It had been two days since the Ticket incident, and since it was Monday they were forced to wake up early and get ready for work. The trio sat down at their table and started to eat their breakfast. But as they ate, Alex looked uncomfortable, the donkey looked as if he wanted to say something, but he only did so after the group finished their meal.

"Alright guys, there's something I've noticed a few times now that I feel the need to share." Alejandro said to the other ponies, clearly nervous.

"Yeah? What is it?" Dark said without missing a beat.

"Yeah talk to us dude." Mort responded.

"So, a few times now while I was shopping, I'd run across a few unicorns running the stand you know?"

"Mhm."

"Yeah."

"Well, for everyone else, when they levitate food or bits to their customers they don't have to think twice about it and it works normally. But when they try to levitate something toward me it doesn't seem to work."

"What? What do you mean?"

"Like, for example, I pay them a little more than necessary and when they try to levitate the change toward me, but they drop it on the floor."

"...Maybe they were just jerks?"

"No it's not that, because they look really confused when they try to pick it up with their magic and nothing happens."

"Hm… You don't think…"

"I don't know exactly what's going on… but magic seems to act weird around me. I mean it's one thing to block an Alicorn blast, maybe that had something to do with this universe being a kid's show, but when magic itself shuts off… that's weird."

"But, for some reason it doesn't affect me?"

"It's just a hypothesis… I still have no idea what's going on with us! Why we're here, why your magic is so unstable, or why magic seems to weaken around me." Alex looked genuinely upset.

"Dude are you ok?" Mort asked worried about how seriously Alex took all of this.

"Yeah… I'll be fine. But I think it's a good idea for me to avoid anything that has to deal with magic." Alex replied as he stood up from the table.

"That's probably for the best." Dark agreed with a nod of his head.

Alex and Mort set off for their jobs, meanwhile Dark went around the back of the house, levitated his book out and propped it in front of him and sat. Dark cleared his throat and spoke

"Adiutor, I need your opinion on somethings." Seconds of silence passed before a reply was heard.

"You require assistance?" A shrill voice responded.

"First thing first, you have any information on magical disruptions occurring in specific individuals?"

"I have recordings of places and artifacts that disrupt magic as well as a few creatures that have natural resistances to it."

"Does Alex's resistance match any of these examples?"

"No, His power does not resist or disrupt magic, the process is more similar to absorption and storage."

"Okay… next question, In my battle with Nightmare Moon my shield didn't work properly, can you take an analysis for me?"

"All requirements for the shield spell were met, however upon release your magic was… repurposed."

"Repurposed?" Dark said with a heavy look. "More mysteries to uncover…"

"Was there anything else you needed?"

Dark looked to the book "No, I think that is all for today Adiutor."

"Understood, I will always be here to help in your pursuits of knowledge and arcane wisdom."

The grey unicorn carefully stowed the book back into its satchel before returning to his daily activities.

As noon rolled around for the trio, they decided to meet up for lunch. However, they found that there was a large crowd gathering around the center of Ponyville. There were cheers and awes that could be heard as the friends drew near.

"Huh… something must be going down if there's all these people gathering around." Mort said aloud to the others.

"Ponies Mort…" Alex said while he stared at the earth pony.

Mort looks back at the two before he responded "Frankly I don't see what the point of that is. Seems to me like that's the kind of thing that everybody's doing just because everybody else is doing it. So…"

"Now is not the time for this Mort." Dark said as the trio made their way through the crowd.

As they made it to the front of the crowd, they saw that it was a mobile stage with Rainbow Dash with a miniature rainbow hanging over her. Not a second later and they saw the Mane Six cheer with the crowd. Dark, Mort, and Alex made their way next to the others as Trixie started to speak up.

"When Trixie is through, the only thing they'll call you, is loser." The blue unicorn said with a grin on her face. With telekinesis, she wrapped Rainbow Dash in the pegasus' own mini rainbow before spinning her like a top.

Rainbow Dash began to spin around in an uncontrollable manner, flying all around the stage and sky. All before landing on the floor, dazed and confused. "I think… I'm gonna be sick." Was all the previously confident pegasus could say.

"Seems like anypony with a DASH of good sense would think twice before tussling with the great and powerful Trixie." The unicorn said as she gave her one last shock from a miniature thunder cloud. While the crowd laughed at Rainbow's humiliation, everyone except the Mane Six, Spike, and the Trio.

"What we need is another Unicorn to challenge her!" Spike said as he was beginning to look frustrated. He then turned toward Twilight and nudged her with his elbow "Someone with some magic of her own."

"Yeah, a unicorn to show this unicorn who's boss!" Rainbow Dash added.

"A real unicorn to unicorn-tussle" Applejack said with a smile.

"Uh…" was all Twilight could manage.

"Que the entrance of the pony nopony wanted…" Dark said with baited breath.

"Enough, enough all of you. I take your hint. But Rarity is above such nonsense. Rainbow Dash and Applejack may act like ruffians. But Rarity conducts herself with beauty and grace." The gaudy unicorn said as she stepped up.

"Ooo, what's the matter? Afraid you'll get a hair out of place in that rat's nest you call a mane?" Trixie said, goading Rarity to step up.

"Oh. It. Is. On!" Rarity began to speed walk on stage as she continued to rant "You may think you're tough with all your so-called powers. But there's more to magic than your brutish ways. A unicorn needs to be more than muscle. A unicorn needs to have style. A unicorn is not a unicorn without grace and beauty." All while she spoke, she created a dress from the show curtains from Trixie's show cart.

"Rarity won't let Trixie get the best of her! She's strong, she's be-" Spike's mouth was covered by Alex as he tried to continue hyping up the white unicorn.

"I'd suggest you just watch closely, Spike…" was all the donkey said as a bright light flashed and everyone in the crowd gasped aloud.

"Quick! I need a mirror! Get me a mirror! What did she do to my hair! I know she did something terrible to my hair!" Rarity screeched out to the crowd of ponies.

Rainbow Dash, Twilight, and Applejack lied to Rarity while Spike truthfully said "It's green." The others stared daggers at the baby dragon as he responded with a simple "What?"

Rarity began to tear up as she yelled out "Green hair! Not green hair! Such an awful, awful color!" The white unicorn ran away screaming and wailing.

Mort looked completely unfazed by the turn of events, Alejandro looked as though it took every fiber of his being not to laugh like a madman at Rarity's humiliation, while Dark stood beside him with the biggest grin ever.

"Well Twilight, I guess it's up to you." Spike said as he gestured for Twilight to move on stage "Come on, show her what you're made of!"

"What do you mean? I'm nothing special" Twilight responded as other ponies start to look at her.

"Yes you are! You're better than her!"

"I'm not better than anyone!"

"Hahaha, you think you're better than the great and powerful Trixie! You think you have more magical talent! Well come on, show Trixie what you've got, show us all." Trixie said as she slowly approached the purple unicorn.

"Who me? I'm just your run of the mill citizen of Ponyville! No powerful magic here. I uh… think I hear my laundry calling, sorry got to go!" With that, Twilight ran away from the gathering and back home.

"Twilight?" Spike said both confused and saddened… before he balled his fists.

"Ha, once again the great and powerful Tri-" As Trixie was midway through gloating she was interrupted.

"It's not over yet!" Spike yelled out to the cocky blue unicorn.

"Excuse Trixie?"

"I still know three others who can make you eat your words!" Spike said, clearly heated by the turn of events.

"Spike you ok man?" Alejandro said as he laid a hoof on the dragon's shoulder.

Spike turned toward the trio and looked at them pleadingly "You guys have to do something! Trixie humiliated three of our friends and made Rarity cry! Not to mention made Twilight upset!"

"How would we challenge her though, we aren't especially skilled in any areas." Dark said in a convincing but held back manner.

"Yeah, I can't think of anything that really makes us more qualified than the others." Alex said with a barely audible nervousness to his voice.

"Why, you two are lyin' like a rug!" Applejack said cutting into the conversation.

"What do you mean Applejack?" The two responded.

"You three are some of the most honest and hard workin' folks I've met. You keep your promises and pay your debts." Applejack said as she tried to dismiss the other two's doubts.

"But, I don't see how that helps us here." The donkey said as he was on the back foot.

"Ah… I guess that doesn't help us here…" Spike said in a defeated tone of voice.

However Applejack looked at the two straight in their eyes as she said "What about when you three tussled with Nightmare Moon? Why not show her a thing or two about how you three held off a dang Alicorn!"

"You're right AJ! You guys have to have some kind of ultra cool move to show her up!" Spike said with renewed hope and vigor.

Trixie's eyes widened with interest at those words. "What's this? You three have fought an Alicorn you say!" The unicorn moved off closer to better hear the conversation.

The first of the three to respond was Dark "We barely survived the encounter, when it comes down to it… we got lucky." The unicorn stood gritting out the excuse.

"I'm still recovering, if you can remember. If I'm honest, it wasn't really a fight." The jack said, trying his damndest not to look Spike or Applejack in the eyes.

Mort looked at both of them in surprise before speaking "I… uh… just dragged peo-ponies?"

"Well? Are any of you three going to challenge the great and powerful Trixie?" The blue unicorn said with a sadistic smile.

Both Applejack and Spike looked at the three with pleading eyes, but the three tried their hardest to keep a poker face on and avoid making eye contact with the two… knowing full well their guilt would be made that much worse.

"No." The three answered at the same time.

"Well then… once again the great and powerful Trixie has proven herself to be the most amazing unicorn in all of Equestria! ...Was there ever any doubt?" Was the last thing she said before retreating into her cart.

The trio could only hang their heads in shame as all the other ponies from the large gathering started to disperse. By the time every other pony went home; it was just the trio, Applejack, and Spike who didn't seem to move at all. The two stallions and donkey noticed that AJ and Spike were still nearby and could see from their peripheral vision that they were staring at them, and didn't look like they were leaving anytime soon.

Alejandro, Dark, and Mort glanced at each other for a second before they reluctantly looked at Applejack and Spike. The three friends fully expected to see a furious Applejack chew them out for not doing anything. Instead they were met with a very disappointed and saddened look on the earth pony's face, and for some reason that felt even worse than what they were anticipating.

Applejack slowly walked away from the group after she gave them a wordless stare. It took every ounce of willpower for both Dark and Alex not to tell her why they didn't help. But they weren't done there. Spike walked up to the group with his fists at his side and tears pooling in his eyes.

"...I was really counting on you guys…" Was what the baby dragon finally said. "Trixie hurt our friends, and you didn't do anything about it… I thought you guys said it was important to stand up to bullies like that!"

"Spike, we-" Alejandro tried to reach out for Spike, but was too late. The baby dragon turned around and left the group to find Twilight.

"...Fuck." Dark said under his breath. "This feels bad dude…"

"...Yeah, for real… We couldn't do anything." Alejandro said sadly.

"What do you mean? Dark seems to have pretty strong magic, and you said magic goes all wacky around you, not to mention if it was just showing off talents, I could have shown off some of the things I do at work." Mort replied.

It was obvious the earth pony wasn't very bothered by the turn of events since he only met Applejack when the whole group needed to be there, and only just recently met Spike.

"That's not what I mean, what I meant was that we couldn't do anything because we would have solved the problem for them. We are supposed to avoid getting involved with the plot, to try to preserve the turn of events in the show…" Alex responded to Mort.

"Uh guys, lunchtime is almost up. You guys should head back to work while you still have time." Dark warned Alex and Mort as he pointed toward the clock tower.

"God… dammit." Both Alex and Mort said sadly.

After work, the trio met for dinner. Despite not having eaten during lunchtime, Alejandro had trouble eating the food before him. Mort on the other hand had no qualms in having scarf down his food. Dark looked toward the donkey with sorry eyes.

"Hey Dark…" The jack finally spoke up.

"...yeah?" The unicorn responded weakly.

"Why does it feel like we made the wrong choice?"

"I know what you mean. But we want to make sure we don't mess with the timeline."

"I know why we did it, and I know the safest choice is to not get involved… but I can't help but feel like we should have anyways."

"We still don't know why we're here, so doing anything before knowing that is dangerous."

"Yeah, but we don't know how long we'll be stuck here… hell, we might live out the rest of our lives here! Is our life going to be defined by doing nothing!"

"..."

"Well Dark!"

"Alex, calm down." Mort called out to the jack.

The donkey took a moment to take a breath before asking again. "What do you think Dark?"

"I don't know, I'll be honest I don't know. But let's just try to keep our heads down for now…" Dark finally said with some frustration.

The group returned to a saddened silence, as they continued eating their dinner. Dark also started having trouble eating after the conversation with Alejandro as his mind started to wander. Not too long after, the jack started sniffing at the air quite loudly. This caught the attention of the other two.

"What's that smell?" The donkey said to the group.

"...The food?" Mort asked the donkey.

"No not that, it's something else. I've started smelling it back at Applejack's shed, so I thought it was something back there, but now I've noticed it in our house too…"

"What does it smell like?"

"It's a… *sniff* woody smell… like pine or something."

"Are you sure it's not the house?"

"I am certain…" Alex said as he started to walk around the house to find the source.

As the donkey moved away from the dinner table and to Dark's room, the unicorn was confused. He didn't have anything in there except… wait.

"Uh, Alex, why are you going to my room?" Dark said, slightly worried.

"The smell is getting stronger, it seems to be coming from your room." Alex said as he continued to sniff, similarly to a dog.

Slowly but surely Alex made his way inside his friend's room, and on his bed was his spellbook.

"OH jeez, yeah that's it. It's the book, it smells like a goddamn car freshener."

"I don't smell anything." Mort said as he moved next to the book.

"Are you having a stroke Alex?" Dark said half-jokingly.

"No I'm not, here let just-" As Alex was about to pick up the tome, the book went flying across the room and into the hall.

"Ok Dark jeez, if you didn't want me to touch it you could have just said so."

"Dude… that wasn't me."

"...Mort?"

"Don't look at me dude, I don't do any kind of that fancy magic stuff."

"Ok… it's not like it moved itself."

"...Ye-yeah!" Dark responded sheepishly.

"Alright, let's try that again." The donkey said as he tried to pick it up again, but just as before, it threw itself downstairs.

"...What the fuck?"

The trio followed the book to the first floor, and for the third time, Alejandro attempted to grab the book, but this time it began to levitate and flip through its pages and began to speak in a shrill and panicked voice.

"Stop! Stop it! Don't come any closer, you stooge!" The book cried out while pointing its bookmark toward the donkey.

"Wha- what the hell!" Both Alex and Mort called out.

"Calm down Adiutor, what's the problem?" Dark said as he moved next to the flying book.

"Adiutor!?"

"Sir Dark, I am simply protecting myself. If that fool gets too close, my consciousness will be lost to his magical consumption."

"What the hell is that?" Both Alex and Mort questioned, as they pointed at the floating book.

"Oh right… I forgot to tell you guys, this is Adiutor my spellbook. He, uh, is kinda my cross reference to information in the world while also being my source of incantations to cast spells."

"So wait, did you find this sentient spellbook?" Alex asked, confused.

"Well… yes and no, at the time it was just a normal book which I kept spells in, it was only till later when he started talking."

"Ok… I guess, two more questions. Why does it want to avoid me so badly and what does it mean by 'Magical Consumption'?"

"Ah yes the 'Magical Consumption'! So basically, you seem to emit a constant effect of absorption toward anything magical, which means Adiutor kinda slowly dies when you are too close."

"...Ah… Well, I'll keep that in mind. Did you spray Adiutor with something? Because he smells like one of those pine scented car fresheners."

"Adiutor? Do you produce any smells that only certain people can smell?"

"Absolutely not! Smells are horrible!" the book responded.

"I see… Well, it seems like it's just you Alex."

"...I am too tired for this, both emotionally and mentally, I'll worry about this some other time… I'm heading to bed."

And with that, the donkey dragged himself to his bedroom, leaving both Mort and Dark looking at each other and heading to their respective rooms for the day.