RED Scout floated around the black hole with his arms crossed. He'd been floating around in the debris-filled nothingness for what seemed like forever, with no one to kill and nothing to break.
And it. Was. Terrible.
The hyperactive boy was bored out of his mind, with there being nothing to do. No Heavies to taunt about their weight, no Engies to annoy into a rage bordering on psychosis, no Soldiers to aggravate by rebelling, nothing. "This sucks!" He wished a BLU would float along already just so he'd have something to shoot or beat to death, or…something! Hell, at least getting killed would break up the monotony, even if it was permanent in here. Worst of all, he had no idea where his hats were; for all they knew, that punk over on the enemy team was trying on his precious Bonk Helm, drinking his energy drinks! The idea simply infuriated the Scout to no end.
That was his stuff.
His.
He hadn't read up on black holes in high school enough to know what they did besides devouring everything in its path—the only part he'd had the attention span to listen to was that particular part, and then he'd earned himself another detention by doodling on his desk depicting the principal having his skull caved in by a baseball bat—so for all he knew, he would just keep floating around and doing nothing for the rest of his life. At this point, he actually missed the Soldier calling him an insubordinate maggot, ordering him to do twenty push-ups and then blocking the exit until either they were done or he was knocked unconscious.
Scout took out his bat and was in the middle of trying to clean Spy's blood off of it when a faint light in front of him caught his eye. "Huh?" The light grew brighter and brighter. "Aw, I'm dyin' of boredom. 'bout time, too." Scout awkwardly made a few motions like he was trying to swim through the blackness. "Uhhh…yer gonna hafta get a little closer, I can't get to ya from here…"
The light immediately started generating a vacuum, pulling Scout towards it. "Ey, ey, ey, not so rough-" Scout's Bonk Helm smacked him on the back of the head as it got pulled into the light as well. Scout, using his quick reflexes, grabbed it. "Ey, I found my hat!"
There was suddenly a bright flash and Scout found himself in a futuristic-looking office, with no doors he recognized. There was a desk and a window, which revealed that the office was very, very high up. An alien-looking aircraft flew by the window, with twin turbines at the rear of it keeping it up. The occupant of the office was an aged man with white hair, a white beard, and dark slate grey eyes. He was wearing a nice green suit with a black undershirt, and he appeared to have been busy before the Scout appeared.
"What the—? Who are you? How did you get in here?" The surprised man got up from his desk, placing one hand on it to support him. Scout suddenly felt a sharp tug at his gut and was yanked off his feet backwards back into the black hole. The force of the tug sent Scout backflipping through the empty space, passing by several ovals with footage of stuff going on in the center—one could only assume these were portals to somewhere.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa—" Next thing he knew, he was in a pitch-black room. "Aaah…don't tell me some chucklehead summoned Cthulhu again…"
"Scout?" A gruff voice rang out in the darkness, belonging to a certain rocket-hopping mercenary. "Are you here?"
"Dat depends on which team yer on." Scout felt around the room. "Dere's gotta be some sorta light switch here…"
"Don't worry, son, I'm on your side. I think. Fair warning, though, if you aren't on my team, you're getting a shovel to the face." Soldier started feeling around and found a lever. "Here we go…" Soldier pulled the lever and the lights came on, revealing a room full of blocky green creatures. They were all in a cave of some sort, which looked like it had been extensively mined. The green creatures started emitting a hiss like a cartoon bomb about to go off.
"It's been an honor serving with you, son…" RED Soldier stood up straight and saluted the Scout before the force tugged on their gut again and sent them back into the alternate reality hall, screaming.
"Dat was too close…" Scout muttered while hurtling through the white land of portals. "Any idea what's goin' on?"
"I didn't know any better, I'd say it's Engie…but he's American. So my first suspect's that damn dirty Nazi Doc on the other team, second is their Engie, the draft-dodgin' sonuvabitch, and then our Medic." Soldier pounded his fist into his palm. "I find out what happened there, there ain't gonna be enough left to bury."
"Dude, our Medic? Don'tcha think dat's a little paranoid of ya? Ya don't even have any proof he was a Nazi—"
"He's a German! That's good enough for me! Listen up, son, I personally killed 6,078 of those bastards to preserve your right to not be horribly experimented on, among other things, and if you don't think that deserves a little more respect from you—" Soldier looked a little ahead and to his left. "You're gonna be alone for a while, private. Try not to crap your pants like a hippie."
A piece of debris from what was once Teufort smacked into the Soldier, sending him spinning off and away from Scout, who cringed and looked at Soldier's cartwheeling body. "Jeez, dat's gonna hurt. Well, ya know what Private Haircut always says…" He put on a bad imitation of Soldier's authoritan voice. "Pain is weakness leaving the body." He put his normal voice on. "If dat's true, I don't tink he has much weakness left ta lose." He turned back in front of him to see a portal to someplace extremely dark—he could barely see the faint images of something that looked vaguely like streamers hanging from the ceilings. Was he about to crash a surprise party? Already drawing the conclusion he'd be in a party, Scout began hoping it was one with alcohol; his teammates had never let him drink and he really wanted to try some vodka.
Wait. Those weren't streamers...
What he saw sent him into a screaming fit of absolute terror.
He continued screaming as he hurtled through space and time for hours. And he continued screaming until something grabbed him and punched him in the back of the head.
"Little man stop screaming like baby. Teammates are here." A familiar Russian accent sounded disgusted at Scout's fear. The RED Heavy was accompanied by Medic, Demoman, Sniper and Spy. The delinquent simply huddled into the fetal position and whimpered.
"Ach, you look like you have seen ein gespent." Medic, who had found Heavy, looked concerned for the young man. "Do I even vant to know vhat happened?"
"No, Doc. You don't. You just don't." Scout shuddered.
"Ze poor boy. What's the matter, did a rainbow terrorize you again?" Spy mocked Scout's terror and absently threw a spent cigarette away while laughing. Demo chuckled at this jab while the Medic facepalmed.
"Ach, he has been mentally scarred by somezing, schweinhund. Try to be a little more sensitive—"
They heard a faint "Help!" ahead of them. Their Engineer was clutching onto his Dispenser and was trying to wave them down. "Fellas! Help me!" As he passed by, Medic grabbed Engie's hand and pulled as he let go of the Dispenser, sending it off into some distant land. Engie adjusted his hardhat. "Much obliged."
Medic brushed it off. "Ve are a team. Ve do zese things for each ozzer. Herr Engineer, you ah a man of science, ja? Vhat is going on in here?"
Engie fixed his goggles. "Well, the black hole appears to be in the process of spitting us out, though it seems to be having a very hard time deciding where it wants us. Ah just exited a world populated by talking bananas. Very confusing, ah'll tell you that."
"Ve need to find Pyro und Soldier. If we ah to survive wherever we ah going, ve need to stay togezzah." The Medigun floated by and Medic grabbed it out of the air. "Ah, here ve go. Does anyone need ze healing?" No response. "Nein? Vell, zen, now ve devote our attention to figuring out why zat thing appeared. Ze rips in time und space do not simply appear by themselves—"
"Doc? We got a problem." Engie pointed at the portal directly in front of them. It showed a landscape pretty closely resembling what he thought Hell looked like. There was an active volcano in the distance, and a huge dragon made of rock was far closer than that. The rock dragon's head was on fire, and it had wickedly sharp horns on its head that could easily gut a man if it wanted to. There were many chinks in the dragon's hide, in which lava was flowing, but never spilling out, strangely enough.
"Lads? Anyone here…got any guns? Lost me explosives…" The mercs shook their heads. "Lost my gun when this thing started spittin' me out. Sorry, y'all…"
"Well, it's official. We're screwed." Scout concluded.
Just then, something whizzed by and smacked the team, sending them hurtling in that direction. Scout caught a glimpse of the thing that had slammed into them and saved them from certain death—it looked a lot like a phone booth. A phone booth? In a rip in time and space? Scout's curiosity overwhelmed the effects of his mental scarring and tried to keep himself from spinning to get a look at the booth. As the booth departed towards another portal depicting a large forest, Scout saw a glimpse of someone looking out the small windows to look at what he had hit—no—not someone.
Some pony.
A light brown pony whose mane was a darker shade of brown. There was something about the phone booth he couldn't quite place…it looked like something on a TV show he had once watched. There was a surprised look on the strange pony's face before he popped back down from the window and the phone booth entered the forest portal.
"You got hit with the booth, too, son?" Soldier overtook Scout, doing backflips. "Met up with Pyro a little while after we separated, then that crazy thing hit us. Nice to see the team's all here, I guess…"
Pyro did his best to wave at Scout as he flew ahead of him, which was a comical sight to see as he was doing all kinds of somersaults during his attempt.
"Ay, man, there's somethin' in there. You ain't gonna believe this, but dere's a frickin' pony in dat thing." Scout hurriedly explained.
Soldier raised his eyebrow. "Did you hit your head? Why would a pony be in a phone booth? Can they even fit?"
"Oi, I saw it too, mate. An honest-to-god pony was drivin' that thing." Sniper piped up.
"No one asked for your opinion, didgeridoo!" The crazed patriot snarled at Sniper.
"Didgeridoo?"
"Quit actin' like young'uns, boys! We're about to hit that...thing!" Engie yelled back to his teammates just before he went through. Having no control over their flight, the rest soon followed suit and blacked out right as they hit the portal. "Yeah, that...that one kinda got away from me..."
________________________________________________________
In the dimension the mercs had just entered, Twilight Sparkle was organizing her books. Her assistant, a baby dragon named Spike, was stumbling over the heavy workload he had to carry—at least one dozen textbooks.
"Here, let me get some of that for you." Twilight levitated some books from Spike's arms using her magic and placed them in their proper spots.
As she replaced the last book, Fluttershy walked in. "Um, Twilight? Do you have a moment? I-I mean, if it's no trouble…"
Twilight turned to Fluttershy and smiled. "Oh, hi, Fluttershy. Spike and I were just doing some cleaning."
Fluttershy looked at the ground and pawed at it with her hoof. "Oh, that's okay…I mean, I can come back later, I mean, if I'm bothering you…"
Twilight shook her head. "No, it's no trouble at all. Sit down, we'll have some tea. Spike, could you put the kettle on?" Spike nodded and went off to make some tea. Twilight walked over and sat down by a table, Fluttershy following her lead. "So, what do you need?"
"Well, I was tending to the animals outside my home, when Angel Bunny got really scared and pointed at the sky. I turned around and there was a big hole in the sky above the Everfree Forest. It really spooked the animals, so after I woke up, I came straight to you. I don't really know anyone else who would know what it is."
Twilight raised an eyebrow. "After you woke up?"
"Oh, well, I got so scared, I guess I fainted. But it was really scary…"
Typical Fluttershy. Being as timid as she was, she must have been extremely terrified when a hole in the sky popped up for no reason. "Maybe I have some books on it. Could you please describe what this…hole looked like?"
Fluttershy propped her head up with her hooves, thinking. "You know those hypnotism glasses Pinkie Pie bought from a magic shop a while back? The ones with the big green swirly patterns on the lenses? It kind of looked like that, except the designs were moving and the hole was completely black except for the swirly patterns. They were white."
Twilight raised an eyebrow again. "You saw a gigantic pair of hypnotism glasses painted black appear from nowhere above the Everfree Forest?"
The yellow Pegasus shook her head. "No, I was thinking more like just the lens. Only it wasn't a glasses lens—oh, I'm doing a horrible job at describing it, aren't I?"
"It's fine, I'll just look out the window." Twilight climbed up to her bedroom and took a look out the window. The black hole was still outside, over the Everfree Forest. Outside, she noticed other ponies had gathered around and started wondering what it was. "Huh, you're right…that is strange, I think I might have a book around here describing it…" The studious unicorn climbed back down and began searching around her books telekinetically. "No, no, no…" After a few minutes of this, she resignedly shut the books and replaced them on the shelves. "I'm sorry, Fluttershy, but I'm afraid I can't find any books on this. I'll get Applejack and Rainbow Dash and we'll go in and try and find out what's going on." Twilight left the library to gather up her friends.
___________________________________________________________
"Sniper? Sniper? Sniper, wake up, you damn maggot!" Sniper awoke to the sounds of Soldier yelling at him to wake him up.
The half-asleep Australian sat up and grumbled, "Solly, could you by any chance pick a more polite way to wake me up—" Sniper noticed he was staring into the face of a pony with the Soldier still had battle helmet on—with holes in it for his ears to poke up through-and a hair patch by where his chin would be that resembled a 5:00 shadow. The rest of his fur had a cameo pattern, his mane was colored blond and cut extremely short along with his tail, and he had a picture on his flank of a rocket with the American flag in the background. And boy, did this pony look pissed.
"I want to know which one of you numbnuts slipped me a hippie drug, and who gave you this drug so that I can kill him with my bare damn hands when I get back home!" the pony barked at Sniper.
"Soldier? That you, mate? Bloody hell, you have a lot more hooves than I remember you havin'." Sniper chuckled at idea of the uber-manly Soldier being turned into something universally considered "for girls".
"I wouldn't laugh if I were you, considering you're one of those prancing show ponies also. At least, that's what your damn hippie drugs are making me see…"
Sniper looked at his hands to see they had become hooves. His arms—legs? The two are interchangeable when you're a pony—were colored dark grey. His mane was largely hidden under his hat, but it, along with his tail, was colored light grey. His own flank had a rifle's crosshairs for a... logo of some sort? The Australian jumped about a foot in the air. "Holy dooley, I don't think anyone slipped you a drug, mate. I'm seein' it too! What in the bloody hell—"
"Pfft. Yeah, right. I'm a pony now. I suppose the ghost of Shakespearicles is gonna fly by at any moment. Nice prank, didgeridoo, now let me know who's in on it. It's that punkass Scout, isn't it?" Soldier walked over to his shovel jammed into a tree and attempted to pull it out without using his teeth. Due to his new lack of opposable thumbs, this was quite impossible. "Damn…thumbs…why…aren't…you…working?" Each word was punctuated by a failed attempt to grab the shovel and a facehoof by Sniper.
The rest of the team was slowly coming to. As soon as the Scout, a red pegasus with a winged shoe logo who still had his trademark hat, dog tags and ear-piece along with front hoof wrappings, came to, he immediately started barfing up all his meals for the past two days.
Engineer had become an orange pony with a light blond mane and tail, and still had his lopsided hardhat and goggles on. His image was of two gears overlapping each other and a picture of a wrench in the background.
Heavy was, as usual, larger than the rest of the team. He towered above them all, but as he woke up his mind was preoccupied with finding Sascha, his ammunition belt jingling and clanking as he rustled through the bushes. He was red with a shaven mane, a black tail and had a picture of a minigun barrel, muzzle flash flaring as it fired at an unseen enemy, with the Soviet hammer and sickle logo in the background on his flank.
Pyro still had his suit and gas mask on, which covered up his mane and tail and obscured his mark. So as far as RED team knew, Pyro hadn't really changed that much.
Spy still wore his fancy suit and ski mask. His coat underneath was yellow, and on his rump he had simply a picture of a knife—but then, wasn't that all Spy really needed to describe his special talent?
The journey through dimensions had not given the Demo back his eye, much to his dismay. Even worse, while his scrumpy had made it through the portal, the bottles had all shattered upon impact with the ground, coating the grass in alcohol. "Ach, cripe…we're in the middle a' nowhere, we've been turned inta wee horses an' me scrumpy's gone…a' least it can't get any worse." The pony had a black coat of fur and a tail to match, although his mane was mostly covered by his cap. He rubbed his temple with his hoof. "Me bleedin' head…at least we know ponies can get hangovers, right doc?" Demoman-or was it Democolt now?-looked over at Medic and immediately started stifling laughter. "Bloody 'ell, Soldier was sayin' some awful things 'bout you bein' a girly fairy, doc, but…"
"Vhat? I checked, I do not have ze vings!" The doctor still wore his battle labcoat, and his hair coat was pure white. He had a brown mane styled like it was when he was human, and his mark depicted a red cross. And he had a horn on the top of his head that allowed him to perform feats of magic.
"Bloody hell, you don' see it, mate? 'S right there, on your forehead."
Medic tried to feel his forehead with his hooves, but they were stopped by his horn. "Hmmm…most interesting…ze ponies in zis world must have fierce competition from predators if zey had to evolve vings for areal evasion und ze horns to charge enemies with…"
"It jus' looks funny tae me." The Demo's words went unnoticed by the doctor as he realized he could bend his legs in ways ponies on Earth could not, and began musing about extra joints allowing extremities to bend irregularly.
"Well, you gentlemen are reacting to being turned into a farm animal quite nicely." Spy paused to breathe out a puff of smoke and grab another cigarette. "But I, for one, would like to find out what zis place is and if there is any semblance of civilization around here."
"Let's wait until Scout quits his vomitin' fit. Poor boy, teleportation sickness. Very rarely happens, but he'll get over it soon enough." As soon as Engie finished his sentence, Scout's stomach ran empty and he wiped his face with his hoof.
"Ugh, I don't think I'll evah look at cupcakes da same way again…" He saw a gleam in front of him and he parted the branches. In front of him was Prince Tavish's Crown…and behind that, a large pile of the group's hats. "Ay, fellas! I found our hats!" The delinquent grabbed Demo's crown and tossed it to him, accidentally hitting him in the face with it. "Alright, here's yer Ten Gallon, Engie…an' yer goggles, Doc…oh, hey, dere's my beanie…"
______________________________________________________________
Twilight Sparkle, Applejack and Rainbow Dash trekked through the Everfree Forest, heading in the direction of the black hole. Dash flew above the treetops to make sure they were going the right way, which left Twilight and Applejack to make small talk along the way.
Rainbow Dash surveyed the forest from above, keeping her eye on the large spot that had appeared in the sky for no apparent reason. It hadn't really done anything so far but that didn't mean it wouldn't start destroying Ponyville or whatever. Personally, that thing worried Rainbow, though she would never in her life admit it—whatever that thing was, she had a feeling in her gut that it was just as unnatural as the Everfree Forest and the way it survived without ponies, or as unnatural as Zecora had appeared to everyone before they actually gave her a chance to talk.
Speaking of Zecora…
"Rainbow Dash! Y'all should come down here, we're stoppin' by Zecora's to see what she thinks." Applejack's southern drawl reached her ears as weak and tinny, but nevertheless Rainbow Dash flew back down and landed. Twilight Sparkle knocked on the door to Zecora's hut.
Zecora, a zebra with rings lining her neck and her left leg opened the door. "Twilight Sparkle and her company of two, what can Zecora do for you?"
The group walked in and took a seat. "Zecora, I don't know if you've noticed or not, but there's a rather large hole in the sky above this forest. We came here wondering if you knew anything about it." Twilight looked around the hut. It hadn't changed much since she had last visited it; the traditional greeting masks were still on the wall, the pot used for cooking herbal remedies still hung over a fire pit, etc.
Zecora nodded. "I noticed that of which you speak, but I cannot provide the answer you seek. If you want the truth, you must go and see, but I am about to be busy, so I can't go with thee."
Rainbow Dash raised an eyebrow. "Thee? Who the hay says that anymore?"
Zecora shrugged. "It rhymes with 'see'."
Twilight Sparkle took on a confused expression. "Wait, what—"
"Oh, is that the time? I really must go. I wish you luck...tell what you find I said hello." The Zebra hurriedly put on a saddlebag and left.
Twilight galloped out of the hut after her, her friends following close behind. "Wait, how do you know it's even sentient—" Zecora was already out of sight. Twilight sighed. "Let's...let's just go, girls."
As the group walked through the forest, Applejack took occasional suspicious glances at the black hole. She was always a superstitious pony (She had, after all, been a firm believer in the rumor that Zecora was a witch; though to be fair, everyone in Ponyville except Twilight and Applebloom had believed it as well), and the appearance of this…thing in the sky had already put her on edge enough. She'd half a mind to refuse Twilight's request to scout it out in the forest and find out what it was, but natural curiosity had won out. Now that appeared to be active—it was bending and stretching and looked more like an oval than a circle now—the farm pony was warier than ever about approaching it and a bit of her brain was even suggesting she turn back. As her unbending pride wouldn't allow her to show weakness to her friends, however, this was not considered an option. Still, it figured that something so creepy would be in the Everfree Forest…
A loud grinding noise made the trio jump about a foot in the air out of surprise. Or, in Rainbow Dash's case, veer off course sharply and crash into a tree. A light brown pony popped out from behind a tree with a futuristic device clenched between his teeth. "Sorry 'bout that, girls. You lot alright?"
Applejack shook off her surprise. "Celestia, Doc, y'all could give a pony a heart attack like that. Jus' what in the hay are you doin' out here in the middle of the forest?"
The pony looked annoyed. "Stop calling me Doc. I told you, it's the Doctor."
"Well, all right then, 'the Doctor', that don't explain why yer out here in the middle of the woods with…that thing."
The Doctor glanced down at the object in his mouth. "Oh, this? It's…a pen. I'm doing a little work out here and Ditzy Doo usually crashes around here in the middle of her mailroute. She always forgets a pen to give to ponies. You know, to sign the paperwork for packages. I've learned to be prepared for these things."
Applejack examined the "pen". "Mighty strange-lookin' pen you have there…"
"Oh, I got this a long time ago, back when I was young and foalish. It's a novelty item I was perfectly willing to part with, you know how you were when you were a filly." The Doctor rolled his eyes and chuckled at himself, dropping the "pen" in progress. "Excuse me…"
Dash rubbed her forehead and shook off the pain. "Well, Doctor, we'd love to stay and chat it up, but right now we're checking out this big black spot in the sky—" The cyan Pegasus' eyes lit up as she had a thought. "Hey, you're an intellectual type, right? You have any ideas about what that is?"
The Doctor raised an eyebrow. "Blimey, you've never heard of a black hole?" The confused expressions taken on by the three mares in front of him answered his question. "Right, I'd have thought you'd have something on this, Twilight, but…a black hole's a rip in the fabric of reality. Sometimes it just sits there, sometimes it takes on a great gravitational pull that eats up everything in sight, and sometimes…sometimes it spits out some of its contents somewhere else. If a pony were unfortunate enough to end up inside one, they could be spit out twenty million years into the future, or fifty years in the past, or twelve minutes before the event happened, or they could end up…somewhere else."
"Somewhere else?" Twilight put her hoof under her chin thoughtfully. "Somewhere else as in…wait, what if…you mean…?"
The Doctor nodded. "A rip in the fabric of reality isn't just an overly random time machine. With these, you can travel through both time and space, ending up in an alternate universe, such as a dystopian reality where our dear princess is a ruthless tyrant, or another one where Trixie accidentally summons a great and powerful beast in a mad bid for power and revenge, or…blimey, there are an infinite amount of universes out there. Too many to name, really. Don't be alarmed, now…" The looks of confusion had changed to masks of varying degrees of fear and panic. "That one just seems to be doing nothing for the time being. Look, it's even gotten smaller, that means it's about to pop out. Plus, travel between universes is completely, entirely impossible. Believe me, I know."
"So, one of them magic thingamajigs—" Applejack started.
"It's science, Applejack, not magic! There's a difference." The Doctor interrupted.
"Whatever, they could just drop in outta nowhere and get Applebloom?"
The Doctor shook his head and waved his hoof in a dismissing manner. "Not unless she was playing around with the fabric of reality. Black holes need a powerful catalyst in order to set them off…such as an extremely large discharge of energy, or—"
Twilight interrupted, beginning to understand what the Doctor was talking about. "A time paradox?"
"No, no, those summon Reapers. Sort of clock roaches, live in the Time Vortex, basically eat everything around it and stabilize wounds in time. A rather good guess, though." The Doctor's ears perked up. "Excuse me; I think that's Ditzy Doo crashing right now. I must go." The Doctor picked up his pen off the ground and walked back into the forest.
Twilight looked up through the treetops at the newly-identified black hole. The Doctor was right—it had grown a lot smaller than when she had first seen it. Nothing to worry about, but certainly something to write to the princess about; if this truly was the first time such an event had happened in such a long while that no books she'd read had any information on it—and the amount of books she had perused in her life would no doubt fill a dragon's cave if they suddenly materialized—then she certainly had to contact the princess and let her know about it.
Say, wait a minute—how did the Doctor know anything about them, anyway? Judging from the way the townsfolk had reacted to the dimensional anomaly, no one in Ponyville knew anything about these—except the Doctor. Of course, the Doctor wasn't a local in Ponyville; often he had been asked which town he hailed from, but he kept telling everyone he "wasn't from around here", as if such a vague response would answer much. In fact, much about the Doctor was shrouded in mystery; only Ditzy Doo seemed to be a close enough friend of his to know much about his life, and she wasn't telling. At least, not in an intelligible manner. In this way, the Doctor was much like Zecora—only Zecora was given a much less warm welcome here, for reasons she had yet to understand. Twilight found it amusing that Pinkie Pie, who laughed in the face of abject terror in death when they first met, was scared of a zebra enough to write up a warning song about her.
Just another logical contradiction Pinkie created; Twilight had learned to just roll with it a long time ago.
"Twi?" Applejack asked tentatively, snapping the purple unicorn out of her thoughts. "Ah don't mean to bother you none, but…well, we know what it is now. So, that means we can roll on back ta Ponyville and tell everyone about it now, right?"
Twilight smiled and jokingly said, "It's alright, Applejack, this place creeps me out a little, too." She laughed at the indignant look on Applejack's face and continued before the farmer could argue. "Come on, let's call down Rainbow Dash and head on back."
"Allright…" Applejack grumbled and looked up at the sky. "Rainbow!"
Rainbow Dash was gone. "Where is that mare—Rainbow Dash! Git over here, we're goin'!"
She was answered with a baseball beaning Twilight on the forehead.
"Ow!" Twilight levitated and examined the baseball. "What the-what's a baseball doing in the forest?"
Rainbow Dash's head poked out from between some tree leaves. "Hey, girls! You gotta check this out—oh, sorry, Twilight…" Twilight glared at Rainbow while rubbing her forehead. "I just had to try this baseball bat out…but I found a big pile of strange stuff! Come on!"
Twilight shook her head. "Dash, we've got to go. We're risking enough being here in the first place, let's just head back before a Manticore or something finds us!"
"Aw, come on, Twilight! I just know you're curious about what it is! I mean, you honestly don't want to check out stuff like this?" Dash brought out the Scout's scattergun, modified for hoof use.
"What is that?" Twilight studied the gun. "What does it do?"
Dash spit out the gun and shook her head, grinning. "I have no idea!"
Twilight looked at the weapon for a few minutes, puzzled. Eventually, her scientific curiosity won out over her want to get out of the forest. "I suppose it wouldn't hurt to take a look…"
Applejack sighed. "Y'all can't seriously be considerin'—" The two had already left. Applejack performed a facehoof and gave chase.
Rainbow Dash picked up a wooden baseball bat with a relatively large crack down the middle, which was held together by a ribbon out of a pile of weapons. "Check out all this gear! This Babe Ruth pony really likes baseball!"
Twilight levitated a Force-A-Nature, a stock shotgun, and a pistol from the pile, all modified for hoof use. "How do you know it belongs to a pony named 'Babe Ruth'?"
Dash shrugged. "I'm assuming that's his name. It was on the baseball, anyhow…"
Twilight pulled the trigger on the pistol using magic and jumped as it fired. "Interesting…is it some kind of noisemaker? I don't see why, we have fireworks for that…Dash, how'd you find these? They're so…dull and grey…I know I wouldn't notice them in the forest if they were just lying around."
Behind her, Dash hit the baseball with the Sandman again just to see how far she could hit it. "Well, I would have passed them by, but I found this thing sparking and glowing and stuff—" She flew over and grabbed the Engie's Frontier Justice. "—so I flew down to investigate."
Applejack grabbed a stock axe out of the pile. "Maybe it's one 'a them lumberjacks?"
Twilight dropped the guns and levitated up all the kukris in the pile. "Holy…who in Equestria would ever need a knife this big? This isn't a knife, it's a small sword!"
"Oh, wow! Check this out!" Dash dove into the pile for a second and then came out, struggling to bring out a six-barrel, shoulder-mounted monstrosity of a weapon.
Applejack dropped the brass horseshoes she'd been examining ("Ah would not wanna git on this pony's bad side…) and gave the Pegasus pony a hoof.
Twilight's jaw dropped. "That's an awful large noisemaker…"
Applejack prodded the gun with a hoof. "How the hay's this thang work? Ah don't see no lever ta pull, like on the other things…" She rotated the barrel manually a quarter turn.
__________________________________________________________
Scout hovered about a foot up in the air, trying to balance his Towering Pillar of Hats while he flew. "Hey, fellas! Lookit, I think I'm gettin' da hang a' dis flyin' bidness!" Engineer had never been happier to have his Safe N' Sound headphones—the boy had been pestering them about ten minutes about how he could fly now. Engie didn't know exactly what his team had done to deserve this ungodly torture—killing nine people thousands of times over probably hadn't done wonders for his karma—but he did know that until Scout decided he wanted Engie's attention as well and got the headphones, he was safe and sound from Scout's verbal assault.
Medic, however, was at his breaking point. "Yes, shweinhund! Ve know you ah flying, you have been telling us nonstop for far too long! Now be silent, shtupid boy!"
"Ah, yer no fun, Doc! I ain't even tryin' ta be annoyin'! I'll tell ya what, though, you wanna hear annoyin?" The boy's face took on a positively malicious grin.
The doctor looked absolutely horrified at this. "Nein…you wouldn't…Scout, if you do it, I promise you I vill perform torturous acts upon your body zat vould make ze bravest schweinhund beg for—"
"NEED A DISPENSA HERE! NEED A DISPENSA HERE! NEED A DISPENSA HERE!"
Medic tore out clumps of his mane—an impressive feat, considering his lack of fingers and opposable thumbs-and let out a scream of agony. "I VILL KILL YOU UND KEEP YOUR HEAD ALIVE AND ZEN ATTATCH A DEVICE TO YOUR BRAIN ZAT CONSTANTLY STIMULATES ZE AREA WHICH REGISTERS PAIN—" He continued his crazed, rambling death threat while Engie shook his head and most of the team looked like they had half a mind to murder their teammate right there and then.
"Heavy, you done yet?" Engie'd had no desire to stay in a strange forest which could easily have pony-eating wildlife in it for half as long as they ended up staying, and they hadn't budged an inch from their landing spots yet.
"Nyet! I must find Sascha! She must be so scared, all alone in wilderness, unable to move! I do not find her, I lose honor! And what if I lose Sandvich? Oh, I must search harder, he must be terrorizing poor woodland creatures—" The Russian's head snapped straight up from the bush he was rummaging in as his ears flattened.
"What is it? Did—did you find somethin'?" Engineer began scanning the parameter.
Heavy's head slowly turned around as he snorted in rage. "Someone. Touched. Sascha."
Engie's face turned white. "N-now, pardner…let's not git hasty and kill anyone afore they get a chance to talk now…ah mean, if we screw up first contact now, it's gonna set a real bad image fer us—"
"Leetle pony touched Sascha. Is inexcusable."
"But—" Heavy had already galloped off into the forest. Engie sighed in exasperation. "Soldier, get Heavy before he kills an innocent within the first ten minutes of our arrival."
Soldier was loath to do anything the Texan said—the fact that he gave him an order was considered insubordination in his mind—but he wouldn't give him a hard kick to the face this once due to the fact that he was offering him a chance to escape the verbal torture Scout was inflicting on his ears. So he ran off after Heavy, muttering things about "Russkies" and "typical Commie behavior, harming civvies" in the meantime.
Scout grabbed the Pyro's Whiskered Gentleman set off his face and put it on, mimicking taking a sip of tea. "I say, Pyro, dis is a rather smashing cuppa tea. Ya know what would make it taste better? Fire."
Pyro grabbed his monocle and fake facial hair back, stowing it away inside his suit. "Mphhy hu mpihll—"
Scout cupped a hoof to his ear. "Oh, what's dat? I don't speak Pyronese, sorry. Ye'll hafta speak up." A baseball then smacked the annoyance on the back of the head, making him spill his hats and come crashing to the floor. This prompted an uproar of laughter from the team.
"Ach, it's aboot time ya got back down tae earth, lad!" Demo laughed at his own horrible pun, prompting a storm of hiccups to occur.
"Aaw, shuddup…" He froze as he identified the ball that had hit him. Autographed by Babe Ruth.
"Aaaaw, did zat sting? Good. Maybe it damaged ze section of your brain zat controls speech, and if you talk too much your brain vill simply lock up." Medic was looking far more pleased than he should at the prospect of his teammate getting ironic brain damage.
"Waitaminute…dat's my ball…" Scout grabbed his ball and took off into the sky in the direction the ball had come from.
"Oh, don't be such a baby! Ze brain heals ovah time!" Medic turned back to his team. "No, it doesn't."
"C'mon, Doc…let's get goin' after him before the boy hurts himself…" Engie walked off as the team reluctantly followed behind.
_________________________________________________________
Rainbow Dash dragged a large claymore sword out of the pile. "Whoa…this is one dangerous pony we're dealing with!"
Twilight had found Engie's toolbox and was surrounding herself with the blueprints contained inside. "Amazing…this is some very complex technology, um…" She read something on the bottom of the blueprints. "Dell Cohnager. That's his name. The colt's a genius. I mean, I don't even understand all of it, but I'm pretty sure he's dabbling in teleportation technology…I mean, I can do that myself, but you don't need to use magic for these things! Think of what he could invent if we found him—"
The unicorn was interrupted by the aforementioned sword yelling, "HEADS!"
Applejack stared at the Eyelander for a few seconds. "Y'all, I gotta, um...check on Apple Bloom. And buck some apples. Yeah, them apples ain't gonna buck themselves, ya know." She chuckled nervously before taking a few steps away.
Something rather large soared over Applejack's head. "Manticore!" Rainbow Dash yelled before bucking it in the face. As it flipped over onto its back, the number of bruises and bloody wounds on the animal became apparent.
Twilight walked over and tentatively poked the animal before checking its heartbeat. "It's dead." She announced.
"Dead? What, did a Hydra kill it?" The Pegasus asked.
"No, it isn't bitten at all. Judging from the bruises, it was beaten to death, and I don't think that's what Hydras do. Besides, I can't think of a reason why it would kill a Manticore just to throw its corpse at us…but then again, I'm no Fluttershy when it comes to animals..." The bushes rustled to their right.
"Git ready, girls…we may have ta fight…" Applejack grabbed a pickaxe in her teeth. The rustling grew closer and louder—whatever was menacing them apparently didn't care much for stealth.
Heavy Weapons Guy pushed his way through the final bush, breathing hard with a large gash in his right shoulder and looking much like Fluttershy had near the end of the Gala fiasco, with dirt littering his coat along with various small branches and leaves. His face displayed nothing but pure rage as he sucked in a large breath. "Кто прикоснулся к моему ребенку?"
The three mares backed up from this strange pony before them. Although he was apparently speaking pure gobbledegook to them, his voice carried an overtone of unmistakeable anger. The Russian pressed forward until he had backed up Twilight against a tree and spoke as he shoved his face dangerously close to hers.
"Я хочу, чтобы вы поняли что-то, пони. Это мой ребенок. Она видела меня через много успешных боя, помогло мне убить много трусов, защищали наш драгоценный интеллект во мно о раз! Саша, доктор и я ношу весом всей команды на наши плечи. Она является самой драгоценной для меня, так что вы. Не надо. ощупь. Мой ребенок. Понимаете ли вы, что?" Heavy barked out the last sentence.
"Okay, okay! I have absolutely no idea what you just said, but you look really angry! So, um, we'll just clear out and let you go on your angry…psychotic way!" Twilight nodded her head furiously. "You understand me, right?"
Heavy grumbled and walked away from the unicorn. He picked up Sascha in his teeth, effortlessly dragged it over to her and shoved it in her face. "You see this, tiny pony? Ees Sascha. You do not touch Sascha. She is my gun. Not yours. Are ve clear?"
Twilight nodded furiously. "Yes, yes! Now that you're speaking Equestrian, I can understand you perfectly. We're sorry to have bothered you, Mr…"
Heavy dropped Sascha. "I am Heavy Weapons Guy. Call me Heavy, that is what they call me on job. I don't tell you real name; Engineer is smart, he vill make big machine to take us home."
"Right, Heavy. So, please don't kill us…and we'll just head back to Ponyville."
"I do not kill you. You learn lesson well. Better than Scout, anyvay. So…vhat is this Ponyville?"
Twilight opened her mouth, but she caught Applejack's eye; she was giving the unicorn a "Don't socialize with the homicidal maniac!" look. "Erm…we've really gotta go…have fun with your 'gun' thing…"
Soldier burst from the bushes behind Rainbow Dash. "What happened? Did the Russkie kill any civvies? I want a head count, ASAP!"
Heavy picked up his Sandvich. "Soldier. Nice to see you trust me so vell. Ve truly make good team."
Soldier snarled. "I never trust a Commie any farther than I can throw one…and let's face it, 'Comrade', I don't know anyone who can throw you any farther than a few feet. Fatso." He counted the group of terrified, confused ponies. "You didn't kill anything other than that mutant freak, did you?" The 'war hero' gestured at the Manticore corpse on the ground.
"They learn lesson well. I do not need to reinforce it by killing." He paused for a minute. "No, Sandvich. He is teammate. Ve do not kill him." Another pause. "Yes, he is annoying tiny baby man, but not all of us can be big and strong, yes?"
Soldier walked in front of the group. "Sorry about Stalingrad over there. He's a Commie, hasn't got all his marbles, if you know what I mean."
Rainbow Dash snorted nervously. "I can imagine that."
The American saluted. "Sergeant Jane Doe at your service, civvies. Let's give you a little briefing before sending you on your way."
_________________________________________________________
Meanwhile back home, the richest man in the Western Hemisphere sat with his feet kicked up on his desk, looking over a list. One more dead white shark to add to his collection. Check. Single-handedly killing the Loch Ness Monster and causing the extinction of the Plesiosaur. Check. Talks to buy that new promising upstart company Aperture Science going swimmingly. Check. All the things on the muscled Australian's to-do list had been checked off—and it wasn't even noon yet. Looked to be another day of mostly killing hippies—the eternal scourge of the earth.
A butler approached this living monument to manliness with a report on a silver platter. "Mr. Hale, news from Teufort."
Saxton binned his list and looked over the paper. "Thank you, Mr. Reddy." He studied the paper a little more. "Site's completely destroyed, eh? Which one of those brave bastards built and set off that kind of thermonuclear bomb? I've got half a mind to give him a free hat and an eagle, as well as bring 'im back to life if need be."
"Not to insult your reading ability, sir, but perhaps you should read the report a little further."
Saxton obliged his butler and raised an eyebrow. "Missin'? No traces? This sounds suspicious…Mr. Reddy, cancel all my appointments. I'm goin' to New Mexico."
"Shall I get your private Pterosaur ready, sir?"
Hale stood up. "No, won't be necessary. Right then, you're dismissed, mate."
The butler bowed and slunk off. "Have a nice flight, sir."
The living legend jumped out the window and flew off into the sky using his aerodynamic back hairs. "SAXTON HAAAAAAAAAALE!"
_____________________________________________
"And do you know what Andrew Jackson did then?" Almost the entire group of ponies had either fallen asleep or wasn't really listening to Soldier's ramblings by now. "I'll tell ya what Andrew Jackson did, god bless his soul! He performed a Triple Right Hook Whammy on that commie fascist sonovabitch, oh you better believe it! No man has ever survived performing such a move in boxing before, and as wonderful a man as Jackson was, he was no exception! And so he sacrificed his own life to make sure that the evils of communism would not be spread farther through the mad preachings of Karl Marx! And his sacrifice stood for many years…until Joseph Stalin came along and screwed the whole thing up! By then, everyone was so out of practice in dealing with commie scum that only one man could stand up to Stalin, and that man was—"
Twilight shoved her hoof into Soldier's mouth. "Wait, wait, wait, wait. What in Equestria does that have to do with anything?"
The American smacked Twilight's hoof away. "I believe it has everything to do with the current situation, young lady!"
"No it doesn't! You told us a bit about yourself and then you started talking about these Nazi ponies, and then the whole thing just devolved into a nonsensical rant about things that never happened and ponies that never existed!"
Soldier looked indignant at this. "Why, I never! I did not personally send over six thousand scum-sucking Nazi bastards to Hell so that a civvie could tell me that the events in my historical speeches never occurred, no sir!"
"I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT!"
"Why you ungrateful maggot! I oughta—"
Their argument was interrupted by Scout's arrival. "Ay! Gimme dat!" he tried to snatch the bat Dash had been messing around with away from her, which resulted in a large wrestling match.
"Private! Come over here, we got civvies!" Soldier's demands fell on deaf ears as the fighting pegasi bumped into a tree, squabbling over it.
"Give! Now!" With a final tug, the bat was freed, sending Scout crashing into Engie, who had just arrived with the team.
"Ah, my unit! Fall in, boys!" Soldier stood upright, waiting for the team to fufill his order. The team took no notice and Medic galloped over to the Manticore's body.
"Mein gott, vhat is zat thing? Ooohoohoohoo, zis ist most interesting…ze wildlife here ist most exotic!" He giggled in unsettling schoolgirl-like delight as he talked to himself about dissecting the creature and finding out what made it tick.
Sniper approached Twilight. "Bloody hell, Solly's been talkin' ta you? Well, first contact's been buggered up…"
Twilight looked confused. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, you guys are…aliens? Back up, this isn't making any sense…"
The bushman looked sympathetic. "Aaw, sorry, Sheila. Solly's been talkin' ta you, yer bound ta be confused. Ain't got all his marbles, keeps ramblin' on about war an' shit."
Twilight winced. "Please don't use that language."
"Bleedin' prudes..." Sniper grumbled under his breath. "Look, mate, we ain't from 'round here. It's, ah…real complicated. Truckie'll explain it."
Engie got up and shook himself. "Boy, watch where you're goin'. Ah almost suffered a concussion." He cleared his throat. "Uh, howdy. Well, like Sniper said, we ain't from round these parts. As in, this plane of reality. Well, let me explain what happened…"
____________________________________________
Saxton Hale touched down in the middle of the New Mexico desert, right in front of the wreckage and rubble that had once been Teufort. There were multiple news crews on the scene, reporting on the destruction. Upon arrival, a reporter jumped. "Mr. Hale! Such an honor, sir…erm, we're live on the scene with the man himself, Saxton Hale, who has mysteriously decided to visit the ruins of a farming community called Teufort. Mister Hale, can you shed any light on your reasons of being here?"
Hale shook his head. "Naw, mate. Private business. Top secret. You understand, don't you?"
"Yes, of course. Now, I'd hate to ask this, but, the news crews have been having trouble getting a little closer to the action…this darn chain link fence is getting in the way. By any chance, could you…"
"Saxton Hale doesn't take orders from anyone, mate. Luckily for you, though, I was getting' ready ta go in there meself, so I'll do you blokes a favor." He turned back to the fence separating the general public from Teufort and ripped a large hole in it with his bare damn hands. "SAXTON HALE!"
Hale shoved his way through the resulting mob of reporters and punched his way through the rubble and into the BLU base. As he neared the large hole in the entryway floor, he stopped and sniffed. "I smell antimatter…" His suspicions grew as he saw the BLU Spawn Door missing—it had been made to withstand extremely high-powered explosions, surely it could handle a little rubble? Not to mention the fact that the door was nowhere in sight. Actually that one was a little easier to explain; quite possibly it was buried under rubble. He caught sight of something red and leapt down the hole, clearing away the rubble around it. He found the remains of the RED teleporter and picked up the dislocated control valve. "A' course…it's so obvious, but the big question still remains…" He dropped the valve and leaped up into the air, breaking through the ceiling and heading back to his mansion.
"SAXTON HALE AWAY!"
_________________________________________________
"So, um, let me see if I've got all this." Twilight said.
Engie nodded. "Okay."
"You're from another world."
"Yeah."
"And you got transported here through that black hole thing we were investigating."
"Yup."
"Originally you were a 'human'."
"Uh-huh."
"And so now you need a place to stay while you build some kind of dimensional transporter to get back to your world, and you're asking to come back with us. To Ponyville."
"Heck yes."
Scout chuckled. "'Ponyville'. Yeah, yeah, bet da founders really strained deir brains ta come up wit dat one."
Twilight tapped her chin in thought. "Well...the rest of you aren't insane like those guys, right?"
Heavy grumbled as he tried to put Sascha on his shoulder. "I hear leetle pony."
Engie tapped his hooves together nervously. "Well…not completely…ah mean, sure we got the odd personality disorder, but our kinda job'll do that ta you. But ah'm fine, really, I don't really seem to take as much…pleasure in mah job as the rest of the team—" There was a great clatter as Spy dug deep into the weapons pile and brought out his disguise kit, knocking over his toolbox and spilling the contents all over the forest floor. "Oh, good night, Irene!" As Spy began scribbling on some blank paper masks, Engie looked on in horror at the disorder his stuff was in. "Naw, naw, that ain't right…I gotta put these wrenches like that and the blueprints like that…gah, they're all dusty…" He galloped over to the toolbox and frantically tried to replace the items. "Aw, dear lord, the ink smudged…"
"Ummm…okay…well, I guess we can't turn you down…you guys can bunk in the library where I live until you build something to get you and your friends home, but in the meantime…you guys have to at least make sure you don't hurt anypony. Ponies in Ponyville are really hospitable, but I'm pretty sure the welcome mat stays out only as long as they know you guys aren't, you know, homicidal maniacs waiting to happen." Twilight said.
Engie shook his hoof. "No, no, ma'am, I couldn't possibly impose on ya…ah mean, it ain't gentlemanly-"
Twilight raised an eyebrow. "Erm, what?"
"Sorry. It's an expression from where ah come from. Anyhow, I couldn't impose on y'all…"
Scout flew up into Twilight's face. "I could. Oh, hey, you got a TV in dat library? I'm missin' reruns a' I Dream of Jeannie right now."
She looked utterly baffled at Scout's question. "Tee vee?"
Scout looked annoyed. "Alright, so, um, ya got record players? Have ya invented refrigerators yet? Perhaps ya got dis relatively new invention called 'indoor plumbin'."
"Well, yes, we have that. What, just because we don't have this tee vee thing you assume we live in the darkhorse ages?"
Engie pulled Scout out of the way. "Ah'm sorry. That's just regular Scout fer ya, always demandin' yer attention. So, y'all can just take five fer a sec, ah'll talk to mah team fer a bit." He turned back to his team. "Fellas? Fellas, we've reached an agreement. Miss Sparkle's willin' ta let us bunk back at her house 'till I can build somethin' ta bring us back home. Keep in mind, ah ain't stayin' with y'all…so don't walk ta the kitchen one morning an' expect freshly cooked bacon. Y'all will hafta make yer own food."
Soldier grumbled "Dammit" under his breath.
"We're ponies now, Soldier. Ah don' think we even eat meat anymore. So, anyway, if anyone wants their weapons, git 'em now, 'cause I ain't plannin' on makin' any return trips 'till I get the machine finished."
"I keep Sascha and Sandvich. They have been good partners over years, would not be proper to abandon them." Heavy finally managed to get his weapon on his shoulder. Sniper walked over and grabbed his Huntsman, mumbling about, shockingly, hunting. Scout grabbed his stock bat and energy drinks, while Medic struggled to hold all his assorted bonesaw varieties and mediguns and Spy slipped some invisibility watches onto his wrists and shoved a pocketwatch down a suit pocket.
"Another thing, fellas. Don't hurt anyone here, alright?" The group, only half-listening, dismissively mumbled their assent.
"We're moving, everypony." Twilight Sparkle, who had just finished explaining the situation to her friends, moved ahead, acting as group leader. After a few minutes of walking, there was a great crash and a scream of surprise as the weight of Medic's baggage finally toppled open, burying him. "Assistance, bitte…"
Twilight levitated the things off the doctor. "You do know you can just levitate all that, right?" Medic wasn't listening, as he was staring, amazed, at Twilight's feat.
"Mein gott! You have developed ze powers of levitation! Zis is most fascinating, but how do zey do it…" She'd already lost him to his own (admittedly morbid) scientific curiosity. The lavender filly sighed and moved on, resigned to carrying Medic's things for him.
"So, um…if'n ya don't mind me askin'…why in the hay do y'all need them sharp objects?" Applejack voiced her curiosity to Engie.
He tapped his hooves together nervously. "Well, ah ain't supposed ta discuss the details a' my contract…let's jus' say ah had a very dangerous job back in my home world. Say, what do y'all do fer a livin'?" Engie changed the subject.
"Oh, me? Ah'm a farmer. Born an' raised on Sweet Apple Acres with mah big brother Macintosh and Granny Smith. We farm apples. So, ah'm guessin' you build machines?"
"Yeah. Graduated first in mah class in mah university, followin' in mah daddy's footsteps. Did you know in mah world, mah grandfather invented the prosthetic limb?"
The farmer inquired, "What now?"
Engie sighed at having to dumb it down for Applejack. "A robot hand. Or hoof, as y'all would call it."
"Hand? Tha's like one a' yer freaky human appendages, right?"
The mechanic looked offended. "Freaky? Listen here, missy, where ah come from, unicorns an' pegasi don' exist either, an' if we saw one there, we'd be freakin' out majorly. In fact, ah'm sure the reason we ain't in a hysterical fit of screamin' an' hollerin' right now's because we're in a minor state a' shock that delays our reactions ta somethin' this alien."
Applejack tapped her chin in thought. "Yeah, that does make sense. Humans were always considered an old pony tale here, like the Mare in the Moon. Then again, she turned out ta be real, too…long story, somepony'll tell y'all about it."
Scout was bugging Rainbow Dash. "'Ay, Dash. We there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?"
"Do you see houses yet?" Dash said through gritted teeth.
"Uuuh…no."
"Then we aren't there yet!"
"How 'bout now?" Scout grinned, his eyes alight in childish delight at successfully annoying someone.
"Are you always this annoying?" The cyan Pegasus demanded.
"Depends on yer definition a' annoyin'. On Hardhat's slidin' scale a' hair-pullin' annoyances, he told me I rank at constant annoyance. Say, uh, you dye yer hair like that?"
"Why? What's wrong with my mane?" Dash said defensively.
"Well, it's just dat…" He stifled a laugh. "Da rainbow thing makes ya look like a dyke."
"Oh, ha, ha. You think I haven't heard that one a bajillion and one times? It's natural. The color of my mane does not reflect which way I swing, okay? By the way, your bandages don't make you look any tougher. They just make you look like a dink."
Scout looked offended at this, but his expression changed into one of amusement. "I like you, fella. We should totally hang out sometime." He crashed into a house, ending his flight abruptly and painfully.
Dash snickered. "Nice job looking where you're flying. Oh, by the way…" Some school-age ponies walked by, giving Scout a weird look. "Welcome to Ponyville."
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