> The Magical Blackout > by Strafe > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Chapter 1 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Magic is plentiful, for it helps unicorns live out their lives with great ease, and aids them in being productive members of society. The discovery of the unicorns inner power—Most likely discovered around the beginning of time itself—was one of the greatest revelations in pony history. Ever since its initial discovery, the science of magic has advanced at an exponential rate, as well as their dependency on it to keep the very nature of pony society intact. Unicorns literally use magic to keep the world turning (It was the very first of their discoveries, for it was essential for survival), but this leaves one question: what happens when no pony can use magic anymore? One of the greatest practitioners in magic, Twilight Sparkle, Is about to find out the answer to this odd question. . **Day 01** Twilight had finally awakened from a somewhat restful slumber, her mane was in the same state as it almost always was when she had just gotten out of bed: disheveled. She released a powerful yawn that caused her to become teary-eyed. She proceeded forward toward her dresser, which had an oval-shaped mirror on the top of it, and tried to use her telekinesis spell to grab hold of the mane brush. Her horn resembled the fuse of an explosive as it generated a small, purple spark that faded out after a couple of seconds. “Huh-uh-eh-what?” She mumbled. Twilight desperately tried to use her spell again, but she unfortunately got the same result. A déjà vu occurred to Twilight, it reminded her of the day her horn was cursed by the poison joke plants in The Everfree Forrest. “Twilight! Twilight!” A young, boyish voice came from downstairs. It was Spike, Twilight’s worthy assistant. He rushed in on the second floor, where Twilight had just woken up. “It’s a letter from Celestia!” He exclaimed. “Umm Spike, I think you and I both know by now that a letter from the princess isn’t really an unusual occurrence by now.” Twilight replied with a grin on her face. “No! No! No! This one is different, I didn’t belch this one out, I got it through a mail mare.” Twilight became even more confused. She wondered if Spike had been playing a devious prank on her, which she knows is a definite possibility. “Okay Spike, why don’t you open it up and read it.” Spike then cleared his throat and proceeded on to opening the letter, which he started to read moments later. “Dear Twilight Sparkle: I regret to inform you that an odd epidemic has struck Equestria, for a magical flare has hit the land and is interfering with our magical abilities. If you are reading this right now then you should already know that my sister, your brother, and I are looking for a resolution to this issue; however, we can never have too much help, we need you to make use of the library I have supplied you with and find anything that can be of use toward the resolution of this problem. I wish you the best of luck. From, princess Celestia.” “Oh no!” Twilight shouted with a slight crack in her voice. “No wonder my magic wasn’t working this morning.“ “Yeah, and what can you do about it?” Spike said with a tone that shouted: “Yeah, whatever.” He walked away: trying to shirk what Twilight was about to say. “Oh no you don’t Spike! Equestria is counting on us to fix this issue.” “Yeah, Equestria can wait for a couple hours because I need a nap.” Spike explained. Twilight let out no words, but glowered at Spike, it was the look of a housewife stamping her front left hoof and giving him a sinister look. Spike paused for a moment. “Fine,” He sighed. “I’ll see what I can find.” Twilight was rather delighted that she had gotten Spike to conform to her orders that easily, usually Spike always said he wanted to take a nap, which he just used as an excuse to avoid any tedious work. Spike and Twilight started meticulously investigating the various books that their library had to offer, but there was no luck. Book after book, Twilight engrossed herself in diligent research, only to get slapped in the face when she realized that a particular piece of information did not after all offer anything remotely close to the answer she was trying to find. After a couple hours of studying, there was no solution in sight to the rather mysterious problem. Twilight started to think of her friends: Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Applejack, and Rarity, and astonishingly recollected the fact that she was supposed to have a picnic with them. Twilight wanted to continue researching, but she thought it was logical to take her mind of the books for the rest of the day and hang out with her peers. “Spike, I have to go, me and the rest of the gang are supposed to be on a picnic so you can stop whatever you are doing.” Twilight informed. “Oh thank Celestia,” Spike groaned as he put his current book down, only to reveal that there was a donut magazine under the book that Twilight thought he was reading. “Well, off to Sweet Apple Acres.” She said with an optimistic tone. Twilight packed any supplies that she thought that Applejack would forget for the picnic, and walked out the door with glee:, realizing that she would get some spare time to take her mind off this magical crisis. She exited her house and lightly trotted her way through Ponyville Square. The town was enriched with the variegated pelt colors of the ponies who are also making their way from point a to Point b, but there was one melancholy sight that stuck Twilight’s eyes: the sky was tangerine orange and the sun stood completely still on the horizon, this was due to the fact that Celestia could not use her magic to set the sun, it actually occurred to Twilight that this symbolized the blackout itself, it was unchanged; it was stuck in limbo. During Twilight’s stroll, she heard the unicorn townsponies conversing about how they couldn’t use any magic. She wanted to make an announcement on the matter, but she truly desired to build a wall between her and the issue for now. The purple unicorn had finally reached her friends and was greeted with a burst of excitement from her peers. Needless to say, the main topic of conversation was the magical blackout, which was brought up rather quickly by Rarity. Every pony was extremely garrulous when this issue was brought up, for you could hardly get a mere sentence fragment in before being interrupted by somepony. Even Fluttershy, the timid caretaker, was in an outgoing mood. Nevertheless, the conversation did not have a discursive feel, for the blackout was mainly the only thing they talked about. Hours passed by and Twilight finally returned from her picnic, only to find that Spike had locked the front door to the house. “Spike! Open the door!” Twilight pleaded as she vigorously pounded on the door. It was no use, Spike was probably fast asleep, and there was no way of waking that pinhead up. Twilight wished she could just use her magic and teleport herself inside, she had done it dozens of times before when Spike had locked her out her home. Suddenly, a bold stallion appeared, he looked as though he worked in construction. He had a light brown pelt with manly stubble and a round face. “Need help?” He asked. Twilight was relieved when she heard those words, they were the words of someone caring, who understood the troubles that every pony dealt with. Twilight started to catch her breath from knocking on her door so hard. “Y-yes. Thank you. Are you a locksmith of so—gah!” The unicorn gasped shocked. The stallion had started to literally kick the door down. After a few whacks at the door, the barrel hinges started to become loose, which ultimately led to the door flying off after breaking and bolting toward the living room and landed on its back: like that of a kick boxer knocking out his foe. “Well, there you go.” The stallion said after wiping the sweat off his forehead and began to walk away. The shocked unicorn’s jaw seemed like it hit the floor, she did not expect an outcome like this. Her state of shock was interrupted by the cranky cry of Spike, who had woken up from the sound of the door crashing to the ground. “What are you doing? Are you crazy? Why didn’t you just knock?” Twilight turned a def ear toward Spike’s remarks and walked into her house. She put the door back up, which made it almost look like it was still intact, and went to bed. She didn’t bother going to some pony to fix it because it was late, or seemingly late for that matter, some pony could easily lose track of time due to the sun being at a dormant position. **Day 02** The next day broke out, and still, the sun stayed in that same position by the horizon. Twilight woke up disappointed, she had hoped that the day that proceeded was a mere dream and regained her consciousness with frustration; the blackout seemed that it was still going strong. The purple unicorn’s erudite attitude forced herself to start digging in on some scholarly knowledge rather than breakfast. Time seemed to fly as fast as Rainbow Dash, for she accumulated about a half a dozen hours researching: trying to find a fix for this continuous problem. Even Spike was starting to develop some kind of interest in eradicating the blackout, he brought his ladder out, which helped him navigate the seemingly infinite supply of bookshelves that Twilight had in her vicinity. “Did you find some pony who can fix the door?” Twilight asked. “No, Every ponies’ business is starting to slow down; they can’t use magic to help their customers.” Spike unfortunately informed her. It seemed as though this atrocity is already starting to have a negative influence on business. Twilight really hoped she would of got more fortunate news, but the only thing she could do for now is look into the problem in greater detail. A resolution to the blackout was more important, Twilight couldn’t worry about a simple door, Equestria was the main priority for her. Spike began shifting the ladder over at the crease of two shelves where he then scaled the steps. He had an issue of Cupcakes Monthly and was rather honed in on the publication rather than watching his step. He started reaching for some books with one hand while holding the magazine in the other. It was only a matter of time before the baby dragon lost his balance and that was exactly what happened. He started to gaze at a particular article and started shifting his weight backwards sub-consciously. At last, Spike had finally realized this, but it was too late, the ladder was starting to fall backwards. He dropped to two books that he had in his hands and used his small, stubby dragon claws to grasp the top of the two bookshelves; however, this only made matters worse, for he had forced the shelves to take the fall with him: knocking all the books that were stored on them, on the floor. “Whoa! Whoa!” A tremendous crash, that resembled thunder, generated within Twilight’s home. Luckily, Spike didn’t have any severe injuries. “Spike! What did you do? You know how inportant it is to keep the library books] in alphabetical order!” Twilight howled. Spike likely saw in triples, his awareness became disorienting, and gave no care toward what Twilight was shouting. The unicorn sighed in an elegiac manner, and started to fix the shelves, and reorganize her books in the order in which she desired. Twilight didn’t use the remainder of her time researching, but rather rectifying her discombobulated mess. (It was a task that could of have been fulfilled in seconds if Twilight had her spells.) At the end of the day, she looked out the window with anguish, only to see that the sun remained frozen in time. She would of expected a letter from Celestia, or her brother—the humble Shining Armor—but then mused to herself and remembered that communication had been put in a trance due to the seemingly irrevocable diminishment of magic.