Chapter mildly updated 6/20/2020.

Twilight squinted her eyes as the morning sun reflected off of the lake’s clear blue water. The young mare stared past the completed stone bridge and carefully watched the three-faced portal for any danger. Nothing has come out of the swirling and glowing energies of the portal as of yet, and Twilight felt relieved yet also apprehensive. It’s not that she expected an invasion force, from what she gathered that didn’t seem like the mad god’s style, at least with her brief contact with him anyway, but that she still expected something to happen. Even a blubbering and stammering mad pony to come stumbling out backside first.

A breeze rolled by and rustled the treeline behind the young magical purple pony prodigy as she glared at the portal as if it would spill its secrets because of her disapproving gaze. Still, nothing happened and the mare briefly wondered why Princess Luna even bothered to ask her earlier to study the portal in the first place.

Twilight gave a long, drawn-out sigh and stopped her glaring, instead, she levitated a quill and parchment out of her saddlebag to take a few mundane and quick notes to note that nothing has happened during the day. Nothing, physical or magical, has changed about the portal or the island it stood on since the bridge was completed last night, even her magical spells detected nothing out of the ordinary. A question to the guard posted at the bridge’s entrance revealed nothing new or unusual was seen or heard. So, for all intents and purposes, Twilight was stumped.

“Seems like the portal really is just an invitation,” she muttered under her breath as she started up another remote scanning spell, Twilight didn’t trust the mad god at his word alone but he might have been forthcoming so far. As the rather basic spell did its work, she jotted down a few more notes and mumbled to no one in particular, “Perhaps I might need a closer look so I can use some more powerful spells. Should get some alchemy ingredients from the library and make some potions as well...”

Potion making was not an area that Twilight felt that she was an expert in, that was given to Zecora, but she felt like she might have a book or ten that had a potion recipe to amplify spells for this kind of situation. Twilight was at least an adept in alchemy, so the potions should be good enough for her needs. If she really needed a strong potion then she could just ask Zecora to make one, her zebra friend can easily claim to be a master in the craft. At the very least, Twilight could whip up a few stamina potions to help keep her awake during the long and boring hours of studying the portal. Just thinking of chugging stamina potions reminded Twilight about her late-night studying sessions she frequently did while under Celestia’s tutelage.

Not exactly the healthiest lifestyle… but less wasted time sleeping and more reading was worth it to a younger Twilight, even if she did pee green the entire time. She continued that up until her mother found out and nearly grounded her for the next ten years of her life, just barely dodged by the fact that her dad managed to calm her down. She still had a month of being grounded, couldn’t avoid that...

The purple unicorn’s ears flicked up as the clopping of hooves and cheers signaled the presence of a crowd of ponies coming towards the bridge. Twilight paused in her note-taking to turn around and stare at the crowd in curiosity, a large number of ponies were gathered behind a smaller group of two as they made their way to the bridge down the dirt path. The biggest of the two was a very heavily armored earth pony stallion, his spear resting in a strap on his side as he confidently strutted down the first road. He seemed to regard the whole situation with a mild and disinterested sort of air as he continued his journey with his companion. The second member of their group was a lightly armored pegasus, he seemed to be enjoying the attention of the crowd the most as he did aerial tricks and pretended to thrust at imaginary opponents with a significantly lighter spear than his earth pony companion.

The cheering crowd stopped a good few meters from the bridge, giving Twilight and the other two enough space. The guard stopped the two ponies as he briefly looked at the crowd questioningly, when no one else joined the group he shook his head and ignored them before holding up a hoof, “Hold, please.”

“Are you here to stop us from entering?” the large earth pony asked.

The guard shook his head, “No, I am simply here to deliver you a warning before you proceed.”

The pegasus and the earth pony looked at each other in confusion, they shrugged at each other and the larger of the two repeated back to the guard, “A warning?”

He nodded, “Yes, by the order of Princess Luna I am here to relay this message from her to anypony wishing to pass through the portal.” He paused, waiting for any questions. When none came he simply cleared his throat and repeated the warning, “Caution to those that choose to enter this realm of madness, for they do not understand the horrors that await within. Take heed to know that by entering this portal you may doom yourself to eternal madness by the mad god's own fickle whims. Should you come out of the portal, then you will be subjected to questioning and magical scans in case the mad god has afflicted your mind. Any injuries or loss of either valuables or lives is of your own doing and the Equestrian government will not be held responsible.”

Before one of the two could say anything Twilight heard a few indignant shouts of complaints coming from the rear of the crowd.

“Move aside, you insufferable simpletons! Do not block the way of Trixie, she is meeting her group!”

Twilight frowned, that name rang a small bell in her head. The front line of the crowd parted as the apparent third member of the group finally forced herself to the front, nearly stumbling in the process. The new pony was slimmer in build compared to the other two, clearly not a front line fighter. She, and Twilight could tell the pony was a she, wore a simple-looking cloak. An enchanted magical cloak, if Twilight’s highly refined magical senses were correct yet the specifics of the enchantments were unknown and needed a closer study to figure them out. Her face was down and her hood was up but her light blue horn and some of her hair still peeked out through the hood’s opening.

Finally, the new mare caught her balance and with a raise of her head she managed to regain some dignity, Twilight finally got a good look at her face and her memory managed to catch up with her.

“Trixie?!” Twilight nearly shrieked, take a single step back in surprise. Of all the ponies in Equestria, Twilight did not expect to meet the boastful and completely full of herself mare ever again.

At the sound of her voice, the mare whipped her head around to look at Twilight so fast she could’ve snapped her neck with the force. As the two ponies locked eyes, Trixie’s eyes narrowed and she sneered back at the purple mare in front of her, “Twilight Sparkle. How horrible it is to see you again. While she would normally enjoy beating you into the ground with the newly mastered skills she gained, Trixie doesn’t have the time to deal with the likes of you right now. She has much more important matters to attend to, so if you don’t mind can you just go away and not bother Trixie?” The blue mare waved her hoof at Twilight in a shooing gesture.

With that said and a small burst of telekinesis to fix her saddlebags Trixie flipped her hair at Twilight in dismissal and trotted over to her companions, not giving Twilight the chance to speak back. The guard repeated what he told the other two to the mare, she simply looked like she wished for him to be done and didn’t seem to give the warning any thought. With his job done and his warnings delivered, the guard moved aside and let the three through.

Trixie stopped in place once a few meters across the bridge to turn around to coldly glare at Twilight, the purple mare could not help but shiver at the sheer amount of hatred pouring from her eyes, “Trixie will say this once, Twilight, so you best prepare yourself and your little friends. When Trixie finishes with this, she will have her revenge for her humiliation. Mark Trixie’s words, Trixie will destroy everything you hold dear.”

With that said Trixie turned around and with a quick trot she caught up with her traveling companions.

“Wait!” Twilight shouted as she ran forward and skidded to a stop at the bridge’s entrance, “What do you mean?! What are you planning?!”

Trixie just ignored Twilight as she and her companions finally reached the other side of the bridge. Twilight could only watch as the group of three talked amongst themselves, Trixie seemed to grow impatient and was the first to cross the portal. The other two looked at each other, shrugged, and stepped through the portal as well.

“And that’s basically what happened,” Twilight stated as she finished telling her friends about her recent encounter with the show pony. She used her magic to put away the last few reference books she used to study the portal back into the library shelves.

Her friends looked at each other in worry over what transpired, none of them had a good feeling about what Trixie said. There was an uncomfortable silence between the mares, only broken when Rainbow decided she had enough.

“I always knew she was trouble! What’d you say we just go through that portal and kick her butt from there to Canterlot? That’ll teach her not to mess with us!” Rainbow flew higher in the air as she smacked her front hooves together, “Nopony threatens my friends and gets away with it!”

A blue glow surrounded her tail and she was yanked back down to a more reasonable level. Rarity slowly walked over to Twilight, looking concerned, “While I don’t necessarily support Rainbow’s more… brutish suggestion, I must agree that we shouldn’t just stand around and simply wait for that mare to do whatever she wants. Especially since it sounds like it would be so… evil.”

“Ah agree with them Twi, that no good boasting filly will only cause more problems than fruit bats in an apple orchard,” Applejack inserted her own two bits into the conversation.

“I know we should do something girls, I don’t like the thought of just leaving her to do whatever she wants any more than you, but we can’t just walk through that portal all without some kind of plan. Who knows what kinds of danger lurks in there?”

Rainbow landed back on the ground, “Pfft, come on Twilight. If Trixie of all ponies is confident enough to survive in there then we’d have no problem. You’re already stronger than she is and we’re the elements of harmony! There’s nothing we can’t beat!”

“Well…” Twilight drifted off looking to the side, still not convinced.

“If it makes you feel any better dear, we’ll support you no matter what you decide. As your friends it is the least we can do to help,” Rarity said with a smile as she put a dainty white hoof over Twilight’s withers in comfort.

Suddenly Pinkie, sporting a wide and toothy grin, inserted herself between the two mares and dragged them into a tight three-way hug. “Plus if we stop her big, meanie plans I can totally plan the bestest, most awesomest ‘We Stopped Your Big Evil Plans!’ party!” she exclaimed with her usual excitable good cheer.

Twilight pushed against the deceptively strong pink mare and squeezed herself out of Pinkie’s grasp, “Well… I suppose if you put it like that then we really have no choice.” She began pulling out seemingly random books from the shelves, “I doubt we’ll be able to bring the elements with us, the Princess’s wouldn’t want to risk them getting lost in Oblivion. Plus they probably won’t work outside of our realm without being connected to this plane.”

“Then… we’re going to go kick butt?” Rainbow pushed, trying to not sound too hopeful and eager to rush through to a new adventure.

Twilight rolled her eyes at Rainbow’s antics and sighed, “Yes, Rainbow, we’re going to go kick butt.”

The colorful mare disregarded her original plan to try and be sneaky and instead hoof pumped in celebration, “Yes! I’ll go pack right now! This’ll be just like a Daring Do book!”

“You girls should pack some supplies too, we don’t know how long we’ll be on the other side of the portal. We don’t even know if time works the same as it does here, but it’s highly unlikely it won’t,” Twilight advised. “I’ll do some last-minute research and send a letter to the Princess to let them know where we’ll be going before we head out.”

The other mares agreed and rushed out of the door to prepare for their journey into the realm of the mad god.