It was nearly closing time at the Good Burger. The last customer left the restaurant about fifteen minutes ago and most of the employees already went home for the day. All except for this one young man who was cleaning the floor with a mop while singing his catchy song with a smile on his face.
“I’m a dude.
He’s a dude.
She’s a dude.
‘Cause we’re all dudes, HEY!”
This young man was tall with dark skin and long thin black deadlocks that reached to his chin. He was wearing a short sleeve blue and white striped shirt, long tan pants with black belt around his waist and a white with a blue line bus boy hat on top of his head. He also had a nametag on the right side of his chest that said, ‘I’m Ed’ on it.
Ed loves working at Good Burger. Heck, Good Burger is practically his whole life. Everyday he always has the same routine; waking up, take a shower (while wearing his uniform for some reason), eat a Good Burger for breakfast, skate his way to work, taking customers orders from behind the counter for seventeen hours, mop the floor at closing time, skate his way back home, eat a Good Burger for dinner and finally go to sleep before starting all over again the next day. No matter what life throws at him, Ed always wore a smile on his face, even when an angry customer yells at him.
Despite Ed working at the Good Burger the longest, he was known to screw up the customers’ orders or misinterpreted what the customers were saying. Why Ed still keeps his job is everyone’s guess, but they say it’s because he is good friends with the manager.
…sorta.
Speaking of which, a chubby man with curly hair came out of the office. He was wearing a blue shirt, blue and white striped tie, black pants and black shoes. The cubby man is Ed’s manager, Mr. Bailey and he’s in charge of the Good Burger. He works at Good Burger ever since it’s first opening and his job is to manage the employees and to do the paper work at the office. The most important job of all is to make sure his restaurant didn’t get any bad reputation, especially the mistakes Ed has caused.
Recently, Ed takes it too far this time when the Health Inspector visited the restaurant to find anything that’s considered ‘not healthy’ for the customers. It was bad enough that Ed did some disgusting things right in front of the Health Inspector, but when the Health Inspector was looking through the shake’s dispenser with Ed’s help…
…let’s just say they’re not going to make any milk shakes for a while.
Mr. Bailey was on the phone with both the lawyers and inspectors for hours about this incident and it stressed him out more than usual. He needs to get this settled and fix this mess as soon as possible, but not with Ed around. He needs to get Ed out of the building for a while without Ed making things worse then it already is. Despite all of this, Mr. Bailey couldn’t bring himself to fire Ed. Ed may have made a lot of mistakes but not all the time. Plus, Ed is a really a good guy and pure of heart. So Mr. Bailey decided to take it a different approach.
Once he was near Ed, Mr. Bailey cleared his throat. “Ed?”
Ed looked up from his mopping and gave Mr. Bailey his trademark goofy smile. “Oh hey Mr. Bailey! What’s up?”
Mr. Bailey was adjusting his tie with a nervous look on his face. “You know about the incident with the Health Inspector?”
Ed had a thoughtful look before he lit up in realization. “Ooh you mean that guy? Yeah, I remembered him. He claimed to be the city wide Health Inspector, although he doesn’t look like he’s wide and he doesn’t want to check my health but he did looked at all of our food. He then checked into our shakes dispenser so I helped him in but he disappeared afterwards. I found his shoes though. Haha!”
Mr. Bailey winced. “Yes…well…we’re trying to get this incident sort out so that they won’t shut us down. In a meantime, I think it’s best that you should…take a vacation.”
Ed blinked. “Vacation?”
Mr. Bailey nodded. “Yes, vacation! See, you’ve been working for Good Burger everyday for over three years without any time off.”
Ed smiled. “Cool!”
“No not cool!” Mr. Bailey insisted. “You’ve been working too hard and you never use any vacation days or sick days. But that’s all going to change Ed. I’ve decided, starting tomorrow, that you will take a two month—scratch that—three month vacation for you to relax and not coming back here to work until your vacation ends! With pay of course!”
Ed eyes widen. “Whoa dude! That’s almost…four months!”
“Yes Ed…yes it does,” Mr. Bailey answered slowly.
Ed frowned. “But what was I supposed to do while I’m vacation? Good Burger is my life.”
“Well you can do anything you want Ed,” said Mr. Bailey. “You can stay home—or better yet—take a trip to wherever you want to go to. Like the Bahamas, Italy, France or anywhere that is far away from Good Burger. As long as you get to relax and have fun!”
“Whoa…” said Ed with a far away look in his eyes. “That…sounds…AWESOME!”
“I know, right?” said Mr. Bailey with a pleased look on his face. “So what do you say? Will you accept my offer?”
“Can I keep this uniform for my vacation?” Ed asked.
“Er…yeah sure,” Mr. Bailey agreed.
“Then I’ll accept!” Ed said with a huge smile.
“Great!” Mr. Bailey said cheerfully. “Just finish your mopping duty, lock the doors and have a fun time on your vacation!”
“I will,” said Ed with a smile. “Good luck settling things with the lawyers!”
Mr. Bailey drooped slightly. “Yeah…thanks.”
Mr. Bailey slowly made his way out the front doors. “Mother’s right, I should’ve been a TV producer at Los Angeles,” he muttered before he left the restaurant.
Ed chuckled as he resumed mopping the floor. Going on a three-month vacation sounds fun…but what should I do? Where do I go? I never go on vacation before.
Ed continued to hum and mop as he was thinking of possible places he should go to, when all of a sudden, he heard a low humming sound. Ed stopped mopping and turned to see huge oval glowy purple portal right in front of him. Ed rubbed his eyes a bit to make sure he wasn’t seeing things but the portal was still there.
“Whoa…what was that?”
Ed put down his mop and he slowly approached the purple portal. When he was close enough, he couldn’t see anything from within the light. He slowly brings his arm close to the portal to touch it, when all of the sudden the portal began to shake violently. Ed tried to step back but something from the portal was pulling him towards the portal. With a shout, Ed was sucked into the portal and disappeared before the portal shrink out of existence.
–Somewhere in Equestria - 15 Minutes Earlier–
Inside the library section of the Castle of Friendship, a lone Alicorn mare was making a last few adjustments to the Crystal Mirror by using her flaming magical torch while wearing her safety goggles like a mad scientist. She was so focused on her task; she didn’t hear the door opened or small footsteps walking into the room.
“Hey Twilight, I bought you your lunch,” someone said from behind her.
Twilight, stopped using her torch, turned to the source and smiled at her number one assistant who was carrying a tray of hayburger, fries and a soda.
“Thank you Spike,” said Twilight as she removed the goggles from her eyes. “Those hayburgers smelled so good!”
Spike chuckled as he laid the tray down next to Twilight. “I swear Twilight, you’ve been eating those things for lunch every day now. Keep that up and we may have to make the front castle doors bigger for your sake.”
“Oh ha ha. Very funny Spike,” Twilight said sarcastically, rolling her eyes. “You’ll be in my position too if a certain guard who keeps insisting on the foods that you should eat.”
“Now don’t be too hard on him,” Spike said. “He was just looking out for you to stay healthy.”
“I get that Spike, I really do,” Twilight sighed. “But there’s a difference between a friendly reminder and being overkill. Monitoring and telling me what to eat and not to eat at every meal including snack time is definitely in the overkill category!”
Spike scratched his neck nervously. “Okay, so he may went a little overboard with his job. But still-”
“And it’s not just that, he pretty much runs my life!” Twilight vented. “I get that he’s my personal royal guard, but he’s taking his job a little too seriously and he had no respect of my personal boundaries. I just want him to back off a bit, isn’t that hard to ask!?”
Spike looked uncomfortable as he continued to scratch his neck. “Okay…he went way overboard with his job.” Spike then cleared his throat. “If Flash Sentry really bothered you that much, you should tell him what you feel.”
Twilight sighed dejectedly. “I tried many times Spike! He just won’t listen! I might as well be talking to a wall!”
“Why not send Cadence a letter requesting for a different guard,” Spike suggested.
Twilight frowned in thought.
During her visit to her niece’s Crystaling a few weeks back, she told her brother Shining Armor and her sister-in-law, Cadence about the time-jump incident with Starlight. Wanting to keep Twilight safe, Princess Cadence decided to send Flash Sentry to Twilight as her new royal guard to add security to Twilight’s castle. At first, Twilight was excited to work with him especially that she already met his human counterpart over at Sunset’s world. As the few days went by however, not only he’s not the same Flash Sentry as the human counterpart, but he was also ridiculously strait. Twilight knew that he is a good pony, she really did, but he took his job as a guard way too seriously. What irritates her was that he followed her almost everywhere she goes (except the filly’s room), speak to another pony on her behalf and he monitored every pony she talks to including her best friends. There is nothing more infuriating than not be able to talk to her friends with him around, but was it really enough to send him back to Cadence?
Twilight sighed. “I can’t do that to her Spike. She did all the trouble to send him here just for my sake. Requesting her to take him back would be like spitting her in the face and say “you’re gift doesn’t mean a thing to me.””
Spike patted Twilight on her shoulder. “Oh c’mon Twi, Cadence will never think like that. You just tell her that you appreciate her thoughts and then tell her what you told me how he’s acting. You’re happiness is more important to her than anything. She’ll understand.”
Twilight appeared to be thoughtful for a moment before she let out her sigh.
“You’re right Spike, but let me think about it for awhile before I made my decision.”
Spike nodded. “Fair enough.”
The two were silent for a while before Spike decided to change the topic. “So what is it that you’re working on Twi?”
Twilight perked up. “Well I’m glad you asked Spike!” She turned and pointed to the mirror behind her. “I was just finishing up making the last few adjustments to the Crystal Mirror.”
Spike starred at the mirror with interest. “Oh you mean the portal that we’ve used to visit Sunset and our human versions of our friends to another world?”
Twilight nodded. “Yes Spike, the very same.”
Spike turned to Twilight with his one eyebrow raised. “But why did you work on the mirror? Was it broken?”
Twilight shook her head. “No Spike, the mirror is fine. I was actually adding a new feature to the mirror before I can perform my experiment.”
“What kind of experiment?” Spike asked.
“It’s an experiment on finding out if there are other worlds and dimensions out there besides our own.” Twilight answered. “Ever since our first visit to Sunset’s world, I was very curious about it. But I never looked into it because the mirror belonged to Cadence at the time. But after Cadence gave the mirror to me, I studied the mirror for quite some time. The whole time-jumping event with Starlight is what finally gave me the answer! After I asked Starlight about Starswirl’s time spell, I modified it a bit with another type of magic so I can cast it on this mirror and make it as a viewing window for other dimensions.”
Spike starred at Twilight with a blank look on his face as he was processing what Twilight just said. “So in other words…you’re making the mirror as a television like from the human world except we’re watching other worlds and dimensions instead of just exploring it?”
“Exactly!” Twilight crowed. “I want to see what other worlds are like, but after what we’ve been through with Starlight, I think it’s best if we just observe them for our own safety.”
Spike rubbed his chin. “Yeah that makes sense. Have you tried it out yet?”
Twilight stood up. “I’m just about to. You wanna see?”
“Heck yeah I wanna see!” Spike cried enthusiastically.
Twilight giggled. “Okay Spike, but be sure to step back. This is my first attempt with this spell.”
Spike obeyed as Twilight lit up her horn and cast the spell on the mirror. The entire mirror engulfed in purple light with a hum before an image of a restaurant slowly appeared on the glass part of the mirror.
“Spike, it’s working!” Twilight exclaimed excitedly. “I can see an image of another world aside from Sunset’s!”
“Wow…that’s so cool!” Spike chimed in before scratching his chin. “Although the place looked a bit dark and gritty.”
“It’s probably because it’s in the middle of the night,” Twilight reasoned. “But I’ll admit, this world does look a bit less colorful than Sunset’s.”
Both Twilight and Spike then heard a hum from the other side. They watched as the mirror slowly shifted towards the source of the noise to see a bipedal creature wearing a blue and white stripe uniform with long thin black deadlocks and white with blue line bus boy hat mopping the floor, humming all the while. Both the Alicorn and the baby dragon widen the eyes in awe.
“Fascinating…” Twilight breathed. “So must be one of the creatures who lived in that world. He looked exactly like our humans friends that are with Sunset, but he also looked different from them too!”
“You think maybe there are other creatures just like him in his world?” Spike asked softly, never taking his eyes off of the mirror.
“It's a strong possibly Spike,” said Twilight with an exciting look on her face. “But we only just begun! Who knows what else we could find in that world or many other worlds for us to discover!” Twilight closed her eyes and let out her geeky squeal. “So many possibilities!”
Spike shook his head in amusement before he stopped when he spotted that same creature who was slowly approaching towards them.
“Um…Twilight,” Spike said nervously. “I think he’s coming towards us!”
Twilight opened her eyes and nearly gasped when she saw the creature stood right in front of them, trying to see through the portal.
“That’s…that’s impossible!” she spluttered. “He…he shouldn’t hear or see us! How can he?”
Their eyes widen in horror as the creature slowly reached out towards them.
“He’s gonna touch the portal! I must shut this down!” Twilight said in her panicky tone as she hastily summed her power on her horn.
Spike gasped. “Twilight calm dow-”
Spike never got the chance to finish when the mirror bright in a harsh light and the room began to shake. The vortex appeared out of the mirror and was blowing around the room violently like a hurricane. Spike tried to hold on to one of the bookshelves for his dear life while Twilight was struggling with her magic.
“What’s happening?” Spike screamed.
“I don’t know! Twilight shouted. “My magic is out of control! I can’t stop it!”
“You have to try!” Spike yelled. “If this keeps up, this vortex is going to destroy Equestria!”
With a grunt, Twilight use full power on her horn and her eyes changed to bright white as she was focusing on the vortex. Very slowly, she shrink the portal down to keep it from spreading. She heard a shout but she’s too focused on taking care of the vortex to take a look. After a minute of struggling, Twilight finally shrink the portal down until it disappeared from site. Twilight eyes became normal again and she collapsed to the ground breathing heavily.
“That was close!” Twilight said in between breaths. “If we haven’t closed it, there’s no telling what would happen! I think we may have hold off on the mirror experiment for the time being.”
While Twilight was recovering, she heard Spike gasped behind him.
“Um Twilight…I think we have a problem here!”
Just as Twilight was about to ask what sort of problem, Twilight looked up and gasped at what she saw. There in front of him was that creature they been observing for a few minutes from another world, was out cold on his back right in front of them.
Twilight eyes widen. “Oh sweet Celestia!”