“Thanks,” Raspberry said, “By the way, you are?”
The cowpony said something in response and then smiled. Raspberry saw the cowpony’s lips move, and he seemed to hear some sound. Yet something didn’t happen or didn’t register. It seemed to Raspberry almost as if some kind of unseen censor had garbled the world— perhaps like a swear word said on network television.
“Raspberry Star,” the colt said, “I’m sorry to say that I ain’t got much more time. So I’ll need to be brief, partner. But don’t worry. Four things, now…”
Raspberry opened his mouth and the cowpony immediately placed his right hoof on it.
“I know, I know,” said the cowboy, cracking a big smile and curling his head around, “But all you need to do is trust your instincts, partner! First, don’t worry. I know how you can get back home. You need to use the same thing, the same material, same power… and it’s that legendary gem. In this world, it takes the form of that fabled gem. It’s in that special amulet. You know the gem I’m talkin’ ‘bout.”
Dammit, don’t be so vague! If it’s the only way I can get home, than be specific! Give me the name of it! A time! A place! “But what—” Raspberry began.
“It won’t be hard,” the cowpony declared, suddenly appearing deadly serious. He grabbed Raspberry by the collar until their faces were inches away. “It ain’t gonna be hard to get it. Just a little journey. Trust me. But ONLY you can get it. It’ll ONLY work for you. It’ll ONLY open things up if YOU’RE the one and you LOOK for it first— then it will accept you.”
“Okay,” Raspberry squeaked, feeling seriously intimidated for the first time. ‘Open’ WHAT up! And how the hell am I supposed to find something so secret? How does it ‘work’?
“Trust your instinct and it’ll lead you straight there,” the cowpony went on, “But second, don’t tell the truth to anyone. Be evasive. Be careful. Tease out what you’re looking for and don’t be too direct.” The cowpony tapped Raspberry’s chest. “Most importantly, don’t let anyone figure out where you REALLY came from and what you REALLY ARE.”
That doesn’t make any sense at all. Why wouldn’t they help me? I would help them if the shoe was on the other… hoof. Raspberry started to say something but stopped.
“Third, you know that you’re lucky enough to be the first of us over here, partner,” said the cowpony, “The very first. And that fact— along with exactly HOW you got copied into this world’s form— means that you’ll be easily bringing even more of our friends over, over the crossin’ that is. I’ve been dealing with some… difficulties with that personally.”
“I… was copied… into the form?” Raspberry stammered, “Friends? What friends?”
“Forth, and biggest of all,” the cowpony said, “Stay away from the nobility. Celestia, Luna, Blueblood, all of them. Just steer clear, partner. They’ll see through you like wet underpants.”
Who the hell are those bastards? I don’t care! If they can get me home, then OBVIOUSLY I’ll talk to them, geez… Raspberry stared silently back at the cowpony.
“Worry most about the special six. Six close friends. I don’t know their names yet, but they’re the ponies with the harmony elements. If they trip you up, you can and should take them out. Because if they find you, they’ll power up their elements and if they hit you— they WILL kill you,” the cowpony said.
“No!” Raspberry said, looking away. He stepped away from the cowpony. Raspberry noticed his backpack floating besides the cowpony, and he grabbed it out of the air. Suddenly, Raspberry heard a brisk laugh.
“H-he-he-hey, partner!” the cowpony said, and then he playfully dug at the bit of rubble beneath him, “Ooooh howdy, I ain’t figurin’ this out. You really don’t believe me?” The cowpony, grinning from ear to ear, looked straight at Raspberry. Raspberry defiantly stared back.
“Tell you what. Imagine in your mind’s eye, the reverse situation,” the cowpony said. He walked over to Raspberry and put a friendly hoof over Raspberry’s shoulder. “Picture a talking pony with human intelligence and skill that has the hair and outfit of a 70s pop/rock superstar. Now picture him walking right out of the Sears Tower lobby right onto Wacker Drive. What happens?”
Raspberry gulped.
“That’s right. First, comes the police. Screams of horror. Batons on backsides. Handcuffs on hooves. Second, Homeland Security. Bags without eyeholes. Black vans. Then, there’s a six by six clear plastic cell—” the cowpony’s voice grew more and more intense as he went on, teeth clenching, “With reinforced tubes and multicolored wires leading into it. As well as a little, scared pony pissing itself as a white gloved hand inserts a long, freezing-cold needle into his warm flesh. HE is now an ‘IT’. The MIT specimen number one zero zero one.”
Raspberry suppressed a soft whine. His face looked as white as a sheet. “I… understand,” he muttered, “I won’t let the ponies hurt me for being human.”
The cowpony grabbed Raspberry. The two of them almost seemed to almost float down the hallway towards a big hole in the side. In just a few seconds, they were outside. They took several steps away from the hospital remains towards a massive field.
“Thanks,” Raspberry said, looking out at the blue sky and green grass. It all seemed so idyllic. He couldn’t even spot a single cloud.
“I believe that this is yours,” the cowpony said, placing the lapel Raspberry had been thinking about right back onto Raspberry’s suit. Raspberry made a big smile. “Just consider this a token of our future together, partner! Maybe like a… business card for you and me…” Raspberry nodded.
The cowpony suddenly kicked back on his hind legs. He flung his front hooves into the air, and the backsides of his vest opened up with noise of two loud zippers. Two gigantic wings each the size of Raspberry’s entire body sprang out. The cowpony flew right up above Raspberry, making a loud swoosh.
“Remember!” yelled the cowpony as it flung straight up, “Instinct! Instinct tells you where to go! Instinct tells you friend! Instinct tells you foe! Don’t wait, defend yourself! Use your instinct!”
The voice trailed off. After just a few seconds, Raspberry could only see a baseball sized speck in the sky. The cowpony suddenly stopped. *BOOM* Raspberry was knocked back. He saw a trail of thick black smoke heading straight through the air, from his left to his right.
That’s… impressive. Thank goodness he didn’t offer me a ride with him. Just the first heights would kill. I think I would literally vomit my brains out. Raspberry picked himself back up, and he put his right hoof to his eyes to look in the distance.
He detected what seemed like a road just straight up head of him. He sauntered ahead, and time seemed to simply breeze on by. Well, okay, whatever I need to do I’ll just do it. Maybe he was lying half the time. Maybe almost all of the time. But I can tell. Something… something tells me he wasn’t lying about some gem being able to send me back. I can feel it. I can almost see it in my mind. No, I CAN see it in my mind. I have this… outline I guess, deep in my subconscious. I basically had it before. Somehow, I just can’t remember… The road grew and grew on the horizon. In just a few minutes, he had made it.
He took a small step onto the road, paused, and then turned himself around facing left. Row after row of ancient looking oak trees jutted themselves out over the cobblestones as far as he could see. The light breeze fluttered the messes of branches upon branches and leaves upon leaves. Stray clumps of grass pitter-pattered over the road, and the occasional dark green leaf whirled around in the sky above.
“I guess there are a lot worse places to be stranded in,” he muttered. He glanced behind himself and then turned back over again. No people or ponies or carts or cars or anything else was on the road. “Better than a Martian desert or some freaking thing… but just as FREAKING DESERTED.”
He plopped himself down on the side of the road. Okay, am I walking? That answers itself. No, I sure as hell am not walking. He bounced back upwards, and he took a deep breath.
“HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEY ANYBODY!” he screamed, “Or anypony! Anything!”
Nothing was there but the trees. They looked to him as if they had spent a thousand years watching far more interesting things then him. Look, something has to happen. Something has to happen… Something… Has got to happen… Something…
*Crack* His ears perked up, and he squinted off into the distance. *Crack Crack* He had bad enough distance vision with his own human eyes— let alone as some transmogrified human-x-pony thing with slightly bent frames from Sam’s Club. Raspberry saw something purple that also included something blue on top and some brown frame in front of it beside some gray dot. Good enough!
“Hey guys! Uh, hey colts! Fillies! Mares! Horses! Whatever!” he yelled, to no answer, “Well then…”
“Well… then…” he said. He jumped over on one leg, and then hopped over to the other leg— going again and again. “I’m singing. Yes indeed, I’m singing. I’m singing you ponies will be coming back to ME. Because they’re places I’d rather BE. And I really need some ANSWER. Cuz’ I’m not much of a PRANCER.”
He dropped down to his knees. “So I’m not going to walk to the next TOWN. That would give me too much of a FROWN. And I hope that… singing…” He raised his voice, clutched his hooves, and then shot his hooves straight into the air. “Will appeal to you kiddy ponies besides… BEGGING!”
Because you stupid ponies love to sing, and of course either Neil Diamond or Michael Bolton is going to show up any moment now— for their ‘guest single’… He took his glasses off, tried to bend them more into shape, and then put them back on again. A large, nicely decorated brown cart— looking by its size and shape like the pony-version of the Chevy Blazer— moved down the road with three ponies inside. A dark gray colt with thick salt and pepper hair and a tuxedo almost exactly like Raspberry’s sat on a bench inside. Two light blue fillies with long, silvery blue manes wearing plain looking white dresses sat on the opposing bench.
They all seemed to be in pretty high spirits. The gigantic gray mule pulling the cart with oversized eyes and ruddy hair had a flat, emotionless expression. It looked to be around two and a half times Raspberry’s size. In what seemed like just a few seconds, the cart was parked alongside Raspberry.
“Well, hello there!” said the colt, poking his head as far out of the cart as possible without him actually falling over, “Where do you happen to be heading off to?”
“Home,” Raspberry flatly replied, “Hopefully.” Dear sweet goodness hopefully…
“Where is that, I’m so curious now,” asked the blue filly. She looked a bit younger than her similarly colored companion at a second glance.
“Through hyperspace and o’er the universal fabric, I believe,” Raspberry narrated in an overdramatic fashion, waving his hooves around. Boy, now I know how the Doctor feels.
“Well I—” started the colt.
“Look, seriously,” said Raspberry, “I just need to get the nearest town. You know, a big city. Where I can ask for help with some things and have a place to stay.”
“Hop aboard!” said the younger filly, poking her head out of the side of the cart for the first time. She cracked an enormous smile.
“Thank goodness,” Raspberry said, and he allowed himself to smile back for the first time since the transformation. He ambled up the small stair set on the back of the cart, which protruded about half way between the wheel wells and the ground. He took a seat on the bench beside the younger filly. He let out a nice sigh to finally be off of his hooves and onto the comfy pinkish white cloth.
“Would you please?” barked the colt. The huge gray mule made a soft grunt, and then the cart started moving again. Raspberry looked back down the road, and it seemed even a more beautiful sight than before. It feels like Disneyland, almost. I haven’t had a nice ride in the countryside since… whenever…
After they had picked up a little speed, he scooted himself down over to the front of the cart. He leaned out and glanced at the mule. He looked back at the colt. The colt seemed to have this ever present stupid expression on his face— as if he was getting drunk on his own self-importance.
“So,” Raspberry said, “This may be a very stupid question but here goes. Why is he there, and we’re up here. Obviously, he’s stronger because he’s, you know, but any of us could just as easy pull us…”
The colt made a half-laugh, like a subdued squeak, and fluttered his hooves in the air for a moment. He then continued to look out the side of the cart blankly. The two fillies seemed entirely preoccupied with viewing the misadventures of a wayward goose discovering a small pond to notice anything else.
Raspberry heard the colt mutter, “Ha, because that’s what they do.” Raspberry moved back over to the front of the cart. What the hell is this? Apartheid South Africa? He stuck his head out the front, noticing that the horizon was ending.
“Hey there—” he began.
“Oh don’t worry,” boomed the mule, with a voice that seemed to Raspberry like a cross between James Earl Jones and Nathan Fillion, “When this baby hits that drop you’re going to see some serious stuff.”
Raspberry went on, “Some wh— AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT!”
The cart hurled straight down the drop. All four horses flew back and pancaked on top of each other at the back of the cart. Raspberry felt his heart pounding almost through his suit.
“Isn’t it fun, sir?” the younger filly squeaked. The cart careened left— swinging them all left and scrunching them together— and it then snapped right— scrunching them over on the other side. Raspberry’s eyes focused like a laser beam on the mule ahead of them, who was galloping hard.
The cart swung up and then down. It went left and right again. Raspberry felt himself going into some kind of shock. The older filly suddenly grabbed his right hoof.
“Wonderful, isn’t it sir?” she asked. Raspberry let out a breath.
Suddenly, everything halted. The horses slid down across the benches, and Raspberry found himself prostrated on the middle of the floor. He quickly brought himself back up.
“Welcome to Coltsville,” said the mule, “Please watch your step getting off.”
The two fillies and the colt bounced out, by now totally oblivious to Raspberry’s mere presence. He peeked out of the cart and glanced around at all of the nondescript gray brick buildings. Around a dozen or so horses were walking this way and that. Raspberry stepped down out of the cart, measuring each step carefully.
“So,” he said, turning over to the mule, “How did you get this job anyway and how is it? Nice pay?”
The mule shook his head around in a circle. “It’s not the pay my friend, it’s the deluxe— and oh boy do I mean deluxe— vacation benefits. Plus, I have it all worked out exactly,” the mule said, cracking a smile, “It’s a full seventy-seven point seven percent downhill in this route. And guess whose shift covers one hundred percent of that seventy-seven point seven percent?”
“Good one,” Raspberry said. Maybe being in pony-world is going to be a lot less weird and a lot more normal than I thought. He looked up, and then around. He was in a pretty vacant and gray looking place with the road and the sprawling countryside behind and almost nothing but brick walls in front of him. He walked up into the gigantic empty alleyway.
He started walking over to this booth about fifty feet away with a big blue sign saying ‘Information’. A very tall and very scrawny red colt with a red and white striped hat and a cream colored shirt rested his head on his hooves and stared at the brick wall to his right, looking bored to tears.
Raspberry placed his hooves on the table. He said, "Hello..."
The colt made a sudden 180 turn and gazed right at Raspberry, inches away from his face.
“WELCOME. TO. COLTSVILLE!” announced the colt, bucking back onto his hind legs. The colt suddenly popped a batch of rainbow colored glitter and streamers into Raspberry’s face. The colt produced a party favor and blew in it, again smacking Raspberry on the face.
“Yay,” Raspberry said flatly.
“Here’s your official map,” said the colt as he smacked a pamphlet on Raspberry’s right hoof, “To COLTSVILLE.” The colt leaned down a bit and suddenly seemed to be rubbing Raspberry’s neck with his hat. Both of them froze in place.
“Coltsville…” Raspberry repeated.
The colt went on, “Home of musician sensation Velvet Crush. The pony with a thousand jams. And to the third largest shopping district in Equestria. And the very biggest factory complex in Equestria. And the ONLY ‘World of the dragons’ museum.”
Raspberry blinked, and then blinked again. He couldn't even begin to know what to say.
The colt moved his head up and positioned himself right beside Raspberry’s right ear. The colt said in a calm, reserved voice, “And, since we’re both grown-ups here and we know you’re...” The colt patted Raspberry’s fine white suit and golden lapel. “An elite patron of city travel— I’m proud to say we have the very largest red light district in all of Equestria. If you want the complete experience, head straight over to ‘Sapphires’.”
Yeah, I don’t care how pretty or how experienced they are. I don’t think some Escort Sluthooves will play with my mutant human-x-pony member. “Thanks,” Raspberry said, stepping away from the booth. He sauntered himself over to the left side, further down the alleyway. What a dreary place… I don’t see anything… and where the hell is everybody?
“Sir!” yelled the colt. Raspberry looked back.
“You—” the colt bounced up in the air. “Need—” He spread all of his hooves out in a power-stance. “To—” He locked his front hooves together. “Go—” He spun around in place like a mini tornado. “THATAWAY!” He hurled himself towards the right side, falling out of the booth.
Raspberry noticed that the endless brick walls ended in a truly humongous dark brown door. It stood around twenty feet high by twenty feet wide. Intricate looking metal poles, nubs, and dull spikes littered all across it. Hmm… To keep out dragons, maybe? Raspberry walked right up.
Do I say the secret word or something? He gave the door a soft tap with his right hoof, and he heard a gentle creak. He pushed again and the doors swung right open.