Down another leg of the trousers of time · 1:10pm Jun 1st, 2014
I suppose it's just as well that I never specified the 'later' in my 'later blog post.' For whatever reason, it always ended up more compelling to work on chapter 6 than to polish this old fragment up. Still, 'tis now polished, and some folks may be interested.
To reiterate, this is not what actually happened, but it's basically what might have happened, had he simply been banished back to Earth by the elements, due to his alien nature, and the Princesses had not yet arrived to begin clearing things up. This ending would've originally come just after chapter 5, with Inscape planned as a surprise bonus (except things would have continued to spiral even further out of control, until the ponies leave in a huff at the end).
So, without further ado:
Chapter 06 - The Blue Pill
Dear Princess Celestia,
You have no doubt been briefed on the situation by the royal guards, but I am writing to add my own preliminary notes on today's events, as well as an unexpected lesson we learned about friendship.
I am pleased to report that we have discovered the cause of the disaster at Cloudsdale, and that nopony was seriously hurt. From what we can tell, the events were all caused by a single creature.
In the end, we were able to stop it with the Elements of Harmony, but we couldn’t have done it without the assistance of the diamond dogs, in particular one named Fluffy.
When we first arrived at Cloudsdale, we learned that, in addition to causing the explosion, Spitfire had witnessed the creature foalnapping two young pegasi and escaping.
Unfortunately, nopony knew where it had gone until Fluttershy was able to ask the local animals, who lead us to a nearby mine. Inside, we found a group of diamond dogs had set up camp while they looked for a new home. Before we even arrived, they had captured the creature and rescued the foals from it, tasking Fluffly with returning them to Cloudsrail, the nearest settlement.
While they were evasive as to why they captured the creature, and they need to improve their definition of property ownership, between Rarity and Applejack we are pretty certain of those main points. Unfortunately, when we went to see the creature, we found it had mysteriously escaped.
It went chasing after the foals, but also set up a variety of traps to slow our pursuit down. At some point it also managed to catch up to Fluffy and steal the foals - when she reached the exit, she discovered they had been replaced by dummies. She returned just in time to delay its escape enough to allow us to catch up and save the foals, despite being injured in the effort. Who knows what would have happened if we hadn't been able to catch up to it?
While clearly intelligent, and using items of a craftsponyship I’ve never seen before, the creature behaved extremely erratically - endangering everypony around it, and nearly killing Fluffy during the fight. We were ultimately able to subdue it, but when we demanded it explain itself, it replied with an escape attempt that forced us to use the elements. We planned to question it afterwards, but to our surprise, it disappeared completely! Was it a spirit? Some variant of the Nightmare returned in physical form? A scion of Discord? Something else entirely? I have so much research to do!
I will elaborate more on the details in person, but for now, let me say that the episode showed me the importance of clear communications.
All this time we thought the diamond dogs were just greedy, barbaric group of ruffians. It turns out that they actually have a deep sense of community and responsibility. Had we established better communications and developed a true understanding of their motivations, our original incident with the diamond dogs might never have come to pass, and we would have been in a much better situation today. The experience has taught me that you shouldn't jump to conclusions, and you can find nobility in even the most unlikely of locations.
Your faithful student,
Twilight Sparkle
"Sir? Sir. SIR!"
He looked up, dazed.
"Sir, I have no idea what you think you are doing down here, but we’re currently closed to visitors, and I am going to have to ask you to leave."
The dirt-smeared man smiled broadly, visibly unnerving the security guard as he knelt down and started kissing the ground.
It's good to be home.
I'm honestly very glad you didn't go with this version. Not only is "Inscape" more amusing, it also allows for a resolution to the myriad misunderstandings. Especially since otherwise, the Dogs might think they could get away with foalnapping again.
Clever chapter title, and an intresting alternative to the current direction. I can see how some would find this to be a bit lacking for an ending. It's not bad, not at all, but there are some people who just aren't fans of this type of ending. Strange since nothing bad happens to anyone, but maybe that's why. Perhaps they are used to the idea of the innocent being proved as such or the misinformed being shown their errors. I look forward to the next chapter!
2164213
Yeah, for me it's not the human being misunderstood that would've bothered me (it would be fascinating in the context of the story), it would have been the Diamond Dogs getting away with being jerks. That would have irked me.
Good thing this wasn't the canon ending. Too much of a cop-out on anything that isn't a one-shot.
Man, with so many folks commenting on how they dislike this ending, I'll just sneak away with my enjoyment of it.
You know, I would almost have been happy with the original end at chapter 5. All it really would have needed to feel complete was a really short "Well, here I am back home on Earth. What a crazy adventure" sort of thing after the fade-to-white. That would have kept the proper "disconnected, outside-looking-in" feeling all the way through, but also given people a certain sci-fi story sense of closure.
But then, I'm definitely not going to complain about letting the story continue, either. I'm sure it'll be interesting. Top shelf stuff. Looking forward to more.
This ending would have been kind of trollish.
Good man!
2164213
Oh, you still would've gotten Inscape. It would've just been cross-dimensional dream-diving, and come as a surprise bonus chapter. After I came up with that 'cook the books' scene, it had to be written.
It certainly does leave more loose ends, but it honestly caught me off guard when I got so much pushback from some of my pre-readers. You can thank them for the shift in direction.
My argument was in-line with what 2164220 says - objectively it's not a bad ending; everyone gets what they want. The foals are safe, the ponies save the day, Brian gets home, and even has a pouch full of gems to pay for a replacement glider.
The rub lies with readers being irritated with ignorance, or as 2164771 says, a sense of injustice.
Leaving things "off-kilter but ok" still appeals a bit to my sense of humor (possibly shared with 2167454 and 2165622
), but in the end, I went with the less radical path. It's a daunting amount of writing, though... 
2167609
I'm sure you're up to it.
2164729
It's not nice to make people's blog posts the butt of your jokes
2170705
Geez, who put a stick up your bum - Oh, right, I did. 
2170741
I suppose I ought to quit before I get too much further behind
2170834 I must be off as well. Booty calls!