A Primer on Magic

by SuperTaster

Chapter 3: Godzilla

“Why would you do something like that?” Twilight’s angry voice was a common feature these days, but the guards assumed that there was good reason behind it. In any case, it was none of their business until it was their business, and so the armistice continued.

“I promised, did I not? I’d change everything back before Celestia arrived. There’s no reason to be mad at me for being thorough.” Discord was currently pruning his fingernails with garden clippers, for he found he liked the sharp edges they created. Practicality in all things made for a much easier lifestyle.

“She had been normalized! Equestrianized!” This was a new word, though the dictionary writers would throw a fit if she tried to make it a running thing. “You can’t just send someone like that back home!”

The conversation was interrupted by the double doors of the hallway opening, and a white alicorn walking in. She spoke regally, though with a hint of ‘this can’t end well’ in her face, as the chimera floated her way. “Ah! Princess Celestia. I trust your trip was… bountiful?”

“Only good children get souvenirs, Discord. Does that include you?” Oh but of course! Discord had already prepared the week’s entertainment, and the princess didn’t even need to ask!
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Sam had not actually fallen asleep by the time she hit the ground, but she saw no reason to correct the soldiers in their mistake. Already she had learned to dislike the idea of darts in her neck, and a course of action to avoid similar greetings seemed to be rather wise. In any case, she felt quite well staying still, and the drugs made her feel utterly awful when she tried to move, so taking a quick break from the hustle and bustle of current affairs was not in all a bad thing.

Besides, the soldiers did not seem to want to harm her. They had an alien in their grasp, and now was not the time to panic! Sam knew all about what was coming next: this was the part of the movie where the monster was thrown into a tiny cage… and had needles shoved up her butt… and…

Huh. Maybe getting caught wasn’t the best idea.

The ride, at least, was uneventful. They kept her tightly tied to a gurney of sorts, which wasn’t all that pleasing given the magnitude of speed bumps between them and their destination. In any case, her dreams involved great deals of flying haphazardly, crashing into things, and the general sorts of bizarre gravity antics that came with sleeping in a moving vehicle. Physics made for odd dreams indeed.

Sam was pleasantly surprised to find that when she awoke, the tiny cage was nowhere in sight. She had been thrown in a large metal room, that reminded her of something out of a police procedural. Surely voyeurs were watching every little move she made, as if this was a hot new reality show that she was forced to model in. Still, she was tired, and cranky, and they hadn’t bothered to remove the dart from her neck, as if they had better things to do. Presidents to call, book deals to set up, and so forth. The speech necklace was gone, though she didn’t mind too much. There was little need to talk to ponies here, or at the very least, the ponies were invisible, and simply playing a practical joke on her. It was not out of the question, given recent events.

It was in such a state that she was pleased to find visitors entering her viewing room. Two soldiers, complete with shaky assault rifles, and someone who looked vaguely important. Sam was not sure about the specifics of military uniforms, but there were enough shiny parts on his that there must have been some merit to his station.

Colonel O’Hare was a beleaguered human; not old in most of the usual fashions, though you wouldn’t know it by listening to him. He had long since learned that the meaning of life was in herding deranged lunatics so as to be insane in a productive fashion. This was his job, and he was frighteningly good at it, though he would prefer not to have to be.

He stared at the sphinx, with an air of muted excitement. It had taken 20 years, but finally someone had bothered to give him something interesting to look at. This was clearly a mistake, and the chance would be taken away as soon as human resources noticed, but he would be sure to make the most of his time. Sam, for her part, was having none of it. “Do you mind?”

The soldiers panicked. The monster had upgraded to an intelligent monster, and they knew what happened to rank-and-file soldiers in these sorts of movies. In any case, they only had to outrun their commanding officer, and Hollywood had prepared them well for this exercise. Alas, such was not to be.

“I locked the door behind us, you shit-for-brains. Whatever happened to being ‘the best of the best, sir’?” Humiliated, and realizing more was to come around the mess hall that night, the soldiers returned to their charge. “Now, to what do I owe the honor?”

Sam gave him a look, as a child might stare longingly at a toy he is not allowed to have. “If this is an honor, then you have frighteningly low expectations, sir.” She sighed, and plopped down on the ground. It was cold, and she quickly regretted this mistake, but tried to act more dignified than she was actually capable of. “It’s been a long week.”
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The colonel left some time later, both to pretend to write a report, and to try to recall where he had hidden the better half of his liquor supply. The mythical creature was not an alien, but rather the victim of a rather immature one, who was supposed to be able to come back to pick her up at any given time. He did not intend to tell anyone of this, because that would just be worrying. In fact, he had not gotten around to telling himself this, to which Sam might have been considered to be rubbing off on those around her. He would tell his Whiskey first. It had always been there for him, even if it was an abusive relationship.

He briefly pondered following the eating habits of the sphinx, for she had declared a dire need for pizza and beer, in lieu of eating one of the cowardly soldiers. Alcohol was not allowed on the base unless you were of sufficient rank to have plausible deniability. Colonel O’Hare enjoyed being such a figure, but even he could not share with his test subjects without arousing suspicion. Such were the unspoken rules and regulations of modern military bureaucracy.

A day passed, and still the colonel had not returned to ascertain the finer points of questions such as “are we all to die in our beds”, and “who names their kid Discord?”. Sam was starting to get bored, and while the pizza was good, it had long since gone cold.

It was at this moment that the air erupted in violent sparks, threatening to set anything flammable ablaze. The room would not mind, but Sam had recently increased in this category, and thus was sorely afraid. The appearance of a purple pony out of the magical storm did not alleviate these fears, only shifting them to different, more worrying questions.

“Ah! There you are, Sam. We got worried when you suddenly disappeared on us.” Twilight was wearing multiple different necklaces on her, presumably each for some sort of mysterious effect. The only recognizable one was the same shape and sigil as the speech necklace, though with a red gem instead of green(as if the color was of vital importance). Another was a plain gold scarab, and the last was glowing red and green like Christmas, though Twilight at least did not seem to think it explosive.

“Twilight, I really don’t think this is the best time.”

“Huh? What do you mean?” She started to ponder the situation, but was quickly distracted by the scenery. “Oh wow! Look at this metalwork! This is, just… how long would it take to make something like this?”

“Twilight.”

“There aren’t even anvil marks, and it’s perfectly flat. This is like a mirror!”

“Twilight!”

“Huh? Oh, yes, what were you saying? Sorry, I kinda…” The princess’ explanations were cut short by the steel wall sliding open with several loud thunks. Multiple reinforcement bars fell out of the way as a group of four or five guards charged in, pointing their guns at them.

“Oh! Hello there.”

The guards, for their part, were not impressed with this friendliness. “Oh god, they’re multiplying!”

“This one’s a horse!”

“What do we do?”

Twilight looked confused. These men were not here to greet them, and were quite terrified of her. Never in her life had people managed to be terrified of her, especially when they were almost twice her size. It was a new one, and she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to feel proud of it. Lacking a reasonable response from anyone nearby, Sam would have to intervene.

“CAN’T WE JUST BE FRIENDS?!”

They all stopped and stared at the sphinx. Sam thought of taking the leftover pizza and shoving it at everyone, to reinforce this demand for kind deliberation. However, it was quite cold, and partially stale, and so diplomacy would have to be carried out on an empty stomach.

Bootsteps came from down the hall, accompanied by a mildly hung over O’Hare. “No no, don’t stop now. This is just getting good.” He stopped, stared at the situation, and not entirely sure why everyone was terrified of a purple pony, cast a look that demanded that everyone present reconsider their station in life. “Put those down, men. If there was a reason to start shooting, it would be very obvious. Do you see Godzilla anywhere?”

They had to admit they did not, but given the sudden appearance of this new arrival, it was not entirely out of the question. Sam, meanwhile, had learned from her previous lesson about unintended poses, and so kept her paws right where they were, rather than use the situation to make a “Rawr, Godzilla!” joke.
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The guards proved to be very unruly children, and so were told to go find something more productive to do. If Twilight was to secretly be a xenomorph and tear O’Hare limb from limb, then it would be his fault and they could all have a good laugh about it later. Having ascertained that she was neither a facehugger nor this supposed Discord jokester, they got down to more pleasing business.

“And the culprit is unlikely to cause any more trouble?”

“As best we can manage. Keeping someone like that entertained is a difficult prospect, but we assured him that you were all very boring.”

“That would probably be for the best. You can understand if we’d like to have more… productive talks.” Intra-dimensional warfare, while great fun for the kiddies and merchandisers, was not a keen prospect for such an armchair colonel as O’Hare. Regardless, he was unprepared for Twilight’s enthusiasm.

“Oh yes. Yes! There’s so much we can learn from each other. I was a little confused when Sam started saying you didn’t have magic, but the technology to compensate!” She had started to float in the air slightly, and Sam calmly placed a paw on her head and forced it downward.

O’Hare pondered. “Is that necessarily a problem?” Neither side wanted to be primitive, though they each were in their own special way.

“Well looking at it in person… how to describe… it’s not like you CAN’T do magic, it’s more that nothing’s really connected.” Now the colonel was the one getting giddy. Christmas had come early, and was threatening to give even more presents to make him shut up about it. “It’s like a spider web. You have spiders, right?”

“Unfortunately.” He’d never liked the buggers. Too many legs, and no sense of personal space.

“Well! Spiderwebs. The silk itself isn’t all that interesting just lying around. But when you tie it between things, and start connecting them, you get a web that you can use. Magic is much the same way.”

“And you’re saying that the silk, the energy is there, but it’s not doing anything.”

“Right! We’d just need to build magical connections between people and things, and they’d be able to use magic to further the process, and so forth!” Already the epidemiology formulae were bouncing through her head, as if magic were akin to the common cold. Now O’Hare was sure of himself. Christmas had not come early. Rather, it had graciously invited him into its home, told him that he would get to be Santa, and was in charge of deciding just how much holiday cheer Earth would be having this year.

It was to be a good year, god dammit, and no one was gonna stop him.

Comments

[nighters]

would we really act like that so irrationally and stupid in fear that kind of behavior get politic mad at the military for being rash idiots i know they could of handle that better personally. meh ponies colorful ponies who goes monster at cute really? way to many monster movies if you ask me.