//------------------------------// // Chapter 1 // Story: Shocking // by Uke-Joe //------------------------------// Uke-Joe “I'm telling you man, this show is awesome!” Greg sighed as he walked home from an incredibly boring detention. It was the middle of winter, and already pretty dark out. He was 18, as was his friend, Mark, and just a few months away from graduating high school and moving out of his dad's home and into the city, or somewhere that wasn't anywhere close to his dad, at least. Greg wasn't a very good student, wasn't particularly good looking, and for sure wasn't popular in his school. Mark was one of his very few friends, and one of the only people that didn't see him as some socially awkward kid, which he had to admit he was. “Dude, I'm not watching your show” Greg replied Mark groaned, “But dude-” “It's for little girls, man. It's about horses!” “Ponies.” “Whatever. We're 18, and you're watching a show for girls a third of your age!” Mark and Greg turned with the sidewalk onto a more busy street. “Whatever man, I'm just gonna go home.” Mark turned and started to walk across the street. Greg huffed and turned around. “Wait a sec Mark!” he began, but Mark already had his iPod plugged in and couldn't hear him over the sound of his music. Greg stepped over the icy curb to go catch up to Mark. Something bright appeared in the corner of his vision to the right. “MARK!” he yelled, and jumped forward at his friend, trying to push him off the road. All he accomplished was slipping on the ice and smacking his head against asphalt. He groaned as he looked up. His vision was fuzzy and his senses were blurred. Mark had heard his yell and jumped away and onto the opposite sidewalk. Greg heard the blare of a horn coming from his right, and turned his head that way. The car entered the point of no return; the brakes were not effective enough on the icy road. He may have heard Mark yell something, but didn't understand, still too disorientated. He instinctively tensed up, shut his eyes, and hoped it would be quick. It wasn't. It was however, peaceful. He remained tensed up and squeezed his eyes shut as he lay on the ground. Minutes seemed to pass and he remained in this position, time seemingly slowed down. The tip of the car hit him in slow motion too, poking into his chest. But then the car did something he didn't think it should, it withdrew, and the tip poked him again. Greg wished everything could just hurry up and get it over with, but life, being the cruel prankster that it was, insisted that everything be in slow motion. The car just paused, taking its time, before withdrawing again. Greg was getting frustrated, and his head still throbbed from its visit to the hard asphalt. God spoke to him. “Dude. You alright?” God had a surprisingly high voice, not at all Morgan Freeman. A soft breeze blew and the grass brushed against him. “Wait, grass?” He thought to himself. The road was made out of Asphalt. He opened his eyes. Sure enough, grass was blowing against him. In fact he couldn't even see a road. He started to sit up, only to collapse against the ground again, his head throbbing. “Ugh.” he groaned, just now feeling the pain. A small green and purple shape to his right moved. It put down what looked like a stick and waved its hand in front of Greg's face. “Hello? You there dude?”. Greg forced his eyes to focus for a second. What he saw appeared to be a large lizard waving its clawed hand in front of his face. Greg lost whatever focus and control over his body he had regained, and passed out onto the ground. Spike stood up. “I... better go get Twilight.” *** Six ponies were gathered in a room in Ponyville Hospital. The room itself was rather boring: the same white walls, floor, and bed that every other room in the hospital seemed to have. But it was what was in the bed, at least partially, as its knees and feet dangled over the edge of the bed that gathered such a crowd of ponies. “Sorry sugarcube, but ah'm afraid ah've never seen anything like it.” “Nor have I darling. Where did you say you found it again?” asked a pony with a purple mane. “Spike found it actually, in the park. He ran and told me and I carried it back here.” A cyan pony with rainbow colored mane and tail looked very bored. “So, why are we here?” “Oh! I know! To throw it a 'welcome to Ponyville' party!” exclaimed the overly excited pink pony. The others groaned at the idea of a party. “I hardly think he's in any state to party, Pinkie.” said the lavender colored mare. Pinkie frowned and looked down at the ground upon having her idea shot down. The lavender mare continued “I just wanted to make sure that nopony recognized it before I wrote to the princesses about it.” “Him.” spoke the cyan pegasis, who was holding up the creature's denim clothing with a hoof and peeking down it. “Rainbow!” shouted the white mare. “I should hardly think that's appropriate. He's obviously wearing clothing for a reason.” Rainbow took a step back and looked around the room. “Well nopony here is wearing any clothing. Just thought I'd check. Besides it might also interest you to know that he doesn't have a cutie mark”. “Well of course not. He isn't a pony” “But you said he could talk, right Twilight?” Twilight nodded, “See! What other creatures do you know that can talk and don't have cutie marks?” “Donkeys-” “Some cows-” “Angel doesn't exactly talk, but we communicate.” “Exactly! And he doesn't look like any of them” finished Rainbow. They paused, not saying anything. None of the ponies followed their friend's logic, but the awkward silence was broken by the creature in the bed shuffling around. His eyes slowly opened, just slits at first. The ponies crowded around his bed, looks of various levels of intrigue on their faces. He rubbed his eyes and opened them completely. They shot open as he saw the six strangely colorful creatures gathered around him. He took in his surroundings. He recognized the type of room from when he had broken his arm when he was 6. He was laying in a small hospital bed. Too small, in fact, as if it were made for-. “Hi! I'm Pinkie Pie!” The pink creature jumped in his face, interrupting his thoughts. He was too shocked to jump back or even change expression. “Pink...ie... Pie?” He pronounced the syllables slowly. She giggled and was pulled off of him by her tail, roughly yanked by the teeth of another one of the creatures. The Lavender one stepped forward. “I'm Twilight Sparkle. These are my friends Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, and Fluttershy.” Each of the respective creatures gave a wave or a smile to him when they were introduced, except for the pink and yellow one, who tried desperately to hide behind her long pink hair. “I.... uh.... What... What are you?!” he finally blurted out. Pinkie giggled and jumped up and down. “What do you mean, silly? I'm Pinkie!” “We're... citizens of Equestria?” offered the lavender one. “Equestria? What... where...” The creature thought hard about where he had heard that word. Equestria... Equestrian? Equine? Doesn't that mean... “Ponies?” The ponies all exchanged glances. “Well we sure as sugar ain't donkeys, are we, sugar cube?” He took a moment to take this all in. Here he was, when he thought he was dead, all of a sudden surrounded by ponies. But he hadn't died had he? The car never hit him. What had happened to his world, and Mark? He sighed. This would have never happened if he had just agreed to watch that stupid show of his, what was it called. “My little pony?” he thought out loud. The one with a cyan coat and rainbow colored hair flew up to his face with a pair of wings he had failed to notice previously. “Who you calling little? I'm nopony's pony!” He shielded himself from the aggressive pony. It all suddenly made sense. He was inside of his friend's TV show. ...except that didn't make sense at all, due to the fact that he was in his friend's TV show. An animated TV show. These ponies certainly didn't look very animated, and neither was the hoof that hit him across the face. “Ow!” He exclaimed, and shrank down into the couch. He should probably defend himself, but he resumed acting his normal shy way that he was around people he didn't know. Or ponies in this case. A purple glow appeared around the angry winged pony. He found the matching color appearing around the horn on the pony called Twilight. “Rainbow! Stop hurting him! You're probably only making his concussion worse!” Twilight half-yelled. She released the pony into the care of the pony with the stetson hat, Applejack, who held her in place with her teeth. “Sorry about that, Rainbow is a little... aggressive” Twilight chuckled unsurely, “I'm sure you didn't mean anything by it anyways.” He opened his mouth to speak, “N-no”. He cursed his voice as it cracked. The room suddenly felt way too small as the ponies calmed down and crowded around him again. “See Rainbow? Now, if you wouldn't mind answering just a few questions?” Twilight magically grasped a feather pen and some paper. He cleared his throat before answering, carefully to avoid his voice cracking again, “I guess so, i-if you want to...” “Great!” The lavender pony smiled. “So what is your name?” “Uh, Greg.” “What an odd name!” exclaimed the white pony, who, he noticed, also had a horn. He was used to receiving insults, but never been accused of having an odd name. Greg was as average as it got. The pink mare, thankfully lacking either wings or a horn, giggled “What a silly name.” “Girls! I'm sure it's perfectly normal where he's from.” spoke Twilight. “Now, where are you from, Greg?” “Michigan.” Twilight looked confused, so he decided to clarify, “Uh, America?” This clearly didn't didn't ring any bells for any of the ponies either. “USA? North America? Earth?? With humans?” Each of these answers was met by a similar look. “The loony bin is more like it.” said Rainbow, which earned her a hoof upside the head from Applejack. “So, not from Ponyville anyways? Is there anypony, or any... human? we can find for you?” Twilight asked again. He started to shake his head, and then remembered something. “My phone!” he reached into his pocket. “Yer what now?” asked Applejack. He pulled out a small black device and pressed a button, causing its front to light up. He groaned as he realized he had no service, and slid the phone back into his pocket. The ponies we're confused by this sudden event, so he clarified. “I, uh, don't think so, since you've never heard of Earth...” he finished weakly. Twilight paused in thought, trying to decide what to do with the strange creature. “Well, the doctor says it's alright for you to leave, since you only have a small concussion. So I guess you can stay with one of us until I can get word from the princesses on what to do.” She looked at her friends, hoping one of them would offer to let him stay with them. They got the meaning of her look, and looked away, suddenly fascinated by their hooves or something outside the window. Twilight sighed. “I have a spare room in the Library.” Greg got up, and realized he towered over the ponies. Even if they stood straight up as he did they wouldn't reach his shoulders. He briefly wondered if he should crouch down, or maybe crawl, in order to not draw attention to himself. He followed the ponies out the door, ducking to avoid the low ceilings. Twilight said goodbye and thanked her friends for coming. She paused as she waited for Greg to catch up. “Oh no. Ponies. So many ponies.” he thought to himself as he looked around. He started walking towards Twilight. “Uh-oh, she's just standing there. Does she expect me to get on her? Don't humans ride ponies?” Deciding it would be awkward if she didn't expect that, plus he doubted she could hold him, he decided just to walk over next to her. This seemed to be what she expected as she started walking down the road, presumably in the direction toward the Library. “So, do they have ponies where you're from Greg?” inquired Twilight. “Uh, yeah, I think. I think I saw one when I was little, maybe 5?” “Oh? And what was his name?” asked Twilight, hoping for information on where he might be from. “I, uh, didn't bother to, ask. It might look kinda... weird.” he finished lamely. Twilight looked confusedly at him. “Why is that?” He searched for the right words. Not finding any that seemed to suit the situation, he just said it. “Ponies don't... talk... on Earth.” Twilight looked shocked, as if the idea was completely foreign to her, which, he admitted to himself, it probably was. “Well, what do they do?” He thought for a moment, “Eat grass?” She looked disgusted, so he continued, “Humans sometimes ride on them?” This was met by an even weirder look. “You ride on ponies?” Startled, he hurriedly answered, “No! I haven't. Some people do though.” “But... why?” He thought about it, “I'm not sure. I guess it's how they get from place to place.” Dropping the subject and adding that to the list of things she would ask the Princess about, she continued walking toward the Library. It wasn't long until they arrived. Twilight opened the door with her magic. “Twilight!” yelled the lizard Greg recognized. The lizard looked up at Greg, “Oh hey there! You feeling better?” Greg still had a headache, and his jaw was hurting where Rainbow had hit him, but he was feeling better than he had before. Before he had a chance to speak, Twilight spoke for him. “He has a concussion, but other than that he should be just fine. Greg, this is Spike.” Greg waved to the lizard. “How's it going Greg? Twilight, I sent a letter to the Princesses like you asked, they sent back a letter saying they were flying here themselves, not even in a carriage or anything! Must be pretty important.” Twilight panicked and started frantically cleaning the Library. Greg walked up next to Spike. “So Twilight is pretty important then? I mean, I'm guessing not everybody has visits from the Princesses.” Spike looked confused by his choice of words, especially every pony, but answered anyways. “You don't get the paper do you? Twilight is one of the most important ponies in all of Equestria! She saved us all countless times. Once from the changelings, once from Discord, once from Nightmare Moon, who is now Princess Luna but she's really nice now, and once from a Dragon, and once from a-” He stopped, realizing that Greg wasn't following him at all. Sighing, he continued. “I'm Spike, Twilight's number one assistant and Ponyville's resident dragon.” He offered a clawed hand. “Greg.” he said, and shook the dragon's hand. Greg found a spot on a nearby sofa and watched Twilight magically dust all the bookshelves and frantically push piles of books back into the shelves they belonged in. He was joined by Spike, who had let in the two Princesses at the door, and led them towards the couch. He introduced himself and they smiled and returned the introduction. They waited for Twilight to realize that the Princesses were here and come sit down. “Alright everypony, I think everything is in order for the Prin-P-Princesses!” Twilight scampered over to where they were seated. “I didn't notice you come in!” Princess Celestia smiled, “We could tell. Please, take a seat.” Twilight obliged and took a seat on the sofa next to Greg and across from the Princesses. “You may be wondering how you came here from Earth, Greg, and I believe someone,” Princess Celestia glared at Luna, “may be at fault for that.” “Wait, you've heard of Earth before?!” asked Twilight. Princess Luna sighed. “Yes, we've been there before.” Princess Celestia continued for her “But that isn't significant. Luna has been visiting there recently, to see how it was doing, and when she returned-” “I feared I may have accidentally taken a few nearby humans with me. I was able to return everyone else besides you, Greg, but...” Greg noticed the pause, “But what, Luna?” Twilight cringed at this, “I mean, Princess Luna, sorry.” Luna smiled briefly, “It's perfectly fine. Anyways, Before I returned your soul to where you were, I realized your... situation...” “Situation, Princess?” asked Twilight. Greg thought back to before he found himself in Equestria. “Greg's body was moments away from death.” finished Princess Celestia. Greg remembered it now, the car, the ice. He shivered. “I decided It would be better if I duplicated his body with his soul in it here, and he stayed here in Equestria for now, and I returned him to earth later, in a safer position. I hope you understand, Greg.” Greg thought about it. Maybe Mark would be surprised, but he was really the only one that saw Greg fall in the road, but when he told him where he was, he would be jealous for sure. Then again, to Mark it must seem like Greg had died. This was a duplicate body after all, so the old one was probably being scraped off the road with a spatula by now. Wouldn't Mark be concerned after seeing his best friend die, and then come back to life? He voiced his concerns to the Princesses. “I hadn't thought of that, Greg, but I'm sure that in time he will accept that you weren't really dead.” “But couldn't you show him here? I know for a fact that he would love it. Plus it would remove any need for a explanation.” The Princesses shook their heads. “I'm sorry Greg, but you shouldn't even be in Equestria. Humans bring disease, hate, war, violence. They would just string up my little ponies and ride them just like they do on earth.” Before Greg had a chance to defend himself, Twilight did it for him. “I'm sure not all humans are like that! Greg seems to be perfectly fine!” “This is true, but I don't want any more humans walking around Equestria. So if you don't mind Greg, shall we go now?” Luna asked. Greg knew it wasn't really a question, but thought about it anyways. Princess Luna was right. Hate, war, violence, all seemed to be abundant on Earth, and he didn't want a place as innocent as Equestria to be corrupted by that. “Princess, I know you don't want anything bad to happen to Equestria, but I really can't go back. My only real friend thinks I'm dead.” It was true, his only real friend thought he was dead, and his real body probably was. His dad probably got the news by now, but then again, what did his dad matter to him? There was no reason for Greg to go back, and all the reason for him to stay in peaceful Equestria. “Couldn't I stay here?” “What would you do here, Greg? Scientists here in Equestria would line up strap down and test an alien from another planet, and before you knew it you would be a lab rat for the rest of your life. You can't say any place on Earth would be so different. Ponies belong in Equestria, and humans on Earth.” There was a pause. Greg didn't want to go back to Earth, but the Princesses couldn't let him stay in order to protect their people. “What if he was a pony?” Twilight innocently inquired, and was met by strange glances from the others in the room. “He isn't a pony, Twilight Sparkle” said Princess Celestia. “But Princess Luna, you said that you duplicated his body for him here in Equestria. What if you had given him a pony body?” The Princesses thought about this, and spoke in hushed whispers a few sentences to each other. Finally Princess Luna spoke up, “Very well, he can stay here if he wishes to be a pony. That is the only way.” “I....” he started, and then trailed off. Did he really want to be a pony? “I guess if that's the only way?” “Very well, it shall be done.” said Luna, warming up her horn. Greg spoke up quickly, “Wait! Can't I have fingers?” “No. Ponies do not have fingers.” “But, how am I supposed to... erm....” He trailed off. There was so much he would need to adjust to, he could barely believe he was about to say, “How am I supposed to... hold my utensils! (Yeah! That's it.)” “Well, you could use magic if you want to be a Unicorn?” offered Princess Celestia. He remembered that magic was the reason he was stuck in this situation in the first place. “Uh, pass. I would be a... what do you call a winged pony?” “You wish to be a pegasis?” asked Princess Luna. “Sure, I mean, if that's okay.” “Very well.” Luna warmed up her horn again, and fired a spell at Greg. His body slumped against the sofa. It was a while before anyone spoke up, Twilight just looked at the non-moving body on the sofa next to her. “Princess, shouldn't he be changing into a pony?” Princess Luna turned towards where Twilight was standing. “Oh, no, I should have explained. I needed his soul to be able to put it into a pony body. That body is worthless.” “So it's...” “Dead.” “EEP!” Twilight sprang away from the body and hid behind Princess Celestia. She realized she had overreacted once Princess Celestia started chuckling. “It's not funny! Couldn't you... move it? Or something?” asked Twilight. “My faithful student, it is kind of funny, but if you wish.” Princess Celestia lit up her horn and zapped away the body. “Is that alright?” “Yes, thank you. So where is Greg then?” asked Twilight. Princess Luna stepped aside from where she was standing, and revealed the body of a pegasis stallion. The rise and fall of his chest showed that he was alive and well, but sleeping. “The process takes a while, but I'm sure he will come around in a little while. I trust you will be able to get him situated here in Ponyville?” Twilight nodded, “Yes Princess, He was going to be staying here tonight anyways.” She turned to Spike. “Which reminds me-” “Prepare the guest bed? On it!” responded the dragon. Twilight giggled, “Thank you, my number one assistant.” The Princesses excused themselves and started on the trip back to Canterlot. Twilight closed the door behind them and took a deep breath, before proceeding to freak out. She zoomed over to the bookshelves in search of a book that might help her. “Oh my Celestia!! How am I supposed to get him 'situated?!' There is a a fully grown pegasis in the middle of my Library! Dear Celestia, and a stallion no less! What would my parents say if they knew he was staying with me! Of course it's not like that... but still!” Realizing there would be no book with the title of Your Human and You or even anything about humans, she resigned herself to the fact that she would have to do this without assistance from any book. She sat down on the sofa, before realizing that a dead body had been where she was sitting not a minute ago. Leaping up out of it, she cursed herself for overreacting before wandering over to where Greg was sleeping, lifted him up with magic, and led him to the guest bed and putting him in it. She shut the door and exited the room. “'Night, Spike, I'm going to bed early. I want to be sure I wake up before our guest.” “Okay Twilight.” came the response from down the stairs. She entered her room and shut the door behind her. She brushed her teeth and mane before climbing into bed. She blew the candle beside her out and pulled the sheets over her head. Before long, sleep captured her tired body, and she rested through Princess Luna's peaceful night.