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// Two's a Nuisance; Three's a Public Health Hazard 
// Story: Portal Wizards 
// by Strawberry Sunrise 
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“Ahhhh…so relaxing,” Onion thought to himself as he reclined on a beach chair and watched seagulls fly by, the waves gently caressing the shores. He reached for a coconut beverage, took a sip, and…
“Onion! Hey! Hey, Onion!” Apple shouted from behind Onion, causing Onion to jolt in surprise and spill the drink. “Hey, Onion! Wake up! You have got to see this.”
“Just five more minutes…” Onion said, but the dream had already collapsed into darkness and he reluctantly opened his eyes. “What is it, Apple?” he said, taking his glasses from the table beside his bed. “You know I need at least eight hours of…of…Apple, what did you do?”
There was a strange, shimmering, silver oval, as if some kind of portal, floating in the air just past the end of Apple’s bed.
“I swear I didn’t do it this time,” Apple said. “It was just like that when I woke up. Should we see where it goes?”
“No, we should not see where it goes. Or at least not until after work. Patty needs us at the dollar store in…five minutes?!” Onion said. “Well, I guess you didn’t wake me up too early after all,” he added under his breath, now grateful that Apple had woken him but not particularly wanting to encourage the behavior.
“Yeah, I turned off the alarm,” Apple said.
“Why would you do that?!” Onion said.
“Um…we don’t know what’s on the other side of that portal thing, and so I thought like, time zones and stuff, you know?” Apple said. “Maybe it’s 2 AM there and the sound will go through and we don’t want to wake them up.”
“You don’t…maybe…whatever. We need to get to work,” Onion said. “Come on.”
“You can take my shift and I’ll see where this portal goes,” Apple said. “And then we can meet back here later!” He paused just long enough that the silence registered but not long enough for a response. “Okay, bye.”
“What…I can’t take your shift. Our shifts are at the same time!” Onion said. But Apple had already stepped through the portal, and there were only two minutes left until work. Annoyed, and sure he wouldn’t otherwise make it in time, Onion grabbed a hang glider from just inside the door of their apartment, left the apartment, and jumped off the roof, gliding to the dollar store just in time for his shift to start.


EIGHT AND A HALF HOURS LATER


Grumbling, Onion walked back into the apartment and collapsed onto his bed, tired after a long day’s work. He’d reluctantly tried to cover for Apple as best he could, but he was still pretty sure Patty didn’t believe Apple was really home sick with caramel pox.
After a few moments of rest and a brief attempt at meditation, he took a deep breath and sat back up. The portal was still there. He supposed he’d better go see what Apple was doing, and he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t at least a little curious as to where it went. Getting up, he walked over to it and…
“AHHHH!!!” screamed Apple, barreling out of the portal and knocking Onion over. “Close it up, close it up!”
“Be careful!” Onion said. “And I don’t know how to close it up. What do you think I am, some kind of…portal wizard?”
Apple tilted his body for a moment, staring at Onion intently. “...maybe?” he said.
“I’m not a portal wizard!” Onion said. “But anyway, that’s not important. What happened in there?”
“Oh, there’s just lots of ponies in there,” Apple said. “I made friends with some of them. Like Twilight Sparkle, and Fluttershy, oh, and this one called Applejack. It’s funny because her name says ‘Apple’ like my name, see, and…”
“But what were you running from?!” Onion said.
“Oh, yeah,” Apple said. “I forgot.”
“You forgot?!” Onion said.
“Not everybody has perfect memory like you do, Onion,” Apple said. “Wait, that is your name, right?”
“AHHHH!!!” Onion said, exasperated. “I’ll just go take a look myself.”
“Make sure to say ‘Hi!’ to the ponies for me!” Apple said.
Ignoring Apple, Onion stepped through the portal and found himself in a dark forest. “Hello?” he said. “Is anyone here? Hello?” He looked around, but the area seemed to be deserted.
“Hello,” said a menacing voice in the distance. A tall, black, strangely insectoid pony with a horn on her head and holes in her limbs stepped out from the shadows.
“Um…hi,” Onion said. “You wouldn’t happen to be…um…Twilight Sparkle, would you? Or Applejack? Or, uh…” He paused for a moment, trying to remember the other name Apple had said. “Or…or Buttershy?”
The pony scoffed. “Yes, that’s me,” she said, pacing in a circle around the portal Onion had come from as he turned to watch. “Buttershy.” Onion lost sight of her for a moment as she passed behind the portal, and when she crossed back into his line of vision, she had been replaced by a smaller yellow pony with pink hair and a picture of a stick of butter on her noticeably shapely posterior. She looked back at Onion, saw him staring, and smirked - “Ha!” - then turned back to her prior form.
“Well, um, it was nice to meet you, but I’ve got to go now,” Onion said, already having a very bad feeling about the situation. “I have to get a full, uh…what time is it, what time is it…a full fifteen hours of sleep before work!” He took a step back toward the portal. “Can’t function without it, so…”
“You’re not going to invite me in?” the pony asked, stepping toward him and baring her teeth in an ominous smile.
“Sorry, I don’t think Falafel likes us to invite guests over. Two’s a nuisance; three’s a public health hazard; you know how it is,” Onion said, edging back toward the portal.
“Two can be arranged. I presume the apple-like one has already returned, so all that remains is to kill the weeds,” the pony said, tilting her head down so that her horn pointed at Onion.
 “AHHHH!!!” Onion screamed as a bolt of darkness shot from the pony’s horn and she began charging toward him. Narrowly dodging, he jumped through the portal, which coincidentally disappeared just after he had made it through and had crashed onto the floor of the apartment. The pony had been so close behind him that a piece of her horn clattered onto the ground after him, having been severed by the portal’s closure.
“Did you meet the ponies?” Apple asked. He was standing right in front of where the portal had been and was eating a sandwich. He was also missing a large chunk of the left side of his body.
Onion glanced behind himself and saw that the portal was gone. He sighed in relief. “I met…Buttershy,” he said, a bit out of breath. “And you…you need…medical attention.” He picked up a mirror from the desk at the side of the room to show Apple what he looked like.
“Huh,” Apple said. “Yeah, some kind of darkness came out of the portal and I guess it did that.” He took another bite of the sandwich.
“Apple, you are severely injured,” Onion said.
“Well, at least let me finish the sandwich first.” Apple said.
“If you’re sure…” Onion said. He supposed it wasn’t the first time one of them had been severely injured with no apparent lasting consequences. “So I assume Buttershy was who you were running from?”
“What? No, I was running from Queen Christmas List,” Apple said, still eating the sandwich. “Oh, good, I remembered.”
“Who?” Onion said.
“She started chasing me after I knocked over a statue,” Apple said. “I guess she thought I was on the naughty list or something.”
“Not really a surprise,” Onion said under his breath.
“Yeah, but joke’s on her,” Apple said, having just finished the sandwich. He walked over and picked up the severed horn piece, trailing juice behind himself along the way. “Looks like she left us a nice back scratcher.”
“We need to get you to the hospital,” Onion said.

The End