On the north side, just south of Sandpit Lake in the city of Memphis, sat an abandoned warehouse, turned secret hideout. Four conduits had made this shabby locale their home for a couple weeks now. Although, one of them was currently MIA, but that was why the hideout now housed another, temporary resident.

“I-I’m sorry! I can’t keep it open much longer!” This newest resident cried out.

Her name was Jessica, a mirror conduit, and she was doing her best to keep a mirror gate she had created open long enough to accomplish the group’s goal.

The oldest female in the group, Natie, gritted her teeth with anxiety, “Please, just a little longer! He’ll get through!”

A third conduit, a young asian man snorted in irritation, “The idiot got lost, I bet. I could have went in and dragged his stupid ass back by now.”

The final member of ‘The Four Aces’, Isabelle, was quietly praying off to the side, wishing for their friend to make it back unharmed. That prayer appeared to look like it was about to go unanswered as the shimmering mirror in front of them began to crack. Jessica dropped to one knee, her arms still outstretched and glowing with shards of mirror hovering about them in a desperate attempt to keep the gate open for just a little while longer.

Natie begged for the mirror conduit to hold out for just a moment longer, but Jessica’s strength was flagging. The mirror gate developed even more cracks that grew at an alarming rate. Had they not heard the echoing voice coming from its depths, the three other conduits would have jumped through themselves to see their friend home.

They watched as the mirror grew brighter and the cracks grew larger, all while the voice on the other side grew louder. Distorted as it was, they could faintly make out that the voice was familiar, but in a perpetual state of distressed screaming. Frozen into inaction as they watched and waited to see what would happen, the voice’s volume grew to a fever pitch just before the mirror bathed them all in an intensely bright flash of light. Blinded as they were, all they could hear was the sound of shattering glass and the owner of the screaming voice letting out a sharp exhale of air upon impacting the ground a couple of times.

As their vision returned, the four conduits surveyed the warehouse before all their eyes met a sight that brought relief to all of them.

“Ugh, going through that a second time did not make it any easier,” Sam shook his head as he shakily made his way up to stand.

“Sam!”

Sam winced at the shouts, still suffering from a headache after being flung through what felt like a laundromat dryer on the fastest setting. He didn’t get much time to recover as a pair of arms flung themselves around him. When his eyes finally readjusted, he was absolutely surprised to see one his fellow conduits, Isabelle, crying happily into his chest while hugging him into submission.

“Took you fucking long enough,” the ever familiar Lu and his constantly annoyed demeanor said.

Sam, too shocked to form words, just continued to check his surroundings. The hideout, Lu, Isabelle, Natie, and the other girl that looked familiar. He didn’t know if he should pinch himself just to make sure he wasn’t dreaming. He was back. Back in Memphis. Back on his world.

With that revelation finally settling in, Sam began to chuckle. Then, he began to laugh. He hugged Isabelle back and even lifted her into the air in joy at finally finding his way home.

“Oh my god, you guys!” Sam cried out happily, “I missed you all so much!”

“We’re glad to see you too, Sam,” Isabelle squeaked from inside Sam’s unexpected grip.

Everything was back to normal. Well, just about. Coming down from his giddiness, Sam set the fire conduit down and eyed the familiar looking girl from earlier. He just couldn’t shake the feeling that they had met somewhere before.

“Sam.”

The wire conduit’s attention was pulled away as their leader, Natie, called him. Her neutral expression gave nothing away as she proceeded to walk up to him. This made him nervous. It was always hard to tell what she was about to do to him with that expression. Standing a mere foot away from him, Natie looked her fellow conduit over from head to toe. Her left arm rose far too quickly for Sam to block, so he just closed his eyes. When he noticed that he was wasn’t being electrocuted, or smacked upside the head, but rather have a gentle, yet firm hand clasp him on the shoulder, he reopened his eyes.

Natie’s eyes were alight with tired relief, and she wore a smile not often seen by many while she spoke, “Thank you for coming back.”

He could have said something along the lines of ‘I’m glad to be back’, but Sam just wouldn’t be who he was if he left it at that.

He smirked deviously, and spoke, “Well, I think I used up all my vacation days back in that place anyways. Plus, I had to make sure Lu didn’t raid my stuff while I was gone.”

“Fuck you!”

“Back at you, buddy,” Sam called over his shoulder.

“So, don’t want to ruin the moment or anything, but~ who’s the new girl?” Sam was already seemingly getting back to his old ways.

The ‘new girl’, who had been taking a breather off to the side, looked away with a guilty expression on her face.

Natie answered first, “That’s Jessica. Remember, from the overpass rescue? She’s the mirror conduit we saved from the D.U.P. transport?”

Looking her over again, a jolt of recognition flashed across the wire conduit’s face, “Oooooh, now I remember! Wait, what’s she doing here again?”

Natie sighed in exasperation, letting go of Sam’s shoulder. She knew his dismissive behavior was just his way of riling people up.

“She’s the one who brought you back here,” Natie explained while motioning for the hesitant girl over, “Her mirrors open up gateways to different locations. Back on the overpass, you accidently fell through one. We’ve been helping her to gain better control of this ability to open up another mirror gate to bring you back from wherever you got sent.”

Sam understood. It made sense with everything he’s seen. The only thing was that Jessica still appeared to be avoiding his gaze while hugging herself with one arm. She was shaking a bit and appeared to be fighting to overcome a fear to speak up.

She eventually did, but her tone felt extremely apologetic along with her words, “I-I’m sorry I sent you away through my mirrors! I didn’t mean to do it! I tried my-my hardest to get it under control to bring you back as soon as possible! I p-promise that I will never use my p-powers again as long as I live.”

She looked like she was on the verge of breaking down by the end of her speil. Natie, unfortunately, was never good at these types of situations, which eventually left Sam to handle the situation himself.

Kneeling down in front of the teenage girl, Sam reached out his hand. Jessica was trying to hold back her sobs as she noticed this. Wiping her tears away with a sleeve, she curiously looked to the smiling wire conduit who was motioning for her to take his hand. As she did, Sam slipped his other hand over top of hers in a comforting manner.

“It’s okay,” Sam quietly said, “I don’t blame you in the slightest, but don’t ever say that you won’t use your powers just because you think you’ll hurt someone. That’s just what the D.U.P. wants from all of us. You said you trained to control your powers better, and look! I’m back, safe and sound. Keep at it, and you could find a way to put your powers to some really good use. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”

Jessica seemed a bit unsure at first. If it weren’t for her, Sam wouldn’t have been sent away to god-knows-where. Yet, his reassuring words were helping to calm her down, and see the brighter side to the situation. It felt nice to her. Enough so that she could finally look the wire conduit in the eye once more. She didn’t know how long it would take, but if what he said was true, Jessica thought that she could one day find a good use for her powers. Or, at the very least, fix her mistakes if she made them.

“Okay, enough of the feel-good bullshit,” Lu cut in, ruining the moment, “You mind telling us where the fuck you’ve been? Also, what the fuck are you wearing?”

Sam had noticed that he was still wearing his attire from Equestria. A bit torn up and dirty, but certainly not something he was usually seen wearing here on Earth. The others gave him curious looks as well.

“Oh, yeah,” Sam bounced back up to his feet, “Gotta tell ya. It is one crazy story, but I guess that’s what happens when you’re gone for over a month.”

Silence befell the group. It was Sam’s turn to give them all a curious look, as they were all looking at him like he had said that he’d grown a second head.

“...What?” Sam worriedly asked.

“Did you hit your head on the way back?” Lu bluntly countered, “It’s only been three days, you dumbass.”

“What?” Sam asked, even more confused.

The others were giving him the same looks of confusion. No one could think of a way to respond to this.

“Sam,” Natie finally broke the silence, “Where did you go?”

Sam opened his mouth to regale his fellow conduits with the tales of his adventure. However, the words never reached his voice. The more he thought about it, the more he, too, would find it hard to believe if he was on the other side. His friends patiently awaited his answer, but still, Sam remained silent. Looking down at himself, and the outfit that he had obviously not left in, the wire conduit shook his head with a chuckle.

“You guys wouldn’t believe me, even if I told you,” he finally spoke up with his usual, playful tone.

The others looked to among themselves, an unspoken conversation exchanged through looks.

Again, Natie responded first, “Try us.”

They didn’t believe him. Sam had half expected that, but the myriad of reactions he received were a bit more than anticipated. Perhaps it wasn’t the fact that he had said that he had be transported to an alien world. Or, that he had been there for almost two months time. It may have just been that his description of his new, alien friends were a bit much for them to handle.

Lu had reacted first. Well, more accurately, he started laughing in Sam’s face, calling him a horse-loving faggot and making the obvious ‘ride-the-pony’ joke. Isabelle was far more reserved, in that she couldn’t look Sam in the eye for the rest of the day. She at least had the decency to not call him crazy to his face, but Sam hadn’t missed the looks she had given him after his tale. When Sam looked to Natie in a last ditch hope that she might believe him, she just sighed and told him that he should get some rest, no doubt thinking that being away for so long and in an unknown location had stressed the poor wire conduit out.

It seemed that there was no way for Sam to convince his friends that he was telling the truth...unless. It hadn’t occurred to him that he indeed had proof of his fanciful ramblings other than his change in wardrobe. His knowledge in the magical arts were about to serve him well. Twilight would be proud.

Or, she would have been, were it not for some unforeseen circumstance. The dwindling reserves of thaumium wire Sam still wielded came to his call, but there was something off about them. The glow from the coppery-looking strands were gone. An eerie sense of emptiness exuded from the wire in Sam’s grasp, like the magic that they contained was dead and gone, and no matter what pattern Sam tried to weave out of them, none of the spell matrices he knew worked.

The others bid him a goodnight and to rest up in their own ways and went about doing their own things. Defeated, Sam bowed his head and headed off to his bed. Though before he did, Jessica stopped him with a tug on his sleeve.

“I-I think you’re telling the truth,” she whispered to him.

Upon Sam’s inquisitive look, Jessica conjured a shard of mirror to her hand.

Looking down and toying with the piece, she spoke once more, “In the mirror. The one we brought you back through. I saw something. It wasn’t really clear, and I only saw it for a second. I thought it was a dog or something, but dogs aren’t purple. Whatever it was, it definitely had four legs and some kind of cone over its head.”

Sam’s eyes widened in surprise. Then, a warm smile creased his face. Shaking his head with another chuckle, he patted the mirror conduit on the shoulder.

“Nah, it probably was a dog. Don’t know why it’d be purple though,” Sam said with a smirk, “You know, I probably did hit my head somewhere. The gang’s right. It’s been a hell of a three days. I need a nap.”

Natie swung by to tell Jessica that she was ready to take her to one of their contacts that can get the little mirror conduit out of the city. Sam turned around to get to his bed, though not before looking over his shoulder to see Jessica do the same as she and Natie were leaving. Sam gave her a wink along with his trademark smirk before turning back around and heading up into rafters of the warehouse he called home, and his personal area that he claimed as his own.

It was just like he had left it almost two mon- er, three days ago. Wire cables supported the wooden platform held between two cross beams. In the center was his bed. An old set of couch cushions with a meager set of blankets and pillows that he used to sleep with. A set of wire sculptures he made sat next to his bed, none of which were particularly noteworthy, but Sam just couldn’t find a reason to get rid of them either. His portable DVD player was still set up at the foot of his bed with his stack of DVDs. It seemed like Lu hadn’t raided them, not that he expected the concrete conduit to be interested in his tastes of terrible B-rate movies that made up half of his collection. It was just nice that the rockhead cared enough to not do it.

There were other bits and bobs that were scattered about, but Sam didn’t care. He collapsed onto his bed and inhaled deeply, taking in the scent of mustiness and ambient Memphis air. It was nice to be home. Though, his good mood dipped as memories of his time in Equestria came back to him.

He flipped over onto his back, one hand tucked behind his head and the other outstretched. He conjured the last of his useless thaumium wire to his hand and started fiddling with it. With his thoughts still on the magical world, the wire followed his will and began to take on the shape of a unicorn. The wire conduit smiled as the last two bits of wire at the top of its head swirled together to form the iconic horn that the creature was known for.

As the two ends touched to form the tip, Sam gasped and nearly dropped the sculpture on his face. For at the tip of the unicorn’s horn, the thaumium sparked to life and let off a faint glow of magical energy. Sam sat up and held the wire sculpture gingerly in his hands. The glow was faint and seemed to be dimming by the second until it fully went out once more. Sam watched happily with a smile as the light faded to nothing.

He set the sculpture next to his bed next to the few others that he kept stashed in his space, carefully placing it among its brothers where he would always see it. He stared down at it for a few more moments before moving to the foot of his bed and plucking his DVD player from its place. Selecting one of his favorites from his collection, he popped the DVD in and began to watch and laugh at the trashy CGI sharks that flew about the air amidst a severe weather phenomenon.

Author's Notes:

It all comes to a close eventually. An adventure is all about the journey, and let me tell you. I had fun writing this. I got frustrated, depressed, and out right bored, but whenever I found myself in the mood to write, I always came back to this. I'm glad I did, and stuck it out. Thank you all for reading and hope you enjoyed.