//------------------------------// // Ch. 2: A Strange Visitor // Story: Pony Detective // by DetMan //------------------------------// ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ... ... ... “...is she okay?” “...went into a coma...” I was half conscious, lying in my bed. I could not hear anything going on around me as I lay there motionless. I could barely make out muffled, quiet voices coming from somewhere near me, but at this point I was incapable of actual thought. I was probably losing my mind right now, and I didn’t even know it. “...she’s moving...” I felt alright at the moment, like nothing happened. Nothing at all happened. Nothing. “...waking up.” The voices are becoming more clearer now as I regain consciousness. As soon as I felt my nerves reactivate, I am met with the most alien feeling ever. My body didn’t feel right at all. What happened? How long was I out? “...Ugh...” A new voice comes out of nowhere, feminine. A woman is here as well? She doesn't sound well. Soon enough, I feel myself vomit on the floor, as my sight has been restored. Everything seemed much more... well wider in my vision. I could see a lot more than I used to. Must have ate a lot of carrots, heh. “Oh, jeeze, you alright? Anything broken anywhere, headaches, pains?” I look up to see a man in a doctor's coat, who looked pretty like the average generic doctor, except much older. Probably 50 or something. I can’t think straight right now. I squint at the doctor, not saying anything. What’s he doing here? I look for the other source of the voice, finding my friend Chris, sitting in my visitors chair. He must have brought it into my bedroom. How did I get in here again? More importantly, when did I get home...? I become aware of how oddly shaped my nose was. Did I hit it against something? Is it broken?! Oh no, that can’t look good. At least I could see more, otherwise this might have been a problem with seeing. I bring up my hand to me head, and immediately after I get a great knock in the head. “Ow!” The feminine voice yells out. Where is that girl? She sounds really young. Someone hit me, I guess. The doctor? Probably not. God, my head... “It seems as though you went through that whole ordeal rather quickly miss.” The doctor is looking at me, but is talking to the girl. Was she behind me? I turn my head around, surprised by how flexible it was all of a sudden. The doctor frowns, and snaps his fingers, grabbing my attention. “Over here miss, could you please tell me your name.” Well, excuse me! Did that guy just call me a girl!? That bas- “What? I’m not a-” I slap my hand against my mouth, which both felt very odd. I look down to find that my hand doesn’t have any fingers, and is covered in some kind of peach white hair. What the hell, what happened? Where is my hand- WHOA! I lift up both my, or rather lack of, hands and examine them closely. They are completely gone, left with some kind of hard covering over where they are supposed to be. I look them over, and clap them together. *clop* I flinch at the sound, and I become very frightened as the recent events that happened began to fill back into my head. I got home... was it home? I had a large headache and then... Ohhhhhhhhh shit. I remember entering my apparent home, and the massive headache that was taking over my body. I remember the painful sensations of the event, my hands turning into these things, my body shrinking, the hair, the... Oh no. My oversized eyes turn to pinpricks as I turn my head to view my lower body. It’s a fur covered small torso, connected to four limbs created for quadruped creatures. The ends I finally realize were hooves, and I notice the still very light brown tail sticking out of the bottom of my spine. And something is pressing against my... I scream, finally forming into my mind what I have become. The doctor and Chris get worried, and get up to try and calm me down, but I can’t really register what happened. What did happen was that I got turned into a pony, one of those little creatures from what I suppose came from the show, but that just isn’t enough for whoever orchestrated the whole ordeal, no no, they went and took away my manhood as well. I’m a girl. I’m a fucking girl. I continue to scream as the two still very human men try to calm me down, which only made me worse. This was way too much for me to handle. Something began to vibrate at the top of my forehead, and suddenly a flash of light fills the room, sending any small objects and the two men flying onto their asses. I freak out again, finding this whole situation to be the most terrible and terrifying thing ever. Chris gets back up and heads back towards me, attempting once again to calm me. “Miss, please! We want to help you! Calm down so we can!” I take several hyperventilated breaths, and push myself further against the wall, on my bed. “What’s going on!?” I say in a painfully high pitched voice. “You’ve turned into a pony, miss! Please, we can explain if only you calm down and listen!” I pant from the exhaustion from getting all worked up for the past six minutes. Or maybe more? I finally bring myself down to shallow breaths, and lay down haphazardly on the bed. I don’t know how to sit upright, or at the very least comfortably. Chris takes a breath, and smiles warmly, making me feel a little better. The light brown locks of hair hang in my eyes, but I didn’t really care at the moment. I look around the room, and look at the digital clock. 9:38 A.M... Was it tomorrow, or longer? Chris drags the chair over, and sits back down, and the doctor gets back up, and bends over me on the bedside. Chris finally says, “Okay... now that we’ve calmed down, can you please tell us your name?” I frown. I look into my head and search for what was supposed to be my name. What... was it? I can’t remember! I frown deeply, double checking. Wait! Is that it? It sounds... really odd. But it is filed under “name” but it doesn’t exactly sound like a name. More like a title. Oh well, it’s something. “Uh... I think... Mystery Glass?” Chris frowns. “She’s accelerated pretty damn far into it, doctor.” The doctor frowns, and takes out a pen from his coat pocket. He turns, and grabs a clipboard from my nightstand, and writes down a few sentences. I get a bit mad at myself. I knew that wasn’t right... and yet it felt like it is. I look at Chris. I know him though... I say out loud, “I know you...” towards Chris, who leans back in interest. “Really?” He says. “From where?” I raise my hoof up, but frown. Where did I know him from? I can’t even remember too much anymore. I feel those tall, pointed ears on top of my head fold down. I don’t like this, and yet it feels like I should be like this. This is really confusing. I put my hoof back down, and look around the room. Chris nods, and continues with his questions. “Why are you here? We found you laying on the ground, passed out in my friends office.” A flash of a memory takes place in my mind, repairing my lost thoughts. ‘Friends office’... “Who’s your friend?” “Nolan.” And then I got a headache. At that moment, I was washed over with all of the memories, down to who I was, or who I once was. I remember the phone call, Christina, the pony daughter, the note, and the horn on my head as well. I groan from the flood of memories, and faceplant my head against the soft blankets of my bed. This wasn’t supposed to happen. It never was. Chris pats my back, and I get a sense of how large they are and how small I am. It’s like getting shouldered in the back by a strong dude, it hurts a bit. His hand is a bit larger than I remember. I bring up the courage to use this feminine voice and say, “Chris... i’m Nolan.” Chris goes wide eyed from that sentence. “What? B-But your a girl! You can’t be Nolan, and last I checked, he was perfectly fine... two days ago...” Chris stands up, and heads towards the window near the door leading to my office, and stares out it. The doctor sits on the bed, with an interested look on his face. I don’t really like that face he’s got on right there, it made me nervous. He speaks up after a while. “How interesting, this is a strange transformation! It seems that people are becoming mares more often than stallions! I’d say one out of every three people that transform are male. Fascinating.” I look up at him analyzing me. This guy doesn’t get out too often to know that being turned into a girl is a lot more traumatizing than anything else. Then again, i’m a fucking horse, but that doesn’t mean I would have dealt with it worse as a guy. “Don’t remind me, whoever the hell you are. This is a lot worse on my end.” The doctor begins to protest, but Chris stops him. “Doc, just go back to the clinic. I’ll call you when something new comes up.” Doctor Rude, Ph. D. huffs at his frustration, and leaves the room, heading back outside. I look at Chris, who looks back to me. He speaks up. “So... you’re really Nolan? My friend?” I nod, staying silent for now. “...Shit.” He comes back towards my bed, and sits down, clasping his hands together while balancing his arms on his knees. “That explains a whole lot. I’m really sorry this happened to you, Nolan. I should have went for you sooner.” I look at him. “What do you mean, ‘sooner’? Was there a way to stop this?” He bites his lip, and says, “Well, not exactly. I went to the doctor when I showed symptoms, and he managed to formulate a temporary vaccine that slows down the process. It feels like my head is holding back the whole transformation. Still, I still got my fingers for longer.” He grins, but realizes his mistake as I look down at myself, and my own lack of fingers. “Oh, sorry Nolan.” “It’s alright.” We sat there for a good five minutes, wallowing in pity and despair. It feels like my whole life was taken away, and has been replaced by a more confusing, complex life that involved having no hands, standing on four limbs, being a girl, and a whole lot more. I felt my tail slide under my body when I shuffled a bit to get more comfortable. Ughhh. Chris looks up at my discomfort, and gets up. “Something else changed a bit when we found you. You were under your coat and hat, and when we tried to move them out of the way, they shrunk down. He heads back into my office, and comes back with a small tan overcoat with a hat. He says, “I’d imagine you’d want to wear something.” I nod, suddenly being aware of the fact that I am completely naked, even with the fur is still felt weird for me. I gladly accept the small clothes, letting him help me put them on. The coat wasn’t long enough to cover up my backside, but it was better than nothing. The hat had a hole at the top, allowing me to slide my horn through to keep it comfortable to wear. I’d imagine I looked adorable at the moment, which only made me feel more exposed. I look around, and notice my mirror over my bed. I stand up awkwardly on all four, and turn around to look at my face. What I met with in the mirror made my heart stop in shock. I was subconsciously expecting me, but instead I saw a pony’s face, with large bright green eyes. It looked back at me in shock with its muzzle wide open in a human like open frown. I sit down on my hind legs, sighing. I better get used to this. Chris went to to say something, but I interrupt him. “How long was I out again?” “A-about two days, why?” I remember the back of the note Ashley had read to me, which I couldn’t see. It had mentioned I was supposed to meet someone... I think it said I had to meet someone from that Equestria place? What were they doing here? They wanted to see me, personally? I speak up, “I need to meet someone, can you take me there in your car?” Chris get up, assertiveness in his voice. “Hey, now hold on! You just woke up! You need to... wait, shit. The doctor did say that going back to sleep after a coma was a bad idea, bu that doesn’t mean you just go and jump back out there! And what’s with that horn on your head? I haven’t seen anyone with that anywhere!” I look back at Chris, already hopping off the bed and getting the hang of quadrupedal movement. “You mean, no one else got this?” Chris says, “Yeah, that light you made really scared the shit out of me. It knocked us both down.” I lift up a hoof to feel the horn, though I can’t really feel much since the material that covers up my actual hoof makes it hard to feel anything. It sits there, pointing up at an angle. “Huh, the research I did on the ponies a few days ago did say there were unicorns. I would have expected there would be more... you sure it’s just me?” Chris frowns. “You mean this is based off those ponies from that kids show? How can you be sure?” “Because remember that note in those weird symbols you gave me before this all happened? I got it translated, and it said that this is about Equestria, and hold onto your pants, the end of both our and their worlds.” Chris’s eyes go a bit wide from that big fact being plopped onto his shoulders. “Th-the end of the world?! Both worlds? You mean that Equestria, that cartoon place, actually exists?” “Yeah, and someone wants to do something to ours, and destroy that world.” Chris brings his hand to his head, processing what I just said. “You’re kidding... right? That’s impossible! Even if this world did exist, how would he do it?” I step up towards the door. “Because this guy is insane. Not only that, he has powerful... well magic.” Chris laughs. “Magic? This isn’t some fantasy tale.” I look up at him, feeling pretty damn stunted from how tall he was compared to me. “Chris, i’ve miraculously transformed into a talking cartoon pony, who possibly has control over such magic, and the whole town is turning into similar things. I’d say anything that made sense is now no longer a base on how the world works.” Chris went to go say something, but stops short. “You... have a point. Still, how can someone stop him?” “You mean how will I stop him.” Chris looks down at me with a look like I’m the one here who is insane. I say back to him, “Look Chris, I know what to do. Something out there... is watching me. I can feel it. Let me go out and try. Either way, we’re probably going to die.” Chris sighs. “I never said I was going to stop you from trying.” I smile at Chris, who goes a bit red faced. “Thanks a lot, but I still need your help. I need you to drop me off at an alley, i’ll give you the directions. Chris frowns, but nods, and we both walk/trot out of my office, and outside. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The weather outside was quite nice. There were barely any clouds out, and the sun was shining brightly. It made me feel a bit warm under all this fur plus the coat combo, but it didn’t bother me. The bricked streets were reflecting the suns glare in a dim red/orange as we walked over to Chris’s car, and got inside. He opened the door for me in the back, and I hopped in. I gave Chris directions to the apparent alleyway the contact was supposed to be at. It was the only alley in town, considering all the buildings were connected, mostly. Chris stops the car a few feet away from it, and looks back at me. “You sure about this?” I look back at him. “Positive.” Chris nods, then says, “It’s weird talking to you, Nolan. Should I even call you that now? It feels weird, because nothing about you besides the coat and hat reminds me of you, you're not even... well... a guy anymore.” I frown at Chris’s comment. “Just call me by Mystery, or Misty maybe. That make you feel better?” Chris still looks a bit confused, but nods. “I guess that’s fine. Sorry, this is all too weird for me. I hope I will see you later, Nol- Ah, I mean, Misty. I cringe at the name slightly, but nod. “You too, Chris. See you later.” I push open the unlocked car door, and close it by pushing it back in with the side of my head. It was rather easy to do, because my neck was pretty flexible. Chris revs up the engine, and drives off down the street, turning left, and disappears. I look towards the alley. Were they even here anymore? They probably expected me a lot earlier. I may have missed them. In any case, I walked over to the alley, my small coat slightly being rustled by a soft breeze. It felt pretty nice out here. I trot up the the entrance, and look in. It’s not that dark in there, but I could barely make out some corners of the alley. I swallow, and step in. “Who are you?” I jump at the sound of the sound of the voice, which sounds like a male, but a little off. A brown pony steps out of a corner shadow. He has a darker colored, spiky like mane. He is wearing a strange little green tie that connects to a white dress shirt neck collar. “Uh, are you the contact?” I say. “Why, are you Nolan?” I am slightly intimidated by the stallion. The dark alley isn’t exactly helping to calm down. “Y-yeah, or I was...” “Close enough.” He somehow managed to grab my shoulder with his hoof, and leads me further down the alley. We take a left, down a much more narrower path which I didn’t see before when I came in. As we walked down the path, I look at the creature. It didn’t look like a girl. I speak up. “The note I got said that I would be expecting a... well a female pony from Equestria.” The brown pony with the tie smiles. “Ah, that would probably be my friend. I didn’t think that that human scientist had met me. I’m more of the talker.” “And your friend is...?” “Just a moment, we’re almost there.” Soon, we are met up with a small road, obviously less used by the town since the roads and buildings were covered in vines and grass. The sky is not visible, as it seems a concrete ceiling was placed over the whole place. “How did all this greenery grow down here with no sun?” I ask. The brown pony looks down the street, and then the other, then says, “I don’t know, when I got here the place was like this.” I look around with interest on my face. I look back at the pony. “Who are you?” He looks back at me. “Well, I go by many names. My assigned name is Time Turner, though your kind tends to call me Doctor Whooves. Odd name, i’m not really a doctor. Though I rather like it.” He says with a smile. Doctor Whooves. Sounds like that guy that rides around in a time machine disguised as a 1950’s police box, Doctor Who. I’d suppose this pony’s name is only just one of the many reasons why people call him th- As we walk down the street, I lag behind thinking about how he got those names, when I noticed that Time Turner had a strange little picture on both sides of his flank, both of which are colored in pastel colors to resemble an hourglass with sand both at the bottom and the top, which in turn has sand frozen in time falling to the bottom. This isn’t what I expected, though I guess I should have figured from my research on the topic. “Hey, uh, what’s up with those hourglass tattoos on you?” Time Turner stops, and looks back at me, then at the hourglass on himself. “Ah, you don’t know? That’s called a Cutie Mark, don’t ask me why it’s called that, I don’t know myself. It shows off a pony’s special talent. Mine, obviously, is time.” I create what I think is a confused look on my face, and ask, “Why do you get these things?” The brown pony just laughs. “Oh, don’t be silly, we don’t do that. It just appears out of nowhere on our flanks when we discover our talent! It’s truly a magical moment, and it is also a benchmark to live a healthy life!” “Huh.” I say, blatantly. The pony somehow adjusts his tie with his hoof, and walks down the brick path. We take a left at the end, only to find a dead end, with a rather large oil street lamp in the middle of the road. Time Turner looks around, and yells out, “Ditzy! Where are you? I’ve brought our late acquaintance here!” Shuffling out from a trashcan, a grey pegasus comes out carrying what looks like a rather large blue bag. “C-coming!” She is balancing on her hind legs, carrying the bag with her forehooves. Just as I predicted, she trips over, and drops the bag onto the ground, revealing a plethora of different flavored muffins, mostly blue berry. She moans out in disappointment, “Awwwww...Horsefeathers!” and sits up, revealing her face. Okaaay... what? Her eyes are a kind of golden honey colored, but thats not what got me. Her eyes seem to be pointing in opposite directions, her right eye pointing to her bottom left, and her other to the top right. I whisper to Time Turner. “Is... she alright? Her eyes are a bit funny.” He whispers back, “Nah, that’s just Ditzy being herself. This happens sometimes, but goes away.” She stands back up on four hooves, and walks over to us. Time Turner looks back at the bag Ditzy spilled, and comments, “Ditzy... where did you get all those muffins?” Ditzy just smiles. “I got them from a bakery down the street in this town! They had a lot! They didn’t accept bits, though, but they said that they are giving out free muffins to test out a new recipe. I took all I could hold.” Time Turner just adjusts his tie, awkwardly, and then Ditzy looks to me. “Hi there, what’s your name?” She says to me. “Uh...” Time Turner helps me by saying, “This is our friend Nolan, but it seems we were a bit late. He has turned into one of us already.” He looks at me, looking me up and down. “Also a bit of a difference in gender as well, but that was expected.” I frown at his comments. Even after I deal with this, I am not sure how long it will take to get used to being referred to as a girl. I hope that at least I will be turned back into a guy when this is over. After getting over the mare’s eyes, I see her flap her wings a bit, letting me know that she is a pegasus. She also has one of those ‘cutie marks’, but it seems a bit less obvious as to what it is. It’s an assortment of bubbles, in the same art style as Time Turner’s cutie mark. Ditzy frowns in sympathy, and says, “Oh... sorry to hear that. Will you be okay?” I raise a hoof to push the conversation to the side. “I think I will be fine as soon as this is over, thanks.” I continue, “Now, I heard that you had information that I need?” Time Turner says, “Well, that, but also can help you travel in between the worlds on my ship.” I look towards Time Turner. “Ship? Is that how you got here? How fast is it?” Time Turner grins. “Actually, it doesn’t move at all, but it travels through time and space, so it gets there pretty much instantly.” I whistle, impressed. “Wow, how advanced are you ponies?” Time Turner just shrugs. “Really, it was just handed down to me after a while. I can’t even remember how long it was ago. Just me. I fixed it’s cloaking device. Right now, it’s disguised as an everyday object. Go ahead, try to guess where it is!” Challenge time. I look around the area, taking in the details of the area. I try to find anything out of the ordinary, things that don’t belong or don’t fit in well with the area. I look back down the way we came. It wouldn’t be down there, it was too narrow, and cluttered with the usual trash. Normal. I look at the buildings surrounding us, each one abandoned and dark with broken windows. The whole place smelled of trash and old concrete, and the only thing keeping the place lit up is the oil lamp in the dead center of the area. Wait. Looking at the oil lamp, it seems rather clean. Very clean. The whole area is covered in grime, but this lone street lamp seemed to be much more muck free than anything else. Almost as if this wasn’t here only until recently. I point at the oil lamp. “That doesn’t belong here. Is that it?” Time Turner laughs in joy. “Haha! I doubted your capabilities, but it seems genuine! Yes! That is my ship, hehe, ah you’ve got me a bit giddy!” I smile, with an accomplished look on my face. Never doubted myself for a second, i’ve been doing this for six years. A bright light fills the room briefly, and I feel a bit tingly in the back for a moment. I go wide eyed from the sensation, and yelp in fear, letting out a high pitched “Eep!”. The light fades down, and a mark glows on both the sides of my flank. Color replaces the white light, showing off a magnifying glass with a wooden handle, with a black, bolded ‘?’ in its glass. Everyone, including me, stares at the mark on my flank in fascination. Ditzy just stares with her mouth agape, but Time Turner speaks. “You... got a Cutie Mark...? But that’s impossible, no transformee was, or is, never supposed to get one! How could that happen?” Time Turner trots up closer to me, and my backside, which starts to make me feel a bit nervous. Just when I was forgetting about what was back there. He examines the mark closely, and exclaims, “This is truly a real Cutie Mark. Not sure how you feel right now, but in our world this is a great thing to happen!” I nod, a bit of red forming on my cheeks. How that happened, considering it’s hidden under fur, I don’t know. Time Turner catches this, and backs off. “Uh- s-sorry.” I just look down at myself, trying to forget it. I shouldn’t really feel this flustered. I stare at my new ‘Cutie Mark’ on my flank. This is just getting even better, now I have a picture of what I do best on my flank. First the horn, then the body, and now this. I feel like an alien. But for some reason I felt... well happy about it. It’s odd, but it felt like I was complete. At least a little bit. I shoulder my coat back into its position, and tilt my hat a bit. At the tilt, I finally remember the horn sticking out of my hat. Right, I was supposedly a unicorn with magic. One that has no idea how to use magic. I thought. Ditzy claps her hooves together, in the best way ponies can resemble clapping. “That was amazing! I don’t know how that happened, but congratulations!” I nod in embarrassment. At least she’s quite friendly. Bubbly. Maybe that is what those bubbles mean? Even for me, it’s hard to tell. Time Turner hums for a moment, contemplating, but eventually comes back to us from whatever universe he was in. “Alright, let’s get going, shall we? I will answer your questions, and tell what you, and us both, have to do.” “Okay...” Time Turner and Ditzy turn to the oil lamp. It was quite wide, up close, and when I joined them in front of it, I noticed a thin line to the right. Time Turner takes out a key, and inserts it into a lock that I hadn’t noticed. He unlocks the door, and it opens outward, forcing me to back up a bit. We all step inside, and what we saw defies all logic. The inside of the ‘ship’ was much larger than the outside, breaking the laws of space. In the middle was a strange little ‘computer’ thing that had a whole bunch of buttons, keys, knobs, turn wheels, and more. In the middle of the computer was a slightly translucent cylinder, with what looks like strange pistons inside. It looks like it is currently off. The entire chamber was in a dome like shape, with large lights inside circles all over the dome, lighting the place. We were all standing on a grille walkway, and when I looked down into the darkness under us, I saw a jumble of cables, some connected and some just laying there, and strange little crystals glowing green that are hooked up to the base of the computer in the middle. I looked around in fascination at the nonsensical feats of technology in here. “Welcome, to the Equestrian version of the TARDIS!” Time Turner says in a dramatic tone. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Meanwhile, at an earlier time... “Ashley Fine, I am a human girl, sixteen of age.” I say into the mirror. After the detective left my house, with that flashy horn on his head, I just rested, watching the ceiling and thinking over what I just read to him. I usually tell myself over and over again in the mirror to remind myself of who I am. Ever since this happened, I started to forget who I was, which scared the crap out of me. My whole diet has changed, and now I am forced to eat nothing but fruits and greens. I could eat meat, but that would end up with me vomiting on the floor and generally just hating the taste, smell, touch, and everything else. I stared into my newly colored eyes, now a shining turquoise, and force a smile. It was two days since the detective left my house, and my mom had started to change as well. She’s a pegasus too, like me, and turned into a bright purple one as well. Same hair as me, same eyes as me. At least she could still look like she was my mom from the similarities. I repeated the phrase in the mirror, trying to nail that into my head, until my mom knocked on the door, or rather bumped her new hooves into the bottom, obviously having trouble walking. “Darling, come out. You’ve been in there for hours, c’mon let’s go watch the news.” I sigh, and whisper the phrase one more time before I head for the door. I bite down on the knob, tasting the metal it’s made out of, and turn my head to open the door. My mom stands there on wobbly knees, but nudges her head towards the stairs. I follow her down (while helping her from falling) to the living room where the T.V. is still broadcasting the news. The man on the T.V. wasn’t a man though, it was a normal looking cartoon pony. No wings, and certainly no horn, like that detective. He had a grey coat, with a much more darker shade of grey for a mane and a single white stripe in the center, going along his mane rather well. The T.V. pony says, “All over North America, this pony plague has infected towns, rural areas, and large populated cities. Doctors all over the continent have been creating a vaccine that slows down the process, but not stop it. For those that have yet to be infected, or are in stage one, we all advise you to go and get a vaccine while the doctors look for a permanent cure.” The grey pony stops, gulping down saliva. He looks nervous. The news continue while we sat on the floor awkwardly. I managed to get comfortable on my hind legs, while my mom was sprawled on the floor, on her belly. It was kinda funny, but I dared not laugh. She wouldn’t find it so funny. After an hour, my mom somehow passed out from over exerting herself all day trying to get all her chores done. I get up, letting her sleep it off. I was heading for my room when, out the door, I saw a strange little gray pegasus pony with a shade of bright yellow mane. What struck me was that she had a picture of bubbles on her... ah, backside. She seemed rather odd to me, and I made a choice. I looked back into the living room to check if mom was still asleep, and sure enough, she was. I headed back to the door, and stepped outside, looking for the grey pegasus. She was heading towards town. I followed her down the street, trying not to be noticed. Eventually, she trotted up to a bakery, and looked up into the window advertisements. From my angle, I saw her with a big open smile, and her eyes shifted into a... for a lack of better words, ‘derpy’ position. I look at her, and found this to be the most funny thing ever. I stifle a giggle under my hoof, and she walked into the bakery. I waited, and soon she came out carrying a large sack of muffins. Okay, now this lady is just asking to be laughed at. This is textbook funny. Still, she seemed like she didn’t belong here to me, so I kept following her, remaining out of sight. She walked down a familiar path, and before I know it, she turned down into the alley the black pony took me down into. I hesitated, thinking that the pony that took me was still there. I figured he would have left by now, and I really doubted that this funny pony lady was an evil minion. I followed her down the alley, and she took a left down a rather narrow path, which I had trouble hiding in while I followed her. She never looked behind herself, so that kept me hidden. We soon arrived into a large, underground street, it looked like. The roof was concrete, and the only lights were lit oil lamps that created a soft orange glow. The walls were old, broken down storefronts and apartments, lining the whole path. She kept following it, and I followed close behind, staying hidden once again. She turned left at a dead end, into a shorter, more wider path that led to a complete dead end, with nothing but trash cans, litter everywhere, and a blue, wide oil lamp. Next to the lamp stood a brown normal pony, wearing a green tie with a white dress shirt collar attached to it, wrapping around his neck. This guy didn’t look native, that’s for sure. He didn’t seem to notice Ditzy, as he was inside the inner workings of the oil lamp at the side. I didn’t know oil lamps had to be repaired, let alone for it to be filled with complex technology. In the pony’s hoof, he somehow was holding a strange thin device with a blue bulb at the end of it. It glowed brightly, emitting a high pitched buzzing sound. He held it up to some broken wires, at they mended together automatically. Wow. I decided to hide behind a trashcan, and watch these strange ponies work. The grey one entered an abandoned building, very close to my hiding spot. I could have been spotted if it weren’t so dark behind the cans. The brown pony reached behind himself towards his behind, where another picture, similar in art style of the grey pony’s bubbles, sat. It was an hourglass, with sand in both the top and bottom. He apparently had pockets back there, as he placed his device into that weird little pocket that didn’t even seem to exist, and pulled out an old fashioned watch, with the chain and cover, made of gold. He looked at it for a second, then put the clock back. He walked off into the alley, leaving me alone. I got up, and went over to the oil lamp. The machines and wires looked positively alien, and really high tech. I looked them over for a brief time, only to hear shuffling in the abandoned building where the grey pegasus went into. She’s coming back! I had to find another hiding spot, the trash cans were too close. On the oil lamp, I noticed a lock and a very small handle underneath it. I pulled at it with my teeth, and just as I suspected, it was a door. I pulled it open, and stepped inside, closing it behind me. It locked, leaving me trapped inside. When I turned, I was expecting a cramped, dark little cylinder. What I got was a large dome, with lights in little portholes, a computer in the center, wires, circuits, buttons and levers, everything you would expect from something straight out of a SyFy movie. I was purely amazed by everything in here, but I immediately went to go find a place to hide myself in. There was a hallway, leading to labeled closets that spanned far off into ridiculous distance, each one labled with four numbers. ‘1921, 1922, 1923, 1924...’ and it kept going. I decided to hide in 1922, which when I entered, it was filled with a bunch of old fashioned clothes. I hid in there for a while. After about 20 minutes, I heard about three sets of four legs trotting against the floor, just down the hall in the main chamber. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but after a moment, I finally heard: “Welcome, to the Equestrian version of the TARDIS!” ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------