//------------------------------//
// Not a Morning Person 
// Story: New Elements 
// by Barrobroadcaster 
//------------------------------//

	The alarm on my clock goes off at exactly 8.a.m normally giving me an hour to prepare for work but today I have the day off so I ignore it for a few seconds. I slept well, not surprising since I had nothing but happy thoughts to keep me company for the night. I open my eyes and reach over to turn off the alarm when I notice something's not right with my hand. Or rather, I don't seem to have a hand anymore! I bring both limbs to my face to realize they've been replaced by some sort of strange flat appendages! Hooves?! Horror grips my entire body as I quickly examine myself to find I have 4 hooves, a tail, my hair has become a mane! I've become some kind of pony, a cartoon pony like out of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic! How did this happen?! I was just watching the show last night! This had to be a dream.
I try to pinch myself to see if I'm dreaming but I can't seeing as how I don't have fingers! I rub both... hooves together, feeling the short, soft hairs of my tan coat. It feels quite nice actually and confirms that I am not dreaming. I look around my apartment. My clothes are crumpled up in a pile next to me in bed. Everything else seems to be normal. If I'm a cartoon, why is everything else still normal? I see the t.v still frozen on the ending scene of My Little Pony: Friendships is Magic. I look at my hooves and at the picture. It's like I'm ripped right from the show! What's happened to me?
Trying to shake off the panic, I get out of bed. I stand up slowly, feeling the carpet beneath me. Well, at least it seems I can still walk upright. What was I going to do? My mind was racing. I thought about calling 911. What would I say? For that matter, how could I dial a phone with HOOVES? I can't drive like this. I guess I could gallop to where I needed to go? What would my parents say? Would they take me to the hospital? Or.. the vet? What will Leena say? She does like My Little Pony... no, no I have to fix this! I definitely wasn't a pony last night... wait, the necklace! 
I grab the the green box on my night stand. Shaking a tad, I grasp it between both of my... hooves. The lid seems to have been opened. I look inside to see the wrapping is still there but the necklace is gone! I look around frantically for it. As I move I feel something on my shoulder. The necklace! It seems to have attached itself to my forearm, or foreleg? like some kind of arm band. And it's become a cartoon too. The dark green jewel shines as a I watch it and it seems to almost glow. It gets brighter as I stare at it and then some beam shoots out of it like a bolt of lightning! The beam stops over the foot of my bed and starts to flatten out into a yellow disc of some sort. I crouch behind my bed, unable to do anything but watch as a figure of some sort appears in the disc.
The figure steps out of the disc as the disc vanishes behind it. A portal of some sort? The figure raises its head. From the moment I see it I recognize who it is. My eyes dart back and fourth between the t.v behind her and the purple unicorn at the foot of my bed. She speaks, "My name is-". 
"Twilight Sparkle!" I practically shout her name. "I know who you are! Wh-what are you doing here?! How is this possib-" she raises a hoof "Please calm down, let me explain". I felt faint. This couldn't be real. I nodded my head and tried to calm down. "Obviously you know who I am. We've known about your world for some time but this is the first time I've ever been here. I've read about Earth in books and clearly... " she notices the image still frozen on t.v. "I've seen Equestria on television.", I say, completing her explanation.
"Wait, no this can't be real. I... I'm clearly seeing things." I shake my head in disbelief. "Can't be real?" Twilight says. "Both our worlds exist within each other in some form. If my world didn't exist, you wouldn't know anything about it. Equestria is just a little more real than you thought it was." she says as she looks around my apartment. I guess what she said made sense. I rub both my hooves together again. Real in some form? I remember the old saying 'anything is possible'. While a tad cliche, that saying was more true to me now than ever before.
"Why are you here? In my apartment? And Why am I like... this?" I ask as calmly as I can manage. "We recently discovered old texts about some powerful magic artifacts from Equestria, lost long ago. That band your wearing is one of them. It's one of 6 items, the Elements of Heroism that were used to save Equestria in ages past. It was said though that they were too powerful for any one pony to control and so they were hidden in a far away place. I had no idea that place would be out of a book though." A book. Earth, the whole planet a book. I wonder who wrote it in Equestria... I hope it has a happy ending. Maybe I could get a copy?
She walks over to me, "The Elements of Heroism are linked to the Elements of Harmony, when you activated that one, my Element of Magic reacted. I was able to use that link to create a portal to Earth. As for why you've become a pony... my only guess is that you couldn't use the element in your natural state so the element must have changed you so you could wield its power." she explained. I shake my head, "Hold on. How did I activate this element? I can't do magic. Well, I can do the vanishing coin trick... but that's not the same, that's just an illusion." 
"Let me see it." she says. I hesitate for a second before holding out my hoof where the band is attatched. She examines it for a moment, "This is the Element of Luck. You must've done something lucky to activate it."  Something lucky? Immediately I think back to the shop. The storekeeper, the coin game. I knew there was something strange about that old man. "This was supposed to be a birthday present for my girlfriend Leena. I went to an antique shop downtown... or at least what I thought was an antique shop. It was a necklace last night. The storekeeper offered it to me if I won a bet. He spun a coin and I won. I should've known it wouldn't be that easy. I'm never this lucky... I'm not even sure I believe luck exists." I tell Twilight in a hopless tone. "Well, obviously luck exists in some form or we wouldn't be talking about it." she says as she lets go of my hoof. 
"You said it was a necklace first?" she asks. "Yeah, my girlfriend Leena lost her necklace about a month ago and I wanted to get her a new one." I reach over to my wallet on the nightstand. I carefully use both hooves to try to open it up. I can tell it's not going to be easy doing anything with hooves. Holding the wallet apart, I show her the picture."This is me and Leena, that's her wearing the necklace she lost." I say, holding it in front of her carefully. Suddenly, her horn glows purple and my wallet levitates out of my hooves. It stops right in front of her face and she examines it. The magic she uses, just like in the cartoon. "Nathan Sheffield. That's your name?" she asks. "Yeah, I'm Nathan and that's Leena on the right." I say, pointing to the picture. "So this is what you normally look like? You're called humans right? So you do walk on your two hind legs..." she says. Exactly what did this book she read say about Earth?
"Wait, that necklace your girlfriend is wearing. I think that's one of the Elements of Heroism!" she says. I look at the picture, "The reason I bought this one is because it looked like her old one. You're saying they're both elements?" "That's what it looks like but I can't make out which one it is. We have find it and fast." she says, levitating the wallet back to my night stand. "Wait, why do we need to find it?" I ask. "One of Equestria's biggest threats has resurfaced once again. A creature of pure chaos called-" "Discord." I complete her sentence. "You seem to know a lot about Equestria." she says. "I've seen it a lot on t.v. It's one of my favorite cartoons... or I guess real life documentaries now." "Then you know how dangerous he is. We're not entirely sure how he broke out but when he did, he demanded that Princess Celestia give him the Elements of Heroism. She didn't know what he was talking about though and he disappeared. It's then we started to look them up and found that they were on Earth. It's a good thing your element activated or I wouldn't have been able to come here. We have to get to the Elements before Discord. Have you seen any sign of him on Earth?"
I freeze and feel the hairs across my body stand on end as started to think of that shopkeeper again. This was all too convenient. "I think I may have already met Discord." I said. "That old man in the antique store. I knew there was something weird about him. I have a sneaking suspicion that was Discord in the shop. He must've known this would happen... but why- oh no." I say, coming to a realization. "I showed him the picture of Leena and the necklace. If that was Discord then he already knows what to look for." "We have to get to your girlfriend and find that Element." she says as she enters the living room heading to the door of my apartment.
"Wait, no we can't leave; We can't let anyone see you or me like this. Cartoon ponies don't just go walking about the streets! We'll be arrested, studied, I don't know what!" I exlaim. "We don't have any other choice. I won't be able to use a teleportation spell for at least a week after making that portal and I can't use any transformation or even the wing spell without studying the materials of this world first. You really think people will flip out if they see us?" she asks. "At least! We'll probably be captured by the military, taken to Area 51 or something. If they catch us the'll want to study us, run experiments and-"
"Nathan." she stops me before I say something else I'll regret thinking about. "If Discord finds these elements, he'll plunge both our worlds into a state of eternal chaos. I don't know if we can even stop him with the Elements of Harmony. If we don't get those elements before him, all is lost." She was right. "Okay." I said quietly. "But she lives across town. We can't just walk there." "It's too far to walk?" she asks.
"Yeah..." I begin to explain, remembering how small Ponyville is in the show. "We get around by riding in these things called cars, they're like horseless carriages made of metal that travel on rubber wheels but I can't really drive mine with me being like this." "I think I've read about cars before. We have similar modes of transportation in Ponyville. Maybe I can drive using my magic." she says excitedly. I look down at my hooves. "Let me get my keys." I say with a sigh.
I look at my keys on the nightstand. I guess I didn't need my wallet. No one was going to recognize me anyway. I grab the keys in my mouth, seeing no other way to carry them. How was this even going to work? I couldn't think about that now. Leena could be in trouble. We had to get there and fast.