Arrival

A royal guard patrolled the darkened hallways of the crystal palace, his horn emitting a spotlight to search for potential intruders. As he walked by one room, a barely-noticable flash of light glowed from within. The guard turned, his light illuminating the door. When he saw nothing, he shook his head and moved on. A few seconds later, a figure wrapped in a black cloak slipped through, her hooves barely making a sound on the tile floor. The figure snuck past several doors, finally stopping at the one she was looking for. With a quick glow of her aquamarine magic, she unlocked it from the inside. The ominous figure stepped in, and a faint blade of light crossed over the eyes of the pony sleeping within.

Princess Twilight Sparkle was asleep, with her dragon Spike in a small bed nearby. The hooded pony walked past, heading for a desk with a crown on it. She picked it up, and accidentally knocked over a lamp, but she quickly levitated it back to its original position with barely more than a sound. Her horn was glowing faintly as she reached into her cloak and pulled out a crown that was almost identical to the original, and placed it on the desk. The heist was almost complete, and the mysterious pony was almost out the door when the dragon turned over in his sleep, and his purple tail tripped her.

She fell with a large crash, waking up Spike and the princess. Twilight rubbed her head groggily, and noticed the pony on the floor. Glittering from her cloak was Twilight’s crown, and the Magic element of harmony with it.

“My crown!” shrieked Twilight. “She’s got my crown!”

The mysterious figure began sprinting away, hooves clattering. Twilight and Spike sprang up, running after her and alerting her friends as she ran down the hallway shouting. Twilight urged her magic to grab the moving pony, but her sleepy mind could not grasp her. She teleported in front of the thief, shouting “Stop!”

Just as the strange orange unicorn was about to barrel into the alicorn princess, she teleported in a flash of blue light. Her cloak hit Twilight full in the face, blinding her for a second. Without the cloak, the thief was revealed to be an orange unicorn with a fiery red and yellow mane. On her flank was the symbol of a sun.

She must be an accomplished mage to teleport like that and get right back on her feet, Twilight thought. She sped up, her friends flanking her, and tried nipping at the bag containing her crown. She missed, and the thieving pony slowed for a second, and Twilight knocked her down, sending the crown flying. It ricocheted off the walls, and hit a mirror. To everyone’s surprise, it went right through in a flash of light! Twilight gasped, and the thief had a conniving grin on her face.

“What did you do to my crown?” Twilight gasped, glaring at the orange pony.

“Sorry it had to be this way,” the strange unicorn teleported right to the base of the mirror, and saluted. “Princess.” With that she leaped through the mirror, vanishing just as the crown did.

Princess Celestia gathered all six of them at the base of the throne. She sighed with the weight of a thousand years.

“Sunset Shimmer. She was a former student of mine. She studied magic under me not long before Twilight did. When she did not get what she wanted as quickly as she liked, she turned cruel and dishonest. I tried to help her, but she eventually decided to abandon her studies and pursue her own path, one that has sadly led her to stealing your crown.”

“What I don’t understand is where she went,” Twilight said, walking next to the sun princess. “Where’d she take the crown?”

“It’s a place even I know almost nothing about. You shall see for yourself soon.” Celestia had a grim, yet serious, expression on her face.

The four princesses and Twilight’s friends soon arrived in front of the strange mirror that Sunset had disappeared through, along with the crown. “This is no ordinary mirror,” explained Princess Luna. “It is a gateway to another world. A gateway that opens once every 30 moons. We sent it here for Princess Cadence to watch over.”

Celestia sighed with resignment. “I had always hoped that Sunset Shimmer would use it again, to return back to Equestria, seeking my guidance. Obviously, this is not what has happened.”

Cadence spoke up, her eyes filled with urgency. “Twilight, you must go through to this other world and retrieve your crown. Without it, the other elements lose power and Equestria is left with one of its most important means of defense.”

Twilight closed her eyes, thinking of all the times the elements had been utilised by her friends to save Equestria. She knew what she had to do.

“Your crown does not belong in that world,” Luna said. “I fear that Sunset will use its power to bring harm to the inhabitants of that other realm. They may not have the means to combat foreign magic.” She used her magic to put Twilight’s saddlebag snugly over her wings.

“You understand the importance of your mission?” Celestia looked upon her former student. Twilight nodded, swallowing her fear and excitement. “Good. Then you must go at once.” The purple alicorn looked at the mirror, steeling herself for the inevitable.

She was about to step in when a blue colourful cannonball landed before her. “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Rainbow Dash protested. “If she’s going, we’re going too!”

Twilight smiled at her friends, knowing she’d be able to deal with anything as long as it was with them. A hoof on her shoulder shattered her thoughts. “I’m afraid I can’t let you go,” said the stern voice of Princess Celestia. “Sending all of you could upset the delicate balance of the other world, causing havoc that could disrupt that world permanently,” she stepped back. “ This is something Princess Twilight must do alone.”

“Time is of the essence. The gate will close when the moon has reached its peak on the third day.” Luna created an illusion of this happening with her magic, an ominous night sky with a new moon reaching its peak. “Once it closes, you must wait another thirty moons to use it to return.”

Twilight stepped forward, her friends giving her encouragement. She placed her hoof against the portal, and hesitated when it began to glow. She looked back, and Celestia nodded. With trepidation, she stepped through, vanishing in a flash of light. Spike began to shudder violently, and sprinted forward before anyone could catch him. A resounding chorus of “Spike, no!” echoed through the room as the small purple dragon launched himself through the mirror.

Twilight and Spike were whirled through a spectrum of impossible colours. Twilight felt as though she were being stretched, cramped, and squished all at once. The next thing she saw was black.

She blinked open her eyes, feeling like her brain had been smashed in by a rock. “Ugh…” she groaned.

“Twilight?” said a voice from beside her. “Are you ok?”

She opened her eyes and saw Spike standing in front of her. At least, she thought it was Spike. He had the same colours, but his body was more streamlined and less chunky, and he looked almost like a miniature version of a full-grown dragon.

“Spike? What happened to you? Why are you all…” she gestured at him with a hoof. The purple and green dragon looked at himself, turning around in a circle.

“Twilight… why am I on all fours? Am I ok?” a note of panic entered his voice.

“Oh, Spike. It must be the different dimension,” Twilight stroked his spines soothingly. “You didn’t have to follow me. You could go back if you want.”

The little dragon steeled himself. “No, I’m staying here with you,” he looked up at the princess. “Twilight, did I just shrink, or are you way taller than usual?”

Twilight pulled herself shakingly to her hooves. “I guess the ground does look a bit further away than usual. Maybe we both changed,” she turned around in a circle, observing herself. Mane and tail a bit longer, wings a bit bigger, and… wait...

“Spike, where’s my cutie mark?” A panicked tone entered her voice. If she didn’t have her cutie mark, could she even cast spells?

“Uh, it’s on your forehead for some reason,” the little dragon climbed up to Twilight’s head, peering at the space between her eyes. “Your horn is way longer too, just saying.”

“This world seems strange, but at least we’re still the same species. Let’s see if we can find Princess Celestia. Maybe she’s around here somewhere.” The spires around the statue they came out of seemed to indicate they were in Canterlot. Spike nodded and settled on her shoulder, wrapping his serpentine body neatly around her neck. Twilight took to the air, soaring through the cityscape towards Celestia’s palace. Flying felt easier, somewhat, with her larger wings. The layout of Canterlot was somewhat alike, though there were some new buildings out and about. One of them that particularly caught her eye seemed to be a temple. She saw a procession of priests with long, draping robes enter. She’d have to find a library after this, to catch up on the history of this world and how it differed from her own. She spiraled down and landed in front of the palace and approached a guard.

“Excuse me, sir. I must meet with Princess Celestia. It’s important,” she announced, spreading her wings and lifting up her head.

The guard turned, and stared wide-eyed at her. “You-you’re an alicorn. That’s not possible.”

Twilight gave him a skeptical glance. “Of course it is. Do… you not have a Twilight Sparkle?” She had never thought to consider there may not be an alternate version of herself.

The guard didn’t answer, he appeared to be concentrating, his forehead ruffled and his eyes closed. With a sudden leap, he fit a black sheath over Twilight’s horn and stomped his hooves on the ground. The earth rose up from under her and encased her body, trapping her hooves and wings. Spike growled, and flames began to encircle his snout. Twilight shushed him with a quick sound, and he quieted. She then noticed something strange. This guard was an earth pony. And he had just trapped her with magic.

“How did you do that?” Twilight whispered in amazement. The pony turned to her, a confused expression on his face.

“It’s queen,” he said.

“What?”

“Queen Celestia.”

Author's Notes:

Still getting used to the online format. Welcome to feedback and editing help! And yes, the part before Twilight enters the portal is almost entirely referenced from the beginning scenes of the equestria girls movie.

Imprisonment

Twilight was escorted down to the dank and damp dungeon beneath Canterlot. She tried to ask more questions to those who escorted her, but they ignored her pleas. They shut her in with the sheath over her horn, straps over her wings, and shackles around her hooves. Spike was muzzled and chained to the ground. He gave a little puff of sadness as he curled around Twilight’s hooves, his eyes drooping.

“How could this have happened, Spike?” Twilight mused, her voiced tinted with desperation. “Our Celestia would never have treated a mysterious extradimensional visitor like this.”

“This isn’t our Celestia. Who knows how different this world is?” the little dragon responded.

Twilight sighed, lowering her head. "I don't know, Spike. I don't know." Despite the bleakness of their current situation, the inquisitive purple pony couldn't help but inspect everything around her. The chains linking her legs together seemed to be made out of more than simple iron, and they had the same strange prickly feeling that the ring around her horn did. Her bindings were not the only strange thing. Her own body, as she had previously noticed, was taller than before, but her hooves were now cloven, like that of a deer or a goat. Little tufts of feathers stuck out from the back. She swished her tail in front of her, and now saw that it looked more like a lion's than a pony's, excluding the dorsal feathers like that of a bird's protruding from her behind.

She was still taking in these new additions to her body when she heard hoofbeats coming down the stairs. Her ears perked, and she rose, her chains clinking. From the stairs came pearly-white legs tipped with golden shoes with the emblem of a sun on them. Cascades of mane shimmering in pale colours gracefully flowed with no wind down the tall visage of Celestia. Around her neck was a collar, intricately designed with solar symbology. Utop her head was a crown that perfectly exemplified majesty and glory, with the sun as a backdrop to her long horn. On her forehead, at the base of the horn, was a sun symbol that looked just like her cutie mark. Her flank was blank.

“Princess- I mean, queen Celestia!” Twilight cried. “I knew you’d come for me!”

“Silence.” The alicorn’s voice had such an air of authority that Twilight immediately shut up. “You shall not speak until I command you.” Spike and Twilight exchanged a glance. Celestia turned to her guards. "You may leave us now." The other ponies bowed deeply, and left the room.

"Now, tell me. How did you get your wings? Did Cadence give them to you?" the queen's eyes bored into Twilight.

"What? No! Listen to me, I-" Twilight tried to speak, but was cut off by Celestia's commandeering voice.

"Could it have been... her? Even as her shadeself? Worldspinner protect us..." the alicorn muttered, almost to herself.

"Shadeself? Worldspinner? Who's that?" Twilight raised her eyebrow in confusion.

This caused Celestia to stop. "... You've never heard of the Worldspinner? Have you been living under the ocean for all your life?" The imposing queen almost smiled.

"I've been trying to tell you! You may not believe me, but I'm from a different dimension. I followed someone who stole something very valuable from me, and I'm here to get it back. I don't know why you're queen, who a worldspinner is, or whatever a shadeself may be, and believe me, I am desperately curious to know what they are, but right now I am on a mission to save my own world and possibly this one and would appreciate it if I wasn't chained to the floor right now!" Twilight was breathing heavily from her rant, but she collected herself. "Your Majesty."

"You came through the portal? I suppose it is open for now..." The queen was hardly fazed by Twilight's outburst. "You must tell me everything! My brief excursion into your world was so long ago... Before everything had fallen apart."

"Deal! But first, please let me out of prison."

Author's Notes:

Yeah this one's kinda short, but soon everything will start to pick up!

Parallels

"So, in your world, you all have these 'cutie mark' things? For your special talent?" Queen Celestia and Twilight Sparkle were walking through the halls of Canterlot palace, with Spike riding on Twilight's shoulder.

"Yeah. They're on your flank, and you usually get them when you're around 10 or 12 years old. What do you have instead?" Twilight asked.

"The closest parallel I can think of is our sigils. But... you say everyone gets the marks? Automatically?"

"Well, how else would it happen?"

Celestia sighed. "You really don't have the Worldspinner, it seems."

"Who is the Worldspinner? Is it some sort of creation story?" Twilight asked.

"Of a sort. She is more of a presence, guiding us and our fate, giving us our magic and our purposes. If you truly wish to know more about her, I could take you to one of the temples." Celestia stopped in front of a large mahogany door. "Here is the Canterlot archives. It will tell you all you wish to know of our world." She used her magic to open the doors, and within a thousand books and scrolls seemed to sparkle with unfound knowledge. Celestia started to speak again, but it seemed muffled in Twilight's ears. All that mattered was the knowledge that existed in that room. A whole parallel universe! Who knew what was different? She would have to take notes, make charts, diagrams...

"...Twilight? Hello? Earth to Twilight Sparkle!" Spike was waving one of his claws in front of her eyes.

"Oh! I'm sorry, Spike, it's just... this is so amazing! I can't wait to get started!" Twilight sounded like a little filly again, bouncing on the tips of her hooves.

"We're on a time limit here, Twilight. Remember? The portal is only open for three days!" The little dragon climbed down, sinking onto his haunches. "We need to find Sunset Shimmer and get the crown back!"

"Sunset... Shimmer?" Celestia tilted her head. "She's back?"

"Back? But she was our Celestia's former protege!" Spike exclaimed. He narrowed his eyes. "Have you been teaching her while she was in your dimension?"

"Your Sunset jumped dimensions too?" The queen seemed genuinely surprised. "Our worlds parallel each other in more ways than one, it appears." Her voice suddenly took a darker turn. "If your Sunset has the magical prowess of mine, we need to find her and stop her immediately. She had raw power like few I had ever seen. The only unicorn who could match her was..." she turned to Twilight. "...you."

Twilight was taken aback. "Me? You taught the alternate version of me?" For the first time she thought of her friends and what they were like in this place. "Is she an alicorn too? No... she can't be. When you interrogated me you didn't expect me to be."

Celestia sighed. "No. I feared her becoming one, so I sent her far away from me. It was hard, but I knew that it was for the good of Equestria."

"You feared me becoming an alicorn? But... you - my version of you - groomed me for this. Did Cadence and Luna think I shouldn't have been one either?"

A jolt seemed to go through Celestia's body. "...How do you know about Luna?"

"What do you mean? Isn't she around here somewhere?" A suspicion started to grow inside of Twilight, but she pushed it down, refusing to believe it.

"I don't know what happened in your world, but that is not what happened here." Celestia's voice was steely and hard.

"...how did you defeat her?" Twilight whispered, fearing the answer.

"She is imprisoned deep under Canterlot, in a prison magically fortified with the best defences our mages could conjure. Please, do not speak any more of it." Celestia turned away, letting a lock of flowing hair cover her face. "I will get someone who will assist you in your search for Sunset Shimmer. In the meanwhile, please search the archives to understand this world." The queen turned and walked off.

Twilight sighed, and turned to enter the library, sadness in her eyes. Spike put a claw on her side in silent comfort.

Books, scrolls, and papers covered the large desk that Twilight was sitting at. Her levitation magic was working overtime as she scribbled notes on multiple pieces of parchment. She had several books on front of her, peering from one to the other. Her mane was frazzled, sticking up in different directions. Spike was slinking through the bookcases, until he found a particular tome. He grabbed it and waddled over to Twilight. "How about this one? It's supposedly an ancient study on the... Well, I don't know what it says, but it says something about Starswirl. D'ya think it'll help?"

"Add it to the pile, Spike," Twilight barely even looked up. "I'll get to it eventually."

"Celestia's been gone a long time now. When do you think she'll be back?" Spike sat on the table, and curled his tail around his claws.

"...Do we want her to come back?" Twilight said tentatively.

"Why wouldn't we want that? We need her if we're gonna find Sunset," Spike pointed out.

"Spike, she's hiding something. I think she's... afraid of me. What did the other me do to make her act like this?" Twilight sighed. "I've been reading on differences in our histories. Equestria is really suffering without my friends and me." She turned to her notes, levitating some pieces of paper. "Nightmare Moon was brought down by Celestia harnessing her shadeself with the assistance of a group of mages who reharnessed her after Nightmare Moon was imprisoned. Isn't that brutal? Look how sad it made Celestia."

"Twilight, what's a shadeself?" Spike asked.

"Oh, right," she levitated another sheet. "Basically, every powerful magic user has a sort of... corrupted version of themselves. It's more powerful, but also has skewed morals and the host pony has no control. The more powerful the magic user, the more unhinged their shadeself is. Nightmare Moon is Luna's shadeself, and she's been trapped in her for over a thousand years now. According to this account, Celestia's shadeself is some terrifying mare named Daybreaker, who was extremely hard to bring down after Nightmare Moon was restrained. It seems likely that the longer one exists as their shadeself, the harder it is to change back."

"Hm. Interesting," Spike remarked. "Hey, I wonder what your shadeself looks like, Twilight."

She shuddered. "Let's hope we never find out." She pulled out a different page of notes. "Moving on, next up is Discord. Apparently he was banished to a different dimension by an artifact of by Starswirl the Bearded. I hope we don't have to travel to that dimension and fix all the chaos he's caused there. Chrysalis' defeat wasn't too different apparently, except for the fact that Cadence became an alicorn during it. When the Crystal Empire came back, get this, it says 'Twilight Sparkle, Princess Cadence's protege, and her dragon, assisted the new alicorn in defeating King Sombra.' I'm apparently Cadence's student in this world! I wonder why I wasn't sent to Ponyville."

"So you're saying Spike the Brave and Glorious still exists in this world?" Spike smoothed back his spines and peered at his claws vainly.

Twilight giggled. "Yes, I'm sure you're still a hero to the Crystal Empire." She was about to go back to her notes, when there was a knock at the door.

"Yes? Come in!" Twilight called out.

The door creaked open, and Celestia's tall visage nearly blocked out the short blue pony near her hooves. When Twilight saw who it was, she gasped.

"Rainbow Dash?"

Author's Notes:

If anyone wants me to post a big lore thing for this universe, let me know and I'll do it! I have a lot planned for this 'verse.