Make a Wish Upon a Sue - Technophobia

Spike was a very lucky dragon. One moment there was a group of delusional mares in a battle royale for the right to his heart, and the next he was in a peaceful tea room. It was dimly lit and relaxing, with the faint smell of incense burning somewhere far off. Thin and colourful curtains separated the different tables, each having a pristine china tea set and kettle on them. The veils were translucent, and from what Spike could make out the compartment he was in currently was the biggest.

His musing was interrupted by the sound of hooves, two sets if his ears served right. They got closer and closer until two large silhouettes were visible on either side of him. The curtains parted in two places, one with a golden flare of magic and the other with an inky black. Through the newly created entrances, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna trotted in to join Spike at the table, each taking a seat facing him.

“Good afternoon Spike,” Celestia greeted him warmly as usual,

Like an IPhone dropped from an inch above ground onto three square metres of cotton wool, his cold demeanour shattered into a million pieces. His day may have been bad, but the monarchs of Equestria were addressing him. The dragon got up as quickly as humanly…or would that be dragonly? As quickly as dragonly possible Spike performed a bow so elegant it would have given Photo Finish goose bumps, before causing her heart to violently explode…it was just that elegant. The Princesses chuckled in response,

“Spike, you always are too formal around me,”

“Princess, I don’t understand, I was in the spa just a minute ago,” Spike spluttered, before Princess Luna spoke,

“Is your caretaker not Twilight Sparkle Drake? We thought she was very versed in the art of teleportation.” Oh, so it was a simple teleportation spell. Luna was right, Twilight teleported all of the time, and she was fine. The first time either Spike or she had teleported was when the librarian first discovered her aptitude for the ability, and that was when half of Ponyville was assaulting her in order to get Gala tickets.

Twilight had been in a state of panic and they had suddenly been hurtled across space and time to end up in the library. Spike had ended up charred and blackened and Twilight had been fine. He had always chalked that up to the fact that Twilight had been the one to cast the spell, whereas Spike had just been an object she had chosen to take with her.

Teleporting was fine, it never caused any problems to anypony, but being teleported by somepony else was a weird experience. You’re somewhere one minute and then somewhere else the next. Imagine it; you’re just harmlessly mugging an old woman in the street and then BAM! Suddenly you’re in a graveyard being chased by an army of skeletons that want nothing more than to hold you down and violate you with some bagpipes. Creepy isn’t it?

Spike however was quite lucky, unlike the vast majority of forcefully teleported ponies he went from a bad scenario to a good one. If you get teleported somewhere you can usually bet it’s going to be unpleasant. There was even an old pony story about a stallion who is mugging an old mare and then gets teleported to a graveyard where… well you get the idea.

“You teleported me?” Spike asked,

“Indeed Drake,”

“Princess, you don’t have to call me Drake, I usually just go by Spike,” he informed the indigo alicorn,

“Or indeed Dragonheart Augustine Virgil Spikewothy Magnus?” Celestia chided mockingly. Spike’s eyes widened and a cold feeling gripped at his stomach. In an instant, the dragon knew what had to be done. With all the grace of a blindfolded, drug-addled Derpy, Spike gripped the back of his chair and back-flipped over it. His foot immediately caught one of the curtains around him and it was pulled from its moorings. Spike was mummified in a jasmine-scented death rap of upholstery. It took him about thirty seconds to wriggle out of it. That doesn’t sound like a long time but it is when you think about it. Go on, I’ll wait and you can count to thirty.

Long isn’t it?! After he broke free of his perfectly colour-coded prison, Spike reached for his now-askew chair to gain his breath. However, due to his newfound strength, as soon as he leant on the furniture it crumpled. That wasn’t enough to put Spike down though, he rose to his feet…and immediately tripped over a splintered piece of chair. So, about two minutes after his initial target, Spike stood up and faced the two possibly (but not probably) hostile horses.

“Did you read that book as well?!” After determining whether that display came from genuine fear or just some pathetic deep subconscious desire to amuse, Luna answered.

“We do not know of any book Dra…Spike.” Princess Celestia narrowed her eyes.

“Spike, what book do you mean?”

“It was in Twilight’s library, it said some tablet had been discovered yesterday, said I was some sort of legendary Dragon.” Spike murmured bitterly.

“Yesterday?” Celestia repeated with a raised eyebrow.

“Yeah, and I’d never even it before, and I know every single book in that library!” The two alicorns shared a concerned glance, and Luna muttered something that sounded like spoon. Or balloon, or strewn, or ‘Some dickhead I met outside a pub nicked my debit card and took all of my money out then spent it all on a 5 star holiday to Cancun’.

“Spike,” Celestia began, “What do you know of boons?” ‘The Cancun thing would have been much better’ Spike thought dejectedly.

“And stay out!” shrieked a furious Lotus. Six mares trotted into the sunlight, squinting against its obnoxious rays. Rainbow Dash wheeled round and met the spa-ponies furious eyes,

“What’s the matter Lotus, it’s not like this is the wurst behaviour you’ve ever seen!” the speedster exclaimed with a grin. She turned to look at her companions who were all giving her sour glances.

“Haha, get it guys, WURST! Like, as is worst, but y’know, cos they’re from Germaney,”

“They’re not even Germane you half-wit,” snapped Twilight,

“What’s this? Twilight sticking her snout in and answering questions that were never even asked, why that can’t be right!” Fluttershy interjected in a tone more sarcastic than a robot that had been programmed to be really sarcastic by, like, a scientist or whatever.

“Oh but out you little weirdo, don’t you have to go home and fondle your animals?” Rarity spat, both literally and figuratively.

“Have you guys noticed all of our place-names have something to do with ponies in them?” Pinkie Pie queried, to be met with ‘SHUT UP PINKIE-PIE’ from everypony present; including a couple that weren’t even a part of the argument.

“It was all gonna go fine, Dragonheart and ah coulda’ just got together fine an’ dandy. But then y’all had to go and fight each other and scare him away!” Applejack cried furiously.

“Oh well, it’s not like you would’ve scared him off anyway,” Fluttershy sniped,

“What’s that s’posed to mean,” Applejack snarled at her friend.

“Oh come on AJ, we all know what you ‘country-folk’ are into,” Rainbow Dash snickered. You could almost see the cogs turning in AJ’s mind, until comprehension dawned on her. So she laughed, it was a rich humour-filled laugh. Rainbow Dash joined in as well, and then the rest of the group, and for a small second it seemed like all was well again. That was until Applejack bucked the polychromatic Pegasus as hard as she could into a nearby tree. She impacted with a sickening crunch, and then slumped in a rainbow heap.

“Y’all couldn’t leave well enough alone could yer?! Y’all couldn’t just let me and Dragonheart live our lives together, we could’a got married, imagine the foals,” Applejack lamented,

“You mean hybrids,” Twilight muttered, earning a malicious giggle from Fluttershy.

“You’re wrong Applejack, it is I who the fair Dragonheart would be betrothed to,” Rarity swooned, “he would scoop me up in his immaculate arms and fly me off into the sunset.” She cupped one hoof to her cheek and another to her heart while her eyes sparkled…

“Then he’d drop you and you’d splatter and turn into a pony pizza,” Pinkie Pie snorted. Everypony laughed and Rarity spluttered desperately, but after a while a calm smile came across her face.

“Oh Pinkie,” she said sweetly, before whispering, “No one likes your parties.” Pinkie’s hair deflated in an instant. It was like the dropping of a neutron bomb, except about a thousand times less threatening because she was a fluffy pink pony.

There was an eerie silence as a Mexican standoff (involving glares in place of guns) took place. The only noises were the wind, Rainbow Dash’s occasional groans and the very noticeable bustle of a town marketplace on a Saturday. So it wasn’t really that quiet or eerie on second thought, but still they had some pretty intense glares going on. Twilight was the first to break the metaphorical silence,

“I take it we all know what needs to happen?” Everypony looked at her confusedly,

“Urgh! We all go home tonight and then, tomorrow, fight for the right to party…I mean Dragonheart!”

“That’s fine by me, I’ll crush each and every one of you,” Fluttershy remarked with a wave of her hoof,

“Oh yeah, says the pony who cried like a bucking foal when a few others watched her fly,” Twilight snorted, and began a very derogatory impersonation of Fluttershy weeping. There was a slow grinding noise building up as the yellow Pegasus crunched her teeth over and over in rage.

“Hmph, why don’t you save it for the battle?” Fluttershy snapped in retort,

“The battle?” Twilight scoffed, “Oh I’m sorry ‘Aragorn’,”

“Ah will both of yer just shut yer holes? Ah’m done with all this, see y’all tomorrow, unless y’all are just a bunch of Scootaloos,” Applejack turned and started down the dirt trail toward Sweet Apple Acres.

“Say hello to Big Macintosh for me, and be careful to leave it at that,” Pinkie Pie called after her in an acidic giggle, before also turning tail.

“See you tomorrow girls; I look forward to yanking those rat’s-nest manes out of your respective thick skulls.” Rarity said sweetly, and left a furious Fluttershy and ticked-off Twilight to glare at each other.

“Well Fluttershy, see you tomorrow, I suppose you need to get back to filling the Stallion shaped hole in your heart with a menagerie of revolting little vermin.” Twilight walked away, making sure to flick a seething Fluttershy across the face with her tail.

The yellow Pegasus turned to insult the only remaining member of the group before departing herself. However the blue mare in question was a bit too ‘probably-dead’ at the moment to listen to Fluttershy. This left the usually shy pony with a dilemma, the others had all insulted someone before leaving, she needed to as well. She scanned the market place to find a target for some undeserved abuse.

“Hey!” she shouted at a blonde-maned, grey Pegasus,

“Yeah? Oh, hey Fluttershy, how are you to-”

“You have bucked up eyes and a stupid voice,” Fluttershy interrupted Derpy, and then, her job finished; she began the walk home, leaving a confused mail-mare and twitching Rainbow Dash behind.

“So you two used to just give ponies whatever they asked for? Isn’t that slightly dangerous?” Spike asked after hearing a lengthy and almost totally boring history of ‘Boons’.

“Well yes, we know that now,” Luna admitted,

“It took a few mistakes for us to realise the potential dangers, and Luna was not here when I decided to stop the practise.” Celestia continued,

“Mistakes?” Spike grinned,

“Well there was the whole ‘Spider-Mare’ incident,” Luna began, earning a laugh from Spike,

“Hahaha! Let me guess, some normal looking pony, shooting webs from their hooves and scaling buildings,” Spike snickered,

“Actually no, she turned into a giant eight legged, abomination, encased giant cities in her webs and started capturing ponies,” Celestia deadpanned,

“Oh…haha, I can just imagine all those little ponies trapped in webs saying-”

“She killed about thirty ponies and ate them Drake, stop laughing,” Luna interrupted.

“Okay okay, but what does any of this have to do with me?” Spike said impatiently.

“Well, as our sister said, we weren’t aware of boons being discontinued until recently, and therefore when were out flying one night and heard you, we thought it our duty to grant your wish,”

“What are you talking about Princess,” Spike scratched his head, it was a damn good this his scales were so thick otherwise he would have just sliced his skull into two, large and maybe even edible, pieces.

“You were in a field by yourself and you looked up to us and made a wish, we heard you and, since you were one of the reasons we were freed from the clutches of Nightmare Moon, we wanted to grant it.”

"Hahaha, no seriously what's wrong with me," Spike was in no mood for jokes, not even knock-knock ones.

"We just informed you Drake, we granted you a boon," Spike's jaw hit the floor, and Celestia ignored this grotesque bastardisation of anatomy.

"Spike, do you know about the magic cycle?" the alabaster alicorn enquired,

"Yes,"

"What happens is...hold on, what?" Celestia stuttered.

"Yes, I know what happens," Spike replied.

"Oh, well what about you Luna?"

"Yes, we are aware." Celestia seemed annoyed.

"Well I'll explain anyway," said the sun princess.

"Why? I know, you know and Princess Luna knows. It's not like there's anyone else involved in, or even witnessing this conversation." Spike explained.

"I'm still going to explain," She replied curtly,

"Who for?!" Spike snapped.

"For the... what do you call them? The people... oh it doesn't matter! When a pony dies or uses a spell, their magic dissipation into the environment in the form of raw energy. Animals and plants use this energy to survive, and then give out magical energy as a result, which we ponies can innately use, and the cycle starts again."

"Yes, as I said, I alread-"

"Now! Do you know what happens to non-innate magic?!" Spike was given no time to answer, "Well then, I'll explain! Magic can't be created or destroyed, by anypony, aside from Luna and I. Since a boon can only be rejected, or taken away by the pony who it is bestowed upon, or me and Luna, it's safe to say the large amount of magic wouldn't leave that pony for there life. Because, after all, who is going to want to get rid of their amazing new power? When the pony died, their magic would dissipate into the environment. Then all would be normal again. However, shortly after Luna's banishment," a small grumble from the young alicorn went unnoticed, "scientists discovered that the created magical energy couldn't be used by anyone. No plants, animals, or ponies could use it. It just sat in the environment, useless.

"Isn't that what caused global warming?" Spike interrupted, Celestia scowled in response.

"Anyway! We discovered that the energy was causing some environmental effects. So, since alicorns can destroy magical energy I set out getting rid of the unused boon energy floating around in the world. Thankfully, the environment was restored to normal without any adverse effects. However, I knew that I couldn't possibly have destroyed all of the energy, Luna and I granted far too many. We estimated 99.67% of all the unusable energy were destroyed. However that left some of the Boons in the environment. Specifically the ones that just Luna granted.

I alone granted about 0.45% of the total boones we bestowed, and most of them were done together. I could sense the ones that I had a hoof in creating, however the boons that just Luna gave, I couldn't sense, and I couldn't destroy. I've already said that we alicorns don't really follow the same rules as normal equines. It would seem Luna was indeed able to use some of that energy last night. Without her knowing that boons are now prohibited," Celestia paused to glare at her sister, and got a dismissive eye-roll in response. "Luna found you last night, and decided to use the energy from a previous boon to give to you, one that she alone granted."

Spike shook himself to regain some of his lost attention span.

"That...was really, really boring,"

"Not unlike your letter on the dragon migration then," countered the sun princess. Spike narrowed his eyes,

"Hmm, well played."

"Thank you Spike. Now do you want me to finish the story,"

"Is it more interesting?" Spike idly checked out his claws while talking, so Celestia's scowl went unnoticed.

"Do you know whose boon she granted you Spike? It was-"

"T'WAS MARY SUE!" Luna interjected with a wave of her hooves that added more drama and excitement to the story than you can even begin to comprehend. Celestia sighed harshly, she wanted to say,

"Fuck y'all, I ain't takin' dis no more!" But that wasn't very becoming.

"Mary Sue?" Spike wrinkled his nose, "Really?"

"Why, what's wrong with that name?" Luna queried.

"I live in the same town as ponies called 'Pinkamena Diane Pie', and 'Twilight Sparkle'. 'Mary Sue' just seems a bit...vanilla."

"Regardless, Mary Sue's story is a complex one, one that has to be seen to be believed," on cue, the sibling alicorn's horns began to glow in respective golden and indigo. Spike's vision began to blur, everything in the room began to spin slightly and colours seemed more intense.

"Woah, it's like the time I ate those white sweets in that clear bag under Pinkie's bed,"

"That explains a lot of things," Celestia muttered.

"Do not fear drake," Luna's canterlot voice cut through Spike's current 'Dude, I'm tripping balls' state, "Our magic will show you the images of what has already passed!" Spike felt himself getting drowsier and drowsier.

"Cool, are we having a flashback now?" Spike could barely tell if those words had come from his mouth or somepony else's.

"Oh shut the fu..."

Pinkie paced angrily up her room. Everytime the party pony came to a wall or ceiling she'd just walk up that too, because apparently she could do that.

"If only those rumours were true, the fight tomorrow would be a lot easier is I was a serial killer."

After walking the walls and ceilings of her dwelling, Pinkie came to stand in front of a small baby alligator. Gummy always understood her, he never tried to steal her beloved away from her. Gummy never called her stupid, or hyper, or scientifically impossible. Come to think of it, Pinkie didn't even know why she hung around with those other five ponies. All they did was laugh at her, call her names behind her back, make stupid excuses instead of coming to her parties. She siezed her alarm clock of the bedside table, and after regarding it for a brief second, Pinkie slung it at the wall as hard as she possible could.

It struck making a small dent in the pale yellow wallpaper. The clock itself was smashed and irretrievably broken. It had been a gift from Rarity. Not for any particular reason, just because. It had a picture of a smiling clown on the face. Not just any clown mind you, it was the famous 'Je parie que vous traduisez cette'. She was a famous jester from Prance, in fact she was one of the foremost entertainers in Equestria. She had performed for Celestia and Luna, Blueblood and Fancy Pants. You name somepony high-up, chances are they'd seen 'Je parie que vous traduisez cette' perform.

Pinkie had wanted to see her for years, however the one time the famous clown had visited Ponyville, Pinkie hadn't been able to raise the bits to buy a ticket. Her friends had pooled together and bought a ticket, and considering her status, tickets to see 'Je parie que vous traduisez cette' weren't cheap. They hadn't even asked if Pinkie wanted them too. Applejack, Rarity, Fluttershy, Twilight and Rainbow had all just done it. Just because they were her friends.

Pinkie looked at the now ruined clock. It had been a gift from Rarity.

It had been a gift from Rarity...

Why had Pinkie destroyed it if it had been a gift from her friend?

The usually jubilant pony now rushed to and fro, trying frantically to gather up any pieces of the destroyed present. It was a useless endeavour. Even someone as famously ditsy as Pinkie could see the fact that the clock was beyond repair.

She didn't want this.

Pinkie didn't want to be rushing around, trying to gather up the pieces of her shattered friendships, just because of some... Why had they even argued in the first place? Pinkie racked her brains trying to recover any sort of clue...but there was nothing. She remembered faintly that they had fought, outside the spa. However the subject of their battle still eluded her. The party pony tried to remember something before that, but there was only blackness. With the faint sound of a strange buzzing.

Pinkie Pie felt new life enter her body, she immediately began galloping down the stairs and through a nearby wall into the street. This was made possible by her blatant and 'lolfuckyou' style of bending the laws of nature. Phasing through solid matter resulted in no loss of momentum for the, let's face it, most probably drug-addled equine. She needed to get to Sweet Apple Acres and stop this madness. Yes, Pinkie Pie was the one who was working against madness. Not for it, not even slightly with it, she was actively trying to stop the madness.

Equestria was losing its shit.

Spike tried to rouse himself but to no avail. There was a soothing voice gently crooning his name somewhere in the distance. Everything was just so perfect, he just wanted to slip back into sleep... At least he did until Celestia abruptly smacked him across the face with a single gilded hoof.

"Ah!" he cried, "Why?!"

"I'm sorry Spike but you weren't waking up,"

"So you decided to punch me?" The alabaster dragon roared,

"Oh don't be such a drama-drake," Celestia mocked playfully. Spike was pretty sure he had was now missing a tooth, and considering he had essentially just been punched by God, he was pretty sure he had gottent off easy. However, he desire to complain loudly whilst flailing his arms to and fro and emitting high pitched pseudo-crying noises suddenly took a back seat.
He was sat in oblivion. No, not the Oblivion from that annoying Choose-your-own adventure book that Twilight logged about a thousand hours on, Spike was quite literally sat in Oblivion. The blackness around him and the two sibling Alicorns was simply never ending. It stretched on to mind-boggling infinity. It unnerved the young dragon, however wherever he looked the carnivorous blackness reared its terrifying, all encompassing head. As if reading his mind, Luna placed a hoof on his shoulder.

"Do not worry Spike, the darkness cannot hurt you. We will not leave you here, and you won't get lost. We are merely in the place between places. It is a vast, unending landscape of nothing that time simply forgot."

"Scotland?"

"What... what are you talking... does thou mean to mock us drake?!" Luna spluttered in her Canterlot voice. Celestia rolled her eyes and decided this was the time to interject.

"Spike, Luna and I didn't bring you here to make crowd-pleasing quips. We need to show you events that have long since passed. Therefore, we shall show you something that nopony aside from Luna and I have ever seen."

Spike's pupils dilated with cat-like interest. Celestia's, on the other hand, had began to glow with a furious sunlight. By contrast Luna's darkened, reaching an inky black rivaling that of the unlimited abyss surrounding the trio. The two equines leaned into each other and touched their horns together. An enormous cracking sound rippled through the blank landscape, and at the epicentre was a swirling blue portal.

"Spike, to show you the events you need to see, we must summon The Ethereal Gateway to Eternity!" Celestia boomed, using what Spike guessed was her never-heard Royal Canterlot Voice.

"Count yourself lucky, the numinous artifact you shall see hath never been witnessed by eyes other than those of a royal equine." The two raised their majestic heads in perfect symmetry. Coming to a point where their necks were curved with almost swan-like elegance. From within the dark swirling opening the alicorns had conjured a bright light began to emanate. Spike squinted against the gleaming barrage, he could make out something... it looked like metal, it was a contraption of some sort... it was...it was...

It was...

The fanfare the two monarch's had performed really had raised Spike's expectations skyward. Even if they hadn't given him the equivalent of a ceremonial fluffing, the name 'The Ethereal Gateway to Eternity' really does inspire thoughts of something grander than the dusty disappointment that was spewed forth from the now-waning inter-dimensional sphincter. It was a film projector, and not a one decent either.

It was dusty, really dusty. It made dust look non-dusty. It made a pony who invented a car covered in dust that ran on dust and the dreams of those who think dust is quite simply thrilling look like a dust-racist. The flimsy plastic casing that guarded the presumably pre-discordian inner workings was coming off in more places than it was still moored. It was also so God-damned old, Spike seriously suspected it was a clockwork contraption powered by coal.

"What in the name of Derpy's freakish goggles is that... thing."

"Tis the cipher Drake, our sister and we can view all the events of the world, gone and yet-to-be, in motion and soon-to-pass." Luna replied.

"A blind pony with no limbs could knock this up in their garage!" he roared, "You build up all that anticipation, just to show me THAT?!"

"Spike, remember this has existed for more than twenty years." Celestia reasoned, doing nothing to slake the dragon's indignation.

"Twenty years?! It's called the 'The Ethereal Gateway to Eternity' and it's only existed for twenty years?!" Celestia immediately shook her head.

"Spike, the gateway has always existed in some form, we just updated to this twenty years ago."

"THAT WAS STILL OBSOLETE TWENTY YEARS AGO!" Spike cried, angrier than Twilight was that time Spike discovered her weird self-insert stories with Luna in a cubby-hole with the sinister label, 'Special Stuff :)'.

"Oh, we don't know Spike, the old girl is as reliably as anything around today," Luna chuckled, she reached a hoof to pat the worn-out machine lovingly and subsequently ripped off a large portion of the feeble plastic casing. Everyone froze, Luna picked up the plastic and tried to place it back on the cut-rate machine. When the tiniest amount of pressure was applied, the projector simply fell of its perch and smashed to bits on the invisible floor.

"Well I suppose you're gonna have to update now aren't you," Spike grinned. Celestia and Luna just shook their heads knowingly.

"Spike, do you really think we would rely on a contraption so heavily without any knowledge on how to repair it?" Whilst her sister was talking, Luna had already rooted out the manual for the projector from yet another portal she had somehow found the time to summon.

"Hmm, it seems we can only find the Japonyese copy, this may take longer than expected, sit tight you two."

Spike let out a sigh, and Celestia picked up on his thinly veiled anger.

"Don't worry my scaly subject, we can play a game to pass the time. I learned of in Canterlot, apparently it's all the rage among the 'cool' ponies. It's called, 'I-Spy'. I will start, I spy with my little eye, something beggining with B," The Sun-Goddess sing-songed

"Is it 'Black'?" Spike deadpanned.

"It certainly is!"

"I hate my life."

Author's Notes:

Apologies to:
Scotland
Derpy Fans
Dust Enthusiasts