Twilight Sparkle Requires Belly Rubsby The Grease Trap WizardChaptersChapter 1Chapter 2Chapter 3Chapter 4Chapter 1A slow drawling whine was the only reason I got out of bed today. I looked over at my alarm clock, red LED's shining a pitiful glow into the darkened room. I groaned as I read the time, 1:30, my job interview was only an hour away. I peeled myself from the shell of blankets I wrapped around myself and trundled off to the bathroom to take a quick shower. I turned the knob and after a second the pipes belched icy water on my bare skin. I finished my shower quickly and moved onto my wardrobe, a sad display with only a few shirts, some pants, and one tuxedo suit, shoes and all. Wasting no time I slipped on the tux and looked at myself in my mirror. A mop of brown hair fell down messily across my face I would have to fix my hair as soon as I got to Arcadia Inc. I checked my alarm clock again, 1:50. I had just enough time. I ran through my small drafty apartment complex, not grabbing anything to eat before I slammed the door behind me. I reached the bottom floor in record time and fumbled with my keys as I moved my way to the side of the building where my old junker car was parked. It was a gift from an old friend, which I found out later to be a liability when the engine nearly fell out ten miles down the road. As I turned the key it coughed and sputtered until I smacked the dashboard with a single slap, which caused it to roar back to life. I peeled out of the lot and started to make my way downtown, driving fast, car could break down, and I'm job bound... now I was singing to myself. Today was going to be a good day. Equestria Twilight Sparkle awoke with a foggy head and messed up fur. She removed herself gently from her improvised sleeping area, her desk to be specific. As she shook her hair to try and clear the fog, papers fell silently onto the carved wood of her tree. She levitated a brush to move her mane out of her eyes when she Spike's voice call from the downstairs, "Do you want some tea Twilight?" "Coffee please Spike, and make it strong." She heard him humming downstairs as she continued to struggle with her mane. His footsteps echoed up the stairs and she smelled the freshly brewed coffee. "Thank you Spike." she said, and though her mane still blocked her eyes, especially with the defeated comb hanging off like a flag in a soft breeze. She brought the cup to her lips and before she was able to take a drink she noticed something odd. The aura around the cup which normally was supposed to be a smooth and purple was becoming erratic and was a sickly red color. Without any notice the cup sprang from the aura like it was a thief caught in a mansion. As it flicked towards Spike, his tail lashed and caught the mug in mid-attack, though as a repercussion the brew spilled sadly onto the floor. He set the mug down gently and strode over to Twilight, placing a clawed paw on her shoulder. "Are you ok?" he asked, removing the brush and tiding the rest of her mane. "I'm fine." she replied, staring at the cup with a nearly offended gaze. "I'll need to ask Celestia about this anomaly. Can you stay at Rarity's until Celestia and I can figure out what the problem is? I don't want you getting hurt if something else is awry with my spells." "Twi, I'm not a hatchling anymore." He said staring into her eyes. "I think I can take a little more damage than a few random cups being thrown at me." It was true, Spike had grown exponentially over the past couple of years, he was now a drake and though he did not quite have the potential of flight his scales had toughened and he assumed a more bipedal stance with a quite impressive tail that nearly acted a third arm during his chores. Of course Twilight had taken notes on her friend's increasing growth nearly filling a small library with all the information she accrued. "I know that you are no longer a baby Spike." she said, shuffling her papers around looking for a scroll for Celestia. "Yet if all of my magic is reacting unexpectedly what could happen to the magical runes that protect our home and the archives? For all I know they could ignite, or make snakes crawl out of the storage boxes, or even..." She stopped, Spike finding the scroll and placing it in front of her. "Thank you." she said. As she scrawled out the letter she heard Spike sigh again and look at the ground. "Ok." he replied chuckling as he put his hands around his head, "If you want to protect me that much I'll stay at Rarity's until this problem is solved." He turned and started to walk out until he heard Twilight give a small cough. He turned and saw her motioning the scroll with her hoof. "Still remember how to send a letter?" she said with a trill of mild sarcasm. Against all of the stacking odds she still was keeping a clear head about her. "I think these old bellows can still give a couple good puffs." he replied and took the scroll in his claws, igniting it with a pale green flame. "Stay safe." he said rustling her mane yet again before he left. She smiled at the passing drake, yet as he disappeared she looked down and frowned as she collected her fallen parchment. She began to document a record of the past five days before the incident. As she flipped through her planner and recorded the times one thought kept flowing through her mind. "What could of caused this?" Earth As I pulled into the Arcadia Inc. complex I immediately knew that something was wrong. The first thing that tipped me off was that there were no cars in the lot. "It's probably lunch time." I said to myself stupidly as I navigated effortlessly to the front door. As I pulled on the handles the second realization hit me like a cinder block and rebar hammer to the crotch. There were no lights on in the building, there was no receptionist waiting to let me in at the desk, so unless this company specialized in the selling to ghost customers then I was utterly and completely boned. As I racked my brain for something that I missed in planning I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket. I picked it out, it was an old flip-phone which had granted me many bouts of laughter from both my friends and my ex. One message glowed as an unopened envelope on the screen. I clicked a few buttons and the message that I read sent my blood directly from a liquid to solid state. "Dear Mr. Calihan, we regret to inform you that your originally scheduled appointment has been cancelled. Looking back on you resume we decided to hire Ms. Clive for the assistant of Mr. Fontaine. We hope that this does not disrupt your normal life and I wish you a good day." Signed, Abigail Moore My grip nearly crushed the phone. That bastard Jacob Fontaine, we grew up together at one point and even ended up at the same college. We never really close friends, but we respected each other's lives. That is to say before the woman (now my ex) Zoey Chanel came into both of our lives. I eventually won the war against Fontaine for Zoey's temporary heart but Fontaine was never the same. I had no idea that he ran Arcadia Inc. and I bet when he saw my resume and interest in a job at his corporation he gave that crooked grin he always had when he was a kid. He also got Zoey in the end, after she saw how difficult it was for me to earn an honest living, she decided to take the top rung of the corporate ladder by running back to Jacob like a bitch with her tail between her legs. After my silent ranting I realized how biting the early November air was against my exposed face. I climbed back into the car and turned the key, nothing. "Oh no." I said to no one in particular as I climbed back into the whipping wind, my tux blowing around me like a makeshift parachute. I lifted the hood and only had to glance at the engine block to find the problem. Apparently ancient electronics and cracked coolant pipes did not do well to keep an engine cool. Some parts were nearing a semi liquid state, including the battery which was placed underneath the leaking coolant for some idiotic reason. I was not going anywhere anytime soon. I pulled out my phone again and punched in the towing company's number, I was one of their best customers, good for them, and a near epidemic on my bank accounts. "Alexander's car shop," came the gruff voice of the owner Alexander. "whatcha need?" "Alexander," I started "it's Atlas, I need some help, I'm at Arcadia Inc. the engine overheated and the battery is toast, can you send someone out here?" "Sure Atlas," he replied, "I'll send Bob out to fish you out. He'll be there in about an hour or two." I sighed, Alexanders was nearly halfway across town. "Oh yeah Alexander, something came up and I might not be able to pay you this time." He laughed, "Atlas, you're a brave enough bastard for taking that hunk of junk in the first place, I'll fix her up for you again, don't worry about it." "Thanks Alexander." I said, closing the phone, cutting off the call and settling back into my two ton doorstop. I leaned my head back, closing my eyes. I needed to do some thinking, and maybe if I was lucky I would be able to get some decent sleep. Yeah right. Chapter 2Twilight sat at her desk, papers scrawled on, models made and the wall in front of her marked with times, dates, and places going back up to a month ago. Little red strings connecting them all into what could be conceived as a spider's dream. Her eyes were becoming sore from staring at the same material for over two hours. The walls and floor were decorated with her experiments on how far this sickness ran. The circular scorch mark four feet to her left was the result of her teleportation spell, the various shards of plates and cups embedded up to three inches into the ancient wood was her attempt at setting very simple table decorations, and the shattered broom handles in the corner covered in soapy water was her failure to weave a simple cleaning companion out of a broom and bucket. The last one was the worst of all, with the broom endlessly replicating as she tried to destroy them (quite ineffectively) with an old hoe that she borrowed from Carrot Top. Twilight let out a heavy sigh and fell face first with a poomph onto the book of magical anomalies in front of her. "Nothing's working!" she moaned into the dusty pages. As she breathed in the scent of both ancient ink and paper she heard a light, but rapid knocking at the front door. "That must be Celestia!" she said, perking up from the book, she shifted from her seat and trotted briskly down the oak stairs, the knocking seemingly growing more brisk as she got closer. She opened the door, with much trouble, since she never learned to work the metal handle with her hooves. As she finally managed to open the door, she expected to see the very large, very imposing, Princess of the Sun, but what was really there was an old Earth pony with a singular book on her back. "Ms. Sparkle is it?" she said, wheezing ever so slightly. "Yes ma'am." Twilight replied, "can I help you with anything?" "I have a book to return to your fine library. I needed something to teach my niece some things about knitting, but now that she sells her wares at the market I feel that it has served its purpose well and is in need of returning." Twilight motioned her in and closed the door behind the old mare. "Well, lets check that in for you and..." Twilight stopped as she heard the familiar crackle of a disguise spell being dropped. Twilight whipped around, almost ready to face whatever threat had slipped under her muzzle. "It would be unwise to use your magic Ms. Sparkle, with it working as erratic as you said in your letter. I know my sister taught you better than that." came the demanding voice of Princess Luna. "Princess Luna!" Twilight said, "Meaning no disrespect, but I thought Celestia was going to help me." "My sister is occupied at the moment," Luna said hanging the old tattered cloak she was just wearing, "some idiotic guard tried to peek into the royal baths this morning. I'll admit that I might of overreacted. Celestia is waiting in the infirmary for him to recover so she can give his punishment. Now then, onto the task at hoof." she said, placing the book she was carrying on the table in the center of the room. The novel before, which looked ancient and deeply in need of repair, now had transformed into a brilliantly violet covered book with golden accents on the cover and the spine. "Describe your symptoms to me Twilight", Luna said curtly, using minuscule amounts of azure magic to open the book to its index. "Well..." Twilight started, " picking at some papers that had migrated downstairs due to the broom incident, "I woke up today after a long night of revising my notes on Spike's growth and metabolism development." "Riveting," Luna said, with a sleight air of boredom in her voice. "go on." "I woke up and Spike asked me if I wanted anything to drink, to which I said that I wanted coffee, he brought it up to me and I tried to grab it with magic. Then the aura became spiky of sorts, like something about it was mutating, and the color was especially weird too, some sort of deep magenta." "Hmmm..." puzzled Luna, finally stopping on a singular page in the massive tome. "Aha!" she cried, motioning Twilight over, on the top of the page in bold lettering were the words "Stomachum Fricantur". Twilight tilted her head quizzically, she was fluent in over twenty languages, some even dating back when Luna and Celestia were first on the throne. Yet for some reason this language was unknown to her. Luna looked down at her and saw the look of desperation on Twilight's. "Ah." she said "I nearly forgot." her horn lit up once again and the ink on the pages responded, dissolving and then reforming back into traditional Equestrian. "Stomach Rubs?" Twilight said, putting to rest what doubts she had in he mind about an unreadable book (The horror!) "Yes," Luna replied, "or as the non-Latin speaking population says, tummy rubs. Usually used as a basic massage for relaxation, but for your sickness this is the only cure." "So I just need to go to the spa for a simple massage and I will be fine?" Twilight asked hope rising in her voice. "No." replied Luna. The hope that was attempting to rise in Twilight's heart was speared with dread. "What do you mean?" she said, staring at the words, them mocking them with the somewhat bland history of Tummy Rubs. "The way that the disease has spread through your body is a specialized strain, brought on by either too much stress with less than normal sleep, or by eating a very abnormal plant found in the Neighigra Falls area, so unless you have been traveling lately, then I think that you have been researching a bit too much on Spikes growth and metabolism development." "So how do I fix this? Twilight said, sensing a small amount of sarcasm from Luna when she said "metabolism development." "There is only one creature that can administer a Tummy Rub at the magnitude that you need." Luna flipped another heavy page revealing an anatomy section of a bipedal creature, unlike Spike at all, since it possessed neither scales nor any features that Twilight had seen develop in her dragon friend. "What are they?" Twilight asked inquisitively, analyzing the anthropological data inscribed on the parchment, some of the more prominent features included things called hands, toes, and one specifically bolded and underlined called Aposable Thumbs. "They are called Humans," Luna suddenly tilted her head lightly. "What's wrong?" Twilight asked. "Somepony here in Ponyville just fainted from excitement, but I have no idea why. Anyway, humans inhabit a rather new planet on an arm of the Milky Way Galaxy, and as you can see they are quite different from us in major ways. However, our two worlds are connected by magic, most colonized planets have some form of sorcery," she continued," however our planet's bonds are very much stronger than normal, so strong in fact that we can travel in between our worlds." "Princess Luna?" Twilight asked, one question nagging at her. " Where did you even find such a detailed book on these Humans?" "My dear Twilight." Luna cooed, turning over the book to show her a title inscribed in gold on the back cover. It read "A Detailed Anatomical and Ethnographic report on the Human world by Princess Luna. "I wrote it." A coy smile drew onto Luna's face as she basked in her own glory. "Kind of a long Title for a report isn't it?" Twilight asked. The smug look on Luna's face was wiped clean and was replaced by one of anger and near defeat. "Starswirl made me do this report on the culture on a world that could come into contact with Equestria in case we needed a diplomat from the royal family. Celestia's haunches he was a hard flank, every time I turned it in for a review he read it, and then rejected it for some minor detail that I had missed. So I made the title as long and as small as possible so that his old eyes would hurt every time he read it." Twilight stared at Luna for a second, drinking in the shock of how troublesome she had been before Nightmare Moon raised her ugly head. "So is there still a way to get to the humans world?" Twilight asked, returning to her normal question-firing self. Luna shut the book her eyes puzzled in concentration, "I still think I still know the spell, it is of a rather simple variety of transportation spells, but I'm going to mix in a locating spell to properly identify the human that would fit what you need. It will take me a couple of minutes to prepare both of us for travel." "Both of us?" Twilight asked. "My sister would murder me if I let her previous prodigy explore an unfamiliar world without guidance." Luna cleared her throat slightly with a look of embarrassment, "Also, I fear that my report may be slightly outdated since when I visited the human world, they were in the process of a cultural breakthrough from the bleak lives that they were living." Twilight turned from Luna to organize her notebooks on Spike, when she heard Luna cough slightly. "Twilight, one more thing, humans most of the time will not do anything without a fee attached to it. They also were infatuated by the bits that I brought with me on my documentation journey, I would recommend bringing some what of a large amount of bits in case this specific human is greedy." "Sooo," Twilight said, tapping her hoof on her chin, "would about 500 bits work?" Luna sighed, "Yes that will be an excellent bargaining chip just in case." "Ok!" Twilight said, dashing to the secret door in the farthest wall of the tree. When she finally managed to pop it open, she started pulling a fairly large sack by her teeth. She set it down and Luna's eyes widened. Twilight dashed back off to make preparations and after she was out of sight, Luna hoisted the book again onto her back and began channeling her spell. "Celestia needs to teach her about the dangers of having too many bits." was the though the thought that Luna ran through her head before she focused entirely on weaving her spell. Chapter 3"Oh you have got to be kidding me!" I cried as I peered into the engine. The coolant pipes could be fixed easily, the battery could be replaced in a day, however the engine's overheating warping the pistons rendered the engine completely useless. "Jesus." Alexander grunted, shutting the hood gently in case something else on my pile of junk wanted to fall off. "I've seen nothing like it before Atlas. I can fix it, though it will take some time." I leaned up against the wall, the cool stone pressing on my back. I waited for a while before speaking, "How long Alexander?" I said, putting my hands into my pockets. "About a week even if I can find the parts, from what I saw in there the engine is some sort of Frankenstein creation. I counted seven different car brands inside of that engine Atlas, where the hell did your friend get this thing?" "He told me that he won it in a poker game from a pretty shady guy at the bar." "Did he tell you anything about this guy in particular?" Alexander said, moving over to an ordering manual to record what he needed. "Well he was pretty drunk when he got back, all he could talk about the car he won from this sucker at poker. The only thing else that he mentioned was that he had some weird tattoos on his arms, most of them looked like regular biker ink, but one really caught his eye, it was a car split in half bleeding oil." I jumped as Alexander's booming laugh echoed throughout the garage. As i looked over at him doubling over I wondered what the hell just happened. Alexander was normally a straight forward man who usually had no time for jokes. Yet now here he was, needing a chair to sit on since he was laughing so hard. "What's so funny?" I asked mildly annoyed at the situation. Alexander lent back in the chair and wiped the sweat that had beaded on his brow. "Well Atlas," he said, wheezing from lack of air, "it seems that your friend won a Chopper Car." "Chopper Car?" I asked, "What the hell is that?" "Well," Alexander continued, "that "sucker" that lost his car in a damn poker game wanted to get rid of it. When a chop shop wants to clear out, much like the one that was busted a couple of weeks ago, they want to get rid of as much incriminating evidence as possible. So they lump it all into one car not caring even if it runs or not. Then they find the first bastard they can offload it on, and just like that most evidence connecting them to most of their crimes is gone. Your friend was their bastard," "And when he realized what he got," I continued, "I was his bastard. Son of a bitch!" I yelled, punching the stone wall, which only resulted in some scratched knuckles. "Do you still want me to fix it up?" Alexander asked standing from his chair, walking in front of me. "Sure, I don't have anywhere else to travel to since Arcadia Inc. rejected my resume.," I paused for a moment before speaking again, "Also Anthony..." "Hmmm?" he questioned. "I didn't know about any of this Chopper car stuff, but since your doing so much extra work on my behalf, there's no way that I can't just not pay..." I stopped as he rested his hand on my shoulder. "Don't worry about it Atlas," he said, a smile working its way over his face, "you've got the world on your shoulders, its not my job to pile on anything else. How about I have Bob drive you back to your apartment, you shouldn't have to walk back in this terrible weather." "Thanks Alexander." I said, walking out of the garage to the parking lot where the tow truck was. I climbed in and while waiting for Bob I pulled out my phone to check if I had missed anything, a message, a call, anything from Arcadia or any of the other jobs that I had applied to, nothing. I slumped back into the seat, but as I was about to close my eyes the default ringtone came pouring through the speakerphone. Popping my head from its resting place, I tapped the green phone icon and put it up to my ear. "Hello, Atlas Calihan speaking," I stopped my normal introduction at the sound of static. "Hello?" I asked again, "Is someone there? Hello?" The static continued, but as I was about to pull it away from my ear the static cleared slightly and I could hear snippets of sound. "Hello.... Calihan.... offering...... proposal...." "Speak up!" I cried, "I can barely hear you. If you are offering a job to me say something!" The static overtook the voice for a second and I almost hung up again yet the voice replied. "Indeed.... proposal accepted? Pay.... wanted? It was asking me if I wanted a job! "Yes, yes!" I said, tears on the verge of release, "If you are offering a job I accept!" "Confirmed..... meet..... time.... set...." the static was getting louder and louder, drowning the words in a sea of fuzzy sound. I decided to hang up and call later when I reached my apartment. I closed the phone, severing the contact just as Bob was climbing into the truck. He looked over at me, and not asking any questions about why I was nearly crying, he started the engine and pulled out of the lot. One hour later Bob parked the truck in front of the complex doorstep, and I opened the door and climbed out onto the barren sidewalk. No one in their right mind would be out while the wind felt like it was freezing your blood through your clothes. Bob tipped his baseball cap to me as a sign of good luck and gunned back into the street. I opened the door and was greeted with the warm embrace of the indoors. I waved at the supervisor, Ms. Aberdeen as I walked past the front desk and made my way back to my room. I cracked opened the shades just enough to let thin rays of sunlight permeate and dissipate the shade. I had tried to keep the place clean, yet with everything that had been going on I wasn't able to keep up with a somewhat overwhelming tide of untidiness. I didn't bother to take off my tux as I flopped on my four poster bed, the wooden supports creaking under the weight of my body and the cracked bedpost's age. I flipped open my phone and flicked through the menus until I was staring at the "Return Call" option, slowly and mockingly flickering at me. I took a deep breath and clicked the button and placed the phone up against my ear again. I quickly decided against laying down for my first phone interview, and regrettably hoisted myself up, trotting around on the cream colored carpet. As the dial kept ringing I looked on the wall behind my desk and saw a framed piece of paper. "Congratulations Atlas Calihan" it read, "for obtaining a Masters degree in Massage Therapy!" I huffed at the worn document. "Lot of good its done me now hunh?" I sneered to no one in particular. I had taken the class because I thought there would be more job positions open for an apple cheeked senior fresh from college. Much to my disappointment there was nothing in-state, and so I was left high and dry, no job, and a Masters in something that I thought I loved. I shocked back to attention though as the dial tone clicked and a voice spoke to me. I almost introduced myself, but something was very off. The voice sounded different I was certain, so I shut up and listened, my heart growing as frozen as the winds outside with every word. "The number that you have dialed is no longer in service," told a robotic female voice, "please make sure that the number is correct and try again. Have a good day." My mouth fell open at the last words, my heart sank so far that I swore I could feel it beating into my guts. "No!" I cried "No!" I re-dialed again, same result. I shivered not from the cold, but from shock. I slumped back onto the cotton comforter again. Of course, there was never any chance that I was that lucky, no chance that when I was at my lowest point someone would drop a sack of gold in my lap. I stared up at the white drywall ceiling, eyes tearing up, closing the phone gingerly and placing it back into my jacket pocket. My neck twinged suddenly and a sting of pain ran up my neck. "Ow!" I cried, slapping my neck, I sighed and lowered my hand. Just another thing to add to the pile of pain that was my life. My name really rang true now, Atlas the titan, titled with holding the world on his shoulders lest he be crushed under its weight, and oh Lord did the world feel heavy now. I spread out my arms to a eagle position, my legs hanging off the edge of the bed. Today's excursion had left me exhausted and it wasn't even two o'clock yet. I sighed, "Screw it." I said as my eyes slowly closed, "tomorrow is a new day." and I closed my eyes, falling into a deep sleep. Chapter 4Luna murmured to herself, her horn still alight with sapphire magic. She gave one last noise of approval before releasing her spell, the residual magic dispersing into the air. "Well?" asked Twilight, eager to hear the the results of communicating with an entirely different species. "The human accepted our proposal," Luna replied, "and he apparently wanted the payment as well." "Perfect!" Twilight cried, "So when can we finally get my "problem" dealt with?" "Well since the human's realm is over a mere 27 light years away from Equestria..." Luna pulled up a board formed out of solid magic with a piece of white magic marking the original blue with various white dashes. "Now...," Luna mumbled, as she began drawing lines connecting insignificant dots to one another. " avoiding the toll booth on Apophis 15," she muttered, drawing an X through a bright red dot, "we have to navigate past a basic supernova, hopefully that idiot in his blue box isn't talking to another one of his lost companions." she grumbled., "Through the Bermuda Tetrahedron in the fourth dimension..." she stood back musing on her progress so far. "we'll defiantly have to avoid Runeterra," she stated drawing more X's, "the toxicity of that planet's atmosphere could melt an entire asteroid belt!" Twilight could only observe the lunar princess at work, mark their course throughout the unfamiliar universe. Luna bobbed and weaved around the map, continuing the white dashes on, around, and through the map until she set herself back down onto the tree house floor and pinpointed one green and blue dot. "And there we go!" she concluded, huffing slightly. "One straightforward route to EA 14867, or as the locals liked to call it, Earth!" Twilight stared at the anything but straightforward path. She decided to not argue against the curator of the stars about what a path in space should look like, but instead hoisted the sack of bits onto her back, the weight nearly making her knees buckle underneath her. "So when do we leave?" she asked Luna, even now the weight causing sweat to bead on her fur. Luna snapped the board out of existence and converted the magic into a pocket watch. Luna analyzed it quizzically, tapping it a couple times with her hoof. "Based on my calculations," she replied, "we should of left five minutes ago." "What ?!" cried Twilight, this proposition of lateness being an outrage to the unicorn. Even when she was on time for something Twilight assumed that she was late, so a betrayal of her morals like this made her brain want to commit mutiny and slap the puzzled look off of Luna's muzzle. "We need to go now!" Twilight cried to Luna, hefting the large bag of bits onto her back and trying to walk forward, her knees trembling at the unfamiliar weight. It was at this moment that Luna's mane swirled with an unfamiliar hue, this section of her mane then split off, pooling onto the floor. A familiar figure emerged from the darkened mane, it was no bigger than a dog and was the spitting image of Luna if Luna was made up entirely out of her own ethereal mane. "Tantabus!" Twilight cried, and forgetting about her current affairs, tried to cast a small bolt of magic. What Twilight expected was for the Tantabus to be captured quite easily from a simple barrier spell. What she got however was a bouquet of flowers sprouting directly from the tip of her horn, that died soon after her failed casting."Horsefeathers!" she said, and pardoning her language quietly, tried to squash the Tantabus with the large sack of bits. She almost succeeded to, but at the very last second the large burlap sack was caught by Luna's azure magic and was placed with a dull thump onto the wooden floor. "Do not worry Twilight." Luna said, walking over to the lavender unicorn and comforting her, "The Tantabus is fully tamed, and she is actually quite helpful when you get to know her. Now Tany, why did you scare poor Twilight like that?" "Luna," began the Tantabus, her ethereal mouth not shifting, but nevertheless her silky voice filling the room, "You know that we have discussed your tardiness streak. No matter the occasion you always have the habit to find something that impedes your progress on maintaining strict schedules. Last month you tried to justify that you needed fifteen hours of sleep rather than appear at your own birthday. Three days ago you, instead of attending the royal court service, decided to start working on your model of the S.S Zaria airship, even though you have not touched it in five years. Even last night when I encouraged you to go to sleep early in order to meet with Ms. Sparkle this morning you decided to challenge Celestia to a wine and cake eating contest. As I recall, the first thing you said to me when I attempted to wake you up early was, "This hangover hurts so much that I think I might just visit the human world with Twilight to pick up some Ket..." It was at this moment that Luna dashed back over to the Tantabus' side, slapping one solitary hoof over her mouth. "I don't remember saying that Tany..." Luna said hastily, her mouth constricted into a straight line and her eyes darting across the room. Luna removed her hoof gingerly, and the Tantabus continued. "I would recommend", the Tantabus said, taking a glance at Luna, "taking a leaf out of Ms. Sparkle's book and that we should leave for the human world posthaste." Luna stared at the traitorous Tantabus, then Twilight, then back at the Tantabus, weighing the sudden intervention that had broken out from what was supposed to be a simple journey. "Fine." Luna said, pouting slightly like a chastised foal, "I guess that we can leave immediately, but before we travel I need to..." The Tantabus, from what Twilight could assume, glared at Luna with ethereal eyes, "I.. mean.. we need to do something about the human's payment." She nodded her head at the heavy sack. "I do not know what our travels would do to an un-shielded container, but luckily I came prepared." "I came prepared." The Tantabus piped up. "Shush you." Luna said pulling, from what appeared to be from nothing, a small simple wooden box. "This will work." Luna said, lifting the sack of bits as easily as she would a foal, and positioned the opening of the sack above the chest. "Learned this trick from a rather gifted human, I think her name was Hermioninny or something... Anyway, observe...", and Luna unfurled the drawstring from the sack, releasing it's torrent of golden coins. Before Twilight could react, or even think about how much of a mess Luna's antic would cause, the coins came flying out as a singular mass. Rather than however falling around their hooves the coins instead became attracted to the open chest. The coins began disappearing into the small box as fast as they would fly down a ravenous dragon's gullet. Twilight gazed with amazement as the previously massive bag shrank further and further down as it's payload was released. Soon enough the bag was depleted of gold, and Luna tossed it aside haphazardly. Twilight wasn't even phased by the untidiness that the bag now caused, but instead marveled at the magical display that had just happened. As she was about to ask, Luna shut the lid suddenly, sealing it with a golden lock. "VERY gifted human..." she said smugly. "Trust me, that trick amazed Celestia as well when she first saw it. Now shall we leave?" Twilight nodded slowly, still admiring the miniature chest. "I must learn about this brand of magic..." she thought, images of microsized filing and sorting mechanisms for scrolls, books, potions, and personal projects dancing in her head. Luna touched the air in front of her gingerly with her horn, the space unzipping to show a roiling vortex of random colors and shapes. The Tantabus flowed over her hooves and settled back into her mane. "Follow me precisely, you do not want to get stranded in this vortex. Last time it happened to me I ended up in some ship called the S.S Borealis. Took me a week to finally persuade the human who was guarding me that I was not some part of their experiments." Twilight took note of this, and filed this potential conversation under "Things to ask Luna when she's drunk.", and followed the alicorn into the vortex, it snapping silently shut behind them, leaving only the scent of blueberries, an old rugged sack, and a very perplexed Trixie peeking through a window, her mouth almost hitting the sill. Author's Note By Jove it has been quite a while since I uploaded something!
Chapter 1A slow drawling whine was the only reason I got out of bed today. I looked over at my alarm clock, red LED's shining a pitiful glow into the darkened room. I groaned as I read the time, 1:30, my job interview was only an hour away. I peeled myself from the shell of blankets I wrapped around myself and trundled off to the bathroom to take a quick shower. I turned the knob and after a second the pipes belched icy water on my bare skin. I finished my shower quickly and moved onto my wardrobe, a sad display with only a few shirts, some pants, and one tuxedo suit, shoes and all. Wasting no time I slipped on the tux and looked at myself in my mirror. A mop of brown hair fell down messily across my face I would have to fix my hair as soon as I got to Arcadia Inc. I checked my alarm clock again, 1:50. I had just enough time. I ran through my small drafty apartment complex, not grabbing anything to eat before I slammed the door behind me. I reached the bottom floor in record time and fumbled with my keys as I moved my way to the side of the building where my old junker car was parked. It was a gift from an old friend, which I found out later to be a liability when the engine nearly fell out ten miles down the road. As I turned the key it coughed and sputtered until I smacked the dashboard with a single slap, which caused it to roar back to life. I peeled out of the lot and started to make my way downtown, driving fast, car could break down, and I'm job bound... now I was singing to myself. Today was going to be a good day. Equestria Twilight Sparkle awoke with a foggy head and messed up fur. She removed herself gently from her improvised sleeping area, her desk to be specific. As she shook her hair to try and clear the fog, papers fell silently onto the carved wood of her tree. She levitated a brush to move her mane out of her eyes when she Spike's voice call from the downstairs, "Do you want some tea Twilight?" "Coffee please Spike, and make it strong." She heard him humming downstairs as she continued to struggle with her mane. His footsteps echoed up the stairs and she smelled the freshly brewed coffee. "Thank you Spike." she said, and though her mane still blocked her eyes, especially with the defeated comb hanging off like a flag in a soft breeze. She brought the cup to her lips and before she was able to take a drink she noticed something odd. The aura around the cup which normally was supposed to be a smooth and purple was becoming erratic and was a sickly red color. Without any notice the cup sprang from the aura like it was a thief caught in a mansion. As it flicked towards Spike, his tail lashed and caught the mug in mid-attack, though as a repercussion the brew spilled sadly onto the floor. He set the mug down gently and strode over to Twilight, placing a clawed paw on her shoulder. "Are you ok?" he asked, removing the brush and tiding the rest of her mane. "I'm fine." she replied, staring at the cup with a nearly offended gaze. "I'll need to ask Celestia about this anomaly. Can you stay at Rarity's until Celestia and I can figure out what the problem is? I don't want you getting hurt if something else is awry with my spells." "Twi, I'm not a hatchling anymore." He said staring into her eyes. "I think I can take a little more damage than a few random cups being thrown at me." It was true, Spike had grown exponentially over the past couple of years, he was now a drake and though he did not quite have the potential of flight his scales had toughened and he assumed a more bipedal stance with a quite impressive tail that nearly acted a third arm during his chores. Of course Twilight had taken notes on her friend's increasing growth nearly filling a small library with all the information she accrued. "I know that you are no longer a baby Spike." she said, shuffling her papers around looking for a scroll for Celestia. "Yet if all of my magic is reacting unexpectedly what could happen to the magical runes that protect our home and the archives? For all I know they could ignite, or make snakes crawl out of the storage boxes, or even..." She stopped, Spike finding the scroll and placing it in front of her. "Thank you." she said. As she scrawled out the letter she heard Spike sigh again and look at the ground. "Ok." he replied chuckling as he put his hands around his head, "If you want to protect me that much I'll stay at Rarity's until this problem is solved." He turned and started to walk out until he heard Twilight give a small cough. He turned and saw her motioning the scroll with her hoof. "Still remember how to send a letter?" she said with a trill of mild sarcasm. Against all of the stacking odds she still was keeping a clear head about her. "I think these old bellows can still give a couple good puffs." he replied and took the scroll in his claws, igniting it with a pale green flame. "Stay safe." he said rustling her mane yet again before he left. She smiled at the passing drake, yet as he disappeared she looked down and frowned as she collected her fallen parchment. She began to document a record of the past five days before the incident. As she flipped through her planner and recorded the times one thought kept flowing through her mind. "What could of caused this?" Earth As I pulled into the Arcadia Inc. complex I immediately knew that something was wrong. The first thing that tipped me off was that there were no cars in the lot. "It's probably lunch time." I said to myself stupidly as I navigated effortlessly to the front door. As I pulled on the handles the second realization hit me like a cinder block and rebar hammer to the crotch. There were no lights on in the building, there was no receptionist waiting to let me in at the desk, so unless this company specialized in the selling to ghost customers then I was utterly and completely boned. As I racked my brain for something that I missed in planning I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket. I picked it out, it was an old flip-phone which had granted me many bouts of laughter from both my friends and my ex. One message glowed as an unopened envelope on the screen. I clicked a few buttons and the message that I read sent my blood directly from a liquid to solid state. "Dear Mr. Calihan, we regret to inform you that your originally scheduled appointment has been cancelled. Looking back on you resume we decided to hire Ms. Clive for the assistant of Mr. Fontaine. We hope that this does not disrupt your normal life and I wish you a good day." Signed, Abigail Moore My grip nearly crushed the phone. That bastard Jacob Fontaine, we grew up together at one point and even ended up at the same college. We never really close friends, but we respected each other's lives. That is to say before the woman (now my ex) Zoey Chanel came into both of our lives. I eventually won the war against Fontaine for Zoey's temporary heart but Fontaine was never the same. I had no idea that he ran Arcadia Inc. and I bet when he saw my resume and interest in a job at his corporation he gave that crooked grin he always had when he was a kid. He also got Zoey in the end, after she saw how difficult it was for me to earn an honest living, she decided to take the top rung of the corporate ladder by running back to Jacob like a bitch with her tail between her legs. After my silent ranting I realized how biting the early November air was against my exposed face. I climbed back into the car and turned the key, nothing. "Oh no." I said to no one in particular as I climbed back into the whipping wind, my tux blowing around me like a makeshift parachute. I lifted the hood and only had to glance at the engine block to find the problem. Apparently ancient electronics and cracked coolant pipes did not do well to keep an engine cool. Some parts were nearing a semi liquid state, including the battery which was placed underneath the leaking coolant for some idiotic reason. I was not going anywhere anytime soon. I pulled out my phone again and punched in the towing company's number, I was one of their best customers, good for them, and a near epidemic on my bank accounts. "Alexander's car shop," came the gruff voice of the owner Alexander. "whatcha need?" "Alexander," I started "it's Atlas, I need some help, I'm at Arcadia Inc. the engine overheated and the battery is toast, can you send someone out here?" "Sure Atlas," he replied, "I'll send Bob out to fish you out. He'll be there in about an hour or two." I sighed, Alexanders was nearly halfway across town. "Oh yeah Alexander, something came up and I might not be able to pay you this time." He laughed, "Atlas, you're a brave enough bastard for taking that hunk of junk in the first place, I'll fix her up for you again, don't worry about it." "Thanks Alexander." I said, closing the phone, cutting off the call and settling back into my two ton doorstop. I leaned my head back, closing my eyes. I needed to do some thinking, and maybe if I was lucky I would be able to get some decent sleep. Yeah right.
Chapter 2Twilight sat at her desk, papers scrawled on, models made and the wall in front of her marked with times, dates, and places going back up to a month ago. Little red strings connecting them all into what could be conceived as a spider's dream. Her eyes were becoming sore from staring at the same material for over two hours. The walls and floor were decorated with her experiments on how far this sickness ran. The circular scorch mark four feet to her left was the result of her teleportation spell, the various shards of plates and cups embedded up to three inches into the ancient wood was her attempt at setting very simple table decorations, and the shattered broom handles in the corner covered in soapy water was her failure to weave a simple cleaning companion out of a broom and bucket. The last one was the worst of all, with the broom endlessly replicating as she tried to destroy them (quite ineffectively) with an old hoe that she borrowed from Carrot Top. Twilight let out a heavy sigh and fell face first with a poomph onto the book of magical anomalies in front of her. "Nothing's working!" she moaned into the dusty pages. As she breathed in the scent of both ancient ink and paper she heard a light, but rapid knocking at the front door. "That must be Celestia!" she said, perking up from the book, she shifted from her seat and trotted briskly down the oak stairs, the knocking seemingly growing more brisk as she got closer. She opened the door, with much trouble, since she never learned to work the metal handle with her hooves. As she finally managed to open the door, she expected to see the very large, very imposing, Princess of the Sun, but what was really there was an old Earth pony with a singular book on her back. "Ms. Sparkle is it?" she said, wheezing ever so slightly. "Yes ma'am." Twilight replied, "can I help you with anything?" "I have a book to return to your fine library. I needed something to teach my niece some things about knitting, but now that she sells her wares at the market I feel that it has served its purpose well and is in need of returning." Twilight motioned her in and closed the door behind the old mare. "Well, lets check that in for you and..." Twilight stopped as she heard the familiar crackle of a disguise spell being dropped. Twilight whipped around, almost ready to face whatever threat had slipped under her muzzle. "It would be unwise to use your magic Ms. Sparkle, with it working as erratic as you said in your letter. I know my sister taught you better than that." came the demanding voice of Princess Luna. "Princess Luna!" Twilight said, "Meaning no disrespect, but I thought Celestia was going to help me." "My sister is occupied at the moment," Luna said hanging the old tattered cloak she was just wearing, "some idiotic guard tried to peek into the royal baths this morning. I'll admit that I might of overreacted. Celestia is waiting in the infirmary for him to recover so she can give his punishment. Now then, onto the task at hoof." she said, placing the book she was carrying on the table in the center of the room. The novel before, which looked ancient and deeply in need of repair, now had transformed into a brilliantly violet covered book with golden accents on the cover and the spine. "Describe your symptoms to me Twilight", Luna said curtly, using minuscule amounts of azure magic to open the book to its index. "Well..." Twilight started, " picking at some papers that had migrated downstairs due to the broom incident, "I woke up today after a long night of revising my notes on Spike's growth and metabolism development." "Riveting," Luna said, with a sleight air of boredom in her voice. "go on." "I woke up and Spike asked me if I wanted anything to drink, to which I said that I wanted coffee, he brought it up to me and I tried to grab it with magic. Then the aura became spiky of sorts, like something about it was mutating, and the color was especially weird too, some sort of deep magenta." "Hmmm..." puzzled Luna, finally stopping on a singular page in the massive tome. "Aha!" she cried, motioning Twilight over, on the top of the page in bold lettering were the words "Stomachum Fricantur". Twilight tilted her head quizzically, she was fluent in over twenty languages, some even dating back when Luna and Celestia were first on the throne. Yet for some reason this language was unknown to her. Luna looked down at her and saw the look of desperation on Twilight's. "Ah." she said "I nearly forgot." her horn lit up once again and the ink on the pages responded, dissolving and then reforming back into traditional Equestrian. "Stomach Rubs?" Twilight said, putting to rest what doubts she had in he mind about an unreadable book (The horror!) "Yes," Luna replied, "or as the non-Latin speaking population says, tummy rubs. Usually used as a basic massage for relaxation, but for your sickness this is the only cure." "So I just need to go to the spa for a simple massage and I will be fine?" Twilight asked hope rising in her voice. "No." replied Luna. The hope that was attempting to rise in Twilight's heart was speared with dread. "What do you mean?" she said, staring at the words, them mocking them with the somewhat bland history of Tummy Rubs. "The way that the disease has spread through your body is a specialized strain, brought on by either too much stress with less than normal sleep, or by eating a very abnormal plant found in the Neighigra Falls area, so unless you have been traveling lately, then I think that you have been researching a bit too much on Spikes growth and metabolism development." "So how do I fix this? Twilight said, sensing a small amount of sarcasm from Luna when she said "metabolism development." "There is only one creature that can administer a Tummy Rub at the magnitude that you need." Luna flipped another heavy page revealing an anatomy section of a bipedal creature, unlike Spike at all, since it possessed neither scales nor any features that Twilight had seen develop in her dragon friend. "What are they?" Twilight asked inquisitively, analyzing the anthropological data inscribed on the parchment, some of the more prominent features included things called hands, toes, and one specifically bolded and underlined called Aposable Thumbs. "They are called Humans," Luna suddenly tilted her head lightly. "What's wrong?" Twilight asked. "Somepony here in Ponyville just fainted from excitement, but I have no idea why. Anyway, humans inhabit a rather new planet on an arm of the Milky Way Galaxy, and as you can see they are quite different from us in major ways. However, our two worlds are connected by magic, most colonized planets have some form of sorcery," she continued," however our planet's bonds are very much stronger than normal, so strong in fact that we can travel in between our worlds." "Princess Luna?" Twilight asked, one question nagging at her. " Where did you even find such a detailed book on these Humans?" "My dear Twilight." Luna cooed, turning over the book to show her a title inscribed in gold on the back cover. It read "A Detailed Anatomical and Ethnographic report on the Human world by Princess Luna. "I wrote it." A coy smile drew onto Luna's face as she basked in her own glory. "Kind of a long Title for a report isn't it?" Twilight asked. The smug look on Luna's face was wiped clean and was replaced by one of anger and near defeat. "Starswirl made me do this report on the culture on a world that could come into contact with Equestria in case we needed a diplomat from the royal family. Celestia's haunches he was a hard flank, every time I turned it in for a review he read it, and then rejected it for some minor detail that I had missed. So I made the title as long and as small as possible so that his old eyes would hurt every time he read it." Twilight stared at Luna for a second, drinking in the shock of how troublesome she had been before Nightmare Moon raised her ugly head. "So is there still a way to get to the humans world?" Twilight asked, returning to her normal question-firing self. Luna shut the book her eyes puzzled in concentration, "I still think I still know the spell, it is of a rather simple variety of transportation spells, but I'm going to mix in a locating spell to properly identify the human that would fit what you need. It will take me a couple of minutes to prepare both of us for travel." "Both of us?" Twilight asked. "My sister would murder me if I let her previous prodigy explore an unfamiliar world without guidance." Luna cleared her throat slightly with a look of embarrassment, "Also, I fear that my report may be slightly outdated since when I visited the human world, they were in the process of a cultural breakthrough from the bleak lives that they were living." Twilight turned from Luna to organize her notebooks on Spike, when she heard Luna cough slightly. "Twilight, one more thing, humans most of the time will not do anything without a fee attached to it. They also were infatuated by the bits that I brought with me on my documentation journey, I would recommend bringing some what of a large amount of bits in case this specific human is greedy." "Sooo," Twilight said, tapping her hoof on her chin, "would about 500 bits work?" Luna sighed, "Yes that will be an excellent bargaining chip just in case." "Ok!" Twilight said, dashing to the secret door in the farthest wall of the tree. When she finally managed to pop it open, she started pulling a fairly large sack by her teeth. She set it down and Luna's eyes widened. Twilight dashed back off to make preparations and after she was out of sight, Luna hoisted the book again onto her back and began channeling her spell. "Celestia needs to teach her about the dangers of having too many bits." was the though the thought that Luna ran through her head before she focused entirely on weaving her spell.
Chapter 3"Oh you have got to be kidding me!" I cried as I peered into the engine. The coolant pipes could be fixed easily, the battery could be replaced in a day, however the engine's overheating warping the pistons rendered the engine completely useless. "Jesus." Alexander grunted, shutting the hood gently in case something else on my pile of junk wanted to fall off. "I've seen nothing like it before Atlas. I can fix it, though it will take some time." I leaned up against the wall, the cool stone pressing on my back. I waited for a while before speaking, "How long Alexander?" I said, putting my hands into my pockets. "About a week even if I can find the parts, from what I saw in there the engine is some sort of Frankenstein creation. I counted seven different car brands inside of that engine Atlas, where the hell did your friend get this thing?" "He told me that he won it in a poker game from a pretty shady guy at the bar." "Did he tell you anything about this guy in particular?" Alexander said, moving over to an ordering manual to record what he needed. "Well he was pretty drunk when he got back, all he could talk about the car he won from this sucker at poker. The only thing else that he mentioned was that he had some weird tattoos on his arms, most of them looked like regular biker ink, but one really caught his eye, it was a car split in half bleeding oil." I jumped as Alexander's booming laugh echoed throughout the garage. As i looked over at him doubling over I wondered what the hell just happened. Alexander was normally a straight forward man who usually had no time for jokes. Yet now here he was, needing a chair to sit on since he was laughing so hard. "What's so funny?" I asked mildly annoyed at the situation. Alexander lent back in the chair and wiped the sweat that had beaded on his brow. "Well Atlas," he said, wheezing from lack of air, "it seems that your friend won a Chopper Car." "Chopper Car?" I asked, "What the hell is that?" "Well," Alexander continued, "that "sucker" that lost his car in a damn poker game wanted to get rid of it. When a chop shop wants to clear out, much like the one that was busted a couple of weeks ago, they want to get rid of as much incriminating evidence as possible. So they lump it all into one car not caring even if it runs or not. Then they find the first bastard they can offload it on, and just like that most evidence connecting them to most of their crimes is gone. Your friend was their bastard," "And when he realized what he got," I continued, "I was his bastard. Son of a bitch!" I yelled, punching the stone wall, which only resulted in some scratched knuckles. "Do you still want me to fix it up?" Alexander asked standing from his chair, walking in front of me. "Sure, I don't have anywhere else to travel to since Arcadia Inc. rejected my resume.," I paused for a moment before speaking again, "Also Anthony..." "Hmmm?" he questioned. "I didn't know about any of this Chopper car stuff, but since your doing so much extra work on my behalf, there's no way that I can't just not pay..." I stopped as he rested his hand on my shoulder. "Don't worry about it Atlas," he said, a smile working its way over his face, "you've got the world on your shoulders, its not my job to pile on anything else. How about I have Bob drive you back to your apartment, you shouldn't have to walk back in this terrible weather." "Thanks Alexander." I said, walking out of the garage to the parking lot where the tow truck was. I climbed in and while waiting for Bob I pulled out my phone to check if I had missed anything, a message, a call, anything from Arcadia or any of the other jobs that I had applied to, nothing. I slumped back into the seat, but as I was about to close my eyes the default ringtone came pouring through the speakerphone. Popping my head from its resting place, I tapped the green phone icon and put it up to my ear. "Hello, Atlas Calihan speaking," I stopped my normal introduction at the sound of static. "Hello?" I asked again, "Is someone there? Hello?" The static continued, but as I was about to pull it away from my ear the static cleared slightly and I could hear snippets of sound. "Hello.... Calihan.... offering...... proposal...." "Speak up!" I cried, "I can barely hear you. If you are offering a job to me say something!" The static overtook the voice for a second and I almost hung up again yet the voice replied. "Indeed.... proposal accepted? Pay.... wanted? It was asking me if I wanted a job! "Yes, yes!" I said, tears on the verge of release, "If you are offering a job I accept!" "Confirmed..... meet..... time.... set...." the static was getting louder and louder, drowning the words in a sea of fuzzy sound. I decided to hang up and call later when I reached my apartment. I closed the phone, severing the contact just as Bob was climbing into the truck. He looked over at me, and not asking any questions about why I was nearly crying, he started the engine and pulled out of the lot. One hour later Bob parked the truck in front of the complex doorstep, and I opened the door and climbed out onto the barren sidewalk. No one in their right mind would be out while the wind felt like it was freezing your blood through your clothes. Bob tipped his baseball cap to me as a sign of good luck and gunned back into the street. I opened the door and was greeted with the warm embrace of the indoors. I waved at the supervisor, Ms. Aberdeen as I walked past the front desk and made my way back to my room. I cracked opened the shades just enough to let thin rays of sunlight permeate and dissipate the shade. I had tried to keep the place clean, yet with everything that had been going on I wasn't able to keep up with a somewhat overwhelming tide of untidiness. I didn't bother to take off my tux as I flopped on my four poster bed, the wooden supports creaking under the weight of my body and the cracked bedpost's age. I flipped open my phone and flicked through the menus until I was staring at the "Return Call" option, slowly and mockingly flickering at me. I took a deep breath and clicked the button and placed the phone up against my ear again. I quickly decided against laying down for my first phone interview, and regrettably hoisted myself up, trotting around on the cream colored carpet. As the dial kept ringing I looked on the wall behind my desk and saw a framed piece of paper. "Congratulations Atlas Calihan" it read, "for obtaining a Masters degree in Massage Therapy!" I huffed at the worn document. "Lot of good its done me now hunh?" I sneered to no one in particular. I had taken the class because I thought there would be more job positions open for an apple cheeked senior fresh from college. Much to my disappointment there was nothing in-state, and so I was left high and dry, no job, and a Masters in something that I thought I loved. I shocked back to attention though as the dial tone clicked and a voice spoke to me. I almost introduced myself, but something was very off. The voice sounded different I was certain, so I shut up and listened, my heart growing as frozen as the winds outside with every word. "The number that you have dialed is no longer in service," told a robotic female voice, "please make sure that the number is correct and try again. Have a good day." My mouth fell open at the last words, my heart sank so far that I swore I could feel it beating into my guts. "No!" I cried "No!" I re-dialed again, same result. I shivered not from the cold, but from shock. I slumped back onto the cotton comforter again. Of course, there was never any chance that I was that lucky, no chance that when I was at my lowest point someone would drop a sack of gold in my lap. I stared up at the white drywall ceiling, eyes tearing up, closing the phone gingerly and placing it back into my jacket pocket. My neck twinged suddenly and a sting of pain ran up my neck. "Ow!" I cried, slapping my neck, I sighed and lowered my hand. Just another thing to add to the pile of pain that was my life. My name really rang true now, Atlas the titan, titled with holding the world on his shoulders lest he be crushed under its weight, and oh Lord did the world feel heavy now. I spread out my arms to a eagle position, my legs hanging off the edge of the bed. Today's excursion had left me exhausted and it wasn't even two o'clock yet. I sighed, "Screw it." I said as my eyes slowly closed, "tomorrow is a new day." and I closed my eyes, falling into a deep sleep.
Chapter 4Luna murmured to herself, her horn still alight with sapphire magic. She gave one last noise of approval before releasing her spell, the residual magic dispersing into the air. "Well?" asked Twilight, eager to hear the the results of communicating with an entirely different species. "The human accepted our proposal," Luna replied, "and he apparently wanted the payment as well." "Perfect!" Twilight cried, "So when can we finally get my "problem" dealt with?" "Well since the human's realm is over a mere 27 light years away from Equestria..." Luna pulled up a board formed out of solid magic with a piece of white magic marking the original blue with various white dashes. "Now...," Luna mumbled, as she began drawing lines connecting insignificant dots to one another. " avoiding the toll booth on Apophis 15," she muttered, drawing an X through a bright red dot, "we have to navigate past a basic supernova, hopefully that idiot in his blue box isn't talking to another one of his lost companions." she grumbled., "Through the Bermuda Tetrahedron in the fourth dimension..." she stood back musing on her progress so far. "we'll defiantly have to avoid Runeterra," she stated drawing more X's, "the toxicity of that planet's atmosphere could melt an entire asteroid belt!" Twilight could only observe the lunar princess at work, mark their course throughout the unfamiliar universe. Luna bobbed and weaved around the map, continuing the white dashes on, around, and through the map until she set herself back down onto the tree house floor and pinpointed one green and blue dot. "And there we go!" she concluded, huffing slightly. "One straightforward route to EA 14867, or as the locals liked to call it, Earth!" Twilight stared at the anything but straightforward path. She decided to not argue against the curator of the stars about what a path in space should look like, but instead hoisted the sack of bits onto her back, the weight nearly making her knees buckle underneath her. "So when do we leave?" she asked Luna, even now the weight causing sweat to bead on her fur. Luna snapped the board out of existence and converted the magic into a pocket watch. Luna analyzed it quizzically, tapping it a couple times with her hoof. "Based on my calculations," she replied, "we should of left five minutes ago." "What ?!" cried Twilight, this proposition of lateness being an outrage to the unicorn. Even when she was on time for something Twilight assumed that she was late, so a betrayal of her morals like this made her brain want to commit mutiny and slap the puzzled look off of Luna's muzzle. "We need to go now!" Twilight cried to Luna, hefting the large bag of bits onto her back and trying to walk forward, her knees trembling at the unfamiliar weight. It was at this moment that Luna's mane swirled with an unfamiliar hue, this section of her mane then split off, pooling onto the floor. A familiar figure emerged from the darkened mane, it was no bigger than a dog and was the spitting image of Luna if Luna was made up entirely out of her own ethereal mane. "Tantabus!" Twilight cried, and forgetting about her current affairs, tried to cast a small bolt of magic. What Twilight expected was for the Tantabus to be captured quite easily from a simple barrier spell. What she got however was a bouquet of flowers sprouting directly from the tip of her horn, that died soon after her failed casting."Horsefeathers!" she said, and pardoning her language quietly, tried to squash the Tantabus with the large sack of bits. She almost succeeded to, but at the very last second the large burlap sack was caught by Luna's azure magic and was placed with a dull thump onto the wooden floor. "Do not worry Twilight." Luna said, walking over to the lavender unicorn and comforting her, "The Tantabus is fully tamed, and she is actually quite helpful when you get to know her. Now Tany, why did you scare poor Twilight like that?" "Luna," began the Tantabus, her ethereal mouth not shifting, but nevertheless her silky voice filling the room, "You know that we have discussed your tardiness streak. No matter the occasion you always have the habit to find something that impedes your progress on maintaining strict schedules. Last month you tried to justify that you needed fifteen hours of sleep rather than appear at your own birthday. Three days ago you, instead of attending the royal court service, decided to start working on your model of the S.S Zaria airship, even though you have not touched it in five years. Even last night when I encouraged you to go to sleep early in order to meet with Ms. Sparkle this morning you decided to challenge Celestia to a wine and cake eating contest. As I recall, the first thing you said to me when I attempted to wake you up early was, "This hangover hurts so much that I think I might just visit the human world with Twilight to pick up some Ket..." It was at this moment that Luna dashed back over to the Tantabus' side, slapping one solitary hoof over her mouth. "I don't remember saying that Tany..." Luna said hastily, her mouth constricted into a straight line and her eyes darting across the room. Luna removed her hoof gingerly, and the Tantabus continued. "I would recommend", the Tantabus said, taking a glance at Luna, "taking a leaf out of Ms. Sparkle's book and that we should leave for the human world posthaste." Luna stared at the traitorous Tantabus, then Twilight, then back at the Tantabus, weighing the sudden intervention that had broken out from what was supposed to be a simple journey. "Fine." Luna said, pouting slightly like a chastised foal, "I guess that we can leave immediately, but before we travel I need to..." The Tantabus, from what Twilight could assume, glared at Luna with ethereal eyes, "I.. mean.. we need to do something about the human's payment." She nodded her head at the heavy sack. "I do not know what our travels would do to an un-shielded container, but luckily I came prepared." "I came prepared." The Tantabus piped up. "Shush you." Luna said pulling, from what appeared to be from nothing, a small simple wooden box. "This will work." Luna said, lifting the sack of bits as easily as she would a foal, and positioned the opening of the sack above the chest. "Learned this trick from a rather gifted human, I think her name was Hermioninny or something... Anyway, observe...", and Luna unfurled the drawstring from the sack, releasing it's torrent of golden coins. Before Twilight could react, or even think about how much of a mess Luna's antic would cause, the coins came flying out as a singular mass. Rather than however falling around their hooves the coins instead became attracted to the open chest. The coins began disappearing into the small box as fast as they would fly down a ravenous dragon's gullet. Twilight gazed with amazement as the previously massive bag shrank further and further down as it's payload was released. Soon enough the bag was depleted of gold, and Luna tossed it aside haphazardly. Twilight wasn't even phased by the untidiness that the bag now caused, but instead marveled at the magical display that had just happened. As she was about to ask, Luna shut the lid suddenly, sealing it with a golden lock. "VERY gifted human..." she said smugly. "Trust me, that trick amazed Celestia as well when she first saw it. Now shall we leave?" Twilight nodded slowly, still admiring the miniature chest. "I must learn about this brand of magic..." she thought, images of microsized filing and sorting mechanisms for scrolls, books, potions, and personal projects dancing in her head. Luna touched the air in front of her gingerly with her horn, the space unzipping to show a roiling vortex of random colors and shapes. The Tantabus flowed over her hooves and settled back into her mane. "Follow me precisely, you do not want to get stranded in this vortex. Last time it happened to me I ended up in some ship called the S.S Borealis. Took me a week to finally persuade the human who was guarding me that I was not some part of their experiments." Twilight took note of this, and filed this potential conversation under "Things to ask Luna when she's drunk.", and followed the alicorn into the vortex, it snapping silently shut behind them, leaving only the scent of blueberries, an old rugged sack, and a very perplexed Trixie peeking through a window, her mouth almost hitting the sill. Author's Note By Jove it has been quite a while since I uploaded something!
