//------------------------------// // Chapter the Sixth // Story: The Equestrian Refugees // by InspectorSharpWit //------------------------------// Chapter the Sixth, or “In Which I Gain the Greater Learnings of Equestria” After leaving the massive room, Twilight turns to me with a strange look of excitement. “This is the first time I’ve ever tried this!” she practically giggles, placing her hand on my shoulder. I look at her warily. “What exactly ARE you trying?” “Well, the Princesses didn’t want us performing magic in case humans saw. But now that you know, I’ll get to try teleporting in this body!” she replies with a manic glint in her eye. “I hope I don’t leave any limbs this time!” This idea didn’t sit very well with me. “Wait, you’re going to try some weird magical mumbo jumbo, despite the fact that you could potentially, I dunno, KILL ME?!?!?” Lyra laughs at my worried expression. “Oh come on, you big baby! It won’t kill you! You honestly think that we’d do something that we didn’t know was safe?” “Have you tried it on humans?” I retort. She got quiet after that part. Twilight shakes her head in dismissal. “Would you rather just walk down the stairs?” “YES! VERY MUCH SO!” “You’ve never been curious as to what it would be like to teleport?” she asks skeptically. “Well, yeah, but not at the cost of my arms!” Twilight gives an exasperated sigh. “Fine… I guess we’ll have to walk.” “Thank you,” I say gratefully, “I know that you guys are used to—“ Suddenly, I feel an arm around my shoulders. I turn to see Twilight grabbing me with a devilish smile on her face. “Hold on!” she laughs. Have you ever been sucked in from a hole in the center on your chest, only to pop out on the other side exactly the same? That’s teleportation for you, and as you can imagine, it really, well, sucks. “Dear God!” I yell in surprise, gasping for air. “NEVER do that again!” Lyra simply dusts herself off. “You get used to that.” She looks at Twilight, somewhat amused. “Didn’t know you had trickery in you, Twi!” Twilight blushes. “Sorry,” she says sheepishly, “but you have no idea how curious I was! And besides, it’s been a while since I’ve done any magic, and I was getting a headache.” I sigh. “It’s cool, I guess. I mean, I didn’t lose anything, so I guess it’s OK.” Suddenly, Lyra gasps. “OH SISTERS, WHERE’RE THE REST OF YOUR FINGERS?!?!” Panicked, I lift my hand to find that I WASN’T missing any fingers. I scowl at the mint-haired girl. “That was cruel and uncalled for,” I mutter. She just gives me a shit-eating grin. “Gotcha!” I turn to see that we have arrived at one of the apartments close to mine. “This is where Derpy and her daughter live,” Twilight explains. “Right now they have whatever Equestrian artifacts we managed to salvage. I just hope it’s still working.” “What’s still working?” I ask quizzically. “Why would they be in charge of whatever’s left of Equestria?” Lyra rolls her eyes at me. “You do realize that we’re gonna show you everything, right? You don’t have to keep asking questions!” “Right.” Twilight knocks on the door. “Who is it?” a chipper voice asks. “It’s just us, Derpy!” Twilight responds. “We need to show the human some stuff to help him… well, we’ll explain once we’re inside!” The door swings open to reveal a smiling woman about Twilight’s age. She has a cheerful smile, straw blonde hair, and her eyes, though slightly askew, are shining bright gold in eagerness. “Hi,” she giggles, “I’m Ditzy Doo, but you can call me Derpy Whooves!” My reluctant expression at the situation disappears at seeing her. “I’m Sebastian.” I smile at her. “Pleased to meet you!” “You guys wanna see the TARDIS right?” Derpy asks. “Well, we’re having a few technical difficulties with it.” My excitement level shoots up at that. “THE TARDIS!!” I squeal. “I GET TO SEE THE TARDIS!! WOO!!” “Where was this excitement when we wanted to teleport?” asks Twilight, slightly annoyed. I sheepishly smile at her. “Sorry, but the TARDIS is very important to people on Earth; it’s the Doctor’s mode of transportation. Speaking of which,” I turn to Derpy, suddenly suspicious, “how did you get the TARDIS?” She smiles serenely at me. “He’s my husband!” “Who’s your husband?” “The Doctor, silly!” MIND. BLOWN. “Um… Sebastian?” asks Twilight, a bit put off. “Are you okay?” I just stand there with a massive smile on my face. “Sorry, I can’t hear you over the sound of my mind exploding,” I explain calmly. “Riiiight. So Derpy, what do you mean by technical difficulties? I thought the TARDIS made it out OK?” “Well, the Chameleon Circuit’s giving us a bit of trouble,” she whispers, “and she’s been having trouble traveling. I honestly think that the poor girl just misses the Doctor, but she did take a little damage. It’s a good thing she got used to me and Dinky, or else she would’ve run off like she did the first time!” Just then, a smaller head of blonde pops up. “Hey mum?” the little girl calls. “The TARDIS is ready. K-9 checked everything out, so you guys can go in any time you want!” “Thanks, Muffin!” Derpy calls back. She turns back to me with a smile. “That was Dinky!” she explains. “She’s my daughter.” I smile even wider. “Is she the Doctor’s daughter too?” Derpy nods. “You can tell, can’t you? Just by the way she talks?” I grin. “Well, we’ve been watching your husband for a while now,” I explain. “Just like we’ve been watching you guys.” “So I guess you know about the TARDIS then?” Derpy asks. I nod. “Then you’re not gonna like what you’re about to see,” she replies grimly. She lets us in to see a tragic sight: a battered, faded blue box with chunks missing; stray wires hanging from its sides and its paint peeled off of every surface. The light bulb on top of the roof was burnt out, and the sign above the door that normally shone “POLICE BOX” now read “LICE BO”. “What happened to her?!” I ask, horrified. Derpy smiles sheepishly. “It’s not used to traveling between dimensions. Wait till you see this.” She knocks gingerly on the TARDIS wall. Sure enough, the exterior changes from a blue police box to a massively thick barber shop pole. “I think she’s been trying too hard to remain stable, the poor girl.” She sighs, “I caught her last night trying to fly. All she did was cough out a donut.” Twilight cringes a little. “Well, let’s just get our stuff and get out. We wouldn’t want to hurt the machinery any more than it is.” With that, she boldly steps onto the tattered ship, making the floor groan with pressure. Lyra follows suit. “Well, come on, you cry baby!” she grins at me. “You love this space junk so much, why not climb on?” Warily, I step onto the TARDIS platform. Amazingly, the box is still much bigger on the inside, holding all sorts of machines and contraptions that would probably kill me if I touched them. I just want to stand there and take it all in, but I know that isn’t going to be an option. With a sigh, I follow the two girls into the machine’s depths. When I catch up to them, I’m amazed to find hundreds of boxes and crates all labelled “Equestrian Stuff”. Twilight, Lyra and I start to carry them all outside, where a waiting Derpy stacks them outside. After doing this for a while, I get the sense that something is very wrong. “Guys?” I call out to my companions. “Did you just see that?” “See what?” grunts Lyra, trying to lift a heavy machine telepathically. “See the wall move in a bit!?” I reply. Suddenly, Twilight stands up, alert. “I saw it too!” she gasps in horror. Lyra rolls her eyes. “So the room got a little smaller. What’s the big deal?” “The big deal, Lyra, is that we’re all gonna get crushed, along with all this stuff!!” I yell. The mint-haired girl’s eyes widen. “Oh…” We all take as much as we can carry and rush towards the exit as the TARDIS' walls start closing in faster. Finally, the exit comes into vision, and— “HEEEELP!!” Lyra and I turn to find Twilight trapped under a stack of books. “I CAN’T GET UP!!!” the poor girl cries. I hand all my stuff to Lyra. “Get it to the entrance and get out,” I tell her. “I’ll get Twilight.” She nods and runs off to the door. I run the opposite way to get Twilight out from under the books. “Can you teleport us out of here?” I ask urgently once she's free. She nods nervously. “I-it’ll just take a second.” A purple aura starts gathering around her. I start noticing how awfully close the walls are getting. “Twilight.” “I’m going, I’m going!” she cries, gathering more aura. “It’s harder to concentrate under pressure!” “Why does this always have to happen when you’re about to be crushed to death?!” I ask sardonically. “Come on, hurry up!” “IT’S READY! GRAB ON!” she yells. I hold onto the girl and the familiar sensation grips me once again. When I open my eyes we’re outside the TARDIS, just as the walls closed in on themselves. I breathe a sigh of relief. “Good thing that’s over.” Twilight nods. “Yeah… but you can let go of me now.” I turn to see that my hand was grabbing onto her… well, it was somewhere it wasn’t supposed to be grabbing. “Oh God,” I stutter, releasing her. “I swear, I-I didn’t mean to—” “It’s alright!” she laughs, more out of relief than anything. “It just felt a bit weird…” “Hey, lovebirds!” chortles Lyra. “We’ve got a lesson to plan!” We both blush and edge away from each other. Derpy giggles at the sight of us. “AWW, you guys are gonna be so CUTE together!!” “It was an accident…” I mutter. Lyra smirks. “Yeah, sure. But anyways, come on! Help me get this damn stuff out of here!” Twilight sighs. “She’s right. We’ve got to get these boxes to the Princesses’ apartment.” Turning to Derpy and Dinky, she gives them a grateful smile. “Thanks for letting us get these things out!” With that, she goes to join Lyra in her struggle to lift all the boxes I smile sheepishly at the two blondes in front of me. “Look, sorry about causing the TARDIS to do… that.” Derpy just beams at me. “That’s ok! Hey, maybe Dinky and I can finally fix that Muffin Button on the control panel!” Dinky, however, stays serious. “We'll have the TARDIS’ pocket dimension function repaired soon. This is only one less thing we have to worry about imploding on us.” I stare at the strange little girl. “It takes a while for the Time Lord sense of humor to set in, huh?” Derpy laughs, “as far as I know, The Doctor only recently grew one!” My eyes narrow. “How recent?” “It took him 178 years!” “And Dinky’s how old?” “12!” I let out a sigh. “Well, it’s been fun, Derpy. I hope the Doctor shows up soon.” Derpy nods eagerly. “Oh, he will. He always does!” I smile at this. “He does, doesn’t he?” “OI! HUMAN! WE NEED SOME HELP OVER HERE!!!” calls Lyra gruffly. With that, I leave the family to their work and start on my own. At the Princesses Apartment… I let out a yawn. Wow, I haven’t stayed up so late since college. I turn to see that both Twilight and Lyra are still hard at work, taking mountains of notes from my laptop. As it turns out, Equestrians have a lot of things, like computers and TV, in common with humans. The internet was one such thing, and apparently, Lyra was the queen of the quick search. After directing them to the sacred source of the knowledge of everything (also known as Wikipedia), I was free to browse through the Equestrian texts. I was amazed to see that Equestrians weren’t just technologically on par with humans; a lot of Equestrian culture was almost exactly parallel to Western Culture. From values to legends to even some variations on popular culture (Sapphire Shores is Katie Perry, Starswirl the Bearded is Merlin, Sharp Wit is Sherlock Holmes, etc.), we certainly have a lot in common. What we DON’T have in common, however, is the ability to work. Despite my best efforts, I really couldn’t keep up with the Equestrian girls' pace. “How can you guys get so much info so quickly?” I groan when I glance at their fifth ceiling high stack of notes. “I couldn’t produce this much work in a year, much less three hours.” Lyra smirks at me. “Oh, you wouldn’t want to know. We used MAGIC, so I guess you’re too scared to try it.” “Oh, so that’s how you’re doing it: you’re cheating!” Twilight glares at me, apparently offended. “This isn’t cheating! It’s taking advantage of your abilities! All the spell does is help you read and comprehend faster!” “And besides, we never said we couldn’t help you,” sighs Lyra loftily. “We were just thinking about how scared you were to have us do any magic on you!” I groan. On one hand, I get super intelligence, on the other, my brain might explode. “Is this spell permanent?” I ask Twilight tentatively. Twilight suddenly looks thoughtful. “About five to seven hours, but… I don’t think it’ll be safe to try just yet.” I look at her in disbelief. “You snuck behind my back and zapped me to an apartment two stories down at the risk of losing my appendages! How could this possibly be any more dangerous?!” “Because,” Twilight explains, “this is a mind spell. This could cause some irreparable damage to your brain, Sebastian!” Lyra rolls her eyes. “Just let the sissy try it, Twi! If anything goes wrong, I’m sure the Princesses can fix it later.” “Okay,” Twilight agrees warily, and she touches a finger to my forehead. My thoughts during this are as follows: Well, here goes. This better not hur— SWEET HOLY JESUS CHRIST, MY MIND IS EXPANDIIIIIIIIIIIING!!!! “Whoa,” I gasp. “This is just… wow! It’s like my head’s clear or something!” Twilight smiles. “That’s a good sign. It means the spell’s working.” I grin. “I could work forever like this!” Five to Seven Hours Later… I finish my 3067th note with a satisfying crick of the neck. I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed working so hard in my life. This must be how Ron Jeremy feels. I look around to find that Lyra and Twilight are fast asleep on the floor. Aww… how cute… “Mflug square root of 34,” mutters Twilight, drooling a little. I get a little closer to the violet-haired woman. I wonder what she’s dreaming right now… “I’d like to dedicate this award to my assistant,” she continues, completely unaware that I'm watching, “and to all the ponies in Ponyville…” I chuckle. I should’ve known. I wonder what Lyra’s dreaming… I scoot over to the mint-haired girl, curious as to what could be going through her head. A leer spreads slowly across Lyra’s face. “Oh yeah, Bonnie, right there, you dirty bitch…” The fuck did I just hear? I slowly back away from Lyra, unwilling to hear more of whatever the fuck she was dreaming about. “I presume you’re finished?” comes a soft voice from behind me. I turn suddenly to find Princess Celestia smiling fondly at the sight of the two sleeping girls. “Oh, Princess,” I sigh in relief. “It’s just you.” She chuckles a little at my reaction. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.” “It’s not that… It’s just, this whole situation has got me all jumpy. That’s all.” She nods. “I must admit, this has been a major change for all of us. I did not expect for my little… I mean, my subjects to adapt so quickly to such circumstances.” “Yeah, I’ve been meaning to ask you about that.” She cocks her head at me. “What do you mean, Sebastian Espinosa?” “I mean, you guys were just ran out of your homes, turned into humans, and now you have to adapt to ordinary Earth life. How is everyone taking this so well?” The celestial leader grows serious. “You must never tell anyone of what I am about to tell you. The sacrifices I have made could be taken… badly. Please, not even my sister must know about this.” I’m surprised at the sudden change of the subject, but seeing how desperate she looked, I didn’t see much of a choice. “Of course, Princess.” I assure her. She bites her lip before steeling herself to continue. “When Luna was first taken over by Nightmare Moon, I had to use the Elements to imprison her on the moon. The toll on my subjects’ morale was devastating. I couldn’t stand seeing my little ponies so miserable. I decided to tap into the Elements' powers once more. With the help of Starswirl the Bearded, I constructed the Harmony Effect to help my subjects.” “The Harmony Effect?” I ask, confused. “What does that do?” “The Harmony Effect,” she explains, “is a spell that acts like an emotional cushion. When a great attack or tragedy happens across Equestria, the Elements release a wave of harmony into the minds of my subjects to ease their pain.” “I get it! It’s kind of like a healing process for the brain!” I gasp in astonishment. Celestia smiles sadly. “It seemed wonderful at the time. Imagine, instant relief for masses of my subjects going through devastating tragedies.” “But where does it go wrong?” I ask. “When Blueblood usurped power, he killed thousands of Equestria guards,” she sighed. “The next day, my subjects were at peace again. No scars meant no chance of fighting back. We just… let him walk right over us.” Suddenly, Celestia quietly starts to cry. “I didn’t know it would happen,” she murmured, more to herself than me. “I just wanted to help…” I stand there awkwardly as she cries. “Err, you couldn’t have known about this!” I say, trying to console her. “You just wanted what was best, right?” She sighs, tears still streaking down her beautiful face. “I thought so too, but now I wonder if I just wanted my subjects’ approval…” I decide to try to put my hand on her shoulder. “Look, the past is past, right? The best we can do is try to help everyone get used to this place and while you may have made a mistake, you did it with the best intentions. That’s why they love you so much. That’s why they chose YOU over a tyrant.” She smiles a little. “You are wise for one so young. Are all humans so gifted in philosophy?” I grin. “I’m afraid that this is rare for me, and definitely rare for the rest of the human race.” “You underestimate your race, Sebastian Espinosa,” she assures me, “and you underestimate yourself.” With those parting words, she disappears in a flurry of colors. I sigh and lie down with Lyra and Twilight on the floor. I have no idea how I’m going to sleep with that on my brain. A yawn frees itself from my body. Then again, I had no idea how ponies would become human… Author's Note OK, the next chapter should focus mainly on how different Equestrians (mainly the Mane Six, but some others will be thrown in) are learning how to adapt to Earth lifestyles and cultures. After that, it's going to evolve into something of a sitcom-y like lifestyle (yes, the hilarity you've been waiting for is a mere two chapters away!!!) Thanks to my Editor, who helped me through this somewhat mediocre chapter, and to the guys who were actually on my side (and yes, thanks to the critics as well). These authors notes are going to be a bit scarce, but I'll type them in every major turning point chapter from now on. That satisfy you, Vapor101?!