Let's get this out of the way: None of the science presented in this fanfiction should be acknowledged as factual. All science relating to this topic is theoretical or fictitious. Don't complain. Also, for the sole purpose of making the strain on my mind slightly easier to bear whilst writing this, Trixie will not be speaking in the third person. Once again, if you have a problem with it, too bad. I do accept constructive criticism, but flat out hatred will not be tolerated.
My OC, Ethereal Catalyst, is not canonical and your hatred for her has literally no bearing on my life whatsoever. It's my fanfiction, so I'll enforce my own rules. You can go buck yourself if you really hate me for writing it.
Also, copyright law is constantly out to get people who make this kind of stuff, so My Little Pony is property of Hasbro.
Trixie's day in the field
"Trixie," Ethereal Catalyst said as she picked up yet another group of broken quills, "you know my rules regarding messes". Ethereal knew that her excitable apprentice was, at times, a bit messy, but she also knew that Trixie loved to learn. Her eagerness for education could only be matched by her aversion to cleanliness. While Ethereal despised the constant messes Trixie left in her wake, she still loved her apprentice.
Her student looked up from her dense physics textbook and, sighing, replied, "But Trixie is far too busy learning the material you gave her." Trixie had a habit of placing the blame on other ponies. In this particular instance, the blame had been placed on her loving and tolerant teacher. It was definitely annoying, but Ethereal had learned to love it from the thing about her student's response, however, set her on edge.
"Yes, I suppose I did." She responded, noting her student's adorably sad face, and quickly added, "but that is no excuse to use the third person. You know how I feel about that." At this last comment, Trixie let out a long, dragged out sigh and said, "I am very sorry, Ethereal. I will try not to do this in the future", emphasizing each "I" excruciatingly.
"Thank you Trixie." Her teacher's response was sweet, but there was a slight bite to it. "Now, let us begin.'
"But I would far prefer to skip today's lesson," the blue unicorn said, raising her voice. Ethereal sighed. Complaining was by no means something new from Trixie, but it still tried the alicorn's patience.
"Well then, Trixie, I would suggest you complete your lesson in a timely manner, because you are by no means leaving until you do so," the Alicorn replied in a neutral tone. Neutrality was a specialty of Ethereal, something she had been conditioned into from birth.
The unicorn sighed, lowered herself to the floor, and began levitating the usual textbook towards her. Suddenly, a brush of magic intercepted the book and it landed, defeated, on the floor. Trixie looked up, a quizzical expression in her eyes.
"What we're doing today will not require a textbook. Rather, it will require an open mind." Ethereal's horn began to glow, the essence in her body slowly charging up. After a few seconds, the essence's glow diminished until it disappeared entirely. Ethereal noticed her student's questioning glance and quickly explained. "That was a magical ward. You will know why I placed one soon enough."
Ethereal Catalyst backed away from the ward and looked down at the ground. She had absolutely no clue how her student would respond to the lesson, but she had a feeling that the reaction would be a bit adverse. She channeled a small amount of her energy pool into the central point of the warded area and collapsed it inwards upon itself. The explosive force that blew outwards from the point was incredible, but the wards didn't budge even minutely. The sound wave's force was decreased by the wards, but Ethereal intentionally allowed some sound to pass through.
Trixie's reaction was almost as spectacular as the explosion itself. As soon as the energy collapsed inwards, Trixie's ears flew downwards in fear. She instinctively launched the entirety of her energy pool towards protecting her from what seemed to be an immense danger, placing up a powerful ward around herself. During this process, the unbalanced energy flying from her horn began to decay in formation, and Ethereal laughed as she watched her student's ward fall apart, shocking Trixie in the process.
When her student's tremendous display finally ended, Ethereal found herself looking down at a frazzled and worn out Trixie. Chuckling, she quickly helped Trixie to her hooves. Where some clever insult or statement about independence would usually be uttered, Trixie was uncharacteristically silent. Finally, after a few minutes of calming down, she uttered her first words since the explosion.
"WHAT THE BUCK WAS THAT?!"
Although the explosion was rather deafening, Trixie's cry for answers would have destroyed most regular creature's eardrums as well. Ethereal's response was comparatively quiet. "That was a singularity," she said, walking over to her distraught student, "and I just forced it to collapse".
"Why would you do that," Trixie asked, her voice still heavy with primal fear, "And why didn't you warn me?"
"I did that," her teacher responded, "Because it is integral to today's lesson. As for not telling you, I knew that your reaction would be funny." At this last comment, a joking smile crept onto her face.
Her student's reaction was a mixture of humor and shock, but she quickly let out a hearty chuckle and stood up. "Well, as long as this lesson proves to be amazing," Trixie said to her mentor, "You'll be forgiven."
Walking over to the singularity, Trixie was surprised by the amount of energy it emitted. It was easily enough to do some serious damage if left unchecked. "What exactly is this, again," she asked, motioning toward the small, floating point of light.
"That," her teacher answered, "Is a singularity. It's a point in space where immense pressure has forced a large quantity of matter into a single place." Ethereal then motioned toward the wards and said, "These are a specialized type of ward which allow me to stop the flow of time within them. If these wards had failed, the singularity would have collapsed into a black hole, a massive vortex that has so much gravity that it attracts everything, even light. If this had occurred, we would have both been atomized."
Trixie stared in astonishment at the little ball of light floating in front of her. It was unnerving to know that, even at its infinitesimal size, it possessed enough power to completely destroy her. Looking up at Ethereal, she asked, "How are you controlling that much energy so easily?"
Ethereal, smiling to herself, answered her curious student. "I'm the alicorn of balance for a reason, Trixie. I have an incredible affinity for stabilizing and balancing magic. These powers are magnified incredibly when they are applied for dimensional purposes."
Trixie looked away from the singularity, a look of absolute curiosity in her eyes, and asked her teacher, "Dimensional purposes? What are dimensions?"
Unbeknownst to Trixie, Ethereal was slowly manipulating the singularity. The energetic ball began to pulsate, first slowly but gradually increasing in speed. Before Trixie could repeat her question, the singularity began to expand until it was roughly a meter in diameter. After this, it immediately ceased to glow with light and instead became absolutely black.
"Dimensions are not in this universe. Rather, this universe is located within a dimension," Ethereal began. "There are an infinite amount of dimensions. In each of these dimensions lies a universe. These universes may be much like our own, but sometimes they are completely different." Her teacher closed her eyes and began to glow. Suddenly, Trixie felt a tingling sensation as she was lifted away from the floor.
"What's happening," she asked, the fear in her voice betraying her true feelings. She tried to be brave, but new encounters scared her. Her teacher responded calmly, almost frighteningly so.
"I am preparing you to transcend space and time." The entire room was warming up, but Trixie couldn't feel anything. Suddenly, she began to go slowly to the ground. The room reached its regular temperature again and Trixie hit the ground. Nothing felt different outwardly, but something inside of her felt… odd. It was tough for her to explain, but she knew that something had changed within her. It felt as if her entire being had shifted somehow.
"What just happened," Trixie asked, her eyes filled with wonder. Her blue coat had been slightly thrown about while she was going upwards, but it still remained soft and shimmery. It was a matter of pride to her that her coat was beautiful and shining.
Her teacher looked down, smiled, and said, "You were just untethered to this dimension's timeline." Her student's puzzled look willed her to continue. "You are finally able to go out of this dimension and enter another," she said, her smile visibly growing with each word. Trixie's joy was obvious when her ears shot straight up at her teacher's last comment.
"So you're saying that I can now visit these amazing places," Trixie said loudly, her excitement dripping from every word.
Her teachers smile disappeared almost instantly and was replaced with a very serious stare. "Yes, you can visit these places," She said, "But not all of these dimensions are very friendly or wonderful. If you wish, you may see sights more gruesome than anything you could imagine and devastation orders of magnitude greater than what you could see here in our dimension. Be careful, Trixie." Her teacher's warning rang in Trixie's ears, clear as a bell, but she decided that nothing could scare her.
"It's fine," she said as Ethereal sighed, "I can handle anything!"
"Maybe you can," Her teacher said as she walked away, "But I certainly couldn't."