Shining Armor remained at his post by the door, watching Radiant Radar as he moaned and opened his eyes. Shining Armor opened the door and motioned a guard to come to him, the guard gave a salute to the Captain. "Send a report to Princess Celestia on the condition of her guest, he is awake." The guard finished his salute and began to trot away before Shining Armor poked his head out and yelled out, "And tell her quickly!" Shining Armor then shut the door and looked over the now upright Radiant Radar, who was holding his head in his hooves. "You should lay down, that spell you casted must've drained you entirely in order to use it."
Radiant's hooves dropped from his head and he looked up to Shining Armor, he hadn't seen this pony before in the show. Was this one of the background ponies? Radiant got off the bed and wobbled a little before putting a hoof out onto the bed to steady himself. He then started remembering the rumors on the final episode of the second season and where he saw that face, this was supposed to be Twilight's brother.
"I'm fine," Radiant croaked out, feeling upset about something that he saw while he was asleep, but couldn't remember what it was. "Am I still in Canterlot?"
Shining Armor gave a nod, "Still in Canterlot Castle." Both unicorns eyed each other as Radiant shook off the remaining sleepiness in him. "There have been a lot of rumors about you already, Radiant Radar," Shining Armor remarked as Radiant gave him a look of confusion. "Some ponies here think you're a secret agent," Shining continued. "or a criminal, a spy, even a few of the guards have debated if you're a time traveler from the past." Shining Armor approached Radiant and his smile went away, seriousness pulsed out of him. "But, I think that no matter what you are, you aren't going to leave this castle without answering some questions."
The door opened and Shining Armor turned to Celestia who had entered, giving a bow to the princess. "Princess Celestia, I was just informing your guest about the rules of the castle while he is here." He rose up from his bow and stood by Radiant.
"I will take over from here, Captain. Return to your post," Celestia commanded, letting Shining Armor walk out of the room. Celestia looked over to Radiant and spoke threateningly, "Tell me everything you know about Discord, right now."
***
"So you slept in Zecora's hut?" Applejack asked, as we all had sat down in Sugercube Corner for lunch. I bit into a muffin and involuntarily gave a 'mmm' as my tongue played around with the chocolate chips in the bread. Swallowing the goodie, I opened my eyes to Applejack, Rarity, and Min Tea. Pinkie Pie and Limonade were in the back making treats and drinks for us to enjoy, the shop was half filled with other ponies at tables having their own conversations. One in particular I had been listening to involved a 'crackpot theory' that humans existed.
"That's right." I finally answered, still getting so much useless but exciting gossip from listening carefully to the others in the store. One of the ponies in the store was telling a story about a blue box that was in an alleyway and how she saw a brown pony enter and a brown pegasus with the same cutie mark exited. "After the attack by those Timberwolves, she saved me from dying right then and there, and now we're here."
"How bold of you," Rarity folded her hooves and rested her chin on them, "and you say that you just woke up in the middle of the Everfree Forest?" I had made a story up that while trying to fly into Ponyville, I got hit by a rouge hail stone and it sent me crashing into the Everfree Forest, making me miss meeting up with Limonade and Min Tea. Thankfully, Min Tea had managed to acquire some paper and a pencil and she was writing everything down, so she knew how to keep the story straight.
"Yeah, and I was lucky that Tyrone followed me," I said nonchalantly, drinking some of the limonade that Limonade made, it was freaking delicious. "He's probably still in Zecora's hut worried about me, I hope he can take care of himself."
***
Tyrone left the Everfree Forest and shielded the sun's rays with his large paw. He had become bored of waiting in Zecora's hut and when he figured out that he could open doors, he left and started trying to track his Beta. His nose led him into a door which he bashed his head into, making him fall over. The door opened a little bit and Tyrone saw a yellow pegasus with long pink hair at the entrance.
"A Diamond Dog?" she meekly questioned, watching Tyrone rub his head to ease the pain. "What are you doing above ground?" Tyrone got up and started sniffing around again, ignoring the pegasus as he began to walk away. He then heard the sound of soft wings fluttering and the pegasus came right beside him. "I'm sorry. But I really want to know what you are doing. If it's something bad, then I'll need to tell the police, so can you tell me?"
"Looking for Beta." Tyrone flatly responded, Fluttershy noticing that he was walking into the direction of Ponyville. Fluttershy flew in front of the Diamond Dog, but kept floating in front of him as he continued walking.
"Oh, no, Mr. Diamond Dog, you can't go into Ponyville. You'll make a lot of ponies scared and then you'll be put down because of it." Fluttershy softly begged, but Tyrone kept going. Fluttershy then pressed her face into Tyrone's and her eyes burrowed into Tyrone's with a fury. "I said, you can't go into Ponyville. Now go back to your Alpha and tell him that if his Beta is in Ponyville right now, then his Beta is going to be put down as well."
Tyrone's ears shot back and tears formed in his eyes, this pegasus was terrifying him. "Beta the only one I have!" Tyrone howled sadly, making Fluttershy pull away and put her hooves over her mouth.
"Oh dear. You mean to tell me that you don't have an Alpha to go back to?" Fluttershy settled to the ground and consoled the sobbing Diamond Dog. "What happened to cause that?" Tyrone tried his best to wipe his eyes and keep himself from blubbering.
"A-Alpha m-m-made th-thing that sent u-u-us here, and-and-and can't go baaaaack!" Tyrone leaned against Fluttershy as he continued crying, Fluttershy doing her best to hold up the leaning creature. She had to do something for the poor Diamond Dog, if the Beta was the only one left, and he was gone, then this Diamond Dog wouldn't survive on his own.
"I'm sorry that I can't let you go to Ponyville," Fluttershy pulled away and looked up at the Diamond Dog. "But maybe I can find him, well, I mean my friends can maybe find him, then you can try and join with another group of Diamond Dogs." Tyrone sniffed as Fluttershy began leading him over to her house and entered with her. "Angel, are you feeling any better?" A bunny rabbit pulled himself up on a table and started flexing to show how fine he was and then he let off a cough.
"It looks like you're still not all better Angel," Fluttershy leaned to the stubborn rabbit who turned from Fluttershy and shook his head. "Please, I don't want you to get worse if you aren't fully rested." The rabbit continued to refuse, Tyrone poked his head on the other side and gave a hungry grin, causing the rabbit to latch onto Fluttershy's face in fear. "That's better, now let's get you to bed Angel."
Tyrone sat down and scratched an itch in his ear, the home was more what he was accustomed to. A couch that he could curl up in and sleep, or better yet, a nice spot in front of the fireplace. The only problem left was food, he felt himself wondering towards the kitchen in some hopes of leftover food on the table, like back home. When Richard wasn't looking, he would hop up on a chair and then the table and snag a treat before retreating to a corner to enjoy his sweet capture.
He looked out a window and saw Fluttershy talking with a lot of different animals, he put his paws on the window and started barking. "Hi! Hi! Hi! Hello! Hi!" he cried out, making a lot of the animals look over at him and nervously back off, Fluttershy trying to keep them calm. Another pegasus set down by Fluttershy and Tyrone could see they were also talking, his attention at barking now turned to the rainbow maned and sky blue pegasus that was being explained about Tyrone's situation.
***
"So if I can get those fireworks from the Joke Shop, then I'll be able to complete the last piece of the puzzle for your 'Welcome to Ponyville' party!" Pinkie Pie excitedly finished her lengthy plan to all of us.
"If I could put that in list format," Min Tea's eyes shifted from her paper and up to us. "It's invitation, baking, setting, invitations again, more baking, invitations, baking, baking, invitations for AFTER party, presents if applicable, surprises abound, fireworks."
"Jeez!" I put a hoof to my head in disbelief, "how in Equestria are you even going to pull this off?!" Pinkie just laughed and then leaned over the table at me.
"That's one of the surprises." She grinned and then shot back to her chair, twiddling her hooves as she waited for this semi-meeting to end.
"Well, certainly best of luck on your quest Pinkie," Rarity got up from the table and excused herself. "I will need to get back to the Boutique and handle some more clientele." Once she left, Pinkie's eyes lowered and stared at me, her grin never leaving.
"Do you want to help make cupcakes with me, Quick Fix?" she said, a slight hint of evil behind her words.
"I'll help you out Pinkie," Limonade perked up, breaking Pinkie's concentration on me and her smile becoming less sinister. "We've been working well as a team already, I think I could do some baking while you're out doing invitations so the party will be ready on time."
"I'll make the invitations," Min Tea remarked, pulling another sheet of paper and creating a rather fancy outline on it. "We'll just need to copy it at some point."
"Twilight can make copies with her magic," Applejack mentioned, keeping track of everyone's hoof in the plan. "I'll take that copy to her and get a lot of 'em made."
"Leaving me with what exactly?" I asked, the mares turning to the odd stallion out. Each of them looked at each other and then back at me.
"Erm. Mascot?" Applejack shakily suggested. I couldn't fault her for trying though.
"I guess it's fine, I've had something else I wanted to do anyway." I got up from the table and put my hoof at its center, each pony following suit. "Operation 3 for 1 Party is underway, meet back in two hours for status check." We all gave a grunt of confirmation as we all split off in our own directions. Pinkie and Limonade went straight to the kitchen, Min Tea was busy trying to get the invitations just right, leaving Applejack and myself to hang outside Sugercube Corner.
"What exactly do you have planned, if I may ask?" Applejack asked as I began trotting away.
"Crash course in flight!" I hollered back, breaking out into a run out of town and towards a hill. Reaching the hill, I looked off to see how far down the fall was and shrunk back a little. The crevice was a good fall, and if I screwed up, I was bound to have a sprained hoof because of it. I kept trying to psych myself, telling myself that if I failed, that I could always try again. That if I failed, I could still walk. That if I failed, that I didn't have insurance to cover for damages when I went to the hospital.
Eventually I swallowed and screamed as I held my eyes shut and ran off the hill, opening my wings in the hopes that I wouldn't fall too hard. After a moment, my eyes went open to see I was actually in the sky, clouds flying by me. I stopped in my tracks, and gasped as I looked towards the ground. I was WAY high up. My wings kept beating as I felt myself slowly descend to a cloud and felt it hold me up, my heart racing as I gripped the edge of the cloud and peered down to the town. I knew I said I needed to learn to fly, but heights were absolutely not my thing.
When I was a kid, I'd keep my back to the glass elevator door so I wouldn't watch the ground as we rose up. Ladders made me shaky, the thought of zip-lining high above forest trees made me nauseous, and when I had a chance to go on a ski trip, I buckled down in fear when I realized I had to ride in a cart suspended over packed snow. I was screwed, I couldn't get down without having to get off the cloud, and the ground looked REALLY hard.
"Hello!" a chipper voice came from behind, making me jump off the cloud. I waved my hooves in a panic to get back on and grabbed the edge, hanging off of it with some difficulty. "Need some help?"
I couldn't see who was trying to talk to me, with the cloud blocking my vision, but I managed to get out a manly scream of "HELP ME!" A pair of hooves grabbed mine and pulled me up back on the cloud, after shaking off the fact that I nearly went free falling to my death, I looked up to say thank you to my rescuer and paused. Two golden eyes peered off in different directions in front of me. Trying not to stare, I looked at the rest of her, gray pegasus, blonde mane and her cutie mark was a bunch of bubbles.
"You looked like you were lost, mister," the pegasus quipped, her eyes blinking and seeing them shift to different positions. I couldn't help but stare, they were remarkable, and I believed to be very sexy before I slapped myself with a hoof.
"No," I said, after feeling my jaw after the punch, "just confused." The gray pegasus began laughing as she thought about what I just said.
"That happens to me all the time! Like my name, I get confused about it all the time, I mean is it Derpy, or is it Ditzy? I can't ever tell!" Oh dear, I was dealing with one of those blondes wasn't I?
"I also have problems with knowing where I work, one day I'll be giving mail away, the next day I'm moving things, the next day I'll be running around with the Doctor, the next day I'll be-"
***
"-but that's only on Saturdays when they can't get DJ Pon3 to do a live show. By the way, what's your name?"
By that point I had settled into the rhythm of her talking and I had to go back to paying attention, "Huh? Oh, right. My name is Quick Fix. And you said yours was... wait, you said you had two different names right?" She nodded her head. "I don't mean to sound dumb if I ask this, but how do I get down?"
Ditzy put a hoof to her mouth and then slammed it into the cloud, making it split between the both of us. "You just float off!" The cloud finished splitting and it began to float away from Ditzy, leaving me to panic and try to move around the small puff. "I need to get going mister," Ditzy called out to me as she began flying away. "It was nice meeting you!"
"Don't leave me up here!" I screeched, gripping onto the cloud for dear life as I watched her go away. I kept swearing in my head, mainly the 'F' word multiple times, but I kept creatively coming up with multiple ways of saying that I was screwed. My wings flapped occasionally, making the cloud go forward in my death grip. I began to think what I could do in order to even lower myself, realizing that I was on a mobile platform. Leaning down on one end of the cloud, I began beating my wings carefully and soon found myself going down.
With newfound confidence I rose up from my transport and began riding around on the cloud, watching as other pegasi were watching me go around in my makeshift plane. I began laughing as I started to enjoy the freedom of going everywhere in the sky. I even did a few loops and twists on the cloud feeling ecstatic about my little chunk of land. I couldn't wait to show Linda and Marian, if I could, perhaps I could take a big piece of cloud and we could all ride around the sky together.
From this height, I could see more than just Ponyville. I was able to notice a farm a good distance away from Ponyville, a Castle and town on the side of a mountain, and even a town in the clouds, where a lot of pegasi came to and from it. With the sun beginning its decent, I gave a content sigh to the sight I was looking at and guided down with my cloud to Sugarcube Corner again. When I reached the ground, I noticed something similar to a bike rack and a lock. I wrapped a chain around the cloud and locked it into the rack. I was about to enter Sugarcube Corner, when I started wondering how I could tie a cloud to a bike rack in the first place.
"Aliens," I jokingly said as I pushed open the door to see Pinkie Pie and Applejack talking to a sky blue pegasus. "We get more help for this insanity we've deemed a party?" I asked, smelling a copious amount of sweet smells that almost made me want to float.
" 'Fraid not," Applejack disappointingly said. "It turns out there's a Diamond Dog running around Ponyville." My heart leapt into my throat, they weren't talking about Tyrone were they? "Turns out that Fluttershy found this lone Diamond Dog that was going to enter Ponyville, saying he was looking for his Beta."
"And when we find him," the rainbow maned pegasus said, clacking her fore hooves together threateningly, "we'll beat him up and tell 'em to get out of town!" My ears flicked back and my eyes shrunk in my head, I thought I was dealing with cute, friendly ponies, not vicious attack ponies.
"You feeling alright, Quick?" Applejack asked, noticing my frozen fear. "It's alright, Rainbow Dash doesn't mean everything she just said. She probably only meant that we were going to take the Diamond Dog out of town and wave him goodbye." Turning to Rainbow Dash,she tried to keep her comforting smile and spoke through her teeth, "Right, Rainbow Dash?"
Rainbow Dash scoffed and looked away from Pinkie, "Whatever, it's not like we're taking the scaredy pony with us." When I heard that, my ears shot up and my blood began boiling.
"Scaredy pony?!" I yelled, making Rainbow Dash look over at me again, "I broke Timberwolf jaws in the Everfree Forest, and you're calling me a scaredy pony?!" Rainbow Dash's eyebrows rose up breifly before she regained her cool composure.
"So? I fought against Nightmare Moon and Discord," she noticed my eyes widen and an angry glower cross it. "That's right, Rainbow Dash, Element of Loyalty took down two of the biggest threats to Equestria."
"Not alone, you didn't," Applejack objected, causing Rainbow Dash to try and recover.
"Well I may have had help from the rest of you guys, but I put in the most effort in those attacks." Rainbow Dash hurriedly responded. Another fantasy came into my mind, myself and Rainbow Dash fighting off all kinds of animals and beasts, and then the two of us would look into each others eyes and then slowly bring our lips together.
In response, I went to the nearest table and smashed my head against it, causing the group to look at me like I was crazy. "Fly." I embarressingly answered, rubbing my snout in pain. "This Diamond Dog you're talking about," I began to recover as I sniffed to show a more tough look. "Did he happen to have a black back, white belly and a brown face?"
Rainbow Dash tilted her head at me, "That's what the Diamond Dog at Fluttershy's looks like, but we're supposed to look for the Beta."
"You're looking at him." I smiled, making the group look at me again as if I had lost my mind. "It's true, Tyrone was the one that came with me to the Everfree Forest."
"That was a Diamond Dog you were talkin' about?!" Applejack gawked, remembering back to what I had told her and Pinkie during lunch.
"You're lying," Rainbow Dash adamantly refused.
"That's incredible!" Pinkie Pie gasped.
"Let's go to Fluttershy's and I'll prove it." I gave a cocky grin at Rainbow Dash who looked over both Applejack and Pinkie Pie.
"Both of you stay here, I'll be back once he proves that he's lying to me." Rainbow Dash pushed me out of the door and went into the air, while I went back to the bike rack for my cloud. After wiggling the cloud out, I hopped on it while Rainbow Dash started laughing. "You're still using a training cloud?!" My wings pushed up to Rainbow Dash, the cloud sticking with me.
"I'm only giving myself a handicap so I won't leave you choking on my skill," I upsettingly huffed.
After Rainbow Dash stopped her laughing she looked me over again."You think you can beat me in a race to Fluttershy's?" I gave her an authoritative nod. Both of us lined up in the air and I only heard her say, "GO!"
Both of us rushed, she left a rainbow trail behind her, a orange-red trail behind myself. She began to pull away and I beat my wings faster, the cloud underneath me fading away without me knowing. The two of us were going neck and neck as we sprinted against each other, both of us locked eyes and pushed harder, a speed cone started building up for both of us until I saw Fluttershy's home and shot down. Rainbow Dash continued forward and with a loud BOOM a circle of rainbow light spread across the sky, she was no longer in sight, but she left behind a really good looking one.
The loud noise however served to startle a lot of the animals behind Fluttershy's home, in a startled fit, I walked around to the back to see a wide variety of animals running around in fear. From small chicks to large bears, the courtyard of animals were all going mad. Knowing that Fluttershy wasn't going to be happy if she saw this, I hopped the fence and put on my best imaginary commander hat. "At-ten-shun!"
The courtyard grew silent as all the animals looked right at me, my brain already telling me that this was a bad idea. However, I like to see plans follow through, even the bad plans. "You! Fox!" I snapped to a fox, who had a chicken in it's mouth, "Spit her out!" The fox nervously shook his head and I leaned further towards it, "Are you denying an order from your superior officer, soldier?!" The fox began sweating nervously as he opened his jaws and let the chicken run off into its coop.
I patrolled the premises for more discrepancies, mice that were drowning in a pool were lifted out, CPR was only applied on two, eggs were checked and double checked, the bear made me do a river dance on his back to relax him. After a rundown of all the animals, I settled down by a tree and wiped my forehead, I had averted disaster by having no animals want to eat me.
"That was, um, a bit forceful," I heard Fluttershy speak as I looked up at her, she didn't look upset that I had wrangled up the scared animals and restored order, but I could tell she was a little disappointed.
"I didn't see you back here," I tried to explain. "If I let it continue, you'd be down... one chicken, five mice, four eagle eggs, and a complaining gopher." The gopher shot up as I mentioned her and she started chattering away.
"Mrs. Gopher," Fluttershy laid down to look at the gopher in the eye. "this pony was trying to make sure your house wasn't rattled worse than what had happened. He was just trying to help." The gopher chattered again, this time sounding more upset than angry, Fluttershy nodded her head in agreement to whatever she was saying. "Alright, I'll tell him." Fluttershy looked over at me with her pleading eyes, "Mrs. Gopher wants you to apologize for causing a small earthquake that buried part of her house."
Figuring that I probably did do something while running around, I laid down beside Fluttershy and gave a breath before looking down at the gopher who now had her hands on her hips. "I didn't mean to have made a mess of your home while I was going around the courtyard, and I can only apologize and hope that you forgive me." The gopher gave her own sigh and chattered a little before going back down into the dirt. "What'd she say?"
"She told you to watch where you step next time," Fluttershy calmly answered, getting up and going around the courtyard herself. When she came back to me again, I had hopped the fence again and was waiting for Rainbow Dash, if she was even going to come back. "A lot of the animals thought you did fine with keeping everything together while I was, um, in the house."
I looked over at her, and saw her not looking at me directly. "Well, I'm just glad that I got here," I softly spoke back. "Rainbow Dash and I were supposed to see Tyrone, but she flew off someplace else."
Fluttershy put her hooves on the fence and looked over at me, "You know the Diamond Dog?" I gave her a smile and nodded. "So that must mean that you also know about the Alpha and Beta of his pack, do you think you can help Rainbow Dash find them?"
"Already did." I said, causing the shy pony to give me a smile.
"Oh, good," she happily said. "Are they coming to pick him up?" I again nodded and heard the sound of jet engines flying above us, looking up it was a rainbow streak that was coming down at us. Rainbow Dash landed by me and looked right at Fluttershy.
"Where's the Diamond Dog?" she demanded.
The door flew open and out bounded Tyrone who jumped the fence and hugged me. "Beta! Beta! Beta! I missed you!" Tyrone cried out, my ribs straining to not break AGAIN. He set me down and both Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy stared at me.
"Ha! Told you!" I pointed a hoof at Rainbow Dash who was blubbering. Fluttershy went over the fence and looked up at Tyrone.
"Tyrone, this pegasus can't be your Beta, the Beta is supposed to be the second in command of your pack." Tyrone's head shook at Fluttershy.
"Beta is Alpha's friend! He comes over all the time and gives me snacks he hides in his pockets!" Tyrone barked, his tail still wagging in excitement. I then noticed something different about how he arranged the sentence he just spoke.
"Did you happen to learn more about speaking while I was gone?" I asked, seeing Tyrone nod excitedly.
"He's such a fast learner," Fluttershy remarked, "I taught him how to speak properly and he picked up on it so well."
"You should see his acting chops," I jokingly added. I had finally realized that it didn't matter what I said or did, everything just kept coming up well for me. The fight with the Timberwolves, meeting with Zecora, getting a suit, finding my friends, and now Tyrone was able to talk without sounding like a special needs case. This entire day had just been rushing by, and it all came out well.
***
Min Tea walked silently with Applejack as they approached a large building built in a tree. "This is it, Ponyville's Library." Applejack introduced the building to Min Tea as she opened the door and entered. Min Tea cautiously followed her, hoping to meet whoever this Twilight was that could copy papers without a copier machine. "Twilight?" Applejack called out to the empty room, "Ya'll in here?"
The sound of feet padding made Min Tea's ears perk in interest, all she had been hearing was the sound of clopping from ponies going around town, and to hear the soft thumps of feet came as a breath of fresh air to her. From another room came a small purple dragon with green spikes and scales as he gave a yawn. "Twilight's been busy with some project Celestia gave her, she's probably in the basement if you want to see her, but she's been extra nutso ever since she read the letter."
Spike opened the hatch to the basement and motioned the two to follow him, Min Tea felt nervous as she kept hearing the echoing voice of a frustrated pony. "If I could figure out how to- DARN IT! Why won't this work?!" When all three of them reached the bottom they were greeted by a large wall of books, blocking any sight of who was behind it. "I have to get this to at least work for a few seconds!" The sounds of a whirling saw came on and scraping metal could be heard.
"What's going on back there, sugercube?" Applejack called out, the sound of the saw slowing down. The wall of books began to glow in purple light and it split to show a lavender coated unicorn with a straight mane and tail, her cutie mark featuring a prominent pink star surrounded by smaller white stars.
"Applejack, who's the other pony with you?" Twilight asked, making Min Tea try and keep from being noticed.
"That's Min Tea," Applejack answered for the awkward pony. "She's one of three new faces that have shown up in Ponyville, and ya'll know what that means."
Twilight gave a sigh of exasperation, "A party. Goodie. It had to be when I'm in the middle of working for a major project for Celestia." She walked back into her miniature fortress of books and science and revealed a circular cap connected with wires and to something resembling an antique computer, "She needs me to get this device working so we can get somepony out of this universe and quickly."
"Hold on a minute," Min Tea perked up recognizing a few of the designs that Twilight was using. "Is that a teleportation device?" Twilight gave a smile and set the cap back down.
"Yes it is," she said, going back to the antique computer and trying to read off of some paper that printed a line going back and forth, "and I don't know how to keep it generating enough power for it to work on its own."
"And this thing is for Celestia?" Applejack poked at the device, trying to see what would happen when she stopped, "What did you mean that she want's somepony out of this 'universe'?" Twilight stopped in her tracks as she leaned against a table, unsure of what to say.
"It's... actually a someone." Twilight said sadly. Twilight turned to Applejack and Min Tea in a dramatic fashion, "Equestria has a human in the Canterlot Castle for the first time in 10,000 years."