For the most part, preparations for dinner and the conversation that ensued afterwards was something I could somewhat handle. Outside of a few different questions that we asked each other back and forth, there wasn’t anything that would be considered too daunting of a question to answer. As for the subjects themselves, they mostly consisted of things that she saw upon first stepping through the portal, but didn’t actually have the time to really ask about them. Most of the things she asked about included electrical appliances that were mostly common knowledge to us such as TV’s, computers and cellphones. Things that we would use on a day to day basis, but probably don’t even exist back in her world.
Luckily, Gizmo didn’t have any freakouts like she had earlier in the day. If anything, she was much calmer than earlier, which was honestly surprising. All things considered, I thought at one point she would freeze up and fixate on something like when you catch a cat’s attention with a laser pointer. The unicorn also helped with cleaning up the dishes after dinner was done, something I told her that she didn’t have to do, but insisted on helping anyway.
“So, what do you plan on doing when you get back home?” I asked, “Do you have any plans on what you want to do for your first night on earth?”
“Well, now that some things feel less alien to me, I was thinking of doing some tinkering. See if all my tools and such are still in working order,” Gizmo replied, before her horn lit up as she levitated something over to me, “Before I go though, I wanted to give you something.”
Give me something? What, like one of her inventions? “It’s not going to blow up, is it?”
“Oh no, silly,” she chuckled, before she had whatever she was holding drop into my outstretched hand, “It’s a key. Whoever had the place before me had an extra key on hoof, so I thought I’d give it to you. You know, for safekeeping.”
Okay, that was… sudden. Not really sure why I would need a key to her place anyways. With how friendly she was, Gizmo would probably be more than open to having me come over all the time.
“Thanks,” I replied, putting the key in my pocket as she looked back to me, “Did you want for me to walk you back or-”
“Nah, I got it. See you again!” With another shimmer of her horn, she was coated in a bright colorful light and disappeared. For a moment, my heart was racing since I was not sure where Gizmo had gone. Though, when I looked outside the window, that was when I noticed the same kind of light shine from the inside of the house.
Huh. Teleportation… who would’ve thought?
For the rest of the evening, I decided to try something different compared to how I would spend most of my nights. Instead of watching TV or playing any games, I decided to try something a little more creative. A couple of years ago, my dad and a few other people he knew had introduced me to different kinds of tabletop games. Though, out of the ones that they showed me, Dungeons & Dragons was the one that kind of resonated with me the most. Not just because of the fact that there were a lot of ways you can customize the character you want to use for a campaign, but because I was already familiar with its setting because some of my favorite books were from the Forgotten Realms series.
That and Critical Role taught me that when it comes to a campaign, anything can happen. Especially if your die is cursed by Wil Wheaton.
Tonight though, I wasn’t taking part in a campaign though. If anything, I was doing something more artistic. I had ordered a bunch of miniatures off of Etsy that had come in some time ago and I thought that now was the perfect time to at least get started. After all, I already have everything I need such as colors and brushes, so there was no time like the present.
At first, things were going well. Though, just as I was putting the finishing touches on the dragonborn barbarian that I was working on, that’s when things started to get weird. The lights from the ceiling fan above me were starting to flicker, before going out one by one. At first, I thought that the bulbs just went bad and that they needed to be switched out. Yet, when I went towards the garage to get a replacement, I flicked the switch for the lights… only to have myself still remain in darkness.
What the hell was going on-?
BOOM!!
Now my heart was racing. Nothing really happened in here, but that was awfully close. If anything, that sounded like it came from…
… next door. “Oh SHIT!!”
Immediately, I grabbed my shoes and bolted out of the house as I locked the door. As I raced out to the driveway, I began to notice that other homes had lost power and some people had difficulty trying to start up their cars. Yet, I was more focused on making sure my neighbor was okay.
Fortunately, since I still had the spare key, getting in through the front door was not too difficult. Yet, when I stepped inside, I was immediately greeted by the smell of smoke and the absence of power as all the lights were off. The closest thing I had to any form of light for me to see was the flashlight that I had on my phone.
Immediately, what I noticed was that the smoke was coming out from the door that led to the garage… and the sound of coughing on the other side, “Gizmo? Gizmo, can you hear me?!”
At this point, I wasn’t going to wait for a response as I forcefully opened the door and stepped inside. The garage was a complete mess, with pieces of melted plastic scattered everywhere along with what looked to be wires and more debris. When I found the unicorn, she didn’t look to be too hurt aside from soot and dirt in her mane and fur. Though, she somehow looked… disappointed?
“Aw man… now I can’t rebuild it,” she said in disappointment, before noticing me as she tilted her head, “Sam? What are you doing here?”
What am I doing here? Power just went out for the entire neighborhood, some people can’t even start up their cars and there was an explosion in your garage! And that’s your first question? … Nevermind, there’s more important things to worry about now, “What happened? Are you okay?”
“Y-yeah, I’m alright… though, I can’t really say the same for what I was trying to make.” the unicorn sighed in defeat.
Which led me to ask a rather important question, “Gizmo, what exactly were you doing?”
“Remember when you told me about some of the stuff you mentioned at dinner?” She asked, which had me softly nod, “Well, when I first arrived on the other side, one of the things I remembered was that one of the humans was watching something on their device. Something with a guy in a lab coat that had a cyan spiky mane, but he had a contraption that could make portals.”
Oh, I have a bad feeling of where this is going.
“So, I wanted to try and see if I could build something like that. I mean, it would be easier to use something like that then go all the way over to the portal at the border if I wanted to visit Equestria. Though, I might’ve gone a bit overboard in the spell that I used to try and power it because before I could even do any tests, it blew up.”
… You have got to be kidding me. The reason why the whole neighborhood was in a blackout was because Gizmo thought that she could create Rick’s portal gun from Rick and Morty!? Not only did that sound insane, but if she even got it to work, I would think that using it to travel back and forth to Equestria would be downright illegal.
“Well, I’m glad you’re not hurt,” I replied, “Though, can’t say the same for the rest of the neighborhood-”
Knock knock
And just when things were starting to somehow calm down. “I can get that.” I said, before heading out to the door to answer it. The first thought that came to my mind was that perhaps someone was coming by to see if everyone was okay. After all, quite a few people were outside their homes when I raced over to see if Gizmo was hurt.
Yet, when I opened the door, I found myself looking at something else entirely. For it wasn’t a human that was at the door, but another pony. They were the same size as Gizmo, but it was definitely not a unicorn. They had a darkened fur and mane, the mark on their flank looked like a misty horseshoe and had wings that resembled a bit. Though, the part that caught my attention was that they were wearing the uniform of a police officer.
“Excuse me, but are you the owner of the home?”
I shook my head, “No, I live next door. Is something wrong, miss…?”
“Mistral Step, officer of the CVPD,” the bat… pony told me. At least, I think that’s what it was. “We got a call about an explosion that was heard when the power went out. I’m here to see if everything’s-”
Before the office could continue, I heard the sound of hooves and turned to see that Gizmo had followed me out of the garage. Though, her gaze was more towards the pony that was at the door than me-. “Misty!! What are you doing here?”
Wait, what now?
“Oh, well this is an unexpected surprise,” the batpony spoke, just as caught off guard as I was right about now, “When did you-?”
“Just today!” she beamed happily, before looking at me, “Sam, this is the friend I mentioned earlier today. The one that knew that Reggie guy and had him help move my things!”
Okay, that was a lot to take in too fast. I remembered her mentioning that somewhat… but my brain was a bit more focused on the fact that the mare in front of me was Gizmo’s friend. Not to mention being a police officer. So, I was rather nervous right now, because I’d rather not have what I say be used against me in a court of law.
“I’m glad to see that you’re somewhat settled in,” she replied, “Though, would you mind explaining to me what exactly happened? And why did we get a call about an explosion from your house?”
… Well, so much for trying to relax this evening. I hope I have aspirin back at the house, because explaining this is going to be a major pain.