//------------------------------// // The First Beat // Story: Brony Recon: A New Song // by Ykayney //------------------------------// It was a Thursday morning and the results day for my A-Levels. My name is Sam, a normal, geeky guy who likes computers, playing video games and I play guitar. Oh, and I like Ponies. Like I said, totally normal. I had set the alarm on my bedside clock for 8:00am, but, as my body-clock likes to do, I ended up waking 15 minutes early. I got up out of bed and went about my morning routine. It wasn’t until I began getting my breakfast ready that my mother finally woke up. I sat down with my laptop next to me and begin eating. If people apart from my close friends found out what I eat for breakfast they’d think of me as weirder than they already did. I eat sausage rolls for breakfast, heated in a microwave... Yeah. As the time approached for me to leave for school to collected my results, I became incredibly nervous. Shaking a bit with the tiniest of twitches happening every now and again, I knew this feeling all too well. 9:30am came and my mother drove me down to school, admittedly I probably could’ve walked. I walked in to see my friend, Andy, standing outside the Main Hall holding a large envelope. “Hey Andy, got yours already?” I began. “Yeah, I’m too nervous to open it. Hurry up and get yours so we can look together.” He didn’t look nervous but I guess I didn’t either. I tend to calm down a bit when I’m with friends. I walk inside the hall and scan the long table of envelopes, near the other end of the table I spot an envelope with my name printed on a sticker attached to it, it was luckily on top of the package. I began to feel sick as I reached for the large, white object. Remembering back to my exams and how badly they went, along with seeing visions of the disappointed faces of my teachers as they looked at my coursework. I grab hold of it and walked out quickly to meet Andy. I spoke as I approached him, “You ready?” I took hold of the seal. Andy let out an audible gulp and replied “Yep!” For someone who was supposedly nervous and always expected the worse I found the positivity to be a surprise. We opened our envelopes almost simultaneously and began slowly flicking through pages to reach our grades. Andy was first to his and his anxious face turned to a slightly disappointed one. Then I saw my results, my mouth drop open slightly and heart began to feel heavy and if I didn’t something soon I knew I was going to throw up. I had passed, but barely. Out of the 3 subjects I had taken I received an E grade in all of them. I felt an urge of happiness rush through me as well as sadness. Sure I had passed, but for what reason, in all honesty, these were terrible passing grades and I know that I could have done better. That’s when I realised. Hiding between two sheets of paper that I had pulled from the envelope was another smaller envelope, almost business card size. I pulled it out and showed it to Andy, “Hey look at this. Do you have one?” Andy looked between his sheets of paper then back into his large envelope spotting a similar envelope to what I had found and u he pulled it out. “Yeah, I do. Any idea what it says?” He asked as he looked back towards me. “Not yet.” I opened the small envelope and pulled out a letter which when I unfolded became the size of an A5 piece of paper. I began reading the letter: Dear Samuel Kane, For now you may refer to me as MB. I am writing this letter to invite you to join a project I have been a part of. When told by our superiors that we needed more to join us, I knew instantly that i should pick you two. You seem like the kind of people I can trust, so I am inviting you to initially meet me inside of your local woods (I presume you know the one) on 20th August 2012 to discuss further what exactly this project ensues. Thank you for taking the time to read this letter and I await our meeting. Yours sincerely, MB Andy had been reading his letter whilst I read mine out loud. “Mine says exactly the same, obviously apart from the name change.” I pondered over the contents of the letter for a moment. There was something about it that seemed familiar. Something that seemed to give Andy an excited appearance. “Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m gonna go home.” I nodded towards the main exit. “Yeah, me too. See you, Sam.” I raised my hand to say goodbye as we returned to our respective parents cars. Of course, after showing my mother my results, she was incredibly happy that I passed, but I still knew that I could have done much better. When I got back home, I took off my shoes and headed upstairs to my room which is where I spend most of my days playing games on my laptop and talking to Andy over Skype. And today was no different, the first thing I did was log into Skype and open Minecraft, I needed something to get my mind off of the results. Time passed quickly and before I knew it, it was 6:00pm, I only noticed that because I saw Andy come online in a Skype pop-up box. A couple of seconds after, a call was begun. “Hey man, where have you been?” I had been wondering, he was on later than usual. “Sorry, parents wanted to spend the day out.” He sighed. “Oh okay.” There was a small silence before I spoke again. “I’ve been thinking about that letter we got today, something about it seems familiar.” I heard the sound of an exaggerated face-palm which was quickly followed by a message in the Skype chat. “I wonder why.” Upon looking at the message I saw that it was a link to the first story in my favourite My Little Pony fan-fiction series, Brony Recon: To Live and Love in Equestria. Sudden realisation hit my brain like a cannon ball to a castle wall, ‘I have just received a letter from Markus!’ My eyes were wide and my mouth agape, I honestly could not believe it; I had thought that they were only stories made up by a fan of the show. Were myself and Andy really being given the chance to live in Equestria? Andy could sense my shock, “Calm down Sam, we don’t know what he’s going to say.” I snapped out of my state to reply, “Yeah, I guess you’re right. But what if it really is what we think?” There was a short pause of silence, “Then I’m going to be incredibly excited!” Andy practically shouted down the microphone making me smile and laugh a little. Our conversation carried on as normal until it was time for us to go to bed. We ended the call and climbed under the sheets, falling asleep was not as easy tonight, all I could think about was the experience of being a Pony and living in Equestria. I lay there thinking for about an hour until a sudden state of having a blank mind allowed my body to drift off to sleep. >>><<<>>><<<>>><<<>>><<< The next 3 days were like any other day, I would get up, eat breakfast and sit down at my computer playing games, browsing the internet and talking to Andy. Finally, the day had arrived, 20th August. Andy had slept over the night before so we could get to the forest as quick as possible. There wasn’t a specific time written on the letter so me and Andy presumed that ‘MB’ would be there all day. We finished getting ready and left my house to begin the short trek down the road to the local woods. Not too much was said on the way down, neither of us were morning people and if we weren’t so excited about the aspect of living in Equestria, then we’d both want to be back in our beds right now. We soon reached the entrance to the woods and before heading in we looked towards each other for reassurance, we nodded and walked inside. For a small woods it got pretty dark in there, light was only able to get in from the sides where there were either houses or fields, it was a perfect place for a little meeting. After walking down one of the smaller paths, figuring that the meet wouldn’t happen on the main one, something suddenly appeared in front of us walking out of a hedge to the left. We couldn’t believe what we saw, it was a male pony, from My Little Pony, Me and Andy just stood there eyes and mouths wide open, staring, as the Equine revealed his blue coat and lighter blue mane with a book and quill as a cutie mark. I recognised this pony from the description written in the Fan-Fic. “Markus?” My voice broken up slightly by shock and excitement. “I am never waiting in a bush for anyone ever again.” Stated Markus as he shook leaves and small branches from his mane. “I really hope you’re Andy and Sam.” “Um... Y-yeah.” I still couldn’t believe what was happening. He gave us a strange look and began explaining things, “I’m glad you came, I’m going to get straight to the point. I am part of a programme called Exodus Equestria. This means that a few chosen people get to be transformed into Ponies and sent to Equestria to live a new life and report back to us things that they learn. A team of 6 were already dispatched a while ago and I was a part of them, we’re currently back to earth for a vacation of sorts. Unfortunately, I wasn’t transformed back into a human, so I’m stuck like this with my wife-to-be. Speaking of, where is she?” All three of us looked around before a sound of rustling leaves was heard and a voice spoke. “I’m here, Skyblaze!” We all looked up to see a midnight blue Alicorn float down and land next to Markus. “Andy, Sam, I would like you to meet my fiancée, Princess Luna.” We stood there for a moment, eyes wide and mouths agape. The Princess I worshipped so much was standing right before me, what I did next was to probably be expected. I dropped to one knee and bowed my head, I lifted my head up slightly to confirm that what I saw as true before lowering it again after meeting her eyes with my own. “Princess Luna, I am honoured to be in your presence.” Luna giggled slightly. “Now Sam, there’s no need for that. Please, rise.” As I stood up I noticed her giving me a humble smile to which I reply with my own nervous smile. Markus cleared his throat before continuing his previous speech. “Now, we want to see how the same Ponies react to new Ponies joining their ranks, hopefully, they’ll be accepting of you.” He turned his head slightly towards Luna and she nodded her head back to him in confirmation. “Should you choose to accept this invitation then I would like you to pack as soon as possible and meet me at this location, I have some transport pre-arranged so we can get to where we need to be without any hassle.” Myself and Andy turned our heads to face each other before I spoke up, sounding sure about my decision “I don’t know about you Andy, but at this time, going there would be far much better than staying here. Markus, I’m in!” I gave him a determined look. Andy seemed unsure; I knew that he would want this more than anything. “What’s wrong Andy?” Something has to be up. “I want to go, I really do, but.” He looked off to the right, away from Me, Markus and Luna. “I don’t want to leave Emily behind, she would love it there, I just know it. And if I left... I just don’t want to see her upset.” Of course, Emily, his little sister would love it there as much as we would, and to find out that her brother could go but she couldn’t, would probably leave them on bad terms. Markus raised a hoof onto Andy’s shoulder. “I’m sure we can let just one more person join you.” Andy turned his head to face Markus with a teary smile. “Off you go now gentlemen, time to get packing and tell your family where you’re going. Meet me just outside these woods at 3pm tomorrow.” Me and Andy began walking back the way we came when Markus called to us once more, “I forgot to ask. What are your Equine names?” I was the first to reply. “I’m Cyan Beats.” “And I’m Crimson Bolt.” “And your sister?” “Aqua Gem.” Andy gave a slight smile. Markus nodded to us as acceptance of us leaving and we continued our walk. “Well Andy, out of all the strange things that have happened. This must be THE strangest thing.” “You’re not going to stop quoting that are you?” “Eenope!” I replied with a smile quoting Big Mac as we returned to my house.