//------------------------------//
// Bean Spills 
// Story: Fictionationality - Equestria 
// by Spirit Guide 
//------------------------------//

The next morning, Twilight awoke to an odd humming sound coming from the first floor of the library. She looked across the bedroom to find Spirit's bed and Fang's basket empty.

They must already be downstairs, she figured, carefully climbing out of her own bed without waking Spike. She walked down the stairs and into the library's main room, where she found the weirdest thing she had ever seen. Spirit Guide was standing by the table with all four hooves together, facing east, wearing the oddest set of accessories: a white shawl over his head and back, a black box strapped to his left front leg and another box sitting on his head just below his horn. Spirit was swaying side to side, muttering and chanting under his breath.

Twilight was about to approach the stallion when she heard a hiss from behind her. Turning around, she found Fang, also wearing a white shawl. The dragon was in the middle of wrapping a black strap around one of two black boxes next to him. Twilight waited patiently until Fang had wrapped up both boxes and pulled the shawl off his back, which he folded up and placed inside Spirit's saddlebags along with the pair of boxes.

"Sorry about that," Fang said apologetically.

"No problem," Twilight replied, then added, "What were you doing?"

"Back where we come from, we have a tradition where we pray to our Creator, thanking Him for everything He does. The boxes and shawl are worn as a reminder of His existence and the laws He has given us. Although," he added sadly, "my prayers feels different when my usual connections to the other worlds are cut off."

Spirit took three steps backwards, bowed left, right and front, then took three steps forwards. He turned around to face the others. "Don't worry, Fang," he said encouragingly. "We always manage. By the way, good morning Twilight."

"Morning, Spirit. Shall we get something to eat?"

"Without Spike?" Fang inquired.

"He'll join us later. Let's get to work."

"You guys start without me," said Spirit, carefully wrapping the black boxes. "I'll join in when I'm done here."

"Wow," Twilight whispered to Fang as they set to work. "He really is serious when it comes to praying."

"I've been friends with him for ages," replied Fang. "We try to fulfill the wishes of our Creator as best we can."

While they continued their conversation, Twilight and Fang cleared the table in the library and began making breakfast. By the time Spirit had finished and joined them, most of the food was already set out. With all three of them working together, breakfast was prepared in no time, so they sat down and started to eat. In between mouthfuls and hasty swallows, Twilight and Spirit shared each others history and experiences.

"That's when the Elements reformed themselves into artifacts, each one with a gem in the shape of mine and my friends' cutie marks, and we used them to transform Nightmare Moon back into her former self." Twilight recounted her first day in Ponyville. "Later Princess Celestia said that I would continue my study of the magic of friendship here in Ponyville, and I've been here ever since."

"That quite something," Spirit said in admiration. "What do you think, Fang?"

Fang picked up a piece of toast and shoved it into his mouth, barely chewing it before he swallowed. "Just one question: where are the Elements now?"

"Princess Celestia said she'd keep them in Canterlot," Twilight replied. "I'm sure that wherever she put them, they're safe."

Spirit took a swig from his glass of juice. "I know a lot of teams that rely on the power of enchanted artifacts, but nothing like this. It seems that the Elements work because of you and your friends' friendship, rather then just requiring somepony to activate them."

"Now, that is something impressive," Fang said admiringly.

It was then that Spike appeared on the stairs, yawning and rubbing his eyes. "What did I miss?" he asked sleepily.

"Good morning Spike," Twilight called cheerily. "Don't worry, we were just talking."

"If it was book stuff, please leave me out of it." Spike walked over to the table and sat down between Twilight and Fang. "Do we have any gemstones, Twilight?"

"Yes we do. I made sure we got some after that incident at the cafe." Turning around, she levitated a small box off of a bookshelf and brought it down to the table. Twilight opened it, revealing a pile of rubies, sapphires, emeralds, diamonds and other gems.

Fang stared at the pile in amazement. "That's a lot of gemstones."

Spike licked his lips in anticipation. "They look great. And they probably taste great too."

Spirit studied the scene, trying to make sense of it. "I'll hazard a guess and say that in Equestria, gemstones are a common find and dragons have the necessary body functions to consume them. Am I right?"

Twilight was impressed. "Right as rain. You must be pretty smart to come up with that so quickly."

The dark-blue pony shrugged. "It comes in time."

Spike selected a large emerald and bit into it. Seeing Fang watching him intently, Spike pushed the box of gemstones towards the green dragon. "Go on, try one."

Fang stared at the pile of minerals, a cautious look on his face. "Spirit, what are the laws concerning gemstones?" he asked.

Spirit rolled his eyes and said, "Gemstones are not treif, Fang. Dig in. By the way, the blessing is shehakol."

Fang reached into the box and pulled out an amethyst quartz. He recited a short prayer and took a bite out of the purple crystal. He chewed slowly, then swallowed. His face split into a grin. "Awesome. These taste great!"

"I'm glad you like them." Spike smiled, reaching into the box for another. "I've been trying to find somepony else who'll try them, but nopony's interested."

"That's because we can't digest gemstones, Spike!" Twilight retorted, giving the baby dragon a playful noogie. After releasing Spike, she turned her attention back to Spirit. "Before going out, I thought maybe I could teach you a bit about magic, you know, since you're new here and all."

The expression Spirit was wearing made her regret saying anything: a blank, do-you-think-I'm-stupid face, which was quickly replaced with a dazzling smile. "I'd be happy to. I haven't really learned anything for a while and I'd hate to have to figure out how to use unicorn magic by myself at a moment's notice."

Twilight clopped her hooves together happily. "Great! Now I can finally use this book I got." She turned her head towards one of the bookshelves, levitated a large dark-orange book off the top, and plonked it on the table.

Spirit stared at the book and tilted his head in bewilderment. "What is this?" he asked.

"'The Magic Instructor'," Twilight replied. "It's a guide book for teaching unicorn magic to or with another pony. Since I usually learn by myself, I never really used it."

"Well, looks like you're going to be using it after all. Let's have a look." Opening the book, the two unicorns pored over the pages, Twilight explaining the tricky parts and Spirit making comparisons between the different types of energy he'd used in the past. While the ponies learned their magic together, Fang decided to poke around Spirit's saddlebags. He didn't have much to do and quickly found what he was after: his deck of power cards.

Spike noticed his new friend leafing through the stack of blue and black cards. He ambled over to him and said "I thought you said the cards went blank. Why are you going through them?"

Fang answered without looking up from his sorting. "On some missions, after we've been through certain experiences, a number of my cards would recharge, you could say, gaining new content. Mostly, these cards would simply be identification cards, but even that's helpful when you..." He stopped talking when he noticed something: a few of the cards had powered back up. Not one, not two, but— 

"Spirit! Twilight!"

Fang's shouts disrupted the unicorns' learning, and the two equines turned their attention towards the enthusiastic dragon. "What is it, Fang?" Spirit asked, slightly miffed at the disturbance, "and it better not be something about your feet, cause we both know what they're like."

"It's got nothing to do with my feet," Fang shot back, "although I will get back to you on that."

Twilight spoke up before they got too off topic. "What is it, Fang?"

"Five power cards have gained subjects."

"Let's see them." The ponies and the dragons gathered around the wooden table and Fang laid out the five cards on top. Each card depicted one of the four friends, and the last card had a picture of the library. Every card had the subject's name on it, as well as a short description that was pretty accurate.

"Wow," Spike exclaimed. "This is really cool!" he read his card out loud. "Spike. A young dragon who lives with the unicorn Twilight Sparkle. Spike likes gemstones, helping and sleeping. Sleeping?" He gaped in disbelief. "How did it know that?"

"It is rather detailed," said Twilight, trying to sound sympathetic. "Here's mine. Twilight Sparkle, unicorn student of Princess Celestia, bearer of the Element of Magic. Currently resides in Ponyville, where she studies the magic of friendship. That's amazing!"

"Mine doesn't have much to say for itself," Fang announced. "Fang. A dragon with a knack for knowing. He enjoys a good joke as well as making as many different friends as possible. As always, it nails me down." He noticed that somepony was not making himself heard. "What about you, Spirit? What's your card say?"

Clearing his throat, the blue stallion recited, "Spirit Guide. A prophet from another world, Spirit is always ready to learn something new. While he is sometimes secretive, there isn't much this pony won't do for his friends."

Twilight and Spike were speechless. The card had divulged information about Spirit that they didn't know before, although not specifying. The just hoped he didn't think of them as too private for them to know about, whatever it is he was keeping to himself.

"Well done, you," Fang said, patting Spirit on the back. "You've barely been here a day and the deck already has you figured out." He held up the pile of cards before his friend. "I can never thank you enough for this gift.

"As unbelievable as it may seem, it's all true." Spirit levitated the magic guide book back on to the shelf with the spell he had just learned with Twilight. "And while I think about it, there's a lot to do." Turning to Twilight, he asked, "So, what are we going to do today?"

Twilight beamed when she heard this. She had actually planned a list for the day. She walked over to her work table and picked up the checklist she had made earlier. She laid it down on the center table beside the power cards.

Spirit read the list out loud. "Tidy the library. Show Spirit and Fang around Ponyville. Introduce them to Applejack, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie, not necessarily in that order, and invite them all to a picnic lunch. Eat lunch with everypony. Write a letter to the Princess about the day's and previous day's events." His face fell slightly as he combined the listed items with what he knew. He turned to face the others. "As much as I'd like to say that's a great and well-organized schedule, there's something in the way."

Twilight was curious. "What's the matter? Didn't I cover everything?"

"Everything you know," Spirit pointed out. "There's something I have to tell you and it might get in the way of things."

"Don't hold your breath," Spike advised. "Twilight's not one for changing plans."

Fang nudged the smaller dragon. "That's not a very nice thing to say, Spike."

"No, it's all right, Fang," Twilight said. "He's right. I like it when things are laid out and done by the book, but it's also important to listen to what your friends have to say." Then she asked, "What did you have to add, Spirit?"

"I may not have told you, but before you pulled me out of the ground last night, I was present in my dreamscape, a place I can access when I'm asleep. There I had an encounter with a manifestation, one of the dark creatures that roam the Republic. Apparently they got into Equestria when they followed us through the Time-Dimension-Space-Tunnel that we use to travel between the different worlds. After failing to get anything out of it, it just started telling me about big trouble happening in Equestria. It told me that a horde of manifestation managed to get through the TDST and were probably going to set to work right away."

"What kind of manifestations are there?" Twilight asked.

"And what do they do?" Spike added, accidentally knocking over a bowl of beans that was sitting on the breakfast table with his fearful shuddering.

"There are three basic types of manifestations. The first kind are merely accumulated wisps of dark energy, like the one I found in my dreamscape—those are relatively harmless and can only manipulate objects basically, although all manifestations get more powerful as time goes on. There are hex manifestations, which are slightly more powerful and have the ability to lay hindering effects on the victim, although they're usually just bothersome pranks. And then there are cursed manifestations—a truly dominant creature. A cursed manifestation can force inconvenient, awkward, and sometimes embarrassing, spells and jinxes on a group of targets. Unlike the others, cursed manifestations are unnecessarily smart and tend to work together. Its happened before when everyone in the Republic would suffer under a curse laid by a horde of these dark entities. We make it our mission to fight these creatures whenever they appear, or else they would storm other worlds and spread chaos and confusion across the multiverse."

Spirit took a break from his speech to examine the reactions of his audience. Fang was wearing his thanks-for-sharing-that-with-everypony face, Spike stood there looking horrified, but it was Twilight's response that intrigued him the most. The mulberry-colored mare had been listening to him with a deep sense of understanding, and was now watching him with wide purple eyes.

Twilight found the lull in the conversation and jumped in. "So you think that the manifestations are here in Equestria?"

"I'm almost certain," Spirit replied.

"Where would they go?" Spike asked nervously.

"They can disguise themselves as anything," Fang informed, gathering up the spilled beans in his claw before shoving them into his mouth. "Even inanimate objects. They probably took on pony forms, though."

Spirit looked around the room. Where just a few minutes ago were smiling, laughing faces now were fearful, concerned and thoughtful looks. He decided to bottle up this problem and open it up some other time. "How about we start the list and improvise as we go along?"

"That's a great idea," Fang said. "What say you, Twilight?"

"I'm all for going by the list, even for just a while."

"Fine," agreed Spike. "Let's just do something already."

The four friends laughed and made their way to the door, opened it and stepped out into the fresh morning air.