//------------------------------// // The Mysterious Object // Story: DigiDestined of Harmony: Digital World Chaos // by Masters-of-the-Elements //------------------------------// Digidestined of Harmony: Digital World Chaos: The Mysterious Object     Princess Twilight Sparkle was in her castle library organizing new books that had recently arrived when her student entered.  Starlight Glimmer held a strange object in her magic as she approached her teacher.     “Hey, Twilight, do you know what this is?” Starlight asked curiously as she held the object in front of her.     Twilight looked up from the box of books and frown when she saw the black square-shape object.  “I honestly don’t know.” Twilight said as she took the object from her student’s magical grip, “I found this when I first moved into my castle, but I couldn’t figure out what it does.”     Twilight took the object to a nearby table and placed the device on it.  Starlight walked up to table as the young princess opened the device.  She frowns when she saw the strange layout of the device.     “At first, I thought it was some kind of typewriter,” Twilight explained, “But as you can see, the keys are too small for ponies to use, and I don’t know what the top half does and there’s no place for ink and paper to go.”     Starlight looked at the device and frown as she tilted her head to the right.  Something about the design struck a chord with her.     “You know, Twilight,” Starlight said, getting her teacher’s attention.  “This reminds me of something a pony from my old village was trying to make when I first arrived.”     “Really, what was that pony trying to create?” Twilight asked, starting to get eager to hear more.     Starlight let out a faint sigh and looked back at the device.  “The pony, a young stallion with a thing for tinkering, tried to create a typewriter that didn’t use ink or paper.  And the prototype he had made was pretty impressive.”     “Did it work?” Twilight nearly shrieked with eagerness.     Starlight flinched from her mentor’s tone, and then sigh.  She thought she would have gotten use to Twilight’s behavior by now, but she wasn’t and probably never will.     “No,” Starlight said solemnly.  “I began my campaign to rid the town of cutie marks around the time he was finishing his prototype, and he fled before he could try it out.  Thinking back, I think that stallion was the only pony that saw fault with my plans.  I really wished I knew what became of him.”     Twilight watched as her student lightly ran a hoof along the edge of the device.  She thought about saying something, but experience had taught her when to give somepony space, and this was one of those times.  Instead, she turned her attention back to the mysterious device.     It felt like hours passed as the two ponies sat in silence and looked over the device they had found, but soon the silence was broken.     “So, you said you never figured out what this thing does, right?” Starlight asked curiously.     Twilight shook her head and took the device in her magic.  “No, like I said, I found it when I first moved into the castle, and I never get the time to study it, but look at this.”     The young princess cast a spell on the device and Starlight gasp when glowing lines appeared on the device.     “This that what I think it is?” the unicorn asked breathlessly.     Twilight nodded and put the device on the table and looked at the lines appearing on the device.  “Yeah, this device had a sort of lightening grid, similar to what is used in Cloudsdale,” the young princess said perplexingly.     “Hmm,” Starlight stared at the device.  She had heard about the Cloudsdale grid and how it is still in the experimental stages.  The grid is still considered to be too experimental for massive use, and only a few out-of-ways-towns like Ponyville were allowed to use it, to insure little no injury occurred or if something went wrong.     The young unicorn shook her head to clear it from all of these distracting thoughts and focused on the device before her.  She studied the many keys on the bottom half of the device, and that’s when she saw it.     “Hey Twilight, look at the round button on the top left,” Starlight said and pointed to the mentioned button.  “Doesn’t that look similar to the symbol of power used in many spells?”     Twilight looked at the button her student pointed to and it indeed looked like the mentioned symbol.  That got her curious, and she looked around.  Her face broke into a big smile when she saw the pointer she sometimes uses in her teaching and picked it up with her magic.     Starlight watches as her teacher lowers the pointer to the button and gently press it.  The device came to life with a pleasing chime, and the screen lit up with the word DELL appearing on it.  The two ponies were amazed and confused by what they saw, but both knew one thing…this required a little experimenting.     “We got the study this!!” Twilight shrieked giddily and caused Starlight to flinch slightly.     Starlight sighed quietly as she watched her teacher go into full-blown study/egghead mode as her friends called it, and flew around the room collecting things like paper, gills and about 16 bottles of ink.  She came down next to her student in a landing that would have made Rainbow Dash proud and one which made Starlight jumped slightly.     “Twilight,” Starlight said once she had regained her composure.  “I’m all for studying this thing, but didn’t you tell me you had things to do around Ponyville today?”     “It fine,” Twilight replied giddily, “This would be a quick study.  We should be done in 20 minutes…” (...3 hours later)     “I am so going to twisted Twilight’s tail into a knot so tight she wouldn’t be able to undo it for weeks!” said a fuming Rainbow Dash as she and her four best friends walked into the castle the young princess called home.      “My, don’t you think that’s a bit much, darling? Rarity asked in concern.     “Much?” Rainbow said relatively as she landed next to the white unicorn, “Twilight agreed to help finish the screening for the new Weather Crew member while Mayor Mare was at that thing in Canterlot and she didn’t show; I have a rep to protect now that I’m a WonderBolt!”     The group trotted down the halls and made a left heading towards the library where Twilight was no doubt in at the moment.     “Well, darling, you aren’t the only one slighted here,” Rarity replied.  “Twilight agreed to help me finish an outfit for a very important client and she never showed.  I, of course, get the outfit finish in time, but that’s beside the point.”    “Now, Ah’m sure Twi had her reasons,” Applejack said, stopping for a moment to fix the sack of apples and the thick bag of owl feed on back as they were close to slipping.     “I just hope that nothing bad happened to Twilight,” Fluttershy said in that usual quiet tone of hers.     “Oh, no worries, Fluttershy, Twilight is probably working on something that will send us on a crazy adventure where we team up these super-cute creatures that can turn into super-powerful fighting machines!” Pinkie Pie said in her usual chirpy tone and ended with some random sound effect.     The ponies stopped and looked at their friend as Pinkie made cricket sounds, but the group quickly regained their composure when Rainbow made her usual comment about Pinkie’s randomness, and they began trotting again.  Soon the group arrived at the doors to the library and Applejack placed the bags next to the door as Rarity opened the doors.  None of the expected to see both Twilight and Starlight hunched over some sort of glowing device.  Around the unicorn and former unicorn were stakes of papers and empty ink bottles.     Applejack exchanges a worry look with Rarity who turns to Fluttershy who shook her head, and look at Rainbow Dash.  The rookie WonderBolt just shrugged and looked at the last member of the group and gestured her to go and see what the fuss was all about.  Pinkie just nodded and skipped over to the other members of their group, and tipped Twilight on the shoulder.     Startled, Twilight turned and looked right into the smiling of Pinkie Pie.  “HI!” Pinkie said as the tops of her lungs.     Scared by the sudden action, Twilight screamed as the tops of her lungs and took off, flying higher than expected because of her wings.  The young princess’s scream also startled Starlight and she teleported to the other side of the room.  Pinkie found this entire thing funny and giggled heartedly as she waved up at Twilight.     “Pinkie, what are you doing here?” Twilight asked curiously as she lowered herself to the floor.     “Well, I saw Applejack, Rarity, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy trotting over to your castle and I decided to come with them to do the usual “scold Twilight” party,” the pink party pony said in her usual rapid tone.     Twilight stared at her friend as she processed what Pinkie just said, and slowly looked at the rest of her friends.  Her eyes than turned to the clock her friends had put in the library and her expression turned sheepish when she realized how late it was.      “I’m so sorry everypony, “Twilight said sheepishly.     “You better be!” Rainbow said rudely.  “Do you know how lame it was, I hyped that you would show to help with the screening, and you were a no show!  Where were you?”      “I think what Rainbow Dash is trying to say, darling,” Rarity said more politely after giving her brash friend a quick glare, “Is where kept you?  It’s unlike you to miss appoints.”     “Actually, that’s sorta of my fault,” Starlight said as she trotted up to her teacher and gestured to the device on the table, “I found this while cleaning my room, and asked Twilight about it.”      The rest of the Mane 6/7 group gathered around the device and where both curious at what they saw.     “What the hay is this doodad?” Applejack asked, perplexed by the machine.     “We still don’t know,” Twilight said, “We don’t even know what to call it, but it can do a lot of things.  It had something like an abacus on it, can take pictures, and do other things we’re only discovering.”     To prove her point, Twilight aimed the device at a random bookshelf, and pressed one of the many buttons on the device.  The others gathered around as Twilight brought it closer.     “But how is that possible?” Starlight asked as she looked at the picture.  “She was standing next to Rainbow Dash, so how did she get into the picture?”     Twilight sighed as she looked at the picture she had just taken, which had Pinkie Pie in it riding a unicycle while jogging several books.  “It’s Pinkie, I learned not to question how she does things.  You save yourself a lot of pain that way.”     “OOWW, what’s that?” Pinkie asked, suddenly appearing between the teacher and student and startling both.     Twilight sighed after she got over her “Pinkie” shock as she named it and looked at the icon on the top of the machines and frown when she saw it.     “That’s weird, I don’t remember seeing that there?” the young princess mused to herself, perplex by the icon’s sudden appearance.  “I wonder what it does.”     “Well let’s find out!” Pinkie screamed energetically.     The pink party pony then used the device without being told how it worked; moving the arrow icon to the mentioned icon, a dragon-like creature in front of a blue background, and click on it.  The group gathered around as the icon filled the screen, only to go dark a second later.     “Oh my, do you think something wrong with it, dears?” Rarity asked the two ponies who has been studying the device.     “I can’t say Rarity,” Starlight said, “We’re still in the dark about all this device can do.  We still don’t know how it does half the stuff we-WHAT GOING ON!!”     The entire group took two steps back when the screen on the device suddenly became filled with whitish blue squares, and then expanded passed the device itself.  The group watched as the squares began to fill the room, both awe and little fearful as the squares overtook the entire room in the matter of seconds.     “Umm, Twilight, what’s going on now?” Rainbow Dash asked uncertainly.     “I really don’t know Rainbow,” Twilight replied nervously.  “It’s like the device can create a field all of its own.”     Suddenly a powerful force came from the device pulling the seven ponies toward it.  Twilight and her friends sensed danger and planted their feet on the ground, as the force from the device picked up volume and began pulling them toward it faster.  Starlight wasn’t so lucky and was pulled to dangerously close to the device.  She was saved by a quick lasso tether from Applejack.     The young unicorn was, however, close enough to the device that something black lashed out and wrapped  around Starlight‘s left foreleg.  This event was apparently so fast that no other pony saw it happen.     “STARLIGHT!!  PUT UP A SHIELD!!”  Twilight called to her student.     “I’M TRYING!!” Starlight screamed back.  “BUT SOMETHING’S DRAINING MY MAGIC!!”     Twilight’s eyes widen and she tried to summon her magic, but she felt it drain from her horn quicker than she could build it up.  She dared to look around her and was shocked by what she saw.  Rainbow Dash was using her body to shield Fluttershy, and trying to use her wings to keep herself from slipping closer to the device.  But even the strength the rookie Wonderbolt had built up in her wings didn’t seem to be enough to fight against this powerful force.     She looked at Applejack and Rarity and noticed something similar happening to her other friends.  The farm pony had since grabbed the fashion designer and was holding her down while trying to keep her hold on her lasso.  Much like Rainbow Dash, Applejack’s trademark strength was seemingly failing her as her strong legs couldn’t fight against the powerful pull, and she struggling to keep Starlight from the device.  Even Pinkie, with her seemingly endless reality breaking powers, couldn’t fight against this force, as she tried thing from bouncing to cartwheeling, and it did nothing to put distance between her and the device.     What can I do to stop this?” Twilight asked herself.     Unfortunately, she didn’t get a chance to answer her own question as the group were very close to the device and a series of energy ropes snapped out from the device and wrapped around the ponies’ midsection.  The group cry out as they felt their bodies being covered in energy.  Once the energy had completely covered the group, they stopped struggling and were pulled into the device.     Once all the ponies had disappeared into the device, the squares that covered the room were quickly pulled away.  The squares converged around the device and formed into a ball roughly half the size of a buck-ball.  The ball remain on the desk for about five seconds before it pulse, and then began to rapidly compress into itself and finally disappear with a small pop, leaving room like nothing unusual had happened.