Equestrian Days of a Human Mage

by Cereal-Killer

Rating: teen
Tags: Adventure, Human, Alternate Universe, Romance
Length: 5734

Due to unknown circumstances four students are torn from their world, given strange powers and thrown into the Equestria.

*SCRAPPED*

Due to unknown circumstances four students are torn from their world, given strange powers and thrown into the Equestria, each of them blazing their own path to answers.

Meanwhile dark forces are at play, scuttling in the shadows…

Published 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2015-09-19 22:52:45 UTC

Prologue

I woke up clutching at my head, my body was a tangled mess as I shifted from my sleeping position. a blunt pain pushing into my forehead.

"Fuckkk...my head..." I moaned rubbing my head slowly.

"You know it's truly amazing that you can sleep through a bus trip, on a road full of potholes and speed bumps, while also in what is probably the most awkward sleeping position I've ever seen, but be woken up on the smoother part of the road," Mark explained, Not taking his eye off of his phone screen.

"Fuck off," I mumbled, still half-asleep.

"No, James, I can't do that-" He looked over the rows of empty seats "-there's nowhere else to sit."

"You're a riot, Marcus."

The bus trundled along the road, slowly ascending a hill, the road was now coloured gold and hazel by the bare autumn trees.

Me and Mark had known each other for a few years now, we had first talked at a party when we were seventeen, I had overheard him, talking about Discord and his resemblance to Q, and I quickly slipped into the conversation.

We became friends pretty quickly after that, occasionally talking about a new episode, girls, or video games... you know, general guy stuff, well at least the latter two were.

He looked out for me, I looked out for him. We insulted each other, embarassed each other, and annoyed the fuck out of each other constantly.

So yeah, pretty average friendship.

"How long was I asleep." I asked.

No reply.

"How long was I asleep." I asked jabbing a finger into Mark's side.

"Twenty minutes or so." Mark said angrily. The bus hit another bump.

"Why you acting like a little bitch?" I droned.

"You made me rabbit-tap the screen and die." The bitterness tangible in his voice.

"Oh that ain't so ba-" I began before he cut me off.

"-On Flappy Bird."

"You still mad that I beat your high score?" I quipped.

Another bump, the bus jerked more sharply.

"OI! You wanna slow down a bit?" Someone yelled from further back at the driver.

"So onto more relatable things, do you think MLP's gonna bring back the changelings, I mean there was that one in the hundredth episode and in the Tantabus episode?" I asked enthusiasticly.

"That's hardly enough to prompt a second changeling invasion." Mark replied.

"Yeah but why were they being added in when they could of used something else?"

"Good question, maybe they're just easy to animate, cuz they all look exactly the same besides Chrysalis?"

We continued talking about this for a fair while, engrossed in the conversation.

"You know i would of thought Chris would sit back here with us, rather than at the front." I remarked.

"You forget he's a closet Brony,  besides he doesn't really talk too much anyway."

"Matt told me that he's started being more open about his interest in the show."

"That's good, I guess."

I decided to mess with him. "So did you get off to Smile HD last night too?" Mark gagged, performing a successful spit-take from the water from the bottle held in his hand.

"What is actually wrong with you?" Mark asked,  muffled by the hand he applied to his face. I failed to contain my laughter, guffawing at his reaction.

"I'm joking, I'm joking." I chuckled, trying to get my mirth under control after a solid fifteen seconds of laughing my arse off.

"You know I hate Smile HD, it completely goes against the innocence of the show," he said, scowling at me.

"Lighten up man, it was just a joke." I replied, pressing my head up against the window, staring out at the countryside.

"Bet you a tenner, that Starlight Glimmer is the enemy of the finale of season five." I added trying to change the subject.

"Deal."

"But you have to give me double if I win."

"Challenge accepted."

"They already showed the previews for the finale, so you lose."

Mark went silent for a few seconds.

"You're a cheating asshole, you know that right?"

"You walked right into th-" my voice was drowned out by the excruciating noise of grinding metal. The bus seemed to smash into something in the road. An audible smash as it landed, there was fire, then a blur of distant colours, the sounds of a forest, then darkness.

=======《¤》=======

Pain.

Pain is in my legs, pain is in my head, pain is everywhere and it just... Owww.

"Nnnnngh..." I stirred, taking in bright sunshine, must of been out cold for at least a few hours, seeing as it was barely morning when we crashed, I tried moving but my right leg appeared to be preoccupied with a sizable lump of metal was crushing it. It hurt immeasurably.the leg was bent in as position no leg should be, seemed to respond to my acknowledgement, by suddenly flaring up with the pain.

I reached out to the wreckage covering it, I felt a heat build up gradually, burning up my arm, from my body to my arm into the hand of the outstretched appendage, and the metal was sent from me straight into a tree, snapping the trunk and rolling off into the forest.

I turned my hand around, eyeing my open palm "wh-what the..." I paused unable to process what just fucking happened. At this point I kinda freaked out, throwing obscenities, among other things at the sky.

Once I calmed down, I tried again with a small pebble, using much less force, the pebble lifted into the air swirling in an alabaster aura. "Telekinesis? But does that mean..." I did my best Darth Vader force choke motion with my hand, crushing the pebble into fine grains of sand. I let go of the grains dropping them to the floor, I began to chuckle which quickly grew hysterical "SO, I'm a Jedi, fucking brilliant," I shouted, "Now all I need is a Lightsaber." I was about to experiment further when an important question popped into my head.

"Wait. Where am I?" For the first time in the last five or so minutes I was thinking straight. I noticed the worn yet stable cobble floor I was resting on, I looked up to scare the shit out of myself see the face of the (worst) princess of Equestria, Celestia, in marble form looking out on the forest entrance in front of me. I peered over the statue to a cobble bridge, which in turn linked up to a familiar castle, one I remembered from MLP' "The Everfree Castle..."

I looked to my side to see Mark, unconscious next to a statue of a certain Moon princess. I used my power to throw a rock at his groin. Following that bit of gentle persuasion he woke up immediately, my friend looked over to me, dazed and slightly pissed, as I held a few more pebbles that began orbiting my hand, cloaked in the same white glow.

"How are you doing that?" He asked, his voice ripe with curiosity but still slightly slurred.

"Not a clue" I said absent mindedly trying to get the rocks to connect and come round my arm like a snake. I got up, trying to walk into the cas- Nope no, fuck , that is utter agony, I looked down at my  broken leg seeing the damage,"Human legs REALLY shouldn't bend that way..." I turned to Mark, "hey, you had some medical training in scouts or whatever, right?" He nodded. "Well can you fix me up?"

Mark got up, and knelt down by me, checking the damage himself, he visibly winced before saying "Now this might, hurt a little, but it'll be better in the long run."

Mentally preparing myself for the pain I clenched my fists.

*SNAP*

After a moment of unbridled agony, the pain seemed to slowly slip away."Right, now that the hard part is over I'm going to get you something, to keep it straight, I'll be back in a sec."

Now that Mark had left me I was alone with my thoughts so I did the logical thing and checked my priorities, "Right, so postpone the continuation of the freak out until further notice," I joked to myself "Find a hospital for a more permanent fixture for my leg, figure out my... ugh MAGICAL potential," I groaned, throwing normal science into my mental recycle bin. "Get to work on a way back home, and last but not least, kill Flash Sentry if he's canon."

Mark didn't take much longer, having found a piece of wood solid enough to keep my leg straight, as well as a straighter and thinner log to use as a walking stick.

"So, you got any idea where we are?" He asked as I got to my feet.

"Equestria." I said as we began walking inside, through long snaking corridors, filled with suits of armour, cracked marble statues and ancient banners that were draped across the walls.

Looks like the architect found a copy of Skyrim laying around.

Mark chuckled, then asked again. "No seriously, where are we?" I gave him a serious look which he seemed to understand. "You can't seriously expect me to believe that."

"If we aren't then why is there grey Royal Guard armour IN EQUINE FORM on these racks, what about the Celestia and Luna statues we woke up on? And what about these powers?" I ranted, proceeding to tear a statue apart leaving a pile of rubble.

"Can you do anything else? That aura looks like unicorn magic from the show."

I deadpanned "Right, I'm gonna run through why that's a dumbass idea: if I can shatter stone with telekinesis, I don't want to be using fire or some shit like that do I?"

"Calm your tits."

"Oh, I should be CALM!?" I yelled frantically, "It's not like we might be stuck here, we might have lost everyone and everything we ever had, or families and our friends!?"

"Look," Mark spoke reassuringly, as he put a hand on my shoulder, "let's just say we have lost everyone, would they want us to be like this, yelling and screaming at each other?" He paused, continuing to walk, slowing his pace so we were side by side.

"No. No they wouldn't, they'd want us to figure it out and keep going. So I'll keep going and if you want to honour their memory, then you should too."

The anger and the fear which had taken hold of me a second ago had died down.

"..."

"And besides, they might not even be gone anyway. They'll look for us, and we'll make it back, one way or another." He assured me, a confident expression on his face.

"Thanks, I-I needed that."

"No need to thank me, you would've done the same for me." I put up a hand, motioning to stop, and turned to see an empty corridor, where the fuck did he go?

"Hello?"

A groan could be heard down the hall, around a corner. I quickly tore one of the blades from a suit of armour with my powers, levitating it in front of me.

What I found was one of the girls from the bus, she had long black hair, slightly tanned skin, crying next to another girl who was drained thoroughly, completely unresponsive.

And when I say drained thoroughly, I literally mean drained, she was a husk, shriveled and lifeless like a fleshy raisin. Behind them was some sort of throne room, that seemed to double as a feast hall. Two thrones were present the left practically destroyed each holding their own faded banner, the left held a crescent moon inside of a black blotch with a midnight blue background, while on the other was a depiction of the Sun, on a pure white sheet, that was In far better shape than, the one on the left.

She jumped backwards as as she noticed me with the sword, I could see her face more clearly and remembered her name.

"You alright, Nancy?" I asked lowering the sword.

"Do I look alright Jackass? No I'm not 'alright' I've been sat next to a dead body for the last twenty minutes, in a dark hall" She wiped the tears from her eyes, Alf came round the corner holding a huge ass hammer in one hand

"Sup, Nancy." He said, oblivious to the dead body. "Oh, I found out my power, by the way." He tossed the hammer up in the air, catching it with one hand again. " I have some sort of super strength."

She looked between us and asked "Do you know where we are?"

"Castle of the Two Pony Sisters, Equestria, we'll explain later, no I'm not crazy, this place is a thousand years old(give or take),  those two pony sisters are goddesses of the Moon and Sun, yes James is levitating this sword right now, magic, does that answer all your questions?" After he finished, it was completely silent I swear i heard Nancy's eye twitch behind me.

"Mark did you just pull a Pinkie Pie on me?"

"Maybe..." He chuckled.

Nancy didn't speak.

"So-" I said turning around to face Nancy "-You see any others?" My voice tearing her from her  thoughts.

She stood up, faltering slightly and using the wall to prop herself up. She got herself stable on her feet and then shook her head, I resumed.  "We should try to find everyone we can, and get out of here quick, the show made this place out to be like an Indiana Jones movie set, traps and shit everywhere." The two of them nodes and we all went our separate ways.

After about an hour search, we had found three living people, and at 20 corpses, 18 students, a driver and a teacher, I nearly ended up emptying my stomach over the state of one of them.

I told Nancy our full situation, and I was promptly called mentally unsound by her, so I told her to actually look at the paintings on the walls, the armour on the racks, The statues and that everything looked far more colourful than usual.

We checked to see if we had anything useful on us, Nancy and Mark's phones were fried, we only had my Android phone which was dead at the time, therefore solidifying the fact that Samsung was capable of dimensional travel and just didn't tell anyone.

The Everfree was... terrifying, the show really doesn't do it justice. The trees visually shift like a mirage, the innate darkness of the forest causes hallucinations, Mark said he saw his little sister across some trees which led him to some sort of carnivorous plant, that thoroughly tore from the ground taking it's roots and some pony skeletons with it. I kept hearing whispers,"die... die.. I know you want to..." in a wretched, haunting voice that came from nowhere. Dark figures hid a the edge of my vision forcing me to turn every so often. The earth smelt of decay and rot as the twisting path, snaked it's way around the gaunt jagged trees. It was impossible to tell time as the canopy was completely blotting out the sky with not a single ray of light piercing it

I think I genuinely saw a note on one of those trees.

The Mark started showing more of his power while we were in the Everfree, after we got our stuff. It started with causing the ground to crack with heavy footfalls, and ended with him kicking a head sized stone so hard it went through a tree like a bullet.

"We're at least past season 4, I can see Twilight's Castle up ahead." Nancy looked at me, thoroughly confused.

"Who or what is 'twilight' besides the time of day?" Woah. I'm surprised she didn't take a Jab at the book series.

"One of the four rulers of the realm." I answered, completely matter-of-fact.

"Who are the other three?"

"Celestia, Luna, Cadance, stop asking me shit, you can ask when we get to Ponyville."

After what could've been hours we finally made it to the edge. Seriously, FUCK the Everfree, I am not going back into that again.

The feelings broke away into clear fields as I took my first real look at Ponyville. The show was rarely accurate in the fact that town hall was positioned in the middle, splitting off into several streets, each retreating from the centre.

"Let's just fucking walk in with no tact at all and politely ask for an audience with Twilight Sparkle." I suggested,"no point beating around the bush."

"Agreed, Fanfics always do that so real life dictates we do the opposite."

Nancy shrugged in agreement.

And so we walked in as a group, a few ponies stopping to ogle 'the freaks' as it were.

One brown Earth Pony was watering his garden, dropping the hose to gape at us as it was running.

"'Afternoon." I said calmly.

"Uuuuuuuhh...Hi?" the earth pony blurted as we walked past.

Things were going quite well until I was knocked out.

=======《¤》=======

I awoke in a pile of unconscious bodies I recognised as Nancy and Mark, my vision clearing, to behold the Mane Six and Spike arguing about something, as a crowd of ponies gathered round us, whispering about the 'Hairless Monkeys' and prodding us about.

"You know I would expect you to get to know me before you start hitting on me like that," I chuckled.

The Six turned to me in shock while Fluttershy, leapt behind Rainbow Dash. Applejack was closing in and turning around, lifting her hind legs up to...

*THUNK* Two guesses what happened there...

=======《¤》=======

"I application this time in a soft and comfortable chair, at a large table. It seemed to be Twilight's castle, the slightly crystalline walls giving it away. What I noticed in a few seconds though was far more interesting.

These was a... pressure in the air which I hadn't felt earlier, it was odd to say the least, like there was an overbearing presence in the room.

"Please don't hit me in the face again." I groaned. Rubbing my nose, feeling it's unnatural position, great it's broken.

"I am terribly sorry about that, my student and her friends do get rather carried away sometimes," A rather feminine, yet powerful voice spoke somewhere to my right. I also healed the wounds you sustained to your leg, although it was rather difficult without knowing your anatomy."

The snowy white form at the end of the table levitated a goblet to her mouth, taking a short sip from it.

"Now, I have a few questions for you," Celestia smiled brightly, then stood up from her throne like seat and started trotting to a chair closer to me,

"Shall we begin?"

Chapter I

"Shall we begin?"

Celestia was surprisingly intimidating for a pony, though it might have had something to do with the fact that her horn was about the same size as a machete.

She pulled out the chair directly to my right with her magic, encasing it in a golden glow and turning it to me.

"Yes, uh, let's." I replied, Trying to turn mine to face hers. Is it Tyrant-lestia, or god forbid... Molestia, I was quaking in my proverbial boots at the possibilities. That pressure I talked about seemed to be amplified whenever she cast something which made me feel like letting loose my breakfast all over her face.

"What are you?" She asked pulling up my hand with magic examining it.

"Human or Homo Sapien if you wanna get technical and latiny." The smile left her face for a moment but it was barely noticeable. You already know this you sly bitch.

"How is it you seem to be speaking Equish right now?" Celestia queried, a bemused expression on her features.

"Our languages seem to be very similar, May I ask a question?" Celestia nodded, "can you write a sentence of Equish for me please?" Celestia looked at me oddly then obliged, showing me some illegible signs, dashing my hopes of reading for a while.

Celestia picked up on the change of expression on my face, "What is the matter, James?"

"Oh well it's jus- Wait... how do you know my name?" Celes- you know what, I'll just call her Tia from this point onwards.

Tia levitated my bag, which I wasn't aware was there until she lifted it up to eye level, "that word is always the first thing that comes up when I scry this, you were in possession of it so I assumed this belonged to you."

"Oh," well that was rather simple, I was expecting something more.

"well it's just that I was hoping we had the same written language but all I can see is a jumble of symbols," that and I'm in a cartoon for five years old girls, her 'handwriting' was shocking as well, surely the pony in charge of moving a damn star is capable of neat writing?

"I see..." Celestia let the hints of amusement crawl onto her face,"I could ask my student to help you learn our writing language?"

"Oh so you'll just get Twilight to do it?" I blurted out, just realising my mistake as Celestia's eyes narrowed.

"How do you know her name?"

Shit, I dun goofed.

"Umm... I said wracking my brain for a reply, "I woke up before and heard those six girls talking and they called the purple one Twilight and she had wings and a horn like you?" I mentally crossed my fingers hoping she would buy it.

"Ah, I see," fuck yes, she bought it, "so I'll take that as a yes to learning from her?"

"Yes, I'd love to," I get to learn Pony language from best pony, this was the first time I was ever looking forward to a foreign languages lesson.

We talked more exchanging questions rapidly, she would ask about history, politics, and technology, while I asked about magic primarily. She seemed to genuinely understand the idea of physics even though ninety-per cent of it was thrown out of the window here, according to the show at least. I can just see it now,  Newton's laws of MLPity. One, all rules no longer count if Pinkie is involved.

"Do you have any more questions?" Her eye twitched, she knows something and she's not gonna tell me.

"Can you get someone to teach me magic?" Her eyes widened at that, then the motherly smile from earlier returning to her features.

"Of course, I believe my student would happily take you on." Her smile turned mischievous, is she turning me and the others into some sort of test?

"Kay, can we like hurry this along, Princess? I stated, impatiently tapping my fingers against the arm of the chair.

"I shall grant you freedom on two conditions." She suddenly took a serious tone. Ok, we have super overprotective Tia here.

"Fire away." She snorted at that, holding a hoof to her mouth to suppress a giggle.

She regained her composure quickly, "very well then, the first condition is that you, unless I say otherwise, do not tell any of my ponies the details of this conversation."

"...And secondly, you and your two companions shall abide by Equestrian law while you are with us."

I nodded, thanking Tia for the conversation as I pulled my chair back into place.

"I hope to talk to you again Tia," I said as I made my way to the door.

"Likewise, my friend," she said before teleporting off, hey she called me a friend, score one for the biped.

I burst through the door, causing it to slam against the wall with an almighty crash. Heh, always wanted to do that. Not specifically this door but you get what I mean.

I could hear a commotion as I turned a corner, and I saw Nancy and Mark hogtied back to back in front of the Mane Six, the arguing coming to a stop as I whistled loudly for attention.

"Ahem, you girls run along, the Princess said we can go now." I magically ripped apart the ropes holding my friends pulling them up to their feet, to find the mane six still there and Rainbow Dash was looking irritated to say the least.

"The Tartarus are you supposed to be, a bald ape?" The pony in question asked pushing her face up to his,magenta eyes meeting hazel, I pushed her away with a finger to the muzzle and replied in kind.

"What are you supposed to be, an eighty's cartoon character?" Mark let loose a light chuckle the inside joke. "No talking about human culture unless Tia says so" Mark didn't look overly surprised, while Nancy just shrugged in a 'whatever' fashion.

In the corner of my view I could see Twilight sag, disappointedly putting away the notebook and quill she had with her into the baby blue saddlebags she had on her side, each one had a pin that resembled her cutie mark.

"You met Sunbutt?" Mark was then slapped around the head with a cyan wing.

"Her name's Princess Celestia, ya..." She searched for an insult, "thingy..." She trailed, scowling.

Skittle-head growled before zooming off through a window.

The orange farm pony took of her stetson holding it to her chest, "ah'm mighty sorry 'bout earlier, it was nuthin' personal. I was just doin' what ah thought needed to be done," she looked up at me, unintentionally giving me the puppy dog eyes treatment, "don't be too harsh on Dash either, she's just angry that Twah an' the others yelled at her for knocking y'all out fer no good reason."

Oh yeah, before this story goes on I need to clarify that I'm the ultimate sucker for cuteness. I had to actively restrain myself from hugging her till she popped.

Don't look at me like that, I was at the mercy of a cute little farmer pony with a stetson, there was no other course of action.

Smiling, at the genuine and sincere apology from Applejack, I knelt down to pony level so I wasn't looking down on her, no problem, miss... Applejack, I believe?" She nodded holding a hoof out, with a similar smile plastered on her face and I accepted the hoofshake handshake, whatever it was. "So, who are the rest of you?" I lied between my teeth. She placed her hat back to it's rightful place before trotting off.

Pinkie was the second to greet me in her uhh...unique manner by somehow unzipping my bag from the inside and hopping out of it, "Hi I'm Pinkie Pie and *GASP* you look like the people over there!" She said, pointing a hoof at the bookshelf to the left of us," she launched out of my bag flipping then landing perfectly on her hooves, "oh, oh, now they're over there!" As soon as I let her out of my sight she pounced Mark, asking how he felt about parties and the like. Nancy left to go to bed because of some weird back pains she said she was bitching about.

"Hello," the purple alicorn before me said with childish glee, "my name is Twilight Sparkle, I'm going to house you three for the time being, though I'd also like to be your friend so I'd like to get to know you more comfortably tomorrow, as today I have to plan Summer Wrap Up for the town." Huh, Summer Wrap Up? Didn't know that was a thing.

She was exerting a similar pressure to Tia, although it was nowhere near as intense.

Twilight took my phone from her saddlebags, giving it back to me, "that device is fascinating, showing that  image of a Nebula, do you know the name of it?" She was pointing to the background I had on my phone's screen saver, so far she was very similar to her personification on the show but, somehow she seemed far less cheerful... huh? She just seemed generally more subdued.

"They're called 'The Pillars of Creation'."

Rarity was... well Rarity, she was constantly checking me and Mark out as he walked about and as I found a book on basic pyromancy, thankfully the pictures gave enough of an explanation. I was soon throwing uncontrolled little flares making sure they weren't large enough to be a problem.

Plasmid unlocked: INCINERATE. Heh

Fluttershy was far too scared seeing as Nancy thought it would be funny to show off her canines before she left. She whispered a "H-hi..." from behind her pink mane before trotting off down the hall after the rest of them. HHHHHHNNNGGG, too cute.

Twilight was waiting outside for us. "Do you want food? We still have some leftovers from Hayburger?" A princess going to Pony McDonald's, why am I not surprised about this?

"We can't eat hay." Twilight 's expression turned slightly worried.

"You're carnivores?" She asked with morbid curiosity as we started walking.

I shook my head "Nope we're omnivores, we can eat meat, fruit and some vegetables but not much else."

She visually relaxed at that, "I'm sorry to say but your meat diets will be restricted to poultry and fish, seeing as anything else is sentient.

I shrugged, "it doesn't matter I was never overly into meat." I lied, I fucking love a juicy, bloody, near-raw steak but I didn't want to worry her or anyone else, thinking I was some sort of feral beast and risk a damn lynch mob chasing me.

After a while of walking through empty corridors I turned to the small alicorn, "my name's James by the way." She perked up at that a smile gracing her lips, "you know you're going to be teaching me magic from now on don't you?" Her smile grew wider after that.

Shaking her head she replied, "no, actually" she became panicked, "oh no, I don't have a plan, and if I don't have a plan, the lesson will go bad and if the lesson goes bad then you'll hate me and..." She yelped as I hoisted her up holding her in my arms like a small dog, she was surprisingly light.

"Tell me which directions to go." She was about to say something in response as I cut her off as I scratched her ear causing her to melt into my chest, cooing softly as I scratched. She pointed which way to go before I let her down. She let out a frustrated groan before we continued on in silence.

We finally arrived at the rooms we were given and I just lobbed my crap onto the bed, there wasn't much in there anyway, I was about to just go pass out on the bed when Twilight tapped me on the back to get my attention,"thanks for earlier, by the way."

"No problem," I replied as I opened the door, ready to collapse onto the bed.

"I'll be just around the corner if you need me." Twilight trotted off giving me a really nice view of her...

"Nope." I slammed the door shut and fell asleep as soon as I made contact with the bed.

Some time later Mark came in, accompanied by the purple princess.

"That was surprisingly nice," Mark smiled, bits of dark pink mane, stuck in his hair. "They take anything else from your bag?" Looks like he partied with Pinkie up close, if you catch my drift.

"My bag still has everything in it, I checked after Pinkie did her thing to it."

Twilight was getting well acquainted with her reflection as she refused to meet my eyes, instead prefering the well polished crystalline floor.

"I may have taken something else for research purposes," she grinned sheepishly, her eyes never wavering from the floor as she traced it with her front hoof.

I raised an eyebrow, "what did you take?"

"It...umm, looked kinda like a book so I took it. Sorry." she spat out quickly and turned as if I was about to hit her. She must have some sort of ingrained response to predators.

"Ok. You can have it until you've read it but please give it back when you're finished." Her ears perked up and she relaxed again.

"Thank you, I'll make sure not to crease it or anything," she beamed. "Well, goodnight."  We both replied in kind as she teleported off.

"What time is it, couldn't be bothered to check." I asked, picking at a bit of dead skin. Mark took a quick glance at his watch, the protective glass covering the mechanism was largely cracked but the watch was still usable.

"Nine thirty. Hey, where are you going?" He shouted as I was already on my way down the hall.

"To go vent my frustrations." I growled, basic pyromancy was about to become VERY useful.

=======《???》=======

Discord was perfecting his masterpiece in darkness, in the ancient halls he built eons ago. In his sanctuary's halls no wind would blow, no light could illuminate, no unchosen soul could tread. It was hard to imagine that within these solemn halls, the perfect chaos was hidden.

Celestia appeared in a flash of light, drawing the attention of Discord away from the strange ball positioned on the table. Throwing a pair of dice backwards, he rolled double snake eyes which the rest of his face suddenly merged into. "Ah, Celly you wouldn't happen to know what day it is, I seem to have forgotten, you see and I don't want to worry Fluttershy." A mischievous grin plastered onto his face all the while.

Celestia sighed, shaking her head, "Discord, your, uggh subjects have made their way here." She said the word 'subjects' with abject disgust.

The Draconequus' face morphed into one emotion which Celsetia never would have though she would see from him, shock. The shock faded, a now ecstatic and almost giddy smile spreading across his face.

"How many?" He asked, his smile widening

"Three." He chuckled at her response.

"Well," he uttered, slowly moving away from his fellow immortal, "perhaps I should pay my little abominations a visit." He laughed somewhat maniacally as he teleported away, causing loud echoes to penetrate the halls.

Celestia, alone in the relative darkness, was looking up at the blue and brown orb discord was playing with earlier before trotting over to it, etched into the table below it was one word, written in ancient Equestrian.

EARTH