The mother came at Blueblood with a baseball bat, much to the prince’s utter dismay. He dodged the first swing easily enough, but the back-swing was a literal pain in the butt. He was launched forwards by the impact and landed sprawling before the startled Alma’s feet.
“Wait, Mommy!” Alma held up a hand, but the mother paid little heed, having gone into full mother-bear mode.
Just as the bat was about to make contact with Blueblood’s head, it was encased in a blue glow. It was yanked out of the mother’s hands and sent flying out an open window. The mother stared at Blueblood, her face turning pale.
“I beg your pardon, madam!” Blueblood exclaimed. “I was invited into your home by Alma here.” He pointed his hoof at the little girl, who smiled sheepishly. “I can assure you that I wish no harm on either of you, and that the darling little child has already introduced my four shins to your family’s penchant for violence!”
The mother gasped and turned to Alma. “You let him in the house?”
“He’s a pony, Mom,” she said, grabbing a handful of Blueblood’s feathers and stretching his wing out. He winced in pain. “He’s really from the My Little Pony cartoon!”
“And you kicked him in the shin? Shins?” The mother’s face shifted rapidly from bewilderment to anger and back to utter confusion. “You kicked him?”
“He was in the episode,” Alma said. She pointed to the screen, where Blueblood had just allowed Rarity to become covered in cake. “He was being mean!”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” Blueblood groaned. “I said I’m sorry, I’ll say I’m sorry again, and once more for good measure: ‘I’m sorry!’”
“You don’t look sorry,” Alma accused.
“A pony from the show?” The mother looked at the screen. “Really?” Her expression was highly dubious.
Blueblood tugged his wing away from the girl and nodded. “Strange as it may seem, our world is thoroughly represented by this children’s show.” He extended a hoof to the mother. “Now that the truth has been revealed, you may kiss the royal hoof.”
The mother glared at him. “I don’t care if you’re the Grand High Llama of Mars! Take your royal butt and your magic pony voodoo and get out of my house!”
Blueblood raised an eyebrow at the faintest hint of an idea. “Say… Say, that’s what this is all about, isn’t it? Allow me to explain; my magic comes not from demons or other such spiritual ritual nonsense, but from an organ within my head that generates—”
The mother, with all the strength of the bear that she was emulating, grasped Blueblood by his mane and tail and dragged him to the door.
“—Of course, in my home realm there is some connection to the concept of Harmony that empowers magic to the point—”
She kicked the door open and tossed him bodily outside.
“—Which is nothing compared to what happens when an interpersonal connection is used to— Hello, what’s this now?”
He looked around to find himself uprooted from his soapbox within the house. Having been completely evicted, he was sitting in the open, the object of the gaze of several townsfolk. One small boy looked up to an older human, possibly a brother, and gave him a demonic grin. “Can I keep it?”
Blueblood retreated as fast as his wings would carry him, heading off in a random direction. The boy gave a disappointed “aw,” then continued melting ants on the sidewalk with his magnifying glass. The older brother gave the rapidly-disappearing alicorn a salute and bid him god speed.
The mother looked out the window as Blueblood flew away, her eyes widening when she saw him take flight. She clutched her chest as her heart skipped a beat, and sat down in a nearby chair. “My gosh, he can fly.”
“He can fly and do magic and whatever earth ponies can do!” Alma proclaimed proudly.
The mother drew her daughter close, her face scrunched up in disbelief. “Maybe we need another talk about stranger danger and how it applies to ponies…”
Blueblood ran out of breath long before he ran out of sky. He circled down, allowing his wings to carry him on the wind. He flapped not, but he was not unflappable. He wasn’t sure whether the mother would have killed him or not, but he was willing to treat the entire encounter as a near-death experience.
His shins still throbbed, too, dash it all.
He sought out someplace, anyplace, that had a population of roughly zero. Or, at least had a population that would not try to attack him, adopt him, or in any way approach him on sight. On Earth, it seemed, that would probably be somewhere in the middle of Antarctica.
No, those blamed penguins would no doubt find fault with him, too.
He found a somewhat secluded area around the back of a large building that was labeled something silly like “Mal*Wart” or some such nonsense. The section of the property was devoid of any life, and Blueblood decided to treat it as a place of relaxation.
Unfortunately, with no shade-giving structures in the rear loading area, there was no place to hide from the sweltering heat of the sun. Blueblood hugged the side of the building in an attempt to avoid the baking rays, but the afternoon position of the celestial body was pointed straight at the pony prince.
He considered braving the land of those blamed penguins, that blessedly frigid wasteland, if only to avoid melting into a puddle of sweat.
“Oh, for the love of pony.” Blueblood laid the side of his head against the building, watching the sweat drip down his mane and to the concrete below. “Today has not turned out as I had hoped. Not in the least.”
He should have been working on his robot, he should have been practicing his new attitude as a less-painful presence, he should have been charming Twilight Sparkle with his roguish grin…
Well, he can’t be altruistic all the time.
He lay down on the hot concrete and grumbled. “‘Oh, but he was a mean pony, Mommy!’ From the mouths of babes.” He spread his wings and flapped them slowly, fanning himself off as best he could. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
He stood abruptly and raised his hooves to the sky. “Well? I’m sorry! How many times do I have to say it before it matters!?”
He glared in the general direction of the sun, his grimace deepening with each passing moment. Perhaps it was the heat, or perhaps it was his sudden relocation, or perhaps it was his encounter with the best humanity had to offer—most likely it was a combination of all three—regardless of the reason, Blueblood’s blood boiled.
He snorted at the building, that gray monolith that denied him shade. He stomped on the concrete ground that fried him like an egg. He shouted at the sun, the object he now considered his mortal enemy. “Alright, I give up! What must I do, huh? What must I do to be forgiven!? What must I do to make the universe not hate me!?
“‘All hail His Royal Foppishness, Blueblood!’” he growled. “‘Stand in awe at his boorish ego! Be amazed as he alienates everyone!’” He slammed his forehooves on the ground and nickered. “I can’t even escape it in an entirely new world.”
There arose a clatter from a nearby door. Blueblood soared up to the roof of the concrete building just as two workers exited on their break. He snorted and flapped his way onwards, keen to avoid any more human entanglements.
Even as the blowing wind cooled him, he couldn’t help but feel a bit of jealousy at those blamed penguins and their frigid, icy world.
“Have you seen a unicorn-slash-pegasus pony? White fur, blond hair, blue eyes, calls himself a prince? No? Sorry to have bothered you.”
Twilight Sparkle shrugged as she approached her teammates and the bronies they had encountered. “Nobody at this stop, either. How far does the yellow line go, anyhow?”
Lavern rubbed his chin as he consulted a map. “Straight through the city and into the suburbs. We’ve been to most of the stops around here, but no signs of ponies.”
Twilight nodded as she twiddled her thumbs. “Gotta keep eliminating possibilities. We obviously haven’t come across anyone else who rode the bus with you.”
John shuffled his way over to Braeburn, attempting to remain subtle. “So…” he began. “What’s this guy’s story, anyway? What’s his name?”
Braeburn was a pure-blooded Apple. In addition to being a darned-good farmer, if he did say so himself, he carried the Apple Family Curse: a complete inability to lie with a straight face.
The Prince of Pioneering sucked on the inside of his cheek as he spent a good thirty seconds thinking up a suitable answer. “His name’s, uh, B-Bl-Bob. His name’s Bob.”
“Bob.” John smiled. “So how long has he liked ponies?”
“Oh, I’d say about…” Braeburn gave a shrug as he tugged at his collar. “Most of his life, I ’spect.”
“Oh, fan of the older generations, then?” John asked.
Braeburn blinked. “From what I hear, he’s prefers gals around our age.”
“What?” John said.
“Huh?” Braeburn replied.
“Really?” Redheart sighed.
The nurse placed herself between the two men. “Our buddy ‘Bob’”—she shot Braeburn a look—“just got separated from our group. That’s really all the story we have to tell.”
Eudora wandered closer, the conversation having drifted over to her. “Doesn’t he have a cell phone or something? Can’t you call him?”
“Shucks, Miss,” Braeburn chuckled. “I think Blu— Bob would only hear us call if we were close to him.”
Eudora raised an expectant eyebrow at John. “What? No silly jokes this time?”
John smirked. “He’s doing fine all by himself.”
Redheart’s eyes shifted between the bronies. “I think I’m missing some key subtext here. Or maybe just text.”
Eudora waved a hand at Braeburn. “Your buddy here. He was pretending to not know what a cell phone is.”
“Should he know?” Redheart asked. She immediately regretted her words as John and Eudora leveled blank stares at her. “Hmm. Yes, then?”
John let out a bark of laughter. “Ha! Okay, you actually had me going, there.” He turned and walked towards Lavern and Twilight. “Boy, and they call me a joker.”
Redheart and Braeburn exchanged glances and smiled at Eudora. “Well,” Redheart said, “he seems a pleasant fellow.”
“Very jovial.” Braeburn agreed.
Eudora nodded, more out of a lack of anything to say than out of agreement. “So, are you guys fans of My Little Pony, too?”
“Well, I’ve never met your little pony, but—” Braeburn was silenced by a jab from Redheart’s elbow in his gut.
“Yes! Absolutely! Just like Bob!” Redheart jabbed Braeburn once more for good measure. “Right, Braeburn?”
Eudora gave a start. “You’re name’s really Braeburn? That’s kinda neat. And coincidental.”
Braeburn felt sweat drip down his neck. “My mom really liked… Apples.”
The smile fell off of John’s face as he tapped Lavern on the shoulder. He dragged the older brony to the side, away from Twilight and Flash.
“Something really weird is going on,” John whispered. “That guy over there? He doesn’t know what a cell phone is. The lady doesn’t either. Either these guys are really into their characters, or you’re not as crazy as I thought.”
“I’d like to think it was the latter,” Lavern whispered back.
“Yeah, but this is just too weird.” John absently rubbed his hands together as he shot a glance at the ex-ponies. “That girl said that the guy was engaged to Pinkie Pie.”
Lavern blinked. “Like a ‘waifu’ situation?”
“I don’t know what that means,” John stated adamantly. He continued in a softer voice, “All I know is that these people are all nutty as a family of squirrels.”
Lavern looked around and noticed that two of their number were gone. “Shoot, where’s Keefe?”
John gave a quick glance around and stiffened. “Crud. I’ll find him before he says something he’ll regret.”
As John walked off, Lavern gave him a parting comment. “John… Try to be nice.”
The other paused and looked back. His mouth moved apart briefly, before he carried on voicelessly.
Twilight Sparkle appeared behind Lavern. “Excuse me, sir, where to next?”
Lavern couldn’t help his eyes from drifting up to her purple-pink striped hair. “As soon as the others get back, we’ll head for the next stop.”
John only had to walk a short ways before he heard the familiar sounds of Keefe arguing drifting softly on the wind. There was another voice accompanying his, the voice of the girl with the rainbow hair. John sucked in a breath as he realized that the girl’s voice could have come straight out of Ashleigh Ball’s throat. “Whoa Nelly,” he muttered.
“I said back off,” Keefe warned. He was looming over Rainbow Dash, his bulk outclassing hers by several orders of magnitude. “I’m not gonna compete with you.”
“You owe me,” Rainbow said with a smirk. “Come on, Dobbin, you scared?”
“I’m sorry I knocked you over.” Keefe grunted. “Now lay off.”
“C’mon, man!” she insisted. “I can beat you at anytime, anyplace, anything!”
“Quit it!” Keefe turned and began to walk away, but Rainbow Dash was not to be deterred.
“What’s the matter?” she asked, arms crossed. “Afraid of losing?”
Keefe spun back, his face smoldering. “I’m sure you get a real kick out of butchering Rainbow Dash’s character, but I really, really don’t want any part of it!”
Rainbow Dash paused in mid-thought, her mouth dropping open. “Excuse me?”
“Hey, guys!” John said as if he hadn’t been their audience for the last few seconds. “We’re about to head on over to the next spot, care to join us?”
John was knocked to the side as the big man brushed past him. Rainbow Dash gave him an arched eyebrow. “What’s his deal?”
“Ah…” John tilted his head at the retreating wall of anger and frowned. “You might just want to leave him alone, really.”
To John’s utter astonishment, though undoubtedly not to the reader’s, “Rainbow Dash” reacted exactly as he would have expected, well, Rainbow Dash to react. She turned her head slightly to the right, keeping both her eyes on Keefe. Her eyebrows lowered into a level line on her forehead, and her lip twisted into a small frown.
Her mouth twitched as she let out a sigh. “I guess I was being kind of a jerk, wasn’t I?”
“Join the club,” John said. The two walked back to the others, shoulders slumped.
The gathering of bronies and ponies grouped together beside the bus stop, ready to set forth into the unknown—or in the bronies’ case, the known. They kept themselves alert for any signs of the pony prince on the ground, neglecting to watch for signs from the air.
Blueblood kept his wings locked as he glided over the city. He sneered at the people crawling all over creation like ants. “Is there nowhere on this sun-baked rock that isn’t swarming with people?” His eyes caught on a particular clump of people, one of which appeared to be wearing Twilight Sparkle’s distinctive hair.
“No,” he murmured. “It can’t be.”
He fluttered down to peer at the human female, surrounded by a group that displayed similarly odd-styled hair to the Twilight-alike. Odd-styled for humans, that is. Red hair, blue hair, green hair, he could have sworn there was a rainbow-topped mop somewhere in the crowd. He sent a small magic spark floating over to the purple-pink striped person, a little message easily deciphered by a unicorn—wait—alicorn of her prestige:
“Help me. For the love of Celestia, help me.”
The girl gasped as the spark hit her in the head. She blinked and shook her head as a substance commonly referred to as “pixie dust” swirled around her face, blinding her and sending her careening into a nearby costumed woman. In the tightly-packed space, it created a domino effect of people tumbling into others and joining their fellow on the ground.
One person, who had only just remained standing, glanced over at the source of the magic spark. “Aw, come on! Can’t you keep your darn ponies out of one thing, at least?”
Blueblood happened to glance up at a banner flying overhead, “Anime Convention” scrawled proudly across its surface in Comic Sans typeface. “Oh,” he muttered. “Like in Neighpan. Right.”
Equestrian anime, folks. Just let that thought stew in your mind for a few moments. Selah.
He bolted out of the convention with a breakneck pace, though he didn’t manage to break any actual necks. Instead, his draft overturned booths, cardboard cutouts, and more than one security guard. In the distance, he could see a golden arch decorating the skyline. “Ah, that must be where one can find the authorities!”
On closer inspection, the building underneath the arch was a small restaurant that served cow meat. His mind scarred by the implications, and the hordes of children scrambling for a My Little Pony toy in their meal, he soared off at the first possible opportunity.
He flew over the road and almost choked to death on the fumes rising from the traffic jam below. Cars were parked bumper-to-bumper on the freeway, all trying to reach their home after the work day. Heat rises, and the noxious gasses of a thousand internal combustion engines rise with it. One particularly hard-worked truck belched a cloud that would have made Hexxus vomit, and said bird-baker flew right up Blueblood’s nostrils.
He plummeted like a stone, falling towards a sign that had a backwards ‘R’ smack dab in the middle. His wings opened when he was a measly few inches away, bringing him into a loop-de-loop that cleared the sign. He carried on, hacking up smoke like he had swallowed a tin of cigars.
A young man in the parking lot dropped his Toys ‘R’ Us Exclusive Soundwave and gaped at the spectacle. “Huh, maybe ponies really are awesome.”
Blueblood couldn’t take it anymore. He landed on the sidewalk, heedless of the people staring at him. His coughing fit lasted a minute, and tears poured from his eyes when it was over. He looked around bleary-eyed at his audience. They looked back with an equal mixture of concern and uncertainty. He opened his mouth to speak, but only succeeded at blowing a smoke ring.
Two men were pushed aside by the surprisingly strong arms of Twilight Sparkle, who strode up to Blueblood with a triumphant grin. “Prince Blueblood, I presume?”
The haggard noble nodded, drawing much-needed oxygen into his lungs. “How… Did… You… Find…”
“We followed the commotion,” she replied. She poked and prodded his face with those bizarre finger-things of hers. “Redheart? A little help?”
John poked his head through the crowd. His mouth dropped open to compliment the smarmy grin Lavern held. “Holy expletive deleted, he’s real.”
Rainbow Dash slapped herself in the face. “So much for keeping a low profile, Twilight.”
Twilight grabbed Blueblood by the wing, much to his protest, and dragged him off into an alley. “Move along, folks! Nothing to see here! Certainly no alicorn princes from another world, nosireebob!”
“Smooth,” Eudora mumbled as she followed the others into the alley. “Real smooth.”
Rainbow Dash drew her face close to Blueblood’s, grinning at him like, in his opinion, an idiot. “Heyah, Princess.”
Blueblood’s bloodshot eyes glared at her. “You… I remember you.”
“Still trying to convince everypony that you’re a guy, huh?” she added.
“You…” Blueblood growled at her. “You sicken me.”
Rainbow Dash shrugged and turned to Twilight, a small smirk still stuck on her face. “So, care to let me know why we suddenly didn’t even bother to keep a ‘low profile?’”
“They were figuring it out, anyway,” Twilight said. She turned to Redheart to ask for a health update, but was interrupted by Lavern.
“Wait, wait, wait,” he stuttered. “How did you know that we knew? Or guessed?”
Flash Sentry nodded at John. “He’s not the only one who can eavesdrop.” After a moment’s thought, he added, “And let’s face it, Braeburn wasn’t hired for his subtlety.”
“I refuse to take offence at that,” Braeburn declared.
“Alright, then,” Lavern said, his brow furrowing. “So I’m not crazy, great. But”—he waved a hand at the world-jumpers—“who are you guys, really?”
Twilight glanced to the left and the right, getting a look at the few curious people who were spying on the alley. “Do you have a private place to talk?”
It was Keefe’s turn to answer. “Yeah, we know this place…”
The old house has sat unoccupied for upwards of fifty years. Its obscure location on the edge of the suburbs, along with its nigh un-cultivatable land, had kept it out of the prying eyes of real estate tycoons and interested business people. The actual deed to the land was buried amidst red tape and sundry legal mumbo jumbo. So the land stood unowned, and unnoticed.
But not unused.
Keefe produced a key and unlocked the door. He pushed creaking thing open and led the others inside. Blueblood was led to a couch that was blanketed with a dust cover. Redheart sat beside him and told him to breathe in, which he did with some difficulty. She concentrated on his lungs and found the black smog within. As he exhaled, she guided the dirty molecules out with her magic.
He gave one last cough as the smoke dissipated. “Oh, much better. Thank you.”
Redheart nodded absently as she checked him over. “Do you have any other injuries that you know about?”
Blueblood shook his head as she poked under his wings. He shivered under her invasive examination, but knew that it was for his own good. He watched as Twilight Sparkle stood in the middle of the room, surrounded by the collected adventurers and their newfound companions.
She took in a deep breath and let her magic take hold. Her whole body glowed as green fire ignited around her feet, drawing itself up her body in a mystical metamorphosis. When the spell had ended, she was once again a pony. A purple, alicorn pony.
“Sooo…” Twilight chewed on a lock of her hair as she thought. “So, has anypony here heard of Equestria?”
“Probably,” Blueblood said. “They have an entire show devoted to the minutia of your lives.”
Flash Sentry nodded from his position behind John. “This guy seemed to know a few of us by name, so it’s reasonable to assume they know where we’re from.”
“Well, yeah but…” John paused, his train of thoughts having trouble staying on track. “We just don’t get how this is all possible.”
“Don’t ask me how,” Twilight said. “But it’s an infinite universe with infinite possibilities, isn’t it? We exist, and so do you. Cut and dried. Now we gotta live with it.”
Lavern stood and stretched his back. “Ignoring how many thousands of monkeys on how many thousands of typewriters Hasbro had to have used to recreate your world as a cartoon, why are you here?”
Twilight pointed her horn at the reclining Blueblood. “The prince here fell through a portal, we’re the guys sent to rescue him.”
John rubbed his eyes. “A pony fell through a portal into our world,” he moaned. “It’s every Human in Equestria/Pony on Earth story I’ve ever read.” He looked up, his eyes lidded. “Let me guess, your spell went wonky and zapped him?”
“Huh?” Twilight Sparkle bristled. “My spell worked perfectly, thank you very much! No, it was an accident with a bunch of changelings!”
Eudora shot up onto her chair like she had seen a mouse. “Guys… Changelings are real. All those monsters, all those villains from the show… They’re all real!”
“Quit yer panickin’,” Braeburn chuckled. “We’ve beat those varmints before, and we’ll beat ‘em again!”
Lavern looked to Twilight, his mouth a grim line. “Princess Twilight, did any of those changelings follow Blueblood in?”
Twilight shuffled her hooves, her eyes darting around the dark house. “Well…”
The man looked over her papers; they appeared to be filled out properly. He rubbed his forehead as that odd headache returned. It seemed to hit every time he was near her. “Is there any particular reason you’d like to work at Ingram Construction, Miss Elise?”
The woman smoothed out her dress, a sensible black piece with green trim. She smiled as her prospective employer’s eyes glowed green. He groaned and rubbed at his temples.
“I was thinking I’d like to build up to something big,” she said. “A good project with spectacular dividends. You’ll love, love, love it.”
He sighed and a strange, unnatural smile took its place on his face. “Welcome aboard, Miss Elise.”
She stood and took his limp hand in a shake. “Please, call me Chris.”
Chris Elise strutted down the hallway, where several construction workers were waiting for her word. “Come on, time to get started,” she chortled. “We’re going to make Canterlot look like an appetizer!”