On the mirrors edge

by Harasha the Gryphon

ch1 the mysterious flash

Night had fallen on the semi rural community of Trumann. Trumann was a suburb of the ever sprawling city of Port Edwards. New housing developments were going up every year, sprawling ever closer and closer to the home of a man named Paul Otten.

Paul was a twenty-four year old man with black hair, green eyes, and a moderate build. Paul grew up in the town of Truman with his parents; back when he was in school, he was an A and B student and had a few close friends. Sadly, he was picked on for his nerdy interests and apparently weird nose. When he graduated high school, he left the town of Trumann looking for a new life, he tried to make his way in the big city of Port Edwards but soon found living there very uncomfortable, too much crime and other bad things for his taste. Eventually, he settled down on a small patch of land he bought from a friendly farmer a few miles outside Trumann. The farmer gave this bit of land to Paul because it had the farmer’s old family house on it and the farmer was eager to unload said house. Paul had a job -fortunately- but it was all the way in Port Edwards, thus Paul had to commute an hour every day to get to Port Edwards. Paul worked as a web developer in a firm that owned several piers in Port Edwards. The pay was good and it was enough to support Paul’s habits.

Paul had an obsession that began a few years ago, namely a show called my little pony friendship is magic. He came across the show on you tube a short time after season 2 began and had loved the show ever since. He bought all kinds of pony related merchandise with his disposable income, everything from toys to shirts and even rainbow dash swimwear. Most folks around his neighborhood(if you could call 5 guys a neighborhood) thought he was weird for liking a show for little girls but Paul was certainly not alone out there in a pony regard, the farmer that sold him his current house also liked the show and was a close personal friend of Paul.

It was nighttime, Paul was outside his house for an evening walk, and he would do those from time to time to clear his head of the day's stress. It was nearly impossible to see anything at this hour as there were no street lamps to light Paul’s way in the middle of nowhere. The sound of frogs croaking and other animals filled Paul’s ears as he walked down the deserted country road nearby his house. It wasn't that hot outside, seeing as it was late may. The moon shone overhead in a beautiful crescent with three visible stars perfectly aligned in a triangle below the moon twinkling in the night. Sadly the rest of the night sky was impossible to see, sky shine from nearby Trumann blotted out all but the three stars around the moon which gave just enough light for Paul to make out the shadows of most objects around him.

Paul was on his way home for the night, he usually didn't like to stay in the utter darkness of this kind of night for an extended period of time, and the weather report said there was a thunderstorm due to hit the area at night. As he was walking however, something happened; the sky began to glow with an eerie blue light. Paul turned around just in time to see a beam of blue light shoot up into the sky and create a wave of blue energy that radiated. Paul could only guess the beam of light originated several miles from where he was; Paul was not eager to stay around and find out. Paul began to sprint back in the direction of his house; after a few minutes though a sound stopped him dead in his tracks.

Paul could hear someone moaning, a female by the sound of it. Anxiously, Paul looked around to find the source of the ailing woman. Within seconds, Paul saw something odd in a nearby ditch and Paul ran over to investigate. When Paul laid eyes upon what he saw in that ditch his jaw dropped. In the ditch was what appeared to be a lavender pony, the pony looked like it would stand up to three foot two inches while on four legs. The mysterious pony had a horn on its forehead and a pair of wings on its back. Paul defiantly recognized the strange pony that lay before him; it was none other than Twilight Sparkle. Twilight was unconscious in that ditch, and was cut and bruised from what looked like a bad fall.

Paul absolutely thought that this pony was a hallucination, so he reached out his hand and gave the supposed twilight sparkle a gentle poke. Much to Paul’s utter shock, the pony was indeed flesh and blood. Paul examined her closer and took in both her appearance and her injuries. Twilight was covered in mud from being in a ditch, her mane was an absolute mess and she was covered in cuts and bruises. This Twilight looked exactly like the Twilight in the show, down to the last detail. The only difference between the Twilight Paul was looking at and the Twilight of the show was that there was definite texture to the pony‘s fur, mane and hard bits. Paul didn't know what to do, Twilight clearly had some serious injuries but should he help her was the main question, for all he knew he could be having a huge hallucination or it was some kind of trap to lure Paul into something. For a good minute, Paul thought about what he should do. In the end his love of all things ponies and good nature won out and Paul decided to take the unconscious Twilight Sparkle back to his house for some much needed first aid. Paul lifted Twilight up and found her to be quite heavy; Paul then slung Twilight onto his back and began to slowly carry her back toward his home, hoping she wouldn't wake up while he was carrying her.

Twenty minutes before Paul found Twilight unconscious, at the spot where the blue beam of light had originated from, sat another unconscious pony. The pony was right in the middle of a field left fallow for the season. The pony in the field had yellow fur, a yellow and red mane, a unicorn horn, and six pointed sun for a cutie mark; the pony was none other than Sunset Shimmer. Much like Twilight, sunset was out cold and had several cuts and bruises on her body. A few feet away from her, in the mud was twilight's crown, the element of magic. A few minutes went by with nothing particularly interesting happening, until a flash of purple light burst nearby. When the flash subsided, a figure stood next to sunset; the figure was another pony a little bit taller than sunset was. It was too dark to get a good look at the pony's face but she had a clearly noticeable horn and the size of the muzzle implied this pony was a mare. Her deep brown eyes stood out in the darkness as she looked over the unconscious sunset shimmer. The mare closed her eyes as her horn glowed with a stunning amethyst color. She touched her horn to Sunset Shimmer and in an instant, all of sunset's wounds vanished. Her eye expression changed to imply the look on her face was one of beneficence even though we can not see for sure to verify this.

Her eyes scanned the area until she saw the element of magic nearby Sunset; a wicked grin spread across her face as she examined the element of magic. Without a moment’s hesitation, she levitated the element closer to herself. a saddle bag she was wearing became apparent as the mare opened it with her magic and several objects were levitated out: a medium sized glass bowl; a wooden kitchen spoon; a bottle of water; a mortar and pestle; some white colored cheese; a few vials full of liquids and a few powders; a piece of parchment; and lastly, a blue flower most pony fans would identify as poison joke. The mare went to work; using the light of her horn so she could see what she was doing as the thunderstorm mentioned earlier began to roll in. Thunder crackled behind the mare as she poured half of the water from the bottle into the glass bowl. Then- one by one- she levitated and poured in the various powders and liquids in the vials into the bowl. The mare then used the wooden spoon to stir the contents of the bowl for a few minutes. She then proceeded levitated the white cheese up in the air; she levitated a few more things from her bag while some of her magic continued to stir the bowl.

The mare had removed a plate and two pieces of bread from her saddlebag. She put the cheese between the pieces of bread to form a sandwich and she set the sandwich on the plate she placed on the ground nearby. She stopped stirring the bowl with her magic and directed her attention to the sandwich. Her horn began to glow again as the sandwich also glowed with an intense aura. Within seconds, the cheese was melted and the bread toasted, making a delectable grill cheese sandwich. The mare used magic to split the sandwich in half, levitating one slice up to her mouth to take a bite.

The mare nibbled on her sandwich as she returned to her work. She put the poison joke into the mortar and she began mashing it with the pestle. The poison joke produced a lot of blue juices as it was crushed; within minutes, the poison joke was nothing but juices and ground up leaves. The mare poured the contents of the mortar into her bowl and used the spoon to stir the bowls contents some more. After a minute of stirring she stopped and used her horn to fire a bolt of magic at the contents of the bowl. Thunder continued to rumble as the liquid in the bowl began to glow with the same color that the beam of light about to occur would glow with. the mare's face could be seen better than before because of the glow cast from the bowl, her fur color was hard to discern because the light was dim and blue which her fur wasn‘t, her eye shape was much like the eye shape that rarity had, and what little could be seen of her mane was black with another unidentifiable color.

The mare grinned and closed her eyes as she levitated the element onto her head. Within seconds the liquid in the bowl became blue energy and was absorbed into the jewel encrusted on the element. The whole crown began to glow the same blue as the energy that had just entered it; the mare then levitated the parchment from earlier in front of her eyes and began to chant in a strange language. As soon as she stopped chanting the blue beam Paul had seen from a distance shot up into the air from the crown on the mare's head. Within a few minutes the light show was over and the darkness that had been present before the spell had returned to the area.

With a smile, the mare returned the element of harmony to the ground and levitated out a piece of paper and a pen. After writing something on that piece of paper, she returned the pencil and the paper she had read from to her saddlebag while simultaneously pulling out a plastic baggie and a fold of money from her saddlebag. She levitated the other half of her sandwich into the baggie and put the plate it rested on back into her saddlebag. then the mare took the still half full water bottle, the bagged sandwich, the note, and the fold of cash and proceeded to slip them all quietly into a saddlebag that sunset shimmer wore as she lay on the ground unconscious. The mare also rummaged through Sunset’s saddlebag and found a blanket in the left side saddlebag. The mare then put the blanket on sunset’s body to make her more comfortable. The mare’s horn glowed again as she cast another spell; a force field then appeared around Sunset Shimmer. The mare then teleported away, leaving Sunset Shimmer to lay in the field unconscious.

Comments

[Berry Punch]

Holy wall of text, batman!

[Harasha the Gryphon]

3277186 I know I know I'm having quite a few technical problems atm I'll fix it asap

[butterfield pancake]

Hmnmm good

[Harasha the Gryphon]

3277186 ok I fixed the wall of text issue

[regider]

Wow. This is really sad and creepy.
Allow me to introduce you to the concept of capitalization.

[Thaums]

3277254
staup lying pls

[Ron_Gamer]

Hmmm... might be worth my time.

[Felyon]

A second Poison Joke writer? That plant has way too much potential to remain just an obscure plot device. ^_^

So, allow me to review your story? You can always delete my comment.

Even with all the “wall of text” comments, I had no problem reading this story.

Yes, it’s advised to use one paragraph per idea, but your generous spacing assuaged that problem.

I really liked the description of the mysterious mare potion brewing. And I look forward to the rest of the story.

My only problem is how similar this set-up is to an unoriginal Mary Sue.
It starts with describing a brony in full, implying immediately that this is an author’s self-insert.
You’ll have to write uphill against many bad experiences with self-inserts.

Maybe add the introductions AFTER the prologue?

The shadowy manipulator already seems to be in full control, implying your outsmarting the main characters. She even has time to prepare and eat lunch.
At first, I thought it was merely the recipient for her brew.

Though I have to admit, it’s a nice touch. I wouldn’t have thought of that.

So, here’s to a good start

Fey out.