>Be Celestia.
>Find yourself late at night in a strange city.
>For some moments, you cannot remember how you got here, and then, it slowly comes back to you.
>The spell had gone terribly wrong.
>Actually, that wasn't what happened.  The spell had woken something, a Thing Between the Dimensions.
>You had thought the Thing was gone forever, but apparently, it had bided its time, waiting.
>Where were you now, though?
>Confusion and alarm turned slowly into outright fear, something you had not experienced for a long time.
>You try to reach out with your mind to sense the network of Equestrian magic.
>You can not sense a thing except a faint flicker within yourself.
>Suddenly, you are terrified to see something with lights on the front, coming at you at an impossible speed and blinding you.
>You freeze, as your magic fails to stop it, and only at the last minute, teleport reflexively away, finding yourself in another new location.
 
>You remembered Twilight had suggested things hadn't gone well with the last experiment using one of Starswirl's old spells.
>"You know, Princess Celestia, if even he didn't cast this, perhaps he had a good reason."
>But you had overruled your student, something you now regret.
>Interdimensional travel is very weighty magic, and even with Twilight and the Elements, requires the presence of large amounts of mana, which simply did not seem to exist in this place.
>After your difficult travel and magical working in Equestria, even a minor teleportation spell has exhausted you.
>Worried about Equestria without you present to raise the Sun, you still could not find yourself able to keep your eyes open, and crawled off what you assumed was the road.
>You begin to fall asleep, exhausted.
>You are pretty sure Twilight can figure out the magic to raise the Sun with the other Princesses and unicorns.
>What concerns you much more, though, is the Thing.
>It had thrown you into this magicless world for a reason.
>You have to get back to Equestria to protect your little ponies, but without a plan, there is no point simply going on exhausted.
>Your tail curled around your flank for warmth, you lose consciousness and sink into a troubled sleep on the cold ground.
 
>Be Twilight Sparkle.
>You have not yet told anyone except the other Elements, Spike, Luna and Cadance about what just happened a few brief hours ago.
>At first, you had thought the spell itself had somehow failed, but it had done its job.
>Something, though, had interfered with its actions.
>Rather than getting a clear look at other dimensions that Princess Celestia thought might represent a future threat to Equestria, you had found an immediate threat.
>Attempting to stop the spell at the last moment, you watched as Celestia was ripped from view by some kind of nearly formless dark mass, and taken you do not know where.
>The most pressing matter was ensuring the Sun rose in the morning, but with Luna's assistance, this should be if not easy, at least possible.
>Additionally, you must keep this matter secret until you have some explanation for it.
>Otherwise, Equestria could collapse into mass panic.
>Luna has called together a meeting before dawn of the most powerful and trusted unicorns in Equestria, and you will have to be there, too.
>As much as you cannot imagine actually sleeping in these circumstances, panicking would not help, either.
>You assume this is some part of a larger malicious plan against Equestria, and mobilizing all the power possible to return Celestia is key to defending against it.
>After a final attempt to cast about for the bright glow of Celestia's alicorn magic, and again finding nothing, you sleep for a couple hours before the predawn meeting.
 
>Be Anon.
>Be driving late at night going nowhere in particular.
>Suddenly, see something in the road directly ahead of you.  It seems to be some kind of horse.
>You wonder if you're hallucinating, though, because the horse is almost unworldly in her beauty, and wearing what appears to be some kind of golden armor and other odd garb, almost a form of boots.
>Perhaps this is some kind of circus animal?
>The stunning looking creature seems to glow, and has a flowing mane and tail, but most oddly, what appears to be a horn and wings.
>You slam on the brakes as the regal creature suddenly vanishes as if into nothing with a bright flash of light.  You come to a stop just feet from where she had stood.
>Something about her expression seemed lost and terrified.
"Maybe because you just nearly ran her over, you idiot."
>You curse yourself for a fool and chalk it up to highway hypnosis, and cut your midnight drive short, returning back home a brief distance away.
 
>On returning home, though, you are unable to get to sleep.  
>Despite the fact that you still, on some level, don't believe what you just saw, something else tells you it was, somehow, very important.
>You try to dismiss your concerns, but the idea of the beautiful white horse out there forlorn in the cold will not leave you alone.
>You try to tell yourself surely a horse is capable of surviving being outside, but unable to get comfortable, you decide at least to head back briefly and check to see if she is still there.
>As you get back in the car, you suddenly have a premonition as of danger.
>While you aren't certain why, you open the trunk, and put the tire iron on the passenger seat next to you.
>It wasn't much, but you don't suppose you're better safe than sorry.
>She was probably miles away anyway.
>If not, who knows, though.  Some animal that beautiful had to be worth something, and just that jewelry was certainly worth a lot.
>Maybe there's a reward.
 
>Arriving back at the isolated stretch of road where you had seen her, you parked and looked around briefly.
>Unfortunately, you were seeing nothing.
>Just as you were about to give up, though, and go back home, chalking it up to insomnia and bad nerves, you suddenly felt a chill.
>Still not seeing anything, you returned back to the car and grabbed the tire iron from the passenger seat, shouting out:
"Is anybody there?"
>Suddenly, a form that looked like that of a large black dog bounded directly at you, knocking you back into the car door with a remarkable amount of force, knocking the wind out of you.
"What the fuck is that?" you shout.
>As the whatever it is lopes around and charges back at you, you swing the tire iron.
>It connects with a loud thud, and the dark form explodes into a billowing cloud of acrid, cold smoke, choking you.
>You stagger back out of the cloud, looking for the dog, or whatever it is, but it seems to be gone.
 
>Try to gather your senses and collect your thoughts, you stare around, seeing nothing but feeling a terrible sense of impending doom.
>You turn on the vehicle's headlights to look out into the darkness, and sure enough, there is another group of the things coming out of the darkness.
>They are about a half-dozen in number, yipping and howling, but while shaped like dogs, you can see no faces or eyes.
>Hitting the accelerator, you drive into the group, but after hitting about three of them, lose control of the vehicle in the smoke and drive it into a ditch.  Great.
>Jumping out of the car, you shield yourself with the door, and take another with the tire iron.
>Another two jump directly at the car door, slamming it on you and immobilizing you.
>The tire iron skitters away into the darkness.
>As two more of the creatures lope up, you feel yourself losing consciousness from having the wind squeeze out of you.
>The creatures drop you to the ground and hold you down, seemingly sucking the life out of you.
>You kick feebly as you feel your mind fade into the darkness.
 
>Just before you are finished, you suddenly hear a loud clopping, as of metal hitting the pavement, and see a bright light.
>The beautiful horse charges directly into the swarm, immediately impaling one of the things on her horn and exploding it into smoke.
>Rapidly slashing with her horn, she cuts through the rest of them, leaving the oddly persistent clouds of smoke.
>Having dispatched the lot, she turns her attention to you.  
>Looking up at her, you see that while she does have an equine form, her face and magenta eyes are nothing like that of an animal, but are searching and intelligent.
>If anything, you would say she looks like royalty, or even a goddess.
>"Are you injured?" she asks you.
"Holy sh--something," you say, trailing off lamely.  "You can talk?"
>"So it would appear," she says, smiling.
"I guess I'm okay, though I might be hallucinating," you say.  "My name is Anon."
>"My name is Princess Celestia, of the nation of Equestria."
"Of the nation of the United States, I guess, planet of Earth."
>"Earth?  Like mud?"
"Yes."
>"Curious," she says.
 
>"Thank you for interrupting those smoke goblins," she says.  "If they had caught me sleeping, I might have had a bit of trouble."
"You're welcome.  Thank you for rescuing me, too."
>"I hate to tell you this, but you are in incredible danger now.  Those things are weak as creatures of darkness go, but they reform quickly.  They are also probably identifying that vehicle you have."
"Smoke goblins?"
>"They're advance scouts for whatever is after me.  A monstrosity that should not exist and banished me here."
"So there's worse where these came from?"
>"Exactly.  And I can't leave you here in danger after you helped me."
"Actually," you admit sheepishly, "I nearly ran you over earlier."
>"That's all right.  I shouldn't have been standing in the middle of a road.  But I was disoriented.  But we have to get out of here now."
"But how will we do that without the car?"
>"Well, I am wearing a saddle," she points out, which appeared to be true.
>You felt somewhat embarrassed.
"But I can't ride a Princess like some kind of, well, horse."
>"Sure you can.  In fact, I order you to.  If you have anything you need, store them in the saddlebags."
>Grabbing a few items from the bugout bag in your trunk, you get enough food to last for a couple days.
>You go into the glove compartment, but are surprised and perturbed to note that all the documents inside it are gone.
>Somewhat awkwardly, you clamber aboard the Princess.  She says "I'll explain more details on the road."