//------------------------------//
// Chapter 9 
// Story: Life as a Pony 
// by Tray Hunter 
//------------------------------//

Chapter 9: Thats so not fair!

by Tray Hunter

"Anyway, we need...let's see...five muffins." Smokey said "Oh, and some of these candied carrots. I love these things."
"Okie dokie Smokey!" the pink party mare placed the goodies on the counter and looked at Ticks "Oh right. Thats a new chapter. So..."
She gasped in midair and dashed out of the door, leaving a pink trail behind her. 
"Is she always like that?" the unicorn asked. 
"Only on wednesdays. Usually, she isn't so-"
"Crazy?"
"Calm! She seemed a bit stressed. " the pegasus smiled widely and reached at his waist, pulling out some coins. 
"Is that the infamous P.P.S.C., your brain told me about?" Ticks asked pointing at the change in his friend's hoof. 
He chuggled "So B finaly settled with the name, huh?
But yeah, thats the Pinkie Pie Storage Container. 
Way more usefull than real life pockets. 
And completly waterproofed. "
He put Pinkie's payment on the counter and took the bags with his mouth. 
"So, maybe I should see if I have something like that too." the blue pony said, reaching for his waist. 
Suddenly he pulled out a small scanradio. 
The pegasus dropped the bags and stared at the device. "A radio? Why do you get a radio?"
"Well, thats mine. I carry it with me, everytime I leave the house. But I wonder if..."
More and more stuff was pulled out of the blonde unicorn's very own supernatural container.
With every piece of equipment, Smokey's eyes grew bigger and bigger. 
"Let's see, I got my radio, a headlight, my zombie-survival-guide, a lighter, my swiss pocketknife, sunglasses and my fedora." he looked at his confused friend "So, what did you get back then?"
"Like you don't know... Why are you equipped for a small war and I only get mints? Thats soo not fair!"
Ticks slipped the sunglasses on and said "Deal with it!" getting unamused looks from his friend "Actually thats everything I had with me, when I was at the concert. "
The pegasus frowned "If I had known, that I'd be sucked into another dimension, I would have brought a laptop to the party."
Ticks smiled, strapping the headlight onto his hat and putting the other items back into the unknown space at his hip. 
"So, where do we go now?" the unicorn asked, trying to distract his friend. 
"We go home!" he said, taking the bags and headed outside the door.

"So, this is where you live? Looks nice. How did you get enough money to buy a house?" the blue pony asked, eyeing Smokey from the edges of his glasses. 
The blackwinged airpony placed the bags on the kitchentable and explained "I haven't. Thats Lyra and Bon Bon's house. But they allowed me to stay for a while."
They sat down and began to eat, when suddenly a creamcolored earthpony came into the kitchen. 
"Oh Smokey. Are you alright? Haven't seen you since yesterday." Bon Bon asked when she noticed the unicorn, who just munched on his muffin "Oh, and you are...?" 
The blonde pony swallowed and answered "I'm Ticks. 
Smokey and I are...old friends."
"Nice to meet you, Ticks. I'm Bon Bon.  Might I ask where you are from? I don't think I have seen you around."
'Ok, just say Germareneigh! Thats where we said we were from.'
"I'm from Germareneigh, just like Smokey here. "
"Well, you're maybe from the same country but you are totaly different! Sometimes I wish somepony had half the manners, you seem to have!" she shot the pegasus an ordering look. 
He simply stuck out his tongue and smiled. 
"Anyway, nice to make your acquaintance. I'll see if Lyra is ready to part from Cider and his cider already. " with that she left. 

"She seems nice. I wonder if I can score at her." Ticks wondered. 
"Beg pardon?" the pegasus said, not believing his ears "You know why she is living with Lyra, do you?"
"Because they are best friends?"
The redmaned pony laughed and answered "Thats the understatement of the century! They not only live together, they ARE together!"
A falling penny could be heard. 
"Oooh, so they are...?"
"Eyup! Through and through. So not only that you won't have any chances, you would probably get beaten half-dead by Lyra aswell. "
Ticks chuggled "Okay, Note: Don't flirt with Bon Bon if I want to keep my teeth!"
'And better don't leave the toiletseat up.'
"Why? What would happen if I do?" the unicorn asked, turning to his friend. 
"You don't wanna kn- Did you just react to B's statement?"
'Wait. You realy did, didn't you?'
Ticks' face froze, his eyelid twitching a bit. 
"Why can I still hear your brain? Is Lyra behind that door?" he pointed at the door to the livingroom. 
'Maybe after my little intermission yesterday, your grey matter adapted to me. That or you can finaly do "tze magicks"!'
"Yeah, about that magicstuff... When do I learn to cast any spells? The only thing this horn had got me in so far was a roofbeam!"
Smokey gave a short laugh and explained "Lyra once said, one had to concentrate on what he wants to do with his magic. But she also said something about controling your inner energies, so maybe you'll have to practice before you can do bigger stuff. "
The unicorn looked at the tip of his horn and said "So, I should start small. But with what? Laservision?"
'Why is everponies first guess laservision?' a certain thinking organ wondered. 
"Maybe because it's cool? I mean, what could be cooler than burning stuff by looking at it?" Smokey countered. 
'Just try to levitate something. How about that muffin on the table?'
The unicorn stared at the baked good and imagined it to hover over to him. 
Suddenly his horn began glow in a bright green and the pastrie moved, imitating the shimmer on the ponies forehead. 
"Hey, it works" he said, taking a bit from the magiced muffin "Try to top that, featherly!"
The pegasus looked at him and in the next second a small breeze threw the hat from Ticks' head. 
"Good enough?" he asked with a proud smile on his face. 
"You can do magic aswell? But you don't even have a horn!"
'Pegasus-weather-control-magic doesn't need any horns! It's completly hornfree and awesome!'
"Eyup. B is right. It's awesome! Although I can basically just manipulate air and clouds of any kind. 
Actually thats how I got my name."
"Yeah, I saw that in B's briefing." Ticks said, grabing his hat with his newly discovered magic and put it back on his head.
'Maybe we should see, if Lyra or Twilight can add some skills to your reportiore.'
"Speaking of which, maybe we should see Twi and introduce yourself." the pegasus suggested "Maybe we can also find out, why you landed here."
The blue pony shot his friend a confused look "Twilight knows about humans?"
'Nope, but she knows when interdimensional cracks occur. Afterall she is Celestia's price student and gets the royal newsticker. '

The libary was quiet. 
All of the libary? No, one small babydragon laid on the couch, snorting as if his life would depend on the achieved decibels. 
Suddenly a purple unicorn with earplugs around her neck looked up from the book, she had been studying and checking for gramatical errors for the last two hours. 
She hadn't found one yet but she was only at the entry about Manebrushing in her very own copy of the Bucksford Dictionary for educated Fillies and Gentlecolts. 
"Spike? Did you hear that?" she asked, getting a tired look from her #1 assistant. 
"Hear what?" he murmured, his face half buried in his pillow. 
"The door. I think there is somepony at the door. "
She got up and cantered towards the entrance. 
Another knock came from the door and as she opend it with her magic the only thing she saw was a pegasus... I guess you know which one.
"Hey Twi. How are you doing?"
She smiled and answered "Oh hey Smokey. I'm fine. Just relaxing a bit. You didn't happen to run into Pinkie Pie recently?"
Smokey put on a serious face and queried "She was here?"
"Yes, she said something about some new ticks. 
Maybe her Pinkie-Pie-Sense is expanding."
Suddenly a blue pony's head tilted behind the pegasus, looking at Twilight through his shades. 
"Hi, I'm Ticks! Nice to meet you!" he said dryly. 
The mare blushed in discomfort. 
'Great, now thats a first impression you can build up on.'
He sighed "But hey, no problem ...I'm sure you didn't mean to be rude."
The blush on the studiest-student-ever's face went blushier and blushier. 
The pegasus cleared his throat and kicked his firends foreleg. 
'Just get over there and say something not insulting!'
He trotted over to the door and smiled at the purple unicorn. 
"I guess we had a bit of a hard start. Let's reset and start again. Hi, I'm Ticks. Nice to meet you, Miss...?"
She shook her head and looked at him. 
"I'm Twilight Sparkle. Nice to meet you too. Sorry for that, why don't you come in. "

They went into the kitchen, letting the babydragon in the livingroom sleep. 
After a short introduction, Smokey decided to cut the chase and get some information, as subtle as he could be. 
"So Twilight, any interdimensional cracks in the, let's say, last 48 hours?"
'Are you serious? She will never consider anything suspicious about you question. '
Ticks simply nodded, remembering that the purple mare couldn't hear that wise and grey mass between his friend's ears. 
"I don't know what you are talking about! Have you been drinking late again?" she shot the pegasus a confused and unbelieving look. 
'Just say yes and stop scaring her. You will blow our cover!'
"He's just kidding you." Ticks threw in "Good one, bro."
He gave a hollow laugh and brohoofd his friend's shoulder. 
The redmaned pony chuggled and put on the worst pokerface since ponies remember. 
"Yeah, a joke. Haha. I was joking. "
'Sometimes, I wonder why they haven't sent us into the Everfree to get rid of your nonsense yet.'
Two differnt reactions came from the unicorns. 
One simply nodded, the other one sighed and asked about Smokey's latest relationship with a certain mare. 
"So, how are you and Burst getting along? Haven't seen her in a while."
The pegasus started to sweat all over, his eyes widend and he curled on the floor, petting his wings. 
"Dude, it's alright she's gone." the blonde pony said, not getting any usefull reaction from the mindblown furball before him "Don't make me go all Lyra on you!"
Suddenly the redmaned pony jumped onto his hooves and yelled "No! I'm alright! No Lyra!"
'Ahem, could you please cut it out? Before our host loses her patience and kicks us out of the door.'
Indeed Twilight looked as if she was about to flee from the strange couple, although the unicorn seemed pretty reasonable, the pegasus appeared to be extra Smokey today. 
Suddenly a small figure appeared at the kitchendoor. 
Appearently, appearing at kitchendoors is a total legit way for a first appearence. 
"Whats going on here, folks?" Spike asked, when he noticed the brown pegasus "Hey Smokey, how's it going with you and Starberry Burst?"
The redmaned pony was on the floor again, within the blink of an eye. 
"Not again!" the blue unicorn shook his head. 

While Smokey tried to overcome his trauma, Ticks and Spike talked. 
Even Twilight managed to losen up a bit. 
"So, she left him and kicked him from a bridge? Dude, thats mean." the dragon said. 
The pegasus winced. 
"But you said she broke his wings. How come they seem fully intact?" the purple unicorn asked. 
"Beats me. He...uhm...TOLD me, he was thrown through a wall. Nurse Redheart couldn't make any sense of it either."
Twilight looked at Smokey, curious about the pegasus' strange healingability and said "If it's a spell, there may be tracks of it."
Her horn glowed and a red shimmer covered the black wings of the blackwinged pony. 
"They are completly flooded with magic. His whole body is filled with it! He can't just be a normal pegasus!"
She looked at Ticks, who just swallowed.
Her horn glew brighter, covering the blue unicorn. 
"Your magic is like nothing I have ever seen before!
What are you two?!"
"Aw crap!"
Ticks' eyes widend and suddenly his horn started to shine aswell. 
The world around him stopped and everything turned into a brownish sepiatone. 
"Oh great, whats happening now?" he looked around, when the scene before his eyes started to run backwards.
Twilight, Spike and even the not moving Smokey shuffled backwards. 
Then he noticed that the clockhands of his cutiemarks started to spin backwards aswell. 
The world stopped again and the colors turned back to normal. 
"Ok, now what? Am I going to correct some mistakes?"
Time started to flow forward again and Twilight said
"But you said she broke his wings. How come they seem fully intact?"
"They...uhm...are not. He still has a lot of pain." Ticks leaned over to his friend and squeazed his wings with his hooves "Right, Smokey?"
The pegasus winced and grimaced in pain. 
"Yeah, very painfull pain!" forget everything about Smokey's pokerface ...Ticks' was worse "I'll better get him back to bed and let him have some rest!"
He pulled the pegasus out of the door by his tail, getting moans and grimaces from his friend. 
"Pfiiiiyyy, Tfailaiff." he stuttered through a bunch of hairs in his mouth, before closing the door with his magic. 

"Whats wrong with you?" the pegasus yelled at him. 
The unicorn sighed and shot him a serious look. 
"Dude, what if I told you, that I just traveld through time and prevented Twilight from blowing our cover?"
The redmaned airpony looked at him and laughed. 
"Dude, are you serious? Did you just smack your head or something?"
Ticks frowned and said "Alright! I'll prove it to you!"
With that he disappeared and reappeared two metres left of his former position. 
"How did you do that? Did you teleport? Why can you teleport? Thats so not fair!"
The blue pony shook his head and explained "I can not teleport! I just moved over here a minute ag-...in a minute and then traveld back in time."
Smokey's jaw just hit the floor and his eyes widend to the size of waggonwheels. 
'So you can travel through the fourth dimension? Thats awesome!'
"And sooo not fair!!!" the pegasus said. 
"Serious? You have megareflexes and can see magical auras. You slow down time and I turn it backwards. Whats not fair about it?" Ticks countered. 
'He's got a point there.'
Smokey crossed his forelegs and frowned. 
"Still not fair!"

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Greetings readership! It is I! Tray!

So, Ticks gets his moments too ^^
And I know I said that I will wait with uncovering the identity of Smokey's Exmare, but then I noticed that it's super duper mega gigantic uberterifficly important for the next chapter.
And for those who didn't happen to notice: Next chapter is chapter 10!
We almost reached the tenth chapter!
Still can't believe that ^^
And as it's THE TENTH CHAPTER, it will be turbo awesome and epic, with goodies like ponynapping, epic journeys, evil overlords and a brave team of ponies on their quest to save them all and restore piece in Equestria!
So it will be superlong and superawesome XD
Thats for the good news...now for one bad news...
A project like this will take me some time ^^
But fear not!
Thou patience will be honored with sheer awesomeness 
As always, leave any suggestions, critics or comments down below...if thats okay for you, that is...
And stay tuned for the next chapter. 

Tray out