Because sometimes, it’s the little things that really sell a story.
It’s a funny thing, really.
Most people want to make something important of their lives. The definition of important, of course, changes from person to person.
But honestly, aren’t the little things that happen throughout that make life worth it? They’re like the spices and condiments of life. Or something.
Enough philosophy. This is nothing but a side story to a project of mine.
These are little shorts that tell stories—slice of life, mostly—that I couldn’t make into a fic on their own right, but that I consider important to tell anyway.
Well, I mean… I definitely could, but I liked this approach better.
Tags will update as time goes on and characters appear in the stories.
Wallflower didn’t know why she even bothered. It was the same thing every year. She had hoped that this time, someone would talk to her, or notice her when she was the one trying to talk to them, but alas.
Wallflower had long since given up and was currently leaning on the edge of the auditorium, focusing her energy on looking at memes instead.
Looking at one she found particularly funny, she couldn’t help but chuckle, and the sound echoed all over the room.
The sound echoed all over the room.
Her head raised rapidly.
The ballroom was completely and utterly empty. No students, no staff, no DJ, no Pinkie Pie.
As Wallflower panicked, her hands reflexively moved towards both sides of her face.
‘Oh no, I zoned off so bad that-‘ she thought, before being interrupted by a loud noise.
The booming, thundering sound, enveloped and surrounded the whole auditorium—and maybe even the whole school—causing Wallflower to jump in her place.
Curiosity taking over, Wallflower left the auditorium and headed towards the origin of the explosion.
“Are they firing fireworks? No, that didn’t sound like a firework at all,” she said.
As she turned around the corner near the school’s entrance, she took notice of the crowd of people idly standing there.
“What’s going on?” she asked rhetorically, not quite expecting an answer at this point.
She quickly noticed, however, that their expressions were blank, vacantly staring forward. More importantly, their eyes had lost all normalcy and were replaced by a swirling, hypnotic pattern.
Following their gaze headed outside, she noticed the monstrous, flying, red demon speaking to the new girl and her friends.
“Gee, the gang really is all back together again!” the demon mocked.
“S-Sunset Shimmer!?” Wallflower cried in a horrified manner as she took a step back.
Taking another look around, she noticed two other—smaller—demons; Snips and Snails, she figured.
“Now step aside,” Sunset continued, “Twilight has tried to interfere with my plans one too many times already!”
Her hair flaring up, Sunset Shimmer created a sphere of energy in-between her hands. “She needs to be dealt with,” she coldly said as she launched the sphere towards Twilight Sparkle, her friends quickly running over to protect her.
Wallflower stood there, her hands covering her mouth, and her eyes wide opened as the concentrated beam of radiating energy crashed against all six girls.
All was in silence as dust and magic floated in the air surrounding the affected area. As it all settled down, Wallflower was quick to notice that the group of friends was embracing one another—not hurt in the slightest—and surrounded by some sort of energy coat.
“Huh?” Wallflower asked in unison with Sunset, both confused at what was going on in front of them.
“The magic contained in my element was able to unite with those who helped create it!” Twilight blurted.
Wallflower didn't know what that had to do with anything.
She was even more confused when the group of friends suddenly grew horse ears, and some of them got wings on their backs.
All of that happened as Twilight recited some core values only to then shove “magic” at the end. Twilight’s voice echoed all around the place as if it had some sort of filter, and Wallflower didn't understand why it did that.
In her shock, Wallflower zoned off, trying to make sense of everything, and stopped paying attention to whatever cheesy nonsense Twilight had said next.
Wallflower didn’t stay like that for long, however, as shortly after, a laser beam brought her back to reality.
A thin, rainbow-colored laser beam shot right past her and into Sunset’s ex-boyfriend. From there, it shot from person to person, their eyes returning to normal as it did.
Two other beams were shot at Snips and Snails, who were now swirling inside of a rainbow tornado.
If that wasn’t enough, the six girls were enveloped in a white, magical aura, floating in the air as a wide, giant rainbow shot through the sky, swirling in a DNA kind of way, only to then collapse onto a bigger rainbow tornado.
It was safe to assume Sunset’s demonic self was inside the tornado. Wallflower was slightly pleased to have witnessed this.
When the beam crashed, it left a crater, and in the middle of it was Sunset Shimmer—back to her normal self, and with ragged clothes—in the middle of a smoke cloud.
Cozy Glow exclaimed, tumbling her opponent’s king while most of her pieces were still standing.
She watched as Thorn Thistle groaned, retorted, clenched his fists, slammed the board repeatedly, and then slumped backward.
“What a tragic match,” Thorn sighed.
Cozy Glow, however, grinned as she basked in her triumph.
“Speak for yourself, I think it went amazing!”
“…”
“Best out of seven?”
Cozy watched intently as Thorn grumbled and looked away with a frown. There were only so many times he could lose to a twelve-year-old without losing his cool. And she knew it.
She also knew that he knew that she knew she would pester him if he refused her challenge, so it was no surprise to her when he started placing the pieces in their respective square.
As they rearranged the pieces on the board, they promptly heard a loud explosion, which diverted their attention from their battle of the mind to the outside world.
“What was that!?” Cozy Glow asked, and Thorn shrugged.
Heading outside, they saw nothing for a long while, and quickly assumed that whatever it was, it was over.
But as they were about to turn around, a second explosion was heard, and a rainbow-colored beam shot through the sky in the distance.
It swirled and swirled over itself several times, and Cozy Glow watched every second of it, gaping at the strength and the invigorating energy the beam radiated as it ultimately collapsed into the ground.
As it settled down, she could faintly feel the expansive wave that came with the crash. The energy sent goosebumps all over her body with what felt like only a fraction of the power it was truly capable of.
The seconds passed and the reflection of the beam left Cozy’s widened eyes as the rainbow pillar faded away into obscurity.
Cozy blinked repeatedly, taking in everything that she had just witnessed.
And then turned away promptly.
“Well, anyway, I’m going back inside. It’s kinda cold out here.”
Vaguely hearing her, Thorn nodded slightly, but Cozy was already back at the chess board. He, however, remained outside a few seconds longer.
“So exciting!” A young, orange-skinned man exclaimed. “Are you excited!? Because I’m excited! Maybe too excited! Oh no, I’m…I’m not feeling so good, I-“
He stopped himself as he grabbed a paper bag a blew into it, making the bag inflate and deflate in quick succession.
Potion Nova smiled, finding her friend’s excitement endearing. The blue-skinned lady next to her, however, held a deadpan look.
“She’s the one who’s being interviewed, not you.”
“I-I know,” he replied to his sister, but not stopping his hyperventilation in the slightest.
She rolled her eyes before turning back to Potion Nova with a smile. “So, how are you feeling, Nova?”
“I’m a little nervous, but mostly excited! It’d be so much fun if I make it in and get to work with you guys!”
“Not ‘if.’ When you make it in,” Trial replied. Her brother nodded vigorously as he stopped hyperventilating.
“Right,” Potion Nova said.
A few moments later, the time for Potion to go inside finally arrived.
“Wish me luck,” Potion Nova said as she opened the ridiculously big doors.
“Good luck!” Error called from the other side.
The room on the other side of the doors was a huge, mostly empty room. The dim, and only light in the room coming from the moon itself, slipping in through a huge window behind the desk sitting all the way in the back of the room.
“Ominous. Nice creepy statue!” Potion Nova said, pointing at the statue of an old man with vacant, black eyes.
“Thank you!” The man over at the desk yelled—since they were still pretty far apart. “Pretty cool, huh!?”
“Yeah! But, I must admit that the asymmetry of having a statue on one edge of the room is bugging me…”
“Yeah, sorry…” he said, talking in a neutral volume, “you wouldn’t know how hard it is to find creepy statues. Why it took me forever to-“
The other person in the room, a pale, peach-haired man with a little ponytail and a pair of glasses stopped the conversation. “You’re getting off track…” he muttered, but due to the emptiness of the room, Potion Nova was more than able to hear it.
“Oh right, right!” He cleared his throat. “My deepest and utmost sincerest apologies, Miss Nova.” He said with a bow. “I simply couldn’t clench with enough strength my need to appreciate your notice of the decore I have so arduously—“
The same man as before elbowed him once again. “Stop that. We talked about this, talking with unusual words and long sentences doesn’t make you ‘professional’, you’re just making a fool of yourself.”
“Um… if it amounts to anything,” Potion Nova interrupted, “I personally don’t mind. It helped me settle down my nerves.”
“See, she gets it!” The man behind the desk said, making the other roll his eyes.
“Anyway,” the blue-haired man continued, “my name is Surveil Coruscate, pleased to finally meet you, Potion Nova!”
Potion Nova shook the extended hand with a polite, but enthusiastic, smile.
“Well, let’s get onto business or else my friend Thorn Ampersand here won’t let me hear the end of it.”
Potion Nova could see the faintest frown form in this Thorn Ampersand guy. A friendly, mocking frown, tho.
“I read your resume, and I am quite impressed. Your focus on chemistry could help us analyze the samples we collect! Maybe even figure out how to use that spying equipment in the basement once and for all!”
“…spying…equipment?”
“Well, you never know when finding fingerprints might come in handy.”
“Oh, right, right.”
“However,” Surveil said, earning both a confused glance from the coworker to his right and a nervous gulp from Potion Nova in front of him, “there is just one teeny-tiny problem.”
“Y-yeah?”
“According to this, you’re still a teensy bit too young for us to legally hire you.”
“What!?” Three voices exclaimed simultaneously. One of them was Potion Nova’s, the other two belonged to her friends, who just shoved the doors open.
“Uh, were you listening the whole time?” Potion Nova asked.
“…kinda,” Trial replied awkwardly, while Error ran all the way to Surveil’s desk and slammed his hands on top of it.
No one said anything for a while.
Thorn Ampersand, eventually, cleared his throat. “Error, were you… going to say something?”
“Y-yes… but I kinda lost the idea while glancing at your creepy, black-eyed statue.”
Everyone in the room groaned, rolled their eyes, facepalmed, or sighed.
Pulling her brother aside, Trial slammed her own hands on the desk. “You can’t be serious! Potion Nova’s birthday is in, like, less than two months!”
“Well, then she can come back here in two months. It’s not that long of a wait.”
Potion Nova sank in her seat. Her two friends, however, were arguing with Surveil.
“Listen, I’ve made up my mind,” Surveil announced. “And the only thing that could change it is that a magical, enormous pillar of light erupts from the ground behind me right now!”
Hear and behold, a booming sound was heard from outside right as Surveil finished his sentence.
Everyone in the room turned their heads towards the massive window behind them, from which they could all see the pillar of white light shine brightly in the distance.
“Woah…” they all said as the light faded away.
No one said anything for a while, awestruck at the sight that unfolded before them.
And then, a second pillar pierced the clouds.
This one was rainbow-colored and much, much brighter. So much so, that the entire dark room they were standing in brightened up as well.
Everything inside was brought back from obscurity. From a book left forgotten underneath a bookshelf, to the yellow, piercing, glistening eyes of a creepy statue of an old man.
The seconds passed and the light eventually faded, making the once ominous room they were standing in feel almost dull now.
Surveil’s eyes traced back and forth, expecting something else to happen, but then he remembered he was in charge of an organization designed to research paranormal activities, so he shook his head rapidly.
Surveil turned around and jumped over the desk.
“Trial, Error! Follow me! To the PTSD-mobile!” He exclaimed as he ran out of the room and towards, most likely, the parking lot.
Trial and Error both shuffled in their places as they awkwardly and hurriedly left to get their stuff, tripping on the way out.
Without Surveil or any of her friends, Potion Nova felt the room was almost too quiet.
“Um…”
Potion Nova watched as Mr. Ampersand, composed as he’s been all-night, picked up the chair Surveil tumbled during his daring escape and then sat on it.
“I think you noticed, Miss Nova, that my esteemed friend isn’t the most professional.”
“Yeah, I noticed.”
“He forgot, or most likely didn’t know, that we can hire you as an intern. It would last until we can legally hire you, so, if you’re interested, I can fill out the paperwork right now.
“I mean, If that magical beam is any indication, it seems we just might need a helping hand after all.”