//------------------------------// // Something Barro this way Broadcasts // Story: Fluttersized 2: Barro Vs. Trixie // by Barrobroadcaster //------------------------------// Something wasn't right. Barro spent at least a minute staring up at the ceiling. Something just did not feel right about the world. He sat up, scootched over to the edge of the bed and sat there for another minute, unable to shake the feeling that something was... just wrong. He got up, stood on two legs. His eyes slowly drifted down to the floor to his... feet? Feet, yes, that's what they were called wasn't it? Both of his legs were covered by cloth, some sort of pants. He looked at his... hands next? Flexing each finger, he then tried balling up both into fists. He then ran a hand through his mane, it covered a great deal less than it had just yesterday. Or, what he thought was yesterday. He walked out of his bedroom slowly, the feeling of unease he had when he woke up stayed with him. Barro placed a hand on the wall, to steady both his body and his mind. He was disoriented, this was all wrong. He was supposed to have hooves, not hands or feet. He was a pony or at least he was a pony last night. And now he'd woken up to find he was... something else entirely. He breathed, tried to calm himself. Carefully, Barro walked down the stairs on his two legs. Had there always been stairs here? Entering the kitchen, he saw his friend and roomate Michael Hay. He, too, looked different to Barro. Pale-skinned with yellow hair, Michael sat at the kitchen table eating cereal. "Mornin' Cran. Up early for a change?" Michael regarded Barro as he entered the kitchen. "You excited to go to Berrycon?" Barro put both hands on the table to steady himself. "What did you call me?" he asked. "Cranbarro," Michael said, looking up at him mid-bite. "Why? You don't like your Berryname shortened?" "Berryname... what? And what happened to your mane?" "Mane? What do you mean? Is my hair not yellow enough or something?" Barro walked over to his friend and took a seat next to him. "Michael, what's my name?" "Cranbarro... it's been that since I met you," Michale replied, his voice sounding confused. Barro shook his head. "No, it's just Barro. My name isn't Cran-anything." "That's your berryname, Cranbarro. Remember?" Michael said, trying to help his friend. "No... no I don't. I don't remember any of this. This house, these... hands," Barro looked around, frustrated and confused. "Do you remember me? Michael Sorbet, famous director of Transforms'mores?" Barro was no less confused by Michael's words. "Cranbarro, Michael Sorbet... TransformS'MORES? What is with these names?" "The movies I worked on? You know, the ones that everyberry thinks are too 'effects-driven'," Michael said, folding his ARMS. "EveryBERRY?" Barro shouted, shocked by the term. " Michael, it's everyPONY," he tried to correct, almost pleading with his friend that what he said was a mistake. Michael just leaned back and laughed. "Why would anyberry say that? There's a lot of berribro terms but I don't think I've ever heard the phrase 'anypony' before." "Michael, we're notsupposed to be 'berribros', we're supposed to be bronies. We're ponies. This isn't right, nothing about this is right," Barro said, standing. He looked at himself in the reflection of the sink. He remembered a dark-brown mane... what he saw was cranberry-red short hair. His nose twitched and noticed the scent of cranberries... coming from his hair. "Calm down, Cran-man," Michael said, walking over and holding Barro's shoulders, trying to comfort and stabilize his friend. "Take a deep breath. Just like Strawberry Shortcake says at the end of the Season 3 Finale: Everything is gonna be okay!" Barro turned his head over to his friend slowly, a closed-mouth look of pure horror on his face with just a hint of shock and sadness. A knock at the door drew both of their attention to the back of the kitchen. "Everyberry ready to go to Berrycon?" a familiar voice asked. Michael 'Sorbet' walked over and opened the door. A tall, dark figure in a cloak stepped through. A gray-skinned man with twisted eyes and jetblack hair that moved like smoke as he stood in the doorway checked his watch. "Who... who are you?!" Barro asked the figure, backing up to the sink in shock. The tall, gray man raised an eyebrow. "Cranbarro, it's King Sherbert. I'm here for my regularly scheduled screentime. I'm supposed to get some each episode, remember? Now, where did I put that gak...?" he said, turning around. That was too much. Barro snapped. His knees buckled, he braced himself on the kitchen countertop and screamed, "Noooooooooooooooooo!!!" Suddenly, the world became dark. Barro woke up, his breathing and heartrate rapid. He sat up in bed and looked around his room. Quickly, he checked his limbs. He was relieved to see flat-surfaced, white appendages staring back at him in the dimness of the early morning. He brushed his mane with the back of his right hoof and exhaled a deep breath. Everything was the way it should be. The pictures on his dresser, the models of the starships U.S.S Enterpony and the Marelennium Falcon and his pet Siberian Sand Lobster "Rudy" were all just as they should've been. It had all just been a dream. Thank goodness. He walked out of his bedroom, happy to hear the sound of his hooves on the floor and to feel the cold surface beneath him. No stairs either, he stepped out of the small hallway to see his roommate, Michael Hay, laying on the couch playing 3DS. "Morning Mike!" Barro said with a smile on his face. "How are you feeling today?" "Hey," Michael said, his attention not breaking from the game he held. "You seem happy this morning." "Yes, yes I am. Had this crazy dream last night..." Michael still didn't look up from his game. "That nightmare where everypony's a biped again?" "Yeah," Barro said, walking into the kitchen and grabbing a breakfast bar. The breakfast bar, a small bar of mixed oates, nuts, grains and fruits, they were cheap, low-calorie meal-substitutes for those too busy or too lazy to sit down and actually eat a balanced breakfast. Of suspicious nutrition and ficticious deliciousness, it was nevertheless better than eating nothing in the mornings. "Except I think King Sombra was in it. And he got regular screentime." "Geh," Michael responded. "What a horrible thought. You should probably stop leaving the internet on when you go to sleep." "That might be a good idea," Barro said, eating what passed for his breakfast. "We going to go get your notebook today?" "Uh, sure. You think you and me can carry it back here ourselves?" Barro asked. Michael scoffed at the notion of physical labor. "Yeah, we could do that. Or, because it's studio property, we could say transporting it was work-related. And therefore, we could get the studio stagecoach and go get it," Michael suggested, closing the handheld game system and sitting up. "You can't just take liberties with studio equipment whenever you want to, Michael," Barro said, raising an eyebrow at Michael's plans to use something belonging to their bosses in a less-than-responsible manner. Michael smiled slyly back at him. "I'm Michael Hay, remember? How can anypony say no?" "The same way they said no to Cloverfilled," Barro replied, dampening Michael's confidence by bringing up his past project that the studio had decided NOT to invest in. Like others, Barro thought that it was probably a good idea. Michael though had been disheartened by the event. "But you know, there's still a lot of destruction left over from yesterday. We could get the crew together and help get the roads clear again, document everypony working to rebuild the city." Michael's head sunk low. Cleaning up the city was an important job but not one he was enthusiastic about. "And we'll use the stagecoach to grab my notebook while we're out," Barro said, consoling his friend. "Let's get going now before they mistake my notebook for debris." The two of them headed out, locking the door to their apartment behind them as they left.