Hello, everypony! I've been writing this story for a while now, and I've posted it on Fanfiction.net, but I saw that there was a section for fanfics on here and just thought I'd give posting it a shot. Here goes! I'll just post one chapter at a time, so everypony can comment on it. Apparently it's really good, but I tend to be very unforgiving to myself when it comes to this sort of thing, so please, give me your opinion! And of course, none of the Equestrian characters belong to me, only my OC Brandon. All the other characters (so far) belong to Hasbro. The boy sat about 6 feet away from his father. He was watching a TV show on his I-touch, and trying his best to ignore the frantic, frankly not too paternal presence near him that was working on yet another crazy machine. Sometimes he was annoyed with the lack of attention his father paid him, and sometimes he was embarrassed by his geekiness, but occasionally he just felt sorry for him. His inventions that he worked so hard on and poured his heart and soul into never seemed to work. It was the saddest thing Brandon could imagine, though he tried not to dwell on it for too long, as it wouldn't do to get all mushy and lose his "cool" image. His father wasn't the only thing threatening to plunge him to the bottom of the popularity charts. He had recently become addicted to a show called "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic". It was a totally girly-girl show, at least in the eyes of anyone who hadn't watched it, and as much as Brandon loved it, it scared him to death that someone who wasn't very understanding would find out, and he would be socially doomed. And as it turned out, that was the show he was watching as his father completed the finishing touches on his newest contraption. It was a machine that was supposed to allow you to view any location in the universe, in live time. Supposedly, this could not only render all current forms of communication obsolete, but could also work on a one-way basis, letting astronomers observe distant planets and other celestial bodies as if they were there themselves. It sounded like science fiction to Brandon, but despite the fact that he sounded like a complete nutter, he knew his father was actually extremely intelligent and believed he knew exactly what he was doing, even if no one else did. His father spent his entire life living in books, on the border between fantasy and reality, which in Brandon's opinion was where people needed to be if they were to be considered a genius. Unfortunately, a side effect of this was that his inventions tended to be outlandish and sometimes outrageous, and he never really spent any time with Brandon except when they worked on one of his projects. Suddenly there was a bright glow from his father's workspace, and a joyful cry of "It works! My God, it really works!". Brandon looked up from his show to see the screen of the machine flickering random colors. "Brandon, come over here! I've finally done it! It finally works!" his father shouted gleefully. Brandon warily approached the machine. He didn't know exactly how the thing worked, but he'd heard his dad talk about the immense amount of power it took, and something about tapping into wormholes. It all sounded fairly dangerous. The screen started glowing brighter and stopped flickering random colors. It became a pure white light that exploded from the screen, blinding father and son alike. There was a grating whine that Brandon wished desperately would stop, as it felt as though his eardrums were about to explode. He heard his father's shout of terror, and then everything went black. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- She inserted the final piece into her newest invention, and stood back to admire her work. It's perfect, she thought with a twinge of pride. And more importantly, it might even work! She excitedly stamped her hooves, then regained composure; she had yet to test it. She flipped several switches, and the machine began to whine. So far, so good, she thought. Now all she had to do was provide it with a source of power; in other words, pour her own raw magic into it. Her horn glowed a pale purple as she provided the energy for her creation to do it's job. It was working perfectly! She couldn't help but feel excited. With access to this kind of knowledge, she would be able to find any cure, study any spell, discover any creature! Which reminded her of the task at hand: powering the machine. She returned her attention to the mechanized wonder, and saw that it was glowing just as it should. She couldn't believe it! Her invention had worked on its first test run!! She hadn't even needed to tweak it a little bit! And naturally, this was when things started to get out of hand. For one, the glow on the machine's screen began to glow very brightly...a little too brightly. That's odd, thought the equine inventor. Perhaps she'd fed it too much energy? But she knew that wasn't the case, as she had designed the machine herself, and was positive that this was NOT supposed to happen. She quickly attempted to cut off the flow of power to the machine. However, this had unexpected consequences: the screen flashed even brighter, searing the mare's eyes and forcing her to look away. There was a terrible whining screech that assailed her ears for a few seconds, and then an enormous explosion. The last thing she remembered before passing out was that there was another shadowy figure lying in the rubble.
I hope it's okay if I post each chapter separately... if not, somepony please tell me! I'll change it right away... Also, as there is a lack of italics (as far as I know), thoughts will be denoted 'like this'. Chapter Two: 'Well, that would be another of Twi's fancy contraptions', thought Applejack as smoke rose from the basement windows of the treehouse library that was her friend's home. 'I guess I'd better go help her.' She began to walk towards the house when Spike burst out. "Help! Help! Someone heeelp! One of Twilight's inventions blew up...again!" "Now calm down, I'm sure she's fine," said Applejack. "This happens, what, once a week? Has it ever ended with anyone getting hurt?" "Well, there was that one--" "Of course not. Now, let's go help Twi out of the rubble. ...Again." Applejack and Spike made their way downstairs, coughing as the noxious fumes invaded their lungs and throats and made them burn. "Dang," Applejack coughed, "That explosion musta been something real fierce!" "Yeah," -cough cough- "It's even..." -cough- "Making it hard for me to breath!" said Spike with difficulty. The door to the basement was either blown off it's hinges or totally incinerated, it was impossible to tell with the visibility so low. In either case, they walked through the doorway and entered into an enormous pool of silky gray smoke. It was like fog, the kind of fog so thick that even grown ponies are afraid to go out, for fear of getting lost. You couldn't see a hoof in front of your face if you put it there. Applejack cautiously entered the room, thinking that she wished there was some way to clear out the smoke. "I wish there was some way to clear out all this smoke..." she said aloud. "Hello," said a voice from behind them in the murky smoke. "Looking for me?" Applejack and Spike yelped and ran right into each other. "Relax, guys," said Rainbow Dash. "It's just me, here to save your flanks...again." She flew into the room and created a tornado of rainbow that sucked all the smoke in the room toward it. The tornado funneled the smoke toward the lone open window, and it all exited the room. "Thanks, Rainbow Dash!" said Spike. "You're welcome," she said, clearly proud of herself. "I'd like to thank all the little pon--" "No time for heroic speeches, Rainbow," said Applejack. "We gotta find Twilight!" "Oh...yeah. Right!" she said, and began to zip around the room in search of the purple-maned pony. After searching for awhile, Spike shouted, "I found her, I found her!". Rainbow and Applejack quickly came to his side. Sure enough, a purple hoof was sticking out of the rubble that covered the floor, mostly composed of ruined books and machine parts. Applejack and Rainbow pulled her out and brought her upstairs, laying her on her bed. "What do we do now?" asked Applejack. "I bet her lungs are full of that smoke that was down there. She's hardly breathin'!" "Maybe you have to give her mouth-to-mouth resusc...rescust...oh, whatever it's called." Rainbow Dash leaned away from him. "No way! That's gross! She probably has all kinds of dust and..." Rainbow watched as Applejack breathed air into Twilight's mouth, then pushed down on her stomach. Sure enough, the air that came out was filled with grey smoke of exactly the same kind that was downstairs. Twilight began to cough, and more smoke came from her mouth. "Twilight! You're ok!" shouted Spike as he hugged her, getting a bunch of smoke to the face. "Eww, your breath smells terrible!" "I can't imagine why that would be," said the orchard pony, rolling her eyes. Twilight coughed and hacked some more until it seemed that most of the smoke was out of her lungs. "What...what happened? Did my machine work?" Applejack looked at her with sympathy. "Eh, no, not unless it was SUPPOSED to explode...." "And then we saved you!" Rainbow Dash interjected. "Well, it was mostly me. Applejack and Spike, they were all like, 'What will we do, we can't get anything done in all this smoke', and then I was like, 'Have no fear, Rainbow Dash is--'" "But I know I saw something else down there! There was something in that room after the explosion!" blurted Twilight. "Well, yeah, there was a heck of a lot of books and smoke and fancy mechanical doohickeys, if that's what you mean," said Applejack helpfully. "No, I mean...well, let's go down there and look." "Whatever you say, Twi." said the orange-coated mare. "Well, I'm done here. I'm not gonna waste time looking through some boring, book-filled basement! See ya!" A rainbow blur exited the room. "Well, that's Dash for ya. One minute she's bein' helpful, next minute she's bailin' out on the job!" muttered Applejack. "Come on guys, hurry up!" shouted Twilight from the main floor. "Coming, Twilight!" responded Spike. Pony and Dragon raced down the stairs to catch up with the impatient Unicorn. When they got to the basement, Twilight was already limping through the wreckage, books and parts flying all over the place, propelled by her powerful magic. "It was right over here! It might be some sort of proof that my invention worked!" she tossed aside a large switchboard and a dictionary. "It's got to be here some--" Twilight ceased moving abruptly. "What in the name of Celestia...?" she murmured. For there, even though she didn't know it, lay a creature that had just been teleported over a formerly insurmountable distance by her machine. There lay Brandon. Author's note: ...DUN DUN DUUUUUN!
