> Dan Vs. King Sombra
>  by Prawo Jazdy
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Prologue: The Catsitter
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“You got her emergency numbers?” Dan pressed.
The hobo waved a knobby thumb in the general direction of the soba-strewn area of the apartment, behind his seat on Dan’s sofa. “They’re on the fridge.”
“You know how to use the faucets and the bathroom?”
“Pretty much the same as a restroom.”
“Are you clear which bag is cat food and which one’s kitty litter?”
The vagrant pretended to clear his throat—except this escalated into a coughing fit before receding into an actual clearing of the throat. “…ahem. Yes. If I happen to forget how to read, the litter looks like dandruff and the food looks like Sweetly Wheatley.”
“Good.” Dan grabbed his backpack and rummaged through the layers of black t-shirts. “Now am I forgetting anything?”
“Tell her goodbye?”
“Hey, I’m not going that long. Most of this is packing material so that Chris takes longer to get to the food.” He withdrew his hand and tightened the drawstring. “Not that it’ll hold when we get to Canada, but hopefully there’ll be enough wildlife he can go hunting.”
“Really?” The man’s eyes lit up like a sunrise through amber. “What does he hunt, squirrel? Maybe we could swap techniques.”
“Whatever.” Dan slung his backpack over the first shoulder. “Listen, I wanna beat the traffic out of here, so—“
“Merow?” This was not from the hobo Dan had dragged into his apartment, but rather the gray tabby cat who also lived there. “Mewrr?”
“Awww, sweetums.” Dan knelt to pet her. “Of course I’ll miss you. That’s why I’m going to be back as fast as possible.”
“Rarowrewr!”
“Uh…” The man who was going to be living in this apartment for a few days, instead of the street, shifted uneasily on the couch. “She says she wants to go with you.”
“Well, tell her I’d take her, but it’s permanently winter in Canada, and I’ve never been able to find snow jackets in her size.” Then Dan caught himself. “Wait a second. How much does Mr. Mumbles understand?”
“Lots.” The tabby interjected a mew. “Including that last thing.”
“You know, I thought so, but it’s good to check.” Dan picked up his kitty kitty and whispered to her, “If he looks at you funny, or touches you too long, you have my permission to eat him.”
The hobo jolted almost into proper posture. “Hey wait, that’s not fair!”
“Hey, rude much?” Dan stood, cradling Mr. Mumbles and leveling his gaze at his reluctant choice of catsitter. It took effort to keep his voice level too. “And you want to talk about ‘not fair’? What’s not fair is that the only person I trust to keep my baby healthy, I can’t also trust not to—”
A car horn tootled. Dan recognized it as his own.
“—uggghh.” He set the cat down and opened the door, firing one last look at the hobo. “If you’re alive when I get back, then we’ll talk.” He looked down and smiled. “Bye, Mr. Mumbles! Have fun!”
The car kept tootling as Dan rushed down the stairs and to his parking spot. He opened the driver’s side door.
“—ting tang walla walla bing bang! I told the witch doctor you didn’t love me true!” toot toot toot toot “I told the witch doctor—”
The woman in the passenger’s seat put a hand on her husband’s shoulder. “Chris, he’s here.”
“Huh? Oh!” Chris smiled blithely. “Hey, Dan. Ready to go?”
“You. Backseat. Now.” Dan cut off Chris’s protest. “You’ve lost your horn privileges.”
Chris sullenly got out and into the back.
Dan took his rightful place in the driver’s seat, sloughing his backpack off to the other passenger. “You have any objections, Elise?”
“Tons.”
For a moment, the only sounds were Dan adjusting his seat. “…Any you’re going to tell us?”
“None that will change your mind. Once again, your vendetta has become indistinguishable from my mission, and we might as well end this together.”
“Glad to hear it. And you know your husband’s half bear?”
“That’s not what it is. He carries the 3Q gene, and that’s why—”
“Yeah, you know.” Dan cranked the ignition, and the engine groused to life. “On to revenge. And this time, it’s going to be…” He couldn’t help but crack a grin. “…Yummy.”



Two days later
Dan tucked and rolled into the white substance which, thankfully, appeared to be not nuclear fallout, but snow.
He spared one last look at the Yummy Corporation machinery before yet another thing exploded and the portal collapsed. He couldn’t help but feel cheated. Only once before (to his current recollection) had his crusades gotten him thrown out of the country with no way home, and Siberia had merely been another country. But this icy plain… if Dan understood anything about interdimensional portals from his five minutes infiltrating the lab, it was that he was now infinitely far from home. Infinitely far from Chris, Mr. Mumbles, and Elise.
Setting that aside, he reached under the lab coat he’d confiscated minutes ago as a disguise and pulled out his notebook and pencil. Flipping through the pages, he realized he was also infinitely far from all these people, organizations, locations, and concepts that had wronged him over the years. He wasn’t sure how to feel about that. On one hand, they wouldn’t be bothering him any more, at least for a while. On the other hand, half the lines were not yet crossed out, and until he traveled the infinite distance home, he couldn’t bother them.
On the last page with names, he crossed out YUMMY.
Then again, he’d just avoided being crushed by a building, so that was a plus.
Replacing the pad in his pants pocket, he brushed against his lighter, and briefly wondered if he could bring himself to burn the pad for warmth. Hopefully it wouldn’t come to that. He picked a direction in the… slightly hilly, but mostly featureless snow… and headed straight.
> Stuck In the Middle (of Nowhere) With You
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Two figures regarded each other on the icy plain. One was a human with pale skin, short black hair, and a white labcoat intended for someone two feet taller than him. The other appeared to Dan to be a small orange horse with a blue mane, a foal a good foot shorter than Dan and even less suited to the cold.
Whose idea was that dye-job? Dan wondered. It looks tacky, even on a person. He opened his mouth. Wait, no. He’s not going to understand me, and the tone would drive him away. Don’t want to have to chase him. “Uh…” He looked at the foal, then at the domed city still far away, then back at the foal in between it and him.
Well, if you’re going to steal a car, you need something in the tank. He fumbled his cold hands through his pants pockets before hearing his target crinkle in the borrowed labcoat. He pulled a plastic-foil bag from the labcoat’s pocket, tore off a corner, and broke off a chunk of peanut butter cookie which he thrust at the foal.
The foal cringed and shrank away, but did not take its eyes off Dan. They both stood awkwardly for another moment.
Dan knitted his brow and let his elbow droop. I don’t get it. Isn’t this how it’s done in the movies? He shrugged and started nibbling on the cookie himself. “Mm.” This isn’t even a bad cookie. Maybe that only works with sponge cakes and deers. He considered taking off the coat and tossing it over the little horse’s face.
Then he saw the foal had stepped closer to look at the package. Not that it’d do much good, since Dan’s hand was covering the picture, not to mention the writing that the foal was probably too young to read.
I suppose I can try again. Dan dug another cookie chunk out from the corner of the bag and shoved it at the foal, who again recoiled. This was starting to irritate Dan, who groaned and rubbed his forehead with the wrist of his bag hand.
The foal inched closer again. Dan held still this time, leaving his hand extended. With quivering lips, the foal gingerly pinched the chunk out of Dan’s hand and started chewing.
Finally! Gratuitous dancing is bad enough when it’s actual dancing. The human took out another bit of cookie, but this time he lowered his open hand nearer his hip. Almost counterintuitively, the foal moved even closer to Dan and took its second chunk of peanut butter cookie.
Dan took this moment to start petting the foal’s muzzle and scratching behind its ears. His mane’s roots aren’t showing, he noted, so this dyeing must be recent. Then he saw something he had completely missed from standing to the foal’s front. This horse has wings? He was shocked for a fraction of a second just long enough not to have a scientific name. Actually, never mind. It’s shocking enough that I found something like a horse in this universe and it’s acting like a horse.
He started sidling along the horse creature’s orange body, soon seeing it had been branded. But not with a branding iron. This is dyed like the rest of him. The brand was a pale yellow lightning bolt shape partly blocking the view of a blue shield or badge shape. The tricky part was going to be deciding whether to put his legs in front of the foal’s wings or behind.
Wait, there’s another problem. I’m about to mount this horse from the right side. But it’s domesticated, so does that mean I should be going around to the left…?
Forget it. Parallel universe means if it even matters, it’s fifty-fifty. With that decided, Dan heaved his left leg over the foal’s shoulders and slid on. It protested vocally and flapped its wings, but Dan hushed it and fetched another cookie chunk. When all had calmed, Dan sat gracelessly atop the small creature, but his weight seemed to pose no problem.
And now I just have to—“Whahey!” The foal anticipated Dan’s thought, whipping around toward the city and jumping into the air with powerful flaps of his wings. Dan couldn’t see the foal’s face, but could guess it bore an expression of determination: this little winged horse knew exactly what it was doing.
Good. That makes one of us. Dan held tight against the foal’s body, his ear buried in its whipping blue mane.




This latest thought of the human’s was particularly accurate; the pony, an adult royal guard by the name of Flash Sentry, had a fair better grasp of the situation than did Dan. Perhaps the single most forgivable misconception Dan had was that Flash was the only creature aware of the human’s presence, or even the first.
The first creature to notice the human’s transdimensional arrival in the mid-early morning was the bizarrely-composed Discord, who felt the spatial disturbance a thousand miles away. He weighed his options in this opportunity to sow chaos, then recognizing the lack of a corresponding magical disturbance, chose “making it somepony else’s problem.”
Celestia, the senior Princess ruling over the Magical Land of Equestria, upon hearing of a creature appearing near the Crystal Empire to the north through a dimensional rift, promptly informed the palace guard, and through them, her co-ruler and younger sister Princess Luna. This was necessary, as Discord had disappeared from Canterlot just before she could request he inform Princess Cadance; dreamwalking was the next viable communication method. On being informed of the creature, Cadance and her husband Shining Armor informed and sent out several Crystal Guards to bring the creature in peacefully.
Celestia also contacted Princess Twilight Sparkle, who along with Celestia, Luna, and Cadance, comprised the entire alicorn subspecies of the pony race. Twilight herself had no demesne, but she had a lovely home in Ponyville, a small town just south of Canterlot, along with her young dragon assistant Spike. (Strangely enough, Ponyville was also home to the second creature to learn of the human.) And it was through Spike’s magical fire breath that Twilight received Celestia’s letter asking her to be available to Cadance in case she needed help with this incident.
They traveled by rail, packing light and boarding the train without incident. On the train, though, there was one incident of note when Spike got up to stretch his legs. As he made the approach to pass from one passenger car to another, he squeezed by a passing dessert cart. It occurred to him a moment later that this might have been a tactical mistake, since if he wasn’t with Twilight by the time the cart passed their seats, she might not buy anything from it. Momentarily distracted, the little dragon managed to stumble almost past the open door.
“Whoa!” A pony mare caught Spike before he could faceplant on either carpet inside the car or the metal platform between the cars. “Sorry, Spike! Are you okay?”
“Y-yeah, fine. Thanks for—um… wait.” The pony who had just opened the door had recognized Spike. This was no great feat; vanishingly few dragons regularly interacted with the pony population, and even if there was more than one, Spike’s bipedal stance, purple scales, and round green spines would set him apart.
The light greenish-blue unicorn with yellow eyes was somewhat distinct, although not particularly special relative to all the other unicorns on the train alone. However, Spike was surprised to find he recognized her too.
“…Lyra?”
“Oh, hi! Long time no see!” She finished coming in and closed the door. “What are you doing here?”
“We’re visiting the Crystal Empire.”
“Me too! Is Twilight on the train with you?”
Spike groaned, realizing saying “we’re” might have been another mistake. “Um. Yeah.”
“Maybe I could catch up with you guys!”
“NO! I mean—“ He grasped for an excuse. “—we’re on a mission!” Not a complete lie… yet, at least. “And it’s very important, so she needs all her concentration for it, and no distractions!”
“Oh, come on. The train ride’s another couple hours, and I really doubt an old friend can break her concentration for that long.” Lyra started to traverse the car. Spike hesitated a moment before following, his mind racing to come up with a new excuse. Either that, or a polite way of hedging the truth.
It wasn’t until he’d slipped past Lyra between cars and was holding the next door closed that he spat something out. “B-but you might.”
Lyra was stunned. “Do we have to talk outside? Over the rails? Even if it wasn’t dangerous, it’s kind of hard to hear you!”
“What?”
Lyra took a moment to answer. The first thing she did was float a confused Spike up and use his grip on the handle to open the door. As with all the other doors on the passenger cars, it opened inward. She passed in with the dragon and closed the door. “So now that I can hear you, what were you saying?”
“Um….” Spike took one moment to gather his thoughts and another to readjust to his upright position on the floor. “You… might be really distracting. Twilight hasn’t lived in Canterlot for more than a year, and she hasn’t… talked about you. She might react badly to realizing she’s forgotten about a friend for that long.”
Lyra bit her lip, then skimmed the car’s occupants before opening her mouth to respond. “I… that’s not something I’d thought of.”
“Okay! So you’ll turn around and—“
“Uhh, no, Spike.” She pressed forward. “I’m not putting off seeing an old friend just because you only imagined the single worst way it could turn out. But thanks for the heads-up.”
“I’m an old friend though, right? You could talk to me!”
Lyra slowed down for a moment. “That’s… an excellent idea.” Before Spike could celebrate, she added, “Come on! I was chasing the dessert cart when I ran into you.”
Sputtering and unable to protest that, Spike chased along with her all the way to the car where he and Twilight were seated. Lyra bought herself a parfait, and for Spike she got a large cookie with dark and white chocolate chips.
Her original quest complete, Lyra returned her attention to the pony she once knew as a friend (and had just interpreted as a signal to stop letting the dessert cart escape to the next car). Even if she’d been blind to passengers’ tribes, and consequently the combination of wings and horn unique to one of the car’s purple occupants, she’d recognize that bookworm anywhere.
Even, or perhaps especially, if said bookworm had her face obscured by On the Economy of Machinery and Manufacturing by Barreled Cabbage. “Hey, Twilight!”
Twilight looked startled as she moved her book to the side. “Uh, hello!”
“Twilight,” Spike prompted, “you remember Lyra, don’t you?”
She took a moment to bookmark her spot before answering. “I… um….”
“You know, Lyra Heartstrings? From Canterlot?”
Twilight scrutinized the unicorn for some seconds. “Sorry, that name isn’t ringing any bells.”
“It really shouldn’t,” Lyra mused. “Bells are percussion instruments.”
The princess snorted in laughter. Any hint of tension was instantaneously lost, and Spike eased his breathing.
“Do you mind if I sit with you?”
“No, go ahead! I mean, if you don’t mind sharing with Spike.”
“Yeah, I’ll be fine. Uh, window or…?”
“Go ahead,” said Spike.
“Actually, do you want something from the dessert cart first?” Lyra asked Twilight.
“I’m fine.”
The seats were double-sided benches with light-yellow cushions and shared green glassy backs reminiscent of Prench curves. Twilight herself was lying down on her seat. Lyra walked in between the opposing seats and turned to face Twilight again. Then she rested her hindquarters on the seat and pivoted so her spine was more or less erect and resting against the separator.
“Um…?” This wasn’t strictly the first time Twilight had seen this seated pose with hind legs dangling forward over the edge, but it did strike her as something to which she’d dedicate two or three paragraphs of description. “Are you comfortable?”
“Yeah!” Lyra caught her floating parfait in the crook of one foreleg and picking up the spoon with her other hoof. Spike had already scrabbled up to take the spot next to her, taking much the same pose; the only difference was that as a dragon and a biped, it looked more natural for him.
Having exhausted this avenue of her curiosity, Twilight changed the subject back. “So, uh, you know me from Canterlot? Sorry again for not remembering you.”
“That’s all right. Hey, Spike forgot I moved away before you did.”
“Really?” Spike asked between bites. “Huh. So where’d you move?”
Lyra’s expression faltered. “It, uh—whoa!” She fumbled the cup and spoon and caught them at awkward angles in her magic. “…Ponyville.”
A piece of Spike’s cookie traveled down the wrong pipe and his eyes bulged. He avoided outright choking by reflexively coughing up his green gout of fire.
“Yeep!” the startled princess piped inelegantly. Her book caught on fire and she smothered it in her magic. It wasn’t actually much damage; the upper edge of most of the pages would have to be trimmed, and the bookmark took a lot of damage, but the cover was intact.
Standing to put the book away, she turned her worry toward Spike. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah, ‘m fine,” he wheezed. Then he noticed most of the rest of his cookie was burnt. “Aw, man!”
“So…” Twilight ventured. “Ponyville, huh?”
“Yeah.” Lyra had resituated her parfait in both hooves.
“Sorry again for not remembering you. Did you ever say hello?” The Cabbage was now in the overhead compartment.
“A couple times. I think you were busy kicking out a dragon the first time… after the Summer Sun Celebration, obvioushly. Not that it was your fault for being bushy, I mean I wash bizhy too!”
“Calm down and swallow!” Twilight interrupted.
Lyra hadn’t realized she’d been shoveling fruit and yogurt reflexively. She set the spoon in the cup and consciously relaxed her magic grip. And a breath.
“Okay, I got maybe half the words, but most of the idea,” said Twilight. “You’re saying I made mistakes you’re not mad about. And also that you made some mistakes, which I’m not mad about.” She grinned sheepishly. “Can we maybe just call it a wash?”
“…Yes, I’d like that.” Lyra set her snack beside her in the middle of the bench. “Hah, I didn’t expect to get nervous.”
Spike took this moment to reaffirm his presence. “Hey, are you gonna finish that? I’m done with my cookie.”
“In a minute.” Lyra nudged the cup closer to herself and changed the subject. “So, Spike told me you two were on a mission?”
“A what?” Twilight turned to Spike, and time slowed for him as he tensed up. “Why did you say we were on a mission?” she asked.
The dragon groaned in embarrassment. “Because apparently, the writers still don’t know what to do with Humdrum.”
“Oh.” Twilight turned back to Lyra. “Humdrum’s one of the Power Ponies from comic books, Spike was dressed like him once… It’s a long story.”
“I guess that makes sense.” Lyra shifted in her seat. “Is there a problem? Was it a secret mission?”
Twilight weighed her possibilities and carefully chose her next words. “Our mission is so secret,” she finally began, “that we don’t know what it is. And it might even be cleared up before we get there, so that’d turn it into a social call. Does that sound right?”
Lyra could only chuckle at that. “The song may change, but it’s the same old dance. I almost understood that. How about if anypony asks, I’m an old friend catching up, and you’re not on any particular mission today?”
“…Yes, I can live with that.” Twilight offered her hoof, which Lyra accepted in an awkward hoofshake. “Ahem. So let’s catch up on you.”
“What do you mean?” said Lyra.
“Well, for starters, what brings you up north? I mean, if we both live in Ponyville, that makes it a slightly less interesting coincidence that we’re taking the same train at the same time, but it’s something to talk about.”
“Aha. Well, it’s a funny story, actually…” Her face broke out in a goofy grin, and she leaned in to whisper the juiciest, most amazing secret.
Twilight eventually leaned in too. “Ooookay?” she whispered.
“My human sense is humming.”
“What.”	
	
> Crash Course
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The physics of pegasus flight is a well-discussed subject among the Equestrian cognoscenti. Dan was neither Equestrian nor a cognoscentus, and moreover he possessed a singular incuriosity about the world. Even as he relied on transport from a small horse defying the laws of physics he’d grown up with, he didn’t even notice the contradiction enough to dismiss it as “alternate universe physics.” As long as it was working, there was nothing to question.
The orange pony’s breathing became labored. He seized and tumbled.
Dan bailed like the pony was on fire. He only beat it to the ground by half a second. A tuck-and-roll honed from years of bailing meant that only snow crunched, although none of that prior bailing was performed wearing a taller man’s billowing labcoat.
What jerkwad designed these things? Dan thrashed around to unwrap the spontaneous cocoon, but soon realized he would need to be more methodical. His legs were free, so he struggled to reach a sitting position, soon conceding that the backwards somersault was the option making itself most available. Then with rear end solidly on ground, he adjusted his elbows so the fabric wasn’t quite so taut, and with a flourish, instantly constricted the jacket three times as tight as before. Did I maybe pick up a mislabeled straightjacket by mistake?
“Secure the creature!” a voice commanded. “Medic, you have a patient!”
Dan now heard a number of footsteps around him in the snow. Huh, seems I got close enough to be discovered, he thought. Patient? Well, I guess I’m a little cold from rolling in the snow in a t-shirt. Could I be hypodermic?
“Hey buddy,” a woman’s voice cooed. “Hold still, OK?”
“Mlpfim,” Dan spoke into his… well, he hoped that wasn’t an elbow in his mouth. Someone started untying the labcoat and jostling Dan’s contorted arms, eliciting a pained squeak.
“Shh, shh, it’s OK.” The woman leaned down and hugged Dan. “I’m just gonna untie you, all right?”
Sheesh, condescend much? It’s almost like I was the wild animal. Nonetheless, the cold, fuzzy hug was pleasant enough. He silently leaned into it as much as he could, and determined she was telling a small lie, as the woman’s embrace was nowhere near the hands untying him.
Light filtered through the coat as layers peeled away. Icy air nipped at his fingers, and he flexed his fists open and closed. The process was over suddenly, and when the labcoat dropped around his torso, Dan momentarily winced and grunted at the overwhelming light and white of his surroundings.
The woman relaxed her hug and dropped to all fours. “Hey. You OK, buddy?”
The speaker was a… small green horse in armor, whose coat seemed to shimmer in the reflections off the snow. Wait, no. None of this is right. Hold on, is that the sun behind her?
Dan looked over his shoulder. There were more armored, colored, shining horses around him, some with wings, some of those pulling some kind of carts, and some others pointing spears at him. Over either shoulder, nowhere he looked could he see any other human being.
Now, getting blindsided like this didn’t usually throw Dan off his game. But whether it was the blast of cold air to his open mouth, the fact that said mouth had just been stuffed with fabric-covered arm, or the other fact that the horse he’d just flown on hadn’t sought to initiate conversation, Dan was at a loss for words. He couldn’t even articulate complicated gibberish. Just, “…AaaAa?”
The green horse smiled kindly. “All right, buddy, it’s going to be OK.”
Lady, stop using the same words over and over again! “AaaAa!” He got hugged again for his complaint.
“Sir,” said a red horse, saluting a black one. “Corporal Sentry is stable, but he needs a hospital, sir.”
“Load him up,” commanded the black horse to no one in particular. Two horses with wings got out a stretcher from somewhere and settled it on their backs.
Then the orange one—Dan had completely lost track of him until now—floated out of the snow with a blue halo around his entire body. Huh? So the orange horse—pony—is the patient? And he’s named Corporal Sentry? The aura, Dan noted in passing, wasn’t shiny in nearly the same way as the ponies, and as the twisted corporal sank into the stretcher and his aura dissipated, Dan saw that the corporal was the only pony who wasn’t shining.
“Doctor, what in Hel’s name happened?”
“Sir, I can’t say for certain. But it’s a textbook bee-sting reaction.”
“And just what is ‘beasting’?” Huh, Dan reflected, so this guy’s an idiot.
“With due respect, sir, I mean it’s as if he was stung by a bee. Which is a stinging insect. Sir.”
The black horse gave half a contemplative pause. “How did an insect get all the way out here?”
“I’ll know more after I get a better look. But he has the characteristic external swelling and the constricted bronchial tubes, and he responded positively to my stimulation of his suprarenal glands.”
“Peanut allergy?”
Every pony turned to look at the speaker. The green pony had to let go of Dan suddenly to face him. “Did… you just talk?” she asked.
…Crap, I must have said that out loud. Now I’m involved. “Uh… Yeah. I was just… eavesdropping, and it sounded like the Corporal was having an anaphylactic shock.”
The red medic gave Dan a skeptical, quizzical look. “What’s that?”
“You don’t…? You don’t know. Ugh. It’s a kind of allergy thing that happens with some allergies, like bees and nuts. Do you have eppypen in your kit?”
“While I admit I don’t know what that is,” began the pony, “I’m not at all confident you know what you’re talking about. Tell me this, creature: when Corporal—“
“I’m a human.”
“…Noted. In any case, when Corporal Sentry crash-landed, he either broke or dislocated some bones. Would you be able to tell which?”
“What are you asking me for!? I’ve never seen wings on a horse before! And I jumped off of him, so it’s not my fault! Just do your job, OK? Fix him!”
The medic blinked. “Hm. Rambling, but informative. Very well, I’ll take my leave.” With that, he entered one of the carts Dan had barely noticed earlier, a covered two-wheeled vehicle, with Corporal Sentry and stretcher already in it. Once the door was closed, the vehicle left the ground, in tow from two of the winged horses, and turned toward the gleaming domed city.
“Pony.”
“What?” Dan turned to the green—oh.
“You want to be known as a ‘human,’ not a ‘creature,’” she lectured. “We’re ponies, not horses. I’m a unicorn, and Corporal Sentry, with his wings, is a pegasus.”
The idiot interrupted. “Load up, men; we’re heading back to the Empire.”
“Sir, yes sir!” chorused the spearponies, who saluted with their empty hooves and dispersed.
The green pony saluted along with the others before returning her attention to Dan. “And Sergeant Iolite there is an earth pony. Now, would you like a blanket?” She walked around behind him to get the door.
“About time, I’m freezing.” Dan got to his feet and brushed off his wet pants before turning around. A startled grunt escaped him when he saw the chariot not three feet away. “Hey, be careful sneaking up on me like that!”
“We are quite careful. You didn’t seem to notice us trailing you for the ten minutes you were flying.”
That’s exactly the opposite of what I meant. Don't sneak better, sneak worse. “…Oh whatever.” Dan stomped past the unicorn, ducked into the vehicle (a rather novel maneuver for him), threw off the labcoat, and unfurled one of the dark blankets around himself. He sat down heavily with a huff.
The green pony hopped in and pulled the door closed, then strode to an instrument panel at the front of the vehicle and twiddled a switch. “This is talc two, come in talc one, do you copy?”
“Copy, talc two.” The voice over the radio didn’t crackle so much as chime. “You ready to head home?”
“Yeah, Renny, listen. Could you handle the trip without me in your ear? I’d like to talk with the human some more.”
Renny chuckled, although maybe it was a giggle. “Absolutely, Emmy. Go with Cadance’s love.”
“With love.” She flicked the switch off, then turned to Dan with a warm smile. “OK, let’s start with names. I’m Emerald Isle. What’s your name?”
“That’s kind of personal, isn’t it?”
Emerald blinked. “Just trying to be friendly. Do you really want us to keep calling you ‘the human’? Or ‘hey you’?”
“Hmmm…” Dan rubbed his tufted chin. “All right, call me…”




“—Dan! Dan Danana Daaann!”
The final notes from Lyra’s air cello soaked into the carpeting and seat cushions. Spike had noticed some ponies leaving the car during her enthusiastic recounting of events, but declined to interrupt.
Lyra, for her part, was breathing harder than she had expected. She took a moment to compose herself. “So… yeah. That’s why Ponyville’s getting a cellist.”
“Wow,” Twilight said with a soft smile, lifting her chin from her hoof. “Sounds like a good time to get into Ponyville’s music scene. Wish I’d done it sooner.”
“Again—to be fair, you were doing a lot.” She shifted a bit to her right, then chuckled. “It’s funny. Our best chance might’ve been Cadance’s wedding.”
Twilight’s eyes widened, as did Spike’s. “You were there?” he asked.
“Well… yeah.” Putting on a show of smugness, she crossed her legs and reached her forehooves to one knee. “If the world’s best foalsitter asks me to be her bridesmaid, who am I to say no?”
“Oh gosh” Twilight muttered. “I saw you. I looked straight in your face multiple times, and we didn’t recognize each other.”
Lyra’s illusion broke and her mouth dropped open a moment before saying anything. “Really? I don’t remember that.”
“The last time I remember, you were obviously hypnotized.” Twilight sighed. “The changeling queen had you and the other bridesmaids guarding the mine entrance to keep Cadance and me from escaping.” Her frown deepened as another thought occurred to her. “Come to think of it, I should’ve recognized all three of you, shouldn’t I?”
“Y-yeah. Minuette and Twinkleshine.” Lyra drew her legs up onto the bench in a seated pose which should have looked normal. “How did you get past us?”
“Cadance distracted you with a bouquet. You were pretty far gone at that point. I don’t know exactly how thoroughly you were hypnotized at what times, but you might have stopped being able to recognize me well before I got to Canterlot.” I don’t have that excuse, she fretted, but she kept that quantum of shame quiet.
Lyra, too, was quiet. “…Huh. Um…” Should I be worrying about this? Sure, my getting brainwashed and Canterlot being invaded by a forgotten race are big things, but we aren’t any worse for the wear… right?
The train lurched, metal screeching against metal, and ground to a halt, thankfully covering the awkward silence. “Whoa,” said Spike, picking himself up off the floor. “Are we here?”
“Yes, Spike.” Twilight stepped off her bench, and Lyra followed. “We’ve reached the Crystal Empire. I guess this your first time here since they put in the train station, huh?”
“Uh, yeah. First time since Sombra, yeah.”
Twilight floated her saddlebags out of the overhead compartment, tucking her singed book in. “The businesses have really picked up since they… well, started up. Maybe we’ll get a snow globe.”
Lyra pondered. “I should probably get souvenirs for me and Bon Bon.”
“Oh? Who’s Bon Bon?”
“Somepony I met in Ponyville. You’d like her! We were just sharing a bench, but we got to talking and now we practically live togeth—“
“IT’S SPIKE!” With only that as a warning, a cheering mob nucleated around the three. Then, whether by rehearsal or by noise-obscured signal, the crystalline crowd swept away from the other ponies.
Twilight parted her wings and peeked between them. “Are they gone already? Huh.” She folded her wings back and amended, “After I became a princess, I started getting these flash mobs around me, infrequently. I think the strangest thing about this one is they usually last longer than that. But Spike’s in a better position than me to take notes when he’s… around… for one?” Failing to make eye contact with him to her right or left, or even see him, she asked, “Where’s Spike?!”
“Th-the… ‘flash mob’ took him,” Lyra answered.
“What! Where?”
Lyra pointed a hoof at a street corner being turned. “Go on ahead. I still have some things on the train, but we’re probably both going to the same place.”
“Right!” Twilight unlocked her knees and shot off.
Lyra turned slowly and made her way back to her seat. She couldn’t stop thinking, That was weird. That mob forming around me was… really weird. And to grab Spike? What is he, some sort of national hero?