//------------------------------//
// Chapter 4 
// Story: Heroes 
// by Bronyfordays 
//------------------------------//

Light shining on my eyes, we meet again. Groaning, I turned on my right side. For some reason, my body felt weird, now I was getting a sense of deja vu. Being uncomfortable, I opened my eyes, and found big blue eyes staring back at me. 

“Gah!” I yelled as I flew off the bed. Literally, though, I flew off the bed. As soon as I realized I was floating, though, I fell on my ass. Then I remembered everything that happened, I’ve been doing that a lot lately. 

I heard somebody familiar shout ‘he's awake’ from outside the door. I also remembered that I was a freaking dragon. As I awkwardly stood up, I realized that my head almost hit the ceiling. Then the door opened and in came Princess Luna, who I remembered from my dream, and the other five ponies that I remembered from the show. Though I couldn’t remember their names. Plus what seemed to be a really small dragon without wings and another weird looking dude. He was staring at me a bit creepily. The other ponies faces were very mixed. The pink one had a huge smile on her face. The yellow one had a nervous expression. Part of her face was covered by her pink hair. Then the blue one who was looking at me like she couldn’t decide if I was suspicious or not. Then the orange one who was studying me intently. Then the white one, who looked at me with interest. And of course the Princess herself, who had a small smile on her face. Lastly, there was that strange creature, something about him looked familiar. His entire body was made from a bunch of different parts of various creatures. To be honest, I didn’t know what to think of him. 

“Greetings, Sir Timothy,” Luna said. “How are you doing?”

“Fine, I guess,” I said. “Still getting accustomed to all of this. Oh, and please, Tim is fine.”

“Ok, I understand that this must shock you greatly. But I have brought good news!” She said excitedly.

“What might that be?” I asked.

“Your friends have been safely secured and are on their way here as we speak!” She said. 

“Oh thank God!” I said, sighing in relief. But then I noticed hesitation in her eyes. “What?”

“There’s a minor problem…” She said. “Each one of you is a different species.”

“Great,” I said. “As if we didn’t have enough problems.”

“I’m sorry,” Luna said. “But I’d like to formally introduce these seven to you.” She waved a hoof towards the other ones in the room.

“Alright,” I said.

The first one to talk was the pink one with even pinker hair. I also noticed she had blue eyes, suspiciously like the ones I woke up to. Also her flank picture, or whatever it’s called, was 3 balloons, 2 blue and 1 yellow. What surprised me was how fast she introduced herself.

“HiTimmynameisPinkiePieandIlikepartiesandIalsohopethatwecanbegoodfriends!” She ended with a smile. I don’t know how but I caught every word of it. 

“Same here Pinkie,” I said.

Next was the yellow one with pink curly hair. I noticed she had wings and her ‘flank picture thing’ was 3 pink butterflies. She took a step forward, but didn’t say anything. She must’ve been really nervous because her legs were shaking. 

“If you don’t want to introduce yourself,” I started. “Then don’t. I understand.”

“Fluttershy…” She muttered quietly, but I caught it.

“Nice to meet you Fluttershy!” I said with an encouraging smile. I don’t know why, but I was feeling really nice today. 

She gave a small smile and stepped back. Next up was the blue pegasus with literally rainbow hair. Her flank picture was that of a rainbow lightning cloud. 

“The name’s Rainbow Dash!” She said. “Fastest flyer in all of Equestria!”

“Sounds like one hell of a feat!” I said. Fastest flyer? I wonder how fast she could go. She smiled at that.

Next was the orange one with tied yellow hair. She also had a brown stetson hat. Her flank picture was that of 3 red apples. I remembered her as the one who called my bluff, and she spoke with a southern accent.

“Mah names Applejack,” she said. “Glad to make yer acquaintance!”

“Same here, Applejack!” I said.

Then the white pony with elegant purple hair. Her flank picture was 3 blue diamonds. 

“Rarity, a pleasure to meet you dear,” she said.

“Likewise, Miss Rarity,” I said. She giggled.

“What a gentlecolt!” 

I don’t know when I got so good at introductions. But whatever. Next was the small purple dragon with green spikes on his back. 

“Hey there! I’m Spike! Twilight’s number one assistant!” He said excitedly. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Tim!”

Cute. “The feelings mutual Spike.”

Finally, was the strange dude. I couldn’t even begin to describe him, he was just a mish mash of different animals. I waited, but he didn’t speak, instead just stood there.

“Discord?” Luna called. “Aren’t you going to introduce yourself?”

Finally, the being known as Discord spoke. But what shocked me was his voice and what he said.

“I believe we’ve already met,” he said. “Isn’t that right, Timmy?”

“What do you mean Discord?” Luna asked. “Tim, are you okay?”

I wasn’t, I was frozen in place. The eyes, the voice, the way he said my name. This Discord...he was the cop! I should be angry, like really freaking angry. But I couldn’t think, I couldn’t talk. The only thing I felt was...fear…

“Tim?! Are you okay?!” Luna shouted. That snapped me out of it, and like a switch, my fear turned into anger. With great speed, I quickly punched Discord in the face. For some reason, he didn’t even try to block it. 

I was about to go for another when I was frozen in place by an unknown force. I struggled but I couldn’t move. “What the?” I said. Somehow, I could still move my mouth and eyes. I looked over at Luna, whose horn was glowing. 

“What did you do that for?!” She asked. 

“He’s the one! He’s the cop!” I struggled to get out of this damn magic. 

“Wait...what?!” Luna said shocked. “Discord? You must not be thinking straight, Discord couldn’t-”

Luna was cut off as Discord chuckled and said, “I knew you were a smart one the moment I laid eyes on you Timmy.”

Everyone gasped.

Luna stuttered, “Discord? You really are the cop?! Why would you do this?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I want explanations, now!” 

All the other ponies, plus Spike, were just staring. Were they even told what was going on?

“I’m sorry, I can’t explain yet. I must wait until everyone is here,” Discord said. Suddenly his smile vanished. “But I wasn’t lying when I said you are the Multiverses only hope.”

I couldn’t say anything else, my brain was trying to figure out what he meant by that. Then a guard came rushing into the room, “Princess Luna! They’re here!”

“Good,” Luna said, eyeing Discord. “Maybe now we can get some answers. Come on everypony, we are heading to the throne room.”

I waited for everyone to file out of the room, and then I followed suit. As we walked down the halls of the castle I took notice of all the stares I was getting from passerby’s. I tried to ignore them. I looked ahead to see Luna talking to the guard, while occasionally glancing back at me. 

“So…” I heard a voice to my side. I literally almost jumped a foot in the air, but I kept my cool and walked on as I glanced to see who it was. It was Spike, that little purple dragon. “Oh sorry! Did I scare you?”

“A little, but it’s cool. Just a little preoccupied with stuff,” I said.

“Yeah, falling from the sky and not remembering how you got there is a pretty big deal,” he said.

“What were you told about my predicament, by the way?”

Spike shrugged, “Not much, just that you don’t remember how you were falling out of the sky. Princess Luna said she didn’t want to say anything without your consent.”

“Oh ok,” I said.

“Anyway,” Spike said. “I was wondering if I could ask you something.”

“Go for it,” I responded.

“Why did you punch Discord?” He asked.

I sighed and looked at Discord, who was talking with Fluttershy. “It’s not one of my better moments.”

“Why though?” He pressed.

“Look, it’s a long story,” I said. “I’ll explain everything once we get to the throne room.”

“Alright…” Spike said.

The rest of the walk to the throne room was quiet, until we reached the throne room. 

“Ok,” Luna said. “Let’s go in. The others will be here shortly.”

One word for the throne room was big. I looked around the room as we walked in.It was huge! Which I guess is to be expected, I mean, it is the throne room. We stood near the throne and waited. Luna leaned over to me as I kept my eyes on the door.

“I almost forgot to tell you, your friends might not know about the minor problem,” she said.

“Minor?” I questioned. “You mean they don’t know we’re all different species?”

She just gave an apologetic look. 

“This ought to be interesting then.”

As soon as I said that the first group came through the door. There were 6 guards plus two other, one was Twilight. The other seemed to be a griffin, and was probably Jon, judging by the voice.

“Holy shit! This is huge! That’s what she said!” He said.

I sighed, definitely Jon. He was that kind of person. But he was still my best friend.

“Hey, what gives? Where’s Tim?” He said walking up to us. “And what’s with the blue dragon?” 

Then his eyes widened, “I knew it! It’s a trap! They’re gonna turn me into a shishkebab!”

I raised my eyebrows and looked at Luna, who somehow shrugged. Then she was about to say something, but I shushed her. I had a brilliant yet mean idea. So I walked over to Jon, who by the way was cowering in fear, and tilted my head back as I felt the feeling in my throat.. Everyone caught on to what I was doing as I flung my head towards Jon, Luna screamed ‘Tim don’t!’ And with the opening of my mouth Jon screamed and I let loose an all powerful burp. Literally, I’m sure half the city heard it! 

Everyone looked at me after opening their eyes. Jon was almost speechless., however he managed to stutter out my name, “Tim?” 

“Bingo, JJ!” I said.

We stood there for a second, I think the ponies were starting to get nervous, until both of us broke into laughter. “O...only you would be able to pull off a burp that loud!” Jon said. 

“Is that what I heard out there?” Another familiar voice came into range. Shit.

“Crap, Cassandra! Hide me, if she finds out that was me then…” I stopped as the next group came around the door. Princess Celestia was walking next to a yellow pegasus with red hair. I knew immediately who it was as Cassandra wore the same face she always does when she gets mad. 

“Have you no dignity Timothy Adams?!” She said. Oh boy, she said my whole name.

“Do you want the short answer or the long answer?” I said, hoping to brighten the mood.

“Tim! Now’s not the time to be funny! We are in the presence of royalty!” She said angrily.

So that’s what this is about. I mean come on, it was just a burp, “Really? You’re angry because you want to get in good with your favorites?” I said.

I could tell everyone else was getting really anxious about the flow this conversation was taking. To be honest, it wasn’t that big of an ordeal, we have our fights. But it was interrupted anyway by the final voice. 

“Are we interrupting something here?”

I spun towards the door to see guards and three standouts. Two were ponies that looked familiar. The other was an odd pony looking thing. It was black with a crooked horn and fangs. It’s eyes were a deep blue and it had long red hair as well as bug like wings. It looked to be a female. Then she spoke.

“Oh...um...hi?” She said awkwardly.

“Who the hell are you?” Jon spoke. Cassandra shot Jon a look. Then it occurred to me, there was that awkwardness to the figure and only one person was left to show up.

“Jeffrey?” I said incredulously. 

“Um...yeah…” she/he said quietly. 

“I thought Jeffrey was a guy,” Jon said as usual.

“I...I am,” Jeffrey said. I decided to just call him a guy for now.

Then Jon did what I should’ve expected he would do. He laughed.

I could see Jeffrey’s face contort into anger and I knew this would end badly. I was about to tell Jon to stop when Jeffrey did what I wouldn’t expect a shy, awkward person to do. He charged at Jon. Things got worse as he tackled Jon to the ground. Which was kind of crazy considering Jon was 3 times his size! 

“You think this is funny?!” He shouted as he threw a punch.

Quickly, Jon caught Jeffrey’s hoof in his talon. But Jeffrey kept putting force into his leg, and it looked like Jeffrey was going to gain the upperhand, but then Jeffrey’s hoof literally froze! Jeffrey yelled as he stepped back and started smashing the ice against the ground. 

“Ha!” Jon said triumphantly! “I did it again! Take that you little-”

Jon stopped mid sentence as he was bashed in the head with Jeffrey’s frozen hoof, causing the ice to shatter in pieces. I stood there, dumbfounded at what was taking place before me, why were they being so aggressive? Then, it got even worse when Cassandra started yelling.

“What the hell do you two think you’re doing!? You’re making a bad first impression!” She said and ran over to the two. But was immediately blown into a wall by a stray blast from Jeffrey’s horn. 

“Crap, Cassandra!” I yelled. But what surprised me was the fact that she got up without an inkling of an injury...and ran back into the fray! Suddenly, another blast went flying towards Luna! Luckily, she had quick timing and deflected it with her own magic. At that moment, I felt well and truly angry, more so than when I was pissed off at Discord. I literally yelled at the top of my lungs.

“STOP!” The three of them froze at my roar. The other ponies just kinda stared at me. But now was not the time to get stage fright, so I stomped over to my three friends, literally breaking the floor somehow. For some reason, they actually looked kind of scared. I don’t know if it was because they’ve never seen me like this before, or the fact that I was a freaking dragon.”I can’t believe you guys!”

They looked down as I scolded them, “I know we are all stressed in this situation, but fighting is not the way to go about fixing it! We can’t turn our backs on each other, not because of size, gender or other shit that might have changed. Especially since we are in an unfamiliar world. We are in this together, like it or not!”

“He’s right,” I heard a voice and turned towards Discord. He had a small smile on his face.

“Who the heck are you?” Jon said, impulsive as usual.
“Discord?!” Jeffrey exclaimed.

“In the flesh!” He said. I opened my mouth to speak but he raised his hand. “I am the one who brought you here.”

Everyone who didn’t know that gasped. 

“What?!” Jon said. I stopped him before he did anything stupid. “Why?”

“I think it’s better if I let my friend explain that,” Discord said.

This confused everyone, who else was there to meet? Suddenly a great ball of light grew in the center of the room and we all covered our eyes. After the light went away, I opened my eyes and my jaw dropped at what I saw. 

“W...who are you?” Someone asked. I couldn’t tell who it was.

“My name is Joshua Ackerman, and our worlds are in danger...” 

....said the human in front of us...