Contemplation was something any studious pony like Twilight Sparkle would be accustomed to doing, and indeed, the alicorn librarian was very privy to settling herself down and pondering what to do when presented with a conundrum of any kind. Being such a rationally-driven mare, she had gained plenty of experience throughout her young life and was quite adept to problem-solving as a result. Her talent at this had been instrumental in overcoming some of the biggest challenges she and her friends had ever faced, but in spite of it, she now found herself at a total loss for an answer to the problem which was presented to her earlier that day.

The lavender mare sat on her bed, nightcap set upon her head for bedtime and eyes fixated on the Enchanted Comic which had been sent to her through the mail. Emblazoned upon the cover was the title, HUMAN World, in a stylized golden font that would’ve shined brightly in the sun had it not currently been nighttime. What was odd was that underneath the title there were no credits to the author/illustrator/spellweaver. Not only that, information such as serial number, copyright, and the like were excluded as well, leaving it devoid of anything else other than the cover art. The cover art itself depicted a city of tall skyscrapers under the nighttime sky, with crowds of humans traversing the streets below.

At one point Twilight was so lost in thought that she failed to hear Spike entering from the bathroom, head tilted up as he gurgled some water before swallowing and letting out a deep, contented sigh. He then made to walk to his basket before noticing Twilight’s concentrated gaze on the comic.

Still at it, huh? Spike thought, and approached the bed.

“Hey, Twilight?” he said, but failed to draw her attention. “Twilight!?”

Still nothing.

Spike let out another, this time exasperated, sigh and walked over to the nearby desk upon which sat some inkwells and quills, perfectly aligned along the edges. With a roll of his eyes, Spike reached a claw out to one of the inkwells, gently pushing it out of line with the others.

“You need something, Spike?”

The baby dragon turned to see Twilight standing right next to him. The inkwell was once again aligned with the others.

When did she trade her panic for Pinkieness? Spike asked himself, looking between the inkwell and the mare.

“Spike?”

“Huh- . . . oh, sorry,” he replied, giving his head a slight shake for clarity. “What’d you say?”

Twilight groaned while dipping her head. “I asked if you need anything?”

“Uh, right,” Spike stammered, blushing slightly. “Well, I was wondering why you were staring so intently at that Enchanted Comic.” He pointed to the bed where said comic still laid untouched. “I thought we agreed to just leave it alone until DELOS gets back to us regarding its authenticity?”

Twilight sighed. “We did, Spike, but I can’t stop thinking about it.” She began making way back toward the bed.

“What’s there to think about?” Spike asked as his eyes followed her. “It’s just an Enchanted Comic adaptation of your HUMAN trilogy, right? It makes good sense that someone would make one.”

“Yeah, it does,” Twilight replied as she hopped back onto the bed. “But I’m not bugged about whether it makes sense or not.”

Spike raised a scaly brow. “Then, what’s eating at you?”

Twilight didn’t answer right away, instead using her magic to levitate the confounding comic up and opening it to the first page. What struck her as odd (more so than the lack of information on the cover page) was the fact that said first page made up half of the book’s content; only two actual paneled pages were stapled between the front and back covers. There wasn’t even a blank page dedicated to the spell used to enter the comic, which had made Twilight question at first whether it was really enchanted, but a simple scanning spell confirmed that it was indeed.

Finally, Twilight replied to Spike with, “I’m just confused as to why it’s so different from that Power Ponies issue.” She turned the comic around and gave each side a judgmental gaze before returning it to its original position in front of her. “If this is official and meant for the mass market, then why is it so lacking in content? Not to mention that what little content it does boast is extremely mundane.”

As if to reiterate her point, she turned the comic around so Spike could see the panels contained within. The ‘story’ seemed to concern Twilight’s OC, Warren Zaccaro, sitting at a computer and typing away, and little else. The only real change between panels was the gradual close-up of Warren’s face while he spoke his monologues.

“Yeah, it does seem pretty boring,” Spike agreed. He briefly wondered if the comic was meant for people with digits before dismissing the notion, knowing even he’d find reading about typing to be boring. “But maybe it’s just an early alpha copy?”

“I doubt it,” Twilight replied with a wry expression as she turned the comic back around and began scanning her eyes over the back cover for anything of interest she might’ve missed. “If it was, at the very least there’d be some production info listed somewhere.” She turned back to Spike with a frown. “The lack of any makes me doubt its authenticity.”

Spike went to his basket and climbed in, ready for a good night’s sleep. But he knew this would be impossible as long as Twilight was distressed, so he looked back to her and said, “Why should it matter anyway? I mean, didn’t you swear off any more HUMAN-related stuff?”

"I swore off heading the Crystalvision adaptation to focus on my new royal duties," Twilight clarified. "This is different, though, because unlike the show which ate up so much of my time, going into this comic would just be a quick outing I could do once and be done with it afterwards."

"I guess that's true," Spike replied, scratching his head. "But still, does it really matter?"

Twilight pursed her lips and turned away. “I guess . . . maybe I . . .”

“Twilight?”

A long silence permeated the air between them for several seconds before Twilight finally sighed in defeat and fell onto her bed, legs sprawled out haphazardly. “It matters because I'd be lying if I said the idea of experiencing firsthoof the world our friends and I created wasn't exciting; I’m sure whoever created the Power Ponies felt the same way about those characters being adapted for Enchanted Comics.”

“I’ll bet,” Spike replied with a small yawn.

Twilight turned to look at the comic, still suspended in her magic next to the bed. “If it wasn’t for the fact that it’s embedded with an enchantment, I’d say this comic’s nothing more than a giant tease.”

Spike raised his head to see his pseudo-sister still lying on the bed, almost sure he could see a hint of disappointment upon her face. “Well,” he said, “there’s nothing we can do until DELOS sends their reply. Until then, let’s get some sleep.”

Twilight returned his gaze with a soft smile. “Okay, Spike; would you like to hear a bedtime story?”

“Sure,” he replied, snuggling under the covers. “In fact, could you tell me a horror story?”

Twilight blinked in surprise. “Um, . . . okay,” she began scanning a nearby shelf for such a book. “Do you have any in particular you want me to read?”

“Yep,” Spike confirmed, adorning a cheeky smile. “It’s the story of the excruciatingly boring comic that could put anyone within earshot to sleep when read aloud.”

Twilight paused in her scanning, again blinking in surprise as she turned to Spike. Only after seeing the coy expression on his face did she realize what he was getting at, to which she giggled.

“Okay, Spike,” she said, “I’ll read the comic to you.”

“Yes, please,” Spike replied, and finished settling himself in bed, laying his head against the pillow and closing his eyes.

Twilight used her magic to turn out the lights before raising the comic in front of her face. She began to read.

“‘Warren sat at his computer, typing away the first chapter to his latest work while listening to a particular video game song on extended repeat.’ The picture shows him not even wearing the headphones, instead they’re just laying next to him on the desk.”

“Mhmm,” Spike replied with a slight nod as Twilight continued.

“‘Yet another story that won’t get a TVTropes page, but oh well, I can’t expect everyone to care about it anyway’. The picture shows him with a solemn expression.”

He’s got that right, Spike thought, managing to doze off a tad.

“‘Warren spent the next few minutes typing away before leaving to check his fridge for a quick snack. Upon returning he changed the song to a different one from the same series.’ The next few panels show him leaving his computer, walking down the stairs, looking in the fridge, and finally using the mouse back at his computer.”

Still not caring.

Twilight turned the page. “‘Alright, now all that’s left is to figure out a good rhyme. Hmm, let’s see . . .’ The next few panels show him laying on his bed, deep in thought.”

I can relate to that, at least.

“‘By the time Warren returned to the computer with a good rhyme in mind, he was eager to finish off the first chapter and upload it.’ The picture shows him looking tired while typing.”

Wow, something else we have in common.

“The next panel has an over-the-shoulder view of his computer screen with the following message on it:

'Are you asleep now?' Heh heh.

“‘To return from the world of your imagination . . .’”

Why does that seem so famil- wait a minute!

“‘. . . start, travel, experience . . .’”

“Twilight! Don’t-”

“‘. . . and finally impart memories of these three upon your creation.’”

“That’s the spell!”

Before Twilight could offer a response a bright flash of white light emanated from the Enchanted Comic, knocking the lavender librarian back in surprise and making her lose concentration on her telekinesis, as well as knocking her nightcap onto the floor. Immediately, the comic fell to the bed, open to the spell’s page to which a strong force began sucking Twilight toward it.

“Urrrrgh,” she groaned while trying to resist the spell’s pull. She found it too strong, however, and it wasn’t long before her hind hooves were sucked into the comic’s pages.

“Hang on, Twilight!” Spike called, jumping out of his basket and rushing toward the bed. “I’ll help you!”

“Wait, Spike!” Twilight called. Both of her hind legs had been sucked into the comic, and she was pushing her fore legs down against the bed to keep her upper body out of it. “Don’t come any closer or you’ll be sucked in too!”

“But what about you!?” he cried, worry plainly evident in his voice for his lifelong companion.

“I’ll be fine, Spike,” Twilight grunted. “Just go get our friends and tell them what’s happened and that I could use some help in here.”

“Are you sure you’ll be alright?” Spike asked, still plainly worried. “I mean, we don’t know what’ll happen when you wake up in there.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Twilight affirmed as her flanks dropped below the pageline. “We did this once, and we can do it again even with a different scenario.”

“. . . Okay, Twilight,” Spike agreed with a nod, instinctually taking a few steps away from the bed.

Twilight allowed a small smile to grace her lips as she lifted her hooves into the air. In an eye’s blink she was gone, as was the white light of the spell. Spike waited a few moments to make sure the spell was over before hurriedly hopping up onto the bed, snatching the comic, and rushing downstairs to the front door.

I hope the others aren’t asleep already, because they won’t be getting any after they hear about this.

After waking up inside the Enchanted Comic’s world, and realizing (to her slight confusion) that she hadn’t been transformed in the slightest by the spell’s parameters, Twilight took a moment to get her bearings. She found herself in what appeared to be a back alley, with garbage cans and various other junk strewn about on either side down along both ends.

I’d better study the layout of this world, she thought, and took to the sky.

Once she’d cleared the rooftops Twilight gazed out over the landscape, and went slack-jawed in awe at the scenery it sported. A concrete jungle of tall skyscrapers stretched to and across the horizon. Cemented roads populated by countless cars littered the ground below, some moving and others parked off to the roadside. A nighttime sky devoid of stars reigned above, blocked out by the light pollution which resulted from countless lights shining from seemingly each and every window all the buildings possessed.

Twilight eventually broke out of her stupor and turned around in the air only to find a peculiar sight. An irregularly-shaped skyscraper, more in the shape of a syringe with a saucer-like structure just underneath the ‘needle’, stood among the regular ones, as if purposely built to defile the norm. Beyond the odd structure, Twilight saw an ocean only just barely visible with all the active lights throughout the colossal city.

Just how big is this world? she questioned herself.

After taking a few more minutes to survey the landscape, Twilight lowered herself to the ground and began waiting for her friends to show up while simultaneously keeping an eye out for humans.

I wonder how the girls will take to this place?