Chapters Chapter 1: An Invasion of Privacy
Twilight Sparkle had just finished taking a bath and was trying desperately to comb her mane; she had recently run out of conditioner and more pressing matters had interfered with her obtaining a new bottle. As she bit her lip in pain, struggling to just get the comb out of her hair, a flash momentarily disoriented her. After being able to see again, though with a large blue blur in the center of her vision, she turned and saw a stallion just out the window across the room with a camera. The instant she saw him, he ducked away, but it was too late. Using her magic, she opened the window and lifted the stallion into the room. She dropped him on the ground and inched forward, feeling her face turn red in fury. "Just what the manure do you think you're doing!?" He was a reddish pony, like the color of Big Macintosh, though he was definitely smaller and wormier. He had no cutie mark, and had a large black camera strapped around his neck, along with a small watch-looking device on his right leg. "Peeking Tom on a mare, a Princess at that!" Twilight was not one to boast about being a princess, but she wanted this pony to know the severity of what he had done.
"Well, um... I, uh-" the stallion, who had previously been sitting on his flank with his two back hooves crossed, fell over on his back, and fidgeted to get back up, like he didn't know how. Twilight magically yanked the camera off the stallion's neck and crushed it, sprinkling the pieces over the stallion's chest. Panicked, the pony pushed a button on his leg-bound device. A small beep emanated from it, and then the pony turned blue, became surprisingly translucent, then his original form was abandoned for five small glowing orbs, which spun together, then vanished completely. The pieces of the camera clattered to the floor, the only noise in the room.
Twilight stood, dumbfounded. That sure as flank wasn't magic! Not only did it look nothing like it, but the pony was an Earth Pony. But then what was it? Some kind of enchanted bracelet? Who would give it to him? Why? And where did he go? There were too many questions for Twilight to take, so she instead focused on the here and now. "S-Spike?" She called. The door to the bathroom opened, and Spike poked his head in. "Yes? I heard some noises, and I was wondering..." Spike trailed off, looking down at the shattered camera. There was a silence, then Spike asked, "Do you want me to clean that up?" Twilight nodded at the servant wordlessly.
Spike did so. He came in with a broom and dust pan and cleaned the camera up. Neither of them spoke, there was a mood in the room that told the whole story. Someone tried messing with me. They're gone now , it said, and that was all Spike wanted to know. However, as he cleaned, he noticed a bit of color among the black, green, and glass. It was yellow and small. The purple dragon looked over to his master, saw she was once again combing her mane, and he leaned over and picked it up.
It was plastic, a small looking device. It didn't appear to be chipped, like it was a standalone piece. It read, "Kodak SDHC 8GB." Spike didn't know what that meant, but it sparked his interest, so he slid it behind one of his scales. He finished sweeping up the destruction and carried the dust pan out of the room. As he passed a window, a flash of bright light momentarily disoriented him. He quickly looked over to the window, saw nothing, and continued to the trashcan.
Chapter 2: Disapproval and Inquisition
The man, Eric Jeris, had not intended for what had happened to happen. As he flew through a deep, blue hole, watching stars pass him by, he wanted nothing more than to be able to change what he had done. Dang it, Mr. Dream had given him a camera, so he shouldn't be angry at him for using it. Then again, he was told not to use it in close distance. At the least she could have left Mr. Dream's camera alone, he thought. That thing was pretty high quality, he didn't want to imagine to bill he would receive in the mail.
As he reached the end of the wormhole, he could hear conversation, then he was tossed to the ground, grunting as he hit the dirt. The conversation stopped. He could only hear a gentle breeze. He climbed onto his hands and looked around. He was back in the tent that held the portal, a long line of bronies leading up to the metal infrastructure of the Equestrian Portal. Next to it, at a control panel, was the 14-year-old boy running the whole thing, Wevilious Dream. He, along with everyone else, stared blankly at him on the dirt.
"You used the Emergency Bracelet?" Mr. Dream asked from the control panel. Eric only nodded. "Why?" Eric looked to the ground for a moment, then back up at Wevilious. "Because Twilight caught me taking pictures." Mr. Dream's eyes widened, then he stormed through the crowd and grabbed Eric by the neck, lifting him up above himself until Eric's feet barely touched the ground. "She caught you?! What do you mean, she caught you?!" Eric struggled to breath. He grabbed at Mr. Dream's hands and kicked his legs, but the boy didn't even move. Eric's face was starting to turn red when Mr. Dream dropped him to the ground.
"Get out." Eric rubbed his hand on his neck and looked up at the adolescent. He had said the words calmly, as though it were a normal conversation. "Get out, and never come back. You're banned." Eric thought, So I'm "Banned From Equestria?" , but he didn't find the situation funny. He turned and ran out of the tent, the bronies' eyes following him all the way out.
"Twilight? Twilight Sparkle?" Rainbow Dash asked, rousing the princess from her daydream-like staring. "Oh, huh? Oh, hi Rainbow." Twilight was sitting down on her front porch, looking out at Ponyville in it's usual daily schedule. "What're you so interested in?" Rainbow asked. Twilight momentarily looked back out to the town, then to Rainbow Dash. "Have you noticed the sudden wave of tourists?" She asked. Rainbow looked out to the street and glanced around, then back at Twilight. "What do you mean?"
Twilight pointed out to two ponies, a couple, probably, and said, "Just look at them for a moment." Rainbow did and realized that they were apparently fascinated by the buildings. They also had little black devices strapped around their necks. "So? It's Ponyville, the newest Princess lives here, in an awesome castle!" Rainbow exclaimed while sweeping her hoof in an arch over the castle behind Twilight. Without looking back at it, she questioned, "Yeah, but why now? Those things happened months ago and the talk has almost completely vanished."
"Hey, it's tourists. They could've come from the other side of the planet for all we know! It certainly would've taken them along time." Rainbow replied.
"Yeah, okay. But why are they so fascinated with all the ordinary buildings? Don't they have houses and restaurants where they come from?" Twilight retorted. Rainbow did find that a bit odd, but she felt like Twilight was heading somewhere. "Okay, yeah. What do you think?" Twilight froze for a moment, then shamefully admitted, "I don't know."
Chapter 3: Questionable Encounters
When Twilight was asked to go with her friends to a Vinyl Scratch concert, they were all surprised to find that she agreed to go! Twilight was never one for dubstep or remixes, but they always asked her anyways, like a formality. For Twilight to actually agree made all the mares stand motionless in the library's main room for a couple of seconds, gaping as she levitated a book on Quantum Magic back onto an unstable stack of other books. Not only did she want to go, she opting on the concert over a science book!
"Twi, yer not one to go to a concert. Why're ya so interested now?" Applejack asked. "I just have things I'd like to get my mind off of; and who knows? Maybe I'll like it?" She replied, Rainbow Dash rolling her eyes at the remark about getting things off her mind. Twilight was not surprised - and neither were her friends - to find that she did not like Vinyl's style at all. To her, it sounded like a million different horrible sounds that didn't flow together in any way were assaulting her ears in an all out war to destroy her ear drums.
"What in Equestria is this?!" Twilight shouted over the mayhem to Pinkie Pie, who was dancing along with the other 6 (did I mention Spike went with them?). "It's dubstep! Isn't it amazing?!" She replied in a responsive volume that almost hurt her ears more than the music.
"I'm gonna step outside!" She yelled, receiving another impossibly loud response, "Hah! I get it! Step , like dubstep!" Deciding not to punish her ears or vocal cords any longer, Twilight left the auditorium the concert was in; instead exploring the suddenly fascinating world of concession stands. "That'll be three bits, ma'am." The stallion at the first lemonade stand next to the doors said. Twilight handed over the money, and he slid a plastic cup of iced lemonade to her. She levitated it in front of her and started sipping, while walking further down the sidewalk away from the concert, feeling a soon-to-be migrane coming on.
"Madam?" Twilight turned to see a black-coated stallion unicorn trot out from behind one of the closed concession stands. She moved the cup away from herself and rested it on the ground. "Yes?" She replied. He stepped closer. "I must apologize for my colleague's rude behavior the other day, he's quite unconventional."
Twilight's eyes widened, "You mean, the pony that was looking at me through the window? You know him?"
"Yes, quite. He was supposed to be capturing Ponyville's suburban beauty for the cover of some publications. He clearly got, um, sidetracked."
"Sidetracked? SIDETRACKED?!" At her raised tone, the stallion looked around anxiously. "Do you know how ignominious and shameful an act like that is? I mean, come on! At the very, very least, it's stupid! If he wanted things like that, he could've just gotten Playcolt or something!"
The stallion cocked his head. "I-ignomius? What did you say?"
Twilight facehoofed. She walked up to the stallion until she was right in his face. "You keep you're weird ponies away from my castle, okay? That's all I want you to do."
The stallion looked her over, then said, monotonously, "I'm afraid I can't do that." Before Twilight could get her hooves on him, the stallion ran behind a closed concession stand. She started to head back there after him, thoughts of strangling flashing in her mind, when she was distracted by the flash of a camera from her left, then the clopping of hooves. She blinked, shook her head, and looked towards the direction of the flash.
Another blank-flank stallion running away from her, all giddy, with one of those flashing devices wrapped around his neck. Twilight considered chasing him down. but thought she had better deal with this little flank-face behind the concessions. She ran to the corner the stallion had turned around and looked down a long row of stand setups. Not a pony in sight.
Something caught her eye. In the field next to these stands, there was a cloak, lying on the ground. Hurriedly, she galloped over to it, then felt it with her hooves. Still warm. Whoever this mystery pony was, he was definetely up to no good.
Just to be sure, Twilight looked around for any sign of a pony. Once she had confirmed he had vanished, she sat down in the field. Occasionally, she would look at the cloak, as if expecting him to appear in it so she could punch his face.
Eventually, the muffled, quiet sound of dubstep mixed with the wind and sounding insects lulled Twilight to sleep on the grassy plain.