Interdemensional Magic and Loyalty, plus Sarcasm

Rainbow Dash slowly opened her eyes. She was indoors, judging by the ceiling she was now staring at. She lay there, slowly waking up while sorting through the last two days in her head. After she finished, she turned her head. A desk clock that had been in the room blinked Saturday, 10:00am. She sighed.

She swung around to be sitting on the bed, then stretched. ‘This human form sleeps weird... Stretching after waking up at home was far better.’ She idly thought, changing clothes. ‘This whole clothing thing is weird too... I mean, I like wearing clothes once and awhile back home, but this? It’s just plain nutty.’ She finished, yawned, and walked out of the room.

Trey sat on the one of the two stools on the living room side of the counter. He seemed just as tired as she was, sluggishly eating cereal. Twilight was, surprise surprise, reading. She had curled up in the armchair, with a stack of books half as high as Rainbow in this form. Neither of them seemed to notice her. She decided to be mischievous, crouching down and sneaking into the kitchen. She grabbed a pot quietly from the cabinet, then slowly stood in a corner of the kitchen. She held the pot in front of her and...

“Guwah!” Trey fell backwards off the stool. Rainbow nearly doubled over laughing, Twilight seemed startled as well. Though she looked more like she had seen a ghost, frantically looking around for whatever made the noise, all while hugging the book to her chest. She noticed Rainbow while Trey worked on getting up, being tangled in a stool.

“Rainbow! Can’t you be courteous to our host?” Twilight scolded, but Rainbow could her the tinge in her voice that indicated she knew it was a rhetorical question.

“No... no...” Trey groaned from behind the counter. “It was... one hell of a wake up call...” He propped himself up on the counter. “But don’t expect to pull it off again Dashie.” He was smirking. Rainbow couldn’t help but return the expression.

“You know, I’m the best prankster in Ponyville, no, probably all of Equestria.” Rainbow bragged, subtly. Twilight snickered.

“Twilight, I’ve gotten you so many times, don’t you even think about disagree-” Rainbow started.

“No, no... That’s not it Rainbow... I completely believe you’re the best...” She was still laughing over something in head. Rainbow decided to count what she said though. (Little did Rainbow Dash know, Twilight had heard stories of Princess Luna’s pranks from Princess Celestia.)

After that, Trey pointed out the cereal, Rainbow took some, and they sat eating. They both were more interested in their breakfast than talking, and nothing short of another dropped pot could tear Twilight from her book. Physics, the Rules of the Universe it read. Rainbow sighed and stretched. Trey finished before she did, and he sat down on the couch, grabbing the tv remote off the coffee table. He clicked it on.

“Next on the morning news, trains slowed to a crawl due to visits to the-BZZT-” He pressed a different button. “By the power of grey-BZZT- Now put the butter into the pan, and heat to-BZZT- Tonight the Yank-BZZT- In the name of the moon-BZZT- These ruins contain the mysteries of generations past-BZZT- Omg Kim, look-BZZT-.” He grimaced as he pressed that last one.

“Hell, saturday mornings are bad for everything but cartoons...” He shrugged and pressed the number keys. A rabbit and a duck appeared on the screen, arguing about a season. It took until Daffy got tricked for Trey to notice his two house guests staring at the tv with the utmost wonder. He chuckled. They laughed at every joke Bugs pulled. His theory was that they didn’t have this brand of comedy in Equestria. Which lead him to think about what other kinds of comedy they’ve never heard, and made a mental note to switch to comedy central later. The mere thought made him smirk.

They ended up watching 2 hours of Looney Tunes. Even Trey was laughing at some of the gags. (Because really, who doesn’t?) When the block ended, Trey stood up and offered to make grilled cheese. It was a quiet affair, as he seemed to be too tired to wisecrack and the girls were glued to the tv. He finished and brought the food into the living room. The two ate happily. Twilight returned to reading as she ate (‘she has some really bad habits’ Trey decided mentally) and Dash kicked back on the carpet, leaning against the far side of the couch. If someone were to look in on this scene, they would never suspect two of the three humans in the room were once ponies. Or that one could do magic. Trey became decidedly annoyed at the thought. Something should happen, different that norm. ‘Character driven storyline.’ He joked in his head, reminded of a movie he saw a few years back. He headed for the stack of games by the side of the tv.

“Yo, Dash.”

“Mmfph?” She replied through a mouthful of gooey cheese. Trey acted unfazed.

“Let me show you something else that’s awesome. Called video games.”

“Mm... Mmp, Mmfy.” She still had cheese talk.

“Cool, we’ll do that.” Trey took her mmfy as okay.

“Um... Trey, did you really understand her...?” Twilight asked, seemingly worried, not confused as he expected.

“What, do you think I’m going crazy after living a few days with ponies? No, of course I didn’t.” He flashed her a shining grin. She fell out of her chair.

“You... I sometimes wonder if the testing for your school is as rigid as you say...” She deadpanned after getting back into the armchair.

“So anyway, what are these video games?” Dash said, regaining the ability to speak.

“Here.” Trey didn’t answer, instead he tossed her a controller. “You play with that. It’ll make sense, don’t worry.”

Trey put in Halo. The first one, as he wasn’t a fan of the latter. Not much of a gamer to begin with anyway, it didn’t bother him. He quickly navigated the menus to split screen, and kicked it on with a word to Dash. While it was loading, he took a glance at his alien killing teammate. She was jamming the A button in a ridiculous fashion. He smirked. Hard mode won’t be too hard. Maybe.

Dash paid close attention to the tutorial section in the beginning of the game. Trey was surprised, he may have ruined her life forever if she takes to the whole game with this kind of focus. As the npc started talking about the war with the covenant, Twilight spoke from behind them.

“This is a game... about a war?” She sounded apprehensive.

“Yup. You play as the hero of the humans in the war with the evil aliens.”

“But... why would you want to play a game like that?” Trey smirked. This went exactly as planned. Introduce humanity’s obsession with war and show Dash video games, two birds, one stone.

“Humans have had wars since we’ve had history. I’m sure you’ve have wars in Equestria, right?” Dash was the one to respond, now that they were just wandering after a soldier through the ship.

“Not in a thousand years.”

“You mentioned that... crap...” Trey shrugged his forgetfulness off, blaming it on the weekend. “Well humans end up fighting all the time. The world is large, and there are hundreds of countries. Someone disagrees with someone, and bam. War. The large scale ones go in history books, the others are just written off.”

“Equestria does have good relations with it’s neighbors, but there are only a few...” Twilight didn’t sound comfortable with what he was saying.

“It does help your leader is a goddess princess who's been alive for longer than a thousand years. We just have regular humans leading countries.” He smirked. “Though it depends on one’s perspective, if all of humanity is scum like politicians are...” He muttered in a dark tone. He could sense the quizzical looks as he lead Dash the last of the way to the captain. “People who should be in power almost never are, because they don’t crave power. Those who do come into power and usually power hungry fools. Regardless, politics is one of the things in the world that has no truth, or so they say. So that’s just my opinion on the topic.” He shrugged. “Great leaders are far and few in between, and there are not enough for every country. If we all had a Princess Celestia of our own, maybe we wouldn’t be so fight crazy...” He stopped talking as the Captain debriefed him and Dash. It gave him a moment to think about what he just said. It sounded rather... optimistic. Were they rubbing off on him? The Captain finished, and Rainbow killed the earlier conversation.

“This thing is a weapon?” She asked, pointing at the handgun her chief was now holding.

“No guns in Equestria? No wonder you’ve had no wars. Do you have bows, crossbows?”

“Well, duh.”

“Oh Dash,” Trey smirked. “You say that like you’re the normal one here.” She turned at him with a comeback on her lips, but she couldn’t say it. So she settled for giving Trey an angry pout. (‘With a little blush to boot, she must really not be used to being on the receiving end of the joke’ Trey noted with amusement.)

It was, as normal, super effective. Trey quietly described the gun and how to use it, and they played the game quietly for a few minutes before conversation resumed. (Though Trey could swear he heard a muffled giggle from behind him. There would be revenge.)

“Well anyway. You’ll hear more about the real wars in history, or when you find the right book Twilight. This one is completely fictional. Actually, aside from that the game might interest you Twi.”

“Why?”

“It’s set in the future, where are our earth technology has allowed us to colonize other planets. The genre is called science fiction.” Trey waited for her response, but it didn’t come. He left the grunts left to his trigger happy partner (for someone who didn’t know war, she enjoyed shooting things) and turned around. Twilight must have entered some kind of happy daydream, cause her eyes were sparkling with happiness. Trey gave a small sigh, with a smile. She really was an egghead, Dash had that right.

So he threw a pillow at her. She snapped out of her daydream looking around.

“What... huh?”

“Did you space out there Twi?” Trey said, holding in his urge to chuckle. Dash had it covered for the both of them after all, giggling up a storm under her breath.

“Oh... I must have... Sorry Trey...” Twilight took Trey’s bluff, and Rainbow was rolling on the floor laughing. Trey lost it too, and it took Twilight getting in their faces with a similarly powerful pout to shut them up.

“You guys are jerks.” She said with a huff, after hearing the details.

“Don’t space out then Twi, you’re just lucky I didn’t have a rain cloud!” Dash was unaffected by Twilight’s pout. It must only affect humans, Trey hypothesised.

“Sorry Twi.” Trey said, still not managing to hide his amusement from the whole thing. Twilight took the apology anyway. Trey and Dash resumed shooting aliens, Dash trying to not get killed by an elite. She seemed to be completely surprised by the idea that enemies could get shields too. Of course, it was equally surprising when she got the assault rifle and punched through him with ease.

“This thing is SO. AWESOME.” She said with glee. Trey was right before, he had made a monster. Of course, this ‘horrifying’ thought only caused him to smirk in amusement.

“I’m sure the aliens agree. It’s an assault rifle. It fires bullets rapidly, the functions called automatic fire. Weaker bullets, but power in numbers.”

“That’s why it isn’t as small as the pistol? The automatic fire?” Twilight asked.
‘Electrical engineering, physics, gun architecture... ‘She really does want to know everything.’ Trey nodded.

“Part of it. The are a lot of factors in how guns work. How it’s fired, loading mechanism, the barrel it fire down are all part of the design.” Her curious tone faltered a bit.

“It’s so sad... Something so amazingly innovative and interesting is just used to hurt others.” She sighed. Trey smiled.

“Yeah, they are tools made to hurt people. But they are also used to protect people. There are those, for now let’s say evil people who do want to harm others, and use guns to do so. At the same time, the police uses the same weapons to defeat them and save people.” Trey said, noting to stop being so philosophical on weekends.

“I see...” Twilight said. She was quiet for a bit. Which was fine, as Trey had to cover his partner as they climbed a set of stairs with close to twenty enemies waiting for them. Most annoying part of the level, in his opinion. As the last jackel fell, she spoke up again.

“That’s not all that bad then.”

“It’s a positive way of thinking, but... Anyway, Most people don’t go near guns. Lots of us play games like this, and know of weapons. But nobody but cops actually use them.” He left out independant weapon owners, but decided to take it one step at a time. Those guys were a different breed in itself.

“That’s true too. But if they wouldn’t want to use them in reality, why would they in a game?” Trey opened his mouth to respond, but it was Dash who answered.

“You feel like a hero.”

“What...?” Twilight turned to her friend.

“You know how Scootloo thinks I’m a hero? Or how everyone thinks your brother is?”

“Yeah...”

“A game like this lets the player be the hero. I’m saving the human race right now. But I don’t have to be as brave as I’d have to be to actually do it, you know? It’s like getting to be Shining Armor for a day.” She chuckled. “Not that I couldn’t save the human race right now, or top Shining Armor anyway.”

“That’s... surprisingly deep Rainbow...” Twilight said. “And modest.” She continued, deadpanning.

“And on spot. It’s what I was going to say. I think.” Trey shrugged. “I don’t know Shining Armor for myself but...” He didn’t bother finishing.

“What?” Dash turned around confused as to why Trey and Twilight were surprised. “I can think about all this new world stuff too Twilight. I’m not just here for kicks.” She winked.

“Sorry Rainbow... Normally you don’t like to think about things like this...”

“Yeah, it’s boring!” She grinned, and went back to clearing the corridor of elites. “But I’m here to help you Twilight, and that’s what I’ll do, okay? Don’t go underestimating me.”

“mm!” Twilight nodded happily. ‘Friendship is magic... huh...’ Trey thought, his face contemplative.

Then he smirked. “You say these wonderful things, but...” His wise remark died on his lips. He could comment about how she was killing things while talking about friendship, but... He felt that would be a crime against some nature, be it earth or otherwise. They were definitely rubbing off on him. “Nothing.” He said to their quizzical looks, before leading the way to the escape pod that ends the level.

The girls were sad to see the npc allies die in the landing on Halo.

“It’s just a game...” Trey said sheepishly, but they were quiet. It took them awhile to take that to heart, and the good mood returned. It came accompanied by a sigh of relief from Trey. He really didn’t want to depress them, even if he had swore he would tell them the bad with the good of the Earth.

“So what are we doing?” Dash asked as they marched up the hill, killing a few more grunts.

“Saving the other stranded survivors.”

“Sweet!” Dash pumped a fist and dove headlong forward. She died in the process. She dropped the controller, shocked, until about five seconds later when she respawned behind Trey.

“What...?” She vocalized her surprise, as Trey hadn’t noticed her expression fending off alien reinforcements.

“It’s... the other thing about video games. You don’t die. It’s not a tragic event if you just respawn when you die right?” Dash flashed a rather evil looking grin.

“Sweet, bring it alien scum!” She barked, making Trey doubt she was once a pegasus.

Twilight had read three books, and the dynamic alien hunting duo had made it to the level where you sneak aboard a covenant ship. Dash wasn’t much for sneaking. She had found a shotgun, and well... it suited her. It was somewhere around four or five in the afternoon. Trey saved Dash from yet another invisible elite. Twilight didn’t start her fourth book for the day yet, she decided to watch the game. Trey knew where he was going in the tunnels, but was apparently letting Rainbow lead them into all the enemies. She could imagine just what this would look like with the two of them actually in that green armor. The thought made her chuckle.

“Craaaaaaap, hunter Dash. Back up and-” Trey barked, frantically moving to cover.

“I got this.” She replied, jumping to dodge the hunter’s arm cannon.

“Like you had the room with two of them? They destroyed you. I don’t want to have to go through all the tunnels again Dash...” His arguments, while valid, were ignored. But he knew they would be, considering he too dove at the blue alien monster.

“Just let me get to that crate and... BOOYAH!” Dash broke into a shot, firing off shotgun blasts into the hunter’s weak point as it fired on Trey, nearly killing him. He chuckled as it feel.

“I do all the heavy lifting and you get the kill. Jeez, what a horrible partner I have.”

“It’s called teamwork, try it sometime.” Dash smirked at him as she idly grabbed ammo.

“Like you would know it, diving head first.” He snarked.

“That cause I can trust my teammate to protect me~” She sang her retort a bit.

“I can TK you you know.”

“Do it, you won’t!”

Twilight smiled at the verbal play. It seems Rainbow is settling in fine. She picked up the next book (Atomic Chemistry) and cracked it open with a contented sigh.

She got a word in before the was a huge boom from the game, causing her to jump and roll out of the chair.

“Dash, you just kicked the volume button on the remote.” Trey deadpanned.

“I’m sorry, I only had my entire body changed a few days ago, I’m not completely used to it yet~” She sang the retort again, while he snatched up the remote and fixed the volume.

‘Guys... it’s great you’re getting along... but don’t forget about me...’ Twilight thought, climbing back into the chair.

The day finished in a similar fashion. They all sat at the counter for a simple dinner (Dash rather liked this Mac & Cheese), Trey and Dash continuing to butt heads about the game. Twilight managed to get in a few nice shots, without even noticing no less. More Halo was to be had afterwards, with Twilight giving it a shot directly after dinner. She wasn’t the type to keep up with everything, but she gave it a valiant effort on the digital beach. She traded off with Dash after only a little while, and resumed her reading. The science that exists on the Earth was amazing to her, the way they did things that a simple spell could do at home was so interesting. She couldn’t stop reading. The duo stopped at a level called the Library, and Twilight took that as cue to sleep as well. With a wave, they split up and slept off their lazy day.

Omake

A/N: I really do suck at this. Writing skill aside, I can’t imagine simple slice of life stuff. The getting to Earth, the meet Nanami, plot events. The time killing between them? It took twice as long to get right. There were like, 3 drafts of this.
Ha... The word count is getting smaller. I think I’m outta juice for... well, ever. =P
The omake is in color cause I've been doing color stuff for the New Artist Training Grounds. And I forgot these were B&W.
And I don't own a 360, nor have I played Halo campaign in years. Artistic License.