//------------------------------// // Chapter 13: Assessing the Danger // Story: There's a Monster Pony Outside My Window // by Halira //------------------------------// Charles was in Andrea and Kristin's room, trying to pack up clothes for them. There was only so much they could bring with them in the car to the hotel, and they had no idea how long it would be till they had access to the items in their house again. He and Wendy had already decided that each of the girls should be allowed to bring a small box of toys, even though they'd be cramped for space. They couldn't just leave the field with nothing to do.  Wendy was in Charlotte's room, doing the same task. The doors between the two rooms were wide open, and Charles had a clear view of his wife. Wendy seemed torn between her task and trying to look out into the living room every thirty seconds, slowing her down considerably. Charles couldn't blame her anxiety. Miss Newman was in the living room with the girls, and neither of them was happy about them being left alone with the older woman, but packing needed to be done, and the kids couldn't be expected to accomplish it. Miss Newman likewise had nowhere to go and was awaiting the return call from her former landlord. The four of them were now watching videotapes of old cartoons that they had recorded.  There were other things to address. What were they going to do about the pets? They could try bringing them along, but their cages would take up space in an already cramped station wagon, space that was further cramped by needing to fit a third adult in it. Perhaps they could convince Miss Newman to travel in her pony form with a blanket over her? That would save some space; not a lot, but every little bit helped. It might be a good idea anyway. From what he could tell, she didn't have access to her powers when she was in human form, and if something happened, it would be better if she could use her abilities rather than be as useless as him or Wendy. Maybe she could do something as human and hadn't shown it yet. He'd have to ask her.  There were still more things to do; they needed to inform the kids' school that they were suddenly moving; the same went for Wendy's work and his. Not being able to give a two-week notice wasn't a great thing. In Wendy's case, the fact she was out with injury for two weeks made that transition a little easier. What it didn't make easier was figuring out what to do about her follow-up doctor appointments. They also had to figure out how their remaining things that weren't moving tonight were going to be packed up and moved, and they needed to get in touch with their bank about the mortgage. So much to do in so little time. His head spun with how fast his world had been upended, and that wasn't even getting into the fantastical other things going on.  He passed his hands over Kristin's game system. Not an electronics expert but a lawyer. He had misplaced his guess on his daughter's future. Of course, that was his daughter's future before all this stuff had occurred. Who knew what she would end up as now. Electronics could still be in her future; it was a blank slate. Even Miss Newman said Kristin was a bright girl who could succeed at anything she put her mind to and didn't need to tie herself to any particular path. His attention turned to Andrea's walkie-talkies that she played police officer with. A government agent was sort of like a police officer. It was law enforcement, just answerable to the federal government rather than local or state. Miss Newman hadn't said FBI or CIA to clarify, but something like that seemed to be what she meant. Pride welled up in him because both Andrea and Kristin seemed to have ended up very successful.  He frowned as he turned his attention back to Wendy's progress packing Charlotte's room. Charlotte was the concerning one of the three, extremely concerning. Nothing about her right now suggested any crazy future, but Miss Newman avoided saying exact details about Charlotte. From what little Charles had gathered from the tidbits Miss Newman had dropped, Charlotte wasn't a bad person in the future, but she had a complicated history loaded with bad decisions and mistakes. She was also apparently very famous and notable, an expert at multiple unknown somethings, and had killed at least one pony...person...in self-defense, or at least, in defense of a child. She'd also been, at some point, deeply involved with the group that was now trying to kill her before turning on them. Being involved with such a hateful group that condoned the murder of children, even temporarily involved, was not something he could imagine any of his girls ever being caught up in.  What the hell went so wrong with my baby girl's life to make things end up like that? Was it something Wendy or I did or didn't do? She's such a happy little girl, so innocent. She's not any of that stuff. Charles thought to himself as he sadly shook his head.  But Charlotte wouldn't be a baby girl in Miss Newman's time. She'd be in her mid-sixties, more than twice Charles or Wendy's current age. And Andrea...thank God Andrea hadn't come back in time from that far in the future. Andrea would be over seventy, and despite her supposed history of being a government agent and the fact ponies supposedly aged more gracefully, she was too old to be trying to defend a family—seventy years old was still seventy, and Miss Newman said they had similar lifespans. Regardless, the point was that everyone, good or bad, was just a cute little kid once upon a time. Charlotte's once upon a time just happened to be at the current moment.  He finished packing his two older daughter's clothes and walked into the other room to join his wife. The suitcase with Charlotte's clothing was filled, but Wendy was looking over various other things in the room while still casting glances back to the living room. "Think the girls' clothes are all packed," Charles announced. "We need to get our stuff ready." Wendy silently nodded, but instead of moving on, she sat down on Charlotte's bed and picked up Charlotte's favorite stuffed animal, a greenish-yellow dinosaur she had named Squeezer.  "It's so hard to think of my little girls as all grown up where Miss Newman comes from," Wendy said softly. "She talks about them like she knows them." Charles sat down next to his wife. "Yeah, I got that impression too." He forced a chuckle. "At least she gave glowing reviews." "For Andrea and Kristin," Wendy said in a whisper.  He agreed and had been echoing those same thoughts in his head just moments before, but he still felt the need to play devil's advocate. "Charlotte's stuff seemed a mixed bag, but there was some good stuff in there. She fought to defend a kid...I assume that's what's meant by the term foal. She's good at a lot of things too. The family sticks by her too, and they wouldn't do that if she were a horrible person." "Being good at a lot of things could be good or bad, depending on what things, and a family can forgive almost anything," Wendy muttered.  "Well, we don't need to worry about that because that version of Charlotte is a completely different person than our daughter. She may have shared the same history up until a few days ago, but things have changed now," Charles reminded her.  "But how much?" Wendy questioned. "Should we be more disciplinarian with her, so we keep her on the right track? Do we do what Joan says we should do and enforce more traditional girl stereotypes on her?" "We don't enforce those things on any of our girls, and Andrea and Kristin turned out well," Charles replied. "We have no way of knowing what went wrong or if we had anything to do with how we raise her. Life can get crazy, and we're responsible for our kids for only a fraction of their lives. We don't know what may have happened after she left our care. We do know at least one big thing happened, that whole turning into a pony thing. I figure that had to turn many things upside down, and nothing we could have taught our kids could have prepared them for that. I mean, who could anticipate anything like that or have any idea what advice to give? It's an unreal situation that had to have changed the course of everyone's lives." "Like the situation we are in now?" Wendy asked, looking him in the eye.  He shrugged. "Well, guess our girls are going to be some of the few who get practice at dealing with impossible situations well ahead of time." Wendy looked out to the living room again. "Why do you think Miss Newman doesn't look like the pony that knocked me into the street? And why did that pony have to do it physically while Miss Newman can move things without touching them?" "Guess there are different types of ponies. She mentioned Andrea's type in the future naturally messed up things like time travel and that necklace of hers," Charles answered. "Kristin and Andrea stated that one of the ponies they saw had feathers and the other didn't. The one that hit you and the one Charlotte saw had no feathers. Miss Newman doesn't even have wings." "We should ask her. We need to know what we're up against if we are expected to defend ourselves," Wendy said, seeming to pull herself out of her funk as she struggled to stand up with one arm. Charles provided her a shoulder to brace herself against, and Wendy accepted gratefully. "We have time; let's go do it now." They walked in and found the girls' attention glued to the TV while Miss Newman shook her head in disbelief.  Miss Newman gestured a hand at the screen. "I honestly forgot this show even existed. It's like they made a male version of Tempest, made him a horse, and then created the worst show intro I have ever witnessed or had the displeasure of listening to. Have you seen this horse's expressions? Every scene looks like he is technically possessed and ready to eat your liver!" "I like Wildfire!" Charlotte exclaimed.  The older woman gave the child a dirty look. "Count this as the first of many questionable life choices that you'll regret in the future." Charles was now the one who had to stare in disbelief. "We have killer ponies after us. You are making us move. You time-traveled from sixty years in the future to here, and the thing you are currently concerned about is the quality of cartoons our kids are watching?" She shrugged. "There's nothing important I need to be doing at the moment. The ponies won't try anything in daylight when they can be easily spotted, and we all need downtime. I hope Jim calls back soon. I could use a nap before we go to the hotel. I didn't get any sleep last night." "Well, since you don't have anything important to do right now, can you tell us exactly what those ponies that are after us are capable of doing, or what you are capable of doing for that matter?" Wendy asked.  "They have a vampire pony that will suck our blood!" Charlotte explained and positioned her fingers like they were fangs.  Miss Newman was not impressed. "I'm glad you're adjusting to the situation," she said dryly. "However, she isn't a vampire." "But it's got bat wings like a vampire!" Kristin insisted. "Is it a bat pony?" "That term is considered a slur, and that pony is a she, not an it," Miss Newman explained. "She is primarily nocturnal. Bright light hurts her eyes. She can't fly as high or fast as a pegasus, but she can see better in the dark than you can see in daylight. She has some other powers, but they're not useful here because you don't have dreams that connect to that realm and can ensure mine operates on the wrong wavelength for her." Charles raised his hand like a student in a class. "I didn't understand any of that last part." "It's irrelevant, so don't worry about it," Miss Newman replied. "Now, they also have a pegasus and a unicorn. The pegasus stallion can fly higher and faster than his compatriot. He can also alter the weather on a tiny scale. However, pegasi typically need whole teams to do anything notable to the weather, so we shouldn't need to concern ourselves with that part. He's no Rainbow Dash, Sunrise Storm, or Sapphire Sky, so his weather magic isn't going to cause us any trouble." "What are Rainbow—" Wendy started to ask. Miss Newman cut her off. "Also not relevant. The third one is a unicorn, like me, and he is the one we most need to worry about confronting—other than their human allies. Statistically speaking, he has far more magical power than me since I'm on the weak side. He is also clearly skilled enough to figure out how to operate my spell, which means he probably has a wide variety of spells at his disposal. I'm pretty sure he's the one who burned down my house." Charles bit his lip. "You say spells. Do you mean like magic?" She nodded. "Yes, like magic." "Magic isn't real," Charles countered.  Miss Newman rolled her eyes. "Seriously? You have a talking unicorn in your house who can transform into a human who has used magic on you, and you are going to play that card?" She paused and took a deep breath before taking on a lecturing tone. "Let me give you a scientific explanation. It is the manipulation of thaumic energy, traditionally called dark energy by physicists, to create controlled and complex reactions with other thaumic energy, thaumic matter, non-thaumic energy, and non-thaumic matter. The entire universe is highly saturated with thaumic energy, but life on Earth has a unique adaptation that keeps it normally noninteractive with thaumic energy. However, ponies are interactive with it, and with it, we do what is popularly called magic because magic sounds better than thaumically interactive. Does that explanation satisfy you for the moment?" "You don't have to be so rude about it," Wendy muttered.  The older woman leaned back in her seat. "Sorry. It's no excuse, but I'm overtired and just as stressed as you. Finding all those fires forcefully starting around the house last night put me on edge. I have an affinity for fire magic, but that was too much for me to handle. I barely managed the teleport out. That's why getting you the hell out of Dodge is the best course of action. I can't win against that other unicorn in a direct confrontation. I'm smarter and more skilled, but he his raw powerful counters anything I could do in a sudden pinch." Being told that they were outgunned didn't fill Charles with any more confidence about their situation. Running did seem to be the best choice. The problem was it wasn't a choice. He hated that this older woman or old pony or whoever she was had just swooped in and been able to take control of their lives in a day. The only reason he accepted it was his family was in danger, and she was the only one that understood what they were facing.  "I wish Jim would hurry up and call back with that hotel information. What's taking so long?" Miss Newman muttered as she went back to watching cartoons.