For it All to Come Together...
April 20th 2012
“What did you see?”
“Lots of things!”
“What kinds of things?”
“Hmm, let’s see. There were funny things, cute things, weird things, silly things, things I don’t really understand...”
I sighed and placed a hand on my forehead, then stood up from the chaise and paced the room. “You need to be specific, Pinkie,” I said, making sure I made eye contact with her. “Seriously, there are things on the internet that I would much rather you never see. Ever.”
Pinkie crossed her arms and leaned back on the chaise. Her eyes didn’t blink for nearly a full minute as she stared up at the ceiling in what I assumed to be deep thought. Finally, she leaned forward and placed her hands on her knees, apparently having reached a conclusion.
“I’m pretty sure I didn’t see any of those things,” she announced proudly.
As thrilling as it was to have Pinkie Pie, the honest-to-goodness real Pinkie Pie, sitting on my luxury couch right in front of me, it must be said that it very nearly did not make up for how mind-numbingly difficult it was to get a straight answer out of her. To make matters worse, she just sat there smiling at me as if she were certain that her answer was precisely what I had wanted to hear. The innocent, if completely oblivious, look on her face made it impossible to grow too impatient, however, and I tried again.
“I need to know,” I began slowly, “exactly what you saw online.” I decided to try a new tactic, but I’d have to be careful how I worded things. “Did you see any, uh, ponies?”
“Uh huh!” was Pinkie’s immediate reply. “All kinds of ponies! I saw me and all my friends, and even ponies I’ve never even seen before! Well, until now anyway. I’ve seen them now, but I hadn’t seen them up until now. Then. Not now, I mean back when I was online. Back then.” She scratched her head. “I guess maybe those ones are from the parts of Equestria I haven’t visited yet. Anyway, there were lots of ponies.” She placed her hands in her lap as she finished speaking and looked up at me expectantly once more.
Bloody brilliant.
“Okay, well...” I paused for a moment to think of how to continue. Obviously, she had been to pony sites. This wasn’t much of a surprise, seeing as I had a few saved to my favorites. It wouldn’t take much blind luck for someone new to computers to end up on a pony site using my machine. Add in the fact that this was Pinkie Pie and it really was no surprise at all. The problem was that while I didn’t have any... unsavory... sites saved in my favorites, it wouldn’t take too much floundering around to find yourself on one of them. I decided to just be blunt.
“Were any of them naked?” I asked.
It truly is amazing just how dirty and wrong it made me feel after asking something so innocent such a question. It didn’t help that she laughed at me.
“Oh Captain,” she managed through a fit of giggles. She stopped for a moment and met my eyes, held my gaze for a few seconds, then fell back onto the couch and lay there snickering at me once again. “Of course they were naked! Most of them anyway. Let’s see, I’d say maybe seventy... no, eighty percent of them were naked. Not a shred of clothing on them whatsoever, nope!”
“Jesus Christ, what sites have you been on!” I blurted. Pinkie just stared at me. A moment later I felt like an idiot as I realized why she had been laughing. Of course the ponies would be naked; they’re almost always naked. What I had meant was whether or not they had their premium services showing, but Pinkie wouldn’t have realized that. She didn’t seem to be bothered by my outburst though, as she simply answered my question.
“Well, there was Equestria Daily. Can you believe that the entire site is dedicated to us? I mean, to ponies? When you told me that most humans like ponies, I never even dreamed that they would like us that much.” She lifted her head up off the couch to look at me. “I think it’s kind of cute how you all seem to like us so much. Cute and just a teeny-tiny bit creepy. But mostly cute. Oh, and I just have to say, it’s totally amazing how many drawings of us there are, but a lot of you seem to get it all wrong.” She blinked at me. “Just saying.”
Equestria Daily wasn’t too bad, but I’d have to press harder. I walked over and sat on the corner of the chaise. “So what other sites were you on?”
Please for the love of all that is good, don’t say Fim...
“Facebook!” Pinkie exclaimed happily.
That was the other ‘F’ word I didn’t want to hear from her. I just didn’t realize it until she actually said it and made me nearly fall off the edge of the chaise.
“Facebook!?” I gasped.
“Uh huh! I saw the word at the top of the screen thingy and just had to check it out!” She sat up on the couch and made an exaggerated pouty-face. “But wouldn’t you know it, it has nothing to do with faces or books or facebooks. I mean, you can see faces on it, I even uploaded some pictures of mine to my account, but it isn’t just about faces!” The pout became a smile once more. “It’s a pretty neat site though.”
I wasn’t certain, but I thought that I had heard something about uploading photos and Pinkie having her own Facebook account. That couldn’t be what I heard, of course, because that required setting up an email account, a mildly complicated startup procedure to create the Facebook account, the ability to take pictures with a webcam and upload them onto the site, and more. Clearly, my hearing had betrayed me.
Pinkie simply continued to smile at me, bouncing gently on her seat. I was preparing to ask her to repeat herself when she spoke again.
“I have two thousand and seventy four friends already!” she squealed.
“You... what?” I was stunned and, try as I might, I couldn’t say anything beyond that.
Pinkie chuckled. “Well, that’s how many I had the other night. It could be way more by now, but I haven’t really had time to check.” She looked at me quizzically. “Is that how it works? You’re supposed to go to the site every day and make more friends? Because really, that has to be the best idea ever! This internet thing was clearly made with ponies like me in mind. People. Whatever.”
My initial thought was that having Pinkie on Facebook would ruin everything and expose the Equestrians to the world. I put that thought aside, however, as anyone friending her would certainly just think she’s an amazing cosplayer. My thoughts then wandered to something else.
“How,” I began, but had to stop and clear my throat. “How did you do that? How did you manage to make a Facebook account?”
Pinkie stopped chuckling and sat completely still. For all I knew, it was the only time in her life that she had done such a thing. She then stared at me with a blank look on her face as if she were completely lost in thought.
After a few moments of creepy silence, I said, “Forget it. I should have known better than to ask.” That seemed to do the trick, because her body and her facial expression immediately relaxed until she was once again bouncing on her seat. Almost afraid to continue, I asked, “What else have you seen online?”
The way Pinkie scooted closer to me and placed her hands on my shoulders, her face inches from my own, caught me entirely off-guard.
“Twitter. Is. Amazing,” she stated, staring into my soul. She continued before I could think of anything to say. “I can see what my friends are doing at all times. All times! I want, no, I need somepony to bring Twitter to Equestria whenever we get back.” She cocked her head slightly. “You’ll do it, right? You’ll bring it with you when you take us back.”
“I...”
“Oh, and I’ve been on YouTube, too,” she stated matter-of-factly, leaning back and finally giving me some room to breathe.
At that moment, Fluttershy walked into the room with Angel trailing close behind. The looks on their faces told me everything I needed to know.
“No luck?” I asked as Fluttershy sat down next to me and Angel took a seat on the floor. I had more I wanted to ask Pinkie, but for the moment this was more important.
Fluttershy sighed. “No,” she admitted sullenly. She looked down at Angel, who turned to face away from us and sulk. “I don’t know,” she said, looking back towards Pinkie and I. “I wish I could help him in some way, I really do. But I just don’t think he’ll ever be able to say anything more than... you know.”
The way Angel was acting, I knew that it wasn’t from a lack of effort on his part. It was quite obvious that it meant a lot to him, but it wasn’t something that was just going to happen overnight.
“I’ll have a go at teaching him later,” I said soberly. I then turned my attention back to Pinkie. “YouTube, huh?”
“Uh huh,” she acknowledged quickly. This was obviously a topic she wanted to talk about.
I braced myself. “Okay, what kind of videos did you watch?”
Pinkie took in a deep breath. “Oh my goodness, where do I even begin? Well, there was this one guy named PewDiePie, which is totally great because it sounds almost like Pinkie Pie, which is what I typed in the little search thingy. Anyway, his named popped up and I just had to check him out. Guess what? He totally almost called me a brony! Well, he called me a bro, which is kind of like brony but without the ‘n-y.’ He’s really silly! But all he does is play video games. I mean really, it was kind of pointless of me to watch the video.” She finally paused briefly to take another breath. I honestly had no idea who she was talking about. “Then again, I ended up watching four more of his videos. I still don’t know why.
“Anyway, there were so many videos with ponies! I know, because I typed in the word ‘ponies’ and presto! Hundreds, no, thousands of videos with ponies popped up. I saw me and all my friends again, and a lot of the videos showed things that happened to us in the past, just like that one you showed us a while ago!” She paused again for breath and tapped her chin. “Then again, some of the things they showed were all wrong, but that’s not really important. It was really nice to see a few almost-accurate-but-not-really-totally-accurate-because-some-of-the-details-are-completely-wrong videos of some of the things me and my friends did together.” With that said, she finally leaned back on the chaise with a sigh.
It was a lot to process, but it seemed like she hadn’t seen anything too damning. If she stuck to just the episodes of the show she would have been just fine, even if she read the comments. While some brony videos could have pretty bad comment wars on them, the episodes themselves were usually pretty tame in comparison. I was preparing to breathe a sigh of relief when she suddenly spoke again.
“Cats!” she exclaimed, sitting forward on the chaise again. “I watched cat videos, too. Lots of them.” She looked over at me as if to verify that it was okay to watch them. “I probably watched a few... dozen? At least thirty, but maybe as many as forty five. No more than fifty, probably. I just... I couldn’t stop! I mean, we have cats in Equestria, but you guys seem to have gotten all the most adorably cute ones! They were all running around and jumping at shadows, wrestling with each other, playing with wires and string. I clicked on one and, before I knew it, it was several hours later and I had watched nothing but cat videos.”
The brief moment of jealousy that flashed upon Fluttershy’s face went unnoticed by Pinkie, but I certainly saw it. I decided it was probably time to call it a night.
“Okay,” I said, standing up. “So nothing else?”
Pinkie looked up at the ceiling in thought. “Hmm... nope, nothing else. I’m absolutely sure that I didn’t see anything else on the internet.”
I wasn’t sure I liked the way she finished that statement, but if she’d seen anything else, the damage was already done. I decided to hope for the best and leave it at that as I helped Angel and the girls get ready for bed. The next few days were going to be quite busy as we prepared to make arrangements to bring John and the Cutie Mark Crusaders to Sydney, and we’d all need a good night’s rest.
The next morning was just another in what was fast becoming a daily ritual for us all as we sat around the table having breakfast. I decided to let the Equestrians try some Uncle Toby’s Sports Plus cereal this time, which was met with enthusiastic approval from each of them as they consumed the tasty mixture of flakes, corn puffs, apple bits, and sultanas.
After a while had passed and we were nearly finished eating, I couldn’t help but notice that Fluttershy kept looking off in the distance, as if she were thinking of something else.
“What’s up, Fluttercup?” I asked.
“Hm?” Fluttershy asked, looking around and suddenly becoming aware of her surroundings. “Flutter... who? Do you mean me?”
“Uh huh. I just used a nickname, that’s all,” I explained. “You don’t mind, do you? It rhymed, you see. My attempt at humor.” The way Fluttershy’s face wasn’t registering, I knew it was futile. “Nevermind. What’s bothering you?” I asked instead.
“Oh, it’s nothing...” she responded.
Here we go.
“No, really. What’s going on? I’d like to know,” I said, hopefully in a reassuring manner.
“Yeah! Tell us all about it, Fluttershy!” Pinkie exclaimed. “I bet this is gonna be good.” She noticed my glare. “What?”
Fluttershy leaned forward and rested her cheeks in her hands. “I was just thinking about flying around with Rainbow Dash, actually,” she revealed. A little smile appeared on her face as she continued. “I’ve never really been great at flying...” Her cheeks reddened a little. “Actually, I’ve never even been good at flying, and I much prefer to be on the ground. But recently, Rainbow Dash had been giving me lessons here and there, and I admit that it does feel good to feel the wind beneath my wings sometimes...” She closed her eyes and gave a small sigh, then opened them and looked at me. “I wonder where she is and how she’s doing?”
I leaned back in my chair and chewed on my spoon for a moment. “I suppose she could be just about anywhere,” I admitted. “I know one thing, I feel sorry for the poor bloke or lass that ends up finding her.”
Fluttershy blinked. “Why would you say that?” she asked.
“And what’s a bloke?” Pinkie chipped in. “Is that like blue Coke?”
“No, it’s... nevermind. I’m sure she’s doing fine,” I grunted.
Fluttershy’s smile disappeared, however, and was replaced with a frown of concern. “I don’t know,” she said. “We found the princess and the fillies pretty quickly. It’s been a whole week since we arrived here, and we’ve heard nothing from the others. What if they’re in danger?”
It was always a possibility, but I wasn’t about to tell that to Fluttershy of all ponies. In reality, I thought, unless the others appeared in some remote part of the planet where nobody lived, odds were they would eventually be found by someone. It was immediately following that thought that I had another, sobering thought.
Seventy percent of Earth is covered in water.
“They’re probably just fine!” I repeated in what was probably far too loud a voice, if the looks the others gave me was any indication. “Um, well... Rainbow Dash and Applejack are tough, right?” I was thinking on my feet here. “They can handle themselves. Twilight’s really smart, so she can think of something. Luna is a bloody princess, so that has to count for something. Rarity... well, Rarity can... whine?”
Surprisingly, that seemed to calm their fears. That is, until the door buzzer issued its ear-shattering buzz, causing Fluttershy to jump in fear at it once again.
“That’s just the door, no need to worry!” I announced as I stood up to go see who it was. Fluttershy nodded absently as Angel gave her hand a little pat.
I reached the intercom and spoke into the microphone. “Who is it?” I asked.
The thick accent of my good friend Moey answered. “It is I, the savior of your heathen soul, come to bless you with the gift of true knowledge of all that exists in the universe and beyond,” he said. “Oh, and I have your damned passports, too.”
“Holy hell, already!?” I blurted through the intercom.
“My friend, what is this nonsense you speak of?” he asked. “First you Christians tell me that Hell is a terrible place, and now you tell me it is holy? Well, which is it?”
I buzzed him in and opened the door to greet him. One of my neighbors was passing by in the hall, and was greeted by Moey, who was holding a blue folder which I assumed held the documents.
“Oh, hello there!” he said to the young lady, who I think is named Phan, as he passed her. “Don’t mind me dear, I am clearly not here on any business that could be deemed unsavory or immoral in any way. It is only with the purest intentions that I visit your friendly neighbor, though I can not say whether the same can be said for him.”
My neighbor gave me a strange look, to which I could only shrug in reply. Moey’s humor wasn’t always easy to explain. She rolled her eyes and moved on, and I quickly ushered my friend inside.
“It’s great to see you so soon!” I said as I led him into the kitchen. “How did you do it? I only sent you the photos last night.”
Moey stopped in his tracks and put a hand on my shoulder. “My friend, surely you can not believe that I would waste any time for one such as you, even if the work was for far less gain than I would prefer.” He set the folder down on the table. “I have slaved away, working my poor, innocent hands to the bone night and day until the job was complete. The only things missing were the photographs themselves, yes? It was a simple matter to add them once they arrived.” He looked over at Pinkie and Fluttershy. “And I see that my good friend has the beauties over once again! My deepest pleasure,” he added with a mock bow.
I took a look at the passports and was blown away. I had seen Moey’s work in the past, but it never ceased to amaze me at how accurate it was. I wasn’t an expert, but I’d certainly be fooled if someone showed them to me. I also should have known better than to ask him how he did it, as ‘secret Islamic magic’ was probably the best explanation I would ever get out of him.
“Well,” I said, somewhat at a loss for words. “Have you had breakfast?” I asked him. “We have Uncle Toby’s.”
Moey scrutinized the cereal box on the table. “It is poison, yes?” he stated, then shook his head. “No, my friend. I can not stay and partake in your villainous breaking of the fast, no matter how lovely the current company is,” he said, eyeing the girls. “I will take my leave and wish for your day to be mildly pleasant at the very least.”
“Bye Moey!” Pinkie said with a wave. Fluttershy meekly added a wave as well, but cringed backwards when he smiled at her. Angel simply frowned at him.
“Was the demon-child here when last I visited?” Moey asked in a whisper as I escorted him through the living room to the front door. “Can such a thing be the spawn of one of those lovely things in the kitchen?”
“No, mate. He’s not one of their kids,” I said. Moey’s face brightened suddenly, but I dashed his hopes. “Don’t get any ideas. They’re both taken.”
“Ah, I must wonder why they are here with you if they have someone to keep them warm in bed already. Especially since you...” he began, but I cut him off.
“It’s not like that, Moey,” I stated firmly.
“Whatever you say, my friend,” he said as he walked out the door. “Whatever you say. By the way, I have taken care of holiday visas for your little friends. Make sure you ship whatever credit card you use to buy their airline tickets along with the papers. They will need it at the airport.”
“Thanks, Moey," I said. I closed the door with a grunt and sighed. My mood brightened, however, when I realized that there was nothing left to get in the way of getting the papers sent to John and the crusaders. I quickly went to the kitchen to tell the Equestrians to get ready to go out.
The rest of the day was spent sorting out all the paperwork and purchasing of airline tickets. I managed to get one adult and three children’s tickets through Quantas airlines for six thousand, eight hundred dollars, departing on the 24th from San Francisco with a stop in L.A. before a fifteen hour flight to Sydney. Thanks to the magic of time zones, they would be arriving on the 25th. It was a small blow to my bank account, but I’d survive.
When we were finished with that, we were pleasantly surprised to find an email from John that listed an address in Arizona which I was to ship the passports and tickets to. It was as if everything was finally coming together, as having that information allowed me just enough time to drive us all to the post office before it closed. I was able to ship everything overnight, meaning that John would have everything some time the next evening, giving him plenty of time to prepare.
As I drove the Equestrians back to my apartment, I was feeling luckier than ever. From Moey’s fast and efficient work, to being financially blessed enough to be able to handle the cost of airline tickets easily, to finding four tickets mere days before the flight was due to leave, and getting the email from John that gave us just enough time to get to the post office and ship the package overnight. Everything was going my way, and I had a feeling it was going to continue that way.
When we got home, I opened the door and immediately turned the computer back on. After a few clicks, I had navigated to my mail service.
Sure enough, there was another email for me. This time, from DragonLS.
I felt like Charlie opening up the candy bar containing the Golden Ticket; I somehow knew something good was about to happen.
I opened the email and took a quick glance. My heart skipped a beat in excitement. I hadn’t just found the Golden Ticket - I had been handed the keys to the chocolate factory.
“Angel, girls!” I called to the others, who were busy taking off their shoes in the other room. “You’ll want to come see this. We’ve found Applejack and Rainbow Dash!”