Zombies to Ponies in Ten Seconds Flat

by 8r0ny


24. Expeditions

So I found Twilight, she was currently fascinated with the cellphone that someone had brought over from our world.  We hadn’t bought ours because we didn’t have them anymore.  They were useless after the breakout and used electricity we didn’t really have to spare.  But someone decided to save theirs for whatever reason and Twilight, knowing what they were capable of, was trying to charge the thing with magic.  I got within a few feet of the ground and changed to human form to fall the rest of the way.  It felt like a superhero entrance and I giggled a bit.  However Twilight was too focused to notice.

“Twilight, I need your help with stuff.”  I whined.  “Put the phone down, it's useless...actually we can probably charge it solarly.  It’s still useless but you’d at least see how it works.”

“Really!?”  She said excitedly, accidentally dropping the phone from her grip.  She managed to catch it again, by a hair.  “Let’s do that!”

“First what kind of port does it have?”  I asked Twilight.  Who in turn looked at me bewildered.  “Give me that thing.”

I held out my hand and she dropped the phone into it.  I scanned it over and found a USB-C port on the bottom.

“Hmmm.”  I hmmm’d.  “Not sure if we have this cord…”

“I have it.”  A woman spoke up.  I guessed it was the owner of the phone.  “I have the charge block and cord with me at all times...it makes me feel better..”

“Cool, wiring up a edison is much easier than USB.”  I said taking the supplies from the woman.  “Just so you know I’m doing this for Twilight and it’s a one time thing.  We don't have the time or resources for this type of tech...yet.”

The woman nodded and Twilight was trotting in place.  She was really excited, so we talked on the way to the Lab.

“While I work on this can you help me with what I need?”  I asked the giddie Twilight.

“Uh huh.”  She said staring at the phone in wonderment.

“And then can you back me in taking over the world?”  I asked, knowing she wasn't listening.

“Sure.”  She said still staring at the phone.
“Sweet.”  I said as we entered the tent.   I could hear Chloris laughing in my head, I’d let that one go because it was pretty great and I was bummed I was the only one to witness it.

“So Twilight.”  I said snapping to get her actual attention.  “I need help with the Changeling link.  Anything I think can be heard by Chloris and the rest of the hive and I was wondering if there was a spell to counter that.”

“O yah, we developed one after Chrysalis attacked.”  Twilight said simply, glowing her horn for a second before pausing.

“I need you in either your pony or changeling form for this.”  She said.  “I need to touch your horn or forehead but I’m not sure it would work on your human form.”

“Sure thing”  I said setting the phone and charger on the table before reverting to my changeling form.  “How did you figure out the spell?”

“Uhh.”  Twilight froze as her spell died.  “We kinda had to test on some changelings we had captured...it wasn’t torture mind you, but we did hold them against their will.”

“Well damn.”  I said, not at all shocked.  “But that's what you do with prisoners.  Not test on them but acquire info to help you next time.”

Twilight was still visibly upset with what she did, so I decided to try and help...because I wanted her to use the spell too.

“Look, if it makes you feel any better, I’m the new leader of the Changelings.”  I said hearing a slight scoff from Chloris.  “And I forgive you, Chloris does too.  And your find is helping me help the changelings rebuild.”

“Does she really forgive me?”  Twilight said looking up hopefully.

“She had buried the hatchet.”  I said, translating what Chloris had said.  That being, ‘I don't give a damn about what happened before I took over.  I just want my changelings to prosper.

“Ok.”  Twilight said perking up and reigniting her horn.  “Lets see if this works on changelings.”

“Wait what?”  I said, but it was too late.  She touched her horn to mine and the world went white.

I was just floating in an abyss.  Nothing surrounded me except endless white.  I was outside of time, and unable to move for whatever reason, it was almost peaceful.  Except for the full body, excruciating pain that I felt.  Ever been set on fire?  Neither have I, but I imagine it hurts.  This didn’t feel anything like what I would expect being set on fire though, it was more like going down a water slide made of sandpaper...and the water was lemon juice...and then you’re on fire.  So the fire thing wasn’t completely irrelevant.

Like I said before, I was outside of time...so I felt this pain for what seemed like five seconds...but apparently back in the real world I had passed out for six seconds!  Quite the time distortion I know.

“Holly balls that was unpleasant.”  I yelled at a concerned Twilight when I awoke.  “Please tell me it worked and I never have to do that again.”

“It hurt?”  Twilight said concerned.  “The changelings never said it hurt.”

“Ever been set on fire?”  I started before giving up on that analogy again.  “You know what, TLDR yes.  It hurt a lot.”

“I’m so sorry, I didn't know.”  Twilight said again downtrodden.  “I’ll revise the spell to try and make it painless.”

“You do that, in the meantime I’m gonna test if it worked.”  I said mentally preparing myself.

Chloris?”  I thought, willing her to hear me.

Yes?”  She replied.

You’re a cunt and everybody hates you.”  I thought but without willing her to hear me...there was no response.

What do you want Shawn, you’re awfully quiet.”  She asked, apparently not hearing me.

The spell worked!  My thoughts are my own again.”  I said through the link.  I then turned to the saddened Twilight.  “It worked, I can control the link!  Totally worth the pain.”

“It worked?  Great!”  She said, perking up a bit.

“Now let's get this phone worked out for you.”  I said, using levitation to work as I was still in my changeling form.

“Great!”  Twilight said perking up the rest of the way, forgetting the hell she put me through for all of five seconds...totally not salty about that.

She magicked up a notebook and started sketching everything I was doing while I worked.  It was mundane really.  I just got a small solar array, a transformer that put out the power I wanted, and a edison plug for the charging block to plug into.  Then I soldered the correct wires up and plugged in the phone.  It complained that it wasn’t getting optimal power and would take six hours to charge properly.  I didn’t care, but Twilight was a little upset.

“It’s on, can I use it now?”  She said looking at the phone eagerly.

“One, no.  You would use power faster than it’s charging and it would die in a few minutes.”  I said plainly.  “And two, I’m not sure how touch screens work with hooves or magic…”

“It has a built in stylus.”  The owner of the phone said poking her head in the door.  “So the can use that.”

“You know you can come in right?”  I said tilting my head to one side.  “This area isn’t off limits, just try not to get in the way of people doing work.”

“O, ok.”  She said walking in.  Apparently my changeling form didn’t really phase people.  Maybe because my voice didn't change?  Whatever the reason, people didn’t seem to have and issue with seeing me as a human at one time and a changeling at another…

“And with that, as I’m sure you heard, the phone will take six hours to charge.”  I said to this woman I should really get the name of.  “Twilight will undoubtedly use it till it dies again, so if you’d like I will charge it again before returning it to you.”

“Thank you, but I don’t need it charged again.”  She said saddened a bit.  “Posing it helps but looking through it would just remind me of what I...or rather we lost.  The old days where we were carefree and happy.”

“I don’t know about you but I was always hoping this would happen.”  I said grinning a bit.  “I do miss the people we lost, and the once grand civilization collapsing around us...but there's just something so satisfying about driving a tank through a building, or luring a hoard of zombies to a gas station and then detonating it.  Good times.”

“You have a point there.”  She said smiling along with me.

“What the hell is wrong with you people?”  Twilight said looking disgusted.

“That's nothing.”  Camden said from the other side of the Lab.  “Shawn once took on a hoard with a piece of rebar.  He killed seventeen zombies in the span of two minutes.  Once he was done, he was so covered in gore that the last zombie ignored him.”

“That was quite the discovery.”  I said remembering that day.  “We used that technique on countless supply runs later on.”

“The only setback was we had to wash ourselves in the river afterwords.”  Camden said unhappily.  “The whole experience isn’t fun but when you have to break the ice to swim in a river just to get somewhat clean.  I didn’t do much of that after.”

“I don't blame you.”  The woman I still didn't get the name of said.  And as if reading my mind, she held out her hand to me.  “My name is Liana by the way.”

“Nice to meet you, I’m Shawn as you probably know.”  I said holding out my hoof.  “TBH, completely forgot I was in changeling form, if you want a proper handshake I can change back.”

“This is fine.”  She said shaking my hoof.  “I was wondering what you felt like.”

Everyone in the room froze at her statement.  She just slowly turned beet red.  Before we all burst out laughing.

“That was great.”  I said between laughter.  “O man, something like that hasn’t happened in a while.”

“What, you touching a girl?”  Camden chimed in from across the room.

“Damn son.”  I said looking to Camden who was seemingly innocently working on whatever project he had at the moment.  “Camden’s got jokes today.”

Twilight for her part was just getting redder and redder.  Apparently sexual jokes weren't too common here.  I mean you can't exactly show them in a kids show but I thought they still existed.  Celestia certainly had some.  I didn’t dwell on it too long because soon Cody came in to report a ‘problem’.

“So there's a few people that want to go to the main island and start making a community.”  Cody said.  Slightly distracted by the still furiously blushing Twilight.

“Good!”  I said walking out of the tent.  “Tell them to meet me where we partied last night.  Great cleanup job by the way.”

“That was taken care of by the ‘caterers’.”  Cody said smiling a bit.

“I gotta hire them again sometimes, they’re quite thorough.”  I said laughing a bit.  “I do hope that my plan actually worked and they interacted with the populous a bit.”

“From what I heard it did.”  Cody said as we walked.  “It was mostly about the catering, but some actually talked with them.  When you going to let the ball drop?”

“Eventually.”  I said simply.  “Maybe when Celestia shows up to do the changey thing to all the people that want it.  Anyhow, go get those people.  I’ll talk with them.”

Cody nodded and walked away to get the people.  I made my way to the same place I lost my disguise and put on my people skin again.  I was starting to use the disguise less and less at this point, but figured I’d still use it when addressing the humans to help them feel like...who am I kidding, they don't care.

Before long Cody came back with a group of ten or so people.  They all gathered in front of me and looked expectantly.

“Short answer not yet.”  I said getting the worst out of the way early.  “Mostly because we don't have a way to get over there easily, or a way to keep in contact with you.  There's only so many of us and I don't want to lose anyone because they were eager to live in the woods.”

The lot of them looked pretty downtrodden at my answer, and a few looked a little mad with me.  But it wasn’t like we had a way to communicate...wait a minute.

“Wait, I might have an idea.”  I said to the group.  “Hold tight a moment.”

Chloris, would you mind keeping an eye on a few humans that go live over on the main island?”  I asked over the link.

Sure, if they aren’t too spread out we can have a drone go over and check daily.”  She replied.

“Good news,  we do have a way to communicate.”  I said, bringing their spirits back up a bit.  “But you guys are on your own getting there.  So I suggest you build a boat, as swimming would be a bad idea.  Also, a changeling will be by daily to check on you, don’t lie to them because they report back to me on how things are going.  I just want everyone to be safe.”

The group agreed and went off to pack and build a boat or whatever.  I really hoped this would work.

Shawn, can you come back to the island?”  Chloris asked over the link.  “We’ve hit...complications.

“Never a dull moment.”  I said , reverting to a changeling before heading over to the island.