//------------------------------// // Issue 05 // Story: Lightning Rod // by SlimShadow //------------------------------// LIGHTNING ROD ISSUE #05 I was walking back to the library with Twilight after what has to be one of the most friendship filled nights in my history. I had a good time with my new friends and showed them a few tricks that I learned from Twilight. They were really impressed. I was even impressed by them. I saw Tim lift up the treats table with great balance to not let the treats fall, and I also taught Steven how to cloak his horn. We played some games afterwards and when it came midnight, we were treated with a Lavernius Samson fireworks display. His show was magnificent. He pulled off a bit of a stunt where he lit super sparklers that were tied on to each limb of his body. It was just amazing to see. As we got to the library, I saw a sign that was right next to the door. “What’s a sign doing over at the library?” Twilight queried. “It looks important.” “Well, let’s read it.” We darted towards the sign with Twilight following me. It was too dark to see what was written on the sign. Twilight lit up her horn to make it more visible. I read the sign out loud. “Her Majesty, Princess Celestia, and all her royal subjects, would like to inform all the citizens of Ponyville about some foreign visitors from a far land. They are called humans.” It then showed a picture of a human, front and side view. “DO NOT BE ALARMED! These are our new friends. If you find one, please treat them as you would anypony. They are on a diplomatic mission to bring the Elements of Harmony to their homeland, so that they can give their land a much needed boost. Any and all questions and concerned should be directed to the Mayor, who has been debriefed on the issue. Thank you for your attention, signed Princess Celestia.” Twilight sighed, “Looks like tomorrow’s gonna be a busy day.” “Yeah. Let’s get our rest while we can.” ~~~~~ The next morning, we woke up at the crack of dawn, well except for Spike. We started the day out with a bowl of shredded wheat with raisins and milk. “So what do you think would happen with all the ponies learning about our existence?” I asked. “Well, the best case scenario is the occasional pony coming in and remarking, but I’m afraid that a whole herd will come in and see us.” Twilight hung down her head. “Well, It’s a good thing that we’re eating our breakfast before it happens.” I ate a spoonful after I spoke my words. “Yeah, but I’m more afraid of the training time we’ll lose.” “That’s why I thought of cereal instead of the usual bacon, pancakes, eggs, and stuff that you’ve been cooking up for the last four days.” “I see your logic in your decision.” “Yeah, in my world, some people need a fast breakfast to take on an early day” I drank the bowl of milk and whatever was left of the wheat and raisins. “Wow. Your world sounds awfully busy.” She used her magic to lift up the bowl so she can drink the rest of the contents. Once we finished drinking, Twilight asked, “So, ready to take on the day?” “Ready as I’ll ever be.” We walked into the living room and Twilight gave me a book. It read on the front cover, “The Big Book of Lightning Spells.” We went through as many spells as we could, such as charging batteries, sparking from my horn, and so much more. Once I learned control, I gave Spike a shock so that he could wake up. We got a good laugh out of it, even Spike found its humor. When it came around noon time, we were having lunch. I made myself a grilled cheese sandwich, Twilight, a daisy sandwich, and Spike, an emerald sandwich. We heard someone coming into the library. Twilight got up from her seat. “I’m just gonna help out this customer.” Twilight trotted outside the kitchen. The next thing we knew after a few minutes were the words, “Is that a Human?” I turned to find a bright teal unicorn pony smiling and galloping towards me. She tackled me to the floor “Does he have a name? What does he do? Why does he have a horn? Is he magical? Can he speak? Is he even male?” “I’ll answer them once you get off of me.” The pony leapt off of me and squealed, “Well that answers one of my questions. So what’s your name?” “My name is Rod Kasparov,” I got up stiffly off the ground, “But you can call me Rod.” “Oh, sorry for leaping onto you like that.” She started to talk with me, “By the way, my name is Lyra. Lyra Heartstrings” I noticed the golden harp on her flank, “I notice your cutie mark. Are you a musician?” “Yup. I play a lyre.” “Cool, I’m a musician too. I play a bass guitar.” “Oh, I’m assuming you’re a rock and roll musician.” “Yup, I sure am.” “I’m more into classical stuff, but I know of this mare named Vinyl Scratch. He likes to play all kinds of contemporary music, like rock and roll, electronic, and pop music. Apparently he’s building a big metal horn. Something about radio.” Twilight strolled into the kitchen, “Is everything all right?” “Everything’s fine, Twilight.” I assured. “So” Lyra asked me, “Do you have magical abilities?” “Yes, I do. I am a lightning specialty.” She gasped, “Cool! I love thunderstorms. I should talk to Rainbow Dash sometime and request a thunderstorm.” Spike came in to the conversation, “I think they’re scheduling a storm for tomorrow night. “Awesome! I’ll make sure not to miss it.” “Weren’t you going to check out a book?” Twilight asked Lyra. “Oh, I nearly forgot. I was going to check out some sheet music.” “You know where the music section is. I’ll be down here to sign it out.” “Okay.” Lyra turned back to me, “It’s been fun chatting with you, Lightning Rod.” Once everything was all peaceful, I continued to eat my sandwich. Lyra checked out her music and left. Then I heard the thing that triggered our worst nightmare. “HEY EVERYPONY! I FOUND A HUMAN!” We all said in unison, “Oh no.” Before we could say anything else, a stampede of ponies filled the library, corralling the three of us into a corner of the library. I heard a whole bunch of things said all at once. Things like, “Cool, I never seen a human before.” “I wish I had hands like yours.” “So what’s it like in your land?” and other chatter I can’t decipher. Twilight yelled to me and Spike, “Hold on!” We did so. She grew her horn’s power, and in a flash, we were at Sugarcube Corner’s kitchen. We saw Vern and Pinkie working hard to bake cupcakes while we heard bustling at the storefront. “Twilight! Rod!” Pinkie stopped for a moment, “What in the name of cupcakes are you doing here?” I sighed, “Trying to get away from the mobs.” “Well, we got plenty of ‘em here. Looks like we made a wonderful super awesome batch of cupcakes!” “I don’t think they’re after cupcakes.” Twilight noted. Mr. Cake trotted in through the swivel door, “I don’t understand, there’re plenty of ponies, but no one seems to be buying our food.” Twilight blurted, “It’s because everypony’s trying to find …” “A HUMAN!” One of the ponies coincidentally answered for Twilight as they trampled cartoonily over Mr. Cake to get into the kitchen. We all exited out the back door of the place. Twilight led us to a building that looked like a blue and pink circus tent. By the look of things, they had crowd problems as well. “Oh no, Rarity is in trouble as well.” Twilight observed, “We gotta help her.” I could see Rarity peering outside the top window. We were running towards her boutique, until Twilight stopped. We followed suit. “All of you hide inside that building over there.” Twilight instructed us, “I’ll go in and rescue Rarity and Steven.” We went into the building that looked like a spa. We went in and found two ponies that looked like color swaps of each other, sporting neon blue and hot pink. “Welcome to our day spa.” The pink with blue mane and tail spoke, “My name is Aloe, and this is my twin sister, Lotus. You must be the humans.” Vern spoke first, “Yeah. My name’s Vern Samson, and that’s ‘Lightning’ Rod Kasparov.” I hissed at Vern, “What are you doing?”. “Oh, don’t worry.” Lotus explained, “Almost everypony is trying to find you, but being spa owners and respecters of privacy, we thought better to just leave you be.” Pinkie had an epiphany, “Oh, so that’s why she sent us here to hide. So smart of Twilight.” “Can we offer you a spa treatment? It’s free of charge, just for you.” “Yes, definitely.” I felt like I needed some relaxation after the day that has been already. After that was said, a huge flash appeared and Twilight, Steven, and Rarity appeared. “Wow… That was quick.” Spike remarked. Twilight quickly got down to business, “We need to find the others, fast!” She quickly opened the doors and ran out with Spike playing jockey. We all followed her to Rainbow Dash’s cloud house. Strangely, there weren’t any other pegasi swarming the house. We heard a yell from a distance that sounded like Rainbow Dash. We saw a faint rainbow streak followed by a golden one. They were followed by a flock of pegasi trying to get to them. “Looks like they’re heading over to Fluttershy’s.” Twilight estimated. We altered course to where Dash and Greg were headed. We noticed another stampede being led by Applejack and Tim, with Fluttershy and Doug flying with them at low altitude. We eventually merged into one group. I noticed Dash and Greg did a manoeuvre towards our direction. They caught up to us. “Hey, Guys!” Greg jested, “Out for a nice stroll, I see.” “And I bet you’re out to get some fresh air.” I returned the joke. The stampede corralled us towards the town square. We all stopped at the town hall, and a brown and grey pony in her fifties addressed the crowd. “Citizens of Ponyville, stop this lunacy at once! The order from Princess Celestia said to treat these humans as would any other pony, not to over-patronize them and chase them around town. That type of behaviour is just ludicrous. Please, go back to your jobs and homes and leave these beings in peace.” “Miss,” I interrupted, “I bet these ponies want answers.” She acknowledged, “Very well. I’ll hand the time over to you.” “Greetings, ponies.” I saw a few flash bulbs from cameras blinding me a bit, “My name is Rodney Kasparov, or you can call me Rod, Lightning Rod, or just Lightning. Five strangers and I arrived to this world by forces unknown to us and also Princess Celestia to train in the ways of the six Elements of Harmony. I thought I was alone, until I met these five people. Their names are Vern Samson, Tim Delaney, Steven Nelson, Greg Angel, and Doug, just Doug. After we got acquainted with each other, we became great friends.” Everbody “Awww”ed after I explained. “I do have magic abilities. They’re lightning based. Before I was here, I never had a horn in my life. None of these guys had horns or wings before being here. But we learned from the best, being Twilight Sparkle and her friends. With their help, we will succeed in our mission to bring the Elements to our home world so we can make it better.” A whole bunch of questions were all asked at once. I stopped them and said, “I’m sorry, but I don’t want to answer a whole bunch of questions all at once. We all have our things to do and not a lot of time to do it in.” Doug stepped in, “Don’t worry, I’ll answer questions. I have plenty of time, also, I have done a few Q and A sessions.” He then turned to the crowd, “Okay, everypony. I’m available to answer any and all questions. No question is stupid. Just ask one at a time.” A sea of raised hooves and the echoing of Sir’s and Doug’s echoed. He pointed to a hand in the crowd, “You, green hoof over there.” “Cameron Lenz, Ponyville Press.” He stated. “How long have you been here in Ponyville?” “I have been here for one week, two days. If you’re talking about the others, it ranges from four days to two weeks.” Another sea of raised hooves and another point, “You, blue hoof with the watch.” “What’s it like in your world?” “Well, we are really advanced. I heard about your growth in technology about computers radio, and telephones. Our society has a computer so compact that I can easily carry it with my hand.” I walked inside Town Hall while the rest followed suit, including the brown and grey mare. I talked to her, “Thanks for bailing us out, miss…” “My name is Mayor Mare, Mayor of Ponyville.” “Well again, thank you, Mayor.” Twilight smiled, “You wouldn’t believe how stressful this moment was.” “Don’t worry, humans, you’ll be safe under my watch. And ponies, I’ll make sure you’re not interrupted during your training.” “That will help us a lot.” Twilight let out a sigh of relief. “Yeah, definitely.” Spike said, “I want to finish my emerald sandwich, if it’s not ruined.” “Don’t worry, Spike.” Twilight comforted, “I’ll make you a new one.” Yup, well it was sure a wake-up-call.” Applejack told her story, “We didn’t know what was goin’ on with everypony until I saw the sign.” Tim expanded, “Yeah, when it was around eleven o’clock, a whole herd of them were outside Sweet Apple Acres.” Greg added, “We saw the sign last night. We thought no big deal of it until we woke up to dozens of pegasus ponies wanting to see what all this human fuss was about.” Pinkie jumped in, “We had a huge crowd over at the bakery, but, they were only after Vern. But I didn’t see any sign.” “Um… Pinkie,” Fluttershy pointed over to a piece of paper nailed to a post, “I think that’s the sign that everyone’s talking about.” Pinkie dashed towards the sign and read it quickly, her eyes zipping back and forth like a typewriter, “Oh! That explains everything!” The doors opened to reveal Doug. He announced, “The crowd is all dispersed. We can all go back home in peace now.” We looked outside, and saw only a few groups of ponies outside talking. “Well then, I hope you have yourself a good rest of the day.” the Mayor wished us. “You know what I was thinking?” I asked the guys on the way out. “What is it, Lightning?” responded Greg. “I was thinking about what we have been given. We have gained so many talents and abilities since we arrived here.” “So, what’s the point?” asked Tim. “When we get back to Earth, we could be superheroes. We need to have superhero names, uniforms, and all sorts of stuff.” “Count me in.” Vern came in, “I could be Mr. Surprise, with all sorts of fireworks weaponry.” “In fact, I can be Angel. I’m not very creative with superhero names, but fancy this one writes itself.” Tim pondered while looking at his cutie mark, “Hard… Core… Hardcore!” Steven laughed, “Well, I don’t have any superpowers, not that I can find, but I can provide you with some gadgets, and also design some costumes with the help of Rarity.” “And I can provide you with some inside help to cover up your tracks.” Doug offered. “Then it’s settled,” I announced, “We shall be called the Heroes of Harmony.” Our heroes have formed a pact, and plan to challenge the evils that plague the world. But before they do, they need to learn more about their powers, and each other. In the next issue: Showdown in Sweet Apple Acres. Keep your eyes on your shelves! Or subscribe for your next issue of LIGHTNING ROD!