//------------------------------// // The Twigate Phenomenon // Story: The Twigate Phenomenon // by DJ Leftwing //------------------------------// This is just a quick one-shot that I wrote while waiting to find out if my gig got cancelled or not. Just wrote it because that idea popped into my head and I couldn’t get it out. I know it’s similar to stuff done before, but hey, who cares. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight had to admit, she did enjoy reading through these old books from the recently discovered back room of the library. A lot of them dealt with the darker magic’s, things that she had never heard of doing before, or even thought possible. There was a spell in one of them that caused the color to be sucked out of the world, but it required an insane amount of energy and it only lasted for a couple minutes. Others were even more sinister, and Twilight couldn’t believe that ponies had even come up with these spells. The unicorn was currently reading through a volume entitled Multi-Dimensional Magic, and had discovered a spell that looked like she might actually be able to pull it off. The spell was described to open a gate between two worlds, one was obviously Equestria, and the other was some place that the book called Earth. Twilight knew that casting the spell was probably a bad idea, but the curiosity that haunted her over the validity of the spell won out. She laid the book down on her desk, and with an intense look of concentration, started channeling her magical energy towards the wall of the library. She closed her eyes as the glow around her horn became so blindingly bright that if any pony had entered the room, they would have instantly lost all ability to see. Suddenly, the room went black, and a soft pinkish glow started to radiate from a small portal set near the base of the tree. It was barely big enough for a pony to fit a single hoof through, yet it proved that the spell did do something. Twilight was content to leave it at that, not daring to try to expand the portal and find out if it actually led anywhere. She stared at the pink oval on her wall, examining the magical phenomenon and wishing that there was some way to gather data on it. Her concentration on the anomaly was so intense, that she failed to notice when Spike entered until the young dragon cleared his thought. “Umm, Twilight?” The purple pony spun around in surprise, eyes wide and back arched. She quickly relaxed once she discovered it was only her assistant. “Don’t sneak up on me like that Spike, you almost scared the color out of me!” Twilight scolded, “And we all know how I get when I go grayscale.” “Sorry Twi, it’s just Minuette is looking for some books and I don’t know where they are.” “Who?” the unicorn asked, not recognizing the name that Spike had just mentioned. “Minuette…you know, the unicorn with the blue and white mane.” “Oh, you mean Colgate!” Twilight exclaimed, and then mumbled under her breath, “I guess her real name technically is Minuette.” The librarian followed the small dragon back out into the main room of the library, where she found Ponyville’s resident dentist standing, looking up at the shelves around her. On hearing the entrance of the two, she turned to face them. “Hey Twilight, maybe you can help me. I’m looking for some books on permanent removal of teeth. It seems some ponies have started growing teeth that don’t quite fit in their mouths. I tried getting rid of them with my usual techniques, but the teeth just keep growing back.” “And Spike couldn’t find anything on that?” “No, most of the books he found involved methods that I had never heard of before, and involved something called anesthesia. No books with hammers or sandpaper; or radiation for that matter.” It took Twilight a minute to wipe the surprised expression off of her face. She was now extremely glad that Celestia had gotten her in on the eternally perfect teeth spell; she did not want to have to experience Colgate’s techniques. “Well, if you’re looking for something like that, you may want to look in the construction section, or maybe the energy section, but are you sure you don’t just want to try some of the things in the other books?” “Nawwwww, I’ll just try the drill, I don’t think I’ve used it yet.” Colgate lifted her head to peer around Twilight, staring at the door to the back room. Her eyes got wider while her pupils shrunk to the size of small coins. “Umm, Twilight, what exactly were you doing in that room earlier?” the blue furred pony asked in a hesitant manner. “Nothing much, why?” she replied while turning to look at whatever had given Colgate such a surprise. Her jaw dropped as she saw what the blue pony had noticed, and stood paralyzed as she too stared at what was happening. The pink glow from her little portal had increased in intensity. The haze around the door was about 20 percent brighter than the glow that she caused while creating the portal and it was a good thing that the wooden door was between them and the source of the light. “What have I done?” Twilight asked rhetorically. Twilight closed her eyes and felt her way into the room. She could feel the magic that the gate was giving off; it tingled through her bones and almost caused her to collapse in a heap as a result of the sensation. She hoofed around until she found the book lying on the desk and tried to grab it with her magic, but the portal simply absorbed the attempt and rendered her power useless. She was stunned, her magic didn’t work, her own special talent was failing her. She grabbed the book in her mouth and backed out of the room, and once she got back to the safety of the main room, she started frantically scanning the spell description, looking for clues on how to reverse it. Eventually, she found what she was looking for, but what she found did not make her happy. The portal is destroyed once a pony traverses it in both the sending and receiving directions. It seemed that she was going to have to go through the portal and back in order to destroy it. She didn’t want to, but if it was the only way, she would have to do it. “I’m going in. It’s the only way to destroy it, to go in and back. It shouldn’t be too hard, so I’ll be right back.” “But you’ve already been in there and back, to get the book.” “Oh, no, I mean into the portal in the room. I created a trans-dimensional portal while messing around, and it seems to have gotten out of control. Going into it is the only way to destroy it, so I’m going in.” Twilight turned back towards the door and trotted over to it. She nosed it open and closed her eyes again. She entered the room and made her way towards the wall that she had cast the spell on, and shivered as the feeling from earlier magnified itself the closer she got. She continued to edge closer, and closer, and closer still, until she was standing right next to where she knew the wall was. The feeling was overwhelming, it was too much for the studious mare, and she couldn’t force herself to plunge herself into the magical black, or pink in this case, hole. It was the unexpected entrance of Colgate into the room that knocked her backwards into the gate, and both ponies were swept up into the vortex of inter-dimensional travel. Twilight didn’t dare open her eyes; not knowing what would happen if she did. She only opened them once she felt solid ground beneath her body again, and found that she was lying in the back room of the library, surrounded by her books and scrolls. The wall that previously had the portal on it was clear of all magical abnormalities, and everything around her appeared to be fine. She found her hoofing and shook her mane and tail out. She emerged from the room and found the library exactly as she had left it, except that Colgate had left. She called to Spike to ask him if she had found what she was looking for, and when the baby dragon appeared at the top of the stairs, he gasped and fell down said stairs with a series of thumps. “What is wrong with you Spike?” Twilight asked, but after hearing her voice, she considered the possibility that something might be wrong with her. “Oh no. Spike, I need a mirror.” She ran upstairs and looked into the mirror above the sink, and realized that her life was going to very interesting unless she could find a way to fix this. Another part of her mind realized that she was going to need a blowtorch to fix that plaque on her teeth.