//------------------------------//
// Find a Pet.  I Mean Friend. 
// Story: How a Man and His Friends Helped Save Equestria 
// by FinInfinite 
//------------------------------//


Chapter 3


Find a Friend




Far away in a building on top of a cloud, a red pegasus bolted awake  from unconsciousness.  He heard a nearby pony cry out in pain as he quickly sat up.
“Ow, you hit my face, Carson!” said Mitch.
“Sorry, Mi- whoa!  Where am I?” Carson asked as he realized that he was not where he went to sleep (or in his case, fell unconscious after what should have been an almost fatal fall)
“You’re in one of the dormitory rooms on the Wonderbolt’s campus.  Ha, it definitely wasn’t easy for Soarin’ and Spitfire getting two ponies that can’t fly up here!”
He looked around and saw that, indeed, he was in a bed in a room that could be considered large for a dorm room.  It had a dresser and a closet, both obsolete at the moment.  The walls were white and blue with yellow stripes.  The ceiling was painted to look like the sky.  The bedsheets were all blue with the blanket having a large lightning bolt emblem.  There were also three mannequins, presumably for some of the different uniforms the Wonderbolts wore.
“Oh, I just remembered!  I didn’t get a chance to tell you what I figured out!”
Rainbow Dash walked in (with a limp and a cast because of her injuries,) saying, “Yeah, you were busy saving my tail!”
They had a small laugh.
“Hey, Rainbow Dash!  Good to see you on your feet!  It means that we don’t have to carry you!”  Carson greeted her jokingly.  “Anyways, I need to tell you my new name - Eagletone!”
“Sweet, man. I still gotta come up with mine.  I’ll make sure to call you that and spread the word.” Mitch replied enthusiastically.
“Whatever you say,” Rainbow simply said, walking out.  “I’ll tell the others Eagletone’s awake.”  She smirked.
The two smiled, then switched into serious mode.  “Eagletone, we’ve stumbled into Equestria at an extremely opportune time for the ponies.  I think it no coincidence.”
Eagletone nodded.
Mitch continued, “Oh, and by the way, I found out that in this world, even with cartoon physics, you should be dead.  There’s some other force at play, and that force is these phoenix feathers,” he said, matter-of-factly as he looked at the glorious red feather with an orange shaft around his neck.  “I asked and found out that they do things like quicken healing, make you heat-resistant, and increase your race’s ability;  In our case, that would be flying.  That feather saved your life.  Twice.”
“Oh,” Eagletone said in surprise.  “Well, that makes a lot more sense than anything else I could think of.  Now, with this ‘stumbling into Equestria’ thing, it’s definitely no coincidence, but just to make sure, I have to know.  There must have been some sort of  prophecy or something.  I mean, in a world this magical, how could there not be prophets?”
Mitch mulled this over for a bit.  “You know,” he said thoughtfully, “I think it’s time to tell them our ‘long story.’”


***


	



“Soarin’!  Spitfire!  Man, it’s a good thing we found you so quickly.”  They had been searching the halls for around a minute before Mitch and Eagletone found the two Wonderbolts.
“Oh hey, Eagletone,” Spitfire teased.  
“Yeah, I’m awake.”
“But seriously, you are one lucky colt,” said Soarin’.  “If it weren’t for that phoenix feather, you’d be a goner right now.  You know, they don’t give those things out to just anypony.”
Mitch replied, “About that, remember our ‘long story?’  Well, it’s about time we told somepony.”
“Hah, then I’ll know what this ‘TV’ thing is.” Spitfire joked.
“Well, it’s no use yelling from across the hall, come over here!”
Both groups walked toward each other in order not to have to shout.
“So... Where do we start?” asked Mitch.
Eagletone answered, “How about the part where we tell them we’re not ponies by nature?”
Soarin’ butted in in great confusion.  “Wait, what?”
“Yeah, we sort of came here through an interdimensional wormhole in our dreams,” admitted Mitch.
That only served to more thoroughly confuse the two real ponies.
Eagletone sighed.  This was probably going to take a while.  “Okay, first things first.  We dropped onto a path inside the wormhole, the path dropped off, we dropped off, got turned into ponies, and landed on the ground.  Okay, now that that’s out of the way, perhaps I should explain what we were before the wormhole.”
“Yeah, that might help just a bit.” Spitfire told him.
“So, basically we’re humans.  Homo Sapiens.  We’re bipedal primates, so we’re distantly related to monkeys.  Except that most of us don’t slouch.  Or climb trees.  Or have fur.  We have language extremely similar to Modern Equestrian, as I’m guessing it’s called, and technology even more advanced.  A TV, or television, is just one of those inventions.  Basically, you can send a bunch of data at the speed of light through invisible, low-power rays called radio waves.  That translates into pictures and sound on a digital screen.”
“That sort of makes sense, I guess,” said Soarin’, still rather confused.
“But even though we don’t have fur, guys do have facial hair,” grinned Eagletone
“Yeah, only the really manly stallions here have beards on top of their fur.  Anyways, I’m guessing that you’re either from really far away or another dimension.”
“Probably, yeah.  But just to be sure, have you ever heard of the Milky Way Galaxy?”
Soarin’ and Spitfire looked at each other with shocked expressions.  Spitfire spoke up.  “There was a prophecy- “
“Totally called it!” said Eagletone, pumping a hoof.
“ -That there would be three - two pegasi and a unicorn - to come from another Earth nearest to the star Solaris.  Not even the greatest oracle, literally of all time, could know when or why they would come, but she did know that they - you - would be very important to the saving of both our worlds.”
“Three?” asked Mitch, confused for obvious reasons.
“Apparently, one of us three can’t walk on clouds or fly,” Eagletone joked sarcastically.
“Oh, yeah.  That.”
“Well, before we head off on another journey, I.  AM.  STARVING.  Seriously, I need food!”
The group of four laughed.
“Besides,” added Mitch, pulling out a fairly thick stack of papers, “It says right here in the script that we have to find Fluttershy first.”
Eagletone stopped in his tracks.  “Script?” he asked, bewildered.
“What script?” Mitch replied with the papers somehow having disappeared.
They continued to walk through the halls, undisturbed by any pony that might have been here sightseeing, seeing as they were all presumably not alive at the moment.  The halls really were grand, with a color scheme consisting mostly of royal blue and electric yellow racing stripes with lots of white marble and the hard, cloud-like material.  They were wide and tall enough for a team of six to fly on each side, making for easy and safe transportation to any place they needed to get to. As they were all pegasi, the four flew through the halls to reach the cafeteria more quickly.  Mitch and Eagletone were once again reminded of the loneliness and emptiness of the usually bustling environment.
What happened for everypony to be gone? Eagletone had to wonder.  He and Mitch had yet to find out completely.


***


As they walked into the cafeteria, they found out that it was not so enormous as one would expect.  It was actually rather small; only the Wonderbolts ate there.  The ever-present color scheme of the Wonderbolts, blue and yellow, was also painted in here.
Another Wonderbolt, a white-furred, blonde mare with a simple lightning bolt for a cutie mark, greeted them.  “Soarin’!  Spitfire!  Thank goodness you came back!  I was worried you wouldn’t!  You didn’t run into any trouble, did you?”
Spitfire replied, “Of course we came back, Rapidfire.  We didn’t run into any trouble.  Actually, there was literally no life whatsoever, except these two and Rainbow Dash with a broken leg.  Remember her?”
“Well, yeah, she saved our lives,” Rapidfire told her.
“Okay, you three done catching up, because I am dang hungry!” Eagletone butted in.
“And who might you be, survivor?” asked Rapidfire.
“I’m Mitch and this is Eagletone.”
Something along the lines of, “Mitch?  Weird name,” slipped out under her breath.
“So, if this is the Wonderbolt’s cafeteria, you must have some nice food here.  Even if you don’t, I’m hungry enough I could eat a h- ah... tree!  Yeah, a tree.”
“You want it, you make it.”
Eagletone and Mitch obliged, stepping into the kitchen and quickly finding the foodstuffs.
“Don’t they at least have some bacon, or something?” Eagletone muttered from under his breath.

Mitch was the voice of reason.  “Eagletone, they’re ponies.  Herbivores;  and so are we, now.  I think we should at least try a hay sandwich to see if we are.”
The pair each took two slices of bread, some hay, and Mitch took some lilies, making a sandwich.
“I don’t like my sandwiches with toppings back home, and I doubt I would here,” Eagletone explained, taking a bite of his sandwich and chewing tentatively.
“Suit yourself,” said Mitch, wondering why his friend had such strange taste, and copying the action of Eagletone.
“Not bad,” Mitch mumbled around his sandwich.
“Sandvich!  Om nom nom!” said Eagletone in a bassy, gruff, pseudo-Russian accent while devouring his victual.
When Mitch was finished, he commented, “You know, it’s amazing how we can get so much energy from something seemingly insubstantial.”
Eagletone let out a hearty belch, much to everypony’s amusement.  “If I can let out something like that, they’ve gotta be doing something right with those ingredients!”
“Punches!” Mitch suddenly exclaimed, hitting his larger friend on the forearm.
“Ow!” said Eagletone, realising, “Ha, I guess I deserved that.”
“Yes, yes you did,” Mitch told him, smirking.
“Well,” said Eagletone, beginning to walk off, “We should be leaving about now.  Like you said, Mitch, we need to find Fluttershy.”
“I said that?”
“You did,” Soarin’ commented.
“It is a perfectly cromulent idea,” Eagletone noted.
Mitch simply shook his head slowly.  “Only you would know words like that, Eagle.”

They both made their farewells, starting with Eagletone.  “Well, I do believe we have to set off.  Goodbye, our new pony friends,” he said, waving a hoof and walking away.
“Hey Soarin’?” asked Mitch.
“Yeah?”
“Remember the joke I told you.”
Soarin’ started getting teary-eyed.  “I will,” he replied emotionally.
They were almost out the cafeteria door when Mitch stopped suddenly and whispered something in Eagletone’s ear, evoking a loud, “Crap!” from him.
Eagle turned around.  “Hey, my friend here,” he began, motioning to the orange pegasus, “Just pointed out that we have no idea where we’re going.”
Spitfire jerked her head, remembering something.  “Oh yeah!  We’re supposed to take you to Appleoosa where you’ll further progress in your quest.”
Mitch’s response was enthusiastic.  “Well then, what are we waiting for?  Let’s go!”
They all flew down the blue halls like a flock of birds.  Eagletone and Mitch continued to let their eyes wander, watching the doors and streaks of yellow fly by.

They exited the metaphorical castle of flying.  The four then flew down to the cloud layer of the enormous city of Cloudsdale.  It was still forlorn and empty as they had left it, completely barren of any sign of life.
“Is it just me, or is this really depressing?” commented Mitch.
The other three agreed with them.  As they were nearing a corner, Eagletone got distracted by a small noise.
“Heeeelllp!”
He instantly turned his head to the sound.  “Fluttershy?”
*THUNK!*  He slammed into a building on the corner the others had rounded.
The other three took note of this, and turned back to him.  
“You okay?” asked Spitfire.
“I feel pretty good for having flown into a wall,” he replied sarcastically.
“Well, why didn’t you turn?” asked Soarin’.
Eagletone motioned towards a half-destroyed building back a small ways.  “I heard a voice.”  They all looked surprised at this.  Mitch’s face in particular lit up as Eagle went on, “I think it was Fluttershy’s!”
Mitch responded quickly.  “We have to help her.  Come on!” He quickly flew up to the rubble pile and called her name.  “Fluttershy!”  Listening closely, his ears and eyebrows suddenly went up - she was inside!
Soarin’ bucked the door open and they flew inside, finding the buttercup pegasus behind a pile of destroyed cloud-building that was blocking the doorway to the room she was in.
“Oh, thank goodness you heard my voice!  I wasn’t sure that you would,” Fluttershy said as excitedly as her mellow tones could get.
Mitch was worried.  “Fluttershy, are you hurt?  Can you move?  We need to get you out!”
Fluttershy responded calmly, “Oh, I’m not hurt, I opened the door to get out and the ceiling above the exit caved in.  I tried to move  the rocks, but I just couldn’t.  I’m really  hungry and thirsty!”
Mitch felt cold fury for whatever being would force Fluttershy to be deprived of necessities.  “We’ll get you out,” his tone icy, “Eagle, on three, you and I run a path through all this stuff.”
Eagletone was unsure of how effective that would be, but he decided to go along.
“One,” Mitch was set.  Eagletone decided to set himself as well.  “Two,” the duo tensed themselves.  “THREE!” Mitch rocketed towards the wall at speeds seeming to defy the laws of physics, completely outpacing Eagletone, screaming and crashing through the blocked doorway, ending up embedded in the other side of the room he had just entered.
“Did it work?”  Asked a muffled Mitch.
A path of destruction lay behind him.  All three stared at it in awe as Eagletone laconically said, “Uh... Yeah.  It did.”

	


***


	

Due to poor planning, the group had left almost before sundown, with no supplies.  They had realized after rescuing Fluttershy that they needed to think the whole thing through and bring some things they would need before they set off, so all five (Fluttershy having joined them) returned to the Wonderbolt’s dormitory to stock up.
“So Fluttershy, what are you doing in Cloudsdale?  I mean, don’t you live in Ponyville?” asked Mitch.
Eagletone whispered to Mitch, “Don’t you think that sounds kind of creepy?  The part where you know where she lives?”
“Oh, yeah,” Mitch realized.  “We just happen to know an unusual amount about Ponyville.  Don’t ask how.”
Fluttershy responded, “Well, I was coming with Rainbow Dash.  She was visiting her parents for Cloudsday and I was visiting mine.”
“Wait, what’s this ‘Clouds-Day’ thing?  It sounds like some sort of holiday.”  Eagletone was confused about this.
“Well, you might know that all three ponies found Equestria on the same day, but it wasn’t until later that our different communities were founded.  Last week was the anniversary of the founding of Cloudsdale.”
“Oh!  That makes sense, now,” said Eagle as he understood.
“But then there’s the big question,” Mitch said, pausing for dramatic effect.  
“What happened?”
The yellow pegasus’ expression became that of terror.  “It was so scary...”
“Fluttershy,” Eagle told her, “We need to know.  We’re supposed to stop it.”
Fluttershy swallowed her fear (as much as she could, anyways) and told them.  “Well, I was in my parent’s house, waiting for them to come home.  They were getting groceries.  All of the sudden, the scariest, darkest shadow covered all of Cloudsdale.  I normally would have hidden, but I was completely frozen, and so was everypony else.”
“Everything was so dark, I couldn’t see anything except for two big, red, evil eyes that were glowing.  They were moving around everywhere, and when they saw a pony, they came to them.  They looked so scared as the eyes came at them.  And when they passed them, the pony was... gone!”  Fluttershy was crying and in hysterics by this point.
“When there was a pony inside a building, suddenly, the building was destroyed. Whatever it was, it... ate... everypony.  And when it saw me,” she said, sobbing uncontrollably, “It came after me!  It hit the building, but it wasn’t destroyed.  It hit it again, and the doorway to the room I was in got blocked.  I noticed that  everything wasn’t as dark.  It was as if it was weakened.  It came at my parent’s house one last time, but right before it hit, it stopped.  The monster yelled and screamed, but it couldn’t move!  Finally, it was pulled right through the cloud, and I could see Cloudsdale again, but it wasn’t Cloudsdale.  Lots of buildings were broken.  The monster even stole the color from the rainbows!  Worst of all, there wasn’t a single pony.  Not a single living thing, besides me.  Not even my parents!”
As the buttercup pegasus sat there crying, Eagletone was contemplating what to do about it.  He decided upon hugging her to make her feel better.
Fluttershy sniffed.  “Thanks.”
If something could be more angry than Mitch from before, it was Mitch now.  Now, he knew what had done it.  Now he knew that not only had it deprived Fluttershy of food and water, but had done so much more.  It had killed.  It had probably killed hundreds.  It was evil.  And he had to stop it, no matter what.
“Eagletone.”  His voice was calm.  His voice was fury.
“Yeah?”
“Pack your bags and wake up at sunrise.  We’re going to destroy that monstrosity, no matter what it takes.”  He was looking straight ahead, his brow drawn together, his face a scowl.  Nothing was going to stop him from stopping it.
“You got it.”


***

Day was upon him as Spry set out to do his daily work in Appleoosa.  He stopped walking just as soon as he had started.  “They’re coming!” he whispered to himself, starting off again.