River Babble's Adventures in Ponyville!

by River Babble

Chapters

• Chapter 1 – In Which There Is An Interruption
• Chapter 2 - In Which There Is A Lot Of Yelling
• Chapter 3 - In Which The Hunt Is On
• Chapter 4 - In Which Cows And Mushrooms Cause Chaos

Chapter 1 – In Which There Is An Interruption

It was a beautiful day at the Castle of Friendship. The sun shone pleasantly through its many windows, sending prismatic rainbows bouncing off of the solid crystal structure and blinding the occasional unfortunately-positioned passerby. With a surprisingly slow schedule for the two-person staff this week, it was a good day to relax and do something fun – which, for one member of the “staff”, currently involved roaming the halls with her face buried in the newest book by an expert in the field of theoretical quantum magiphysics.

Twilight Sparkle, Alicorn Princess of Friendship, flipped a page of the book that floated in front of her in a cloud of pink magic, violet eyes scanning the words with an air of intense concentration. Another cloud of pink flared to life at her side, lifting pencil to paper and scribbling hurried notes. “The Rhinestone Theory does compensate for some of the spacial differentials, but this alternative balancer to the dimensional matrix seems highly unorthodox. Surely somepony would have realized by now if all that was needed was the same basic spell formula behind creating Soupy’s Soap Bubbles!” She paused both her writing and her walking for a second, then continued. “Actually, I can absolutely see why nopony thought of that. I'll need to do some tests to verify the hypothesis, ooo, this is going to be so much fun! I’ll have Spike go shopping for—”

She was five steps past the small dragon waving for her attention before he cleared his throat. “Hey, Twilight, hold up!”

Twilight stopped and spun, beaming her number-one assistant a big smile. “Oh, Spike! I was just looking for you!”

“Yeah, I could see how hard you were looking,” Spike quipped. “It still freaks me out how you can walk and read and write without smacking into things.” He trotted the last few steps to catch up with her, one of his ear fins cocked in the air.

“Peripheral vision is greatly under-appreciated,” Twilight quipped back, magically snapping the book closed as she considered the short purple-and-green dragon. “Sorry, you know how I tune things out when I’m focused. I need you to— Wait. You were trying to get my attention. Did you need something?”

Spike raised an eye ridge in disbelief. “Well, I wouldn’t say it’s me that needs something… You’re telling me you still haven’t noticed?”

The purple alicorn paused then, finally really paying attention to her surroundings. She began to pick up on a distant, echoing sound of knocking, possibly coming from the castle’s front door…and, if she heard correctly, it was growing more and more frantic. Twilight’s eyes widened. “Someone’s at the door?!” She whirled around and flew towards the stairs, her pink magic carrying her book, pencil, notepad, and Spike. “How long have they been knocking? Why didn’t you answer it? We have GOT to get some kind of staff!”

“Just a few minutes, I ran into you first, and that’s what I keep saying!” Spike grumbled as he settled into the magical floating ride. The subject of hiring staff was an oft-discussed and equally-oft-forgotten issue, since, being that they lived in a magical self-maintaining crystal castle made of the power of harmony and rainbows, the need for extra ponies wandering around their home didn’t seem important most of the time. Except, of course, for occasions like unexpected visitors at the distressingly distant front door.

Her head whirling with a mixture of confusion over the anxious knocking (which had reached a woodpecker-like tempo), curiosity about who could be visiting (most visitors called ahead, and her friends just came in), and irritation at having her casual study of the fascinating field of scientific spell research interrupted, Princess Twilight Sparkle raced down the stairs, landed in the front hall, placed Spike and her supplies safely down, and opened the front door to her castle home.

“Sorry for the wait! Can I help—?”

“TWILIGHT SPARKLE!!!” The wail that greeted Twilight was so crammed with volume, relief, and frank panic that it blew the alicorn back a step. “Please, I need your help! I’m a human from another dimension and I woke up in this pony body a little bit ago and I have no idea how I got here and you’re the super-magical alicorn princess who knows how to handle this stuff and for pity’s sake can you help me get home?!? ”

Twilight Sparkle blinked, allowing herself a brief moment to assess the situation (and get her hearing back). Standing on the front step of the castle, hoof still outstretched from beating on the yellow door, stood a unicorn mare. Her coat was black, with a mane and tail in a bright combination of neon blues – and messy, as if the wearer had just rolled out of bed. A cutie mark of an unfamiliar pencil mechanism marked her flank, its tip trailed by a river of blue that created the overall impression of the letter "B". And right now, she was staring at Twilight with wild eyes, her chest heaving desperately.

The rest of what had just been said finally sank in. Twilight blinked again, opened her mouth, closed it again, furrowed her brow, opened and closed her mouth one more time, and shook her head. Then she stepped aside, frowning slightly, and said, “Perhaps you’d better come inside.”

Maybe the theoretical quantum magiphysics could wait.

----

Twilight decided to use the small antechamber off of the main hall; it wasn’t used very often, but it had comfortable furniture and was only a short walk from the front door. The strange mare now sat on one of the couches, making a visible effort to get a hold of herself. After summoning a tea set and offering a cup to her visitor, Twilight stepped out into the hall, with the parting reassurance that she would be right back.

“Spike, I need you to get a hold of the girls,” she said in a voice too low for their strange visitor to hear. Behind them, a sound like disgruntled muttering was followed by the sharp clack of something hitting the floor.

Spike saluted, shooting uneasy glances at the door. “You sure you wanna be left alone with her? She sounds a little…” He waved a green claw in circles by his right ear-fin.

“Please, Spike, I’m an alicorn Princess,” she said lightly, flaring her wings. It still felt weird hearing herself say that, but Spike needed the reassurance. “I’m sure I can handle one upset unicorn.” A thoughtful frown crossed her face as she added, “And maybe she’s not crazy. She mentioned ‘humans’ – that’s what my friends through the magic mirror are called, remember? I think I’d better hear her out.” Twilight nudged her assistant to get him moving before turning back to the door. “Let the girls know that it’s probably not urgent, but I’d like them to come by just in case.”

As she reentered the room, Spike’s running footsteps behind her made it clear how urgent he felt about the situation.

The blue-and-black unicorn snapped upright as Twilight came back in. She was smiling nervously. “Hi, you’re back. I’m so sorry, I can’t for the life of me figure out how you grip with these things…” The statement made no sense to Twilight - until she saw the teacup lying on the marble floor. That explained the dropping sound a moment ago. The black mare shuffled her hooves anxiously. “I don’t, uh, think it’s broken, but do you think you could…?”

Alright, crazy or not, this pony was definitely acting  like somepony – er, someone – who had never had hooves before. Twilight magically levitated the empty cup to the table, then filled it with tea and placed it front of the unicorn again. The mare watched this simple feat with the wide-eyed wonder of, well, somepony who’d never seen magic before. “It’s fine. The cups are pretty durable, and it’s easy to clean up in here,” Twilight said soothingly. As the mare oh-so-carefully pressed the cup between her hooves and clumsily raised it to her lips, Twilight settled onto the opposite couch. “Alright, I’m listening. Why don’t you start from the beginning?”

A huge sigh of relief whooshed from the unicorn’s mouth, her cup almost slipping from her hooves. “Oh, thank you. I thought, I hoped maybe you’d listen to me; I mean, this has to sounds crazy!  But I figure, you’ve at least met humans, with that magic mirror thingie, and you deal with crazy stuff all the time—”

“Hold it!” Twilight’s eyes widened. “You know about Canterlot High? Then that is where you’re from!” Well, this would be easy enough; they could just travel through the mirror and—

But the mare was shaking her head. Her ears lay flat; no doubt a blush had formed under her black coat. “No, no, sorry… Shoot, didn’t mean to make things more confusing. See, I’m a human, but I’m not...THAT kind of human. Like, your friends there are sort of the same as your friends here, with the bright color schemes and the themed names, right?” She waved both of her forehooves at herself, then flinched as her cup slipped and splashed tea on the cushions. “Dangit, sorry, anyway, where I come from, that’s not the case. Humans in my world are a pretty mundane set of colors, mostly different shades of brown, and there’s no magic. Well, that’s debatable, but we won’t get into witchcraft because I don’t like it—”

“But how do you know that?” Twilight interrupted, eyes narrowing. “You say you’re not from Canterlot High, or from Equestria, but then how do you know what humans in Canterlot High look like?” Another, equally suspicious thought entered Twilight’s head, and she found herself pacing the room, casting hard looks at her mysterious visitor. “For that matter, how did you know to come to me? You act like you know who I am already, which is impossible if you’re from a completely different world!” The more she rolled the idea over in her head, the more Twilight’s skepticism grew. This pony’s story just didn’t hold water.

Maybe Spike was right, and she really was crazy. Or worse…

The mare didn’t answer at first, massaging her head in one hoof and muttering something about “screwing up” and “way to break the space-time continuum”. She didn’t seem to have trouble holding her teacup now, but Twilight allowed for the possibility that she was too distracted to overthink the simple task. It had happened to Twilight when she'd had fingers. “Aaaugh, I didn’t realize how hard this would be to explain…” the unicorn sighed. Her blue eyes met Twilight’s, waves of uncertainty, fear, and, interestingly, frank stubbornness crossing her face. “Um... okay. I’m going to try and lay this out in a way that... makes some kind of sense?”

Twilight nodded. The unicorn took a deep breath, stroking her blue tail distractedly. “Okay, picture this. Let’s say that, where I’m from, we sort of... have a way of looking at other... worlds? Like yours? And Canterlot High? The point is, I know I’m not from those worlds, because with this... technology of ours, I’ve seen your world. And that one. That’s how I know that they’re different from mine.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow; her confidence in this story was not growing by great leaps and bounds. The unicorn must have sensed this, because she did a frantic erasure mark with her hooves. “I can prove it! For example, I know about your visits to the mirror world of Canterlot High. You stopped Sunset Shimmer when she stole your crown, and became a crazy demon creature, and tried to zombify the school. And then in the next mov-uh, visit, you helped your human friends AND Sunset stop the, oh, what’re they called... the Sirens! In a rock concert battle. There was a massive, magical unicorn in the sky. It was kind of cool,” she added with a distant grin.

“You know, you could know all of that because you came from that world,” Twilight pointed out delicately. She was the Princess of Friendship, she reminded herself, and Princesses of Friendship give ponies a chance to prove they weren’t off their rocker. At least the possibility of this pony being a spy felt less likely, unless she was just the most unconvincing and unprepared spy in the history of Equestria.

The mare facehoofed. “Right, okay. Sorry, I’m way better at explaining things in writing. Let’s try something more specific…” She pointed a hoof at Twilight. “Your world, then. With our, um, technology, I’ve seen a few things that aren’t common knowledge. Liiiike…” She thought for a moment, then brightened. “Oh, how about how you got your—! No, that’s no good, need something more current.” Twilight blinked, suddenly really wanting to know what she had been about to say, but the unicorn was already brightening with another idea. “The Cutie Map! You have that table that turns into a map of all of Equestria, right? When you defeated Tirek and got your new powers from the Tree of Harmony, it created this castle, and a 3D map that calls your cutie marks when it’s sending you on a friendship mission!”

Twilight’s ears perked upright, and she stopped pacing. It wasn’t exactly a secret that the table in the Council Room doubled as a magical map, and her friends’ families knew about it... but it wasn’t common knowledge, either. She frowned slightly. “Alright, that’s a little more convincing. But, I’m sorry, I still need more evidence than that.” While the idea of another alternate world with an unknown civilization that apparently lacked magic and yet had the capability of seeing into other realities fascinated her, Twilight kept reminding herself to be careful.

The unicorn chewed her lip, thinking hard. “Okay… how about this. I’ll name off the missions I know you guys have been on.” She held one hoof up, and pointed at the frog of it with the other. “First mission: all of you Elements of Harmony girls go to that weird, unnamed village where everypony has equals signs for cutie marks. Fluttershy saves the day by revealing Starlight Glimmer’s fake mark with water, and the villagers help you get your marks back before Starlight gets away.” Her hoof pointed at her other hoof again, though maybe slightly to the left of the last point. “Mission two: Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash go to Gryphonstone. Almost save the lost idol of something-or-other, but find out that the real mission was to help Gilda see the power of friendship so she can help the Gryphonstone gryphons get back on their feet. Pinkie Pie also saves the gryphonscones through the power of baking powder.” Another point, again slightly farther to the left. “And mission three: Rarity and Applejack go to Manehatten to help Coco Pommel organize a theatre event so the locals would realize the value of coming together as a community! Also, Rarity replaced Applejack’s old cowboy hat that got torn up.” She stopped and stared for a long moment at the hoof she’d been pointing at. “Man, that hand gesture works way better with hands.”

Twilight Sparkle realized that her jaw was hanging open, and snapped it shut. The unicorn quit studying her hooves long enough to notice this, and gave a lopsided grin. “It’s a little hard to swallow, huh?”

“A... a little, yeah,” the alicorn princess stammered, her mind working at lightning speed. The Idol of Boreous – Rainbow claimed they hadn’t shared that incident with anyone, in case it upset the gryphons to know their precious relic was lost for good. This pony definitely hadn’t been at Starlight’s village, either. And Applejack’s hat!

Twilight frowned again as something occurred to her. “You only mentioned three friendship missions, though. What about the mission Fluttershy and I took to help the Hooffields and McColts?”

The mare stared, blue eyes completely blank of comprehension. “The what with the who now? You did that? Nah, I don’t know what you’re talking about there. Must not be something I’ve seen yet.” A small grin crossed her face. “That sounds neat, though.”

That was a little comforting, at least; whatever method this pony was using to observe (or spy on?) her and her friends must not be entirely current. And, as much as she wanted to be cautious, Twilight had to admit one thing: it was hard to accuse a pony of lying when she looked and acted that clueless.

“So do you believe me now?” The black-coated unicorn watched her anxiously, pawing at her blue-striped tail.

Twilight took a deep, slow breath... and let it out as an amazed laugh. “I’ll admit, it’s getting a lot easier to believe your story.” She began to pace the room again, her scientific curiosity buzzing. “If what you’re saying is true… then, this is an amazing discovery! The idea of another universe with the ability to see into other worlds, and you say you do it without magic? I can only imagine the knowledge you gain from looking into other realities!” Hopefully it doesn’t involve anything too embarrassing for me and my friends, the logic centers of her brain noted, but she was too busy being fascinated to pay attention to it. Something else that had been puzzling Twilight suddenly fell into place, and she turned to face the mare. “So that’s how you knew to come to me for help?”

“Yes!!!” The mare bounced on the couch cushions, so giddy with relief that her smile was almost literally splitting her face in half. “Oh man, I knew this was a good idea! Yes, you’re kind of a big deal in our, uh, thingie, so I knew you were super skilled with magic and deal with bizarre problems like this all the time! Plus, I mean, you do magical research and stuff, and you have that mirror that travels to other dimensions, so if anyone could figure this out—”

“Alright, alright!” Well, that had been a bit more flattering than expected, although she wasn’t entirely sure how she felt about being the object of study for an unknown collection of otherdimensional beings. “I mean, I can’t promise I’ll be able to help, but… Look, we’ve gotten really far off track. Let’s go back to what actually happened to you, and this time, please try to tell me everything in order.” A gentle way of pointing out that they had been going on more rabbit trails than Angel Bunny at the annual Easter Egg Hide.

“Okay. Right. Okay.” The blue-maned mare took a deep breath to compose herself. When she spoke again, it was calmer and more deliberate. “Okay. The last thing I remember is, I was sitting at my computer, working on some writing.” She paused, biting her lip. “Um, do you know what computers…?”

“Yes, I know what computers are,” Twilight replied quickly, feeling a dash of pride at her human-based knowledge. She’d really been meaning to discuss the concept behind those portable machines to some of the technical institutes, computing technology was still ages behind—

“Great! Anyway, it was probably around 8 o’clock in the evening, and I was finally getting some writing done. Then all of a sudden, I feel this... buzzing, all over? It was really freaky, like the time I gave blood and almost passed out. The next thing I know, I’m waking up in a field, and it’s the middle of the day, which was an immediate red flag. I didn’t even notice the whole ‘pony’ thing at first because I was a little upset about passing out, I’ve never done that before…” She noticed Twilight’s motivating stare and took another deep breath. “Anyway, once I figured out what and where I was, and, you know, decided I hadn’t just lost my mind, I came to find you.” She flexed one of her forehooves, giving it a considering look. “You know, I always thought it’d be tricky to run on four legs, but it came a lot quicker than I expected. You guys get great shock absorption with these things.”

The mare fell silent at last, watching Twilight expectantly. Twilight, for her part, was glad of the silence. This wasn’t a lot of evidence to go on, unfortunately; a buzzing sensation, then blacking out? The physical transformation seemed similar to how the mirror affected a traveler’s body, so maybe it was a universal constant for dimensional travel. But for her to just be plucked out of the air? That suggested a powerful space-time anomaly, or perhaps some kind of magical intervention…

This would definitely take further study. Twilight stood to her hooves, eyes bright with determination, and was just opening her mouth to put her first plan into motion, when the door slammed open and ponies poured in like colorful floodwaters.

“Yo, Twilight!” Rainbow Dash was in first, followed closely by Rarity, Pinkie Pie, and Applejack. Spike managed to squeeze into the small antechamber as well, which, with six ponies and a baby dragon, had quickly gone from cozy to crowded. “Who’s this crazy pony Spike’s all worked up about?” Her pink eyes shot to the mare, and she frowned. “Is that her? She doesn’t look so tough.”

Twilight gave Spike a very pointed glare that sent the clear message of exactly how much she approved of his popularizing the idea that their visitor was crazy. She would have turned a similar glare on Rainbow Dash for saying it out loud like that, except Rainbow Dash wasn’t paying enough attention to notice. “Thanks for coming, girls. You got here faster than I expected!” She mentally counted her friends again. “Where’s Fluttershy?”

“Dunno where Fluttershy is, but we were over at Sugarcube Corner getting cupcakes for Gummi’s birthday party,” Pinkie Pie explained, and walked right past Rainbow Dash to stick her nose in the face of their guest. “Hi, I’m Pinkie Pie! Welcome to Ponyville!”

“Hi,” the mare answered back with a nervous smile.

“Spike said this here pony was claimin’ to be one o’ them humans from another dimension or somethin’,” Applejack put in, studying said pony with interest. “Ya look like a normal pony t’me, if’n ya don’t mind my sayin’, ma’am.”

“No, you’re good.”

“I for one am quite interested in hearing this story,” Rarity said, purple eyes shining. The six must have run to get here, because the pale unicorn was busily patting loosened hair-wisps back into her otherwise perfectly styled mane. “Twilight’s told us all about the human world, and I’ve just been dying to talk to one of you. You must tell me all about what the latest fashions are like!”

“Ah, she might not be from the same human world that I’ve been to, Rarity,” Twilight put in. This drew confused looks and a new slurry of questions from everypony, and suddenly Twilight understood why her visitor had looked so uncomfortable trying to explain this bizarre story.

It was during this time that some ponies began to realize that the black-coated mare was still looking expectantly at Pinkie Pie. Pinkie Pie, for her part, had decided that this was a staring contest; if it were, they would have been dead tied, because they’d been staring at each other without blinking for a good thirty seconds. But finally, their visitor tilted her head and asked, “Well?”

Pinkie Pie tilted her head right back. “Well what?”

“Aren’t you going to… I dunno, tell them my backstory or something?”

“Why would I do that, silly?” Pinkie giggled, then suddenly darted forward and touched noses with the stranger, eyes searching. “Do I know you from somewhere?” She gasped loudly. “You’re not my secret penpal from Gryphongolia, are you?! This is super, we are going to have such a cool party for you—!”

“No, nonono, no, I’m not! I just, it… it’s… it just seems like something you’d…” The mare groaned and put a throw pillow over her head, curling up like she might melt into the couch cushions. “Nevermind, just ignore that, please,” her muffled voice said through the fabric.

Twilight resisted the urge to chuckle, then scolded herself. No, she was a Princess! And until proven otherwise, this pony was a distressed traveler from another dimension, who needed help getting home. Exactly the sort of problem the Elements of Harmony could help with!

Twilight cleared her throat, drawing the attention of the girls (and Spike). “Well! Now that everypony’s here – except Fluttershy – I suppose introductions are in order! Girls, this is—” Twilight stopped. She spent a long moment frantically searching her memory as a deep, purple blush spread across her face. Finally, unable to avoid it any longer, Twilight Sparkle turned to the mare under the throw pillow and said, in tones of deep embarrassment, “I am so sorry. Here we’ve been talking all this time, and I never asked your name!”

“Huh?” A blue eye peeked out from around the pillow. “You di— Oh wow, you’re right! I was too freaked out to notice.” Setting the throw pillow aside, the mare sat up properly and dipped her head towards the general crowd of staring eyes. “I’m, uh, Jenn. Nice to meet you.”

“Ima Gem?” Twilight repeated. Well, it wasn’t the strangest name she’d—

“Wait, what? No, my name is Jenn. J-E-N-N. Short for Jennifer. Although I also go by River in some—” Jenn/River stopped suddenly and shot a suspicious glare at her B-shaped cutie mark.

Twilight searched her mental catalogue for information on the human’s name, in case it provided useful clues about her possibly-human guest. To her surprise, she came up empty. Almost every culture she knew of assigned some significance to their names, but the etymology of “Jennifer” was completely unfamiliar—

“What kind of a name is that?” Rainbow Dash asked, once again demonstrating her skill at wielding the Blunt Stick. “It sounds weird.”

Rarity jabbed her in the side, which started a glaring match between the two of them. “Well, I think it’s a lovely name!”

“I dunno, she looks more like a River Babble to me!” Pinkie Pie added off-handedly.

Jenn/River’s jaw dropped. “Did you just—?”

“Ya know,” Applejack cut in, shooting Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie a pointed look, “it might do us all a sight more good to here this pony’s story before we get lost fussin’ over what kind o' name she has.” The apple-farming earth pony turned to her purple friend and, in tones of great patience, said, “Maybe ya better fill us in on what ya know now, Twa’light.”

“I think that’s a good idea,” Twilight said, making a mental note to help Applejack clean out the barn this weekend as a much-deserved gesture of gratitude. “As I was saying… Jenn, or River, this is Rarity, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, and you’ve already met Spike. Now, I think it would be best for all of us if you told them exactly what you told me.” And then I can get their opinions on what to do about it.

“Oh… right…” Jenn/River looked at each of the expectant faces staring at her. Her ears wilted, and she heaved a weary sigh. “Let’s see if I can keep it all straight a second time…”

Chapter 2 - In Which There Is A Lot Of Yelling

Somewhere close to and yet incredibly far from Ponyville, a figure stirred and stretched with a cavernous yawn, having just woken from his usual 11:15 AM nap. He was quite looking forward to the day’s events, especially considering the new project he had started. Speaking of which, now seemed a good time to check up on how said project was going.

The figure summoned a magical orb that peered through the cracks of space-time to show him the location and pony he wished to see. An amused hum passed his lips as he spotted his victim – ahem, project. She looked deliciously confused about her situation, which was always the best part—

Something caught his eye. He peered closer, then widened the viewing portal for a better look. The scene that filled out before him made him suck in a breath sharply.

“No! What—? That’s cheating!”

With a flash of light and a puff of smoke, the figure crushed the viewing portal in his hand and teleported away.

----

Meanwhile, in Ponyville, a certain brown stallion wearing a white collar and green bowtie frantically twisted dials and pulled levers. The inside of the stallion’s workshop was always a mess, but as he trotted to and fro between beeping machines and unfolding papers of printed data, the mess seemed to visibly grow in size and mastery of the floor space.

“Great whickering stallions! It’s off the charts! Where is that—? Muffins! Where are you?!”

A light gray head poked out upside-down from the top of one of his failed experiments, the mare’s off-set pupils staring down at him. “Yeah, Doc?”

“I need that device you were using to prop up your popsicle stick house!”

The head disappeared for a moment, then reappeared, holding a bulbous gauge with a rapidly-spinning red needle at the center. “Oh, yeah, it did great! I’m almost up to the fourteenth floor!” she giggled, wings fluttering over her bubble cutie mark as she barely kept from tipping off of her perch.

“Well, I’m afraid I need it now, my dear,” Doc said firmly, holding out his hoof. Muffins dropped it, and the earth pony stallion had to sidestep to avoid a bruise on the head. He snagged the device without a word of complaint and ran to another machine, where he rammed the gauge into one of the gaping holes, and twisted it into place.

The gauge immediately exploded, sending tinkling glass everywhere. Doc ducked, but his eyes remained locked on the readouts as an alarm blared.

“Great whickering stallions…” he whispered. “It’s happened again.”

Muffins let out a small victory cheer as she reached the fourteenth floor of her popsicle stick house, and crowned it with one of her trademark muffins.

-----

Confusion reigned in the council hall of the Castle of Friendship. The girls all sat at their assigned chairs, and the supposed interdimensional visitor in pony form hovered next to Twilight, looking more than a little frazzled at all the arguments echoing around (and at) her.

“Ah don’t like it!” Applejack said loudly, thumping her hoof against the crystal table. They had moved here after the tiny antechamber proved to be too small a space to handle this many arguing ponies. “If’n she is tellin’ the truth, and I don’t mean to say for sure she ain’t, why’re they spyin’ on us?! Them’s our private lives they’re lookin’ at!”

“We, uh… don’t think of it as spying…,” River (they’d all decided this was easier to remember than River) put in timidly.

Applejack fixed her with a penetrating look. “Then what do ya call it?”

“It, uh… Look, it’s just something we do! We watch interesting things happening in other worlds!” River looked more than a little pained. “I promise, nobody’s doing it to bother anybody! We didn’t even know it was possible to cross dimensions like this and meet you for real!”

“That’s as may be,” Rarity said, more calmly than Applejack, although she also still looked bewildered from hearing the blue-maned unicorn’s story. “And perhaps it’s not so great a drama as you think, Applejack. My question is, how can we be sure that you’re telling the truth, Miss River? Is there some way to confirm that your story is on the level? I think we’re all a little concerned that this might be an elaborate cover-up for why you know so much personal information.”

“It would be kinda weird if a spy just came running up and said all that super spy-sounding stuff that makes her look like a spy, though,” Pinkie Pie put in, pink curls bouncing as she lamb-skipped around the room for no apparent reason. “It sure made us all suspicious super fast!”

Twilight let out a sigh of relief. It was amazing what sensible observations could come out of the normally absent-minded Pinkie. “Pinkie Pie has a point. I think we should at least take steps to verify River’s story. In fact, I might have some equipment from my mirror machine experiments that could do the trick!”  

“You been experimentin’ on that thing?” Applejack looked slightly concerned. “You sure that’s wise, sugarcube?”

“Sure!” The alicorn’s eyes cut to the side. “Probably. No dimensional rifts in space-time so far!” Groans filled the air.

“Well, I’m sure it will be alright,” Rarity said, forcing herself to relax. “If anypony can do something like… that, it’s you, Twilight.”

“I think this whole thing could be bogus.” Rainbow Dash, who had been flying circles around the overhanging tree stump in the room, swept down and landed square in the middle of the table. She pointed a hoof at River, eyes narrowing to slits. There was a long, tense silence. Then Rainbow's face split with a huge grin. “But if it isn’t, it sounds awesome! Finally, we get some funky travelers from another world on this side of the mirror!” Rainbow bucked the air with a whoop. “If it’s anything like what Twilight always runs into at Canterlot High, we’re probably gonna get some cool monster to fight any day now! Or maybe she’s part of some interdimensional task force that’s waiting to sweep in when we open the mirror.” The cyan pegasus did a quick one-two while wearing a huge grin. “Either way, I get to kick some tail!”

Rarity and River wore identical horrified looks. “Oh, I hope not, Rainbow.  My new line for the Summer Sun Fashion Show is due in two weeks!”

“No way, there’s no big monsters on my side of things!” River quickly reassured them. “Unless you open the portal in the middle of the tiger exhibit at a zoo or something. We’re really pretty boring in the monster department.” She paused, chewing her lip. “And, okay, I’m not part of some secret task force, but I might caution against jumping through the portal and introducing yourselves. Pretty sure more than a few people would absolutely freak out in a bad way.”

Twilight considered this. While it sounded less than optimal, she did remember a conversation with Canterlot High’s Rarity – mentions of governments and power-hungry organizations that might not react positively to learning there was magic in the world. It made sense that another human world like River’s, where magic wasn’t native, would have similar issues. And at least River had been upfront about the issue – it heightened Twilight’s confidence that she was making the right decision.

“Alright then!” Twilight stood up and nodded sharply. “We’ll approach this with caution, but I think it’s safe to move forward with testing. First, let’s see if we can verify River’s status as a native of another dimension. I’ve already started, in fact.” And she drew out the blinking hoofheld device she had been hiding under the table during this entire conversation.

River leaned close to it with her eyes wide, not noticing that other ponies in the room were doing the same. “Oooo, cool. What’s that?”

“This,” Twilight said proudly, “is a Dimensional Cross-Particle Energy Reader. It measures foreign particles related to travel between universes! I’ve been working on it since I discovered their existence in follow-up studies on my own travels through the mirror. Who knew I’d get to test it out so soon?!” She rubbed her hooves together with a giggle, which died as she realized that everypony was staring at her oddly. Twilight cleared her throat, blushing. “Ahem. Anyway, I let it sit under the table so it could get a good reading on you while we talked. It should know something any minute.”

Twilight noted that the beaming joy on River's face did not resemble the expression of somepony knowingly about to have their cover story blown wide open. “That’s awesome! And then you can use it to get me home?”

“Well… we’ll see,” Twilight cautioned. “I’ll certainly do my best. I have a theory that adapting your energy signature to Star Swirl’s original mirror spell will let me link to your world through the mirror that takes me to Canterlot High. It could take a few days of testing.” Unable to hold it in anymore, Twilight let a huge grin spread across her face. “This is going to be so much fun!” she squealed.

River looked bothered for a moment. “A few days…? I didn’t think I’d be gone that long,” she murmured. Twilight’s excitement dimmed a little at the worry on the possibly-a-human’s face.

“Don’t worry, dear,” Rarity said soothingly. “I’m sure Twilight will work as quickly as she can.” Several other voices piped up to add to the encouragement, which had a visible calming effect on River. She took a deep breath, and nodded her head slowly.

“Well, I mean… You guys are my best bet of getting home. If I have to wait, I have to wait.” River’s face grew a little more strained. “But if you can hurry it at all without, y’know, putting anybody in danger, I’d really appreciate it.”

Twilight smiled again, already feeling the wave of internal energy that came whenever she was on the brink of a new research study. This could open an entirely new field in the understanding of inter-dimensional connectivity! The readings on her Dimensional Cross-Particle Energy Reader were already chock-full of interesting new data, and once she studied the effects of the human-turned-pony’s disruption of the native Equestrian magic particle fields, she could begin developing the matrix to unite the mirror’s interdimensional spell holdings with the foreign particles so as to lock onto that singular universe through reverse-wave photon spread—

“Well, this sure sounds like it’ll be fun for you, Twalight,” Applejack interrupted gently, which is when Twilight realized that she’d been chattering all of this techno-babble out loud. But the others just gave her those knowing grins and eye-rolls they always did when they had to deal with her Science Mode (except for River, who just stared at her with amazed incomprehension). Applejack nodded at River, still wary of the stranger but a little less suspicious than before. “Ah don’t know how we can help, but if ya say this here pony needs it, we’ll all pitch in where we can.”

“Naturally, darling.”

“And we’ll be ready to pound the monsters when they show up!” Rainbow thrust her chest out proudly.

“Then we’ll throw a sending-you-home-to-your-own-dimension party! Whoopie!” Pinkie Pie turned a somersault.

Twilight opened her mouth to thank her friends. She was surprised when she was interrupted. “Oh man, thank you guys so much.” Everypony turned to look at River, who had planted her hooves on the table. She looked like she was about to cry, and scrubbed at one moist eye with her hoof. “This is, just… I can’t tell you how freaked out I was, and I know you don’t have any reason to trust what I’m saying, but I really, really want to go home and—” She broke off, sucking in a breath. “Just… thanks a lot. I’m sure if anyone can figure it out, it’s you guys.”

Even Applejack looked touched by the genuine-sounding words. Twilight nodded to herself, feeling warm inside. They were definitely doing the right thing, helping this pony – human – get home. A niggle of worry poked at her enthusiasm, though: first, she had to find out if she could.

Twilight brushed off the negative thought. This might not be a Friendship Problem, but it was definitely a magic/science problem, and that was the next best thing!

----

Three Hours Later

It was not, in fact, the next best thing, for anypony.

“Okay, this time it’s sure to work!” Twilight said, exactly as she had the last seven times they’d tried the mirror machine that was currently connected to River’s head by a large, outlandish helmet that resembled a colander full of wires. River flinched involuntarily as Twilight reached for the lever that would turn it on.

“Is it going to shock me again?”

“Nooomaybe. I’m pretty sure I worked those bugs out this time.” Twilight cracked a nervous grin that did nothing to help River feel better, but, seeing no alternatives, River just closed her eyes and braced herself, praying that this time, something would actually happen.

She sort of got her wish; an electric shock that makes your hair (mane?) stand perfectly on end and sends you five inches off the floor is definitely something. “YEOW!!!” As soon as she could feel the floor under her feet (hooves) again, River ripped the heavy helmet off of her head and scrambled backwards. “Oh come on!” she yowled, more at the hunk of metal than anything. “What’ve you got against me, you jerk piece of tinfoil?!” Taking a few more deep breaths, River turned a beseeching on Twilight. “Is this ever going to work?” she moaned.

“Yes,” Twilight said firmly, already digging back into the machinery that she’d been fiddling with, attaching things to, and reassembling parts of for the better part of an hour. “We’re close to a breakthrough, I’m sure of it! Any time now!” But this time, there was no hiding the doubt in her voice. River heaved a sigh and flopped on the floor, face buried in her weird pony arm-legs while she tried to shut out the weirdness around her for a few minutes.

Despite Twilight’s optimism starting out, the last hour had quickly deteriorated everyone’s moods. Instead of helping Twilight narrow down the problem, the constant failures were confusing the alicorn to the point of open frustration. Spike could at least help with fetching and carrying Twilight's tools, but Rainbow Dash was bored out of her mind, bouncing off of the ceiling supports of Twilight’s laboratory like a bird searching vainly for a window, and Applejack and Rarity had invented a game where they pointed out interesting shapes formed by the crooked spindles of printer paper flopped accordion-like across the floor. Pinkie Pie had been sent off forty-five minutes ago to find Fluttershy in case they needed to use the Elements of Harmony against an attack of interdimensional monsters, but neither mare had returned, which meant that everypony else was secretly jealous of them.

And through all of this, River kept herself busy counting all of the reasons why she’d rather be anywhere than here, in a pony body, wearing weird pseudo-science gadgetry on her head that kept shocking her, and wondering when (or if) she would ever get home at this rate.

Watching Twilight work (and having nothing better to do than sit around and be a test dummy) had given River plenty of time to think about her situation. She’d long since decided that this couldn’t be a dream – none of her dreams were this vivid without her knowing it wasn’t real – but that didn’t make it any less amazing or freaky to be walking around in a Saturday morning kids’ cartoon. And the irony was not lost on her that this would be a dream come true for some people. The chance to explore another dimension? The thrill of meeting fictional characters in person? How exciting! How adventurous! And she liked adventure, right?

Except adventure in stories was usually a lot more exciting, and a lot less standing around in a room being simultaneously bored, anxious, and uncomfortable. (Well, okay, they did usually stress the uncomfortable parts.) And many of said adventure stories downplayed that whole bit where the heroine fretted over how worried her family was going to be when they discovered she had disappeared without a trace, not to mention what it would do to her job. That depressing line of thought kept growing on itself, until River spent only half of her time being bored and uncomfortable, and the other half suppressing anxiety attacks. She really, really wanted to go home, and the fact that doing so didn’t look any closer to happening wasn’t making her feel any better.

The human-turned-pony felt almost relieved when Twilight finally burst with frustration.

“I don’t understand!” The lavender alicorn trotted in a circle around the stubbornly closed mirror portal. “The readings are clearly showing signs of non-native dimensional particles on our end, but I can’t lock onto an exterior source point! It’s like something is interrupting the signal.” She trotted to River and set the helmet back on her head, magically manipulating parts of the wiring while scribbling something on a clipboard. River felt a little envious of how easy magic made multitasking.  

“Perhaps you should take a break, Darling,” Rarity suggested gently, wading over through the sheaves of paper print-outs that littered the floor. “You’re beginning to look a little worse for wear.”

Twilight made a “Pfffff” sound of dismissal, despite the fact that several strands of her mane were hanging in her face. “I’m fine. I won’t really freak out until we’ve gone twelve straight hours without any clear breakthroughs. Then, oh-ho, then you’ll see what stress looks like!” She gave a shallow laugh, which died quickly when nopony laughed with her.

“If’n it’s anythin’ like the time she thought she was overdue for a letter to Princess Celestia, I don’t wanna be around at that point,” Applejack murmured. Rainbow Dash made an agreeing hum as she floated lazily by on her back as only a magically-gravity-defying creature can.

River cleared her throat. It felt ridiculous to make suggestions about the use of magic to a genius pony princess from a highly fluorescent TV show, but what could it hurt? “Um, Twilight? What about that Energy Particle device thing you were using in the council room? Is that any help?”

The device in question flew through the air on a wave of purple-pink magic, coming to a floating stop in front of Twilight’s squinting eyes. “Yes, it’s providing me with the data on your foreign dimensional particles. But it seems to be having the same problem as my particle translation device.” Twilight looked up and saw the roomful of slightly impatient stares. She heaved a sigh and then trotted back over to the mirror, pointing at various parts as she explained what she was trying to do.

“You all – except maybe you, River – remember how I used this device to create a stable portal to Canterlot High’s world using the preexisting spell in Sunset Shimmer’s journal?” Everypony nodded, looking at the point on the mirror where Twilight’s copy of that magical journal usually floated. It had been removed for this experiment, and now wires and cables snaked down from that access point, most of them leading to the colander on River’s head. “That is an example of Multiverse Connectivity – connecting two separate universes through a common link, which in that case was a pre-existing spell that linked two items across the dimensional divide. The mirror already provides the basic spell for connecting the universes in the first place; I’m just trying to change the search parameters so it will know we’re trying to find a different universe!” Twilight caused the device in her magic to wave back and forth theatrically. “My Dimensional Cross-Particle Energy Reader is picking up on foreign dimensional particles that came through with River, so I theorized that I could use those readings to give the portal something to look for. Theoretically, if the spell can lock onto another spell across dimensions, it should be able to find a dimension full of the same particles River has and connect them to form a new portal!”

“So you’re saying the machine is looking at the weird particles on me,” River repeated slowly, restating to make sure she understood, “and is looking for other, matching particles out there in all the universes so it can show you where to point the portal?”

“Exactly!” Twilight exclaimed, ears perking. Her pleasure quickly faded back into a scowl, however. “But it’s not working. I thought it would be a simple application, but Starswirl’s original portal spell is amazingly complex, and changing it to locate a completely different substance and lock onto a new location is harder than I thought. I keep getting these weird feedback loops, like the portal is trying to turn in on itself.”

“Now hold on,” Applejack put in, frowning thoughtfully as she studied the mirror. “If’n you go changin’ which world the portal points to, d’ya risk losin’ your link to Canterlot High? I thought you said once that there’s a whole lotta worlds out there.”

Twilight shook her head. “No, if my plan works, it will be simple to redirect the portal back to Canterlot High; I’d just have to put the journal in as the source point, and it will snap back into place. Right now, the real challenge is finding the world River is from, because the portal has never connected to that one.”

River rubbed her eyes, trying to massage away the numb feeling in her brain. “So… what does that mean for getting me home?” she asked, hoping she’d sort of understand Twilight’s answer.

“It means we keep trying,” Twilight said stubbornly, and her horn erupted in more purple magic that began rapidly reassembling parts. “I’ve at least figured out how to jump the portal to a new location; the trick now is giving the mirror a clear trail to follow, which means I need to find out why your dimensional particles aren’t doing the job.”

That sounds complicated, River didn’t say out loud, because it would be stating the obvious, and she didn’t want to look like an idiot. Math and science had always been a little hard for her to grasp, and apparently, adding magical science to the mix did not help. Her brain felt foggy just trying to keep up.

Still, it was encouraging to see someone so dedicated to getting her home. That helped her calm down a little. And to suddenly realize that she had another problem to deal with.

Twilight was calling out orders now, sending the others into motion. “Rainbow Dash, see if you can hunt down Spike and ask him to bring two of those conductor cables instead of one. Applejack, can you look in the library for a book on thaumatergical wavelength studies? It should be in Section A-B17.335, it has a green cover with bright blue lightning bolts on the spine, you can’t miss it. Rarity, this’ll sound strange, but I could really use a bolt of that purple silk you had in your work room last week—”

“Um, Twilight?”

The purple alicorn swung to face her, staring with the focused intensity of someone who is thinking very hard about something else entirely. “Yes?”

“Uh, sorry to interrupt, but…” Her pony ears tipped downwards. “Can you tell me where the little pony’s room is…?”

Somepony in the room giggled, and was elbowed into silence. Twilight’s intensity faded a little, and she managed a smile. “Of course. Spike, can you—?” She stopped, apparently remembering that she’d sent Spike, and now everypony else, off running errands. “Orrr… here, this will show you the way.” Twilight lit her horn with a pinkish glow and touched it to River’s head. The black pony felt a slight shiver run over her skin, and then a faint purple ball of light appeared and slowly floated towards the exit. “There! Follow that, and it’ll take you right to the restrooms.”

River was already halfway out the door. “Thanks a ton! I’ll try to be quick!” she called back, her voice echoing and fading away in the cavernous crystal hallway.

Being out of that room was a relief unto itself. As River trotted after Twilight’s spell, she couldn’t help but goggle all over again at the gorgeous crystal castle (not to mention the magical light ball). It was probably a good thing that the guiding spell stayed within three feet of her, so she couldn’t lose it while she was distracted.

“Well, here I am. In the My Little Pony world. As a pony. Hopefully for real and not because my mind has finally snapped.” Sometimes talking out loud helped, although she was also enjoying how her voice echoed on the high ceilings. “All in all, this could be going a lot worse,” she added, trying to be upbeat. Despite her initial panic, she’d had enough presence of mind to make up a handful – hoofful? – of rules for herself before arriving on Twilight’s doorstep. Rule Number One: avoid telling the ponies that their world was a supposedly-fictional TV show. A good rule, except she hadn’t considered how that would mesh with explaining why she knew about Twilight’s existence. That had led to more yelling and accusations of espionage than she ever wanted to hear again in her life. River made an amendment to Rule Number One: don’t tell people they are from a fictional TV show, OR that you know things no normal pony would know without being a spy or a stalker.

She was pretty proud of the explanation she’d come up with to cover her slip; it wasn’t a lie, and it sounded saner than the detailed truth. It fit well with Rule Number Two: be as honest as possible. Not that she was prone to lying, anyway, but there were enough fanfictions covering this sort of thing to make it clear that she wasn’t going to get far if she fiddle-farted around with no clue what she was doing. Those two rules were all she’d come up with, but despite some awkwardness, it was working out well so far. Probably more would pop up as she went, hopefully before she broke her or somebody else’s brain.  

With that less than encouraging thought on her mind, River sent a little prayer for sanity and calm nerves heavenward. Then she focused her attention back on her most current and pressing need, which involved following a bobbing, magical spell to the restrooms.

There’s a good reason why they don’t discuss how the ponies in the aforementioned television show use the restroom, and it’s the same reason why it won’t be discussed here. Let it be said only that it wasn’t actually that different. The hardest part was figuring out how to work the sink, and River was so involved in maneuvering her black-coated hooves around the shiny silver handles that she didn’t realize she was no longer the only person in the room.

“Really, is it too much to ask that you mares put up the toilet seat once in a while?”

“AAAAAAAIIIIIEEEEE!!!!”

Discord rung a finger in his ear as he stared up at the unicorn clinging from a light fixture in a rictus of panic. “If you haven’t discovered your special talent yet, my dear, I would venture it has something to do with shattering glass via sound waves,” he said dryly.

“What are you doing in here?!” River screeched.

“What, the Lord of Chaos can’t use the facilities?”

“This is the ladies’ room!!!”

Discord tilted his serpentine neck back in an upside-down U, giving the door River had entered a thoughtful study. “Is it? You’re sure?”

River paused for a long moment, gripped in the paralyzing fist of uncertainty.

“You look to be a smidge stuck.” Discord quite abruptly stood eye-to-eye with her, which, considering she currently hung upside down from a light fixture, was a little disconcerting. River glanced down (up?) at the floor and realized the cartoon-physics-level height that she’d just jumped.

“Well you kind of snuck up and freaked me the crap out,” she snapped, clutching the light fixture tightly. “Is defying gravity common in Equestria? Also if this isn’t the ladies’ room, Twilight’s magical guide over there,” she tilted her head towards the hovering ball of purple light by the door, “needs to be fired, and while we’re on the subject, would you mind helping me down, please?” Maybe she could have worded that last request more politely, but she was a little focused on her current height off the ground.

Discord’s bright yellow eyes widened with mock regret. (Oh yes, River could feel the “mock” there.) “My dear lady, it would behoove me to help a pony I’ve so unfortunately distressed.” River wasn’t really that surprised when the hoof on Discord’s left hind goat leg literally popped off and bounced across the tiles like a rubber ball. “Will this do the trick?” The loony ex-villain folded his body into the shape of a staircase that led down to the floor. After a moment of considering how weird it would be to walk on stairs that were actually a person, River decided that this was the least weird part of her day, and soon she was back on the bathroom tile.

While Discord remolded himself into his normal discordant shape, River took a long moment to stare at the draconequees. Now that she was feeling less panicked from a combination of being snuck up on and finding a guy in the girls’ restroom, she could fully appreciate the fact that standing in front of her was Discord: that loopy, kind of entertaining, somewhat emotionally unstable chaos master who used to be a villain and now showed up once in a while, apparently trying to be a good guy. He looked even more discombobulated in person, with all of those mismatched animal parts that somehow worked together to form his body. And he had a smug look on his face, like he knew something she didn’t. It was all a little unnerving… and, well, kind of interesting.

Well, it wouldn’t hurt to be cordial, River decided, and put on her best smile. Plus, hey, maybe he can help Twilight figure out how to get me home. “Sorry about yelling. Thanks for your help. I’m… visiting.” After the confusion with Twilight, maybe it would be a good idea to not pour out her entire weird story the second she met people in this world. She’d call that Rule Number Three.

Discord waved her off, smiling indulgently (which is a really irritating way to smile at somebody, just saying). “I shan’t hold it against you. Myself, I was just popping by to say hello to my dear friend, Princess Twilight Sparkle. We’re quite close, you know.” His uneven eyes widened innocently. “I heard that there might be a little bit of a situation!”

“Oh, hey! That could be really helpful. I’m kind of the reason for the situation,” River said with a nervous giggle. She glanced around at their present location. Yup, still (as best as she could tell) the mare’s room. “Soooo um, out of curiosity: if you’re here to see them, what brought you in here?”

“Well, when a guy eats certain spicy dishes for lunch, he eventually—”

River waved a hoof in a rapid erasure. “No, I mean what are you doing in the ladies’ room? Did Twilight send you to find me, or do you just… I don’t know, usually walk into restrooms for the opposite gender? I mean, I know you’re Discord and everything, but come on. Boundaries.”

At this, Discord smugly drew to his full height, suddenly wearing a nice suit with a VIP badge. He raised a bushy white eyebrow. “Excuse me, Miss ‘River’, but while you are obviously new here, I happen to be Discord: esteemed friend of the Elements of Harmony, not to mention personal confidant of the Element of Kindness, an official Cutie Mark Crusader, and Inter-Dimensional Pie Contest Judge Supreme. I’m sure that, of the two of us, I have greater visitation rights and bathroom privileges in this particular castle than one little lost human.”

River’s eyes narrowed, partly from annoyance at his snarky attitude, and partly because little alarm bells were going off in her head. “I didn’t get around to telling you I’m a human yet.” She narrowed her eyes further. “And I didn’t tell you my name was River.”

“Really? My mistake. I probably determined it from your highly thematic cutie mark design,” Discord said casually, poofing from the spot where he’d been standing and reappearing near River’s flank to investigate the mechanical pencil/river-themed mark. She resisted the urge to horse-kick him out of her Personal Space Bubble, but only barely. “Really, if you’re going to blend in around here, it wouldn’t hurt to take a less conspicuous name for a while.”

She noted that for later. “And the ‘human’ part?”

He hand-waved this. “I’m sure I simply overheard that when I passed by the lab on the way here.”

River chewed her lip, still eyeing him warily. That…maybe made sense. She felt like she’d missed something, though. Stop being paranoid, she scolded herself. Discord was a good guy now! Okay, he was still learning how to be a good guy, if the show was any gauge, but that was beside the point. River plunked her hindquarters on the tile floor and rubbed her head, grimacing when she accidentally bonked the horn poking through her hair. “Okay, fine. Sorry if I’m being a grump. It’s been a weird day and I get testy when I’m stressed out.” She took a deep breath and mustered what she hoped was a nice smile. “Let’s start over. You already picked up the bit about me being a human in a pony body, so at least we can skip that part! Are you here to help Twilight figure out how to send me home?” He knows how to open portals to other dimensions, right? I’m sure I remember something like that happening.

“Oh, I’m sure Twilight doesn’t need little old me to help with a big magical friendship problem like that,” Discord said cheerfully. “But of course I’ll offer my meager services.” In an unexpected scene change, River suddenly found herself sitting at a small wooden dining set, set with tea, across from Discord. The gray-headed draconequus leaned on the table with a look of fascination. (Yes, the whole set-up was still in the restroom.) “First things first, though! How are you liking your little soiree in Equestria, my dear?”

“It’s, uh…I mean, it’s pretty cool.” River shrugged uneasily, trying to figure out how to sit without bending her tail the wrong way. “I’d be more relaxed if I knew I had a reliable way of getting home. Speaking of which, I probably better get back—”

“What, you don’t like it here?” Discord put a lion paw to his heart, adopting a wounded look. “Is our colorful dimension not exciting enough for you?”

River frowned at him. “That’s not it. If you were just ripped out of your home unexpectedly, not to mention one that—” She stopped short. No, no, Rule Number One. “Uh, not to mention being turned into a different species, wouldn’t you be freaked out?”

Discord thought this over, leaning back in his chair while the teacup in his hand added sugar to itself. “Hmmm, well, it’s not exactly a problem I have to deal with on a regular basis,” he said. There was that touch of smug again; she couldn’t decide if it was normal for him, or if he was being snarky because she’d yelled at him earlier. A second later, though, Discord’s bushy white eyebrows dipped thoughtfully. Those yellow and red eyes studied her up and down, as if trying to figure out an unusual puzzle. “Personally, though, I’m surprised that you came here. A whole new world at your hooftips, and you go running for help? I won’t say it’s not practical, but don’t you types normally like to wander around a bit, take in the sights and such before you go on your grand quest to get home or whatever?”

“Well, sure, if this happened to some people, they’d probably—” River’s mouth clapped shut as his words caught up to her. There were those alarm bells again! “Are you saying this has actually happened to other people? I thought this sort of thing only happened in fanfiction! How many of us are there?!”

Discord’s guffaw echoed loudly in the porcelain acoustics of the restroom. “You say that as if you aren’t sitting right here! Oh, it’s too rich! To answer your question, my dear, you’re the only one in town that I’m aware of at the moment. But the occasional visitor from another dimension pops in more often than dear Twilight realizes.”  

River felt a little thrill of excitement and leaned forward. “If you know so much about interdimensional travel, do you know how to send me home? I’d be happy not to have to waste more of Twilight’s time.” That reminded River of just how long she’d been gone. She stood quickly and began working her way around the space-hogging tea table. “Speaking of which, we should really be getting back, I don’t want Twilight to think I’ve run off—”

“Oh, certainly!” Discord poofed the table out of existence and stood. River could hear his mismatched feet tapping on the floor as he followed her, still talking in a casual tone. “It’s really a shame that you plan to run off so quickly, though. And to say you aren’t happy being in that lovely pony body! One might think that anypony would be pleased to try out something of their own design…”

River stopped, one hoof hovering in the air. Those alarm bells from earlier? Yeah, they were going full Defcon One now. All of the pieces, the little hints and jabs, fell into place like a magical self-ordering puzzle.

Slowly, the black-coated, blue-maned unicorn turned on her hoof, blue eyes narrowing to slits.

“YOU did this to me,” she hissed.

Discord smirked, lounging backwards in midair with his arms comfortably folded behind his head. “Took you long enough, ‘River Babble’.”

“What—! How— W—” River sputtered a full thirty seconds before something intelligible came out. “Why?!”

Discord shrugged, radiating full smug by this point. “You’re the oh-so-smart writer who gets everyone in character, aren’t you? YOU figure it out.”

“Writer? This has something to do with my writing? But what did—” Her eyes widened. “Oh my word, is this about that My Little Pony fanfiction I’m working on?” The ridiculous truth slammed her in the face. “Does this have something to do with what I wrote about you?”

Discord sniffed, rolling his eyes up to look at the ceiling. “It’s entirely possible that you’re getting warmer.”

“Oh my freaking word.” River put a hoof to her head, mind racing. “W…wait, wait, clear something up for me here.” A terrible thought had entered her head. If the show was real, then that meant that the writers of the show were writing about real events. And if that was true, and Discord knew about the story she’d been writing… “Are the things I write real?” River sucked in a harsh breath. “Am I…am I making things happen to real people?!”

For a little context, it is important to note that in certain internet social circles where River spent a great deal of time, there was a popular headcanon among many authors, writers, creators, and otherwise imaginative people. The theory was that, somewhere, somehow, in some other dimension or universe, the events and characters someone wrote about came into existence, unfolding exactly how the writer dictated. That the writer was, in fact, almost god-like in their ability to affect the lives of these characters they had created.

While this theory was popular by some, it was not River’s favorite theory by a long shot. Several choice events she had written or was planning to write about bounced through her head and made sent a sick feeling in her stomach – including the one Discord was talking about. The scene involved Discord being confronted with a super-powerful creature of dark magic whom he had made a deal with centuries ago, and finding out what a bad idea making a deal with a super-powerful creature of dark magic really was. It was going to lead into all sorts of important plot development with the main characters trying to stop the creature of dark magic, and Discord trying (mostly unsuccessfully) to hinder it from his captured position. It was important to the story, even though it did not, in fact, offer a flattering view of Discord’s strength.

But if she was actually creating real-life events… If she were somehow responsible for hurting people…

Discord’s guffaw bounced around the bathroom again, breaking River out of her frantic circle of worrying. “Don’t flatter yourself, my dear! None of that drivel has actually happened. Whatever the humans who make that silly TV show adaptation have got, I assure you that you don’t have it.” He narrowed his eyes. “That doesn’t excuse your portraying me in such an unflattering light, of course. Making it out like I, the Lord of Chaos, could be overpowered so easily. It’s insulting!” He sniffed dramatically.

Intense relief flooded River. She hadn’t hurt anyone… But, with the release of the fear came a fresh flood of indignant rage. “You did this over something that’s not even—? That’s insane!” River exclaimed. “I haven’t even posted it online yet! It’ll be ages until I do, and for crying out loud, I am pretty sure my story is far from the worst thing ever written about you! I mean have you even SEEN three-fourths of the shipping fics that exist?!” She was waving her hooves by this point. “At least in my story, you were going to come out a way better person by the end of everything!” Her volume rose with her anger, so River was fully maxed out by the time she pointed a hoof at herself and shrieked, “Are you really telling me that you yanked me out of my home and mutated me because you were mildly insulted?!?”

Discord shrugged, showing no concern at all for her full-on rant. He even smirked. “That, and it’s a fun prank to pull.”

“Oh my word.” River flung a hoof in the air, rolling her eyes. Some thought in the back of her mind – that little one linked to her sense of survival – quietly questioned if yelling at a super-powered magical creature of chaos was either smart or safe. Angry rants rarely run on rational thought, though, so it was ignored. River marched up to Discord and reared up on her back legs so that she could plant a hoof as high up his chest as possible. “Send. Me back. Now,” she growled.

“Well, that’s no fun.” Discord tut-tutted, waving an eagle talon back and forth in her face. “You’ve only just gotten here! I’d hardly be doing you a favor by sending you back so soon.”

“Listen, dude, I’ve got family and friends who’ll worry about me, not to mention a job. And I shouldn’t be here. So unless you convince me I’ll be sent back to the exact time and place that I left, I’m in a bit of a hurry!”

“Oh, River Babble, don’t get yourself tied up in a knot!” The draconequus giggled as his serpentine body jumbled into an impossible tangle. “Learn to have some fun! You’ll certainly have some time to, since you,” he tapped her playfully on the nose, “are going to be a pony for a good little while yet.”

River narrowed her eyes. “So you’re not going to send me home?”

“Let me think about it…mmmno.”

She turned on her hoof and marched out the door. “Then I’m telling Twilight!”

Discord blinked, jaw dropping open as the door swung shut in his face. “Wha—!” He poofed out of the restroom, reappearing in front of River and wearing a scandalized look. “Are you seriously going to tattle on me? How old are you?”

“Oh, don’t give me that,” River snorted, skirting around him and trotting faster down the hall. The purple spell Twilight had sent with her guided the way back towards where the Elements of Harmony would be. “‘Tattling’ is what bullies accuse little elementary school kids of doing so they won’t tell the teacher that the bullies are being jerks!”

“Jerk, wellll, that’s a bit of a harsh term,” Discord protested, floating faster to keep up with her. “Maybe you just need to learn to take a joke!” He frowned after her as she kept marching. “What makes you think they’ll believe you over me, anyway?”

“Oh, so you’re going to lie to them! What a great friend you are!” River grated, marching right on. The concern in Discord’s voice began to sink in. Discord was worried! He didn’t want her to tell Twilight! River paused long enough to point a hoof at him. “I know why you came here. You weren’t expecting me to spill the beans to Twilight first thing! You’re hoping to run me off before she can find a way to send me home, to prolong your little joke!” She set off trotting again, feeling a hot surge of satisfaction. “Well, forget it, Discord. I’m not playing your stupid game!”

In another poof of smoke, Discord appeared so directly in front of River that she smacked her nose into him. He was scowling down at her. “Look, Miss Priss, I was going to send you back eventually,” he muttered, glancing around as if he were afraid somepony would overhear. “But if you go whining to Twilight, I definitely won’t be in a charitable mood for helping you out!”

“Too bad.” River skirted him again, hopping over his red, tufted tail. “I guess I’m just back at Plan A. I bet Twilight will figure it out faster than you would take sending me home!” Boiling mad and running on a granite-hard stubborn streak, there was no stopping her now.

Discord, for whatever reason, wasn’t using any truly forceful means to stop her, even though he obviously could. Maybe he was conscious enough of what being a good guy meant to know that that would be taking things too far. Of course, his moral compass was obviously still skewed a bit, if this was his idea of a prank. The draconequus appeared in front of her again, this time forming a brick barricade and wearing a comical green military outfit. “Hold up just a minute!” he ordered. River ignored him and walked up to the wall, searching for a way through.

Discord jogged over to her, his face sour. “Fine, if you’re going to be all high and mighty, I’ll have to pull out the big guns.” He leaned close to her, eyebrow waggling. “You didn’t happen to see anything come through with you, did you?”

River slowed just a little. The question sank down through her bubble of liquid anger, settling into her brain. She glanced sideways at him. “There wasn’t anything around me when I woke up…” Was there? She tried to think.

With a flourish of his hand, Discord conjured a little bubble in his talon. Inside of the bubble, as if seen through a fuzzy television screen, sat a rectangular, blue device. River’s eyes widened in disbelief. “Is that my 3DS? You brought some of my stuff?”

That smug grin was reasserting dominance on Discord’s face. He observed the bubble, twisting it back and forth. “It might be. Oh, I don’t have it here, of course; who knows where it’s gone off to. I’d imagine you’d want to look for it so you don’t leave it here, though.”

River turned this over in her mind for a moment. Yes, that would be a shame – she really liked that 3DS, even if it did have a broken hinge. And which game did it have plugged into it right now? Was she at risk of losing her hard-earned Pokedex collection?!

She suddenly realized what he was doing. With a growl, River turned back to the brick wall blocking her way, found an urn against the wall, and clumsily scrambled over it, hopping down on the other side. She was not going to let him have his way that easily!

Discord was immediately after her, calling out a list of items that only fueled River’s angry sense of purpose.

“Wait! Seriously? You’re just going to leave that?”

“It’s replaceable and I probably play it too much, anyway!”

“What about your phone?”

That one hurt. “It’ll probably turn up!”

“Your wallet?”

“Pretty sure no ponies are going to steal my credit cards or my identity!”

“Well, if you don’t care about those things, I suppose you aren’t worried about Chewie.”

This time, River stopped dead. Not just her body, either – her whole brain came to a screeching, grinding halt. Slowly, with the same gravity but much more mounting horror than back at the restroom, River turned, stared at Discord, and asked him exactly what he was implying.

With a face entirely full of smug, he told her.

“You. Did. WHAT?!!!”

----

Twilight stopped in the middle of her explanation of one of the parts of the attachment she was constructing. Her horn was pinging. A worried line crossed the alicorn’s face.

“What’s up, Twilight?” Spike asked, setting down a large bundle of wiring.

“Something’s wrong. My spell is supposed to bring River straight back here. But it’s getting out of range!” She flared her wings, signaling Rainbow Dash to follow her. “Come on, we need to check on her!”

They zoomed out, buzzing over the heads of the finally returning Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy. The pink-and-yellow pegasus was brimming with happiness as she stepped over the threshold. “Girls, you’ll never believe what I—”

“No time, Fluttershy!” Twilight yelled, as she and Rainbow Dash bolted down the hall.

Twilight’s stomach continued to sink as the spell led her further and further down the halls. They stopped at the restroom, which was empty. (Rainbow asked a random question about how Twilight had gotten hoofmarks on the ceiling, but Twilight ignored it.) They continued to follow the ping of Twilight’s horn, until at last, they landed at the door of the castle – and Twilight’s fears were confirmed.

“She’s left the castle! She’s gone!”

Chapter 3 - In Which The Hunt Is On

Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash hurried back to the laboratory. The others stood huddled around Fluttershy, who was speaking in soft, excited tones. “Girls, we need to go out and find River. She’s left the castle for some reason,” Twilight burst out, worry tugging at her stomach.

Applejack leaned around Fluttershy, looking concerned. “That shore sounds suspicious, Twalight. You’re sure she ain’t just wandered off to another part of the castle?”

“Yes. That guiding spell I gave her is also supposed to track her and keep me updated on her location.” The purple alicorn scowled as everypony gave her identical looks of surprise. “What? I’m not that oblivious! I knew there was a risk she wasn’t completely above board.” Twilight sighed, wings wilting at her sides. “I really hoped she was, though. She sounded so sincere…”

“Well, don’t give up yet, Twilight!” Pinkie Pie sang, bouncing over to her friend. “There could tooootally be another explanation! Like maybe she realized that something important from back home came through with her and she’s off to find it so it doesn’t get lost in our world forever!”

Rainbow Dash did an upside-down loop overhead, squinting doubtfully. “I dunno, maybe. She did sound pretty legit. And I was really looking forward to fighting some crazy monsters from another dimension.”

Twilight shook her head, lips pursed in thought. “I hope so. It’s either that, or she was sent to spy specifically on how my mirror spell works. That doesn’t explain the odd readings I was getting, though—”

She had been reaching her hoof towards the Dimensional Cross-Particle Energy Reader as she spoke, not noticing how it was vibrating visibly. As soon as Twilight touched it with her hoof, it gave off a deafening trumpet sound. Everypony flung their hooves to their ears in pain.

“What?” Twilight stared at the device in shock. The earbleedingly loud trumpet toots continued as Twilight twiddled with her device, yelling to be heard. “I don’t believe it! This is looking promising, girls! That sound means the Energy Reader has confirmed that a significant number of cross-dimensional photons are irradiating this area from a recently present source!”

“WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?” Rarity shouted back. “AND COULD YOU PLEASE BE A DEAR AND TURN THAT OFF?”

The noise cut out with a sad toodle as Twilight finished typing something into the front interface. She stood grinning hugely at her deafened friends. “It means,” she said triumphantly, “that one way or another, River is definitely from some other world!

There were a few relieved and understanding nods. Then a quiet, rather puzzled voice spoke up.

“That sounds nice. Um, what are we talking about?”

Fluttershy stood in the center of the group, wearing the most polite look of complete confusion every invented. Everypony exchanged embarrassed grins. “Sorry, Fluttershy, you missed quite a bit while you were out,” Rarity offered. “Suffice it to say that Twilight has had a rather interesting visitor, who may in fact be from another world entirely. She’s gone missing, though, and we aren’t at all sure why.”

“Where were you, anyway?” Rainbow Dash demanded, folding her hooves. “I looked all over for you before flying over here to catch up with the others!”

“Oh! Well, you see, I was out walking and I ran into just the most adorable little—“

“No time for that now,” Twilight declared. “Sorry, Fluttershy, but you’ll have to tell us later. We need to track down River. I don’t know why she’s run off, but if she is a visitor from another world, I need her here to find out why her dimensional particles are sending me such mixed signals. Plus we can’t just have her wandering around town. Who knows what kinds of problems could come up if we leave a visitor from another dimension wandering willy-nilly around Ponyville?”

“Yeah,” Spike said thoughtfully, tapping a claw on his chin, “I can’t imagine what kinds of crazy antics that could cause.” He met Twilight’s suspicious glare with the innocence of a baby angel.

“Well, then, let’s get to it!” Applejack said, stepping forward with a face full of determination. “You said you can track her, Twi?”

In answer, Twilight Sparkle revved up the magic in her horn. Carefully forming the spell in her mind, she cast it, and a larger, brighter purple sphere of light appeared in the air. She pointed at it, then out the door. “Applejack, Rarity, and Rainbow Dash, you all follow this sphere; it’ll lead you towards the one that I linked to River. Hopefully she was right, and nothing dangerous has followed her through whatever portal she came through into this world; but you can contact me with that sphere if anything comes up!” Twilight was already at the mirror machine, punching data into a panel at its side as she continued. “Fluttershy, you stay with me so I can catch you up on what’s going on and because I could use the extra sets of hooves. And I’ll work on calibrating the mirror to lock onto the energy readings I gathered with my Energy Reader. If all goes well, we could have this portal ready to go by sunset!”

“So what I’m hearin’ is, we should tryta get her back here afore the sun goes down.” Applejack tipped her hat. “We’re on it, Twalight!”

“Whoopee!” Pinkie Pie was already bouncing out the door after the purple sphere. “Let’s get Ponyville’s first pony/human hide-and-seek party on the road!”

-----

The Lord of Chaos was not having a good day. Discord reappeared in his home dimension and stormed (with literal storm clouds) back into his house, walking through the closed door and slamming it open violently behind him. With a growl, he sat on the empty air next to his recliner and kicked back, conjuring up a viewing ball so he could start trying to salvage this mess.

Of all of the inter-dimensional travelers he’s encountered/made, this one was by far the brattiest, no two ways about it. Threatening to tell on him to Twilight, as if he’d actually done something wrong! There were no rules in any universe against transporting a person unexpectedly to a neighboring universe that he was aware of (except for that one with the ducks, but he avoided that place on principle).

“Still,” he muttered begrudgingly, “Twilight does have a way of blowing everything out of proportion.” He should have just left the obstinate little twerp to Twilight Sparkle’s ecstatically happy foray into magical science for a few days, but the idea of things being so easy for his newest project was simply unbearable. Only now he’d have his hands full keeping her away from Twilight and the gang so she wouldn’t blab about his admittedly poorly-advised revelation concerning his involvement in the whole affair. It wasn’t like he could just send her back, after all.

Discord spun the glowing ball on his palm, turning the viewscreen to look around Ponyville Square. Yep, there was the little black nuisance, running in a panic to try and find her lost Chewie. That had been a stroke of genius on his part, but Twilight and the others would no doubt go searching for their precious interdimensional visitor, and if little miss River Tattle gave up the search too quickly and returned to the castle, he’d be back where he’d started….

The search. “Of course!” Discord exclaimed, an actual lightbulb appearing above his head as the pieces of an idea fell into place. With a snap, he made the viewing spell vanish, and stood from his invisible recliner with a stretch of his serpentine spine. “I don’t know why I ever bother doubting myself,” he said with a chuckle, and, closing the door again, he walked through it and back out into normal time and space.

----

The ponies of Ponyville had, it went without saying, gotten used to extremely weird things interrupting their daily lives. It was almost a sport for some, guessing what kind of catastrophe was going to strike next, and when. (The boys on the bowling team were betting hard on a pack of timberwolves let by an evil unicorn mage from the Everfree Forest, no later than March.) So when a frazzled and unfamiliar (but still perfectly normal-looking) unicorn went galloping through town square early that morning, disappeared into Twilight’s castle, and then came galloping back a few hours later looking equally frazzled but less unfamiliar and now accompanied by a glowing purple orb of Twilight’s magic, most ponies gave her only a passing glance.

A certain brown earth pony stallion gave her more than just a passing glance, but she was well out of hearing range by the time he yelled for her to come back.

After running pell-mell for several minutes in a mild state of panic (what else was new), River skidded to a stop at an intersection, looking frantically in all directions. “Where is it?!” she moaned. “The show does not give a good enough idea of the layout of this place!” The problem with running in a panic, she noted sourly, was that it did awful things to a person’s sense of direction. Now she couldn’t for the life of her remember which way she'd come from or, by extension, how to find the field in which she'd woken up a few hours ago.

Her pause also had the unfortunate side effect of giving space for the depression to land. River groaned again and sat on her rump, rubbing her temples with her hooves. “Probably won’t even be there if I do find it,” she muttered. “Chewie could be anywhere.” It was the Chip incident all over again, except this time it wasn’t even her fault, which made the whole thing worse somehow. River spent several minutes like this, wallowing in self-pity on a public street and in general not accomplishing anything useful, which is usually what happens when one wallows in self-pity for any length of time.

“Excuse me? Miss? Do you need help?”

River jolted and spun, locking eyes on the person who had unintentionally scared her half out of her wits. Three young ponies stood in front of her, wearing matching looks of concern: a pale white unicorn with pink-and-purple hair, an orange pegasus with a mane of magenta pink, and a yellow earth pony with a bow on her bright red tail. The three bore matching cutie marks in the shape of a shield.

A grin sprang onto River’s face, her depression momentarily obfuscated by delight. “Oh, it’s you guys! Hi!”

The looks of concern turned to looks of confusion as the Cutie Mark Crusaders exchanged glances. “Do we know you?” Sweetie Belle asked cautiously, adding the question to her original three.

River wanted to slap herself. Rule Number One! “Um, no, but I kind of know you, sort of,” she stammered, thinking quickly. “I’ve, uh, met your sisters. Recently. This morning. With Twilight.”

Apple Bloom’s face broke into a proud grin. “Oh, I gotcha! You must be in town helpin’ Princess Twalight with a friendship mission!” The filly stuck out her hoof, which River reflexively shook. “Well, you already know us, but Granny says it’s polite to introduce yerself at first meetin’s. Ah’m Apple Bloom, this is Sweetie Belle, and that’s Schootaloo, and we’re the Cutie Mark Crusaders!” All three puffed up proudly at their club name, which made River grin. Kids were cute in any dimension.

A few seconds of awkward silence passed before Scootaloo prompted, “And you are…?”

River blushed. “Oh, right! I’m…” Another pause as she glanced back at the B-shaped cutie mark on her flank, and then mentally sighed. Oh, why fight it. “You can call me River Babble,” she finished, adding Rule Number Four to her list. “Or just River is fine. Nice to meet you.” Clearing her throat, she quickly tried to change the subject. “Maybe you can help me! I’m looking for a field I was in a few hours ago. It, uh.” She thought hard for a moment. “It has a tree in one of the corners, next to a pond or something. I was in kind of a hurry, but I need to find it!”

“That’s…not a lot to go on,” Scootaloo said cautiously.

River (who will now be referred to mainly as River) heaved a sigh. “I know, my memory is crap. It was…over in that direction, I think?” she offered, indicating the street with her hoof.

Apple Bloom perked right up. “Oh, Ah bet Ah know where it is! There’s a li’l field like that on the corner of our farm!”

“It’s worth checking out!” Sweetie Belle decided. “You just follow us Crusaders, ma’am!” And the three fillies bolted off down the street at top speed. River soon raced after them, equal parts grateful for their helpfulness and sense of urgency, and irritated that even as a horse, she was out of shape.

They sped down a road that led away from Ponyville. Apple trees could already be seen in the near distance, and River felt a little wellspring of hope reopen inside her chest. She huffed words around deep breaths as she tried to keep pace with the energetic kids. “Thanks, I think I lost something back there!”

“No problem!” Scootaloo called, grinning over her shoulder. “The Cutie Mark Crusaders are always ready to help a pony in need!”

“Is that what we do now?” Sweetie Belle asked, starting to sound a little winded herself. “I thought we were mostly focusing on cutie marks?”

“Hey, helping people is helping people.” Scootaloo shrugged between strides. “And maybe we’ll help her find out something she didn’t know about her cutie mark!” River privately doubted this, since she’d designed her cutie mark specifically for the talents she already knew she had, but she was touched by the thought.

Within minutes, they arrived at a field, the buildings and orchards of Sweet Apple Acres visible in the distance. River looked bleakly out over the grass, wondering where to even start. Chewie was going to be nearly impossible to find, but she had to at least try…

…Hang on. Discord said he brought some of my other stuff through, too, right? If she looked for her wallet and things at the same time, maybe she’d get some results, especially since most of those items were distinctly more stationary than Chewie. The thought brought a little surge of hope. So long as she had a doable reason to keep searching, there was at least a chance she’d find Chewie in the process!

“So what’re ya lookin’ for?” Apple Bloom sat down beside the currently deep-in-thought unicorn, her red-maned head turning to look over the entire field.

“A couple of things,” River said distractedly as she began picking her way through the grass. “I’m not sure what all yet. Would you girls mind helping me look around, maybe just keep your eye out for anything unusual?” The idea of having extra help was even more encouraging, and it wasn’t like the fillies could damage much, although the idea of what a hoof meeting her phone would do to the screen made her wince.

“We can totally do that!” Scootaloo said, her eyes sparking with the challenge. “Come on, girls, Cutie Mark Crusaders Treasure Hunters!” There was a group cheer, and then the three fillies raced out into the grass, giggling and yelling half-baked ideas about forming search patterns. River grinned to herself as she went back to her search. Apparently the Cutie Mark Crusaders hadn’t stopped looking for new skills to try just because they’d finally gotten their cutie marks.

The search continued on in this way for a good twenty minutes, which was about when her helpers’ interests began to flag. River, feeling discouragement creeping in again, sat down for a moment to gather her thoughts. So far, there’d been no sign of anything unusual or even mildly interesting: no Chewie, no phone, no wallet, no whatever else Discord claimed he’d stolen when he kidnapped/dimension-hopped her. But then again, did she know that Discord had really taken her things? Lying to get what he wanted seemed on par with his actions up to this point.

Another, more guilty thought entered her mind, and she turned a worried glance towards the pointy castle poking up over Ponyville. She’d run off without letting Twilight know where she was going… “Just like he wanted,” River grumbled. Discord was probably thrilled right now, tricking her into abandoning the one pony who could help her get home while she went on this wild goose chase. Well, see how he liked it when she just trotted right back there! River stood up, back straight (horizontally, anyway), and scanned the field, opening her mouth to call the girls back in.

Something made her pause. River frowned, looking over the field with more focus now that she wasn’t distracted with the search. It looked…wrong. There was a tree over there, but… She racked her brain, mentally cursing her terrible memory. Hadn’t it been on the other side of the pond?

“Oh my word.” River groaned, putting a hoof to her head as the obvious clues that had been in front of her the whole freaking time came together. “We’re in the wrong field.” They’d wasted all this time looking, and they weren’t even in the right place—!

“Hey, Ah found somethin’!”

River turned to see Apple Bloom on the opposite side of the field, holding something small up in her hoof and waving it. It was impossible to tell what the thing could be from this distance, although considering her recent discovery, River felt confident that it couldn’t be anything of hers. Still, she trotted over to join the converging Cutie Mark Crusaders, who were already ooing and ahing over Apple Bloom’s find.

“What is it?”

“Ah dunno, Ah’ve never seen anythin’ like it.”

“The glass part kinda reminds me of the lenses on those fancy cameras ponies bring to my sister’s fashion shows, but it’s too flat.”

“What does – whoa! This little round mark lights it up! It must be magic!”

“What’re all those numbers for?”

“See what happens if you poke them—”

Understanding crashed in, and River bolted the last few yards with a burst of adrenaline. “WAIT! Be careful with that!” She skidded in the grass, nearly falling on her face in front of Apple Bloom. “Let me see, let me see it!” River gasped.

Apple Bloom held the thing out to her. It looked too small in the filly’s hoof, being meant for the delicate fingers of humans. A smile bloomed on River’s face as she looked down at a familiar rectangle of metal and glass, wrapped protectively in a black rubber casing. “It’s my phone!” She heaved a sigh of relief and reached for it. “I can’t believe it! Where did you find it?”

“Your what now?” Scootaloo asked, eyeing the portable game console with confusion. “What’s it for? Is it some kinda magic doohickey?” She ignored Sweetie Belle’s exaggerated eye roll.

“It was just sittin’ here in the grass,” Apple Bloom explained. The filly looked puzzled when River’s attempt to grab the phone knocked it to the grass; River blushed and bent down to grab it in her mouth, hoping desperately that her spit wasn’t somehow going to get into the electronics and fry it.

“Thish ish grea’!” Man, it was hard to talk like that. She reversed her decision and set it down in the grass again. A few very careful prods with the tip of her hoof entered the lock code, opening up her list of apps, and River let out a huge sigh of relief. “Awesome, still working. It’s a phone, it lets two people talk to each other from far away. It’s not really magic, per se, it’s…uh…you know what, that’s really hard to explain, let’s save it for later. I’m just glad it’s not broken…” She trailed off, several facts settling into her brain. River stared over at that pond with the tree on the wrong side again. “But...how the heck did it end up here?”

This question naturally caused a great deal of confusion, and River had to explain how she had realized that they weren’t even in the right field. That led to the girls pressing her for details about how exactly she “lost” her stuff, and River, being a painfully honest person anyway, had to struggle for an explanation that wouldn’t completely shatter Rules One and Two. She’d already learned the consequences of the first one with Twilight, and she wasn’t eager to break a few kids’ brains.

“Okay, look…” Her eyes cut to the side as the girls all looked up with expectant faces. River let out a slow breath. “Let’s just say that I, uh…met Discord…and, for reasons that will not be disclosed, he thought it would be funny to transport me here, along with some things that are important to me.” She cast a disparaging eye at the field. “And apparently he thought scattering those things all over creation would add to the joke.”

Apple Bloom nodded sagely. “That ol’ Discord gets up to all kinds o’ trouble, my sis says.” She thought for a minute, pawing the grass. “Maybe if we ask nicely, he’ll stop messing with you. He is an honorary Cutie Mark Crusader!”

“It doesn’t sound like that’s going to work this time, from what he says in this note.” Everypony turned to see Sweetie Belle holding a crisp piece of parchment paper. She blushed when she saw their expressions. “Don’t look at me like that! I just found it a second ago!”

The group gathered around Sweetie Belle and the note, River Babble taking it in her hoof. She noted with bemusement that she’d fully gained the knack for holding stuff in her hooves, which still made no sense even when she was looking straight at it. More important things to worry about, focus! River scanned the page, reading the words out loud with a steady decrease in enthusiasm.

“River, my dear, you’re just such a bore,

Turning adventure into a chore.

If you spend all your time only trying to leave

You’ll miss out on all of the fun to achieve!

So let’s play a game. You’ve had a head-start.

Prove to me that you’re not just an old fart.

I’ll give your things back. Just follow the clues.

And once you’re all done, you can leave if you choose.

You think that you know about ponies so well?

You’ll get your first clue when you cast your first spell.

P.S. I’ll throw Chewie in too if you’re a good sport and don’t tell on me.”

“Really? REALLY? Are you that bored? Did you steal this from a Dr. Seuss book?” River blurted. No answer came, although by now she was almost 100% positive that the conniving jerkface was watching her every move.

While the three girls took over the paper, trying to figure out the clue, River stared into the distance for a long time, trying to think. It sounded like, with this deal, Discord would be willing to give all her stuff back and find Chewie. There wasn’t anything in there about going home, but he’d sort of implied he’d do that, too, right? He was a jerk and she didn’t trust him as far as she could throw him, but…

And then there was Twilight. River swallowed a lump of guilt, remembering Applejack’s accusing questions and Twilight’s decision to trust her. I bet I look REAL trustworthy now, running off like that, she thought uncomfortably. In fact, she had just been about to go back. Was that why this popped up right when it did? Was Discord that worried about getting into trouble with Twilight? If he was really so concerned…it might mean he would keep his end of the bargain honestly. Twilight could probably be able to get her home, but leaving her stuff behind – especially Chewie – would be freaking awful. And she didn’t really need to check back with Twilight…right?

She didn’t like it. She didn’t like it at all. But finally, River heaved a purposefully loud and exasperated sigh. “Alright, I will do your stupid scavenger hunt, you dingus,” she yelled at the sky. “But you had better keep your end of the deal, including Chewie, or I’m marching straight back to Twilight and telling her everything, and you can keep my stupid wallet!”

“What’s a dingus?” Sweetie Belle whispered. Her friends shrugged.

Uncertainty tugged at her, but River shoved it back down. She could explain everything to Twilight later…somehow. And, well, maybe Discord had another point: she was kind of missing out on the coolness factor of travelling to other worlds by focusing so much on freaking out and going home, right? I mean, it’ll probably take a few days one way or the other, she reasoned. No more bothering Twilight, no more worrying about Chewie or going home; just a little adventure, and then everything would go back to normal!

“So where’re we headin’ first?” a voice piped up.

River turned a blank stare on Apple Bloom and her friends, who were looking up at her expectantly. “Huh? What do you… Do you mean you want to come along?”

“Well duh!” Scootaloo scoffed, her tiny wings buzzing with excitement. “Discord’s scavenger hunts are the best!”

“We’ll have your things tracked down in no time!” Sweetie Belle promised. “The Cutie Mark Crusaders are on the case!” She bounced with glee. “Go ahead, do the first thing! We already figured it out!”

“We think,” Apple Bloom corrected her. “The ‘first’ part doesn’t totally make sense…”

“The first clue? Wait, let me read it again.” River looked at the poem again, scanning the lines until she came to the bottom. “’You’ll get your first clue when you cast your first spell.’ What does that mean?”

Three very blank stares looked up at her. River felt her eyes sliding to the side in the uncomfortable silence. “What?”

“Um…” Sweetie Belle rubbed one leg against the other, looking embarrassed. “Miss River, you, um…you do know you’re a unicorn, right?”

River’s eyes crossed as she looked up, just able to see the tip of her horn. “I’m…I’m a unicorn. Oh, right!” Sensing the deepening confusion of her young helpers, River let out an uneasy laugh. “Riiight, yeah, of course! Um…so, I guess I just have to…cast a spell?”

Several agreeing nods. A knot tightened River’s stomach. “Um…any, uh…suggestions?” she stalled, hoping the extra few seconds would reveal some hint about what she was even supposed to do. Part of her felt a little giddy; she could do magic! Real, safe, family-friendly unicorn magic like Twilight did. This would be really cool if she weren’t completely positive she was about to blow her cover. The show made it sound like it took years for young unicorns to learn how to use their magic, and she was supposed to just cast one out of the blue? Thanks a million, Discord.

Scootaloo and Apple Bloom looked at Sweetie Belle, the resident unicorn of their club. Sweetie Belle kept eyeing River Babble strangely, but she seemed eager to help. “It doesn’t say what kind, so maybe…maybe a locator spell! I just learned one from Twilight last week!”

An idea came to River, and she brightened. “Great! I, uh, don’t know any of those. Do you…do you think you could teach me?” she asked nervously.

Sweetie Belle’s jaw went slack. “You don’t…you want me to teach you a spell?” Slowly, her cheeks bunched in an unbelievably huge smile. “A grown-up unicorn wants to learn a spell from me! This is so cool!” She bounced a few times, but then she settled, arranging herself into a very serious pose (which looked stinking adorable). The pale unicorn tilted her horn down, mouth set in a firm line. “Okay, so here’s what you do,” Sweetie Belle commanded, doing her best Teacher Twilight Sparkle impression. “First, you draw a small amount of magic into your horn, about the same as a really small Levitation spell. Then you think really hard about the thing you want to find. Let me know when you’re ready!”

Gulping, River adopted a stance similar to Sweetie Belle’s, and tried to focus inside herself, looking for any alien sensation that might be magic. She sent up a prayer, hoping for an epiphany. Lord, please help me figure this out, I’m going to look like a complete idiot and have to explain everything and it will totally freak them out— She took another deep breath. Focus. Focus. Wait, what’s…?

She felt something. River reached for it with her mind, and suddenly, she was very aware of her horn and the signals it sent through her brain. She focused on that, shutting off her other senses, and the signals became more and more clear. The magic was everywhere: inside her, around her, in the girls, in the plants, flowing on streams of current like wind, hugging the grass like layers of snow. A thrill shot through her, and before she knew it, the brand-new unicorn had sucked a huge amount of that magic up into her horn.

Everything went very, very bright for a second, and then River was wobbling on her legs, feeling like she’d just been blasted in the face by a sonic boom. A distant ringing sound slowly formed into the sounds of three excited voices growing louder.

“Red Delicious! Are you alright, Miss River?”

“That was awesome!”

“That wasn’t supposed to happen, I promise! Do you feel okay? Miss Babble?”

Slowly, River took a step, reestablishing her center of balance as the world came back into focus. The dazed feeling was fading, although she still had a doozy of a headache. “Wow…what…what did I do?” Her voice sounded a little slurry in her own ears. Maybe magic worked better in small doses.

Sweetie Belle stood by her leg, her green eyes wide with anxiety. “I’m not sure, but it looked like you cast an Illuminate spell and it went all wrong! I totally didn’t mean for that to happen, I’m so sorry, I’m the worst teacher ever!”

Shaking her head, River looked around to make sure that she hadn’t caused any serious damage with whatever that was. But everything looked normal. Okay, Rule Number 5: be extra-super-stinking-duper careful with your new superpowers. A giddy giggle almost escaped her at that thought, but she clamped it down, and gave Sweetie Belle a reassuring pat. “No, Sweetie Belle, that wasn’t at all your fault. It was me. See, I’m…uh…I’m kind of not as good at magic as most unicorns yet,” she said carefully, wincing at the near-fib. She’d really have to watch her words if she didn’t want to accidentally stray off of Rule Number 2. Or tip off the kids to the fact that she was more than a little abnormal for a unicorn.

Now it was Sweetie Belle giving River a reassuring pat, much to River’s surprise. “It’s okay, Miss River. My parents always say, some unicorns are better at magic than others, but that doesn’t make them less important!”

“Heck, I’m a pegasus and I can’t really fly yet,” Scootaloo added, buzzing her undersized wings for effect. “It’s cool.”

That was about the sweetest thing she had ever heard, and River was seriously debating if it was okay to randomly hug these kids when Apple Bloom let out a shout.

“Look! I guess ya didn’t need to do any particular spell, after all!”

True enough, when River looked down at the parchment in her hoof, it bore a soft, white glow. The glow shot down to the ground and then away, forming a long, dotted line that soon extended out of sight towards the Apple Farm. The Cutie Mark Crusaders let out a cheer, and River almost joined them. But she definitely wore a smile as the foursome followed the line towards their next clue.

Guilty conscience aside, maybe she was going to have some fun!

----

Rarity, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, and Rainbow Dash moved at a quick trot (or flight, in Rainbow’s case) down the street, following the purple sphere. Rainbow Dash was rubbing her forehooves together and wearing a devilish grin. “I bet we find her opening some doorway to another dimension and letting in weird monsters to take over Ponyville!”

Rarity raised an eyebrow at her flying friend, her delicate white hooves working a little harder to keep up with Applejack’s more athletic pace. “And why, may I ask, does that excite you so much?”

Rainbow Dash shrugged, turning a loop-de-loop. “We can take anything she can dish out! You saw her, she’s a total pansy. Plus I’ve been itching for a good fight against evil. It’s been too quiet around here since the whole Starlight Glimmer thing.”

Applejack shuddered, never taking her eyes off of the purple ball of magic. “Don’t remind me o’ that. Durn craziest thing we ever been through. Me, I wouldn’t mind a little peace an’ quiet for the rest o’ the year!”

The blue pegasus was about to reply when a brown stallion shot towards them from farther up the road, passing the purple ball of magic without a glance. He had some sort of hoof-held device clamped between his teeth, which became obvious when he tried to talk around it. “Ladish! Migh’ Ah ha’ a wor’ w-oo?”

“Ya might if’n ya take that thing outta yer mouth, Doc,” Applejack chuckled, slowing to a stop along with the others. The girls were all familiar with the local (possibly mad) scientist, and a small chorus of hellos greeted him as he trotted over. Doc quickly removed the device from his mouth, holding it in his right hoof now that he didn’t need said hoof to run.

“Ladies,” Doc panted, wiping sweat from his brow. “A pleasure as always, but I fear I have grave news. By any chance has Princess Twilight Sparkle been experimenting with the impregnable barriers between dimensions today?”

Glances were exchanged among the mares. Except for Pinkie Pie. “Yepperdoodle!” the pink mare replied cheerfully. “Although really it was River who came through first and now Twilight’s trying to—”

“What she means is,” Applejack interrupted, “yeah, Twilight’s been fiddling with somethin’ to do with other worlds back at the castle. How did ya know about that, Doc?”

Doc Turner held up his device again. “Several pieces of equipment in my laboratory are dedicated to measuring various magical, meteorological, and metaphysical phenomena in the vicinity of Ponyville and the surrounding areas. I suspected that Princess Twilight was engaging in studies of an inter-dimensional nature for months now. If she has truly found a way to pierce the veil between worlds at will, she has my profound envy, as I’ve yet to garner my own method of affecting such a portal,” he added distractedly, before giving his head a vigorous shake to come back to the point. The brown earth pony glared accusingly at the device in his hoof, as if the information he was getting were its fault somehow. “But the readings I’ve received since this morning are of a most concerning nature! I must speak with the princess immediately to determine if my worries are well-founded or not, because if they are, we may have a very serious problem on our hooves.”

More glances were exchanged. Rarity worried her lip for a moment. “I apologize, Doctor Turner, but I’m afraid we’re all a bit in the dark about the true nature of these portals to other worlds. Might I trouble you to explain exactly what kind of problem we could be facing?”

“A breach.” The term made no sense to the girls, but the grave look on the doctor’s face made it clear that the meaning was not good. “If my hypothesis is correct, something alien has entered our reality, which is not, of course, very dangerous in itself,” he added with a small chuckle, as if this were all perfectly obvious. “But my equipment is telling me that an especially peculiar anomaly is straining the very barrier that separates our reality from others. I’m afraid that if we don’t isolate the cause quickly,” and once again the doctor’s face turned quite serious, “that barrier could be breached, and there is no way to tell what sort of reality it may open us to.”

Rarity, Applejack, and Rainbow Dash were all staring at each other in open, mutual worry now. “I think we better pick up the pace on findin’ River,” Applejack said firmly. Doc was about to ask for clarification when the three girls turned back the way they had been going…and Applejack snapped, “Horse apples! Dangit, Twalight!”

The magical sphere they had been following, which apparently did not work on the same stay-close principle as its smaller counterpart, had continued on its way while they were standing around talking. It was nowhere to be seen. A chorus of groans filled the air.

“This ‘River’ that you speak of…” Doc Turner said slowly. “Would she happen to be a black unicorn, blue-striped mane, runs about with a rather frantic look in her eye?”

The girls spun to him. “Yeah! How’d you know? Did you see where she went?” Rainbow asked, finally coming to a landing in front of the Doc. “She came yelling at Twilight this morning with a funky story about being a human from some other world, but she took off while Twilight was trying to send her home. We’re tracking her down and taking care of any crazy alien monsters she brings to Equestria,” the mare added with pride.

“There ain’t gonna be any monsters, Rainbow,” Applejack said flatly.

Doc dipped his head in a confident nod. “I knew that young lady had something to do with the spike in my equipment! She passed this way not long ago, in quite a rush. I believe that last I saw her, she was heading towards the Apple Farm in the company of our resident Cutie Mark Crusaders.”

“She’s with Apple Bloom?!”

“She’s with Sweetie Belle?!”

“Oh hey, she’s with Scootaloo?”

Rarity and Applejack glared at their significantly less concerned friend while Doc tilted his ears back. The earth pony gently cleared his throat. “Ah, yes. Is that not to your liking?”

“Ah dunno, Doc, you sure didn’t make her sound safe t’be around,” Applejack pointed out. She turned, narrowing her eyes as she looked towards the Apple Farm in the distance. “If she gets mah li’l sister hurt…”

“Then perhaps I can be of assistance.” Doc gestured their attention to the chunky, softly-beeping device in his hoof. “This contrivance of mine is calibrated to point towards the primary source of the anomalous readings. No doubt it will take us straight to your missing interdimensional traveler.”

Applejack tilted her cowboy hat back, one eyebrow raised in surprise. “You got one o’ those, too? You n’ Twalight sure like yer fancy gadgets.”

“Oh? Perhaps I will have the opportunity to survey her equipment one day,” Doc said cheerily. “I didn’t realize she was such a practitioner of the practical scientific arts.”

“But I thought that it was most urgent for you to speak with Twilight about the, ah, situation you described,” Rarity reminded him, somewhat reluctantly.

“Perhaps,” Doc said with a nod, “but it would appear that the anomaly is centered around your visitor, so she would be the logical place to start in isolating the cause of this strain on the dimensional curtain. Ergo, it would make the most sense to assist in finding her first and foremost.” When none of the girls could find any fault in his logic, Doc focused back on his device, turning in a slow circle. It wasn’t long before a small arrow appeared, and the doctor’s green eyes lit up. “Tallyho! The game is afoot!” He reared up and took off down the road with the four mares following close behind.

Their journey soon took them out of town, Rainbow Dash zooming ahead once in a while to scout. Applejack and Rarity did their best to hide their concern for their sisters; after all, River hadn’t seemed dangerous. But the doc’s warnings about “breaches” and “problems of most concerning natures” weighed rather heavily on the mind. “I hope Sweetie Belle isn’t getting into trouble,” Rarity murmured, flipping away a lock of purple mane jounced out of place by their running. “At least no more than usual.”

“I was gonna say.” Applejack forced a chuckle. “Them three get up to more shenanigans than every other colt ‘n filly in town.”

“Yeah,” Rainbow Dash said suddenly from over their heads. “‘Cause they know what it takes to be awesome. I mean, y’know, as awesome as kids outta be,” she added with a flip of her hoof.

Rarity shot Rainbow Dash a coy smile. “Was that a hint of concern I heard just now, Rainbow?”

Rainbow folded her hooves in a huff, slowing her wings to a steady hover over her friends. “Hey, I totally care about Scootaloo! I just trust her to stay cool and be ready for anything. Just like I taught her,” she added proudly.

“Awwww!” Pinkie gushed. “Big sister Rainbow Dash~!” She giggled as Rainbow buzzed her head so close that her main puffed into an extra thick tangle of curls.

“So you ain’t the least bit worried about her an’ the girls hangin’ around this funny unicorn?” Applejack asked skeptically. “Considering you also seem pretty durn sure she’s gonna let in an army o’ monsters t’take over Equestria.”

Rainbow opened her mouth to reply, then paused, worry flickering across her face. But it was gone in an instant, covered by a casual shrug. “Aw, she’s… Come on, guys, I’m sure nothing really bad is gonna happen. Nothing those three can’t handle!” she boasted.

“All the same,” Applejack replied, brow furrowed, “I’ll feel a ton better once we see they’re alri—” The orange mare suddenly skidded to a halt, causing Rarity and Pinkie Pie to pile up behind. “Wait an apple-buckin’ minute, this ain’t the way to mah farm!”

Everypony looked up and quickly ground to a stop. Doc was so focused on the directional arrow on his device that he continued five more paces before Rarity cut off the levitation spell she’d been using to help him read it while trotting. “Eh, what? I believe we’re quite close, ladies, the signal is…” The words died as he looked up at what everypony else was staring at.

The edge of the Everfree Forest.

Doc stared at the wild and forbidding trees that abruptly sprouted from the ground twenty feet ahead of them. He looked at his device again, just to be certain, and…yes, it was most certainly pointing straight towards the ominous forest, beeping insistently. The doctor cleared his throat, running a hoof under his collar. “Well, ah… Perhaps your friend didn’t go to the Apple Farm, after all.”

“Doc,” Applejack said flatly. There was a world of danger in her quiet tone. “Are you tellin’ me that this mare we’re a-lookin’ for might’a taken our li’l sisters into the Everfree Forest?”

Doc scratched his ear with one hoof, shooting puzzled glances between the forest and his gadget. “I…am not altogether certain, Miss Applejack. In fact, I think…” He picked up the device again and continued forward. The girls could hear the beeping of his machine grow louder, and faster, and louder, and faster, until—

“Great whickering stallions! What have we here?”

Another mass movement of ponies soon had the four Elements of Harmony surrounding the doctor and his new discovery. The brown stallion gently lifted it in his hoof, green eyes wide with scientific intrigue. “Great whickering stallions…,” he whispered. “I’ve never seen anything like it!”

It was a rectangular box or block of some kind, a little larger than Doc’s hoof; Rarity guessed it to be made of a mildly transparent plastic. “And quite a lovely shade of blue, if I do say so,” she added. A seam along the side made it look like it could come apart, or be opened. And on what they decided must be the top, there was stamped a strange symbol or crest: a sword with two thin dragons facing each other from either side.

“Wow! River sure shrank since we last saw her!” Pinkie Pie said thoughtfully.

“Darling, I really don’t think that’s—” Rarity paused when she saw Pinkie’s playful wink. “Right, very funny, Pinkie Pie,” the white mare finished dryly. “I think we can all agree that this wasn’t what we were expecting to find. What do you make of it, Doctor?”

Doc very gently tilted the object up, down, back, and forth, murmuring under his breath. He waved his equally peculiar-looking hoofheld device over the blue rectangle again, and was rewarded with another round of excited beeping. “First of all, I must apologize, ladies,” Doc said, although his giddy tone kind of ruined the apology. “I had naturally assumed that your displaced companion would have the strongest reading, and therefore lead my equipment straight to her. But this…thing has caught its attention somehow.” He tapped his chin in thought, then ruffled a hoof through his spiky mane in more thought. “If the readings are reacting to something brought with the mysterious mare rather than the mare herself, perhaps that’s—”

“So whadda we do next for findin’ River an’ the girls, Doc?”

Doc snapped his head around, and realized that the four mares were staring at him expectantly. “Eh? Oh, right, of course, missing not-a-pony, young fillies in peril, right, yes, top priority.” He cast a longing look at the blue thing at his one hoof, and the beeping device at the other. “Ah, but…this may be rather important, if my readings are any—”

“No sweat, cadet!” Pinkie Pie bounced forward and scooped up the blue thing, depositing it directly into her bouncy mane. Doc was still trying to process this mode of storage when Pinkie turned and trotted back in the direction of Ponyville. “You guys have super-duper fun finding River and your cutie-patootie little sisters, and I’ll take this back to Twilight for her whosamawhatsit and give her the updates on our special secret mission! Toodles!”

Doc shook his head hard, and reached a hoof out towards her, calling, “You must tell her to be careful! The breach could be…tampering might…” He dropped his hoof in resignation as Pinkie Pie bounced out of sight over a small hillock. “I don’t feel completely comfortable with what just happened,” he sighed.

“Eh.” Rainbow shrugged. “It’s Pinkie Pie. Either she’ll make everything go crazy wrong, or find some kooky way to save the day. Either way, it’ll probably work out.” Ignoring the earth pony’s attempt to debate the appeal of such odds, the blue pegasus shot into the sky and took a long look in all directions. “Show us which way to go next, already, Doc!” she hollered. “I don’t want Scootaloo beating up all the monsters before I get a chance!”

Applejack and Rarity were already staring at the Doc when he looked at them, and so they caught him with the full force of their combined Maximum Level Distress Stares. (Rarity had always been far better at this than any pony in town, but when it came to her sister’s safety, Applejack could turn up the voltage pretty high herself.) The dual effect cut right through any lingering arguments Doc might have had for separating himself from the search to continue his research on the potential world breach problem. He held up a hoof in defeat, chuckling. “Right, yes, of course. We must locate your friend if we’re to have any real understanding of what’s happening! If you’ll just give me a moment.”

A few agonizing minutes of fiddling passed, involving methods and means that completely mystified the three non-sciencey mares. But they needed his help to track down River and the girls, so Rarity and Applejack made sure to smile and nod when he held his strange little device up again, the tone of its beeping a little different than before. “There! Now it should only take us to organic sources,” he said proudly. “And— Ah!” The beeping was already growing in volume, the arrow pointing them into the distance.

Doc had always had an excitable nature, and now, once again, the thrill of the chase and the lure of scientific mystery filled him up with excitement. “Come, my friends!” he crowed dramatically. “The game is afoot once again!”

“This is sure turnin’ out to be an interestin’ day,” Applejack muttered as she took off after the brown stallion.

“I only hope that it doesn’t get too much more interesting,” Rarity sighed, once again lamenting not keeping to her exercise regime this past month.

As the four ponies disappeared over the hill, a glowing, white, dotted line materialized, mark by mark, across the grass coming from the opposite direction, until it formed a small, glowing circle where River’s 3DS had just been. Nopony was around to notice, but then, most ponies wouldn’t have been too concerned even if they had.

They might have been a little concerned if they’d seen the tiny hole in space that ripped open above the glowing circle. Or the yellow eyes that peered through before it snapped shut with an echoing POP!

Chapter 4 - In Which Cows And Mushrooms Cause Chaos

“Almost…got it…!”

ZZZAP!

“YOWCH!”

Twilight sucked on her stinging hoof, glaring at the mirror and plotting various strategies for punishing its insubordination without actually breaking it. From the other side of the room, Fluttershy called, “Are you okay, Twilight?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Twilight muttered, accepting a numbing patch from Spike and rubbing it on her hoof. In all honesty, she didn’t feel fine. This was as bad as the time she’d tried to test out Pinkie’s Pinkie Sense – worse, actually, because that time, she hadn’t gotten any readings, forcing her to give up the whole thing up as impossible to explain or unravel. In this case, she knew it was possible, she had the equations, even the base technology and spellwork already existed! “By all accounts, this should have been working at least 47 minutes ago!” she complained, thumping her Dimensional Cross-Particle Energy Reader with a hoof. It blurped and fizzled and went right back to insisting that the foreign energy particles left behind by River were still in the area.

It wasn’t enough, though. But if she had River here…that had to be the answer! “Fluttershy, Spike, I think we should go help the girls find River,” Twilight announced, already trotting towards the door. Which put her exactly in position to be bowled over when Pinkie Pie careened into the room. Fluttershy and Spike flinched as the purple and pink ball of ponies smacked into the worktable.

“Whoop! Sorry, Twilight!” Pinkie giggled from the bottom of the pile-up. Twilight groaned and extricated herself, rolling off so that Pinkie could pop back to her hooves. Before Twilight could decide whether to scold Pinkie for the crash or ask for an update on the search, a blue rectangle booped her on the nose. “Lookie what we found!” Pinkie said cheerfully. “Doc used his machiney thing that’s like yours to track down River, only it found this doodad instead! They’re still out searching, but Doc thinks it’s important to the whole,” her voice dropped to a ridiculous bass as she attempted air quotes with her hooves, “‘impregnable barriers between worlds’ problem he said we’re having!”

Half of that didn’t make sense to Twilight, but that was Pinkie for you. And besides, Twilight was so focused on the blue rectangular box thing that she’d stopped paying attention to Pinkie halfway through the spiel. “Wait, is it possible…?” The purple unicorn telekinetically grabbed her Energy Reader and immediately scanned it over the blue device.

The blaring alarm signal went off instantly, but it wasn’t loud enough to cover Twilight’s whoop of delight.

“This is perfect!” Twilight literally flew over to the mirror, rearranging some wires around the part of the device that normally held the magical journal used to link to Canterlot High. “This could solve our problem!”

Spike stared up at her in complete confusion, plugging his ear holes with his claws. “WHAT?”

“Oh, right.” Twilight absently bapped the Energy Reader’s console, killing the alarm. She beamed down at Spike, Pinkie Pie, and Fluttershy (not to mention several of Fluttershy’s animal companions) from her hovering position above the machine. The blue rectangle sat in her hooves. “I had a possible theory that, because River has been turned into a pony, the atomic particles within her cellular structure might be altered, and that’s why I couldn’t make the portal when she was with us earlier. But this,” she gestured at the device, “is covered with foreign energy particles, even moreso than River was. It must be something she brought through with her, unaltered thanks to its inorganic state. If I can use it as a source in the same way we use the journal to reach Canterlot High, it should get us through!” And with that, she placed the strange blue box into the device and dropped down to the main control panel.

“Are you sure it’s safe to just…plug it in like that?” Spike asked carefully. He was starting to experience unpleasant flashbacks from the last few times Twilight got excited and rushed into an experiment.

Twilight blew a dismissive raspberry, her hoof already touching the “ON” switch. “Don’t be such a worrywart, Spike. I know exactly what I’m doing. Get ready to see a new portal to an alternate universe, everypony!”

She tipped the lever forward, and the machine hummed to life. Magic crackled around the machine, welling up to its peak and enveloping the blue rectangle. It hovered in a glow of power as the humming grew, and then the mirror began to glow, its surface image shifting and sliding and slowly solidifying into—

Everything shut off with a POP!, magic sparking away and dying and the blue rectangle dropping back down the few inches it had risen. Everypony (and Spike) stared in confusion at the silent machine. “Well…that was anticlimactic,” Spike said with a scratch to his backspines.

“Did anypony else see something yellow and furry in there for a second?” Fluttershy asked quietly. A fluffy gray critter on her shoulder made a worried barking noise and hid in her mane.

Twilight glared up at the machine, a scowl furrowing her brow. But then the corner of her mouth began to tip up. “We’re onto something now.” She turned a determined smile on her friends. “Did you see that? It almost worked! We’re on the right track!” The Princess held her hoof out to Spike, eyes back on the troublesome machine. “Spike, hand me my magic tachometer. It’s time we crack this quantum magical quandary wide open!”

----

“Hey, I think I’m getting the hang of—whoop whoa!”

River desperately swiped a hoof at her phone as the shaky levitation magic she’d been practicing gave out in a sputter of silver. She missed, wincing as the phone hit the ground. Sweetie Belle clapped. “It’s okay, that was a lot better!” the white filly said enthusiastically, fully enjoying her role as magic tutor. “And you didn’t flash anypony in the face that time!”

River gave an embarrassed laugh. They’d been walking for ten or fifteen minutes, following the meandering dashed line. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo were out in front, noses to the glowing line like a pair of bloodhounds, so now seemed as good a time as any for the secretly-a-human member of the party to practice her newly-discovered unicorn magic. “Thank goodness for small favors!” River leaned down and plucked her phone off the ground. “Leshee i’ ah ca’ ‘eep i’ uh longah!” Considering that she still hadn’t solved the mystery of how these ponies carried things while walking without the use of hooves, mouths, or magic, levitation had seemed the most practical place to start. Sweetie Belle gently enveloped the phone in green, levitating it back into the air so that River could try again.

All things considered, River felt the best she had since waking up that morning. A little guilt still niggled about not reporting back to Twilight, but the magic practice helped drive it to the back of her mind and boost her mood. More importantly, the clearly roundabout route Discord was leading them on gave her some much-needed time to slow down – and think. And boy, did she have a doozy of a conundrum to think about.

I’m a pony. Okay, that had been the first big surprise, but it was a small one compared to the big whopper that begged for attention. Silver magic sputtered on her horn as River tried again to take her phone from Sweetie Belle. A pony in a fictional universe, supposedly created by someone in MY universe. Everything here feels so real, though. Leaves crackled underhoof and a pleasant breeze rustled the trees. The scent of honeysuckle filled her nose. And I’m pretty aware I could be crazy, which is supposed to be a good sign you aren’t yet. So, fictional universe has real counterpart. How is that even possible? This question again; no matter how many times she went over it; no solid answer presented itself.

Let’s break down the options. Option One: all of this is entirely in someone’s head. Which would mean I’m fictional, too. No, that couldn’t be it, not when she could remember a billion things about her life so clearly. She mostly dismissed this theory but held it in tentative reserve. Option 2: When someone came up with this idea, a corresponding reality opened up, and when that person writes stuff, it happens here for real. That would certainly fit the most popular writer conspiracy theories from the internet. But River didn’t like it, either, and not just for the whole worry over whether or not her own stories were hurting real people.

The black unicorn looked down at her miniature tutor, deciding to try out an idea. “Hey, Sweetie Belle? Do your parents live around here?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, on Phoenix Wood Way. It’s over near the other side of town,” Sweetie Belle answered absently. Most of her attention stayed focused on keeping the phone levitated; River wasn’t the only one benefiting from a little practice. “Why do you ask?”

“I was just curious: do you stay with them, or with your sister Rarity? I know you spend a lot of time with her…” Yeah, that didn’t sound stalkerish at all.

The pale filly paused then, looking surprised. “Of course I live with my parents! Pff, who would want to live with their sister all the time?” she added with an eyeroll.

“Hey!” Apple Bloom shouted back at them.

Sweetie Belle ignored her, already occupied trying to walk and talk and use magic at the same time. “Rarity lets me sleep over a few times a month, though! She’s got a really nice guest bedroom. Sometimes she’ll even let all of us have a slumber party! We tried that once at my house, but Mom banned slumber parties after that because she ‘didn’t need that kind of stress.’”

This caused River’s ears to perk. She leaned down to Sweetie Belle, unable to keep the eagerness off her face. “Really? What happened? Um,” she coughed, “if you don’t mind, I mean.”

Suddenly all three girls were very interested in the conversation; Apple Bloom and Scootaloo jogged backwards to walk even with them, their faces practically splitting with grins. “Oh man, you’re going to tell her about that?” Scootaloo asked, giggling. “Your mom was so mad at us!”

Apple Bloom cut in, her red tail bouncing with every step. “She wouldn’t-a been if her dumb cat didn’t tip the paint bucket. We was doin’ a good job!”

“Mom’d been saying for weeks that she didn’t like the color of the kitchen anymore,” Sweetie Belle explained, glancing sheepishly up at River. River, for her part, was listening with keen interest. “I was waiting for the girls to show up when I heard her talking about it again, and we were bored, so we thought, y’know…maybe we could be Cutie Mark Crusader Kitchen Painters! I mean, she even had the paint already…”

“We were real careful, too!” Apple Bloom said defensively. “We got the whole first wall done without hardly any splatters you could actually see real well. Then Pearl walked in and started yowling at us like we’d ruined her house by changin’ the wall color.” She snorted. “That cat’s as bad as Rarity’s. No offense, Sweetie Belle.”

“None taken.” Sweetie Belle rolled her eyes. “Opal’s one of her kittens. So anyway, Pearl starts yowling, and then I yelled at her, and Scootaloo lost her balance and fell off the ladder, and that spooked Pearl, and the next thing you know, Mom’s walking through the door to see paint all over the floor and the kitchen table.”

“And the stove,” Apple Bloom added. “And the cabinets.”

“And the ceiling,” Scootaloo finished.

“How,” River asked slowly, every word dripping with morbid fascination, “on earth…did you manage to get a whole wall painted before your mom noticed?”

“Oh, she was out of the house for part of it,” Sweetie Belle explained, completely unfazed. “I think she was taking Dad something for dinner? He was working late at the sports center.”

“Wait, what?” River stopped short, her face going weird. “Sports center? Ponyville has a sports center?”

If it were possible for a pony to double in size out of sheer pride, Sweetie Belle might have managed it. “Yup! The Ponyville Recreation Center! It’s not as big as the ones in Canterlot, but Dad puts a lot of work into it, and everypony likes to play there! There’s gymnastics stuff, skate ramps, a pool, even a field out back for hoofball! I’m really good on the balance beams,” she added modestly.

“The ramps are the coolest,” Scootaloo added, wings buzzing as she pretended to ride her scooter. “I’ve still got the record for longest rim grind on my scooter! Your dad said I oughta try out for the Young X-Games Competition this year!”

“Too bad we already found out our cutie marks,” Apple Bloom laughed. “Maybe your talent shoulda been for extreme sports!”

There was a thoughtful pause while everypony considered this.

“Speaking of finding things, when are we going to get there?” Scootaloo stared irritably at the dashed line, which trailed down the hill they were on and climbed up another one in the distance. The orange pegasus groaned. “I figured Discord’d put some goofy traps in our way or something. This is getting boring.”

“Aw, he’s probably savin’ the best stuff fer later,” Apple Bloom assured her. “Ah got a little lost when we went through those trees, but Ah think we’re headin’ fer mah family’s farm.” The yellow earth pony looked up at River Babble. “Miss River? D’ya mind if me ‘n Scootaloo run ahead an’ see where we’re goin’?”

Several unanswered and extremely tantalizing questions still begged to be asked (not the least of which being the details on exactly how Sweetie Belle’s mom reacted to her newly-redecorated kitchen), but River bit her tongue. Perhaps it was best to let it go for now. “Sure, go ahead. Report back in a few minutes, though!” she added worriedly, her auntly instincts kicking in as two of the kids who were sorta-kinda under her protection at the moment raced away. Sweetie Belle, clearly happy that her new adult pony friend hadn’t asked for the rest of the slumber party story, began offering more advice on River’s magic technique.

River didn’t hear, though. Her thoughts were boarding an earlier train.

Okay, so what have I learned about Option 2? While it wasn’t impossible that Lauren Faust or whoever was in charge now at Hasbro could have thought up this cute botched slumber party story, the sheer out-of-nowhere detail struck River as suspicious. It fit with other oddly specific tidbits she’d picked up from the girls during their short acquaintance – details that didn’t appear in any MLP licensed material. Sweetie Belle’s dad working at a popular in-town sports center that had never been mentioned. Scootaloo liking asparagus with chocolate sauce and hating spiders. Apple Bloom chipping a tooth at age three and going with her parents to see a special unicorn dentist in Canterlot to fix it. (That had been a very interesting and completely out of nowhere conversation.)

Surely no writer could imagine everything that’s ever happened in every character’s life, right? River reasoned, staring into the distance in deep concentration. She didn’t even notice the growing glow of silver magic around her horn in her distraction. All these random events with life-like details suggest they do have their own complex lives apart from what some writer thinks up. But then again, Sweetie Belle was the one to bring up the subject of slumber parties in the first place, so could it all be a preprogrammed response, or—?

This circular logic was hurting her brain. River shook her head like a dog shedding water, trying to clear out the fuzzy feeling between her ears. Sweetie Belle suddenly let out a surprised yelp. A silvery glowing something whizzed past River’s peripheral vision, and she looked around just in time to see her phone go sailing into the trees, trailing magic like a comet.

A moment of deep, embarrassed silence passed. River cleared her throat and glanced down at Sweetie Belle, who stood watching her with one eyebrow raised. “Did I do that?” A nod. River sighed. Great. I’m a magical savant when I’m paying absolutely no attention whatsoever. Figures. “Oookay… Don’t suppose I could ask you for that locator spell you mentioned earlier?”

The trees weren’t thick, and neither was the underbrush; sunlight shone easily through the leaves overhead. Still, as they stepped off of the path, Sweetie Belle in the lead with her horn pinging like a metal detector, something made the hair on the back of River’s neck prickle. Her blue eyes darted around, staring intently into the bushes. And what was that ripping sound? What even, River, calm down. This is Equestria, the land of peace and harmony. The human-turned-unicorn considered this for a moment, then stepped closer to Sweetie Belle, still bristling. Also the land of random magical monsters. Yeah, guard being up may not be a bad thing.

“Found it!”

Sweetie Belle pawed away some leaves to reveal River’s iPhone, blessedly undamaged in its black shell casing. Relief briefly drowned out River’s paranoia, and she grabbed the phone in her mouth, more than ready to get away from this tree patch and the creeps it was giving her. “Grea’ jogh, Shweedie Be’l! Lesh cash u’ wi’ ‘e othersh—”

A startled gasp made her jump about a foot in the air, only the phone in her mouth keeping her from yelling. She spun to see Sweetie Belle waving a hoof frantically for silence, crouching in the underbrush. River crouched down next to the filly and looked to where she pointed.

Something squat and somewhat triangular stood about ten yards away. It was a little smaller than an adult pony, and pretty simple in shape: a large mushroom cap formed the head, supported by a comically small, cream-colored torso and two round, brown feet. As it turned partway towards them, River thought maybe she saw large, white eyes…and fangs. She blinked as it turned away again, feeling the strangest sense of déjà vu. “What is that? Is it dangerous?” River whispered, scooting closer to Sweetie Belle.

The filly shook her head. “I don’t know! All kinds of weird monsters live in the Everfree Forest. It must be from there, because I know it’s not any animal I’ve ever seen.” She chewed her lip for a second, never taking her green eyes off of it. “They don’t usually come so far out of the Everfree, though. What do we do?”

It took a few seconds for River’s brain to register the fact that Sweetie Belle was asking her to be the authority figure in this situation. There are so many reasons why that is a terrible idea, she thought, resisting the urge to giggle hysterically. But, clearing her throat (quietly), River tried to forget she was facing an unknown monster and just think along the lines of what any responsible adult would do. “Okay…it might not be dangerous, but let’s not risk it. We’ll wait until it walks further away and then make a run for it. Those short legs probably can’t move really fast. If it sees us…well, just stay behind me.” She still couldn’t quite shake the sense that she’d seen this creature before. Must have been in one of the older episodes.

To the surprise of human and pony alike, the whatever-it-was turned as soon as River finished whispering, and trundled off back in the direction the ponies had come from. The two unicorns waited until it was out of sight before bolting to their feet and dashing off down the path to catch up with Apple Bloom and Scootaloo, laughing with relief at their close encounter.

Am I crazy? River thought as they topped the next hill and saw the other girls running back to meet them. Or did that thing look just like a Goomba?

-----

“You sure this thing is takin’ us to the right place, Doc?” Applejack asked for the seventh time.

Doctor Time Turner huffed and muttered to himself, eyes fixed on his device. The three mares behind him stopped while he fiddled with the confounded machinery in his hooves. “I’m afraid Applejack has a point, Doctor,” Rarity put in, ever the socially polite one. She gestured her pale hoof towards the Castle of Friendship not too far away. “We seem to be heading towards Twilight’s castle again, but earlier you had us moving towards the pond, and then Sweet Apple Acres. Not to mention our trip through,” and here she shuddered slightly, “Froggy Bottom Bog. Our trail seems to be turning in on itself quite a bit.”

Finally, Doc gave his head a hard shake, as if to dislodge some of the mathematical equations overloading his brain. “My deepest apologies for the delay in our search, ladies, but I cannot explain the quandary we are facing. The source we detected earlier is still the primary focal point of my micro-fluctuation detector, but the directional configuration mechanism is continually being sidetracked by superfluous energy spikes—” And before anypony could ask him to explain all of that in common Equestrian, the gadget in his hoof beeped again. Doc immediately turned and raced down a side street. “Wait, this is the strongest secondary signal we’ve encountered yet! I must see what’s causing it!”

The girls all gave each other resigned looks, and took off after him. It had been over an hour since they’d left the castle and Doc had joined their party, and still no sign of the peculiar black unicorn. Or the Cutie Mark Crusaders, for that matter. “We sure that followin’ this ‘un is the best idea?” Applejack whispered to Rarity.

Rarity shrugged. “It was your idea first, Applejack. Do you think we’d be better off returning to Twilight?”

Applejack chewed her lip, peering up at the sky from under the brim of her hat. “Ah’d sure hate to trouble ‘er so soon, especially if we got until this evenin’. Let’s see what the Doc finds first; them gizmos he’s usin’ have gotta be gettin’ us somewhere.”

The last word left her mouth as they rounded the corner, which was just as well, since it was at that exact moment that Roseluck rounded it from the opposite direction and almost caused a pileup on the sidewalk. Rarity managed to dance out of the collision, while Rainbow Dash swooped down to help Roseluck stay on her feet. The red-maned pony’s eyes widened when she saw who she had almost crashed into. “Oh, Applejack, perfect! I was just coming to look for you! Come on, we need your help!” And then she grabbed Applejack’s hoof and dragged her away before anypony could voice a question or protest.

The reason for Roseluck’s concern became obvious as soon as the four mares exited the alley onto one of Ponyville’s major roads. Something was blocking the street, causing a traffic jam of three or four carts coming from both directions. Onlookers gathered, calling to each other and staring at the obstruction. Applejack’s eyes widened as she realized what she was looking at: the single most massive cow she had ever seen. It, or rather she, stood as tall as the roofline on some of the single-story houses, all white and black-spotted beefy bulk, with a peculiar mop of blonde hair on top of her head. (That was also strange; Applejack had worked with the local cow herds all her life, and had yet to run into one with a mane.) Despite all the attention, the cow stood placidly in the road, chewing her cud and staring off into the distance.

Everypony looked to Applejack, she being their primary expert on pony/cow relations, and that was when the farm pony realized why Roseluck had been sent to find her. She grimaced, holding in a sigh of frustration. Might as well clear up this mess while we’re waitin’ fer Doc to come back from huntin’ his micro-quander-nomalies. Tipping her hat back on her head, the orange earth pony approached the cow with the friendliest smile she could muster. “Howdy, ma’am. Ma name's Applejack, and I welcome ya to our town. What brings ya to Ponyville?”

No response. The cow continued staring vacantly, ears flicking. Applejack cleared her throat uncomfortably. “We shore are happy to have visitors, Mrs. Cow, but Ah’m afraid ye’r blockin’ the road a bit.” This time Applejack was grateful for a lack of response. Female cows could be strangely sensitive about their weight. “Wouldja be so kind as t’let me show ya to the local pastures? We got a right friendly cow community ‘round here who’d be happy to have ya visitin'.”

Blank expression. Chewing cud. The cow turned slightly and snuffled along the ground, as if looking for grass to feed.

Impatience streaked through Applejack’s veins, and she wished strongly for Winona to be here. This was the unfriendliest cow she’d ever run into! Apple Bloom was out there, maybe in danger, and Applejack didn’t have time for mollycoddling a big bovine who didn’t appear to have a brain in her head. “Alright, ma’am, I don’t wanna take a hard line with you, but if’n you ain’t gonna be polite, we’ll have to take firmer measures. Ponyville has a right fine reputation for hospitality to any critter, but ye’re blockin’ the road!”

The cow chewed some more, then lowed deeply enough to shiver nearby window shutters. Then she turned towards an alleyway, her back to Applejack.

Frustration cut through the last of Applejack’s patience and manners, and throwing all decorum aside, she marched up to the cow and leaned a shoulder against its backside. “Come on, now! Git a move on!”

She almost fell on her face as the cow took an unexpected few steps forward, moving its bulk out from under the pony’s weight. An idea occurred to the earth pony, and Applejack steadied herself and pushed again. A thrill went through her as the cow continued to move.

“Come on, ya’ll!” Applejack called, waving at Rainbow Dash, Rarity, and Roseluck. “Help me give ‘er a push!” Rainbow Dash swooped heroically to the rescue, shoving at the base of the cow’s tail, while Roseluck joined Applejack in pushing on the other leg. Rarity grimaced and daintily touched a hoof to the cow’s thigh. The cow kept walking forward, and a cheer went up from the traffic jam as carts found room to move through the opening space before them. Applejack called instructions up to Rainbow Dash as they moved deeper into the alley. “We gotta get ‘er to another road that leads outta town, so holler when ya see one big enough ta’—”

Suddenly the weight they’d all been pushing on was gone. Applejack and Rose did fall this time, sending up clouds of alley dirt with a group, “OOF!” Applejack clambered to her feet, yelling up at the blue pegasus overhead. “Consarnit, Rainbow, why didn’t ya call out—”

The slack-jawed look on Rainbow Dash’s face caught her eye just before the orange mare looked fully in the direction the cow had been moving. A wavering, vertical line hung in the air, pulsing in and out, with a blonde-tipped cow tail disappearing through it. It was there for less than a second – hardly enough time for any of the ponies to grasp what they were seeing – before it closed with a POP! A few tiny strands of snipped blonde hair floated to the ground, the only evidence remaining of the massive cow.

The Elements of Honesty, Loyalty, and Generosity (and one very confused red-head) collectively stared at each other as an uneasy silence settled over the alley. “You don’t think—” Rainbow Dash managed.

“I think,” Rarity said, staring at the empty point in space with wide blue eyes, “that we need to locate Doctor Turner post haste.”

----

The Cutie Mark Crusaders +1 crested the final hill, and let out a group cheer as Sweet Apple Acres came into view. “Ah knew we were headin’ fer home!” Apple Bloom yelled. She took off down the hill, skipping across the white dashes of the magical line. “Come on, I can’t wait to see what Discord’s doin’ next!”

“I thought for sure we were heading towards the Everfree Forest for a while there,” Scootaloo mentioned as she and Sweetie Belle raced after their friend. Sweetie Belle shrugged.

River stayed behind the trio, marveling as they pelted through one of the show’s most iconic settings. There was the red two-story barn ahead, much bigger and more well-crafted than one could tell from the other side of a television screen. The apples on the trees had the same oddly bright sheen as everything else in this colorful universe, but up close and filling the air with apple-sweet scent, they were real enough to make her mouth water. Dang, have I even eaten today? The sudden reminder made her stomach growl. She almost ran off the path when the kids made a sharp turn, but she skidded back on course and raced to catch up as they approached the house.

A familiar apple-green mare with her white mane in a bob sat in a rocker on the front porch, and she looked up as they approached. “Howdy, Apple Bloom!” Granny Smith hollered, face wrinkling into a smile. “What brings ye home so soon? Thought you kiddos was out helpin’ ponies figger out their destinies till supper today, eh-heeheehee!”

“We’re on a scavenger hunt, Granny!” Apple Bloom explained, trotting past the porch in pursuit of the line. “If’n we follow this white line, we’ll find the next clue! Ya seen anythin'?”

The old earth pony leaned forward in her chair, eyebrows rising. “Weeell now, Ah wonnered what was goin’ on with them there glowin’ lines in the grass. Looks like yer almost to it, though, ‘cause it quit right ‘round the end o’ the porch there.” She pointed before relaxing back into her rocker, creaking calmly back and forth.

And sure enough, when River and the girls reached the corner of the porch, they found a lone, blinking point of light, hovering at chest-height. River’s face lit up with a grin as she spotted the black object sitting underneath it. “Yes! My wallet!” The chunky leather wallet was still latched, and she decided to keep it that way. She also decided to avoid any and all questions about the material it was made out of. River focused for a moment, tongue sticking out slightly, and, with a bit of wobbling, managed to shakily levitate it into the air. A dorky grin creased her face. “Heh-hey, I’m figuring this out! Oh, Apple Bloom, think we could borrow a backp—er, saddlebag to put this stuff in?”

“I’m on it!” The yellow filly darted up the porch and inside, and returned with surprising speed wearing a pair of apple-monogrammed saddlebags. Soon the phone and the wallet were tucked safely inside.

Feeling more optimistic than she had all morning, River turned back to the ball of light in the air. It continued to hang there while they all studied it. After a moment, the blue-maned unicorn circled it, looking up and over and around, but all that happened was that the white line they’d been following disappeared and left the light ball by itself. She sat back on her haunches, flummoxed. “But where’s the next clue?” she muttered, staring around in a circle. Nothing by grass, flowers, the side of the house, and – ew – dog droppings. “Anyone see anything?”

Sweetie Belle, Apple Bloom, and Scootaloo ran a quick search, but came up with nothing. Apple Bloom shrugged. “Maybe he ain’t put it out yet.” Suddenly a loud grumble made everypony stare at River Babble, who could feel her face growing hot. A sly grin bloomed on the filly's face. “Granny, d’ya mind if me an’ my friends get somethin’ to eat?”

“Thought ye’d never ask,” Granny Smith chuckled, pulling herself out of her chair. “Let’s see what we can rustle up!”  

River stepped into the Apple Family kitchen, eagerly taking in the down-home decorations, the clean wooden floors, the magically-powered refrigeration unit. This is cool! She respectfully stood back as the girls ran around the room, yelling over each other. Granny Smith sailed smoothly through the chaos, and within minutes had an admirable spread on the table. “Eat up, kiddos!”

“Thanks for this,” River said gratefully, moving to the table to join the girls. She held out a hoof to Granny (after frantically remembering whether or not ponies shook hooves in the show). “I’m, uh, River Babble. The girls are helping me with the…” She managed, with only a medium level of effort, to smile instead of grimace. “The ‘game’ Discord’s playing with some of my things.”

“Granny Smith, pleased ter meetcha!” The earth pony winked knowingly as she shook River’s black hoof. “That ol’ reprobate’s up to his hijinks again, eh? Don’t you worry, my granbaby an’ her friends’ll be the best help ye can ask fer. But first ya’ll better fuel up fer the hunt!”

None of them needed to be told twice. River had to resist the urge to shove her entire face into the apple pie in front of her.  Not that she wasn’t occupied while she ate; the human/unicorn kept wracking her brain for some way to interpret Discord’s next clue. Surely he would have left something for them to continue with! Unless he was just stalling to keep her away from Twilight. The thought soured her stomach, so River discarded it, determined to enjoy the fantastic farm food in front of her.

This was…really nice. She was eating food in a stranger’s home, after showing up out of nowhere with one of their kids. Granny hadn’t even scolded the girls for hanging out with a stranger. Almost everypony she ran into took her at her word and trusted her with hardly a second thought. She wasn’t so dumb as to believe everyone in this universe felt this trusting and welcoming – but man. What a nice bunch of people.

And I’m misleading them, she thought with a guilty wince. Sure, she never technically lied, but she’d been skating the line way more than she liked. Plus there was that whole thing with bailing on Twilight, an unacceptable act of rudeness. The sooner I get out of here, the better. I cannot hurt these people.

“Hey, Granny Smith?” Sweetie Belle wiped her mouth with a napkin and pushed aside her plate. “We saw something kind of weird a couple of hills back. You know all about the Everfree Forest, right?”

“Hmm, probably ‘bout as much as anypony ‘round these parts,” Granny conceded, sipping at a mug of coffee.

“Have you ever seen a monster that looks like a big, brown mushroom with teeth?”

A bushy white eyebrow rose on the elderly lady's head. “Mushroom monster, eh? Let me just dig through me old noggin here…” Granny stood and paced around her kitchen, humming and hawing to herself. “I can recall some little white mushroom critters, but they had more spikes than teeth—” Suddenly she paused, staring distantly out the window. Her eyes narrowed. “These mushroom monsters – are they brown with big eyes on the heads?”

Sweetie Belle and River both straightened with excitement. “Yes!” River said, leaning forward. “That sounds right!”

“No arms, little round feet?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Couple’a fangs juttin’ over the top lip, and bushy black eyebrows like my old Uncle Ernie?”

The two unicorns paused and glanced at each other in confusion. “Well, I’m not sure about the eyebrows…” River said slowly. “But the rest sounds right. Why? Have you heard of them?”

“Nope. I’m seein’ ‘em right now. We got an invasion comin’ in!” And with shocking speed for a pony her age, Granny Smith was at the front door, slamming a wooden bolt across the door that River hadn’t noticed on the way in. They all raced to the windows to look out.

Sure enough, five of the not-quite-pony-sized mushroom monsters were trundling quickly down the hill, heading straight for the farmhouse. The Crusaders gasped and started rapid-firing questions. “What are those?” “Whoa, you weren’t kidding about the mushroom look.” “Are they going to eat us?” “They’re kinda cute.” “Look at those fangs!” “They’re totally gonna eat us!” “Nah, Rainbow Dash’ll bring the Elements and they’ll totally bust these suckers!” Granny had somehow donned a military helmet and was peeking out the window with a sort of apple-launcher in her hooves. Apparently incursions from the Everfree were frequent enough to warrant preventative measures.

Meanwhile, River was experiencing an extremely powerful revisit of her earlier déjà vu. “Those things DO look like Goombas…” she muttered, her comment lost in the piping of the girls. As the weird mushroom creatures (they really did have HUGE eyebrows) wandered through the fence and began trying to eat Granny Smith’s flowerpots, a crazy thought occurred to her. She immediately shook her head like a wet dog. No, no, no, no, don’t get any dumb ideas! There is no way that would work!

“Maybe if we stay in here, they’ll go away,” she suggested, praying that that would in fact be the case. “They aren't acting very aggressive.” It was true: while they were intimidating to look at, the mushroom monsters seemed content to wander back and forth across the lawn in front of the farmhouse and occasionally gnaw on things.

Granny Smith pursed her lips. “Never seen the likes o’ these’uns afore, but mayhaps they’ll mosey along. But if’n Applejack or Big Mac come home, it could—hey! Don’t you go trompin’ through my petunias!” And the first apple launched through the air, bonking one of the creatures in the face.

This proved to be a mistake.

The Crusaders screamed with surprising harmony as one of the mushroom monsters ran up the stairs and bounced with considerable force off the door. What had just before been reasonably passive creatures now crowded the porch, looking for a way in and glaring through the windows. It was as if being made aware of the ponies sent them into a determined frenzy. Granted, it wasn’t the most intimidating attack – the creatures just bounced off of the door one after the other – and the fact that they were strangely silent made it even weirder. But it was still an attack, of a sort. Granny Smith ordered the girls to the back of the kitchen and started firing her apples at the creatures, which had little effect on them except for knocking a few briefly off the porch.

This was crazy! River walked the same two steps ten times, torn between wanting to distance herself from the weird monster attack and not wanting to be the kind of jerk who left a little old lady to do all the fighting. All I wanted was the stupid clue—

Another thought came to her. River’s eyes narrowed. No, he wouldn’t…would he?

Skidding over to a side window, River peered out at the flashing point of light. It hadn’t done anything yet. He knows about my dimension, so maybe… The more she thought about it, the more it made sense. This was the new challenge – and, since Discord hadn’t done anything REALLY dangerous yet, that probably meant this wouldn’t be that dangerous, either.

A grin creased her face. River turned and trotted towards the door, reaching for the latch.

“What’re ya doin’, ya young ninny?” Granny scolded, rapping her apple-launcher sharply against River’s hoof. “Ye want ‘em all coming in on us?”

“But I have an—” Oh. Wait. River rethought her course of action, and blushed. “Right, um…maybe I should go out the back way. I think I know how to beat these guys! Can you keep distracting them?”

Granny eyed her up and down. She had a keen, knowing gaze that belied her normally kooky behavior in the TV show. River had a flashback to a certain fanfiction she was writing, but tucked that thought away for later. Then Granny gave her a sharp nod. “Alrighty, git to it!” She whirled back to the window and continued firing apples at the Goomba-like creatures, hollering like a Cherokee warrior.

River skidded out the back, passing the confused fillies, and circled around to the front of the house. She peeked around the corner, and felt a flicker of doubt. There’s no way this can work… But the flashing point of light a few feet away and her annoyance at a certain somebody filled her with resolve. Taking a deep breath, and saying a quick prayer, River raced up the stairs, jumped onto the railing, and launched herself hooves-first, straight onto the head of one of the mushrooms.

The creature flattened strangely under her feet – and disappeared with a poof! River’s four hooves hit the wooden porch with a satisfying thunk.

Adrenaline spiked through her at her success, and River Babble whooped. The other Goombas were starting to turn towards her, but she quickly scrambled back onto the banister and jumped again, this time bouncing across three of the heads like they were trampolines. Each one poofed away behind her.

“YES! Take that, Discord!” River crowed, shaking a hoof at the sky. “You’re not throwing me with a little Super Mario!”

The creak of a door made her look around – just in time to see the last Goomba (which she had completely forgotten about, go figure) opening its mouth to bite her. River’s ears drooped, pupils dilating, and she briefly wondered what it would be like to be shrunk to half her size. But then an orange, white, and yellow blur planted six hooves on the Goomba’s head, crushing it out of existence and into the ground.

River blinked, then grinned down at the Cutie Mark Crusaders. “Whoa—thanks! You totally saved my bacon there.” Then she scowled. “But that was really dangerous! Why’d Granny even let you out here?”

Granny Smith poked her head out the window and scowled right back at River. “’Cause it were obvious they was easy to beat, and my ol’ legs ain’t good fer jumpin’ on things!”

“Ah…right,” River replied, embarrassed. “Thanks for the save, everybody. We totally nailed that!” She held out a hoof, which the girls reflexively hoof-bumped.

Sweetie Belle still looked confused, though, and she raised a hoof. “So what were those things?”

“And what’s bacon?” Scootaloo threw in.

That second question was neatly sidestepped with a nervous throat-clearing and attentive focus on the first, less awkward question. “Discord’s next puzzle, I think. He made those monsters appear, and the challenge was to figure out how to defeat them!” She thumped a hoof on the porch beneath her, where one of the Goombas had disappeared. “We probably weren’t in any real danger to begin with. Those things are easy to ki—er, beat.” He must have replicated the Goombas from the Mario game on my 3DS. I mean, unless Super Mario Bros. is a real universe, too… Now there was an uncomfortable thought. No, the way those things just flattened out of existence, that was totally video game physics. She had to give him a few points for creativity, though. This scavenger hunt was more fun than she’d expected!

“So you did know what they were?” Apple Bloom asked, tilted her head quizzically. “Ah thought ya said ya didn’t recognize ‘em.”

River cleared her throat again. Dangit, Discord, why do you have to make things even more complicated. “Well, I’ve never seen them, um…quite like that before. It has something to do with a game I play back home. Once I knew what they were, I knew how to beat them. And now!” She whirled, pointing dramatically towards the pulsing light at the corner of the house. “We should have Discord’s next clue!”

Everypony crowded around the point of light. And waited.

It kept flashing.

Scootaloo yawned. Sweetie Belle scratched her leg. A dog barked in the distance.

Still pulsing pleasantly.

River Babble scowled and reached out a hoof to try and tap the thing. “Come on, Discord, let’s get this show on the—”

As soon as her hoof made contact, the point of light expanded and latched onto it, causing her to give a startled screech. But a split-second later, it reshaped into a fresh piece of parchment in her hoof, fluttering lightly in the breeze. River put her other hoof to her chest and inhaled deeply a few times, wondering if this was what hyperventilating felt like. “Okay…so… Somebody with air in their lungs read this one.”

“My turn!” Scootaloo snagged the paper with a buzz of her wings and settled between her two best friends, pink eyes scanning the paper eagerly. “Okay, it says:

“Congratulations! You got to Round Two;

I'm sure the girls helped you know what to do.

But now no lines will show you the way;

You’ll have to decipher the words that I say.

What’s fresh and moldy, living and dead,

Keeping the flies and the monsters fed?

You’d better keep practicing magic, my friend,

Lest you discover a watery End.”

A watery end? River felt a shiver go up her spine. Was Discord’s game getting more dangerous? Something “living and dead” sounded suspiciously like zombies, so that didn’t make her feel better. And he had sicked a couple of possibly-video-game monsters on them, even if they were the least dangerous monsters in all of Mario land, and now that she thought about it, wasn’t it a little weird that he hadn’t said anything about what the Goombas had to do with this whole—

No, no, we have to focus! River stomped a hoof into the grass. “Okay, girls, I’m not always great with riddles, but they usually don’t mean what they sound like they mean. So, anybody got any ideas on what’s fresh and—”

“I got it!” Scootaloo announced. Everypony else turned to stare at her.

“Wait, you know what this is?” Apple Bloom asked, which saved River from having to do it and look even more clueless. “Somethin’ fresh an’ moldy an’ livin’ an’ dead?”

Scootaloo grinned sneakily. “Not only that, but I know where it is!”

“Well, then tell us already!” Sweetie Belle practically shrieked.

“Even better,” the orange filly sing-songed, and then raced back out onto the path, calling over her shoulder, “I’ll show you!”

The other two girls glanced at each other, shrugged, and took off like tiny colorful rockets. River stared after them for a moment, baffled. She threw Granny Smith an apologetic smile. “I hope you don’t mind if they keep tagging along. I promise I’ll try to keep them out of trouble.”

“Missy, you’ll need more luck keepin’ them from gettin’ you in trouble,” the old mare cackled. “Jus’ make sure she’s back by sundown, don’t want Applejack gettin’ all kerfuffled. My granbaby’s mighty protective of her little sister!”

“Duly noted.” River struck out a few steps, then paused as something occurred to her. Something related to her early quandary about how this universe could be real in one reality and fictional in hers. Something Discord had said…

“Say…” She sidled up to the porch, trying to look casual (which of course means she looked anything but.) “Um, just curious… You don’t know anything about a Prince, do you?”

Granny Smith eyed her, one wrinkly eye squinting up. “Eh? Don’t have many princes around here. Not that us mares’d mind, heh-heh!” She gave River a knowing wink.

“Right, right…” River tried not to show her relief as she dipped her head to Granny. “Nevermind, thanks! And thanks for the food!” As she sped off to catch the girls, the blue-maned unicorn smiled to herself. At least Discord was right – whatever was going on, it probably didn’t have to do with anything she’d written.

Her philosophical conundrum from earlier fluttered up again, and River frowned thoughtfully. Option 1 and Option 2 couldn’t be ruled out yet, but neither seemed to fit with what she'd experienced so far. Maybe if she kept observing this reality, she’d figure out which one made the most sense.

Or maybe there was an Option 3…

----

This was what he got for being disorganized. Discord shut one viewing window and opened another, grumbling under his breath at the inconsiderate nature of ponies who threw wrenches in his brilliant plans. The bratty human and her new posse of helpers (and really, where did she get off making friends with members of his club?) were well on their way by the time he realized that the first target had been inconveniently relocated. Now he was scrambling to rearrange the whole scavenger hunt around the missing 3DS.

“Note to self,” he muttered. A notepad appeared next to his head, letters scribbling across it as if drawn by an invisible pencil. “Make sure to track everything before leaving it out for anypony to wander off with when my back is turned!” He’d really need to track that thing down at some point. “Considering her attitude so far, Ms. Whiner will probably accuse me of breaking our deal and run straight to Twilight!” Discord swooned back against a sofa while the various portraits on the walls of his house sighed sympathetically at his plight. He was really reconsidering that promise to Fluttershy about not chucking people through random dimensions because they annoyed him.

Not that he had that option at the moment, but still.

It took only a few more minutes to open up enough viewing portals and make sure they stayed locked onto the important components of his game. Everything was where it needed to be now, with just enough chaos thrown in to make things interesting. “And of course, Chewie is right where I left it,” he said out loud, finally finding a reason to chuckle. River would never ¬think to look for it there.

Satisfied that the minor mishap had been dealt with, Discord returned his attention to River and the girls, just in time to see them go running down the path away from Sweet Apple Acres to follow his next clue. I doubt I missed anything that interesting. He snapped a finger, summoning a glass of ice tea, and sat back with a self-satisfied smirk to watch the show.

Yes, he had everything completely under control.