Cause, Effect, and Consequences

by Coltsguy

What Really Grinds My Gears

Other than Discord having someone to mess with and Rarity getting some time to, well I'm just going to call it preening, nobody was really happy about taking off the two days it required for both Eris and me to recharge our magic to adequate levels. For me, it was fully charged, but for Eris it was sixty two percent. We had finally figured out that one charge for me was thirty percent exactly of her total capacity of magic reserves. It was really nice to have actual numbers to go off of. Still, while not fully charged it was enough for Discord to boot me out of the house... with a rain made of actual, muddy boots. He had better have cleaned that up before I got back. I suppose since he was the authority on chaos magic I had no argument to make about it.

Thus, I went around to round up everyone I needed to come with me. That ended up being a group of six instead of three as they only seemed to travel in a herd. I would have argued about it, but I also would've lost. Friendship is magic remember? We were headed to the train station for round two when I realized that I still wanted no part of that train if I didn't need to. Instead I simply teleported us all back to the rifts. Results and reactions were very different from each other.

"A little warning next time!" Rainbow Dash yelled at me.

"Agreed," both Applejack and Rarity said in unison. Yeah, I found that funny later.

"And why did you bring that camera with you?" Twilight asked.

"You think I'm going to miss another chance at getting to photograph some of the coolest beings I've ever dreamt of meeting? Not a chance. I mean, the next place I'm going to with Rarity isn't because it's essentially Equestria with a different human in it. The other two would essentially have me acting like a kid in a candy store. Or whatever personal indulgence fantasy you all might have. You understand right?"

Mine would probably involve naked, sexy women like that night Twilight and Discord walked in on me. Weird night that was. Nice, but weird. I'm not sure what Pinkie's was but by the look on her face it must have been decadent. The drool was a bit much though. I gave Fluttershy, who was right next to me, a slight nudge.

"By that face, I bet you could take that as a yes."

She gave me a a quick chuckle and I felt quite victorious.

"Anyways, I don't know if it's a good idea to bring along a camera given that you've been broken already," Twilight commented.

"Well, I'll probably leave it here for this next one, but I really feel like getting some pictures of the last two. I did tell you that Goku was a personal hero of mine right?"

Twilight let out a resigned sigh before nodding.

"I suppose I understand."

Nodding to her, I took the camera from around my neck and placed it around Twilight's.

"Don't fiddle with it please."

Twilight responded with an eyeroll. I let out a chuckle and fished Eris out of my pocket. I motioned to Rarity and the two of us walked over to the rift.

"Ready Rarity?"

"Of course I am darling. Let's get going before all of this dry air messes up my mane again."

On that note, I reached out and let the familiar light take us to our next destination. Said destination looked like the exact same alley that I arrived in last time... Actually, putting effort into my memory spell made me realize that it was the exact same alley I arrived in previously. What the hell were the odds of that happening?

"Well? Are we just going to stand around all day?" Rarity asked.

"I get the message," I said playfully. "I just need to make us invisible."

I reached over to do so, but was surprised as she swatted away my hand.

"Just what do you think you're doing?"

"Turning us... invisible?" I asked tentatively.

"I will not have you messing up all of the hard work I put into making my mane look this fabulous."

I wanted to say something but that just left me dumbfounded. Yeah it was, I suppose, justified from her point of view. All I could think of was how inconvenient that made things. I did come up with an idea fairly quick.

"Well, I need physical contact to render you invisible. Would you rather have me touching your horn then?"

"I'd rather not. Why would I need to hide anyway? I know why you wouldn't want to be seen, but I shouldn't have to hide myself."

That sounded more insulting than it probably actually was so I let it slide.

"The reason is that there is another Rarity running around out there. If you two end up in the same place the pe- ponies will start getting worried about changelings being around or some other bad possibility running through their heads. In case you haven't noticed, you all for the most part tend to overreact to strange circumstances."

"I'm not sure I like what you're insinuating. Besides, what are the odds of running into the Rarity from here anyway?"

As if the lords of irony had heard her, I noticed at the mouth of the alley the whole set of the main characters plus Spike walk by. That included the extra main character of this story, Lucien. Unlike the other seven, he jogged slightly into the alley and stared down the corridor. Since I was paying attention already, I managed to go invisible before he spotted me. At least I believe so from the confused-looking glances he was giving the entire area. I was just lucky he couldn't see past the crates to spot Rarity or things might have gotten hairy. Yeah, he could see magic if I remembered correctly, and I definitely could if I chose to, but I doubt if he could tell the differences between most ponies if he didn't look closely enough. After looking as though he knew he wouldn't find what he was looking for, he moved back out of the alley to presumably catch up to the others.

"Irony, thy name is Rarity."

"Yes, I believe you've made your point. I suppose you can touch my horn, but be careful."

I complied with her request and touched her horn to turn her invisible. With that settled, I took a look at Eris and we set off towards the rift. The location of which was in the same direction as the locals were moving in. The eight of them, not all the locals I mean. I didn't notice when they passed by before, but they looked to be carrying luggage with them. I guess they were headed up to the castle for a bit of a stay.

The group seemed to be having a nice, amicable chat with one another as they traveled the same route we were headed in. I made sure to keep a fair distance between us since I was not sure if he could sense me if I came closer. My invisibility may have worked so far, but that didn't mean that it could keep me off his radar from a lesser distance. Said distance was too far to hear anything they said so I merely traveled along with Rarity looking at them intently.

"I do find it rather odd to see, well, me, chatting with my friends. Even if they aren't my friends. You understand what I'm trying to say right?"

"Yeah. Alternate realities can have that effect on anybody that isn't used to it. That Rarity is, as far as I know, exactly like you. The difference is that instead of meeting me she met Lucien; a mage from Earth. He's learned proper spell theory and application over many years unlike my cobbled together education on the subject that altogether has taken around a week or two. Compared to me, his life has been enormously more interesting than mine."

"Is there a point to this somewhere?"

"Things are different is what I'm talking about. This Rarity is friends with a seasoned mage. You, on the other hand, are stuck with me. A chaos infused dump of a man who squandered the many opportunities of his life and has a Pepsi addiction that he can't rid himself of."

On cue, I created a glass of Pepsi, gulped it down, and uncreated the empty glass.

"You don't need to be so hard on yourself you know. I don't think things are too bad for you right now are they?"

"It's temporary. In a few weeks Celestia will be sending me back home and if I'm lucky I'll get to keep the magic I have now. Magic that I'll need to keep hidden as there is no such thing on Earth as far as I know. I know I'll be back to the same life I had before all of this. It's not like-"

I was cut off as something weird happened. It looked as though the light everywhere dimmed significantly for a moment before going back to normal. The group we were following didn't seem to notice it, though. I didn't see anyone else around notice it either. Then again, I didn't see anyone else around period.

Wait just a second. Why wasn't there anyone else around? This was Canterlot. There were ponies around all the time during the day. It wasn't just me who thought this was strange either. They all seemed to come to a stop as well. Ooooh! Somebody has a shiny new sword. Nice little invisibility trick of his own-

Wait a second. This was feeling familiar. I was trying to figure it out as he dashed off into the empty stalls and tents. I tapped into the little memory spell again as Rarity spoke up.

"What's going on? Where is everypony?"

Then it clicked. I knew exactly what time I had arrived for. A bad time.

"We need to get to cover right now."

Rarity complied easily enough as the two of us ducked into a small stall selling some lemons and kept out eyes on the scene before us.

"We can't interfere in what's about to happen. It could mess things up badly."

"You know what's going on here?"

There was a sharp whine as some speakers kicked to life.

"Twilight Sparkle," a slightly loud voice came from some speakers that sounded as though they were interspersed in the area.

"Here," the mare responded clearly enough for us to hear. "Who are you and what do you want? Did you clear out the marketplace?"

"Your questions will be answered when you answer mine," the voice stated as the speaker cut off with a click after she finished.

"What's going on, and where's Lucien?"

"That is what is happening," I said a little worriedly.

Seconds later, everyone there picked up on a sound. It was a small whistling sound. The kind that you hear on t.v. when a bomb is falling. And I knew it was a bomb falling. Just not the normal kind.

"Everyone get down!"

Everyone, except for me, complied as they all ducked down in anticipation. Well, Twilight didn't. She moved in front of her friends and created a shield for them just as something impacted the ground in a grassy area a little bit away from them. I noticed Lucien do the same and I followed suit by placing a half dome shield in front of Rarity and myself. It was a good thing too as bits of debris went everywhere after impact. My shield held just fine despite the shockwave that went out. I waited a little bit and then cursed as I released the shield. I really hoped that he was hyper-focused on the dust cloud and didn't sense my magic.

"What was that?" Rarity asked in a bit of shock.

"They're about to get into a bit of a fight with someone," I replied as I tried to see through the cloud.

I then smacked myself as I activated my infrared vision. I guess it did come in handy. Lucien was slowly ambling through the cloud and didn't see the cylinder in front of him before he whacked his foot into it. He then waved his hands and the dust blew away for the most part. Noticing this, I switched back to my regular vision as he looked at the device that he had inadvertently kicked.

He only had a few seconds to take it in before it began to move. As it did, he put a shield around the gizmo presumably to contain it if it did go off. I knew better, but he wasn't working with the knowledge that I was. I watched as pieces fell off of it and noticed that the rest of the group made it over to his side to take their own look at the device. Unfortunately, they also obstructed the view I had on it.

That kept me from seeing it go off initially. Not for too long, though, as a small shockwave of electricity flowed out of it knocking down everyone around it. The small wave kept going for a small ways until it passed by our spot in the stall. Crouching as I was, it sent me stumbling down on my ass with a bit of a pained plop.

...Pained plop? I looked down and noticed something very bad. I had become visible again. I looked over and noticed Rarity had as well. The tattoo on my hand was gone as well.

I had no magic again.

Author's Note:

A big thank you to Sandcroft for once again letting me use Ungrounded as part of my story once again.

Comments

[Lucien Chance]

Aww yiss.

[Hairy Rainbowish Thingy]

Sad that ungrounded is cancelled
I would have read it if it wasn't the case

Good chapter

[Coltsguy]

6715093 Eh, there's always hope that it'll get uncancelled. The author is a nice guy and is a fan of this story.