//------------------------------// // Chapter Six but Jim admires his new home and is constantly "falsely" accused of being a threat // Story: Dear Leader but He's In Equestria // by RickAndMicrophone //------------------------------// "So what do you think of your new home Jim," Kevin questioned. Jim observed that home looked exactly like many of the homes in Ponyville, but upon inspecting the interior, he finds some giant flaw with the house. "It needs a basement," he cries. "Say no more." Kevin switched the game to build mode and started building the basement. It was pretty much like Jim's old basement with bedrooms, a bathroom, a kitchen, and several pictures of Jim's likeness. The bathroom and kitchen were only down there to make sure that the future pony slaves survive long enough to sell Jim's paintings, despite Kevin already giving Jim loads of wealth just by asking the game. (To be fair, Kevin had to cheat for more bits because apparently building a basement was WAY more expensive in the pony land. Either that or the houses in Ponyville are cheap as feck. Either way, Jim became a billionaire through totally legitimate means.) After the build was completed, Jim went down to the basement to judge the results. After a quick look around the basement (and his wallet) he gives a thumbs up and says "Perfection," to Kevin. The doorbell rang. Jim opened the front door where a white unicorn with purple sunglasses and a gray pony with a bow tie are ready to introduce themselves to the new neighbors. "Aren't you the Bop It™ guy?" the unicorn drowsily recognized, while the bow tie one facepalmed... or facehooved... you know because they have hooves and not palms. "I'm Vinyl by the way." Oh shit, I'm narrating a story. Feck! "Yes," Jim happily responded, glad someone recognized his talent. "Jim Pickens." Jim stretches his hand to shake Vinyl's hoof. Confused by the gesture, she bumps the palm of his hand instead, only unable to let go as Jim forcibly shakes her hoof. She became dizzy and fell asleep on the ground. "That's Vinyl Scratch," the bow tie one pointed to the now sleeping unicorn. "She's a DJ and electronic musician as well as my roommate. She also sleeps a lot because she DJs at night." She then points to herself. "I'm Octavia Melody. I play the cello." The bearded man completely ignores the introduction and adds his two cents to the situation. "Thank Kevin," Jim said, relived. "I thought I feckin' killed her." Octavia raised an eyebrow. "Why would you think that?" "Yeah," Kevin whispered to Jim. "Why would you think that? Also, did you just use my name in vain?" "First of all," Jim explained. "I am physically bigger and stronger than these ponies." You could hear a hint of justified bragging in his tone. "Secondly, I was forcibly shaking her handless arm-" "Hoof," the cellist corrected. "Yes," Jim uttered. ... ... "Thirdly," Jim continued. "I just don't want those six other horses I met," "Ponies." "Yes." ... ... "I don't want them to think I'm a threat or anything, so I was kind of worried." Is Jim seriously being cautious instead of being his chaotic self? Kevin thought. Are we actually being strategic about this? Why can't we just throw caution to the wind or... Intelligent life. Functioning society. Murder bad. Go to jail. Kevin remember now. "That makes sense," Octavia acknowledged. "I think you and your floating gem will make interesting neighbors." Then she started to leave, dragging the sleeping body away, but then remembered something. "I have to warn you about Vinyl," Octavia began. "She sometimes does her DJ thing in our home, so you might hear loud dubstep music, hip-hop music, et cetera while you're typing to sleep. You should buy earplugs." "Not necessary," Jim retorted. "I can tolerate loud noises at night and sometimes I'm the one that makes those noises." "I'll probably be gone before the day ends," Kevin replied, much to the shock of the gray one. "Oh yeah, I forgot to introduce myself. Call Me Kevin. Nice to meet ya. I'm Jim's 'guardian angel'... as far as you know..." "Like I said, interesting neighbors," the cellist repeated. Waving goodbye, she dragged the sleeping DJ back to their home to put her in bed. "So, how are we gonna feckin' drag ponies to our basement or at least feckin' kill them without getting caught?" "First of all, a normal person says, 'Nice neighbors.' or something like that." "We're not normal, Kevin." "Yeah, but don't you want to blend into society?" "When those ponies are in earshot, yes. When I'm talking to you and you only, I don't care." "Fair enough," Kevin conceded. "Secondly, I'm not good with plans, but let's make our first death look like an accident." "Genius," Jim said. "but who will be our first victim?" "It should be someone with political power, so we can start our political career by replacing them," Kevin explained. "Wouldn't they already have someone to replace the deceased in the political position?" "This is a pony society, so I'm not sure how it works. If yes, kill that fecker by 'accident' as well. If no, we must get elected and kill those that didn't vote for us by 'accident.'" "I like this 'accidental' killing plan." "I have a feeling this will end badly though," Kevin warned. "like if we were fighting some man-eating plant and you were killed or something." "What are the odds of that happening?" Jim asked. "I know, right?" Kevin and Jim laughed, unaware of a very possible alternative timeline that could've happened. Sometime between 2022 and 2024. I'm not really sure. "Alright, now you must configure the settings back to February 23, 2019 and the dimension to 'MLP.'" "Me no understand." "Fine. I'll do it myself." The mysterious voice started configuring the time machine with his hooves. "Don't we have a say in this?" "Shut the feck up, Shit. We need to fulfill the Equine Pickens Prophecy. Do you want the feckin' Kevinverse to implode because of an unfulfilled prophecy?" "But Beyblade," "Shit, yer like a brother to me, but you can't argue against fate. Kevin and Jim must succeed with the help of Turg." "But what if Turg has coronavirus?" "He doesn't have coronavirus. The pandemic died down a few years ago. Did Chad force you to go against the prophecy?" "...yes" Beyblade turned to Chad. "Yer on thin feckin' ice, Chad!" Chad didn't care. He started pushing Shit around again. "Chad, have you ever heard of the death of Crassus? I don't care if this horse triumvirate collapses, because I don't want the feckin' world to explode!.. or implode. Either way, yer gonna die because of it." Chad cared now. He didn't want to drink molten liquid gold, especially if it's Shit's armor. "Okay, I'm sorry," he said, frightened by the threat, but retorted with, "You know Kevin hates Shit, right? We can just replace him with that pony princess and-" "Turg help Jim now?" Turg asked. "Yes. Just get into the machine and push the shiny button," Beyblade instructed. Turg followed instructions. Turg like shiny button. Afterwards, Chad started pushing Shit around again, displeasing Beyblade. Meanwhile, in 2019, Jim was speaking to Kevin about his plans for this pony land. "Why don't we just build another restaurant here and-" "I don't think you'll be able to hire anyone, considering your slightly negative reputation... and the fact that these ponies will know you own the restaurant and you'll have an even worse reputation." "I'll make it positive in no time at all," Jim argued. "No one will suspect a thing." "You said these ponies aren't stupid. They'll throw you in jail and I won't be able to continue my Sims series." "Sorry, I forgot about that." Before the discussion could continue, a machine appeared out of nowhere with a lightning strike to make its presence known. A perfectly totally not disfigured Mii walked out of the machine. "Turg," it said. "What?" "Name Turg." "Oh, your name is Turg," Jim clarified. "Yes. Turg help." "I like this Turg guy already," Kevin said. "He's perfect for the cult." "I'm gonna make breadsticks in celebration." "Breadsticks good," Turg replied. "Unfortunately, we're gonna end it here," Kevin said reluctantly, then turned to his audience. "I hope you enjoyed the video. I appreciate you watching as always and I do hope to see you next time. Bye for now." Then Kevin stopped recording. "What?" Jim said, a little peeved. "You're feckin' leaving?" "Hey, I have a life to live... sort of," Kevin argued. "There's more to my life than my YouTube channel. I'll be back in at least a week and a half. Besides, you have lots of cash and a nice house. You'll be fine without me." With that, the plumbob vanished, leaving Kevin to edit his Sims gameplay for his fans to enjoy. "Oh, well," Jim shrugged. "I guess my totally reasonable ideas can work with just Turg." "Turg want breadsticks." He's definitely a cult member, Jim thought. but how the feck did he get here with that machine? Nothing much happened for the rest of the day. Turg and Jim ate breadsticks for lunch and dinner, the Cutie Mark Crusaders only got minor injuries trying to zip line (They blamed Jim and he apologized with lots of sighing and constantly saying he had a "continuous lapse in judgment". This somehow worked.), and Jim was interviewed by Princess Celestia about Kevin. She literally went to his house and said, "I need to ask you some questions about this 'Kevin' I've heard about from Twilight." She looked pissed. It's almost as if she thought Jim was a threat or something silly like that. "Isn't there a law against breaking and entering?" "The safety of my ponies is more important," the princess bluntly stated. "Kevin and I will not harm your ponies," Jim assured. The princess was not convinced. "Then you won't mind answering a few questions honestly. Will you?" Jim nodded, leading to Celestia's first question. "Is this Kevin a being of chaos?" "He's chaotic neutral. Yes." Jim was not sure if that was a lie or not, but Kevin's definitely not chaotic good, considering he created him. "By neutral, I mean he's neither good nor evil." "That wasn't my question," Celestia responded. "Does he possess chaos magic?" "No," Jim immediately answered. He was certain the only magic Kevin had involved money and building basements. Neither sounded chaotic to him. "Do you possess chaos magic?" "No. Shouldn't you have asked me this stuff when you brought me to your castle?" "I did not think to do so." The princess sighed and silence filled the air. That is until Turg spoke. "Jim and Kevin good," Turg argued. "Jim make breadsticks. Kevin nice." "I have another question for you Jim," Celestia said upon seeing the new face. "Who is this and how did he get here?" "That's Turg. I'm pretty sure he came here from that machine, but I don't know how that works. I'm sure he's harmless as well." "Keep an eye on him then," the pegacorn alicorn ordered."Now, where is Kevin?" "Oh he left the world," Jim replied. "I thought you said he didn't have chaos magic." "He doesn't. He can just leave the world," Jim said. "How?" "I don't know," Jim replied honestly. "Then keep an eye on him too. From what I've gathered, you three are no threat to Equestria. You just need to learn of the magic of friendship and considering you and Turg are good friends, I'm sure that task will be fairly easy for you." "I agree one hundred percent," Jim agreed. "We'll have no issue adjusting to this new society." Princess Celestia sighed in relief. "I'm glad to hear that." She turned back toward the door and waved goodbye to the humans. They waved back. She walked into a chariot parked outside and it flew away. Wait, don't horses pull chariots? Jim thought. Is this some form of slavery or something? Eh, I don't care. I just don't want more people coming into my house unannounced. That's feckin' rude. "Alright, Turg. Here's your first mission," Jim began. "I want you to close and lock the door. I don't want any more guests in this feckin' house." Turg followed the instructions. His stomach growled. It was dinnertime already. Obviously, they ate breadsticks again. They say too much of a good thing can be bad for you, but to Jim, breadsticks were the exception. Another night. Another set of dreams to deal with. Princess Luna vowed never to enter Jim's dreams again upon the request of Kevin's letter. She didn't want to deal with that insanity and end up talking to Mind Clear once again. Her sister recently told her that the Kevin that was with Jim somehow left the world. Unfortunately, that means she can't ask him about Jim. However, she was also told of an entity named Turg. The way he speaks is similar to the speech of caveponies portrayed in some fictional novels, but she might get some information out of Turg about both Kevin and Jim. Hopefully, his dreams aren't as... disconnected from reality as Jim's. Another wooden door was there. It was just labeled with TURG in blue paint. Hesitating, Luna opens the door leading to a race. It wasn't any normal race though. It was a chariot race, but the chariots were oddly shaped and nopony was pulling them. Luna shrugged. It was only a dream after all. She'll just ask Turg about the chariots when she gets the chance. Looking for Turg, Luna had noticed the snowy scenery surrounding the race. It seemed that Turg enjoyed the winter season. Before she could completely take in all the sights and sounds of winter, she heard loud Irish screaming coming from the speeding chariots. She didn't know what "Irish" meant but she somehow thought it was a perfect descriptor. "TURG NOOOOOOO!" came a cry. "FUCKING TURG!" came another. "A new personal best! Wave to the crowd, Turg," came a voice of encouragement. "They love you." This seems like a past memory of Turg's. Luna thought. He must really enjoy racing. The princess decided to sit there a while and watch Turg race some more. It didn't look like Turg would win any of them, but he seemed to be happy to just be there. She certainly didn't need to protect the creature or herself from any nightmares, but she still needed to interview him about the seemingly chaotic arrivals. Once one of the races ended she tried to get Turg's attention. "Turg," she called out. "Could you please come over here?" "Horse want Turg?" he asked. "Yes. I want to ask you a few questions." Turg went over to the shiny horse. Turg didn't know much, but he knew he would try his best to answer the horse's questions and not get distracted by its shiny hair. Turg like shiny hair. Of course, the obvious question was asked bluntly. "Do you know anything about Kevin or Jim Pickens?" "Jim and Kevin good." Luna wasn't convinced by this testimony. "Yes, but what else do you know about them." "Jim eat breadsticks. Kevin nice." Luna decided she wasn't getting any answers from the creature and instead asked more explicit questions. "Are they trying to overthrow the diarchy?" "Yahtzee?" "I'm not talking about Yahtzee." Turg thought for a moment. "Monopoly?" "I asked if they are going to overthrow the diarchy." "Turg no understand," was the Mii's final statement. With a defeated sigh, Luna left Turg's dream, only to encounter Jim Pickens outside of his own dream, waving at the pega alicorn. "I don't know much about this Turg," Jim admitted. "but I don't think he knows much either." "Are you trying to overthrow the diarchy, Mr. Pickens?" "I'm trying to find a way home," Jim responded semi-truthfully. "I miss my restaurant." "You aren't motivated to do anything else?" "I don't like the way you're discriminating against me," Jim accused. "You think someone with my likeness would be up to no good?" "Well-" "Do you think someone with my musical talent would try and overthrow a government?" "Musical talent?" Luna was intrigued by the claim, completely forgetting about the whole political conversation they were just having. "Would you mind-" "Glad you asked." Suddenly, Luna noticed Jim had a guitar in his hands. To the right of him was his dream door. Another human came out of the door. It was K-Pop sensation Johnny Cash. "This one's called Hurt." More tears were shed that night in response to the copyrighted material. Powerful, princessy tears were shed. Both residents of the new home decide to start the day with thought-provoking dialogue. "Another day another infinite supply of cash." "Turg." There was a knock at the door. Jim, hoping it was an adoring fan, rushes to the door to see some unicorn with a clipboard. "Hello, I'm..." the pony paused for a bit and sighed in pain, internally cursing the god that had given her life. "Secretary... the secretary of Mayor Mare. I was ordered by her to bring you into my office so you, Turg, and Kevin could sign some paperwork." "That sounds boring as feck," Jim commented. "Why do I need to do this?" Secretary stared at the creature that seems to have a lot of charisma. "The mayor got an order from Princess Celestia to make you three official citizens of Ponyville and Equestria." "First of all, Kevin isn't here," Jim argued. "Second of all, that sounds boring as feck." "It is a necessary process for census reasons," Secretary explained. "That sounds-" Secretary was fed up with the stalling and transported Jim, Turg, and herself to her office. "boring as feck," Jim finished. The unicorn floated two stacks of at least 100 papers each toward the duo. "Please just fill out the forms." After about 30 minutes of filling out the forms, Jim was predictably bored. At least he made it halfway through the paperwork. He decided to strike up a conversation to cure his boredom nonetheless. "How far along in the paperwork are ya, Turg?" "Turg reach 10 pages. Test hard." "It's just filling out paperwork," Secretary said with her head down on the table. "It shouldn't be too difficult." "Turg disagree." "Jim also disagree," the Dear Leader added. "I think you should let them take a break from having to write all that paperwork, Secretary." Mayor Mare walked into frame, waving to her secretary. "I need to discuss a few matters with the two... I believe the correct term is 'immigrants'." Walking into the mayor's office, which is essentially right next door, Jim and Turg noticed the room was much bigger than Secretary's office. It had lots of books, paperwork, and weirdly enough it had a few dominoes all over the place. Looking at the way the dominoes were arranged led to more strange trinkets precariously placed in an odd pattern. It was an old office added to the town hall building prepared for the mayor long ago by an anonymous construction worker when Mare was first elected as mayor. Nopony, not even Mayor Mare, had thought of why this room was set up the way it was, but there were no second thoughts about it from anypony. That is, besides the construction worker, whose whereabouts are currently unknown. Despite this, Jim decided to comment on the decor. "Why is there a chandelier dangling above your head in your office?" asked Jim. "It seems like it could crush you at any moment." Mayor Mare looked up. "Huh. Never noticed," She shrugged. "I'll get that checked out after we discuss a few things. It hasn't fallen on me these past years I've held this mayoral position." "If this is about the government trusting me I'll have you kno-" "Mr. Pickens, I assure you this has nothing to do with your... questionable political reputation... nor will you have to do more paperwork for that matter. I just want to know about your human society, so we can figure out if you were some forgotten species, so we can write about your kind in the history books." Jim piped up immediately, ready to tell the entire story of his life, omitting incriminating details. "I don't know about Turg, but I can explain my life in unnecessary detail." "And then I was ripped from my home by your ruler because she wanted some exotic pet or something," Jim said, ending his extremely thorough explanation of his life since he broke into Urp's home. "That's my life story. I hope you wrote all of that down to sell because my life story is worth lots of money." The mayor was blown away by the bizarre events Jim experienced that led up to this moment. Secretary put down her pen and paper, planning to give the notes she took to her boss, who had a few questions about this story. "Let me get this straight... You've become such a famous artist that you have your own fan club?" "Yes... It's just a fan club... No strings attached..." "I see." Mayor Mare narrowed her eyes. "And you want to get back home to continue your restaurant business, but you have a goal here if you don't." "Exactly." "And you have no idea who this other person is." The mayor pointed to Turg. "All I know is he's Turg and he likes me and Kevin." "And you both are harmless?" "Why does everybody have to ask me that?" Jim Pickens said, obviously offended. "Can you feckers stop with these interrogations? I come in peace!" "Okay," Mayor Mare just shrugged. "I have no idea what the princess was saying about you being a potential threat." "You'd think my beautiful singing would already have convinced her otherwise," Jim commented. "Last night, I sang a beautiful song to her when she was stalking Turg in his dreams." "Oh no, I had received a letter from Princess Cadence to interview you because the other princesses said you might be a threat." "You mean there's another one?" Jim was shocked. "I thought this was a diarchy." "It technically is. She's much younger than Princess Celestia and Princess Luna." "Do you have a way to send prerecorded music to royalty?" "Why?" "I want to send her my rendition of Ring of Fire." "What?" "It's a song by K-Pop star Johnny Cash." "I'm not sure if we can record your song." Mayor Mare looked around the office to see if there was something useful. "There might be something in that bucket by Secretary." Everyone turned toward the metal bucket held up by a rope. How they missed that was anybody's guess. Secretary, being closest to the bucket in question, looked inside. "Boss, I think this thing could do the trick." "Oh good," Mayor Mare smiled. "Take it to Mr. Pickens, so he can record his... fire... song... thing." When Secretary took the not-so-light device from the strange bucket, the bucket suddenly flew up, being pulled by the rope. The rope's other end held some weight, similar in pounds (or kilograms, considering Jim was created by an Irish man) to the device. The weight dropped onto one of the shelves, the vibration causing a marble to fall off the said shelf and drop into some conveniently placed funnel. The funnel deposited the marble into a long tube. At the end of the tube was a line of the previously mentioned dominoes. The dominoes lead up to some hole in the corner of the office. After a few seconds, the dominoes on the other side start to fall. The dominoes lead to some button. That button somehow opened up a compartment above the office's entrance. A large sword is revealed. Everyone instinctively ducked as the knife was launched towards the mayor's desk. However, the sword wasn't aiming for Mayor Mare. The sword had sliced the string keeping the chandelier hanging above Mayor Mare. Obviously, it dropped... considering gravity still exists in the pony universe. It crashed onto a thick see-through glass. How they missed that was still anybody's guess. A few seconds pass and a sigh of relief is heard. Everybody got up from ducking. "Thank Celestia! I thought for sure I was gonna be cru-" Then the glass fell onto the mayor. ... Nobody really reacted to the suddenness caused by this bizarre Rube Goldberg machine. Jim, as if by instinct, defended himself. "I had nothing to do with this!" "I know you didn't," she said nonchalantly walking towards the shards. "It looks like at best she's in critical condition. I'll have to call the hospital to deal with the accident. I'll also need to find out who was responsible for building this booby trap and arrest them." "Turg," Jim whispered. "It looks like we're getting closer to world domination." "Turg no understand," he whispered back. "In the meantime, you two should finish your paperwork." "I still think that's feckin' boring."