Chapter 11: Across the Pond

Rainbow Dash and I spent most of the rest of the flight talking about music and stuff we could do once the whole "portal" debacle was over. Occasionally one of us would reach across the aisle and grab the other's hand, that is until someone would appear and awkwardly say "Excuse me" or something of the like and we would quickly drop eachother's hand to let them through.

Luckily, owing mostly to her companionship, the eight hour plane ride felt like only four hours. By the time we landed in London International Airport, my back felt like I had a splint on.

"Well, it looks like we all made it in one piece." Dash commented as we disembarked from the plane. "That it does," Rarity replied, "but I could have been more satisfied with their drink selection." "I thought I told you girls this, you aren't of age in this world. The hostess didn't offer you a drink because you couldn't have any even if you wanted to." I said tiredly. Rarity made a sound of indignation. "Let's just get to the portal so I can close it before any more shady agents show up." I said, glancing around, suddenly more aware of my surroundings than I was a moment ago. It was a cloudy night, as dark as it could be with the billions of lumens of light pollution the city produced. The air felt...dirty.

I guess that's just London.

"Actually, I think it would be best if we were to go find somewhere to rest. It's late and I think we're all somewhat tired." Twilight said. "But it's only eight at night." Applejack protested. "Um, actually this clock says it's midnight, Applejack." Fluttershy said, pointing to a monitor on the wall of the terminal. "What? But Brony said the flight was eight hours long? Were we delayed?" Rarity said. "Maybe we ran into traffic." Pinkie Pie suggested. "I think you may have something there, Pinks." Rainbow Dash said, obviously humoring Pinkie. "Actually girls, we just crossed some timezones." I said. The blank stares I received prompted me to explain further, "I can't really explain exactly how it works, but it has to do with Earth being round and orbiting the sun so it's different times in different places." "That makes sense." Twilight said thoughtfully. "Okay, well Twi-you said something about finding somewhere to crash? Let's go." I said.

A somewhat beautiful cab ride on the wrong side of the road later, we arrived in front of our accommodations for the night. We entered the lovely four-star hotel, I checked in, and we went up to our room. I let the girls get settled in before I gathered them for a group meeting.

"So ladies, we need to strategize: We need a way for me to do the portal-closing spell without it being traced by whoever the hell is following us." I said. "Actually, Brony; I was thinking about a magic-concealing spell on the plane. I believe I may be on to something." Twilight said. "Then let's test it out!" Rainbow said. "But what if it don't work? Then won't agent what's-his-face drop by fer a visit?" Applejack said. "Tuché." Dash replied. "Sounds like a real catch twenty-two. To test it, we need to do magic, and we'll need to conceal that, which'll use more magic." I said. "It does. Maybe we could do a really really simple spell that doesn't leave enough of a trace to follow?" Fluttershy suggested. "That just might work, Fluttershy." Twilight said, smiling at her. Flutters returned the smile; it was such a sweet sight I thought I might get diabetes. "But how do we test if it works? If it does, nothing'll happen, and if it doesn't; either Agent Douchepants will show up, or nothing'll happen." I said. "It seems nothing can be simple anymore..." Rarity sighed.

"Maybe you could try to do a magic-seeing spell like Agent Meanie-Pants did, Rarity." Pinkie said.

Man, they are full of ideas tonight.

"Yeah! You up for it, Rare?" Dash asked. "I suppose it's worth a try." Rarity said.

After a few more minutes of discussion and deliberation, we decided on a plan. I would do some telekinesis; a spell that would- hopefully- not leave enough magical radiation for Agent Libric and whoever he was working for to trace. Twilight would do a magic-concealing spell. Rarity would attempt to do a magic-detection spell, she was the best at developing spells, after all. "Now let's all stay calm, this is just a precaution in case Twi's magic-concealing spell doesn't work. Knowing her, I'm pretty sure we'll be fine." I said, trying to reassure the others that we wouldn't be ambushed by burly men in suits. I raised my hand, preparing to perform the spell we'd agreed upon. I aimed my hand at the remote control on the coffee table in front of me and closed my eyes, focusing my energy into my hand and willing the remote to rise a few inches off the table. Even given the relative ease of the spell, I still struggled a tiny bit. It seemed that magic was a lot more difficult in the human world than in Equestria.

I opened my eyes to find the remote doing exactly as I'd hoped. I saw that both Twilight and Rarity were copying my stance. I kept the remote in the air until Twi called "Mark." Then we all lowered our hands as all eyes turned to Rarity. "I don't know if I performed the spell correctly, but I did sense...something. Perhaps it was just nerves, though." She said with a laugh that was obviously forced. "This is a whole new branch of magic. I don't know if it has been explored before." Twilight said, "I'd be surprised if we weren't a tiny bit off." "There isn't a lot of room for error here, girls." I said. "What exactly did you sense, Rarity?" I asked. "Well, it was somewhat like a small glowing, right at the edge of my vision. Resemblant of when one squeezes one's eyes shut." Rarity explained. "I don't know about you guys, but to me that sounds like Twilight's spell didn't work." Rainbow Dash said. "Yeah. And that's a very bad thing." I added. "Do y'all think we should get outta here?" Applejack asked.

Then I heard a sound. A faint one that took the longest second of my life to place. "Pinkie." I said slowly. "Yeah, Brony?" She said. "Are you tapping your foot on purpose?" I asked. "Mmmmmnope!" She replied.

Oh fuck me...

"Yeah, it's bug-out time. Get your things, we're checking out!" I said, hastily grabbing the few things that I'd unpacked in the hour that we'd been in the hotel room. The girls did the same and in under a minute we were out the door of our room. Unfortunately for us, however, it seemed that we were out of the frying pan and into the fire. Blocking our transit of the hallway were two very muscular, very angry-looking men in suits. One raised his arm in our direction and shot what looked like a bolt of greyish light at us. The energy bolt passed between Fluttershy and I, missing the pair of us by a matter of inches. "About-face!" I yelled. The girls and I turned around and tore down the floral print wallpaper-adorned hall in the opposite direction of whom I had assumed were agents of the same nature as Agent Libric.

Goddamn this running...

Luckily for me, adrenaline was on my side, allowing me to ignore my burning legs and focus on serpentine-ing around the bolts of energy being fired at us. We were almost at the end of the hallway- our objective being the elevators- when I heard a cry come from behind me. I turned around to look at who had made the noise to see Rarity sprawled out on the floor, convulsing as if she was being electrocuted. Arcs of blueish energy sprang off of her every so often. Apparently the others had turned toward Rarity's fallen form as well, and we had all halted in the hallway. That seemed to be our mistake, because the agents were still gaining, and within a second, they had fired energy bolts at all of us.

I'm not going to enjoy this.

I was right.

The second the energy bolt hit my chest, I felt like I was dying. All my muscles tensed, and my vision went white. I screamed for a moment before my diaphragm contracted, halting me from making any more noise. I couldn't exactly tell what was happening, but I heard and felt a thump as I hit the floor. Similar noises entered my ears as my friends fell around me. "That wasn't too hard. No idea why Libric had trouble with it." I heard a very masculine voice with a strong Welsh accent say. Assuming it was one of our captors, I strained to listen against the pain and encroaching unconsciousness. "Probably because he's a quivering twat. Bloke couldn't even guard the Monument." The other agent replied haughtily. He sounded vaguely northern English. "Well, let's Blink 'em back to HQ. What d'you reckon command wants with 'em?" The Yorkshire one asked. "Hell if I care. I say bollocks to 'em, 's long as I'm gettin' paid." The northern one said. A chuckle from both was the last thing I heard before I slipped from consciousness.

Ah...fuck...

The first thing that struck me when I came to was the dull ache that laid upon every inch of my body. My arms hurt, my legs hurt, my face hurt, my butt hurt. It sucked. The next thing that struck me felt like a fist. "Ow!" I cried out. Funny how I was silent with the pain radiating through my body, but a light punch made me shout. My eyes snapped open to see my attacker sitting cross-legged in front of me. It took a second to get my synapses firing, but when they did, I noticed that it was Rainbow Dash.

"Dashie! Are you okay?" I asked, suddenly panicked. She just laughed her adorable laugh and said, "I'm fine, Zack. You're the one that took the biggest hit. I was about to ask you the same thing." A sigh of relief escaped me. "I'm fine, just some aching." I said. Resolving to show how fine I was, I grunted and attempted to sit up. More pain shot through my muscles and I let out a yelp- almost returning to my bell-up position- but a stabilizing hand caught me. "Thanks, babe." I said, smiling at Rainbow. She nodded and I finally took the time to look around.

We were in a small, grey room; maybe four cubic meters. There was a steel door in the wall to my left. A single, dim fluorescent light was embedded in the ceiling above us. "Nice place you got here." I said sarcastically, glancing at Rainbow Dash. "Yeah, I finally got the decorator in and installed that light. You wouldn't believe how much it cost." She said back, equally facetious. "I bet not. It was worth it, though; really ties the room together." I quipped. "Aaand that's enough of that. Can we get to the 'getting out of here' part of this talk?" She asked. "Yeah, sure. Although I don't see much that we could talk about. Not many vulnerabilities in a small, stone brick room." I said. "What about the door? We could try forcing it open." Rainbow said. "Yeah, but that shit looks reinforced. I doubt we could force it open without a fucking battering ram and eight person team." I said. Dash sighed in exasperation, "Then what the fuck are we supposed to do?" She asked. I just shrugged. "Wait and see what happens, I guess." I replied. Rainbow just sighed again and kicked the wall lightly.

"I think we have a more important question on our hands right now, anyway: Where are the others?" I said. Dash looked around the room, as if she expected the other girls to materialize at their mention. "I dunno. I just woke up in here with you." She said. "Odd. Why would they want to separate us?" I mused. "Maybe because they think we could use the elements if we were together, like we did at Canterlot High." Rainbow suggested. "That makes sense. Could you?" I asked. "Maybe. It's not like we've tried since we got here. Plus one of the Elements was in this world when we did it, and this time it's not." She said.

So we're pretty much screwed if we get into a real bind...

"Well that's a load of bullshit." I sighed. "That about sums it up." She agreed. I stared at the wall, deep in thought about what we could possibly do.

It's not like we could force that door open, but there aren't any other things in this room. No air ducts, no cracks in the wall, no bars to saw through, no nothing.

Escape was a completely hopeless venture, so my thoughts turned to the fates of my friends and I.

They obviously want us for something, probably having to do with doing magic. Maybe they're the magical portal police or something, and they arrested us for traveling between dimensions and doing magic in a non-magical world. Nah, there's no way police would use that kind of violence.

I shook my head, as if to dispel the absurd thought from my mind.

I just need to know something. Knowledge is power. What do I know?

I know that the guys who kidnapped us were strong men in suits, from that I can hypothesize that whoever was giving them orders is part of an organization that has a certain measure of money. I can defend that with one of the agents mentioning getting paid. Maybe they're some sort of magical mafia? They have grunts to go out and do dirtywork, some sort of facility where they can store captured people, and knowledge of the other dimensions- or at least that magic is real. But what does that tell me? What does all that mean right now? How can I use that? Knowledge is nothing without application. I have nothing. There's no way out of here, physically or mentally.

Relenting to the absolute hopelessness of my situation, my mind blanked as I simply stared into oblivion. All was lost. I would die here, and so would my friends. I would never meet my birth parents. I would never return to that wonderful garden on the castle grounds that I had walked all those eternities ago. I would just stare at this wall, unthinking, until the uncaring hand of death swept up my equally uncaring body.

After a few minutes, or hours, or days, I felt a sensation on my shoulder. It was warm, radiating into me, penetrating every tendril of cold ambivalence that had welled up inside me. I turned my head in the direction of the feeling and my eyes focused. It was Rainbow Dash's hand. Her hand was on my shoulder. It was comforting, reassuring-as well as exciting and motivating. My eyes turned to her face. Sweet Christ, that face; I could look at it for infinite infinities. She was smiling a small smile. I could find no reason for her to smile, but there it was. A totally out-of-place smile. I wasn't sure it should be there- and to be perfectly honest- it didn't seem like she was convinced it should be there either.

Not that it mattered, she was smiling. And in a moment, so was I. She kissed me and sat down next to me. "So what are we gonna do?" She asked? "I haven't a goddamn clue." I replied. "Well fuck. How about we just bang on the door?" She suggested. "That works." I said, so we got up, walked over to the door, and went to town on it. We were just straight-up whaling on it. This continued for a minute or two until something finally happened. A shape appeared outside our door. "Hey! We want some answers here!" Dash shouted. "Shut the fuck up, kid. You're in for a lot more than answers in a couple minutes." The man outside our cell said ominously. And with that, he walked away.

"Well what the fuck did that mean?" I said. "I don't care, we can take whoever's coming." Dash said, adopting a fighting stance. "I dunno about that, babe. We didn't fare too well in the last fight we were in..." I said. "Oh that was just a fluke. If I had wings in this world I could've taken 'em. No contest." Rainbow asserted confidently. "I wouldn't speak so soon." A voice came from outside our cell. "What? Who's there?" Rainbow said as I tensed up, preparing for the worst. I was already channeling magic in case I needed to do a spell.

Some muttering was audible from outside, and then the clinking and clanking of keys in a lock, and then the door swung open. Framed in the threshold was a young man, probably in his mid twenties. He looked about six feet tall; had short, spiked black hair; and was wearing a labcoat. The most striking thing about him, though, were his eyes-he had bright, electric blue eyes. The man spoke in a deep, bassy voice, "Sorry, I prefer to talk to people without a metal door in the way. I'm sure you understand." "Yeah, thanks, real civil of you." I said. "I like to think so." He said with a smile. "Also, I'd stop channeling your magic if I were you. This entire building has wards in place that prevent magic from being done, save for me and people I've specifically allowed." He continued. "Oh, that's pretty cool actually. Could I possibly know the name of such a brilliant magic-user?" I asked. "Ah, flattery. Crude but effective. On lesser minds. Kudos on your efforts, though. Of course, that's neither here nor there. Yes, you may know my name: I am Tesla Coil. In this world, however, I've taken the name Nikola Jeredi." He said with a smile.