The Unicorn and the Warlock

by Isaac_Eely

Catch That Pony

Chapter 1: Catch that Pony

The air was filled with the sound of busy ponies. It was the height day, and ponies were swarming to the market district, exchanges were flying around like-

“OOOOOHF... I'm so sorry ma'am, I wasn't paying attention,”

“That's all right, I guess I wasn't really looking either,” as the mare picked herself off the ground, she got a good look at the colt who ran into her. He was tombstone gray, with a jet-black mane and tail, deep emerald eyes, and... noticeably short, like her height short. Yet, everything else told her that he was indefinitely a fully grown earth-pony stallion. She couldn't tell if it was just her, but she was getting a strange vibe from him.

She finally realized they've been staring at each other for over a minute, “Anyway, it's okay, I wasn't really looking either,” this seemed to break the colt out of his trance as well,

“And again, my apologies miss,” he started walking off breaking the awkward moment between them, at this point she noticed a thick black stripe running from his mane all the way down to his tail, and his cutie mark was an open book with a neon blue fountain coming from it- wait a moment,

He didn't get too far when a pink earth-pony jumped out in front of him and held her hoof out, “Hi! I'm Pinkie Pie and that was Twilight that you just bumped into and I've never seen you before so you must be new in town so whats your name?” she ended her babel with a perky smile with her hoof still held out.

“H-hi, I'm S-” as he made contact with Pinkie's hoof he was greeted with a shock so powerful, that his skeleton was flashing through his body.

After five whole seconds, he flew backwards about two feet, landing on his bottom, “Oops, I guess I had it on 'show your skeleton' level,” she said, as she turned the notch down on the hoof buzzer until it said 'surprising shock' instead.

She looked up just in time to notice a ball of black energy heading toward her, just barely able to react to it with a sloppy dodge-jump to the side.

When she recovered, she noticed a black aura covered book floating in front of the earth-pony she just pranked- wait a minute, a book magically floating in front of an earth-pony? “I would like an immediate, and quite heartfelt apology from you, or next time I won't miss,” he growled, but his anger quickly turned into confusion as he noticed that Pinkie's look wasn't fear, but pure astonishment, he quickly looked over to see Twilight completely saucer-eyed and mouth totally agape.

“Hay Pinkie, what's the crowd for- what the buck?!” Rainbow Dash flew in, only to be greeted by the same strange sight that the small crowd was staring at.

Some strange force told the earth-pony to look down, only to notice his levitating book as well. In an instant, he closed the book and stuffed it in his saddlebag, “well, I'd best be going,” he said nervously, turned tail and galloped off in the opposite direction,

“Twilight?”

“Yes Rainbow?”

“What did I just see?”

“An earth-pony using magic... and he's getting away... don't just stand there you two, we gotta' catch that pony!” she yelled at the top of her lungs.

Without any hesitation, Dash took flight and started chasing the strange colt, Twilight and Pinkie weren’t too far behind. The rest of the crowd started to awkwardly dispersed, muttering to each other.

---

Well, well, this pegesus is quite fast, the strange colt thought to himself as he was racing down the streets, and if I'm correct, she'll do a dive to try and catch me, his prediction was dead on as Dash started the subtle motions indicating a dive maneuver, well rainbow mare, you'll see that I'm not exactly an easy catch, he snickered as he pulled his book from his bag and started channeling a spell,

Dash committed to the dive, but something was wrong, over half way through the dive the colt disappeared in a big flash. Unable to recover she face-planted into the road bringing her to a dead, and quite cartoon cliché, stop, “OOOOOOOWWWWW,” was the only noise she could make as she picked herself up and spit the dirt out of her mouth.

“Rainbow, are you okay?” Twilight asked as her and Pinkie caught up with their
friend,

“Yeah, just have a splitting headache now,” she replied rubbing her head, “what just happened?” she asked as Pinkie helped her off the ground

“Well, by the feel of it, he telaported,”

“Wait, what do you mean by the feel of it?” came Rainbow's sudden and strangely sharp question,

“Well, um,” Twilight stuttered, startled by Rainbow's sudden frustration, “when a unicorn telaports, a small disturbance is created in the planets magnetic field, creating a sort of energy rift you can say,”

Rainbow, being her, barely understood a word she said and ended up cocking her head to the side, netting a sigh from Twilight, “Simply put-”

“Hey Rarity! Hey Fluttershy!” Pinkie yelled out cutting Twilight completely off and bringing in their other friends,

“Why hello darling, may I ask what happened to dear Rainbow? there's a noticeable lump on her head,”

“Yeah, I was just a little curious too... if you don't mind that is,”

Before Pinkie could go on some rambling spiel, Twilight butted in, “To put this simply, we were chasing this strange pony, but he telaported right as Rainbow was about to catch him and, well, this it what you see here,” she pointed her hoof to the scene of Fluttershy inspecting Rainbow's head,

“Curious, what exactly made this pony you were chasing 'weird?'”

“He an earth-pony,” was Twilight's flat reply,

“Owe!” Rainbow blurted as Fluttershy fumbled,

Rarity stepped back, eye's like moons, mouth agape,

“Exactly, now I have sort-of a plan, but I'll need all of you for it to work,”

---

Twilight's friends were off in their designated positions leaving her all by her lonesome, “All right magical earth-pony time to find out where your hiding,” she said as she channeled her magic. Her eye's suddenly lit up, allowing her vision to dull out the background until everything was simple shades of gray, and the buildings were simplistic shapes. But, as the background was dulling out, a strange white grid of energy started forming. The grid was pretty uniform, except for the out of place rift near where Rainbow crashed, “Aha! There you are- wait,” something caught her eye, This isn't a rift, she thought to herself, this is a rip, a rip in dimentions, as if he went through a small wormhole, fascinating! Just the idea of a pony doing this filled her mind with questions. She followed the rip for about three blocks before she got that strange vibe again, “He's close, I can feel it,” she muttered to herself, slowly creeping through the ally where the vibe was coming from.

Her vision suddenly started going haywire, jammer spell, she canceled her vision spell just in time to see a tombstone flank disappearing around the corner on the other end of the ally, “oh no you don't!” she yelled out channeling for a telaport.

This put her right next to the colt, literally running out of the telaport, “Well your the persistent little one are you!” yelled the colt

“Your an unexplained phenomenon! All I want to do is ask you some questions!” Twilight yelled back,

“Sorry, but I'm not gonna' answer those 'questions'!” he yelled for a final time before grabbing his book and started channeling for a telaport,

Twilight was ready this time with the vision spell, as soon as he disappeared she teleported in suit following the rift. When she got there though, he wasn't there, no vibe, no nothing, then it hit her, he doubled back, as soon as the thought ran across her mind she teleported back to her origin point,

As soon as she got there though, she saw the earth-pony in the distance. She responded with a teleport putting her right back with him, surprising the colt,

He teleported again, Twilight following him in near sync, this time though, he hit a dead end. The ally they were in was blocked off by a tall fence, “All right strange earth-pony, end of the line,” she said with confidence, because across the street her friends were guarding the gate to the park,

“That's... only... what you think,” the colt panted, the use of magic combined with the running obviously tiring him out, but he still started channeling a spell, this time though it wasn't a teleport. No, instead his body started phasing, splitting into two ponies, then four, then eight, multiplying until he it 32.

Twilight stammered back beyond amazed at what she was seeing, “but, how-” was the only thing she got out before she heard

“CHARRRRGE!” all the colt clones were galloping out of the ally, Twilight just having enough time to turn around and run away, it was too late though as one of the colts was gaining on her. She screamed as she thought she was going to be trampled by this heard but, as the colt clone made contact it just disappeared, fizzled away, like it was nothing.

She turned around and sat there as a couple more hit her and disappeared, these aren’t clones, they're shadow copies!

The other four at the gate were all trying to process that a heard of colt clones were heading toward them, all of them completely floored by what they were seeing. The trance was broken as soon as all clones started to channel magic, and in a bid flash, nothing happened, “Uh Rainbow,” Fluttershy tugged on her friend's leg getting her attention,

“Yes, Flutters?”

“I counted twenty-seven, there was only twenty-six after the flash,” the words triggered a response from Dash, as she looked behind her to see the colt running across the park,

“Ah, HELL NO!” she cried as she took off at rainboom level speed.

She was catching up to him fast, and before she knew it, she made contact, knocking the book away and digging a near three-hundred foot long trench while in the process of stopping. Dash got up a bit dazed, but okay, the colt on the other hand looked like he conked out, “Bawhahahahaha, not so tough are ya',” Dash's laughter though was suddenly cut short as a hoof made contact with her face, the force greater than her hitting the ground at 20+ mph, “you can preen my feathers now Mommy,” was the last thing she said before hitting the ground with a big *THUD*,

“Hmph! Amateurs,” the colt jeered as dusted himself off , “EEEEYOOOOWW!” his right foreleg was broken, most likely from impact.

As he pick himself off the ground, he balanced himself on his three good legs, “Wait, where's my book?” he frantically hobbled around, looking for his precious cargo,

This was abruptly cut short when a lasso found its way around the colt's legs, and cinched up before he could react, “YAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH,” his leg obviously not taking it well,

“Haha, gotcha' ya little rascal,” cheered Applejack as she ran up and started to hog-tie him,

“Thank Faust you got here when you did Applejack,” said Twilight as she and the rest of the gang caught up with their friend, “we've been trying to catch this pony for a while now,”

“Ah, it's nuthin' sugarcube, I was wonderin' why there was a heard of the exact same pony myself- hey, stop yer moanin' and whinin' it don't hurt that bad,” she scolded the tide-up colt,

“My... leg is... broken... rope... not... helping,”

“Applejack,” Fluttershy butted in, “his right foreleg is all swollen, I think he's telling the truth,”

“Ah, well I'm sorry sugarcube, I had no clue you were already hurt,” Applejack apologized as she hastily untied the colt,

The colt responded with another painful groan as rope loosened its grip, and as she took it away, Twilight walked up with his book, “Hey, that's mine!”

“Nope, not until you answer my questions,” Twilight bit back at the colt, her magical grip firmly on the book. “First of all,” she started, “what's your name?”

“You can call me Pageheart,” he growled,

“Okay, 'Pageheart', how are you able to use magic while being an earth-pony-”

“I am NOT an earth-pony!” he fired, catching all the ponies off guard,

“Ok-kay...” Twilight stuttered, gathering her thoughts again, “then what are you?”

“Oh dear Faust, isn't it obvious?!” all the ponies shook their heads, “the stripe, the magical book, I'm a bucking warlock!”

“Excuse me Pageheart, but what is a warlock? aside from the obvious,” Twilight carefully questioned,

“But... I... Okay, where am I, 'cause this ain't Warlynnsburg, and whats the date?”

“Well to answer your first question: you're in Ponyville, and I've never heard of a 'Warlynnsburg', second: It's August, 6, 2010, uhh Pageheart?”

The look on Pageheart's face was pure astonishment to say the least, as if his mind was trying to process the information, “I'M 1,200 YEARS IN THE FUTURE?!” was the only sensible thing that came out of his mouth.