//------------------------------// // Creating spells and making friends // Story: Buck My Life // by JasontheDemon //------------------------------// Creating spells and making friends After Spike had returned from Rarity's (I found out that he was being her little errand boy so she could finish some outfits for a rich couple), things were pretty routine for a few days. I no longer required help with all the basic crap I was having trouble before. I stayed inside for the entire period, flipping through books with my magic. It’s still odd to me that I can actually move things without touching them, but I wasn’t complaining, at least I didn’t have to use my mouth for mundane tasks. Who knows who had put their mouths on the doorknobs. I could have been swapping spit with anyone if I didn’t have the ability to use magic. I didn’t consider it magic really though, if anything it was just a manifestation of will by using the horn on my head as a means of projecting my thoughts into the ‘real’ world. Twilight had stopped asking so many questions and we stayed apart for most of the day. She had things that she needed to do in town and I would be left in the peace of the library. The one thing that she did lately that irritated me though was try to brush my hair. She just started brushing it one day while I had my nose in a book and when I asked what she was doing she said that my hair was a mess. I proceeded to tell her that she was the one messing it up and ruffled it to get it back to the way it was. Other than that I didn’t really interact with her. It was clear that Spike didn’t like me too much, but I could understand where he was coming from. I wasn’t the most friendly guy in the world and I tended to flip him crap about being a fire breathing mailbox. To me that was all he really was. His main job was to send and receive letters. Sounds like a mailbox to me, so that’s what I called him. He got so mad when I shouted ‘MAILBOX’. Spike told me that he was a dragon multiple times, I told him that dragons were flying scaled beasts that could send an entire town fleeing for their lives, he was, and I quote, ‘a waddling lizard that belched paper’. I thought it was funny, but Twilight wasn’t pleased. I had no problem with how they thought of me. I wouldn’t change who I was just to make someone else like me. If I pretend to be I’m somebody I’m not then that defeats the purpose of finding friends. Friends should like you for who you are and you should like them because of who they are. If you act like another person, you will end up being surrounded by people you have nothing in common with. I took this belief very seriously. So seriously in fact that when I first made it into middle school I had the chance of ‘being popular’ if I acted like a jerk to my friend. I refused to do so and I was alone because of it, but at least I wasn’t anyone's puppet. Whenever I was reading I would try to multitask by levitating a book as I scanned through hundreds of pages of text. I was building up the amount of magic I could use. It wasn’t long before I could levitate three books at once for an hour straight. I also attempted a few experiments while I was taking breaks. First I tried to make a wormhole and make a portal home. It was successful... sort of. I tested it out by throwing a book at it, and the book just passed through like it was a hologram. I hadn’t made a portal... I made a window. Since it was a failure I made my next experiment teleportation. I used the same method as I did with the wormhole but I placed the opening on my position and placed the end at the point I was staring at. The first couple of times made me dizzy and on the verge of passing out. When I finally got used to it, I was able to teleport all over the place. With my third experiment came a great risk. I wanted to fix my eyesight. To do that I would have to mess with the shape of my eyes from inside my head. The cause for many vision problems stem from misshapen eyes. Your eyes are supposed to be round, but a lot of the time they come out elongated orbs, ovals. If you can fix the distortion of your eyes, you can essentially fix your vision. I stood in front of a mirror in Twilights bathroom and closed my eyes. I pictured the shape of them from within my skull. Once I believed I had an accurate representation of them, I began to imagine them slowly forming to a perfect round form. I started to feel them taking shape as I continued through the procedure. After I was finished I opened my eyes and tried to view myself in the mirror. I realized I couldn’t see... with my glasses on. ‘Damn, I really was blind’ I thought to myself as I took the gunmetal frames away from my face. Twilight came up behind me and asked, “what are you doing in here?”. “Fixing my vision...” I responded before tossing the glasses towards the trash. Using her own magic, Twilight caught the glasses before they could make it in and said, “I thought you looked nice with them on. Without them you don’t look like you...” “So I’ve been told”, I said remembering back when I tried using contacts. “How about we do this?” I took control of them and popped out the lenses before putting them back on. “Ugh, I feel like the Doctor now... I’m wearing glasses for the sole reason of looking clever!”, I said, making Twilight laugh. Life was going great until I ran out of the only books that could have possibly held an answer of returning back to where I belonged. I had gone through at least a hundred books that dealt with temporal anomalies, spacetime fluctuations, and cosmic rifts to other dimensions. A great deal were even labeled as ‘fantasy novels’. I had COMPLETELY exhausted my resources and was no closer than when I started. It was surprising how many books Twilight had. I asked her how many she currently had and she said the one number that I should have seen coming... 666. It all started when I watched the newest version of ‘The Omen’. The day after watching it someone in my family thought it would be a fun idea to go to Chuck E. Cheese. My ticket readout for that day... 666. ever since then the number has been appearing at least once a week, every week! It wasn’t that I was obsessed with the number, personally I didn’t look too far into stuff like that, but the number was almost following me. In December alone it showed up five times. I know you have no reason to doubt what I say is the truth but just to show I’m not making this crap up please view these: December 2nd, 2012 my total story views; December 11th, 2012 the amount of views on the first chapter of a story I thought sounded interesting; December 16th, 2012 the number of notes in my inbox on deviantART; December 27th, 2012 my score on the game ‘Jumping Finn’; and finally December 30, 2012 my score on the game ‘Robot Unicorn Attack’. This is one of the reasons why I chose the title ‘The Demon’. I was haunted by a number that symbolized evil. I also found that I was sometimes demon like in my state of mind and actions. I would stop at nothing to destroy what stood against me. I would take it upon myself to show no mercy towards those who ridiculed me in games. Whenever I got mad, I was a totally different person. I was fierce, unrelenting, and sometimes cruel. Another thing that bothered me was what my mind would sometimes wander to in public. I would catch myself thinking of ways someone could possibly kill another without getting caught. It wasn’t that I wanted to think of such things, it was that I couldn’t stop myself. Finding weak points was a way my brain functioned. It was all very disturbing... especially what horrors would occasionally flash through my mind. Images of death and blood were always flickering through my head when I was bored or unproductive. I saved myself from the madness that I could create by staying busy and on track with my goals. Now that I was officially at a dead end I had to find another way to stay occupied. I was afraid of what I would end up doing with magic and the threat of what I was capable of if left in such a state. As ‘luck’ would have it, Twilight thought that it would be a good thing if I went outside and got to know her friends better. I didn’t have the choice of telling her that I knew her friends well enough as it was... that would just peak her curiosity again. Once I got into the sunshine I was greeted by Pinkie Pie... out of all the ponies that it could have been, why her?! “HI!” she chirped happily. “It feels like I haven’t seen you in weeks!” I sighed and said, “trust me it would be years if I had things my way.” “Oh don’t be such a party pooper! I have some freshly baked cupcakes back at my place if you want to come!” I rolled my eyes and sarcastically told her, “Gee, why wouldn’t I want to eat enough sugar to put me in a coma...” “I have no idea what that means but I’ll take it as a yes!” She piped back. I didn’t want to go with her, but I didn’t want to stay by myself either. At least she would keep me occupied... perhaps even too occupied. Her energy was overwhelming, but when you live a life on parties and enough sugar to give a fully grown elephant a heart attack, that much should be expected. While we walked Pinkie started asking questions but they weren't like Twilight's. They mostly consisted of ‘how have you been’ and ‘what’s your favorite [insert name of whatever here]’. I started to enjoy the questions until she asked "Are you really an alien?”. That stopped me in my tracks and I brought up a question of my own, “Where did you hear that?” “Oh Rarity has been telling everyone that an alien was staying with Twilight. Most ponies think she's just joking but I wanted to know for sure.” ‘Damn it, now I’ve got to worry about others knowing about me! What the hell did Rarity go and do something like that for?!’ I thought. “So are you?” Pinkie asked again. “Yes, but you can’t tell any other pony about this. I want you to promise that you won’t tell a soul!” “Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye!” I’ll be damned... she really says it. That was interesting how she mimicked it down to the gestures performed in the show. Before we reached our destination, I was hit by something... hard. After getting up I saw the only one of the mane six that I hadn’t had a chance to meet yet, Rainbow Dash. “Man I need to work on my aim.” Rainbow Dash said while brushing herself off. “What the heck were you aiming for?! Pinkie?! Who just tackles someone out of nowhere?!” I shouted. “I do... got a problem with that?” she answered with a smug grin. “Yeah, a little bit!” “Well you should feel honored to even be in my presence. I’m-” “The one and only, Rainbow Dash!” I said along with her at the end just to be a jerk. I had heard it all before. I knew she liked to gloat so I took advantage of that to screw with her head. It had minor consequences though... “How did you know what I was going to say?” she asked. Luckily I was prepared with a quick retort. “Who hasn’t heard of Rainbow Dash, the fastest flyer in Equestria?” “Ah, so you’re a fan.” She said while running a hoof through her hair and posing heroically. “Something like that...” “Hey Dashie! We were just about to go get some fresh cupcakes at Sugarcube Corner! Do you wanna come?” Pinkie chimed in. “Yeah, sounds good Pinkie Pie!” Well this was just great. Can’t I go anywhere without bringing a parade of ponies along?! I mean seriously, why does everybody want to hang around a gloomy bastard like me? It will forever remain a mystery. * * * * * * After making it to Sugarcube Corner I was greeted warmly by the local residents... Mr. Cake, Mrs. Cake, and the two monsters they called children. The Cake twins were flying around, using magic, and generally making a mess of everything. It’s a good thing I don’t want children or else I’d be in for more destruction than I could handle. The twins seemed to be attracted to me the most. From the moment I walked in they followed me everywhere. That was one thing I never understood. Babies and children tended to like me for no reason. I didn’t do anything to make them like me, most of the time I’d ignore them completely but they never went away. I didn’t like kids very much as you can probably tell. When Pinkie brought out the cupcakes I took a knife and scraped most of the frosting off. The two seated in front of me gave some weird stares that bordered on disgust. “What did I do this time?” I asked, lowering the cupcake. “You took the frosting off...” Pinkie said, looking back and forth between me and the pastry. “Yeah, I don’t like all the sugar. It’s nauseating.” “Man you’re boring! Just try it!” Rainbow Dash shouted. “I’ve got a better idea... why don’t you try it?” I levitated the knife that was caked in frosting and flipped it so the sugary paste splattered over her face. Surprised by my actions, Rainbow just sat there for a second, stunned. Then she fell back in an explosive bout of laughter. I didn’t see the humor of it. I just assaulted her with frosting. Didn’t she care? I was almost positive that any human would have been furious, but not her... she was laughing. after her laughter ground to a halt we continued where we left off. I didn’t say very much. I just let Pinkie and rainbow dash talk amongst each other while staying silent. The cupcake I had was good, but I only ate one. I was never one for overindulging in sweets, since I preferred anything sour. However, the chance of coming across a Warhead here was non-existent so I would have to make due. Once we were all finished, we had a little talk... about me. “So who are you anyways? I haven’t seen you around but you know pinkie pretty well, so what’s up?” Rainbow dash asked me. Pinkie covered her mouth to keep herself quiet. “It’s okay Pinkie, she’ll have to find out sooner or later.” I said. Pinkie immediately uncovered her mouth and nearly shouted, “HE’S AN ALIEN!” “What?! Really?! But you look so...” “Normal?” I suggested. “Nerdy.” Rainbow answered, looking at me like I was the oddest thing she had ever seen. “I am not a nerd... I’m a geek and I take pride in that fact.” “Um, what’s the difference?” She asked. “Everything... geeks are skilled in many areas of intelligence, but maintain a level of style and epicness that makes them cool as well. Nerds are skilled in mainly electronics and take no pride in their appearance. They are excited by trivial things the average geek wouldn’t give a crap about. The nerd is recognized as being nowhere near cool but they believe they are. The geek will try to go for the A+ in every action they perform thus giving them the ability to appear cool. Have you ever seen someone cut a pencil in two with a simple swipe of a playing card?” “N-no...” Rainbow responded, thinking of where I was going with this. “Eh, me neither... what? You thought I did something like that? Get real!” I said smiling out of the corner of my mouth. The joke I told made Dash and Pinkie hit the floor and laugh hysterically. Once she recovered, Rainbow Dash wiped a tear from her eye and said, “Are all aliens this funny?!” “Just ones that are as good looking as me... so yeah.” I replied getting another chuckle out of them both. * * * * * * Once we left and went outside I had the gnawing feeling that we were being followed. I’m not naturally a paranoid person so I knew something must have been off. I stopped in the middle of the street and told Rainbow Dash and Pinkie to yield while shushing them. I began to scan around us looking for anyone who looked nervous or shied away at my glance. I took a moment to calm myself and focus. I looked to my left, my right, and then behind us... there was nothing there besides a few ponies walking to their own destinations. I knew that something was wrong. I could feel it in my bones. That’s when I noticed a small shadow circling us. I looked up and saw what looked like a griffin. After finding it hovering above us it came rocketing down. “Get back!” I yelled before jumping out of the way myself. We had barely avoided being crushed by the large creature. When the dust cleared I noticed that the Griffin was exactly who I predicted it would be... Gilda.