Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Where did these come from?

by Tray Hunter
Editing by Doctor Brony

I remember being at a party with my friends.

We (mostly myself) had several drinks above our usual limits. In my case this usually meant that I had problems with everything. Everything that doesn’t involve either sleeping, sitting, throwing up, or a combination of all three of them.

Yap, that was a pretty good night.

After trying to keep my lunch for half an hour, I decided it was time to let go and make room for more. As I tried to make my way to the bathroom, I saw nothing but a tunnel of colors and light.

Nothing unusual when you’re hardly short of breaking your liver in half.

It took me another ten minutes to find the bathroom and as I opened the door everything seemed to explode in my head.I thought about getting back to my chair, but wasn't sure if I could make it there in one piece. So I decided to stick to Plan B: pass out.

* * * * *

The next thing I remember was waking up (and I use this term loosely, as it was more a snapping-back-consciousness). So, I was ‘awake’ and my brain decided it was time to remind me of what I've been doing all night... by setting itself on fire.

I wanted to moan or something, but wasn't able to make any sounds at all. That was when I realized that I couldn't do anything else either.

I was going to crack my eyes open in shock. And how shocked was I when I saw... nothing.

My eyelids were numb as well.

This called for an internal alert: I sent emergency calls to all parts of my body. Unfortunately, there was no response.

“Typical,” I thought. “Let's move on to Plan C or better, Plan D: Forming a Plan C.” As I wondered what to do, my brain came up with something.

I should add that my brain and I don't have that usual quiet relation you might have with yours. In fact, we often have extended arguments about the use of body functions or reactions.
I usually win these, but on the other hoof it is slightly faster with bringing up new ideas or remembering stuff.

Not that much of a surprise when you think of what and where it is. Stop giving me that look. I’m not crazy. Really.

Anyway, my brain came up with the idea to do this strange sensing thing from time to time. This talent of mine (or is it its?) basically involves concentrating on body parts and imagining my inner energy to flow where I order. The result is a warm feeling in the target limb. Not very exciting at this part but it works.

So yeah, my superpower? I can feel stuff. But its more complicated than that! I promise! Just you wait...

“Yeah, might try that. Thanks bro!” Said bro just seemed to nod. (I have no idea how a brain is supposed to nod, but it felt just like that) and initialized these, assumed imaginary, energy streams to follow my bidding.

First we scanned for our eyelids. (Yes, my brain and I are a team, and therefore, a ‘we.’ I don’t deserve all of the credit ALL of the time, you know.) It took some time to find them but once the contact was up, I started to move the lazy pieces of skin.

Bad idea.

The incoming sunlight almost burned my eyes, and the hangover wasn't helping one bit.
After some time, I however got used to the brightness and fortunately my brain began to release these painkillers it produces whenever something sends an emergency signal stating pain or anything similar. (Superpower Numero Dos: I can produce drugs for myself. And no, I’m not addicted. I can stop anytime I want, I swear it.) Usually these are useless against a full grown hangover but this time it seemed to work.

I started to explore my surroundings and the presence of the trees and bushes seemed to indicate that I in fact wasn't at the party anymore.

'Toto, this isn't Kansas anymore!'

My brain is always such a smartflank, but that’s cool. That means I get to hear all of its one-liners and it also shares its best quotes with me. Forever UNalone!

As I tried to reestablish a connection to my fingers in order to feel the ground I was lounging (sprawled haphazardly) on, I couldn't find any of them. (We humans use to have fingers that might be compared to those of dragons but without scales or claws...oh and we usually have 5 of them per hand.)

“Ok, this just keeps getting better and better”.

'At least you found these hands of yours.'

I indeed found them, but something was different about them. The energy made its way down my spine as I sensed something even more alarming than having no fingers.This time nothing was missing.

In fact there was something that shouldn't have been there.

'It's probably just something lying on your back. Like a lady. You know, the usual.'

“I swear, you’re in more denial than I am. And no, I can access it...it's connected to my body. How creepy would it be if a lady was connected to my spine?! It's something different.”

'Fine. I'll process the data you send me.'

“Don’t strain yourself or anything. I know how hard it is for you sometimes.”

The next part was analyzing these strange things on my back and getting a clue of what they were.

'These things have muscles in it... I will try and see if we can move them. Teamwork makes the dreamwork!'

I am not entirely sure how this whole energy thing works either, but it does.

'I found some information in the cells, what these things are made of. Seems like they have feathers...how are we supposed to produce feathers? Last time I checked, neither of our parents was a chicken.'

“I don't know, but isn't there also the fact that we, oh I don’t know, usually DON’T HAVE FEATHERS?”

'Hey, don't yell at me! I'm just analyzing what you send me. And- wait a moment. I think I know what these are...'

“What do you mean?”

'Hold on, we can move them now.'

As I tried to move these extra limbs and make sense of the nonsense my brain was freaking about, I realized. They weren't as flexible as fingers,but they could move in all sorts of directions. They also seemed to be connected to my spine with strong muscles.
As I examined them with the energy I felt a single joint in each of them, plus one where they met my back.

“Feathers? Muscles? Joints? These are...these are...”

'Don’t strain yourself. Thinking isn’t your strong suit.Yeah, they’re wings.'

“No fingers + wings =...”

‘...’

“...”

‘You alri-’

“Ohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh!”

The wings stiffened and and stretched. The energy literally exploded inside my body and the numbness that was stuck in my limbs vanished. I felt my whole body come to life and jumped up onto my hooves. At this point I realized I had hooves.

"I am a pegasus pony!" I shouted with a mix of pride, joy and confusion.

'Yeah and you've got a wingboner to prove it.'

"Oh would you please shut up? For all I know, you are responsible for reactions like this."

'Well, I found this new function a while before and thought it would probably be something awesome. And no, it’s your fault. You see, reactions like this are caused by the release of hormo-’

I rolled my eyes and went on to take a look at my new body. I was now a full equipped pegasus with a brown coat and black-feathered wings. My usual brown hair was (for some reason) turned red, just like my tail, which also was completely new (and awkward) for me to have.

It also appeared to me that my mane was a little bit shorter than it used to be, since it barely touched my shoulders now. Yes, you heard right! Full grown male with long hair! You don't like it, you deal with it!

...or maybe it was just my neck that had become longer.

Good thing I lost my hairband before. I'd go crazy, before I got my hair done with hooves. I don't know how this farmpony I once met (Calm down. I’ll get there soon.) manages it everyday.

You may wonder, why I wasn't more surprised, to see my body like this. And by ‘more surprised,’ I mean going total Celestia-damn crazy.

Well, I already was familiar with stories about ponyfied humans. But that’s just what they were: stories. They make it look easy.

Just let me tell you one thing: the first step for me as pony was a short and painful one. And if I can tell you one more thing: Ever wonder why dirt isn't served in all of the posh restaurants? It’s because it tastes terrible.

"Ouch," I groaned as I laid on my stomach and looked at my hooves "How do these ponies coordinate four limbs at the same time?"

'Maybe you should try to move one after the other, until you figure it out. Remember: you must walk before you can run.’

“So when does flying come in?”

‘...We’re doomed.’

There it was again, my brain, smartflanking on me.

"Ok we'll try this... Do you have any tips for me? Because if I fall on my face again you will take a hit as well. "

'Yeah, figured that out. By the way, have you tried to talk to me with a conclussion? And I found one memory of a horse walking in your TV section.'

"TV? Horse? Oh you mean the corner where we keep the pony stuff."
'Whatever, just do as I say and we should be back on the road in no time. Just don't mess up.'

"Me? Nahaaaaaaaaaa-"

"Ouch..." I got up after my second step and decided it was time to listen to my favourite thinking organ.

'Ponies walk crossed, so when you move your right ar- foreleg you have to move your left hindleg as well. Why don't you try to walk over to that tree there? Take it slow now, it ain't a race.'
"No problem, 'Doc'. "

I did as I was told and somehow managed not to fall a third time.

"I'm walking! I'm walking!"

'Good boy! Want a treat? Huh, boy?'

"You’re not helping. Now for level 2!"

I flapped my wings as hard as I could and tried to take off, but only blew some dust from the ground beneath me.

“Maybe somepony else can show me how to do this.”

‘Did you just say ‘somepony’?’

“Don’t judge me. For all we know, we're in Equestria and blending in could help getting some information and stay out of trouble.”

'Equestria? Mmh, let's see. I think I still have the map of it, you once saw. Maybe I can-'

"I know where we are! That’s the Everfree Forest! And the fact that we are having this conversation either means we aren't very deep inside, OR we are at a point no living creature dares to go! Do you still got these memories about surviving in the wilderness?"

'Most of it. But, someone replaced a good half of it with jokes about ‘drinking your own piss’! But with the stuff we still remember, we probably can make it out of the forest in one piece.'

"Great! Let's get our flanks outta here!"

As I made my way through a nearby bush, I found a path on the other side of it.

"Jackpot!"

'But which direction do we head?'

I looked around and noticed a sign saying

Ponyville
6 km

'Ok. Direction and distance. All we need to know.'
"Plus, we know who to ask for information!"

'Are you going to ask that librarian pony? I doubt she'll listen to someone whose breath stinks like a liquor shop.'

"Still have my mints!"

I grabbed for the mints in my belt-pocket and put one into my mouth.

'How in the name of all that is logic did you do that?'

I looked at the mints and realized that I hadn't had my belt-pocket anymore.

"Where did these come from? Maybe..." I reached for my lighter and drew it out. "Aha! I knew it!"

'What? And where did you get that lighter?'

"Cartoon-world, Cartoon-physics!"

'Whatever. What are we going to call that invisible container thing?'

"The P.P.S.C.!"

'The what?'

"The Pinkie Pie Storage Container! The name fits, since she's drawing stuff out of thin air all the time."

'We should think about a better name for this later! So, whats in there?'

I reached for my waist and pulled everything I could feel out of the P.P.S.C. until it was empty. At least I think it was empty. You never know.

"Let's see. We got my jacket, my cigarettes, the lighter, the mints and the bulk of my belongings."

These ‘belongings’ contained my leather wristbands and my four rings. One of the wristbands was equipped with a watch, which I crafted onto it (With cable ties!)

'I guess we can forget about the rings. No fingers to attach them to!'

"I'm not gonna part from them! There has got to be a way to-"
I looked at my back and saw that the ends of my wings were about as thick as my fingers used to be. Some of the feathers broke, as I slipped the rings onto my wings, two on each side.

'Why’d you keep them anyway? I thought you said we’re trying attract as little attention as possible!'

"They got some strong memories bound to them.Also I think they will blend in just fine."

Indeed the rings looked as if I had just bought them at a Hot Clopic in Canterlot. One was a dragon claw made of silver, another one was a small chain. The other two were made of stainless steel, although I wasn’t sure if this material is known to ponykind already.

Next, I took on my wristbands. The one with the watch, now embraced my left foreleg, and the other one, which had small cone shaped rivets on it, was on my right foreleg. I looked at the rest of my stuff and sighed.

"Look at this!Some jackass put holes in the back of my jacket!" I looked closer at them. "And why does the logo now say "Herd of the Damned"?

'Cartoon-alteration?'

"More like PUNteration! But wait a moment..." I put on my jacket and noticed my wings could fit through the holes in the back as if they were hand tailored. Or better, hoof tailored. "Sweet!"

I took the lighter and the mints and stored them in the pockets of my jacket. The last thing on the ground was the box with my cigarettes. "Uh, why is there a picture of Princess Luna on my MOON's?"

'PUNteration?'

I rolled my eyes and put the box into one of my pockets.

The journey to Ponyville was pretty quiet. I guess my brain was still wondering about the P.P.S.C. and how impossible it was. Or recharging his smartflank meter. One or the other.

As I arrived at the edge of the small village after a 30 minutes trot, and everything was quiet. After a quick snap at my watch I realized that it was in fact 4am and probably everypony still was fast asleep.

"You know.There’s something I have to check out first. "

'What? I thought we were about to ask Twilight and get info?'

"She is probably sleeping off a book-over.”

‘Then where are we going?’

“I’ve always wanted to know if the taste of cactus goes well with cider."

Chapter 2

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Chapter 2: Bromance is Magic

by Tray Hunter
Editing by Doctor Brony

'You are realy sure it's there, are you? It wasn't even in the show or anything. Why should it be there?'

"Call it a hunch, but I KNOW it is real! As real as this world can be."

When I arived at the orchard, the sun was just rising above the farmhouse. The sight was beautifull but I was looking for something else.

"Where is it?"

I looked around and saw it. A small building, a little bit away from the farmhouse.

"Aah, there you are!"

I galloped towards my destination and as I came closer, I could read the sign on the front

Chef Sandy and Apple Cider's

Eatery and Drinkery

I'm not sure if you know them but meeting these two in my world is considered as awesome as a teaparty with Princess Celestia in a bunnycostume, while there are no bananas around.
As I stepped inside, I spotted the red stalion with the blonde mane behind the bar.

'Ok, if you realy wanna do this, play it cool and don't drool on his bar when you switch to fanmode!'

"That only happend once!"

'Yeah, but I think this time, they won't simply put a bucket under your chin.'

"Pfft, I can do this."

I wen't over to the bar and made eyecontact with the barpony Apple Cider.

"J0!"

"Well, howdy, stranger, what'll ya have?"

He realy spoke in this weird appalantean accent.
I'll try my best to imitate it but the featherthing just has to play along aswell.

"You got any beer?" (Internal *squee* number 1)

"Aaw, sorry pal, all out.

But we still got som' o' mah good ol' cider."

"Alright, I'll try that."

‘I’m so proud of you. You’ve yet to assault a random stranger.’

He turned around and kicked a glass from under the bar, that landed right before me. I still don't know how he did this without breaking it. While he searched for the cider, I placed my plot on a nearby stool. As he turned back to me, he had a large bottle with three X on it in his mouth. I noticed that it was the same kind of bottle he had for a cutiemark.

He lowered his mouth (at a completely awkward angle I might add) and began to pour the cider.The concoction sparkled a bit as he poured it. I took the glass with both of my hooves (just as awkward) and took a sip.

My wings stretched and stiffend again, while my ears stood up and my eyes watered. Cider later told me, there was some smoke coming out of my nostrils.

"Ar' ya alright?"

"That stuff is good!"

My wingboner subsided and I could swear somepony behind me giggled.

I turned around. The restaurant was almost empty and just a few ponies sat on a bench in the corner.

"Do you make it yourself?"

"Yeah, thats mah own unique creation! The Super Bubble Fizz Sparkling Cider!"

"Cool!"

I took another sip, this time without the side effects from before.

‘Easy there cowboy. This is your first interaction with ponies. Gotta play it cool.’

"Mind if ah ask where yer from?"

'Whatever you say just don't-'

"I'm from Germareneigh."

'...make up new words! Was that really nessecary?'

"And let me guess. You are Apple Cider from Appalanta."

I bet, one could here his jaw hit the floor, from the center of Manehatten to the coast of Coltifornia.

'Bad foul! Playing your fancards!'

"'scuse me? Hav' we met befor' or sumthin'?"

'Just say you heard of him or anything like that! Pleas don't-'

"I heard of your podcast. It's pretty cool. Is Chef around? I could use something to eat. " I could swear the whole restaurant was looking at me. Although there was only one pony left in a dark corner, turning his or her back to me.

‘You know what? I’m done. As soon as my lease is up, I’m outta here. Finding a new home. Maybe there’s a squirrel around here that would enjoy my company...’

When Cider's eyes widend to the size of pumpkins, I realized how bad the mindblow, I caused on him must have been.

"Ar' ya a spy?"

'Not gonna help you out of this one.’

"Actually I heard of your restaurant from a friend. And the "podcast" is a magazine, where I come from. They had a review on your bar and Chef's culinaric inovations. So no, I’m not a spy. We cool?"

'Do you realy think he belives you?'

"Sure we cool! Always a pleasure ta meet'n admirer o' mah arts." He smiled.

'He bought it? He realy bought it! Why do I even bother? You get ONE more try. But that’s it.'

"So, is Chef around? I'm starving!"

He turned around and yelled at a door that said "Kitchen".

"Hey, Chef! Yer got yerself a customer!"

The door swung open and a pony trotted into the room. It was the infamous Chef "Needle Nose" Sandy!
He held a notepad in his mouth and a pen rested at his ear. I'm not sure how it stayed in place but it was the same thing as putting up things with one hoof, it shouldn't work but it does.

"What's it gonna be?"

I thought about something to order but realized one essential detail: I hadn't had one bit to cover my bill.

"Ah'now that face! Don'cha worry about it. Ah'll hav' yer covered."

That time another ponyjaw dropping to the floor, could be heard. I think somewhere in Zimbabneigh.

"Are you serious?"

"Since yer new ta town, Ah'll grant ya a lil' welcome gift. But there's one condition!"

"Condition?"

"Yer have ta drink with me!"

I put my hoof up and my coolface on.

"Deal!"

And that, fillies and gentlecolts, was when the most epic brohoof in equestrian history was performed, by an undercover human and a barpony from Appalanta. And epic it was!

He looked at Chef, who glared at us as if he was about to kick somepony. But then he sighed and pulled out his notepad. "Fine, so how about your order?"

"I'll have...let's see...ah...a cactus stew."

"Alright. Finaly something to do in here. It'll take about five minutes. "

I nodded and he left for the kitchen with a short glare at Cider, who already poured the first round.

"Cheers, on the most random pony in mah bar, since that pink pony threw a stool through the roof!"

"And on the coolest barpony in all of Equestria!"

Chef joined our round when he brought my stew. We drank and talked untill it was on Luna to raise the moon again.

When I left for the door, Cider said I would always get, what he called, a friendshipdiscount. Unfortunatley, Chef passed out when he had 6 shots of whiskey in 30 minutes and fell of his stool. I waved my hoof at Cider, who was about to drag him to bed.

The night was warm and the sky clear.

"Oh Luna, what a beautifull sight! Wait... Luna? Moon?" I reached for my cigarttes and put one in my mouth. It took me some time to get the lighter working with my hooves. As I pulled in the smoke, a voice that had been quiet for an unusual amount of time, shouted at me.

'Oh jeez, ho- how much have ya been drunking? Ya know this hurts up here, right? *hic* How can you even walk that straight? Last time you drunken that much you were pulled into another dim... dimes... denen... place!'

"Relax! These ponybodies seem to be a lot sturdier than they look. I feel just fine and you still have these painkillers of yours." I trotted towards the town when I saw a parkbench. "Time to hit the pillows!" I yawned and laid down on the bench. "You know. I could get used to that."

'Do you mean the free drinks or the whole being-a-pony-thing?'

"Actually, both!"

‘Urhg. Not so loud!’

I closed my eyes and was fast asleep within seconds That night I dreamed of a birthdayparty on the moon.

The next morning, I made my way to the townsquare. It was crowded with poinies, going after their moning chores. I rembered my initial plan to pay a vistit to the local libary when I saw a grey and yellow blur dashing my way. I prepared for the impact but underestimated the force.

We rolled over the place and came to stop at a house, which I heard still has some fine cracks from it. I opend my eyes and smiled. Right before me was the famous crosseyed mailmare of Ponyville, Ditzy "Derpy" Doo.

She reached for her mailbag and gave me a letter.

Before I could even ask why anypony would sent me anything, she hoofed me a muffin with a note attached to it, saying "Sorry for crashing into you".

"Oh, no problem, I'm o-"

She flew off with, what could be described as a Sonic Muffboom.

"-kaaay?"

'Seems like this is a daily issue to her.'

"Anyway, nice gesture if you ask me."

‘The nearly-broken back or the muffin and apology?’

I looked at the letter. It was a plain, white envelope with no name or adress on it. Not that anypony knew my name or where I lived. Not even Cider and Chef asked me for this. Also I doubt the bench I slept on the night before had an address.

I opend the envelope with my teeth and read the letter.

I know who you are!
I know what you are!
We need to talk!
Meet me in the park at noon!
You will know me when you see me.
~L~

'Do you think this is-'

"No clue but we better find out." I looked at my watch. "Aw, crap. 11:54! I hate running after getting hit to the ground!"

I put the apology muffin into my pocket and galloped towards the park.

Chapter 3

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Chapter 3: How do you even sit like that?

by Tray Hunter

When I arived at the park, it was at least as crowded as the townsquare. I looked at my watch to assure I wasn't too late.

"11:59. Just in time. But how am I suposed to find this "L" in this crowd? Nopony can demand me to know everypony!"

'So, what are you going to do? Ask everypony if they know you are a human?'

"You're right. Plan A is for bust. On to Plan B: sit down and wait for them to make contact."

I sat down on a parkbench and looked around. There must have been at least 50 ponies in the park and none of them seemed much suspicious. After a minute or so, a unicornmare came near and sat right next to me. I wouldn't have mind that part but the way she sat, was just similiar to mine. I looked at her and saw her, eyeing me with big, creepy eyes.

"Can I help you?"

She came a little bit closer and said "I am L!" My world just froze around me.

I looked at her and imidiatley recognized the mare with the mint-green coat and the strange sittingstyle.

"LYRA!!!" 'LYRA!!!'

I doesn't happen often that me and my brain think the exact same, but this was a case of extreme suprise.

"Wait! You know my name?"

We looked at each other in mutual suprise. After a moment of starring, it was on me to break the silence. Or at least, do anything that made a sound.

"How did you- When- Banana-"

"I could ask you the same things! But..."

She sighed and shook her head.

"Let's cut the chase. I know you're a human and that you have been here since yesterday. You on the other hoof, know my name and..." she looked at me "...and are probably the only pony except me that can sit like that. "

I whispered to my brain "Any ideas?"

Her horn began to glow

'No, I still wonder if we should run, stay or faint. How does she even know that much about us?'

"You should stay! Fainting would mean we would have to go through all of this again. "

"What?" 'What?'

She sighed "Yes, I can hear your brain! I would have said "I can read your mind" but in your case "mind" is a pretty flexible term. And I know all this because I was in the same situation one time. "

"Lyra! WTF?"

She rolled her eyes "I was a human and have been here for the last six years. "

"You think she..."

'Mmh...would explain a lot. Maybe we shouldn't run and hear if she has some infos. But I still favourize the faintoption.'

She giggled. It was in fact the same giggle as when I was at the restaurant with my cider induced wingboner.

"You two realy are a strange couple. And they said I was weird. "

'Do you think this is funny?'

"How do you know all the stuff about me?"

'And how did you uncover us?'

She looked a bit shocked as me and my brain joined forces to interrogate her.

"Wow, you realy are two-minded, are you? Back when you blew the mind of poor Apple Cider, I thought you where just plain crazy but now..." she shook her head "Alright, I realy owe you some answers. I was at the bar yesterday and the strange feeling you had, that the whole bar was looking at you, was my spell. Usualy ponies don't feel it, but you are different."

'So you realy are a human?'

"Yes, one day I woke up in Canterlot and was like this. "

"Does anypony else know about that?"

"Oh, you already mastered the local tongue? It took me two weeks to get all this ponystuff into my head.
By the way, how come you aren't freaking out more? I remember being depressed and confused when I arived here."

'For him it's like a dream coming true.'

"Yeah, I indeed like this. After all these hours I spent watching the show, I get a chance to actually be a pony. "

"The show?"

"There is a show about ponies back home. "

'It's like a window to this world although some things are altered."

"Like what?"

"For example, where I come from Cider and Chef are some fans of the show, that created the restaurant and their ponyforms for a podcast about said show."

'I wonder if something else was altered by fandom. You know, like cupc-'

"Don't you even think about that!"

'We must be sure! Lyra, do you know some ponies called Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie? And more important, are they alright?'

"Huh, these two? Last time I saw them, they were at the gala with their friends."

'So not everything created by the minds of twisted bronies became real. '

"At least not the worst-case-scenario. I wonder if this world has a grimdark filter or something."

"Wait! What are bronies and what is grimdark?"

'Bronies are fans of the My little Pony show.'

"And grimdark is a tag for fanfiction that contains themes of death, dying and the dead."

"Fanf-"

"Stories about ponies written by bronies."

"Did they write anything about me?"

'Let's just say... How is your relation to a mare called Bon Bon?'

Her eyes widend.

"BB? But thats impo- They realy did-"

Tears formed in her eyes.

"Hey, don't feel bad about it! These are just stories."

'And we didn't write anything like that.'

She looked at me.

"You mean I found the mare of my dreams just because someone wrote about it?"

"Lyra? Are you alright?"

"Alright? I bucking love bronies!" She smiled and began to hug the dear daylight out of my lungs.

'Daaaw, thats good. I'm so happy for you Lyra. Wait. Are we getting strangled?'

"Lyra....stop....breath....grimdark when I die...."

She released me from her deathgrab and made a shocked face. "I'm sorry! It's just- I'm so happy right now!"

'Yeah, did you know, your name is considered fanmade too?'

"What? No, it isn't! It was my name since I was a human."

"Maybe because of your cutiemark?"

"This thing?" she looked at her flank "Come to think of it. I had this since I arived here and were playing the lyre back in my/your/our world. Kind of ironic if you ask me. But you..."

Her look went down to my haunches.

"What about me?"

That was the first time I realy paid attention to my flank. On it was a cutiemark shaped like some kind of blue whirl.

"Where did that come from?"

'And what does it mean? Is our special talent spinning in circles?'

"Hell if I know! Maybe..."

I ordered my inner engeries to flow to my marks. They slowly strated to spin. I noticed Lyra looking at it as if she was hypnotized by its slow movement.

"Lyra? Lyra. LYRA!" she shook her head and blinked a few times.

"Wow! You have some serious magic inside you!"

'You mean this whole sensingthing is about magic? Where does it come from?'

"Sensing? Have you tried to sense something outside your body?"

"Not yet."

"Try it! Close your eyes and concentrate on your suroundings. "

I did as I was told but nothing happend.

"This doesn't work, Lyra!"

I opend my eyes and there was a blue shine in front of me. Soon the whole world turned blue before my eyes. Everypony in the park was glowing in a different color and intensity. They also seemed as if they were slowed down by some force. Hay! The whole world was slowed down!

"Lyra what is this? Whats happening?"

I looked at her and saw as her horn glowed brighter and larger than before. Also there was a line between it and my forehead.

"Whats this, I don't even-"

'Maybe it's the brainscannerspell. But why can we see it now?'

I closed my eyes for a second and as I opend them again, everything turned back to normal.

"Wow, you realy looked shocked! Why where you moving so fast and what were these sounds you made? I think I heard my name but couldn't make any sense of the rest!"

"Lyra, everything was blue and in slowmotion! What was that?"

"What you saw, was the magic that exists in every living creature and even some plants. But for the slowmotion..."

'Maybe I can help. Our reflexes were at double capacity, but without any of my adrenalin.'

"Lyra, how does that work? Please you have to explain this."

"It's magic. I ain't gotta explain shit."

I looked at her as if she just exploded...twice!

"While you had your little colourtrip, my spell copied a big amount of your memory inside my head.

'Are you going evil magician on us now?'

"Neeeeigh, but maybe I'll go pissed mare on you, for all these pictures of me!"

My heart stopped for a second. Suddenly she smiled.

"Or maybe I'll go happy lover on you, for all these pictures of BB."

My expresion froze.

She laughed so hard, she almost fell of the bench "Oh my, you should see your face right now! Priceless!"

'Aaw, you got him! Good job!'

My brain laughed at me. It laughed at me! Ok Smokey, it happend. You finaly lost your mind.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hey there folks, Tray here!

I think it's about time to say something.
You probably figured it out already, but this is pretty much a self-insertion fic.
I'll probably keep it that way, although I won't let Smokey nag about missing his fingers that often.
It's easier for me like that, since if I can relate to my own character I can figure out my/his reactions better.
And maybe you wonder about my writingstyle, being a little bit strange.
Damn, probably I missed some typos or grammatical errors aswell!
If that happens, please just tell me.
Although I take proud of my english skills, it's not my native language and english literature was never taught to me in school.
I don't want to excuse anything, just for your information.
'He just read that new "Through the Eyes of another Pony" chapter and found too many similarities and proskills.'
Thanks for that... We'll talk about that later!
Anyway, B is right.
I found way too many things that seem as if I just copied them.
Whatever, it wasn't my intention!
Maybe I have been nodding too hard to the fandom.
I'll try to limit this because I don't want to be a ripoff of CardsLafter or anypony.
He's got his thing(which is awesome, shouts to you CardsLafter) and I want to have mine.

That said, I'm going back to work my way through chapter 4.
If you have any suggestions, critics or kudos(hey, one can still dream) just leave a comment or send me a message.

Tray out

Chapter 4

View Online

Chapter 4: Ready for Level 2

by Tray Hunter

I was sure now.
It had to be a dream.
Maybe I realy just passed out at the party and had been out since then.
Or maybe I just passed the sides and was fighting my way through the circles of hell itself.
I must have been staring in the distance for about 5 minutes or so.
"Wakeupwakeupwakeup!"
Nothing, I was still in the park.
'I'm getting some strange signals up here!
What's wrong, dude?'
There it was again!
That voice that had been ther efor so long, claiming to be my brain.
I couldn't trust it anymore!
Which brain is laughing at its own body?
That didn't even make any sense!

"I know what to do!
B, get the painkillers ready!"
That said, Lyra slammed a straight hoof into my shoulder, kicking me out of my trance.
"Ouch, what was that for, Lyra?
I was about to wake up from this coma or whatever I'm in!"
"Coma? You realy think this is a dream?
Maybe I should be charmed that you assume dreaming of me...or just hit you harder next time!"
"Nonononono, I believe you already!
I just need some time to process all of this.
And..."
"And what?"
She looked at me rolling her eyes.
"And I need a smoke!"
Said that, I put a cigarette in my mouth and lit it.
It felt as if the whole world became a little bit clearer, as I pulled the smoke into my lungs.
When I released it, all there was, was a coughing unicorn.
"Uuh, and I thought I'd never have to smell this again!"
She coughed again and murmured something about a plotthole or something.
'Dude, I think the lady want's you to cut it out.'
I rolled my eyes and suddenly the smoke stopped in its tracks.
It hovered in midair for a second and then formed a small ball which grew a little bit, each time I blew more smoke at it.
I looked at Lyra, being sure it was her wizzardry, but only found a confused expression mixed with suprise and a small cocktail umbrella of awe.
"Did you do that?
I heard about pegasii manipulating clouds but it takes years to practice that!"
"I didn't even intend to do that.
I just wanted to stop you from coughing!"
She sighed and took a deep breath.
"And thanks for that.
Seems like you can just use your magic similar to us unicorns.
You just have to imagine something and with a bit of concentration on the mere thought alone you can make stuff happen."
'Tze Magiks!'
We both laughed at this.
Although Lyra's copyspell just transfered half of my brain, it seemed to have covered at least all of the ponystuff.
Refreshing!
At least one pony could relate to our jokes.
Even if this particular pony was technically a human aswell.
"So... I can do stuff by thinking of it?
How awesome is that?"
I clossed my eyes and held my head with my hooves.
"Laservision, Laservision, Laservision!"
"I don't think this will work.
Even with all the energy in Equestria, you won't do any good if you don't know how to use it."
"No laservision?
Aaaw horseapples.
What about invisibility?"
"I heard of one pony mastering a full transparency..."
"Whooohoooo!"
I closed my eyes and tested my luck again.
"Invisible, Invisible, Invisible!"
"But it took him 120 years to perfect it!"
"You realy are a joykill, aren't you?
Is there anything I can learn right now?
Flying for example?"
"Flying?"
She shot me a confused look.
I stretched my wings and pointed at them.
"Oh, you have wings!
Well, then flying shouldn't be too hard.
Although, I can't teach you how to.
Also I should leave.
BB probably wonders why sending a simple letter is taking me so long. "
"Letter?"
That rang a bell.
I reached for the apologymuffin in my pocket and held it in front of me.
"I guess Ditzy takes the term "express delivery" pretty serious."
I took a bite from the muffin.
"Sfo fuuu weeeli kenft veech me fo fyy?"
She looked at me as if I was some kind of... actually I don't know what she saw in me at this moment.
'You realy can't teach him to fly?'
"Nope!"
'All hope is gone!'
I frowned at Lyra.
"But I know somepony who can!
Although he won't make it easy for you.
Thats for sure!"
"Fveerr kenf I finf vimm?"
"Beg pardon?"
'Where can we find him?'
"Oh, just follow that alley over there.
It's not too far from here.
You'll know it when you see it."
I guess that was her standard routine for descriptions.
You'll know when you see!
"Well ok, I gotta go!
See ya around, Smokey."
She got up to leave.
"Schmogfie?"
I spat out half of my muffin while saying this and swallowed the other half.
She pointed at the smokecloud that was still hovering beside me.
I blew some air at it and it vanished.
"Mmh, kinda like it.
Anyway, bye Lyra and thanks for everything!
Oh, and our greetings to Bon Bon aswell."
She waved a hoof and left.
'We better get going aswell.
Although I'm not sure what she meant with "he won't make it easy for you".'
"Doesn't matter as long as I reach level 2 in pegasusmovement!"
I got up and stretched my wings.
"Let's go!"

After about 30 minutes of trotting, the alley ended in a cornfield.
'You think we missed it?'
I looked around and noticed an old house aside of the road.
It wasn't any special or unique, just old and tattered.
The windows were nailed shut and the roof had some holes in it.
'I'm not sure but something about this screams psychopath, maybe it's the complete lack of nearby civilization. '
"Naah, Lyra wouldn't send us to some hillbilly ponies with beartraps for a cutiemark!"
'I hope you're right.'
I went over to the house and looked at the door.
"Mmh, no door bell or sign.
Hello? Anypony home? Any canibalponies?"
'I'll buffer some adrenaline.
Just in case they answer the last question with "yes"!'
I rolled my eyes and pushed against the door.
It was open, so I went inside.
"Hello? Anypony heeeeeeeeeee-"
As I fell into the darkness, I instinctivly spread my wings although it didn't help, because I didn't know how to use them yet.
I guess it was some kind of pegasusreflex.
I glided to the other end of the hole and slid down the wall, using my wings to slow down my fall.
As I arived at the bottom it was dark.
And I don't mean "dark as the night" dark.
I mean dark as in "Oh my gosh the sun just went off"!
'Let's try this sensorthing.'
Said and done, I switched to my magicsensor and looked around.
Judging by the small dots above me I was about 60 m under ground.
I later found out that these little dots were earthworms.
Magical earthworms!
I looked around further.
The hole was almost perfectly round and the flat bottom of it was covered in small stones.
Lot's of small and pointy stones.
Suddenly something catched my sight.
"Are these... are these drawers?
There realy are foals who live in a hole in the ground?"
"Who are you calling a foal?!"
I reared up and threw my hooves in the air.
Out of nothing a bright glow appeared right in front of me.
I switched back to my normal vision but what I saw was far from scary.
Before me stood an old looking, thin, white pony with a expresionless look on his face.
I looked him in the eyes but noticed they were competly white.
I waved a hoof in front of his face and suddenly a thin creacking hoof hit my head right under my ear.
"Ouch! What was that for?"
"For breaking into my house, staining my walls with you dirty hooves and insulting your master!"
"Master?"
"You came here to learn how to fly!
And you will have to fly, if you're going to leave in honor!"
You will adress me as sensei or master!"
I looked at him and something on his back caught my attention.
Down from his body hung two seemingly lifeless wings with feathers as transparent and thin as silk.
"Oh you gotta be bucking kidding me!"
He smacked my head again.
"Your training will begin soon!"
He went to a drawer and picked up some weightbands.
As he threw them into the dirt before me he said
"Wear these around your wings!
And take off all these rings and jewelery!
You're looking like a coltcuddler!"
He went away and sat on a chair that stood in one corner of the hole.
Well, given the fact that it was round, there weren't any corners but I think you get the idea.
'You and your luck!'
"He's a real plothole but he's right.
If we want to get out of here, we'll have to fly!
Or dig our way out!"
'We better stick to the flying part.'
"Then it's settled!
I learn to fly, no matter what that creepy jackpony throws at me!"
The same moment, said jackpony threw a copie of "The Complete Compendium of Equestrian History" at my head.
It was going to be such a great time.

The training was indeed as hard as ponyly bucking possible!
After a few days of torturing me, he decided the weights weren't heavy enough and sat on my back everytime I had to run my laps in the hole.
And let me tell you, he may be skinny and old but if you have to carry his lazy plot around for the entire day while he smacks your head everytime you walk too slow, you don't care if your bed is only a pile of small rocks!

"Now that you have enough condition we will move on to flighttraining!"
After a week and a half, the training finaly included flying.
Good thing, my wings were the only part of my body that didn't hurt.
At least I could still move them willingly.
"Let's see if you have at least some muscles in these things. "
He pulled and sqeezed my wings as if they were made of clay or some other formable material.
"Hey! Does breaking them make flying easier?
Because if it does I will help you with your -"
There it was again.
The hoof hitting at the back of my head.
"You have some strong wings!
But it seems as if you have had them for only a few weeks!"
'Oh crap!
Just play along and deny!'
"Haha, good one. How should I get wings if not from birth?"
"By transformation!"
My jaw hit the floor.
How did that jackpony know about me?
Did Lyra tell him I was a human?
And what would that mean for me?
Would he smack me harder, assuming that humans have thicker skulls?
I stared at him in shock.
Suddenly he broke out laughing.
"But that would be laughable!
You just are lazy and have never used your wings.
You run another 50 laps!
I'll rest some.
All that laughing had exhausted me."
He sat down on his chair and was fast asleep in seconds.
'Close one.
He almost got us!'
"Yeah, but you can bet your hypocampus that I won't run one lousy lap."
Suddenly something hit my head.
As I looked at the book that laid before me it read

"How to command and discipline your pupils in your or their sleep"

'Oh, he's good!'
I growled and began my 50 laps.

After another two days of galopping in circles like a showpony, he moved on to wingbased training.
Including wingpushups and powerlandings.
Latter meant me landing and sliding over the ground, which still was nothing more than small rocks that pierced into my knees.
He also build a flightsimulator with some strings I had to hang from.
The simulation mostly required me to dodge more books while he shouted commands at me.
Good thing, I had the enhanced reflexes from the magicsensor.
Otherwise my brain would have taken some serious damage from all these compendia about Equestria and guidelines about torturing students.

After another two weeks, he woke me up in the middle of the night.
At least I think it was night.
The only source of light was a small candle he put in the middle of the "room".
I guess you know who was to hang over it, while training in the simulator.
"Get up!
We need to talk!"
"Have you found out that less sleep can break a ponies will without too much effort for you?"
"Your ability to smartflank while half asleep is impressing."
"I know!
What do you want?"
"You're done!
Leave my house!"
I cracked my eyes open.
"What?"
'I checked it.
We are not sleeping anymore!'
"You heard me!
I can't teach you anything else!
Get up and be gone!"
I got onto my hooves and looked at him.
"You are realy serious, are you."
"Get out of my house or I'll smack your lazy flank to the moon!"
His hoof flew towards my head, just to be stopped by another hoof.
All the training and smacking enhanced my reflexes by nature.
I knew where he would hit, how hard and fast he would strike and how to keep him from doing so.
"Not today!"
He put his hoof down and smiled.
I never saw him smiling untill then.
"Good, you realy are the most talented student I ever had.
And the first that stayed untill the end.
The other ones left after the first days. "
"Left?"
He trotted other to a big drawer and opend it.
Behind it was a dark staircase made of stone.
"But you said I had to fly to leave-"
"In honor!
You could have left when ever you want but IN SHAME!"
I screamed in anger.
"Why didn't you tell me?!"
'I sense a recycled punchline coming up!'
"You never asked."
'Eyup! There it is.'
I was about to beat that smile out of his face and back but then just sighed and took off.
"Bye!"
He must've been laughing at this for the next weeks.
I, on ther other hoof, was just happy to leave this torturechamber in one piece.
As I opend the door of the fake house it was indeed night.
And a clear one aswell.
I took off and felt the wind in my filthy mane and dust covered face.
'So, how does it feel to be airborn AND free?'
"Awesome!
Although I'm starving!"
While training the only food I had were some dry roots, I found hanging from the walls.
'And were do you think you get anything to eat at this hour?
Even if we find a store that opens at night, we still don't have one lousy bit!'
"Trust me!
I have a plan!"

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tray here

Lot of cursing in this chapter but do not be afraid!
I'm not gonna make it a habit.
At the moment I'm revising and editing the chapters so far.
Maybe I'll upload it to the Ponychan soon, to find a prereader and/or editor but in the meantime I'll just try to get the best I can get out of it.
As always:
Leave any suggestions, comments or critics in the comment section or send me a message.
Thanks for all the attention so far.
This chapter for example, got 10 clicks in the first hour.
Realy!
Big thanks to you :D

Tray out

Chapter 5

View Online

Chapter 5: We're a happy Family

by Tray Hunter

It wasn't easy to find the orchard in the darkness of the night, but being over 600 m above the ground definatley helped.
'Sweet Apple Acres?
Are you gonna drink again?'
"Nope."
'Are you-
Oh please, don't tell me you're going to steal from the farm!'
"Ok, I'm not telling you."
'These apples belong to Applejack and her family!
You can't just steal from the most honest pony ever!'
"Fine... I'll ask."
I landed in front of the farmhouse and trotted towards it.
When I clopped at it (meaning I hit my hooves against it!) it swung open and a big, red stalion appeared from inside.
"Can ah help yer?"
"Well, I'm new in town and wondered if you could spare an apple or two."
He gasped at my sight.
I must've been looking like some thirdworld filly from a billboard.
" 'course!
Jus' yer get in!
Yer mus' be freezin'."
Actually I didn't.
That jacket of mine can keep you warm in a full grown blizzard, if it comes to that.
"Thank you.
And it's realy no trouble for you?"
"Ah trouble schmouble.
Jus' get in, sit down an' ah'll get yer some applefritters. "
With that he left for the kitchen.
'Did you notice?
Not one time he said "Eyup" !
I rolled my eyes and
It was pretty warm and some candles illuminated the room.
"Hng, candles!"
I rubbed my belly, that still lacked some coat from the training of that madpony.
When I sat on the sofa, I felt as if I was sinking into a cloud.
All these weeks on solid rock beddings almost made me forget about soft things.
And painless walking.
Short after, Mac came in with a steaming plate of applefritters in his mouth.
I glanced at them for a second or two.
These things realy looked good.
Not to mention the smell.
"Get 'em while they're still hot!"
Well, thats something you don't have to tell me twice.
I took a mouthfull of the fritters and was short to cry.
"Fveees arf foooo goooooodf!"
Other than Lyra, Big Mac understood me just perfectly with my mouth full.
"Eyup."
'Aha, I knew it!'
I finished the rest of the fritters in records time and sighed.
"Wow, thats it!
I'm full!
Anyway, thanks for the food.
I'll better be on my way."
"Yer know theres gonna be a storm tanight, right?"
I opend the door and shot him a confused look.
"No way!
It's a beautifull and clear-"
Suddenly clouds formed out of nothing and the rain of the century started to fall.
"...night!?"
I heard about pegasii, controlling the weather but had no idea how good they were when it came to humoristic timing.
"Great, now I'll have to fly through the rain!"
"Yer can stay fer the night if yer like."
"I can't accept that.
You already gave me food and I don't want to be a burden for any longer!"
"But ah mus' insist yer at least drink a glass o' cider with me!"
"Cider?
I mean, if you insist, I would be glad to provide some company."
'Drunky!'

He got a big bottle with the logo of the Applefamily from under the table and poured some of it into two glasses, he took from the drawer next to him.
It was then, that I noticed how warm the room was.
Nice change after that earthhole but too much if you're dressed to survive a cold winternight.
I took off my jacket and noticed something even more satisfying.
I still had the weightbands around my wings!
At least that jackpony lost something.
As I took them off, my wings felt infinitley light.
The loud thump, the weights made as they fell onto the sofa, gave me a good idea how heavy they must have actually been.
Mac looked at me as I laid my jacket and weightbands onto the table.
"Are yer some kinda minin'pony?"
I looked at my body.
I lost so much weight, thanks to my root diet, that my ribs were showing.
Confound this jackpony!
He drove me to become skinny!
My entire body was covered in bruises and scratches.
The only things that got bigger were the muscles on my legs and wings.
"Nope, just hadn't had the possibility to look after me while in training."
"Trainin'?
Yer some kinda athlete?
Is that were yer got all these muscles?"
"I'm no athlete!
It was just flighttraining.
Boneshattering, coatpiercing flighttraining!"
I stretched my wings and reached for my rings and wristbands in my jacket.
After straping all the things back to their rightfull places, I flapped my wings to make sure the rings sat tight.
The blow I created, slammed the door on the other end of the room shut.
"Sorry, not used to that ...uhm...strength...yet. "
He looked at me like at a magical talking leafblower.
"Eyup, mighty impressive if'n yer ask me."
Suddenly the door opend again and a tired looking, creamcoloured earthpony of about my size stepped in.
"What in tarnation is goin' on down here?"
As she noticed the bruised and skinny pegasus on her sofa, her mood switched to confusion.
"An' who's yer friend?"
"I'm..."
'Name? Nopony ever wanted a name from us!
Whatever shall we do?'
I instantly remembered my encounter with Lyra.
"I'm Smokey.
Nice to meet you, Miss Applejack.
Big Mac and me were just hanging out some."
Two pony jaws hit the ground simultanously.
New record!
"Hav' we met or somthin'?"
They also spoke in unision.
'Don't you know some relatives or friends of these two?'
"I'm a friend of Apple Cider."
"Eyup, yer realy seemed ta enjoy it."
Big Mac pointed at the glasses on the table.
'Seriously?'
I facehoofed.
"Your cousin!"
Again they spoke in perfect unision.
"Oh, that Cider!"
Applejack suddenly grinned at me and came closer.
"If yer a friend o' Cider, yer a friend o' mine an' the Applefamily aswell. "
"Eyup."
"Uh, thanks.
That realy means a lot to me.
Realy!
But I guess, I should go now.
Don't want to bother you anymore."
Applejack shot me a suprised look.
"But yer can't jus' go outside there.
That storms terrible!
Why don'cha stay fer the night?"
"Already tried that, sis.
He's jus' a might too humble."
"Ah, humble schmumble!"
She trotted over to me and laid a hoof on my shoulder.
"Yer stay!"
I don't know if I was weakend from the training and the roots diet or if she was just a lot stronger than me after all that work on the farm.
Anyway, I couldn't move a muscle.
'You better do as the lady says!
I'm not sure what will happen if we decline her proposal.'
"Oookaaay, th-thank you."
She smiled at me and took her hoof from my shoulder.
"Then it's settled.
Yer can hav' the guestroom.
Ah'll see yer at breakfast."
With that she left as fast and suprisingly as she had arived.
"Is she always like that?"
"Eyup.
Care fer som' mor' cider?"

After we finished the bottle, Mac took me to guestroom.
It looked as if it hadn't been used for years.
Not that it looked dirty or anything.
Just as if it had been abandoned a long time ago.
On the drawers were some small pictures.
One of them instantly caught my attention.
On it was a tiny Applejack with a stetson, way too big for her head, riding on the back of a younger Macintosh.
"Daaaaw..."
"Eyup.
Almos' forgot about that one.
't was taken one year before our parents..."
He looked away and sobed.
I never saw him so depressed until then.
And never again since that.
"Are you alright?
You want to talk about it?"
"Naah, it's jus' the picture.
These wer' realy good times.
Yer probably wanna hit them pillows.
If'n yer need anythin', jus' yer holler."
I nodded.
"Alright then, see yer tomorow.
Good night, Smokey."
"Good night, Mac."
He left for the door and smiled.
"Don'cha think we're all saddy waddy aroun' here.
Actualy, we're a happy family."
I smiled at him.
When he left, I decided to call it a night and get some sleep.
My pile of rocks was nothing compared to the softness of that bed.
No suprise, I was fast asleep within seconds.

The next morning I had a rather harsh wakeupcall.
A loud crash and the sound of splintering glass tore me right back to cosciousness.
I dashed towards the living room downstairs, but when I arived at the staircase, the only thing I saw were three little furballs rolling over the floor shouting

"Yeah! Cutiemarkcrusaders Bowlingballs! Yeah!"

You shuold have seen it!
It was quite a unique sight.
As the rolling rampage commando passed, a raging Applejack galopped after them.
When she noticed my dumbstruck expression, she stopped right in her tracks and looked at my wings that hung from my sides.
I guess thats the pegasusform of a bedhead.
"Yer mind lendin' a hoof?"
"No problem!"
I went down to her and asked
"Do you have a plan?"
"Well, usually they get quiet once they fin' somethin' mor' intrestin', but ah jus' can't think of anythin' ta distract 'em."
I stretched my wings and got a little creaking from the joints.
"Leave it to me!"
I went outside the farmhouse, assuring the three fillies followed me.

"So, I heard you kids like some action, huh?"
They didn't seem impressed at all.
'Awkward!'
That orange pegasusfilly was the first to speak up
"And who are you?"
"Well I am..."
I took off gaining altitude and speed.
Phase 1 of my performance meant getting a cloud.
Fortunatley there were some small ones from the storm last night.
I grabed one and spun it around.
After several loops and turns, the cloud was spread across the sky above the orchard.
"On to Phase 2!"
I flew through the pieces of cloud, forming it with the same magic I used to make the smokeball back then.
It took me about two runs, untill the cloud formed the desired writing.
"And finaly, Phase 3!"
I flew towards the three awestruck fillies and reared up for my powerlanding.
About 20 m before them I touched the ground and slid towards them, forelegs and wings stretched at my sides.
They looked at me as if I was a onepony wonderboltshow and rockstar in unision.
"How did you do that?"
The white unicorn asked.
"Can you show me how to do that?"
The orange pegasus queried.
"Who's Smookel?"
The yellow eathpony, which I recognized as Applejacks sister Applebloom, looked at me questioning my flight skills to the hardest.
I looked at her and back at my masterpiece.
"It's Smokey. SMOKEY!"
"Yer got yerself a pretty bad hoofwritin, Mister!"
"Or better, wingwriting!"
Scootaloo added.
I finaly remembered her name.
I shaked a hoof at them but was pulled away by a certain farmpony.
"Mac? Why did you do this?
I was about to yell at them!"
"Eyup.
Figered that out.
An' thats the reason ah had to stop yer."
'He's right.
Yelling at kids just ain't your style!'
I sighed.
"How do you get along with these brats?"
"Yer get used to 'em."
He looked at me.
My coat was covered in dust.
Even more than before my powerlanding.
"Yer might wanna take a shower or somethin'."
"Maybe you're right.
Mind me using your bathroom?"
"Jus' up them stairs an' ta yer left."

The bathroom wasn't very big but it had everything a pony could need.
In the center of it was a bathtub with a shower head and a curtain.
As I got into the tub, I found it hard to find a safe stance.
Hooves on ceramics just tend to slip away.
Once I found a way to prevent that, I pulled the curtain close with one wing and turned around for the faucet.
"How do I use this without falling on my face?"
'Ahem...Mouth...hinthint!'
"You're such a smartflank!"
'And you're a showoff!
Although that performance out there was pretty impressive, Smookel.'
I rolled my eyes and opend the faucet, using my teeth.
As the water ran down my body, some lose feathers and hairs dropped into the tub, along with some mud that must have been stuck in my coat.
'Oh by the way, I figured out how to reproduce these feathers.
So don't worry about that.'
"Cool."
As I lowered my head a bit, my mane dropped right into my face.
"Great! If only I could use my hooves without faceplanting."
I switched to my magicsensor and looked around.
"Now where is that soap?"

Suddenly I heard yelling from outside.
"Scootaloo! Get down there! It's dangerous!"
Then I noticed hoofclaps above me and looked up.
I saw an about filliesized, orange energytorch shining through the roof.
Without any second thought, I jumped out of the tub and dashed towards the window.
Before I arived, the flare started moving downwards.
Although my reflexes made it look slow, she was falling pretty fast.
Her tiny wings didn't manage to carry her weight.
"Horseapples!
No time for that!"
I jumped through the window and flew towards her, catching the filly just metres before the ground.
As I gained height to evade some appletrees, I looked at the scared little pegasus.
"It's alright!
I gotcha."
I learned to alter my talking speed while in ubermode.
But from my perspective, it was taking me almost half a minute to say these two short sentences.
She looked at me with big eyes and grinned.
"You're almost as cool as Rainbow Dash, Smookel!"
Good thing she didn't hear what I was about to yell at her, since suddenly something hit me in midair.
I colided with some careless pony crossing my path.
The force caused me to drop Scootaloo.
As she fell down, I reacted as fast as my enhanced reflexes would let me.
All this time I hadn't had one free hoof to get my mane out of my face.
I flew downwards but couldn't catch up with her.
My still wet wings prevented me from gaining enough speed.
From the corners of my eyes, I saw a blue shimmer flying beside me.
'That pegasus is fast!'
"Think of something to dry the wings!
We gotta hurry!"
The ground came closer and closer.
Not more than 300 m were between Scootaloo and a terrible fate.
'Spin around!'
"What?"
'Like in a centrifuge!
The rotation will throw the water right from your wings!'
I started to spin counterclockwise and saw some small water drops flying from my wings, hitting the blue glowing pegasus next to me.
The pony dodged some of them but as I gained speed, the water soaked his or her coat and wings.
"It's working!
We're getting closer!"
I must admit, if the enhanced reflexes weren't making the rotation look so slow for me, I woud have puked in midair.
I don't think I have to explain, what it means when you puke in the same direction you are flying.
When I was close enough, I grabbed the fillies legs.
The poor thing hadn't had my reflexes and waved her hooves in shock, as I spun her around in slowmotion.
A more alarming sight was the ground closing up on us.
We were less than 20 m from an instant death.
I ceased the rotation and turned up in an angle that would have made Rainbow Dash proud.
I reared up, holding the scared (and motion sick from spinning with more than 120 rpm) filly over my head.
After a long slide over the ground I came to halt and switched back to my normal vision.
I looked at Scootaloo.
She smiled.
Then I smiled.
Then she threw up on my again dustcovered coat.
After a few seconds the others shouted from behind us.
"Are yer alright?"
The three farmponies were the first to spot me.
"Where are they ?"
That voice was new.
Not actually new at all, but new to my ponyears.
I looked over my shoulder and saw a soaking wet Rainbow Dash, with her mane hanging befrore her face.
It seemed as if Sweetie Bell, the white unicornfilly, guided her towards the others.
I would have fainted in joy for either seeing Rainbow Dash or the fact that I just flew faster than her, but not this time.
My wings and knees were hurting, I was exhausted from spinning around like a madpony and somepony puked at me.
All that before breakfast.
I sat the still dizzy pegasusfilly down and trotted towards the farmhouse.
As I went past him, Mac shot me a confused look.
"Where 're yer goin'?"
I looked at him then back at Sootaloo, who was trying to walk but flaceplanted.
"Back under the shower!"

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tray here, folks

That chapter was realy fun to write :D
I'll try some new things in the next chapter, as the story seems to demand some...well... different perspectives.
Just wait a little bit longer and you will see what I mean.
If you have anymore suggestions, questions or critics, just leave a comment or send me a message.

Tray out

Chapter 6

View Online

Chapter 6: Afterschool Beatdown

by Tray Hunter

I went to the bathroom for the second time that day.
As I climbed into the bathtub, I sat down on my haunches.
This time I would definitly need my hooves.
Also I found the soap, I searched before the incident with the puking filly.
It took me about 10 minutes to get Scootaloo's breakfast out of my coat but managed to get it clean and shiny at last.
The soap burned as I cleaned my bloody knees and my wings just felt as if they were made of lead.
"Maybe I could fly longer, if that lunatic of a flighttrainer weren't making me RUN all the time!"
'Maybe you could fly longer if you weren't just a line in the landscape!'
"Do you think, I like how my ribs show through my coat?!
But if we don't get some bits, we'll wish for some roots."
My stomach grumbled.
'We better see if the others are back and have some breakfast.
Although you maybe want to dry yourself before dripping on the carpet. '
"You can bet, I'm not trying that centrifugething again.
Let's see if we can find some towels."
As I looked through a nearby drawer for a towel, I found a strange contraption.
It looked like a small fan and seemed as if it could fit on some nails that stuck out of the wall above the drawer.
'Maybe we shouldn't tinker with stuff we don't know.
Especially if said stuff belongs to our hosts. '
"The faster we get dry, the faster we can eat!"
I hung the contraption on the nails and looked at it.
"Let's see. How do you work?"
I noticed a small string hanging down from it.
'Do you think what i think?'
"Ripline!"
I pulled the string with my mouth and the fan moved.
It wasn't powered in any sort, so I had to frequently pull the string to keep it blowing.
After another three minutes my wings, mane and coat were dry.
My tail was still a little bit wet but at least not soaking anymore.
Its just hard to pull at a ripline and hold your flank into the airstream at the same time.
I stored the "riplinefan" back into the drawer and left for the kitchen.

The others were already there and eating.
I sat on the last empty chair between Applebloom and Rainbow Dash, whose mane had dryed in the meantime.
She looked at me as if I just had told the wonderbolts to let her join.
"You know, that stunt you pulled off out there."
"You mean the centrifuge?" I said, loading some apples on my plate.
"No, and you could have at least warned me before!
I'm talking about the one Scootaloo told me about.
The one with the cloudwriting.
Could you show me how you did that?
I just saw these strange cloud, saying "Smookel" from Cloudsdale."
"It's Smokey!" I said in a calm but annoyed tone "I guess Scootaloo told you about my hoo- wingwriting. "
She looked at me and said ".....

>>Due to some confusion this might have caused I want to remind you that Smokey was writing a book.<<

2 years after Smokey´s arival - Now

Aaaw, B?
What did she say again?
No, thats not what she said.

The pegasus stood up from his chair and trotted towards the kitchen, pounding his head with a hoof.
"Yeah, I know that hurts you!
Why don't you remember what she said?
It was important!"
He opend the fridge to grab a bottle of milk with his mouth and returned to his chair.
Before him, spread on an old desk, lay two piles of paper and an inkwell.
A white quill hovered above the last, half finished sheet of paper.
He sat down on the old, tattered chair and put the bottle on the desk before him.
"Lyra's right" he said "she always tells me to live in the present and let the past be the past. "
He sighed and looked through one of the piles.
"These are as far away from good writing, as... as..."
The pegasus kicked his head back, the chair protesting under the unexpected movement.
"I can't even think of any good lines in real life!" he shouted "If only she were still with me..."
Suddenly the door behind him swung open and a mint-green unicorn entered, a plate with cookies floating after her.
She looked at the pegasus, his wings in casts and his head hanging low.
She trotted over to his chair and looked on the desk.
"Are you still writing on that book?
You know they won't belive you, do you?"
She looked at him.
No response or reaction came from him.
"Smokey?"
He looked at her with big, tired eyes.
"Have you been working all night again?
You realy should get some sleep!"
Tears formed in Smokey's eyes.
He covered his face in his hooves and sobbed.
She levitated the plate onto the desk and put a hoof on his back.
"Are you alright?
Is it about her again?"
He nodded and broke out in tears.
She sighed and shook her head.
"You know it was for your own good, don't you?
She bucked you from that bridge and broke your wings, when you told her what you are!"
"But...but..."
Smokey stopped his crying instantly and shot Lyra a thoughtfull look.
"Thanks, Lyra.
Almost forgot about that."
Lyra smiled at him and said "You're welcome." then she levitated a cookie towardes her.
"You should try them!
BB realy know her way around cookies."
Smokey shook his head and stood up again.
"No, thanks. I'll better get some sleep. "
After they said their goodnights, he left for his bed, which was in the guestroom on the first floor.
The pegasus literaly fell onto the bed and was asleep before he could even hit it.

The next morning, Smokey went downstairs for breakfast.
In the kitchen, Lyra and her marefriend Bon Bon were eating already.
"Good morning.
How are your wings?" Lyra asked.
He looked at his back and shrugged.
"Not much better but at least they don't hurt anymore." the pegasus said "as long as I don't move at all!"
Bon Bon looked at him and sighed.
"Nurse Redheart said it will take a few weeks before they will get better.
Do you think you can work today?"
Smokey rolled his eyes and answered "Yep, won't be too much of a problem.
Mac would probably get mad at me, if I leave him alone with the bucking. "
Lyra shot him an confused look.
"Alone?
I thought Applejack is helping him."
"Usually, but she is visiting somepony in Appleloosa.
Some Bloomberg."
After breakfast he left for the door, saying his goodbye to Lyra, who was still sitting in front of a bowl of cereals.
Cap'n Hay's, to be exact.
Bon Bon left about ten minutes ago.

Smokey yawned as he closed the door behind him.
"Yeah, we should try to get some more sleep tonight."
he said to, one could think, himself.
The town was quite crowded, at this tuesday morning, and everywhere, ponies where going after their daily chores.
"If only my wings were working." the pegasus frowned at the cast adoring his sides.
"You heard what the nurse said!
Don't overdo it or they will be like this for even longer." Lyra shouted from inside as she looked through the kitchen window.
Smokey shot her a frustrated look.
"Could you please stop that!
Chatting with B behind my forehead, I mean!"
Lyra smiled and just waved a hoof, before leaving the kitchen and his sight.
Frowning at the ground, he decided it was time to finaly go and not keep Mac waiting for much longer.
Fortunaley, he could find the way in his sleep, having worked at the orchard for the last six months.
And so he kind of did.

When our half asleep hero arived at the orchard, a certain red farmpony was already on duty.
"Better get started..." Smokey yawned "... apples to buck..." and with that he stumbled to the first tree.
Macintosh fortunatley, had put the buckets for the fruits under the ones that were ripe for harvesting already.
The pegasus started to kick it, after he found out which of the three before his sleep deprived eyes, he had to hit.
"Take this *buck* or this *buck* or maybe this? *buck*"
The apples weren't even shaking.
"Or maybe...you just keep your damn apples!
Yeah, keep them!" he shouted and frowned at the still non-responding tree.
"Hey, it works!
The apples stay in place!" he sighed "and all it took, was a teeny tiny, spineshaking pain in my wings!"
He sat down and grimaced in pain.
The other farmpony came closer with a concerned look on his face.
"Ar' yer alright?
Maybe yer should take a break from buckin' an' jus' rest."
Smokey jumped onto his hooves and said with a proud expression "No way, I just have to find a way to get the apples down without moving and I'll be fine!"
His face grimaced again and he fell back on his haunches.
"Or" he said with pain in his voice "maybe you are right."
Big Mac nodded and offered him to do something else.
After they found out that there wasn't one single job, a pegasus with brocken wings could do, without breaking said wings (again), Mac asked if Smokey could at least get his sister from school.
"No problem!
Maybe I can't buck trees without crying like a schoolfilly but I still can take care of a schoolfilly without...crying like a tree!?
I mean... I'll get her back here in no time!"
With that said, he trotted towards the village, his eyes twitching with every step.

After half an hour of painfull leaping, our hero with the painfull expression on his face arived at the school in pain.
Very painfull pain!
"Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!
Could you at least try to get these painkillers working, B?"
Suddenly he sighed and let his head hang lower.
"Beeeeetteeeer! Thanks."
The school bell rang and dozens of fillies came out of the door in a wild stampede.
A small yellow furball flew out of the mass, tacklehuging the suprised pegasus on the fly.
"Smokey!" Applebloom yelled "Ah heard yer wer'e in the hospital and..." suddenly she noticed the casts around his wings and gasped, as she released him from her hug "Oh, Ah'm sorry. Didn' wanta hurt yer!"
She made a shoked face.
"No problem.
I've been through worse!" he said with a smile on his face, remembering his flighttraining and all the jobs he had in the meantime.

One included, getting shot out of a cannon while hogtied with a pair of rattlesnakes.
Actually it was more of a lost bar bet than a job but worse with no doubt.
"So, whats up? "An' where's mah brother?" Applebloom asked.
"He's busy at the farm and sent me to pick you up.
Also with all these bandages around my wings, I can't do any bucking for the next time."
She nodded, looking a bit worried at said bandages.
"Don't worry!
Nurse Redheart said I'll be soaring through the air again in a few weeks. " Smokey said with a proud smile on his face.
She smiled.
"So, let's go, if wer'e gonna make it before dinner."

After a few minutes, Applebloom hoofed him a piece of paper, she took out of her saddlebags.
"Can yer explain this to me, please?"
Smokey swallowed at the sight of the mathematic problem, but then a small voice inside his head said
'Nothing easier than that!'
And so the brain explained the calculation to Smokey, who gave every last word on to the little filly.

Suddenly they stopped, as they heard a scream.
As they came closer, three bigger earthponies were bucking and kicking a younger one.
"Applebloom!" Smokey whispered to her "Galopp home and get Mac!
I'll try to take care of these jerks in the meantime!"
"Smokey!" she looked at him in confusion as he went towards the bullies.
He turned his head back at her and shot her a serious look, saying "Go!"
As Applebloom ran off, our hero in the cast armor yelled at the three ponies.
"Hey! Wanna try somepony of your calibre?!"
They looked at him and smiled
"Looky here. We got ourselves a hero!" the tallest of them said.
Smokey reared up, forelegs extended and eyes focused on the presumed leader of the group.
He was a black earthpony, about the size of Big Mac, with a blue mane and a bloody tooth for a cutiemark.
"Yeah Breaker, let's see if he can...uh...something!" one of the others said while almost drooling on his own hooves.
Breaker hit the green pony at the back of his head, which caused his blonde mane to slack into his face.
"Huhuhuhuhuhu....Me like something!" the last one, a yellow earthpony with a brocken horseshooe as a cutiemark, laughed, almost forgeting to breath.
Appearently he had shore his mane off recently.
"Enough of this!" Breaker yelled "Drooly! Whacko! Show him what he's getting for bravery!"

Smokey prepared for the clash as Drooly dashed towards him, a dumbstruck expression on his face.
"Come at me, Bro!"
That said, the pegasus brought a straight hoof right in the direction of his opponents face and concentrated on his energy.
When the dull earthpony was about 2m away, he stopped in his tracks and his face deformed at the crash with the wall of compressed air, Smokey had formed in front of him.
The wall vanished and Drooly shook his head.
"That was ....uhm....ouch!"
He frowned at the pegasus and continued his attack, by swinging a hoof at him.
It was blocked in midair and a bright grin formed on Smokey's face.
"Too slow." he said in a mocking tone "My turn!"
A straight hoof hit the earthponies face, throwing him over and knocking him out.

"That foal!" Breaker yelled "Whacko! Do Pain!"
On said, appearently trained command, the yellow earthpony smiled sheepishly.
"Me do pain? Me fun and punching!"
He reared up and waved a hoof at Smokey.
'Are you serious?' the wing-casted pony thought, getting the advice to be carefull from his brain.
Suddenly Whacko ran towards him.
Well, one could only imagine he actually ran, since he was more like a yellow blur dashing towards the pegasus, who was on the ground within the tenth of a second.
As Smokey got up again, shaking his head in confusion, he felt as if a herd of trainponies just ran over his face...twice.
"Where did all these hooves come from?"
As the yellow earthpony looked at him, Smokey closed his eyes and turned on his magicsenor.
Whacko took off for him again, but this time the pegasus was prepared.
Now he could see his movements and react.
Although he had to fight the urge to break out laughing.
His oppenent ran towards him on his hindlegs, tongue hanging and waving out of his mouth and his forelegs swinging around as if they were made of ruber.
It was then that Smokey noticed how hard it would be to penetrate this wall of hooves without getting hit several times.
"Quick! A plan!
Are you serious?
Ok, we'll try that."
After this short discusion with his one and only thinking organ, our two-minded protagonist simply stepped aside and reached a hoof out.
The earthpony stumbled and ran straight into a nearby housewall.

"Me pain now!" Whacko mumured as he landed on the ground "Me sleepy now!"
With that he passed out, snorring loudly.
"Are you bucking kidding me? How am I suposed to found a gang with idiots and mental ponies?"
Breaker was raging.
His eyebrow was twitching and a vein on his forehead grew to the double of its size.
"Looks like it's only you and me, Toothfairy!"
"I'll gonna tore out your wings and feed them to you!"
"Come and try me, Missy!"
The earthpony screamed in anger and stomped his hooves, burying them several centimeters into the ground.
"Nope, not impressed!"
He screamed again, throwing his forelegs over his head.
Smokey smiled widely and said "U MAD?"
Breaker snapped out and ran towards the pegasus, whitch spun around, preparing for the attack.
As the earthpony was about 3m from Smokey, the undercover human bucked him in the face as hard as he could.
Breaker reacted quckly and with a jerk of his head, he threw his opponent on his back.
Our hero with the dumbstruck expression was dumbstruck... and lying on the back of the earthpony, using his teeth to hold on to his mane.
Breaker tried to kick him off, jumping around like a madpony.
"Veeeewaaaawf! Fgetrlongf lilf, pfoggeees!" Smokey exclaimed through the hairs in his mouth.
"Get down and fight!"
He neighed, from a strong kick to his side and reared up, throwing the pegasus from his back.
Smokey, who meanwhile got his magicsensor working, landed on his hooves and bowed like an acrobat, who just performed his signature stunt.
Suddenly he saw a pair of hooves, flying right into his direction.
With a loud "Whooooaaaa", he dodged them only blinks before they could smash his face, only to be met by the sight of Breaker right before him.
"Gotcha!"
A straight headbutt hit Smokey.
Breaker moved almost as fast as the pegasus and had twice his strength.
Bedazzled and shaking on his legs, the red-maned pony stumbled around in highspeed.
Breaker laughed at the sight and trotted towards the waving pegasus.
Smokey shook his head and focused his oppenent, channeling enough energy in his hoof to push over a small mountain.
The earthpony stopped and laughed "Eitherway you are pretty tough or very stupid! Hahahaha, probably just stupid!
Alright, go for it! Hit me!"
Without a second thought, our winged hero slammed Breaker's face with all of his energy, making it count.
The black pony didn't even move a muscle.
"My turn!"
An incomming hoof threw the pegasus across the place and right through a housewall.

Breaker laughed and screamed in amusement.
"In your face, featherbrain! In your face!"
He went over to wake up Whacko and Drooly.
"Wake up you lazy lame-o's!!!" he kicked Drooly's plot, getting a quiet grunt from him.
"Have we ...uhm...not lost?"
Breaker pointed at the wall begind him.
Out of the wreckage a brown, liveless hoof hung losely, in a unusual angle.
Whacko, who eventualy awoke, laughed.
"Huhuhihihuhuhoho, pony unliving now!"
The three earthponies laughed over their most recent victory and the overcomming of the stranger with the loudmouth.

They turned to leave, but suddenly the sound of poltering bricks alarmed them.
The ponygang swung around.
Out of what was left of the wall, a black wing erected.
Their jaws dropped and their eyes widend to the size of waggonwheels.
Some bricks shattered to the ground, as Smokey got up.
He clopped some dust from his coat and stretched his wings.
Breaker stared at the nightblack featherlimbs and stuttered "W-what? How could you...?"
Suddenly the pegasus spoke up.
"Hey Toothfairy! Ready for round 2?!"

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hey folks

took some time to get this one working but I think it was worth the while.
I hope you think the same about it.
If you don't, just let me know.
Although I got a bit better over the chapters, I'm still new to writing and realy would appreciate if you tell me what you don't want to read again or what you'd like to see more often.
As you may noticed, the story is getting a bit more action-ish and we get some new perspectives on Smokey.
Although this technically means less smartflanking from B, I'll figure out a way to make this possible afterall
As always, leave any suggestions, comments or crittics in the commentfield down below or send me a message.

Also thanks for sticking with me so far.

Chapter 7

View Online

Chapter 7: Dude, you are a Pony!

by Tray Hunter

Breaker's jaw was a just a few inches above the ground.
How could that loudmouth pegasus be still standing, after his last attack, spare the fact that he seemed in better shape than before their fight.
"Nopony could survive that!
You aren't real!
I must be dreaming!"
The pegasus grinned and trotted towards the gang of bullies.
"You know, usually I would agree with that." he said "But I guess the chance to beat some sense into you, is just way too tempting."
With every step the blackwinged pony came closer, the gang took one step back, about to run from the mysterious and obviously supernatural stranger.
"RUUUUUN FOR YOUR...uh....LIVES!!!" Drooly screamed, as he spun around.
Suddenly the pegasus dashed towards him and hit him at the back of his head, knocking the fleeing earthpony to the ground.
Breaker was the next to be struck by a hindleg to the face.
He went down with a suprised expression on his face, wondering how this was even possible, before unconciousness could tear him out of reality.
Smokey turned around to the shuttering Whacko.
The earthpony looked at him in utter shock.
When the pegasus was right before his face, he asked him "Be you Angel?" and he sayed "Neeeiiigh, I am but ma-....shut up!".
The last thing he saw was a hoof striking his face, before he was on the ground aswell.

Suddenly a mare's voice yelled "Will? Were you fighting again?"
Smokey turned around and saw the young earthpony, the bullies were hitting before, being litterally dragged away by an older looking mare.
"You know all these fights are scaring me!
But thats the last time!
You're moving to your aunt and your uncle in Bel Mare!"
The couple turned around a corner and our protagonist scratched his head, considering the allmighty PUNteration to be striking again.

When Applebloom arived with Big Mac, the place looked like after a bombardement with megaspells.
One wall of the local postoffice was completly destroyed and there were small holes all over the place that seemed as if they were made from hooves that had been slammed into the ground.
The three bullies were lying around, kicking from time to time.
In the middle of the battlefield, Smokey stood, his wings spread and a suprised expression on his face.
"I wonder if pony Carlton is even smaller than the original one." he said turning around, noticing the unbelieving looks of the two farmponies behind him.
"Smokey? What the hay hav' yer don'?" the filly asked "An' what happend ta the postoffice?"
"Postoffice?"
Suddenly two eyes looked out of the hole, more or less directly at the pegasus.
"Er, Hi Ditzy." Smokey smiled sheepishly, trying to maintain his pokerface at the sight of the ocassional judging eye crossing his sight.
Ditzy shook her head and pointed first at the hole and then at the redmaned pony, an asking expression on her face.
"Actually the one over there threw me into your wall."
He pointed at Breaker who sput out a tooth of the same shape and bloodcolor as his cutiemark.
"Where am I?
Is that madpony gone?" he looked around.
"Nope, I'm still here!
And you three will fix Miss Doo's wall!
Or else..." the pegasus ordered.

When Applebloom, Big Mac and Smokey left, Ditzy was outside the postoffice, observing the unwilling construction workers, as they rebuild her wall.
They even installed the window, she had been planing there for years.
The farmponies talked our fully restored hero into a quick check at the hospital, after he told them what happend.

"How is this possible?
These wings were broken at multiple places three days ago!"
Nurse Redheart had never seen such a thing before, but a few tests confirmed it.
"Your wings are even stronger than before.
Might I ask you what happend?"
"I was thrown...uhm... through a wall."
Smokey smiled, not believing the fact that this event realy healed his before-broken wings.
He made a mental note to discuss the basics of renovation spells with Lyra and his brain, once he was back home.
"If only everypony had such luck today.
We took in a new patient recently, who was lying completly lifeless at the edge of the Everfree Forest.
The worst, nopony recognizes him.
He must be pretty lonley."
She made a concerned face.
"He is stable but hasn't been moving at all. "
"Not moving? Stranger? Everfree Forest?
Where is this pony?
Maybe I can help him.
If you think he's in the condition to have visits, that is."
The nurse was suprised, how would he be able to help him, a total stranger, without medical knowledge?
After a short consideration she gave her okay for a short visit.

The patient's room was bright and painted in warm colors.
In the middle of it was a single bed with a sleeping pony, lounging on it.
"Dude, wake up!"
No responses came from the unicorn.
"Wakeupwakeupwakeup!
Wake the f*#%ing up!"
Suddenly the eyes of the blue pony with the blonde mane, cracked open.
He looked around but all he saw was the wall on the other side of the room.
He tried to speak but his voice was tired and weak.
"D-Dude? I-Is that you?"
The pegasus sat on a chair beside the bed, still unnoticed by the slightly reliefed unicorn.
"Eyup. It's me. Long time no see, huh?"
"Yeah, w-where were you in the last 2 months?
We were about to worry."
Smokey's eyes widend "Did you just say months?
I've been away for only 2 months?"
"Yeah, since that party.
What happend?
Did you leave early or something?"
"I was dragged into another dimension, where ponies are the dominant species and lived here for about two years!" he gave a dry answer.
"Haha, good one!
But serious!"
Smokey bowed over the bed and looked into the eyes of his now ponyfied friend.
"Do I look like I'm joking?"
The unicorn gasped and his eyes almost popped out of his head.
"What the hell are you?"
"A pegasus pony!"
"But... How?"
"Beats me... Could ask you the same."
"The same? Why? Whats wrong with me?"
Smokey sighed and put a hoof on the chest of the frightend pony.
"Dude, you are a pony, too."
Suddenly the unicorn jumped out of the bed, almost throwing the pegasus over, and just looked at his presumed hands...which now were hooves.
"But...But... How is this possible?
I just was on a concert and sat down for a few minutes!
And why the hell am I a pony now?"
The scared pony sat down, stuttering more confused half-sentences.
"Is it going to be like this forever?" he asked in utter shock.
"Well, given the fact that Lyra has been here for 8 years... probably yes." Smokey stated, feeling sorry for his friend.
"Lyra? Who is Lyra? And why do you seem so calm?"
"Lyra is a ponyfied human, just like we are, and helped me keep my sanity.
For your other question: I've been here for 2 years, Duuuuh!
It's not too bad, once you get used to everything and the local slang is pretty catchy too."
The unicorn shot him a confused look "Slang? These ponies have their own slang?"
"Mostly puns with horse specific words.
Like everypony or trotting, instead of walking.
I'm sure you'll digg it pretty soon.
Although I had kind of an advantage from the show..."
"Show? What show?"
"Aaw, not this again."

The pegasus continued, explaining the nature of the My little Pony show, getting confused and mocking looks from his audience.
"You are realy into all of this?
Dude!"
Smokey shot him a serious look and said "And now you are into it too, wether you like it or not.
But fear not!
These ponies got everything we could posibly need or want...plus magic!"
"They realy believe in magic?
What a bunch of foals."
The redmaned pony's expression mixed with suprise about the already good knowledge of the enquine language and disapointment about the statement itself.
"Dude, you better start believing in magic!
You are a unicorn afterall!"
The blue pony touched his forehead, noticing the strange horn, stucking out of it.
"Oh, great! I'm a pony and got a giant boner on my forehead."
"You know. You should be happy! You can do "tze magicks" afterall! Also a unicorns horn isn't realy considered a boner. Not like..."
The unicorn pony looked suprised at the pegasus, who suddenly had an imense interest in looking at his hooves.
"Not like what?"
"Not like a wingb..."
"A what?"
"A wing..."
"What did you just say?"
"A WINGBONER, FOR LUNA'S SAKE!!!"
The hospital went quiet for what seemed like an eternity.
When the ponies outside, in the hallway went back to their own buisness, the blonde pony broke out in laughter.
"You get an erection in your wings whenever you get turned on?!
Thats prizeless. Hahahahahahaha"
A very unamused and ashamed pegasus was thinking about pretty nasty and rude ways, to stop his friend from laughing at him but then just sighed and asked him "So what, shall I show you around a bit?"
The unicorn stoped his laughter.
He knew, when his friend was changing topics, it's been too much.
"Okay, maybe things will start to make sense, once I get a picture of what I'm in now."
Suddenly the pegasus' look went to the flank of his friend...for no particular reason!
"Good Luna! It's already 3pm?!
Wait... You got a wor..."
"A wor...? What are you talking about?"
He looked at his flank and gasped.
"Are these watches? I have tatoos of watches on my ass?"
On each side of the unicorns rearside were clocks with deformed but fully working hands.
Even one for seconds.
"Dude, you got a ticking clock for a cutiemark. " the pegasus laughed "That sure is usefull...once we're going to boil eggs or something! Hahaha"
This time it was the horned pony who was unamused.
"Cutiemark? Dude, WTF?"
The pegasus ceased his laughing and began to explain about special talents and everything he knew about cutiemarks.
"And thats how Equestria was made..." he shrugged "maybe next time I'll tell you about how I got my cutiemark. It's a gem."
Maybe the blue pony didn't get the refernce but at least he knew when his friend was being sarcastic.
"So, this...cutiemark... means my speicial talent has to do something with time, huh?
Like what?"
"Beats me. Maybe Lyra can help. By the way... maybe we should get Pinks to throw one of her Welcome-to-Ponyville-Partys for you.
Once you get used to hot sauce in your beer, it's realy fun."
"Can't we just sit down and drink? Without party?
Consider how mindblown I am already and from all you said about her, this "Pinks" won't make it better."
Smokey made his "thoughtfull face of thoughtfullnes"TM and thought...in a thoughtfull way!
"Mmh... Drinking but no party? Lyra? Consider... rhymes with cider...!"
The pegasus jumped and hovered on the spot yeling "Eureka! I got it!"
Slowly the unicorn started to get scared by the sudden reactions and outbursts of his friend.
"You got what?"
"The Eatery and Drinkery! It's quiet, they got booze and, judging by the time, Lyra will be there aswell... cursing and flaming about Octavia."
"So...where-"
"To the orchard!! We go!" our enthusiastic protagonist yelled without a second thought and flew through an open window.
"Hey featherbrain! No wings!" the unicorn yelled after him in an anoyed tone.
"Aaw horseapples!" the blackwinged pony came back through the window and landed in front of the bed "Fine... we'll trot."

"Hey AC, is Lyra around?" Smokey asked the busy barpony, who simply pointed at a table in the back of the bar, where a mint-green mass was lounging.
"Thanks, Bro."
"Yer welcom'. The usual fer yer?"
"Sure." he turned around to the unicorn, who was quite overthrown with the new impressions from their short walk through Ponyville "Oh, and one of your specials."
Cider nodded and continued to mix their drinks.
The two former-humans trotted towards Lyra's table, one of them looking around as if he expected a sudden attack out of nowhere.
"Dude, relax! It's a bar, not a battlefield!
Although it looks like one from time to time."
"From time to time?"
Smokey smiled.
"Yeah, AC started to have live bands playing each week. They may not look like, but these ponies can mosh like fullgrown grizzlies!"
"Mosh? They have hardcore? But they look so inocent and quiet!" his friend said while trying to imagine a two-step with hooves. Or is it called a four-step?
"Well, they call it hardclop, but yeah. Once they play, you don't care about anything but thrashing around. "
Meanwhile Lyra was awake again and looked at the two "Huh? Clop?" then she noticed the strange blue unicorn behind Smokey "Who's this? Friend of yours?"
Smokey rolled his eyes and answered "Lyra, he is in the same situation we are in!"
"He doesn't find a job as a musician in this nest?
Well sit down there partner and have a drink."
She waved around, trying to maintain her balance, but simply smacked on the table.
The pegasus' eyes basically rotated in their holes.
"I'm mean, he IS the same we are!"
"Useless and desperated?"
"I'll ignore the fact that you just called me useless.
He is from, where we are from."
Lyra rolled on the table throwning some of the glasses over.
"If he was from, where I am from, he would be dead!"
The pegasus facehoofed "Want me to draw you a sketch or what? He is a hum..."
"A hummingbird? He doesn't look like one."
Smokey was about to throw over the table and leave but suddenly a hoof on his shoulder caught his attention.
"Miss Lyra was it? I'm not from here and wasn't a pony yesterday."
Lyra's eyes cracked open and the sound of a falling penny could be heard.
"You are...? And you know...?"
Smokey shot her an anoyed nod and sat down on a chair near the table.
His friend hesitated for a second, while Lyra seemed to stare right through him, but sat down next to the pegasus.
Meanwhile Apple Cider brought their drinks and poked the unmoving mare in the shoulder. "Lyra, yer okay?"
She shook her head and blinked a few times before reacting "What? Oh yeah, I'm fine. I'll have another glass of your best Trotka."
As Cider left, Lyra stopped him and added "You know, better bring me the whole bottle!"
The barpony shrugged and went back to his bar.
"So, you finaly put the pieces together and overcame your mindblow?" the pegasus asked.
Lyra looked at Smokey and the, meanwhile awkward feeling, unicorn next to him.
"So you realy are a human and you know Smokey here."
"Smokey? Did she just call you Smokey?" the blue pony asked.
The pegasus nodded and looked at him.
"Pony -world, pony-name.
Not everypony has the luck to be named Lyra by his or her parrents."
She smiled widely.
"Afterall, your or my human name would cause too much trouble and attention.
And it sounds just awesome, don't you think?"
He smiled at him and then turned to Lyra, who just winked, saying "Afterall it was me, who named you."
The other unicorn just sighed.
"So you named him?
Am I gonna need a "pony-name" too?
And why is your horn glowing?"
Smokey looked at the mare and noticed the slight shinig on her forehead.
"Are you and B talking again?
And how come I don't hear anything?"
She looked at him and answered with a sheepish smile on her face "Not talking with YOUR brain!
Just getting to know the grey matter of Ticks over there."

The pegasus and the blue unicorn spoke in unision "Ticks?"
'Ticks? I mean, I've been thinking about a name but that one is kinda catchy.'
"Oh, Hello B. How are you holding up?"
The mare smiled at Smokey's forehead.
'Not to bad. You probably should explain the name to Ticks. He's looking as if he's about to drool on Cider's table. '
"And prabably you should stop, pretending I'm not here." Smokey threw into the silence.
He then turned over to the obviously mondblown unicorn, whose train of thought had been falling down a cliff and exploded...twice, no three times...in a row!

"It's all a dream! I just have to wake up!"
The unicorn whispered, starring at an imaginary tennisgame before him.
"Aw, not this again. Lyra? Would you?" Smokey asked.
"With pleasure!" she slammed a straight hoof right into the blonde ponies shoulder, dragging him backt to reality.
"Ouch! What was that for?" he screamed.
"To stop you, from drooling all over the place.
And from pretending we were not real."
Smokey explained "Not like I can't relate to your situation but all the starring will get you nowhere fast. "
Ticks looked at him in confusion and asked "Who is this B?
And why can Lyra talk to him, while he's not around?"
'Oh, Lyra please. Can you link me to him?
Maybe I can help explaining the situation.'
"Linking? You sure thats a good idea?"
The pegasus looked at Lyra in concern, while the third pony was about to lose it again.
"Havn't done this before but... Have magic, will link!"
Lyra's horn started to shine brighter, as a thin line between Smokey's and Ticks' foreheads appeared.
'Hey, is this thing on? TEST TEST!'
"What is this? Whose voice is this? Where are you?"
'Call me B. This voice is mine and I am right before you.'
The confused pony looked in the face of the pegasus.
'Warm... But a bit more to the north.'
Ticks' look went up to Smokey's forehead.
'Hot! Thats me behind that piece of wood.'
The blackwinged pony hit his head with a hoof.
"Stop that B! I know where you live!"
'And I know where you would be without me!'
"Touchė.
But get to the point and don't crack his sanity any further. "
'Okay, so... Ticks.
Ticks Ticks Ticks.
Kinda like that, fits your cutiemark. '
The unicorn frowned at the voice in his head.
"Could you please stop that?"
'Oh sorry. Now, everything began two years ago and... you know what?
I'll simply show you!'
The magical line between Smokey and Ticks began to pump every memory, B wanted to share with the unicorn, into the brain of said one.
All the informations flickered before his inner eye and suddenly everything went black.

*Thump* He fell to the ground and passed out.
"B! I guess you overdid it!"
Smokey said, while he checked if his friend was alright.
"How pathetic!" Lyra said, taking another sip from the Trotka "Back then, I copied ten times that much memory from B and he is passing out after the filtered information of 2 years?"
'At least he didn't run...yet.'

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Hay there folks, Tray here!

Told you I'll figure out a way to let B have his moments ^^
So...lot of unexplainable things in this chapter, huh?
Fully restored wings, another ponyfied human and drunken Lyras.
Well, maybe the last one isn't that much of a mystery XD
I've planned lots of twists and even more mysteries...and puns...in the next chapters but will have to see if I can bring them all on without creating a total overdose of confusion and stuff.
If I do things too fast, chance is that either your mind gets blown or I'll run out of ideas too fast
But fear not!
I sense lots of exciting coming up!
As always, leave any suggestions, critics or comments in that little textfield down below or just send me a message.
Please folks...I lack some feedback Oo
Doesn't matter if you think I'm a god or want to feed me to a manticore!
Although a reason for latter would be rather helpfull XD

Till next time

Tray

Chapter 8

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Chapter 8: Shoo Bee Doo

by Tray Hunter

Ticks saw everything his friend had lived through in the last two years.
Although some of the memories were incomplete or blured by too much alcohol.
Every action, every sentence and every thought flashed through his mind.
Even Smokey's conversations with his brain were almost fully documentated.
Although the unicorn couldn't relate to some of the topics or his friend's phobia of cupcakes.
Suddenly the film playing in his head went blue and every experience, the pegasus had, while in magicsensor-mode, showed up before his inner eye.
Bright lights surounded the ponies and suddenly books flew towards him, followed by the face of a grim looking black pony.
Then everything started to spin around him and all he could see was a small orange glow, comming closer.
Every time Ticks tried to wake himself up, the scene changed, displaying even stranger events out of the life of his friend.
After a few short episodes of, what Smokey's brain would call, complete oatmeal, he saw a nice young mare right before him.
The voice of his friend said "You know... I wasn't born as a pony. I once was a human from another universe. "
The mare frowned at him and answered "If you don't want me to meet your family, you could have just said so! You don't have to invent some stupid stories about "youmanes" or whatever!"
Smokey's eyes watered, bluring the sight of the unicorn who remembered the scene he never had experienced.
"But it's the truth! Why don't you believe me? Please! I love you!"
Suddenly Ticks fellt a strong pain in his back and the scene switched to a patients room.
His back did hurt and he couldn't move.
As the unicorn blinked in pain, a flash before his eyes drew him back into conciousness.

Ticks moaned and rolled onto his belly.
"Hey, I think he's waking up!"
Smokey kneeled down to help his friend up, when said one cracked his eyes open and jumped onto his hooves.
"Hey! Are you alright, dude?"
"Dude! How come you survived all of this? You have been beaten. smacked with stuff and fell off a bridge!"
Smokey sighed and shook his head.
"Because!" he put a hoof on his friends shoulder "If I died, the story would be over!"
Ticks just shook his head and answered "This isn't a story, don't you know?"
The pegasus smiled widely "Yeah, but you never know."
Lyra cleared her throat, gaining their attention.
"I guess we have better things to do, than discuss Smokey's dumbluck!"
They looked at her and asked in unision "Like what?"
"Celebrate Ticks' arrival!" she threw her hooves into the air and smiled.

The three exhumans drank and laughed for hours.
At about nighttime the bar started to fill and Cider went up a small stage near the table where the three drunken, interdimensional pony-humans sat.
The crowd gathered before the stage and Cider spoke into his microphone "Hey ther' ponies! Ar' yer ready ta go all wild'n'loud?"
The voices of about three dozen ponies screamed in unision and Cider answered their enthusiasm with "Well, then her' we goooo!"
Four zebras came from behind the stage and took their positions at the instruments.
"Wait! Where's Zalli?" one of them said into his microphone, strapping his guitar on.
Suddenly a fifth zebra fell from the ceiling and landed on the stage, yelling "Are you ready to goooooo wiiiiiild?"
The crowd litterally exploded in excitement as the band started their first song.

"Hey Ticks! Let's get into the action!" Smokey said as the first pits formed before stage.
"Dude, I can barely stand anymore!" he shrugged "Aah, whatever... Lead on, wingster!"
They jumped right into the masses and moshed for their life.
Although Ticks hesitated for a moment, afraid of hurting somepony with his hooves but after a few minutes he was into it, as if he was the ponified Jamey Jasta.
After half an hour, Zalli stepped up to the mic and yelled "Are you ready for some madness? This song is called Shooooo Beeee..." the door began to rumble as if something was pressing from outside "Dooooooooooo!"
Suddenly the door broke and hundreds of small creatures bursted into the Eatery and Drinkery.
"Seeeeeaaaaaapooooooniiiiiieeeeees!!!" the leadsinger screamed, dropping his guitar.
"Ah' thought, Ah was clear with that setlist Ah gav' yer!"
The zebra at the drums countered "I thought we were far away from the coast! Where did these come from?"
Chef Sandy, who just managed to get to the stage, after fighting his way through the swarm of seaponies, yelled at Cider "Why haven't you told them about the lake?" but was imideatly buried under another flood of the tiny aqua-enqines.
"Well, Ah KNEW Ah forgot somthin'!" the barpony whispered to himself.

Smokey lost Ticks in the mass of small creatures but assumed he'd be alright, putting his trust in the grim-dark filter of this crazy world.
He took off, shaking some of the seaponies from his hooves, and flew out of the door.
Most of the fans had vanished through the windows when they realized the situation.
He hovered before the restaurant and yelled "Shoo Bee Doo!"
The living flood blasted right through the hole, that once was an entrance, and gathered underneath the pegasus.
Evading some jumping aqua enqines, the redmaned pony gained some metres in altitude and guided them towards the Everfree Forest.
He had to bait them every twenty metres but arrived at the Froggy Bottom Bog atlast.
"And stay there! That was the last time you bashed our parties! Am I clear?" he shouted at the swarm, kicking them into the moor, bunch by bunch.
The seaponies protested, shooting some water at the rude, blackwinged airpony with their mouths.
As they vanished out of Smokey's sight, our beast-defeating hero sighed and left for the bar.

When he arrived, the retaurant was a mess.
The stage was basically the only thing, that wasn't affected by the stampede of the tiny creatures.
Its height was simply too much to overcome for their little flippers.
Unforunatly Chef didn't make it...didn't make it on the stage of course!
Remember? Grim-dark filter!
He was on the floor in a fetalpostion whining and staring out of the door.
"They were everywhere with their fins! Everywhere!"
Cider and the band, who had been taking cover behind the drumset, lurked at the battlfield.
Almost every table and every chair was thrown over.
The only one still standing, was Lyra's.
The unicorn had casted a magical bubble around her and emptied her drink.
"Lyra, where is Ticks?" Smokey asked, when the mare dispelled her protective sphere.
She poured another glass of her beloved Trotka with her magic and pointed upwards.
The pegasus looked at the ceiling and laughed.
The blue unicorn was hanging down, his horn pierced into a roof beam.
"Would you please...Oh I don't know...GET ME DOWN!?" he shouted at the giggling pony.
"No problem, just..." he broke out in a loud laughter "Hang in there! Hahahaha"
Ticks tried to frown but couldn't help but laugh at the irony.
The pegasus took off and saved the unicorn from the transfixation of the evil piece of wood.
Meanwhile Cider was trying to get Chef up.
"Them's gone now. Yer alright?"
The yellow earthpony shook his head and looked at his friend.
"I...I have scales at places, I never...never knew they even existed!" he rolled on the floor, biting his knees.
Cider rolled his eyes and said "Not this again. Las' time 't wer' parasprites an' befor' that 't wer' bunnies!"

"What were these things?" Ticks asked his feathered friend "And why did they just storm the bar?"
"These were seaponies." he explained "Usually they are quiet and everything.
"Usually? But they almost destroyed the whole place!" the unicorn's face changed to a shocked grimace.
"They react to a certain "command"! When they hear it, they get all...horny."
His friend frowned at him, scratching some small pieces of wood out of his mane "Could you please stop your hornjokes!"
Smokey rolled his eyes "I mean, its their mating call."
"What? You meann shoo b-"
"Exactly! But never speak this out loud. You saw whats happening when you do so."
Suddenly Lyra smacked a hoof on the table and yelled "Well, I beeet that that fancy Octavia never had to deal with seaponies in her fancy, fancy loft in Manehatten!" she was shaking on her chair "That loft was supposed to be mine!!!"
She fell off the chair and was fast asleep.
"Are the concerts around here always like that?" Ticks asked.
Smokey smiled widely "You should see when they play "Ursa, Ursa out of the bush". It's crashing!"

The rest of the night included cleaning the mess from the seapony-plague and unhealthy amounts of free drinks, after Smokey told Cider how he "battled the evil aquaenqines all by himself".
Chef just crawled towards his room, when he found the mental strength to move again.
Lyra just laid on the ground until sunrise.
The pegasus knew how unpleassent the mare could be, while sleeping off her prehangover.

The next morning Ticks and Smokey tried to wake up the mint-green unicorn but after getting slapped in the face by her, they decided to let her be and look after her once they had some breakfast.
"So...where do we get food in here? I'm starving!"
Indeed, the blue unicorns belly was screaming in his emptyness.
"Well, I would have asked Chef to cook something but..." Smokey shot Cider an asking look.
"Enope! We can be happy if'n he stop starin' at that ceilin' anytime soon!" Cider explained, shaking his head.
He left to look after his partner.
"So, next guess would be...Oh...Sugarcube Corner."
The blackwinged pony stated, getting a suprised look from Ticks.
"You mean, I'll get to know Pinkie Pie?" his stomach grumbled again "And some food? Awesome!"
"You suddenly seem so eager. Anything you want to tell me about ponies?" the pegasus smiled.
"Well, after all these flashbacks from your brain, I can't wait to meet all the ponies in this town!"
"Meet ALL the ponies, huh? Well, no problem...as long as you don't make me meet...hng...her again."
"You mean that mare that threw you off that bridge?
How did you two meet anyway?"
Smokey sighed and shot him a serious look.
"Maybe another time. I'm not in the mood for downer or painfull memories. Leave away memories about pain."

As they trotted through the small village a quite bizare sight occured before them.
A smaller unicorn with a blonde mane and, what looked like, two metal-sleeves on his legs, fought against an giant half-transparent bear with a sign around his neck saying "Rent-an-Ursa".
On the head of the ursa stood a brown pony with a styled mane, holding a ball made of metal.
For some reason, said ball was way cooler than it shoould have been.
Ticks couldn't help but stare at it.
The unicorn stomped on the ground and large stonecolumns shot at the bear-like monster.
"Who is so small he could hide behind a parasprite?!"
He shouted at the earthpony, who not even bothered to control the manic smile on his face.
"J00 R 48U7 t4 g3t pwnd by m4h c00l th1ng!"
A bit aside were two other ponies observing the battle.
One of them was wearing a huge armor and the other one just wore a bored expression on his face.
"Hey dude, whats going on over there? Looks serious." Ticks asked.
"Just the usual madness from the fandom. Let's just keep going and hope we don't get shipped with each other. "

When the undercover-humans arived at the local candy and pastrie store, they felt as if their stomachs were about to digest themseves.
Fortunatley, the store was almost empty.
Only the pink pony with the cotoncandy-like mane was around bouncing on the spot.
When the mare spotted the redmaned pegasus, she smiled and yelled "Hey there Smokey! What will you have? I'd just have food but somepony just wants to talk or jump or drink or make funny stuff. I love funny stuff but Mrs, Cake said I should concentrate on the work and don't throw parties while shoptime but I loooooveeee to party and so its hard for me to contain myself and not party an-" suddenly a hoof stuck in the mouth of the earthpony, who imideatly stopped her bouncing in midair.
"We'll just have some muffins, Pinks." Smokey said taking his frontleg down, releasing Pinkie from his facehoof.
"We?" she looked behind him and noticed the blue unicorn, who looked around to seem busy.
She dashed towards him, leaving a confused pegasus in her tracks.
"Oh hi! I'm Pinkie Pie and you must be new in town because I know EVERYPONY around! Well, ok there was this one pony but he just had no name, so I had to call him no-name but he's super cool and I'll just have to figure out a name for him when he comes back and we will throw a New-Name-Party for him. "
she gasped "And I'll throw one of my Welcome-to-Ponyville-Parties just for you and we will have fun and sing and dance and play my most favourite games and have goodies and talk about our special talents and it will be sooooo awesoome!"
The bonde pony looked at her, shocked by the information overdose, the pink mare just threw at him.
"This is Ticks." Smokey explained "He's an old friend of mine and arived here yesterday. Mmh...maybe we should introduce him to the others."
Pinkie's eyes widend, just like the first time she saw the sonic raimboom.
Then she just said "So, how many muffins will you need?"
Our confused protagonist looked at her in a confused confision, not believing the pink partymare to just calm down and change topics.
"Pinks? Are you alright?"
She smiled widely "Of course I am alright, you silly filly. But thats the end of the chapter and I can't just run off in excitement or something like that!"

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tray here

So, rather lot of fouth wall bashing in this chapter, huh?
As ways, if you folks see something you don't like, just let me know!
It doesn't make sense to continue if noone wants to read it :P
Also, for everypony, who couldn't figure out which band I just enqinized, just check this link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fdm3hpCvUEw
And leave any suggestions, comments or....you know...
Just leave whatever you think, wherever you think ^^

Tray out

Chapter 9

View Online

Chapter 9: Thats so not fair!

by Tray Hunter

"Anyway, we need...let's see...five muffins." Smokey said "Oh, and some of these candied carrots. I love these things."
"Okie dokie Smokey!" the pink party mare placed the goodies on the counter and looked at Ticks "Oh right. Thats a new chapter. So..."
She gasped in midair and dashed out of the door, leaving a pink trail behind her.
"Is she always like that?" the unicorn asked.
"Only on wednesdays. Usually, she isn't so-"
"Crazy?"
"Calm! She seemed a bit stressed. " the pegasus smiled widely and reached at his waist, pulling out some coins.
"Is that the infamous P.P.S.C., your brain told me about?" Ticks asked pointing at the change in his friend's hoof.
He chuggled "So B finaly settled with the name, huh?
But yeah, thats the Pinkie Pie Storage Container.
Way more usefull than real life pockets.
And completly waterproofed. "
He put Pinkie's payment on the counter and took the bags with his mouth.
"So, maybe I should see if I have something like that too." the blue pony said, reaching for his waist.
Suddenly he pulled out a small scanradio.
The pegasus dropped the bags and stared at the device. "A radio? Why do you get a radio?"
"Well, thats mine. I carry it with me, everytime I leave the house. But I wonder if..."
More and more stuff was pulled out of the blonde unicorn's very own supernatural container.
With every piece of equipment, Smokey's eyes grew bigger and bigger.
"Let's see, I got my radio, a headlight, my zombie-survival-guide, a lighter, my swiss pocketknife, sunglasses and my fedora." he looked at his confused friend "So, what did you get back then?"
"Like you don't know... Why are you equipped for a small war and I only get mints? Thats soo not fair!"
Ticks slipped the sunglasses on and said "Deal with it!" getting unamused looks from his friend "Actually thats everything I had with me, when I was at the concert. "
The pegasus frowned "If I had known, that I'd be sucked into another dimension, I would have brought a laptop to the party."
Ticks smiled, strapping the headlight onto his hat and putting the other items back into the unknown space at his hip.
"So, where do we go now?" the unicorn asked, trying to distract his friend.
"We go home!" he said, taking the bags and headed outside the door.

"So, this is where you live? Looks nice. How did you get enough money to buy a house?" the blue pony asked, eyeing Smokey from the edges of his glasses.
The blackwinged airpony placed the bags on the kitchentable and explained "I haven't. Thats Lyra and Bon Bon's house. But they allowed me to stay for a while."
They sat down and began to eat, when suddenly a creamcolored earthpony came into the kitchen.
"Oh Smokey. Are you alright? Haven't seen you since yesterday." Bon Bon asked when she noticed the unicorn, who just munched on his muffin "Oh, and you are...?"
The blonde pony swallowed and answered "I'm Ticks.
Smokey and I are...old friends."
"Nice to meet you, Ticks. I'm Bon Bon. Might I ask where you are from? I don't think I have seen you around."
'Ok, just say Germareneigh! Thats where we said we were from.'
"I'm from Germareneigh, just like Smokey here. "
"Well, you're maybe from the same country but you are totaly different! Sometimes I wish somepony had half the manners, you seem to have!" she shot the pegasus an ordering look.
He simply stuck out his tongue and smiled.
"Anyway, nice to make your acquaintance. I'll see if Lyra is ready to part from Cider and his cider already. " with that she left.

"She seems nice. I wonder if I can score at her." Ticks wondered.
"Beg pardon?" the pegasus said, not believing his ears "You know why she is living with Lyra, do you?"
"Because they are best friends?"
The redmaned pony laughed and answered "Thats the understatement of the century! They not only live together, they ARE together!"
A falling penny could be heard.
"Oooh, so they are...?"
"Eyup! Through and through. So not only that you won't have any chances, you would probably get beaten half-dead by Lyra aswell. "
Ticks chuggled "Okay, Note: Don't flirt with Bon Bon if I want to keep my teeth!"
'And better don't leave the toiletseat up.'
"Why? What would happen if I do?" the unicorn asked, turning to his friend.
"You don't wanna kn- Did you just react to B's statement?"
'Wait. You realy did, didn't you?'
Ticks' face froze, his eyelid twitching a bit.
"Why can I still hear your brain? Is Lyra behind that door?" he pointed at the door to the livingroom.
'Maybe after my little intermission yesterday, your grey matter adapted to me. That or you can finaly do "tze magicks"!'
"Yeah, about that magicstuff... When do I learn to cast any spells? The only thing this horn had got me in so far was a roofbeam!"
Smokey gave a short laugh and explained "Lyra once said, one had to concentrate on what he wants to do with his magic. But she also said something about controling your inner energies, so maybe you'll have to practice before you can do bigger stuff. "
The unicorn looked at the tip of his horn and said "So, I should start small. But with what? Laservision?"
'Why is everponies first guess laservision?' a certain thinking organ wondered.
"Maybe because it's cool? I mean, what could be cooler than burning stuff by looking at it?" Smokey countered.
'Just try to levitate something. How about that muffin on the table?'
The unicorn stared at the baked good and imagined it to hover over to him.
Suddenly his horn began glow in a bright green and the pastrie moved, imitating the shimmer on the ponies forehead.
"Hey, it works" he said, taking a bit from the magiced muffin "Try to top that, featherly!"
The pegasus looked at him and in the next second a small breeze threw the hat from Ticks' head.
"Good enough?" he asked with a proud smile on his face.
"You can do magic aswell? But you don't even have a horn!"
'Pegasus-weather-control-magic doesn't need any horns! It's completly hornfree and awesome!'
"Eyup. B is right. It's awesome! Although I can basically just manipulate air and clouds of any kind.
Actually thats how I got my name."
"Yeah, I saw that in B's briefing." Ticks said, grabing his hat with his newly discovered magic and put it back on his head.
'Maybe we should see, if Lyra or Twilight can add some skills to your reportiore.'
"Speaking of which, maybe we should see Twi and introduce yourself." the pegasus suggested "Maybe we can also find out, why you landed here."
The blue pony shot his friend a confused look "Twilight knows about humans?"
'Nope, but she knows when interdimensional cracks occur. Afterall she is Celestia's price student and gets the royal newsticker. '

The libary was quiet.
All of the libary? No, one small babydragon laid on the couch, snorting as if his life would depend on the achieved decibels.
Suddenly a purple unicorn with earplugs around her neck looked up from the book, she had been studying and checking for gramatical errors for the last two hours.
She hadn't found one yet but she was only at the entry about Manebrushing in her very own copy of the Bucksford Dictionary for educated Fillies and Gentlecolts.
"Spike? Did you hear that?" she asked, getting a tired look from her #1 assistant.
"Hear what?" he murmured, his face half buried in his pillow.
"The door. I think there is somepony at the door. "
She got up and cantered towards the entrance.
Another knock came from the door and as she opend it with her magic the only thing she saw was a pegasus... I guess you know which one.
"Hey Twi. How are you doing?"
She smiled and answered "Oh hey Smokey. I'm fine. Just relaxing a bit. You didn't happen to run into Pinkie Pie recently?"
Smokey put on a serious face and queried "She was here?"
"Yes, she said something about some new ticks.
Maybe her Pinkie-Pie-Sense is expanding."
Suddenly a blue pony's head tilted behind the pegasus, looking at Twilight through his shades.
"Hi, I'm Ticks! Nice to meet you!" he said dryly.
The mare blushed in discomfort.
'Great, now thats a first impression you can build up on.'
He sighed "But hey, no problem ...I'm sure you didn't mean to be rude."
The blush on the studiest-student-ever's face went blushier and blushier.
The pegasus cleared his throat and kicked his firends foreleg.
'Just get over there and say something not insulting!'
He trotted over to the door and smiled at the purple unicorn.
"I guess we had a bit of a hard start. Let's reset and start again. Hi, I'm Ticks. Nice to meet you, Miss...?"
She shook her head and looked at him.
"I'm Twilight Sparkle. Nice to meet you too. Sorry for that, why don't you come in. "

They went into the kitchen, letting the babydragon in the livingroom sleep.
After a short introduction, Smokey decided to cut the chase and get some information, as subtle as he could be.
"So Twilight, any interdimensional cracks in the, let's say, last 48 hours?"
'Are you serious? She will never consider anything suspicious about you question. '
Ticks simply nodded, remembering that the purple mare couldn't hear that wise and grey mass between his friend's ears.
"I don't know what you are talking about! Have you been drinking late again?" she shot the pegasus a confused and unbelieving look.
'Just say yes and stop scaring her. You will blow our cover!'
"He's just kidding you." Ticks threw in "Good one, bro."
He gave a hollow laugh and brohoofd his friend's shoulder.
The redmaned pony chuggled and put on the worst pokerface since ponies remember.
"Yeah, a joke. Haha. I was joking. "
'Sometimes, I wonder why they haven't sent us into the Everfree to get rid of your nonsense yet.'
Two differnt reactions came from the unicorns.
One simply nodded, the other one sighed and asked about Smokey's latest relationship with a certain mare.
"So, how are you and Burst getting along? Haven't seen her in a while."
The pegasus started to sweat all over, his eyes widend and he curled on the floor, petting his wings.
"Dude, it's alright she's gone." the blonde pony said, not getting any usefull reaction from the mindblown furball before him "Don't make me go all Lyra on you!"
Suddenly the redmaned pony jumped onto his hooves and yelled "No! I'm alright! No Lyra!"
'Ahem, could you please cut it out? Before our host loses her patience and kicks us out of the door.'
Indeed Twilight looked as if she was about to flee from the strange couple, although the unicorn seemed pretty reasonable, the pegasus appeared to be extra Smokey today.
Suddenly a small figure appeared at the kitchendoor.
Appearently, appearing at kitchendoors is a total legit way for a first appearence.
"Whats going on here, folks?" Spike asked, when he noticed the brown pegasus "Hey Smokey, how's it going with you and Starberry Burst?"
The redmaned pony was on the floor again, within the blink of an eye.
"Not again!" the blue unicorn shook his head.

While Smokey tried to overcome his trauma, Ticks and Spike talked.
Even Twilight managed to losen up a bit.
"So, she left him and kicked him from a bridge? Dude, thats mean." the dragon said.
The pegasus winced.
"But you said she broke his wings. How come they seem fully intact?" the purple unicorn asked.
"Beats me. He...uhm...TOLD me, he was thrown through a wall. Nurse Redheart couldn't make any sense of it either."
Twilight looked at Smokey, curious about the pegasus' strange healingability and said "If it's a spell, there may be tracks of it."
Her horn glowed and a red shimmer covered the black wings of the blackwinged pony.
"They are completly flooded with magic. His whole body is filled with it! He can't just be a normal pegasus!"
She looked at Ticks, who just swallowed.
Her horn glew brighter, covering the blue unicorn.
"Your magic is like nothing I have ever seen before!
What are you two?!"
"Aw crap!"
Ticks' eyes widend and suddenly his horn started to shine aswell.
The world around him stopped and everything turned into a brownish sepiatone.
"Oh great, whats happening now?" he looked around, when the scene before his eyes started to run backwards.
Twilight, Spike and even the not moving Smokey shuffled backwards.
Then he noticed that the clockhands of his cutiemarks started to spin backwards aswell.
The world stopped again and the colors turned back to normal.
"Ok, now what? Am I going to correct some mistakes?"
Time started to flow forward again and Twilight said
"But you said she broke his wings. How come they seem fully intact?"
"They...uhm...are not. He still has a lot of pain." Ticks leaned over to his friend and squeazed his wings with his hooves "Right, Smokey?"
The pegasus winced and grimaced in pain.
"Yeah, very painfull pain!" forget everything about Smokey's pokerface ...Ticks' was worse "I'll better get him back to bed and let him have some rest!"
He pulled the pegasus out of the door by his tail, getting moans and grimaces from his friend.
"Pfiiiiyyy, Tfailaiff." he stuttered through a bunch of hairs in his mouth, before closing the door with his magic.

"Whats wrong with you?" the pegasus yelled at him.
The unicorn sighed and shot him a serious look.
"Dude, what if I told you, that I just traveld through time and prevented Twilight from blowing our cover?"
The redmaned airpony looked at him and laughed.
"Dude, are you serious? Did you just smack your head or something?"
Ticks frowned and said "Alright! I'll prove it to you!"
With that he disappeared and reappeared two metres left of his former position.
"How did you do that? Did you teleport? Why can you teleport? Thats so not fair!"
The blue pony shook his head and explained "I can not teleport! I just moved over here a minute ag-...in a minute and then traveld back in time."
Smokey's jaw just hit the floor and his eyes widend to the size of waggonwheels.
'So you can travel through the fourth dimension? Thats awesome!'
"And sooo not fair!!!" the pegasus said.
"Serious? You have megareflexes and can see magical auras. You slow down time and I turn it backwards. Whats not fair about it?" Ticks countered.
'He's got a point there.'
Smokey crossed his forelegs and frowned.
"Still not fair!"

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Greetings readership! It is I! Tray!

So, Ticks gets his moments too ^^
And I know I said that I will wait with uncovering the identity of Smokey's Exmare, but then I noticed that it's super duper mega gigantic uberterifficly important for the next chapter.
And for those who didn't happen to notice: Next chapter is chapter 10!
We almost reached the tenth chapter!
Still can't believe that ^^
And as it's THE TENTH CHAPTER, it will be turbo awesome and epic, with goodies like ponynapping, epic journeys, evil overlords and a brave team of ponies on their quest to save them all and restore piece in Equestria!
So it will be superlong and superawesome XD
Thats for the good news...now for one bad news...
A project like this will take me some time ^^
But fear not!
Thou patience will be honored with sheer awesomeness
As always, leave any suggestions, critics or comments down below...if thats okay for you, that is...
And stay tuned for the next chapter.

Tray out

Chapter 10 Teaser

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Tray here!

I wanted to thank you all for sticking with me and for all the patience, with which you are waiting for the next chapter. I'm still writing on it but I'm optimistic that it will be done soon... at least I hope so.

Anyway, since you all are such a great audience and we just hit the 3500 clicks... I proudly present to you the first teaser for the latest installment of Life as a Pony!

Chapter 10: Betatesting is Magic (Just the productiontitle)

By Tray Hunter
Editing by Doctor Brony

"Are you done yet?" Ticks asked the still frowning pegasus, sitting on the ground before him. "You have been sitting there for the last 10 minutes!"

‘Give him another minute. If he isn't out of it then, I'll reactivate some of my old shaking functions!'

"I don’t think giving the guy a seizure is the best move to make. Smokey! Just snap out of it!" He was short of losing his patience.

Suddenly the red-maned pony's eyelids started to twitch and his wings flapped unwillingly.

'Haha! Take that, you big child!'

The wings accelerated and the pegasus took off. At least for a second, as B suddenly ceased the motion, causing a certain pony's face to meet the ground. "Ouch!”

“Was that really necessary? I mean, MORE brain damage isn’t what we’re looking for here. I’d hate to see what you’re like with a concussion. You could have just given him shiver or a shudder or something like that."

'Could have, but this way’s way more fun. It hurts, but it was totally worth it!'

The pegasus got up, holding his head with a hoof. His eyes spun around in their sockets.

"Dude, are you alright?" Ticks cantered over to his friend.

"Shiny star is shiny and goooood!" Smokey stumbled around, trying to maintain his balance. "I can see fooorrreeeeeeeveeeer!"

The unicorn sighed and guided his temporarily mentally damaged friend into the library. "Ehh...Twilight? We have a prob-"

Suddenly ponies jumped out of every corner of the library, shouting "Surprise!!!"

Ticks looked at his friend, getting a sheepish smile and another "Surprise!" from him.

"Wait! You two planned this, just to get me back into the library? Did you really have to face-plant for this?"

"It had to be authentic!"

'Eeeyup!’

The blue pony frowned. He was going to say something but was suddenly dragged away by a pink hoof. After Pinkie had introduced Ticks to everypony (and slipped some hot sauce into his drink) she dashed off and disappeared in the masses of dancing ponies.

"Yeah! These ponies really know how to party."

Suddenly something caught his attention. Actually it was somepony.

...or better yet somebush.

"Psst! Dude! Get over here!" Smokey whispered from his hiding place, which was actually just one of Twilight’s plants. "You’ve gotta hurry! Before she sees you!"

The unicorn rolled his eyes and cantered over to the talking and shivering flora. "Smokey! What are you doing?"

His face lurked out of the leaves and he said "I'm hiding from her!" he pointed at a pink unicorn mare with an unusually colorful mane and tail.

Ticks eyes widened "Isn't that her? I mean...you-know-who?!"

'Exactly! And somepony is still afraid of meeting her.'

The plant turned over to the concerned unicorn. "You have to cover me! I'll try to jump into the kitchen and hide inside the fridge!"

"Dude, are you serious? You think a walking pegasus is catching more attention than a jumping bush?"

'Mmh, never thought about it that way...'

Smokey slowly got out of his cover and looked around. His expression suddenly turned to a shocked grimace. The pegasus turned around and looked directly into the violet eyes of a certain mare.

"You?" they spoke in unison, staring at each other.

* * * * *

After what seemed like an eternity, Ticks spoke up, breaking the silence with sillyness. "Oh, you must be Starberry Burst! Nice to meet you! Smokey has told me soooo much about you!" he took her hoof and shacked it as hard and fast he could.

"L-l-let g-g-gooo!" she stuttered while trying to free from the unwilling vibration. She galloped away and out of the door, when the unicorn released her from his ‘Surprise Hoof Shake’ (Patent Pending).

"Thanks brony!" Smokey said in relief, holding a hoof in his friends direction.

"Eh, no problem, dude." they brohoofed and laughed at their overcoming of the pegasus' evil ex-lover.

The rest of the night included dancing, more laughing and something Pinkie called a “Surprise Cocktail.” This beverage mostly contains the spare sips of every glass nearby and, you guessed it, hot sauce.

"Dude, can you lend me some bits?"

Smokey looked at the blonde unicorn as if he just asked him for a second horn. "Why do you need money? The drinks are free!"

‘And I worked hard for my money!’

Ticks smiled and answered "Trust me! I have a plan!"

“Fine. But I want my money back, ok? I don’t exactly have a ‘ready source of income.’” Smokey said as he slipped out a small hoof-full of bits and tossed them to Ticks.

‘But tha-’

“Ah-ah. What have we been talking about?”

‘... Sharing is caring.’

“Exactly!”

Ticks just smiled, and with that he left for a nearby table, three borrowed bits between his teeth.

"Gentlecolts, may I join your party?"

After half an hour, the other ponies left the table and left our time-reversing hero alone with his 100 bits. "I guess Blackjack is just my game!"

You’ve probably figured out that he couldn't possibly fail at this game. Every time he would make a mistake or get the wrong cards, he would simply travel back a few seconds and try again. On the other hoof, this technique means a lot of patience and concentration. Not only that, but the spell is exhausting over time and these ‘30 minutes’ took him about two hours.

Meanwhile, Smokey won a speed drinking contest. Usually he wouldn't have to use his magic sensor to win this, but B talked him into it. Basically because it would make navigating to the glasses (without throwing some of them over) way easier. Unfortunately, he forgot to alter his talking speed, so nopony understood him when he asked for the next round.

At about 3 a.m. the ponies started to leave, and so our completely drunk protagonists decided to call it a night as well.

"Bye Pinks!" the pegasus yelled at the partymare "Sweet party *yawn* and stuff!"

Ticks tried to maintain his balance as he cantered towards the door. "Yeah! We should do this again soon!"

"Huh? You're leaving already?" Pinkie sighed "Alright, good night, you two! Or is it good day? ...good time?"

Suddenly she started to shiver a bit, her ears fluffed, her eyes twittered and her knees twitched. The door to the library swung open and something small rolled in, followed by a loud bang and smoke filled the room, blinding and confusing the ponies.

"Whats going on now?" Smokey asked, concentrating the smoke in a corner of the library.

Suddenly a hoof hit him in the head, knocking him out.

"Hey what are you doing, you mean Meanie McMeanpants?" Pinkie Pie yelled at the intruders. Her anger was met by a small dart, sticking in her shoulder.

The pink earthpony was fast asleep within seconds.

"Target condemned! Begin Witnesses Protocol Alpha?" one of the intruders asked through his gasmask.

Another simply shook his head and said "Negative! Begin evac!" With that the first intruder pointed his hoof at the unconscious pegasus and shot a net at him.

They took him and were away, as fast as they arrived.

Will they be able to rescue Smokie? Will there be any more encounters with Starberry Burst? Will there ever be a "Life as a Pony"-liveaction movie? Who will star Ticks? Will Morgan Freeman narate B?

Some of this in the actual chapter

In the meantime: Get to know another pony with a seemingly similiar fate.

Lore Venture

He loves sunshine, flowers and dusty old tombs in the middle of the Everfree with traps that go SWING and STOMP.

And if you ask yourselves why I mentioned him, let me tell you that sometimes the paths we take lead to a crossroad. *EPIC VOICE OFF*

Chapter 10: X for Extreme Pt.1

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Chapter 10: X for Extreme Pt. 1

by Tray Hunter
Editing by DoctorBrony

"Are you done yet?" Ticks asked the still frowning pegasus, sitting on the ground before him. "You have been sitting there for the last 10 minutes!"

‘Give him another minute. If he isn't out of it then, I'll reactivate some of my old shaking functions!'

"I don’t think giving the guy a seizure is the best move to make. Smokey! Just snap out of it!" He was short of losing his patience.

Suddenly the red-maned pony's eyelids started to twitch and his wings flapped unwillingly.

'Haha! Take that, you big child!'

The wings accelerated and the pegasus took off. At least for a second, as B suddenly ceased the motion, causing a certain pony's face to meet the ground. "Ouch!”

'Could have, but this way’s way more fun. It hurts, but it was totally worth it!'

The pegasus got up, holding his head with a hoof. His eyes spun around in their sockets.

"Dude, are you alright?" Ticks cantered over to his friend.

"Shiny star is shiny and goooood!" Smokey stumbled around, trying to maintain his balance. "I can see fooorrreeeeeeeveeeer!"

The unicorn sighed and guided his temporarily mentally damaged friend into the library. "Ehh...Twilight? We have a prob-"

Suddenly ponies jumped out of every corner of the library, shouting "Surprise!!!"

Ticks looked at his friend, getting a sheepish smile and another "Surprise!" from him.

"Wait! You two planned this, just to get me back into the library? Did you really have to face-plant for this?"

"It had to be authentic!"

'Eeeyup!’

****

"Yeah! These ponies really know how to party."

Suddenly something caught his attention. Actually it was somepony.

...or better yet somebush.

"Psst! Dude! Get over here!" Smokey whispered from his hiding place, which was actually just one of Twilight’s plants. "You’ve gotta hurry! Before she sees you!"

The unicorn rolled his eyes and cantered over to the talking and shivering flora. "Smokey! What are you doing?"

His face lurked out of the leaves and he said "I'm hiding from her!" he pointed at a pink unicorn mare with an unusually colorful mane and tail.

Ticks eyes widened "Isn't that her? I mean...you-know-who?!"

'Exactly! And somepony is still afraid of meeting her.'

The plant turned over to the concerned unicorn. "You have to cover me! I'll try to jump into the kitchen and hide inside the fridge!"

"Dude, are you serious? You think a walking pegasus is catching more attention than a jumping bush?"

'Mmh, never thought about it that way...'

Smokey slowly got out of his cover and looked around. His expression suddenly turned to a shocked grimace. The pegasus turned around and looked directly into the violet eyes of a certain mare.

"You?" they spoke in unison, staring at each other.

*****

"Thanks brony!" Smokey said in relief, holding a hoof in his friends direction.

"Eh, no problem, dude." they brohoofed and laughed at their overcoming of the pegasus' evil ex-lover.

"Dude, can you lend me some bits?"

Smokey looked at the blonde unicorn as if he just asked him for a second horn. "Why do you need money? The drinks are free!"

‘And I worked hard for my money!’

Ticks smiled and answered "Trust me! I have a plan!"

“Fine. But I want my money back, ok? I don’t exactly have a ‘ready source of income.’” Smokey said as he slipped out a small hoof-full of bits and tossed them to Ticks.

‘But tha-’

“Ah-ah. What have we been talking about?”

‘... Sharing is caring.’

“Exactly!”

Ticks just smiled, and with that he left for a nearby table, three borrowed bits between his teeth.

"Gentlecolts, may I join your party?"

*****

After half an hour, the other ponies left the table and left our time-reversing hero alone with his 100 bits. "I guess Blackjack is just my game!"

At about 3 a.m. the ponies started to leave, and so our completely drunk protagonists decided to call it a night as well.

"Bye Pinks!" the pegasus yelled at the partymare "Sweet party *yawn* and stuff!"

Ticks tried to maintain his balance as he cantered towards the door. "Yeah! We should do this again soon!"

"Huh? You're leaving already?" Pinkie sighed "Alright, good night, you two! Or is it good day? ...good time?"

"Whats going on now?" Smokey asked, concentrating the smoke in a corner of the library.

Suddenly a hoof hit him in the head, knocking him out.

"Hey what are you doing, you mean Meanie McMeanpants?" Pinkie Pie yelled at the intruders. Her anger was met by a small dart, sticking in her shoulder.

The pink earthpony was fast asleep within seconds.

"Target condemned! Begin Witnesses Protocol Alpha?" one of the intruders asked through his gasmask.

Another simply shook his head and said "Negative! Begin evac!" With that the first intruder pointed his hoof at the unconscious pegasus and shot a net at him.

They took him and were away, as fast as they arrived.

One hour later

Pinkie Pie opened her eyes and looked in the eyes of the pony right before her.

"Uh, Pinkie! What happened last night? And what was in this cocktails you gave me?" Twilight asked, trying to keep movement and volume to a minimum.

"Oh, hey Twilight. I just had the strangest drea-" she got up and suddenly noticed the small dart lying next to her.

She gasped and grabbed the hungover unicorn "Twilight! Where is Smokey!? I saw how they took him away and they hit him down and then they ran off just like WHOOOSH!" She looked at the dart and thought for a second. "Ok, I didn't see it because I was out. But that’s just what the authors wrote. See! Look up! It’s right there!" Pinkie yelled with a hoof pointed directly above her.

The purple unicorn gave Pinkie a puzzled look, then decided it was best not to ask. She then shook her head and whispered "Could you please lower the volume a bit?" she sighed "What do you mean with ‘they took him’? I think Ticks just brought him home."

Suddenly the concerned partymare dashed to the still open door and looked at it. On the outside of it were two hoofprints. "You see? They just bucked in the door! Just like that!" She reared up and kicked against the wood when suddenly a muffled wince came from behind it.

"Oiu, zat is most peculiar." she kicked again, getting the same sound from it. Pinkie looked at the door and noticed something blue sticking out of the wood. When she closed the door she saw why.

Ticks somehow managed not only to get stuck behind the door, also to get stuck IN it.

"Please!" he rasped. “No more kicking!"

Meanwhile, Twilight managed to canter over to the entrance, moaning with each movement. "What did you do to my door?!" She moaned while trying to look angry, but found it less painful not to move her face.

"Could you please get me down?"

Together the two managed to pry free the unicorn from his entrapment and as he clopped some pieces of wood out of his mane, he tried to explain. "I remember how we were about to leave, but then something hard hit me. Next thing I know is that another hard thing is hitting me!" He humpfed at the pink earthpony.

“Then it's true! They captured Smokey and are making him tell them my special cupcake recipe! Good thing he doesn't know my special cupcake recipe. Nopony must know my special cupcake recipe..."

Ticks' eyes widened "They what Smokey? Oh I get it! Okay! Where is the camera?! This gotta be some kind of prank!" he looked at the unicorn mare, just getting an exhausted head-shaking from her.

"Although I couldn't make sense of anything Pinkie just threw at me...she seems serious about it.”

“Maybe we should panic or something.”

“I don't know if that's the correct reaction because I can't think with all these roaring manticores in my head!" And with that she slunked over to the kitchen, murmuring something about making coffee.

The blue unicorn started to become more and more uncomfortable with the thought of his best friend being ponynapped. "We gotta do something, Pinkie! Is there something like a police office around? Anypony who can help us? The Navy? Somepony who knows what do to? Anypony?” Ticks then went to his last resort. The fallback that had helped him out of all of his past situations.

“I need an adult!"

The partymare shot him a serious look and answered in a gruff monotone voice, "The police can't help us now! We have to call for support!" She pulled a small device out of her mane and slammed it on the ground.

A small vortex appeared in front of them and Pinkie jumped into it, leaving a confused unicorn with a dropped jaw behind. "Uh...Pinkie?" He took a closer look at the strange blue shimmering portal on the ground when suddenly a pink head and hoof stuck out of it.

"Come wit’ me if you vant to live!" With that she grabbed the blue pony and dragged him through the small wormhole.

*****

Suddenly, the duo of ponies were suddenly... well somewhere definitely NOT in Ponyville. "Where are we?" Ticks asked as he looked around. The only thing he saw was a giant metal door with some kind of terminal next to it.

"Duh! This is obviously the headquarters!" She responded while she cantered other to the terminal.

A feminine computerized voice said "Please verify identity." Pinkie smiled at the screen and licked it.

"Uh, Pinks?" the unicorn shivered a bit. "Do you know how much germs are on an average computer screen?"

“965,329!”

Suddenly the screen went blue and the voice said "Sugar level confirmed!" Then the door started to open with some small alarm flashes and the sound of hydraulic locks

"Welcome, Agent Pie"

The room behind was crowded with ponies. Some of them running around with briefcases in their mouths, some of them just standing in front of large screens. The partymare and the (recently mindblown) unicorn trotted inside when suddenly an alarm went on and robotic arms with sparkling ends pointed at the blue pony.

"Intruder alert! Intruder alert!" the (still soft) computer voice said through some speakers, hanging from the extraordinary high ceiling.

"Oh, he's cool, Gladi!" Pinkie smiled into a small camera at the wall.

The robotic arms retreated and the alarm went off again. "Override complete! Responsibility set to Agent Pie. ERROR! Responsibility can not be given to Agent Pie, due to high class restriction! Please check in at the head office!"

The partymare swallowed and just said "Oopsie!"

Meanwhile Ticks managed to overcome his state of shock and mindblow.
"What was that? And why did it seem as if this computer doesn't trust you in the slightest? And why does that not surprise me in the least?"

The earthpony shrugged "You blow up one teeny-tiny eesny-weensy super-small nopony-will-notice-it’s-broken secret project and it's all ‘You are not legit to take any responsibility’ and then they threaten you to kick you out of the organisation and take away all your cool stuff." she sighed "We better get to see the boss."

They trotted along the hallways and got to a large wooden door. "So, this is the head office, huh?"

"Yeah, how did you know? Oh! Was it the large sign on the door that said ‘Head Office?’"

Ticks just looked at her and asked "Anything I have to know about your boss?"

She sighed and looked at the unicorn. "Better leave the talking to me and try to look like you know what I'm talking about."

He nodded and made a pokerface. Fortunately, this time it was convincing enough.

Pinkie opened the door and they went inside.

The office was huge.

On every wall were portraits of ponies. Ticks couldn't name any of them, but alone the fact that they were hanging in the office of the presumably most important pony in the whole organisation, meant they must've been pretty important.

On the other side of the room was a desk. Well, desk was an understatement. It was like a huge control center with about a half dozen of screens and an enormous map of Equestria and the surrounding countries behind it.

Suddenly the chair behind the desk/awesome-control-center-of-awesomeness turned around and a pair of teal-colored eyes stared at the two ponies out of the dark.

The figure looked at them and spoke in authority "Agent Pie!"

The pink earthpony swallowed and tried to avoid the fierce looks. "Boss..."

Her boss stood up and cantered around the table. Tick's eyes widened and were literally fixed on the appearance before him.

Suddenly his train of thought passed the part were Smokey had told him about My Little Pony. He knew this pony. And he knew why this particular pony was the leader of a secret underground society.

The clearness almost overwhelmed him when she looked at him.

Meanwhile somewhere completely different

'Dude? Are you awake?'

Smokey opened his eyes and tried to look around. Unfortunately, somepony blindfolded him while he was out. He tried to speak but they also tied his muzzle shut. Before you ask, they tied everything. Even his tail was bound to his hindlegs.

...And before you ask again, probably not. They just don’t roll like that, dig?

"Mmmhfrtr!"

'Know that feeling, bro. Could you try to get that magic sensor working?'

He shut his eyes and switched to his very own arcane scanner mode. Nothing. Smokey could hear some metallic sounds coming closer to him but he couldn't see anypony. "Report! Subject is awake. Inform the HQ!" a muffled robotic voice spoke in the blue darkness before his eyes.

'Not good! Sounds like we were ponynapped.'

The pegasus would've nodded but they even strapped a hard collar around his neck. “Mmmhhmpf!”

‘...wut?’

Smokey decided to change the dialogue to an internal thinking session.

“B? You hear me? You got any idea where we are?”

'What do you think, huh? You think I get more information when you manage to get yourself beaten down? Or maybe that all the alcohol you drank last night is helping me to become more perceptive?'

Smokey mentally sighed.

'I heard that.’

“Alright, fact-check. We are hogtied, blindfolded and are held captive by something that isn't living in a traditional way.”

'Plus they seem to be organized way better than expected! They have a headquarters after all. Why don’t WE get a headquarters?'

“...You’re a piece of meat in my head. That IS your headquarters.”

‘So? Sometimes it’s just good to roll for style points.’

“Wait! I think I hear something.”

A door opened with a mechanic slide and more metallic hooves trotted inside. If you haven’t noticed, these guys REALLY like metal.

A whole chorus of robotic voices yelled in perfect unison. "Sir!"

Then another pair of hooves stepped into the room. But this one was different. Instead of the blue nothing from before, the magic sensor showed a flickering black aura which grew in size as the equine stepped towards the hostage.

'I'm not sure but I guess that’s the lead horse.'

“Was it his scary black magic or the robotic army that serves him that tipped you off?”

"Take off his blindfold! He shall see his new master!"

‘Oh great, one of THESE guys. Urgh, cliches.’

A cold metallic hoof pulled the piece of cloth from the pegasus' head. After a few seconds his eyes adapted to the light.

He was in a small cubic room made of some strange metal, and right before him, a fierce looking black pony with a silver mane.

Smokey would have been worried if he wasn't just a few heads taller than Applebloom.

The only thing impressive about his appearance was the over-sized unicorn horn on his forehead that shimmered like some kind of emerald. Suddenly the pony spoke up in an unexpected deep and ruler-ish voice. "Bow before me, puny pony! For it is I, Lord Greenhorn!"

‘Pfft. More like... um... I got nothin’. Gimme a few minutes, I’ll think of something.’

"Mmmmfgmmh?"

He sighed and cut the rope around the brown-coated pony's muzzle with his horn.

"Thanks," Smokey sighed, looking at the miniature overlord "First: How am I supposed to bow while hogtied?" He took a deep breath "And second: *ahem* Hahahaha! Greenhorn! Hahahaha!"

The black pony seemed very unamused by the laughter of his newest captive.

"Look at you! You're so cute, I'm getting diabetes from the sweetness!" he laughed on and on.

Suddenly Greenhorn’s eyes began to glow.

‘Maybe you should have referred to rule number one: Don't laugh at the guy with the robot army and the supernatural aura!'

"Who, might I add, is so small he would be bullied by everypony in magic kindergarten? Anyways, you were trying to do the same thing. And failing miserably, should I say."

‘Shut up! I would've come up with something. You walking hornboner! Ha, there you got it!’

“Weak.”

Greenhorn's black aura was visible without the magic sensor now. Smokey gulped, "Not good!"

Meanwhile, at the Pentago- ...Headquarters

"You’re Luna!" Ticks practically shouted, not being able to believe his eyes.

The princess of the night was right before him, frowning at Pinkie Pie. "And you are?" she deadpanned, seeming quite unimpressed by the fact that the exhuman just recognized her.

"That’s Ticks. His friend was ponynapped by the evil guys and I thought I could get some help for him."

She looked at him with a surprised expression. "You are that pony with the time powers! Subject #71M3!"

"Subject what now? And why do you know about my special talent?"

Pinkie shot him a face that somehow contained both seriousness and silliness at the same time and countered "Well, duh! She's the princess and head of a giant organisation with files about everypony that ever placed a hoof into Equestria!"

Luna sighed and said "You know that I don't like to be called princess, Agent Pie."

The partymare smiled sheepishly and looked around whistling a tune that could be described as ‘simply catchy.’

"Anyway, yes, I am Luna. Head of FOALHOUND and, in my free-time, co-ruler of Equestria."

The unicorn shot her a confused look. "Yeah, that pretty much beats out my hobbies. But wait, you seem so young and cute."

Luna blushed a bit and countered "What? Did you expect me to be an old mare, who speaks like somepony from the fourth century?"

Suddenly the pink earthpony yelled "Nonononono! He didn't mean it! He's just some silly-willy filly that still has some dificulties to adapt to our culture."

"Eh, what Pinks said!"

The princess of the night laughed and trotted over to her desk, turning one of the monitors towards them.

Suddenly she serioused the f*#% up. Seriously, if you had any idea how serious she was, you’d wipe that smirk off your face.

"The situation is fierce! Reports show that at least 40 more ponies were captured by the enemy! And that’s only the cases of today!"

Ticks' eyes widened "You mean there really is somepony ponynapping everypony he can get?" Gah! So much pony!

"Not everypony. Just the ones classified as ‘OC.’"

"Uh...OC? Like in..."

Luna sighed and the screen switched to a list of ponies. "OC like in Outerdimensional Creatures. Everypony that wasn't born as a pony. That includes humans turned into ponies, as well as ponies that were created by humans or are based on any human being."

"You humans are soooo creative! All kinds of ponies are coming through this funny wall thing." Pinkie threw in.

The unicorn shot The Princess a serious look.

"So who are these bad guys? And how do we kick their flanks?"

The screen switched again and displayed a picture of some robotic ponies and a small filly. "The enemy is a unicorn called Greenhorn, supported by his army of mechanic enquines, which we simply call ‘Irons’."

Ticks took a closer look at the monitor. These Irons were about two heads taller than he was. Complex weapon systems were explained in the file and seemed to be integrated in the forelegs of the artificial warhoreses.

"So...this filly is the daughter of Greenhorn or something?"

Luna looked at the blue pony, not believing that anypony would presume something like this. "No...thats him!"

"Serious? I have seen dogs that were bigger than this dwarf!"

The pink earthpony cantered over to the screen, pointing a hoof at the picture and an eye on the blonde unicorn. "He may not look like but this pony is evil! And kinda cute... but foremost evil and powerful!"

Meanwhile in a way more dangerous situation

Greenhorn's green horn started to glow in a diabolic...no, not green...black. "I will show you what you get for mocking me!"

Suddenly an enormous pain stroke through the pegasus' body. His eyes watered and every muscle contracted.

'I'll try to get get help! Hang in there.'

"B! Painkillers! Or at least a coma!"

'Wait, I'll try to reach Ticks.'

Another wave of pain flew through his head, as his unwilling movements jerked him at the contraption he was hanging from.

"B!!!"

The unicorn laughed "Yes! Scream! Scream for your master!"

Smokey took every last gut he had and turned towards the miniature-overlord. "Could you please shut the f*%# up! I'm trying to have a conversation right now!"

'Ticks! If you hear this...HELP!!!'

"Are you done yet!? Could you please get me some goddamn painkillers!?"

'I have something better in mind!'

Smokey's energy floated through his body and soon covered the ropes that were holding him.

'Let's beat some sense into this lunatic!'

"Hey Greenhorn!"

The small pony looked at him in confusion. No pony had ever had the willpower to speak so calm while being tortured with this spell.

"What do you want you filthy mule?"

Smokes smiled widely. "My turn!"

He literally ripped the ropes in pieces and landed right before Greenhorn, ready to strike. As if he had waited for something like this, the unicorn disappeared before the pegasus' eyes, leaving him alone with five of his mechanical guards.

'Looks like the mice are leaving the sinking ship.'

"Doesn't matter...he took the pain with him and left me something for my warmup."

The room wasn't big enough for them to act all at once so one of them stepped up while the others guarded the corners of the holding cell.

Same time different place

"Hey! I ordered SIX donuts!"

Same time, yet another place

Ticks tried hardly to imagine how a pony of this size could do harm to anypony.

'Ticks! If you hear this...HELP!!!'

"Huh? B? Where are you?"

He looked around but the only ponies around were Luna and Pinkie Pie.
"Who’s B?" the alicorn asked.

"Smokey's brain! I can hear it...him in my head since an incident with Lyra."

Pinkie giggled "You can hear brains talking? That sounds like fun. Oh, what is mine saying?"

The unicorn shot her a serious look.

"Pinks...I can't hear YOUR brain. But if I had to guess, I'd say...Cupcakes."

The earthpony looked over to Luna and said "Oh, he's good!"

Luna simply rolled her eyes and turned back to Ticks.

"So you have an open line right behind the front lines? That is a great tactical advantage! What information did this B give you an-"

"First: It's a one-way line, as long as Smokey can't hear me. Second: His exact words were along the lines of *ahem* ‘HELP!’" He looked around, a grim expression on his face. "We have to hurry! Tell me where this bad guy is and how I can get there! I'll handle the rest!"

Pinkie's jaw dropped and Luna simply shook her head. "No offense but...you wouldn't even make it there if you were on your own."

The unicorn looked at the screen, still showing the blueprints of the Irons, and realized how right she was. "But I can't just let him hang! There have to be some way!"

The princess of the night cantered over to her control center, lowering her head towards a microphone on the table.

"Get the H.O.R.S.E. Team ready!"

Now for something completely different

The room was dark.

Suddenly five portals sprung to life and irradiated their surroundings. Four ponies stepped out of the portals short before they closed again.

"Looks like Sound is late again." one of them said.

"Typical. I guess she has trouble getting her equipment together." another one answered in a sarcastic tone.

"Alright! Horses, get your gear! We are to meet the boss in the main hall, A.S.A.P!" the first one ordered.

The other three simply neighed, like some kind of battlecry.

The Main Hall

Ticks, Luna and Pinkie made their way along large monitors and the busy ponies before them.

"The reports of captured ponies is rising each minute!" the alicorn stated. More and more names and pictures appeared on the screens.

"So what about that team you mentioned earlier? You think they can help me get Smokey and the others back?" Ticks asked.

"Of course they can! They are the H.O.R.S.E. after all!" the pink earthpony countered.

"So what? I am a horse, you are a horse, and I'm not sure but I guess even Luna here counts as a horse!" he looked at the frowning goddess and gave a sheepish smile "No offence, Miss."

She sighed and answered "H.O.R.S.E. means Heroic Operations and Rescueactions by Specialized Equines! They are the best of the best and all hoofchosen by myself. Some of them were even too tough for the marerines."

Ticks swallowed. He didn't know anything about these marerines but if anypony was too tough for anything, it meant that they must have been pretty badflank.

Suddenly Luna stopped right in the middle of a free area in the hall. "Here we are. Time for you to get to know the team."

A trap door in the ground opened right before them and a small platform with four ponies in black bodysuits came out of it.

Their leader stepped up and saluted to Luna. "Captain Burst reporting, H.O.R.S.E.-Team ready to kick plots!"

"What happened to Specialist Sound?" she asked.

"Boss, She is late, Boss! I will discipline her as soon as she arrives!"

The alicorn sighed and said "Well, while you wait, you can get familiar with each other. This is Ticks. He will assist you in this mission. He has a special one-way comlink into enemy territory and a strong will. You will get your briefing the usual way. "

She turned over to Pinkie Pie "Agent Pie, you will get the new one equipped. And don't tinker with the level 5 gear again!" The alicorn then left saying something about lowering the moon.

Ticks looked at the leader of the team and his eyes widened. You are Starberry Burst!“

She turned towards him and answered “Yes, and you are the pony that almost broke my shoulder.“ she sighed “Mind if I ask why, of all ponies in the whole world, the boss picked you for this mission?“

“Pinkie brought me here after Smokey had been captured. But I don´t think you’d care about that.” the blonde unicorn said in a mocking tone.

“It´s not like I don´t like him, but I could have never told him about all this. I knew he was a human, but if I just believed him he would’ve been in more trouble than one pony could handle.”

The unicornized human shot her an unbelieving look “More trouble than the one he is in now? Are you kidding me?“

She turned around to the other team members.

“I´ll explain later. Now for the team. Horses! Introduce yourself to the gentlecolt!“

The first one stepped up and went over to Ticks "I'm Specialist Colgate but you will call me by my codename, rookie! That’s Safe to you!"

"So what’s this safe codename?" he looked at her, a surprised expression on his face.

She facehoofed "The codename is Safe! S A F E! I pick locks and hack every system you could possibly imagine in the blink of an eye."

The second horse started her way over to the the two blue unicorns.

"I'm Berry Punch but you can just call me...oh" she turned over to Burst "Captain, I forgot my codename again."

"It's Demo, Punch!"

"Oh right, call me Demo. I blow up stuff, you know."

The last member of the team just remained on the platform and looked around. She literally observed everypony in the room from at least two angles at once. Ticks went over to her and looked at her, getting several multiangled looks from the blonde pegasus.

"Let me guess, you are Ditzy Doo." she smiled and nodded "So, you don't talk too much, do you?"

Ditzy shook her head and hooved him a note, reading "I once had a poison joke muffin and thought my tongue was a muffin as well." The unicorn gasped and stared at her in shock.

Suddenly the horse/mailmare stuck out her tongue and said "Just kidding you! You should see the look on your face." he sighed in relief, as suddenly a deafening tone struck his ears, followed by some heartstopping vibrations.

"Oh, look who finally made it to the party" Colgate threw in as the music dropped to a reasonable volume. Ticks turned around and saw another pony in black bodysuit. The mare looked at him through some blue shades that perfectly matched the colour of her mane. "Hey dude. I'm Vinyl Scratch but you can call me Sound or Pon-3. Or Princess Awesome. Or whatever fits the situation."

"Why did you have to blow my ears like that? They are still ringing!"

She smiled "Because it's tradition to use THIS MUCH VOLUME WHEN INTRODUCING YOURSELF TO A NEW AUDIENCE!"

*Insert Semi-Comidic Transition Here*

So, Smokey defeated the Irons and... What? You wanna know what happened? Oh, no, it was really boring... Fine, I'll tell you how he did it.

The same place but a bit earlier

'Ok, we're outnumbered, these things are overpowered and don't feel pain and... did I mention that we are outnumbered by something that can't feel pain?'

"Just get the painkillers and the sensor ready. Leave the rest to me!"

'Alright, now we are officially doomed. You can't see them when you are in sensor mode!'

"Okay, then I'll get the energy to my muscles and just hit them as hard as I can."

'What if they have lasers or explode once they get angry! We don't even know if they can get angry either!'

Smokey sighed and yelled at the Iron before him "Hey Bucket! What is love?"

The robotic voice answered "Incorrect input! Obey Lord Greenhorn or be exterminated!"

"Aw man, that sounds like a lot of fun but..." the pegasus reared up and shouted "...I don't obey to nopony! Come and get me!"

The eyes of the robot turned red and several small blades and rotating saws came out of his forelegs. "Thank you for choosing the Greencorps Cyberguard 3000K+ Deluxe as your death of choice. Prepare to be mutilated after the beeptone. And have a wonderfull death."

'Good, at least now we know that they can become angry. Any ideas?'

"Ideas? You are the brain!"

'Oh, look who doesn't think of me as piece of meat anymore. Say you’re sorry and I might tell you how to get them down.'

"Alright, sorry!” Smokey said to his forehead.

‘There, was that so hard? Gimme a minute and I’ll think of something. In the meantime, executing Plan 74-A! Awesome fight music!’

“Oh no...”

Somewhere in the back of Smokey’s mind, he heard a dull roar. The roar suddenly grew louder and louder. Then, there was a record skip (you know what sound I’m talking about) and it was quiet again.

‘Crap! I knew I shoulda gotten the extended warranty on this thing!’

“Oh thank go-”

‘Plan 74-B! Improvisation!’

“No!”

Suddenly, another sound grew in Smokey’s head. Not the sound of the awesome promised fighting music, but it almost sounded as if B was... humming? Not only was the humming completely off tune, but it got even worse... he started to sing.

‘We’re no strangers to loooove. You know the rules, and so do I. A full commitments what I’m thinking ooof. You wouldn’t get this from any other guy!’

“Well, better than nothing.” Smokey said as he finally removed the hard collar from his neck before he threw it at the Iron "Take this, you mutated toaster!" The cast didn't even touch the ground before it was ripped into pieces by the soaring blades of the mechanic warhorse.

Suddenly something hard hit his head. Smokey used the half second the robot took to cut medical articles to dash beside him. Unfortunately the faces of these metal equines are a lot harder than an average hoof.

"Oh, fuuuuu*%#! Why didn't you warn me B?"

'We’ve known each other, for so lo- Wait, don't tell me you haven't noticed these things are made of metal! Sometimes I really wonder how you survived elementary school without chocking on a pencil.’

“For the last time! It was a crayon! They’re DIFFERENT! They shouldn’t name the colors after foods if they don’t want kids to choke on them. I mean really, ‘Mac and Cheese’ is not a color!”

The pegasus jumped back holding his hurting hoof closer to the Iron in the corner than it would have been safe. The cyberguard's blades sprung to life and struck a rivet on his wristband, nanoseconds before he could retract his foreleg. Meanwhile the Iron in the middle had turned towards the pegasus, pure rage on his expressionless face. (It was more of an inner kind of rage...like when you get a stupid present for Christmas. You want to explode, but can't just yell at your relatives.)

“B! I have an idea! Maneuver Sierra when I say so!”

‘Never gonna give, never gonna give-'

“B!!!”

‘FINE! Ruin my fun why don’t you! But you owe me. Big.’

The robot jumped towards the redmaned pony, his blades pointed at his target.

Smokey dodged the incoming multi-tool, an eyeblink before his strike could hit him. One of the saws cut the pegasus' tail a few inches shorter. With a loud crash, the Iron hit the wall, smashing his head flat. His weapons struck the cyberguard next to him, cutting some of his hydraulics. They both collapsed on the floor, some of the oil dripping from their cuts. Good thing these things technically never lived! Otherwise this would be rated grimdark.

"So thats it?"

'Eyup.'

"We just get them to destroy each other?"

'Just like that. But now we should figure out how to trick the others into this.'

The other three Irons trotted towards the pegasus, their weapons out and working. They surounded him and left him no way to escape an early death. Well almost no way. When they leaped towards the blackwinged pony, he simply took off and the robots crushed into each other, reducing themselves into scrapmetal with their saws.

"That was easy."

Smokey left for the door when suddenly a strange sound behind him made him stop in his tracks.

Meanwhile at the secret FOALHOUND-Lab for Secret Weapon and Protection Systems (the one next to the secret FOALHOUND-Cantine)

"So, what do I get? Some guns? A jetpack? A stealthsuit?" Ticks asked as Pinkie led him through the security lock.

"You'll get whatever your special talent requires." she smiled.

Suddenly a number of small arms came out of the ceiling and covered the unicorn in a strange transparent liquid. The next second the fluid hardend and changed its color to black. Before he even knew it, he wore a bodysuit similar to the ones the horses were wearing. All of a sudden, a voice in his head said "Texture building complete! Begin neural adaption!" Lights flashed before his eyes and all kind of displays showed up before him. His body shivered, as a small string made its way from the neck of his new suit, through his mane before it connected to the base of his horn.

'Neural adaption complete! Vital signs green! Brain activities green! Magic enhancers loading!'

"Pinkie, what in the whole wide world of where ever we are have you just done to me? And what is this voice in my head?"

'Welcome, Agent Ticks. This is the FOALHOUND Genetic Operation and Nanorepairs system ver. 6.7.4 D1. All systems up and functional. Please close your eyes while the heads-up-display is being generated.'

Not believing his ears (and unsure if this voice even spoke through his ears at all) he closed his eyes. Several displays sprung to life before him, including complex looking instruments that seemed as if they were taken from some sort of video game. A small window appeared at the top right corner of his field of vision, showing a map of the room. Another bar on the lower left filled up and glew in a bright green. Above that bar was now a small clock of the same shape and color as his cutiemark.

'Initial setup complete. You may open your eyes again.'

As he looked at Pinkie Pie, a small window appeared next to her face, showing basic information like name, height and weight. After a short while a 3D model of the partymare rotated on the screen, showing potential weakspots and some more information the unicorn couldn't make any sense of.

"These were just some teeny-weeny nanoboties. I guess you remember Gladi. She is soooo cool and very helpful when you don't remember where you put that new bag of invisible bags or the report the boss wanted to have before sundown or just wanna play hangpony. She isn't as good as she thinks but she knows some awesoooome cake recipes!"

'For your information...I usually let her win. And my cake is said to be good, although I never tasted it. But if we make it through this tes- I mean mission in one piece, maybe you will get to try it yourself.'

"Somehow this seems familiar. Gladi, you don't happen to know anything about the portal that brought me here?"

'The Lunatech Portal Device is under copyright of Lunatech Industries and may only be discussed with afiliates of the company or their corporates.'

Ticks rolled his eyes "Great, more secrets and crazy voices in my head!" he sighed "At least there will be cake."

Pinkie led him over to a table with some equipment. As he looked over it, his mood fell instantly. Of every cool thing he could have gotten, he would get a box of matches and some bubblegum.

"Pinks? Please tell me that the gums are in fact explosives and that the matches are the detonator."

The HUD finished analyzing the items and rated their usefulness as ‘Too Low to Worry About Carrying Them’ (which was right below ‘A Nice Gift’ and above ‘Why Are You Scanning a Trashcan?’).

"Well, the matches are for the candles on the cake, once you come back and..." the partymare leaned over to the blue unicorn and whispered "The gums are for your breath!"

'Stench level confirmed! You should take these with you.'

"As if B wasn't enough... Alright...Pinkie, am I good to go or are there any secret uberweapons you could lend me?" he looked around and noticed a big canister in one corner of the room. As he trotted towards it, he realised what was floating inside of it.

"Is this..." he gulped "a brain?" Pinkie cantered over to him and answered "Yeah, that’s Brain. He has been here since that terrible accident at the Canterlot Institute for Magic. Sometimes I wish I could talk to him. He always looks so grumpy." Unlike Smokey, Lyra or Ticks, the pink earthpony couldn't talk to brains and so..."Hey, author! Can you please make so I can? Please please pleeeeaaaseee."

Uhm, so, Pinkie couldn't hear the brai-

"Oh come on! Almost everypony in this story can hear brains! Why don't you just let me talk to Brain?"

Pinkie, you are an earthpony...I mean Lyra and Ticks are unicorns, so they can do magic and stuff. And Smokey hearing his own brain makes sense too...but you just can- "Please, you can't see, because you aren't writing what I'm doing but I'm doing my best puppyface right now! So please let me talk to Brain!"

Uh, fine! So, Pinkie Pie suddenly could hear the brain in the tank, for no reason. Ticks meanwhile made his way back to the main hall, creeped out by the strange behavior of the partymare, because he DOESN'T BREAK THE FOURTH WALL LIKE SOME PONIES DO!

"Hey Brain!"

'What is it, Pinkie?'

"What are we doing tonight?"

'The same as everynight, Pinkie! We try to take ov- I mean, have a big party!'

"Oh, that sounds like fun! Narf!"

The Mainhall

"I hope I brought enough... explosives with me." Berry Punch smiled sheepishly as she checked her equipment.

Colgate just rolled her eyes, knowing exactly what her friend really meant. Scratch meanwhile downloaded some of her "Going-on-a-Suicide-Mission-Playlists" from the HQ's mainframe. Ditzy mentally went through everything she would have had to do that day.

"Oh my gosh! I hope I didn't leave the oven on!"

Burst just stood in one place, staring at the hatch leading to the portal bay. She hadn't moved a muscle since Ticks left to gather his gear and didn't intend to do so until they were ready to go.

"Agent Ticks reporting in!" the blue unicorn saluted to the team, a wide smile on his face. Vinyl looked at him and giggled "Hold it, hotshot! We have to splice you into our network first." She tapped some buttons of the mini-terminal on her left foreleg.

'Network found. Access granted. Connection to "Horses of the Apocalypse" stable. Downloading comm frequencies. External map module found. Team member status added to HUD.'

Five small icons representing the cutiemarks of the horses appeared right next to the map on Ticks' HUD.

"So, are we ready to kick some flanks?" the blonde unicorn asked into the round.

"The rookie seems pretty eager, huh?" Berry Punch said to Colgate, who just countered "I'll give him one day before he runs home to his mother."

"He will do fine. He just needs a helping hoof. I'll take care of him." with that Ditzy cantered over to Ticks and put a hoof on his shoulder "Just stay close and keep out of sight. Just like I do."

"Just like you? Ditzy, what position do you have in this mission anyway?" he asked, a befuddeled look on his face.

"Let's just say: If anypony knew I'm there, I would have done a terrible job. Maybe you should check the logs later. I'm sure Gladi can help you with this."

'Downloading mission log derpnnj4.avi. Storing for later examination. You really should concentrate on the mission now. You can't possibly fail with my help and your powers. Although if you do anything stupid, you could endanger the whole team. But don't feel stressed by that. You will do fine.'

"Great, that helps sooo much." he turned towards the grey mare and asked "So when do we-"

"Go! Horses, get your plots through the portal and start being badflank!" with that Starberry dashed through the open hatch before her, followed by the others. Ditzy dragged the unbelieving Ticks behind her as they jumped through the orange portal.

A nanosecond later, at a yet unknown location

A strange glow irradiated the place, before six ponies jumped out of the portal. Five of them immediately took position and observed their surroundings. Only the confused stallion laid on the ground, trying to figure out what just happened. His map showed a large clear area but according to the coordinates Gladi gave him, he was about 200 km away from his former position.

"Derpy! Help the rookie up! If he's lying around some more his suit might adapt to the dirt on the ground!"

"Yes, Captain Burst!" Ditzy went over to him and managed to get the mindblown unicorn back to reality.

"Come on! We have to go. Chances are they noticed us already." The expression on her face was serious. You can't imagine how serious a wall-eyed mare can look if you haven't seen her.

"Are we close to Smokey and the others already?" He got up and looked around. They were in a tropic jungle, complete with bushes, trees and strange noises around. Ya know, all that stuff that makes a jungle a real jungle.

"Close? Haha. We can be happy if we find our way from here." Vinyl laughed "We sure are in enemy territory but there’s a long way until we can be sure where exactly they are held."

'External brain pattern found. Uploading assumed location to Agent Sound.'

"Oh hey, look! The rookie is with us for five minutes and he gets us the first clue already. I'll add that to the map and start the playlist, so we can roll." she smiled at Ticks "You'll like that one! It's my personal favorite travel song."

This ‘travel song’ got kind of a bit irritating after a four hour trot through thick bushes and muddy paths. Maybe because of the lyrics, maybe because it was looping all the time. Maybe it’s because Vinyl sang along the whole time.

"Vinyl? Could you please switch to another playlist? My ears are starting to bleed!"

'They are not, but I know what you mean.'

"Another playlist? What’s it gonna be? ‘Travel Song Long-mix’, ‘Nyancat on the Loop’ or ‘The Very Best of Annoying Songs to Tease the Rookie?’"

"The very best of what? You mean you terrorized the team with this song just to troll me?"

She gasped "No way! The rest of the team had their own playlist." she smiled as trollish as she could.

"Maybe I should have known earlier by the un-pissed looks of the others." he sighed "Alright, you got me. Now, please, Princess Awesome, could you please link me into your ‘Awesome Playlist of Awesome Awesomeness’ (patent by Scratch Records)?"

"Well, since you asked nicely, I have something that just fits our situation!" she hit another button on her hoofpad.

'Playlist loading. I hope this one is better than the last one.'

"You'll like it!"

At about noon they managed to get out of the jungle. The next part of their journey included large grassland with small hills.

'Incoming call! Priority Moon!'

"Horses? This is the boss!" a small picture of Luna appeared on the HUDs and they immediately stopped in their tracks, the music dying instantly.

"Captain Burst reporting! Made our way out of the jungle and heading in aproximate direction of the target!"

"Well done, Captain. Intel states there’s a large defense post right ahead of you. You are to take it out and gather information on the enemy! Specialist Safe should be able to crack their system."

"Not like there is any system I couldn't crack, boss." Colgate said proudly.

"Also, I'd like to introduce you to your operator for this mission. He will give you all intel we have once you need them. He also will be your first in command, should you have to separate."

Suddenly another picture popped up on the interface. A white earth pony with a black mane looked up from his table and gasped "Oh my gosh! Sorry, I didn't think my part would come so soon. I'm Data Cord and your Assisting Operation Leader (AOL) for this mission. You can ask me everything about anything! From this terminal here, I have access to every intel known to pony- or mankind."

"Mankind? Like in human mankind?" Ticks look fixed on the datacon's window, as Gladi zoomed into it.

"Yeah, I have been studying everything we know about humans and kind of became their biggest fan. They are so amazing! Did you see how complex their hooves are?"

Our blonde exhuman facehoofed "You mean hands. They are called hands!"

The earth pony’s eyes widened "Wow! You know a lot about them! You don't happen to be a Broman too, do you?"

He turned over to Berry Punch, so Data Cord could see his expression, which was by the way very unamused. "Did you even read my file? Do you know what, who, and where I’m from?"

"Uh, let's see...you are Ticks...file 71M3...been here for two days... Human...time powers...unico-" his expression froze "You are a real human! This is soo awesome! We can talk about everything and you can teach me stuff and I can learn to speak like a human and-"

"But you don't get distracted by this, Operator Cord! You are to guide and help the team! Not to share top secret information with defacto civilians!" Luna yelled, her screen growing in size with each word "No offence Ticks, but there are guidelines about such things." she sighed "I have important things to handle in Canterlot. Horses, I wish you the best of luck and your enemies a quick end." With that she left and her screen disappeared.

"So...what is it like to be a human? Is it true that you banish pon- people to the moon? I once saw a picture of two humans on the moon, nothing more than a small house with them! Have you ever been there? What was it li-"

"Operator, we should REALLY get our flanks moving if we are to get that defense post down before moon dawn!" the captain said in a calm but ordering tone.

"Oh, of course. About 3 km ahead of you is a large wall with only one way beneath. You can forget about flying over it! There are turrets everywhere and a minefield behind."

"Yeah, that sounds bad...we don't have any chances! Who's in for a drink?" Demo yelled, getting a flask out of one of her pockets.

Colgate rolled her eyes "How do we get in there and how hard will it be?"

"There is one control bunker along the wall. Once you take it over, you should be able to turn off the security systems of the wall."

"Just pass me the coordinates and I will splice it into our route. I wonder if I have any good songs for blowing up a bunker..." Vinyl wondered out loud.

"Ah, don't you worry *hicks* If you don't, we can sing along!" in this short time, Punch managed to empty four flasks of, what smelled like, Coltish Whiskey.

"Alright, we are good to go! Horses, let's ride!" Starberry gallopped ahead, followed by the others.

Will the H.O.R.S.E. team manage to rescue Smokey? Will they make it in time? How will Ticks help during this mission? Will Pinkie and Brain´s party work out well?

This and even more stuff in the next part of Life as a Pony :)

Chapter 10: X for Extreme Pt. 2

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Chapter 10: X for Extreme Pt.2

A few hours before, at the door of the holdingcell

'You think what I am thinking?'

"Ponies in need of help! Mighty morphin powerhuman to the rescue!"

'Oh great, more oportunties to get ourselves killed. Could you at least try to be stealthy?'

Smokey sighed "Fine, I will need every memory about sneaking we have! Especialy those that include takedowns from behind!"

'Well, I don't think you could just snap their necks but...would you mind taking a look at the pile of scarpmetal over there?'

"Sure." the pegasus cantered over to the recently defeated irons and took a closer look at them.

"Thats nothing but garbage! They totaly destroyed each other!"

'Yeah, and with what did they destroy each other?'

"With their blades...Oh, of course!"

He detatched one of the sharp instruments from the robotic forelegs.

"And how am I suposed to wield this? It's not like I am crafty enough to build a hiddenblade or something."

'For once, you have a point there, you aren't crafty enough! Maybe we can attatch it to your hooves.'

Smokey took a look at the blade. It was alomst as long as his foreleg.

"I could strap it to one of the wristbands but how am I suposed to walk with a large metal piece sticking out of my hoof's end?"

'Maybe if you turn it around? You know, like slicing them into pieces with an elbowsmash!'

He tried so and the blade fitted just perfectly. Probably because these were designed to fit an enqine foreleg anyway.

"Great, but not enough! I will need some more stuff if I'm going to survive against these things."

With that he took another blade from the pile and strapped it to his other foreleg. Next were his wings. Although the blades were way to big to fit(eventhough that would have been totaly awesome), he managed to fixate some small pieces of metal with his rings. Thank Luna, he still had them.

'Mmh...could you take a look at the heads of these tincans? Maybe we can find out how they see.'

"Probably with cameras!?"

'Of course they use cameras! But what if they have nightvision or such a thing? Then sneaking around would be totaly useless!'

He took up one of the severed heads and examined it. The frontplate of the face was detatchable and featured a small hole that looked like for a unicornhorn. Forunatley it also had some leatherstraps to it.

Smokey straped the mask to his face and suddenly it sprung to life. A message appeared before him saying "Unit 658499 failout! Starting in offline mode!" a red tint covered his field of vision, highlighting the irons before him and some of the pieces on the floor.

"Great! We have a faceplate to protect my charming little visage and a scannervision!"

'And to hide your face from others! Not only that they would be gratefull, they maybe wouldn't recognize you.'

"You think I should try hiding under the robots?"

'Sure, why not? I was getting tired of life and existence anyway.'

"So, thats a no?"

'Sometimes... You really think, just because of some aditional pieces of metal and a mask, they will mistake you as one of them?'

He sighed and left for the door. The sounds he heard before, meanwhile turned into screams. And the fact that these robots don't scream (or feel pain, still unconforting) meant there was a pony being tortured.

Smokey sneaked through the corridors, using his blades as mirrors to check out if a corner was safe. All these hours of videogames and spymovies finaly paid off.

After about five minutes of stealthing, through completely empty hallways, he came to an open door. The screaming died short before he arived. A bright black light and a quiet puffing noise could be noticed.

"Damn it! We missed Greenhorn!"

'But we can still save this pony!'

"Oh, right! The pony."

He entered the room and was met by two irons standing side by side in front of a hogtied and blindfolded pony. Without a second thought he jumped between them, cutting through their armor and electronics with his blades. The guards colapsed to the ground.

"B, did you see that? We should find a name for that move! How about DoubleSupriseSlasher? Or TwinbladeJumpTakedown?"

'How about you untie that pony?'

"Mmh, I don't think that would be a good name for it but- Oh you mean this pony!"

He cantered over to the unicorn and removed his blindfold. The pony's eyes sprung open in shock and he tried to kick around.

"Hey, whats your problem?"

'Ahem...the mask!'

"Oh, right" with that the pegasus slipped his new faceplate up his forehead. The unicorn's expression filled with relief as he saw Smokey's grinning face. Suddenly his eyes went around the room, down to the irons lying on the floor and back to the pegasus before him.

"Eyup, and you're welcome!"

"Mfftfpft?"

"Uh, pardon me?"

"Mftftpstft!"

'Now cut that rope around his muzzle already!'

"Oh, right!" with that he removed the string and got a reliefed sigh from the unicorn.

"Thank you. Those things have been beating me pretty hard." he looked around the room "Where are we? And who was that other pony? I heard somepony yelling at me. He wanted me to tell him something about a foalhound or something in the way."

"Beats me, dude. I have no idea where exactly we are. All I know is that this twerp is named Greenhorn and that we won't stay for the night!" the pegasus said with a determined grin. He helped the unicorn up on his hooves again and took a closer look at the two Irons, he just defeated with pure skill and, well, luck.

"So, who are you? Why are you dressed like some sort of warrior?" the unicorn pointed at the machines, which now were lying limb on the floor "And what are those things?"

"I'm Smokey. Got those blades from one of those buckets here." he kicked the robot with a hoof "I guess they are some kind of robo guards. Pretty badflank but I'm better!"

"Well, my name is Lore. Lore Venture. I guess I..." he chuckled "I guess, you just saved me."

"Don't mention it. We're not out of here yet." he dissassembled some parts from the irons and looked at them "Now let's get you armed!"

Lore looked at the pieces of metal, a confused expression on his face "But... I'm no fighter! I'm an explorer! I can't kill anypony even if I could fight!"

Smokey rolled his eyes, shooting him a sceptic look "I wouldn't count those toasters as ponies. They are, as far as I know, just a bunch of circuits and scrap. Plus they won't take easy on us!"

'Hey! I have an idea!'

"Let's hear it, B!"

"B?" Lore looked around the room and then back to Smokey, who seemingly just spoke with himself.

'Maybe he can see for us when you use that magicsensor!'

"Good idea, dude!" he smiled at Lore "Alright! If you can't fight with me, than you can see for me."

The unicorn, now completely confused by the strange pegasus, cantered towards him and waved his hoof in front of his eyes, getting an unamused look from the pony.

"This will be a long night..."

Several hundred kilometres away, behind a small pile of dirt

"So, thats the wall? Thought it would be bigger." Berry Punch asked.

"As long as we don't find another, 20 m high, piece of concrete to stack on top of it, this one will be it." the blue unicornmare anwered.

The defensepost was guarded by at least a dozen turrets, each equipped with machineguns and flamethrowers. The situation was fierce. As in "We will never even get close enough to be met by the turrets!" which also was Ticks' response as he noticed the patroling Ironsquad in front of the wall.

"Could you please all be quiet? I can hear you all the way over to the frontdoor!" Ditzy said via com.

While the others argued about how to not go there, she made it to the entrance of the controlbunker without being seen.

Did you finaly figure out what her position in this mission was? She's the stealth expert! Or, if you want it more precisley, the mailninja.

"Ditzy when did you-" the blonde unicorn stuttered.

"When you weren't looking. Now, Demo, how do these new charges work?"

"New charges?" Punch's eyes shrunk to the size of pinheads as she looked through her gear "Oh Buck!"

The shockwave of the explosion got them and tore a giant hole into the place were Ditzy stood a second before.

'Connection to Specialist Doo lost!'

Ticks looked at the demolition site and yelled "No! Not on my watch!"

His horn glew as he traveled about five minutes backwards. When he reentered the usual stream of time, he noticed that he went too far. The horses arived seconds after him.

"Ticks? But you were behind us all the time! Why are you here already?" Vinyl asked.

He looked at them and answered "Ditzy, you mustn't go there! And Punch, you should mark your explosives with an index in megatons!"

As he explained the situation, the suprise and mindblow went rising from pony to pony. The correct order from meh to whaaat was:
Captain "Cool" Burst,
Specialist "Awesome" Scratch,
Specialist "ORLY?" Safe,
Ditzy "Ok, but how do you do time?" Doo
and, last but not least,
Berry "But I was going to drink these!" Punch.

"...and thats why you folks should listen to me when I tell you about stuff like that." he smiled "And don't be suprised if I just disapear or reapear with a bunch of scratches on my face."

Burst was the first to break through the silence "Alright team! New orders! The rookie has voice in the planning phase!"

"But how do we proceed? Obviously, stealth wouldn't work." Colgate countered.

"Thats right, Safe. So we need a distraction while you and Demo go in there." Starberry thought for a moment "Maneuver Oscar Motel Gammaray!"

They all agreed, shouting (or better neighing) their battlecry. Only the confused stallion asked "Whats my part in this?"

'Loading Specifications for OMG! Tactical Map Updating!'

A route apeared on his map and a bunch of lines pointed in the direction of the wall, everyone in another color. As he turned around he saw a 3D model of each path on his HUD. They indeed led from every pony to the wall.

'Tactical Map ready! Good luck!'

"Alright, everypony! Let's kick some metalflanks!"

They galloped towards the wall. After a few metres Ditzy took off and flew right into the line of the turrets. Vinyl and Ticks made their way towards the Irons while "Team Berry+Colgate" dashed to the frontdoor.

"Scratch! How do we defeat these things? And why do I have to be in the team with the hardest job?"

'Battlemode loading!'

"The hardest part? Don't make me laugh, kiddo. Do you have any idea how many of these buckets will be in this bunker? Actually, we get the fun part!" she looked back at him and smiled "Lemme show you ma moves!"

She jumped right into the first mechanic crowd. A second later, the first pieces of metal flew up, with a deep, almost earbursting bass and almost hit Ticks.

'Battlemode activated! Moveset adapted to Agent Ticks! Hit something!'

"You think this will work?"

'Who of us is the advanced combat AI, huh? Just hit them as hard as you can and they will be down before they even know! Literally!'

He jumped into the bulk of enemies and suddenly a metalic head apeared out of thin air, falling to the ground.

"Oh, now I get it!"

Ticks kicked the first Iron right in the chin, when suddenly his head disappeared.

'Timeswitch-Punch operating at 100%!'

As he looked around to find the next closesd robot, a mechanic foreleg popped out before the one left to him.

"Gotcha!"

Meanwhile at the hold- I mean, Frontdoor

"Demo, what did you have in mind about that door?" Colgate asked as they arived.

She smiled widely, then closed her eyes and trotted as elegant as she could towards it "Today we recomend the BOOMbalaya in a tomatosauce. In addition we serve a glass of strongflank booze enriched with a bit of magnesia to intensify the temperature." with that she pulled out a small, dripping package with some cables coming out of it and threw it at the door. Burst and Colgate already got some distance to it as the charge went off. The door literally melted out of the wall.

Demo simply smiled at them and said "Bon Apetit!"

Ditzy came closer to the turrets when suddenly one of them turned in her direction, its servos soaring and the gatlings heating up.

"Catch me if you can!" she dodged the first salve with a simple roll and pulled a bunch of letters to Celestia out of her bag. The mailmare threw them at the turret, striking its sensor and rendering the machine blind.

You see, there is a reason Twilight doesn't use the regular mail to send her reports to her mentor. They tend to get lost.

Vinyl stomped her hooves on the ground, sending a massive shockwave towards the next group. Her beats were also beat, dig? Suddenly an Iron landed on her back, pressing her to the ground.

"Hey! Get off! Security!"

Sound rolled over just to see nothing more than the body of the robot. She looked around and saw Ticks, hitting one of the guards with an uppercut to the stomach (basically these things don't have stomachs...but I think you get the idea) before its middle part disappeared and limbs and head fell to the ground. Vinyl got up and stared at the timebending unicorn, blasting another Iron's forelegs a few seconds back. And then the head of the next one. Suddenly his strikes got weaker, judging by the decreasing time between apearence of the parts and his actual hits.

'Timeswitch-Punch operating at 3%! Please rest!'

"I can't rest right now!" he said in exhaustion "I can't let the team hang! I can't let Smokey hang! They trust in me!"

'Energyreserves at 0%! Vitalsigns orange! Switching off Battlemode!'

Ticks fell to his knees. He was at his end. Two Irons cantered over to him, their servos soaring like chainsaws in his ears. Suddenly a shockwave got them and literaly folded them together. The unicorn looked in the direction the force had its origin. Vinyl smiled at him "Hey rookie! You alright?" he returned a weak smile before he passed out.

"Sound and the new guy seem to keep them busy pretty well, huh?" Punch asked as they made their way through the bunker's hallways.

"Probably it's just Sound and the rookie is out or something." Safe countered "I hope Derpy is alright though."

Suddenly a door opend before them, behind it a large terminal. Colgate galopped towards the workstation and began to decode their system, using her magic to operate the keyboard.

"Would you believe it? Those idiots seriously use one of the old Trottec systems! I'll have this baby cleaned, powdered and diapered in no time!" she stated, a proud grin on her face. Suddenly the constant clacking of the keyboard stopped and Burst cantered next to her.

"So, what do you got for me, Safe?" she querried "Anything that can help us in the mission?"

"Let's see!" her horn glew blue and a number of maps and documents showed up on the screen above the terminal "This could be usefull. Seems like it's a map of the enemy base but it's an old one." she pointed at the a small note saying "Area not usable before November 956! ANNM (This meant 'After Nightmare Moon' and thus this map was at least 45 years old)". After a short while Punch cantered up to them, a really concerned look on her face.

"Those walls are thick enough to withstand most of my stuff! How do we get in there?"

"Pfft! We just use this ol-" suddenly Colgate was interupted by the flashing alert on her HUD. The others apereantly noticed it aswell, as it was a global emergency call from Gladi herself.

'Alert! Agent Ticks just passed out! Agent Sound is requesting a medevac asap!'

"Couldn't you just call Derpy? We are busy here!" a very annoyed blue unicorn asked.

'Negative. Agent Derp is currently "Sorting some letters".'

"Alright. Alright. I'll go and look after the rookie. Safe! You and Demo try to get every intel you can find and get it into our system! The boss will want that data!" with that Burst galloped towards the exit of the facility.

Meanwhile in the Holding Cell

"And thats why I need you to see for me, you see?"

"It's still strange but I can do that." Lore nodded.

Smokey had explained the magic sensor to him, but he never heard of a spell like that. Leave away the fact that the pony in front of him was in no matter a unicorn.

"Oh! I have a spell that could help me with that! It enhances my reflexes and lets me think faster."

'Pfft! His brain must be pretty slow, if he needs magic to make it faster.'

"Sounds good. But now we need to get out of here. They probably found the guards, I took out already. Won't be long before they arrive here." with that the winged pony cantered towards the door of the cell, peaking his head out of it to check for potential threats.

"Alright! Coast's clear!" he waved the unicorn to follow before he rolled out of the cell, towards the wall. He pressed his body against it in order to be as sneaky as possible. Or at least he thought, that would sneaky. No actual stealth expert would search cover in an open hallway.

"Do you know where to go?" Lore asked, slowly following his wicked saviour.

"Uhm..." he cracked his eyes open in realization "Actually, I didn't think I would make it this far."

'Suprise, suprise! You did not think...'

"Shut up! You're not helping!"

"What? I didn't say anything." the unicorn wondered as Smokey slid his new mask down to cover his face.

"Not you. My b-" he hesitated. What pony would follow a pony, who was talking with his brain?

"Your what?"

'Ok, it's not like I didn't think of that possibility! Maneuver Phi! Shamanpony!'

"Seriously?" the pegasus whispered, followed by a long sigh "My brother!" he said to Lore.

"Your brother? But there is nopony else in here."

"Well, you can't see him. He's dead. He's a spirit! And only I can see and hear him." he stated in a very monotone and obviously acted tone. Heavens know why the unicorn actually bought it.

"Oh, so you can comunicate with him? What does he say about me?"

'Oh, look at that naive little foal. It's a mystery how he actually made it through that torture. If we get spotted, throw him at the robots and run!'

"He says that you...uhm...seem very nice and that you will be of great help in our escape!" the winged pony said with a sheepish grin, fortunately covered by the mask.

"Well, I could be of better help if I had my bag. Those 'things' must have taken it from me when they captured me."

"Then let's get your stuff! Thats a way better idea than just running around without a clue."

An hour later in front of the defense wall

Ticks' vision was blurred. His head did hurt as if somepony was constantly stomping on it. The only thing he could hear was the sound of hooves. It weren't his own. No, the feeling on his chest indicated that he was being carried. He narrowed his eyes, trying to get a clear view of the hooves under him. Black cloth.

"Good. At least none of those Irons." he thought.

Suddenly a familiar voice in his head came to life.

'Welcome back, Agent Ticks! Rebooting subsystems! Please wait!...Subsystems online! Minor head trauma detcted! Repairing!'

A pain in the back of his head set in. The suit seemed to grow into his neck. Suddenly his vision got better. He now could clearly see the pony, who carried him. Ticks moved his head a bit, just to be met by a multicolored mane.

"Are you finally awake?" the mare asked before she stopped in her tracks.

"Burst? What happend?" he answered as he shackily got off her back.

'Biorepair complete! Loading logfiles! Restoring! Error! Systemcrash detected! Syncronizing with "Horses of the Apocalypse"! Continuing log! You passed out. Agent Sound saved you. I recomend, you learn to listen to me, next time I tell you to take it slower.'

"Will keep it in mind, Gladi." the blue unicorn said, still a bit shaky on his hooves. He turned towards Starberry and asked "How long was I out? Did we succeed?"

"Afirmitive! Demo found a way to shut off the last guards."

"Berry?" he chuckled a bit "Don't get me wrong, but thats a bit hard to bel-" he was interupted by sudden window, popping up on his HUD.

"And you are sure? You don't want any?" he heard Berry Punch's voice, as he saw her hoof, holding a small bottle towards a seemingly busy Colgate. He saw the scene as if he was looking right through her eyes, what also meant that he saw how she was shaking on her hooves. Apereantly, she drank ateast four of those bottles, as he could see some empty ones from the corners of his eyes.

"No, Demo! Now stop bothering me! This system is not gonna crack itself!" the blue unicorn in the video huffed.

"You're such a lame-o, Safe!" the bottle came closer to the camera, when suddenly it fell out of Berry's hoof. A loud electric sparking could be heard, before she looked down, the video now showing a smoking, black console. With that, the stream stopped as apruptly as it started.

"She destroyed the controlunit. Every Iron, conected to this outpost, ceased its function and fell limp." Burst explained as she continued her way into the defensewall and down the hallway, Ticks following her.

As they arived at the control room, the other horses were already readying their gear, some of them having small scratches and bruises on their faces.

"Hey, rookie! I heard you colapsed like a cardhouse!" Colgate mocked, getting an unamused look from, not only Ticks himself but also Vinyl, who was working on her hoofpad. Derpy was busy sorting a couple of letters and Punch...was drinking again. Apereantly her latest succes taught her that they only had a chance when she was as drunk as could be.

"Horses! Attention!" Burst yelled into the group, being met by everypony's eyes and ears "Specialist Safe found a route that will lead us straight to the enemy's base! We will strike as hard and silent as we can!" she nodded at Sound and Safe. Last of them grinning proudly at her finding.

"You can count on us, booz- I mean, Boss!" Demo hollered from her position.

"What kind of route is this? Won't we need some aditional information?" Ticks asked just to get a laugh from Scratch.

"Don'cha worry, newbie! I basically own that kind of route!" she slid her glasses down a bit and glared at him "Time to get underground!"

Meanwhile, in yet another hallway of the bad guy's fortress

"I'm a 21st century digital...mmh mmh" the pegasus sang under his breath, slightly bored by the seemingly increasing number of corridors they had passed in the past hour. And not any clue of either an exit nor of the gear of the unicorn, who had been pretty quiet. Probably he was either shy, used to live alone or, what B suggested, he had no idea what to say.

"So, Lore. Uhm, how did they get you?" our winged protagonist querried to both, get a clue of his companion and kill the awkward silence that surounded them.

"I was on a journey in the Everfree forest. They must've taken me when I was sleeping."

"Mmh, they took me after a party I think but your story sounds more epic." Smokey grinned sheepishly at his comment. Still he was curious about why they were captured at all. Would they enslave them? Were they just labrat- well, labponies? Was their whole escape plan just an experiment of this Greenhorn guy? And who was this dwerp with the napoleon-complex anyway?

'Hey! Eyes ahead! You can think about such stuff when we have some time on your hooves!'

"Shut it, B! We have more than enough time!"

"What did your brother say? Are we short on time? Are there others?"

'Your /brother/ says that a pony with a thinking-spell should've figured out my real nature by now!'

"He said that we should hurry an-" he hesitated for a second as he went through the unicorn's questions "Wait. Others? But of course! None of us seems important enough to be their lone hostage. There must be other ponies." he thought for a second, unwillingly scratching his neck with one hoof "The cells we passed so far were all empty, so they must've been brought somewhere else!"

Meanwhile somewhere else

"Damn it! My head!" Lyra cursed, her eyes still closed "How many drinks did I have last night?" she slowly moved her eyelids upwards but the first image caused her to crack them open like loose shutters.

This wasn't her room, not the parkbench she would usually pass out on and most definately not the Eatery and Drinkery! (Although Cider and Chef were there aswell.) She looked around, shocked, as she realized that she was trapped. A sheer endless number of small holdingpens, each equiped with electrically sparkling fences and a barbwired ceiling to hold the numerous ponies, seamed the dusty ground. Some of them seemed to still be out, some were already panicingly screaming and yet others were just sitting there as if they were waiting. The unicorn could see high walls in each direction, although they must have been at least 500 metres away, and in the cell next to her she identified the orange colt who made foof for her on so many evenings in the pub.

"Hey, Chef! Wake up!" the mare yelled at the dozing cook, just to be met by an anoyed wave of his hoof and a turn-away "Great. Get up already!" with a smirk on her face she concentrated her magic on him, willing to just poke him, when suddenly a lightarc from the fence struck her horn and interupted her spell. Confused by this strange contraption, anoyed by the still sleeping Chef Sandy and foremost concerned by the fact that she was trapped, only Luna knows where(once the intel was analyzed ;) ), without her magic, she sat down and frowned.

A few minutes before at a place, Luna knows pretty well where since Vinyl sent a report about their route to Datacon

After about twenty minutes of trotting through the tunnelsytem that led from the defensewall into enemy territory, Ticks wondered if this actually was the right direction. Not that he had any doubt in Sound's navigational talent but even she could only work with the intel they had. And said intel came straight from the bad guy's mainframe.

"What if it is a trap?" he asked to state his concerns to the others.

"If it was a trap, we would know by now." the captain answered dryly, her expression stern and concentrated as she not even cared to turn around to him.

"Yeah. The Cap is right! We would've never made it this far if it really was one. Besides..." the white unicorn turned around to the colt, her sunshades covering her obviously rolling eyes "I am in control of our radar and if any boogey or woogey is trying to sneak up on us, they will be sentenced to a quick end!"

This statement not only caused him to sigh in relief but also made him wonder how she could even see in there with her eyes shaded. He, for one, could barely see his own hoof and basically just followed Burst's signal light which she would generously radiate from her horn.

After a short while, they came to a sudden stop as a massive wall blocked their path.

"What now?" Derpy asked. She had been more than just quiet since they left the wall's controlroom. In fact, the pegasus seemed concerned and even a bit frightend which in her case meant that her eyes were wildly wandering in their sockets. Yes, more than usual.

"Step aside and let me do mah mag*hicks*!" Punch ordered them, her struggle to stand straight on her hooves clearly visible to everypony else. Already known to her antics and warnings, they did as they were told and cantered back a few metres.

Six loud explosions, several minutes and three bottles later Demo returned to the squad, saluting in front of Burst "Specialist Demo reporting! Wall is withstanding all of my booz- I mean, bombs!"

The pink unicorn facehoofed and nodded slowly "Yes, Punch. We noticed by now. Safe! One mint for Specialist Demo!" she turned towards Colgate and smirked. Ticks never before saw her show any emotions that weren't related to their plan. And this expression was just to mock her, as Gladi entitled her according to the files, "liquorition-pony".

"Pah! Mints? You gotta be kidding me!" Demo countered as she downed a bottle of peppermint liquor "Cap, your jokes were better when you were still dating that OC!" this caused their leader to switch her expression back to a stern, cold mask and Ticks' eyebrow to raise. What was it between her and his friend?

Out of the awkward silence that followed after Demo's statement, a wide grinning unicorn spoke up "Alright, little fillies! We tried the drunk's plan, now the DJane is in the house!" and cantered towards the wall, getting an unamused by said drunk.

"Hey! Please don't tell me you're using it!" Colgate plead her as Scratch vanished in the dark. The missing response was answer enough for her "Damnit! Gladi, activate the A.P.S.!"

'Initializing Audio Protection System! Loading!'

What do you mean? What is she using?" a rather uncomforted blue colt asked.

'Activation complete!'

"The Dubinator! She'll use it an-" Ditzy explained when suddenly the world got silent around Ticks. As the A.P.S. was in full function, his suite's textures seemed to grow right over and into his hearingorgan, rendering him deaf.

___________________________________________________________

I know I often stated that this story wasn't over after chapter 10 but...I grew tired of this. So, this is probably the last time you will read about Smokey, Ticks and the gang.

Some most likely won't even care as it has been way too long since the last update.

As always you all are free to use my characters but I would be happy if you'd let me know whats happening to them.

EDIT: This story will be continued. Thanks to you guys, I realized how many ideas i still have for it. It won´t be quick updates but there will be updates.

Chapter 10: X for Extreme Pt. 3

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Chapter 10: X for Extreme Pt. 3

by Tray Hunter

Meanwhile in, not a hallway but more a big hall that was connected to hallways

„Okay, we've been wandering for hours now!“ Smokey stated, obviously annoyed „There should´ve been at least more of those robots!“. The pegasus looked around the hall, seeing nothing but dull, grey concrete, radiated by a neon tube hanging from the ceiling.

'Maybe we should see if we can find a map or something?'

„And where would that map come from? Do you think somepony would draw it onto a wall so that any escapees had better chances?“ the brown pony queried in a mocking tone, rolling his eyes. A second later his companion poked him.

„Uhm...you know there is a map right here on the wall.” The unicorn stated, motioning to the pretty obvious piece of paper that adorned one side of the room. It was slightly tattered but still showed most of the complex.
'How could you not see that?'

With a deep frown the pegasus glared at this map. Even if this was their secure ticket out of here, it was just unwelcome at this very moment. Without saying anything he checked it carefully though, first noticing the big “You are here” mark in the middle of the print. “so, we really ran in circles?”

“Actually I think it's more of an ellipse than a circle but...” Lore stated with a sheepish grin. It was just a way to lighten the mood a bit. “...yes, seemingly we did. But now we know where to go and that's just…” His hoof raised to point at a far side of the map, an area labeled 'Emergency exit'.” ...there!”

'And the prize for the biggest Captain Obvious goes tooooo....'

“Sounds like a great plan.” Smokey quickly snatched the map off the wall, rolling it and stuffing it under his wing. “Now let's get the crap outta here! This place is starting to creep me out!”

A few metres below and some more metres away

“Hey! Vinyl! Can you see anything?” Burst hollered into the cloud of black smoke. Before you ask, yes, their ears were free again by then. So, no, it wasn't that useless. Or was it?

“I can't even see my own hoof, Cap! Radar´s still blank like a little filly!” It was pretty useless.

“Good job, Sound. Now we not only not know where we are, we also don't know if we're already surrounded or not.” Colgate mockingly through in, carefully feeling the area in front of her with a hoof.

Suddenly though a blast of wind took the smoke, dragged it out of their sight and gave them back the bit of light they had. As the horses found each other again, Demo instantly began to theorize and praise. “Good work, Derpy! Blowin´ that smoke off like nothing!”

“That wasn't me...”

As they realized that their only pegasus wasn't responsible for this action, the only stallion in their blessing spoke up. “Uhm, maybe the smoke went that way.” His hoof pointed at a fresh hole in the wall, likely to be created by Scratch´s device. Behind it the air was whistling through a long tube of concrete. “Is that a vent shaft?”

Burst instantly turned to look at their navigational expert, raising one of her eyebrows, just to get the answer “It wasn't on the map.”

But the horses wouldn't be the horses if they would care about such minor details as huge shafts of concrete with wind speeds beyond a small storm. After a short check of the equipment and the cast of a magical barrier (pushed and held by three unicorn mares), they advanced through the new and surprisingly well lit area.

“What do you think this tunnel is used for, Cap?” The blue mare pondered, her horn glowing to shield the less magically members of their strike team “Nopony just builds something like that out of the blue...”

“I don't know, Safe. But I got a feeling, we better keep moving before we find out...”

The holding pens

Lyra had sat here for what seemed like hours, wondering, worrying and most of all, cursing about what those strange metal ponies were about to do to them. She had looked at every detail she could see, read the “No screaming. No rioting. No complaining.” sign on the far wall over and over. But it was just until now that she noticed the small window next to it. Why, do you ask? Because somepony she knew all too well was showing in the dirty glass.

The brown pegasus waved back at her, obviously happy to see her. Instead of mutual happiness she though responded with a deadpanning expression that could easily be made out as “I'm doomed...”.

On the other side of said window Smokey kept screaming “LYRA! HERE WE ARE! LOOK!” until a little voice whispered to calm the excited featherpony.

‘Would you please shut up? If they find us, they'll scrape me out of your head and we're both out of the game...’

This one sided conversation quickly was interrupted by a hoof on our hero´s shoulder. This hoof was connected to an equally excited unicorn who meanwhile found a huge circutbox on a wall. “Hey! Help me open this thing and I can see about getting your friends out there!”
.
.
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“And you're sure about this box here, Safe?” Demo queried as she popped the cap off yet another bottle. It took them a while to make it through the tunnel but eventually they found a door that, according to the map next to it, led to a stairwell that again would lead them to ground level.

“Shut up and let me do my job, Punch!” the unicorn responded, seemingly annoyed by her partner´s constant questions. To her it felt as if she had been tinkering with those circuits forever. In fact, though, it had only been a few minutes. The rest of the team was going through intel and equipment, unfortunately cut off from HQ and without any hopes for back-up. Not as if they would have needed some. Those horses knew what to do, after all.

“Shouldn't we get in contact with Luna first?” All horses? No, Ticks still was a bit...careful to say the least. “I mean, maybe now that we've found this tunnel, maybe they could...dig their wa-”

“Got it, Cap!” The fusebox gave another few sparks before the door slid open, revealing a dim lit staircase, barely broad enough for one pony at the time.
.
.
.
“Huh? Wha-...” Lore´s expression froze, his tools dropping with a loud clattering sound “But I almost had it!”

“What's the problem, man? You dropped your thingy there...” came the notice from Smokey, who quickly picked said utensil up again.

“I almost had all the circuits spliced to open the pens...but now the power is out! It's as if somepony just cut this box from the system...”

“And you can't just...you know...power it back up?” the pegasus enquired, looking over his companion's shoulder “We're pretty close to the finish line, you know?”

“No way. Even if I found something to power it, chances are they already know where we are.” Lore hastily packed his belongings and made for a nearby air vent “Quick! Before they find us!”

Before Smokey could even react the unicorn crawled into the duct, only the tips of his tail to be seen as they were being dragged into the tunnel. “What? Wait...I…” Upon undoing the blades on his forehooves, our hero noticed that he would never be able to take them with him through this air vent. Not only were they too big to fit, their scraping on the metal shaft would also alert every guard in the area to their presence. Now, to be honest, he did not come to this conclusion himself.

‘You want to get shot? Leave them here!’

“But they are sooo coool…” He kept daydreaming for a few seconds until finally the unicorn´s patience was at its end. “Are you coming or what? Those things might be here every seco-...waaaaah!”
The sound of bending metal and crumbling concrete filled the air, all together with the distinct dust that crumbling concrete brings with it. The unicorn clenched his eyes shut and winced as his fall came to an abrupt halt on the hard floor. Fearing for the worst, he dared not to investigate the sounds of approaching hooves, echoing throughout the room and making it near impossible to distinguish how many were coming. But as soon as the noises stopped, Lore had a different problem. Even Though he could still not tell how many, he now knew where they stood. Right in front of him.

“Hello? I...I´m sorry...who is there…? If you are with those guards, I surrender…”

It took a moment, but eventually two large wings cleared the dust, revealing only the cowered stallion and the supposed guards. It should not come as surprise that those were not robots. Neither were it guards.

“You're not Smokey? Who are you?” a pink mare inquired, shoving her hoof against the stallion.

“Starberry?” their collective gazes focused on the hole in the ceiling. The one from which Lore had fallen. The one which was meant to be fixed months ago but nopony in Greenhorn´s empire gave a flying horseshoe about it. The one from which our confused hero was looking back into the eyes of the mare who broke his heart and wings.

Minutes later, at the FOALHOUND Intelligence Center

“Ma’am, we have confirmation that Horse Team has breached the enemy line made contact with two of the captured OC. Full report is attached.” as soon as Data Cord finished his sentence a big message appeared on his screen, indicating that Glady had informed the princess of their progress “Now, Captain Burst, you said you got intel on more Class ExH, right?”

“Urgh, save it, Cord. One of them is a full-fic and the other one is just my ex!” the mare countered. Before the specialist could inquire any further, she added “Going quiet for now. Will report on any new developments. Over.” and cut the line.

“Just your ex, who happens to be really confused as to why you are here, might I add!” the pegasus worked through the news that his friend, his ex and a bunch of other mares suddenly stood in front of him in a dark dank staircase. Underneath the prison camp of a dwarfish megalomaniac.

“She’s a special agent, working for a secret organisation that protects Equestria from the shadows.” answered Ticks, pretty matter of factish, just to get a glare from the mare in question.

“Yes...and as long as we are done disclosing top secret information, could we get to the point where we form a plan to get the rest of the prisoners out of here?”

“Uhm, if I may…” Lore cut in “there is a circuit above us that seems to control the magic blockers. I was trying to turn it off, but then the power cut out.”

“Safe, can we work with that?” their Captain asked, just to get a shrug, followed by “Maybe” from Colgate.

“Hey, now that we know where they are, why don’t we just blow up the generator and release all the ponies to take out the guards? That seems to work in movies all the time!” Smokey threw in, rewarded by the approving nods of a very excited Demo.

“Negative, scans show that the Generator is thermo-magical.” Berry answered “We need to split up. Those Irons are likely controlled by an onsite controlroom, just like those at the wall. Safe and Sound, you’ll take the genius here and capture that.” she pointed at the two mares, followed by Lore, who looked just as surprised as they were.

“Captain, not to kill the mood here, but why do we take him with us exactly?” Scratch insisted, looking back at the minty-fresh unicorn who was clearly about to ask the same thing.

“We can’t leave him here, we have only one portal back and he clearly knows his way around circuits. Pick one and move out.” with that and a hesitant nod they took off into the direction of the controlroom marked on the blueprints. Burst’s attention shifted to Derpy and Ticks next “We’ll need to get those hostages out of here once the enemy force is dealt with. You two scout out a route and call in.”

“Ma’am, Ticks, no disrespect, but I usually work alone.” Derpy interjected

“I know, but if anything goes wrong or our cover is blown, I need Ticks to not be in the line of fire so he can bring us back to safe conditions.” seeing the logic behind that (and a wave of relief from the unicorn of the duo), they too took off through a nearby hatch, vanishing into the darkness.

“That leaves us three to get those prisoners out of those pens, right Captain?” Demo eventually added, going through her satchels to find a brew that would help them with the plan. “I’m for setting up charges and getting wasted while the other evac them!”

“What is it with you and always setting up charges near hostages, Demo? That is not ho-” the mare sighed and shook her head “Sorry, Punch. I’m just a little stressed…”

“A little stressed, you say. How many torture scenes did you go through today? Did you have to dump anypony or throw them off a cliff or something?” chimed the stallion, clearly not amused at how his ex just turned out to be spy who probably knew exactly what he was.

“Smokey, let’s not make this about that now…” not even looking back at him she spoke in a slightly strained tone

“About what? Huh? Not make this about what?” he responded while Demo slowly backed away. She could see the expression on the captain’s face growing more and more annoyed.

“Let’s not make this about us, me or you!” Burst turned around, facing the pegasus with a grim glare, doing her hardest to not yell him into the floor “Let’s make this about my team, your friend and the hundreds of ponies in those cages! Then, if we make it through the minefields, automatic turrets and the army of robot-ponies...then...we can talk.” At this point the stallion was paying full attention, too intimidated to say (or think) anything back at the unicorn. He knew that expression from that night she dumped him. Off a bridge.

Some time later in front of the control room

“So, do we play this one safe, Sa-” Scratch’s grin was shot down by a glare from her partner and a notion that right around the corner there were still two Iron guards blocking them from actually accessing the room. It would've been easy to just take then out, were it not for the security camera trained on their metallic bodies. Blowing their cover was not an option. The metallic meanies were standing left and right of the entrance, unmoving, unblinking (due to lack of eyelids) and seemingly un-get-throughable.
Scanning the hallway they were in, Colgate pulled up the blueprints they found earlier, noticing a maintenance hatch labeled CCTV. If she could get in there and splice into the circuits, that camera would show whoever was on the other side of it exactly what she wanted it to show. Only problem was that somepony had slathered a heavy helping of concrete over that hatch “Gah, why is Demo not here!? I need to ge-”

“You need that wall gone, eh?” the DJane asked, tapping away on her hoofpad “Well, why didn’t you say so? I got wubs that could level a frat party together with the campus around it!” details to this metaphor are classified due to being too awesome for public consumption.

Scout-Team’s location, somewhere in an airduct near the outer wall

“Captain, come in. We found a route to the outside.” the mailmare said via the team com built into their nano harnesses. “Downside is that the door is several ponies thick and not connected to any motors.”

“Door fully mechanical. I estimate that multiple artificial ponies are used to operate it, since puny organi-...normal equines would not suffice.” Gladys added.

“Understood, Derpy. Keep position and update me if things change, Over.”

Hostage Team’s location, near the hostages (Author’s not: D’uh)

“Safe, come in.” Burst spoke over the coms, she and her team stationed at the window that Smokey and Lore found earlier. The pegasus was trying to work out a series of hoof gestures to signal the mint green unicorn in the holding pens that help was on the way.

These transitions are getting out of hand

“Captain, this is Sound. Safe is currently working. You know how she gets” Vinyl answered instead, the blue unicorn working away inside the small hatch, surrounded by a fine dust that used to be concrete a few minutes earlier.

Enough with the transitions already!

“Sound, I need to know if we can hijack a couple of the Irons to create an exit!” a few moments of silence passed and eventually Colgate answered the call, seemingly done with her work for now.

“Captain, Scratch just told me you want to not shut down the Irons and instead use them. Please confirm that Specialist Sound is pulling my leg here, Ma’am”.

“Negative, Safe. Derpy and Ticks need a couple of those to move a fortified steel door that is off the circuitry.” came the reply, followed by some mumble in the background “No, Demo! The holding pens are within the blast radius of that one!”

“Captain…” Colgate sighed and stepped over one of the pulverized door guards “I can not control them directly.” a moment or two passed “However, I might be able to change their patrol route and jam the optics to an extend. Make them just walk into the door and then out of it.”

“Copy, Safe! I’ll let Ditzy kno-” before the sentence was finished a loud buzzing filled the ether, making the Horses flinch for a second.

“Jamming signal detected. Suppressing static.” flashed on their HUDs.

A few minutes earlier

The teal unicorn mare paced around the center of her holding cell, worrying about the fact that not only her imprisonment but the detail that her only hope was a certain brown pegasus with black wings. She couldn’t decide which of those two was more disconcerning. Around her were hundreds of ponies in a similar pickle, some of whom she recognized, others who looked so outlandish they were almost unrecognizable as ponies. One of them was a huge pony (almost bear sized though) with what seemed to be a coat made of stars. Lyra had a hard time making out details as the shape was just too bizarre to make heads or tails of it. What she could tell, was that this figure was sporting two unicorn horns and several sets of...Lyra had to do a double take here...several sets of bluish flames for wings. Were it not for the fact that this equine was pent up just like the rest of them, she would’ve guessed she was looking at some type of god. She decided to label it “Big, fiery Double-Alicorn”, just in case she had to address the figure. A quick glance around the other holding pens made that distinction pretty useless though. Dozens of ponies fit that description, all in varying colors and intensities, but all with just a few more fire effects and extra body parts. The mare decided to stop worrying about making any sense of what those creatures were and came to the conclusion that if they had any powers in here, they would’ve all been free by now. Her gaze met the window where Smokey was having a fit in earlier and, sure enough, there he was again. The stallion was waving, jumping and for a moment pulling a pink-purple earthpony into view, pointing at her. Lyra noticed that that mare seemed a bit out of it, waving back at her together with Smokey as if she was heavily intoxicated. “Wait...Berry Punch! What is she doing here? Is this some sort of prank?Are those idiots just getting plastered while I am locked up in here with Luna knows what those things are!” (see FOALHOUND Intelligence archive on the third floor, next to the top-secret waffle stand to know what Luna actually knows).

Suddenly her train of thoughts stopped as a flashing light in the corner of her eyes caught her attention. It was then that most of the other ponies began stirring in their cells, all fixated to that light. “Oh, great, what now!” she said under her breath. The answer came quickly as large rods rose from the floor, one on each corner of her cell (and all the other cells for the matter). A lot of the ponies began to panic at this point, uncertain what those diabolical, kind of technological looking pylons would do to them. Lyra noticed that the only ones that were keeping their cool were those otherworldly god horses, some of them actually grinning with confidence. She was hoping that whatever happened next, those would make it out and free them all. Because, let’s face it, the other option was her good-for-nothing roommate and the mare she had to be careful not to step on everytime she left the bar.

Without any further warning the rods began to glow, engulfing the prison yard in a dark green hue. That's when Lyra recognized the tip of the rods surrounding her pen. They were freakishly long unicorn horns, attached to a number of wires and circuits. In fact they seemed glued to the pylons. She wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry at the fact that those were body parts (a body part that she was very fond of staying connected to the body herself for the matter) but she didn’t get much time to consider either. Suddenly the pylons’ glow advanced into the holding pens, encroaching on the occupants. Lyra was at this point freaking out (to put it nicely), trying to stay out of that mysterious light. A few of the bigger stallions were caught in it first, simply because of their size. They screamed and pled to make it stop for a second or two, but then the screaming stopped “Oh nononononononono!”. The mare was begging to whatever made this happen to stop, her eyes clenched shut and a few tears already running down the teal coat on her face.

The controlroom

“Captain! Captain, come in!” Safe yelled into the microphone on her hoofpad, desperately trying to get a response from anypony at this point. The readouts on the terminal in front of her were spelling out doom (no seriously, they literally spelled out doom. Subtle, huh?) but what concerned her the most was the blaring silence that hung in the air. No alert, no fans, nothing. The entire controlroom was quiet, safe for her attempts to reach the rest of the team.

Sound and Lore were posted near the door, with Vinyl also trying her best to get a connection to command “Who the hay jams all frequencies at once? Those idiots even killed the wifi in this place!”

The stallion sat there, thinking out loud about what could’ve caused this “Maybe it’s a lockdown? No, then they would’ve sent guards here. Oh, maybe it’s just something with the power! You said that earthpony who...drinks a lot...blew up a wall earlier. Maybe a powerline was damaged!” That last comment was shut down by a glare from Vinyl as she looked up from her hoofdpad and the explanation that Demo would never blow up anything that she did not absolutely intend to blow up. Except for that one time, but that was an accident. She was sober at the time and really bored. “Allright, allright…” Lore continued “But what if it is related to the power? Maybe something really big is drawing too much power.”

At this point Colgate chimed in “You mean...like some kind of giant field emitter that is hooked up to the holding pens?” She received a puzzled look and pulled up the blueprints on her hoofpad, showing it to the stallion “You see here? We thought it was the generator itself, seeing how it is the biggest heatsource on the grid. But I think what is happening here is that they are doing something to the prisoners right now. We must warn the others!”

Back at team “Smoked Berries” position

“Gladys, what just happened!?” Burst insisted, although she knew very well that the AI would have no more information than her, being cooped up in a dark maintenance corridor with no connection to the outside. The read-out on her HUD still read ‘Signal jammed’ and the unicorn was sure that nothing in her power would change that. If anything, they had to rely on either pure luck or Colgate to get everything up and running again. Latter would mean their cover would be blown wide open, when suddenly everything came back online without the enemy explicitly planning for that.

“Starberry...you might want to come over here…” the stallion at the window facing the courtyard sounded nervous to everypony else. To the unicorn mare he just sounded annoying right now.

“I said we can talk lat-” she turned around, facing the brown pegasus who actually looked much more green than usual. The sudden change in colour came from the window he was standing next to. The window that looked out towards the prisoners. WIthout a second thought she dashed to the window, shoving Smokey aside and peaking out of the window with her eyes squinting against the green shine. Judging by what she could make out, the hostages were still in their cages, however they were suspended in mid-air, hovering a few hooves above the ground.

Meanwhile Smokey attempted his old magic sensor trick, trying to check if anything magic was happening around those pens

“Okay, B. Magic sensor, right now!”

‘I’m on it!’

“Come on, I need to check this before it’s over!”

‘I...I can’t.’

“What do you mean, you can’t?” the pegasus grew somewhat impatient with his brain, grumbling to himself when suddenly the resident liquor appreciation ambassador dropped one of her bottles, snapping him right out of it.

“Hey, weren’t those featherthings a different colour a moment ago?” the earthpony pointed at the stallion’s wings, which despite being radiated by the same green light as the rest of him, were in fact not any darker than the rest of his body. Captain Burst instinctively pulled him away from the light and wrestled him to the ground, getting a sheepish grin from the pegasus.

“Can it, Smokey!” the unicorn instantly shot down his stupid comment about her suddenly pouncing on him and had Gladys run a scan on his now brown wings. The HUD flashed with graphs, colors and files, trying to match the stallion with any of the missing OC reports stored in the Horse’s offline storage. It came up empty. Well, not exactly. It came up with a negative. The pegasus was unable to be classified as outer-dimensional.

Somewhere else

Emptiness. Vast, unending emptiness. Lyra was floating in a sea of nothing. Green nothing, for that matter. She could remember closing her eyes and the screams. But not how she got here. Did she get here? The unicorn tried to open her eyes just to find that she couldn’t. She couldn’t do much of anything actually. It didn’t feel wrong, not even uncomfortable. It was just what she did now. Floating in this green space, her mind wandering. A smile shaped on her face, as she embraced this opportunity to just be. Just be. Be. B. BB.

“BB!?” her thoughts came to a halt as she remembered that she had to get out of here. Absolutely had to. As nice as this green nothing was, there was no Bon Bon here. And that just simply wouldn’t do! Gathering all her strength, she forced her eyelids open, noticing that it was still just a green nothing. Just a whole lot brighter. Squinting against the light, she tried to make sense of her situation. She was still in the cell. She was unable to move. And she didn’t feel any ground below her. Out of all those observations, the paralyzation was the most concerning to her. Mainly because she couldn’t move her head around to look at what was going on. After a few minutes, her eyes got used to the constant green blare, however and she was able to make out shapes. Pony shapes. They were floating in their cells. Mentally sighing the unicorn concluded that this must be what she looked like herself right now. The next thing she noticed however made her want to scream her lungs out however.

A little further off, in the cell of that flamey nightmare fire horse from before was just a normal, grey unicorn, floating in mid air. Gone were the giant fire wings and the second horn. Even the coat ceased to imitate the look of a vast galaxy in favour of a slightly dull grey. Some of the others seemed to have changed as well, lacking some of the wild colors and outlandish features from before, however non of their changes were as crass as this. Panicked get eyes darted around in their sockets, looking for any changes to her own body. Even though she was unable to see her hooves or chest the way she was suspended, but the glimpses of teal from underneath and above her eyes reassured her that she was still the minty green unicorn that greeted her from inside her mirror every morning. Now all she had to worry about was getting out of here.

In a meanwhile really uncomfortable ventilation shaft near the exit

“Ditzy, how long do think we’ll need to stay here? I'm not convinced that I still have legs anymore. They fell asleep 20 minutes ago.” Ticks grew more and more impatient inside the cramped space overlooking the same hallway they had been observing for what seemed like forever. The Pegasus mare on the other hand seemed rather used to staying completely motionless like this.

“No idea. Contact to the others broke off 30 minutes ago and hasn’t come back. Must be some serious problem.” She responded, still sounding her normal, calm and optimistic self “But our orders are to stay put and be ready.”

The stallion went other her statement in his head, coming up with the usual worried thoughts like “What if they need help but can’t reach us?” and “What if they were caught? Or worse?”. He shifted his position a bit to alleviate some of the numbness in his legs, just in case they had to suddenly spring into action. In doing so, he noticed something out of the ordinary on the other side of the vent cover. “Ditzy, look. That guard’s leg is lifted!”

The mailmare’s eyes shifted, looking at the indicated spot and one other spot that was probably somewhere in the next room. He was right. Those Iron guards, while completely stationary while guarding, usually stand in the most stable position possible. All four hoof-like stomping tools on the ground. This one however had his left forehoof lifted ever so slightly, as if it would start walking at any moment now. A couple of minutes passed, but it didn't move a single servo. Neither did the other one. “Ticks, I'll try something. If anything goes wrong, turn back time like you did at the wall.” With that the mare kicked out the vent cover and jumped out of cover, standing in front of the two metallic colossi. No reaction. Expecting them to spring into action any second now, the Pegasus reared up and bucked the one with the lifted hoof square in the face. Nothing. It toppled for a few seconds before balancing out again. “What is going on here?”