Crossing Over
By Alaborn

Standard disclaimer: This is a not for profit fan work. My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is copyright Hasbro, Inc. I make no claim to any copyrighted material mentioned herein.

Chapter 1: The Impossible Dream

It was after midnight when I finally got home. The irritating buzz of the street lamps was all that filled my ears as I climbed the stairs to my tiny apartment. I unlocked my door and opened it. The light switch turned on my one lamp, its sixty watt bulb filling the living space with insufficient light. I set down a pizza box on the counter, and shrugged out of my jacket. It was another slow weeknight delivering pizzas, and my tips were meager. I checked my pockets again, hoping that I had somehow forgotten a twenty dollar tip at some point during the night. No such luck. With the amount gas prices had spiked in the last few months, I wondered if I even had covered my expenses.

I did a quick check of my homework. Yes, I finished the math and physics problem sets before I went to work. I loaded my textbooks and the homework into my backpack, ready for tomorrow.

Walking into the kitchen, I checked my phone. One message, from Mom. She always seems to call during the evening, when I’m likely driving, and thus have my phone off. It’s like she wants to be a dutiful parent, but doesn’t actually want to talk to me. The feeling is mutual. I have no real objection to either of my parents, or my upbringing. They stayed married, they cared for me, they’re helping me pay for college. But I really don’t share many interests with them. I’m not interested in Mom’s opinion of the latest reality TV series or in talking sports with Dad. I’m just glad to be living on my own.

I found a clean plate, and loaded it with the pizza I brought home. Josh, the manager, is pretty useless, and spends way too much time smoking out back, but at least he lets us take home the pizzas that didn’t turn out. Room temperature sausage pizza with a huge blister in the crust is still pizza, and you can’t beat that price. I took the plate and sat down in front of my computer.

I don’t feel close to my parents. With the hours I work, and the fact that I commute to a community college, I don’t have any good friends at school. I’ve grown apart from my friends from high school, most of who are out of state now. The only place I feel like a part of a community is online.

No one knows of my intense interest in a certain series. I can’t fathom talking about it in real life. I know it’s targeted to kids. But I like it anyway. And the online community is awesome. It’s incredible the kind of creativity I see every day. There are artists, writers, musicians, and creators of all sorts of mash-ups. Yesterday, I browsed music videos. Who knew a cheesy song like The Final Countdown could be made awesome by setting it to clips from the series? Today, I read some fanfiction. Not all of the recent submissions caught my attention, but I really liked one. That story developed a couple of background characters in a unique and creative way. I hoped the author would update soon.

I checked the clock. It was past 2 AM. I had better get some sleep; I had a test tomorrow. Reluctantly, I turned off the computer and got ready for bed. As I contemplated another day of classes and another night of pizza delivery, I found myself again wishing I could find a way into another world.

I woke up late the next morning, and had to rush to get ready for my noon class. Getting in my car, I knew I would be fine as long as long as traffic wasn’t a problem. It was. I sighed and turned on the radio. All I wanted was a traffic report, but the talk radio station was going on about the upcoming presidential primaries. Normally, my state’s late primaries are irrelevant, but it was looking increasingly like we’d be relevant this year. And that meant I wasn’t hearing the announcer say if there was an accident on the city streets. I eventually guessed the lunch rush had arrived early, and so it was taking longer than normal to get through each traffic light.

I pulled into the student parking lot. Unfortunately, the free campus shuttle was pulling out of the lot at the same time. I’d have to hoof it to class. Even running, I would be late. My only hope was to go as the crow flies, cutting through the woods. I grabbed my backpack, locked my car, and prayed I wouldn’t get lost in the small but unfamiliar wilderness.

Today was overcast and a little chilly, and this stretch of woods was surprisingly dark. At least it was, until a vibrant red something appeared in front of me, about eight feet tall and perfectly rectangular. Distracted by this mysterious door or portal, I wasn’t paying attention to where I was putting my feet. I stumbled over a root, careening forward, directly into the light

I opened my eyes, looked directly into the sun, and immediately shut them again. I felt awful. There was a dull ache in my head, and all over, I was feeling simultaneously numb and in pain. I couldn’t even begin to figure out how. Why was I on my back? That’s right, I fell. The glowing red gate. What was it? It was… I couldn’t think of any explanation other than magic. My heart was beating fast. Last night I thought about my impossible wish; could it actually have come true?

I turned my head, opened my eyes, and looked at my surroundings. I was lying in a grassy field. To my left, a large tree, and everywhere else, grasses. The smell was intoxicating, like the very essence of summer. I noticed it was a lot warmer and sunnier than it had been when I left my home. I wasn’t home anymore. But if I had really traveled through some kind of magic portal, why was I here?

Where were the lofty towers and crenelated walls of Hogwarts Castle?

Or, where were the cobbled streets and mysterious shops of Diagon Alley?

How could I, Jonathan Lockhart, lifelong devoted fan of the Harry Potter series, have traveled through a magical portal and not ended up in his fabulous wizarding world? In fact, this weather didn’t feel at all like England.

I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes. Or, rather, I tried to. When I tried to bring my hand to my face, I saw a dark green hoof at the end of an olive green forelimb. “Aaaaah!” I screamed. I frantically twisted my body, trying to see what kind of monster I had become. I saw a horse’s body, all that same olive green color, except for a tail of bright yellow. “AAAAAAAH!” I screamed again. “What the….”

As my mind registered that I could still talk, I was interrupted. “Would you keep it down? Some of us are trying to nap!” That was a woman’s voice. Where? I looked back at the tree, and saw an incongruous blue-green patch up in the branches. I must have missed it in my dazed state. It was… another horse?

“Did you say that?” I asked.

She lifted her head and peered down at me from her lofty perch, allowing me to get a better look at her. She had a rainbow-colored mane and… were those wings on her back? “Well, duh. There’s nopony else around. Which is why I chose here to sleep.” She turned back over.

I swallowed hard. My mind was screaming “This is so wrong,” but unlike when that normally happens, I couldn’t wake up from the dream. I was going to have to figure out what was going on. “I’m sorry to interrupt your nap, but… where am I?”

I tried to get to my feet, and failed multiple times. The colorful pegasus watched me with some amusement. “Did you drink a little too much of the Apples’ special cider?” she asked.

On my sixth try, I finally figured out how to stand upright with this body. “I’m serious. I have no idea where I am, and no, I haven’t been drinking cider, or anything harder, either.”

She sighed. “You’re about a half mile south of Ponyville.” I responded with a blank stare. “About fifty miles southwest of Canterlot?” she added. When I still looked at her stupidly, she continued. “In Equestria?”

“I’m sorry, but none of those names mean anything to me. “ I said. I tried walking in this new body, taking a few attempts to find a mechanic that felt natural.

“Look. Either you need a hospital, or you need to talk to somepony smarter than me,” she said. The pegasus stood up, abandoning her comfortable branch, and flew down to me at a speed that defied the laws of physics. “Follow me. Name’s Rainbow Dash, by the way.”

“Jonathan Lockhart. Call me John,” I replied.

“John? What kind of name is that? It doesn’t mean anything,” commented Rainbow Dash. I tried to remember what Jonathan meant, but drew a blank. It was just a name. “Don’t forget your saddlebag,” she added.

I looked back, and saw that yes, there was a saddlebag on the ground near where I was lying. It shared the gray and black coloration of my backpack, but if it was my backpack, it was transformed, just like me. I wondered how to put it on. I picked it up in my mouth, turned my neck, and tossed it over my back. The relatively equal weights kept the saddlebags balanced. Again, Rainbow Dash was looking at me as if I were an idiot.

“Alright. This way!” The pegasus flew off to the north. I trotted behind, desperately searching for a portkey that would take me home.