The day that Twilight Sparkle discovered transmissions from another world was an exciting day in Equestria. News quickly spread throughout the land about these new communications, and nopony, not even Twilight Sparkle herself, could have guessed the true nature of these mysterious signals.
After disappearing into her workshop for three weeks of intense research, Twilight emerged from her doorway and marched into the town square, carrying a strange object. Holding her head high, she smiled at the gathered ponies. Twilight struck a dramatic pose and revealed her newest invention.
“Good ponies of Ponyville, I present…the Hoof-Driven Transmission Viewer!” She walked to the side and began turning a crank on the side of the box, and as the crank turned the box began to quietly hum until the front of the box lit up. Twilight grinned and almost started prancing as images began to appear. “Look! The Hoof-Driven Transmission Viewer is reading the signal and decoding it into video and sound...we can finally find out what messages have been sent to us.”
The crowd of ponies leaned closer to see the fuzzy image on screen, and if they tilted their heads in just the right angle they could almost hear what the creatures were saying through the noise and static. There were bipedal creatures on the screen that were walking around in the company of smaller creatures who looked like they enjoyed fighting each other. Nopony could understand the language spoken by the bipedal creatures, but the smaller creatures kept repeating variations of a word that was unique to each type of creature.
Ponyville was fascinated with these transmissions. During the next few days, the ponies would take turns cranking Twilight’s device so that groups could watch the messages from beyond the sky. Five days after Twilight revealed her invention, she walked out to the square and gasped.
“Who could have done such a thing?” asked Twilight as she slowly turned in a circle to look at the surrounding houses. “Somepony has painted the town red!”
*-*-*-*
After a long day at work, Bon Bon slowly walked into her living room and screamed when a large bucket was emptied upon her from above. “Lyra,” she said through gritted teeth, “why am I covered in tomato juice?”
Lyra adjusted her ball cap. “Because, my little PokeBon Bon...I’ve gotta ketchup ALL!”
Bon Bon used “High Velocity Pillow”. It was super effective.
It was a dark and stormy night...well, last night was, anyway. Today is bright and sunny, but you know what I mean.
Don’t sass me, Gummy! I’m writing a story!
Anyway, in addition to being dark and stormy, last night was also really exciting! DJ Pon3 somehow got a permit to use thunder and lightning with her show and hired some pegasi to use the storm clouds as instruments. When she dropped the bass, it really boomed! And then somepony at the flower shop dropped a vase, because they were so surprised. Another thing that was really neato was that she had the pegasi alternate which side jumped on the clouds during one song so that it sounded like a lot of ponies marching when the rain hit the ground. Last night’s show was inspiring…which is why I’m grounded. Apparently, many party cannons and 3:00 AM don’t mix.
Rarity quickly silenced the alarm and jumped out of bed. Today she needed to hurry - she set her alarm earlier than usual so that she could be first in line to get her mane styled. In larger towns she would not have to worry about this, but Ponyville had a single, small, salon. Normally she’d have a reservation, but watching the crusaders the previous night caused an unexpected fashion emergency.
Rarity quickly brushed her teeth and then ran out into the Ponyville streets. She ran towards the rising sun and slowed only when she approached the door to the salon. She greeted the pony who was sweeping the salon’s entrance and then halted in the entrance. Rarity groaned in surprised frustration when she saw a large bird sitting in the salon chair. “Philomena, why?!?!”
The mare patted Rarity’s back. “The early bird gets the perm.”
“I thought you might enjoy this. It’s a little loud for me, but you can’t deny the excitement.”
“The lights! The music! The dancing!” Luna looked around the nightclub that had recently opened in Canterlot. She leaned closer to her sister. “The love!” she loudly whispered as she tilted her head towards a couple at a nearby table. She trotted two steps towards the counter. “The beverages!” Luna spun in a circle and struck a pose. “The dancing!”
“You already said dancing,” Celestia giggled.
“We know, we just really like that part.” said Luna. “This place.... the room has quite the energy to it. Every component contributes and it becomes more than the sum of its parts.” Luna grinned.
“Luna...no…”
“You know you can’t make a place like this on the moon…”
“No…”
“No matter what you do, there’s just no atmosphere.”
Celestia slowly trudged into her bedroom, dragging each hoof with great effort. “Seriously, why did we need a whole session of day court for the nobles to argue over drying paint?” As she sank into her bed, she looked to her right. Somepony closed her curtains again.
Celestia sighed and got out of bed to walk towards her window. She could have used magic to open the curtains, but the view was pleasant so she wanted to open them manually.
She opened the curtains and quickly jumped back, raising a hoof in front of her face.
“Gah! Luna! Why?”
“Hey, Tia! When the sun doesn’t shine, you will find...A MOON!”
Twilight awoke to the sound of screams and pandemonium. She yawned, stretched, and scratched an itch on her leg. “Yep, it’s Thursday,” she said as she pulled herself out of her warm bed, and then walked outside.
Seeing the ponies of Ponyville running in panic, she decided to walk towards the town square, where the screams were loudest. Upon entering the square, she saw the three “flower friends” fainting in front of their shop with cries of “Oh, the horror!”. Twilight quickly saw the source of their terror. An odd looking timberwolf had wandered into town and was sitting in the middle of the square.
“Why is a timberwolf in town?” she loudly asked herself.
The timberwolf looked at Twilight and rolled its eyes. “I am Groot.”
Twilight just sat by the lakeside, the only movement was an occasional eye twitch. She had helped repair the dock at the lake, and got overzealous with replacing bad parts...ending up replacing each piece of wood with new lumber during the repairs. Other campers saw the old wood as still good and decided to sand and paint it. Once Twilight finished with her repairs, a camper pointed to the pile of lumber and said that it was still usable. Twilight smiled and built the camp a second dock so that they could launch twice as many boats at once. A camper asked if the new lumber dock or old lumber dock was the original.
“Uh…” Twilight said.
“Well, Twi, it looks like we have a pair o’ docks,” said Applejack as she admired their work for the day.