//------------------------------// // Outside Voice // Story: Harmony's Thieves // by 4428Gamer //------------------------------// Downtown Ponyville Big Mike’s POV ... I sat the girl down on a nearby hay bale while I waited. Over the last twenty minutes, this Big Mac guy and I walked around this really cool amusement park. It had vendors and games on every street. Some were inside tents, others were out in the open, and some were even built into these nice little cottages. It was like walking through an old timey town. It didn’t have any rides though. Well, okay it had one. Standing above the rest of the amusement park was this giant Ferris wheel. The wheel was nearly entirely pink with the carts colored a shimmering gold. But the size was what made me keep staring up at it. This Ferris Wheel was so tall, it seemed as though it could scrape into the purple sky above us. Oh right. The purple sky. I almost forgot about it. The sky was what kept me from enjoying this amusement park. I think Big Mac called this place ‘Parkville’? I didn’t like the name. Kind of on the nose. Speaking of Big Mac, he had followed me while I walked aimlessly around the park. Whenever I checked to see if he was okay, he would give me the same ‘eeyup’ every time. When I led us around long enough, Big Mac thought of somewhere he wanted to check out. That’s when we switched roles and I followed him until we arrived at this marketplace. Now, across the street from me, Big Mac was searching this one wooden cart stand. It was pretty plain compared to all the other stands. They had tents and tables set up with them. Actually, all the other stands were even decorated to look like carnival booths with games of all kinds. With how nice they all looked, I had no idea why Big Mac was spending so much time at this boring dust-covered one. Big Mac got up from underneath the cart stand, giving out a tired grunt as he did. “Everything okay?” I called out. I was around fifteen feet away from him so we had to speak up. Big Mac turned towards me with a frown. “Nnope.” “Oh.” Now I felt awkward. “Okay then.” Instead of staring at him, I started looking around the rest of the marketplace. Thankfully, all those carnival games were well decorated so I wouldn’t be bored staring at them. Looking closer, I discovered that every booth had its own unique game inside of it. I noticed the usual ring tosses and knock-over-bottles sorts of games but there were others I had never seen before. When some of the games started to look confusing, I switched it up and saw the dozens of random stuff they had as prizes. There was a coconut, a wagon wheel, a trumpet, candy necklaces, baseball caps, a foam finger, a tiny sleeping alligator in a cage, a stick, several table lamps, a picture of cake, and probably forty balloon animals. Most of which were snakes. Wait a second. I looked harder at all the prizes. They have a trumpet? I wanna trumpet! “Hey, Big Mac, can we— Oh.” Before I could try asking, Big Mac was already on his way over to me and the girl. He seemed upset. I glanced at the cart that he left behind. Now that I was looking at it, it seemed as if Big Mac was searching through it pretty hard. He came up empty handed though. I turned back to him. “Is that cart important or something?” He glanced back at it for a moment. “Eeyup.” He nodded. “Oh, um, well, were you trying to find something?” “Eeyup.” After a pause he gave himself this tired shrug. “Mah family’s cart.” When it clicked, I started to nod along. “You thought your family was here.” Big Mac slumped a little. “Eeyup.” … ... Not much of a talker. Maybe he’s shy! “Well don’t worry,” I told him. “Your family’s probably fine. Maybe they were here but they left trying to find you when you weren’t here.” I smiled, hoping Big Mac would do the same. But he only became more sad. I frowned, tapping my chin. “Huh. Maybe that didn’t come out right.” “Nnope.” “Oh. Sorry.” Big Mac didn’t add anything else. Instead, he walked past me to check on the girl. What was her name again? I think Big Mac called her Sweaty Bail? There was a gasp. “Sweetie Belle?” “That’s her name,” I awkwardly cheered. “Man. Big Mike should probably write that down.” As I was turning around, Big Mac was rushing up to Sweetie Belle and glanced down at her. From where I was I saw her shaking her head as she murmured something. I broke out into a smile again. “Good! She’s up!” I walked a little closer but ultimately kept some distance. You never wanted to crowd around someone when they woke up. Or at least, I never wanted people to do that to me. Big Mac started to shake Weetie Belle gently, talking under his breath in hopes Weetle would hear. After about five more times, her mumbling started to be words. “p-put the sun ‘ack ‘own,” she half hummed. “Two. minutes...muuuuh.” “Sweetie, wake up,” Big Mac told her. “No time fer lazyin’.” “Bu’ I like lazyin, Big...Bu-Big McIntosh?” The girl finally started sounding more awake. “That you?” “Eeyup,” he told her. Then he suddenly looked nervous “Ah, Ah know Ah don’ look right, but—” The girl’s high pitched yawn cut him off while she rubbed her eyes. “Look right? What’re you talking…” The girl froze. Like a video that got stuck. Then, very slowly, Beetle Ball moved her hand away from her face and stared at it. Then, Beetle leaned back. “What...What’s going—” she went mute again when she glanced up and saw Big Mac’s face staring right back at her. As she stared at him, she started leaning back, only to run out of space. Shrieking, she tumbled over the back of the hay bale and hit the ground. The wind was knocked out of her lungs and she landed with her legs hanging over her head. We ran over to help but she quickly rolled over to try crawling away. After tripping a couple of times, her attention snapped back to us. “Sweetie,” Big Mac stepped forward but stopped when he saw her face. She was trembling and terrified as her mouth slowly opened to take in air. Big Mac tensed up as he turned to me. “Cover yer ears.” Beetle’s expression never changed as she kept taking in air like a balloon. I kept watching her as I scratched my head. “Mike's ears? Why?” “Too late,” Big Mac called out, ducking away and quickly covering up his own. I crossed my arms and watched uncomfortably. “Um...Hey Beetle Bale, are you ok—” “WHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA~!” Marketplace Sweetie’s POV Some Time Later ... “So...Let me see if I got this right.” I took a second to think everything over. Even though most what Big Mac gave me a lot of yeps and nopes from my barrage of questions, the few things he did tell me was a lot to take in. “So, we're in a giant fair that's actually Ponyville, which is then inside a giant force field," recapped. "The three of us all woke up inside of a sofa store and, we’re...whatever these are?” I took a second to feel a shiver go down my weird, different spine. "Eeyup," Mac confirmed. “And now you and that 'Big Mike' thing have been trying to find Applebloom or anypony else since?” Big Mac slumped forward. He let the exhaustion show on his face. “Eeyup.” The entire time Big Mac spent explaining everything to me, I was trying to figure out how to stand and move my arms like he and Big Mike were doing. From what I could figure out, these arms helped me balance myself on two legs. Speaking of the arms... I looked down at the ends of these limbs. “And these are claws? And, fin-gers? Fingers,” I corrected. Big Mac furrowed his brow. He mentioned the claws before but he didn't know about fingers. I already knew about them to something Spike told me. Since Spike wasn’t a pony, Scoots asked him about what being a dragon was like one day. I never knew how to ask but I was always curious. So I listened. Applebloom never stuck around for it though. She thought it was rude to ask. Well, I hummed in my head. Thank you to Scootaloo and her...being rude? My mouth formed a thin line. Maybe I should come up with a better thank you than that. I took a second to look at the ‘fingers’, moving them around as I did. It was pretty creepy to see them on myself, especially when moving them felt...natural. Not to mention the fingers felt rubbery in contrast to hooves. I started to test them by grabbing a few pieces of straw from the hay bale and pulling. Like I had seen Spike do in the past, they each pulled out without a problem. “Huh. Guess I gotta give it to Spike. He was right. These claws do kinda feel more useful than hooves.” To try and make the best out of it, I started eating the hay I was holding. Big Mac watched me doing all of this and, as I kept eating the hay, he finally broke his own silence. “Ya ain’t scared?” “W’ll, ah ‘ean ah don’...” I stopped chewing the hay as my face twisted into pure disgust. What is wrong with this bale?! Turning away from Big Mac, I tried spitting out every piece of terrible straw. When almost all of it was gone, I brought up an arm and wiped my tongue off on it. No way that was rotten! It was a different kind of terrible! Ugh... After I was done feeling miserable, I noticed Big Mac was still watching me. He looked so worried. “Heh. Sorry,” I apologized, spitting out one final piece of straw. “What I was trying to say was that I don’t want to be whatever this is, but for some reason it doesn’t feel as weird as I think it should. The more I try to think about it, the more I realize that I’m stillme. Y'know?” “Eeyu...Nnope.” I sat back down on the hay bale, slowly since I didn’t have the whole ‘two legs thing’ down yet, and thought it over. It felt like something else was helping me calm down but what sense did that make? As Big Mac kept looking confused, he finally broke himself out of it. “Nevermind. Sweetie? When’d ya last see Applebloom?” “Huh?” I blinked. “Oh. Well, I think yesterday we...Ye-Yesterday we were...” I stopped talking and thought it over for a second. When I couldn’t just remember it right away I tried to picture it in my mind. I could start to remember that we were together for something but it was the exact opposite of the feeling I had about being me. The more I thought on it, the blurrier it got. Frustrated, I settled for trying to think of only a part of what I remember. Except, my mind simply gave up. As though it decided on its own that it was done trying. “I...I don’t know,” I admitted. “Weird.” “Ya sure?” He pleaded. I tried it all over again but the blurriness only showed up quicker. I frowned. “I. I can’t. I mean, like I literally don’t remember. The only thing I can got was that we tried earning our Cutie Marks again. But, I don’t even remember what for. I can’t even remember what day that was.” Big Mac kept growing more sad as I explained it to him. It wasn’t until I mentioned not knowing the day that he got confused. He opened his mouth to tell me something but he stopped himself as he seemed totally lost. Fearing the worst, I took a guess. “You don’t know what day it is either?” Big Mac shook his head. “Eenope.” When he realized we needed a second, well, third opinion, he turned around to that bigger two-legged thing from earlier. Big Mac had told me his name was 'Big Mike' and that the three of us all woke up in that sofa store. He was the same creatures we were and had no hair on him except for his head which had hair so short you could call it a shadow. It also had blue pants matching what Big Mac had, only Big Mike's just went down to the knees. Then, it had some sort of deep green, polo shirt. But rather than be worried about what it wanted or was going to do, or even be confused about what it was, I started feeling bad for him. The entire time Big Mac was talking to me, Big Mike was tapping his ears and testing them to get his hearing back to normal. Uh-oh, I thought, cringing a little. I did that, didn't I? I guess I did scream a little louder than normal. "Big Mike?" Big Mac called out. “Hu-Huuh?!” The Big Mike half shouted. When he realized it came from us, he turned around. “Did you call Big Mike’s name?!” I started folding in on myself and averted my gaze. Yep. That sounds like my fault.