses staring back at him. Nobody moved for 10 seconds, terrified at the prospect of breathing. Dipper blinked 5 times. Then began laughing hysterically. The ponies expressions turned from shock to worry. “Oh MAN, this is good. Mabel, you little troll, Once I snap outta this, your gonna get it!” He began rolling on the floor, tears of mirth sparkling in the corners of his eyes. The horses looked at one another with worry evident on their faces. As sudden as it started, the laughing ceased. All the horses looked back at Dipper. His eyes were bulging in fear. “I’m… Conscious….” Dipper knew something was wrong. Very wrong. He knew that the ponies standing in front of him couldn’t possibly be real, yet would he really hallucinate about being in a cell? And about Mabel being knocked out? He looked towards the steel wall and slowly stretched out a hand to meet it. It made contact. It was real. It was physical. He could feel it under his hand. His breath began to come quicker. If Mabel didn’t drug me with the remaining Smile Dip from the convenience store then what…? Then the memories hit him like a freight train with a thousand elephants tied to it. A Dusty temple … That dagger-thing… the Purple portal… The castle...crystal hallways… a Frying pan… He looked back at the horses with a look of terror. Their faces displayed a mixture of curiousity and fear. Twilight looked back at her friends. They made a small motion with their heads that said “go on” and backed up a couple of steps. Twilight gulped and turned around, taking a few steps forward. She looked the colt in the eye, and he looked back into hers, scared out of his wits. This is it, she thought. This is it!! Although she appeared stressed on the outside, she was internally doing cartwheels just thinking about what she about what she was going to accomplish for science. I’m about to have a conversation with a species probably never discovered! She opened her mouth and… She was met with an ear-splitting shriek from the colt. She shrieked back. Stumbling backwards, she bumped into her friends and fell backwards, bringing Rarity and Fluttershy with her. Dipper screamed until he thought his lungs might concave. He didn’t care how girly it sounded. The only thought he had running through his mind was how freaking terrified he was. Throwing his spaghetti arms in the air, he ran in a couple of circles before skidding in front of Mabel on his knees and shaking her frantically. The horses were helping up the purple unicorn and the others she knocked down with her. “MABELMABELMABELMABELMABELMABEL!!!!! Wake up! WAKE UP!! “..*snore*?” SLAP “Ahhhhhhh!!!! The people! They want my Knitting needles!!” She screamed causing Dipper to cover his ears. “Help me Dip…” Then she noticed the ponies ... All hell broke lose on their ears. Twilight winced as the female screamed bloody murder. How much yelling until they actually started talking? She didn’t want to wait and find out. As soon as the filly stopped yelling, Twilight sucked in a breath and began talking before someone started screaming again. “Hi, and before we start screaming again, I am Twilight Sparkle. Who and what are you?” Silence. Well, except the filly who had her face pressed against the door and made whimpers of excitement constantly, a whole universe reflected in her bulging eyes. The colt glanced over at his sister and poked her shoulder, gaining no response or even a blink. He looked bravely at Twilight and inhaled. “Umm… My name is D- “Ahhhhh! You’re PONIES!! And you can talk!! Your journal didn’t say anything about talking ponies, Dip! Oh my gosh Oh my gosh, we are going to have soooo much fun together!! I-I can braid your manes and-” she pointed a finger at Rarity. “Oh my GOSH I love your hair!!! And yours!!! AND YOURS!!! Oh my gosh, what’s on your butt? Is that a tattoo? Or were you born with it? I like the pink pony’s!!! Do you have names? I have the perfect names for-” Pinkie Pie shoved her way to the front of the cage and pressed her muzzle against the glass “Hi, I’m Pinkie Pie! I love making new friends!!! Are you a monkey? I love monkeys! Do you like parties? I love parties!!” “I DO TOO!!” “Oh my gosh we are going to have so much fun!! Do you like cake? Is your favorite color vermillion? What is your opinion on lasagna? Is that a pizza on your sweater? I ate pizza for lunch! What are the red circles?” “Oh right, ponies are vegetarian! It’s called ‘pepperoni’.” “What’s ‘peeperoonee?’” “It’s-” Both were cut off abruptly by two beings clearing their throats and glaring at them: Twilight and the female’s brother. Both Pinkie and the filly blushed and slowly backed off. Twilight stepped forward once more. “Hi. As I said, my name is Twilight Sparkle. Right now, you are being held in Canterlot, and I would to ask you a few questions, if you don’t mind.” She got blinks in response. Sighing, she asked her question anyways. “Who and what are you, and why were you in my house? Don’t you creatures know that it’s rude to break and enter into somepony's home, especially a princess?” The colt opened his mouth to answer but was cut off by his sibling...again. “Princess? You’re a PRINCESS? OMG!! So, are you all like, princesses? That castle was yours? It was so sparkly. And pretty! And cool! And-” Her brother lightly smacked her over the head, him getting stink eye in return. He turned and narrowed his eyes at Twilight. “Okay, Miss...Sparkle. I’ll answer your question, only if you answer my question first.” He said with an air of suspicion and distrust. Twilight rolled her eyes, tired. “Fine, fine, what?” “I want you to answer the same question you asked me.” Twilight looked at the colt in confusion. “Huh?” “Who and what are you?” “What do you mean? We’re ponies of course. Every creature in Equestria knows what ponies are.” “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Equestria? Where is that? Are we in South America or something? No wait…an equine is a horse, so Equestria must be relating to horses… I’ve never… I don’t…” He began to pace and mutter until he stopped in his tracks and put his hands on his head, clutching several bunches of his brown hair. He whipped around to face Twilight, pointing a trembling...claw(?) at her. “ARE WE ON PLANET EARTH?” The alicorn didn’t understand. “What?” “What planet are we on?” “You don’t know what planet you’re on? It seems to me like your species has a pretty advanced society, based on the flashlight we found and by the…” “Answer me!!” “Okay, okay, ummm, Terra? The colt blinked uncomprehendingly for what seemed like the millionth time today. He put his head in his hands and leaned against the wall, muttering again. “Screaming doesn’t solve problems, screaming doesn’t solve problems, screaming doesn’t solve problems…” His sister still sat in the corner of the cell, in the same place she had been for the last five minutes, hypnotized by the ponies in front of her. Twilight couldn’t recall the last time she blinked. Dipper sat up once again and faced the purple unicorn. “You still haven’t answered all my questions.” His voice was trembling, still a little freaked at the prospect of being on a completely different planet. “I told you, my name is Twilight, and I’m a pony.” “I have more questions.” “So do I!” They glared at each other for a while until the purple unicorn broke the silence and her expression changed from annoyance to pity. “Listen, I’m sorry for being a little...pushy. I know you must be scared, I mean, you woke up in a cell! And you both seem very young! I’m just confused. Getting two strange creatures in your house in the middle of the night is a little scary. Especially when they steal your food.” She lifted an eyebrow. “But the point is, I know we got off on the wrong hoof, but do you think maybe we can pretend all the events that occurred last night can be forgotten? Maybe we can work out the problem and listen to both sides of the story.” Dipper stood silent for while, unable to process the hor-pony’s sudden change in attitude. “You’re...forgiving me? Just like that?” “What can I say? As the Princess of Friendship, it’s my duty to spread kindness everywhere.” “...okaaaay…” “So why were you both in my castle last night? Oh wait, sorry. First, do you both have names?” “Uhh… yeah. I’m Dipper, and this is my sister, Mabel.” he said, gesturing to his twin. “Hmmm?” She shook her head a couple of times, free from her trance. “Oh, right. Hi! My name is Mabel! I’m soooooooo excited to be meeting you all! We are going to have so much fun once we get to the Shack, I could show you to…” “Mabel, didn’t you hear my conversation with, um, Twilight?” “Nuh-uh” “She said we were somewhere called ‘Equestria’ and on a planet called ‘Terra.’ We’re not even on Earth Mabel, or in our solar system, for that matter. Well, least when we get back, if we get back, we can safely say that life exists on other planets.” Mabel said nothing. Then she said *snort*. Then she said, “WHAAAAAAAAAAA!!! DIP, I WANNA GO HOME. I LOVE THE PONIES, BUT I DON’T WANNA BE A GIBBILLION MILES AWAY FROM MOM AND DAD AND GRUNKLE STAN!!!!!!” She buried her face in Dipper’s vest and he gently patted her head. “It’s okay, Mabel. Maybe...it won’t be too bad? Maybe...um, Twilight and her friends can help us?” “*Sniiiiiiiiiiff* okaay…” Just then, the cyan pony with the rainbow mane came butting into the front. “Hold on a sec, did you say you're from another PLANET? So, you’re like, aliens.” “... I guess?” “That...is...AWESOME!” She approached the glass and put a hoof against it. “Hi. Name’s Rainbow Dash. Fastest flier in Equestria. Well, second fastest to the Wonderbolts.” Mabel cocked her head to the left, still drying her tears. “Wonderbolts?” A pained look came across Rainbow’s face. “Man, I feel bad for you… The Wonderbolts are an elite team of fliers that perform all across Equestria!” she explained, making a broad sweeping motion with her hoof and extending her wings. “OMG! Can you fly with those?” “Fly with these?” Rainbow snorted. She shot in the air and did 4 backflips. “I can SOAR with these.” Mabel gave a small squeal of delight. Dipper cleared his throat. “Uh, question. Are all of you ponies? Like, the world is inhabited with you guys?” “Well, I don’t actually know. In Equestria, yes. It is inhabited by ponies of all kinds. Well, there are some other creatures that live here. For example, there is a small area in the Southeast where dragons live, and a little to the north lies Griffonstone, a civilization of Griffons right of the coast of the Celestial Sea. But we still don’t know what lies beyond some of our oceans and jungles. Our planet has not yet been fully explored. ” “Okay…” Twilight shook her head. “I’m getting off topic now, back to the whole planet thing. Are you sure about that?” Dipper raised an eyebrow. “Oh I don’t know, magic talking unicorns totally live on Earth and have a ginormous civilization that we humans have completely overlooked with our giant satellites.” Twilight snatched a piece of paper from a desk and embraced a pen in wavy purple substance Dipper could only describe as magic. Her horn was wrapped in the same substance. She was jotting down notes furiously. “How are you…” Mabel began, only to remember the last time she had seen that purple mass, which had stricken the chest of her brother and knocked him unconscious. She felt her rage inexplicably swell. “You buttface!” she shrieked, causing all the ponies in the room to reel back. She pressed her face against the glass. If looks could kill, Twilight would be a fiery mountain of meat by now. “How dare you hurt my brother! Last night! In the castle! What did he ever do to you?!?” Twilight gave her an apologetic look. “I am deeply sorry for casting a knockout spell on you two. I felt scared and threatened. I hope you can forgive me.” She rubbed one of her forelegs against the other in a sheepish manner. Mabel’s smile returned. “That’s okay! Pfffffft!” She said with a wave of her hand. “I probably would have done the same thing, but since I don’t have magic, I would have karate chopped whoever was in my house to bits and put the bits in my vat of Mabel-juice!” She said with a smile that would give Jeff the Killer a run for his money. All the ponies shifted uncomfortably, including Dipper. “So...uh…are you going to introduce us to the rest of your friends?” Dipper said, quieter than usual. Twilight’s face lit up like the 4th of July. “Of course! Well, you already met Rainbow Dash, so let me have you meet the others. This is Fluttershy, she loves and cares for critters of all kinds, this is Rarity, she’s a fashionista. This is Applejack, she and her family own a large farm on the outskirts of Ponyville, the town that we live in. Here’s Pinkie Pie, who you also met. She’s an expert party thrower and baker! Her cupcakes are amazing! This is Starlight Glimmer, she’s my student and is currently taking my course in friendship. My brother, Shining Armor, is the captain of the royal guard and co-ruler of the crystal empire. This is Spike, the dragon, he’s my number one assistant. And this, is Dr. Clawhauser, monster and creature specialist of Canterlot.” When each pony/dragon had their name called, they said hello in their own fashion. Fluttershy hid behind her hair and looked down at the ground. Rarity tossed her hair with a brush of her hoof, as if flirting. Applejack crossed her forelegs and closed her eyes, a warm smile etched on her face. Pinkie jumped in the air, grabbed a party popper from seemingly thin air, popped it, then began doing the robot. Starlight gave a small wave with her hoof, so did Spike and Shining Armor. Dr. Clawhauser...well, wasn’t paying attention. She was on the other side of the room, tending to some sort of bat that highly resembled a strawberry. That brought Dipper to his next question. “Where, um, exactly are we?” Twilight turned to him. “I told you, Equestria. Do you suffer from short-term memory loss?” He felt his face go red. “What? N-no! I mean…” He gestured to the creatures in the cages. “Oh!” Now it was Twilight’s turn to go red. “Sorry.” “S’fine.” “Umm, well, you’re being held in Clawhauser’s lab full of magical beasts and animal test subjects.” “TEST SUBJECTS?!?!” Mabel and Dipper both screamed at the same time. A panicked look rained on Twilight’s face. “Not you! Don’t worry! No pony’s going to hurt you!” The twins slightly relaxed at this yet still seemed slightly unnerved. “So why are we being held here, if we’re not test subjects?” Dipper gave Twilight a gentle glare. “Did you expect us to carry you around all day? Shining had to lug you around for 4 hours! We had to find somewhere to keep you. Plus we didn’t know if you’d be hostile or not.” Mabel stepped in. “Well, I think you know now that we’re umm, not hostile? Sooo, can you open the door? Mabel want out.” she said with a stomp of her foot. Twilight gave them both a smug look and bent down slightly, leveling their eye-contact. “You have not answered all of my questions yet. And boy, do I have a lot for you.” She said, waving 7 pages of cramped and sloppy writing titled, 'Questions to ask Dipper and Mable' in front of the glass. The twins feelings of uncomfortableness began to sky-rocket. > ?>>error[group_47.8] /subject - 10010011101 ? > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- ...ome to your new summer job as the night gu... ...It’s over ni… ...How are w… …t’s not just a phone b… ....se the for… ...watching us, wh… ...is there somewhere I can g… ...o. Stop! Pl… ...ills you with a sense of determin… ...Why? Please com… >>ErRoR<< It’s been found again. As if the last time wasn’t enough. She can only hope that this time, everything won’t fall apart. Sometimes she hated her job. > Chapter 5: First Impressions (Part 2) > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- “Okay, so what do you want to know?” Twilight turned to Dipper and looked him straight in the eye. “First: What were you doing in my house? Second: If you’re from another planet, how did you get here? Do you have some kind of transportation mechanism? Third: Would you be up for answering a couple million questions I have for you about your culture?" Dipper could swear on his life that he thought he saw Twilight’s eyes go different directions for half a second. “Uhhh… moment with my sister?” “Sure, sure.” Dipper grabbed Mabel and they huddled in the corner, speaking in whispers. “What do you think we should tell them?” “Well, first we tell them that we found a sparkly pointy do-dad, then we opened a magic hole through space and time while fighting invisible creatures. Then-” “That’s just it, Mabel. What do we tell them? I mean, we look like we got sucked in your Twinkle-face show.” “Twinkleshine. It’s Twinkleshine Dipper.” “Whatever! As I was saying, would they believe us? And then this leads me to another question. What if they’re not even ponies, but evil shape-shifters trying to seduce us into thinking we can trust them?” “I highly doubt that, Dip-dop.” “Even if they’re not can they take any of this seriously? The pur- Twilight, just said she was the princess of freaking friendship. Friendship!! This place is probably full of sparkles and rainbows and we’re never going to get home and-” “Dipper, friendship is amazing! It can solve any problem! Like the time I fell from the loft in our house. Even with my 5 broken ribs, I was able to recover with the magic of friendship.” “That was the magic of surgery and the hospital, Mabel.” “Potato, Potahto!!” *grunt* “Back to my original question, should we tell them or not?” “They seem nice.” “They do, but you never know. Even so, the big temple we found the thing in, it showed people bowing down to a knife which I can only guess was the blade I still have in my vest. I mean, come on Mabel, people were bowing to it! It must have been pretty important. And not only people, there were robots, vampires, I think? Unicorns, wait a minute… unicorns could that be referring to them…?” “Hey!! Don’t let that train of thought leave the station, bro! Back to Earth! Uh, I mean Terra? Or...uh…?” “Kay, kay. I got it. So, do we have the final verdict?” “As much as I hate to say it, I’m on board with you.” “Okay so, what should we tell them?” “I may have a...few.... good ideas…” Twilight tapped her hoof impatiently. What was taking them so long? What could they possibly talking about? Right as she opened her mouth to ask why they were taking so long, they both nodded their heads simultaneously and turned to face Twilight with rather...cheesy grins on their faces. “Are you both done?” The twins shook their heads rapidly. Her face went from concern to not having a care in the world. “Great! So, what planet do you come from?” Dipper shot a sideways glance at his sister. “Uhh…” She waggled an eyebrow and stepped forward, inhaling deeply. “We come from planet Tribillglork, a planet made entirely from cheese. When we get hungry, we just eat off the floor. Our whole planet is inhabited entirely from people like us, with the exception of lollipop fairy kittens and walking desk lamps made from ramen noodles. One day, we saw Terra floating around in the atmosphere and it caused a total eclipse with one of our 17 billion suns. So we decided ‘hey, wouldn’t it be great to meet the creatures on planet Booboobutt? (that’s we call your planet.) So we assembled a rocket made of TNT and dynamite and flew it way up high, but then we remembered it was made of dynamite, but by that point it was already exploded. So we fell down down down then BOOM! By the power of my best friend Nyan Cat, Me and Noodle-limbs over here were carried safely down to your planet! Then we met some hot boys and they told us that the prettiest mare of all lied in Equestria, but then I got jealous and punched them in the face because I knew I was the prettiest. Well, not a mare, but I knew what they meant. So me and Dipper conjured a teddy bear with our friendship wands and rode it all the way to where you live, to find this pretty mare. But this world has made our magic powers disappear because it’s magic, and we’re magic, and they cancel each other out. Anyways, we heard that this pretty person lived inside of your sparklarific castle so we crashed through the top. Then I fixed the hole with my mind lasers and that’s when you found us. So tell me, Twilight, how do you get so pretty?” “...” Twilight said nothing. Absolutely nothing. You could almost see the silence that hung in the air. Then, over the span of ten seconds, she nodded her head and began to slowly scribble down notes. Pinkie butted her way to the front.“Oh my gosh you live on a planet made of cheese that is so amazingly amazing I just want to scream and shout and do you have ice cream and cake on that planet because if you don’t I would totally come over and visit and bring you all cake does it rain chocolate milk over there because if it does I’ll have to introduce you to my other friend Discord he loves chocolate milk and I do too is their chocolate rivers over there what about the lolli---mmmmpppphhh!” A purple glow began to come from Pinkie’s mouth, before a large metal zipper appeared out of thin air and zipped her hay-hole shut. Twilight didn’t even blink. Her pen stopped moving. “Okay, so you came to find us because I was...pretty?” A blush crept up her cheeks. Rarity gave a “Humph!” noise and stuck her muzzle in the air with indignation. “Yeah!” “Well, I’ll see what I can do to answer your question. But first answer mine.” “Okey Dokey!” From the back of the room, Pinkie’s high pitched voice started whining. She had clearly unzipped herself. “LOKEY!!! You forgot the lokey part!” Twilight rolled her eyes. “Ignore her. Now, i’ve made note of your story and it seems there are some slight...scientific inaccuracies.” “What?!?” Mabel stuck out her tongue and blew an obnoxious raspberry. “Come on, I am the honest person I know! Would I lie?” Dipper face-...clawed? (Twilight was going to say ‘hoofed’, but these creatures clearly didn’t have hooves.) “I don’t know! I just met you 20 minutes ago! Back on topic, ummm…” Twilight scanned her notes and smiled. It was her turn to ramble. “Okay, so you say you have 17 billion suns, who would control them? Or do they rotate on their own? Many unicorn astronomers such as Galanayo have proved the existence of ‘Solar Systems’, where the Sun is massive and stationary, while several planets rotate around it. We, obviously live in a ‘Celestial Static’ where our celestial orbs are unmoving, and must be manually rotated around the planet. Which one do you live in? Because if you live in a C.S., that would take quite a lot of magic. Do you guys have, like 17 billion Alicorns over there? If so, they all must be as powerful as Princess Celestia. Or, I suppose you could keep all of the Suns stationary and spread them an equal distance apart. But if we caused an eclipse, shouldn’t we have seen your 17 billion Suns? Or at least the one we were on top of? Also, If that much light was coming from your planet, wouldn’t we have seen it by now? If you can see us, then we can see you. And it would be the brightest thing in our night sky. And you would all be dead, if that much light and heat was constantly coming down at you. Also how were you able to get a dynamite rocket off the ground? Why is it that only when you realized it was off the ground did it explode? How were there ‘hot boys’ on Equestria? I can only guess that you are implying that they the same species, no? If your magic stopped working here then how were you able to fix a hole in my ceiling with your…*cough* mind lasers? And, the most puzzling question of all, Why on Terra would you think I’m pretty?” Mabel said nothing and stared at the floor intently. Dipper started mumbling to himself. (Someone tried to prove Mabel’s imagination wrong with science oh boy they are going to get it Twilight is going to die…) Finally, After a long time of pondering these questions, Mabel’s head shot up and met Twilight’s. She gave her a one word answer. “Pie.” If Twilight’s temper was a twig, then you could say it was being gently bent. “And how does...pie...answer my questions?” “Pie is the answer to everything. There is a vast and almost infinite amount of combinations one could have under patterned bread crusts.” The twig snapped cleanly in two. “THAT’S IT. I GIVE UP!” shrieked Twilight, blipping her notes out of existence. “Does anyone want to take over? I am on the brink over keeling over on this very spot! These two are IMPOSSIBLE!! Clawhauser, where have you been? The last I saw you, you were about to explode from the prospect of discovering a species unknown to Equestria! You haven’t said a word to them! I forgot you existed!” She said with an accusing tone in her voice. Dr. Clawhauser turned her head and face the group from where she was tending to a couple of water sprites. “Ummm… I’ve been told by many that I get too...hyper around new creatures so I, um, run my tests once I’m alone.” She scuffed a hoof on the ground. She seemed very self-conscious about what the others thought. At that momment, a small contraption on a dainty wooden table made a large obnoixious buzzing noise and the sound repeated three times back to back. “What is that? It’s gonna blow my eardrums out!” Dipper whined. The ponies wondered the same thing. Clawhauser stood up abruptly from the small aquarium and brushed herself off with a hoof. “That’s to let me know if somepony’s at the door. I have to make it loud because sometimes...I’m not really paying attention to much.” Her eyes swept the room and she turned her back, ascending the creaky stairs to the first floor lab. Seconds later, All the beings in the basement. Heard the slightly muffled voice of Clawhauser welcoming the guests. It abruptly cut off, met by a blood-curdling scream from Clawhauser. The ponies looked at one another with frightful expression and dashed up the steps, ignoring the protest of “Hey, wait!!” from Dipper. Twilight came to a stop at the top of the staircase and her planned actions of aiding the monster specialist came to a halt. Her friends behind her bumped into her, for she was blocking traffic, causing them all to get a nice faceful of each other’s flanks. The complaints they were ready to spew out died on their tongue when they saw who was at the door. All the ponies stooped into low bows, except Twilight and Shining Armor. Shining Armor saluted. A smile came to Twilight’s face. “Princess!” There, standing in the doorway, flanked by two unicorn guards, was the Solar Princess of Equestria, with her warm smile she always wore in Twilight’s presence. However, that smile would not remain for much longer.