//------------------------------// // Chapter 3: The Box // Story: Hidden in Plain Sight // by DJ Leftwing //------------------------------// Twilight slammed the door and quickly ran over to the window. She used her magic to pull the curtains apart slightly and look out onto the dimly lit street, trying to find the alien that she had just thrown out of her house. She found the bipedal creature, and saw him stand up and brush himself off before looking back up towards the library. Twi turned around, letting the drapes fall back in place, and for the second time within the period of the day ran into the side of the giant blue box in her living room. “What in the name of Celestia is this thing doing in here anyway!” she yelled as she used her hoof to rub the end of her nose, winching as she pushed too hard. A soft purple glow surrounded the offending parallelepiped as Twilight attempted to pick it up with her magic, much to the magician’s surprise however, the container did not do as much as budge. She tried again, but the box stood fast, never even moving a millimeter from its location. “How is it that I can lift an Ursa Minor, but this box refuses to move?” the perplexed unicorn wondered aloud, beginning to pace around the blue phone box. “Not to mention I can’t even open it.” A hoof was raised and pressed against the door of the blue box as Twilight contemplated her next move. She was quickly thrown off of her train of thought as the panel gave way under the pressure and allowed her access to the interior. With a light thunk, Twilight found her face and chest pressed against the floor, while her hind legs remained standing upright, which for a pony is a fairly uncomfortable position. After shuffling back onto her hooves, she looked around the now accessible inside, which seemed to be nothing more than the expected interior of a giant blue wooden box. “So….it’s just a box?” she asked herself as she reared up to look out the windows. “If it’s just a box, then why can’t I move it?” The last half of the sentence was said angrily, as the librarian attempted to vent off some of her anger at the immobility of such a simple object. Needless to say, it did not really work. “Twi? Are you down there?” a young voice from the top of the stars called, followed by the appearance of Spike. Returning from her adventure inside the box, Twilight called back up to her assistant, “Yes, I am. And where were you? I didn’t see you in your bed earlier when I woke up.” “I was in the bathroom. Why are you down here? Were you messing with the box again?” “Yes and no,” she replied, taking a seat on the floor as the dragon joined her at the bottom of the stairs. “I was woken up by a light in my eyes, and it turned out to be coming from down here. I looked at your bed and saw that you weren’t there, so I assumed it must be you getting a snack or something. I came down here to check on you, but it wasn’t you.” “Who was it? Did Pinkie do that weird teleport thing into the library again?” “No, it wasn’t Pinkie…though she’d probably understand this better than I do. It wasn’t a pony, but this weird…thing. I don’t even know what it was; I’d never seen one before. I think it was a he because of how low it talked, but all it said was that it was a doctor.” “There was an alien in our house? What was it doing?” Spike asked, getting excited over the news. “He was eating a salad.” “That’s all?” he finished, suddenly becoming less interested again. What fun was it to say you had an alien in your house if all it was doing was eating a salad? Everypony did that. “Yes Spike, that’s all. I threw him out onto the street a couple minutes ago.” “Are you sure that was the best idea? He might get in trouble, or hurt somepony.” “I panicked, okay! I’m not used to having strange creatures inexplicitly appearing in my house,” she huffed, standing back up and turning back to the mystery box. “Really? Twi, that’s happened at least four times in the past two years. Seven if you count Pinkie as a strange creature.” With a sigh, the lavender unicorn turned back towards Spike. “You’re right Spike, but none of them were as strange looking as this one. I mean, this one walked on two legs and had theses weird claw-like tentacle things on his arms.” “Twilight, I walk on two legs, and have claws. You never freak out when you see me.” “His coat was all different colors, and it looked like there were places that he didn’t have any fur at all, or scales, or feathers.” “Okay, that does sound a little weird, but it sounds like the Zecora thing all over again. You’re judging somepony before you actually get to know them.” “Spike, you’re absolutely right. If he comes back, I’ll definitely have to apologize to him. Maybe he’s actually friendly. In the meantime though, help me try to move this box.” ---------- Excerpt from Twilight’s Journal Yesterday evening, a giant blue box mysteriously appeared in the middle of the library. A strange alien creature also broke in and ate some of my salad supplies. The two might be related, but currently I have no idea. Needless to say, the box refuses to move by simple means, so I’m going to log my different attempts at re-locating it. I have already tried pushing and levitating it, neither of which worked. My next attempt will be levers. Well, I tried a lever. Actually, I tried about 15 different levers, all at the same time. It still didn’t work, and the box is still sitting in the middle of the room. I guess pulleys will be my next approach. Guess what diary, they didn’t work either. Now I’ve got a huge spider web of ropes and pulleys hanging from my ceiling and walls. I’m beginning to think that this is a hopeless pursuit. I’ll try a couple other things first before giving up though. Onward to explosives. Well, I did find out something of interest, my floorboards are not immune to small impact explosions. There are about seven or eight small dents scattered throughout the room now, and I have Spike cleaning up the ashes of the empty shelf I accidently disintegrated. The box is still there though, so it was all for naught. Maybe I just need to use more force. Well, I teleported (yes, I tried teleporting it too) over to Sweet Apple Acres and asked Big Mac for some help. He came back to the library with me and tried moving the box, but somehow, not even he could budge it. I’ve seen him move houses before, how can he not move a box! Oh well, maybe Pinkie will have a solution. I borrowed a party-dozer from Pinkie (I still don’t know what she actually uses them for, but it is good for moving large amounts of dough she said). Sadly, it also didn’t work, and I now have tread marks running through my library. Still, it will repair itself by the end of the day, it always does. I did just think of an interesting solution though, and I’m going to give it a shot. Somehow, the bucking box is immune to gravity. I opened up a hole in the floorboards underneath it, and do you know what it did? It just floated there; didn’t move an inch. I am starting to get really pissed at this thing. I’m running out of ideas, and it’s only 10:00 in the morning. ---------- “Twilight, maybe you should take a break, you’ve been at this for hours,” Spike said as he tugged on Twilght’s mane, which was beginning to look increasingly frazzled. “But I’m so close Spike, I can feel it. Just a few more tries?” the crazed librarian pleaded, looking at her assistant with her best pair of puppy dog eyes. “At this rate, you’d make more progress if you just moved he house,” the dragon commented sarcastically, rolling his eyes as he continued to hold his caretaker in place. “Spike, you’re brilliant!” Twilight exclaimed, suddenly surging forward out of Spike’s grip. Placing her four hooves as far apart as she could in order to get a more stable footing, Ponyvilles resident magician began to channel her magic into the tree around her. “Hold on tight Spike!” “I was joking Twi! JOKING!” The tree trembled, and with a lurch, became uprooted and began to float. To Twilight’s great pleasure, the box stayed in its exact position, breaking through the floorboards and coming to rest in the basement. Very carefully, the library began to descend, and the box decided to stay attached to its new floor and moved downward with the library. Following a heave much like that of an earthquake, the house re-settled into its hole, and began to repair the ground around it. On the inside, the librarian and her dragon assistant were busy getting back up on their hooves and feet, respectively. Twilight wandered over to the new hole in the floor and looked down into the basement. Resting on the concrete floor at the bottom of the stairs was the blue box that she had been trying to move all morning. After a quick bout of excited hopping around, she set to repairing the opening, which was a much simpler task than moving immovable boxes. “Twilight, you realize I was just joking about moving the house, right?” Spike asked as he dusted himself off. “Yes, but it worked didn’t it?” the unicorn in question countered. “Yes, I guess it did.” “Then no harm done! Let’s go return this party-dozer to Pinkie and then we can go get some lunch.” “Sounds like a plan to me.” Chapter Written by Twilight Sparkle