Marehouse 13
Steep Learning Curve
Claudia frowned. "You know," she told the unconscious Agent Lattimer, "you really could have thought this through." She looked around the clearing for some water to splash him with. It might not be very effective at waking him up, but it would give her something to do besides trying to slap him awake with her hooves, as tempting as that may have been.
As she craned her neck, looking around, her ears twitched. Is that...? She started walking towards the sound that had triggered the reaction, trying to identify it. Yes! Running water!
The stream wasn't far at all, but presented a whole new problem. Okay, Claudia, how are you going to scoop up water in your hooves? The maroon unicorn's horn began to glow as she pondered the problem. While she considered her limited options, a small orb of water, about eight inches across, separated itself from the stream and floated over to her.
Behind her, Pete groaned. As she turned to check on him, she found herself face-to-rippling-surface with the floating water. She stared at it, finally becoming aware of a strange tugging sensation in her forehead. The sensation was somehow connected to the orb, she realized. Experimentally, she concentrated on raising the water higher.
A native Equestrian unicorn could have warned her not to use too much effort. An experienced, educated unicorn could have told her the expected consequences of essentially using all her strength to direct something upwards. Without that information, Claudia was doomed to make a classic blunder many burgeoning magic users are wont to make. She and Pete would later -- not much later, as it happens -- come to be extremely grateful she'd made the mistake with water instead of, say, a rock.
"Ugh," grunted Pete again, dragging himself to his hooves. Claudia gave up searching the sky for the vanished water orb and trotted over to him. He gaped at her, blinking as though to clear his vision. "Claudia?"
She sighed. "Yeah, Pete, it's me."
"Okay... You're... you're a pony." He shook his head. "Why are you a pony? And why do I hurt all over like I've been Tesla'd?"
Claudia smirked at the supposedly more experienced agent. "A) Because somebody who shall remain Pete decided to start playing with toys when you knew one of them was an artifact, and B) because you've been Tesla'd."
Pete winced. "Who shot me? Did we get 'em?"
"You shot yourself, Pete," said Claudia. "So I guess we did get 'em, huh? I don't know what possessed you to try picking my Tesla up with a hoof of all things, but you set it off while you were trying to get it out of my bag. Lucky for you I keep it set at the lowest possible setting." Claudia shuddered at the thought of what could have happened.
"Well, before that, I don't suppose either of us figured out where exactly the artifact sent us?"
* * * * *
"Whoa," Twilight called out. "We're off course." As she veered to the right, and Applejack followed, the earth pony frowned.
"Y'all ain't exactly the most trail wise o' ponies, Twi. Are ya sure?"
Twilight Sparkle nodded matter-of-factly. "Definitely, Applejack. I may not know these woods as well as you, but you didn't feel the massive surge of magic that just happened this way."
Applejack trotted up alongside her friend. "Ya think we got another tourist so soon after the one we're lookin' fer?"
"No," Twilight said, taking a moment to levitate a map of the area into view and make notes on it as she talked. "What I felt was unicorn magic. My guess is whoever just came through was experimenting and put their all into some spell."
Applejack frowned. "That's bad, right?"
"Well, it could be, depending on the spell, but I think whatever it was was pretty simple. Levitation, most likely."
Applejack nodded, then stopped, holding out a hoof. "Whoa up a sec, Twi. Ah hear somepony' up ahead."
As she came to a stop, Twilight heard it too -- two pony voices talking: a stallion and a mare, and both adults.
"Well, can you describe the artifact? I don't remember picking it up," the stallion said.
"Because you Tesla'd yourself," the mare replied. "Which is to be expected from someone dense enough to start playing around when we're looking for an artifact. Artifacts are not toys, Pete."
"In my defense," the stallion replied, "I remember we were in the toy section of the thrift store, so this one probably was. Right?"
Twilight Sparkle frowned. The longer this went on, she realized, the more awkward it could become for them. She nodded to Applejack and stepped out into the clearing, coughing slightly to get the two ponies' attention. Applejack followed, just in time to see about a gallon of water fall out of the sky to drench the two newcomers.
* * * * *
Five minutes later, it became clear that everypony in that clearing had a completely different attitude about the situation. Twilight Sparkle looked on it as an opportunity to share the magic of friendship with somepony new, as that had proven true in the past. Applejack eyed the two fully-grown (and in the stallion's case, definitely handsome) ponies with suspicion. The new mare, Claudia, was clearly exasperated.
The stallion, who effusively introduced himself as Pete Lattimer, was a "tourist" pony of the type Twilight had begun to dread - a fan. She really didn't know how to take the knowledge that somewhere out there, complete strangers were watching her and her friends. It felt like an invasion of privacy. And they all wanted her and her friends to say some of the strangest things, it seemed.
"Lemme see if I got this straight," Applejack was saying. "Y'all work fer the government where y'all come from."
"Right," Claudia answered, with a roll of her eyes at Pete, who was just grinning at Twilight Sparkle oddly. "And we--"
"Y'all're lookin' fer some kinda dangerous magical artifact thingamajigger, and that's what sent y'all here?"
"Exactly, and we're really not supposed to interact with any of the locals while we're here."
"What?" Pete and Twilight Sparkle simultaneously turned to look at Claudia.
"What are you talking about, Claudia? How can we pass up an opportunity like this? I mean, Equestria! Ponyville!" Pete grinned and waved a hoof at the lavender unicorn. "Twilight Sparkle!"
"You are really starting to weird me out there, Pete."
"Creepy fan gushing aside," Twilight Sparkle interjected, "everypony else who's come here from your world has interacted with us. They stick around at least long enough to learn something about the magic of friendship before they leave Ponyville."
"The magic of friendship," Claudia repeated, deadpan. "You're serious about this."
"It's the most powerful force in the world," Twilight Sparkle said. "It's saved Equestria twice so far, and that's not counting the little day-to-day events that come up."
Claudia facehoofed, groaning in frustration. "Pete, back me up here."
"She's right," Pete said, finally shaking off his ecstatic mood and returning to the subject at hand. "We can't leave without at least visiting Ponyville."
"No," Claudia groaned again. "Back me up. You remember what Artie said when we got trapped in that pocket dimension. Protocols."
"Did we ever find out what those protocols were?"
"Well, I clearly remember not interacting with the locals being one of them."
"And how well did that work out?"
"I got kidnapped by a horror comic monster and we ended up getting involved in a cheap rip-off of I Am Legend -- the, uh, book. Not the movie," Claudia admitted.
"And?"
"And we found another artifact in that pocket dimension and saved that world from a genocidal madman."
"So... protocols?"
"We should ask Artie," Claudia said after a moment's consideration. After a bit of concentration, her horn began to glow a deep green color, and her Farnsworth communicator levitated out of her saddlebag.
"I'm impressed," Twilight Sparkle said with a grin. "It usually takes a lot more practice to learn that kind of control over unicorn magic."
"Yeah, well, I'm a fast learner," Claudia said before turning her attention to the device.
So I see you used my title idea after all.
I'll be expecting my royalty check any day now.
Hm. Maybe I should check out whatever this is a crossover with. :)
Hm. Maybe I should check out whatever this is a crossover with. :)6793
Uh, that came out wrong. I know what it is a crossover with. I meant I should check it out.
6794
You should, it's a lot of fun.
Of course Pete is a brony.
That makes complete sense.
As a fan of warehouse 13...you got the agents spot on. Well done and I like the touch that the mane 6 are at least partially aware that they're stuck in a TV show...or at least that they're being watched.
And where can I find that artifact the agents found?
well you have my attention let's see if you can keep it
So what are their cutie marks? I'm thinking Pete's would be a cookie, but what about Claudia?
And for that matter, what would Artie's be? (I am hoping beyond hope that Artie gets turned into a pony too at some point.)
...AAAAAGH!!!
Maybe I should actually WATCH Warehouse 13 or something before I read this but... OH MY GAWD WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!
Okay, from what I can piece together...These two agents are like the Men in Black but with magical artifacts instead of aliens and Friendship is Magic apparently is a show in their...show. And there's an FiM toy in a thrift store somewhere that's been zapping children to Equestria for some time now. And now these agents have to track it down and stop it before any more children go missing. Also The one called Pete is a brony. But because Pete is apparently the idiot of the pair he accidentally set the artifact off and now they're stuck in Equestria.
Meanwhile, on the Equestria side of things, they've been treating the children rather well and been treating them like tourists. And this has been going on for a while now and nopony really seems to care. I suspect that somewhere there's an orphanage full of human-children-made-ponies.
Anyway... this is what I can figure out from the story so far and all I can say is... WOW! IT WOULD HAVE BEEN NICE TO HAVE SEEN ALL THIS AND BEEN INTRODUCED TO THIS PREMISE GRADUALLY AND CONSISTENTLY RATHER THAN BEING THROWN INTO IT LIKE A BANANA PEEL INTO A DUMPSTER!
So aside from skipping out on a good THIRD of the story, we also seem to be purposefully skipping certain important parts, like, say, the agents first meeting the ponies, or what the rest of the town thinks of these "tourists" or what the Princesses are doing about this, or what's going on back on Earth. From a fundamental standpoint this story simply is so... shakily done (to put it nicely).
I'm sorry... this just... no. This fic is no. It's skipping over way too many important things, and it doesn't even seem to be doing it by accident. It's like you don't want us to read your story. That's really what it comes across as. You don't WANT us to read your story, so you're not going to write most of it.
Wait. Wait wait wait...
You're the author of Fastest Fall in Equestria?!!
That fic is GOLD!! That story is great!!
What's going on here? How did... What... I...
Okay, wait a minute. You've shown that you know how to write a REALLY good Human in Equestria story. A DAMN good one. Perhaps the best one I've seen in eons... One that I've been waiting for updates on with bated breath...
How does this story here come about?
Is it a style choice? Is this how things tend to work in the actual show? Sorta an "In Medias Res" start-in-the-middle thing before hopping back? Or... what?
Come on, man, you an do WAY better than this. I've seen it! I can attest to it!
7081
7086
The idea here was to start off quickly. The confusion is a result of my throwing out three different expository dialogue sections before deciding to cover the artifact itself in the next section of the story. I'm trying to structure this more like Warehouse 13 than My Little Pony, and one of the things about Warehouse 13 is that the artifact itself is usually a mystery until the end of the episode, since Warehouse agents have the ability to neutralize artifacts pretty handily in most cases.
Consequently, we're missing information here because the one agent who would have that information, Pete, has been hit with a Tesla gun, which both stuns and disrupts short-term memory. He's not really stupid, but he does tend to see the fun side of artifacts whenever possible. When they're not deadly.
Another problem is that I ended up cutting a huge chunk of expository dialogue for a few reasons:
1) It was slow and boring.
2) When Pete and Claudia get going, there really is no stopping them short of a crisis.
3) It wasn't fun to write.
I ended up cutting the introduction at the same time because of laziness. I figured the "getting to know you" part (still to come) was more important than learning each others' names.
6890
I figured for Claudia, it would be a computer monitor with binary code on it.
im a werehouse 13 fan and a brony
and this is amasing:
i cant wait to read arty's responce when he sees them as ponies via farnsworth
So uh, what was the original title?
Also, considering the fact that in the show they've already been transported into a comic book(watch the webisodes) and a video game(yes i'm counting it even if it was just in their heads.) this doesn't seem to farfetched.
15618
A) Stable 13 -- which felt like a Fallout: Equestria reference, and made me frown every time I thought about it.
II) It was the comic-book webisode that inspired this story (which I haven't given up on, though I may end up rewriting some of this), and the video game episode that helped me figure out how they would react to Equestria.
In any case, now that I have some time, I shall be working on these stories again.
Will we see this updating soon?
I did really enjoy both chapters, and I can't wait for more!
70883 We can x pect Moar nao?
Hehe
Love warehouse 13 and MLP:FiM
Looking forward to reading more of this story :)
TRACKING.
I haven't read it yet, but Warehouse 13 is in my top 5 favourite tv shows ever.
Ok, I read it. You seem to have the characters down pat. Wait, wait, wait.
Pinkie Sense vs Vibes. This has to happen.
41343 Want any help? I'm crazy good at tossing around paragraphs of dialogue and scenery with just a few words. Lets me give yo an example with whatever somepony replies to this comment with, ja? That way, I can show you my spur-of-the-momentness.
I love helping people with their fics!
*Pokes story with a stick*
Come on, man. This is the story that INTRODUCED me to Warehouse 13! Don't die on me now!
The Warehouse13 show reminds me of that one warehouse at the end of that Indiana Jones movie. (I forget which one.) I wander if it has an extra portal gun in there somewhere...probably. images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110416001944/half-life/en/images/1/10/ASCDT_cave.jpg "Where the hell did we put that spare portal gun? What do you mean they gave it to the government?!?!? Get it back by force if you have to! I don't care if they find out about our mantis men. They funded that project for god's sake and now they think they can screw over CAVE JOHNSON!?!?! Also Caroline have those idiots down in goverment relations fired. Replace them with monkeys."
203105
I wouldn't be surprised if the warehouse in Raiders of the Lost Ark inspired Warehouse 13. There are definitely some comparisons that can be made. Although, thinking of Pete Lattimer as "Top. Men." kind of makes me giggle.
255152
Kind of. Imagine X-Files only there is absolutely no doubt that something bizarre is happening. There is no "rational explanation." The question is more along the lines of "just what exactly is the artifact and how does it cause the effect?" Not "how" in pseudo-science explanations, but "how" as in "what is the trigger mechanism?"
In this case, the effect is that children are disappearing for varying amounts of time.
I'm still debating whether to (a) continue this story or (b) rewrite the beginning first.
103029
Mind if I steal that idea for my fic?
255871
I want to say that I saw somewhere when it was coming out mention of it being similar to that warehouse in the Indie movie.
Would it be possible to have Equestrian artifacts.