//------------------------------// // Ch. 1 Breaking Canon // Story: Ponified Without Consent 2 // by Kaidan //------------------------------// Apple Bloom I am not an adrenaline junky. I hate roller coasters, roller skates, or any movement-based pastime. I have enough trouble keeping myself in one piece while standing still. I once broke my wrist while using a table (don’t ask). Like the opium poppy, I enjoy a happily sedentary life filled with mind-altering substances and don’t care much for excitement and raw speed. Perhaps that’s why I loved the cartoon so much; I could enjoy it from the couch with a heavy buzz and without a serious threat to my life. Which made the sensation of clinging to Scootaloo’s rickety death trap about as far outside my comfort zone as was imaginable. The speed was insane, the lack of fingers terrifying, and the ride about as comfortable as a massage chair made of broken glass and sharp rocks. How a wagon straight out of Calvin and Hobbes roped to the back of a glorified skateboard with handlebars could hold together seemed impossible. I feared it would fall apart every time we hit another teeth-jarring dip in the road to Ponyville. Even worse was the pilot. “Scootaloo!” I screamed over the sound of buzzing wings, all four legs wedged into the corners of the wagon. “Stahp this crazy thiiiiing!” “Why?” she shouted back as she turned around to give me a broad smile. “We’ve done this like a thousand times before! There’s nothing to be worried about.” “Eyes front! Eyes front!” I screamed louder. “Oh, stop your complaining, Apple Bloom. I’ve totally got the hang of this now.” “Now?” I squeaked. “Yeah.” She finally turned back around to see where she was going, narrowly avoiding some doddering old stallion who looked two-steps away from the glue factory. “It didn’t take long. It’s all really intuitive. Well, except for braking. I haven’t quite figured that one out.” My pupils narrowed. “Dear god, ah’m gonna die.” “What was that?” “Watch where you’re going!” “I am, I am. Hold your horses.” Scootaloo laughed at her own joke. Doing my best to avoid being thrown free and turned into a quadriplegic pony, I found my thoughts turning to my host. Scootaloo seemed… different than I remembered. Sure, she was just one of the Cutie Mark Crusaders and so utterly worthless for anything but acting as a Mary Sue for the show’s target demographic. But her unfailing optimism, her off-center commentary, and her unbridled enthusiasm all seemed over the top for a pony who had been living this way their whole life, and… Oh god. Unbridled. Now I’m doing the shitty horse puns too! Groaning, I looked back up at Scootaloo. “How far is Ponyville now?” She squinted. “Not far. I can see the buildings and… woah! They really do look like gingerbread houses. That’s awesome!” There was a loud thunk as we struck a sizable pothole, sending us up onto two wheels for what seemed like an eternity, and making me relieved that I’d managed to figure out the bathroom earlier. “Can’t we stahp and walk the rest of the way?” “No way, Apple Bloom! We’re on an adventure, and that means having fun!” “This ain’t fun! This is suicide!” “That cart looks like it would be a perfect ramp! Cool!” The buzzing of her wings reached a fever pitch. “Cutie Mark Crusader Stunt Ponies!” My face went white. “Oh no no no no!” I knew I was sounding more pathetic with every syllable, but I didn’t care. The promise of grievous bodily harm had that effect on me. “Ah swear, if you let me get out right now I’ll comb your mane and paint your hooves and… and whatever other stupid things you wanna do!” Scootaloo just laughed louder as she leaned forward in rabid excitement. “Too late for that now! Hold on tight!” With a loud “Wahoooo!” we struck the improvised ramp and shot off into the sky. To her credit we did manage to hit the ramp cleanly, our trajectory stable and smooth. It was a moment of pristine weightlessness as we broke the surly bonds of earth and touched the face of god, the only sounds the whistling of the wind past our ears and my blood-curdling scream as I lost my grip on the wagon. My life as a yellow ballistic missile was a short one. The launch might have been perfect, but the dumb chicken hadn’t really been watching just where she’d been aiming. The windows of the Carousel Boutique exploded in a shower of glass and shredded curtains as the pair of us, along with the scooter and the parasitic cart attached to it, blasted in through the side of the building. It was a whirlwind of sound and pain. The world rotated around me. This was it. This was the end. With the last of my strength, I cursed Scootaloo. The floor filled my vision as it rose to meet me. And then everything went mauve. Sweetie Belle Rarity had given pretty clear instructions that I should stay in my room while she went to hire someone to fix the windows. So, naturally, I decided to ignore that. If I was going to be stuck as this mewling marshmallow for any length of time then I might as well have a little fun messing with Rarity. To that end, I’d found a sharpie in a drawer and started drawing on all of her dress mannequins. She had a lot of them, in fact about eighty percent of the house was just sewing shit.  There was a little room upstairs belonging to Sweetie Belle, but that was worse than all the yards of fabric rolled up all over the place. Plush frilly comforters, a toy dollhouse, an entire vanity with makeup for fillies. Would it have been too much to ask for a little Lovecraft or some intergalactic cable? Apparently it was. But I digress. Currently several of her mannequins were done and I was finishing up another one. I’d started mostly out of boredom, but the idea of turning each one into a guide to the best cuts of meat on a cow caught on quickly—ok so I know these are pony mannequins—but it’s still hilarious to me. Now each time Rarity went to work on a dress she could measure the chuck, ensure a nice fit on the shank, or make sure the short loin was simply marvelous darling. Once I was done I could get some ketchup to simulate the blood, maybe decapitate one of the mannequins. I’d turn this into my own little house of horrors by the time she got back. Let’s see a bar of soap fix that! I rolled my eyes and then heard a loud crashing sound before the wind was knocked out of me. I’ve seen those movies like Saving Private Ryan where a mortar goes off and you hear a high pitched ringing. It seemed a little gimmicky to have time slow down and everything goes to black and white. Not to mention how everyone nearby spoke in those high-pitched tones like a Charlie Brown cartoon. But let me tell you, it was pretty accurate. The first thing I did, after the cheap shot threw me into a wall, was check my marshmallow stubs they call legs for injuries. Nothing looked broken, or even like it had bones for that matter. Once I got to my hooves with a splitting headache and looked around, sure enough I found the second and third worst pony standing there making those damn high pitched noises at me with their mouths. I could feel my horn throbbing, as Apple Bloom shouted something at Scootaloo. The pegasus was bouncing around like a kid who needed to be kept on a leash. I think she was saying something about how awesome the jump was. “Could you just shut the fuck up? You’re killing me here,” I said. The two of them turned to face me in shock, and I realized they probably heard something very differently from what I’d actually said. Apple Bloom took a step closer to me, “I swear to god if you hug me I’ll throw you through a window!” I shouted. I’d had enough of that from Rarity earlier. “You can swear? What the hell is going on here?” Apple Bloom asked. Now it was my turn to stare back at them with a dumbfounded expression on my face. “Wait, you heard that? I tried to tell Rarity what a prissy little c—” “Hey!” Scootaloo interjected. “Come on, that’s not cool. You’re gonna get us all in trouble.” “Ah told Applejack to piss off and she wasn’t too thrilled, but it wasn’t until ah said shit that she got really mad at me,” Apple Bloom explained. “Ah kept trying to tell her that ah’m human but she’d have none of it.” I chuckled and had to sit down to keep from falling over. “Oh this is great, you’re here to suffer with me. We’re stuck here forever, but at least I’ll have company.” “Come on, it’s not that bad!” Scootaloo was fixing up her scooter and gathering all the helmets as she spoke. “I mean, I’ve hit like ten trees and two buildings since I got here and not a scratch on me. We get to go wherever we want and do whatever we want as long as we’re here!” “Wait, y'all are human too, and ya kept cuddlin’ and all that crap with me?” Apple Bloom said. I thought for a moment she was about to punch Scootaloo in the face, but sadly she didn’t. It would have been too entertaining. “Well, duh… I mean I thought it was just me and I was doing my best not to get caught and sent home by anypony,” Scootaloo said. “Any one” I corrected. “Can it,” Scootaloo smirked and said in a sing-song voice “Sweeetiee Beeeeellle. You’re not gonna last a week before they catch you if you keep trying to break character.” I started to stomp over towards Scootaloo, my horn emitting sparks as my anger built up. “You little orphan piece of—” Before I could give her a piece of my mind, Apple Bloom stepped between us. “Hold yer horses—damn it, ah mean—” she sighed. “What ah mean is, if we’re all human we need to work together to get outta Equestria.” “How?” I asked. “Everytime I say something that Sweetie wouldn’t say, Rarity just hears something she would say. How do I even know what I can even say or do?” “Maybe try playing along for a bit?” Scootaloo asked. “I’ve been all over town today and had no problems. Maybe we can go cutie mark crusading for a human.” I shook my head, “In character? Like lug suitcases around for Rarity? Or try to explain to her why one of the windows she just paid to replace is shattered again and get another talk?.” I gestured up to the shattered window that the two fillies turned projectiles had recently hurtled through. “Well, how about ya try to not act canon?” Apple Bloom gestured to paper weight on a nearby desk. “Toss it through a window and see if somethin’ stops ya.” I rolled my eyes, “what, like the show is sentient and can stop me from chucking a rock through a window?” I focused on the paper weight and began to levitate it in the air. Okay, so maybe that magical puberty crap Rarity had made me listen to wasn’t all bad. At least now that I figured levitation out it’d be a lot easier to manipulate things, and I’d never have to use my mouth on a door knob. I took aim with the paper weight and with a minor effort of will, it shot out at the window next to the front door, and harmlessly bounced off. “Oh come on!” Apple Bloom went over to the window and climbed up onto the desk below it, then spun around and kicked it with her back hooves. Again the window was unharmed. I heard scrapping on the floor as something was dragged across it. I turned around to find that Scootaloo had lined up half a broken table, and was dragging over a couple mannequins. She looked at the one I’d colored in with a sharpie and laughed, “got beef?” “What on Earth are you doing Scootaloo?” I asked. “I’m telling you, you’ve gotta play by the rules. Sweetie wouldn’t just break a window in the show, but I’d totally do a cool stunt to jump over some mannequins and accidentally go through a window. You and Apple Bloom can hop in the wagon, and we can ride over to Applejack’s house to figure out how to get you two back to Earth.” I laughed and pointed at the wagon. “You want me to get in that death trap so you can fling us through a glass window?” Apple Bloom was already putting her helmet on, strapping it so tightly that you could see her flesh bulging around it. “Ah don’t like the idea either, but ah don’t want to be here when Rarity gets back. Applejack’ll kill me, and she’s already got half a tree up her ass from this mornin’. Until we can get back to Earth, ah have had enough lectures.” I looked back to Scootaloo, who had gotten the scooter and the wagon all set up for this ridiculous stunt jump through the surviving ground floor window. She reached a hoof out to me holding a helmet, “Come with me if you want to live…” I sighed and took the helmet, already imagining the absolute fit Rarity was going to have when she got back and found the mess those two bumbling morons had made.  Maybe by then I could sneak out into the apple orchard where she wouldn’t find me, and have a little time to think of a better plan than these two nutjobs had so far offered. “Son of a bitch… I’m in.” As I climbed into the wagon I surveyed the destruction around us. Several mannequins bent or broken, plus nicely drawn in dotted lines to cut out some choice steaks. A table had been smashed, and spools of loose fabric were everywhere. “You know, if this isn’t out of character, I don’t know what is. It looks like Vietnam in here.” “Uh,” Scootaloo looked back. “So there’s kinda a trick to this and you’re gonna want to hold on tight and try not to look down. Or to the side. Or back. In fact, you might just want to close your eyes the first time.” I sighed and looked at Apple Bloom, whose hooves seemed to be latched onto the wagon and turning white from the decreased circulation. “Ah’d do what she says.” “Okay.” I took a look around for something to grab onto, and then at the squishy ends of my legs. Drowning out Scootaloo’s incessant chatter was the easy part. Well, as easy as ignoring a swarm of killer bees descending on you to slowly sting you to death, as your flesh swells and your airway collapses. That might have been preferable to the absolutely saccharine nature of Scootaloo. I found it hard to believe they actually wanted to be stuck in Equestria. But I guess there’s— I let out a very manly shout and definitely not a high pitched scream as the wagon suddenly lurched forward. My legs shot out in every direction to find purchase on the wagon as there was a loud shattering sound and more of my masculine war cries filled the air. I certainly did not wet myself a little as gravity reversed for several seconds before the wagon slammed into the ground. “What in the name of Celestia!” someone shouted. I could barely hear it over the thudding of the wagon wheels as it spun sideways, and took a hard right. My brain was still trying to process the jump, and we were already halfway across the street. The wagon skipped for a moment and that sickening weightlessness overtook me again, only this time it didn’t go away until something hit my head hard. The ringing filled my ears again and the dull ache in my head became a symphony of screeching nails on the chalkboard. “I’m gonna pluck every single feather off that worthless chicken,” I muttered. Something cast a shadow over me, before I heard the all too familiar voice of Satan—or more accurately Sweetie’s beloved big sister. “Sweetie Belle! What on Equestria are you three crusading for this time? And right through my front window!” “I don’t suppose you’d believe me if I said we were curing cancer?” I said as I rolled over and stood back up. I began to brush some of the dirt off my fur, which was a nice shade of brown now instead of white. “I don’t care what kind of interpretive dancer you were trying to be, I could barely afford to replace the windows you broke last time…” Rarity sighed, and shook her head. “Sometimes I think mom and dad only want us spending time together so they can recover financially. I’m sure I can do a few favors for the construction ponies to lower the cost…” I giggled and looked at Rarity, “Favors? Like sexual ones?” She nodded her head. “Yes, perpetual favors for my dear sister who is constantly getting into trouble. Now come on inside, I need to help you clean up before bed, and I’d rather not find out what happens when you try to get a cutie mark while taking a bubble bath.” Scootaloo The houses in ponyville were flying past me much faster than when we’d come into town, and I looked back to see why the wagon was suddenly so much lighter. “Yep! Sweetie fell out, I tried to warn her!” “Stop! This! Now!” Apple Bloom barked. I stopped flapping my wings and let the scooter and wagon naturally slow down. Once it finally came to a stop I got off, and watched Apple Bloom stumble out of the wagon. “That. Was. Awesome! And it proved a couple very important things! First, somepony should really invent brakes.” I waited for Apple Bloom to ask, and finally she did. “And what’s the second thing?” “That we can get away with stuff as long as it’s canon! I mean, what even was that? A cutie mark crusade for best wrecking crew? But I guess we got a pass!” Apple Bloom started counting under her breath, and I gave her a little space to gather her thoughts. “Can ya just stop being so… Scootaloo? Ya don’t gotta keep up the act, ah know ah’m not the only human here anymore. There’s three of us.” I sighed and lowered my ears and wings. “Well, yeah I mean I could but… you’re really not enjoying this at all? How many people can say they’ve gotten to visit Equestria?” “Three, an’ two of ‘em ain’t half as amused as you about it,” she replied. “Yeah… look, like I said I’ll help you get home, but I still have to meet Dash and have her teach me to fly, and that’s just the start of the bucket list. I knew you’d been acting weird, I should have guessed you’re human too and hitched a ride here.” “Ah should have guessed you were human, ya were just so damn annoying an’ over the top for Scootaloo.” “Uh, thanks… I think.” I began to slowly pull the wagon along behind my scooter at a slow pace. Apple Bloom started walking down the road towards Sweet Apple Acres, her home already visible. “Ah guess ah can let you do you, just dial it down a bit would ya? We left Sweetie back there when we should be plannin’ about how to get home.” “To be fair, did you really want to stick around to have Rarity yell at us?” I asked. She shook her head, looking up at her house. Applejack was standing outside trying to look busy, but it was clear she was waiting for Apple Bloom to get home. “But ah ain’t lookin’ forward to spendin’ time around the Apple family neither. They’re so uptight.” I looked up and saw Applejack waiting in the distance and got an idea. “You know, I could play along and keep them distracted anytime they come to bug you. Let me sleep over and snuggle, and we’ll catch up with Sweetie tomorrow.” “Ya gotta be kiddin’ me, ya know ah’m not Apple Bloom, we ain’t gonna snuggle.” Apple Bloom gave me a look and I knew I wouldn’t win that argument. “Fine, but I get to sleep in the bed, not the floor, and I’ll keep Applejack from driving you crazy. I still haven’t figured out where my cardboard box or whatever is. The show wasn’t very specific.” Apple Bloom looked up again, Applejack was only about fifty feet away now. “Fine, deal. Ah’d suggest not antagonizing Sweetie next time we meet up to discuss our escape plans, ah might let her hit ya next time.” I laughed out loud and nodded, “Yeah, but that was pretty fun. Plus, it wouldn’t be canon for me to die so what’s the worst she can do? I mean, for all we know we will wake up back on Earth tomorrow.” By now we’d reached Applejack, and I looked up and wondered what she’d hear if I kept talking about Earth. “Hey sugarcube, ya feelin’ better now that ya spent some time with yer friends?” she asked Apple Bloom. “Yeah!” I interjected and smiled. “We had a lot of fun today, Applejack!” She looked from Apple Bloom, who was probably scowling like someone had just killed her puppy, to me. “Why thanks for cheerin’ her up, Scootaloo. If it’s okay, ya can sleep over tonight. We were just about ta serve dinner.” I felt my stomach rumbling and imagined the buffet of apple-themed foods they’d be serving. “I’d love that, thanks.” “Sounds good to you too, Apple Bloom?” Applejack looked back over to check on her sister. “Yeah, thanks… sis.” She managed a pretty weak smile but it was apparently enough for Applejack to drop the issue and turn to lead us inside. I leaned in towards Apple Bloom and whispered, “Mission accomplished. See? Not so bad, and playing along a bit never hurt anypony.” She shrugged and nodded, heading inside. Already I could smell something sweet and cinnamon, and made up my mind to enjoy every second I could. Things had gotten a little more complicated, but I wouldn’t let a couple spoil-sports that tail-gated into Equestria with me ruin my dream come true.