Rachel stared blankly at dog Spike, her heart was at this point bleeding in pain looking at him.
The dog stopped wagging his tail and tilted his head to the side. "Are you okay? I understand traveling across worlds can be hard if you're not used to it."
Not him, not him, not him, not him. Rachel mentally repeated that phrase after he spoke.
"Spike, back up a bit, give her some space." A new voice came up, the dog patted over to her and sat down.
Rachel followed his path towards a young woman. Her skin was a caramel color, but her hair was fiery red with yellow streaks, wearing a black biker jacket, a sunset colored shirt, leather pants and biker boots. Wearing a red and orange necklace with a symbol of a sun on it.
"Sorry, got a bit excited." Spike responded, scratching his ears with his back paws.
Rachel then heard very familiar voices and looked behind the woman, seeing three girls leaving an unmarked van. Though their skin tones were normal, their hair wasn't. A fair skinned girl dressed in colors of green and teal with long pink hair with a slightly darker, athletic built girl with rainbow colors cut short in a dark blue and yellow striped jumpsuit escorted a frightened white, brown spotted pegasus to the statue.
The human girls were also wearing special looking necklaces around their necks.
"Don't worry, Poppylocks, you'll be home in no time, you're safe." The sound of Fluttershy came out of one of their lips.
"Yeah, what she said." Rainbow Dash said. The two briefly looked at the new girl before taking the pony to the statue.
"Just step in and you'll be home." Fluttershy said motherly.
"Thank you girls so much." The pegasus praised them.
"Don't mention it." Dash said. "Have a safe trip."
Poppylocks nodded before stepping into the portal and disappeared.
"Okay, that was the last one, hi." Fluttershy then turned her attention to Rachel, who was still on the ground watching everything.
It was… .so freaking weird hearing the ponies' voices coming out of these two and Spike.
"Sunset, is this the chick we're working with?" Rainbow Dash asked, pointing at Rachel.
Rachel sniffed, realizing her sense of smell was still heightened, combined with her hormones. The girls do smell like their pony variants but with obvious differences. No two smells were exactly alike.
However, this Sunset Shimmer, had pony scented all over her merged with the smells of this world.
"Yeah, this is her." Sunset said as she approached Rachel and offered a hand for her to grab. "Judging by your face, you recognized these voices. Rachel." she smirked.
"All but yours." Rachel said before grabbing Sunset's and was pulled up to her feet, standing over them. Rachel had always been taller than a lot of humans.
"Yeah, that's to be expected." Sunset said, looking up at her. "Name's Sunset Shimmer."
"Wow, you're tall." Fluttershy muttered softly, feeling slightly intimidated as she and others had to tilt their heads up to look at her. Seeing her unnatural features made her slightly scary.
Rachel stared at her when she said and sighed. "You're Flutters," she then turned to the Human Rainbow Dash. "RD."
Rainbow Dash grinned. "Bet this is so weird for you then."
Rachel nodded, glancing down at Spike. "You have no clue." she muttered.
Then her stomach growled, and with that baby inside her, she was starving.
Sunset chuckled. "Come on, we gotta meet up with the others at the motel, we'll be doing the mission briefing there, and pick up something for you."
"Thank you." Rachel said, hopefully she could keep her food down.
As they began walking towards the van, Spike noticed a peculiar scent coming off of the new girl. He padded up to her, and stuck his nose up to her belly and sniffed, tail wagging.
Rachel quickly pushed him off of her, a deep dragon-like growl escaped from her lips, causing Spike to let out a whimper, tail quickly between his legs and quickly walked ahead to go to the van.
"What was that about?" Rainbow Dash muttered as the girls and Spike looked at each other puzzled.
As Rachel quickly made her way towards the van, she noticed another girl was sitting in the driver's seat. Farmer tanned skin, green eyes, blonde hair and wearing a stetson. "Howdy." This world Applejack tipped her hat to her. "You must be Rachel, ready to go?"
"You have no clue, Applejack." she said briskly before sliding the van door open and climbed in.
Okay, Rachel knew she can't have a snappy attitude while she was here. She was here to do a mission, these girls and their dog was there to help her. She knows it's not him, it's not her Spike and knows she can't take her anger out on him.
Damnit Spike. Rachel thought as she buried her face in her hands as the others climbed in and shut the van door.
RD, Flutters and Spike were in one row in the van and Sunset took a seat next to her.
"Hot diggity, let's hit the road." Applejack said as she shifted gear and proceeded to drive the van out of the school zone and down the street.
As they drove, Sunset looked at her curiously. Her hand flexed a little before she reached over and placed it on her shoulder, her greenish blue eyes suddenly flashed white.
She suddenly sees brief fast moments of Rachel and her mate. Seeing them in their most loving, intimate parts of their relationship to the heartache and pain of finding him gone.
It lasted a second before Rachel shrugged her hand off. "Sorry, but please don't touch me." Rachel grunted.
"Sorry,." Sunset said.
Rachel shook her head before turning her head to look out the window.
Sunset gazed at her for a while before sighing.
Rainbow Dash let out a fake cough to get Sunset's attention, hovering over the seat and mouthed. "What did you see?"
Sunset motioned her hand, signaling her friend to drop it.
Rachel watched the world move. She noticed there was something… off about this side, it became more apparent once the van turned to the main road and into the highway. She noticed that a lot of buildings were gone as there were many, many sinkholes. Large natural holes that could appear out of nowhere, sucking up everything in its way. The skies were not normal, having a more red haze in the air. Every once in a while when she looks, she sees small white specks falling from the sky.
She didn't notice this when she first came to this side, being distracted seeing this world's variants.
"So…what's the newest thing in this realm?" Rachel asked the girls. "It's been awhile since I've been on this side." four and a half years exactly.
"It's been really hard in these years." Fluttershy muttered, looking outside with a saddened gaze.
"Does it have to do with all these sinkholes and the red sky?" Rachel asked.
The other girls looked at each other before looking back at Rachel. "You haven't heard the news, haven't you?" Applejack asked as she continued to drive. Watching the road to make sure no sinkhole emerged.
"Like I mentioned, it's been a few years since I crossed back over." Rachel brushed her bangs out of her face.
Spike watched her for a moment before speaking. "It started a couple of years ago. sinkholes began to pop up out of nowhere. Now typically, sinkholes are a natural occurrence but these holes are not. Almost every continent, buildings and landscape began caving in on themselves."
"What do you mean, these aren't natural?" Rachel then turned to look at them.
"The holes were created by magic. There's no rhyme or reason, or when one will form." Sunset responded. "The more holes created, the redder the skies turn. Those white specks in the air are ashes, caused by some of the holes reaching down to the earth's crust and particles shoot out and have them fall. They roughly began when the Portal opened up years ago."
"How do you know that?"
"Our Twilight knows some guys who worked at the temple we're about to go to." Dash answered. "And when examining many holes and ashes, it was determined that magic from that Portal being opened for so long is the cause of all of this.
"In other words, because of that Portal, our world is dying."
Rachel's eyes widened when she heard that. The Human world was dying?
"You gotta be kidding me? Dying?" Rachel asked.
"Whoa!" AJ suddenly yells, slamming the brakes down, sending everything forward as the wheels screeched.
Rachel braced her arms out, holding onto the seat in front of her, Sunset placed her arm over Rachel to keep her seated as the van came to a stop. Sounds of car horns screeched and sounds of crushing metal rain all over them.
Panting, hearts now beating in their throats, the girls poked out to see what caused their driver to stop so violently and they gasped.
A large hole in a 100 foot diameter was in front of them, taking up two lanes and several vehicles who didn't stop in time fall in and disappear, ultimately lost to the pit below.
"To answer yer question, yes, this world is dying, and it's getting worse." Applejack gulped.
Fluttershy sobbed, covering her face in Spike's fur, seeing this happening in front of them.
Rachel placed her hands on her baby bump, feeling the baby still in its place. She realized that If this world was dying, then the Humans invading wasn't the result of Blueblood, they weren't invading to get their "humans" back from the evil ponies, it was a ruse, or for resources as she thought before.
The War going on back home, is the Human's way of getting ready to bring more humans over, it was going to be a total take over….
Rachel thought this through. If what Neighsay said was true about the Blue Celestial, the staff was the reason the Portal opened in the first place, then the Portal must be closed while she's here before the War gets too far.
She has to get to that staff before it's too late.
After a couple of hours of driving, picking up some burgers and fries along the way, Applejack soon pulls into a rather dingy, raunchy looking two story Motel 9. Pulling into one of the covered carports before killing the engine and the gang got out of it.
Rachel scrunched her nose as she smelled how much it stunk in this place, though she has food in her hands and will plan on eating everything inside, the smell of the motel itself, it's combined smells of rotting garbage, unsanitary people, just different smells hitting her was making her gag. She could hear many sounds coming from inside the rooms that were giving her a migraine.
"Sorry it ain't the Hilton Hotel," Applejack apologized. "We're trying to stay low to not attract attention to the rolling army."
"No no, I get it." Rachel muttered.
They walked up to the second floor, one of the girls used their cardkeys and unlocked the door and opened it, Spike woved around their legs to enter first.
Inside of the two bedded room, a rather chunky white girl wearing a striped pink and white shirt and matching shorts - her sleepwear - was laying upside down on one of the beds, playing some video games on a small boxed TV with a PS4 that they brought hooked up to it, also wearing a necklace. Having large, pink insanely curly hair.
And a dark skinned girl with glasses was sitting cross legged on the ground, sitting in front of a coffee table with a laptop in front of her and fingers were flying on the keys. Her hair was an indigo color with pink and violet stripes in a ponytail, also wearing a necklace.
Spike walked over to her and just leaned up against her, licking her face, getting her away from the screen.
"Spike! Hey boy!" Twilight's voice squealed in laughter as she was greeted by him, wrapping her arms around him and kissing the top of his head, scratching his fur.
"Hi guys!" the voice of Pinkie Pie greeted before quickly turning on her stomach to see them and now Rachel entered the room and closed the door.
And as fast as her pony counterpart, Pinkie Pie launched her way over to Rachel, grabbed her hand and shook rapidly. "Hi I'm Pinkie Pie, you must be Rachel, it's nice to meetcha!" Pinkie squealed enthusiastically.
And once again, human/pony whatever, Rachel mentally questions this girl's strength as her arm vibrates by the intense handshake.
"Oooh you have pretty eyes, ears and~" She let out a loud, exaggerated gasp. "Wow that's a lot of sharp pointy teeth you got there? Who's your dentist because they look bad. Or you dig them then in that case they look good on you!"
"Knock it off Pinks, you're gonna overwhelm her." Rainbow Dash said as she plops on the bed, kicking her boots off of her in the process.
"We nearly drove into a sinkhole again." Fluttershy sighed.
"Yikes! Ooh you got food? I'm starving!" Pinkie Pie then went to grab the food from Rachel.
She moved the bag away from her. "Nuh uh. Sorry but these are mine, I'm eating for two." Rachel grunted.
The smell of the meat of the burgers was getting to her and she wanted to feed.
"You're what?!" The girls in the room yelped in unison. Spike shifted his gaze down on the ground.
"Now what is with all that ruckus?"
Rachel's blood begins boiling once she hears that voice. The bathroom door swings open, stepping out wearing a lush white robe, hair wrapped up in a towel, wearing a green face mask.
It was this world's Rarity.
And at that moment, Rachel had a look of murder shine in her eyes.