//------------------------------// // "How Odd..." by Negi // Story: Ponies and Pactios: A Negima Crossover // by funkyferret //------------------------------// "How Odd... " by Negi Negi sat up slowly and blinked his eyes. He looked around the room until he spotted a small white figure in the corner, swaddled in blankets. "Chamo, what are you doing?" he asked. The ermine groaned in response before slowly sitting upright. "Oh just taking a break. This place can really make you tired and-- What do you think I'm doing! You blasted me into the air, after I poured out my heart to you." The ermine put his paws over his face dramatically. He made loud sobbing noises that seemed very unrealistic. Negi scratched his head. "How odd... " he muttered to himself. He turned his focus inwards and froze. His magic levels were back to normal. "That's impossible," he said to himself. "If anything my magic should be down a bit after activating a contract." Chamo seemed to have gotten bored with his fake tears and climbed up into the bed next to him. "I've got an idea, bro." He pulled out a piece of paper and a crayon and started to draw on it. "Alright, so normally when you activate a Pactio the power flows from you into your partner, right?" He held up the drawing for Negi to see, using the crayon as a makeshift pointer. Negi blinked at the picture. It depicted two lopsided stick figures, one carrying a stick and the other wearing a skirt. Chamo had drawn an arrow pointing from the staff wielding figure to his companion. He decided not to criticize Chamo's drawings. The ermine could be surprisingly sensitive about his faults at times. He merely nodded his head in agreement. Chamo nodded sagely and continued. Somehow the ermine had found a pair of glasses to perch on the end of his nose in the short time that Negi had been examining his drawing. "Now you've contracted with a lot of girls up to now but none of them had any magic of their own." "What about Setsuna?" Chamo shifted from foot to foot and frowned. "Err... she doesn't count. That's weird ninja stuff, not magic." He shook his head and puffed out his chest as he launched back into his lecture. "Anyways, as I was saying, you haven't contracted with any powerful magic users up til now. Now Sparkles is known around here as the "magical element" or something. It's probably mostly hype, but you'd have to assume that she has at least a fair bit of power to back it up, right?" Negi nodded. "Now since your on magic has been... lacking lately it's safe to say that your magic levels were probably lower than hers. As a result, the power flowed the opposite way and shorted out the connection." He scribbled out the first arrow and drew one that pointed in the opposite direction. "I'd think it will recover soon enough, but if not we could always try it again." Negi glanced over at the prone form of Twilight lying on her bed nearby. The unicorn twitched and groaned in her sleep. Shaking his head he replied, "No, I don't want to put her through all that again. Now that my magic is back to normal, we should be fine, right?" The ermine crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow at Negi. "We'll figure something out," Negi said hastily as he climbed out of bed. "I'm going downstairs to get something to drink." "W-wait a minute, I don't think that's a good idea!" Chamo called after him as he trotted down the stairs. Negi shook his head. "Sometimes I think Chamo is a little too eager to make me contract with someone. I wonder why." His thoughts were interrupted by a blue blur streaking across the room. A pair of hooves pinned Negi to the wall. An angry pair of magenta eyes stared at him from mere inches away. "Alright you miniature 'wizard' weirdo, what did you do to Twilight?" ----------------------------------------------------------------------- "I'm really sorry about that," Negi said, ears drooping as he slouched into the couch he was sitting on. "You just startled me is all, and I reacted... rather badly." The blue pegasus just scowled at him and rubbed the lump on her head that was her souvenir from an unplanned magical flight into a nearby bookcase, courtesy of the young wizard. She was sitting in a chair as far from him as possible. "That's alright, it was an accident," Spike replied in the pony's stead. He was busy picking up the books that had been knocked loose by Rainbow's cranium smacking into the hardwood. "Rainbow Dash shouldn't have jumped you after you just woke up from a major accident." He frowned at the pegasus as he walked over to sit next to the young wizard. The mare turned away from him, wings drooping slightly. She muttered something under her breath that might remotely be considered an apology. "You should have Fluttershy look at it when she gets here," Spike said to her, shaking his head. He then leaned closer to Negi. "Don't be too hard on her please," he whispered to the colt. "Dash may be the element of Loyalty, but she can take things a little too far sometimes." Negi nodded in agreement. "Well, I'm glad to see we're all buddy buddy now," Chamo drawled as he sauntered down the stairs. "So, what do you say, Bluebird, you want to enter into a Pactio and help us out, or just sit there like a lump?" Rainbow Dash twitched and her wings flared open. "Are you calling me a coward?" she asked icily. "Maybe... since I know you won't try to turn me into a fur coat with your friends here." He jerked his head towards the little dragon, who sat frozen alongside Negi as they watched the heated exchange. The pegasus' head snapped around. "That's it," she said. In a flash she was up and heading across the room. Unfortunately for Negi and Spike, they were in the angry mare's way. In her haste to get her hooves on Chamo, she shoved past them with quite a bit of force. Since they were still seated close together, the impact closed what little distance they had between them. Negi's eyes widened as he felt something cool and scaly meet his lips. He looked into the eyes of an equally panicked baby dragon. His vision began to gray around the edges. Despite the ringing in his ears, he heard a muffled shout of "Pactio!" Then all conscious thought came to a screeching hault.