“Boy, that sure was a great protest,” said Fred Phelps from behind the wheel of the Westboro Baptist Church bus. His trademark over-sized exaggerated white cowboy hat sat atop his head as he drove.
“Too bad only the three of us could make it,” he added, gripping the steering wheel against the strong wind gusts which buffeted the sides of the bus.
“Yes, indeed, it was a fine protest. God sure does hate Oklahoma for some reason connected to fags that I can’t quite remember right now,” said Jack Wu, a short, Chinese-American man with glasses.
“It’s because of Jason Collins, that fag basketball player,” said Shirley Phelps-Roper, the spokeswoman for the group and Fred’s daughter, “He isn’t from Oklahoma, but that one man who complimented him was from there, remember?”
“Oh, right,” said Jack Wu at the incredibly tenuous "logic."
“Well, he doesn’t hate Oklahoma as much as he hates Topeka. Speaking of, guess where we are now? Home, sweet home!” said Fred Phelps as he made a right off of Interstate 470 onto Gage Boulevard. (brought to you by Google maps)
“The city of WHORES!” screamed Shirley, screeching at that last word. Several of the windows on the bus shattered at the vibrating of her loud, banshee-like vocal chords.
“Whores? Yeah, you would know,” muttered Jack Wu under his breath.
“Shut your stupid mouth, Jack,” Shirley snipped.
“I swear, you two. Don’t make me throw my hat back there,” said Fred Phelps as he made another turn.
“Sorry, Fred,” they both said.
“Now that’s better. If you guys are good, maybe I’ll get you two some McDonald’s later. And look, we’re home,” he said, pulling into the driveway of the church.
The Westboro Baptist Church was a large, Tudor-style building located in a residential neighborhood next to houses which had lost all property value in the years since the church was built. From the inside of the gated church, a large white banner hung reading “God Hates Fags!” in big, bold red letters.
“Hey, no one firebombed us while we were gone!” exclaimed Jack.
“That’s good. God has blessed us,” replied Fred.
“Um, gang? I think we should get inside right now,” said Shirley, pointing up at the sky. A large, black funnel cloud hung directly over the church. The wind whipped leaves and grass around as a storm brewed.
“Oh, looks like God will finally take revenge on the residents of Topeka for their vile treatment of us! Come, my followers, into the church so we can watch the carnage from the safe-haven which He has given us!”
“Um, I don’t know about that,” said Jack Wu, “I mean, the funnel cloud is right over the church. I think it might hit, well, the three of US.”
“Nonsense. God would never strike down our church, for we are doing his work. He probably placed the funnel cloud over the church just so everyone would know exactly where it came from. Have you no FAITH, Jack?” Fred asked.
“Plenty of faith, but I don’t know, it looks pretty dark…”
“Shut up, Jack. Do as father says and file into the church,” Shirley snapped. Jack acquiesced and the three filed into the church.
“This is going to be good. I wonder if He will take out that rainbow-painted house across the street from us, first? I’m sure that God hates that fag most of all; he is in such proximity to our demonstration of God’s glory yet persists in his sodomy and sinful ways despite that,” Fred said from behind one of the windows which he stood in front of, gazing out.
“Probably. I’ll bet he’ll weave a trail of delicious destruction right from that house all the way to the Topeka police department, who didn’t do anything for us when our windows were smashed and we were firebombed in 1995,” said Shirley.
“That, or the tornado will hit the church,” said Jack.
“Don’t blashpheme, Jack!” Fred said as he turned from the window. He menacingly walked towards Jack, grabbing his hat from his head, about to smack Jack with it.
“No, I mean the tornado is literally headed for us this very moment. Turn around,” Jack said.
Fred put his hat back on and turned his gaze back towards the window and sure enough, an extra big-ass tornado was hauling its way towards the WBC and the three members inside.
“Maybe God’s taking us along for the ride so we can see His destruction firsthaaaaaaaaaand!” yelled Fred over the sound of shattering glass, as the tornado sucked him in.
“Yeah, let’s go with thaaaaaaaat!” said Shirley as she was swept off of her feet by the whirling gusts of the blackened tornado.
“AAAAAH!” yelled Jack. Though he too was being sucked into the funnel, his screaming was more about the incredible ignorance on display in front of his very eyes than the tornado.
The tornado sucked up the entire church, and it whipped and gusted over the land as the three WBC members flew around and around in it. Finally, the tornado landed in a strange place. I won’t go into detail describing Ponyville and the front of Twilight’s library where they landed, because we all watch the show and already know what Ponyville looks like.
The three churchgoers were nearly crushed under their church. Beams and walls came tumbling down as the church slammed into the ground. However, the three members all stood up and realized that they were fine, so they found a way and climbed out.
“I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore, Jack,” said Shirley as she crawled from the twisted wreckage of the church.
“Wait, so I’m your dog now?” asked Jack, crawling through a hole. “I watched the Wizard of Oz, too, you know. That line was originally spoken to a dog.”
“Well, who else was I supposed to say it to? That purple thing over there? COME ON!” Shirley screeched her banshee scream at Jack, nearly deafening him and breaking several windows in Twilight’s library.
“Wait, purple thing… is that… a unicorn?” said Fred, brushing the church dust off of his clothes and walking over to Twilight Sparkle, who had egressed from the library in response to the commotion.
“Oh, hello. You three look odd. My name is Twilight Sparkle, and this is Ponyville. Welcome. I’m not sure how you ended up here. What happened?”
“Well, miss Sparkle, that’s just what we were wondering,” said Fred Phelps in a kind, almost personable manner which did not yet betray his inner sack of shit within, “We were in our church in Kansas one second, and then we ended up in, where did you say?”
“Ponyville,” she responded. “And, what’s a Kansas?” she asked.
“A god-forsaken rectangle in the middle of America, the vilest nation on the planet earth,” Phelps answered.
“Sorry, but none of those names are providing any context. Ponyville is a town in Equestria, which is located on the planet of—“ Twilight started, before being interrupted by Rainbow Dash.
“Woah, Twilight! Me and the other pegasi were just making a tornado in Cloudsdale so we could destroy some old foreclosed cloud homes, and then all of a sudden the tornado just disappeared. What happened?”
“Who is THIS?” Shirley Phelps asked, looking suspiciously at the rainbow-coated Pegasus.
“Oh, well I was just working on a new mass-teleportation spell,” said Twilight, ignoring daughter Phelps, “Maybe the spell hit the tornado, and sent it into their world!” she said as she pointed her hoof at the three WBC members.
“Yeah, let’s go with that explanation,” said Rainbow Dash to the unicorn’s implausible story that was nevertheless still more plausible than half the explanations for HiE that a typical fanfiction would give.
“Yeah, sorry about that, you guys,” said Rainbow Dash to the church members.
“Wait a minute… rainbow mane… a deep, scratchy voice for a female… are you a FAGGOT!?” asked Fred Phelps.
“Fred, these ponies are trying to help us, you don’t need to immediately start asking about—“
“Quiet, you!” Fred yelled as he finally made good on his threat and threw his cowboy hat at Jack, knocking him backwards about twenty feet. He hit the ground with a thud, which knocked the wind out of him.
Wheezing, Jack said, “Jeez, I wish I had a superpower. Fred gets super hat-throwing and Shirley gets super-screaming, and I get, well, Jack.” Little did he realize that his modicum of common sense was far more of a superpower than either of his two churchmates had.
“Wait, what’s a faggot?” asked Rainbow Dash.
“Faggot. Noun. A bundle of sticks or twigs, especially when bound together and used as fuel,” replied Twilight Sparkle (brought to you by Dictionary.com).
“No, I’m not a bundle of sticks, I’m a Pegasus. You three sure are silly. Almost as silly as Pinkie Pie. Speaking of…”
Suddenly, the pink mare bounded in front of the three Westboro members.
“Oooh! Oooh! New ponies! Or, not ponies. What are you, anyway? Ah well, it doesn’t matter. I’m Pinkie Pie. Time for the welcome song!”
She grabbed her welcome wagon, turned it on, and sang the same song that she sang in that one Cranky Doodle episode. You can look it up online if you want (brought to you by YouTube.com). Thankfully, the confetti and the dough weren’t mixed up this time.
“Oh God, there’s singing? Maybe this is closer to the Wizard of Oz than I thought,” said Jack Wu.
“I suppose that you’re the lollipop guild?” asked Shirley.
“Uh, no. I do love lollipops, though. I even run a confectionery shop that makes baked goods and candy, too!”
“Pinkie, you really gotta lay off the welcome wagon. You’re gonna scare ‘em all off!” Applejack, the newest arrival on the scene, said.
“And who are you?” asked Shirley.
“Oh, I’m Applejack. Nice hat, by the way,” she said, pointing to Fred Phelps’ cowboy hat.
“Thank you, miss Applejack,” said Fred, flattered by the compliment.
“Why on EARTH are you complimenting their clothes, Applejack? I’ve seen better fashions on a DRAGON than them,” said Rarity, who had also just recently arrived.
“I hope they didn’t scare away any of the animals when their church landed,” said Fluttershy, and with that all of the mane six had spoken at least one line. Spike was there too, but he really didn’t do anything important.
Fred Phelps said, “Okay. So my name is Pastor Fred Phelps. This is my daughter, Shirley, and this is one of my churchgoers, Jack Wu. So we need to get back to Topeka, Kansas. We have a lot of picketing to do.”
“Picketing? You mean, protesting things with signs? What do you picket?” asked Fluttershy.
“We picket all sorts of depraved activity, such as homosexuality, being gay, and being a faggot,” Fred Phelps replied.
“Well, I can try to send you back, but I can’t guarantee that it will work,” said Twilight Sparkle, “I barely even know how I got you here in the first place.”
“That’s quite alright, Miss Sparkle. We’d love to get back to God’s least favorite nation of America since there’s so much of His work to be done there, but if all else fails, we can just stay here in Equestria and picket. I’m sure we’ll find plenty to picket about,” Fred Phelps said, eyeing Rainbow Dash once again, this time with a scowl.
“Wait… stay… here?” Twilight gulped.
“As in, Equestria, here?” Rainbow added.
“Well, if you can’t get us back, that is,” said Jack Wu, “Otherwise, we’d love to go back to our own world.”
“Rainbow, may I have a word with you in private?” Twilight Sparkle asked her friend.
“Sure,” Rainbow Dash said as they went off into the corner.
Twilight Sparkle began singing to Rainbow Dash. In a bizarre coincidence, the melody of the song exactly matched the melody of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” from the Wizard of Oz.
“Looks like we messed up, Rainbow. You and I.
You have made a tornado, way up in the sky.
Looks like we messed up, Rainbow, it is true
And with my magic spell we’ve
Brought all three of these fools.
We’ve brought them here from way afar
If they can’t leave, they’ll stay and start destroying.
That woman’s screech is like a bat,
And that one man will throw his hat,
They’re so annoying.”
Rainbow Dash responded with a verse of her own, correcting a perceived misstatement by her friend.
“You say, ‘we’ve messed up, Rainbow.’ You should say ‘I.’
I’ve made many tornadoes
They’ve never gone awry
If magic made the storm switch worlds beyond me, Rainbow
It’s your fault, not I.
“So yeah. Basically, you trying to lump me in with you in terms of who is to blame isn’t going to fly. This is on you and your weird magic experiments, Sparkle,” Rainbow Dash elaborated.
“So then, what do we DO?” Twilight asked.
“We? This is all on you. You have to put this right. You have to find a way to make this all okay,” Rainbow said.
“Okay, I guess I’ll fix it all by myself,” said Twilight.
“That’s learning to take responsibility!” Rainbow responded. The two walked back over towards the members of the Westboro Baptist Church.
“Okay, church people. I can’t personally get you back to earth because I have no idea what spell would teleport you there. So, you will have to go and see Princess Celestia.”
“She won’t use a magic spell, will she? God tells us to not dabble in sorcery. That’s the stuff of the Devil,” said Fred.
“Fred, I don’t think magic is evil in this world like it is in ours. This unicorn is magic and she seems nice enough—“
Fred pointed a single finger at his cowboy hat, and Jack Wu got the message and quieted.
“Anyway. Is there any other way that we can possibly return to Kansas without some form of magic?” Fred continued.
“I don’t know, but again, you’ll have to see Princess Celestia about that one,” said Twilight Sparkle, “She’s far more knowledgeable about that sort of thing than I am. I think she told me about a portal to another world once.”
“Is it a magic portal?” asked Fred.
“I don’t think so. I think it’s just a portal constructed by science,” answered Twilight.
“Science, eh? Hmmm….” Fred scratched his chin. “Not evolution science, though, right?”
“Um… no.” Twilight answered.
“The same sort of science that built cars and computers, right? Because we can use those.” He asked.
“Yes? I guess? I don’t know what any of that stuff is.”
“Eh, I suppose it will have to do. Let’s go see this Princess Celestia person.”
“Pony,” Twilight corrected.
“Whatever.” Phelps answered, “Can you take us there, Miss Sparkle?”
“Well, sure. As long as you don’t mind having some evil magic pony around,” Twilight scoffed.
“Hmm… I suppose that you will have to do,” said Phelps, “I guess if God can do good works through a mass shooter like James Holmes or Adam Lanza, he can do good works through you. Now take us to the Princess.”
“That’s… the spirit?” Twilight replied, perplexed, “So let’s just go. All we have to do to get to Canterlot is follow the cobblestone road.”
She began walking down the road, and the three WBC members followed her.
“Follow the cobblestone road… Is there a song that goes along with that, too?” Jack Wu asked.
Twilight responded, “What? No. I can sing one if you like, though.
“Follow the cobblestone road.
Follow the cobblestone road.
Follow, follow, follow, follow, follow the cobblestone road.
“We’re off to see the Princess,
The Princess is in Canterlot
We hear she can send you all back, and get you all to go.
And then you can leave us all alone, because she will send you home.
Because, because, because, because, because!
Because you’re annoying and won’t shut up!”
“WE are annoying? Well, that makes four of us,” replied Jack Wu.
“Sorry,” said Twilight Sparkle, “Singing is how a lot of us in this world express ourselves. You hold signs and picket, we sing. I know which one I prefer.”
“Oh, well we sing in our world, too. We actually have parody songs that we’ve written to make fun of America and its fag culture. You can find them on our website,” said Fred.
“Yeah, and I didn’t like the parody singing then, either,” said Jack Wu.
Fred Phelps, upon hearing Jack dis his beautiful music, grabbed his cowboy hat and punched Jack in the gut with it, sending him flying a hundred feet up the road. He landed with a thud, breaking at least five pelvic bones.
“Well,” said Jack, returning to his feet in agony, “At least that’s a hundred feet less I have to walk.”
Ba da bum da da bum. Tss!
To be continued…