8-Bit Pony

by Dawn Flower

32.

“Wow, it feels like we’ve been standing here for months.” Fighter said. “Eleven months to be exact.”

“Fighter, it’s been five minutes.” Pinkie corrected him.

While this exchange was going on, Twilight simply stood there, reading the spell from the book hovering in front of her face, between her and everyone else in the room, ignoring everything that the others were saying. She just knew that if she stopped to acknowledge anything they said, it would just lead off on a tangent (her eye twitched) and waste more time.

Having had enough of everyone’s weirdness, and not wanting to face more of everyone’s random outbursts and just move things along and get rid of these two, she decided not to speak up first and simply lowered the book from in front of her face, quickly charged up the spell in her horn and shot it straight at Black Mage.

The purple beam that shot out of her horn zoomed towards him at high speeds, striking him before he could react. As soon as the spell made contact, it suddenly produced a large purple cloud that completely enveloped him and blocked everything around him, including all of the others in the room from sight.

Five seconds later, the cloud faded, revealing Black Mage just standing there like he had been before the spell had hit him, not having moved an inch, as if nothing had happened at all.

After the cloud had completely faded, BM looked from side to side for a moment, wondering what just happened. “Well, it looks like Twilight’s little plan failed. I for one am shocked,” Black Mage said sarcastically.

“It didn’t work,” Rainbow Dash spoke up, next to him. She then turned to face Twilight. “How come it didn’t work?” She asked.

“I’m not sure,” Twilight responded, with a confused look on her face, and floating the book back up in front of her face again. “It says right here that this spell can be used to send somepony to another dimension. I executed it flawlessly, so why didn’t it work?”

Before they could think further on this, the door to the room opened up. Turning towards the door to see who it was, they saw an earth pony stallion, tugging a cart filled with books behind him. “Hey, there. I brought you some more books,” he said. “Where do you want’em?”

Turning away from the book again to face this stallion, and before anyone could say anything, Twilight simply lit up her horn again and shot the spell at this pony. This time, when the spell hit him, the pony was shocked into the air for a moment, like when cartoon characters get struck by lightning, and the next moment, there was a bright flash and both he and the cart of books were gone.

Staring back at the sight of what she had just done, Twilight brought her hoof to her mouth in thought. “Hmmm,” she said, assessing the situation. “From what it said in the book, and the results of our two experiments, it looks like the spell only works on ponies. Huh.” She stated matter-of-factly, before returning her attention to the book once again.

A moment later, her eyes suddenly snapped open, doing a double take, as she suddenly realised what just happened. With a horrified look on her face, she ran over to the spot where the stallion had disappeared, where there was now just a large scorch mark on the floor. “No!” She screamed out as loud as she could, the reality of what had just happened suddenly caught up with her. “My books!” She added.

Staring at Twilight, now curled up on the floor in the fetal position, sobbing softly, Fighter leaned over to whisper to Pinkie. “So is this more of her out-of-character behaviour that she’s apparently been showing more and more of ever since both me and Black Mage showed up?”

Turning her head to look at Fighter as he spoke, Pinkie then turned her attention back to Twilight, and brought a hoof to her mouth in thought, looking contemplative. A moment later, she lowered her hoof again and beamed brightly. “Actually, that’s pretty in character for her.”

Meanwhile, in a void universe.

The earth pony stallion from before suddenly appeared in a flash of light, now floating in a dark nothingness that seemed to stretch on forever.

Quickly looking from side to side, taking in his new surroundings, seeing the infinite nothingness around him, registering what just happened, his eyes then immediately fell down half way. “This so isn’t worth 7.50 an hour.” He deadpanned.

Author's Note:

Fighter: Well, at least it wasn’t a year… that’s something, right?