15 - Twilight Time
At her wits end, Lyra, with the help of her patients, hefted up the heavy earth pony, still tied up, and they all journeyed to Twilight's castle.
Spike answered the door with a raised brow. "Uh...?"
Lyra pointed at her captive. "We have a prisoner and need to turn him over to Princess Twilight Sparkle for questioning." She leaned in. "Please be fast, I think he's an alien."
Spike blinked owlishly. "Uh..."
"Who's there, Spike?" came Twilight's voice as she came into view from deeper in the castle. On seeing Lyra and her retinue, she tilted her head. "Do come in, Lyra. Why do you have a pony tied up?"
"She's crazy!" suddenly blurted the captive, wriggling around in their grasp.
They hauled him in despite his protests and threw him at Twilight's hooves. Lyra pointed down at him. "This pony wasn't a pony before. He was a human. Right guys?"
No one could confirm the sight, having been knocked out at the time. Twilight rubbed behind her head a moment. "Let's have a look?"
They hefted up the prisoner and carried his wriggling form into Twilight's laboratory, where she strapped him into a chair and got to work scanning him. "Huh, what do you know?"
"Found it?" Lyra leaned over, trying to see the the readout.
"I found something." Twilight poked the paper spilling free. "He was clearly under the effects of a polymorph recently."
Lyra swallowed nervously. "I, uh, did turn him into a chicken? But that was before he became a pony. You're not picking that up are you?"
Twilight gave a soft smile. "Actually, I don't think it's your spell. It doesn't have your signature at all. Light up your horn for me." Twilight stared at Lyra's glowing horn carefully. "Not the same. This pony isn't a transmuted human, he was a pony transmuted into a human."
The pony winced at Twilight's words, giving them credence. Lyra fished out his gear and dumped it out onto the floor. "He said something about his breathing mask?"
Twilight picked up the mask and sniffed it once before quickly putting it down. "I smell poison joke. This must have been what let him keep the form. You've proven your case, Lyra." She turned on the pony, "As for you, answers, now; unless you want to deal with Celestia, and then the royal jails."
He didn't seem to like the idea of being jailed and wriggled in his bindings. "Please don't... I'm sorry! Please!"
Lyra prodded him in the ribs. "Get talking. Why were you chasing her?" She pointed at Sunny Dawn. "Who are you working with? And how do you even know what a human is, let alone how to turn into one?"
He sagged, going limp at last. "It was just a joke gone too far..."
Sunny Dawn's wings spread wide. "A joke?! You killed my parents, or foalnapped them, or something. I still can't remember clearly. How is this a joke?!"
He chuckled a little. "You're the one that dared them."
Sunny Dawn shrank back. "Dare..." Her eyes looked off into the distance, as if starting to remember. "A dare... I didn't need parents anymore. I'm an adult now. I could take care of myself..."
He nodded. "Exactly right. You agreed to this. You gave up when you returned home."
She slammed a hoof onto the ground. "Why did you tackle me?! What was that about forgetting again?!"
Lyra rejoined the questioning. "Who were you talking to in the fog? I heard you talking."
He wriggled a little. "I'm explaining, give me a moment, please... I was going to make you forget the false memories, and bring you to your parents."
Sunny Dawn shook her head. "What?! Why did I have to be in a cage, starving, for days for that?"
He squirmed again, pulling at his bindings. "I didn't make the potion. You had to fast before I gave the cure. I didn't think you'd have the strength to push past me and take off like you did."
Lyra rolled a hoof. "And the other pony you were talking to?"
Spike poked his head down. "Two ponies here to see you, Twi."
Two pegasi descended the stairs almost as soon as Spike said that. Sunny Dawn's face turned almost instantly to joy and she rushed to them. "Mom, Dad!" She tackled them to the ground, and hugs were given warmly from all sides.
Lyra rubbed behind her head, and looked to Twilight. Twilight nodded with uncertainty. "OK, this is explaining some of it, but not why humans were involved at all."
Sunny Dawn's mother spoke, "They were Sunny's favorite mythological creature."
Sunny flushed red, remembering this. "Oh gosh..."
Steven tilted his head. "So... you weren't ever a human?"
Sunny moved over to reclaim the respirator and put her snout to it. She soon became Samantha, "I was. It was a game... I remember now."
Sunny's father rubbed against one of her legs. "A game you're ready to put aside now?"
Samantha set the breather down with shaking hands, but her fingers didn't leave it. "I'm not sure I am..." She picked it up again and turned to her parents. "But I was an idiot for thinking I didn't want my folks. Forgive me?"
Sunny's mother extended a wing. "So long as you remember you promised to do all the chores for a week."
Lucy shook her head. "Now just wait a moment. Where did the memories of being a waiter come from?"
Samantha fell to all fours, becoming Sunny Dawn. "I made it all up. It was just a story I wrote as a filly."
Steven nodded a little. "You were pretty realistic about it, considering you weren't ever on Earth."
Lyra pointed at the still tied up assaulter. "As for you, you still owe us a new window, sheesh. There are way better ways than gassing an entire house. What were you thinking?"
His ears fell. "They asked me to be discreet..."
Twilight blinked. "That sounds like the opposite of discretion. I've heard enough. It sounds like everything's under control now." She pointed at the tied up stallion. "You're free to go, but you're responsible for that window."
They untied him and Lyra noticed he had a cutie mark. "Does it erase your mark?"
Sunny nodded. "The more you use it, the longer it stays away."
Sunny's mother softly boxed Sunny on the head. "Which is why you should stop using it. Come on, let's go home."
Sunny nodded at her mother before turning to Lyra. "Can I... still see you?"
Lyra put a hoof to her chest, surprised at the question. "Of course, but aren't you cured?"
Sunny leaned in and rubbed noses. "I still have other issues, I think... I'm tired of running away from them, on two legs or four."
Sunny departed with her parents and their hired stallion. Steven chuckled softly. "That was bizarre, but I'm glad it wasn't... more."
Lucy nodded her head. "You're telling me? I'm exhausted. Little pony bodies need to sleep." She toddled off back towards the house, leaving the others behind.
Lyra thanked Twilight, and took her leave as well, walking along with Steven. "Thanks for your help, and sorry for all the excitement."
Steven waved a hoof. "You didn't ask for that. I'm just amazed she was a pony the whole time."
Lyra looked sideways towards Steven as she walked. "Does it make you worry about your own past?"
"Maybe a little..." Steven rolled his shoulders. "But I feel pretty sure about it."
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Oh, what is even happening right now?! Why is it so dark?!
Wait... now I see a light....
Well what else would it be given that this is a story starring a top-hat and monocle-wearing Lyra?
Im still confused, what exactly is going on please explain it to me.
So... This only affected one of them and the rest...What!?
6019218 From what I can tell at least one of the characters was always a pony and this is just a game and they couldn't find their parents because they tied them up somewhere or something. And in this chapter they kinda remember all that explain all that and well that's it. Also poison joke.
So... what was the purpose of this? This feels more like a red herring than an integral part of the story.
Also, how could she have possibly made up enough fake memories through a childhood game to make her past seem real to actual humans? We know some of them are actual humans, because one of them knew how to walk and instantly recognized and knew how to use a computer.
6019274
I don't think it occurred to the others before the mirror trip to actually confirm details of the world they originally came from. They were pretty vague about it in the group session.
Though off the top of my head, ones that convinced me:
Lucy - Disco ball comment, scientific method, insistence on chemistry and other things.
Steven - Comments about photo editing software
Darrell - familiarity with mirror world's technology and layout
Thomas - Obsession with meat I find almost impossible to fake, and knowledgeable about different cuts, etc.
Unconfirmed - Sam, Shattered
Sam said he was a truck driver, but they have trucks (rare, but they do) in Equestria. He didn't really offer anything more than suggesting he is probably the least happy of the group.
Shattered has been acting so pony that he hasn't really shared many details of his past.
Now, here is everything Samantha has ever said:
The only thing that a pony might not know are a wad of bills -- 'paper bits'. Everything else a pony would recognize. How did she know about bills...?
Yeah, now I don't get any of this.
Ok, that was a surprise end to Sunny Dawn's story. Though I have to wonder what kind of parents would let their kid do something like this?
No, I'm pretty sure it didn't do that, specifically.
6019357
This chapter.. feels like it makes more sense if you assume everything the attacker and the 'parents' said is lies and they implanted enough false memories in Samantha that she believes them.
That's going to be my head-canon. The three of them are really the Equestrian division of the Men in Black.
This is one of the of the saddest stories I've read for a while. I can really feel for these people. Makes want to punch somepony though.
6019272 Thanks for clarifying all that for me.
Now I can say with absolute certainty this chapter raises far more questions than it answerd and those four ponies are either monumentally stupid or just sick in the head. That being said my enjoyment of the story is at an all time high, keep doing what you're doing.
6019318
Well one of three theories comes to mind to explain how Sunny Dawn knew about the humans calling mony bills and not bits.
Theory A: Sunny Dawn or one of her friends overheard Twilight talking about her trip to the human world of Equestria Girls some time ago. Twilight would have have encounter dollar bills on more one occasion during her two trips to that world and would have asked about them. After returning to Equestria would have most likely talked about them on several occasions.
Theory B: Similar to theory A but would involve the ponies playing the human game overhearing about bills from one of the other members of the main six as Twilight would have told them about her experiences in the other world.
Theory C: The most unlikely theory of them all but the probably heard about them from Pinkie Pie who has shown she knows thing she shouldn't and breaks the fourth wall all of time or from Discord who has sown the he can travel between dimensions with easy so some bills from the human world along with several others things could be all over Equestria or other parts of the world from Discord having fun.
Now that I think about it Discord could totally have something to do with this. After all mof of the human ponies said they were doing normal human stuff then poof they were ponies. Plus how much is really known about how Discord chaos magic works? Does it even leave a trace of magic when he changes something into something else? We also know the his magic does affect living things and can last a long while or at least until he changes things back to normal.
Wow o_O just, just wow
I didn't understand this chapter.
Uh... huh? What happened? New author?
This reads like a totally different story with wild ideas, the pacing is all rushed all of a sudden and there's no trace of the depth it held before.
I'm seriously confused here... I'll stick around to see where on earth you want to go with this though.
cool good work no exultant work.
Harts Fire
6019979 This.
If the pony who used the gas grenade was always a pony, why was he inhaling poison joke in the first place? There has to be more to this than this chapter is revealing.
His ears fell. "They asked me to be discrete..."
You want discreet.
... What. What the crap is wrong with that stallion?
In any case, definitely an unexpected development, but a localized one. I'm glad Sunny is in a better place.
6020210 Fixed!
6020323
This story is crazy. And funny. Funnily crazy. Crazily funny. Whatever.
Please, write more!!!!
I have to admit being a little disappointed with this Sunny Dawn situation. I don't know if this is what happened, but it seems to me that the author decided to introduce a darker, conspiracy-style element to the story. This alienated some readers, who (like me) were drawn in by the story's slice-of-life style and deconstruction of common HiE tropes, and a few of those readers were vocal about it. The author panicked and resolved the situation as quickly as possible, which resulted in an unsatisfying resolution for that arc and a lot of fridge logic.
Again, I don't know if that's what happened. Perhaps the author planned this resolution all along. But if the author had originally intended an element of conspiracy but then had a change of heart about it, I don't think the story would have been adversely harmed by keeping the conspiracy a minor element of the story. Hints have already been dropped that all of the humans came to Equestria in different ways, and I assume for different reasons. A lot of them are common elements of other HiE stories. A Conversion Bureau-style conspiracy would have been just one more trope for the author to play with.
Kinda felt like this whole plot thread could have been aborted before it made it to print. It really just raises more questions.
6027108 Here lies the plot thread, we hardly knew ye.
*Ambulance pulls up to the doors of a hospital, and a person is rushed in through the doors to the ER.*
(Doctor) "What happened?"
(EMT) "The patient is suffering from extreme whiplash, we think his neck might be broken."
(Doctor) "Is he conscious?"
(EMT) "He was, he kept mumbling about some kind of story about ponies, then passed out."
(Doctor) "Get him into the O.R. stat!"
6059562 It was a confusing part of the story to be certain.
Far, far too fast-paced. I thought it just seemed this way to me because I've been getting used to actual books which tend to be more verbose, but those thoughts died at this:
It happened so fast that I had to read it again, slowly, just to make sure that I understood what was going on. You don't describe the process, what she actually looked like, her immediate reaction or expression, or anyone else's reaction or expressions. Since this is centred around Lyra you would think that it would at least say how she felt seeing this happening. Moments like this are probably spread throughout your story but I'm hardly qualified to offer much more critique than this. Just know that you should probably keep in mind to be more descriptive.
Apart from not liking the pacing, I do enjoy this story. This new twist is making me want to see how it turns out more than I did before. They seemed to accept his "it was all a joke!" explanation very easily. I can't figure out whether this is another mark of writing or if they're just incredibly naive.
6229946 A little of both? But, yes, not the strongest part of the story.
This was a pretty bad chapter.
Stuff before this was great so I'll continue reading.
This chapter was beyond stupid and Sunny should not forgive her parents.
...
*sighs*
If you're going to take a sudden turn for the dark, don't back out five minutes later, please. I don't know you did this because everyone was panicking at dark turn or what, but do what you want do with story, not what you think will please the fans.
Also, this is extremely fast-paced, which really counteracts the tension you build.
6692061 Welcome to the crowd! The story recovers, at least, or so I think.