Prologue: Departures

Between Universe A and B

It shifted. In all it's infinite lifetime, for whatever reason, the universe shifted. It was slight on scale, not enough for any of its countless lifeforms to notice any changes physically. However the shift caused a crack, a small break in space and time, connecting A with B. Placed in a forest of A, set on the ground for any unwilling being to fall into.

That is, if they didn't jump.

Meanwhile...

Universe A
Earth, North America, Canada

In a small forest set in an urban surrounding, quiet could be found on a regular day. The peace and tranquility in a large city was usually unheard of, but it was a comfort to some to escape into the trees and follow the paths to their destination.

On this particular day, however, the quiet was broken by two friends. Two boys locked in the heat of debate as their female companion watched the pair fight it out.

“...and I'm telling you, Draco, Master Chief would beat Samus in a Death Battle!”

“Really Roman? Samus could just freeze the Chief, and boom, battle over!”

The taller boy scrunched his face at this and determined his comeback. “The Chief has a bubble shield, that thing prevents all projectiles from passing through,” he smirked.

Roman was the tallest of the three, standing a few inches taller than his friends. The boy had dark brown hair, dull green eyes and sported a white t-shirt, faded blue jeans and his favourite black trench coat.

“Yeah, well Master Chief has a limited supply on him, Samus has all her weapons at her disposal, ready to go,” Draco replied quickly.

Draco stood an inch or two below Roman. His sandy brown hair was a mess, as per his look, and his dark brown eyes dared Roman to respond. He wore dark blue jeans, a black t-shirt and a faded black hoodie with grey and red plaid.

Roman turned to the girl and motioned to Draco, “Can you believe this guy, Shontia?”

The girl shook her head, “Nope, I'm staying out of this one.” Shontia stood at Draco's height, her slightly curled hair being a dark blonde and her eyes a brown similar to Draco's. She was dressed in a black sweater with regular jeans and a light, black jacket. Shontia was also carrying her ever present blue bag, filled with all of her various art supplies.

The boys looked at one another as Roman sighed, “Okay, since this obviously going nowhere; agree to disagree?”

Draco nodded and stretched out his hand, “Agreed,” he said as Roman shook it, “beats you talking about ponies.”

“You are not going to let that go are you?” Roman laughed.

Both being bronies, Roman and Shontia knew where their friend was coming from. After losing a bet, Draco had to watch the first two episodes, sparking an interest in Roman to try it himself. While Drake didn't find himself a fan, Roman did and was surprised when he learned that Shontia was a fan as well. Ever since, more of Drake's friends began popping up as members of the fandom, leading him to simply poke fun at the fact, rather than reject it altogether.

Shontia smiled as the friends stopped their argument quickly changed the subject before another broke out, “So why are we out here again?”

“I have a feeling,” Roman replied, as if that would explain it.

“And this wouldn't be the feeling that you had last time, right?” Draco asked, causing the trio to shudder at the memory. “I thought we agreed that day never happened,” Shontia muttered.

“No, this is a different one,” Roman smiled, “it's like I can feel that we're going to find something awesome. Either that or I'm getting cabin fever.”

With that the teen crouched down and felt the ground, “Besides Drake,” he breathed, standing, “we all need something exciting to happen soon.” The air grew still as the truth once again sunk in. It was Febuary, and the trio were on their second last term in school, it was only a matter of time before they would be forced apart to pursue their future goals and ambitions.

“So where do we start?” Shontia asked, breaking their silence.

Drake and Shontia looked at where Roman was just standing to see him pushing aside some bushes to head deeper into the forest. “I guess that way.”

With that they followed their friend deeper into the brush. After some time of walking, Roman stopped and examined the surroundings. “You feel that?”

Shontia and Draco stopped and looked around as well. “Yeah, the air it's heavier,” Shontia noted.

Draco stared at a spot in the brush, “This way!”

The group changed their direction, the pressure in the air growing denser as they made their way through. Eventually they arrived at the source in a clearing. They were speechless for a moment, until Draco broke the silence, “What is that?”

On the ground was a circle, coloured violet with white streaks swirling within it.

Roman approached the circle and picked up a small branch off the ground. Draco stared at his friends action, “What are you doing!?” Ignoring him, Roman knelt down and 'dipped' the stick into the circle. “Don't poke it!”

“I think it's a rift,” Roman explained.

“A what?” Shontia asked.

“A spacey-wacey link between dimensions,” he elaborated, pulling the stick out of the circle and tossing it aside. He stood and turned to his friends, “Is this cool or what?”

“No it isn't,” Draco shot back, “it's dangerous, someone could fall in.”

“Yeah,” Roman sighed, turning to the rift and flashing a smile, “or...”

“Rome, no.”

“Oh come on! Don't tell me you're not the least bit curious as to where this leads.”

“Dude, we've had discussions about the multiverse theory before. We could end up anywhere!”

Roman shook his head and laughed, “So you mean to tell me, that out of all the wonder and danger out there, you'd rather be stuck in the daily rut where every day you live out the definition of insanity?”

Draco nodded, “Yes, I that is exactly what I'm saying.”

His smile faded and he turned to Shontia, “And you?”

She shook her head “I'm sorry Roman, you know I like a good adventure, but...”

Roman raised a hand and chuckled, “It's cool. Just let it be forever that known that on this date, March 13th, 2013, that I listened to that little voice in the back of every humans head, and said...” with that he spun on his heel and jumped feet first into the rift, “GERONIMOOO!”

After a second, his voice faded, leaving his two friends in the clearing. Drake walked over to the rift and checked for any sign of his friend. Seeing nothing, he sighed as Shontia spoke, “Should we follow him?”

Draco shook his head before turning to face her, “Roman's smart, he should be able to hold up on his own.”

Shontia looked down, causing Drake's heart to tinge in guilt.

“Hey,” he said stepping forward, “don't be likeWOAHWOAHWOAHWOAHWOAHWOAH!” Shontia looked up to see as Draco slipped on a muddy patch of earth, flailing his arms around in a desperate attempt to regain his balance before falling backwards, head first, into the rift.

Alone in the clearing, Shontia looked around before sighing and rubbing the bridge of her nose. “Why do I get myself into these messes?” With that she walked up to the rift, being careful not to repeat Draco's action and looked into it. She swallowed, “Here goes.”

With that she jumped into the rift, screaming as she fell.

In the silence of the forest, where three friends once stood, the rift closed, and the adventure began.

Arrivals

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Universe B
???

-Roman-

A gentle breeze swept across the grassy field, filling the area with a white noise. Laying in the tall grass was Roman, his coat acting as a blanket as the teen rested with his hands behind his head. Some feet away from him was a discernible imprint of crushed grass from where he had landed. It wasn't a great fall, some 10 feet that he landed with a combat roll. He closed his eyes, allowing his mind to wander.

Do you think they followed you?

Roman sighed as a voice with a slight British accent asked a question he was trying to ignore. They may have followed, they could be here.

Roman sighed again as he verbally answered the voice, “I just got here, can't I get a break?”

When your friends are lost in a new universe that you yourself are barely 6 feet into?

He has a point, a second voice similar to his own, but louder spoke up, get going, explore a little.

Roman felt the first voice sigh, Yes, I can't believe I'm agreeing with him, but it would be logical to know where you are before deciding that it's safe to rest.

Realizing that both sides were agreeing for once (a rare occasion at that), Roman slid his arms back into his coats sleeves and stood back up, examining the field. Turning a full 360 degrees, he found nothing of interest aside from some mountains in the distance. “So where do I go now wise guys?” he mentally asked the voices.

You figure it out.

Scratching behind his head, Roman checked his wrist, hoping to use his watch's hands as a makeshift compass, finding that it had vanished. “What the?” His hands quickly dug into his pockets, finding nothing within them, he patted down his coat. “You're kidding me.”

Stuck in an unknown universe, no wallet, no watch, no iPod, no phone and no sunglasses? the first voice asked.

“Yep.”

Welcome to universe survival: Hard mode.

Roman chuckled at the voice's comment before surveying the area again. “Here's to aimless wandering,” he sighed. Choosing the direction facing away from the sun, the teen began his trek. Some 50 paces away from his resting place, his ears twitched at the sound of screaming. However it wasn't a scream of pain or terror, it was more like a war cry.

Alerted to this, he spun around. Seeing nothing, he looked to the sky, using his hand to shield his eyes from the sun. Barely visible against the sky was a form dive bombing straight towards him with a rainbow streak following behind it.

“What the?”

Universe B
???

-Draco-

*RUSTLE* *CRACK* *SNAP* *THUD*

“Ugh,” Draco grunted. The boy stared upwards into the tree he had just fallen out of. Having the air knocked out of his lungs he sat himself up against it and caught his breath. Leaning his head back, he inhaled slowly. “I'm gonna kill Roman when I find him,” he quietly muttered to himself.

Taking a few minutes to decide that he was well enough to stand, Draco pulled himself up and examined the tree he was under. It was an apple tree, only a foot or two higher than he was. Looking around, Draco found that he was surrounded by possibly hundreds more trees. “Must be an orchard,” he thought to himself.

Using a lower branch to hoist himself up, he plucked an apple from his sitting tree and examined it. It was a shiny red, perfect with no bruises or other damage whatsoever. It was slightly smaller than most others, but this didn't matter to him. He sunk his teeth into the flesh of the fruit and chewed on it. It was sweet, much sweeter than the apples on Earth. “Must be the fact that I'm in another dimension,” he whispered to himself.

Looking around again, the teen couldn't help but feel a sense of déjà vu. “I've seen this place before,” he mentally noted. Brushing off the familiarity of his surroundings, he started to wander through the orchard, still eating the apple he had taken. He began to notice baskets laying around near the trees as he finished his snack and tossed the core aside. Some of them were full with a massive pile of fruit, but others were empty, waiting to be filled.

Approaching a tree with its baskets full, Drake found some imprints low on the trunk. They were almost circular in shape and quite close together. Running his fingers along the right groove, he felt another memory pull at his mind. Something about the placement he couldn't quite recall as a stray thought wandered into his mind, “I really hope Shontia's okay.”

“The tracks lead this way!” A feminine voice with a distinct southern accent snapped the teen out of his trance. “Aw, dammit,” he muttered to himself. Thinking fast, Draco jumped behind a nearby bush and listened in.

“Ah'm tellin' you sis, there ain't any weird creatures out here,” spoke a deeper, more stoic voice with a similar accent.

“Well Ah've never seen tracks lahke those before, and look, the varmint's an apple thief too!”

“Ah crap, the core,” Draco scolded himself.

“Sis, even if we find the thing, what are we gonna do with it?”

“Ah'll tell you what Ah'm gonna do Mac,” Drake's eyes went wide as he made out to forms, one orange and one red through the branches, “Ah'm gunna teach it a lesson.”

“What the?”

Universe B
???

-Shontia-

“Hello? Anyone?” Shontia squinted her eyes, trying to make out anything in the darkness. “Draco? Roman?”

The girl had stuck the landing on her feet, but couldn't determine where she was. “C'mon guys, are you here?” With no response coming, Shontia reached into her pocket to use her phone as a light, but found nothing. “Oh man,” she reached into her bag to find that her supplies were still in it. Sighing a light breath of relief she walked forward, hoping to find a light switch.

A few feet from where she started she bumped into what felt like a table. Shontia held her breath as she heard what sounded like bottles rattling on the surface, threatening to fall and shatter on the floor. Luckily the sound of wobbling glass eventually faded and she let her breath out, thankful to have not broken anything. Using the table as a guide the teen walked to the right, eventually finding a wall lined with what felt like books. Two more steps to the right and she found the stairs. “Bingo.”

Careful not to fall, Shontia made her way up three flights before arriving at the top of the staircase. Turning right again, she used the wall as a guide before reaching the end and feeling a door. Locating the handle, she heard two voices arguing on the other side. Placing her ear against the door, she listened in.

“There is nothing in the basement!” shouted a feminine voice.

“B-but I swear I heard something down there,” replied a younger voice.

Shontias eyes widened as she continued to listen. “Spike, I'm telling you, there is no way anypony can be down there!”

“But what if they tunneled in Twilight?”

Shontia felt herself freak out on the inside as she heard the female voice sigh, “Okay Spike, I'll look down there,” steps were heard on the other side of the door as the teen stepped back, “but only to prove to you that...” Shontias mouth went agape as the door opened. After a second of her eyes adjusting, she found a lavender unicorn with a similar expression as her own standing on the other side with a small green and purple dragon standing next to it.

For what seemed like an eternity, there was a deafening silence until the dragon spoke up, “What the?”

Universe B
???

-Roman-

Romans eyes grew wide as he saw the streak rapidly grow closer. At the last second he dodged to the left causing the streak to come to an abrupt landing. Once it did, Roman was in awe at his attackers appearance. “Holy.”

What the?

WHAAAA!?

Standing before the teen was a three and a half foot tall cyan pegasus mare with a rainbow mane and tail. Her rose eyes and stance trying to threaten him.

“OmygodOmygodOmygodOmygodOmygod!”

Focus you.

Quickly getting over his fanboy moment, Roman raised his hands and backed away slowly. However the mare had other plans, flying towards him at breakneck speeds and turning to deliver a kick with its hind legs. Again Roman leapt out of the way, taking only a slight graze from the buck. Looking up, he saw his attacker charge. Thinking fast he sidestepped and put out his hand, pushing the pegasus off course as it flew passed.

Seeing his opponent veer right and land in a pile of dust, Roman took his chance and turned tail, gaining some distance and jumping into the grass. As the mare collected herself, her head scanned left and right, trying to find the teen, unaware that he was slowly making his way behind her. Crouching low, he took the moment to calm down and catch his breath. This moment became short lived as the mare took to the skies, ascending to a height that she could find Roman at. Seeing her attempt to divebomb him once again Roman grinned, “Clever girl.” Rising from his spot in the grass, Roman took his stance.

Keeping low and holding his hands forward, Roman braced himself as the pegasus descended towards him. Seeing his opportunity as she appeared in front of him, Roman took one of her forelegs in his left hand and wrapped his right arm around her mid-section. He then used her momentum and his weight to throw her to the ground, quickly kneeling over her and putting her leg behind her back in a classic 'Uncle' move. As the mare struggled, Roman spoke up, “Please stop, I mean you no harm.”

For a moment her struggling stopped. “You can talk?”

“Yeah, now I'm going to let you up and I expect that you don't try to pound me, alright?”

“Okay.” Letting her leg go, Roman sat back and watched as the mare sat up, trying hard not to go into fanboy mode. After a moment of silence, the mare spoke, “So who and what are you?”

“How do I play this?”

Stupid, Stupid.

“I'm Roman, a human,” he replied calmly and pointed a finger towards the mare, “and you?”

“Rainbow Dash,” she said, puffing up and putting a hoof to her chest, “'the fastest and coolest flier in Equestria.”

“Equestria.” The word struck Roman as he stood and looked back at the mountains. Sure enough, there was a castle visible against the face.

“I'm in Equestria.”

Yep.

“I just fought Rainbow Dash.”

Yep.

“Huh.”

“So where did you come from?” Roman looked down at Dash, “I've never heard of a human before.”

Roman chuckled and sat down, “I'm from Earth in a different dimension, got here by jumping into a link between our dimensions.”

“And why did you do that?”

“I was bored,” he smirked. Wiping his face with his hand, Roman remembered his main concern, “Listen, I know we got off to a bad start, but I think my friends may have ended up coming in behind me. Is there any chance you can get me to a town to ask around if any... er, pony has seen them?”

Dash nodded, “Given our first encounter, I think we'd better find them fast.” With that she stood, “Ponyville's this way, I'm pretty sure Twilight can help you find your friends.”

Roman laughed quietly to himself and stood as well, dusting himself off, “Alright, lead the way.”

Universe B
Equestria

-Draco-

Draco's hands covered his mouth as he tried hard not to scream. Through the thousands of thoughts running rampant through his head, one stood out among the others, “I AM GOING TO MURDER HIM!” Unfortunately for the teen, the thought formed as words creating a muffled screaming from his hiding place.

“Ah think ah heard something over there!”

“Mmph me,” Draco muttered, removing his hands from his mouth.

"Come out you varment!" the female voice called.

“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,” the teen thought to himself. Slowly coming out of the bush, the two blobs took form. The orange one became a mare with a brown stetson and a blonde mane and tail done up in ponytails. The red formed into a tall stallion with a messy orange mane and short tail. At this moment, Draco's mind went blank.

“What in tarnation are you!?” the mare demanded. Draco felt his body quiver as he grasped what he was seeing. “Answer me!”

“Sis, calm down.”

As he lost control of his body, Drake took a few steps out of the bush towards the pair. At this the mare took an aggressive stance, “Stay where you are!” The teen didn't listen. He continued to walk forward until he was standing directly in front of the mare.

“It can't be... I-it can't be.” Still in a state of shock, he put out a shaky hand to the mare who tensed up at this. His hand came closer to the mare's head “It just can't be, it's all a dream.”

What happened next proved this to be false.

“Back off!” the mare yelled. With that she did a 180 on her front hooves and bucked the strange creature in the upper torso as hard as she could. With a sickening *crack* the creature was sent flying back into the bush that it had emerged from. Its flight was cut short by a conveniently placed apple tree, where it slammed against the trunk and slumped forward upon landing. The impact caused a few apples to fall onto its unconscious body.

“Applejack, why did ya do that?” Macintosh asked in disbelief.

Applejack looked up at her brother, “You sahw what that thing was doin'! It was attackin' me!”

“Ah think it was scared sis, ah've never seen anything lahke it before.”

With that the stallion walked through the bushes with his sister following behind him. The siblings gasped when they saw the damage, the slumped body looked almost lifeless. Concerned, Applejack ran up to the unconscious creature and put her ear close to its face. A wave of relief washed over her as she heard the creature breathing, but very faintly.

“Mac, get the wagon and a blanket, we need to get this thing to a hospital.”

The stallion nodded in agreement, “Eeyup.”

Universe B
Equestria

-Shontia-

The silence lasted some time as the two sides stared at each other in awe. From Shontia's perspective she was seeing a cartoon unicorn and dragon. From Twilight's she saw a tall monkey-like creature dressed up and carrying a bag. Once the shock wore off, Shontia managed to gather her thoughts. “Okay, I just followed Roman and Drake into Equestria, better make a good first impression.”

“Um... hi?” she half asked.

“Hi,” the unicorn replied. With that exchange the silence resumed.

“Geez, why is this so awkward?”

“So...” the unicorn stated.

“So...” she repeated. With that the unicorn inhaled deeply causing Shontia to realize what was coming next “Oh boy, here we go,” she thought to herself.

“Who are you? What are you? How did you get into my lab? What's in the bag? I don't think I've ever seen your kind before. How do you know how to talk? Are you dangerous? Are y-”

Deciding to avoid an extensive question period, Shontia held up her hand and signaled for the pony to be quiet. “One question at a time please.”

Clearing her throat, the unicorn nodded and continued, “Sorry, got a little excited there. My name is Twilight Sparkle, and as Princess Celestia's student, I welcome you to Equestria.” With that, Twilight extended a hoof which Shontia accepted with a shake. “So who and what are you?”

“Um, my name's Shontia, a human or homosapien, if you prefer,” she replied scratching behind her head.

With this Twilight bounced on her hooves and squealed with joy, “Oh this is so exciting, first contact with a foreign species! Spike go put on some tea, Shontia come sit over here.” The dragon snapped out of his trance and hurried into the kitchen as Shontia took a spot at a nearby table. Twilight then levitated some parchment and a quill and ink to the table before taking her own seat.

“So tell me, where are you from?"

“Oh good, an easy one.” Deciding to use visual aid to help her describe home. Seeing Shontia reach for her bag, Twilight tensed up. “Relax,” she said, pulling out a pad of paper and her pencils. Flipping to a new page, Twilight scanned over the various sketches and drawings, but one caught her eye as she used her magic to stop Shontia's flipping. Seeing the picture she had stopped on, the teen internally facepalmed. It was an unfinished sketch of the Mane 6 that Roman had jokingly requested. The details on the picture were lacking, but there was enough to individualize the six mares.

“How?” Twilight pondered aloud.

With a quick jerk of the book, Twilight lost her magical grip and Shontia resumed flipping through the pages to a blank one. “So my home world,” she started. With skilled hands, Shontia quickly drew a circle and filled it with the various continents that made up her planet. “This is Earth,” she explained, “a world of mostly water with lots of land split into countries. It has forests, mountains, lakes, oceans, and tons of different animals with humans, like me, being the dominant species. Most of the land is made up of cities and other man-made stuff, so it's not as natural as it used to be."

Writing down what Shontia said, Twilight looked up, “So it's like here?”

The teen shook her head slowly, “Um.... No nothing like here. Here you have a kingdom that has magic. We have many groups lead by elected government officials. We also don't have magic. We rely on machines to help us to do our day to day tasks.”

At this, Twilight's attention was piqued. “I never said that Equestria was a monarchy, or relied on magic.”

This time, Shontia really did facepalm, “Oh, I have some explaining to do, don't I?”

The unicorn nodded, “Yes, you do.”

Looking to her skecthbook again, Shontia turned back to the picture that Twilight had stopped her on earlier, “You know movies and plays, right?” Twilight nodded. “Well on my world there are boxes that act like projectors, showing movies and shows like that. One of them is called My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, and it kinda revolves around Equestria and... you.”

Twilight cocked her head with a scowl at this, “So in your world, Equestria is nothing but a land of fiction?”

Shontia nodded. “I would say that, but then again,” she said, waving her hand around as if gesturing to the room, “it looks pretty real to me."

The scowl faded from Twilight's face as Spike came in with the tea and sat down at the table. “So what was the first act?”

Taking two lumps of sugar and plopping them into her cup, Shontia stirred her tea thoughtfully. “The Summer Sun Celebration when Nightmare Moon was released. Ever since the show gathered a following, my friend Roman and I are fans.”

“Who's Roman?” Spike asked.

Sipping her tea, Shontia responded, “He's the reason I ended up here. He jumped into a dimensional rift on a whim and my other friend Draco ended up falling in by accident. I followed to make sure they don't make fools of themselves.”

“So there's more of you here?”

Shontia smiled at Twilight, “I can only hope. It would be best if I find Drake as soon as possible, who knows what he might do here. As for Roman, he should be able to handle himself, in fact he's probably having fun.”

“And why exactly did he jump into a dimensional rift? It could have thrown him anywhere.”

Shontia laughed lightly at the thought, “Roman's odd. He's had a rough life and probably figured anywhere was better than our world.”

“And what about Drake?” Twilight continued.

“He's my oldest friend, I've known him since we were young,” leaning back, Shontia took a brief moment to reminisce on her time with Draco.

“So why is there urgency around finding him?”

Snapping out of her memories, the teen looked at Twilight sheepishly, “Um... Remember how I said Roman and are fans?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Well Draco may not be too fond of this place...”

“So he could be in trouble.”

Shontia laughed again, “Poor guy would be lucky if trouble didn't follow him here and bite him.”

“Is he really that rash?” Twilight asked.

Shontia nodded, “Knowing him, there's no telling how he'd react.”

“So would it be okay if I ask you a few more questions?” Twilight asked, dipping her quill in ink.

Shontia took a brief moment to think it over: Sure Draco would probably end up doing something like burning the town down, but Roman would probably stop him before anything like that would happen. “Sure, what do you want to know?”

“Everything.”

“Should have seen that coming,” Shontia thought to herself.

Universe B
Ponyville, Equestria

-Roman-

“... so it helps us fly by reducing our overall body weight,” Dash finished.

“Cool.” Roman and Dash were just arriving into Ponyville and had been filling their trek (and flight) with a questioning period about one another. Dash had mainly stuck to questions about what humans were and how their world worked. She seemed especially surprised when she learned that humans couldn't use magic, lacked cutie marks and used special machines to fly and travel long distances. Meanwhile, Roman continued playing dumb and asked questions he knew the answers to, such as if there were any other ponies other than pegasi. He also took the chance to fill in any curiosities he had, such as his last question being about if a pegasus bone structure was hollow like a bird's to improve flight.

Coming up to a bridge into town, a pair of mares looked up from their conversation to see the human approach. They looked terrified by his height and overall appearance. Seeing this, Roman decided to make the best impression possible. As he and Rainbow passed the pair, he looked over at them and nodded his head, “Ladies.” They said nothing in response.

“How do you think the town will react?” Dash looked over at him as they finished crossing.

“I mean, those girls seemed like they were about to bolt at first sight.”

“Well if you keep an attitude like that and stick with me, you should be fine.”

“Here's to hoping,” Roman muttered under his breath.

Eyes turned to the teen as if he were a traveling circus. The awkward gazes did not phase him, as Roman continued alongside Dash on their route. The interest eventually subsided as they made their way through town, which Roman chalked up to previous misconceptions about Zecora. Taking the opportunity, Roman's eyes shifted around, identifying citizens.

“Hm, there's Golden Harvest at her stall.”

Thunderlane's clearing clouds.

Cloudkicker's kicking clouds.

Lily selling flowers to Sparkler.

Odd, I would have expected Ly... The voice didn't get to finish as the seafoam green mare in question trotted up to Roman, her golden eyes almost sparkled at the sight of him.

“Commence ultimate fanboy moment.”

NO BLOWING OUR COVER!

“Hi there!” Roman chirped. The mare's jaw opened as she tried to form words.

“A-are you a hu-human?” she stuttered.

“Well I'm definitely not a dog,” Roman joked, “but yeah, I'm a human.” The mare's eyes grew unreasonably wide at the word “human”.

“Does that mean you have h-hands?”

“What, you mean these old things?” Roman asked, raising both extremities to show.

Somehow, the mare's eyes grew even wider, “May I see them?”

Crouching down to eye level with the mare, he held out his palms and allowed her to examine them. An odd point at this was when she felt over them with her hooves, when she turned them over to examine the back, Roman felt her grip his hands. This confused him, but he set it under 'It's magic, it doesn't need explaining'. After a few minutes of having his hands felt up, the mare let go and Roman stood, “Happy?” Her response was a squeal as she bounced away giggling like a maniacal schoolgirl.

Roman and Dash watched her take her leave with heads cocked. “Well, that was odd,” Roman remarked.

“Yeah, that's just Lyra for you,” Rainbow explained, “she can be a bit weird.”

“Well weird is good, I like weird.”

Dash looked at the teen in confusion, “What do you mean by that?”

Roman shrugged as they continued onward, “We're all weird in some way.”

“Well not me!” Dash boasted.

“Well my life's filled with it's oddities. Frak, earlier today I jumped through a rift into another dimension, ended up befriending a rainbow maned pegasus, had my hands examined by a unicorn, and this doesn't even break my top five!”

“What does 'frak' mean?”

“Eh, I don't think swearing in public would be looked lightly upon.”

Rainbow nodded, “Makes sense.”

As the pair continued on their way, the tree house began to come into view. “Finally, I'm going to get some help,” Roman thought to himself. His walking slowed to a pace as a sound caught his ear. “Buzzing?” Looking at a nearby intersection he saw a helmeted orange filly approaching quickly on a scooter.

Another one?

Why can't we just get to the library already!? Noticing Roman's slower pace, Dash turned to watch. The filly used her wings to launch herself and her scooter into the air, performing a swift double flip before landing sideways causing her to come to a screeching halt with a cloud of dust.

“That was cool.”

And she doesn't have a cutie mark in this why?

Instead of taking interest in the tall creature like the rest of the town, the filly immediately went to chatting with her idol.

“Hey Scootaloo,” Rainbow greeted.

“Hi Rainbow Dash!” she smiled, “did you see that trick? It was nothing.” She leaned against her scooter trying to look cool, only to shift her weight too far causing her to fall over. As the filly quickly stood up and dusted herself off, Roman shot a confused look to Dash who responded with a simple shrug. Resuming her position against her scooter, Scootaloo tried her best to continue looking cool despite her moment of clumsiness. “So what's...” At this moment she noticed Roman, “Uhh Rainbow Dash, who's the monkey?”

Roman gave a quick chuckle at the word “monkey”.

“That gives me an idea...”

No. No. No. No. No!

Dash looked at the filly, “He's not a monkey, this is Roman, he's a hu-”

“No Rainbow, she's right.”

Don't you dare!

TOO LATE!

Roman put on a devilish grin and took off his trenchcoat, allowing it to fall to the ground. “I'm a monkey.”

With that Roman bent over, allowing his knuckles to hang on the ground as he began howling like a chimp. Seeing this, Scootaloo smiled and hopped back onto her scooter, zooming away as Roman gave chase while flailing his arms over his head. Seeing his target gain a considerable amount of distance, Roman wizened up and broke into an all-out sprint. The filly was fast, but in his straightened stance the teen had no problem catching up to her. Coming alongside, Roman reached out his arm and snatched Scootaloo off of her scooter, causing it to roll to a stop.

Throwing her over his shoulder, Roman took the filly to a nearby bench as she laughed and struggled in protest. Setting the giggling filly down on the seat, Roman crossed his eyes and blew a raspberry at Scootaloo, prompting a joyous laugh from her.

As the laughter subsided, Roman put out a hand to the filly, “Nice to meet you, my name's Roman.”

The filly put her hoof out as Roman gripped it lightly, the grip was returned.

Seriously, how do they do that?

Magic.

“I'm Scootaloo,” she replied.

“Nice to meet you Scootaloo.”

With this, Dash came trotting up. “Sorry squirt, this guy needs to find his friends. I'll hang out with you later.”

The filly nodded and trotted towards her scooter, “It's cool,” she called over her shoulder, “I have a meeting with the crusaders anyways. Later!”

As the pair watched her zoom off, Dash flapped her wings to come even with Roman's shoulder and promptly slugged it. The teen, while unfazed, looked at her confused. “Ow, what was that for?”

The mare looked at him with some annoyance in her eyes, “Because. Why'd you even do that anyways?” Roman flashed a smile before walking in the direction of his discarded jacket.

“Because I'm weird,” he answered, “there's a lot of sounds in the universe Dash, you know which one is the greatest?”

Rainbow shook her head as Roman knelt down and picked up his coat. Dusting it off he continued, “The greatest sound in the universe... is the sound of a child laughing.”

He looked over at his companion who had her head tilted in confusion, “You really are weird.”

“Yeah, I get that a lot.” Putting his coat back on, the two made their way to the library. Coming up to it, Roman quietly suppressed another fanboy moment.

This place is a fire hazard...

As he reached for the front door handle, Dash stopped him. “Maybe I should go in first, don't want Twi' freaking out over a new species in Equestria.”

Roman nodded and stepped aside, “After you then.”

Stepping up to the door, Dash opened the door and stepped, “Twilight, you'll never believe what I-” She stopped. Sitting at the table with Twilight and Spike was another human, but this one was dressed in black and had longer, lighter hair. The silence from the awkwardness lasted some time.

Outside, Roman began to grow impatient, “Geez, how long does it take you to tell your friend that you just found an alien?” Opening the door himself, Roman stepped inside with an over exaggerated annoyed look on his face. “Y'know Dash, it's rude to leave someone waiting...”

Roman's joking expression quickly changed into a smile as he caught a look at his friend sitting at the table. "Shontia?" Roman asked as he pushed in front of Rainbow Dash.

"Roman?" she responded, getting up from her spot at the table. The two approached each other as they spoke in a whisper, “Roman?”

“Yeah?”

“We're in Equestria.”

“I know.”

The teens smiled at at each other as Shontia squealed a bit, “So cool.”

Roman chuckled at her, “It's nice to see a friendly face.” Her smile quickly vanished.

“You haven't seen Draco?”

“He's here? What happened?”

“He slipped in and I followed.”

“Sounds like him.”

The two stepped away and turned to the three pairs of eyes set on them. "So you two do know each other?" Dash asked.

"Yes we were together with our friend Draco when we found... a way into this dimension," Shontia explained.

"So Shontia mind introducing me to your friend?" asked Twilight, still writing on the parchment scroll.

The other teen raised his hand, “I'm Roman.”

“And you're the one who likes our show, right?”

Roman pursed his lips and shot Shontia an 'Are you kidding me' look. “You told her?”

Shontia looked around sheepishly, “It sorta slipped out, and she saw that picture.”

Roman facepalmed.

“What do you mean by 'our show'?” Dash asked.

Roman pinched the bridge of his nose and took a seat at the table, “Hoo boy.”

After taking some time to detail the show, its creation and the fandom that followed, Roman silently braced himself for any form of assault. “So we don't exist where you come from?”

He looked up and nodded slowly, “As harsh as that sounds, it is true.”

“And you lied to me?!”

The change in her tone caused the teen to look down in regret, “Yes, I'm sorry. I didn't want to lie, but I needed your help and I doubt that you would help a strange creature claiming to know about a world it's never been in!”

Dash seemed taken aback by his outburst. After a moment of silence around the table, she spoke up, “You're right, I guess it wouldn't help your case.” Roman looked up at Dash as she put out her hoof, but at a new angle. “Friends?”

Roman balled up his fist and bumped it against the offered hoof, “Friends.”

Shontia, Twilight and Spike watched as the two made up. “Alright, now that that's settled, we need to find Drake,” Shontia said.

Roman locked his fingers and set his elbows on the table, resting his head on his hands. “Based on our own arrivals, I think it's safe to say that Drake ended up with another of your friends as I ended up within proximity with Dash as Shontia did with Twilight.” Looking around the table he noticed the confused looks on the others faces. “Everytime I'm being clever...”

"So we just need to find where our friends are to find your friend?" Dash asked.

"Exactly!" Roman replied.

"Well there may be a problem with our numbers..." Twilight said.

“Right,” Shontia said, “there's still four others which means we'll have to take two each. Roman and Dash, you two check Fluttershy and Pinkie, Twilight and I will check on Rarity and Appl-”

The door then burst open, the orange mare in question standing in the doorway. “Twi', ah need yer helAH!” In a split second, all eyes turned to Applejack as she grabbed a lasso out of nowhere, aimed at Roman and threw it at his neck. The teen spotted this and raised his arm at a blinding speed, catching the rope in his hand and wrapping it around his forearm.

“And that solves our Drake problem.” With a quick tug of the rope he caused the mare lose her balance and with another she fell to the floor.

Applejack quickly recovered and made a beeline for Roman, who responded by raising his to her neck hand. In a swift movement he spun her around and lay her down with her head in his lap. “Time to test something...” With that thought he dug his fingers behind the cowpony's ear and massaged it. In no time at all her eyes fluttered shut. Well I'll be damned.

Seeing the lack of threat, Shontia got up and moved over beside Applejack. “Alright AJ,” she started, “I'm going to ask you a few questions. First, have you seen another creature like us?” The mare nodded slightly. “Did he do anything dangerous?” She shook her head. “Is he hurt?” A nod.

“Did you have anything to do with it?” Roman interjected.

Shontia shot him a look as Applejack nodded again. Roman looked at Shontia, concern was written on her face. “Is he at the hospital?” Another nod.

Getting the answers she needed, Shontia stood and walked away as Roman released the pony. Her eyes shot open as she stood and backed away from him. “What the hay was that?”

Roman smiled, “Ear rub. Works on my dog, works on ponies.”

“Never do it again.”

“Don't have to.”

As Applejack glared at Roman, Shontia spoke up, “Can any of you take us to the hospital?”

“Sorry, Ah have to git back to the farm.”

“And I'd better get to work, weather won't clear itself you know,” Dash added. With that the pegasus and earth pony took their leave.

Roman and Shontia looked at Twilight. “Would you kindly?” Roman asked.

The unicorn nodded and started towards the door. “Spike, can you take care of the library?"

The dragon stood up and saluted, “You can count on me Twilight!” With that she turned and opened the door with her magic, stepping outside with Roman and Shontia following.

As they made their way through town, Roman began to whistle a tune. Twilight listened intently as he blew each note, but after a few seconds he stopped. “Was that a song from your world?”

Roman looked over at the unicorn. “Yeah, I just needed to do that. Going too long without music messes with my head.”

"Oh yeah, Shontia told me about the devices you use to store music.”

Roman looked over at his friend, “No phone?”

She shook her head, “Nope.”

“Damn.”

The rest of the walk was in relative silence as they arrived at the hospital. The sun had begun to hang lower in the sky as the trio walked into the building. Coming up to the front desk, the unicorn receptionist had her nose in a crossword puzzle and a small pencil in her magic.

“Six letter word for an irregular occurrence,” she muttered to herself.

“Excuse me, but have you-” Twilight was quickly cut off by the mare.

“One minute please!”

As Twilight prepared to object, Roman put a hand on her shoulder and stepped closer to the desk. Reaching out to the book, he covered it with his other hand, causing the receptionist to look up at him in surprise. “Oddity,” he smiled. The mare looked down and quickly jotted down the word before looking back to the group.

Roman stepped back and Shontia spoke, “We hear you have a patient that's like us.”

The mare stared for a second before looking through a chart. Finding the name 'Weird Monkey Thing', she checked the room number. “Your friend is on the third floor in room eleven.”

The teens and unicorn voiced their thanks before heading towards the stairwell. They made it to the floor in no time at all and quickly found the room. The sight within, however, was relief to all of them. Draco lay in a bed, an IV in his wrist and his body propped up on pillows. He was breathing without a machine which was a good sign, but he was out cold. His hoodie had been folded neatly and set on the dresser next to his bed.

Shontia walked over to her longtime friend and knelt by the bed. “You idiot,” she whispered to him, “can't stay out of trouble for long, can you?”

A knock on the door drew their attention as a unicorn dressed as a doctor walked in carrying some charts in his magic. “Are you this one's friends?”

Roman stepped towards the doctor, “His name's Draco. I'm Roman and next to him is Shontia.”

The doctor nodded and levitated the charts to him. “We managed to patch up your friend as best we could. We used magic to reset his ribs so there wouldn't be any need for incisions and accelerated the healing. We also gave him a powerful sedative, so he'll be out until sometime tomorrow.”

Taking the charts Roman nodded, “Thanks doc.” He examined the charts and found a set of x-rays which he held up to the light for inspection. The first was a pre-op picture. “Four broken ribs, six cracked, no puncture wounds or internal bleeding.” He walked over to his unconscious friend and patted him on the head, “I'm surprised AJ didn't break your spine, buddy.”

Taking out the post-op picture, Roman looked over it with awe. The damage seemed almost as if it never happened, “I've gotta hand it to you doc, I think he'll live.”

The doctor smiled, “The two of you can stay in here tonight in case your friend wakes up, there are some extra pillows in the closet.” With that he turned out the door and left.

Twilight looked out the window, seeing the moon coming into view. “I should get going too, will you guys be able to manage?” The two teens nodded as she went over to the closet and took out a pillow for each of them. As she left she closed the door with a “Goodnight.”

Shontia shifted over to the chair next to Drake's bed and set up her pillow against the back. "So what do you think his first reaction will be when he wakes up?" Shontia asked as she took her coat off and used it as a blanket.

Roman tapped his chin as if in deep thought. "Well my guess would be... to kill me at first sight.” He turned off the rooms light and opted to lay down on the floor near the foot of the bed, his trenchcoat acting as his own blanket.

“So what do we do?” Shontia asked, a yawn escaping her mouth.

Roman sighed quietly, “We live, adapt and try to find a way home.”

“Sounds like a plan,” she yawned. A few minutes of silence she drifted off into sleep.

Roman lay on the floor, his eyes eventually closing as well. You know what I just noticed?

“Shut up, I'm sleeping.”

Twilight doesn't have wings...

Changes

View Online

The next morning Twilight made her way through the hospital halls to Draco's room. Having sent a letter to the Princess detailing the arrival of the humans along with the notes she took from what Shontia had told her, Twilight was awaiting her response. Standing before the door, she couldn't wait to introduce the group to the rest of her friends. As Twilight took the doorknob in her magic, a pair of screams erupted from the other side. Recognizing the voices as Roman and Shontia, a sense of urgency swept over Twilight as she swung the door open, almost ripping the door from it's hinges. “Are you two oka-.”

She stopped short. Sitting on the floor before Twilight was Roman and Shontia, or at least she thought it was them. Their faces had become malformed, their mouths and noses had protruded from their faces. There was a bump forming in the center of Shontia's forehead while two separate bumps were visible on Roman's back through his shirt. Shontia's body had begun to take on a lime green tint and her hair had a red-purple shine to it. Roman's body began to take on a dark red colouring, however his hair remained the same, albeit a bit darker. As Twilight looked over to the unconscious Draco on the bed, she noticed that his face had also deformed, his body was beginning to turn a silver, and most of his hair had begun to turn much darker.

Shontia looked over to Twilight, her eyes had turned to a colour between dark brown and purple. “What's happening to us!?” she screamed with tears of agony in her eyes.

Twilight took a step back. “I-I don't know.”

“I have an idea!” Roman cried as he hunched over, a series of snaps and cracks came from his back. Twilight looked over to Roman as he put his hand to his chest. “I think that our bodies are adjusting to the magical pressure of this universe initiated by contact with the denizens.”

Shontia looked over to her friend with a look of annoyance. “Roman, English!”

“Argh!” Roman winced as another snap resounded before looking Shontia dead in the eyes, “We're turning into the species of pony we first made contact with.”

“T-this is impossible!” Twilight said. Roman cocked his head and raised his eyebrow. “Um... Nevermind. Maybe the doctor will be able to do something.”

As she turned to the door Shontia raised her hand, “NO!” It flashed with a faint, lavender light causing the door to slam shut in Twilight's face.

Twilight turned to Shontia with astonishment on her face, “How?”

“Don't bring the doctors in here,” Roman moaned.

“Why?”

“Because the last thing I want is to cause panic across the ward!” he shouted.

Shontia looked over at the unicorn, “You have to do something Twilight!”

“What am I supposed to do?” Twilight asked, “I've never had to deal with this.”

Roman looked her in the eyes. “Twilight,” his voice had taken a slight British accent, “if there's something that I know about you is that you're extremely clever. You're the personal protégé of Princess Celestia, you excel in the subject of magic, you're the bearer of the Element of Magic and have defeated beings that were way out your league! If there's anypony that can figure it out it's you!”

Twilight closed her eyes in thought, focusing on anything she had learned that could help. After a minute she opened her eyes which were lit with determination. “Okay, I know what to do.” Lighting her horn, she lowered her head and pointed at Roman.

“Nononononononono!”

His protests were in vain as Twilight fired her spell at him. For a second Roman's body was covered in a magenta light before it faded, except for a branching line over his heart. He looked at the spot through his shirt, “The hell? What was that?”

Twilight walked over to the teen and poked the spot. “It was a spell designed for medical purposes to detect foreign objects in a body.” Turning, she fired the spell once more at Shontia. As the light faded, a similar line was visible on the same spot on her chest as Roman's. “It appears that you both have magic within your bodies, and since they aren't used to it, they are adapting.”

“Okay,” Shontia said, “but how does this help AGH!” She stopped short as another series of pops and snaps rang out from her body. Twilight looked over to Roman as his body arched to an odd angle, similar sounds echoing as it did.

“I'm going to extract the magic from your bodies,” Twilight explained shooting the spell at Draco, whose body was also resounding from the change, albeit less painfully due to the medications. “If I do, it will either accelerate the process, cease it as is, reverse it or...”

Roman and Shontia looked over at her. “Or?” they asked simultaneously.

“...it could kill you.”

Roman looked over to Shontia and smiled, “Fifty-fifty for good against bad, I like those odds.”

She looked over to him and nodded. “It beats this,” she agreed as another pop came from her arm.

With their decision mutual, the teens looked to Twilight and spoke two simple words, “Do it.”

Twilight bowed her head and closed her eyes. Her horn glowed brightly as three tendrils of magic extended from it and made contact with the glowing points on the trio. The tendrils pressed into the points as Twilight concentrated, grabbing hold of the foreign magic. “Okay, you may feel a slight pulling.” Roman and Shontia nodded, causing Twilight to pull the tendrils back as hard as she could.

For them it was a pain unlike any other. As the magic was ripped from their bodies, it emerged with a with a blinding light as their very beings were pulled inside-out.

And then darkness.

X Time Later...

Roman's body felt completely numb. His eyes were squeezed shut at the very thought of light. Out of the ringing in his ears, he could make out a faint sound. “Roman? Shontia?”

Would you like to restart Roman.exe? Y/N

“Y.”

Activation plus six minutes. Pulse is 45, respiration 10. Lookin' good, Rome.

Taking what felt like a few more minutes to allow his body to regain sensation, Roman opened his eyes to a blurry, but concerned looking Twilight standing over him. “Hey Twi'. Did it work?” As his vision adjusted, Roman closed his eyes and sat up with his arms behind his back. Finding the position awkward, he leaned forward and put them in front of his body, finding the new position much more comfortable. “So, did it...”

“Roman?”

Shontia saw a dark red pegasus stallion with a dark brown mane that was spiked back and forest green eyes sitting across from her.

Roman opened his eyes to see a lime green unicorn mare with lavender eyes and a long, dark fuchsia mane with some bangs draped over the left side of her face sitting across from him.

“Shontia?”

They stared at each other for a moment before their faces were taken over with large, goofy smiles as they spoke in unison. “YOU'RE A PONY! I'M A PONY! YOU HAVE WINGS/A HORN! I HAVE WINGS/A HORN! YOU'RE A UNICORN/PEGASUS! I'M A UNICORN/PEGASUS!”

“This is so cool!” Shontia squealed as she took a look at her new body, “Where'd our clothes go?”

“Probably burned up in the transformation,” Roman replied, looking over his new form as well before pointing, “or at least, not all of it.” Shontia looked to where he was pointing. Roman's coat and her jacket were still sitting on the floor from when they had woken up in a panic earlier. “By the way Twilight, how long were we out?”

Twilight regained her composure after the pair's outburst and replied, “About twenty minutes.”

“Huh, alright then,” Roman replied. He looked down his back to see his wings, mark and tail. Roman's mark was a blue, four point star with a similarly coloured lightning bolt on the left and right points, and his tail was dark brown, long and shaggy.

Damn, not a ginger...

Shontia also looked down her back to see that she had a long tail, coloured the same as her mane and a cutie mark of a paintbrush that was tipped with red paint.

“Well you two look good,” Twilight complemented.

“Why thank you Twilight,” Shontia said in a bubbly voice.

“Yeah,” Roman agreed as he attempted to stand on all fours, but ended up flat on his face. Shontia got up and walked over to Roman, offering a hoof to help him up. “How did you do that?” he asked in disbelief.

He took the hoof and Shontia helped him up, “It's easy, just don't over think it.”

Roman tried again, this time allowing his body to go naturally as Shontia led him. “Ha! Look, I'm doing it!” he exclaimed.

Twilight smiled, “It's good to see you two adjusting, but what about Dra-”

She was cut off by a loud moan from the bed. They three looked over to see a silver stallion stirring from his sleep. “NOPE!” Roman sprang into action, grabbing a pillow off the floor his teeth and stood on his hind legs to hold it down over his friend's eyes.

After a yawn, Draco spoke, “Roman? I had the craziest dre... Roman, why is there a pillow over my head?”

The pegasus looked over to Shontia and Twilight before looking back down to Draco. “Because...”

“Get it off. And why is my body numb?”

“You had an... accident and are on some painkillers.”

“Yeah, what happened, did I get kicked in the ribs by a pony?” Draco joked. No one laughed. No one even breathed. After some silence, Draco spoke again, “Roman. Lift the pillow.”

Roman blinked, “Okay, I'm going to lift the pillow and you have to promise not to yell, okay?”

“Okay.”

With that Roman took his hooves off the pillow and stepped back as Draco sat straight up, causing the pillow to fall onto his lap. He opened his eyes and stared. Standing before him were three ponies, one he recognized, two he didn't. Draco could manage the fact that three ponies were standing in front of him, but when he looked down at what was once his hands, his pupils turned to pinpricks. For his hands were no longer hands, they were hooves.

Roman took a step back from the bed as his friend's eye twitched. “Here we go...”

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-”

Sweet Apple Acres

Applejack kicked another tree causing a cascade of apples to fall into the baskets. Having talked it over with Big Mac and Granny Smith, she was confident that she had the perfect way of apologizing to Drake for hurting him. As AJ lined up her next strike, she heard a sound from far off in the distance.

“-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

Ponyville General Hospital

“-AAAH!” Draco finally ran out of breath as Roman looked at him in annoyance, his ears pinned against his skull.

“You promised you wouldn't yell!”

Drake's response was a death glare at Roman before shooting out of the bed at his friend. His speed caught Roman off guard as Draco tackled him to the floor. “YOU! YOU DID THIS!”

“Me!? What did I do?” Roman retaliated.

"EVERYTHING!" Draco yelled.

Roman gave him a look, “Everything?”

"Okay well not everything but... ALL OF THIS! YOU JUMPED IN CAUSING ME TO SLIP AS I CHECKED TO SEE IF YOU WERE THERE! YOU STOLE FIZZY LIFTING DRINKS! YOU BUMPED INTO THE CEILING WHICH NOW HAS TO BE WASHED AND SETERILIZED! SO YOU GET NOTHING! SO GOOD DAY SIR!" he screamed started to pound Roman's face in.

Roman put his arms (forelegs?) up to block the strikes. Luckily for him, Draco's mind and body were still weakened from the medications, but it didn't change the fact that his friend's strength had improved with the change. Picking his moment, Roman found an opening in Draco's assault and delivered a quick punch. With Draco momentarily stunned, Roman repositioned himself so his hind hooves were against Drake's stomach. With all his strength, Roman pushed Draco airborne, causing him to land a few feet away. Now free from Drake's assault, Roman stood back up and flared his wings.

Draco wasn't done quite yet. With the IV pulled from his arm, he shakily stood and glowered at the pegasus. “He did this to me...” In a second they were at each other again in a flurry of strikes, headbutts and chokeholds, with neither side giving in.

Twilight, who had been watching the pair fight, looked over to Shontia. The mare had her head down with a bright blush of embarrassment visible through her fur. As she looked up, Twilight saw a look of anger in Shontia's eyes. “Both of you...” she said in a voice that was just under a whisper, her horn glowing with a lavender aura. Shontia glared at her friends, “KNOCK IT OFF!” With that a beam shot out of her horn at Roman and Draco. The pair quickly separated at her outburst, causing the magic to miss them and strike the wall, leaving a scorch mark. Seeing the look of rage in her eyes, they quickly sat at attention. Twilight had not seen such obedience since Shining Armour's academy days.

With Roman and Draco no longer fighting, Shontia trotted up to Draco and got a better look at him. His coat was a silver-gray, eyes were a light brown, and his mane was black and messy, with a lock of golden brown over his left eye. Draco's tail was also black and messy, and his mark was a book with a minimalist, jade green dragon behind it. She also noticed the Drake was slightly taller than her, Roman was noticeably taller than both of them and Draco lacked wings or a horn, making him a simple earth pony.

Shontia's gaze softened as she brought her longtime friend into a hug. “It's okay,” she comforted. For a moment Draco hesitated, before returning the embrace. Roman walked over to Twilight to let his friends have their moment. After a few minutes the embrace was broken.

“So you must be Drake,” Twilight said.

Draco turned to her and nodded, “Yeah and you must be...” He stopped, having forgotten the lavender unicorn's name.

“Twilight,” Shontia whispered into his ear.

“Right, Twilight.”

“So Twilight what's to become of us now that, well we're not ourselves anymore?” Roman asked, walking over to his trenchcoat and picking it up.

“What do you mean?” Shontia asked.

“Well isn't it obvious? We have changed.”

“Don't remind me,” Draco mumbled, "Which reminds me, Twilight where's the nearest bar for I need a drink, or you know 20..."

Roman looked over at his earth pony friend, “Dude, it's like ten o'clock.”

“It's five o'clock somewhere, don't nitpick!”

Twilight shook her head, “There is a bar in town, but it's only open at night and you have to be at least seventeen.”

“Good, I just turned seventeen,” Draco grinned.

Twilight looked at him, then to Shontia and Roman, “And you two?”

“Seventeen,” Shontia replied.

“Sixteen, seventeen in a month,” Roman added. “What about you?”

“Seventeen,” Twilight replied, “you guys are going to need some documentation though.”

“And let me guess, we need to change our names, find jobs and take up residence?” Roman asked.

“Well, yes. Seeing as you all aren't well known, it would be best to get all that sorted out. I can send a letter to the Princess requesting documents, but you will need new aliases.”

The three thought it over. After a few minutes, Drake spoke, “Call me 'The Silver Reaper'!”

Roman looked over at him, “Aim a little lower.”

Draco put a hoof to his chin, “Silver... Scythe?”

“Better,” Shontia commented, “I'll be Brush Stroke.”

“Blitz, Karmesin Blitz, at your service.”

“Alright, Blitz, Scythe and Stroke,” Twilight recited, pointing to each of them as she listed their names. “So does that have any relation to your cutie marks?”

“Well, I am an artist,” Stroke explained.

“And I'm an awesome storyteller!” Scythe boasted.

“How does that relate to...” Twilight started.

“Silver as in silver tongue, that makes sense right?” Twilight nodded. “Then it works!”

“As for me, I'm a thinker,” Blitz elaborated, “the star represents my versatility; memory, creation, observation and intuition.”

“And the bolts?” Twilight asked.

“I'd prefer not to talk about it,” he sighed.

“Okay, with this little interrogation over, let's get out of here,” Scythe commented, walking over to the nightstand and retrieving his hoodie.

“Are you sure?” Twilight asked, “you're just coming off of medication and surgery. Maybe you should wait for the doc-”

The stallion shook his head, “I'm fine Twilight. Besides the sooner I'm out of here, the better.”

“He's a little sheepish about hospitals,” Stroke whispered to Twilight.

“Hey, I'm not afraid of hospitals. I just really hate being in a place where people, or ponies in this case, are on their deathbed.” With that Scythe slipped on his hoodie, only to find that it extended far past his hooves. “OH COME ON!”

Blitz whipped on his trenchcoat as well to find that it was too large for him as well, and lacked wing holes.

Should have seen that one, genius.

Stroke levitated the jackets off of her friends and picked up her own as well. “Maybe we should have these tailored,” she suggested.

“How are you doing that!?” Twilight asked.

“Doing what?”

“Magic! You've only been a unicorn for what? Half an hour? And you've already used a concussion blast and now you're doing levitation!” Twilight said with amazement in her voice.

Scythe shrugged as Stroke folded the jackets with her magic, “She's always has been a fast learner. That and she's absolutely brilliant.”

Stroke shook her head as she placed the folded clothes onto the respective owners back, “No Scythe, it feels like I've always known how to do this. Like I've learned it through years of regular practice.”

“I wonder,” Blitz thought to himself.

“Okay then. I'm leaving if you guys would like to follow, it would be appreciated,” Scythe called over his shoulder as he opened the door.

“We should follow him considering what happened last time,” Twilight said as she started to walk towards the door.

With that the four ponies left the room, making their way through the halls and down to the main floor. As they came up to the reception desk, the mare behind it was the same one from the night before, but she had put away her puzzle and now looked like she was struggling to stay awake. Blitz trotted up to the desk and knocked on it to get her attention. “Hi, here to check out a weird ape looking thing that showed up yesterday.”

The receptionist looked at Roman skeptically, then over to his friends. “Do you have any proof that you know the patient.”

“Oddity,” he grinned before turning away, leaving the mare slack jawed.

Blitz rejoined his friends as they left the hospital. “Good riddance,” Scythe muttered under his breath.

Making their way down the path into town, Blitz decided to attempt flight. Slowing his pace, he focused on extending his wings. After a minute of struggling with the muscle memory, he managed to bring the extremities to full length. Closing his eyes, he looked deep down and found an urge. As if he was born to fly. As if he yearned to fly. Blitz continued walking as his wings flapped and he slowly found himself leaving the ground. Opening his eyes and looking down, Blitz found that he was above his friends, none of them had noticed that he had become airborne.

“Guys!” The others looked up to see Blitz overhead.

“Oh Ro... Blitz you look as majestic as an eagle,” Scythe joked, “piloting a blimp.”

“Would you cut it out Scythe?” Stroke sighed.

"Okay fine," Scythe moped. Looking at the ground, he spotted a decently sized rock and smirked, “Hey Blitz, think fast!” In one swift motion he picked it up and chucked it at Blitz, who swiftly dodged the rock.

Stroke trotted over to Scythe and hit him in the back of the head with her hoof. “WHAT THE HELL SILVER! You could have really hurt him!”

“Doesn't help that his aim's as bad as a Stormtrooper!” Blitz called down.

At this Scythe looked at Stroke with the best puppy-dog eyes he could muster. “Come ooooooooon,” he whined.

Stroke rolled her eyes at this, “Fine, you can throw three more.”

“Yes!”

“WHAT!?”

Scythe grinned evilly at Blitz. He raised his hooves, “Scythe, be cool man. Just be WHOA!”

His friend didn't listen as another stone flew past Blitz' head. It had missed by inches as Silver found another and took aim. He launched it again, but Blitz quickly dodged to the side, somehow managing to keep his jacket on his back. As Scythe readied his next shot, Blitz looked to the distance to see a cyan pegasus flying his way, “Not again...”

On the ground, Scythe found his ammo and used the moment that his friend was distracted to throw it. He launched it with all his might, landing the stone right underneath Blitz' jaw, knocking his head to the sky, only for the rock to keep going on a new angle...

Hitting the passing pegasus as well.

The two fell out of the sky and landed in a heap.

“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit!” Scythe swore.

Laying on top of Blitz was Rainbow Dash, somewhat dazed from the impact. “Rainbow!” Stroke and Twilight exclaimed, hurrying over to the pair.

Dash quickly regained herself and got up off of Blitz, “Oops, sorry.”

“No problem,” he grunted.

Dash stood and helped Blitz up before looking over at Scythe with anger in her eyes. "YOU! What were you doing throwing rocks like that? I could have you arrested if I had half a mind to do so!”

Scythe returned the glare as something within him snapped. “Oh good maybe if I hurt someone they'll arrest me, maybe even give me the death sentence and I can get out of this fucking nightmare!”

“Drake...”

Scythe looked behind him to see Stroke standing there, tears in her eyes. “You can't mean that.”

“Nonono, I didn't, I just-”

“Just what?” Her entire body was shaking. “You think if you get yourself killed it will make everything better? You think that when we find a way home that I will just be able to deal with the fact I lost my best friend? YOU THINK THIS IS JUST ABOUT YOU!?”

Dash looked as if she was about to say something, but Blitz raised his foreleg to her as if saying “Leave it.”

Stroke began to break down as Scythe looked at his oldest friend sobbing. His ears dropped, “You're right. I am an idiot.” He trotted over to Stroke and took her into an embrace. “I'm sorry that I've been so self centered... But,” He was fighting the urge to cry himself, “can you forgive me. Maybe?”

“Maybe,” she returned the hug, “you big idiot.”

Scythe smiled slightly and looked over to Blitz, who had watched the scene beside a wide eyed Rainbow. “Roman, we cool?”

Blitz nodded, “Yeah, no pro-”

“ROMAN!?”

He looked over to see Dash staring at him in disbelief, “Right, how's it going Dash?”

“What happened to you? You're a...”

“Pegasus? Yeah, to put a long, complicated story short: magic.”

“Wait, how long have you been a pegasus?” Dash asked.

Blitz shrugged, “About an hour, give or take. Why?”

“Roman, it takes months for a pegasus just to learn how to get off the ground,” Dash explained.

Interesting.

“Theory time?”

Theory time.

Blitz sat and put a hoof to his chin. “Well by that logic and the fact that Shontia has been using levitation magic, it would be safe to assume that when we became ponies, we were given the skills that we would have had we grown up with them, albeit minimal,” he explained, his voice taking on a British tone once again, “also, my name's Karmesin Blitz now, or Blitz for short.”

“Okay... Blitz, that makes sense,” Dash nodded before looking at the mare and stallion coming up to them beside Twilight. “So they're Shontia and that Drake guy?”

“Yes Dash, it's me,” Stroke said, “but my name's Brush Stroke now.”

“And I'm Silver Scythe,” he added.

“We were just on our way to Rarity's to have their jackets looked at,” Twilight explained.

Dash made a gagging sound at the mention of spending time at the boutique, eliciting a laugh from Blitz as he retrieved his coat from where it landed.

“Well you guys do that,” Dash turned to Blitz, “come find me if you ever want to hang out and learn a thing or two from the best flier in all of Equestria." With that Dash took off leaving a rainbow trail as she flew.

“She is as cocky in real life,” Scythe thought to himself.

“Should we get going?” Stroke asked.

“Let's,” Blitz agreed, putting his coat on and allowing it to hang freely.

With that Twilight continued to lead them into town.

Meetings

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“... so he lost two good friends that he had made on the adventure, but he managed to do the impossible and avenge them by stopping the 'necromancer god',” Scythe finished explaining as they walked into the town.

“That's a pretty depressing ending,” Twilight commented.

“Well it's supposed to be. It's suppose to give the message of whether or not everything is really worth it in the end.”

As the four ponies made their way into town, Twilight had asked Scythe to tell her one of his stories. It was a tale that Blitz had heard countless times to the point where he had joined in, acting out parts with Scythe for dramatic effect.

“Well I'm impressed.”

Coming up on town square they saw an obvious sight, a two tone of pink mare with light blue eyes trotting their way. As Blitz and Stroke managed to keep their smiles at bay, Scythe began to seize up.

Twilight took notice to the approaching mare, “That's my friend Pinkie Pie, I'll have to warn you, she can be a bit...”

“Pinkie?” Stroke asked. Twilight nodded. By this time, Scythe had frozen in place and began to whimper quietly. “Scythe, are you okay?”

His response was another whimper, causing Stroke to turn to Blitz. “What's up with him?” she whispered.

Blitz looked away from her sheepishly. “Well, a buddy and I kinda talked him into reading 'Cupcakes' and well,” he whispered back, gesturing to Scythe.

Stroke looked at him as if he were insane. “Why did you make him read that?”

“Because it was hilarious.”

Stroke's looked changed to one that read “we'll discuss this later” as Pinkie came up to them. After a brief moment of staring between the two parties, she leapt up and hovered in the air for a few seconds with an over exaggerated gasp. As she did this, Blitz and Stroke expected her to run off, but were instead met with a barrage of words.

“HiI'mPinkiePiewhatareyournamesI'veneverseenyouherebeforewhichmeansyou'renewandifyou'renewthatmustmeanthatyoumustnothavemanyfriendsbutyou'rehangingoutwithTwilightandeachotherwhichmeansyoumustbefriendsbutyou'restillnewwhichmeansIhavetothrowyouapartysobye!”

In a cloud of dust the pony had ran, leaving the them to take in what just happened. Scythe's whimpering had quieted down, but he seemed a few minutes off of unfreezing.

“Well that was...” Stroke started.

“Peculiar?” Blitz finished.

Stroke nodded, “Let's go with that.”

Twilight looked at Scythe as he blinked, “You okay?”

He shook his head, “Yeah, I'll live.”

Blitz raised a brow at Scythe, “You know, there's nothing to be afraid of.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because it's just a story. I mean, I doubt we're going to be baked into cupcakes, experimented on, made into a dress and tuxes, turned into rainbows, or reach our third strike.”

Twilight stared at the pegasus, “What!?”

He looked at her and shrugged, “Long story, good stories.”

Twilight turned to the others, “Any idea?” Stroke shook her head and Scythe whimpered again.

The rest of the walk to Carousel Boutique was in silence. Upon reaching the front door, Twilight stopped the group, “I'll have to warn you guys, Rarity can be a bit picky when it comes to a pony's appearance.”

“Yay,” Scythe grumbled.

The bell rang as the door opened and they stepped inside. “Just a minute,” a preppy voice singsonged from upstairs. Blitz looked over at Scythe, seeing that his friend would not be enjoying this encounter. A few seconds later a light gray, almost white unicorn with a curled, dark purple mane descended the stairs.

“Twilight, how nice to see you. And who are your friends?”

“Karmesin Blitz,” he smiled, “a pleasure to meet you.” With that he trotted over to Rarity and took her hoof in his, kissing it before stepping back to his friends.

A light blush came over Rarity's face, “Oh my, you are quite the gentlecolt, Karmesin.”

Scythe elbowed his friend with an annoyed look on his face as Stroke spoke, “I'm Brush Stroke.”

“And I'm Silver Scythe.”

“We were wondering if you could take a look at fitting their jackets,” Twilight explained.

“Well I must say, they look much too large for you,” Rarity replied, gesturing to how Blitz' trenchcoat's sleeves were dragging along the ground. “How did they get to be that big?”

“Well...”

One Full Recap Later...

“Oh my, how awful,” Rarity consoled.

“Yeah, stuck in a foreign universe with nothing but the clothes on our back, so to speak,” Blitz chuckled.

“Well then, let's see about getting these fitted.” With that she levitated the jackets away from their owners. She examined Stoke's and Blitz', admiring the designs and how it complimented their looks. Upon laying eyes on Scythe's hoodie, Rarity visibly recoiled in disgust. “You go around wearing this!?” she asked him.

“Yeah, it's my favourite hoodie,” Scythe replied.

Rarity shook her head and returned the others to their owners. “I cannot allow you to go wandering around Ponyville in such a crime against fashion. I shall dispose of it for you,” she said, walking away with the hoodie in her magic.

“What!? No!” In an instant Scythe sprung forward, grabbing the article of clothing in his teeth.

Rarity turned to him in surprise, “And why not?”

“Becaush it'sh mine!” he shouted back.

With that the pair broke out into a tug of war while hurling insults at each other. Blitz and Stroke were left snickering at the debate as their friend struggled to keep his only piece of home from being thrown away.

“...and doth mother know you weareth her drapesh?” Scythe yelled.

“That happened once when I ran out of material!” Rarity retaliated, “And don't even get me stated with that rat's nest you call a mane.”

“You are NOT toushing my hair!”

Hair's involved, better end this, a voice spoke as a loud ripping came from the hoodie.

“NO! Let go now! Before it ripsh!”

“Only if you let me fix your dreadful looks.”

“NEVER!”

Twilight finally spoke up, “Rarity, please just leave him be. They've been through a lot today.”

"Fine," Rarity sighed as she released her magical grip on the hoodie.

"WOAH!" Scythe yelled as he flew across the room landing in a pile of fabric and poniquins. As his head came up from the pile, Scythe quietly mumbled something about revenge.

“Alright then Karmesin, shall we get started?” Rarity asked, gesturing to the fitting stand.

“Sure,” he replied, slipping on his jacket.

Twilight followed Blitz and Rarity as they went to fix his jacket. Stroke turned to Scythe, “You alright?” she asked.

“Fine! Never been better!” he replied with an obviously fake smile.

She sighed as she lifted some of the fabrics and poniquins off of him with her magic. “Look I get your not happy about being here, but can you please lighten up?”

Scythe looked at Stroke. Seeing a faint smile on her lips, his face softened, “Alright, I'll try.”

“And done!”

The pair looked over to the stage to see that Blitz' sleeves had been slightly pulled back and pinned to make them shorter. Rarity levitated the jacket off of Blitz as Scythe spoke. “What did you do, go straight to ludicrous speed?” he asked.

Rarity looked at Scythe with some annoyance on her face. “Silver, would you kindly put on your rag and step up?”

Scythe obediently moved out of the pile and walked up to the stand while putting his hoodie on. Blitz walked back over to Stroke. The two watched their Scythe's fitting in silence for a while as light cursing and “Ows” came from him. “You think he'll make it?” he asked.

Stroke exhaled through her nose, “It may take a while, I'm still trying to wrap my head around this.”

“Just don't question anything, it helps speed things up.”

Stroke nodded as Rarity finished putting pins into the hoodie and levitating it off of Scythe. The stallion hopped off of the stand and scrambled over to his friends. “Stroke, shall I do yours now?”

Stroke walked over to Rarity and Twilight, leaving Blitz and Scythe watching. “So what the hell was with you kissing her hoof like that?”

Blitz looked to his friend, “It's called being a gentlema...er...colt. Something that you might struggle to understand.”

“Well don't get too cozy with the locals, you got that?”

Blitz let out a chuckle, “Okay, I'll tone it down, but if I'm approached I can't be held responsible.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Mares outnumber stallions here.”

“Really?” Scythe's gaze shifted to Stroke.

Blitz took notice, “What, you think you have a better shot here?”

“You never know,” he replied, somewhat lost in thought.

Blitz chuckled again, “You do your thing, I'll do mine.”

Scythe snapped out of his thoughts and looked at Blitz, “About that. We're going to get out of here one way or another. So unless you expect to have one of them come with us you best not... What's the word I'm looking for?”

“Mingle?” Blitz suggested.

“Right, don't mingle with locals.”

“So no...”

“Damn it Rome, you cannot date the ponies. We clear?”

Blitz rolled his eyes. “Crystal,” he tapped a hoof to his chin, “but only under a five year multiverse clause.”

Scythe tilted his head in confusion, “A what?”

“You know.”

“No I don't, tell me.”

Blitz sighed, “I'll agree to not get involved in anything romantic, but if we spend more than five years here without a way home, the deal's off. Fair?” He put up his hoof.

“Fair,” Scythe agreed, bumping his own hoof against Blitz', making the agreement official.

Meanwhile, Stroke stood on the pedestal as Rarity stuck pins into her jacket. “So do you and your friends have any living arrangements?” Rarity asked.

Stroke shook her head, “We haven't figured anything out yet, why do you ask?”

Rarity rolled a sleeve back with her magic, “Well you three are new here and I can't bear to think of you all having to sleep in the cold streets. I'd be happy to take one of you in.”

“Oh, do you have anyone in mind?”

“Well...” Rarity took a quick glance towards Blitz.

Stroke noticed this, “If that means what I think it does, you'd better try somewhere else.”

Rarity's face turned to one of embarrassment, “Oh, so he's...”

Stroke shook her head again, “No no, Blitz is straight, it's just that he rarely ever talks about relationships.”

“And why's that? He seems so nice.”

Stroke sighed, “Back on our world, girls can be really shallow. Blitz has some serious self-esteem issues, he does well on hiding it though.”

Twilight looked over at the stallion, who was chuckling at Scythe. “I don't see it,” she remarked, “he seems so happy.”

Stroke looked over at Blitz. “The loneliest people can be the kindest. The saddest people sometimes smile the brightest. The most damaged people are filled with wisdom. All because they do not wish the pain they've endured on another soul,” she explained.

Twilight and Rarity stared at her for a moment. “That's so poetic,” Rarity said, “did you think of that?”

“I didn't,” Stroke replied, “Blitz found it somewhere, said it represented him well.”

Rarity turned her attention to the other sleeve, “So would you like to stay with me then?”

“Hm?”

“You need a place to stay as well, so would like to stay here?”

Twilight spoke up, “And if you want I can teach you some magic, you obviously have the aptitude.”

Stroke looked at the mares for a moment before nodding with a grateful smile, “Sure, thank you.”

“Marvelous,” Rarity exclaimed, “I'll have a bed ready later tonight.” With that the final pin went into the sleeve. “And finished.”

Stroke came off the stand as Rarity carefully levitated the pinned jacket off of her. “Hey guys!” The two looked over at her, “I'm going to be staying at Rarity's, okay?”

“Cool.”

“Alright.”

With that she walked with Twilight back over to Scythe and Blitz. “I will finish tailoring your coats and have them ready for sometime within the week,” Rarity explained, “free of charge, my way of saying welcome to our universe.”

“Thank you kindly,” Blitz smiled.

“Yeah, thanks,” Scythe agreed. “It had better not be pink when I get it back,” he added under his breath.

With that the four left the boutique. “So what do you guys want to do now?” Twilight asked.

“Well I don't know about you, but I wouldn't mind getting some lunch,” Blitz said, hovering overhead. On cue, Stroke and Scythe's stomachs growled in agreement.

“We haven't had anything to eat since we left,” Stroke added.

“There's a cafe just down the road,” Twilight explained, leading the group, “it's not too special, but the food's good.”

“Sweet, Equestrian cuisine!” Blitz grinned as he landed beside his friends.

“TWILIGHT!” a voice half-yelled half-whispered.

The group looked back to see a pale yellow mare with a long, light pink mane and tail trotted towards them. “Twilight, I'm so glad I found you,” the mare said, ignoring Scythe, Stroke and Blitz and going right up to her friend. “I heard that there were these weird animals wandering around town with you and Rainbow Dash, but when I went to the library Spike said you went to the hospital to visit one of them, but when I got there the nurse said an odd pony checked it out and-”

“Ahem,” Scythe coughed.

The mare turned to see three ponies looking at her. Her shyness immediately took over as she hid behind her mane, letting out a few squeaks as if she were trying to speak.

How's the heart holding up?

She cannot take much more Captain!

As Blitz stared blankly into space, Stroke walked over to the mare. “Hello, my name's Brush Stroke, what's yours?”

“Um... I'm Fluttershy.”

“I'm sorry, what was that?”

“My name is Fluttershy.”

With her voice now within hearing range, Stroke gave a warm smile, “It's very nice to meet you Fluttershy.”

Fluttershy brushed her mane off her face and returned a small smile. “It's nice to meet you too, are you and your friends new to town?”

“Well you could say that.” Stoke leaned in close. “We were the animals seen wandering around town.”

Fluttershy's eyes went wide, “Really? What happened?”

“Magic, doesn't need much explaining,” Blitz said, stepping up. “Karmesin Blitz.”

“Scythe, Silver Scythe,” he added.

“We were just on our way to lunch,” Twilight explained, “would you like to join us?”

“Oh I'd love to, if that's okay with you...”

Scythe raised a brow, “But she just-”

Blitz looked to his friend, “Don't question it.”

With that they walked to the cafe, explaining their situation and how they knew about Equestria. At first Fluttershy seemed a bit unsettled about others viewing their lives, but relaxed somewhat when she learned that she was a popular character. Arriving at the cafe, they were seated at an outdoor table. “So how are you all adjusting?” Fluttershy asked.

Blitz looked at his menu, “Well I think we can all agree that walking on four legs, using magic and flying is odd, but not much of a challenge. It comes down to whether or not we can stomach the food.”

“Well let's see,” Scythe pondered aloud, opening his menu to find that it was in English. “What the?” “Don't question it.” With that he began to read through his menu while the others did theirs. “An LT? Where's the B?”

Fluttershy looked up from her menu, “What would the B stand for?”

“Bacon.”

Stroke looked at him, “Scythe, we're pretty much herbivores right now.”

“So, no meat?”

“Nope,” Blitz quipped, not looking up from his menu.

“You three ate meat!?” Fluttershy exclaimed.

Blitz looked around as eyes from other tables turned to them.

Twilight quickly managed to settle her friend, “They weren't carnivores Fluttershy, they were omnivores.”

Chalk one up to Stroke.

“Fine, I'll go vegan for now,” Scythe muttered, “but when we get back I'm having a barbeque that will make all of PETA's efforts futile.”

A unicorn waiter then came over to the table, “Good day sirs and madams, what will you be having today?”

Scythe scanned over his menu again, “I'll have a... jalapeno sandwich. No meat, so I'm going with spice.”

“He'll have some milk with that,” Blitz added, eliciting an annoyed look from Scythe. “I'll have a hayburger and fries.”

The waiter jotted down the two orders, “And for the ladies?”

“A garden salad please,” Stroke said.

“I'll have one too,” Fluttershy agreed.

“Make it three.”

With that the waiter gathered the menus and took the order inside.

“So what are the animals like on your planet?” Fluttershy asked after a few minutes of silence.

“Delicious,” Scythe replied with an evil grin.

Fluttershy began to whimper as Blitz made his comeback. “Ignore him, I need to remind Pinkie to make him some of her special rainbow cupcakes.”

With a thud Scythe landed on the ground whimpering, “I'm sorry,” over and over again.

Stroke made a note to deal with the guys later before giving Fluttershy a proper response. “Well they take care of themselves like in the Everfree, and our plants and weather act the same way. A lot of humans also have pets,” she explained.

With that the waiter came back to the table with plates in his magic, “Sirs... sir? And madams, your lunch.” The waiter left after the five voiced their thank and began to dig in. Blitz found it surprising how hay had a nice flavour despite being dried grass, while Scythe extinguished his tongue with the milk his friend put in for him. Stroke quietly munched on her salad, using a fork with her magic as Twilight was demonstrating.

After lunch, Twilight paid, claiming it was her treat and Fluttershy went back on her way after Scythe said one more “I'm sorry”. “So what now guys?” Twilight asked.

The friends looked at each other. “Library?” Stroke suggested.

The others nodded in agreement. “There's got to be something on a way home,” Scythe commented.

“Alright, do you two know the way back?” she asked Blitz and Stroke, getting a nod form each of them. “Good, you guys head back there and I'll go run a few errands. I also had Spike make up some beds if you two want to stay there for while you're here,” she explained.

“Thanks Twi', I appreciate it.”

“Same,” Scythe agreed.

With that they went their separate ways, with Stroke leading the way, Scythe at her side and Blitz casually flying above them. Arriving back at the library, Blitz landed before entering.

Spike greeted them inside, “Sorry you three, Twilight's out at the moment. Are you new to Ponyville?”

“Spike, it's us. Shontia, Roman and Draco,” Stroke replied.

“Really what-”

“Shenanigans,” Scythe interjected, “listen, can you help us find some books?”

“Sure, what do you need?”

“Everything on physics, magic and folklore,” Blitz landing next to his friends, “we have a lot of work to do.”

A Festive Welcome

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Stroke looked over the final page of her magic spellbook. Finding no information of value, she threw it into the pile with the others. “Anything?” she asked.

“Nothing,” Scythe mumbled, occupied with his book on folklore. It was his job to find any stories on odd creatures appearing out of nowhere, with no such luck.

“Nada,” Blitz called down from his spot on a window ledge. He had been preoccupied with a physics textbook, trying to find any possibilities of wormholes and rifts, but came up with nothing but theories.

The pile itself was a decent size from the amount they read. They had started their research period sometime after one, and the moon was just coming up over the horizon. According to Stroke's count, she had read through 11 of her magic books, Blitz had read through 17 textbooks total and Scythe had finished 5 books on folklore. Spike had been a lot of help. Reading through a few books himself, but not knowing what the three were looking for, he opted to serve them some drinks while they worked.

Stroke rubbed her temple with a hoof, “Spike, what time is it?”

The dragon poked his head out of the kitchen, “Around seven-thirty, why?”

“I think it's about time we call it quits, there doesn't seem to be anything here about a way home.” Saying that, Stroke levitated her bag from the table where she left it on the day before, looping the strap around her midsection, and allowing the bag to rest on her back.

“You don't know that,” Scythe objected, looking up from his book.

“Scythe, I think it's safe to say that we at least need a break,” Blitz said, closing his textbook and tossing it onto the pile before rolling off the ledge and landing on his hooves. “How about we take a walk through town to cool off?”

Spike's eyes went wide as he ran out of the kitchen and threw himself against the front door, “You guys can't go outside, not yet!”

The trio exchanged confused looks. “And why not?” Scythe asked.

“Well, uh...”

“And what do you mean by 'yet'?” Stroke added.

Spike's eyes darted around the room as he thought up an excuse. “You can't go outside because... um... of the... uh, vampires!”

“Vampires?” Stroke deadpanned.

Spike nodded vigourously, “Yeah, vampires. You saw them in one of the books, right Scythe?”

“Well, yeah, but those are just stories.”

“And so was Nightmare Moon. If you go outside they'll definitely turn you into one of their vampire minions!”

“A-and tell me, d-do these vampires happen to s-sparkle?” Blitz asked with some artificial fear in his voice.

Spike nodded again falling for the trap, “Yeah, of course they do!”

“Then we have nothing to worry about,” he smiled.

“But-”

“No 'buts' Spike,” Scythe argued, “we're going outside.” With that he walked over to the door with Blitz and Stroke following, only for it to swing open flattening Spike behind it.

“Guys, I'm back!” Twilight called in. Blitz and Scythe struggled to control their laughter while Stroke giggled a bit. “What's so funny?”

“And just like that the mightiest of all beasts was flattened!” Scythe roared with laughter.

Twilight tilted her head, “Another one of your stories?”

“Nope, just being a sarcastic jerk,” Scythe snickered.

“Wow, he's being honest for once,” Blitz joked as Scythe gave him a look that read “Really?”.

A groan came from behind the door as Twilight closed it slightly to find Spike squished between it and the wall. “Whoops, sorry Spike.” She looked over to the pile of books that had accumulated on the floor as Spike peeled himself from the wall, “I see you did some reading.”

“Yeah,” Scythe groaned as he arched his back like a cat, sending a series of pops down his spine, “we were going to take a walk outside for a break, but mister 'Oh So Fierce Beast' here tried to talk us out of it.”

“Well, it's gotten too dark anyways, so why don't we go out for some tea instead?”

“That does a bit more relaxing,” Stroke agreed.

“Uh, yeah. No thanks,” Scythe shook his head, “I'd rather go and see about those vampires Spike was talking about.” With that he walked out the front door.

“For the first time since we got here, I think I agree with him,” Blitz said, following his friend.

“Well, we tried,” Twilight sighed as a loud “AHA!” came from outside.

“I knew it! I knew you ponies were plotting against us!” Scythe exclaimed, running towards town square, “Come on guys, let's go before they get the torches and pitchforks!”

“He has no idea where he's going, does he?” Twilight asked.

“Doubt it,” Stroke sighed, “we'd better go make sure he doesn't get himself into trouble.”

“Um, I think Blitz is one step ahead of us.” Spike pointed at the pegasus flying after Scythe.

“Come on,” Twilight said, levitating Spike onto her back, “we should catch up.”

With that the two unicorns and dragon took after their friends. Up ahead they found that Scythe hadn't made it too far before being stopped by Blitz. He seemed to be trying to talk some sense into his friend as Twilight and Stroke caught up.

“...understand? We will calmly go through town and see what they are actually doing,” Blitz explained in a calm, firm voice.

“Fine,” Scythe half-moped as he noticed the others catching up.

Stroke had on another look as Twilight spoke up, “So then, how about that walk?”

“Yeah, I think we definitely need a cool down,” Blitz agreed, referring to his friends.

Twilight nodded and took the lead, taking the group on Scythe's original path to town square. Blitz took notice to the silence of the darkened town. The stars hung in the sky with the moon shining brightly, acting like a second sun over the coat of darkness.

They trotted through the streets as crickets chirped, eventually coming to town square. “Well, here we are,” Twilight announced.

Scythe squinted into the darkness, “Here for what exactl-”

“SURPRISE!”

“HOLY MEW'S OFFSPRING!” he yelled, jumping into the air.

Strings of lights hung on poles driven into the ground turned on, illuminating town square, revealing large number ponies had gathered in the square. On town hall was a large banner that read “Welcome to Ponyville!”, next to the building was a stage with some DJing equipment that a white unicorn was busy preparing. Scattered around the area were tables covered with foods of all sorts and various games.

“Should've guessed,” Blitz muttered to himself, looking over to Stroke. The mare was wide-eyed and looked as if she was about to run away. “You alright?”

Stroke nodded slightly, her irises had shrunk a bit, “Y-yeah, I'll be fine.”

“Hi there!” Stroke let out an “Eep” as Pinkie Pie materialized in front of her. “Myname'sPinkiePieand-”

Seeing Stroke hide her face behind her mane, Scythe stepped forward and shoved a hoof into Pinkie's mouth. “Slow down please... and stop licking my hoof!” With that he removed the extremity as Pinkie gave him a smile.

“Sorry, but you taste funny. As I was saying, I'm Pinkie Pie, I saw you three in town earlier today and didn't recognize you which meant you were new to town, so I threw this party for you guys, what do you think?”

Scythe surveyed the area before nodding, “It's a party all right.”

Seeing Stroke's imitation of Fluttershy, Twilight stepped over to Blitz, “What's wrong with her?”

“Stroke has some social anxiety issues, she gets pretty shy in crowds.”

“Now let's get you blindfolded and spun up!” Pinkie cheered, reaching around Scythe and grabbing a quivering Stroke before running towards a game.

“Well that... happened.”

Scythe nodded, “Well it should do her some good to loosen up a bit.”

“You might want to consider doing the same,” Blitz remarked, “I get that your not excited about being here, but you could at least lighten up and look at this as a vacation from our usual lives.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Scythe muttered, “Come on, let's get something to eat and uh, mingle with the locals.”

“I thought I wasn't allowed to do that.”

Scythe glared at Blitz, “You know what I mean.”

Spike hopped off of Twilight's back, “I could use something to eat too.”

Twilight waved them off, “You three do that, I have something to do.”

With that they began to make their way through the crowd. Blitz and Scythe greeted some of the locals and made a few conversations as they made their way to the food table. Spike had already finished filling his plate with mountain of food almost as tall as he was and began to move to a nearby table. Blitz and Scythe examined the display, “Quite the spread,” Blitz commented before picking up a cupcake and biting into it.

Scythe's eyes went wide with horror as he saw that the baked good was a red-brown. “How could you eat that!?”

Blitz looked between him and his cupcake, “What do you mean?”

“It's red! It's made with blood!”

Blitz raised a brow, “It's red velvet, my favourite.”

“Yeah, red with Rai-”

“Hey guys!” a familiar voice called over. The pair turned to see Rainbow Dash coming over to greet them, “How are you liking the party?”

“Grub's good,” Blitz replied, tossing the remainder of his treat into the air and catching it in his mouth, “and thanks for helping me prove a point.”

“What? How?”

“By being here.”

He looked over to Scythe who rolled his eyes, “Fine, Pinkie's not evil. I still don't trust the cupc... er, those baked goods.”

Suddenly, loud techno music began to blare, causing Scythe to jump from how close he was to a nearby speaker. “Aww yeah!” Dash smiled, “Vinyl is finished setting up, you guys want to hit the dance floor?”

“WHAT?” Scythe yelled, his ears ringing from the sudden assault, “I CAN'T HEAR YOU!”

Blitz and Dash shared a laugh at Scythe's expense, “C'mon Blitz, let's find him somepony to dance with.”

“I STILL CAN'T HEAR YOU! SPEAK UP!”

“WE'RE GOING TO DANCE, YOU WANT TO COME?” Blitz yelled in his friend's ear.

“Um, I think I'll see what Stroke's doing. You two have fun with that,” with that Scythe turned into the crowd and began to search for Stroke.

“He's not much of a dancer,” Blitz remarked as his friend left earshot, “in fact neither of them are.”

“Alright then, let's see your moves,” Dash teased, leading him to the dance floor.

As the song finished, Dash and Blitz made their way off the floor and began to move to a table. “You call that dancing?” she mocked, “It looked like you were having a seizure out there.”

“Yeah and you did any better?” Blitz grinned, “Bobbing your head back and forth with some simple movements wouldn't be considered dancing by most.” Taking his seat at the table he continued, “Besides, I'm used to dancing on two legs, so of course I'm going to have moves like Twilight. I only did that well because that song was similar to one I have back home.”

Dash took the spot across from him, “Is that so?”

Blitz nodded, “Yeah, it's a good song for dancing, but there's a lot of better one's for listening back home.”

“So what do you listen to?”

“Rock, some techno, a bit of country, anything that sounds good and has lyrics that make sense. We had devices that could store songs, but they didn't come through, so I have no way of showing you them.”

“Too bad,” Dash sighed, “I kinda want to hear what you guys listen to.”

“Blitz!”

The pair looked around to see Twilight and Applejack approaching the table, the prior carrying a long, gift wrapped box in her magic. “Hey Twi', AJ, what's up?”

“We were jus' lookin' for you and yer friends,” Applejack explained.

“Well Scythe just ran off to find Stroke who got dragged off by Pinkie, so they're around,” Blitz took notice to the package, “What's that?”

Twilight levitated the box onto the table in front of him, “This is for you.”

Blitz looked at the box before him then to Twilight, “Twilight, you shouldn't have.”

“Actually, we all did,” she replied gesturing to Applejack and Rainbow Dash as each nodded, “consider it a welcoming gift.”

Blitz looked back at the box. Running a hoof along the paper, he tried to find a tearing point, but with no avail. “A little help?” Twilight activated her horn, ripping the paper away from the box, it was plain and white. Taking the top half of the box in his hooves, Blitz lifted it from the base revealing the contents. Inside the box was a copper coloured, six-string guitar. It was fitted with a black shoulder strap and had some signs of wear due to the paint turning black in spots. “Twilight... you really shouldn't have.”

“It was nothing really, I just remembered that you said that you need your music. Go ahead, play something.”

Blitz took the guitar from the box and slung the strap over his shoulder, “Twilight, I only know about three songs, and it's been months since I even touched my guitar back home.”

“No worries,” Dash assured, “Twilight had this thing enchanted. It'll stay in tune, all you have to do is focus on a song and you should be able to play it. The magic will also fill in the missing instruments.”

Blitz positioned his hooves over the strings and neck, doing so sent a pulse through his body and to his head. Shaking off the odd sensation, he strummed three chords in succession causing the notes to resonate from the instrument.

“So how about playing something?” Blitz looked at Applejack, “Vinyl has the stage set up, why not show us what you can do?”

Blitz grinned, “Alright, all of you stay here, I need to find Scythe.” With that he stood up and slung the guitar onto his back before running into the crowd in search of his friend.

Moving through the mass of ponies was difficult for Blitz as he searched for Scythe, “Ugh, if only I could go o-” he looked at his back, “Right.” Unfolding his wings, Blitz took to the air and searched for either of his friends. Spotting them next to a game with Pinkie and Rarity.

Earlier...

“Dammit, where are you Stroke?” Scythe muttered to himself. Not having the option to fly like Blitz, he was forced to slowly make his way through the crowd and was becoming annoyed with his slow progress. Eventually he made his way through the edge of the mass and looked around, spotting a mare showing off a drawing to what looked like a friend. Trotting over to the pair, he saw that the drawing was that of high detail and in Stroke's style. “Where did you get that?”

The mares looked at him. “Over there,” she pointed, “a unicorn's drawing them. Isn't it great?”

Scythe smiled, “It is.” He then made his way over to a smaller crowd the mare had pointed to and pushed his way through. The crowd was surrounding Stroke, but she didn't seem to mind. She was busy drawing Rarity, holding her pencil, eraser and sketchbook in her magic. Her eyes were locked on her work, taking care to include every detail.

“Hi Scythe!” Pinkie bounced next to him.

Scythe jumped, frightened by the mare's sudden appearance. “Oh... Hey Pink. What's Stroke doing?”

“When I brought her to a game earlier she was soooo shy and didn't want to play, so I asked her what she had in her bag and she showed me her art stuff and offered to draw me and she did such a good job that a few other ponies wanted her to draw them, so she did and now she's drawing Rarity, can't you see that?”

“Actually, I can.”

Scythe watched from the edge of the crowd for a minute as Stroke finished the drawing before turning the book to Rarity. The mare smiled at the picture, “My, my Stroke, you are quite the artist.”

Stroke blushed lightly and looked at the ground, “It's nothing, really.”

“No need to be so modest, dear. With this quality, it's no wonder your special talent's art.”

Stroke looked back up at Rarity with a small smile, “Thanks.”

“Don't worry,” Scythe laughed, stepping forward from the crowd, “she's always been a great artist.”

“It's not just that,” Stroke remarked, looking up and putting her book and tools back into her bag, “the fact that everything here has an outline makes it easier for me pick out the shapes.”

“Heh, whatever works,” Scythe remarked, noticing that he himself did in fact have an outline like everyone else.

Rarity looked at Scythe with some annoyance, “I think I'm going to find Blitz. I would like to talk with him.”

“If that means what I think it does, you best look somewhere else. He's a little preoccupied with Dash at the moment,” Scythe replied smugly.

“And what, pray tell, does that mean?” Scythe turned to see Blitz touching down behind him.

“Well, you seem to be getting pretty friendly with her.”

“It's called making friends,” Blitz said, “I'm not interested in Dash romantically.”

Rarity seemed to perk up at this, “Then who would you be interested in?”

“Can't say.”

“And Dashie's not one for dating,” Pinkie piped up.

Scythe then took notice to the instrument on Blitz' back, “Where'd you get the guitar?”

“Oh, I see you got our gift,” Rarity remarked.

“Do you like it?” Pinkie added.

“I love it,” Blitz smiled, “actually, Scythe, what say we show these ponies how we rock back home.”

Scythe raised a brow, “What do you have in mind?”

“Come with me, I'll tell you on the way to the stage,” he said, gesturing in the direction of the stage, “AJ told me we're expected up there.”

A Few Minutes Later...

Blitz looked over to the table where his friends had gathered, Fluttershy having just arrived. The air as thick with anticipation as the two stallions stood on stage. Scythe had a microphone set up and Blitz was standing on his hind legs and had a mic of his own, his hooves were on the guitar which was hooked up to an amp. Tapping his mic, Scythe licked his lips and spoke. “Hello Ponyville!” he shouted with a grin, “Are you ready to rock?” A chorus of cheers came from the crowd as Scythe turned to Blitz who gave him a nod. “As some of you may know, we're not exactly from around here.”

“Out of this world even,” Blitz added.

A few laughs came from the crowd as Scythe continued, “Here's a song about life where we come from.”

Blitz closed his eyes, feeling the magic flowing through the guitar to his mind as he concentrated on the song. “Here goes nothing.” With that he strummed the opening chords, causing the full instrumental to echo through the square. He smiled as he felt his hooves slide along the neck of the guitar and strike the strings, then broke into the opening section of the song.

Scythe bobbed his head in sync to the beat, as his cue came up he took a breath and sang, his voice tuned to that of the original vocalist.

Some people live out selfish desire
Some choose to shout when they speak and they'll be the star
Caught in the flame of those deep in fire
Seeking out those with a voice, one for tomorrow!

(They say we've lost our minds
We've just gained control)

Search endlessly, fight 'til we're free!
Fly past the edge of the sea!
No bended knee!
No mockery!
Somehow we still carry on!

(Fear, fear, fear, fear, fear, fear)

Silence your fear, we've got to move higher
High like the stars in the sky, guiding us all!
Battle the will of those who conspire
Take back the passion to live, vanish the sorrow!

(Destroy their perfect crime, watch the power fold)

Search endlessly, fight 'til we're free!
Fly past the edge of the sea!
No bended knee!
No mockery!
Somehow we still carry on!

Blitz then broke into the solo, striking the chords as he felt the magic flow through his body. The crowd began to stomp along to the song. Scythe smiled as he looked over the square, this was music. As the solo came to a close, he closed his eyes and finished the song.

Search endlessly, fight 'til we're free!
Fly past the edge of the sea!
No bended knee!
No mockery!
Somehow we still carry on!

Carry on!

As Blitz played the final chords, there was a moment of silence before the crowd broke into applause. He set the guitar onto his back and trotted over to Scythe and throwing an arm over his friend. “And that's how you rock like a human,” Blitz yelled into his ear, as the crowd was deafening.

The pair made their way back to the table, receiving a few comments on their performance along the way. Their friends smiled at them as they took their seats. “That was awesome!” Spike exclaimed.

“Well if it weren't for the guitar, there wouldn't be a show,” Blitz explained.

“THAT WAS THE MOST FUN I'VE HAD ALL DAY!” Scythe yelled, his ears still ringing from the applause.

“Scythe! You're a little loud!” Stroke yelled at him.

“OH... I mean, oh, sorry about that,” he replied.

“Thanks for the guitar everybo-pony, that's going to take some getting used to,” Blitz muttered.

“Well that's yer gift,” Applejack explained, “and Ah have one fer Scythe.” He turned his attention to the mare, who had taken a look of apology, “Ah'm sorry fer hurting you yesterday.”

Scythe smiled and shook his head, “It's cool, water under the bridge.”

“Well Ah'm still offering to you,” she huffed, “Ah'd like to offer you a job on the farm.”

Scythe's eyes widened a bit at this, “Really?”

Applejack nodded, “With payment and room and board.”

“That's really generous of you, I'll take it.” He then extended a hoof which she took with a shake.

“As for you Stroke,” Rarity spoke, “along with staying with me, I'd like to offer you a position at the boutique. I think that your skills could be useful for creating my customers concepts.”

Stroke smiled and nodded, “Thank you Rarity, I'd be happy to work with you.”

“Marvelous, I'd love to see some designs of what humans wore.”

Blitz and Scythe snickered at the thought of passing off cosplay costumes as typical clothes. “Well I'm starved,” Scythe remarked, getting up from his spot and going to the snack table with Twilight, Spike, Stroke and AJ in tow. Pinkie had vanished off to somewhere during the conversation.

“So what are you going to do for a job?”

Blitz looked at Dash before putting his head back, “Well what's there to do?”

“You can always do jobs posted at city hall,” Rarity explained, “the town pays for ponies that are willing to do odd jobs, like helping shops when they are understaffed.”

“Odd jobs, yeah I can do that,” Blitz chuckled, “I'm pretty sure I won't be able to get away with calling myself a musician.”

“Yeah, enchanted instruments are considered cheating because they don't require actual skill,” Dash agreed.

“A novelty,” Blitz summarized.

“I doubt that you would do well anyways,” Rarity remarked, “such loud music is enjoyed, but you would surely face criticism.”

“I-it was a little loud,” Fluttershy agreed.

“Well not all rock is loud. Everyone has their tastes.”

“Sometimes you just need some noise,” Dash added.

“Heck yeah,” Blitz grinned, giving Dash a brohoof.

Rarity narrowed her eyes at the gesture, deciding to make her move. “So Blitz, did you have your eye on a girl back home?”

Blitz raised a brow at the question, “No, not really.”

“Well what's your type?”

“Excuse me?”

“Well I'm sure that a brave, handsome, and all round gentlecolt like yourself must surely have your eye on a beautiful mare.”

Blitz shook his head, his face took on an agitated look, “I'm not talking about this.”

“But surely you must have-”

“I said I'm not talking about this.” His voice raised slightly.

Dash took notice to Blitz feeling uncomfortable with the questions. “Rare, quit it.”

“See Blitz, Rainbow seems to have taken a liking to you.” Blitz felt something within him start to break.

“We're friends,” Dash deadpanned.

“Now Karmesin, I'm sure that you have your reasons,” he felt as if he was cracking, “but I'm sure that whatever insecurity you have, it shouldn't affect your life in any-”

“I SAID I'M NOT TALKING ABOUT THIS!” he screamed. The music that was playing came to an abrupt stop with a needle scratch as all eyes turned to the table. Blitz felt his eyes dart around the square as many gazes bore into him. “I-I...” He stood from his spot and took a couple steps backwards. Dash and Rarity sat there in disbelief at his outburst while Fluttershy hid under the table.

“I'm sorry,” he whispered, before turning and running through town, tears lightly streaming from his eyes.

Scythe and Stroke ran up to the table. “What the hell was that!?” Scythe asked.

“Ugh, Rarity was pushing Blitz to tell her his feelings and I think she crossed a line,” Dash explained.

“Yeah, that happens. Come on, we'd better find him.”

With that, Scythe, Stroke, Rainbow and Rarity took off as Fluttershy peeked out from under the table.

A Few Minutes Later...

“He's not in here.” Dash was peering into an upper window of the library. Seeing no movement, it was safe to assume that Blitz had not returned there.

“He always does this,” Stroke sighed, “running from his problems.”

“Really?” Rarity asked.

Stroke nodded, “He doesn't do well when he snaps like that.”

Dash returned to the ground, “So where next?”

Scythe put a hoof to his head and closed his eyes. “My emo sense tells me he went this way,” he exclaimed, pointing in a direction.

“What?” the girls asked in unison.

Scythe rolled his eyes, “Familiar sound. Guitar, this way.” He lead the others in the direction of the music, eventually coming to the park. They searched the area, looking for the source of the song.

“Up there!” Rarity pointed to a cloud where the pegasus was standing on his hind legs, back turned to them and guitar at the ready. He began to pluck the strings as Scythe and Stroke immediately recognized the song.

“Oh it's this one,” Scythe said.

“What is it?”

“It's a song he listens to when he's upset.”

The group listened as the guitar was quickly joined by a section of string instruments, before the drums and bass joined in. Blitz took a deep breath in and sang:

I should've known these walls would cave in
I should've never left my heart there on the line
'Cause when the shit hit the fan
All we ever had ended up lost in the fire
And now nothing's saved, nothing's gained
Was it all in vain?
'Cause I'm standing in the eye of the storm
And everything I've known is blowing away
(Blowing away)

I'm caught in a hurricane
I'm leaving here dead or alive
And I know that I'd be willing to feel the pain
If it got me to the other side
'Cause it only hurts
Hurricane
Yeah I can feel it hurt
Hurricane

Remember how we were, we really were
Before this disaster came and tore us apart
It was the two of us, that was enough
The two of us, so in love
Till the wind of lies,
The rain of cries and lightning strikes
And now we're standing in the eye of the storm
And everything is gone, nothing remains
(Blowing away)

I never thought it would end
I'll never understand
How we let it end like this

Hurts
Hurricane
(Blowing away)
Hurts
Hurricane

As the remainder of the song faded away Scythe called up to his friend, “Hey Blitz.”

He jumped slightly at the mention of his name and looked back to see his friends on the ground. He moved the guitar to his back and leapt down from the cloud. “Hey guys,” he mumbled.

Rarity stepped forward, “Karmesin, I'm sorry. It wasn't right of me to push you like that.”

“It's okay,” he replied, his voice becoming clearer, “I shouldn't have reacted like that. It was wrong of me to lash out.”

“I promise I won't do it again, as your friend.” She gave him a smile, which was returned.

“You going to be okay?” Stroke asked.

Blitz nodded and rubbed the back of his neck, “Yeah. I think I'm going to bed though, don't really want to show my face after what just happened.”

“Alright, if you say so,” Dash said, looking concerned.

“I'll be fine, I've been through worse,” he smiled, “just tell Twilight I'm at the library. And be sure to tell Pinkie I'm sorry.” With that he took to the air and headed for the library, wanting to be alone with his thoughts.

“We'd better head back,” Scythe commented, walking back towards town square with the girls in tow.

Canterlot

Celestia read over the letter from Twilight again. The idea of beings arriving from another universe was unsettling, but she knew there was a greater force at work. She took a scroll and quill in her magic and began to write her reply, deciding that something had to be done about these “Humans”.

A Royal Conundrum

View Online

Blitz felt his mind drift peacefully through the void *poke* as he lay in bed. It was a little piece of bliss to *poke* allow himself the time *poke* without worry or concern about *poke* anything. *poke*

Except for the incessant poking.

Blitz opened his eyes to see a gray hoof hovering just over the center of his brow. As it came down to poke him again, his own hoof shot out from under his blanket and intercepted it with a grab. “Scythe, what are you doing?”

Scythe tugged his hoof away, “Stroke and I crashed here last night and Spike sent me up to tell you breakfast is getting cold. By the way, you're looking really good this morning.”

Blitz sat up in bed and gave Scythe a look, “What did you break and how much did it cost?”

“I didn't break anything, but Twilight got a letter and... well, Spike was pretty into that book,” Scythe said sheepishly,

“Again, what did you break and how much did it cost?”

Scythe waved his hoof, signaling for Blitz to come closer. Taking in an exaggerated breath, he whispered into his ear, “My sanity.”

“Yeah, I don't have the bits to fix that,” Blitz sighed, pulling away.

Scythe cocked his head to the side, “Bits? Bits of what?”

“That's the currency here.”

“Oh, like bitcoins.”

Blitz blinked, “Surprisingly, yes.” He turned his body so his hind legs hung off the bed and looked around the room. It was Twilight's guest room and was relatively plain. There was a desk next to a window and a chest on one side of the room. His guitar sat in the corner next to an empty bookcase. Blitz slid off the bed, leaving his blankets in a mess as he always did, “So what did I miss last night?”

“Well, there was a lot of techno music and that Vinyl girl did a good job on stage. Then Pinkie brought out a huge cake, ate half of it and ended up singing some song on stage,” Scythe recalled, “once that started happening, Stroke and I decided to call it night. We came over here, found you asleep and slept downstairs for the night. Just in case.”

“You're concern is appreciated,” Blitz said as he walked towards the door. Scythe followed him through the door and the two made their way downstairs.

As they arrived in the main room, Twilight was busy levitating various supplies into her bags, her eyes screamed panic as she packed. Stroke trotted over, “Morning sleepy-head.”

“Morning,” Blitz looked over at Twilight, “what's up with her?”

“She got a letter this morning, apparently the Princess wants to meet us and... well,” Stroke gestured to the panicked mare.

“Let me guess, locked up where we're banished to?”

“I hope they put us through tests, I love tests,” Scythe casually remarked.

Twilight's head snapped in their direction, “Is that sarcasm?”

“No, I'm being completely serious,” Scythe deadpanned, sarcasm dripping from his voice.

“You think this is just a test!? JUST A TEST!?” Twilight yelled, “The Princess is obviously looking to see if you three are well mannered and can function in our society without stirring up chaos. If she doesn't think you're fit she's going to banish you, or lock you-”

“Twilight,” Stroke interjected, “I need you to calm down.”

“Calm down? How can I calm down!? If any of you slip up do you know what will happen!?”

“To the moon?” Blitz asked, walking into the kitchen.

Stroke shot a look in his direction before turning back to Twilight, “Ignore him. Just remember what over-stressing got you before.”

After a moment of thought, Twilight bowed her head. “You're right, it's gotten me nothing but trouble,” she sighed.

“And don't worry, I know when to keep my mouth shut,” Scythe added.

“Even when he doesn't show it,” Blitz shouted from the kitchen.

Scythe shot a look in his direction, opening his mouth before deciding against his comeback and closing it. “So how are we getting to the castle anyways?”

“We're taking the train,” Twilight explained, levitating up four tickets, “it's the fastest way to Canterlot.”

“I like trains,” Scythe smiled. There was a moment of silence as his head scanned the room, “Well, it was worth a shot.”

Blitz walked out of the kitchen eating an apple, seeing Twilight give him a confused look. “Don't question it,” he mouthed. She then looked to Stroke who merely shrugged.

“So should we get going then?” Blitz asked, “The sooner the better.”

Twilight nodded, “Yeah, let's get going.”

With that Stroke retrieved her bag and Blitz tossed his core into a nearby garbage can as they left the library. Twilight stuck her head back inside, “SPIKE! We're headed out!”

“Have fun!” he called back.

They then headed for the train station.

On The Train

The clicking of the wheels against the tracks resounded through the train car. Blitz took a window seat, leaning his head against the glass to feel the vibrations travel through his skull. Stroke took the other window seat and had her sketchbook and pencil in her magic. She was busy drawing a picture of the mountain. Scythe read through a Daring Do novel that Stroke had brought along. For the most part, the trip was met in silence before Twilight spoke, “Okay, I need to run all of you through potential questions the Princess may ask.”

Scythe looked up from his book, “We'll be fine Twilight.”

“Not with your behaviour, now question one...”

Twilight then launched into a question period with Scythe, but it went anything but well. Scythe seemed to get more annoyed with each question. His answers became more and more sarcastic, causing Twilight to show her irritation. It eventually got to a point where Scythe slammed his book shut, drawing the attention of a few other ponies in the car, “Dammit, Twilight. We'll burn this bridge when we cross it!”

Her face was turning red with anger. “I'm trying to give you the chance to say the right things and with an attitude like that, I doubt you'll last long into questioning.”

The two began to bicker amongst themselves as Stroke leaned over to Blitz, “They sound like an old married couple, don't they?”

Blitz gave her a smile, “And to think, I gave them two months before they broke it off.”

Scythe caught onto their words. “You know what honey,” he smiled, looking to Twilight, “we shouldn’t say anything we may regret in front of the kids.” He gestured towards Blitz and Stroke as he said that. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I think I’m going to go on this side because it uses less words!”

“And that’s my cue to talk to him,” Stroke sighed, as she returned her materials to her bag, “see you in Canterlot.” With that she trotted over and took a seat next to Scythe, who was once again indulged in his book.

“Is he always like this?” Twilight asked.

“You have no idea,” Blitz grumbled.

“So what are your plans?”

“Hm?” Blitz turned his attention to Twilight, “What do you mean by that?”

“I mean, what are you going to do for the long term? I know you’re getting a job at city hall, but what about the long term? I mean, aren’t going to miss your family and friends?”

Blitz sighed, the gravity of the situation just hitting him. You haven’t thought of it, have you?

“Well Twi’, it’s the same plan as back home,” he explained, “I’ll get over being homesick, can’t dwell on the past, you know? I guess I’ll get a job, buy a house, have drinks with Scythe, do art with Stroke, wait off a deal, meet a nice mare, get married, have some kids and retire to spend the rest of my days wondering how life went for everyone else back home.”

“And if you can go home?”

“Then I’ll have no choice but to go when Scythe drags me back by my wings,” he chuckled.

“Well it seems you have it thought through,” Twilight said, mentally checking a box in her mind, “now what about them?” She gestured to the others.

Blitz looked over to where his friends were sitting to see them having a small arguments of their own, “We’ll be lucky if they have any sanity by the end of this.”

“Really Scythe?” Stroke said, her tone filled with annoyance, “You really want to bring THAT up? I thought we got over this whole ‘killing yourself’ thing!”

“Oh great, this again,” Blitz thought to himself.

“I’m just saying that there’s a possibility. You don’t know after all,” Scythe argued, “We could be in comas and that’s why we’re here.”

“Scythe, you know how we got here!”

“You should probably break that up,” Twilight said.

“No need,” Blitz replied. The two watched on for a few minutes before Scythe and Stroke regressed to a quiet conversation.

“What? How?” Twilight asked.

Blitz shrugged, “They do this all the time, after a while you just accept it.”

After that he train ride continued quietly, until the conductor came into the car. “Next stop! Canterlot Royal Station!”

“That’s our stop,” Twilight smiled.

As the train pulled into the station, Blitz took notice to the large number of guards awaiting the train. “They brought out the welcoming committee, not good,” he whispered.

The others took notice as well, as Stroke and Scythe came back over. “What the hell is this?” Scythe asked.

“It’s probably just an escort,” Twilight reassured.

That’s a lot of guards for an escort.

The four made their way off the train, as they did a large, white unicorn in purple armour ran up, “Twily!”

“Shining!” Twilight squealed. The siblings ran over to each other and met with a hug, “What are you doing here?”

Shining’s face turned slightly serious, “We were sent to meet these ‘humans’ you told Celestia about. Where are they?”

“Oh they’re here,” Twilight gestured to the three, “These ponies Blitz, Scythe and Stroke, formerly humans known as Roman, Draco and Shontia.”

“Really?” Shining asked, his face skeptical.

“Yep!”

The air grew heavier as Blitz tensed his wings, “Damn.”

Stroke looked over to her companions, “Calm down, this could be a friendly escort.”

“Roman, Draco and Shontia, you are all under arrest by order of Princess Celestia,” Shining ordered, pushing Twilight aside, “You all have the right to remain silent.”

The guards stepped forward before Scythe spoke up, “WAIT!” The guards stopped as Scythe put a hoof into the air and pointed at them, “We are not the humans you’re looking for.” His comment was met with every spearhead being pointed at him and his friends. On instinct, Stroke and Scythe hid behind Blitz.

“Why do I have to be the pincushion?” he whispered behind his back.

“Because you’re the tallest,” Scythe hissed.

“No offense Blitz,” Stroke added meekly.

“Come on, no funny business,” Shining urged.

Blitz nodded, seeing no definite escape and walking forward. Scythe and Stroke followed close behind as guards took positions on either side and behind them before beginning their march through the city. Twilight trotted next to her brother, her face adorned with a look of confusion.

“Shining, why are you doing this?” she asked.

“The Princess considers these three to be threats to national security. Ponies or not, they are still foreign to this land and need to be dealt with.”

“Ever been called a terrorist?” Blitz muttered under his breath, barely even audible.

The three were given odd looks as they were paraded through the city. Blitz lowered his head to avoid drawing attention, causing Scythe and Stroke to do the same. Twilight couldn’t find any words, these ponies were her friends, they didn’t mean any harm... right? Shining’s demeanor remained unchanged, he was a co-ruler and captain of the guard, he could not afford to be swayed by emotion.

The heavy air lingered as the escort arrived at the castle. Some of the guards broke off, returning to their normal duties. Blitz looked around, they were in the castle courtyard, but there was no time to sightsee as the trio was quickly ushered inside. The pristine walls of Canterlot Castle quickly passed by as they moved forward. Guards continued to leave the formation, having more important things to do now that the job had been done. Coming up to a pair of large doors, the last two guards took their positions on either side as Shining Armour opened the doors and lead the three and Twilight into the throne room.

Sitting on her throne was Princess Celestia, her face was neutral as she was brought the foreigners. Twilight was lead aside by Shining as Celestia looked down at the three ponies standing before her, “So you three are the ones who arrived in Equestria.”

Scythe simply stared as Stroke shifted uncomfortably on her hooves. Blitz, still at the front of the group, took a step forward and stood tall. “Yes, we are,” he responded.

“Really? I expected you all to have a different appearance.”

“So Twilight forgot to inform you of our condition?” he asked, looking over to the mare in question.

“As it would seem. Now tell me, why have you come to our land?”

“W-we jumped into a rift,” Stroke said.

“A rift?”

“A link between dimensions,” Blitz explained. “I entered first, followed by Scythe and then Stroke.”

Celestia nodded, “So tell me about yourselves.”

Scythe narrowed his eyes, “We come here to get interrogated like criminals and she wants a friendly conversation? What gives?”

“We were all students,” Blitz continued, “little more than average teenagers at best.” He looked over to Scythe, his friend was silent for too long, which was rarely a good sign.

“Speak for yourself Rome,” he broke his silence, “we all had bright futures ahead of us.” Blitz and Stroke shot a glance to him, his voice was venomous.

“Really?” Celestia raised a brow.

“Yeah, now if you are such a great and powerful goddess, I bet you’re holding out on us and know how to send us home. So if you don’t want us here so badly, why not send us home?”

“Scythe, shut up,” Stroke murmured.

“And why should I?”

“Because you’re not helping our case,” Blitz replied calmly.

“Well there has to be someone- er, pony who will!” Scythe retaliated, looking over to Twilight who averted her gaze.

“Please Twilight, help us,” Stroke whispered. The only response she got was Twilight shaking her head sadly.

Celestia stared at the three. Twilight appeared to lack faith in them. The change in demeanor between Scythe and Stroke was proof enough that they would break, but Blitz remained tall and calm. Deciding to put an end to this, she sighed through her nose and spoke, “I wish there was a way to return the three of you to your homeworld. However, there is no possible means of sending you back.”

“We found that in our research,” Blitz nodded, “we are prepared to spend as much time here as needed if that is the case.”

“I’m sorry, but it won’t be.”

This caught their attention, as Scythe and Stroke stopped looking at Twilight and turned their attention Celestia. “I’m afraid that I must deem you all unfit to live in Equestria.”

All eyes turned to her. Stroke and Scythe stood with their jaws hanging as Blitz’ eyes widened slightly. Even Shining Armour found the words unsettling. “And what do you mean by that?” Blitz asked.

“What I mean is that based off of your actions before me, as minimal as they may be, along with the information sent to me by Twilight Sparkle, I can only consider each of you a danger to my nation.”

There was a moment of silence before Scythe began to chuckle, which escalated to laughter. “Oh, I get it. The universe has some sick and twisted sense of humour, doesn’t it? It makes life in our reality so boring that we can’t stand it and escape to another, only to learn that we can’t stay where we want in this one. You know what? I think banishment would be much better than living in a society of such prejudice,” he ranted.

Blitz stared blankly at Scythe while Stroke’s hoof met her face. “It’s not as simple as that,” Celestia stated.

“How so?” Stroke asked, unsure if she wanted an answer.

Celestia bowed her head and closed her eyes, “Due to the potential threat that you pose to not just Equestria, but to all lands, I’m afraid I cannot allow you to wander this planet. Guards!”

The guards that were standing by the door came over as Shining Armour joined them. They each took a spot behind a pony. “What the hell?” Blitz remarked as Shining took his position behind him.

Celestia stood from her throne and walked forward, “Due to the threat that each of you pose, I have no choice but to execute you personally.”

“You can’t do that!” Blitz objected, “We’re on your side! We mean no harm!”

His outburst was met by Shining striking him on the back of the head, knocking him to his knees, “Quiet you!”

Scythe looked to the side to see a guard prepare to strike Stroke, “DON’T YOU TOUCH HER!” He was met with a strike of his own as Stroke’s guard pushed her down, rather than with a strike.

Twilight looked on in shock as Celestia walked up to Blitz, her horn glowing with a golden aura. “Any last words?”

“You can’t do this!”

Celestia raised a brow, unimpressed by these words of desperation. “And why not?”

“Because... because...”

“Roman, say something,” Stroke urged.

“Because... we’re... refugees!” Blitz concluded.

“Refugees?” Celestia repeated, unsure of what he meant.

Scythe caught on, “Yeah, refugees. We’re stuck here with no way of returning to our homeland.”

“And we can’t return, otherwise we will face attacks from the government due to our current appearance,” Stroke added, “We’ll become nothing more than subjects to be experimented on.”

They each straightened themselves from their kneeling position. The guards stepped back as Celestia’s horn lost it’s glow and her eyes were met by the trio’s.

“We don’t care what you think, but we are humans. We adapt to anything that comes at us, it’s our common nature,” Blitz said, “and I can surely guarantee you that we will blend into this society.”

“And trust me when I say that there are a lot worse humans that could have ended up here. You lucked out to get us, three semi-sane teenagers rather than a group of crazy adults,” Stroke assured.

Celestia looked down upon the three foreigners. There was a light in each of their eyes that told her everything that she needed to know. Her stern expression turned to a motherly smile. “Alright then, you all may stay,” she smiled, “but only if you stay in Ponyville with Twilight and her friends, and they send reports on how you all are adapting to your new lives.”

They looked to Twilight, who trotted over and nodded, “Isn’t that the plan?”

“Pretty much,” Scythe nodded.

Celestia smiled again. “Good, I welcome you all to Equestria with open hooves. As for your documents, these guards shall help you with that,” she explained, gesturing to the two guards that had stepped back. “Now off you go, I have important matters to attend to.”

With that they were escorted from the throne room as Celestia sighed quietly to herself.

Later on the train...

Blitz gazed out the window at the castle. He and his friends were relieved that they were not going to be banished or executed, but there was still something bothering him about the whole ordeal.

“Blitz!”

He snapped out of his trance to see Twilight and his friends staring at him. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

“You don’t look it,” Stroke commented.

Blitz shifted in his seat, “I just can’t help but feel that went too well.”

“So I wasn’t the only one who saw it,” Scythe remarked, “What do you she’s hiding?”

Blitz turned his stare back out the window as the train pulled out of the station. “I don’t know,” he sighed, “but knowing Celestia, it must be something big.”

Meanwhile on a balcony high above Canterlot, Celestia watched as the train carrying her student and new citizens left the city. A gentle flapping of wings came from behind her, causing her to look over her shoulder to find that Luna had arrived. The moon goddess trotted up to her sister, “Good afternoon ‘Tia.”

“Luna, what are you doing up so late?”

“I was concerned about the ones that Twilight Sparkle described in her letters. Did they really look like shaved apes?”

Celestia laughed lightly, “Actually, they became ponies.”

“Really?” she looked at Celestia with concern in her eyes, “Tell me, do you think they are the ones?”

Celestia looked back over the horizon. “For now, I am not sure. But if this truly comes to pass, I can only hope that they are capable to handle it.”

Scythe's Day

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The sea air gently swept over the beach as Draco reclined in his chair and stared at the sky. It was the end of a beautiful day as the sun set over the clear water, causing to sparkle a crystal orange. Looking to the empty chair beside him, he sighed and shook his head before turning his attention back to the sunset. “What a shame.” It was missing someone to share it with, the one thing he truly wanted, but alas this would have to do.

As if on cue he heard someone call, “Scythe.” He looked over to see nothing and got out of his chair to scan the area. The voice was familiar, but he soon decided to stop dwelling on it, for it would cause him unneeded pain. “Scythe!” Draco blinked, that wasn’t his name. At least, not his human name. Deciding to ignore it, he sat back down in his seat and resumed his staring. A voice spoke again, but this one was young and had a southern accent, “Scythe, tahme to wake up! Applejack doesn’t like tardy farmhands.”

Scythe’s chest felt pressured as his breathing shallowed, causing his dream to melt around him. His eyes cracked open to the world, seeing Applebloom sitting on his chest. “Out of the dream and into the nightmare.” The room was just beginning to show the first rays of daylight shining through the window. “Five more minutes Bloom,” he mumbled, covering his eyes with a foreleg.

“Applejack wants you up now,” the filly huffed.

“AJ can wait five minutes.” Scythe closed his eyes and began to drift off into the land of sleep, only to have it interrupted by the filly bouncing on his chest like a trampoline. “O-kay-I’m-up!” he said, forming syllables between bounces.

“Thank you!” Applebloom smiled, hopping off of Scythe.

Scythe sat up and glared at the filly, “Don’t you ever do that again.”

She simply rolled her eyes at him and made her way out the door, “Fine.”

As Applebloom left the room, Scythe got out of bed and hit the floor on four hooves. The concept of walking on all fours was still new to him, but in his new body it felt right. Odd, but right. After taking a few minutes to stretch out the kinks in his body from sleeping, he too exited his room. Looking back, he gave it a once over. The room itself was rather simple; painted brown with a bed, dresser and window. Not much, but home nonetheless. “This place, my home,” he thought to himself, laughing quietly, “We’ll find a way home, I’m sure of it.”

Heading into the hall, the floorboards creaked underneath his hooves as Scythe made his way into the bathroom Applejack had shown him during the tour of his new home and workplace and quick introductions to the rest of the family the day before. He closed the door behind him and looked in the mirror, half frowning at what he saw. A silver stallion, not a teenage human, but a pastel pony. Scythe stared at the mirror, his annoyance showed as his ears flattened against his head. He shut his eyes tight and hit the wall with a hoof, just missing the mirror. “This is not me... No, it’s not me!” He continued to hit the wall over and over again, repeating, “It’s not me! It’s not me!” Opening his eyes and looking into the mirror again he sighed, “It’s me.”

A knock came from the door as Applejack spoke from the other side, “Scythe? Are you alright in there?”

Scythe’s gaze snapped way from the mirror. “Y-yeah, I’m fine,” he lied, “Just give me a few minutes.”

“Alright, jus’ come down soon okay?”

“Okay.” He waited for the clip-clopping of hooves heading away from the door before looking back into the mirror. He turned the faucet and splashed some cold water onto his face. “Stuck in a new land, forced into a new life all because yours didn’t like you. Face it Draco, you’re in one of your stories,” he muttered to himself.

Shaking his head dry, Scythe walked out of the bathroom and headed towards the stairs. “It’s okay, I can do this,” he thought to himself. “First day on the job, I have to do my best.” Scythe puffed out his chest and began his descent to the main floor. Not even halfway down, his hoof missed its step completely and caused Scythe to begin a long fall down the stairs. Time slowed as one thought entered his mind, “This is going to hurt, isn’t it?”

*THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *CRASH*

“Murphy’s Law: 1 Scythe: 0”

“Are you alright Scythe?” He looked up to see a concerned Applejack standing over him.

“Just peachy,” he muttered angrily.

Applejack offered Scythe a hoof which he promptly smacked away. “I’m fine,” he moped. He struggled to pull himself up, barely managing to straighten himself before falling to the floor again. Applejack offered a hoof again, which he reluctantly accepted.

“Stop actin’ so tough, or else you’ll end up the hospital again.”

Scythe shuddered at the thought of returning to the hospital, it being the last place he wanted to be, especially given his current situation. Upon being helped back up, Scythe sniffed the air. A scent visibly wafted through the hall and into his nostrils, causing him to inhale deeply. His stomach rumbled as he mindlessly drifted towards the source of the aroma.

Applejack followed as Scythe made his way into the dining room where he took a seat behind a plate. Scythe licked his lips at the breakfast before him. A stack of half a dozen pancakes with a healthy coating of syrup and a square of butter on top. “You only see food this good in cartoo-Oh wait.”

Applebloom was busy defeating her own tower of deliciousness while Granny Smith was reading her newspaper. Applejack took a seat next to her sister as Scythe bowed his head and closed his eyes, “And now for grace.” He raised his head and smiled, “-ing myself with these delectable cakes from the pan. A-freaking-men!”

He then went in head first, taking a bite out of the top layer and letting his tastebuds savour the sweet, buttermilky goodness. After that first bite all bets were off as Scythe quickly cleaned his plate. The others at the table stared at him as he chuckled, “Heh, sorry about that. It was delicious, thank you.”

“So Mister Scythe, how are you holding up, being a pony and all?” Applebloom asked.

Scythe leaned back where he sat. “Well squirt, the whole walking on four legs thing is still a bit odd, but I seem to be adjusting,” he replied. “And I really miss the dexterity I had with my hands, but if that’s the universe’s trade off for letting me keep me stay a guy, I say it can have them.”

“An’ what’s wrong with being a mare?” Applejack asked, sounding angered by Scythe’s comment.

The sudden change in her tone caused Scythe to lean too far back and topple backwards. “WOAH!” “Murphy’s Law: 2 Scythe: 0” His head popped up from under the table to see three pairs of angry eyes glaring at him. “I-I mean, th-there’s nothing wrong with that, but-”

His panicked rant was cut short by a chorus of laughter. “No worries Scythe, we were jus’ pullin’ yer leg,” Applejack snickered.

Scythe’s eye twitched at this as he let his head fall to the table. “Universe, send me back now,” he muttered.

Applejack got up and patted her new employee on the back, “C’mon sugar, we were just joking. How about we get to work?”

“I guess,” he sighed, lifting his head up from the table.

“Ah mean what’s the worst that could happen?”

Scythe let his head fall back to the table, “Rule number one, don’t tempt Murphy’s Law... Sucker.”

“Shut it, Sil,” he whispered.

In The Orchard

Scythe followed as Applejack lead him through the orchard. He darted his eyes back and forth, checking for any signs of the universe’s next attack while ignoring Applejack’s instructions. “... ya got that Scythe?”

“Mmm? Yeah.”

AJ looked back at him, "Scythe, you need to pay attention. Applebuckin' is hard work and if yer not careful you really hurt yourself.”

“I’m kicking a tree and making apples fall out of it, give me a demo and I should be able to figure it out.”

Applejack rolled her eyes at his comment, “Fine, but if you get hurt it’s not on me.”

“I’ll get the Murphy’s Law counter ready...”

Scythe mentally facehoofed as he realized what the universe’s next move was; using his paranoia. Hearing a loud *thunk* nearby, the pair changed their direction towards the sound. Coming over Scythe saw a massive red stallion lazily tap a tree with his hind leg, causing a cascade of apples to fall into baskets waiting underneath. “Note to self, never piss the big red guy off.”

“Mornin’ Big Mac!” Applejack called over.

The stallion turned his gaze to them as Scythe shrunk back a bit. He knew that Mac was harmless, but the sheer size the Apple had compared to him was intimidating by itself.

“Mac, this is our new farmhand, Silver Scythe. Ah believe you two havent met formally yet.”

“Uh, nice to meet you,” Scythe greeted, stepping forward and sticking a hoof out.

Macintosh accepted it with a shake before returning his attention to his work. Scythe looked over at Applejack with a confused look on his face. “He can be shy at tahmes,” she shrugged.

Scythe nodded, “Well big guy, I’ll be here until I can find a way home, so if you want to talk you know where to find me.”

“Eeyup.”

Walking back over to Applejack, Scythe decided it was time to learn. “So about that demonstration...”

"Right, Ah’m hopin’ that by the end of today we’ll have you buckin’ trees like a natural." With that Applejack trotted over to a nearby tree. “There’s nothing to it, really. Just line up yer body to the trunk, keep yer balance and buck it as hard as you can!” she explained, demonstrating each step, causing apples to fall from the tree.

Scythe blinked and took a moment to go over what he was just shown. “Heh, no problem. Should be as easy as slaying a chuchu!” he boasted.

“A what now?”

“A small slimy monster thing,” Scythe explained.

AJ rolled her eyes, “How about you put yer money where yer mouth is and get to work.” She led him to a tree, this one was thinner and slightly shorter than the other trees, but beared bright red fruit nonetheless. “We’ll start you off on some younger trees so you can build up yer strength.”

“Seems fair,” Scythe nodded. He stepped up to the tree and went through the steps. “Line up your body, check. Maintain balance, check,” he thought to himself, tensing his hind legs. “Aaand,” he shifted his balance forwards to bring his hind legs up, but a sudden shift caused him to lose control of his body. “WOAH! Balance not check! Abort! Abort!”

But it was too late. Scythe’s balance shifted awkwardly as he attempted to buck the tree, but instead of meeting the tree high, his hind legs shot out and spread slightly. Just enough for his lost balance to send him crashing into the tree.

*CRUNCH*

A searing pain lanced through his groin and quickly spread throughout his body. “Murphy’s Law: 3 Scy-”

“OH SHUT UP SIL!”

Scythe hit the ground and curled into the fetal position. Slipping into the dark recesses of humiliation and agony, Sil had one thing left to say, “It is pitch black. You will likely be eaten by a Grue,” followed by a maniacal laugh.

And then nothingness.

A few minutes of shame and pain later...

Scythe heard a distant voice say something, but could not make out its muffled words. “Oh, you’ve finally decided to bring us back to reality? Fine, let me boot up the ROM BIOS.”

“I am not a computer.” Scythe sighed as his eyes cracked open and his senses began to crisp up. He was on his back and staring through the trees and into the sky.

The muffled voice became clear as he made out two figures as Applejack and Mac standing over him. “Scythe.” His ears registered her voice. “You alright?”

He closed his eyes again as sensation returned to his body. His crotch still hurt, but the rest of him felt relatively fine, aside from the shock of the impact. The pain lessened, but not entirely bearable, he managed a small whimper in response. He opened his eyes to see Mac reach down and lift him up to his hooves.

“C’mon sugar, walk it off,” Applejack comforted.

Scythe took a few shaky steps forward. The siblings stayed close in case he were to fall, but as he regained his stability, they left Scythe to walk unassisted. Feeling his mind come to rest, he turned back to face Applejack. “Okay, maybe applebucking is more like fighting a bull. Sorry about being cocky earlier.” He bowed his head and sighed, “Truth is that I’m just a city boy with a knack for telling stories, I doubt that I’m going to be much help out here.”

“Ah don’t see it that way,” Applejack stated.

Scythe looked up. “How so?”

“Look at it as if you need to grow into it, I can see you have the potential. We’ll have to work on yer aim and power, so Ah’ll have you start workin’ the heavybag every mornin’. For today you can collect baskets an’ put them on the wagon.”

“What? I’m perfectly strong enough, watch.” Scythe limbered over to another tree and assumed the stance, being careful not to repeat his earlier actions. Struggling with his injury, he managed to deliver a direct buck to the trunk. The result, however, was extremely underwhelming as two apples came loose, only one making it into the awaiting baskets.

Scythe stared at the result and facehoofed. After a moment of silence he spoke, “Basket boy it is then.”

“Eeyup,” Macintosh agreed.

“So how do I lift these things?” he asked, gesturing to the filled baskets that Mac had filled earlier.

“There’s a basket harness in the wagon over there,” Applejack pointed to a wagon visible through some nearby trees. “Just put it on and hook the baskets to the sides and put them on the wagon.”

“Alright,” Scythe said, making his way over to retrieve the harness.

A few hours later...

The sky had begun to turn orange as Scythe and the Apple siblings returned to the house.

The pain from a long days work lingered in Scythe’s muscles, the exhaustion that wracked his body felt rewarding. He was strapped up to the wagon and was helping Applejack pull it back to the barn. His legs ached, his crotch was stiff, his back sore from lifting the many baskets, and he was covered in sweat and grime, but it was all worth it. The hard day of work felt good.

“You sure yer okay Scythe?” Applejack asked, her face showing concern, “You really put in a lot of effert today.”

Scythe turned his head to her and gave a weak smile. “Trust me, I’m fine. Putting in one hundred percent is the least I can do. You gave me chance to find something I’ll enjoy here, something that no one back home would ever give me. It may not be what I’m supposedly destined to do, but still, thank you for this opportunity. I won’t let you down.”

AJ chuckled at his response, “Alright, just don’t push yerself too hard. We’ll drop off these baskets and get back for some dinner, sound good.”

Scythe’s stomach grumbled at the thought of food, the early lunch he had gave him a good burst of energy, but it was beginning to take its toll. “Sounds good.”

“Eeyup,” Mac added.

Scythe turned his attention to the taller stallion walking next to him. “Can you say anything aside from ‘Eeyup’ and ‘Nope’?” he asked. It was a question that plagued him all day as Macintosh gave his signature one word responses to everything he asked in an attempt to start a conversation.

Mac gave him a sly grin, “Maybe.” They began to laugh as they approached the barn.

“Scythe!” Applebloom ran up to him with two fillies in tow, one an orange pegasus, and the other a white unicorn that reminded him of Rarity.

“Oh hey Bloom, who are your friends?”

“Oh, this is Sweetie Belle and this is Scootaloo,” she said, gesturing to her friends as she introduced them. “And together we’re...”

Scythe didn’t stand a chance as the three fillies raised their voices and shouted in unison, “THE CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS!”

Scythe reeled back slightly at the sound of the mini explosion before him. “Uh-huh. So what can I do for you?”

Scootaloo stepped forward, “You’re an alien, right?”

“Scootaloo, we’ve been over this, there’s no such thing as aliens!” Sweetie Belle objected.

“Right, because there’s a huge difference between a being from another universe and an alien, but please, continue,” Scythe remarked.

“Well, we were wonderin’ how you got yer Cutie Mark,” Applebloom explained.

“Actually girls, where I come from we don’t get marks that tell us our special skills.”

“What!?” The trio were shocked by this.

“But how do you know what your special talent is?” Sweetie asked.

Scythe shrugged, “That’s the thing. On my world we had to work for our skills, nothing was just shown to us and instantly said “Here’s what you’re good at, have fun”. Some people can end up going their entire lives without knowing their true potential.”

“So you don’t have a story to how you got yer Cutie Mark?” Applebloom summarized.

“Well no.” Seeing the fillies visibly deflate, Scythe thought up a solution. “Tell you what, meet me back at the house and I’ll finish up here. Then I’ll tell you a story about the story of how I discovered my talent.”

“Really?” They perked up at this.

“Sure, storytelling is my talent. Now you three run along and I’ll tell you the story of how I, Draco the silver tongued explorer extraordinaire got my mark!” Scythe turned to Applejack who rolled her eyes.

The fillies nodded eagerly and smiled, “CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS STORY LISTENERS! YAY!”

Later...

Scythe sat on the couch with the Crusaders sitting in front of him. “This is the story of how I learned of my destiny.” He smiled and began his tale, “It was a very windy and cloudy day when I decided it was time for me to embark on an adventure to find my true skills, and obtain my mark. Most had simply tried things they are good at and stayed in the safety of their home town, but me, I wanted something grand, something I could say I did, a grand story to tell when I returned!” He thrust a hoof into the air for emphasis, causing the fillies to “Oooh”.

Applejack watched from across the room. She laughed quietly at Scythe as he told of his supposed ordeal before turning her attention back to the letter she was writing.

Dear Princess Celestia,

Today I had Scythe begin work on the farm. To be honest, I was a little unsure about whether or not he’d be able to hold his own, let alone have fun with his attitude. After a few accidents, he’s actually begun to open up and enjoy himself. He can tell some good stories, but the sarcasm I could do without. If I were in his position, I don’t think I would fare much better, but I guess that once you find something that you can be passionate about, you can make the best of any situation.

Your faithful subject,

Applejack

P.S. What’s a Sil?

Out of Sight

View Online

“Come on Stroke, you can do it!” Spike urged.

It was a quiet afternoon at the library as Stroke had finished some sketches with Rarity and decided to practice some magic with Twilight. Wishing to test her abilities, Stroke asked Twilight if she could attempt the list of twenty five spells that would let them see her current skill level.

Stroke squeezed her eyes tighter and concentrated harder. The pale lavender aura around her horn shone brighter as she focused on the spell. Twilight stood at the side as she watched her friend’s progress. Feeling her power come to a peak, Stroke caused Spike’s face to faintly glow.

“Almost there!” Spike grinned.

“Just focus,” Twilight said reassuringly. “You’re doing fine.”

Stroke concentrated as the light grew brighter, but it flickered as she felt her magic falter. The aura faded from her horn and Spike’s face as she released her concentration with an exhale. “Damn,” Stroke muttered under her breath, pinning her ears back in irritation.

“It’s okay Stroke, even I had some trouble on my first try,” Twilight said half-heartedly.

Stroke seemed to perk up a bit as Spike spoke. “No you didn’t. Even on your first try you managed to make some hairs appear,” he remarked while examining his face in a mirror and
feeling slightly upset over the lack of facial hair.

Twilight shot him a look before turning to her checklist and putting an ‘X’ next to the spell. “Well you’ve managed to pull off four out of twenty five spells, and that’s not bad considering you’re just starting off with your magic.”

“Well it’s a start.” Stroke’s successful spells were the concussion blasts she had used in the hospital, some teleportation that, while shaky, could take her across the library in one piece, the medical scan spell that Twilight had used to extract the magic from the groups bodies, and she could project a barrier around herself with some effort.

Twilight nodded, “Besides, there’s still one spell you haven’t practiced yet.”

Stroke looked at the list and tilted her head, not having missed any spells on it as indicated by the marks next to each item. “Which?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Stroke shook her head, causing Twilight to giggle and point at her flank, “The spell that matches your special talent.”

Stroke’s hoof met her forehead. “Seriously, how could you forget about that?” Spike asked.

Stroke rolled her eyes at him, “I haven’t been a unicorn very long okay? This whole magic thing’s still really new to me.” She shook her head and turned to Twilight, “So what exactly am I supposed to do?”

Twilight shrugged, “I don’t know. Normally unicorns by our age know what their special talent does.” She tapped a hoof to her chin, “Try concentrating on how your talent makes you happy and try to turn it into a spell.”

“Okay, sounds easy enough.”

Stroke took a deep breath in and exhaled through her nose. Clearing her mind, she concentrated on her life’s passion. Art, creating, bringing life to a dull page, giving the world colour, enjoying every second of it and working to become the best she could be. Twilight watched on as Stroke bowed her head and her horn sparked with a faint glow. Focusing her thoughts, Stroke lit her horn brightly and opened her eyes, firing the spell as she did.

However, her method of activating the spell gave her no aim as a bolt of magic flew from her horn and straight towards Spike. With a *poof* he was enveloped in a lavender light for a brief second before it faded. Stroke and Twilight struggled to contain their laughter as they saw the result.

“What? What happened!?” Spike demanded, “Did I grow another head!? Did I turn into a dog!? Am I-”

“Just look in the mirror,” Twilight snickered.

Spike walked over to the mirror and gaped at what he saw. His scales and eyes, once been and purple, were multiple shades of pink. A few moments passed as he stared at his reflection. Concerned with his silence, Twilight walked up to her assistant.

“Spike, are you alright?”

No response.

“Spike?”

“Stroke,” he stated, his voice barely a whisper.

Her ears perked up at the mention of her name, “Yeah?”

In an instant Spike had propelled himself from his position in front of the mirror in a pink blur and wrapped his arms around Stroke’s leg. “CHANGE ME BACK!” he cried.

“Um... I don’t know if I can,” Stroke admitted sheepishly.

“Of course you can, it’s your spell, you can reverse it!”

“Actually Spike, she has a point,” Twilight spoke up. “Most spells only have a counter because they have been performed often enough that one was found. This is a unique kind of spell in itself.”

“What do you mean by that?” Stroke asked, looking down at the dragon still attached to her leg.

“It appears that your spell works by reflecting certain wavelengths of light in order to alter the colour of a target,” Twilight explained. “You just happened to reflect the right wavelengths and... well,” she gestured to Spike.

Storke looked down to Spike who detached himself from her leg and was on his knees, clasping his claws and putting on the best puppy eyes he could muster. “Please.”

After a few seconds of staring at the begging dragon, Stroke bowed her head and sighed, “Alright Spike, I’ll get to work on the reversal.”

“Please figure it out!” Spike pleaded, “If you need me, I’ll be hiding in the basement so Rarity doesn’t see me.” With that Spike made his way to the door and slammed it shut as he left the pair to themselves.

“Okay, let’s get to work,” Twilight said, “I’ll go and get some supplies and we’ll get to it.” A knock came from the door. “Mind getting that?”

Stroke trotted over to the door as Twilight went through the same door as Spike and took the knob in her magic, opening it to find a cardboard box sitting idly outside. Confused, she stuck her head outside and scanned the area. There was no sign of anypony around, and yet the box sat there. Stroke stepped backwards and stared at the box, “Okay?”

The box began to raise as a silver mass unfolded itself from underneath and flipped the box over dramatically, revealing Scythe standing on his hind legs with his back turned to Stroke. Looking over his shoulder, Scythe put a hoof to his lips and crouched down, pulling the box back over himself.

Stroke rolled her eyes and took the box in her magic, “Oh grow up Scythe.” She lifted the box, only to find that Scythe was no longer underneath it. Confused by the disappearance of her friend, Stroke looked inside of the box to find nothing before sighing and tossing it aside. “Don’t question it,” she muttered to herself.

Sighing quietly, Stroke turned back inside and closed the door behind herself. “HI!” She was met with surprise as Blitz swung down from the air an inch away from Stroke’s face, causing her to jump back in surprise.

“Blitz!? How did you get in here?” she paused, the pegasus was hovering upside down,
“And how are you flying like that?”

Blitz shrugged as he flipped in the air and landed. “I’m a magical pony who can fly and manipulate the weather, does it really need much explaining?”

Stroke nodded, “Good point, now how did you get in and what was with Scythe?”

“Oh, he distracted you while I snuck in through that window,” he pointed to the fixture in question, “so I could distract you while he sneaks up behind you.”

Stroke turned to see Scythe on his hind legs, appearing as if he was about to attack Stroke. “Dammit Blitz.”

“Sorry.”

Scythe sighed and came back down onto all fours. “Well I may as well do something.” He walked in front of Stroke and put his hoof onto her nose, “Boop.”

“You get amused easily, don’t you Scythe?” The trio turned to see Twilight coming out of the basement with a clipboard and various objects in her magic.

“Only when I need to,” he said, “What’s with the stuff?”

Twilight’s face lit up. “Stroke created a new spell and now we need to make a reversal!” she squealed.

The guys turned to Stroke, an embarrassed blush had crept onto her face. “That’s my girl!” Scythe grinned, “One week into a new universe and her brilliance shows.” He put his arm around her neck, “This calls for celebration!”

“Uh, Scythe, weren’t you listening?” Blitz asked. Scythe turned to his friend, “She has to make a reversal for it.”

Scythe brought his leg down from Stroke’s neck, “Well we need to provide some form of moral support while she works on it, don’t we?”

Stroke smiled, “You guys would do that?”

“Of course we would!” Scythe exclaimed. “I’m your best friend and Blitz is...” he turned to the pegasus, “Well... Blitz. Can’t say much more than that.”

“What does this new spell even do?” Blitz asked.

Twilight cleared her throat, “The spell that Stroke’s developed is related to her special talent in the fact that it can change an object’s natural reflective properties thus changing the wavelengths received by the retina and therefore the received image.”

Scythe raised a brow and Blitz nodded before turning to Stroke, “What does the spell do and how did you figure it out?”

“It changes the colour of stuff and I accidentally turned Spike pink.”

“Oh this I gotta see!” Scythe grinned, “Where is he?”

“Scythe, Spike said that he doesn’t want anypony seeing him until he’s changed back,” Twilight explained.

“So it reflects light?”

Stroke nodded, “Yeah, it does.” She recognized the look on his face, “What are you thinking?”

Blitz pointed to his head, “Turn me completely white. That way I can walk around town all day saying I saw a ghost.”

Twilight looked at him with concern, “Blitz, we don’t have a way to reverse it. You could end up that way for a while.”

“Actually, that sounds fun! Count me in!” Scythe piped up.

“Didn’t you just hear what I said? It could end badly for you both!”

“As long as you two don’t take it too far, I’ll let you have your fun,” Stroke said.

“ARE ANY OF YOU LISTENING!?” Twilight yelled.

“Alright, let’s do this!”

“Urgh, why do I even bother,” Twilight grumbled.

She trotted into the kitchen while Stroke charged up her horn. A thought crossed her mind, causing her to cancel the spell. “Uh guys, how do I turn you white?”

“White’s a colour that reflects all wavelengths, so try focusing on that,” Blitz said professionally.

Stroke nodded, “Alright.” She bowed her head and focused. ‘No colour, no life, just a blank canvas.’ The glow returned to Stroke’s horn as she tightened her concentration. “Here we go.” With her horn glowing as bright as she could muster, Stroke fired two bolts at her friends. They were enveloped in a lavender light as Spike had been and Stroke flashed a small smile at her handiwork. As the light faded her expression changed as she realized something went wrong.

Neither of them were where they once stood. In fact they were not even there anymore.

Stroke scanned the room, afraid of what she had just done. “Guys?” she asked the air, “Um, guys, are you still here... or alive?”

Twilight walked out of the kitchen to see Stroke standing in the room talking to herself.

“Yeah Stroke, why do you ask?” Blitz’s voice spoke.

“AH! Where’d that come from!?” Stroke and Twilight reeled back in surprise at Scythe’s voice.

There was silence in the room as everypony pieced it together. “Stroke?” Blitz started.

“Yeah?”

“Scythe and I are invisible, aren’t we?”

She nodded her head.

“How did this happen?” Twilight asked, surprised by the result. “Nopony can pull off an invisibility spell this well.”

The sound of a hoof meeting face came from Scythe’s direction. “Blitz told her to reflect all wavelengths.”

Twilight sighed and turned to the stairs, “It’s okay. Both of you stay down here while Stroke and I work upstairs.”

“Alright,” the stallions said in unison.

The pair watched as Twilight and Stroke closed the door as they went into Twilight’s room. A few seconds of silence passed before Scythe turned his head in Blitz’s direction. “We’re not staying here, are we?”

“Not a chance, we’re invisible and I say we make the most of it.”

“Good,” Scythe replied, walking over to the door and opening it. “To anarchy!” he called, walking outside.

“Hear hear!” Blitz cheered, following his friend out of the library.

Later...

Stroke closed and focused on her target. The apple she had turned invisible was sitting on the table, waiting to be changed back to a shiny red. Deciding it was time to release, Stroke cleared her mind, “A finished canvas, full of life and colour.” She fired a bolt of magic at it, causing the fruit to become enveloped enveloped in a lavender aura. She smiled at the fact that she managed to hit her target, but it quickly faded as the apple appeared for half a second, then vanished once again.

She gritted her teeth in irritation. “Ugh, what am I missing?” she muttered.

Twilight took down some notes on a scroll before looking at the frustrated mare, “Well you’re showing improvement, I swear I could see the apple for a second there.”

Stroke sighed and walked over to Twilight’s bed, laying down on it with a sigh. “I don’t know. There’s just something that I’m missing.” She put her head down onto the mattress, “I just don’t know.”

Twilight came over to Stroke and put a hoof on her back, “Stroke, sometimes magic is just hard. Try focusing on why you want this to work.”

“Okay, one more time,” Stroke sighed. She got off the bed and back over to the spot she was standing in. Closing her eyes, she began to gather her concentration. “Why am I doing this? For my friends, to fix Scythe and Blitz... and Spike, can’t forget Spike. Their always there for me, being supportive, always-”

Her train of thought was interrupted as the sound of a window opening came from behind her. “Twilight, I need your help!” Dash cried.

Stroke began to look back before Twilight stopped her, “Keep focused.” Stroke nodded and turned back to the apple. “What’s wrong Rainbow?”

“It’s some of the clouds, they’ve gone crazy!” Dash explained, landing inside the room.

“Crazy? Crazy how?”

“Yeah, how?” Stroke asked herself.

“They’re moving on their own. It started with one, but when it got close to another cloud it stopped and the next one started moving.”

Twilight nodded and walked towards the door, “Alright, I’ll go get Blitz. He should be able to help given his... condition.”

Dash tilted her head, “What happened to him?”

“You’ll see.”

“Ha, that sounds like a pun Scythe would use.”

As Twilight left, Dash trotted over to Stroke, “So what are you doing?”

“Concentrating,” she replied.

“On what?”

“You’ll see.”

The pair heard Twilight calling for the guys downstairs, but her calls became more and more desperate as she received no reply. A barely audible “Oh no” came from the staircase as she returned, “We have a problem.”

Earlier...

A bush rustled as Blitz and Scythe popped their heads up. Blitz smirked as he spotted his target. “Alright, we’re going to start with her.”

“Who?”

Blitz rolled his eyes before reaching to his side, locating Scythe’s head and turning it in the direction he was looking in. “Her.” The target in question was a rainbow tail hanging from a cloud.

Scythe stared (or at least tried to) at his friend. “Alright, and how do you intend to pull this off?”

Blitz looked up at the clouds that scattered the skies, “I’ve got an idea.”

As he took off, Scythe snickered, “You have an idea, that’s always a scary thought.”

The pegasus silently flew towards a cloud and landed on top of it. “Jeez these things are soft,” he whispered to himself. He lay down and wrapped his legs around the cloud and slowly flew it above his target.

Dash slept on her own cloud, tired from an early morning of work and practice, a nap was just the thing she needed to recover. She was completely unaware that a cloud had been repositioned over her.

Blitz laughed quietly to himself as he let his tail fall over the edge of the cloud and tickle her nose.

After a loud sneeze, Dash shot awake and stared at the out of place cloud. Deciding it was time to act, Blitz took off as fast as he could, his invisibility making it look like the cloud was speeding off on its own.

“Oh no you don’t!”

“And they’re off,” Scythe thought to himself.

Dash took off from her cloud at a breakneck speed and closed the gap on Blitz in mere seconds. “Closer, closer,” he thought to himself as another cloud came up on his left. “Now.” With Dash mere inches away from his tail, Blitz released his grip, rolled onto the next cloud and took off.

Dash chased the first cloud until the momentum wore off and saw the next one moving. “What the?” She engaged the cloud in another pursuit, only for the cloud to slow to a stop as another took off. “Oh come on!”

While this occurred, Scythe lay on the ground in the bush quietly laughing his sides off as Dash tried to catch clouds that were barely out of her reach.

Back in the sky, Blitz began to grow weary of leading Dash on and zigzagged off of a line of clouds, sending them in varying directions. At this point Dash was getting angry, her work was being ruined and she didn’t like it.

Blitz grappled to another cloud and sped into a climb. His pursuer had begun to wisen up as she quickly turned after him. “Perfect.”

He continued the climb before turning into a sharp dive, baiting Dash into his plan as she followed. Dash quickly gained ground on him as she sped up in the dive. For a second, Blitz began to panic as he could have sworn that he could see a mach cone forming around her. “Closer... and...” Blitz turned out of his dive and leveled out, causing Dash to follow the motion. In one swift movement he rolled forward and braked with his wings, causing the cloud to stop in the air and flip, creating a wall that Dash promptly ran into without time to stop or dodge.

Scythe rolled on the ground in a riot while Blitz landed next to him, quietly laughing as he did.

“Dude, that was hilarious!” Scythe snickered.

“Heh, yeah. I know I can’t outfly Dash, but I can definitely outsmart her,” he chuckled, looking back to see Dash pull herself away from the cloud and fly off yelling something. “So you think you can do better?”

“Oh you know it,” Scythe boasted, picking himself up from the ground, “just give me a moment.”

Present Time...

The three mares sat in the room in dead silence. “So they’re invisible and Blitz just messed with my work,” Dash stated.

“And they’re now on a rampage through town,” Twilight finished.

Stroke shook quietly as she felt new thoughts enter her mind. “Those guys...” Her horn began to spark and glow brightly. “THEY’RE GOING DOWN!” she yelled, firing a blast of magic at the table. The invisible apple shone with a lavender light that quickly died down, revealing that the spell had been reversed.

Twilight and Dash stared at her for a moment. “How?”

“I need a reason, I’m going to stop them,” she explained.

Twilight shook her head, “Stroke, talent spell or not, you’ve just created a spell and a reversal in a matter of hours. Some ponies spend months honing their talents.”

Stroke shrugged and walked over to the door, “It’s no big deal Twilight.”

“But-”

“No big deal,” she repeated. “Come on, we have to go stop those two idiots.” With that, Twilight and Dash followed her downstairs and out of the house.

“So we have a way of changing them back, now how do we find them?” Dash asked.

“Try taking to the sky and spotting anything that seems out of place.”

Dash nodded and flew up high, scanning the town. After a few minutes she returned to earth, “We can start by following the path of panicking ponies, then head over to AJ’s stand.”

“Why there?” Twilight asked.

“I think I saw a box moving near it.”

Stroke’s ears perked up, “That sounds like Scythe, let’s move.”

The three ran towards the market, seeing the path of chaos that Scythe and Blitz had created. Carrot bushels were on the banana stand, ponies were drenched by buckets now scattered on the ground, and some had watermelons on their heads, leaving them running around the street blind.

Twilight scanned the area, “I think they went this way.”

“Yeah you think?” Dash deadpanned, “Did they really do all this?”

Stroke nodded, “It’s their style, damage, but nothing too serious.”

The trio walked further into the disaster zone, only to be surrounded by a ring of clouds overhead. “These three aren’t gonna know what hit them!” Blitz laughed to himself. He prepared to send the ring down upon the group, but paused as he realized who it was. “Shit,” he whispered to himself.

“Look,” Twilight said, “there’s Applejack, we should-”

“Too late!” Dash cut her off, pointing into the sky. Seeing the clouds, she lead the charge, “This way!”

Blitz took off from the clouds, leaving a small stream pointing in his direction and flew in the direction of the stand where Scythe was putting another plan into action. He held an apple in his mouth as he ran around with Applejack chasing him.

“Git back here ya varmint!”

Stroke and the others arrived on the scene to see a flying apple. Twilight turned to Stroke, “Get him!”

Blitz flew overhead to see Stroke charging up her horn, “Uh-oh.” He redirected towards the flying apple, slamming Scythe to the ground and causing him to spit the apple out.

“Dude, what the-” Scythe stopped as a lavender blast whizzed past them.

They got up and Blitz turned away. “Our cover’s blown, rendezvous at checkpoint Sierra Charlie!” he said before flying off.

“Got it!” Scythe called up before turning and running in the opposite direction.

The three mares came up to Applejack who stood in confusion over what she just heard. “What the hay was that?”

“Blitz and Scythe are invisible and pranking the town,” Stroke summarized.

“Right, remind me to assign pigsty duty to Scythe when we find him.”

“Sierra Charlie, what does that mean?” Twilight pondered.

“It’s a military code from back on my world,” Stroke explained, “it means something starting with S and C.”

“So how does this help us?”

Stroke put a hoof to her chin, “Well, where’s somewhere in town that they could to starting with those letters.”

The four bowed their heads and closed their eyes before coming to a mutual realization, “Sugarcube Corner!” they exclaimed in unison.

Up Ahead...

Scythe ran into Sugarcube Corner. It wasn’t particularly busy, but there were a few ponies enjoying their sweets inside and chatting to cover his entrance. “Blitz, where are yMMPH!” he whispered before being cut off by a hoof covering his mouth and dragging him to a corner.

“Quiet, we don’t want somepony hearing us,” Blitz hissed, releasing Scythe. “We’ll stay here until things settle down and there’s less of a chance that Stroke will rip our heads off.”

“Well what if they find us?”

“Then we’ll hide somewhere else.”

“Can we use my box?”

Blitz raised a brow, “How exactly will that-,” he was interrupted by the ring of a bell, “oh no.” The two looked at the door to see Twilight and Stroke entering the bakery. “What are they doing here?”

“They must have figured out the code,” Scythe whispered back as Pinkie approached the mares. “Or maybe they’re just getting sweets to bait us with.”

“Hopefully the latter,” Blitz muttered.

“”Hi Twilight, hi Stroke!” Pinkie said happily, “What brings you over here? Oooh, I hope it’s treats for a picnic, or maybe-”

“Actually Pinkie, we’re looking for Blitz and Scythe, they were coming this way.”

“Shit!” they whispered in unison.

“Well I haven’t seen either of them today, why are you looking for them?”

“That’s not important,” Stroke replied, “We just need to borrow some things to stop them.”

“Okie doki loki!” Pinkie cheered, “Come into the back and I’ll help you out.”

Blitz and Scythe held their breaths as Pinkie led the others behind the counter and into the kitchen. Blitz tapped Scythe on the shoulder, “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

Scythe nodded as they kept low and made their way out of the bakery. Once outside, both were struck on the back by a heavy object and covered in white dust, courtesy of Applejack and Rainbow Dash. They coughed and gasped for air to clear their lungs. They sat up and opened their eyes to see each other, visible by the coat of dust that covered them. “GAH! We’ve been floured!” Scythe yelled, coughing up a small cloud.

“Yep,” they turned to see Stroke standing in the doorway. “And now for this.” Her horn glowed brightly as two blasts of magic struck the stallions, making them come back into view as the light faded.

Blitz looked at himself, “Dammit, we’re visible now.”

“Not just visible,” AJ spoke, pointing to a small mob ponies that they had pranked.

The two smiled sheepishly. “Alright everypony,” Blitz started, “there is a very simple, very complex explanatioRUN!”

With that he and Scythe took off with the angry mob hot on their tails, leaving Stroke and Twilight to laugh at them.

Later...

Twilight held a sheet of parchment and a quill in her magic, watching as Stroke used her new spell to turn Spike back to his original colours.

Dear Princess Celestia,

Today was very interesting as I began to help Stroke work on her magic. I have to say that she is a quick learner like her friends said and even managed to develop an invisibility spell and a reversal under the given circumstances. For some reason she keeps acting like it’s not such a big deal as it really is. When she accidentally hit Scythe and Blitz with the unfinished spell, she managed to create the reversal and stop their pranking rampage. It’s been a hectic day, but I don’t understand how she can be so modest about it. Oh well, she’s still a great student.

Your own student,

Twilight Sparkle

P.S. And don’t worry about Blitz and Scythe, Applejack and Rainbow Dash made sure that they got what was coming to them.

Night began to fall as two stallions continued to hang from a tree in the park. Tied up back to back by their hind legs, their coats and manes were sticky from the pelting of fruit they had received.

“Scythe?” Blitz asked, sporting a black eye from the crabapple assault he had taken the front of.

“Yeah?”

“Worth it?”

“Totally.”

Falling Through

by CodenameTobias

Prologue: Departures

Arrivals

Changes

Meetings

A Festive Welcome

A Royal Conundrum

Scythe's Day

Out of Sight