The lights flashed to life in the Man cave.
“Alright Twilight, today I have a special task for you” said Jack as he walked down the stairs.
“Something to do with the Man cave huh? you know I’m not allowed to be in here by your rules” Twilight stated as she walked in after Jack.
“Exactly, their my rules, so you can forget rule number two only for today” he said as he began to circle the room.
“Alright, if you say so...” Twilight said flatly “this room is pretty interesting though, maybe you could give me a tour?” she asked with a smile.
“Hmmm... Sure, why not” he indicated her to follow with a wave as he walked towards one corner of the room “the Man Cave as you can clearly see, is a room where I keep my most prized possessions, some of them rare, others of very high value and others that would just make a normal person freak the fudge out”
“Glad to know that you're not a normal person then” Twilight remarked before giggling to herself.
“Please hold all dumb remarks until the end of the tour please” Jack said as he circled towards another corner “the Man Cave is divided into three sections for my own entertainment purposes”
Jack made a quick stop, there was a set of black colored sofas set up in a square next to the main entrance, pressed up against the wall in between two of them were three vending machines, one for salty snacks, one for sweet snacks and a last one for hot and cold beverages. There was also a cube-like bookcase with comic books lined up in the center of the area.
“This is the snack zone, this is where I can take a load off after a long day’s work, have some snacks or beverages and or read a good comic book off of my personal collection”
Twilight walked up to one of the vending machines “wow... a lot to choose from...” she browsed through the sweet snacks first, she stopped midway as something caught her attention.
“what's this?” she asked as she eyed a red box with a picture of sticks, they seemed to be dipped in chocolate.
“Thats pocky, here have some” Jack went up and pushed a red button at that particular snack, a clunk sound went off at the bottom.
“Aww, chocolates for a Mare? you're too kind” Twilight joked around as she opened the box.
A vein popped on Jack’s forehead as he turned to the drinks machine “don't push it Twilight...” he grumbled as he pressed a blue button on it “Brewster, I’ll have the usual” he spoke to it.
“Huh?” Twilight tilted her head “is Brewster in that machine?”
“In a can Jack?” Brewster’s voice spoke back at him.
“I’m kinda thirsty... can you send me a whole pint of it?” Jack pushed the button again as he spoke.
“He is!” Twilight gasped, after a few seconds a pint glass dropped into a seethrough cylinder, Jack then opened it and grabbed the glass by the handle.
“He’s not in the machine Twilight, I’m talking to him through an intercom” Jack said before he took a big gulp out of his drink.
“In-tear what?” she scratched her head “and what's that you're drinking?” she asked before she curiously sniffed his glass.
“Hey! keep your nose out of my drink!” Jack scowled at her before shoving her face away.
“I don't want to drink any of your cooties...”
“Ow!” Twilight rubbed her muzzle “hold on, did you just say cooties?”
Ignoring her question, Jack pushed the blue button again on the machine “Hey Brewster, can you send me some more? this time in a can”
After getting her drink they continued on with the tour, walking down the room Twilight was able to get a closer look at all the knickknacks and strange artifacts decorating the room.
“The second zone, or rather, the entire room, is where I keep all my displayed items, stylish headgear, action figures and the occasional fish tank or two” Jack pointed over at the tanks, as they walked closer they could see one tank filled with colorful exotic fish and another housed a great white shark circling around in it's own tank.
“Uhhh... Jack?” Twilight paused with a scared look on her face as she looked at the seamonster pacing around in it's tank “You do know that these are dangerous right?”
The shark in the tank stopped as it saw Twilight, turning on it's side it eyed her curiously.
Feeling rather intimidated she waved nervously, the shark seeing this gave a sharp toothed grin.
“Aww... he likes me?” Twilight smiled back with some of the tension lifted off her, that is until the shark began to swim rapidly in a circle, gaining momentum as it did “Huh?”
With a humongous splash the shark threw itself out of it's tank and into the air, aiming it's body at her like a missile the beast opened it's gaping mouth ready to chomp down on Twilight, who stood there paralyzed in fear
Ahhhhh!!!!
*WHACK!!!* *SPLASH!!!*
“Bad Bruce!” opening her eyes Twilight saw Jack standing in front of her while waving a wet rolled up newspaper at the shark, who was apparently named Bruce.
“How many times to I have to tell you? No eating the guests!” Bruce cowered in a corner as Jack scolded him.
Twilight stood there with a disturbed look on her face "now I dont know who to fear more... him for the shark..." she thought out loud.
"What was that?" Jack questioned while turning his gaze towards her
"Oh nothing!" Twilight looked away before she spotted something familiar “Hey! What can you tell me about this?” she asked while pointing at a purple mask encased under a glass box.
“Ah-yes, that would be Majora’s Mask”
“Who’s Majora?” Twilight eyed the mask closely as she walked up the the glass case.
“Don't know” Jack answered with a simple shrug “I bought it off some traveling mask merchant with a huge backpack, said it was some ancient artifact used for hexing rituals, it looked interesting enough for me...”
Looking at the mask Twilight began to get this eerie chill as she stared directly into it's burning orange eyes, coupled with it's piercing green irises, even with the lights on it looked creepy.
“May I take a closer look?” she inquired while feeling a little gutsy.
“Sure, go right ahead” Jack crossed his arms as Twilight opened the glass.
Slowly reaching in for the artifact the room began to feel silent. The moment Twilight’s fingers made contact with the mask she gave a sigh of relief to see that nothing happened as she held it in her hands.
“Ah... for a moment there I thought--” Twilight stopped mid-sentence.
“Thought what?” Jack tilted his head, she just stood there, without a response.
“Hm... wierd...” Jack scratched his head “well, I better put this back now”
The moment Jack picked the mask out of Twilight’s hands she came to, gasping for air, she quickly got down on the floor.
“Are you okay?” Jack blinked while Twilight was curled up on the floor, shivering as if she had been locked in a freezer for a week.
“Horrible..... Horrible.....” she whispered over and over “I saw... a town.... the moon.... fire.... black letters...” her eyes welled up as she laid there terrified.
“Come on! we don't have time to fool around!” Jack scowled.
“you have met with a terrible fate haven't you?” she whispered as she was then being dragged across the floor by her tail.
“Snap out of it, I’m about to give you your task for today”
“Huh? what is it?” finally pulling herself off the ground she found herself amazed yet again as she stood next to Jack.
“Behold!” Jack threw up his arms “The Archive Of Power!” his voice echoed through the room as they stood before a massive book shelf that covered the whole wall, the endless amount of CD cases and cartridges surrounded the small space in the center where a 40 inch LED screen Tv was nestled alongside many game consoles, following the ends of the bookshelf sat several arcade machines that lined up from end to end
Twilight stood in awe for a moment, seeing this and the expression on Jack’s face she knew that he was very proud of this collection, just as she was proud of the collection of books in her library “So these are what you call Videogames?” she asked as she walked up to the towering shelf.
“Yep! This Archive is my personal game collection, over 10 different arcade cabinets, 30 home consoles and 10,000 games in all. Spanning over 41 years of gaming history!”
“41 years? not as old as some books I have, but still very old...” Twilight looked up before reaching out and picking out a random cartridge, the label on it said, Ghost & Goblins
“These don't look like anything you can play with...”
“Thats because you have to pop them into a system dumb-dumb” Jack said, snatching the game out of her hand “This here’s an NES cartridge, and what you use for this is the ol’ Nes here”
Twilight watched as Jack inserted the game into the strange gray box, he turned the Tv on and with a click the screen showed the game.
“Ah!” startled by the images on the screen she hid behind the sofa “What kind of Magic is that??” she questioned as she peeked from behind the sofa.
Jack smirked as he turned the game off and the Tv as well “Thats on a need to know basis, right now you will concentrate on your task, to alphabetize all the games In The Archive Of Power!”
Twilight’s eyes widened “All these?” she gulped as she looked at the shelf “without my magic?...” she whispered the last part before Jack went up the stairs.
“Have fun!” he snickered.
*6 hours later*
“Zzzz....” Jack snored on his easy chair with his Gameboy on his lap, the game was still turned on as he had dozed off mid-play.
“Mmm... Guuhh...” Jack groggily opened his eyes, after switching off the neglected Gameboy he got off his chair, scratching his butt he looked at his watch “Time to go see how the Egghead is doing”
Making his way down the stairs he could hear familiar electronic noises from behind the door.
“The Fudge??” Opening the door he spotted Twilight sitting on the rugg, an NES controller nestled tightly in her hands “Oh she didn't...” he scowled as he stomped his way over to her.
“Twilight! What do you think you're doing!?” Jack interrogated Twilight, looking up at the screen she was playing the game he had placed in the system before he went upstairs.
Twilight seemed unresponsive as she sat there as she kept mashing the buttons rapidly on the controller, Scoffing at this Jack went over to the shelf “.....huh...” his temper quickly went out as he looked from left to right.
“Holy fudge, she actually did all the work... and rather nicely” Jack rubbed his chin before looking back at Twilight “I gotta hand it to you Egghead, you organize a mean shelf... Twilight?” looking back at the screen he noticed that she was already far into the game.
“Hmm... she seems pretty good at it” Jack blinked, he waved his hands in front of her eyes, still getting no response from her “Oh... don't tell me...” he facepalmed.
*4 hours earlier*
“Phiew... I finally did it...” Twilight wiped her forehead proudly at the job well done, stepping down from the sliding ladder she plodded over to the Tv “Hmmm...” feeling curious she followed the steps she remembered from Jack to turn it on and start the game.
“Lets see what all the fuss Jack makes is about...” Twilight said, grabbing the controller that was neatly coiled up on the system.
*Now*
“NES fever...” Jack sighed as he walked over to the system “I hate to do this to you... Pffftt, who am I kidding?” Jack chuckled as he shut the system off.
“AHHHHH!!!!” Twilight shrieked in terror, making Jack double over while covering his ears.
“WHY DID YOU DO THAT!?” Twilight screamed bloody murder at him as she sprang up and tried to flail her feeble arms at him.
Jack then quickly flicked her nose, making her lose her balance and fall back on the couch “Sorry Twilight, I had to, you were in a near comatose state from playing too much Ghosts & Goblins...”
Twilight rubbed her aching nose, she laid her head back “Ughh... really? I can't remember anything...” she then looked at him “why do I feel so... awake?”
Jack then cracked a smile “Congratulations Twilight...” he said “You’ve just discovered Video Games...”