> Seriously? > by RainbowBob > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Chapter 1: Unexpected > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Wow, just look at the row of teeth on this guy," the fat man said, poking the glass case with his meaty finger, smearing fingerprints on it. The row of teeth was shaped in a spiral, the fossil remnants of what appeared to be the lower jaw of an animal trapped in a mud deposit millions of years ago. "Bastard had a mouth like a chainsaw." I sighed from over at my end of the room, rubbing my brow in aggravation. It didn't help that every moron in the place had to touch the glass. Even though there was clearly a sign saying not to five feet away. Right there, in large, red print. Seriously, how can you not see that? Cracking my neck in preparation for another polite cease and desist, I made my way over to the chunky individual, who was toting around a smaller but lookalike version of himself. Probably his son. They both had the same ugly mug and protruding gut, even though the kid couldn't be more than seven years old. Politely coughing to catch their attention, I said, "Excuse me, sir, it's museum policy to not touch the glass cases on the exhibits." It took several moments for these words to register in fatso's head, and he immediately withdrew his sweaty paw from smearing the glass. "Just wanted to know what type of monster this guy is. With all the teeth and all." I took a glance at the text right underneath on the podium of the exhibit, clearly explaining the name and other useful facts about the animal related to the fossil. Since the man was unable to follow the rules, even though they were clearly stated in large print not more than two feet away from him, I suspected that he was illiterate and only bothered to look at the picture of what the creature supposedly looked like. Sighing yet again and getting disappointed in humanity more and more, I said, "It is a Helicoprion, a Chordata, or fish, if you will, in the Chondrichthyes class, better known as cartilaginous fishes, or sharks." "So he is a shark?" chimed in the man's son, already the perfect poster child for a childhood obesity commercial. "Did he eat cavemen?" I silently ground my teeth, controlling my anger at the sheer stupidity at this question. He was just a child, and his brain was probably already stunted from the inbred genes of his father. I merely brought my hands behind my back and said, "No, since he went extinct in the early Triassic period, about 225 million years ago. Homo sapiens didn't exist back then. He, like many others of the Eugeneodontida order, were only around from the Carboniferous period all the way to the Triassic. What made him and many of his order special, or bizarre, if you will, was the fact they had a tooth-whorl design for their teeth. To this day, many paleontologists, such as myself, still speculate on how this structure was actually used." Fatso senior and junior were silent for once, this new batch of facts flying over their heads and making their tiny primal brains working on overdrive. "Um, so, it's a shark, right?" the large man asked. "... yes, it's a shark, you blundering idiot!" I snapped at him. "I just said it, and it says so on the frickin' text underneath the exhibit if you could actually read!" Both father and son stared in shock at me, the little lard boy in near tears. The man took his son by the shoulder and began to walk off, not before yelling over his shoulder, "I"ll be talking to the owner of this museum about your behavior! Just you wait and see." Sighing for the third time in less than five minutes, I ran a hand nervously down my short brown hair and leaned against the exhibit case. "Looks like Mikey pissed someone off again," a familiar voice teased from behind my back. "Not now, Dave, I'm not in the mood for your shit," I groaned, rubbing my face with the back of my hand. Dave, the voice in question, walked over in front of me. He had short, spiky blonde hair that was a bit on the greasy side, was as thin as a twig, and had a face only a mother could love because of his pencil nose, grimy teeth, and dark bag underneath his eyes. That, along with his yellowed nails, was a clear indicator of a smoking habit. Or you could just tell from the pack of cancer sticks he always kept in his front pocket. "What shit, dude? Just tryin' to lighten you up is all," he teased, poking my chest with a boney finger. "Ya gotta relax, mate. Kickback. Though, you might get the chance if the boss fires ya for the little stunt you pulled." "Like I give a damn anymore," I retorted, smacking away his finger away. "I'm sick and tired of working in this crummy museum. I didn't go to college for six years to get a degree in paleontology just to sit on my ass and help idiot tourists." "Well, what are ya gonna do?" Dave asked, his fingers playing with a cigarette as his urge for a smoke slowly grew. "I did the same time you did and I'm just dandy with this gig." "I wanted to travel the world. Visit dig sites. Discovering the secrets of the ancient world. But no. Instead, I get this shitty job," I moaned. "God, I feel like a whiner today." "That's because it's Monday, mate!" Dave laughed, playfully slapping me on the back while he stuck his cig in his mouth. "Just ease up a bit, Mike. Take some time off if ya need it. Do some soul searchin' if ya want." I nodded my head, smiling a bit. "Yeah, yeah, I get it, Dave." "Glad you do. Now, I'm gonna take an early smoke break, so cover my ass while I'm gone," he said. Rolling my eyes at Dave's usual antics, I agreed, and was soon left all alone in the fossil wing of the museum. Business was a bit dead today, so I was quickly bored out of my mind. Glancing back at the exhibit of the Helicoprion, I noticed the greasy smudges left there earlier by lard butt's hand. Hissing in annoyance, I hightailed it to a janitor's closet and quickly grabbed some glass cleaner and a clean rag. If there was one thing I was going to be nit-picky on, it was dirty glass cases. Can't stand the sight of that. Spraying a good dose on it, I wiped furiously, intent on venting my aggression on the cleaning job at hand. After a good amount of rub and shine, the glass case protecting the exhibit was all sparkly once again. Except for... "What the hell?" I pondered, peering closer at the fossil. There seemed to be something wedged right in the middle of the tooth-whirl. Something shiny, and... rainbows? "You got to be shitting me," I said aloud, the small spot that was reflecting rainbows on the teeth slowly growing larger. Looking left and right to make sure no one was watching, I careful unlocked the glass case from its stand and removed it from the exhibit, revealing the fossil to the open air. The small spot was now a decent sized circle, light rainbow hues glowing from its light. Okay, this was getting into the weird and unexplainable territory. While I'm all prepared for weird, since it is a requirement for my job, the unexplainable I do not. Being a man of science, if I can't understand it through facts or figures, I consider it bullshit. Yet how can I properly explain a slowly growing circle glowing rainbow colors appearing out of nowhere on a fossil? "Shit," I said, realizing what had to be done and not liking it one bit. If there was one thing that was my Achilles' Heel, it was my dangerous sense of curiosity. It's the reason I became a paleontologist in the first place; curious about the past world and wanting to understand it more. Hovering my index finger over the circle of changing lights, I became nervous. Hesitant even. What will happen if I actually touched it? Why was it there in the first place? Am I really that stupid I'd actually do something like this? Most of these questions and more were answered the instant I poked the circle. I disappeared in a flash of bright, white light, a cliché dimension hopping act if I ever saw one. "Time to feed the fishes!" Fluttershy said happily, a box of fish feed bouncing on her back as she trotted over to the river nearby her cottage. The timid pegasus was certainly in the joyous mood, having fed most of her animals just minutes before. And now came the last contenders, the fishes that hung by the pond. Whistling a jolly tune, she flew up over a hill and started to gently descended down until she reached the pod that ran at the end of the river. At her arrival many the aquatic life popped their heads out of the water. Koi, bass, catfish, barbs, and yes, even goldfish all eagerly opened and closed their mouths for their daily feeding. "Wow, you all are certainly hungry today," she joked, setting the box down and opening it, scooping up a hoofful of food. "Now, remember to share," she called out, throwing the feed to the fish, along with several more hooffuls just to be sure they all got properly fed. Just as the fish began to smack down on their food, a loud bang could be heard from up above, the bright flash of light temporarily blinding all those present. This was quickly followed by a loud splash that threw up a wall of water which quickly soaked Fluttershy to the bone. The poor mare's coat and mane hung downward, just as water droplets dripped from her wings onto the grounds. The yellow coated pegasus cowered in a mix of fear and coldness, since the water certainly wasn't warm. "W-Who's t-t-there?" she stuttered, staring at the still pond for any sign of movement that was an indicator of the thing that just splashed down out of no where. At first nothing moved, but then a head popped out of the water that nearly caused her to have a heart attack. It was a shark, a real life shark, except its entire bottom jaw was replaced with what appeared with be a circular saw of a sort. The shark stared at her, unblinking, and then it finally opened its mouth, the rows of razor sharp teeth nearly scaring Fluttershy to death. "Holy shit, a pegasus! Un-fucking-believable!" > Chapter 2: Talking Sharks Aren't Weird Enough > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The pegasus' jaw dropped to the ground. And I mean it literally. It just dropped and hit the dirt, like something out of a frickin' cartoon. That itself was strange enough, but even more whacked out things were happening at the moment. Like my body for example. I could no longer feel my clothes hugging my body, heck, I couldn't even feel my arms and legs either, sort of. When I tried to wiggle my fingers and toes, I got no movement whatsoever. Flopping my arms had some results, like there were flippers attached to the sides of my chest where my arms should be. My legs, however, felt more like leg. Only one that I could move, left, right, up and down. So things weren't looking too bad at the moment. Except for the looking part... My vision was split in two, a dark line in the middle separating two images. It was freaky, to say the least. I could see the pegasus, but at two different angles at the same time. And for some reason, I unexplainably knew she was exactly five feet, six inches away from me. Heck, I could see all around me, and in crystal clear color too. So good in fact I can focus on an individual blade of grass ten feet away without a problem. There was also the matter of my mouth, which was... definitely not normal at the moment. In fact, it felt like I didn't have much of a lower jaw at all. More like a tongue, actually. I tried moving it up, and much to my surprise it curled up like a snake. Moving it left to right produced these same results. My lower jaw was like a rope I could control any which way I pleased, with a bunch of serrated teeth attached to it as a bonus. Have to admit, that was pretty sweet. I then noticed the pegasus was still shivering there, staring in awe, or more like disgust, at my jaw playing spectacle. "W-What are you?" she squeaked, backing away quickly. The noise could barely be registered by any normal person, but for some reason my hearing went up a few notches and I heard exactly what she said. "Holy shit another time! You can talk!" I blurted out, the process of speaking awkward at the time being, what with my lower jaw being the only one able to move and it kept on trying to curl back into my chin. "You can talk!" she replied hastily, falling on her back and scooting away. "Yeah, I know that. But how can you be able to pronounce words, and in English no less?" I asked her, clearly a female from the tone of her voice and clearly girly color scheme. "How can a shark talk and speak Equestrian?" she shot back, now exactly twenty two feet, seven inches away from me. "Shark? What are you talking about? I'm no-" It was at this moment that it finally hit me. The fossil, the rainbow light, the sudden appearance in a pond talking to a pegasus and the inability to use my limbs. It all made sense now. "I'm high as fuck!" "W-What?" the pegasus said, taken aback by his statement. "High as what now?" "That's the only explainable reason why this is happening. Dave probably put a roofie in my coffee this morning or something idiotic like that. This is all the result of drugs fucking with my mind." Certainly made the most sense at the moment to me. "Um, but I'm real," she pointed out, no longer shivering but still plenty apprehensive about approaching closer to me. "Sure, a talking pegasus is definitely real," I said while rolling my eyes, or at least trying to. The 360 vision made it confusing as hell rotating my eyeballs. "This is obviously just the product of my drug addled mind. I'll probably have to head over to therapy after this to deal with the fact I started hallucinating about pegasi, but other than that I'll just wait this out." I gave her a smug grin, or the best one I could manage, and sighed in relief. And tried to breathe. And failed at this. "Is something wrong?" she asked when she noticed my struggling breaths. "Can't... breathe... need air... now," I managed to spit out before the last oxygen in my lungs left my body. "Oh no!" she yelled, rushing over to me as I flopped in the mud of the shallow water. "You need water to breathe!" She pushed me deeper in the pond, grunting at my large weight as I finally dived beneath the surface. Instantly I could breathe again, gulping in the pond water like no tomorrow. For now reason I felt flaps at the sides of my neck open up as I breathed, the water instead entering over the surface here and giving me air. I didn't know which way was more effective, so I tried both until my lugs were properly sated. Wiggling my body back to the surface, my head broke out of the water and I yelled, "Holy shit, I am a shark!" That much was clear from my near land drowning. "Yeah, I noticed," she said, wiping sweat from her forehead, her body now coated in mud along with water. "B-But I can't be a shark! I'm a human! Not a Helicoprion! They've been extinct for millions of years!" "Heli-what now?" the pegasus asked, her head tilted to the side. "Helicoprion. A shark that went extinct millions of years ago. The ones with the weird ass jaws like myself," I explained, waving my whip-like jaw in front of her face. It seems that by having my neck stay below the surface but my head still sticking out I can breathe fine with my gills, though it was shallow breaths at best. Still didn't know how to properly control them. "But I can't be one because I'm a human." "Well, I don't know what a human is, but you're clearly a shark," she said, backing away from my jaw wiggling. "How did you end up here in the first place?" "I was cleaning the glass on the exhibit, the Helicoprion fossil started glowing pretty colors, I touched it, and boom. Teleported and shape shifted right on over in the land of talking pegasi." "Well, there aren't just talking pegasi here," she admitted. I arched an eyebrow, if I had one, and said, "Oh, let me guess. There are unicorns too?" "Along with earth ponies, dragons, gryphons, minotaurs, and a whole bunch of other races," she said. "... well fuck me, I landed in magical wonderland, huh? I really, really, really wish I actually was high right now," I groaned, attempting to shake my head. This only resulted in my body moving with the confines of my neck moving, my torso and tail whipping side to side. "And now I have to deal with the fact I'm a fish. Fucking fantastic." "Well, it's not all bad," the pegasus said, a warm smile on her face. "How exactly is it not all bad?" I spat at her. "And why aren't you running away afraid like last time?" "Well, you're not so bad once I got to talk to you," she replied. "And even though you're in a completely different world with a whole new body, I'll be your friend to make everything easier for you." "Wait, you'd actually be instant friends with a talking shark that appeared out of no where?" I asked in disbelief. "I sure would. Name's Fluttershy," the pink maned pegasus greeted, reaching out with her hoof for me to shake, or do something with. I stared at her outstretched hoof, the fact that I didn't have arms not dawning on her. "Name's Mike, and sorry to burst your bubble, but even if I did have arms and hands I wouldn't shake your hoof," I replied coldly. "I mean, who makes friends with a complete stranger like that? You know nothing about me! And I know nothing about you." She frowned slightly, her unnatural big pupils growing even larger. "Well, Mike, you just seem afraid and confused. Even if you look scary, that doesn't mean I still can't be your friend. Everyone needs a friend when in need." "Now, isn't that touching," I mocked her, withdrawing my jaw so it once again curled under my chin. "But frankly, I don't give a damn and I don't want to be your friend. I just want to go home, and drink until I forget all about this." "Oh... okay then," she said meekly, sniffing and wiping her nose. "You don't have to be so mean about it." "Of course I'm going to be fucking mean about it! I have no arms and legs! How do you think that makes me feel?" I shouted at her, submerging my head below the surface again to grab another gulp of water to catch my breath. "It must feel terrible," she admitted, trying to hide her head behind her wet mop of a mane. "I was only trying to help..." I scoffed at her. "The only help I need is a way back home with my proper body! If you can't do that, you're a useless idiot!" "I-I-I..." Tears streamed down her face as she went running off, bawling her eyes out like a newborn brat. "Hey, come back here!" I shouted at her, pulling myself closer to the water's edge so she could hear me. "Don't just fucking leave me here, you... you...... damn," I sighed, crawling back in the water. "Way to go, moron, you scared off your only chance to survive in this world. Nice fucking idea," I berated myself. I really did need to learn to control my temper, especially when making first contact with another sentient species. For the next several minutes I floated atop the water, breathing in and out through my gills, which I was getting better the hang of, as I waited for something to happen. Eventually, my stomach growled. I didn't eat anything for breakfast, and lunch was supposed to be fifteen minutes ago by my time standards. I dunked my head bellow the surface, and instantly I could feel the presence of other lifeforms. It's weird to explain, but it felt like I had this field enveloping me, a slight buzz tingling my snout. I couldn't exactly see how far out it went, but each movement of the water disrupted it, like a bubble surrounding me that didn't break but could feel all the movement being played on it. And right now, I could feel a certain disturbance that sent my senses on overdrive. A koi fish, elegant and graceful, swimming without a care nearby me. In the blink of an eye I was on it. The koi may have been smaller, and my large size definitely wasn't helping me out in this situation, I had the edge of unparalleled primal hunger and predatory instincts. My lower jaw coiled up and sprung out liked a whip, clearly through the water like it was butter, wrapping around the body of the koi just as it was about to escape. The serrated teeth of my jaw tore the fish to shreds as I gulped the blood and fish guts, the taste of flesh only fueling my hunger. I ended my meal with a final chomp, my electrical field picking up even more movement around me. No, this wasn't a meal. This was a feeding frenzy. Rainbow Dash stood in mute silence at the edge of the pond, her jaw dropping to the ground much like a mare only minutes before her at the horror of the scene before her. The pond was quickly turning red with blood, fish bits rising to the surface. Below, in the deep edge of the water, one could clearly see thrashing and a large figure moving this way and that as even more gore followed in its wake. "Dear Celestia, that's disgusting!" the rainbow maned pegasus moaned, a hoof held up to her mouth to try and keep the vomit from spilling forth. Who knew a visit to Fluttershy's cottage would begin with her checking out a red pond and finding the remains of numerous fish here. Then out popped the head of a koi, the poor guy still alive somehow as his jaw moved up and down to gulp down water to no available body. It was at this point that Rainbow Dash threw up, her puke mixing with the red of the pond water. I could call this poetic, but I think disgusting fits the term better. > Chapter 3: And Then There Was Pie > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Oh dear Celestia, that is disgusting!" the cyan pegasus shrieked, wiping the last amounts of vomit from her muzzle with her arm while backing away from the blood red pond. "How did this even happen?" It was at this moment I popped my head out of the surface of the water, a little bit of a fish's intestines stuck to my snout. "Yo, what's up?" The rainbow maned pegasus screamed so loudly I thought for sure my newly super induced ear drums would burst. "Whoa, whoa, lower the volume a bit!" I yelled at her, waving my bottom jaw in greeting to get her attention. "What are you?" she asked, her hooves still covering her mouth in case any more vomit might fly out. "Damn, you horses sure do ask the same question a bunch of times. I'm a human turned Helicoprion, an extinct species of shark," I calmly explained to her, already in a better mood after my little feeding frenzy. "And the name's Mike in case you wanted to know." "Why is the pond full of blood and fish guts?" she said, avoiding eye contact with myself and the pond of gore. "Because I was hungry, I noticed a fish... and one thing led to another," I said, a little embarrassed about it. Usually I had some semblance of table manners and control, but my new shark body seemed to run on predator instincts instead of my normal human ones. This could prove a problem in the future. "Dude, that's gross! Those were all Fluttershy's fish you ate!" "Oh yeah, Fluttershy," I said, remembering the yellow pegasus who had just ran off. The cyan pegasus immediately stopped her shocked hysterics and shot a glare at me, moving forward a few steps. "You better not have done anything to her, buster." "What? Fuck no!" I replied hastily. "When I inexplicably ended up here, she was the first one of you horses that I spoke to. Went running off too, instead of helping me..." "Well, of course she ran off! You're a bucking shark for pete's sake!" she yelled at me, clearly aggravated that she was scared of me earlier by the looks of things. She even took a couple of steps closer to the edge of the pond. "Well sorry, you gay pride parade, horse mascot! I didn't choose to be a fucking shark!" I yelled back at her, flipping my jaw out so it splashed some bloody water near her. "Well, no one would obviously choose to be this ugly," she replied, moving to the side so the splash of water missed her. "Oh, nice, witty comeback," I said with sarcasm dripping from my every word. "You must be a real fucking genius to think up something like that." Before either of us could argue any longer, a pink blob appeared over the hill exactly one hundred and sixteen feet away from us, bouncing up and down to our direction. "Who the hell is that?" I asked, my vision finally focusing on the form of a pink, tiny horse. Surprisingly, this one didn't have wings like the other two I've met before. "Oh no," the pegasus moaned, facepalming, or should I say facehoofing, when she spotted the quickly approaching pink horse. "It's Pinkie Pie." "Holy shit, what the hell is what with your names? Let me guess, you're called Rainbow Mane, huh?" "Rainbow Dash!" she retorted angrily. "Fast flier in all of Equestria!" she added in, a hint of pride and smugness in her voice. "First off, I don't give two fucks if you're the fastest of anything," I said, attempting to lick the intestines off my face with my jaw. "And dear god, please don't tell me this place is really called Equestria?" "No silly, the country is called Equestria. This place is the town called Ponyville," spoke a high pitched voice approximately one foot away from me. I rolled over and came face to face with the infamous horse known as Pinkie Pie. These guys looked oddly the same with the only difference being color changes, hairdos, wings or not, and those weird marks on their asses. "How the hell did you sneak up on me?" I asked her, curious to why me new found senses didn't pick her. I could hear the frickin' flies buzzing around my head for fish guts, but not a small sized, bouncing horse? Made no fucking sense. "Because I did, silly head," she said, booping me on the snout. I kid you not, she actually stuck her hand-er, I mean hoof, on the blood coated snout of a shark with a chainsaw lower jaw... the hell is the matter with her? Rainbow Dash seemed to agree with me, because she tackled Pinkie Pie out of my reach, shouting, "Pinkie, are you crazy? He's a shark! He could've bitten your hoof off!" "And he could've heard that comment and be offended by it!" I yelled at the pair, but they ignored me. Rainbow Dash was atop Pinkie, holding her hooves down with her own. "But Dashie, he's so cool! His jaw is a saw!" Pinkie logically explained. Yep, my hypothesis was correct. Crazy. "Pinkie, he ate all of Fluttershy's fish! This guy is evil!" Rainbow Dash shot back. "Really? That's a very mean thing to do to those fishies, mister," Pinkie sternly said, escaping Dash's grip and pointing her hoof at me. I briefly toyed with the idea of whipping my jaw out and yanking her into the water and ripping her to shreds. But I quickly through that plan out. For one thing, she had too much hair, and by the smell of the extremely high amounts of sugary sweets around her, I was pretty sure I'd get diabetes if I took one bite of her. And I guess there's the 'don't eat sentient life thing', but I wasn't all that sure the pink horse thing belonged in that category. "Like I said to your gay lover over there, I don't give not one, not three, but exactly two fucks about what you guys think," I said, my gills flaring up in anger. "All I want to do is go home and you guys never have to deal with me again. Now, get busy on a way to do that!" "Not if you're going to be a big meanie head," Pinkie pouted, crossing her forearms and turning her head away from me. "... meanie head? God fucking damnit, did I seriously end up in a cartoon show or something?" I bemoaned, wishing I had hands and hair to run them through. Pinkie just continued to give off a frown with her arms crossed, while Rainbow Dash stood awkwardly, occasionally shooting me a hateful glare. After a stupendous amount of silence, I yelled, "Fine, I'll be a nice guy if it'll make my trip back home quicker!" "That's what I like to hear," Pinkie shouted, instantly returning into her previous bubbliness. I preferred the other one more. "Now, how do we get him back home?" she questioned, rubbing a hoof on her chin in deep thought. Hell, she even did it while in the Thinker pose. "I say we get him to Twilight," Dash voiced her opinion. "She can probably make a teleportation spell to send him back, lickity split." "Ooh, nice idea, Dashie!" Pinkie agreed, hugging her friend with what should have broken the other's back. "We get Twilight. She'll know what to do!" "Whoa, who the hell is this Twilight, anyway? And if this have anything to do with vampires, I'm out." "Twilight is a librarian in Ponyville," Pinkie answered me, bringing her snout closer to my own. "She's really good in magic, since she was a student of Princess Celestia herself. I'm sure there's a spell that can send you home!" "Thank fucking god," I sighed in relief. "I need to meet her right away." Rainbow Dash scoffed. "That might be a problem, since you can't exactly get up on land, huh?" "Shut it, homo hair. I'll just travel down the river. It'll eventually go near your town," I replied, turning around and edging near the end of the pond where the river started picking up again. "Been seeing ya!" "Wait, you can't just end up in Ponyville like that! You'll scare away everypony!" Dash yelled in protest. "Too bad. I want to go home. Only one who can fix this is Twilight. So hopefully this'll get her attention!" I shouted, before splashing into the new current of the river, one heading right into town. "Come on Pinkie, we have to stop him!" Dash called out to her friend, taking to the air right above the swimming form of myself. Or at least I was attempting to swim. I was mostly just swinging my body to the left and right in an attempt to move forward. I was just glad the river was powerful enough to propel myself forward slightly. "Yay! We're going to have a 'Welcome to Ponyville' party at Twilight's house!" Pinkie shouted happily, bouncing along with us. Great, I have a gay pride hair horse and a horse so hyped up on sugar she might explode hot on my trail. What a wonderful way to start off the day. "Oi, Mikey, where the fuck are ya, mate?" Dave yelled, his echoes being heard throughout the museum. "Fucking damnit, man, ya promised to stay here." He approached a few fossil and bone exhibits, searching past and through them in case Mike might be hiding somewhere. But today he wasn't. And that was bad news. Mike never took time off or ditched a day of work. This was definitely unlike him. Digging into his pocket and retrieving his cellphone, he quickly dialed up Mike's number, only to go to message from the answering machine. "Damnit dude, where the hell are ya? Went on smoke break and ya just up a left! Yeah, real fuckin' ma-" But Dave didn't finish his sentence when something shiny caught his attention in the corner of his eye near an exhibit. The phone dropped from his hand as Dave whispered, "Why the hell are there rainbows here?" > Chapter 4: This Will Most Likely Not End Well In The Next Chapter > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Horses. Disgusting, dirty animals. Always hated them as a kid. Wouldn't even go on a pony for my birthday party. Heck, I avoided those long faced fuckers for as long as possible. Until two of them started suddenly chasing me. The fact both were bright, vibrant colors and one could fly only made my hatred only grow stronger. "Pinkie, we have to stop him, not throw him a party!" Rainbow Dash shouted at her friend, flying directly above me as I traveled down the river, doing my best attempt at swimming. Seems that simply swinging my body side to side while making my flippers and tail flap was about as effective as a paraplegic doing a doggy paddle. But then I remembered. Most of the propulsion is in the tail of a fish, more specifically, the tail fin. I focused all my muscle movement in swinging my tail back and forth, my speed increasing dramatically as I sped down the river. At this rate, I'll hit the town in no time. "Ooh, should I get the others to help me with the party too?" Pinkie asked, for some reason still keeping up with us just by bouncing along. Facehoofing, Dash yelled, "Yeah, go get Twilight and whoever else here as soon as you can!" "Okie dokie then!" she shouted, racing off to Ponyville much quicker than me or Dash could move, a faint outline of dust trailing behind her. "Mike, you have to stop this now! Everypony in Ponyville is going to freak out if you come by!" Rainbow Dash pleaded with me, floating down closer to the water. "That's mostly the point, idiot!" I shot back, the river becoming deeper and giving my new large form more wiggle room to move faster. "That way you all will have to send me home!" "Just wait for Twilight! She'll be here any minute with Pinkie on the way!" Dash reminded me. "No way! I'm going to her personally, even if I have to fuck over evolution and grow a new pair of legs to do it!" I dived below the surface so I didn't have to listen to her whining anymore, my dorsal fin sticking out of the water in the trademark Jaws fashion. "Ah, buck it!" I could barely hear her shriek past the sounds of the river. Now the river seemed to be getting deeper. And wider. Actually, I now had plenty of room to move about. Looks like I was in a lake of some sort. "Fuck, a lake! Now where the hell do I go?" I said out loud underwater, air bubbles leaving my jaws. Suddenly, the electrical field I felt before while at the pond started sensing something. Now my field had expanded, giving me a rough estimate of the size of the lake. Wasn't that big, but there was apparently three small life forms near the middle of it. their size and shape I got from the electrical field, along with my own impressive vision, I could tell they were the colorful horses from before, though a bit smaller. Maybe they could help me out. As I swam closer, I could hear screaming. A lot of it. Extremely girlish ones too. Wonder what they could be screaming about. "Come on Sweetie Belle, jump in the water," Apple Bloom teased the unicorn, the red maned filly nudging her friend. "I dunno; it looks awfully deep. And what if there's sharks?" Sweetie Belle said, backing away from the edge. A splash of water suddenly came out of no where and soaked both fillies in an instant. The laughing in the middle lake revealed the orange pegasus Scootaloo, who was taking great joy at her friends' expense. "Come on you guys. The water's just fine. Plus, no sharks!" she said at the pair, nonchalantly backstroking as she continued to chuckle. Giving Sweetie another nudge, Apple Bloom jumped high in the air and shouted, "Geronimo!" She landed in cannonball position in the water, laughing happily as she surfaced. Shaking her head to clear away her fears, she took a tentative step in the lake, followed by another as she grew more comfortable with the feel of water on her hooves. Soon she was paddling closer to her friends, laughing along with them and generally having a great time. Until a familiar voice shouted in the distance, "Ah, buck it!" "Hey, is that Rainbow Dash?" Apple Bloom said, squinting at the flying figure fast approaching them. "It is Rainbow Dash!" Scootaloo squealed in joy while fist pumping the air. "Oh man, with her here this day out is going to get twenty percent cooler!" "Please, don't say that again. We just got you to stop using that catchphrase last week," Sweetie moaned, flinching at the memory. At the end of it she and Apple Bloom were tempted to shove a beehive in the pegasus' mouth so they never had to hear that hated saying again. Yeah, it got that annoying. "You guys! Get out of the way!" they could hear Rainbow Dash yell. "Incoming shark attack!" "Wait, sharks? Sharks don't swim in freshwater," Apple Bloom said. "Then what's that?" Sweetie screamed, pointing at a fin cutting through the surface of the lake as the shadow of a large creature could clearly be seen underwater speeding towards them. "Why, that is clearly a shark!" Scootaloo shouted, all three of the fillies huddling together in the water and screaming like no tomorrow as the snout of the shark broke the surface of the lake, along with an open jaw full of razor sharp teeth. "... say what now?" Twilight asked Pinkie Pie, scratching her head in confusion at what the bouncing party pony was saying. "A shark with a chainsaw jaw suddenly appeared in Fluttershy's pond, talked to us, got out, is now in a river coming to Ponyville to get you to send him home! And we have to throw him a 'Welcome Party' before you send him away!" Pinkie Pie quickly explained, Twilight having trouble keeping up with what she just said. "And his name is Mike." "How did a shark end up in Fluttershy's pond? More importantly, how is he able to talk?" A hoof covering her mouth from the pink mare stopped any further questions from the unicorn. "No questions! Only action!" she shouted, pointing to the open doorway of the library she kicked open only seconds before. "To the talking shark named Mike!" "... once again, I'll ask. Say what now?" And once again, her question was unanswered as Pinkie dragged her out of the library and hightailed it to the river. With the Pinkie Pie towing Twilight along on her back, the pair made fast time as they raced towards where Mike was supposedly heading. "Hurry! He's right over here," Fluttershy said, pointing to the pond in the distance. "Right in the pond." "Mind tellin' me again why ya called me away from my farm and Rarity from her walk in the park to come here?" Applejack asked, the orange mare trotting next to the pegasus. "I think she said something about a talking shark," Rarity reminded her, the purple maned unicorn peering in the distance at the pond. "And how it came out of nowhere or something like that." "Yeah, and he yelled at me and called me an idiot." Applejack arched an eyebrow at her. "Then why exactly are we goin' to him then if he did all that to ya?" "Because he needs help getting back home. And I intend to make sure that happens." They were nearing the pond, none of them yet noticing its strange red color. "Is this because you actually want to help him, or you just want him out of your pond?" Rarity asked. "Think of it as a mix of the two." Finally, the trio reached the pond, and gasped in collective shock at what they were greeted to. Most of the blood and fish guts had settled to the bottom on the pond, but it was still clear that every fish had been slaughtered and ripped to shreds. And by the look of the fish bits still floating to the surface with teeth marks on them, it was clear who the culprit was. "M-Mike ate all m-my f-f-fishies," Fluttershy cried, tear drops streaming down her face as she turned her head away from the remnants of carnage before her. Applejack growled. "Why that no good trash eatin' varmint. When I get my hooves on him, I'm gonna-" "Please, Applejack," Rarity interrupted her, draping a hoof on the crying pegasus' back. "Fluttershy is torn up right now. You can make threats after we make her feel better." Nodding her head in understanding, Applejack stared at the bloody remains of the pond with a grimace on her face. "Yer right. What I'm just wonderin' is how this Mike guy got here in the first place." Her question was quickly answered as a loud bang and flash of bright light, much like the one minutes before. Another splash of water soaked the three mares, one already used to it and the other two getting hit quite unexpected. The blood and guts also covering them only made matters worst. Fluttershy facehoofed. "Oh, not again." Out of the water towered a large, monstrous looking creature, its very appearance making all three of the mares gulp in fear and slowly back away. "Holy shitburgers, colorful ponies!" the creature shouted, taking an intimidating step closer to the ponies. "Well get Jesus to fuck my mother, cause this is awesome!" > Chapter 5: The Previous Chapter Was Indeed Correct > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dave was feeling funny, and not that haha type of funny. Not even that drunk/high/stoned/highly induced with Viagra type of funny he was also used to. No, this was an ‘Oh shit what did I do last night?’ kind of funny. Not that he thought back on it, maybe touching the mysterious swirling rainbow coming out of that fossil was a bad idea, though he was partially high from that fatty he smoked out back, although he didn’t remember doping on acid anytime then. It was a work week afterall. Anyways, acid was the most likely answer to what happened to him, because he was definitely tripping balls at what he was seeing. Colorful ponies. That’s right, colorful, cute as a sugar induced puppy/kitten hybrid, ponies, and seeing how he already thought he was high, he might as well have enjoyed this drug related state of being as much as he could. And then he fell like a tree. Well, maybe not like a tree, but more like a log. A very large log that caused the earth to shake when it landed with the ground. He could’ve sworn the ponies actually hopped in the air when he smacked down. “... Ow,” Dave muttered, his chest and neck aching. Weird thing is that much more of his neck was aching than what was supposed to, like it was really stretched out. And his stomach, which felt kind of like a flotation device surrounding his belly, made him feel Like he suddenly put on an extra half-ton of weight. Did he suddenly gain a beer belly? He tried rolling over, only to be unsuccessful when he realized his arms were too short and weak to support himself. They were like really stubby limbs you’d have seen on a midget, Though he obviously wasn’t that short at that moment.. “Agh... holy hell, what dope was I smoking last night?” Dave muttered, noticing his words were coming out all wrong.They were grislier and raspier than they usually were. He tried licking his lips, only to cut his long reptilian tongue at his razor sharp molars. “Ah god, my tongue!” “Please stop yelling,” Fluttershy begged quietly, sulking to the ground, covered in the bits and pieces of her fish friends. Rarity seemed to be in a perpetual state of shock, the double whammy of being covered in fish guts and a monstrous being suddenly appearing out of nowhere frying her brain. A fly comically flew into her open jaw. It was only Applejack–-who was currently squeezing out the extra moisture from her hat–-who was in the clearest mind set to handle the situation, and she started it off by grilling the new guy. “Just what in tarnation is yer problem? Splashing us with water like that and scaring poor ol’ Fluttershy too! And that’s not even mentionin’ what yer mud-headed friend did to Fluttershy’s fish!” Applejack yelled, the earth pony mare pointing a hoof at Dave to add emphasis to her words. “Now what do ya got to say for yourself?” “... Hey, you guys can talk!” Dave shouted, a wide grin appearing on his reptilian face. Or as best a grin a sharp toothed dinosaur could manage. “Far out! Must’ve gotten the real good stuff for something like this to happen!” It was at this moment that Rarity’s brain finally lifted up from relapse, and she announced her presence with an ear splitting shriek. If Dave could move his arms to cover his ears he would have, but the best he could manage was to shove his head in the dirt like an ostrich to protect his ear drums. “Ew, ew, ew, ew, ew, ew, ew! My coat, my mane, my everything!” Rarity screamed, pacing in a close knit circle of panic. “Covered in itchy fishy bits and mud! Oh dear Celestia, somepony get me a shower! A bucket! A sponge! Just anything!” “Dangit Rarity, calm down already,” Applejack muttered under her breath, already dragging Fluttershy to the shore of the pond. The worse of the blood and guts had settled to the floor of the pond, so it was relatively clean. She quickly splashed water on herself and Fluttershy, helping scrub herself and the pegasus of the worst of the stains they received from Dave’s arrival. “Calm down? CALM DOWN! There’s a fin in my mane!” she whined, shaking her wet mane to dislodge the disgusting fish appendage.It was then that a splash of water hit her dead on, cleaning her of the worst bits of fish parts and mud. Moving her soaking wet mane from her eyes, she glared at a sheepishly smiling Dave with his short tail wagging in the water of the lake. “What, you said you were dirty. Just cleaned you up a bit was all,” he hastily explained, having used his new tail seconds before to soak her in water. Truthfully he just did it to finally shut her up, but lying was much more convenient at the moment. “Why, how dare you!” Rarity yelled, glaring twin points of icy blue eyes of hatred at the downed Dave. “First you make a mess of me and then you have the gall to soak me in dirty pond water! That’s no way to treat a lady!” If Dave could shrug he would. “Well, technically, you’re a pony. Not a lady.” Rarity’s right eye twitched, her face held together in an almost blank expression. This majorly creeped Dave out. And his feeling was right, because in the next moment she came at him like a bullet, striking down upon him a flurry of white hooves. “No–-ow, not the face! Oh god, not the face!” Dave begged, but his words fell on deaf ears. Rarity was properly beating on his face and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. “Ow, my eyes! My eyes!” “Rarity, stop this right now!” Applejack ordered her, tugging at the tail of her friend with her teeth and pulling the furious unicorn back, much to the relief of Dave. “Let me at that ruffian! No one insults a lady like that!” Rarity said, struggling in Applejack’s strong grip to get right back into the Dave face hitting action. “Can we please stop fighting?” Fluttershy faintly spoke up, everyone turning an eye toward her. She instantly sheepishly hid her face behind her long, pink mane, her eyes peeking out through the wet strands. “I-if that’s okay with you all.” “Yeah, what the wing pony said. Truce?” Dave asked, his face still sore from Rarity’s unforgiving hooves. Rarity huffed, not bothering to look over at Dave. “Fine. But insult me again and we’ll have trouble.” “Same goes double from my end, partner,” Applejack warned, giving a stony look at Dave. Dave just simply flopped his head on the ground, no longer thinking these were colorful plushy ponies of softness and sweets. More like female furies of hormonal rage. Not that different from women back home, actually. “Okay, not that that’s outta the way, would someone mind explaining where I am?” Dave asked, still trying to push himself to a standing position, but getting so where. It felt like he was trying to push himself up with a ton of bricks on his back, and his shorts legs were better used as tree stumps than actual support. “And why I can’t even control my frickin’ body?” “Mike had the same questions as you,” Fluttershy said, shivering from having been soaked to the bone twice in one day. She was going to get a nasty cold by this rate. “Wait, did you say Mike?” Dave asked, finally succeeding in getting to his back and looking very much like a dog with his arms hanging over his chest. If a dog was a multi-ton creature of unspeakable horror. But still, pretty darn adorable. “Y-yes, Mike.” FLuttershy winced, and shiver passing down her spine. “He was mean when he arrived out of nowhere. I was just trying to be nice. And when I left to get some help, I came back to–-” Her voice shook, a small shudder in her throat that made her swallow hard. “To all my fishes being dead.” “... Yep, that sounds like Mike alright,” Dave concluded. “Guy has more anger management problems than people over twice his age.” He attempted to lift his neck to see why his body was so unresponsive. And now he wished he hadn’t. His belly was a dark blue, having a texture similar to short hair, along with speckles of black dots on his sides. His arms were huge and lanky, and his hands resembled the feet of a chicken–-red and covered in ridges, but what scared him the most was the claws, which were over three feet long and razor sharp. He had large hind legs–-about eight feet in length–-ending in four-toed feet that ended in claws. His protruding potbelly made it hard to make out, but he was pretty sure he could make out a short tail at the end of his body with a large plume of orange feathers. “Oh God... what the hell happened to me?” Dave whispered, his tongue traveling over his new canine teeth–-or rather, reptilian teeth–-that scratched him before. “I’m a freak!” “What do ya mean?” Applejack asked, squeezing out some extra water from her blonde mane. “Sure, ya look weird, but nothin’ worse than a manticore or hydra.” “I’m supposed to be a human! Not some... some...” It finally hit him. That fossil with the weird glowing rainbow appearing from it. “Therizinosaurus.” “Theri-what now?” Applejack said. “Therizinosaurus. That fossil I touched back at the museum. The one with the huge ass claws.” Dave arched his neck, which was much longer than he was used to, and managed to stare at his newfound claws more closely, clicking them together. “The King of Mongolia are what they are called.” “Oh please don’t tell me you’re royalty,” Rarity said with a roll of her eyes. Evidently his new body was still able to get itself on its legs, because after much struggling and flailing of his arms, he finally managed to get on his feet. That, and because his tail made a good leveraging device. Dave remained upright, his legs wobbling and shaking slightly as he adjusted to his new weight. His body was now built like a barrel, his potbelly and wide sides held by his ridiculously strong legs and balanced with his long neck and short tail. Taking a hesitant step forward, like a more monstrous version of a baby deer taking its first steps. “Nah, just a regular guy, now turned into one of the most fucked up looking dinosaurs ever,” Dave answered back, edging closer to the water and waving his arms desperately to stay upright. Once he was closer, he first noticed his reflection in the water. And boy was it a strange one. For one thing, that long neck did not mean a big head for it to support. Really, it was quite pathetically small compared to the rest of his body. While those ponies had heads that were bigger than their bodies–-which really shouldn’t be physically possible–-his was was a much smaller entity that rested on his lengthy neck. The snout part of his face was red, resembling the skin of his claws, and ended in a sharp beak with a pointy row of teeth clearly seen. He still had the same green eyes as from his old body, with a tuft of orange hair resting atop his head and an orange coat conflicting with his blue one residing on his underside running down his back. Evolution was truly colorblind, it seemed. “Ah shit, now how am I gonna pick up chicks looking like a cross between a chicken and raptor?” Dave complained, spreading his arms apart and testing out the new joints in his limbs. If he wasn’t careful, those three foot claws of his were going gut himself. “You mean you didn’t always look like this?” Rarity asked, arching an eyebrow at him. Dave shook his head. “No. I was a human. Much shorter, less ugly, had opposable thumbs. And a good sack in the bed, if I do say so myself.” “That’s disgusting!” Rarity bemoaned, grimacing at his improper manners. “That’s Dave for ya. Which is me, by the way.” He turned to the three ponies, towering over them like a skyscraper. A really colorful, yet terrifying, skyscraper. His foot would’ve been able to crush any of them in an instant. And no one wanted to guess what his exceptionally large claws could do. “So, who are you all? Gumdrops, Sugarpiss and Heartswirl.” “Actually, it’s Applejack, Rarity and Fluttershy,” Applejack answered him, pointing to each pony in turn. Dave shrugged, or tried his best to–-with the different alignment of his shoulders and all. “I was close. So, any of you know how I ended up here?” “We were just itchin’ to know ourselves,” Applejack said, casting a wary glance at Dave. He was much more intimidating standing up than when he was defenseless on the ground. She gulped. “Mike was wondering the same thing. Which is why I brought my friends over,” Fluttershy said, still curled up into a ball. But at least she wasn’t crying anymore. “To try and help him.” “Knowing Mike, he would’ve told you to take that help and shove it someplace deep,” Dave chuckled, surprised at how quickly he adjusted to speaking with a new mouth. And the fact he had vocal cords. Neat. “I must say, this Mike fellow sound positively dreadful,” Rarity said, having spruced herself up as best as she could manage with a wet mane and coat. “Do you really associate yourself with such a person?” “Yeah, we’re the best of friends!” Dave said cheerfully, reminiscing on all the good times they’ve had. It may have taken him two minutes, but he was sure he’d remember something. After the long drawn out silence, Applejack coughed awkwardly. “So yeah, ya were sayin’ you weren’t always... this thing?” “I am most certain I’ve never been a Therizinosaurus. They only lived in the late Cretaceous Period, ‘bout 70 million years ago. Pretty hard to be an extinct animal.” Dave took several steps forward, getting used to his unusual walking gait. It was a difficult effort, moving one foot in front of the other while keeping his arms balanced at his side while he swung his tail in the movement of each of his strides so he didn’t tip over. How did animals do this? “Yer sayin’ you are an extinct animal? But you seem awfully alive,” Applejack said, scratching her mane in wonder. “Yeah, baffles even my large intelligence as well,” Dave said, turning his neck around and getting a good look at his backside. “Just goes to show I get the weirdest group member of the Therizinosauridae family.” “Okay, now ya just makin’ up names!” Applejack complained. Dave chuckled. “Ain’t my fault you never bothered to learn up ‘bout dinosaurs. Being a paleontologist has benefits after all, other than the crazy amount of sex and groupies you get from the geology department.” Rarity shuddered. “Can you please stop mentioning such unappealing acts? There are ladies here, you know?” Dave was about to make another crack at that, but thought better of it. His face was still feeling quite sore from her painful hoofwork. “Meh. I’m still sexy as hell, dino or no dino.” He was making quick walks around the pair of mares in small circles, his at first awkward footsteps replaced with much more confident footfalls. “Heh heh, gettin’ the hang of this now!” Dave shouted out, laughing as he pretended to prance like a horse–-which, given the circumstances and his new company, was either demeaning or silly. Fluttershy had to back up to avoid being trampled by one of Dave’s feet, wincing as the ground shook from his massive weight. “You guys, um, we still have to find Mike.” She scooted away even more, cowering slightly. “If that’s okay with you.” “Oh yeah, Mike! Where is he anyhow?” Dave asked her, stopping before the pegasus and bending his neck down to be eye to eye with her. Fluttershy nearly jumped with fright, Dave’s unappealing appearance terrifying her to no end. “H-he was in the pond w-when I left. He must’ve gotten in t-the river if he isn’t here.” “River? Why not dry land? Why the hell would Mike swim?” Dave asked her. “Cause he’s a shark,” she answered back, backing away slowly from Dave. “Or at least, something like a shark. With a chainsaw pair of teeth that curled up into his mouth.” Suddenly faint screams could be heard far off, girlish and piercing in a way that only a young girl could make. Applejack shielded her eyes from the sun with her hoof over her head and stared off into the distance, near the small lake near the town. “Trouble seems to be comin’ from the lake.” Rarity joined her, squinting to get a better view. “It looks like... Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle, and Apple Bloom. And they’re screaming and running away from something.” “And I’m guessing that something is Mike,” Dave said, worried now. If Mike was really pissed off, there’s no telling what he would do, especially now that he was a shark. If Mike could sock a guy in the eye for putting the wrong type of condiment on his hotdog, Dave didn’t want to see what he’d do if his body transformed. “Never fear! Dave is here!” Dave shouted, intent on running down there and stopping his friend from killing everyone himself. Wouldn’t be the first time, and most likely no the last. Except that one step forward brought him crashing down to the ground again, his face implanting itself deep in the earth. “... Ow.”