Chapter 1:
Rick didn't actually know what any of the multitude of flashing lights and alarms on the control console of the deep space exploration vessel "Mary Sue" were trying to tell him, but he assumed that the inconceivably massive purple-ish lightning storm thing that they were currently on a collision course with was probably what all the fuss was about. It was unfortunate that the captain, and indeed the entire crew apart from Rick, had inexplicably vanished a few minutes earlier. As it was, the only person on board lacked the years of intensive training required to operate the cup holder, let alone steer the ship currently travelling orders of magnitude faster than the speed of light. But as the lightning storm filled the viewscreen, Rick decided to give it a go anyway. How hard could it really be? So he twisted dials and pulled levers and carefully avoided one weird squidgy thing that he guessed was the remains of the captain's breakfast. Nothing seemed to work, and Rick soon realised that the controls were so unbelievably complicated that his odds of working out how make the ship take evasive action were frankly microscopic. As Rick's eyes scanned the room, hoping maybe someone had left an instruction manual nearby, all at once the storm engulfed the ship and the console crackled and fizzed with electricity. Sparks flew from the controls, the flashing lights exploded one by one, the weird squidgy thing caught fire, and before Rick even had time to notice the bright, pure light that was beginning to fill the viewscreen, everything went fuzzy, then swirly, then upside-down, then black.
"...but the fate of Equestria does not rest on me making friends" Twilight Sparkle stated matter-of-factly as the royal chariot touched down near the centre of Ponyville. She was determined to complete her appointed task as quickly as possible so that she could get to the library where she was apparently going to be staying for the duration of The Summer Sun Celebration and find some proof that Nightmare Moon was returning. Even if Princess Celestia wasn't going to take her concerns seriously, she knew that if she didn't do something then all of Equestria might pay the price. Twilight politely thanked the royal guards that had escorted her and Spike to their destination and as she was about to go on her way, one of her ears twitched, detecting some distant noise. "What was that?" she wondered aloud, to nopony in particular. Twilight listened more carefully. The sound seemed to be coming from the sky, so she looked up and, as soon as she did so, a huge chunk of... something landed right in front of her. Twilight barely had a chance to react before the noise suddenly grew so loud that it could probably be heard all over Ponyville. Practically the whole population gazed in disbelief as debris of varying size rained down from the clouds and something they lacked the words to describe careened across the sky and crash-landed on the outskirts of town. While everypony else was busy being awestruck, Twilight rushed off to where she saw the thing land.
Gradually, Rick started to regain consciousness. He was still alive, apparently. Once that important detail was established, he surveyed his surroundings to see how the situation had developed. Still not being fully awake, it took him a few seconds to realise that the ship was A: Completely non-functional, and B: No longer in one piece. The fuselage had a great big hole in it. Given the fact that he hadn't immediately been sucked out into the vacuum of space, and the fact that the cabin seemed to be filled with warm sunlight, Rick decided that it was probably safe to assume that he was no longer in space, and had landed on a planet with a breathable atmosphere that was just the right distance from it's sun. "Well, that's convenient" he muttered to himself. Eager to see his first alien world, he approached the hole and, momentarily blinded by the sunlight, he very carefully climbed out of the ship. However, once he was able to properly discern his surroundings, he was more than a bit surprised to see, standing in front of him, a small, purple unicorn. One he couldn't help but recognise instantly. It was Twilight Sparkle. He looked around and saw Ponyville. He was in Equestria. Of all the things he could have possibly seen after leaving the ship, a fictional world was just about the last thing he could have anticipated. He felt like maybe he should say something, find just the right vocalisation to express all the conflicting excitement, confusion, joy, disbelief, fascination and panic he was feeling. After a few moments of deep thought, he managed a rather flat "Huh". That more or less summed it up. Then he passed out again.