Virtual Mischief, Augmented Darkness

by chaoticevl

Virtual Mischief

Virtual Mischief

Thomas sits down at his desk with his lunch and begins to go over the data VAR picked up as he went through the first episode. “So let’s see here the episode was twenty two minutes long. Really that short, the party scene felt like it was a good thirty minutes long as it was. That’s weird as hell.” Finishing up his sandwich, Thomas starts looking over the files on the disc.

“Okay episode 1 is about 400 megs, that’s not too out of the normal for twenty two minute episode. Moving on, let’s see episode 2 is,” Thomas brought up the properties of the second file “1.2 gigs. What!? That makes no sense!” Stunned at its size, Thomas decides to check it with a more standard video player. Opening the video up in a movie player, he quickly looks at the time stamps.

“Twenty Two minutes long, that’s as it should be. Could they have encoded this one differently? I guess that could explain it, but that still seems really weird. Oh well time to start episode 2 in VAR.”

As he’s setting up VAR he remembers what happened in the first episode with the heights.

“Let’s see heights are a possibility in this. How to counteract it?” Seeing the second VAR remote Thomas picks it up.

“Maybe if I treat this as a game I can at least prevent myself from fainting. It may not stop the fear, but hopefully it will lessen it.” After getting the gear together, Thomas sets the timer for thirty seconds and stands back upon the treadmill. Connecting a controller to each hand, he then puts the glasses back down and waits for the expected intro.

Surprisingly, the intro never comes. Instead, Thomas is instantly assaulted with the maniacal laughter of Nightmare Moon. Thomas is caught off guard when he hears “Seize her, only she knows where the princess is!” yelled by a mare from behind him. Three guards are quick to take to the air to capture Nightmare Moon.

“Stand back you foals!” Nightmare yells and her eyes begin to glow white. She begins to laugh once again as lightning strikes the pegasi guards out of the air. Not a moment later she wraps herself in her own mane and tail, turning into a cloud and zooms out the front door. Realizing things were going to change again, Thomas quickly tethers himself to Twilight in case she decided to make a run for it instead of there being just a quick scene change. He’s met with both as Twilight takes off pretty quickly to not get very far before a transition throws him back into the Library.

Thomas watches as Twilight puts Spike in a basket and tucks him in.

“So Spike is a baby dragon, even for a fantasy setting that’s an odd species to have as an assistant.” Soon the other girls show up with Rainbow Dash in the lead accusing Twilight of being a spy. Applejack quickly talks Rainbow down and asks Twilight what she knows.

“Heh I wonder is not have a horn or wings automatically throws you to one side or the other of crazy?” chuckles Thomas as he looks between Applejack and Pinkie Pie.

“I guess that would mean having them put you somewhere in the middle.”

Twilight finishes up saying she “...doesn’t even know what they do!”

“The Elements of Harmony, a reference guide.” Pinkie announces as Twilight rushes over and knocks her out of the way.

“How did you even find that?” A very stunned Twilight questions.

“It was under eeee!” Pinkie sing songs as she pronks around the room.

“Oh.” says Twilight looking very sheepish.

Twilight starts to read from the book explaining what the Elements of Harmony are, while Thomas stares into the book trying to read it with it. Unfortunately for him, the text wasn’t in a language he could read or recognize.

“Hmm I wonder if the studio that created this show made up their own written language or was that all scribbles?” As Twilight starts to close the book, a map falls out from the back cover. She unfolds it on the nearby table. The map itself looks pretty well worn, but it did have enough landmarks for Twilight to point out the location of the castle of the two sisters to the rest. Thomas looked up just in time to see Pinkie reach into her mane and pull out what looked like pony shaped chess pieces. “Here Twilight, you can use these to mark the landmarks we’ll need to get through the spooky Everfree forest.”

“Thanks Pinkie, these might help to possibly determine a path for me to take.” In a slightly confused voice not knowing where she pulled those from.

“What do you mean for you to take sugarcube?” Applejack looked quite serious at Twilight.

“We’re not about to let one of our friends just walk into the Everfree forest on her own. Right girls?”

“Right, Yep, Of course!” The rest all agreed at once.

Twilight looks around at the rest of the mares with an incredulous expression on her face.

“Fine you can come, but give me a few to figure out how we’re going to get there.” Thomas bends down to look at the chess ponies Twilight has already placed on the map. Not quite thinking, Thomas pokes one. Thinking that his hand will simply pass through, the chess piece suddenly falls over to Thomas’s surprise and horror.

“N-n-no way, I did not just push that over did I?” Twilight scrunches her faces but quickly uses her magic to put it back.

“This makes no sense, but let’s try that again” Thomas reaches for another and pushes it over. Laughing quite hard to himself “I don’t know what the hell's going on, but this is great! Not only do I get to see this world this way, but I can affect it to some degree.” Thomas quickly walks over to a nearby bookshelf and tries to pick one up. His fingers don’t quite pass through the book, but they don’t seem to hold it either. So when he pulls it just flies off the shelf and onto the floor.

Pinkie pronks over to the book on the floor next to Thomas and picks it up.

“Hey Twilight do you think we’ll need this um atlas as it seemed to fly off the shelf at us?”

“Oh um sure Pinkie.” Twilight absent mindedly says as she continues to study the map in front of her without really looking at what Pinkie picked up.

“Okie dokie artichokie, thanks mr shelf.” Pinkie takes the atlas and shoves it into her large poofy mane like it’s no big deal having a 2lb book in her hair.

Thomas just stares with a manic grin on his face.

“I can not only move objects, I can actually influence the characters around me. This has got to be the best program in the world. Why isn’t this talked about online?” Calming down a bit, Thomas notices they’re all about to leave so he quickly tethers himself to Twilight. He’s pulled along at a quick pace as all six ponies rush for the Everfree forest.

As they stand at the entrance, Twilight speaks up.

“So if we follow this path, it should lead us to a cliff which will let us get a bearing on the castle if not let us see it ourselves.” Time once again seems to behave oddly as they run through the forest. Soon they were standing on a multi-tiered cliff overlooking the rest of the forest with a fairly large castle off in the distance.

“I was right girls, there it is. Now we just need a way down that doesn’t cause us to get turned around.”

As the girls look for a way down, Thomas looks at the ground, which is starting to crack. Laughing to himself, he reaches down and pushes his fingers in the cracks.

“They wanted to get down, and this will get them down.” Noticing that he’s still tethered to Twilight and she was quickly sliding down a hill, Thomas’s fear of heights started to kick in. Looking up in panic, he quickly re-tethers himself to one of the flyers, Fluttershy from the looks of it and then quickly closed his eyes. Trying to get his heavy breathing under control, he didn’t quite hear everything that was going on. He did hear Twilight scream, though thankfully it was quickly followed by a sigh of relief. Following another quick yelp and the sound of hooves on stone, Thomas finally opened his eyes. “Well it looks like they made it down with no real injuries.” Catching a blueish-purple cloud zoom down the intended path, he started to follow it as the girls made sure everyone was okay.

“Looks like the villains following us. So maybe the rock slide was meant to happen and I just sped it up?”

Thomas wanders up the path. He can hear the girls behind him, but they’re being quite a bit more cautious than he needs to be. At the end of the path stands a whimpering creature.

“What the hell is that?” Walking up to it to see why it’s whimpering, he notices a rather large thorn in its paw.

“Maybe I can save them some time and just remove this thing and it will just move on?” Thomas reaches for the thorn and tries to pull it out but it has the opposite effect and pushes on it instead. The creature lets out a blood curdling roar getting the girls attention.

“A Manticore,” Twilight gasps “we have to get past it.”

“So that’s what that weird amalgam of animals is.” Thomas comments to no one in particular. Thomas stands off to the side as the girls minus Fluttershy try to fight off the manticore. Rarity tries to buck it in the face and despite getting a good hit in, it doesn’t faze the beast at all. Applejack tries to ride it like a bucking bull, but is quickly thrown off. Rainbow tries to make it dizzy by quickly flying around it at high speed, but it just flicks it tail and sends her flying. All the while Fluttershy is trying to say something and the others are either ignoring her or just can’t hear her. Until she decide to make herself known.

“WAIT!” She yells at the top of her lungs. This of course causes both sides to stop and stare at the quiet Pegasus. She confidently walks up to the manticore.

“Shush, it’s going to be okay.” She then nuzzles it like it’s her house cat.

“Boy does she have some balls, just walking up to something like that.” Thomas chuckles at the absurdity.

“Oh you poor, poor little baby.” Fluttershy states as the manticore shows her it’s palm.

“Little!” Rainbow Dash states, not quite believing what she’s seeing.

“My thoughts exactly.” Thomas replies, knowing she can’t hear a word he’s saying.

“This might hurt for just a second.” Fluttershy says smiling at the manticore as she moves her head towards the thorn. Grabbing a hold of it in her teeth, she quickly yanks it out. The manticore grabs her and roars in pain, causing the rest of the girls to scream in fear for her. In seconds, the manticore stops roaring and starts purring and licking Fluttershy in appreciation.

“Oh you just a big ol’ baby kitty aren’t you? Oh yes you are.” Fluttershy continues her kind, compassionate words to the manticore as the rest of the girls move on. Thomas moves to follow the rest of the girls down the path as Twilight stop to talk to Fluttershy. He kind of missed their conversation as he was listening to Rarity, Applejack, and Rainbow Dash rib each other on how foolish their individual actions were.

It wasn’t long before the girls reached a rather dark part of the woods and started to complain about not being able to see much. Agreeing with them, Thomas reached up on his glasses and adjusted the brightness settings. While not really making the world around him brighter, it did wash things out in a way he could make out more shapes around them than the ponies did. Not being able to see exactly what he was walking through, his hands started to brush against some bushes. The ponies around him started to panic as the sound of something moving around them continued. As Thomas made his way to a more open area, the trees around them started to glow in a sickly red color giving them all the appearance of monsters.

The girls begin to scream and cluster together as they tried to get away from the trees turned monsters. “Really Nightmare Moon. Is this the best you’ve got? They’re not even moving” bemoaned Thomas. The screaming started to taper off and was quickly replaced by maniacal giggling. Pinkie was bouncing around the clearing laughing and making faces at the trees. Thomas face palmed and in a rather exasperated voice said “I think she’s missing a few marbles in that head of hers.”

“Pinkie what are you doing, run!” Twilight shouted.

“Oh girls, don’t you see?” Pinkie said with a large grin on her face just before bursting into song.

“Really Pinkie, this is how you solve a problem?” Thomas stated in a stunned voice.

“I guess I really shouldn’t be surprised this was a kid’s show and the crazy pony looks like she’s done something like this before. But really giggling at the ghosties? Well at least it seems to be working.” The rest of the girls had calmed down and were following Pinkies example and were just laughing at the trees. This seems to work as the glow was disappearing and leaving the trees in their normal appearance.

“Even the oppressive darkness seems to be gone. I guess the crazy pony is quite as crazy as I thought.”

Still laughing and bouncing the girls followed Pinkie onwards towards the castle. They stopped pretty abruptly when they reached a river.

“Alright girls almost there. We just have to get across this…” Twilight says and trails off as she sees the roiling mess of a river before them. Flopping around the middle of the river was a large purple serpent.

“What’s a sea serpent doing this far up a river?” Twilight asks.

“Maybe it’s a river serpent Twilight” Pinkie answers in a cheerful voice.

“I guess that could be true.” Twilight says as Rainbow just facehoofs.

The girls move closer, overhearing the serpent mutter “What a world! What a world!” a couple of time while continuing to cry and thrash its body in the river.

“Excuse me sir, why are you crying?” Twilight asks.

“Well I don’t know. I was just sitting here minding my own business when this tacky little cloud of purple smoke just whisked past me and tore half of my beloved mustache clean off.” The serpent gave his explanation in a kind of whiny voice. Thomas really didn’t see much in the way of things he could do to help the girls so he decided to just stand back and let nature take its course. The serpent rose to its full height and exclaimed before falling backwards, “And now I look simply horrid!” The girls were quickly soaked from the serpent’s dramatic fall.

“Give me a break...” moaned Rainbow Dash.

“That’s what all the fuss is about!?” Stated Applejack

“Why of course it is. How can you be so insensitive?” Chides Rarity as she walks towards the now prone serpent.

“Oh just look at him, such lovely luminescent scales.”

“I know.” whines the serpent.

“Your expertly coiffed mane.”

“Oh I know, I know”

“Your fabulous manicure.”

“It's so true”

“All ruined without your beautiful mustache.”

“It’s true I’m hideous.” The serpent shouts making overly dramatic moves to cover himself.

Rarity’s face took on a rather determined look and she confidently stated.

“I simply cannot let such a crime against fabulosity go uncorrected!” She quickly reaches over and bites off one of the serpent’s scales.

“Ow! What did you do that for?” The serpent said in pained voice.

Rarity Brandishing the scale like a sword brought it down quickly, sheering off a large portion of her own tail. The serpent surprised by the action, quickly faints.

“Rarity, what are you doing?” Twilight asked in a confused tone.

Using her magic, Rarity picked up her tail and in a move even Thomas was surprised at, she fused it to the stub of the serpent’s missing mustache.

“Oh ho ho ho oh, my mustache. How wonderful!” The serpent exclaimed in joy.

Thomas looked up and saw the river was calm again and decided to see what was on the other side while girls wrapped up their conversation.

“Not much left for them to get to the castle, looks like a pretty straight shot from here.” Thomas begins to stretch into the air and yawn as the girls start to pass him by. Due to sheer dumb luck, Rainbow passed too close to his outstretched arms and her right wing touched his fingers. Not expecting an object to hit it in the middle of the air, her wing reacted by instinct and slammed shut. Rainbows eyes shot wide open and she quickly corkscrewed into the ground.

“Rainbow!” the girls shouted.

“Oh shit I didn’t mean to do that!” Thomas stammered as he looked between the fallen Rainbow and his hands.

“What happened sugarcube?” Ask Applejack as she helped Rainbow to stand.

“I don’t know. One minute I’m flying fine then wham. It was like my right wing hit a wall and snapped shut.” Rainbow said as she tried to flex her wings. Her right wing was alright since it had snapped shut, but the left looked slightly off.

Fluttershy had walked up to Rainbows left side and look closer at the wing and cringed.

“I think your left wing has been knocked out of socket, but it doesn’t look broken.”

“Well that explains why it doesn’t feel quite right.” Moaned Rainbow. Looking around she found a rather large branch and bit down on it for a moment before putting it down and turning to Applejack and Twilight.

“Girls I know this is probably going to be a lot to ask but I can’t fix this myself.”

“Sure what do ya need us to do sugarcube?” asks Applejack in a concerned voice.

“Applejack can you hold me down so I can’t move, and Twilight I need you to use your magic to push my wing back into socket while I bite down on this branch.”

“Sure, sugarcube you won’t be movin an inch.”

Twilight blanched “Are you sure you want me to do this Rainbow, wouldn’t Rarity be the better choice?”

“Nope. As much as I trust Rarity I don’t think she'll use the needed force without fainting before the jobs done. No offense Rarity.”

“None taken dear, it’s probably true.” Agreed Rarity with a slightly embarrassed blush tinting her cheeks.

“Plus with Fluttershy telling you what to do, you should be able to get it done quickly.” Rainbow lies down and bites on the nearby branch. Applejack quickly settled on top of Rainbow to hold her down so she wouldn’t move. Fluttershy explained to Twilight what needed to go where and how much force was going to be needed. Thomas was looking quite sick at this turn of events knowing he actually hurt one of these ponies. He didn’t think it was possible. At the cliff, he had figured they fall turn into a cartoon pancake and pop back to normal like most cartoon characters. As Thomas continued to look on in horror, Twilight grabbed Rainbow’s entire wing in her magic. With a quick smooth motion, Twilight yanked the wing into its socket. Rainbow screamed into her branch. Thomas actually threw up into his mouth hearing this, but managed to swallow it back down.

Rainbow spit the branch out of her mouth.

”You can get off me now Applejack. Thanks Twilight.” She tried to move her left wing and it seemed to flap as it intended. “Well that much worked like a charm I can move it, but I won’t be flying on it for a few hours at least.”

Thomas sighs, glad he didn’t cause any permanent damage.

“I wonder if this is why this feature is never mentioned anywhere? I’m actually feeling something for cartoon characters.” Thomas looked over at the girls slightly concerned for them as they started to move again.

“Well it looks like we’re about there. We just have to enter the castle and find the Elements of Harmony and we can put an end to this night.” Twilight triumphantly exclaims as they rush toward the castle. Sliding to a halt, the girls see a downed bridge stopping them from getting to the castle entrance. “Not now, we’re so close!” Yells Twilight as she stomps her hooves in frustration.

“Throw me.” Rainbow states calmly while grinning like an idiot.

Twilight looks at Rainbow as if she saw and alien.

“Are you nuts Rainbow? I can’t throw you that far with any accuracy!”

“You don’t have to. Just toss me up high enough. I may not be able to flap my wings without hurting them, but I should be able to glide that distance with little problem. Then you can just float the rope to me and I can tie it off on the pillar that’s there before the fog hid it. Wait fog, where’d that come from!?”

“Now I’m really not going to attempt that who knows what’s waiting in that fog to chomp down on an unsuspecting pony!” Twilight shouted in disbelief.

Rainbow was about to argue back when the wind picked up. “FOALS!” Nightmare Moon had appeared on the other side of the bridge in a crack of lightning.

“You're too late! I’ve found your precious Elements of Harmony!” She raised them above her head, showing the girls what appeared to be five stone spheres with a unique design etched into each one. “Say goodbye to the sun, my little ponies.” With those final words she looked skyward and began laughing. A glow began to form between the elements, growing ever larger and brighter until it exploded. Each element was engulfed in magical flame and launched outwards to parts unknown.

“NOOOOO!” screamed Twilight in abject horror, and then everything went black.

Thomas stood there stunned not sure what to think. “The villain won. That can’t be right?” as he asks this out loud, a strange noise is heard. Removing his glasses, he sees his DVD drive start to smoke. “No no no, shit stop!” Thomas quickly ran for the drive when it forcefully ejected the tray causing the DVD itself to jump from the tray to thankfully land on the desk. He yanks the DVD drive's USB cable from the back of the pc to cut power in the hopes it doesn’t cause the rest of his pc to short out.

After calming down upon seeing nothing else wrong with the pc, he looked at the smoking dvd drive at the end of the cord.

“Well looks like I’m going to have to build another one of these.” He said in deeply disappointed tone.

“At least it looks like the DVD managed to survive that.” He looks to the disc and gently picks it up. To his horror the shiny silver surface starts to slowly turn black.

“What the hell is going on here? This isn’t burnt.” Turning the disc over he see the same thing: a pure, black darkness. Sudden dread fills him as he looks towards the DVD case. Picking it up and opening it, he finds the same thing: the discs were all pitch black.

“What no this makes no sense these weren’t anywhere near the drive!” Picking up a random season case from the box set, he opens that as well. Somehow the discs inside seemed even blacker than the first one. Unsure of what to do, he does the only thing he could do for the moment. He puts them away. “Hopefully once I get a new drive I’ll be able to salvage them.” Sighing in defeat he placed the box set on a nearby shelf and left in hopes of finding a shop that would have the parts he needed.

Comments

[WorldWalker128]

eh oh.

[NecromanCREEEEEE]

Interesting...