“I know who you are,” Mrs. McCullough says as she takes a few menacing steps closer.

My mind is a blur of motion. I need to find some way to get out of here and find a safe place to hide. And I need to carry Silver with me. I'm not sure if he's even figured out how to fly yet and his inebriated state really wouldn't lend him any favors even if he did. Come on Geneva, think!

Oh! The cloudmobile! I could just haul him up there! It's dark enough that people should lose track of us and-

“You're the alien who stole my lawn gnomes back in nineteen eighty three!” Mrs. McCullough screeches, pointing an accusing finger at me.

My train of thought hits a penny, jumps the tracks, sails through the air, and crashes in a mangled heap of mental metal. A small army of hobgoblins begin picking through the wreckage for any more loose change.

A few awkward seconds pass while my brain tries to reboot and process the accusation that I was just pinned with.

“Don't you play coy with me, alien! I'm wise to your mind tricks!” the crazy cat lady continues.

My ears twitch toward the sounds of conversation and mutters of disbelief. The sounds of doors opening and parents telling children to stay put. The sounds of impending doom. People are starting to head toward the scene of the crash with phones in tow to take pictures or call emergency services. Probably both. And that means pictures of us. One picture could be written off as a hoax, but dozens from different angles? That would be far more difficult to explain.

I hook my arms under Silver's forelegs and spread my wings with a rush of wind that sends bits of paper, dust, fallen leaves, and other detritus swirling away. Thankfully this has the benefit of causing Mrs. McCullough to shield her eyes.

“Back to our space ship!” I reply a little louder than strictly necessary. “You'll never see your precious gnomes again!”

And with that I take to the sky while Mrs. McCullough shrieks curses at me. Hopefully when the press shows up they'll interview the crazy cat lady and receive an earful of incoherent gibberish. I feel kind of bad about indulging her delusion, but I'm protecting the safety of my friends here. That's a little more important.

A few days ago if someone claimed that they had met a living breathing My Little Pony character they would have been pinned as crazy, too. Maybe lawn gnome stealing aliens aren't that far fetched in retrospect?

As I lift off into the sky my sensitive ears pick up voices raised in frustration toward uncooperative cameras. Quite a few in fact. Enough to make me wonder if the hobgoblins are finally on my side for once. Certainly took their sweet time.

I dump Silver onto the cloudmobile and give my wings an irritated ruffle while I peer down at the ground below. Humans are beginning to cluster around Silver's ruined car searching for any signs of the driver who had so obviously been thrown from the vehicle. Mrs. McCullough is waving her arms around and shouting, no doubt about how the tiny horse that was driving the car was abducted by a gnome-stealing alien.

Ever so slowly I let out a breath and relax. The situation was bad, but it could have been a lot worse. We were lucky that Silver wasn't hurt despite his crash. We were lucky that visibility was poor and apparently several phones were on the fritz. We were lucky that the only person who got a clear look at us was the crazy old cat lady. It was bad, sure. But despite being a pretty major screw up on our part it still had a...

I glance back at Silver. He's busy batting a tuft of cloud back and forth between his hooves absently. There isn't a scratch on him. Not so much as one single bruise. And there on his rear is emblazoned a grey raincloud with a bright silver outline.

“Hmm?” the pegasus grunts back as he tries to focus his blurred vision on me.

“When you were still human did you ever have any major injuries? Broken bones or anything like that?” I ask. I've got a hunch, you see.

“Nope. Hehe. Always been lucky like that,” he replies. He follows up that statement with a glower. “Luck ran out with this pony thing, though.”

My friend provides me with a look equal parts clueless and unamused. He can tell that this is a pony thing, but I don't think he knows what a special talent actually is. May as well explain, right?

“A special talent. It's what your butt-symbol represents. The field where your pony magic is most focused,” I says. Silver begins waving a hoof in a 'get on with it' sort of way. “I think your special talent is having a silver lining to whatever misfortune befalls you. Some upside to every disaster.”

“So you're saying I'm really lucky,” Silver snorts. “I knew that already. I've always been lucky.”

“Well buck, isn't that great? I've got magical luck. Can my crazy magical luck do anything about my little change in species problem?” Silver asks.

“Didn't think so,” Silver huffs. “This darn curse is censoring my language too, isn't it?”

I can't help but snicker slightly as I nod. I had noticed that Dust's language and even some of mine seems to be hitting the same mental blocks that our old human names do, but Silver seems to have it really bad.

“Buck. Bucking Tartaurus. Horse-apples. Plot. Gosh darn it. Whorse. Mule. Son of a jenny,” Silver rattles off in a complete deadpan.

Silver is getting pretty upset. “What the buck! Seriously? What the actual buck. Apparently it isn't bad enough that I get turned into a girly cartoon character, so now everything I say needs to be kid friendly. Is that what's going on here? Are the rest of you getting saddled with this load of horse-apples too?”

“Whatever this is has mental changes packaged with the physical ones,” I admit as I glance over the edge of the cloudmobile again. The street far below has been lit up with the flashing lights of emergency responders. They're probably pretty confused by the lack of any injured people considering the state of Silver's car. And it looks like the local news van has just arrived, too. A combination car-wreck alien sighting was probably a bit too much to resist.

“Oh, just decided to take a spin. Drive around town. Come see my friends, crash into a tree,” Silver replies non-nonchalantly. “Seemed like a good idea at the time after I woke up as a pony, got smashed, and completely wrecked my house.

I decide not to press the issue further, turning my attention back to the scene far below. It looks like the police are collecting something from the street and Silver's car. I focus my vision and to my surprise it actually seems to zoom in.

“I think they're collecting the feathers you molted all over your car,” I reply. “And whatever scraped off you when you skidded across the street.”

“Well buck. There goes whatever cover you guys were hoping for,” Silver mutters. I don't quite follow, so he continues. “Someone had to have seen us down there. The police are told there were a pair of big winged critters and they find some huge feathers and a bunch of fur spread around. They test the hair and it isn't human. They send it back to our lab and...?”

Silver motions for me to finish the thought. “And they find the same thing we did. Alien DNA. Which leads people to wonder what an alien was doing driving a car through town. What would they announce, though? Aliens are among us! They're stealing our cars and crashing them into trees!”

“Not quite War of the bucking Worlds material, is it?” Silver snarks. “If you're feeling really crazy we could go smash the horse-apples out of of the lab before they can run the tests. I don't know about the rest of you pretty ponies but I can kick like a cannon now.”

Huh. That would certainly buy us some time. The samples would have to be shipped off to another lab. But by the same token if we manage to get ourselves caught it would be big trouble. That and I'm not too keen on wrecking millions of dollars worth of lab equipment just because we made a dumb mistake.

“I don't think that's a very good plan. Though I guess we can run it past everypony else?” I offer.

“Where is everypony else, anyway? You didn't actually have that get-together at your apartment, did you?” Silver asks skeptically.

“Oh my gosh you did! Hahaha! You're such a boy-scout Geneva, I swear. Or a girl-scout, I guess. Hehe,” my friend chuckles.

We don't have to wait very long until Surprise and Dust join us on the cloudmobile. Surprise is wearing four pairs of my incredibly awful improvised saddlebags stuffed full of odds and ends from the party. Thankfully she had the state of mind to retrieve my phone as well. Without it we would have lost all our footage of the party. After a quick debriefing of our situation we all agree that falling back to Surprise's place is probably a good idea. Sticking around the scene of the crime for any longer than we have to is a pretty awful plan. Silver can't help much with the propulsion of our cloudmobile, but it turns out that three sets of wings are more than enough to send our cartoony little air-car puttering around the night sky.

It's nice and quiet at Surprise's place. At least it as after Silver passes out in a stupor on the floor after discovering the white pegasus' alcohol supply. That can't possibly be healthy for him, but I can sympathize with how he's feeling.

With much dread and trepidation we turn on the eleven oh clock news to find out just how doomed we are.

The Action! News Six opening jingle plays and we're soon met by the familiar sight of talking heads sitting behind a desk.

“Good evening, I'm James Jackson,” says the first news anchor.
“And I'm Amanda Wight,” the second adds.
“And this is Action News Six at eleven. Tonight's top story, the alien invasion has begun and they're stealing our cars.”

“Or at least that's what some eye witnesses claim. Let's go to Sara Parker with the details.”

The shot switches to a woman (Sara?) interviewing some guy I don't recognize recounting the events of earlier in the night. “So I heard the crash outside and I come running out to see what happened. And I can hear some yelling about somethin' and all of a sudden I see this angel or something flying into the sky! I swear he must have had like twenty foot wide wings! And I think he was carrying the guy from the crash,” the man gestures toward the sky. “And he flies off and he's gone. Craziest thing I ever seen.”

Next comes an interview with a wide-eyed little girl. “She was a pony! My friends and I were playing hide and seek and a pony got thrown right out of the car! It was really loud and scary but then another pony came and flew her away! I hope she's okay.”

And then of course there's Agnes McCullough, eye witness. The old cat lady looks even more deranged on camera than she does usually. “It was an alien I tell you! The same alien that stole my lawn gnomes back in eighty three! It even admitted it! Now they've come back for my cats! But they won't get 'em, no sir! Not if I have anything to say about it!”

Finally the camera frames a police officer. “It's all pretty strange. We found hair and feathers of all things on the glass. Those are being sent to the lab now. But there's no sign of blood anywhere and no one reported finding the driver. Unless you believe the account that he got abducted after being thrown from his car. It's the darnedest thing.”

A picture of Silver as a human is displayed on the screen along with several bullet points of information about him. Uh oh.

“The car belonged to this man, Steve Edwards, a twenty five year old resident of Arcata California who we have been unable to contact for comment on this story,” the Sara says. “Though many witnesses claim that they tried to take videos or pictures of the allegedly sighted alien they were apparently plagued by a rash of faulty batteries and blurry images. The only clue we have regarding the mysterious sighting is this artist's rendition of the creature Agnes McCullough claimed to see.”

Cut to a sketch of what looks like a stereotypical 'grey' alien with a bird's beak and a cat's tail.

“Authorities assure us that everything is being investigated and that no one has been hurt in the crash. But maybe just to be on the safe side you should be on the lookout for angels, aliens, and ponies. This is Sara Parker reporting.”

The camera returns to the news room and the talking heads begin yammering back and forth at each other, but none of us are really listening at this point. Surprise stomps a hoof on the remote and somehow manages to shut the television off.

“I thought the eyes were pretty spot on,” Dust snickers. “Though I'll admit you're a lot fatter.”

“You think it might be because of Silver's talent?” Surprise muses. “Why the cameras were all wonky and the crazy lady was extra-crazy?

“It makes about as much sense as your talent does, Surprise,” Dust laughs. “Too bad you got to Silver first. I would have loved to get the chance to strut my stuff in front of everyone.”

“Hey, save it for the video. We can start on that first thing tomorrow once Silver manages to fight off his hangover. The sooner we get it done and out to the Internet the better. Because I'm willing to bet that the police are going to be checking on his house tomorrow and they're going to discover it bucked to Tartaurus and back,” I say. “They'll find more feathers and start connecting the dots. The average Joe might not get the significance of an alien DNA sample, but anyone with the right background will instantly know what they've got. And once word gets around I'm willing to bet that authorities will start taking pony sightings very seriously.”

“This is so perfect,” Dust muses. “We've already got the talking heads' attention because of Silver being an idiot. Now all we've got to do is supply the follow up! They'll practically be begging to meet us.”

“Yeeeaah but we need to wait until tomorrow!” Surprise announces. “Because I'm really sleepy.”

Just to prove that statement she collapses in a heap on her chair and begins snoring loudly. Dust and I exchange a look and then carry our manic friend to her bed. Dust heads off to the guest room again while I plop the utterly passed out Silver onto the couch.

I head outside and pull a chunk off our cloudmobile which turns out to be pretty simple work. Talons cut through clouds nicely it would seem. Once I have a bed-sized piece free I fly it back down into Surprise's house and park the cloud over her bath tub just in case it starts dripping at some point in the night. Vola! Cloud bed! I swat the lights off with my tail and settle onto my perch. After tonight I honestly doubt if I'll ever be able to sleep in a normal bed again. To say that it's like sleeping on air is a vast understatement. Air isn't half as comfortable as a cloud.

“Well. Today was pretty exciting,” I say to the ceiling. “First day as a hippogriff and I've already learned to fly and saved my friend from an angry mob bent on Instagramming him to death. I'm really glad Silver didn't get himself killed. And I'm pretty pleased with how Lewis took the whole 'Surprise! Your best friend is a mythological animal now!' That really gives me hope. You know. That people will respond to ponies well. If everyone can make it through this mess without getting hurt or killed that would be great.”

“I'm a bit worried over this car crash thing. I doubt the government will start flailing their arms around and saying that we're being invaded by aliens. Even if... that might be what's going on? I really hope I'm not unknowingly part of an alien shock-troop force. Though that would make us the least threatening looking alien invasion ever. Heh. Anyway. Whoever gets their hands on this information? Just... make sure everyone keeps a cool head over it, alright? Pony concentration camps would be a sad development.”

“I've been thinking about what Lewis said. About whether or not I would even want to be human again. I don't think I'll miss it. After tasting the sky I don't think I would be able to stand being chained to the ground again. From my experiences so far I really do think my friends and family would except me like this. If I can be accepted and I don't totally lose myself this is a pretty okay deal. And once ponies are public knowledge I might even be able to get some sort of job that caters to my new talents. As strange as this sounds I'm kind of glad this happened. I... hope that's alright. That you aren't upset with me or anything. That this is all some big test that I'm failing like a complete idiot.”

“It would still be nice if I knew why this was happening to us, though. If you could drop me some kind of clue that would be great. No pressure though.”

“Everypony get your bucking tails moving! We're meeting Rainbow Dash half way!” Silver Lining bellows as we take off like rockets into the sky. It's dark and visibility is bad, but that isn't going to slow us down. We're the Wonderbolts, the greatest fliers Equestria has to offer.

Our peaceful nation is in turmoil. There are reports that Discord betrayed Princess Celestia and some are fearing the worst. He already hit Canterlot and now he's bouncing around erratically and stomping out pockets of resistance one at a time. Rainbow Dash is on her way to Canterlot to muster what defenses are left and we just deployed from Cloudsdale to provide much needed backup.

We've been spread too thin lately what with those monsters from the bowels of Tartaurus clawing their way up to the surface and causing trouble. And Discord picked this the worst possible moment to spring his gambit and stab us all in the back.

My wings strain against the sky as I streak toward our estimated rendezvous point with Dash. She normally leaves a blazing contrail miles long, so spotting her isn't very hard. Though I feel my my heart leap into my throat when I spy the pitched battle taking place in the distance.

“What do you see with those eagle-eyes, bird brain?” Silver yells at me over the howl of the wind.

“Dusty! Geneva!” Surprise orders. “You're really fast! Get down there and help her!”

Lightning Dust doesn't have to be told twice to save her friend. In a flash she's off like a bolt of lightning, her zig-zagging contrail crackling behind her. I feel my magic welling up inside me as I clap my wings together, sending a rolling pressure wave behind Dust that kicks her into super-sonic speeds. Another flap and I launch myself after her. I might not have the raw speed of Rainbow Dash or even Lightning Dust, but my precision air magic can give them even more of an edge.

Rainbow Dash's body is devoured by harsh white light, leaving her cry of pain lingering in the sky.

Dust gives a feral scream of rage and halts her flight on a bit. Her tremendous kinetic and magical energy is transferred into a bolt of golden lightning with a core as hot as the surface of Celestia's own sun. My pressure wave weaves together with it, creating a spiraling vortex of magic that shrieks toward the treacherous draconequus with untold destructive power.

He holds out a fork and catches it, transforming it into a little reddish brown sphere that he pops in his mouth.

“Mama mia! Now that's a spicy-a meatball!” Discord comments in a mockery of a Bitalian accent. I'm not sure what that absurd looking blue and red outfit he's suddenly wearing has to do with anything.

That's more than Dust can take. She flings herself and Discord only to freeze in place when he touches a single talon to her forehead. He begins talking to her, but with the wind and the rain and the fact that he isn't projecting his voice anymore I can't make out the words. I can see the tongues of white flame beginning to lick across my friend's body and I pump my wings even harder to bridge the remaining distance.

“Well well well! It looks like I've got a whole gaggle of would-be heroes trying to stop my games today!” comes Discord's voice from right between my ears. Much to my dismay the draconequus has shrunk to the size of a hobgoblin and is hovering inches above my head.

“Oh tut tut, where's the fun in just telling you? Honestly kids these days, always with the instant gratification,” he sneers as he clenches his eagle claw and suddenly my body is crushed in an iron-hard telekinetic grasp. “But how about a clue? Riddles always make for such a wonderful time.”

“Mmm, I'll take that as a yes. You and your friends get to play a little game of hide and seek. I'm sure you'll all enjoy it immensely. Once you've all managed to find each other something something mumbling about destiny and the magic of friendship. And that's the only hint you get! Don't bother asking for more. Not that you'll remember it of course,” Discord laughs as he pokes me in the forehead.

I'm sure that I'm screaming in pain as the horrible emptiness chews its way through flesh and mind alike, but despite that I can hear Discord with terrifying clarity.

Five score! Divided by four!
Your memories removed, your body confused!

For your insolence you must pay,
Cast off to a land far away!

To scatter the six, just the start of my tricks!
Your mind shall be weak, your outlooks bleak!

Forgetting everything you shall live as a fool!
You have all lost, now no one can stop my rule!

~~~~~

In exactly the fashion of the movies I awaken with a start, sitting bolt upright and gasping as I claw at the deadly white nothingness that is trying to devour me whole.

Turns out the nothingness was just the shower curtain and I pull the whole thing down on top of myself.

With no small measure of indignation I disentangle myself from the cheap curtain and roll off my cloud and onto the tile floor. Judging from the light coming in through the window it must be early morning. Maybe five am or so? The birds are starting to chirp at least. My ears are tracking them outside and my stomach is growling. I really need to make a point of eating some of those steaks.

I rear up on my hooves, place my hands on the edge of the bathroom counter to steady myself, and flick the light on. Unsurprisingly I find a hippogriff staring back at me. I'm not met with alien unfamiliarity. I'm simply looking at my reflection. My eyes are bloodshot, though. With a sigh and brush my mane out of my face and splash some water onto my fur.

It was the ending of My Little Pony that never aired. The ending that only I seem to know about. All seen through Geneva Pressure Front's perspective in perfect detail and clarity. I give my beak a click as thoughts begin rolling around in my mind. “Memories removed, body confused. Five score divided by four.”

“From the Gettysburg address. Fourscore and seven years ago. So eighty seven. So one-score would be twenty years,” I babble at my reflection as I begin drawing a brush through my mane. Hopefully Surprise won't mind. “Fivescore would be one hundred years. Divided by four is... twenty five...”

The brush clatters against the counter top and suddenly my limbs feel like jelly. I drop to the floor as my muscles twitch and shake. Strands of hair begin popping free from my mane and tail like rats leaping from a sinking ship.

“Twenty five years... memories stripped away... b-body changed. A curse that breaks after a quarter of a century. Tee hehe... it makes sense. It all makes horrible sense in its clarity,” I titter, though to whom I'm not sure. “I'm not a human turned into Geneva Pressure Front. I'm Geneva Pressure Front turned into a human.”

“Oh God oh God oh God what do I do?” I cry out in desperation. Suddenly Chuck's prayer for me takes on a sort of awful ironic comedy. He asked that I would be restored to my true self. Hahahahaahaha! Well little did we know that's exactly what was happening to me! Be careful what you wish for, right?

I don't think I was ever a human to begin with. Not really. Sure I might have looked like one. Sure I might have even believed I was one. But my soul has always been Geneva's. And my hippogriff body was just warped into a human shape by Discord's chaos magic. And now that the magic has faded my body has reasserted itself.

What am I? Who am I? The naked soul of a hippogriff scoured of her identity. Torn away from another world and flung through the vast gulfs of the cosmos. And conceived as a human?

No. We were all born on the same day. There's too much variance in gestation times for that to be the answer.

I replaced a human. I was given the life of someone who should have been. And now that the curse has lifted he dies so that I can live. Will my old memories return like my old body? Will they over-write my human memories like my body was over-written? Am I really going to fade away without even noticing that I'm gone? I can live with being a hippogriff. I can live with being Geneva. I... I think I can even live with regaining my old memories and remembering my old life. That would change who I am now so fundamentally, but isn't that what happens as we get older and experience new things?

But the thought of losing my human memories like I lost my human body terrifies me.

“I don't want to die,” I whimper. “I don't want to be forgotten. Please!” I sob and cry and pour out my soul and tears. “Please don't let me lose myself. Don't let my soul vanish into that same void that devoured me before! Don't leave me alone... please... help me...”

I haul myself out of the bathroom, find an empty composition book, and begin to write. To write everything I can remember. Everything that I won't, that I can't, let myself forget. Everything that I refuse to surrender to oblivion.

I'm not sure how much time passes as I sit there scribbling away, though eventually Silver's stirrings manage to get a twitch out of my ear.

“What?” Silver mumbles. “What are you talking about? Why are you writing a biography about yourself?”

“Fivescore divided by four,” she states as she trots into the room. The words send an unwholesome tingle down my spine.

“Your memories removed, your body confused...” Silver echoes. “That dream I had-”

“That we had. That we all had,” Dust clarifies. “Our last few minutes before Discord cursed us and kicked us out of Equestria. These are our real bodies, Silver. We were ponies the whole time. We just forgot because of Discord's bucking curse!”

“So that means Equestria is real. Woohoo, right?” Surprise interjects with none of her usual mirth. When did she get in here? “But Discord beat all the good guys and has been in charge there for the past twenty five years. Boooooo!”

“But why is Geneva writing a biography about herself?” Silver asks more insistently.

Realization dawns in Silver's eyes. “Oh... Well. On that somber thought I'm going to go pee and drink water until every single sound stops bucking my ears,” and then he's off to do exactly that! One of the many banes of hangovers.

I tense up slightly when I feel Surprise's hooves wrap around me for a hug, though I quickly relax. “Don't be a big worry wort, Geneva. I don't think you're going to forget about being a human. That would be really sad and not even a little bit comedic!”

“Well girls, I guess we know why this happened to us,” Dust comments casually. “Realizing that I'm actually Lightning Dust was a bit jarring. But I'm okay with it,” she says, gritting her teeth with frustration. “Because this means I might still get another shot at that bastard Discord.”

“How are we going to do that, though?” Surprise asks. “Not to be a killjoy mopey-mcmoperson, but he's really tough! And we don't even know how to get back to Equestria.”

“We play hide and seek...” I mutter. My friends both glance at me. “Something Discord said to me right before I got fried. That this is a big game of hide and seek. Maybe we need to find everypony who was banished here. Or maybe that'll just spring an even bigger trap. Discord is as crazy as a sack of cats after all.”

Both of my friends look thoughtful. Silence reigns for a solid minute, a near miracle with Surprise around. Though of course she breaks the magic eventually.

"Discord is really mean," Surprise humphs. For added effect she braces her front legs over her chest and looks as cross as possible.

"But think about it Dusty! Even if we can get back to Equestria this is still really bad! If we leave then we leave behind all our friends and family who are still humans. They'll be sad and miss us. But if we stay here on Earth then Discord gets to keep being mean to everypony in Equestria and we can't let him do that either!" Surprise explains. "All the answers he left us with are bad ones that hurt people's feelings. It's a dichotomy of sadness and disharmony! Do you know what you do with those Dusty?"

Surprise gives a wide grin. "You buck the bad guy offering it in the shin. Then you pick the third choice that he didn't want you to see! Usually it's hidden behind the curtain with the controls to the giant floating head."

"In other words if we can win this, we'll have to win it by playing a game Discord doesn't expect," I sigh. "But we don't know what the game is, the rules are missing, our cards are all blank, and the dealer won't stop grinning like he knows something we don't."

“This revelation wasn't all bad. At the very least we can tell the humans where we came from and why we're here now,” I muse. “We aren't alien invaders. We aren't victims of some disease anyone else has to worry about. We're not even the butt of a world-wide hobgoblin prank. We're refugees from another universe. We're strangers in a strange land.”

Wonderbolt Down

by Rebonack

Wherein Things go Straight to Hell