Dimension: My Little Pony
Planet: Equestria Earth
Specific Location: Just north of Ponyville
Time: 4 days after the arrival of the Brothers in Arms corps
"Why are we here again?" sighed Sweetie Bell, "I literally have no idea what we're doing!"
"We're scouting of course!" exclaimed Scootaloo, "We need to see how far the bad guys are from our home!"
"Er, maybe we should go back," said Apple Bloom, "We don't wanna miss the evacuation."
"Yeah, besides, it's kinda creepy here… heh…" added Button Mash.
"What do you mean creepy?" said Scootaloo indignantly, "It was your idea to scout in the first place, Button Mash!"
"I meant it in a metaphorical sense!" answered Button Mash defensively, "I mean… really? I didn't think we would go this far! Um… what does metaphorical mean anyway?"
Apple Bloom sighed, "I suppose since we haven't gone that far, we could just turn around."
"Turn around? Huh? What are we even doing?" yelled Sweetie Bell. Everypony just continued their argument.
"No, we're too far! Let's keep going!" said Scootaloo.
"Define 'far,'" snorted Button Mash, "I want to get home to my video game!"
"Which one?" asked Apple Bloom.
"QUIET!" yelled Sweetie Bell, louder than before. Everyone stopped arguing and looked at her.
"Listen! I hear something," she whispered.
Everypony stopped talking and listened. It was a flapping noise. It got a little louder as a Pegasus passed overhead.
"Look!" said Scootaloo, "It's Lightning Dasher! He's totally cool!"
Suddenly a flaming object shrieked overhead and smashed into Lightning Dasher. The thing exploded with a weird pop. Rippling ribbons of dark blue and black energy encased the grey Pegasus faster than the eye could move. Then they blinked out of existence in less than a second. Both the energy ribbons and the Pegasus were gone. All that was left of the pony was the letter, which slowly floated to the ground in front of the group.
The Cutie Mark Crusaders and Button Mash just stared, their pupils a tenth of their regular size. Abruptly both Sweetie Bell and Button Mash whimpered and fainted.
"Did… did he just… die?!" said Scootaloo slowly.
"I… I… dunno…" whimpered Apple Bloom, "I ain't seen nothin' like that before! He just disappeared!"
"He was definitely shot," said Scootaloo, trying desperately to keep from freaking out. She slowly picked up the letter and opened it.
"It's a message to Night Shade and those other two guys!" she exclaimed, "Lightning Dasher was carrying a letter to them!"
"And he was stopped by somepony bad," said Apple Bloom gravely, "This ain't good. We gotta take this to them!"
"But where are they? We don't know!" said Scootaloo.
"My sis said somethin' about them goin' to Bray to rescue Rarity, I think," said Apple Bloom.
"Bray?! That's wwwaaayyyyy up north!"
"We have no choice Scootaloo! We gotta take this to them! Otherwise Miranda will be all alone protecting Ponyville!"
Scootaloo bit her lip. Then her eyes hardened. "You're right," she said with determination, "We need to take this to them. We have my scooter and my wagon; I can take us to the north!"
Button Mash then groaned and got up. "Wha… what happened?" he mumbled, "I blacked out for a moment."
"We're going to take this letter to the Frozen north!" exclaimed Scootaloo dramatically as she held up the letter.
"What?!" gaped Button Mash, "Do we get a montage? Because if we don't, there is noooooo way we can get there in, like… well, in like forever!"
"We gotta though!" said Apple Bloom, "No other pony has the time!"
Button Mash sighed as he helped Sweetie Bell up, who had just awakened as well. "Well… I guess…"
"Right then!" said Scootaloo, "Let's get GOING!"
"To the scooter and wagon!" said Apple Bloom.
"This is crazy," muttered Button Mash as he got into the wagon with Sweetie Bell and Apple Bloom. They put on their goggles and held on tight as Scootaloo revved up her little wings. Soon they were skidding off at a good pace towards the Unicorn Range.
Planet: Equestria Earth
Specific Location: Somewhere in the land of Irrum
Time: 4 days after the arrival of the Brothers in Arms corps
"This is stupid," grumbled Spike as he threw himself onto a bed in room in a small inn, "I mean, you're a dimensional traveler! You can create money out of thin air! Why aren't we living in 5-star luxury suites?!"
"Because," replied Flaming Star patiently, "We cannot risk being identified as upper class ponies. We do that, and the press will become involved, et cetera, and we'll be discovered. We want to stay inconspicuous."
"What's the use?" sighed Spike as he flopped his head back onto a pillow, "We've crisscrossed Irrum now for two days! We haven't found anything!"
"We haven't covered all of Irrum yet, though," said Flaming Star, "We should be done searching this area for bases or high-security prisons soon, however. If Twilight isn't in any of those, we'll move on to searching Equus."
"This is really boring, you know that right?" Spike continued to grumble.
Flaming Star rolled his eyes and sighed. "Nice to know, faithful companion. I will make sure to point out to Twilight when I rescue her that her extremely competent assistant voted to leave her in the hoofs of our nation's enemy. I wonder if you could get a pink slip…"
"Yeah, yeah, you made your point," snorted Spike.
Flaming Star climbed onto his bed and flopped down as well. "We need to get some rest, Spike," he said, "There is a large army base just east to us, and we are going to be infiltrating it at midnight."
"Oh, man! ANOTHER? Isn't this our third?"
"Fourth, actually, and so far there has been no luck in finding Twilight. Perhaps we have a bad approach."
"Well, I guess we better get that sleep you were talking about, the sun is gone."
The two then closed their eyes and drifted off to sleep. Both of their dreams were blank and peaceful, and the hours ticked peacefully by… until…
Flaming Star's eyes snapped open. He glanced at the clock on the bed-side table. It read 11:59. He had set the clock for 12:45, what had caused him to wake up? Then he remembered: a faint explosion. Suddenly another faint explosion resounded through the air; then another, and then another. Flaming Star quickly got up and cantered to the room's east-facing window. He peeked through it. At first he couldn't see anything through the ink-black night, but then an explosion light up the sky. It was anti-air fire. Flaming Star blinked. Anti-air? What were they shooting at?
In an instant, the air abruptly lit up as all the anti-air weaponry on the base turned their cannons to the sky. Soon the sound of exploding shells was deafening, and it startled Spike into wakefulness.
"Wha? What's going on?!" he yelled at Flaming Star over the din.
"I don't know!" called Flaming Star back, "It seems that the Irrum army base is trying really hard, with no success, to shoot somepony down!"
Massive spotlights then turned on in the base and began to scour the sky with huge beams of harsh light. Once and a while a beam would pass over a little flying figure as it ducked and dodged the explosions. Suddenly a spotlight managed to linger on the figure for more than a fraction of a second before it dove to avoid flak shot. Flaming Star then recognized who was flying, and his jaw pretty much dropped to the floor.
"What's going on?" exclaimed Spike, still trying hard to be heard over the noise of flak fire, "Who is that?"
"It's Ditzy Doo!" yelled Flaming Star. He then threw open the window and jumped out.
Spike, who hadn't quite heard anything that Flaming Star had said, just stood there, blinking at the open window. "Was it something I said?" he muttered to himself.
Flaming Star gritted his teeth as his brain desperately grappled for solutions for how to help his friend out of her predicament. If he tried anything big, that would risk exposing who he was, and that would not end well.
He was still trying figure out a way when the latest explosion knocked Ditzy Doo straight from the air. She went spiraling towards the ground in a cloud of black smoke. Flaming Star bit his lip.
"To hell with being covert," he sighed.
He rushed the army base's massive walls and leapt straight over them in a mighty bound. The second he landed he unleashed a massive tidal wave of water. The thing swept through the base, upturning tanks and small buildings. The flak fire stopped as their gunners were blasted away by the oncoming water. As confusion burst from the base, Flaming Star glanced up at Ditzy Doo, calculated her crashing trajectory, and ran to the spot. Immediately guards tried to apprehend him, but choice blasts of kinetic energy knocked them unconscious. Ditzy Doo came shrieking to the ground, but she was caught gently by Flaming Star. "You're safe now," he said as he placed her onto his back.
Tanks akin to M24 Chaffees rushed out to engage him, but Flaming Star simply slammed a hoof against the ground, causing seismic energy to blast the tanks into the air.
"Look out behind you!" yelled Ditzy Doo as she looked behind him. One of the tanks was rushing him, attempting to run him down. Flaming Star whirled, and as he did so, he conjured up a long whip of plasma. The searing hot matter slashed through the tank, slicing it in two. The halves' momentum pushed them forward still, but they split apart just as they were about to hit Flaming Star and slid on by, smashing harmlessly against one of the other upturned tanks.
Soon Infantry Fighting Vehicles were whizzing around the corner to engage him, but just as they rounded the buildings, Flaming Star spread his wings and blasted off into the night, leaving nothing but a dozen decimated tanks and a few unconscious guards.
"Ditzy Doo! What in the name of Earth Prime are you doing here?!" exclaimed Flaming Shadow as he flew away.
"Oh, I had a letter for you! Sunset said it was most urgent that you get it! I couldn't let a couple of explosions stop me!" replied Ditzy Doo happily.
Flaming Star rolled his eyes, "Apparently. I don't think we're being followed, so I suppose it would be best if we return to Spike at the inn. How is your wing?"
Ditzy Doo looked at the wing that had been scorched by flak fire. "It's fine," she replied, "It was really just the shockwave that caused me to lose my sense of direction."
In a few moments they were back to the inn, climbing through the window.
"By Celestia! Ditzy Doo! What are you doing here?!" exclaimed Spike as Flaming Star climbed through the window.
"I'm here to give Flaming Star this letter!" exclaimed Ditzy Doo cheerfully. She pulled the letter out of her pouch with her mouth and gave it to Flaming Star. He opened it up using magic and read it.
He looked at it for a long time.
"Um… Is everything okay?" asked Spike, feeling nervous.
"I think so…" said Flaming Star slowly, "It seems that Miranda got some sort of premonition or something and gave Sunset coordinates to… something. It's in the land of Equus; he wants us to check it out."
"Brilliant!" exclaimed Spike, happy to do something for once, "Let's go right now!"
Flaming Star looked outside the window. He could see the spotlights still sweeping the sky, and he could hear shouts as soldiers began to mobilize within the base. He nodded decisively.
"You're right," he said, "It is probably best if we get a move-on. We're not too far from the Equus border really, and I can cloak us from view as we pass the border guards. We should be able to get to this location, wherever it is, without much opposition. Spike, do you have a map?"
Spike pulled a map out of a suitcase with a flourish. He handed to Flaming Star and said, "One map. Check!"
"Well done, I knew it was a good idea to bring you along, my mostly proficient assistant," said Flaming Star with a wink. He then levitated the map over to a small table and opened it. He quickly traced a hoof over to where the coordinates had been pointing to. He blinked.
"That's a hill," said Spike, as if it was in no way obvious.
"A green hill," added Ditzy Doo, who sounded quite proud of her observation.
"Okay. Great. Let's go check out a… um… hill?" said Flaming Star slowly.
"Yep! Let's go!" exclaimed Spike dramatically. There was a moment of silence, and in that silence, they could hear yelling down the hall, and the sounds of doors being kicked down: soldiers had begun to search the building.
"Oh, that's the signal for us to get the hell out," said Flaming Star. Using magic, he quickly picked up Spike and the suitcase and placed him on his back. He then glanced at Ditzy Doo.
"Can you walk?" he asked.
She nodded and got off his back to make room for Spike. The group then quickly jumped out the window as the sounds of doors being blasted down and screaming grew louder and louder.
"So, what's the plan?" said Spike as they galloped off into the night.
"We go to this hill and camp on it," said Flaming Star, "If nothing happens within thirty seconds, I demolish it using explosive energy. If nothing happens again within thirty seconds, we send an angry letter to Sunset and then continue our search for Twilight."
"Okie dokie!" exclaimed Ditzy Doo.
"Are we just going to keep running on hoof?" said Spike, "I understand that you advocate strongly for running workouts and all, but don't you think it would be better if we got a vehicle or something?"
"My idea exactly," said Flaming Star. Suddenly he swerved and dove into a bush, taking Ditzy Doo, Spike, and the luggage with him. A tank appeared around the bend and began to drive by them. As it did so, Flaming Star hurled a small bolt of explosive energy. It blasted in front of the armored vehicle with the magnitude of a large cherry bomb. The tank stopped and the driver and gunner got out to inspect the blast. As they did so, two hard bolts of shadow energy knocked them head-over-hoofs. Quickly the group in the bushes rushed out and grabbed the tank. Pulling a hard U-turn, they rumbled off in the direction of the Equus border.
"Wow… that was surprisingly easy," said Ditzy Doo as she settled down in the gunner's seat, "What does this control do?"
"That fires off a 105 mm shell at supersonic speeds, Ditzy Doo," said Flaming Star briskly, "Please don't touch it."
The tank rumbled off towards the direction of the Equus border without so much as a hitch for the rest of the way, though, from the sound of the radio chatter the group was listening in on, the area they had just left was now crawling with soldiers in an attempt to find whoever was responsible for trashing twelve tanks with ease.
In a couple of hours, the group and their tank were just around the corner from the border crossing.
"It is armed, no doubt," said Spike as he peeked his head through the commander's hatch.
"Probably," confirmed Flaming Star, "But I should be able to cloak us from view. Just give me a moment."
Flaming Star quickly scrambled out of the tank and began to trot around it, looking it up and down. After a moment of contemplation, Flaming Star began to project walls of photon-rephasing energy, and retro-reflecting material around the armored vehicle. In a couple of minutes the whole thing was invisible to the naked eye. Nodding with satisfaction, Flaming Star got into the tank once more.
They rounded the corner and passed right between two guard posts.
"Hey, did you just hear something?" said one of the guards as the tank passed unseen right between them.
"Yeah, it was my voice telling you to shut up," replied the other.
"Moron."
The tank continued passed a couple more guard posts, but amazingly none of the others really took any notice. Soon they were in Equus territory.
"Alright Spike," said Flaming Star, "You get to be navigator. Lead us to this fabled green hill of destiny."
"Righto, Flaming Star!" exclaimed Spike with enthusiasm, "take the first right… no left… no, your other left! I mean right! Oh, I'm holding it upside-down… Take the first left!"
"This is going to be one long ride," muttered Flaming Star, as the tank skidded, barely managing to take the left without smashing through several tall pine trees.
A couple of hours and a couple of collisions later, the tank began to approach the area that they were told to go.
"Keep driving for 200 Smoots and then look to your left. You have reached your destination," said Spike.
"A Smoot?" snorted Flaming Star irately, "I thought we were still working in Beard-Seconds!"
Spike rolled his eyes. "Fine, Mr. Picky," he said, "Keep driving for approximately 68 billion Beard-Seconds and then look to your left. You have reached your destination."
"Much better," chuckled Flaming Star, "I can understand Beard-Seconds SOOOO much better."
"Waaiiiitttt… Are you being sarcastic?" asked Spike suspiciously.
"Well, what do you think?" said Flaming Star with a grin.
"Um, guys? We're about to pass up our destination!" exclaimed Ditzy Doo.
Flaming Star turned back to the wheel and pulled a hard left turn. He stopped at the base of the target hill. The group clambered out and looked the hill up and down. It was green; it was small; it was extraordinarily unimpressive.
"This is the most standard hill I've seen in my life," said Spike.
"And it's in the middle of nowhere," added Ditzy Doo.
"It's so standard and unimportant-looking that I actually think it has a chance of actually containing something useful to us," said Flaming Star, eyeing the hill with an interested air, "Okay Spike, take a quick jog up there and let us know what you see. If it tries to kill you and you die, drop us a note."
"And this is what happens when ponies pull all-nighters," grumbled Spike as he climbed the hill.
There was a pause. Unexpectedly a cry from Spike rang out just as he disappeared from view over the crest of the hill. Ditzy Doo and Flaming Star glanced at each other. They then dashed off in unison towards the crest of the hill. They came across Spike who was sitting on the ground, rubbing his head.
"What happened?" asked Ditzy Doo breathlessly.
"I… ran into something…" replied Spike, bemusement plastered across his face.
"You ran into something?" said Flaming Star.
Spike rolled his eyes. "I just said that, didn't I? I have no idea what just happened, but it hurt."
Flaming Star winked at him, "Sure it did, kiddo."
He then turned to look at the hill before him. Slowly he inched forward, probing with his right hoof every now and then. Suddenly his hoof came in contact with something. A noise, similar to a pebble being dropped into a calm lake sounded long and low, and rippling effect spread out from where Flaming Star's hoof had just hit. It was an invisibility shield.
"Oh man," breathed Flaming Star. Rearing back his hoof, he sent out a massive EMP surge. It crackled through the energy shield and dissipated. After a second of silence, a loud crackling noise burst from the spot where Flaming Star had just released the EMP and the invisibility cloak shut down, revealing a strange metal box. It had several arrays of antenna, and it was about the height and width of Princess Celestia.
Immediately Flaming Star began to cross-reference the contraption with the dimensional traveler database. He hit a match: the box he was looking at was a completed version of the technology designed to block all portal-traveling and teleportation within a dimension.
Note: So, I just realized that both Discord and Jetfire (yes, Jetfire from the Revenge of The Fallen) are actual characters from canon material that work nicely as dimensional travelers. This leads me to this question: Does anyone have suggestions for other actual characters from any other story or movie out there that would have potential as dimensional travelers? What do you guys think?