The Power of The Night

Chapter Four

It was like watching a classic shock horror moment when Luna came in.

“Wait a minute; Princess Luna, do you know these creatures?” Twilight asked, looking thoroughly lost.

“Can’t we at least be called ‘creatures of the night’? I like this whole unexpected, “Night Force” thing! What is it?” I queried, eager to see how this would play out. For a moment, Luna looked to be thinking hard. Then she spoke.

“Strictly speaking, Twilight Sparkle, I do not know them,” she replied, her voice sounding very peculiar.

“Sister- do you know something about this?” Celestia asked, approaching Luna.

“Gee, what tipped you off, the fact that she said ‘the night force’, or when she said, ‘It is time’?”

“Kyle! What the hell, bro?”

“Oh. Right. Princess and co-ruler of all of Equestria. Shutting up now, thank you Joel.”

“Well... I simply- I was...,” Luna trailed off, eyes beginning to shift around nervously.

“...Well, let’s have you ask us some questions, since answering doesn’t seem to suit any of you ponies,” Joel said, trying to change the subject.

“FINALLY! I have been waiting forever to get to the bottom of this!” Twilight exclaimed, mildly exasperated. “Now, I’ll need some paper to write things down- do you have any at the moment?” she asked in general.

“I’VE GOT SOME!”

“JESUS FUCKING CHRIST!!!”

From absolutely nowhere, Pinkie Pie had appeared behind my back, causing me to start into a sprint that would have given Usain Bolt a run for his title. It had also registered in my mind that I had dropped the F-Bomb in a room with ponies.

Well, I’ve done gone and broked the censorship barrier into little bitty pieces. FUCK THIS SHIT, ALL BETS ARE OFF UP IN HERE.

“Pinkie Pie?! How did you get here?!” Twilight exclaimed, just as shocked by her appearance as every entity in the room.

“By Travel!” Pinkie replied.

“...Can you teach me that?” I asked Pinkie.

“Sure! It’s easy, all you have to do is run somewhere,” she said running out the door, closing it, and the appearing in a painting on the wall, “and then get to where you’re going!”

“... Could you do that again, but slowly?”

“I thought you two were going to answering questions, not asking them. Pinkie, could you please leave for the time being? This is official business,” Twilight interrupted, now levitating the papers and holding a quill at ready.

“Right.”

“Sorry.”

“Okie-Dokie-Lokie!”

“Good. Now, Question one: What are you?” Twilight asked, an expression of pure curiosity on her face as well as the princess’s.

“I got this one. We are human beings, scientific name Homo sapiens, although classifying all of us into one category is difficult, since we’re all different. An example here would be that I can play sports, while Joel here, well, he just plain sucks,” I said in a nonchalant manner. Joel looked at me with an expression that made me go cold somewhere in the caverns of my thought process. It clearly said: IT IS SO ON, BITCH.

“Question two, then: Where are you from?”

“I’ll take this one, then. We come from a planet known as Earth, and honestly, it’s the only place to have known intelligent life. Although, “Intelligent” may be a bit of a strong word for some of the population,” Joel said, shooting a sideways glance at me.

CHALLENGE. MOTHERFUCKING. ACCEPTED.

“Right... question three, then...”

So went the process of ask question, get answer and undetected insult. Things got into some real low blows. At the question of why we wore clothes constantly, I said it was to preserve our dignity, though some were born without it. A few questions later, Joel came back with an answer that very few were showered in good looks and that he didn’t know anyone like that.

Please, we both know I get the bitches.
________________________________________________________________________________
Several hours later, after Twilight had finally used her fourteenth quill and thirty-three rolls of parchment, Twilight announced she was finished.

“Whoa. That took... sorry, what time is it?” Joel asked.

“Seriously? Hours of questions go by and all you can ask yourself is ‘what time is it’?” I responded, disgusted by his lack of creativity.

“What do you want me to ask?”

“How about, ‘What’s this box?’ ‘What’s ‘The Night Force’?’ ‘What the FUCK is going here?’”

“Right. Forgot about that.”

“Slick.”

Returning our focus to the ponies, I read their expressions. It was a gift of mine to be able to “see” how people felt by looking at their expressions. Celestia appeared to be in very deep thought, not focusing on anything that was in the room. Twilight was eagerly going over her freshly written encyclopedia of notes, reading a paragraph faster than I could comprehend a five syllable word.

Luna, on the other hand, was a different story.

I noticed that she kept looking at both Joel and I as if she were gathering information on our physique. Understandable, of course, given we were new to this dimension, but after she did that each time, she would glance at Twilight’s notes and then have a facial expression change from collaboration to intense thought, as if she were trying to figure out a problem that had contrasting answers. I waited for around thirty seconds before breaking the silence.

“Ahem. Since we’ve answered questions you asked us, I believe it would be polite if you returned the favor to us,” I said, addressing mostly Twilight, but glancing at the princesses. Twilight gave a start, then looked up.

“Hm? Oh, uh, well, if it’s all right with you, princesses, then I guess that would be fine,” Twilight said, looking in askance towards the princesses, who nodded in consent.

“Right then. Well, first question would be to you, Princess Luna,” I said, taking off my backpack and opening it, revealing the box, still blindingly white against everything around it, even Celestia. Luna looked mildly surprised at my addressing her. I took out the box and held it up. All eyes were focused on it intently.

“Can you identify this, princess?” I asked, holding it out. A blue aura of light surrounded it, and it was levitated from my hand toward Luna. My eyes followed the progress through the air. As it reached her, she seemed to be focusing on it from a distance. Slowly, in a barely noticeable movement, she nodded. For a moment, there was silence. Then, Luna closed her eyes, bent her head forward, and made contact to the box with her horn. The instant that happened, there was a blinding, electric blue flash of light that filled the room...

Just like the one I remember...

The light concentrated itself into a ball-like shape around the box, its glare making it look almost spiked. Then, somehow, the box began to levitate upwards on its own accord. Tearing my eyes from this spectacle for a second, I looked around the room. Twilight and Celestia looked just as dumbfounded as I felt. Looking at Joel, I saw he was completely mesmerized. Luna was, for some reason, staring straight at me with an expression I couldn’t read. It wasn’t longing, nor was it wonder, or any expression I was familiar with. Before I could decide on anything, though, there was another bright flash of light, and the box fell down to the ground, landing with less force than it should have. In addition, it had turned a silver color, as well as now having a latch and hinges to open it. All of us were focused on this box sitting on the ground. Then, Luna’s blue magic aura picked up the box and carried it towards me. I reached out my arms, making to take the box, when Joel suddenly spoke.

“Wait, Kyle.”

“What?” I asked, pulling my arms back and looking at him, confused. He looked as though he were choosing his words with care.

“Well... We’re in this together. We don’t know what’s going to happen, or even if we’ll get back. We need to have each other’s backs. We’ll take it together.”

I hadn’t heard very much like that from him, and when I did, he was always dead serious. I nodded my head, and he stepped forward. Reaching out with my left arm, and Joel with his right, we took the box at exactly the same time.

Nothing happened.

“Well... That was dramatic. What’s in this thing anyway?” I thought aloud, going for the latch. Flipping it up, I opened the box and found inside what looked like two wristbands with a digital watch’s dot matrix display screen all around.

Weird. Looks stylish though. Wonder if it fits m-

I had taken the wristband-watch from the box, and the moment it left the interior, a powerful heat coursed through my body. My heart began racing, and my mind went into a fight-or-flight panic as the temperature rose inexorably fast. In some corner of my mind, I was aware that I had just begun to levitate off the ground, but as the heat continued to rise, I was unconcerned with the fact. My mind, already in fight-or-flight, now overrode all conscious thought as the temperature became unbearable. Just then, however, the temperature within my body dropped down incredibly quickly, and was replaced with a powerful energy in every aspect of my being. A moments pause, and I dropped back to the ground, landing on my knees. Everything around me was silent.

How can it be silent? There has to be some kind of reaction...

True to my thoughts, Joel rushed up a moment later and turned me to face him.

“Kyle! Are you okay?!” Joel exclaimed, staring me straight in the eye.

I stared back.

He blinked.

I busted up laughing.

I win! You lose! Now let’s go get some pizza!” I gasped out between explosions of mirth. Joel, now looking extremely concerned for my well being, looked over to Twilight, Celestia, and Luna. Twilight and Celestia both had expressions of confusion and slight fear, while Luna looked rather overwhelmed with everything still. Joel looked back at me, and apparently came to a decision. Bringing his hand back, he brought a slap worthy of the universe’s pimp upon my face.

His hand stopped dead two inches from my face.

“What the hell?” Joel said to himself, pushing his hand forward to try to make contact with me. At this point, I had regained control of myself and looked at Joel again.

“Dude, you gotta try this thing on! It makes you feel like a SIR!” I said, picking up the box with the wristband-watch and holding it out. Joel stared daggers at me.

“Your eyes turned pure white, you were emanating heat, and you floated four feet above the ground. You want me to try that?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“Kyle, you are crazy! I’m not gonna put it on!”

“Yes you are.”

“And who’s going to make me?”

“Nobody. I already put it on you while you were asking who,” I said, with a prankster’s grin. Joel looked down at his wrist, then started a thousand-yard-stare as his eyes flashed pure white in a glowing sort of fashion and he began to float above the ground. About thirty seconds afterwards, he had dropped back down to the ground and was on his knees. I walked over to him, and tapped him on the shoulder.

“I told you,” I said, offering a hand. Joel grasped it, and I pulled him up. He was now grinning broadly.

“I don’t know why I doubted you,” he said, his very voice vibrating a happy tone.

“Beats me.”

“Now... did you say something about pizza?” Joel asked, looking around. I looked around the room as well, and remembered that there were ponies in it. And they were all staring at us.

“Pleasure being in your company, but I believe that we are going to adjourn to the kitchen to make a pizza,” I said in an English accent.

“Perhaps hit up a few mares on the way?” Joel suggested.

“Become acquainted with the guards,” I threw in.

“Throw a party!” Pinkie said popping up from nowhere.

“Indeed, Pinkie, indeed. Shall we?” Joel said.

“Let’s,” I responded, and with that, we began to walk out the door.

Only to be stopped by a wall of magic.

“Hey, what gives?” I said, pushing the wall.

“This wall sure doesn’t,” Joel said, pushing with me. We turned around, and saw Celestia powering the wall with her magic.

“I believe it would be unwise to walk about this castle when you are an unknown being. My subjects might... overreact. You should accompany Twilight back to Ponyville until I give a notice to them of your existence,” Celestia said. I let out an exasperated sigh.

“Uuuuawahhg, Fiiiiiiine. We’ll go back to Ponyville. Luna, your sister’s no fun, teach her about it while I’m in Ponyville, will you?” Joel said as the barrier disappeared and Twilight trotted forward.

“Come on you two, I’LL lead the way this time. You too, Pinkie.”

“Ooh, can I lead the way too?”

“No.”

“Hmf. Party pooper.”
________________________________________________________________________________

“You know what the best part about a transition is? Everything goes so much faster!” Pinkie exclaimed as we walked back into the library after the train ride back.

“Pinkie, what are you talking about?” Twilight asked, looking at her.

“Nothing. I have to go now, babysitting the twins is a part-time job!” Pinkie said, hopping out the door and closing it behind her.

“I will never understand that pony,” Twilight grumbled, walking into another room. Joel and I stood there for a moment, and then we faced each other.

“Hey, Joel...”

“Yeah Kyle?”

“There’s been a lot that’s just happened that’s stopped me from saying this...”

“What?”

“...We’re in Equestria.”

“Brohoof?”

I answered his question by raising my fist in our usual manner. He responded with a mirrored fist, and we brought our fists together. Hard.

Like, hard enough to make the room halfway explode.

We were thrown back to opposite sides of the room as all the books came off the shelves and a crater formed where we had just been standing. Twilight rushed back into the room.

“What happened? And how did my books get on the floor?!” she cried, looking around in shock.

“Uuugh... Kyle?”

“What?”

“I think these wristbands did more to us than we thought...”

“...Eeyup.”