//------------------------------// // Realizations // Story: Late Night Encounters At The Gas Station // by Barracuda cyborg //------------------------------// Time seemed to have flown by because there was only about thirty minutes left in the clerks’ shift and yet there was still no sign of Luna showing up. It was official- the two wasted their Friday night for absolutely no reason. “That’s it, I’m calling it quits!” Derrick exclaimed as he got up from behind the counter. “Come on dude, just give it like a few more minutes.” Mark whined as he looked at his phone.  Derrick turned back to look at his friend, “You can, but I’m going out back.” He proceeded to march out, or rather he was intending to do so because he ran right into Luna. “I knew it!” Mark exclaimed, “You just had to wait a few extra minutes!” “I’m terribly sorry that I’m late.” Luna said, “I ran into someone dealing with a heavy loss and their thoughts had manifested into their dreams.” Derrick looked back at the princess, “Well… sorry to hear that.” “Guess that was worth the wait.” Mark sheepishly said, “Not like we were doing anything else, other than trying to stop someone from freaking out over hotdogs.” Luna looked at Mark with a quizzical look, “Hot...dogs?” “Yeah, hotdogs, you know the things that the cop bought from us.” Derrick said as he pointed to the tubes of meat rotating at the machine, “You know, that’s when we first met.” “Wait… I was certain that the officer bought a few snack cakes.” Luna said in a concerned tone, she looked back and ran to the machine. This was sending all kinds of messages to her and this wasn’t helping in the slightest. “Oh dear… this is bad. This is very bad.” “Are you alright Luna?” Mark asked. “No, not at all.” Luna stated, “Something is clearly wrong, but I’m not sure what. I believed that this was the Stop-n-Snak outside of Canterlot, but this clearly isn’t it!” “I take it that that place is also in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by trees?” Derrick asked, “I mean, did you not notice how we were acting when we first met you?” “When you look into others dreams, some things just get muddled up and you cannot tell if it is real or if it’s still a result of the dream walking.” “I guess that makes sense.” Mark said as he scratched his chin, “Sometimes I think I see things in the dark back home when it turns out it’s just my jacket.” “Well, this is far more than just mistaking an unknown entity for a simple jacket.” Luna replied, “ This is a mix up on a magical level.” She continued to pace the floor while looking at the various snack foods hanging on their pegs.  “You see magic works on a different plane of logic than what you could expect. For some reason there’s an aura connecting our world and our version of the store, and there’s your version of the store and your world; however, it seems that those lines might have been crossed and that could mean ponies have been finding their way here.”  “Yeah, that happened after you left!” Derrick exclaimed, “We ran into a pink pony who just bought all our M&Ms, and earlier we were dealing with the hotdog freak out.” “That sounds like some of Twilight Sparkle’s friends.” Luna muttered, “I know all of this is a lot to handle; but until I can figure this out, could the two of you just keep doing what you are doing?” “You mean just standing around, doing nothing?” Mark asked, “Sounds simple enough.” “Before anything else, what do we do with these?” Derrick pulled out the bits that she and the other ponies had paid the clerks. “Right...payment.” Luna looked at the two boys. She grabbed the bits with her magic, “I’ll figure out something to help compensate for this mishap, but until then just keep holding on to the bits.” “What do we do now then?” Mark asked, clearly this nonsense was getting confusing with all the talk of magic, mixed with all the worry that the princess was giving off. “Just keep doing what you two have been doing.” Luna answered, “You two are doing great, I’m the one that needs to focus on this.” With that, she walked out of the store still muttering to herself. The two clerks just stood there utterly confused from what was now going on, “What on earth do you think she could be talking about with that magic stuff?” Mark was processing everything that was going on, until he had thought of something, “Well, you know how when you go in between radio stations you can faintly hear other stations out of range?” Mark asked. “Kinda.” Derrick replied. “Or think of cell phones.” Mark said, trying something different, “You know how around here the coverage goes all crazy because all of the trees sorta block the signal strength?” Derrick was starting to understand, “Yeah… I get what you’re saying.” “So essentially, think of magic like those things.” Mark said, “The magic signal gets blocked or is somehow crossed between our connection with theirs. With the cross-connection, they are somehow walking into our store and yet nothing else.” “Okay… now I’m getting lost.” Derrick said, “Why would it only affect us?” “Well Luna said that there’s a store like this in their world, maybe that’s one of the very few connections to them and us.” Mark answered. Granted this was still a rocky theory, but it was the only thing the two could rely on. “I can accept the idea that there are few connections to us and them, but I refuse to believe that the whole cell phone signal idea is how it really works.” Derrick flatly stated. “Well, how would you try and describe it?” Mark asked. “I don’t know, but it certainly wouldn’t be that.” “Well if it is how magic works, you owe me ten bucks.” Mark said as he nonchalantly looked at his phone, “And that’s it, we can go home!” “Cool, get the car started, I’ll lock up.” With that the night was over, the clerks looked at each other and backed out of the parking lot. “You think this is gonna last a while?” Mark asked. “At this point, I think we’re going to be taking the night shift a bit more than normal.”